Friday 21 October 2011

Catching up

I’ve been taking a bit of a rest from the internet; a productive fast which, among other things, has left more space to spend time with the poems in the Orkneyinga Saga. I don’t expect to be blogging again this month.

Among things I haven’t blogged about is having a Vicarage number listed in the phone book against not only the name of the Vicar and also the name of each of our three churches. Previously this has been provided for free. Now BT has written to say it will charge £167 a year if we want to continue - a little over £1 a week for each church name. I don’t think we’ll be doing that.

Then there is engagement with the local Hospice, providing some cover during the vacancy in the Chaplain’s post there. I was with a day group this week and was invited to stay for their relaxation exercise. We were taken through what was (of course) an entirely secular meditation a substantial part of which was attention to our breathing, and it was interesting to chat afterwards to the Complementary Therapist about what this appeared to have in common with some of the mediation and prayer technique of Buddhists and Christians.

And a trip to Lincoln for a Theological Society lecture on the Historical Jesus by Fr Joseph O’Hanlon. He made the point early that it is often observed that individuals’ reconstructions of the historical Jesus usually end up looking quite like themselves. He went on to dispute at length the pictures painted by a couple of other scholars, especially the Pope. He finished (answering the final question) by suggesting that we put aside the Gospels’ trial narratives as implausible and think instead that Jesus’ death was primarily the result of his disputes with other scholars and religious leaders.

The picture is another left over from Orkney in the summer.

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