Ideas From the North

Why Atticus Finch was not the Messiah

2012-01-27T11:28:00.003+11:00

I first read Harper Lee's classic novel thirteen years ago, when I was fourteen. It was the summer before I started Year 10 and I was disappointed to find out that, because I had elected to be in the English Literature class rather than the mainstream class, I would not be studying To Kill a Mockingbird like my brother and sister had done before me. To remedy this omission from my readerly development, I went to the Warragul library that summer and borrowed out the only copy they had.

I remember that I had become a little bored with many books that year. I had outgrown most books aimed for kids my age but did not yet have the maturity to match my reading level. Mockingbird must have been the perfect fit. I devoured it. I do not remember often being as engrossed in a novel as I was that summer. When my English Literature class began that February and we were all asked to name our favourite novel, I said To Kill a Mockingbird. It was soon supplanted by The Outsider, then by Nineteen Eighty-Four and then by many other books, but I have never forgotten the intensity of my joy on reading it for the first time and, over the decade-and-a-bit since I read it, it has remained with me more than some of the novels that replaced it in my affections.

Teaching it this year to my own Year 10 class (some things never change in the curriculum), I have been re-reading it these holidays and doing so has reawakened my old love. I have enjoyed rediscovering old favourite moments - Scout's first day of school, for instance, or the visceral tension of the courtroom scene - and encountering scenes of which I have no memory - the scene, for instance, in which Dill and Scout have to leave the courtroom and encounter Mr Dolphus Raymond, the local vagabond who pretends to be an alcoholic to explain why he prefers to live among the "negroes".

And then, of course, there's Atticus. I don't think twentieth-century literature created a greater hero than him. It was, after all, the century of anti-heroes, in which Literature preferred a Jay Gatsby or a Meursault to a genuinely good man. (Popular Fiction, Tim Keller notes, has the right idea about what makes a hero and a powerful story - heroes who actually accomplish something, in the teeth of almost certain defeat.) Atticus has integrity. He is wise and compassionate. He is full of grace and, surprisingly for a popular novel, an earnest Christian. And in the film he's acted by Gregory Peck. What's there not to love about the man?

But he's not Jesus. This might sound a bit obvious, but this is what I mean: there is something in me that is tempted to almost worship "good men" like Atticus, and all too often we do the same thing to Jesus. We want him to be a good moral teacher whom we can admire. We want him to make stirring courtroom speeches and stand up for good. But we don't want him to be God, and we don't want him to supplant our other earthly heroes. Now, I might save for another day the question of why we do this, but here are two brief reasons why Atticus is not the Messiah:

1) He cannot, in the end, change the human heart. There is a false perception among many in our world that with enough good, educated people challenging social perceptions, things will get gradually better and better. Well, no century saw more wide-spread democracy and education than the twentieth, and no century saw bloodier wars, and its successor - which, by the logic outlined before, should be better than the last - began with one of the worst acts of terrorism, followed by a horrible, protracted war designed to fix things. Atticus, and other good men, can inspire us, but they can't change us. History has shown that.

2) He can stand up for the defenceless and the oppressed, but he cannot defend the truly indefensible. Our hearts are stirred greatly by stories of injustice, and when Tom Robinson is found guilty something in us rises in vehement protest - and it should. Tom dies for a crime he very clearly did not commit. There is no justice in this. But we need to remember that, before a righteous God, we are all guilty of sins we would much rather hide from everyone, most of all a righteous God. If Atticus can't acquit the innocent, he most certainly can't acquit the irrefutably guilty. Only Jesus can do that.

And so I suspect that To Kill a Mockingbird will remain on my list of greatest novels for a long, long time. But for my heroes, for someone to lay down my life for, I'm banking on Jesus Christ, not Atticus.

Beatitude #2: Blessed are those who mourn

2012-01-26T17:40:00.003+11:00

I remember a minister friend of my parents once shared a story with us from a family devotional book that dealt chiefly in stories of martyrs. This story was about a so-called "eccentric" preacher who seemed to be famous for spontaneously calling out "Glory!" at inappropriate moments. One such moment was when he was told the news that his wife had died and he responded with, "Glory! My wife has gone to be with the glorious ones," or something to that effect. He may not have said "glorious". That might have been overkill. But you get the idea.

Now, being only about fifteen at the time, I wasn't aware of just how unhelpful that story was. It really just sounded quite silly to me, but on reflection I feel that it gave a very false view of how Christians should deal with mourning. While it may be ideal for us to have our hopes fixed so firmly on heaven that we can rejoice to know our loved ones are there, I'm not sure that pure joy is the response that we should expect to feel at such times. That just isn't the reality of life, and one of the most wonderful things that we can discover about the Bible is that it is firmly grounded in the realities of life.

When Jesus first addresses the crowd gathered on the mountain, following up on his promises to the poor in spirit, he declared, as a key feature of his kingdom, that:

Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)

Now, it does not mean that the act of mourning is intrinsically blessed. Far from it. We know from elsewhere in the New Testament that hopeless mourning is not to be a feature of the Christian experience:

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (1 Thessalonians 4:12-13)

Note what Paul, the writer of that passage, does not say: he does not say, "do not grieve". But he does say, "do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope". We know for a fact that Christians can grieve. If Jesus is the model of the Christian life, the shortest verse in the Bible tells us that weeping over the death of a loved one, even one we know will be raised from the dead, is natural. But Jesus would not have wept hopelessly; after all, he knew how the death of his friend Lazarus would end: with life.

So why, then, are those who mourn blessed? Not because mourning itself brings blessing, but because mourning is never the final word. Refusing to mourn may seem noble, but Tim Keller has pointed out in a sermon on joy that refusal to mourn is pagan Stoicism far more than it is Christian. But we know for a fact that Jesus came to put an end to mourning: not by denying his followers the right to grieve when they lost those they loved, but by hoping in the life beyond all this mourning.

Is it any coincidence that, in the passage Mark presents as the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus quotes from a famous passage in Isaiah in which the time of mourning is declared to end with him?

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted...
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair. (Isaiah 61:1-3)

This is why those who mourn are blessed: because Jesus promises them comfort - more than a pat on the back, more than a shoulder to cry on; the greatest hope a mourner could know. The knowledge that, in Jesus, death is never the final answer.

Song: Aaron Strumpel - Sixty One

Beatitude #1: Blessed are the poor in spirit

2012-01-24T12:21:00.003+11:00

When Jesus stood up to declare what some commentators have called the "constitution" of his kingdom, he began with these famous words:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Scholars and writers differ on what the word "blessed" here really means. I remember Philip Yancey saying that the word in the Greek is more along the lines of "Oh you happy person!" I'm not sure about how reliable this rendering is, but it certainly draws attention to the fact that Jesus is saying something extremely irregular and counter-intuitive here: those who seem most downcast and weak are in fact the most blessed. How? And why?

A sermon at my church on the Beatitudes on Sunday got me thinking about this passage, and re-watching Lars von Trier's masterful Melancholia got me thinking even more. The film concerns two sisters, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and their relationship as it plays out during Justine's increasingly problematic wedding celebration (Part 1) and the arrival of a threatening planet, Melancholia, which is moving ever closer to earth (Part 2). For much of the film, Claire fails to understand Justine's evident depression, and Justine is cautioned to "not say a word" to her husband about the ache that fills every moment of her life. Yet as the film unfolds Justine's depression is shown to be a valid response to the world around her, while Claire and her husband (brilliantly portrayed by an understated Kiefer Sutherland) are shown to be much more naive than you would have thought at the start.

So what is the message of all this? The film suggests at one point that the "poor in spirit" may in fact be gifted. Justine is shown to have almost mystical knowledge that others lack. I'm not so convinced. Justine's knowledge is that the universe is empty and meaningless; this is a fairly common thought for someone with depression, but I'm not convinced that it is the truth. Depression can lead us to feel and think things like this - and I've had my fair share of such thoughts - but we need to remember that, in times like those, it is the depression speaking, not some profound revelation.

But the film does offer something quite interesting in terms of how to deal with "Melancholia". The truth of Justine's condition, like the truth of the planet, is something that characters continually avoid. When John (Kiefer Sutherland) declares that "Melancholia [the planet] will just pass us by" and "will be the most beautiful sight" ever, he is shown to be devastatingly, emphatically wrong. Claire, who is always the strong one, is unable to confront heartbreak when it arrives. Neither is John. And Michael, Justine's erstwhile husband, is never seen again. So much for being strong. So much for "not breathing a word".

If the poor in spirit are blessed, it is not because they have a mystical awareness that life means nothing. It is that they are sometimes forced, in their brokenness, to confront the pain of human existence and, by God's grace, to move closer to Him and find their answer there. The truth is that all of us should recognise ourselves to be poor in spirit, because before God we all are. The answer is not to deny this or try to be strong in ourselves. The answer is to bring all our brokenness to Jesus Christ who was broken for us, and let Him heal us and give us hope.

I pray that Lars von Trier can realise this truth. He has come so close to it, but sadly remains so far.

Petalshower and Windfall

2012-01-20T11:07:00.000+11:00

An anthology of my poems written from 2006-2012 is now available from the Kindle store at this link:

Petalshower and Windfall: Poems by Matthew Pullar

If you do not have a Kindle reader, the free Kindle app can be downloaded to iPhones, Android devices or iPads to allow you to read it. Hope you enjoy it!

The Kernel: A Poem

2012-01-19T10:59:00.004+11:00

John 12:20-33

An insect buzzed around Andrew’s head

And the words of the Master made a similar sound,

Humming round and round in the noonday bustle,

My countrymen still waiting somewhere in the sidelines,

Our question not really answered,

The issue – as always – made a little less than clear.

Had he heard, or taken in, our request?

They had phrased it so simply –

Sir, we would like to see Jesus –

But protocol had somewhat baffled me;

They had come to me for ease of access: the face of a stranger

Somehow familiar, in a sea of unfamiliarity,

But I did not hold the clout, never did,

And so turned to Andrew who, it seemed to me, did,

But together we got nothing clearer.

Only this made sense: The hour has come

For the Son of Man to be glorified.

Yes, that much was clear.

But with budding fans

In the background, he did as he always did:

Taught us that which we could not see,

In words and figures which we could not grasp:

Unless a kernel of wheat falls to soil,

It remains only a single seed.

The image I knew; I had seen kernels

Sown in the soil, and had seen harvests

Burst forth in vast, bright golden splendour.

But harvests of wheat? This wasn’t the time

For a lesson in wheat-growth. There were some men

In the fields, waiting, ripe to be reaped.

He lost me, I think, after the seeds,

The buzzing insect now down Andrew’s arm,

My new friends in the distance, checking their watches,

The Master pausing, once again, to pray.

Now my heart is troubled, he said; but why he did

I was, myself, too troubled to hear or understand,

And only the voice of thunder above could snap me

From my impatience, the anxiety of waiting,

And the buzz of the fly, or whatever it was –

I have glorified my name; I will glorify it again –

The crowd in hysterics, and the Master aglow

With the glory of the moment and the height of his call

And, his eyes lifted up to the heavenly source

Of the voice that had thundered, they seemed then to shine

With the tears that I had hardly noticed him crying,

And in the glow of the teardrop, I fancied I saw,

Two pieces of wood, crossed one on another,

And the glorious Son lifted up on each one.

Why we should be outraged but not surprised

2012-01-12T18:03:00.003+11:00

In the past week, there have been many passionate, decent people expressing outrage via social media, online petitions and the blogosphere regarding porn-themed stationery being stocked in stationery store Typo. The most notorious of the products is a notebook with a naked woman on the cover, with the word "Dirty" printed along with her. And it's pretty clear that this hasn't just been a bad week for Typo or its parent company CottonOn. Their website displays a wide range of products featuring women in provocative poses, slogans like "Let's Get It On", "Do Bad Things To Me" (a Valentine's Day card, apparently) or, perhaps most appallingly, "Believe in Pole Dancing", with an accompanying image as subtle as the slogan.

But, lest the sexual side of things become the sole focus, there's enough here apart from that to be concerned about, including a notebook with the slogan "Keep Calm and Drink Tequila". All of this begs the question: just who is Typo's demographic? I'm fairly sure that primary school kids shop there, but even if they were only aiming at teenagers, it isn't ok. I know I wouldn't accept a student handing in work in a notebook with any of these slogans on the cover. At the very least, there'd be a phone call home asking if the parents were aware of what kind of stationery their child was bringing to school.

It's fairly torrid stuff and a good thing, therefore, that there's enough public outrage over it that, at the very least, CottonOn and Typo will be forced to hear criticism even if they don't respond to it. And thank God for people like Melinda Tankard-Reist and her organisation Collective Shout. We need more people willing to stand up against things like this.

But should we be surprised? Granted, the sexualisation of girls is becoming an increasing public issue, in the sense that the bounds of public decency are being blurred more and more, in a way that many find quite shocking. But public decency often has a way of disguising the real issue. We have agreed standards for what we do or proclaim in the public arena, and in the past pornography has been politely pushed into the margins. Now it's bursting out, and that outward burst is what shocks us, not the revelation that it exists or that the age for people to be included or targeted in it is frighteningly flexible.

We should oppose it, with all that we've got, but there's something perhaps more uncomfortable that we need to admit - that in our own way we are as perverse as any product that CottonOn or Typo stock, that we have secrets locked away inside ourselves that we would hate to see paraded in shopfront windows. The fact is, sexism, exploitation and pornography will exist so long as human sin exists. And, if we know anything about the depths of human sin, nothing that big businesses or advertising executives can come up with should shock us. We shouldn't accept it, not for a moment, but we shouldn't be surprised either.

I think of Jesus' words to His disciples when He sent them out into the world to preach the Gospel:

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16)

In other words, we should be wise to sin and its impact on the world but refuse to be corrupted by it. We should speak out against it, and never for a moment accept the excuses that people will make to say that it's okay, "just a bit of fun", that we should all "lighten up" and stop being "wowsers". Those kinds of excuses never cut it. But we should, I think, be willing to look just as regularly at our own hearts and at the skeletons that we have trapped in our own closets, because the problem is broader than Typo, and broader than CottonOn and Kmart. The problem is us, and that includes - to borrow the name of a recent film - me, and you, and everyone we know.

The fight against pornography starts with the fight against sin. And that fight should start with each of us on our knees, praying for forgiveness.

Worth and worship

2012-01-11T10:39:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I reflected on the complex proposition that the Bible offers, that we are on one hand totally depraved, corrupted by sin in all areas of our lives, yet also made in the image of God and, in God’s eyes, worth being redeemed. I know that this idea is one which may offend a typical Calvinist position, and I am wary myself of how far we push it. But the alternative position is an odd one: we emphasise how unworthy we are of God’s grace (which we are) to the point that we potentially argue it was idiocy for God to redeem us. God has sacrificed everything for our redemption; surely He would consider this to be worthwhile?

But I want to look more today at what our response should be. Self-esteem teaching would say, “Let’s focus on our worth. Let’s tell ourselves how wonderful we are in God’s eyes.” This, I think, is missing the point. It simply makes an idol of self and uses God’s redemption as a means to further worship that idol. In actual fact, it misses the point altogether of redemption.

So what is the purpose, then, of redemption? Is it forgiveness of sins? Is it payment of the price of our sin? Yes, and yes. But more. Redemption salvages us from the scrap heap, not so that we can feel good about ourselves now, but so that we will never stop praising the one who salvaged us. If I view my redemption purely in terms of what it does for me, I will pretend to worship God but will essentially only be worshipping myself. If I view redemption in terms of the way that it brings me into relationship with my creator, then I either need to fall on my knees worshipping Him or I don’t really get what was so wonderful about redemption in the first place.

God did see us as worth redeeming; but this should be a humbling thing to realise, not a boost to our self-esteem. And, in the end, if we truly get what God has done for us, we will be consumed in adoration of Him.

Tim Keller, who is one of the 21st century’s foremost analysts of misplaced worship, has noted that, in Old English, the word “worship” came from “worth-ship”. That is, when we worship something, we acknowledge its worth and act in response to this. In other words, he says that to worship something is to treasure it.

When I treasure something, I longingly look at it, for example, in the store window and think about how great it would be to own it. I ponder its virtues, talk to my friends about how great it is. Then I go out and buy it.

Worship is treasuring God: I ponder his worth and then do something about it—I give him what he's worth. (Tim Keller, 1995, Changing Lives Through Preaching and Worship)

In the end, what we are worth matters far, far less than what God is worth. And realising that, and responding to it – that is worship.

Totally depraved, wonderfully made

2012-01-10T15:57:00.004+11:00

For some time now, my mind has been crunching over the idea of total depravity and its implications for self-esteem, which, at the secular end of the scale, is based on the humanistic belief that "people are fundamentally good" or, in its Christian formulation, is based on the belief that "God does not make junk".

Theologians who have articulated what total depravity means in regards to the love of God will formulate the idea through examples of people loving the utterly unlovable. My theology-student housemate describes the typical Calvinist position in terms of God being like the father of an axe-murderer: though the son is utterly unloveable, the father loves him nonetheless, not at all because of anything that he is or does but because he chooses to love him. This isn't to say that the axe-murderer son has no qualities. But, where secular counselling for instance might emphasise appealing to the son's deeper good, a more theologically reformed view might appeal instead to the radical nature of a love which accepts him despite how reprehensible he is and everything he represents.

For those among us, however, who struggle with self-esteem, we are presented perhaps with a problem. Many will try to cheer up someone who is down on themselves with encouraging words about how good that person is - and I am a little dubious about how appropriate this is as a way of encouraging. Isn't it more powerful to say, "God loves you regardless of your flaws?" On the other hand, as a notorious self-condemner, I know that I buy into a lot of lies about myself. When I condemn myself, it isn't necessarily because of a healthy view of my own sinfulness but because I listen to voices that tell me I am worthless - and, whatever the Bible says about our depravity, it never once says that we are worthless.

Take as an example the master craftsmen who goes into an antique store and buys the thing that everyone else rejected in order to restore it. If he denied that it was damaged or totally in need of repair, he would be having himself on. But this is not the same as saying that it is only worthy of the scrap heap. This is not how God sees us; if it were, He would never have gone to Calvary for us. But He does see that, without His intervention, the scrap heap is the only place we will ultimately be going.

There is a subtle distinction within reformed theology between being totally depraved and utterly depraved, and this distinction might be helpful here. R.C. Sproul articulates it like this:

We must be careful to note the difference between total depravity and "utter" depravity. To be utterly depraved is to be as wicked as one could possibly be. Hitler was extremely depraved, but he could have been worse than he was. I am sinner. Yet I could sin more often and more severely than I actually do. I am not utterly depraved, but I am totally depraved. For total depravity means that I and everyone else are depraved or corrupt in the totality of our being. There is no part of us that is left untouched by sin.

(Sproul, 1992, The Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)

So here the line that "God does not make junk" is perhaps worth reiterating, though it might be better reworded as "God does not redeem junk", or "God does not die to save junk". There may be nothing in me that is not corrupted by sin, but that does not mean that I am not still made in God's image. It does not mean that, when He looks at me, He does not see something worth redeeming.

We would do well to remember, I think, that the same book of the Bible which contains the words "Surely I was sinful at birth" (Psalm 51:5) also later declares, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). Both are true, and, praise God, in the death of Jesus, the tension that exists between the two is overcome. Like the fallen yet beautiful creation which God will restore, we too are fallen, yet beautiful, and by grace are being restored.

The Devil Inside?

2012-01-09T09:16:00.003+11:00

A friend of mine belongs to a Christian off-shoot group who are perhaps most famous for not believing in the Trinity or in the divinity of Jesus. But there are other differences. They don’t believe in hell, for instance, and they don’t believe that there is a personification of evil, or Satan. Now, I’m not wanting to scrutinise these beliefs here in much detail, but there was something I heard the other day about his church’s belief regarding Satan that got me thinking.

My understanding is that my friend would say there is not a single devil, rather that the devil is inside. This is a curious concept. There are ways in which I can understand what he means. I have been in churches where people are very ready to blame Satan for things for which they are themselves responsible. The standard “The devil made me do it” defence is an exceptional alibi, and a wonderful way of pretending that it wasn’t the evil impulses in you that made you act that way.

But in terms of there being no objective, external force of evil, and in terms of evil being indwelling, there are some significant issues. Does evil continue to indwell after one becomes a Christian? And what is the source of that evil?

If, in fact, what is happening inside of us is a battle between Satan and God, then that’s a frightening thing to experience and endure – a “Devil and God are raging inside of me” scenario – and, while God is clearly more powerful, it is difficult to know whose side we are on and if we will, therefore, be able to rejoice in God’s victory or be destroyed in the process. Doesn’t it all depend, in such a case, on which side has the more dominant hold upon us?

People who have experienced anxiety, depression or other forms of mental illness will perhaps relate best to the dread that this kind of proposition can hold for believers who still feel ongoing condemnation and spiritual dread – and I imagine there are far more people in churches today fitting into that category than we might be aware. One of the greatest and most comforting preachers for people with bruised spirits was Charles Spurgeon, and 152 years ago yesterday he preached on this very topic:

I remember a certain narrow and crooked lane in a certain country town, along which I was walking one day while I was seeking the Saviour. On a sudden the most fearful oaths that any of you can conceive rushed through my heart. I put my hand to my mouth to prevent the utterance. I had not, that I know of, ever heard those words; and I am certain that I had never used in my life from my youth up so much as one of them, for I had never been profane. But these things sorely beset me; for half an hour together the most fearful imprecations would dash through my brain. Oh, how I groaned and cried before God! That temptation passed away; but before many days it was renewed again; and when I was in prayer, or when I was reading the Bible, these blasphemous thoughts would pour in upon me more than at any other time.

It was only when Spurgeon had the courage to speak to a wise believer about this problem that he received this encouragement: if he hated those thoughts, and did everything he could to fight them, then he could be confident that they were not his, and he could have the courage to keep fighting them, and to send them to where they belonged.

Evil is within all people, and it is certainly true that our lives as Christians will be an ongoing process of defeating that evil. But for the Christian evil no longer has a hold on us; Christ does. This is something I need to remind myself of, and I hope and pray that others who have these same fears can know the same encouragement that John gave 1900 years ago:

He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4b)

Calvin in Elfland

2012-01-07T16:11:00.003+11:00

I don't normally write poems inspired by articles posted at DesiringGod.org but this article by John Piper about G.K. Chesterton and Calvinism really tickled my imaginative fancy, specifically this statement:

Here’s the reason Chesterton’s bowshots at Calvinism do not bring me down. The Calvinism I love is far closer to the “Elfland” he loves than the rationalism he hates.

He would no doubt be baffled by my experience. For me the biggest, strongest, most beautiful, and most fruitful tree that grows in the soil of “Elfland” is Calvinism. Here is a tree big enough, and strong enough, and high enough to let all the paradoxical branches of the Bible live — and wave with joy in the sunshine of God’s sovereignty.

And so here is my little offering in response to Piper's intriguing declaration. I like to think that, if John Bunyan had written a poem about a visit to Elfland with Calvin as his guide, it might have gone something like this. It's written 30% with my tongue in my cheek and, I suspect, 70% with my hand firmly placed on my heart.

Calvin in Elfland

…and in the forest I saw two trees
each representing different heresies
which had driven the trees rotten at the roots
and sickened the ground wherein the trees stood.

The first, a wizened, stunted thing, curled around
a sign labelled “Free Will”, stuck in the ground
where the roots most needed life and space.
“This tree,” my guide said, “has taken the place

of the tree of truth which once grew bountifully
and sheltered all in its branches, til foolishly
the gardeners cut it down and put
their shrivelled righteousness where it stood,

leaving only truth’s stump.” Thereat, I wept
at the thought of beauty once strong now kept
locked in this sickened, deadly ground.
The second tree, which I then found

beside the stunted one, was named
“Reason”. The name, though grand,
betrayed the rot that lay below
the seeming beauty. Although

it blossomed and grew pleasing fruit,
my guide drew my eyes to the roots
which were grey and lifeless.
“Why,” asked I, “can this bless-

ed tree of reason be so dead?”
“Ah, because,” my learned guide said,
“reason unsanctified is but wand’ring
proudly in the dark. The rings

of this tree declare its ancient age,
yet years that pass do not make sage
the folly of a mind enclosed within
its own ignorance; therein

lies all the blindness of our race.”
But my eyes drew then apace
to where another, grander tree
stood shining, tow’ring sovereignly

over all else in the deathly wood.
I took my guide to where it stood
and gazed wond’ringly at its leaves
and branches through which the breeze

was wondrous gentle, and I knew,
without my guide’s words, that here You,
the mighty God, had let Your grace grow
splendidly; whereat, my guide show-

ing me the sign there, which proclaimed,
“The Sovereign God Has Made His Fame
Known”, we stood in wonder and both prayed
that all might know this splendid shade…

Rest in the shadow

2012-01-06T12:14:00.004+11:00

Anyone who has received an e-mail from me will know what my e-mail signature line is. It comes from Psalm 91:1 -

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

It is a verse that I found greatly comforting during a difficult time in my life a few years ago. I would not necessarily say that that difficult time is over and I wouldn't say that I always feel Psalm 91:1 to be true. But the thing about dwelling in God's shelter is that it requires trust in Him, not having it all together ourselves. It is fitting that the latest album by Sons of Korah, which concludes with this Psalm, is entitled Wait. The title comes from Psalm 27, which is essentially the centrepiece of the album, occupying four of its thirteen tracks. But the concluding lines of the album also perfectly capture the element of waiting:

With long long long life
I will satisfy him with long life
With long long long life
I will show him my salvation.

While finishing with such a hopeful line, the rest of the album seems to deal with the all-important question: what do we do while we wait for this?

There is such a rich tradition in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, of voicing pain and suffering, of expressing confusion before God. This used to be a subject that I devoted quite a lot of space on this blog to talking about. The focus has become less, perhaps because once I understood it I needed to talk about it less. But I'm not sure that's the whole picture. I think there's a real temptation in all of us - in me particularly - to seeking out the perfect formula to fix all problems. For some, praying and declaring truths loudly in faith is the "answer". For some, the answer is to deny problems because to acknowledge them is to speak out of fear not love. I think I expected that my problems would dissipate if I acknowledged them. They didn't. But God still calls the broken and the weary to His side. He still calls them to cast their burdens on Him. And He calls them to wait.

Olney Hymns 3 - Send None Unhealed Away

2012-01-05T21:49:00.003+11:00

Here is another one of the hymns I'm working on. This was a fairly solid day's work - not sure if the result is worth the effort but I enjoyed working on it. Cowper's lyrics are also incredibly beautiful and moving, so if, at the very least, it gets people reading his words, then it's worth it.

Olney Hymns 2 - The Waiting Soul

2012-01-04T11:55:00.002+11:00

Here is the second recording/movie for my ongoing Olney Hymns project. I went to a bit more effort with the filming and recording of this one. The lyrics are available if you watch the video at YouTube. It is one of William Cowper's more mournful offerings but still strangely uplifting. I hope you like it.

New Year's Hymn

2012-01-03T10:04:00.003+11:00

I recently set myself the fairly ridiculous task of writing new tunes for the best of John Newton and William Cowper's masterpiece, the "Olney Hymns" - excluding, perhaps, "Amazing Grace", which is so well-known that it would be hard to add to it. Yesterday I encountered this wonderful hymn, written by John Newton, to herald in the new year. It is sadly one of the many of the Olney Hymns which we no longer know or sing, so I've provided a fairly basic recording of my version of it. I am not a great composer and the quality of the recording is not worth commenting on, but I hope that listening to it might help the words resonate more and that, through them, you might be able to focus your minds on God as the new year hurries in.

From this day forward, Or, So this is the new year...

2012-01-02T10:29:00.006+11:00

I suppose it is consistent with much of my temperament that I should like what New Year celebrations represent. After all, I use Lent as a time to reflect on Jesus' suffering for us, Advent as a time to prepare for Christmas and for Jesus' return. So what should New Year represent? A new start? A time of renewal? A time of resolution?

It's quite interesting to observe how different people manage the issue of New Year's resolutions. A guy I met on the New Year's Eve just gone told me that he had made a resolution six years ago which he's managed so far to keep. His resolution? To not make any more New Year's resolutions. Others recognise the need for resolve but feel awkward about the tradition - and understandably. For most, this time of year is a reminder of their own failings. With the buzz of the new year all manner of grand promises are made, and then...nothing. No difference.

Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie wrote a reflection on this some years ago which I now always think of each New Year:

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

Gibbard's words are relatively bitter, but they speak out of a recognition that the mere arrival of New Year's Day does not make us "feel any different". We are the same people, with the same failings.

But does it stop there? Interestingly, John Wesley saw New Year's Day as a time rich with symbolism for a renewed and transformed life, and so the old Methodist Prayer Book included a liturgy for the Covenant Renewal Service which was, I believe, to be read on the first Sunday of the new year. My church minister, a former Methodist now Anglican (the Methodists, after all, don't exactly exist in Australia any more), shared some of that service with us yesterday, with New Year's Day happily falling on a Sunday this year. This prayer that he read to us particularly stood out for me and I think it's a wonderful prayer for all believers to say at the beginning of their year. The parts in bold are read by the whole congregation.

Commit yourselves to Christ as his servants.
Give yourselves to him, that you may belong to him...

Let me be your servant, under your command.
I will no longer be my own.
I will give up myself to your will in all things.

Be satisfied that Christ shall give you your place and work.

Lord, make me what you will.
I put myself fully into your hands:
put me to doing, put me to suffering,
let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,
let me be full, let me be empty,
let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and with a willing heart
give it all to your pleasure and disposal.

If, of course, we know anything about ourselves, we will know how monumentally hard that prayer is to pray. Perhaps, then, we need to start with a prayer of grace, a recognition that we cannot even pray these words without God enabling us: a prayer something like:

"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." (Mark 9:24)

Kasa no Hone

2011-12-27T10:36:00.002+11:00

Lyrics in English:

The ribs of the umbrella

Have fallen apart;

The paper is also torn,

But with bamboo

Tied together.

Do not throw it away.

Though I

Also am torn,

Don't desert me.

Even His Own Brothers - A Poem

2011-12-27T10:30:00.001+11:00

Jesus’ brothers said to him, “You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” For even his own brothers did not believe in him. (John 7:3-5)

He shook off the taunts of the well intentioned:

The right time for me has not yet come.

Had he not said the same to his mother

A few months ago, when the wine had run dry

And the master of the wedding had asked

For assistance? Had he then, any more than now,

Been concerned with social niceties or

The demands of public life? Had he courted

Then, or now, the limelight?

Yet that day the best wine had flowed:

Wine to gladden the heart. Though

Evading the piercing glances of

A public who demanded to know each step he took,

Whose clothes he wore and which brands he would support

When he overthrew Rome, or those who poked him

With sticks and said, Show us a miracle, Christ,

He would not neglect the work he came to do:

The bringing of new wine, the birth of a new kingdom,

In and yet not of this world that he trod.

For you any time is right,

Said the brother whom they did not understand,

The eldest, the crazed one, the public magician who

Refused to turn up to his most glamorous gigs.

The world cannot hate you,

but it hates me because…

By now they had tuned out. They played a flute for him

Yet he would not dance, a dirge but he would not mourn.

There was no pleasing this one.

Back to their homes they went,

To the regularity of wood shaped with chisel and plane,

While in Judea he hid himself until just the right time

To shake up the self-congratulating party with

The harsh, dissident cymbal of the truth.

Boxing Day Poem

2011-12-26T14:11:00.004+11:00

A brief scan of Wikipedia to find out about the origins of Boxing Day led me to this interesting tidbit:

In the UK, it was a custom for tradesmen to collect "Christmas boxes" of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year. This is mentioned in Samuel Pepys' diary entry for 19 December 1663. This custom is linked to an older English tradition: in exchange for ensuring that wealthy landowners' Christmases ran smoothly, their servants were allowed to take the 26th off to visit their families. The employers gave each servant a box containing gifts and bonuses (and sometimes leftover food).

Interested by this, I decided to write a poem about Samuel Pepys and his family Christmas. It's quite silly but I feel like the seriousness of my posts of late warrant something a bit more ridiculous.

Christmas with the Pepyses

Thence by coach to my shoemaker’s and paid all there, and gave something to the boys’ box against Christmas. (From the Diary of Samuel Pepys, 19 December 1663)

In honour of age-old traditions

Wherein, at the festive time of the the year,

Those who had much would generously share

With those in less fortunate positions,

Mr Pepys took his coach to the shop

Of his shoemakers and there paid the lot

Of his bill for the year, and before he did trot

Away in his coach, he chose then to drop

Something to the boys’ box against Christmas.

The expression is odd, though Pepys too was odd

And his diary haphazard: that year he forgot

To write about Christmas Day, which must

Have been a riotous day for the Pepyses.

In one other year, his diary declares that he passed

Christmas Day with his wife and the boy whom he asked,

Or instructed, to read from Descartes before sleepses

And play for his master upon his sweet lute.

His wife sat undressed until ten, at the task

Of fixing a petticoat. (One has to ask

Why Pepys went forth in his waistcoat

That morning while she stayed boxed up at home.

His sympathy for her is clear, however.

Poor wretch he called her, and in such cold weather

A man deserves a vest of his own.)

Pepys slept soundly that night, his mind

In mighty content, he declared.

And ask though we might, if the others all shared

His content, the answer we sadly can’t find.

Of all the crowns Jehovah bears (Christmas Day)

2011-12-25T15:57:00.002+11:00

Having said that I would not have time to write anything on Christmas Day, I find myself in the lull period after lots of food and before we have energy enough to do anything else, and am able to post something wonderful that I read last night. It's by my favourite eighteenth-century poet and hymnist, William Cowper, a man who deep depression forced to cling more closely to the truth than more stable minds might have done. This is the last in a sequence of hymns about the names of God, and is wonderfully appropriate for Christmas Day.

Jehovah-Jesus

My song shall bless the LORD of all,
My praise shall climb to his abode;
Thee, Saviour, by that name I call,
The great Supreme, the mighty GOD.

Without beginning, or decline,
Object of faith, and not of sense;
Eternal ages saw him shine,
He shines eternal ages hence.

As much, when in the manger laid,
Almighty ruler of the sky;
As when the six days' works he made
Fill'd all the morning-stars with joy.

Of all the crowns JEHOVAH bears,
Salvation is his dearest claim;
That gracious sound well-pleas'd he hears,
And owns EMMANUEL for his name.

A cheerful confidence I feel,
My well-plac'd hopes with joy I see;
My bosom glows with heav'nly zeal,
To worship him who died for me.

As man, he pities my complaint,
His pow'r and truth are all divine;
He will not fail, he cannot faint,
Salvation's sure. and must be mine.

Pax and Shalom (Advent #16)

2011-12-24T14:48:00.002+11:00

And so this is Christmas.

Actually, it isn't. It's Christmas Eve in Australia, but I suspect that, with the busyness of a typical Christmas day, there won't be much time for blogging. So I have decided to end my Advent series here, on Christmas Eve, with this, my sixteenth post.

And Christmas Eve, I think, should be a time to reflect. That's the value, if there is any, in John and Yoko's Christmas classic, the horridly named "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)". It causes us to ask the question: are things any different this Christmas than they were the last? John and Yoko certainly don't bring Jesus into it, but He's everywhere in the assumptions of the song. If war should be over and peace flourishing, then why is Christmas any more of a time to wonder, and to mourn, at the lack of peace in our world? Surely only because Jesus came to institute a world of peace, and we have not yet found the reality of that.

Unfortunately, I think we've missed the point of peace.

Many great Bible teachers today, Tim Keller being perhaps the most obvious one, will tell you that God's people were supposed to be a people of peace, shalom peace, deep, abiding peace - most importantly, peace with God. The trouble was, humans couldn't easily live in peace with God, because He is utterly righteous, and they were, and still are, utterly not. So for Israel to be a people of shalom, God had to declare peace with them. Then they could live in peace with Him.

And sometimes that succeeded, and mostly it didn't. Not because God's peace failed in any way, but because Israel failed to live in the terms of that peace. They continually took it for granted, and continually taunted a righteous God with their sins.

The real shame of Christmas 2011 should not be that we have not yet come to live in a world where humans live in peace with each other, but that we still do not know our creator and therefore do not know His Shalom.

You see, when the angels appeared to the shepherds and made that glorious declaration that we love to put on our Christmas cards, they meant far more than we might think:

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:14)

Firstly, it isn't quite the same as mere goodwill to all men - generally respecting and liking each other. Far from it. Those words were spoken to a people who were crushed under the yoke of Roman oppression. Did the angel want the shepherds simply to give Christmas cards to the Roman centurions or offer them a cup of tea or a swig of brandy? Was this little more than a cosmic declaration of the kind of good-old-chap chummery that we hear about in stories of enemy armies having a cease fire over Christmas, and the like?

No, it was peace bought with man and God: peace bought by God coming into the battleground to negotiate the terms of peace. And the terms of peace? Here we have to look ahead, to Easter. Here we have to look to the cross.

If John and Yoko and the rest of us really want peace on earth, we need to look to the glorious God in whom we will find the deepest peace. But we need first to accept that we are the problem, and then humbly accept that He is the only solution.

Many will not be willing to accept this - not this year, not the next.

But if, perhaps, you are reading this, then you possibly already know this, or are willing to think about it, or believe it with all your heart. And then, perhaps, you too can help declare the arrival of a peace that may not look like we expect and may be far more humbling for us to find, but a peace which is the deepest, most significant, most sustainable peace that we can ever find.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

I am a poor boy too (Advent #15)

2011-12-21T12:08:00.003+11:00

There is no Biblical text for today's post. That's because it concerns a story that you won't find in the Bible. You may know it: a poor boy who hears of the news of his king's arrival; he has nothing to offer the king but his drum, which he plays for his king with all his heart.

I used to cringe at this song. It seemed to fit alongside "Little Donkey" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" as the least Biblical carols we sing. Then I heard the sublime Future of Forestry's version of it, and everything suddenly changed. The story, I realised, may appear nowhere in the Bible, but that seemed less relevant than what the song was about: a boy with nothing to offer but a drum, a humble drum presumably, to proclaim the coming of the King. He had no gold, frankincense or myrrh to offer; but then neither did the shepherds; neither did Simeon, who had only the wisdom of devout old age to offer the Messiah.

It also makes me think a little about worship: about how feeble and humble our offerings so often are, but how pleased God is with them. It makes me think of the King Himself, who, when declaring the constitution of His Kingdom, began with these words:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

Your spirit may have much to offer your king this year, or it may have very little. Come to Him anyway. Sing to Him out of your riches, sing to Him out of your poverty. Offer Him your finest gold, offer Him your humblest drum. All He asks is that you come to Him, and acknowledge Him as your King.

Over the Hills and Everywhere (Advent #14)

2011-12-20T10:14:00.006+11:00

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3)

Towards the end of the school year, one of our senior teachers led a devotion in which he considered what it might have been like for Jesus to be born into our age in history. The shepherds, he suggested, would have posted pictures on Facebook of themselves with Mary and baby; they would have updated their statuses to make everyone else wish they were there and be envious because they weren't.

I wasn't entirely sure of his assessment of our generation, but it got me thinking. When Christopher Hitchens and Kim Jong Il died in the last few days, I heard as soon as the New York Times posted the newsflash: my iPad said "ding" to notify me of the update. But when Jesus was born the news was only broadcast locally. Only shepherds heard the angels singing; only the Magi paid attention to the herald in the stars. The news was there for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, but few saw it and fewer still heard it. The teachers of the law whom Herod consulted gave the doctrinally correct answer about where the Messiah would be born and showed not the remotest interest in finding out for themselves if this had indeed happened. Would it have been any different if the media were there to broadcast it? Would we be any more attentive?

Then last night I watched Lars von Trier's latest offering, the visceral masterpiece, Melancholia. Though beginning with a detailed and rich depiction of a wedding going slowly, subtly wrong, von Trier gradually introduces the pivotal plot device of the mysterious planet Melancholia which, some say, is hurtling towards the earth. Kiefer Sutherland's John insists that no, it isn't, that the real scientists know what the alarmists deny: that the planet will only pass us by, not hit us. But Charlotte Gainsbourg's Claire does not believe him and regularly goes online to see what the "alarmists" are saying. Which of them is right is adjudicated by the film's devastating denouement, already foreshadowed in the spectacularly understated prologue - a series of extended single shots set to Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" showing the varied forms of emotional and physical desolation the characters encounter.

The film, in the end, offers decisively little hope, seemingly presenting annihilation as the only answer; and perhaps von Trier is right, though not quite in the form that he has shown. One of the more interesting elements of the film, however, is the way in which characters wrestle with crisis. Kirsten Dunst portrays Justine, the deeply depressed heroine whose "melancholy" paradoxically dissipates as the crisis approaches. Only she seems equipped to deal with what comes. John, on the other hand, represents the laissez-faire attitude so many of us have towards the idea of an apocalypse. A Christianity Today review of the film cites media analyst Neil Postman as noting "that it is impossible to look at the world as a serious place when a newscaster can solemnly inform viewers about a military study touting the inevitability of nuclear war and be followed by a commercial for Burger King". Or, in simpler terms, Susan Sontag once noted that a typical scenario for the past century is that an apocalypse is predicted and then nothing happens.

But the world is a much more alarming place than we can quite grasp. The creator of the universe was born into a manger and only a few people noticed. When the end comes, will we be as indifferent, as able to ignore it? Jesus, who would know, suggested it would be otherwise:

“So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather." (Matthew 24:26-28)

Perhaps this Advent we would do well to pray that our eyes might be open and our ears attentive. When the newsflash arrives, we won't be able to ignore it, but we also may not have time to respond.

The despised things that are not (Advent #13)

2011-12-19T11:59:00.003+11:00

Here are Jesus' credentials:

- Born to a pregnant teenager, in a tiny, insignificant village.

- Descended from failed and disgraced kings, at least one prostitute, one girl who coerced her father into sleeping with her, a woman from Moab (descended from one of Lot's daughters who coerced him into sleeping with her) and the unnamed "wife of Uriah" - Bathsheba, whom David saw bathing on the roof.

Here are Jesus' heralds:

- Shepherds: dissolute, untrustworthy.

- Magi: pagan, and above all foreign; astrologers, whom the Jewish law condemned.

Here is Jesus' geographical pedigree:

“Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” (John 7:52)

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. (John 1:46)

---

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8)

---

This is the God of whom Christmas reminds us: He who "chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are" (1 Corinthians 1:28). And, if you're anything like me, and your credentials, your pedigree or your innate qualities are nothing to recommend you to an almighty and righteous God - then this is a very good thing indeed.

The light shone bright - A Poem (Advent #12)

2011-12-16T09:50:00.000+11:00

The light shone bright, Bethlehem-ward, but

There was little else to guide them: no signs on the door,

No royal procession, no red carpet.

Watch out, the guides might have said, for the smell of cow dung:

Not a fragrance, perhaps, befitting a king,

But such was – and is – our King.

A newborn, no doubt he slept when they came to the door.

What did they say, I wonder? Is there a king in the house?

The teenage, virgin bride flushed, post-labour, almost certainly tired.

The mother will not yet be ready to receive visitors, our modern-day

Matrons would no doubt pronounce.

Yet, strangers – aliens – that they were, they

Found their way into the stable, and gave the humble

Child-king the reception he deserved.

Not that this would set the tone for the rest of his life.

Yet in this moment he was – almost – acknowledged in a manner

Befitting his natural state. But was that really the point?

Surely he could have commanded a royal party every night, if he chose.

Instead, his final night he spent in a garden, just

A few close friends (they fell asleep later on that night),

A kiss in the moonlight, a shaky prayer; Father, take this cup…

Does the story end there? We wait, on the edge of our seats.

Yet we’d prefer it, I suspect, if that was the end.

He’s easier to take, as a baby, or – dare we admit it – when dead.

Alive, a broken king, his life defies all onto which we cling;

And rightly so, yet awkward for sure. There’s no option,

Before such a king, but to bow: all else is treason.

He knows, of course, that most of us won’t.

His brow was crushed by ones like us – the ones, I suppose,

Who would not find their way to the stable no matter

How many stars there were to guide the way.

Joy, joy (Advent #11)

2011-12-15T16:51:00.003+11:00

There is much talk about joy at Christmas. One of the most famous carols that we sing at this time of year is, of course, "Joy to the World", and for many, I suppose, Christmas is a joyful time.

But it's widely accepted that, for many, it also isn't joyful. Families come together to share food, but they do not always come together in spirit. Christmas can be more a time of squabbling than reconciliation. And for some Christmas does not bring them closer to their families because, for whatever reason, they no longer have a family. When a tragedy occurs this time of year the newsreaders bemoan its happening "this close to Christmas", a statement that is, on one hand, meaningless (a tragedy is terrible at any time of year) but also reveals the fact that the Universe does not instantly conspire to bring about happiness simply because it is Christmas.

To an atheist, this is further evidence that there is no God ordering things. To an agnostic, it might be further reason to withhold judgement. But to a believer, it need not be troubling, though for many it will be. We think that "joy to the world" means that we should somehow all be happy, all the time. I remember the first time I was unhappy on Christmas day, and I didn't know what to do with the feeling; it did not fit what we consider to be the purpose of the season. But the joy that the Gospel proclaims is a deep joy: one that transcends circumstances, one even that transcends emotions. I am naturally a fairly melancholy person. Over the past year I have been more melancholy than usual. But the Gospel has not failed. The joy the Gospel brings is not one that gives quick fixes or boosts in mood. It is a Gospel that gives a joy that nothing in this world - not family squabbling, not death, not depression - can squash.

In one of Jesus' first public statements, he read a passage from Isaiah which declared what he was here to do. The passage, in its original context, is rich with this deeper, abiding joy:

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair. (Isaiah 61:1b-3a)

I would not say that I fully understand this. I would not say that at every moment I can physically feel the joy that Jesus' coming brings. I would not even say that I feel it terribly often at the moment. But that's okay. The joy that Jesus holds out is untouched. And one day, or night - we do not know - He will step down from the clouds, and sweep me up into His joy that He has been keeping waiting for me.

You who are too little (Advent #10)

2011-12-14T19:06:00.002+11:00

Micah 5:1-6

A week or so ago, during staff morning devotions at school, one of the teachers shared some video footage of short interviews he had done with students in our primary school, asking them questions about God. One of the questions was what they were thankful to God for. Many knew the right answer to give at this point, and only a few perhaps spoke from their hearts. One young student amusingly said he was thankful to God "for dying for our sins and giving us baby Jesus". This answer, I must admit, intrigued me; what was the distinctiveness of the gift of baby Jesus, apart from the fact that He would grow up to die for our sins? The two gifts did not seem connected in this student's mind?

Of course, the incarnation is not only significant for Jesus' death, though that is the ultimate point of it all. And, while prayers to or about Baby Jesus unavoidably make many think of racing car driver Ricky Bobby and his painfully ludicrous dinner-table grace, there is surely significance in the fact that, while "Jesus did grow up", He also came to this earth as a baby.

One of the Old Testament prophecies which often comes out at Christmas is found in Micah 5, in which the prophet assures Israel that they will be saved from their enemies, through the Messiah being born into a highly unlikely place - Bethlehem, a small and insignificant village, famous only for being also the birthplace of King David. That king, though the greatest king of Israel, was also notable for being, at first glance, not the sort you would choose as king: he was short and a bit weedy, compared to his tall, strapping brothers. But God chose him, and chose Bethlehem, and chose to be born as a baby in Bethlehem.

And the meaning of this is? Certainly not that God is insignificant or small. The absurdity of Ricky Bobby's grace is not that he acknowledges the truth that God came as a baby, but that he thinks he can view God however he likes. It isn't only his view of God as a baby that is questionable but that he uses his prayer for product placement and as a means of impressing God so that he can win the race the next day. This kind of view of God misses the point altogether; He is not to be remade in our image.

No, but it is an amazing, wonderful mystery: that God, though all-powerful, chose to be humble, to honour the small and insignificant, what Paul later calls "the despised things that are not", honoured in order to "nullify the things that are".

Is it simplistic to say that this shows us how much value God places on the things we neglect? It is certainly not the full theological significance of the incarnation. But it is true, and it is something that, today at least, it is worth pausing on, thinking about, and thanking God - all-powerful, truly omnipotent God - for.

Why no-one buys gold, frankincense and myrrh anymore (Advent #9)

2011-12-10T17:09:00.002+11:00

Well, it was probably too much to expect that I could make it through an entire series of posts on Advent without once railing against the consumerism that is rife at this time of year. And certainly a trip into the city today, past the Myer Christmas Window and through a Melbourne Central absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers, I have come home with much fuel for such a vitriolic anti-consumerist post.

But I'm not going to write it. And here are my reasons.

#1: Our culture is consumerist at all times of year. Christmas might see more spending, but we spend too much all year round and replace God with more material things than we could ever need. Some might suggest that consumerism is particularly abhorrent at Christmas because it means that we are using God as an excuse to spend money. That is certainly my gut response to what I saw today, but on further reflection I'm not so convinced. God is hardly forefront in most people's minds at this time of year; there is no conscious justification of consumerism with God in mind. Rather, family and generosity and love are the excuses we use. So if anything is being blasphemed, it is these secular values, not God. The fact is, He deserves to be honoured every day of the year, in every way. Our failure to do this is the great sin we are all guilty of. Christmas consumerism only magnifies the sin; it is not the heart of the sin.

#2: In some small way, the giving of gifts can point us to God. The rest of the year, we spend obsessively on ourselves. At Christmas time, that spending is directed towards others. It may be misguided and misplaced, but surely it represents something that can be channelled carefully into some sort of openness to the Gospel, more than our blind, self-focused consumerism of the rest of the year can.

#3: The problem is not that we are spending extravagantly at Christmas. The problem is that we are spending the wrong way: spending the wrong currency and spending it on the wrong goods. The magi knew what to spend their wealth on when they came to Jesus, and they knew what to buy: gifts to honour Him, yes, but gifts also to anoint Him for His burial. You see, the gifts they gave pointed to the gift He gave: the gift of Himself.

Though a king worthy to be honoured with gold, He was found by them in a completely humbled state. Though worthy of anointing as king, He was anointed for burial, the act in which, bizarrely, paradoxically, His true glory as king was seen - and so the gift of myrrh. And, though He came to a place where the "presence of God", the Temple, was soon to be destroyed, His very presence on earth and His sacrifice brought that presence to us - and so the gift of frankincense, the incense of the Temple he came to replace. His life was a costly gift; and so we too should give of ourselves at great price, for we too were bought for a price (1 Corinthians 6:20). We should give to Him, and give that others might know Him.

Perhaps, then, the right response to consumerism at Christmas is not to see it as a distinctive evil but as something that represents the bigger problem: that we live in a culture, in a society, which, 2000 years later, still fails to honour God as it should. Perhaps we, on walking through our city streets this Christmas, should feel something a little like Eliot's Magi on returning to their homes:

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Speak Tenderly to Jerusalem (Advent #8)

2011-12-09T18:11:00.003+11:00

Comfort, comfort my people

says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

that her sin has been paid for... (Isaiah 40:1-2a)

When John the Baptist was asked by the Pharisees to give his job description and show his credentials, he responded first by denying the positions of honour that they suggested to him and secondly by quoting the prophet Isaiah, describing himself as:

A voice of one calling:

"In the desert prepare

the way of the Lord..." (Isaiah 40:3a)

And what was that desert in which he called, or the desert in which the way was to be prepared? For Israel there was one desert which resonated in their minds: the wilderness in which they wandered for 40 years after escaping Egypt but before entering the Promised Land. And when Isaiah wrote these words, he was speaking to an Israel that was facing another desert - the desert of exile in Babylon. When John the Baptist came preparing the way of the Lord, Israel was in another desert - the desert of Roman occupation. The comfort of God felt far, far away.

When Jews quoted Old Testament scripture, they were not only talking about the exact words quoted but the whole context that the scripture came from. It was expected that their audiences would know the background and fill in around the quote. So John the Baptist was not only identifying himself; he was identifying the age that had come. And that was a time of comfort for God's people.

The church in the West is sufficiently comfortable and complacent that we seem therefore to miss a huge amount of what Jesus came to do. We don't understand what it meant to set captives free, because we don't understand what it is to be captives. We sing about Immanuel "ransoming captive Israel" but the words are potentially no more than figures of speech.

Perhaps the persecuted church could teach us something about longing for Jesus' second coming as first century Jews longed for the first. Perhaps they could help us understand Simeon's joy on meeting "the consolation of Israel". Perhaps then it might mean something to read Isaiah 40 and to know that, when Jesus came, He fulfilled all of that, and that we who believe are just on the cusp of knowing and experiencing precisely what that means.

So for our music today we have something a bit different. I have found myself unexpectedly discovering some music of late that draws heavily on Jewish and Middle Eastern roots in capturing the emotions of some of the Psalms and prayers of the Old and New Testaments. For this, I can strongly recommend Aaron Strumpel's two animal-themed albums, but today I would like to share a version of the Lord's Prayer sung by highly eccentric and experimental outfit Psalters. You can, I think, imagine that you are seated with the early church, waiting, hoping, begging to God for the consolation of His people. It's quite long, and it isn't an easy listen. But sit back, take it in, and perhaps then read Isaiah 40 and pray that these words will truly resonate with you this Advent.

"The beginning shall remind us of the end..." (Advent #7)

2011-12-08T07:57:00.002+11:00

Last night, while preparing a class on T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi", I found another one of his wonderful "Ariel" poems which so perfectly suited the Advent season that I decided to share it with you all today.

The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

There are several attitudes towards Christmas,
Some of which we may disregard:
The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,
The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),
And the childish - which is not that of the child
For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel
Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree
Is not only a decoration, but an angel.
The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder
At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;
So that the glittering rapture, the amazement
Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,
So that the surprises, delight in new possessions
(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),
The expectation of the goose or turkey
And the expected awe on its appearance,
So that the reverence and the gaiety
May not be forgotten in later experience,
In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,
The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,
Or int he piety of the convert
Which may be tainted with a self-conceit
Displeasing to God and disrespectful to children
(And here I remember also with gratitude
St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):
So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas
(By "eightieth" meaning whichever is the last)
The accumulated memories of annual emotion
May be concentrated into a great joy,
Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion
When fear came upon every soul:
Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.

He did what the angel commanded (Advent #6)

2011-12-07T20:53:00.003+11:00

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly...

Of all the ways that God could have chosen to come to earth - this. An unplanned teen pregnancy; a scandal falling over a young couple's engagement. If your head doesn't swim a little at all of this, you probably aren't thinking about it terribly much. Is this the triumphant way that a king comes to be among His people? Is this the way we would expect the Infinite to make His presence felt in His creation?

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel' - which means, 'God with us'...

And somehow it all seems part of the plan, first signalled by the prophet Isaiah talking to Ahaz, a fairly reprobate King of Judah. That king thought that he could use God for his own purposes, and feigned piety when Isaiah caught him out. That time, the prophecy of Immanuel - God being with Israel - was not necessarily a word of encouragement. God could not be put in a box; He was not Israel's great nationalistic Secret Weapon. Who could predict what God can do? Who could know His mind? Who could ever hope to contain Him?

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus...

And so we have a great mystery. No-one can contain God, yet a fourteen-year-old girl gave birth to Him. No-one can predict Him or box Him, yet He has made His plans known to us. And He is with us. He came to be with us in Jesus, and He remains with us in the very same way at the end of Matthew's Gospel as He is at the beginning (Matt 28:20).

Joseph and Ahaz both heard the news that God would be with them. But for each one, the news had vastly different implications. How, I wonder, does it strike our hearts today to think of, to prepare for, God being with us?

The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel...

(All Bible passages quoted come from Chapter 1 of Matthew's Gospel)

Is anything too wonderful for God? (Advent #5)

2011-12-03T18:37:00.005+11:00

Luke 1:26-38

In my last post a few days ago I commented on the strange paradox that we see often in our society today: that we are surrounded by wonders yet so often fail to believe in the wondrous aspects of the Bible. There is, perhaps, an explanation for this: though we do not understand much of what surrounds us - the physics required, say, to allow a plane to fly off into the clouds, seemingly defying all laws of gravity; or the software programming used to make iBooks with translucent pages that we can turn with our fingers - we trust that somehow "science" has made each of these wonders possible. We couldn't do them ourselves, we reason, but we just don't have the know-how. Someone else does. But parting the Red Sea? That's impossible. A virgin giving birth to a baby? No-one can do that.

Which means, essentially, that we have elevated science to the true, marvellous miracle-worker of our age, but demoted God to the role of a fairly subservient heavenly janitor; all He can do is move around and tidy up what is already there, as if the laws of physics, which He created, are somehow too powerful for Him to overrule. Many have already commented wisely on the way in which the "miracles" of technology that happen daily have numbed us to the wonder of it all, one article from Christianity Today and the YouTube clip it references both expressing this phenomenon particularly well. The attendant effect that I often barely notice in my own life is that, though we expect great and marvellous deeds daily from our iPads, we expect nothing of an almighty God.

In a time well before iPads were even conceivable (even books with words printed on them and bound together were still a good millennium and a half away), a young girl was faced with something that still defies modern science and is therefore dismissed as nonsense: she was told that, despite being a virgin, she would have a child. On asking how this was possible, she was given a response that, to modern scientific readers, might sound like nonsense:

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Not really a scientific explanation, but what could possibly be lacking from it? I do not ever feel the need to understand the mechanics of how exactly it is that I can tap away at a few black keys and hit a few buttons and suddenly become a globally published author. I just know I can, because I trust that my computer and those who have programmed it and the thing we call the Internet knew what they were doing when they set up the whole system in which I now can simply luxuriate. Likewise for Mary. How can a virgin give birth? To a human constrained by the law that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, it seems more or less impossible. To a God who made everything out of nothing - creation ex nihilo, the theologians call it - it is surely no harder than what He has already done, no harder for Him to manage than any of what we take utterly for granted in our everyday lives.

I don't question the reality of what my computer can do, simply because it is beyond my understanding. I see the proof of it daily. So too, Mary, whose virgin body would soon begin to show all the signs of being with child, would surely have known before too long that the impossible had happened. For nothing is impossible with God.

With Clouds Descending (Advent #4)

2011-12-01T18:45:00.003+11:00

This afternoon, as part of a unit on "Future Worlds", I set my Year 11 English class the task of writing a short piece about the future, using the opening phrase, "In twenty years from now..." While they wrote their pieces, I wrote my own. By the time I had finished it, it felt remarkably Advent-related, so now I am sharing it with you.

In twenty years from now, we will not know how much our world has changed. The rapid growth of our planet and the ever-increasing, ever-changing world of technology will conspire to make us blind to change.

We will wonder: was there ever a world in which we had to leave our houses to go shopping? Did we ever not drive in cars that talk to us, remember the route to work for us, avoid oncoming traffic for us? And yet we will still say, “It is not enough.” We will still say, “It is not enough.” We will still complain when our train is late by a nanosecond, when information on any topic in the world cannot be instantly accessed from wherever we stand at any point in time. We will still say, “Miracles do not happen”, even though all around us will be phenomena that in any previous age would be declared great signs and wonders.

And when we find we still cannot make grey skies turn blue, still cannot reach heaven with our iPhones, or whatever we will call them then; when we find that God is no further from us nor closer to us regardless of the speed of our internet connection, we will still shake our fists at the sky in rebellious fury, still retreat into our labs to turn gold into eternal life, still worship the things our hands have made.

And if, in twenty years from now, we see on the clouds a sign that makes our hearts rise or weep, we will look at what we have made, the miracles we poured our hearts into and ignored, and know that now all our hopes are either met or destroyed. If that happens in twenty years from now, the greatest scientist, the greatest software developer, the greatest engineer, the greatest politician, will all be on their humbled knees.

The World, the Flesh and the God Made Flesh (Advent #3)

2011-11-30T21:20:00.004+11:00

John 1:1-18

I have spent a lot of time with the famous prologue to John's Gospel over the past few weeks. Somehow, I don't seem able to get past it. Each morning, when I have my morning devotional time over breakfast, I come back to what is perhaps the strangest opening to any of the four gospels, yet also perhaps the most rich of them all.

Yes, it is certainly rich, but it is also extraordinarily difficult to get your head around. Much easier to think about God as distant, or simply as human; much easier to settle for either extreme, rather than the strange, arresting, confusing fusion of the two that John so unequivocally presents.

A Unitarian friend of mine, whose beliefs exclude the possibility of Jesus being God, once said that he interprets the "Word" of John's prologue as being the plan of God, rather than Jesus. I had never come across this interpretation, and for a time it challenged me. But close inspection of the passage makes such a reading impossible. The Word is a person, the same as God yet somehow distinct. The Word does contain in it the wisdom, the clear, logical communication at the heart of God, but is also much, more more. The Word - lofty, sublime, beyond us, the creator of all things, yet...

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

How do you ever get your head around that? The Creator of the world, dwelling among us...An N.T. Wright sermon that I read this morning commented wisely on how much this truth challenges our very worldview, one which, for instance, likes to keep the secular and sacred apart, one which often would happily prefer to declare that there isn't a sacred at all. Quite apart from being the first sermon I have come across to truly fit the term "antidisestablishmentarian", it raised for me an important question: how much am I willing to let God infiltrate not only the public sphere of society but in fact every sphere? Because that is what He has done. Him coming to earth doesn't just mean comfort for the poor or divine understanding in our suffering, though it does certainly mean those things too. And it was not just a means of attaining salvation; if Jesus only came to earth to die, His thirty years on earth would seem a little redundant. No, though all of these things are crucial to our faith, there is something else that the incarnation shows, which I will certainly be trying to think about this Advent.

The incarnation shows us that God is utterly, intimately, uncomfortably, involved in our lives on earth. He has come to be here; He dwells among us. Are we prepared for that?

Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming...(Advent #2)

2011-11-29T17:18:00.003+11:00

Isaiah 11:1-10

If you fix your eyes on the deadness of winter, if you dull and numb your brain to all other possibilities, then there is a reasonable chance that you will not be able to conceive of a rose.

If you spend your time among wild animals bent on survival, you may then not be able to conceive of peace.

If you spend your nights awake and staring deeply into the darkness, you may struggle to understand the hope of the light.

If you close your eyes to the hope that Jesus brought into the world 2015 years ago, then you will probably not be able to conceive of His return.

If you look at the history of the world that God has made, if you let yourself see how frequently He has turned hopelessness into hope, impossibility into possibility, tender stems into full and beautiful roses, then it just may be that Advent this year can give you hope beyond reason.

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming

From tender stem hath sprung...

Prepare Ye the Way (Advent #1)

2011-11-28T17:32:00.004+11:00

Several years ago I found a magnificently tattered edition of a Christina Rossetti devotional journal in the now-no-longer-existent Keswick books (it got bought out by Word Bookstore). The book cost me all of about 90 cents, but would have been a steal at any price, both for its antique appeal and the wonderful quality of the contents. Rossetti was quite "high" on the Anglican spectrum and so not all of her theology resonates with me. But it did introduce me to something that I, a thoroughly low Anglican, have appreciated in the years since. It showed me the value of letting the liturgical calendar prompt reflection and focus, directing me, for instance, to let Lent be a time of particular reflection on Jesus' sacrifice. I have always liked to do something similar with Advent - to prepare my heart for what is to come, rather than just prepare my wallet for presents or my bedroom for the storage of new presents.

And so this year I have decided to expand on my Advent preparations - to use a series of Advent-related readings to help guide my thinking in this time. I make no guarantees about how regularly I will do this, but you should expect at least a few Advent-related posts per week.

Today's comes from the passage that was preached on in the church in Hobart that I visited yesterday - 2 Peter 3:3-14. Here is a verse from the passage that particularly stands out to me:

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." (2 Peter 3:3-4)

Last night, as I was waiting to fly back from my weekend in Hobart (my flight was delayed by an hour), I saw a small, devoted gathering of TV cameramen and photographers on standby - they had been there all day - waiting for the arrival of Princess Mary who was, they had heard, potentially going to be possibly arriving in Hobart sometime that day. Their hopes had clearly shrunk down to a soodling thread by the time I got there (my flight was the last one leaving the airport that night) and by the time that the only flight left to arrive was a Jetstar plane (hardly fit for a princess) the soodling thread was down to a single follicle. They went home before my flight left.

It isn't hard to see the connection to the passage from 2 Peter. There had been no guarantee that Princess Mary would arrive, but the devoted few (devoted more because of employment than any particular love of the Danish Tasmanian Princess) had stuck it out - in vain. Is this what believers in Jesus are - naive? petulant? stubborn in the teeth of reason?

Peter would say otherwise. He would say that God has already shown Himself to be a God who intervenes in human history, almost always when we least expect it; he would say that what seems to take a long time for us is a matter of seconds for God (a statement that is strangely in line with what Einstein took millennia to tell the science world about the relativity of time); he would also say that, rather than a source of frustration and impatience, the time it takes for Jesus to return should be seen as a blessing - time to repent; time to be watchful and share the good news with others.

So: this Advent, be hopeful, be steadfast, be thankful and be watchful. We are not naive; we are not clinging to misinformation and dodgy tip-offs. He who promises is faithful.

The Promised Land?

2011-11-17T18:24:00.004+11:00

Now, although my blogging may not yet have fully demonstrated this fact, I love my new home. Kensington would certainly have to be the most beautiful place I have ever lived. The natural beauty is clear, the houses are charming, the laneways are suitably and rustically cobbled, the shops are convenient, the bookshop is nearby and everything a book-lover could hope for. There is excellent coffee. It is quiet, scenic, and twenty minutes closer to work.

But I regret to inform you all that it isn't perfect. No. In fact, last night there was a terrible traffic jam that made all access points to my home street rather difficult to...access. The major roads were terrible. The backstreets were no better. There was no option but to wait half an hour until I finally managed the extremely short distance from the racecourse to my house. I personally think it was some crime committed in Flemington, because those sorts of things happen over there, but all the same, there it is: traffic, in my beautiful suburb.

I'm speaking, of course, with a goodly portion of my tongue placed in my cheek, but in amongst all of this I am aware acutely of my own desire to find the promised land, the perfect home, on earth. And, of course, it isn't going to happen - nor should it. The consequences are not so good when you seek to find a fully realised heaven on earth. You may find yourself driven further and further away from social problems, seeking an ideal society, avoiding all that does not conform to your concept of perfection. History tells us clearly what happens when we think or act that way.

In the suburb next door, there are rows and rows of housing commission flats. There the social issues loom large. But in the quiet streets of Kensington they are no less present, just less visible. I could hide my eyes from them, focus on all that is perfect about it, or move further away from any hint of such problems. But where would that lead me?

The prerogative God gives us is clear: not to seek heaven on earth, but to fix our eyes on heaven and live out its values and glory now. Which means bringing heaven into the pain and heartache, not avoiding it as a means of making heaven.

So here it goes on record: I will try my best to do the former, and pray that I can avoid the former, and praise God for His grace when I fail persistently at both.

All the secrets of fitness

2011-11-09T20:34:00.002+11:00

There's something that happens to a man when he has spent around 20 years, give or take a few, thinking of himself as inherently bad at physical activity, only to find that he can run quite well, quite fast and over quite a long distance. I believe the common expression is that it "goes to his head". Suddenly, he wants everyone to see him running, especially those who ridiculed him at school for his not-very-athletic physique. "Take that," he wants to declare. "Just look at my correct running form. Note my endurance." That sort of thing.

Then he starts working on his speed, partly with a healthy desire to keep improving, partly because, well, he can. So he does so, knowing, somewhere in his head (someone told him) that working on speed increases the possibilities of injuries. "Yes yes," he says to that part of his head. "Yes yes, I know that. But it isn't going to happen."

Perhaps you can guess the rest.

It isn't a bad injury; just a strained muscle or tendon somewhere between my calves and my Achilles Heel. But it stops me from running, and slows me down a little in my everyday life - in subtle ways, in a way that says, continually, "Remember, Matt, that you aren't actually invincible."

It's a good thing to be reminded of, I suppose. I should be thankful for it. But I'm not. I'm grumpy that I can't run.

Then I remember this song that comes onto my regular running playlist somewhere around one of the footbridges that cross over the Maribyrnong River. It's called "Don't Kid Yourself, You Need a Physician", by Anathallo, a band I love very much. I'm particularly chastened when I hear it, running or otherwise, by these slap-in-the-face words that form the chorus:

"All the secrets of fitness

All the fitness He requires

Is to feel your need for Him."

Ouch. Yes, that is true fitness. I had better remember that before I set out to run again.

Reason #75 Why I Love My Job

2011-11-07T18:27:00.006+11:00

Where else but in teaching can you experience conversations like this?

Year 7 girl #1 (to me, while she is dancing with friends): What's up? We're gangsterising.

Me (quizzically): Gangsterising?

Year 7 girl #1: Yes, gangsterising.

Year 7 girl #2 (as if by way of explanation): We're singing a song from "Mulan".

Ah yes, that would be THE definition of "gangsterising". I can't think why it wasn't clear in the first place.

The Golden Age

2011-11-05T11:23:00.005+11:00

I went through a stage while at Uni when I loved most things that Woody Allen made. I loved the unabashed neurosis of it all, and found myself quoting suitably intellectual or angst-ridden lines well after each viewing. Then I guess it all started to go downhill. I realised that Woody himself was a bit of a pervert, and got sick of films that suggested that no relationship can last and that "the heart has its own reasons" for abandoning one woman for another at regular intervals. Woody and I parted ways a few years ago, and absolutely nothing about "Vicky Christina Barcelona" made me remotely interested in rekindling the relationship.

Then came "Midnight In Paris", a film with so many things independently of Woody to recommend itself that I found it, in the end, irresistible: Owen Wilson; Adrien Brody (playing Salvador Dali); Rachel McAdams; Marion Cotillard; Michael Sheen; Paris; Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dali, Buñuel, Man Ray, T.S. Eliot and Gaughin all featuring as characters; did I mention Marion Cotillard?...I wouldn't be strong enough to pass all this up. And I'm glad I didn't. It was almost certainly enhanced by watching it at the Sun Theatre in Yarraville, one of Melbourne's most iconic theatres in one of its most iconic suburbs. Somehow, walking out of the film into Ballarat St, Yarraville, felt rather like remaining in Paris. It wouldn't have surprised me at all to see Hemingway inviting me into a cab with him.

But what I think I liked most about it was that, while it contained many of the moral issues of a typical Woody Allen film - including a new application of his own reason for leaving Mia Farrow for their adopted daughter - it did not quite linger in the same neurotic space as his films used to. The resolution is still a little idealistic, as if the universe does still somehow conspire to make romantic love always come true, but it was, if possible, a wise, more knowing kind of romanticism that the film's protagonist, Gil, achieves by the film's closing credits.

If there is a message to this film, it is perhaps that there is no such thing as a golden age - that we have always been discontent with our own present, however glorious it might seem to others. I don't know exactly what Woody wants me to make of that message, but I know what I left the cinema wanting to do - to praise God for what I have now, and, just as the apostle Paul taught the church in Philippi to do, to replace anxiety with thankfulness.

To top it all off, it really was just a great film.

Ideas From the Slightly North-West

2011-11-03T17:06:00.004+11:00

So a lack of internet access over the past few weeks has conspired to keep me from blogging since I last declared that Wendell Berry was awesome and I was about to move. Now I have moved, and the move, though short in distance (move a little south of Brunswick then go west of Royal Park and you've got me), has been big in impact: a shorter distance to work, a more peaceful state of mind, beautiful surrounds, a new and improved river to run alongside. I can't speak highly enough of Kensington, my new home.

A change like this can draw attention, though, to other changes: to the expectations that I now have of a dwelling place. Some of these are positive, I think, and some neutral. I have matured, in a way. Share house living has served its time in my life, and living in a smaller place with only one other person suits me better, I suspect. But in other ways I am concerned about the changes I perceive: am I starting to crave comfort more than I should? Am I reacting, still, to the burn-out I experienced in Malaysia, and wanting to retreat into a safer space? This may be reasonable while I heal, but it may not be the best option for the future - not if I intend to continue pursuing the path that Jesus sets out for all who follow Him.

The moral of the story? We never stop growing, and we never outgrow grace. We will see what new perspectives, new challenges, new visions this new window of mine shall bring.

When we no longer know

2011-10-07T17:15:00.002+11:00

I think I'm a bit late in coming to Wendell Berry. An article about him in Christianity Today five years ago declared that he was growing in popularity amongst evangelicals of my temperament - and I only really got into him last night. But never mind. There's no such thing as "too late" for these things.

I decided to read him primarily because I knew he had written about economics, and I've decided that I care too much about things like fair trade to pretend that I don't care about economics. Separating the two hardly makes sense any more. That said, I can't read economics without a soul. So instead I go to a Southern farmer-poet economist, because that's just about as soulful as it gets.

Of course, if you approach Wendell Berry in this manner, you will almost certainly become sidetracked. You will start listening to the lilt in his voice perhaps a little more than his words, and when you discover his poetry - well, then, economics will be far from your mind.

Here's a little something from him to bring some peace and beauty into whatever kind of day you are having:

The Real Work (Wendell Berry)

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Changing Windows

2011-10-06T21:20:00.004+11:00

The picture that you see as the header of this blog is from my window in East Brunswick. That won't be my window for much longer. As a matter of fact, I'm in Sydney now and when I return to Melbourne I will be moving on the same day, to Kensington, another one of Melbourne's beautiful inner-north(west)ern suburbs, and the view from my window there will, no doubt, be different.

Change, however, has been something of a constant in my life in the past couple of years. In fact, I've worked out that this will be my tenth house in two years. Ridiculous, I know. All this change certainly hasn't made for much stability, though there are some benefits. Moving so much has made me more adaptable, and helped me learn how to pack quicker - who knows when those skills might be useful in life. But it's time, I think, to settle down, at least more than I have of late. This is not easy to do. In going to Malaysia, I had to change altogether how I thought about much of life. I chose to be uprooted, to give up many of my expectations about living standards, comfort, relationships. When I returned, I was ready to go back whenever I needed to. Moving and moving and moving again has enabled me, I suspect, to avoid having to readjust to life in Australia. Now that I'm planning to sit still - I'm staying at the same workplace next year, and even choosing to move closer to work (hence the move) - I will need to slow down, to take more things out of boxes...It will take some effort, I suspect. It will also take some time.

So expect to see some of this adjustment documented here. The window I look out will be different, but watch this space to see the perspective - I pray - settle, and find focus. That, at the very least, is the aim.

What it is to be human...

2011-10-01T13:28:00.002+10:00

I have three stories for you.

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The first is about an ageing German film-maker, who is allowed entry to a cave filled with ancient paintings and bones of now extinct species. Gazing at the paintings - so vivid he is moved to comment that one looks like it could have been painted yesterday - the film-maker, Werner Herzog, ponders the nature of what he calls "modern man", a species he distinguishes from Neanderthal man primarily on his inclination to create, to draw, to represent. What yearnings in the human soul, he questions, do these paintings indicate?

Interviewing one of the many scientists involved in the project, Herzog asks the question of what makes a human. His interviewee cites the ability to adapt well to one's environment and to interact effectively with other beings (he is French, so the latter word is pronounced "be-eengs" - an awkward, double vowel sound that gives it greater emphasis than usual). Herzog does not seem satisfied with this answer. Surely humanity involves something more? A quest for meaning? A quest for beauty and truth?

Another one of his interviewees seems to agree, noting at another point in the film that the name homo sapiens - the man who knows - is grossly inadequate as a description of our species. He offers instead the name homo spiritualis. The sacred choral film score in the background resonates in agreement.

---

The second story is of an ageing French illusionist, who finds himself in Edinburgh attempting to make a living for himself plying his craft at a run-down music hall and renting a room in a hotel he shares with acrobats, a washed-up clown and an equally washed-up ventriloquist. He is accompanied by a young girl, Alice, who believes in the magic that he only fakes. Alice becomes enthralled by the world that he brings her into, but it never satisfies him. He wanders through it all with the same baffled nonchalance that his creator, Jacques Tati, epitomised. Few of the characters speak the same language. Those that speak English are rarely coherent, and there are never subtitles when French or Gaelic are spoken. Yet the characters - all animated - are magnificently real and vivid. The film so often pauses on pathos-laden images of desolation: of the drunken ventriloquist sleeping in the street, his dummy going for an ever-decreasing price at a local antique store; a clown drinking alone while vaudeville tunes play on a faltering old gramophone.

---

The third and final story is on a Lygon Street tram returning from the cinema, a local homeless man who I recognise from years spent on this street entering the tram near me. Somehow he has acquired a slab of beers, one of which he is drinking now, lying back on the plastic concertina wall that unites the two halves of the tram, glassy-eyed, not quite tranquil. I pray for him until he exits the tram. As he gets off, a man helps him zip his backpack up again to avoid losing all the beers stored in there. I'm not quite sure it is an act of kindness. When I get off the tram, the troubled and troubling lady who frequents my tram stop stands at the lights on the corner of Lygon and Stewart Streets, howling at the wind and the traffic and the rain.

---

How long, O Lord, how long?

The Apologist's Evening Prayer

2011-09-29T11:19:00.004+10:00

About a week ago, I was defending the Trinity to my housemate, who is a kind of Unitarian. I offered the best arguments I could, and some of them seemed to at least challenge him a little. But in the silence as I went to sleep after the conversation (it finished very, very late) I found that I could not rest trusting in a God I could defend with my own words and arguments. But a God who was far beyond anything I could hope to understand, a God in no need of my defence: such a God had arms I could rest in.

While in the mountains over the past few days, I found this beautiful offering by C.S. Lewis, in a book of his poems. It struck a real chord with me, and I hope it can mean something to some of you:

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more

From all the victories that I seemed to score;

From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf

At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;

From all my proofs of Thy divinity,

Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead

Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.

From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,

O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.

Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,

Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

If we had but world enough and time

2011-09-28T20:56:00.004+10:00

There has not been much activity at Ideas From the North for the last few weeks. There has, of course, been much activity in my life, and much activity also in my head, but not much - actually, let's be honest, not any - of it has made it onto this site. There's a whole post simply on the topic of why I haven't been blogging. The biggest reason, though, is that, while I manage to think a lot while busy, I don't manage to write very much. Writing takes time, and reflection, and space, and I haven't had any of these.

But I did go into the mountains for two days with two good friends. We listened to classical music and wrote and read poetry. We even read all of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale", complete with accents, only to find that reading a whole Shakespeare play out loud takes quite a lot of time. But we had time, so that wasn't an issue.

There is no easy answer for being time poor. If I may brave some potentially absurd hyperbole, it is the most pervasive disease of the 21st century. But for now I can thank God for school holidays and for mountains and friends to retreat, read, write and recite with. I can also thank God that, whatever is going wrong with my time schedule, His is completely and utterly on track.

A Thorough Education

2011-08-20T18:08:00.006+10:00

Outings to the cinema, once a common feature of living only a ten-minute walk from the Mecca of Melbourne art-house cinema (now only a ten-minute tram ride), are now rare treats. But the past twenty-four hours have seen me going to the cinema more times than I went during the whole month of July, and the two films make for an interesting comparison, primarily because, despite being from utterly different cultures, each deals in its own way with the question of education and its value.

The first, seen last night at the Indonesian Film Festival, was a film set in Kalimantan, on the border of Indonesia and Malaysia. The second, seen today in the Beanbag cinema of e Melbourne Central, was the new adaptation of "Jane Eyre". The first, appropriately entitled "Batas (Border)", dealt with a driven young woman from Jakarta who is sent by her company to a remote village near the equatorial town of Pontianak ("Vampire", in English) to find out why the local school is not being successful. The girl's experiences in the village transform her, and her presence in the village transforms the education system. She learns from them and they learn from her. An experience hunting wild boar in the jungle shows her the educational value of everyday situations, and she expands the classroom outside the "border" of a schoolhouse, taking education to where the children are, bringing it into their realm. I enjoyed the film, for its visual beauty, and the lovely soundtrack by the legendary Iwan Fals whose music I have recently discovered. Something of the sensory appeal of the film can be found in this trailer, which, regrettably, is in Bahasa with no subtitles. Still, I suppose it shows that, despite the fact that the dialogue wasn't very good (thus, you aren't missing much) the film was still a joy to watch.

Of course, its chief problem, apart from weak dialogue, was its somewhat unrealistic optimism about the human spirit. While touching on the highly sensitive issue of human trafficking in Indonesia, it passed over the problem without looking at its heart. Humans in the film were fundamentally good, if given the right circumstances. This did not explain where the trafficking problem came from. Were the traffickers a mere aberration? Were they subhuman somehow? The film avoided these kinds of questions.

"Jane Eyre" was a film with much more subtlety. It's hard to imagine a two-hour film that could possibly do justice to Charlotte Bronte, but this, I think, came close. It was delicate, moving, passionate and tender all at once, in the way that often only Bronte can be. And, though education was by no means the focus of the film, again there was something said about it, through the comparison between the "thorough education" Jane received at Norwood - a brutal, austere education through beatings and isolation - and the kind, compassionate education Jane later gives her pupil, Adele.

Of course, in Bronte, and in all the great Victorian novels, life is the great Education. Life toughens and transforms all Victorian heroes and heroines, much as Jaleswari, the heroine of "Batas", is toughened and transformed by her time in the remote Kalimantan village.

But does education transform everyone? As a teacher, I have to say I suspect it does not. Was there a process of education thorough enough that it could stop human trafficking? Surely the perpetrators of such a crime know it is wrong; they don't need to be taught that. They need their hearts to be transformed. Could education have kept Bertha Mason from going mad? Possibly, although it would have needed to change the culture that would have confined and beaten her if she had ever been admitted to receive "professional care". Education very nearly broke Jane. Human compassion saved her.

As I sit down to mark a daunting pile of student responses to "A Midsummer Night's Dream", it is with, I hope, a healthy awareness of the limits of education. And what can overcome those limits? In our humility, we should ask the one who made us. If anyone knows the answer, I'm sure it's Him.

Hard questions and elephants in rooms

2011-08-18T19:26:00.004+10:00

W.H. Auden once wrote a deliberately obscure little poem about asking hard questions: how easy they are to ask, how infinitely hard to answer. He never names the kinds of questions he is talking about but we can conclude that he means the questions that are asked flippantly, in passing, with little regard for the answer.

Questions, for instance, like "How are you?"

I commented on this a few years ago in a post that I'm linking here not because it was particularly good (it wasn't actually) but because I don't want to feel that I'm repeating myself needlessly. My point back then is similar to my point now: all too often, we ask questions like these with no particular intention of waiting for the answer. Or, more to the point, we find ourselves unable to handle complex answers to what is, in reality, a far more complex question than it seems. What if we aren't okay? Will we stop our questioner in their tracks and make them wait for the answer? Will we make do with an, "Okay," or "Good thanks"? Such answers may be the more socially acceptable, but they kind of expose the futility of the question. We might as well invent a strange gargling noise that can serve the same purpose - a form of acknowledgment that a human we know is present before us. The conversation need go no further than that.

Of course, I'm making it all sound a bit silly when I put it like that, but it really is a topic which I feel deeply about. Recent experiences of melancholy, of a kind that sometimes quite frightens me, has made it all the more important to know when an honest answer is welcome, and how it is appropriate to give it. Poorly timed honest answers can lead to the kind of vast, awkward silences in which one can distinctly hear an elephant walk into the room. Those times are certainly hard.

But here's a situation that's harder. Let's say that you are okay at a particular point in time: you've had a good day, you're talking to a person who makes you feel happy. When asked how you are - if indeed you are asked - you may find it hard to give an answer that will be meaningful. You feel fine then. You feel good, even. So how do you answer? Do you say, "Good thanks", because, for that moment, it's true? Do you then go away and, once alone, feel quite far from okay? Do you find yourself, at that moment, even further in the midst of a sinking, desperate kind of loneliness?

Auden poses no answer to the problem he raises. But he does give us a riddle, a hopeful kind of riddle which leaves us feeling as if therein, perhaps, lies something which is, if not an answer, at least a direction to walk in. Love, he suggests, might hold the solution: both the question that we really want to ask, and the answer we are too frightened to give.

Love and grace will, I pray, help me persevere through awkward silences and overcome elephants wandering into rooms. But I also pray that love may help those who ask these questions, thoughtlessly, in passing, at times and in places where no honest answer could ever be given - I pray that love might help transform those moments of awkwardness into times of true communication.

Inertia and friction

2011-08-13T21:27:00.003+10:00

Some weeks, there are many wonderful ideas for blog posts circulating round my head, waiting for the opportune moment to be written. Then, when the time comes and I can sit at my computer to write one of them - blankness. I sit and fiddle with the keyboard, tapping out atonal compositions on the arrow keys, fingers up and down, up and down, nothing formulating, and there is only a numb sense that there must be something meaningful, somewhere, in all of this that deserves recording.

The trouble is that words don't do justice to feelings like this. If I were more clever with words, I might be able to convey it for you, but tonight there isn't much that I can do with words. I wish that I could take a photograph to show how it looks inside my mind tonight, because there might be some who would recognise that appearance and be encouraged by the recognition. But some people might be troubled by how it appeared, or confused, or disturbed. Some may not understand, and we are almost always afraid of what we don't understand. I'm afraid of it myself.

It isn't a night for blogging. Times like these expose the gaping hole in what a blog, or anything with words, can ever do. They are times when the human mind most cries out to be understood, and yet it is at its least coherent, its least expressive. On nights like tonight, I hold out my hand and wait for God to lift me again. On nights like tonight, my greatest comfort is a man crying alone in a garden, his friends asleep and ignorant, his heavenly father hearing every word.

Running for joy

2011-07-31T20:36:00.003+10:00

I am considering retitling this blog "Matt's Running Adventures". This will be, I believe, the third post I have written about running in little over a week. It may seem a tad obsessive, until you consider a few things. Discovering a new hobby, at any age or stage of life, is an exciting thing. The older you get, the less common it is to discover a new love. I'm not old by any means, but I'm old enough to be fairly set in my ways, fairly fixed in what I think I like and don't like. It's a nice feeling to have those fixed ideas shaken up.

But there's more to it than that. You see, running has, unexpectedly, brought joy into a life that, for some time now, has not abounded in joy. On Wednesday night, for instance, I came home feeling truly terrible, the worst case of the winter commuter blues that I've had in a while. So what did I do when I got home? I ran. It was late, it was dark, I hadn't had any dinner, but I ran. As I set off down the inner-suburban streets near my house - it was too dark to run along Merri Creek - I wondered why I was doing this. It seemed ridiculous. Shouldn't I be resting? Shouldn't I be recovering from a challenging day? No. I ran. And when I came home, something had changed. It's hard to say what. None of my problems were solved. But the darkness of my head as I had driven home was gone. My head was clear.

So I was unsurprised to hear my sister tell me today that running can help combat mild depression. I'm weary of self-diagnosis, but the term "mild depression" seems to fit my state of the past 12 months or so - sometimes going beyond mild - and running has been one of the best things that I've done to combat it.

The idea is confirmed in this article from BBC News, and a few other places that appeared when I googled "running depression". And what is the reason for this link? Well, at a physiological level running releases endorphins - happy chemicals which our bodies and minds need for our well-being. Sitting in a car in the dark driving from Brunswick to Werribee and back each day, I suspect, releases fewer endorphins than running. I doubt, as a matter of fact, if it releases any. So, looking purely at the chemistry of it, it makes sense that running would make you feel better.

But there are other reasons. Biologist Professor Lewis Wolpert is quoted as crediting running with helping him overcome severe depression because it gives him "time to quietly think". For me, running does nothing of the sort. I hear my heart pounding in my ears; I struggle over each mound; I let the songs streaming into my ears help me up and down each crest and round each corner. The best thing, for me, about running is that I don't think. And that, for a chronic over-thinker like myself, is a very good thing.

I accidentally mistyped "good" as "god", and, while I corrected the mistake, I think it was more meaningful than your average typo. I think that running and not thinking is also a God thing. You see, with His creation on either side of me, His wind blowing into my sweaty face, His strength powering my weak feet (I pray before each run that His strength will sustain me), I feel Him in a way that I never will sitting anxiously behind a steering wheel. I also trust in Him in a way that I never otherwise do. It's a powerful experience, and one that I have trouble explaining. But I think that a quote from the classic film Chariots of Fire goes some way to expressing how it feels. Says Eric Liddell, the great sprinter and Christian missionary:

I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.

I'm not sure He made me quite so fast, but He has shown me a joy when I run that I don't feel at other times. When I run, I too feel His pleasure.

Restitution and Offsetting

2011-07-30T17:58:00.006+10:00

How do we assuage our guilt? It's an important question. The Catholic church told us to wallow in our guilt. Self-condemnation, it seemed, was the way to atone for sins we could never undo. The Freudians told us guilt was an immature response to our lives and something we needed to overcome for the sake of psychological health.

These days, we don't seem to know at all. We go for runs to deal with our guilt over eating that extra piece of cake. We offset our carbon emissions to atone for an overseas flight. And then we tell ourselves to not feel bad. It isn't our fault. We're only human. We've all got to live a little.

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:8-10)

Zaccheus could never have done anything to make up for his guilt. He could never have been accepted by a society that resented the crimes he had committed. He could never have broken out of the cycle of guilt and indulgence that trapped him. But Jesus called out to him and said, "Zaccheus, come down from that tree." And thus began a transformed life. The first thing he did was pay back those he had cheated.

3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”

5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. (Matthew 27:3-5)

Judas saw the best of all men hanging on a tree and knew he had put Him there. He looked at the silver in his hands. He looked at the perfect blood smeared all across it. There was nothing he could do. Giving the money back would never bring back the life he had betrayed. Hanging himself on a tree could never take away his guilt either. But he could see no choice.

A man sits at the entrance to Lygon Street. A scrawled note on a piece of cardboard sits in front of an icecream container with a few odd coins sitting in it, the sort of coins I consider a nuisance. The sort I would throw away if I could.

I have no money in my hands, only the books I just bought from Readings. The man blocks my path, and his needs cloud my happy Saturday mood. I glance at his face. I do not know what to do. Maybe I'll beat myself up over it, tell myself I suck, that I'm another Western hypocrite, that I need to be more compassionate, more giving, less selfish. Maybe I'll go home and donate to a charity to offset my guilt. Better than that, maybe I'll fall on my knees before the perfect one who already bled for my every moment of hypocrisy. And what will He say to me, when I kneel there? "I forgive you. Now go and do what you know is right."

He has shown you what is good, O man. And He knows that you will forever fail to do it. Rise every day. Pray that this time you will do what you are called to. Cling to the grace that forgives you every time you fail.

An open letter to Rebecca Black

2011-07-27T21:06:00.003+10:00

(Inspired by reading this related post on a friend's blog...)

Dear Rebecca,

You don't know me, and I certainly don't know you. Having watched your first music video and made fun of it does not count as knowing you. But that's the thing about celebrity - it creates a false sense of familiarity. We all know your face and your voice, and we know what time you wake up in the morning. Many people even feel they know you well enough to make comments on your video that discount you as a human being, not just as a singer or songwriter. And that's certainly something they had no right to say, and no basis for saying it.

We could say that you asked for it, by choosing to put your music out there for the world to see. We could say that aiming at celebrity brings with it the chance that as many people will hate you as love you. And yet that seems to be a little like saying that those who visit war-zones deserve to be killed. The truth is that the comments people have written on your video have been truly ugly, so ugly that the video keeps being removed and then re-uploaded as a semi-effective means of controlling the hatred. At least the record of hate gets occasionally deleted, only to be replaced by more, and the occasional plea for goodwill, and sometimes, just sometimes, a comment that says, "I actually like this song..."

But it isn't just those who have hated it - and you - openly that have shown an ugliness in humanity. It's also those of us who have delighted in mocking it. The number of parodies now far outweighs the original versions available on YouTube - it now takes a concerted effort to find the real thing amidst all the mocking imitations and ironic cover versions. I watched a few and laughed. I participated in the mockery as much as most respectable Gen-Yers did. I can't apologise on their behalf, but I can say that I am sorry. You don't deserve this. If your courting of fame has left much to be desired, that doesn't excuse us for our ridicule. We were always taught in school that bullies make fun of others to feel better about themselves. We were always taught this was low. It isn't any lower when you bully someone you can't see. It isn't lower when the person you bully is also an overnight celebrity.

The truth is, I don't know if you are old enough to reflect on this whole situation in a way that will edify and not destroy you. Your latest video seems to suggest that you are fighting those who hate you by trying to prove them wrong. Perhaps you shouldn't fight them; perhaps you should just take away their fuel, by ignoring them and getting on with being a teenage girl. But then almost no girl your age is content to just be herself, and we have not helped, by telling you how worthless that self is. We have never been in any position to judge.

What is saddest, perhaps, is that a song with so much youthful innocence about it - a song where the hardest choice of the week is whether to sit in the front seat or the back - should have inspired death threats and online vendettas. I guess you can't go back to that world now, can you? But hopefully, with time, you can be wiser, and hopefully humanity, by the grace of the God I believe in, will see for itself the evil that it does, again and again, every time it picks on the weakest to make itself feel stronger.

Yours sincerely,

Ideas From the North.

What I write about when I write about running

2011-07-24T21:05:00.005+10:00

I've never been one for athletic metaphors for life or the Christian experience. They've always left me cold, to be honest, partly because they're cliched, but mostly because I'm no athlete. I can relate to them about as much as someone born in the Ghobi Desert can relate to "The Little Mermaid". Maybe a little bit more since I have actually seen an athlete before, but now we're just splitting hairs.

The point is that typically, when I hear people talking about how something or other is like a marathon, my eyes tend to glaze over almost as quickly as they do when people try to explain economics or sub-prime thingummies. But, being Australian, I'm in the minority, I realise. Besides, people who use athletics as a metaphor for Christian life are in good company. After all, Paul did just that, drawing on the strong Greek athletic tradition (the very word "athlete" is Greek in origin) when he wrote to the church in Philippi:

Forgetting what is behind me and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)

He also wrote to his protege Timothy:

If anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules. (2 Timothy 2:5)

And, in a famous closing remark on his ministry drawing to an end he wrote:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:7)

So I suppose I should feel rebuked for my dislike of these kinds of metaphors. The fact is, Paul may not have been much of an athlete himself, but he saw in the kind of strength and perseverance that an athlete must show a helpful metaphor for what it is like to persevere in the faith.

Today, going on my second longish-distance run in three days, I feel qualified to make all kinds of comments on running as a metaphor for "going the distance" as a Christian. The fact is, I am neither qualified to speak about running nor about going the distance. My running career leaves much to be desired, and I am too young to say that I have gone the distance. Still, running in cold weather, rain and over a muddy, hilly track, with my muscles still sore from two days ago, I made a few observations that I will finish with here:

1) If I have any intention of making a fist of this running habit, I will need to do it even on days like today, when I had much rather not.

2) Being gung-ho is not the same as persevering. Persevering requires sustainability. So I need to be willing to spend some time doing the same thing - running the same distance, the same place - to build up my strength and stamina, before I rush into something else. Looking after my body is an important part of training it to be stronger.

3) The extreme muddiness of the track today made it necessary for me to slow down, even walk, to avoid slipping. We need to be willing to slow down when the track is unsafe or unstable.

4) We then also need to be willing to run whenever the track allows us to. You might think that slowing down at the muddy points would have helped me get up my energy to run the rest of the time, but it wasn't so easy. Slowing down made me more inclined to stop; I had to push myself to run the rest of the time.

5) Persevering through a difficult run like today will not be enough to make me magically able to persevere for the rest of my life. There are no magical bullets or defining experiences that make perseverance easy. Perseverance can only happen over time, and with great persistence.

It isn't very profound, I'm afraid, and I may well find that, in a few weeks or months, I'm no longer running. But I hope that I can continue, not only for the sake of the running itself but for what it will teach me about discipline and perseverance.

I must remember that perseverance is not easy in any area, whether in running or in faith, and we will rarely make it to the finish-line looking calm and dignified. But Jesus does not require that, when I get to the end, I look anything other than faithful and persistent. He only requires that I make it to the end. And that certainly is my aim.

Shoes of readiness, heart of reluctance

2011-07-22T18:08:00.003+10:00

This afternoon, energised by a literacy day in Preston - a much shorter drive from my house than I normally have during the week - I decided to buy myself some running shoes. I've talked about buying running shoes for some time now - let's just say that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. In Malaysia, I would just run barefoot or with sandals (they called them "slippers"), until I sprained my ankle - an unrelated incident - and my running career was cut short. Then I returned to Australia and it was winter and I was broke, and one thing led to another year of indifferent slumber from exercise, until we're where we are now.

But this week I requested my church small group to keep me accountable with buying running shoes AND actually using them, and this, combined with the fresh mind I had and the sunnier weather, prompted me to go to Northland and buy an affordable pair of blindingly white runners, and on returning home I set off with my runners, my iPod armed with a playlist of songs designed to spur me on and delight me, and off I went down Albion St towards Merri Creek, unable to see very clearly but happy enough with the blur of trees, long, green grass and the creek to my right.

There were some hills to climb and some mud which reduced the blinding whiteness of my shoes, and while I ran steadily for the first half, the second half saw me alternating between running and walking. A fairly constant stitch for the last few 10 or so minutes made me slow down, though I felt motivated when Josh Garrels' "Resistance" came on, and I found myself speeding up like the eternal spiritual war of good and evil depended upon it.

Yet when I came back to Albion Street, and the song changed, I stopped and took the final stretch at a slower pace. As I surmounted my street - the last hill before home - this song, also by Josh Garrels, filled my ears, and comforted me until, with perfect timing, I reached my door, and it ended.

These words in particular struck me as I walked through the front gate to my house:

"Not by my might, or my power, or by the strength of swords

Only through your love, my Lord.

All we've lost will be restored."

Yes, the spirit is willing, and today the flesh co-operated. We'll see if it happens again. But praise God for His strength in weakness, and praise Him for the beauty of a peaceful afternoon jogging in Brunswick, and the cool breeze on my face, and the knowledge that one day we will rise hill after hill and not grow tired.

And it was all a dream...

2011-07-16T12:43:00.004+10:00

The return home is often a strange experience. On one hand, there is the feeling that you have never left. Everything feels just as it always did. Give yourself a good night's sleep, recover from the jetlag, and you may wonder if you were ever gone at all. Did you not, perhaps, simply dream it all up?

On the other hand, if your time away was in a place very different to your home, there may be some degree of confusion over things that were only recently very familiar to you. You may, for instance, be surprised at which side of the road you drive on, even though prior to going it seemed the most natural thing in the world to drive that way.

People drive on the same side of the road in Malaysia, so I do not have to adjust to that. And, all things considered, I was only away for two weeks, so it shouldn't be all that strange to be returning. Then again, having lived in Malaysia previously, I found myself adjusting very quickly to life there, which makes the experience of returning so soon perhaps that bit more confusing. Confronted this morning with a knife and fork for eating breakfast, I caught myself thinking, ever so briefly, what do I do with these? Faced with crossing a peaceful Brunswick street, I instinctively thought, quick - run across while it's clear. Looking at our front door - just a door, no gate or padlock - I thought, how simple these doors are to open. Even a sea of white faces seems a little odd. And I was only gone for two weeks.

Give me a night of sleeping in Australia and I'm sure I'll be back in the swing of things. But for now I'm happy enough to be where I am - half home in Australia, half still in Malaysia.

(More travel stories will appear here once the jetlag has passed and I've uploaded my remaining pictures - for those who are interested...)

A whiter shade of fake

2011-07-13T11:46:00.006+10:00

Back in Kota Kinabalu for a few days, I find myself confronted more - though only a little bit more - with western tourism. In Tawau, you can imagine that you aren't actually a tourist, and in a sense I'm not a tourist when I go there, being there more to visit friends and volunteer at the school. Now, in KK, it's different. I'm here on holiday, and for much of my first two days here I did not see anyone I knew and was left to my own devices, wandering around with my back-pack on my pack and the streams of sweat pouring from my pasty-white brow showing that I was very much "not from around here".

There are other westerners in KK - not many, but more than you'll find in Tawau. Granted, that isn't saying much. But if you go to certain key tourist spots - Jesselton Point, for instance, or the overly expensive bars on the waterfront - you'll see them. They probably won't want to look you in the eye, because they will want to pretend that they are the only white people there (see this post on Stuff White People Like for an authoritative confirmation of this theory). Most of us are quite good at deluding ourselves about how others see us; when white, travelling in a sea of non-white faces, we can imagine that we blend in; that, because we can use chopsticks and feel authentic because of how much we are sweating, we must surely look like locals by now. Only, there's one problem - the whiteness of our faces. Seeing other white people exposes this for us; it shows us what everyone around us can already see: that we are white, not Asian.

Of course, I can think cynically about these things, and I have lived here, so from time to time I can fancy that I am somehow superior, that while they are tourists, I am somehow something higher. The only problem here? Almost everyone thinks that. If you're white, you are either determined not to be a tourist (while still going on frequent overseas holidays) or you are completely comfortable being a tourist because you didn't even realise there was an alternative. I find the latter group offensive because they draw attention to themselves and blunder ignorantly into situations they do not understand. I find the former group offensive because they show me up for what I am.

Is there another option? A third way, perhaps?

I think that, so long as we are looking solely at ourselves, trying to modify our own actions, trying to ensure that we are different, that our actions make us purer and higher than those around us, then we will fail. We will remain wannabes who redeem themselves by their own tolerance and by how much chilli they can eat. If instead we do everything with the love of God in our hearts, seeking to honour Him and to love His people, then I think a better way will open itself up without our even noticing - a way that is better than all the rest, because it is inspired by and rooted in love.

Don't you know who I am?

2011-07-11T18:37:00.003+10:00

I suspect that tempers boil a little quicker in hot climates. Make the weather particularly humid, and it gets even quicker. Add an Air Asia flight to the mix, and the boiling point is probably brought down a good (or bad) ten degrees.

When I first came to Sabah, I came knowingly as a servant. I came determined to accept whatever situation I was put in. This proved harder than I had thought it would be, though sometimes the situations I found myself in were far easier than I had expected (and also sometimes far harder). I was sometimes looked after very well, sometimes not at all. Often I was given nice, comfortable accommodation. Often that accommodation came with heavy responsibilities, eg. looking after 8 teenage boys. I was required, I suppose, to put Philippians 4:12-13 to the test.

This time round, I told myself that I was going to come with no expectations, to once again accept whatever situation I found myself in. If I was treated like a celebrity, so be it. If I was treated like dirt, well, I didn't much fancy that, but so be it, I suppose. But in my heart I said, "But really they should treat me like a long-lost friend."

And in Tawau that's how I was treated, mostly. In KK it's been a bit different so far. The friend who was supposed to pick me up from the airport didn't. The room that I had stayed in on my first night here - small but nice, and with an en-suite - had been changed to a smaller one, with no en-suite, and where the adjoining communal bathroom seemed to have no hot water and not even really something I would consider a shower.

Pride, of course, kicks in very quickly in these circumstances. "Don't you know who I am?" the fleshly spirit rages.

Yes, there are many in Malaysia with better accommodation than I will have tonight. Yes, it is annoying that I was not collected from the airport. Yes, it is frustrating that these are my friends who seem to be letting me down.

Then I think of a garden where the best of all men knelt crying and sweating blood while his closest friends slept and their spirits began to prepare to abandon, even deny, him. If anyone deserved to say, "Don't you know who I am?", it was him. Yet he never did. The one time he declared his identity, it was at an impromptu and shoddy trial for his death, and the declaration sealed his fate.

My flesh tells me I should not have to put up with this on a holiday. "Go and book yourself into a hotel where at least they'll book you a taxi and give you breakfast", it says. But then my mind is half-drawn back to the one who can show me how to handle this situation properly, and I am humbled.

Who am I? I am nothing, if I am not like Him.

Tawau's Got Talent

2011-07-10T18:24:00.003+10:00

I remember reading what the Lonely Planet guide to Borneo has to say about Tawau. I bought it just before moving here, and was a little disappointed to find this description of my prospective home:

Despite the progress, desolate pockets remain after dark. Particularly around the local bus terminus, dog packs are big and loud enough to cause distress, and street lighting could use an upgrade. But what's really missing there at night are people.

The lure for travellers is the border: Tawau is the only crossing point with Kalimantan where foreigners can get a visa to enter Indonesia.

The last part isn't true. I tried to get into Kalimantan twice and failed. You need a Visa, and they're not easy to get. Or maybe that was just me. But I certainly remember feeling somewhat disappointed by what I found when I arrived. Up to this point, I had been familiar with Malaysia's tourist hotspots. The most provincial experience I had had of Malaysia had been Kuching, Sarawak, and I had loved that so much that I thought living in Sabah would be a cinch.

I suppose I can admit now that it really wasn't. While I loved much about it, and still do love it, Tawau was a difficult place for a foreigner to live. The chief reason is that there are simply no other foreigners here. I can distinctly remember the few times that I have seen any other orang putih (that means "white men", rather than a type of monkey) here. I saw a few the other day at Taman Bukit Tawau. It was a novelty. While you might find that in the bigger cities, even in Kota Kinabalu, you can live a relatively western life just with spicy food and exotic, tropical surrounds, Tawau does not afford these luxuries. Here, you are thrown into life with few of your protective mechanisms. You may not realise on the surface how different this place will be to live in, but you'll learn quickly enough once you are here long enough to need routine and familiarity.

One issue, I think, in a place like this is the attitude of the locals towards their own town. Some love it, some view it with contempt and can't wait to get out. Others simply don't know any different. For someone who has lived in many different places and now lives in one of the more cosmopolitan and advanced cities of the world, I view complacency a little critically. I don't think this is necessarily a good thing, since it brings with it much that is unreasonably judgmental. Still, there is much to be said for knowing other ways of living. I have come, for instance, to love the upbringing I have had because, knowing of lives other than my own, I have learnt to see the value of what I have. Many of the people I see daily in Tawau are teenagers, and many of them, by virtue of youth, long for another life. I remember being much the same as a teenager busting to get out of Drouin.

The real challenge for Tawau, and for Malaysia in general, is for people who leave for education and broadening of experience to return, to come back to their home with love and the kind of civic-mindedness which governments can promote but only the heart can produce.

When I think of how I should pray for this country when I return to Australia in less than a week, I suspect this is a very good prayer to pray: that there would be more and more Malaysians who love their home, not because they don't know any different, but because they see the value of home, and see the good that they can do for their people.

It's also a prayer that can be prayed for every cosmopolitan city, where travel and self-development are valued much more highly than staying put and working for the good of your home. We can all learn, I think, what it is to seek to bless not yourself but your home, to hold in tension the problems you see and the love you have for the place. It is a tension, I suspect, best achieved by the grace of a God in whom we always have a higher calling, a higher Home.

Beggar's Prayer

2011-07-10T15:06:00.005+10:00

I have been recently compiling a unit on "World Poetry" to teach to the Year 10s at my Melbourne school next year. This has led me through many cultures, mostly African and Indian, to find the best poems that are out there. I also had the great joy this week of sitting with one of the indigenous students from my school in Tawau - a gentle-spirited, godly boy who writes poetry - helping him to translate two of his poems from Bahasa Malaysia into English. I won't share any of his works here, because they are not mine to share, but along the way on my journey through the world's poetry, I found this beautiful offering by Rabindranath Tagore, the great Indian poet. His particular blend of mysticism is, I am sure, often quite divergent from Christian belief, but I think I could say this poem word for word and mean it all. I picture Lazarus, the poor man from Jesus' parable, begging at the gates of heaven, and being let in with all the mercy of our mighty and humble King:

Beggarly Heart (Rabindranath Tagore)

When the heart is hard and parched up,

come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life,

come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from

beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,

break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one,

thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.

A fitting resting place

2011-07-07T18:45:00.010+10:00

In January of last year I had my first set of Australian visitors come to see me in Tawau - my friends Anne and Paul who stopped by on their honeymoon. It was a rare opportunity to put aside my responsibilities for the weekend, and also my first time out of Tawau since arriving. One sweaty Sunday afternoon, after church, we drove to Semporna, the next town - around 100km away. I remember sitting down at the famous floating restaurant, looking out over the magically clear water, eating magnificent food (fish that had only been caught a few minutes earlier) and drinking cool beer, and breathing perhaps my first sigh of relief in one month.
Today I returned to Semporna, with Aunty Wendy, an older Chinese lady who now does much the same job in the student hostel that I had last year. She had been wanting very much to go to Semporna and could not find anyone with the time to accompany her. I, fortunately, also wanted someone to go there with. We shared the driving, ate seafood for breakfast and lunch and took a boat to a small island adjoining one of the many kampung air (water villages) peppering the coast. The boat was suitably wild, belly-slapping the surface of the water at opportune intervals, the boat's driver seemingly dodgy at first then proving quite the gentleman, and the children at the kampung initially standoffish then wondrously happy when our cameras came out, jumping and dancing for no reason aside from apparent joy. They followed us to the jetty, echoing each other all the way down with repeated cries of, "Bye bye! Terima kasih! Jumpa lagi!" ("Thankyou. See you again.") One child introduced a variation with, "Terima kasih! Jumpa lagi! Makan (eat) KFC!"), and by the time I was in the boat the cry had become, a little unusually, "Thankyou, daddy, I love you, daddy". They also enjoyed poking my feet, which they found to be delightfully white. It was a suitably odd and joyful moment that I feel I have to record, for the sake of remembering it when moments like these seem rather strange and unlikely to have ever actually happened.

I later found out that the name "Semporna" means place of rest. Like "Brunei Darusalam" ("Abode of Peace"), it forms one of the most aptly named places of momentary rest and peace in the busy life I led while here. Today it was also an oasis of peace after two and a half days of fairly solid time spent back at my old school. Driving back to Tawau, up the lush oil-palm-lined hill that led us home, I looked ahead at the clouds and blue sky set against the alarming green-ness of the Sabah landscape and thought of the resting place that still awaits me - a resting place I will never have to leave, never have to say "Bye bye" or "Jumpa lagi", but where I can dwell forever, with a permanent, resounding "Terima kasih". That, I suspect, will be the day to end - and begin - all days.

A waterfall and the trouble with staring at the ground

2011-07-06T21:08:00.003+10:00

One of my favourite things in all of God's creation is a good old jungle. Back home, we call them rainforests but the difference is lost on me. My geography was never really good enough to understand these fine distinctions. The point is that the small southern Queensland town where I spent my formative years had much rainforest on hand for a small child to enjoy, and our semi-regular trips to the north gave me early exposure to the tropical variety. Years spent in the more pastural Gippsland made my love of the rainforest/jungle lie dormant for a few years, but on first coming to Malaysia it was reawakened. By the time I was living here last year, it was thoroughly active again, to the point that I booked a cabin in the jungle to spend a night back in June last year, even though I had a fever and had barely been able to walk the previous day. I love the jungle. That's all there is to it.
So today, after two and a half days of being back at my old school, more or less acting like I wasn't actually on holidays at all, I had the joy of going to one of my favourite Sabah haunts - Taman Bukit Tawau (Tawau Hill Park), where I stayed for that famous feverish night last year. I went with a friend, the husband of my principal, whose company I always relished when I lived here. We could drink beer and talk about history and literature, and he liked walking in the jungle. Enough said. So today we returned to the jungle, and went on another ill-fated search for the mythic hot springs of Tawau (that's two failed attempts now, this time because a very large tree and menacing-looking rotan branch had fallen across the path) and also had a successful trip to the Bukit Gelas waterfall, pictured above for your convenience. My feet got absolutely coated in mud (yet another pair of shoes to be christened by the extremes of Bornean weather) as did my trousers, and I was thoroughly sweaty by the end of the hike, and had an all-round rollicking good time. Afterwards we drank tea and ate papadums and roti, and talked about history and theology. We're planning another jungle trek on Saturday, this time up another hill nearby.

There was a moment while hiking when I realised, though, that for all my love of the jungle I rarely look at it when I'm walking in it. Much more of my time is spent staring at the ground, avoiding the mud (I was unsuccessful), looking out for leeches (failed on that count too) and generally making sure that where you put your feet is steady and safe (that was more successful). Then you enter the clearing, find the waterfall and put your bag down. You wash your face and hands in the stream and look up, and there it is. The thing you came here for.

You cannot, perhaps, see from the picture just how beautiful that waterfall was. Come to Tawau with me one day and I'll show you.

Divided Loyalties

2011-07-05T15:14:00.005+10:00

I mentioned in my post of a few days ago that there are a few different emotions that are brought up by returning to a place that was once very familiar to you. A major part of that experience, I think, is the feeling that there is often an aspect to your personality that is powerfully connected to that place - a part that may not feel connected with anywhere else. Strange and mystical as this might sound, it can actually result from a variety of quite everyday reasons: the people you love who live in that place, or the unique sensations and experiences that stem from living there. While, for instance, I may be able to eat Malaysian food even when not in Malaysia, there's nothing quite like the feeling of actually eating it in Malaysia, with the sultry heat and tropical downpour, soaking in the smells and the colours around you as you eat. This, I think, is an experience that I do not have outside of Malaysia. It awakens in me something that is not awakened anywhere else.

Then there is the love I have for the people, for the school I am visiting, for the whole, gloriously imperfect experience of being here, with them, doing what I'm doing. While I may have comparable feelings in Australia, at my school there - and I certainly do - I am someone who tends to become consumed by whatever situation I am in. While in Malaysia, my mind is almost exclusively on Malaysia. When back teaching in Melbourne, that's where my mind is once more. The effect? Not necessarily what R.D. Laing or William James would mean by the "divided self", but perhaps a more everyday approximation of it. I am still me in any place where I go, and I can be both happy and sad in equal measure wherever I find myself. And, more to the point, God is the same wherever I am, and never leaves me or forsakes me. Yet I am conflicted. I long to stay here, yet I long to go home.

Isn't this, I wonder, what we should feel about Heaven? Yet the feeling, in that case, should be more intense in the conflict it causes, while also more clear-cut in where the lines are drawn. Heaven, unlike Malaysia or Melbourne, is perfect, and we will only ever be happy there, never sad. Going to Heaven will be the true act of Going Home, where there will be no sadness or regret. Yet the Apostle Paul captured the tension perfectly when he wrote these words:

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body." (Philippians 1:21-24)

Perhaps, when we feel these inner conflicts, they are because our divided loyalties result purely from division between earthly motives. If our desires and hearts are fixed on our true Home, then we will feel conflict, but not the conflict of a divided heart. Whether here or with Christ, our hearts will be with Him and His kingdom.

Early last year, reflecting on this same conflict, I wrote the following poem, words which, now I am back in Malaysia, bring me back to the very emotions that must have prompted me to write them. I will let this be my prayer today:

The Undivided Self

(After John Donne)

I am a homeland of warring fractions.

I am a mountain pulled by opposing forces,

a mass on the verge of becoming many islands.

If you have the power,

and the love to overpower my will,

keep me as one –

or, if there is much that must be discarded,

may you leave just the parts attached to your land;

cleave them unto your shelf, your continent,

and may all else cleave away.

If I cannot be one, then make me all None,

and make my nothing All on the land-mass of

your wondrous whole.

Over the mountains and the sea

2011-07-04T20:30:00.007+10:00

If you are comparing Kota Kinabalu to other South-East Asian cities, you may find it small and laid-back. It isn't as inexplicably quiet as its neighbour, Bandar Seri Begawan, and the constant traffic jams make it seem less than idyllic. But to one side you see lush, jungle-thick mountains stretching out as guardians over the city and to the other you see water, and islands, and boats wandering out to bring the two together.

Sabah Reflections #1: On being foreign (and not especially humble)

2011-07-04T12:07:00.004+10:00

I’m not sure how regular my internet access will be over the next two weeks, so my blogging may well be sporadic at best. This post is being written offline while the ideas are fresh in my mind and will be uploaded as soon as an opportunity arises. It’s early evening in Kota Kinabalu – the end of my first day back in Sabah. It’s been a day of ups and downs, not helped perhaps by the fact that I did not get to eat anything until around 12:30. But it’s also been a day of wonderful rememberings and reflections. Some solitude in the afternoon afforded me a lovely leisurely time roaming the familiar streets of KK, going to old haunts and taking far more photos than I was actually aware of. You can expect to see some uploaded here presently, but I might just focus on thoughts for the time being.

Returning to a place that was once very familiar is a strange experience. The first few days, I suspect, are a mix of delighting in becoming reacquainted with it all and being reminded of things that you had not once thought about since leaving, some of them good, some of them not as good.

It’s amazing, for instance, how simply being back in Malaysia helps me make sense of aspects of my life here that had become distant memories, even beginning to take on the atmosphere of myth. My writings from the first half of last year, for instance, attest that while living here I grew in God in ways that, back home, I have come to question, even potentially doubting that it ever happened. Being back here I can see why. There is something so humbling about life here, at least for a foreigner. You could live in far less resourced places, but enough things just won’t work, or simply don’t work how you’d expect, that you either become very quickly angry, or learn that the world does not revolve around you. There’s also a gratitude for simple blessings that develops in a place like Sabah. Functioning hot water systems can come, appropriately, to seem luxuries. Drinking water can be an unalloyed pleasure. On the other hand, rarely knowing how to do some of the most basic things has a similar effect, I suspect, to being an adult who, for whatever reason, loses the ability to walk and must learn to do so again.

When faced with humbling situations, there are two choices: accepting humility, or being humiliated. The latter regularly stems out of pride and leads only to further hardness of heart. The former leads to joy and gratitude: the sort of gratitude that, 18 months ago, prompted me to write this simple poem/prayer, which I will share with you today:

My heart is full

(sweet syrup of

your love, and each

and every gift; with sap

my tree-trunk spirit fills);

my hands, though empty,

better suited are to reach

inside my heart and take

full quota of this

liquid-blessing. Full

my heart to overflowing.

(Blessed be the hands that give.)

Jet Planes and Setting Suns

2011-07-01T20:38:00.008+10:00

Well, there hasn't been an awful lot of activity here at Ideas From the North of late, primarily because I've been quite frantically trying to finish up the somewhat implausible amount of marking that I've had piling up throughout the term. The deadline? Flying back to Malaysia tomorrow morning for a two week return to the place I called home for half of last year.

Apart from being flat out tying up loose ends in Melbourne (I haven't succeeded; many ends are still loose), there's naturally a lot of conflicting emotions in me in the lead up to my return. Now, I'm not going to go into the details here as to why exactly I feel mixed about it, but suffice to say that my experience of life in Malaysia involved some of the greatest joy and some of the greatest pain of my short life so far. Returning to the place where it all coalesced bizarrely and indescribably - well, you can imagine that I'm not exactly sure what to feel.

Fortunately, unlike John Denver, I'm fairly sure of when I will be back again, but have less idea what to expect when I get there. I may have a chance to report some of it here, but make no promises. I remember once hearing something along the lines that, when you've been overseas for a week, you think you can write a novel about the experience, after six months you think you can write a short story, and after a year you think you can manage a sentence. I wasn't there for the full year, but I think enough got crammed into that year to have a similar effect. I may have coherent thoughts about it all. I may not. But I suspect it will be worthwhile.

One of the biggest challenges that I face right now is entrusting the whole situation to God. I'm not sure why. I know He can be trusted with everything, and has been trustworthy so far. But for some reason I feel that nutting things out on my own, in my own incompetent style, is better by far than being humble enough to accept that God's plans might be better than my own. Yes, the humbling part of the process seems to be the hardest.

The good news is that God is still likely to look after me, however immature and untrusting I am. The Bible makes it quite clear that God provides for His creation constantly, regardless of what it does or does not deserve. This morning, for instance, I read Psalm 50, which begins with these wonderful words:

"The Mighty One, God, the Lord,

speaks and summons the earth

from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets."

The rising and setting of the sun each day should serve as reminders of God's sustaining goodness. I can trust in Him because He is powerful, and because He is good. Those are two things that I am certainly not, and this is a very good reason to trust Him and not me.

Tomorrow I will leave as the sun rises. I will return when the sun has set. In the middle - the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Invocation

2011-06-26T17:47:00.002+10:00

(Prompted by a sermon series at my church on the Resurrection...)

Come like the long-awaited wind

Sweeping over wheat-fields and hay,

The coolness of an evening kept too long in the wings

Of a wilting, overheated day.

Come like the breeze,

Come with surprises in these pockets of wind.

Come as the change

In our day’s bored direction.

Come and rearrange.

Let your wind be our re-maker.

Come like the rising waters on our parched, cracked soil.

Come like the hope of the reservoirs,

The heaven’s drenching, torrent gift.

Come like lightning, come with the skyboards

Quaking in thunderous rapture.

Come like the heralds of the air proclaim.

Come like swift-falling storm waters.

Our brittle, broken earth needs you.

Come with majesty! Come with sudden glory

Such as rainbow-gazing Noah never saw.

Come with olive-branch promises.

Come with justice.

Come with hope.

Come, fully You; no muted impersonation.

Come crowned, the sun your halo,

The galaxies your sceptre,

The vast universe no frame for your endless expanse.

Come to our vision; come burst it open

And give eyes to see

Your earth-defying, sense-exploding

Majesty.

Who are you, really?

2011-06-19T20:55:00.003+10:00

This afternoon saw me going with a few friends to see some local acts play at the Northcote Social Club, as part of a single launch for a friend's band. The artists were all wonderful and it was a great afternoon, the first time that I've been back to one of my favourite northern haunts since returning to Australia a year ago.

The second act, a seven-piece country sensation, were particularly striking, all in their chequered shirts, skinny legs and boots, singing songs about God, guns and midnight trains. There was nothing original about them but what they did they did marvellously. But, as one of the friends I went with pointed out, there's something a little insincere about guys who live in Northcote wearing boots that have never seen the countryside singing about experiences they've never had and never will. And I wonder how many of them actually believed in God. When they sang about Him, it had the ring to it of a stylistic trope rather than a profession of faith. It was simply in the genre to sing about Him.

It drew to my attention, I suppose, how often we simply fit into playing parts in our lives - parts that we pull off quite effectively but parts nonetheless. We may indeed look the real thing quite well, until we encounter someone who knows the real thing well enough to show to us that we sure aren't it.

Searching our own hearts, finding what is true in us and what is false, is a mightily difficult job. I for one can't do it. I'm happy enough to laugh at others being faux-country, for instance, because I feel that, in my heart, I'm the real thing. After all, I've spotted a fake, haven't I? Therefore I can't be fake myself, surely.

Oh, how wrong we are.

The truth is, the only one who can search our hearts properly is God, and it's a pretty scary prospect to think of bringing our hearts before Him. Anyone who thinks that praying is simply an act of wish-fulfilment and double think doesn't know the human heart. Coming to God, truly coming to Him, is often the last thing that our hearts desire. It takes a lot of humility, and humility just ain't something we feel like acquiring.

It's easy to play the part of being a Christian, to do all the outwardly Christian things, but open-hearted, repentant, ongoing prayer is quite another thing. I don't think you can fake something like that. It cuts to the heart of human duplicity.

The Winter Commuter Blues

2011-05-28T17:17:00.002+10:00

(Begins with a musical prelude to the tune of every 12-bar blues song you've ever heard)

I woke up this morning (da-da-da-da)

Had to get out of bed (da-da-da-da)

It was all dark and cold (da-da-da-da)

Thought I'd stay asleep instead (da-da-da-da)

[Something about going to work

General complaint about life being gloomy]

Singin' yeeeeah...

Babe, you know

I've got the winter commuter blues

Yes, that's right folks, life for me at the moment is a bit like a blues song - a blues song, that is, written by an English teacher who lives 45 minutes (in good traffic) away from work and who, therefore, leaves for work in the dark and comes home in the dark. Add to that a goodly (or not-so-goodly) measure of marking, at all sections of the day except for the bits where I'm driving, and you get the idea. So not all that much like a blues song, when I think about it, but I'm maintaining with the comparison because I think it's funny.

Today being Saturday I was able to get up during daylight, and found myself feeling a little like a liberated convict when I went outside and walked around Brunswick to meet friends for lunch, and later on to go for a walk - just a walk - by Merri Creek. It was amazing how much my mind and soul seemed to be revitalised by such a simple act but one which my life of late has not allowed.

My father used to have a saying which he drilled into me from an early age: you change the things you can change, and put up with the things you can't. It's a tad blunt but true enough, I suppose. So in situations like the one in which I currently find myself, I have to ask: what things can I change, and what things must I simply put up with? I can't move closer to work, not just yet - those sorts of things can't be done overnight. I can't change the times of day that the sun is currently inclined to rise or set. I can't do much to reduce my workload. I'm sure, however, that in amongst all the necessity and stress, there's space for change. But I need some sort of distance from the situation to see these things.

This, I believe, is where prayer becomes paramount. Prayer forces us outside of our situation and forces us into God's way of looking at things - very hard when the situation seems all-consuming, but so necessary. Prayer also turns "putting up" with a tough, unchangeable situation into something that might be better called "endurance". Putting up with a situation is done with gritted teeth. Endurance is done with the patient resolve that only the Holy Spirit can fully provide.

So next time I write a (bad) song about my life, I hope it's more like a gospel song, with space for melancholy but also with a heart-lifting chorus about hope and rising beyond my afflictions. But it won't be me writing the song (which may be an improvement in itself). It'll be the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit. It isn't a song I can write myself.

The consolations of sickness

2011-05-08T12:15:00.005+10:00

John Donne wrote some of his most beautiful and profound work while in bed sick. The quote from him that everyone knows - the bit about the bell and for whom it tolls - comes from when he thought he had the Bubonic Plague. The depths of despair that serious illness could take someone in Donne's day were enough to give him some of the greatest epiphanies Western literature has about sickness and where it places man in relation to man, and man in relation to God.

My week-long virus is nothing like Donne's. I don't fear for my life, though I do fear the ever-increasing build-up of work I must do. I do fear parent-teacher interviews tomorrow night when I currently have no voice. But no, I don't fear my own death. And why not, I wonder? Is it because my own death simply does not seem to be looming like it was for Donne? He certainly wasn't on the brink of death then, but a man living in such times knew that death was something you cheated everyday, or it cheated you. In the 21st century we treat death with a kind of brazen naivety: an inexplicable mixture of indifference, taunting and the generally idiotic feeling that surely it well never actually happen to us.

Of course, there's a stage in any moderately serious sickness (by which I mean more than a head cold) where we encounter some of what it means to be desperately ill. We feel, in microcosm, what the truly ill feel on a full scale: we have, for instance, days of being unable to get out of bed, where others have weeks, or months, or years. None of this really compares, but it does give you the chance to reflect on sickness and on what it means to be healthy or alive. This, for me, has come at a time when I have decided I need to think more about heaven - about the hope that God holds out for all who believe in Him. It's an idea widely poo-pooed in our death-taunting/death-despising culture, but in John Donne's day, when death was a reality people continually faced, it was something you needed a response to. Today it seems weakness to hope in a life beyond this one. In previous times in history it seemed wise and realistic, for this life didn't offer terribly many hopes in itself.

So, being sick and therefore not experiencing all the joys of being alive, I have found myself reflecting on things like these:

- Thirst: The extraordinary feeling of filling a parched mouth with water; the inexpressible beauty of water's taste in a thirsty mouth, even though it has no taste at all; the thought that, in heaven, we will never be thirsty, and never fail to be satisfied by the continual quenching of our spirits.

- Just Being: The realisation that I have nothing in my hand to bring to God that will wow or amaze Him, but that what He asks of me is to be: to live in His presence, and to know that He is God; that some days, when I have nothing to offer, I should rejoice, because it means I can so much better receive from Him who has everything I need.

- Community: The importance of speech, of sharing words - questions, answers, thoughts on the week. Deprived of that, because I am deprived of voice, I feel something very much missing. This is not a "consolation" in itself, but it leads me to think of the joys that I will return to when human contact will be something I can enjoy again.

- Affliction and shame, and its removal: The feeling that you should not stand too close to people to avoid making them sick too; the isolation that this brings; the knowledge that Jesus stepped into our sickness and didn't care what it did to Him; the knowledge that He touched lepers, washed blind men's eyes clean with His own saliva, bent down and washed His servants' feet. This one will not be ashamed to sit right next to me.

For these lessons, Lord, I thank You that I can be sick.

One for many

2011-05-03T19:59:00.002+10:00

Honestly, we don't need more comments on Osama Bin Ladin's death. I have so little to say that would benefit anyone. I would quite happily not comment at all. But it does strike me - that in the quotes that are being tossed around about this event, I'm hearing a number of comments that either sound like, or refute, something along these lines:

"You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."

Do you know where that's from? It's not from a US foreign policy speech. Nor is it from some weighty tome on terror and counter-terror strategies. It isn't from the political right. It isn't even from the political left.

It's from the Bible - and it didn't refer to Osama Bin Ladin, or to anyone like him. It referred to Jesus Christ, the one man who died so that many could be saved.

In all the chatter and fuss over Bin Ladin's death, I hope that we can take a moment to think about another death - one far more significant, one with ethical implications that are utterly wonderful for all people, for all cultures, in all situations. It needs no political theorists to critique it. It needs no article by Noam Chomsky, or a counter-article by a retired president of the USA. It cannot be deconstructed and cannot be avoided. It is real, and it is life-changing and it demands more than a comment or a blogpost. It demands our life, our all.

Do you mean that literally?

2011-05-01T17:14:00.004+10:00

One of the best insults a contemporary atheist or secularist can level against a Christian is to say that they "take the Bible literally". This seems roughly equivalent to other insults such as "thick as a plank" or "the same IQ as a bit of plankton". This attitude, I suppose, stems from the perception that there are details in the Bible which are so patently ridiculous that no intelligent person could possibly consider them to be true.

Now, this is an interesting idea, because it raises so many wonderful questions. Here's just a few of the key ones:

1) If it's stupid to take the Bible literally, does that make it smart to take it figuratively?

2) What does it mean to take the Bible literally?

3) What does it mean to take the Bible figuratively?

4) What is the purpose of the Bible?

5) What makes anything "patently ridiculous"? Common sense? If so, what makes "common sense" common?

I might just leave a few of those questions to sit and settle with you for a while, not because I'm not interested in answering them but because they get asked so rarely that I feel like the moment should be savoured somewhat. What I am most interested in looking at, however, is the second question:

What does it mean to take the Bible literally?

Now, on the surface this seems simple. Taking it literally means believing it word for word. The fact that Biblical literalists are so widely criticised suggests that this word-for-word reading is the problem. Of course, not taking it literally should not necessarily mean dismissing it wholesale, and this is a point worth considering. Certainly, taking something figuratively rather than literally is often necessary. Every student I've ever taught knows that, when a person says they have butterflies in their stomach, they don't mean it literally. Yet taking this saying figuratively is not an instantly straightforward process. Certainly, the words in that context did not mean exactly what they seem to mean. If I say that I have butterflies in my stomach, I do not mean that actual butterflies are actually in my actual stomach. So what do I mean? For many people, liberating the Bible from literal meaning seems to open up the possibility that it means, well, whatever we want it to mean - by which logic saying, "I have butterflies in my stomach" could as easily mean "I am nervous" as it does "I've got indigestion" or, to put in one from left-field, "I have a giant alien sitting on my front lawn at the moment."

Now common sense says that the third option is ridiculous, the second unlikely, and the first most logical. But this assumes that we are operating under a tightly structured system of linguistic cues and symbols, whereby "butterflies in the stomach" clearly refers to that fluttery feeling of mild nerves or anxiety, and should not be taken to mean anything else. That seems rather rigid, doesn't it? Couldn't the saying mean...well...something else to other people? No, of course it doesn't. We all know what the phrase means, and anyone who takes it to mean something else needs to learn the correct meaning to avoid further awkward confusion. All of which goes to say, I suppose, simply that a symbol, while not to be taken literally, may still have quite a clear, set meaning - one which is possibly true, in a rigid, objective sense, even if someone may hear the saying not knowing what a butterfly is or how it feels to have some inside one's stomach.

Generally, when people talk of "taking the Bible literally", it is with an understanding of "literal reading" as a sort of subtle-as-a-sledgehammer, zero-nuance reading that would, if taken to its logical extent, make a reader of "Song of Songs" wonder why the lover would feel so strongly for a girl whose breasts are gazelles and ancient architectural structures simultaneously.

Do I take the Bible literally? Yes. Does that mean I believe that the book of Leviticus provides the only necessary guidelines for how doctors should treat leprosy? No. Does this make me inconsistent in my faith? Not at all. Taking the Bible literally should not mean reading it without thought, application or interpretation. It means, for a start, being able to distinguish poetry from history, prophecy from theology, a narrative from a letter, a song from an instruction.

An interesting recent approach to reading the Bible literally came from A.J. Jacobs' "The Year of Living Biblically", a slightly satirical look at applying the Bible wholesale into one's life. I was naturally inclined to dislike the book, but this review from Bible scholar Ben Witherington has made me more open. Nevertheless, Witherington still makes the point that behind the

surveys and studies that Jacobs does in this book is the sort of flat hermeneutic applied to the Biblical text, assuming that it all applies to all God's people at all times, rather than a more covenantal approach which says that there are different regulations for differing times in the history of God's people as the covenant and its rules are changed by God.

In other words, actually applying the Bible does not mean reading every word exactly as it appears and pulling it directly out of the text without thought about what it really means. That kind of practice is not only bad Bible reading. It's bad reading. If that's what it means to take the Bible literally, then I can see why such a practice would be ridiculed.

Only, it isn't. Very few people actually read the Bible like that. At the very least, they know that "gazelles" means something other than the literal animal, and that two metaphors can be used for the one thing without contradiction. Taking the Bible literally works if we understand that literal reading is not unsubtle, ignorant reading, but a practice of reading which seeks to understand what the text meant to its original readers, in its original context, and how this applies to us today. It isn't a free-for-all process of "make of this text whatever you want". Nor is it a rigid, unthinking quest which reads a book of symbolic love poems as a textbook on biological deformity and sexual curiosity.

So, to bring this to some sort of conclusion: let's all agree to be readers of thought and subtlety, who can tell a symbol from a "fact" without losing too many hairs, and who can take as much meaning and truth from a poem as we can from a textbook. We might start to see that the Bible, contrary to popular opinion, is worth reading, worth applying, possibly even - yes, possibly even worth believing.

Who do people say that I am?

2011-04-14T15:09:00.005+10:00

They had just seen all kinds of crazy things being done: a few loaves of bread feeding several thousand people (not once but twice), blind men enabled to see...But they seemed to be the blind ones. They looked at him every day of their lives, walked everywhere that he walked, heard everything he said, saw everything he did. But they still didn't understand.

Others did, though. Demons called out his name. Gentiles who knew nothing of the Jewish beliefs he fulfilled, recognised him for who he was. Blind men, bizarrely, managed to "see" the reality of his identity...

Then one day, they got it. Well, one of them did - the one called Peter. (Was that irony? "Peter" meant "rock", and he was the least dependable of any of them...) Peter got it. He said, "You are the Christ, the son of God."

And Jesus said something that Peter had never expected. He said: yes I am, but don't think that means what you've got in your head. Don't think it means victory and glory right here, right now. Don't think it means that you'll be glorified along with me, here and now, and given a seat in my new revolutionary government. Don't picture sword-and-sandle epics here, Peter. Picture the worst form of torture/tyranny/despotism you can. Got it? Good. Then picture me, there, subjected to that torture. Picture yourself, condemned to much the same sort of death. Picture that, then you'll have it. Then you'll know what it means for me to be the Messiah.

And Peter heard, and rebuked him.

------

Is how I think of Jesus just a matter of "opinion"? Is it reasonable for people who disagree to say that they have "a different opinion"?

The truth is, people all throughout history have been very good at having opinions about Jesus: good man, revolutionary, tyrant, prophet, liar, messiah, God, madman...Phillip Pullman's curiously titled book, "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ" suggests something of the tension in how we look at the man. But, in truth, it isn't about opinions. It isn't a question of what we think about him, but of who he is, whether or not we recognise that truth. But it's also a question of finding the truth of who he is, and letting it transform us.

------

Years later, Peter was shown the very same torture, tyranny and despotism that had killed his master. Jesus had said to him, when he had walked on earth, that "when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and take you where you do not want to go". Now it was true. Origen wrote that "Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downwards, as he himself had desired to suffer". He knew now. He no longer had an opinion about Jesus. His life had been transformed by who he now knew Jesus to be.

Open letter to the Moreland City Council...

2011-04-13T13:35:00.009+10:00

...on seeing my street being cleared this morning of autumn leaves:

To our most esteemed Mayor and those
Who guard our city from our foes:

I bring you greetings, but I must
Admit that you have lost my trust.
Today I saw a truck which loudly came
And took away our leaves. What shame!
I fear that you have missed the reason
Why Autumn comes each year. This season
Is designed to bring us many joys
In the form of golden leafy toys
Which fall from trees into our laps
(And make us pillows for our naps
If we should choose to siesta in
The street. It surely is no sin
To do so!) And, furthermore,
The leaves are there to keep our cars
Warm when the night grows far too cold
For our cars’ wheels (young or old).

It also strikes me, councillors, that
The leaves make quite a lovely hat
When they land upon our wand’ring heads,
And moreover they allow cars to play
As they drive down the street. Why, they
Could fly, should they choose. Up, up in
The autumnal air! (I won't mention the din
That your truck made this morning when
I stepped outside, filled with leafy yen.
The roaring beast was torture to
My cosy, autumnal senses.)

You,
I trust, will soon fix this mistake
Or the street will yell and quake
In anger.

In trust you will see all this clearly,
Mayorship, I am yours, sincerely…

A concerned Morelandian
(The street south of Albion).

All kinds of weather

2011-04-12T13:15:00.004+10:00

The torrential downpour of last night and this morning has made everything feel very wintry, even though its only April. The sun is coming out now, so the evergreens outside are sparkling freshly and the sky has glimpses of blue poking out from grey. It's a wondrous sight. To celebrate the arrival of winter, I decided today to listen to all my favourite wintry songs. I made a playlist of many of them on YouTube, and here is one of them, complete with magnificent footage from David Attenborough's "Planet Earth" series - Sigur Ros' "Staralflur":

But why, I can imagine you all asking me, why would you celebrate the arrival of winter? Isn't winter something to be saddened by? Shouldn't we celebrate the arrival of spring, or summer?

Well, first let me say that I love winter in Melbourne. It was rough for me to return to a particularly cold one last year after six months in the tropics, but, once I'd adjusted to shivering much of the time and wearing multiple layers to cover all extremities, I found I quite liked it again. But I also have to say that, of all the things that I most missed about my home (aside, of course, from friends and family) was the quirkiness of Melbourne's seasonal variation. You see, you just don't get seasons in Borneo, except for wet and...wetter. I wrote many poems about the rain, because that was just about the only distinctive feature of the weather, apart from the heat. But here, well, there's so much weather to talk about, and to marvel at. I'm reminded of one of my favourite C.S. Lewis moments, from the start of "That Hideous Strength":

"That's why Camilla and I got married, " said Denniston as they drove off. "We both like Weather. Not this or that kind of weather, but just Weather. It's a useful taste if one lives in England."
"How ever did you learn to do that, Mr. Denniston?" said Jane. "I don't think I should ever learn to like rain and snow."
"It's the other way around," said Denniston. "Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it is you grown up. Noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children - and the dogs? They know what snow's made for."

I love that quote, because, apart from the discomfort extreme weather can cause, it can so often be a wonderful example of the glories of God's creation - which makes me suspect that, when our world is renewed, it won't be a world without seasons. It may in fact just be a world where the seasons cause no discomfort, so we can wonder at all their changes and all their particular beauties without pain and suffering.

I may be wrong, of course. But for now I intend thoroughly to admire this winter and all the beauties that it brings. I hope my fellow Melburnians can bring themselves to admire it with me.

By Merri Creek

2011-04-11T17:04:00.000+10:00

It was a cosy kind of day in East Brunswick. The streets were lush with leaves and the sky purple with unrequited rain. I crossed over the Merri Creek, journal in hand, half-composed poems and - strangely - lyrics from "Good King Wenceslas" stuck in my head:

Therefore, Christian men be sure,

Wealth or rank possessing:

You who now will bless the poor

Shall yourselves find ble-essing.

I came to the northern side of the Normanby Road underpass, where, walking this way before, I had passed a girl curled up against the sign which says, "Making history along Merri Creek". I had noticed her then, and wondered if she was okay, wondering also what reason anyone would have for sleeping beside Merri Creek. This time, the girl was not sleeping. She was walking the opposite way along the path, eyes to the ground. She had a plastic bag in hand. Her clothes were presentable enough but bedraggled. She stumbled once as she walked, but not in a way that suggested danger or incapacity. Our eyes met at one point and she gave an evasive smile. I looked back once or twice as I walked on, to see that she was okay. I wondered if there was anything else I could do. It seemed all I had the power to do was to pray, to commit her to the God who sees her every step, knows exactly why she is there, and exactly what to do to help.

I know that I am reluctant to help those I see in need; I know I will grab any excuse I can find to do nothing. It wouldn't be appropriate. She's a young girl walking alone. What would she think of a young man stopping and asking her if she was okay? It wouldn't be wise. It wouldn't be safe. Excuses, yes, but also all true. Yet so, I am sure, would have seemed the excuses of the Levite and the Pharisee as they kept walking on the Jericho road: It isn't safe to stop here, alone. The road is filled with murderers and thieves.

Thank God, He sees my weakness and heard my prayers. I do not know what will happen to that girl. I pray that she will be okay.

About Face

2011-04-11T11:44:00.001+10:00

These days, my ears and eyes are readily tuned to take in all things Malaysian. Recently, a man at my church, who I presume must be Malaysian from the things he said, responded to a sermon about Jesus' death by commenting that, in a Muslim society, the idea of a suffering saviour is offensive. He was asking how we could present the Gospel in such a society. I don't remember the answer our pastor gave, but we did consider the question in our Bible study the following Tuesday night. What we agreed as a group was this: there's no escaping the fact that the Cross is offensive. It should be. We speculated if the fact of the matter is that we, as Christians, have simply lost sight of that offence, meaning that, in a sense, we have lost sight of what it really means. We shouldn't be avoiding offending people (I suggested as much, I think, a few months ago in a post I wrote at Christmas). Instead, we should recognise that the Gospel is offensive to those who are closed to its truth - a suffering saviour is the only one who is any good for us, but He's also the last thing many of us are looking for.

It did make me reflect on the "face saving" aspect of Malaysian culture, and the fear this demonstrates of being shamed. I remembered the principal of my school over there speaking about "taking off her face" in a conversation with a parent, in which she was required to be significantly humble. This phrase stood out for me, and it struck me that this is exactly what Paul tells us in Philippians 2:5-11 that Jesus did for us. In other words, if we try to hold onto our own sense of honour and moral dignity, we will be offended by what Jesus has done for us, and we will remain gloriously immune to His sacrifice. If, however, we accept our shame just as He bore it for us, then - biggest paradox of all - our shame will be taken away.

I wrote a poem about this while in Malaysia that seems relevant here. It isn't meant to be a direct allegory as such - bits of it won't make sense if you read it that way. But I more or less wrote it asking the question, "What if there were those who followed Jesus only for His status, and not for His sacrificial love?" This is what I produced. The name, "Giving Face", comes from a Chinese phrase which I had directly translated for me - it means, "Showing respect to", but often in a superficial kind of way. I wondered, and then wrote this poem to wonder, what true, deep "face-giving" would look like. Here is the result:

Giving Face

Tired of superficial looks,

bowed heads and insincere hearts,

he looked for a way beyond all this –

a way of speech deeper than the surface,

a way of looking much more penetrating than glances.

“I am sick,” he said,

“of respect that goes no further

than the start of my name.”

So he climbed the deepest of deep-deep wells,

far beyond mortal status-seeking and glory-clambering;

he went beyond the face-saving multitude

to a place where there lay the truest of faces.

Where did he go? the shy pilgrims ask.

Why, he jettisoned all he knew,

left this island behind.

He crossed over the sea, and out of his skin.

He shed all clothes and fine embroidery.

He went – do you know where it was?

He went,

(truest of true faces in store for him who overcame),

he went, pride discarded,

humility in hand,

to the hill of Calvary.

(Tawau, March 2010)

Autumn Leaves Revived

2011-04-09T14:45:00.001+10:00

Well, autumn has hit Brunswick East, and probably other suburbs of Melbourne too.

Autumn is a funny sort of season in my fair city: it's more often a sequence of unpredictable, bipolar shifts between summer and winter, rather than an intermediate stage. Each extreme takes turns, until winter begins to be more dominant and eventually takes over altogether until some time between September and November (it changes each year). But, unpredictable though autumn tends to be, it's probably the most glorious time that Melbourne has to offer. The trees that line my street are, on cue, letting their half-green, half-golden leaves drop to the ground, and there are few sights more cosy and Melburnian than a street filled with fallen leaves. So I suppose it's the kind of time when, cliched though it is, you'll want to be listening to this jazz standard, performed here for your benefit by Stan Getz:

But when I strolled down my street early this afternoon, it occurred to me that autumn leaves, beautiful as they are, have actually died. Limited as my French may be, it's good enough to know that the original title of "Autumn Leaves", "Les Feuilles Mortes", means "The Dead Leaves". So, when I admire their beauty, I am essentially admiring the beauty of...well...death.

Now, I suppose we can take a poetic approach to the whole thing and say, as e.e. cummings said of a sunset, that if things have to die, they might as well do it beautifully. But isn't this attitude symptomatic of our death-ridden world, rather than necessarily true? We accept death as a reality, so we figure we should be stoic about the whole thing. But do we have to? Not many ages or cultures before us have felt the need to accept death. Chinese emperors drank mercury to avoid it. Alchemists devoted their lives to thwarting it. Death is horrible, and there's not much use pretending it isn't. No-one, when they die, looks like a falling autumnal leaf. In fact, if we're going to look at it that way, a much better musical description of the whole phenomenon might be the angsty - but strangely hopeful - reinterpretation by emo band Thursday, "Autumn Leaves Revisited".

In some traditions, death is seen as the beginning of something new, a necessary stage, a means to an end. This, to me, seems a much better way to think about it, and that is actually how the Christian faith views death - or is at least supposed to view it, though how we truly understand the whole process varies dramatically across the Christian church; and between professed beliefs and lived ones often, sadly, exists a vast chasm.

This is why, on searching the web for various things on returning home - versions of "Autumn Leaves" to link here, podcasts I might enjoy listening to over lunch - I was pleased to find this video of Bishop Tom Wright, a man who I always appreciate even when I don't agree with him.

The video is, naturally, very brief and very simplistic in how it represents what is, I'm sure a much more complex theory than we're getting here. There is, for instance, little or no reference made to actual Bible passages, something that I am sure Bishop Wright gives in his book, "Surprised By Hope", which I must read one day. But it is not an idea that is unfamiliar to me, nor is it quite as revolutionary as the presenter would have us think. That said, it is an idea that few Christians, I think, daily consider or apply in our lives: that God is most of all concerned with the renewal of this world rather than yanking us all out and taking us to heaven. The real life, he suggests, that we are heading for is the restoration of our world to what it should be.

Tom Wright calls it "life after life after death". I call it "autumn leaves revived", because, when I think about a new creation (an idea that baffles me as much as it's baffled almost anyone else in human history), it occurs to me that, beautiful as I find autumn leaves, when the new creation comes we'll be amazed to find that even they seem ugly compared to the beauty of the new leaves that replace them.

Music For Lent

2011-04-01T21:30:00.000+11:00

In preparation for the most recent Christmas, I made a mix CD of Advent and Christmas-related songs and distributed it to friends, along with an Auden poem and one that I had written. I enjoyed doing it so much that I had grand plans of doing something similar for Lent, this time with 40 songs for each of the 40 days of Lent. That didn't happen - not on the scale I'd imagined - but with the help of Brian T. Murphy's New York Hymns to inspire and guide me, I came up with my own playlist of 15 Lent-related songs, in some kind of order. I've tried to find videos where possible, but sometimes I've had to go for a link to where the song is a free download. Of particular interest is the beautiful clip for David Potter's "Nothing But the Blood" - be sure to look at it.

And, for those of you who love poetry, here's an old favourite from Bruce Dawe that might make for good reading along with some of these songs.

1. Hammock - You May Emerge From This More Dead Than Alive

2. Cool Hand Luke - The Incomprehensible Sleep

3. New York Hymns - The cross is laid upon Jesus (Station 2)

4. Red Letter - What Wondrous Love Is This?

5. The Northern Conspiracy - What Have We Done?

6. Jars of Clay - Liquid

7. Red Mountain Church - There is a Fountain Filled With Blood

8. The Northern Conspiracy - Filthy Roman Cross

9. New York Hymns - Jesus' body is taken down from the cross (Station 13: Part 1)

10. Sufjan Stevens - To Be Alone With You

11. King's Kaleidoscope - Come Thou Fount

12. John Mark McMillan - Death in his Grave

13. David Potter - Nothing But the Blood

14. New York Hymns - Jesus' body is laid in the tomb (Station 14: Part 2)

15. Hammock - Take a Drink From My Hands

Temperamental Theology

2011-04-01T20:52:00.000+11:00

There is a small group of teachers in my staffroom that often finds itself back at school after all other teachers have left. We don't plan it that way. We just all work late. But something happens, when we notice that it's just us left. Slowly at first, then more vigorously, the big theological questions come out. We talk reformed theology without needing to worry about offending anyone.

Of course, I'm making it all sound very clandestine, mostly because it amuses me to do so. It's just that, in a Christian school, it's important to focus on what unites us, rather than thinking about what divides us. Since we're united on the essentials, we are able to put aside other differences without too much concern. And yet, when we do talk theology more freely, we find ourselves getting quite passionate about those topics that we cannot discuss as openly with everyone. We care greatly about what the Bible has to say, and how we can know that we are interpreting the Bible accurately. These things do matter to us, and we wonder sometimes, I suppose, whether these matters that we discuss are what Paul would call "disputable matters" or if instead they are matters of...well...fact.

Yet it has made me wonder also about what factors lead to different people taking different theological positions. Naturally, everyone will say, "I believe this teaching because that's what the Bible says," but quite obviously more is going on than just that, otherwise the same Bible passage couldn't be used to justify two or more utterly different, and quite incompatible, positions. Certainly, some positions are justified when particular passages, and only those passages, are read in a fairly questionable way, in isolation from the rest of scripture, while other positions come from a more holistic reading. And I'm not going to say that "everyone has their own interpretation" as a way of avoiding the issue altogether. But it does make me think about the way that our experiences and personalities can, to an extent, be seen to dictate the theology that we end up espousing.

Look, for instance, at someone who is more melancholic, and see which books of the Bible they will most naturally relate to. They will probably appreciate Lamentations and Job. They will find great solace in Psalm 51. They will almost certainly keep returning to Romans 7. Then take an optimist, and watch them gravitate to the parts of the Bible that most uphold their generally positive view of human experience. (Notice that I'm clearly not an optimist. I can't even think, offhand, of what texts such a person would gravitate to!) Certainly, systematic and careful reading of the Bible can do much to counteract these kinds of issues of temperament and inclination. But I quite simply can't see myself becoming a triumphalist. My experiences of disappointment and pain at the hands of God are hardly going to make me preach about the constant, ongoing victory of the Christian walk. Part of this is because I don't think that's a doctrinally right position to take. But part of me just doesn't think that way. I doubt I'd be a triumphalist of any kind, whether or not I'd ever read the Bible.

And so thinking this brings a new dimension to how I feel about those reformed discussions we have in the A1 staffroom after school. Yes, I do feel that there are Bible passages that support our views. Yes, I think they are consistent with the whole of Scripture. But it reminds me of something important: that I am to give my whole person up to all of God to be transformed by all of Scripture, not just the parts that confirm my worldview. And there are triumphant parts just as there are pessimistic ones, and the same God inspired them both. Here's hoping I remember that next week, and the week after, and the week after that.

I think, therefore I blog

2011-03-27T17:57:00.000+11:00

My housemate Phil declared, on seeing "The Social Network" with me last year, that it was THE film to capture our generation, and Phil knows about movies (he writes them) so I guess I'll trust him on that one. I certainly thought of it when reading this article from ChristianityToday on the impact of blogging and Web 2.0 on theological debate. Mostly I thought of it because the article directly referenced the film. But I also thought of it because, duh, it's an obvious connection.

In particular, I thought of it when I read this section of the article:

Social media relentlessly asks us to publish our personal opinions on anything and everything that happens. There is no time for reflection in prayer, no place for discussion with other flesh and blood image bearers, and no incentive to remain silent.
You must declare your position, and you must declare it now.

Which is, of course, where the film tells us that Mark Zuckerberg began: blogging about his breakup of that evening, and insulting his ex-girlfriend in the most public forum the world has ever known, the Internet. This was, of course, a practice that the said ex-girlfriend Erica later decries sarcastically:

As if every thought that tumbles through your head was so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared. The Internet's not written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink.

The problem with blogging is the very problem that Zuckerberg had that night: it's instantaneous, and encourages instantaneous, and thoughtless, comment. This, as the ChristianityToday article observes, is an approach to public discourse that is anathema to so much in the Bible, and thus should be anathema to church practice.

But wait a minute. The article makes an excellent point, and I don't want to defend it purely because I, as this very page demonstrates, am a blogger. No, I'm not interested in defending blogging, rather in refining what it should aim to do.

First of all, I would suggest that Paul's injunction to Timothy to "watch [his] life and doctrine closely" could be revised to, "watch your life and blogging closely". That's to say, do you think, or pray, before you blog? Do you aim for consistency in the life you live and the life you portray online? Do you embrace the anonymity of the internet to live a life, and to espouse a worldview, which those that know you best would laugh at you living and espousing?

I don't know how I would answer those questions. I am not writing this because I have any of this worked out. I cannot write this post at all without a fairly strong sense of the irony of every word I am typing. But blogging ain't going away, even if I decided, prayerfully, to suspend my blogging altogether. So I might as well use it to spread the word, that they who blog should be judged more harshly than they that keep their discreet mouths shut.

That said, if by prayerful reflection I did decide I should no longer blog, I would hopefully have the maturity and humility to do so. But for the time being, I say to everyone who both reads this and knows me: Don't just read what I blog. Look at how I live. If they don't match, tell me. I need to hear.

For the time being, I will try to pray more before I blog, and to think more, and to write only when I have something to say. That seems a good place to start.

"But that day ain't here yet"

2011-02-19T09:19:00.000+11:00

Last night a mellow but merry crowd filled the Palais Theatre in St Kilda to celebrate what folk-singer M Ward was presenting as the "2nd anniversary special" tour of his album "Hold Time", probably his best album to date. Performing entirely by himself, with only a guitar, harmonica and piano, the sound was much more stripped-back than is typical of "Hold Time", which contains some of his most lively and experimental songs. But the sound worked. Some songs became much slower than you would expect, but the pace encouraged you to slow with it, to accept the gentleness and peace of the music instead of wanting it to rush along with you.

Of my five or so favourite songs of his, he probably only played two or three. My three absolute favourites did not get a look-in, possibly being too upbeat to fit with the mood of the night. But, knowing all of his albums fairly well, I found many of the songs feeling comforting and familiar, having been gently in the background of my life at so many points. This meant that it was a show with few standouts, but carrying with it a general feeling of consistency and beauty.

I was particularly impressed by his humility and professionalism. When one of his fold-back speakers started playing up towards the end, he continued playing the song with barely any hesitation, and ended up finishing the song with his acoustic guitar unamplified. We could still hear him where I was sitting. There were no prima-donna antics. He was quiet but not aloof. He joked occasionally with us, and in the second encore invited any member of the audience who could play piano to join him for a lovely rendition of "Rollercoaster". The man who volunteered the loudest was then given a chance to finish with a laid-back solo. M Ward left the stage quietly and unobtrusively, and gave his audience member the final limelight.

Of course, one disappointment for me was that he did not play my absolute favourite, "Fisher of Men", from the Hold Time album. That song has special significance for me. But the subtly Christian side to his music was still there in a beautifully simple piano rendition of "Here Comes the Sun Again", a gentle and worshipful song that I had not really listened to before last night. I will return to it often now, I'm sure. But the words to "Fisher of Men" seem to sum up something about M Ward for me - that he is a musician without pretence, a musician that so often seems to sing, whatever the content of his lyrics, to a higher song:

"He put his name in my chorus

And his dark before the dawn,

So that in my hour of weakness

I'd remember it's his song."

His music also occupies a time of quiet longing: waiting for a day when "weak will not be weak any more", but searches for ways to deal "with the pieces of a broken heart". Last night his songs were a beautiful accompaniment to our own longings.

Urban renewal

2011-02-13T21:19:00.001+11:00

When I first began this blog, a few years ago now, the title and general theme reflected the fact that I was thinking rather a lot about life, work and ministry in inner-northern Melbourne. I had just moved to Preston and one of the topics that occupied a number of posts was the issue of finding a church in that area. One thing I found as I searched was that the inner-north, compared to, say, the eastern suburbs, is quite church-hungry. Churches were often very small, or very stagnant, or a bit on the odd side. I was doing a lot of thinking at the time about the so-called "emerging church" and how churches should engage with culture and be part of the community. But I didn't see any good examples of inner-northern churches doing that sort of thing effectively, well-meaning as a number of examples seemed to be.

I can't say I've thought terribly much about those kinds of issues in recent years. I found a church where I was happy, then I moved to Malaysia, then I left the north. Now I'm back, in Brunswick, and am finding myself, quite unintentionally, at a church that is about to move a tad further north for the purposes of mission.

Strangely, I am finding myself feeling much more ambivalent about this move than I would have years ago. Part of this is due to the general feeling of exhaustion that I have had in this period of post-Malaysia burnout (not necessarily something that would have been reflected in this blog, but which has been quite a present feature of my life since the middle of last year). Yet I do find myself growing somewhat excited at the thought of the inner north's "spiritual renewal", something that my new church family is keenly focused on.

The task seems a large one. Some might say insurmountable. Melbourne is one of the world's most secular cities. The inner north is one of the most secular parts of the city. How, you might ask, do we hope to renew the city? We could try to renew the way that everyone does urban renewal - through more community events, through city garden projects. These are all important. But do they renew the spirit? Truly renew the spirit, in the way that only God can?

But that's the thing. Only God can do it. So, if we succeed, it will only be through God's strength. This should bring a sense of relief. It isn't really up to us. But it's also scary, because it requires submission to God. It requires losing a sense of control.

One thing's for sure. If we plan on doing it properly, it will be quite a journey.

Some of that journey, I imagine, will be documented on the new church blog, and some of it will be documented here. It will, I'm sure, be a process worth documenting.

Watch this space.

Happy Palindrome Day

2011-02-11T17:36:00.001+11:00

Because today is a palindrome day (11/02/2011), I decided to write a poem in honour of the occasion. So here it is:

Palindrome

Fall back, flow forth,

Palindrome, chiasmus, sway

From end to end,

Distended, pure.

May I, small atom, sit between

These equal walls of symmetry,

A point of stillness fixed amid

The sameness and the mirrored grace

Of what once was, now once again.

(M Pullar 2011)

The holiest day of the year?

2011-02-09T18:47:00.000+11:00

More businesses, it seems, will be allowed to trade on Easter Sunday, if the Government has its way. And, naturally, some people are upset and others don't care. This is no surprise. What strikes me about it all is that, once again, we seem to be missing the point. There's a phrase that gets used regularly for days like Easter Sunday (ironically, it seems to get used about a few days, including Christmas too) - "the holiest day of the Christian calendar", or something to that effect. Now, I don't know what this phrase is in the original New Testament Greek, so some of you might have to help me out there, but I don't think I've seen it in the Bible. Naturally I believe it's essential to remember Jesus' death and resurrection. But the only time that Jesus actively said to His followers, "Do this to remember me," He was referring to a regular act of remembering, a reminder that came with bread and wine, two staples of every Middle Eastern meal in those days. In a sense, every time you ate and drank together you reminded yourselves, "This is why we come together: because of Jesus." So no particular day (except the Sabbath) was to be special or holier than other days. Holiness was much more about where you stood with God and how you lived your whole life rather than a particular observance on one day of the year.

Now, I never normally agree with Father Bob McGuire, but I suppose he has a point when he says that now employers will have another chance to overwork their employees. But I'm no more comfortable with non-believers using Jesus as an excuse for a holiday than I am with businesses capitalising on the chance to make an extra buck out of the celebration and good will He creates. The question shouldn't be what we do about Jesus on Easter, but what we do about Him every other day of the year. I hardly think the Bible would say, "It's fine to worship consumerism 364 days of the year but for God's sake don't do it on Easter." If consumerism runs counter to the Easter spirit once a year, it runs counter to it all the year. Perhaps we need to look at our hearts, not our trading hours, to see where the real issue lies.

Miracle on the River Kwai

2011-02-08T21:37:00.000+11:00

Two sick days this week have allowed me to watch David Lean's WWII epic, "The Bridge on the River Kwai". Yes, I had to watch it in two sittings, mostly because I was too tired yesterday to sit through all nearly-three-hours of it. But it was worth the effort. Films like that are considered classics for good reason.

But, when I got to the end, and those stunning closing lines - "Madness! Madness!" - I couldn't help feeling that we were being told the wrong story. You see, I had already read another story of the River Kwai, the story of Ernest Gordon, another British officer imprisoned at Kwai, and a man who struck me as quite a bit more heroic than Colonel Nicholson (portrayed, with impressive restraint and gravitas, by Alec Guinness, above). Nicholson, while a fascinating character, seemed rather misguided in his efforts. Yes, he achieved a number of victories, but I'm not quite sure that they were worth fighting for. And, in the end (no spoilers), it's hard to say what he achieved overall, being quantified as it was in human efforts which were easily destroyed.

You'll know Gordon's story primarily because of one famous anecdote coming from it: the story of the British soldiers summoned by the Japanese because one of them had allegedly stolen a shovel. All would die if no-one confessed, so one stepped forward and took the blame. He was killed: brutally, according to Gordon's account. But that night it was discovered that no shovel was actually missing. The soldier had taken the blame to protect his friends.

This event apparently started a change in the prison camp, a change that you won't see in Lean's film, which is more concerned with the positive impact of the bridge-building project. It wasn't a change that will sell tickets to Hollywood movies, but it was a change, I like to think, that was less easily destroyed in the end. You see, according to Gordon's story, men in the prison camp started to value human life more, and started to ask ethical questions, about life and honouring the dead. They stopped living in a world of survival-of-the-fittest and started looking higher for meaning. Gordon, who had not really bothered with God since childhood, began to think much more about Him, to the point of becoming the prison camp's unofficial chaplain and philosophy professor. His experience at Kwai changed him so much that he even became a Presbyterian minister on returning from the war.

What grabs me most about that story is its eternal impact, an impact that goes beyond who is in power at any particular political moment. Nicholson was concerned with temporal victories, victories that had much more to do with British military spirit and dignity. Gordon was changed by a victory that was not his own, and helped others be swept up in the thrall of that victory.

That, I suspect, is a battle worth fighting. In the light of that battle, everything else seems madness. Madness.

Wishful thinking

2011-01-24T17:37:00.000+11:00

One of my favourite moments from C.S. Lewis' prolific career comes in his early allegorical novel, The Pilgrim's Regress. In his most obvious parody of Sigmund Freud, Lewis has his hero, John, imprisoned in "Zeitgeistheim", a prison where humanity is revealed "as bundles of complexes" and in which John concludes that "there may be no Landlord [the novel's equivalent of God]" and that "I am mad. I am dead. I am in hell for ever." John is rescued from the prison, however, by a woman called Reason, who is able to ask the giant imprisoning John a series of riddles he cannot answer. Once freed from the prison, John and Reason attempt to rescue the other prisoners, "those who have been Freudianised too long", but they refuse to be rescued, "wailing together and saying: 'It is one more wish-fulfilment dream: it is one more wish-fulfilment dream. Don't be taken in again.'"

The average Australian may not be consciously influenced by Sigmund Freud on a day-to-day basis, but in this one sense we are very much his intellectual children: we don't like to be taken in by anything. Think Darryl Kerrigan from The Castle with his catch-phrase of, "Tell him he's dreaming." We pride ourselves on our state-of-the-art b.s. detectors. There's no fooling us.

But, just as it was for Lewis' prisoners stuck in the "darkness of the pit...and the filth" of Freud's prison, the land of You-can't-fool-me can be a very lonely place to be. In fact, if you take it too far, you can start believing in nothing.

There's something about Christianity that seems profoundly too good to be true. Sin defeated, death overcome, eternal peace and happiness and fulfilment ahead of us...It does sound a little like a pipe-dream, doesn't it? But there's a flaw in our logic that kicks in at exactly the moment we call something "too good to be true". The flaw is this: we assume that something really good must be a fraud, or have some kind of "catch" hidden in it. Why? Because life disappoints us, constantly. So we guard against disappointment by...refusing to believe in anything enough to let it ever disappoint us. Which sounds kind of sad, when you think about it.

If a scientist developed an anti-ageing medication, we'd look into it. If a wealthy businessman offered us his secret to success and happiness, we'd pay to hear him speak, or buy his books. Well, Christianity can top that. Christianity had someone come to earth and say, "I am life. You can't have life without me." It had someone who said, "Death is not the end, and let me show you how I know." It speaks to our deepest cynicism, because it doesn't just come with the claim; it comes with its own credentials, and with its own proof. And those who first expounded its truth to the world knew that it was true, not because they were easily duped, but precisely because they weren't.

We know they all doubted. Some even doubted when Jesus appeared before them, risen from the dead (see Matthew 28:16-17 if you don't trust me). And they were well-acquainted with doubt. They'd found someone they felt they could put all their trust in, someone they could give their lives to follow, someone who (they were pretty sure) was the one God had promised. And then he died. Just like that. You don't recover from that kind of disappointment quickly. So if anyone in human history has reason to feel disappointment with life, any reason to be doubtful and cynical, it was them. So, when they found that it was true, that death had been defeated, that sin had been overcome, they knew they had to give their lives to tell everyone.

It's easy to say, from the sidelines, "It can't be true. Dead people don't come back to life." And you'd be right. They don't. But someone came to earth to change all of that, to show us another way. We don't experience it fully now. We only experience it in part. But, if you let it sink in, the truth of that event changes everything. However things look now, in the darkness of this pit, it will look a whole lot different when we can see it from Jesus' perspective. Because the boundaries have now been changed - the boundaries of what can and cannot happen, the boundaries of what is, and what is not, too good to be true.

What was the question again?

2011-01-22T16:24:00.000+11:00

I'm not normally much of a thriller-fan when it comes to movies, but Doug Liman's recent based-on-a-true-story pic, "Fair Game", starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn grabbed me mostly because the people involved in it made it worth a look. The film deals with the scandal involving CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson (Watts) and her husband US Ambassador Joe Wilson (Penn). When Joe is employed by the CIA to investigate an allegation that the Iraqi government is sourcing materials for MDIs from Niger, he finds nothing to support this allegation. Thus, when the US government publicly declares that evidence of such activity HAS been found and uses this to justify the decision to go to war with Iraq, Wilson goes public to discredit the government's claims. The result of this move is that government workers expose Wilson's wife's identity as a CIA operative, in an attempt to make his evidence seem invalid, disgracing both Wilson and his wife in the process.

There is a wonderful moment late in the film when Wilson is addressing a group of students to expose what has taken place. A trick, he declares, has been played on the American public. In revealing his wife's identity, the issue has shifted from the flawed basis for the war in Iraq to questions of his and his wife's integrity:

"How did the question move from 'Why are we going to war?' to 'Who is that man's wife?' I asked the first question. Someone else asked the second. It worked. Its still working. Because we still don't know the truth. But you all know my wife's name."

Something similar, I think, can often happen to us when we are attempting to tackle the big issues of religious faith, but instead get distracted by minute details that are really not important. It happens to me all the time. And the worst thing is that it keeps us circling around the same point and not progressing - that, or we fail to see what the issue really is.

That happened to me this morning. I was reading the story in 1 Kings 10-11, which tells of the great wealth of King Solomon, and then his apostasy from God, caused by his multitudes of foreign wives. Now, the story should have been a salient lesson. Solomon, the story tells us, was the wisest man on earth at the time. He was a great and powerful king, not because he was great or powerful in himself but because he knew better than any other person that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". He began there, and wisdom came next, and with it greatness and power. Then we see the trajectory that, though perhaps unique in its specifics, is relevant to most believers: we may not be tempted to marry a thousand women, but we will all have that something which gradually comes between us and God until it is a veritable wall dividing us. And we can start off so well. But without caution, without a healthy continued fear of the Lord, it could happen to any of us.

But this was not what I thought about when I read that passage this morning. I thought things like, "1000 wives - that's rather a lot. Clearly exaggeration." Or I thought, "Isn't it strange that, given all of Solomon's greatness and splendour, there is no evidence of him as a king outside of the Bible?"

Well, these are important questions to ask, and they do have their answers, if you look for them. That's not the point. The point is that, when you always ask these questions - questions which serve to discredit the Bible when you most need to trust it - then you never get properly fed. You also never get to the real truth, the truth that matters most.

Valerie and Joe Wilson had a powerful government trying to undermine their witness. We too have a force opposing us. It's subtle, invisible, and deadly. For me, it takes on the appearance of a calm, measured intellectual. It will look quite different for you. But the effect is invariably the same. Wherever we should go, whatever questions we should ask, whatever issues we should concern ourselves with, it will do its best to ensure that we go elsewhere. And it can happen when we least expect it. It can happen to the wisest, and the best, among us.

Many notes, one song

2011-01-21T11:24:00.000+11:00

Often, in the busyness of everyday life, I find that I either become too single-focused or too busy to keep track ofall the many different strands of life. Though quite different in their effect, each problem leads to the same core result: an inability to appreciate life fully. Either we are overwhelmed by multiplicity or ground to a halt by reductionism. It can damage our relationships: think of the times when, tired, you begin to obsess over the minute details of a conversation gone wrong, instead of seeing momentary thoughtlessness in the broader context of a rich and satisfying relationship. And it can damage our ideals: once we get caught up in living out our ideals, we can easily lose sight of what we first believed in. Picking at theminute details pulls apart the great fabric that once inspired us.

I have found this to be very true in my studies of the Bible. Many theology students will, I'm sure, testify that it is all too easy to become distracted by academic minutiae (was that particular verse really written by Paul?; why did people believe for so long that Song of Songs was written by Solomon, when it probably wasn't?...) that you lose sight of the (much more important) big picture. The small issues can be important but are rarely as important as we think. Nor are they the make-or-break issues that we turn them into. The adage about not being able to see the wood for the trees carries more truth than we often recognise.

Mercifully, God has made life sufficiently rich that we are forced to look at the big picture, at least from time to time. You can't learn right doctrine from looking at a magnificent mountain or hearing a sweeping orchestral movement, but you can be ripped out of your tunnel-vision into a sense of awe that takes you right out of yourself. We need to remember that the same God who created the Bible also created mountains and symphonies. He also created our minds and hearts to feel awe. It all works together in His plan.

Liberal theology comes from focusing on creation more than the creator. Blinkered theology comes from focusing on theology more than the creator. Neither is particularly healthy. So I for one will guard against my standard "bogged-down" perspective. I'll take a walk. I'll listen to some beautiful music. I'll rejoice in laughter and good friendship. None of these, when held in their right place, will lead me astray, though by themselves they are not enough. But God holds it all together - so I will focus on Him and let His fullness put everything in perspective.

Former Glory vs. Future Hope

2011-01-09T13:35:00.000+11:00

I seem to have spent a bit of time driving through Heidelberg recently, and have been struck by how many places there carry the name "Olympic". The answer is obvious, of course - Heidelberg was the site for the Olympic Village back when the Olympics were in Melbourne in '56. Heidelberg has gone through quite a few phases in Melbourne's history, first as the beautiful, Yarra-side home of the famous Heidelberg School of artists, then as the Olympic Village, then as one of Melbourne's less glorious Northern suburbs, and now as a slightly gentrified rental refuge that isn't too far from the city. But looking at it you wouldn't see any of what it must have looked like in the '50s, all decked out for the world's finest athletes.

It got me thinking about the ways that places, and groups of people, can cling to their former glories, as proof that they once "meant something". Now, hopefully Heide is taking a turn for the better in this new century but it is unlikely to progress much by harping on about its days as the Olympic Village. That sort of thing doesn't mean much to people anymore, except perhaps for diehard Olympic nostalgists. Of course, our society needs to place more value on the past. We're far too quick to assume that all that has come before us is outmoded and irrelevant, an attitude that would hardly have allowed Egypt's 3000 heyday to happen. No, things of the past, whether recent or ancient, remain relevant to us. But the world is changing, and humans in today's society have a delicate balance to strike: one which allows for connectedness to our past, continuity with human history, and a continued movement into our future. Merely preserving a glorified past that no longer has meaning in our world is not a worthwhile project. But holding onto the threads that have been woven through all human history, and lead us to our true future - there can be nothing more valuable than this, I suspect.

So, when we look at old churches, for example, and remember a fading Christendom, we may rejoice that it is over, or may long for the past to be restored, or simply admire the beautiful architecture and thinking nothing more of it than that. But the past of Christianity is more than just old buildings, and the future is more than a blank space: it has power and definition; we simply have not experienced it yet. If we believe what Jesus declared, represented and achieved, he brought in a new age, one that is only growing stronger just as this world is ageing and dying. If we want to move with the times, that's a bandwagon we would be wise to hop onto. It is so much more than a bygone era of conservative morality; it is a kingdom that exists in this world but does not belong to it, and so is immune from the viruses, decay and general onset of obsoleteness that grind everything human and earthly to the ground. It would be as if the 1956 Olympics represented not only a single event that, once passed, had little significance anymore, but was instead the ushering in of a new age, one that would retain power and impact regardless of what happened around it.

When I think of the bygone days of Christendom, of Constantine and the tyrants of the medieval church, I feel cold and ashamed. When I think of the kingdom that is coming, I want to get to my feet and run straight into it. I hope you can join me.

The ratings are in...

2011-01-08T19:15:00.000+11:00

In one of those classic 21st-century moments of "Follow the hyperlinks" while online, I found myself at au.rateyourteacher.com, a website where, as the name suggests, students can rate their teachers. I remember going there in my first year of teaching, finding that I wasn't rated, and moving on. I can't say I've even thought to look there again in the four years since. But there I was, and so I thought that, while I was at it, I'd have a look to see if I now appeared.

I steeled myself, of course, for disappointment - either that no-one thought of me enough as a teacher to even bother rating me, or that they thought of me, but all negative thoughts. Scrolling down the various names of Strathmore Secondary College teachers I told myself that it wasn't a very reliable form of feedback, that kids who went on to rate their teachers would really only bother doing that if they either felt strongly for or against you, that you were unlikely to find a balanced critique on such a site. Well, then I saw my name. Sure enough, I am now significant enough as a teacher to be rated. Phew.

To the ten students, of the several hundred that I have taught so far, who decided to rate me, I would like to thank you. Your average rating of 3.8 is certainly not going to make me seek another profession. But just for the record, my name is spelt "Pullar" not "Puller". A small mistake, I know, but please, our teacher-egos are very fragile things and something as subtle as a misspelt surname can send it crashing to the ground. I expect to see it corrected by the end of the week.

Fighting For Breath

2011-01-05T11:17:00.000+11:00

I used to be quite a grouch when I was younger. One symptom of this was that I hated movies which you could describe as "inspirational". You know the sort: the ones ending with either a slow clap, an "Oh Captain, my Captain" moment, or sometimes both. I don't know why I hated these so much. You could say I found them overly sentimental, that life didn't really have these moments, blah-blah-blah. Then I saw a few genuinely inspirational movies and found that, sometimes, being inspired by a movie was a good thing.

There's still remnants of this old grouchiness in me, and some of it may be justified I suppose. I hate it, for instance, when iTunes describe Christian music as "Inspirational", regardless of actual genre. But I'm starting to see that, even when such terms are used as meaningless labels, we can wear them as badges of honour. I think I first began to realise this when I saw an old first-aid poster which used the word "inspiration" as the opposite of "expiration": meaning, of course, to breathe in. Which is basically what the word means: to take in breath. And who can possibly think that taking in breath is a bad thing?

In the Christian life, this is particularly important. It's very easy to think that, when you become a Christian, you breathe in once and then you're set for life. Most of us would at least accept that we need to breathe in once a week (we call that "Church"), and some of us breathe some mornings or evenings (we call that "Quiet Time"). But we still more or less believe that, once you're a Christian, your spiritual walk is a done deal. Yet there are far too many people I know who were once Christians and aren't any more to think that this could possibly be the case. I know all the theological debates, and it is a complex topic, but at the simplest level this is what I think happens - they stop breathing. I've found the temptation to do this in my own life far more strongly than I ever expected. And why ever would we do that? Why would we ever stop breathing? Because breathing is a reflex that we take for granted, and then sometimes it becomes harder than we think - when under pressure, when afraid, when hurried. Most of us do it at least occasionally - think of the phrases "shortness of breath" or "hyperventilating". And so we can do this spiritually just as much as we can physically. The spiritual version is every bit as dangerous as the physical version - more dangerous, because Christ is the source of all life, and being cut off from this is to be cut off from all kinds of life, however the outside may appear.

Think for a moment about the word "inspiration". Look at what word it comes from: "spirit". That's because, in Latin, "spiritus" can mean "spirit" as we understand it, as well as "breath" or "wind". Then look at the Biblical words for the same thing: "ruach" (Hebrew) and "pneuma" (Greek). They also, bizarrely, have that same double-meaning: spirit, and breath/wind. If you know anything about language, and know that Latin, Greek and Hebrew have remarkably little linking them together, you will be amazed to see that this link between breath and spirit is at the very core of the word we use to describe each. So to live without inspiration is not to live.

It's tempting, I know, to stop fighting for breath. It's a temptation that, right now, I face daily. But I won't stop fighting, because the moment I do, my life ends. So let's commit everyday - to be inspired. Read the Bible, pray, talk to other believers, be inspired by the life stories of other believers. But never stop being inspired by God. Never stop breathing Him in.

Ikea and Beautiful Feet

2011-01-02T14:06:00.000+11:00

Sometimes life throws up situations where we feel that everyone else knows how to do something that completely escapes us. We scratch our heads wondering why it is obvious to everyone else. Was it taught that day of Prep when we were away sick? Did we not get the memo? Did we forget to buy the newspaper that day?

Most situations in life include handy instruction manuals; but not every situation does. Navigating the wilds of the Richmond IKEA store today, I wished that there was such a manual for first-time IKEA users. Now, my parents took me to IKEA when I was a child, but I can't say I paid terribly much attention to the procedure you had to follow. I remembered certain details - the shape and layout of the check-out area was vividly implanted in my memory; the smell of the Danish pastries available in the cafeteria will never leave me. But basic details such as "how to buy a bed" seemed to have escaped me. Everyone else knew what to do. Everyone else knew how to take down the details of the furniture they wanted to buy, which direction to walk in, where to pick up their actual furniture (because obviously you don't just take the bed that you like and walk out of the store with it). There's clear protocol, and everyone in the store seemed to know what it was, except for me. I felt like I had failed IKEA 101. Well, not failed as such, since I still succeeded in buying a bed, mattress and desk, but not without some embarrassment, and large amounts of confusion.

It makes me wonder if everyone else really understands IKEA, or if they are just good actors, because they too don't want to carry the shame of being IKEA virgins. There was certainly no-one there doing a "500 Days of Summer" routine, which seems the other option to managing the stress of IKEA - run with the chaos; confuse everyone else. No, everyone else was sedate. They seemed to enjoy it. But did they really?

But then my thoughts became a bit deeper, partly to justify my frustration at not understanding IKEA, partly because that's the way my mind works, and I moved into more philosophical territory: what about more important situations, where people need to know how to do something but no-one feels the need to explain it to them? Life, when you think about it, is full of these kinds of situations. I once had a segment in my Friday afternoon Year 12 Lit classes called "I know it's a stupid question, but...", based on the assumption that, if one of us has a "stupid" question we are too embarrassed to ask, at least a handful of other people will be wanting to ask just the same question, and will benefit from hearing the answer. The assumption proved correct. In life, we assume lots of basic knowledge which is not fair to assume. Everyone benefits from having the basics revisited, whether for purposes of reminder or to hear them properly for the first time.

Which made me think of a very moving part of a generally very moving letter - Paul's letter to the early church in Rome, when he asks them this series of questions: "How...can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'" Paul wasn't writing about IKEA, of course, or anything like it. He was writing about the much bigger problem, of how to fix our broken human nature. Is there an instruction manual available for this job? There is, actually, but most of the time people don't know where to look for it. They're like me, wandering helplessly around IKEA, looking for instructions and not finding them.

I didn't notice any particularly beautiful feet today. I did notice that the people I asked for instructions had fairly grumpy faces, as if it should all have been obvious. I would have appreciated a few beautiful smiles. That would have been a good substitute for beautiful feet.

It makes me not want to go to IKEA again. But it does make me want to spend more of my life helping to answer the simple questions that everyone's too embarrassed to ask.

No offence intended?

2010-12-24T16:00:00.000+11:00

I read these words by the wonderful N.T. Wright recently and they seemed appropriate to put out into the webosphere on this fine, sunny Christmas Eve:

"I was once preaching at a big Christmas service where a well-known historian, famous for his scepticism towards Christianity, had been persuaded to attend by his family. Afterwards, he approached me, all smiles.

'I've finally worked out,' he declared, 'why people like Christmas.'

'Really?' I asked. 'Do tell me.'

'A baby threatens no one,' he said, 'so the whole thing is a happy event which means nothing at all!'

I was dumbfounded. At the heart of the Christmas story in Matthew's gospel is a baby who poses such a threat to the most powerful man around that he kills a whole village full of other babies in order to try to get rid of him...Whatever else you say about Jesus, from birth onwards, people certainly found him a threat. He upset their power-games, and suffered the usual fate of people who do that." (Tom Wright, 2004, Matthew for Everyone Part 1, 13-14)

It's certainly true that we've managed to make the Christmas story quite innocuous. Nativity plays and carols about how "the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes" make it all very demure and comforting, when at the time it was anything but.

Which is not to say that Christmas should suddenly become a deeply unsettling time, and that peace on earth and goodwill to all men should not be encouraged. Any celebration that causes people to come together with their families, to be more loving, generous and charitable than usual, has to have at least some good in it. Yet it seems that, by missing the controversy of Christmas, we also miss the real joy, and the real power. Christmas, grasped fully, is the best news we can imagine. Christmas, grasped fully, makes every day of your life one of generosity and love.

"Only the noble of heart..."

2010-12-15T09:44:00.000+11:00

I suppose we can take it as a given that, when beloved books are made into movies, people get offended. Some people are happy, and some are very much not.

My response to seeing the new 3D film version of C.S. Lewis' "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" was not so extreme. I try to avoid giving the standard response of "the book's better". Some might even say that the film was better than the book - those who found the book a bit too imperialistic (the film definitely got rid of the "submission to Narnian authority" bit early on in the story) or fragmented (the film adds a new thread which unifies the narrative, and reorganises the stories to fit that framework better). Some who find the act of reading a bit dull, or find Lewis' distinctly British style of storytelling too ponderous, will probably prefer to have the picture on the wall leak out torrents of water right into their 3D glasses. It was certainly a highlight of the experience. And most people would have to be happy with how the film visualises the frontier into Aslan's country - less hokey than the 1990 BBC version but just as touching and serene.

So I can accept that, when adapting books to films, scenes come and go, and some people might think Eustace should have been fatter while others might think he was perfect as he was. This is all part of the adaptation process. But I noticed one subtle but key omission, and one subtle but key addition. The omission was: grace. The addition was: the gospel of good works and self-esteem.

Yes, the film kept Eustace's conversion experience, but it came much, much later in the story, and only after he had already made himself a hero by saving the ship from many perils, befriending Reepicheep and gaining his respect, and taking a sword for the team. His first act, after becoming a boy again, is not to become a better person (he's done that already, while stuck in a dragon's body) but to save the world. Tick.

The film also tells people to "be themselves" and to "see their own value". These are not, in and of themselves, bad things to tell anyone - they can be very valuable in their place. But they take the place of love and respect for Aslan, something that the original stories placed very highly. In the novel, and the BBC series, when Aslan growls at Lucy for wanting to be Susan, it isn't because she fails to see her own value (though she does), but because she has become envious and despises her sister for her beauty. In the movie, her sin - resentment of a sister; covetousness - becomes the subject of a self-help book. Apparently Lucy needs to learn to value herself, more than she needs to love her sister, and love and trust her creator (for it is distinctly as her creator that Aslan appears to her at that moment in the original story).

And finally the film tells us that "only the noble of heart" can enter Aslan's country and that "no-one deserves it more" than Reepicheep. Deserves it? Whoever said anything about deserving it? Yes Reep is noble, and Aslan values his nobility - perhaps a bit too much for 21st century hipster Christians' comfort - but no-one ever deserves to get into Aslan's country. No-one ever gets there by their own merits. Which, if you're Eustace, or Edmund, is an exceptionally good thing.

More ideas, less north

2010-09-05T21:20:00.000+10:00

I visited my old school/workplace last week and was speaking to a student who told me that he had been put onto "my blog" and had read it in its entirety. Assuming he meant the blog I used to keep for my Year 12 Lit class, I thought nothing of it (the student who put him onto the blog was from my old Lit class), until it became apparent that he meant Ideas From the North.

While I was surprised that any of my students would have tracked this site down and/or made the connection to me, I wasn't particularly embarrassed. It's not as if I'm recounting drunken exploits or anything like that. Besides, as he reasonably pointed out, I haven't written here for more than a year anyway, so personal revelations have been few and far between of late. Heck, most things have been few and far between here of late - even spam, which has attacked my Lit blog like a particularly malicious strain of the plague but somehow has spared Blogger.

What all this achieved was that it reminded me that, from time to time, people actually did read my blog, and some people even miss it. So, while the name now seems a bit inappropriate (I'm no longer in the north, unless you count the north of Berwick, which is in the south - see, even I'm already confused), I thought I might as well get the old site dusted off and write the occasional something-or-other here. I don't promise anything regular, but it should be at least more regular than once every 15 months. I'll do my best.

The world's most liveable cities

2009-06-26T14:48:00.000+10:00

Well, the posts here have been few and far between, I must admit, but no rarer I suppose than they usually are. Only, this time it's harder to find a computer to sit in front of and procrastinate about whether or not to write a post.

Here, also, there's so much going on that it is quite hard to know what to post about. While some of what I am experiencing here is quite familiar, and prompts the sort of thoughts I could have in Melbourne as much as here, there are some key differences that take a little longer to process but are certainly there.

One thing that has struck me about the trip so far is the key similarities between each of the major cities I have been to - all cities, in fact, with much in common with my home town. They are all cultured, not-too-densely-populated cities, all on the water, all with a strong indie/hipster subculture, all Western...Vancouver, Portland and Melbourne also all rate in those lists of the most liveable cities in the world. And you can see why. All have much to offer their residents, making them interesting cities to visit, because what is most wonderful about them is not necessarily most visible.

Yet the three cities I have been to - Vancouver, Seattle and Portland - all, at a glance, seem to have a greater emphasis on preserving natural beauty than Melbourne. Perhaps they just automatically have much more to start off with than we do, yet what they have they do an amazing job of maintaining - something that we could certainly learn from. And, it may just be an illusion, but I got the real impression that people came together a lot more in Seattle and Portland. They sat together in parks, they shared open-air music, art and culture, something that we have, at best, at Queen Vic Markets, and even then on nothing resembling the scale you see in these places.

I wonder what makes a city agree on having that kind of culture and community. I wonder what it takes to change a city to think and act that way.

You may case the ground from the Cascades to Puget Sound...

2009-06-21T09:15:00.000+10:00

Well, it's now the second un-jetlagged day of my trip to the Pacific North-West - something I never got around to announcing at "Ideas From the North". Oh well - here I am now, and ready to blog away.

Only, I'm not exactly sure what to say. I don't think I've ever blogged from another country before, and have always had trouble knowing what to write when I return. Hence, I think, the one fairly uninformative post I wrote after getting back from China this time last year, despite promising more. The floods of tear-filled complaints I received from all my readers were quite chastening and I swore to give you more on this trip, but travel fills your mind with so many complex and wordless impressions that it can be very difficult to distill them into a post on a blog.

I could talk, I suppose, about how travelling by myself for the first time in my life has been a challenge. I could talk about the highs (heading as far as I could from the beaten track of Bainbridge Island, and finding the magnificent, unspoilt part of the waterfront before they threaten to develop it; the incredible beauty of Northern Washington viewed from the Amtrak coach), the lows (being quietly told off for forgetting to tip in a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver's Chinatown - my first meal in the country); the quirky moments (seeing a man talking to his parrot Venus at the rummage table of Pike Place Markets - "That's what I think too, Venus. Just what I was about to say myself"). I could also talk about the cultural differences, the similarities, the ideas it all gives me about culture, and inclusion and exclusion...

But that would be too much to talk about here, and I haven't had enough time to think it through. I'll do my best to say more as it comes to me, but for now I think I'll just say that, highs, lows and quirks all considered, I'm happy to be here.

Pigs at Bay

2009-05-30T19:20:00.000+10:00

Just in case any of you were wondering - I don't have Swine Flu. Not yet, at least. Just a throat infection. A primary infection - easily treated.

Some of my colleagues seem quite keen to get the new, cool Flu of the year, though. I wonder what that says about the state that most teachers are in at this time of year - that the prospect of a week's quarantine is the only way they can countenance surviving the next few weeks.

Certainly, it's tough at the moment. We're all at our least resilient. A cranky e-mail from a moderately demanding parent last night had far more impact on me than it warranted. In fact, by about 8pm yesterday I was just about ready to pack it all in (teaching, that is - not life!) - e-mails about staff needing to do more to combat graffiti in our classrooms, whinging from stressed Year 12s, Year 8 girls implicating me in why they are being badly behaved in their Maths class (no, I don't teach them for Maths) - it does make it all feel a little bit like too much hard work.

So what better antidote, I say, than to read the poetry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Not an obvious response, you might think, and no, it's not, but it often helps to remember that there's someone worse off than yourself - better still to see someone worse off than yourself who maintains a strange kind of grace under pressure: not because he pretended to be okay, but because he admitted to God that he wasn't.

If I look to others for confirmation that I'm doing okay, I'll be just another nervous wreck. Everyone's stressed. Everyone's tired - students, teachers, parents. Everyone. It's that time of year. No-one's really in any position to help anyone else out - not while they're doing their level best to stay afloat.

But there is one place I can go to for complete security, complete stability, complete bouyancy. Bonhoeffer, facing death, knew that only too well. I'm just facing a bad throat infection, and a few cranky kids and parents. If God could give Bonhoeffer the strength to handle what he faced, I suspect that same strength can help me out.

I might give it a try.