Pilgrim's Progress

An Unexamined Life ...

"At the time it was hard to see much good in it. Looking back it made me into a new person – I learnt how to handle difficult situations, behave diplomatically and work under stress. Going through hardship, while not nice, was very searching." (Will Collis, one of the participants in the series "Escape to the Legion")

Going through hardship, while not nice, was very searching. Echoes of Hebrews 12:11? It was partly Escape to the Legion and the TV series "Bad Lads Army" and that set me thinking about this.

Recent struggles and the soul-searching that comes with it have highlighted a few things in my own life ... maybe you can relate to this in some way:

Uppermost in my mind is a preference for comfort. I find it hard to live a comfortable life and live on the edge for God at the same time. The aims of the two are so different. But I naturally prefer the former ... that's what my own hardships have revealed. Ouch. But they have also revealed a mysterious determination to pursue the latter. It's a daily battle.

"An unexamined life is not worth living." (Socrates) Growing in maturity always begins with truthfully confronting ourselves as we are, as unpleasant as that can be. It might not take a month in the Foreign Legion to show us our true mettle - it will more likely be our daily battles or struggles.

The Creative Discipline of God

Funny how life's lessons intertwine. Reading in "A Step Further" by Joni, I came across the following quote:

As humans we are most exacting and demanding on the people and things we care for and love the most. As an artist, sketches I care little about I just leave alone. But when I get excited about a drawing, it gets "bruised and battered" with erasures and revisions. It seems that God deals with us that way. (p64)

Ditto. I spend ages on the images, animations and poems that mean most to me. Tweaking, fine-tuning, it goes on and on. And even "finished" is a step on a journey rather than perfection. I'm always dreaming of ways to improve them, seeking to "draw them out" more and more. As for God's creative work in us, this offers something of a balance to previous posts about the Painful and Silent discipline of God ...

"For you are God's poetry (or "craftmanship"), created in Christ Jesus to do good works ..." (Eph 2:10)

Who would have thought that God's discipline was an act of divine creativity? God is so painstaking with us ...

Tidy Your Room Again!

Finished! It was well worth reading ... many nuggets and insights into the life of a very public man, but one who seems to have a deep-rooted Christian faith. My copy is covered with pen and highlighter (the sign of a good read!)

Having blogged recently on "The Silent Discipline of God" it was fascinating to read Bono, on the book's penultimate page, saying the following:

"When I wake up in the morning, I sort of put my hand out - spiritually - and I reach for what you might call God. Sometimes I don't feel God, and I feel lonely. I feel on my own, and I wonder where God is. And then … I ask God "Where have you gone?". God usually replies in a way that is hard to describe: "I haven't gone anywhere ... Where have you gone?  I haven't moved.

Then I have to check, and I realise that I have somewhere sold myself out. It usually happens incrementally, in tiny steps. You never betray yourself … in big dramatic bold moves. … You slowly move away from that person that is most like you ..." (p320,1)

God was good to me today - I found myself mysteriously drawn back again. There is so much to learn about how to stay close to him!

Fiery Encounters

Four new images, all with a kind of theme of fire\energy. They are built out of images created with the amazing Context Free software (free download!). Clockwise from the top left they are entitled "Energy Field", "Bomb Run" (what does it look like to you? I'd love to know), "Burning Bush" (Back to my favourite theme of fiery encounters with God) and "Neuron".

My favourite one is the burning bush - it comes out of a place of long-term weariness in which I am longing for a fresh encounter with God, to gather up everything that I am, and send me off with fresh energy and direction. The thing I love about the burning bush encounter was that it was so ordinary, and so unexpected, and so transforming ...

The Cry of the Forgotten

I'm not sure what got me thinking about prisoners of conscience today. On second thoughts, I think it was this post from John Davies, and also my reading today in Isaiah 5:8.

"He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed
He looked for righteousness, but heard cries of distress"

It reminded me of a visit to Warwick Castle, where in the back of the dungeon is an "oubliette" where people were thrown in, and simply forgotten. It profoundly impacted me at the time, and I took the following picture

In the weeks that followed, I had a recurring "vision" as if I was inside the oubliette, seeing out through the bars (if there bars to look through), somehow feeling the confinedness, the panic, the desperation, the torment. The following Sunday's advent sermon was about the Messiah coming to release those who had been abandoned and forgotten and never expected to see the light of day again.

The following image, entitled "View from a Forgotten Place" is as close as I can get to portraying what I saw ... and it became a prayer for the forgotten, for those imprisoned in any way, because of conscience, loneliness, abuse, injustice, depression or whatever ... who never expect to see the light of day ... a challenge for the rest of us to work to see them released.

I have felt since then that it was a kind of calling, or at least a focusing of an earlier call ... a call to work to see people released to live in the freedom that Jesus came to give us in all kinds of ways.

In the following chapter, Isaiah heard the call "Who will go for us, and whom shall I send?", and his simple, but profound response was "Here am I. Send me."

Fully Present

Chris Erdman talks about his sermon preparation. I love this ...

"What matters is that I was there, present to the text and to the Trinity, present to myself and to the daily experience of the people I love and among whom I will open this text come Sunday."

For me, it was Joel yesterday. A little Hebrew word study. The day before it was 2 Corinthians 12:9 - God's grace in our weakness. Today I think it will be Amos. Psalm 38:9. A walk on the beach somewhere. Who knows! I felt the weight of God around the place yesterday ... usually means I'm to listen carefully because God wants to say something or impart something to me. I don't want to miss it!

Present to the text, the Trinity, myself, those I love ... can that be our resolve today? That attentiveness to the text, to the Trinity, to our own depths, to the currents of God flowing through the lives of those around us?

Melting Earth

Was any real progress made on climate change at G8? Time will tell. Meantime, the temperature dial is creeping up ...

It is so easy to be blinkered and hypocritical on these issues though ... short car trips, needless use of electricity & gas ...

At Least It Isn't Raining

Two things happened in quick succession today that put life in perspective.

The first was a conversation on the street with an elderly neighbour whose wife has advanced Alzheimer's. He is 'on call' constantly, but he doesn't complain. At the end of our brief conversation, he looked up at the sky for a moment and said "Well, at least it isn't raining today."

The second was the terrorist bombings in London. I've only just found out ... we can only pray for Tony Blair, someone on whose shoulders lie two great weights today - leading a nation in its response to terror, and leading the G8 summit.

Can we unite behind all differences of politics, can we dispense with all cynicism, all pettiness, all complaining, and dig down into our humanity and get behind him and all those who are bearing the weight of these momentous things? Can we make it our resolve in light of these things to live from our depths?

One For the Road #2: Psalm 131 - The Eye of the Hurricane

Another Psalm paraphrase, this time on Psalm 131. It also draws on Isaiah 30:15. There were two images strongly in my mind - one of the eye of the hurricane as a place of mysterious calm at the centre of the storm, and the second of being kept safe inside the strong hands of God.

The Eye of the Hurricane

Held in the hurricane’s eye
By strong and gentle hands
I am reluctantly at rest.

I am not done with wrestling:
This storm of whys and hows and whens
Has not spent its fury yet:
It rages still.
Not on some distant hill
But all around, within.

Here, in the hurricane’s eye
I huddle, a handsbreadth from the fearsome gust
That races round.
I dare not venture out a hand
To feel its power.
I would be tugged away
And flung up, tossed like a discarded wrapper,
And cast down God knows where.
I must be still, be still.

‘God, don’t hold me here’, I cry
Don’t make me wait in silence here.
The storm is calling me – I must tame it
To silence this soul’s seeking.
The questions, questions
Whose stark unansweredness is the cyclone’s rage
I must go – it is my storm.

"If you want to go now, you can, but you go alone."
Comes back his answer.
He has offered me a refuge, not a prison.
If I choose to step away
These strong fingers will release their hold
And let me go.
I ponder.

The storm blusters on, unchecked.
Will it abate? I do not know.
He will not tell me, yet.
I know I do not have the strength
To face it down and stand my ground.
There will be time enough for that.
For now, I must rest down on him
And recoup my strength.

And so, in the hurricane’s eye
Held in these strong and gentle hands
I am reluctantly at rest.

RKL 5.07.05

Were You There?

They were all there. The celebs. The cynics. The troublemakers. And the ordinary punters like ourselves. Why did we go? To say "I was there"? For the buzz? Because we cared? Perhaps all of the above ...