I've Been Thinking...

It has been a while since i posted anything other than a fabulous trip to some exotic location. And I was a little concerned that anyone reading this blog may get the impression that that was all we did, Trip around with big smiles and visit new places... come up with the odd random fact, Trivia for minds otherwise bored??? take more of the same photos (there's only so many ways you can hold a camera at arm's length!). Those who know me well will know there's a little more beneath that surface, thought which sometimes runs deep.



So the intention is for this to be a little more personal, perhaps a little more soul searching.



We've had a long period now of not travelling - well if you discount the weekends away over the last few weeks which have all been for work. Work is an important part of life no doubt, but having only had three days off this month, it's certainly a fair call to say there is more to life. In fact there's a song by a similar name with the line "there's gotta be more to life - than chasing round every temporary high to satisfy me..." To a certain extent I think that's what we've been doing for the last wee while - perhaps not chasing a high to satisfy, but chasing any available distraction to keep our minds occupied, perhaps so we can ignore the growing sense of... it's hard to put a word on it - i think i'll go for uselessness.



I would have gone for lonliness, but I dont especially feel lonely. Modern communication being as it is, we can keep in reasonably good contact with people back home, which staves off the pangs we have for close friends and family nearby.



I would perhaps have next looked to the word aloneness if such a word exists - the sense of being alone in a place, a big world. I think all people feel it at some point in their lives, but I never would have thought that a 'we' could experience the same thing. But then that doesn't quite describe it either...



Which is why i've settled on uselessness. In my definition that's finding yourself in a place where (with the possible exception of at work) you have no useful function. I guess to a certain extent that's a statement of values - perhaps i overvalue things, or people being of use. And yet one of the things I deplore about our western society is the shunning of 'useless' people - the elderly, the sick, the homeless, the disabled... I certainly don't consider those groups of people as useless, but their roles in society are perhaps a lot more challenging to define than someone who works forty hours a week and serves on the school board of trustees, organises the local playcentre for children or plays guitar in the local singing group or church band. Perhaps i've gotten very used to being a 'human doing' rather than a 'human being' but i think it's a little deeper than that too. I think I, we, have a need to give - and that's really the thing missing over here. We don't really give of ourselves (except at work). We don't feel as though we have close friends to give to, people with whom we really feel we are sharing our lives with. And yet at the same time as writing this i'm considering the people over here that we do get to share life with now and again. And i'm grateful for the relationships that are developing.



So maybe it's just homesickness. But then there's a part of me that doesn't really want to go home. Maybe that's just stubborn pride? misdirected ambition? I don't know. But I do feel like an Alien. Which is a strange situation. I hope when I do eventually get home, that i'll treat the Aliens i come across a little differently. The thing that strikes me is just how busy everyone is - which is partly i think, why an alien feels more like an alien. You come to a new place and you have a certain novelty value at first which gets you a little attention, but then people still have their lives to go on living and things to do on weekends, so you just go about your own business, doing the things you want to do, but after a while you find yourself in some kind of co-existing relationship to many people around you - friendships on a fairly superficial level, but no real depth of relationship with anyone. Which is a little strange for someone used to living in a fairly tight knit community where people are well known by their friends. Maybe this is just homesickness. I would have thought i'd be well over that by now.



To a certain extent the only way you can be well known is to spend time with people which is generally the thing missing in any 'new' relationship... but at the same time it's not just that. I know for myself in the past when i have been at home, how little time i seem to have - life is full with rushing from one social engagement to the next. To be honest i've never really thought much about it... but being in a place where i don't have so much going on socially gives you a chance to reflect and take stock a little - perhaps re-evaluate how to live a life even.



I was chatting to my mother the other night and she had noted just how many people needed 'ministry' in her church. An interesting thought indeed. How many people in our world need ministering. For many Christian people (and i assume the same is true of other religions) this is a ministry of prayer, a connection with the divine who loves us and gives us the strength to continue on in life. For other people, (and included in this group are also many people of faith) i think this 'ministry' is a very human thing - it is the tender hands and listening ears of someone, anyone with compassion. I think of the biblical story of the good samaritan and the transposition of that story which could easily be of a christian man struck down and helped not by the missionary, the priest or pastor who pass him by, but by the buddhist monk, or even (shock horror) a muslim. Interesting thinks me. Sometimes there is a ministry that is entirely 'godly' which perhaps transcends even religious boundaries. Does that make me a humanist? I don't think so. I would still argue for Jesus being God. I can see evidence for His being so... but I have i think a very cynical view of 'the church' defined however loosely or tightly you may like to. Why? Because i've seen it fail so many times. Fail miserably, even when it's my part of the church, or a ministry i've been part of. Perhaps i'm coming to a position of belief that we've all just got to do all we can, however we feel called.



I hear it preached that the guy who directs you to your carpark at church, is as important as the missionary and the preacher at the front - all parts of the one 'body'. I wonder if you could take that a step further and say that those who work tirelessly for secular charities (Eg. crippled childrens society) are doing a 'godly' service. Or is it a truly open profession of faith that is important? And what if that faith doesn't massively inform your actions in other spheres of life? To what extent does my faith inform my actions? Lately i think i've probably had too much time to wonder about that. Which simply proves the point that I haven't been 'doing' anything about it... And so goes the circle.




I've been reading lately from the Catholic Theologian (and Jesuit Priest) Karl Rahner... He has some interesting and thought provoking observations which articulate i think something of what I believe about God. i've had two other thoughts which I wanted to share, which are informed by this rather interesting book. One was on the nature of prayer and whether it's something we all do; the next is on 'calling'; and the next is on the nature of what it means to be Christian, or 'a believer' which i guess is a little more inclusive as a term. Ok that's three. I never much enjoyed maths anyway.

Ok so the nature of prayer... Prayer is something i've always struggled with. There seem to be so many definitions. A very basic understanding - (which i think is possibly how most people interpret the experience) would suggest I am one individual and i speak to God, a separate and distinct individual and we thus have a dialogue. I say "please God can I have a ferrari?" and he says "Bugger off you greedy little monkey, come back when you have a reasonable request". I counter with "how about an Audi?" He replies: "I only give those out to priests in Hong Kong..."

(Nice photo eh?). So that is a way of understanding prayer. We speak, God answers. You can put that the other way around too - the essence of it is the same - eg. I sit in quiet contemplation, perhaps even meditation and wait for God to speak... He does, and then I respond. At the end of the day the understanding is the same - you have a creature and a creator who interact at whatever distance. Yet i find this idea increasingly difficult to reconcile, both within my own human reason and from my own experience, and even from a biblical justification.

I look to passages which talk of God's word being written on the hearts of his people, passages which talk of God's desire that all should be saved (from what?), passages that talk of christ being eternal, of God being all and in all. And i think of my own experience, of some of the most incredible 'God' moments i've had in my life, which have been at times of quiet contemplation, when i do retreat from the world and i find that God reveals not Himself to me, but myself to me. Sometimes its something bad, like my pride, avarice, lust or any of those seven deadlies... sometimes it's something good, like my love for people, the joy i get from seeing others develop, the passion i have for those who struggle with belief (at whatever level).

So Karl Rahner has this to say about prayer:
"What would it be like if we were to say, if we were able to say, this: in prayer, we experience ourselves as what God has spoken, as arising in the specificity of our existence from God’s sovereign freedom, and as at God’s disposal. What would it be like if we were to say: it is we ourselves who are what God first says to us, in the way our freedom is defined, in the way our future is indefinite, in the sheer facts of our past and present that can never be fully explained away by a theory, never given a rationale in terms of the purpose they serve? … If we can answer the question asked just now with a yes, then we ourselves (in our transcendence, which experiences itself as such as coming from elsewhere, as we might say) are the expression and speech of God, listening to itself. But this must not be understood merely as a general principle; it is a statement about the quite specific ways we live our lives, particularly, uniquely, historically – lived lives that we experience as given to us, and thus spoken by God to Himself. God’s most primordial word to us in our free uniqueness is not a word that occurs identifiably, as a point within the broader sphere of our consciousness, as something added on, as one object of experience alongside others. Rather, it is ourselves, in our unity, totality, and dependence on the mystery past all grasp that we call God – it is the Word of God that we ourselves are, and that is spoken to us as such."

Perhaps a little heavy, but I like where this idea leads me in my 'prayer'. I've still got to have sense of the 'otherness' of God, cos otherwise revelation becomes a little troublesome such as when in biblical passages it talks of God speaking specific things to specific people - but whether that is something they experience in the 'ground of their being/soul' as another writer has put it, or as something from outside of them, i'm not sure, at any rate they attribute the brilliance of their ideas to an outside source (God). To be honest i haven't totally reconciled all this in my head yet - but i'm sure there is some (lots of) truth there, and hence I share. :-)

I think this ties in to the idea of a 'calling' also. Some people call it a vocation. Craig David said he was 'born to do it', I think we all have it - something we were put here for - a purpose... sometimes many purposes. I wonder how many experience this sense of what they are all about from right within themselves - which would be more a 'discovery' than a 'calling' which sems to denote something from outside... I'm thinking of a few good friends of mine, who have an incredible sense of groundedness, of knowing who and what they are about without needing to search overly much, who seem to know themselves exceedingly well. Some say they have been called, some might even say that they haven't been, which is why they do what they do... I guess my question is: is there a qualitative difference between the two? It seems to me the same God speaks to us, whether we recognise Him explicitly or not.

So then if it is true that the same God speaks to both those who recognise the sound of His voice, and those who simply see Him as themselves (the ground of their being? their soul? their conscience? - which literally translates as 'self-knowledge'). If that is true, then what is the nature of a Christian? Again stealing ideas or questions raised by Karl Rahner... is the Christian one who attempts to mimic Jesus' life? (good luck he lived 2000 years ago - pre internet, eftpos, McDonalds, carbon emissions, global warming, when terrorists stirred up riots in the cities rather than flying planes in to buildings etc) Is that a realistic objective? Is he one who lives from the truest sense of who he is? as Jesus did (if I can make that assertion). Is he one who carries the same message as Jesus did? (turn back to God, come follow me...) Is he simply a nice guy? It would be easy to answer that all are correct, but the practical implications of that are fraught with difficulty... suffice to say i have questions to share, but no answers.

Perhaps I should ask God?

Hope you're well, wherever you are, whatever you're up to. If I were God, i'd give you a Gold Star, or something equally special.

Sectare Fidem (Hold fast to the faith)