Читать книгу Paddling by the Shore - Kim Fabricius - Страница 6

It all started one week when I had finished writing my sermon and began selecting the hymns for an evening service at which I would be preaching on the Bible. In the sermon I imagined a conversation among the four evangelists, who had been shortlisted by a heavenly committee before which they were now appearing, each arguing his case for his particular gospel to be the authoritative gospel. This trope, stolen and adapted from the approach George Caird took in his New Testament Theology1, expressed an understanding of the Bible that I intended to commend to my congregation, namely, that scripture is a conversation which its readers overhear, engage, and discuss in those ongoing and often disputatious conversations we call “tradition.”

There was only one problem: in the hymn books available to me I could not find a hymn that would “bring it all together” to conclude our worship. At the same time, I couldn’t get out of my head the phrase “scripture is a conversation.” So I prayed and played with it. I mused about how the books of Ezra and Jonah can be interpreted as a conversation, indeed a disagreement, and about how Paul dialogued with Peter on a two-week fact-finding trip to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:18), and then some fifteen years later had an embarrassing public quarrel with him in Antioch (Galatians 2:11-14). Bingo! Before I knew it, I had a verse:

Scripture is a conversation,

Ezra, Jonah, Peter, Paul;

hidden is God’s revelation,

told to some, but meant for all.

And then another verse, and another . . . —and then a hymn! Well, almost. Musically creative I am not, but I can follow a tune, so I found what seemed to me to be a suitable one, and then—yes—a hymn. Not exactly Brian Wren, but it would do, I thought, so I printed some copies, and “Scripture is a conversation” became our final hymn that Sunday evening.

After the service, one person said to me that she really liked the hymn. Hmm. When I got home I showed it to my wife, my most loyal supporter and my fiercest critic. “Not bad,” she commented (high praise indeed!). “Show it to a colleague you respect.” So I did. “I like it too,” he said. “Show it to David Fox.” David and I had been at Mansfield College, Oxford together. He had become an accomplished, published hymn-writer. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I emailed the hymn to David. His prompt response was very kind and encouraging.

And so I began writing hymns, usually composing them with a hymn-tune already in mind. Then on a long overdue three-month sabbatical I went on a tear, beginning to work my way through the liturgical year, and also to explore theologically some hot-button social and political issues. I needed advice and support—and I got it.

I corresponded with Fred Kaan and John Bell, who were immensely helpful. I regularly inflicted my work on my congregation, Bethel United Reformed Church, Swansea, who were receptive and responsive. I sent my hymns to the liturgical journal Worship Live, whose editor Janet Wootton welcomed my contributions and helped to hone my skills with her firm but gentle constructive criticism. I could always count on my good friend Steff Thomas (and her clever daughter Beth) to save me from composing intelligible, even poetic, but unfortunately unsingable verse. My daughter Katie not only patiently played tunes on her piano for her musically challenged Dad, she also bought me an album for my hymns, and, sweetly, a pack of little colored notes to stick beside them. My son plays the drums in bands with unmentionable names, so no help there, but WWKT—What Would Karl Think?—was a question that sometimes occurred to me as I teetered on the edge of cant or bathos. And, supremely, Angie, who for thirty-two years has been my partner in another kind of music-making, intrinsically improvisational, occasionally discordant, but finally wondrous beyond words—yes, marriage. God is a marvelous maestro.

Finally, if “Christ plays in ten thousand places” (Gerard Manley Hopkins), for the preparation of Paddling they include Sydney, Australia, where the outrageously gifted Ben Myers wrote the Foreword; Shrewsbury, England, where my good friend and colleague Richard Hall did all the formatting, work which would have left this digitard not paddling but floundering; and Eugene, Oregon, where the good people at Wipf and Stock thought my hymns were worth publishing—and here we are.

I grew up by the seashore—in Huntington, New York—and I’ve spent my entire ministerial life by the seashore—in Swansea, Wales—so the Isaac Newton epigraph to this collection resonates for me geographically as well as theologically. But my hope, fellow paddlers, is that perhaps these hymns may embolden you to “push out further” (Luke 5:4) where—who knows?—you may find yourself winsomely worshipping with whales. As Cotton Mather playfully commanded:

Ye monsters of the bubbling deep,

Your Maker’s praises spout;

Up from the sands ye coddlings peep,

And wag your tails about.

1. George Caird, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 18: “The presupposition of our study is simply stated: to write a New Testament theology is to preside at a conference of faith and order. Around the table sit the authors of the New Testament, and it is the presider’s task to engage them in a colloquium about theological matters which they themselves have placed on the agenda.”