We had a lovely day- a lazy breakfast, followed by present opening and telephone thanking. Then lunch out, followed by an afternoon of friends and a house full of teenage girls for the evening party.
Emily had a ‘masquerade’ party- everyone wore masks, and played a version of charades called ‘masquerade’. Then they watched a film on the big screen, and shouted and giggled a lot.
Bless them all.
And this prayer becomes ever more urgent, as our kids grow away from us, and into their own future…
It has been so wet and wild here all week. Storms and very heavy rain.
I had a wild drive to Lochgilphead today- roads awash, wipers on high speed. The Royal Navy sheltering in Loch Fyne- grey on grey.
In these dark days and long nights, we tend to close down and retire to the fireside with our thoughts. It can be so oppressive.
What we need is something beautiful to light up the soul. So here is a bit more of my favourite musician/poet, singing of a longing for something beyond…
For those who have tried to drive up the hill to our house, you will remember the white knuckle ride it was- complete with spinning wheels and the smell of burning clutch plate. Well all is transformed!
It was an expensive task, which we have been worrying about for a while, but in the end we found a local builder (Euan Oxland- highly recommended if you need someone locally!) who came, did a good job, and cleared up before he left.
Friends of ours who struggle with health can now get right to the front door…
Twenty years ago my friend Mark and I spent some time in West Berlin as part of a student exchange programme. We had no clue that we were present at a point when history pivoted.
It was 1989, and we were young, impossibly naive and the world seemed easily divided into what was politically acceptable/good, and what was evil/wrong. Ideology gave shape to life, to politics, to faith, to shopping- ideas mattered. Even if the ideas were borrowed and poorly understood.
Germany was an adventure. We were dragged to receptions with the Mayor, toured the Seimens factory, checked out hospitals and social work schemes, and visited the Reichstag when it was still an empty shell.
We also walked and walked and walked the streets of the city- which seemed impossibly trendy and not a little scary- the Ku’Damm at night with it’s nightclubs and prostitutes. The preserved bomb-scarred buildings all lit up alongside the sparkling glass and concrete office blocks. The bars and the continental heat that allowed us to spill out into the street. The bus queues that became a free-for-all scramble, contrasting with the orderliness of the underground.
Of course, the reality of any visit to West Berlin at that time was that the city was a capitalist ‘free’ island surrounded by communist East Germany. The magic of the place was made at least in part by the mad cold war politics that led to its division and isolation. It was a city formed under the ever present shadow of implacable enmity, and an irrational compromise that pleased nobody- apart from tourists like us I suppose.
The visible manifestation of this was the wall.
Mark in front of the wall- you can see where the old tram lines where cut in half
On one side was neon, affluence and Mercedes. On the other was bad food, pompous architecture, envious aspiration and the smoky noisy Trabant. Over the last twenty years, the stories of the East German political oppression have abounded, and the power of a set of distorted ideological lens over a whole nation. This brilliant film tells some of this story as well as anything-
We spent some time touring the East. If anything, this seemed far more exciting than the west. There was a sense of comic brutality about the place- and the overwhelming feeling of bureaucracy gone stark staring mad. But the beer was dirt cheap, and beyond the centre of the city (which looked like a dated film set from the 1960’s) the streets had largely unchanged since the war.
The division of Germany was a ludicrous political anachronism- but no one could have predicted the change that happened in November 1989- a few months after our last visit.
Rumours started to spread that the borders were going to open-
And once this began, there was no going back.
Reagan and Thatcher claimed this as their victory- which seems to me as ridiculous as me claiming it as mine. For some, democratic capitalism had triumphed- the ideological debate was over. We were all capitalists now.
Or at least we were until the current economic crisis.
20 years later, Germany has all but overcome the pain of reunification. The surviving bits of the wall are tourist attractions. I have some bits of it somewhere- now the dust of history. Perhaps one of those pivotal points on which human history turns…
The last 20 years have seen such change- the internet, mobile phones, a shift in world power towards the far East. The world is a very different place.
I look at photographs of me then, and wonder what the next 20 years will bring?
I have written before about this issue– suggesting that I thought that kindness is a good measure of spiritual maturity. We talked a little around this the other night with my Aoradh chums.
Of course, being kind is not a universal sign of spiritual, or emotional health. The drive to please other people can be a destructive one. However, I still maintain that Christian spirituality that lacks kindness as one of its visible manifestations is likely also to be missing the point.
Which of course- is love.
The kind of love that is patient, kind and does not envy, boast, act proudly or haughtily. The sort of love that is not rude, or self-seeking, is not easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs. A love that does not delight in seeing evil in others but makes partnerships of truth. A protective, trusting, ever-hopeful kind of love that just does not give up. (1 Corinthians 13.)
The idealism of this kind of love defeats me at times- but it is an idealism that I will not let go.
So, if we Christians are called to be a blessing on the world around us because of the distinctiveness of our loving, the way that this will be revealed is in this simple thing called kindness– expressed between ourselves in community, but also looking outwards into the places where we live work and play.
Here are links to a couple of resources that dig into this issue.
Firstly- Generous. This is an opportunity for Christians to sign up to acts of generosity- for the sake of the environment, and for the sake of others around us. There are whole categories of suggested actions that you can consider putting time/energy towards.
I came across Off The Map recently- a group trying to encourage us to reimagine evangelism- together they designed an approach to evangelism that “rescued it out of program prison, made it doable for ordinary Christians and restored it back to the spiritual practice Jesus modeled in his interactions with Outsiders.” They called it Doable Evangelism. This led to a book called Evangelism Without Additives and an organization called Doable Evangelism.
Here is some thing that they produced that resonated with me for its simplicity- and it’s kindness.
A bit more of the familiar Rollins technique of taking a concept and saying it’s only value is in rejecting it.
But in this case, I think I agree with most of what he says.
There are still a lot of BUTS though. The absence of Leadership leaves a vacuum that requires- leadership. (Note the subtle lack of a capital letter!) It is not whether we have leaders that exercises my thoughts at the moment, but rather what kind, and how they lead- particularly in the way of church.
this fragile tent 