Christmas thoughts

It seems that the last couple of years I've had new takes on Christmas; on what it can and maybe should mean. This being despite what has felt like my busiest season for quite some time, and in part triggered by the realisation that on the first day of one of my 3 non-stop weeks, I managed to pass through Birmingham Snow Hill train station going back to work about 9-10 hours after passing on the way home the previous night. That was a work-busy week followed by 2 church-busy weeks.

One great illustration I am in danger of over using at Christmas came from Alan Norton (not sure where he got it from). It involves getting people to imagine in great detail their perfect Christmas present, then expecting them to thank you because as we all know, it's the thought that counts.

Then I got on to thinking how for some, maybe most people, Christmas is maybe a little disappointing. The hype somehow doesn't match reality. It occurred to me that maybe we have a "it's the thought that counts" mentality. Or maybe it's down to expecting to get a lot, even giving to get if need be.

Maybe we can feel the same about Christ as well as Christmas. It promises peace on earth and goodwill to all men. We don't see that in the way we expect. It isn't that we expect too much of God Incarnate, it's that we expect the wrong thing. It seems to me that we expect Jesus' bringing peace & goodwill to be a do-it-all service when it isn't like that.

It occurred to me that rather than just turning up and in a Disney-esque manner to magic up an idyllic society of love, peace & security, Jesus perfectly demonstrated what this would look like and what it would cost. Peace on earth means we have to not hate or hold grudges - whatever is thrown at us - it's what Jesus did after all. Goodwill to all means that we have to give of ourselves to help all, even the very least & very worst. That's what Jesus did. He didn't give to the deserving only, He just gave everything. Even it meant His own death.

So this Christmas, I hope you know the peace and goodwill that Jesus brings. And the strength to live in peace and goodness o fellow man.

A new take on an old song

As I think I mentioned earlier in the year, I decided at the beginning of this year to study the Gospels, reading every day to get through them all in a year and making notes in a page-a-day diary. It appears it will take more than a year though, as I'm currently just starting chapter 26 of Matthew.

This, of course, means I've just finished chapter 25 and that scarily familiar passage about the judgement being where the 'Son of Man' seperates like the sheep from the goats with the main message being that "to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me" (verses 40 & 45 NASB). This has been getting under my skin for a while now, aided and abbetted by writers who talk of seeing Jesus in "His most distressing disguises".

Whilst pondering this at a Bible study the other night (it wasn't the subject at hand, but I was drifting as always), an old chorus popped into my head. It's taken on a completely new meaning for me:

Open our eyes, lord,
We want to see Jesus,
To reach out and
touch Him
And say that we love Him.
Open our ears, Lord,
And help us
to listen.
Open our eyes, Lord,
We want to see Jesus.

I can't help but think that the next time I hear this sung, I'll want to take them by the hand to where the homeless, starving, social outcast's and other "least of these" live and say "There you go; reach out and touch them, tell them that you them, listen to them, feed them, clothe them, visit them."

Maybe this chorus isn't so 'nice' anymore. But it is more challenging!

Me & my big mouth!

Anyone who knows me will by now have realised that I have congenital verbal diarrhea. I often speak without thinking first and therefore I also have chronic foot-in-mouth disease.

Yesterday in Church as we stood to sing I moved, as I often do, to enable the person behind to see the projected song words. The leader saw that a few of us had done that and said that if we wanted to dance we should feel free to do so "After all... David danced before the Lord"

Without hesitation I responded "Yeah! but he was naked!"
I've been smiling ever since. But alas I was wrong... Having just looked it up it appears he was wearing his pants.

2 Samuel 6:14 (NASB)
"And David was dancing before the LORD with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod."

A Good Church

I started composing this whilst considering my frustrations with Church. This is unlikely to be an exhaustive list and yes, I have styled it on the closing passage of proverbs which talks about "A good wife". We are Christ's bride after all. I have deliberately not used the terms 'perfect' or 'ideal' on the basis of it not existing... & our ruining it if we joined.

Please feel free to add other lines as you see fit. Or to disagree. Or to improve.

A good church – who can find?

She has a culture of honesty about her failings

She desires to worship always. And in all ways

Her sung, corporate worship is an expression of her joy in serving God in the community she lives in

She values substance over style

She desires practice over theory

She is desperate to know God, to serve God and to love His people

She upsets the comfortable and comforts the upset

Her friends & allies are the poor, the outcast, the unlovely & unloved

She does not seek change for change sake

She is intolerant of pretence, preferring even the most painful truth

She loves those who hate her and seek her destruction

She cries at injustice, and poverty, and brokenness

She wants to understand God's Kingdom. And make it real – here and now

She is both admired and feared – usually by the same people

She frequently finds herself in trouble

She survives, even thrives, by seeking others needs above her own

She loves truth and will only sing truth

She makes friends of the lowly & is regarded as an enemy by the elite

She rejects earthly riches

She fails in most, if not all of the above

She carries on anyway – to stop trying would be the greatest failure of all

All God's children will rise up & call her blessed

Frustration

Round & round & round I go
Where I stop, God only knows
Wandering, spinning my plates in the air
Wondering if my slave-drivers ever really care

I work. And I tire
I return to my home
Bush soon rush out to do Church stuff
Just need some time alone

But why do I strive? and hurry? and rush?
Why do I not see my wife nearly enough?
If I were progressing It'd really be fine
But I'm running in circles
From ridiculous to sublime

My life breaks are failing
The cables have snapped
I see my life crashing
I feel hopelessly trapped

Trapped in a church and a job
With nowhere to go
Trapped by my "speech impediment"
I'm unable to say NO

They say I have potential
But I fear my wings have been clipped
Was it them or was it me?
I must break free soon

I see a hope
I see light
I see a better way
But it's not in my comfort zone

I fear I'll fail
I fear letting others down
- those that may be left behind
I fear disappointment
But my desire for change just will not be suppressed

I must move on
- but not let people down
I must change
- but not go back (maybe?)
I cannot carry on like this
I cannot stay the same


"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.

Faith and/in reason (delete as appropriate)

I had a nightmare journey home last Thursday, but I made the good decision to check the paper shop before heading to the station. I ended up buying a magazine I very rarely buy, the last time being at least 15-20 years ago: it was The New Scientist. I was drawn to an article or series of articles headlined as “What's wrong with reason?”. It had a heading of “seven reasons why people hate reason” inside and included Archbishop Rowan Williams as a contributor so there would be at least some non-anti-religious opinion.

This did indeed prove to be a very interesting read for the 3 hours it took to make my 20 minute journey. It was a recognition that people are steering away to some degree from science & reason and some of the reasons why. There were several honest scientists who admit that there is much wrong with “science” as it's seen by the public and the wrong done, that reason was not always reasonable and is far more limited than the early founders of the Enlightenment would have you believe. That there were & maybe still are extremes of “rationality” that are at least as extreme as any religious bigotry.

Rowan Williams said that “There was a constant risk of slipping into the conclusion... that the unreasonable human didn't count”. That this may have helped contribute toward attitudes that allowed slavery in America and post-revolution France. There needs to be something outside of “instrumental reason” to an older/pre modern rationality which puts “reasonable” into the context of community.

Another Contributor, Neuroscientist Colin Frith, put forward the idea that no-one really uses reason. Most of our computing is made sub-consciously and we then use reason to justify our decisions rather than guide them. Sociologist David Miller showed how science was abused by governments and corporations, leading to more scepticism – his article really was enlightening!

This all fits into much of what I have long thought. That Science can easily become religion, that atheism is a faith (you cannot prove God doesn't exist any more than I can prove He does) and that reason is not always reasonable. The 7th article was by philosopher Mary Midgley and was titled “Reason's just another faith”. She spoke of “scientism” as well as science – that many plausible theories are accepted as fact without absolute proof and that some believe that science can answer everything: “Science then no longer stands for enquiry but for ideology, authority, a general approach to life which demands to prevail in all conflicts: that is, it is turned into scientism.”

“The central question” she says “is about trust. In what do you put your faith?” - indeed.

Me & the puffins

Those that know me will know that I have a liking for puffins. For watching / looking at puffins, not eating them as they don't taste that good (yes, I really have tried).

Anyhow, I've wondered for a while if there was any particular reason why and having recently returned from a puffin watching holiday, I think I've remembered at least some of the reasons. I see some areas of similarity between me & the puffin, as well as some areas of difference.

Have you ever watched a puffin take of or land? Not for them the graceful flight or powerful soaring of eagles. Take-off's appear to resemble throwing yourself off the edge of the cliff and then flapping for all you're worth. Landing appears to be stopping yourself by sticking your feet out as you hit the nearest rock or entering your burrow bottom-first. No grace, no obvious display of power or majestic swooping. The apparent throw yourself off the cliff, flap like fury to fly, land by hitting something solid to land technique quite clearly ought not to work. They're often called the clowns of the air and it's easy to see why.

I guess the reason I can associate with this is that I often feel like I'm flapping furiously, lacking graceful majesty or obvious power. As I spent an extraordinary length of time (and vast amounts of film) observing my comical friends a few years ago on the Treshnish Isles, off Mull, it occurred to me that these creatures really don't appear to belong in the sky. They just look so out of place.

I often feel as though I'm a bit of a fraud. Somehow, I do the equivalent of throwing myself off the cliff, landing by hitting solid ground, flapping like whatever in between and somehow getting away with it. I don't deserve to be where I am now. I ought to have failed far more spectacularly. I see the many greater people around, many of them good friends, and I see more eagle-like soaring and I assume (rightly or wrongly) through their greater ability or competence. Then I look at the good stuff, where I have succeeded or at least got away with it, and I wonder how on earth I've done as well as I have.

If I'm being realistic, I guess that my image of others soaring eagle-like may actually be less realistic than I imagine. But that shouldn't stop me trying. I may not be an eagle, but I could be a better puffin.