Just one step at a time

There appears to be an interesting discussion going on in the comments of my post on religion at the moment. Pop along and have a look. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Just submitted it about 5 minutes ago!

My computer stopped working part-way through, but thankfully it was just being temperamental, and after a few minutes of swearing at it, turning it off and on again, it behaved. And I didn’t lose anything! Phew!

Wait and see now… I’ve pushed the door.

Jim Wallis was over here in the UK, and I’m very grateful a friend let me know he would be talking a church.co.uk about his new book Seven Ways to Change the World.

A few nuggets. He didn’t tell us the 7 ways, and although I bought the book, I’ve not got that far, having found a bunch of friends there too, so went to the pub after.

• When asked what had been the things that had got him most into trouble: Going the places you’re not supposed to go, particularly as a white, middle class Christian. Walking past those invisible ‘No Trespassing!’ signs.
• The 2 big hungers in this world are for spirituality and social action. And the movement that combines both of this will set the world on fire.
• People will get excited about this different kind of faith.
• We’re not to just ignore bad news. Revival is the good news for bad news.
• Politics is broken.
• The most effective social movements - Great Awakenings - have happened when politics has failed to address a major social injustice, and have always had a spiritual foundation.
• Faith is what moves the mountains that are the seemingly impossible social injustices: poverty, trafficking, climate change, racial injustice, and so on.
• Social change requires commitment from each one of us. We need to start in our own lives, lead in our communities and that will make a difference on a bigger scale.
• It takes time. Wilberforce put his first Bill forward 9 times, and it took another 30 years before the slave trade itself was made illegal.
• Charles Finney ‘invented’ the altar call; and got each new Christian to sign up to the anti-slavery movement there and then.
• God needs to be real and personal to sustain the commitment and faith that moves mountains.
• Hope is a choice. Cynicism comes from unsuccessful attempts to bring about a change, but instead of persisting, cynicism gives up and declares nothing can ever change.
• Hope means believing in spite of the evidence. Then watching the evidence change.
• Bad religion calls out of us our bad stuff. We’ve seen a lot of bad religion. We want to see more good religion, which calls out of us our good stuff: compassion, action and so on..

Oh, and I didn’t realise he was married to the REAL Vicar of Dibley, one of the first women to be ordained in the UK, who went on to advise Richard Curtis and Dawn French on the show.

So a bit more on the cryptic post of yesterday. With a little background first.

India was perhaps an opportunity to run away. Itchy feet because of friends going and working overseas. A shaky time at work. Church being painful and exhausting. Singleness and a new year. Plus, I saw an opportunity to work overseas with skills that I already have.

Every time a friend ups and disappears to Africa or Asia for months and years at a time, I wonder, should I go? I look at Christian agencies, and realise I generally can’t afford them. And am also not sure if I want to pay to go and volunteer - surely that’s not what volunteering’s about? But anyway. So I usually end up looking at VSO. And getting depressed because I have no skills they want. I’m not a teacher or a doctor or a nurse or a dietician or… Or anything they want. In fact, when I had my interview with Oasis, I struggled to come up with anything other than I could do the admin and I like kids.

Aside from that, I find myself wondering what kind of career I could have that, should I ever get to that stage in my life where kids happen and I want to work part time, would work around family. And that is a little more grown up than being an administrator. Though I do a bit more than the average office administrator, I’m a little bit stuck - Jo of all trades, master of none.

A few months ago I was seeing in the news articles about a shortage of midwives, and wondered to myself if maybe I should look at re-training. Then decided I wouldn’t.

TEFL has been another option - train to teach English to non-native English speakers, either here or overseas. Loads of opportunities.

So Saturday night I was out with a group of friends, one of which has taught TEFL in Prague. And I, off the cuff said, ‘Maybe I should learn to teach TEFL’. And thought nothing more of it.

Whilst on the train on the way back to my friends’ house where I was staying the night, she said to me something along the lines of this:

“When you said you thought you should learn TEFL, I wondered if maybe you should become a midwife.”

That’s weird, I thought. Nobody had been talking about kids, giving birth or midwives at all during the meal. So I said: “That’s weird, I’d thought about that a few months ago.”

She then went on to explain that she had a friend who had trained with the idea being to work overseas, not here in the UK.

I just think that’s a little bit weird, so I’ve asked her to get in touch and see if I could meet or even shadow on of her midwife friends to find out a bit more about it. And I’ve just finished printing out the careers leaflet.

This is another door. It doesn’t mean that India is out of the picture. But it could mean that. Certainly in the short-term it would. Training is a 3 or 4-year degree. And would cost a bomb! But as with all of these things, if God wants it to happen, He will make a way. And if not, He will close the door.

So I’m pushing at another door.

Is was talking about religion over lunch with a colleague. I don’t do this often and I don’t jump in there, evangelistic guns a-blazing. Rather, I listen, try to get where they’re coming from, then pray for them. And for me in my relationship with them. Sounds like a cop-out, I know. But we’re not all born evangelists and apologists.

But the discussion -well, not really a discussion, more a diatribe (have I used that correctly?) of what he thought. Which was along the lines of if he was to follow a religion, it would probably be Islam, because at least their book was written by one guy, and they at least have rules which make sense and are good to live by. And has a huge focus on family and community.

Which made me think… the rules are what I find deeply UNattractive about Islam (well that and the suicide-bombing jihadists and the women-suppressing male leaders. But let’s not talk about the Crusades, that’s not what this post is about). The same with Judaism. But Islam has been hijacked too much for his liking - the true, original Islam is what he’d like. And he’s right. It has. In many areas, Islam has been hijacked by the prevailng culture. So much greatness came out of the early Islamic/Ottoman Empire: culture, science, the works.

Of course, Christianity’s not been hijacked, has it?! I (gently) put that point across. The incorporation of pagan/Roman/Greek ideals - the fact that in the West we celebrate Easter on a pagan feast day, not around Passover, which is when it actually happened. Christmas is another hijacked pagan feast day. Has it assimilated so much of other rituals and superstitions that Christianity has lost its own saltiness?

But there’s often an inner resistance to Christianity in the West. Apparently it’s downfall was the incorporation of materialism, individualism and capitalism, according to my colleague. You don’t say?! That and excommunication - I can’t believe people actually had the gall to do that! Because only a few centuries ago, to excommunicate someone was to say they no longer belonged to society; because society was Christendom, was the church, and to be no longer part of the church meant you had no place. You became a non-person in the eyes of society. I’m glad we’ve moved on from that.

But getting back to my point about rules: we have 2 as Christians.

1. Love God
2. Love others

Everything we do is a part of that (even though we f**k it up so often). It’s about the heart of what believe, the motivation. Not because we’re told to do so. And that’s what makes Christianity so freeing. But also, I guess, makes it look so woolly and wishy-washy. There’re no hard and fast do’s and don’t’s (other than the 10 Commandments, and we all get hung up over our neighbours ass when we talk about them) that you see in Islam. There’s been a certain amount of rhetoric over the last few years about why young men become attracted to Islam, become fundamentalistic suicide bombers. And there’s a lot to be said for an element of certainty in a world that can appear rootless, drifting and excluding to young men of a certain age and race. It can offer that family support in an age of broken families. It can offer a set of rules and codes of behaviour in a society that looks out only for Number One, and that thinks as long as you feel good about it, it’s OK.

But then there are my friends who believe in God. But that’s it. Jesus? Probably not, because He’s harder to get your head - and heart - around.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. There’s a ‘why?’, I guess. Why do you or I believe? And a ‘what?’: what do we believe?

What & Why. What a merry pair of bedfellows they make. I think they snuggle up with Faith, because without her, they don’t make sense on her own. And that’s what people so often miss or haven’t experience.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5

Warning: this post shares a bit too much. Particularly for boys.

Read more »

What’s the difference between death and sacrifice?

death
–noun

1. the act of dying; the end of life; the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism.
2. an instance of this: a death in the family; letters published after his death.
3. the state of being dead: to lie still in death.
4. extinction; destruction: It will mean the death of our hopes.
5. Also called spiritual death. loss or absence of spiritual life.

—Idioms

1. put to death, to kill; execute.

sacrifice
–noun

1. the offering of animal, plant, or human life or of some material possession to a deity, as in propitiation or homage.
2. the person, animal, or thing so offered.
3. the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.
4. the thing so surrendered or devoted.

–verb (used with object)

1. to make a sacrifice or offering of.
2. to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.

–verb (used without object)

1. to offer or make a sacrifice.

Sacrifice, more often than not, is a choice.

Death, usually isn’t. And often when it is, it’s a sacrifice, a martyrdom (which nowadays has become more associated with terrorism).

In spiritual terms, sacrifice is something we give up in order to ‘better’ ourselves, to develop our spiritual lives, our relationship with God. It is our choice.

In spiritual terms, death of something is out of our hands. God will end something, whether we want it to end or not. As sacrifice is painful, death can be more painful.

Death is obscene. It rips life apart, intruding on vitality and decaying it. Death is not glamorous - it is painful, noisy, messy.

But… Read more »

Keep your dream alive
The Word for Today, 01 Mar 2008
‘Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.’ EPHESIANS 3:20
When God gives you a dream, He places within you or within reach, all the resources needed to fulfil it. Do you have an unthinkable, scary, absolutely wild idea that won’t let you sleep? That’s the way it is with dreams, especially when God is in them. They appear crazy (humanly speaking, they are crazy!). Placed alongside the triangle of logic, cost and timing, such dreams usually seem beyond our reach. They won’t fly when you test them against the gravity of reality. And the strangest part is the more they are told ‘can’t’ the more they pulsate ‘can’ and ‘will’ and ‘must.’ What’s behind great accomplishments? Inevitably, great people. But what is in those great people that makes them different? It’s certainly not their age or gender or heritage or talent or environment. It’s faith! They are people who think and believe differently. Are you dreaming about writing a book? Don’t wait for a publisher, start writing! Are you wondering if all that work with the kids is worth it? It is! Want to go back to university and finish your degree? Do it. Pay the price, even if it takes years! Trying to master a skill that takes time, patience and energy (not to mention money)? Press on! Thinking about going into business? Why not? It’s hard to find satisfaction halfway up someone else’s corporate ladder. Without a dream and the determination to fulfil it, life is reduced to bleak black and wimpy white, a diet too bland to get anybody out of bed in the morning. So go after the quest that fuels your fire. Keep your dream alive!

See also this post by Awareness on possibilities.

Which dream? India?

Or does it mean anything that I read this after my last post about the deadline? Or am I just reading too much into it? (Which is not unlike me.)

Although I’ve never finished The Purpose Driven Life, I get the daily devotional emails. Yesterday’s was this:

Is Your Faith In Your Fear?
by Jon Walker “But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” (Matthew 14:27, NIV)

Across the breadth of the Bible, God consistently sends the message, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”

The Bible reveals that God knows we tend toward fear, particularly as we respond to uncertainty and change. Yet the Bible also reveals that God is the only unchanging certainty in this world – or out of it.

Yet, is it possible we have more faith in our fear than we do in God?

No matter how complex life becomes, it still comes down to this basic choice: Will we place our confidence in the All-Powerful Supreme Being and Sole Authority of the Universe, or will we place greater confidence in our fears?

Although the choice is black-or-white basic, God knows it’s not simple. It involves a challenging stretch, and that’s why God continually reminds us, “Fear not, for I am with you

God is clear that our abilities, our resources – even a belief in the myth of luck – will not be what strengthens us for the journey. (Philippians 4:13) We fear we can’t do the things God calls us to do, and we fear that God will not protect us or provide for us. We choose this fear, embracing the unholy lie that our circumstances are bigger than the One True God.

Our faith in God gets placed on the altar of our own perceptions when we should be placing our perceptions on the altar of unflinching faith.

If you’re like me, you often fear what’s behind the curtain of God’s call, and God – frustratingly – won’t let me peek behind the curtain, and so:

Our fear shouts – “Pay no attention to the God behind the curtain; he’s just another wizard from Oz, using smoke and mirrors to give you the illusion of power and grace.”
Our God whispers – In that still, small voice, he calls us to develop confidence in him; he calls us to abandon the confidence we have in what we see and the confidence we have in our fears. God keeps the curtain of our future drawn so we will learn to live by faith and not by sight, so we will become certain of what we hope for and become sure of God, even when we cannot see how he’s working in our current circumstances. (Hebrews 11:1)

What does this mean?

• Ask God to replace your fear with faith – Eliminating your fear involves more than working up your courage. This is a spiritual battle that requires you to develop faith. But first you need to make a choice – Will you fear, or will you “faith?” Faith means you believe the truth – Your behavior and decisions are most often rooted in what you believe. When you experience fear, ask yourself, “What does this fear say about what I believe in this circumstance?” What fears are you experiencing today? What do they say about the beliefs you currently embrace? Ask God to pull these false beliefs and fears out by the root.
• Get caught in an act of faith – One day, a woman who had hemorrhaged for 12 years slipped up behind Jesus and touched his robe, believing he could heal her. “Jesus turned –caught her at it. Then he reassured her: ‘Courage, daughter. You took a risk of faith, and now you’re well.’” (Matthew 9:22, MSG) God is for you, and he encourages you to be caught in the act of faith. When you act in faith, you proclaim your belief in God; you acknowledge he exists and that God cares about you.
• Let a friend tell you about your fears — Ask a friend if he or she sees a part of your life where you show more fear than faith – and then, together, pray for God to help your unbelief. (Mark 9:24)

I wondered what this meant. I’ve been thinking a lot about fear since 2008 started. Because I’ve been pushing at those doors.

One of the doors I’m pushing at is to go back to India, towards the end of this year, for 6 - 12 months. And that is terrifying! Terrifying that if I actually put myself out there, push those doors, God might actually let one of them open. That I might actually be doing this thing I feel He is asking me to, at least, explore.

And 2-3 hours after this email arrived, there came one from the guy I know in Hyderabad, who arranged the conferences we spoke at in 2006. He’d heard of a doctor working in Mumbai with people who have HIV/AIDS and also with people who’ve been trafficked. Which is the area I am interested in volunteering my time and my skills in.

And then I knew why that email arrived that morning.

“We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror at its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanence on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting as it is now.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea