She has a great essay on fiction which my friend Charlie put me on to and I wanted to share a clip:

‘St. Gregory wrote that every time the sacred text describes a fact, it reveals a mystery. This is what the fiction writer, on his lesser level, hopes to do. The danger for the writer who is spurred by the religious view of the world is that he will consider this to be two operations instead of one. He will try to enshrine the mystery without the fact, and there will follow a further set of separations which are inimical to art. Judgment will be separated from vision, nature from grace, and reason from imagination.

These are separations which we see in our society and which exist in our writing. They are separations which faith tends to heal if we realize that faith is a “walking in darkness” and not a theological solution to mystery.’

Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners, p. 184. Amazon (US/UK).

“When we look at Jesus transfigured, we must be prepared to be mentally and spiritually flung backwards, baffled in finding adequate words for this, even fearful at the prospect of discipleship it puts before us. But it is the one vision that allows us to see everything in our experience as open to God–so that we need not fear that God is bound to disappear if we encounter this or that situation, that it is impossible to stay with God in times of failure, pain or self-doubt. That is not a glib reassurance but a sober statement of what’s implied in recognizing the glory of God in Jesus.”

Rowan Williams, The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ, p. 16. Amazon (US/UK)

“our talking about rights has taken shape as a way of affirming what it is about human beings that cannot be negotiated away or extinguished by the claims of sectional interest. The problem arises with the possible implication that what is non-negotiable or ‘essential’ in human existence is primarily a set of abstract entitlements; which in turn suggests that actual historical conditions are secondary to the imperatives of meeting a cluster of timeless conditions. It is then possible to assess and condemn any specific complex of historical relations according to their failure to embody the entitlements laid down in some kind of primordial charter for human life. What comes first, it seems, is a self to which certain things are due.

“But this sounds dangerously mythological if we are learning at all to think of selves as being formed in particular histories, particular kinds of interrelations … [What is normally considered as] an infringement of ‘rights’ [is rather] a failure to begin thinking, a failure to find things difficult in the characteristic way human language implies that they are difficult.”

Rowan Williams, Lost Icons: Reflections on Cultural Bereavement, pp. 137-139. (Amazon US/UK)

St. Chad’s College
1 July, 2010
14:00-19:00
Dinner and Live Music

To secure your place at the colloquium and dinner (small fee), please email t.j.lynch (at) durham.ac.uk

For programme details, go here.

To commemorate the newly commissioned stained glass ‘Ramsey Memorial Transfiguration Window’, Durham Cathedral is hosting a one-day conference that might be of interest to some of you. Here’s the info:

Saturday 25 September

Day Conference

09:45 Introduction: The Very Revd Michael Sadgrove
09:50 Ramsey the Man: The Revd Douglas Dales
10:10 Ramsey the Man: The Very Revd John Arnold

10:30 Coffee

11:15 Ramsey Remembered: The Durham Years: The Revd Canon Rosalind Brown
11:25 Biblical perspectives on the Transfiguration: The Revd Canon Martin Kitchen
11:55 Theological perspectives on the Transfiguration: The Revd Canon Prof Mark McIntosh
12:25 Questions

12:45 Lunch

14:15 Discovering God in Art: The Revd Prof David Brown
14:45 Creating the Transfiguration Window: Mr Thomas Denny
15:30 David Brown and Thomas Denny in conversation
16:00 Afternoon Tea

For more info:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/chads/ramsey/Ramsey%20Weekend.pdf

1. Come to Durham on 1 July for a colloquium in honor of Terry Eagleton. For more info, go here.

2. I’ve been increasingly interested in a fellow Iowan’s blog who teaches in Egypt and gives some great advice on writing that has helped me out. There are many entries on the blog listed under ‘advice’ but the ones that I thought were especially helpful were the ones on writing book reviews, development of ideas, keeping good company, and revision process.

Radecke says that, “Poorly conceived trips can distract hosts from their primary ministries, use up significant sums of money and energy on low-priority tasks and create unreasonable expectations for visible results in a short period of time.”

Read the rest of the article here.

To get your tickets, contact:

The Gala Theatre
01913324041
boxoffice@galadurham.co.uk

Students get a concession if reserved before 24 May (when ordering, mention: RB2)

For more info:
http://www.durhammysteries.co.uk/

Last night, I had the opportunity to attend an informal men’s evening with Bishop Tom Wright hosted by St. Nic’s Church. The first forty-five minutes was structured around four pieces of music that meant a lot to Bishop Tom over the years. In between each song, he shared a story from his life about why this piece of music was significant.

Here are the four pieces:

Sibelius – Symphony No. 3

Bob Dylan – When the Ship Comes in

Beethoven – Opus 59 No. 3

Bach – Christmas Oratorio

One story that Bishop Tom shared was about his time in Princeton recently. He said that he spent one day writing for 8 hours straight and cranked out a major section of about 8,000 words for his upcoming book about Paul. He said he got up to make a cup of tea and he did a word count. When he came back from his tea break, all of what he had done was completely gone. A whole day’s work gone in a flash without backing any of it up. He said that he had a choice at that point: to either call it a night, grab a pint, go home, and try again the next day; or to fix another cup of tea and do it over. He chose to stick it out and he said that what he ended up with was a bit more than what he had previously written and it was much better. Afterwards, he came home and put on Bach’s Christmas Oratorio to celebrate. He told the group that he should have done that with all of his other books he has written. Another interesting thing that he said was that he felt that he didn’t come into his own voice in his writing until he was about 40 years old. He said it was around that age that he stopped feeling like he had people looking over his shoulder and could write what he had to say.

All in all, it was a great evening. The second forty-five minutes was a Q&A from the audience. Questions ranged all over from political to environmental issues. The church also kindly provided free beer from the local Durham Brewery which had made up a special label for the evening in honour of the Bishop. The special label read, “Tom’s Tipple”. Good times…

The Gala Cinema and the Department of Theology & Religion at Durham University have teamed up to sponsor a series of films next month.

Here’s the schedule:

Silent Light: Faith on Film
A season of films exploring aspects of faith, conscience and enlightenment

Some of the greatest art films of all time, with lively introductions by film experts from the University of Durham

Wings of Desire (15)
Winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes, Wings of Desire is both a love-letter to the German capital and a rumination on human existence, and remains one of the most vital films ever made. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts – fears, hopes, dreams – of all the people living below. He finds himself entranced by a trapeze artist whose eloquent expression of her doubts and fears makes him yearn for a life where he can feel happiness and love.

Monday 3 May | 8.00pm | dir. Wim Wenders, 1987, 128 mins

A Serious Man (15)
“Why does Hashem make us feel the questions if He’s not gonna give us any answers?” Questions of existence and religion only touched on or hinted at in previous Coen Brothers movies are given a full – and darkly humorous – treatment in this terrific, Oscar-nominated film. It’s 1967 and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife that she is leaving him for one of his colleagues. Larry’s unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, while his children eschew any sense of responsibility. With these trials of life, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis but can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man?

Sunday 9 May | 3.00pm | dir. Joel & Ethan Coen, 2009, 105 mins

Three Colours: Blue (15)
This penetrating, hypnotic meditation on loss stars Juliette Binoche as the sole survivor of a car crash that killed her husband, a celebrated composer, and their only child. Dealt the cruelest sort of freedom, she sets out to purge all remnants of her former existence in an attempt to sever her ties to the past. Though she tries to live a numb, anonymous life, old feelings and responsibilities bubble to the surface and the music that still surrounds her eventually draws her back from a ghostly existence into the realm of humanity.

Monday 10 May | 8.30pm | dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993, 98 mins

Lourdes (U)
This low-key Austrian comedy is nestled somewhere between religious satire and redemption story and approaches questions of faith through the eyes of a disheartened doubter. Christine, a wheel-chair bound young woman, agrees to a church trip to Lourdes mostly to escape her solitary life. Though she finds Lourdes touristy, Christine is conveyed to grottos, baths, and ceremonies by her roommate, a devout older woman, and the starchy group leader, Cecile. Do both sense a miracle?

Monday 17 May | 8.30pm | dir. Jessica Hausner, 2009, 100 mins

Andrei Rublev (15)
Immediately suppressed by the Soviets in 1966, Tarkovsky’s vast, freeform fresco on the life of Russia’s greatest icon painter is one of the few true epics of modern cinema, ranging from the brutal invasion of the Tartars to naked pagan rituals. Religious feeling is the emotional core, rather than the subject, of this film, one of the most gruellingly beautiful ever made.

Monday 24 May | 7.20pm | dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966, 182 mins

Season co-organised by Gala Cinema and the Department of Theology, University of Durham

Tickets £4.50

Gala Theatre & Cinema, Durham
Box Office: 0191 332 4041 | www.galadurham.co.uk