On Study

At a tutorial a few days ago I was told of a priest who had been studying Aquinas. When posted to a parish he placed all the volumes of Aquinas he owned under his bed and got on with serving his parish, not returning to them again until he retired.

I look around at my books, I read snippets of this theologian, and segments of another. I skim-read works I would like immerse myself and wonder whether, if it is deemed that I should be a parish priest, the volumes will go unread. I am an arrogant man, I believe that I am capable of being a great theologian. If I have the time to read, to study, to really think, it is my hope that other time I will be able to develop such grand sounding papers as “an integrated theology of providence and intervention in post genesis Christianity”. I would like to write things which would actually make a difference to the shape of theology, to the way church is done, to the way people think of God. A lofty and arrogant ambition indeed, and one ultimatly self-serving. Is my desire that God be known, or that I be knowing?

I find it unlikely that I will be offered a position as theologian-in-residence somewhere, with my task being predominately one of thinking with the odd lecture thrown in for good luck. My life in ministry is likely to be far more about conducting marriages and funerals, than it is about reading the works of great theologians. Maybe though, just maybe, this is a better road. Maybe it is only after 35 years of ministry that I will even begin to have a right to write on theology, and by then – I probably won't want to.

I know there has to be a balance between theory and practice. That often silence is better than speech, that its more important to learn to listen than learn to speak – and oh it’s a lesson I am in need of. I am far to much a fan of the sound of my own voice – or rather ideas (I dislike the sound of my own voice rather intensely).

So…enough rambling…I am going to go and be silent for a while

Yours as ever

The Broken Man

Rules, Ligaments, and Books

Perfect Parent

As a perfect parent, with a perfectly behaved child I found a conversation I had with a friend who is at bible collage today particularly funny. He complained to me about all the restrictive rules they have in place and informed me that one of them was no alcohol on site at all. He told me that he is a bit rebellious and drinks occasionally in his room with his friend.


What he had failed to realise is that the collage has done a very good job of “putting a fence around the law”. If the collage doesn’t want people to get drunk and rowdy throwing wild parties at the collage, they could create a rule that says “don’t get drunk”. This is open to a whole range of interpretations and some people would break it. Instead they have made the rule, don’t drink at all. Some people still have their act of rebellion and have the odd drink feeling pleased with themselves that they are breaking the rules, but they don’t actually break the rule the collage is really worried about. By putting up a rule in front of the rule they are worried about they create “a fence” as it’s referred to in Judaism.


It is this same method I intend to apply with my child. The rules I will set in place will be more ridge and stricter than I care about, so that when my child rebels (I know its unlikely) they can do so without doing anything to terrible.


I note that there have been some sceptics out there, some, mentioning no names, have questioned whether I will in fact be a perfect father, and whether in fact I will have a perfect child (the wife has ruled out the purchase of a baby grow that says on it “cuter than baby Jesus”). Some people – and I hesitate to even say this – say that babies often just cry! For no reason! That no matter how much you point out to them that this is in appropriate behaviour that they do so anyway. This thought has begun to concern me a little I will admit..but I am taking a firm stand. Denial is clearly the way forward.



Syndrome thingy what’s it ligaments.

For those who are following this bit of the story – and have asked questions about how the long suffering wife is coping – painfully. Nothing much more I can say on the subject.



Books for my course

I have got the first few books for my course through (I got a book grant! Wooo hooo!) and I note that one of the books, the set books, compulsory reading, was written by the tutor…now that is a clever move! A cynic (So clearly not me) might say that this was a cunning way to increase your book sales, however I am sure that the tutors book is the very best one available on the subject, how could it be less?


Yours as ever,


The perfectly broken man.

100 Books

I saw this idea on a blog earlier..sorry cant remember which..basically their is a list of 100 of the best books ever written according to someone or other - the Gaurdian newspaper i think, and you put in bold the ones you have read, and bold and italics the ones which you think are really good. So here goes..with notes...

1. Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes I enjoyed it but didnt find it outstanding and not sure it would be top of my list!
2. Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan - I started it but in honesty couldnt get on with it
3. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe Watching a TV adaptation doesnt count right?
4. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift I am the proud owner of a very early copy of this in old english and all!! Love the book - and oh so rude!
5. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding long time ago cant remember it really
6. Clarissa Samuel
7. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne no but was an extra in the terrable film adaptation
8. Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos De Laclos.
9. Emma by Jane Austin yes as i felt i had to but didnt particually enjoy reading it.
10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
11. Nightmare Abbey Thomas Love
12. The Black Sheep Honore De Balzac
13. The Charterhouse of Parma
14. The Count of Monte Cristo Fantastic!
15. Sybil Benjamin Disraeli
16. David Copperfield by Charles Dickins loved it
17. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte - havent read it on principle - not sure what principle..
18. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
19. Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
20. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
21. Moby-Dick Herman Melville' - read it after watching heathers!
22. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
23. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll was obsessed with this for sometime..
25. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott Victorian
26. The Way We Live Now Anthony
27. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
28. Daniel Deronda George Eliot
29. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
30. The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
31. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain - loved this as a child
32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson - watched it never read it! shame on me.
33. Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome - hysterical
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar - in my list of top ten books!
35. The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith
36. Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
37. The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childer
38. The Call of the Wild Jack
39. Nostromo Joseph Conrad
40. The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
41. In Search of Lost Time Marcel
42. The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence
43. The Good Soldier Ford Madox
44. The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan
45. Ulysses James Joyce
46. Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf
47. A Passage to India E. M. Forster - good but prefer room with a view
48. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. The Trial Franz Kafka
50. Men Without Women Ernest Hemingway prefered old man of the sea..i think thats what it was called
51. Journey to the End of the Night Louis-Ferdinand Celine
52. As I Lay Dying William
53. Brave New World Aldous Huxley - was very into this as a teenager - well all Huxley stuff
54. Scoop Evelyn Waugh 55. USA John Dos Passos
56. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
57. The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford
58. The Plague Albert Camus
59. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell wrote an essay at school on it
60. Malone Dies Samuel Beckett
61. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger - Hated it! couldnt see the appeal!
62. Wise Blood Flannery
63. Charlotte's Web E. B. White
64. The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien
65. Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
66. Lord of the Flies William Golding
67. The Quiet American Graham Greene
68 On the Road Jack Kerouac T
69. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov Humbert
70. The Tin Drum Gunter Grass .
71. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe Nigeria
72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper LeeScout
74. Catch-22 Joseph Heller - one of my favorite books
75. Herzog Saul Bellow
76. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia - increadble! love it
77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor
78. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Le Carre
79. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
80. The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge
81. The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer
82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo - i have it on my shelf but havent read it yet
83. A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
84. Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee
85. Housekeeping Marilynne
86. Lanark Alasdair GraySeething vision of Glasgow
87. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
88. The BFG Roald Dahl - I remember my father reading me this - i think - I read it as an adult and loved it
89. The Periodic Table Primo Levi
90. Money Martin Amis
91. An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro
92. Oscar And Lucinda Peter
93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera read it but didnt like it 94. Haroun and the Sea af Stories Salman Rushdie
95. La Confidential James Ellroy
96. Wise Children Angela Carter
97. Atonement Ian McEwan
98. Northern Lights Philip Pullman
99. American Pastoral Philip Roth
100. Austerlitz W. G. Sebald