Facts are mute and are always interpreted in conformity with one’s presuppositions, whether those presuppositions are explicitly understood, or not.
The inaugural task of a Christian theologian is to conform one’s presuppositions, including one’s hermeneutics, to the Bible.
If you’ve been waiting patiently, I owe you an apology. I had hoped to write up my insights from our Book Reading before now. However, after a week of being involved in teaching at the first Australian Prophetic School, new contract negotiations with a commercial radio station I work with, helping some friends through a crisis, and newly taking on the role as the afternoon Drivetime host on ultra106five in Hobart, Tasmania (isn’t Internet technology amazing??), I just haven’t been able to get to it. It is never far from my mind or heart, so I promise you I will take the time over the next week to write it up.
In the meantime, Pauline, who regularly attends Breathing Space (our quiet days) each month, has asked that I consider sharing something I was motivated to write during our last time together. On this Good Friday for 2008, may these thoughts stir your heart to consider deeply the freedoms won for us by Christ …
We let each other down .. but we lift each other up.
To expect one without the other is to live a lifetime of disappointment and pain.
I was reading Alan Creech’s interesting blog today and read something he quoted from the newly ordained Joseph Ratzinger, now known to the world as Pope Benedict XVI. He is quoted as saying …
"All of us long for a pentecostal church: a church in which the Spirit rules, and not the letter; a church in which understanding breaks down the fences we erect against each other. We are impatient with a church which seems so unpentecostal, so unspiritual, so narrow and fearful."
If the Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church recognises our need for such a church, maybe we’re further along than I thought. Or perhaps he, like so many of us, is sharing a dream, but remains unwilling to rock the religious boat or to make a stand that could change the face of (little c) catholicity for generations to come.
Having said that, the fact that men with the influence of Pope Benedict XVI are thinking this way gives me a great deal of hope for the church’s future. It’s kind of comforting to think that in some way we are of the same heart and mind in this regard. Now if only we could get some of our Protestant leaders to start thinking this way ……..
A few years ago, the Government of Ecuador embarked on a punctuality campaign. The theory was that if all citizens were on time for work, the country would save $2.5 billion annually. The nation’s only Olympic gold medalist, race walker Jefferson Prez, was enlisted to head the campaign to combat Ecuador’s chronic lateness. Even President Lucio Gutirrez, infamously unpunctual, vowed to participate. Unfortunately, his spokesman, going on TV to announce this vow, arrived at the studio several minutes late.
The campaign seemed doomed from the start.
Actor Peter O’Toole, on the other hand, is obsessed with being on time. He was once once asked why he was wearing two watches at the same time, as he often did. "Life is too short to risk wasting precious seconds glancing at the wrong wrist," he said. When we are obsessed by time clocks and watches can be dictators. Hurry destroys souls. As Carl Jung wrote: "Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil."
We hardly ever take time to wonder. And without wonder, life is merely existence.
In his book The Discovery of the Amazon, explorer John Adams told of forcing his indigenous porters to double their walking pace to reach the source of a river before the coming rains made progress impossible. One morning he found that the porters squatting outside his tent, unwilling to continue the journey that day. "We have been moving too fast," they explained. "We must now wait for our souls to catch up with our bodies."
A friend, who has just experienced the death of a loved one, wrote this week: "Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experiences to savour, not to endure." She said since the death of her friend, she was "reading more and dusting the house less." "I’m spending more time with family and friends and less at work," she said. "I’m not saving my good perfume for special parties, but wearing it for clerks in the hardware store and tellers at the bank. I’m learning to cherish the moments in my life that are not perfect. I want to see, hear and feel my life to the fullest right now. Every morning when I open my eyes, tell myself that it is special because every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God."
The gifted comic George Carlin said he thought dogs lived happy lives because "you never see a dog with a wristwatch". "They don’t worry about time like the rest of us," he said. Novelist Ivan Turgenev said time "sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail. But a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly."
British Field Marshal Harold Alexander had a curious way of dealing with unfinished business. At the end of each working day, he would empty the contents of his "In" tray into his "Out" tray. Asked about this strange habit, Alexander said: "It saves time".
Author Klauss Isler wrote about how he found delight in "wasting time with God". He wrote of a period in his life as a seminary student when he felt he was too busy to spend much time thinking about God. Once he was temporarily blinded in one eye for three weeks and thought it a waste of time. Yet it was in that time that he he learned to lean more on God.
In his book The Freedom of Simplicity, Richard Foster told he was working at a boring job when a friend visited him one day. "He loitered about for nearly an hour, perched on the edge of the table, smoking a cigarette and talking occasionally of nothing in particular. When he had gone I was filled with a special joy because I realised that he had deliberately wasted an hour with me. It was not that we were discussing something of importance or that I needed consoling: it was a pure and unsolicited gift of time. We only deliberately waste time with those we love – it is the purest sign that we love someone if we choose to spend time idly in their presence when we could be doing something more ‘constructive’".
Everywhere is within walking distance, if we have the time. So relax today and count your blessings – one at a time and slowly.
I was recently watching a phenomenal version of the story of The Virgin Queen on Foxtel. It was a very detailed two-part adaptation of the historical story in which there were three quotes that really stirred my heart and caused me to think about spiritual things. Each of them were quotes from Queen Elizabeth I’s dialogue. I’d be interested to hear how they stir you.
Speaking about the growing tensions between the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches …
"There is but one Jesus Christ .. the rest is trifles."
Speaking about her power and lineage …
"Our royal blood is from birth. How we use its power thereafter is from choice."
Speaking about her 44 year reign as sovereign …
"To be a King and to wear a crown is a thing more glorious for those who see it, than it is pleasant for those who bear it."
Consider their spiritual application and let’s hear from you what’s stirring.
“Death is not extinguishing the light.
It is putting out the lamp,
because the dawn has come.”
(Tagore)
Most powerful Holy Spirit,
come down upon us
and subdue us.
From heaven,
where the ordinary
is made glorious,
and glory seems
but ordinary,
Bathe us
with the brilliance
of Your light
like dew.
Amen