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Category Archives: Life
When will the leaves fall?
My family and some friends annually celebrate ‘Leaf day’ – where we mark the leaves falling, recognise the passing of another summer and prepare ourselves for winter. This is one of the rituals that we seek to keep to remind and reconnect us to the rhythm of our year and seasons. We do this with games for the kids in the leaves, eating and doing something crafty and a meditation for the adults about the joys of letting go and the beautiful lessons and colours that death can reveal to us.
But here in Nottingham the leaves are not falling (some are, but not in great quantities) …. So we wait and we hope that the leaves will fall before the season of Advent begins.
Red and White
Great post from Tony on red and white poppies. Whilst I would support the families of those through buying a red poppy I would usually wear white in the hope of dialogue. When I was 17 at the local college this caused a real issue with the pre services course (those training for army etc but to young to enter) who didn’t hang around long enough for me to explain that I had supported the poppy appeal and ended up with me getting 7 bells knocked out of me, so I found the comment from David Cockburn who wears both a good idea, and maybe give more chance of dialogue.
Being Authentic
The discussion and threads on James last post is great. The discussion has moved towards questions around what it means to be/live/ an authentic christ like life.
I wonder if it possible to look at what this means for us. We have touched on issues of honesty, non dualist approachs, open relationships…. What would be the top three phrases, statements or questions that you would see as core. Or if you like – what would a rule of life look like to you/us that was centred on trying to live more christ like?
From the discussion so far I am leaning towards
The need to embrace our shadow, be open with others to understand ourselves lessen how far this shadow is cast, and to love and serve christ in the moment.
Does Pastor Ted need to meet Father Ted?
I am writing about the latest high profile evangelical to be caught with his pants down, a powerful American with links to the White house. Pastor Ted was actively preaching against gay marriage while apparently indulging in gay sex with a male prostitute.
How many times have we witnessed Christians from this tradition struggle to practice what they preach? How many times do they have to live with double standards? Why? Are the standards to high? Perhaps the person just has weak morals and values? Or perhaps the theology is wrong?
Now we all make mistakes – in fact the making of mistakes is one of the best ways of learning. But are we allowed to make mistakes in some theological power houses?
I wonder if the deep rooted theological position of dualism is to blame for this. This position understands things in terms of – black and white; right and wrong,; secular and sacred; in and out; sinner and righteous; saved and unsaved; good and bad etc. This root leaves little space for flaws, mistakes and embracing your shadow. This type of theology encourages a split personality and a lack of authenticity and intimacy. Dualism gives little space for personal development and leaves the individual with little self-awareness and an inability to face the real difficult issues that reside in who we are.
Longing to belong
Following on from Richard’s ’ thread, I haven’t attended a traditional church in a committed way for the last 10 years and I have often asked myself what I miss from not going. My answer to this is the group experience , being part of a social network which I have struggled to find since leaving. I am aware that many people join social clubs and create social networks that can often give some of the same benefits but I suppose I long for some spiritual connection. Since that time I have been part of many starter things but have all failed for various reasons and I know that in some ways I have been the problem leaving me to do much soul searching and self-reflection.
Hidden within the longing to be part of a group is that I have a need to belong. Belonging to me is a sense of ‘being known and knowing others’ in an authentic way. I sensed this to some degree in the traditional church and especially with the vitality of meeting with people of difference especially the broken. I also felt that many in the church could not accept difference or be authentic and vulnerable – therefore I was unable to get to know them.
My journey has taken me to a place of stepping out of the church framework that I have found difficult and painful provoking some fundamental and raw questions about faith, gospel, church, salvation, sin, love, grace etc. Part of me longs to go back to those days, but I know I can never return, but I know and long to be part of a community of people who want to explore humanity in a real and loving way.
The closest I have got to this dream, has been in the Counselling and Psychotherapy community. It has given me a place to be me myself without judgement, a place to explore my flaws without condemnation and a place to learn to listen to others with empathy without the need to provide the answers or try and fix them.
I suppose that old U2 song is still very relevant for me, “I still havn’t found what I’m looking for� but the journey has taught me so much and taken me into areas of my own pain that I would never have explored without this experience and I feel I am a better person because of it. But I still long to be part of an authentic community, I long to explore faith in humanity, and ultimately I still long to belong.
Subverting Debt
As a youth worker I work odd hours, so occasionally watch daytime TV usually one of the free music channels (I like to think it helps me stay in touch). Have you noticed the massive interest charges on many of the adverts on daytime TV, either for cars, loans, or other goods? Whilst I am sure that for some even with the high interest charges they provide an okay service and it is the only company that will help and the high rate is about managing the risk. However- who are they targeting by advertising so heavily during the day, Hmm – perhaps those without work who already might be in debt . One company was recently advertising at over 29% interest where as a bank rate can be around 7%. So how about using their freephone numbers from time to time to ask why would I want to borrow from them at such a rate, and use up some their time, and offer a bit of a challenge?
Drumming up community
Last weekend I started a course on Therapeutic drumming. I had never joined a drumming circle before but it was a powerful experience that helped me move my feet and connect with my emotions.
Drumming is one of those ancient practices that has been used for communication and healing and that many people connect with today. There is much evidence about the physical and emotional healing impact of the drum and how it helps people to connect with the soul.
The circle and the beat helped people to connect with each other and begin to be authentic with other in a very short space of time, it seemed to evoke a sense of community, openness and togetherness that I have found it hard to discover in church settings.
One of the core principles about a drum circle is that everybody can participate,, everybody is equal, there is no right or wrong way, no judgement, no dogma, no gender issues, no power stuff – just a sense of let’s celebrate our humanity and be one in spirit.
I was left wondering what a beautiful experience this was and looking forward to meeting up again.
Temptation
At ‘ye olde churche’ this morning the topic was temptation – which got me thinking…
…there are perhaps three ways to stop yourself from falling for temptation:
- Avoiding the temptation.
- Self discipline.
- Not feeling tempted by it anymore.
The first two strike me as very good practical tactics, but the third has got be be by far the best, if you can get it!
Perhaps, somehow, it goes hand in hand with being free to do whatever you want. Whilst it sounds incredibly dangerous to be ‘free to do what you want’ it must be unbelievably great to want to do just good stuff.
Imagine your favourite thing to do, and what a buzz you get from doing it. Then imagine something that is good to do, but you really hate doing it. Imagine really wanting to do that good thing that you hate doing. Imagine getting that buzz from it. You know how other people get a buzz from doing stuff that you really hate? Well, that implies that it is possible to get a buzz from stuff that you don’t currently get a buzz from.
I would love to love doing good stuff all the time. Some good stuff I do like doing, but some good stuff just freaks me out and scares me! It would be awesome to get a buzz from doing that stuff.
What about temptation? Well, if you can get a buzz for doing something good that you currently don’t like then it must be possible to stop getting a buzz from the temptation and see it replaced with getting a buzz for something else.
I love the idea of being changed from the inside. I know that that’s what I would like!
Undermining Cohabitation
The Church of England has today backed proposals to beef up the rights of cohabiting partners. This is covered on Ekklesia and the BBC News web site.
The reason for this is to improve the rights of the vulnerable within the situation of a cohabiting couple splitting up – either a partner or a child could be vulnerable.
However, a side affect is that this change in the law would be legislating against casual, no commitments, cohabitation. Bear in mind that most of the time cohabitation is the free choice of the cohabitees – no one is being coerced into it (there are unfortunately exceptions, perhaps those are the examples we should be concerned about?), so to imply that current cohabitation is criminal and that it should only ever be accompanied by extended commitments and rights isn’t necessarily something that we should do. Basically this would be legislation to restrict people’s freedom to cohabit in an attempt to protect people who are often putting themselves in a vulnerable position out of free choice.
As I have mentioned in a number of posts (here, here and here
for example) I don’t believe that it is the role of Christians to impose laws on wider society.
Please don’t think that I’m saying we shouldn’t do whatever we can to help the vulnerable, including children, but I’m not sure that our ‘help’ should be to impose legal restriction on people based on our conception of morality.