Remembering which bible

There's a weekly programme on Radio 4 at certain times of the year, called the News Quiz. Chaired by Sandi Toksvig, an irripressible Dane, it is a great source of examples of the RB. It happens quite often that RB comes up in the group's discussions of obscure news items. This week it was Leviticus and whether the bible was funny. Now we could get sidetracked by that but I suggest you just download the podcast from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

The subject of todays blog is remembering the Hebrew scriptures, another challenge from Jane, who has been remembering Bable with a multilingual group in Switzerland. In the 15 years of so of working on the RB method it is true to say that I have been selective about which bits of the bible I've remembered with people. There are many reasons for this

1. RB is not about remembering the whole bible - a rote pedagogy - but about the bits that matter to you at the time and how remembering them challenges the status quo;

2. RB is a contextual method - it is about remembering the bits that seem relevant for that context - and in the context of 21st century Britain and the margins of urban living that is the core of Word of Mouth, the 'bit' of choice was the gospel - the central Jesus story;

3. RB is a personal method - as Jane notes in her blog about Babel, our own stories are essential to our rememberings. So Babel was great with multilingual bridge builders. But I am a gospel woman. I am passionate about the story of the Tomb Quitter, the Name Caller, the Life Giver. So that this the core of my RB.

It is not the case that I have never used the Hebrew scriptures for RB. There's some illustration using the book of Ruth as a basis for RB in Word of Mouth, and that's a story I have often used in multicultural Britain. I have sometimes used other bits depending on the context. It's great to hear about more people doing RB. Please share the stories of your rememberings.

Word of Mouth is still available from www.ionabooks.com

Getting bloggin

Bob has started a blog. After a conversation about blogs he started one today. You can find it at http://therevbobsdiary.blogspot.com/ although as it's only just started there's not much to see yet. But there will be. Watch this space. This is Bob as he appears on his blog.

We took a walk to Castle Hill and saw the bus stop to Nazareth. We had some fish and chips and came back on the 368. The bus driver was very talkative (we were the only people on the bus most of the way) and told us how dangerous Scar had been in the ice and snow. We saw some bits of Huddersfield we'd not seen before. The snow has nearly all melted and what is left is very dirty. In some gardens you see a melting blob and a discarded scarf; signs of previous creativity.

Women, leadership and the church

Jane has been blogging about this so I thought I should get onto it too. She has 'blogged my memory' so to speak. Yesterday I meet women who are in leadership in the church. One told me about the bible studies she had facilitated using some of the RB methods that are on the Wision4life website. Another I had last seen in her kitchen in South Africa 15 years ago, at the end of our exchange period in 1994. She's now in ministry in Kent. I came home and read a bit in the Guardian about women clergy in the Church of England by Riazat Butt [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/12/women-in-the-church]. There were some interesting bits:

Of the 512 male clergy who left in 1994 when women were ordained as priests, 72 came back. What's that story?

Of the 8,423 stipendiary clergy a smaller proportion are women (1,543) than are the nonstipendiary clergy (2,588 of whom 1,247 are women). What's the story? We had a similar disproportion in the two different streams in the URC at the time we wrote Daughters of Dissent (that's it on the right: about women and leadership in the URC).


Then there were a few thumbnail sketches about the ways in which women clergy currently exercsie leadership in the Church of England, including the story of one who now chairs several important committees. The URC also does committees and we have tried to balance committee members by gender. however, what we have not dealt with is work load by gender or any other criterion.


I also wondered about the story behind the story. For women clergy to lead committees is one story but why do we need ordained clergy to lead committees? All denominations do this: clog up the church beurocracy with ordained clergy. Why? Particularly when most mainstream churches also struggle with the availability of ordinaed leadership at local pastoral level. Why do we need priests or ministers, women or men, to chair committees? Of course you are hearing from a total meetings-phobic person here. I can understand that knowledge and skills in theology and ecclessiology etc may be required of a committee chair, depending on the remit of the committee. But to struggle for all those years for ordination of women to the priesthood and then celebrate by chairing a committee, however prestigious, well I just don't get it. Please someone, tell me the story of that.


Daughters of Dissent by Elaine Kaye, Janet Lees and Kirstry Thorpe is still available from the URC bookshop via the website http://www.urc.org.uk/

Tell me the stories of Jesus

Working on my new book, Tell me the stories of Jesus, a Gospel companion that uses RB, I looked up the well known hymn of the same name, only to find there were two hymns for which this is the first line. The one I knew was by William H Parker. But the other was by Fanny Crosby (1820-1915). Whilst Will was British, Fanny was from the USA. She became blind at six weeks of age, and later wrote over 8,000 hymns, under a wide range of pseudonyms. You can read more about her life, including her work as a teacher of blind students, at http://www.nyise.org/fanny/songbird.html .

Four hundread of her hymns are listed here http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/r/o/crosby_fj.htm

It seems that she used remembered versions of the Bible from an early age. She was said to be able to remember the first four books of both testaments, that must be Genesis to Numbers, and the four Gospels, by the age of 10 years. Although RB is not about rote remembering of the Bible, some folks do show an ability to do this, and like Fanny to an extraordinary degree. At one time rote remembering was a common form of Christian pedagogy.

RB is more about retelling and thus also includes the way in which interpretation has influenced memory. There is plenty of evidence in Fanny's hymns that remembering the Bible influenced her spirituality, theology and hymnody.

Digging deep

Bob has just dug the car out of the snow for the first time this week. The road is still like a skating rink so we'd left it until today. He scooped about 6 inches off all round - a bit like a hair cut really - using the the dustpan. I stayed inside in the warm and thought about books. In fact I quite often think about books. I had a dream that I could not speak and I was communicating with finger spelling and sign language, texting and drawing and stuff. I was writing a book and folks kept asking me what I was doing so I was explaining using these different means about how I was writing a book. I've written several books of course and I look forward to doing so again. The day you get the first copy is magical. You hold it in your hand and it feels awesome that you put those words in there. Actually I'm not sure that really ever goes away for me. I know most of my books off by heart I read them that often. So here's to the next book, the next dream, the next word or sign, and quite possibly before too long, here's to the next snow.

The weather

It's very British to talk about the weather but I'm not sure whether it is very British to blog about the weather. Probably. Personally I am in favour of compulsory hibernation with chocolate. I have been outside a few times, but not much. My friend Lydia broke her leg slipping on an icy pavement. that was enough for me. We should all be hibernating, I tell you. Any country without indigenous Reindeer (I don't mean imported ones) is not really suited to snow. Besides which in urban landscapes it gets dirty very quickly. There's still a small pristine drift by the back gate and the back garden is untouched except for a few birds' footprints.

Another interesting blog

Yes I'm getting the blogging bug. Every morning I look at blogs - it's a great way of passing the time when there's loads of other things to do. Jane's blog is a good source of other blog information. She told me about http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/ where Suzanne McCarthy has listed some women bible translators. As 'speech therapist theologica' language and the bible are two important things to me. Whilst I take an oral/aural approach to remembering the bible with people of all ages and abilities myself, I also admire the work of translators. I'm interested in women bible retellers and will try to list some of those in due course. Suzanne McCarthy has another brilliant blog of poems at http://silenceistheornament.blogspot.com/ that I will add to my blog list. It has some very good posts about silence.

Centre of the universe

Huddersfield is currently centre of the snowy universe, according to BBC News 24 who have had more reporters in these parts than ever before in living memory. So here is a prayer for snowy weather, from your own correspondent.

Prayers in snowy weather

As we try to keep a grip
we pray for gritters
without whom we would be slippers.

We pray too for those who have slipped up,
and who now clutter up wards
and out patient departments
with their sprains and fractures.

We pray for menders:
both those mending the slippers
and those mending everything else
that needs fixing in bad weather.
Roads, vehicles, transport systems:
all seem prone to break when the snow comes down.

We prayer for workers
and those staying at home:
so whether we work or play
we pray that the weather will not break us.

We prayer for meteorologists,
always the butt of jokes and poor memories:
As the weather systems weave their way around us,
keep them alert to the signs
ready to alert us to live carefully,

And when white once more gives way to green,
may we give thanks for all that has happened
that has kept us mindful of you
in whose footsteps we tred:
Jesus our Lord,

Women

Since we had the Women in Ministries meeting in Windermere (should that be Womendermere?) I've certainly done more blogging and connected with more women this way. This has helped me feel more connected. Ministry is about connection but so often as a minister I have felt isolated: no wonder then that it has often seemed very hard. I was struck by my friends blogs: Sarah wrote very personally about a pastoral situation. Now Sarah is a wonderful woman. One I admire a lot in the calm and careful way she goes about ministry. Through her blog I feel more connected to her given that I don't see her as much since we moved to Huddersfield. I was struck by my friend Kate's blog in which she wrote about using remembered versions of the bible, Kennings and also the remembered stories of ministry. Kate is a wonderful women who's creative and warm approach to ministry I admire. Once again I found it very affirming to connect like this and see us tackling similar issues side by side even though on different sides of the Pennines. Jane's blog is always a source of inspiration and fun. For me her 'prix choc' should have been about the price of chocolate. But there's always something on her blog that reminds me of Jane's great facility with laguage and her ability to make connections across so many subjects. So here's to wonderful women.
Of course, not being Superwoman either, I know I don't find all women so affirming or all encounters with women so positive. So these words are to spur me on, to help more look at all women as I look at Sarah, Kate and Jane, and to go on trying to connect to the wonderful in all women.

Here’s to women

Here’s to women, wonderful women:
warm women, cold women,
working women, creative women,
wild women, wistful women,
watchful women, mindful women.

Here’s to women, wonderful women:
reminding me who I am,
encouraging me how to be,
waiting alongside of me,
bringing love to birth in me.

Here’s to women, wonderful women,
both known and unknown.
As the world turns
may we turn to each other
and affirm what we discover there.

Elemental Powers

Our friend, Louise Mabbs, a brilliant Christian fabric artist (http://www.louisemabbs.co.uk/) living on the south coast of England, has recently completed a piece to celebrated 'Air, Earth, Fire and Water' and the 10 years of our life and ministries in Sheffield. She calls it 'Elemental powers' and it includes inspiration from Sheffield like Forgemasters Engineering, where Bob was Chaplain, the Sheffield Peace Gardens and the face of a steel worker the brick version of which is near the Co-op in Sheffield city centre. The top and bottom panels depict the walk from Lands End to John O'Groats that Bob made in 2003 which was called End to End via the margins, the diary of which is still on line at www.bobjanet.demon.co.uk/lejog

It includes the Angel of the North (bottom left hand corner) and the Caledonian Canal amongst other images. The photograph is by Janine Boyer of Brighton.

Sundays God

It's Sunday. As a child I would go to church with enthusiasm every week. It was not much different to the one I go to now except that it was in a village (this one is in a town). Most of the people there were a lot older than me and there were few youths. Now at 50 years old I'm still one of the youngest present. There are even fewer youths.
We read Pslam 111. It's not one with which I am very familiar (i.e. I don't have a remembered version). It merges with all my remembered Psalms. God makes stuff and keeps promises and can generally be relied on. From time to time things go a bit ary and babies heads get bashed against rocks. Now and again we can lament a bit or recall some particular Godly stuff. But remembered Psalms are mostly comfortably predictable: God is in keeping the laws of nature (as Bob reminded us) and we can marvel at that. So Sundays God is worth remembering any day of the week.

The God I meet on Sundays
created an ordered universe so huge and mysterious I'm still wondering about it all.
The God Imeet on Sundays
keeps age-old promises to a huddle of ageing ones and a handful of others.
The God I meet on Sundays
still causes me to lift my voice in response to all the God-stuff.
Upright or not, Sundays God, affirms me everyday.