feeling lighter and spacious

The last few days I've found new energy and my internal space you might say my psyche feels lighter and more spacious. It's the product I believe in God's intervention in my life, physical health in the medical and dental treatments, mental and emotional in the counseling, in the spiritual with my director, and the external spatial in beginning to clear up and get rid of stuff.

Today I had to help Auntie Mary, in her frailty. Finally I and her Veteran Affairs Canada counselor met with her together and got her to agree to accept help. But it's not that the help isn't there for her. I've talked at length with her, the VAC counselor, the community care counselor, and even there's the Neighbourhood Link social worker in the background. Today I started opening her mail and sorting her financial documents out. In that moment I realized I had the energy to face my own problems of organization. I am being changed through the experience of helping, serving, and realizing I don't want to be this cluttered and unable to cope. I found uncashed expired cheques and unpaid bills etc. After three and a half hours I cleared one chair and one third of the table. There's a long way to go but we've begun the journey.

Seeing and asking and smelling

I was talking to my neighbour because last Sunday I watched many women coming out of the local Orthodox church with a branch or handful of a green plant. I discovered that this is a tradition that comes from the time of Constantine, a Roman emperor who embraced the Christian faith giving it official status in the Empire. His mother Helen is reputed to have found the remains of the cross. St Helen took part of the wood and nails with her to Constantinople where Constantine gave orders to build at Jerusalem the Church of the Resurrection.

The temple was constructed in about ten years. St Helen did not survive until the dedication of the temple, she died in the year 327. The church was consecrated on September 13, 335. On the following day, September 14, the festal celebration of the Exaltation of the Venerable and Life-Creating Cross was established. The basil grew where the Holy Cross was found. Tradition tells that the aroma of the basil attracted Saint Helena and she ordered the workmen to dig there. Incidentally basil (βασιλικός) in Greek means kingly, royal. I feel honoured that my neighbour gave me a sprig of basil from her porch. The smell of basil took a new twist in meaning for me and so did my relationship with my neighbour.

Supposedly basil helps to promote higher states of awareness and open the heart and mind. It has an extraordinary antispasmodic action that makes it useful in the treatment of muscular cramps, all respiratory tract infection, asthma, and bronchitis. The oil possesses antiviral, anti-infectious and antibacterial properties and is uplifting and stimulating and helps chase away the blues. Perhaps I should start growing it?

Effects,prayer, wishes

You wonder whether you have an effect. Whether anything you say has an effect. Two weeks ago I filled in one of those surveys having bought something from Shoppers Drug Mart. I noted that I couldn’t find my favourite toasted coconut marshmallows snacks and I also said something about looking for special sale items.

Guess what last week there they were on sale, a rack full of them by the cash desks. Did my comment have an effect? Difficult to say. Lin Yutang, a Chinese philosopher who studied and published in the US has a number of books I read the most well known being the Importance of Living. In it is a chapter called if my memory is correct "Why I am not a Christian." Although from a strongly Christian family the death of his mother had a depe effect on him. While an aunt prayed that it would not rain at the funeral for his mother and it didn't, he could not believe that a God would be interested enought to do such a thing.

Yet Edwrad Lorenz, a weather modeller and father of chaos theory, formulated that complex systems behaviour can be modelled with very simple equations and minor variations can produce wildly varying results. Philip Merilees later concocted Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? I wonder if we can say that an individual's prayer can be paralleled here. Perhaps it is less a matter of ciritical mass and more about timing and being part of the same connected system?

Living Simpler

Could you live on 1,500 dollars? not a month but a year! $1,500 for one year for groceries, household items and personal care expenses. This is for real - see it here. The family of four is in the US news and they are a coupon family in the main. I am not sure about really how healthy their diet is given the amount of prepared foods they are using but it's an interesting thing in a recession and an age of consumption. Fox news here reports so far they are on 125 dollars a month.

How much simpler can you live? I try and live pretty simply in many ways. Though my computer etc have taken up money recently and a number of hobbies/projects also. Perhaps these I need to keep a tighter reign on. I know students who are living on 60-70 dollars a week and I pretty well match their level. Though currently my travel pass is costing me money.

I wonder where does that saved money go? The tension is already that global economies are unstable and in recession because people aren't buying consumer items in sufficient volume. Capitalism and the free market depends on consumption. There is something wrong here and yet if we all lived like the Spooner family, then whole economies would collapse. Is there a balance?

This weekend, I was talking with an international student about cost benefit analysis when thinking about civil engineering and environmental impact and risk. Current discussions have indicated that the Szechuan earthquake may have been caused by a large dam and it's lake sitting over a fault line. The benefits of water management over the risks of such an event. Cost benefit is an important thing to have in mind. Saving money is only one aspect, what we do with the money we saved is also something important. How we use that money is also important! Laying up our treasures in the right place is important. However making sure the heart and mind are in the right place first is very important. Perhaps this is where balance starts.

Earth hour

I think my concerns for environmental impact seem to continue to deepen. Checking out a celloguy called Cello Joe, who also is a bicycle-touring cellist and also “the wildest beatboxing cellist in the west,” I came across this seemingly impossible idea, a band on tour on bikes. Electric instruments and a 1,000 watt PA. Also given they use the type of bike I have also been dreaming about the SUV xtracycle or free radical. In fact there's a whole world I didn't know about here.



So what will you do on Saturday March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm for Earth Hour. Don't just switch stuff off - That's good. How about having a party or celebration or service without being attached to the power grid? Prove it to yourself and others that for a moment the world can be different. Let's get something going? sign up here.

Hope

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it’s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours. Noam Chomsky

I am always conscious of hypocrisy and issues about saying stuff and not living it out myself: Trying to avoid the legalism of telling others how they should live and not doing it myself. However I am also aware of those doings things, assuming roles for which they lack either experience, knowledge, proficiency and most importance humility. Our problem is frequently that we think we can make the world a better place. We think we can solve the problem. The core problem is we place our hope within ourselves not recognizing our own weaknesses. One of the aphorisms in spirituality is 'knowledge of self is knowledge of God.'

Our trust in structures, institutions, programs and methods, and even each other constantly leads us into disappointment and even distrust. Perhaps it's not your experience, but I make no promises that I know I cannot keep and have the energy to carry through. I also make no promises for God - God will solve all your problems. Yes I believe he can but the promise say he will. There is a jump here, we need to be cautious when we claim to speak for God.

Reading Marva Dawn's book Joy in Our Weakness which is a study in Revelations I found her pointing to a moment where there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. (Rev 8:1)
I'd never noticed this before. "Silence is an important element of praise, thanksgiving, awe, fear, reverence, dread, repentance, anticipation, and prayer. In our busy lives, silence can deepen our intimacy with God." From this intimacy can come renewed and deepening hope. Our world is too noisy and too full of meaningless words. From silence and solitude can come the still small voice of reassurance and hope.

The freedom we should have is to choose a life with God, a spiritual life peppered or flavoured with hope. I baulk at saying 'filled with hope' because we can't actually achieve that in this life. We need hope that things might or will be better than they were, to move forwards. Of course this choice is not what Chomsky is referring to, but we have to move from being victim of the world, to the freedom of taking responsibility for each other. Loving our neighbor as ourselves.

The elders

The signing of the 15 September agreement raised hopes in Zimbabwe and around the world, but the failure to implement it in good faith and create a workable power sharing government is leading to despair and accelerating the crisis. Regardless of the challenges in implementing the agreement, all parties should now make the welfare of the people their first priority and put an end to the unnecessary suffering of millions. Jimmy Carter - Elders in South Africa

The Elders, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former United States President Jimmy Carter and international advocate for women's and children's rights Dr Graça Machel have completed their assessment even though denied entrance to Zimbabwe itself. My own struggles pale into nothingness when I read and follow the reports.

We knew when we planned this trip that the situation in Zimbabwe was serious. What we have learned in the past few days is shocking. It is not just the extent of Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis, but the speed of deterioration in the past few weeks that is most worrying. The scale, depth and urgency of the situation are underreported. Kofi Annan

It seems to me that if things could take a turn for the worse they have. The basic infrastructure is now collapsing so sanitation and safe water are no longer available and cholera is looming as an epidemic. Perspective is such an important thing for me. A global vision is essential to put often our petty little worries into an appropriate scale. Our backyard should be the world. We don't need anymore more proof that people's greed and hunger for position and power is always bad. I still wonder what happened to government as servant of the people.

There are those who are the elder statemen and women who have in their latter years maintained honour and service such a Annan and Carter and those who just want to hang onto their own little territory like Robert Mugabe.

Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? Job 21:7

sometimes you wonder

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry

Our world, our environment , where we live and what we eat affect us. A recent US study found autism rates were higher among children who experienced higher rainfall in their first three years of life. This research is based on child health and weather records from three US states, California, Oregon and Washington State, but British autism experts are quite condemning of the conclusions. This seems a strange correlation to put it mildly. Does this mean that everyone in the UK has a very high risk of autism? or people from the rain forests are more likely to be autistic? Perhaps its less about rain and more about West Coast life and environmental quality!

A more interesting piece of correlation research suggests that though there are significant differences in health related to income and social deprivation, when you live near a park, woodland or other open green spaces the differences are reduced. Sometimes you wonder what really makes sense and what doesn't. Rain and clouds make you emotionally depressed however autism is not an emotional condition. But an authentic association might be that green spaces have far reaching effects environmentally and emotionally.

I do believe increasingly that studying has its limitations and studying indoors at a desk or table has a deep implication. Philosophers and theologians have spoken of God's "two books." Bonaventura called them the liber naturae and the liber scripturae. Later Francis Bacon called them "the book of God's Words" and "the book of God's Works." The primary lesson of the book of nature is to convince us that God exists. God's second book, the Bible, then gets the picture of God into a greater sense of focus. However both are about thinking with the mind, lived lives and a sense of peace rooted in trust and divine relationship. A healthy way of living is to look at both, to experience both, and know that God created both.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? Psalm 8:3-4

Prayer in a time of financial crisis

Does insecurity make me more self-seeking and less caring about the needs of others, lessening my humanity, clouding my sense that people matter more than money? Or does this worldwide turmoil strengthen my compassion? Poverty is not good in itself, but where it leads to a deeper dependence on God and coexists with generosity it can be a rare grace www.sacredspace.ie

Learning generosity in a season of financial insecurity is a real challenge. As a global recession dawns there seems to be an invitation to greater compassion. I am grateful for many from whom I have had the chance to learn about being grateful and then generous. To transition from being financially secure to being insecure has been a worry yet now I see people matter more. Friends in trouble and in difficulty count more. Fellow staff struggling in their own financial-support-raising bring from me not mere sympathy but a desire to be generous. Somehow over the years I have noticed the faith of those with less seems so much more authentic than those with more. I still struggle with the financial vulnerability even though I am not really poor but I am dependent on God and others to respond to his call. But I remain challenged by people like Wisnu, a fellow student, who insisted on paying for our lunch because that day he had 20 dollars.

People bemoan the lack of teaching on tithing but perhaps what we need is a greater prophetic voice to remind us that all we are and have is not ours but is held in trust. If we understand God as generous then perhaps we need to also live that out. That is the challenge of the parable of the talents.

'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' Matt 20:13-15

More on Zimbabwe

Death is stalking Zimbabwe’s children, as a potentially catastrophic famine gathers momentum. Aid agencies say that half the population, about five million people, face starvation, two-thirds of children are out of school and water shortages have led to deadly cholera outbreaks. Jan Raath Times online

Over the last while I have posted once a month on Zimbabwe, July, August, September and now October. Why can't things get better instead of worse? Even with a supposed power sharing deal brokered by former South African Prime minister, Mbeki, there is no change and my earlier posting (here) doesn't show anything better only now the feared disaster in on the doorstep. The diseases which tell us of hunger, kwashiorkor, marasmus and pellagra, are now easy to see. The Times reports

When Zimbabwe’s Government does spend money on the health sector it does not help the people. Three months ago the Central Bank allocated $5 million (£3 million,) which was used to buy imported cars for the state’s 100 or so specialist doctors.

The number of starving is 5 million, half the population. I can't even get my head around a number like that. Try and imagine 100 of something, your brain can't hold that, but perhaps more than the entire population of your city is starving, not just hungry. How can Mugabe even think about this? We're not just talking about the poor or the peasants anymore. The middle classes are starving and even teachers are joining their pupils in receiving a bowl of basic food porridge. Starvation also heaps coals on the heads of those with HIV/AIDS because the drugs require food and nutrition and a third of the population is infected.

I've been watching the first episode of The Century of the Self which tracks the influence of Freud and his family on Western values and consumerism and propaganda, public relations, and advertising. Freud's basic identification of hidden deep sexual and aggressive forces in the human psyche might be helpful if it hadn't been for his Americanized nephew, Edward Bernays, who promoted fundamentally the sexual material. Humans have deep aggressive tendencies which seems true but surely we should also take seriously the lust for power which even Machiavelli seems not to have fully acknowledged. Politicians seem incapable of truly caring about the people or the citizens rather more about remaining in power or gaining power.

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. Proverbs 25:21

People who reflect

The more we become people of action and responsibility in our community, the more we must become people of contemplation. If we do not nurture our deep emotional life in prayer hidden in God, if we do not spend time in silence and if we do not know how to take time from the presence of our brothers and sisters, we risk becoming embittered. It is only to the extent that we nurture our own hearts that we can keep interior freedom. People who are hyperactive, fleeing from their deep selves and their wound, become tyrannical and their exercise of responsibility only creates conflict Jean Vanier, Community and Commitment

L'Arche is a inspiration to us and a challenge. Jean Vanier's vision of community is one of value but conscious that busyness is our worst enemy. Friday I has a good long conversation with a Chinese scholar about love and duty and how they are basically two ways of looking at or two sides of the same thing. We had been talking about schoolmates and where they had ended up and about a family who had given up everything to care for a child with a degenerative muscle disorder instead of sending him off to an institution. I pointed out that frequently humans in every society aren't good at looking after their disadvantaged or disabled even in our own country accessibility is built into building codes. However if no-one had taking the time with Stephen Hawking then theoretical science would be a poorer place. I am not making any comments about his faith or lack of it but he is valued despite disability. Perhaps his disability forced deeper and deeper reflection because he cannot really flee from himself nor distract himself.

We also had cause to look at happiness and discuss its relationship to satisfaction. Life can be disappointing and even cruel. Life circumstances can make us perhaps embarrassed but if we are truly happy then you cannot be ashamed, only embarrassed. We need to nurture our own hearts to find this kind of freedom. This week I've meditated and also contemplated the phrase God's eternal love in 1 Kings 10:9 Strangely I have been singing his love endure for ever for years but the phrase has been partially or completely meaningless until recently when I began to embrace the emotional consequences and the life orientation that flows from that. Perhaps because the Queen of Sheba said this to Solomon is why I pause and wonder. Perhaps because God's love is for all of us.

Because of the LORD's eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness. 1 Kings 10:9

Christianity is now almost impossible to explain

Christianity is now almost impossible to explain, not because the concepts aren’t intelligible, but because the living, moving, speaking examples of our faith don’t line up with the message. Our poor posture overshadows the most beautiful story and reality the world has ever known. Hugh Halter and Matt Smay The Tangible Kingdom cited by Mark Priddy

Mark Priddy's article about Caring for Strangers is very close to my heart. He tells the story of a group inviting the staff from a local diner to dinner as an act of hospitality to the alien in the land after having read Deuteronomy. Not a Potluck or a stand-up party but a sit down table cloth and best china dinner not just the select few but 35 of them. Read his article and wonder if it's something you could do? (read it here)

We got involved, well others from our church were involved in pedestrian Sunday, a street festival outside the gym doors. But as yet I'm not sure we understand our world and how we relate to it. H Richard Niebuhr wrote Christ and Culture, a book that has become a classic. It it he posited five different stances which the church has to the world. These are Christ against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ above Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox, Christ Transforming Culture. How do they operate?

Well Christ against culture is obviously antagonistic and the view encourages the separation or withdrawal from culture. The Christ of culture is the opposite,one of accommodation and political correctness.Christians are likely confuse the prevailing spirit of the age for the Holy Spirit. Christ above culture suggests obviously a superiority or benevolence as culture cannot be all bad because it is founded on the nature created good by God. Christ and culture in paradox see that both Christ and culture claim our loyalty and there is a lasting the tension between them cannot be reconciled. Christ transforming culture is obviously Neibuhr's preference and also my roots. This is optimistic about the ability of Christians to change and influence culture. This is a position that at least sees life missionally.

I don't think we stand still rather oscillate between various positions and we have a tendency to retreat into one of the first 2 either Christ against or Christ of culture. We certainly have a tendency to congregate with people who are similar or the same instead of combing the laneways and alleys to bring guests into the feast.

Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. Luke 14:23

Communities and unity

Communities are defined by who’s in them and who isn’t, us vs. them. … people are galvanized by being presented with an opponent. (As a sidebar, when Al Gore established his leadership by defining a situation that impacts us all, by asserting that for once there was no Them, just Us, all of Us, and that we could all make a contribution to fix the problem, I was very inspired. I was also flabbergasted by how many people, those in power and those with no apparent axe to grind, were skeptical and even openly hostile against the effort to reduce global warming. I just don’t get it but can only assume that the agendas are hidden but there, and that the power of denial is incredibly strong. ) Danny Gregory My vote

I got into reading Danny Gregory's blog because he draws and writes and teaches it. Gloria introduced me to his blog and his work is fascinating. But I am quite taken by his passionate tirade about the state of his country's politics. Somehow I feel so right for so many countries and in fact many communities. In the last 12 hours (it's Sunday Evening) I've sat and had some pretty significant conversations and given and received encouragement that may the impossible and miraculous can happen in this world.

Danny continues:

It’s sad that in the current political debate so many people seem more interested in diminishing the ideas of others than in providing solutions of their own. The politics of division are an enormous drag on our progress and eat up resources and energy that could be so much better used.

The trouble is community is com plus unity. That is unity together but when we define ourselves something is very wrong. Somehow that will always setup a them vs us thinking. This stuff isn't just about politics. When it comes to things of faith and spirituality it can set up arrogance and pride. I learned a long time ago that frequently what you accuse others of are the things you are already! Something about planks and splinters. When I realized that I shut my mouth and have been careful about when to open it.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:7

I have never noticed before that Jesus' answer is under pressure, it is almost as if he is forced to make this pronouncement because they keep talking. They keep accusing "In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" In that act they accuse themselves. Remove the us vs. them division for we are all in the same condition really!

Concrete - the Lessons of history

I've been hearing so much about concrete crumbling and that concrete structures have a life of 40 odd years before extensive work is required. Also concrete basements that leak and flood. The first thing that has sprung to mind is that many Roman constructions are also made using concrete. The Pantheon is the oldest domed building in the world. Built in Rome and extensively renovated around 145 AD, the dome is both 43.3 metres (142 ft) high and 43.3 metres across. This building is big and almost 2,000 years old and it's built of concrete! We even know the formula for Roman concrete. It is known their concrete was made from a pasty hydrate of lime, with pozzolanic ash and lightweight pumice from a nearby volcano, and fist-sized pieces of rock. Also the Romans developed waterproof concrete which can be poured under water and will actually set. So what is our problem?

For most of the time I have been able to read I have had an interest in archaeology. I recently came across an interesting theory taken from the observation that at least parts of the Khufu Pyramid (Great Pyramid) were "microstructurally" different from other limestone blocks. This is suggested that some of the immense blocks of the Great Pyramids of Egypt might have been cast from synthetic material - the world's first concrete - made 2,000 years before the Romans invented concrete! (see the article here) Linn Hobbs, professor of materials science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asked: -

Maybe the ancient Egyptians didn't just leave us mysterious monuments and mummies. Maybe they invented concrete 2,000 years before the Romans started using it in their structures.

OK so why are 2,000 year old and even 4,000 year old huge concrete structures still standing requiring limited maintenance and here in my city all sorts of concrete structures (including my church and city bridges etc) need major reconstruction and repair work?

Learning lessons from the past is the historian's self justification for their discipline. We sometimes read the history of Israel with interest but don't realize that we are to learn the lessons of the past and that it has personal implications. We can be just as self-focused, rebellious and stiff-necked as the Israelites. We can be just as forgetful and ungrateful. If we are to build solid great structures then perhaps we need to learn from the past both the good and bad points.

Why do bad things happen?

For what are men better than sheep or goats, That nourish a blind life within the brain. If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, Both for themselves, and those that call them friend. Alfred Lord Tennyson Morte D'Arthur

There seems to be so much struggle and pain around at the moment. A little while ago another one of the teenagers I worked with over the years passed away. Now this morning I heard of Mark who is terminally ill. I can remember Mark from the age of 12 years old. I knew him in Sunday school and was his leader as a youth. The parents divorced, and then his grandma passed away I remember feeling honoured to be asked to come to the funeral and afterwards to the wake. I later discovered it was to keep both parents on best behaviour, such was the trust he and his siblings felt. Mark has a partner and a child and that only makes it worse.

Tonight I feel the frustration and pain of my adopted god-daughter far away in Shanghai. I cannot protect or shelter or effectively console her. For all those I know suffering or struggling with sickness or painful situations at the moment I cannot offer and will not offer simplistic solutions. All I have are my prayers in this moment.

O LORD, I call to you; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. Psalm 141:1-2

Lost and don't know where to go

Thursday night biking home I was stopped by a woman wearing a Canada Post uniform asking me where certain streets were, including my own. Nothing strange except I continued on my way home and about 10 minutes later she came up the street delivering mail and I found out from her she'd been asked to do this round at 11am. I noticed it was now 6.30pm.

I am surprised at her devotion to duty to get the letters delivered but surprised that she had no map book or guide to help her. She was clearly wandering around trying find the streets and those she asked about weren't small little roads. I wonder how many people are wandering through life without a reliable map or even better a guide.

A spiritual director is more of a companion who walks with you and points out the presence of God or refers you to pages in the guide book. A mentor tends to work more intellectually to develop and support growth. When looking around I still don't understand why so many rely on peers rather than searching someone older or more mature to help them. I am still blessed to have many people to learn from and guide me. People who don't tell me what to do but point to God.

quality and not quantity

Excellence in Scripture is much more about the character of Christ and the love of God rather than statistical achievement. In fact, in the Bible, counting resources and measuring achievements are often used to illustrate pride, self-reliance, control and oppression – the darker side of merit-based culture. Paul Valler LICC

In an interview for support in the work I do in ministry I was asked how I would measure success. Foundationally, I said, people are not projects nor trophies, each person has intrinsic worth. It is in the quality of relationships I have, not the number of them. Yet my own organization is partially trapped in this because the only easy way to assess performance is numerically. Advertising uses numbers as facts to convince people that something is worth while and yet this is such an incomplete story. If we remember Abraham's bargaining with God about not destroying a city, or the fact that only one person was healed at the Beautiful Gate by Peter and John. Clearly it is about individual people, their personal importance, and their particular need and the micro scale.

It eventually rolls into numbers but it isn't a primary focus, in fact it is only with hindsight. Quality may roll into quantity, if I ask how many people would cry for you if you died tonight. My colleague Mimi told me about her father's death in Goma a city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on the border with Rwanda. Given the wars and violence between peoples, it's not the thousands who went to the funeral but that they were from differing religious affiliations and tribal groups which is the true assessment of the quality of the relationships he had. To understand the tensions of real living or to remove the blandness of your faith, we need to hear stories like Mimi's own personal story (here). I think the quality of Mimi's relationships is already reflected in the number who would mourn the loss of it.

Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let those who boast boast about this: that they understand and know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth, for in these I delight, Jeremiah 9:23-24

why do bad things happen

Why do bad things happen to good people? I don't know but it drives me to struggle sometimes but also calls me to solidarity to stand with them. My good friend from many years ago is back in his home country and he is a good faithful pastor and scholar, father and husband. Yet he lost his godson to Dengue fever only a few weeks ago and now his daughter is struggling with a milder strain. I find a deep ache for them. The problem is the increase of mosquitos in Asia and these ones bite during the day rather than dawn and dusk. Like malaria and West Nile fever, Dengue cannot be vaccinated against and there is no real cure. All three of these are on the increase globally.

I struggle a lot of the time with people's blindness to long term effect and consequence. Whether global warming, pollution in general, food and health issues even bottled water and the world we will leave for the next generation. It used to be that parents worried about the future for their children but now I see less of that worry expressed in lifestyle. Gen Yers and the generation following will have a very different world to contend with. Will they despise their parents and grandparents for the world left them? Most countries recognize that their pensions and support structures will not be able to support the aging population in the next generation and that in fact the health of coming generations are in fact likely to diminish as will life expectancy. The residues of chemicals and trace elements namely pollutants in food, drink, water and air are adding up. The presence of majorly genetically modified food still is an unknown quantity. Short-term economics now determines our world. Expediency and political-economic judgements rule thinking not health and welfare of generations to come.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen to anyone? Why do they happen at all? Is everything meaninglessness? or Is it a matter of vision being able to see and understand consequences? I'm more and more aware or self-conscious of my own garbage and waste. One small bag of organic food waste every week, fewer and fewer plastic bags and basic garbage. Biking 90 percent of the time beginning to use only rechargeable batteries using less and less canned food etc... Will I make a difference? Unlikely given the patterns of people around me but my conscience is eased knowing that one day I will be judged by the owner of all this and be held accountable both for what I did or did not do. I spent yesterday afternoon with my 5 year old godson and I worry for his future. God help us all.

Getting it right - it's the way you do it

It ain't what you do - it's the way that you do it ... And that's what gets results Bananarama (1970's pop group)

As I was reading a blog entry this old pop song by Bananarama got stuck in my head. Tim Keller's message at Gordon-Conwell graduation was being related. Daryl at Dashhouse.com records Keller saying:

You can grow your church, and at the same time be almost spiritually dead inside. You can grow a church but it can be driven by insecurity. You can have abilities and talents, and God can use you, but you can lack grace in the heart. ... In ministry, it's inevitable that we'll have to tell people of the greatness of God when, at times, we don't have a sense of it in our own lives. There are only two ways to respond to this.

One option is to realize that we need a prayer life beyond what we've ever known.

The other option is to throw ourselves into the busyness of ministry looking for results. ... We often try to fill ourselves with ministry success rather than God's grace. ...Gifts can't substitute for fruit.

Salvation by works thinking remains prevalent in all versions of the Christian faith. There is no substitute for a real authentic relationship with God with both its highs and lows. At a recent pastor's meet it was fascinating that in the sharing time many of the over 40s group just wanted more of God, even clichéd in wanting "to fall more in love with God."

As I continue to prepare talks for the church retreat I've been thinking about the parable of the Talents and also Jonah. The story of Jonah is not about the success of Jonah's warning, nor even Jonah being saved from drowning, nor even his obedience. It is about the transformation of the people of Ninevah and Jonah's head and heart. As I listen, think and meditate I am challenged to rethink the importance of spiritual gifts again. Spiritual gifts are given in the service of the church and therefore important in their being exercised but God's grace in transformation is far more important. Ultimately grace is what draws us to himself.

Practically, grace can even compensate for a lack of giftedness. ... For example, you can be godly and a poor speaker, but your godliness will lead you to keep your message short, and if you are truly godly you won't be boring for 15 minutes. You can be a poor counselor but if you are godly you will be a good listener.

Yes serving out of your spiritual gifts is life giving whether individually or communally but more important is the presence of God in our individual and communal lives. Serving or action is secondary to the relationship to God. What has a stronger message in this world, you as a person living out God's grace with those around you or you simply doing the right things?

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecc 3:11

Synaesthesia/synesthesia

To test synaesthesia, V.S. Ramachandran and collaborators designed a test, the picture (on left). Pick out the twos as quickly as possible.

Most ordinary people can do it within about twenty seconds. (I can do it in about 2 seconds.) A majority of aesthetes supposedly see numbers or letters as colours e.g. five might be green and 2 red. But I feel the differences 5's are closed mouth and 2 are open mouth. In fact 5's are smooth, 3's are sharp and 2' simply slimey.

Here's another quick test:-



Do you hear, smell, feel(through touch), taste? Synaesthesia is a condition where stimulation for one of the senses provokes a response in another whether or not it has been directly activated.

I'm quite interested in the links between physical, emotional, and spiritual. Especially as discernment for me is linked to a semi-physical feeling.

Synesthesia is emotional. The experience is accompanied by a sense of certitude (the "this is it" feeling) and a conviction that what synesthetes perceive is real and valid. This accompaniment brings to mind that transitory change in self-awareness that is known as ecstasy. Ecstasy is any passion by which the thoughts are absorbed and in which the mind is for a time lost. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James spoke of ecstasy's four qualities of ineffability, passivity, noesis, and transience. These same qualities are shared by synesthesia.
Richard E. Cytowic http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-10-cytowic.html

Most spiritual directors, I know are concerned with the symbolic universe and the metaphorical nature of life especially in arts and natural forms. I wonder how many are synaesthetes?