Theology podcast

I recently discovered Philip Harland’s blog about Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean. He offers podcasts of his lectures on topics such as “The Historical Jesus in Context”. I very much like his historical approach.

Overall, he has four series so far. Currently I am listening to the first one on Paul and the second one on the different gospels.

Series 1: Paul and his communities (12 episodes, Oct 2007 – Feb 2008 release)
Series 2: Early Christian portraits of Jesus (11 episodes, Feb 2008 – Sept 2008)
Series 3: Diversity in early Christianity: “Heresies” and struggles (16 episodes, Oct 2008-June 2009)
Series 4: The Historical Jesus in Context (Sept 2009- )

For me it is easiest to pick them up from the archive. I played around with podcatchers but somehow that does not work for me. I cannot quite see the point: direct download seems to be so much faster and less hassle. But maybe I am missing something here.

Under the overpass

… my favourite blogger will take a break to turn his blog into a book. I will miss his stories and comments. He is running a homeless shelter under an overpass. His posts tell about the strangeness of everyday life at the shelter and of the meaning of it all. As he says, it’s ” both beauty and abyss, comedy and tragedy. Very much recommended (even the archives).

outline and first layer of my icon

I use a wooden board covered with 15 (or so) layers of foundation (this was the bit that Jan did and I was fortunate enough to just take the prepared board.) The board still had to be sanded — this involved A LOT of dust and is better done outside. Rougher sandpaper and then gradually finer ones. The goal is to have a surface like a mirror. Hm, well. It is now kind of smooth enough.

Using the copy machine, I enlarged a copy of the the icon from the book onto paper so that it would fit nicely on the board. Then I fixed the paper and some old-fashioned black copy paper onto the board and traced the outline. You can also put pigments on the back of the paper copy and then trace it. The resulting outline on the board is then traced again with a sharp nail so that the outline is cut into the outer layer and remains somewhat visible after painting several layers. This outline in turn was traced with red paint (will look up which one it was)

You can see that I changed the wings and the outer frame a bit and made the icon show more of the legs. I wanted the person to be as large as possible on the board.

I read somewhere that the first layer should be burnt Siena over the whole icon in crosshatches. You can see the result below. Two comments on this step:

Firstly, I would probably not do it again as not all of the next layers are very opaque and the crosshatches are showing – it took me a long time to apply enough layers so that this first layer would not show anymore. Other books do not seem to mention this layer.

Secondly, I did the crosshatches all wrong. You are not actually doing little cross hatches but you go in tiny short lines all over the icon in one direction and then in another layer you go the same but with the icon turned. And then again and again. So somehow there are hatches but not necessarily crosses. In the end it would just fill the whole icon. Still not convinced as the dark color may shine though (see above).

All icon posts in the right order and with more images on my icon page.

the beginning of the icon

as promised, here are the first stages of my icon writing. I put the details on a separate page and just give brief updates here. I really don’t quite know what I am doing with the icon but try and continue as best as I can.
We had a workshop that other people attended but I could not get to. Now I joined their group and hope to pick up as much as I can from them and from books and webpages.

Here is where I started: I looked for an icon I liked – the icon of the Holy Silence. I found it in a book I bought in Germany. It is sometimes called Holy Wisdom. I like the wings and the colors and the idea of Holy Wisdom.

Holy Silence

I copied the outline onto a prepared board. Thanks to Jan for patiently preparing the board and for giving it to me so that I could join in without long preparations.

outline

More details and bigger pictures on my icon page.

Africa needs God…

says a times online article. Very interesting thoughts. I have to admit that I had a similar attitude to it missionaries — if it motivates them to do good things so be it but their faith as such does not matter. I always found (and still so) the conditional help that comes packaged with a bible to be dishonest.

Icon Painting

Finally Rosemary talked me into joining their icon writing group one Saturday a month at the cathedral. I have never done anything like it and did not expect to like it very much at first — very slow and meticulous work. But I discovered that it is fascinating! I was lucky as Jan gave me one of his prepared boards so I did not have to go through all the work in preparing the board myself but could get started with sanding it right away. We have a number of books that all explain the process slightly differently. For my first one I decided to use acrylics. I will just try to find out as much as I can and try it out.

I found only one other page that shows a step-by-step icon writing at the Lamp of Beauty (you see her last step of gilding here, earlier steps go back in her blog). A number of descriptions for egg tempera are also online. Seeing lots of examples of work in progress helps me a lot. My progress with the icon will be posted here.

interfaith conference

The conference has just finished and I am sitting in the Mezze Bar in Auckland to recover from two days of listening and talking to people from different faiths. I still have to think about what I make of it all. We also bought an interesting looking book ‘The quiet revolution’ by Peter Kirkwood.

Perhaps as a first feedback: It was good to see that there are successful projects, such as the interfaith centre in Brisbane (at Griffith University) and the multi-faith centre in Darby. Will check out links later. Need a coffee now.

Progressive Christianity

I have decided to start collecting resources, links and books as I go along in my journey. All this will be posted on this page and in the end it will hopefully make sense. I find church currently a frustrating experience; rigid structures and an old-fashioned theology– there must be another way.

its been a year

since the last post 😦 Want to take it up again. Back in NZ now and settling in took much longer than anticipated. So many things are happening that I don’t even know where to start right now. The Lambeth conference has just finished and, unfortunately, it looks as if nothing really noteworthy has happened (lots of things did, in fact, NOT happen).

Church in a Pub

I went to “Zac’s place” tonight. It is run by Sean. On Tuesday evenings at about 7:30 they have a “Church for Ragamuffins”: connected to Zac’s place is the God’s Squad – a biker group. It started out 10 years ago in Australia and Sean started the first UK club in 2001. The place is named after Zacchaeus, the tax collector with whom Jesus had a meal.

When I arrived the place looked locked up and everything seemed shut down, I stood there not quite sure what to do and where to turn to find out more. A guy with two bottles of milk came along the street and I asked about whether they’d closed for the summer (as some other really interesting groups did – like the café church – more about that later) and he pointed to the door that was just around the corner. Oh well. They invited me to bring my bike (take note: I have a bike now, just bought it today, a red Coventry Eagle!) into the room with me. There were about six people there already and later on we were about 15 to 20 people. The room liked like a very small pub. There was food on the counter and people sat around talking and having tea and coffee (this is where the two bottles of milk came handy). Just normal people (which is proven by the fact that I had problems understanding their Welsh accent). Bikers with tattoos and all, women and men, younger and older people, quite mixed.

More people came in, some hugged; everyone chatted and shared the food. I got talking to people and we had tea and coffee. It felt really welcome. Sean started the bible study with a prayer. Normal language, very accessible and down to earth. Each small table got a bible and two people read out the text, then Sean opened the discussion. I liked that we had two English versions which made it easier to see different points and it made it more accessible. The great thing was that you could say just straight out what you meant and when people talked they linked the text to their lives.

It had often bothered me that when you listen to a sermon in a ‘normal’ church and you disagree you can hardly jump up and yell out that you disagree and make suggestions. I often disagreed and wanted to start a discussion and wanted to hear how other people saw it. And here it was, just like that. I really liked it. People listened and agreed or disagreed and had different ideas about what it meant and it all developed while we were talking.

They had been talking about the parables during the last meetings. The reading for this evening was Luke 19:11-27 about the leader giving out money to people to keep while he is away and about what they did with the money (make more of it or just hide it away in fear). People compared it to money lenders and how you can buy goods and only pay five pounds a week but over a long time and they take about 600% off you. They related it to drug dealers and to their lives. This one part in the text had worried me: if you have little it will be taken away – it just does not seem fair. Now I see that it meant if a talent is given to you but you do not use it you will lose it. Makes sense, like speaking a language – if you don’t use and share it you’ll not be able to keep it.

People also pointed out that it was not all happy-clappy: that some people try and invest a lot, especially in the church, and in the end they lose their faith because things do not work out and it is so hard going. It is not that if you try then it will always work out and everyone will be better off and happy. It was also acknowledged that a lot of people get hurt by the church as an institution and that some people misuse their power in the church and people get awfully hurt. It wasn’t as if anyone dwelt on that a lot but it was acknowledged.

At the end, Sean asked what we wanted to pray about and the requests ranged from prayers for people who were ill, to friends and family far away, to a dog with ill health, to good-quality Skype connections and quick car repair. There was a kind of Eucharist if you wanted: a plastic jug of fruit juice and a slice of toast bread were on the counter and you could just take a sip and a piece. I would have preferred a bit more explicit sharing of the meal – but that happened with the tuna sandwiches and the tea ! People stayed and talked afterwards. It was great fun and I am sure I will be back next week.

Have a look at Seans blog.