Over the weekend a new piece of civic art appeared in Dibley.  As a sculpture, I like it, though alas the local un-culturate have already climbed over it and adorned its facial features with lipstick.  It is, I suspect meant to mark the start of the village - except that it's about quarter of a mile too far south, being located on a large grassy triangle where it is indeed a prominent (potentially crash inducing) feature.  So what is it, you cry?  It seems to be a polar bear, a bear anyway, pinning a man's jacket to a tree stump, and is ostensibly the legend of how 'Dibley' got its name; it is also the biggest example of etymological twaddle I have ever encountered.

There are various versions of the story in circulation, but basically a bear, possibly a dancing bear kept in the cellar of the pub opposite my house, possibly called the first part of the real place name, managed to trap a man in a bearlike-embrace (another alleged possible source of the first part of the name).  In order to escape, the man wriggled out of his jacket - and so the name of the village was born.  Or not.  Not IMHO.

Fact or fiction, and the attractiveness to me or vandals of the statue aside, one does wonder how much was spent on this piece of carved stone and whether there might have been a more purposeful use to which at least some of it might have been put.  Afterall, the twaddle legend will always be with us...

For the first time in five years, someone from church has asked to talk to me about something they've been reading.  I ought to be pleased - but actually I'm troubled.  All I know is that her Bible-reading notes are troubling her because they are centred, I assume, on Revelation 2:18ff and 'that woman.'  It would appear that the note-writer takes a misogynist reading, and it is this she wants to check out, whilst clearly being fearful that her enquiry reflects the very 'spirit' she is being told to deplore and avoid.  A quick internet trawl shows up some scary pseudo-theology being peddled as the meaning fo this text, so much so that I've worded this post carefully to try to avoid cranks commenting!  But then they'd probably see me, being an ordained female, as an example of exactly what they fear.

I have found one sensible article online, from an AOG pastor, but wondered if any of you real theologians out there have any ideas of sensible books or studies I can point this woman to, to allay her fears and increase her understanding of the metaphors and principles that underlie this passage (and others).

Thank you!

This from Lucy attracted my attention with its powerful idea of the sense of a 'God who doesn't turn up' when expected - or act as we might desire - and what they might say about how we understand (or don't) God.  It made me ponder again the concept of 'real absence' and some of the ideas in the apophatic tradition.  Good stuff to be pondering, and so relevant for the many I know who are experiencing their own 'dark nights' at the moment.

I will continue to mull over the idea of God not turning up - not least in relation to those servcies I sometimes go to where the leader invites Jesus/God/Holy Spirit to come and meet us, rather than inviting us to become aware of the presence of God who is more real than we are...

Thanks Lucy, for making me think.  Hope the 'unsettlement' process is going OK for you.

Later this morning I will be conducting a funeral for D+1.  An elderly woman who'd suffered with dememtia for almost a decade, and who had outlived by around 18 months a husband whose funeral I conducted last year.  Until I sat down to type this, I had not grasped the fact that this is the first time I will conduct the second funeral of a couple - I've done a fair few siblings and cousins, but not until today a 'surviving' partner of someone I'd farewelled.

Tomorrow I will be interring her ashes in the Anglican graveyard (!) along with those of her husband.  The intention of the family, is that the two sets of ashes will be mingled in a single casket, a powerful symbol of reunion, and an action that brings to mind the creation story of Genesis 2, almost in reverse, as the two become one, bone-dust blended and laid to rest in the security of the good earth from which they were, in some sense, formed.

Evidently this ash-burying area requires that biodegradable containers be used, so that in time the contents will indeed mingle with the earth, and that, too feels good.

I am told that Ernest* has spent the last 18 months in the boot of his son's car, whilst Elsie* will be brought straight from the crematorium.  I am glad that they will, in some metaphorical sense, be reunited, and that in some truly mystic sense something of God's intent is glimpsed.

* Names have been changed.

Last night I watched the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance.  It is something of a tradition: as a child it meant being allowed to stay up late, to listen to stirring military bands (which I still enjoy whether it's PC or not!) and to watch the solemnity of falling poppy petals.  I can vaguely recall being told off once for thinking it funny that a petal landed on a young soldier's face and he simply had to let it stay there, tickling his skin.  The event has changed over the years - or at least what is shown on television has.  It feels at once more reflective and more contemporary - scarlet coated guardsmen playing base guitar on the one hand and stories of the human cost - civilian and military - on the other.  There are parts of the event that give me cause for question, but there are also powerful and poignant symbols and traditions.  I find the drumhead altar a powerful expression of impermanence, and the falling of the poppy petals is always moving.  Not an obvious visual spectacle, cameras pan around searching for something to show - piles of red on the white of a naval rating's hat, a war widow with a single petal adhering to her hair, poppy petals sliding over the book of remembrance which lies on the topmost drum.  And, this year, a shot of feet, ankle deep in crimson petals: a powerful image of the oceans of blood shed in war.

The balance between remembering and glorification is a fine one, just as is the balance between celebration and mourning a life ended.

It is deeply troubling that 90 years after the Armistice there is only one year in which a UK service-person has not been killed, and no year in which there has been no war or conflict.  There are lots of questions about the British Legion commemorations - and rightly so - but the image of shiny black leather swimming in poppy petals will stay with me for some time.