Crown of Love

“What is it that makes a person great, admired by creation, well pleasing in the eyes of God? What is it that makes a person strong, stronger than the whole world; what is it that makes him weak, weaker than a child? What is it that make a person unwavering, more unwavering than a rock; what is it that makes him soft, softer than wax?- It is love! What is it that is older than everything? It is love. What is it that outlives everything? It is love. What is it that cannot be taken but itself takes all? It is love. What is it that cannot be given but itself gives all? It is love. What is it that perseveres when everything falls away? It is love. What is it that comforts when all comfort fails? It is love. What it is that endures when everything is changed? It is love. What is it that remains when the imperfect is abolished? It is love. What is it that witnesses when prophecy is silent? It is love. What is it that does not cease when the vision ends? It is love. What is it that sheds light when the dark saying ends? It is love. What is it that gives blessing to the abundance of the gift? It is love. What is it that gives pith to the angels words? It is love. What is it that makes the widow’s gift an abundance? It is love. What is it that turns the words of the simple person into wisdom? It is love. What is it that is never changed even though everything is changed? It is love; and that alone is love, that which never becomes something else.”

Kierkegaard, S. (1843/1990). Love will hide a multitude of sins.
Eighteen upbuilding discourses: Kierkegaard’s writings, V (H. V. Hong,
E. H. Hong Trans.). (pp. 55-68). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

To Build a Home

As I sit in my office (or glorified spare room) studying the theory of the atonement and how best we are to understand Christ's sacrifice on the cross for the satisfaction of sin, I am struck by a stark revelation: a deeper understanding will not necessarily bring about about a deeper devotion. That is not to say that a deeper understanding is worthless, but rather truth without faith is not very much at all.

I read a great example of this in Kiekegaard's journals: understanding without devotion is like renting a house and filling it with possessions and furniture but being left standing there without a beloved to share life with. Christianity is not something to be believed but something to be lived. Ultimately a quest for more and more knowledge will be an unsatisfied one; according to the Kierkegaardian there is a limit to reason, and a limit to understanding. Unless we are prepared to make the leap into living we are left with an empty house built with solid understandable bricks but no-one to share it with.

This resonates with me. When I read through the life of Jesus and his teachings, although to some extent his project is one of truth and understanding, his teachings are ultimately of a practical nature, his aim is to urge people to live more fully not to know more. He doesn't give us a nice tidy doctrine in which to do this with. He asks confusing questions, he spits in people's eyes, he flips orthodoxy on its head. Any attempt to tie Jesus' teachings into a neatly understood system seem entirely to miss the point- he is urging you to live in fullness of God.

According to Kierkgeaard our sense of human reason is tainted by the condition of sin. Our distance from God makes Christianity seem repulsive at times. It is only in living in faith that we can fully embrace Christianity. Yet the temptation I have is to desire everything to be neat, for my knowledge to be complete, for my theology to be orthodox and my understanding of God to be much richer than anyone else's. If Kierkgeeard is right however, then I am deeply lacking if I do not live it. If the doctrine of the atonement is no more to me than just another philosophical argument, if it makes no difference to how I speak to my wife, how I spend my money and what I do tomorrow, then it is futile.

"What good would it do me to be able to explain the meaning of Christianity if it had no deeper significance for me and for my life;- what good would it be to me if the truth stood before me, cold and naked, not caring whether I recognised her or not, and producing in me a shudder of fear rather than a trusting devotion?" S. Kierkegaard's Journals, August 1 1835

That isn't to say we ought to abandon reason altogether- Kierkgegaard doesn't endorse irrationalism as some have supposed, but he merely recognises the limits of reason. What if Truth were not something that could be discovered by looking at more evidence, what if Truth were not something we could prove, what if Truth were a person? If this is the case, it seems that Kierkegaard is right, what we need is not a reasonable understanding but a complete devotion.

I Have Nothing

"God in Heaven, let me really feel my nothingness, not in order to despair over it, but in order to feel the more powerfully the greatness of Thy goodness" S. Kierkegaard.

Increasingly this is becoming one of my most common prayers. When I think for more than a few minutes about the greatness and goodness of the God that I allegedly worship, my response is more often than not found in silence and wonder.

I don't want to in any way discount the wonderful richness that can be found in words of songs and rousing music or the power of a passionate sermon, or the beautiful words of a prayer. I have found them all incredibly important to my faith and to my worship of God.  But of late, I struggle to worship any further than in stillness, aware of my own nothingness and God's supremacy. It is difficult to know what to say at times. 

I sometimes wonder if we have moulded Christianity into something which fits around our own desire to find purpose in life, our desire to be fulfilled and accepted by God, to have a 'personal saviour'. We rarely embrace the concept of nothingness into our Churches or society . Perhaps the antidote to the self obsessed culture we find ourself in is not to sell Jesus as just another product which can satisfy, a bigger better version of Starbucks or Apple, but rather as the complete antitheses of consumerism. 

It is in nothingness that we discover the richness and the profundity of God. Perhaps if we dared to shut up more often, to be silent instead of speaking, to be aware of our own nothingness in the Universe that we might truly learn something of what it means to worship, and maybe something of what it means to live. 

"Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing." Philippians 2:5-7

Honeymoon Blues

If I'm truly honest I'm scared of death. It's not that I lack faith or confidence in what I believe but rather that anything beyond my earthly existence just seems unpalatable to me. I can't comprehend the concept of living eternally, of living without suffering, the very idea of ultimate perfection seems strange to me.

I have just returned from two weeks of honeymoon. Our wedding was as perfect a day as you could wish for, followed by two weeks in the blissful weather of Southern Portugal with it's beautiful fresh fish and empty beaches. Then coming back to our new home together, unwrapping what seemed like endless gifts and cards. The feeling of euphoria is a little bit relentless at the moment. 

Just as we were about to go out for a lovely Portuguese meal one evening, my wife was sick. So instead of enjoying beautiful fried octopus and clams I settled for a cheese omelette, a beer and the sky remote. I ended up watching a BBC documentary about undertakers (what a cheery honeymoon we had...). The show followed the deaths of different people from different cultures: a Muslim man, a Mormon man, a woman with terminal cancer who attended her own funeral party and a man who died alone with sixteen cats and nobody at his funeral. It was fascinating to see how different faiths interact with death, how grieving and the pulling together of community seems to transcend differences in belief or theology. Everyone cries, everyone feels the emptiness of death, everyone feels the shortness of life, everyone rallies round the relatives of the deceased. I ended the night with a tear rolling down my face. I realised how scared I was of dying, I held Ellie's hand and for the first time realised that one day we would die.

It is true that my faith in Jesus Christ gives me ultimate hope of something beyond, but this is by no means an easy way out. It is often portrayed that faith is merely a denial of the finality of death, an emotional crutch for the weak- I don't find it to be so. Just the concept of something beyond I find puzzling at best, petrifying at worst. This life we live is simple, it makes sense, it is enjoyable. The idea of something else, something unknown is difficult to imagine or comprehend.  Perhaps my fear of death shows a little of my lack of faith, or lack of confidence in teachings of Christianity. Or maybe this fear is something that everyone feels deep down sometimes.

Life is precious, time ticks without us noticing, death is inevitable. My wedding and honeymoon gave me a feeling of invincibility, death seemed like a distant thing to me. The truth of the matter is that it is never far away, it will always come too soon. Life is both precarious and beautiful- if we cannot recognise this how can we ever live fully? How can we cherish every moment if we fail to recognise how precious each one is. Realising this gave me a new appreciation of the little things, it put my life on slow motion so that I might see the beauty of a taste, the intricacy of a blade of grass, the feeling of joy in my heart. How can we not live our lives with death in our minds? 

Ultimately all I have is trust. I do not believe in God because I want to live after I die, but rather I believe because I think that it is true- Jesus Christ shapes how I live, how I act, how I behave, he changes the lives of countless people around me. I have faith in his teaching, I have faith in his death and I have faith in his resurrection. But ultimately when it comes to my own resurrection, all I have is trust. It is like walking off the edge of a cliff in the dark- it scares me stiff. But ultimately I can hear a familiar and trustworthy voice on the other end: "I will catch you". 

I am scared, but I know that I can trust. 

Free Radical

"You think you're radical. But you're not so radical. In fact, you're fanatical, fanatical" 

As you might have gathered from my lack of creative output, the last few months have taken their toll on me. Al my energy seems to be sucked into planning a wedding, sorting out council tax bills, finding a house to rent, buying flat pack furniture, making a new house for my wife and I to settle down into, along with working as much as possible in order to keep up with my own spending. 

Rarely is there time to stop and contemplate anything significant, let alone have time to write about it. But today as I take a much needed day of doing nothing I am struck by how strong my desire is to this 'stuff' I am accumulating. I love to make a home, to have a well stacked spice drawer, to have a nice looking living room, to get that superficial fuzzy feeling you get when you look at how nice all your books look on that bookshelf. I have recently discovered the euphoria of the John Lewis Wedding List. What happens is that you upload stuff that you really want but could never afford to buy, and people buy it for you. People are so generous and it feels so good. As I build up metaphorical and literal walls around my life I am aware at how consuming it is. 

However, my greatest fear is to get to thirty and be normal. I am terrified of  having a nice house with nice stuff, fairly pleasant children, and an ageing but still beautiful wife, to make little impact, to justify my lack of radicalism on everything else, to be living in the comfortable prison I have built around myself, filled with responsibility and no way out. Maybe it's just a part of growing up. Maybe I need to become a man and face up to my choices. But it scares me. 

I am perpetually plagued by my own desire to be more radical than I am. I know that Ellie would sell everything and move to the other side of the world in an instant if I asked her so I can't even blame her. She is far less attached than I am to this world we are building. She often mocks me for being like this, but the truth that we both know is that I crave the comfort and stability that normality brings, I lack the courage to cut loose and run to the other side of the world. I am haunted by the words of Jesus every time I open my Bible and my own failure to match up: 

 "When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” "

The Son of Man has no place to lay his head. I have Hungarian goose feather pillows from John Lewis. Foxes have dens, birds have nests. I have a leather chair and a bookcase full of books about following Jesus. I sometimes wonder how comfortable 'normality' really is. Maybe one day in a few years I will make the leap into living like this. Western Christians are convinced they can live with all of the nice stuff, nice houses, comfortable living and still be radical in faith. Perhaps others can manage it, I certainly cannot, or at least I haven't worked out how it is done. It is much easier to play down the radicalism of faith, to water it down into palatable chunks.

 Often I wonder how much of a slave to my own life I am. Sartre was convinced that organised religion was a quashing of man's freedom, a restriction and denial of his true self. Perhaps so. However, Jesus only ever seems to whisper to me- "You are freer than this Josh, there is more for you than this Josh. Let go, and trust me instead". The truth is that following Jesus costs everything: my goose feather pillows, my £200 coffee machine, my beautiful Korg, my ambition, my comfort, my stability, my engraved hip flasks and my ego. However, it offers in return a truly free way of living. It is only in abandoning myself totally to something else that I truly know freedom.

The longer I leave it, the harder it seems to be truly radical.

The Seldom Seen Kid

This weekend I spent two hours in the pouring rain watching Elbow play to 10,000 people next to a very large telescope. The lead singer, Guy Garvey, is a bit of an icon of mine. I don't know whether it is his northern charm and wit, his ability to write stunningly beautiful lyrics or his ability to make a whole field of people laugh despite the torrential downpour, but there is something instantly attractive about Guy Garvey. He somehow manages to make bird watching cool (again?), to design a real ale for his band and to bring a grown man to tears as well as being possibly the coolest man alive.

The thing is, when Guy Garvey recommends music, I can't help but listen to it. I like to model myself on him. There is an archetypal 'Elbow fan' that enjoys good beer, gigs and anything northern. And that's what I aim for. Guy Garvey is hardly short of disciples.

As I read about the need to re-embody Christ as a Church (in Alan Hirsch's Re-Jesus), I am struck that the concept of discipleship is hardly alien to our culture. It is hardly alien to myself. I have an Elbow hip flask, I even proposed to my fiance with an Elbow song playing in the background. We see disciples everywhere. Bieberians, Beyonceians, Cockaynians, our culture is littered with followers. And what they do is simple- they attempt to embody the thing that they follow. They dress like them, speak like them, act like them, model their style on them.

Following Guy Garvey is simple- you listen to the music he recommends, you drink beer, you act northern, you tune into his radio show every Sunday night. Yet we make following Jesus this really weird thing. It couldn't be simpler.

Hirsch & Frost say put it like this:

"Faith...is more like the supreme gamble in which we stake our lives upon a conviction. It can't be reduced to belief in a set of propositions. It is a profoundly existential act in which we are fully and personally involved"

Christianity is in essence lived out. It is the thing that impacts your every day, your decisions at a micro level. It cannot merely be a belief in an abstract system which gifts you a magic ticket to paradise. If we fail to grasp this we will struggle to ever understand the concept of discipleship. What you do matters- and our call as followers of Jesus is to do what he would do; to embody Christ in our culture and situations. The sad truth is, that we seldom see all out true disciples of Christ amongst us.

You can study all the complex theology you like, you can be expert on Scripture, you can remodel and replant the Church a million times, you can write excellent worship music (well probably not), you can speak the most eloquent prayers imaginable but unless you embody Christ in your daily actions it is pointless.
 

Jesus calls us to 'make disciples'- in other words 'people who follow'. As I write this, I think of how lacking I am in areas of my life. How little discipline I have, how little I seek to bless the poor and needy, how little I attempt to embody Christ in my every day existence. Just opening up the beginning of Matthew and reading the sermon on the mount inspires me to live so much better than I do. It strikes me that if we are to 'make people who follow', a good place to start is with ourselves.

The need to re-discover Jesus and the values he stands for couldn't be greater. The need to become embodiers of Jesus couldn't be greater. We aren't lacking clever ideas and complex institutions- we are lacking this one single thought: Jesus Christ has the power to radically change everything in his path, if only we are prepared to allow him.

My Wife's Home Town

I watched a Louis Theroux documentary about dementia earlier this week which had me on the brink of tears. It takes something pretty emotional to make me cry. There was a couple that he visited who were in their late eighties, they had been married for over sixty years. The wife, Nancy, had very severe Alzheimer's. Although she was perfectly articulate, loving and affectionate she had almost totally lost a grasp on her identity and her relationships. Her husband, John, cared for her regardless. In his own words: "we said we were going to be with each other until death do us part, and it hasn't parted us yet".

I'm getting married this summer. People are surprised when they first hear this. It's unusual for a guy in his very early twenties to be settling down so soon. People are even more surprised when they hear that we haven't 'tested' it first. We don't live together, don't have sex, don't know that it's definitely going to 'work'. It's almost foolishness in our culture to enter into marriage so recklessly. But I, like the eighty nine year old guy in the Louis Theroux documentary fully intend to take seriously my promises, take seriously the promises to commit to one person regardless. Regardless of how they change, who they become or how enjoyable it is.

Our society has made marriage something totally alien to this. We crave stories of love at first sight, soul mates and perfectly fulfilling marriages. I'd love to tell you that Ellie is perfect, that she is the most attractive, intelligent, gifted person on planet earth. Today everyone is looking for the perfect combination of soulmate/ babe. And I can tell you emphatically, that she hasn't got it. My fiance is not the perfect woman, she is not flawless, she isn't even close. But that's not why I'm marrying her. 

There are so many unrealistic expectations on modern relationships; and ultimately no one can fulfill you, no-one can complete you. The films, the media, our friends, all present a idealistic, romanticized picture of marriage. Find Mr Right, settle down, job done. This view of marriage has made it wholly self-centered; it is so much about how I am completed by this person, how I feel, how my life is improved. It is no wonder that marriage is becoming a flailing concept in the consumerist west. With such high expectations, no wonder so many marriages fail. 

There is a moment in Theroux's documentary when Nancy looks at her husband in the eye and says: "I owe you so much." She's so right, this man has relentlessly cared for her, given to her, sacrificed his whole life for her. And he turns to her and replies "No Nancy, we owe each other so much." It is a beautiful picture of marriage: two individuals totally sacrificed to one another. He is not merely caring for his wife, they are totally submitted to one another; he could do no other. 

Marriage is not about gaining. It is about giving; wholeheartedly giving to another human being. Sacrificing ambition, hopes and goals and rediscovering life as a joined entity; a family. And ultimately marriage is about transformation, a life lived looking outwards rather than inwards. Tim Keller puts it like this:

"The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the gospel...We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. "

I believe that marriage is a sacred and beautiful thing that I am ridiculously excited for. There will be times of unbearable pain, I'm sure, but I hope that our relationship is a picture of true commitment and sacrifice to one another. And for that, I cannot wait. 

I Can't Turn You Loose

I don't know how you perceive Christianity. You might be vehemently opposed to the very thought of it, you might think of it as a useful worldview to learn from and apply to your life. You might accept its claims wholeheartedly or you might be sceptical of the very concept of  God at all. Whatever you say about it, it seems to be something which the world cannot be rid of easily. Despite widespread secularization in the West, I've only ever belonged to Churches that have been growing in number, seeing people changed and challenged by the concept of faith. There is a common opinion presented by the media and by Dawkins and co. that Christianity is a dying superstition that is based on incoherent premises. It doesn't seem to have much effect. Christianity is pretty stubborn. It is pretty ingrained.

On a worldwide scale, Christianity is definitely thriving in Asia and Africa. Seoul, the capital of South Korea reportedly contains 11 of the world's 12 biggest Christian Churches. Despite widespread persecution and scientific 'enlightenment', faith does not just lie down and give up. 

On a personal level, Christianity is something which refuses to die in my life. Despite three years of  studying Philosophy and intense periods of doubt and scepticism, there is something resilient about the Christian belief that no amount of scrutiny seems to be able to destroy. Call it indoctrination if you like, wishful thinking, naivety, stubbornness, but it would take something remarkable to debunk the foundation of faith from my life.

The reason for this, I reckon, is to do with the very nature of faith. Faith is not belief in a set of propositions, but rather a commitment, a 'leap' beyond that. Faith must be lived. The difference between my faith and the countless theories, concepts and ideas I have studied is that faith leaves the classroom, it leaves the books- it can only be realized lived. In his Easter sermon this year, Rowan Williams said the following: 

"We learn and assimilate its truth [the resurrection] by the risk of living it; to those on the edge of it, looking respectfully and wistfully at what it might offer, we can only say, 'you'll learn nothing more by looking; at some point you have to decide whether you want to try to live with it and in it."

Clear and rational arguments will never get you to the point of belief, they will never coerce you into anything. The reason for this is that faith is something lived, not something thought. It is an action. The resurrection of Christ and the New Testament leaves you with binary options- you're either in, or you're out. You're either following the Christ, or you're not.

You might find it fascinating, you might find the teaching of Jesus useful and applicable. You might rank the Bible up there with other great works of moral and religious teaching. But I sincerely believe that it requires more than this. The very essence of faith is that it requires a leap.

This leap is a constant striving; a constant and life long tension- it is the risk of living it. It is the risk of going beyond mere thinking. From the outside it probably appears foolish and irrational, but this doesn't surprise me at all. I don't think Christianity is going anywhere, precisely because I think that when lived, it holds the keys to true life. I can testify to this personally and in lives of many of those closest to me. But it must be lived, belief is not enough.

Sun it Rises

"Meaningless! Meaningless!... Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

Sometimes good people die. Sometimes evil people prosper. Work is hard, painful things happen. People sometimes get what they deserve. Sometimes they don't. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life goes on.

There is nothing quite like a good meal, or a couple of pints. There is nothing quite like being in love. There is nothing like working hard for something and then achieving it. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life goes on. People are forgotten, memories are lost. Everything is meaningless.

Sometimes we take ten steps forward. Sometimes we get knocked twenty back. Some people die lonely, some people surround themselves with riches and are still not fulfilled. Some people are born in poverty and live in poverty and die in poverty. Some people are forgotten. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life goes on. Everything is meaningless.

There will be always be more knowledge, it will always be unattainable. You can study your whole life and still be discontent. Wisdom is valuable, but difficult. No one truly knows the future. No one knows how many children you will have, how happy you will be.  No one knows how many years you have left. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life goes on. Everything is meaningless.

There will always be poverty. There will always be hypocrisy in religion. There will always be ignorance. There will always be selfishness and greed. There will always be those who strive for something beyond themselves. All came from stuff. All are heading back that way. There is nothing new under the sun. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life goes on. Everything is meaningless.

Life is good when you're young. I read lots of books. Listen to music. I have hardly any responsibilities or ties. I am in love. I drink good beer, I eat good food. Bad days will inevitably happen. Difficult times no doubt lie ahead. I will seek after God with all of my life. I will pray to him, worship him, live a live focused on him. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life goes on. Everything is meaningless.

So what next? What can we do in face of such meaninglessness?

"here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." 

The sun rises, the sun sets. Life goes on. Everything is meaningless. It is in these words that I find truth, and then hope. 

Nobodys Fault But Mine

I was speaking on Sunday at G2 about Jesus' command of 'do not worry- seek first the kingdom of God'. I reckon I'm a much better writer than nautural public speaker- and so my speaking largely comes out of something I've written carefully and deliberately. I rarely go off piste when I'm speaking on a topic. But as I prepared in the hour before the meeting, I felt really strongly that I should fit something in that I hadn't planned to say at all. So midway through speaking, I casually slipped in:

"You do not have to be anything , you do not have to do anything- do you know that?"

You could have easily missed it. And in fact, most people probably didn't think about the significance of that question. But I could talk for hours about that alone. Tonight, as I lay in the bath reading (it is the place of most creative and spiritual revelations) I was struck again by the potency of this. The book I was reading about leadership, claims that our development, our leadership, is down primarily to what we put into it. Self leadership is one of the biggest skills a leader needs to learn. But we have the tendancy to blame everyone else for our lack of success or movement in life; circumstances, lack of input, negativity, opposition, people. But at the end of the day, the responsibility for what you get from today lies solely with yourself. 

I am reminded of a very famous scene that Sartre paints in 'Being and Nothingness' of a waiter who plays the part of a waiter perfectly. He is a little too eager, his smile perfect, he moves around the restaurant effortlessly; he has become in his own mind: 'a waiter'. Sartre accuses the waiter of living in 'bad faith'; he denies his own freedom and his own existence by reducing himself only to a 'waiter' as if it were an object; as if he were only a waiter as a rock is a rock. The truth of his existence and his consciousness cannot be reduced to this at all. The human condition lies much deeper than that of rocks and chairs. The waiter denies his fundemental freedom to exist, to be conscious.

And it's true in my own life as I stop and look back. For the past 2 months, I have become a little bitter and fustrated with certain things, I have become a little lacking in passion. And I have blamed the lack of a holiday or any time off, I have blamed a lack of time, a lack of input, too many hours at work, too much to do. I'm sure all of these factors have contributed to my situation. But the truth of the matter is that I have been living in bad faith; denying my own responsibility in my life. I have reduced my self and become an object influenced by causes and effects. It is to deny a fundemental truth about myself. It is time to face myself as responsible for the content and state of my own life.

How about you?

Do you know that we choose what we have? Always. We choose the life that we adhere to? Always. I can often be so fustrated even by my personal morality restricting what I can and can't do. But the truth of the matter is; I am free, I choose. I choose my actions, I choose to adhere to a system of ethics. I choose to get up and go to work instead of lying in and lying about it. I choose to approach my relationships the way I do, as fustrating as it can be. I choose to hardly ever have a day off. I choose be lazy, I choose my state of being. I choose my bitterness and lack of passion.

You don't have to go to work tomorrow, you don't have to stay in your marriage, you don't have to diet, you don't have to go running, you don't have to finish your degree or hand in that essay on Friday. You don't have to adhere to a system of morality. If you wanted to, you could sell all your stuff and move to Kenya tomorrow. You choose. Always.

That is not to say that those things go without consequence or influence, but ultimately you choose. And it is not to say that sometimes choices are restriced, and sometimes difficult. But the more you recognise that you always have a choice, the more you realise that only you are responsible for where you are, what you do, and what you make of life.

Tomorrow, you'll probably choose to get out of bed; what will you make of it?

Breathe

When did I let my life become so mundane? I feel at the moment like I wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed, repeat. And somewhere along the line, I've forgotten that I'm actually living. I've allowed myself to stop thinking, to stop reflecting , to stop really breathing.

I realised tonight something so precious that I can't believe I ever forgot it. I'm alive. I'm breathing in the air around me. I exist. When you actually slow down enough to realise that, when you manage to tear yourself away from the mundane life long enough to know that- it is absolutely breathtaking. I can be anything, I can go anywhere, I am free, I exist.

Don't let me ever forget that.

It carries some of the essence of what Jesus said when he says: 

"do not worry about your life" "do not worry about tomorrow" "seek first the kingdom of God".

I find those words so fresh and releasing. So simple when I make things so complicated. At times I get so caught up in my life that I forget I'm actually living, sometimes I get so caught up in the future- where I will be, how I will get by, that I forget who I really am. And Jesus is frank about it- do not worry.  Live. Exist. 

It is so easy to get through weeks, months, years without really living. It isn't about traveling the world or becoming successful- it isn't about eating the most exquisite food or reading more books. It is about taking in every last drop of life- savoring every moment for what it is; realising that life is too short to live for anything other than the present. 

Ultimately life is fickle. Tomorrow is always too far away. It's not long enough until I'm married, until I have enough money, until we have a decent government. The truth is that there will always be another excuse to not really live; there will always be something not right. But ultimately the future is only a distraction from how amazing the present is, on how exhilarating life could be if we dared to really live.

This might be my last blog. This might be my last breath. If it is, at least I will go appreciating life for what it is, knowing that I am alive now and that is truly the most remarkable thing.

Familiar Ground

The man Jesus Christ who existed more than two thousand years ago has had a significant impact both on the culture of his time, and on every subsequent generation since. He has been called a lot of things- a great teacher, a prophet, a heretic, a revolutionary, a messiah. Who do you say he is?

The Jews had waited for centuries for their saviour, their king, to rescue them, to rule them. They expected a hero to come along; save the day, overthrow the Romans and sort everything out. 

 He was hailed as a king as a baby by some travelling star gazers.As he entered into Jerusalem on the last week of his life, people put their cloaks on the road, they cheered, and they hailed him as the one who had come to rescue them. 

But Jesus was never the king they expected.  He wasn't wealthy- he lived in poverty, he didn't ride into battle- he rode a donkey, he didn't overthrow the Roman Empire- he was murdered by them.  He upset the religious leaders; he spoke against the status quo.

And if the same Jesus was around today, the truth is that he probably wouldn't fit in that well with most Christians. I doubt you'd see him at Soul Survivor or Kewsick Convention (that doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with either of these) 

The Church has been stooped in tradition for centuries. Even now, we make Jesus into something we want him to be. He fits in our little box. But Jesus is not what you expect. We make it all about our salvation, we make it about feeding our own conscience. The thing is- we rarely dare to approach Jesus without any pretense. 

He’s not what you expect if you’ve heard a little bit about him. He's not what you expect if you've been trying to follow him for years. He's not what you expect if you've studied theology. The man Jesus has the ability to surprise me, sometimes shock me, confuse me and destroy my way of thinking. The more I read of his life and teachings, the more he fascinates me, the more he challenges me.

  

The theologian Tom Wright puts it like this:

"Jesus- the Jesus we might discover if we really looked- is larger, more disturbing, more urgent than we - had ever imagined...We have reduced the kingdom of God to private piety, the victory of the cross to comfort for the conscience, and Easter itself to a happy, escapist ending after a sad, dark tale. Piety, conscience and ultimate happiness are important, but not nearly as important as Jesus himself”

Who is the real Jesus? What did he stand for? How can I be a person who lives to find out the answers to these questions? 

Love Underlined

"It is LOVE that believes in the Resurrection." Wittgenstein

I am struck as I write this how over complicated I like to make things, with how much depth I like to think about the concept of faith and the purpose of the Church. I think it is vital that we do this. But I am aware right now how simple the truth of Christianity is.

All of the theology that evolves out of the last two thousand years is so vast that I can't even dream of getting my head around it. The number of concepts even in Paul's writings in the New Testament might take me the rest of my life to try and comprehend fully. But it's not the point. I don't mean that it isn't important- but it isn't necessary to the basic truth of Christianity.

The beauty of the Christian Church is that there is no division between a world renown Biology specialist and a simple, uneducated Christian. They are both children of God, and are both welcomed into his Church. Rich, poor, intelligent, stupid, young, old, wrong, right. The reason that this is possible is because the truth of Christianity is overwhelmingly simple. And it is this: faith, and love.

I think of two of Jesus' earliest followers: Thomas and Peter. They represent these concepts of faith and love perfectly. When confronted with a resurrected Jesus their responses are very different. Thomas, like any good historian, philosopher or scientist wants evidence. He demands to see the holes and the marks of the crucifixion. And Jesus' grants him his request. Thomas is confronted with the evidence of the resurrection and he has faith.

While we lack what was available to Thomas today, we are hardly lacking in evidence. We are left to explain how the Christian Church evolved out of the life of this man Jesus who was recorded in history. We are left with four independent accounts of his life, death and resurrection which require a response. They are not easy to dismiss as works of fiction or wishful thinking. They require faith. Like Thomas; when presented with the resurrected Jesus, we have a choice.

But as I think about faith more and more, I am dissatisfied to think about it as a purely objective belief in a historical proposition. Faith in Jesus unlike my belief that Dinosaurs existed requires a complete change in my being. If true, then it requires an upheaval of my entire world view. It is Peter's response to the resurrection that typifies this.

After the death of Jesus, it is recorded that Peter denies Jesus three times. The person that he devoted himself so fully to over the past three years he totally rejects. When he meets Jesus again, risen from the dead, Jesus' first response is not one of evidence but a question: "Peter do you love me? Peter do you love me? Peter do you love me?". Peter is confronted with the resurrected person of Jesus on a deeply personal level.

 And I believe that today the person of Christ asks the same question: "Do you love me?". The basic truth of Christianity is that it requires not only faith, not only a belief in an event, but a total submission to it. It is not a belief based on feeling or subjectivity, but neither is it one based on hard cold fact- it must go beyond that. It is a leap beyond the simple belief in the resurrection. "Do you love me?" is a world shattering, life changing question. It is a question I am still trying to answer. But it is breathtakingly simple.

My Body is a Cage

Culture seems to have a strange conception of the Christian afterlife. You only need to look at films, cartoons, TV programs and books to see that there is a concept of 'going to heaven'- of escaping to an ethereal soul float; a disembodied, spiritual, vague and unscientific existence. I think of His Dark Materials, the Phillip Pullman novels in which millions of souls are released from a torturous existence, to be released into the nirvana of nature. I think of the Simpsons with its comic depictions of God and his long white beard, sitting on a big fluffy cloud, of souls floating out of bodies. You don't need to look far to find a picture of 'heaven'. Ask any person on the street, in gregs, in HMV, in Starbucks- they will tell you about souls and clouds and maybe harps. 

Somehow this notion of 'heaven' has slipped into Christian culture. People seem to be under the impression that the Christian belief is that I will die, my soul will float out and I will live with God in a spiritual heaven. And for years that's what I believed. And it irritated me. Even worse, I didn't really believe it. It sounds like a fairy tale, like a pre-enlightened fantasy. Christian culture seems to be at times vague, and times bordering on confused on what 'heaven' consists of at all.   

But it's pretty clear from what it says in the Bible that the Christian hope is one of resurrection. I was reading only this morning from Job: 

"After my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!" 

In my flesh I will see God. I really don't know in what other sense I could see God. I don't really know in what other sense I could be anything at all. And it's littered all over the Bible. You only need to read 1 Corinthians 15, Paul goes on a similar rant about resurrection and how important it is. I know it sounds strange, but I get really riled up about this. It influences how we live out faith; it's important that we think through what it is we have hope in.

 But people don't really get it sometimes. On one side there are the people who think 'surely all Christians believe in the resurrection of the body'- it's obvious. The other side don't really know; and even more dangerously, they don't think it matters very much. Only last week I met up with a friend who would call himself a Christian. He didn't really understand what happens when we die. He wasn't really sure what he believed. But he'd never really heard about physical resurrection. I have spoken to friends of mine who have been Christians for 10 years who don't really know what they think. And it makes me so angry, because it's so vital, so central to what Christianity is about. Even in the most basic doctrine of beliefs we have, the apostles creed claims: 

"I believe in the resurrection of the body"

 I think it's pretty important we know what the hope is that we claim. It impacts how we share faith, it impacts how we live it out, and it matters deeply. I resent the fact that we have embraced a culture of 'death' being a going into the next room, a natural part of life, just a little harmless stage in human existence. No! Christianity believes that death is conquered. But it is conquered because it needs conquering. Death is painful. I think about the loss of my Grandmother on my family and what pain that causes us, what a gap that leaves. Death is awful, it is horrendous, it is totally opposed to life and to hope.

Resurrection is a pretty clear word- it is about rising from the dead. It is about conquering death. Rising from the dead reverses an act of utter evil. If death is only an escaping of this world, of this body, then it is not all that bad and it totally nullifies the cross.

 For me, this realization was enormously significant. As far as I could gather, my identity was so intricately tied into my physicality; my personality was as much about how I looked as how I acted. And what I thought were the beliefs of Christianity seemed so opposed to that. The truth is that we are very physical beings- the Bible is very clear about that. We are dust beings not floaty floaty spirits. We need to cling onto this more than ever in an age of ever increasing scepticism towards Christianity. It might be that the concept of resurrection is just as laughable. But personally, I found the truth of resurrection transformed my faith, my view of hope, my view of death. We need clarity in how we speak, how we communicate, how we preach and in our own minds.

"But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised."

Crooked Legs

You might be wondering what happened as the result of my last blog. We had a conversation. We turned up at the attic cafe, drank some absolutely beautiful coffee, a bit of pork pie- and five people sat round and talked about the Church. What they wanted it to be, how they were frustrated, what they thought was great. It didn't really have a structure, it wasn't really much of an event, and compared to other things I've organised you might say it was pretty poorly attended. But I came away feeling strangely uplifted, encouraged. I believed that actually it made a difference. 

I've just finished reading a book by Seth Godin, a marketing guru from the States, called 'Tribes'. It's all about the future of culture, of business, of organisations. He argues that due to various factors; including social media, the internet etc.. we are entering into an age of 'tribe'. An age of small groups of people passionately following a cause, a leader, an idea- because they want to, because they believe in it. They didn't start because anyone gave them permission or asked them to be there; but because someone invited them. Someone did something. 

That's how I see the future of the Church. A movement; a group of people who exist because they want to not because they ought to. A group of people who follow, discuss, explore, challenge. There's never an end of 'Church'; people don't leave when it's finished- but when they want to. It isn't contained into 4 meetings a week,10 meetings a week- in fact, it's not really about meetings at all. It leaks into every aspect of the lives of those involved. It isn't contained into a building or a group or a room.  People are honest about who they are and where they're at. It does not exclude or alienate. People are not afraid to doubt and question.

 I see the Church as a constant, flowing, moving community of people who love each other- who meet each others needs and those around them. Ultimately Church is a people who choose to discover what the Jesus who existed 2000 years ago has to offer now; how what he said, who he was, what he stood for, impacts today. It shouldn't be afraid of being wrong, of being different, of being something that looks weird. It exists for its purpose and for its people and not for tradition or preconceptions. It might look different from one month to another. It is impossible to define and describe. That's what I long for, that's what I strive for. That's why I get out of bed in the morning.  

I believe that faith makes a difference. I believe that Church is a tribe that we need as we move forward as a society. That's my aim. I'm constantly looking for my next step. I feel like I'm getting somewhere slowly. I reckon you should come with me. I'm going as far as these crooked legs take me. 

Optimistic

I've been so encouraged recently by the feedback I've received from some of my blogs. I've been able to challenge, encourage, irritate and sympathise with people who I've never met, people I've lost touch with and people who I would struggle to strike up conversation with.

It got me thinking- why do I blog? Why do I ramble on about my thoughts ever week? Why do I spam your Facebook and twitter by inflicting my opinions on you? Why do I bang the sale drum month after month about faith and the church? Why I haven't I given up yet?

The reason, I think, is because I'm an optimist. Because I love the church, but I believe the church could be better. Because I think faith is life changing and world changing but I'm frustrated with how it's often lived in my own life and those around me. I write because I believe I can change something. Because I believe that I have to start somewhere.

But if I'm honest- sometimes I'm sick of blogging. I'm sick of writing but not doing. I'm sick of the reality of being an Optimist. But I'm not sure I know what the next step might be.

I want to have a conversation. A real one. A conversation about the stuff I write about. About the stuff you think about but don't know where to talk about it. Changing culture is not something that happens overnight.

If you're in York, this Saturday (21st jan) I'm going to be at the attic coffee bar on kings square about 7pm. I'd love to have a conversation. I don't know if you've ever read my blog before, if you disagree with me, or whether you're my biggest fan- but I'm just interested to see what happens. See you there.

Why I am not a cynic

I sometimes wonder if people think I'm a cynic. At times I struggle to engage with Church like others do. I find singing sometimes awkward and frustrating. I find the certainty and glossiness of Church annoying and false. I find the lack of honesty and doubt troubling. I see the deep need to challenge people. But I'm not a cynic.

There is a risk of labeling anyone who questions or comments on 'Church' with this title. The fear, I think, is that people like this (people like me) are in danger of filling the Church with negativity, with breeding an unhelpful culture. After all- questioning leads to doubt. Guess we better not question then.

The thing is, I can identify more with the outsider than the insider. Even though I have done it all my life; I think that Church is a pretty strange thing, and at times I don't get it. Sometimes I don't really sing very enthusiastically, sometimes I look distracted in the talks, sometimes I leave without complimenting the preacher on his message. Sometimes I don't really enjoy myself.

I overheard a conversation the other day between two of my friends. A comment from a non-Church going guy was that he found that Church lacked doubt- that it was a place of people coming together and declaring and worshiping with utter conviction. But for someone exploring with uncertainty and doubt, it might seem difficult to ever 'become' like them, to join in fully. And, at times I find this too. I find it difficult to join in. I find it difficult to declare with as much certainty as others seem to have. I find myself asking questions, thinking, and not always agreeing with everything I hear.

But this doesn't mean that I don't want to see people discovering Christ. It doesn't mean that I don't long to see the Church renewed. It doesn't mean that I don't think faith in Jesus is infinitely valuable. Just because I don't like your method, doesn't mean I'm not after the same thing that you are. It might mean that people like this, people that question, slow the process down, it might mean that Church is not always as encouraging. It even might mean that you don't enjoy it quite as much. But if we don't give space to the thinkers, to the doubters, to the questioners then we are in danger of producing a Church which is more about making people that all think the same rather than people that follow Christ. The question is, which of these two things is truly more important?

If the Church is a body composed of different parts we need people like this in our Church. We cannot run the risk of breeding a Church of like minded people. There has to be room to question, to doubt, to challenge. There has to be scope to allow people like this to shape the future of the Church without being squashed and ignored or cast aside as 'cynics'. And equally it is unhelpful to just become a Church of 'cynics'; to ignore the mainstream, to cut ourselves off from the enthusiastic. We need to learn the value of these words:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ...God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.