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.

a fever or smokescreen

We've been in the grip of Olympic fever and medal totals and obsession with speed has been a primary focus. Yet promises of freedom of access and change disappeared under a spectacle worthy of the early days of Hollywood. It has been a epic of distraction. Not owning a tv I've ended up isolated from the hype. Instead I've come across small little articles which have have kicked up a little dust. Have you heard about Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying, two little old ladies in their 70s threatened because they applied for permission to protest. You can find their story blossoming into a little dust storm. They weren't really being political they weren't protesting about human rights per se but their grievance was about receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment. The Olympics has been responsible for massed forced relocation of people. If that were to happen for London in 2012 the resulting fallout wouldn't just be a government, it would probably bring down the economy as well.

Smokecreens are a real problem in all aspects of life. Sometimes we know it's one but other times it is such a great illusion we believe it is reality. Other times it is a distraction to draw our attention away from the real issues. The trouble is do we really want to see things as they are or are we happy with what is called reality. (reality tv being a great example?) I suspect there's a lot of that in our lives and our faith journeys.

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

Day 14 and green sweaters

I got the net ready and quickly snatched up the crab. ... I tried getting the crab out of the net. The crab’s strong claws gripped the net fiercely. Its other legs fought frantically, thereby tangling the crab more and more with each movement. ... The crab was so tangled, it began to look like it was wearing a green sweater.

Luckily, one of the grounds keepers walked by and noticed my struggle ... hang the crab, net and all, an inch or two over the water in the canal. I did as he said.

For a minute the crab didn’t move a muscle. Then the crab started to move. One leg free, then the next. Like magic, the crab attracted to his watery home, undid every knot and sling holding him in place. Then “plop” he dropped effortlessly into the water. Brad Isaac persistenceunlimited.com

Today I've had 2 quite deep conversations. The first, a new immigrant, is unable currently to practice his profession here. He kept talking about alternatives similar and total different. There has a lot of talk about salary and employability. He had a goal to pursue his orginal career but he kept losing sight of it in his insecurities. I felt he was stuck in a web or green sweater of his insecurities. Many of the options and short-term goals didn't seem to match or support his long-term goals and just led to more indecision. I asked what his goal was quite a few times. He struggled because he was wrapped up with all these choices.

Later another call and another stuck in her green sweater and needing to find release from her insecurities and also the world's/culture' dominant values of success and planning and knowing where you're going. She finally began to let go because her attraction to her home with God was stronger than hanging on to stress creating values. Not solved rather her eyes fixed on the right goal.

The matter is we ought not to become fixated on our green sweaters but more so on goals though perhaps I might rephrase that in spiritual terms our calling or our deep God-given desires. To carry on the clean up, besides grace,I need both a vision of freedom with God and the will-power to head off in that direction.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

Day 13 of the great clean up

Today I'm away from my cluttered apartment, there's still a lot of stuff on the floor but it's getting there. Over the last week I've been reading about tiny homes and tiny apartments partly because I wanted ideas and partly for inspiration. My first rental apartment was probably 350 square feet (32 m2) and several friends can tell the story of me reaching into a pile of stuff to pull out a cello! My current place is around 600 (64) and I have simply expanded or perhaps exploded if you remember how much there was in the old place. Can I learn to live simpler?

An interesting introduction to tiny houses can be found here. people can live in incredibly compact spaces. My old world apartment had a German fitted kitchen with cupboards and cupboards and more cupboards and surprisingly it was pretty clear for years because everything had its place.

I've also been following up Japanese lifestyle and living simply because their living spaces are substantially smaller than N. American. A very helpful blog (here) by a Westerner living in Japan helped me realize that it's not all about storage. As I have almost maxed out my storage, it is also about scale of living. Her blog points to living at the appropriate scale. Most of what she says is common sense and a lot about storage but she finishes with this:

The best way to tell how well you've organized your space is by seeing how comfortable you feel in it when you're not occupied with T.V. or the computer or whatever. If you feel a sense of peace and comfort, you've probably got it set up pretty well to suit your needs.

So I have a goal which I'm reaching out for namely space through simplifying things, condensing things, and decluttering. A while ago I wrote about constant partial attention and how exhausting that can be in the info tech filled world we live in. Somehow for me, perhaps exacerbated by synaesthesia, I suspect that it is also a physical emotional issue. Perhaps even a spiritual life issue for many of us.

Day 12 and What shape is your spirituality?

Have you listened to others pray? Have you noted how they refer to God? Do you listen to yourself? Often this says a lot about someone's theology of who God is. Very early in theological studies I was exposed to Trinitarian theology, it's implications in ethics, theological anthropology and theology. In fact it impinges in all areas of doctrine. Yet many people have a very narrow vision and often than not, it isn't trinitarian because at least one of the persons is missing.

I bit the bullet yesterday and worked hard to clear a line of boxes in the bedroom. I emptied 4 of them and sorted or disposed of contents. There were phone bills from 2002 onwards and all manner of bits and pieces. I am trying to experience God in the cleaning and tidying but it is a struggle. However the exercise of will is an important lesson and I am trying not the shirk the need to focus and not to run away. (taking a lesson from John Cassian.) However I have been thinking and realizing that I don't see God as a critical task master/parent but more as strengthener or encourager. God is less and less distant and more an accepted norm of every day life.

Candeo recently blogged about failure and its importance. I wonder whether we need both the little failures and the acknowledgment of little successes to remove fear of failure. In Christian classical spirituality these elements are known as desolations and consolations. In the times when we feel failures and feel God is far away we need the memory of God being close and active to carry us through. These days I have had my good moments and bad moments and I still moving forwards slowly. However most of all I need the encouragement of others to keep going, to keep moving forwards. Trinity is essentially a mysterious relationship full of paradoxes which we need to hold together and yet also this relationship is perhaps what it is to be humans together and in the image of God.

God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness... Genesis 1:26

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?

Day 10 and the great clean up

Day 10 and I'm still not significantly out of the living room. This presents a problem as I've not really been home much today. There is a new pile of things in the middle of the floor much of which is awaiting a new home but a lot of paper is gone/shredded or filed.

Yesterday I did some research on tiny houses and tiny homes and have found new ideas for clearing up and new inspiration for stuff reduction. With my incredible tendency to collect and hoard, like a squirrel or hamster there are issues. Looking through my receipts for the last 10 years music has occupied a significant part of my expenditure. However there are many things that did not work out and some I have given away but other are still in a closet. Time to clear out! I'm returning to an old theme that small is beautiful and perhaps smaller and simpler is better. Frequently stuff just causes me more distress than relief, more stress than security. Perhaps this is a new stage for me in understanding purgation, an important stage in spiritual growth.

depth and space

Sunday late afternoon and evening I was really up lifted. I stopped off on at the Danforth street festival to hear a local blues band, harmonica, guitar, keyboard and drumkit. In the rain with storm clouds overhead there is something about the blues which seems to be inherently spiritual. Perhaps it is in its emergence from the songs of the oppressed. Both the wailing nature of the songs harmonica. guitar and voice and the blues scale itself lend a certain transcendence. This was followed by watching George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh from Google Video and followed by G3 live featuring the guitar artistry of Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and Steve Vai.

Blues seems to touch deeply. Perhaps because of the absence of the major third in the blues scale brings an existential feeling of space inside the chording. I forget the book I was reading but looking at Christian worship music it presented 3 categories for music with sufficient depth. One was folk music, the music of the people. Blues reflects truly the human condition and human struggle.

Acedia and Day 8 of the great cleanup

OUR sixth combat is with what the Greeks call acedia, which we may term weariness or distress of heart. This is akin to gloominess, ... It also makes the man lazy and sluggish about all manner of work which has to be done within the enclosure of his dormitory. It does not suffer him to stay in his cell, or to take any pains about reading, and he often groans because he can do no good while he stays there, and complains and sighs because he can bear no spiritual fruit so long as he is joined to that society; and he complains that he is cut off from spiritual gain, and is of no use in the place, ... John Cassian Institutes

I have written a little about acedia earlier back in September last year. (here) But as I struggle with trying to keep myself cleaning up so then the reflections on slovenliness continue to follow on. Our physical, emotional and spiritual lives are intrinsically linked.

John Cassian (circa AD 360-435) is probably the most quoted figure on the subject (actually are far as I can see the only figure I've read to date!) It is his recording of the Desert Fathers' sayings and his influence on St Benedict and subsequent monastic traditions that makes him so important. In his Institutes, Book 10, he give an important illustration from his own life concerning acedia.

WHEN I was beginning my stay in the desert, and had said to Abbot Moses, the chief of all the saints, that I had been terribly troubled yesterday by an attack of acedia, and that I could only be freed from it by running at once to Abbot Paul, he said, “You have not freed yourself from it, but rather have given yourself up to it as its slave and subject. For the enemy will henceforth attack you more strongly as a deserter and runaway, since it has seen that you fled at once when overcome in the conflict: unless on a second occasion when you join battle with it you make up your mind not to dispel its attacks and heats for the moment by deserting your cell, or by the inactivity of sleep, but rather learn to triumph over it by endurance and conflict.” Whence it is proved by experience that a fit of acedia should not be evaded by running away from it, but overcome by resisting it.

In Cassian's writing he indicates some key obstacles for the monks in the spiritual life; gluttony, impurity, covetousness, anger, dejection, acedia, vainglory, and pride. I suspect I have begun to gain insight into why people get stuck in the spiritual lives and it's all to be found here. So its back to work will all my might to clear the kitchen.

Jesus replied, No-one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. Luke 9:62

From South of the border

“I think one of the primary ‘things of ourselves’ that American Christians chase after is financial independence. In fact, most of the books on Christian financial principles in print assume that this is the goal of Christian finance. However, countless verses in the New Testament make it clear that this isn't a Biblical value.” Mark went on to discuss the value of mutual dependence in Christ, a well noted but mostly overlooked principle. Rusty Kelley @ Common Grounds citing Mark Upton

Years ago one of my cousins thinking out loud asked how he could ensure his children didn't get handed everything on a plate. He was concerned that he, himself had to struggle to attain success in his life and he wanted to ensure his children would be strong as well, having the will to reach for and achieve. All this reminds me I've been struggling for a few years trying to understand the empirical connection between an individual's relationship with God and their membership within a community/Body of Christ. This comes to focus again today as I worry about:- those who feel they have to go away on missions find God. Those who rely more on the prayers of their friends than on their relationship with God. Those who come to only half a worship service or those for whom attendance in a communal service Sunday's is optional.

This week I read that Christianity is a social religion to be conducted in community. That is not earth shattering as such but still a good reminder. I suspect that extroverts prefer community in services and prayer meetings and introverts prefer solitude in quiet times and meditation - and the lazy neither. I wrote about slovenliness as few days ago and the remedy is of course will-power. When we are called to love God we are called to love with all our (your) strength. της ισχυος σου tes ischuos sou. What is this strength?

I would disagree in part with what I heard today. Rather than fall into a Greek understanding of human person which has heart(spiritual), soul (emotional), mind (rational), and strength (physical) I would like draw on a stronger theological tradition one where the church realized the importance of the will or will-power - this is our source of strength. This last week my 5 year old godson and his older brother learned about will power (Yes, I was teaching!). Resisting the want to switch on the TV and watch a DVD. I invited them to consider will-power and not simply following their wants. Ironically William, the older brother was the one lacking Will-power however my godson Daniel put up a good fight and beat the want. In the Catholic tradition these wants are distinguished as passions and desires. Desires are what God has placed in our hearts. Passions are what arise out of human wants and needs. Passions are not necessarily bad but like an untamed unbridled horse very risky for rider. (Notice passions are very closely allied to feelings.)

What then of human action within passions ?

"When regulated by reason, and subjected to the control of the will, the passions may be considered good and used as means of acquiring and exercising virtue. ... The flesh and its appetites, if allowed, will throw everything into confusion and vitiate our whole nature by sin and its consequences. It is therefore man's duty to control and regulate it by reason and a strong will aided by God's grace."

Thus enjoying a good cooked meal is not bad. But to overeat is bad. I may have a passion for serving God and even go to India but the desire placed in me is to be with God and bring him to those that need to meet him.

How do I know whether my passions are headed in the right direction? Discernment and communal discernment because self-deception is still very effective. Discernment is a struggle and becomes stronger in community but the community itself needs to want to discern rather than make decisions. We need to get our spirituality out in front not behind us.