the blue chicken

everyday habits

2005-08-08T12:54:00.000Z

The early desert mothers and fathers realised that if we wish to find any peace in this life then we must occasionally flee the madness of the secular world to sit in silence before our God. Having just got back from a seven day retreat at the St Mary at the Cross Glasshampton Monastery, I can heartily agree with them.

That's not to say my short stay there was particularly restful. I found myself challenged, disheartened and confused at first. There was one guest who broke down in tears on her first day; she had come on a retreat 'because that's what religious people do' only to find a lack of purpose and direction in her life. Fortunately monasteries tend to be populated by monks (technically they are 'friars' or 'brothers') and as I have always suspected, monks are full of humble, generous wisdom. The brothers stand both as a challenge and a comfort. They provoke us to consider how much of our lives we give to God, how committed we are to prayer and to our neighbours. But ultimately, their perseverence in faith is a reassuring message in our post-religious world. By the end of my time there, my prayers had found their foundation and I have the confidence to go on meditating daily even when faith can seem like a fairy-tale.

The house itself is an old stable-block at the top of a hill in a very small village near Worcester. I've never been much of an 'outdoors' sort of person, but I certainly found walking around the woods and fields near the monastery gave me sufficient space to organise my confusing theological thoughts. One day, when God felt very far off, I decided to wander off into the trees with no particular sense of where I was going. As I walked deeper into the forest, there were various other paths leading off the track that I was on. Still with minimal sense of direction, I plodded on ahead. 'I have no idea where I am going,' I thought, suddenly conscious of my accidental allusion to that famous prayer by Thomas Merton. The road soon became steeper, muddier and harder to walk along. I momentarily entertained the idea that there might be a parable in the whole experience. Soon enough, after walking aimlessly for about forty-five minutes, the path opened up onto a field and I could see the back of the monastery. I had walked right round in a circle. As I came into the hall, I met one of the guests who is a minister in the Church of Scotland. I told him where I had been. 'Ah,' he replied, 'sounds a bit like a parable!'

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Little Gidding

watch this space

2005-04-13T15:02:00.000Z

Can I begin by saying that if anyone anywhere followed my little request and prayed for me (or maybe even just thought of me, or whatever else you might do with your conversations with the Divine) thank you very very much indeed. I have through the grace of God and the advice of a close friend, I somehow managed to recover a few scraps of faith in recent days, and I hope, time permitting to kickstart this old chicken again.

Now, it might be a while before that actually happens, but blogging helped my faith so much, and it only makes sense to start again. First though, I have a few more things to do while I crawl back to the throne of God, and, once again, your prayers and thoughts would be hugely appreciated.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

guess who's back...

2005-03-12T23:46:00.000Z

I am very very tired, and I didn't plan to write this post. In fact, I was looking through some blogs to pass the time before my eyelids started to close (which is happening now). As I flipped down the menu for blogs, I saw the link to this old place and decided to read through my old entries. This isn't as narcissistic as you'd think, because in many ways, I am hardly the same person I was when I kept this blog in regular order. I have been at uni, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) the temptations of the world have taken me over in one way or another and I have hardly prayed in months. Heck, I even sided with Satan in my last essay on Paradise Lost. What does that tell you??

Anyway, I realised that actually I might well want my faith back again. I'm not entirely sure why, although a series of spooky things happened as I read this blog. I was thinking these quasi-repentent thoughts, and then I looked up to find an old post (man, I still don't listen to my own preaching!) about the importance of giving up the world for God's sake. I then realised that, in true contemplative fashion, I am full of beer and pizza. I then realised that it is Sunday tomorrow, and I could squeeze in a bit of church action.

So, blog readers, if any of you are still there, Please take a moment to pray for my rather odd state of affairs, and I will promise to keep you posted.

to die for

2004-12-06T18:41:00.000Z

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong." -Bertrand Russell

Give your life for your nation. Give it away for your cause. Give your life on the frontline.
Give your life for your cause. Give it away for the faith. Give your life for your Jesus. Give your life for your Mohammed. Give it away for your faith. Give your life some importance.
Give your life for your artistic expression. Give your life for your scientific progress. Give your life for your politics. Give it away for your cause.
Give your life for your friends. Give your life for those who need it most. Give your life for your husband or your wife. Give your life for your girl or your boy. Give your life for your kids.
Isn't that what we all want? Something to make life meaningful? Something to die for?

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" - Jesus of Nazareth

hiatus

2004-10-01T16:41:00.000Z

Well, my room is in a mess, my family are hugging me especially hard and downstairs the cat is having the time of her life climbing over boxes and bags. All this can only mean one thing: I'm off to uni. Having spent a year travelling, I feel incredibly over-packed, but then this time it won't be on my back!

This also means that the blog won't be updated for a while; I imagine the general craziness of the first few weeks will overtake me for while. Anyway, thank you for your comments and readership, and I'll 'see' you all soon!

For anyone interested, I'll be doing English Literature at Jesus College in Cambridge.

the last post on pizza (i promise) (maybe)

2004-09-29T19:57:00.000Z

Following on from my last post, I have a story from India about how inter-faith relations can be extremely useful. I mentioned that dialogue should neither be proselytizing nor diplomacy, but rather a time of mutual witnessing and learning. I learnt a great deal from Hinduism while I was in India; both from the nation itself and from one of the other volunteers. His name was Ravi, he was born in the UK but his parents are from India, and have raised him a Hindu. He does not eat meat or drink alcohol. I am pleased to say that I even had a chance to share a little bit about Jesus.

After three months in India, rice begins to get a little bit old. I was hence delighted to discover a restaurant in the nearest town to me that served pizza (I swear this is coincidental and not some clever segway from the last post). Anyway, I told some of the other volunteers about this, and they were also very excited at the prospect of a non-rice based meal. One day, four of us set off for the restaurant: James, Si, Ravi and myself. I tended to avoid meat in India, as generally it comes from the dirty beasts you see walking down the side of the road and eating garbage. James, however, was having withdrawal symptoms and ordered the 'Iron Man' pizza, which comes with onions, peppers and mutton. The rest of us had a veggie Hawaiian each. After the normal waiting time for an Indian restaurant (about 45 mins) our meals arrive and we dig in enthusiastically. Suddenly, Ravi stops and looks at me.
"Is there meat in this?"
"Er... I haven't found any..."
"Well, what's that then?" he says, plonking a small bit of unidentifiable food on the napkin in front of him.
"It can't be meat, we ordered a veggie Hawaiian. It's probably a bit of some strange Indian vegetable..."
"No! That is meat!"
I begin scraping the surface of my pizza looking for evidence of meat. Nope. Nothing but cheese, tomato and pineapple. Si produces the same verdict. Then I turn to James:
"Is there any meat in your pizza?"
"Actually... I haven't found any yet. It is meant to have mutton in I think..."
Well, guess what happened. One hungry Englishman out of four orders a meat pizza and the waiters manage to give it to the devout Hindu. Ravi looked distraught. I suggested that maybe he had discovered the mix up before he ate any. He wasn't satisfied. He ran to the restrooms while we had a good shout at the waiters - I mean this is India for crying out loud! If you would expect people to be careful with vegetarians anywhere, it is in India!

Ravi spent the rest of the meal puking up, but came back to the table with a very unhappy look on his face. I admired his devotion, and wanted to offer some consolation. I said that if there is one thing Christianity has taught me, it is that God is forgiving. I remembered the words of Jesus:

"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'" (Matthew 15:17,18)

I promised to pray for him, and Ravi went home to do a penance, unsure to which of the Hindu gods he should offer his prayer. I reflected later that Ravi would do well to read some of the Psalms in his hour of need. David is constantly pouring his heart out to God, asking for forgiveness. In fact, the entire Bible is full of people who screw up, and still God receives them anew. And they probably committed far worse sins than the accidental eating of a forbidden food. The forgiving aspect of God is by no means alien to eastern thought - in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna continually calls Arjuna to come to him for purification and salvation. However, I don't think anywhere does it quite as well as the seventy times seven of Jesus Christ. Christ's forgiveness, which came from the cross to his executioners, knows no limits.

pluralist pizza with all the toppings?

2004-09-27T19:39:00.000Z

What is the problem with sharing a pizza? (this is a parable, bear with me!) Everybody wants a slice, but not everyone wants the same topping. The short answer is to get something pretty uninspiring like a four cheeses or a margherita so no one is annoyed. But as they say, a compromise disappoints everyone. So is there an answer? Apparently so. In some restaurants (if you want to sponsor this blog, please email me) you can order a pizza with (wait for it) different toppings on each slice. The great thing about this is, everyone can enjoy their own favourite toppings and maybe even have a bite out of their neighbour's slice; hence discovering something new! This would not be possible with a boring compromise.

Now I will explain the parable. The pizza is the Ultimate Reality of the Universe. The people eating it are religious folk from all different climes, and the slices of pizza are their religions. The toppings are dogma, doctrine and beliefs. Now, I'm a Christian, and I value my faith very much. However, I'm not entirely comfortable with vaunting it over others who also have a faith that they value. Especially when I'm sure I don't entirely understand all world faiths. So, I would like to open myself up to a place where I can accept that non-Christian faiths may hold just as much truth as Christianity; I want to share the divine pizza with Jews, Hindus, Druids, Jains and everyone else. However, when we get to sharing our faith, we often find that our toppings have to be removed - apparently, we can't come to inter-religious discussion with such 'exclusive' beliefs as the Incarnation, the Trinity or the Atonement. John Hick, a pluralist scholar with a Christian background, has said that these doctrines must now be interpreted in a metaphorical or mythological way. Marcus Borg, another progressive pluralist Christian, says:

"As a Christian, I do not think Jesus is the only way. He is neither indespensable for salvation, nor unique (except in the sense that every person is unique). The exalted terms with which he is spoken of in the New Testament (as Messiah, Son of God, Lord, Word of God, Wisdom of God, light of the world, bread of life, and so forth) are not literal doctrinal truths, but are all metaphors pointing to what Jesus became in the experience and tradition of the early Christian movement."

Now I have a deep respect for both Borg and Hick, and indeed the site from which I pinched the above quote: The Christ Path. However, I'm not happy about ditching all the central tenets of Christianity before I engage in inter-faith dialogue. I wouldn't want Buddhists or Muslims to drop their central tenets either because that would result in the margherita option:

"The only authentic way to... discovery of unity is honest acceptance of religious differences and faithfulness to one's own religious heritage... Dialogue ceases when one or both partners affirm that their differences are unreal, and the dialogue degenerates into a futile exercise in diplomacy..." - Thomas Matus in Yoga and the Jesus Prayer Tradition (one of the best books ever! Buy it now at abebooks.co.uk!)

The 'all the toppings' option is the emerging way of inter-religious dialogue, whereby prejudgements are made neither about the supremacy of one faith nor about the complete affinity of all faiths. The proof is in the pizza; only by dialogue can we ascertain the truths in other faiths, and we do so conscious of our own religious language. The Dalai Lama, who regularly engages in inter-faith programs, particularly with Christian monastic communities, has emphasised that religious differences are just as important as similarities. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has done the same.

In this way, the world religions "confirm and illumine one another"; so wrote Juan Mascaró, the translator of many eastern religious texts and a lecturer on the Spanish mystics. We can all try one another's toppings, and remain loyal to our own (mine is that Pizza Express one with an egg). Hence, Christianity can still remain a religion about salvation:

"Jesus and the Jesus event are the contingent working out and embodiment of God's universal salvific will (in the Christian sense of salvation) in the unavoidable concrete particularities of history. Such concrete embodiment is not required to make God gracious, but it is required for the graciousness of God to be causally effective in the economy of history as Christians understand it." - Robert Davis Hughes III, in the article that inspired this blog entry.

We can now fulfil the Great Commission by making disciples to the way of Christ and not converts to Christianity. A disciple of Christ would be someone such as Mahatma Gandhi who followed Jesus' teachings better than most Christians, and yet remained steadfastly Hindu until his death.

(Aside: I thought maybe if I continue to write about pizza, I will get noticed more...)

the prophet gotama?

2004-09-26T10:44:00.000Z

Yesterday evening, I was invited to dinner at the house of one of my very close Christian friends, who I will call Vicky. Vicky is off to uni in a short while, and she was having some family friends over for a meal and games before she left home. Anyway, we had got through 'Cranium' and 'Taboo' before we started on our final game, 'Who's in the Bag?'. In this game, the player has to draw, out of a bag, cards bearing the names of famous people and then they must describe this person to the other members on their team. Not all that different from the final round of TV quiz show 'They Think It's All Over'.

It is Vicky's turn. She pulls out a card and begins to describe it to us:
"Okay, he's a famous boxer... erm, long time ago... he... er... ooh! His first name is who Buddhists follow!"
"Er... Buddha?"
"No..."
"Okay, Siddhartha Gotama? The Dalai Lama? A bodhisattva? A guru?"
"No, no, c'mon, you know..."
PING! Times up.
"Oh, guys. It was Mohammed Ali!"

Amusing, but also rather worrying. You see I know that Vicky is an evangelical, who believes in the supremacy of the Christian revelation and salvation through Christ alone. That is her choice of belief, and I respect that. What concerns me is the complete ignorance that most Christians have about other faiths and yet so many of them are more than willing to call them the religions of Satan or the worship of false gods. I don't usually have a go at people's ignorance, mainly because I'm quite ignorant myself, and there is no shame to be had in admitting that you don't know something. I did not feel embarassed, for example, when in the same game I tried to convince my team mates that Daniel Defoe was an actor (and I'm meant to be doing English Literature at university!). However, when Christians say that their religion holds the only truth they may well do so without any experience of other faiths. That is like saying that Steven Spielberg is the best director in the world when you have only ever seen Jaws, Jurassic Park and ET. But if you saw every other movie ever made, and then still said that Steven Spielberg was the best director in the world, you would at least be in a better position to make that judgement.

Christians (and indeed Muslims, Buddhists, atheists and everyone else) need to make a concerted effort to understand one another before they make any judgements about 'false religion'. I personally found it very difficult to walk around the great Hindu temples of India and not appreciate the value of their faith. I found myself thinking the words of St Peter in Acts 11:17: "So if God gave them the same gift he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who was I to think that I could oppose God?"

the letter killeth?

2004-09-20T14:27:00.000Z

Well, it's less than two weeks now until I start university, where I will be studying English Literature. Since becoming a Christian, I have thought about switching to Theology on more than one occasion, but ultimately I think I have too much existential angst to go through with it. Having said that, I do find that my studies in English have helped my walk of faith. In fact, it was the poetry of John Donne that first got me thinking about anything vaguely spiritual in the first place. I have become increasingly aware this year of the need to treat our religious texts in the same way we treat our poetry and fiction. It is often far too tempting to open the Bible or the Qur'an or the Gita and expect to find a history book, or even a science book. We don't want to be drawn into mystery, but rather to have everything explained to us. These great spiritual books become as banale as a user manual when treated in such a fashion.

'A good religion works like a good novel: it makes you suspend your disbelief.'

Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi

I've just finished reading Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights; a novel which almost defies catergorisation. It is meandering tale that wanders through generations of characters, with history repeating itself imperfectly, as if reflected in a warped mirror. Many people come to the novel expecting a classic romantic fiction, but as Lucasta Miller notes in her preface to the Penguin Edition, the key relationship in the novel is 'oddly unerotic'. She mentions that from then on, her preconceptions of what a book should be were changed dramatically: 'It shattered my complacency and gave me the first hint that great literature was as much about questions as about answers'. How true this is of great religion too.

feel the force

2004-09-19T14:09:00.000Z

Bad God - Good God

I keep having great spiritual discussions in unlikely places. After the penultimate performance of our play, we went back to stay at one actor's house, since we were stranded in South London with nowhere to go. I had to go out in the evening to see some old friends from school, and when I got back, he was the only one left up. As often happens to me and my friends at midnight, we got talking about life, the universe and everything.

The great thing about admitting to being a more 'liberal' or 'mystical' Christian is that people are more willing to talk about my beliefs. They don't have to fear my sermonising anymore, nor put up with a great deal of noise about hell. We can simply sit and share things.

He was another friend who did not smile on my conversion last year (for more on this please see earlier). To him, Christianity seemed to be more about wearing WWJD bracelets than spiritual realisation. I had previously mentioned that my beliefs had changed somewhat since last year, but that I still remained steadfastly Christian. He found me reading Meister Eckhart backstage during rehearsals a few weeks before and had shown an interest.

Anyway, he brought up the topic, and we proceeded to chat about our respective beliefs. He said he didn't like the rather fenced-in creed that comes from being a Biblical inerrantist. I said I agreed, the Bible has become more useful, interesting and valuable to me since I stopped stifling it with the addage 'Word of God' (Maggi Dawn has a great post on this). I had noticed a few Bibles around his room, which he has been reading as part of his English degree at Oxford. 'The Bible is such a monumental work of Western Literature that it is impossible to avoid it' he said, before mentioning that he would quite like to learn Hebrew so that he could read the original Old Testament. He then compared the portrayal of God in the OT with Homer's portrayal of Zeus in The Odyssey. He probably never would have told me this had I still been an evangelical.

It turns out that he is very sympathetic to more impersonal ideas of God, saying that Buddhism would be his first port of call if he felt compelled to religion - I think that is the case for most Westerners who are even slightly existentialist. However, they miss the fact that their culture is saturated by Christian thought, even today. The 'alternative' God they imagine is wholly compatible with, in fact even integral to, Christian theology. The benevolent force that so many Westerners prefer to the old-bearded-god-on-a-cloud is the Holy Spirit, or even the entire Trinity. The old geezer with the beard is Zeus.

pizza and beer - the contemplative's choice

2004-09-15T22:02:00.000Z

Tonight, I had supper before I had a chance to meditate and pray like I normally do. Any contemplative will tell you that a belly full of pizza and beer does not help a session of meditation, and neither does tiredness - this causes what Christian contemplatives call the "Gethsamani sleep", referring to the disciples' inability to stay awake with Jesus at his most trying hour. However, I figured that a pizza-and-beer-fuelled sleepy meditation was better than no meditation so I decided to go up and pray at 8:30. Before that time I thought it best to let my food digest a bit, and passed the time reading some stuff about Buddhist-Christian dialogue that I found on the net.

I like things like this, and soon thought about the nature of reality, theism and atheism, the role of prayer and lots of other things began to rush through my skull. I then went upstairs, lit some candles and said some spoken prayers, which I felt went quite well, and then I pressed play on my Taizé CD which leads me into the twenty minute silence. As the music played, I asked God earnestly that he would grant me the grace to totally focus my mind in this session, to reject the preoccupations of the 'monkey mind' and simply repeat the prayer word: MA-RA-NA-THA, come Lord Jesus. I told God (telling God things is always a bad idea) that Jesus had promised that we would receive what we asked from God, for what Father gives his son a rock when he really wants an egg? Hence, I should receive my silence rather than twenty minutes of mad chatter. The music played out, and I felt confident (another bad idea). As usual, I focused on the mantra for an entire minute, before the monkeys got talking. This was not the egg I'd asked for!

By the end, I had realised that I was in no state to meditate properly - I was getting very sleepy as I continued (heck, my eyes are closing now!), but I stayed to let the session play out, and said the mantra softly to myself with my eyes open. I realised then that God doesn't work on desires. The desire to meditate better is just as bad as any other desire - I wrote this before (why don't I listen to myself?).

Jesus said we would receive what we asked for but what if we ask for a dangerous snake? Does a good Father give his son a snake? No, he gives him something better - like say... a loaf of bread. Tonight, my loaf of humilty was better than the snake of desire I really wanted. Hmm... I did want to say something about the thoughts I had on Buddhist-Christian dialogue, but that will have to wait. The moral of today's story is don't meditate at night with a full stomach, and be grateful for the loafs you're given even when they don't look like what you wanted. Now hopefully next time I will remember my own advice!

the glass menagerie

2004-09-13T18:41:00.000Z

Well, we're three performances into our play: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. The play is so named after the collection of ornaments owned by one of the play's characters. Last night we performed in a small studio theatre in London, where I took this picture of the shiny little critters...

increase our faith!

2004-09-11T09:31:00.000Z

God give me more faith, God make me better at praying, God make me a better meditator... and so on. I ask this all the time. But why? The disciples asked Jesus for the same thing and he replied that even faith the size of a mustard seed was enough to move mountains. Jesus uses the mustard seed metaphor again in Matthew 13:30-32:

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.

The presence of God in our lives is something that doesn't just come overnight. It may well grow with perserverence and our own hard work is part of that. But the coming of the kingdom is not something we have control over. Indeed sometimes we may long to see the day of the Son of Man, yet we will not see it. I realised today that my desire for more faith or better prayer is no better than my desire for a new car or a winning lottery ticket. Desire gets us nowhere. It is only when we stop desiring things that we can ever find peace. The Buddha says: 'When desires go, joy comes'. St John of the Cross also puts it very well:

Desire nothing but to enter for Christ into absolute nakedness, emptiness, and poverty...
If you want to possess all, you must desire nothing.
If you want to become all, you must desire to be nothing.
If you want to know all, you must desire to know nothing.
For if you desire to possess anything, you cannot possess God as your only treasure.

The kingdom will arrive like a thief in the night, when we least expect it. We can only prepare ourselves by waiting patiently like the virgins outside the bridegrooms' chamber. We cannot bring it about, we can only sit and wait.

"There is no technique for finding Him, we find Him by His will" - Thomas Merton

a thumbnail for life - part 2

2004-09-10T09:54:00.000Z

Yesterday, I talked a little about how our prayer life mirrors our life as a whole. The last blog entry was in reference to the first of those greatest commandments: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'. Today I wanted to discuss the second: 'Love your neighbour as yourself'. However, I find myself unable to do so. The internet is a place where everyone's opinion counts, and people are free to say what they like without fear thanks to the veil of anonymity. This is probably a good thing, but it tempts me to speak when I should be silent, it lures my pride into the role of preacher.

So that I avoid that particular snare, I will be quiet today and leave you with the wisdom of others:

The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix) - Vincent Van Gogh

"It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister" - Thomas Merton

"God is the friend of silence. See how nature, trees, flowers, grass, grow in silence. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life" - Mother Teresa

a thumbnail for life

2004-09-09T09:17:00.000Z

Why do we pray? Why does God require worship? Why is devotion important? Surely this is not to satisfy some vanity of God because vanity has no place in God. So why does Jesus teach us to spend time alone with our heavenly Father? I'm sure there are many answers to that question, but today I'm going to concentrate on just one: the idea that our time in prayer is a tiny mirror of our entire walk with God; a thumbnail of our lives.

I have mentioned previously that I meditate everyday. I started this form of silent prayer because it seemed a very good way to fight my desire to possess God mentally, letting myself just be with God. It also represents a tiny sacrifice of myself to God. The Christian life requires that we give ourselves completely to Jesus. He calls us away from our work, our pleasures and our family to follow him. Yet how many people succeed at doing this? I know I fail miserably, and yet I believe that my time of silence with God represents a small step in the right direction. For those twenty minutes, I sit and I try to abandon myself. I struggle with all the thoughts, desires and preoccupations that my 'monkey mind' wants to chatter about, and I try to focus on a word that calls God into my life. When God grants me the grace to say the mantra with an empty mind, I experience that sacred presence that is best summed up by the word 'joy'.

Sometimes I feel uncomfortable meditating, I can't wait for it to be over, and I allow my mind to entertain all the trivial thoughts that wander into my head. But then, at other times, I decide to focus my attention, and I recite the mantra with few moments of distraction. At these times, I enjoy my meditation, and I feel that joy, that presence of God that (in spite of everything) makes us leap up and declare with Browning:

God 's in His heaven—
All 's right with the world!

Then this morning I realised that this is God's invitation to us. This is his demonstration of how much better things can be when we give ourselves over to him. We think sometimes that our distractions and trivial pleasures can make 'all right with the world', but ultimately God is our only consolation. Here the time of prayer becomes the thumbnail for life. If my meditation is better, healthier and more enjoyable with total sacrifice to God, then how much more will my life be better with the same level of sacrifice?

Of course, this easier said than done, and I do not know the way in which to give myself entirely to Jesus just yet. But as they say, God's timing is perfect. All I can do is continue to meditate and pray in a way that gives my self to God. And yet, the sacrifice to God is not the only implication of this thumbnail prayer life. I will continue tomorrow, any comments are, as usual, very welcome.

jesus is the question

2004-09-08T09:48:00.000Z

The meaning of life is a tricky thing. Sometimes we are fooled into thinking that life's meaning is simply something we can be told; it is as though we see the universe as a giant quiz book, where we only need to flip to the back, turn the page upside down and thus behold all life's mysteries. Then last year, I became a Christian and rapidly accepted the belief that the Bible was that quiz book, and there, sure enough, at the back of that book was Jesus Christ - the answer, apparently.

So I said a sinner's prayer, accepted Christ and believed the quest was over. That's it. Job done. Next universe please. Then, slowly, I came to realise that Jesus isn't an answer at all: he's a cosmic question mark.

Jesus doesn't give us answers. He asks us questions. Just look at the gospels: he is always answering questions with questions. Jesus is an enigma. While surfing today, I came across this fanastic little idea by earlm, a user at the Christian Mystics Forum:

"who/what he is remains a hopefully fruitful koan for me that represents an historical image of the coming together of the immanent & transcendent 'God' on Earth"

If you don't know, a koan is: "A puzzling, often paradoxical statement or story, used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining spiritual awakening." - Dictionary.com

A famous example of a koan is: What is the sound of one hand clapping? There isn't meant to be an answer to it, it is just meant to make us think about 'hearing the impossible', as this short article puts it. Similarly, the parables of Christ make us think beyond the boundaries of earthly reality. When we read John 3 we see how easy it is to take Jesus' metaphorical language superficially and literally. Like a koan his words require more careful consideration than that.

But it isn't only Jesus' teachings that resemble the koans of Zen. His whole life, death and resurrection do the same thing. The incarnation itself is a koan - if we seriously consider it, then we see the implications that this doctrine has not only on our understanding of God, but also on the divine nature of the human being, and how all of us, not only Christ, can begotten by God. So the next time you feel confused about the empty tomb, or the bread and the fish or whatever else, consider yourself blessed. This is when we really look at those mysterious, almost nonsensical stories for the first time. We reflect on them, looking to see some concrete meaning, but a quiz book answer won't necessarily come.

"When we stop questioning we die. We only stop asking questions when we have despaired of life or when delusions or pride have mastered us. All the same, we hardly ever give up dreaming that a single definitive formula could solve all life's problems. The temptation is very strong to cheat on the challenge of the mystery of life by reducing it to the status of a problem" - Laurence Freeman, Jesus the Teacher Within

prepared to give an answer - part 2

2004-09-05T14:27:00.000Z

I was at work on Friday (finally on my last day before I escape the machine and run away to be an unpaid actor!) and during my lunch break I received a call from a good friend who I hadn't spoken to in over a year. We have lots of shared interests, and I remember that we used to enjoy joking about the Christian 'cult' that was growing in our school. Because of this, he was more than a little shocked when I decided to join them! "This bloody Christian thing!" I remember him saying, "It's like a plague - an infection - no one can stop it!" Oh well, I thought, blessed are the persecuted.

My conversion encouraged the other Christians and we started to pray regularly together in the mornings before school started. I think as our fellowship grew, my friend began to think of his own soul a bit more, however becoming a Christian was, for him, quite unthinkable. So he turned to Buddhism. He actually read a couple of books, and even made notes on the central Buddhist teachings. As an atheist, Buddhism was the most appealing religious path for him, although now I would never call a Buddhist an atheist. They just see the same reality in a different way.

On Friday, when I spoke to him, he asked me about my faith. This was new to me - I had spent most of last year trying to get him to listen! I think I had mentioned to him in an email that my perspectives had shifted somewhat since last year, and so he asked me whether or not I still consider myself Christian. I replied that I did, absolutely, and I had been discovering new things about God all year. We chatted out Buddhism for a bit too, I told him about the encouraging dialogue between Christian and Buddhist monastic communities. Then we turned our thoughts to other faiths, such as the Hindus I encountered in India. Apparently he once thought that Krishna's first name was Harry. Work it out ;)

When I put the phone down, I realised how odd it was to have such a deep spiritual conversation with him - the anti-religious atheist who loved to take the piss out of my Christianity! But I was pleased; I don't get the opportunity to chat with many people about faith stuff. Most of my friends are either 'Shine-Jesus-Shine' Evangelicals or 'I-don't-give-a-monkey's' Atheists. Hence I valued my conversation with this self-dubbed 'ultra liberal Buddhist'. I pray for God's blessing on his walk of faith.

Interestingly though, when I do manage to get people talking about religious issues, my friends tend to focus on the 'law' of my faith. I had another friend who was asking me yesterday if I still believed sex before marriage was wrong, and whether or not I could take drugs and still be a Christian. I replied that it wasn't so much a question of what was evil, or worthy of damnation, but rather what would put a barrier between me and God. Something that missed the mark, a sin, would be hence inadvisable. I explained that there is no set law for these things; I believe that some things can be unhelpful for me, and yet perfectly fine for other people. St Paul said something of that ilk regarding the consumption of meat. I tried to explain that Christianity, or indeed any religion, is not about following a bunch of rules, but rather trying to find God, it involves attempting to empty ourselves, and humbling ourselves before God so that he may fill us and exalt us. This requires getting rid of the unhelpful, sinful things in our life.

I think this was sadly lost on my friend. I say this because he then turned to me and said: 'so do you think that "Hans Solo" is allowed?'

prepared to give an answer

2004-09-04T13:00:00.000Z

Last year, not long after my conversion, I spent a great deal of time trying to convince my friends and family of the 'unquestionable truth' behind my new evangelical faith. Despite the fact that I was a mere infant in Christ, I still thought that I could give preach to others. I would spout out stuff in history class, down the phone, or wherever else really. I think I had good intentions, but I had missed some vital points about witnessing.

The first is something summed up by a famous saying of St Francis of Assisi: 'Preach the gospel. Use words if necessary.' Actions speak louder than words they say, and a tongue which can say 'Lord, Lord' does not guarantee a pure heart to go with it. Long sermonising and debating is neither effective nor the way that Jesus himself used. His most famous speech, the Sermon on the Mount, would've taken less than five minutes to deliver.

The second point is illustrated by words of Christ commonly referred to as 'The Great Commission'. He instructs the apostles in Matthew 28:19 'Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit'. This is the usual justification for all Christian missionary activity, but as one writer has pointed out, Jesus says 'disciples' not 'converts'. It is all very well to chuck out gospel tracts and get people saying the sinner's prayer, but how far does that make disciples? Perhaps in all the zeal of missionary activity, Christians can forget Jesus' words to the Pharisees: 'Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are'. Clearly getting people to change the label they stick to themselves is not the key.

However, the most important point, in my view is Jesus' advice to the apostles after his resurrection. He tells them: 'Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about'. This 'gift' is of course the Holy Spirit which arrives at Pentecost. After they have received this gift, they are ready to begin their preaching. However, so many of us, self very much included, have made the mistake of trying to stand on our religious soap boxes before God has prepared us. Considering that Jesus also said that any public speaking we do will actually be the Spirit of the Father speaking through us, not waiting in Jerusalem seems like a pretty stupid thing to do! Like a newsreader deciding not to look at his autocue.

Of course, with regards witnessing, I no longer feel a burning desire to run around the world and flaunt my faith over the faith of others. I have no wish to convert anyone from another religion to Christianity, but would rather experience witnessing from both sides, for the purpose of understanding rather than converting. However, there comes a point when people ask us about our faith, and as St Peter advises, we must be 'prepared to give an answer'. Yesterday, I was surprised to have an engaging spiritual conversation with a very unlikely person. But I will save the rest of the story for tomorrow.

escape the machine

2004-08-29T14:24:00.000Z

In the UK, as I'm sure is the case in many other countries, students are made to feel like they are on an unstoppable from early adolescence to a nine to five job, via the route of exams and university. This incessant graduate production line is very dangerous, in my opinion. We are making our choices in education while ever mindful of the knock-on effect our choices have on our careers. With such constant attention paid to the future, we are in danger of losing the joy of learning for learning's sake alone.

It is becoming an increasing trend however for people to want to escape from this treadmill. The huge increase in people who take gap years before or after university has increased massively, as has the number of people who find themselves walking out of well-paid jobs in their twenties and thirties to experience life outside the office. Of course, a high-profile example of this has come recently from the former Archbishop of York, David Hope, who left his post as the second most important man in the Church of England to return to the life of a parish priest.

I'm not sure Jesus would have been too thrilled at the notion of planning your entire life out from the age of 16 onwards. In fact, I recently had to complete a form which asked me for my life ambition. I simply wrote "please see Matthew 6:34". It is also the idea that some people give up their dreams because of job security. I am determined not to fall into the treadmill trap. This week I decided to give myself a headstart, and I have cut down my hours at work to rehearse for a play with some friends. Sure that'll mean I'll have less cash for Fresher's Week at uni, but then this is an important lesson in doing what you love vs. doing what makes you money. We're performing The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (of A Streetcar Named Desire fame). Heck, I figure if I can't quit my job to become an artist now then I definately won't have the guts to do it in the future...

Oh, and the site has a bit of a new look. I thought the dark blue was a little difficult to read, and was probably hurting the eyes of my readers!

prayer again

2004-08-25T21:25:00.000Z

I have been learning a great deal recently. When I was in India earlier this year, I felt that my faith had become as strong as an oak tree, yet as happy to change with the spiritual landscape as the ivy that grows around it. Inevitably, my return to the oh-so-secular land of Great Britain has been a step down from India, where faith is lived and breathed everywhere from the local bus to the grandest temple. However, being at home has given me the opportunity to totally rely on God for my faith, and he has been teaching me how to give myself over to him a little bit more each day. I mentioned meditation and prayer recently, and these two devotional practices are becoming the pillars of my faith. By setting time aside for them regardless of anything else, I am understanding more and more what it means to abandon yourself to God. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not gloating - I am still a long way off no matter how many times I pray 'thy will be done', but I know that by God's grace, I am getting much closer than ever before.

I've also been reading a bit of Meister Eckhart recently, and although he gets a bad rap for being heretical and amorally mystical, I have to say that his teachings so far have been fundamentally orthodox and yet also challenging and radical within the boundaries of his own Christian tradition. What Eckhart has a very strong sense of is the idea of surrendering ourselves to God, and making sure that no 'thing' can stop us from doing that. He tells us repeatedly that this calls for spiritual perserverence. Much of this perserverence comes through prayer.

With this in mind, I punched 'prayer' into Google, and found at least two places of interest on the first page. The Irish Jesuits run a very popular site called Sacred Space, which leads you in a different prayer and reading each day. You click through different stages as the prayer unfolds. My second site is the World Prayers Project. A fantastic collection of prayers, poetry and quotations from around the world, ranging from a child's grace at the dinner table to the verses of Native American priests. Both these sites are well worth a look if you need some inspiration.

nature notes

2004-08-22T20:21:00.000Z

A rose, in my garden...

I have just spent a weekend in the rolling Oxfordshire countryside with a friend of mine who is in "training" to become a Druid Priestess. Living in suburban Surrey, I don't often get the chance to appreciate the natural beauty of the British Isles as much as I'd like. It seems I have marvelled more at Argentine mountains and Bolivian salt flats this year than I have at the wonders of God's creation in my own backyard. What's more, how many of us (those of us who aren't Druids) take the time to simply be with nature? How often do we step away from the hustle and bustle of the world to sit and look at the clouds and trees? I think it can be worse sometimes for the religious. All spiritual traditions are, to some extent, guilty of forcing us to look away from the natural world. In the west monotheisms we're all waiting for heaven, and in the east, the world is simply an illusion or maya. I think Christians can be especially bad at relecting on the natural world. In a futuristic episode of The Simpsons, chronicling Lisa's ill-fated wedding, Reverend Lovejoy reacts to the cancellation of the ceremony (which is outside in a marquee) with the words:

"uh, this is very sad news, and it wouldnt've never happened if the wedding would've been inside the church with God, instead of out here in the cheap showiness of nature."

Didn't St Paul arrive at Rome and declare "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands" (Acts 17:24)? But how often have Christians constructed churches and cathedrals in which to house God? Not that there is anything wrong with religious architecture; one only has to look at Gaudi's Temple of the Holy Family in Barcelona, the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, India or Stonehenge (even the Druids have their man made structures!) to see that man's search for the Divine has inspired some of the greatest buildings in the world. However, I reckon we all need a bit of time to remember the importance of Creation...

the power of prayer...

2004-08-17T20:26:00.000Z

I often have moments when I feel alienated from God. Sometimes this is due to apathy, doubt, sin or just becoming too preocuppied with trivial things. At this stage it is all too easy for me to step further away. I take my hand from the plough and look back, finding myself, like Lot's wife, hardened into a listless pillar. Fortunately, Jesus reveals to us a God who is happy to receive his wayward children time after time. The only requirement? That we return to God asking for re-acceptance and forgiveness just as the prodigal son asked his father for forgiveness. We do this, of course, through prayer.

I regularly marvel at the power of prayer, but I can forget this amazing gift with just as much frequency. Today, I had decided to remove myself from a temporary pillar state and sat down to pray for the first time in a few days. I believe my prayer found acceptance. At once, my alienation from God was lifted. Not by a superficial feeling or 'buzz', but simply by remembering that God is both infinitely forgiving and infinitely able to renew our spirits. All by a short crude prayer.

We often forget the incredible concept of prayer. Jesus taught us that with a few simple words we can connect with the very Source of Creation, the One Divine Truth that is God. Of course, our connection does not end when we stop praying, indeed our lives should be prayer. For if prayer is so helpful, so rejuvenating, so full of strength, then St Paul is correct when he advises the Thessalonians to 'pray continually'. But what does it mean to 'pray continually'? One man took it literally, he actually said a spoken prayer over and over again all day. Monks and nuns have seen their entire existence as a big prayer, perhaps following St Paul's advice again. Christian meditators (see below) have found that after a time, their mantra begins repeating itself silently even outside of the meditation period: a continual prayer. Leave your comments on how you try to 'pray continually'.

Although we are often disappointed by unanswered prayer, I find that when we stop asking God for things, and just let ourselves receive what he is prepared to give us, the power of prayer never fails to give me strength.

"Prayer does not change God, but changes him who prays." - Søren Kierkegaard

be still...

2004-08-15T15:06:00.000Z

Lago Gutierrez, Bariloche, Argentina

I've started practicing meditation recently. I discovered its role in the life of a Christian contemplative largely via my stay at the Shantivanam ashram in India, and the subsequent discovery of the World Community for Christian Meditation. Meditation is not, contrary to what a lot of people think, a time spent in deep pious thought, instead it is the opposite. Meditation aims to banish all thought, and just be.

Many people see this as some new age type of practice that has been stolen from Buddhists and Hindus. But what is not often known is that Christian meditative prayer goes all the way back to early desert monks and nuns in the first century CE. Jesus may not have specifically taught meditation, but the method practiced by monks today satisfies his teachings on prayer remarkably well. We spend time alone with God, with few words, an open ear and simple humility. I firmly believe that God is not something to be thought out with our minds, but rather experienced through faith and love. Yet for me this is hard, I find that I am most stimulated by theological discussion and find prayer rather a struggle, so I took up meditation to help me out.

What I didn't realise is that it is actually very very difficult. Trying to turn off your thoughts and sit in silence is akin to stopping the tide. Contemplatives advise channeling your thoughts into one word, nowadays referred to as a mantra (from Sanskrit). A mantra is a prayer word that you repeat mentally in your head for the entire meditation session. For Christians, the WCCM recommends the word maranatha, an Aramiac word meaning 'Come Lord Jesus'. You 'say' the word as four syllables of equal length; I like to say MA-RA as I breath in, and NA-THA as the breath goes out again.

The idea is that your brain will be occupied so much with this one word, that other thoughts will subside. Of course, this is just the idea, and in reality you will find yourself swamped with trivial thought. Everything from what you will eat for supper, to the book you've been reading to the meaning of existence itself will flood into your mind. The key is to turn from these thoughts and go back to the silent repetition of the mantra in your mind. But it isn't easy. It is a chore, and one that I most often do not enjoy doing.

I try to take twenty minutes before breakfast, and the same again before supper. I have made a special CD that plays a Taizé song, then there is a twenty minute silence, before another Taizé song begins to signal the end of the session. If you fancy having a go yourself, I can heartily recommend this page for some good introductory material. But be warned, it is difficult for everyone who starts meditation, and can be very discouraging when you realise that the entire session was spent thinking about where you left your sunglasses and when the doctor's appointment is. Sometimes, of course, you just don't want to do it! But I'm told that with perserverence, it is a good way to open yourself up to God without worrying about doctrine or creeds or any other religious anxieties.

golden clouds

2004-08-13T18:40:00.000Z

Near Alangulam, Tamil Nadu, India

It's Friday, so you can all have a picture, instead of a post. I took this out the side of a bus in India. Everybody loves a sunset, and I like to see them as the abstract expressionism of God.

pulling down the fences

2004-08-12T19:47:00.000Z

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of meeting some of the wonderful Christians who inhabit my favourite internet forum, 24-7 Talkback. I like to think we are a church, of sorts, but unlike many churches, we sometimes find it difficult to stand up and say the same creed together. Our ranks are made up of Christians of every theological persuasion, from evangelicals to semi-Buddhists. This is why I love it. So, meeting these guys last night got me thinking on the nature of our relationship with God. We might all be his children but we each have our own way of approaching the Father.

Lots of people draw lines between religions like barbed wire across warzones. Even within the Body of Christ, the fence posts are set up. This becomes profoundly sad when we see Southern Baptists who won't even talk to other Southern Baptists. Perhaps one day the perimeter fences will get smaller, eventually encircling every church in the southern United States. Then one half of a congregation will be divided against the other, until each church-goer starts setting up the boundaries around his own feet. When we reach that point, maybe then we will discover a profound truth. The truth that in reality there are as many religions as there are people.

Jesus may have been talking about the forces of Satan, but his point that "a house divided against itself cannot stand" applies equally to the children of God. Happily, ecumenical movements and inter-faith dialogues are becoming more common these days, but sadly there are still some who don't realise the importance of Jesus' prayer in St John's gospel:

"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you" - John 17:20, 21

At the very least, this calls for unity among all Christian believers, but in today's plural age, we might extend this hand of unity towards our sisters and brothers in other faiths.

In a previous post here, I have been comparing Jesus' teachings on a personal level and the level of wider society, with the friendliest horticulture student I know. In my view, I think the teachings of Jesus are not destined primarily for the social level. His teachings, and I think, the teachings of the most important teachers, are destined for the individual. I was raised in an unchurched background, and perhaps consequently I have always held a belief that faith must be a personal matter.

Of course, faith doesn't stop with the individual. When I became a Christian, the importance of spiritual community suddenly became apparent to me. I think that our individual faith is the starting point for community, and the community faith comes out of the collective faith of individuals rather than the other way around. Why? Because ultimately we all see things slightly differently. In recognising this, perhaps then we can begin to work out what this unity business means. It doesn't imply the assimilation of individual faith into a big melting pot of syncretism. Nor does it imply that we must all be handed out the same creed. Finally, unity doesn't mean tolerance. Unity means a seeking to understand, a desire to share, a willingness to listen and the strength to be a humble witness.

Easier said than done though, ain't it?

it's a conspiracy!

2004-08-10T17:16:00.000Z

Is anyone else getting mighty sick of The DaVinci Code? This is the best-selling novel by Dan Brown that claims "DaVinci" (more commonly and correctly called by his name, Leonardo) knew of a huge conspiracy within the Catholic Church to cover up the true identity of Christ, his marriage to Mary Magdalene and the son that was born of this marriage. I keep seeing this novel being read on trains and in parks, people are constantly praising it, telling me how it 'gripped' them, and 'challenged' their beliefs. My dad has read it, and keeps recommending it. Yet, I have no desire to read this book.

Why? Well, firstly I am aware of the poor scholarship in the book. It has received criticism from Christian and non-Christian scholars alike for mistakes, and even if I did want to read about the Opus Dei or the supposed 'goddess' spirituality of Mary Magdalene, I would purchase an academic book, not a novel. Secondly, I can't stand airport novels of any description, and I think it is safe to say that Brown's book is indeed one of them. The few parts I have read weren't even vaguely well written. It plays off the conspiracy theories that excite people disaffected with jaded instituitions, such as the monarchy or the Catholic Church. The title is an obvious nod to The Bible Code, another piece of sensationalist conspiracy theory-paranoia designed to make a quick buck. Despite the continual suggestions from my dad, I won't be rushing out to read this novel - there are simply too many other books to read first! It can join the bottom of my list, below Harry Potter. When I have exhausted the canons of literature, I'll consider them.

However, I think it sad the 'facts' presented by Brown's book are taken in my so many people who have had no exposure to this sort of history before. Not surprisingly, it has been condemned by Catholics as 'undermining people's faith'. It seems that you either love this book or love Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ. Why are we deprived a healthy middle ground opinion?

See more at Times Online.

living and loving the life of christ

2004-08-08T15:40:00.000Z

I don't usually look around Belief.net, as I find the site as almost the pluralistic equivalent of some sort of evangelical mega-site, with ad banners everywhere, loads of strategically placed shopping options and the like. However I did stumble across this today, which is an interview with a Former Trappist monk of the same abbey as Thomas Merton. He has a good little nugget of wisdom on how we see the life of Christ, which might help us with our thoughts on historical Jesuses and how we read the gospels:

"For the Christian mystics, they didn't see the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as a story dualistically other than their life; rather they saw it as a story that revealed the deepest reality of their life. And we enter into this reality, which is at once God's life and our own, in the silent simplicity of meditation."

I thought that would tie in rather nicely with what has been said about divine nature and human nature, and how Jesus calls us to follow in his footsteps.

jesus and the divine human

2004-08-08T08:37:00.000Z

In discussion with my good friend Post Liberal, I started thinking about what implications the incarnation has on our view of human nature. I came up with this....

I don't think we can really call ourselves Christians unless we acknowledge the essential divine nature of all human beings. This was already hinted at in the Old Testament when God breathes into Adam's nostrils; the Hebrew word for breath, I believe, is the same one used for 'spirit'. But Jesus took this even further. He is different to other incarnations. He isn't a divine stranger from heaven, he is a man. He shows us that man is divine. He invites us to share his divine sonship, he calls us to become the light of the world as he is. But we needed Jesus to show us this. Jesus revealed the Christ nature in all of us, just as Gautama revealed the Buddha nature.

In the links that RobertB posted on the previous post, Geza Vermes (although he would heavily disagree with all the stuff I have just written) mentions that Jesus is essentially a teacher for the individual. He isn't interested in social reform on a grand scale, but rather our inner transformation, our personal relationship with God, the discovery of the kingdom within. Throughout Christian history, we have had to remind ourselves of the deeply personal implications of the message of Jesus. I imagine that even Vermes feels a distinct relationship with Jesus. This goes back to what we were saying about portraits of Christ. The fact that the Jesus of Luke's gospel differs from that of John's or that of St Paul is now acceptable. We all have to find Christ for ourselves, and not someone else's Christ. As Post Liberal has stated on his blog, that requires a constant re-evaluation of Christ and of ourselves. It is little wonder that Jesus liked to ask the question 'And who do you say I am?'

Oh, and here is that quotation from Dom Laurence that I promised!

"In 63 BC, the Roman general Pompey strode sacrilegiously into the Holy of Holies in the temple of Jerusalem to find out what was at the heart of the Jewish religion that was causing him so much trouble. He expected to find a statue or a cult object, some kind of visible mystery. He found nothing at all, merely a small empty room and left astounded and contemptuous. To invade the gospels with that kind of insensitivity will breed the same kind of insensitivity."
- Jesus the Teacher Within, Laurence Freeman

a couple of days ago....

2004-08-06T17:59:00.000Z

Crucifixion - Emil Nolde

A couple of days ago, on my lunch break, I had a strong inclination to go down to the local Oxfam bookshop. I was glad I did, because I was able to pick up a nearly new copy of Geza Vermes' The Changing Faces of Jesus. I have barely had a chance to look at it, although I can tell you that Vermes is a former Catholic who converted back to the faith of his Jewish ancestry, before taking the helm as the most renown Jewish scholar in the search for the historical Jesus. His work comes highly recommended by many, and this small volume seems to be a very good introduction to his thinking - more commonly contained in large expensive hardbacks!

I mentioned yesterday that the discovery of historical Jesuses distinct from the Jesus of faith was very disconcerting at first. I'm sure it is for most Christians. However, when you run away from these things, you aren't being true to God. For God (as Gandhi often said) was at the very simplest level Truth. God is Truth, Truth is God. If something seems true, you had best investigate it, for God lies wherever Truth is found. Last year, I can remember being worried by other religions; I saw them as a threat to my faith in Christ. However, since then, I have learnt to embrace them, I have sought to understand them and I have been rewarded by learning much from them, and yet I still remain a Christian. I believe it to be a timeless truth that often what frightens you today, you will embrace tomorrow. The other thing to remember is what I said about the many voices. Vermes is only one. Marcus Borg and NT Wright are two of the other big players in the historical Jesus field, and they are both Christians. Borg is more liberal, whereas Wright is more traditional.

I've put off this historical Jesus stuff for far too long, and will report back on Vermes' book once I get to the end of Ralph Ellison's novel, The Invisible Man. Yet let me just say one thing about the historical approach. It is a fact contested by sages and saints up and down the course of religious history that God cannot be approached by reason alone. That isn't to say we should become mindless believers, far from it, but we must recognise the limits of human reason. This, I believe goes for the search for Jesus just as much. Seek history, and you'll find history, but precious little else. Seek God as well, and you might just find Christ. I have good quotation on this subject by Dom Laurence Freeman, but that will have to wait for tomorrow...!

the historical jesus

2004-08-05T17:54:00.000Z

I have been thinking a bit more about this historical Jesus lark recently. You see, my decision to start calling myself a Christian was entirely based on the belief that Jesus was who the Bible said he was. I gained this belief having read a rather biased book on the subject; then, once I had turned the last page, assumed that any person with a historical brain would be able to figure out that Jesus was the miracle-working Son of God, who died on the cross and was raised from death on the third day. However, I was more than a little dismayed when I later found out that there were in fact many more historical Jesuses floating about and most of them didn't resemble the Jesus of faith.

Let me first say that I have never flushed the Jesus of faith down the plug hole completely. You see, even in my darkest night of doubt, God has remained a truth for me, indeed, he is the Only Truth. Call me naive for assuming this, but I can't help but feel that if Jesus never even existed (as some people cheerfully contend) then God has really let us down. You see, Jesus, whoever he was, is not only important to the world's largest faith, Christianity, but also to the world's second largest faith, Islam. In Islam, Jesus takes the slot of second most important prophet, after Mohammed. He isn't divine, but he is certainly revered. Then you have the Bahá'ís, who hold Jesus as a 'Manifestation of God', not quite an incarnation, but certainly a decent signpost. Some Jews are beginning to see the implications Jesus has as a rabbi, and attempting to reclaim him as a prophet and healer. Finally, Jesus finds his way into the conciousness of Eastern religions, including Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism. He is possibly the world's most iconic religious teacher, followed closely by the Buddha. Atheists will think my reasoning is ridiculous, perhaps even an insult to reasoning, to say that his fame is proof of his historical existence. However, the importance of Jesus to so many people makes me very reluctant to entertain the prospect that he was little more than an empty mythological figure.

However, even if we presume the existence of Jesus, then we still find ourselves with many voices calling from all directions, each one carrying the spirit of a different Jesus of Nazareth. I will continue tomorrow...

shift up

2004-08-04T18:08:00.000Z

Okay - time to get this blog into gear. Now that I've joined the ever-increasing swarm of people who want to share their thoughts daily with the rest of the world, I had better make my ramblings stand out from the crowd.

What you will get here is a blend of random thoughts on art, literature, movies and the meaning of life. On this last one, I am more than a little bit religious. So if you can't stand people who speak of something beyond our realm of existence, then I suggest you get out now. For the rest of you, I warn you that I am a Christian, but by no means a very orthodox one. Sure, I generally hang around the more popular church creeds as a starting point, but I'm not afraid to stand up for the equality of all faiths. In fact, I believe that in today's multi-everything society, we can hardly do justice to our spiritual life without endeavouring to understand the paths of others, and that may even include atheists.

Just for the record (and to get it out of the way early) I do not believe that the Bible is Life's Users' Manual written by God. I like to see it as it is, a mixture of letters, laws, fables, poetry, a love song, some history, a bit of biography and some uber-scary apocalyptic-type stuff that no one really understands. I also have the habit of reading other holy scriptures, my current favourite being the famous Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita.

If this sounds good to you, then stick around. For those who were hoping for more of my adventures with South West Trains, I suggest you look elsewhere.

I'm sorry to announce....

2004-08-03T20:25:00.000Z

I took the piss yesterday and suggested that people only write trivial things in diaries such as how they missed the train. Today, I am going to complain about just that. Or rather, not just that because today my train never even showed up. Apparently there was a flood somewhere, and then someone got hit by lightning, which meant the trains were the latest I have ever seen them ever. If, like me, you live in the UK, you will be familiar with those irritating pre-recorded announcements that apologise for the tardiness of the train. They go something like "I'm sorry to announce that the - four - forty-five - South West Trains service - to - London Waterloo - has been - delayed - by approximately - nine - minutes. I'm sorry for the delay to this service".

He can't possibly be sorry - 'he' is a recorded message.

Anyway, the announcements get progressively more and more apologetic. Today, when the train was delayed by over an hour and a half, our friend with the stilted speech had the courtesy to say that he was 'extremely sorry for the severe delay to this service'. Too right.

People of Great Britain! Why do we put up with this? We wouldn't just sit there shaking our heads if our TV told us the ten o'clock news would be shown at midnight due to 'the late arrival of another programme'. Nor if our microwave suddenly informed us that 'this meal has been - delayed - by approximately - eight - minutes'. Ridiculous.

Man! See what I mean about how boring diaries are? Hopefully these are just teething problems, and I will get my butt in gear to write about something more interesting very very soon.

pushing up the diaries

2004-08-02T19:44:00.000Z

What a waste of time, eh? Sitting down daily to write a page about what you had for breakfast, how late the bus was and why you thought that you are getting closer to the work colleague you have a crush on. What is with that? I mean, think about all the orang-utans and cockatoos that you are evicting from their rainforest homes as you mercilessly trail off your life story on what was once their living room.

Of course, this whole blog thing changes all that. I mean - it is like a diary, but it isn't like a diary. First of all, your ecological conscience won't be riled, because now all your trivial and unimportant musings are stored in the computerised ether we call the internet. Secondly, it isn't private. Well, at least it isn't supposed to be. People read other people's blogs. How wierd is that? Fine, if you know them; but suppose they are some unknown stranger from the other side of the world (as I may well be in relation to you, the reader right now) - why do you want to read their thoughts? Well, there lies another attraction of the ethereal world of the web. You can engage with strangers and wierdos and may be even those orang-utans (who have probably moved to the city by now).

Let me just say, that I abhor diaries, and have never been able to keep one, no matter how hard I tried. The closest I got was a "travel journal", but even that bit the dust half-way through. This means that the odds of me actually continuing this ridiculous thing called a blog are quite low, but I will promise to make a good effort.

Welcome to the blue chicken.

2004-08-02T14:50:00.000Z

chicken