Category Archives: Spirituality

Rapture rescue…

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Interesting stuff.

Naomi Klein contrasts different responses to global crisis, and specifically uses this term- ‘Rapture rescue’-  a kind of global economic secular event through which some get saved, and others get left behind.

We see this perhaps in the response to terrorism- there is in the West a longing for some kind of second coming to sweep aside the evil and leave us safe in our holy escape pods. Some used to believe that war would achieve this.

Or perhaps capitalism itself could be seen in this way- there are those who believe– who live well and play to the rules of the holy market, and the unfaithful. Some of these can be rescued- but only by becoming like us.

Then there is climate change, which Klein talks about a lot here. Those who still deny the science seem bound up in a defensive wall of self interest. The crisis is external doubt, and the possibility of a threat to a way of life.

The ‘Rapture’ image hit me hard, as it makes a lot of sense- religion is both the engine of our underlying assumptions about the world, and also the means through which we justify and apply a kind of sacred redemption to our actions and lifestyles.

This being true, how might our faith still be an engine, but rather an engine for grace– for us, our neighbours and our environment? How might this  lead us to work for change NOW, not to wall ourselves away from the unfaithful, the undeserving, the already-lost?

Well I liked the simplicity of what Klein said, here-

“If we want the transformation, we can’t wait for it to happen in some massive jolt, we have to plan for it and model it…”

“Only a crisis, actual or perceived produces real change, and when that change occurs this depends on the ideas that are lying around. That is our function, to keep ideas alive until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”

We Christians are carriers of perhaps the best ideas- contained within the life of Jesus. Our function is to keep these stories alive, and to try to live them out in our context.

Well our context is changing…

The (dis)functionality of teams…

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I have been spending some longer periods of time with one of the teams I manage- within a larger Community Mental Health Team that I used to work within.

In many ways it is a step back into familiar chaos which is strangely comforting.

Today for instance, we had staff shortages, no receptionist, a person in the building who was extremely (and noisily) unwell and had to be detained under the Mental Health Act. Also we had the usual variety of tensions and frictions between individual team members.

And it is the later that was most noticeable to me in my return. People in mundane group situations are always at their most ‘person-like’. Working closely with others in situations of stress will always make it impossible to hide who you are, at your best and worst.

All the usual characters were there today- the detached, the enthusiast, the out of control control freak, the idiosyncrat, the confidenceless, the overconfident, the people pleaser and the back stabber.

And the mess of me.

Some team situations distil from all this some fine spirit. They are generative and energising- for most if not all. To be part of teams like this is a lifetime high, even if only in retrospect. We are more as a result of being part of them.

Other teams are toxic by their nature. Whole books are written about how this comes about- leadership, followership, vision, poor skill/personality fit. Teams like this need to be taken outside and shot.

The surprise however is that both of these kinds of teams are rare. What is more common are teams like the one I spent time with today- teams full of faults and fracture lines- with some people working full on, others hardly working at all. With all sorts of disatisfactions, hurts and greivances just below the surface.

But still, these teams are productive.

In this case, the product is not easy to define- as it concerns the support of other people in distress, and despite our (dis)functionality, people are received, held, and then sent on their way on the way to some kind of healing for the most part.

Today I feel both hopeful and defeated by this. Hopeful because the humanity in the middle of us has this huge beating heart.

Defeated because the best of us is still beyond.

I think it comes down still to the difference between the efficient performance of a task and- love.

The difference between animal and divine.

The difference between a corporate mission statement, and the Beatitudes…

 

Pregnant…

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A lovely word.

A female word that sometimes excludes men, but more often contains and holds us all.

A word containing the unknown, the still-to-be, the potential to succeed…

And the potential to utterly fail.

It is a word that is synonymous with Advent. Waiting in hope, uncertainty, and perhaps even fear.

Waiting for something to change, for something to be born into the mess of us all.

I read this today– another one of Cheryl Lawrie’s lovely poems.

Perhaps our mistake is thinking
that love will always come
in the shape we have known it:

a happy ending
a new beginning
a christ-child.

In this pregnant pause
while the earth holds its breath
waiting for what
it does not know,
let us have the faith
that even we,
with all our wise
and cynical
knowing,
would not imagine
the shape that love
will take

and instead just
have the faith
that it will come.

Christmas cheeeeeeeese…

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Like many of us, I have been rather hammering the ‘reclaim Christmas from the capitalists’ theme of late. But you really can go too far.

Brace yourselves…

Bless.

The thing is, she seems a really nice person- someone who always looks after everyone all around her. Salt of the earth. Would you tell her? Go on- be honest. You too would tell her how lovely the song is wouldn’t you?

There is a serious edge to these things though. Church and culture. Culture and church. I have heard sentiments like this (even expressed like this!) for years in and around churches.

But it has usually been all talk and no trousers. All tinsel and no gristle.

The edge…

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This is a poem about death, written in around a simple story I heard recently. I am also reminded of this.

“The ocean goes on for ever”

Said the ripple

Just learning how to be a wave

Learning how to catch the reach of the wind

How to rise like an athlete at the drop of a flag

And to skim over the skin of the sea

Fringed by the speed of movement

~

But the ringing horizon was a

Crystalled panning lens

That one day found the edge

Of a jagged shadow

Against which wave after wave

After wave after wave

Was broken

~

“What is this terrible thing” cried the ripple

“That would turn us white then end us?”

~

So an older wave shouldered close

And offered some compassion;

“Have no fear now little one

Let’s roar and make commotion

For what you are is more than wave

You are made from mighty ocean.”


Repent, Christmas is nigh…

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REPENT POSTER- Buy nothing Christmas

I am a sinner.

I try hard to rid myself of my sinful ways. I get up in the morning with every intention of living the day like it was my last stop before the pearly gates- but then find that sometime before breakfast I have squeezed in one more visit to the fleshpots.

So it is, my friends, with consumerism.

I try to resist, but the flesh is weak, the stuff so seductive- I am captivated as if by some golden snake in a gadet filled garden.

We live to our means- and then a little beyond them in our western culture. To NOT do this is strange. The challenge to all of us, for the sake of the planet, is to find ways to break the bonds of addiction, and to move towards simpler lifestyles.

Perhaps you are not ready to do this- but if you are not, then it is likely that neither will your neighbours, and more worryingly, neither will your children.

Which brings us back to Christmas- the jewel in the consumer crown. The cash cow. The season when the ship comes in (from China of course.)

We repentants need to pawn the crown and find something more meaningful to do with the money.

We need to kill the cash cow and feed it to the hungry.

We need pirates to plunder the ships on the high seas, and empty out the sweat shops of the global south.

OK, I am getting a bit carried away by all this imagery. But how do you change? Can anything we do really make a difference?

I have tried the left wing middle class option for years- doing much the same as everyone else, with a little guilt and ‘fair trade’ product placement. Always being unsatisfied in theory, whilst greedy for more in practice. I want so much better for my kids, as I fear that it may already be too late- that the addiction has taken hold with them.

And more and more it seems that Christmas is the key. If we can not resist consumerism over the season named after Jesus Christ- then perhaps we never will.

What I have discovered however is that only one thing really will make a difference- and it is a rather counter intuitive one-

STOP buying presents!

What? Is this not the meaning of Christmas I hear you cry? The joy of giving and the sparkle in the eye of Tiny Tim? How mean spirited and gloomy that is!

Do you really believe this though? Is it really not possible to be full of joy and love and laughter unless you have spent hundreds (and thousands) on stuff that for the most part will be in a landfil site within the year?

You see- we have tried asking people not to give us gifts- that is the easy bit. People gave anyway, as the powers of obligation are strong- and also, we are so conditioned to beleive that there is simply no alternative.

And the whole system is perpetuated.

The difficult thing is to contact people who you love, and discuss the fact that you will not be giving them shiny stuff this year.

This is not the same thing as giving nothing of course- but there are so many cash free alternatives.

Flee from the sin, and you will be on the road to freedom.

But… there is that golden snake again.

First Sunday of Advent…

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Advent

 

There is no patience in this waiting

No watching from windows

Or straining for the whispered step in the distance

 

There is no surprise in this coming

It has been shouted by stars

And sung from supermarket speakers

 

There is no mystery in this telling

It is a story told and sold a million times

Asset stripped and bankrupt

 

There is no meaning in this madness

All this plastic decoration

All this hollow celebration

 

Yet still

He comes

Wilderness retreats 2012…

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Here’s a bit of advance notice of a new thing we are doing next year. I would appreciate any help getting the message out there…

For many years now, along with a group of old friends, I have been escaping to wild places in order to recharge. Nothing unusual about that I suppose- but over the past few years, we have been ever more deliberate about the spiritual practice of retreat that can be experienced in wild places.

We have gathered ideas and activites, as well as developing lots of our own ideas, usually taking specific locations- caves, rivers, abseils down cliffs, mountain tops- and shaping thoughts, prayers and actions to the surroundings. We wanted to find ways to worship, and to wonder, and to share the depth of our experiences.

At least once a year we have tried to escape to a small deserted island- there is such a wonderful selection within reach of where we live in Argyll. Each one seems to have a different character and a different history. Many have ruins and remains left behind by the monastic gatherings of the Celtic missionary saints. We in Aoradh have been keen to share these experiences, and have already hosted a number of weekends with invited guests.

You can read about some of our previous trips here here and here.

However, in the spirit of seeking simple collaborative means to making a living, some of us are planning to organise a number of 3 day retreats on a slightly more commercial basis.

Two of these will be based at Sgath an Tighe– one of which will be more ‘adventure’ based, and the other for those of us who appreciate wild places in a more restful way.

The other two will involve wild camping on uninhabited inner Hebridean islands-  in one of the most beautiful places in the world. This kind of camping allows us to appreciate wild places in a much purer way, and also allows us to be in places that few people ever visit, let alone linger.

Over the next few weeks we will be working on final destinations, costs and dates. For the camping trips we will provide boat charter, organisation, activities and leadership.

So- next year, ditch the package tour to the Costa’s. Go somewhere where few people have been before.

If you are interested, then we would love to hear from you…

 

 

In-out-up…

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My old friend Graham sent me some stuff about the theme of the teaching in our old church Calvary Christian Fellowship back in Preston. Graham is about to do a season looking again at making and forming small missional communities.

It is going to be an interesting journey for them, as they are starting out not as a disparate band who ‘find’ each other then start with all the forming and storming. Rather they are starting out as ‘Church’ and seeking to become ‘church’.

I wish them every blessing.

Graham shared this model which was their staring point-

This is not Graham’s picture though- this is from the middle of our table from the Aoradh meeting tonight. Because we had already been speaking about a similar dynamic.

We do this thing at our planning meetings that I like- we cover the table with paper, and the doodles and coffee spills and scribble become the record of our gathering.

Ok someone might need to pull out some action points and e-mail it round later, but we often do not take other notes.

Tonight I shared my sense of frustration that we were doing a lot of the inward stuff- the gathering and eating together and sharing (all of which is great) and also some of the upward stuff- in terms of worshipping together. But we were not doing so much ‘outward’ stuff- the uncomfortable business of ‘mission’. This is not really fair of course because we have been doing all sorts of things this year, but I am always longing for the next creative adventure.

Mission no longer means ‘evangelism’ for us. But I think it still means risk, vulnerability, and the deliberate connection with the other- in various kind of ways- seeking to serve, to make peace, to share art, to display love and to seek to be agents of the Kingdom of God.

Anyway, my friends pointed out gently that we all have different levels of need for this kind of adventure, and that the very fact of living our lives in the midst of all this messy humanity is always going to be ‘out’ there. And I said yes- BUT…

And bless them, we spent the rest of the night dreaming of missions we might adventure on. Art in the hillside, quiet gardens, meditation benches, trips away together, retreats etc…

Let the Spirit call us out.

But let us also be blessed in the togetherness.

As we worship.

 

 

Christmas and cynicism…

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Tinsel_garland

An auto post from here.

Because of the direction I started down a few years ago now in trying to break out of the Christmas consumer driven craziness, I find that some things make me angry.

Those advertisements on the TV- with celebrities who supposedly do all their shopping for celebrity friends in some most unlikely store like Argos or Lidl. And then there are the advertisements aimed at parents through their children. I could mention some brand names, but it perhaps would not be fair as they are all up to the same sort of thing really.

After the anger comes other emotion that is most unflattering- smugness– the vaguely superior feeling that I am somehow ‘different’- not like them. Of course this is nonsense- we all live in the same consumer driven culture and it is so hard to go against the flow. Advertising works- on all of us at some level.

Then there is this other more corrosive emotion called cynicism. I think this is the worst of all. It drives us to sit back, sneer and to do nothing. It is not a force for anything but inertia. It sucks the joy and the wonder out of anything it comes up against. It is the enemy of life.

I think that our lives are journeys- through all sorts of stuff- towards the unknown. They are marked by many boundaries and transitions. We do not make these journeys alone, because we are communal beings. Neither do not journey without meaning because we humans search for the depth of things- we are spiritual beings. Therefore the celebration of season- birthday, feast day, wedding, funeral, etc- is ever more important.

As a person of faith I might have a particular reason to celebrate Christmas, but I also recognise that the role of the Church in mediating our transitions and life patterns has been largely broken. Christmas is little to do with Christ. Whilst some of us might lament this in our own lives, it is simply not something that we can impose on a mostly secular society.

There is that saccarine sweetness that is sold to us in Christmas card poetry and Hollywood films- something to do with the ‘spirit of Xmas’. Which is usually conjured up with pictures of shiny faces, snow scenes, candles and of course, that greatest modern consumerist invention, Santa Claus.

Oh dear, there I go again.

What then is left? After the anger and the cynicism what remains?

These are no small questions, because life is lived in the asking of them.

I have my own partial answers- which I try to work out creatively with my family and friends and small community. I am sure that you do too.

But first I need to set aside the cynicism, and find inside of me some wonder.