Rounding the Post

Sorry it's been so long since posting--this sabbatical has now entered a very different phase, as the meeting of wonderful and exotic places and welcoming and delightful people has given way to a parade of ideas, as I've "read around" in things I think might move me along the larger project of how we're called to be the Church of Jesus Christ.

Jeremy Begbie continues to exercise the greatest influence on my mind right now, in his book, "Theology, Music and Time." This is a VERY dense book, which makes posting on it something of a challenge--talking about it assumes a level of competence with the ideas that I'm not sure I can claim! Suffice it to say you're glad THIS was not one of the books I suggested to the congregation--unless you're interested in an immersion in music theory and practice in the 20th century and its theological implications.

But, I'll try! The idea that rings through the book for me is that one of the things in this 21st century world that surrounds us that is most out of whack is the way in which we understand and dwell in time. Simply put, we live in a world in which time is understood to be a scarce commodity--worth fighting for and trying to hoard. Begbie argues that music gives us a way into understanding that from a theological perspective, time is neither a commodity nor scarce. It is, rather, a gift which enfolds us, and encircles us, and gives us the space within which we can live our lives in the presence of God.

Boy, THAT needs more working out! But the way it's been processed in my little brain is that maybe one of the most important things the church has to offer the world around is a DIFFERENT way of being in time: one that is GRACIOUS; one that understands that the time that the clock can measure is, in the end, the most trivial kind of time there is--a way of being in time that does not view others as a threat, but as a gift (listen, here, for overtones of the questions of hospitality and community that started this dance!)

I think of the powerful image that Frederick Bueckner invokes in his autobiographical remembrance of the day his father took his own life, and how, in an instant, time was transformed for him--from an endless and open presence to "hanging on as the horse charges toward the end."

What would a church look like that truly understood its ministry in the world as a ministry of "taking time for each other"? Discipleship, community, commitment, and yes, surrender, become important criteria.....I dunno--just thinking!