Category Archives: Uncategorized

This Time Last Year

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This time last year I spent five weeks in Germany, four in Dresden taking a language course at the Goethe Institut. On the weekends we tried to get out a little to see something of the country. This weekend we went to the sächsische Schweiz – the Saxon Switzerland, a national park on the Elbe River, about 30 kilometres from Dresden and close to the Czech border. I am sitting next to Maylis from Geneva who was not in our class, but in a higher class. Geneva is in the French-speaking section of Switzerland and Maylis was improving her German to improve her employment opportunities.

Next to Maylis is Tony from Saskatchewan in Canada. Tony was in my class, learning German as a hobby and perhaps reclaiming his roots since he has German forebears. Next to Tony was Donald, a very typical older New Yorker, bold, self-sufficient, a little crusty, and really quite remarkable, flying to another country to learn a new language at 82 years of age. He was in a beginner’s class, and so not in our class. Maybe I can still be travelling and learning at that age!

The next two women were also in my class. Anna, from Japan, was born in Germany because her parents lived and worked there when they were young. Now she has left her homeland to do the same. She was at the Institut for three months and then planned to move to München to find work. And next to Anna is Maria, originally from Spain but now working in a German-speaking area of Switzerland.

A couple of days after this Tony and Maria ended their course while Anna and I stayed on. Others in the class also left and it shrank from seven or eight members to three (there was another young man from Columbia, a cheeky fun-loving gay dude who had moved to Germany for work and the experience). I was left as the old bloke in the class…

This was a much better day than the previous weekend when we visited the historic town of Meissen, a pretty town a little down the Elbe from Dresden. That had been a miserable day, cold, rainy, pure east German autumn! 

We had a beautiful Autumn day for hiking in the rather spectacular hills here. The first photo is from one of the lookouts, looking up the Elbe toward the Czech border. The second is the bridge and view in the unusual hill formations that make this region famous.

It is really worth a visit if you are ever in central Europe. I would like to go again!

Real Good-Looking Boy

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I’ve been enjoying listening again to this song from the later career of the Who. It’s a nice ballad with an evocative lyric and a cool moment of inter-textuality as Roger Daltry channels his inner Elvis. Pete Townsend has told a little of the story behind the story:

Real Good Looking Boy is a song I wrote quite a few years ago about two young men who worry about their looks. One of them, based on me – hopes and believes he might look like his best friend who is a conventionally handsome fellow. (He is disavowed of this notion by his mother). The second, based on Roger – hopes and believes he will one day turn out to be like the young Elvis. (He, more happily, sees part of his dream come true.)

They both find love in later life (Pete Townsend).

 

On May One Flee a Deadly Plague?

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The latest edition of The Advocate is now available (published by the Baptist Churches of Western Australia). During COVID this has been a digital publication only. This month’s edition has many reflections with respect to the situation in which we find ourselves, including my brief reflection on Martin Luther’s 1527 letter On Whether One May Flee a Deadly Plague.

My article starts as follows:

The Reformers had first-hand experience with the plague, which struck with great fear. In the mid-fourteenth century it devastated Europe, killing tens of millions of people in only five years. And every decade or so afterwards it would return bringing fear and death.

Ulrich Zwingli almost died of it in 1519 in Zurich. Andreas von Karlstadt did die of it in Basel in 1541. And Luther, too, experienced it in Wittenberg in 1527, ironically, as he responded to a letter asking Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague.

You can read the whole article on page 13 here.

24 Hours with Charles Spurgeon

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I am part of a unique event this weekend, together with several other Baptist colleagues from Perth.

This Friday – Saturday, Spurgeon’s College in London is hosting a global, twenty-four hour series of readings and reflections from the works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The readings, presented in half-hour segments, will be taken from a variety of Spurgeon’s writings, including sermons, letters, and other materials.

The Perth contingent will lead off at 11am on Saturday morning with Revd Karen Siggins of Lesmurdie Baptist Church, followed by myself, Monica O’Neil, Brian Harris, and David Cohen, from Vose Seminary. My reading, beginning at 11:30am Perth time (4:30am in London), is taken from volume 44(!) of Spurgeon’s sermons, and is titled ‘A Far-Reaching Promise.’

Spurgeon was the most popular preacher in nineteenth-century London, drawing thousands of listeners to his weekly services. His popularity has continued down to the present through his devotional books, lectures, and printed sermons.

The event is part of a College fund-raising campaign initiated due to the financial impact of COVID-19. For more information, go to the College website. Or if you would like to donate to the cause, you can do so here.

A Good-Friday Prayer

Spirituality, Uncategorized,

O Lord, our God:
We have gathered this day in order to consider how You carried out
Your good and strong will for the world and for us all by letting our Lord Jesus Christ,
Your dear Son, become captive that we might become free,
by letting Him be judged guilty that we might be innocent,
by letting Him suffer that we might have joy,
by giving Him up to death so that we might live eternally.

Of ourselves we can only go astray.
And we have not deserved such deliverance, not one of us.
But in the inconceivable greatness of Your mercy
You have shared our sin and our misery in order to do such great things for us.
How else should we thank You except by comprehending,
laying hold on this great deed, and letting it hold sway?
Yet how can that happen unless the same living Saviour,
who for us suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried but now is risen,
come Himself into our midst, speak to our hearts and consciences,
open us to Your love, lead us on to entrust ourselves entirely to it,
and to live from this love and from it alone.
In all humility but also in all confidence,
we beseech You to grant this through the power of Your Holy Spirit.
Amen.

(Karl Barth, Selected Prayers, 34, adjusted)

A Prayer for Sunday

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I found this little prayer in a book of prayers given to me recently by dear friends at church. Every line is meaningful. Primarily it is a prayer of wonder and implicit thanksgiving, with the sole line of petition occurring in the second-last verse.

Oh, Lord my God,
You called me from the sleep of nothingness
merely because in your tremendous love
you want to make good and beautiful beings.
You have called me by my name in my mother’s womb.
You have given me breath and light and movement
and walked with me every moment of my existence.
I am amazed, Lord God of the universe,
that you attend to me and, more, cherish me.

Create in me the faithfulness that moves you,
and I will trust you and yearn for you all my days.
Amen.

Joseph Tetlow, SJ

Ben Witherington III to Lecture at Vose Seminary

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Now this is happy news!

Ben Witherington is one of the foremost New Testament scholars working in the world today, author of numerous books including a commentary on every or just about every New Testament book.

Ben is delivering the Vose Annual Lecture for 2019 on Friday evening August 2, and will follow up with a session on Paul and the Law at Vose Seminary on Saturday morning, August 3.

Be sure to take advantage of this opportunity by registering here.

New Issue of Crucible is Out

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The new issue of Crucible has been published and includes several articles and other resources to do with homiletics. I note that the editors have called an hiatus on the journal for now, given their work loads and other commitments. If you are interested in taking on some editorial commitments and have the requisite abilities to do so, you might want to contact the journal to make yourself known.

A Prayer for Sunday

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Lord, teach me to be generous,
to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to look for any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.

(Attributed to Ignatius of Loyola,
but likely appeared much later,
perhaps inspired by his life and work)

The following prayer, however, was used by Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.