Vincent Van Gogh's birthday

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Vincent van Gogh in 1853.  

When I think of Van Gogh I think of swirling skies, starry nights and sunflowers. I recall the song "Starry starry night" that was popular in my youth and is a tribute to Vincent, written and sung by Don Mclean. The song reflects his art with the lines  "sketch the trees and the daffodils" and "morning fields of amber grain"  describing the amber wheat that features in several paintings. There are also several lines that may refer to his self-portraits: such as "weathered faces lined in pain / are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand"  Van Gogh was unrecognised as an artist until after his death. I love the vibrancy of his pictures and I suppose too I have been moved by the story of the struggles of his life: his unhappiness, mental illness (depression) and self mutilation.

Today I was moved by some words that Vincent wrote:

"To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving."

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” - Vincent van Gogh (March 30, 1853 - December 13, 1901)

In those two quotations Vincent shows himself to be not only a creative genius but also a person with deep wisdom about what is important in life.

I think it is a sad truth that those who suffer most are able to write most profoundly about love and what is most important in life. Whereas those who know loving acceptance in life and enjoy the benefits of success very often do not have such insights. Perhaps a challenging message here for me is to listen careful to what every person says for profound words do not just come from the lips of those that the world considers wise.  And those that the world rejects becasue of their mental illness should also have a voice as members of the human race. 

Yesterday I was at a discussion about the Scottish Government's "See me" campaign. This is about raising the profile of people with mental illnesses of all sorts so that we are encouraged see the person and not just label them with a badge and then ignore them.

St Augustine's cure for stress

St Augustine is believed to have coined the phrase "Solvitur Ambulando" which means "it is solved by walking".


Diogenes of Sinope, also known as "Diogenes the Cynic," is said to have replied to the argument that motion is unreal by standing up and walking away. A more idiomatic English translation might be “you’ll find the answer as you go.”


Whichever is the correct source of the phrase it has been quoted by Dorothy L Sayers, Thoreau, and Bruce Chatwin in their works.


When you feel stressed a walk is the best cure I know. Once you get outdoors in the open air, ideally amongst nature, then with the wind blowing around you and in your hair, your own concerns seen to shrink and get into proportion. My mind clears and I see much better probably because of both the fresh air and the exercise.

We have two dogs. They love to walk.  They have to go out every day rain or snow, wind or storm. They make me walk them even when I don't feel like it or would prefer to be huddled up beside the fire with a good book.


Setting out for a walk you can hold some question that is causing you concern in your mind. Not worrying about it but holding it there gently in your thoughts as you enjoy the physical aspects of taking a walk. Perhaps you want to do the same with something that you are worrying about. It is likely that when you return from the walk the stress will be reduced or gone and you will see more clearly.


When you walk in company you often chat about problems you are facing and often come up with solutions. Walking alone is essential for a writer friend who finds it is a time that he comes up with plots and ideas for his books. A walk can also be a cure for a writers block.  If you are not blessed as I am to live next to beautiful woods maybe when you walk you have to cross major road intersections. Instead instead of streams and distant mountain views you walk past apartment blocks, shops and factories but you can still lose yourself in the exercise. You are outside. You are taking in the perspective of the wider world. It is the walking that brings healing and up to a point it doesn't matter where you walk - though I know which I would find preferable.


Solvitur Ambulando

Jesus after the Palm Sunday parade

I re-read today the account of the Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem in Mark's gospel. And I was struck by a verse that I had not noticed before.


At the end of my reading it says " And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve." (Mark 11:11 English Standard Version)


Jesus had been the centre of attention during the entry into the Temple and city riding on the colt but when he arrives  at his destination all he does is look around. 


Was Jesus just looking at what was happening? Was he examining how people had been influenced by his symbolic act? Was he trying to work out how excited people had got and what to do with all the emotion that had been shown.? Was he wondering what was going to happen next? Was he looking at all the false hopes that he would not be able to fulfil? Perhaps he was even thinking how do I follow that? Or was he looking round in a sombre realisation that he was not on a journey from which there could be no turning back?


Was this short verse the moment of realisation that he had now irrevocably committed himself to the path that would lead to the events of Holy week and the Passion? Did this act of looking around finally convince him that this was the way that he had to go.

I like the phrase "he looked round at everything". It implies an active interest in the world and what is going on. But looking at the world through the eyes of Christ must be an awesome and terrifying experience. For we recall that in holy week the words of the shortest verse in the New Testament -  "Jesus wept". This verse describes his reaction to looking over Jerusalem and seeing a city that was rejecting the way of God. Where ever we look in the world we will see suffering, people doing things that are not right and innocent ones being exploited. 

If we look with the eyes of Christ we may weep. But like Jesus in the temple, looking around and seeing what is really happening can also strengthen our resolve to do something about the problems that we see. Instead of weeping we can ask for strength to make a stand and face up to what we see that is wrong. Though if we do make a stand like Jesus we should also remember that the road we are taking may lead to us being "crucified"  as he was.

Well-being - the juggling act of work life balance

Last night I read this quotation -

"Take a note of the balls you are juggling. As you keep your work, health, family, friends, and spirit in the air remember that work is a rubber ball and will bounce back if you drop it. All the rest are made of glass; drop one of them and it will be irrevocably scuffed, tarnished or even smashed."   John Briggs

Well-being is achieved by balancing all the activities in your life and this often seems like a juggling act of the many competing demands. In order to make this balancing act easier to achieve I believe that we need to create a peaceful space in our lives so that we can see clearly what we are doing. Without the perspective that comes from being a calm centre in a vortex of activity we can become swept along and even overwhelmed by the many requests for a bit of us. Here are some hints that I have found helpful for creating such a perspective.

At least three hours a week should be spent doing something you love doing. Three hours isn't much! But we often find it difficult to make space for the calming things that refresh our souls. It should not be related to work. A woman I know said she only considered an activity as truly relaxing if she could do it without wearing makeup! I don't know about that! We each have to be our own judge as to if an activity is truly relaxing. 


This three hours a week could be fifteen minutes a day of active relaxation - listening to music or doing yoga or knitting perhaps. Watching TV does not count. This is passive relaxation.


It could be broken down further by having mini breaks. It has been suggested that we should spend five minutes of every hour having a five minute break for pleasure. Five minutes in every hour of the day doing something that refreshes and renews you to be much more awake and productive in the other 55 minutes of every hour. That five minutes might only be spent having a cup of tea or answering a personal email or having a stretch. It might even be closing your eyes and having a daydream for a couple of minutes. 


Once we have built a proper regime to relax we can begin not feel overwhelmed by the range of tasks that are on our often manic to-do lists. We can also recognise more readily the relative importance of the various balls we are juggling in the air. And we will begin to appreciate which can be dropped and which are really precious and should be the last to be squeezed out by anything!

Biblical attitudes to the poor

There are three rules in the Bible that can help formulate what a Christian attitude to the poor should be. They are gleaning, release and jubilee. 

Gleaning laws require those with farms to leave some of their crops in their fields when harvesting for the poor to gather for themselves.

The laws of release require that debts be forgiven every seventh year

The laws of Jubilee require that all lands be returned to their ancestral owners every fifty years. 

These laws lead us to conclude that:

God cares that there is not a permanently dispossessed underclass of those who live on the margins.

All three laws are aimed at preventing or alleviating poverty. Gleaning laws provide a means for the poor to get food. Release laws make sure individuals do not become permanently trapped in debt. Jubilee aim to prevent the permanent loss of land.

These laws imitate God who cares for those on the margins.

Simply importing these laws into our world will not work. But they lead us to think about what kind of laws are needed to meet these same objectives.

Some notes from the penultimate chapter of   "Christians and the Common Good: How Faith Intersects with Public Life" by Charles E. Gutenson

Our favourite Bible texts

"Most of us hold the view of Christian faith we do because of a small handful of favourite texts. This small handful of texts becomes the lens through which everything is understood. Our goal as serious students of scripture should be to increase our grasp of the overarching biblical story by constantly expanding our familiarity with the bible. Many people reach adulthood with perspectives that have been dictated by theologies derived from a small group of biblical texts"

- From "Christians and the Common Good: How Faith Intersects with Public Life" by Charles E. Gutenson

Faith and politics

I am continuing to read "Christians and the Common Good: How Faith Intersects with Public Life" by Charles E. Gutenson and I thought the following paragraphs put the argument well.

"When the church allows itself to be distracted from attending to the wider range of theo-political issues, when it allows itself to give credence to a reductionist moral agenda, it becomes increasingly unable to provide an alternative to "business as usual" in the culture. By focusing narrowly on such issues as abortion and homosexuality, for example, the church loses its ability to critique so many of the other problems that face our world today. Worse, it puts itself in a position of appearing not to take the teachings of its own scriptures (and founder!) seriously, thus ultimately undermining its own authority and credibility. In fact, the church begins to appear as little more than a social club with particular practices it tends to avoid, with little substantive difference between its members and the culture at large."

"...non-Christians are more generous in giving to the poor, are about equally likely to have engaged in extramarital sex, and Christians are, sadly, more likely to have had divorce than non-Christians. And the rampant materialism of our culture is no more apparent than in the parking lots of most large churches on Sunday mornings. Quite simply, a major reason for the increasing irrelevance of the church for today's culture is its inability both to envision and to demand an alternative way of being in the world."

The secular dream of the good life has been baptised and brought into the church. We have accepted the way of power instead of the way of the cross. 'The Christian life is all about winning in ways that look like you are losing' - Steve Chalke quoted by Gutenson.

Christians and the Common Good: How Faith Intersects with Public Life

I have just started reading "Christians and the Common Good: How Faith Intersects with Public Life" by Charles E. Gutenson and in the introduction I was struck by this passage in which he writes about his early church experience:

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to our coming to see the political implications of Christianity was the extent to which our preaching and teaching were focuses on individual salvation. The goal of every church service was to confront people with the choice to accept Christ as their saviour. While no one would have been so crass as to say so, we hardly knew what was left for them to do once that decision was made except to persuade others to accept Christ as their personal saviour also. I was frequently puzzled as I attempted to locate in scripture this very narrow sense of "being saved"; I personally walked away from scripture with impression that conversion was merely a first step in a life of increasing conformity to the image of Christ. The almost exclusive focus on individual salvation through conversion wreaked havoc on our attention to discipleship.

and a few pages later:

In the midst of this version of the Christian faith I experienced a significant level of disquiet. What the Bible seemed to demand of followers of Jesus was far more radical than anything I was hearing.

I am now into chapter one and am enjoying the read.....

The book is written very much to address an American audience but it has relevance for us too...

God works like a statin

Years ago I had a moped with a two stroke 50cc engine that ran on a mixture of petrol and oil. This worked well most of the time but the carburettor had to be serviced regularly because it would get blocked up the oily deposits. Then the bike would come to a stuttering stop. It would make cough like noises and then you knew you had a long push home. I speak from experience!

With an engine if some component gets dirty you can take it out and clean it up and when you put it back the engine will work much better. I learnt how to clean out the carburettor with clean petrol soon after I got the bike.

Do you know what statins are?  They are pills - a certain type of drugs that are given to people with heart problems to help reduce cholesterol. Cholesterol is stuff that is quite good for you in small amounts but if you get too much of it in your blood it can bung up your arteries and blood vessels. It also contributes to heart problems and strokes. Statins are widely prescribed drugs that help to reduce cholesterol and generally improve the flow of blood through all the blood vessels in your body.

In the bible the prophet Jeremiah talked about creating a clean heart in you. Now with drugs like statins this is possible. Sometimes with the great advances in modern surgery it seems that any part of the body can be taken out, cleaned up and put back. Since the 1960s we have had heart transplants and can now fit artificial valves. It is absolutely amazing what is possible these days.

But in the time of the prophet Jeremiah many centuries ago these drugs and this sort of surgery was impossible. He was using heart much more metaphorically.

When someone says on a valentines card that they send you their heart it is just another way of saying I love you. Because the heart is the centre of our being and associated with our emotions and especially with love.

Just as the arteries can get clogged up with cholesterol and the engine can get clogged up with gunk so too our lives can get too clogged up with bad feelings and other unhelpful junk so that we no longer work properly. We may feel bad about mean things we have done and we forget we can do kind deeds. We have perhaps been so mean to someone that we avoid them. But we can let God clean us up and sort us out so that we work again, like a clean heart or bike or engine.We know that when our hearts are working as God wants them to they will be full to overflowing with love. We will show that love in all our relationships with others.We will be warm hearted rather than cold hearted and people will as the words of the old song go "know that we are Christians by our love".

Reference is to Jeremiah 31:31-34

  Image"Healthy Heart" courtesy of digitalart/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN A CHURCH

Who is the most important person in a church? Is it the minister? The treasurer? The secretary? The person who leads the children's and young peoples work? The director of music or the organist?

No!  I believe that a good case can be made that the most important person in the church is the person who stands on the church door and welcomes people as they arrive. The person who makes a newcomer feel welcome and shows them where to sit. Who gives the church attender a book and anything else that they will need for the service and who will show visitors where the toilets are located. They will also introduce a new family to the person who works with the young people. They may introduce a single visitor to another person already in the church so that they do not have to sit on their own.

These wonderful people set the tone of a church and can be the factor that determines if a person feels good and comfortable when they settle down into their seat or if they feel strange, isolated and alone. They can make a new person feel at home. Such hospitality is a God given gift.

The greeter will have got to the church early to have the books and papers ready on the door before the first person arrives.  They will stay by the door as the service starts to welcome anyone who arrives a little late and they will be available if anyone wants to leave early. If someone is leaving early they will check if they are all right but will not intrude on their privacy.

The members of a welcome team will develop a sensitive way of getting peoples contact details so that they can be visited and invited to further events. They will also pass on contact details to whoever co-ordinates the church visiting and/or the minister.

When the greeter is not on door duty they will still keep a look out for people that they have welcomed when they were on the door so that they can show that they remember them and reinforce the church's welcome.

These people are perhaps the most important people in the church. They set the tone and mood of the people attending and help with church growth by making the church a welcoming place from the moment people come in the door. And if we think of the reverse of all this we can easily imagine what damage having the wrong person on the door can do!

Poem for today - why I love the psalms...

Why I love the psalms

by 

John Butterfield

Long long ago people were

like us in so many ways

but when they came to worship God

their hymnal was much more than praise

They grieved and cried and raged at God

they shared their passions bold

to hammer on the doors of heaven

at God's silence in days of old.

I love the psalms that show me

that God wants me to be

faithful to the inner self

that only God can see

I want to share my pain with God

God sees my anger too

God also sees my vengeful self

God knows me through and through

I want this honesty with God

So that I shan’t pretend

that everything is easy

because Jesus is my friend.

Faithfulness

The faithfulness of God is emphasises many times in the bible and in this popular hymn.

"Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father...
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me."

There are more than sixty references in the bible to the faithfulness of God and it’s not surprising that some forty of these instances occur in the book of Psalms. Here are recorded the struggles of the people of God and their total dependence upon God at times for God's faithfulness. They show that they were dependent upon God’s faithfulness for everything.

Psa 89:1-2
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth will I make known Your faithfulness to all generations.For I have said, “Mercy shall be built up forever; Your faithfulness You shall establish in the very heavens."

What is faithfulness?
The biblical word denotes that which is firm and can be counted upon. Webster’s defines faithful as “firm in adherence to promises or an observance of duty." Some common synonyms are: dependable, reliable, trustworthy and loyal. The word also implies “absolute honesty and integrity."

From these pictures of God we get a picture of the calling of faithfulness means for us. A faithful person is not only honest and dependable, but also loyal. Jesus similarly promises faithfulness to his followers in the gospels. Every time you gather to worship with brothers & sisters as Christians, we remember that He said, "Where 2 or 3 come together in my name, there am I with them" [Matthew 18:20]. Every time we take holy
communion, we remember that He said, "I will be with you always, even to the end of the world." And when we are faced with death we remember His promise, "In my Father’s house are many rooms...I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go & prepare a place for you, I will come back & take you to be with me. For where I am, there you will be also" [Matthew 14:2-4].

Faithfulness is to follow through with a commitment regardless of difficulty. Faithfulness has been defined as love hanging on. It is love saying, "I will not quit. There may be misunderstandings, there may be disappointments, there may be discouragements, but I will not quit. Ever."

In the new testament our faithfulness is frequently challenged.

We are challenged to be faithful in stewardship in 1 Corinthians 4:1-2.
We are challenged to be faithful in service inEphesians 6:21.
We are challenged to be faithful in our marriages in 1 Timothy 5:9. We are challenged to be faithful in witnessing in Revelation 2:15.
We are challenged to be faithful in prayer in Romans 12:12.
We are challenged to be faithful in ministry in Colossians 1:7.
We are challenged to be faithful in following the Lord in Revelation 17:14.
We are challenged to be faithful in the truth in 3John 3.
We are challenged to be faithful even in times of persecution in Revelation 13:10.
We are challenged to be faithful unto death & then we’ll receive the crown of life in Revelation 2:10.

There will be many examples that all of us can draw from every day life where we are called upon to be faithful - honest , dependable, loyal and filled with integrity. We could list some here: marriage, business relationships, friendship, family life, in making promises and in virtually every part of life that you can think of.

Simon Peter often made mistakes. He was impetuous. He even denied Jesus and then wept bitterly out of shame for what he had done. But when he fell down he was able to get up, dust himself off and start all over again. And because of this faithfulness he was chosen by Jesus for a special role and became one of the leaders of the disciples after Jesus' death. God was at work through Peter and God will work through us if
we can show the same faithfulness through adversity and failure. 

Faithfulness to God includes faithfulness to one another. When we look at the two great commandments we see that we are to love God first, but then love our neighbor as our self. The two commandments go together and should always be seen together. God requires that we be faithful to Him and also to each other in our daily lives. God shows faithfulness as Psalm 100:5 says, "The Lord is good & His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations."  and God also expects and blesses our faithfulness.

What is wholeness?

So how do we define wholeness or holness? It is a live question as I go to another meeting of the well-being group. It is related to holiness but is different and can be used with integrity in a completely secular setting.

Its an important issue for many people as they eat their wholefoods and try to take a wholistic (holistic?) view of health care, and look for an integration of body mind and spirit. The Hebrew word shalom is helpful to our understanding as its meaning includes all of the following: completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, soundness, tranquillity, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, and harmony. That is a helpful place to start because we can see these characteristics as being positive aspects of life associated with wholeness and well-being.

The insight of the list of fruits of the spirit from the book of Galatians is also very helpful in this debate. The nine fruits love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,  goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control suggest a way of living which is at harmony with those around you.  It is a way of life that is not aggressive or controlling yet in command and assertive. 

If these characteristics are all present in a person who I would recognise them as someone who had "got it all together" and were fully human. When I use the phrase fully human I mean that this is someone you look at and say "life should be lived like that". The supreme example that each of us tries to follow is Jesus Christ who in his life and especially in his interactions with other people shows us many examples of how to react and behave and live as whole fully human beings.

as I wrote in a blog of a few days ago....

The challenge that Jesus gives to us is to act with self emptying generosity. This is not an intellectual or even a moral challenge. It is a challenge of the imagination. It is a challenge that calls on us to think of  "what might be if...."  As a result of thinking like this we create new possibilities that are counter cultural, counter intuitive and certainly not what society expects.

And it is inevitable that we are hesitant to follow the example of Jesus as counter intuitive and counter cultural action needs courage. By pausing before we act we are given time to override our gut reactions, hard wired into our brain as survival mechanisms, alongside fight or flight, appetite and motor movement.

When struggling to follow Jesus we pause and say a little prayer and in that moment we can move from the primitive gut reactions in the core of our hard wired brain to the graced wisdom that allows us to choose to do something that is not dictated by narrow survival thinking.

In the life and teaching of Jesus we can see many examples of counter intuitive and counter cultural action, graced by God. We need to study the life and teaching of Jesus to open our imaginations to the possibilities of living and acting in a completely different way. The gospels are a wonderful resource for the graced, generous imagination and studying the life of Jesus will help us to develop new ways of living.
 (2 March 2012)

How do you define a book for an Amazon Kindle?

Amazon sells books and the kindle is a reader for digital books. But some of the books available for download from kindle seem to stretch the definition of the word "book".

How short can something be if it is considered to be a book? I have looked at the free downloads and often there are wonderful books to download and there is no limit to how many free ones you can get.

This would be fine except that kindle now allows self publishing. Actually this is a mixed blessing. I had an unpublished novel on my hard drive and it is now available on Amazon as a kindle download should anyone want to read it. (If you are interested my novel "Capcir Spring" (UK download link) will be available for free download on 17th and 18th March 2012 as a kindle promotion) The downside is that the system is not being moderated.

As a result of this lack of moderation all sorts of pieces of writing are being published as books where they would never get off the trash pile in a traditional publisher. One I downloaded looked like a college report. Another that I downloaded was so short that I had read all seven chapters in fifteen minutes! I am glad I never paid for any of these - I would have been seriously miffed if I had.

Perhaps it is inevitable that such open access to publishing will make available all sorts of material and it is up to us to chose.  We have to be discerning as we are not protected by quality control filter of the publishers. Looking at one memoir I saw poor spelling, poor grammar and a confused structure but the old man who had submitted the book admitted that he had never been a writer. He was proud to just write like he spoke and if you didn't like it - tough. There is a democracy in this widening of access to publishing if it allows people who's voices have never been heard to speak to a wider audience. But it is a problem if the genre is swamped by those who paste a few wikipedia entries together and call it a definitive guide. Their only motive is to persuade people to buy an ebook made up of information that is freely available on the Internet. 

Then again if the content had been strictly moderated would I have got a rejection slip for my novel!

If you have a kindle, please download my novel during the free promotion period. If you like it then leave positive feedback on Amazon. If you don't like it or think it is not so good then please don't leave feedback and just be glad you haven't paid anything for it! ;-)

Click here to go to the download page for "Capcir Spring" at Amazon in the USA

Priorities for a church - how to write a mission statement together

Every church faces the challenge of what it should concentrate its efforts on as there are so many possibilities.

A church could be known for its social programme, its social outreach, its community work, its evangelistic programme, its support of missions, its cafe, its work with elderly, its shop, or its beautiful choir and music. No church can do everything.

Last Saturday at our elders conference I facilitated an exercise to see what the church should be concentrating its efforts on. This will help me plan and prioritise my time.

They way we did it was to split the group into threes and give each triplet a pack of 24 cards. On each card was written on aspect of church life. So there were cards with mission, evangelism, music, pastoral care etc.  - you get the picture. Then I asked them all to rank the deck of cards in order from the most important to the least important.

After fifteen minutes I stopped them and asked each group to hand me their bottom 12 cards. I then asked them to see if that altered the way they thought about the others. After a further ten minutes I asked them to give me the next eight bottom cards. Each triplet now had four cards. I them gave them five minutes to say which was most important in this grouping. I then went round the groups and asked for the top ranking card from each triplet. There were four groups and they all had a different top card.

The four areas of church life that were considered priorities were preaching, church growth, youth and children's work and pastoral care.

That selection seems a balanced way ahead for a small church, though it is interesting that evangelism didn't make it into any groups top ten yet church growth did. This will form the basis of our mission statement for the next year or so. It is a useful technique that got some good discussions going between people about subjects that they would not normally have talked about. And we have the basis for a mission statement that all the elders can claim to have been part of writing.

Christian Tai Chi?

Last night I attended a workshop in Dunblane cathedral which was about praying using your whole body. It was lead by a delightful Roman Catholic nun who had the group of us moving slowly and rhythmically in gentle sweeping movements with our arms and shifting the balance between our feet. All the while she encouraged us with her melodious Irish voice. She said things like "as you move your hands sweep away from you all the bad thoughts" and  "As you bring your hands up to your head think of the Holy Spirit coming into your body."

It was not Tai Chi. It was led by a Christian, who read bible passages as part of the body meditation and it was held in a holy Christian setting. Tai Chi originates as an expression of the Taoist religion and this was nothing to do with that. However the exercises were based on the moves used by Tai Chi. Was it Christian Tai Chi or was it a group of Christians doing a series of exercises originally designed as part of some eastern religious practice. If you had never seen Tai Chi you would think we were just gracefully moving our arms about like the branches of a tree swaying in the wind.

I saw an article in a newspaper about a vicar in Yorkshire who banned a group of elderly ladies from having a gentle exercise class in his church hall because he believed it was influenced by Tai Chi. Perhaps that guy needs to get a life. I think he doesn't realise that he does not need to protect his little blinkered version of Christianity from things that happen in the world that might pollute it. God is far bigger than than our images and projections of him and doesn't need controlling vicars telling him what is right and what is wrong. If his faith wasn't strong enough to engage in a little light exercise without fearing to lose his faith then I feel sorry for him.

And as to the experience. It provided a deep relaxation and as we sat and meditated after standing for the exercises and I felt a very deep peace. It was a truly blessed time of prayer in which the sense of peace was profound.

As I was out in the woods today I stood alone under a tree and repeated some of the exercises and came home from my walk feeling relaxed and renewed. I don't know if this is what people get out of doing Tai Chi? All I know is that it works as an objective experience aside from any religious interpretation attached to the practice. I think I will be doing it again.


POSTSCRIPT

After blogging this post I was reminded of the following which is about Yoga but equally could have been about Tai Chi:

Many years ago there was a heated debate about Yoga which went like this:

Angry person:  Yoga is dangerous - it's demonic
Minister:       How so?
Angry person:    The poses are prayer-positions to pagan deities, which are actually demons, so if you do Yoga poses, you are praying to demons, and they can come in
Minister:     What, even if you're purely doing it for physical exercise?
Angry person:    Yes - as soon as you do Yoga, you are praying to Pagan deities
Minister:      If a non-Christian kneels at the front of a church in a Christian prayer-position, are they praying to God?  Will the Holy Spirit come in to them?
Angry person:   Only if they are praying the sinner's prayer, and then only if they really mean it
Minister:      So you're saying that God will only come in response to prayer if the person doing it fully intends to pray to him - not just because they're kneeling?
Angry person:  That's right
Minister:      But a pagan deity can take control of someone who'd assumed a yoga pose purely as exercise?
Angry person:   Yes
Minister:      That makes demons sound more powerful than God......

Jesus - a poem

By John Butterfield

Jesus was a wise man

Jesus was a sage

Jesus had a message

for his and every age

Jesus is a saviour
Jesus is a king
Jesus is a good friend
above everything

Sometimes poems can be very simple and yet still convey a deep message.

Fair trade fortnight - Olive oil

A highlight of this year’s Fair Trade Fortnight, was when I together with friends and colleagues from Stirling got the chance on Thursday to taste the Award-winning Zaytoun Palestinian olive oil and hear the story of producer Abu Kamal. 

In Stirling Council’s Old Viewforth building, Abu told of the early challenges faced in producing and exporting olive oil, almonds and herbs from Palestine, gaining Fair Trade and organic produce status and last year winning a Soil Association award and recognition for top quality olive oil. As the world’s only fair trade olive oil producers, Palestinian olive growers found firsthand the real difference that getting a fair price is finally giving them. Through the fair trade premium, they have now been able to fund basic items like fridges for storing medicines in health centres, air-con for the village kindergarden, computers for schools and a scholarship fund for poor children who had the chance of a university education but could not afford to go. Abu Kamal’s own son was amongst those who have now been able to take up a university offer thanks to fair trade. 

Abu’s village, Al-Rameh, known as the Lebanon of Palestine, is  20km southwest of the city of Jenin and produces  ten tons of olive oil each year. But water shortage caused by climate change and the encroachment of new Israeli settlements is making the going much tougher. 

Extending an invitation to come and visit Al-Rameh, Abu described  the long,  spiritual and also musical  tradition of relationship with the land and olive growing: “Our fathers and mothers plant so we can eat. We plant so our children can eat.”

The meeting was organised by Fair Trade Stirling. Co-ordinator, Jon Cape added “Abu Kamal’s story shows how fair trade really does provide a lifeline. This is the only olive oil in the world to have earned the Fair Trade label so it’s easy to spot. The bottles can have various branding and have just been launched by Sainsbury’s in Stirling as well as the Co-op in Bridge of Allan."

Live at peace

The book was called "Practising the Presence of Peace" and as it was available as a free download from Amazon for my Kindle.  I couldn't resist it. I was in need of some peace that day and here was a promise and it would cost me nothing!

It is an "interesting" read. It outlines the philosophy of a psychologist referred to throughout as Dr Charlie as written by his friend and follower Bear Jack Gebhardt. The fictional psychologist's full name is Charles Bernard Lawrence, a reference to the spiritual writing of Brother Lawrence whose book the practise of the presence of God is a spiritual classic. In fact the whole book is a rewrite of that book which comprises the thoughts of a seventeenth century carmelite monk. But the present book is written for today's multi-faith and secular world seeking spirituality without traditional religious commitment.

Dr Charlie outlines one simple idea which he then develops into a philosophy by which to live his life. The book is repetitive as it works with the same basic idea in many different versions and looks at the practical implications and likely counter arguments. The one simple argument of the book can be summed up in the following paragraph:

"You enjoy your peace when you are at peace with the thoughts you are thinking. Whenever necessary, simply ask: am I at peace with this thought, yes or no? If the answer isn't an immediate and spontaneous yes then it is a no. If the answer is yes - you are at peace with your thoughts - that's perfect! Keep thinking them. If the answer is no then you have two options
a.   drop the thought with which you aren't at peace and find or chose or create a thought with which you are more at peace; or
b.   choose to be at peace with the thought which a moment before you were not at peace."

Peace is seen as health and holiness. Following thoughts that bring peace he argues will lead to right actions, right relationships and healthy attitudes in all parts of life. The author makes reference to many religious ideas but says the technique can be practised by an atheist. Peace is the ultimate reality of existence. Some may call this peace God or Christ or whatever - it doesn't matter - what matters is following the way of peace.

The book is an interesting reworking of a spiritual classic but the simple path that it suggests following requires self discipline and resolve which should not be underestimated.  The idea of controlling how you feel by re-framing your thoughts about the issues that may be troubling you is the basis of all contemporary counselling and much psychological help.

The book may be of help to some. It certainly is very positive and well meaning. It is slanted to appeal to secular searchers for peace who have no room for traditional religion in their modern lifestyle.

Good and bad anger - and Jesus

Next Sunday's set gospel reading is the story of Jesus getting angry and driving the money changers out of the temple. I started to think about anger... basically is it good or bad to be angry? And I came to the conclusion "it all depends". Here are some thoughts that will go into my presentation on Sunday based on the following bible passage -

"The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me."" John 2

There are four reasons people get angry

• Injustice - A rule, a person, a belief, or an objective is being threatened or abused.  Something or someone is unfair.
• Injury - You have been hurt, disrespected, rejected, or ignored. You have a sense of insult or humiliation. This can be physical or psychological.
• Invasion - Your freedom, privacy or personal space is being restricted or violated. Your identity is being attacked.
• Intention - You are fired up with energy and determination to do something about injustices, injuries, and invasions. You challenge the status-quo.

Looking at that list it seems to me that it quickly becomes clear which sort of anger Jesus was exhibiting in the bible passage.

When we get angry it can be good to do something about it.  What happens if you are very angry and you don't do anything?   Shake a bottle of cola then open it to get an idea!  If you don't let the pressure that builds up inside you out then it can have bad long term consequences. A friend of mine made some home brew wine and he corked the bottles too early while they were still fermenting. There was a terrible mess in his garage when they all exploded!

There are positive ways of letting your anger out and ways that are less helpful.

There are two possible responses to anger. We can react in a purposeful way, or a spontaneous way.  Purposeful anger shows self-control, and a degree of consideration for others. Spontaneous anger is unplanned with little or no self-control.

The result of the anger expressed by us can be either constructive or destructive. Constructive anger is where we respect other peoples’ feelings and boundaries, and don’t threaten either whereas destructive anger is where you protect your own identity and violate other peoples’ feelings and identity, deliberately or unconsciously.

Gospel reading is about when Jesus was angry. As we read this passage it helps to ask -
What was Jesus angry about?
Did he direct his anger at certain people, or at what they were doing?
Which of the characteristics or classifications of anger outlined above was Jesus displaying?
What does this reading tell us about getting angry if you are a Christian?

Worry - how to live with and overcome anxiety.....

Anxiety seems to be endemic in our society.  There have been said to be two sorts of anxiety. The first is ACUTE which is anxiety triggered by crises or irritations. It is temporary and though may be upsetting for a while we can quickly get over it.  The second is CHRONIC anxiety which is an ongoing and habitual state of mind that some people seem to live with all the time.This has a deep affect on how people view the world and others. Jesus spoke about anxiety -

“Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?’” (Luke 12:22-26, NIV).

These words are good news and there is more good news in that there are certain spiritual habits that we can develop and nurture that help us reduce both sorts of anxiety. (This list comes from Ann Morisy's book "Bothered and Bewildered" page  76)

• become aware of how you react - who can wind you up - what things "push your buttons" Each of us will react differently to different situations, circumstances or people. If we know ourselves well enough to be able to predict how we are likely to be affected then we can respond instead of react.
• if we are able to recognise that most problems are very complex and have many causes in our complex and interrelated world. Everything exists within systems of relationships. Recognising this complexity can prevent us from scapegoating - that is to say seeing one cause or person or group of people to be responsible. 
• Not take on board other peoples anxieties. We can hear what people are saying but don't have to get caught up into siding with them. Rather than make their response our own we should help others to take responsibility for the way they themselves feel. It is not necessary to follow the herd.
• become a non-anxious presence. Once we know ourselves well enough to recognise our own anxiety can we then "park" it, consciously putting it to one side. Some find the Buddhist practise of softening your eyes helps. When we are anxious our eyes become hard and hostile, and in this state we are more likely to respond with aggresive gut reactions. Softening the eyes means becoming quiet, more open to God and to each other. Human eyes are always soft when they gaze upon a new born baby.

Anxiety is not a natural state for people. It can be caused by many things in our modern world. And most importantly,  it can be overcome.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Stories that involve the afterlife can often be fanciful and fantastic and motivated in no small part by wishful thinking and supernatural happenings. This novel is different. The book opens with the following paragraph-

"My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn’t happen."

In the novel the victim of a brutal murder and rape is the narrator from beyond the grave of the events as they unfold in her circle of grieving family and friends. It is a well written study of the tensions that emerge in families and friends as they come to terms with a traumatic event. Through being able to communicate with the living Susie manages to help solve the mystery and bring her murderer to justice. There is also healing in her family though the family after her death becomes very different to what it was when she was a living part of it.

Sebold herself was raped as a college student and thus has a deep insight into the emotions generated as she reflects on the experience. It is notable for the particular, sympathetic and understanding portrait that she paints of the perpetrator of the crime. But she never excuses his actions. It is these factors that make this book stand out from lesser supernatural thrillers.

The book has been criticised by some conservative Christians because it has a particular non-religious, non-judgemental view of heaven. Sebold's version of the afterlife is not consistent with any particular religions doctrines. Sebold has countered by saying this is not a religious book but rather she is using the perspective of a soul in the afterlife as a literary device to illustrate a tragic story from a unique perspective.

The book was a bestseller for twelve months after publication in 2002 and I enjoyed reading it. 

The Lovely Bones

Wealth, faith and well-being

A fraudulent myth has infected our society - that money and happiness go together. Wealth is like health: its absence breeds misery, but having it does not guarantee happiness. In terms of well being there is considerable research that suggests having a sense of meaning and purpose in life is a big plus in the well-being stakes and this is strongly associated with taking ones faith seriously and engaging in religious practice. This is strongly at variance with the wisdom of our increasingly secular culture.

The evidence comes from a variety of sources. In the daily Telegraph (11 August 1998)  a report on the research at Duke University that showed a significant difference in blood pressure amongst church attenders, to the benefit of those who went to church. Or that the prime ministers strategy units report "Life Satisfaction" (2002) acknowledged that there was evidence from the USA that going to church twice a week improves peoples well-being equivalent to their salary being doubled. 

In the research "Religion and Ageing" by Blazer and Palmore (1976) the most significant positive impact on the experience of growing older was the extent to which people were living out a life of faith. High levels of spirituality are linked with slower progress of Alzheimer's and other dementia. Those who take their faith seriously are less likely to be involved in self destructive activities such as drug taking and alcohol abuse and are less likely to divorce, which is a high source of stress and unhappiness.

Research has also shown that if you adopt religion for the benefits that you think you will get out of it then you are likely to see no benefit at all.  Like happiness, which if pursued for its own sake degenerates into hedonism, Christian faith stands in its own right and is not a means to an end, however much desired that end may be. 

NOTES FROM CHAPTER 5 OF "BOTHERED AND BEWILDERED " BY ANN MORISY

Listening for God - A Poem

Listening for God

by John Butterfield

I'm trying

I really am

and sometimes it seems I hear a word or two

but more often than not

there is silence.

We sing

“God spoke this word in days of old

he speaketh still”

yet

unless he is using

a frequency that is

inaudible to the human ear

nothing seems to be coming through.

How long will the silence remain?

How long before

there comes some break

in the quietness

for a subliminal message

to crackle into consciousness?

I'm listening

straining my ears for a whisper

a murmur

a word

attentive alert awake

How long Lord, how long?

How ensure a visitor to a church returns

The critical 36 hours

I was reading* yesterday that when a lay person from the congregation visits the home of a first time worshipper within 36 hours of the first time they come to church then there is an 85% chance that they will return to the worship next Sunday. When the visit is delayed for 72 hours only 60% return and when delayed five to seven days only 15% return. But when the first visit is carried out by the minister then the percentages are cut in half and far fewer return!

This research was carried out by Dr E Kolb (1988) in the USA. Though the figures may be different here I suspect the result will be similar.

The reasons for this behaviour are that if a clergy person makes the visit then the new person thinks this is him or her performing their paid duty. They may also feel threatened by such a visit.

But if the visit is made by a lay person the first time visitor thinks that here is someone who believes that their church is important. They are also likely to feel that they are important and valued as a individual.

People need to feel valued and wanted,  and when that concern is genuinely expressed they are likely to return.

*The book I was reading was "Everybody welcome" by Bob Jackson
Image courtesy of debspoons / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Boilers - a rant...

I usually muse about matters spiritual and theological. But today I am thinking about boilers. Specifically condensing gas boilers.

There is a reason for this. The central heating did not come on this morning and the weather forecast is that the temperature will be falling and more winter weather is on the way.

The boiler repair man, who I have got to know quite well over the last couple of years arrived promptly. But he admitted to me that boilers today are far less reliable than the ones that he used to install twenty years ago. They might be more economic and produce much more heat for much less gas but they keep going wrong.

And the regulations do not allow them to be repaired in the traditional sense. Repairing a faulty boiler is now a case of identifying a fault and replacing the malfunctioning bits with spare parts. The inside of a boiler is full of electronic components that the repair man cannot repair but can only unplug and replace. Even if a wire connection comes off they are not allowed to solder it on because under the gas regulations that is considered an adaptation of the safety approved design.

Someone told me last week he had a boiler in his home that had been installed twenty years ago. It had never gone wrong and only needed cleaning and servicing once a year.  I told him to hang on to it as it was a far better piece of equipment than the modern ones.

The environmentalists have been guilty of encouraging people to replace old boilers with more efficient ones but is this really an eco gain if the new ones incur such heavy maintenance costs and have a far shorter useful life.

Is this progress?  Am I a grumpy old man!? (rhetorical question)

Rant over. I must go and fetch some more logs in for the wood stove!

Act counter-intuitively and be like Jesus

The challenge that Jesus gives to us is to act with self emptying generosity. This is not an intellectual or even a moral challenge. It is a challenge of the imagination. It is a challenge that calls on us to think of  "what might be if...."  As a result of thinking like this we create new possibilities that are counter cultural, counter intuitive and certainly not what society expects.

And it is inevitable that we are hesitant to follow the example of Jesus as counter intuitive and counter cultural action needs courage. By pausing before we act we are given time to override our gut reactions, hard wired into our brain as survival mechanisms, alongside fight or flight, appetite and motor movement.

When struggling to follow Jesus we pause and say a little prayer and in that moment we can move from the primitive gut reactions in the core of our hard wired brain to the graced wisdom that allows us to choose to do something that is not dictated by narrow survival thinking.

In the life and teaching of Jesus we can see many examples of counter intuitive and counter cultural action, graced by God. We need to study the life and teaching of Jesus to open our imaginations to the possibilities of living and acting in a completely different way. The gospels are a wonderful resource for the graced, generous imagination and studying the life of Jesus will help us to develop new ways of living.