Ilkley Baptist

Rainfall for June has reached 6.86 inches this morning, and I'm starting to think of records. The second highest total I've measured was September 1997 in Cheadle Hulme, when we had 7.29 inches; we had more than 7 ins the next month, and more than 5 ins in November, and there was widespread flooding. It looks likely that we'll pass 7.29 today. The highest ever was August 2004, in Ilkley, with 8.32 inches. The weatherforecast suggests that even this might be at risk today. As I sit here typing, it's slackened off a bit, so I doubt we'll get that much, but there's quite a bit of the month left and rain expected for the next few days, so there's a chance of a new monthly record.

Over the past few weeks I've been watching a kestrel's nest on Ilkley Moor. There seemed to be two chicks (though the bundle of grey fluff was hard to make out). The very heavy rain on the 15th June caused a bit of flooding in town, and up on the moor the streams were hugely swollen. I went up on the 16th and found the nest empty. My first assumption was that the chicks had succumbed to the rain, but there were no bodies and no feathers anywhere, so perhaps they had fledged sufficiently to leave the nest. Whether their feathers would have been sufficiently developed to keep them warm and dry away from the safetly of their ledge is another matter. Poor things.

The moor is a delightful place to be at the moment. I saw the first swallow this afternoon (I say swallows further south in the country a couple of weeks ago, but this is the first I've seen here). Also the first willow warbler, but heard rather than seen. Cotton grass is flowering, and I found some oxalis, too. I also found a flower I haven't identified yet. Fairly low growing, with five paired equal pink petals, looking shiny, almost metallic. The leaves are very unusual, large, spearshaped, opposite and with longish petioles, gradually flaring so that the outline from tip to axil makes a very elegant curve.

I also watched peacock butterflies sunbathing, and a pair of kestrels mating.

I saw the first wheatear of the year near Backstone Beck on the moor today, a happy sight. Things are much more advanced than last year. I heard a chiffchaff on the second of April this year. On holiday after Easter I saw a swallow near Birmingham on the eighth, and hawthorn in flower on the Somerset levels on the eleventh.

Last year hawthorn round Ilkley was mostly not in flower until the very last week of May. I haven't seen any out yet, this year, but if the weather remains as warm as it has been I would expect to see some before April is over. Last year swifts arrived in early May, again I'm hoping to see them before the month's end.

I saw the first wheatear of the year near Backstone Beck on the moor today, a happy sight. Things are much more advanced than last year. I heard a chiffchaff on the second of April this year. On holiday after Easter I saw a swallow near Birmingham on the eighth, and hawthorn in flower on the Somerset levels on the eleventh.

Last year hawthorn round Ilkley was mostly not in flower until the very last week of May. I haven't seen any out yet, this year, but if the weather remains as warm as it has been I would expect to see some before April is over. Last year swifts arrived in early May, again I'm hoping to see them before the month's end.

John D Caputo is a philosophical theologian, American (obviously), and into Derrida. He's pretty new, still. A college principal I spoke to today hadn't heard of him! Thanks to PhilA of the Ship of Fools, I have a copy of 'On Religion,' a more popular work. I've started reading, and so far I love it.

He writes in a preachy manner (that's a compliment: he reminds me of Tillich) and is post-modernly self-conscious, talking about himself and his personal attitudes and intentions. He respects traditional religion, but wants it to be more self-critical, more aware of the importance of the stuff outside the institution.

Chapter One is called 'The Love of God.' He starts by talking about 'the religious person.' The religious person is the person who loves, who loves God. They may be within the church, or far outside any religion, but they love God. But what exactly do they love? Here he introduces a central question, from Augustine: What do I love when I love my God?

(He talks about the non-religious person as someone who loves nothing - except his investments: a pusillanimous curmudgeon. I don't think he thinks such people actually exist.)

He says that they love the impossible. The impossible is that we cannot imagine because we have not experienced it and cannot expect it. Yet it may happen. Not in the predictable futures that pension funds and holiday plans are for, but in the future that no one guesses, but which comes like a thief in the night. The impossible doesn't just happen sometimes, it hovers on the threshold of the present and makes everything look different. And it makes religious people unhinged.

He talks about the Secret. Which is that we don't know the secret. We don't know the answers to questions like 'what am I?' or 'what is the Way?'

By asking the unanswerable questions we make our living more intense. Without Answers we answer the God we love.

Hmm. It looks pretty thin like this. Perhaps I've missed too much out. Perhaps a lot depends on his eloquent, engaging style. We'll see what the next chapter brings.