Allegiance and rebellion in against the tide

I've been leading morning prayers at the end of this week. Yesterday and today as well as a Bible reading I've offered the handful of folk at morning prayer a short extract from the wonderful Miroslav Volf book Against the Tide. Volf's writing is extraordinarily powerful and I could post quotes from every essay, really profound spiritual writing. Here are the passages I read for colleagues this morning, from an essay called "Allegiance and rebellion" which recounts some of his thoughts on the Good Friday he was naturalized as a citizen of the USA.

On my application form for naturaliztion I stated that I would not bear arms. To demonstrate the sincerity of my convictions, I appended a brief statement explaining that in communist Yugoslavia I had been persecuted partly because of my pacifist stance. The explanation didn't help. To be exempt from the obligation to bear arms in the United States, I had to be a member of a recognized religious body with an official pacifist position.
During the interview about my application for citizenship, my interlocutor tried to persuade me to change my mind.
"A stapler is an 'arm'", said the exasperated woman behind the counter.
"I use a stapler every day" I responded "but not to kill people."
"We don't want you to kill people!"
"So we agree?"
"But would you not defend your wife and children?"
"I will defend but I will not kill."
"There are mean people out there, ruthless autocrats you know."
"Yes I was born in the former Yugoslavia."
"Then you should know better. "
"Maybe I do," I said.
Later another official listened for about ten minutes to my dozen ways of saying I will defend but not bear arms and then suggested a compromise. At the place on the form where I had checked that I will not bear arms, she drew a line and wrote. "Will defend." I initialed, and was granted permission to become a citizen - citizen Volf, who will defend without bearing arms ... except staplers, of course.
...
A day or so after I was naturalised, I received a congratulatory card from my in-laws. It featured not a patriotic slogan but this quotation:
As citizens, Christians share all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers ... They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives.
The passage was from the early second century Epistle of Mathetus to Diognetus. The words put in a memorable way the dialectic of distance and belonging, of strangeness and domesticityx, of surpassing the laws and obeying them. A word of welcome appropriate to citizen Volf, who for the first time would be celebrating Independance Day as an American citizen - a citizen whose ultimate allegiance is to a polity ruled by the crucified Messiah.

An iconographer's prayer - God as the artist of my life

As a Reformed Christian I come of course from an iconoclastic tradition so it has been interesting to reflect on the meaning of icons and art, to find myself challenged by and "chosen by" the artwork on display in the chapel. The artists have put up prayers with the icons they are displaying and the one I've translated here is the iconographer's prayer - it spoke to the iconoclast that I am. I particularly like the idea of God being the artist of my life.

Lord,
Your Spirit breathes where beauty is created
Come to my aid
In my prayer let me become an icon which reflects your being
Guide my spirit
Inspire my movements
Enlighten my looking
Put your word onto my lips
For you my life will then become a work of art, a sacred work.
May those who look at me be able to recognize you.
Blessed are you Lord for having made me as your brush;
You who are the artist of my life.

(Translated from the French)

Breastfeeding madonna

This icon shows a breastfeeding madonna, which according to this post here is something the Vatican has been trying to promote to put across the idea that Christ was fully human.

The Paintbox of possibilities

Another photo of the exhibition in the chapel, this one with the palette of pigments at the entrance and showing some of the visitors. The chapel does not have holy water to remind us of our baptism at the entrance but we walk through virtual water at the entrance. This is where the paintbox of possibilities is positioned, a reminder of the creativity and recreativity of baptism perhaps.

Colours for the icon that is your life

I really like the icons which are part of the exhibition in chapel but in many ways this is my favourite photo of the expo. This is a box of beautiful pigments, it's clear that it's in regular use by an artist. Like any artist's palette it speaks to me of the world of creative possiblities, of new art that may be created, of the openness and discipline that creativity requires.
I suppose in many ways I simply want to find a brush and use these pigments and paint ... instead I suspect the computer calls, but then that's just another kind of palette in many ways.

St Michael and the Dragon

So you can see how great the icons lookagainst the wood of the chapel.

Icon exhibition in the chapel

I had a real Martha and Mary moment this afternoon and it was quite funny. I was busy preparing the "apéro" for the opening of the icon exhibition and wanted to take a drink to our two artists who were in the chapel. Walking from the apéro table into the chapel I suddenly realised that I was completely missing the main event, there were lots of people looking at the icons, enjoying the music, looking around and talking gently. It was a wonderful moment - I suddenly realised that the real party was taking place in the chapel not around the crisps and wine bottles outside!
Many of the people who came in today had never been to the ecumenical centre before and it was agreat opportunity to talk about our work and meet new people, including a very engaging man who works as a clown and wanted to come dressed as a clown and do a talk on God, humour and spirituality. Not really something that someone who writes a blog called of life, laughter and liturgy could really say no to!

the hospitality of Abraham and Sarah

This is just one of the many wonderful icons currently on display in the exhibition in the Ecumenical Centre Chapel this week and next. This is an interpretation of the famous Roublev icon and is painted by Didi Marmoud who gave a very inspiring testimony at the opening this afternoon about how painting icons had brought her back on to the path of faith and finally also back to church.
What is fascinating about this interpretation is that it includes not only the three persons of the Godhead and Abraham but also Sarah who is bringing the bread. i don't think I've seen an interpretation like this before but I really like it - as did the members of the feminist theology group who turned up for the "vernissage" today.

In my own language ... the word of God

This morning two of my colleagues turned up to chapel with Bibles in their own languages. I found it very moving to see them marking their Bibles with the texts to be read and then listening to them reading for us during the service. In Arabic and in Samoan we heard part of Genesis and of John's gospel. In some ways, we didn't understand a word, yet we knew and trusted that this was the language of their heart, the Bibles they use and know their way around. And we followed the text in English with our eyes, some of us translating the words on the sheets into our own more familiar languages. These are texts that are familiar.
What a privilege to read, hear and know the word of God in our own language, yet also in community. Together we proclaimed one biblical passage antiphonally - Collosians 1.15-20 - a real confession of faith, using English as our common language.
There is always one moment of glorious spiritual cacophony during the service as we say the Lord's prayer each in our own language. It's a special place, with special people ... but then so are all places and people gathered to listen and pray.

On being an icon - a sermon by Theodore Gill for the opening of an icon exhibition

This morning we gathered in the chapel surrounded in a more visible way than usual by a great cloud of witnesses as most of the icons for the icon exhbition by Josette Laissue and Didi Marmoud were already in place.
Outside Geneva airport was silent as Northern Europe remained under the grip of another kind of cloud - many of our colleagues including the WCC general secretary were trapped in airports in various places across the world. We'll have to see who has the most interesting home-coming story!
Theodore Gill led our prayers and a meditation on icons which you can read here. At the end of the service just before the blessing he called us all to be icons and bear the image of God through our lives into the world. It was a nourishing morning service, here are two extracts from the beginning and end of Theo's sermon:

Icons have been described by admirers as windows into the kingdom of heaven, and also as mirrors that aid us in our spiritual self-reflection.
“Icon” comes from the Greek word for “image” – it is used in the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of Hebrew scripture, when God is said to create humankind in God’s own image (the word applies neither to a man nor a women, but all of “humankind…male and female”; Gen.1:27). And the word appears again in the hymn near the beginning of Colossians, when we are told – somewhat paradoxically, it has seemed to many – that Jesus Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Col.1:15).

Whether the art on display represents a set of windows to heaven or mirrors for reflection, or some combination of the two, icons invite us to consider our own potential as images of divine love – and to re-conceive our own lives as a means of portraying the reality of Christ in the world.

The icon painters prayer

Two wonderful French Roman Catholic icon painters are holding an exhibition of their work in the chapel of the ecumenical centre from Monday 19 to Friday 30 April. they began hanging the icons on Friday and the chapel looks quite different.
I shall try and post at least a photo a day of the icons - some of which have prayers next to them. For now though I've posted the prayer of the icon painter in French, maybe later in the week I'll get around to doing some translations ... maybe means I have good intentions and no will power ...
In the meantime you can already access the liturgy for Monday morning here, part of it includes a responsive reading of part of Colossians:

He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation;

More about the exhibtion soon ...

Reading against flow - going against the tide ...

So we returned from Berlin with lots of books. Our house is full of books. I have recently ordered lots of books by post and so has Dr B. So what am I reading? A library book of course! One of the risks and benefits of having my office in the library is that I walk past the display of new books to get to my office which is how I ended up checking this book out today. Very glad I did, my bus got stuck in traffic and it's great and easy read, but also profound and moving writing. Here's an eminent theologian linking life, faith and theology quie unapologetically. It's wonderful.
Each piece is only about three book pages long. Perfect for reading on the bus! Flicking through it before I decided to take it home I got hooked by a piece entitled "not by sausage alone". It recounts Miroslav Volf's search for a "kulen" sausage and how he finds a devout and wise man who makes sausages and reads his Bible - blessed indeed are the sausage makers!
Here are two quotes from that piece:

"If the Bible is the book you read then your conversations will likely concern the deep questions of life rather than skirt them."
"But that loss (the loss of biblical literacy) is small compared to the moral, spiritual and intellectual impoverishment that comes from letting our lives be saturated by the superficial instead of being immeresed into the profound."

There are some beautiful personal pieces: on the adoption of his first child - called "ambiguity and grace"; on perceiving God's delight through the delight of a child in a parent; on married love; on grieving for a friend who died in a psychiatric hospital or for his father ...
The writing has great physicality, humour and honesty but it also shows deep spirituality. Here are some more quotes from "Evil and evildoers".

"Doesn't calling a person evil make us go after him with a vengeance, seeking to eleiminate or at least neutralize him?" my friend protests. "It all too often does," I agree. But it should not. God's love is broad enough to include evildoers, the worst of them. We know this because Christ died for their salvation no less than for the salvation of the rest of us who are one and all by nature God's enemies. To call someone evil is not to place her beyond the pale of God's redemption. Similarly, to call her evil is not to exempt ourselves from the obligation to love her. If our enemies are hungry, we should feed them; if they are thirsty we should give them something to drink. Instead of being overcome by evil, we should overcome evil with good.
I worry when I hear politicians speak of bin Laden as the Evil One Who Hides. But I would worry even more if we were to refrain from naming morally reprehensible acts, and those who commit them, as evil."

I suppose just the title of this book really spoke to me and deeply challenged me "Against the Tide - love in a time of petty dreams and persisting enmities"
It made me wonder about my own capacity to truly love in the midst of my own desperately petty dreams and persisting enmities ... my pondering was not as edifying as Miroslav Volf's. Do I just kid myself that I am going against the tide when really the way I go is also with the flow of an individualistic culture which loves far too little.
You can read a preview of the book by clicking here.

Angels and mermaids - testing the Genevan waters

So here are some of us tasting and testing Geneva water and also getting the artist Tom Tirabosco to personally decorate one of the water carafes for the WCC general secretary Olav Fykse Tveit. When Tom heard that we were from the World Council of Churches he changed the picture he was drawing from a mermaid to an angel, even adding a halo! Not quite sure what this means about the idea people have of religion.

Not walking on water but drawing on water!

On Saturday afternoon the Ecumenical Water Network encouraged folk at the ecumenical centre to join in the water days organised by the Services Industriels Genevois
We had good fun at the event which was organised with simplicity and style - face-painting and plastic water bottle ten pin bowling for children, great local organic food to learn about, some fun water taste tests and free local cordials to drink. We also took a Geneva water quiz and won some fun plastic collapsable cups to be able to drink ordinary rather than bottled water wherever we are. Our responses also got put into a prize draw for being able to switch on Geneva's famous jet d'eau. The fountain is the symbol of the Genevan water company.
One of the other fun things was having the Bande Déssinée artist Tom Tirabosco decorate the water carafes being sold to encourage us to drink local water and also help support a project in Kisumu providing drinking water. The carafes are made locally from recycled glass and very stylish.
Detailed programme here.

Bowl away the plastic water bottles

This was just one of the great fun activities that the Société Industrielle Genevoise (SIG) organised about water. Geneva water has as its symbol the city's wonderful Jet d'eau. We even got to do a taste test of Genevan tap water over and against French and Swiss branded bottled water - for me the tap water won out - definitely tasted best.
So for those of us who do have access to drinkable tap water let's try and kick the habit of bottled water. It can be up to a 1000 times more ecological to drink tap water rather than bottled water. It makes sense.
Thanks to the Ecumenical Water Network for telling us about the event. Lots more photos and short posts from the event about to follow - one day I really am going to have to learn how to deal with photos, for now you'll just have to put up with multiple posting.

Anger, rage and pain in terms of finding your voice

Some years ago a friend died from cancer. She was not ready to die and she was angry at the disease taking her life, her energy, her creativity, her future. She was an extraordinarily talented artist.
In the end she managed to say good bye to those nearest to her, and months before the end she asked me to take her funeral. I was still in parish ministry at that time and when I didn't spend my Mondays off at calligraphy class I would spend Monday with her.
On the day that I came back from my neurologist with the confirmation that I had my second MS incident - and therefore had MS - she turned up bringing with her the most perfectly arranged posy of flowers I have ever received and took me out to the lakeside to have ice-cream. I suppose my ministry to her was that I allowed her to be angry, and she knew how to be angry - not only at God but also at others. At the end of some of those Mondays I would sometimes be exhausted, partly because of the energy and integrity of her anger. It was her way of finding her voice in a desperate situation.
At her funeral one of the hymns we sang was Now the Green Blade Rises to Noël Nouvelet, it's a hymn I hope people might sing at my own funeral, it speaks deeply of resurrection and new life. However, there are also other words to this tune where one verse begins "Jesus Christ is raging, raging in the streets ..." Elemental anger is so rarely part of our spirituality and yet any reading of the Psalms whould help us see how important "imprecation" and expressing prayerful anger in pretty colourful language can be.
I've been thinking about my friend and her brilliant and frightening anger and also about the challenge of the this year's theme at our feminist theology group - finding your voice, finding your way. How do we find our voice when we are angry and raging? It's a particular challenge for women I think. Our societies find it hard enough as it is to listen to women, to treat our input as of equal value; we are immediately seen as "aggressive" when we challenge people or issues (when a man would be seen as "tough").
So what does this mean for finding our voice, for me finding my voice? I've revistied an old post on anger and on Lytta Basset's Holy Anger and in many ways I almost feel I have nothing to add - and I would still use as my starting point the great quote from Brecht: "Even anger against injustice makes the voice grow harsh. Alas we who wished to lay the foundations of kindness could not ourselves be kind." As I consider my own anger and rage - which is different from that of my friend in her illness, but no less elemental - I wonder about how I can possibly speak in a way that can be heard given the passion of emotion. I wonder too about whether given strong emotions I am even able to listen to myself and hear my own voice or know what it might be?
My friend in her pain at her situationi did not question her right to be angry, perhaps I too as an angry and passionate person need to accept this about myself and learn to find my voice.
Meanwhile I give thanks that at my friend's funeral I preached about beauty and creativity, and that anger was part of that.

First woman elected to head the Christian Conference of Asia

Today Rev. Henriette Tabita Hutabarat-Lebangat became the first woman to be elected to head the Christian Conference of Asia. According to ENI she will take up office as the general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia at their Chiang Mai headquarters later this year.
This really marks a change so let's hope it opens the door to a woman maybe heading one of the world confessional bodies or even the WCC. (This post has been edited following Faautu's comment below where you can read about the two women general secretaries of the Pacific ... it does seem to be taking time for women's leadership to be accepted so let's see how things progress!)

You can read more on the CCA assembly here and also the full text of the WCC general secretary's keynote address to the CCA. In that he also welcomed Lebangat's election as an "an important milestone in the ecumenical movement."

Open Bible projects in Portuguese and English as well as German

This week I discovered that there is not only a German creative commons Bible project but also one in English and in Portuguese.
There's a good discussion over on Peter Kirk's Gentle Wisdom about some of the challenges and philosophy of producing an open source Bible translation. I still think it's a great idea. As with any Bible translation though the real issue will be keeping the momentum going, coordinating the project in the different langauges and moving forwards. Anyway it's also opened up the world of free software, social coding and Github to me. Oh dear so much to know and just not enough time ...