Love

The greatest thing you'll ever learn,
Is just to love and be loved in return.

Moulin Rouge

Or, as my friend who calls himself an ardent atheist pointed out the other day, when you love and are loved back you are getting as close to the meaning of life as you ever will.

Funny though, I thought that was the meaning of Christianity aswell? Or am I just being naive?

Dividing the Christians from the Non Christians

or as a colleage rather offensively called them once 'Noncs'!

http://www.sundaypapers.org.uk/?p=182 has a thread at the moment about how to bring ourselves and our communities to maturity without a formal 'membership'.

It reminded me of a conversation yesterday evening. I was with mixed Christian and Non Christian company, and a Christian 'in joke' was made... and of course then had to be explained for those who were not in the Christian 'in group'. I've had to do this a lot recently, either with jokes or insights so that those who have not been brought up in the church can see why it's such a big deal. Thing is, when I start to explain it, much of Christianity seems small, pathetic, petty rules!

In the words of REM:

Oh Life,
Life is bigger.

Maybe if we all chilled out and stopped seeing Christianity and the church as the 'be all and end all' we'd get on better with friends outside of the church, and those inside and outside would be able to mutually challenge oneanother to develop spiritually, in whatever way is relevant to them, without having to spend hours explaining petty christian ground rules, jargon, and procedures?

'Sin' or simply a 'Cause of Pain'

‘Rather that our sinfulness being the reason why we cannot look on the face of a righteous God, could it be that he who loves more than any other being in the universe also suffers the most? Could it be that all the suffering that has ever taken place has been etched onto his face? What is God’s “holiness” or “otherness”? Could it not be chiefly his love (the very quality by which the New Testament defines him) – and the pain, which is the inevitable consequence of it?’

Chalk and Mann 2003 The Lost Message of Jesus

What if the ‘Sin’ that Jesus came to deal with in the world was our greed, oppression, abuse, ignorance and apathy? What if the consequences that Jesus came to deal with were the pain and suffering caused by this ‘Sin’. What if the reason that an imperfect human, all of whom have caused some of this suffering, cannot look on the face of God because we’ll see the results of our sin etched so deeply and painfully on His face that we won’t be able to live with ourselves?

What if we substitute the word ‘Sin’ with all it’s connotations for the phrase ‘Cause of Pain’? Maybe Jesus would say to the woman who was caught in adultery ‘You may go, but don’t cause anymore pain to yourself or to others’? What if he would say to us as wealthy nations ‘you may go, but don’t cause more suffering and injustice for the poor’? What if he said to the healthy ‘You may go, but please take care of the sick and the broken rather than ignoring them’? What if He said to the in-crowd ‘You may go, but reach out to others and lift up those who you see as losers’?

The Crucifixion- God’s Great Act of Self Harm?

These are thoughts in process and I realise their limitations. There are many reasons for and ways of self harming, but this piece cannot focus on them all. I have no in depth knowledge of the practice of corporal mortification, but the concept of it has triggered some of this thinking.
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What happens when we read the stories in the Bible without the trappings of all that Christianity has put on us and told us that they mean?

I believe that we begin to let the text speak into our lives in a far richer and fuller way than we could if we simply read it as familiar stories. An example is in the film ‘Amistad’ when a group of arrested and wrongfully enslaved and imprisoned black men are given a picture bible. They see pictures of Jesus and ascertain that he is some kind of saint. They then see his unfair imprisonment, unjust trial, and brutal death, and as they read it from their perspective, of being unfairly imprisoned and tried, with a death sentence hanging over them, they relate to the story and realise what Jesus means to them.

So how might a survivor of abuse and self harm read the story of the crucifixion? What would it look like to read the story with fresh eyes from that perspective?

Jesus went voluntarily to torture and death. He tells his disciples not defend him as he could ‘call down legions of angels’ if he wanted to. Jesus chose to go through this torturous pain and anguish. Jesus went through this ordeal to deal with sin and guilt in the world. Not his own sin and guilt but that of others. To deal with the sins that humanity would do to one another.

Historically Christian sects have practiced ‘corporal mortification’ in order to align themselves more fully with God. Dan Brown’s fiction book, ‘The Divinci Code’, while not a theological commentary or text, raised the profile of this practice. Is it to deny ourselves so as to follow Christ more? Is it to purge ourselves of guilt in order to gain closeness to God? Is it used to clear the conscience of the guilt stricken who has not lived up to the standards they see God or the church as requiring?

So what of people who self harm in contemporary society? There are numerous reasons, but they include dealing with guilt or pain, sometimes as a result of abuse. People may harm themselves in order to purge themselves of the constant feelings of shame, disgust and pain that are a result of the sin of others against them. They take on the guilt of their abuser, be this abuse physical, emotional, sexual, neglectful, deliberate or through ignorance, and they deal with this pain by harming themselves.

So we read about an innocent man deliberately allowing himself to be tortured and beaten, we look on the picture of the cross and see Jesus' blood running from brutal wounds, we realise all this was done to deal with the pain and guilt he has taken on from the misdeeds and mistakes of society to one another. Perhaps going through absolute physical agony was the only way he could express the internal pain that carrying the guilt of the world involved? Maybe we can see ourselves in him? See ourselves and our wounds where we had to cut so deep, to watch the blood flow, to express the pain or purge the shame? Maybe we can remember, that like us, Jesus had to deal with shame and guilt that were not his. Maybe we can see him standing alongside us in the journey that we must go through to healing. Maybe rather than seeing the image of God as one who expects us to be ‘good’ and punishes us if we are ‘bad’, we can see a different God. A God who understands that it was not our fault. A God who tells us it is not our guilt. A God who is committed to our healing and to raising us up?

Or maybe...

an easier way of saying everything below would be:

'sometimes being brought up in the church deprives us of the common sense and down to earthness needed to meet God in all His fullness'.

God is here

When will Christians learn to stop separating the spiritual from the sensual and the physical, and calling one good and condemning the other?

I recently heard an excellent sermon (bear in mind I don't like sermons) on John 12. Inspired by someone not brought up in the Christian faith it was pointed out to us that the passage was very sensual. She reflected on the passage to affirm that each of our physical senses, which would have been filled in this 'hot and heavy' evening described in the passage, were created by God for our enjoyment, for us to experience life and pleasure, for us to experience and meet Him.

I don't follow the hard Hellenistic line that all physical things are bad, totally separate, and get in the way of all things spiritual. I do find however that there are some experiences in which I feel it is 'ok' to reflect and meet God, others which are neutral, and yet more which are ‘bad’, ‘sinful’ and would be taboo in a conversation with God. I was challenged to look for God in every experience, to theologically reflect with all of my senses at all times, not to hide some of them from him and my spiritual reflection because of shame.

I wanted to reflect on this all with my partner, but was hesitant, as she is not 'churched' and I was aware that a lot of what I was feeling would come across as religious nonsense. So I tried to explain myself, how all senses are good and reflected God, and she was like 'yeah, I know'. I then found myself explaining why traditional Christian upbringing which separates the spiritual and the physical with a hard black line made this a big deal for me and so hard to get my head around.

Sometimes I think that those who have not been brought up 'churched', brought up with all the baggage that comes with it, baggage that's come from the early Greeks so many centuries ago, have a better chance of meeting and experiencing God in a rich and holistic way than those of us who have been brought up on church and religion.

God was there

When will Christians learn to stop separating the spiritual from the sensual and the physical, and calling one good and condemning the other?

I saw the sun rise large and orange,
Lighting the ancient misty horizon,
And God was there.

I shouted for the sheer joy of living,
laughing for no other reason than to laugh,
And God was there.

I rode in the thundering surf,
Exhilarated by the endless power,
And God was there.

I pushed my body to the limit,
Straining for the top with every ounce of strength,
And God was there.

I stretched out in the warm spring sunshine,
The sweet new grass beneath my face,
And God was there.

I watched the newborn calf nursed gently to her feet,
Smelt her mothers warm sweet breath,
And God was there.

She held me closely, tenderly,
Her touch warm gentle and sensual,
And God was there.

I sipped sweet wine and layed back content,
The deep warming flavour speaking of love,
And God was there.

Warming scented oil was poured over my back,
The sensual touch as stress was rubbed away,
And God was there.

I held her through her confusion and pain,
Her hair wet, My shoulder soaked,
And God was there.

I lay in my own hurting confusion,
Not knowing how to heal the wounds,
And God was there.

I stood on the seventeenth floor,
Smelling, hearing, feeling the broken city below,
And God was there.

I sat and listened alongside the lonely and desolate,
The hard cold pavement uncomfortable,
And God was there.

I sit and reflect on a week filled with difference,
So many senses, so many experiences,
so many thoughts, so much emotion,
And in all of this I know that God was there.

Distractions

I guess I should say, that one of the 'distractions' for the past 3 weeks and 4 days has been meeting a very lovelly 'significant other'.

Hey babe, I love you! Thanks for being in my life, letting me into yours, being so amazing, and teaching me so much about myself, love, life, and God.

Long Time No Blog

Things have been distracting me from blogging recently.

Moving job and city. At the moment a colleague and I are staying with a family waiting for our accomodation to come through. I'll now be doing Youth and Community work for a Methodist Church in Plymouth. Plymouth seems like a good city with some real good gritty urban youth and community work to get into. I'm excited!

Will blog 'properly' (if I ever was) again when I'm in my flat with my own laptop online!