To be great-souled involves greatness just as handsomeness involves size: small people may be neat and well-made, but not handsome.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 4.3.5
Aristotle on small people
Cynics aint what they used to be (except in one crucial respect)
the present Cynics… are dogs that wait at tables, and in no respect imitate the Cynics of old except perchance in breaking wind, but in nothing else
3.22.22 Epictetus, Discourses
123 book meme
I have been tagged by Jeff with a quite likeable meme But the task seems to have brought rather unfortunate results in my own case, as will be seen below.
The rules state that I must pick up the book closest to me and:
- turn to page 123
- count the first five sentences
- post the following three sentences
Well here are the three lines following the first five sentences on page 123 of the book closest to me:
La la la la la la la la la la
Do do do do do
Ah – ah – ah -ah – ah – ah
The book is entitled Acoustic Hit Songs, and p123 is part of a song called “Lovin’ You”, by someone called Minnie Ripperton. I wouldn’t have called that a “hit song” myself, and I feel a bit miffed that I didn’t get to do a really profound quote from some edgy theological book…. But on the other hand, I do now find myself in a carefree, sing-songy sort of mood.
I hereby tag three people who occasion this blog but don’t have their own blogs – so they’ll have to supply results here in the comments (if they happen to notice this and find themselves in an agreeable mood!): Peter (the one who creates wordles), Steph (the one who loves fruit & veges), and Carolyn (the one who utilises smileys in comments)…
la la la la la la la….
An open letter to backsliding Christians
There is still time for forbearance, time for long-suffering, time for healing, time for reform. Have you slipped? Rise up. Have you sinned? Cease. Do not stand in the way of sinners, but leap aside. For when you turn back and weep, then you will be saved. For out of labour comes health, and out of sweat, salvation….
Do not lose heart; remember the days of old. There is salvation, there is reform. Take courage, do not despair. There is no law which condemns to death without compassion, but there is grace which remits the punishment and accepts the reform. Not yet closed are the gates; the bridegroom hears; sin does not prevail. Renew the contest; delay not; and have pity on yourself and on us all in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be the glory and the power, now and for ever, world without end.
St Basil, to a fallen monk, fourth century CE
From a College Window: On Academic Withdrawal
This morning I found myself at a little tucked-away display case at the University of Nottingham, in which were housed some of D.H. Lawrence’s draft poems, written while he was a student here. One in particular caught my eye, reminding me of how comfortable it is to be on this side of the College window. The later revised version was published in 1916, as follows:
From a College Window
The glimmer of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping,
Goes trembling past me up the College wall.
Below, the lawn, in soft blue shade is keeping,
The daisy-froth quiescent, softly in thrall.
Beyond the leaves that overhang the street,
Along the flagged, clean pavement summer-white,
Passes the world with shadows at their feet
Going left and right.
Remote, although I hear the beggar’s cough,
See the woman’s twinkling fingers tend him a coin,
I sit absolved, assured I am better off
Beyond a world I never want to join.
Ethics… A question of nature???
Over the last couple of days, our TV and internet at home have not been working – they still aren’t… so we’ve been reduced to going back to the dark ages and reading newspapers and the like. So today, I read an interesting article in the Sunday Times: Minette Marrin comments on the situation of Gary Glitter, the child abuser who has “done his time” and is now being rejected from country after country. Her article points to something of a crisis in modern morality/ethics…
Scientific evidence seems to be growing by the month to suggest that people are not equally responsible for what they do. Individual biology has a large part to play in destiny, as do environment and the complex symbiosis of the two. Some people’s brain structure and brain chemistry may make them less able to control their impulses, more inclined to aggression, less able to understand their own motives or less able to understand the feelings or even the objective reality of other people. This may be compounded by bad childhood experiences with damaged parents which themselves alter brain pathways.
If so, the foundation stone of western morality – the idea that we are all equally responsible for what we do and all equally culpable for our crimes – is being eroded by biology. This process of erosion has begun fairly recently and is gathering speed. It is profoundly alarming….
The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) lists paedophilia as a mental disorder and the US Sypreme Court has upheld the idea of paedophilia as a mental abnormality. However, there are those – both respectable experts and paedophile apologists – who argue that paedophilia should be removed from this list of mental disorders, hust as homosexuality was removed in the 1970s. There is, apparently, some evidence that between 20-25% of the supposedly normal male population feel sexually attracted to children, according at least to a discussion in the US Archives of Sexual Behaviour of 2002, and react to “paedophilic” stimuli. This might suggest that there is nothing so very abnormal about paedophile desires, just as other fantasies of violence and revenge are common….
Some studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain suggest that paedophilic men tend to have several differences in brain structure from other men and have one or more neurological characteristics at birth that could increase the likelihood of paedophilia. However, for every one of these studies there is a crowd of experts to desagree with it….
Whether [Glitter] can’t or won’t control his taste for children, others will have to control it for him. But it is wrong, given how little we understand about personal responsibility, to treat him harshly and to vilify him, just because we are anxious about that very lack of understanding.
This raises a bunch of interesting questions for consideration/disagreement/reflection etc… and I’ll just cut to two issues that I think are worth considering:
1) I think some Christians are far too confident when they argue that something is ‘unnatural’ or ‘against nature’. Whether homosexuality or anything else, I don’t think we adequately understand the post-fall mix that we find ourselves in, in order to be very clear here. The only place I can think of where Paul talks about something being contrary to nature, it’s the issue of which sex should have which hair-length… and that hardly seems to be an argument that we can comprehend in scientific terms!
2) The other side of the coin: I don’t think the possibility that something is ‘innate’ means it is excusable. Again, whether homosexual desire, heterosexual desire, paedophilic desire, polygamy, or whatever else, I don’t think we can confidently say that because I have a ‘leaning’ in that direction, I should have a license to exercise that leaning.
Any thoughts?
Oh… another thought: Paul does, of course, talk in Romans 1 about humans ‘giving up’ natural use of their bodies… but I see this as a theological statement rather than a ’scientific’ observation…
Piety or Profit
None of the righteous ever received his reward quickly, but waits for it. If God paid the wages of the righteous immediately, we would soon be engaged in business, not godliness; though we would appear to be righteous, we would in fact be pursuing not piety but profit.
2 Clement 20:3-4: This is from the earliest non-Biblical Christian sermon on record, arguably delivered in Corinth in about 100CE.
Singing Psalms
I have been tagged with a meme, for which the instructions are:
In an effort to keep it simple, short, and easy to follow, I’d like to challenge you to quote one verse (not one chapter). And then say what the Lord has been teaching you in one sentence (not one paragraph). Then tag 5 peeps (you know the drill).
Before I get to my verse, I want to present a challenge of my own – to those who are involved with planning church services: Help your congregation to grow into its identity as the people of Jesus Christ by getting them to say/sing Psalms together. I think there is real value here: As we say, or preferably sing, certain psalms, we are corporately entering into the experience of the Anointed One, engaging with his alienation and persecution, sharing his hope for vindication, learning his dependence on God, voicing his joy and praise of God the Father…
Growing up, I was scared of praying certain psalms, because they just didn’t sound like things I could genuinely pray: “if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me” etc… But as Christians, we need to pray these Psalms, conscious that being Christian means being in Christ. That’s why everything we pray, we pray “in Jesus’ name”. So as we who are in Christ sing these sorts of Psalms, we are both reminding ourselves of who he is, and reminding ourselves of that to which we are called to conform.
Anyway, with that background, my choice is Psalm 17, verse 8:
Guard me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.
Sound enticing? Sing it with the people of God.
And that’s the way I’d like to pass on this meme: I tag everyone involved in planning/leading church services: Get the people to sing/say a psalm together, and let us know how it goes…
Treasure
“Christ crucified,” Paul says. What great things does that treasure contain?… Stay, do not pass on, do not despise, do not insult. Wait, examine. There may be something within that will give you much delight. You may find “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.”
Augustine, Sermon 160.1-5
Batter my heart
Having encountered some great poetry by George Herbert here I was reminded of my favourite Christian poem, by John Donne. I used to have this poem stuck up next to my desk, so I could share its prayer: Unless you imprison me, I will never be free…
Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John Donne, Holy Sonnets XIV
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