How human are we?

So to someone who's rejecting fundamentalist faith, turning away from the dogma, sifting the relevance of Christianity what does Christmas mean?

Jesus became human, so we can become human. So why is Christmas so often such a dehumanising experience filled with want, greed, arguments, stress, unhealthy lifestyles? Does going to church and being bored to tears or simply becoming to angry and frustrated for words really enhance our humanity or spirituality? Is this really how to celebrate Jesus birth? I celebrated this year by being with my family and those close to me, and being in the hills. I celebrated all I knew of Jesus in nature and in my family, and I long to know Jesus more in me.

As we move on from celebrating Jesus becoming human, I hope that I am able to follow him more closely into more of my humanity.

Losing Faith?

A lot of my posts in the last month seem to be about me losing my idealism. Losing the faith that the world can be perfect. Can armed conflict really become a thing of the past? Is anti social behaviour really only a minority of young people? Can we really be any kind of light in the generational darkness?

During my two week stint at a youth club in Everton I wrote the following:

Just had my first major culture shock in a while… I went into Vineyard and found myself surrounded by middle class people! That was strange after hanging out with the young people and workers at the club. Not quite sure what to do with my theology now. I’ve seen he gospel lived out over the last week… by people who, frankly, would tell you to ‘f*ck off’ if you suggested that Jesus may in any way be relevant to them… yet they are passionate (and it’s genuine passion, not professional crap) about inclusion, freedom,
peace, the hurting. I’m reminded of the people in the parable who when Jesus calls them to heaven say “but LORD I never knew you. When did we see you sick or in prison or hungry” and Jesus says that what was done for the least of the people on earth he counts as service done to him. Yeah- this is partly a gospel of works… but I wonder if it is. It could also be a gospel of faith. Not necessarily faith in Jesus but faith that there is a better way, a higher path than the violence and the fighting. Faith in the good nature of humanity (who are made in the image of God) that all that is good in humanity will eventually win through and there will be peace.

I could cope with losing my faith in traditional Christianity, because there was still the hope for humanity, there was still Jesus. But now I seem to be losing my faith in the resilliance of good human nature. I can't cope with losing this faith.

Is this just a part of the natural process of gowing out of being young and idealistic? I don't know, but I don't like it.

God, help me keep the faith.

To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God?

Recent conversations with a fellow youth worker have reminded me of the time I realised how huge and covert my agenda in youth work was.

We had just started a project which was looking like it was going to be a huge success. We were working on a council estate with young people between the ages of 8 and 20. We were supporting them in life issues, talking with them about relationships, housing, finance, their rights, and whenever we could we were turning the conversations to God, gently and lovingly explaining to the young people that they needed to be ‘saved’ and ‘become christians’. Our intentions were good, we wanted to save these young people from a certain ‘lost eternity’.

The shock of waking up one morning and realising that out strategy for ‘Building the Kingdom of God’ involved targeting a vulnerable group of society and telling them that we had all the answers to their lives issues, still lives with me. We were doing things with the best of motives, at the time I genuinely believed that the young people if they did not ‘become Christians’ and step over the line into the Kingdom of God were going to a real, literal and physical hell. But deep down, we were trying to build the kingdom of God by swelling the numbers in churches.

This was four years ago. My concept of the Kingdom of God has totally changed. Before we would try and encourage people to come into it, (albeit in meeting them where they were at first etc etc). We saw the growth of the Kingdom of God as young people learning to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, as young becoming christians and behaving like Christians. As my concept of the Kingdom of God has changed to seeing it as a kingdom of fairness, justice, wholeness, a kingdom of Shalom, the way I see it growing has changed. Rather than pulling people in, maybe we are called to expand the kingdom so that it covers more people.

So, to what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? As I see it, the kingdom of God is like a wave of the sea, gathering momentum, bursting it’s boundaries, soaking and gathering up those living on the parched dry land of injustice and oppression, catching them up in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Shalom, swelling further, and spreading it’s boundaries further.

Remembering and reflecting

This weekend of remembrance has somehow involved me more emotionally than previously. Was it watching the service on Saturday evening? Everything was certainly portrayed as very tragic yet glorious. Or was it sitting on the train on Sunday with a veteran returning from ceremonies in London? Or maybe it's to do with having friends in the forces who have friends or partners in active service overseas in some of the most dangerous parts of the world just now.

I don't want to lose my idealism. I don't want to stop standing on my convictions that armed conflict is NEVER the right way to solve problems but...

Few would argue that Hitler had to be stopped- could this have been done without force being used? Are our modern wars, although fought remotely really so very different? Do I need to concede that sometimes military force is necessary and the lesser of two evils? I hope not.

The Word of God...

... or not?

I believe the Bible was written by man, inspired by God. I believe it to be the story of a nation and their interaction with the Divine, not a book of instructions and one hit answers for 21st Centuary Living. I believe it was written from the man's perspective, not from God's.

I'm not saying it's 'Just a story' I believe it's a very good very important story.

I'm not saying it's 'irrelevant' I believe it's very relevant.

But with all the room for human errors and human perspectives that this allows for, I'm not sure either that I can be convinced it's the 'Word of God'. And I'm not sure if it's ok to be not sure about this.

On the subject of Bible's, a lecturer commented that this was very amusing. How do you like your Bible's everyone?

Seeing with new eyes

Seeing with New Eyes takes an honest, thoughtful and personal look at post christendom spirituality and I think some important things are likely to be said there. I have been thinking along similar lines to the quote below, but hadn't yet put it so eloquently, co-herently or succinctly.

I am slowly becoming clearer in what I believe
and I don't believe in the idea of original sin anymore. I believe in the innate
goodness that lies within all of us and I believe that this innate goodness is
the spirit of the divine that pulsates through the universe and through every
living thing.

Greenbelt

I've just returned from fab weekend at Greenbelt.

I feel spiritually refreshed and inspired thougth physically tired from lack of sleep as there was just too much fun to be had at night time.

Helping to facilitate the survivors programme was rewarding although tough.

Camping with Young LGB Christians was fantastic, and really affirming and accepting.

Some of the next few blog entries are likely to be the product of reflecting on various aspects of the festival, whether it is from random conversations over a beer or a coffee, seminars, worship or simply general thoughts thought in the festival atmosphere.

I Turn To You

I Turn To You

(by Mel C)

--

When the world is darker than I can understand

When nothing turns out the way I planned

When the sky turns grey and there's no end in sight

When I can't sleep through the lonely night

--

I turn to you

Like a flower leaning toward the sun

I turn to you

'Cos you're the only one

Who can turn me around

When I'm upside down

I turn to you

--

When my insides are racked with anxiety

You have the touch that will quiet me

You lift my spirit You melt the ice

When I need inspiration

When I need advice

--

I turn to you

Like a flower leaning toward the sun

I turn to you

'Cos you're the only one

Who can turn me around

When I'm upside down

I turn to you

--

Where would I be

What would I do

If you'd never helped me through

I hope someday,

If you've lost your way

You could turn to me,

Like I turn to you

--

I turn to you

Like a flower leaning toward the sun

I turn to you

'Cos you're the only one

Who can turn me around

When I'm upside down

I turn to you

--

I turn to you

When fear tells me to turn around

I turn to you

'Cos you're the only one

Who can turn me around

When I'm upside down

--

Father today I turn to You and to those you have placed around me. Embracing the day and her tasks, I turn my face towards the sun, leaving my shadow to stream behind me, I walk into the light.

You

You

I have always known you,

Forever,

In my world so Black and White,

Controlled by science and the quest for knowledge.

Yet did that quest for knowledge,

That scientific dream,

Control you?

They boxed you in,

or did they box you out?

I hear a whisper on the street,

Discomforting,

That somewhere is a shade of grey,

The knowledge becomes elusive,

Science chases after wind,

And You... slip from sight of knowledge and science.

The box is empty,

The empty box is crumbling.

And so I push down the doubt,

Fruitlessly.

The questions rise within me,

Insatiable as my vain intellect seeks to grasp you.

Where have you gone?

Have you changed?

Or simply left me alone?

Were you ever there?

Exhausted from my minds turmoil,

Despondent,

Unable to hold left or right,

I weep night and day for I have lost you.

Did I really ever have you?

Were you simply an imagining?

The comfort blanket

Of a lonely child?

Dawn approaches slowly,

Coldly.

I sit and wait for nothing,

Yet my heart cries out to you.

I need you!
Your youness,

To complete my frail humanity.
I am empty without you,

Knowing nothing else to know.

I continue waiting,

Foolishly.

But what is now arising?

Is it the sun?

Or is it you?

Now in glorious technicolour,

Your bigness burns away the box,

Leaving me vulnerable to you.

I lift my gaze up to your feet.

I open my eyes to You,

Painfully,

Expecting answers to the questions.

You hold me in your gaze,

I try to assess you,

Analyze you,

Yet the more I look the less I see.

Exhausted I fall down,

And close my eyes to know and be.

Copyright Nikki King 2004

The Helpless God

A group I'm in are currently talking about this artice. http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col294.htm

It kind of links in to the wounded healer stuff from a couple of posts ago, about God making himself very week when he came to earth to live amongst us.

The writer of the article ends with a reflection on holding his baby nephew.

But still, this is what I thought, that there was a quality to Joey’s helplessness that seemed more godlike than anything else I had ever encountered. What if, I thought, the nature of God were openness and helplessness? What if destructive power were a human quality, not God’s? This changed everything, from the creation myths (man expelled God from the Garden of Eden) to the day’s news and our relationship with our planet.

This answers the problem of 'if God is so good why is there so much bad in the world'. God was so good that not only did he give us free will but he totally empowered us as humans (ie let us take all the power) to live exactly as we wanted and make our own choices. A God who is empowering rather than oppressive. It is that quality of God that I engage my choice and free will and chose to follow Him. Not because I 'need' Him, but because I want to.

Still thoughts in process- what does anyone think?

I bring myself

My singing heart, my days' doxology, my gold,
I bring for celebration.

My stillness, my glimpses of serenity, my frankincense,
I bring for meditation.

My brokenness, my tears of rage and sorrow, my myrrh,
I bring for sacrifice.

Kate Compston 1990.
In Bread of Tomorrow

I love that in all times and all places, we can bring something of ourselves to God, wherever we are at in ourselves, and it will be valued by him as our worship.

The Wounded Healer

I've been doing some reading around this for a piece of work for Uni. I love that it is in our brokenness and woundedness that we are able to reach out to others. It enables us not to be the oppressive rescuer, but the empowering accompanyer.

The other gods were strong but
thou was weak;
They rode, but thou didst stagger
to a throne.
But to our wounds only God's
wounds can speak,
And not a God has wounds but
Thou alone.

Quoted by Alistair Campbell in 'Rediscovering Pastoral Care'.