I like to watch quiz shows and puzzles on television. There is one at the moment called 'Catchphrase' where you have to try and guess what saying is represented by the picture that is unfolding. The presenter often says 'Just say what you see'. Ha!, but that's not always so easy. Sometimes contestants seem to say just about anything other than the correct answer, all the time of course we are shouting the answer at the television. I also have a number of books called 'Dingbats' that are the same idea of guessing what saying is represented by the picture. This only works of course if you have heard of the sayings otherwise you could be guessing for a long time without getting the right answer.
Then there are the puzzles that seem to be two different things depending on how you look at it. In this picture on the right do you see some columns or six people? There are many of this type of picture. Some years ago there were computer generated pictures where if you looked in a particular way you could see a 3D image emerging from what seemed to be just a chaotic scene. What you see is not always apparent immediately. Sometimes you need to take a long hard look.
I once saw all the letters of a sentence written altogether - GODISNOWHERE. That could be interpreted in two ways depending on where you place the spaces between the words. You could say GOD IS NOWHERE or GOD IS NOW HERE. You've probably seen that before. The point is that not everything is at it seems and people often see things differently. Jesus was curious as to how people saw Him and so asked his disciples 'Who do men say that I am?' There were various answers but Peter saw the truth when he recognised Jesus as the Son of God.
I was reminded recently at Easter of one of my favourite Godfrey Birtill songs:
When I look at the blood all I see is love, love, love
When I stop at the cross I can see the love of God.
But I can't see competition, I can't see hierarchy.
I can't see pride or prejudice or the abuse of authority.
I can't see lust for power, I can't see manipulation,
I can't see rage or anger or selfish ambition.
But I can't see unforgiveness, I can't see hate or envy,
I can't see stupid fighting or bitterness or jealousy.
I can't see empire building, I can't see self-importance,
I can't see back stabbing or vanity or arrogance.
I see surrender, sacrifice, salvation, humility, righteousness, faithfulness, grace, forgiveness.
How often do people seem to be one thing but turn out to be quite different when you get a closer look. Or as a friend of mine says 'the outside and the inside don't match'. It's not just about appearances of 'going to church' or abstaining from certain things/places/language. Those things aren't the same as showing the love of God in our actions of daily living. Reading again those words of the above song, as a Jesus follower I need to ask myself 'When people look at me, what do they see?'
Over a couple of days I heard 3 different viewpoints of targets and aims. The first one was about targets at work and what could be done to raise productivity or show improvement in the personal file of an employee. We have heard so much about targets at work. At times I get quite angry about the whole target-driven society in which we live. Targets create an insatiable monster that keeps telling us that our best is never enough. It seems that no matter how much we achieve, more is expected. In many parts of society, schools, police, nhs to name but three, targets have often become the most important aspect of the work and not the life/work balance of employees or the people such jobs are meant to protect and help. The whole system goes off course and the targets must be met at all costs. It is a subtle form of bullying that has invaded all levels of living. I can understand why targets and aims are put in place, often for very good, plausible reasons but so easily the target takes over and reigns supreme over the reason for doing the job in the first place. The result is a false sense of reality of a situation; we are made to believe one thing when the reality is something different.
The second instance was with a young man who had decided that he would help his mother in the garden. To date he has done a lot of digging, trimming, lifting and carrying, using a lot of energy and being a great help. Some of the things he has done just wouldn't have been done at all if it had been left to the mother's efforts alone. She was really pleased with the way he was offering to do so much and commented that maybe his dislike of gardening was changing. His reply was not what she had expected. Some time before his new found willingness to help with gardening, it had been suggested to him by a medical professional that he should really do a little bit more exercise in order to lose his quite substantial surplus weight. When it was suggested that he was beginning to like gardening, he straightened up from his work and said quite clearly that he didn't like gardening, had no real interest in growing things and that when he had lost the required weight then she probably wouldn't see much of him in the garden. At least he knew exactly what his target was and open and honest about the true reason for his efforts.
Then the next day I read a blog where the writer was telling about a young woman at church with whom she was having quite a deep conversation about relationship with God. She commented about having a deep love for God and how we need to keep falling in love with Him. The young woman replied that she didn't think that she had ever found that place of love or been 'in love' with God. The older lady was a little surprised, knowing that her friend had been part of the church since childhood and always appeared devout and active in much of what was going on in the church. Trying to understand just why she was a Christian, the young woman's reply was 'Jesus has been about getting into Heaven, Jesus has been about getting saved, Jesus had been about getting good'. Some would say they go for the friendship of like-minded people (except they rarely see each other or know anything about each other's home life apart from what they see or hear on a Sunday). For some, church and the whole Christianity thing is about the benefits to be got from it, a sort of check list that helps us to reach our target - heaven. The aim is not so much about God and a loving relationship with Him but about the end rewards if we tick all the boxes and keep up the good work until we die. This has taken the place of a deep friendship with Father Creator.
It may be good to have targets but lets make sure that they are our servants and don't become our insatiable, ruthless masters. Let's be honest about what our targets really are and not try to pretend they are something they are not. And please! let's not confuse the reason for our targets with what should be our real focus and objective, whether that be at work and the reason for our work, helping others or whether it be our faith and why we call ourselves a believer. We need to ask ourselves 'What am I really aiming for? Why do I do what I do?'
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| Hadrian's Wall |
I recently watched a couple of programmes about the part of the UK that straddles the border between England and Scotland. The programme interested me because I was born and raised in a town near Hadrian's Wall and later in life lived over 25 years in Wallsend. This patch of land centuries ago was known as Middleland and stretched from the Humber up to about Edinburgh, from east to west. Problems first began after the Roman emperor Hadrian decided to build a wall between Carlisle in the west and Wallsend in the east and decided that everything south of the wall belonged to the Roman empire and all who lived north of the wall were savages to be kept out at all cost. The trouble was that there were those who had family on both sides of the wall (a bit like what happened when they erected the Berlin Wall). The people who lived there were all the same and yet a false sense of enmity had been created. They were living out in the margins, excluded, not belonging. But it wasn't about the people, it was about building an empire, taking over land and all that goes with it and creating a power system.
Maybe it's because my late husband wasn't English or maybe because I spent almost 10 years living in another country, a different culture and language that I find it difficult to come to terms with country borders and how humans fight over such borders, each side of the controversy trying to gain the land for themselves at the cost sometimes of many lives. Empires have risen and fallen over such disputes. People, the innocent as well as soldiers and fighters, are killed over this power struggle for land and domination. I like the picture of the planet taken from space and the accompanying thought that from space there are no borders, no frontiers, no divisions. And that is how God created the earth - one planet, one people - the human race.
Drawing border lines seems to be a deeply entrenched human trait. We draw lines about many things. The minute the line is drawn then people are divided - those on one side are acceptable while those on the other side are not. People are put into categories depending on looks, fashion, ability etc and you are either in or out, accepted or excluded. You have to take sides. That is often the dilemma I face when it comes to a political election when I can see some things I like in more than one camp but I can only choose one party above another. Then the elected ones seem to spend more time trying to score political points one against the other while the real interests of the people seem somehow less important and forgotten in the process. Real issues are overtaken by the need to gain power, recognition, acclaim and numbers and build little personal empires. We are told that this side is right, that side is wrong while the truth is probably some quite hazy, grey area in the middle. Some people fit into neither camp but belong somewhere in between.
I often feel like that when it comes to my own Christian living. For someone who belongs to God but doesn't congregate in a building it's like being in the wilderness of no man's land, the middleland, neither in nor out, a bit of both. There are those who question how you can belong to God but not a particular group or denomination. They draw a line and you must decide which side of the line you are on. Belonging to the group makes the empire bigger and apparently more powerful. It becomes a matter of numbers, a head count and not about an individual relationship within the family of God. Many find themselves in this no man's land when it comes to Christianity and church. They love God and follow the teachings of Jesus but are not churchy. Many who congregate consider them to be wrong; they have stepped over the line; they are now on the other side. The truth is that most of them belong in neither camp but straddle the line that has been drawn between them. I don't want to take part in the dividing game. Divide and conquer is the devil's game while God's purpose is to make us one. And so here I am, standing in the gap, a middlelander living in the wilderness of neither in nor out, not included in the group but not excluded from the family of God. Or as Henri Nouwen said,
In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
AMEN!!!
In this day and age of instant living it is easy to want instant results with everything. You only need to walk around the supermarket to realize that many foods are pretty much instant - just add water and mix; put in microwave on maximum power for 3 minutes; pour on boiling water and leave for 2 minutes; mix with water or milk and microwave for 1 and a half minutes etc. ... ... This also spills over into the world of technology. Do you remember when we used to have to wait about 5 minutes for the computer to get going before we could actually do anything with it? Nowadays so much of life is simply press a button and 'Hey presto' - result! So it's good to remind ourselves that much of life is not really like that.
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| Peas appearing. |
In the beginning ... it took God six stages of creation to make the world, the length of a stage depending on whether you lean to the side of creationism or evolution. However you view the story, it was not done instantaneously. And those who do any gardening will appreciate this fact when you need to plan your year according to whether it's time to sow seeds or harvest the produce. This week, after having sown quite a bit in March, I have seen the first signs of peas and carrots growing, while other things have yet to make an appearance. We wait and we keep looking and hoping that we did everything right so in time it will happen. Some things take a little longer than others.
We don't expect children to suddenly overnight be able to walk and talk. These things take time. That's why there is such joy when a child utters its first word, takes its first step, gets its first tooth. Each first in a child's life is an indication of growing, slowly but surely. So it saddens me when new Christians are suddenly thrown in at the deep end and expected to just know all the rules, what they are expected to do or say, or not as the case may be. There is often so little tolerance shown to anyone who doesn't immediately conform. We are all on a journey and are at different points on that journey. How many of us have children who constantly asked during a journey, 'Are we there yet?' Little by little, bit by bit we are learning what God wants to do with our lives and that is different for everyone. What He wants of me is not the same as what He wants from you who may be reading this. So it baffles me just why all who say they are Christians are expected to be and do the same. We are not a string of sausages, uniform and identical!
God made us all different and wants us to be different. We don't all have to dance to the same tune (or worship song). He wants us to evolve and go forward as individuals. That's why it's ok when we don't want to do some of the things we used to do, we have moved on to another phase on our journey - growing and learning, little by little. Sadly many who have stopped conforming are viewed as having left the pack as it were, gone astray when all we are doing is seeking a more personal, individual relationship with the Father. Our life journey is just that - a journey throughout our lives and it takes a lifetime to evolve our way through it, growing and learning a bit at a time, changing, rethinking, questioning and learning through our lifetime experiences. A child learns by its mistakes and falls but also by asking questions. Which parent has not tired at some point because of the apparent incessant questions of 'Why?', 'How?'. So why not ask God questions about things that we don't understand? We cannot know it all (although some think they do!). I am not at the same point in my journey as I was 10 years ago or even one year ago - I keep learning, growing and moving little by little.
