Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Blessed are the Meek — A Guest Post by Jo of Travelling the Circle Line

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Jo blogs at Travelling the Circle Line. Do visit her.

Thank you, Jo.

‘Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.’ Matthew5:5
Meek is not a word that is used much these days. When it isit tends to have a passive nuance: timid, mild, docile. In the bible meek is used to describe Jesus (Matthew 11:29,1Peter 2:19-22)) and those are not words that I associate with Him. I think that the Bible must mean something quite different by the word meek.
Biblical meekness is defined as patience when one has been slighted or injured. It is the very opposite of sudden anger, malice andvengeance. It is a quiet and gentle spirit rather than haughty highmindness.The English word comes from the Greek word meaning companion or equal; the meek person is willing to walk alongside others without judgement, superior to none,she knows that everything she has and all that she is comes from God. One commentator described the meek person as one who ’carry themselvescourteously’. I like that.
This is the person who will inherit the earth. Is this inheritance eternal only or can it be claimed here and now?
So much of ourfaith is bound by the tension of the here and the not yet – the piquant combination of current joy and patient anticipation. In the Old Testament, the land is clearly linked to blessing but also to just and responsible living.
The New Testament teaches us that we can aspire to another sort of wealth, even more precious. Godly living, we are told leads to benefits in this life and the next (1 Tim 4:8). Meekness produces peace too great to be moved by small insults and I suggest that leads to contentment. We are free to enjoy everything God has given without grasping,without ambition, without demanding rights. We are joint heirs with Christ of the earth and everything in it, both spiritual and physical, now and in what is yet to be, if we are prepared to replace retaliation with peace, anger with courtesy and vengeance with love.

When Faith falls into Place like a Jigsaw, Piece by Piece

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Jigsaw Puzzle Tabgha - Bread and Fish Mosaic
 As I was writing on the cosmic significance of the Cross of Christ, I realised that though I was born Catholic, remaining so until I was 21 and was, sometimes, a serious Catholic–even a novice in Mother Teresa’s Convent for 14 months–I had never understood why Jesus had to die. If I committed a mortal sin, I would go to hell–if I had not had the chance to go to confession and be absolved before I died (Do you see how this strengthens the power of the priesthood?)

If I only committed venial sins, I would go to Purgatory, and then after a period there, shortened if people prayed or paid, offering Masses on my behalf, I would go to heaven. Just as if Jesus had not died?

And when–after a six year period in my twenties of not really believing anything very much–I decided to recommit to following Christ, I went to serious Bible-believing Protestant churches.

And when the Atonement was first explained to me, I am afraid I did not really believe it.

Why? Because it could not really be proven.

I had, similarly, not really believed in heaven and hell for those six years, because, for all I knew they were theological inventions, theological fairy tales. I had decided not do anything for desire for heaven or fear of hell, because there was no proof for either of these.

* * *

As an undergraduate at Oxford, I had listened to lectures on Lord Raglan’s The Hero and was struck at the resemblances the life of Jesus bore to these mythical heroes across cultures.

1. Hero’s mother is a royal virgin;
2. His father is a king, and
3 4. The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
5. He is also reputed to be the son of a god.
6. At birth an attempt is made,   to kill him, but
7. he is spirited away, and
8. Reared by foster -parents in a far country.
9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but
10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future Kingdom.
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully and
15. Prescribes laws, but
16. Later he loses favour with the gods and/or his subjects, and
17. Is driven from the throne and city, after which
18. He meets with a mysterious death,
19. Often at the top of a hill,
20. His children, if any do not succeed him.
21. His body is not buried, but nevertheless
22. He has one or more holy sepulchres.

Numerous heroes fit into this archetype, including Krishna, Moses, Romulus, King Arthur, Perseus, Heracles, Mohammed, Beowulf, Buddha, Zeus, Samson, Achilles, and Odysseus.  

And so I wondered: Was Jesus God? Was there a God?

* * *

When C.S. Lewis was troubled by the same thing, in Oxford, 45 year earlier, Tolkein sorted him out by explaining that Christianity is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened:

Lewis writes to his friend, Arthur Greeves,

  My puzzle was about the whole doctrine of Redemption: in what sense the life and death of Christ “saved” or “opened salvation to” the world. I could see how miraculous salvation might be necessary. What I couldn’t see was how the life and death of Someone Else (whoever he was) two thousand years ago could help us here and now — except in so far as his example helped us.

 And the example business, tho’ true and important, is not Christianity: right in the centre of Christianity, in the Gospels and St Paul, you keep on getting something quite different and very mysterious expressed in those phrases I have so often ridiculed (“propitiation” — “sacrifice” — “the blood of the Lamb”) — expressions which I could only interpret in senses that seemed to me either silly or shocking.

Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn’t mind it at all: again, that if I met the idea of a God sacrificing himself to himself, I liked it very much and was mysteriously moved by it. 

Again, the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me, provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels. The reason was that in Pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even tho’ I could not say in cold prose “what it meant.”

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call “real things”. Therefore it is true, not in the sense of being a “description” of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being the way in which God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties.

 The “doctrines” we get out of the true myth are translations into our concepts and ideas of that wh. God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.  At any rate I am now certain (a) That this Christian story is to be approached, in a sense, as I approached the other myths. (b) That it is the most important and full of meaning. I am also certain that it really happened…  

Ah, but I then had no Tolkein to sort me out!

* * *

In my mid-twenties, I yearned to return to faith because my life was not working elegantly, and I thought I had made rather a mess of it. Surely I would do better if I followed Christ, I thought.

When I longed for faith again a North Star to guide; when, you might say, I missed Jesus; a friend, Peggy Goetz, suggested I try to do what Jesus said, and see if it was true or not.

“If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own,” John 7:17 was Jesus’s own apologetic, the proof he offered of whether his words were from God, or his own.

So I started giving to everyone who asked of me; lending and not asking back; praying and keeping a list of my prayer requests. And there was a tidal wave of answers, sweeping me into the Kingdom. Little odd things: I had just moved into an unfurnished house for my Ph. D and realized I’d need to buy a mattress. What a hassle without a car! I prayed I’d be given one, and a student returning to Korea offered me hers the next day. Several coincidences like that! Wow!

And so, real faith slowly slipped into place like pieces in a jigsaw.

* * *

Does anyone become a Christian and then instantly believe all its doctrines? Or do they fall into place, step by step as they did for me? Do we construct our creeds gradually? Yeah, I believe in the Resurrection. Yes, I believe in the Atonement. Yeah, I believe in Hell, because Jesus talked so much about it, though I am uncertain of its demographics. Yeah, I believe in Heaven–ditto!!

I believe!

 

The Deep Play of Blogging, Philosophy or Theology

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My daughter Irene, aged 5

 The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both. James A. Michener
Simone Beauvoir, brilliant philosopher and life-long partner of Jean-Paul Sartre describes in Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter her pleasure in studying philosophy.

She found grown up, brilliant people seriously discussing the very same questions which had intrigued her as a child. Eternity. The good life. God. Right. Wrong. Happiness. Time. Goodness.

* * *

I find the same pleasure in theology. It deals with the same questions which puzzled me as a child. Is there a God? Is Christ God? Why did Christ die, and for whom? How can I be happy? How should I live? What is the purpose of life?

* * *

And blogging for me only retains its fun when it has a child-like sense of play. When I can play with ideas, think them through, record my conclusions, capturing stray bluebirds and hummingbirds of thought. Occasionally sharing cool things I’ve learned– beach glass and starfish of facts; little ideas, little insights, little delights. When I can write short imperfect posts every day, rather than one perfect post a week.

Whenever I get too ninja about it, and want to write big, significant, meaty posts, which make people think, and get shared and retweeted, blah-di-blah, blogging takes too long, and loses its fun. Stress enters the domain of play.

And my life becomes slightly less pleasurable because my blog is taking too much time, making “real writing” impossible.

* * *

So, when I was praying about my blog today, I heard surprising advice, but advice I hear each time I pray about my blog, “Lower your standards. Write shorter posts. Try just one idea per post.”

Yeah!!

I no longer even try to write the big meaty posts. I don’t have the energy to. Instead, I ask, “So what are you saying to me, Lord? What are you teaching me?” or even “What’s on my mind?”

And these may be small, slight things, but they may speak to someone I do not know.

One aspect of a prophetic ministry is tuning in to God’s thoughts and sharing them with others.

Can a blog do this? I would like mine to try.

* * *

I know that I have the most fun, and the most delight in writing when I calm down, slow down and tap into the stream of what God is saying to me, or even into my own inner stream of consciousness, and then record it, be it a minuscule humble insight or a life-changing one.

For we need both, don’t we? Cups of coffee, glasses of cold water, snacks, and the occasional banquet.
And I find the most joy in blogging when being at play in the fields of the Lord, or the fields of the blog, become one and the same.

 

“Both” and “And” are beautiful theological words, as is “Yes”

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Image Credit

I once worshipped at a maverick church in Williamsburg, Virginia, The Williamsburg Community Chapel. It was good to me, and for me. My spiritual gifts of speaking, and leading and teaching Bible studies were identified while I was there, for instance, and I led four Bible studies in a row.

Williamsburg Community Chapel was non-denominational, with members from every Christian denomination, and none.

So, they had an answer to pretty much every theological question put to them.

And that was “Yes!”

* * *

Oh, it drove me nuts. It seems an illogical way of answering an OR question, and an annoying way of deflecting it.

But thinking about it now, I see its brilliance.

Do you believe in infant baptism or in believers’ baptism?

Yes.

Do you believe in water baptism as a once-in-for-all experience, or do you believe in the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?

Yes.

Do you believe the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, the second blessing, is a one-time experience, or can we have a second, third and fourth Baptism in the Spirit?

Yes.

Are we justified and saved by our faith alone, or does true faith need to have an expression in works?

Yes.

Should a Christian woman be a keeper at home, or use her gifts outside the home too?

Yes.

Should a Christian woman be silent or teach and lead, if so gifted?

Yes.

Were Charismatic gifts given to establish the church, or are they still active today?

Yes.

Do you believe in the gift of tongues?

Yes.

But I don’t need the gift of tongues to be a Christian?

Yes.

* * *

It’s because God is so big and so rich that he is unlikely to confined to any of our restrictive, limited theological positions.

If you take rigid theological statements like Calvinism, and more moderate theological statements, truth is often to be found between the two extremes, with each of them having some truth, some Yes.

So the next time, I start getting emotionally involved in a theological controversy, that’s a theological word I am going to remember: AND.  Most positions of sincere Christ-followers are likely have some truth in them, and the absolute truth is likely to be found somewhere in the middle.

* * *

Jesus came to us, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). And where will we find him?

Quite likely between the position of those who interpret scripture rigidly when it comes to homosexuality, let’s say, or abortion or the demographics of hell–and the extreme grace, “everyone is okay because is God is love” position.

Not in the place of controversy, over “circumcision or uncircumsion,” but in the place of gentleness, of truth working through love. (Gal 5:6). In the middle ground between sheer uncompromising truth, and a look-the-other-way love.

The land of And, the place where love and truth meet, (Ps. 85:10) is the place where we are most likely to find Jesus.

A Guest Post by Jan Sassenberg: The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

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I love this post in which my friend, Jan Sassenberg grapples with the statement that the meek shall inherit the earth.


Jan and Karoline Sassenberg, who were born Germany, have been serving for the last three years with WORD MADE FLESH in Freetown, Sierra Leone.


Find out more at www.wordmadeflesh.org or email thesassenbergsATyahoo.co.uk.

Jan and Karoline Sassenberg


Blessed are the Meek and the Great Commission

As a teenager, I was scared of the Beatitudes. Brought up in a conservative Free Evangelical Church, it didn’t make sense to me that Christ’s longest and best recorded sermon opened with words about the poor, the meek and the persecuted. Why not have the most important come first? Why not start with: “Surrender to me, Jesus, and you shall be saved!” Was Jesus perhaps more political than my pastors and teachers wanted me to believe? Too scared of becoming “a liberal” and of watering down the gospel I did not dare following this uncomfortable train of thought.


By now, 20 years later, without abandoning my love and complete trust in God’s precious word, I am not scared of liberals anymore. I sometimes rather enjoy looking at our faith from their fresh perspective.

Now, I can see the Beatitudes inspiring South American church leaders to instigate peaceful revolutions against dictators and drug cartels. I am humbled when seeing how liberation theology has given a voice to the voiceless and oppressed.

Now, I live in Sierra Leone, West Africa, as member of Word Made Flesh, a community that is dedicated to serving Jesus among the poorest of the poor of this world. We are reaching out into the slums and favelas of the booming mega cities in the majority world, or as I prefer to call it, the oppressed world. We want to be Jesus’ hands and feet, touching the untouchables, protecting the orphan children, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, comforting the broken, sheltering the homeless.

Nevertheless, I still find myself puzzled over Jesus’ radical claim. What is it that Christ praises about the attitude of meekness? How can he promise the meek to inherit the earth? Does this reflect reality in a world ruled by social injustice, cruelty, and the survival of the most brutal?


Matthew’s third Beatitude is particularly uncomfortable as it is the only one with the promise of a reward in this world rather than in heaven. All other Beatitudes could be interpreted as finding their fulfillment solely in the after-world: being comforted, hunger being stilled, shown mercy, seeing God, being called sons of God and receiving the kingdom of heaven.

With the blessing of the meek, however, you need to bend the text far to say that “inheriting the earth” simply means inheriting the Christian’s promised land, our eternal home in heaven. I want to believe that this blessing as much as all of them have direct relevance to our identity in Christ now, on this side of the curtain. We know that the promised kingdom of Christ has already started to appear. We believe that we are not just having to wait it out until we reach the other side.

The word “meek” implies peacefulness although it does not only mean the act of peacemaking. The peacemakers receive their own promise later. With the word “meek” Jesus uses the same expression as in His self proclamation: “Come to me, all you who are weary for I am meek and humble in heart.” (Mat. 11:32) The NIV translates “… for I am gentle…”. Jesus is calling to himself the weary and a few verses later Jesus refers to himself as the one who does not quench the smoldering wick.


In Jesus’ own ministry, meekness and humilty are inseparably linked to ministering to the weak and broken. Jesus himself demonstrates his mild and humble approach when he kindly rebukes Martha’s busy bitterness towards her sister Mary. His loving gentleness is woven into his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. But despite the softness of his gloves, Jesus is never a conflict-avoiding harmony seeker. He corrects in love.

So how will such a meek disciple inherit the earth? As with all Beatitudes, Jesus does not come up with new ideas but refers here to the Old Testament. Psalm 37:11 says: “The Meek will inherit the land.” From the patriarchs to Jesus’ day, the Israelites had been anticipating the fulfillment of this promise. Becoming again a sovereign independent nation was the ultimate Jewish dream.


But now that Jesus, who said he did not come to abandon the law but to fulfill it, announces his own mission, he goes way beyond that. He promises the whole earth but he does not refer to political power. Jesus speaks here of the new worldwide “Kingdom of God“. We see this wider perspective throughout all his teaching. Asked about taxes Jesus says, “Give to Caesar, what belongs to Caesar and give God what belongs to God.” He refuses to be made king. And nearly all his parables are starting with the phrase: “The kingdom of God is like…” (a mustard seed etc…) All Jesus cares about is to birth this kingdom. Jesus promises “the earth” because it is His declared intention to expand his father’s Kingdom to the very last corner of this planet.

So, how does meekness empower us to reach this world for Christ? Is global mission a question of converting souls, large stadium crusades, and efficient strategies?


Are we in our churches more interested in the message than the recipient? How often do we in our churches and missions run our programmes by means of superior knowledge, skills, finances and powers? And how much do we really achieve with that? Jesus invites us back to caring for the one in front of us. Investing our time, resources and compassion in the “hopeless cases”.

In our community in Freetown, Sierra Leone, we find ourselves often overwhelmed by the vastness of the suffering around us. Children beaten mercilessly and dying needlessly, young women forced into prostitution, hopeless unemployed men turning to crimes and drugs. But in all this we find that God can use us best, when we turn away from programmes and let God use us in our weaknesses and limitations. Where He brings us low we are ready to truly meet our friends in the slum of Kroo Bay at their level. And when we gently touch wounds we see God touch and heal and restore.

“God is at the Bottom of the Laundry Basket” and other Half-Truths We Tell Christian Women

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Jesus

I read this on the blog of my good friend, Paul .

Mystics can also get stuck in their depravity and not move out in love. I discipled a brilliant, educated couple once because the wife wanted to “experience Jesus” more.

As I got into their lives, I told her that Jesus was at the bottom on the laundry basket. That sounds harsh but it fit her beautifully. She dabbled at some hobbies, but did no real work around the house. 

She wanted to have a deeper experience of Christ without knowing love. I told her that you’ll start getting to know Jesus better when you start doing the laundry. Jesus was at the bottom of the laundry basket. That is just a simple exposition of John 14:21,23.

* * *

I read this with particular interest, because, as it happens, I am the woman he writes about. I was a volunteer editor of his first book,Love Walked Among Us, and he thanks me in the acknowledgements for teaching him to write.

I obviously taught him too well, for Paul, sadly, sacrifices veracity for sweeping statements. For “no work around the house,” read not very much, and for “dabbled at some hobbies,” read “wrote an essay which won a National Endowment for the Arts $20,000 award, published several essays and book reviews, won literary prizes, drafted a big book, and put in many of the 10,000 hours it takes to master writing.”  So, take his description with a grain of salt, as you should take all writing except that of the saints!

* * *

When I first read it, I felt sucker-punched, winded!! And then, the overwhelming sense of God’s love, swept over me.

Well, I was being attacked for being a mystic, wasn’t I?

And I had an image of me, dancing with the Father, so close that none of these slings and arrows could touch me. I wrote:

Dancing with the Lord,
That’s the way I want to live:
moving in so closely

that I’m guided unconsciously.

He doesn’t mind my clumsiness,

the obvious inexpertise.

And when exhaustion

makes me stall, I climb

onto his feet, like a child

on her father’s toes,

and the dance continues

while His music plays.

* * *

But to return, where is God? In the bottom of the laundry basket, or in the utility room, or in the dirty dishes, as Paul said to me so often, as if it was the wittiest bon mot ever. And I, unsurprisingly, did not find it funny, at all.

It poisoned my life with guilt.

For I am made to write. When I don’t write, I am not fully me. Not doing what I am made to do. Not happy.  

I get depressed. I find it hard to get out of bed. I gain weight. And neither the laundry gets done nor the writing.

I know this, because, oh, I have had dozens of tries throughout my married life of saying, “Okay, no writing till the house is tidy, everything in its place, laundry and dishes caught up with, everything ready for the Queen of England, or the King of Kings to drop in for tea.”

But when I try to get my house all picked up before writing, everyone else seems to get messier, and my motivation to live diminishes, and since I can’t write, I pick up a magazine or read online, “Just one last article,” and then, “Just one last article…” and neither writing nor housework gets done.

I went through the last “No writing till the house is tidy” five years ago, and mentioned it to a prayer partner. She said, “Why do you say that? You shouldn’t give up your writing?” And she came and helped me get my house decluttered. And cleaned it for me.

And Roy, who had steadfastly refused to have a cleaner, saying (in denial!), “I can clean it in no time IF….” finally agreed to get a weekly cleaner in 2008.  Better than having Noelle come and clean our house for us!! And this made us pick up the house weekly. And so, this bone of contention—housework and who does it–which had dogged the first 18 years of our marriage was resolved.

* * *

Uncomprehending counsel. That’s another way women are harmed in denominations without sufficient female clergy. We are different genders, almost different species. Women are from Venus, and men are from Mars. Or Pluto!! Is that the most distant planet?

Men have a separate rulebook for women. Would Paul have counselled himself to search for God in the bottom of the laundry basket? Or counselled any “brilliant, educated” (to use his description of us) man to find God in a laundry basket? Roy and I took an IQ test when we had professional pre-marital counseling, and, to Roy’s surprise, we scored the same!! Is it surprising that it would be depressing for me to seek God in laundry while he sought God in academia?

Women have been crushed by this dreadful sexist advice for centuries, this Kinder, Kuche, Kirche. IQ and talent are equally distributed between the genders, and if you wonder why there are more male writers, artists, scientists, academics and theologians than female ones, well, blame variants of Kinder, Kuche, Kirche, children, kitchen, church. And oppressive theological counselling.

* * *

But I digress. The verse Paul quotes, with such immense self-satisfaction, interestingly says, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

And was keeping God’s word for me just doing laundry to free up more work time for Roy, and not using the writing gifts he had given me? But I was too depressed and too downtrodden to argue with Paul, and just quietly wasted more years to guilt and depression and general down-in-the-mouthness.

Some of the theology fed Christian women is just plain oppressive and cruel and very bad for mental health. And not very intelligent, either.

And probably makes Christ sad, who defended a mystic who sat at his feet while domestic activity swirled around her.  “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

* * *

Yeah, once again, I was a victim of bad theology!

So is God found at the bottom of the laundry basket?

One of the first revelations I ever had into God’s heart, when I was 17, was that one should go down, as low down as possible to find God. God was born to poor people, in a stable, amid the muck and mire, hung out with the lowly, and died on the cross!

But that was a partial revelation. God is found in the depths, and also in the heights. In Calcutta, where I worked in Mother Teresa’s home for the Dying Destitute, but also in the gorgeous Alps.

The Word can be found in the words we craft. What I do is me, for that I came, Hopkins imagines everything crying. And since, people need clean laundry, God can also be found in the bottom of the laundry basket.

* * *

And where do I find God now? In my writing, and in domesticity!

Our life has changed since Paul wrote that blog post about us. Roy retired early at 47 from his job as a Professor of Mathematics, and now runs the house with intensity and mathematical precision. And finds God in the bottom of the laundry basket!!

I found it daunting to tackle my house when it had gone to the dogs, and I didn’t know where to start. Now that it is not disorderly (though not perfect), I  devote a few hours to heavy duty decluttering, and tidying while the cleaner is here, getting rid of everything not useful or beautiful, and finding a place for everything, and putting everything in it.

AND and BOTH. They are beautiful theological words. God is both in the laundry basket and in the other work he has called us to do, and anyone who tells us he is found in just the laundry or just the writing is guilty of bad theology, and worse–sheer stupidity!

 

When Spiritual Giftedness Outstrips Love: There’s Hope!

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Michaelangelo’s Painting of the Conversion of Paul

When Roy and I are cross with each other and have to drive places together, we pop a CD of the epistles of Apostle Paul into the car. It’s not safe to argue and drive, trapped in a car with no place to escape, while your adrenalin mounts–and so I don’t!

And sometimes, Paul is sublime, and his words and vision and adulterated brilliance wash over me like a vision of better, quieter, noble lands—lands open to me, lands of which I just have to claim citizenship of, and then behave like a citizen. And I quieten down, and let these lovely words and ideas wash over me, and sometimes drop the bone over which we were contending.

And sometimes, Paul is so combative and sarcastic—oh how biting his sarcasm, how utter his contempt for fools!!—that I just have to laugh. It’s an affectionate laughter. And then Roy says wryly, “He sounds a bit like you!”  (On a bad day!)

Paul was a grumpy guy; he did not tolerate fools gladly, or the illogical. I think we would have enjoyed chatting, and I think he would have had very sharp words for me, if we disagreed!

* * *

I recently listened to the whole of Romans on my iPod on one of these days on which I felt a bit discombobulated, and wanted sanity to return swiftly, and I listened to 1 Corinthians today.

Contentious, argumentative, dismissive, inspired, sublime! Loved it.

And then I come to its most famous chapter. If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

And I laugh. There are very few people on the planet so superlatively gifted, but I happened to have been listening to the words of one of them. Who did Paul know who could speak in the tongues and angels? Who had the gift of prophecy, and could understand mysteries and knowledge, and a faith that could begin moving the Roman Empire? Who owned nothing? Who subjected his body to unbelievable hardships?

Who was Paul describing but himself?

* * *

And human nerves can only be stretched so far. Then there is payback and it is painful.

Speaking and writing in the tongues of men and angels, prophesying, divining mysteries, pursuing and penning knowledge, the rigours of faith and asceticism—all these cause a natural reaction, overstrained nerves—and resultant grumpiness.

So I read it and think, “Oh Paul, sweetheart, you’re being too hard on yourself.”

* * *

But then, I wonder. I too have met those who are superlatively gifted, intellectually and spiritually. And if they are arrogant, or “full of themselves,” in that vivid phrase, or pompous or manipulative, or have time only for those they can use—they leave me cold. Utterly unimpressed!!

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am nothing. Sounds extreme, doesn’t it, but isn’t that how we rate people? Who has time for people who are impatient and unkind, envious, boastful and arrogant, rude and angry? No matter how brilliant they are! There is an instinctive recoil. We might rate their intellect or giftedness highly—but we do not rate them highly.

Patient, kind, not jealous, not boastful, not proud. Not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered. Forgetting wrongs.

How many of us can read this as a character sketch of ourselves?

What then should we do? We who use words well, and get weary in the penning of them? We who listen in to the spirit of God, and have prophetic insight, and leave our sessions of intense prayer a little exhausted, with our nerves a bit fragile? Who strive to understand spiritual mysteries and spiritual knowledge, and tire in the pursuit? Who pay the price of stepping out in faith, pay the price of our generosity with our time which makes our life more difficult, more challenging, more of a strain, sometimes?

Oh, we’ve got to the heights, the Omega of the spiritual life, and then find ourselves failing in the Alpha Beta of it, in patience and kindness and humility and consideration and keeping our temper—things, come on, which are just good manners!!

What then should we do?

* * *

Yes, there is hope for us.

I love Rolland Baker’s account of his healing from cerebral malaria and advanced dementia. Heidi Baker in her book There is Always Enough recounts her healing from dyslexia and chronic fatigue.

Yes, just as only God can heal the malfunctioning, worn-out cells in our brains or bodies, only He can heal the callouses in our hearts, the atrophied bits, where warm blood does not flow, and which are, consequently, slowly withering.

Only he who brought the dead to life can heal our small, cold and selfish hearts.

So do it, Lord! Create in me  a clean heart, oh Lord, and renew a right spirit within me. (Ps 51:10). Take out of my breast the heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh. (Ez. 11:19).

Amen.

John Arnott, Bill Johnson, Randy Clark, and Heidi Baker: Who I will be listening to this summer!

By

 

Mountain Stream
Okay, I am back from a summer adventure in Copenhagen, and learned lots, and thought lots, and saw lots, but spiritually, my cup is not overflowing!! And physically, I am still a bit tired—all that walking!! which I have valiantly tried to continue, counting steps on a pedometer.
I sense the autumn term is going to be full—of excitement and challenge and interest and new opportunity, and to cope with it, I need to rest spiritually and emotionally this summer, and let God refill my tanks.
So we are going to two Christian family camps/conferences this summer. The first is RiverCamp in Gloucestershire, where Heidi Baker will speak, and Mark Stibbe, whose book From Orphans to Heirs I enjoyed.
The books is about the Fatherhood of God, our adoption as sons and daughters. These are among the most life-changing theological concepts. I was discipled by Paul Miller, one of the writers of the immensely popular American Sonship Course, which helped the material get into my head.
It moved from head to heart during an amazing ILSOM week led by John Arnott in Oxford, during which I discovered soaking prayer.
I think learning to soak in God’s love, and just be, and not do, and just hang out with him, knowing he loved me was life-changing. So I am greatly looking forward to hearing John Arnott again at the Revival Alliance Conference.
   * * *
Bill Johnson will be speaking there. Bill Johnson is known as “the thinking man’s charismatic,” and I really like his speaking style, though from his Facebook postings, he seems to be getting a bit negative and jaded, perhaps burnt out. (Perhaps our heroes should not have Facebook and Twitter pages. Or perhaps they should, so that we have no heroes except the One who rides on a white horse and is called Faithful and True).
I have heard Bill Johnson speak at New Wine, and have read his books, like Dreaming with Godand Strengthen Yourself in the Lord. Reading him is mind-expanding. I suddenly sense there are vast oceans of intimacy with God and of experiencing his power and his glory stretching and rolling all around me while I paddle in the shore of a life of half-faith. Oh Lord, deliver me!!
I am also looking forward to hearing Randy Clark at the latter event. He had known much failure and sadness, but the Toronto Blessing descended when he spoke at the Toronto Airport Church in 1994, a revival which still continues (or so I’ve been told).
We are taking our children to both events. Please could you pray that they will be powerfully touched by God.
And that the spirit of God will once again refill this weary, half-empty, distracted heart of mine to overflowing.
Thank you!