The Maranatha

On Cynicism

2012-02-16T13:07:00.000Z

WARNING: PRETENTIOUS INTRO

Derrida once wrote, je passe à juste titre pour athée; I am perceived, rightly, to be an atheist. It's a funny thing about Derrida. He is rightly called an atheist, and yet he doesn't seem to be anti-God; just anti-ideas-about-God (I'm not an expert on Derrida, and I'm sure that many people who are would disagree with that. I'm informed entirely by Derridean scholar John D Caputo).

Anyway, this phrase came to mind when I was thinking about cynicism. Je passe à juste titre pour cynique. Some of my friends would call my blindly naive because of my religious faith, but those who know me well (or read my tweets) might, perhaps rightly, call me a cynic. A conversation about the X-Factor, or the movie industry, or red-top newspapers, or anything tweeted by the likes of @GirlConfession_ adds evidence to this. Yesterday, I couldn't sit with my girlfriend and watch My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding because of how crappy I found it.

And yet, I don't really think of myself as a Cynic with a capital C. I am cynical about many things, but how many things does one need to be cynical about to become a Cynic? I don't think I've got there yet. It seems that at it's most extreme, cynicism allows little room for optimism or hope, and I actually feel vaguely optimistic about humanity and life in general. At its most extreme, cynicism is repelled by innocence, and I am very attracted to innocence.

I hate the idea that this blog might be perceived to be an apologetic for myself, by the way, but that's probably what it is.

Two days ago, my girlfriend took me to see The Muppets at the cinema. We're only halfway through February, which makes it very easy to say that it was the best film I've seen all year. I loved it, and I loved it because of its innocence. It didn't try to be 'gritty' or 'edgy'; it was brightly coloured, silly and full of hope. If it had a message, it was one of creativity, the basic goodness of life, and the importance of happiness. A real Cynic would have pissed all over how unrealistic it was (not just the fact that felt animals are talking, obviously, but that goodness wins, and badness can be redeemed). But I'm not quite there. I believe in the message of The Muppets (and don't get me started on how much I believe in the message of most Pixar films).

That's not naïveté (that's the last French word I'll use, I promise), it's real! America has a black president. As little as fifty years ago, that would have been impossible. The Arab Spring and the Occupy movements of last year showed regular people powerfully confronting corrupt authority. Children who write silly letters to Sainsbury's get silly replies. After rioters made a mess of London, people with nothing to gain from it cleaned it up.

People have written much better than I can about the beauty of art, music, scientific discovery, charity, and on, and on, and on.

But here's the irony: those very things which I find so beautiful and inspiring are the things that make a cynic out of me. If we, as a species, are capable of such great things, why does shit like the X-Factor exist? If children's movies have the potential to be so creative and positive, who thought it would be a good idea to produce The Smurfs?* After 100 years of feminism and civil rights movements, why are people still being paid to publish Nuts magazine?

I am so cynical about the vast majority of the 'entertainment' industry, because it is stupid, get-rich-quick, thoughtless bile that reduces our glorious and beautiful humanity to this:

I move beyond cynicism to anger when I see things like Paris Hilton's BFF, Top Gear, and basically anything on T4, whose over-riding message is; Don't think! Don't be emancipated! Don't worry about doing anything good, or creative, or beautiful! Look: sex! Phwoar! Eh? Phwoar! Look, kids! Selena Gomez is in her underwear! That's cool, right? Look, mums, Scarlett Johannson has cellulite! Gross! What a horrible fucking cow! Look, dads, big cars with big engines and girls on them! Phwoar!

And, all over the world, great poets, artists, philosophers, civil rights activists, and spiritual leaders turn in their graves.

Wow. Pretty cynical, right?

What's even more frustrating is that I'm not one of these 'technology is of the devil' people. I wish I was. I could hang tight to my assured view that we should all turn of our televisions, delete our Twitter accounts, and become Amish, and all would be well. But I think that's bollocks. Twitter was one of the driving forces of the uprisings last year. And television can be amazing! I could write about the majesty of David Attenborough's documentaries, or the importance of keeping oneself informed via the news, or the money that television raises for things like Children in Need or Comic Relief. But hell, what about just how good it is to have a laugh? I'm watching The IT Crowd at the moment. I love it. It's hilarious, and silly, and not particularly thought-provoking. That's okay, I think! It's still a a celebration of life. My girlfriend (Wow! Three mentions in one blog!) has introduced me to Lost. What an amazing work of art; a show about humanity at its best and at its worst, wrapped up a mind-bending puzzle. Great!

I don't think crappy shallowness is a result of flickering images on screens, as my dad used to call them. I'm sure it's always been around, and it exists in every medium (I don't mean medium as in Derek Acorah, though God knows I mean him as well).

I'm not entirely sure where this blog is going now. I suppose I just wanted to explain why sometimes I come across as a sarcastic, self-righteous arse. Ultimately, I think the things I'm most cynical about are the things that scare me the most. They scare me because they represent that which I dislike the most about myself; my laziness, my selfishness, my uncaring side. They scare me because when I pick up The Sun on a train and leaf through it, I enjoy the shallow, mind-numbing celebrity gossip. They scare me because I'm an X-Factor judge everywhere I go in life; deciding who's in and who's out based on what I find attractive in others.

And I find it less scary to be sarcastic and self-assured about all of that crap than to embrace the stuff in me that I find so ugly.

But ultimately, I don't think I am a cynic. Like I said right at the beginning of this blog, I feel generally optimistic about humanity; or at least it's potential. Perhaps the next step is to learn to start feeling generally optimistic about my own potential. Then I can be less scared and more constructive about all that other stuff.

In The Muppets, the main character's brother tells him that growing up is about learning to have faith in yourself. I like that.

*I'm talking about this, not this.

Struggling

2012-01-14T11:56:00.001Z

I'm really struggling with all of this. I'm at a conference surrounded by Christians, and I feel more confused and frustrated about my faith and my vocation than anywhere else. Around me, I see people putting their hands in air, talking about how wonderful God is, how he is doing great things, how all we need is faith for God to make our work successful, and I will admit, I just don't get it. I'm entirely lost in all of it.

In our meetings, I find myself sitting with arms folded, unable to understand why people seem so enthralled with what seems to me like stage-hypnotism, wrapped in religious language.

I am not trying to be provocative. I'm not, generally, questioning people's intentions. I do honestly believe that most Christians, from whatever denomination, are trying to do what is right (though I believe that extends to most humanity - religious or otherwise).

And yet, if I'm honest, I look, and listen, to these get-togethers, and feel like I'm being bamboozled, manipulated, into a 'spiritual' experience. Soft music plays while people talk, adding gravitas to their words. We are presented with heart-wrenching images of children left with no homes, or the elderly lying in hospital death-beds, to stir up our capacity for emotional response. We hear jokes about how silly we all are, reminding us that it's okay - we're not being brain-washed, we're self-aware!

These are, it seems to me, the same tricks employed by television psychics, stage hypnotists, and (dare I say) faith-healers. Again, I want to reiterate that I don't think that this is intentional. As humans, we are programmed to find patterns. When we see that something provokes a reaction in others that we understand as spiritual, we do it again. It isn't a cold, calculated scheming, but perhaps rather a thoughtlessness. It's a failure to ask, why are we doing this? What does it mean? What do we mean by a spiritual experience?

I hear about events at which hundreds of people 'give their lives to Christ', and I am left cold, because I don't know what 'giving your life to Christ' means. If it means reacting emotionally by putting a hand up when asked who wants to go to Heaven, I don't think that's much better than joining any other cult.

I am starving, at this conference, for a real, honest, conversation with someone. I'm desperate to talk to someone without religious jargon. It would bring tears of joy to hear someone say, 'I'm not even sure I believe in God...'

Hold on. I'm left cold by people giving their lives to Christ, and I want to hear someone say that they don't believe in God. That's not Christian, is it? Have I lost my faith?

Well, no, I don't think I have. But it seems to me that faith involves staring over a precipice. Faith is not certainty. Miraculous healings, warm feelings about whatever God is, having our questions answered - those things are solid, they feel great! But they're not faith. If we don't find them in Christianity, we can find them in Tai Chi, or in retail therapy, or in seeing a clairvoyant, or in paracetamol. Those things which feel so tangible are to be found just about anywhere, and they offer a lovely warm comfort blanket until they stop working.

Faith involves uncertainty. Faith involves admitting that we know nothing about God, or about life. Faith is not a comfort blanket; it is a terrifying loss of certainty! The experience of Christ wasn't a warm, fuzzy feeling about God, it was a crucifixion. It was crying out on the cross, 'Father, father, why have you forsaken me?'.

The great Hebrew discovery wasn't that God is better than the other gods. That's called henotheism. It was that God is not in competition with anyone. There are no gods! In other words, God is more like nothing at all than like one of the gods. Christianity looks more like atheism than like paganism. The great crime of the Old Testament wasn't atheism, but idolatry - creating images of God to worship (I owe this paragraph to James Alison - he is one of the most important theological voices of our times - buy his books)!

If someone asks a Christian if they believe in God, the answer we're taught to give is, "Yes! I believe in God, and his son Jesus Christ, who died for me, and for you, that we might have eternal life. You should believe in him too! You'll see, it'll make your life better!" But I'm not so sure. Jesus spoke in parables about God - stories that involve abstract thought. Jesus asked people what they thought, rather than telling them what to think.

Perhaps a better answer to "Do you believe in God" is "I don't know. What's God? Do you?"

That is what I understand by justification by faith - not that if you believe in God, and live as a Christian, than everything will be alright, but to be able to say, "Hey, look, I'm a complete ass. What do I know? I'm as selfish, insecure, petty, and thick as the rest of us," and not mind.

I do believe in God. Often, I use my religion as a comfort blanket. We're all weak, right? But I don't think that's what it's about. We need to stare out into the emptiness of space, and face the idea that it might just be emptiness. We need to look over the precipice, and acknowledge the fear that there might not be a pair of hands to catch us at the bottom.

It's at this point that the Christian faith comes into meaning. St John of the Cross, stuck in a prison cell, and tortured. St Francis of Assisi, locked up in his father's cellar. St Ignatius, lying crippled in a hospital bed. Paul, struck blind. The list goes on and on. In darkness, in emptiness, in weakness and in depression, God waits to be found. And what do these great writers tell us about God? Nothing - other than that the event of God is nothing like our images of God.

For this reason, sometimes we need a wrecking ball to come and tear down our strong, experiential religion, which tells us that we are right, and that we are saved, and that we are on the winning team. So that in fear and trembling, we can really come to know what God is.

I'm not sure that I have the faith for that just yet. But that's okay. I'm an ass.

edit - I've just realised that this links in with a blog I wrote a few weeks ago about youth ministry. It's here - http://themaranatha.blogspot.com/2011/09/competition-and-youth-ministry.html

The Rihanna Problem

2011-10-25T10:41:00.000Z

I don't udnerstand what the thing with Rihanna is.

As far as I can gather, she's one of an influx of female strippers who sing while they take their clothes off (c.f. Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus...). Her music videos are basically peep shows, and she gives lap dances to her fans at her shows. She can carry a tune, but she doesn't write her own music.

But that's pop, right? Nothing new there, right?

What troubles me is that she keeps on being asked to collaborate (read: sing) on albums that I really like! Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is amazing album, written amd performed by a talented and honest (if barmy) musician. You could say the same thing for most of Jay Z later albums. And then, Rihanna suddenly appears on them and lowers the tone.

Most recently, she appeared on Coldplay's new album! Coldplay! I know lots of people loathe Coldplay for being a bit bland (I personally love them), but what earthly place does a relatively vacuous cash cow (I mean that in the business sense - I have nothing negative to say about Rihanna's physique...) have on a Coldplay album?

I just can't get my head around it. I tend to think that these 'raunchy' pop starlets probably don't have much faith in their own music. In the same way that a product that needs a celebrity endorsement probably isn't very good, music that needs sexy videos is probably worth a miss. Like at some point, someone's going to listen to the album without the music video and realise; 'this is really shit'.

So why do respectable artists, intelligent artists with a degree of integrity keep on buying into it? What am I missing here?

A Conversation

2011-09-20T15:47:00.000Z

"How's it going?"

"I'm alright, thanks. You?"

"Do you believe in God?"

"Yes, I work for a cathedral."

"Do you go to church on Sundays?"

"Y...yes, I just said, I work for a church. It's part of my job to go on Sundays."

"Let me tell you about our church."

"It's cool thanks. I already belong to a church. I work for one."

"Take this magazine. It's got our church's address in it. Come in some time. It will bless you."

"What? Listen, I'm telling you, I work for a church! I can't come to your church!"

"I expect to see you here on Sunday!"

I literally don't know how to make you stop evangelising me.

Competition and Youth Ministry

2011-09-16T10:29:00.000Z

I've just finished reading a fantastic essay by James Alison called 'Discipleship and The Shape of Belonging'. One of the difficulties of being involved in church ministry is reading essays like this one, which are packed with intelligent theology, and a profound understanding of the human condition, and thinking, 'I wish my work could look like this.'

James is heavily influenced by the French literary critic, sociologist and theologian, René Girard. Girard writes about what he calls the 'mimetic' nature of desire. Starting at childhood, we are programmed to desire what others desire. We imitate our parents, our teachers, and our peers; we learn to want the things they want. Take, for example, school playground trends. I remember wanting, needing, more Pogs than anyone else in my class. I desired what they desired so much that I wanted them to envy the level of my acquisition of it. I was in competition with them for the same thing. Pogs disappeared in relatively short order, and were replaced by Gogos (which, on the French playgrounds I bartered on, were called Jojos - I've since found out these are an imitation). Gogos became Yoyos. Yoyos became Adidas poppers. Adidas poppers became Hannah - the girl who everyone fancied in sixth form, and who I once missed an opportunity to have a snog with, which haunts me to this day (despite my much more beautiful and likeable present girlfriend, who I'm sure is reading this).

We see what others desire. We imitate their desire. We compete with them. And so functions the world. This, as an aside, is not a product of post-modernity, or consumerist culture, or MTV, it is as old as humanity itself.

James tells us in his essay that Christ ruptures this way of thinking. Christ tells us to break free from the world of mimetic desire and competition with others.

How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

- John 5:44

More than preaching, Christ shows us how to live free by occupying the place of shame of death without being overwhelmed by it. In his persecution, death and resurrection, Jesus demonstrates that it is okay to be the lowest of the low. In fact, more than being okay, it is the place of our salvation!

In order to receive rewards from our Heavenly Father, which is to say, in order to receive that 'Well done, I'm sooooo pleased with you!' which is what we all want so desperately to hear ... we need to learn to let go of all the forms of reputation and regard, good or 'wicked', which we struggle so hard to get and to keep.

Wow. So it's okay, in fact, it's good, not to be the best, the most glorious, the first, the most impressive. In freeing ourselves from our competition with others, we hear God's affirmation - 'This is my son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased.'

But wait. I'm a Youth Minister at a cathedral. I'm a Christian Spiritual Development Worker at a YMCA. I'm *gulp* a leader. Fuck.

I find myself competing with other youth work programmes. I have a friend who's a CEO of a youth centre in London - a CEO! I have another friend who has successfully started and maintained a youth organisation, complete with Apple computers, that works with kids who take drugs and stab people and stuff. Right here where I live, there are youth clubs and churches who see hundreds of young people, who have all the equipment, who make the papers, and who do good things! I'm not talking about crappy conversationist altar-call youth ministry, I have no desire to compete with that, I'm talking about really, genuinely good things! Of course I bloody want to compete with that!

Not only do I want to compete with it, and run the biggest, best and most newsletter-worthy youth work programme, but other people expect me to! I have bosses, trustees, young people, parents of young people, partner organisations, predecessors and grant-givers who are all looking at me, waiting to see how I'm going to compete with others for our shared idea of what youth work should be.

How can I possibly but try and compete?

And yet... There's this call. This voice. A voice that tells me to stop it. When I try to compete, when I try doing the all-singing, all-dancing youth work show that I expect I should be doing, I feel sick. This isn't right. This can't be what Christianity is about. My insecurities tell me that it's my own incompetence - I can't do this. I'm in the wrong line of work. I should just get a shop job. Maybe I'm just not a good youth worker.

So there's this battle that goes on in me. A part of me wants not just to be good, but to be the best. Then people will look up to me, give me money, and, most important of all, tell me I'm doing a good job. And what sweeter words are there to hear? 'You're doing a great job, Tim'.

But then, that's not what this is about. The last thing I want is for the young people who I see every day to get caught up in this crappy way of thinking, where we depend on being better than others to be happy. And if I don't want it for them, I need to model it, repent of my hypocrisy and walk towards the lowest position there is, in the hope that Christ really is there.

I just don't really know (or maybe I just don't really want to know) how to do that.

Why I Left Facebook

2011-09-05T09:28:00.001Z

I've recently had a fantastic ego massage. A friend of mine showed me a group that my dad started on Facebook: "Get Tim Back on FB". A small group of friends and family have posted on the wall, saying things that swell my pride in thoroughly enjoyable way. As a result, I've seriously toyed with whether or not to re-activate my dormant account.

For a long time, I had two Facebook accounts. One for keeping in touch with friends and family, and the other for keeping in touch with the young people and parents that I work with. The personal one is currently enjoying internet limbo - not entirely deleted, but deactivated until such a time as I choose to reactivate it. The work one is still active.

After an evening of fiddling with privacy settings and trying to merge two accounts, tentatively making friend-lists, and adding one or two people here and there, I've remembered why I deleted my personal account in the first place, and have decided to stick to my guns.

When people ask me why I'm not on Facebook, my stock answer is usually, "I was wasting too much time on it." There's an element of truth in that, but it's an overly simplistic explanation. So let me explain why I really left Facebook, and why I'm not planning on coming back to it.

Telling people I'm not on Facebook seems to be a modern heresy; a smack in the face of 21st-Century orthodoxy. Judging from people's reactions, 'I'm not on Facebook' is a sentence synonymous with 'I hate everyone, especially you'.

That's not the case. I really want to keep in touch with my friends and family. I miss that aspect of Facebook. I have friends in Australia, America, and continental Europe that I wish I could see every day. I love them, and I miss them. Equally, I have family right here in England, with whom I want to share my life - I'd like them to see pictures of me, and what I'm up to. Leaving Facebook has nothing to do with a desire to not be in touch.

The real reason is how complicated and political Facebook makes friendship. My half hour back on Facebook last night reminded me of how much it pisses me off. Young people ask why they can't see my personal profile - what do I have to hide? Friends ask why they can't see my work profile - am I really such a different person at work? If I publish a status update about something I really care about, I end up having to apologise for it because it's too religious, or not religious enough, or politically misguided, or has too many swear-words.

I hate, really hate, having to mince my words or tread on eggshells in my personal life. At work, I need to be professional and sensitive. Sometimes that means biting my tongue. I need, and want, to keep some elements of my life private. Young people and their parents don't need to know the details of my personal life; not because I have anything to hide, but because my friends and family are my home - they are where I go when I want to be safe from work. That's why I have (had) two accounts.

I guess Facebook feels like that early stage of a relationship which is all about flirting and game-playing. It's exciting and fun, but it's also exhausting. A relationship can't stay at that stage - "How long should I wait before calling? Why did she only put one x at the end of that text? Should I put more?" On Facebook it's, "Should I upload this photo? Should I add/accept this person as a friend? Should I really upload this status, or am I being passive aggressive?"

In real-life, you have the excitement of normality to look forward to. You play the games so as to get to the stage where you're relaxed with the person, and can just be yourself, knowing that they'll still accept you. On Facebook, I felt like I could never get beyond superficiality; even with the people I'm really close to!

It seems that most people love Facebook, and don't find it as hard-work as I do. Maybe the problem lies with me, rather than with the website itself. But the long and short of it is that I find Facebook tiring and stressful. I wish I could rid of my work account as well, but I guess it feels like a necessary evil to me. I need (and want!) to keep in touch with young people, and young people are on Facebook.

I love my friends, I love my family, and I really want to stay in touch with them. But Facebook simply isn't the way for me to do it. I don't want that to mean that people can't be in touch with me. But we had ways of keeping in touch before Facebook, didn't we? I have an e-mail address, a telephone, and even a postal address! I also have a Twitter account, which I really like. Twitter feels like Facebook minus the complications.

I'm sorry if this comes across as negative. I don't mean for it to. I just wanted to be honest and let the people who might feel ignored by me know that I don't want to ignore them. I just want to ignore one particular way of keeping touch with them, in the hope that we'll find other ways of sharing our lives together that actually hold some depth, integrity and meaning.

Our relationships with others aren't a commodity or product to play with. They are the source of life and meaning! They are where we find God! I'd rather not confuse them with a tangle of two-dimensional images and words; so easy to be flippant with or to misinterpret.

Real

2011-08-04T11:08:00.000Z

I'm busy reading a book which deals in part with the author's real-life experiences with the occult. It's startling to me because of the level of detail he goes into. I have come to expect abstract vagueries from occultists, psychics, healers, and so on, but he talks very clearly and very tangibly about his encounters with totemic spirit guides, alien-like beings from another dimension, and even Christ himself.

He employs a clever writing trick at one point, in order to get his readers on side; "...if it makes it easier to deal with, feel free to assume I hallucinated the whole thing and went completely, gloriously, and very lucratively mad".

Well hell, says my ego, I don't want to swallow some crap rationalisation of what's gone on in this man's life because it makes it easier to deal with. My reason tells me that these 'spiritual' experiences might have been helped by the drugs he was taking at the time, but I don't want to be the square man in a suit, who needs a spoonful of sugar to help me deal with things too big for my blinkered mind!

A mad man can convince you that he is Napoleon while you talk to him and try to empathise with his worldview. But as most people leave the asylum, reason will begin to reassert itself - 'Of course he isn't Napoleon. Napoleon was a French revolutionary who died 200 years ago. This guy was my uncle Kevin until a month ago.' Equally, as I closed the book, reason kicked in and assured me that it's okay to not accept that this man received superpowers from silverly aliens.

Perhaps reason is a numbing agent, a sort of anaesthetic used by frightened people to help cope with weird shit. Or perhaps it's one of the tools we have at our disposal to make contact with reality - the living, breathing world that we are part of it and where real religious awakening is to be found.

My own religion has unfortunately also been known to abandon reason in favour of opiate hallucinations. Instead of scorpion totems, I know Christians who have made contact with angels and demons, and understand them with all the clarity with which the occultist understands the world of aliens. I have known, and continue to know, people who make Christianity look like an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Perhaps the real world isn't colourful enough for us. To be comforted, to make us feel like we are fighting an epic battle of good versus evil, we need to believe in epic other worlds - worlds of angels, demons, aliens, gods, monsters, fairies, and so on.

But that's not the Christian narrative. Christianity isn't a neo-Platonic, Gnostic story of escaping from our rubbish, boring, evil world into some blissful spiritual ether. Christian theology at its best is pretty damn close to atheism.

The great discovery of the Israelites wasn't that there is one God, bigger and better than all of the others - it was that God is more like nothing at all than like the other Gods. When Moses asks God for his name, a magic word to throw at his oppressors, God's reply is, 'I am he who is.' That's all. God is not a golden calf, or giant phallus, or anything that our human minds can imagine. He is he who is.

Equally, in Christ, reality, our world, is affirmed as the place in which we find life in all of its fullness. Right at the beginning, in the creation story (please note: story, not historical account), we are told that God looks at the world he has created, the plants, animals, humans, the laws of physics, the mathematical principles, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and says, "It is very good." Not: It is okay for now, but wait until they discover spiritual experiences that leave it all behind! No. It is good.

Then, in Jesus, we are told that God himself takes on flesh - he comes to us and becomes one of us. God is found here, held down by gravity, with flesh that bleeds when pierced. No superpowers, no flying, no hopping between parallel universes. God shaves, eats and pees.

Finally, God sends the Holy Spirit. Not as some cosmically powered Silver Surfer who rides in, fixes stuff and then rides away, but as that which allows us to be in relationship with the other. He is the mediator - the very thing that allows you to interpret my words and me to interpret yours. The Holy Spirit is the force of love, of communication, of relationship. So again, God places himself here on Earth - truly spiritual experience is also perfectly mundane. We find God, which is to say we find life, by being on Earth, and discovering one another. In this sense, Love the Lord your God and Love Thy Neighbour are one and the same.

The Christian mystics talk about the loss of spiritual experience - when God stops speaking, when miracles stop happening, when we stop feeling warm and fuzzy about religion. If we sit with this loss of feeling, we are told, we find that the darkness - the nothingness - is God. In other words, we find God once our superstitions, our magic, our idols, our images of God, die.

Perhaps all of this is just reason acting like a comfortable blanket for me, covering all of the things in life that I can't explain. There are a lot of them. Truth by told, I don't think I really understand the implications of what I've just written. Maybe it's all just bollocks.

But my kittens are playing at the foot of my bed, and I'd like to go join them.

Unearth and Emerge

2011-07-19T21:36:00.000Z

Tonight, we drew a line under two of the highlights of my working week. One being a small youth group that meets in a cafe, and the other a film club that explores the spirituality of cinema.

I'm gutted about both of them ending. More gutted than I'd expected to be. I suppose a part of the feeling is because they are both things that I started from scratch, and so I have a certain degree of paternal pride about them. But a greater part is just that I've grown to really love the young people who are involved in both, and I will miss them.

Chocolat and Love

2011-06-29T07:31:00.000Z

Last night, I watched the movie Chocolat. I'd never been that keen on watching it before, because (as I said to the young people with whom I watched it) it's a film that comes free with DVD players, alongside Roland Emmerich's awful adaptation of Godzilla.

We watched it together anyway, and I was blown away by it. It is a beautiful film.

Loosely speaking, the characters in the film can be divided into two categories: conservative, religious, 'tranquil' types, and go-with-the-wind free spirit types. What follows is basically the fight between Carnival and Lent. On the one hand, Lenten religious piety fights for self-control, manners, and 'tranquilité'. On the other, the Carnival fights for sensory pleasure; food, drink and sex. This is the same battle that St Paul talked about his letter to the Galatians - though he called the apparently opposing sides 'spirit', and 'flesh'. The word Carnival actually means 'to raise the flesh'.

I have spoken before on this blog about my own personal battle between Carnival and Lent. On the one hand, Carnival, or flesh, tells me to enjoy the pleasures of the world - to lie in bed in the mornings and enjoy the warmth of my duvet before having to go out and work. On the other, Lent, or spirit, tells me that I am in need of salvation, and that I should be getting up early in the morning to pray and seek the face of God.

I think that as a religious person, at times, Carnival has particularly suffered in my life. As much as I want to enjoy fleeting pleasures, my mind tells me that there are probably better things I ought to be doing with my time, and so I end up feeling guilty a lot of the time. Or, even worse, the inability of spirit and flesh to come to an agreement within me means that I throw my time away merely numbing the argument - sitting in front of computer screens, filling silence with inane chatter, or escaping into fantasies of the imagination (those sorts of fantasies that Evagrius Ponticus called the Logismoi).

Jesus taught about this apparent duality via stories, perhaps the most obvious example being the story of the two brothers in The Prodigal Son. The younger brother is impulsive, arrogant and reckless, he pisses away his inheritance on beer, women and gambling. The older is hard-working, bitter, and self-righteous. The mistake both sons make is that they try to earn happiness, love, fulfilment, whatever you want to call it. The younger tries to earn it in the way that the flesh tells us to earn it; 'If I am rich, famous, respected, good-looking, talented, entertaining, then people will love me, I won't be alone, and I'll be happy. The older tries to earn it in the way that modern Western religious tells us to earn it; 'If I am obedient, self-disciplined, controlled, well-mannered and austere, then God will love me, I won't be alone, and I'll be happy.'

Both, Jesus says, are bollocks. Albeit not in so many words.

Love is a gift - it comes for free. The father not only accepts both of his sons, but celebrates them with a feast. In order to find happiness, love, fulfilment, all the brothers needed to do was to come home and enjoy what the father freely offers - home.

The eternal and boundless love of God is open to all - spirit and flesh, Carnival and Lent, free spirits and religious types. Equally, all have the potential to close themselves to love, by trying to earn it. What we soon find is no matter how hard we try, either by forcing ourselves out of bed very morning to go and pray, or by rushing from one superficial pleasure to the next, all of our efforts leave us feeling more tired, more alone, more bitter, and more homeless.

So how do we move from our restless searching, into an experience of God's love? I certainly haven't found a clear-cut, formulaic answer. And I think to do so would be to fall into the trap of trying again. It is not for us to do, but to receive. So perhaps a place to start would be to ask:

'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ Lord, please, have me. I'll work as one of your servants. I'll never grumble again. I just want to come home, I just want to feel safe and loved. I'll do whatever you ask, but please God, please open your doors to me.

When we ask, Jesus tells us, we can have faith that we will receive, though perhaps not what we were expecting:

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him... The father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate."

Youth Work vs Stereotypes

2011-06-19T22:41:00.000Z

Hi Blog. Long time no blog.

Today, I heard a very well-intentioned, but ultimately quite unhelpful, talk aimed at a room full of adults, about how they should be trying to build bridges with young people.

The good intentions are clear, but what made the talk quite unhelpful was its dependence on throw-away stereotypes. Over the course of the talk, the speaker made reference to how teenagers seem to only be able to communicate in grunts (which got the polite 'knowing' chuckle that this comment always gets), how they spend their entire lives on the internet, and how they communicate in 'text-speak'.

I'm sure I can't have been the only person present to pick up on the irony. The speaker told us that we should all be making greater efforts to listen to young people, but illustrated his talk with imagery that has more in common with Catherine Tate's unrealistic (and moronic) portrayal of a teenager than it did with any actual teenager.

I don't know where the image of the grunting teenager originated, perhaps with Harry Enfield's 'Kevin', but it is outdated and completely false. Most of the teenagers who I have the pleasure of spending time with are actually quite eloquent - and certainly more able to communicate their emotions in real-time than most adults.

Of course, there are teenagers out there who aren't word-smiths; teenagers who seem only to be able to communicate in primeval grunting. But I can think of just as many adults who have the same (and worse) problems.

Had this talk been about gay people, or black people, or women, or disabled people, or just about any other people group in the world - the casual use of exxagerated stereotypes would have drawn complaints from those listening, rather than polite chuckles. Maybe that's because we've begun to listen to those groups in ways in which we still haven't learned to listen to teenagers.

If we are serious about wanting to work alongside those who are different to us, we need to set light to those old, unhelpful stereotypes and start seeing them as they really are. Not as grunting, texting, unsocial animals who we should (at best) pity or (at worse) revile, but as human beings - capable of both immense beauty and appalling ugliness.

I once saw an interview with Jack Black, after the release of School of Rock. He said something uncharacteristically wise, when asked what it was like working with lots of children. He replied that children are just like adults - some are great to spend time with, and others are jerks. That rings very true of my work with young people. Some are very easy to get on with, and make the job feel like a walk in the park, and others feel impossible to get on with. I've not yet heard of a workplace in which this isn't the case.

So, kudos to today's speaker for his good intentions. We should get out of our church buildings, meet young people, listen to them and share with them. But if we're going to do that without seeming arbitrary and false, it needs to be unfettered by condescending stereotypes, which (I cannot say this enough) simply aren't true.

Desire

2011-02-21T11:46:00.000Z

Desire is a scary thing, isn't it? Or maybe it's just scary to people like me, with relatively conservative tendencies (much as I try and deny them). Anyway, my own sense of desire scares me.

It scares me because of its power, which seems indefatigable. What force is stronger than desire? So powerful is desire, that it can make mockeries of things like reason, patience, and common sense. I want this, and I want it now. I'll worry about the consequences later.

I'm tempted to blame this on our consumerist society, but that's probably a bit too easy. The Buddha, for example, taught about the enemies of sensual passion, discontent and craving two and a half thousand years ago. I don't there's anything new about this.

Johnny Cash sings a song called The Beast in Me on his first American Recordings album.

Cash was someone all too familiar with the destructive power of desire; his desire for drugs, alcohol and women led him ultimately to the desire to die. Near where he lived, there was a series of caves, and one day, he decided to go into these caves, descend until he could descend no more, and die.

Having gone quite a way into the caves, we are told, Cash felt overwhelmed by the presence of the divine. In the depths of Sheol, he found God waiting for him. He struggled to work his way back out of the caves and back into sunlight and we are told this story acted as something of a turning point for him.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say with this. Really, I'm trying to process my own scary desires, and the unpleasant things they say about me. I am told that all of desires, even the really awful ones, are merely reflections of our much deeper desire for life, for love; for God. Perhaps that's what Cash discovered in the Nickajack caves - everything that he was so desperately looking for in sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, he found in the darkest of caves.

This is also the experience of the Christian mystics that I often talk about; St John of the Cross found God in a prison cell; St Ignatius, in a hospital; St Francis, locked in a basement. Maybe it's something to do with being cut off from the distractions of superficial desire. Or maybe it's something to do with being forced to listen to those desires, rather than thoughtlessly indulging them.

I don't believe that desire is evil. But I do find my own desires scary, because of the things they ask me to do and to sacrifice in order to be gratified.

I normally like to end my blogs in something quite conclusive, phrased in a way that sounds very insightful (if only to me). "Perhaps, then, we should learn to love our desires..."

But I'm stumped on this one. I don't think it's right or good to do violence to my desires, or to myself for having them, but nor do I want to simply gratify all of my selfish my desires at the expense of friends, loved ones, career, and so on. I'm stuck somewhere between selfishness and self-loathing.

I suspect the answer is probably something to do with grace.

Wolverine and Grace

2011-02-20T00:50:00.000Z

I've just had a long discussion with one of my housemates about Wolverine. Specifically, our conversation was about the awful 2009 "X-Men Origins" movie, and whether or not a film can be justified simply by being entertaining. We were both agreed that Wolverine was shallow, stupid and opportunistic*, but we disagreed on whether or not it could still be a worthwhile film. Is it okay to turn off and be entertained by something that you know is crap?

Inevitably, the conversation became theological in tone, as we realised that the question was just a reflection of a deeper one; how do we dialogue between what is ideally good, and what is real? Or, how do we dialogue between Spirit and Flesh? How do we dialogue between Christ and Culture?

The nice/annoying thing about Christianity is that it refuses to answer the question for us. As a Christian, I believe that the world is fallen. In other words, I believe that it is not ideal. War, greed and fear are everywhere around us, and in this sense, I believe the church should be firmly counter-cultural. We are working towards something better, and shouldn't settle for anything less.

The logical fulfilment of this is to say that everything created, everything temporal, everything that isn't God, is evil and should be escaped, to find a place of pure spirituality. This is called Gnosticism, and it is a heresy in the church.

It's a heresy, because when God created the world, he said it was good. God chose to become part of the created order, with all of it's vulnerability, and we are told that God sees creation as worth redeeming and fulfilling. Christianity tells us that we are good; creation is beautiful, loved and worthwhile!

The logical fulfilment of this is to say that we should worship temporal creation, because it is as good as God, if not being God in itself. This is called idolatry, and it is a heresy in the church.

So, we are left with a dialectic problem; on one end sits Gnosticism, and on the other idolatry. One end tells us that we should not watch any movies, or enjoy anything created by man, because it is corrupt and will corrupt us, and the other tells us we should enjoy everything, and not resist anything, because it is all the fruit of God.

We are left looking for a synthesis between two extremes. Maybe a word for that synthesis is 'grace'. Rather than seeing the journey as walking a terrifying razor's edge, with damnation and destruction on either side, we should simply walk reflectively. Inevitably, I will get this wrong. It is a given that I will enjoy some things I shouldn't enjoy, just as it is inevitable that I will condemn things that I have no right to condemn.

That's okay. I am loved. If I fall off the razor's edge, hellfire and damnation aren't what await me - God's hands are what await me, ready to catch me and put me back on my feet. I'll fall off again, and they'll be there again. Maybe, the process of asking the questions, and reflecting, is more important that the answers we find - which are probably wrong anyway.

Is it okay to enjoy Wolverine? I don't think so. I think it's awful and promotes thoughtlessness, something which our society is already much too keen on. But maybe I'm wrong.

God's grace is bigger than my judgement calls. I wish I had more faith in it.

*please note: 'Wolverine' refers to this one particular film, not the comic book character, who is awesome.

I am a hypocrite for writing this

2011-02-18T18:09:00.000Z

I've become really cynical about churches packaging and repackaging the same old fluff. From Christian soft-rock bands, to alternative worship events; every attempt to make ourselves more 'relevant', or more 'cultural', seems not only to lag five years behind the rest of society, but also to give us the safe boundaries to protect us from asking the question - 'What on earth are we actually doing?'

I'm sure I'll be lynched for this, but I think all of our attempts at 'being relevant' are actually symptoms of something much more serious in the church:

We don't believe in God.

We have constructed idols that we call God, entirely in our own image. Our God plays guitar in a rock band. Our God likes bean bags and Royksopp. Our God dresses cool. Our God talks like the kids talk. And so on and so forth.

God has become certain positive feelings that we have to muster up in those who don't believe in our idol. The frame in which we place God has become more important than God himself, because in our arrogance, we believe that if we don't decorate him well enough, people won't see him.

In the triplet of parables that Jesus taught about grace, it is the woman who goes looking for her lost coin. It is the shepherd that goes looking for the lost sheep. When the lost son returns home, to beg his father for a job, it is the father who runs to him, and throws him a party. God, bigger, more eternal, than the to-ings and fro-ings of culture, breaks through, into reality, and floods it with salvation; love, grace, blessing, entirely independent of the syntax of relevance.

It is God who saves, not post-modern worship. It is God who saves, not good speakers. It is God who saves, not miraculous healing services.

If we truly believed in God, we would be the opposite of relevant. We would be outcasts. We would be filling out the prisons. We would be sleeping next to the homeless. St Francis was a man who really believed in God, but were he alive today, he would have been diagnosed as mentally unstable. St John of the Cross was a man who really believed in God, and he was tortured every day in prison for it. Martin Luther King Jr was a man who really believed in God, and he was shot dead before his 40th birthday.

St. Cosmos of Aetolia said this;

"If you want to find perfect love, go sell all your belongings, give
them to the poor, go where you find a master and become a slave. Can
you do this and be perfect?

"You say this is too heavy? Then do something else. Don't sell
yourself as a slave. Just sell your belongings and give them all to
the poor. Can you do it? Or do you find this too heavy a task?"

"All right, you cannot give away all your belongings. Then give half,
or a third, or a fifth. Is even this too heavy? Then give one tenth.
Can you do that? Is it still too heavy?

"How about this. Don't sell yourself as slave. Don't give a penny to
the poor. Only do this. Don't take your poor brother's coat, don't
take his bread, don't persecute him, don't eat him alive. If you don't
want to do him any good, at least do him no harm. Just leave him
alone. Is this also too heavy?"

"You say you want to be saved. But how? How can we be saved if
everything we are called to do is too heavy? We descend and descend
until there is no place further down. God is merciful, yes, but he
also has an iron rod."

All of our attempts at repackaging and re-branding God repeat the same mistakes over and over again. They keep us safe, and prevent us having to really believe in God.

Maybe we need to sacrifice our relevance. Let's melt this idol down, and rediscover that without the crutch it provided, we actually need faith. Rather than trying so hard to lead , to convince others to follow us, let's learn to serve, without telling the press.

Perhaps then, we will really meet the Jesus of the gospels; battered, beaten and dirty, but full of the love, security and relevance of God, freed from the cages we had placed him in.

Putting the Fun back into Fundamentalism

2011-02-16T12:42:00.000Z

For quite a long time, for my comparatively short years, I have had a pretty intense dislike with fundamentalist religion - particularly fundamentalist Christianity. I have made my anti-fundamentalism zeal pretty clear through this blog, through things like Facebook and Twitter, and through dialogue with friends and colleagues.

Particularly with the non-Christian colleagues and young people that I work with, I've wanted to make it very clear that I wasn't one of them. "Oh God. The cat's out of the bag. You know I'm a Christian. But listen, that doesn't make me homophobic! And I don't think you're going to hell; I don't even really believe in a hell! Please, don't associate me with all of those backward-thinking, uneducated, close-minded, bigoted moronic remnants from the crusades. I hate Fred Phelps! Pat Robertson makes me seethe with anger! Evangelical youth events are stupid and patronising! I AM NOT LIKE THEM!"

But the truth is, I am like them.

I think most of us are; whether we're Christian or not.

I'm usually pretty convinced that I am right at the expense of others being wrong. I am in, while others are out. I am educated. I am tolerant. I am inclusive. I am forward thinking. I'm a product of liberal Westernism and religious sanctity - it doesn't get much better than that.

It's those others are the backwards ones. Let's ignore them. In fact, can we shut them up somehow?

And so I create an increasingly exclusive micro-society, populated by people who are 'like me'. That's a very narrow margin. I don't want people who are worse than me in my club, because they sully it; make it impure. Nor do I want people who are better than me - they serve only to frustrate me.

I've set up myself up in opposition to those are different to me. I have created my system of good; which is decidedly anti-fundamentalist. It's anti-quite-a-lot-of-things. In doing so, and it's happened gradually and subtly, I have created a fundamentalist movement. Unlike the Religious Right, my scapegoats aren't gay people, or Muslims, or atheists, or abortion doctors. My scapegoats are the Religious Right. Amongst others.

Unfortunately, the Christian story doesn't allow room for fundamentalism and exclusivity. Jesus, by choosing to become the scapegoat, has blown apart any concrete system of good. Jesus on the cross isn't the necessary sacrifice, executed for the greater good. Jesus is the innocent victim of our religious zeal, whose tortured figure doesn't allow us to celebrate our victory over him, but makes us fall to our knees and see what an awful thing we have done.

It leaves us with two options. Either we continue in our religious/political system of good, setting ourselves up in opposition to whatever we think 'bad' is, and allow violence to grow and grow and grow without ever achieving its nameless goal, or we stop. We follow Jesus on his deliberate path of association with the victim, in the (blind?) faith that the cross leads to resurrection.

I have a perpetually itchy trigger finger. I am always ready to do violence to those who I understand as bad. My violence isn't physical, it's attitudinal. It's passive aggressive. It's flashing my lights at the dick who cuts me up in his BMW. It's writing letters to my MP. And all it serves to do is make me angrier, as I feel increasingly impotent to make any sort of worthwhile change.

As much as the fundamentalists, as much as the man in his BMW, as much as Phelps or Robertson, I am in desperate need of salvation from my own tendency to exclusivity. I need to learn to love my neighbour, and I need to learn that my neighbours are also those people who don't live by my system of good.

Just like the Pharisees in the stories, my need is to let go of piety in favour of fraternity; of inclusive, unconditional love. Rather than creating scapegoats, the path of following Christ is to walk with the scapegoats, singing songs of hope with Paul and Silas even behind the bars of our cells.

Lord, help me.

On Being a Christian

2011-01-10T16:54:00.000Z

This is a piece I wrote for a friend of mine to use in a school lesson about belief...

Andy asked me to write a little bit about my faith, and what it means to be a Christian. It’s not easy to explain what it means to me to be a Christian. Maybe I could start by explaining what it doesn’t mean…

It doesn’t mean that I believe evolution is a lie and that the world is only 5,000 years old. I think evolution is the best understanding that we have today of how we got here, even though it’s not perfect.

It doesn’t mean that I believe people who believe different things to me are going to hell. In fact, I don’t think I believe in hell at all. I don’t know what happens after we die, but if there is a loving God out there, I find it hard to believe that he would punish people for all eternity just because of what religion they belong to.

It doesn’t mean that I’m homophobic. I think one’s sexuality is one’s own choice, and I have no business interfering. I know several gay Christians, and I see no reason why who they fancy should get in the way of them sharing my faith.

It doesn’t mean that I’m always smiling and happy. Being a Christian doesn’t mean that all of life’s problems disappear. In fact, if anything, it can make life more difficult. I have bad days, I find some people annoying, I swear when I hit my head. Christianity isn’t an anti-depressant.

So why am I a Christian?

I guess it’s because I see the world as a pretty crappy place. I see lots of selfishness, I see lots of violence, I see lots of sadness, both on the news and in myself. And I think there’s something worthwhile in what Jesus said. There’s something, some truth, that could potentially change me to make me a better person. More than that, there’s some truth that could fix the world. ‘Love one another’, Jesus said. I’d like to learn how.

But I don’t have the answer. When I decided to be a Christian, I started on a journey. I’m still learning. The more I get into my faith, the more I the more I realise I want this thing, this truth, this God, that Jesus spoke about. I also realise that nothing else on Earth really appeals as much as this thing.

It’s not easy being a Christian. If anyone ever tries to convert you, telling you that life is so much easier when you’re a Christian, I wouldn’t take them too seriously. But, if ever you find yourself craving something better, something deeper, something more real, than what the adverts on TV tell you you need, than I would take the idea of faith seriously.

In Praise of Lament

2010-11-08T23:37:00.000Z

The sentimentalisation of God. I think that’s what it is.

Something that I find irritating beyond reason is when people talk in flowery language about how lovely God is. Comparable to talking about a sweet old lady, or an old oak tree, people say things like, “God is so good to me”, “Isn’t the Lord wonderful?”, “God is doing such amazing things”, and so on, in ‘regular’ conversation.

I can’t stand it. But I’m trying to work out why I can’t stand it. The Bible is full of this sort of language, isn’t it? And, being a Christian, I do believe in an active, loving and good God. Why should it annoy me that people express this same belief publicly? It’s not that I think it’s false. Maybe sometimes it is, but I am willing to give these people the benefit of doubt when it comes to integrity. I have no reason to believe that they don’t mean it. So what is it?

I think I would find it just as irritating with any sort of human relationship. Can you imagine a friend who forever talks about her husband in such a way? “Piers is so good to me”, “Isn’t Piers wonderful?”, “Piers is doing such amazing things”... (Piers here being a completely random name, certainly not a reference to any former-newspaper-editors-turned-ITV-personalities?)

On a human level, it’s easier to fathom how such sentimentality can turn the stomachs of its victims. It is entirely 2-dimensional. The reality is that Piers is a human being; doubtlessly very loving and compassionate in some ways, but also self-centred, smug and false (Again – let me emphasize that Piers is a hypothetical construct, not a Britain’s Got Talent judge). Here, a real-life human being with potential for both good and evil has been reduced to sentimentality – a projection of what his overly-infatuated wife wants him to be, rather than what he really is.

I suppose that perhaps we can extrapolate this same theory onto our religion. Scripture and tradition tell us that God is without evil. There is only goodness in him – which is why the problem of evil is so paradoxical. But, they also tell us that God is ineffable. Any image we have of God is more unlike God than like God.

This casts us into relative obscurity. In between us and God there lies, as the medieval author put it, a cloud of unknowing. This means that the Bible, being as it is written by plenty of different human beings, over hundreds of years, can tell stories of God’s goodness and mercy one moment, and then tell stories of apparent abandonment and emptiness the next. It would be obvious to mention Job at this point, but even more significantly, let’s think of Christ’s words on the cross: “Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?” Father, father, why have you forsaken me?

The trouble, then, with the sentimentalisation of God is that it misses out on a vital part of the Christian journey; the lament. God is light. God is love. God is all things good. But God is also mysterious. God is also unspeakable. God is also paradoxical. We are encouraged to notice this, and to lament. Where are you God? Why are these things allowed to happen? Why are you so silent?

The language of theology is split in two; Cataphatic and Apophatic. Cataphatic theology tells us what God is. The Apophatic tells us what he isn’t. Like yin and yang (yes, I’ve just thrown that in to piss off my conservative friends), both are needed. Without the Cataphatic, God is reduced to an abstraction; at best, an impersonal force, and at worse, a figment of primitive man’s imagination. But without the Apophatic, God becomes a projection of what we want him to be; a comfort blanket, the opiate of the people.

So, why does this flowery language about God wind me up so much? The truth is probably much deeper than my theological rationale, mingling my own personal prejudices and insecurities together into a comforting froth of condescending judgementalism, but in the meantime, I quite like my theological rationale. The Psalms are made up of lament and praise. Lament without praise becomes cold and bitter. But praise without lament becomes romanticised, idealistic, and ultimately, entirely illusory.

I am in danger of tipping the scales too far in favour of lament, of the Apophatic. This is something I am working on, with the help of a spiritual director. I’d like to be better at praising. I guess, as a church, we need to be better at embracing both. And, dare I say, I think part of the solution is to occasionally close our Bibles, books of common prayer, and Soul Survivor songbooks, which fill our heads, and to really listen to the cry of our hearts, which is for God.

And it is most definitely a cry, because although God is every good thing, everything that we want; the Messiah, we must wait for him. And waiting for something we have seen only through a glass darkly is anguish.

Maranatha.

Desire

2010-11-04T22:26:00.000Z

The Buddha taught that desire and attachment are at the root of suffering. This seems counter-intuitive to us today. We are taught from birth that desire is all there is. We desire this toy, or that particular food, or the presence of this person. When we behave well, we are rewarded with our desires. When we behave badly, they are withheld from us. In a more grown-up sense, we feel good when we are granted our desires, and feel bad when we can't have them. What other way of existing have we ever known?

I don't believe that desire in itself is evil. I believe that I was created with certain desires hard-wired into me, and that those desires are to be cherished and heeded. I desire to have healthy relationships with my friends and loved ones. I desire to be part of a community. I desire to love, and to be loved. What could be more human?

However, one of the things that I've been acutely aware of in the past few days is a different, more superficial type of desire. Perhaps this is the desire that the Buddha was talking about. This more superficial desire tells me that I am unsatisfied. It tells me that I need something else.

There are obvious examples of this in all our lives, I suppose. We live in a consumerist society in which we are not just given the space, but actually encouraged, to never be satisfied with what we have. We are defined by what we purchase, so as soon as we've got what we want, we're thinking about what to get next.

But there are also less obvious ways that this desire manifests itself. Am I in the right job? Am I surrounding myself with the best people? Am I a part of the right church? Wouldn't I be happier somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else?

The trouble is, much like with our more obvious consumerism, these desires are never fulfilled. People, jobs, communities - none of these are perfect. There is always something more appealing, shinier, newer, around the corner.

In the evangelical churches in which I grew up, I was always taught that Satan cannot create things, but instead corrupts things. I think this applies quite nicely to this idea of desire. Our core desires - our yearnings for relationship, beauty, and love, are who we are. They are to be celebrated and savoured. But they can be corrupted. The desire for security becomes the desire for more money. The desire for love becomes the desire for sexual gratification. The desire for friendship becomes the desire for popularity. There is nothing wrong with money, sex or popularity - as long they are remembered for what they are; avatars of a deeper, more integral, eternal yearning.

The choice, then, is to either spend a lifetime chasing these superficial desires; going from one high to the next, or to accept that these desires will never be fulfilled; there is always something, somewhere, someone, better than what we have (if you want proof of this, think of Ashley Cole, a man married to someone recognised as one of the most beautiful women in the world, incapable of remaining faithful) and to learn to be happy with what we have.

My suspicion is that by learning to appreciate the present, we will find our deeper, more integral desires, fulfilled. When we stop flitting from one partner to the next, we find a depth of relationship with who we're with. When we stop looking for a new job, we find ourselves more committed to throwing ourselves into what we're doing. When we stop looking for something we don't have, we can taste, and be fulfilled by, what we do have.

Of course, there are times when change is necessary - sometimes we genuinely are doing the wrong job, or are in a destructive relationship, or an unhealthy community (not to mention of course situations in which people are suffering because of human injustice or natural disasters). Here again we see the contrast between the God-given desires for wholeness, justice, health and stability and our own insatiable for more - bigger, faster, sexier, more exciting...

I pray that God will help rid me of my idols of desire, and reveal himself to me in the present moment, in what I already have.

500th Blog - Kenya Special

2010-11-02T16:08:00.000Z

My body being used to Kenyan time means that my planned lie-in turned into a waking-up-at-6am-and-not-being-able-to-get-back-to-sleep sort of affair. So rather than doing anything productive, like, for example, having a long overdue wash or getting dressed, I thought I would use the quiet of an empty house to put some thoughts to paper about the 10 days that have just finished.

It seems like just yesterday that I met with four other youth workers, ten young people, and one representative from the charity we travelled with (Hand in Hand) at Heathrow’s Terminal Three. The sixteen of us proceeded through the usual airport shenanigans, with only a few minor incidents along the way; a lost ring, a suspicious-looking water snake toy, and of course my own decision to pack my wash kit in my hand luggage – resulting in three separate hand-luggage searches, and the decision to check in my little shower-gel-and-toothbrush-sized bag to Kenya alongside all the suitcases. Who knows what damage I could have done on the plane with some Sanex and anti-dandruff shampoo. I suppose it might have somehow gotten into the pilot’s eyes.

Some duty-free-shopping and an 8-hour overnight flight later, and we found ourselves in Nairobi, where I was reunited with my toothbrush (and, of course, my bigger bags).

Our first day was relatively uneventful. We checked in to the Central Nairobi YMCA, where we would spend the next 5 nights, took a drive around Nairobi to see the ‘sights’, and generally settled in. The contrasts of Nairobi struck me straight-away. Built-up Western shopping malls and people living in tin houses are within a stone’s throw of each other. Architecture varies between traditional African carvings and modern neon lights and plastic. Though people are dying of malnourishment, one is bombarded with enormous billboards advertising mobile phones, beer, and Manchester United. I couldn’t help but wonder how different a place Africa would be had it not been colonised and evangelised by our forefathers. Would it be a better place? It seems to me that our presence has led to a very conflicted identity; torn between the tribal life of its ancestors and capitalism.

After a quiet day, we had dinner (beef or chicken and rice – a diet we would soon get used to) and went to bed, surrounded by mosquitoes. I was told I wouldn’t need to take Malaria tablets because there are no mosquitoes in Nairobi. I’m glad I took them anyway.

The next morning, after breakfast (featuring something the locals called porridge – which bore more of a resemblance to gravy), we left to Daylove – a school part-funded by Hand in Hand. The school accommodates 40-something young people residentially, and also runs vocational training in things like wood and metalwork and dress-making. Here we enjoyed playing with the children, chatting to the young people, and building relationships. We gave gifts, and were blown away by the gratitude the children showed us for a few toy cars and plain white t-shirts. A few of us also served the school-children dinner, a Maize-dish called ugari and some sort of stew.
It was fun to use the 5 or 6 Kiswahili phrases that I know – though the locals would have been entirely justified in rolling their eyes at this Mzungu trying to speak to their language, they smiled and laughed and encouraged.

As well as by the local children and young people, we were kept entertained by Charlotte – who we call Chuck – who set the tone for herself for the rest of the time in Kenya by asking questions like, ‘What’s in beef?’.

Back at the YMCA, we had the same dinner again, debriefed, and played games together before going to bed. One of the games, Stick It Up & Shout, became a group favourite for the evenings that followed, and ignited a healthy (read: unhealthy) rivalry between one of the young people, Steph, and myself.

The next day at Daylove, we were taken for a walk around Dagoretti; the slum the school is built in. Here, I was faced with some of the most extreme poverty I’ve ever seen. People living in tin houses welcomed us in and told us about their lives; many of them struggling to feed their children, or pay rent. One woman in particular lived in a house half the size of my lounge with her three children, at least one of whom was born with AIDS. It was hard-hitting.

One thing that struck me was the lack of ‘community spirit’ in Dagoretti. It’s easy in the West to romanticise poverty; we think that their lack of materialism means that they’re happier and have better relationships with each other. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. When you’re struggling to keep your own family alive, helping the family next door is not one of your priorities. Money doesn’t bring happiness, we are told. I believe this is true, as long as one has the means to be healthy. Until that point, money, it turns out, can bring a great deal of happiness.

As we walked through Dagoretti, some of the boys took a photo of a local celebration that turned out to be a funeral. One of the locals, angry and drunk, caught up with our group, waved his hand in our faces and asked for money for the picture. After a heated discussion with the social worker who was showing us around, he accepted that we simply delete the photos. This was the first, but not last, scary moment of our time in Kenya for me!
Back at Daylove, one of the cooks asked me why I hadn’t helped to serve today. I told her that I didn’t realise they had wanted us to serve again, considering how slowly and clumsily we had done it the day before. She laughed, and told me that before I leave, I had to give her my hat.
“My hat?” I asked.

No, not my hat. My heart. In her heavy accent, she told me that she could see that I have a good heart, and asked me to leave it at Daylove. I can’t express how much this touched me, and deeply moved, I told her that I would gladly leave my heart at Daylove, on the condition that she sent hers to England, at which she laughed.

Before leaving, the young people at Daylove held a small church service, in which they sang powerfully – it was a sound unlike anything I’d ever heard – hauntingly beautiful as their voices and harmonies echoed around the empty hall. They asked us to say a piece, and those of us present tried our best to say something nice-sounding, and did a silly song about fruit and the love of God.

One of the nice things about our time away was seeing the young people throw themselves into things, even Christian things; taking part and contributing without complaining even though the faith might not match their own.

We bid our final goodbye to Daylove and Dagoretti and went back to the Y for dinner, games and bed.

On the morning of our fourth day in Kenya, we went to another YMCA, which runs a vocational training centre. Upon our arrival, two young ladies greeted us and showed us into the cafeteria while the centre manager, unaware that we had arrived, waited for us in his office. For about an hour, no one really knew what was going on or where we were supposed to be. TIA; This is Africa, become something of a catchphrase for us over the week, and this was a classic example of a TIA moment.

When we found each other, we were taken for a tour of the centre, which impressed us with its scale. We chatted to the school children and college students, shared stories and enjoyed lunch with a few of the students – one of whom gave me the opportunity to talk about one of my personal hobby-horses; faith. She was interested in the church of Unification, or the Moonies. She asked what I thought of them and I told her that I thought they were a pretty dangerous cult, to her surprise. It was nice to frankly and openly talk about differences of opinion about faith – and I’m pleased to say it wasn’t the last time I had the opportunity to do so in Kenya.

We finished at the training centre relatively early in the afternoon, which gave us the chance to have a restful afternoon back at Central YMCA. Much needed, I think, after an emotionally exhausting few days. One of the particular highlights of the afternoon was one young person, Craig, eating two chilli peppers on a dare. The result of this was about half an hour of panting, weeping, drinking water, eating fruit, and crying, ‘It’s not working!’ For a while, we were concerned, but when we saw that he was fine, that concern soon faded, and we were all able to laugh about it.

The next day started out brilliantly. We were due to go to an elephant and giraffe orphanage, so when the minibus dropped us off at a safari walk, we assumed the orphanage would be inside. We were guided around the complex, and even got the opportunity to stroke a cheetah – something I never thought I would do and live to tell the tale. At one point the cheetah licked my hand, and I mentally prepared myself to meet my maker, but it turned out to be an affectionate lick. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

However, come lunch-time, the tour had finished, and we still hadn’t seen any elephants or giraffes. The safari-staff told us that the orphanage was actually 15 minutes down the road. We’d come to the wrong place. No problem, we thought, we’d just spend the afternoon there after lunch. But upon discussion with our driver, we found that the orphanage closed at 11am. Disappointed, we headed back to the YMCA, after a stop at a local shopping centre.

This was the longest afternoon of the trip. Everybody was disappointed; we hadn’t spent 9 months raising money to sit at a YMCA. Frustration ran high and tempers started flaring. Young people argued with leaders and with each other. I essentially spent that afternoon trying to put out fires; trying to make sure everybody was happy. This was actually a good (though not enjoyable) experience for me, because I tend to shy away from conflict. Acting as a sort of mediator forced me to confront it, and I actually went to bed that night feeling like I’d done a relatively good job at dealing with people’s frustrations and tempers.

Day six saw us leaving the YMCA for New Hope, the children’s home at which we would spend the rest of our time in Kenya, with a fresh perspective. Everybody’s moods were visibly lifted, except for young Craig, who had been ill in the night. But even he was feeling fine within half an hour of driving, and the prospect of New Hope. En route, we stopped at a rift valley viewpoint, where we spent about a quarter of our time admiring the view, and three quarters of the time trying to avoid or out-haggle the shop-owners, who had seen a busload full of European tourists as a prime opportunity to make some cash.

Upon arrival at New Hope we were given a tour by Cecilia, the ‘aunty’ who had been left in charge while ‘mum’, who runs the orphanage, was out of the country. Cecilia and the rest of the team were lovely, and treated us like royalty while we were there. While on the tour at one point, we were walking outside near where they keep the animals, and we heard what sounded like an army of vuvuzelas. “Get down!” called Cecilia, and after a bit of a confusion, we all did as she said as a swarm of African killer bees flew over our heads. This was apparently a relatively standard occurance at the school. If you get down, they fly over head. If you stay standing or running away, you’re in trouble.

Remember when I said earlier that the man in Dagoretti wasn’t the last time I was scared in Kenya?

In the evening, the children at the home sang and performed for us, and we returned the favour (though, much like at Daylove, our attempts at singing and dancing seemed pretty feeble compared to theirs).

With high spirits, we had the dinner cooked especially for us in our little team-room, while the children ate in the hall as usual. After games and debrief, we all went to bed.
Bed, but not necessarily sleep.

This was the night in which the diet of the past week caught up with me, and I spent half of it going back and forth between bed and the toilet and taking Imodium. The next morning I found out that I wasn’t the only one who had struggled in the night, but after some toast and a cup of tea, I found myself feeling better (if not entirely awake).

Cecilia had asked us if we wanted to go for a walk with her to the grandmother’s village – a cluster of houses built by the children’s home for the children’s surviving relatives. Had we known how long and hot the walk was going to be, I’m not sure we would have agreed. But agree we did, and we had a great time meeting the grandmothers, using the village well, and shaking hands with the local children, who were very excited the presence of Mzungus. The walk back was particularly trying. New Hope is in a region of Kenya called Uplands, 8000 feet above sea level, so there is less oxygen there than what we’re used to in Essex. The combination of the low air pressure, the equatorial sun, and the long walk made for a very tired group of people upon our return for lunch.

But our fatigue was soon forgotten as we played with the children and young people in the afternoon. I had so much fun with them that I even promised a couple of them that I would have dinner with them in the evening. So, while the rest of my team ate some lovely specially-made food, I ate the earlier-mentioned ugari with the children. Ugari is lovely, if you like to eat polystyrene. The combination of the noisy hall, the lack of electricity (we ate in the dark), and the food not made for snooty Western stomachs sounds like hell, but it was heaven. It was so much fun to be there with the kids, talking and laughing, and being the centre of attention.
Exhausted and content, I went to bed, glad, for the first time really, to be at New Hope.

The next day was a relaxed day. After a promise to some of the boys the previous day, I went into their tiny smoke-filled mud-hut kitchen to help cook ugari and nearly died. My throat tight and my eyes weeping from the smoke, I hurried to the church-service run by the children’s home pastor; Douglass. I found the service difficult, as Douglass espoused the type of reformed evangelicalism that I find so tasteless in our own country, let alone in a country where people are dying of starvation. I talked to the young people afterwards, and reassured them that I didn’t believe they were going to hell because they’re not Christians, and even had a long chat with Douglass himself in the afternoon. He was much more forthcoming that I’d anticipated, and was keen to share ideas and didn’t mind that we disagreed on some issues.

Church and ugari aside, the day was spent playing with the children, and I found myself becoming particularly attached to a few of them. I asked whether I could take one of the little ones, a bright-eyed boy who had earlier fallen asleep in my arms, home with me, to which the older one jokingly responded that I should put him in my suitcase. The boy in question was an exception in the home, as his mother was still alive and present. I’m happy that she is, but the fact that he is an exception really drove home how sad a place New Hope is, and how incredible it is that those who live there exhibit such joy and welcoming.

After a rain storm in the night which we could hear dripping in the corridors outside our room, we woke up bright and early to say goodbye to the children. I was not prepared for how difficult this would be. My voice cracked, my eyes dripped, and on a number of times, I had to walk away to take a breath. The last time I found myself so incapable to fight back tears was when my dog had died. How could such a short time with children I don’t know affect me so much?

We made it back to the UK that day with relatively little hassle. I’m very glad to be back. The UK is my home. And yet, whenever I think back to New Hope, I find a lump in my throat. I will deeply, deeply miss the children who I met there. I hope and pray that all of them will grow up healthy and happy. I also hope that I haven’t seen the last of them.

Finally, I hope that my time in Kenya has changed me. It’s good to be home. But maybe home could be a little bit less about things, and a little bit more about people. Maybe I could spend less time watching DVDs in my room, and more time opening my doors to others as they were opened to me in Africa.

Africa has much to learn, and has many areas in which to develop – in which the UK could help. But at the same time, I have much to learn, and the Kenyans whom I met had much to teach me. I just pray I had the ears to hear them, and that I have the heart to take their lessons seriously.

Now, I am going to go wash off the red Kenyan soil that has been on my feet for three days. A hot shower seems like just about the greatest blessing in the world right now.

Papal Musings

2010-09-21T09:36:00.000Z

The pope's recent visit to the UK has left me entirely saddened. It's not the pope himself who has saddened me - though I wouldn't call myself a fan - but the venom with which his critics has attacked him.

I follow plenty of intelligent people on Twitter, and usually enjoy waking up in the morning, and looking through my feed in bed before starting the day, but these past few days, it's been quite painful. It is sad to see people become polarised in any direction, and I find it particularly hard on a personal level when that polarisation is against the Catholic church - an institute which, for all its flaws, is also full of beauty, poetry and compassion. People might scoff at this, but this is exactly my point. It's easy to scoff when you only know (or choose to listen to) one side of the story.

Frank Skinner, my favourite comedian, has written some lovely articles in defence of his Catholic faith for the Times (see this one, for example)

It seems as though the Pope has said and done some pretty offensive things. I don't necessarily know how to justify them, because I don't know the full story (and nor do the majority of the anti-pope brigade). Being aware that I don't know the full story is important.

Take the pope's stance on condoms. I remember when this first made headlines. People were up in arms because the pope was opposed to contraception in Africa. But that's not what I remember the pope saying. I remember him saying that condoms aren't the answer, and what is needed is a dramatic shift in ideas about sex and sexuality. On a continent in which gay people are imprisoned, women are raped by men with AIDS, and female circumcision is practised, I would whole-heartedly agree. Isn't that just common sense? Or perhaps I'm missing something. I don't have the full story.

Then, there's the pope's apparent homophobia. It seems pretty hard to deny that the pope doesn't like homosexuality. Well, no shit. He's a conservative Catholic. I disagree with him, but can people really act surprised? But here's the thing; the Pope recently beatified Thomas Henry Newman - a liberal Catholic who questioned the doctrine of papal infallibility, and whom some believe was gay himself. Does the pope like homosexuality? Of course he doesn't. But, does the pope see acting out of love more important than doctrinal laws on sexuality? I don't know, it seems to me that maybe he does. Homophobia goes on every day in Britain, both in religious circles and out of them. It's an ugly and shameful thing. I'm not condoning it, but I am saying that Benedict isn't the sole, or even the worst, perpetrator of it.

And of course, then there's the bombshell - the covering up of paedophilia within the church. Lots of people saw a Channel 4 documentary, which said the pope had protected one of his priests from justice after he molested a child. It's an awful, terrible accusation to make. And, I have little doubt, is rooted in some truth. But again - it seems very few people (myself included) know the full story. The liberal media (God bless her) says that the pope as bad as the paedophile himself. The catholic church comes to his defence, saying the accusations are wrongly levelled - acknowledging institutional guilt, but refusing to place it on the head of this one man.

Who is right? I don't know. The trouble is, I don't think the noisy demonstrators do either. It seems to me that if it was as black-and-white as some make it out to be, people would be flocking away from the Catholic church en masse (no pun intended). But they're not. Maybe we should take more time to listen to their defence.

Violence is the greatest downfall of man. When we start to attack others, evil has won. The message of the Catholic church is one of forgiveness and of love. When we close-mindedly attack the pope, we are not only sinning in the Catholic sense, but we are denying our own essence - which I believe to be love.

The pope has apologised for the sins of his church. He has met victims of priestly child abuse. Does he need to do more? Maybe. Probably. But reactionism will get us nowhere. The more we attack the pope, the less likely he is to humbly and contritely speak the truth. If we offer ears to listen (which need not come at the expense of intelligent critique), we are more likely to get the answers we want.

Violence is mimetic. It echoes. Unlike an echo, which gradually gets quieter, however, violence gradually gets louder. The more we shout and scream and attack, the less we will get anywhere.

It's too late for this visit, but the pope should have been greeted with open arms to our country. "Welcome, please make yourself at home, would you like a drink? Now, listen, we have some worries..."

On a personal note, American ministers like Fred Phelps at Westboro Baptist, Terry Jones of Quran-burning fame, and Pat "700 Club" Robertson stir the utmost anger and revulsion in me. They are everything I hate. I regularly do violence against them in my conversations, in my blogs and in my thoughts.

I am a hypocrite. I need to learn to practice the same open-mindedness with those who I hate. The more my voice says, "Fred Phelps, you are abhorrent and evil", the more Fred Phelps will say that my voice is a sodomite and a apostate. The more people throw things at the members of his church picketing funerals, the more fuel those church members have to believe that they are the chosen few.

What is always needed, no matter how hateful the situation, is love. "Welcome, Mr. Phelps, please make yourself at home, would you like a drink? Now, listen, we have some worries..."

He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. - Matthew 26:59
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. - Luke 6:27,28
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7

An Attempt at Intelligent Comment

2010-09-10T09:48:00.000Z

I recently criticised comedian Tim Minchin on Twitter:

What a surprise. Another boring and ill-informed anti-religion rant from @timminchin. This time, it's the pope. Yawn.

To my surprise, I got a response!

@timleeson What a surprise, a religious person feigning insouciance in the face of criticism rather than offering any intelligent comment.

Well, fair play I suppose. Twitter is perfect for a curmudgeonly Brit like me, because it offers an opportunity to complain without any real confrontation - an attitude on which the British empire was built, and which we are fiercely proud of. Just look at the letters page of the Radio Times.

Anyway, I want to attempt to offer some sort of intelligent comment. For the record, it's because I want to do Minchin some justice, and offer a dialogue, rather than snippy Twitter comments, which I know don't really get anyone anywhere. Off the record, it's because I'm insecure, and want to show that I can be clever too.

Seriously though, if he reads this, I want to make it clear that this is an olive branch - a door to dialogue. It is not intended as a personal attack. I don't know anything about Minchin's personal life, so have no grounds on which to attack him, and besides, if there's one thing I hope that we can agree on, it's that violence (physical, verbal, or blogged) only breeds more violence, and the last thing I want is to tread on the well-worn and frankly quite tedious battle-field in which Christians fight atheists and neither party really listens to other.

The criticism of religion has never, in itself, bothered me. In fact, I welcome it. I am a Christian, but I recognise that my faith is open to criticism. Christians have been responsible for some unthinkable horrors in the past, and continue to be responsible for awful things today (c.f. Terry 'Not-the-python-the-one-with-the-big-stupid-tache Jones, Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell and the Republican party). Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and everyone else need to face criticism. Anything that refuses critique becomes a dictatorship, and I've yet to see any historical evidence of benevolent dictatorship.

The thing about Tim Minchin's brand of anti-religion criticism that I find it hard to rest with is that it's easy. In 2007, when someone criticised Kevin Smith and Comic Con, Smith retaliated with a barrage of well-phrased, intelligent personal insults and had the crowd cheering and laughing with him. He finished his onslaught with, "Never a good idea to attack the guy with the microphone." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou2mVnElp6c)

Why isn't a good idea? Because the guy with the microphone has all the power. In an environment like stand-up comedy, where (in Minchin's case) a stadium full of fans has shown up to listen to and be entertained by the comedian, the guy with the microphone can say what he wants and be convincing.

Take, as another example, the Loose Change documentary, which essentially says, and evidences, that the Twin Towers were brought down by the US government. It's nonsense. It's ludicrous. But, in a film that only gives one side of the argument, the film-makers actually make it look quite convincing. It's only after you've watched the documentary that common sense steps in and says, "Well, no. It's obviously bullshit" (at least for most people it seems to).

So, part of the trouble here is that Tim Minchin sells himself as a comedian, but acts also as a teacher of empirical philosophy. His audience, most of whom, it is safe to assume, don't have degrees in the philosophy of religion or science, accept what he says, because he has already charmed them with music and comedy.

In an interview, Minchin says that statistically, some of his audience must be Christians (correct), and so he wonders why none of them ever stand up and defend their faith during his gigs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJEEcJwpgbU). Why didn't any of the Nazis stop to defend the humanity of the Jews? I'm not, for record, comparing Tim Minchin to Nazi Germany, but the socio-psychology of the power of the mass is interesting. In a room where everyone is laughing at the same joke, you're more likely to laugh, even if you wouldn't have by yourself. Would Tim Minchin stand up and defend his atheism at a Christian rally? Maybe he would, but if so, he's got more balls than most humans. Again, the man with the microphone has all the power.

Now, I want to be ready for the obvious rebuttal of what I'm saying, which is, "Well, hasn't religion been doing that for thousands of years?" Yes and no. I have had the misfortune of seeing some insufferable youth events, in which 'musicians' play 'rock songs', get the kids jumping up and down, and then ask them who loves Jesus. They get a cheer, and go home, their egos boosted, because they're doing God's good work and 'saving' young people. But the truth is, they've mastered the art of crowd manipulation, not salvation. They dress sort of cool (in a a patronising sort of a way), they sing songs that are easy to sing along to, and they're (usually) quite attractive. They could ask the crowd to cheer for the crusades and get a result. It's easy.

But, the Christian church has also spent 2,000 years listening to, and dealing with criticism. The church was born into criticism (the early Christians were persecuted because of their religion). The Eastern and Western churches split because of theological critique. The reformation took place in no small part because Martin Luther criticised the church. Part of the fruit of the reformation was empiricism, which is a beautiful thing! But, when empiricism became the dominant school of thought through modernity, it led to fundamentalism - which no one likes except the fundamentalists.

The church, just like any organised belief system (religious organisation, communism, democracy, and even empirical atheism), is responsible for some great acts of beauty, generosity, and compassion, as well as being responsible for some unspeakable atrocities. The church has stubbornly and blindly indoctrinated people, and it has also compassionately listened to other view points (Pope John Paul II's interfaith work is an example).

Anyway, back to Tim Minchin. We've established that the criticism of religion is a positive thing, and we've established that the man with the microphone is in a privileged position of power. And with great power comes great responsibility (I'm sorry, I had to).

A key staple of Minchin's humour is shock value. He says 'cunt', and people laugh. The word is shocking, and laughter is a reaction to shock. Lots of comedy is built on this. If it wasn't for shock value laughs, Family Guy wouldn't exist. Shock value can be a powerful tool for social commentary. South Park, for example, is full of shock value, but is also intelligent and insightful (or was, up until about season 9). Family Guy, for the record, is about as intelligent and insightful as professional wrestling.

The thing is, Minchin uses shock value humour, not as a stimulus to open thought, but in a relatively close-minded way. I don't think Tim Minchin is close-minded. I think he's too intelligent to be close-minded. But I think the way he uses humour encourages close-mindedness when it comes to religion. Take this:

Which leads to things like this:

"Hey, yeah, Fuck the pope! Fuck Catholics!" Hang on, what about Mother Teresa, what about CAFOD, what about the forward-thinking Catholics writing in defence of gay marriage and contraception? "Fuck 'em! The Pope's a paedophile!"

It's good to disagree. But when violence is used as a tool against violence - good and evil alike fall to it. The great explorer Livingstone wrote in one of his diaries that he had witnessed an act of pagan human sacrifice in a small South American tribe. So repulsed was he by what he'd seen that when the tribal chief asked him how he enjoyed the ceremony, he responded "In my country, you would have been hanged for this."

The irony was lost on him. Both societies are saying, 'For the good of the community, this one person needs to be killed.' Both are tribal, both are violent. Violence gives birth to more violence.

Guardian journalist Phil Daoust once gave Tim Minchin a bad review. Minchin's response?

Phil Daoust doesn't like Tim Minchin. Tim Minchin doesn't like Phil Daoust. Both have written a scathing piece of criticism of the other. Violence wins, everyone else loses.

Radical Islam attacks the USA. The USA attack Afghanistan and Iraq. Radical Muslims burn the American flag. Radical Americans burn copes of the Quran. None of these acts have the effect of making the other side go, "Hey, you're right. We're sorry. We'll stop now." Violence creates violence.

The Pope appears to have covered up for paedophiles. Some Christians believe the world is only 6,000 years old, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. Tim Minchin writes songs pointing out how stupid they all are. Does the Pope apologise? Do creationists open their eyes? Nope. The Vatican issues statements in the Pope's defence. Creationists look for more evidence with which to attack evolution.

And the people who agreed with Tim Minchin to begin with, cheer.

To conclude: Tim, if you're reading this, I hope you haven't taken it personally. It isn't a personal attack. I'm sure you're lovely. Maybe one day we can discuss this over a lovely cup of tea. But you asked for an intelligent comment, and I hope this has done some justice to my somewhat hasty attack on Twitter, for which I apologise. The final bullet-point of this ridiculously long blog is this:

Almost nothing is black and white. There are good Christians, bad Christians, good atheists and bad atheists. And even within the good people, there is some bad, and within the bad people, there is some good. The only things that are black and white, in my opinion, are Violence and Love. Violence torches good and evil alike, and is entirely self-perpetuating. Love listens to good and evil alike, and requires a lot of hard work.

Both exist, regardless of religious or political preference (this is where I eat my earlier republican quip). One is easy, the other is worthwhile. Critiquing can be done lovingly. Attacking can only be done violently.

(P)Retreat Musings

2010-08-23T10:59:00.000Z

In about an hour, I'll be leaving to start four days of retreat. I'm staying with some Franciscan brothers in Canterbury, with whom I've stayed before, and the plan is to spend some time reading, writing, preparing lectures, praying and resting.

In the past few weeks and months, I've become quite apathetic about my faith. The last time I went to church was about a month ago, and I can't remember the last time I set time aside to spend in prayer or meditation.

The trouble with being a Christian is that it requires a commitment. I don't think that it's simply about what you 'believe'. Belief is important, but faith also requires discipline, self-denial, and practice.

I haven't been very good at practising my faith recently. Finding time to oneself seems to become increasingly difficult as one gets older, and so when I do find some, I want to spend it watching TV, playing Mario on the Wii, reading comic books, or smoking shisha on the patio.

There was a time when my ambition was to be the next Martin Luther King, or St Francis, or Mother Teresa. I was going to be a the greatest, most humble [/irony] man of faith in England - a prolific author, challenging the status quo of both the far right conservative church, and the far left liberals, all the while serving the poor, exalting the downtrodden, and so on. These days, my ambition is to get home, put my feet up, and have a lovely cup of tea.

There must be a balance, right? A happy middle? On the one hand, there lie the downfalls of pride, of frustration when I don't measure up to what I want to be, of seeking to be first, when Christ tells us to be last. On the other hand, there lie the downfalls of cynicism, of apathy, of passive aggression.

The focal point of my thinking for the next few days is on Ministry, and specifically the idea of calling. I don't know much about calling; what it means or how it happens, so I'm looking forward to exploring new ground. But I'm also looking forward to reflecting on my own calling.

What does the type of person I called to be look like? How do I live as that person? I don't feel called to be the leader of the sunshine brigade, perpetually going on about how brilliant God is. But nor I do feel called to be part of the cynical crowd, the 'Where's your God now?' crowd.

So who am I called to be? What is my ministry - my vocation - in life?

That's what I'm going to be thinking about for the next few days.

Theokardia

2010-08-08T18:30:00.001Z

A short conversation (a disagreement over a famous mega-church leader I have already criticised on this blog) with a friend earlier left me wondering, How to discern between good theology and bad theology?

I guess there probably isn't a sure-fire way. I guess that most theologians have said some good things, as well as some bad things. People are flawed and temporal - no matter how bright they are.

So how do I decide to who to listen? How can I know what's right and what's wrong? Are the conservative Christians right? Or is it the liberal ones? Or maybe none of the Christians are. How can I know? What signposts can I have to know that I'm walking in the right direction?

I think, for me, the answer comes in Christ's maxim: "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit." To find a good tree from which to eat, I need to look for good fruit. So I guess the question is, what are the good fruit that I'm after? This is perhaps harder to answer.

Actually, no, it's easier to answer, but it's harder to quantify. I can answer this question easily, but my answer comes from my gut, rather than a rational thought-process. The fruit I look for are compassion, humility, sacrifice, discipline, peace, warmth, simplicity, and so on. Deep down, those are the attributes I want to demonstrate in all I do. They are what I want to say, think, feel, be.

If your theology doesn't lead to becoming a more loving person, than I have no time for it. I have no time for the lunatics at Westboro Baptist Church. I have no time for people who attack those who are different to them. I have no time for preachers who wear white suits and get driven around by chauffeurs. I have no time for those who have mapped out and understood the after-life, angels, demons, and the mysteries of faith, and don't hesitate to tell others that they are wrong.

It also means that the people who I do want to listen to, the trees I do want to take shade under, may have very different understandings of the mechanics of the universe; St Francis of Assisi, The Buddha, Mother Teresa, the poet Rumi, Johnny Cash, and of course, more than anyone else, Jesus Christ.

Maybe theology is not the right word. It's not the language of God that I'm looking for. Nor is it theopraxis - what we need to do. I'm going to invent a word: theokardia. The heart of God. That's what I'm looking for. Justice, mercy, humility. Faith, hope and charity. That's what I want.

I will try to follow in the footsteps of those who exemplify what I understand as theokardia. I want compassion to shape my frame of reference, not vice versa.

Camp Blues

2010-08-08T11:26:00.000Z

I've just come back from Footlights. For those who don't know, Footlights is a summer camp that I help to run for one week every year.

Coming back is always an odd experience. Footlights is a roller-coaster ride. It is physically and emotionally draining. Every waking hour is spent either with 10-13 year olds, or preparing stuff for 10-13 year olds. It is challenging for me on a personal level because it is quite evangelical in its expression of Christianity, and I am not. Close friendships are forged in short space of time. Time moves faster, because it has to. There are times when you count down the days to it finishing, and times when you wish it would never finish.

And then; normality. Reality. Work. Friends who you don't get to spend 24 hours a day with. The pace of life drops. You stop rushing, and you start remembering. Ah yes. That's what I was supposed to be doing.

It's a culture shock. On one hand, I am grateful for having some time on my hands again. On the other, I need to be reminded of the things that I do that give my life meaning. I am reminded of my priorities.

The temptation, after an experience like Footlights, is to become disillusioned that 'real life' isn't as fun, challenging or rewarding as Footlights. I won't have a deep-and-meaningful waiting for me around every corner now. I won't get the chance to make a fool of myself on stage for the sake of entertainment for some time again. I won't get to wake up in a room full of some of my best friends until, probably, next year.

Real life sucks, doesn't it?

Well, that's the challenge. The challenge is to invest in real-life. Footlights is great, I love it, but it's unreal. It cannot exist for more than one week a year. So the challenge is to take the good of Footlights into normality.

The challenge is to build community. It won't be the Footlights community, because we all live all over the country and have things to do, but we seek to form bonds of friendship and relationship around our 'real lives'.

The challenge is to find meaning. Just because there won't be morning thoughts, evening meetings, prayer groups and discussion groups for another year doesn't mean that depth of spirituality ends. We find meaning where we create meaning.

The challenge, possibly the biggest of them all, is to love the ones we are with. At Footlights, there is little discord amongst the team, because we all work with a common aim. In real life, in modernity, it is easy to become isolated. People are disagreeable, ugly, irritating. Footlights give us a commonality to base relationship on. Real life allows us to walk away from people we don't have the fortitude to love.

So we forge love. We create it. We invest in those around us. We make time for people. We do things together. We learn to love, not because it is easy, but because without love, then everything, including Footlights, becomes meaningless.

The challenge is to see through the superficial desires of post-camp blues to my real desires; love, relationship, meaning.

Footlights is over for another year, but life is not. Life is forever just beginning.

On Assertiveness

2010-07-26T16:50:00.000Z

I wasn't the greatest fan of Love Actually, but I remember enjoying this clip. It came out when Tony Blair was still prime minister, and George W. was still president, and I can remember wishing (along with most everyone I know) that our prime minister had balls enough to stand up to the president like Hugh Grant does to Billy Bob Thornton.

I'm posting this clip, not to make a political statement, but rather to make a personal one: I wish I was able to stand up to people like that.

These past couple of weeks, I've found myself at the mercy of other people's mistakes more than once. I've asked someone to do something, and they haven't done it, leaving me in the lurch. Someone's made an error in calculation that's directly short-changed me. Someone's broken something, and left me standing over the pieces. That sort of thing. The type of thing that happens all the time, to everyone. We all know the feeling. This isn't a 'woe is me' post.

The trouble is, I hate conflict. So I smile. I say, "That's okay, don't worry about it!" I apologise. And the more I do that, the more pissed off I feel inside. It's not even that I feel annoyed about the incidents in themselves, its that I feel annoyed with myself for not having the balls to stand up for myself.

It makes sense to me, in a way. I have to live with you; be it at work, at home, or socially, so I don't want to create animosity. I don't want to start arguments. I want you to like me, and I want to like you. That's okay, isn't it?

But what happens is that my frustration expresses itself as passive-aggression; I make sarcastic comments, I bitch about people when they're not around, I run through conversations in my head, in which I have the strength and confidence to say, "Look, you're being unreasonable. Grow up." Or, I express my anger from the other side of a window, where it's safe; giving other drivers the finger when they cut me off, sending e-mails, or blogging. Here, I can be assertive, I can be articulate, and I know that I'm not going to have to deal with upsetting someone that I'm close to.

But passive-aggressiveness isn't healthy, for anyone. It ties me up in knots. It actually offends people more than simple assertiveness (when they hear it). And it's certainly not how Jesus dealt with the people who frustrated him:

Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

With Jesus, you get the 'fuck, yeah!' moment. There is no lack of confidence. There isn't even that much 'niceness'.

But it's not easy. I don't want to become the polar opposite of what I am now. There are people who perpetually feel hard done by, people who never stop complaining, people who don't (can't?) see anything from anyone else's perspective.

I don't want to be that. I don't want to be an angry person.

So how do I do it? How can I be both gentle and strong? How can I be both loving and just? If I open the door to my anger and frustration, what guarantee do I have that it won't consume me, or others around me?

I want to be liked, but I don't want to be walked all over. And I'm not sure how that works.

Answers on the back of a postcard.

Home

2010-06-16T22:45:00.000Z

I asked my father for my share of the inheritance. Obviously, that's a big deal. Not just because its a lot of money to expect from someone, but also because in doing so, I have effectively wished him dead.

I chose to become deaf to him. The voices of the world outside my home were more appealing. Money! Sex! Respect! Entertainment! These were what I wanted, not an old man telling me he loves me.

So I left, with half of my father's possessions, and basked in the riches, the flavours, the sensuality of the world. How sweet is the touch of a beautiful woman! How invigorating is the knowledge that people are jealous of me because of all I own! How thrilling are the assaults on the senses that entertain us!

But, in the end, I am left with nothing. I am tired. I am homeless. I don't mean homeless in the sense of not having somewhere to sleep, I mean homeless in that none of the places I sleep in feel like home.

I am exhausted. However much respect I get from others, there are still those who think I look a fool. However many beautiful women may fall in love with me, there are always other, more beautiful ones, who won't give me the time of day. However much I own, there is always more to be had. There is no goal, no end in sight. Who knew that having everything would be such hard work?

All I want is a home. I want somewhere safe, somewhere warm, and most importantly somewhere where I can just be me. I tired of trying to impress, conform, perform. I just want home.

So I start back to where I came from. I have forfeited my right to be a son, but perhaps I can be a servant. Even one day as a servant at home would be better than a thousand anywhere else.

I walk, preparing my apology, my explanation, and my plea. 'You won't even know I'm here, I won't ask for much money, just enough to survive! I'll earn back the money you gave me, I'll make it up to you. I know I don't deserve this, but I have no place else to go.'

As I approach my house, I see him. I want to run to him. But I don't have that right anymore. I am a beggar, come to grovel. I hang my head. When I lift it, I see him again. He's seen me.

He is running. He has lifted his tunic, exposing his legs (something that men don't do in public in my country) and is running towards me.

He throws himself around me.

'My son! My son! You're home! You're home!' he cries through tears of joy.

I can't help it. Maybe it's exhaustion, maybe its his emotion rubbing off on me, but I start to weep. I feel to my knees and cry my eyes out. He kneels with me, and holds me in his arms. The apology I had planned never gets said. There isn't the opportunity to. He takes me in, gives me clean clothes, feeds me, and continues to embrace me. There is no demand for an apology. Only unconditional love. He has already given me everything, but he gives me more. Me.

Later that night, he invites all my friends, and we have a welcome home party, with the best food and drink he has to offer.

After the party, I embrace him again.

'Thank you' is about all I can manage before going to bed.

As I lie in my clean bedsheets, my father still shuffling around downstairs, I am filled with gratitude.

I'm home.

Mysteries

2010-05-26T13:04:00.000Z

Some folk say that when we get to the gates of Heaven, we will have the opportunity to have some of our deepest questions answered. What would I ask?

I would love to know about the vastness of the universe. How far does it go? What is beyond it? Is it expanding, or shrinking, or neither? Why do stars happen? How did life begin? But I don't think that would be my first question.

I would love to know about the smallness of things. What holds atoms together? Is light a wave, or a particle, or both? What is the smallest thing there is? What holds everything together? But, no, I don't think that would by first question either.

What about people from the past? What drives people to unimaginable evil, or to world-changing good? What went on in Hitler's mind? What about Gandhi? That's not it either.

There are so many different belief systems, which is right? How do we know which religion to follow, if any? There seems so much contradictory goodness in all of them, even the factions within themselves! But still, that's not what I want to ask.

So what do I want to ask?

What is the greatest mystery?

What would I like to understand?

The answer is: Me. Why do I act as I do? What do I really want? Am I okay, deep down?

I am my own greatest mystery. If I could understand myself, I don't think I'd be too worried about the rest.

"Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart."

Rest Eternal

2010-04-02T20:48:00.000Z

On the way to tonight's Tenebrae service, my sister pointed out one particularly ornate tombstone in the church's graveyard.

The grave was covered in toys. It belonged to a boy who died in 2006, aged 10. It was beautiful, in a heart-breaking sort of a way.

In this season, we celebrate Christ's passing into death - the assurance that there is no road we can travel down, even in dying, where he has not gone before us. It is comforting to believe that this 10-year-old is walking with Jesus, but that makes it no less important for us to remember.

Rest eternal grant onto them, Oh Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.
May they rest in peace, and rise in glory.

Amen.

1 Corinthians 15:55 / Just As I Am

2010-03-27T15:51:00.000Z

The slideshow doesn't really add anything, but the humility in these two songs breaks me.

I Bloom Blog

2010-03-24T20:29:00.002Z

Check out my new blog, with its very own store and everything!

I Bloom Blog

Hope

2010-03-21T15:53:00.002Z

I just wrote a whole blog about why I'm sceptical when it comes to miraculous healing before getting frustrated with it and deciding I wasn't saying anything of any particular worth.

Instead, here is an extract from a much better author, John D. Caputo, that says more or less what I wanted to say:

Of this irreparably ruined and irrecuperable time we will never be able to take a long view and say, 'It was all worth it.' There is nothing that makes it worth it, nothing with which it can be 'compensated.' This is not the pain that pays off, but the misery of pure loss, of disaster. A child born with AIDS, whose life is short and painful, which no one can justify or compensate, which one can only try to comfort or ameliorate. The innocent victim of a crime, like a child inadvertently caught in a crossfire between warring drug lords on an inner-city street. The child, who is a special emblem of life, is a special victim of death and the sort of loss that makes theodicy an obscenity... The misery and grief descend upon us with impunity and then vanish like thieves in the night. The damage is done, the forces of destruction make their escape, and we are left without recourse, defenseless against the destruction, abandoned to wanton violence. Lazarus lies cold in his grave, and Jesus, too late, weeps. ...

Hope transpires in - or unleashes - another time, a time of rebirth, ressurection, and salvation. In this time, it does no suffice to wipe away a tear (Rev 21:4), or to avenge a death, or to make things 'even.' Instead, Levinas says, 'no tear should be lost'. We do not want to wipe away those tears but to preserve them, for they have a saving power, and they are precious beyond any price. Likewise, he says, 'no death should take place without a resurrection': it is not a question of avenging death, or putting a price on a priceless life in a wrongful death lawsuit, for example, or of counting ourselves even by exchanging death for death in war or capital punishment, say, or or of exchanging eternal life for temporal death, but a question of following death with resurrection. The exigency of suffering is not for compensation but for salvation: the exigency of ruined time is to be given a new time. What is required and demanded is a double gesture in which the subject first undergoes irreparable loss and then, without losing the loss, in a precisely non-indemnifying movement, demands repair, not as a worker demands a wage, but as death demands resurrection or rebirth. ...

Hope is not hope if you can see what you are hoping for on the horizon. We need hope when we cannot see the way out. Hope requires blindness.

Maybe one day I'll get my thoughts sufficiently together to write something original about this.

:-)

More Driscoll Garbage

2010-03-19T17:19:00.002Z

Just found this. I'm beginning to think Driscoll might be the antichrist:

"There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity."

I don't think I even need to say anything about this.

In Defence/Critique of Avatar

2010-03-17T01:31:00.004Z

Watch this before reading this blog:

I don't know much about Mark Driscoll. His is a name I've heard, but I'm not sure in what context. What I can gather from this video though, is that he has little understanding of paganism, the arts, or, apparently, the gospel. I don't want to personally attack the guy, I'm sure he's lovely, plus he's bigger and hairier than I am, but I can only disagree with him in this video.

0:19 - "The most demonic, satanic film I have ever seen. That any Christian could watch that without seeing the overt demonism is beyond me."

The Greek word which we translate into Satan is 'diabolos', which literally means, the accuser. The role of the diabolos, of Satan is to point the finger, to accuse, to make feel guilty. That Driscoll does not see the irony in 1) calling Avatar Satanic, and then 2) laying the guilt trip on Christians who enjoyed the James Cameron movie is scary considering his global audience.

0:50 - "It tells us that ... we shouldn't develop culture, that's a bad thing."

Is Driscoll saying that the indigenous people represented by the blue aliens have no developed culture? Again, to understand 'primitive' culture as no-culture shows a pretty serious lack of cultural awareness to me. It seems to me that Avatar's moral is not 'culture is a bad thing', but rather that 'culture that comes at the expense of others is a bad thing.' This seems firmly Biblical to me. Surely, it's a corporate scale translation of 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.

1:00 - "We're not sinners, we're just disconnected from the divine life force; just classic, classic, classic paganism."

Classic paganism would be Greco-Roman polytheism would it not? There is no concept of a 'divine life force' in the stories of the gods on Mount Olympus - if anything, the polytheistic gods are even more tangible than the Christian monotheistic God! They are essentially human - petty, squabbling, jealous gods. The point I want to make here is that there is no 'classic, classic, classic paganism'. The word 'pagan' covers huge ground; Greco-Roman/Norse mythology, Native/Indigenous spirituality (American, Australian, African), Druidism, Wicca, Hinduism, basically anything that isn't Christian, Muslim or Jewish! Driscoll is putting a huge, diverse and complex global set of beliefs into a box that in reality only describes a small portion of it.

1:37 - "A man comes to be among a people group and to assume their identity; it's a false Jesus."

This sounds pretty close to a real Jesus to me... This whole section about a false salvation, false heaven, and so on is very waffly. Who is this man, what is this false heaven, that Driscoll is talking about? Are we talking about a character in the movie?

2:00 - "The visuals are amazing because Satan wants you to emotionally connect with the lie."

This is where it gets really silly. Was Satan a producer on this movie? At what point did the prince of darkness get his say in the design of the visuals of James Cameron films? Aside from ascribing too much power and influence to the idea of Satan, what Driscoll misses is the power of beauty. C.S. Lewis, the master apologist, is known to have loved the beauty of the medieval understanding of the cosmos. He is quoted as saying that it held greater aesthetic appeal for him than the stories of his faith - ultimately allowing a (pagan?) errant view of the world to influence the greatest Christian children's books ever written. Of course, it is not literally true, but it is beautiful, as is the art of Salvador Dali, Carl Jung's understanding of the human mind, and Karl Marx's faith in humanity - though all of these might tread on heterodox ground in the creation of their masterpieces.

2:09 - "I've never been accused of being [a fundamentalist]."

fun·da·men·tal·ism –noun

(sometimes initial capital letter) a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming.

J'accuse!

2:19 - "I've got two home theatre systems, I've got three TiVos..."

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Matt. 19:21)

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matt. 7:5)

I have a home cinema system. I am surrounded by material wealth. I am the greatest hypocrite in the world when I say this, because this is a lesson that I need to learn. Is it unreasonable to suggest that perhaps what scares Driscoll about Avatar, as it scares me, is not 'classic paganism', but the Christophanic suggestion that there is more to life that our material comfort?

2:40 - "We just don't like Satan..."

In John 8, this is more or less exactly the line that those who would ultimately kill Jesus use about him.

The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” (v.48). Hey, you say nice things, but you don't fit into our orthodoxy. Therefore, you must be possessed by a devil and we can't like you.

I'm not saying that James Cameron is the Christ (read on to find out why not!), but I am saying that using the "we don't like Satan" though very motivational-sounding, is the oldest of cop-outs for grappling with reality that includes shades of grey, mystery and unanswered questions.

3:00 - "The problem isn't sin, it's disconnection [use of grammar mine] from the divine..."

Isn't the usual Evangelical definition of sin something along the lines of 'that which disconnects us from God'?

3:14 - "Eastern Garbage-ism"

At this point, Driscoll moves from disagreeable to offensive. Firstly, the type of spirituality parodied (?) in Avatar is not Eastern - it is Native American. The greatest and truest critique I've heard of Avatar as a piece of cinematography is that it is simply a sci-fi-ification of The Last of the Mohicans, Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, and so on. It has nothing to do with Eastern pantheism, and everything to do with Western animism.

Let's not forget also, that Christianity is an Eastern, not American, religion. To refer to Easter religion as Garbage-ism is not only fantastically, dangerously xenophobic, it is also completely self-unaware.

3:17 - "It just is."

Oh, sorry, my mistake.

3:20 - "Spark of divinity within you, God is in everything... It's worldliness."

In Christ were created all things in heaven and on earth
everything visible and everything invisible.... Before anything was created, he existed, and he holds all things in unity. (Col. 1:15-17)

Where could I go to escape your spirit?
Where could I flee from your presence?
If I climb the heavens, you are there,
there too, if I lie in Sheol.
If I flew to the point of sunrise, or westward across the sea
your hand would still be guiding me, your right hand holding me. (Psalm 139:7-10)

We could say much more and still fall short; to put it concisely, "He is all." (Sirach 43:27) (Do apocryphal texts count?)

Do I not fill heaven and earth? It is Yahweh who speaks. (Jer. 23:24)

If these keep silence, the stones will cry out. (Luke 19:40)

In him we live, and move, and have our being.... "We are his offspring." (Acts 17:28)

For from him, and through him and to him are all things. (Rom. 8:36)

There is one God who is father of all, over all, through all and within all. (Eph. 4:6)

...No it isn't.

Now, here's Driscoll's biggest mistake.

The film is about justice. The Disney-villain corporate humans are the bad guys. The Na'vi are the good guys, who are trodden upon by the evil-doers, and it is about justice for those with no voice of their own.

Should the native Americans whose land was plundered by the wealthy not know justice?
Should the aboriginal Australians whose land was made into a giant prison by the British not know justice?
Should the Iraqi kurds slaughtered by Saddam Hussein's regime not know justice?
Should the millions of Jews gassed to death in WWII not know justice?

It would be immoral of me to compare real-life genocides with bubblegum Hollywood pop, but that is the moral of the film. The film does not aim to say 'God lives in trees', it aims to say, 'Justice!'. By saving a group of people from persecution, you are not agreeing with their religious beliefs (note that none of the above are Christians), but you are signing up to a belief that justice is more important that ideological differences.

To conclude, I think Avatar, along with most of Hollywood (noteable exception of 2009 - Gran Torino) has got justice all wrong. Avatar teaches redemptive violence. The downtrodden ultimately win by having a larger army, and killing more people. Power saves the day.

That's why James Cameron is not Christ. If his film is misguided, it is not because of the depiction of animism, it is because violence saves the day - the opposite of the Christian narrative in which the victim saves the day by being the victim. Other people; Rene Girard, James Alison, Gil Bailie, Walter Wink, have written about this much more eloquently than I can, and I would urge Driscoll to read some of these guys.

Perhaps a better understanding of Christian non-violence could dissuade him from future blunders like this sermon.

Compassion is Key

2010-02-26T16:52:00.003Z

I've been wrong about my religion for quite some time.

I've moved away from conversionist turn-or-burn teaching, but where I've been standing (at least internally) has been just as misguided. I've made the mistake that thinking my religion calls me, and by proxy those around me, to be perfect.

I've felt frustrated, restless, and depressed because perfection is nowhere to be found. I'm an ass. You're an ass. We're surrounded by asses. People drive like idiots. People are violent towards one another. People bitch and gossip about others. People chase a pay cheque. I get frustrated with others. And because I am frustrated with them, I get frustrated with myself, for not being completely internally serene. I get frustrated with myself because I know I'm no better.

When you're constantly striving for perfection, but seeing it nowhere, life becomes very difficult indeed.

But, as I drove to work this morning, a thought came into my mind.

Perhaps its not about perfection.

Perhaps its about compassion.

Passion has the same root as the word passive. We enter into a state of passion when life happens to us, slipping out of our control. Christ's passion was his inability to act in the face of his accusers. Our passions are when we lie in a hospital bed, when we drink uncontrollably, when we feel compelled to violence, when we haven't got enough money to feed our children.

'Com' means 'with'. Compassion, therefore, means to suffer with. It is the opposite of demanding perfection. It is a decision to love, to give time, to give energy to that which is not perfect.

Compassion is scary, because it requires us to make ourselves vulnerable. It means saying, 'I'm going to let this person, this situation, whatever it is, into my life, even though it threatens to destroy my comfort and security. I will not run from this, even though I want nothing more than to be safe from it.'

Compassion is the celebration of that most terrifying thing; imperfection.

In the Christian story, we are told that Christ spent his time with thieves, prostitutes, lepers, and (which is worse) religious leaders and politicians. And when they nailed him to a cross, God knew every painful cry, every tear, every rage, every anxiety of humanity. More than knowing it, he placed himself squarely in it.

Compassion, the celebration of imperfection, is not just an exercise in piety; it is where we find God's presence. In the web of humanity - foolish, weak, mean-spirited and scared - we find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.

The Christian journey isn't one of leaving behind a flawed Earth to find a perfect Heaven (the Platonic journey), the Christian journey is one of staring our imperfect self, our imperfect neighbour, our imperfect society in the face, and making the decision to love. It is the decision to open our arms, and allow our love to embrace humanity, though its pinions may wound us. This is compassion.

The Christian journey is one of praying and weeping for the coming of God. Heal our wounds, Lord. Save us. Set the captives free. Maranatha. Viens, oui, oui. But this prayer can only be prayed with integrity when we have let the imperfect in. A life of perfect serenity needs no prayer, no faith, no love. But a life of wounded love can cry, like the prophet, for a time in which "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock." The invisible Messianic time. Le temps du salut. Maranatha.

Only a wounded heart can truly pray for this. And perhaps, it is by having our hearts wounded by imperfection that we will see it.

Amen

Enlarged Love

2010-02-20T16:34:00.002Z

Jeff Bridges in today's Metro:

Interviewer: what's your secret [to a successful marriage]?

JB: Not getting a divorce (laughs). If you're married you'll have tough times and you draw a line, then if your partner crosses that line you say: 'Well is that it?' or 'Am I going to enlarge my concept of what love is?' You open your heart and the object of your love becomes so precious. You realise next time you have a problem: 'I can't lose it, it's to precious.'

Recommendation

2010-01-20T11:50:00.000Z

Promise me,
promise me this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.

The only thing worthy of you is compassion –
invincible, limitless, unconditional.
Hatred will never let you face
the beast in man.

One day, when you face this beast alone,
with your courage intact, your eyes kind,
untroubled
(even as no one sees them),
out of your smile
will bloom a flower.
And those who love you
will behold you
across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.

Alone again,
I will go on with bent head,
knowing that love has become eternal.
On the long, rough road,
the sun and the moon
will continue to shine.

Recommendation - Thich Nhat Hanh - 1965

Religious Hatred

2010-01-11T13:18:00.002Z

In vogue at the moment amongst the political left - those who think of themselves as educated, intelligent and liberal as opposed to those who think of themselves as tough, manly and powerful - is the ridicule of religion.

By religion in this context, what I mean is Christianity. We don't poke fun at Hindus or Jews, and don't even think about mentioning Islam.

I place myself on the political left. I'm a socialist, a pacifist, and a libertarian. But I'm beginning to be as sick of the arrogance of leftism as I am of the right. It annoys me because I like and respect are jumping on the bandwagon. Comedians like Ricky Gervais, Eddie Izzard and Tim Minchin are all brilliant; intelligent, shrewd, and off the wall - but all of them have made it very public that they equate being a Christian with being an uneducated, bumbling, close-minded fool.

I suppose I should question my taking offence at this. When people ridicule clairvoyance, astrology, or self-help books, I happily join in. I see the industry as ridiculous, and think that its dismantling can only be a good thing.

So am I being hypocritical by taking offence to jokes about my religion? Am I as close-minded as the people whose close-mindedness annoys me?

I fully support freedom of speech. I remember hearing Rowan Atkinson say at the the time of the religious hatred act that to have the freedom to poke fun at corrupt religion is vitally important, and I still agree with him!

I don't think its cool to piss on religion. I think when you look at the lives of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, and so many more, you cannot without blindly closing your mind say that religion is evil. When you read the works of people like John D. Caputo, Soren Kierkegaard, James Alison, Karl Barth, and so many more, you cannot without blindly closing your mind that religion is uneducated.

But maybe the problem, and this is a problem that needs to be ridiculed, dismantled and laughed at, is that people don't see the positive side of Christianity. What people see is that noisy, loud-mouthed, close-minded Christians burning their TV licenses, telling teenagers not to have sex, protesting civil rights for gay people, and claiming that God can fix all your problems if only you'll believe what they believe and act how they act. This is ridiculous, and unfortunately, this is the public face of Christianity.

That, or the expression of Christianity that is about preserving outdated relics and traditions; sitting in cold church buildings, muttering under our breaths about how great God is.

The fact that this is what the movement started by Jesus 200 years ago has become is a blasphemy far worse than anything said by Dawkins, Harris or Hitchens.

It annoys me that people feel the need to poke fun at my religion. But it annoys me even more that a lot of the time (most of the time) it deserves it.

Flitting

2009-12-27T21:32:00.004Z

The trouble with modernity is that it is flitty.

We live, here in the UK, in the 21st Century, in a culture that is all about the individual. This blog is a perfect example. I write this from the comfort of my own home, narcissisticly assuming that people care what I have to say, but being safe enough from criticism or repercussions to be feel pretty open to write what I want. There is no community I am writing this for. There is no purpose to this blog. It's about me.

The same is true all over our country. Hungry? Eat what you want, when you want it. Want something new? With the Internet, you can have it tomorrow. Feeling low? Have a pill!

Now, this isn't a rant about MacDonald's, Amazon, or anti-depressants. I'm a regular customer of two out of three, and I know the third to be very helpful at times. What I am ranting about is that the availability of quick-fixes has made it very hard to actually, truly, commit to fixing anything. When one thing stops satisfying us, we move on to the next. Fast food restaurants are an obvious target, 'I don't fancy a burger today, I'll get a KFC', but I think there are much more serious things to be worried about. 'I don't fancy this spirituality anymore, I'll pick another'. 'I don't fancy this political ideology anymore, I'll pick another'. 'I don't fancy my wife anymore, I'll find another'. And so we go on. Divorce rates are through the roof, church attendance is basically dead, and no one cares enough to vote. We'll buy one washing liquid because it says its eco-friendly, but drive down the road in our 4x4 to pick it up.

Certainly, we can be charitable, ethical and polite, as long as it doesn't make us uncomfortable and there's an easy way out.

At some point, somewhere, someone is going to have to stand up and say:

This isn't good enough.

This is a shit way of living. Everybody is lonely, because we flake out on people as soon as they become burdensome. No one is passionate, because being passionate involves pain, frustration and commitment. It seems that the best commitment even the church can muster up is to not eat chocolate for lent. And that's Jesus' legacy?

No.

This isn't good enough.

Jesus was an example of self-sacrificial love. Love that is vulnerable. Love that commits. Love that recklessly throws itself forward, breaking down walls and tidy compartments.

I am a product of my age. I belong to a handful of faith groups, and I'm always on the look-out for the next, better one, that'll really fix me. The result is that I'm not really, deeply committed to any of them. When friends start to get annoying, I hang out with other people. I'm scared silly of getting into a serious relationship, because I don't think I'll be able to stop 'browsing'. That's what our culture is all about! Browsing! Window shopping!

This isn't good enough.

In just a few days, a new year, a new decade, will be upon us. I offer a challenge to myself (not to anyone else - I first need to pull this log out of my own eye): Simplify and commit.

Pick one religion. Franciscanism, Anglicanism, Quakerism, whatever it is, and throw myself into it. Commit to people. I am surrounded by amazing people. Stop holding them at arms length and throw myself into friendship. Commit to work. Throw myself into it.

Part of this will involve opening myself up. At the moment, very, very few people know me. But I want to be known. I want to be seen. Not in the sense of being a celebrity, but in the sense of belonging and being accepted. At work, at home, at church. Not surface-level, confident, professional, good-sense-of-humour Tim (though him as well), but neurotic, insecure, flawed Tim! The whole me; good and bad!

Let's strip away all the excess, all the things that I hold on to just in case they contain the magic ingredient to enlighten me. Let's stop waiting for someone/thing to come into my life and be perfect and fix all my problems.

Simplify and commit. Less clutter. More vulnerability. Less selection. More depth. I've surveyed the land long enough, let's start digging.

The problem with modernity is that it is flitty.

The problem with being a modern is that I am flitty.

But flitting doesn't get anyone very far at all.

Copenhagen 2009

2009-12-14T15:20:00.000Z

I have always made it my aim to think adventurously. I hate stale ideas. I get bored with conventional answers. The pursuit of knowledge, of wisdom, of new ways of thinking is something that excites me; something that I live for.

Yet I am not what most would call an adventurous person. I guess you could pretty accurately describe as an ‘armchair philosopher’. I love to think, but the transition from thinking to doing is something that I struggle with. I like my ideas to be groundbreaking and risky, but I would rather that my person is safe and warm.

Which is why the past weekend has been so special for me. I was asked a few weeks ago whether I would be interested in going to the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Assuming that this would be an opportunity to brush shoulders with some big theological and political names, travelling by plane and staying in at best a hotel, at worst a hostel, the idea of it all appealed to my ego. I care about climate change; I try my best to recycle, I turn my TV off at the main switch at night, and I turn off the tap when I brush my teeth. But I didn’t really know enough about what the conference was about to care deeply about the real issues; this was something that would be quite cool to tell to the young people that I work with, or the students that I lecture.

When I got the itinerary of the project, I panicked. The plan was to leave London at 6am on Friday morning, travel for 13 hours by Eurostar, then coach, sleep on a gym floor, take part in protest rallies, and repeat the same trip back overnight on the Sunday. All this after a youth event on Thursday night at work. This wasn’t quite the comfort that I am used to. I’m not a big fan of crowds, and I get anxious when I don’t sleep well, so this was quite a big deal.

After chatting to a friend, and convincing him to come along with me, I made the decision to do it. What’s the worst that could happen, right?

Friday morning, I get up at 3:30, to be ready to be picked up at 5. As I got into the cab, I met Paul, the organiser of this little expedition, and Polly, one of the girls travelling with us for the first time. We then picked up Steve, one of my closest friends of 7 years. The cab trip to the station was filled with sleepy small talk about what we do, where we live, how we know each other, how did we hear about this all, etc etc.

At St Pancras, we met the other two people in our group; Lee and Rosa, and, alongside 50 other Christian Aid activists, we got on the train to begin our journey. We arrived in Brussels 2 hours later, and began the 14 hour (!) coach trip to Copenhagen. Once or twice on the trip, I wondered what on earth I was doing on this ridiculous expedition, when I could be at home, in bed, safe and warm, but for the most part, I chatted, laughed, played games, listened to music, watched videos and enjoyed the company of those around me. After travelling together for a grand total of 19 hours, you get to know each other pretty well! I did worry that I might not get on with my co-travellers, but the trip showed me, as the rest of the weekend confirmed, that I was in the midst of some fantastic, unique and beautiful people. My feelings of anxiety began to give way to a sense of privilege. This could actually be fun.

We arrived at Copenhagen at 12:30am local time, and went straight to bed. I shared classroom floor space with Steve and a lovely man called Andrew. I slept relatively badly – trying to get used to a new airbed, and ignoring the ceiling lights that came on whenever someone moved in bed.

The next morning, I got up for an ice cold shower, and once again began to wonder what on Earth I was doing here.

We left the school where we staying en masse (approximately 200 of us) to go to a square where we were going to meet the brave men and women who had cycled all the way from London to Copenhagen to raise awareness. The cyclists, unfortunately, were running late, so they didn’t get the grand welcome that they deserved. In this time, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed us, as did a women representing indigenous people all over the world. This was enough to fire us up, and we, joined by other church and faith groups from all over the world, joined the rest of the protesters (around 100,000 of us – the biggest climate protest on record!) for the planned march.

The atmosphere was fun. People were enjoying themselves, playing music, doing stunts, and genuinely wanting to change the world, not just to make the planet a nicer, more ‘green’ place, but to help those most affected by global warming; the poor. It felt like history.

As we marched, we (the faith groups) were followed by a communist group, chanting
Power to The People. The communists were soon drowned out by a wall of men and women dressed all in black - their faces covered. I initially thought that they were dressed as ninjas as some sort of stunt, but was later told that they were anarchists. Their chants grow louder and louder; ‘Copenhagen, Seattle, don’t stop the battle.’ We began to notice an increasing amount of riot police all around us. What was not long ago an atmosphere of fun and peace was beginning quite intimidating.

Like I said earlier, I’m not a fan of big crowds at the best of times, so told myself to stop being so silly and enjoy the march like everyone else, but I was quietly relieved when Paul suggested that we break away from the march to take a toilet break and warm up a bit – we could catch up with them later.

We found a little cafe in which we sat for half an hour or so, and discussed our plans for the rest of the day. We could rejoin the rest of the protesters, who were heading to the Bella Centre (where the politicians were meeting) for a candle-lit vigil, or we could go our separate way, wander through Copenhagen for a while, and go to the church service at which Rowan Williams was again preaching. We decided to amble towards the Bella Centre, to see how the march was going, but enjoying walking at our own pace.

As we walked, we saw in the distance blue flashing lights. The noise grew as we got closer, and it didn’t take us long to realise that something had obviously kicked off. Police riot vans, sniffer dogs, buses, and flashing lights were everywhere. It turned out that the police had redirected the bulk of the procession, including the faith groups, so as to trap the group of anarchists and arrest them. I’ve heard mixed accounts of how this all happened – some say the police were completely unjustified, nothing had happened, and nothing was going to happen. Others told me that the anarchists were smashing windows, carrying weapons, and vandalising bus stops. My modern mind wanted (and still wants) to know who the villains were in this story. But I’m beginning to wonder if maybe it’s not quite as simple as good guys and bad guys.

It was interesting to be challenged by this. I learned a lot about the philosophy and practice and anarchy from those around me. I also learned a lot about how hard it must be to police 100,000 people, no matter how peaceful they are. The policemen were friendly and polite to us when we asked questions, but one wonders how justified they were in cuffing 900 people, forcing them to sit outside in the freezing cold for 6 hours, allowing them to wet themselves through lack of toilets, and even faint through lack of medical attention. The anarchists hold a lot of views that make sense to me, but one wonders why they feel the need to express them through aggression and intimidation (whether they were violent or not, they were certainly intimidating).

My friends and I hung around for a while, watched people being carried off to jail, saw the rows of people sitting in between in each other’s legs, the images of which have been spread over the media. I felt, I will admit, excited! This was new to me! What an adventure! I also felt anxious – were we safe, so close to the action?

Eventually, we wandered back into the centre of town, where we added the candles we were carrying to a smaller-scale vigil at the side of the road, and eventually went to listen to the archbishop preach (very well), and found somewhere to eat. Dinner was lovely. You may have noticed I referred to my co-travellers as friends in the previous paragraph. By the end of the day, having eaten together, shared unique experiences together, and learned together, I certainly felt very close to those around me. Sitting in the school cafeteria before going to bed, chatting and playing cards, will be remembered as one of the highlights of the weekend for me.

That night, I slept much better. We hung a towel over the motion sensor in the room, solving the light problem, and I went to bed feeling contented after a good day. The next morning, I had a hot shower and breakfast, and felt ready for the (long) day ahead.

After packing our bags, we all headed back into town to hear Desmond Tutu’s address to the faith groups. We got there just in time, and my God, am I grateful that we did. The man carries an awesome presence with him. For the first time over the weekend, I felt impassioned about climate change. This is the world; this is God’s world – we are going to fight on the side of love, and justice, and by God we will not rest until we see it changed! ‘Yes we can’, the crowd began to chant. Ordinarily, I would have rolled my eyes at such a cheesy, American chant, but I found myself belting it out – this was, this is, our war cry – Yes, we can! Why can we? Because, damn it, we’re on the side of righteousness!

When Tutu finished speaking, we slowly wandered over to the cathedral, were an ecumenical service was to start. We didn’t make it into the church itself, but the university building across the road had opened its doors to people who wanted to watch the service projected onto screens.

Once again, I was blown away. Rowan Williams’ sermon was one of the best I’ve ever heard. One of our group said that it might be the most significant sermon since the reformation. This, said Williams, is first and foremost a question of choosing Love over fear. This is a crossroads. We (the churches) can continue to stumble around aimlessly as we have been for a few hundred years, or we can revolutionise the way we think about justice, peace and morality. Present at the service was the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Desmond Tutu, a group of Franciscans brothers and sisters, the queen and prime minister of Denmark, and doubtlessly other important people that I didn’t recognise. But more striking than any of these people were the presence of a dead coral plant, iceberg stones which should be buried under hundreds of feet of ice, and dried maize. These are the effects of global warming, and they are being felt first and foremost by the poor. It is time to change. It is time for the churches, as one body, to chant louder; ‘Yes, we can’, to put away our ridiculous prosperity gospels and focus on an invisible after life and to be the forerunners in the movements of social and climate justice.

I am not optimistic about the political result of Copenhagen. I would be surprised if our fearful leaders will reach an agreement, and if they do, I would be even more surprised if it was anywhere near adequate. But, I am filled with optimism about the church’s role in all of this. This is our call. We can heed it, or we can ignore it, but it seems to me that our faith leaders – as evidenced by their presence at the service – are keen to listen and act. Praise God.

We moved relatively swiftly from the service back to the school, and from the school onto the coach back home.

Another memory that will stick with me as a highlight of this weekend is the hour-long traffic jam in Germany, during which a good deal of people – including my friends and I – got out and stood on the motorway, talking, laughing and sharing. On paper, it was a nightmare situation. We would almost certainly be late back for the Eurostar train home. In practice, we are told that when 2 or 3 are gathered in God’s name, He is present, and his presence felt near-tangible on the motorway.

For the rest of the trip, I listened to music, discussed theology with those around me, played games on my mobile, and slept fitfully. We made the train with ample time for breakfast at the station and left for the final leg of our adventure. The atmosphere on the train was sleepy, but had a sense of accomplishment to it. We did it. We were there. It was a weekend like no other, and here we are, on the other end of it.

Finally, 19 hours after leaving Copenhagen, we said goodbye and returned home. This takes us to the present moment, in which I write this.

I still don’t really consider myself an adventurous person. But thank God for this adventure; fun, exciting, inspiring, scary, exhausting and holding memories that I hope will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Thank God for Paul, Steve, Polly, Rosa and Lee, my travelling companions, who made the weekend for me, and who I sincerely hope and pray that I will be able to keep in touch with.

Thank God for the work of Christian Aid, whose work and organisation means that our voices have been heard by the politicians in charge.

Thank God for the rallying cry of the churches; ‘Yes we can!’, and for the passion with which it was called out during Desmond Tutu’s address.

And now we pray, fervently and earnestly; God, let this be the beginning. Change the world, Lord, and use us as your hands. Help your church, and the leaders of the world, to unite with one voice for the poor, the indigenous and the suffering. Help Love to silently speak louder than fear can scream.

Here we are, Lord. Send us.

Amen.

On Love

2009-12-10T09:40:00.003Z

I think that maybe the scariest decision we have to make in our lives is the decision to love. Love is, I believe, our highest calling. It is what is meant by Christian perfection. Without love, our lives are hollow and meaningless.

But love is terrifying. It is terrifying because it doesn't fit our schedule. It refuses to be safely wrapped up, to be taken out when it suits us. Love involves dying. To love, really, means to die to the part of us that seeks comfort, security and order. To love someone means to open your life to them. It means to allow them to invade your personal space.

Fear tells us not to love. Fear tells us to build walls, protect ourselves, keep our heads down. Fear tells us to use people, to manipulate them, so that we might get what we want from them and then discard them.

It seems we are faced with a choice. I am particularly aware of this choice at the moment. We can either open ourselves up to the other, accepting the risk that they might ruin everything (as they did in Christ's perfect example of love), blindly, with fear and trembling, stepping out in faith that love is worth it. Or, we can listen to fear - retreat into our shells, put our earphones in and be safe.

This is so scary because until we have loved, we have no guarantee that it pays off. We only have the words and (often tragic) stories of those who have gone before.

Fear will keep the status quo. Love could ruin it. The question, I suppose, is whether the status quo is worth saving or not.

Jesus, teach me to love. And please, let it pay off.

Where The Wild Things Are

2009-12-09T17:53:00.001Z

I think this might be my favourite film trailer ever. I hope the actual picture lives up to it.

Desire

2009-12-08T11:40:00.002Z

Man's greatest potential is his desire to love. His greatest threat is his fear of loving. We each hold the potential to be perfect - which is to love, and the threat of damnation - which is not to love.

Help me, Lord, to heed the voice of desire, your voice of desire, and not that of fear. Help me to love and so to Live. Amen.

2009-12-07T11:56:00.002Z

God has said something like: 'You have hurt yourself and in hurting yourself it's me that you have hurt, because I love you so much. But, I won't reduce you to what you do. I think of you, in your being, as more than what you have done. Go, sin no more, and bring to others the forgiveness that I have given you.'

- Benoit Garceau

2009-12-02T11:16:00.002Z

What is my ultimate aim in life? What's the destination towards which I am working? This is a conversation I had with some young people last night, echoed by another one had with some door-to-door evangelists just a moment ago.

I don't see much appeal in following the ultimate aim of the society In which I live - that being to compete; be better, look nicer, drive a better car, perform better academically and vocationally... Nor do I see any appeal in the ultimate aim of the conservative church - that being to get as many people to sign their names on the dotted line to get a nice place called heaven when we die... Nor, in fact, do I see much appeal in the ultimate aim of the liberal church, which seems to about living as secular a life as possible, feeling too guilty to altogether rid ourselves of the language of religion.

No, that's not what I want out of life. So want is?

I think (this will probably change over my life) my ultimate aim is quite simply to realise myself as loved. Not a competitive love, where I am loved because of what I do, but an unconditional love, where I am loved because of who I am. It is, it seems to me, the lifelong journey of realising the loving presence of Christ within myself (with or without religious language with which to frame it).

This aim is not simply about me, otherwise my life would become very lonely (and it is hard to know oneself as loved when one is lonely). It is all of humanity. It is about my friends, my colleagues, the young people with which I work, and my family. It is even (especially?) about those people who annoy me. It is in community that we realise ourselves as loved. As I follow the example of Jesus, and get down on my knees to wash the feet of those around me, they can begin to know themselves as loveable. As they do the same for me, I begin to know myself as loveable. Together, we ask the presence of God within ourselves to draw to the forefront the presence of God in others.

This is human perichoresis - a way of being that is all about giving and receiving. Without you, I am not me. You might also call it karma.

I'm rubbish at this. I live in a society where we are told to look after ourselves, and if others get in our way, to step over them. And try as I might to rise above it, that message has soaked into me and affects the way I treat others.

So I pray. I cry out to God, who is no distance away from me, to draw even closer, to infect me with his being, to minister to me - to save me.

Lord, help me to break the cycle of self-service, a cycle which most of the time I am not even awake enough to be aware of. Help me instead to know that I am loved, and loveable. May this knowledge give me the strength to selflessly serve others than they might know themselves as loved, and loveable. And may my relationship with others continue to assure me that I am loved, and loveable, until the cycle has become so well-worn that I walk it without even realising it.

Amen.

Gold

2009-10-27T15:53:00.002Z

Here's something I wrote while on retreat last weekend...

In Byzantine icons, gold was always the first thing to be added. To layer gold over paint would warp the paint, so gold came first, and was painted over. So, when you see gold in an icon, what you are actually seeing is a gap; a hole, a lack of paint.

This, it seems to me, makes a profound theological point. The gold, which represents God's glory, shines out when there is nothing blocking it.

'One can no more find a method for knowing God than for creating God,' says Alan Watts; all we can do is make room, clear the approaches, for him to reveal himself.

Like the icons, to see God in our lives is a process of deconstruction; of making holes. One might say that we are releasing God's glory from the prison we have made for him.

So, we pray silence, simplicity. We stop trying to fill gaps, instead trying to create gaps.

In the icons, the heads of the saints are surrounded by gold; the halo. God's glory seems to radiate out of their minds. Perhaps there is a lesson here as well. Perhaps the first act of de-cluttering needs to happen within. Lao-Tse, writing before Alan Watts, before Byzantium, and even before Christ, asks:

Can you coax your mind from its wanderings,
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?

Dear Lord, the father, the ground of all being, teach me please to step back from my clutter. Pour the balm of stillness into my mind, and create holes through which you might shine. Help me to lovingly deconstruct complex things, and openly welcome what is simple. Make the whole world gold, Lord, starting with me.

Amen.

Hatred + Hatred = ?

2009-10-23T13:18:00.003Z

Last night, Nick Griffin, chair of the British Nationalist Party was one of the panellists on the BBC's Question Time. The far-right party leader has been faced with accusations of racism, homophobia, holocaust-denial, Nazi-sympathising, and more.

The majority reaction to Griffin was hatred. He has since referred to himself as the most hated man in Britain, and, at this point in time, he's probably not far from the truth.

But as I watched Question Time, I found myself torn. I find the things that Griffin stands for abhorrent, and I find him as a person intensely dislikeable. But, as a leftist myself, I am disappointed with the close-mindedness of my fellow liberals.

Initially, there was uproar about Griffin's appearance. He shouldn't be allowed on TV, we were told. Then, when he finally made it onto the show, he was faced with personal abuse and pigheadedness, rather than democratic, unbiased debate. One particularly sharp audience member referred to him as Dick Griffin. Ho ho.

I have no sympathy for Griffin. But, I do believe in freedom of speech and democracy, and I do believe that the man should be allowed to air his opinions, however repulsive I find them.

What it comes down to is that when hatred is used as a tool to combat hatred, hatred still wins. Whether the good guys win, or the bad guys, it is violence that has prevailed.

This is the myth of redemptive violence. The myth tells us that the good guys will show up with bigger guns and wipe out the bad guys. The myth tells us that the road to peace is levelled with the tools of war. The myth is a piece of fiction.

There will always be bad guys. However often the good guys win, a new bad guy will arise. We will never create peace by shooting evil down, because it will persistently rise up again.

For this reason, it is no wonder that the power of God, according to the Christian gospel, is his weakness. How does Christ save the day? By dying. The victory, or at the very least a facet of the victory, lies in Jesus' decision not to take up arms. There is no Superman, no political uprising; only the weak force of love - which in its weakness is entirely undefeatable.

We all have a shadow-side; a dark, a hurt, an angry, a scared part to ourselves. Any good psychologist will tell you that when you fight your shadow, you end up hurting yourself. Instead, we lovingly give it our attention. When it bombards us with its neurosis, we politely, lovingly, and with confidence in ourselves tell it, I hear your pain, but in this case, you are wrong. I don't want to do violence to you, but nor will I heed your call to do violence onto others.

Let's listen to Nick Griffin. He is our corporate, our national, shadow-side. He is the part of us that we wish wasn't there. But he is there. To refuse to listen to scared and wounded voice of the BNP is to cut them out of our side, which will get infected and gangrenous as a result. What are you so scared of, Nick? We're not going to adopt your prejudices, but we can listen to the fear beneath them and as a country, as a world, work towards easing them.

Am I bleeding-heart liberal? Probably. But my leftism leads me to call for an end to violence; including violence towards the right.

Salvation

2009-10-18T23:38:00.002Z

"If you want to find perfect love, go sell all your belongings, give
them to the poor, go where you find a master and become a slave. Can
you do this and be perfect?

"You say this is too heavy? Then do something else. Don't sell
yourself as a slave. Just sell your belongings and give them all to
the poor. Can you do it? Or do you find this too heavy a task?"

"All right, you cannot give away all your belongings. Then give half,
or a third, or a fifth. Is even this too heavy? Then give one tenth.
Can you do that? Is it still too heavy?

"How about this. Don't sell yourself as slave. Don't give a penny to
the poor. Only do this. Don't take your poor brother's coat, don't
take his bread, don't persecute him, don't eat him alive. If you don't
want to do him any good, at least do him no harm. Just leave him
alone. Is this also too heavy?"

"You say you want to be saved. But how? How can we be saved if
everything we are called to do is too heavy? We descend and descend
until there is no place further down. God is merciful, yes, but he
also has an iron rod." - St. Cosmos of Aetolia

Forgive me, Lord, for my hollow speech. Forgive me for talking like a religious man instead of living like Christ. Forgive me for being nice instead of being loving. Forgive me for being too scared, too attached, too proud, to live as you lived.

"Lord, save me, whether I like it or not; dust and ashes that I am, I love sin." - Apophthegmata Patum

Compassion

2009-10-11T13:15:00.003Z

The word compassion is one that has been on my mind today. Compassion in itself is something that I've been thinking about the past few days, but it is only today that I've been able to give it a label. Compassion.

The word passion comes from the Greek word that means to suffer. To experience passion is to experience pain. It's original meaning was quite far from what we think of it as meaning today; not energy, fire, or lust, it used to refer to when life falls out of our hands, and we become victims. Someone in a hosptial bed experiences passion.

If passion is suffering, then compassion is to suffer with. Compassion means to share in someone's pain. It does not mean offering a solution or a cure, it means to let go of our own lives that we might share in the pain of the victim.

What I have been thinking about lately is compassion towards oneself. Our protestant society tells us to push ourselves; to whip ourselves when we get it wrong. How often have we said things like, 'I'm such an idiot', 'Why can't I get it together?', or 'I hate my own company'? We repress ourselves so much that we end up with eating disorders, depression, panic attacks, all the while telling other people that they should give themselves a break. Whether or not people practice it, most people would agree with the idea of compassion towards others. But what about compassion towards ourselves?

If compassion means to suffer alongside someone, to be compassionate to oneself means to share in our own burdens. What does that mean? I think it means to allow ourselves to be weak, scared and vulnerable. When negative emotions arise in us, we are surrounded by constant escape routes; 'be entertained!' the media tells us. Turn on the TV, log on to Facebook, stick your earphones in - forget your problems, find something that pleases you.

But to forget our problems means to show a stubborn lack of compassion towards ourselves. To run away from our fears, to fight our depression, to force ourselves to our feet when all we want to do is to sit and weep is to be cold to oneself. Would we treat anyone else the way we treat ourselves? Would we tell anyone else to get shut up and quit crying?

What about compassion towards ourselves?

I'm beginning to think that if one doesn't know how to be inwardly compassionate, one won't be able to show compassion to others. When we are used to running from our own suffering, the suffering of others becomes a threat to us. Rather than nurturing a culture of kindness, gentleness, and acceptance, we are nurturing a culture of escapism, mindlessness and coldness. Other people become tools to help us run from our own problems. I'll enjoy your company, so long as you are what I want you to be. If you start getting me down, I'm leaving.

I'm writing all of this not as a sermon, but as a lesson that I am learning. I have very little compassion for myself. As soon as any emotion arises in me that isn't light and fluffy, I freak out; I run away or beat myself up. I shouldn't feel this way, damn it, I'm an adult. I'm a Christian. I'm supposed to be happy. Through gritted teeth, I tell myself to pull it together, and fail to show myself any sort of compassion.

The result? I can be nice. I can sit and listen to people's problems - to a certain extent. But my guard is up. If anyone shows any sign of unsettling me, I'm out. So long, deal with your own problems, wimp. I'm used to running; whether its from your problems or my own.

But the more I run, the more I realise that all this running is getting me nowhere. I want, more than anything else, to be loving, and compassionate, and tolerant, and humble. But you can't be those things while running.

So, I'm learning. I'm trying to teach myself to stop running; to have patience, first with myself, and then with others. Most days, I find myself running. I don't want to face my weaknesses, my childishness, my anxiety. But every now and again, by the grace of God, I manage to stop running for a moment and be gentle with myself; listening to my fears for a moment before running again.

My prayer, sweet Lord, is that I will learn more and more to show compassion for myself. Maybe today I can only stop running away for 30 seconds. Then make it 45 tomorrow God. Help me to be unto myself what I search for other people to be for me. And as I learn, help that compassion to infect my whole way of being, that other people may experience it as well.

Amen.

Three Treasures

2009-10-02T08:06:00.002Z

I have three treasures,
Which I guard and keep.
The first is compassion.
The second is economy.
The third is humility.
From compassion comes courage.
From economy comes the means to be generous.
From humility comes responsible leadership.
Today, men have discarded compassion
In order to be bold.
They have abandoned economy
In order to be big spenders.
They have rejected humility
In order to be first.
This is the road to death.

- Lao Tse

Hope

2009-09-29T16:52:00.000Z

"Of this irreparably ruined and irrecuperable time we will never be able to take a long view and say, 'It was all worth it.' There is nothing that makes it worth it, nothing with which it can be 'compensated.' This is not the pain that pays off, but the misery of pure loss, of disaster. A child born with AIDS, whose life is short and painful, which no one can justify or compensate, which one can only try to comfort or ameliorate. The innocent victim of a crime, like a child inadvertently caught in a crossfire between warring drug lords on an inner-city street. The child, who is a special emblem of life, is a special victim of death and the sort of loss that makes theodicy an obscenity... The misery and grief descend upon us with impunity and then vanish like thieves in the night. The damage is done, the forces of destruction make their escape, and we are left without recourse, defenseless against the destruction, abandoned to wanton violence. Lazarus lies cold in his grave, and Jesus, too late, weeps. ...

Hope transpires in - or unleashes - another time, a time of rebirth, ressurection, and salvation. In this time, it does no suffice to wipe away a tear (Rev 21:4), or to avenge a death, or to make things 'even.' Instead, Levinas says, 'no tear should be lost'. We do not want to wipe away those tears but to preserve them, for they have a saving power, and they are precious beyond any price. Likewise, he says, 'no death should take place without a resurrection': it is not a question of avenging death, or putting a price on a priceless life in a wrongful death lawsuit, for example, or of counting ourselves even by exchanging death for death in war or capital punishment, say, or or of exchanging eternal life for temporal death, but a question of following death with resurrection. The exigency of suffering is not for compensation but for salvation: the exigency of ruined time is to be given a new time. What is required and demanded is a double gesture in which the subject first undergoes irreparable loss and then, without losing the loss, in a precisely non-indemnifying movement, demands repair, not as a worker demands a wage, but as death demands resurrection or rebirth. ...

Hope is not hope if you can see what you are hoping for on the horizon. We need hope when we cannot see the way out. Hope requires blindness."

- John D. Caputo

Simplicity Explained

2009-09-27T11:52:00.003Z

"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has a brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has a brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."

Just at this time, filled with joy by the Holy Spirit, [Jesus] said, "I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and claver and revealing them to little children."

My Friend

2009-09-14T17:50:00.002Z

This is for a friend of mine, who, when she looks at herself in the mirror, somehow can't quite see what the rest of us see when we look at her.

My friend is someone brave. She's been through some shitty situations; shittier than most anyone else I know, but still she walks on, choosing to fight on the side of life.

My friend is someone funny. In fact, she's the funniest girl I know. She's one of the few people who can really make me laugh from the belly. Loud laugh. Healing laugh.

My friend is someone playful. Chasing fairies, tasting things, making up words, dancing, singing loudly.

My friend is someone loving. Where most people stop, she makes the effort. Making cards, painting pictures, writing poems, if she loves you, you know she loves you.

My friend is someone smart. She speaks kind of funny sometimes, and isn't very good at maths, but she can think like no other person can, she can understand big ideas that most people glaze over for, she can listen, open her mind to new things, and learn like a child learns; which is the best way to learn.

My friend has been through a lot, and has had a difficult time of late. But she'll get through it because she's stronger, and more full of good stuff, than she even realises herself.

My prayer for my friend is this: Allow yourself to feel good. Allow yourself to love yourself. Allow yourself to look after yourself. Allow yourself to be free and live the life you dream of living.

Bear Grylls did Alpha

2009-09-08T09:17:00.003Z

Why does the Alpha course insist on cheapening their message with celebrity endorsements?

Hey, kids! Bear Grylls did Alpha! He's a cool, adventurous sort of guy, right? So, if you want to be like Bear Grylls and eat dead animals' eyeballs, you should do Alpha too!

I've also recently seen them use Charlie from Busted (?!) in similar ways. Charlie likes Jesus; Jesus must be cool!

Is our faith really so unappealing as to need relatively crap celebrities to sucker people into it? When I see a product advertised that depends on the face of a celebrity, it makes me think that it has nothing of worth to offer. If it's a good sofa, talk about how comfortable, how cheap and how pretty it is. If it's a rubbish sofa, get Kerry Katona to talk about it; people like her.

Is our religion really so rubbish?

I don't see adverts for the other big religions (with or without celebrities in them), and they seem to be doing okay...

Come

2009-09-07T23:09:00.002Z

Come Lord, Come! Change me, fix me, heal me, transform me! Come, Lord!

I am so busy crying out to God in my impatience, in my frustration, in my anxiety, that I clamber above his voice.

It is when I take a breather from all the calling, shouting, crying, wailing and gnashing my teeth, that I hear:

Come, Tim. Come.

My Child

2009-09-02T09:18:00.003Z

Disclaimer: I should start by saying that this story is fiction. Those of you who know me might have otherwise been thrown into a state of confusion, wondering how it was possible that you'd missed the fact that I have a child even though you've known me so well for so long.

I was trying to read the other night. An important book about the dialectic approach, the purpose of history, and the nature of morality.

As I read, my child entered the room. I felt frustrated by his presence. I wanted to, needed to, read this book. It was important. 'Come back later,' I said to my child, 'I'm busy right now.'

But my child didn't leave. Instead, as I tried to focus on the words on the pages in front of me, he started talking to me. He had come into my room because he was scared of the darkness in his own.

I don't have time to worry about your silly phobias, I thought to myself, I'm trying to get my head around Hegel. 'You have nothing to be scared of,' I said to my child, 'There's nothing hiding in the dark. Now please, let me be, I need to get on with this.'

But the child didn't leave. Instead, he started to cry. He was terrified to go back into his room by himself. Why? I have no idea. What could possibly be so scary? I told him to stop being so silly, to turn his nightlight on, and to go to bed. But still he wouldn't leave.

What was I to do? The tension in my room was becoming almost palpable, my child full of fear about what hid in the dark, and me full of frustration that this fearful child wouldn't leave me alone. I sensed his fear, he sensed my frustration, and both grew exponentially.

I wasn't going to get any reading done.

'Right,' I said to my child, 'Come up here.' He sat himself up on my bed, still snivelling.

'Tell me. What are you so scared of?'

'I don't know, I'm just scared is all.'

'What would make you feel better?'

'Just being with you.'

My heart melted. All he needed was some sense of security, some sense of being loved. My refusal to listen to him was the very thing that was multiplying his anxiety. It wasn't the dark he was afraid of. It was solitude; something which I am perhaps too quick to embrace...

'Ok,' I said. 'I'm sorry.' And I meant it. 'I'm here now. You have my undivided attention.'

I threw my book on the floor to show that it no longer stood between us.

'What do you want to do?' I asked him.

'Can we watch TV?' He asked.

I told him that no, we weren't going to watch TV. The shows that he wants to watch when he's so anxious are stupid; celebrity gossip, wrestling, mindless poorly-conceived comedy. There's a difference between having fun and crippling your mind.

'What else can we do?' I asked.

'Could we draw?'

I went to go find some coloured pencils and paper. Together, we drew. Dinosaurs, bunny rabbits, houses with picket fences (which seem only to exist in the drawings of children...), and more. We lay in the half-light of my lamp on my bed showing each other our pictures, laughing at how we silly the other's were, and wondering how to draw horses properly.

Eventually, my child drifted off to sleep; feeling loved, no longer scared of the dark. I carried him to his room and kissed his forehead.

I returned to mine and opened my book back up. The book was the same, but the meanings had changed. It was no longer about academic philosophy. It was about life - the love of wisdom, which is what philosophy should mean.

My child and I needed to spend time together; even if it was just doing silly things. I thought to myself as I drifted off to sleep that I'm going to have some catching up to do. I'm going to need to get better at closing my books and playing with him. This wouldn't be the last time he wondered into my room scared, but, I decided that night, it would be the last time I try to push him away.

Greenbelt 2009 Highlights!

2009-09-01T13:12:00.002Z

Alex Horne - The idea of comedy at a Christian festival makes me want to curl up in fetal position and rocking back and forth, weep. I was really, really pleasantly surprised by Alex Horne. Genuinely funny, intelligent, and not as 'nice' as I was worried Christian comedy might be, I loved his show. It could be said that he was stealing Dave Gorman's comedic formula, but he does it very well.

Ikon - Ikon was what you would expect Ikon to be; dark, deconstructionist, cynical, and (dare I say?) slightly pretentious. However, the repeated use of a quote from an orthodox mystic, passionately and movingly spoken stuck with me, and continues to do so. I can't find the quote anywhere online, but as soon as I do, you'll find it on this blog.

Gary Crosby's Nu Troop - The most chilled hour of Greenbelt; a perfect rendition of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. Lying on the grass, surrounded by people I love, eyes drooping from fatigue, it gets no better than this.

Planet Narnia - An amazing, amazing exploration of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books and their relation to the medieval imagery of 'the seven heavens'. A discovery that has the potential that takes seven of the best children's books of all times and makes them even better. I'm looking forward to reading the book.

Friends; Old and New - Probably the most important part of the festival. The group I went with this year was too big. But the time I got to spend with some of the people closest to me, and meeting some new faces, was the highlight of the weekend, and it is the time spent with these people that I will remember until Greenbelt next year.

And some low-points...

Four Monks and a Nun - Everything I was worried about with Alex Horne. Only worse.

Cafe Philosophique - Lots of people who know slightly more than most of their friends about one area of philosophy, trying to show off how much they know. A competition to get one's voice heard.

Illness - A few of my friends felt ill over the weekend. I like them. So I don't like when they're not well.

Revolutionary Love

2009-08-28T10:45:00.002Z

Today, I found myself internally complaining about a person who gets on my nerves. Who this person is is not important, but what is important is that I find them tiring, and find no real motivation within myself to make any time for them.

I caught myself doing this, and noticed how negative my attitude was. I tried to justify it to myself by thinking something along the lines of, 'I still love them; I'm still a good person. Even Jesus got annoyed by people, right? If this person came to me for help, I would try to help them.'

But actually, no. No, that's not enough. Love is not a matter of, 'I would help them if they needed it', 'I'll be nice to them when I'm around them', 'I don't wish them any ill'. Anyone can do that. The Pharisees of Jesus' time would have loved to help a prostitute, thief or tax collector that turned to them for advice. Yes, you are a sinner (or yes, I find you annoying), but if you make an effort to change into what I want you to be, I'll welcome you.

What made the love shown by Christ revolutionary, and the reason that it so pissed off the religious folk in the stories, it that it doesn't ask the 'lovee' to conform, or to shape up, or to act as I want you to act. As far as we know, Mary Magdalene was a prostitute until the end of her days, but she was still counted as one Jesus' closest friends.

The Pharisees weren't 'bad people'. They were good people! They were respectable people; people who wouldn't turn away those wanting to change. But Jesus was ground-breakingly good. His love was on a different level. And his call, which has as its source a carpenter 2000 years ago, and echoes through time on either side of him, is to join him; to love without limits, restrictions, or reason.

The person I was thinking about gets on my nerves. They have for a long time. Chances are, they won't stop getting on my nerves. But my call isn't to be nice to them. My call is to love them, exactly as they are. My call is to go out of my way to treat this person like royalty; to show reverence to the image of God within them (which does not mean the nice bit, that suits my temperament, but the stain of God, which soaks their whole being).

Love does not mean feeling warm feelings (though I thank God for when I do feel those feelings, which remind us that it is worthwhile!), but serving, washing feet, giving other priority over ourselves, even (especially?) when we have no inclination to do so whatsoever.

And so here lies my challenge. I can settle for a 'good' life; being nice to people when I feel up to it, that's not a crime. Or I can choose to live a revolutionary life; choosing every second of every day to take up my cross, and changing the world through the weak force, the self-denying force, of love.

Give me strength, Lord, to choose the latter.

To Keep Looking

2009-08-24T08:35:00.002Z

Who can say, 'For one moment, I had it. I touched it. That perfect moment that I own'? I can't. But I've seen it a few times, in unexpected places. And I know what it's like. And it's enough to make it worth it. To keep looking.

- From the trailer to How I Got Lost

Just As I Am

2009-08-19T08:52:00.002Z

Sometimes, I haven't the strength to live as I would like to, as a Christian. Sometimes my head is too full of anxiety to focus on God. Sometimes laziness or apathy holds me back from living the active life. Sometimes doubt prevents me from seeing the worth of my religion.

In this times, I've found Charlotte Elliott's 19th century hymn, Just As I Am, says the words that my heart wants to say, but my head can't or won't. It is my favourite hymn.

Just as I am, without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidst me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, and waiting not
to rid my soul of one dark blot,
to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, though tossed about
with many a conflict, many a doubt,
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
sight, riches, healing of the mind,
yea, all I need in thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, thou wilt receive,
wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
because thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, thy love unknown
hath broken every barrier down;
now, to be thine, yea thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

I Love Sin

2009-08-17T17:34:00.002Z

"Lord, save me, whether I like it or not; dust and ashes that I am, I love sin."

- Apophthegmata Patum

Fallen Brother

2009-08-13T14:21:00.003Z

Isaac of Thebes on one occasion, when he was visiting a monastic community, saw a brother sin and condemned him in his heart; when he returned to his hermit's cell, he found his doorway barred by an angel, who said, 'God has sent me to ask you where he is to put the fallen brother whom you condemned.'

At the Bottom of Everything

2009-08-13T12:26:00.000Z

I love this song/video.

Toy Story

2009-08-11T10:12:00.003Z

Yesterday, I watched Toy Story in French. Two things came to mind:

1) Randy Newman songs dubbed into French are more ridiculous than the originals.
2) If Buzz doesn't believe he's a toy, when does he stop moving when humans come in?

Choosing Love

2009-08-10T21:46:00.005Z

The voice of contemporary culture is the voice of subjectivism. It is the voice of the individual. Culture tells us to do what feels right to us, as long as we don't hurt anyone else. The trouble is, it is impossible to always do what feels right to us without hurting anyone else. So we have put rules in place that make it okay to hurt others; you need to look after yourself first, you mustn't burn yourself out, if you're unhappy you're not helping anyone else...

So our society is increasingly moving away from 'community', and becoming a group of isolated islands. With the social networking revolution, we don't even need to see people in real life, so we're really free to do what we want. If I bump into someone I quite like along the way, that's lovely, but I won't let them ruin my happiness.

There are times when this is overwhelmingly frightening to me. Is this really all there is? Maybe the nihilists are right. Do we really just appear by some freak chance to spend some eighty years trying to get as much pleasure as we can, to ultimately die again?

Then, quietly, underneath the voice of despair, speaks the voice of love; the voice of Christ. The voice of love calls us to be wounded by others. The voice of love calls us to put the well-being of others above that of our own. The voice of love calls us not to do what feels good, but to pick up our cross, and put one foot in front of the other, not in a defeatist resignation, but because love is our motivation. Because, damn it, painful as it is, and as weak as we feel, there must be something more, something worth living and dying for, other than simple pleasure.

Every day, when we wake up, the cross of love is at the foot of our bed. Every day, we are faced with a choice. Will I choose the simplest, most pleasing path, or will I choose the difficult path, the narrow way, of love?

I pray, fervently, from the depths of my being, that God will give me the strength to pick up those beams and choose love every single day.

Loving God

2009-08-07T21:12:00.002Z

I have lost sight of something recently.

I have lost sight of the fact that my primary calling, in living the Christian life I have chosen for myself, is to love God.

Storm Clouds

2009-08-05T10:54:00.003Z

A man woke up one day to see the sky covered by dark, menacing storm clouds.

'Oh no,' thought the man. 'Not today. Not a storm. Please, God, not a storm.'

The storm clouds didn't move. Indeed, they became darker and darker, until one might have mistaken noon for midnight. Thunder began to rumble.

'Oh God! Spare me from this storm! Surely this will be the one to finish me! Surely lightning will strike, destroying my home, my family and my livestock! Oh God, make it pass!'

Thunder was soon joined by her sister, lightning. Together they danced; lighting up the sky and filling it with their tenebrous music.

'Why God? Why do you allow this to happen to me? Why do you allow me to be at such risk? Won't you let me live, God? All I ask is to be protected from this nightmare!'

With that, the man took cover inside, hiding under a table, weeping at his misfortune and his unjust god.

Meanwhile, outside, the storm quietened. The clouds thinned. Blue sky began to appear in the gaps, eventually dominating the sky.

Just like all the other storms before it, the storm passed. And just like all the other storms before it, it will return.

What a pity our protagonist couldn't learn to enjoy them.

Adventures!

2009-08-05T07:39:00.004Z

On the Southern spur, in its lower slopes and in the rocks at its feet, the Elves were set; on the Eastern spur were men and dwarves. But Bard and some of the nimblest men and elves climbed to the height of the Eastern shoulder to gain a view of the North. Soon they could see the lands before the Mountain's black feet black with a hurrying multitude. Ere long the vanguard swirled round the spur's end and came rushing into Dale. These were the swiftest wolf-riders, and already their cries and howls rent the air afar. A few brave men were strung before them to make a feint of resistance, and many there fell before the rest drew back and fled to either side. As Gandalf had hoped, the goblin army had gathered behind the resisted vanguard, and poured now in rage into the valley, driving wildly up between the arms of the Mountain, seeking for the foe. Their banners were countless, black and red, and they came on like a tide in fury and disorder.

It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo's experiences, and the one which at the time he hated most - which is to say it was the one he was most proud of, and most fond of recalling long afterwards, although he was quite unimportant in it.

- The Hobbit

It's funny how the adventures that we look back on fondly are the ones that we hate most at the time. The times in which we despair, we are scared, we feel we can't go on, are the times in which we find within us strength we did not know we had. Strength, not necessarily, to win the battle, to make it through, to find the light at the end of the tunnel, but strength to face despair and not be vanquished by it.

The more gravely I am weighed down by the present and the more I am pressed in upon by the present, the sharper and livelier the hope. Hope flourishes most when the situation is hopeless:

'The irreparable is its natural atmosphere. Hope is hope only when it is not permitted. Now what is irreparable in the instant of hope, is that this instant itself is a present.'

What is more "irreparable" than the bond of the present to itself in suffering, when the subject is riveted to itself in pain and loss? Even if the future, the subsequent course of moments, brings relief, consolation, or even "compensation," still the "suffering of the present remains like a cry whose echo will resound forever in the eternity of spaces".

The moment of suffering cannot be entered into a system of exchange; or, when it is - you can always sue the person or an institution that causes you pain and injury - that occurs only in what Levinas is calling the time of the "world," the "time of economy", the time of the lawyers. That transaction is marked by the breezy lightness of an "I" that presides over our conscious acts and barters with them. The ego is on hand at a later moment to collect its "compensation" for the misery of an earlier moment that has, by then, acquired a certain cash value, deciding what it will take "for its trouble" In that way suffering is indemnified instead of "releasing the torsion of the instant upon itself," letting the intensity of pain be what it is, insisting on standing in the pain of the instans , in order to pass over into a new time. The "profound exigencies" of the pain are nullified because they are bought off by economics. When pain is taken in its irreparability, the ego is contracted to the instant, arrested, mired in the misery, the malheure, of the moment, and only then experiences the hopelessness, the no way out, which is really the only way out, if the Messiah arrives in time.

- The Weakness of God (John D. Caputo)

Baraka

2009-08-02T20:51:00.003Z

I've just watched a film called Baraka with my uncle, which stirred a whole bunch of different emotions in me. The film is essentially silent. Over the course of an hour and a half or so, it simply films the world, without comment. It films nature. It films man at his finest. It also films man at his lowest. The viewer sees a range of things; extreme poverty, capitalist consumerism, stunning scenery, tribal dancing, etc etc.

I'm trying to capture how I felt, while watching it, and am struggling to put it into words. I guess perhaps what I felt most was a sense of missing out.

My life is quite me-centred. I suppose everyone would say that, but what I mean is that I have built a relatively comfortable little empire for myself, which I don't particularly like leaving. I like the way things are in my house. Work is somewhere feel I don't often particularly challenged. I try to buy ethically so as to keep feelings of guilt at bay. When the world is too noisy or uncomfortable, it's quite easy for me to get in the car, drive home, put on a DVD, and draw the curtains. As soon as there is any distance between me and my safety/comfort zone, I get anxious and start working out how I can most easily get back should I need/want to.

But I guess that question that Baraka poses is, 'Is this living?'. Am I living life? Or am I protecting myself from life? Am I living, or just trying to make it through the day?

The scary truth is that I think its the latter. I've become so comfortable in my castle that I have escaped the need to live. I've never had to hunt or gather to eat. I've never had to worry about where my next meal will come from. I don't ever really have to travel any great distance to discover anything, and when when I do need to go somewhere, I can do it from the comfort of my car, with my music playing. I've never had to pray that God save my life, because my life has never been really threatened.

So I have the luxury of philosophising, of blogging, of questioning things. The 'adventures' of my life mostly take place in the abstract. I become anxious about nothing, literally nothing, because I have nothing real to be anxious about. My self-preservation instinct has been kicked into overdrive through lack of use.

I do not live an evil life, at least not particularly. I try, on the most part, to be nice to people. I try to live ethically. I tut and shake my head when I see people dying of starvation on television. And, in all honesty, I try. I try to live in such a way that would make the image of God that I hold proud of me. I genuinely want to make the world a better place. I am the Pharisee in the temple, who was not evil, not a corporate fat cat or religious bigot, but a law-abiding, upright citizen whose mistake was to confuse living correctly with living. Meanwhile, the widow next to me continues to put everything she has into life, praying and weeping, and going home to nothing.

And so here I am. I have been presented with the situation that I have been in for all of my life. I can continue to live life correctly, safely and essentially without reproach (apart, of course, from one or two vices - but who doesn't have some of those, right?), or I can trade in my comfort for life. A life that does not seek safety, or comfort, but seeks jouissance; not just enjoyment, but savouring, drinking the cup and tasting it, along with the all the pleasure, pain, laughter, tears, fears, fun and excitement that it offers.

The question I am left with is how to turn an abstract philosophy (c.f. paragraph 6!) into a reality. What steps can I take to make this happen? How do I step out of my anxiety? I'm not sure I want to sell all of my possessions, leave my house and quit my job in order to live life as a wandering vagabond. I'm not sure I'm quite Christlike enough for that. Maybe its more of a matter of baby steps. Maybe its more of a matter of volunteering with local charities, spending time with people who I find it hard to spend time, driving less and cycling more, starting a garden, having my own chickens, moving into the smaller room...

Just how all-or-nothing does it need to be?

Remember

2009-08-01T16:02:00.002Z

We remember the six Christians; four women, one man, and one child who were burned to death in protests in Pakistan for having the audacity to stand up for themselves in the face of persecution.

We remember them, not because they were Christians, not because they were heroes, but because they were human beings, whose lives were cut short. We remember them because they were not saved from suffering. We remember them, because when they cried, no one came. We remember them, because calling to mind the past, we can redeem the future.

God, we commit into your hands the souls of these people, and all those who died before them, in the name of justice. Rest eternal grant unto them, Oh Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon. May they rest in peace, and rise in glory.

Amen.

Strawberry Swing

2009-08-01T07:59:00.000Z

This could be my new favourite music video ever:

Waiting

2009-07-27T13:46:00.003Z

What is this coming up from the desert
like a column of smoke,
breathing of myrrh and frankincense
and every exotic perfume?

I remember reading this passage from the Song of Songs several years ago, and being surprised at how it moved me. After all, it says very little. If you carry on reading, you will read that it is Solomon's army of warriors, skilled in the craft of war, that are approaching.

But I prefer the verse in isolation. I preferred it when I didn't know what it was that was approaching.

It seems to me that this vague awareness of something good that is almost, but not quite, here, is the story of what it is to have faith.

The world is a scary place, of this I'm increasingly sure, and it is hard at times not to feel overwhelmed by its changeability and uncertainty. Who knows what tomorrow holds? If I leave the house, will I get hit by a car? If I turn left, will I find myself surrounded by demons? If I turn right, will I work my way into an inescapably dark forest? Every step that we take could be a mistake.

So, we stumble through the world, like the beloved in Song of Songs, crying out for a lover who we could have sworn we saw just 5 minutes ago, but now seems to have disappeared. Did we really see him at all? Has anyone seen him?

Our reassurance comes not in the form of a sword-wielding Messiah; crushing under his feet the power of Rome, but in the form of a distant promise. A promise that there is something good; something unspeakably good, that searches for us as we search for him.

This mysterious goodness holds a promise; a promise that life is, first and foremost, good. A promise that there is more than meets the eye. A promise that he is coming. But we don't know what his arrival is going to look like. We have a promise to go by, not (yet?) a fulfilment.

And so we wait. We look foolish, weak, lovesick as we wait, going against reason, for something we know not what.

If Song of Songs had been written in 21st-Century Britain, the beloved's friends might have offered the advice to 'forget about him. There are plenty more fish in the sea. Find yourself another lover, one closer to home.'

No. No, I won't forget about him. I will wait for him. I will put credence into his silent promise. I will have faith. I will wait.

Real Theology

2009-07-24T16:09:00.003Z

The first creation narrative was written for a people in exile: it said yes to life when everything about life said no; it said good when everything about life seemed wrong. This is why the irreducible truth of religion, which rises up from an affirmation of the world, from celebration and bottomless joy, arises no less from the abyss of suffering, from the tears of the exiled and persecuted, from the lament of the lame and the leper, from the cry of the victim, and also - this is part of today's religion - from the abyss of a suffering earth that cries out against its exploitation. De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine. From these depths, where I am, from these depths, which I am, I cry out to you, in the depths. That is the groan of every living thing, of all creatures great and small, from the Levinasian widow, orphan, and stranger to the Leviathans sporting in the sea with whom Yahweh can no longer play because, mad as Ahab, we have slaughtered nearly all of them, as Catherine Keller has argued.

- John D. Caputo in the Weakness of God

Thich Naht Hanh is cool.

2009-07-22T20:35:00.000Z

The Wealthy Man

2009-07-21T09:21:00.003Z

The wealthy man spent years building his mansion. He had enough money to have the very best designers, architects and contractors to build exactly to his own specification. Even once it was built, he continued relentlessly to improve on it; adding new rooms, replacing the furniture, and buying new eccentricities.

He had, indeed, the most beautiful mansion he could possibly want (though the desire to keep it beautiful meant that he was never completely satisfied with it). At first, he would invite all of his friends around, 'Come and see my house!'. Their jealousy would quietly please him.

Eventually, he grew tired of his friends. He had spent so long making his house perfect, and whenever they came they would make a mess of it. He started inviting less and less of them. In the early days, his house was full of people. Then, house parties became small social gatherings. Social gatherings became a quiet evening with a couple of friends. Quiet evenings with a couple of friends became quiet evenings by himself.

The man's house was so perfect that he rarely had the need to leave it. He began to even hire workers to do his shopping for him, so that we wouldn't need to be bothered by the noise and the hustle-bussle of the market-place, which served only to disturb his peace.

The wealthy man still had fantasies about travelling the world, doing great things, climbing mountains, meeting beautiful exotic women, and so on, but they only ever remained fantasies; so reluctant was he to leave his beautiful house.

One day, he ventured out of the mansion. 'I've been in here for too long', he thought to himself, 'I should go for a walk'. As he walked, he found himself stricken with anxiety. Every new person that smiled at him as he walked past was a threat. Every loud noise doubled his heart-rate. 'Why am I so scared?', he wondered to himself.

As he walked, he bumped into some of his old friends. They were laughing about a joke that he had missed. Anxiety gave way to frustration. In his mind, his friends were laughing at him. 'Who needs them? I'm better off than all of them put together, I'll live without them.'

As he began to walk home, the wealthy man realised who he had become. He had become isolated. His security and comfort had served only to cripple him. The real world had become a dark and terrifying place for him. He fell to his knees and he began to weep.

He wept and wept and wept as he saw before him the life that he had created for himself. The words rang in his ears; 'It is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter in the Kingdom of God'.

A defeated man, he finally arrived home. The home which had previously held everything that he cared about now seemed hollow to him. A distraction.

He didn't sleep that night. He made a conscious decision. To live, to truly live, he must throw away his security. He was to undertake the most terrifying and necessary journey of his life; the journey of letting go of control and security in order to find Reality.

The next morning, a for sale sign appeared at the front of the mansion.

The Way of the Cross

2009-07-19T08:17:00.004Z

The story goes that St Francis passed a leper one day, while on horseback. He found himself so repulsed by the disfigured human being that it took all his strength to throw him a small bag of coins and move on. As he rode away, he was so disgusted with himself that he turned around, returned the leper, picked him up with both hands, and embraced him. It was in this leper, and later in a whole colony of lepers, that St Francis found God.

What are the things that I fear the most? What are the things that repulse me, that I want to run away from? Where are the places I am too scared to go? Who are the people I am too repelled by to embrace? These are the places where Christ lives.

The San Damiano cross is a powerful image, also steeped with Franciscan history. Christ appears to be standing, of his own power, with his arms outstretched. The posture, rather than the traditional horror of crucifixion is one of welcome, of embrace.

But Christ is surrounded by the cross; a lethal instrument of torture; the darkest of darks. The embrace of Christ is to be found in the abhorrent cross.

I must journey into the cross to find Jesus' open arms. I must walk into our dark places and see him waiting for me, arms open. Perhaps the darkness is too intense to see him at first. In which case, I must walk towards it in faith; my blind eyes given sight by love, not reason.

Lost my Paperclips

2009-07-17T11:46:00.001Z

The Truth Shop

2009-07-15T15:47:00.001Z

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the name of the shop: The Truth Shop.

The saleswoman was very polite: What type of truth did I wish to purchase, partial or whole? The whole truth of course. No deceptions for me, no defences, no rationalisations. I wanted my truth plain and unadulterated.

She waved me on to another side of the store. The salesman there pointed to the price tag. “The price is very high, Sir,” he said.

“What is it?,” I asked, determined to get the whole truth, no matter what it cost.

“Your security, Sir,” he answered.

I came away with a heavy heart. I still need the safety of my unquestioned beliefs.

- Anthony de Mello in The Song of the Bird

The Mudslide

2009-07-14T15:14:00.002Z

There seems to be an idea amongst people today that if you are suffering, there's something wrong with you. I'm sure this idea has existed since the beginning of time, but I've particularly noticed it recently, and particularly amongst my Christian friends.

The idea says something like, 'If I have low self-esteem, it's because I don't have enough faith. If I feel depressed, I need to pray more. If I put loads of encouraging Bible verses all around my house, they'll make me feel better'. It's not quite the classic televangelist, 'If you're dying of cancer, it's because you don't trust God enough', but it feels to me like a watered down version of it.

I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that suffering is a sin, or that it requires action on our part to heal. Certainly not from the Bible:

'Rejoice in your suffering!', says St Paul. Christ is ultimately fulfilled through torture and death. 'You will be persecuted', he tells us. The most hard-hitting example is perhaps that of Job, whose family, livelihood, everything are all destroyed and who cries out to God, 'Tell me why this is happening to me!' God's answer: No (abridged). The Bible never tells us that being Christians will keep us safe from suffering.

I was struck, watching the Nature film Earth recently, by two whales, mother and child (not literally struck by them, that would've hurt). The two spent the best part of a year travelling through arduous water and dodging predators to spend three months in calm water, before doing the whole journey again! Three quarters of the whales' lives is about surviving the risk of death, so as to enjoy the last quarter. And we complain because we feel sad?!

This idea that God gives us an escape route from suffering seems to me so contrary to not only the Biblical message, but the reality of the world around us, that is strikes me as almost heretical. No, God doesn't give us a ladder to transcend suffering. God is not to be found in the 'above', in the ethereal, in the heavenly realms.

Rather, it seems to me that God actively chooses the scariest, the shittiest, the dirtiest, the meanest places and gently calls us from the abyss, 'Come and find me'. This is reflected in the lives of the saints:

St John of the Cross found God in a prison cell.

St Ignatius of Loyola found God in a hospital bed.

St Francis of Assisi found God in a leper.

St Paul of Tarsus found God in blindness.

This theme appears again and again and again. People sink to their very lowest and there they find God. But we like to comfortable. Suffering isn't pleasant. I'd rather live my life comfortably not knowing God than knowing God in discomfort. So we engage in this frantic (and futile) struggle against the mudslide. We pray harder, we read our Bibles more, we run away, we fight, all the while trying to work out what it is that we could possibly be doing wrong.

Maybe the call of Christ is to stop our scrambling, and to let ourselves slide, trusting that God will catch us. It is said that one day in his drug-fuelled despair Johnny Cash decided to end his life. He went to a nearby series of caves, with the inention of climbing down into them, going deeper and deeper until he could go no deeper, and die. The story goes that it was at the bottom of a cave that he suddenly felt aware of God's inescapable presence.

But God, I don't want to plumb the depths of my caves. I would rather be comfortable. And also, there's also that most terrifying of questions; 'What if I'm wrong?' I'd rather go my life not knowing than knowing that God isn't there to catch me. I guess that's why we need faith. And so I pray, a prayer that starts me on a life-long journey:

God, rid me of my fear of suffering.

Action/Passion

2009-07-14T09:12:00.003Z

Those of who read my blog regularly will probably be getting bored of South Park inspired posts by now. If this is the case, please read no further.

In the episode Bloody Mary, Stan's dad is told by an alcoholics anonymous group that he is an alcoholic, needs to accept that he is powerless to change it (genuinely the first step in the AA programme), and needs to commit his life to a higher power; God (genuinely the second step in the AA programme). He accepts what they tell him (even though he is not an alcoholic), and his acceptance of powerlessness leads him to drink even more than before because, 'It's not my fault, only God can cure me."

The episode made for uncomfortable watching for me, as it was seen to make fun of not only those who are so dependant on signs from above that they won't act unless they have one, but also of the AA programme.

I don't know much about alcoholics anonymous, but I've always thought of it as a positive programme. In an AA meeting, one comes prepared to share their suffering, their weaknesses, and their frailty. This seems a lot healthier to me than most modern Western churches, where one dresses nicely, smiles politely and keeps the dirty stuff well hidden.

I suppose it is the question of powerlessness to change that troubles me. Anthony de Mello tells a story about a man who heard that God gave good things to those who believe in him. So night after night, he prayed that he would win the lottery. He prayed for weeks, months and years, and never saw a penny. Finally, he cried out to God, 'Give me a break! I want to win the lottery!' God replies, 'No, you give me a break! Buy a ticket!'

The moral of the story, as I hear it, is: don't ask God to do what you can do yourself. Prayer, dependency on a higher power, can be (note: can be, not must be) an excuse for laziness. 'God, please help the homeless', 'Lord, make me happy!', 'Help me to be a nicer person', etc. No! You do it!

It's by doing things that we grow, that we learn. St John of the Cross uses the illustration a mother weaning her child. God doesn't want an army of people dependant on him to live; that's not love, it's dependency; the opposite of love!

It's a question I don't have an answer to. I have a thesis, and an antithesis, but no synthesis. On one hand, I don't like the idea of a dependency on God to 'make us better'. On the other, God is in all things, and my regular practice of meditation, asking for grace, praying for patience, are all things which are important to me; I wouldn't want to take God out of the equation.

I suppose, in two very broad brush strokes, we have two world-views; the conservative 'God does it all for us' view and the liberal 'We do it all for God' view, neither of which sit comfortably with me.

Is there any way of reconciling these two ideas? I'm open to suggestions.

Attention-Seeking Revolution

2009-07-13T08:05:00.004Z

Online social networking pages like Facebook and Twitter have created a revolution. They have revolutionised the way that we communicate, the way that we organise our social lives, and, most exciting of all, they have revolutionised attention-seeking and narcissism.

I am a social networking kind of guy. I'm on Facebook a lot. I use Twitter when I'm out and about. I grew bored of MySpace, but for a long time I was one of those people who changed his MySpace profile every week to look 'cooler'. It's not cool, but there you go.

However, I don't know if this is something that's on the increase, or something I've just started noticing, it seems that more and more people are using status updates as a way of sharing their neediness with the world; the result being that depression and anxiety can now not only affect you, but also your friends and family. Isn't post-modernity super?

I sign on to Facebook every day, and normally have at least one friend ('friend' here meaning online friend, not necessarily someone who I actually devote time and energy to) with some sort of needy, attention-seeking update. You can guess the sort I mean, 'Blank is ugly and fat', 'Blank wishes life was easier', 'Blank is tired and fed up', or, worst of all; 'Blank: :-('.

The worst thing is, so often its not a cry for help, its a cry for attention.

So, for example, someone will write: "Blank has had enough of it all." Inevitably, caring (gullible?) contacts will respond; "What's up?", "What have you had enough of honey?", "Are you ok?", and the original attention-seeker will respond with silence! It seems to me that if you're going to worry your friends with cryptic depressive status updates, common courtesy would be at least to tell them specifically what it is that's upsetting you, otherwise why bother bringing all of us down with you?

Karma teaches us that every action has a reaction. Nothing we do is isolated, we are part of a chain reaction. You publish your neediness for all to see. Your friends worry about you. Your friends wonder why you're not replying to them. Your friends don't focus at work, because they're thinking about you. Business suffers. And so on.

Grace teaches us that we can break free from this cycle of action/reaction. We can say, 'No!'. No, I'm not going to let your bad mood ruin my day. No, I'm not going let my bad mood ruin the days of others. We can choose to spread negativity (either through obvious bitching and complaining, or through more subtle self-pity and neediness), or we can choose to be the engines of positivity; of love!

There is a difference between self-expression and attention-seeking. Sometimes we do feel ill, depressed, anxious, forlorn, whatever. And sometimes we need the help of friends to get through those times. But think before you publish your status, are you looking to rise up out of your bad mood, or are you looking to bring others down to it with you? If its the latter, may I politely suggest that rather than dragging the world down to where you are, you get up of your computer and do something about your problems. We'd rather not hear about them.

Impermanence

2009-07-11T10:47:00.004Z

One of the most important lessons I've learned from the Buddhist tradition is the lesson of impermanence. It's a basic scientific truth that holds within it an important spiritual key.

Impermanence says, quite simply, that nothing is forever. Everything is in a state of flux. I read somewhere (I'm not sure how reliable the source was, as I can't remember it) that in eight years time, every cell in my body will have been replaced by new ones. Everything moves, nothing is static. Matter is bent and twisted and reformed, energy is converted into different types of energy, and we as living beings are all a part of this wider, permanently evolving reality.

This is an idea widely accepted in science, but what is its significance to my spirituality? There is a Jewish folktale about Solomon, which says what I am trying to say, but better than I can say it:

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah Ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it."

"If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?"

"It has magic powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility.

Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet.

"Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah. He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile. That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity.

"Well, my friend," said Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled. To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared,

"Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words "Gam zeh ya'avor" -- "This too shall pass." At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.

The mistake that we make is to think that our sadness, happiness, depression, guilt, fear, whatever, is forever. If we fail to acknowledge impermanence, unpleasant feelings become crippling; we think that we will be sad for the rest of our lives. Pleasant feelings become warped, as the belief that all our problems are solved blinds us to reality (how many religious or political fanatics can you think of who stubbornly refuse to accept that there is any problem unsolved by their ideals?).

In his interview in Bowling for Columbine, Matt Stone said that the mistake high school kids make is to think that they will be the person they are for the rest of their lives; if you're a geek in school, you'll be a geek forever, if you're a popular kid in school, you'll be popular forever, etc. Levels of depression, anxiety, suicide, and even murder (as in Columbine) go up because young people feel trapped by the present; falsely believing that the moment is forever.

And so, what I am learning, with varying degrees of success, is to see the present for what it is; fleeting. When I am anxious, it is not because I will be an anxious person for all of my life. When I feel depressed, it will pass! When I feel happy, excited or content, I accept that these too will pass and try to enjoy them without suffocating them by trying to make them last forever.

Vietnamese monk Thich Naht Hanh wrote this about impermanence:

Nothing remains the same for two consecutive moments. Heraclitus said we can never bathe twice in the same river. Confucius, while looking at a stream, said, "It is always flowing, day and night." The Buddha implored us not just to talk about impermanence, but to use it as an instrument to help us penetrate deeply into reality and obtain liberating insight. We may be tempted to say that because things are impermanent, there is suffering. But the Buddha encouraged us to look again. Without impermanence, life is not possible. How can we transform our suffering if things are not impermanent? How can our daughter grow up into a beautiful young lady? How can the situation in the world improve? We need impermanence for social justice and for hope.

If you suffer, it is not because things are impermanent. It is because you believe things are permanent. When a flower dies, you don't suffer much, because you understand that flowers are impermanent. But you cannot accept the impermanence of your beloved one, and you suffer deeply when she passes away.

If you look deeply into impermanence, you will do your best to make her happy right now. Aware of impermanence, you become positive, loving and wise. Impermanence is good news. Without impermanence, nothing would be possible. With impermanence, every door is open for change. Impermanence is an instrument for our liberation.

One might add the proviso that nothing is permanent, except God. This reduces nothing from what the Buddhists tell us, because God does not exist ontologically; God is not a part of reality, because God created reality. What we get by adding God into the formula is that nothing is permanent, but everything is full of life, and every fleeting moment is an opportunity to meet Him.

On Loving Life

2009-07-09T09:50:00.003Z

A group of goth kids approach Butters, who is crying in the rain.

Goth Kid 1: "Hey Raven, check it out."
Stan: "Butters?"
Butters: "Oh, hey Stan."
Stan: "What's the matter with you?"
Butters: "Well, my girlfriend broke up with me."
Goth Kid 2: "Did she step on your heart, with stiletto shoes?"
Butters: "Yeah. It sure does hurt."
Goth Kid 1: "That's cool. I guess you could join up with us if you want."
Goth Kid 3: "Yeah, we're going to go to the graveyard and write poems about death and how pointless life is."
Butters: (sniffing) "No thanks, I love life."
Stan: "Huh? But you just got dumped..."
Butters: "Well, yeah, and I'm sad. But at the same time I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before! So I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I'm feeling is like a... beautiful sadness. I guess that sounds stupid."
Goth Kid 1: "Yeah."
Stan: "No. No Butters, that doesn't sound stupid at all."
Butters: "Thanks for offering to let me in your clique guys, but to be honest, I'd rather be a crying little pussy than a faggy goth kid. Well see ya Stan."
Stan: "He's right. I don't even know who I am anymore. I liked liking life a lot more than hating it. Screw you guys. I'm going home."

Gods

2009-06-26T07:13:00.004Z

In what many people today call primitive societies, people used to tell stories about gods. These stories have survived, not because of the ontological truth behind them, but because of their humanity. The gods were vulnerable, emotional, and essentially human, despite their supernatural powers.

Thor fought with his trickster half-brother Loki. Aphrodite was a vain and bad-tempered adulteress. Osiris is killed by his jealous brother Set. These were not an impersonal Ground-of-all-Being. Nor were they the Judeo-Christian God of monotheism; eternally good and unchanging. They are petty, squabbling, at times heroic, at times cowardly, essentially human gods.

Their myths are so important because they gave meaning to the mundane. Squabbling with siblings, fidelity in marriage, jealousy; these and others are the themes of day-to-day life. Who cares about the after-life, what am I going to do about my crops this year?

Today, we don't have gods, per se. Today, we have celebrities. Michael Jackson, Jade Goody, Pete Doherty, Brad and Angelina, Katie and Peter; these are our gods. These are the stories that glorify the mundane, that celebrate the day-to-day. As far as most are concerned, the stories might as well be fiction; no one knows these celebrities, we only know their stories. We cheer for Pete Doherty when he gets out of rehab, but boo him when doesn't show up to a gig. We love Madonna's music, but fuss when she wants to adopt another African child. We are a fickle audience to a pantheon of fickle gods.

Last night, Michael Jackson died. I was one of the many going back and forth between Facebook, Twitter, BBC News, Sky News and Reuters for updates. I wanted to know. I wanted him to be okay.

Why? I don't know him. I've never met him. But his story, and his music, have moved me. Realistically, it makes no difference to my life whether he lives or dies. But now that he is dead, it feels like a void. A story that we have been drawn into has ended abruptly, just as it did with Jade Goody a few months ago.

The difference between our gods and those of Asgard, Mt Olympus and the Egyptian underworld is that ours are real people. They have no power over lightning, love or death, but they have been thrust (willingly or otherwise) into our imaginations, wrapped up into our lives. Michael Jackson, a fragile human being like the rest of us, became the King of Pop! Stories of his excess, his chimpanzee, his court-cases, have entertained and beguiled us. We need stories; we need gods. But can a mere human cope with being elevated to the status of a god?

Perhaps the cults of the primitive gods were safer than today's cult of celebrity; not because the stories were more moral, or believable, or 'true', but because the characters of fiction can cope with slander, gossip and celebrity.

I mourn for Michael Jackson. Why? Because he was a god. I pray that God forgives us for thrusting the finite into the position of the infinite.

And I wonder, how different would Lucifer's story have been had he been elevated by his peers rather than (or as well as) by his ego? Being cheered on by his fellow angels, 'You are the king! We love you!', could his eventual fall from heaven, from grace, have simply been the result of one finite being trying to be something to everyone? If so, is it any wonder than Lindsay Lohan, Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse are perpetually in and out of rehab? Is it any wonder that celebrity marriages don't last? Is it any wonder that those who were our heroes become villains, like the most beautiful angel in all of heaven becoming the prince of darkness?

He can Simply Die for a Song

2009-06-19T09:52:00.002Z

I posted this quote from The Last Temptation of Christ years and years ago, but it's just come back to mind...

And you, liar, teller of tall tales: you trample all the Lord's commandments underfoot, you murder, steal, commit adultery, and afterward break into tears, beat your breast, take down your guitar and turn the sin into song. Shrewd devil, you know very well that God pardons singers no matter what they do, because he can simply die for a song...

I woke up this morning feel low. I'm struggling with some things revolving around close friends; feelings of guilt, anxiety, grief and so on swilling around my mind.

Rather than taking a shower and getting dressed, I picked up my ukulele and sang sad songs.

Having musically vocalised my thoughts, I now feel ready to face the day. I don't know about God pardoning sinners through music, but it certainly makes it a lot easier to pardon oneself.

The Preacher and the Businessman

2009-06-18T15:53:00.003Z

There was once a fiery preacher who possessed a powerful gift. Far from encouraging people's religious beliefs, he found that from an early age, when he prayed for people the result would be the individual's loss of all religious conviction. When he prayed for people he found that they would often walk away having lost all of their religious beliefs, beliefs about the prophets, the sacred Scriptures, and even God. Since this was the case he would, as you might expect, rarely pray for others and instead would limit himself to sermons.

However one day, while travelling across the country, he found himself in conversation with a businessman who happened to be going in a safe direction. The businessman was very wealthy, having made his money in the world of international banking. The conversation had begun because the businessman possessed a deep faith and had noticed the preacher reading from the Bible. Because of this he introduced himself and they began to talk. As they chatted together, the rich man told the preacher all about his faith in God and his love of Christ. It turned out that although he worked hard in his work he was not really interested in worldly goods.

"The world of business is a cold one," he confided to the preacher, "and in my line of work there are situations in which I find myself that challenge my Christian convictions. But when confronted by such situations, I try, as much as possible, to remain true to my faith. Indeed, it is my faith that stops me from getting too caught up in the heartless world of work, reminding me that I am really a man of God."

After listening carefully to the businessman's story, the preachers responded by asking if he could pray for him. The young man readily agreed, not knowing what he was letting himself in for. And sure enough, after the preacher had said his simple prayer, the businessman opened his eyes in astonishment.

"What a fool I have been for all these years," said the businessman. "There is no God above who is looking out for me, there are no sacred texts to guide me, there is no spirit to inspire me."

As they parted company the businessman, still confused by what had taken place, returned home with one less item than he had left with. But now that he no longer had any religious beliefs to make him question his work and hold it lightly, he was no longer able to continue with it. Faced with the fact that he was now just a hard-nosed businessman working in a corrupt system, he began to despise himself. And so, shortly after his meeting with the preacher, he gave up his line of work completely, gave the money he had accumulated to the poor, and started to use his considerable expertise in helping local charity. One day, years later, he happened upon the preacher again while he was walking through town. The man ran up to him, fell at his feet, and began to cry. After a few moments he looked up at the preacher and said, "Thank you for helping me to discover my faith."

( - Pete Rollins, in The Fidelity of Betrayal)

How much of my religion is just a safety blanket? How different would my life be if I let go of the comforting images of Heaven and an all powerful God who fights on my side? How much more deeply would I be leaving if the here-and-now took priority over the to-be-fulfilled?

"God, rid me of God!"

- Meister Eckhart

Jesus vs Satan

2009-06-05T10:42:00.003Z

I have a confession to make. One that perhaps a Christian youth worker should not make, but here it is nevertheless: I love South Park.

South Park is offensive, yes. And it is crude, yes. But it also provides us with a biting social commentary on topics like politics, the culture of fear and religion.

As I write, I'm watching an episode in Season One, in which Jesus meets Satan in a boxing match. The episode portrays Satan as a 450lb behemoth, the ruler of the under-world, and Jesus as a 100lb scrawny weakling with a cable-access show. In the end of the episode - WARNING: SPOILER - Satan takes a dive, being the only person in South Park to have placed a bet on Jesus to win.

Very obviously, Trey and Matt, the show's creators, aren't Christians and have little agenda other than the dismantling of societal norms (read: offending people). But in this episode, they accidently make a very profound theological point; and end up with an almost pseudo-Biblical narrative.

Satan's power is the power of the world. He displays his might with fire, lightning bolts and physical bravado. He is, by Earthly standards, very powerful indeed; not someone to be toyed with. We see this throughout the world; corrupt leaders, natural disasters, genocide, nuclear stockpiling; the power of evil is indeed impressive.

Jesus' power, however, is near enough invisible. Those who see Earthly power as ultimate (c.f. Nietzsche) have no hope in Jesus. He is, at least apparently, weak.

Where I part with Trey and Matt is in Jesus' response to his own weak force. In the episode, he tries to beef up, trains, exercises so as to beat Satan at his own game. In my understanding of the Biblical story, Jesus does not try to fight Satan. Instead, he subverts him with weakness. The strength of God lies in his passion; his vulnerability.

Satan may indeed be a mighty oak, but even the strongest of oaks can be felled by a great wind. Meanwhile, the smallest of daffodils will bend and twist in the wind, but will remain rooted.

Jesus' power is not one in competition with other powers. It is one that subverts every power by acting beneath it; gently calling the powerful from their thrones to a world of reciprocity, forgiveness and vulnerability. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the little children. These things are revealed to the simple-minded. Mustard seeds, lost sheep, buried treasure...

God does not defeat Satan by brandishing a bigger sword. He defeats him with a gentle, but inextinguishable call to love. To the Nietzscheans, Satan has won. But to those who hear and listen to the almost inaudible call, there is no victory to be had; how can someone who has taken his place as the lowest of things be beaten?

Rumi's Prayer

2009-05-30T22:19:00.000Z

O God, make our stony hearts soft as wax;
make our wailing sweet and the object of Your mercy.

- Rumi (from Sunlight)

A Manifesto of Hope

2009-05-23T21:38:00.002Z

There is chance that everything I believe in, everything I hope for, everything I put my faith in, is a lie. But I would rather die for the lie of love than live for the truth of hopelessness. With that in mind, I put together this manifesto:

I will live to help others experience love.

I will speak with words that encourage, praise and build up, rather than criticising, complaining or judging.

I will act to show warmth, acceptance and tolerance.

I will stand up for the bullied, the slave, and the shunned.

I will allow myself to experience love.

I will walk slowly, sit quietly, breathe deeply; listening for love's voice, even if I never hear it.

I will allow myself to feel pain, to retreat, to cry, when I need to.

I will eat well, sleep well and exercise.

I will express, create and speak my thoughts.

I will experience life; not a shallow counterfeit.

I will not buy into celebrity culture.

I will not spend more time in front of a screen than I do outdoors.

I will experience art; music, film, paint, clay and marble that speak to the soul.

I will not let the past speak for the future.

I will reduce the negative impact I have on creation to a minimum; walking, not driving, reducing energy consumption, buying ethically.

I will allow myself the luxury of curiosity; I will listen to birds, I will watch bugs, I will wander off the wall-walked path.

Above all; I will keep on putting on foot in front of the other; even when despair, or panic, or apathy make me want to stop, blindly trusting that I am walking towards something, and that it is something good.

Self-Fulfilling

2009-05-12T20:50:00.001Z

"What you think, you become."

- The Buddha

Labels

2009-05-07T17:18:00.002Z

On Wednesday morning, I led a time of reflective prayer with my colleagues at the YMCA. It was only a small thing - no more than 15 minutes long - but it felt important to me. Important for me.

I find myself having less in common with a lot of my Christian friends than ever before. I call myself a Christian; I have faith in the God revealed in the man Jesus 2000 years ago, but I find it hard to get excited about some of the same things that my friends do.

Today, for example, I read that proselytism is (or was) illegal in Greece. My initial reaction was 'brilliant! Let people think for themselves' (though I've changed my mind about it 20 times since). A lot of my Christian friends hold proselytism as a fundamental aspect of their faith, and would see a mission to Greece as heroic.

Some of my church-friends talk about the miracles of God's providence; God provided the money they need for new sofas, or whatever. All I can think about is the people that God's providence doesn't seem to cover; the starving children, the mentally or physically disabled, the suicidal. I find it hard to talk about how good God has been to me when I sit in my egotistical luxury.

I enjoy smoking. I have no aversion to swearing. I like Wonderbra adverts. To some of my friends, these are weaknesses to work on. For me, it's a life I'm quite happy with.

I love my friends. They make my life. Christian and otherwise, I wouldn't change them for the world, and our differences are what make life exciting. But I'm finding it harder and harder to make my spiritual home with some of my church-friends. At times, it irritates me. Most of the time, it's not a big deal.

At the YMCA, of the 12 people who were with me on Wednesday, 3 or 4 would call themselves Christians. I think all 12 would call themselves spiritual. And I would certainly call all 12 of them open-minded.

The prayer exercise involved an imaginative encounter with Jesus. I am confident that every person (myself included) took something different away from the encounter. A few probably took nothing away. A few simply found it relaxing. A few had already experienced the Christian language used.

Afterwards, a few of us sat and chatted about life, God, faith, and the rest. No one was trying to argue anyone else into submission. No one was putting anyone else down. No one was claiming a higher moral or spiritual ground than anyone else.

As a team, we are a group of people, trying to make a difference in the lives of young people, coming from a whole spectrum of different backgrounds; economic, social, religious... And it felt good. It felt like home.

I get the same experience when I spend Sunday morning with the Quakers. No one tells you what you believe, how to behave, how to better yourself. Everyone simply comes humbly to experience God as within and amongst us.

Wow.

I chatted to one of the women at the Quaker church after the service last week. She told me that she had recently been on a Buddhist retreat, though she wasn't a Buddhist, and that she comes to the Quaker church, even though she's not a Quaker.

"So, what are you?" I asked.

She responded by saying that she doesn't want to call herself anything, because as soon as she becomes a Buddhist, others become non-Buddhist. As soon as she picks up the label of Quaker, she has to give others the label of non-Quaker.

I found what she said so inspirational that I toyed with shedding the label of Christian. I'm going to stick with it, because Christ is my 2000 year old guru and my eternal God, but I need to stick that label on to others? Do others even need to see my label?

Letting Go

2009-05-05T08:56:00.003Z

The current moves faster, pulls harder.

Still I cling on to my tree. My arms are tired from gripping.

I hear the current's voice, 'Let go. Trust me. I'll catch you. But you need to let go.'

I can't let go. I'm too scared. My arms lose their grip. I'm only holding on with my hands now; the bark of the tree cutting into my palms.

Where does this current lead? What's at the end of it? God, if I knew, maybe I'd be more willing to let go!

'Trust me. Let go. Trust me.'

I know I should let go. I know that holding on to this tree is pointless, that if I don't let go of my own volition, eventually I will have to out of exhaustion.

My knuckles are white. I grip fast. I want to let go. But I don't want to. Oh God, why can't this be easier?

The tree bends and creaks under the strain of the water. If I don't lose my grip, it will.

'Just let go. Just trust me. I have you.'

But what if you don't?

Control

2009-05-04T11:27:00.002Z

A certain school of theology tells us that Satan has no power to create; only to corrupt. So, where God speaks Love, Satan speaks Lust. Where God speaks Justice, Satan speaks Punishment. Where God speaks Creativity, Satan speaks Pride.

I think that one of my gifts is my love of serenity. Peacefulness, quietness and stillness are the places in which I find God most easily. Babbling brooks, falling cherry blossom, acoustic soundscapes, the lotus position, quiet sunrises; wow. Yes please, God.

I love optimistic silence, and so I try to promote it. I am rarely hyper. I try not to join in with bitching about people and whinging. I lighten the atmosphere, I make jokes and speak gently. When I find myself becoming negative about people in particular, I beat myself up. I run away from situations where there is noise or disorder. I hide myself away in my room, where I can control the experience of serenity.

What begins as the voice of God; a voice of peace, self-control, and hope becomes the voice of Satan; a voice of paranoid control.

Friends of mine will notice that I go through moods where I don't go out much, where I avoid crowds of people, and when I become more negative and critical in my speech.

I've become aware of this. It is the desire for control. A desire that keeps itself hidden by pointing the finger away from itself.

'I hate the mess in here. I hate that people leave their crap out.'

'This place is too noisy, I can't hear myself think.'

'Why can't people be more gentle?'

'Insert-person's-name pisses me off. Why won't (s)he leave me alone?'

'I wish my youth group would do as they're told.'

The Incredible Hulk says that he just wants to be left alone. I can relate to the Incredible Hulk. I want to be left alone. I want to sit alone, in my Zen Garden, where I can create fantastic ideas and stories in my head and ignore the chaos of real life. I don't want people and their unpredictability to disturb my comfort. Go away. Leave me alone. You're imposing yourself on my peace. The blinds are down, the shutters are pulled closed, the walls are up.

This is something I need to deal with. I control nothing. I barely even control myself. We are all part of the same system, the same body, the web of humanity; of createdness. I am no more in control of it than anyone else. To try to control it is the mistake that we are told Satan made; placing himself in the position of God, to eventually be cast out of the heavenlies. It is to be a finger and say, 'I know what is best for this body, everyone else be a finger like me'.

Last night I was chatting with some friends, and (albeit in a different context) we all agreed that the sooner we can learn to see God in all things, not just in the things that we like, the better.

So, my challenge is this. I need to learn to let go. I am not in control. Alan Watts said that sin is like trying to swim by lifting your legs out of the water with your arms; trying to control, in other words, what cannot and should not be controlled.

Instead, use the water to support you. Use the current to move you. Let go. Let go. Let go. Trust me. I will catch you. But you need to trust me. Let go.

God I don't want to. I can't let go. The current terrifies me.

Let go.

Let go.

Let go.

Perez Hilton

2009-04-28T10:26:00.003Z

Perez Hilton asks a competitor her opinion on a contraversial topic, and puts on a screwface when she responds honestly.

A couple of things wrong with Hilton's rant:

1) 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus' is not offensive to any of the people he mentioned. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus is respected as a prophet in Islam. Most open-minded atheists will concede that Jesus was a good man. I don't know many people, regardless of religion, who see Jesus as offensive. Apart from Nietzsche, perhaps, but I don't think he's got much to say about Miss America these days.

2) Perez Hilton has made a name for himself by bitching about celebrities. I still can't quite understand what he contributes towards society, but whatever. His fame is entirely built on freedom of speech. However, when someone else speaks freely, and says something he disagrees with, suddenly freedom of speech is forced to submit to his personal opinions. I wonder how the media darlings he blogs about would respond to some of his honesty. Is there any way we can get his opinions to cost him a career? Unfortunately, he's two steps ahead of us here; by not having a career, he has nothing to lose.

I don't think I agree with Miss California (though she actually said relatively little, so it's hard to say), but when someone is asked their opinion, I think it is fair for them to be able to give an honest answer, not simply pander to the 'right' one.

Oh Boy.

2009-04-22T20:24:00.001Z

Real life superpowers.

Blah

2009-04-20T15:46:00.002Z

A few weeks ago, I had a moment of revelation that excited me. It came relatively out of the blue, and connected a few threads I had floating about in my head about God, faith and so on.

I decided to write an essay about it - I needed to write one about something.

I'm about halfway through it now. I'm sitting at my desk surrounded by books, pens, papers and food wrappers. The sun is shining outside, the birds are singing, and I'm trying to get references to make my idea sound like it came from someone else, because I'm not academically credible enough.

The original revelation has become an exercise of jumping through hoops.

I'm bored of academia. I want to live my faith, not write an essay about it.

I want to go and play rounders in the park with my friends.

The X-Factor

2009-04-12T13:54:00.004Z

Barack Obama is fighting to save the image of a dangerously high-powered group of people, which the less powerful majority see as a nuissance at best and a threat at worst. His way of fighting, as this group of people's leader, is the promotion of peace and co-existence.

The question is this:

Is Barack Obama getting his speeches written by Professor X?

Responding to Zarathustra

2009-04-12T12:07:00.003Z

"He's alive."

Those are the words that are being banded around today. Jesus is alive. The death thing wasn't permanent. Or it wasn't real. Whatever.

My head tells me to skeptical. How can he be alive? I saw him die. I felt his absence.

Actually, no. It's not skepticism. It's fear. It's easier to follow a dead man. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, MLK; once they're dead, they're saints. It's easy to love a saint. Dead people have no foibles. You can't argue with the dead. You can blissfully remember the nice things and forget the crap.

I'm scared of Jesus being alive, because that leaves me with unanswered questions. If he was a good man on a failed mission, that'd be great, we could say that he lives on in our hearts, and do nice things in his name.

But if he's actually alive, actually literally living and breathing and active, then I have questions. Why is the world still an ugly place? Why do I still feel fear, anger, depression? Why are people starving, dying, drowning? Some of "He is risen" brigade will come up with neat ideas for why things are the way they are. "Original sin", they'll say, or "He's alive, but we need to be his hands and feet", or even "It's Satan's fault".

But those answers aren't good enough. They weren't good enough for Job, they're not good enough for me.

I'm told that Thomas doubted. He wanted to see Jesus, to place his hands in his wounds, before believing that he was alive.

I can relate.

Can you imagine if it was true? Can you imagine if he really is alive? It would change everything. Everything. A man, one who claimed to be God's son, has been through death, and come out on the other side. Death has been survived. Death is the final enemy, the last boss. Death is the only thing there is no coming back from. Only, if he really is alive, there is.

If Jesus has walked into death, and emerged not only unscathed, but renewed, then can we all do the same? Imagine! There would literally be nothing to fear. Nothing. Torture, poverty, drowning, murder, insanity; all of them are swallowed up by death, and death is defeated by love! Life prevails, it takes care of itself; all is well!

But it isn't, is it? Or is it? Jesus taught, when he was alive, or should I say, before he died, that we shouldn't place our trust in our five senses. He told us there was more going on than meets the eye. He told us that his Father; the Creator, has things in hand in a way that our limited vision can't even begin to comprehend.

You don't need eyes to see, you need vision.

My eyes tell me one thing. Maybe it's because I don't have the vision. Or maybe I do have the vision, but I've just become too dependent on my eyes. Or maybe it's all bullshit, and there isn't anything going under the surface.

I've said before, if it is all bullshit, then I'm not really interested in what the world has to offer. If there is no truth in Jesus' words, or even in his continued (eternal?) life, then I can see little point in this existence.

So I find myself in exactly the same place I was yesterday; waiting. Yesterday, all was lost. I had nothing else to do, nowhere else to go, I could only wait. Today, there is hope. There is a promise of truth. It is a promise I don't understand. It is a promise that scares me. It is a promise that might be a lie. But it's all I have.

So I wait. I go into my room, close the door, and like Thomas, wait for Jesus to appear to me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing. I believe. But I also need to see.

I close my eyes. They only show me the surface things, the things I'm not interested in.

I breathe. I listen. I wait.

I am the lost sheep, waiting for the shepherd to come and find me. I might be waiting forever, but I will wait.

I have the words of those who have seen and heard to go by, and the glimmer of hope that exists when I quiet the voices of doom and gloom.

I wait.

I am doubting Thomas. Come and find me Jesus.

Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief.

I wait.

Listening to Zarathustra

2009-04-11T00:00:00.002Z

It is Holy Saturday. 1am.

At some point yesterday, even though it feels like today, having not slept since, the man called Jesus died.

I don't know what to do. I placed all of my hope in him. He was going to be the one to bring in the new world; in which love, joy and peace reigned. He was going to be the one to bring peace to my heart. He was going to be the one to cut my chains, to make the scales fall from my eyes, to shake me out of my slumber.

Where is he now? In a borrowed tomb. Wrapped in linen. Dead.

Everywhere I look, I see hatred, fear, violence. When I look at the world, when I look into myself. There are glimpses of hope, every now and again, but glimpses don't feel like enough. Jesus was supposed to sort this all out for us. Where are you, Rabbi? How could it end this way?

Where the pharisees right? Maybe I was following a mad man. Or maybe the Greeks are right, with their clever ideas and reason. Maybe I was ignorant; blinded by hope.

All I know is is that I don't know (Didn't one of the Greeks say that?). I am lost. My head is a whirlwind. What do I do now? Who do I have? Where can I go? I am scared. I don't know which is worse, the death of hope, or the fear of what comes next, in a world without it, without Him.

And yet, his words ring in my ears.

Tear this temple down, and in three days I will raise it back up.

What did he mean? Did he know this was coming? Does he somehow have even this God-forsaken situation in hand? It doesn't feel like it. But then, he told me himself not to place my trust in my own two eyes.

Shit, I don't know.

I will wait. What choice do I have? I remember Peter's words when Jesus gave us all the option to leave him. Where else would I go?

If somehow, in some way that I don't understand, Jesus has this all in hand, then God, it's worth waiting. If his vision has the potential to become a reality, I'll wait all my life for it.

If it's all a lie, if its all in my imagination, if waiting for a dead man to save me, to save us, from ourselves is foolishness, then I don't think I'm interested in what reality has to offer.

I will wait. I might die waiting. But I will wait.

What other choice do I have?

Tear this temple down, and in three days I will raise it up again.

I will wait.

Turn Your Face Toward Your Own Face

2009-04-09T17:40:00.000Z

The medicine of all intellects is just a picture of Love,
the faces of all sweethearts are but His veil.
You who are devoted to Love, turn your face toward your own face:
you have no kinsman but yourself, you who are distraught.
The faqir made a qiblah of his heart and began to pray:
The human being has nothing but that for which he labors.*
Before he heard any answer to his prayer
he had been praying many years.
He prayed intently without receiving any overt response,
but in secret from Divine grace he was hearing I am here.
Since that sickly man was always dancing without a tambourine,
in reliance upon the bounty of the Almighty Creator,
though neither a heavenly voice nor Divine messenger
was ever seen to be near,
yet the ear of his hope was filled with Here I am.
His hope was saying, without tongue, "Come!"
and that call was sweeping all weariness from within his heart.

- Rumi

There Is A War Going On For Your Mind

2009-04-08T15:24:00.001Z

Found on Pete Rollins' blog:

Eloquent Words

2009-04-04T12:12:00.000Z

True words aren't eloquent,
eloquent words aren't true.
Wise men don't need to prove their point,
men who need to prove their point aren't wise.

- Tao Te Ching