This is a short but
punchy book, the kind of thing that Rowan Williams does so well.
There is a poetic sensibility to his writing, which captures the
beauty of the ideas he is exploring.
Although it is split
into chapters on Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, and Prayer I found that
it is the Eucharist that seems to run through it all as the unify
thread. It is an understanding of the Eucharist that has the riches
of the sacramental understandings that come from the “Catholic”
traditions but with the simplicity and accessibility that come
perhaps more readily from “Reformed” traditions. It is always a
“both/and” approach that appeals to me.
At one point I
thought his words could easily be used as the liturgical invitation
to Communion:
Come... “not
because we are doing well, but because we are doing badly. Not
because we have arrived, but because we are travelling. Not because
we are right, but because we are confused... Not because we are
divine, but because we are human. Not because we are full, but
because we are hungry.”
I think there is
also an important theme about not getting to decide who are
travelling companions are, which must be wisdom from his truculent
times at Canterbury – but also honesty that this stuff is easy to
say but harder to live – for example he recalls that “ the
transforming effect of looking at other Christians as people whose
company God wants, is – by the look of things – still sinking in
for a lot of Christians, and taking rather a long time...”
One hopes that we
will continue to receive these gifts from Rowan Williams pen for many
years to come.
