Reasons why Bible readers/teachers should read David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest'

in no particular order

1. It is a fantastic book

2. It is rampant with intertextuality.

3. It contains complex thoughts on addiction and desire

4. Rumoured to have a chiastic structure

5. It moves beyond post-modernism, a response more to the technological reality of post-humanism

6. Like the Bible, on a first read, it seems to be full of irrelevant detail. But on subsequent readings you realise every detail is important, every detail a window to the whole.

7. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
One of the characters has an influence over the speech of others, in a strange and not quite clear way. They don't lose their agency, but someone else is in there too.

Feel free to add some more

When the day starts, pray

When you are made Ready to begin the Day, Pray:

O God and merciful Father, thou knows and hast taught us somewhat to know, that the weakness of man is much, and that without thy grace and virtue he cannot do or think any good thing; have mercy upon me, I humbly beseech thee, who am thy most unworthy and most weak child. Oh! be gracious and tender towards me, enlighten me, that I may with pleasure look only upon good things; exhort me, that I may covet them; carefully lead me, that I may follow, and at length attain them. I, distrusting myself altogether, commend and offer myself wholly, soul, body, life, &c., into thy hands. Thy loving Spirit lead me forth unto the land of righteousness

Thoughts on hospital visits

Earlier this year I had to do a hospital visit. My first one. I had no idea what to do, or how to be.

Jason offers some excellent thoughts on visiting those in hospital. Well worth a read

As soon as it is light, pray

So soon as you behold the Daylight, Pray:

O Lord, thou greatest and most true Light, whence this light of the day and of the sun does spring! O Light, which does lighten every man that comes into this world! O Light, which knows no night nor evening, but are always a midday, most clear and fair, without whom all is most dark darknessóby whom all are most resplendent! O thou Wisdom of the eternal Father of mercies! enlighten my mind, that I may only see those things that please thee and may be blinded to all other things. Grant that I may walk in thy ways, and that nothing else may be light and pleasant unto me. Lighten mine eyes, O Lord! that I sleep not in death, lest mine enemies say, "I have prevailed against him."

Occasions to meditate

Muse a little how much the light and eye of the mind and soul are better than those of the body; also that we care more for the soul's seeing well, than for the body. Think that beasts have bodily eyes, and therewith see, but men have eyes of the mind, and therewith should see.

The freedom of confession

"The 'burden' of self accusation, the suspicion of what the heart prompts, this is not about an inhuman austerity or self hatred but about the need for us all to be coaxed into honesty by the confidence that God can forgive and heal"
Rowan Williams
Silence and Honey Cakes pp49

Diversity and commitment

"The church is meant primarily to be a community of persons in the sense we have been talking about. It is a place for distinctive vocations to be discovered in such a way that they are a source of mutual enrichment and delight, not threat. It is a place where human difference is nourished. I don't just mean the obvious fact that the church has to be a place of welcome for all races and cultures, but that it must know how to work with the grain of different personal gifts and histories. A healthy church is one where there is evident diversity in this respect, with plenty of bizarre characters... An unhealthy one is a group in which the unity of the church has been reduced to a homogeneity of options and habits, so that certain styles of devotion, for example, or certain expressions of what God means to this or that person are frowned on, virtue becomes identified with uncontroversial ordinariness and there is a nervous cultural 'sameness' in the way people talk, dress and so on..... this is more than 'letting a thousand flowers bloom'. A church that is simply recognising different preferences is stuck at the level of individualism; the real work has not yet been done, the work which is the discovery of God's call beyond the simplistic 'listening to the heart' that we all too readily settle for. This is a work that takes protracted, committed time, which is why the church is so much involved in blessing lifelong commitments- marriage, ordination, monastic life- not as a way of saying that everyone has to be involved in one or more of these but to remind all baptized believers that, because of their baptism, they are bound to the patient, long term discovery of what grace will do with them"
Rowan Williams
Silence and Honey Cakes:the wisdom of the desert pp59

Pray the day with John Bradford

When you Awake out of your Sleep, Pray thus:

O most dear Father of our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom none does know but by thy gift, grant that to the manifold great benefits of thy goodness given to me, this which of all other is the greatest, may be added; that like as thou hast awakened my body from sleep, so thou would thoroughly awake, yea, deliver my soul from the sleep of sin and the darkness of this world, and that which now is awakened out of sleep, be pleased, after death, to restore to life, for that is but sleep to thee, which is death to us. O God, I most heartily beseech and humbly pray thy goodness to make my body such a companion, or rather such a minister of godliness to my soul, in this present life, that in the life to come it may partake therewith everlasting happiness by Jesus Christ our Lord. Awake, thou that sleeps, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall show light unto thee. (Eph. v.)

Occasions to meditate

Here call to mind the great joy and blessedness of the everlasting resurrection; also remember to muse upon that most clear light and bright morning, and clearness of our bodies, after the long darkness they will hare been in: all then shad be full of joy.