In Memory of my Dad on Fathers Day

Kick Off

September fresh we start again, 
by early autumn nipped to ruddy life.

New season’s paint has reddened smooth 
my fragrant iron resting place.

The terrace choir’s achant, 
brown baritone and tenor bright.

And holy Bruno climbs from briar censers 
as Bovril salts my tongue.

And there you stand:

Brylcream-slicked and shiny-shoed,

your china-blues ablaze,

your Woodbine-yellowed fingers
shoveled thick and calloused 
kindly holding me.

And I, 
thrilled by bigness smalling me, 
otherness calling me,

Gifted, belonging and beckoned on, 
I know from you I will not run for fancied wealth to slops

nor break my bonds for freedom-false but rest content

and dream of what will one day be.

Then, as pigeons flap from floodlight frame and, haloed, hover,  

echoes down the years:

“This is my beloved

in whom I am,

in whom I am well,

in whom I am, well, pleased.”

On Re-reading Brueggemann

Just been re-reading the introduction to Finally Comes the Poet in preparation for tomorrow's homiletics class when we'll be looking at preaching, poetry and imagination.  I'd forgotten just how good it is.

Walter Brueggemann's writing about preaching does for the preacher what he suggests the preacher should be doing for the congregation.  This is truly poetic, visionary, prophetic writing construing the preacher as a wielder of words and spinner of worlds potently prophesying.   At times his vision might sound unrealistic, too fantastical for the mundane reality of Sunday by Sunday sermonising.  But that's the point.  Here is inspiration, here are words to thrill, an evocation of the possibilities of the sermon daring the preacher to believe.  Thanks Walt.

If you get to preach but haven't read it, do yourself favour, treat yourself.  If you have read it, do yourself a flavour, remind yourself.  Here's how he ends his intro, wrapping up, or rather unwrapping still further, what he's had to say about the sermon as a four way coming together of text, people, preacher and eye popping Holy Spirit.

The meeting involves this old text, the spent congregation believing but impoverished, the artist of new possibility, the disclosure.  The Prince of Darkness tries frantically to keep the world closed so that we can be administered.  The Prince has such powerful allies in this age.  Against such enormous odds, however, there is the working of this feeble inscrutable, unshackled moment of the sermon.  Sometimes the Prince will win the day and there is no new thing uttered or heard.  Sometimes, however, the sermon will have its say and the truth looks large - larger than the text or the voice or the folk had any reason to expect.  When that happens, the world is set loose toward healing.  The sermon for such a time shames the Prince and we become yet again more nearly human.  The Author of the text laughs in delight, the way that Author has laughed only at creation and at Easter but laughs again when the sermon carries the day against the prose of the Dark Prince who wants no new poetry in the region he things he governs.  Where the poetry is sounded the Prince knows a little of the territory has been lost to its true Ruler.  The newly claimed territory becomes a new home of freedom, justice, peace, and abiding joy.  This happens when the poet comes, when the poet speaks, when the preacher comes as poet.

Writing

Type revisited
Originally uploaded by guioconnor

Thought I’d be blogging a lot more these days. I’m on sabbatical and enjoying getting stuck into reading, research and writing. Nothing much though has sparked what felt like bloggable ideas, so this is more of an “it’s about time” rather than a “hey, guess what struck me”.

Some thoughts on the writing process:

1. It is so tempting to act as if I’m supposed to turn each chapter into a PhD. First time in my life I’ve ever been remotely interested in patristics. Knowing how far to go and when to stop is a real challenge.

2. Finding the right voice is also a bit of a conundrum. The book’s meant to be based on academic standard research but it is not to be an academic text book. I really want to make it readable and I’ve already come up with loads of what seem to me to be nice turns of phrase, neat, catchy and down to earth - Gregory, Greg and Basil as a Byzantine boy band for bishops anyone? Now this would work well in a sermon or blog but …

3. Constantine and what he did to the church: seems to me both sides of the argument are wrong. He was neither an out and out angel nor an unspeakable demon. Yes of course he was hugely significant. Yes of course the lust for worldly power screwed up faithful witness, big time. But it really wasn’t all down to the emperor. So easy to hang it all on a particular individual. Easy, but wrong.

4. Which brings me back to finding the right approach. Not so much style this time, but argument. Let’s face it, it’s far easier to make a splash and get a reading if you have a clear point to make and if you make it with a flourish. You know, forget the nuances, just ram it home. On the other hand the evidence has a habit of getting in the way of a good point. But how to be subtle AND communicate with force? Is truth always the price we pay for effective rhetoric?

5. The best way to get something written is to avoid procrastination and resist distraction. So I’m going to stop.