Fourth Sunday of Advent

“My soul magnifies the Lord” Luke 1:46

The Magnificat, the Song of Mary, the words are so familiar that we may miss what they might say to us. If we read the words, we find there are certain contrasts that tell us about God and that tell us about ourselves.


The contrast between real power and imagined power. Verse 51 says, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.” The Jewish people have seen great empires come and go; the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, each empire appeared in the Scriptures that would have been read in the synagogue, Sabbath by Sabbath, and each empire then disappeared. God’s strength continues century after century, and those who thought themselves great have been scattered, their names have been forgotten, their empires have become passing details in history. The verse has much to say to us today, when we watch the news and become concerned about worldly powers, we should remember that God scatters the proud, that those who believe themselves great in our own times will count for no more than all the proud empires of the past. Next time we watch the news, we might ponder God scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.


Another contrast is one described in Verse 53, “he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” It is a statement about what God has done, about how his Kingdom works, but, when one looks at the world, it seems far removed from reality: the hungry are still hungry and the rich have not gone away empty. It is a contrast that is still to be fulfilled for those whose daily life is one of absolute poverty, those for whom every waking hour is a struggle to care for their families and themselves, but there are signs of God’s Kingdom coming. The communities where there is the greatest sense of sharing, the greatest joy, the strongest ties, are not those where affluent lifestyles are lived behind ever more sophisticated security systems, they are not those where people find themselves spending more and more on the latest cars, the latest technology, the latest fashion, the latest label; the strongest communities are to be found among those who are poorest in the world. Spend time in African villages where poverty is extreme and there is an extraordinary sense of the warmth and generosity of the people; spend time in the most affluent parts of Dublin, and people will pass you without speaking. There are riches that do not appear in financial statements.
-Ian Poulton.

Third Sunday of Advent

I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming” Luke 3:16

Saint Luke tells us in Chapter 3 Verse 7, “John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers!'” Where does this happen? Where do the people go in order to have this robust encounter with John? Out to the River Jordan, John exercises his ministry out on the edge. There were plenty of places where John might have taught, in the Temple courts, in the synagogues, but John chooses to turn his back on the religious institutions. John’s ministry challenges people to come out from the places where things were safe and familiar and listen to what God might be saying to them in a place where there are no other distractions.

Does the place where John exercises his ministry have anything to say to us about where we might go to find the voice of God? Do we prefer to stay in the places that are safe and familiar, or are we prepared to venture out and listen for the voice of God in places where we do not feel so secure, in places where we might feel vulnerable? Are there places where we might go that would be like the people of John’s time going out to the river?

Why does John exercise his ministry? To prepare the way for one who will baptize “with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” It is a challenge to us, to see Jesus not just as someone in the pages of Scripture, not just someone about whom we speak in our worship, but as someone who is present in our lives through the presence of the Holy Spirit. John has spoken plainly, do we hear what he is saying to us? Do we know the Spirit is with us, not just when we come to church, but in every moment of our lives?

-Ian Poulton.

Haruki Murakami on writing

In a surprise public appearance at a literary event in Fukushima last week, he likened the solitary act of writing to cooking one of his favourite foods, deep-fried oysters.

His wife can’t stand the dish, so he has no choice but to cook and eat them alone, he told the audience.

“I am lonely, but they are delicious,” he added. “Like the relationship between solitude and freedom, it moves in an endless cycle. Picking out single words that are contained within me is also a solitary act so [writing novels] is similar to eating fried oysters by myself.

When my mind grows pressured when I think that I am writing a novel, I feel more relaxed when I think that I am only frying oysters.”

Writer and long distance runner, author of amongst others, Norwegian Wood, and What I talk about when I talk about running.

Second Sunday of Advent

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. ‘” Luke 3:3

If we had to look around us to pick out the prophets in our own time, I wonder who we would pick? Who on television or in the newspapers would stand out as being the sort of person who in thirty years time people would say that he or she was a prophet. The painful part of being a prophet is that the prophet’s role is to stand against the rulers and the spirit of the time, it is to look at the society around and to denounce what is wrong and to call people back to the ways of God.

Just think about the news stories of the past week, how on earth do we start to try to take on what is going on in the world around us? The answer is that we don’t. We are not asked to do so, we are asked to prepare the way of the Lord.

We ourselves have nothing to offer the world. It is God who offers people the life they cannot imagine. We are to prepare the way for this God; we do so by doing what people have done since the days of John the Baptist, we repent for the past and we pray for the future.

-Ian Poulton.

Innocence + Experience Dublin 3

From local papers to international magazines, the sentiment has been unanimous: The Innocence + Experience tour has been mind-blowing.
For me and others in the family, it's always a special event and always reignites my love for the songs.

The determination to get the tour to the smaller arena in Dublin can be compared to getting PopMart to Sarajevo: Pull out all the stops to make it happen. I’m not sure how many rock groups feel that strongly, valuing their audience with as much reverence and respect as we give them. It’s a bond that few understand. It defies explanation, as does the idea of showing Cedarwood Road to the world. Simply amazing, the best Friday of the year! 

Bono and David Bowie

"People would not react if I went out and carried on like Elvis Presley or Mick Jagger or David Bowie. People do react if I go out and carry on like Bono. And I like that."

-Bono

And as Bono might say auf Deutsch:

 

"Es sind meine Teenager-Jahre als Bowie-Fan. Ich bin noch immer ein Fan, war aber damals in Herz und Kopf noch erheblich empfänglicher. Und jeder dieser Songs hatte eine unmittelbare Wirkung. U2 schulden ihm viel. Er machte uns mit Berlin und den Hansa-Studios bekannt, er ist der Auslöser dafür, dass wir mit Brian Eno arbeiten. Von ihm stammt die Freiheit, in hohen Lagen zu singen und so der „männlichen“ Stimme eine weibliche Nuance zu geben. Und nicht zuletzt ist da die ästhetische Überhöhung – der Versuch, auf der Bühne neue Wege zu gehen. Bowie hatte keine Angst, in neuen Größenordnungen zu denken und Drama auf die Bühne zu bringen." 

Ich sah ihn zum ersten Mal, als er bei „Top of the Pops“ diese Nummer sang. Es war so, als wäre eine fremde Kreatur vom Himmel gefallen. Die Amerikaner schickten einen Mann zum Mond – wir hatten einen Engländer aus der Tiefe des Raumes. Und obendrein hatte er noch eine irische Großmutter.

 

First Sunday of Advent

"Advent: In the overwhelming commercialism of this time of year, it is easy to forget that the season of Advent that begins on Sunday is not focussed on preparing for Christmas, instead it is a time to remember that it was in “the time of this mortal life” that “Jesus Christ came to us in great humility” and “that on the last day...  he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead.” To talk of such things can bring odd reactions, people thinking that such thinking is not part of their tradition, that the idea of Jesus returning is only something for those whom they would regard as religious zealots, that it is no more than an optional belief for Christians, yet every time we say the Creed we declare a belief that he will come again to “judge the living and the dead.”

Are the odd people not those who say that they believe what they say they believe every Sunday, but those who say the words every week, but then say that they do not believe them? If we do not believe in the advent of Christ, if we do not believe in the coming of his kingdom, then is our faith purely about the here and now? And if our faith is only about the here and now, then why do we believe at all?"

-Ian Poulton.