Can I suggest you head over to Akma’s blog to read his post about the death of Aaron Swartz. It is moving and thoughtful and expresses more eloquently than I can how I feel about this death.
Most people won’t know Aaron’s name. However we all get the benefit of his work.
As Akma says, “the churches have an intrinsic interest in communication, free communication, profligate communication.”
Hear, hear.
I think that I’m with you Father K, there is a time and place for everything and a service where the problems of a problematic passage can’t be addressed easily is not the place to read it, lectionary be hanged.
My favourite bits of the Bible are the Song of Songs (which, in the medieval period, was interpreted by both Jews and Christians as an allegory of the soul’s relationship with God); the book of Ruth; the book of Esther; the story of David and Jonathan; Amos & Micah. Most of the New Testament leaves me completely cold, and some of it is actually offensive, especially the account of the silver-smiths of Ephesus, and the way that Paul appropriates pagan poetry in the marketplace of Athens.
I think the solution to your problem is not to read the “difficult” bits without some sort of homily about a better way to understand them, and how to read the Bible in general as a collection of texts situated in a particular historical situation.
The day begins with the discovery that someone (a member of the Orthodox church community who use the church sometimes) left a box of candles on a heater yesterday. The mess and stench greet me when I go into church at 0730 to get ready for the early service.
There was an outbreak of chiasmus in the Scottish Parliament yesterday, with this comment coming from David McLetchie: “Wouldn't it be ironic if … the criminals can be smokers but the smokers will become criminals?”Very clever. Of such stuff preachers are made and preachers make stuff of.
That last blog entry about the Election is an example of an apophatic blog entry. Not many of them about in the blogsphere.
I'd just like you to note how good I am being at not blogging anything about the Episcopal Election in this diocese.Lead us not into temptation.
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