Mary Magdalene and Jesus: a scene of recognition

David Wynne's remarkable depiction of the moment of recognition between Mary Magdalene and Jesus in Ely Cathedral. We were there yesterday. How different it is from the more familiar "Noli me tangere" type!

Barchester Towers

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope


Quite enjoyable and worth reading particularly for those of us employed by the Episcopal Church. How much the mores and values of a bygone age govern the plot development is striking: lack of candor or reticence e.g. about the content of Mr Slope's letter to Eleanor on everyone's part forces lengthening of events while people labor under misapprehensions. Clergy are portrayed as having few theological thoughts let alone any of merit. There are no theological discussions recorded and yet different churchmanship drives the actions of several characters. To the male narrator, women are either sirens or widows.


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BBC's most watched programme Top Gear: Three Wise Men Christmas Special

Anyone who hasn't seen Top Gear, the BBC's most popular programme, might consider their Christmas Special in which the three stars follow a route to Bethlehem that vaguely follows that of the three wise men of Christian tradition (not biblical text). The point seems to be to see how well the three cars hold up to the rigours of local roads and desert conditions through Turkey and Syria en route to Bethlehem (spoiler: Richard Hammond in the Fiat seems to hold up best). Interludes at the Sea of Galilee include the serious injury to James May and attempts by James Cameron to appear as "JC" and walk on water. Finally in Bethlehem, they present equivalents of gold, frankincense and myrrh to what looks like a baby in a racing driver suit (but what do I know?)

ABC writes

In case anyone missed it, here is the Archbishop's Christmas message for Radio Times.

The story says that something is happening that will break boundaries and cross frontiers, so that the most unlikely people will find they are looking for the same thing and recognise each other instead of fearing each other.  There is something here that draws strangers together.  It's what some of the old carols mean by talking about the 'desire of all nations' –as if what human beings really wanted was not revenge, endless cycles of miserable scoring off each other, but being able to stand together in shared astonishment and gratitude – held together not by plans and negotiations but by something quite outside the usual repertoire of human events.  By something just inviting us to recognise we're loved – if we could only stop and see it.

The clutching hand of the baby is, for most of us, something we can't resist.  The Christmas story outrageously suggests that putting our hand into the clutch of a baby may be the most important thing we can ever do as human beings – a real letting-go of aggression and fear and wanting to make an impression and whatever else is going on in us that keeps us tied up in our struggle and violence.

Even more outrageously, the story suggests that this particular baby, the one born in the outhouse, the one who is rescued at the last moment from a village massacre like the ones that happen so regularly in forgotten civil wars today in Congo or Sudan – this baby is the place where the power of the creator of the universe is completely present. And what on earth might it mean to say that the ultimate power in the universe is more like a baby clutching at us in blind trust than it's like the President's bullet-proof motorcade?

Well, all that is to go a bit beyond the story itself, of course.  Christians believe it and not everyone else does.  But it still ought to make us think.  The fact that this story of defenceless love - even when it's wrapped up in all the bizarre fancy-dress of Christmas as it's developed over the centuries - touches something universal is at the very least a fact that should make us think twice about giving up on the human heart's capacity for goodness and faith, however deeply buried.  One-horse open sleighs in South India may be surreal all right; but surreal things can connect us with some surprising realities. 

Something Not Understood (alas)

Yesterday's Radio 4 programme at 6.00am, Something Understood was on the Nativity Stories. Given the description, you can see why I would be interested:

Mark Tully considers the symbolism and meaning of the traditional nativity stories and asks what they can offer us in a contemporary context.


Alas, nothing of the gospel nativity stories was explained or analyzed. Instead we got general remarks from the eminent historian Prof Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Yes, we heard some beautiful music and some lovely poetry. But by the end of the programme, I don't think we understood anything about distinctions between Matthew and Luke and divergences amongst sources like the Protevangelion of James and the synoptic gospels. So there's plenty of opportunity to do another programme on the same topic!

Q. What's a dyslexic agnostic insomniac?
A. Someone who lies awake all night wondering if there really is a dog.


(borrowed from A Word A Day)

White Light Festival for Episcopal Cafe

Here's my post for Episcopal Cafe on the first White Light Festival at Lincoln Center in NYC. There are listening links for readers to get a sense of the sounds and events. The piece has been picked up by a College Sports blog. And it will soon be posted here.

Anselm Kiefer at the Gagosian until Dec 18th (Tu-Sat 10-6.00pm)

This extraordinary exhibit is well worth braving the cold arctic air that whips around the corner of 24th Street and 10th Avenue in Chelsea today. Want to see images of the Shechina or Jacob's Ladder or Valentinus for that matter? Kiefer shows post war mythology and religious symbolism mixed up together and served in grey and white.

Fear Not Blog (from the Huntsville Times)

The Fear Not Blog from the Huntsville Times for Dec 8th was on bible translations, particularly the new Common English Bible (only the NT is finished so far).

The Common English Bible is the newest completely fresh translation from the best available historical texts. Being completed by a consortium of 115 biblical scholars and more than 500 readers in six countries from 22 Protestant, Catholic and Jewish congregations, the New Testament portion has been released, with the complete Bible, including the Apocrypha, due out in Fall 2011.

Edited for both accuracy and readability and supported by the presses of the Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, United Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ, the new texts will include maps from the National Geographic Society. See a full description along with a handy comparison chart of all English translations and paraphrases at www.CommonEnglishBible.com.

I'm trying it out and so far I like it. More serious comments in the New Year!

Today at 8.00pm is the first performance of Missa Brevis for the Virgin of Guadalupe at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral.

The Muslim Jesus

In this week's New Statesman, Mehdi Hasan examines The Muslim Jesus, in which


"the former Cambridge professor of Arabic and Islamic studies Tarif Khalidi brings together, from a vast range of sources, 303 stories, sayings and traditions of Jesus that can be found in Muslim literature, from the earliest centuries of Islamic history. These paint a picture of Christ not dissimilar to the Christ of the Gospels. The Muslim Jesus is the patron saint of asceticism, the lord of nature, a miracle worker, a healer, a moral, spiritual and social role model."

“Jesus used to eat the leaves of the trees," reads one saying, "dress in hairshirts, and sleep wherever night found him. He had no child who might die, no house which might fall into ruin; nor did he save his lunch for his dinner or his dinner for his lunch. He used to say, 'Each day brings with it its own sustenance.'"

According to Islamic theology, Christ did not bring a new revealed law, or reform an earlier law, but introduced a new path or way (tariqah) based on the love of God; it is perhaps for this reason that he has been adopted by the mystics, or Sufis, of Islam. The Sufi philosopher al-Ghazali described Jesus as "the prophet of the soul" and the Sufi master Ibn Arabi called him "the seal of saints". The Jesus of Islamic Sufism, as Khalidi notes, is a figure "not easily distinguished" from the Jesus of the Gospels.

Mehdi Hasan asks why Tarif Khaladi writes such a provocative book:

 "We need to be reminded of a history that told a very different story: how one religion, Islam, co-opted Jesus into its own spirituality yet still maintained him as an independent hero of the struggle between the spirit and the letter of the law," he told me. "It is in many ways a remarkable story of religious encounter, of one religion fortifying its own piety by adopting and cherishing the master spiritual narrative of another religion."

My question is why the New Statesman has now noticed a 2003 book and at this time of year.