It’s a free world innit?

So I’m on the bus on my way home after work, and these two guys get on. Possibly may have had a bit more to drink that was necessary. And one of them’s standing right in front of me, swaying from the pole, in my face. So I lean towards him and ask him – politely – could he please stop standing on me.

Oh, you know that was a big mistake, wasn’t it! Even when I corrected myself and asked him to please stop leaning on me, he was off. Calling me all names under the sun until a woman sat behind me took it upon herself to tell him to shut up and stop having a go at me. It became a full on bus rage incident!

But what struck me was when they both turned round to me and said “It’s a free world innit?”

Of course it’s a free world. As long as you let me do what I want. It’s obviously not a free world for me to expect him to stop leaning on me when there’s a perfectly decent-sized empty space over that he could stand in that would allow me to have a bit of space. And to expect him to reply politely. No, because it’s HIS free world. Not mine.

Which got me thinking about moral relativism (as you do on a Monday evening), and how freedom and sin are, without a standard to go by, subjective words. Without God or laws, there would be anarchy, because everyone’s freedom, everyone’s morality is in a different place.

For example: Free trade. What that really means is free as long as we, the West, get the benefits. It’s not free for your poor, third-world countries who are trying to get back on their feet from the crippling debts and hardships as a result of centuries of colonialism.

Another example: Paedophiles. As far as they’re concerned, it’s perfectly natural to ‘love’ and have sex with a five-year-old child.

The freedom to be greedy has allowed banks and utilities companies (and many others) to play fast and loose with our money: banks taking risks, and now expecting to be bailed out by us, the very people whose money they’ve risked and potentially lost; gas and electricity companies, reaping the profits of increases in gas prices, but not lowering them the prices drop again (same for petrol companies), but only making a token effort towards renewable and sustainable resources (after all, what’s in it for them?) And here we are, in a global financial ‘crisis’ (though try telling that to those who live on less than one dollar a day: they’ll tell you we’ve been there forever) as a result of the ‘freedom’ of others.

But what do you do in a post-modern age who’s thrown God out with the bathwater? How do you talk about morality, freedom without being puritanical? How do you explain loving your neighbour – locally, nationally, globally – when governments refuse to love those they govern, let alone their neighbour?

How do we live in a world of relative freedoms and relative morality, where individualism rules? How do we talk about ‘we’ as opposed to ‘me’, without sounding irrelevant and priggish?

And how do we, Christians, live in the freedom we have within the morality God sets before us? How do we become salt and light in a world that seems to be getting darker?

Deconstructing

tr.v. de·con·struct·ed, de·con·struct·ing, de·con·structs

1. To break down into components; dismantle.

2. To write about or analyze (a literary text, for example), following the tenets of deconstruction.

Interesting – I started this post back in April, when I decided I needed to deconstruct church. It’s taken me a while to get to a place I think is OK.

The point of deconstructing church was that it just wasn’t ‘doing it’ for me any more. I don’t mean that in a selfish, individualistic sense, but in the sense I wasn’t meeting God there, it wasn’t enabling me or equiping me for my week ahead. Or even the rest of my Sunday. And I cracked, which you’ll know if you’ve been reading for a while.

But in the last month or two I’ve finally set church free from my expectations. Which makes it easier for me to go. And also less burdensome – I also feel less guilty when I miss services too.

Church has now become that place where I do community. I go, I chat, I talk to people afterwards. I maintain and build friendships.

It’s also where I take part in communal worship.

But it’s not where I get my support from. It’s not the place that ’sends me out’ into my week. I’m not entirely sure where that is yet, but I’m working on that. I have friends I can call on, pray with, or who pray for me. I plan to join a homegroup, but that’s a few months ahead because of other commitment.

• St John Ambulance. After all, the church can only do what it has the resources – money, people, skills, time – to do, and at the moment, there’s little for me to get involved in. St John Ambulance is practical and is community-based. It’s not overtly Christian, but why should everything we do be? There shouldn’t be this sacred-secular divided that puts everything we do into one of two camps. We are called to live lives of workship daily, diong what we do to show love to others.
• Street Pastors. I hope to speak to some people in a month or so once it’s up and running locally and get on the training that starts in March.
• Refugee centre. Although all I do is sit on the sub-committee, I’ve asked if I could ’sponsor a student’ and am thinking of other ideas for raising money and awareness of the work they’re doing there.

It’s still work-in-progress, but that’s a life-long process! I think it’s going well so far, and it feels much better to have freed myself from the expectations of myself and of others! That said, yesterday I did Sunday School for the 3 & 4-year-olds. Little terrors – they are rather cute!

Questioning

For the last few years I’ve been involved in a Christian studies course called Workshop. I(n fact, if you live in the UK and are anywhere near London, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol or Birmingham, and you’re interested in exploring and questioning faith more, do check it out.)

We had a team prep/social day today, and we were discussing why more people aren’t interested in Workshop at the moment. Whether it’s a credit crunch thing, whether people don’t want to explore their faith more, whether they’re going to more ‘mainstream’ courses or colleges. Or, as I proposed: maybe they’re too scared to step outside their Christian bubble and risk their whole faith falling apart when something they’ve steadfastly believed in for years comes crashing down around them.

I can understand that’s scary. But surely living in a little bubble, never questioning, never doubting, not allowing ourselves to ask God “Why?” is scarier. To me that seems so much less real.

Even though I wonder about my faith at the moment, because I’m not in that happy clappy evangelical high all the time, I’d rather be where I am now than where I was, when I was a happy clappy evangelical clone who believed everything they were told.

One of the things I loved about The Shack (S, you were right, it’s great – I should have got it when you started raving about it and been ahead of the curve), was that God accepted, felt and heard Mac’s questioning and pain. God didn’t dismiss Mac for the pain he’d been through; didn’t disown him for his anger and drifting away. Despite – or because of? – that, God wanted to get closer to Mac. God didn’t have pat answers. In a way it reminded me of Job, when God tells Job about the bigger picture. God acknowledged Mac’s pain, grieved with him: but reminded him that a mere human could not see the bigger picture.

I think we forget that. Sure life hurts. Sometimes it’s an absolute tragedy. In the grand scheme of things, despite all my moaning, I have it pretty easy. I am grateful I have it as easy as I do. Others have more reason to shake an angry fist at God and shout “WHY?!” But we can’t see the bigger picture. And sometimes we’re too quick to put the blame on God for things. He gave us free will and we choose to abuse it. And often others suffer the consequences of that. Which seems so much more unfair. (Update: Interesting ‘toon from ASBO Jesus on this very topic.)

But the more I spend time with people, the more I get to know them, the more I realise that we can have peace. I have 2 friends I know through Workshop who have cancer. And they both have a strength and peace about it that comes from a stronger faith and relationship with God than what I have. I admire them. And I just hope I can develop that kind of faith they have, so when I face a similar difficult time I will have that trust in God.

Moving off on a slight tangent now. The other thing I loved about The Shack was that Jesus was just how I picture Him in my mind!

Non-dates

I met up with 2 of the Greenbelt guys over the weekend! I know – it doesn’t rain, then it pours (bit like the weather too!) They’d both emailed during the week too.

On Saturday afternoon I went for coffee with Birmingham boy, the one who grew up not too far from where I did. Then walked him back to the station. It was a pleasant afternoon with a friend.

Sunday lunch I met Wimbledon guy at a nearby gastro pub. I got home at 7.45. It only took me 5 minutes to get home from the pub we’d ended up at. It was a thoroughly pleasant afternoon/early evening. We found we have a lot in common in the way we think about church and wot not. We shall see. Again… watch this space.

I’m open to possibilities.

Sleeping Daisies: The last shortcut

Someone was run over and killed by a lorry at the crossing outside church this evening.

It makes you think – how have I got? Am I really making the most of my life?

Sleeping Daisies: The last shortcut.

A friend is in remission from breast cancer. Another has just been told he has suspected kidney cancer. Both of them are older, but still… they’re still in their prime.

What can I do to ensure I’m living as fulfilled a life as possible? (And I don’t mean money, cars, homes, clothes, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.) I know all the trite Christian answers. I need to work out what these words really mean.

I’ll keep you posted as I figure things out.