Why It Just Isn't Alright

I can't talk to the kids today; I have too much to do. Actually, I haven't seen them for months because you know those annoying golf matches - they just need to be played. I can't tell you how they are doing because I have broadly forgotten what they look like. I have to assume that they are doing alright - their mother is a good and loyal sort and I trust her to look after them. I'd have seen them before now but I prefer to have a lay-in and get more valuable sleep; I work hard, you know that. Surely it would be easier if didn't have to meet up so early, but that isn't all. They want so much time and I just don't have the time to give to them these days. I have about an hour a week, no more. I'll give that to them if they could cope with seeing me a little later in the day so I can enjoy another coffee when I wake. And guess what; I am not going to feel bad. You cannot and will not make me feel bad because if you ask them they will tell you that I love them. I don't have to see them to still love them; they have always understood that. They know that, just ask them. And before you say it, of course I love my kids; I always have. They are everything to me. There isn't a thing that I wouldn't do for my kids, so don't go claiming otherwise. 

Dear reader, please put down your pitchforks and your torches. I understand how the words above must make you feel; that I am some sort of pratt and a poor parent. Were these words true and situation real, then of course you would be right and I would no more deserve my kids than they to be exposed to such an appalling parent. But - the thing is, if you replace the "kids" with God, you have the great myth there before you: that you don't have to go to church to be a Christian. 

I accept that there is a fundamental difference between spirituality and organised religion. I accept that for many a regular habit of corporate worship is difficult, that life can and does get in the way from time to time - or indeed because the simple act of getting out of the house is beyond the physical capabilities of some. What I am sure of, though, is that a belief in God is to be in a relationship of mutual love and trust akin to that of parent and child or between lovers. We galvanise these human relationships with temporal proximity or indeed some effort to keep those relationships alive if some distance exists between the parties concerned. 

The thing is, the top paragraph is a (not widely off the mark) caricature of some of the comments that I have been privy to in recent years. They fall into the same categories: that Christians don't need to go to church; that "I don't like a service that goes on too long, say over an hour; that church should be there at my convenience (like a shop, for example). I have witnessed efforts by priests to curtail their services to that of time compliance, for example - never daring to exceed the expected time-limit. 

Why would we treat God like that? Why would we apply to God those things that we wouldn't apply elsewhere. When we go to the cinema, do we pass over the blockbuster that we had hoped to see because it exceeded 90 minutes in duration? Our world is fast becoming one that is "on demand" and "to convenience". We can store and hoard television so that we can watch it when we want to. Shops remain open all night on the off chance that we exercise our democratic right to buy jam tarts in the wee-small hours.  

What would happen if God treated us in a like manner? What if God was the parent in my little narrative at the top - only available at his convenience? What if God rationed us to 59 minutes a week, or simply didn't bother because he favoured time with his golf bats? What if God ignored us because he simply couldn't be arsed today?

So, it is the start of a new year. Have I just upset you be describing an all too familiar situation? Have no fear - the relationship you have absented yourself is still there; still real. And thankfully for you and for me, God will simply be delighted to see you again. Enjoy!

Unbalanced Church Leaders

Courtesy of #BigBible

Further to my comments yesterday, I also pondered on as to how social media relationships are bound up in a balance. As I can 'dispose' of my ether-friends, so it is that I too can be disposed of. Accepting that such disposals are broadly temporary, I am reassured.

However, there is a facet to all of this that is manifestly un-balanced, and it is closer to home than I would have first imagined. 

Let's talk tacks. Twitter is, to my mind, a device where people communicate with other people. It would seem to be a mutual gathering of 'give and take'. In addition to this, Christians are commanded to follow Jesus, pray to the Father and all that jazz, not gather disciples for themselves. Sling in a little Pnuematological expression into that and you have a church. 

I discovered, with some surprise and even more amazement that there are Christians who have tens of thousands of followers and yet they barely follow a soul. The few I have seen either bill themselves as archbishops, pioneers of something or other, or else are just too important to bother with me. 

If Twitter is a place for important Christians with important jobs to say important things like pronouncements, then it is not a place I wish to be. If Twitter is a place where disciples are as one, together, without the hierarchies of ecclesial frameworks, then count me in. If they are too important to read what I (or anyone else who loves God too) have to say, then something is very wrong. If by not following this humble priest states that they are better than me, then they are wrong. To be sure, such one-sidedness and apparent supremacism vexes me intensely. 

Putting it bluntly, I follow Jesus. If I follow you, it is as an invitation to mutuality, not so that I can sit at your feet in wonder. 

Enough said. 

(I ought to mention that there many bishops, writers of courses and so on who do not fall into this category, and they are highly to be praised)

Careless Whisper

There is a theory expressed in some places that claims that the beat of a butterfly's wings in one part of the world can create a hurricane in another. I am no physicist or chaos-theorist, so I opt to acquiesce on this idea, all the while being quite sure in my unqualified heart that it is bunkum!

As I spend more time in this ministry of mine, I encounter more and more people. Every single human creature has a story, and I am willing to bet that they have one thing in common (or else know personally of such a thing close at hand).

I believe that, in the main, the fractures and disputes, wars and conflicts, turmoil and suffering, needless slaughter, lifelong antipathies, deeply set quarrels, career ending, family smashing, sibling dividing, friend destroying phenomena are not the products of great single events. It would be easy to say that all marriages end because of an affair, because of violence, or because of someone else - but I am not sure that is the case. It would be easy to say that siblings fall out for decades because of a Last Will and Testament, of greed or jealousy - but I am not sure that is the case. It would be easy to blame all wars on Archduke Ferdinand-type events, the lit touchpaper, the invasion - but I am not sure that is the case.

I think the cause is altogether more mundane. I think the cause is banal in and of itself. 

Every conflict (with the very rare exception) I have heard about in all the ways I sit and listen to people talk have started not in the seat of a significant event, but in the wake of what can only be termed a 'careless whisper', an ill-thought phrase uttered thoughtlessly, a rebuke that was a fraction too heavy. Equally, I have heard of conflicts that are seated in the glint on an eye, a passing expression, the interpreted inference that wasn't intended. That beat of a butterfly wing, in the moment, seems to cause little damage - but the fracture starts and simply widens with time until a hair-line crack becomes a gap becomes a fissure becomes an aching chasm. 

This is both an alarming conclusion and a reassuring one. Everyone of us has the wings of a butterfly and the power to cause a hurricane. Mostly we would never intend to, but the road to Hell and all that ... Equally, we have the power to prevent wars and disputes that destroy lives, simply by taking a moment more care in an argument, with throwaway comments. We can ignite a smoldering fire in someone with consequences that can never be predicted, or we can quell one (or indeed avoid one). 

As I sit and write this, it occurs to me with some measure of concern the increasing power to build or destroy in the context of social-media. If only people read our words as we intended them to be read!