Thursday, 19 May 2011
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
A Time To Talk and A Time To Listen
This evening, I had the privilege of hearing Chris Howson speak at St. John's College in Durham. Chris gave a mission lecture three years ago, and it was a really memorable occasion. In March this year I got hold of a copy of his book, 'a Just Church: 21st century Liberation Theology in Action' which is a fantastic little book. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
If you don't know Chris, then you could do worse than to hear him speak at Greenbelt 2011 or to have a read of his book. Chris is into mission in a big way and sees liberation theology being a key expression of God's mission in the world. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
Chris spoke to us about things he's been involved with in Bradford, things he describes in his book. Chris would probably be the first to admit that there are some real complexities in the campaigns he is involved with, Us and Them doesn't quite cut it, though it's sometimes where things end up. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
Chris has a really interesting take on mission and in his conclusion he says somethings I've read elsewhere, but in a down-on-the-ground-PRAXIS way that I really love. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
Chris' argument is strong, even if there is one big-ish area I disagree with him on and would love to have a chat over a pint with him about. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
As Chris spoke there was a buzz, of some folks agreeing with somethings and some folks disagreeing with somethings. It was really good. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
Because what I want to talk about, is sometimes we need to PAUSE, take a breath, and hold in the question, the thought, the minuscule bubble of doubt that will soon dissipate and let things just go.
With the approach I've just outlined there is a real danger that too many things are let slip and before we know it, we're either living out a heresy, or being pastorally naive, or even break relationships and doing damage to the cause we are attempting to support.
But sometimes, we just need to stop. And listen, and pray.
Because, sometimes, we just have to say, "thank you for what you are doing"
Not, "thank you for what you are doing, but I think you're not realising the implications of liberation theology expanded to the nth degree"
Not, "hmm, I like your point but how would that suggestion manifest itself on a global scale"
Those aren't real questions raised in Chris' seminar, but the danger is we too quickly belittle what someone is doing.When at the very least they are doing.
And at the most, they are building a part of God's kingdom, most of us don't even second glance at.
I suppose, I've been affected by Stephen Cherry's Barefoot Disciple (which Clare and I read over lent).
In that great little book, Cherry talks about the difference between grumbling and prophecy. Grumbling, simply is when we moan about something that is bad, but don't do anything. Prophecy is when we see that something is bad, and want to speak against it, to transform it.
It would be easy to grumble about things we read, or hear, or things that people do with good intentions. It can be easy to belittle the efforts of others.
Instead of grumbling, let's try being prophetic.
Or as the old phrase goes,
"PUT UP, OR SHUT UP."
If you don't know Chris, then you could do worse than to hear him speak at Greenbelt 2011 or to have a read of his book. Chris is into mission in a big way and sees liberation theology being a key expression of God's mission in the world. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
Chris spoke to us about things he's been involved with in Bradford, things he describes in his book. Chris would probably be the first to admit that there are some real complexities in the campaigns he is involved with, Us and Them doesn't quite cut it, though it's sometimes where things end up. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
Chris has a really interesting take on mission and in his conclusion he says somethings I've read elsewhere, but in a down-on-the-ground-PRAXIS way that I really love. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
Chris' argument is strong, even if there is one big-ish area I disagree with him on and would love to have a chat over a pint with him about. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
As Chris spoke there was a buzz, of some folks agreeing with somethings and some folks disagreeing with somethings. It was really good. But this isn't what I want to talk about.
Because what I want to talk about, is sometimes we need to PAUSE, take a breath, and hold in the question, the thought, the minuscule bubble of doubt that will soon dissipate and let things just go.
With the approach I've just outlined there is a real danger that too many things are let slip and before we know it, we're either living out a heresy, or being pastorally naive, or even break relationships and doing damage to the cause we are attempting to support.
But sometimes, we just need to stop. And listen, and pray.
Because, sometimes, we just have to say, "thank you for what you are doing"
Not, "thank you for what you are doing, but I think you're not realising the implications of liberation theology expanded to the nth degree"
Not, "hmm, I like your point but how would that suggestion manifest itself on a global scale"
Those aren't real questions raised in Chris' seminar, but the danger is we too quickly belittle what someone is doing.When at the very least they are doing.
And at the most, they are building a part of God's kingdom, most of us don't even second glance at.
I suppose, I've been affected by Stephen Cherry's Barefoot Disciple (which Clare and I read over lent).
In that great little book, Cherry talks about the difference between grumbling and prophecy. Grumbling, simply is when we moan about something that is bad, but don't do anything. Prophecy is when we see that something is bad, and want to speak against it, to transform it.
It would be easy to grumble about things we read, or hear, or things that people do with good intentions. It can be easy to belittle the efforts of others.
Instead of grumbling, let's try being prophetic.
Or as the old phrase goes,
"PUT UP, OR SHUT UP."
Thursday, 5 May 2011
SECOND NATURE - PRAYER
It's when prayer doesn't feel like "second nature"
that something needs addressing.
And what does that even mean, "second nature"?
Presumably it's some sort of second reaction, ingrained
like an instinct, too deeply embedded to be forced back
or repressed. It will happen no matter what.
In case of so and so happening, the physiological
entity in all it great complexities will respond in a certain
way, a particular fashion. Similar to fight or flight, perhaps.
When prayer isn't one of those first port of call options,
I wonder why. What is it that has taken its place.
Whatever the answer (and its usually grumbling or getting angry)
one thing is for sure. I would prefer that first instinct to be
to pray. Sometimes we need to pray for help to pray.
To pray for God to put on our hearts a hunger to pray.
So that, is what I think I need to do.
Goodnight to you all.
that something needs addressing.
And what does that even mean, "second nature"?
Presumably it's some sort of second reaction, ingrained
like an instinct, too deeply embedded to be forced back
or repressed. It will happen no matter what.
In case of so and so happening, the physiological
entity in all it great complexities will respond in a certain
way, a particular fashion. Similar to fight or flight, perhaps.
When prayer isn't one of those first port of call options,
I wonder why. What is it that has taken its place.
Whatever the answer (and its usually grumbling or getting angry)
one thing is for sure. I would prefer that first instinct to be
to pray. Sometimes we need to pray for help to pray.
To pray for God to put on our hearts a hunger to pray.
So that, is what I think I need to do.
Goodnight to you all.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Monday, 7 February 2011
Quietly Charismatic
The life of faith that the trinitarian God of creation and wonder calls us to is an ever-changing journey with (to coin a phrase courtesy of Margaret Silf and many more) many waymarks.
This journey at times is peaceful, at time chaotic. We walk, run, or crawl through varying degrees of opulence and tragedy, splendour and disdain. And in so many ways, our individual and collective walks with God bear the marks of our journeys.
Sometimes these marks are in a static symbiosis with the journey, sometimes they stand in a prophetic witness to our journeys.
More simply: at times of busyness, our spirituality can become busy with the buzzing of a thousand voices. In times of peace, our spirituality can echo still pools and thin-place ethereality.
And, on occasion, our spiritual journeys stand in deep contrast to our lived experience. This can be confusing, but also incredibly sustaining.
I find myself in this latter situation. Currently life spirals ever-deeper into a whirlpool of action and doing and busy-ness and work and life, where the different calls of family, work, preparation for ministry, creativity and devotions are muddling around in life's ever murkier waters.
Yet at this time, I find myself faced with an experience of God that is charismatic and at the same time stilling. For the past week, whenever I have turned to prayer, even simple, quiet prayer, I have experienced something of an enveloping charismatic experience of the Holy Spirit.
Not a charismatic Holy Spirit experience that has led to tongues, or being slain in the spirit, of prophecy or outward gifts, but instead, these charismatic experiences have been deeply quiet. With a warm, open stillness that has evaded me for much of my prayer life. As if something has just "clicked", I'm not sure what, or how, but I feel incredibly at peace in prayer in a way that I have rarely experienced before.
I believe that our walks with God cannot and must not be seen as individual expeditions, with each on their own quest, but rather a collective call to ramble towards the God of Creation and Wonder who calls us into a life of relationality, with Him and with each other. It comes as no surprise to me then, that the most profound of these experiences have been in times of community prayer.
I don't know how long this quietly charismatic revolution will be running on tip-toes through my heart, but I am grateful for it.
This journey at times is peaceful, at time chaotic. We walk, run, or crawl through varying degrees of opulence and tragedy, splendour and disdain. And in so many ways, our individual and collective walks with God bear the marks of our journeys.
Sometimes these marks are in a static symbiosis with the journey, sometimes they stand in a prophetic witness to our journeys.
More simply: at times of busyness, our spirituality can become busy with the buzzing of a thousand voices. In times of peace, our spirituality can echo still pools and thin-place ethereality.
And, on occasion, our spiritual journeys stand in deep contrast to our lived experience. This can be confusing, but also incredibly sustaining.
I find myself in this latter situation. Currently life spirals ever-deeper into a whirlpool of action and doing and busy-ness and work and life, where the different calls of family, work, preparation for ministry, creativity and devotions are muddling around in life's ever murkier waters.
Yet at this time, I find myself faced with an experience of God that is charismatic and at the same time stilling. For the past week, whenever I have turned to prayer, even simple, quiet prayer, I have experienced something of an enveloping charismatic experience of the Holy Spirit.
Not a charismatic Holy Spirit experience that has led to tongues, or being slain in the spirit, of prophecy or outward gifts, but instead, these charismatic experiences have been deeply quiet. With a warm, open stillness that has evaded me for much of my prayer life. As if something has just "clicked", I'm not sure what, or how, but I feel incredibly at peace in prayer in a way that I have rarely experienced before.
I believe that our walks with God cannot and must not be seen as individual expeditions, with each on their own quest, but rather a collective call to ramble towards the God of Creation and Wonder who calls us into a life of relationality, with Him and with each other. It comes as no surprise to me then, that the most profound of these experiences have been in times of community prayer.
I don't know how long this quietly charismatic revolution will be running on tip-toes through my heart, but I am grateful for it.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Saturday
Land of unspoken hurt,
Carrier of broken, discordant dreams,
What sorrows lie beneath your veiled shadows?
What tyranny is evoked in your proximity?
The day after and the day before,
Where time runs by a different clock,
And hope dances darkly with despair,
A moving slow waltz to and fro,
With glazed eyes staring pointedly ahead,
You barren land of unspent potential,
Broken bastion of revelry and concern in equal measure,
Who gave you this place of power over eternity?
Do you know the potency in your grasp?
Night becomes day becomes night,
Dull grey mourning, hopelessly pained afternoon,
Anticipatory fear at all that may happen,
Hushed voices and raised swords,
Or simply nothing, deathly quiet,
Pock-marked unease,
No foot-sure place to stand,
Will the brightness of this world arise again?
Can the light break through seemingly impenetrable darkness?
Gathering together dreams with friends and neighbours,
Tall tales shyly spoken in a whisper,
Hands gripped tight for all the will and want,
In the great slumber of one is found the heavy restlessness of another,
Prepare to awake O sleeper, for your day is nearly at hand.
Carrier of broken, discordant dreams,
What sorrows lie beneath your veiled shadows?
What tyranny is evoked in your proximity?
The day after and the day before,
Where time runs by a different clock,
And hope dances darkly with despair,
A moving slow waltz to and fro,
With glazed eyes staring pointedly ahead,
You barren land of unspent potential,
Broken bastion of revelry and concern in equal measure,
Who gave you this place of power over eternity?
Do you know the potency in your grasp?
Night becomes day becomes night,
Dull grey mourning, hopelessly pained afternoon,
Anticipatory fear at all that may happen,
Hushed voices and raised swords,
Or simply nothing, deathly quiet,
Pock-marked unease,
No foot-sure place to stand,
Will the brightness of this world arise again?
Can the light break through seemingly impenetrable darkness?
Gathering together dreams with friends and neighbours,
Tall tales shyly spoken in a whisper,
Hands gripped tight for all the will and want,
In the great slumber of one is found the heavy restlessness of another,
Prepare to awake O sleeper, for your day is nearly at hand.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Melancholy and the finger poke that never was.
Tonight I was listening to the fifteen year old classic that is The Smashing Pumpkin's, Melancholy And The Infinite Sadness. A fantastic album full of themes of rejection and love, of faith and doubt. My love for the album was recently rekindled by Walsh and Keesmaat's discussion of it in Colossians Re:mixed. It is a truly superb and like a fine wine, it has aged really well.
There are so many good songs on the album but tonight I discovered a new one, one I'd never really listened to before; I had heard it, but never listened. Thirty Three. Full to the brim of evocative imagery, superb, slippery descriptions that have an overt religiosity, as well as playing n some key Christian symbols. (Check it out yourself!)
I want to use the song in Discipleship worship next term, it is so utterly beautiful and fragile.
Searching on the web I found so many different websites talking about whether Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins has a faith, or a spiritual belief, or more precisely, "has Billy Corgan made a public declaration of Christian faith?"
Now, I'm not saying that this isn't an important question. I'm pretty conservative with my evangelicalism, but I have to admit, sometimes I think we miss something.
Christians struggle with ambiguity. Christians of all theological persuasions.
In my tradition, at Easter we rush from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. We have a cross and we have a risen Christ. If you are a protestant you may have the emphasis on the cross, if you are Orthodox, you may have the emphasis on the empty tomb.
Not many folk like to linger in the hushed, tearful and fearful rooms of Easter/Holy Saturday. Not many of us like to hover in such dark and terrifying ambiguity.
At a Church House Party this summer I preached on this theme for a good forty minutes: part of the Gospel we have to share, but too easily forget to share, is that within the salvation Gospel narrative lies a day when heaven and earth are held in something beyond expression. Something speaks powerfully to the broken in this world.
Maybe its because its beyond expression, or maybe it's because we want to preach the cross and resurrection before people get bored, but we rush from Friday to Sunday.
As far as I can tell, Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness sits well on Easter Saturday. Perhaps that's why we don't really get it.
The apostle Thomas, one of the true heroes of John's Gospel, the apostle who isn't afraid to ask Jesus the big questions, is forever semi-slandered, for his daring to doubt.
And to add to Thomas' infamy, in his painting, The Incredulity of St. Thomas, Caravaggio painted Thomas with his finger plunged deep into Jesus' side, as if to make clear that there is no grey area here, no room for doubt, never mind the fact that the Gospel of John doesn't record Thomas pushing his finger into Jesus' side, only asking for proof.
John 20 (NIV) records, (from www.biblegateway.com)
-----------------------------
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
----------------------------------
Upon seeing Jesus Thomas proclaims, "My Lord and my God".
Upon seeing Jesus, not on actually putting his hand into Jesus' side.
What Thomas originally says, and what Thomas actually experiences are different.
Why is it that Christians are so scared to admit that questions, and doubts, and grey areas, and Easter Saturday, are all part of a life-long walk with Christ.
Its for this reason that Nickel Creek's song Doubting Thomas, is just about the only decent discussion of what it means to be Thomas.
So this ramble is coming to an end, drawing to a close, perhaps its best that it ends with ambiguity, with questions still to be answered, with half-chewed-over images and analogies.
There is too much going on to want to get straight from A - B.
There are so many good songs on the album but tonight I discovered a new one, one I'd never really listened to before; I had heard it, but never listened. Thirty Three. Full to the brim of evocative imagery, superb, slippery descriptions that have an overt religiosity, as well as playing n some key Christian symbols. (Check it out yourself!)
I want to use the song in Discipleship worship next term, it is so utterly beautiful and fragile.
Searching on the web I found so many different websites talking about whether Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins has a faith, or a spiritual belief, or more precisely, "has Billy Corgan made a public declaration of Christian faith?"
Now, I'm not saying that this isn't an important question. I'm pretty conservative with my evangelicalism, but I have to admit, sometimes I think we miss something.
Christians struggle with ambiguity. Christians of all theological persuasions.
In my tradition, at Easter we rush from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. We have a cross and we have a risen Christ. If you are a protestant you may have the emphasis on the cross, if you are Orthodox, you may have the emphasis on the empty tomb.
Not many folk like to linger in the hushed, tearful and fearful rooms of Easter/Holy Saturday. Not many of us like to hover in such dark and terrifying ambiguity.
At a Church House Party this summer I preached on this theme for a good forty minutes: part of the Gospel we have to share, but too easily forget to share, is that within the salvation Gospel narrative lies a day when heaven and earth are held in something beyond expression. Something speaks powerfully to the broken in this world.
Maybe its because its beyond expression, or maybe it's because we want to preach the cross and resurrection before people get bored, but we rush from Friday to Sunday.
As far as I can tell, Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness sits well on Easter Saturday. Perhaps that's why we don't really get it.
The apostle Thomas, one of the true heroes of John's Gospel, the apostle who isn't afraid to ask Jesus the big questions, is forever semi-slandered, for his daring to doubt.
And to add to Thomas' infamy, in his painting, The Incredulity of St. Thomas, Caravaggio painted Thomas with his finger plunged deep into Jesus' side, as if to make clear that there is no grey area here, no room for doubt, never mind the fact that the Gospel of John doesn't record Thomas pushing his finger into Jesus' side, only asking for proof.
John 20 (NIV) records, (from www.biblegateway.com)
-----------------------------
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
----------------------------------
Upon seeing Jesus Thomas proclaims, "My Lord and my God".
Upon seeing Jesus, not on actually putting his hand into Jesus' side.
What Thomas originally says, and what Thomas actually experiences are different.
Why is it that Christians are so scared to admit that questions, and doubts, and grey areas, and Easter Saturday, are all part of a life-long walk with Christ.
Its for this reason that Nickel Creek's song Doubting Thomas, is just about the only decent discussion of what it means to be Thomas.
So this ramble is coming to an end, drawing to a close, perhaps its best that it ends with ambiguity, with questions still to be answered, with half-chewed-over images and analogies.
There is too much going on to want to get straight from A - B.
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