My most successful blog post of all time is just about to get its annual boost. Always gets readers in the week running up to pancake day.
Yes – it is the Provost’s Famous Pancake Recipe.
Full instructions here: http://thurible.net/20040224/pancake_receipt/
As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.
One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).
In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.
Oofft.
That last entry had scarcely been uploaded more than 2 minutes before the doorbell rang and my colleague from Stirling said, “Do you want a liturgy for licensing a Lay Reader?” Almost enough to make me believe in divine intervention. Almost.
It strikes me as odd that in a church which is supposedly celebrating variety of ministries we appear to have no liturgy for recognising a lay ministry.
Me: Well, “temporary” as a description of a website is a bit of a red herring. After all, websites are all both temporary and not temporary simultaneously.Him: Thank you Confucius.
Was awakened by the most almighty crash at 0230 this morning. It was clear from the noise of pounding hooves that the last trump had sounded and the four horsemen of the apocalypse were riding through the bedroom. [Bear in mind that I had seen an opera last night in which Nero quite properly appeared…
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