Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

Rowan Williams: Kiss and Tell

I’ve been listening to Rowan Williams these last few days – well actually one 2002 talk several times. I’ve listened a lot to him over the years, but his 2002 Greenbelt talk – Kiss and Tell: Intimacy and Mystical Experience - is one of the very best talks I’ve heard him deliver, and as I’m discovering it benefits from repeated listening, not because its technical (and in that sense complex), but because its simultaneously accessible, profoundly human, and yet also deep – it’s content circling around the profundity of God’s love for us, and love for God, and the importance of human love and loving. He explores why we turn so often to the language of human love, loving, and intimacy to talk about and explore our experience of God.    

For me I couldn’t but help hear St. Paul and his letter to the churches in Corinth (1 Cor. 13:1-7). I’m glad too that over the years I’ve had the likes of Williams, the Christian Mystics and many other wise persons walking along side me, helping me change and deepen my experience of what it means to be fully human; what it means to be alive; and what it means to truly love. But, the journey is still not over, the unfolding continues. 

Other strands woven through the fabric of his talk:

• The importance of the Christian mystics, in particular: St. John of the Cross & St. Bernard of Clairvaux.
• The Song of Songs and the very human acts of yearning, passion, and hunger for another person – for love, and to be loved and wanted for who we are.
• Human loving, relating, and intimacy.
• The absence and withdrawal of love.
• The importance of love maturing and deepening.
• The mystery and depth of our humanity – there is always more; we’re always more than can be seen and experienced. The multi-dimensional, multi-layered realities of being fully and wholly human.
• The importance of the longevity of love and loving – love as something that matures and enlarges – enlarges our relating to self, others, and God. Love as a journey of unfolding.
• The inevitability that to truly love will also, as a consequence, entails the experience of pain. To feel no deep, wordless pain in our human relating and within the context of human intimacy is, as a corollary, not to have truly or deeply loved. Love hurts, but love is the source of the most profound and sublime joy, peace and deep contentment. 

If you haven’t heard Williams start with this talk (downloadable here), and then carry on with this Holy Week talks: here (the Narnia stories from 2011) and via here (on growing in prayer from 2009). 

Getting Out from Under the Mitre: Archbishop Rowan Williams Stepping Down as Archbishop of Canterbury

“…The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has today revealed that he is to step down from his role at the end of the year. 

His decision comes after 10 years in the post and after accepting the position of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. 

In a statement issued from Lambeth Palace, the Primate of All England said, “It has been an immense privilege to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury over the past decade, and moving on has not been an easy decision. During the time remaining there is much to do, and I ask your prayers and support in this period and beyond… 

…Archbishop Rowan’s announcement means that ACC-15 in New Zealand during the last quarter of this year will be his last as President of the ACC…” 

Greenbelt’s Paul Northrop, had this to say about the resignation. It captures several of his ‘hidden’ qualities: 

Personally speaking, during Rowan’s tenure as Archbishop, I have been saddened to all-but lose sight of that wonderful priestly poet and theologian who I was so excited to see first come into office, as he has struggled under the sheer weight of the institution that is the Church of England. 

As a post-grad theology student in the 90s, I remember Rowan, as Archbishop of Wales then, coming to a Theology Reading Group I was part of. There, he sat with just six of us around a table and genially answered our questions to him about his book On Christian Theology. He had time for us. I was then, and have been ever since, a fan of his theology, his poetry, his thoughtful integrity as a person – and, yes, his godliness. 

My hope for Rowan as he readies himself for the move to Cambridge at the end of the year, is that there he will find the space and time to recover his vocation as poet, priest and teacher. The Church still needs to hear his voice and pay attention to his witness. And, who knows, perhaps the playful and prophetic dimensions of his artistry might again regain their power at the margins. In other words, my hope is that this change in his role might, oddly, give Rowan more not less influence…” 

As a recent reviewer of Ben Myers’ new book on Rowan Williams’ theology (which is outstanding, by the way. I recommend it highly) wrote: 

“One of the few missing features – perhaps weaknesses – of the book is a lack of notice that +Rowan usually speaks far more clearly than he writes. Williams’ writing can often seem a difficult, dry, protracted and sometimes depressing exercise in spiritual renunciation of the fantasies of the heart and mind. By contrast his presence in person is attentive, humorous and kind. There is a self-forgetfulness (literally a forgetfulness of self) to the archbishop that is very attractive…”

Update - 25th March 2012

Ben Myers (author of book to the right) offers a few thoughts on what kind of an academic William's will be at Cambridge. You can find it here. 

Rowan Williams: Not Victory, But Instead, Understanding and Depth

A few lines/themes from recent addresses (this one, for example) by Rowan Williams have remained with me, having application not just to interfaith religious dialogue, but all to relationships, and to ‘non-religious’ conversations with we are in as we go about our everyday and very ordinary activities: 

“The Archbishop of Canterbury and Sri Shruti Dharma Das Ji launched the Hindu Christian Forum at Lambeth Palace, at an event which featured addresses from Andrew Stunell MP, Baroness Richardson and Lord Popat. 

In his address, the Archbishop said "The conversation of interfaith dialogue is always one where we look eagerly and expectantly for enrichment. We're not playing for victory, we're seeking understanding from one another... by learning the depth of one another's commitment and vision - dialogue and depth is what we all hope for." 

And from another recent address on an interfaith theme: 

"To belong is to know that there is somewhere where you don't have to earn your position – it's guaranteed; you are at home and you don't have to work in order to be there. That level of belonging is one of the crucial things which our religious identity gives to us." 

A useful question I’ve used and adapted in various ways for specific contexts is: “What are you willing to be wrong about in relation to the other; one or two things that open up possibilities for new ways of relating and of new understanding and perspective?”

Virtues to the Rescue? Mark Vernon, Rowan Williams and Richard Chartres

Today, another interview from the ABC radio show The Spirit of Things. In this one the interviewee is former Church of England Priest Mark Vernon (recently featured on this blog through a series of introductory reflections on Carl Jung – you’ll find them here). In the show you’ll also hear clips from Bishop of London Richard Chartres, and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. The show was titled: Virtues to the Rescue. The blurb for the show was:

“The London riots prompted soul-searching and rescue remedies from politicians and priests. But for Mark Vernon who lives in South London where some of the rioting happened it is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who has the answer. Virtues education is the perfect balance between duty-bound morality and the pursuit of happiness. Vernon, who calls himself a Christian agnostic, was an Anglican priest but now teaches others how to live The Good Life, the subject of his latest book.” 

Here’s an excerpt from the radio interview: 

“…Rachael Kohn: …Rowan Williams also wrote for the Citizen Ethics publication and there he also stresses the virtues, but he also stresses the need for humility and the need to live in a way that honours life of the planet, of those around. It's very much a vision of a care of others that does often grow out of a religious outlook, as you say, and that imposes restraint and self-discipline.

Even if it isn't overtly religious, I wonder whether the goodness that Rowan Williams describes is not very fashionable today, or even believable by a lot of people, is it? I mean, the whole notion of being good, doesn't that make people suddenly look for the quickest exit?

Mark Vernon: It is the case that humility is a hard gospel to preach, because you immediately leave yourself hostage to being accused of not being very humble in your preaching. But I think that it's very intimately connected to at least a certain sort of religious tradition, which is actually prepared to say there are some things which we don't understand, there are some things which are genuinely tragic—which I think is to say that good people do end up doing bad things, with the best will in the world. I think that that's very much part of Christianity. 

But what Christianity of course always has is faith, which might be defined as almost entirely unwarranted hope that things will get better and that you can trust in the divine at the end of the day and not have to trust in the inevitably flawed actions of human beings…” 

You’ll find the full interview (downloadable) here. 

 

Stanley Hauerwas on Rowan Williams and the Ordinary Realities of Damaged Times

Reading this recent post by blogging-friend Jason Goroncy coincided nicely with my continued reading of Stanley Hauerwas. In The State of the University, “Appendix C” (pp. 209-213) Hauerwas offers a tribute to Rowan Williams in a substantial little paper titled “Ordinary Time: A Tribute to Rowan Williams”. 

As an aside it was interesting to see that Hauerwas’ preface to his 2004 book Performing the Faith appreciatively acknowledges Rowan and Jane Williams who (along with other (Anglican) friends of Hauerwas give him “…some intimation of what it might be like to live our lives as Christians. We live in dark times, but God gives us friends who make it possible to see through the darkness. Thank God for friends like these.” 

Having previously drawn attention to Hauerwas’ “tribute” on this site in 2006, it was a delight to re-read it again. 

Here are some excerpts that, several years after my first read, particularly resonated with me: 

“…The anthropologist David Scott has described our time as damaged… 

…According to Scott, "inerasable residues from the past stick to the hinges of the temporality we have come to rely on to secure our way, and consequently time is not quite as yielding as we have grown to expect it to be"… 

…In a damaged time we might expect—or at least hope— the church would be a beacon of hope, but instead we find ourselves consumed by debates about sexual conduct… 

…If we live in a damaged time we fear the church is part of the wreckage… 

…Yet I believe that living in damaged times and in a damaged church is where God would have us be. "The hardest thing in the world is to be where we are" is Rowan Williams’ way to remind us that the time we have been given, our confusing and damaged time, is all the time we need to attend patiently to what seems to be the intractable and contingent problems that beset us. The name for that time, a name that has always been at the heart of Williams’ work, is ordinary time. Animating Williams' work and ministry has been the conviction that through cross and resurrection we have been given the time, in a world that believes it has no time, to participate patiently in the conversation necessary for the discovery that we swim in the sea of God's love… 

…By calling attention to sheer gratuity of speech Williams is trying to help us recognize the miraculous character of ordinary time. For to live well in ordinary time is no easy achievement because we are tempted to the dramatic in the desperate attempt to make our lives significant if not heroic… 

…Williams argues that we cannot and should not try to make our lives more authentic by dramatic gestures. Rather we must learn to engage in everyday tasks as common as learning to speak the truth and, perhaps even more demanding, to hear the truth through the time consuming work of conversation… 

…The art of ordinary living, according to Williams, requires that we learn to live without fear of the complexity of everyday life. To learn to live with the complexity of everyday life means the church cannot fear having the conflicts necessary for peace. Moreover if the church is capable of such conflict the church cannot help but be deeply threatening to the world's systems of power based as they are on the fear of the other…” 

Hauerwas notes that Williams, on returning to Britain from several months in South Africa, realized that that meant being in “a context [contra South Africa] in which the central questions were not clear nor did one know what kind of “resistance” was possible or constructive”. Sadly it’s a realization that still resonates, and is equally true of the experience of living in a context like New Zealand. I suspect the realization lies near the heart of the difficulty many people have with understanding what it might mean to be a contrast community performing the faith in such a way that that “performance” is deeply missional and transformation in culture. 

Hauerwas continues: 

“…Williams confesses that he longs for a Church more true to itself. Such a church would be one more determined to oppose war, a church capable of offering hospitality to resident aliens who may be gay, a church that can challenge the economic practices that perpetuate poverty. Williams believes his desire for such a church is Godly yet he believes he: 

‘…Must also learn to live in and attend to the reality of the Church as it is, to do the prosaic things that can be and must be done now and to work at my relations now with the people who will not listen to me or those like me--because what God asks of me is not to live in the future but to live with honesty and attentiveness in the present, i.e., to be at home. We constantly try to start from somewhere other than were we are. Truthful living involves being at home with ourselves, not complacently but patiently, recognizing that what we are today, at this moment, is sufficiently loved and valued by God to be the material with which he will work, and that the longed-for transformation will not come by refusing the love and the value that is simply there in the present moment. Living in the truth involves the same sober attention to what is there--to the body, the chair, the floor, the voice we hear, the face we see--with all the unsatisfactoriness that this brings. Yet this is what it means to live in the kingdom where Jesus rules, the kingdom that has no frontiers to be defended…’ (Christ on Trial, pp. 85-86.) 

… Yet it is my conviction that Archbishop Williams' understanding of the time in which we must live as Christians, of how we must live in the world as we find it, shares much with what I learned first from John Howard Yoder… 

… Yoder observes to "rule the world" in fellowship with the Lamb "will sometimes mean humbly building a grassroots culture, with Jeremiah. Sometimes (as with Joseph and Daniel) it will mean helping the pagan king solve one problem at a time. Sometimes (again with Daniel and his friends) it will mean disobeying the King's imperative of idolatry, refusing to be bamboozled by the claims made for the Emperor's new robe or his fiery furnace." We are able so to live in the time "where we are" because we believe to so live is the shape of the work of Christ… 

…We have an Archbishop who exemplifies what it means to live patiently in time by refusing to let us isolate ourselves from one another. The name we give to that refusal is "communion"…” 

If you haven’t got a copy of the book, you can find a PDF of the May 2006 paper here.    

 

Sunday: An Affirmation of Faith

“You, O God, are supreme and holy.

You create our world and give us life.

Your purpose overarches everything we do.

You have always been with us.

You are God. 

You, O God, are infinitely generous,

good beyond all measure.

You came to us before we came to you.

You have revealed and proved

your love for us in Jesus Christ,

who lived and died and rose again.

You are with us now.

You are God.

You, O God, are Holy Spirit

You empower us to be your gospel in the world.

You reconcile and heal; you overcome death.

 You are our God. We worship you” (p. 481) 

 

Another affirmation: 

“You have created us… to be fulfilled in your love…” (p.486)

Taken from A New Zealand Prayer Book

He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa 

The Church of the Province of New Zealand

 

David Runcorn: Fear and Trust and some Insights from the Samuel Stories

An author who’s work I have a very high regard for, and whose book - Choice, Desire and the Will of God: What More Do You Want?  - was vital for me, several years ago, at an important stage in my life-journey is Anglican Priest David Runcorn. David sent me an e-mail the other day to let me know that he has a new book out around August-September of this year. 

He writes: 

“I am still slightly surprised to have found myself writing on twin themes of leadership and Old Testament ... but my conclusion is that the world of 1 & 2 Samuel and ours have a great deal in common (see attached). The book is a kind of conversation between the two.  This narrative is usually read and expounded from within Fowler's stage 3 mindset in churches. But the storyteller himself is clearly stage 4. This is stage 4 story telling...”   

I get the sense, not having yet read the book, that the intended audience may well be similar to those that David had in mind when he wrote Spirituality Workbook. It was subtitled: “…A Guide for Explorers, Seekers, and Pilgrims”, those, as he said in his e-mail, who’re kind of on the “edge of church”, exploring faith. Maybe with more questions than answers, more doubts than certainty.  Time will tell I guess, and I’ll likely reflect more on it from that perspective when I’ve read it. 

The new book, which can be pre-ordered, is titled: Fear and Trust: God-Centred Leadership. It’s published by SPCK. 

About Fear and Trust 

From the back cover… 

“…Anyone remember what we were doing before we discovered ‘leadership’? ‘Leaders’ are everywhere these days. But who decided ‘leadership was the answer for our anxious and challenging times? Is it what we actually need? Do we even really know what we are looking for?  

This book explores these questions by seeking a meeting of two worlds – our own and the ancient nation of Israel. Each chapter brings together contemporary stories of leading and being led with personalities and events related in 1&2 Samuel - one of the greatest pieces of story telling from the ancient world. 

These peoples have so much in common with their stories of politics and religion, loyalty and betrayal, triumph and tragedy, war and peace. Both are driven by the fears and anxieties of uncertain times. Both are preoccupied with ‘leaders’ as the answer to their problems. Both struggle to understand and trust God in it all. And in both worlds women and men co-exist in significant but unequal partnership. 

The gift of the Samuel story is a depth that only comes through long and careful listening. It can teaches us to listen more carefully to our own story. There are profound reflections on the task of renewing a people, their faith and their world. This is story telling by the wise offering wisdom for any age or people who find themselves journeying through prolonged, profound and uncertain transition. So it models for us ways of leading, being led and being God-centred through it all. It traces the vulnerable but essential journey between fear and trust…”

Contents of the Book 

Surviving leaders: On journeying beyond certainty 

‘In the beginning you weep’: Hannah and the unexpected starting place 

‘Here I am’: Samuel, listening and the tinnitus of God 

On the perils of conscripting God: Religion, theology and technology 

On the desire to be led: Leaders as the people’s dream 

‘Selfhood begins in walking away’: Saul the undifferentiated leader 

How are the mighty fallen!: When leadership fails 

‘What if?’: Jonathan and what might have been

Nobody does it better: David, man and king 

‘I AM’: God, hidden and revealed 

Waiting among the dead: Vigil, protest and subversion 

Calling from the walls: From victim to witness

David had a paper published on the Fulcrum site last year. In it he explores some of the themes that are woven through his latest book. You can find the paper here.

For more on Runcorn, you’ll find Part 1 of a 4-part post, here. Using the Google Function on the blog will help you track down the other three-parts, although at the top of each post, you’ll find a link to the next one and so on.  

Download David Runcorn - Book Launch Invite (PDF). Derby Cathedral, 14th August 2011, @ 6pm.

The Importance of Not Avoiding Suffering

I recently re-read this M. Scott Peck (died 25 September 2005) quote left as a “comment” on this blog. I don’t have the exact reference, but I wanted to share it. Peck’s (who was something of a popularizer of psychology and psychological concepts) books still have an aliveness and a relevancy today, particularly his: A Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth; Further Along the Road Less Travelled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth; The Road Less Travelled & Beyond: Spiritual Growth in An Age of Anxiety; and The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. 

Here’s the quote: 

"To develop a broader vision we must be willing to forsake, to kill, our narrower vision. In the short run it is more comfortable not to do this - to stay where we are, to keep using the same microcosmic map, to avoid suffering the death of cherished notions. The road of spiritual growth, however, lies in the opposite direction. We begin by distrusting what we already believe, by actively seeking the threatening and unfamiliar, by deliberately challenging the validity of what we have previously been taught and hold dear. The path to holiness lies through questioning everything." 

It made me think too of the classic book title, If You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him (written by Sheldon B. Koop). The title was reworked by Justin Lewis-Anthony in his 2009 book If You Meet George Herbert on the Road, Kill Him: Radically Re-Thinking Priestly Ministry (focused on the priesthood in Church of England). Interesting where quotes, like the one above, initially take you isn’t it?

 

We Need More Theology, Not Less

“A genuine Christian radicalism cannot be built upon woolliness of belief, vague liberalism, or the assumption that theology and dogma do not matter. Theology is highly toxic and nothing could be more disastrous for Christian rebels than the kind of ‘theological striptease’, which divests itself of as much belief as possible. When we are confronting monsters, we need all the theological and spiritual resources we can get. We need more theology, not less” (p.76).

Kenneth Leech, Anglican Priest. Taken from “English Rising” in Prayer and Prophecy.

If you weren't familiar with Leech, I'd recommend Prayer & Prophecy (link above) and Leech's own 1992 published (62-page) Subversive Orthodoxy (if you can track down a copy) as starting points. All of the themes in Subversive Orthodoxy are grounds in his practice, and weave themselves through all of his books in one form or another. 

 

Mark McIntosh and Sandra Schneiders on Mystical Theology and Spirituality

Mark McIntosh is a prominent Anglican/Episcopalian Theologian who has written some fascinating essays and books, albeit I have still to read the book quoted from below.

Elsewhere McIntosh helpfully reflects on what he’s trying to do: “…If I’m focusing on mystical thought per se, or spiritual discernment, or on what it could mean to sense all creation as alive with divine intent and to see all things in God … in all such questions I’m seeking to elucidate how we might understand the beliefs of Christian faith more deeply – precisely by considering them in the light of spiritual traditions and mystical thought…”

Michelle (‘Chelle’) Wade, in this post, reflects a little on Chapter 1 in McIntosh’s book Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology (Oxford; Blackwell, 1998: 3-34).

She notes that “…the particular task of the Mystic is ‘contemplation’ and hence [contemplation] is the particular method of Mystic[al] Theology. She goes on to quote McIntosh from the chapter in his book noted above:

“…Contemplation is not like normal thinking only muddled and tentative, on the contrary it is seen as an activity in which the mind is liberated to perceive clearly, freed from the usual constraints of distraction, self-preoccupation or prejudice…” 

“…the more classical notion of mind [as opposed to Enlightenment preoccupation with linear, empirical rationality] refers to the desire of our whole being for deep understanding and relationship with all that is intelligible…”

“…What the mind is fixed upon in clear vision by an act of suspended wonder is ‘the manifestation of wisdom’… [Hence] it is in contemplation that theology and spirituality meet…”

Chelle observes that “McIntosh is particular about a definition of spirituality within the realm of Mystical Religious Experience”, and so he can suggest that:

“…spirituality… is inherently oriented towards discovery, towards new perceptions and new understandings of reality, and hence is intimately related to theology…” [The assumption being of course that this is what “theology” is also orientating itself towards - Paul].

“…the spiritual is that dimension of life which is engendered and empowered by God… [And] is connected with the active presence of God and not primarily with extraordinary inner experiences…personal experience is not in itself the goal of spirituality…” [see also my post on Kenneth Leech - Paul]

These latter points are helpful (and dare I say at the start of the 21^st Century, needful!), particularly if you accept, along with the likes of Kenneth Leech (and many others, including Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr et al), that contemplation and action are inseparably and needfully interwoven. Action gives rise to contemplation, gives rise to action, and so on and so forth.  

Interestingly, Chelle notes that McIntosh “…favours a ‘God-centric’ definition of spirituality as opposed to a Human-centric definition.” This she contrasts with perhaps a more popular understanding; that which is provided by US Catholic nun Sandra Schneiders:

“…just as one says that a person has a certain ‘psychology’, a shape or pattern to their psychic life, so one could well say that every human being has a spirituality, that is, a ‘fundamental dimension of the human being’ … [i.e.]… that dimension of the human which is oriented towards self-transcendence…”

“… [There is a distinction between] ‘the lived experience which actualizes’ one’s spirituality … [and the] … inherent feature of human existence…”

“… [the academic discipline of spirituality is] the experimental and theoretical study of human efforts at self-transcending integration and to the pastoral practices aimed at fostering the spirituality of individuals and groups…” 

If you want more insight into McIntosh’s writing, you’ll find a summary, by Andrew Brower Latz, of the first part (chapters 1-3) of the first part of Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology. Mark A. McIntosh. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (2008), here. Well worth a slow reflective read if you don’t have the book. There are some really rich nd evocative quotes and thinking contained in Latz’s review.  

For more on Schneiders see, for example, her essay Biblical Spirituality in the April 2002 issue of Interpretation journal. You might also enjoy this essay: An Architectural Reflection on Sandra Schneiders and Philip Sheldrake’s Understanding of Christian Spirituality, which I read quite a few years ago (it featured on this blog at that point). It is fascinating! And the bonus for me was that it introduced me to the work of US-Architect Christopher Alexander and his understanding of wholeness in the field of architecture (and of course the wider implications). She also has two useful essays (The Study of Christian Spirituality: Contours and Dynamics of a Discipline; and A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of Christian Spirituality), while McIntosh has one (Lover Without a Name: Spirituality and Constructive Christology Today) in Minding the Spirit: The Study of Christian Spirituality (pub. 2005).