This U Tube video made me smile, and not only because my wonderful friend Laura, clearly has the best voice in this school staff Christmas spectacular. It’s a great idea – well done this school!If only TOTP was still going!
teacher stars
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Solent YFC and white smoke!
I had a great day today visiting Dave and Sarah Aarons in Portsmouth.
Dave will be starting as director of Solent YFC in January.
Such wonderful people and the sort of people that I know are going to make a lasting impression on the lives of those that they come into contact with.
Please pray for them as they settle in over Christmas.
On my way back I had a bit of freaky experience when the BMW if front of me suddenly disappeared in a cloud of thick dense white smoke. It was amazing, traffic nearly came to a standstill as this was worse than fog – I could not even see the front of my cars bonnet.
The thickness of white was amazing, it was incredibly bright, incredibly thick, wonderfully clean and, I guess, quite beautiful; but it was also terrifying! I fully expecting to either hit another car or for another car to hit me, and at 70 mph I was quite literally fearing for my life. All cars saw what was happening and at that time of day the motorway was quite empty.
Only now as I reflect on that scary incident has it come to me that may well have been a similar experience to the High Priest of the Old Testament when he went into the holy of holies. Intense white, beautiful … but terrifying and fearing for his life.
I wonder ….
Advent 10 who is my God?
‘If we buy a Bible and claim it ‘mine’, we claim ownership and with ownership comes the belied that we can do what we like with what we own’ says todays Advent thought.
I have been mulling over the accuracy of this statement throughout the day. It is true that we can use the Bible to say what we wish it to say. Indeed in the past, and even currently, the Bible has been used to justify sexism, abuse of a marital partner or child, refusal of medicine or birth control, condemnation of sexuality.
I remember earlier in the year I had the privilege of being part of the congregation in Westminster Abbey at a service to commemorate the end of the slave trade. One of the the things I find most shocking about that horrible abuse of humanity is that mainstream church and government were able to justify such a trade by using the Bible.
That is shocking!
It’s hard to believe how they read that from the words on those pages.
It’s hard to believe how they could think a Jesus of compassion, love, with a preferential for the poor, would ever condone such an act.
But they did.
As I sat in Westminster Abbey I began to wonder how the Christians for the future would view us. What would they be amazed by? What would they be shocked by? Would they look back on us and ask ‘how on earth did they allow that to happen and justify it with the Bible?’
‘Do we use the Bible to oppress, or do we use the Bible to liberate?‘ asks Bodenheim. The problem is if we let the Bible be the only voice of God we hear we limit God again. The Bible is what God has said in the past and it is important for today, but God also continues to speak today and indeed for the future. Listening to just one aspect of God’s voice allows the abuses of history to repeat themselves and occur in our age.
If the Bible does not point us toward God, but instead speaks for God, then it has become our god. (Bodenheim)
Advent 9: creative expressions
‘To know the creator, we need only to look at the things he has created. The way to learn about God is through the letters of scripture and through the species of creation. We should listen to these expressions of God and conceive of their meaning in our souls’ John Scotus Eriugena (quoted in Disturbing Complacency)
To grow in understanding of god, we need to listen to the word and listen to the creation, to look at the word and look at the creation, to become involved in the word and become involved in the creation. Passivity will not bring us to a point of greater understanding; there is a need to be proactive here.
Today I went for a walk and tried to sense God in creation:
I felt the cold wind
and remembered that sometimes God has a sharp word for me
I felt the rain
I saw a worm burrowing into unseen territory
and was amazed by how little I know
and remembered those times when God has refreshed me
I saw the rushing clouds
and felt God tell me it’s ok to rush sometimes
I touched the tall steady tree seemingly unaffected by the wind
and was reminded that there is also a reason to grow slow
I touched the bare plants
and heard God say he is a God of seasons
I observed two magpies playing on the breeze
and understood that humanity is created for relationship
I observed the stretching, climbing, covering wisteria
and acknowledged how much I need to be covered in God
I saw the silver birch
and to my mind came the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh
I returned
and sat with my cup of tea
gazing some more on creation
and heard the ancient echo from God
‘He looked over all he had made
and saw that it was very good’
Advent 8: God reality
Focusing back on Spirit today, we ask questions around how we refer to God. Do we limit God by only referring to God as ‘father’. When we use that term, we know as we use it that it is an incomplete description of God as God is totally and indescribably different from humankind.
And yet … so many people feel uncomfortable referring to God as ‘mother’, another incomplete description of God.
Any way we describe God is incomplete, but one way of acquiring a more complete image of God is to choose to take an inclusive approach to the descriptions of God that we find in the Bible.
God is not simply father, or mother, or creator, or wind, or fire, or almighty, or alpha, or ancient of days, or healer, or banner, or judge, or shepherd … or any name we use.
If we start to think of God as ALL of these, we are still a million miles away from the true reality of who God is, but we are much closer than we are if we restrict ourselves.
supporters night
We had a great night last night with some of our supporters – a collection of very generous people, good wine, excellent cheese and great conversation made for a good evening.
Thanks for coming – and if interested the photos are here.
Advent 7 Pure compassion
Today’s Advent thinking has been around purity verses compassion.
In the gospels we see this all the time with the Pharisees getting so embroiled and concerned about their purity laws and their need for personally being clean before God, that they lose the ability to look upon situations with any compassion. Their negative reactions to healings occurring on the sabbath show this.
If we are called to follow Christ then one thing must always be above the law – and that one thing is love. As we look over our communities, our personal need to be right before God must always be secondary to our love for others. As Bodenheim states:
‘Healing our communities is more important than being concerned about our own holiness.‘
I have reflected here on how often and how regularly I have failed here in different ways. Purity before compassion sounds right as it seems to be echoing the command of putting God first. But the reality of putting God first is authentically displayed in our level of compassion displayed to others over and above our personal needs.
Advent 6 losing the plot
Today’s thought has been focussing my attention on Jesus and how he used the power that he obviously had. We suspect we can all think of examples of people abusing their power both within and outside church circles.
Whether we like it or not, it is white middle class people that posses power in this world. We look at the gospel stories and admire Jesus for speaking out against the authorities. Jesus chastises the power holders and confronts them with the abuses ‘they are allowing to happen. Because we are people with the power we miss much of this in the gospels.
An example I have looked at recently is the story of the widow and her coin in Mark chapter 12. Jesus says she has given more than anyone else and this has been traditionally taken to mean what a great sacrificial character she has. That is a reading of the story from the position of power.
An alternative (and I would suggest more accurate) reading from the viewpoint of the powerless’ could be that Jesus is drawing attention to the abuse of power displayed here by the scribes and Pharisees in demanding payment to th temple. Rather than the point being praise for this woman’s sacrifice, Jesus could be chastising the authorities over their ability to take even this poor womans last few coins to maintain their structures. From their position of power they are willing to see a poor widow become poor and hungry to serve their own needs.
They have lost the plot despite clear commands in scripture to look after the widow. They deny clear commands to care for the destitute in order to maintain the ‘holyness’ of a certain place with certain structures.
If Jesus were here today … what would he say to us as the people who hold power in our circles of influence?
Advent 5: God’s unique perfection
Thursday’s focus in ‘Disturbing‘ each week is ‘nation’. Bodenheim asks in her writing, ‘do we try to maintain an image of perfection?’
I try to be the best I can, but is that giving an impression of perfection? I’m not sure that it is, but I can see how it can easily become a strive for perfection, which is a useless strive as only God can do perfection!
While travelling around London today for a Hope 08 meeting and then meeting up with Simon from Swindon YFC I was struck by the ‘perfection’ that London wishes to portray; it’s a perfection that border and melts into arrogance.
Across the nation, have our churches fallen into this trap of perfection? Ian blogged yesterday on the business model of church, where church becomes motivated by performance, failure is wrong and little space is made for the weak, the poor and the marginalised.
Advent is a time to remind ourselves that we are merely creators, maybe even co-creators, but we are not THE creator, we cannot achieve perfection.
Perfection is totally, uniquely and exclusively within the domain of God.
Advent 4: embodied justice
Todays Disturbing thought focussed on money.
In particular asking me to think on how my money, and the money of my country, is used globally. Initially I started to think that there is not really a lot I can do, which is a pretty complacent thought.
As I focus on waiting during Advent, I started to think on those in this country and other places where the waiting is not the advent sort, but rather is the wait for justice. Jesus brought justice, Jesus will bring justice, during Advent we could embody justice in our locations.
In the UK, at least, our leaders in parliament seem to have closed their eyes to what is happening in the world using the excuse of protecting ‘our countries interests’ with biased trade deals on an unfair market.
Rather than complacent resignation to one person not being able to ake a difference maybe I should write more letter, pray more earnestly, donate more money or shout more loudly. After ll, Mr T. Blair knows only too well that one person with one vote can make a big difference.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 