Ducks and life

What does it mean to be in the world and not of the world?

The last week or so I seemed to be a doing a lot of talking around how much we are part of the world and yet not conformed by the world. Materialism and consumerism are real problem and issues. I wrestled for a long time whether or not to buy an ipod and eventually had done but it took me almost 2 months to justify it as a decision even after a good friend gave me enough for half the cost.

There are a lot of pressures on us and sometimes they become almost overwhelming. Sometimes we confuse loving others as being totally available and open to them, but this is not true. Our boundaries remain an important element to us being in the world but not of the world. Like we can never solve another's problems, we can neither taken their burden's in life from them. We can stand and sit and walk with them, we can prop them up and encourage them, we can bring the love of God to them but not remove the load.

The metaphor of a duck is very important to me in life, but recently it has been transformed. A duck is waterproof and it does not swim in the water. Look carefully it is so waterproof that it floats on top of the water. When it rains the duck knows it is raining but it doesn't get wet. It is touched by what is going on around it but it does not absorb the water. So also in life
- in our emotional lives, our spiritual lives, and our values and goals in life. And here is the beauty of it all, that God works within us.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Rom 12:2

it's raining

The movie tonight in the series The love of God was Monsoon Wedding. I wasn't sure why I went to see it tonight, given my emotional exhaustion of the last week and I was tired, but I was glad I stayed to the end.

This is a Punjabi wedding where Aditi, the bride, is on the eve of her arranged marriage to local but now living in America. The family relations are comedic and complex as befits any Asian family. Strangely this was presented in the context of the Ignatian Spiritual exercises' meditation on the temptation of Jesus. However I found it a fascinating study on the complexities of love. What is love? What is false or even warped love? Aditi's pursuit of her former lover still at this last moment threatens her new life. So many aspects are woven into a fascinating carpet which manages to stay aloft and not come apart. More aspects are whether love possible in an arranged marriage where the two have not met before? The love of a father for his children both adopted and birth are explored in the context of greater family obligations. The sensitive vulnerability of rejected and reconciled love is explored between, Alice the maid and P.K. Dubey, the stern wedding planner.

I will not spoil the movie for you. Rather I've been doing thinking about mistakes in life following recent conversations. I remember reading many years ago that there are no mistakes in life, only lessons. In more recent years I have learnt that God can use all our experiences, nothing is wasted. More recently in discernment if all the options or choices are sincerely made in the intention of honouring God then there needs to be no fear in the decision making process because God will not abandon us. Perhaps then this movie is about choices but rather than good or bad decisions, more about what affects consequences.

Furthermore reading discussions and reviews I realise this film presents alternative realities , rather than reflects the norm, to a South Asian setting, revealing the cost of love when it is wrongly rooted and the hope of love in honesty and a desire to follow the right path.

Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' Matt 4:10

existential questions

What are the fundamental questions of life? If you are a fan of The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, then the answer is 42. The problem is really not What is the answer to life? But what are the fundamental questions of life. And particularly those of existence. But we ought not to confuse God with meaning nor questions. They are only sign posts. But what are those questions?

In my studies over the years these have been Who am I? in my individual identity and communal identity? Why am I here? Where is here? What's wrong with here? What's the remedy?

Today I've been in the hospital as power of attorney for a patient, my Auntie Mary. We got to talk to 4 doctors from 3 departments on separate occasions about resuscitation if something goes wrong with the 2 procedures they were suggesting! I had to face with Auntie Mary What is the meaning of life? What gives meaning to life? What makes life worth living? and continuing to live?

Then I had my weekly conversation with my Phd student and among other topics we discussed about What makes a Christian living their life with God different from someone equally religious from another faith tradition? Is it possible to have a conversation with God? Yet another conversation a few hours later What gives us a reason for living our lives? What makes our existence, work or lives valuable or worthwhile? Where is God in the bad stuff of life? Why am I here? What am I meant to do? Then in the listening/discernment group even later What makes the authentic spiritual life? How can I, or is it even possible to pass this on to another? What does it mean to follow God?

I always think of my good friend Ann, a survivor of anorexia. She used to say Life sucks! with an implied addition And I'm still alive! I agree with her and think that's the meaning of life!

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He [or she] 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. John 10:9-10

drawing as prayer, as prophecy

I'm interested in drawing as a reflective activity and my own usage has been to bring deep things to the surface, to provide a creative response to my reading and reflection on scripture and sometimes a non-verbal vehicle of God's communication to me. Actually drawing is for me not really different to written journalling. Although some may have resistance to non-verbal communication and issues of faith experiences within the area of imagination, there is not issue if we do not restrict the transformation of our minds to a logical enterprise.

I've read books on prayer and drawing, and also books purely on drawing. I used self-help books on using visual journalling and found a number of works helpful but more recently this blog from Ramone has been interesting, placing things in a Christian setting. (read this)

Last year I found this in my daily reading Bread for the Journey from henrinouwen.org May 4, 2006 written originally by Henri Nouwen. I think this is an important route to understanding God's activity in our lives. I used this as part of a retreat I led last year called Tracing the hand of God.

Signposts on the Way to God

How do we know about God's love, God's generosity, God's kindness, God's forgiveness? Through our parents, our friends, our teachers, our pastors, our spouses, our children ... they all reveal God to us. But as we come to know them, we realise that each of them can reveal only a little bit of God. God's love is greater than theirs; God's goodness is greater than theirs; God's beauty is greater than theirs.

At first we may be disappointed in these people in our lives. For a while we thought that they would be able to give us all the love, goodness, and beauty we needed. But gradually we discover that they were all signposts on the way to God.

candeo

"Our crowns have been bought and paid for--all we have to do is wear them." - James Baldwin

My good young friend candeo posted this quote by James Baldwin. It immediately reminded me of my drawing from June 5 2003. Amazingly this came from a collision of verses from the Bible.

I cannot present burnt offerings to the Lord that have cost me nothing 2Sam 24:24b

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. Acts 2:3

And when the chief Shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. 1Peter 5:4

Further quotations by Baldwin bring this crown into deeper perspective as I reflect about life, injustice, struggles and denials, to blinkered vision and refusal to see the world in front of us.

The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.

You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.

What unites us and should bring us together is our brokenness and willingness to sit with each other, protest by all means but it is not the matter of solutions but somehow education and sightedness is key: The need for revelation, the epiphany, the coming of insight and a new way of seeing. Baldwin as Afro-American writer and civil-rights protester, seemed to be an educator through his literature offering alternative perspectives. Until we are willing to stop looking at, namely gawking at the world, and begin to see the world in a different light it is difficult to claim the crown to which Baldwin refers.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matt 5:10