Post Re-instated

Having spoken with the person who felt so uncomfortable; and having listened to comments by Andrew Hamilton and Ben Askew, both of whom I respect greatly; and having made a few minor clarifications to my original post, I am re-posting “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” along with a comment that was added to it at the time:


I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You




I’m not sure how this will end up coming across, but I’m trying to get at something significant in the dynamic tension between ‘falling in love’ and ‘loving someone.’ Let’s start by defining these two phrases. Gary Chapman (author of The Five Love Languages) cites M. Scott Peck’s claim that ‘falling in love’ is not really love at all, because 1) it is not an act of will or a conscious choice; 2) it is effortless; and 3) the one ‘in love’ is not genuinely interested in fostering the personal growth of the other person. In contrast, then, ‘real’ love is an act of will, a conscious choice; involves effort; and is concerned with fostering the personal growth of the beloved. Peck concludes that falling is love is “a genetically determined instinctual component of mating behaviour…the temporary collapse of ego boundaries…which serves to increase the probability of sexual pairing and bonding so as to enhance the survival of the species.” [Chapman, pp. 33, 34]

But I’m not convinced that ‘falling in love’ is confined to the sexual aspect of relationships; indeed, I’d suggest that aspect can be entirely absent. And I’d suggest we can, at least in some circumstances, reframe Peck’s third point from the ‘negative’ “not interested in growth” to the ‘positive’ (though flawed) “seeks to preserve the other person as they are.” Let me also add that, in its concern to foster the personal growth of the beloved, loving someone cannot include coercion or be deterministic and remain love.

Is it not true to say that, in the majority of cases, parents look at their baby and fall in love? That this is an essential mechanism for the survival of the species, not now in terms of creating new life but in terms of caring for a life utterly dependent on, if not it’s biological parents, adult humans? That where this ‘falling in love’ does not take place – as it does not, for all manner of reasons – this is considered a problem? Is it not true that parents fall in love with their children at various stages of their development; and that negotiating the tension between ‘wanting them to stay like this forever’ (being in love with them) and wanting them to grow to maturity (loving them) is the process by which children, hopefully, grow up neither ‘too soon’ nor ‘too little’?

I’d say that I fall in love fairly frequently. That I fall in love with women other than my wife – and that I don’t want to have affairs with them; I don’t ‘fancy them’ or objectify them, but find their company an effortless pleasure. That I fall in love with men – and my heterosexuality is not called into question; but that there is something about their personality that is attractive, causing me to want to spend time getting to know them. That I fall in love with other people’s children. And as someone who currently works in an infant school, and who is seeking to be ordained, living in a culture where paedophilia is a high-profile concern, that is the most risky admission of the three. But in fact the urges of a paedophile are radically different from falling in love with a child: the one is predatory, involving both choice (targeting) and effort (grooming), and seeks to consume; the other is involuntary and effortless, and seeks to protect from harm. In my defence – if defence is needed – I’d simply point out that I know several people who have fallen in love with my children, and it causes me no concern. We have no choice over who we fall in love with; but we do have a choice as to how we respond appropriately. Each week-day lunch-time, I supervise children in the school playground. Whenever a child falls over and hurts themselves, I experience a completely involuntary reaction: the sensation of my blood ‘dropping’ inside me. And then I make a conscious decision: to go over to the child, and clean and cover the graze with a plaster.

I believe that God both falls in love with us, as we are; and loves us, fostering growth.

Perhaps being ‘in love,’ emphasising the positives and being temporarily blind to the negatives, is to celebrate what God has already done in another’s life; and ‘loving’ them is to celebrate what God is yet to finish?

My gut instinct is that, just as in raising children, in the nurturing of Christian community the dynamic tension between being ‘in love’ and ‘loving’ is significant. Most (all?) of what I’ve ever heard focuses on the ‘loving,’ even to the point of telling us we don’t have to like each other, so long as we love each other! Perhaps it’s just that (contrary to popular belief) I’m a Myers Briggs “F” (Feeler, as opposed to Thinker), but I can’t help thinking we’re missing something. I’m not sure I’m any clearer than I was when I started typing, but…

May be I’m wrong in this. May be I’ve just stumbled into a minefield that only exists because I laid it myself; and may be it will explode in my face. But then again, may be not…


On 14/06/07, That Hideous Man commented:
Is the English languauge the only tongue to have only one word for all types of 'love'?
Do many (most/all?) other languages not benefit from having their discussion of such matters conducted with a more nuanced understansding of loves - and we are hampered by have one huge, lumbering catch-all term to contend with?


love , pastoral care , spirituality , missional church leadership , church

Post Deleted

I’ve taken the unusual decision to remove a post I added to my blog yesterday, in the light of feedback.

I am not afraid to post on controversial matters; or to question received understanding; or to write things that may cause some people to feel uncomfortable (and hopefully think differently as a result – I don’t write simply to make people uncomfortable); or to throw out there into the public arena something that I have not fully thought through first, so it can be developed by the response of others, as opposed to crafting an unassailable argument. I am not afraid to take such risks.

But when what I write is misunderstood, by people who generally try to understand me, I have to say, “May be I wasn’t able to communicate what I wanted to communicate.” And in that situation, it is sometimes better to give up, than to carry on attempting to clarify what you were trying to convey. I guess it depends on how important the matter is to you in the first place, and in this case I’ve decided to delete what I wrote. But so as to be accountable I wanted to acknowledge that a post has been removed, and give the reason why.

Millennium Bridge

Another thing I did in London was to walk across the Millennium Bridge, which spans the Thames between St Paul’s Cathedral on the north and the Tate Modern on the south; and to take photos facing in each direction, after Jonny Baker. Jonny had shown the photos he had taken on the bridge when he came to Sheffield for the first Sheffield Blah… recently, and had spoken of how it illustrated the tension he feels in being called to bridge church and culture, mediating a conversation that would be beneficial to both sides.

I had stood outside St Paul’s, but couldn’t bring myself to go in. I just couldn’t hold what I saw with what it means for me to follow Jesus as I see him in the Gospels. Rather, I saw a statement of civic defiance – which, indeed, the un-hit dome of the cathedral potently was during the Luftwaffe bombing of London in the Blitz. On the other hand, I went into the Tate Modern, and found it a strangely empty experience: literally, one hall used for occasional installations was empty, another was closed; symbolically, the building was a void, devoid of ideas (not entirely, obviously). So I walked to The Hayward instead, and found something that resonated with me there…


St Paul’s Cathedral , Tate Modern , spirituality , missional church leadership , church , mission

Kelvingrove Crosses

On the way to Sutherland, we stayed with my sister and her family in Glasgow, and went with them to the recently refurbished Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. The Kelvingrove operates the enlightened policy of allowing photos: in return for a flawed image (reflected lights; people obscuring view) that records your presence there in a way a pristine postcard never can, the museum gets an incredible volume of free advertising.

The Kelvingrove is famous for Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross, hung at one end of one of the long sides of the upper gallery that runs around the building. Another image, a bold self portrait by a current artist, has been hung at the corresponding end of the other long side, so that the two images mirror each other. It makes for a fascinating juxtaposition…


The Kelvingrove , the cross

Event Horizon

The public installation Event Horizon continues Gormley’s exhibition beyond the bounds of The Hayward, being composed of 31 casts of the artist’s body placed on rooftops within a certain radius of the gallery and on both sides of the Thames. As you approach the South Bank, you become aware of a figure standing on the sky-line; then another, and another…Again, I’ve added a Flickr set.

These still, silent sentinels spoke to me of unseen angels looking down on the city; just beyond our range of vision.

They also spoke to me of suicides, about to jump: lives equally lived just beyond the range of vision of those going about their everyday business – for so often, when someone kills themselves, those who lived around them say, “I had no idea they felt so isolated…” And it made me think that no life should be lived just beyond the range of vision – someone’s vision – and that, perhaps, we need to stop and look around us more often than we generally do…


Antony Gormley , Event Horizon

Blind Light

So seeing as I had to be in London yesterday, I went along to the Antony Gormley exhibition at The Hayward in the afternoon. Gormley is a fascinating sculptor, whose work often explores the incarnate nature of our experience of life, and de/constructs the relationship between the body and the space around it.

Blind Light is a large perspex room filled with a dense fog of water vapour and flooded with white light. Visitors can walk all around the outside – seeing anyone inside who is also walking along the wall – and also enter the room through a single entance/exit. Stepping into the mist is immediately disorienting: visibility is restricted to two feet at most, and the sound of voices – a maximum of twenty-five people all allowed to be inside the room at any one time – is also distorted. Bodies suddenly appear out of the mist just before they bump into you.

Being inside Blind Light was a profound physical experience of the spiritual reality that we walk by faith and not by sight; and in particular of the ideas Pete Rollins has written about (held in paradoxical tension with ideas concerning the experience of the absence of God) of the hyper-presence of God, and the fact that we must walk by faith not because we have been left scrabbling about in the dark, but because the self-revelation of God floods our senses (see the Transfiguration, Matthew 17:1-13//Mark 9:2-13//Luke 9:28-36, also involving a dense cloud of mist and very bright light).


Antony Gormley , Blind Light , Pete Rollins , divine hyper-presence

Tracing An Arc, Part 2

…so I booked myself into The Priory in London to recover. Okay, not strictly true. But I did have to go to The Priory – which is where British celebrities go to deal with their addictions and the inner demons that fuel them, where Amy Winehouse has in mind when she sings, “They tried to make me go to rehab; I said, no, no, no!” Apparently this is standard practice for anyone who is applying to be ordained in the Church of England who has any history of depression (I have, as a teenager), so they can be assessed by a consultant psychiatrist.

Walking down the long driveway, overnight bag in hand (because it was a morning appointment and I stayed in London the night before), was a surreal experience.



In case anyone is wondering, they had no concerns.


The Priory

Tracing An Arc, Part 1

We holidayed at Clachtoll, in North Assynt, Sutherland, the far north west of Scotland. Beyond the range of mobile phone signals. The campsite is right above the beach – and what a beach! I’ve uploaded a set of photos on my Flickr pages.

The rocks here are the oldest in Europe, and, at 500 million years old, among the oldest anywhere in the world. And you feel it. It is a strangely beautiful stark landscape, scraped by ice and (more recently and today) by sheep; scarred with over 200 small freshwater lochs, all containing wild brown trout; scattered with many hundred Red Deer; and, soaring above it all, home to the Golden Eagle, our largest native bird. The children and I had not been here before, but Jo had holidayed here year after year as a child. I loved looking at the mountains – Suilven, Quinag, Stac Pollaidh: a landscape that can’t be tamed, has not been harnessed (though there is talk of wind farms); that exists for its own sake, and for God’s pleasure, and forces us to recognise our limits and take only pleasure too…

We were joined, in their massive new motorhome, by my in-laws, along with Jo’s sister and her family. Which would have been lovely, had they not brought a gastro bug with them…I’ll spare details, but suffice to say it felt like I did a lot of looking after sick people, and we eventually got home shattered…


Clachtoll , Assynt

Turned Around

Not been posting much of late, but because we’ve been busy, not because I’ve been uninspired…We’re off on holiday later today, so I thought I’d update on what’s been going on since I posted on being ‘low.’

We are in a totally different place. Or, rather, our outlook is totally different. In fact, that has been the case almost from the point of acknowledging things weren’t right; but, I didn’t want to post anything prematurely. So, what’s changed?

Firstly, it wasn’t a lifting of external circumstances. There has been change there, but in the Kingdom external change seems to follow internal change; the Kingdom breaks out having first broken in. As we recognised a kairos moment, and intentionally chose to change our minds (metanoia; repent) and embrace a different perspective (pistis; active belief), room was created into which the Kingdom could be realised in our experience (Mark 1:15). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Rule of Life we have chosen to take on (expressed through a series of iconic shapes) is incredibly helpful: such Rules are not so much concerned with the ‘what’ of discipleship, but with the ‘how.’

Secondly, we have been surrounded by many friends, both present and geographically removed, who have prayed for us, given godly advice (where asked), supported us in practical acts of service, encouraged us, and generally rallied round. Thank you! You know who you are, and we love you. Of course, those friends have always been there; but, as the apostle Paul once wrote, our current need has given them opportunity to be used by God to support us, and in turn to discover more of God’s support for them (Philippians 4:10-19).

Thirdly, God has already started to redeem the testing circumstances we have experienced. As a result of my being open about what I am struggling with, several friends have felt able to be open, for the first time, about things they are struggling with. That’s the power of permission-giving. Part of me wishes that I could record those things here. It would not be appropriate to do so, even ‘anonymously,’ as it would betray confidences. But here’s the thing: I’m not convinced that the things we might imagine are unusual, extreme pastoral situations (and I’m talking about things far bigger than what I’ve been going through) are actually that unusual. It’s just that we keep them private, secret even from those we call our friends. And as a result, no-one can help carry our burdens, and we are slowly crushed by them. It’s British; but it isn’t godly…


church , spirituality , Rule of Life , pastoral care

Day, Night, Pasture, Pen

We are reading through John’s Gospel in the mornings, and today we came to chapter 10, where Jesus speaks of being the shepherd of the flock, who uses his own body to form the gate to the pen. This is what shepherds did: at night, when it was not possible to see predators approaching the sheep, the sheep were corralled through a small opening into the safety of the pen, and then the shepherd slept sat in the opening, back against one wall, shins pressed up against the other, so that any predator could only get at the sheep by getting past them; and then, in the morning, when it was light and predators could be seen approaching, the shepherd led his sheep out into pasture. In. Out. In. Out. Night. Day. Night. Day.

Our shared experience of life is that it is lived in the tension of a thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy, and a shepherd who comes that we may have life to the full. Right now, I am very aware of several friends for whom the thief has come – not because they are bad sheep, but simply because they are sheep, and hungry wolves and thieves are drawn to their scent…Friends who have sensed a particular vision or calling, only to be struck down by serious illness, for example.

It seems to me that there is a rhythm identified by Jesus in this analogy. And because it is an analogy, we shouldn’t read it as a strict or regular rhythm; but I think he implies that although the predator comes at any time, there are times when we can just be getting on with whatever it is God has called us to do (day/pasture), secure in the knowledge that Jesus is watching over us; and times when that calling needs to be put on hold and Jesus needs to gather us up until the specific danger is past (night/pen).

And what we need to remember while we are sheltered in the pen in the dark – what we need to remind each other – is that the pasture is still out there; the grass is growing; that the thing to which we have been called has not been stolen or killed or destroyed, but awaits the dawn when Jesus will rise up and lead us back out again…


“I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognise a stranger's voice.”
Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
(John 10:1-18)


Good Shepherd , spirituality , church , pastoral care

Beds Of London

I have to attend an appointment in north London on the morning of Wednesday 6th June, as part of the vocational discernment process I’m in.

“Are you familiar with London?” the person I spoke to asked.
“I wouldn’t use the word familiar…” I replied, “…large city, south of England?”

I shall have to travel to London by train the day before, and I’m wondering whether any friends or friends-of-friends in central or north (within striking distance of the Piccadilly Line) London could put me up on the night of Tuesday 5th June, and give me breakfast on the Wednesday morning?

If you can help me out, email me on andrew [at] dowsetts [dot] net
Cheers.


[original photo by Jo Dowsett]


emerging church

Lifeshapes In Fresh Places

Having posted here most recently on the Lifeshapes Discipleship Square, today I noted with interest that Steven Croft, who heads up Fresh Expressions, has written a piece summarising the square in response to questions arising from the current Hard Questions tour. The piece, entitled ‘Conscious Incompetence,’ is published in the 04/05/07 edition of The Record, a supplement of The Church of England Newspaper, which can be downloaded free from here. I’m delighted to see Mission Order principles being advocated by such a strategically key leader within the Church of England.


missional church leadership , Lifeshapes , Fresh Expressions , Steven Croft , Mission Shaped Church

Making Disciples | L4/D4

I’m thinking of a community my wife and I led at one time. We’d done a good job of L1, L2 and L3 leadership, and all kinds of good fruit had flourished in people’s lives. We’d demonstrated our character and growing ability, and been invited to take on another leadership role. And, that first time of visiting, we made a mess of L4…
We made the mistake of assuming that competent team members could simply step up to being competent team leaders. In fact, becoming a leader brings you, as a disciple yourself, to another D1: a competent team member starts out as an unconsciously incompetent leader, and needs to be taken round a whole new discipleship square.

On the night of his arrest, Jesus has a lot to say to his disciples. John’s Gospel gives us a window into that. And he has even more to tell them over the forty days between his resurrection and ascension. Between the end of his Gospel and the start of his sequel, The Acts of the Apostles, Luke gives us an opaque window into that. Jesus is about to move on to a new role – interceding for us at the right hand of the Father – but before he does, he has to finish the current role – disciple-maker of those who will carry his message – well.

Followers at D4 need leaders operating at L4: and this requires not only that we release them, but that we make a good job of reviewing what they have learnt from us – and of putting in place the structures for an ongoing but different relationship. These structures are of both a practical and a relational re-positioning nature. Practically, the disciples won’t see Jesus face-to-face, but will have access to him through his spirit in them. Relationally, they are no longer servants but friends – a very different dynamic. Now they are vision-bearers in their own right, in continuity with the vision Jesus called them to.

Returning to our past mistakes, what would we do different now? What have we done differently since? Principally, I think we gave those who followed us too much rope at once, and then got frustrated when they hanged themselves with it. The lesson we learnt the hard way was to prioritise occasional but regular reviews, continuing the relationship not as leader-follower but as mentor-leader: not telling them what to do, but reminding them how to do well. In practice, and for example, this means that we currently get together every two months with a group of leaders we used to get together with every two weeks when they were our followers; while being mentored ourselves by those who used to lead us.

One day it will be time to move on to something new; if you are a pioneer, such days will happen frequently. That makes it even more important that we invest in our exit strategy…


missional church leadership , making disciples , emerging missional church , Discipleship Square

Making Disciples | L3/D3

One of the biggest problems with inherited-mode church is that we employ the vicar to do for us – vicariously – the work of mission and evangelism. In other words, we take our responsibility to make disciples seriously, by delegating it to the professional. The emerging missional church – both within and out-with institutional structures – has the opportunity to address this. But let’s not pretend it is an easy gravitational pull to break out of.

As his disciples emerge from D2, Jesus shifts gear from L2 to L3. He still takes responsibility for defining the parameters of the vision, and the strategy; but delegates responsibility for implementing them:
“We’re going to move on from Galilee and start making our way towards Jerusalem. I want you to go ahead of me; between you, to cover all the settlements on our route. Find Bed & Breakfast with whoever welcomes you in; and heal the sick, drive out demons, raise the dead, and explain your actions as evidence of God’s kingdom breaking-into the lives of ordinary men, women and children. How you decide who goes where, and who you connect with there, is up to you. Oh, and don’t get hung up on not finding a welcome; move on until you do.”
Jesus takes a step back, gives them space to have a go, to take risks, to experience knock-backs, to see signs of encouragement, to learn from things not turning out as they expected, to grow. But he’s not far behind, available to help them process their experience. This is the season of, “Okay, we’re getting used to telling demons to go and seeing them do so; so, how come this one won’t?” “Try building-in a discipline of prayer and fasting. God uses these things to work away at the resistance to him in you, and as resistance decreases, so his power is able to flow through you more fully.”

Followers at D3 need leaders operating at L3: and that requires of us the humility to let others do what we do – to let them do things perhaps not the way we would have done it ourselves; and even, at least initially, not as well as we would have done it…It requires of us that we are generous enough to endorse another, in these circumstances; and (because we’re not Jesus) to be big enough to apologise and ask for forgiveness of the other when we fail to do so. And it may require that we have to go to a community and apologise where those we are responsible for sending do something spectacularly wrong (it happens; I’ve known it from the D side and the L side) and have caused unintentional hurt. And to help them learn from their mistake, and give them another go…


missional church leadership , making disciples , emerging missional church , Discipleship Square

Making Disciples | L2/D2

You’ve cast a vision to start something in a ‘new’ neighbourhood. A few others have joined you – some because they are attracted to you, some because they are attracted to the vision – and a core team has begun to coalesce. One couple committed to join you for two years; that time is up, and they are moving on. About the same time, another family had to move on due to redeployment at work. Good things have been going on, but whatever growth you had hoped for – deepening relationships with neighbours, say – has been slower than the team might have hoped. Now it seems like you’ve taken a collective hit; a backward step from some ‘critical mass’ in momentum. Morale heads south. What are you going to do?

Quite early into Jesus’ public ministry, we see him working hard – and not entirely successfully – to get away from the crowds in order to spend a significant amount of time with his disciples, who have come to the realisation that they have given up their means of providing food and clothing for themselves and their families, to follow a visionary who might be out of his mind, and is certainly starting to attract hostile attention from influential enemies…

Followers at D2 need leaders operating at L2: and this level of encouragement requires prioritising significant amounts of contact time. Naturally pioneering leaders – the kind of leaders we often see in emerging missional churches – will find this requirement frustrating, because you will find yourself spending more time with your team behind closed doors than ‘out there’ engaging with the community. But if you fail to bite the bullet on this one, you will end up as a chaplain to a de-motivated group of people, until the day you have had enough of that and quit…


missional church leadership , making disciples , emerging missional church , Discipleship Square

Making Disciples | L1/D1

There are four stages to discipleship (notation: D1, D2, D3, D4), and each stage calls for a different approach to leading (notation: L1, L2, L3, L4). Being realistic we are likely to naturally default to one, or possibly two, of these; and be naturally weaker at one or more others – depending on our personality, and our own experience of being led. But we can learn from Jesus how to operate appropriately to each stage, as we seek to make disciples who make disciples until the end of the age.

To recap, the stages of discipleship are: unconscious incompetence (D1); conscious incompetence (D2); conscious competence (D3); and unconscious competence (D4).


Allow me to make two general observations:
1) inherited-mode church is deeply, profoundly risk-averse. Institutional leaders rarely permit pioneering developments without first requiring fully-comprehensive risk-assessment and detailed plans mapped out up front.
2) the emerging church is deeply, profoundly committed to decision-making by consensus; and suspicious – as the result of abuses they have witnessed in the inherited-mode church – of strong individual leadership.
Both positions are deeply, profoundly unhelpful starting points, and equally contribute to conspire against pioneering new growth ever taking off.

Followers at D1 need leaders operating at L1: single-minded vision-bearers, with the ability to spot potential that has not yet been proven (prioritising character before gifting) and extend opportunity, the invitation to invest in the life of another. Leaders operating at L1 will be big on vision, big on opportunity to be with them as they engage with their vision, low in explanation concerning the vision – not weighing relationship down with theory, but allowing explanation to follow experience; drawing-out questions rather than downloading answers; hands-on learning rather than academic study. And some people need a bit more structure than that, and might show an initial interest that rapidly falls away: but L1 leaders won’t beat themselves up over that (“Was it something I said?” “Please don’t go…”), or beat the other guy up either (“Well, they were never going to amount to much – too many issues.”). Leaders operating at L1 will hear the concerns of their bishops and their congregation, acknowledge them, affirm the individuals…and then get on with what they are about. And the Chuch needs to learn to give them permission to do so.

Antione de Saint-Exupery’s dictum “If you want people to build ships, you don’t have to teach them how to cut wood, you just have to teach how to dream about the endless sea…” is popular with emerging missional church commentators. And it perfectly expresses L1 visionary leadership. But, if you want people to build ships, at some point you do have to teach them how to cut wood; to move into and through conscious incompetence…They need to learn some skills – not only how to build a ship, but how to navigate by the stars so they can cross the sea. Keeping the dream alive – returning to it time and time and time again; resisting the siren allure of other, seemingly more appealing, dreams; not permitting dilution or distraction (Jesus telling Peter to “Get behind me, satan” is not pastorally sensitive. Get over it.) – will carry them through the trough of the wave that obliterates the sky above and threatens to drown us almost before we have begun…


missional church leadership , making disciples , emerging missional church , Discipleship Square

Everyday Images Of The Cross

That Hideous Man (Gavin, in Perth, Scotland) sent me an email suggesting I consider submitting a photograph to the Rood Awakenings gallery. Rood Awakenings is a fringe event at the forthcoming Perth Festival of the Arts, and the gallery will showcase images of the cross in daily life, illustrating how representations of the cross are all around us, influencing us to a greater or lesser extent. Last year I submitted several photographs to a local exhibition, and this online exhibition could be well worth a visit, if it attracts enough submissions.

I took these images late this afternoon. They are probably too subtle to submit, lack enough contrast; but a negative image cross (i.e. one formed by the space between solid forms) has been created in this finely-chopped onion.* The very ordinariness of this tiny detail gives it its power: brings the cross into the heart of the home, grounded in the domestic busyness of the kitchen; emphasises the place of the cross in God’s ongoing everyday provision for our lives; speaks of its sweet-and-bitterness…


*the handiwork of my wife – I have no idea how to cut an onion like that!


Rood Awakenings , the cross

Discipleship | Competence

The symptoms of my being of ‘low mood’ at present include a significant loss of confidence in my ability to do things that I have done at a level of competence in the past. While this feels crap, I know that God works in all circumstances, whether good or bad, to bring good for those who love him.

There are four stages to being/making disciples (in any sphere – think about the stages of learning to drive a car, for example):
unconscious incompetence (you’ve just got your provisional licence…);
conscious incompetence (“I’m never going to pass my test…”);
conscious competence (you can drive/parallel park so long as you think about what you are doing);
unconscious competence (you drive/parallel park without thinking about driving/parking).
(This summarises the Lifeshapes Discipleship Square, based on Jesus’ dealings with his disciples in the Gospels.)

My friend Sharon describes it like this:
a stage defined by ‘self’ (one can imagine Jesus’ disciples feeling special at being chosen by him, perhaps even superior to those who weren’t);
a stage defined by ‘emptying’ of self;
a stage defined by ‘being filled’ by God;
and a stage defined by the ‘overflow’ of what has filled us touching others.


The thing is, it’s hard to teach someone else to do something that you do at a level of unconscious competence: “How do you do that?” “I just do.”
Sometimes, we need to be taken back to a stage where we have to work through conscious competence in order to better teach others what we have been taught.



missional church leadership , making disciples , competence , Discipleship Square

Refreshment

The garden has been a place of micro-retreat, a well that goes deep to living water, for me in all this. Over the past few days I’ve observed Blue Tits in the early morning and Magpies in the afternoon; and yesterday morning, after the first rain in six weeks fell over night, the unfurling of the masses of Bluebells…


“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
(Jesus, Matthew 6:25-34)


small is beautiful

Depressed But Hopeful

Recently I have been of what my GP diagnosed on Monday as ‘low mood.’

The past six months or so have been hard. Several pressure circumstances have coincided, and ground me down in incremental bites – each bite small enough to go, almost, unnoticed, easily dismissed; but collectively decimating – to the point where I was existing more than living. And that, in turn, has put massively increased burdens on Jo. Very recently, the ongoing situation has been interrupted by a kairos moment; a point of shouting out ‘ENOUGH!’ with the status quo; an opportunity for the kingdom of God to break in and transform our circumstances, as we repent and believe.

I’ve written before about the process of repentance and belief: of having one’s eyes opened to observe what is going on, to reflect on the situation, and seek to discuss it appropriately with friends who will help us to see rightly; and then of making a plan together of how we will live differently, asking friends to hold us to account to do what we have said we will do, before we act in a different way from before. (This summarises the Lifeshapes Learning Circle, based on Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.)


But I wanted to name the pressure points, because they are incredibly common and yet as Church we are often silent about them - which is a mistake, because in naming things we bring them into the light, and they begin to lose their hold over us.

Our third child, Elijah, who is 8 months old, cries much more than his sister and brother did. And every time he has cried, something inside of me has shut down; something that should have responded to his calling out with emotional presence and practical support; something that should have drawn the family closer, not driven us apart. (I guess all those friends who wished ‘pay back’ on us for having two easy babies have got what you wished for. I forgive you, totally. Just be careful what you wish for…) And now I can understand why parents, and child-minders, sometimes harm babies, sometimes fatally. They say you shouldn’t judge another man until you have walked in his shoes. I guess the point is not that gaining an understanding of their experience of life qualifies you to pass judgement; but that once you have such insight you will want only mercy for them, and pass up on the ‘right’ to call for judgement at all…
I don’t recall ever hearing such things brought into the light when church has gathered. I suspect that this is, at least in part, out of deference for those to whom it does not apply. But sometimes single/married/childless/parenting/caring for a disabled or elderly relative/[keep filling in the blank as relevant] people need to take a back seat and learn of the things married/single/parenting/childless/[fill the blank]/caring people struggle with. If we only discuss lowest-common-denominator experiences, or speak in generalisations, we will fail to carry one another’s burdens; to live as God’s redeemed-and-being-redeemed family. Instead, we give everyone the impression that the church is biased towards whichever group of people they do not fit into, and give the accuser room to sow seeds of resentment.

At the same time, my experience of the workplace is pretty shitty. I can’t discuss the situation in any detail, but suffice to say that it concerns workplace politics, and a feud between certain individuals that has resulted in everyone else being caught in the crossfire. And again, I’m aware of several other individuals whose workplace is a miserable and/or unjust place; and I suspect that this is a fairly common experience.

And then there has been the process of discerning with the Diocese and wider Church of England my sense of vocation, and my sense that this is the time to move into that calling. That has been a difficult and at times very painful journey. It feels like, if you survive the process, you’re fit to go through. Nietzsche proposed that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’m inclined to disagree. I suspect the institutional process results in a lot of people – curates, junior doctors, whatever – starting out crushed in spirit.


The good news is all three of these specific pressure circumstances have fairly close resolution dates: Elijah will learn to speak, instead of cry; I leave my present employment in the summer, whatever happens next; and I have a date for a selection panel in the summer, and an offer of a college place to take up if I am approved. The better news is that we have the opportunity to address how we will better deal with other pressure circumstances that will, inevitably, arise in the future; and friends who will support us in that process.


under pressure , low mood , hope , Learning Circle

Sketch

It might not look much to you, but this preparatory sketch for an oil painting (which may or may not materialise) is the first time in years I’ve drawn (last time was BC, or Before Children…), and that makes it significant to me. It is of a part of Blacka Moor, looking towards Totley Moor on the horizon.

Resurrection | Uncertainty

Easter has come to be a great celebration of the Church – and rightly so. But it is worth remembering that Jesus’ resurrection gives rise to uncertainty as much as to certainty – and, indeed, that in response to the resurrected Lord we may have to pass through uncertainty before certainty (in the sense of confidence, not empirical proof) can be ours.

Thomas famously ‘doubts,’ and is held up by the Church as the example par excellence of lack of faith (somewhat unfairly, as Jesus comes to restore Thomas just as he comes to restore Peter who has denied him). Thomas lacks certainty that Jesus has risen from the dead. In this, it seems to me, he does not doubt God; but expresses uncertainty in the ability of the community of disciples to rightly discern what God is up to; and quite possibly uncertainty in his own ability to do likewise.

Peter also expresses uncertainty: having encountered the risen Jesus, and knowing him to be so, Peter and others return to Galilee, and take up their fishing nets. In going back to what he had been doing before God called him to follow, Peter demonstrates an uncertainty in his ability to discern what God is up to now.

At times, I have uncertainty in the ability of the Church to rightly discern God’s leading. At times I am challenged to accept uncertainty in my ability to do likewise. Having ‘gone through’ Good Friday and Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, I may wish it were otherwise. But perhaps this is as much part of the post-Easter continuation of the story as our celebrations.


Easter , resurrection

Meeting The Resurrected Jesus

Risen Lord Jesus, reconcile me
With you, and with
My wife
My children
Your Church
My neighbour
The Earth

For I have fallen short
As disciple
And husband
And father
And member of your body
And neighbour
And steward of creation

Christ with pierced feet
Come to me:
Pierce the walls I have built around me
To hide behind,
And still my fear
With your peace

Christ with pierced hands
Come to me:
Pierce the night through which
I have laboured in my own strength,
And still my striving
With your grace

Christ with pierced side
Come to me:
Who has denied your place
In my life,
And pierce my heart
With your restoring love


Easter , resurrection

Good Friday | The Cross | Reconciled Creation

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Colossians 1:15-20

The cross is a paradox: at once, one of the central images of Christianity; and yet an unfathomable mystery. (This paradox is equally true of other central Christian images, such as bread and wine, and baptism. I believe that they are meant to present us with such a paradox.) At best, the Church has made use of several different ways of talking about the cross, to partially describe facets of its significance. At worst, the Church has elevated one or other particular way of talking about to cross as being the most important, or even the explanation.

Evangelical and Liberal traditions alike (though in different ways) emphasise the rational and elevate knowledge (for example, the evangelical Alpha course tells those interested in Christianity which Questions they need to be asking, and which Answers they need to arrive at; while Liberal Christianity strips the funding narrative of the faith of any elements that cannot be measured and explained by scientific enquiry: both traditions focus on ‘knowing the right things,’ often at the expense of ‘knowing in the right way,’ that is, understanding that results in transformation rather than simply information). Each tradition, in its own way, fears mystery – as being fundamentally undermining to faith…

One of the more overlooked dimensions of the cross is its place in relation to creation wider than humanity (let alone individuals). But according to Colossians 1, the cross is – somehow – key to a work of reconciliation, the scope of which takes in ‘all things.’ We need to rediscover this element…

Wood,
Taken from trees of the fields
That clapped their hands in praise;
Co-opted, against its will, by men
To stretch out the hands
That moulded the earth…

Iron,
Dug from the ground,
Smelted,
Poured into moulds,
Nine-inch nails,
To pierce the hands
That moulded the earth…

Wood,
And iron,
And flesh,
Brought together by men –
And reconciled by God…


Holy Week , Good Friday , the cross

Happy Birthday, Susie Rose!

Happy birthday to my daughter, Susannah. Six today.

Palm Sunday | April Fool

Frequently in the headlines, for all the wrong reasons; and name-checked, somewhat too lazily, by the Media at any eruption anywhere of the social ills common to the multicultural inner-city; the Jerusalem Estate had become a national byword for trouble.

The last time the local MP visited, rioting had ensued. And that had left the government with a problem they had to respond to, in a decisive manner…But to parachute-in the Home Secretary would be seen as an admission that, for all their talk of being Tough On Crime, Tough On The Causes Of Crime, they had lost grip of the situation; lost the Law And Order debate. The PM summoned the unfortunate MP: he would have to go back. He’d have, of course, the PM’s public backing – every confidence; standing by my man – of course; but, if he were to screw up again, that would – you do understand – be the end of his political career: do I make myself clear?

The MP returned to his constituency, and made his visit. The police presence on the streets was visibly raised – some would say, heavy-handed. He drove through in a big car, complete with police outriders – more in keeping with the visit of a senior cabinet minister, or member of the royal family.

Jesus read about it the next morning in the papers, over breakfast. Then he sent two of his mates to fetch him a car: a new one, just delivered by the dealership to a regular bloke who lived on the edge of the Estate – he hadn’t even driven it yet. Jesus was going joy-riding.

Somehow the neighbours realised what was behind Jesus’ actions. Not dissing them, but identifying with them. Parodying the Official Visit. Not bringing the neighbourhood down; but celebrating it. Even the guy whose car was chosen knew he’d get it back without a scratch.

So Jesus set off, driving through the Estate, windows down, radio turned up high – loud enough to bother the police, now back down to normal numbers, with not enough back-up to risk making an arrest – waving at passers-by as he went. Word spread. People came out of their houses. The atmosphere among the crowd remained good-natured throughout; but a fair degree of vandalism to street furniture was later reported, as they celebrated somewhat enthusiastically (several traffic cones were liberated; that sort of thing).

Later Jesus returned the car, unscratched, to its owner; and went out for a curry with his mates.

(Some years later the government decided to bulldoze the Estate and relocate the community. The police had to evict whole streets of families from their homes.)


And Jesus asked, “How ought my Church relate to the wider community? As those arriving to gift her patronage, and demanding the appropriate respect; or fully identifying with the locals, even at the risk of appearing foolish?”


[Archives: here is what I wrote last Palm Sunday]


Lent , Palm Sunday , April Fool

Jesus | Laid In The Tomb

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Dies

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Speaks To John And Mary

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Promises Paradise

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Crucified

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | The Women Of Jerusalem

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Simon Of Cyrene

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Made To Carry His Cross

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Scourged | Crowned With Thorns

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Condemned To Death By Pilate

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Denied By Peter

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Condemned By The Sanhedrin

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Betrayal | Arrest

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Agony In The Garden

Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

Jesus | Stations Of The Cross

I wanted to piece together a series of images representing the Stations of the Cross. The fourteen stations, traditionally depicting scenes from the last week of Jesus’ life through sculpture or painting, form a spiritual pilgrimage in preparation for Easter. Some variation exists as to the scenes, and I’ve chosen a list created by Pope John Paul II, which limits itself to scenes recounted in the New Testament Gospels and eschews stations inspired by extra-biblical church tradition. I’ve also chosen to let the images stand alone, but to offer a short commentary in the form of a comment to each post.


Lent , Holy Week , Stations of the Cross

The Cross Of God

The shadow of the cross encroaches upon Lent, as the shadow of the earth encroaches upon the surface of the moon.

Because Jesus’ anguish is, at least in part, corporeal; because we can depict his Passion, and gaze upon our depiction; because we are young enough to believe we can imagine what it felt like; we have constructed a Christocentric cross.

But for Trinitarians, a Christocentric cross alone is an inadequate representation. Indeed, such a representation may contribute heavily to erroneous theology, such as Jesus as victim of a malevolent, vengeful, abusive patriarch; or Jesus as a masochistic uber-male ideal.

At the cross, not just Jesus’ physical body, but the Trinity is shattered; its persons dispersed:
The Father, in his heavenly palace; his radiance shrouded in grief; his face turned away from the prolonged death of his Son, as King David did before him…
The Spirit, brooding over the chaos of a satan-smashed earth, as at ‘the beginning’; watching, waiting (for the moment when she will breathe into Jesus’ nostrils, re-animating this adam who has returned to the dust from which he was made)…
The Son, laid low in Sheol, the shadowy grave…

…The central unity of the universe, scattered to three corners, to the margins.

But the Trinity is not a community that has been touched by loss, and carries on diminished, in a lessened form, growing weary unto death by implosion or explosion. Through the communitas forged in response to the cross, the eternal community of the Trinity is re-imagined, re-configured, renewed:
The Son now keeps his (transformed) bodily form, to intercede for those who share it; whereas he has pointed to the Father, now the Father exalts the Son; the Spirit will now be poured out on all flesh, young and old, male and female…

And it is precisely because the Trinity has been shattered and marginalised by hatred and re-membered anew by love that we, who have been shattered and marginalised, can be re-membered anew by that same love; and, in being re-membered, have hope to hold out to those around us.


Lent , spirituality , the trinity , missional church

Celestial Bodies

The moon, as I don’t recall seeing it before. Whereas usually light from the sun illuminates the surface of the moon from one side across its face to the other, at the moment sun, earth and moon are lined up in such a way that the moon is being struck ‘from below’ by sunlight bouncing off the earth.

The bright dot beneath the moon is Venus. It looks like nothing in the photo, but it was stunning to the naked eye this evening…


the moon

The Hen | Mothers Day [UK, Yesterday]

Mothers are a nuisance. Mothers can be really embarrassing.


Mothers have stood up to political authorities, making a nuisance and embarrassing them into doing what is right. Or, if not, embarrassing the wider world into saying, “What you are doing is wrong, and we are watching you.” Or, if even this does not happen, staying anyway…

Mothers have stood up to boy soldiers, embarrassing them, causing them to think twice before carrying out illegal and unethical orders. Or, if not, being beaten, even beaten to death; cut to pieces; (rarely shot – who would waste a bullet on a mother?). But staying anyway…

It will be mothers who take the lead in making a nuisance of themselves and embarrassing the community – if that is what it takes – into addressing the issues behind the recent spate of teenage gang murders in London…while resigned teenagers tell reporters that this is just how things are now, and we just have to live with it; and politicians call for legislation that will reactively address the symptoms, not proactively address root causes.

In his book Exiles [pp. 118-120], Michael Frost writes about the Four Mothers Movement in Israel; Nobel Peace Prize winners Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan from Northern Ireland; and the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina – as just some examples of the lead that women have taken in forming communitas, or purpose-intentional community. And while each example embraces women who aren’t mothers, and men, when it comes to social justice, mothers often stand up to be counted first, and stay after everyone else has gone home. Not superwomen. Certainly not porcelain saints. Just tenacious, flawed mothers.

Mothers are undervalued by male-dominated society: in the ‘Developed Nations,’ not least because they generate no immediately obvious economic benefit (of course, neither does the teaching profession – both invest in the future – but that’s a double-standard that needs confronting). Ironically, mothers are equally undervalued by the feminist movement, which insists that the primary context in which women should find fulfilment is through their career, through economic independence, rather than (for men and women) through the quality of their relationships. Mothers have little military-economic power. But, at their best – and we can all tell stories of when mothers fail, at least in our opinion – mothers exert a moral authority that no politician or general or corporate CEO can match, or, with a few notable exceptions, come close to.

Mothers are a nuisance. Mothers can be really embarrassing.
Thank God it is so.


At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.”
He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day – for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Jesus, Luke 13:31-35


Mothers Day

Frogs

The pond at the Botanical Gardens is full of frogs at the moment...

Lent | A Simple Supper

Tonight I ate on my own. My shift ended at 7pm, so the children were already upstairs; and as soon as I got in, Jo had to go out on an urgent errand for a neighbour. Eating alone gave me cause to give thanks that I am not alone in the world; that I live as part of a loving family; and, more than that, that I am part of a wider community of people who are committed to one another. To pause to recognise that, for many, this is not the case; and to pray for those who are living, and dying, on their own tonight: Lord, have mercy…

The dish was a sweet root vegetable stew with couscous, a Nigella recipe. Root vegetables are humble, and hidden; yet nutritious, and delicious…which gave me cause to reflect on the value of the hidden life; the unpretentious, not-ostentatious, honest, simple life; of unearthing treasure in an apparently unremarkable field, or, seeing the commonly-missed value in others, and encouraging it to flourish…

The main course was followed by a bowl of fresh pineapple pieces, simultaneously sweet and sour on the tongue…which gave me cause to reflect on the nature of this life, where joy and sorrow intertwine; and the responsibility to celebrate with those who are celebrating, and mourn with those who are mourning – to get alongside each other…

A simple supper. A profound meal eaten, not alone after all, but with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sat around my kitchen table…each mouthful a prayer, of praise, of thanksgiving, of confession, of intercession…each mouthful, sustenance received, for body and for soul…


Lent , food , spirituality

Lent | Responding To Our Enemies

“But what nobody should doubt is that whatever the debates about tactics, the strategy is clear: to bring about enduring change in the Middle East as an indispensable part of our own enduring security. The poisonous ideology that erupted after 9/11 has its roots there, and is still nurtured and supported there. It has chosen Iraq as the battleground. Defeating it is essential. Essential for Iraq.
But also, now, for us here in our own country. Self-evidently the challenge is enormous. It is the purpose of our enemies to make it so. But our purpose in the face of their threat, should be to stand up to them, to make it clear that however arduous the challenge the values that they represent will not win and the values we represent, will.”
Tony Blair, PM, to the House of Commons, 21 February 2007

I must confess to finding speeches such as the one the Prime Minister made in Parliament yesterday disturbing. I am not ‘pro-terrorism’; nor am I ‘pro’ a refusal to take a stand against terrorism. But I do believe that the stand taken by the political leaders of the US and the UK since 9/11 has been deeply misguided, and has had disastrous results. We in the West have believed for centuries, and still believe, that our values are better than the values of the rest of the world; and that our values should be imposed upon the rest of the world, for their own good and betterment.

In the Middle-Eastern desert, Jesus came face to face with his enemy, satan (see Matthew 4:1-11 // Luke 4:1-13). And we could say that he countered the vision the enemy held out for the future by knowing clearly what he valued, and living according to those values. Values such as:
a sense of security in his own identity that does not need justification through flashy display;
a choice to live in harmony with his environment, rather than exploit it to satisfy his own needs;
a disinterest in expansionist political power;
a refusal to take a “the ends justifies the means” approach;
a commitment to live a life of worshipful service in response to God’s revelation;
a patient trust in God’s being at work in the world…

St Francis of Assisi is attributed with the dictum: “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.” I’m not convinced that the values we, as western society – and in particular the UK and US – represent are better than anyone else’s right now. I’m not even convinced that we know what our values are. And I’m sure we haven’t taken the time to understand what their values are, and why they hold them. So, if our values win out over theirs, we’re all in trouble…


Lord, have mercy on the oppressed,
and on the oppressor.

Christ, spit in our faces
and open our blind eyes,
to see you in the eyes of those
we have demonised,
and to see signs and symbols pointing to you
in the cultures and values
we have despised and rejected.

Lord, expose us
where our values are but white-washed tombs,
trading on the past;
and where our pride prevents us,
and our militancy prevents others,
from entering into your life of freedom.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Lent

Lent | Intimacy

Lent can feel austere.

But Jesus’ forty days in the desert followed on immediately after God declared: “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” And Jesus comes out of the desert enfolded by that Father-love. John’s Gospel, in particular, portrays this: “I only do what I see the Father doing…I and the Father are one…if anyone has seen me, they have seen the Father…”

Everything that Jesus DOES flows out of his understanding of who he IS – an understanding that is grounded in intimacy…intimacy that is grounded in his experience in the desert, even in the midst of pressure to denounce that very relationship.

Far from a summons from an austere father-figure, Lent is an invitation to experience intimacy with God.


May God the Father, who is pleased to love his children, enfold us in his love this Lenten season and beyond;

May God the Son, who is our model, teach us to embrace and rest in the Father’s love this Lenten season and beyond;

May God the Holy Spirit, who descended from heaven to Jesus and led him into the desert, come to us and lead us with the Son to our loving heavenly Father this Lenten season and beyond.

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:17b-19


Lent

Lent | Re-calibration

Lent can have the feel of a spiritual endurance test: do I have the will-power to hold out for forty days without succumbing to the siren lure of chocolate/alcohol/whatever-I-have-decided-to-abstain-from? But is self-flagellation – and, if we’re being honest, fairly token self-flagellation at that – really what it is about? While the decision to deny self and take up our cross daily are certainly prerequisites to following after Jesus (Luke 9:23ff), Jesus’ repeated invitation throughout the Gospels is: choose to enter into the life of the kingdom of heaven, through the process of repentance and belief (summarised in Mark 1:15). Though they might well be two sides to the same coin, perhaps Lent is better understood not as embracing the opportunity of dying to self but as embracing the opportunity of taking hold of the life of the kingdom…

To repent means to change our mind (literal translation), or to change the direction in which we are facing; while to believe means to actively step out in that new direction, as an expression of faith. To repent and believe, therefore, is to keep changing direction so as to keep in line with God’s changing will, to keep facing Jesus as he moves on from one place to the next. As I’ve said before, though that includes repenting from ‘sin’ – the times we fall short of God’s best for us – that alone is an inadequate definition: to repent can be pre-emptive (keeping us in God’s will) as well as reactive (returning to God’s will). Until his baptism, Jesus is in line with the Father’s will by being a carpenter, a builder of houses. From his baptism, he must change direction (repent) and head off on a new course (believe), that will lead, ultimately, to Jerusalem and a whole heap of trouble. The forty days he spent in the wilderness immediately following his baptism – the forty days that Lent draws so deeply on – are a period of re-calibration, making adjustments that he will carry into the next season of his life.

Perhaps the question God hopes we will ask through Lent is not what we should temporarily lay aside, but what long-term changes we need to put in place…


Lent

Devaluation

Growing up evangelical, and an MK (missionary kid, or child of missionary parents) at that, I know a thing or two about the particular Christian tradition of pointing to heroes of the faith: pioneers of church reform (such as Luther; Wesley; Whitfield), of social reform (such as Wilberforce; Shaftsbury; the Quaker businessmen – and women; Muller; Booth), of mission (such as Carey; Hudson Taylor; Elliot and his companions), and those who faced incredible circumstances (such as Corrie Ten Boom; Joni Eareckson Tada). And, of course, the great biblical heroes: Abraham, Moses, David, Paul.

While there is nothing wrong with retelling such stories per se, telling them with greater enthusiasm than sensitivity results in the very opposite response to the one intended: instead of feeling inspired, we feel condemned. (This is where the Protestant hero of the faith differs from the Catholic saint, because the heroes are ‘supposed’ to be role-models whereas the saints are ‘supposed’ to be somewhat detached.) Here are some of the unspoken problems – whether intentional or unintended, and, I suspect, largely un-thought-through:

First, we’ve devalued the ordinary, by saying that raising children is not enough, that your years of employment are not enough (unless your colleagues ‘get saved’); that these are simply ‘givens’ and that you ought to have a sense of ‘calling,’ a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, that can’t be done in your own strength. (Judging by the evidence of the past fortnight alone, raising children would fall into that category…)

Then, we’ve devalued the extraordinary, by saying that those individuals whose lives impact at least one nation, if not more than one, are ‘just the same as everyone else.’ They’re not. Sure, they are in certain ways; but in others, they’re not. It might not be Politically Correct to say that some people are extraordinary, but it is true. And if we were all extraordinary – all single-handedly Changing The World, as opposed to collectively having an incredible impact – it would be bloody chaos.


We need heroes. We need role-models. And, I’d argue, that the kind of heroes, the kind of role-models, the church needs if it is to have any chance of making a difference in our society, are the kinds of heroes that no-one is ever going to write a biography of, whether in paper or on Wikipedia. Ordinary heroes. Unknown heroes. People you know, but I don’t know of; people I know, but you don’t know of. Heroes I won’t list here, because they don’t need their fifteen minutes of fame: they already have a far longer-lasting impact.

Christianity , heroes of the faith , missional church

Charlotte's Web

One evening back in the autumn, I found myself having dinner at a Mexican restaurant with Bob Beltz of Walden Media. Bob had been working on Amazing Grace – a film we’ll be hearing a lot about this spring – and had shown us a sneak-preview trailer earlier in the day. But when, over dinner, I asked him what was exciting him at the moment, he started talking about another Walden project, Charlotte’s Web.

Yesterday I took Susannah (5) and Noah (4) to see Charlotte’s Web. A trip to the cinema has become a half-tem holiday tradition. We all enjoyed it very much. Before we went, I’d read them an abridged version of the story, so they knew that Charlotte dies – is that giving away too crucial a part of the plot of a film adaptation of a children’s classic written in 1952? I don’t think so! – and, though they found that quite sad, they still wanted to see the film. In fact, the film is not as tear-jerking as the book (after all, to get a ‘U’ Certificate, a film has to be considered suitable for anyone aged four and upwards by the censors). But it is full of gentle wisdom on how to see others through the eyes of child-like wonder, and, to borrow a phrase from Rowan Williams, the impact of ‘prosaic heroism’ on a community.

Charlotte’s Web , Walden Media , film , family