An Anniversary Missed - the final part

I put a video of myself singing "Brother, Sister Let Me Serve You" up on Youtube.
("http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL3vStmoMDw")
and had this comment left by someone I know:
"I'm watching this and thinking "Gee this guy sounds like Richard Gillard" then it clicked (senior moment). But why didn't you use the original lyrics?"

I responded thus:

"These are the original lyrics!! insofar as they communicate the original spirit and intent of the song which was to speak of and to the entire christian family. 'Brother' in the original was shorthand for 'brother and sister' and also shorthand for family. Go figure!"

A few year's after this song was published and had become well known around the world some of the ladies in the church started calling for 'inclusive language' not only in the songs we sang but in the liturgies we used and in our conversations about all things spiritual. The patriarchal language had to go. We were not to talk merely about the sons of God, or Jesus coming to save all men. God had daughters too and women needed almost as much saving as we blokes. And our songs and liturgies began to reflect this new awareness.

Two lines of the song in question came under scrutiny; the opening line,"Brother let me be Your Servant" and the line in verse two saying "we are brothers on the road." The sisters wanted to serve and be served too and have their place in the community of faith recognised.

The first I was aware that the lyrics were going to be different form those I had originally written was when the Fisher Folk under Betty Pulkingham recorded it and a complementary tape arrived in my mail box. They sang "Won't you let me be your servant" and "we're companions on the road." I don't know if they negotiated these changes with the folks at Scripture in Song or not. All I know is nobody ran it past me.

Maybe David and Dale felt badly that they hadn't run it past me or maybe Betty made the changes without consultation with them. I do know that later when someone else approached them to record an inclusive language version they did talk to me. I can't recall if the "Brother, sister..." rendering was my idea or not. I know I preferred it to "Won't you..." I may have suggested the "we are family on the road" rewrite in verse two. Certainly these are my preferred changes. I like it that the idea of family is under-scored and re-enforced. I always understood that it is within the family of faith that we learn the lessons of servanthood, and learn to be tender with and supportive of one another, and where we learn to forgive as we have been forgiven.

I agree with a certain English bishop that this is not a hymn. A hymn speaks more directly of and to God and seeks to praise Him. This song is addressed to one's fellow pew-warmers. I never called it a hymn - to me it was always a song - though others do. All I ever wrote were songs. Hymns were written by other people.

Is the sentiment of this song overly humble (the same bishop referred to Uriah Heep the character from Dickens, not the rock band)? Is it 'very 'umble' in a sickly, obsequious kind of a way? In the second part of verse one I was making reference to those in 'the family' who though happy to serve could never allow themselves to be served - they thought they had to be worthy of another's service and were not. They failed to see that we were all equally unworthy in the face of Christ's gracious service toward us, from the mightiest king to the lowliest slave. "As I have washed your feet, so must you wash one another's feet" said Jesus in the upper room the night before he died. What is my brother or sister supposed to think if in my false modesty, my false humility I refuse to let him wash my feet.

On Maundy Thursday, while I'm not the first to get my shoes and socks off and have my feet washed, I'm certainly not last.

And I agree, I could have written a more interesting melody. These though were the notes immediately beneath my fingers as I plucked my guitar in the 1st position (relatively speaking for I had a capo on at the 4th or 5th fret) looking for the tune that was looking to be born. It has similarities, someone pointed out, to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" melody - scales with small variations.

I'm only sorry I wasn't able to teach the melody to Ann and Mike's cockatiel, Tana (after All Black Mr Umaga) while he was in my care.

An Anniversary missed etc, etc - the second part.

I continue to reflect on my best known song, not because I want to blow my own trumpet (though no one can blow your trumpet quite the way you do), but because there maybe genuine interest out there and I want to set some stuff straight. Goodness knows though, I may not have it all so straight, history being the thing it is.

The copyright for "Brother, Sister let Me Serve You' was never held by The St Paul's Outreach Trust. The Trust (as we most associated with it would call it) held the copyrights on everything else written by the members of the St Paul's Singers, and may have wished they had the copyright on this song too.

Shortly after it was completed some of us in the Singers (yes we abbreviated that name too) were visiting David and Dale Garrett of Scripture in Song, at their home. We had points of similarity with the Garretts. They too led worship at home, made albums, toured other churches, led worship at Christian conventions and published song books. They had been doing it longer than we had and so had knowledge and advise we novices needed. And they were nice people - and still are!

As our evening together wore on I sang them my new song. David said something like, "that song fits the theme of an album we are about to record," to which I responded, "You can have it, then!" It was a spontaneous gesture on my part. There was no forethought given by me maybe offering it first to St Paul's Outreach Trust, or any thought about the future implications of my offer, god, bad or otherwise. They obviously said "Thank you very much!" and the rest, as they say is history.

It soon appeared as "The Servant Song" on the Scripture in Song album "Father Make Us One" the theme of which was Christian unity and the principles under-girding relationships in the Christian family. John Olding, Graham Kelly and Brent Chambers sang on this, the first ever recording of the song. And so it was presented to a wider audience, and an international one.

Since then there have been other recordings. The Fisherfolk who were the primary inspiration and influence for the St Paul's Singers did a lovely version and eventually a later incarnation of the St Paul's Singers recorded a version too on I got to sing.

It also found it's way into many hymnals and garnered much popularity in so many places. In 2002, in a poll conducted by the BBC's "Songs of Praise" television programme I was voted in as the 33rd most popular hymn in Great Britain. A book was published in conjuction with the programme called "The Nations Favorite Hymns"where the accompanying text recalled that it had been sung in York Minster on Rememberance Day.

I had, independantly of the BBC been sent a video copy of this service as it had gone to air. The cathedral was full of service men and woman from the Army, the Navy and the Airforce - many of them young active members, but a lot of retired men and women who would have served during the Second World War. I found it all a bit surreal. I had been brought up by my Dad to see war as a great futility, a strident symbol of man's estrangement from a Loving God and from Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Dad would take me and my brother to war movies here in Whangarei so we could see how awful and futile and wasteful war was.

For me it was always a song intended to point all who heard it toward a way of living peacably with other human beings. I am quoted in the BBC's book as saying I prefered "the down to earth groundedness of a guitar accompaniment and a simple folk treatment" to the version I heard on "York Minster's grand organ" It was my down to earth performance that sold it to David and Dale, and their recorded version was as down to earth as they sold it to a much wider audience than we at St Paul's could then lay claim to.

Tune this way for Part Three, when I will talk about the changes, both lyrical and melodic, to this song over the years. In the meantime jump over to YouTube and see and hear my video version of the song. While you are there check out some of the other versions too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL3vStmoMDw

Richard

An Anniversary Missed, a Good Man and Some Good Times Remembered

I realised this morning, as I walked my dog Jazz in this morning's spring sunshine, that I let the 30th anniversary of my song presently known as "Brother, Sister Let Me Serve You" go by without comment or acknowledgment. I finished writing it in either December 1976 or January 1977, so the 3o years would have rolled by in December 2006 or January 2007. Sue and I had not been long in Whangarei then, having moved up here in October 2006.

The original St Paul's Singers were given a perfect excuse to come together on the weekend just gone. The life and ministry of the man who was our Vicar in the early 1970s was being remembered and celebrated in a memorial service at St Mary's, Parnell, in Auckland. Father Kenneth Prebble had passed away, at a grand age of 93 on June the 18th of this year. We, the original St Paul's Singers, sang "Brother Sister..." at that service. It was with some pride that he claimed to be the Vicar of St Paul's when I wrote it. Now that he is gone I would like to set the record straight. He was not the Vicar of St Paul's then. He had ceased to be the Vicar of St Paul's in 1974. It was to my wife Sue's and my chagrin that he arrived back from his sabbatical in 1974 to announce his resignation from the post of Vicar of St Paul's. This meant (hence our chagrin), that he would not conduct our wedding scheduled for December of that year.

I hate to be the destroyer of this myth, but to soften the blow for those who would have liked it left intact, the writing of this song drew much inspiration from Fr. Prebble's tenure at St Paul's. It was in that time that that the St Paul's singers were formed and did much to influence the worship of many churches in the mainline denominations mainly through their commitment to the worship at their home parish, St Pauls, Symonds St, their record albums, their touring and visiting churches in New Zealand and their appearances at the Christian Advance Ministries Summer Schools (charismatic conventions) on the Massey University campus in Palmerston North. It was at this time that the Singers began to explore the possibilities of writing our own material, much of which ended up on their record albums and in the St Paul's Outreach Trust's songbooks, chief of which was "New Harvest.

It was those evening services on Wednesdays and Sundays under Father Prebble's leadership that were a source of much inspiration for the songs I wrote back then. A great sense of family and of community was engendered in these services and then celebrated with a great sense of occasion in the Sunday morning Eucharists. We heard many inspiring testimonies from our parishioners for whom God had become startlingly real as they learned to open up to the leading and inspiration of the Holy Spirit in and through those services. And we had some very good teaching and theology in those services, along with spontaneous reflections on Christian life and faith from many in the congregation.

Father Prebble shared the teaching spots with people like Pentecostal pastor John Childers, who hailed from Las Vegas and was very much a part of our 'family', and the reflections of Colin Cole, Auckland talented dress designer and father of 8 daughters, were always worth our close attention.

It was out of this spiritual gumbo that the song, that has been sung around the world for more that thirty years now, originally emerged.

Tune this way again soon as I give you more reflections on this song and the times in which arose. And do add in your own thoughts and corrections. I hang out desperately for them.

Love to all who sang on Saturday 20th September at St Mary's. Love too to all who wanted to be there and couldn't - we missed you! Thanks, God for the good life, the Spirit-led ministry and the inspiration of Father Kenneth Prebble who gave us so much. Our love to his tribe, may they ever increase.

Richard

A potted history of Pro Test Ant ism and my family's place in the Reformation

Way back when – don’t ask me how way back, though 400 years rings bells for me – there was much trouble in Europe. A lot of people had gone off the Catholic Church, the Pope and often the King and /or Queen of where ever it was that they lived. So Martin Luther John Calvin and King Henry the Eighth got their heads together and invented a new version of Christianity called Protestantism. Those of you with no linguistic skills may need this word unpacked:

Pro = for,

Test = examine,

Ant, well everyone knows what an ant is.

Why this idea about examining ants, I don’t know. Maybe Proverbs 6:6 give us an insight: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise”.

So anyway, Henry, John and Martin sat around talking one night over a beer (some would have it that John Calvin had a cup of tea as he had problems with alcohol consumption) and came up with the general idea of Pro-test-ant-ism. They all went away the next morning to their respective countries, to work up the germs of ideas they had into a viable religion. Each of them was ultimately disappointed in what the others came up with

John didn’t like it that Henry saw the new religion as a way to get the divorce he so desperately wanted so that he could then marry someone else, some one who would give him a son and heir, but who was also prettier and better in bed, no doubt.

Henry didn’t like John’s version of Protestantism because John wanted to use it to outlaw dancing. In fact John wanted to outlaw making love in a standing position, which he was sure might well lead to dancing. Henry as we know loved to dance. And that’s not all he loved to do!!

Neither man liked Martins version of things basically because they didn’t like Martin. His incessant cabbage-eating made him unpleasant to be with. And he would insist on singing his interminable hymns at you, complete with stomping of feet and slapping of knees to keep time. Martin didn’t care what other folks thought of him, which is just as well.

Protestantism grew at great pace all over Europe and Catholic kings and bishops grew more and more upset. In France for instance a great clan of Protestants arose, lead by a man who was known as Hugh Gooey Nose. The King knew that if the Hugh Gooey Noses took over France he wouldn’t be allowed to sleep with his mother anymore. So distraught was he that he went to mummy in tears saying he was frightened and probably couldn’t sleep with the lights out, so she arranged to have the Hugh Gooey Nose lot murdered in their beds on St Bartholomew’s Day. Ten thousand to a hundred thousand French Calvinists died at this time.

My people the Gillards were among the Hugh Gooey Noses. Hardly surprising given the derivation of our surname:

Gill(s) = breathing apparatus (usually of fish though used colloquially to refer to the breathing apparatus of humans and other mammals)

Lard = dripping (well it drips when warm and therefore in liquid form)

These two words put together (Gill and Lard) refer to breathing apparatus that is dripping, i.e. a runny (or if you prefer a gooey) nose. We fitted right in there among the Protestants of France. That is until the Catholics turned nasty. A couple of us, at least escaped the persecutions and massacres, taking our skills as weavers to Protestant England, where no doubt we wove ourselves many handkerchiefs, and introduced the art of nose-blowing to the English.

There is much more to this fascinating tale but frankly I don’t want to have to do any more research. It was hard enough getting the facts straight in the above few paragraphs. And goodness knows, I’d hate to put anyone crook. Must go and blow my nose….

When the leaves come falling down..

i got to thinking about a Julie Miller song with the line: "when the leaves come falling down, I still cry." I wondered, given that the leaves fall in autumn, weather Julie 's blue state at such a time is due to S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Then again, thought I, she's just raked, swept and picked up all those blankety-blank leaves and here are some more falling down - and she'll soon be picking those up too and then some more will fall down etc, etc ad nauseam. Certainly makes me blue to see my good leaf-cleaning up work undone by normal autumnal attrition aided by a stiff cold breeze. I haven't cried yet but I might.

A good song with a poignant lyric that's what might make me cry. Like some of the stuff by David Wilcox and Beth Nielsen-Chapman - songs like "Every December Sky" and "Deeper Still" both of which I saw Beth perform on Mountain Stage (from the mountain state of West Virginia and was playing on TV channel Stratos on Sunday nights). The line from "Every December Sky" - "every rose that blooms assures my soul" was the one that pierced my heart.

The same night Julie Adams sang the Bob Franke (rhymes with Yankee) "Hard Love". All I knew about Bob Franke was as a name on David Wilcox's lips. What a song - hear it before you die - "Jesus' cross redeems us, our own just waste our time.." You can find Bob's live version on-line but Julie Adams' reading was the one that took my breath away.

http://www.mountainstage.org/mtnstagelive.aspx

...this gets you to the Mountain Stage web-site where you can hear some stuff by folks captured live - like Patty Larkin who I'm hearing as I type this. It wont cure your Seasonal Affective Disorder but it might make it a little more bearable. And Julie Miller has been known to show up there.

I think God likes Mountain Stage and looks in often.

...meanwhile live your lives with joy, honesty and truthfulness, and with your sense of humour properly installed (refer to the manual)

love to all, kisses for the ladies and hugs for the brothers

Richard

When is the truth "Bad News"!

Follow this link to the article my son-in-law and I found interesting - but probably for different reasons.

http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.technologyreview.com%2FInfotech%2F20569%2F%3Fa%3Df&_gwt_pg=1

as I said to him....

I find the guy's statement quite perplexing - I quote: "...if we discovered traces of some simple, extinct life-form (on Mars)--some bacteria, some algae--it would be bad news. If we found fossils of something more advanced, perhaps something that looked like the remnants of a trilobite or even the skeleton of a small mammal, it
would be very bad news. The more complex the life-form we found, the more depressing the news would be. I would find it interesting, certainly--but a bad omen for the future of the human race"



My question is "How is it bad news and a bad omen?"  If it proves to be true - that there is or has been life on Mars - then folks with a deeper commitment to Creationism than me will be thrown into turmoil for a time, and will need to adjust their belief system to encompass and explain the new discoveries.  It would make it difficult for them
to maintain and promote a Creationist view point under such circumstances.  And the evolutionist would give them heaps! 



Does he pray like this, do you think:



 "God, on the off chance that there is evidence of life on Mars, please don't let anybody find it.  Hide it from them!!  You know such a discovery would make it so hard to defend our Creationist position and all those evolutionists would laugh your people to scorn.  And where, O Father is the honour for you in that!?  Enough people doubt your existence as it is and winning souls for your kingdom is hard enough as it is.  And I'm so scared I might lose my faith in you.  So please God.....! Amen"



When is the truth ever bad news?  If its true, then its true and would only be bad news to us if our Christian faith really is some kind of fairytale as the evolutionistic atheistic materialists like to tell us it is.  Sounds like the guy wants to make like an ostrich and stick his head in the sand instead of facing up with courage and integrity, and taking it squarely on the chin.

Of course it may never become an issue.  The planet may be as dead as our Creationist brethren hope it is and Planet Earth will get to hold on to its unique status in the universe as the only place God gifted with life.

What do you think?

If I mount a mission to Mars in the next couple of months, who wants to come with me.  I think we should settle this ASAP and put our Christian brothers and sisters out of their misery once and for all.  Amen? 

Thanks Donald, but the spaceship might be a bit cramped for a tall guy like you and not good for your back. Volunteer some short people.

the ever intrepid, adventuring and courageous Richard - God's man in Outer Space!!

To the People in My Neighborhood

I am curious about the slow but definite evolution of my cyber-neighbourhood as other bloggers list me among their friends and I am informed by email that they have done so and that I can include them among mine. All I need do is follow a link and do...what?

I have 2 friends now thanks to blogcatalog.com an on-line service that helps get your blog site seen and connects you up with like-minded and not so like-minded individuals. I thought I had a couple more friends but they don't seem to be listed as friends any more. Maybe they never were and I failed in some way to welcome them in to my neighbourhood.

Just so you my new chums know who you're trying to get pals-y with...

I'm not a "Born Again" christian but I am a born again christian - think about it! As I say on my blog-site I am an Anglican and that is problematical for the brethren out to my political Right. Those of you who don't know me shouldn't judge me (but now you know my denomination you may have already done so) but I understand your urge to do so. I'm aware of my sinfulness. Are you?

I like to think I look to "the God who is there" (Google this or "Francis Schaeffer") for wisdom, not to Ancient Masters, and I hold to the this truth, that the historic person Jesus of the 1st century both the long expected Messiah of Jewish scriptures and the world's true Lord. If you move into my neighbourhood, thats the kind of next-door neighbour you get.

I bid you welcome nevertheless and hope we can get along. I welcome your comments.

the true God bless you

Richard

What's in a name, why's there a change?

Well it is with regret I say goodbye to "Mangawhai Beach" (though the link will still contain the name), and hello to "The Razor's Edge Café".

My association with the actual beach at Mangawhai is drawing to a close. We're trying, Sue and I, to sell the caravan and save ourselves the nearly $2000 per year site rental. Our circumstances are changed, so we are not getting to and using the old 'van as we used to when we were Aucklanders. We haven't sold yet but we have certainly had a lot of interest over the summer. So it's 'wait and see'.

"The Razor's Edge Café" name is edgier than the other (pun intended) and is not dependent on where I spend my summer holidays. It is the title of a song I wrote years ago (verse 1 quoted above) and which I may some time quote in full. Hopefully my blogs will be unlike the goings on at the Razor's Edge Café in the song, where truth was seen as threatening and souls were damaged by "something there, hard to define".

So welcome one and all. Buy a coffee and a sticky bun, pull up a pew and enjoy!

More later, as it occurs to me. And be in touch....

Not so rapt in the Rapture

Not so rapt in the Rapture? You are not alone - neither am I, and nor is Tom Wright. The whole Premillenial dispensationalist position which spawned the 'Left Behind ' series of novels is an anathema to me. Its God is a scary bastard that you wouldn't want to call Abba and Jesus a chip of the old block.

This End Times stuff is like one of those 'join the dots' pictures except the dots aren't numbered so you choose a dot, join it to another, and another, and when you have joined all the dots you have a picture of what the End will look like. And Pastor Joe Bloggs from the Calathumpian Sainted Chosen to be Blessed church down the street will start from a different dot and get another picture entirely. And it's rumoured, though it may be a lie, that choose a particular starting dot and go a particular way around the rest and the picture reveals that God is the Antichrist. Don't laugh, I'm serious! And Lucifer turns out to be the uncle you never had.

It looks like Jenkins and La Haye are milking their Left Behind series for all they are worth. Or they are milking their readership with the story so thin it's required 9 titles to get any plot development happening. I wonder how they spend the money?

I like Tom Wright's questions:

What view of the world is sustained, even legitimized by, the Left Behind ideology? How might it be confronted and subverted by genuine biblical thinking? For a start, is not the Left Behind mentality in thrall to a dualistic view of reality that allows people to pollute God's world on the grounds that it is all going to be destroyed soon? Wouldn't this be overturned if we recaptured Paul's wholistic vision of Gods whole creation?
(see http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_BR_Farewell_Rapture.htm)

If you want fantasy read Tolkien. Or Harry Potter. That series can't be any more evil that the twisted view of reality that Jenkins and La Haye propose. What was it Jesus said about even the very elect being deceived? Does that include those who have merely elected themselves?

Oo, you are awful, Richard!

Bon Nuit, mes amis!

Citrus Squeeze

Just to keep you interested 'til I can find something else to say. Anyone who wants to try to set this following lyric to music may do so. Just follow these rules:

1 Must be bluesy or folksy (no rock, jazz or mainstream country tho Bach-ian or Mozart-ian choral renditions accepted)

2 MP3 file of your version sent to me along with music and/or chords.

3 Agree to split the royalties 50/50

4 If you can't sing or know only 3 guitar chords wait 'til I'm dead.

____________________________________________________________

Citrus Squeeze

refrain:

squeeze that citrus fruit

you know you need the juice

you know you need the flavour

and the kiss of the sun that’s in it

squeeze that citrus fruit

v1

sometimes you gotta squeeze

sometimes you gotta twist

some times you gotta lay it down

and pound it with your fist.

v2

when your lying in your bed

and suff’rin’ with the flu

mouth dry as a graveyard

only citrus fruit will do.

v3

Well there’s healing in a lemon,

and there’s mercy in a lime

and there’s joy sweet baby in oranges,

almost all the time.

v4

Plant fruit trees in my mem’ry

sweet baby, when I’m gone

so thru ev’ry day of history

the juice flows on and on

copyright © 2005 West Wind Music

Garry Wills - a Catholic American tells us about the Jesus he knows

just started reading this Garry Wills book, "What Jesus Meant." . He is a Catholic some of whose writings and other pronouncements are, in some part, a critique of American politics and American Christianity (including his own Catholic Church), and the unholy blending of the two.

This book is about Jesus and so far any criticism of the church is on the oblique side of the ledger. You may not like the portrait he paints but he is thought-provoking.


Garry Wills is professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University USA - follow this link to a site that will tell you more about him. "http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/wills_garry.html"


Some quotes from something he wrote that's on line a the New York Post.... (see link below)

"The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father's judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs — accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first."

"It was blasphemous to say... that God made George Bush president in 2000, when a majority of Americans did not vote for him. It would not remove the blasphemy for Democrats to imply that God wants Bush not to be president. Jesus should not be recruited as a campaign aide. To trivialize the mystery of Jesus is not to serve the Gospels."

"Some may think that removing Jesus from politics would mean removing morality from politics. They think we would all be better off if we took up the slogan *"What would Jesus do?"

"The institutional Jesus of the Republicans has no similarity to the Gospel figure. Neither will any institutional Jesus of the Democrats".


ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/opinion/09wills.html

or http://www.here-now.org/shows/2006/03/20060314_2.asp
(a radio interview with Gary Wills for which you will need realplayer (you can download it for free- just google it).

His book (and I've not read much of it yet) is very readable and an interesting perspective on Jesus. I don't get any great sense of Jesus' continuity with the O.T. and the prophets from Mr Wills as I have with NT Wright. Wills speaks of the historical Jesus as a construct, and then seems to put that Jesus aside, and then examines what the Gospels say about Jesus and what Jesus says within the Gospels. He makes no attempt to re-construct the construct though he does quote Wright in a couple of places.

His translations of the the Gospel passages he refers to are interesting, even arresting. He doesn't us any one of the translations available to we mere mortals, but rather does his own translations directly for the Greek (and Aramaic?).

Hope someone out there finds this interesting. Email me if you do! Maybe I'll feed you some more stuff about/from the book as I go.


Richard

*Emmylou Harris wants to promote "What would Bob (Dylan) Do?" especially among songwriters

Prayer - isn't it hard sometimes.

I have always found prayer hard. It has been hard to fit it into my life - perhaps because I've not wanted to make it the priority it should be. It means making time, being disciplined, deciding something it your life doesn't have the same importance and so giving it up to make room for prayer.

Having made room for prayer then comes the task of how best to use the time you are setting aside for prayer. When I was a kid my prayers (which I said lying in bed, in the dark, just before going to sleep) consisted of saying thank you for some good things in my day, in my life and then a long-ish list of God blesses... 'God bless Mummy and Daddy, Bob, Beth, Rachael, Peter, & Rebekah, Granny and Grampy, Grandma and Grandpa...' ending with 'God bless me, amen!' Easy, eh! Then there were the prayers I remember praying when I woke in the wee small hours with ear-ache: 'Lord please heal my sore ear.' They seemed to fall on deaf ears. I never got the instantaneous healing I hoped for. I was 10 years old and a burgeoning Pentecostal.

In my prayer times since the worst thing to contend with (after the need to be disciplined and make time) was the distracting ambient noise of my own brain and imagination, coupled with the apparent lack of Divine feedback. I kept giving up, feeling guilt, trying again. I tried to read the Bible, I still do. I'm encouraged by Bishop Tom Wright's books to to read it, to see what he sees in the Gospels especially and in St Paul's epistles, and I get overwhelmed (especially by St Paul), I often feel worse for reading it than better. I must say that I mostly love the Gospels and the Psalms. And I come away from the Good Book with more questions than answers.

I gladly joined the 'theology group' in my previous parish, 'cos they were about to embark on a study of NT Wright's "The Challenge of Jesus" and I, reflecting on the my own understandings and ideas of Jesus, wondered if the Jesus I thought I knew wasn't more of a figment of my imagination than an historic reality - that I had kept him safe and comfortable in my imagination, rather than engaging with the reality of who he was/is and allowing Him to challenge and change me. I'm still thinking about all that and being challenged there.

And where am I at, a year or so on. I'm in a parish with a vicar who has a great heart for liturgy - as opposed, as I understand, to something that looks more non-conformist mish-mash than Anglican. A man who seems to want to wrestle with the text of Scripture and with theology rather than settle with a fluffy, trendy 'charismatic' or an all-out liberal interpretation. And his wife, (also ordained and with eleven years of preaching under her belt) has taken charge of the music. She plays piano, and mixes the old A&Ms and the best of charismatic song with songs of social justice from Iona and chant from Taizé. She is beginning to preach for us too. New, but welcome challenges here too.

Beginning with the Lent just past I have been giving prayer another crack - prayer that is as a period of time set aside. Being unemployed is helpful. I find time between walking old Jazz the dog, and getting into my day proper.

I began with the Franciscan prayer book, praying the morning office and deliberately saying everything out loud. I began with a sense, which I still have, of joining my prayer to that of the church universal, picturing my new Anglican friends especially as I did so. My chief worry over time is that this kind of prayer becomes rote, that ambient brain noise creeps more and more as the office becomes all the more automatic. I did/do close out the time with extemporé prayer. And I need a lectionary - is there one on-line?

Lately my reading of Donald Spoto's "In Silence - why we pray"(sadly I've not been able to renew this library book) and Abbot Jameson's "Finding Sanctuary" I have this desire to build much silence into my time before God. This I find difficult. Ambient brain noise, again! And praying "The Jesus Prayer" or some similar 'centering' prayer' doesn't feel natural yet, though I want to persist. Certainly a 'monastic' silence seems to settle over me as I spend my days almost alone (I see family a wee bit and Joan, my mum-in -law is just down the garden in her cottage) keeping house & cooking, gardening and in my studio recording (tho this can get a bit rock'n'roll) or doing wee desktop publishing and web design jobs for my church.

Thanks David and Elizabeth for your encouraging responses to my postings. This was how I hoped this blog thing would work. Come on the rest of you! I'll give you the low down of the good abbot's book soon. Meanwhile keep praying. Pray for me and I'll pray for you. Thanks to Debs for your discouraging encouragement.

Life's hard. God is good. Come, Holy Spirit!

Richard

Prayer as ... reflections on the journey thus far.

I have a couple of books to recommend. One I will talk about in this posting and the other in the next. The first is on prayer, and the second, on making a sanctuary for oneself in the midst of life, is by a British Benedictine abbot and has similar resonances to the first.

Donald Spoto's book, "In Silence - Why We Pray" has been my Lenten reading and so many weeks after Lent I'm still working through it, a little at a time. It's a library book, so I've had to renew it 2 or 3 times. I have, over Lent and Easter, been trying to kick-start my almost non-existent prayer life, and thought it would be good to reappraise my understandings of prayer. It is very quotable (both Mr Spoto and the folks he quotes are so quotable) and the most thought-provoking and encouraging book on the subject I have read. I must confess that I have not read too many books on prayer. Those I have have been a quite EPC (evangelical/pentecostal/charismatic). This book has some poetry to it, some sense of the utter mystery of God and of sacrament and metaphor which the EPC books don't.

let me quote:
"Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone" Thomas Merton

"In abandoning myself to God- in giving myself up completely to the dark mystery of his presence - I can enter into a new, open and freer territory than I have ever known. Thus liberated from the delusion of existential self reliance and the concomitant fear of annihilation, I can, with the psalmist, cast all my care on the Lord" Donald Spoto

"The divine compassion is not a matter of celestial paternalism - it is a matter of a profound affiliation between God and us. And that relationship is at the heart of prayer" Donald Spoto

"Into your hands I commend my spirit" Jesus ( no I'm not being cute - this is Richard speaking - its just that these last 3 quotes and the next few are from the chapter I'm currently in entitled 'Prayer as Abandonment')

"I abandoned and forgot myself. All things ceased. I went out of myself, leaving my cares. On the road to union with God, this night of faith guides me." John of the Cross

"We are often bored with the small happenings around us, yet it is these trivialities that would do marvels for us if only we did not despise them, for God speaks to every individual through what happens moment by moment. The events of each moment are stamped with the will of God. If we have abandoned ourselves to Him, there is really only one rule for us: the duty of the present moment." Jean-Pierre de Caussade.

"Why should I have any anxiety? It is not my business to think about myself. My business is to think about God. It is for God to think about me." Simone Weil

Finally from Donald Spoto the author of "In Silence - Why We Pray" again:
http://www.amazon.com/Silence-Why-We-Pray/dp/0670033472


"Life with God, which is just another way of describing the life of prayer, is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be experienced. By "mystery" we do not mean something esoteric and incomprehensible, but rather the depth of all reality. "Mysteries are not truths that lie beyond us" as the philosopher Gabriel Marcel memorably wrote. "Mysteries are truths that comprehend us." Through the habit of abandonment, that mystery and truth embrace us in the unimaginable but ineluctable reality of the divine compassion."

the book is published by Viking Compass who are part of the Penguin Group. ISBN 0-670-03347-2. Find it, buy it, you won't be disappointed!

And don't think for a moment I now live on some spiritual mountain-top, head in the cloud of unknowing, abandoned to God, my past life of science fiction, sex, chocolate and guitar picking a distant memory. Not so! Just another sinner like you looking for love and grace, beauty and meaning, believing the best chance of any of these things is as a disciple and companion of Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen Messiah and Lord.

Any crumbs you would like to share with this hungry soul, please, do share. You can do that here. At the bottom of each 'posting' where it says '0 comments' (it may say '2 comments' if 2 brave souls have already made comments) click to open up a page where comments can be left regarding the blurb in question. Don't be shy. It would mean so much to me.

Richard

p.s. Tune this way later for my thoughts on and quotes from Abbot Christopher Jamison's "Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life".

Winds of Change

Cos I haven't blogged lately, and in case there is someone out there hanging on my every published word, I give you the following:

Someday all flags will shred, blowing in the winds of change

All flags but the banner of love, blowing in the winds of change.

All this dirt and all this dross, all this straw will all be lost

and all the shame of all it cost, blowing in the winds of change



And we missed what we missed ’cause our hearts were too hard

In Babylon town where the lights are too bright.

Our harps wouldn’t play so we threw them aside

And perpetual day became perpetual night.



Rampant lions now all lie down - lambs will rise to take their crowns.

Castles crumble, cities drown in the rain on the winds of change

The dispossessed, the un-caressed, unloved, unlovely and the under-blessed

their day is dawning in the west, coming on the winds of change.

-

Our song wouldn’t sing - we had nothing to say,

Our lives were too long, our deaths were too strange

We were too far from home, we were too hard to cry

Too broken for hope, hope on the winds of change.



The ground has lain barren for far long enough,

while harvest upon harvest brought nothing but chaff,

But a rose soon will spring from the shepherd’s staff

to call down the winds of change.

Brightest red rose on a banner of blue,

all banners, broken, will bow down to you

The cloth of the sky’s dipped in dawn’s crimson hue

and singing with the winds of change.

So how's your flag looking - do you love it or does it bring you shame. Nationalism is not so P.C. now, is it. I love the kingdom I'm in cos I love the King. A true 7 colour rainbow nation.

the under secretary to the Under-Secretary's under secretary, 11 times removed, otherwise know as...

Richard

A reflection on life, death and this season of hope and joy

I wrote this a little over 4 years ago and rediscovered it on my computer today. Thought I'd publish it for all those who don't receive the Birkdale/Beachhaven parish's Ripples magazine (and maybe never will).

I don’t want to read more into it than is actually there, but as you know, my daughter Miriam (Hebrew for Mary) has given birth to a son – and so close to Christmas! As with Miriam of old, (she who was betrothed to Joseph) my Miriam knew from early on that she was to have a son – though she had an ultra-sound scan, not an angelic visitation. Weeks before he was born we all knew he would be called Liam, just as that other Miriam knew, well in advance, that her boy was to be called Jesus.

I had an epiphanal moment; an inner flash of lightning that lit my soul from one horizon to the other, one evening moment prior to Liam’s birth. Sue and I were in a crush of bodies in the aisle of the Bridgeway Theatre, at the end of a movie. We were standing behind a young family, waiting to move toward the door. The mother had her daughter on her hip, a girl of not more that 3 or 4 years old, and looking at them together, the significance of Liam’s impending birth and all that it promised quite overwhelmed me with a wonderful sense of joy and hope. My family know what a ‘softie’ I can be and so won’t be surprised to hear that my eyes watered up at that moment.

The week of Liam’s birth (he was born Friday 15^th, November) was an emotional roller coaster ride. On Friday 8 November Sue took a phone call from a friend in Hamilton. He was so overcome with grief he could barely speak. His eldest son’s young wife had died in a car accident the previous night. Sue and I had been at their wedding about two years ago.

We went to Hamilton to the funeral the following Wednesday all the while wondering if our daughter might go into labour while we were away from Auckland. I could scarcely begin to imagine how it must have been for our friends and for their son. While my life was filled with a new hope and joy, all their hopes and dreams had been shattered in a single instant.

I don’t expect anyone to be able to adequately explain to me where God is at times like this. It is a very old question asked often. Where was God when Herod ordered the slaying of all male children younger than two years old in Bethlehem, 2000 years ago? Where was he when Jesus cried “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” from the cross?

We all know how hard Christmas is for those who have recently lost loved ones. It will be especially hard for our friends coming so soon after their daughter-in-law’s death. Where do they look for hope and for new meaning for their future? Right now they are having trouble seeing past their pain and desolation. We can only pray that, as they remember and celebrate the Child of Bethlehem, they can draw from the deeper well of that hope his coming and his abiding presence with us, brings.

Christmas, like a birth, is a festival of hope and of joy, and the child in the manger the sign, the reminder, that, in God, all darknesses end in dawns of hope, joy and promise – just as the pain of labour ends with the joy of a new life in this world, a baby to have and to hold. For my friends too, in God’s good time, will come a moment, perhaps like mine in that cinema, when it will dawn on them that hope and joy are coming anew into their lives, and even though it might be the middle of June, it will suddenly feel like Christmas.

I hope Christmas feels like Christmas for you too, and that you catch hold of that sense of joy and hope that Jesus’ coming brings, and swing into the dawn of the New Year firmly clutching its coat-tails.

Richard Gillard

Second Thoughts

I might have a foot already in stage five (at my age I should, but I'm a late bloomer) see: http://www.lifespirals.com/TheMindSpiral/Fowler/fowler.html

I may never get to sainthood - you need to look good in a nun's habit or a dhoti and I struggle to look good in jeans and a t-shirt. But I know who loves me.

Joy may come in the morning, but in my heart I want to see Grace. She's my kind of woman.

Bless you, Philip Yancey, wherever you are

Aroha from me to youse,

Dick Mystic

Going to the Zoo

Once when I was small my father said he was taking me to the zoo. "It's just through this door". The door in question was in the side of the neighbours' garage - a door I'd never seen open. If we went through that door that day we merely ended up in the garage and not the zoo. I was not much older that Bishop Tom Wright's little girl was when she thought a short walk across the Cambridge University campus would take her to India - click here to see his Easter Vigil Sermon.

I think I probably knew that stepping through the door wouldn't put me magically in the zoo, but it might put me beside a car in which I would ride across Auckland to the zoo. I never did get to the zoo that day though. I was disappointed.

Life has taught me that there are no magic doors, no Star Gates and not many good shortcuts. When the angel told the Magi to go home by another way, it wasn't to shorten the journey. It may well have lengthened it. Better that that than running into trouble in a foreign jurisdiction.

Tonight I've been trying to retrace the spiritual highway that brought me to the place I am now- Stage 4 (the back straight, perhaps) on James Fowler's 6 stages of faith scale. 2 more stages and I'm a saint - cool, nuh! I've been at stage 4 for a while, been the critic of much thats gone before but trying to forge ahead, get some new angles on this faith, this Jesus, this journey.

Those individuals who move to the fourth stage of faith (individuative-reflective) begin a radical shift from dependence on others’ spiritual beliefs to development of their own. Fowler (1981) says, "For a genuine move to stage 4 to occur there must be an interruption of reliance on external sources of authority ... There must be ... a relocation of authority within the self" (p. 179). Individuals are no longer defined by the groups to which they belong. Instead, they choose beliefs, values, and relationships important to their self-fulfillment.

Certainly my "reliance on external sources of authority" has been well and truly interrupted.

Stage three is described thus: In this third stage of faith (synthetic-conventional), individuals tend to have conformist acceptance of a belief with little self-reflection on examination of these beliefs. Most people remain at this level (Fowler, 1981; Kelly, 1995). click here for more. or plug the name James Fowler into Google.

Thinking back, I can see that as a young guy at St Paul's I was very much at stage 3. It was a need I had to be led, guided, to have spiritual certainties. I expected the place to be a High Anglican version of the Assemblies of God, except the truth now resided at St Paul's and the Pentecostals had it mostly wrong.

Now everybody is wrong except me (joke!).

Man, what a journey! What twists and turns! What pain and grief! And it's not over yet. And, Donald, you don't necessarily get to hear the tune. You accept, by faith that there is a tune, and you deal with the lyrics alone, if lyrics are all you have. C'est la vie, mon frere.


Blow a raspberry at the darkness and feel the joy anyway. Nice knowing you all.

Saint Richard of Maunu (almost!)

p.s. had a thought about the tune - will keep you all posted

Song for Passiontide - concerning our inhumanity

The Rose and His Tree


Here where you bloom and die,
This is not Jesse’s tree;
This cruel branch and bough
We made ourselves just for thee.
Your royal blood meant nothing,
Your humanity meant less,
We made a curse out of your name
When we hung you like the rest


And so the season’s changed;
Love is turned to frost,
And mercy turned to sodden clay;
The song of grace is lost.
just like any other flower
First you bloomed then fell -
The only hope we ever had,
However could we tell.

Unlike any other rose,
You had no thorns till now
When we wove them as a crown
and pressed them on your brow;
And we nailed your healing hands,
And pierced your gospel feet,
And hoisted you above the earth
Where your torment was complete

Later we may learn lament
And sing our sorrow through,
But now we smirk to see you die,
Glad to be rid of you.
We have no need for mercy, man,
No need for love or grace;
Our hearts were hard, our ears were deaf
As we spat into your face.


Copyright © Passion Sunday 2007,
West Wind Music 2 Kiwi Avenue Whangarei 0110 N.Z.

I wrote this lyric late at night on Passion (Palm) Sunday. No donkeys were hurt in the writing of this song! But I woke bleary-eyed on the Monday and went looking for a tune to wrap around this sounding-forth of heart and soul.

I got to sing it on Good Friday in our midday service at Christ Church Whangarei. This new church family have no idea I do stuff like this - just suddenly front with a song I've just written. The service sheet gave nothing away but the title. Oh well - c'est la vie!

Those of you who are curious about such things: Sue and I are on high ground so we weren't flooded out, though some rain flowed under the door into our garage wetting Joan's newly arrived cartons of belongings she shipped from Brisbane. No real harm done! But boy, did rain, children, didn't it rain. Should have built me an ark.

Hope you feel joyful and blessed. Give grace, show mercy, love fearlessly. Time is short.

Richard

Arohanuinui ( big, big love)

I could think of no other way to express the strange churning of emotion in my chest than to write a poem - hence my previous posting.

I have been warmed and humbled by so much human love and goodness as my Mum was dying and after her death, not least by Mum's Catholic family. Fr Damian won all my siblings hearts, and mine, with his down to earth humanity and his spirituality.

Sister Mary Snelgar, Maxine and all you other Catholic ladies - in your faithfulness to mum you mirrored the faithfulness of God Himself. Thank you Paul for your help and your organ playing.

Thank you Bruce McGregor for your CD copy of Vidor's Toccata.

And there were others - The Dominican Brothers, Leone, Tony and Connie, Debs and little Isaiah, (thes came a long way) Beth's D.O.C. and Pete's PolyTech colleages, Anne and Mike Godfrey, Ruth and David Wright, Ray and Sue Blomquist, Hazel and Christine Elliott, John, Jodi and Joan, and so many others who came by with their tears, their arohanuinui, and not forgetting food and flowers and cards. If I've left any on off, my sincere apologies.

Thanks to my family, Beth, Bob Rach, Baby Bro & Becky, my daughter Miriam, my boys Mike and Steve, all the almost countless nieces and nephews and cousins and other hangers-on. Thanks for being real and being yourselves.

And a special thanks to my beloved, my rock and heart of my own heart - Sue xxx.

Thanks to God for his strange new wine. It's a great vintage, but it makes me dangerous - mostly to myself.

As Bruce Cockburn sings:

Some of us live and some of us die;
someday God's going to tell us why.
Whatever happens this is not the end
We'll meet again at His Festival of Friends.

Now go and tell the ones you love that you love them. Tomorrow might be too late

I love you all

A poem on the death of my mother and the end of summer.

Requiem

At the end of summer, Mother died -

slipped away in the dawn

of one of summer's latter days -

and she was gone.

And I mourn her in my way,

as I feel the melancholy

of seasons' change

start to slow-dance in my heart.

And at her requiem, God

served a strange, new Kingdom wine,

and I, intoxicated,

confessed my love to one, or two,

my lurching heart looking

for the last fruits of grace,

as summer and my mother leave,

and cold autumn walks the garden.

I turn and turn again;

turn with the cycles of loss and gain,

With the earthbound cycles of seasons.

And my feet feel an accordion reel,

but I hear song - a slow lament

for all that could, that might have been,

in the graceless places where I lived -

barely lived.

And caught in the in between,

I hope, I pray

for hearth and heart,

for the full fruit of grace

and for flame,

and above all,

from me, and for me,

love.

And I am not alone.

22/03/07