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

a song for advent

watch it through to the end.
this is the kind of stuff that stirs me.
this is the kind of stuff that is dangerous.
danger is involved when you want to change the world.
changing the world is at the heart of why jesus was born.
if you're into dangerous living, then check out the next soliton gathering here.
Lazyb - Underwear Goes Inside The Pants

merton and advent

“The certainty of Christian hope lies beyond passion and beyond knowledge. Therefore we must sometimes expect our hope to come in conflict with darkness, desperation and ignorance. Therefore, too, we must remember that Christian optimism is not a perpetual sense of euphoria, an indefectible comfort in whose presence neither anguish nor tragedy can possibly exist. We must not strive to maintain a climate of optimism by the mere suppression of tragic realities. Christian optimism lies in a hope of victory that transcends all tragedy: a victory in which we pass beyond tragedy to glory with Christ crucified and risen. …

But the Church in preparing us for the birth of a “great prophet,” a Savior and a King of Peace, has more in mind than seasonal cheer. The Advent mystery focuses the light of faith upon the very meaning of life, of history, of man, of the world and of our own being. In Advent we celebrate the coming and indeed the presence of Christ in our world. We witness to His presence even in the midst of all its inscrutable problems and tragedies. Our Advent faith is not an escape from the world to a misty realm of slogans and comforts which declare our problems to be unreal, our tragedies nonexistent.”

Thomas Merton. Seasons of Celebration. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1950: 88-89

world aids day

today is world aids day.
aids is highlighted on 1st december every year.
every year more people die - they don't have to.
in first world countries, becoming hiv positive is no longer the death sentence it was 20 years ago. but it still is in developing countries.
you can watch bono's message about it here.
you can also watch his address to the american presidential prayer breakfast earlier this year, here.
you can learn about the red campaign here.
you can check out info on africa here.
you can join the 'you me us' campaign here.

there's no end of stuff you can look at, just google 'world aids day'.
but will you translate your looking into action?

jesus saw those people others didn't want to see. he went out of his way to include the poor, the lepers, the unacceptable into the party of god's kingdom. he did something about what he saw. hiv/aids is like the leprosy of today. christians at leat, have a duty to follow their master's example.

small actions by lots of people create a mass effect. small actions with visible symbols attached, like a wearing a red ribbon, create a heightened awareness that opens the door for conversation about what the red ribbon is for.
small actions like writing to politicians about the inequity of developing world health care compared to our own, and the protected interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies in comparison to the unprotected needs of millions of hiv infected people in developing countries is the chance to put the power of democracy into action on behalf of those whose voices go unheard.

go on, do something today - you really can; perhaps you must.

muggings - cause, effect, and hope

excellent interview on bbc radio4's today programme this morning, that looks at the question of why young people go around mugging others. you can listen again here.
youthworkers, camila batmangelidgh of kids company, and shaun bailey bring a damning critique and indictment on our liberal democracy that has neglected the care and safety of our children so that they actually feel unsafe in the world. that feeling of being unsafe coupled with a lack of love and care, along with a relentless media-driven diet of violence places too many children literally into survival mode that means the only way they can see that they can be safe is to become known as dangerous.
of course, this sounds like more liberal wishy-washy excuse-making for bad behaviour, but i find myself saying more often these days, that delinquent parents and adults are making delinquent children.
we do well to remember that jesus welcomed children into his circle in such a way that shocked his culture, when he said, 'to such as these (children) belong the kingdom of god'. in other words, the 'status' of children is second to none in the eyes of the king of the universe. that also means that the responsibility for the love and care and nurture and discipline of these first-class citizens of god's kingdom lies with adults.
the critique of the youthworkers mentioned above is that adults are the cause of their own misery because they have failed in their responsibility to the children they have begotten.
this is a complex issue that will not suffer simplistic solutions. it will require nothing less than a cultural shift, probably taking a generation or more to flow through.
but its not hopeless. einstein said that it only takes 8% of any given population to change for the rest of the population to change with them.
people like camila and shaun need to play a louder and more prominent role in helping our society to understand what's going on and develop strategies at a political level that are more effective than what we currently have.
churches need to take heart and realise that they have an enormous part to play in this issue too, as they provide most of the country's youthworkers. organisations like frontier youth trust and oasis trust do great work in training youthworkers and contributing at a significant political level by engaging in prophetic dialogue with the makers of public policy. youthwork programmes like ascension eagles cheerleaders take a long term approach to working with young people and their wider community that actually effect a cultural shift at a micro level.
the downward spiral of violence and revenge is not the only way to be feel safe in our world. the dear man whose son was murdered by 2 young men for his mobile phone and travel card has chosen to look for a better way.
the season of advent leading to christmas reminds us that god did not, and has not given up on the human condition, flawed as it is. the decision of god to live among us as jesus of nazareth, taking responsibility for the children he created continues to inspire a real, living and transformational hope that the way life is, is not necessarily the way it needs to be, and that the human condition is actually redeemable.
there is hope yet, and there are those who live hope.

Movement and Tension: Mark 4:35-41

There’s a sense of movement throughout this passage; and a tension between the movement and stillness, which is its opposite.

Movement from day to evening – tension between busyness of day and stillness of evening.
Movement from sea to land – tension between stillness of land and movement of sea.
Movement from crowd to a few – tension between noise of crowd and stillness of a few.
Movement from calm to a storm – tension between safety and survival.
Movement from sleep to wakefulness – tension between panic and calm.
Movement from storm to peace and stillness – tension between fear and faith.
Movement from fear to awe – tension between normal and paranormal.

Life is full of movement and tension, and we are always faced with how we will respond to it. Jesus asked the disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” He obviously sees movement and tension differently to us. Equally obvious is that he understands our fears and lack of faith. But I suspect he wants us to see the movements and tensions of life with his eyes that will cause us to lose our fear because we will be so full of faith – faith in him who has created all that we are, and are part of.

Its so easy to see this stuff from the vantage point of being on retreat. So much more difficult in the midst of the busyness and chaos of everyday life. And there are people in our midst who would love to feel the closeness and calmness that Jesus gives, but whose lives are so demanding that they just can’t give themselves the time to draw close to him.

It would be great to bless the parents of some of our kids in consistently small ways that would enable them to feel God’s closeness and goodness, and help them to really live in the everyday reality of movement and tension.

white and red poppies - lessons from war

the red colour of the ubiquitous poppy at this time of year is a powerful symbol used to remember the dreadful cost of war, particularly in human terms. but this year, the colour has been brought into the wider public debate more than i've noticed in the past. there is a move, here and abroad (notably canada) to promote a white poppy to give people the opportunity to think and debate more critically the lessons to be learned from war. it must be emphasised that the white poppy is in no way trying to demean the red one or its symbolism. nor does it seek to detract from the valuable fundraising done for those who need financial support because of the ramifications of their loved ones being involved in war. rather, it seeks to engage in prophetic dialogue with the 'obvious' idea that war and violence is really the only final option available in dispute.
you can read an excellent article on the myth of redemptive violence, by walter wink, here.
you can also listen to a brief interview on the today programme on radio4 here, with jonathan bartley, director of ekklesia thinktank.
i've never been anywhere near war. i can't possibly know what it's like. i can only imagine it. last weekend included guy fawkes night that witnessed an incessant barrage of noise and fireworks lighting up the sky. it always makes me think about war and remembrance day more than the historical plot to blow up parliament, though both have their roots in the myth of redemptive violence. the bangs of fireworks bring to mind images from sebastian foulkes story of the british trenches of the first world war in his harrowing book, 'birdsong'. his vivid descriptions of the horrors of trenchlife, of the continual scream of metal in the sky along with the continual scream of men dying, being maimed, and going mad. and the fireworks bring to mind the classic book, 'all quiet on the western front' that tells the story from the german side. again, vivid descriptions of men being blasted out of their clothes and hanging naked in trees; of the mental dislocation of returning home to so-called 'normality' on leave; and of feeling the pain of killing complete strangers as they lay beside you in a shell hole.
strangely, on guy fawkes night, i remember things i haven't experienced through stories told by others, and hope i will never have to experience them. and on remembrance day, we remember those who died in the hope that we who came after them would never have to experience those horrors.
and that's the truth about remembrance day - that the hope of those who gave their lives in war was for a better future than the one they were experiencing.
as a christian, i have a hope for a better future too. my hope is based on jesus who, on the cross, took all the pain, hatred, and violence the world could throw at him and said that 'it ends here'. the cross, ultimate roman symbol of torture, pain, violence, insult, and death was transformed by jesus to become the ultimate symbol of peace and hope. the resurrection of jesus from the dead proves that goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate, truth is stronger than lies, and light is stronger than darkness.
this is echoed by an anonymous prisoner who scratched this prayer on his cell wall in world war 2:
“I believe in the sun,
even when it does not shine.
I believe in love,
Even when I cannot feel it.
I believe in God,
Even when he is silent.”
on remembrance day, we remember things we didn't experience through stories told by other people in the hope that we never will have to experience them.
in jesus, we remember things we didn't experience through stories told by other people in the hope that we will experience the strange reality of life beyond the grave - a resurrection life of a re-made world that knows no pain, suffering, or death - and which is translated into life NOW, and proved by how we live NOW.
we all long for peace. peace now. not just in eternity.
on remembrance day, we WILL REMEMBER THEM, and i trust, honour their memory by how we live.
the powerful symbols of the two poppies, one red, one white, and the transformed symbol of the cross call us to lives of peace and hope, through peaceful and hopeful means.

and who is my neighbour? (part 2)

The stories I gave in the last post are simple examples of our church communities trying to discover natural ways of demonstrating expressions of Kingdom principles. The focus is around promoting a practical commitment to neighbourliness, which is rooted in the sake of a commitment to neighbourliness itself – rather than neighbourliness as an aperitif for a main course of more self-conscious (and often up-tight) evangelism. This is justice and hospitality etc. for justice and hospitality’s etc. sake. In the process of doing neighbourliness, principles of building God’s Kingdom here on earth (now) are employed. These principles subvert a more traditional and obvious approach to mission. It’s about developing models of mission for people who don’t do mission, church for people who don’t go to church.

When Jesus was asked by a smart-alec lawyer, “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29), he was really asking, “Where, within the boundaries of those with whom I naturally have something to do, does my responsibility end?” So, he was actually trying to get a theoretical and technical definition that would absolve him from having to do anything with people who fell outside of the definition of ‘neighbour’. But Jesus was ruthless with him by telling the parable of the Samaritan (note that nowhere in the text is the Samaritan referred to as ‘good’). And a Jewish lawyer hated nobody with as much venom as he hated a Samaritan. At the end of Jesus’ parable, in verse 36, he asks the lawyer, “Which….do you think was a neighbour…?” The lawyer must concede that the neighbour was the Samaritan because of what he did. Jesus challenges the lawyer to, “Go and do likewise”. In other words, be like the Samaritan, a doer of God’s word, not just a theoretician about God’s word.

So, who is my neighbour? Neighbours are doers of God’s word. They should of course, include those of us who say that we are followers of Jesus, committed to living fully alive, shalom-like ways that bring resonances of heaven here on earth. But they can also include the most unlikely ones who, by their concrete actions in everyday life, demonstrate the principles of the Kingdom of God. Let me encourage you to be a good neighbour for the sake of our community – a community that God loves.