Odd title, but I'm pondering...

There is a blog out there running a (spoof) 'driveby Baptisms' competition where people are invited to drive through puddles, soak people and claim it as a baptism.  Well, no, it's not proper immersion, but that's another story.

Normally I would find it funny.  But not this week.  This week I watch TV footage of places I've been, or where people I know live or work, under feet of murky flood water.  Suddenly soaking people with puddle splashes seems quite, well, sick really.

Andy Amoss picks up the some of the tensions that emerge as we observe the suffering of others at close quarters whilst getting on with comfortable lives - afterall, I am in my nice flood-free manse, high(-ish) on a hill able to blog about it all.

I don't want to become a Victoria Meldrew but sometimes funny just isn't.  I recall reading somewhere that what makes humour permissible (or not) is the context - if the joke is told from within a community/context it is OK, if it is about/against it it isn't.  So far, so good, but the driveby Baptism thing is totally outside of flood-soaked Britain, and is a joke within/"against" certain Baptismal traditions.  So maybe the context of the hearer/reader matters too.  If there were no floods here, I'd be laughing along with the best (or worst) of them (even if I think splashing pedestrians is a bad thing; making waves when there's no one to drench is fine).

Maybe it's just a fact of life that one person's funny is another's bad taste?  But maybe it's not a bad thing to ponder it now and then.

This picture is on the cover of UK editions of Paul Fiddes wonderful (if, for new readers of his work, fairly hard work to get into) book on the Trinity.  In the USA they have a nice plain red cover it seems.  I mean, all those naked women well, it's a bit distracting for male pastors, isn't it?!!!!

I have pinched the picture from the web because it captures something of the mystery and energy of the concept of perichoresis as divine dance (seemingly lots of people who read this blog thought "peri-chor-what" the other day when I mentioned it).

So here is my interpetation of it all...

Picture the Trinity as being engaed in a Divine "Reel of Three" (a la Dashing White Sergeant, or similar).  Each member of the Trinity whirls, and is whirled by, the other two as they move around creating wonderful patterns along the way.  Now imagine that the dance turns outward and others are drawn in (a divine lure for process theologians, irresistable grace for Calvinists, free will response for me) and are energised, whirled and twirled by the dancers.  Then they in turn reach outwards to draw in others (evangelism, mission, outreach) in what might be envisaged as a missional grand chain.

The dance whirls on through the great Ceilidgh of history and we find ourselves grasped by those who went before us (who are your heroes of faith?) and spun on again to reach out and touch more and more people...

Are there wallflowers in this Celidgh?  Are we reaching out to welcome them in? 

What's so great about this dance is that you can have two left feet (what a right-handed world this is, pah) or no sense of rhythm and it doesn't matter - it is the energy of the divine reel of three that drives it, the melody of divine love to which we dance and, if a caller is needed, it is the prevenient grace of the God beyond naming.

Today's BUGB News E-sweep says that next week they are starting a 'Baptist Blog of the Day' feature - where's that invisibility cloak gone!!!

I am trying to work out what I feel about this.  Obviously I am happy to post stuff for anyone to read, but there is a sense that blogland is a fairly safe space to play with ideas that might not always sit in the 'main stream' (not Mainstream) of things.  Those who visit are usually very gracious and there is a sense of mutual tolerance and respect for diversity (utterly Helwysian, to coin a phrase: let them be Jews, let them be Turks... let them be heretic bloggers...) but when 'officialdom' starts sending things our way I can't help feeling the dynamic changes.  I am sure that the e-sweep people think this will be an interesting and fun addition to what they offer, and if they send us to the good quality blogs of people like Jim Gordon or Stuart Blythe or Sean Winter, that's fine.  I'm just feeling a bit protective of my twaddle...

... the predictable ending?

I don't want to spoil it for anyone who is yet to read it but the ending was as I'd anticipated - even the twist regarding one of the main characters was, to me, evident from book 1.  Lots of death and destruction occur along the way to an ending that has clear echoes of Lewis and Tolkien, not that there is anything wrong with that.  The final chapter was, for me, a little twee, but then the primary audience is a quarter my age...

I'm glad I read it to complete the set but not in my view the highlight of the series. 

Wonder how many people spotted the very short biblical quote hidden in the middle of the story? 

Back to grown-up books now...

This is cheeky and a bit of a long shot, but does anyone who reads this have access to the music for Robert J Stamp's beautiful (if linguistically dated) song 'God and Man at Table are Sat Down'?  I have the word in a words edition of the RC Hymns Old & New on permanent loan from the church where I spent a year working, but I knew it long before that.  It seems not to be in any of the newer worship song books.  As the cheapest copy of the music book I've seen is £15 I'm quite keen to find a "loan" of this one page...

Welcome all ye noble Saints of old

As now before your very eyes unfold

The wonders all so long ago foretold.

Chorus: GOD AND MAN AT TABLE ARE SAT DOWN (Repeat)

Elders, martyrs, all are falling down

Prophets, patriachs are gathering round

What angels longed to see, now man has found.

Chorus:

Who is this who spreads the victory feast

Who is this who makes our warring cease

Jesus Risen, Saviour, Prince of Peace.

Chorus:

Beggars, lame, and harlots also here

Repentant publicans are drawing near

Wayward sons come home without a fear.

Chorus:

Worship in the presence of the Lord

With Joyful songs, and hearts in one accord

And let our Host at table be adored.

Chorus:

When at last this earth shall pass away

When Jesus and His Bride are one to stay

The Feast of Love is just begun that day.

Chorus:

 

I can easily enough tweak the non-inclusive bits and keep acceptable theology ("God with us at table is sat down")

*** UPDATED *** Thanks to "Mystery Man" Andy (P) I now have the music for this