Saved by Augustine
So a few days back I broke two teeth. Yes, two! I didn't get in a fight, I didn't eat muesli, they just broke, one after the other…
The dentist said, "you probably bit on an olive stone or something a week or two back and cracked them, which is why they appear to have broken all by themselves." Well, that's a plausible theory. He's good, my dentist. And he says he heard me on the radio.
Cost of two new teeth? Well one, not to bad. But the other one – Astro-Nomical. OMG.
One of my lovely editors has given the green light to a Foreword I wrote for a new edition of Augustine's Confessions. "Send me an invoice," she said today. Augustine will pay for my expensive tooth. Augustine is renowned for being less than comfortable with the human body. So I'm doubly grateful that he is so generously contributing to the upkeep of mine…
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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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This rings worryingly true! Our own spiritual health is often neglected when trying to keep the roof on, the bills paid and endless committees functioning (why oh why?). I also worry about how little engagement with theology, new writing and making connections with the world beyond the church ministers are able to make.
In an attempt to create a space to cross some of these barriers I’m just starting a ‘Women in Theology’ network (see http://sacredwells.blogspot.com or http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=75665729118 have a look if you think it will help!
That’s what I hit on my sabbatical last year (and why I started blogging…to keep my faith alive) and I discovered that I was a sufferer from ‘messiah complex’, symptoms of which are ‘this is my church’, ‘I’m in charge here’, ‘this is all my fault’, ‘I’m too busy’. I’ve not ’solved’ this yet and when I think I have it may be a sign that I am further from the truth. Thanks for highlighting this (and thanks too for the leap in my traffic this week, maggi!)- I need to keep this in view.
Maggie
‘Is my faith real?’ Re your comment ‘you wonder whether its “real” for you, or whether you do this because you always have’ Well the answer is it IS real for you because you have precisely because you have always done this! A good does of Wittgenstein should show the logic of this. Or maybe, Nicholas Lash. Faith is ‘real’ because we do it, though it is NOT true to say that because we do it, it is real! Well, it kind of IS but that doesn’t mean we make it all up!
My friend sent me this entry of yours… it really hits home for me. Almost brought me to tears. I have been struggling with this very thing as I’ve worked at a church for the past 2 years. I’m starting to be really worn out and have recently taken notice that my spiritual growth as almost completely stopped over the past 2 years, as I have felt the “burden” to be a professional Christian every Sunday, rain or shine. I’m just really glad that I’m not alone and these feelings are not unique to me.
I think this is a really important topic. In his book Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell is very honest about his experiences as a pastor – it’s very good. (I don’t have any vested interest in mentioning this book honest!)
Is ‘your’ faith real?
I suspect it is,
Maybe the problem is that our church relationships aren’t so real as ‘your’ faith?
For most people, I think, an experience of “faith” – that is, the feeling that you are authentically believing not full of doubts – the feeling comes and goes. For “church people” – and I include myself since while not ordained I do work daily for an Anglican diocese – the swings of faith are often somewhat more pronounced. That is, I can one day really doubt (isn’t all this religious stuff just chemicals interacting in my brain), and then next day I feel transported at our weekly office Eucharist. In other words, I think many people immersed a religious institution, who know how awful people in it can be but also at other times how selfless and inspired (sometimes the same people), aren’t that much different than “regular” practitioners of the religion, alternating between faith and doubt, it’s just that their ups and downs have a bit more amplitude.
Maggi, Bonhoeffer’s costly grace springs immediatley to mind. Thank you for your thoughtful post