see-through faith

no, not that kind of 7up

I came across this on another blog, and thought it worth re-posting and commenting on

‘The first is wake-up – Begin the day with the Lord. It is His day. Rejoice in it.

The second is dress-up – Put on a smile. It improves your looks. It says something about your attitude.

The third is shut-up – Watch your tongue. Don’t gossip. Say nice things. Learn to listen.

The fourth is stand-up – Take a stand for what you believe. Resist evil. Do good.

Five, look-up – Open your eyes to the Lord. After all, He is your only Savior.

Six, reach-up – Spend time in prayer with your adorations, confessions, thanksgivings and supplications to the Lord.

And finally, lift-up – Be available to help those in need – serving, supporting, and sharing.’

(taken from here)

 

I like the ideas contained in these seven-ups, though I don’t pretend it’s totally easy to do. Whoever said being a Christian is easy? That’s absurd when you come to think about it! Being a Christian – following a radical Jesus as Shane Claiborne puts it – and taking on the powers of darkness by being counter cultural for the sake of the Kingdom can never be easy!

I suppose my only concern with these it’s the ‘dress-up’ bit. It makes me uncomfortable not because it’s talking about dressing smarter – it isn’t – but because there is a danger that putting on a smile descends into masking how we actually feel.  But I do agree that we can smile more – because following Jesus – in spite of the struggles, persecution and hardships – is a JOY and nothing can separate us from the love of God.

I used that phrase in my last post – and since then have had time to think about it. Is the quasi-ness describing the Christian, or the community or both? I’m not sure.

quasi- according to the dictionary means ‘Having a likeness to something; resembling’ … for me it means ‘not quite’ … we are not quite a Christian community here at the Compass. We are all Christians – yes. We all love Jesus – yes.

But – and this is the clincher I think- that isn’t necessarily spilling over into our everyday lives.  Not yet.

I suppose too part of the problem is each of our understanding of what community really is.

I’d like prayer to be a greater part of our community. Private prayer and communal prayer. I sit alone most mornings – breakfast  me and God – and right now I’m using Shane Claiborne’s: Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. January’s theme is new monasticism.  I was really touched by yesterday’s illustration from the desert fathers.

A brother came to see Abba Poeman and said to him “Abba, I have many thoughts and they put me in danger”. The old man led him outside and said to him “Expand your chest and do not breathe in’. He said ‘I cannot do that’ Then the old man said to him “If you cannot do that, no more can you prevent thoughts from arising, but you can resist them”

I really liked that because it reminded me that we do have the power to resist in us. It comes from God. It is God.  And so when I’m struggling with thoughts of quasi-ness (if that’s even a word) I can recognise that for God all things are possible and what is required from me in this is to spend time with Him, to hear what He says, to obey Him in the small things as well as the bigger tasks – and to let Him be God.

A good start to a new year in this place I think.

Sitting at Helsinki airport en route back to the UK for another half a year of work for Inspire and my PhD studies. Why are goodbyes so hard …

it’s not that I don’t like being over in England – I do – I like it a lot. I like living in a quasi-Christian community, I love the work with Inspire and even my PhD studies aren’t bad (most of the time!) … but I don’t like leaving home, saying goodbye to family friends and the dogs (especially the cute puppies). And I miss so many of the good things about living in Finland

Once I get back into the UK routine it will be fine , but transitions are hard. Just sayin’

On the heels of my previous post I came across this blog article.

Scripture is rife with examples of people welcoming friends and travelers alike into their homes and lives. We are called to greet strangers as friends and to share abundantly with them, and Jesus offers harsh words for people who fail to show adequate hospitality.

In recent decades, the picture has been complicated by Martha Stewart’s magazine and other resources that equate hospitality with handmade place cards and expensive flatware. These magazines miss the point of hospitality. I’ve sat at immaculate dinner tables and felt like an unwelcome afterthought, and I’ve been served wine in a plastic cup and felt like a treasured guest. A spirit of hospitality cannot be faked.

You can read the rest of it here on Fidelia’s sisters: a publication of the Young Clery Women Project. (Very interesting reading over there btw even though I do not qualify to be an offical part of the group. I’m over 40 and not ordained. Sad isn’t it? Grin)

Today I said goodbye to DD. It hurt. It hurt more than I expected. I think it’s supposed to be like that. It’s a bitter-sweet moment when your child flies the nest.

Last year she went off to N.Italy to be an aupair. It felt quite different. It was for ‘only a year’ and it seemed like a great adventure, a laugh, a gap.

Now she flew back again. This time for … well who knows?  She’s starting a 3 year degree course at the university there, but somehow it doesn’t feel like she’s left to be a student, rather that she’s left home, to live life, to become the woman she’s destined to be.

I’m proud of her. I’m glad for her. I know Italy is just right for her. But I miss her already.

As I drove out of the airport this song was playing. It doesn’t fit exactly – but at the same time, I think, it said it all. And the tears flowed.

You and me
We used to be
together
Every day
together
always

I really feel
That I’m losing
my best friend…

Back home the house was strangly empty. The final wash to be done (bed linen and towel) and that was it. 20 years. Gone in an instant …  well not quite, but yes, more than a chapter has closed, a volume, … and a new one opens. Today.

I returned from a five day adventure (3 day wedding) in the outer archipelago two days ago. It was a marvellous time away. I came home physically exhausted (sailing is hard work) but mentally and spiritually rested.

There were so many highlights of the wedding … but perhaps the highest highlight was an impromptu sharing of music on the night of the wedding. We were supposed to have had a dance but this happened instead.  And it was wonderful. The highlight for me in it was my friend (and the matron of honour) Minna playing and singing. I had heard her earlier this summer at a gig – but her singing her own composition of a song about small islands and then getting us all to harmonise in …in the setting of this wedding between two of the most wonderful people you can imagine -  well words fail me. I had to leave the party then and go back to the boat to process …

one of the reasons I think I was touched so deeply was a prophetic word given several years ago by a Christian from Pakistan. She talked about Christians in Finland being like small islands and what we needed was some bridges. The wedding I went to in Utö – well it was proof that many of those links and bridges had been formed and were alive and well. My heart broke with joy!

Tonight, Turku had its annual Night of the Arts which is also a lot of fun. Again Minna – Minna Twice – had a gig. This time in a fantastic yoga (?) studio with fabulous light and mirrors and feminine artwork.  You can check out Minna Twice here.

rather than songs, i’m interested in creating sculptures of sound

It’s also possible to contribute to her work by paying a small fee to download the music.  (The songs are in English)

True generosity is measured not by how much we give away but by how much we have left

Shane Claiborne, (The Irresistible Revolution)

In a time of transition – as it is for so many of us – it’s time to look at the way we live our lives.
I returned from England with a van load of stuff (left with a friend) and two cases of stuff which travelled with me back to Finland. Admittedly a lot of that 50kg was books and PhD material – but still I know I have way too much stuff.

Shane quotes Dorthoy Day who teaches “If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor”

The questions isn’t knowing this – it’s what we (you and I) choose to do about it. If we continue with a theology of missing the point (debating the finer points) frankly can we even consider ourselves to be follows of Christ?

A friend is someone who you feel comfortable falling asleep on … and today I took about a 2 hr nap (unexpectedly) sitting upright on the sofa at my friend’s house – east of Helsinki. I hope I didn’t fall asleep in the middle of discussing something important  - but even if I did I know I am forgiven. Good friends do that.

I haven’t blogged much recently and I’ve beenwondering why that is. I think an easy answer would be that I have nothing much to say or write about, but perhaps more accurate diagnosis might be that much of what’s going on between these ears isn’t really blogging material.

I’ve been reading a lot -and that feels really good. For the first three weeks back in Finland I read novels. Firstly the Millenium trilogy (which I’ve already posted about) and then a rather boring novel which perhaps normally I would have simply discarded but somehow I got caught up in the ‘I really ought to finish this’ which I did -but frankly it wasn’t worth it.

And then finally at the weekend I was able to pick up a book by a Christian author – Jen Hatmaker. I love that name. My friend Nel in England had recommended her as an author -and I really enjoyed reading (and thinking about) what she shared in Interrupted, (I’ll blog about that later) and that has led me to picking up Shane Claiborne’s Irresistable Revolution once again.  I heard that he’d been a keynote speaker here in Finland in the Spring (at Jakobstad of all places) and that he’ll be at Greenbelt in England next month. Seems to me that I’m so very often in the wrong place at the wrong time .. but luckily I have good friends who shared goodnews with me (insert smiley face here!)

I’m not really sure what I do want to do. Again the reality is that this is a season of doors being closed. I feel I ought to hate it – but actually maybe it’s not so bad after all.  I don’t know what the autumn holds – and learning to live in that tension – that adventure of nothing planned – is perhaps exactly where God needs me to be.  For now I’m just living the summer – irratic weather this year. Tomorrow night DD comes home from Italy for a month – she’ll be gadding about, but part of the coming weeks will be helping prepare for her next adventure, and preparing ourselves to let her go ‘officially’.
She went to Italy this time last year as an aupair for a year – a sort of gapyear adventure. Somehow I knew she’d stay but when I wave goodbye in late August it will be the beginning of another chapter in her life – another stepping through a door that has opened for her, and I’m so glad for her.

When I saw her in Italy in March I recognised that she was like a little seedling which had been transplated into new and fertile soil. She’d blossomed and grown – become very Italian and full of life. Part of parenting is embracing that change – and another is falling asleep sitting up …

I had a friend of mine who makes jewellery turn my wedding ring into a little gold pig. She also turned her husband’s ring from his previous marriage into a witch’s hat and I believe they use it as a Monopoly counter.

(From the BBC site  ‘What Divorced Readers did with their wedding rings’)

Divorce is a very painful thing. Having seen so many of my friends go through it – there’s no ‘one’ way, and mostly it’s a painful decision and process and has tough consequences.

Yesterday I went to witness a family wedding. A beautiful bride and her groom. They are related to us, but we were not invited to the party (only the church) because of a tough family break up a decade or so ago. We haven’t had any contact with the mother since then.  What I had forgotten -totally erased from my mind – were her parents and siblings, and joint friends etc – they too were part of our life for a long time, and happily greeted us outside the church.

I like the idea of a no-longer meaningful wedding ring being made into a Monopoly counter. In our home that would mean it gets used quite a lot … Most people – it seemed – threw away the ring (usually cast into the sea). For so many that act is, I suspect, a real sense of relief.

Various Christian organisations are involved in responding to ViolenceAgainstWomen (VAW).  But very little is being done by the church to prevent VAW.  Church leaders are not speaking out about the issue. Our discussions about gender and sexuality are often seen to be negative and inwardly focused. The primary response to VAW has been from feminist and human rights organisations who stress women’s empowerment.  We recognise and respect their efforts over many years to protect and support women.  But we believe that there are two big gaps – firstly in terms of a co-ordinated Christian response based on a model of restored relationships, and secondly in terms of men, and particularly men within the church, taking responsibility and playing their part to prevent VAW.

 

If this resonates with you – and after the rise in the popularly of the Grey Books -as well as e.g. awareness of the statistics in Sweden mentioned in the Millenium Trilogy series (see previous post) – it probably does. You might want to check out RESTORED.

Some other statistics to make you think …

• In the UK 167 women are raped everyday
• Women who are murdered by a partner or former partner number two every day in the UK, three per day in the US and one per hour in Russia!

Check out Restored and see what you – as a Christian, as a Church leader, might do to begin to turn the tide, to transform relationships and end violence against women.