Things Seen - Fletcher

I was in a park in Aberystwyth when I saw two dog owners chatting. They looked quite different (young/old, black/white, etc). It was the dogs (Labradors black and chocolate) that they had in common. I heard the one man ask the name of the other's dog and was told it was Fletcher. He repeated the name several times, rolling it around his tongue. He seemed to be looking for a meaning in it beyond the mere sounds. It was an interesting question as I guess he will have little reason to use it. Nevertheless, there is something in us that wants to name things. If I come into contact with a dog, I want to know its name. It's natural.

i tunes U Mediaeval Theology

Often slow on the uptake I recently noticed iTunes U and in particular a series of lectures by Douglas Kelly given at Reformed Theological Seminary on Mediaeval Theology. There are some 22 lectures (about 20 hours altogether I guess) looking at Boethius, Aquinas, etc, etc. They appear to have been given recently to undergraduates and are well worth checking out (I am on Lecture 19 by now). Kelly combines academic depth (in theology, philosophy and ancient languages) with warm presentation that is sometimes lightly humorous and often applied to today's issues. The stance is thoroughly evangelical but very even handed and seeks to point up the wisdom of our Medieval forefathers. For more info check here. 

Lord's Day December 29 2013

We had about 40 present last week at our Christmas Day service and a similar number this last Lord's Day and about half that came Sunday evening. I preached briefly on the Wednesday morning on He is great and then on the Lord's Day on Romans 13:12 which will be our motto text this year – The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So set aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light. Our elder Robert Strivens preached helpfully in the evening from Paul's prayer in Philippians 1. There was a kind invitation back to home of one of our deacons which was nice. No visitors this time but it is nice to have the students around still. One of our members, our oldest, died last Saturday. She has not been able to attend for some time. I'm sure I will say more about that here.

My Christmas Books 2013

One of the joys of Christmas is getting new books. I had six new ones this year. There was a University Challenge Quiz Book and A Little Book of London by David Long from two sons and from another and his wife the whopping new John Frame Systematic Theology. I'm very much looking forward to getting into the last of these. Then the sisters-in-law and their husbands weighed in with a list book (a hardback edition of Russell Ash's Top Ten of Britain) and a book for using with kids (66 Books One Story by Paul Reynolds). The piece de resistance came from my wife, a beautiful edition of Umberto Eco's The Book of legendary Lands. Printed on good weighty glossed paper and oozing with colourful illustrations the book examines a number of lost lands and allied themes. With his  great erudition and vast knowledge the book is a joy. I have started it and have enjoyed what he has to say on the lost ten tribes and the seven wonders of the world. Each chapter is complete with sources though the tone is never heavy.

The Atheist's Guide to Christmas

Come December in our house we get out the Christmas stuff from above the cupboard on the landing. This stuff includes a box of about 20 Christmas books of various sorts, mostly red and some green. Among them is The Atheist's Guide to Christmas a collection of short pieces on the theme that came out a few years ago. There are 43 sections arranged under Stories, Science, How To, Philosophy, Arts, Events. Contributors include Richard Dawkins, Simon Le Bon, Derren Brown, David Baddiel, Brian Cox, etc. I have now read  about half the book. I'll probably read the rest next year. The contributions vary as one would expect. Curiously, much of what they say Evangelical Christians would agree with - Christmas is a pagan festival but suffused with Christian ideas. Can't we just take what we like and leave the rest? One notes a lot of ignorance and there is a genuine sadness that intelligent men and women have made a decision, usually early in life, on the slenderest of evidence, to reject the idea of God. To me it seems that they all do believe in God but find that an assertion of atheism is the best way to deal with their aversion to the idea. It's the case of people doing their best and trying to make the most of the situation. That is the way to disaster. More positively, the book reminds us that atheists are not monsters of some sort but ordinary human beings (very nice ones too some of them) like us trying to make sense of it all. Without God we are all sunk.

10 Grandmother names

1. Grandmother
2. Granny
3. Granmama
4. Grandma (what my kids called my mother)
5. Nana (what I called both my grandmothers, common in South Wales)
6. Nain (North Walian, what my kids call my wife's mother)
7. Mam gu (South Walian)
8. Memaw (I know this from Big Bang Theory, what Texan Sheldon called his grandmother)
9. Yaya (Greek)
10. Mom mom (American)

Another Christmas Present 1967 and 1973

Another more present that has come to mind, which presumably I received in 1967, when it was toy of the year is Spirograph. The gift I remember was as above. I never mastered making patterns with the elongated strips but had some fun with the circles. I remember it came with a piece of cardboard, nice shiny paper, a box of pins with which to fix the paper and coloured ink biros. The coloured pens were the best bit for me and it must have been a year or two later that I received one of those nice box sets with a selection of pens (probably made by Platinum or someone like that).

 

Toy of the year in 1973 was the very simple mastermind in its distinctive box. Presumably that was the year that I got that item. My wife bought a generic version of the game for the boys this Christmas.

A-Z of Christmas icons 26 Zebra

A-Z of Christmas icons 25 Yule log

Seasonal Theology from St Ambrose et al

In Peter Lombard's Sentences Book 1 and Chapter 10 we read words like these mostly from Ambrose

You ask me, how he can be a son if he has not a prior father? I ask of you also, when or how you think the Son is generated? For to me it is impossible to know the secret of generation; the mind fails, the voice is silent; and not mine only, but that of the angels; it is above angels, above powers, above cherubim, above seraphim, and above all understanding, if the peace of Christ is above all understanding (Phil, 4:7), must not such a generation be above all understanding?

Cover then (like the angels) your face with your hands, for it is not given you to look into surpassing mysteries! We are suffered to know that the Son is begotten, not to dispute upon the manner of His begetting. I cannot deny the one; the other I fear to search into, for if Paul says that the words which he heard when caught up into the third heaven might not be uttered, 2 Corinthians 12:2-5 how can we explain the secret of this generation from and of the Father, which we can neither hear nor attain to with our understanding?

A-Z of Christmas icons 24 X

All my Christmases at once

So not to be too tedious about this. I had this curious idea that I'd like to be scientist. This lead to the gifts of a microscope (1967) which was good fun. Even a human hair looks interesting under the lens of a microscope. I don't think I ever really learned anything much from it. The chemistry set (1968) was as boring as one might expect. Nothing blew up. I did learn to make copper sulphate crystals, however, and was later placed in a competition at school for the best ones. In 1971 it was a telescope, which again wasn't quite the fun you hoped for. I tried looking at the night sky with it and learned very little. I do remember the joy of being able to read the words Lin Pac clearly on the factory across the valley from our house. When I began at the grammar school I joined an astronomy club that met on Friday nights and gave a talk on telescopes once. Beyond knowing a few obvious constellations my knowledge of the night sky is very poor. The electronics kit (1972) was as disappointing as all the rest. I managed to put something together once but it never worked. It was beginning to dawn on me that science was not my metier and I eventually dropped all science subjects at school not pursuing any of them to exam level. I like to read popular science books from time to time but have no aptitude for that area whatsoever.

The bicycle and the cassette recorder break up the sequence. I think the bicycle must have been around 1969. I was quite late learning to ride a bicycle being rather big, having little sense of balance and no bicycle for many years. I must have been able to ride by then as I recall going out on it on Christmas day (nor raining but the road was wet). The receiving of the gift stands out as we would always have our gifts in our bedrooms - a stocking with an apple and orange at the bottom, a comic down the side and various little items (I remember a mini stapler once and putting a staple directly into my thumb. Ouch!) and then a sack of toys. The bicycle was never brought upstairs, of course, and so I thought I had had all my presents until I went downstairs and found it in the front room. It was grey, a sort of shopper's bike. I had a lot of fun with it. Once you crossed the main road from us you were in the countryside and I loved cycling out there with friends. The bicycle was a Pegasus.

The cassette recorder seemed quite a revolution at the time and the cassette tape certainly did have its impact. This thing was made by Standard and weighed quite a bit. At that time Japanese companies were still trying to look English not the other way round. Anyway it did the job okay. I remember they had a steel band at the school summer fair, which I taped. I also have a memory of Telegram Sam by T Rex being performed on Top of the Pops for the first time and trying to tape it with a microphone. Great fun.

I have no strong memories after that. I suppose I'd reached that stage where they would buy me clothes. It happens to the best of us.

A Child's Christmas in Wales

Dylan Thomas began his wonderful little book with the above title

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find.

I have been trying to recapture my childhood Christmases. There is some confusion in my mind but as best I can remember each Christmas between 1965 when I was 6 and 1972 when I was 13 I had a main present from my parents and the order was as follows

1965 Johnny Seven

1966 Trik-Trak

1967 Microscope

1968 Chemistry set

1969 Bicycle

1970 Telescope

1971 Electronics kit

1972 Cassette recorder

The first two need some explanation. The Johnny Seven (and I write the day after the death of Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK47) was a child's gun that had seven components. It shot plastic white bullets, had a rifle action trigger, made a machine gun noise, had a grenade launcher and had a detachable handgun. I can't quite remember the other two (anti-tank rocket and armour piercing shell). It was big thing for a six year old (perhaps I was seven) and I remember that it was useless for lugging round in a game of war. In the end I just used to use the detachable handgun.
As for Trik-Trak see the video above which will show you both how exciting it seemed (especially after the effort involved in setting up Scalextric) and how basic it actually was. I think I was slightly disappointed even on the day I received it. The "scenery" was never used (except, oh yes, a cardboard tunnel - useless). I remember reading on the massive box that it was made in Northern Ireland.
You can see what a sucker I was for advertising. If I was little today I'd be recommending a Wonga loan to my parents.

A-Z of Christmas icons 23 Wreath

Seasonal theology from Anselm

This is from Anselm's  Cur Deus homo? Chapter 8

 

It now remains to inquire whence and how God shall assume human nature. For he will either take it from Adam, or else he will make a new man, as he made Adam originally. But, if he makes a new man, not of Adam’s race, then this man will not belong to the human family, which descended from Adam, and therefore ought not to make atonement for it, because he never belonged to it. For, as it is right for man to make atonement for the sin of man, it is also necessary that he who makes the atonement should be the very being who has sinned, or else one of the same race. Otherwise, neither Adam nor his race would make satisfaction for themselves. Therefore, as through Adam and Eve sin was propagated among all men, so none but themselves, or one born of them, ought to make atonement for the sin of men. And, since they cannot, one born of them must fulfil this work. Moreover, as Adam and his whole race, had he not sinned, would have stood firm without the support of any other being, so, after the fall, the same race must rise and be exalted by means of itself. For, whoever restores the race to its place, it will certainly stand by that being who has made this restoration. Also, when God created human nature in Adam alone, and would only make woman out of man, that by the union of both sexes there might be increase, in this he showed plainly that he wished to produce all that he intended with regard to human 248 nature from man alone. Wherefore, if the race of Adam be reinstated by any being not of the same race, it will not be restored to that dignity which it would have had, had not Adam sinned, and so will not be completely restored; and, besides, God will seem to have failed of his purpose, both which suppositions are incongruous: It is, therefore, necessary that the man by whom Adam’s race shall be restored be taken from Adam. ...

Let us now examine the question, whether the human nature taken by God must be produced from a father and mother, as other men are, or from man alone, or from woman alone. For, in whichever of these three modes it be, it will be produced from Adam and Eve, for from these two is every person of either sex descended. And of these three modes, no one is easier for God than another, that it should be selected on this account.

... It is no great toil to show that that man will be brought into existence in a nobler and purer manner, if produced from man alone, or woman alone, than if springing from the union of both, as do all other men.   

... Therefore must he be taken either from man alone, or woman alone.   

... In four ways can God create man, viz., either of man and woman, in the common way; or neither of man nor woman, as he created Adam; or of man without woman, as he made Eve; or of woman without man, which thus far he has never done. Wherefore, in order to show that this last mode also under his power, and was reserved for this very purpose, what more fitting than that he should take that man whose origin we are seeking from a woman without a man? Now whether it be more worthy that he be born of a virgin, or one not a virgin, we need not discuss, but must affirm, beyond all doubt, that the God-man should be born of a virgin.   

... as man’s sin and the cause of our condemnation sprung from a woman, so the cure of sin and the source of our salvation should also be found in a woman. And that women may not despair of attaining the inheritance of the blessed, because that so dire an evil arose from woman, it is proper that from woman also so great a blessing should arise, that their hopes may be revived. Take also this view. If it was a virgin which brought all evil upon the race, it is much more appropriate that a virgin should be the occasion of all good. And this also. If woman, whom God made from man alone, was made of a virgin (de virgine), it is peculiarly fitting for that man also, who shall spring from a woman, to be born of a woman without man. Of the pictures which can be superadded to this, showing that the God-man ought to be born of a virgin, we will say nothing. These are sufficient.