The Togher

Eight and a half kilometres east of Tinahely in the lovely Irish garden county of Wicklow, is a crossroad. At that junction, R747 from Aughrim turns right towards Tinahely. Continuing south the road becomes R748. If you turn right, you head towards Co Wexford and a central town named Gorey. (Of course, you can Google map it, if you want to more nearly ‘get your bearings.’)

A stout white building stands on the North East corner ‘at the Togher,’ as it has for many years, perhaps for centuries. Barns and other out buildings, some more ancient even than the house lie almost hidden, back of the house.

The house was for many years the home of the Willoughby family, inhabited by my own near Willoughby relatives. There is a ‘Togher’ branch of the family and a ‘The Fields’ branch. The farmlands, called ‘townlands’ in Ireland, lie side-by-side and the Togher and the Fields Willoughby families farmed there accordingly, tenants on the Coolattin Estate of Lord FitzWilliam, for several generations.

I am descended through the Togher line but I have discovered a cousin in Dublin who is from the Fields line. We met and ‘walked the land’ at Kilavaney, a few years ago. Continuing to share genealogical passion, we regularly exchange information and family stories as best we remember them, or as discovered now by many years of painstaking, loving research.

My Togher line goes back to George Willoughby who was born about 1760. The Field line descends from Nicholas Willoughby. We have no idea as yet how the two lines connect but we are certain they do. The close proximity suggests that, for sure; but DNA tests too have shown that members of the two lines share virtual identity (as per findings re: the shared male Y chromosome).

I am drawn of course to this area, the Townland of Kilavaney, Co Wicklow, where my ancestors ‘lived and moved and had their being.’ George Willoughby (born circa 1780) and his wife Mary lived just a few hundred metres east of the Togher. Their son John Willoughby and his wife, who I think was Sarah (nee Willoughby of Co Wexford), were the parents of ‘my Charles Willoughby’ who, having married Sarah Langrill in 1849, came to Canada the same year, settling near Rockwood, Ontario in Eramosa Township. This latter couple had Sarah (and other children) who married John Barber, my paternal great-grandfather.

(Funny how some people love genealogy and this kind of data exchange, while others of you may already find that your eyes are glazing over.)

I am drawn also to this area because of it spiritual roots and history. In the Irish tongue, any name of a place that starts with ‘kil’ (for church) reveals ancient places of worship – tiny churches, some larger, and no doubt ancient monasteries and ‘religious houses,’ some dating back to times of St. Paladius or St. Patrick. Kilpatrick, Kilcommon, Kilpipe – all bespeak ancient context.

The next Townland east of Killavaney is Tubberpatrick. ‘Tubber’ (‘tober’ and the like) mean ‘a well’ (so: ‘Tobermory’ = ‘the well of Mary’). This ancient St. Patrick’s well where I’ve sat several times for minutes of contemplation, is said by local legend and wider lore and even in more historic and studied assertions, to have been visited by Patrick himself. (All of this of course can merely be like saying (in the US) that George Washington slept here or, in Canada, ‘In this barn William Lyon Mackenzie hid when escaping arrest for his part in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.)

‘Togher,’ in Irish (tochar) means ‘causeway.’ It’s likely that the high road R747 – R748 remains as testimony to an ancient causeway, perhaps a natural or man-made route across the bogs and marshlands around it. Tochar can also means ‘a pilgrim’s way.’ I like the way this name and this way lifts one out of and above the muck, how it helps folk on their way, ‘bridging’ from one area of hard, safe ground to another, providing access and movement to and fro, in this ancient land.

I would like to think that my life and ministry, that this site with even its random thoughts, shared discoveries, explorations, pointers and tentative findings — and even a few conclusions, might help others too along the Way. I am a person of faith, and I think that does (and should) shape my thinking, passions and activities. You may be, or not, a person of faith too; but at any rate, can we not help each other on the Journey(?), sharing insights, welcomes and even warnings, that will help to lift us up and avoid some marshy places where miry clay would cling and suck us down, to safer, firmer footing along tried and true pathways.

So, that’s why: ‘Tochar.’ Now to see what might happen further at that junction, at this junction of life, and on that causeway perhaps, at least in our shared mind’s eye and sure heart’s hope.

The Necessary Heresy of Denominations?

The Church is a self-correcting Body, continually changing, continually needing to change; continually reforming, continually needing to be reformed. Every so often, however, a group in the Body arises, convinced that there is too much of something or not enough of something – that something is missing; that something (or Some One) needs to be added.

The correction is made, usually over some period of time – sometimes very quickly — always painfully, for those who need reforming don’t like to be told so; and those who see the need to reform are, frankly, sometimes ‘jerks.’ But sometimes they are loving, lovely, well-meaning people, albeit persistent (can you spell ‘obnoxious’ or just ‘determined’?) who champion the new correction that often becomes a new Movement, for they have rightly discerned and expressed concern, and the correction needed for some aspect that needs to be brought to the attention of the whole, the wider body. However, they are not usually welcomed, listened to, wanted; prophets seldom are. The parting is usually painful, at least on one side.

The new groups become heretical sects because, though their initial reason and perspective, input and correction has been (and may still be needed albeit unwanted) to instruct, correct, re-direct the Body. In themselves, or left to themselves, they will become, in themselves, a (new) heresy, with attending heresies created as necessarily intended for the self-protection, preservation and perseverance of the group. It is ironic that the corrective becomes the next heresy.

The new movement becomes heretical because its major focus, and necessarily or at least understandably so, is on the corrective itself: on that doctrine, that initiative, that missing thesis or praxis that is believed so necessary for the health of the whole body. In concentrating on that piece (why it is necessary and what the fruit if accepted or curse if rejected), however, focus is lost on the wider health, concerns, theology and praxes of the whole. The new emphasis that has been sought had been seen as a way of bringing new life, balance and so-on to the Body as the whole, but usually, sooner or later, the proponents have been made to separate from the Body, as schismatics, by themselves or by the Body. The Church becomes sub-divided into many sects. The Body has need of them and they need the Body, but the push and separation on both sides is greater than any pull to remain or even towards reunion.

A Body can live without a hand but not vice-versa. Ultimately, the heresy will die – or, at least, one would think such a plight inevitable for the new group or movement. Usually, however this does not happen, for neither the Body nor the new group remains ‘pure’ in itself. The Body begins to gradually adopt the corrective suggested, in ways it now thinks fit, and with timing that limits too many jarring effects. It can do this more easily now that the strident proponents have left or been expelled. So, for every Reformation there is a Counter-Reformation by the mother body.

Catholics in history have simply(?) adapted and adopted through new ‘Orders’ that brought significant renewal, health and new focus directions. In Protestant ‘movement,’ Luther had no idea what he was starting when he made himself and his interpretation of Scripture the norm and the means for ongoing discernment of ‘God’s true Word.’ Instead of the Church saying what the Scriptures said and meant, Luther said what the Scriptures said and meant; the Reformers joined him in this approach. They may have been right (do we have to say that they were?).

Cannot one protest and seek reformation without leaving, without being expelled? Can we incorporate diversity in the midst of unity without having to submit to some unattainable uniformity? Isn’t it a scandal that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of Protestant denominations, all with views of Scriptures, truth, teaching, interprestations, perspectives (all with attending praxes) – all claiming to be right, inspired, closer to God’s ways and truth, and so on?! Catholics must just shake their head in bewilderment amusement, scorn or pity at this continuing protest phenomenon which is even celebrated by the Reformers cliche, Ecclesia semper reformanda est Latin for “the church is always to be reformed”. I think that is a true statement. I don’t think it means we have to always split to do it or see it done.

What God allows does not equate with what God likes.

But for us, like it or not, each new movement as with the whole Body will adapt and incorporate into its own life and practice what the other has, with more or less lasting effect and greater or less so health-giving effect. The Body will survive until a new heresy is needed(?), or at least arises, to correct it; the old heresy will only survive for awhile in its original state and ‘purity’ and only continue if it takes into itself all that the Body has, offers and gives as necessary for full health and the group’s flourishing. Most sects do eventually take in the wider aspects of Body-life. Some denominations are virtually inextinguishable; some are still fighting the church they left and have no idea that it has become very much like their own.

It would be better if the sects, like smaller life-boats let down for awhile in dangerous times and treacherous seas, would come back to the main ship, and climb on board once more — and this time (in more gentle, loving, patient – but no less persistent ways), seek the health of the whole Body.

Would the Body let them? Would the sects desire such even if they could?

‘That they may be one . . . ‘ Jesus still prays.

Blessing

The origin of the word for ‘blessing’ in the ancient Semitic (including Hebrew), was in the root b-r-k. It gave the idea of “kneeling,” as one would kneel before a ruler or one’s better, as favour was given and/or received, or as one knelt as did a camel or a desert wanderer to drink the life-sustaining water of a well at a desert oasis.

In Old English, blesian (to consecrate with blood) gave meaning to the word “to bless.” The French word blesser and blessure for wound or injuries also is rooted in this idea. But the English word “bless” has a different idea then the ancient French usage, for today the French use the word benir or benediction when having the English meaning for blessing.

Whatever the linguistic data may show, Jesus’ works and words are saturated with the idea of blessing, for in taking upon Himself the wounds of our world, our wounds and those of the whole creation, Jesus also heals them – heals us all.

It is Jesus Who makes possible a New Creation, through His life of service and sacrifice and pre-eminently in His ‘finished work’ on the Cross of Calvary. Just as in being God’s Word He created the first creation in which we now live, His finished work of the old and His beginning work of the New makes possible the creating of a New Creation, a new world in which one day we shall live, a new world and order of things of shalom. Even now, Christians are called in some measure to enter and experience some of the realities of this new world, the Kingdom-come and coming, to live in it by faith and obedience and to live it out in good measure, now that we have become “new creatures in Christ Jesus.” But for us still doing so means we will know a life that is no stranger to wounds and sacrifice, still necessary if we are to be blest and to be a blessing.

In the in Beatitudes (in Matthew 5) the Greek word translated “blessed” is makarios. I am taken by the idea of blessing being linked to woundedness, for again: there can be no blessing without sacrifice and suffering. Wounds of what we have done to others and to ourselves and the effects of the world’s brokenness effect us all, coming through us or to us in the sacrifices and wounds of others, whether or not they intend that through them we should receive blessing. Only God can turn wounds into blessings, as He works in us for good . . .

So, what if we were to change the word “blessed” or “blest”[or “happy” as it is sometimes translated) with the word “wounded,” as we re-read the words of the Beatitudes? Then we would have – “Wounded are the merciful. . . .” “Wounded are the peacemakers . . .” “Wounded are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake,” and so on. All these wounds are real and true, and we and others suffer with them; but they are not the end of the story – “for theirs . . .”  “for they shall be . . . ”

Jesus’ words of blessing may also be contrasted with his words of cursing or ‘woe!’ to scribes and pharisees and other such hypocrites of His day (and ours). For just as blessings come through wounds, curses come to those who are not willing to sacrifice or to suffer wounds, or who unknowingly or maliciously cause wounds in others, or who pretend to know of no such experiences in their own lives. Lliving as they do with attitudes of entitlement, they are surprised when bad things happen – not to others, but to themselves. After all, they have sought to live pure, perfect lives. But they have not learned that good comes only through sacrifice, through someone’s suffering (for them). They refuse to allow the wounds of others and the wounded-ness of the world to touch them deeply in heart and mind. They refuse to make sacrifices so that others might receive blessing. But they could change their minds (repentance) and seek another perspective and stance. They could look to Christ and humbly receive the benefits of His wounds.

Loved in Lent

The Lenten Season reminds us of all of those times when we know hardship and difficulty. It is a time in-between. We say, “in the meanwhile . . .” And sometimes, in such times, it can really be ‘a mean-while.’

It’s easy to feel ourselves in a muddle, some days, in the midst of one mess or another, in the middle – in this ‘mean time.’ From the lectionary, we read: ‘In the midst of Lent, our faces are pressed hard against the reality of our sin & our death. If we did not know how the story ends, this would be a dark, depressing journey. But we do know how the story ends and therefore in the midst of austerity & fasting we remember our faithful Savior & the Easter declaration that life is always victorious over death – always!’

Frederick Buechner writes, “The biblical view is that history is not an absurdity to be endured, an allusion to be dispelled or an endlessly repeating cycle to be escaped. Instead, it is for each of us as series of crucial, precious & repeatable moments that are seeking to lead us somewhere.”

And, from Psalm 27 (selected verses) — The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid? Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident. One thing I ask from the Lord, this only I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord & to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. Teach me your way, Lord; lead me in a straight path.

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

So we take courage, our hearts grow strong and once again we determine to throw our lives into the struggle on the side of peace justice and love. In the midst of Lent, in the middle and muddle of life, somehow we cling on to God’s Hand: – or perhaps rather, we our hands and our whole being are clutched by God.

My father used to sing a hymn as we worked together in the fields of our farm: – God holds the key of all unknown, and I am glad; If other hands should hold the key, or if He trusted it to me, I would be sad.

What if tomorrow’s care were here, without its rest? I’d rather He unlocked the day, and as the hours swing open, say: ‘His will is best.’

The very dimness of my sight makes me secure; For, groping in my misty way, I feel His Hand, I hear Him say – ‘My help is sure.’

I cannot read His future plans, but this I know – I have the smiling of His Face, and all the refuge of His grace, while here below.

And so, even in a broken world we are full of hope, we Christ-followers – even in Lent, the cold of winter and the deserts of life. We are not alone. We are tended by God. And we.  are.  so.  loved

On and Off

When I’m ‘on’ with the Lord, good things come to me.

When I’m not; they don’t.

I can’t explain it. I wouldn’t say it’s normal or biblical or the way it should be or always is.

When I’m walking more nearly, loving Him more dearly, I can see more clearly, day by day, at least a little more – what’s going on, where I should go, what I should do. Is that too what it means to be led of the Spirit? Do you have this experience – ever?

When I say, good things come to me . . .

it’s not that I win the Lottery (apparently you have to play to do that, and I think that’s just silly), nor do I find parking spots more readily, or I don’t get a bad cold.

Good things that come to me are opportunities for ministry – the care and love and serving of people. You don’t have to create opportunities – they come at you.

It’s as if the Lord knows you’re ready – you’re ‘on.’ You have something to give; more than some other times, you are letting the Spirit flow in and through you – and God wants someone else to get in on the blessing.

You don’t have to try so much – or strive to make contacts or go places to make things happen. If you wait on the Lord – and often just wait, God will bring people across your path that you know you must love & serve.

Wrote A.W. Tozer: “Look after the roots; God will look after the fruits.” What did he mean?

Look to your spiritual life. Get some water and nourishment into you. God will make sure you have opportunity to share it to the great benefit of others.

“Abide in me,” says Jesus, “for without me you can do nothing.”

Scripture – Allowance and Usage

“Either you allow Holy Scriptures to change you, or you will normally try to use it to change–and clobber–other people. It is the height of idolatry to use the supposed Word of God so that my small self can be in control and be right. But I am afraid this has been more the norm than the exception in the use of the Bible.” ~ Richard Rohr

A Christmas Prayer

Poets’, preachers’ letters, words —
Strong and weak, inspire to share,
Dull shepherds, mighty angels’ chantry:
Stories lift like birds in air.

Tapped on fonts of every blessing,
Share the hope amidst the swell,
Promises of peace unceasing:
Bring a drink from Bethlehem’s Well.

Lift the words from static pages,
Breathe the Story into flight!
Break the pause of writer’s darkness,
Pierce the dark of winter’s night!

Living in A Much Bigger World

Mark 4:30 – 41

³⁰ Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. ³² Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

³³ With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. ³⁴ He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

³⁵ That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” ³⁶ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. ³⁷ A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. ³⁸ Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

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Some years ago, and perhaps they still have them, I was looking at one of those pictures that is comprised of small objects on a flat surface, that seem colorful but pointless until upon further examination a whole new dimension within the confines of the frame appears before your eyes.

There is a world we have not yet discovered.

A businessman in Washington DC was ‘killed’ on a bridge when his car skidded on wet pavement but later he wrote the story about it. “When it happened,” he said, “it was as if everything was occurring in slow motion.” He wrote about how he felt himself being thrown from his body and hovering for several minutes a few feet above the scene of the accident. He watched the police and medics arrive and saw them working on his body. He felt completely serene and joyous even; in fact he had never felt so good in his entire life. He heard a voice calling him back into his body, a voice that he resisted for he did not want to return. “You still have much work to do,” said the voice. Reluctantly, he came back. The medics were startled for they had found no pulse or heartbeat and were sure that he was dead. His whole life was reoriented by this experience. “Now,” he says, “he has become a loving and generous person who is never anxious about the things that once troubled him. His entire existence has become “beautifully religious.”

We hear of such wonders from time to time I mostly do not know what to make of them. We want to believe that they are true – that there is more going on than we have yet known or discomfort – that wonders, miracles and mysteries still abound.

Some years ago, the book, “Embraced by the Light,” was on all the bestseller lists. It was about a woman who had a near-death experience as well and wrote about it. Unfortunately it seems to be a book that teaches primarily Mormon doctrine. And as a Mormon, she purports to speak the truth now based on experience. Because we are not sure, or we are very sure, of the truth or falseness of what some advocate is truth, we find it hard to discern between what is and what may be, between darkness and light, error, fancy and fantasy and truth, wholesome doctrine and reality.

The witness of world religions.

Those who follow the religion of Zoroastrianism believe that history is a struggle between two forces – light and darkness. However, they have no assurance as to which of the two forces will win in the end. Buddhism teaches that this world is nothing but an endless cycle of suffering and the followers of Buddha can only hope for the nirvana that lies outside the sphere of space, time, and history in which all consciousness is lost and personal identity is abolished. Hinduism teaches that the world is basically unreal and that sooner or later this world and all within it will return to Brahma from which it has come, leaving no trace that we ever were, and assuring us that history has no significance.

Only the biblical message gives firm assurance that the history of humanity is not a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury – that is a purposeful unfolding of a great and loving plan of a loving God, a plan that will end in the full establishment of God’s Kingdom purposes and rule.

The wonders of science.

At a conference at the end of the 1800s, a wise man gave learned input. He said, “There will be no more major discoveries; all the significant, world changing discoveries have already been made.” The man’s name was Wright. He was a Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, and He was the father of the Wright brothers who made the first air flights. On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur made history. Their motorized vehicle defied the law of gravity and flew through the air. The idea of flight was not new. Years before they got off the ground at Kitty Hawk, mathematicians and scientists have proven that flight was possible. That many who read the facts could not believe that flying whatever actually become reality. The Wright brothers believe the facts and mathematical formulae; they believed and they acted – building their wonderful flying machine. One must act upon what one believes if one wants results.

Note: Charles H. Duell, who was commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1899.  He was (apparently falsely) alleged to have said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

There was a time in the history of humankind, when scientists believed not only in God but that all things in the world had been treated by him and only awaited discovery. John Kepler, when he caught sight of the great laws of planetary motion, exclaimed, “Oh God, I think thy thoughts after thee.” But gradually science has come to be paramount in modern and postmodern worldview, leading to an upper story and lower story view of the universe and of all reality. Issues of faith were kicked upstairs and the world of personal, subjective experience was removed and separated from the real world of science and facts. Today, as Thomas T Torrance puts it, “Perhaps the first time in the history of thought Christianity is in the midst of a scientific culture that is no longer antithetical to spiritual reality but is operating within a non-dualistic worldview not inconsistent with Christian faith.” In other words, and in many ways, scientists are back into acknowledging that there is mystery and wonder in the universe and much that remains largely un-explained.

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus calms the storm and we note his reversal of sin’s effect over nature. The good of creation is made for our blessing but often it turns on us and threatens us, even unto death. We have seen in many winters how “California dreaming” can change very quickly into California nightmares. We can be in a restored relationship with the earth. We can have again restored to us the authority in an over our world as was originally God’s intent for us as stewards of his creation. If we could hear Jesus in this passage, we would have much more to bring as Christians and as the church to the ecological issues and struggles of our day. And this is not just about talk and argument, but about the power of the creating and re-creating spirit of God.

The testimony of beauty – art, music, poetry.

Emily Dickinson the wonderful US poet wrote, “Art is a house that longs to be haunted.” The great artists and poets have known that. There are things that poets know that scientist do not. Artists and poets have sought, as van Gogh put it, “to grasp life at its depth.” He wrote –

All nature seems to speak.

As for me, I cannot understand why everybody does not sense it or feel it;

God does it for everyone who has eyes and ears and a heart to understand.

The father of the Irish Academy award-winning actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, was C Day-Lewis, the late British poet laureate. The father tells us that no true artists can be purely ‘a materialist’ because all truly creative artists know that the source of their art is too deep for materialism to explain. We all have within us music, poetry and a sense of beauty. Even living in a city that is cold, noisy and sometimes dirty – and always busy, one’s heart is sometimes melted by the beauty we happen upon, the discovering of some radiant truth, the remembrance of a hunting loveliness, the goodness of the saintly person. The trouble is that we never stopped to ask ourselves what kind of people we are that we can be haunted by dreams too beautiful to be untrue and truth too deep for tears. Why is it that as creatures of the earth we find that earthly things cannot satisfy? Why is it that we long for the eternal?

 The Kingdom of God.

This material world is only part of the more spiritual world from which it derives its significance. The kingdom of God is very, very small – at first; it seems tiny, insignificant, pointless and obscure. They gradually it grows to become something larger and beautiful, powerful – even astounding. It grows as God continues his work in and through us, the body of Christ, the church. Our perspective of God’s work in redeeming and reconstructing and reconciling the world to himself – our apprehension of it and our facilitation in it, only occurs as we trust and obey.

 Opening to a much bigger world.

The crisis of faith.

Robert Louis Stevenson observed, “There is a sort of dead–alive people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. They have dwarfed and narrowed their soul by a life of all work, until here they are at 40, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material for amusement, and not one thought to rub against another while waiting for the train.” For many, that precipitates what we have come to call the “midlife crisis.”

Sheldon Vanauken, in a letter to CS Lewis, during his own search for meaning, faith, for God, wrote, “There is a leap I cannot make. It occurs to me that you, having made it, having linked certainty with Christianity might not do it for me. Having felt the aesthetic and historical appeal of Christianity, having begun to study it, I have come to awareness of the strength and possible-ness of the Christian answer. I should like to believe it. I want to know God – if he is noble. But I cannot pray with any conviction that someone hears. I cannot believe.” in his reply, Lewis wrote, “my own position at the threshold of Christianity was exactly the opposite of yours. You wish it were true – I strongly hope it was not.”

Again, Vanauken wrote: “Christianity was something with which I wanted nothing to do. How could any intelligent person actually believe it, that an obscure crucified Jew was God!? What was so odd was that quite a lot of people, even highly intelligent people, did apparently believe it. T.S. Eliot for instance, or Eddington – in fact, quite a few physicists, the very last people one would expect to be taken in. And philosophers too. We then were not Christians – our friends were. We liked them anyway.”

 A new way of seeing. Paradigm shift.

Alan Roxborough writes, “It is critical for us to remember that the worldview we have embraced the last 300 years is not rooted in the long tradition of Christianity.” Sometimes it is a matter of words – of semantics and perspective. Says one writer, “the scientists view on such subjects as God, morality, life after death, are apt to be about as enlightening as a theologians view on the structure of the atom or the cause and cure of the common cold.” The conflict between science and religion is like the conflict between a podiatrist and a poet. One says that Susie Smith has fallen arches; the other says that she walks in beauty like the night. In his own way, each is speaking the truth. What is at issue is the kind of truth you are after.”

God in Christ offers transformation, that we become new creatures. This is more than mere change but something that grows from our deep self, our deep center that expands our empowered freedom even in the midst of the power of other outer events. When our inner selves waken and stretch; when we stand up and move out and make choices, our terror of change becomes the hunger and thirst and ecstasy of growing. Our inner unfolding rises from a living relationship with God rather than from laws and commands.

 Linking with the unseen by faith.

Our faith does not depend finally on logically sufficient evidence. If it did, only scholars could believe. “It is not easy to be a believer. Every war, every shipwreck, every cancer case, every calamity – seems to contribute to making a prima facie case against Christianity.” Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. If it can be verified; we do not need faith! And yet, faith is not unreasonable.

The Internet and the new communication highways help us communicate around the world via an unseen “kingdom.” The lens of bits of information about every subject imaginable are not only conceivable but reachable. It is all there, one has only to plug-in to access it. One needs a modem and software and access links – and a subscription. If we knew how to listen to God, we would hear him speaking to us – for God speaks. He speaks in the Scripture and in the gospel; he speaks through our lives and through all the beauty and wonder of creation around us. Our lives are the new gospel to which we ourselves at a page in each new day.

The Master in the boat is the master of the universe nothing can happen to us that is beyond his cannon or care, or beyond his ability or will to intervene. But he also teaches us that we could and perhaps should care more for ourselves, if we had faith, if we believed more for ourselves – believe not in ourselves, but in the God who is always there.

“Why are you so afraid?” Jesus rebukes us, as he did his earlier disciples. “Do you still have no faith?!” Is faith simply in waking up Jesus or and indifferent God, or does it not rather mean that we are now able and free, as the new humanity, to live and walk by faith – that is to trust and obey? – So that God’s power is released into every situation, whether in the calm or in the storm. It is not how much faith we have, it is whether we have faith enough to link our own inability and inadequacy to the power and sufficiency, and loving care, of God. Our faith can be so very small and yet as we live it out, we can join in the most incredible adventure. Not only the most personally satisfying enriching experience of life our hours, but also – as Jesus parable implies, we can be most helpful for others in God’s world, who need the support, the shadow and the provision, that God brings through our trust in obedience, as a little bush that is the kingdom in you and me grows.

Tugs and Pulls

A famous German theologian was walking on the movers on a misty, gray day, when he happened upon a little boy flying a kite. The kite was so high that it was almost out of sight, In fact he became invisible in a missed of a low cloud. The professor said to the little boy, “how do you know it is there still?” And he replied at once – “because I can feel the pull of it.” Not long after, someone asked the professor, “Why do you believe in God and in spiritual reality when you cannot see or prove it? ” and he immediately responded in the words of the little boy: “I believe because I feel the pull of it. “

We are living in a huge world with many wonders and ministries and realities yet to be discovered and some that we will never know because they are secrets of the heart and mind of God, our Creator. But there are not things that I have been may be revealed to us as we seek to look to God and walk with God, as we seek in Holy Spirit and strength to trust and obey. And as we do – we will feel the tug of it, the tug of God’s heart of love for us.

Children of God – For Now

Here are some words from the book we all love [I John 3:1 – 3]. How great is the love that the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called the children of God – and that is what we are. The world does not know us because it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are the children of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in Him, keeps himself pure.

First, God adopted us to be his children, his sons and daughters, made like unto his Son, Jesus. And if we are children then we are heirs, says St. Paul in Romans eight, and if heirs, then joint heirs with Jesus.

First, God adopted us to be his children – and calls us such, because of the finished work of Jesus on our behalf. But secondly God is making us – and is going to make us fully, like Jesus, Who although He remains eternally the Son of God, has also been exalted to a high place – the Highest Place in the heavens and spiritual realms of Glory. “He became what we are that we might become what he is.” As a Son, He learned obedience in the things that He suffered; learned such things on earth when he was revealed as the eternal Son of God. In the same way, we also must learn obedience – and trust in the Father, through the suffering that is graciously brought or allowed to enter our lives. No Cross – no Crown: Jesus had cross; each of his followers must take up cross as well, and follow.

God is revealed to us by Jesus as a Father – the ‘Eternal Father, strong to save.’ When you pray,’ says Jesus, begin with the words, “Our father.”

The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus welcomes us as brothers and sisters. On the Great Day, He will say to the Father in the hearing of all gathered – “Here am I and the children You have given Me.” Jesus, the writer clearly states, does not despise (is not ashamed) to call us brothers and sisters. He identifies with us in our humanity, that we might be with Him in the Father’s Glory – restored and renewed and re-entering the Creation that has become New Creation. He brings us towards – and ultimately to, the Eternal Father, and to the purposes God has for us – has had them along time: before the foundation of the earth. The Eastern Orthodox Church has called this ‘divination.’ I think we in the Western Church ought to give more attention to this, to contemplate the heavenly possibilities and the grace that has brought us so near to the dance; that has invited us to join the dance of the Eternal Godhead.

As Jesus’ followers, we become – we now are, ‘the children of God;’ – that is who we are. When Jesus the Son of God was here with our race walking on the earth He had created, revealing God amongst the children of God, he was not recognized as such, a Son of Man – not recognized as God himself come in the flesh [Emmanuel]. In all the ways that Jesus as God’s Son was not recognized, even “by his own,” in the same ways too, throughout history since then, till our day, God’s children are not recognized. As was true of Jesus is true of us.

This speaks first of all about the Church’s past and present reality: The world does not know us because it did not know him.” But in the same way, the present union and likeness will give place to a future and new reality where we shall continue to be like Jesus. He was not known; nor are we. But one day: — He shall appear and shall be known – and every knee shall bow. And then too, the true sons and daughters of God, His children – that’s who we are(!) – will also be revealed.

He is now the Son and we are now the children. Yet, He is also now exalted, has entered into the right-hand position of God, exists with God in eternal fellowship. That’s our hope too; hope, for it has not yet happened as it will one day, and it has already for Jesus. But we too shall be resurrected and we too will be brought into the places and positions God has chosen for each of us in the New Creation – to a deeper, and closer relationship with God the Father than we can now experience. Each one who is truly faith-full and a true Jesus apprentice will be brought fully into proper relationship with God and into the proper place of our eternal destiny, service and purpose, in the Life that is to come – a life that even now to some extent, can – though known imperfectly and seen ‘darkly’ – be glimpsed and to some degree entered upon now; that is, even before we die.

“It does not yet appear what we shall be.”

I used to think this verse led us to think only about the unknowable – the mystery and wonder of what would be ahead for us, in the life to come, but which at this point of human existence no one could fathom. I believe now that there is a clear comparison between Jesus and his followers in all stages: past, present and future, and that we are eternally linked together because of His identification with us (and ours with Him). God linked us with Him so that He might bring us Home to God, home to the Garden, home to the Promised Land, home to the Creation itself and to the Creation-purposes for which we were created. As we have repented and believed (changed our minds about living our way and started following Him and trusting His righteous acts on our behalf), as we have identified with Jesus in his death and burial and resurrection (signified in our baptism), so also will we be united with Him in His resurrection, and resurrection-life, and brought into the Life of the age-to-come, into the eternal future God has prepared for those who love Him. That identity and likeness has begun and will continue eternally, or as they say at church: ‘world without end.’

There will of course be that likeness made possible through our seeing Jesus in the future, when we shall fully see and know Him for Who He truly is. At this stage, we do not see rightly or very much, really. O, to to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly; follow Thee more nearly, day by day. One day we will see fully. However, there is enough for us now, each according to the measure of our faith, that we may see and know of Jesus – of his person and work, that we may begin at least to look at Him and to look like Him.

St. Paul in a letter to the Church at Corinth compares the Old Testament people of God who looked upon Moses as he returned from the presence of God revealed on Mount Sinai, and who had to cover his face because of the glory that shone from it, and who kept the veil on even when the glory had passed because he did not want the people to know (there’s a whole line of contemplation and hmmm, there for us) – a comparison with that old covenant story with the New Testament and Holy Spirited ability of God’s people to , with “unveiled faces,”  behold the glory of the Lord. ‘As we behold his glory,’ writes Paul – as we look upon Jesus, ‘we are transformed more and more into His image.’ We become more and more like Jesus, more God-like (in Imago Dei once more), more conformed to His person, like Him in His ways.

The Lord who is the Spirit does this within the believer by a work of grace, for God pours out upon the Church and upon each believer the very nature of Christ and the same abilities of Christ’s Body to continue God’s work in the world. Of course we do not believe this, most of the time, Yet, to say it another way, the fruit of the Holy Spirit makes us look like Jesus – in our attitudes and motivations, in our compassion and in our care for God’s world and all things, and everyone, in it. The fruit of the Spirit does that within us and through us. The gifts of the Holy Spirit given to the Church give evidence of the continuing presence of Christ in the world, and enable the Church and Jesus’ followers to continue doing the work of Christ. In short, the fruit help us to be like Jesus; the gifts help us to do like Jesus.

“Everyone who has this hope in him, keeps himself pure.”

The verse is not talking about mere morality, about a kind of rigid, puritanical morality that leads so often to Pharisaical miss-the-point comparisons, in excesses of put-down and fault-finding attitudes and abilities. (What if we have made our churches more in the image and ways of the Pharisees than in the image and ways of Jesus!)

The root and meaning of the word is linked to that of ‘holiness.’ Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. It is not so much about our trying really hard to be as good as gold, and certainly not to being ‘goody-good.’ It has more to do with our knowing who we are in Christ, about our calling our reserving and preserving ourselves for such; about keeping ourselves for God’s intended purposes, which of course includes keeping ourselves clean or at least being cleansed as often as need be. Whether holy vessels in the Old Testament for sacrificial worship (kept clean but still used – and so they would have to be continually cleansed but still useful – as we do for our own household dishes), or the knowledge in the development of ourselves in our holy spirited vocations calling and purpose, all are givens, and are to be cleansed again and again and used continually as we serve the Lord. For, all things, every creature, every place, exists for God’s pleasure and purposes.

We are like flames that burn as brightly as each one can, in order to enlighten dark places. We keep the oil within pure – no flies in the ointment, in order that we might be the biggest and best flame that God intends us to be, according to how he made us and to what ends – whether as a wee candle or a brightly burning bush. A toaster oven does not burn bright; there is much heat because there is more resistance than, say, an incandescent bulb. It is resistance, rebellion, distractions, unnecessary things (sins) that get in the way of our being bright lights in the darkness around us. But sometimes even the restrictions God can use for purposes often unknown to us.

In discovering who we are, even now (we are children of God) and realizing the likeness we share with Jesus – even now as we do as He did then on earth, in hidden-ness, obscurity and in not being known, as well as one day (at His appearing and our fully knowing Him and being fully revealed and known ourselves), we receive hope and we must guard and treasure it, as inherent gift and joy of knowing and serving God. In the thrill of God shining in and through us, may there be unceasing resolve to be as ‘pure’ as we can be – not for show, but for tell.

Now – we are children, very much like Jesus, the Son. Then – still very much like  Jesus and linked to Him still, we and He will be fully  revealed. And we shall see all that God has planned for us, in Him.

Love Beyond Telling – But It’ll Cost You.

Mark 10:21. Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have & give to the poor, & you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

I don’t think we comprehend the fact that God really loves us; that God is for us; that God wants us to be who He created us to be when He saw us and loved us before the foundation of the world – how he imagined we would emerge, develop and unfold, and come into full-humanity because of the freeing-up work of Jesus and the inner ministry of the Holy Spirit. . . . that God wants to make us very rich in the sense of having all things that make for our true, deep and lasting peace and happiness.

It’s difficult for us to give up the things we think make us rich, and see them really as poverty, compared to the riches God wants to give to us. We’re not sure it’s such a bargain, to put it, as did Jim Eliot, martyred by the Auca Indians of the Amazon jungle: “He is no fool who gives what He cannot keep to gain what He cannot lose.”

Love is the Word. In the Old Testament, it is Chesed which in the New Testament in essence is the very same as Agape. It is God’s ‘covenant love’ – shown to His People from ancient times. It is a love that is deep, faithful, lasting, transformative; that keeps its promise, that does what it says it will do.  “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” the Lord says to His People – says to us.

There is an Irish man who died a few years ago, John O’Donohue, whose (who’s) poems are elsewhere on this site. He was taken too soon, in his early 50’s. His writing continues to grab my consciousness, my heart, and helps me explore the deep places of me, the deep mysteries of God, and the deep wonders of Creation; helps me savour more deeply the fact that God has so loved the world, and loves it still. He has, as many Irish writers and poets do, the ability to put words into meaning in new  and arresting ways: thoughts that make me pause and go: hmmm. Insights like these: —

— One of the wonderful insights of the Celtic imagination was that the landscape is alive. It would make a huge difference in one’s life when you leave your house, whether you believe you are walking out merely into ‘location,’ simply dead space, that you’re crossing only to get to where you need to go, or whether you believe that you are actually walking into a living universe. If you believe the second, then your walk becomes a different thing!

Or — Consumerism is the worship of the god of quantity; advertising is its liturgy. Advertising is schooling in false longing. I wonder if the rich young ruler could comprehend such wisdom . . .

O’Donahue says that: Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is: what did I really see this day?  And pearls like – As you enter into the dream that brought you here, and awaken its beauty in you, then beauty will gradually awaken all around you.

In the same spirit, and with much depth of understanding, he wrote this wonderful prayer – a blessing for someone’s birthday:

Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day the blueprint of your life would begin to glow on earth, 

Illuminating all the faces and voices that would arrive, to invite your soul to grow.

Praised be your father and mother who loved you before you were, 

And trusted to call you here with no idea who you would be.

Blessed be those who have loved you into becoming who you were meant to be.

Blessed be those who have crossed your life with dark gifts of hurt and loss

That have helped to school your mind in the art of disappointment.

When desolation surrounded you, blessed be those who looked for you and found you, 

Their kind hands urgent to open a window in the grey wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice, your health, eyes to behold the world, 

Thoughts to countenance the unknown, memory to harvest vanished days, 

Your heart to feel the world’s waves, 

Your breath to breathe the nourishment of distance made intimate by earth.

On this echoing-day of your birth, may you open the gift of solitude

In order to receive your soul, enter the generosity of silence

To hear your hidden heart, know the serenity of stillness.

To be enfolded anew by the miracle of your being.

And then there is his wonderful poem – a blessing: Bennach, in Irish.

On the day when

The weight deadens

On your shoulders

And you stumble,

May the clay dances

To balance you.

And when your eyes

Freeze behind

The gray window

And the ghost of loss

Gets in to you,

May a flock of colors,

Indigo, red, green

And azure blue

Come to awaken in you

A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

In the curach of thought

And a stain of ocean

Blackens beneath you,

May there come across the waters

A path of yellow moonlight

To bring you safely home.

 

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

And may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.

 

What if the rich young ruler could have imagined that there are treasures beyond telling available to him; available to us all? Treasures to be discovered in coming to know and to follow this Jesus who loves us so much, and that it is worth giving up, and giving away. everything and anything that gets in the way of our knowing Him, and our being able to receive, with empty hands, such love.

One last word:  May your prayer of listening deepen enough to hear in the depths the laughter of God.