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1 Corinthians 13

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Even if I pack the Albert Hall with the power of my salvation message

Or my books require their own Amazonian warehouse

If the God Channel carries my healings back to back

And I make theology the sport of masses

Should I become the spider

In the World Wide Web

And Google all for Jesus

…but I have no love

Then I am like a dropped biscuit tin

In an empty kitchen

I am a like a bad busker in a windy street

Competing

With a massed brass band.

And even if I can predict the future price of a billion stocks and shares

Or know the coming weather

If my wisdom knows not the limit of Oxbridge

Nor lacks the ears of those with power

If I know all the words of God for this our time

And shout them loud

…but I have no love

I am nothing.

I am like a stain on the shirt

Of a crack addict

I am like a dandelion

Growing in the gutter

Of a derelict building

If I should I sell my penthouse flat and

Give my widescreen TV to Oxfam

And if I walk into a war zone

Waving flags of peace

Or become the world’s best known eco-warrior

And single handedly heal the Ozone hole

And even if all this should cost my final breath

…but I have no love

Then I am empty

Like the pockets of a gambler

Or the stomach

Of a starving child

Like a road laid

To nowhere

Like a life lived

For nothing

8.8.08

Squeezing my stuff through the eye of a needle 1.

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We are buying a new car.

As ever in this process, the concept of NEED becomes a very elastic term. 

The council for the defence of this profligacy is something like this;

  • We live in a rural area, where I have to provide a car for my work.
  • Public transport is not an option, because where it exists, it is so infrequent that it is entirely impractical.
  • Our old car is very tired, and needs a lot of money spending on it. It has done a lot of miles, and lonely country miles at that.
  • Our cars have always been multi-purpose load luggers- house moves, PA gear, camping stuff, bikes, trips out with assorted kids, stone and logs for the fire.

The council for the prosecution is a little harsher of course.

  • So you need a new car- why not get another old banger? Why a shiny posh one?
  • Could it really be about strengthening your fragile ego?
  • Think of all that money- and the better uses that you could put it to.
  • It will break down anyway, and cost you a fortune!
  • All that stuff you espouse about looking after the world God gave us, and turning away from consumerism- you are a fraud!

But, whatever the verdict, and whatever the personal angst- the deed is done.

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Elephant in the room

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I have played the game
And learned to look
Through your narrow angle lens
Never noticing
Refraction

I have tried to sketch around a shadow
And from those half formed drawings
I concreted my soul into a shape
That contorted
And chaffed

And all along I tried not to look
At this elephant
In the middle of the room
Tasseled and castled
Ready for the spice filled forests
Where it will trumpet in the face
Of tigers

And though I am scared
By the size of this unknown beast
And the places it could take me-
Bring me a ladder
Or lend me a friendly trunk
And lets go.

5.3.07

Lambeth and Gene

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gene-robinson.jpg (JPEG Image, 350×350 pixels)

I heard the controversial Bishop Gene Robinson speaking on Radio 4 this morning. He was asked some pretty searching questions, including one about whether he was being deliberately provocative in order to force the Anglican community to change their position in relation to homosexuality. I thought he responded graciously and was impressed with his suggestion that he was testifying to what he felt God was calling him to.

Agree of disagree- this is a brave man. He apparently has bodyguards, and wears a bullet proof vest because of death threats against him, and he runs the gauntlet of abuse wherever he goes. Check this out-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7504472.stm

The bishop is a fellow blogger, and you can check out his own story on this link-

http://canterburytalesfromthefringe.blogspot.com

I have had quite a few discussions about homosexuality recently. I have Christian friends who have recently had to face up to this in a real way as close family members have come ‘out’.

This is such a divisive, polarising issue. For many, the Bible is categorical- homosexuality is an abomination, full stop. Any suggestion that openly gay people should be shown fellowship and love is then accommodation with evil. I could never agree with this. Philip Yancey in his book ‘Whats so amazing about grace?’ describes his own reaction to the ‘outing’ of a Christian leader in the USA as gay. His description of Christian protestors at a gay rights march is hard to feel anything for but shame.

Yancey also makes another gentle but hard hitting point. There are about three verses that make specific reference to homosexuality in the Bible, but several more that forbid marriage after divorce. Most Protestant churches (but not Catholic ones of course) over the last 30 years have moderated their position in relation to re-marriage, despite what the Bible clearly says. Don’t get me wrong- I am glad they have done this- and given people a second (or third) chance at happiness after the trauma of broken relationship. I have never heard a satisfactory theological reason why this is OK however, and other specific commandments remain inflexible.

In even asking this question, I suppose I will already be typecast as a liberal heretic by many. But I have no fixed opinion in regard to the theology of sexuality. I suppose this is a bit of a cop-out- but there appear to be many variations on this- not just the polar opposites represented by Robinson and the Anglican ‘Evangelicals’.

  • Given the increasing (if hotly debated) scientific basis for homosexuality having a significant genetic component- not a ‘lifestyle choice’- then many would point to the need for Christians to understand more, and pathologise a lot less. This has led some (Tony Campolo for example) to suggest that to be gay can not be regarded as sin- but that homosexual sex should still be regarded as unacceptable. In short, Gay people can not help who they are, but should remain celibate.
  • Others would suggest that openly gay people should be tolerated by the church, even as priests, but not as leaders- hence the fuss about Bishop Robinson.
  • Still more are like me- unsure and wondering what the next generation will make of all this. Will theology be shaped by culture- with all the attendant risks of allowing such a thing (as if this has not always happened!)? Is it possible that we will just have to leave this to God? But this does not change the fact that it is still the cause for much prejudice and conflict.
  • Then there are those whose motivation is towards the poor and broken. Who point out that the voices of Christians should never be raised against a persecuted minority- that rather we should be the peace makers, the ones showing love and forgiveness. I have even heard the Good Samaritan story retold, with a gay person cast as the Samaritan.

Faced with people whose sexuality is different from ours, who might (Lord help them) seek to attend our Church- what should our response be? Would you rather they were inside, or outside?

Faced with a real person, hurting and seeking after the living God, would you make relationship conditional on sexuality?

I think my answer to these two questions is yes, and no. How I work out the rest will be an adventure with God.

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Idolatry?

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Today I received my bouzouki.

I ordered it many months go from Freshwater folk instruments, and it seemed like it would never come. When it did, there were some problems, which I have yet to sort out with Dave Freshwater, but it is a beautiful thing.

I have wanted a bouzouki for ages… I love the sound they make. For the uninitiated, a bouzouki is a guitar sized Mandolin- 4 strings, each doubled, with a fret board around the length of a guitar fretboard. It makes a sound that, once heard, is very different to guitars, and opens up all sorts of other tonal possibilities. It was originally a Greek instrument, restrung and adapted into Irish folk music by people like Donal Lunny.

One of my favourite bands, ‘A Show of Hands’ use them a lot, and I love the driving energy the closely grouped strings give to fast folk.

For the purists, my instrument is tuned to G D A D, which gives lots of ‘drone’ strings, and lots of lovely open chord sounds. It has been hand made from solid woods, and has a Fishman pick up system.

And it makes me happy to sit in the fading light and fiddle around with the strange familiarity of such a beautiful new instrument.

But, gnawing away at me is this word…. idolatry.

For musicians (not sure if that really includes me, but stay with me…) instruments easily become objects of drooling worship. A good guitar does not make a bad guitarist good, but it certainly makes him/her a whole lot cooler.

Did I NEED a bouzouki? Of course not.

Does owning one improve the quality of my life, or enable me to serve others more effectively? Not really.

So, Lord forgive this man and the grasping teenager within.

And let me learn again that what I have, you gave me, so that I in turn, may be a blessing to others.

But thanks

For bouzouki’s

Worship list 2. Motivation

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What might turn our minds to God?

What brings us to worship? What motivates us within it?

I have not go this sorted yet. But the seeking seems very important. It was this that became the centre of the group called ‘Aoradh‘ that I am a part of.

I started to make a list that was relevant to me, and to some of my friends;

  • An encounter with the transcendent, which left us hungry.
  • The desire to live out this worship in a way central to the whole of life.
  • Jesus.
  • A desire to break down barriers between the so-called sacred and the real world.
  • Dissatisfaction with what has been, and longing for more…
  • A longing for creativity, colour and vitality in worship.
  • A longing to be authentic and true in our worship.
  • New ideas freely available – just a mouse click away.
  • Freedom taken or given, so that we can make our own worship.
  • The experience of community, with worship as a natural consequence.
  • An interest in art as a theological and spiritual tool.
  • An appreciation of the many rich traditions of Christian worship.

Osama, how the other half see him…

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My friend Ali turned up this evening- he had been house sitting for his sister while she had been on holiday so I had not seen him for a few days.

Ali is a singular kind of guy, who has a taste for the kitsch… and his sister found something in the souks of Marrakesh that she knew she would have to take home for her brother. More of this later…

There is a phantom shadow on our age, cast by the missing outline of the twin towers of Manhattan. This shadow has unleashed a new kind of warfare that has global impact- the ‘war against terror.’ On the one side we have the big battalions bent on imposing rough justice in the name of democracy, and on the other, those who have come to see the west as representing everything wrong with this world of ours.

Many things define the difference found between the supporters of the different sides. One side is mostly rich, the other, mostly poor. But perhaps above all, the defining difference is that of religion. One side is predominantly white, Protestant Christian, the other, Muslim.

It is important I think, to understand the other– to walk a while in his shoes and mark the blisters on his heel.

Otherwise, we may fall to that familiar base human default of dehumanising those who are different, and even demonising those who disturb our understanding of normality.

It seems clear that the Muslim world has a different way of seeing this ‘war on terror’ than predominates even in my liberal, left-of-centre world view. For them, this war is a manufactured, imperialist, brutal assault on a whole way of life- a whole faith group. It is the logical outcome of a long line of injustice perpetrated by or supported by the west (and the USA in particular.) Israel, Kosovo, Somalia, Iran, the Kurds, Chechnya, Israel again, and again…

In this way of seeing the world, the ‘war on terror’ is all smoke and mirrors, behind which is OIL. And religion.

That is not to say that people necessarily condone terrorist violence, but they may understand it, and its root causes in a way that we are not able (or willing) to. Many may resent the further trouble Bin Laden has brought down upon the heads of the Muslim world when he attacked the ‘great Satan’ on September the 11th. But his motivation is clear, and his continued defiance of the whole might of the USA continues to give almost univeral satisfaction.

Back to Ali’s present.

With great ceremony, he began to set up some cheap plastic track on our coffee table. He then placed on the track a tank, driven by a bad representation of George W Bush, and in font of this, Osama Bin Laden, on a skateboard. The tank was battery powered, but the skateboard had a magnet whose polarity opposed a magnet on the tank, so as the tank whirred round the track, the skateboard was propelled in front of it, always out of reach.

Here is a phototof the two protagonists, for your viewing pleasure, and education…

Peregrinatio

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Around the coastline of my adopted county of Argyll are places rich in the folklore of the Celtic sailor-saints. For them, voyaging was about mission. It was the very stuff of faith and life. It was the living embodiment of trusting in the living God.

Tides ebbed and flowed to His ordinance.

Storms came to test and to admonish.

The journey was blessed only by His provision

But arrival was never certain.

One of the accepted practices of these monks seems to have been Peregrinatio, or ‘Holy voyaging’, which in practice meant to get in a boat, and simply to set sail. No destination planned, simply trusting to tide, wind and God. The destination of such a voyage was not geographical, but rather spiritual. The goal was to arrive at ones ‘place of resurrection.’ Arriving at journey’s end inevitably meant an actual physical place also however- and it is these places that still hold the memory of these voyages in Argyll- in the place names, the folk lore, and also in the marks and mounds in the earth out on exposed headlands, or on tiny islands.

Just around the corner from me is Holy Loch (the site in more recent years of an American nuclear submarine base!) At the head of the Loch is the village of St Mun, named after the saint for whom this place was his resurrection.

St Brendan

Lord stain me with salt

Brine me with the badge of the deep sea sailor

I have spent too long

On concrete ground.

If hope raises up these tattered sails

Will you send for me

A fair and steady wind?

Moazzam Begg- ‘Enemy combatant’

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One of the books I read on holiday was by this man- Moazzam Begg. I could not put it down.

Begg, from a fairly affluent secular Muslim background, became something of an adventurer, traveling to Pakistan and Afghanistan as a young man, making sense of his growing faith. He set up a bookshop in Birmingham, and then became active as a supporter of education and water projects in Afghanistan. He appears to have had contacts with people who were radical activists.

As I read the book, I was struck by a similarity between him, and people who may have become involved in Christian radical missionary work. Some of the camps he visited had a para military edge to them, but according to his own account, this was not his world, nor his belief system. I may not share his doctrine or his faith, but many of the principles he appears to hold dear were ones that I honour also…

By what appears to be a combination of his contacts, the places he visited, and a whole set of assumptions, the CIA and perhaps MI5 became convinced he was a terrorist mastermind. So they had him picked up, dragged away from his family, and locked up in various torturous environment, including the infamous Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He was manipulated into a spurious confession, but was never charged or convicted of any crime, despite being held in dreadful circumstances for 4 years.

The question that we have to ask, is whether this could ever have happened to a white, middle class Christian male in 21st Century America, or Britain?

There are despotic regimes all over the world- and human rights are perhaps of low priority, but this book asks important questions about the operation about our society, and the misuse of power at this point of our history.

Begg’s style of writing is sometimes difficult to stomach- but the bare facts of his experience, told at a time when there is such political focus on the British governments attempt to extend the length of time that they can hold suspected terror suspects without trial, are compelling.

Christians in the UK have been swift to raise voices of protest against the building of Mosques, or the apparent infringement of our own rights to religious freedom of expression. But perhaps it would be of greater service to Jesus if we would raise our voices to protest injustice and inhumanity against others, rather than ourselves.

Today I read of a planned trial of a 22 year old man, Omar Kadir (a Canadian subject) who has also spent years in Guantanamo. He is charged with war crimes, and the murder of a US soldier during a raid on a suspected al-Quaida camp. Kadir had been sent there by his radical Palestinian father, and was 15 when he was seriously injured and captured. A  video of one of his hundreds of interrogations has been released, in which he can be seen sobbing for his mother. He has now spent one quarter of his life in captivity.

International law states that those captured in armed conflict under the age of 18 deserve protection. Child soldiers are weapons that despots have employed often enough. Moazzam Begg in his book makes reference to the incredible vulnerability of this boy.

What should our response be?

Perhaps it might be to understand a little better- perhaps give this book a try.

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A holiday list…

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We are back from a wonderful holiday, camping in Brittany. By way of summary- here is a list…

Miles driven, 2000.

Books read ( by me) 5.

Camera’s lost, 2

Camera’s found (by some miracle, and thanks to the Gendarmarie) 2

Coats lost, 1

Visits to hospitals 2, Chemist, 1, optician 1.

Bones broken 1 (Emily- see photo’s)

croissant’s consumed- many.

Towns visited-numerous.

Days spent at peace- lots.

But it is good to be home.