seethrough

Hope is planting a seed!

When a farmer plants a seed there is no guarantee that it will grow and produce a good return.  Sowing seeds always involves a risk.  But Hope still plants the seed.

Many voices will discourage us from taking risks.  And there are many risks we shouldn’t take!  But there are also some risks that - not taken - leave us alone, hopeless and without purpose.  We have to identify some of the voices that discourage us from planting, investing, sharing and giving…  and call them for what they are!  Cynicism, negativity, fear, pride…  these voices, along with many others, suggest that Hope is unrealistic and that sharing is dangerous.  These voices rob us of energy, hope and passion, and leave lying next to the road, beaten up and broken, with no hope.

But Hope still plants the seed.

Planting seeds is about risking investing in a new future.  Planting seeds is the first step that makes a harvest possible.  Potential and Progress, Growth and Development all depend on that first step…

Planting a seed:  registering for that course, initiating that relationship,  starting that exercise programme, reading that book,  making that appointment, having that conversation, writing that thought down, joining that group, visiting that friend, apologising to that neighbour, forgiving that colleague…   finally going to bed!

New beginnings all start with the same act of planting a seed!

there’s this thing that I just can’t get around.

if the focus of prayer is getting what we ask for…

if the motivation for religious devotion is about controlling our lives and our environment…  (e.g. being healed from cancer, avoiding an accident…)

if the heart of worship is keeping God happy so we can be happy…

then it seems that we have forsaken God for a puppy dog.  a great big loveable puppy dog in the sky who (sometimes) sits when we say “Sit!”  and when he doesn’t listen - or do as we ask - we are incesnsed.  and threaten take him to dog-training.

or should that read god-training?

prayer has become our hit-and-miss attempts at getting puppy god to jump through hoops.

and worship is giving him the treats he loves in hope that he’ll love us best of all, and perform better tomorrow at dog-training…

a big part of the teaching of Jesus that I seem to have missed is the simple invitation to SEE what is already happening.   Jesus says (repeatedly) that the Kingdom of God (or heaven) is:

• near
• nearly here
• upon us
• in our hearts

(I understand the “Kingdom of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven” to refer to Life lived God’s Way.)A few implications of this might be:

• God isn’t doing what we ask him.  he’s doing as he likes.  if our prayers aren’t “answered” maybe it’s because we haven’t been in the least bit concerned with what God is doing.  What is God doing is the key question for us to ask in any situation.
• The Kingdom isn’t going to come someday.  It’s already present.  If we’re not content (and the kingdom is arriving) either we don’t really want things God’s Way or we are struggling to perceive the Kingdom.  (Good chance we are struggling to perceive the reality of God’s Kingdom in the same way his disciples struggled to “get” the parables…  the reality of the Kingdom is not dependent on our ability to perceive it.  but our experience of the Kingdom may be severely affected by our ability to SEE it and BELIEVE in it.)
• Prayer isn’t so much asking for things as it is asking for the ability to SEE things - the things we’re not seeing and the things we need to see!
• Worship is eye-opening wonder.  When a vision of the Kingdom - Life lived God’s Way - is revealed.  Where the curtain is pulled back and the glorious light of God’s glory is revealed.  And we are inspired to continue believing and giving ourselves to this Kingdom (the one that is hard to see and recognise, at first…)

how often do you install software on your pc?  just today a bubble popped up to tell me that Windows had downloaded “critical updates”.  Naturally i clicked the button to install the updates, only to be confronted by that regular (and for me, awkward) screen entitled “User agreement”.  Along with all the other Windows users around the world I was asked to read 93 pages of legally binding agreement, before installing the updates…

i want to know

• who reads all that legal stuff?
• do the people who write it expect us to?
• if not, is it binding?
• why do “critical updates” for software you already paid for and legally own (along with clicking on “AGREE” when you first installed it) require further legal contract?
• do i really have a choice to NOT AGREE?
• can i click AGREE and argue later that I did so in order to gain access to the software, but not with any intention of entering into legal contract because it’s unreasonable to ask a person to read 93 pages every time their pc (automatically) downloads updates…

the more interesting thing than the challenges of living ethically in a digital and internet age is the issue of trust.  we who like to think of ourselves as highly rational, never entering into a situation without consideration of the facts, display a lot of willingness to trust - perhaps not in traditional ways, like trusting a partner or trusting the divine…  and yet it’s still trust.

what if we were to discover that less of our life (our choices, our circumstances, etc.) is determined by “facts” than we like to think… and much more of our life than we recognise is actually determined by trust?

the original language of the christian scriptures has an interesting take on time.  there are two words that refer to “time”.  chronos refers to the passing of time - the concept of a chronological set of events.  The fascinating word for time is kairos.  kairos refers to “the right time”.  it is used to proclaim the conviction that “the time is now”!

kairos is a way of living.  it honours the present.

I say, if God can’t be found in the present, he won’t be found.

We may be tempted to go looking for God in other circumstances.  We may be tempted to go and sit at the feet of some swami in India.  but God (truth) is not more apparent or real in India or Tibet or any particular holy shrine.  If you can’t find God where you are, you’re not going to find him in India!

We may be tempted to go looking for God in other times.  We may read about the early church in the book of Acts and wish our lives away, desiring to rather have lived in that time. Or we could fantasize about some utopian future and wish our life away in favour of the dream.  but God (truth) was no more present back then than in any other time in history.  If you can’t meet with God today, you’re not going to suddenly awaken to intimacy tomorrow.  Intimacy will begin today with the desire for it.  For even “the desire to pray is prayer itself” (dom chapman)

We may be tempted to wait for a better season.  We may be struggling with pain and despair, a period of depression or physical sickness, or suffering the loss and longings of bereavement.  And we may be tempted to think that the invitations of Jesus are just too hard to be meant for now…  We’ll wait for an easier time to begin to listen and follow.  There will be no easier time.  Nor a better time to begin to listen to the gentle invitations, intended not to constrain but to free, not to confound but to guide and heal…

kairos: now is always a good time to begin…

the rules are always changing. the way we tell the stories about our lives is constantly evolving.

this morning i read a story about a woman who has significantly affected the current US presidential race. 61 year-old Mayhill Fowler - a financially contributing supported of the Obama campaign - joined a volunteer journalistic programme that gave many ordinary “untrained” people an opportunity to report on the campaign. the programme, initiated by The Huffington Post, is called “Off the Bus” and was designed to give ordinary people an a voice.

So when Mayhill Flower got into a private fund-raiser and recorded Barak Obama speaking about the bitterness of certain American communities, she was placed in an awkward position.  She was disappointed that he sounded like those people that buy into generalisations about certain communities. But she had also followed him around and covered his campaign out of her own pocket (with no allowance from the Huff Post) - motivated by a desire to see him become the next president. She knew that reporting what he had said would hurt his campaign. She sat on the story for 4 days reflecting on what she should do. Finally she published the report and news quickly spread.

Was it journalistic integrity that won out?

Are the ethical rules of journalism changing? (she didn’t announce herself as a “journalist” but then she also isn’t being paid, so one could argue that she’s just an ordinary person - an ordinary person with a laptop and a wireless internet connection… increasingly powerful tools to influence history it seems…)

Should journalists announce themselves so that politicians are aware who they are speaking to? Or, is this revolution of information and the ordinary person’s voice making politicians more honest?

the thing that most impacted me about the story was that she was not paid - not even for her costs. She travelled around and reported at great cost - all at her own expense.

What motivates a person to do that?

What makes you do what you do? Do you love what you do? (would you do it even if they stopped paying you?)

i am slow to learn.  most of the people i bump heads with are probably not actually that far away from me (in the sense that we probably live out of very similar values and choices).  the way we choose to express our convictions leads to conflict…

what has become clearer to me is that certainty produces bad fruit.  good fruit does not grow from the tree of certainty.  the spiritual quest for truth (if that is in fact the heart of the spiritual quest) is not a quest for certainty.

it’s a quest for righteousness.  it’s a quest for the good.

“everything you know is wrong” is a provocative claim that U2 uses at their live concerts.  it’s a statement that denies certainty.  but it’s so certain about it’s claim that it ends up denying itself.  but of course, the opposite can’t be true: that everything you know is right!

it’s a fantastic example of a statement that doesn’t have to be true to do it’s work. it’s precisely because it’s false, that it expresses the truth…  that certainty, the quest for certainty, and all (ignorant and arrogant) claims of certainty are not only false, but they cause pain.

recently i stumbled on the bible’s alternative to certainty.

conviction

certainty is like perfection - it’s all encompassing conclusiveness is static.  nothing more to be said, nothing more to be learned, nothing more…

conviction is attractive.  it’s motivating.  it’s energy.  it’s the Spirit of God moving us out of our static complacency.  we don’t have to know it all.  we don’t have to nail it all down before we act.  we act because we sense a conviction.  we don’t even know that we are right about or conviction.  we test our motive.  we share the conviction with friends who care.  we wait and we pray.

but in the end, without 100% clarity, without complete knowledge of the implications of the journey, without a clear picture of the road ahead…

…conviction takes a first step