Autumn

Posted on October 19, 2010 by Kath

I love the changing seasons, I love crisp Autumn days with fresh sparkly blue skies, cold biting and leaves that are golden and pretty. I love seeing the city in a new way, with carpets of leaves, trees revealing what they’ve hidden all summer and the sense that the first frost is in the air. I love the starlings swirling around Brighton Pier at sunset, dancing in the orange glow. I love the rainy Saturday afternoons indoors with a cup of tea and some pretty music on the stereo.  I love big woolly jumpers to curl up on sofas in. I love the smell of woodsmoke and the first few evenings when it’s dark as I come home from work and I can close the curtains and put on the lights. I love the anticipation of Christmas, the lights in the darkness and the reminder that waiting is really important. I love the changing seasons.

I’m reminded, in such times, that most things in this life wither and fade, brown leaves fall on the ground, are crispy and then mulch away when the rain comes. Winter trees stand starkly against the sky.  Our world grows old, our temporary nature comes home to us again in autumn and winter. During spring we find hope in new birth and freshness but in autumn and winter we face death and decay.  It’s fitting that birth comes into winter, that new life is found in the midst of such darkness. It’s fitting that there is hope to be found as we look to the one who goes on and on and on. As we look to the one who lasts in the most enduring way possible. As we seek the one who gives us a faith that is imperishable and an inheritance that will never spoil or pass away.

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Independence

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Kath

At Church in the Pub last night we looked at the subject of independence. Kind of interesting to bat around questions of what being independent is all about.  There was a firm sense that dependence wasn’t such a great thing but I’m not sure whether independence as an end in itself is such a good thing either.  I wonder whether being independent is such a great aim for us all. The natural extremes of such living seem to be those summed up in Simon and Garfunkel’s classic song ‘I am a Rock’. “Hiding in my room, safe within my womb, I touch no-one and no-one touches me” Extreme isolation and self protectionism.

So is there a path between the extremes? Looking at what God has to say about how we relate might just do it. We’re called to be in community, not losing a sense of identity but using our unique selfs to serve other unique selves. As John put it- we’re independant but we express our inependence by giving up our independence. Which is best demonstrated through Jesus not grasping equality with God but coming to serve.

The question we didn’t really touch on was how does it feel to be served?  We seemed to fear the tag of being dependent so much and yet if we are to really engage with others and with our Creator God we have to accept help, we have to hold out hands in need. Our pride howls at such living and yet to live well with our Maker we must stoop down to come in.

Something tells me we’re just scratching the surface with these questions, we didn’t even address the political nature of independence. However, in scratching the surface we see how large these questions are, how fascinating it is to be human and how much bigger than our thoughts and ways our God is. We ask these questions to feel small and to know more of the wonder of living in his multilayered world. Come and join us if you can.

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Experience

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Kath

We held our first Church in the Pub evening on Sunday night. We’ve just kicked off a series of looking at big concepts in our world. We asked lots of questions.  We hopefully left with a whole load more questions and a sense of wonder as we grappled with things on the edge of our understanding. We’re looking, each week, to chat about big ideas that affect us all as humans and also see what our Creators perspective on the issue is.

This week we looked at experience: What is experience? What do we make of ourselves as humans if we don’t have amazing experiences? Are we just living for the weekend? How do we feel about telling others about our weekend? Who says whether it’s been full of good experiences or not? Who gets to define what those experiences are? Have experiences become more of a commodity than a thing of value in our lives? Are we defined by the number of experiences we’ve had? Can we live knowing that we’ve not experienced much and can we live with people not knowing about the amazing experiences we’ve had? Are we trying to live life through experiences?

I like questions. I loved chatting about those things. We also showed a clip from the excellent film “Into the Wild”. Chris sets out in search of the ultimate experience, living off the land with no-one else around for miles. Through his search he chats to a few people, tries to convert them to his philosophy that experience counts more than human relationship. This is his encounter with Ron, a man he meets along the way:

Ron Franz: I’m going to miss you when you go.
 Christopher McCandless: I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God’s place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.
 Ron Franz: Yeah. I am going to take stock of that. You know I am. I want to tell you something. From bits and pieces of what you have told me about your family, your mother and your dad… And I know you have problems with the church too… But there is some kind of bigger thing that we can all appreciate and it sounds to me you don’t mind calling it God. But when you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines through you.
 Christopher McCandless: Holy shit!

Sadly Chris works out that human relationships are vital to life and experience a little too late.

But it got me thinking. Most of my desire for experiences (and I think we’re talking the big ones, the life changing ones, the put it in a box and call it an experience ones, rather than the everyday experiences of drinking a cup of tea) is so I can prove that I’ve lived a good life, that I’ve enjoyed it to the full, that I am a person of significance because I’ve had certain experiences.

But do you see the problem? It’s a big fat problem.

That way of thinking is all about me. There isn’t space for thinking how can I  love others, how can I put on hold my amazing plans for the weekend and sit with a friend who needs some company? There isn’t much space in that way of thinking for the life of love we are called to. There also isn’t much peace in that way of thinking as I’m constantly striving to prove my life to others.

At the end of the evening we looked at Psalm 139, we looked at the God who declares that he made us, that we are formed by him and that he is the one who ordains our days. Clearly there is a whole new set of questions there but there is also peace. I do not have to list the experiences of each day on facebook to give my life value. I am free to sit and know that I have been made by someone, I am loved by someone and I am called to live a life so much bigger in loving the people around me.

This Sunday we’re looking at independence. I have no idea where that discussion will go but I think it’ll be fun finding out. Come along, explore the concept and enjoy the slant of God’s perspective on the whole thing.

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Psalm 101

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Kath

You don’t have to go very far in the Psalms to find ones like this. Here there are claims of purity and blamelessness. Here there is a stand against the wicked. Here there is declaration of integrity and a separation from evil.

This type of Psalm has a habit of making me squirm, on my worse days I wish they were confined to Room 101. I find them uncomfortable. Gone are the declarations that God is with us, a present help in times of trouble. Gone is the urging not to fear or worry. Here there is a standard that when measured against I find myself wanting to duck out of the way. Tell me I’m not the only one.

Looking closer brings different things. As we delve into the Psalm there is more going on. David is the King and his character matters. He is there to live out God’s ways on earth. It turns out that God has standards. The way we live our lives matters. How we walk matters. David walks this earth with integrity.

What does a life of integrity look like according to this Psalm? David shows us. He sets no vile thing before his eyes. He hates faithless deeds. The slanderers are sought out and punished, the proud are not endured, deceit and falsehood are sent away. The wicked are silenced.

Looking at the Big Picture I can see why David is singing praises to God at the beginning, there is a standard. It is deeply good that there is a king who stands up for truth and justice. It is deeply good that the proud are laid low and that evil does not conquer. We can all agree to that.

The knife really sticks in when the lens zooms closer and I realise that I too am called to walk this way. I am called to walk with integrity in this land. There is a good and a bad way to live.

It all seems far too black and white for my liking. Not nearly blurred enough. After all Jesus welcomes all, after all God carries us in his arms, after all isn’t it judgemental to think these thoughts? It is wonderfully true that Jesus welcomes all but he welcomes those who recognise their need of him and hold up arms for help. The wicked in this Psalm aren’t even close to that state, they are proud, haughty and are not to be endured.

This Psalm points to the reality that character matters in our relationships with each other. In our interactions with others in this world. There are such things as right and wrong and we don’t get to define those things. This Psalm’s sting is that too often I have bought into all things being relative, I have loved a lack of absolutes. This Psalm shakes me a little from my complacency and shouts that there is a right way to treat my neighbour. There is a call to walk with integrity and faithfulness through this land.

If I think about it for a while I am glad. If I think about it for a bit longer I am delightfully relieved that God cares about right and wrong, that there are absolutes in this world. I am glad I am not the one to decide these things.

To ponder:
Where do you find this Psalm uncomfortable?
In what ways do we make up the rules in our lives? What’s dangerous about that?
What would the world look like if there was no-one to walk with integrity through the land.

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Psalm 100

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Kath

I do not want to do this. I do not want to write this. Today is a day where it has taken me 3 hours to muster up the mental energy to get out of bed. Today is a black cloud day, a black dog day. A day where every thought is a treacherous one and my feet are on sinking sand. The walk home seems a distant memory when all I want to do is hide from the world and these twisted lies. These dark days are real in my life and probably, if not in yours, then in the life of someone you love. Thinking about it, it must be harder to watch someone you love in these times. It must be hard to see all the love you have get absorbed into a black cloud and seemingly nothing breaking through.

So why am I here at this computer screen?

I am convinced, on my better days, that there is something in these Psalms. That these songs are here for us on the journey home.  But I have no idea what to do with this Psalm. This exuberant praise Psalm. This Psalm full of conviction and wonder, full of overflowing thanks, praise and that hardest of things to summon up from the depths of my mind. Joy.

There is truth here I am sure. We start with a call to joy, a call to praise, a call to thanksgiving. Why? What possible reason can there be for joy on days that get even darker than this one?

The Psalmist calls us to know that the Lord is God. We have a God, there is someone who is in this world, who made us.  This God doesn’t seem to be a far off distant dictator. He’s a God who knows his people. We are his and we belong to him.  We are his.  In the Toy Story films the stupid scenes that always makes me cry a bit are the ones when Woody cries out to the rest of the toys to come back to their senses and remember who they belong to – they belong to Andy. His name is written at the bottom of their shoes. His name is engraved on them. They belong to him.  We belong to someone and in the midst of this dark world which sometimes leaves me paralysed in fear and worry that is a really good thing to know. There is a God and we belong to him.

The image we are given to help us get our heads around this is of sheep and pasture, an image of care and concern. We are given a shepherd who knows his sheep cares for them and protects them. Sheep are pretty stupid and yet the shepherd knows where they are and provides for them.  We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. We belong to God and he will look after us.

We’re also told that this God is good, that his love endures and his faithfulness continues. This is a God who doesn’t give up on us. His love is enduring, beyond any human love or loyalty, his faithfulness is the stuff that continues through all generations. My faithfulness and love are so small and tiny, like a puddle they run out and dry up. His love is like a torrential waterfall, an overflowing rushing river, a pounding ocean. He is faithful. He is good. His love does not run out, grow weary, fade away, disappear or die. His love endures.

Today, like everyday, that is my only hope. Him. My shepherd who knows these dark moods, my shepherd whose name is printed on me, my shepherd who will not give up on me.

I stand out in the rain, in the cold, in the windswept dark plain and lift up my hands. I need him. I am thankful. I am loved.

Even if I can’t believe these things today I will know that this Psalmist did and others do and I will share their belief. I will not worry whether I have the strength to muster up belief today. I am in bigger hands that love me whatever. I am in the hands of enduring patient love.

To ponder:

What hope is found in the character of our God?
Who can you comfort by letting them know that you are believing these things for them today?

Reflect:

“I was lost but Jesus found me,
Found the sheep that went astray.
Threw his loving arms around me
Drew me back into his way.
Days of darkness still come o’er me
Sorrows path I oft may tread
But the Saviour still is with me
By his hand I’m safely led.”
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