To The Heart of Things

I have a great deal of respect for the medical professions, but it is one of those respects that likes to keep them as far away from me as possible. On Tuesday though it was impossible for me to maintain my distance, mainly because of the near constant beratings of Mrs Velkyal to go to the doctor and get my swollen leg sorted out.

I am not going to go into the medical details of the leg issue, suffice to say that the problem with the swollen leg had affected my back because of walking awkwardly, so I was expecting some muscle relaxers and being told to ice the swollen leg. Instead, the doctor sent me to the local hospital for an ultrasound to see if the swelling was a boy or a girl. It turned out that the cause of the swelling was a deep vein thrombosis in my thigh, in fact it was a rather large clot that the doctors wanted to operate on as soon as possible, to avoid it moving and causing a pulmonary embolism or stroke. So yesterday morning, after a fitful night of sleep, I went in to have the thing removed - basically the surgeon enters the vein and puts a wire through the clot, inflates balloons at either end, injects a dissolving agent into the clot and uses a spiral to break it up before sucking it out.

Enough of the medical details, after all this blog is about my spiritual issues. Being told in your early 30s that if you had waited another couple of days to see the doctor then the clot could have made it into your lungs and possibly killed you is a very sobering thing. It may be a cliche, but being faced with your own mortality really isn't a pleasant experience. Admittedly I wasn't face to face with death, but knowing he was quite definitely in the neighbourhood isn't nice. I was a bundle of nerves the night before the surgery, and actually going to the hospital - I have an aversion to needles and things like that, and a fear of not waking up.

Has this experience had a profound effect on my outlook in life? At the moment I honestly don't know - I am not sure profundity can be measured after a day and a bit. Did it scare me witless? Most certainly, especially given that my family, as opposed to the in-laws, are all thousands of miles away back in Europe. One thing though that it did do is help me realise just how much Mrs Velkyal means to me and that the only reason she goes on at me to live a healthier life is because she loves me. Without her constantly asking me when I was going to the doctor, I could have been in a far worse state this morning.

One thing I fear happening in the coming days and weeks is that my melancholic Celtic nature goes mad, mind you, as I am on blood thinners, and thus off alcohol for a while, it won't be fueled by beer and whisky. The last thing I need is to get all maudlin and end up depressed, although I do hope to use this experience to reflect on life and any changes I need to make, not just physical but almost emotional and psychological - I might need at some point to have a chat with a priest again.

The most important though this morning is being able to sit here and write this - that makes me happy, because I am alive, something we need to celebrate more often, all of us.

Reading in the New Year

I really do pity my loved ones when it comes to the traditional gift giving times of the year, birthdays and Christmas in particular. I am a nightmare to buy stuff for, mainly because I have very clear ideas about the things I like and even the tiniest little thing can take something from the "yes I'll have that" pile to the "no, never, buy me that I will be offended for life" pile - as you can imagine, I am a nightmare to go shopping with.

The safest bet with me, as I constantly tell Mrs Velkyal, is books. I love books, I love reading, and to be perfectly honest, if I could spend my life surrounded by books then I would be as happy as Augustus Gloop in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. One of my long term ambitions is to build a house to my own design, the centre piece being an atrium going from the ground floor to the roof which would be my library and study.

I must admit to having dropped several very large hints at Mrs Velkyal that I wanted a copy of Karen Armstrong's "A History of God" - I book I have pondered getting several times before but not gone ahead with. My interest in the book was re-stirred when I discovered that my eldest brother was reading it, and given our history of theological discussions (usually over pints somewhere - the pub is so much more conducive to good conversation I find, infinitely preferable to a Bible study group) I decided I would angle for a copy so that we have more to discuss.

One of the things I love about Mrs Velkyal, other than being Mrs Velkyal, which is worthy of a medal in and of itself, is that she often goes beyond the call of duty, thus is was I also received a copy of Armstrong's "A Short History of Myth", which I am very much looking forward to delving into. Sometimes though I like to give myself the occasional present, and so I bought a copy of Thiselton's "The Hermeneutics of Doctrine" - I loved hermenetics at college, and thoroughly enjoyed Thiselton's "New Horizons in Hermeneutics".

I am sure that these books will stir many a thought in my brain, and that I'll be making reference to them time and again in the coming months, so here's looking forward to some good reading!

A Very Happy Christmas!

Despite my many, and fairly well documented, misgivings about the Christian religion, or faith, whatever you want to call it - the only difference is semantics and a self important notion of somehow being different from other Christians - Christmas is one of the festival of the church that I really love.

Is there any more powerful message in all of human experience than that God would deign to take on human form, coming to preach a message of the possibility of humanity's reconciliation with their creator?

Of course, the message of Christmas, of Christianity really, is that humanity can be better than it is, that the constant cycle of emnity, warfare and hatred need not be the norm for the human race, that peace and goodwill can extend to all of God's creation - it is a vision still worth living for.

Being an Episcopalian at Christmas is to drench oneself in the traditions and rites of the church, embodied so much in the Lessons and Carols service, especially at King's College. Here are some clips from this most beautiful of service.

The Missing Millenium

I often reflect that there was a glaring great gap in the theological education I received at college, and this isn't an attempt to disrespect everything I learnt at college.

For many of us in the one of the various Protestant traditions we miss out on about 1200 years of theological thought and development because our worldview basically goes as follows from a historical perspective:

• Acts of the Apostles
• Early Church up to 313AD
• The Reformation

If you accept the Reformation began with the nailing of the 95 Thesis to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1517 then most Protestants ignore a thousand years of Christian thought, devotion, expression and spirituality in the misguided notion that from Constantine's alleged conversion to Martin Luther shaking Europe to its very core nothing of note happened.

Naturally there are precursors to the Reformation in the work of the Waldensians, John Wycliffe and Jan Hus, but there were also many honest and sincere theological reflections during those thousand years which can feed our spiritual lives today.

There are several writings that I have found instructive and edifying in the years since I left college and started exploring those thousand years, and here I would recommend them to your own reading:

• The Imitation of Christ - Thomas a Kempis
• The of Life of St Columba - Adamnan
• The Writings of Julian of Norwich

In recommending these works, I ask that we remember that all human writings are flawed in some way, for as St Paul reminds us, "we see through a glass darkly". None of us sees or understands the Gospel in all its fullness, the divine mind is simply beyond us, but in sharing that which we see, we hope others gain from our insight, as we look to gain from theirs.

On Passion

Over on Murgsy's blog, written by my best friend from college, Cristi, is currently posted a story about an Aston Villa fan who is so passionate about his club that he has only missed one game in 30 years. I had to give Cristi kudos for not turning the story into a bash of people who shout and scream from the terraces or, from the comfort of a pub, at a TV set whilst watching a match of football, yet like a quiet, reflective form of Christian expression.

Said kudos is due largely because I am one of those people. Although in recent years I have improved remarkably when it comes to being vocal watching a match, a fact I put down very much to the calming influence of Mrs Velkyal, I have spent many a sermon sat squirming as the preacher berated football fans for using their passion in support of a club, instead of jerking around in church with St Vitus' Dance.

To be blunt, such preachers simply do not understand the nature of passion, and I think part of the misunderstanding is that they fail to see that the most common emotion of the football fan is frustration, not passion, if you are a Liverpool fan, think back to Houllier's last season and you'll know what I mean.

Passion is not about noise, not about being wildly demonstrative, not about flamboyance, passion is about what you care most deeply about, they key there being "deeply". Passion without depth is just splashing around trying to make a good impression.

I love the story of when Elijah, having proven the superiority of YHWH and slaughtered the false prophets, does a runner from the retribution of Jezebel and hides in a cave. There follows a mighty wind, an earthquake and a fire, none of which contain the comfort of God, only in the still small voice did God speak to Elijah.

So let others bang on about the latest fad in worship music, or the latest manifestations of the Holy Spirit, God is still the still small voice - perhaps we should learn to shut up?

Thoughts on Sermon Soundbytes

Here are a few more little thoughts and snippets from my note book, taken from listening to different sermons and interacting with them.

• "predestination - nothing prevents God's of sovereignty as long as we continue to walk in the Spirit"

If the preacher who stated this is correct, then surely God is not actually sovereign since the success of his plan depends on frail human beings? This statement, whilst seeming to teach the sovereignty of God is in fact entirely anthropocentric because God, it would seem, is incapable of implementing his will without people, thus he is not sovereign. This kind of attitude reminds me of the fictitious nonsense that God "helps those who help themselves", a theological dressing up of naked greed if ever there was one.

• "assurance is freedom from doubt"

Is that really so? In the experience of Job, his assurance came from freedom in doubt - by understanding that circumstances are temporary but the love of God is eternal, Job was free to believe despite the evident doubts and questions his circumstances raised. Doubt is a natural part of faith, after all we are called not to know but to believe.

Just a couple of things to mull over....

Some Questions

I was reading a note book this morning. It was my note book from the months after I graduated, most of it is notes taken during sermons in various churches in Inverness and Birmingham. I came across a serious of questions that I wrote down at the time, and they still bother me. It would be nice to get other people's thoughts on them:

• is healing only finally proven in death?
• does God really care more about minor ailments than the suffering of Third World believers?
• is "be thou separate" from the Revelation used as an excuse to live in a Christianised bubble?
• is Evangelicalism a culturally conditioned theological phenomenon?