Teach me, my God and King, in all things thee to see…
All this term we have been following a theme in our Chapel evening services – exploring the ideas, the writers, the dynamics behind the music that we sing in Chapel. What do we sing, why do we sing it, who wrote it? Often the most beautiful music turns out to be settings of rather obscure texts, or lovely sounding poetry whose words are somewhat inaccessible through layers of cultural mismatch. It’s way too beautiful to throw away (after all one of the principles here is that beauty is itself a means of accessing truth) but we do sometimes need some help to get the goodness out of it.
Kathryn from Good In Parts came over on Sunday evening to talk about George Herbert. Her sermon is posted on the sermon blog of her own church – St Mary’s.
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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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Hello maggi. I’m a VERY LONG time reader (2 years) and first-time commenter.
Well, I’d pay more than the cover price to get your book here in Canada. At the end of November I contacted one of our local bookstores (in Vancouver) and the proprietor stated there isn’t a Canadian distributor from whom she can order.
Also, I emailed your publisher a couple of weeks ago but have not had a response.
What a pity — it seems to be available only in the UK. I think you have more than a few North American readers.
Maybe it will be more widely available in 2008.
for most books I search for, there is nearly always someone offering to sell one for about 4 times the retail value somewhere on bookbutler. it’s weird, but it happens a lot.
It must be one that you signed.
Or maybe it’s one of the seven personally handwritten and illustrated copies, bound in leather with inset jewellery and personal dedications that Amazon didn’t snap up for over £1 million for charity.
Sorry… got you mixed up with someone else.
Enjoyed the book though and shamelessly used some of the thoughts about guest rooms and babies in our own Christmas services. They were definitely appreciated and connected well with our guests. Thank you.
I’m still pondering (a good Advent word from Luke) on the swaddling clothes/grave clothes connection – should keep me going through Lent to Easter.