Psalm 115

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Kath

I’m continuing to realise again and again that the one thing I really crave is recognition in this life. I want recognition for the stuff I do for church, I want someone to validate my writing and tell me I’m great, I want a title, I want people to know that I have done something. I get anxious when this doesn’t happen, I think my life has stopped being meaningful or helpful because no-one has told me that I’ve made a difference, said something useful or specifically pointed out how much they like having me around. I get worrried when I disagree with people, what if they don’t like me? I crave the adoration of those around me way too much. I can tell this because when I don’t get it my insecurities threaten to engulf me in a tide of dark thoughts about how useless I am and how no-one will like me.

The start of this Psalm kicks me in the teeth everytime I read it. One of my friends sent me this at the start of my Relay year 12 years ago, it kicked me in the teeth then and it’s still doing it’s work. “Not to us Lord, not to us, but to you be the glory because of your love and faithfulness”. Ouch, flipping ouch. I would dearly love to be a person like one of my old mentors who used to say how much she didn’t understand the recognition people gave her in the church for being amazing (clearly not her words), she seemed to genuinely be confused and a little shy about the praise lavished on her. I remember attempting to work out what that must feel like. I wanted the praise and the glory and I still do.
This Psalm thankfully points us to the God who is bigger than us and really does deserve the praise and the glory. My approval rating pales into insignificance in comparison with a God who is full of love and faithfulness and who is, well, real. He’s the God of heaven and earth who does what he likes and he’s better than all the stuff of this world we cling to to give us worth, value, significance and meaning. The idols mentioned in vs 2-8 are ones that can’t see, touch, taste, feel, they are rubbish in their delivery of what we expect from them.  Yet we go around thinking these things can provide us with love and can comfort us through the night. My iphone can’t do that, my popularity can’t do that, my pretty life can’t do that. There is someone who can do that though.

We are called to raise our eyes from ourselves and the stuff we scatter around us or crave more than anything. We are called to put hope and trust in the LORD, the one who remembers us, who can do whatever he likes, who has power to work in our lives and who is above all, real. Friends come and go, money comes and goes, popularity and approval come and go, power and comfort come and go, there is Someone else worth living for and worth putting our trust in.  Someone who remembers our names and who is full of love and faithfulness. When I look at him, somehow the craving for adoration and approval diminishes in the face of the weight, joy, delight and wonder of the best love in the world poured all over me, suddenly people’s praise clings to me less and I can stand again free to love.

To ponder: 

Where do you want the praise and glory in this life?
Why is it better to seek Gods? No really, why?

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Signs of growth

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Kath

I think I’m starting to see that some people sitting down together each week reading the Bible and being honest about life together actually produces growth in myself and in others. I’ve spent so long in the past worrying about whether my Christian faith would survive post beinginfulltimepaidministry that it’s kind of only just occurred to me that growth is happening, I am still here and each week as I sit with others and read more of the best book ever and talk to the Maker of the universe things are changing, people are growing in love and knowledge of him and so am I. I loved being reminded of that last night and this afternoon as I hung out with people from our church.

I wrote the following words about 2 months ago after one such time of meeting together. It was before a lot of things happened to increase the mess of this broken life. These words still hold true today. God is at work in this ordinary life, in an ordinary town with other ordinary people, and that’s pretty extraordinary.

It came like a refreshing bucket of water. Real Truth always seems to have that affect on me. It cut deep into my soul and made me want to jump up and down in agreement. It opened up the doorway to hope. We were reading 1 Peter 1, talking about hope in the hard times, talking about God bringing about good in the messy crap of life, talking about dealing with it all. The lovely Jo said, “it’s important to remember that life isn’t about fixing everything, making everything ok, we’re here to walk with God through the mess.” Words that when you read them might not seem like much but were as refreshing as ice cream on a sunny day (which by the way is what I love about words and language but that’s for another day…). It is crazy freeing to know that I don’t have to fix everything.

I can’t tell you how much I want to. I want my life to be smooth and easy, I want it to work out how I’d like it. I want to be able to react well to the things going on around us, I want to protect myself and the ones I love from the mess. I know it’s not a new thought that we can’t fix things in this life but it’s one of the old old ones that I needed to hear loud and clear today. Thank you Jo for saying it. There is so much deeper work going on under the surface of our lives. God is at work in the mess. We aren’t immune to the crap of this world and God isn’t about smoothing it all over to make it like a nice shiny macaroon from the Great British Bake Off (ahem), he’s about a bigger, greater plan and he is at work protecting our faith in the mess rather than from the mess.

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In which I rant, mainly to myself, but feel free to listen in…

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Kath

I want to rant but I’m not sure who to send this complaint to. So the world wide information highway will have to do. I think I’m mainly ranting at myself but if you’ve ever had thoughts like this then I’m ranting at YOU. Got that? Good.

 

 

I’m a little frustrated at the low opinion lots of people seem to have about administration.

I even want to apologise for mentioning that word for fear I will have sent half of you to sleep. I’ve heard it laughed about in so many circles, in the Christian ones I mingle in it’s sometimes shrugged off as ‘I haven’t got the gift of administration…’, I’ve heard that used so many times as an excuse for laziness and disorganisation. As if God never made order out of chaos, yes people, he was administering the universe into being when he made it.

 

I don’t like the way that jobs are generally sliced up between doing admin and then the more glamorous hanging out with actual people and doing real things. Lots of admin jobs are paid less, are seen as the first rung in the ladder up to real success and are seen as the thing to escape from. eg: “Oh you’re still doing an admin job?” I’m frustrated with the view that says there are two kinds of people, admin ones and people people, the view which says I’ll be frustrated if I sit behind a desk 3 days a week because I’ll want to be out doing ‘real’ work with people.

I’m most of all frustrated with myself for buying into this way of thinking. I’m pretty good at organisation, I like ordering things, I could organise the proverbial party in a place that makes beer, but guess what, I’m also good with people, I love walking with others through life, I love seeing if people are ok, I love deep chats and am pretty good at helping others along this journey.  Good administration requires excellent people skills, good people work requires good organisational and administration skills (otherwise you’d never meet up with anyone to actually care for them).  I’m ranting mostly at myself because 3 years in an admin job feels like failure. But why? I feel like I’ve failed to use my people skills, feel like I’m destined to sort out spreadsheets forever and I believe the big fat lie that there is no dignity in this work, that there is no reality in this kind of work.

I’m tired of thinking these things, I want it to be ok to have a job at a desk organising stuff in a helpful manner and I don’t want to be labelled as not good with people as a result or sad because I think I’ve missed my real calling in life.
Oh how often I buy into the stupid lie that a job title defines who I am, makes me worth something and tells everyone about myself.  The value of a life isn’t tied into the job we do, let me repeat that loudly and clearly. The value of my life and yours isn’t reflected in our job title, lack of job or job that we’re frustrated in.

We are human beings beautifully created in the image of our Maker, widely creative, joyously diverse, wonderfully intricate and each moment in life is laden with opportunities to reflect that or not. Our personalities are wider than our job description and we can use our gifts, skills and abilities in the whole of life, if they aren’t being used in a job that doesn’t make them redundant. Someone please tell me this over and over and over again until the glorious freedom of it sinks in.

 

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Psalm 114

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Kath

Psalm 114

Life has been pretty hard around these parts recently, hope has been something to be fought for, clung to and I’ve had to remind myself not to despair or give in. That’s not an easy thing to do when you are just clenching your teeth grimly wish hoping that things will be ok. Thankfully that’s not the kind of hope I’ve been clinging to. Psalm 114 points us in a very simple way to the bigness of the God who defines Hope and whose character we Hope in.

It’s a simple enough story, the Psalmist is remembering back to the story of God rescuing his people from slavery, when they became his sanctuary. His holy place. When his home was with his people. The effect on creation is immediate, the sea parted and the Jordan river divided so God’s people could pass through and see that their God, the God who dwelt with them, really was the God of heavens and earth.

I guess there is a pretty obvious conclusion to draw from all this: God is a God who is real. He has an impact on the world around us. He’s not some mysterious force or a wishful thought. He is a God who has real, full time impact on this world. Why did the the Jordan River part? Because God told it to and because it trembled in the presence of it’s LORD.

God then led his people in the desert and provided for them in their wanderings, he turned rocks into pools of water. We have a God who can do crazy stuff in this world. Who can turn rocks into springs of water. Who can do melting stuff with the hardness of our hearts and lives.

The response to all this? Tremble at the presence of the Lord. Wake up and take notice of the kind of God who made this world. Tremble because he is still this powerful, he is not like us, he has not grown old and withered with time. He is active in this world.

We have hope today in this hurtful and broken world because we have a God who is like this. Who can do stuff with the crap of our lives, who can turn rocks into streams of living water and who can work in our hearts of stone. Keep skipping you mountains, keep leaping you hills. Your Creator is still young and at work in this world.

To Ponder:

How’s your view of God doing? Forgotten He’s real, thinking he’s out of touch with this world? What changes your mind in this Psalm?

Where do you need God to turn the hard rocks into spring pools and streams of living water?

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White Night, Guillemots and more I *heart* Brighton joy.

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Kath

It’s time for another one of those I love Brighton posts. This time it’s because of the world of White Night. A festival of arts and craziness that marks the turning back of the clocks, a celebration at the start of the time of our year when the curtains are drawn at 5 and lights are needed on the cycle to and from work. As someone who is affected by lack of sunlight and who experiences a fair amount of darkness and despair in my soul at times I love the events in Brighton set out to mark the turn into winter, I love the effort to bring some light into these dark days.

Saturday night in Brighton felt a lot like Brighton Festival should feel, lots of people wandering the streets from cafe to garden to iconic Brighton place experiencing installations, encountering people doing strange and unusual things, getting involved, talking and laughing, dancing and drinking. The theme this year was Utopia, again a stab at hope in the mess that makes up our world at the moment. We went to Moksha Caffe and listened to Gavin Ashenden (University Chaplain) ponder whether Utopia really existed, how we could love well in this world and what makes us really human. Awesome deep stuff.

From there we wandered across the Steine gardens, to a tree of hope, surrounded by Pegasus horses made of paper maiche and encircled by rope with bits of cotton hanging off them. On closer inspection we discovered that these bits of cotton had wishes on for the past, present and future, wishes for what Utopia might mean in peoples lives. I found this achingly sad, especially after Gavin’s talk, is this all Utopia is? Wishing in the dark? Where is the One who helps us see us as we really are and offers real hope of love in the dark, life in the dark and one day a home away from the dark?

Our path then led us to the Pavilion, a quick tour of the museum, making plasticine models in a Utopian world, reflections on the worship of technology and it’s role in providing us with Utopia and dancing to uber cool swing music at the hope cafe. We headed home through the North Lanes, encountering some Supermen engaged in a dance whilst on mobility scooters, entertained by the amount of dressing up going on, the diversity of the crowd, lairy teenagers, interesting arty types, boozed up guys, middle class posh families and more. The Open Market gave us a hive of fun and interesting films before we staggered up the hill to bed.

Fascinating stuff and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Next year I think I want to run the crazy midnight Half Marathon, it’s got to be worth it for the time knocked off as the clocks go back.

Last night we added to the Brighton joy by heading to the Old Market in Hove to see the Guillemots. They were supported by Tanya Auclair who was a modern pretty singing lady version of a one man band, looping rhythms on top of each other to create a full band effect and then topping it off with gorgeous vocals. The Guillemots provided their blend of interesting lyrics, thundering anthems interspersed with tender spaces and soaring light. Music that makes me want to dance and sing my head off. (Being all English and reserved I shuffled and mouthed along.) I realised once more that I really only care about looking at the drummer all the way through gigs. I loved the acoustic numbers and I loved beyond all the crazy drumming at the end of Sao Paulo to end the evening.

And that’s my Brighton round up for this week.

Your correspondent, hoping you aren’t bored of I *heart* Brighton ramblings and wondering if Utopia really needs a capital all the way through this post.

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