Death...

Death. Seems like a strange subject with which to be heralding Christmas. Unfortunately, it has a habit of hitting you when you least expect it. I guess that's one of it's features. Just this week I heard about the death of a friend and colleague, and for me it came totally out of the blue - I had no idea he had been ill.

Chris Hildyard was one of those people who was so full of life, energy and enthusiasm that the news came as a particular shock. He always had that timeless quality: when I first got to know him in his late 40s he looked pretty much the same as he did in recent pictures 20 years on. What made his death particularly difficult to take was that he was so good for the world. Increasingly, I'm coming to see that the Christian gospel is less about getting people to believe the right things and thereby save them from eternal damnation as it is about being good news for the world; it's about saving the world from the impact of sin, bringing a quiet revolution into our communities.

Chris lived it. His faith was strong and vibrant; it motivated and influenced him in every area of his life. But that didn't make him into one of those po-faced, joyless evangelicals who are rarely good news for anyone. No, Chris was always good for a laugh, exuded great warmth, was so hospitable and great to have around.

On a webpage that Chris's grown children have created in his memory, one son commented: "It's said that all men fear turning into their fathers: no fears here".

"Well done good and faithful servant", is what most Christians long to hear when they face God at the end of their lives. I have no doubt that this is the welcome my brother will have received.

Voices from the margins

Has a man, dressed as a bear, walking around a closed art gallery in the dead of night, something to say to us? At first sight, probably not. However, I was challenged by the Rt Revd James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, speaking on Radio 4.

He was talking about this year's Turner Prize, which was awarded to Mark Wallinger for his monumental political work 'State Britain'. In it he recreated in minute detail the one-man-protest against the Iraq war mounted by Brian Haw in Parliament Square. It took 15 people six months to make it. The jury commended Wallinger's work for combining "a bold political statement with art's ability to articulate fundamental human truths".

Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to rebuild the 40 metre installation and instead Mark Wallinger exhibited The Sleeper - a two and a half hour video showing the artist dancing around an empty art gallery in Berlin dressed as a Bear! Like me, you may think that, true to form, the Turner committee have delivered yet another bizarre decision, and that Wallinger has little to say.

However, as Bishop James pointed out, in the pages of the Old Testament we find several prophets who one minute appear little more than exhibitionists, acting out what they say they've been told by God, the next they're speaking profound words of astounding beauty that are regularly quoted 2,500 years later.

The same week that Bishop James delivered his message, Brian Eno (worked with Roxy Music, U2, David Bowie and countless others) was speaking about the death of classical composer Karl Heinz Stockhausen, known for his avante garde approach to the genre - whose work could be described as inaccessible, noise, unlistenable... Yet, according to Eno, this man had 'infected' not classical but popular music, and he cited Kraftwerk, Pink Floyd and Eno himself among the best known who would claim some influence from the unconventional German composer.

Eno said: "There are artists who make music one wants to hear and others who stake out new territory within which the rest of us can do new things. [Stockhausen] broadened the territory so much that it gave everybody else a lot more freedom than they had before."

So, the next time you see a man dressed as a bear, or hear someone trying to introduce helicopters into his latest musical work, don't write them off as nutters, or as irrelevant, because they might just be the ones who have the most profound and important things to say to us. As Bishop James said: "Pointing the way to peace is the work of prophets, poets, artists and even comedians. It cannot be just left to politicians and to priests. Why? Because although we too are committed to finding peace, we're in, and of, the institution. And sometimes, God knows, we need somebody outside to tell us what we look like."

Pleasing God

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.” Romans 12:1 (The Message)

I saw a billboard outside a local church last week. It said this: “Anything you do that brings pleasure to God is an act of worship”.

At a gathering a few days later we were asked: “What have you done this week that you think would have pleased God?” Here are some of the responses.

“I love delivering training in small groups, helping people learn, and this week I’ve had two opportunities to do that. I believe God is pleased when we do things that we seem to have been made for.”

“We took Sam [2 year old son] to a firework display. He loved it, and there were lots of other families there who seemed to be having a good time. I think God is pleased when families get along.”

“I took a group of my year 9’s into the hills for a 7-mile walk, as a practice for Duke of Edinburgh. The weather was wild and they found it really tough, but they really achieved something. I feel God likes us to overcome barriers and grow a bit.”

“I spit-roasted a lamb – it took 5 hours. Then I invited loads of friends and family around to share it. It was fantastic and I think God would be pleased.”

“I’m the world’s worst evangelist. But the other day a work colleague started asking me about my church. I don’t know what she made of it all, but she ended up coming out with us on Friday night to help with the work we do with the homeless people. She didn’t even seem to mind the singing and praying beforehand.”

“I’ve been offered a Christmas job: to dress up as the Gingerbread Man in Oldham town centre and make children happy. How cool is that!”

You see, worship is about far more than singing a few hymns once a week.

The right one

So, I'm thinking about guidance. Depending on your background, you may think this whole guidance thing is simply off the wall. Guidance? For what? By whom? Alternatively, if you're familiar with evangelical culture, it may be commonplace, and you KNOW that God guides his children, and you may even subscribe to a particular pattern by which this happens.

But as I said last time, I've been doing some reading around the subject and come across some alternative views from within Christian circles - and I have to confess, what they're saying squares up with my own experience. You see, the 'traditional' view says that God has a plan for your life and that it's up to you to find out what that is and live by it. So, some would say he's identified a particular career and specific jobs within that; there's one life partner that he's lined up for you; he's called you to this place or that.....and so it goes on. And if you try to live in this way, you might well find yourself frustrated, confused, wavering (did God really say that?).

The 'alternative' view (eg Friesen) says yes, God has a plan for your life, but it is framed in what is described as his moral will: it's God's will that you should honour your parents, that you should love your neighbour, that you should uphold justice....it's all there in The Book. Beyond that, he's given you a mind, a conscience, a will and the capacity to make decisions. Now those decisions are not divorced from God's plan, far from it. In choosing between this job or that, there will undoubtedly be several factors to consider, and it may well be that one of them is more likely to align with God's 'moral will'. More likely however, things probably won't be clear and the important thing is not so much which job to take as how to conduct yourself in whichever one you do take. So it is with your life partner: is he/she THE One? That's not the issue. Obviously it helps if you're compatible, sharing similar interests, humour, values. But beyond that, the long term success of that relationship is going to depend on how considerate you are, to what extent you're prepared to set aside your own needs for the sake of your partner. Because it is quite possible to find THE One and to fail because you're basically selfish!

How do you travel?

Do you ever have this experience where, having not consciously thought about or heard about a particular issue for years, suddenly the same thing comes at you all at once from several directions? It happens to me often.

This past week I've been reading around the subject of 'guidance' in preparation for a college assignment. Over the years I've modified my approach to this area of life with God: at one time I would have been with those who said you need to do something like this:

• lock yourself in a room for at least an hour


• ask God whether you should take the van driving job, get involved in the evangelistic tapdancing group or go on holiday with the Browns


• wait for God to 'speak'


• if nothing happens, take no action on the said issue until you do hear

In this way, Christians have become paralysed in their lives on many fronts, ever waiting for God to speak. Meanwhile, the 'less spiritual' among us have just made decisions and gone for it.

My reading is bringing me into contact with several attitudes to the guidance issue, but most of which would NOT uphold the process I outline above, and I shall blog some more about that over the coming days.

However, the other input to this came most unexpectedly. I visited the Faithworks Conference in London yesterday and found myself in a seminar which focused on us as individuals charting our course in the process of changing our communities. The question was posed: how do you make the journey?

• are you a map reader? You like a plan of how it all fits together, how one bit relates to another; this is where you are and in order to get to that other place this is the route you need to follow - just make sure you keep checking the map.


• do you prefer Sat Nav? This looks a lot like the process I outlined earlier: 'Stop', 'Turn right', 'Travel straight ahead for 3 miles'


• are you a compass user? Having a strong sense of North, you have an internal source of guidance to help you navigate your environment.

I confess to being a bit of a map junkey when it comes to the physical world, whether I'm running, driving or visiting London and wondering if I can sensibly walk from Euston to wherever. I'll always pull out a map, measure the odd distance, note with some satisfaction that I can now see how Marple and Glossop are related and that there's what looks like a great running route along that canal.....I can lose myself in the map.

And I'm wondering to what degree that map mentality translates into my approach to finding my way along life's paths. This requires further pondering.

Lost

How can it be - more than 5 months since I last put digits to keys, dear bloggees. For me it's a poignant indication of how, as an adult immersed in the stuff of life, things can just drift off on the tide unless you afford them some focused attention.

In fact it's only because first my friend Melanie and then Matt enquired about my bloglife that I've even ventured back to it. If it hadn't been for their prompting, apilgrim'spostings would have done the virtual equivalent of withering on the vine (becoming corrupted on the web?)

So this time I shall set forth with a more structured approach: once a week (at least), at the weekend, I shall blog my heart out. Because you see, it's not that I've no longer got anything to say (although reading this you may disagree). Since May (last sighting of Kenblog), I've read loads, thought loads, talked loads. I just haven't been blogging about it. Yet I know that the very blog process helps me process what I'm seeing/hearing/thinking, so even if no one bothers to click on my page, I gain anyway.

Sorry about this confessional, it's good for my soul. And I now feel ready to re-blog. See you soon.

The ages of man

A guy called Daniel J Levinson proposed several 'eras' of life, each lasting 20-25 years and overlapping with the previous era. So the era of childhood and youth ends in the early 20s, early adulthood lasts from around 20 to 45, late adulthood from 40 to 65, and so on. These eras are each characterised by certain qualities of living.

Due to my own age (somewhere around the transition from early to middle adulthood), I am particularly interested in the transition that is thought to take place in one's mid-40s. It is thought that one of the key factors nudging someone across this transition is the experience of relating to people who, in their early 20s are a whole generation younger. This experience compels a change of identity, making the person in his or her 40s realise that he or she can no longer be considered a member of the 'younger generation'.

This may seem obvious, but I found it quite profound, probably because I recognise in myself this very dynamic. It has been accentuated by the fact that the church we've recently hooked up with is young - mostly people in their 20s. I'm feeling different about myself in this environment and I'm finding myself having to approach relationships with these people from in a way that feels new. In fact, I've found myself mostly drawn to those slightly older couples (ie 30s) who have children.

I came across Levinson's ideas in a book by John Hull: What prevents Christian adults from learning? First published in 1985, I don't think it's in print any more, but if you can get a used copy of Amazon it's well worth a read. It's an academic style text, is pretty heavy in parts, but contains some real gems that make a lot of sense. In fact, look out for Mr Hull's writings in a future blog.

Plato's cave

I was reminded today of something I found very powerful when I first heard it: Plato's Cave. You may well have come across it yourself, but if not, here it is in essence. Plato said, suppose there is a cave, and inside the cave there are some men chained up to a wall, so that they can only see the back wall of the cave and nothing else. These men can't see anything outside of the cave, or even see each other clearly, but they can see shadows of what is going on outside the cave. Wouldn't these prisoners come to think that the shadows were real, and that was what things really looked like?

Suppose now that one of the men escaped, and got out of the cave, and saw what real people looked like, and real trees and grass. If he went back to the cave and told the other men what he had seen, would they believe him, or would they think he was crazy? Plato says that we are like those men sitting in the cave: we think we understand the real world, but because we are trapped in ourselves we can see only the shadows on the wall.

If you've seen The Matrix, this idea will be familiar to you.

The power of it is in its application: we're all, to some extent, cave dwellers with only a partial view of reality. And the question is: what do we do when someone comes into the frame saying what we think is reality is actually only a pale reflection or a distortion. Historically the people who've broadcast such messages have found themselves strung from trees or burning at a stake. Hmm....

Good for the soul

My wife just said to me, with one of those sighs of satisfaction: "Sundays are good for the soul". And you know what, she's right. If you've seen earlier blogs, you may know that we are currently 'between churches' (euphemism for 'we've left a church and aren't altogether sure which we'll be hooking up with').

After longer than I care to recall, Sunday mornings are suddenly free of a schedule geared to the start of church, with all the pressure and tension that can bring when you're trying to get a family mobilised and out of the door at the same time as each other. So this morning, having been for a life-giving run through the wind and rain, showered and put on warm, dry clothes, and luxuriated with a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge, I'm now listening to Beethoven's 6th with the watery sun just starting to brighten up this grey wintery day. It is well with my soul!

As I reflect on this I'm coscious of just how simple these soul-enlarging factors are. None of it requires me to stroke myself through shopping, watching TV, going somewhere exotic - although the porridge did require a microwave!

A closing thought from the back of a pack of ASDA 'Chilled Oats': Dr Maximilian Bircher-Benner, who was a pioneer of natural health and invented muesli, recommended a holistic approach to good health involving a balance of natural diet, work and spiritual peace - recommending daily walks and spending time sunbathing. Sounds like Dr Max and I are on a similar wavelength.

How many mechanics does it take to change a light bulb?

I spent an hour this morning sitting in Renault Manchester. Major breakdown, looking at new cars? No, having a headlamp bulb changed! Unbelievable! And it cost me £45 for the privilege.

I know what you're thinking: 'this boy is an imbecile'. Maybe so, but the truth is when I realised my bulb had blown, I opened the bonnet to get at the back of the headlamp assemlby, like I did with my previous car, only to find there is no obvious access to it. Thinking I must be missing something, I reached for the Renault owner's manual.....which advised me to take the car into a Renault dealer! To get an idea of what a complex job it was, it took a fully qualified Renault mechanic one hour to do it.

I write this because I am feeling a bewildered and incredulous. When did life become so complicated?

Now I'm no techno-phobe. I love being able to access 1000 of my favourite songs, or an inspiring preach from the other side of the globe, on a matchbox size device; Watching a quality film on widescreen TV with surround sound is a great experience; and I'd be the first to praise the reliability of my car with the blown headlamp bulb. But all this comes at a price, and there are times, like this morning, when I feel like the price has just reached unacceptable limits.

Oh, for the simple life.

Mapping my world

I've been thinking about maps. I like maps. I like maps even when I have no intention of going to a particular place: tracing the progress of an intrepid explorer across the Gobi Desert, or along the old Silk Route. A map like that has the power to transport me to some dangerous, mysterious land.

I also like maps when I've been somewhere and I want to know how that place fits with others I know. I'll come home, maybe from a run or a bike ride, having been a bit lost but eventually found my way, and I'll wonder 'how did I do that?' - and the map gives me the answer, the 'aha!' moment.

Even more, I like the idea of mental maps - versions of the world that we hold in our heads. Like paper maps, mental maps aren't the reality, they're just representations of reality. Without a mental map, a concept of how the universe fits together, we'd have to relearn everything that confronted us every moment of the day. Our mental map allows us to interpret what happens to us based on our previous experiences. The danger though is that we can come to believe that our mental map IS reality, that how we see and make sense of the world IS how the world is. It's not; it's an approximation.

And in the same way that my understanding of my surroundings changes when I have the 'aha!' experience described above, so it is with my mental imagery. When I have an experience that jars with what I thought to be true, I have a choice. I can ignore the new evidence in order to preserve the integrity of my map. Or, I can take a fresh look at the map and be prepared to challenge its accuracy in the light of new knowledge. Now that can be scary, but to live refusing to review our map is death.

Part of my pilgrimage is about remapping the territory, trying to look at familiar things through a fresh pair of eyes and seeing if there isn't a different interpretation, a more accurate view of the world.

...like jazz

I've been reading 'Blue Like Jazz' by Donald Miller. In a bookshop it would be labelled a 'Christian book', but don't be put off if, like me, you're suspicious of Christian books. Sure, Miller is a Christian, but (and I'm very conscious as I write that word 'but') he's also very honest.

While it reads as a hotch-potch of autobiographical tales, it's really a book about spiritual growth, a deceptively simple, often raw, yet deeply profound book about spiritual growth.

Miller uses stories and reflections of his own life to introduce themes of redemption (the sexy carrots), pride, change, church (how I go without getting angry), romance, isolation and community, money, worship....and does so in a way that is so real, so gutsy, so funny and so uncomfortable.

As he says "before I lived in community, I thought faith, mine being Christian faith, was something a person did alone, like monks in caves...It was all stuff you did in a quiet room." I could have written that. What Miller awakened me to was something that I already knew deep down - that faith and spirituality is NOT an individual thing, or at least it cannot remain that. At least half of it is about real life in and around people.

Whether or not you call yourself a Christian, if you're drawn to ideas of spirituality and spiritual growth and have been put off by the Christianity you've come across before, give this a go - it might just be the making of you. In fact, if you'd like to read it I'd be glad to buy you a copy! Just drop me a line.

Oh, and Happy New Year.