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. . . yes, it’s raining. Or at least it’s significantly damp and and dark to feel vaguely miserable. It’s not yet got cold, though, so I guess this is a good thing. I should start with the highlight of this week – seeing my family when they came up from Edinburgh to visit Wednesday afternoon. We went out for lunch in a lovely restaurant just off South Street, and it was really nice both to see them and to have some food that is slightly more expensive than what I can normally afford to eat. The other good things to come out of the trip were some more vegetarian quiches (a delicacy that just does not seem to exist north of the border!), a bike and a thermos mug . . . which oddly enough turned out to contain a pot of cumin. I’m not entirely sure what is going on there. But there we go – I have a lot of cumin now!

I also had the privileged of being cooked for last night by Ellie – it was a peanut stir fry, and it was absolutely amazing – I definitely think it is something that needs to be tried out in my own kitchen sometime – she is definitely an fantastic cook! It was a really nice evening and I love not having to cook once in a while (though I love to cook, too).

This week has been by far the most heavy work-wise – I have a 80 Russian words to learn on top of anything else. It’s quite frustrating in many ways how long it takes – it takes me easily over an hour to learn 10 words in Russian, whereas I can learn 10 German words in under 5 minutes. I’m guessing it must be because me ear is not as attuned to the Russian language yet, so I am finding it hard to fit the words into any subconscious rubrik, but it is still quite depressing, and I’m really finding the whole experience quite a challenge.

In terms of the protest, sadly the CU has come back to say they do not want to be involved, which is sad on many levels, and it’s not helping the general feeling of discouragement. However, on the plus side, I had a fantastic meeting with the leader of the Vineyard church yesterday, which was really stimulating, and it was interesting to see some of the things that came out of that. The general picture though is the protest is going to have to be spread primarily by word of mouth, which is not always as effective. Still, I guess if God is in control . . .One other fun thing has come out of this whole scenario – trying to plan an ecumenical service is not going to be easy. I notice that the Archbishop of Canterbury is doing something for the Wave in London in December . . . I wonder if he will lend me a copy of his order of service. At the moment, I am thinking liturgy and an impromptu communion on the beach where we will be protesting. We shall see . . .

Other fun things going on: planning a trip to the German Christmas market in Edinburgh, this year staffed by market sellers from Frankfurt. So I chance to get my fill of German food and Glühwein and hopefully it’ll be a really nice day out, so I’m really looking forward to this. Finally, I might be getting a new academic sister on my Mum’s side . . . I guess we need to watch this space.

Hasta luego

David

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This is part of my ongoing process of gradually blogging my way through (most of) John – again, feel free to skip if this really doesn’t float your boat.

I think this story is again one of the reasons I really dislike John as a gospel, because it’s another one of the situations that, if it happened at all, he seems to have taken and used as a coathanger for his Jesus to go on a bit of a theological spiel, and there are definitely points in the account which sound very forced and dry, almost as if the characters are two dimensional sketches. Yet at the same time, it’s a really interesting story theologically, so I think it is worth some looking at (there’s a relief – David isn’t totally denying the inspiration of scripture!).

The whole idea of Jesus meeting at the woman at the well is interesting on several levels. Firstly, because it is John taking the traditional formula of the patriarchs and they’re encounters with future wives at wells in Genesis and it turns them on their head, leaving an erotic tension and remaking of the traditional relationship scenario in their wake. The technique of taking a story that is familiar, that is well known, and changing it, is something that is not uncommon in literature – especially in contemporary literature (I am aware that a few English undergraduates are reading this blog [Jess, I mean you :p], so I will be slightly careful in what I say!). It forces us to reconsider, to step back, to slow down and to read again, because our assumptions have been challenged. We’re no longer on safe territory.

And that seems to be key to the whole story. Jesus is grounded in the first century and it’s controlling narratives. The narratives that say that Jews and Samaritans don’t mix, that the Samaritans are a half-breed, expelled from story of God’s people and ceremonially unclean. The untouchables. They were the ones who didn’t get it, the ones who were outside the Jewish perception of what it was to be people following God . . . sound anything like our churches today? How quick are we to make the clear distinction between ourselves as Christians (the ones who are good, who follow the right path and who have things sorted) and non-Christians (who obviously don’t have an ounce of goodness in them and are totally full of sin so much that nothing can redeem them . . . right?). The same sort of prejudices applied to the woman in other ways – living with a man who was not her husband having had a history of five previous husbands (interesting how even here the masculine-dominate history of Biblical interpretation has assumed that as a result she was an adulteress – maybe something we can look at again with the rise of feminist theology?), forced to go to the well in the heat of the day. She was someone as self-respecting Jew would not be seen near.

Is she maybe a model of the sort of people we as a church wouldn’t be seen near? People who don’t have the ‘right’ understanding of the cross or Christianity, who don’t express themselves in traditional language. People who have a sexuality that differs from what we would deem as ‘the norm’. The junkies, those who work the streets, alcoholics, those who are desperate for some self respect and some love. The sex offender, the war criminal. Those who self harm, who struggle with mental or eating-related illnesses? Who are the pariah’s in our society, the people that we as a self-respecting God following church, we wouldn’t be seen near? Sure, we have all the ‘right’ theological reasoning for not getting involved in them – we’re meant to be a faith community who are set apart, pure in love – the only reason we should be involved with these people is to change them and get them converted right? After all, we are holy and therefore holiness and ‘the world’ and the corrupt people in it don’t mix.

I think the amazing thing about this passage, once we move past all the dry and stunted dialogue, is the way that Jesus took these assumptions and totally blew them away. Where by his creed and his religion he should have walked away and washed his hands of the woman, he instead got involved and met her. Not in judgement or condemnation, but he met her in love, in acceptance and in respect. Not to preach or tell her she was wrong, but to tell her of the hope of living water (an image from Ezekiel 47 where God’s blessing and restoration of the world is described like a river so deep that it’s not even possible to swim in, but which goes into all the places that are dead to bring freshness and life, and on whose banks are growing trees that provide healing) and the promise of a God who would meet her where she was in love, acceptance and honesty and who would restore her and renew her and give her back her self respect and identity (the woman leaves behind her jar and goes back into the town that had exiled her, filled with the news of a new way). It’s the story of a God who goes to the messy and uncomfortable places in life – and brings change and brings hope and brings the promise of a God who is putting people back together.

How amazing it is to follow a God who shatters all expectations of who is decent and who isn’t, who is ‘in’ and who isn’t and which people matter. To follow a God who doesn’t see lables but sees each individual as a beautiful image-bearing creation who reflects the amazing beauty of the Creator. What a priviledge to follow this God and to learn to see people in this way.

And what a crime when we as a church start redefining people as pariah’s, as people who are almost lesser humans because they’re not comfortable, middle class Christians. I’d like to finish with a song which also explores this subject but which, upon being covered by an English worship leader, was tragically (and disgracefully in my opinion) re-written to take out many of the most scandalous parts. When the boundaries of God’s kingdom become small enough for us to cope with, then we have missed the boat and we have missed the Jesus we find in this gospel. And that should make us all worried.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbcLArwrtN8

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Well the change in the clocks means that I am now up ridiculously early in the morning kicking my feet, so I decided it would be a good chance to update my blog. It also turns out that I was not quite as well last week as I thought I was, so I spent large amounts of time this week huddled over a cup of lemsip with honey in an attempt to relieve the constant pressure on the back of my eyes – however, it seems that I am better again now (go figure?). Once again though, this has made learning Russian a very interesting affair (more so than it already is – for next week, I have 80 vocab words to learn including such essentials as ‘mushrooms in cream’, ‘fish’, ‘girlfriend’ [but seemingly not 'boyfriend'] and the essential Moscow survival phrase ‘You call that a queue?!’). I would like to say, therefore, that I have been very good and been resting etc etc etc . . . but it’d be a lie. Hey ho.

Monday saw our lesson in Russian history, which is always a treat. This week we were learning a bit about the Russian Orthodox church, including the essential, uniquely Russian, idea of the Holy Fool. This is someone who feels they have a holy calling to go, sell all they have and walk the streets of a Russian city for the rest of their life whilst either swearing at people or offering them advice (it seems there was nothing in between). So, if the whole degree thing does not work out, I can always go to Volgagrad and become a Holy Fool, I guess! One of the interesting things to come out of the lecture was the difference between worship styles between the various churches: the Protestant church traditionally is Word-centred, accounting for the centrality of the pulpit and the exposition of the Bible in Protestant worship services. The Catholic church, traditionally, is focussed on the administration of the sacraments, therefore the altar is the central focus in a Catholic Church. Orthodox churches, however, focus upon the experiential and the beauty (since the adoption of Christianity in Russia, there has been a heavy focus upon the concept of ‘Holy Beauty’, the idea it is the aesthetic that draws people into God), so Orthodox churches are intensely symbolic and sensual places. Maybe one of the characteristics about recent movements within the church is the drawing together of all these different elements until we get to the point now where you see deeply sacramental churches with a high theology of the Bible and a mystical worship style. Talking of Wednesday, we had Link Group round mine again, so I ended up cooking a tomato based sauce with loads of olives (is it really bad I am getting an olive craving?) for everyone. I was asked to lead worship, so I did something based vaguely around one of the liturgies from Celtic Daily Prayer together with a few contemplative videos and a Bible reading – it’s hard to judge these things, but I think it went well, and from my perspective at least, it was quite nice to worship without having to sing.

My Thursday literature seminar (the first proper literature class I have had so far) did remind me how much I enjoyed studying books, something that had obviously got cobwebbed up over the long summer break, so I came out of that class feeling really happy, something that endured when I walked past the see and saw how angry it looked (there’s a lot of photos floating around somewhere either on here or on Facebook so you can appreciate how beautifully angry it was). Then on Thursday night, Melissa came round to borrow our oven in order to bake cookies for her homestay – this had one very positive upshot as far as I am concerned – we had a huge pile of surplus cookies in our kitchen on Friday to benefit from! Thursday night also saw me try my first Guiness (I know, 18 and been in Scotland for nearly two months now and I’m only just trying a Guiness . . . ) – I’m not a fan! Then we sat and watched highlights from Nick Griffin’s slimey appearance on Question Time and cheered not so silently at the lady from the British museum (and at David Dimbleby for being most uncharacteristically agressive!).

In terms of the planned demonstration at the G20, I have been madly trying to get support from anyone I talk to and then everyone I don’t talk to too, and the numbers are slowly increasing, so I am hopeful. Both the Quakers in St Andrews and the local Vineyard congregation have expressed an interest in talking further and (hopefully) getting involved in the event, which is really encouraging, but I am still slightly discouraged about the lack of response both from other churches in the area and from the main CU body in town (though they are discussing it at a committee meeting tomorrow, so we shall see . . . ). Again, please spare a prayer for both the meeting tomorrow, my meeting with one of the church leaders Wednesday morning, the event as a whole and my sanity. On the plus side, thanks to Sue Ryder Care, we do now have a table cloth with which to make a banner, so this is all very exciting. Also, Chris, my flat mate, has said that he is going to come along too and bring his Communist Flag (no, I am not joking) with him.

Finally, last night there was a night to celebrate cocktails at the DRA, so a load of us went there. It was ok, but the drinks were way too expensive for moth-wallet over here, so I nipped next door into the International Café where they had free food. Which is how I found myself playing chubby bunny against my mate Simon – and yes I won, so feel free to make any cracks about me having a big mouth . . . got chatting afterwards to a lovely American girl about Boris Johnson afterwards, which is always a bit of a surreal experience. To round off the night, Ellie, Chris and I came back here for some midnight eggy bread.

I’m playing at the Baptist church this morning for the first time since I’ve been here, so that’ll be nice, though I dare say I am hideously out of practice. We shall see in an hour or so . . .

Besos

David

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Another in the series of ‘vaguely serious’ posts, so again feel free to skip

This week’s Bible Study was on John 3, the visit of Nicodemus to Jesus. This is a passage that is a favourite, especially in the Evangelical tradition, for the way in which it seems to argue the necessity for a ‘born again’ experience after an encounter with the person of Jesus in his testimony – it’s a proof that we evangelicals ‘have been right’ all along (though interestingly, it is also fairly popular amongst Catholics because they believe it teaches the necessity of the water and the spirit in salvation – so they’ve had it right all along too!).

Yet I can’t help wondering if both of us have missed the point slightly of what Jesus is primarily saying in this passage. I should clarify before I can continue: I am not saying that the gospel does not have some sort of message of personal transformation or that a living relationship with Jesus is not important – on the contrary, it is incredibly important as it is through relationship that God begins to put back together our broken lives. However, what I am maybe suggesting is this is not what is first and foremost on Jesus’ mind here when we look at the episode without those nasty chapter breaks that skew our reading. If we take it a larger broad-brush approach to the context, it is coming after the prologue and the wedding at Cana, where John is depicting not only the universality of sin, the fact it is a source that pervades every part of the world, but also the message of renewal: the hope that God is doing something new and different and radical in the world, shown by images such as the water into wine. And so, I think it is against this narrative of ‘something bigger’ that we should see Jesus’ statement that we (the word used in the passage is actually generally a plural ‘you’, more equivalent to vosotros, vous, or ihr that it is to anything in our language – except maybe the Ulster word yous – though that is so badly used, its possible grammatical excitement kind of dwindles, much to my sadness!) should be born again.

I think it’s fair to say here that Jesus is picking up on a whole narrative in the Old Testament of images relating to Israel being born again by the Spirit: references in Ezekiel to Jerusalem, the whole idea of the valley of bones and God breathing new life into what was barren, the whole idea of Abraham being a son “of the Chaldeans” who then gets ‘born’ into a new identity in covenant with God. It is in this narrative, therefore, that the whole references to water and the spirit begin to take on a whole new level of interest and significance as a replaying of the birth of the Jewish nation at passover, with reference to the Red Sea and the Spirit (shekinah Glory) of God which went with them into the desert. And ultimately, it links in with the passage that seems to fit exceptionally well so far as a subtext to John, the whole chunk of Isaiah 40 – 55, where Isaiah (or not – long story!) is talking about the renewing and transforming work of God’s Word and God’s Spirit, enacted through the Servant, renewing first and foremost Israel and then flowing out from there to the renewal and transformation of the whole of Creation. So when Jesus is talking about the need to born again, I think it is this narrative (something which would have been familiar to Nicodemus even if he did need a bit of prodding to consider things in a new way) that he is picking up on, a story that is much bigger than individual salvation and which ultimately will go on to touch the whole of Creation.

So does this have a personal application – of course it does. By the very nature of the all-pervading nature of the disease of sin, there is the need for God to heal every part of creation, and that includes our broken lives too – and this healing and transformation comes about, it seems, through a living relationship with Jesus’ transforming love. But I think we should be wary about being too dogmatic or too individualistic about the whole ‘born again’ metaphor here, which I think has been slightly misappropriated by the evangelical church and which focuses so much on a radical, dramatic moment of birth that we seem to forget that we are alive afterwards, and its the communal life of people who follow Jesus that John seems to be emphasising at the end of the passage, phrasing it as “eternal life” – and I think we need to remember that it is this life as a community of God’s people (warts, scars and all), and if we insist on talking individually, it’s the knowledge that we are alive (however small, weak and unsure that knowledge so often seems to us) that is the important bit, not so much the moment of birth.

Finally, John goes on again to explore how this communal rebirth then goes on to affect the whole world (v17) and how, through the rebirth that only Jesus could bring when all else seems lost, the whole world will be transformed and changed.

So what does this all mean to us? I think first and foremost, we need to dramatically rethink the whole paradigm of how we do evangelism (as in, small picture mission) in light of the fact that it seems that for John at least what most matters is the stuff that defines us as people living communally in the eternal life because of Jesus rather than the fact we have personally got the ‘born again’ thing sorted. What does this mean in practice? I think it means we need to spend a LOT less time expounding the theoretical (and dare I say slightly confused, generally?) proclamation of the Gospel as the four-point plan to be saved and then emotionally blackmailing persuading people to make a decision there and then for or against Christ.

Instead, I think we need to be a community that embodies the Gospel and the new, transformed life that is characteristic of a community (community, not church on a Sunday or CU on a Tuesday – a genuine, authentic, gritty, get-under-your-skin, messy, broken and beautiful community of people who spend real time together) re-birthed by Jesus. Does this mean we need to be perfect or that we need to have all the cracks sorted out? No, I don’t think it does. But I think we do need to be the sort of community that shines of Jesus’ love and God’s transformation, and then to invite people to be able to come into the community to come and meet with that love and transformation. And then be sensitive to the Spirit and imaginative as to how God will play out his transformation in each individual life and be willing to vary the dance according to the music of His Spirit. And finally to celebrate each individual rebirth – and to celebrate the fact far, far more that we can be reborn and that our rebirth is the start of a healing song for the whole of creation and it is our privilege and calling to dance with the song.

I would just like to finish with a quote from a member from a community in America who I came across at Greenbelt:

The broken and whole beauty of my church (House for All Sinners and Saints) heals me a little bit every single week. I may never be completely whole but then again, I’ll never be totally broken again either.

Amen, I think

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Well the good news (for those who have to live with me day in and out if nothing else) is that I’m better again, though I think I might have inherited one of those coughs that lasts from here until mid-2015, so for the next few years, I think I may end up sounding like a Dalek with a bad smoking addiction – this is a definite improvement to my Thursday, when my temperature meant that I was just incapable of stringing two coherent thoughts next to each other, which was not so fun when I had a Russian and German grammar test and a Spanish Presentation to give. Also, I dread to think what I said to people whilst in my fever-fuelled state of delirium – though given what I can remember, I feel fairly sure it would only have been made up of the words ‘parrot’ and ‘paracetamol’, so I doubt it was anything to scandalous. Ah well, at least I’m bright eyed and bushy tailed again, and back to causing mischief.

One of the highlights of my Friday was the discovery that you can get Bavarian Satellite TV in the Language Lab, so I can fulfil my dream to be the transvestite Heidi of the 21st Century . . . or just to have a nice Southern accent instead of the Hamburg ones that seem to be predominate in the German department. Another one of my highlights was the discovery that you could get German cartoons streamed live to the lab too – admittedly, this pales into insignificance when you consider you can also watch “In the Night Garden” in Spanish from the RTE website, but we can’t have everything can we? (Oh Macapaca – tienes una pierda? Que bien!).

On Saturday, I spent a lot of time reading my Spanish American short stories ready for a series of tutorials next week, and am therefore firmly convinced that the editor of the collection deliberately chose the most random, banal series of stories possible! However, the book is fairly short, so I guess I shouldn’t complain – I just wish the plots were slightly more interesting – or had slightly more credibility! There are a couple of good ones, however, and I am picking up some interesting words as a result – for example, una tortuga = a tortoise.Then I made up a good 5 litres of soup for the week (cabbage, potato and carrot with some cheese in as Morrisons had it on special offer . . . I LOVE that shop!) and went out in the evening to play my first ever game of Pool (I came second . . . just. Never mind the fact that there are only two players. Still I only lost by one ball!) and my second ever game of darts – which I seem to be doing OK on, although it is definitely much more by luck than good management of the darts. However, I suppose this is to be expected from someone who managed to throw a javelin backwards in Secondary School PE lessons. No, I don’t know how I did that either. Hmmm.

The other big news of note is that I am trying to organise a local Christian witness in the town to go and join the mass organised protest on West Sands November 7th to coincide with the arrival of the G20 for their summit. Organisations such Greenpeace, Christian Aid, Tearfund and everything else, and I am trying to convince as many people as possible that it is a part (dare I say the central part?) of Christian mission that we stand up for what is right and just and fair, rather than what is just economically and politically expedient, or what serves us and our needs best at the cost of the continued exploitation of the third world which is holding billions of people in economic slavery. For me, it is a gospel issue, and so I have approached the Christian Union, as well as other groups and a few churches in the town, in an attempt to build up a broad base of support so that ultimately it is not just me and three friends standing on the beach on November 7th. I will wait to see the outcome of these approaches, so please, if you are looking for something to pray about, please pray for the uniting of different Christian organisations to provide a common witness for justice, economic and environmental responsibility and a stand against exploitation of peoples and natural resources and the endless cycles of poverty that enslave so many people. I will keep you updated on this subject as and when things happen but please keep it in your thoughts and prayers.

This evening will see me going to play piano alongside a friend who plays cello so we can both keep vaguely in practice, and will see me going round another friend’s for ice cream, so I am looking forward to it

Besos

David

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OK, so I’m ill. Just in case anyone is fortunate enough to have missed me complaining about it until now. I have a head cold and a temperature, and as a result I got about two and a half hours sleep last night – I am also struggling to hold two coherent thoughts together in the same head at the moment, so I apologise in advance if this blog post doesn’t make a huge amount of sense. To cap it all, there was a ‘surprise’ fire drill at 7am this morning – though, having clocked onto the surprise last night, I set my alarm for 6.30am, had a lovely hot shower, got dressed in warm clothes and made up a big bowl of porridge and some steaming hot chocolate to take out with me and enjoy whilst everyone else from the other flats (the others from flat 5 had cups of tea!) stood and shivered . . .

The weekend was good – we had the girls from downstairs over again on Saturday night, so I cooked an 8 hour bean and vegetable stew with Bavarian Dumplings, which seemed to be generally very well received. We followed it up with banana cake and bread-and-butter pudding made by Rob’s fair hands, so all in all a very tasty dinner. I went to church Sunday morning (sermon on the Tenth Commandment), and was going to go in the evening but ended up being too shattered from the Flat Party Friday night and Saturday that I pretty much zonked out on the sofa in the kitchen. Melissa came back from Inverness late Sunday evening, though, so I had her over and fed her some real food (left over stew) and we plotted a bit of an idea for a small Christian group that may or may not get off the ground.

Monday saw one of the most amazing Russian history lectures I think I will ever experience – seemingly every period of Early Rus to the rise of Musckovy was called either the dark years, the golden years or maybe the dark golden years . . . we also learnt about how, according to legend, when the first prince of Kiev wanted to unite the Slavic tribes, he sent out ambassadors to learn about the religions of the surrounding nations. His ambassadors went far and wide, and brought back news of the different religions available: apparently, the reason Russia is now Christian and not Islamic is because the Prince decided that the Slavic tribes would be unable to stay sober enough for Islamic law, so it would be much better to have them Christian (especially if they are doing the Wedding at Cana I guess . . . 180 gallons of wine?).

Bible study group on Monday evening definitely held sway to the Bible verse that says “where two or more gather in my name, there shall be a hymn … ” (Paul, I think) – we sat and sang to a Youtube video. Hmm – it was certainly interesting. Not nearly as interesting, however, as Tuesday night’s CU when, in the absence of a speaker we were forced enjoyed listening to an audio recording of a sermon of John Piper (who I would never normally choose to listen to!) from 1983 on Kingdom – highlights include the question “so what does this mean for us as twentieth century American gentiles?” and the statement “we have a king – and he’s not Reagan” (at this point I was resisting the urge to shout Hallelujah!). Most people seemed to take it very seriously – except seemingly my pew, where there were at least two of us in stitches and I was shoving my fleece in my mouth to stop my laughter being audible. I think it’s probably indicative of my lesser spiritual state – it’s probably a bad sign when I am drawing cartoons of “and the Holy Spirit fell upon Cornelius.” (from a shelf . . .) Retired to the pub afterwards to recover . . .

Russian grammar has certainly become much more intense – we have moved from spending a leisurely week and a half learning the two alphabets to learning all 5 ways of forming the Present Tense (plus something like 900 exceptions to each of the ways) and how to make Nominative nouns and adjectives plural – all in 50 minutes. A tall order under any circumstances, even more so with a head cold that means the only words I can really focus on are “paracetamol” and “grapefruit.” Still – it’s still a load of fun and Tanya definitely makes it better and more bearable.

I have a presentation to give tomorrow on the theme of fear in “Pan’s Labyrinth”, which looks to be interesting. Hopefully, my voice won’t disappear on me half way through (though I could always substitute myself with John Piper if it does . . .) and instead I will be able to say something vaguely sensible. I’ve ended up really enjoying the film, though I cannot watch it still without flinching at the famous bottle episode (that is still one of the most horrific bits of Spanish Cinema I can think of). I went back and watched “Devil’s Backbone” too as research – another really well made film with a poem I absolutely loved, and which I may finally get round to posting here one day.

Anyways, that’s me back up to date – I am now going to go and look vaguely healthy in bed and hope to get a few more hours sleep tonight, otherwise tomorrow could be a bit of an adventure!

Love David

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