The longest night of the year

i really liked this post from james hawes over at sunday papers.
it resonates strongly with me: being in tune with the natural rhythms of nature and adjusting our lifestyles accordingly.
as we draw to the end of the year, maybe its a time to reconsider how we approach the way we live in relation to the seasons of the year.
here are another few links i found that relate to it:
wikipedia
national geographic video
Winter Solstice Celebrations for Families and Households

The Moon- 2: Genesis 37:1-11

Like David, Joseph was a shepherd, a dreamer, and probably a poet. He must’ve known his brothers hated him, so why continue to stir them up by telling them about his dreams? Either he was thick, a stirrer, or he had a deep trust in God that his dreams were from God and intended to be told. Perhaps he really believed the dreams and that they would come true, so whether his family liked it or not, Joseph would actually rule over them one day.

Dreamers, poets, adventurers, and kings….

Jacob must’ve sensed God in there somewhere because verse 11 says, ‘…he observed the saying’. Two shepherd boys, David and Joseph, believed in God, spoke confidently in the name of God, were tested severely by God, and rose to become extremely powerful people blessed by God, and who in turn, were a blessing to his people.

The imagery Joseph uses is, like David’s, that of creation: wheat sheaves, sun, moon, and stars. God used dreams as recorded in the Bible to speak to his people. There is no dualism between God’s Spirit and his creation, however marred by sin creation might be. Creation theology is so important. Is that why I love being amongst creation? Is that where I am truly closest to who I am meant to be?

The sun, moon, and stars bowed down to Joseph. David said we were crowned a little lower that the angels, and that all creation is subject to our dominion. O that we would take care of it all properly!

These readings have got my mind going because of the creation/dreaming aspects. The Australian Aboriginal creation stories came from the ‘Dreamtime’. Did God dream creation before he spoke it? How connected are some of our dreams to God, and should we speak them, thus doing our part in the creation/re-creation of the Kingdom of God?

Does God give us a glimpse of some of our future through the dreams we have? I suspect so!

reflections on institutionalised religion

i wrote the following about 4 years ago following a visit to an anglican church in the suburbs of london. i think that even after all that time, it still sums up where my heart is.

My reflections

The church seems to have an underlying, and perhaps unconscious theology of pastoral care and maintenance, which doesn’t find creative, risky, thoughtful, and proactive ways of getting the congregation to engage with the local community.

It is good at having social clubs, is very welcoming to new people who come, and is probably characterised by a ‘belonging before believing’ approach. This does seem to produce some fruit.

The high church ritual is done well, and so is attractive to people who want that sort of worship. The teaching was very short, unimaginative, thin on content, and designed for an encouraging feel-good factor - more along the line of moralising, and of how to live a good life than grappling with the alternative vision of the Kingdom of God here on earth now, as it is in heaven.

I felt that the church was very much stuck in the Christendom paradigm – particularly around the idea that ‘being a good Christian means being a good citizen.’ So in their context, church was a place to come to be encouraged and confirmed in maintaining the treadmill of their middle-class mediocrity. There didn’t seem to be an inherent theology of mission at the heart of the church.

I couldn’t stand it.

In reflecting on what that experience means for my own future ministry, I could only pray that I don’t end up in that kind of situation. It looked like a treadmill that would slowly grind me to death.

It confirmed to me that I’m interested in exploring non-traditional forms of ministry, though I’m not sure I can adequately articulate what that might look like in practice.

What I do know, is that at base level there must be at least 3 core values:
1. a theology of mission that actively engages in creative, organic, and contextually meaningful praxis;
2. a prophetic heart that is willing to speak of the Kingdom of God to both church and world;
3. an active pursuit of spirituality that is given time and space to explore my relationship with God at a mystic level (without wanting to sound pretentious).

I want to find a community of people who are willing to explore these values and who encourage one another in their exploration of ‘life in all its fullness’.

I know that I’m good at conducting the ‘hatch, match, and despatch’ ceremonies that non-religious people want the religious community to perform for them. I know from what people say, that they sense God when I shepherd them through those times.

But I don’t want to walk on a treadmill.

I know that in church my teaching and preaching is able to articulate for people the joys and pains of life, and my stories connect with their story so that they are unsettled, comforted, challenged, and intrigued enough to want their lives shaped by the Jesus I speak of.

I love to administer the sacraments, and watch the ancient story come to life in people’s responses as they partake in God’s goodness to them.

I enjoy the exploration of new and different forms of living the story; of working with others who are different and far more creative than me; of seeing the untamed wildness of God in people when they realise that being who they are is what freedom actually means; of listening to the poetry and art of those who seek God outside of the forms of mediocrity which says, ‘but this is the way its always been done.’

I want to live in commune with the rhythms of nature’s seasons, and feel the movement of the ancient Christian story as it swells and ebbs with its own seasons. I want to see people’s lives shaped and re-shaped year by year as they connect their life story to the Jesus story, and allow their own lives to be moulded by his.

But I don’t want to walk on a treadmill.

I want to be involved in the unstoppable mega-swell of the ocean of God’s change, and be swept up in the waves that will sweep the beach clean of the edifices humanity has erected, leaving only driftwood, pebbles, sea-weed, and sand…and children to play in the gently lapping wavelets under an early morning sun.

I don’t want those children to be oppressed by the weight of faceless committees, to be denied the fruits of their forefathers’ stewardship, to be abandoned like unwanted babies by a mother who knows she is dying but who lives in self-centred denial. So I want to be in a position where I can help the children acquire the resources they need and which are their rightful inheritance.

I want to listen to the children as they speak of God, and watch how they play as his Spirit bubbles up in them. I want to speak into the halls of power to ensure that the children have the resources of their inheritance that their Spirit-bubbling requires. And I want them to feel the freedom and encouragement from a changed mother to explore new forms of living the gospel.

So I can’t walk on a treadmill. My heart is restless, yet aches for rest. My history shows that I am constantly moving, yet I yearn to settle and put down roots.

I live in the tension of the ‘here, but not yet.’

I am a traveller.

Inspiration for the Week

Eric Prydz Vs Floyd 'Proper Education'
a great vid that turns the idea of little urban rats into little urban agents for positive environmental change.
how would christian youthworkers inspire their kids into radical acts of subversion done in the name of god?
thanks to sanctus1 for the tip.

romereo, an advent prayer

thanks to me old mates geoff and sherry at the ashram for pointing to this fabulous prayer from the late archbishop oscar romero. its a prayer worth taking 15 minutes at least once a week in advent to contemplate:

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen

the sign of the sabbath

the rest of the seventh day is a memorial of creation, but also a sign of the covenant between god's people and himself. if a king were to ratify a treaty or agreement this would bear a sign, usually an image of the gods he owed allegiance to, but israel was commanded to not make any such image - instead the sabbath itself would be the sign, and a representation of his nature. only israel had a seven-day cycle of weeks.
we do not sense today how unique israel truly was, for the seven-day week has since become the practice of the world.

adapted from Jewish Roots, as printed in the Northumbria Community's Celtic Daily Prayer

The Moon 1: Psalm 8

As I read this psalm, I’m aware again that I bring my preconceptions to what I think its about, yet again.

But I’m trying to imagine David writing it. He wasn’t a mathematician, scientist, scientist, or scholar, but a poet and artist, a musician who developed his gifts as a simple shepherd boy out in the hills. In looking at this psalm, I found the juxtaposition of his imagery interesting:
∑ God’s name, earth, glory, heavens
∑ Strength from babies to still enemies and avengers
∑ God’s fingers made the moon, stars, and heavens
∑ Human beings seem so small in comparison
∑ But we’re only a little lower than the angels
∑ Crowned with glory and honour
∑ We’ve been given dominion over all the earth
∑ And God’s name is excellent in all the earth

Heaven, earth, humans, and all creation, while different are inextricably connected, primarily because their source is God.

But I wonder why David put in the bit about babies having God’s strength to still enemies and avengers? It’s right in the middle of two verses about the glory of the heavens. Perhaps it’s the shepherd in the poet that has a firm grip on the reality of earthly life, while also seeing beyond it to the glory and majesty of God as revealed in ‘the cry of a tiny babe’ (Bruce Cockburn).

Heaven and earth; and God is in both places simultaneously inspiring the poet to consider God’s glory in both.

The Sun - 2: Mark 1:32-35

Why did they bring the diseased and possessed at night, after the sun had set? That thought occurred to me because I have this idea that night-time would have been a pretty scary time to be performing exorcisms. And I imagine people would have been pretty superstitious about such things back then. Well, some folks probably still are today!

Or was it simply that by the time Jesus had healed Simon’s mother the day was getting on anyway, and it just worked out that by the time everyone had heard about the healing and got around to her house with their own people in need of some form of healing, that it was night-time?

And Jesus, the great, divine physician, worked on into the night.

I wonder how much energy that took out of him. I wonder how much joy he got from seeing peoples’ lives changed as they were healed. I wonder if he was actually energised by his interaction with people in that way.

I know how drained I can become by being with people and giving out all the time. I need retreat times to re-energise. But there are other people who are the exact opposite of me, and who find energy when they’re interacting with others.

So Jesus worked on into the night.

Then, a long while before sunrise, he got up and went to a solitary place to pray. Jesus wasn’t scared of the dark.

I wonder if the moon was up that night, or if it was a starlit night. I imagine that if it was a cloudy, moonless night the disciples would have had difficulty finding him (verses 36, 37).

The creation of day and night, heavens and earth and the lights were all good and reflected the nature and purposes of God. Jesus would have appreciated and understood that better than anyone else. What is there to fear?

He may well have needed that prayer time to re-energise after a long and tiring day, full of healings and exorcisms. But he didn’t need to re-energise by the sun (as many pagans do). His power came from the Creator of the sun. His power came from God, who is not restricted to either day or night.

We must remember to worship the Creator, not the creation.

Inspiration for the Week

Antarctica Time lapse: A Year on Ice

i'd love to spend a year in antarctica.
what a beautiful place to contemplate the wonders of creation....

advent - wait

great picture from ben bell reminding us that the season of advent is actually about waiting.
but its not just waiting around for something to happen. its waiting with a real hope that causes us to be engaged with life. and its a hope that refuses to give up in the face of adversity.

The Sun - 1: Genesis 1:14-19

Don’t you think it interesting how we read what we want to, and project onto our readings our preconceptions of what we already think the reading is about?

Genesis 1:14 talks about the lights in the firmament being for ‘signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years’. My initial thoughts were around the ‘signs’. What could these signs be? The moon turning to red at the end of the age, perhaps? And the seasons; how does the sun tell us about the seasons? It comes up and goes down every day regardless of the time of year. Although, depending on your position on the globe, the arc of the sun will vary according to the season.

But verse 14 hadn’t even mentioned the ‘the sun’ yet – only, ‘lights in the firmament’. I had already projected onto the scripture my own preconceptions of what I thought it was talking about. The lights would have to include the stars, sun, and moon. The stars have always been connected with the thought and practice of interpreting signs, and the different constellations do change according to the seasons.

Its not until verse 16 that the scripture reveals something of the nature of those lights: greater light to rule the day; lesser light to rule the night; and the stars. They weren’t even called ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ then. Probably to keep to the point that it was God who created them, therefore, it is God who is to be worshipped, not the greater and lesser lights (many pagans were at that time worshipping sun and moon, which they saw as deities – some still do).

But my initial thought was around projecting my preconceptions onto the scripture: I already know what this is about! But maybe I don’t, really….

God’s creation had a purpose, and the purpose and creation were good.

I wonder what else I miss seeing and understanding because I think I already know what its about? The creation reflects the nature and purposes of God, which are quintessentially good. So, why do we continually seek to stuff everything up?

How should we be interpreting the lights for signs, seasons, days, and years in the context of them reflecting that nature and purposes of our good and gracious God?

Beautiful Creation: Psalm 65:9-13

This reading gives such a wonderful sense of God’s care and generosity for the earth, and for us who live on it and with it. Because of his care and generosity, there is a palpable abundance and health of growth along with an uncontainable joy expressed in response – the joy of knowing and feeling and experiencing his care.

“The river of God is full of water; you provide their grain”. There’s nothing stingy about God at all.

I remember watching the sun come up one morning while on retreat. It looked as though it was coming up out of the sea itself. It was a deep reddy/orange colour that illuminated the sky above it, and caused the sea to shimmer in front. A most beautiful sight to watch first thing in the morning.

How many times has it done that? How many times has it been seen? How many times has God been thanked for his Generosity in feeding the world with the sun and the rain? And how many times have people worshipped the creation rather than the Creator?

But still it pleases him to care for us.

Thank you Father…..

humphrys in search of god 3 - judaism

john humphrys interviewed dr jonathan sacks, chief rabbi, yesterday in the conclusion of his 3 part series in his search for god.

yet another really good interview that pulled no punches but where 2 men engaged one another with the big issues that so much of humanity grapples with. a big part of the interview was around the question of theodicy (the problem of evil), and, as you would expect with a jewish context, how god has allowed so much suffering with his own chosen people.

i think dr sacks tried to encourage mr humphrys, who seems genuine in his real desire and questioning to find faith, that he's not that far from it. dr sacks said that faith lies in the question - as the refusal of god to give easy answers means humans learning to wrestle with the reality of life, and so become more fully human in the process.

you can listen to it again here.

Free Hugs Campaign. Inspiring Story! (music by sick puppies)

its monday again, and this video gives a warm feeling to the beginning of the week.
this is the kind of behaviour that we need to see more of in our public domain.
sure, you can be cynical about it, but why would you want to be? much nicer to be hugged than punched. must nicer to be hugged than ignored. and hugs, like smiles, are free and express kindness and goodness, don't you think?
to me, this video of free hugs speaks of the grace of god - a gift of love that is undeserved, unmerited, yet totally concrete in the life of the receiver.
what about trying to hug people instead of killing them....?
let's glorify goodness instead of badness.

humphrys in search of god 2 - islam

the second installment of john h's search for god was an excellent interview with prof tariq ramadan, a leading islamic scholar. you can listen to it again here.
i was struck by prof ramadan's reasonableness and how critically aware he is of himself and of islam. of islam, he is willing to take a critical examination of the qur'an by looking at the text from an historical and contextual perspective, and ask what that text is saying in today's 21st century context. of himself, he is aware that he is a muslim living in a western liberal democracy and who wants to engage fully in that democracy as a fully committed muslim.
he seems like the kind of voice we need to hear more of - that the media needs to invest giving prime air time to. one of the great failings of our media, in my opinion, is that it gives too much time to extreme views (of anything really) as extremists create sensation, and sensation sells copy.
i think it would be helpful for our society to hear more debate between people like prof ramadan, who claims to speak for the silent majority of the muslim population of britain, and people like abu izzadeen, who claims to speak for a more extremist view of what islam is about.
see my other posts about this kind of stuff here and here.
perhaps mr humphrys and his colleagues might start to fill their agenda with better quality debate than the current crop of sensationalist trivia that fuels fear, isolationism, and bigotry.
this will not go away by itself.

humphrys in search of god 1 - christianity

from the beeb's website:

John Humphrys as you've never heard him before - talking with religious leaders about his unfulfilled desire to believe in God.

How is faith possible in a world of suffering, much of it arguably caused by religion or religious extremism and to which God seems to turn a blind eye? Is there a place for religion in an age dominated by science?

the first in the series of 3 was john h speaking with the archbishop of canterbury, dr rowan williams. i thought the interview started off well, with the arch looking like he was going to get some of that lovely, 'under-your-skin' questioning of john going; trying to get john to articulate what was going on for him about his search for god. but then it seemed to get fuzzy, and i felt like the arch didn't do as well as he could have. who knows, he may have had a bad day....

you can listen to the half-hour interview again, here.

there are 2 other shows to come on bbc radio4. they are with Professor Tariq Ramadan, Tuesday 7th November, 09:02, repeated Tuesday 7th November, 21:30; and Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi, Tuesday 14th November, 09:02,repeated Tuesday 14th November, 21:30.