Last night I went home with a friend from church, as I almost invariably do after the Sunday evening service. Today we were accompanied by a young man, a fellow student at the Baptist College, who has been on sick leave for a number of months. After our meal of corned beef sandwiches, our hostess took us out to her art studio (housed in a shed out back). I have had the privilege of seeing this studio and its contents several time over the last year, but the young man with us had never seen them before.
Watching his reactions to the room full of sketches, mistakes and works in progress, I knew he would be blown away but what was coming next. The extent of creativity that was eventually revealed astonished and moved him, and he couldn't stop talking about the beauty, the power, the creativity of this shed full of art, dedicated to the glory of God.
As I listened to his words of encouragement, I watched their effect on my friend, and many ideas began to form in my mind. The young man who was speaking is past master at the art of self-belittling. He is forever apologizing for faults - real or imagined - in himself, his cleanliness, his intelligence, etc., but as I watched him speak, I realized that he has gifts that he himself dismisses. He has kindness, compassion, insight, a heart for people and the highly valuable and important ability to sincerely encourage others. His gifts and the power of his words as an encourager came pouring out as he spoke about the wonders he had just been shown, and as I listened, I saw many things anew and understood possibilities that I had never before noticed.
Across the table sat my friend, about the age of my mother, but grandmother of three, single again, working to keep a roof overhead and bread on the table, and pouring every spare ounce of herself into her art, for the sole purpose of bringing glory to God. In spite of discouragement, loneliness, lack of an outlet to share or show that work, she continues to create, exercising her image of God, and humbly hoping that it might bring him glory and advance his kingdom. She soaked in the words of encouragement, almost incredulously, she is too familiar with her abilities to value them.
Rewind to Saturday night, five 20-somethings gathered in a common living area, between us are two guitars, one trumpet and two voices. We start to make music. The younger guitarist begins to pick out chords, finding the song in his head, while the other watches. "You're amazing," he says, "I wish I could do that!" The younger one shrugs, it's just something he learned how to do. The trumpeter plays improv, winding short bursts of notes and longer melodies through the chords and around the vocal line, bringing tears to my eyes. Again someone comments "Wow, I wish I could do that," but he also shrugs of the compliment, "it's just something I do, it isn't difficult."
Do you see the theme? I hope you do, for it has been brought forward to me this week like a thread of gold in a black cloth. Each one of us is gifted. Each follower of Christ bears the mark of his grace and the gift of his Spirit. But so often we despise our own gifts. We are too close to our own abilities to value them. "Oh, that," we say, "that's nothing." This is how I react when someone finds out the extent of my education. Sometimes something approaching awe comes into their face, but to me it is an accident, just something that happened. I'm not special, but I am.
Just like my artist friend does not value her art at its full potential, just like my encourager friend dismisses his ability to walk up to a stranger of any station in life and strike up a friendly conversation, just like my trumpeter friend takes his musical skill for granted, and my guitarist friend fails to see that he really does play beautifully, I too fail to see and value my own strengths and abilities. I dismiss my gifts with "Oh, that" without stopping to see just how powerful they actually are.
Thus so often in relationships we are daunted by the abilities of others. He'll never want to get to know me, he's so talented or she knows so much, why would she want to talk to someone ignorant like me? Yet we forget that the other person is likely thinking the same thoughts in reverse, forgetting what they have to offer and seeing only their own inadequacies compared to the strengths of the other.
So this is the gift of my community to me: the sight to see the gifts of others, the courage to acknowledge some gifts of my own and the vision to grasp that the way to find purpose and bring glory to God is in seeing those gifts in others around us and drawing them out, even as we allow our brothers and sisters to perform that same task for us.
06 October, 2008
29 September, 2008
Monday morning
When I look back on the last week, it seems that all I did was talk. Well, not really, but I was certainly much more 'social' than is my wont. Each day of the week, I was in conversation with someone about something at some point. Five of the last seven days I was at church for some period of time, usually practicing piano or sharing in a cup of tea and a chat.
The week started with a serious talk about my academic future. On Thursday it was a Church Meeting and vote about my ministerial future. Saturday night it was a choir concert and thoughts on my musical future. Sunday it was just the future: preaching, marriage, my 'little Welsh home', money, excitement and fear.
Today it is time to stop talking, to stop thinking, to start doing. Time to turn off my analysis overdrive and begin to be again. I have felt and acknowledged the fear, doubt, anxiety, inadequacy. Now I put them on a shelf in my mind and faith resumes center stage. If there is one thing I have realized in the last fortnight, it is that I cannot deny my calling. So it begins, the impossible, the challenge, and with that beginning is a new attitude. There is no sense in my soul of despair, no feeling of inevitable disaster. Instead the challenge excites me, the fear hardens me, the uncertainty makes me the more determined to do my best, to work my hardest, to leave my inadequacy to be dealt with by One who is greater than I.
Sitting on the end of Gerald's couch yesterday, I wept silent tears as I acknowledged the fear, the challenge, the difficulty of what comes. Listening to Graham closing the evening service last night, I gave voice to the impulsive thought: I can never do that. Sitting by the lake, watching the swans cross the lights reflecting off the water with Mary, it came out again, "I just feel so inadequate." Mary's exact words in answer escape me, but I remember the meaning: isn't that just where you are supposed to be, for God to use you?
I remember the words of Aslan to Caspian at the close of the book. "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the kingship of Narnia?" "I don't think I do, sir." "Good, if you felt yourself sufficient, it would be proof that you were not." So really, I am in a good place: right where God can use me.
The week started with a serious talk about my academic future. On Thursday it was a Church Meeting and vote about my ministerial future. Saturday night it was a choir concert and thoughts on my musical future. Sunday it was just the future: preaching, marriage, my 'little Welsh home', money, excitement and fear.
Today it is time to stop talking, to stop thinking, to start doing. Time to turn off my analysis overdrive and begin to be again. I have felt and acknowledged the fear, doubt, anxiety, inadequacy. Now I put them on a shelf in my mind and faith resumes center stage. If there is one thing I have realized in the last fortnight, it is that I cannot deny my calling. So it begins, the impossible, the challenge, and with that beginning is a new attitude. There is no sense in my soul of despair, no feeling of inevitable disaster. Instead the challenge excites me, the fear hardens me, the uncertainty makes me the more determined to do my best, to work my hardest, to leave my inadequacy to be dealt with by One who is greater than I.
Sitting on the end of Gerald's couch yesterday, I wept silent tears as I acknowledged the fear, the challenge, the difficulty of what comes. Listening to Graham closing the evening service last night, I gave voice to the impulsive thought: I can never do that. Sitting by the lake, watching the swans cross the lights reflecting off the water with Mary, it came out again, "I just feel so inadequate." Mary's exact words in answer escape me, but I remember the meaning: isn't that just where you are supposed to be, for God to use you?
I remember the words of Aslan to Caspian at the close of the book. "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the kingship of Narnia?" "I don't think I do, sir." "Good, if you felt yourself sufficient, it would be proof that you were not." So really, I am in a good place: right where God can use me.
24 September, 2008
Faith of a Child
I've come a long way in the last 12 months or 24 months. Well, you could really multiply that by whatever number you want. Whichever way you look at it, I've traveled far, but the last year or two has been intense and entirely life changing. It all started when I arrived in Cardiff in 2007 or when I was turned back at immigration at Heathrow and flow to Newark in 2006 or maybe when I entered the Leland Center in 2005, or maybe when I started that intensive year in the MACCD course in 2004, or when I realized God was calling me into some kind of seminary education in 2003, or perhaps it all started in 2002, when life, as I knew it, ceased. All those other milestones came out of that death. I chart my course from that summer, and I count my years from 2002. The year I turned 21.
Of course my journey with God started long before that. In fact, next May will be my 20 year re-birth (baptism ;) day. From that day to this, I have been on a journey, and in many ways it feels like I have come full circle. I realized this with some force a week ago. I was being interviewed by the deaconate of my church here in Cardiff, in view of my expression of a sense of call to train for ministry. The last question posed was basically this: how has your relationship with God changed since you accepted Christ as a child?
The first response is "Hugely!" But I didn't actually say that. I began by unpacking my encounter with God as a young child. I came to the conclusion to become a Christian by simple logic: I wanted to hear the voice of God. When the choice was between doing things my way and having God in my life, I chose God. When I had reached that point in the retelling of my story, I realized a profound truth: In that way, my relationship with God has not changed. No price is too great to pay to keep hearing his voice - to remain close to him. I am bigger and God is much bigger, but that part of the relationship is the same.
As I have reflected on this question and my answer to it over the last week, I have realized that it was not quite true to say it hasn't changed. The truer statement would be that I have come full circle. I have come back to a place in my relationship with God where nothing matters so much as being with him, hearing his voice, following his directions, and no price is too great to pay to maintain that relationship.
In a strange way, this is reassuring. Whatever happens in the next six months, if I put no priority ahead of closeness to God, I cannot come out the loser. It doesn't mean I'm not afraid - terrified even, but it is a different kind of fear. Just as I am now living with a different kind of faith and a different kind of life with a different kind of vision and a different kind of future.
Perhaps it is a kind of return to child-like faith without child-like foolishness, but finding the line is nearly impossible. Sometimes I close my eyes, just so I cannot see what I cannot change, but I believe. I actually have faith again. It's been so long.
Just about six years. . .
Of course my journey with God started long before that. In fact, next May will be my 20 year re-birth (baptism ;) day. From that day to this, I have been on a journey, and in many ways it feels like I have come full circle. I realized this with some force a week ago. I was being interviewed by the deaconate of my church here in Cardiff, in view of my expression of a sense of call to train for ministry. The last question posed was basically this: how has your relationship with God changed since you accepted Christ as a child?
The first response is "Hugely!" But I didn't actually say that. I began by unpacking my encounter with God as a young child. I came to the conclusion to become a Christian by simple logic: I wanted to hear the voice of God. When the choice was between doing things my way and having God in my life, I chose God. When I had reached that point in the retelling of my story, I realized a profound truth: In that way, my relationship with God has not changed. No price is too great to pay to keep hearing his voice - to remain close to him. I am bigger and God is much bigger, but that part of the relationship is the same.
As I have reflected on this question and my answer to it over the last week, I have realized that it was not quite true to say it hasn't changed. The truer statement would be that I have come full circle. I have come back to a place in my relationship with God where nothing matters so much as being with him, hearing his voice, following his directions, and no price is too great to pay to maintain that relationship.
In a strange way, this is reassuring. Whatever happens in the next six months, if I put no priority ahead of closeness to God, I cannot come out the loser. It doesn't mean I'm not afraid - terrified even, but it is a different kind of fear. Just as I am now living with a different kind of faith and a different kind of life with a different kind of vision and a different kind of future.
Perhaps it is a kind of return to child-like faith without child-like foolishness, but finding the line is nearly impossible. Sometimes I close my eyes, just so I cannot see what I cannot change, but I believe. I actually have faith again. It's been so long.
Just about six years. . .
Legislating Morality
Walking down Newport Road today, on the way to do some serious shopping at Sainsbury's, I passed an impressive building on the other side of the road. It was emblazoned with the name of Edward VII and the date 1918 with a reference to the Great War that made me think it had been built at that time or soon after, perhaps even to treat veterans.
As I continued walking, I cast my mind back over the last 90 years, wondering what Cardiff would have looked like, what was the original color of the those stones? Had the coal mining taken off in the Welsh valleys? Was Cardiff already covered in black coal dust?
From the coal industry it was a short mental step to the Marquis of Bute, who profited insanely from the exportation of coal from the valleys in the early twentieth century. He used a great part of that money to rebuild and renovate Cardiff Castle, including opulent Victorian style rooms for himself and his family, which they occupied for only a few weeks each year. He also spent a fabulous amount building from scratch another small castle further up the valley purely for his own amusement.
At the close of the second World War, the Bute family donated the Castle and large tracts of land to the city of Cardiff, providing at least two beautiful parks. They are duly remembered in place names and statues around the city. The benevolent act of donation, however, has been explained as the best viable option for the family in the post-war era. Unable, or unwilling, to continue to maintain the property, similarly unable or unwilling to pay the taxes on the sale of the property, they gave them to the city. Certainly a blessing to Cardiff, but perhaps not such a generous act as it at first appears to be.
This train of thought brought me up to the present day, recalling to my mind certain conversations about morality in the contemporary world. There are certainly those who would consider the fourth Marquis's use of his wealth as patently immoral, indulging in fantastic architectural whims while he profited from the labor of countless valleys people in the dark and dangerous coal mines. Unjust, they would say, immoral, wrong, sinful. Yet this is the capitalist way. The one who profits has the right to use those profits in whatever way he pleases.
In modern day political debates, especially in the USA, surrounding abortion or homosexuality, it has been said that you can't legislate morality. Whatever is done by 'two consenting adults' is their own business. What a woman chooses to do with her own body, is her own choice. Yet to many sincere Christian believers these choices are highly disturbing, and what is a law against murder if not a legislation of a moral judgement - life is precious and not to be wantonly destroyed?
I don't wish to come to any conclusion here, but I do find the parallel intriguing. To the more fundamental, capitalist society, with its roots in the Protestant work ethic and its emphasis on reward for labor and owners rights, the behavior of the rich elite in society may appear to be deplorable at times (or may not) but would rarely appear as immoral. They would not question the value of a capitalistic society, and would resist with great hostility any attempt to legislate their financial choices or make society more communal. (Perhaps this could be considered a legislation of morality from the opposite point of view?)
For the younger generation, defrauded and disillusioned with materialism, the rising gap between rich and poor seems to be the larger issue. The older moral issues surrounding sexuality, etc. are less important in face of the growing global issues of poverty, hunger and natural disasters.
As each group attempts to use governments to bring about resolution on its own issue, they are both trying to legislate their version of morality, but where is the line and who decides which morality we are trying to uphold?
As I continued walking, I cast my mind back over the last 90 years, wondering what Cardiff would have looked like, what was the original color of the those stones? Had the coal mining taken off in the Welsh valleys? Was Cardiff already covered in black coal dust?
From the coal industry it was a short mental step to the Marquis of Bute, who profited insanely from the exportation of coal from the valleys in the early twentieth century. He used a great part of that money to rebuild and renovate Cardiff Castle, including opulent Victorian style rooms for himself and his family, which they occupied for only a few weeks each year. He also spent a fabulous amount building from scratch another small castle further up the valley purely for his own amusement.
At the close of the second World War, the Bute family donated the Castle and large tracts of land to the city of Cardiff, providing at least two beautiful parks. They are duly remembered in place names and statues around the city. The benevolent act of donation, however, has been explained as the best viable option for the family in the post-war era. Unable, or unwilling, to continue to maintain the property, similarly unable or unwilling to pay the taxes on the sale of the property, they gave them to the city. Certainly a blessing to Cardiff, but perhaps not such a generous act as it at first appears to be.
This train of thought brought me up to the present day, recalling to my mind certain conversations about morality in the contemporary world. There are certainly those who would consider the fourth Marquis's use of his wealth as patently immoral, indulging in fantastic architectural whims while he profited from the labor of countless valleys people in the dark and dangerous coal mines. Unjust, they would say, immoral, wrong, sinful. Yet this is the capitalist way. The one who profits has the right to use those profits in whatever way he pleases.
In modern day political debates, especially in the USA, surrounding abortion or homosexuality, it has been said that you can't legislate morality. Whatever is done by 'two consenting adults' is their own business. What a woman chooses to do with her own body, is her own choice. Yet to many sincere Christian believers these choices are highly disturbing, and what is a law against murder if not a legislation of a moral judgement - life is precious and not to be wantonly destroyed?
I don't wish to come to any conclusion here, but I do find the parallel intriguing. To the more fundamental, capitalist society, with its roots in the Protestant work ethic and its emphasis on reward for labor and owners rights, the behavior of the rich elite in society may appear to be deplorable at times (or may not) but would rarely appear as immoral. They would not question the value of a capitalistic society, and would resist with great hostility any attempt to legislate their financial choices or make society more communal. (Perhaps this could be considered a legislation of morality from the opposite point of view?)
For the younger generation, defrauded and disillusioned with materialism, the rising gap between rich and poor seems to be the larger issue. The older moral issues surrounding sexuality, etc. are less important in face of the growing global issues of poverty, hunger and natural disasters.
As each group attempts to use governments to bring about resolution on its own issue, they are both trying to legislate their version of morality, but where is the line and who decides which morality we are trying to uphold?
17 September, 2008
Finished/Tide
There is a saying to the effect that you never finish - you just run out of time. The longer I am in academia and the bigger the writing projects I undertake, the more true that statement appears to me. Last Thursday I turned in my dissertation. It added up to 62 pages with title page, abstract, table of contents and bibliography. Easily over fifty pages of straight text. I had to turn it in on Friday. It had to go to the binders by Tuesday. So it did, and I took it to the university on Thursday, feeling that the lovely binding and gold print on the spine was pretentious. Surely that monstrosity I had been slaving over for three weeks could not be worthy of such binding!
In the days since I have been congratulated by many people for having 'finished,' but I always feel compelled to qualify it. "Yes, I turned it in last Thursday." Finished is too complete a word for what happened. It just ended. I ran out of time. It was good enough or, at least, long enough. I was done, drained, nothing left to give, but I wasn't finished.
Oddly, I have not felt the absence of my obsession. For months I have worried almost incessantly over my dissertation: the topic, the length, the sources, the tutor, etc., but since I turned it in, it ceased to be an issue. Indeed I have had to think twice more than once when someone asked me "did you get it in?" or some similar question. "What? Oh, that. . ." Instead I have begun to feel the tide rising. All those things I have put off thinking about until "after I get the dissertation out of the way" are coming back in waves, and my knees are beginning to shake.
It may be just that the waves are so cold or perhaps that the tide is so strong, but I suspect that the real cause of my trembling is the sheer power of the ocean that is now rolling over me. I tremble in fear, yes, but I tremble also in awe. My terror possesses me only in tandem with my faith and subjected to it. I tremble between the points, between the inevitability and the uncertainty of my future, before the greatness of the God I serve.
Like my dissertation, my life will never be finished, neither will my calling, my striving, my trying, my failing, but alongside and even within these things breathes a greater reality. My God is not only never finished, my God never ends. Where I strive, he accomplishes. Where I fail, he succeeds. Where I would give up, he perseveres in me. Where I would be static, he moves and changes me. Where I would cover my eyes, trembling in the corner, he takes my hand and stands with me through the storm.
So I stand, shivering, in the rising tide, and I lift my eyes up to the heavens. God is in the waves. They will not sweep me away.
In the days since I have been congratulated by many people for having 'finished,' but I always feel compelled to qualify it. "Yes, I turned it in last Thursday." Finished is too complete a word for what happened. It just ended. I ran out of time. It was good enough or, at least, long enough. I was done, drained, nothing left to give, but I wasn't finished.
Oddly, I have not felt the absence of my obsession. For months I have worried almost incessantly over my dissertation: the topic, the length, the sources, the tutor, etc., but since I turned it in, it ceased to be an issue. Indeed I have had to think twice more than once when someone asked me "did you get it in?" or some similar question. "What? Oh, that. . ." Instead I have begun to feel the tide rising. All those things I have put off thinking about until "after I get the dissertation out of the way" are coming back in waves, and my knees are beginning to shake.
It may be just that the waves are so cold or perhaps that the tide is so strong, but I suspect that the real cause of my trembling is the sheer power of the ocean that is now rolling over me. I tremble in fear, yes, but I tremble also in awe. My terror possesses me only in tandem with my faith and subjected to it. I tremble between the points, between the inevitability and the uncertainty of my future, before the greatness of the God I serve.
Like my dissertation, my life will never be finished, neither will my calling, my striving, my trying, my failing, but alongside and even within these things breathes a greater reality. My God is not only never finished, my God never ends. Where I strive, he accomplishes. Where I fail, he succeeds. Where I would give up, he perseveres in me. Where I would be static, he moves and changes me. Where I would cover my eyes, trembling in the corner, he takes my hand and stands with me through the storm.
So I stand, shivering, in the rising tide, and I lift my eyes up to the heavens. God is in the waves. They will not sweep me away.
04 September, 2008
miracles?
Yesterday afternoon my spirits took a nose dive. I didn't realize just how drastic a dive it was until Louise came home from work and I started to talk to her. Nothing but negative was coming from my mouth, and most of it was directed toward myself. Wake up call!
This week, being the first week of September and the start of a new academic year, there are daily prayer meetings at my church. With the exception of the one on Tuesday morning, each meeting is held at 7:30 in the evening. After I gloomily consumed my bowl of pasta, I tramped through the wet evening in boots, poncho and rain hat. After the soaking I got on Monday night, I wasn't about to take any chances.
The small hall in use for last night's prayer meeting was packed to overflowing with persons of all ages from teenager to senior citizen. At the start of the night, I was feeling claustrophobic and wishing I hadn't come. We sang a few songs, prayed in small groups - about a dozen each group, and heard testimonies from the young people's recent trip to Soul Survivor. The theme for the meeting was the youth and children's activities/organizations in the church. At the close of the evening, Graham proposed that some of the older folks get around the young people, stand alongside, lay on hands and pray for them. At least half the room took him up on this offer and at least some of us who didn't only held back because there wasn't anymore room. For a few minutes the room was filled with the sound of adults of all ages offering prayers by name for the young people with whom they stood. Wow.
When Keith and Vera (not his wife, his friend), dropped me off back at my house, I bounded up the stairs and came bouncing into the flat where Louise and Phil were chatting over a DVD of Muppet Show episodes. It wasn't until that moment that I realized the profound difference between the me that left for the prayer meeting and the me that returned. I found a place to sit with Lou and Phil, munched on the tortilla chips and pineapple slices, and began to take a part in the conversation.
At some point, the casual conversation about anything turned to serious conversation about God, faith, theology and the Christian life. By the time Phil went back to his flat downstairs at 11, we had talked, cried and prayed together. Louise and I were up for two more hours, unpacking, unwinding and getting to know one another.
This morning, after yet another late night, I am wondering at the slough into which I fell yesterday afternoon, and rejoicing at the power of the prayers of the people of God. Already I am eager to attend the meeting tonight (still more than 8 hours away) and see what God will do next.
I'm the last to claim the Christian life is easy, but 'easy' is highly overrated.
This week, being the first week of September and the start of a new academic year, there are daily prayer meetings at my church. With the exception of the one on Tuesday morning, each meeting is held at 7:30 in the evening. After I gloomily consumed my bowl of pasta, I tramped through the wet evening in boots, poncho and rain hat. After the soaking I got on Monday night, I wasn't about to take any chances.
The small hall in use for last night's prayer meeting was packed to overflowing with persons of all ages from teenager to senior citizen. At the start of the night, I was feeling claustrophobic and wishing I hadn't come. We sang a few songs, prayed in small groups - about a dozen each group, and heard testimonies from the young people's recent trip to Soul Survivor. The theme for the meeting was the youth and children's activities/organizations in the church. At the close of the evening, Graham proposed that some of the older folks get around the young people, stand alongside, lay on hands and pray for them. At least half the room took him up on this offer and at least some of us who didn't only held back because there wasn't anymore room. For a few minutes the room was filled with the sound of adults of all ages offering prayers by name for the young people with whom they stood. Wow.
When Keith and Vera (not his wife, his friend), dropped me off back at my house, I bounded up the stairs and came bouncing into the flat where Louise and Phil were chatting over a DVD of Muppet Show episodes. It wasn't until that moment that I realized the profound difference between the me that left for the prayer meeting and the me that returned. I found a place to sit with Lou and Phil, munched on the tortilla chips and pineapple slices, and began to take a part in the conversation.
At some point, the casual conversation about anything turned to serious conversation about God, faith, theology and the Christian life. By the time Phil went back to his flat downstairs at 11, we had talked, cried and prayed together. Louise and I were up for two more hours, unpacking, unwinding and getting to know one another.
This morning, after yet another late night, I am wondering at the slough into which I fell yesterday afternoon, and rejoicing at the power of the prayers of the people of God. Already I am eager to attend the meeting tonight (still more than 8 hours away) and see what God will do next.
I'm the last to claim the Christian life is easy, but 'easy' is highly overrated.
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