Report on Thinking Scripture, 19th-26th February and 10th-17th September 2011.

 

This year’s theme for our Thinking Scripture week was the Psalms, led as usual by Fr Richard Taylor, Sr Margaret Atkins and Dr Geoffrey Turner. Fr Taylor’s introductory lecture explained the way in which modern scholarship had discovered the different genres within the Psalter; this prepared us for the themes of the week, with Fr Taylor focusing on psalms of lamentation, Dr Turner on the messianic psalms and Sr Margaret on psalms of praise. As usual, we kept our fourfold ways of reading scripture - literary, historical, theological and spiritual - very much in mind. Fr Taylor spoke on both communal and then individual psalms of lament, exploring Psalms such as 6, 13, 50, 88, 130 and 137, with the help of Shakespeare and other literary texts, which helped to bring out the universal reference of the psalmist’s sorrows. He also reflected upon the group of ‘Lenten penitential psalms’. Dr Turner took us through Psalms 89, 72, 2 and 45, and finally the puzzling but very important 110. He set these in the context of the Israelite understanding of kingship and of its rereading of these by the early Christians. Sr Margaret used Psalms 146-150 to discuss the general theme of praise, then focused on Psalm 104 to explore praise and creation (with reference to other Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern texts), and Psalm 149 to ask how we should deal with psalms that curse enemies or seek vengeance. The seminar groups offered an opportunity to take all of these themes further in discussion, each session focusing on a specific psalm.

 

The group met together each day for Morning Prayer and Mass, and joined the Boarbank community for Sunday Mass and daily Evening Prayer, and Night Prayer, in February around the fire in Boarbank Hall. There was chance during the afternoons to be quiet and relax or to socialise. The evenings provided a mix of social and cultural activities or an opportunity to be quiet (including Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on one evening). Early in the week, we watched Become and Live, a very moving film that explores the culural and religious tensions and complexities through the eyes of a young Ethiopian boy who is taken to Israel to save him from famine, and who is adopted by a French Israeli family. Dr Turner provided a meditative hour in the chapel of musical psalm settings, from Orlando Lassus to Arvo Pärt - Pärt’s very contemplative setting of the De Profundis proved especially popular. In February, the weather did not encourage a great deal of outdoor activity, but about half the group ventured out on the free day to walk first around and then over Scout Scar near Kendal. We got a little damp, but never wet or cold, and dried ourselves out with soup and sandwiches in the very nice pub in Brigsteer village. During the seven miles, mostly in cloud, Sr Margaret kept reassuring the group that there was a  wonderful view, it was just that we couldn’t see it. In September, a group paid a rather damp visit to Brantwood, the home of John Ruskin on Lake Coniston. The weather was much kinder for the midweek trip, in which nine of us enjoyed a long walk around Grasmere and Rydal Water, and others went out on their own trips. On the final evening for each week, we were joined by the Sisters for a buffet supper.

 

After a particularly demanding seminar session, one of the group penned her own heartfelt psalm: it seems to me to show just how much she had in fact learnt from the week!

 

            Prayer for Deliverance from Ignorance

 

                How long, O Lord? Will you keep me waiting for ever?

                How long will you withhold the gift of understaning from me?

 

                Must Fr Dixie explain again and again

                the difference between inspiration and revelation?

                Am I doomed to be forever one of the unenlightened?

                So that people will say, ‘She wasted her time and everyone else’s’?

                                                                                Selah

 

                But you, O Lord, are good

                and will open my eyes, ears and mind.

                So that I may understand all that I need to understand.

 

                Praise the Lord!