Our texts for the first half of this week get us started into the prologue to John’s gospel, where we’ll be spending most of our time through Advent… backed by the Old Testament readings, of course. It is thought by some scholars that these first 18 verses of John were originally an early Christian hymn, which is an idea I just love for some reason. I can imagine it sung… the Greek text has a poetic flavour to it that many translations just don’t get. John also uses words very carefully, being at times deliberately ambiguous it seems, or using words with double-meanings. Again, the translations don’t always catch these. No fault to them, double-meanings are very difficult to deal with in translation.

Today is a kind of busy day when my brain is filled with other things; I have a funeral this afternoon for a business colleague and I have a number of writing projects to attend to, including a search for some additional paid work. Momentum on the book is slowed and needs to recover, and I’m thinking about producing a series of meditations and prayers for Advent… will let you know about that If I do it, of course. In the meantime, I’m attempting to extend shalom even when I’m finding a struggle to live in shalom. And today’s food for thought is about Truth, and reminds me of the need for living into what we believe partly as an end in itself, but also as a means of sharing it… you know, “Live your faith. Share your life.” This brings me to a Celtic meditation I’ve snipped from a book:

The wisdom of the ancients… I found this striking in an ancient-future kind of way, and serves as a reminder that attempts have been made before to reinvent our faith, and that we ought to be cautious in our own attempts thereat. In particular though, this may drive us back to the ancients, prior to the last reinvention, and perhaps even before that as well; after all, this is Celtic wisdom, and Celtic Christianity dates back to just a few centuries after the time of Christ.

Improving Religion

The wisdom of Celtic Christians… this one reminds us that though the poor are always with us, so also is our attitude toward the poor unchanged over the passage of centuries. In all of the things we’ve not done to offend, what have we also not done which may have been worthy of some small amount of honour? The Pharisees were no different, and we are no different today. Think on this.

I Have Never Done Anything