Love is a DIY Kit

Love is a do-it-yourself kit. We have to work at it, put it together day by day, piece by piece, little by little. We have to work at love. It doesn't just happen. 

Furthermore, love is not an emotion, a feeling. It is a commitment to another person: 'I love you. I am going to be what you need me to be. I a going to do what you need me to do. I am going to say what you need me to say. This is what I mean when I say "I love you". If you succeed I will rejoice with you in your success. I will be in the first row of your cheering section, clapping my hands off for you. If you fail, I will be sitting there quietly at your side, holding your hand. this is what I mean when I say I am committed to loving you.'

Love is a sweet and beautiful thing. It also will challenge every ounce of determination and courage in us. It is a gutsy commitment that invites another to 'take us for granted'. Take my love as a given. (John Powell SJ)

'my secret is that I need God'

This is not to say my life is bad. I know it isn't...but my life is not what I expected it might have been when I was younger. Maybe you yourself deal with this issue better than me. Maybe you have been lucky enough to never have inner voices question you about your own path--or maybe you answered the questioning and came out on the other side. I don't feel sorry for myself in any way. I am merely coming to grips with what I know the world is truly like.

Sometimes I want to go to sleep and merge with the foggy world of dreams and not return to this, our real world. Sometimes I look back on my life and am surprised at the lack of kind things I have done. Sometimes I just feel that there must be another road that can be walked--away from this became--either against my will or by default.

Now--here is my secret:

I tell it to you with the openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love. (Douglas Coupland 'Life after God')

Barbarian Government

What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the dark ages which are already upon us. ... This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.

(Alastair MacIntyre 'After Virtue')

Written 26 years ago, this seems truer than ever, 

Thought for the Day

"A big stone can cause waves, but even the smallest pebble changes the whole pattern of the water. Our daily actions are like those ripples, each one makes a difference, even the smallest.

It does matter therefore what each individual does each day. Kindness, sympathy, resolution and courteous behaviour are infections. Acts of courage adn self-sacrifice, like those of the people who refuse to be terrorised by kidnappers or hijackers, or who defuse bombs, are an inspiration to others.

And the combined effect can be enormous. If enough grains of sand are dropped into one isde of a pair of scales they will, in the end, tip it against a lump of lead. We may feel powerless alone but the joint efforts of individuals can defeat the evils of our time. Together they can create a stable, free and considerate society."

(The Queen, 1975).

Preaching/Communication - not 1 thing but 5 things.

"It is one thing to say something
quite another to have it listened to
a distinct third to have it understood
a different matter again to have it remembered
and a frequently unattainable fifth to have it put into practice"
(Paul Edwards 'The Practical Preacher')

Where has God called me?

Vocation "it comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a man is called to by God.

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-interest. 

By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work 

(a) that you need most to do and 

(b) that the world most needs to have done. 

If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). 

On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren't helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Frederick Buechner

Shining, Hidden.

As the rain hides the stars,
as the autumn mist hides the hills,
happenings of my lot
hide the shining of Thy face from me.

Yet if I may hold Thy hand
in the darkness,
it is enough;
since I know that,
though I may stumble in my going,
Thou dost not fall

Alistair Maclean, from Celtic Daily Prayer by the Northumbria Community

Quote of the day

"I think we are at risk of worship becoming a genre of music, a routine or a mundane activity as opposed to being a heart cry, an overflow of love, a response to the revelation of an almighty God."

Joe Hardy puts into words something that's been bugging me for ages

The APR of the Soul

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.” (CS Lewis)

Cause/Effect

“The Church's task is not just to pull people out of the river, but to go upstream and ask who or what is throwing them in in the first place” (Niall Cooper, Church Action on Poverty)

Mended

“(Jesus) is never disgusted. He never says that anything – anyone – is too dirty to be touched. That anyone is too lost to be found. Even in situations where there seem to be no grounds for human hope, he will not agree that hope is gone beyond recall.

Wreckage may be written into the logic of the world, but he will not agree that it is all there is. He says, more can be mended than you fear. Far more can be mended than you know.”

Francis Spufford ‘Unapologetic'. 

(If you've not read it, imagine CS Lewis after several pints rewriting Schliermachers 'Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers' - which short circuits rational disputes by talking about talking about how Christianity feels - ghost written by Malcolm Tucker. Actually, don't bother, just read it, astounding book.)

And The Winner Is..... George Bernard Shaw

"The reasonable person adapts themselves to the world, the unreasonable persists in trying to adapt the world to themself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable person."

Great to hear my favourite every quote from George Bernard Shaw getting an outing at Sports Personality of the Year (well done Bradley, by the way). Now, top 100 quotes ever, that would be a good TV phone voting show. We might even learn something useful. Well, you might think that, I couldn't possibly comment.

'Keep alive a distaste for nonsense'

God and Politics has a good summary of a recent Rowan Williams lecture, with the brilliant title 'a wise man who makes my brain ache'. I was given another of his lectures to read recently, on a favourite Anglican term 'priesthood'. Don't be put off by the subject matter, and in the snippets below, for 'priest' read 'disciple':
 
The priest has to have the opportunity of not being so swamped with 'duties' that he or she can't maintain a sense of the whole landscape.

 Those who have preached most effectively in this and other eras are, it seems to me, those who have known how to read the surface and the depths, but have had no great interest in the shallows.

There has to be in every priest just a bit of the poet and artist – enough to keep alive a distaste for nonsense, cheapness of words and ideas, stale and predictable reactions.

Along with whatever training to lead and manage that may be given in preparation for priestly ministry, along with instruction in theology and ethics, there must be active encouragement to nourish this seeing and listening, the novel and the newspaper and the soap opera and the casual conversation– even (especially?) when it looks like wasting time from some points of view. Otherwise, what threatens is what Christianity's greatest critics (Nietzsche above all) have homed in upon – a Christian discourse that is essentially about unreal persons with unreal desires and fears

That last bit is very perceptive - within any subculture it's easy to fall into caricatures of who you are, and who other people are, rather than the messy and time-consuming business of dealing with reality. Maybe that's why so few people 'get' Rowan, his messy-looking and time consuming thought processes, and his famous nuances, are too difficult to engage with if you're used to thinking in stereotypes and categories. (e.g. see this piece by Mark Meynell on sexual stereotypes and labelling)

And if you see me wasting time, I'm just doing what my Archbishop encouraged me to do. Thanks Rowan!

Disagreeing with God

I'm preparing a sermon on conflict and opposition, and someone sent me this, which I think nails it:

whenever we criticise someone, hate someone, demean someone etc, we disagree with God about that person. God says that they are beautiful, amazing, worth dying for and remind Him of Himself. When we pull down, attack, dehumanise, criticise, and fail to love them, we put ourselves in a position where we disagree with God. That is not a good place to be.

Novel ideas - death, crisis and transformation: or not.

"(the funeral director) told me that most people who come to arrange services don't believe in anything. He said that if he's leanred anything from doing his job, it's that if you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to sudddenly develop one during a moment of crisis. He said we're told by TV and movies and Readers Digest that a crisis will trigger massive personal change - and that those big changes will make the pain worthwhile. But from what he could see, big change almost never happens. People simply feel lost. They have no idea what to say or do or feel or think. they become messes and tend to remain messes. Having a few default hymns and prayers at least makes the lack of crisis-born insight bearable.

The man was a true shepherd of souls." (Douglas Coupland 'The Gum Thief')

still thinking this one through...

The Rowan Williams quote that's not in the headlines

"We have to question what we mean by growth. The ability to produce more and more consumer goods (not to mention financial products)... sets up a vicious cycle in which it is necessary all the time to create new demand for goods and thus new demands on a limited material environment for energy sources and raw materials. The hectic inflation of demand creates personal anxiety and rivalry. By systematically depleting the resources of the planet, it systematically destroys the basis for long-term wellbeing."

Rowan Williams, as leaked to the Observer today. He's said stuff like this before, but such is our new media goldfish attention span that it's portrayed as news. The ongoing Eurozone crisis, and the global slowdown, is begging the same question: is consumer capitalism sustainable growth, or cancerous?

Of course, it shifts more copy for the Observer to headline on the Tory-bashing stuff about the Big Society. And it's much more comfortable for most of us to read about that, than about the Dark Side of our current economic model and spending habits. The psychological cost of consumer capitalism is epidemic depression, anxiety, insecurity and greed, the environmental cost is a planet that's wasting away. But if that's too depressing to contemplate, we can always buy more stuff to drown out the prophets.

There are also questions to ask about how the paper got hold of the quotes in the first place: it would be supremely ironic if it turned out to be a bit of marketing by the publishers.

Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own

When I was a young Christian all the emphasis was on personal disciplines, particularly of daily prayer and Bible study. Personal disciplines remain important, but I do not believe they are sufficient to form Christian character today.

In those early years of faith the Christian story was better known in Britain, and 'Christian' values taken as norms, even if they were not adhered to. Culture reinforced discipleship much more than today.

Today culture is more likely to be corrosive of discipleship as supportive. It is corporate disciplines and support which are needed. A Christian way of life - the daily practice of obedience to Jesus - needs a proactive supportive community. The term 'one another' appears frequently in the New Testament and it is persistent, intentional 'one anothering' which will enable lives of discipleship. I do not know how discipleship can be sustained without some regular, face-to-face small group for mutual support and challenge.

(Graham Cray in the latest e-xpressions newsletter, subscribe here)

Silence

Silence is something that people today avoid or even fear … Our busy culture prevents us being still.

Daunting as it may be, we all need silence. When we enter regularly into silence, we start to see things with greater clarity. And especially, I come to know myself and I come in touch with that part of myself which is the deepest part: my soul.

Silence is the gateway to the soul and the soul is the gateway to God.

(Abbot Christopher Jamison)

3 Dimensions of Discipleship: Great Grub from Dallas Willard

Fantastic piece from Dallas Willard. Here's a snippet

Living as Jesus’ disciple, I am learning from him how to lead my life in the Kingdom of the Heavens everywhere I am, in every activity I engage in. There are three dimensions of this learning.

First, I am learning to do the things which Jesus explicitly said to do. It is quite literally nonsense to call Jesus “Lord,” and not do what he said. “Lord” means nothing in such a case. (Luke 6:46-49) But because I do accept him as Lord, his instructions on behavior are my treasures for living life. Of course I cannot do what he said by just trying. I must train! I must, through appropriate courses of action, become inwardly transformed by grace to become the kind of person—in my inmost thoughts, feelings, attitudes and directions of will—who will routinely do the kinds of things he said to do. I will then not be governed by anger, contempt or lust. And I will be able to bless those who curse me, love my enemies, and so forth, because I am one in whom the character and power of Christ has come to dwell through the processes of discipleship to Christ.

Second, I am learning to conduct the usual activities of life—in home, school, community, business and government—in the character and power of Christ. Jesus himself, of course, spent most of his life on earth as an “independent contractor” or businessman. Jesus could have led the ordinary life of the ordinary citizen in all of its legitimate respects. He can show us how to live now, as a mother or father, banker or computer programmer, teacher or artist, in the Kingdom of the Heavens. His character and power and personal guidance will lead us into life as it should be in all of these areas of human existence.

Third, I am learning to exercise the power of the kingdom—of Christ in his Word and Spirit—to minister good and defeat evil in all of the connections of earthly existence. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him.” (Acts 10:38) Apprenticeship to Jesus means that, in tiny steps, we learn to exercise this power seen in Jesus. Growth in character is primary, for power requires substance of character if it is to be used for Christ’s purposes. Christ had no character problems, but we do. Prayer, in its aspect of training for Kingdom life, is primarily a matter of learning to exercise power in a way that is both profitable and safe.

I've printed out the whole article, as, like Christmas turkey, it needs several days of preparation, cooking, chewing over and digesting. Ht David Cooke, a link well worth visiting in its own right.

Taking my temperature

"Lukewarm people do not live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to.

They don't have to trust in God if the unexpected happens-they have their savings account.
They don't need God to help them-they have their retirement plan in place.
They don't genuinely seek out what life God would have them live-they have life figured and mapped out.
They don't depend on God on a daily basis-their refrigerators are full and, for the most part, they are in good health.

The truth is their lives wouldn't look much different if they suddenly stopped believing in God"

ht David Cooke

I hate the internet, life would be much more comfortable if I didn't keep coming across stuff like this.