Amazing Women

From time to time my former session clerk likes to encourage me in my reading and offers helpful suggestions and passes books for me to read. Before the summer holidays he handed me a copy of "Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers found the Hidden Gospels" by Janet Soskice.

Now I'm not a big fan of books written by academics. They often seem dry, lacking in humour, and the extra details that bring things to life. Because of that I save them for morning reading in a chair in broad daylight, that I might better take in the gist of what I am being told.

However "Sisters of Sinai" has been a fabulous read. As well as offering an opportunity to find out about the history of the Codex Sinaiticus, I've been enthralled by the lives of two sisters in the late 19th century.

Truly amazing women, they adventured across the Middle East at a time when travel was more difficult and fairly unusual for women to undertake on their own. Each journey carefully prepared for with knowledge of languages that might be helpful, and ensuring they understood the cultural contexts into which they were travelling. There were humourous moments when Janet Soskice spoke of their exercise regimes and cast verbal pictures if parallel bars in gardens and ropes hung from ceilings in the home. All of the work that these women did underscored by their faith in God, and their desire to engage more in the understanding of the Bible and Ancient texts.

This moved from day-time reading to night time relaxation as I wondered what they would do next.

Amazing women have filled church congregations for years. Women who encouraged people to play their part in the faiths they led. Women who seemed to sit on the sidelines, but really their careful work in the Gospel name often went unnoticed.

In my last charge, there was a formidable woman who didn't really approve of women ministers but was determined that she would try to work with me. For my first nine months she often seemed awkward, organising me, telling me where I was going wrong, worrying that I might want to run the Guild, borrowing me to give her a lift to Edinburgh (I was going anyway). Sadly Jenny died suddenly. She was found sitting in a chair in her home by a neighbour. She had just celebrated a successful income from the Guild Sale of Work. It was only after Jenny's death that the congregation realised what an amazing woman she had been. There were lots of little things that suddenly stopped happening because Jenny was no longer there to do them. It took a while to gather all the threads and organise others to take on these role.

But thank God for amazing people in congregations, who often want no credit for what they do, but carefully work away that the faith they have in Jesus Christ might be passed on to others.

Thoughts on Sundays

A member of my congregation lent me a book a few months ago, and while it has taken me a while to get to it I am greatly enjoying it. Entitled "Sisters of Sinai" by Janet Soskice, it tells of the true story of two Scottish women who in the 19th century discovered hidden gospels in a monastery in the Sinai desert.

I'm only half way through, but already amazed at the courage these women had in stepping out of the norms of society to set of on their adventure. Their scholarship and grasp of languages is much to be admired, and their willingness to experience other cultures something that others should thirst after.

In the early chapters we are introduced to one the sister's husbands, who was a scholar and a Church of Scotland minister. There was a section about his preparation for worship that captured my thoughts as I read it, and I marked it to return to, so that I might re-read it.

In the 1850s the heavy stress still fell upon the minister's sacred eloquence, which must at least appear to issue from spontaneous inspiration. Indeed, as Agnes pointed out in a memoir of her brother-in-law, this duty ought to have been a joyous privilege, but Gibson was a perfectionist. Preaching quickly became an ordeal, since it required two bursts of inspiration every Sunday, which his nature required him to prepare down to the last syllable, and which his congregation expected to be delivered without notes.

...When Gibson mounted the pulpit, there was no evidence of anything but the most complete preparation and perfect vigour. (Janet Soskice [2009], Sisters of Sinai, pp57-58)

No matter what age of humanity, it would appear the preacher's lot remains the same. We seek to be spontaneous and intelligent, and yet on reading this book there is the insight that still congregations have criticised for the seeming failure to grasp their imagination.

I've still much more of the book to discover and enjoy, and other passages I'm sure will stick in my mind or spark my imagination.