Ilkley Baptist

Different denominations are at different stages in debating the replacement of Trident, but it looks clear that all will oppose it. The Baptist Union Council, meeting earlier this month, voted by a heartfelt and clear majority to call on the government not to replace Trident, but to take a lead in disarmament negotiations.

This is a subject on which the churches are in strong agreement. The Labour Party, on the other hand, together with the Conservative Party, is in favour of replacing Trident. So this is a subject on which the views of the Christian churches are significantly different from those of secular politicians. What a great opportunity for wider public debate and an expression of Christian viewpoints.

I wonder, though, how aware local churches are that this is going on.

The chimney sweep came round this week. As a child I was always banished. I'd see the man arrive and set up with his grubby cloths round the fireplace and his vacuum cleaner ready. Later, I'd hear little noises then the whine of the vac. I remember being disappointed that there was no sign of a brush like in Mary Poppins.

Well, now I'm grown up I can stay and watch. And there is a brush! And it came out the top of the chimney! Just like Mary Poppins. There's something so romantic and right about a man who is a chimney sweep, a job that's been around for decades and will probably see him out. Strange, chatting with him, to discover that in the slack time of year (which is March, strangely) he likes to go skiing.

On Wednesday the local ministers come to me for lunch. We meet every week. We pray for up to half an hour, then eat and chat and josh each other for another thirty minutes. Lunch is mainly soup, so I'll be buying some veg tomorrow, and also some good bread, a bit of cheese, some fruit and maybe some small cakes.

The mix of prayer and lunch interests me. I think it's extremely important. If we just met for lunch, that would be good and useful. Good relationships are invaluable, and there is always a bit of business to do, a joint service to prepare or some resources to share. But the prayer bit - it's tricky. We pray in different ways, because we vary from Catholic to Pentecostal, High Church to Baptist. We pray in different ways because we are very different people in our aptitudes and sensibilities. It would be much more efficient to each pray in our own way (as if we would!) and then come together for lunch and conversation, but we don't. We grapple with this prayer thing, try different ways of doing it, fail, do it badly, and try again, because it we know it matters. In prayer we meet as we do not meet even over the table. We meet, not every time, but from time to time, at our deepest. We sense each other's faith. We hear of each other's need. And as we struggle to find ways to be together in prayer, we are aware of each other's dependence on God. And that is what makes us colleagues. And what we do together counts.

Carrot and spring greens this week, I think.

I came across this.

Dr Ian Paisley was preaching on the agonies of hell, "where there will be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth."
A little old man at the back of the church exclaimed, "But Dr. Paisley, I don't have any teeth."
Paisley thundered back, "Teeth will be provided!"

It's many weeks since I started thinking to Beethoven's Late Quartets. I have been listening and thinking on and off through the summer, but this is a heavyweight subject and I haven't had anything to say.

A small thought occurs, though. I was interested to read about Beethoven's own studies. He knew Bach's music since as a boy he was taught the 48, but seems to have returned to study it deeply later in life. Many of his late works contain fugues, and he became a master of this form which Bach had so developed. In addition, he became interested in 'the songs of the monks' - plainsong - and modal music. This is present in the Late Quartets, in Op. 132. This music looks back several centuries, as well as, in other places (the Grosse Fuge) anticipating music that would not be written until the following century.

The thought is that Beethoven was here grappling with the limits of music itself, with tonality and the capabilities of expression. There is an I-thou encounter to be had between artist and material (as WH Vanstone suggests occurs between God and us). Until recent times the word 'great' has been thrown around in absurd ways by those speaking of painters and musicians. What on earth does it mean, except that I and my friends approve of this 'great' music above all that third-rate stuff? Well, perhaps it might mean, properly used, that at times artists push the boundaries of themselves, their material, and the tradition of their artform. At these rubbing points there are discoveries to be made. Art is not just self-expression, but encounter.

The impatience of traditionalists with conceptual art, that it does not include craftsmanship or craftswomanship, may have a point in that the limits of materials can be part of the creative process.