server hassles

The other day I wrote a long and entertaining post. However, the server crashed and it wouldn't let me save or publish it! I won't repeat myself as most of it was me rambling on about how i'd had a very productive day being a good housewife (cleaning, baking, washing) and a good citizen (taking a stolen bicycle wheel to the local Cop Shop). I was also feeling very self-righteous about having read the whole of 1 Corinthians. I restarted working through Gordon Fee's book "How to Read the Bible for all its Worth" for the first time in about 2 years. Last time I stalled when I got to the part which instructed its readers to read through 1 Corinthians in one sitting. I finally managed to do it yesterday. Well worth the effort. Still don't get it all mind you!

Anyway, I will repeat what I had written about a great book which Ian and I read on holiday. Richard Foster's "Streams of Living Waters" has been on our shelves for years. I know this because the inscription, signed by the author reads "Peace and Joy, Ian and A.N.OtherWoman"! That hadn't prevented me from reading it of course. I had feared that it would be another book about spiritual disciplines and I vowed that I would stop reading books like that at least until I started practising a bit mroe what I have already read.

In fact this book is something much more. It goes through the various "traditions" of the Church, or ways of life if you like. So there is the Contemplative Tradition (the prayer-filled life), the Social Justice Tradition (Compassion), the Charismatic, Evangelical, Holiness Traditions etc. Eaach chapter has 3 short biographies of people whose lives exemplify the particular tradition. One is an historical character, one biblical and one contemporary. The climax of the book is the Incarnational Tradition. This was my favourite chapter. This tradition "focuses upon making present and visible the realm of the invisible spirit. This sacramental way of living addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life."

The historical paradigm is Susanna Wesley (b. 1669 - d.1742) - mother of Charles and John. She had 19 children in 20 years and 9 of them died in infancy. The others were all home-schooled. She kept up a routine of 6 hours a day teaching for 20 years. Each child also had some scheduled one-on-one time with her each week. She opened up her home for evening church services and was involved in religious debate through her letters and essays. She wasn't restricted by the conventions for her sex neither in how she brought up her girls nor how she conducted her ministry within her home and the church.

My favourite quotation however is this:

"Observing his wife teaching on one particular day, Samuel counted twenty times that she repeated a single piece of information. 'i wonder at your patience,' he commented; 'you have told that child twenty times that same thing.' Susanna, looking up, smiled and said, 'If I had satisfied myself by mentioning it only nineteen times I should have lots all my labour. It was the twentieth time that crowned it.' " Such grace!