Yesterday I read parts of a book called Is There a Text in this Class by Stanley Fish.  It is a book that looks at alternatives to literary theory, centring on reader response and arguing, contra some post modernists, that there are limits on interpretation determined by the unspoken rules/norms of an interpretive community.  (Are you impressed I wrote that? I am!).  Anyway, I found what follows in a chapter that explores the limits of what is, essentially, interpretive orthodoxy.

"doubting is not something one does outside the assumptions that enables one's consciousness; rather doubting, like any other mental activity, is something that one does within a set of assumptions that at the same time be the object of doubt.  That is to say, one does not doubt in a vacuum but from a perspective, and that perspective itself is immune from doubt until it has been replaced with another which will then be similarly immune.  The project of radical doubt can never outrun the necessity of being situated; in order to doubt everything, including the ground one stands on, on must stand somewhere else, and that somewhere else will then be the ground on which one stands."

The argument goes on for a lot more words and I can't claim to  grasp all of it, but it seems to say 'you can only doubt from a perspective of belief, otherwise there would be nothing to doubt.'  I found this quite fascinating, and potentially liberating for those who fear doubt (or questioning) as somehow indicative of loss of faith.  If I've understood him correctly, and if Fish is right, then bizarrely doubt/questioning actually demonstrates that belief is still there.  If belief goes, then the doubt evaporates as irrelevant.  Alternativley, so long as someone continues to doubt, they must also, to some degree, believe.  Lack of doubt might be more about lack of willingness to risk thinking or testing ideas rather than certainty.

I think there are some ideas here I might want to lodge for something I'm involved with next year where it just might be useful.  For now, I think I have found something helpful for pastoral situation where people express doubts or raise questions.

Yesterday I alluded to this poem, a favourite of our childhood, that was the final entry in paperback collection of stories and poems that were read to us at bedtime.  So far as I recall the collection was entitled Tell Me Another Story and I htink it it was published by Penguin; alas I've never managed to find a copy*, though I did find a lovely illustratred book version of the poem a few years back.

I guess we loved it because our grandparents lived in Glasgow, a far away place shrouded in mystery and romance.  Who'd have thought I'd one day live here?!  Enjoy.

Here is the train to Glasgow.

Here is the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
Who drove the train to Glasgow.

Here is the guard from Donibristle
Who waved his flag and blew his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Here is a boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Here is the guard, a kindly man
Who, at the last moment, hauled into the van
That fortunate boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Here are hens and here are cocks,
Clucking and crowing inside a box,
In charge of the guard, that kindly man
Who, at the last moment, hauled into the van
That fortunate boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Here is the train. It gave a jolt
Which loosened a catch and loosened a bolt,
And let out the hens and let out the cocks,
Clucking and crowing inside a box,
In charge of the guard, that kindly man
Who, at the last moment, hauled into the van
That fortunate boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

The guard chased a hen and, missing it, fell
The hens were all squawking. the cocks were as well,
And unless you were there you haven't a notion
The flurry, the fuss, the noise and commotion
Caused by the train which gave a jolt
And loosened a catch and loosened a bolt,
And let out the hens and let out the cocks,
Clucking and crowing inside a box,
In charge of the guard, that kindly man
Who, at the last moment, hauled into the van
That fortunate boy called Donald MacBrain
Who came to the station to catch the train
But saw the guard from Donibristle
Wave his flag and blow his whistle
To tell the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
To start the train to Glasgow.

Now Donald was quick and Donald was neat
And Donald was nimble on his feet.
He caught the hens and he caught the cocks
And he put them back in thier great big box.
The guard was pleased as pleased could be
And invited Donald to come to tea
At Saturday, at Donibristle.
And let him blow his lovely whistle,
And said in all his life he'd never
Seen a boy so quick and clever,
And so did the driver,
Mr. MacIver,
Who drove the train to Glasgow

Wlima Horsbrough

* Since I typed that I looked on Ebay and of course there it was!  A copy will soon be mine.