Blogging the Archbishops
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York were on graet form, and under grand pressure last week. I’m happy to report that despite our original interview time disappearing, they and their teams managed to create a new time for me to fire a few of your questions their way.
I’ll be posting their replies over the next few days.
4 Responses to “Blogging the Archbishops”
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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Hi Maggi.
Like you, I have read many blogs about strategies for making and keeping New Year’s Resolutions and Goals.
But your post has been the most honest, meaningful, and practical — acknowledging we cannot see the future or completely control our circumstances. Perhaps my one resolution for 2008 should be (to paraphrase your concluding sentence):
To turn circumstances that come my way to my advantage and live every moment in appreciation that life is a gift from God.
Thank you for sharing this.
Thanks Elaine! I certainly don’t think there’s anything wrong with making plans and resolutions, but it’s liberating to realise that they are only a means to get us moving, not a programme that has to be obeyed! Happy 2008 to you
“a means to get moving…” Oh, I love this — it’s a phrase going in my journal. I’m also going to use it a future department strategy-planning meeting.
Happy 2008 back to you!
(PS. I’m still looking for a Canadian source for Beginnings and Endings so I’ll have it in time for Advent 2008. I will not give up.)
I think of resolutions as a visioning and discernment process. It’s like an annual super-duper examen:
. what gave me life last year that I want to continue this next year
. what took away life last year that needs to be changed in the new year
Think about those changes. Sit with them. Allow God to give me insight into which things are the most important. Spend some time working out practical steps to achieve them.
Then start doing — like you say, little by little, bit by bit.
BTW, I just finished your opening essay in AAS. Thanks for writing that. It feels like a life-giving way to engage with scripture and allows for the opportunity for scripture to read us. I hope and pray for that in the New Year.
I bought the book off of Amazon.co.uk and had it delivered to a friend in London who then conveyed it to me on one of my numerous business trips to the UK last year. It doesn’t appear to be available at Amazon.Com which is a shame because there are so many friends I’d love to share it with.
Blessings on the journey,
Mark