The Monastery

I finally have started watching a BBC series called The Monastery. It was a 3 part series which was broadcast in 2005 and brought 5 men to a Benedictine monastery for 40 days with challenge for both communities to meet each other in a meaningful way through the disciplined life of a praying and working community away from the distractions and pace of 21st century life. It was through the grace of a Brother James that I can see the complete series.

The strange thing was listening in on the conversations and also the realization that the abbot and monk responsible for novices were teaching very simple spiritual truths and challenging exactly the academic/scientific/materialist approach to faith and belief which has no real meaning. My favourite philosopher Gabriel Marcel posits that the real issue is we are trying to turn a mystery into a problem (problems can be solved, mysteries not). The real issue is that we are standing on the sense data and therefore cannot actually separate ourselves from the very subject we're trying to understand. More about the series and the monastery itself here.

atheism and the argument for it?

Last year when I had a working tv, I happened to switch on the program Big Ideas and hear Alistair McGrath on Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion. Well I took a few notes and this last week I came across them while spring cleaning. Time to post them.

McGrath states Dawkins has 4 prime assertions.

1. Belief in God is irrational (read immature) like belief in Santa and the tooth fairy
2. Science demonstrates there is no God
3. Faith can be explained
4. Faith leads to violence

Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University is a former atheist and scientist turned theologian and well qualified to confront Dawkins with his own book The Dawkins Delusion. He argues this is a weak book which is -

"marred by its excessive reliance on bold assertion and rhetorical flourish, where the issues so clearly demand careful reflection and painstaking analysis, based on the best evidence available. Attractive precisely because it is simplistic, Dawkins demands the eradication of religion. Only when it is eliminated can the human race rest secure! Get rid of religion, and the world will be a better place. It is a familiar theme, if stated with greater fervor than before.”

It seems to me both Dawkins and McGrath are working in a charged environment and both are working from faith positions. The more unfortunate is that Dawkins cannot see that his position is not only NOT a neutral position but in fact his also a faith position. Richard Dawkins, in the earlier The Selfish Gene, developed the idea of the meme which is a unit of sociocultural information, such as a practice or idea (or even belief), that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Religion and belief and the idea of meme seems to be viewed negatively. Are we not seeing Dawkins with a meme in action? Working out of a faith tradition?

You can find an mp3/podcast of the program here if you're interested.

The fool says in his heart,"There is no God." Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1

What is your orientation?

Who are the unchurched people you rub shoulders with on a regular basis? How will you cultivate redemptive relationships with them?

What prevents you from effectively building relationships with unchurched people?

Does you church keep you and your members too busy to develop relationships with the unchurched? If so, how can that change?

At what stage in the process of trusting in Jesus Christ are those people with whom you are developing a relationship?

How can you help your Christian friends to build relationships with pre-Christians? In what ways are you helping new converts reach their network of friends, relatives and associates?

I found these questions in one of my blogs I subscribe to. In one way I am encouraged by them and the intentionality they expose but in another way I am troubled when I put them in juxtaposition with Rob Bell's observation that loving people has no agenda other than love. Motivation is an important reason and measure for why you or I are doing things.

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7

a week gone by

Spring has swung by and the cleaning has started at long last but still so far behind. The heavy rain and things going wrong damped my spirits a lot. But in the clearing up I got to opening mail from February. Yes I know it's May now. Perhaps it is the reality of how low and depressed I got this last winter. I survived and now I found a cheque which is a bequest from my Uncle Eric who passed away almost 3 years ago. A dear man who was my godmother's husband... so in many ways was a godfather. Anyhow watch this space to how carefully I will use it to remember him.

Sunshine brings hope, grace last week with another year under the belt and a couple of little meals with students to celebrate quietly. A bizarre moment when you discover that a student is exactly 31 years younger!
What synchroncity! What a divine moment of care with someone I have been caring for in difficult times! Life goes forward. Sometimes it sucks and I get really wet but at least for moments the sun comes out.

A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

Aesthetic or anaesthetic?

I'm cleaning up going through piles of paper and reading some stuff which arrived a while back. One was a review of a December lecture by Jeremy Begbie called ‘Sentimentality in Christian Art & Worship: What’s Gone Wrong?' I love a collision of ideas having spent 3 late evenings talking with an extremely qualified church musician and former broadcast producer about the state of worship and musicianship. Anyhow Begbie hammers home a deep problem in current worship trends where music and words become bland, flat and meaningless, being reduced to the emotional. Sickly syrup rather than real honey sometimes with only a faint sweetness and other tastes and aromas. Have you ever wondered why so few contemporary worship songs are in minor keys or even use relative minors?

"Three characteristics of sentimentality Jeremy identified three characteristics of sentimentality. First, sentimentality misrepresents reality through evading or trivialising evil; it is selective in what it chooses to notice (“the world is a great place, really”), and projects innocence where there is no innocence (“he’s not so bad, really”). Second, sentimentality is emotionally self-indulgent; it encourages an emotional reaction to reality that is shallow or one-dimensional. Third, sentimentality fails to take appropriate costly action; the sentimentalist screens out darker dimensions, wants emotion without expense."

Visit my music blog and you'll see a similar reflection over a recent worship song. I really desire that worship music and words can cry with me! If you want to read more of the summary of Begbie's lecture go here. (be warned the pdf is 2.35 MB!)

the artist

There's something within my genetic makeup and artistic temperament than means a rollercoaster of emotions. The highs and the lows, good feelings and desperate heart ache as part of my experience within daily life. But I suppose disappointment is a raging problem deep within me. Many little things that happen can grind me down so easily. Today so many half finished conversations when someone asks something and then when I ready to share rushes off to something else, then my special waitress forgot to order my food only after an hour it was remedied and my friends finished long before me. Then I arrange to look at a folding bike for my birthday present to myself except the man decided to sell it this morning and I rode through torrential rain to go and see it this afternoon. Somehow all the good is outweighed by the bad and disappointments.

This seems to be what God gives to enable me to identify with those struggling. One international student frequently tells me nothing ever happens for her, she has no luck! It is in these times I cry for her. Life sucks and we still have to go on. My boss said something that hurt and that sits on top of anything good and encouraging before. Life sucks and I'm still alive. I wouldn't be unless I had a purpose for existing. I would quit now if I had a choice, but I don't. God gives me a reason for now.

A Sunday Conflict

What does one do with a Sunday conflict of interest? Last Sunday was Pentecost and Mother's Day. Take a quick straw poll of people who went to church and find out what their service was about. Choosing one over another expresses a priority or choice is being made.

If you want to know the theology of a congregation look at what they are singing. If you want to know the theology of a church look at the attitude to the presence or absence of sacraments and which seasons of the church year are celebrated. Christmas and Easter What about the whole season of Advent or Lent? What about Pentecost? Ascension? Ash Wednesday? What is actually celebrated? Anniversaries? Birthdays? National Holidays? Thanksgiving? Sacraments and time given to them in the community? What are the sacraments or sometime known as ordinances? They are an outward sign, instituted by the church, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ. The main two are Baptism and the Eucharist/Holy Communion. Many Christians recognize parts or all of these seven Sacraments or Divine Mysteries or ordinances: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, ordination, confession, anointing of the sick, and marriage. Which do your community practice?

The Postmodern critique and specifically deconstruction asks us to look at not what is there but what isn't there because it's absence is significant and says more than what is actually included. Thus the absent is actually made present because of its exclusion. Not being included because of ignorance of the option is one thing but not being included reveals values both conscious and unconscious. So what is your value system, your worldview, your theology?

An Evangelical Manifesto

Seventh, Evangelicalism is distinctive for the way it looks equally to both the past and the future. In its very essence, Evangelicalism goes back directly to Jesus and the Scriptures, not just as a matter of historical roots, but as a commitment of the heart and as the tenor of its desire and thought; and not just once, but again and again as the vital principle of its way of life. To be Evangelical is therefore not only to be deeply personal in faith, strongly committed to ethical holiness in life, and marked by robust voluntarism in action, but to live out a faith whose dynamism is shaped unashamedly by truth and history. Evangelical Manifesto

I'm an evangelical but very much ashamed by some others who take the label. Their lives, attitudes and behaviour do not match their words. Their Gospel is shallow and seems irrelevant and unconnected to the Christ of the Bible. In the USA there is now a movement, seeking to separate evangelicals from "two opposite tendencies to which Protestantism has been prone: liberal revisionism and conservative fundamentalism." I've only started to look over their material but I'm already very interested. More from the seventh assertion

The Evangelical principle is therefore a call to self-examination, reflection, and a willingness to be corrected and to change whenever necessary. ... to be Evangelical is to recognize the primacy of the authority of Scripture, which points us to Jesus, and so to see the need to conserve a form behind all re-form. We therefore regard reason and faith as allies rather than enemies, and find no contradiction between head and heart, between being fully faithful on the one hand, and fully intellectually critical and contemporary on the other.

I need to spend time reading and thinking about their position. The Steering Committee contains people who I deeply respect and whose intellectual work has been soundly challenging. Want to read more? They are here.

Some technology

I have come to be quite connected to some of my technology and recently disconnected as well.

My TV finally died and after 10 weeks I put outside on the curb and it disappeared overnight. My PDA, a Handspring Visor, has finally died. Sadly because I had bibles, dictionaries and all manner of things installed on it! I'll probably want to ultimately replace it with something that does a similar job.

However my ipod nano is taking up some of the slack. I bought lanyard earbuds so I wear this necklace around my neck from which the ipod is suspended. This means I don't have to have ear buds on all the time nor coil them up and put them in my pocket. I also bought a Noma Pocket Power Charger R4 which is a battery pack and recharger. This allows me to listen on the move and on my travels recharge without a computer. This really worked well at Christmas when I was away and also when I went to the UK. It also recharges spare AA NiHM batteries for my camera, razor etc. In the tiny ipod I carry the ESV NewTestament, my to-do-list from my computer, my contacts book, my calendars, more music and video than I have time to listen to.

The problem whether you have the latest technology, or the most beautiful cello it is the ability of the person, both technically and artistically, who uses it that counts. In life and spirituality in the end technology is no substitute for relationships, serious relationship, whether with music and the instrument or with God.

rehabilitation

Carlin turned up at my table at lunch on Sunday and dropped two slim books down in such a way as to impress me: Jürgen Moltmann's Experiences of God and Karl Barth on prayer. I was impressed. I haven't had an opportunity to read Moltmann and in 15 minutes I got quickly through 30 some pages before my friend's return. I found this beautiful quote on page 29.

"Faith does not mean registering a fact called 'the resurrection'. Faith means experiencing the creative power of God, who makes the impossible reality."

Wednesday over lunch, a pastor asked me about a book I'd read recently which was significant. Without hesitation I said Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. I think he says many things I agree with, in fact I can't find anything I radically disagreed with him. Somehow he asserts what I've been thinking about for a few years now. We agreed even to the point where he says

"Test it Probe it... Do that to this book. Don't swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. Just because I'm a Christian and I'm trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn't mean I've got it nailed. ... God has spoken and the rest is commentary, right?"

I have great difficulties here because I agree with him because I had the same conclusions before I read the book. He and I are working out of the same paradigm.

"Oftentimes the Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them ... so there is an agenda. And when there is an agenda, it isn't really love is it? It's something else. We have to rediscover love, period. Love that loves because it is what Jesus teaches us to do. We have to surrender our agendas."

We're not talking rocket science here. We talking straightforward honesty. Getting our motivations and reasons in order. The same issues of whether you merely talk the talk or if you’re going to talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk to make authentic and real. Moltmann reminds us that it is God who can make this happen and not us! God make the impossible real. Get your head around Velvet Elvis ASAP.

Re-ordering

This week seemed to be empty and yet I'm busy. Tidying up and organizing and trying desperately to have a system to complete things. I gave up and recognized I still have continuous partial attention issues (read original posting here) I've noticed that as soon as I open my email account I forget the things I needed to do or get done. Now I realized I need find a way of keeping some focus. Its like my going to the kitchen and not remembering why I went there so opening the fridge and looking inside became my reflex action.

Well after some thinking I needed a to-do-list. OK I hear you say get a piece of paper and a pencil. I tried that and using my daytimer and it doesn't work for me anymore. I realized I couldn't use ical on my Mac because I didn't want to entries to be date dependent, but I still wanted it loaded into my ipod. Some research and examining and trying out a few different programs, I have decided on a program called Checkoff. It's simple and sits in the menu bar but can be locked open. You can color code items and group them and it syncs with an ipod seamlessly. As I have an idea or a spare moment I jump and update it. Here I also consolidated my email accounts and tidied up my inbox and removed confusing email addresses and made sure I got rid of out of date stuff.

I've also returned to one of my internet devotion sites to bring more focus. It's a Catholic Jesuit site with a very helpful guided meditation each day. (here if you're interested). It's grounded in a gospel meditation reflecting about what God has to say to us out of the passage.

Also I've been examining the practice of the novena, which is a focused 9 days of prayer for a specific grace from God. It seems again a very helpful practice to bring focus to my life. Unfortunately there are many novenas to Mary and saints which are unacceptable theologically for me but I've found a very helpful one to the Holy Spirit. (here)

Now I have to continue the discipline of washing dishes and clothes and trying to start to practice the cello everyday. I have started emptying the fridge of out of date and other stuff especially stuff from before Christmas. And yet I have met up with students and pastors and had significant conversations and written a short guide to why blogs are helpful and important. And now I am finding peace again, shalom and I feel that I am functioning as I should with a greater sense of God.

Freedom Attracts

When you are interiorly free you call others to freedom, whether you know it or not. Freedom attracts wherever it appears. A free man or a free woman creates a space where others feel safe and want to dwell. Our world is so full of conditions, demands, requirements, and obligations that we often wonder what is expected of us. But when we meet a truly free person, there are no expectations, only an invitation to reach into ourselves and discover there our own freedom. ... Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

In my own struggles I don't feel free but somehow there is freedom. One international student has consistently asked me why I seem so content. I don't feel it very much but she sees or feels something that she does not have.

This last week I've thought about my trip and also looked forwards. Through ministry meetings and spiritual direction I know I need very much to deal issues of freedom within structure. To my friends this means I've started cleaning and tidying up my physical living space, I still have taxes and other things to deal with. I think freedom has to deal with "freedom to do something" and "freedom for a purpose or person". Put another way in spiritual terms the second includes freedom to act for self but for God's sake, to do things for ourselves because of the love God has for us.