Bristolians
From Paul and Chloe to the church in Bristol in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (and others!): grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
From Windermere we sailed to Hadrian’s Wall, passing Aira Force waterfall on the way. In both places we had the chance to crack out the National Trust membership to smugly avoid paying. We stopped off for lunch at Greenhead before continuing on to view the fort of the Roman army at Housesteads. We spent the night at Alston a small and strange town on the Borders. It was friendly enough to start with but it had a strange ghost like feel to it. There was a sign on the church saying there was no vicar currently but the church bells rang to a largely empty town at random times of the day. We were eating tea in the pub we were staying in when we noticed in a glass fronted cabinet there was a skull with horns and a black hood with lots if other strange figures around it. All the more strange as Paul had looked at the tank earlier and not noticed anything odd. Add to this the shop next door selling ouija boards and spell books and we weren’t sorry to leave…
We spent the following day with out dear big sister Naomi B in Durham, playing on swings and eating too much cake. From there we spent two days in Bellingham where we went for a walk round Kielder Water so Paul could get bitten by midges then took a wrong turning and nearly ended up in Scotland. Noticing there was a gap of a few metres between the Scottish and English Borders we hastily claimed it for the Banks clan as an independent republic before going to visit Cragside.
Cragside is a big rambling house built by a guy who just wanted to build a big house. He created the worlds biggest rock garden and a pine forest around it, converted it into the world’s first house powers by hydroelectricity and invented lots if cool stuff like a way for turning a spit using rainwater and a prototype dishwasher. It was amazing (God bless the National Trust)! We’re thinking of buying it.
Today we looked at big things: big castle, big crane, two big stages with big speakers, big extinct volcano (which we climbed), a big view from the volcano, two big bridges (over the Firth of Forth) and a big boat lifting wheel. So Paul’s happy.
In amongst all these things we have been praying for things and reading Thessalonians. Tomorrow we are going to join Falkirk Baptist Church in the morning as they were the ones who sent he prayer points for Falkirk then head off to the lochs.
We always thank God for all of you and mention you when we pray. Though we have been separated from you but a short time we want very much to see you. Brothers and sisters pray for us. Give each other a holy kiss when you meet. We, Paul and Chloe, type this in our own typing. This is the way we type. The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
PS. If anyone can explain Thessalonians 2:2 to us we would be greatful!
Greetings dear siblings, was lovely to be graced with your presence on Wednesday. Well done for looking at big things - that sounds even more exciting than the trip to the laundrette :). Remember my ’shards’ poem? That piece of literary genius? Well, John Clegg wrote a response to it - it’s a sestina, which means the 6 end-words of each verse have to be the same, repeated in a set pattern. So he chose 6 words that poets are apparently banned from using, including Banks’s favourite, ‘gossamer’. Here it is, and it’s dedicated to me - that makes me basically famous. Maybe I’ll be mentioned in a note to the collected edition of John Clegg’s poems in 100 years time. Cool.
—–
HORIZON
definitely for Naomi
I brought home the frozen heart
of a pig wrapped in gossamer
butcher’s paper, and held it and stroked it, velvety
with ice-fur, when a Periodical Cicada
startled me and I dropped it onto the vortex
in my kitchen - made of the coagulated shards
of a universe. As for the shards
of the now-exploded frozen heart,
they seemed to hang at the edge of the vortex:
the event horizon, thinner than gossamer.
‘Idiot!’ chirped the cicada.
Its voice was oddly low and velvety,
like Johnny Cash’s equally velvety
burr, but a rasp there as well, like shards
of glass in a mohair jacket. The cicada
started to laugh heart-
breakingly. ‘Threads of gossamer!’,
he cackled. ‘Now you’re bound to the vortex
for life. Now you yourself are the vortex!’
I stroked my velvety
teenage moustache. ‘Threads of gossamer?
What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘The shards
of that stupid frozen heart
don’t bind me to anything, surely?’ The cicada
said nothing: another cicada
was crossing the kitchen, heading for the vortex!
‘He wants your heart’,
said the first cicada, bristling velvety
with sadness. ‘He wants the shards.’
‘What did you mean, exactly, by “threads of gossamer”?
I wondered. ‘Why especially “gossamer”?’
No reply. He was watching the second cicada
drawn by the power of those dropped shards
reach nearer and nearer the vortex
but never get there. ‘Why not, say, velvety
threads? What’s so special about that broken heart?’
From outside, nothing you see can reach the vortex.
The heart-shards can’t part the gossamer
curtain. Nor can the velvety-slow, still-ticking cicada.
20 Jul 2008 at 2:32 pm
I’m glad you are enjoying the NT, and I look forward to visiting the Banks clan lands sometime. Do I need a visa?
You don’t say whether you want someone to explain 1 Thess 2:2 or 2 Thess 2:2. However
- 1 Thess 2:2 means, I think, that after they had a rough reception preaching the gospel in Philippi, they still found the courage to try again in Thessalonika, which they attributed to the help of God.
- 2 Thess 2:2 means, I think, that there were oddballs and weirdos in the first century just as there are now. Some of these might think that the “day of the Lord” had already come, that is that Jesus had already returned. Or they might just be saying it to stir up trouble. They might disseminate this view in letters or messages purportedly from Paul, or claiming that he agreed with their view. I imagine that what Paul says here reflects some bizarre theory that was then current. Paul, however, gets his retaliation in first by saying the if they ever do get such stuff, they are to ignore it, because he would never advance or endorse such a claim. He then goes on to explain some of his understanding of what the coming of the “day of the Lord” entails. I’m glad you didn’t ask about verse 3, because I have no idea what it means (though perhaps you intended to?). He seems to think it explains things, and probably helps account for Peter’s view that there are some things in Paul’s letters that are hard to understand.
21 Jul 2008 at 4:44 pm
Thanks Ian… I actually meant neither if those things and meant the whole if 2 Thessalonians 2! All the stuff about the lawless man and the end times. Who is this man and how come he can do miracles and signs etc. The whole chapter was pretty much lost on us!
22 Jul 2008 at 8:44 am
I think I need to refer you again to 2 Peter 3:16! From what Peter says it was his experience then, as it is ours now, that some people build wild theories on the minute details of passages that are somewhat obscure.
All the same, one can get some idea what Paul is saying in 2 Thess 2. (Looking only at verses 1-12, as from 13 onwards it seems straightforward.)
- He expects the Lord to come.
- He expects the time until the Lord comes to be marked by opposition and lawlessness.
- This is not just due to human perversity - Satan is behind it.
- Those who oppose the gospel are in fact subject to spiritual deception.
- The Lord Jesus will eventually triumph.
Some of the rather cryptic stuff may have made more sense to the original recipients of the letter. He says in v.5 that he is recapping what he told them when he was with them.
I think it’s wise to follow John Wimber’s advice and stick to what he used to call “the main and the plain” - that is, there is enough to be getting on with in applying to our lifes the mainstream understandable themes of scripture.
22 Jul 2008 at 9:18 am
Thanks Ian,
That is helpful.
We may need to spend an evening going through all the bits we have read this summer that we didn’t really understand…
Lucky you.
22 Jul 2008 at 9:35 am
Forewarned is forearmed!
23 Jul 2008 at 9:35 am