The European Union

Much Christian hand-wringing seems to be going on over the approaching European Referendum.  Several normally opinionated friends of mine have appeared bewildered because, well, they cannot get opinionated about it.  In a Cathedral notice I saw online they are diligently arranging for a Christian from each side of the debate to answer questions in a forum.

I think earnest Christians suffer more in such circumstances because they are very desperate to be politically serious  (if this is you please stop reading now).  While a neighbour might vote on the basis of the niceness or nastiness of the latest East European worker they have met or others on the basis of their favourite or least favourite politician's stance or others because now Stephen Hawking has told them what to think (again) the Christian tries to (and here I quote a friend's conversation) discern what the Spirit is saying to us at this time.

I've decided to stick with my friend's quotation and to wonder whether the Spirit of God is saying anything about how to vote in the EU referendum. 

The juxtaposition of earthly nations' treaties is not irrelevant to salvation history.  It forms a kind of wallpaper in the room of God's activity; it sets a mood, provides a backdrop and is caught unmistakably in any snapshot of God at work.  Most memorably in the Gospel story the Roman Empire and its granted but fraught Jewish autonomy region is there, spreading on into the events of the Acts of the Apostles.  The Old Testament is full of treaties and because Israel was in a Covenant with God these treaties sometimes take on a foreground, theological significance.  This is because an international treaty in that Testament often signified a lack of faith in the covenant with God.

I have read some heavily reasoned arguments  by earnest Christians but if you want my advice it is to trust the Holy Spirit whichever way the vote goes, ignore Stephen Hawking (who is planning a spaceship to get away anyway) and carry on discussing your options with the guys at the pub.

Oh bother.  There goes my last vestige of hope of being invited onto the Baptist Union Faith and Society Team.

Missing Notes

I was listening to an organist bemoaning this amazing Fugue by J S Bach (s. 948).  It is not the famous one of the same notation (in D Minor) but it has many spectacular elements in it as you will hear.

It is usually played on the harpsichord.  The organist pointed out that he'd heard harpsichordists didn't care for it much either.

For a harpsichord (which has a much smaller keyboard than a piano) there are a few impossibly low notes.  For an organ (with its pedal board of low notes) those notes are easy, but there are very few of them.  That's what the organist was complaining about.  "It's not really for organ".

What does all this musical stuff add up to?

Perhaps this.  That just because life isn't a perfect fit for us, some talents under-used, some requirements out of reach, we should see in our imperfections the beauty created by the Composer and forget our limitations by comparison.

Happy Ascension Day!

I suppose it is understandable that there is a very limited celebration of Ascension.  Our minds are so earthbound that the thought of God joining us down here (Christmas) gives us a buzz that one of us (Jesus) joining the Godhead's throne up there doesn't give.

Given our earthliness it is typical that one of the old English customs that survives from Ascension Day (though often carried out on another date these days) is the beating of the bounds.  By this custom the margins of each parish were marked and noted.  Though in time blessings from above were also invocated it seems very weird that the movement of the Son of God from earth to heaven should be accompanied by the earth people marking out their plots of earth.

Anyway the clue is in the ascending, the significance of which is not where heaven is but that Christ is no longer on earth in the flesh.  Humanity has another home.  Instead of beating the bounds, Jesus has broken the bounds for us.