Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard. (A Guest Post by Paul Hughes)

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Can We Love Chocolate Cake?
Dallas Willard and a Disciplined Life
By Paul Hughes


Renovation of the Heart:
Putting on the Character of Christ
Renovation of the Heart has influenced me more than any other non-fiction book. And it did so when I understood it and when I didn’t. This remains odd to me how a book can serve and work, whether I notice it at the time or not.

I know it is central to book magic, of course. But as Dr. Willard himself would say, there is “knowing” and there is knowing.

There is “intellectual apprehension” and there is interactive relationship.

It’s not the only lesson he’s taught me.
Going My Way
I first heard Dallas Willard’s name more than 20 years ago, and I think I finally made it through his first major book, Spirit of the Disciplines, 10 years after. Ten years more and I began to understand it.

Which means it’s time to start all over again.

I mean none of this to scare you away from the author, a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, or his books, including the Disciplines, Hearing God, The Divine Conspiracy, and, Renovation of the Heart — the book that, in one sense, completes my travels, and in much another, well … starts them all over again.

In fact, I hope you’re excited.

Because to be honest …

It’s incredible.
Personal Training
It’s also difficult.

The two are related.

It has been this way for me, coming as a woeful pilgrim daily — or at least on those days when not fleeing fearfully — to these ideas and actions … and the often repeated reminders that neither my ideas nor my actions are what’s doing the work.

Or as Anne Lamott says elsewhere,
the things you do that you think keeps the world
spinning, are not what keep the world spinning.

This has been a difficult lesson. Though becoming like Christ is, as Willard says, far easier than the alternative.Not becoming like Christ.

One of Willard’s refrains throughout is Christ’s own comment on walking with Him–My yoke is easy and my burden is light–but if we’re being honest, at first it does feel like what it is: a yoke and a burden.
Conspiracy Theory
His four books fit together, and Renovation is the lead singer in this merry band.

Its subtitle is Putting on the Character of Christ, and Chesterton’s counsel to pay attention to subtitles is vital here. Willard means what he says: his goal is that we put on — as garment or cloak or even, depending on how far gone we are, a mask as in Beerbohm’s The Happy Hypocrite — the very life of our Lord.

That is Dallas Willard’s ultimate aim in this ultimate book, and it has been his life’s work:
That we actually become like Christ, in all we think, feel, say, do, and live.

This is not metaphor or hyperbole. He means it, and the four books build to that end, connecting in the order they were published: Hearing God (originally, In Search of Guidance), The Spirit of the Disciplines,  The Divine Conspiracy, The Renovation of the Heart
·         
The first is about talking and listening to God, friend-to-friend.

The second lays the foundation for spiritual disciplines, describing many.

The third moves through the Sermon on the Mount, a sketching of the Kingdom of God.

The fourth unpacks human personality, buffing each part to glossy shine for life in that Kingdom.

Together the four — relationship, disciplines, life in the Kingdom, and total reformation of every dimension of our being — form the basis for Christ’s call, which Willard describes as : A divine conspiracy for worldwide, perpetual revolution.

No problem.
Exodus to En Gedi
Willard’s background is American Protestant. He was born in Missouri, grew up in the heartland, and was an ordained minister before turning to university teaching. He believed he would have greater access to more venues as a professor rather than a pastor.

Well, American Protestants often identify Israel’s religious history with their own —national and personal. They see slavery, redemption, traveling in the wilderness, God’s leadings by cloud and fire, crossing into the promised land, and so on, as mirroring their own journeys, even presaging them.

For good and ill, the kiln of Christianity in the U.S. often forges these connections. For instance, Christians may see our sin, its solution, this life and entering heaven as matching up with Egypt, Sinai, finding giants in the land, and crossing the Jordan.

Willard takes a different route, and it makes a great difference. For him the Christian Journey — culminating in the renovation of the heart — would still set Egypt as the problem and the Exodus as the solution: we are sinners, and saved.

But the giants in the land are the hindrances to complete spiritual transformation, and our crossing the Jordan happens now, in this life,
Smooth Stones
Leonard Cohen says it this way—
It goes like this, the fourth, a fifth,
The minor fall, and the major lift
The baffled king composing
Hallelujah!
— but for Willard, we are not quite baffled kings.

Rather, spiritual formation in Christ makes sense. Renovation of the Heart says several, specific, systematic ways into spiritual formation exist— and I … you … we … can. literally. do. them.

Always.

We can live into Christlikeness. We can know not only What would Jesus Do?but What He actually did and What He is now doing in six areas of the human person, six smooth stones —Thoughts, Feelings, Body, Will, Social, Soul

·        
— and (to mix metaphors) each of these can be seeded, cultivated, and matured into the likeness of Christ. This is, well … the Renovation of the Heart.

However we parse a person — mind/body … body/soul/spirit … physical/emotional/spiritual —it will include all of the above. He couples thoughts and feelings as “the mind” and sees the will as an action of the heart, for instance, but essentially, that’s it.

That’s us.

It’s something Jesus knew, something He did, and something He told us to go and do as well : Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

It can be done.
And More
And for years I tried and tried and tried and tried.
And for all my efforts became a rotten Pharisee.
And I can’t say all of how I changed.
And perhaps you already know.
And then it was all Him.
And the book helped.
A lot.
Chocolate Conclusions
In many of his talks, and not a few of his books, Dallas Willard speaks of love. He says it is to will the good of another, which I would amend as to will and work for the good of another.

He says because it’s about willing the good of another, we can’t — just for instance, let’s say — love chocolate cake. We can’t will its good, he says, because what we want to do is eat it.
 It’s all right if we can’t love chocolate cake.
As long as we can love each other, it will be Jake.
And we can.
And this book can help.
 For more information

Dallas Willard by Dieter Zander

Dallas Willard’s two most recent books are an essay collection, The Great Omission, and Knowing Christ Today, which reflects his current efforts in showing how spiritual knowledge is a realm of knowing, of legitimate enquiry, and of talking about life, the universe and everything. Willard’s website has many dozens of articles, essays, and presentations, from nearly 50 years of teaching, preaching, speaking, and listening. Some of these are beginning to show up as short Kindle and electronic efforts, such as “Getting Love Right.”
About Paul
Paul Hughes is a writer in Southern California. He is married to the beautiful Michele, and between them they have four children, ages 11 to 19. He writes on faith and culture, expressed in the people and phrasing of The Poet and The Priest — reflected on his website, his Facebook page, and Twitter. His books include Your Mom’s a Hypocrite, Tebow: Throwing Stones, and love every day.

What do I really want?

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Image credit

“Do I really want to?” I was mentored by a wonderful woman, Lolly,who had the age of 80 started asking herself this question.
She had been to Bible College, and became a minister’s wife at 22. So all her life, she would think, “Should I? Ought I? Is it my duty? Would God want me to? Would people expect me to? Would people be hurt if I didn’t? Would people be happy if I did? Can I encourage someone?”
When she was 80, she was invited to a big happening event in Williamsburg, Virginia. One of the richest families had adopted a child, and had a christening in the poshest hotel in town. It was going to be very posh, very exclusive, money was going to flow. The pastor of our church was invited, and was going happily. He was appalled when he found out that Lolly had been invited too, and declined, though she was also mentoring the adoptive mother.
“Why did you decline?” I asked. This was ten years ago, and I am ashamed to say I used to go to events like this, fund-raising dinners at $1000 a plate, if invited (and paid for!) for silly reasons like the prestige, the cachet, the name-dropping later, being “in.”
“Oh, I couldn’t be bothered,” she said. “I’d rather stay in and read. I am 80 years old. I have done what other people have wanted for most of my life. It’s high time I start asking myself what I really want to do.”
* * *
What do I really want to do? Well, what I really want to do most of the time is read and write and think and pray. I am turning down more and more social invitations, party invitations to do just this after slowing down and asking myself “What do I reallywant to do?”
Isn’t it surprising that so many of us live life on auto-pilot, do what’s expected, fall in with other people’s plans, desires and expectations without asking ourselves what we really want to do?
That’s not to say we shouldn’t do ministry. My first spiritual director suggested that I always have at least one person in my life to whom I give, spend time with, serve, without getting anything in return. He never said why, but I think it’s a good discipline if your work and ministry are visible, as mine are, and give you lots of feedback, attention, affirmation and praise! It keeps you real and humble. I have been given someone to whom I can be a blessing, and I am excited about it. (Of course, it’s someone who will be a blessing to me in turn….but God’s good like that!).
* * *
Where is my heart? What do I really want to do? What am I really excited about? Where are my passions?
Funny how people stop asking these questions.
To celebrate life together, to be together in community, to simply enjoy the beauty of creation, the love of people, and the goodness of God—these seem faraway ideals. There seem to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be. It is so painful to watch and experience. The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so “normal” that few people really believe it can be different.”
                                                                      Henri Nouwen, Seeds of Hope
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we constantly say No to our hearts, defer gratification? Why choose duty, and the unimportant shoulds over joy?
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart. W. B. Yeats
                                                                  * * *
 I am listening to The Sacred Romance by John Eldredge (which was recommended, incidentally by Lolly, who loved it) on my iPhone, in little scraps of time, here and there, as I do housework.
Somewhere along the way, we have lost heart. We do things without much enthusiasm, without much joy, in a half-souled way. We become dominated by Shoulds and Oughts, Eldredge said.
 If I am doing things listlessly, mechanically, going through the motions, without much joy, I wonder if I am either not doing what God intended, or I am, but I have lost the way.
For instance, I am called to blog, but when blogging becomes a burden, a heaviness, it interesting to ask why. It’s almost always because I am not following my heart. My real interests may lie in little, short, not terribly significant posts like this one. But fear may say, “No. That’s boring!!  Write something interesting, significant, ninja-like, meaty, on an important subject.” Say this too often, and you begin to develop blogger’s block, or blogger’s dreariness. Deny your impulses, the little 250 word posts you really want to write, and blogging becomes a burden, a duty, work, rather than joy.
It’s the same with anything. Our hearts give us a clue to who we really are, what we really enjoy doing, what makes us come alive. And yet how often people deny themselves their heart’s desire, stifle it, ignore it, until they get out of the habit of asking themselves what they really like doing, what really makes them come alive.
Two last thoughts, both true (up to a point).
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.” – Howard Thurman
“The vocation God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” ― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

 

Is it more important for Christian bloggers to be nice or to be real (if they can’t be both)?

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I read Ann Voskamp a few times a month. What impresses me is that she is so unremittingly inspiring, so high-minded, so noble.
Hmm.  When I began to write a Christian blog, my goal was that every post of mine would be a blessing to my readers. My strapline said something like that.
Within a few months, there was a damaging and public case of spiritual abuse in the Charismatic church I was attending. I satirized this abuse of power and their neurotic high-control strategies in a series of blog-posts called, “The Screwtape Lectures.” The Rector visited, and asked me to take them down. The Warden called and asked me, “How can these posts be a blessing?”
So I was faced with a serious writing question. Should I only write “what is helpful for building people up so that it may edify those who read?” Do I myself want to read a blog written purely to edify me? Well, if it’s John Piper (well, the majority of his posts) okay.  But on the whole, I would avoid such a blog. What I am interested in, you see, is the truth and the whole truth.
I changed my strapline. I don’t want to promise my reader that every post will be a blessing (though that would be nice) but that every post will be honest and truthful (insofar as I can discern truth).
* * *
 I’ve lived in England for 11 years now, and it seems every Christian’s mum used to tell them variations of “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.” Or “Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true?”
Well, take it from me, people who follow this rule may be very nice people, indeed, but it’s unlikely that they are going be very interesting and gripping bloggers.
Why? Well, if I were only to share my inspiring thoughts in my blog, and not my questions; only my heights of faith, and not my fears; only my joys and not my sorrows; only the times when I love church, not the times I am stricken and wounded by it; only the times when I am wide-eyed and optimistic and full of wonder about the nobility and loveliness of Christians, and not the times when I feel very sceptical and cynical indeed—well, that would be like skipping every third or fourth page of the story of my life.
That would make for annoying reading, wouldn’t it? I cannot read blogs which do this. Where everything is upbeat, everything is edifying and preachy, everything has a neat lesson. I feel they are concealing something: the truth.
The truth of what is really like to be them. To be human. To love. But to struggle to forgive hateful behaviour. To love the church, but to be back-stabbed, slandered and betrayed by members of your church. To love Scripture, but struggle with its elementary precepts like love and forgiveness.
As a Christian blogger, we have two gifts to offer people—our real selves, mess and all, and Christ. If you really trust someone, you will follow his treasure map to the buried treasure in Himalayas. If not, not. By being honest about ourselves, our readers grow to trust us.
Yes, one can be unpleasant and use strong, cutting language and yet be a true Christian.  See Paul: Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. Phil 3:2  As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! (Gal 5:12)
In fact, one can be unpleasant and use strong, vivid, biting, cutting language, and be Christ.  Matt 12: 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? Matthew 23:27 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.
Jesus and Paul. They didn’t have anything nice to say, or anything kind to say, but they had something necessary to say, and they said it.
If no one speaks out about spiritual abuse, it will continue. If no one speaks out against people who “fleece” God’s sheep for financial gain, that too will continue. Things change because people speak.
I wondered if yesterday’s post was too snarky, and then I thought, “Why should I impose this burden on myself that I be always nice?”  Why, Paul was not always nice, and he was a Christian. And Jesus, our beloved Jesus, was certainly not always nice, and he was, well he was Christ.

In Praise of Freecycle: The Kindness of Strangers

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A corner of my study. As you can see, I have kept too many books!!

In 2006, when I was establishing our publishing business, I decided not to buy ANYTHING if I could get it on Freecycle. And so, we partly moved out of the cash economy for a while. Here is my account of our adventures.


                                                         The Kindness of Strangers

The words flashed greenly.
Free Yamaha PSR. An electric keyboard which simulates a harp…  “Let’s get it,” I say.
“The kids aren’t musical,” my true love says to me.
“They might be,” I say.  “And it’s free.”
Fatal words.
“I love music,” our seven year old adds brightly.
It’s our first day on Freecycle.org, founded in Tuscon in May 2003 by Deron Beal. However, since it’s slightly déclassé, like E-bay, money, underwear, those on it never mention it.  Three years later, three million people are. After some dithering, I join them.  
The dithering was prescient. Freecycle feels like a barking carnival, a literal free-for-all.  Through the day,  e-mails: Offered, going, GONE, and raucous WANTEDS.  Whoosh. “Freecycle!” the children say, excitedly, resignedly. 
We are offered a pair of seventeen foot kayaks. The idea of young girls handling those monstrosities appealed.  We’ve now to get life jackets and paddles—but, hey, it was free.  
                                                                               * * *
A poet’s widow offers bookcases on Freecycle. I describe my plight, boxes of Freecycle books, impulsively garnered, poetry, novels, gardening, chess, art, cookbooks, children’s books, clogging the arteries of our home. Books, books, everywhere, and not a minute to read.
She asks archly, “Do you need more books? Geoffrey left fifty thousand.”  Does one need heroin?
My heroine. What books!!  Rare first editions, many signed, furred with dust, in every nook of a four storey house.  “He didn’t know when to stop,” she explains. “When he wanted me to build an arch over our bed for books, it was a health and safety issue.  ‘It’s the books or me,’ I said.”
Three times we fill our people carrier with the fruits of his choice, then stop, weariness prevailing where good sense does not.  I think superstitiously of the Hope diamond and heartbreak. Besides, our house is beginning to resemble hers.  
                                                                                   * * *

In Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West’s romantic English garden, everyone lived and wrote in a house or outbuilding of their own. (Hers was a tower!)  That’s what each of us need, we concurred. A house of our own.
Freecycle gave it to us. A garden shed with huge picture windows; a twelve foot conservatory; a hexagonal greenhouse. 
Can an acre and a half become cluttered?  If one is not careful!  If one becomes The Fool who Built Bigger Barns.
We get Duke on Freecycle, “an Alsatian, handsome, good with kids, great guard dog.”  Too good to be true?  Unfortunately!  Handsome, yes, in a wolfish way; his alert eyes and shaggy mane beguile us while his ears jaggedly clipped by his abusive first owners prick up as we are lectured on his neuroses. Once home, he demonstrates them. The tyrant dog rounds up every ball he finds, glaring at us though his sharp aristocratic eyes, and nipping us with his sharp aristocratic teeth if we approach them or him.  Back he goes. The kids cry.
                                                                                       * * *
Autumn is the season of mists and rabbits. We acquire timid, sweet-faced Freecycled baby Twilight, who eats and eats and becomes a massive armful of Giant European hare; chipmunk-faced Chippy, a Netherlandish Dwarf; and Starlight, a dull thrice-rescued rabbit. 
 Freecycle provides hutches and runs for the rabbits, and the Freecycle ducklings and hens.  A hermit, courting frugality, once got a free cat to kill the mice, and then a cow for free milk for the cat , and then a field for free green grass for the cow… 
                                                                                          * * *
Having just moved from the US, we found ourselves, in mid-life without anything electrical that worked! From those migrating across the ponds, we, perhaps foolishly, acquire booty: a wide-screen TV/VCR, all-region DVD player, a fridge, freezer, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner–stop-gaps until time and money abound. We accept an unwanted inherited Mitsubishi, so no longer have to maneuver our people carrier “the wrong way” on Oxford’s narrow streets. A handmade Edwardian tallboy in beautiful woods. Massive cherry bookcases. Chinese lamps.
Organizing our loot frazzles us.
Freecycle. The potlatch of the affluent society. A giving to strangers unprecedented in the history of the world? The kids love it, Christmas through the year. A ten foot trampoline, instant rejuvenation. A portable swimming pool.  An ice-cream maker.  An astronomical telescope.  A microscope.  The dreamy musings of a summer’s day become reality like the three wishes of fairy tale (with their secret caveat: Be careful what you wish for.)
  It’s the biggest, weirdest, funnest catalogue in the world.  You didn’t know these things existed; you didn’t know you needed them; and now, you have to have them!! 
And, in this case, ultimate lure–
It’s Free.
A free lunch, you drive to, store, care for, and maintain. 
                                                                                      * * *
 
If you wants to be busy, it’s just the thing.  Honey Do lists grow. Chandeliers, mirrors, wall-mounted shoe boxes–projects–pile up in the utility room.  Inanimate objects, like living things, demand attention: dusting, straightening…  If they don’t get it, they too, in code, scream.
My jealously guarded in-box fills. The administrative challenge of pick-ups and deliveries mounts.  Distraction!  “S.T.U.F.F.–Something That Undermines Family Fun.”
You read your e-mail incredulously. All these people going though their houses, getting rid of all this stuff, and all these people gazing at their computer screens, acquiring this stuff, propelled by the dangerous, contra-spiritual force of greed.
“Things are in the saddle and ride mankind,” Emerson wrote.  Still are, still do.
“I was a mathematician,” my husband says wistfully.  “I wrote,” I say.
The tenses tense us. 
“A good story,” he says, hopefully, “has a beginning, middle, and an end.” 
“It used to,” I say.
Ours does. I survive seven weeks on the Freecycle list, seven weeks of details of stuff 15,000 people in Oxford want to (or have) acquired or shed.  Too much of good things can also be toxic. Too much water can poison.
Enough! I succumb to quieter lures.  A life free from greed.  Simple living, high thinking, in the way of ancient sages–or a rough approximation of both.
I now recycle. 

Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver

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Sunrise in our Garden (taken by Roy Mathias)

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety –

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light –

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Farewell, Rowan, Great Archbishop of Canterbury!

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Archbishop Rowan with Bishop Lee

I heard of the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury with very real sadness.  A scholar, a poet, a fine, humble human being.
 I feel rather cross with those who made his tenure a cross.
However, the only purpose for this brilliant, imaginative, godly man to remain as Archbishop would be the platform it provides for a public demonstration of how a real Christian should live and behave.
His most lasting contribution to the world no doubt will be through the written word, hopefully through poetry.
 * * *
Institutions. They suck your life-blood and spit you out! No institution is worth one’s loyalty, one’s energy, one’s life-blood.
Why? Because they are transient. In heaven, there will be no Anglicans, only Christians. No Anglican Communion, no Anglican Covenant.
Is the Anglican Church worth expending one’s life, time, love, loyalty on?
No, of course not. Only Jesus Christ is worthy of one’s love, loyalty and life-blood. Jesus, and the people we love.
In fact, in my view, even strengthening the local church by working in its power structures, as a member of a PCC, a Warden, a major donor, is a poor investment of time.  Leave such things to those who love power and significance, and there will be many. But thou, oh man of God, flee these things.
Investing in individuals– simply, humbly, over cups of tea; simple humble one-on-one ministry—that IS worth it. This will endure; we will meet these people in heaven, when abominations like our church politics and 3 hour PCC meetings are long forgotten!
               * * *
The campaigners against the Anglican Covenant, an abstruse, recondite (and I am told boring and unreadable) document which I am not clever enough or interested enough to understand have certainly shortened Rowan’s tenure, for it was his brain and heart child. One needs “the constitution of an ox, and the skin of a rhino” to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, he said on the day he resigned. Ultimately, he had neither.
“What’s so bad about the Anglican Covenant?” I asked a strident campaigner, an older lady. “It puts Englishness at risk,” she said.
Well, if it does, so be it. Englishness is at risk, anyway. It is definitely dated. It dies when the trumpet will sound, and we shall be changed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye.
  * * *
And we shall enter a new heaven and a new earth, and that, to judge by accounts of visionaries who’ve seen it, will be most Unenglish.
It will be crowded:  Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. 
Emotional, noisy and demonstrative, and all this in public
In a loud voice they were saying:
   “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, 
   to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength 
   and honor and glory and praise!”
And they sang a new song, saying:
   “You are worthy to take the scroll 
   and to open its seals, 
because you were slain, 
   and with your blood you purchased for God 
   persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. 
10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, 
   and they will reign on the earth.”


Undecorous. Unliturgical, uncontrolled. All sorts of people and animals in the wrong place.
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:
   “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb 
   be praise and honor and glory and power, 
for ever and ever!”


And most of all, so very, so very unEnglish
 a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
   “Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:9).


Did he perhaps visualize his Anglican Covenant as paving the way for this great day?

“What’s so Amazing About Grace?” by Philip Yancey (A guestpost by Brian Johnson)

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What’s So Amazing About Grace?

“Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”
So no amount of religious knowledge or dedication will make one jot of difference to how God loves us; no amount of sin will make a difference either. This is, of course, completely at odds with how the world behaves and how, mostly, we are raised to think. This is also the starting point of Philip Yancey’s book, “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”
As Leslie Keeney said previously, books need to be in the right place at the right time. I was given “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” as a fledgling Christian struggling with my preconceptions (and misconceptions) of faith, and this quote (and the book) dealt with a lot of the baggage I had carried for so long.
Philip Yancey sets out by illustrating many examples of grace at work through history, in the Bible and in the present day. Equally, he cites examples of what he terms “ungrace” – mankind’s natural tendency to choose the path lacking grace.
The examples of both ungrace and grace are meaningful and, again in both cases, often harrowing. We are continually challenged in these examples to consider whether we can rise to the level of unconditional forgiveness displayed in the anecdotes and stories.
Yancey goes on to explain than we are grounded in ungrace almost from birth – and that this is reinforced throughout childhood and on into the world of work and elsewhere. We are told by society that we have to do something in order to be accepted; to be wanted; to be loved. We are also told that if we do not do these things, we deserve nothing and should expect punishment.
This ungrace can, and does, perpetuate itself and Yancey gives us several examples of the consequences.
He also takes aim at ungrace within the Christian church itself (quoting Bill Clinton: “Why do Christians hate so much?”) and at the wholesale ungrace between peoples and nations. He is careful to draw parallels between the events described in the gospels and more recent times – and, although written in 1997, the examples of these will be familiar to any casual reader of current affairs.
Grace, Yancey says, is fundamentally unfair, which is why so many of us struggle with it. We are conditioned to seeing rewards matching efforts and punishments fitting the crime. When we are then presented with Jesus’ teachings such as that of the Prodigal Son, our minds struggle.
That parable, and some others, are paraphrased and brought into the modern day brilliantly by the author and make excellent reading material on their own.
Yancey believes that true grace is an all-or-nothing thing: you cannot have half-grace or be partly sympathetic to the idea. Grace is ultimately about forgiving the inexcusable.
He also highlights how the concept of grace defines Christianity from other religions. God’s love, he says, does not have to be earned. We do not have to gain approval in order to receive it: “Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.”
The books rounds off by coming back to its own title and a stunning example of John Newton’s hymn in action.
Theologians (and I am not one) can and do take issue with some of the stories and examples given in this book – indeed, there are so many varied examples given that it would be surprising if no-one disagreed with at least one. This is also very much a book describing and explaining grace by example, rather than theory,so scholars may well be disappointed by it.
However, for me, Yancey’s triumph with “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” was to take on some of the misconceptions about God’s completely unconditional love for us all, regardless of what we have done.
Helping us on the way to accepting that unconditional love, or grace, is what this book does well – and that to me is what it’s all about. Because while none of us deserve it, we all desperately need it. What’s truly amazing is that we can receive it anyway.
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Brian Johnson is a relatively recent returnee to the faith, a musician and general creative person. Unashamedly a non-theologian; married; two children; one cat. Catch up at @MustardSeedUK.

Beyond Ourselves by Catherine Marshall (A Guest Post by Alice Allsworth)

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(Interestingly, I became a Christian while reading this very book in 1979, Anita http://www.anitamathias.com/teenage-atheist.html)
So many things change our lives: circumstances, the family we’re born into, where we went to school, what career we chose, what jobs we did, how our parents behaved, what heartaches and heartbreaks we’ve faced, sickness, poverty, wealth. The list is endless but books can change our lives too: sometimes, a deep and powerful impact that changes us forever.

Aside from the Bible one of the books I credit for changing my life as is “Beyond Ourselves” by the renowned American author Catherine Marshall. Her inspirational writing has touched the lives of millions and continues to do so even now, although she died in 1983.

As a very new Christian, I was thankfully led to read this book when I needed feeding all the time. I was reading the Word but I needed something that related to everyday life and situations. This was where this book had such an impact. I hadn’t read much Christian literature at that time but was so thirsty to know more about this new life I had chosen. I remember feeling like a sponge, just soaking everything in, the good, the bad and the mediocre.

I needed to see how you could live your life as a Christian and what it actually meant to face the challenges life threw at you. Probably one of the most profound topics was that of forgiveness. Catherine gave such personal testimony of how she had been enabled to forgive and I was very quickly convicted that I needed to forgive someone who had hurt me very deeply.

So strong was this conviction that I didn’t wait long to obey the inner nudges, or shoves. The person I was struggling to forgive had caused me to lose my job and had taken my role on when I left. That event had caused chaos in my life.  As a newly single parent unemployment was the last thing I needed. Encouraged by Catherine’s book I came before the Lord and made my peace with Him and released my forgiveness towards this lady.

Sometimes God wants to check we’ve done it for real, meant what we said. Only a few weeks later I found myself sitting behind this lady at a seminar. Had I not forgiven her she would probably have withered under the force of my feelings. But the Lord wasn’t done with me; He convicted me again that I should speak to her and apologise for my part in what had gone on. That was hard. I was shaking but knew I couldn’t duck this one.

As I spoke to her I could feel the grace and peace of the Lord flood through me and although our paths were unlikely to cross again, I knew I could face her any time. The real blessing was that she apologised too. Light as air and free as a bird at that moment, I left knowing that something very powerful had taken place. The Divine exchange.

I read as many of Catherine Marshall’s books as I could; they were sustenance and I devoured them all. She was so honest and real about the life situations that she encountered and didn’t shirk away from the tough stuff like suffering and healing. You almost feel like you really know her by the time you finish.

So often we’re afraid to be real with each other, wear a mask and smile hoping no one will find out what’s going on inside. But the shallowness brings no relief and until we face up to our truth we cannot know peace, healing, forgiveness and grace.

It’s more than twenty years since I first read this book and I was inspired to read it again. Unable to find my copy, which I probably lent to someone else who’d just entered the Kingdom, I have purchased another copy and am savouring it all over again.

My life has had many twists and turns over these last twenty four years, some of which I would never have wanted to experience but the simple message and power of encouraging and inspirational writers like Catherine Marshall gave me hope, increased my faith and afforded me the courage to be real about my life.

I love the way she never thought too highly of herself, asked the difficult questions of God and praised Him for the answers. Amply demonstrating that nothing is wasted in the divine economy, she found a new purpose after the devastating,untimely death of her husband. She poured out her pain through her pen and allowed the Lord to turn her sorrow into joy, helping us all to realise that there is always hope.

I will still happily place this book in the hands of a new believer as a guide and help. I have always aspired to write and offer something meaningful. Catherine’s writing and her journey as a writer were a touchstone for the journals I have kept for more than two decades and the literary journey I am on now. I do wonder what she would have made of blogging. I’m sure she’d have been out there with the others offering her warmth, wisdom and intimate insights of the Lord to the 21st century.

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Alice Allsworth



Alice’s Bio: I’m a mother of two beautiful daughters and a grandmother to three enchanting grandchildren. I live in one of the most beautiful places in the country, Cornwall. Fortunate enough to live by the sea, I never want to be too far away from its sight and sound.


I love music, words, painting, life, my family, my friends and most of all my faith. I live on the same roller coaster as everyone else but love to encourage others, support them when they’re struggling and most of all want to have made a difference to the world by the time I leave it.


I believe faith is an intimate part of everyday life and seek to relate the ordinary to the divine. It is the encouragement of others and the amazing love and grace of God that has brought me to this point.