Long time, no hear

Very remiss of me, I know, not to have posted anything for 6 months. Yes, life has been busy etc, etc - but that's no excuse.

I may possibly restart in the New Year...keep watching.

Are you certain?

Sparked by a comment from mmp (see last blog), and following a link (http://asbojesus.wordpress.com/), I came across this wonderful image...

I read recently something to the effect that doubt has a more legitimate place in our faith journey than does certainty. And I want to say YES!! It is doubt and questioning that drives us deeper, searching, seeking, groaning, yearning, longing. Certainty doesn't cause us to do any of that stuff. It just says, "case proven, end of conversation".

There was a time while speaking to a church gathering that I said doubt was good and positive - and was soundly reprimanded: "Doubt is never positive", I was told. But I maintain that doubt is that grit in the oyster from which pearls result. I concede though that I was perhaps unwise to say what I said in the context I was speaking - right timing is important.

I became a Christian and was nurtured in a church environment that claimed remarkable properties for the Bible. Now I think the Bible is a wonderful, God-given, Spirit-inspired book which has much to say to me and to you in the 21st century - all very remarkable. But it's possible to attribute more to the book than was ever intended. Take for example the claim for its inerrancy; or the way in which it is often used to shoot others down - Bible bullets as we used to call them; or how it is wafted in the air with cries of 'the truth'.

Anyway, I'm ranting now. All I wanted to say really was that, where matters of faith are concerned, doubt is good, certainty rarely is.

The primary cause of unhappiness

"The primary cause of unhappiness in Britain is not lack of material wealth but a loss of faith in God and religion, a group of MPs says." (The Times, Monday 12 May). Amen!! Although I'm not sure I would have framed it in terms of religion. As witnessed by many of the comments following the piece in Timesonline, people have a kneejerk reaction whenever the 'R' word is mentioned.

I'm reading 'Evangelism in a spiritual age', which was published a couple of years back by those leading the Fresh Expressions initiative. It is based on in-depth interviews with people outside of the church, and makes fascinating (and encouraging) reading.


While there is, not surprisingly, a largely negative view of church among the respondents, there is widespread interest in, belief in, experience of the spiritual (which involves everything from angels and awe-experiences to ghosts and connection with dead relatives). The point being, with many people there is a ready-made starting point for faith conversations, because these things are a part of their view and experience of the world already.


However, I suggest that what these people do NOT need is an invitation to church, a 4-point gospel presentation or condemnation of their often vaguely held and inconsistent belief system. They need what people have always needed: someone to listen to what they sincerely think (without 'correcting'), to listen to their questions (without presenting 'the answer'), and being honest about our own views and uncertainties.

We would walk again thy sacred paths

An invitation to read and resonate...

"Land of my fathers, how I long to return, to touch thy earth, and find again thy sacred paths, well-walked with the Gospel of Peace, veiled now in the shadow of mediocrity.

"'What mean these stones' which beset thy coastline, who in twisted agony cry out in praise and supplication of Him and the renewal of the faith that bled to secure them there?

"Yet we would walk again thy sacred paths, repair thy ancient ruins, restore thy broken altars, raise up the foundations of many generations.
"Hear this, you lands of the South who hold many in captivity by your empty words and well-worn myths, who neglect to see justice for the poor, the widow, the fatherless.

"Look to the North -for lo your Redeemer comes, clothed in the poverty of the few who dare to speak His name, without vanity, in a whisper, lest the earth should tremble Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord.

"Poor of Yahweh, arise, take up the ancient mantle which has awaited your day; clothe yourselves within its humility, for you have been set as a stumbling block for many."


(taken from www.northumbriacommunity.org - Pray the Office)

On life and fossils

"A lack of food and water has a dramatic physical effect upon the body. Equally, a lack of love and encouragement can have a dramatic emotional effect upon the body. Similarly a lack of reflective engagement and embracing of the mysterious and paradoxical questions about life can have a negative spiritual effect upon the body. This results in spiritual poverty." (Glimpses, Steve Bullock, Nigel Pimlock, 2008)

I'm on a roll here. To my mind, this is so true. My previous post suggested that often the church isn't great at fostering spirituality. I think it's that 'lack of reflective engagement and embracing of the mysterious and paradoxical' that is at the root of such ineffectiveness. Too much of church seeks to build solid, unshakable doctrine into its people. Scripture verses such as 'Jesus, the same yesterday, today and forever', and the Bible story of the wise man who built his house upon a rock, are used to promote the primary value of faith being solid, immovable, unchanging.

Yet the more I try to live as a follower of Jesus, the more I come to see faith as a strong relationship, a bit like a good marriage or frienship which can be utterly confusing, bewildering and frustrating, yet precious, grounded and affirming. The trouble is many people, and particularly those in positions of power (and we're all in positions of power one way or another), prefer the solid, the immovable, the predictable, the controllable - that way you can stay in power more easily, or so it seems. Consequently, we have taken the idea that Jesus is our Rock and applied that understanding to our doctrines. So rather than the kind of rock in which we can trust because it provides a solid, dependable, utterly trustworthy foundation, we have often made Jesus into a fossil, an ossified* life-form, that once was the source of all life, the embodiment of life itself, and in his human form the perfect example of how life can be lived in all its fullness. Preach on brother!!

*def: make or become rigid or callous or unprogressive

Dream on

This spiritual formation thing is really speaking to me. As I reflect on the problems faced by our society - whether those associated with poverty or with wealth, with overwork or with no work, with poor health or with ineffective education - so much of it comes back to a lack of spirituality in people's lives. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised at this realisation, but as with many things, you can know something for years before you come to learn it. And this is one of those things I'm just beginning to learn.

My church background would say, of course, people need Jesus. Well yes, I guess that would be wonderful - a life-giving, vibrant, authentic, gutsy, full-on, brutally honest relationship with Jesus is very definitely good for the soul, good for the community and good for the planet. Sadly, most of us never come close. Even those of us claiming allegiance to Jesus only attain to a pale reflection of what is possible, and ironically much that is promoted as Christian is sadly lacking in the spirituality department.

But think how different things might be if the people in our community for whom life revolves around earning more money, getting more stuff, going on more holidays and watching countless hours of TV, could just catch hold of the spiritual: finding our place in the bigger story of which we're all a part, experiencing that sense of awe at the world around us, breaking through personal barriers that have kept us imprisoned, living a life based on love...dream on.

On being formed...

I just read something really disturbing. What makes it so disturbing is that I think it's true. Jim Wallis (in The Call to Conversion) is talking about watching TV one evening, and as he considered the ads selling an array of 'stuff' he said: "what was happening through television that night was spiritual formation. Far more effective than totalitarianism, this continual electronic suasion is forming the values, the mind, and the spirit of each of us in our all-consuming society."

I guess it caught my attention because I'm just completing a module on yes, you guessed it, 'spiritual formation'. And while I've been practising lectio divina, silence, bodily prayer, labyrinth, meditation, fasting etc all with the goal of being fashioned more into the image of Christ, the vast majority of people are, as Mr Wallis suggests, being formed into consumption machines, perfectly adapted to want to consume more and more products of endless variety.

In saying this I'm not claiming to be immune - I too fall prey to the consumer-formers. It is endemic in the church: another new song with which to worship, the next must-have spiritual book, another week's podcast sermons from countless high profile speakers...on the face of it, all good stuff through which to develop our faith. And yet...there's something that disturbs me about all this: with all these resources available, is my faith any stronger than that of my predecessors who had barely a Bible; and, are we not just immitating the secular world in our insatiable appetites for more?

Ultimately, does all this Christian stuff feed our flesh more than it feeds our spirits, and actually distract us from the Source?

Father Joe

I've been itching to write this for some days, but hadn't found the time. Father Joe was a person. 'Father Joe' is a book. It's a fabulous book. Sounds like he was a fabulous person. You may have read it, but in case you haven't... It's written by Tony Hendra, a Cambridge graduate, satirist, one-time associate of the Monty Python crew, co-creator of 'Spitting Image' - and all the fractured, stimulant-assisted, relationship-breaking lifestyle that often goes with being a part of that world. The book is his autobiography, within which there's this central figure, Father Joe, who Hendra meets when he's 14 and who continues to play a key part thereafter.

Father Joe was a Benedictine Monk, who lived most of his life in a monastery on the Isle of Wight. He was apparently blissfully unaware of and disconnected from modern life as we know it. Yet the understanding and wisdom with which he guided the author through his turbulent years is utterly incredible, and always with such great love and grace: "I was always somewhat baffled that this monk, who had never slept with man or woman, who had confined himself in a cloister in late puberty, could know and feel so much about a matter he'd taken a strong vow to know not...He had none of that , yet he got it all. Nothing shocked or surprised him, he always grasped immediately the core of a sexual crisis, he always offered practical solutions. It was a mystery."

I found the book totally compelling and thoroughly absorbing. At an emotional level it left me in tears. At a spiritual level it left me in awe. I hope I've said enough to 'sell' it to you.

(Oddly, it isn't very available in the UK, but you can get one from USA via Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Father-Joe-Man-Saved-Soul/dp/1400061849/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207923848&sr=8-1.)

The sound of silence

I posed the question, what would a five-a-day spiritual diet look like. At the heart of my own reflection lies a strangely simple, apparently accessible, though often illusive reality - silence. Karin alluded to this in her response. For thousands of years, silence has been practised as one of the most common spiritual disciplines, often in association with solitude, sometimes as a basis for other disciplines such as centred prayer and meditation.

I've said it is often illusive, thinking that, with wall-to-wall, 24/7 media available, and with the frenetic pace of much of modern life, silence is increasingly difficult to access. However, given the prominence of silence among the disciplines, I'm thinking that maybe it's always been difficult to find - that it has always required DISCIPLINE. We have TV, radios, iPods, etc. 1st century Christians would mostly have lived in the midst of heaving, chattering, singing, shouting community - large families meshed together with neighbours and relatives. The Desert Fathers were known as such because they sought the solitude of the desert, away from the distractions of community life.


And in recent weeks, I've found silence to be the most precious of gifts. I'm not really talking about lack of noise - that's just quiet, and it's an important part of this. I'm talking about a condition of the heart, still before God, becoming aware of his ever-presence, attentive. Beautiful. Henri Nouwen reports meeting with Mother Teresa and pouring out his troubles. When he'd stopped, Mother T said: "When you spend one hour a day adoring your Lord and never doing anything you know to be wrong...you'll be fine."

Five a day

If you live in the UK, you couldn't fail to have at least heard the healthy living 'five-a-day' mantra: eat at least five portions of fresh fruit and veg daily and you'll be a whole lot healthier. Our family hears it more than most because my wife is a nutrition graduate and weight loss coach.

Whether or not you follow this advice, you'll have heard it, and particularly if you're a woman you've probably 'been on a diet' at one time or another. We're all familiar with this language and with the huge market that's developed around 'slimming'.

But what about our souls? Have we ever thought of putting them on a diet? What would 'five-a-day' look like then? How would we ensure a healthy, balanced diet? Which 'foods' might we avoid? Which would we be allowed as 'treats'?

I'm going to be thinking about this and will report back with my reflections. In the meantime, maybe you would like to think about it too...

Celebration of discipline

I can't believe it's been over a month - and into a whole new year - since I last blogged. Not least because I had committed to blogging at least once a week. Oh well, I have no intention of beating myself up, but it does highlight something about the importance of discipline.

I've just started a module of my theology degree on 'spiritual formation'. It's a trendy title for all the stuff involved in relating to God and living it out. I guess you could say theology without the stuff of spiritual formation is just so much hot air; combine the two and you have the beginnings of something powerful and transformational.

At the heart of this is 'the disciplines' - prayer, fasting, study, pilgrimage, meditation, service... And they're called disciplines because, yes, you guessed it, they require a disciplined approach. It may be a daily rhythm; in the case of the 'offices' it's a sequence of prayer and meditation throughout the day. But in every case they require the disciple (is there a link here between disciple and discipline?) to subjugate the flesh and give themselves to a practice that they might otherwise find some reason not to do.

As I write this, I'm thinking of the parallels with physical exercise - in the normal course of events, people tend to shy away from it, since it involves some level of discomfort (in order to increase your fitness, you normally have to extend the capacity of your body, whether your muscles or cardio vascular system, which necessarily involves pushing it beyond where it has been before - this in turn leads to discomfort). It therefore requires discipline. For me, that means an inner expectation that, however I feel, whatever the weather, I will run, swim, cycle, or whatever on most days.

My challenge is to bring that same level of discipline to my spiritual life which, for the most part resembles the wave which is 'blown and tossed by the wind' (James 1:6). I'm hoping this module will help provide the external structure I feel I need. So help me God.