Two kinds of loneliness

In the spiritual life we have to make a distinction between two kinds of loneliness. In the first loneliness, we are out of touch with God and experience ourselves as anxiously looking for someone or something that can give us a sense of belonging, intimacy, and home. The second loneliness comes from an intimacy with God that is deeper and greater than our feelings and thoughts can capture. We might think of these two kinds of loneliness as two forms of blindness. The first blindness comes from the absence of light, the second from too much light. The first loneliness we must try to outgrow with faith and hope. The second we must be willing to embrace in love. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

Somehow Nouwen has a way of putting deep things succinctly. I wrote about this this back in January (here) A few days ago I was talking to one international, now back in her home country, who has broken up with her boyfriend of many years. Somehow it is difficult to counsel about the challenge to grow in loneliness when that person is in pain at the loss of security of future, locked in the threat of being unmarried. I found myself for a moment in the conversation and can honestly say that the desire to marry and share a life does not go away nor fade away.

... Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith ...Hebrews 12:1c-2a

Principalities and Powers

Ben Myers asks" Is Fashion A Demonic Power? He then quotes from Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics which is probably the last book I would think of for something on fashion and consumerism.

“Who wants it this way? The particular industry that tirelessly makes money out of it and whose kings, we are told, reside especially in Paris? But who has made these people the kings? What is it that has always made this industry so lucrative? How has it come about that since the end of the eighteenth century men’s clothing has become so monotonous and uninteresting? Conversely, how has it come about that world history might be presented from the standpoint of the sequence in which men have thought that they should shave or not shave their faces or adorn them with the boldest or most hideous arrangements of hair? Who inspires and directs these processes, which are not a matter of indifference to the feeling for life and all that it implies? If it is a matter of rapidly changing taste, what released spirit of the earth pulls the strings so that this fancy passes, another which is anxiously watched by millions comes and prevails, and then after a while it too departs?”

As I read discussions whether there will at last be a Mac tablet or a new ipod touch or whether simply a new MacBook computer with touch pad, this question cuts a little close to the bone. Perhaps not Paris but Cupertino now calls the trends and fashion. Are you buying?

Nothing spectacularly different

The missional life is not a life removed from the ordinary. The missional life is nothing special, it’s just embodying and giving expression to “gospel”, gospel centered on Jesus’ life lived in all the everyday contexts and circumstances we find yourselves in, and “yes” most especially in the mess and inadequacy of our own lives being lived in those places – the places of doubt, brokenness, failure, sickness, vulnerability, and powerlessness – in other words, in our simply being human! In our simply being alive and being about life as living persons, not as the “living dead”. This is the spiritual life. This is the missional way. This is the Jesus-way. Paul Fromont

As I catch up with some of my Google reader accounts I was caught by the obviousness of it all. I of course agree whole heartedly and yet at times I don't really live that way sufficiently. I try so hard to do the best possible and desire after the best. it's Ok when I'm working by myself but sometimes when I have to work with others that have radically different working patterns it can bring trouble bubbling up. I plan ahead and work hard at preparing comprehensively. Of course there is nothing wrong with rigor especially in things academic, but many people are procrastinators. Or at least my world seems to be full of procrastinators. The distance between being adequately prepared and last minute is vast for me and narrow for many.

This is one of my crosses to bear. I love to play music and when rehearsals are short and there is no time for fun, I struggle. For me something that doesn't carry intention whether spirit led or person led - ultimately it is ugly and not uplifting. This too is a cross to bear because I want to meet God and have fun, to enjoy being in the presence of God.

I worry. When events are planned I want to work on them for hours and months in advance. Others don't want to start thinking until much closer in time. I'm less scared of failure than in the past as grace has abounded and I realize the gifting that has been lavished on me. Also I recognize some of the best talks or messages I have given have been on the backs of envelopes or improvised! But many hours of listening, thinking, and especially just wondering contributed to those moments. This week I set aside something I have been planning actively for 2 months because it was stressing because others were not ready to move on the matter. I'm willing to live with the potential for failure or incompleteness in order to release the control and and worry. It is no longer mine. I will wait for the others to initiate praying that God will shape and guide them. I have decided tolive in the places of doubt, brokenness, failure, sickness, vulnerability, and powerlessness.

Passion for Rationality

I've been reading the Times Online (a UK paper) on the internet for a while and have been surprised to see a podcast there from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity by Professor John Gray. I've posted earlier about Alistair McGrath's response to Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion. But perhaps I really haven't paid too much attention to new atheism in general as I've seen it very much as one of the last wild spasms of rational modernity against postmodernity and the rise of spirituality as a reality in human existence. Still I'm surprise to find it on the Times Online website (here). I found it really strange reading the 140 comments which really felt like a shouting match across a wide room. I'm even more surprised to find that Gray is a skeptic, nonbeliever in God or god.

He asserts that the current publishing atheism is an atheist rejection of monotheism couched in a scientific response of positivism form the 19th century. It is ignorant of history and that concepts of toleration etc which form part of liberalism emerged from Western religious traditions i.e. religion is not intrinsically intolerant. Furthermore this new atheism is a media phenomenon, and is preaching a view that knowledge makes humans free and elevates humanity and often sets these humans (atheists) as more civilized or advanced.

Secularist ideology has gone and yet the assumption has remained that humanity is progressing inevitably to secularism and assumes that science drives out religious faith. But the opposite has happened globally religion and faith has moved back centre stage. Looking at history the great secularist projects of Nazism and Marxism have failed. Gray claims that "Science drives out faith" is an illusion. or perhaps a delusion?

Professor Gray has written an article "The Atheist Delusion"which contains many of the points in his lecture. The weirdest thing is a fundamentalist Christian Youtube video with Gray's article. (here) It sets sadly in my mind exactly a Christian version of Richard Dawkins in response to John Gray, which is a polemical blinkered view of reality. Lacking real depth of engagement in fact a denial of the history of the world, which incidentally includes a figure in a tiny corner of the Roman Empire called Palestine.

Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46:10