"Stillness in a Hectic World"

My sister got me an early Christmas present, Ludovico Einaudi was performing in Edinburgh after 3 years absence appearing again at the Usher Hall. So Sunday night, bad back and all, we headed off to Edinburgh.

If you have never heard Einaudi then I suggest you remedy this right away and get one of his CDs. I've used Einaudi's music in worship and prayer events; as background to multimedia presentations; I think actually that on a Sunday morning we could do away with some of the mushy nonsense that passes for contemporary worship music and just play some Einaudi pieces instead; he is also brilliant if you are seeking to come to stillness before prayer. His music is very difficult to categorise and has been variously described as classical; ambient; chamber music; this time the programme described it as "the sound of stillness in a hectic world", which is perfect.

To actually be at one of his concerts is on a different level altogether. The sense of peace and stillness which pervades the place when he plays is profoundly spiritual. I've seen him 3 times now and it is an experience that is like no other. I've seen him with just himself and his Steinway and with a cellist. This time like last, he appeared with his Steinway, 2 violinists who also played guitar and percussion (brilliantly!), a viola, a cellist and "live electronics". He opened the concert with a piece from his latest CD, Nightbook, The Planets, and as we sat in the darkened auditorium the music from the piano played and the violinists and viola player slowly walked from the back of the stalls through the audience. The music is haunting and uplifting and pierces your spirit. I find it difficult to not smile throughout the whole thing.

Two (not one - two) standing ovations later; that could be it for another 3 years; he's got no more dates in Scotland this time around but you can still catch him in Birmingham (tonight!!), Basingstoke, Poole, Gateshead and next year in London, Leicester, Brighton and Coventry - if you live near any of these places - get a ticket.

So when Christmas day comes and I don't have a present to unwrap - who cares - (my lovely sister also bought me the CD cos I wasn't well) I'll just put that on and let my mind drift back to experience the concert at the Usher Hall and rekindle that incredible stillness. Ludovico Einaudi - you are a legend!

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Saying Grace

Blog has been a bit neglected over the last few weeks - partly because of difficulty sitting - too sore!!

I came across a site recently called live simply - it's a site which challenges us to think about consumption, climate change, justice and poverty. It is good to reflect on God's goodness particularly as this is One World Week. Our food and other material goods are sourced from all over the world, many people are involved in producing it and we are exceptionally blessed. We really don't lack anything. We live in peace, we are free to worship, we eat more than one meal a day, we own shoes (you might want to check out the Tom's Shoes site on this issue). There are many ways we can get involved in global justice, but we might also want to start to really think about saying grace. We've always said grace before our evening meal but it's very easy to let it just slip into words and routine. The live simply site has some example graces and I particularly liked this one

Generous, loving God
Creator of the world we share
We ask you to give us today our daily bread

And as we store the crops
and fill the barns
stack the shelves
pile high the tins
and wander the aisles
of supermarket choice

Show us how to see the world
through the eyes of the hungry
Teach us how to share with all
Our daily bread
Amen

Meditation; Psalm 139; and a Herniated Disc

Life is never dull is it?

I just started into the 6 week preparation phase before making the Spiritual Exercises.

(For those who don't know too much about this - I'd decided some time ago that this was what was next for me on my Ignatian journey and have been looking forward to getting underway - they start in September to roughly parallel the liturgical year.

The Spiritual Exercises are really a form of retreat and were created in the sixteenth century by St Ignatius of Loyola based on ordered, scripture-based meditations and contemplations. St Ignatius believed that the Exercises needed extended time to unfold and that retreatants (me) needed individual guidance. Initially the exercises lasted over a 30 day retreat period, however, St Ignatius must have been prophetic because he made provision that the exercises could also be made in 'everyday life' over a period of around 9 - 12 months.

The Exercises are divided into four sections known as 'weeks' (these obviously aren't actual weeks when making the exercises in everyday life)­ separated by 'rest days'. In each 'week' you are invited to become more fully aware of an aspect of God's call, and to begin the process of co-operating with it. Different kinds of prayer are explored and there is an emphasis on praying with scripture, opportunity for stillness and use of the 'examen' of consciousness. The Spiritual Exercises involve a process which aims to help you to reach inner freedom in responding to the personal call of Christ to help build the Kingdom of God. They are orientated to mission, and rooted in contemplation.


The purpose of the exercises is to develop characteristics which then become part of daily life. Firstly, better able to discern your inner desires and to see how God is working in your life and in the world; secondly, how to bring together contemplation and action; and thirdly, increasing awareness of the presence and activity of God in all things.


There is an initial 6 week preparation period, daily prayer of around an hour which involves coming to stillness (very hard for me with my butterfly brain!); speaking to God about what it is I desire from the time; reflection / contemplation on a specific passage - which is the bulk of the time - allowing the passage to sit with you and becoming aware of what particularly strikes you; then dialogue with God; a short break; and journalling, paying particular attention to feelings. Each week I meet with my Spiritual Director to reflect on prayer and other experiences since the last meeting, and to agree material for the next week. My Spiritual Director is fabulous and she really helps me to reflect at a much deeper level and draw out God's movement in my life.)

So I was about a week and a half in - very excited - when 'ping' (or something) - excruciating pain and massive agony. Just at the point I was meditating on being 'so wonderfully complex' on God making 'all the delicate inner parts of my body', being loved and cherished, never away from God's presence. It's an interesting juxtaposition to find yourself in. The things that had stood out for me from the passage was the sense of God 'knowing my anxious thoughts' and 'placing your hand of blessing on my head'. I felt very clearly the absolute love and care of God. So at 2 o'clock in the morning as I was pacing my dark livingroom (yes and weeping in agony - I'm so dramatic!), draping myself over the back of my sofa in an effort to find any relief, I had a lot to meditate on.

The question I come to - 'Is God still with me?' - 'Yes'.

'Does he still love me the same way he showed me very vividly a few hours before?' 'Yes'.

The question I begin to ask is - 'How is God there to me?'

'As healer?' - ah - there's a tricky question. I'm surrounded by people who are really into healing and it's fab - every blessing on them and their ministry - seriously - but there is a big hesitation on this one for me - I don't believe that God sends suffering to test us or for any other reason. I don't believe that God even 'allows' suffering, but I do believe that we suffer - heck I could testify to it!! I also believe God can heal and does; but I also believe that not everyone gets healed and it's not because he doesn't love us, or because of our technique or because we used the wrong words or because of lack of faith etc. So how am I to understand God - how is he here to me? I also believe that when we seek God first we're doing the right thing - and I do think there is a difference between seeking God and seeking healing.

So for 10 days of sleeping on my livingroom floor suffering, pacing, spaced out on pills that would floor a horse, (yes there was even a bit more weeping and the odd sweary word), all the while doing my preparation passages meditating on God's care for wild flowers; the fact that he sends rain on the desert places where no-one lives in order to satisfy the parched ground and cause tender grass to spring up; how he crowns me with love and tender mercies; how he draws me into a good pasture; how when I go through deep waters, rivers of difficulty and fires of oppression, he'll be there in the flood and in the fire; even how the ostrich is a bit lacking in wisdom but still has a gift to be able to run like the wind!

What is the nature of the 'How'? He is my Creator, he named me, he is always with me, he knows me, he is God, he delights in his creation and it brings real joy to him to care for it; that's just how it is and it is no less true when I'm in pain than when I'm not. And there is a security in knowing this.

Can suffering have any element of 'gift' in it? Yes. St Ignatius began his 'retreat' because as a soldier, he was wounded by a cannonball in the leg - it was an enforced confinement - probably not particularly pleasant (no horse pills in those days!). There is something to having to live differently, even in your own house, no bed, making a space to sleep, having to think about the position you adopt to sleep that brings comfort. But God is in it. He is no less creator when I suffer than when I am fully fit.

"When you go through deep waters, rivers of difficulty and fires of oppression - you won't drown or be consumed because I will be with you."

So What? (Warning: this post is controversial and also quite long!)

So I read a bunch of books over the summer - nothing new there - I'm always reading and thinking - after all my summer book reports the big question is - So What ? How does it change me? What are the challenges? And what am I going to do about them anyway?

The big thing I understand, is it is all founded on relationship (I know that doesn't sound very radical after all 'personal relationship with God' is the mantra of evangelicalism) but bear with me...

Maybe the realisation started a few years back when I really began to study the Bible in a lot more depth - looking at differing views of really fine scholars - and finding that there are competing opinions across a whole range of Christian thought - there isn't one version of the truth (controversy #1). Christianity is a broad church - literally!

Actually - what I have come to understand, is that Christianity is more like independent travel than a package holiday where you accept the whole thing whether you like it all or not. I have become aware that actually what I am looking for is a different skin - one I feel more comfortable in. It is still absolutely a Christian skin, but there are lots of Christians who understand their faith very differently from each other. I guess the branch I've been in for quite a while, and have over time begun to find an increasing dissonance with, is much more certain than I am comfortable with. (you're either in or you're not; you're either saved or you're not; you're either going to hell or heaven; you have to believe the whole Bible is literally true, not myth or story or narrative and other types of literature - Jonah was definitely swallowed by a big fish, there was literal garden with 2 trees and a serpent and actually that serpent was the devil etc.)...and I'm honestly not saying this to disrespect others who believe this (and OK I'm maybe exaggerating for effect!) But honestly, there is a liberation in discovering that you have a valid choice about the kind of journey you make, and that you can make choices about the elements of belief that make sense to you and that you wish to journey with.

You see I do have problems with the Bible (controversy #2) (I agree with Scott McKnight on the emergent podcast) - it doesn't really make any difference to me that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are not literally true; I really have no problem that there is such a thing as evolution (no actually that doesn't negate God - that's a category error as John Lennox points out); I have some real questions around some Christians' behaviours - (most of what is on the God Channel; Todd Bentley and his ilk, and what appears to me to be cynical manipulation and a particularly iniquitous brand of "superstitious christianity"); I have problems with hell; I don't care if the Bible is contradictory, that there was more than one Isaiah and that Paul was sometimes expressing an opinion; but I do have real issues about the immorality and the depiction of a god who is a mean, petty, war monger; I'm happy to ask the question about what kind of truth can be found in scripture. I understand that some of this is socially located and not universal theology; that some of this is down to partial revelation and narrow nationalism. The Bible, (unlike the Muslim belief in the Qu'ran or the book of Mormon, didn't pre-exist, wasn't handed down to us complete, by an angel) it is a product of the cultures and people in which and by whom it was written over many hundreds of years. (controversy #3) You have to understand that in order to make sense of it!

The relationship between the Bible and Christians has become significantly different in the last couple of hundred years; it has become individual, not located in community any more; it has completely mediated our understanding of God replacing our "felt" and "lived" experience; speaking into a specific time and place to a particular group of real people. It mirrors our move to "personal" salvation (and yes - as I tried to explain to the housegroup - to nonsense like the rapture - we are individually OK cos we're leaving anyway) (yip I know - controversy #4); no longer is the gospel about the transformational impact on society by a living, believing community.

That's why I like Rob Bell, Shane Claibourne, Emergent, Peter Rollins, Jamie Smith (and even Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard) etc. - it's about fundamentally redefining church as a transformational community; it's about permission to become a Christian traveller and not a package holiday maker passing through without touching the culture, living in my own personal Christian bubble eating at the tourist snack bars which sell egg and chips and show football on satellite TV. (does this make sense?)

What has become important to me is to search for understanding; learning to practice my faith in ways which come from many Christian traditions; which help me make sense of the world and God.

I do believe in a loving Creator and in the full revelation of this God being incarnated in Christ; I do believe that Jesus life and resurrection are just as important as his death; I understand this to be about love and showing a better way; I don't understand it to be legal, transactional or about assuaging God's wrath; I understand much better that theology is a conversation and that the gospel is always incarnated in a cultural context; and at it's heart is about a relationship, in fact the ultimate relationship.

On a final note (and in no way controversial I think), my daughter has started attending youth housegroup, run by a fantastic couple, and she's really loving it. She came home the other week and said - "Christianity has so many rules to follow" (the discussion had got around to going "up the town" on a Saturday night drinking and clubbing and what the Christian thing to do is). I said to her - "I don't understand God like that - Do you have a set of rules that you follow living in this family?" She thought about that, "No" she said. "Actually" I said "how we understand each other is through our relationship, living in the context of mutual love and acceptance. We love each other, and so we seek to understand one another and live together in a way that makes sense to us and honours the relationship". (that sounds a bit pretentious and I probably said it more simply - but she really got it)

I honestly understand God like this now. We find our journey in God completely mediated by his loving relationship with us. But our Christian lives are also mediated in community - in some senses it's never just about "God and me".

Small Graces and Blogging

What do you do when you've had the busiest, most frenetic 5 weeks at work, culminating in a 2 day event which you've been responsible for, with an overnight stay; when you've been up half the previous night with a migraine and when you are just knackered?

Well - you come home, you walk through your empty house and go out to your back garden, you sit yourself down on your door step, look out over your garden, hear the silence, turn your face to feel the warmth from the last heat of the early evening sun, and feel a sense of peace as you contemplate life while joined on the step by the undemanding companionship of next door's cat; you scarf down 2 bags of weightwatchers cheesy puffs (only 70 calories a bag) and you become aware that God's grace comes to you in all sorts of ways, some of which seem small and seemingly insignificant.

That's been a whole year of blogging and it's a funny old thing. I guess I started because it seemed like an idea - spurred on by my maladjusted friend. An online journal that people can follow, or read from time to time, or stumble across as the case may be. I hadn't been on my blog for a couple of days and when I looked there had been hits from a couple of places in the States, quite a few places across the UK, Paris, Germany and Turkey all in the space of 48 hours. Some people come from my friend's blog, others follow some obscure search to do with Doris Day, or flying monkeys, or Foucault. You get to share big ideas and small blessings and it's a lot of fun.

Whichever way you came to it - thanks for reading!

Summer Reading #s 3 & 4

This is taking me ages so I thought I'd do the last 2 books together. They are both from the same series anyway, edited by James K A Smith called "The Church and Postmodern Culture".

Who's Afraid of Postmodernism - Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church - James KA Smith

What Would Jesus Deconstruct - The Good news of Postmodernism for the Church.

Those of you who know me well, know I've been looking at this stuff for years but having been listening to and doing a bit more reading about emergent - Derrida is featuring large and I wanted to get to grips with this continental philosophy stuff in a bit more depth. Also who could resist a book with the title "What Would Jesus Deconstruct"? - (WWJD) - (yip that's the kind of thing which really appeals to me)

Jamie Smith looks at these 3 philosophers and deconstructs their "slogans" in a way which opens up their arguments really helpfully showing the applicability and benefit to the church. He also argues that to be relevant the church needs to look back at her traditions and reclaim them for the 21st century.

The "slogans" are
"There is nothing outside the text" Jacques Derrida
"Postmodernity is incredulity toward meta-narratives" Jean-Francois Lyotard
"Power is knowledge" - Michel Foucault

His agenda is clear - he wishes to shift from modern Christianity "where the base 'ingredient' is the individual"; Christianity as a system of truth or ideas; an intellectualised, commodified private faith affair between the individual and God where the role of the church is to provide a place of fellowship with other individuals who have a private relationship with God; the church then is simply a collection of individuals. Instead he argues for a living community embodying its head; genuine community; resisting talking about Christians as individuals; the notion of the "holy catholic church"undoes modern individualism; there is no Christianity apart from the body of Christ which is the church. The church does not exist for me; the church is the site where God renews and transforms us.

If you think that's quite radical then wait till you hear this bit - "What I a sinner need is not so much answers, as reformation of my will and heart...practices of friendship and being called to get along with those one doesn't like..the church for instance is a place to learn patience by practice"!!! (help!)

"Nothing is more countercultural than a community serving the Suffering Servant in a world devoted to consumption and violence."

It's actually quite hard to summarise this book because the arguments taken out of context can be misconstrued - which is ironic given, as Derrida says - "Everything is interpretation - i.e. there's nothing outside the text!". Let me give it a bash very briefly.

If everything is interpretation then we are free to interpret the world differently, the church becomes more prophetic while retaining its humility; it becomes countercultural and prophetic by its deeds; stops being apologetic in both senses and puts its interpretation openly into the marketplace. That's Derrida's bit.

Lyotard helps us to realise that "scientific knowledge, which considered itself to be a triumph over narrative knowledge, covertly grounds itself in a narrative; they are the false appeals to the universal, rational, scientific criteria - as though they were divorced from any particular myth or narrative. For the postmodernist every scientist is a believer...the postmodern critique demands not that modern thought relinquish its faith, but that it own up to it... the notion of reducing Christian faith to 4 spiritual laws signals a deep capitulation to scientific knowledge whereas postmodernism signals the recovery of narrative knowledge and should entail a more robust, unapologetic proclamation of the story of God in Christ."

Foucault talks about what counts as knowledge being constituted within networks of power - social, political and economic. "He sees through the neat and tidy claims to objective truth, seeing them as only masks of power. Many people are defined by the primary goal of consumption, they stake their identity on their material possessions...their ultimate goal is to be faithful consumers...we need to recognise the antithesis between the dominant culture's understanding of the human calling and the biblical understanding of our ultimate vocation...this must be cultivated by practices of sanctification."

OK - this is a huge post but I'm determined to finish - then in my next post I'll deal with the question on every one's lips - So What?

WWJDeconstruct - here's some quotes and you can make your own mind up

"I am still looking for the text that supports the idea that "Christians" means people who should be free to accumulate as much wealth for themselves as they possibly can under the law, while letting the needs of the poor be met painlessly by "charity"- by people of means who will voluntarily give of their overflow - so that they do not have to share any more of their wealth than is unavoidable"

"A politics of the kingdom would be marked by madness of forgiveness, generosity, mercy and hospitality. The dangerous memory of the crucified body of Jesus poses a threat to a world organised around the disastrous concept of power, something that is reflected today in the widespread critique of the concept of "sovereignty" - of the sovereignty of autonomous subjects and the sovereignty of nations powerful enough to get away with acting unilaterally and in their own self interests. The crucified body of Jesus proposes not that we keep theology out of politics but that we think theology otherwise, by way of another paradigm, another theology, requiring us to think of God otherwise, as a power of powerlessness, as opposed to the theology of omnipotence that underlies sovereignty. The call that issues from the crucified body of Jesus solicits our response, for it is we who have mountains to move by our faith and we who have enemies to move by our love. It is we who have to make the weakness of God stronger than the power of the world."

Both books are great - I'd probably recommend Jamie Smith's book as being more accessible but both challenged and broadened my understanding of God and made me reflect again on what it means to be a Christian.

Summer Reading #2

"Jesus Wants to Save Christians - A Manifesto for the Church in Exile" - Rob Bell

I really like Rob Bell's books - I think he's a great communicator, he's honest, he's challenging and he's scholarly. If you haven't read anything by him before I would definitely recommend him. I've read "Velvet Elvis - Repainting the Christian Faith" and am currently reading "Drops Like Stars: A Few Thoughts on Creativity and Suffering".

In this book he focuses on "empire", charting the whole history of Israel in relation to both the empires they came up against and the empire they became; and how this corrupted what God had originally intended through the covenant; the consequences and the legacy of that; and the current application of "empire" as it relates to the church. His approach is scholarly - his books usually bring a great deal of the historical and cultural background into play giving a much clearer understanding of context and place, and I always get some insight which I never noticed before. All good. His books however are very very accessible - not a daunting read at all. I found it all really interesting but this book also packs a punch and the chapter entitled "Swollen-Bellied Black Babies" really challenges and brings the whole issue to a head. I'm going to quote from it, although I'm a bit afraid that it might diminish the impact of what he says - because he builds his picture and constructs his challenge in a really great way then socks it to you;

"Imagine the average youth group in the average church on the average Sunday. Imagine visiting this youth group and having the pastor say to you "I just can't get my kids interested in Jesus. Do you have any suggestions?"

How do you respond?

To begin with the church has a youth group. This is a brand new idea in church history. A luxury. All the babies and older folks and the men and the women and widows and students aren't in the one room, but they've gone to separate rooms?

And there are resources for this? People and organisational structures and a budget? Let's imagine that in this case, this pastor, this youth pastor, is paid a salary for his or her work. A church with enough resources to pay someone to oversee the students. Once again, this is brand new, almost unheard of in most of the rest of the churches in the world, and in church history, a brand new invention.

This salary can be paid and this building can be built because people in the congregation have surplus. They have fed themselves and their children and bought clothes and houses, and now, after these expenses, there is still money available. And this money is given in an act of generosity to the church, which disperses it to various places, among them the bank account of the pastor.

In many, if not most of the churches in the world, immediate needs simply don't allow for such luxuries - too many people are hungry, too many don't have a roof, too many are sick - and so any surplus is spent immediately on the basic needs staring them in the face, people dying here, right now, today.

But this particular church is blessed, and we should be clear about this - it is blessing, it is good. It is fortunate that this particular church doesn't have those issues. This church has enough resources to hire a pastor who had the resources to get training to gather these students in the student room to teach them about the way of Jesus. Many Christians around the world would simply stand in awe of that kind of blessing.

And the students in this church, these are good kids. They are from families who just want to see their kids become good Christians.

Imagine just how much is available to them. They have more at their fingertips than any generation in the history of the world - more information, more entertainment, more ideas, more ways to kill time, more options.

Many of them own more than one pair of shoes.

There are even some among them who have eaten at least one meal every day of their lives.

So we are talking about a minuscule minority of kids in the world

At the exit off the highway near their church is a Best Buy and a Chilli's and a Circuit City and a McDonald's and a Wal-Mart and Bed, Bath and Beyond much like the other towns in their state and in their country. The music they listen to is distributed by one of 5 major corporations, which also own the movie studios that create the movies they watch, which are also connected to the corporations that create the food they eat and the commercials they watch, which also have significant ties to the clothes they wear and the cell phones they own and the ring tones on their cell phones.....

So each week they gather to hear a talk from the pastor.

The pastor tells them about the Jesus revolution.

About Jesus resisting the system.

About the blood of the cross.

About many Christians getting arrested.

About Jesus having dinner with prostitutes and tax collectors.

About people sharing their possessions.

About Jesus telling a man to sell everything.

About the uniqueness of their story in the larger story of redemption.

How do children of the empire understand the Saviour who was killed by an empire?

How does a 12 year old who has never had hunger pangs that lasted more than an hour understand a story about a 12 year old providing fish and bread for thousands of chronically hungry people?

How do kids who are surrounded by more abundance than in any other generation in the history of humanity take seriously a Messiah who said "I have been anointed to preach good news to the poor?"

How do they fathom that half the world is too poor to feed it's kids when their church just spent 2 years raising money to build an addition to their building?

They gather, they sing, they hear a talk from the pastor, and then they get back in the car with their parents and they go home; the garage door opens up, the car goes in, and the garage door goes down.

This is the revolution?

This is what Jesus had in mind?

And so the youth pastor turns to you and says, again, " I just can't get my students engaged with Jesus. Do you have any suggestions?"

What do you say?

How do you respond?

Your only hope, of course, would be to remind him or her that there is blood on the doorposts of the universe"

He goes onto talk about the Passover and the Eucharist

"What if Jesus ...was talking about our actually enacting what the ritual is all about over and over, again and again, year after year? What if the "do this" he primarily meant wasn't the ritual he was leading his disciples through at that moment. What if the "do this" was his whole way of life?...the "do this"part is our lives. Opening ourselves up to the mystery of resurrection, open for the liberation of others, allowing our bodies to be broken and our blood poured out, discovering our Eucharist. Listening. And going.