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speak friend and enter
воскресенье, октября 23, 2005
Stayers and Visitors - Back in Spore for a Bit More
"The essential meaning of exile is that we are where we don't want to be. We are separated from home. We are forced to be away from that which is most congenial to us... dislocation - out of joint. But this very strangeness can open up a new reality to us: "I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the LORD." " (excerpt from Run With the Horses, Eugene H. Peterson, pp. 145-156, InterVarsity Press, 1983)
It goes round and round. I'm finding Joy in the journey and my heart's full, but a tinge of longing fills the gaps. Been barely back a week and seems like its been a full month; I'm almost ready to scoot off again.
Things look different coming back to this familiarity, approaching with new perspectives of hope and joy. But somehow gradually, a week or two later, the little things (sms, people, deadlines etc, even waiting for the bus) begin to (inperceptibly and inconspicuously) whittle away the time, peace, hope, joy - that sense of God-wardness; and after a while, many of us settle for living at subsistence level, hand to mouth. Where's that victorious, faith-based living? We become excessively scrupulous: counting the costs in everything, exalting practicality beyond virtue. We slowly lose that God-awareness, forgetting He surprises us with His generosity and goodness, that He promises to fill our cups till overflowing; not just to have full lives but to abundance - literally packed bursting to the brim and overflowing. He's the Lord of the More-than-Enough. Sadly, its quite quite easy to get sucked down, scrape out our lives thinly, cobbling together snatches of existence. (I'm not exactly disappointed/disillusioned/depressed... just putting down an observation from this last week.)
In some sense, being happy to move off again could be escapism. But then, I realize it'll be the same everywhere/anywhere. Its not really about the environment, but about our hearts. Its about being content with God as our eternal refuge.
When we're merely visiting other environs, we have that boldness to start afresh, aware that that the experience is just temporal. Tabula Rasa. Now or never. Things come into perspective and we see the big picture - God's big picture and His heartbeat for people. Perhaps it is this attitude, this awareness, that needs to spill over when we return to 'home'. That, is a struggle though. It tends to be diluted at home simply because things are familiar, the disappointments and flaws are familiar... so familiar that somehow they seem impossible to mend. Perhaps we like our wounds. Things seemed to have always been like this. Simply because its familiar, we do not desire healing.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Jeremiah 29: 4-14: Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters... seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your refuge... For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seel with all your heart, I wil be found by you, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 29 reminds us we're on exile, and we're here to stay, not some temporal inconsequenticality. The struggle is how we can bring that courage and action into the apparently meaninglessness of everyday. When we have that 'alien perspective', we naturally prioritise the big things. Yet, we've still to contend with the next 60 years or so of existence here, and not settle for the easier way out.
"The essential meaning of exile is that we are where we don't want to be. We are separated from home. We are forced to be away from that which is most congenial to us... dislocation - out of joint. But this very strangeness can open up a new reality to us: "I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the LORD." " (excerpt from Run With the Horses, Eugene H. Peterson, pp. 145-156, InterVarsity Press, 1983)
It goes round and round. I'm finding Joy in the journey and my heart's full, but a tinge of longing fills the gaps. Been barely back a week and seems like its been a full month; I'm almost ready to scoot off again.
Things look different coming back to this familiarity, approaching with new perspectives of hope and joy. But somehow gradually, a week or two later, the little things (sms, people, deadlines etc, even waiting for the bus) begin to (inperceptibly and inconspicuously) whittle away the time, peace, hope, joy - that sense of God-wardness; and after a while, many of us settle for living at subsistence level, hand to mouth. Where's that victorious, faith-based living? We become excessively scrupulous: counting the costs in everything, exalting practicality beyond virtue. We slowly lose that God-awareness, forgetting He surprises us with His generosity and goodness, that He promises to fill our cups till overflowing; not just to have full lives but to abundance - literally packed bursting to the brim and overflowing. He's the Lord of the More-than-Enough. Sadly, its quite quite easy to get sucked down, scrape out our lives thinly, cobbling together snatches of existence. (I'm not exactly disappointed/disillusioned/depressed... just putting down an observation from this last week.)
In some sense, being happy to move off again could be escapism. But then, I realize it'll be the same everywhere/anywhere. Its not really about the environment, but about our hearts. Its about being content with God as our eternal refuge.
When we're merely visiting other environs, we have that boldness to start afresh, aware that that the experience is just temporal. Tabula Rasa. Now or never. Things come into perspective and we see the big picture - God's big picture and His heartbeat for people. Perhaps it is this attitude, this awareness, that needs to spill over when we return to 'home'. That, is a struggle though. It tends to be diluted at home simply because things are familiar, the disappointments and flaws are familiar... so familiar that somehow they seem impossible to mend. Perhaps we like our wounds. Things seemed to have always been like this. Simply because its familiar, we do not desire healing.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Jeremiah 29: 4-14: Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters... seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your refuge... For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seel with all your heart, I wil be found by you, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 29 reminds us we're on exile, and we're here to stay, not some temporal inconsequenticality. The struggle is how we can bring that courage and action into the apparently meaninglessness of everyday. When we have that 'alien perspective', we naturally prioritise the big things. Yet, we've still to contend with the next 60 years or so of existence here, and not settle for the easier way out.
понедельник, октября 10, 2005
Divine Discontent: October and Counting
As of today, I am a year and a full week over a quarter century.
It was exactly a year ago when I submitted my thesis, packed and went off to Mongolia and Siberia, expecting a short hiatus. Back then, I had very different ideas of what I should next be doing. Weeks turned into months, and a year later, I'm on the oddest journey conceivable. Much like Bilbo Baggins, I tumbled out of the door onto an adventure of divine proportions. Where this road - which runs ever on - will lead I do not know, except there is rest and promise in the goodness of my Guide. And what mighty sleeves He has!
How much of it is resignation? Sure, there is painfully little control over most things in life. However, there is rest, and joy, and peace! It is the little things that nibble away our senses, our vigor, our convictions. Hence I will not settle for the status quo; there must be more! A divine discontent; a sovereign hunger for true reality, a paradigm of Hope and Faith and Love.
We are such weak-willed, wretched creatures on our own, cobbling together snatches of existence borrowed from images of glory long faded. We conjure up smoke-and-mirror tricks in attempts to hide our fallen, perverse ways. Yet His Spirit calls us, stirs us, gnaws at the back of our minds in the quiet moments of the night- beckoning back to Him. Deep calls to deep. Over and over again, we are pursued by God into deeper intimacy, greater vulnerability and trust. How will we answer?
CS Lewis suggests that the reason why we are unable to obey and trust, isn't because we are not strong enough, but rather, that we are not weak enough: not weak enough to let go and let him come through for us. We cling, we clamber, we try to make it on our own. The story isn't so much about ourselves, but about our Author. Its His story we're telling.
"The first word that Jeremiah heard from God was "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jer 1:5). The verb formed is yatzar. Now, as Jeremiah is prepared to set an image before the people by which they can understand themselves in relation to their God, he standsd in the house of the yotzer, the potter. The word by which Jeremiah first learned to understand his own life, yatzar, is the word which is now used to let the people understand their lives: God shaped Jeremiah; God is shaping the people. God is a potter, a yotzer, working at his wheel on Jeremiah the lump of clay, on the people who who are a lump of clay; he forms, yatzar, them...
"Jeremiah experienced his life as the created work of God. He was not a random accumulation of cells; he was formed by loving, skilled hands. He wasn't a potentiality of material just waiting for the lucky time when he could, by asserting his will, make something of his life; he was already made something by God, formed for his purposes. The life of faith is very physical. Being a Christian is very much a matter of the flesh - of space and time and things. It means being thrown on the potter's wheel and shaped, our entire selves, into something useful and beautiful. And when we are not useful or beautiful we are reshaped. Painful, but worth it.
"Our lives become the pottery that makes possible the emergence of civilatization - what Jeremiah called the "people of God," what Jesus called the "kingdom of God," what Augustine called the "city of God." We are containers, "regions of being" in Heideger's words, in which love and salvation and mercy are conserved and shared. Everything is connected and makes sense now - the shape of creation and the shape of salvation, God's shaping hand and the shape of my life. "
Excerpt from Run with the Horses - the Quest for Life at Its Best, Eugene H. Peterson, pp. 80-81, InterVarsity Press, 1983.
As of today, I am a year and a full week over a quarter century.
It was exactly a year ago when I submitted my thesis, packed and went off to Mongolia and Siberia, expecting a short hiatus. Back then, I had very different ideas of what I should next be doing. Weeks turned into months, and a year later, I'm on the oddest journey conceivable. Much like Bilbo Baggins, I tumbled out of the door onto an adventure of divine proportions. Where this road - which runs ever on - will lead I do not know, except there is rest and promise in the goodness of my Guide. And what mighty sleeves He has!
How much of it is resignation? Sure, there is painfully little control over most things in life. However, there is rest, and joy, and peace! It is the little things that nibble away our senses, our vigor, our convictions. Hence I will not settle for the status quo; there must be more! A divine discontent; a sovereign hunger for true reality, a paradigm of Hope and Faith and Love.
We are such weak-willed, wretched creatures on our own, cobbling together snatches of existence borrowed from images of glory long faded. We conjure up smoke-and-mirror tricks in attempts to hide our fallen, perverse ways. Yet His Spirit calls us, stirs us, gnaws at the back of our minds in the quiet moments of the night- beckoning back to Him. Deep calls to deep. Over and over again, we are pursued by God into deeper intimacy, greater vulnerability and trust. How will we answer?
CS Lewis suggests that the reason why we are unable to obey and trust, isn't because we are not strong enough, but rather, that we are not weak enough: not weak enough to let go and let him come through for us. We cling, we clamber, we try to make it on our own. The story isn't so much about ourselves, but about our Author. Its His story we're telling.
"The first word that Jeremiah heard from God was "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jer 1:5). The verb formed is yatzar. Now, as Jeremiah is prepared to set an image before the people by which they can understand themselves in relation to their God, he standsd in the house of the yotzer, the potter. The word by which Jeremiah first learned to understand his own life, yatzar, is the word which is now used to let the people understand their lives: God shaped Jeremiah; God is shaping the people. God is a potter, a yotzer, working at his wheel on Jeremiah the lump of clay, on the people who who are a lump of clay; he forms, yatzar, them...
"Jeremiah experienced his life as the created work of God. He was not a random accumulation of cells; he was formed by loving, skilled hands. He wasn't a potentiality of material just waiting for the lucky time when he could, by asserting his will, make something of his life; he was already made something by God, formed for his purposes. The life of faith is very physical. Being a Christian is very much a matter of the flesh - of space and time and things. It means being thrown on the potter's wheel and shaped, our entire selves, into something useful and beautiful. And when we are not useful or beautiful we are reshaped. Painful, but worth it.
"Our lives become the pottery that makes possible the emergence of civilatization - what Jeremiah called the "people of God," what Jesus called the "kingdom of God," what Augustine called the "city of God." We are containers, "regions of being" in Heideger's words, in which love and salvation and mercy are conserved and shared. Everything is connected and makes sense now - the shape of creation and the shape of salvation, God's shaping hand and the shape of my life. "
Excerpt from Run with the Horses - the Quest for Life at Its Best, Eugene H. Peterson, pp. 80-81, InterVarsity Press, 1983.
воскресенье, октября 02, 2005
On the Road
excerpts from The Sacred Romance - Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, Brnt Curtis & John Eldredge, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997.
EVERY GREAT STORY involves a quest. IN J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins ran from the door at a quarter till eleven without even so much as a pocket hankerchief and launched on an adventure that would change his life forever. Alice stepped through the looking glass into Wonderland; Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter stumbled through the wardrobe into Narnia. Abraham left "his country, his people and hs father's household" to follow the most outlandish sort of promise form a God he'd only just met, and he never came back. Jacob and his sons went to Egypt for some groceries and four hundred years later the Israelite nation pulled up stakes and headed for home. Peter, Andrew, James, and John all turned up on a dime one day to follow the master, their fishing nets heaped in wet piles behind them. The Sacred Romance involves for every soul a journey of heroic proportions. And while it may require for some a change of geography, for every soul it means a journey of the heart.
John Donne - HOLY SONNETS. XIV.
Batter My Heart
BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you, 'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce mee, 'untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.
excerpts from The Sacred Romance - Drawing Closer to the Heart of God, Brnt Curtis & John Eldredge, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997.
EVERY GREAT STORY involves a quest. IN J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins ran from the door at a quarter till eleven without even so much as a pocket hankerchief and launched on an adventure that would change his life forever. Alice stepped through the looking glass into Wonderland; Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter stumbled through the wardrobe into Narnia. Abraham left "his country, his people and hs father's household" to follow the most outlandish sort of promise form a God he'd only just met, and he never came back. Jacob and his sons went to Egypt for some groceries and four hundred years later the Israelite nation pulled up stakes and headed for home. Peter, Andrew, James, and John all turned up on a dime one day to follow the master, their fishing nets heaped in wet piles behind them. The Sacred Romance involves for every soul a journey of heroic proportions. And while it may require for some a change of geography, for every soul it means a journey of the heart.
John Donne - HOLY SONNETS. XIV.
Batter My Heart
BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you, 'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce mee, 'untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.
