Thoughts and Conversations

"Though every thing's broken, your beauty remains"

Krystal Myers.

Whilst on a two-day photo project in Cornwall this week, I found myself seated near Padstow harbor amidst principally non-Christian friends, enjoying the warmth and the charm of the place as I tucked into a locally made pastie. As we ate and enjoyed the moment, one of my friends asked me a very deep question. He'd been considering the beauty of the almost idyllic scene before us, and asked me, as a believer, what I felt heaven had to offer beyond what we were encountering.
I sought to explain that surrounding us as keenly as the serenity we enjoyed was a universe in decay, a race in rebellion, a 'natural' condition in need of deep healing, and this is exactly what the Gospel promises - a realm in which all that is good and beautiful will be so without the current darkness, without the pain of corruption and evil.
The conversation then went on to familiar 'roundabout' questions with others who were present, but that initial question touched upon something I had been considering earlier in the week on the issue of beauty.

I'm currently reading Roger Scruton's study of the subject, and amidst many thought-provoking observations, he notes "We appreciate beautiful things not for their utility only, but also for what they are in themselves".
The thought immediately shunted my mind back to the seventh day of the first week of Creation.
Genesis informs us that God inhabits this day, as He is 'refreshed' by the goodness, the beauty of all He has made. This 'inhabiting' sanctifies the day, filling it with the weight and significance of holiness, that sublime, supreme aspect of the character of the persons of the Godhead.

We live in age where so much of what is defined as elegant and even beautiful is only done so in a detached, utilitarian manner - it is 'function' that counts, but on that day, it was the inherent goodness of all things that so delighted it's designer.
We all depend upon the 'use-ability' of the realm around us - our environment, our bodies, the functional aspects of life, but all these 'good gifts', sent from above, are not merely a device for our well-being; they were made to serve a higher purpose, to 'glorify' their maker - something currently hindered by our fall from that original goodness tasted in Eden.

The view at Padstow was splendid, and rightly caused my friend to ponder on the place of such beauty, but the true wonder has yet to be seen, soon to be made evident in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Subversion!

"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way". Stevie Wonder.


The better weather has allowed for healthier outdoor pursuits, and that usually marries for me with some deeper thinking and reading.
I picked up Sci-Fi master Robert Heinlein's 'To Sail Towards the Sunset' this week, and was interested in pondering the key character's re-vamping of the Ten Commandments. What was especially intriguing was the thinking behind this, given by the character's father:
"The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be".
As someone who has spent many years of my Christian life facing "turbulence" with 'the powers that be' (church doctrines and leadership), there's certainly a truth here (with regards to mis-applying the Law), but I quickly realized that, especially in this moment, there is equally a wider application.

There are 'new' commandments, heard everyday on my local radio station, and woe betide the transgressor who questions or slights one of these rules...

1.You shall not doubt the doctrine of anthropocentric (man-originated) climate change.
The fact the CO 2 increases follow temperature changes shall not be spoken!

2.You shall advocate anthropocentric schemes to revert these changes, whoever, wherever and whatever their origin (and however hair-brained they may be - I'm staggered at just what is getting funding).

3.You shall always talk up 'sustainability' (even if the 'facts' to support what you've placed under that banner are flaky at best, and may be costing us a heck of a lot more, in both the short and the long term).

4.You will ensure ALL 'sensible' input on these subjects, be it social, scientific, political or artistic, speak with the same common voice (as per commandment 1). Dissent of any kind is mis-placed and 'primitive' (even when presented by experts in their fields!).

5. You will IGNORE all data to the contrary - and if it is raised, it will be ridiculed as mistaken.

These rules took a couple of minutes to assemble after listening to a week of local radio 'entertainment' on "Green" issues and the celebration of Naturalism here (the Darwin 200th anniversary dramatizations, arts festival, and discussions). There were moments when I wanted to switch off the radio for good, as I realized that any other view on such issues is already totally marginalized.

The call to stand fast in our liberty has never been so pertinent!
We're close to a time when almost everything you do will be under the scrutiny of the powers that be, and not for good reason - but because of a fiction that WE determine the nature of things, and can therefore control our world. History is replete with examples of moments when we have thought that way - it has always ended in horrible tragedy.

Watch the signs, listen to the 'thought' dictation occurring, and discern the darkness, so sweetly wrapped in the opium of common sense!

The Best Things...

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

Paul Simon

It's there everyday as I walk into work -
a sign that boldly declares free entertainment, amenities and other enticements, all sure to draw folks in. I just wonder how many (if any) of those attracted by the 'free'(dom) offered here take any notice of the small print - 'subject to the terms and conditions of the establishment'.
That sums up our current 'freedoms' so well - you can 'externalize' liberty, making it about how you look, what you wear, what you chose to do (when you have 'free' time), but usually, this amounts to traveling the well-worn route of subjection to what is deemed 'free' - pursuits that are, apparently, expressions of freedom. The moment may be wild, a real high, but the 'terms and conditions' soon kick into play, and the reality is that we're far from free - our choices and our actions count.

It's stunning to reflect on what is often considered vital or important to our times -
theories of our origins, which, even if accepted, leave huge gaping questions about who and what we are,
it all gets pretty bizarre.

I was reflecting today on how Peter informs us how our age will be marked with a mindset which views it as 'freeing' to deride the notion of purpose ( - that we were designed to be here and that life amounts to much more than a instinctive, biological continuation of a species).
The neglect of our most inherent aspect of identity here, notes the teacher, is palpable.
The earth was created, and we are part of that work - a work which has been shaken when it has fallen and deviated from it's design - and the day of realization of that reality is fast approaching.

We can pursue the satiation of the 'hunger' we all have inside to be truly free, but (as Lewis notes), we were made to burn a particular fuel. Atheistic, Gnostic and Pantheistic notions all pander to quelling our deepest ache, but only Jesus Christ can stand before us and truly declare 'I am meaning'.

It's pretty clear to me that so many people who reject or leave Christianity behind do so not because of Christ himself, but because they have been burned or crushed by the weight of a 'terms and conditions' religiosity. Most of us have known the weight of that trial, but if we come back to the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament, we are soon shocked by something very different in nature - a call to a human reality that will mark us with a freedom defined by love, purchased and freely given through unwarranted, unmerited mercy.

Those are terms and conditions that make me truly smile.

The Darkness

"A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health, and a successful outcome to every situation and action" Ramez Sasson.

"I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined,
stone cold dead as I stepped out of the womb". Bob Dylan.


Ever pondered what exactly gets you out of bed in the morning (assuming you are able to sleep at nights)?
The mind 'games' we usually have to play are pretty elaborate - presumptions that spin a fabric of social and personal 'norms' by which we can not only face but hopefully invest something into each fleeting moment called a day - granting the game some worth, so long as we do not probe or question too deeply.

The problems come, often, as we grow older. The mask of such illusion begins to slip as we become aware that the value of such a dance is flawed, and that so much of what is deemed 'the norm' is but a pretense - a device to keep us busy, distracted, from facing reality. The cracks are always there - the perpetual corruption in every aspect of life, whilst it may seek to change it's spots, continues apace, and the reality of decay and death encroaches, however we seek to project the 'I'm fine' persona to ourselves and to others.
In an honest analysis, we quickly find ourselves in agreement with the sobering analysis of Solomon - all of life amounts to no more than a painful futility.

The broken record of 'normal' life leaves us there, stranded and abandoned in a world which has us reaching for something to dull the pain - a darkness too terrible to comprehend - fueled by the misnomer that there is no true remedy. In the modernal mind, there is no actual escape - no aid or answer to this tragedy. Life becomes little more than 'dodging the bullet' for however long this can be achieved, until the moment when death slams us against the darkness from which there is no return.

Jesus Christ entered the arena of this dreadful malady and extinguished its rule.
He seeks to confront each of us with a greater reality - that our lives are not meant to be marked by such pathetic tragedy, but with life that has enduring value.
His death and resurrection reveal that the pain and misery of the present darkness have sought to usurp our true purpose and connection to what we are and are meant to be.

The choice is stark - a world enshrouded in a darkness which holds and devours all, or one marked by ultimate freedom from pain and sorrow, because of the one who has made us free, even in the midst of this present trial, to taste of eternal life.

In our mad world, that truth conveys a goodness and mercy which allows our troubled days here to be savored with a richer meaning than any broken dream.

The M a l a d y

"There is, after all, nothing inherently reasonable in the conviction that all of reality is simply an accidental confluence of physical causes, without any transcendent source or end. Materialism is not a fact of experience or a deduction of logic; it is a metaphysical prejudice, nothing more, and one that is arguably more irrational than almost any other"

Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart.

Some years ago, a popular 'voice' in the UK for atheism bewailed the fact that TV shows like the X Files and Supernatural were becoming so popular amongst young people. Why is it, he posited, in an 'explained' universe that we have this irrational need for the unfounded notions of there being something 'above and beyond' the observed and the understood?

A few days ago, I fell quite badly whilst at home, stubbing my toes and bruising my arm. There were certainly consequences of this action - pain being the immediate one! - and I understood what had occurred, but in no manner would I ever be able to equate such "accidents" as being responsible for anything beyond the momentary trial and current physical bruising I encountered - such events do not give rise to my "becoming" more 'developed' in any way as a physical creature.
The quote above really strips bare the 'supernaturalism' of the naturalists argument - "accident" (or to be more precise, chance) is essentially all they have to explain who and what we are, why we are and it is an entirely empty premise. That is why they fail to understand the need to empower the world around us with a reality that is unseen - why we inherently 'know' there is more to our existence than what immediately meets the eye.

Whenever we truly begin to encounter the complexity which furnishes our world, we are left wondering why materialists want us to believe that any information within this which 'speaks' of the possibility of design, of intelligent intent, is mute - is 'accidental', that the reality we must accept is that we merely exist by fluke. The human condition, however bent or burnt it may have been by the reality of our corrupted universe, knows that this is not the real state of play. The answer to US does not lye in our merely knowing all the facts and figures about our world. It doesn't explain those moments when we encounter something deeper, and we find ourselves pondering a truth which, as Einstein would have put it, points to a far greater intelligence than our own.

Book, TV and Movie fantasy and science fiction allow us to 'open a window' to a larger universe - one which the skeptics may hate, but we all understand, in that deepest place, is really there...

Life IS inherently spiritual, and the need of our times is to marry that profound need to the greatest reality - the life which comes from God, revealed and made ours, here and now, through Jesus Christ.

"There's another force at work here...there always has been. It's undeniable, we've all experienced it, everyone...has witnessed events they can't fathom let alone explain away by rational means. Whether we want to call that God or some sublime inspiration, or a divine force that we can't understand, it doesn't matter. IT"S HERE. IT EXISTS. And our destinies are entwined in its force"

Gaius Baltar - the Finale of the recent TV series, Battlestar Galactica.

Amidst perilious waters

"It's not supposed to be this way" Frodo Baggins - The Two Towers.

I received a circular e-mail this week which, using images of the holocaust, sought to raise concern that this dark chapter of history had been removed from the UK's national education curriculum.
I proceeded to check these claims and whilst they proved incorrect, there are concerns that some schools are not teaching on such events as they may be deemed 'difficult' for students with certain cultural or religious views to deal with.
I'm not sure anyone with a conscience wouldn't find scenes from a film like 'Schindler's List' most troubling, but the reality of that event, of the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the atrocities in Bosnia and the extermination of the Armenians, and many others besides needs to be part of our understanding of the 'modern' world, where certain beliefs and ideologies have generated such horror.

The mailing brought to mind a scene from the aforementioned film, of the children from the factory being rescued literally from the jaws of death at the gates of Auschwitz. I wondered in the light of over a century in which these dark actions of genocide have pervaded humanity what is the real value of such a moment? If modernism is correct, and history is merely as Darwin and others have defined it - a survival of the fittest - then the actions of one man in seeking to rescue a few lives from extermination is pointless - the universe is merely a large scale story of cold and dreadful cruelty with no purpose, so why should we seek to fashion ourselves as something garbed in virtues of altruism - the only absolute reality is death for the individual and extinction for all life, now or in the future.

And what of contemporary Christianity? What of those known figures from this field who say they believe in Christ and salvation yet inherently advocate peace with the very notions of our existence that have essentially invigorated such evil - that 'god' uses pain and suffering and death over millions of years as the means of His work - that this amounts to His "good" creation? What does redemption from sin and death, from a FALLEN creation mean in such a context? What are you left with beyond a "god" of the extermination camp?

Such approaches are doomed to fail us, because they merely leave us where we already are, trapped in the vicious cycle of corruption that now taints creation.

Christianity points us away from such to a greater reality -
a first, mature creation, made good, which then became corrupted.
It points us to promise in the healing of that first order, through the 'seed of the woman' - the man, Christ Jesus.
It points us always to miracle - creation, promise, incarnation, resurrection, glorification - those things which lie beyond the futility of the now - only there can this reality be granted viability and meaning, only then does saving lives become truly meaningful.

Our times are in great need for a reality that invests true meaning and worth into existence, that allows us to truly enjoy the goodness of life and earth knowing that these things truly have a value which goes beyond the misery of death and the trials we all encounter.
If we seek to remain locked into an understanding of reality derived from the same notions as the ancient pagans - that the universe essentially perpetuates itself, and we are no more than a fleeting 'blip' on that scope - then no action, no value, truly has meaning.


Christ has come and revealed to the world the glorious surety of a greater truth.
We are here by design, and our lives therefore have purpose. The key requirement now is for us to recognize that greater truth.

Exposure

"When the light exposes who we really are, we may not like what we see - it may be threatening.
Such light is greater than our darkness - the smallest ray is able to pierce us deep...
it brings hope, for its true exposure opens the means to a greater reality"

Krystryna Sanderson.

Three thoughts that need to be shared.

From Larry (over at The Old Adam Lives) in a recent discussion on Creation:
"We might even by analogy picture the entire cosmos in our mind’s eye like this great shiny perfect fruit that was “very good”. Then one day the parasitic catastrophe occurred and we immediately, from our high vantage point begin to see the decay take place in all realms. Picture a time lapse movie real of a decaying fruit. Something catastrophic and very unnatural has occurred as we see it rot more and more. But it will be raised incorruptible and very very good for ever and ever, and it will have the very good earthy qualities".

I think that's a very useful analogy of the current futility which besets creation, and a good summation of the hope which Paul unpacks for us regarding the breaking of these bonds in Romans 8. It makes you ponder on what the 'natural' is really meant to be like.

I also received an interesting quote from a friend, David, on the nature of seeing creatively:
"As the eye is a sense faculty of the body, so is the healthy imagination a sense organ of the spiritual mind. It can receive spiritual truths from the material world. But purity of heart is required for such a healthy functioning of the imagination. Without this purity, the ever active mind and imagination construct disjointed thoughts and representations that bear little resemblance to reality. Such images debase rather than dignify; they vandalize rather than draw people closer to the spiritual logoi within creation". By Aiden.

Having our minds redeemed and renewed by Christ allows us to see, through the 'window' of creation, something of a foretaste of the glory that truly resides in the fellowship of the Godhead and the genuine 'embeddedness' of our (true) natures within creation. Whilst I'd argue that purity only resides (until the day of glory, when it will permeate all things) in and through Jesus Christ, salvation allows us to take our first steps in this larger world. Some of these steps are sublime...

From Anne, over at the 'Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength' Blog, on a favorite composer:
"He did understand the basics of liturgy: that Scripture is not just for analyzing, but for praying and for singing. A musician and a poet notices things that an analyst does not: that the Psalms were originally for singing and are still best appreciated when sung, that the prophesies were originally announcements and are still best understood when proclaimed, that the imagery and symbolism of Scripture is more similar to a fugue with deep, hidden themes than it is to a textbook...Handel knew that, rightly understood, Scripture does not cause only analysis but ultimately it causes celebration. Rightly preached, the Word of God does not cause people to dedicate themselves to analyzing the Scriptures, but to go out into the world celebrating the glory of God".

This is a fascinating insight, and made me reflect deeply. When we 'study' the scriptures well, they lead us to the person of Christ - to a relationship with one who is Creator and Redeemer, to the God who is living amongst us and wishes us to know this and rejoice in such life.

Like sitting in a quiet woodland glade in a mellow, sunlit afternoon, I trust these thoughts will allow you to ponder and delight in a beauty and a joy that truly furnishes the soul and allows us to see a little more of the glory and wonder of our Great God and Saviour.