Keeping busy on a Tuesday night

J. John is visiting the North East of England. He will be speaking for ten subsequent weeks in Gateshead and Stockton. I do not plan to attend. And yet maybe I should, because it is proving very popular, drawing crowds in the thousands, and certainly drawing the very crowds that would find our local bishop's sermon series pretty boring. Meanwhile, for some reason, these same crowds are not turning up to the cathedral's concerts of pre-reformation sixteenth century choral music, I just have to wonder why.

Still, I can't help but think that the J. John thingy only serves as an opportunity for parishionners to "finally do something exciting" on a Tuesday night. As time goes, I tend to trust less and less in the spoken word (fequently known as "bullshit"), and I am drawn again and again to quiet people-lover types who walk humbly with God.

The two are not incompatible. I am reminded of a ghetto preacher who justified his two-hours-long Sunday services by saying that his parishioners were made to feel like scum for most of the week. He needed at least two hours every Sunday to undo the damage, and to convince his congregation that they were precisely not "scum", but beloved children of God. -I think I got that story out of one of the Hauervas and Willimon books, but for a fine example of this kind of life-giving proclamation, do check this obscure individual-.

But really I'm not sure of what can be gotten out of two hours with J. John, beyond the warm glow of being a part of the right crowd, that is. Still, truth be told, I'm quite curious to find out. So maybe I'll dig out my notebook, digital recorder, and go interview some of the punters. And I'm definitely going to this cosy little event by the way, hopefully armed with some big bad smart-arsed questions. Do feel free to leave your own in the comments below and I'll try to quizz some answers out of the prelate. But I've got to be careful, because by the sounds of it he might be planning to attend J. John's too!