Village News article (February ‘08)

I was having a hard time sleeping last night, so I switched on the BBC World Service and listened to a programme on the rising debt crisis.  Not surprisingly, it didn’t particularly help sooth my racing mind, and I awoke this morning thoroughly exhausted.  I went into school for the first time after Christmas and read in one of the national papers that the Church of England is providing training so that clergy can give financial planning and debt advice.  That got a sardonic chuckle out of me.  Line ups of people at the vicarage asking me for financial advice?  I doubt it.

Village News article (October ‘07)

One of the earliest things we learn as children is to say “thank you” after receiving something. If we forget, or if we presume this gesture as unnecessary, we generally earn a rebuke from our parents or guardians. I recall many times when I’ve had to say, “what do you say?” to a child after giving them something. Usually the result is a quick “thanks” as they are already on their way to doing whatever it is they were doing.

This act of saying thanks is always in response to something that we have received. Perhaps we asked for something, but perhaps it was unexpected. Even more, perhaps we have received something intangible and precious, like forgiveness or love. Perhaps in a moment of attention you have realised, “this person actually loves me, and at the moment I haven’t the foggiest idea why”. In all these cases the only response we can make is “thank you”. It is a simple acknowledgment that we have depended upon the generosity and gift of someone else.

Village News article (September ‘07)

How many of us have been in a car where the driver clearly didn’t know where they were going but refused to admit it? I suppose most of the women reading this who have ever been in the passenger seat while a man was driving would say yes (I know at least one). It’s difficult for some people to ask for directions. We like to think that we know precisely where it is we are going, and so asking for directions is like admitting defeat. However, if we are going somewhere we have never been, how is it a defeat to ask someone who knows the way?

Every journey into the unknown needs knowledge of the area, a decent map, and competent navigation in order to ensure a successful outcome. Journeying in life is like this generally, but in our lives the factor of the unknown is more significant… None of us know what is around the next corner of our lives. People often attempt to get around this common human reality by trying to consult horoscopes, or psychics. In the strain for knowledge we can’t have, we may begin to obsess about our future rather than concentrate on the journey at hand. Or, worse yet, receive false maps with unmarked hazards and dead ends.

Village News article (July/August ‘07)

“We’re here for a good time (not a long time)” is the title of a classic rock’n’roll song by Trooper. They’re a Canadian group, so I don’t expect many of you to have heard of them. The song popped into my head while I was considering what to write as we head into the summer months (worse songs from Canadian artists could have popped into my head, like anything from Celine Dion, which would have properly wrecked this article). What does it mean to have a good time? What underpins it?

Village News article (May ‘07)

“Human existence and everything that immediately pertains to it have the structure of hope.” Thus wrote a famous philosopher. If you think about it you’ll see he was right. What is it that gives us the strength, the desire, and in some cases the courage, to get up each morning, place one foot in front of the other, and make our way into another day? What is it? It is hope. It is the hope that our life means something. It is the hope that today will be worthwhile, and perhaps even an improvement upon yesterday. If we don’t have hope in our lives, we don’t truly live. We may have blood coursing through our veins, but we do not have that essential “something” in us that makes our life worth living.

Justice: The Most Terrible of the Virtues

by James Schall
Published in the Journal of Markets and Morality (vol 7, number 2, fall 2004).

The place of justice among the virtues, both moral and theological, has always been a delicate issue. Machiavellians tend to underestimate or deny its central significance. Contemporary religious rhetoric often tends to exaggerate it. Classi-cal philosophy was ever aware of the ambiguity of justice—its impersonality and rigidity. Unless placed within a higher order of “good,” as Plato saw, or of “charity,” as Aquinas understood, justice introduces an unsettling utopianism into any existing polity.

“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness andpeace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of theearth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.” —Psalm 85:10–11 “Summum jus, summa injustitia.” —Cicero, De officiis “Deus misericorditer agit, non quidem contra justitiamsuam faciendo, sed aliquid supra justitiam operando.…” —Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 21, 3, ad 2

In ethical and political affairs, no more frequent or more agonizing word is found than that of justice or its related words fair, equitable, right, or rights. In its own way, of course, justice is also a noble word standing at the height of the practical, not theoretical or theological, virtues. It is also one of the attributes applied to the divinity—God is just. Justice, following Plato, can have a very broad scope. It means that everything is voluntarily doing what it ought to do so that the whole may do what it is ordered (that is, designed) to do. Such is the fifth definition of justice in the fourth book of Plato’s Republic. The standard subtitle of this famous dialogue is precisely “On Justice.”

Justice is classically treated in the fifth book of Aristotle’s Ethics, wherein he distinguishes between legal or general justice and special justice. In earlier books, he offered an overall description or analysis of virtue and responsibility, together with the vices opposite to each of the virtues.¹ Aristotle explained how virtues applied to human action and passion in which they exist as habitual guides or moderators. Justice is a virtue, which, unlike courage or temperance, does not look inward. Rather, it looks ad alium, to how we stand to another or others besides ourselves when we chance to come into various relationships with them. It implies that our perfection is not something totally dependent on or related to ourselves alone. If we speak of “justice to ourselves,” we mean that we compare or relate what we ought to be with what we in fact are and do.

Village News article (April ‘07)

“When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject” (Acts 17:32). This was the reaction of the Athenians when the Apostle Paul preached to them about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It has been about 2000 years and you will still get the same reaction when you talk about the resurrection of the dead.

For someone who doesn’t believe in God or the human soul, the basic belief in any kind of life after death is ridiculous, but even those who believe in something may have a hard time believing in “the resurrection of the dead”. When the Bible talks about this it talks about more than merely “coming back to life”. The resurrection is about a quality of endless life. This endless life gathers up everything we have ever truly loved about this life and joins it to the eternal life that God enjoys. It is not about merely forgetting the suffering and pain of this life. It is important to know that Jesus’ resurrection didn’t remove the nail scars and wounds, but transformed and glorified them… It’s all about the redemption of our souls and bodies, not about some kind of afterlife anaesthesia. Paul says, “For the kingdom of God is … righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). An infinite righteousness, peace and joy… These things don’t come about by avoidance of tragedy, but by victory over it.

Village News article (Feb. ‘07)

St. Bees News March. 07

The season of Lent is upon us. Some of you may worry that the first newsletter from me about this season of fasting and prayer is a grim premonition. I can see the front page now, “Arrival of new vicar sees St. Bees plunged into self-denial and suffering”. If this causes you to pray more fervently for me then that’s a good thing… Lent is not a season many of us participate in, and if we do, we tend not to look forward to it. Too often the Christian discipline of fasting is faced glumly (and on the flip side, celebration is enjoyed without any sober reflection). Fasting is regarded by many as out-of-date; however, it is an integral part of Christian devotion, and if we approach it properly it can be a deeply beneficial. The only proper way to approach Christian fasting is to see it as a participation in the ministry and self-denial of Jesus. He never did anything grimly (“who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning it’s shame”). In the midst of his suffering there was a recognition of greater purpose, and joy. But even for Christ this did not come without effort (“Father, not my will be done, but yours”).