Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

The Eagle, and Waiting to Discerning God’s Will Before You Act

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eagle

 

The eagle waits at the edge of its nest for the winds of the storm to gain velocity. Once the storm is strong enough, it spreads its magnificent wings, and allows the storm to carry it where it wills.

By waiting for the wind to gain velocity before it flies, “it can run and not be weary, walk, and not be faint.” It wastes not an ounce of energy.

* * *

I think we can avoid much wasted effort if we do not act until the winds of the Spirit are strong, until we are sure we are flying with the wind of the Spirit, not without it, or, heaven forbid, against it.

And this is a learned skill.

I have been impulsive and impressionable for much of my life, and this does not make me rejoice. I look back on wasted efforts; projects committed to impulsively and later abandoned; or grimly seen through but without much fruit. Things done that came to nothing.

It is perhaps the story of many lives, but it does not have to be.

I have noticed the enormous difference even in small things– like deciding if and where to go on holiday, and what to do there—when I pray about it, and wait for guidance. It leaves me quite disinclined to commit to things, if I have not heard God’s guidance on whether I should be doing them. I now do not like to go through a weekend, or a vacation day without checking with God to see what ideas he may have for my day!

* * *

 “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor and the enemy of the people,” Ann Lamott says.  I have, for decades, allowed my writing life to be poisoned by the stress and sadness of perfectionism.

“What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent,” C.S. Lewis wrote.

So, I am trying to lower the bar–which is the best way to write well.

Apart from “little  books,”–and I have just finished one which is with editors–I am trying to discipline myself to write more “little blogs,” 400-500 words (rather than my normal 800-1200 word blogs)– a single thought, a single insight, a single blessing, slight perhaps. I will write these on the off-chance that what spoke to me might speak to others.

Christian bloggers can play a prophetic role if they record what they hear the Lord saying to them. For He might be saying the same thing to others too, and perhaps our little blog is one way in which he will speak to our readers. Perhaps. God willing!

 

On Vaughan Roberts’ interview, and the Case for Gay Christian Marriage

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 I read this poignant interview with Vaughan Roberts, who has been the widely respected Rector of Oxford’s most conservative evangelical church, St. Ebbe’s since 1991, and felt saddened.

Roberts discloses his continuing personal battle with same sex attraction, though refuses to identify himself as homosexual…

To quote, “if we have turned to Christ, we are new creations, redeemed from slavery to sin through our union with Christ in his death and raised with him by the Spirit to a new life of holiness, while we wait for a glorious future in his presence when he returns. These awesome realities define me.”

He has remained celibate and single. “Evangelicals say that clergy should uphold the Bible’s teaching that sex is only for heterosexual marriage in their teaching and lifestyle, both of which I do.”

And Vaughan reports that he remains “faithful to the Bible’s teaching that the only right context for sexual intercourse is in a marriage between a man and a woman.”

                                                      * * *

Roberts, as far as I can tell from my own reading of the Bible, is quite correct in his statement in this interview, “The Bible presents only two alternatives: heterosexual marriage or celibacy.”

But… but… but… Are we worshipping Christ or the Bible?

What is the Bible? I believe it is divinely inspired. I believe it is trustworthy and true. I believe it is wise. I believe it is beautiful. I believe we can know God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit through its words. I believe reading and obeying it can lead us to the heights of the joy, wisdom and holiness which it’s possible to reach this side of eternity.

But I believe other things too. I believe—well, know—the Bible is a historical document. It is both a product of its times, and has eternal wisdom just as Jesus was both a first century Jew who celebrated the Passover; worshipped at the synagogue, and a radiant, transcendent person with wisdom and blessing for all men of all times.

As our understanding of the Bible evolves, we continually decide which statements were for all time, and which were written to the men and women of their time. We no longer believe slaves should submit to their masters; instead we work for their freedom. We—well, many of us—no longer believe women should remain silent in church. Instead, ashamed that the church should lag behind the world in justice, fairness and equality, we work for the ordination of women as bishops.

And as our understanding of psychosexuality evolves, we no longer believe that people choose their sexual attractions. For socio-biological reasons not fully understood, some are attracted to their own gender, and completely unattracted by the other. Changing this innate orientation is increasingly understood to be difficult, near-impossible, and psychologically dangerous. The 30,000 member British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy recently announced  that it was unethical to try to.

As Vaughan Roberts sums it up in this interview, “A small proportion of people, including Christians, find that they remain exclusively attracted to the same sex as they grow into mature adulthood. God has the power to change their orientation, but he hasn’t promised to and that has not been my experience. Research suggests that complete change from exclusively homosexual desires to exclusively heterosexual ones is very rare.”

                                                      * * *


Is same-sex marriage a sin? Will it cut married gay people off from the grace, mercy and fellowship of God?


David was known as a man after God’s own heart. He had multiple wives, multiple concubines, lust driving him to adultery and murder. Yet he plumbed the depths of an intimate relationship with God so thoroughly that just reading his Psalms is a prayer.


Many (most?) of the heroes of the faith in the Bible fell short of the glory of God sexually—think of Abraham with his wives and concubines, or Jacob or Solomon.


But that did not cut them off from an intimate relationship with God–from seeing God in the flesh as Abraham did in his theophany in Gen:18, or Jacob’s vision of heaven and earth connected with angels ascending and descending between them, or Solomon’s dream-theophany in which God promises him wealth, honour, long life, and wisdom in the bargain.

*     * *


I’ve lived in Oxford, England, for ten years now, and I think its best churches, with the best worship and preaching, are its evangelical ones. I have never met or heard of an openly gay person in them, and—I may be wrong—doubt they would be welcome except as potential “conversion”-fodder.


And that is a shame. We cannot make Christ a heterosexual preserve. He came for all men.


And equally, I believe we should not, cannot make marriage a heterosexual preserve.


Marriage, when it works, is a uniquely wonderful relationship, a mixture of all C.S. Lewis’s Four Loves—of Storge or affection, Philia, or friendship, Agape or unselfish love and Eros, sexual or erotic love.


I am, and always have been, heterosexual, and believe I always will be–but to be honest, if I were single, and if I were to feel this powerful draw to another woman, a mixture of storge, philia, agape and eros, I strongly doubt it would be sin to live with her. I doubt Christ would frown on it.


If people harassed my conscience with the seven verses in the Bible which, as Vaughan Roberts says, disapprove of homosexuality, I would cast myself on the mercy of Christ and in Martin Luther’s phrase, Sin Boldly. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, sin boldly, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides.   [Letter 99.13, To Philipp Melanchthon, 1 August 1521.]

                                               * * *


Promiscuity is sin; it is idolatry, among other things—seeking pleasure or escape in things other than God, and in a way which is harmful both to yourself and your partner.


But can a loving committed same-sex relationship be sin? As you see, I was repeatedly pressed on this point in the comments section when I wrote about the Chick-fil-A controversy, and appealed to Christians to define themselves by what they were for, not what they were against.


But perhaps, sin is not mathematical. Our human courts recognize this when they hand out different punishments for the same crime—a lighter sentence to the abused spouse who stabs the persecutor in madness and self-defence than to the spouse who cold-bloodedly poisons her spouse for the insurance money and legacy.  An abusive, dysfunctional family background is taken into account in sentencing.


So too, there is no impermeable algorithm for sin; a Divine Judge who sees our hearts and our weaknesses decides. And “just and true are all his ways.” And when we are in his hands, we are in good hands, for he was known as “the friend of sinners.” He noticed, approvingly, the prostitutes and tax collectors storming into the Kingdom ahead of the righteous ones (Matt 21:31).


He will look at the people involved, not the letter of the law just as our best human judges too. He will not be bound by the letter of the Bible, he will look at our circumstances and our hearts.


If I were gay, I would not choose a lifetime of solitude and grimacing and bearing it, because of those seven verses which condemn homosexuality. I would trust the mercy and goodness and understanding of the Jesus revealed in the gospels who made me exactly as I was, formed and fashioned me in my mother’s womb.

               * * *


Would a homosexual who made a decision to live, in a monogramous, committed and sexual relationship, be welcome in an evangelical church just as he was?


Not in any evangelical church I have worshipped in. And some of these churches have had splendid worship and inspiring preaching.


Perhaps this is the greatest injustice we evangelicals have done to the homosexual community—we have denied them full participation in the Christian community.


But Christ is Lord of all. He is too great a treasure to be for heterosexuals only. The very thought would appall him, he who of all men was the most inclusive, who was always seeking the least, the last, the lost, the outcast, the sinner….

                                                  * * *


Oh, the immense relief with which Luther realized that the Catholicism he had been taught was limited. With what relief he turned to Christ!


I await an evolving theology which presents Christ as he is, Lord and God of all, of those who are born heterosexual, and those who are born homosexual, and in which we can all always worship him together without casting immense burdens of shame and guilt and judgement on gay Christians, burdens none of us would be able to bear.


On Writing and Ambition and Some Thoughts from C.S. Lewis on Both

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So I have found myself a finalist for “The Tweeter of the Year,” an award from The Christian New Media Awards Conference.

I wondered if I should even mention it. But yeah, I am a bit pleased, for to be ambitious for one’s writing is natural–and why act deny it or be hyper-spiritual about it?

After all, nobody sets out to blog aiming to be the least-read, least-followed, or the very worst blogger in the whole world.

We write to be read, and to inspire and delight, and naturally we are pleased if we succeed in that aim.

* * *

The blogosphere is full of affirmation, and encouragement. Blogging has been a life-changing experience for me.

However, those Best of… Lists, while encouraging to those on it, as I have occasionally found myself, are discouraging—even a sock in the stomach–to those not on them. And the latter category includes most bloggers and writers.

The editor, Ted Solotaroff, says uncertainly, difficulty and doubt are as much part of a writer’s life as snow and ice are part of an Eskimo’s life.

It is the fact of anything competitive that everyone will NOT win more than they win; that no one can win ‘em all; that top bloggers or best writers lists change each year.

As Ted Solotaroff said in his brilliant essay “Writing in the Cold,” writers who survive and thrive must somehow learn to keep rowing, to not only not stop writing, but to somehow derive energy and resolve and inspiration from discouragement and failure itself.

Ah, a seemingly impossible task!!

* * *

As a Christian writer, here is how I deal with writing setbacks.

1 First of all, I consider my call. Am I indeed called to continue writing and blogging?

The answer is Yes.

It is my one gift, and I must continue.

(Both writing and blogging are such crowded fields, fraught with discouragement, that I now believe one should not embark on them unless one really loves them.)

2 Secondly, I hand it over. Hand over the success or failure of this enterprise of writing.

Surrender it to God. That gives me much peace.

3 Thirdly, I ask for God’s blessing. Visualize myself and this little blog of mine in the force field, the waterfall of God’s blessing.

4 Fourthly, have a little strategy session with God.

Am I using my gifts to the best advantage, writing about the things I can best write about? Is what I am saying genuinely helpful to my audience Are there simple tweaks which might increase readership? Any ideas for things to do differently?

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5). It’s true! Often amazingly simple but fruitful ideas will emerge from these sessions.

5 And then, convinced that I am indeed called to continue writing and blogging, that I have surrendered it to God, that it has his blessing, and that I am seeking the most time-effective and strategic way to write and blog, I continue rowing!!

* * *

And here are some thoughts from C. S. Lewis on ambition.

Ambition! We must be careful what we mean by it. If it means the desire to get ahead of other people . . .then it is bad. If it means simply wanting to do a thing well, then it is good. It isn’t wrong for an actor to want to act his part as well as it can possibly be acted, but the wish to gave his name in bigger type than the other actors is a bad one . . .

What we call “ambition” usually means the wish to be more conspicuous or more successful than someone else. It is this competitive element in it that is bad. It is perfectly reasonable to want to dance well or to look nice. But when the dominant wish to dance better or look nicer than the others – when you begin to feel that if the others danced as well as you or looked as nice as you, that would take all the fun out of it – then you are going wrong.

And here is a letter Lewis wrote to his long-time friend Arthur Greeves who was struggling with being rejected by a publisher.

From the age of sixteen onwards I had one single ambition [to succeed as a writer], from which I never wavered, in the prosecution of which I spent every ounce I could, on which I really and deliberately staked my whole contentment: and I recognise myself as having unmistakably failed in it.

…The side of me which longs, not to write– for no one can stop us doing that, but to be approved as a writer–is not the side of us that is really worth much. And depend upon it, unless God has abandoned us, he will find means to cauterise that side somehow or other.

…Think how difficult that would be if one succeeded as a writer: how bitter this necessary purgation at the age of sixty, when literary success had made your whole life and you had then got to begin to go through the stage of seeing it all as dust and ashes. Perhaps God has been specially kind to us in forcing us to get over it at the beginning. At all events, whether we like it or not, we have got to take the shock. As you know so well, we have got to die. Cry, kick, swear, we may: only like Lilith to come in the end and die far more painfully and later.

…I would have given almost anything—I shudder to think what I would have given if I had been allowed—to be a successful writer…I am writing as I do simply and solely because I think the only thing for you to do is absolutely to kill the part of you that wants success.

(The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 1, Ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), pp. 925-927).

 

(Revised October 5th, 2013)


Most Read Posts in September on Dreaming Beneath the Spires

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3 In which I forgive a pair of ecclesiastical rascals, and my soul finds peace

 6 In which He Loves me, Anyway

In Which He Loves Me Anyway

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 My day is running away with me, and I am not getting much done, and I look at the clock, and realise my day is not working out very well.
And that’s when it’s lovely to realise that God loves me when my day works out with mathematical precision, and loves me when it doesn’t.
Loves me when he gives me blogs which are right at the first typing, and loves me when I spend hours on a post which flops,
Loves me when my house is a mess, and I am a mess, and loves me when we’re all shinily together.
Loves me! Loves me, loves me, loves me, just because he’s lovely.
The love of God, the love of God!
It is indeed the great theme I could ponder forever, and just scratch its surface.
And so, instead, I’ll rest in it.


In which Lucy fears her mother is in hell, and I long for a theology which reflects Jesus

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File:Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn - The Return of the Prodigal Son - Detail Father Son.jpg
 My friend, Lucy, has recently lost her mum. Her father had died when Lucy was two, and her sister a baby, and her mother had brought them up on an army pension. “She was a shining example of selflessness, and strength in adversity,” Lucy says.
Now, Lucy tells me she is having very awkward conversations with her teenage daughters who adored their lovely grandmother.
You see, Lucy is an evangelical, and her mother was an atheist.
                                                 * * *
“What?” I say, appalled. “You can’t believe the Jesus we both know would consign your lovely, kindly strong mum to Hades, to torment, desperate for a drop of water to cool her tongue because she was in agony in the fire?” (Luke 16:23).
“Well,” Lucy says, a trifle doubtfully. “It does say,  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.   Whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” 
I sigh. I am silent. Who am I to argue against John 3:16, Tim Tebow and the massive evangelical tradition?
But I am dubious about pastiche theologies built on selected verses. Especially on a verse which says, “God so loved the world that he sent his son to redeem” not “God so hated the world that he sent his son to condemn it.”

We need to look at the entire revelation of God in Scripture, at the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6). We need to look at Jesus, who modelled mercy and compassion in his life, and in every parable he told, who showed us God as the shepherd looking for the one strayed sheep, the Father on the battlements, looking out in hope for the return of the son who had rejected him.
                                                      * * *
A man, MY man, writhes on a cross, dehydrated, asphyxiated, his head pierced with thorns. The pain from his nail-pierced hands and feet is excruciating.
In a haze of exhaustion, he lifts himself on that nail, and says, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Sorry, wait a minute, forgive whom? The believers?
No. Everyone.
Pontius Pilate and the Romans who flogged and crucified him callously, carelessly, because he was too much trouble.
The Pharisees, who delivered him up because of envy because all the people flocked to him. (Matt 27:18).
The crowd who shouted “Crucify him,” the very crowd he had miraculously fed, and who had feted him.
His own disciples who abandoned him
The thief who mocked him
The mockers who said, “He trusteth in God, let God deliver him; let him deliver him if he delights in him.”
                                             * * *
Were all these people for whom Jesus requested forgiveness believers?
Nope.
The night before he had said, “This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins.”
Whose sins?
The sins of the world.
 “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John cried. (John 1:29)
My sins, your sins, Lucy’s mother’s sins, my departed father’s sins, the sins of the world.
Jesus taught us to forgive aught against any when we stood praying. Would he do less? Jesus taught us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us, and do good to those who hate us. Would he do less?
The Father agreeing to send his oldest son as a scapegoat, paying in full for the sins of mankind, everyone, because fathers can be lovely like that.
                                                    * * *
So do I believe in hell? Yes, of course, I do. Hell and money were Jesus’ most frequent subjects.
Am I certain of its demography? No. Of course not. But I believe it will be far more sparsely populated than some evangelicals think.

For I do know that Jesus said, “All sins and offences shall be forgiven men,” (Mark 3:28) , except the sin against the Holy Spirit. 
                                                      * * *
The Jesus I know from the Gospels is a God of mercy, of compassion,  a bleeding-heart (liberal, perhaps), with a sharp eye and a sardonic tongue for religiosity and religious hypocrisy which really got him.
When I talked about the Jesus I know, an evangelical friend told me, “You can’t say “the Jesus I know”. You can’t pick and choose.”

But, of course, I have to go with the Jesus I know from my careful reading, study and near-memorisation of the Gospels over the last decades.
How stupid it would be to go with the Jesus someone else knows! With the Jesus of the evangelicals, or the Jesus of the Calvinists, or the Jesus of the liberals, or the Jesus of the liberation theologians, when the real Jesus both lives within the pages of the Gospels  and within my heart, ready to step out of the pages and wreak havoc in my life, should I let him?
                                             * * *
All these people had seen and heard Jesus—Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Pharisees, the Saducees, the Jews, the adoring crowd, which later bayed for his blood, the disciples who loved him, and then abandoned him, the women who stuck by him. They made vastly different things of him.
I mean, Jesus is GOD, for heaven’s sake. None of us can comprehend him wholly and entirely. We all have blind spots, blue-spot cataracts, in our comprehension of him.
Why, why, why, are we privileging Calvin’s merciless reading of who goes to heaven, and who doesn’t over our instinctive moral sense and our instinctive knowledge of the Jesus revealed in scripture?  We cannot use theology as a stronghold to ensure we are in, and safe, and excused from the rigours of thinking.
WHY should we accept someone else’s pre-digested Jesus, the Jesus of the Catholics, or the Evangelicals or the Jesus of the Calvinists who sends  the vast majority of people to hell, the Jesus of those who believe that most of Africa, and Asia and Latin America and Europe will burn in hell, while, they, you see, they accepted Christ in Sunday School aged six and prayed the sinner’s prayer, and so despite a lifetime of greed, cupidity and self-indulgence, they will be in a nice, quiet white heaven.
The Jesus I know is a God of inclusivity, not exclusivity.
Well, all sins and offences shall be forgiven men, Jesus says, so let me not get worked up by stupidity.
                                                      * * *
We are made in God’s image. Christ dwells in our heart. When other people’s theology conflicts with our instinctive moral sense, we have to quietly agree to differ, and not sacrifice our common sense, and our instinctive knowledge of God and Christ, to fit  in with the dominant theology of our day. Which well may shift within our century.
Salvation is not a theological examination. The sinners prayer is not a shibboleth.  
I have family members who are good Catholics, but may not have made a profession of faith Calvin might recognize. Am I afraid that they are in hell? No! I have faith in the goodness of God.
It’s not our works that save us, and it’s not our confessions of faith that save us. And it’s not Scripture that saves us either. It is Christ who saves us because he can, because he is good, and perhaps all our faith contributes but a mustard seed to our salvation, and perhaps all our works contribute but another mustard seed, but ultimately, our eternal destiny, like our earthly destiny, depends on the goodness and mercy of God. Because he is a Father. Because he loves people who are made in his image. Because Jesus shed his blood to atone for the sins of the world.



In which I celebrate Enthusiasm: En Theos, the Spirit of God within Us

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Children
My enthusiastic Irene

 Enthusiasm. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the word derives from enthousiazein “be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy,” from entheos “divinely inspired, possessed by a god,” from en “in” + theos “god”

* * *

 For most of my life, I have been super-enthusiastic, interested in everything, always learning, flitting like a butterfly in the winds of fresh enthusiasm for God, for gardening, for art, for poetry, for myth and fairy tale, for travel, for writing, for essays, for memoir, for the theatre, for film, for the Holy Spirit, for prayer, for history, for healthy eating and natural healing, for friendship, for people.

I have seen writers who started out with me, write book after book, while I, I was still learning, still reading, still dabbling in fresh enthusiasm, still experimenting with life.

Hemingway, that king of stylists has something to say to writers like me: In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well oiled in the closet, but unused. 

So there is a season for enthusiasm, for going where you have to go (I’ve visited over 30 countries and lived in three continents!), and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see. But there is also a season to take the dull and blunt instrument of your craft, put it on the grindstone, and hammer it into shape.

And for me—I’ve had lots of adventures, done lots of interesting things—and the bucket list of things I want to do before I die now has but one big item: I want to write lovely books and blogs.

And that’s the enthusiasm I am going to nurture.

***

Yes, there is something of God in enthusiasm. I think I am changing my parenting as I realize that.

I used to watch out for signs of giftedness in my children, and steer them in that direction.

I now realize that for success, and more importantly, to find work which one thoroughly enjoys (and this is one of life’s great gifts),  giftedness is secondary to the determination to keep on rowing. To keep on plodding. To put in the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, and count it all joy.

And for that, enthusiasm is more sustaining than will-power or giftedness—for many people, or all, are multi-gifted.  Just because you are gifted at something does not mean you should make it your life’s work, as Roy, my husband. realized when he gave up math research, or Irene, when she gave up chess. Go instead with your greatest enthusiasm.  Better to fail at something you love doing, than succeed at something that somewhat bores you!

So I am now watching out for what my children express enthusiasm for. Where the spirit of God within them is leading them.

* * *

I have another life-rule. Never, ever, prematurely quench another’s enthusiasm.

I think I have been guilty of quenching some of my children’s enthusiasm, I myself have done so much, experimented with so much, tried so much, that it’s taken me till middle-age to settle down and get seriously focused.

And so I wanted them to get focused early. Irene, my younger one, is like me, a creature of many and varied enthusiasms. She was a brilliant chess player, and I used to say, “No, Irene. Forget the art or the knitting, or the whatever, focus on your chess.” We stressed her too early, and she’s given it up, after having been ranked the second female in the country for her age ground for a number of years.

She is extremely gifted at writing and literary analysis. When she was 12, her teacher said her analysis of texts and her writing was at GCSE level (age 16). So now, when she comes up with ideas and enthusiasms, I tend to say, “Well, wouldn’t it be better to read? To listen to audiobooks?” But I think I am just going to let her follow her bliss, in Joseph Campbell’s phrase, knowing that many and varied experiences enhance one’s writing, making it richer and meatier, the flesh of a free-range animal, rather than a factory-raised one.

There is a season for enthusiasm, and a season to sacrifice the good for the best. For me, I am in the latter season. For my children, I will leave it to them to decide when they should transition from the season of enthusiasm to the season of focus.

* * *

I use enthusiasm as a guide to whether I should do or continue doing something. It is, in fact, an Ignatian method of discernment. See how doing something makes you feel. See how not doing makes you feel. Your heart, your spirit, your body are giving you the answer. Scripture enters the equation, of course, but this is a better, more holistic way than a Scripture verse lottery, basing your actions on a single verse of scripture, against the wisdom of your head, heart, spirit and body.

I have been leading Bible study groups off and on for 11 years now. Perhaps God gave me the opportunity to infect others with my passion for him; to test out my weird and wacky ideas on people, and see what fell flat, and what evoked a response; to learn to put abstract spiritual ideas in concrete, vivid terms, so as to excite and energize people. And all these were useful lessons for blogging.

But, now feel that era is over. The main enthusiasm I feel is for the last item on my bucket list—blogging and writing books—and   like Paul, I want to focus on that one enthusiasm. “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me.” (Phil 3 13-14).