Family lives in haystack for four years

I saw the headline for this story in the "most popular" sidebar on Reuters and I just loved it, especially the detail about keeping a child off school so he didn't have to draw his house. The world is full of fantastically wacky people.

Therapy

Went for an introductory session with a guy called John Baker at the GP surgery this morning. Unsurprisingly, talked about addressing my needs rather than just trying to placate them with chocolate, hopefully it will be useful for looking at some of my recurrent Romans 7:15 moments.

"Searching For God Knows What" by Donald Miller

After enthusing over "Blue Like Jazz" and getting everyone I could to read it, I thought I'd put a bit on here about "Searching For God Knows What". Quite often I'll read a book I really like through once quickly and then again more slowly, but I have to admit that I had to read "Searching..." again from the beginning before I understood some bits of it. This has a lot to to with Donald Miller's style: he offers lots of fragmentary episodes and thoughts and it's only after picking up quite a lot of the pieces and looking at them that I was able to get an idea of the whole picture. Then again, one of the clear aims of the book is to talk about why Christian self-help books, or a theology of three easy steps, are missing the point, so there's an (I guess) conscious avoidance of that kind of formula. Basically he expands on some of the ideas in "Blue..." and looks in more depth at what it means to have a relationship with God as a person, rather than as some kind of heavenly vending machine, giving out miracles and tickets for heaven in return for the appropriate amounts of faith and prayers. There's an assumption that, as an unregenerate social constructionist, I was happy to go along with, that we are created so that someone or something else tells us who we are. So we're intended to find our identity through the first and only perfect relationship: with God, in Eden. But then sin spoils this, and from then on we're spending all our time looking for someone or something else to tell us who we are. Miller uses a couple of different analogies to talk about the effect of sin: Chernobyl and Mount St Helens. Both are examples of a one-off catastrophe that has ongoing effects, and Miller says that this is like the effect that sin has on the human heart: we're conscious that we've become imperfect, and so we get into one of the main themes of the book: the lifeboat game. This is the game that still often gets played with small children and at team-building events - you have to imagine that there are certain people in a lifeboat, and one of them must die if the others are to live. How to make the decision about who is to die; in other words, how do we make decisions about other people's (and our own) worth? Miller goes into a lot of depth about the different ways that this game gets played out, and in how many areas of life we compare ourselves and others; how putting others down, establishing who is "in" or "out", distinguishing between one kind of person and another, are all part of the lifeboat game. We may know we're doing it, but we still do it as long as we're aware that sin has somehow ruined us, has separated us from the one perfect relationship that lets us know who we are. We still try to find our place in a pecking order, desperate not to be down at the bottom and having our worst fears about ourselves confirmed by a jury of our peers. The message of Jesus, in this context is this: Stop playing the lifeboat game. Give up trying to be rich - give away your goods to the poor. Give up trying to be in with the right crowd - go and spend time with the people nobody else wants. Be small, be last, be as unimportant as a little child in a grown-up world. And do this, not because it's a step in a four-step programme, or because it's a spiritual discipline, but because Jesus through the cross has taken away the sin that scarred and disfigured you, and through the resurrection has opened up the way to a relationship with the Father that can truly let you know who you are, and through the Spirit is transforming you more and more into the likeness of the One in whose image you are made.

Now this (especially the last bit) is my understanding of "Searching..." rather than an accurate precis, and is more a statement of how it is fitting in with my thinking at the moment anyway. As Miller points out, in this book and elsewhere, relationships with real people are much scarier than interacting with a vending machine, and I suspect that a lot of the time I still think of God as some kind of unpredictable/benificent/powerful vending machine, rather than as a person whom I would like to get to know better. I'm encouraged, however, by this book and others, to keep taking steps towards finding out more about who God is, and finding myself more in him.

100

This is the 100th post on this blog, and to mark this occasion I've just sat and read all of the previous 99 in order. Gosh, don't I go on and on and on about the same old stuff! There are a couple of pieces in there that I think are worth reading, that make me think I'm glad I wrote that thought down. Sadly these are the minority of posts, and I feel quite ambivalent about the fact that I am not very different from how I was 15 months ago. I'm pleased that I don't feel quite the same way, that I have moved on; on the other hand it's sobering to see that I haven't really changed very much, and that a lot of the things that I think are "progress" are simply reworking the same old ground. Maybe one good thing is that I'm more hopeful, that joy is still a transient experience (which I think is one of the characteristics of joy anyway, but that's a subject for one of the next 100 posts), but a slightly more common one. Now to see if I can manage to get to post number 200 before April 2009!

An observation

The unavoidable deep puddles that result from heavy rain are no fun for those of us who have holes in their shoes which let in water and who will have cold wet feet all day

Eschatology escapology

We were joking in the car last night about the possibility of escapochatology: the study of how to get out of the end of the world. Weirdly, today I followed some random links and found this.

Monday morning

I'm struggling to stay awake this morning, even worse than the average Monday. It wasn't that long after midnight that I went to bed, but the 6:30am alarm interrupted a really bizarre dream, and I felt as though I hadn't slept that well. Still, we did win the quiz again (quite a common occurence these days - we're becoming the new Monkey Tennis), partly due to James coming to join us. It's a good feeling to be part of this little group who get together on Sundays. Realised last night that we're not going to be there next Sunday because we'll be with Rachel at the Fonteyn Nureyev Young Dancers Competition. I'd totally lost track of the fact that that is next Sunday. Mind you, I seem to be temporally disorientated at the moment anyway: having remembered that we're not here next Sunday evening, I then spent five minutes worrying about who was going to do what at Conversation, until it occured to me that that is on the third Sunday of the month - and earlier I'd told several people that I'd left decorations up past Twelfth Night because I spent several hours believing that it was the 7th January yesterday.
Perhaps I should go and work in Japan.

A picture is worth several dozen words

Sometimes I really miss my camera phone. Walking through town I passed the window of Ann Summers and realised that no matter what my verbal skills, there was no way that a simple description of a large window, with two mannequins in minimal bikinis emblazoned with the word "Sale" partly obscured by a large sign saying "Extra 20% taken off today only" would work even a fraction as well as a picture. Oh well. Feel free to use your imagination...

The world has not been designed to my specifications

Went over to Asda yesterday to buy some lunch (why is it that you can buy a French baton loaf and a piece of reduced-because-nearly-out-of-date Brie for 72p but people still buy cheese sandwiches for four times the amount?) and felt annoyed at a group of people who were dawdling along speaking a language that I didn't recognise. Just for a moment I caught myself feeling like they ought to be speaking English, and then I felt guilty for not embracing a diverse and vibrant multicultural society and acting like some kind of Daily Mail hatepig. But thinking about it later, it occured to me that a lot of the things that I don't like are a reflection of how I feel the world ought to be; secretly I'd quite like the world to be filled with people who have similar attitudes and behaviour to me (and I tend to feel uncomfortable or unhappy with people from very different social and cultural backgrounds). There are lots of things that I feel negatively about, not because they're intrinsically bad, but just because I wouldn't do them. I'm not sure that this is anything more that the rather profundity-free thought that "There are some things I don't like because I don't like them"; on the other hand I suspect that it's worth examining some of my prejudices, to see if they fit with a wider (Christian) worldview: I don't like graphic depictions of violence (generally violence perpetuates rather than solves problems, repeated exposure desensitises people), but on the other hand I don't like smelly people (I'd quite like them to wash for my benefit, I dislike them rather than the poverty/low self esteem that is causing them to be smelly in the first place).

Happy New Year

Good grief! I've just looked at this blog and realised that I hadn't posted anything since November, and that wasn't exactly chatty and uplifting. Thankfully, I'm feeling more positive than I did back then, so I will try and put slightly more on here in the next few weeks and months. This isn't a New Year's resolution: I haven't made any, partly because I never keep them, but also because I'm a chronic maker of resolutions, and I know that keeping on saying to myself "From now on, I will/will not do x any more" is often another way of saying "I don't like myself because I do/don't do this thing", which then means that when I don't keep that resolution, I've confirmed what a no good/unreliable/unlikeable person I am. So, no resolutions.

Not that this means I'm not aiming to be more like the person I was created to be, or that I don't want to improve my relationships, or that there is nothing I want to achieve. But rather than setting a list of tasks and targets, I'm more interested in developing my relationship with God and allowing him to change me. That way, the things that I do more or less of are outward signs of internal change, rather than things to beat myself up with.

Absence of anything

Sorry I've not posted much. The thing with being depressed is that I'm, well, depressed. One result of this is that I don't feel much like blogging. Or to be more accurate, I do feel like blogging but I don't actually get around to it, because doing anything, even stuff I want to do, feels like too much effort and I put everything off that I possibly can.

So anyway, there you go.

Tired

I went to bed at 11.30 last night. I got up at 6.30 this morning, went back to bed at 9.00 and slept until midday. I then dozed some more until about 1.30 when I reluctantly got up. I'm still tired.

Ups and downs

One of the things I really hate about depression is that when I have a down couple of days, it feels so much like things will never improve. If I was down all the time, or if I had an Eeyore personality, then I presume either I'd think that things might get better one day, or I'd give up entirely. But when I have a few good days, or a good week, and then go back to feeling sluggish, lethargic and hopeless, it feels so much worse. I guess that one of the first things to go in a down spell is the belief that I can do anything about it. Being happier seems to go along with feeling more in control, more able to get things done. Being down inevitably goes with feelings of being overwhelmed, of not being able to make anything better, no matter how much I want to.

Hope springs eternal, just not very high.

Dawn

Well I haven't been here for a while

Bah. I am so tired, I am flicking through Facebook pages without any clear idea of what I think I'm doing there. I can't go to bed for at least another hour because I have to pick up Daniel from Emfest at about 11pm, and then go up to Park Gate to bring Benjamin and Reuben home from roleplaying. Bah, bah and bah again.

On the other hand, I'm 90% sure that I want to train as a plumber with these people after their rep came to see me today. I need to do a bit more checking out about whether it is as good as they say, but it looks as though I might be able to change career.

Me in a nutshell

I read hopeful, inspiring books on Christian spirituality so that I can spot myself in the negative descriptions of what not to do or what happens when things go wrong; so I can think "Yep, that's me. Wow, am I messed up!"

And nine times out of ten if I see someone I know in Tesco I look the other way and pretend I haven't seen them.

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Today is Talk Like A Pirate Day, which explains why my oldest son went off to college looking like this

I think that the red eye only improves the close up picture

Friendships

I've just finished reading Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz", and can't wait to turn back to the beginning and start reading it again. Sometimes I love the way that God works. I decided to check my hotmail and there was a message from the library to say that one of the three books that I ordered on inter-library loan had arrived, so over I went to the Library to find that Redcar and Cleveland Library Service had very kindly lent me their copy until 7th December. So I decide to have a quick look through, and what do I find, but a whole load of engagingly-written stuff about loving enemies, about how self-discipline doesn't get you anywhere without allowing yourself to be loved by God, about how it feels to be pretty much totally obsessed with yourself and your own needs and how destructive this turns out to be? Wow. All the stuff I've been thinking about recently, tied together and expressed much more eloquently than I could have done.

Anyway, I was walking back over from the Library when I had a sudden thought. For a long time I've had issues about the way that the Church repeats Jesus's idea of God being a father, sometimes without much consideration for the growing numbers of people who have either no experience of having a father, or have had very bad experiences involving fathers. I think that we as a church need to be careful to say that when you know your dad isn't perfect, that's because in some way you're comparing him to what you think a perfect dad should be like, and that idea of the perfect Dad is one way of understanding God. Anyway, I was crossing the road and thinking (as is my habit) moderately miserable thoughts about friendships and how rubbish I am at them and never really believe that people actually like me (apologies to anyone who is reading this who considers themselves to be my friend: it's not you, it's me), when it occurred to me that if people who have issues about "God is like a Dad" need some extra care, then maybe people like me might well have some issues around "My Friend Jesus". Now, I know that this sounds pretty basic, duh, but it has never ever occurred to me before that if I spend my life thinking that some people like me and quite a lot of people tolerate me, but friendships are things that only happen to other people, then it might conceivably affect the way I look at my relationship with God. Because I don't keep in touch with people (the only person from my past who I have any contact with - excluding a couple a generic Christmas letters - is my friend Julie who sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, after not hearing from me for about four years: apart from that I have no friends from school, from previous jobs or homes or churches) I assume that nobody would want to keep in touch with me. There is nobody I would call on in a crisis or ring up to ask if they wanted to go for a drink. And I assume that God has the same kind of relationship with me, which I know intellectually is weird and wrong but nevertheless I will go away and think about this some more.

Extemely lucky

I'm sitting here in my kitchen, typing on my work laptop which is attached to my home wireless network, having drunk a couple of espressos and eaten far too many chocolate biscuits, and although this is a treat rather than an everyday occurence, it occurs to me that globally speaking I am part of a tiny privileged minority.

Maybe I should be mindful of this more often.

Enemies

I've been thinking off and on about the whole idea of loving enemies. We're instructed to do this, but I feel that individually and as a church we're not very good at it. We don't have intercession prayers for those who mistreat us, and while doing good to others by, for example, supporting Fair Trade is important, we don't give much priority to doing good to those who hate us. Part of the problem might be defining who our enemies are. Is it the person who steals our credit cards or the gang that shouts out abuse at us? Is it the boss who takes advantage of us or the older kids at school who bully us? Is it the transnational corporation that pumps images we don't want at us or is it consumer culture that encourages debt and reliance on the things of this world? I try now and then to pray for people who do things I don't like or approve of, and if there's a story on the news I sometimes pray for the perpetrators as well as the victims of outrages, but I struggle with knowing what practical love for enemies would look like. And what does it mean for the church? My impression is that we might pray for people who do wrong to see the error of their ways, or pray for justice (which often means hoping that people who hurt us will get punished), but we seldom, if ever, pray for blessings on those who curse us.

I don't have an answer for this. Should the church give some money to Stonewall or send Richard Dawkins a birthday card? Seriously, it's easier to define the church's enemies globally and nationally (those who persecute christians, organisations that promote anti-religious propaganda), but how do we decide who our enemies are locally so that we can go out and do good to them?

I don't know... maybe this is just me getting on my high horse; maybe if I went to the Monday night prayer meeting I'd find that they regularly pray for enemies there. But the idea won't leave me alone. Hmmm. Maybe I should mention it to PV. Or not (at least until I manage to get to a Monday prayer group).