Michael J. Leyden

I spent a few minutes after morning prayer on Saturday wandering around the church building, enjoying the silence. I also had a look at the stained glass windows - most of which are Victorian. It's something I don't get to do very often because I'm too busy. My favourite window in our church building is very recent, only three years old, and is a brightly coloured rendition of Jesus welcoming children to himself. It is in the baptistry, an appropriate place for welcoming children into the family of God. I discovered another window today too, which I've never really noticed before - something that surprised me because ours is not an overly large building. It is a large plain window, with clear glass. You can see straight through it to the outside world: across the grave yard to the A-road that runs through the middle of the parish, and on to the homes beyond. I stood for a while watching people heading to the shops, the saturday morning traffic held up by the changing...

I have just started reading this book, Spiritual Fitness by Graham Tomlin (London: Continuum, 2006). It is a really good read, and quite challenging in places. I'm not in total agreement with Tomlin in every area, but find him a very stimulating conversation partner (this ought to be expected after his Provocative Church (2002)). The premise of the book is partly as a follow up to his earlier work, and partly as a fleshing out of the question "what would happen if Christians started to put huge amounts of time and energy into developing their spiritual health and fitness?" There is a missional drive to this: such lives would be attractive to others, doubly so in our post-modern world in which people are looking for points of reference (if Zygmunt Bauman is to be believed). I thought I would have a go at blogging my way through, chapter by chapter - partly as good practice for me when it comes to blogging, and partly for fun! So here goes... Ch. 1: Church in a Cultu...

This is a photograph of the East window above the altar-table at Church. It is a piece of religious art I both love and hate. I hate it because I'm not very keen on Victorian depictions of the last supper, on the whole, because they tend to be quite miserable and Jesus is always pale and English-looking. The disciples are all bearded men, dressed wholly inappropriately, and are also pale and English-looking. But, there's always a "but" with this sort of thing for me: I love this stained glass window because it is quite unusual. It's a bit small to see the full detail in the photograph, but one of the disciples has a blackened halo. Often on a Sunday morning when I look at Judas I feel quite sorry for him in this image: permanently marked out by the artists as the betrayer, one whose holiness and faithfulness is called into question so very publicly every week. As if to make it more obvious, the artist has represented Judas facing away from Jesus, and away fro...

I have been thinking a bit about ordained ministry this week, and the shift of emphasis to leadership - "Church Leaders" - that has happened in recent years. It is a very strong notion in Liverpool Diocese, I suspect because of its evangelical heritage (where the concept seems to be very strong). It is a theme that I have come back to many times in the last ten years or so. I have so far avoided blogging on this topic because I have struggled to articulate my thoughts coherently. I'm not now claiming to have gotten to that point, but I feel able to get a few things down and perhaps get some feedback that will help me think more clearly about the area of leadership and priesthood. (When I say priesthood here I really mean ordained ministry - for those of you not from a traditon that calls its presbyters priests.) It is something that genuinely bothers me - not in the sense that I am profoundly disturbed by others' opinions, but because I haven't landed my own th...

Today I have had quite a cultured day: we had a family trip down to the Tate Gallery at Liverpool's Albert Dock. It was a welcome relief after a long and difficult week. One of the exhibits at the gallery got me thinking - as I guess art should - and also got me chuckling. Finally it got me theologizing. The exhibit was this: It is, as you can see, a series of floor tiles laid out in a square pattern. It's called "144 Magnesium Square" by American artist  Carl Andre (b.1935). If you are thinking that there must be more to it, you are wrong. That's it. Tiles laid out and cemented to the floor (not exactly very well either - my dad, who is a professional tiler, would not be pleased). And that's what got me thinking and chuckling. The inevitable question to ask when you witness something as plain and ordinary as floor tiles is "is this art?" For many people viewing the exhibit alongside me today, it plainly wasn't: they were saying so quite aud...