Keri's stuff :-)

A little idea

Once upon a time there was an idea.  When the idea was born it was very small, but it was nourished and protected and before very long it began to develop.  When the idea was big enough to think for itself, it asked the man: "What is happening to me?".  The man replied, "You are a little idea, but don't worry, I will make you grow."  And so the idea grew, and a shape emerged.  The idea looked around itself at the world.  It saw many things that were beautiful, and many things that were broken.  It saw joy as well as sadness, and pain and misunderstandings.  "What can I do about the things I see?" it wondered.  "I am just an idea."  But still the idea continued to grow.  A little while later, the idea heard the sounds of people laughing, children singing, and in the distance someone crying out for help.  "How can I answer them?" thought the idea.  "I am just an idea, I have no voice to speak with."  Yet still the idea continued to grow, until at last a day came when the man came to speak to the idea.  "Behold," he said.  "I have made you, I have formed you, you know me and I know you.  You are my creation, my own idea, nourished and fed, sheltered and grown by my own hands.  Now you are grown, you are free."  The idea thought about this for a while.  "Thankyou," it said.  "Thankyou for giving me eyes to see, ears to hear, hands, feet, a mind and a heart to love.  I think that I have an idea of my own."  The man smiled.  "I thought you might," he said.

Communication

I am continually amazed at how many means of communication there are.  Just think - a slight rise in the voice at the end of a sentence means it's a question.  A slight lifting of one side of the mouth shows contempt. When my brother's telling a joke or playing a trick, he purses his lips trying not to smile.  A tiny crease next to the eyes can show amusement.  No to mention the myriad languages, and the range of media from speaking to writing to dancing to singing to art and poetry and mime.  So many methods, so many things that aren't spoken.  Communication apart from words is so crucial that we find it difficult sometimes to tell the true meaning from an email - the 'tone of voice' is missing, so we use emoticons and smileys to try and communicate more richly.

We have to revert to smileys because communication is more what the receiver receives than what the supplier supplies.  It's only what makes it across the great divide (the sar-chasm) between my idea and my friend's opinion that can be called a part of the conversation.  Sometimes, despite our best efforts with words, gestures, smileys even, nothing can cross the breach.  But there can be times when, in a small and seemingly arbitrary event a great deal is communicated.  One example happened to me a few years ago. 

I had an idea in my head for a drawing - something encouraging to show people (at that time, myself mostly) that movement happens: that the things I struggle with now, I will conquer one day.  Though some issues seem huge and towering above me now, one day the view from the top of that cliff with be further and greater because of the height that has been ascended.  To show that when you conquer unbelief, the reward is attaining faith, and so on.  This is what I imagined: (push the read more button below...).

Why pray when you can worry?

Worry is like vinegar.  A little seeps in and before you know it your teeth are on edge, your face is screwed up, your body tingles with tension and all sweetness is gone.  It doesn't seem to take much either - a little worry in one issue (or a big worry about a little issue) soon spreads its bitterness to every other.  Does it help to worry? No. Not even to motivate prayer? No. You can't do both at the same time, so why settle for the one that doesn't help?

The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  I need to read that again, slowly. 

Love.  Joy.  Peace.  Patience.  Kindness.  Goodness.  Faithfulness.  Gentleness.  Self-control.  Not sour grapes.  Not worry.  Worry tries to destroy these fruits from God.  I think that worry is the enemy's way of getting us to practice disappointment, before we've been disappointed.  It's his way of digging roots of bitterness into our souls entirely without cause, but somehow convincing us that the bitterness is justified, because it might happen.  Never mind the might not.  If we nurture these roots of biterness they are unlikely to produce sweet fruit: when the issue we are worried might happen does not come to pass, we feel that it is by chance only, rather by God's grace to us.  Worry robs God of our trust.

But how do we not worry?  Jesus makes it sound easy - he just says don't! - but then explains that the Father knows what we need.  From recent experience, I can agree with that.  God knows what I need before I do!  But not worrying and not caring are two different things.  I used to do my best to make myself as uncaring as possible, in order to avoid disappointment and therefore avoid worry.  This strategy works about as well as saying "I'm never going to eat, so that I may avoid a stomach ache from indigestion".  Fairly soon there is a stomach ache from an entirely different cause.  But this idea only speaks to the mind - and certainly the last thing a man with indigestion wants is food.  It is reasonable - God knows everything I need, God is good, worry can change nothing, therefore I don't need to worry.  But sometimes knowing that in your head is quite a different thing from knowing it in your heart. (push the read more button below...)

A little ditty (or two)

I am recently a little more caffienated and more than a little stressed.  (Perhaps coffee was not really what I wanted?) My devotion this morning was about "Seek first the kingdom of heaven" ... and "Do not worry about what you will eat, or wear or where you will live ... for your Father in heaven knows what you need."  Apt, because then later today we got a phone call that there are other people (cue shocked gasps - "Other People!") looking at the house we'd like to move into.  Since that phone call I've had a song running around my brain.  It's a little one, so it is nimble in its repetition:

Our God is a great big God, our God is a great big God, our God is a great big God, and he holds us in his hands.

Bop along if you know it.  Grudgingly I admitted that ok, I'll put all this in God's hands, and not worry about it.  After all, he knows what I need better than I do, right? (cue chorus of "But don't you think he just needs a leeeettle help now and then?" See ... doesn't take long does it ...)  Then I got another song running around my head.  This one has a bit more trouble with the running thing, it's more of a limp really, because (thankfully, and no offence to those who are) I am not overly familiar with Rod Stewart lyrics:

I wanna come when you call, I'll get to you if I have to crawl, (something something something) iron walls, we've got mountains to climb...

Why can't I be more like that with God?  How many times have I had to crawl, really.  More like just turn around and holler like a baby.  I think I want to come when he calls, but perhaps I only want to want to, and the determination that would survive crawling (not to mention the something something bit) is still a bit lacking.  But I have a feeling that it will grow if I let it.  I'd like to trust him more.  And I know that to trust him more is a good thing, because after all (push the read more button below...)

Fleeting ...

I wrote earlier about satisfaction, and that you can only be sure of what you are looking for when you have found it and are complete.  God is generous, and gives us hints to heaven: those small passing moments when we catch a glimpse of something that excites us, fulfils us, but make us still more hungry.

One of the hints he gives us is in beauty, whether it be beauty in music - a piece or passage that us unexpectedly moving; or beauty in what we see - a single drop of water that glistens like a jewel; or in beauty in our friends and family - like realising, as if for the first time (though it's not) that your mother loves you.  God meant these things to make us hungry in the right direction - hungry for heaven, and that this hunger would be a guide to us.  It will steer us like a beacon, and fuel us with a passion as we journey.  And the more we open our eyes to this steering beauty, the more we see it.

  

But in all this, the important thing is to be moving, travelling, getting closer and nearer to him.  He didn't mean for any of the hints he gives - the fleeting beauties around us - to be satisfying as they are.  If hunger for more is to be our fuel, then beauty cannot satisfy, but must point to the one who does.  He doesn't want us to be becalmed and motionless, broken down and dangerous in the middle of the road.  And so he invented decay.  Rot, time, corrosion, blemish, aging, even wrinkles are a part of this great road to heaven! 

Have you ever noticed that some of the most poignant moments are the rarest in occurence and the shortest in duration?  In one sense, a great beauty is more dangerous than a small one, as the temptation to worship the beauty itself instead of its creator becomes stronger.  So it disappears and the decay begins, in order that we mortal humans can never make something of lasting value.  We might try, but we cannot; God's loving corrosion is too strong to leave us in such a perilous state.  The rose with one broken petal calls attention to its brokenness, and reminds us that while heaven may be near, there is more and better and greater to come; we still have a while longer to travel.  Just a thought. K.

Still hungry

I'm re-reading The Pilgrim's Regress at the moment.  Still lots of words (and languages!) that I don't understand, but perhaps a few of the concepts have become clearer since the last time.  There is a passage in it (and in many other of Lewis' books) which talks about the idea that satisfaction only comes when a desire is truly filled: that if you are truly thirsty, then a cup of water will satisfy you.  If the water does not satisfy you, then it was not what you really wanted in the first place, and maybe thirst (or thirst alone) is not your true desire.  Or, as he puts it, "If all a man wants is food, how can he be dissatisfied when the food arrives?".

Why do I care about all this? Isn't it self-evident? Well, maybe.  But currently I'm thinking about it in the context of eternity.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has placed eternity in the hearts of men, but that they (we!) don't understand, cannot fathom what he has done.  Do you ever feel like that?  Like you are hungry for something you can't quite define?  And you can't quite define it because that hunger has never been fully satisfied - you've never been to that place where you can look back on an experience or a time and say, ah, now this is what I have been hungry for all this time.  We can know, from our last experience of chocolate or brussel sprouts whether this time, they are likely to be what we are really wanting.  If the last time our desire for chocolate was fulfilled by brussel sprouts, it is unlikely that what we wanted was chocolate.  And, most emphatically, vice versa. 

But how are we to know what the hunger is if we can't fill it?  It has no name, unless the many faces of worldly measures that we turn to are to be given as it's name.  This would not be helpful: as much as saying "Today is the date that my friend was not born on" does not help you to know his birthday.  So how are we to find and name this hunger?  Surely we, and all mankind "cannot fathom what God has done, from beginning to end" (push the read more button below...)

The last verse

I was at the Love Oxford day today.  For those of you in NZ think Parachute (but surrounded by medieval and dignified buildings in place of cows and Hobbiton), and for those of you elsewhere, think a big open air combined church service from pretty much all (and there's a lot!) the churches in Oxford.  I thought it was fantastic :-)  And there was a horn player in the band :-D Anyway, some of the hymns got me thinking.  We sang two old favourites - How great thou art, and Amazing Grace.  My favourite part of these (and most other) hymns is always the last verse.  Just read it for yourself:

"When Christ shall come with shouts of acclaimation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.  Then shall I bow in humble adoration, and there proclaim, My God, how great thou art!"  (Carl Gustaf Boberg)

"When we've been here ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun.  We've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we first begun."  (John Newton wrote the rest of the song, but not the last verse ..)

Anyway, the last verses of these hymns get to me, because they talk about something bigger and longer and greater than this life.  They talk about heaven, and eternity, and real worship of an almighty God.  And that gets to me.  Talk of heaven gets to me, I am hungry for it, hungry for something bigger than this earth.  Hungry for eternity and for truth, finally, for truth. 

Wayne - the pastor of the church in London, ON - talked about eternity one Sunday.  And I guess that one of the things he said then ties in to what I'm trying to say.  There is a difference between everlasting and eternal.  Everlasting is semi-infinite; from here until forever and ever.  But something everlasting has its roots in now, in time.  It was made now, but it will last forever.  Eternal has infinity on both sides of it.  Eternal is forever in the future (we're used to that idea), but it's also forever in the past as well (push the read more button below...)

How to meet people

I had a strange occurence the other day.  Again, there was a bicycle involved, it just wasn't me on it this time.  It was a Sunday afternoon and I was walking to church.  I was really early so stopped and sat in the park on the way - to pray a bit and to just have some time to myself.  I was in one of those slightly grumpy moods - when you don't really have anything to complain about, but you feel that you should have.  So I asking (with 100% rhetoric) why it was so easy for me to be invisible, unseen, unnoticed, unimportant etc.  (I know I'm not, and I really have no reason to feel that way, but since when did complaining have any basis in fact anyway? You know how it is sometimes ... )  That, and about a job I applied for, and homegroup - both together - whether teaching was for me or not.  So these two things were what I was praying/complaining/wondering about.

I walk on up the hill towards church along the cycle route.  And here's where the bike comes in.  A bike went past me.  I get to the top of the hill.  The cyclist is waiting for me at the top.  I think he's lost, because some of these trails tend to dump you in the middle of nowhere.  Nope.  He comes over, no hello, just "Are you a teacher?".  Strange.  So we chat, exchange ph numbers etc.

And I go on my merry way to church.  It was quite surreal really - about 5 mins after I finish complaining, here comes someone who a) notices me, and b) asks about teaching.  He must have left home before I prayed.  God knew what I needed to hear, when I needed to hear it, why I needed to hear it, all before I'd prayed about it.  He had the answers in place and ready to roll before I'd thought of the questions (push the read more button below...)

Holidays (or not)

Finally I have time to think! 

Ah, ever had that feeling like you're on holiday?  Not a bad feeling, as they go, and better yet if there is a good reason for it (like you're actually on holiday).  I think that someone is practicing reverse psychology on me because my particular reason is that I have a new job :-), and one that I would have done for nothing (but I didn't say that in the interview..) so now I will have fewer holidays and free time than before (so maybe the holiday-type-feeling is just as well then!)

This new job is teaching at Pembroke College (see www.pmb.ox.ac.uk) here in Oxford. When I was preparing for the interview, I thought it would be a good idea to read through the lecture notes for the courses involved.  Handy that they're on the net, not so handy that there are 1500 pages of notes for the three courses.  I started to read the notes, and it got to the night before, and I had (give or take a thousand or two) about 1000 more pages to go.  So no chance to read through them all. 

I was trying to figure out what to do - to read through notes, to practice questions, what?  I went and prayed for a while, asking God what to do.  "One thing is needed."  So I gave up studying - I figured that that wasn't the one thing - and just spent time praying and reading (and, I will confess, watching the final of Prison Break).  Each time I got worried, a little voice would say in my head "One thing is needed", you know, from when Mary sat at Jesus' feet while Martha was stressing in the kitchen. 

Anyway, I didn't read the notes, I didn't really prepare answers to the dreaded five year question, I just went in.  (Note: I would say, went in and was myself - but that's not true at all when you put me in a suit and makeup! ) I don't think I made a fool of myself (that I noticed anyway), and got the job.  So really, only one thing was needed.  Is needed.  And I still hear that small voice, all the time.  Maybe there's something in that.  Just a thought :-) K.

Coffee, anyone?

I was thinking this morning about coffee.  Well, actually, coffee and tea, but as coffee was next to the toast in front of me, coffee came first.  I never used to like it.  The smell was ok - kind of homely if you were out and smelt fresh ground beans, but the taste? Ugh.  Even in cakes or icecream, where it was a sweet and fairly mild flavour I didn't like it.  My parents drink their coffee black with sugar.  Nope.  My friends drank it with lots of milk and lots of sugar.  Nope.  It wasn't until I was travelling in Sardinia that I discovered that I actually liked coffee.  And why?  Because that was the first time I'd tried it as coffee - strong, black, nothing added.  Just straight coffee on its own.  The same is true for me and tea.  I remember taking the train from Auckland to Wellington sometime during my childhood, and asking for tea from the trolley as it came past (just to prove I was grown up). I figured that it would be best with sugar (which I liberally supplied from those cool little sachets), and put lots of milk in to make it cool enough to drink.  So it tasted sweet, and milky (no real surprises there) a little like perfume, and I felt sick the rest of the train ride.  Nowdays, living in England, I will drink tea, but also black, no sugar, no milk, that's luverly, ta. 

All these things were what I thought about over my coffee this morning.  I wonder what this information could teach me, in the realm beyond elevenses, I mean.  I wonder what other things are out there that I have tried and turned away from; not because of their own nature, but because I am judging them unknowingly on their trappings and extras, behind which the real heart of the matter is obscured.  And finally I wonder how I have detracted from the things that matter, by what I have added to them.  To whom have I said "Taste and see", and then added sugar or milk and watched them turn away in disgust. The worst part is that it's the coffee they profess to dislike, not the sugar or the milk.  That's the saddest part.  Maybe there are situations that are better without things added to them.  Maybe when I feel drawn to do something or say something, I should just do it - do just it, without wondering about the next step, or how to make everything better.  Maybe what I am asked for is the best thing to give.  Just a thought. K.