I am – allegedly – writing a course on the Revelation to St John the Divine to be delivered in the summer at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham. I am not making much progress.

One of the key texts I am reading at present is Eugene Petersen’s Reversed Thunder. He makes the observation that John is to be seen as a prophet, poet and pastor. John the Divine was and is on the edge. He was on the edge of the Roman world, exiled in Patmos, and part of his corpus, Revelation has been described by D H Lawrence no less as the ‘Judas of the New Testament’. I say corpus as I am one of few who still think that the writer of the Fourth Gospel and the Revelation are one and the same.

Eugene Petersen uses the description ‘poet’ as for him poets are makers of meaning. Certainly John the Divine was making meaning. One of the most poignant passages in Revelation 5 describes how Jesus is seen as the powerful Lamb, which brings a smile to this interpreter’s face as I imagine this Lamb being held up as a rival to Caesar, and yet seemingly is still vulnerable.

Priests in the Church of England make meaning as well. I hope that is what I am doing when I baptise or conduct funerals. I hope too that as I wander around and wonder that I make meanings for people.

The edge is a good place to make meanings. The edge is the periphery or the boundary. At boundaries meanings are often made. Heres to making more of them.