Nick Page

So, the question I posed was this: ‘Why does God get all the praise when I did all the work?’ By which I don’t mean that I necessarily need or want more praise (being English I find any praise rather embarrassing anyway. Not to mention ill-judged) but I was trying to explore the relationship between human skills, creativity and effort and the inspiration and work of the Divine. Of course all things come from God and of your own do we give you, as it says in the Prayer Book. But I also think that human beings are rather wonderful. And in saying, as Augustine did, that humans are incapable of good outside of the work of God, seems to me to be rather downplaying the amazing way in which we are made in the image of God.

Also, we talked a lot about custard.

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Lots of stuff in this week’s episode, but it seemed to me to have a common theme of depth.

We talk about reading the Bible not more widely, but more deeply – learning a passage, or simply taking one verse and dwelling on it for a long time.

And following on from last week’s recap on the idea of stages of faith, we discuss how the Mid-faith Crisis could simply be motivated by a desire to go deeper, to find out more, to go beyond the superficial. There’s a bit of grief, a bit of anger and the normal amount of stupidity.

And I’ve been down a well. Literally.

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On the podcast this week I reference T. S. Eliot's lines from Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

This week I am angry at the state of the world and the state of the church, I am grieving the loss of an old friend. But poetry is comfort.

We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

There is comfort in friendship. Comfort in words. Comfort in the landscape. Comfort in curiosity, and in ritual.

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well.

In this week’s episode, we revisit the idea of stages of faith – which is really what this podcast is all about. The idea of Mid-faith Crisis was also behind my book The Dark Night of the Shed. During the podcast, however, we also touch on how this isn’t just a spiritual journey: you can see the stages reflected in stories, worked out in relationships and patterned in life itself. In that sense the crisis, whether you call it a dark night, a mid-life crisis or a crisis of faith, is not something to be avoided. It’s a passage to the next stage of the story, the next stage of your life.

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In our latest episode, Joe and I discuss our themes for the New Year.¹ (Our New Year begins on March 25 as was the custom up until the late eighteenth century.)

My theme for this year is focus. I’ve been struggling against the endless waves of distraction for a long time now, and I need to do something to arrest the slide. Moving to micro.blog was one way to avoid distractions of social media whilst still having an online presence. I use Mastodon because it’s algorithm-free meaning that I can follow people without getting spammed by adverts. I’ve frozen my Instagram account, deleted my Twitter and Facebook.

And I am enrolled in an online course run by Cal Newport and Scott Young called Life of Focus.

I’m trying to separate this from ‘productivity’. I think it will – and, indeed, already has, made me more productive. But it’s not solely about that. It’s about making time to do things which I find satisfying and fulfilling and which, for one reason or another, have disappeared from my life. It’s about replacing shallowness with depth.

Anyway, that’s the background to my theme.

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In this episode we reflect on what the Easter story means for us this year. I’ve been particularly thinking about how the shape of the week – from triumph and joy, through perplexity and darkness, to new life and resurrection – is one of the basic human stories and also the shape of so many of our faith journeys.

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In our latest episode, Joe and I discuss the nature of praise. As the song goes, ‘Praise him on the trumpet, the psaltery and harp!’ But it never really explains why. Doesn’t the obligation to praise God make him seem, well, a bit needy? And what the heck is a psaltery anyway? We talk about praise as a response, as a practice of gratitude and appreciation, how it needs to be based on intellectual content, and why attempts to do mood-altering worship never really work. Yes, it’s worship on the dancefloor, so you’d better not kill the timbrel.

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You never know what you’re going to get with our feedback! But one of the things I loved in this week’s episode was discovering that the green crockery so beloved of churches and church halls everywhere is called Beryl. It somehow fits. The rest of the feedback leads into discussions about whether our desire to achieve things is personality driven, and the proper role of regret in our lives. Although I think I will have more to say about that.

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In this episode Joe talks to Jo about the menopause. And perimenopause. And post-menopause. What is it and why does it matter? And why don’t we talk about it more? You will learn a lot.

Jo is a very old friend of mine, who can be found at Courage Coaching.

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In last week’s podcast we were talking about the necessity of becoming the person God created. During the show I was trying to remember this Hassidic tale. But then we moved on and I forgot to mention it.

Anyway, it goes like this:

Rabbi Zusya dies and goes to heaven. And he’s a bit anxious as to whether he has been holy enough. Was God going to be angry with him? He imagined that God would interrogate him: ‘Why were you not more like Moses or Solomon or David?’ To his surprise, God turns to him and says, quietly, “Tell me – why were you not more like Rabbi Zusya?'”

I think this comes from Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim, but I’ve lost my copy somewhere.

In Episode 273 we talked a bit about Lent.

Lent has an interesting image these days. For most people who have any familiarity about it, I think it’s just ‘that period where you give something up.’ So you might cut out sugar. Or alcohol. It’s more diet than denial.

But Lent is actually about a kind of reset, not a temporary diet. It begins, after all, with Ash Wednesday which, as Philip Pfatteicher writes, is focused on our fragile humanity.

Without any preparation, Ash Wednesday always comes as an unexpected interruption. Into the richness and pleasure of living suddenly comes the grim reminder, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It was God’s word to our first parents in the garden of paradise after their disobedience, and it is God’s word still to us all. Abruptly cutting into life when we are enjoying it the most comes the warning, “You too must die.” ¹

So Lent is a reminder that life is short. There is no time to waste time on things which don’t matter. As Joan Chittester says in her wonderful book: The Liturgical Year, Lent is

a continuing cry across the centuries that life is transient, that change is urgent. We don’t have enough time to waste time on nothingness.²

Ashes have other connections as well: in the ancient world they were also for cleaning, if you didn’t have soap. They have astringent qualities. So this period is also something which is cleansing.

Lent is a penitential period, when we reflect on our appetites, on what drives us. The day before is Shrove Tuesday, the name coming from the word shrive, meaning ‘absolve’. We start Lent by seeking forgiveness. this new start allows us, through denial and reflection, to make an intentional examination of ourselves.

I was struck by this quote from a wonderful book: The Liturgical Year, by Joan Chittester:

Lent is a call to renew a commitment grown dull, perhaps, by a life more marked by routine than by reflection after a lifetime of mundane regularity or unconsidered adherence to the trappings of faith, Lent requires me, as a Christian, to stop for a while, to reflect again on what is going on in me. I am challenged again to decide whether I, myself, do truly believe that Jesus is the Christ—and if I believe, whether I will live accordingly when I can no longer hear the song of angels in my life and the star of Bethlehem has grown dim for me.

The key thing here is that it’s about proper recognition of value, not a basement and shame. We are dust, but we are gold dust. We are precious dust, earth into which God has breathed life. We are gold dust in jars of clay.

Lent is a reminder of our humanity, but also our belovedness.

A bit of history Lent is first referred to in AD 325 at Council of Nicea. The context implies that it was not new, it was something that ppl were familiar with. So it’s a practice of the church which probably goes back into the late third century. Early Christians fasted twice a week anyway – on Wednesdays and Fridays. Their method of fasting – both routinely and during Lent – was to not eat until sundown. And you didn’t fast on Sundays. Later Christians abstained from meat and dairy products among other things.

In the latest episode, Joe is having an existential crisis and, worryingly, is asking for my help. So we discuss meaning and purpose. What are we here for? What is our calling? Is there a purpose to our lives or are we just fooling ourselves? Is it true that everyone on earth is a pun? Does Joe’s purpose involve cheese?

In the episode I quoted Jung

The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are different…

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In this episode Joe and I discuss Lent, Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. We reflect on the purpose of fasting, the way that Lent creates contours in the year, and the cheery fact that we are all going to die. From dust we are made and to dust we shall return. But what kind of dust? That’s the question.

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Last week we talked about lots of different kinds of church. This week we’re thinking about the purpose. What, actually, is the point of church? What are we supposed to do? And has this whole thing just been market research so that Joe can start a cult? Also, there’s a lot of food in this episode, none of it healthy.

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Having ideas is easy. Turning ideas into reality is hard. So well expressed here.

So many people want everything at the touch of a button. But you can’t order success for next day delivery. In fact the idea needs the work, because not only is it the work that gives it form, it is through the work that you discover other, perhaps better, ideas.

I’ve been doing more work on the chapter about Odda’s Chapel. Deerhurst lies in floodplain fields on the banks of the River Severn.

There are two Saxon churches here. One is St Mary’s, a former monastic church, but the one I’ve been thinking about this week is a simple little building, a private chapel – Odda’s Chapel – which was lost and then found.

We know from the dedication plaque who built it and why. The inscription reads:

Odda, dux, ordered this royal hall to be constructed and dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity for the soul of his brother Ælfric which left the body in this place. Bishop Ealdred dedicated it the second of the Ides of April in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward, King of the English.

That date translates to 12 April, 1056. The king mentioned is Edward the Confessor. Duke Odda was a nobleman who later became a monk and died later the same year. But his brother, Aelfric died in 1053.

What’s amazing is that this simple chapel, was lost for centuries. In the seventeenth century it was covered by a timber-framed building and disappeared into the fabric of a ‘rambling picturesque farmhouse’ called Abbots Court. It was an Elizabethan chapel conversion. They used the nave for a kitchen, and put a floor in the chancel and used it as a bedroom.

It was only rediscovered in the late nineteenth century. They removed the surrounding fabric to reveal a perfect Saxon chapel, tall, dark, narrow-windowed. Stepping into it feels like going back in time. It feels as though the past has merely been hibernating, waiting for someone to cross the threshold and wake it from its slumber.

Writing some fifty years after the chapel was built, the chronicler John of Worcester described Odda as ‘a lover of churches, restorer of the poor, defender of widows and orphans, helper of the oppressed, guardian of chastity’. That’s not a bad way to be remembered. And memory is what this place is about. Odda built it because he didn’t want his dead brother to be forgotten.

We all do things to try to keep the memory of loved ones alive. Mostly it’s futile. A few generations on and the names are forgotten. One day I will be nothing more than a name in a library catalogue. A list of unread books, I expect.

But sometimes someone manages to cheat the system. Odda did it. His chapel was hidden in plain sight for centuries. And then it was revealed. And so we remember him. And his brother.

Sort of gives you hope, really.

Almost all of us will be forgotten.

But not Odda. And not his brother.