Room with a View meme

Lingamish has tagged me with the request for pictures. I took these of my office this morning. We just finished repainting it a few months ago. It is nice to have it back. On the right is the view from the window! Below is the office. The office is fuzzy this morning - image taken at 0700 . The pictures on the right are of a market in Turgutreis, in south-west Turkey, below that, the Church of All Saints at Earls Barton, and to the right, a miniature of St John the Evangelist. The pictures on the left, on either side of the mirror above the sofa, are two student monoprints by a favorite niece - probably done in the 70s. The vase with the dried flowers below St John is a work done my my youngest son about 15 years ago. The credenza has been recently converted by my eldest son into a work surface to match the height of the desk. It is usually overflowing with books. The back cover that is showing is of Mary Coloe's new book on the Gospel of John, Dwelling in the Household of God. She told me about it at SBL and it was small enough to buy on the spot. I like her approach in this and her previous book God dwells with us. You can see her influence on Secundus. Also on the work surface is a box full of wine and spirits in preparation for my daughter-in-law's appearance with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet as the lead in Sleeping Beauty - next week. A new single-malt has been purchased for the occasion. Her husband, my middle son, will be here for a short holiday.

Other

In response to a post by Chris Brady, at Targuman, I am bringing forward this letter I wrote over a year ago which was just published in the February edition of our local Diocesan Post. I expect many will disagree with what they perceive me to be saying. Please note that I have not seen any conservatives argue from the point of view of the tenderness of our God. I have seen arguments only from a legal point of view. I have responded because of the use of the word 'other'. Certainly it is difficult to respond to what is different in ourselves.

To the Editor, Diocesan Post, in response to a dialogue: that same-sex sexual relations are in God’s will for some people; or its opposite: that same-sex sexual relations are always not God’s will.

The word complement is spelt with an ‘e’, since the implication of the word is completeness. Completion is so germane to understanding what our Lord does for us. Can a person complete another person? Can the two become one in each other?

Bible readers will know that the fullness of completion goes beyond but includes the issue of sexual relations. Human sexual intimacy is a sign of completeness. Such knowledge is evident in the Old Testament and is celebrated in the tradition of the feast of Pentecost by the Jews. Pentecost celebrates the giving of Torah to which the faithful person is married. During this feast, the faithful are encouraged to read the Song of Solomon as a dialogue between self as bride and God as bridegroom.

For us who have believed in Christ, the fullness of our completion is in the death of Jesus. Here is our true bridegroom of blood, our new Moses, fulfilling the covenant of circumcision for the Gentiles. Every faithful one is now married to him who was raised from the dead, and by his death is freed from marriage to Torah. It is complete; as Jesus himself said. Or as Paul puts it, if we by the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the flesh, we will live.

It is not our task, therefore, to say what thing, heterosexual or homosexual or any other thing is right and complete in itself. It is our task, as members of Christ, of whatever orientation we think we are, to crucify our deeds, attitudes, and prejudices, so that we might live. Even our good must be put to death, so that the glory is from God and not an image of what a human thinks is right.

Will the Spirit raise only the heterosexual? Will God transform the so-called wrong into the so-thought right? God will transform but not as we anticipate. God transforms into a fullness that we cannot know in advance. Therefore whether heterosexual or homosexual, if we are patterned into the death of Jesus, then the result is God’s not ours.

Put it another way, will the same-sex person not be sanctified or redeemed if they call upon the Lord? They will and their resurrection will be ‘other’ to those who think them ‘other’, but will be one with those who think them one. If you consider that God is ‘other’ and woman is ‘other’ to man or man to woman, so also same sex is ‘other’ to the heterosexual. One who knows an ‘other’ will be pleased to accept ‘the same’ as not being ‘like’ but allowed to be, in glory, different.

In plain words, we may allow such commitments to be blessed, and we must not judge in advance how God will work in such commitments. It is for them to work them out in fear and trembling before God.

My conclusion does not leave us without issues to consider, not the least of which is the pattern in Colossians and Ephesians that quotes the household code of Aristotle: slaves in obedience to masters, children to parents, and wives to husbands. We no longer allow the negative interpretations along the lines of human ownership or male dominance to govern us in our reading of these passages, and we no longer allow the hierarchy of church governance to be confined to males. The simple conclusion is that the recognition of consecrated relationships of same gendered people is implicit in the abolition of slavery and the presence of women teachers and preachers in the church – as it was in the beginning, but was too radical a freedom to continue.

See also here which carries these thoughts into a liturgy.
See also here a review of a Jewish book on the subject. Here is a rereading of the text that deserves consideration.

Blogging and Mortality

Doug, Lingamish, Christopher Heard, and others have written of the demise of Jim West's blog. The deletion of a blog could have happened by accident, by a security hole in blog world, by malice, or through a technical error. We can ask - what sort of backup do we have? Or even if we have backup, could it be restored? Or even if it were restored, would it make any difference to anyone? (By the way - Firefox and Scrapbook give a very easy way to backup your archives).

And we can also ask - how much of our self-image or our images of others is contained in our writing? How important are these open diaries? How important our ongoing conversations, book reviews, large or small projects, and twitter updates?

I have said before on this blog that Jim is a community builder. I have not said much about why I disagree with him on some issues - though I record the disagreement. I did delete his blog from my blog rolls some time after my commendation of him but I still have it on one of my aggregators (why do I need two aggregators? I don't know - it was experimental). So the good Dr. is still there. (By the way, my initials are D.R. but I am neither a doctor nor am I ordained - but I love study - and the Immortal One knows I love him too even when I am forgetful.) I am still on the BS elist too - but I seldom log in any more. There's only so much time.

Why did I delete his blog (from my list - not the blog itself!). Because I did not want to read anything further about total depravity and his view of the hopelessness of some cases of abuse. Let's just say I believe in the resurrection.

How little time is needed for resurrection? Ever since I heard of Jim's hurt, I have prayed for the resurrection of his blog and spirit - in the flesh - and perhaps in his new life, he will have even more impact than in his first life.

Where will our blogs be when we shuffle off this mortal coil? Or for that matter when some other bug attacks our continuity? Beloved - of this be sure - we teach each other the love of God whether we are accurate or incompetent, whether we are bold or timid, whether we are open or closed - we teach each other by our reaching out - even when we fear touch.

Aural writing

Will I write to you or you to me as I learn?
Will I hear your voice and you mine in this repeated form?

More than this
What will the believer and the unbeliever hear?
Only one thing for both - that you are near and not without a real effect on all who call.

Every psalm praises your desirableness
Why are we hearing only silence?
Even surprise turns of phrase are ignored as if meaning what we already know.
How can this be when we know nothing?

The book meme

Thanks for the tag, Kathy. My response to the book meme is here on Bob's Log.

Turn of the Screw

Just returned from a two actor performance of Turn of the Screw - Henry James ghost story from 1898 - not exactly gospel, but perhaps an interesting introduction to the 20th century.

Primi Discipuli

– You can substitute viewing for hearing. In seeing, you will believe.

Did you notice, Beloved, how much seeing, perceiving, viewing, and gazing there is in John's writing? It was so important for me in the days of my disability that I could see and in seeing feel, even if I could not hear.

When our father, Tertius, performed this part of the Gospel, as with other parts, he moved from one place to another showing our eyes the ones who were acting. There is one who did not form part of the action but he was there though not named. You can see him from his silence.

Messengers ascending and descending; this is the gift of God to Jacob, the house of God, the gateway of heaven. He makes his home in us - such will be John's message - us his dwelling. We see where he stays - he stays in us, his Beloved.

Deception is part of our self-defense. How can we live if everything we are is visible under the fig tree? Nathanael is like Uncle Mark. You remember his own story?

And Jesus looking upon him loved him
---

– Give everything away,

I was in the garden when the soldiers came. And Judas kissed him. And I will tell you that I knew Joshua’s kiss already. It was that day when he said to me

– Give everything away.

Immediately he was so present. And something held me and not my own strength.

---

Explanation cannot hold love. During the war, as I recounted elsewhere, Tertius took us out of Jerusalem to Cyrenica, then six years later to Cyprus, my mother Ruth's home, and then to Corinth. In Greece, I cannot avoid explanation. To explain is not to see. I live too close to the centre of philosophy, but I do not translate to explain and I do not write my history to explain. I write for you, Beloved. I translate for love and I write for the same - as you will know. What has Jerusalem to do with Athens? I was born in one and live near the other. Athens divides, decides, reduces. Jerusalem is where love was revealed. Love lives to allow explanation but it will not yield to it. The one who holds on will receive the blessing. Clearly Jacob is better at wrestling, however jealous Athens is of Jacob's crown.

So I see and believe.

– The truth, little brother, is that I see right through you. Like the gift of God, you have no guile.