We live in a beautiful world

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Kath

One of my favourite blogs to drop past is the lovely Anna’s. She takes beautiful pictures that always make me stop and stare at this world in a different way. Obviously I wanted her to take some pictures along the theme of ‘The Long Walk Home’. Here’s a couple she came up with, you’ll also find her dotted around the site as time moves on.

She says this about her photos:
“I love photography for lots of different reasons, but have come to realise that what lies at the heart of my photos is one very simple principle.
 
I don’t photograph what I see, but rather what I feel.
 
A picture has to speak to me, move me in some way or another and make me think. In just the same that I use my camera to capture a single moment, I want my photos to capture me, to draw me in, to ask to be pondered upon and delighted in. Images are powerful, and I love that everyone has different favourite photogaphs for different reasons.”

I like her and her photos.

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Psalm 104

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Kath

Who rules the world?
 
Does technology rule the world? Can it give us what we long for? Can it give us security, food, love and more?  Can the internet really provide for my needs? Does the ever increase in innovative treatments provide a feeling of safety when I think about the future? Do I trust in the progress of society to make life better and my world more manageable? Can these very useful tools help me love and be loved by the people around me? What will help me forgive, what can help me move beyond my self centred heart?
 
Do I rule the world? Am I calling the shots? Am I able to make my world better just by being really clever, charming, able, wonderful, ambitious and interesting? Am I useless at ruling my world if I fail to advance, don’t get the next job, fail to raise more money, get sick, or don’t provide for my family adequately? 
 
Who rules the world?
 
Psalm 104 offers a slightly different picture of who might be in charge of the world. Apparently God is. What does this God do then? We have here a complete picture of a God who is working in the world right now, who made this place and who is holding it together, who provides, who sets things up to work in their correct time.  The sun knows when to rise and set because God put it in place.
 
He just has to look at the earth and it trembles. I mean, come on, He just has to look at the earth and it trembles. He touches mountains and they smoke. That’s a big God.
 
I think that’s really the point of the Psalm, a glorious romp through creation, a dance down mountains looking at the various creatures along the way, a delighted look at the work of the Almighty. We do not rule this world, we do not make mountains tremble. God is the Mighty one. We’re called to join the song, to delight in this God, to remember that this is his world, he gets to say what goes here, he gets to tell us how we are to live. 
 
To ponder
Walk around, open your eyes, ponder the world we live in, look at the clouds, the sea, the sky, the leaves, the trees, the animals, each other. Gaze at a scene much bigger than you. Be astonished. Notice the detail. Watch us as we go about our lives. Be amazed at the Maker of it all.

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Psalm 103

Posted on November 9, 2010 by Kath

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.


This is just a small piece of this majestic Psalm. I’m not sure there is much to add to this. My concern is, do we believe the wonder of these verses? Do I in my heart and soul believe that God is really like this? Roll the words around your tongue, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

I wonder how many of us secretly live with the reverse of this God, a God who is uncaring, who is mean, who remembers all our wrong doing, who is quick to anger, quick to be disappointed in us, who treats us as we deserve, who holds onto our sin, who hates his children and expects the world from them. Sometimes I am ashamed to admit that is the mean nasty god I avoid worshipping. I have lost the wonder, the wow, the reality that God is really good.

God is kind, compassionate, he protects the weak, he doesn’t act towards us as we deserve. He really is. Mercy is in his nature, he loves us, he has taken away our sins, he keeps no record of wrong. Why? He knows what we are like, he knows we are dust, people who are creatures. Maybe that’s why we forget how loving our God is, because we’ve lost our identity as creatures, we think we made the world and we know what is best, we are too proud to hold out hands that need to be loved and too fearful that we’ll find in God a reflection of our unloving hearts. We are afraid that God is like us in holding onto sin, in withdrawing affection when hurt.

God is nothing like us. God is faithful in love, is stubborn in his compassion to us, is creative in how far he throws our sin away from us. He delights in declaring that our punishment has been paid, that we have no accuser and that his love has conquered. Stand on a hill, throw back your head and laugh that such a thing could be so delightfully true.

So, what steps do we need to take to throw away our nasty god we have created in our minds? Do we dare to believe that our real amazing God is one who drips with lavish love for us? How would our lives be different today if we really did believe it? I know that I would be confident, free to know I am loved, and therefore free to approach others without worrying about what they think of me, I would be free to worship and adore God without the secret fear that he was annoyed with me. I would smile, dance and know no shame because the one whose opinion really counts knows everything I’ve ever done, thought or said about people and has thrown it away.  He hasn’t made a list, he’s chucked all of it into the far sea and he has open arms of mercy to wrap around me.

There is always hope, there is always hope, there is always hope. Even for that sin you are thinking of, even though you know you’ve blown it again. He will not let you walk away, he will not let you stay in the place of despair. There is always hope because our God is full of compassion, abounding in steadfast unfailing love and keeps on throwing our sins away again and again and again.

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Under a Tuscan Sun

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Kath

I went on my first trip to Italy last week, 2 hours on a plane and I was standing on pretty Tuscan hills looking at a rolling patchwork quilt of hills covered in olive trees and vine yards. We had the joy of staying with the American family of Husbandface, people who describe him as their adoptive son whose parents haven’t quite let go of him yet. Lovely times with lovely people.

I didn’t learn much Italian, I did drink a lot of very good wine, I loved the sights. We also exchanged cultural differences with the lovely Americans. The most shocking, as those of you who know me will appreciate, was the surprise that every house in Britain (husbandface and I mostly put aside our own Irish/English differences to gang up on the Americans :)) has an electric kettle. The shock, the surprise, the amazement that even hotel rooms have their own kettles. I find it hard to imagine such a nation could still claim to be so advanced technologically. Or maybe I should be shocked at the elevated status of tea in our own fair nation. On second thoughts, I won’t, tea should be drunk frequently and often. Maybe I’ll start a campaign along with Jamie Oliver. Stunned at the lack of tea drinking and correct items to make a cup of tea I shall travel American converting them to my ways and saving them from bad cups of tea.

Apart from the cultural learning we had a number of highlights: Cooking lessons from proper Tuscan chefs, olive oil tasting, wine tasting, wine drinking, learning what wine goes best with what food, drinking more wine, getting to meet the honorary Aunts Jeanie and Judi, hanging out in hill towns with Tom and Rachel, introducing them to Cunningham style holidays- look at a pretty building- sit in a coffee shop- repeat until time to go back, being cooked for by a real Italian Mama, Federico and his vineyard, amazing food, sitting reading by the pool, soaking up the grace of the Cantrells, deep chats about everything and anything, the Sat Nav’s pronunciation of Italy- Titaly, more wine and pretty pretty views everywhere we looked.

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Psalm 102

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Kath

Think for a moment about all the things that are really long lasting in your life. Think about the things of permanence, things that do not rust, decay, spoil or fade. Think about how long even the most long lasting of those things is. In a world which cynically designs products so they won’t last, in a world of updates every year, in a world that throws away, consumes and has an increasing thirst for more God steps in like an ancient anachronism.

It’s easy to view God as an old man, a bit behind the times, old now and fading along with everything else in this world. That he would remain unchanging, steadfast, shining and young is almost too much to cope with. I suspect lots of us think of God as really needing to go to the local library and join the pensioners ‘Understanding Computers’ class. I suspect we think he’s a bit beyond our fast paced technological world, after all he was around ages ago. Surely he can’t have kept up?

Even if we think he’s got a grasp on the internet we can’t really think he’s got something relevant to say to our world? He’s a God of a bygone age, like our parents or grandparents calling us back to a time when children played in the street and families sat around a table for the evening meal.

This Psalm blows that concept of God right out of the water. Seriously out of the water, in fact right into a heat blasted desert. (I have a feeling all I’m going to ever write about these Psalms is that God is very different to what we functionally believe about him each day).  The Psalmist laments, he pours out his soul and tries to come to terms with the frailty of his life.  He wastes away, the world around him wastes away. Where is there hope?

There is hope, not in an old God who has also grown tired with the passing of the ages There is hope in a God who sits enthroned forever. A God whose fame endures through all generations. We have no concept of this, ideas endure, legacies endure sometimes, but God endures through all generations. There is hope today in a God who will carry on acting through history, who may not appear to be acting right now but who will act has he has done.

So many of the Psalms involve people crying out in the inbetween times, knowing God can do these things, looking around and seeing no sign of his work but looking to the future and trusting that God will work again, so “that a people not yet created may praise the Lord”. God remains the same, his work will never end. Today he is at work, he has endured and he will endure throughout the generations. This world is perishing, withering, our lives are like grass. We long and ache for permanence, some sense of stability in this world.

The good news is: there is hope. God is still at work today, he is not baffled and confused by this world, he stands as ever Lord over it all, calling people into relationship with him, calling people to stand in awe, bow down, get over themselves and embark on the life of love he has mapped out for his creatures. I suspect that if I remembered this I would walk with more confidence in this world, I would rejoice more because we have not been abandoned. I would praise my God and delight in expectation that a people not yet created might praise his name.

To ponder:

What images come to mind when you think of the word steadfast?
What needs to change in your thinking about what God is like?

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