Ok

By continuing your visit to this site, you accept the use of cookies. These ensure the smooth running of our services. Learn more.

- Page 4

  • On Wisdom...

    Today's PAYG used as its reading Wisdom (of Solomon) 7:22b - 8:1 as follows:


    Wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.

    There is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
    unique, manifold, subtle,
    mobile, clear, unpolluted,
    distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
    irresistible, beneficent, humane,
    steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
    all-powerful, overseeing all,
    and penetrating through all spirits
    that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle.
    For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
    because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
    For she is a breath of the power of God,
    and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
    therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
    For she is a reflection of eternal light,
    a spotless mirror of the working of God,
    and an image of his goodness.
    Although she is but one, she can do all things,
    and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
    in every generation she passes into holy souls
    and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
    for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.
    She is more beautiful than the sun,
    and excels every constellation of the stars.
    Compared with the light she is found to be superior,
    for it is succeeded by the night,
    but against wisdom evil does not prevail.

    She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other,
    and she orders all things well.

     

    The catalogue of attributes of wisdom with which the passage begins reminded me of the characteristics of love described in 1 Corinthians 13, yet this is not a description of a human (or divine) quality but of God's 'third person', or persona, as Spirit who is... 

    intelligent

    holy

    unique

    manifold

    subtle

    mobile

    clear

    unpolluted

    distinct

    invulnerable

    loving the good

    keen

    irresistible

    beneficent

    humane

    steadfast

    sure

    free from anxiety

    all-powerful

    overseeing all

    penetrating through all spirits

     

    I am fascinated by the diversity of characteristics identified, each coexisting without conflicting ... omnipotent benevolence, subtly irresistable, anxiety-free intellegence and so on.

    A lovely passage and worth re-visiting.  I know a lot of protestant Christians are wary of the aprocrypha/deutero-canonical books for all sorts of reasons (some better than others, it has to be said) with the result that we remain ignorant of some of the most beautiful Jewish and early Christian writing. Just maybe God's Spirit will speak to you through these words, to encourage or inspire you.

  • Philippines Appeal

    If you are of a Baptist persuasion, then you might like to donate via BMS World Mission here.

    In fact, even if you are not of a Baptist or even Christian persuasion you may like to, as the humanitarian aid is given to any who need it, of any faith or none.

  • Posts and Wires

    For some reason I am reminded of the image of posts and wires as I try to plan our Advent activities for this year...

    If you have a fence, or even for that matter a rail, you need to have one more post that you have wires/rails.  Having looked at people's availablility to particpate in Advent reflections, it emerges that we will have four 'posts' (the four Sundays) and three 'wires' (the intervening weeks). Rather than the usual four mid-week 'pause points' or 'reflections' we will have three, or actually, two lots of three, one day time and one evening.  That feels slightly strange, I am so used to having four, but it also feels like an opoportunity to be grasped.

    It happens that both the Christian Aid material I have been considering for Advent reflections and the Roots recources major on the Isaiah readings for Advent, which is also a refreshlingly different slant.

    The image of a fence is maybe not entirely helpful - as it can be seen as excluding, but it works for me in making sense of the three-and-four-ness of what I am planning!

  • Hope from Despair - Contd.

    Today's PAYG used this passage from The Wisdom of Solomon (part of the aprocrypha) as a basis for thinking, at least in part, about hope and despair.  It seemed to have some resonance with what I have pondering these past few weeks:

    Wisdom 2:23 - 3:9

    for God created us for incorruption,

    and made us in the image of his own eternity,

    but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,

    and those who belong to his company experience it.

     
    But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God
    and no torment will ever touch them.
     
    In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
    and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
    and their going from us to be their destruction;
    but they are at peace.
     
    For though in the sight of others they were punished,
    their hope is full of immortality.
     
    Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
    because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
    like gold in the furnace he tried them,
    and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
     
    In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
    and will run like sparks through the stubble.
     
    They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
    andthe Lord will reign over them forever.
     
    Those who trust in him will understand truth,
    and the faithful will abide with him in love,
    because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
    and he watchesover his elect.
     
    Reading this is a valuable reminder that by ignoring the deuter-canonical and apocryphal books, we miss the scriptural bases for ideas we both accept and reject.
     
    This passage reads somewhat differently in context (it starts half way through a sentence) but even so, as it stands, it is a great assurance of hope.
     

  • Poignant and Thought-provoking

    Two things today in that category.

    A very rare event for me, I was in Starbucks in one of the city centre shopping centres waiting for my coffee as 11 a.m. neared.  Just before the announcement that the two minute silence would begin was sounded throughout the centre, the shop turned off its sound system, the till stilled and no more coffee was made.  One of the barristas quietly wrote on a post note 'moment of silence' and showed to it all in the queue.  There was something poignant in the whole queue standing still and silent, something almost prophetic about it, given that one person left the queue and the shop rather than wait 120 seconds longer.  Starbucks has had a lot of bad press recently, for good reason, but they should be proud of the young barristas in this central Glasgow store who managed the silence with dignity and courtesy (they even apologised that my coffee had stood for 2 mins before being handed to me!!).

    Then I went to watch the film 'Philomena', which was beautifully and tenderly produced, and in which Judy Dench excelled as she always does.  At times very funny, at times dreadfully sad, at times disturbing, at times heartwarming, it was poignant and thought-provoking, and I'm glad I went to see it.  Not many films have audiences tiptoeing out quietly, but this was one, and an especially good one in my opinion.