It's just unfair... Life.

"I've led such a little life. And even that will be over pretty soon.
I have allowed myself to lead this little life, when inside me there was so much more. And it's all gone unused. And now it never will be.
Why do we get all this life if we don't ever use it? Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and hopes if we don't ever use them? That's where I disappeared to. I got lost in all this unused life."

Shirley Valentine.

It's one of the ways that C S Lewis used to speak of evidence for God -
when we have a genuine need or desire for something (food, drink and the like), it is because
that need is there to be fulfilled, and our inner 'hunger' for a communion with God is that deep and that real. Perhaps that is part of the reason why this life is never as 'big' as at should be, and most certainly why it's scarred with pain and anguish instead of intensely lasting, satisfying joy. To paraphrase Lewis again, its similar to when we are seeking to enjoy nature - we sense its great beauty, but we still find ourselves detached from it, dislocated because we are, indeed, disconnected from the level of inter-action which should be ours.

Lewis was spot on, and that's why there's such a real dissatisfaction with countless 'religious' or 'philosophical' solutions to the problem - they want us to look elsewhere for comfort, for our time here is brief, merely to be transcended in some form.
Is what we are, what we long for really that meaningless?
There are plenty, when you weigh what they have to say, that are actually replying 'yes',
but the Gospel of Jesus Christ sees things very differently...

Christianity directly addresses the 'Shirley Valentine' issue head on. Life is meant to be totally satisfying, totally significant, totally meaningful, but it can't be until it's rejuvenated by truly deriving from its source - a world made whole by God in Christ.

Our bodies fail us. Our minds become weak. Life is quick and fleeting, so reflect upon what that deep inner hunger for more life is really trying to say. Where is the solution? It's certainly not within ourselves or those who would merely seek to talk it away!

It's at moments like that I'm so grateful to know that my redeemer lives, and that one day, I will stand again clothed in my flesh upon the earth because of Him, and because of Him, I will be able to revel in creation and in life as it was intended to be.There is something beyond the sorrow, and it can aid us in our time of trouble.

Shirley Valentine's question matters, so think long and hard about where the answer lies...

H o m e C o m i n g

"Haven't we all thrown our coinage, down the wishing well?"
From 'Double Cure' by Vigilantes of Love.


I came across this today - it pretty much says everything about why Christianity matters.
Enjoy.

Significance

"Those that dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined"
The Prophet Isaiah.

It never ceases to amaze me just how wretched and blind we can be.

An artist friend of mine decided to show support on one of his pages for the theory of evolution.
Not something that I see any need for an artist to do, but that's up to him.
He then decided to crown that with support for Richard Dawkins miserably wide of the mark publication (even criticized by his home team), the God Delusion, so I thought it was time to raise a question...

Do we really want to admire someone who profoundly believes we are merely "robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve selfish molecules...we merely exist for this and are nothing more than throwaway machines......in a world of savage, selfish competition, ruthless exploitation and deceit" (The River out of Eden by Richard Dawkins).

To which a total stranger replied that everything is futile, so just live for the moment:
Everything is futile, but it's worth doing. If everything is pointless then put emphasis on enjoyment and spend as little time as possible in the mire, that's a great game

I responded with a comment to the effect is that really all there is,
but it made me stop and consider....
can we really look at life, at the world, at ourselves, and see so little?

Clearly we can - that's why we need G R A C E,
why we need a Savior, and why we so need rescue,

so with that in mind, here's a few images by me which I hope will cause us to recognize the one who has made everything beautiful in its time and placed eternity in our hearts, that we might know Him and truly have life...


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Sola Deo Gloria!

A n q u i s h

A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding.
Bob Dylan

So, there you have it...
A new skull discovered in Saudi Arabia, dated around 25 million years old, is determined to be a primate (Saadanius hijazensis) which brought about the evolution of apes and humans.
Meanwhile, after the recent production by Craig Venter of a synthetic cell, scientists like Jack Szostack are eagerly engaged upon work which forces strands of DNA and RNA to compete in Darwinian struggles for existence whilst experiments like those at the University of Manchester, using raw biochemical pools as a means to re-create the conditions that first formed life, have given many scientists the view that we will be truly creating life ourselves in a few short years.

So that's it then - game over, isn't it?
We know all about life, about how to make it, and that effectively means, as naturalists have been claiming for over a century, that you certainly don't need the divine - just some trial and error combining of the basic building blocks, and you're on your way...

Except, of course, there are a few problems with all of this.
Take the synthetic cell. It's already been admitted that the 'computerized' genetic chain used to devise this was incredibly more simple that the far more complex natural cell that acted as its host. And what about that latest skull fragment?
Well, just place it alongside Geologist Virginia Steen-McIntire's findings in 1966 in Mexico.
The United States Geological Survey Society dated the various tools and spear points she and her team had unearthed by radiometric means to be 250,000 years old - some 235,000 years before modern men were supposed to be in this location.
One is readily accepted a great find because it apparently verifies the consensus theory regarding our development (even though there have been several other such 'finds' which, upon further examination, have been discovered to be no such thing), the other is comprehensively ignored because it argues with convention and therefore is dismissed.

Of course, the thinking goes, there can only really be one way to look at ourselves - as little more than a fluke; animated cosmic dust upon a very tiny ball which just happens to support such a random event - nothing of any lasting consequence, either as individuals or as a species - it's all destined for decay...
but what if another story about us is true, that we are actually skipping the real history of who and what we are in our rush to make a particular "dream" stick?

The Psalmist, so aware of His creator, asks, what are we, that we should even be considered of worth? The New Testament echoes the question, but also posits an answer - we are actually defined now by a single man, a single moment in the history of our race.
The Man is Jesus Christ, and the moment is His life, death and resurrection.

It's not an answer some dare contemplate, because if true, it means there is far more to contemplate beyond our interpretation of bones or biological codes -
it means we were made by One who requires us to know a life defined by more than our present pain, suffering and death - a redeemed creation beyond tarnish and decay.

Life has come, not in an experiment or a theory, but from heaven to earth,
and that life, that light, can crush the darkness of our broken world.

Nothing to say (or just saying nothing)?

The two women watch a full moon rising...

Finn -Oh, god. Look at that.

Aunt Pauline -I never liked full moons. They give people an excuse to do foolish things.

Finn -I'm young, I'm supposed to do foolish things.

Pauline -And spend the rest of your life paying for them.

Finn -Well, it's better than spending the rest of my life wondering what I missed.

Pauline -I'd rather wonder than kick myself.

Finn -Well, I'd rather kick myself.

Pauline (clearly irritated) -Fine. You will end up with a deeply sore backside.

From 'How to Make an American Quilt'.

There used to be a word for it - lunacy; a condition when you abandon sanity because something else (an immediate madness) overtakes you and blurs what really counts. That's what is so excellent about the scene that the above speech comes from - Aunt Pauline knows what life is about, and that it's just stupid to short-cut that.

We can so easily find ourselves entwined in the immediate like the young writer in this story - and that's fine, so long as we have the kind of people she has around her to help us navigate our way through to genuine definition and understanding, but what if that isn't the case?

What if, individually and collectively, we mute and neglect those means which truly foster well being and just wallow in the immediate and the superficial - moon-struck, in all the ways that phrase originally meant?

In a truly clarifying passage about the present, writer Peter Hitchens really sums up the results:

"Orwell feared those who would ban books. Huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban - there would simply be no one interested in reading them. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared a time which would give us so much that we would become reduced to passivity or egoism. Orwell feared the truth would be withheld. Huxley feared that truth would become drowned amidst an ocean of irrelevance".

Like that horrifying moment in H G Wells', "The Time Machine", when the scientist from the past discovers that an entire culture - the Eloi - are literally being preyed upon by others - the Morlocks - so our times have become overcome by the liquefaction of Huxley's definition of lunacy - the "drip, drip" of a realm which makes so much of the immediate at the expense of the imperative.

We rake at the moon in countless distractions, and all too often, there are no voices of trust and actual understanding to talk us off the edge, or bluntly wake us to the folly often paraded as 'good'.

What poison has become the succor of our times? How many would, in effect, remain asleep in a burning house, unaware of danger?

How dreadful it is, noted Jesus, when a man comes to call light darkness, and darkness, light -

how great that peril will be!

We need more Aunt Pauline's in our times - maybe then, we'll spend a little less time craving the dimness of the night, and encounter the glory of the sunlight...

Heaven's Open

"He also, in the end of times . . . became a man among men,
visible and tangible,
in order to abolish death and bring to light life,
and bring about the communion of God and man".

From a creed of Irenaeus of Lyons

I've had a quote at the start of one of my Photographic art portfolios for some time now:
"The motivation behind creation..is to give of ourselves. Creation is the highest act of giving".
The statement is from a book by William Dembski, and like Irenaeus' words of nearly twenty centuries ago, it makes us look at the 'bigger picture'.

I find that particularly so when I'm creative 'mode' - that's when Dembski's words ring so true.
If I am not seeking to truly connect to my subject in a manner that isn't really giving creatively, then I find I don't get very much back. Creating and probably just enjoying art means that a deep inter-action is under way - one which usually engages us, heart and soul.

And that brings us back to Christ and the 'big picture' of creation as a whole. The Lord made all things good for a very crucial reason - to express Himself...to give Himself to the world and life which He had made. Corruption often bleeds into every corner of our current existence and stains the glory of that reality, but creativity can often cause us to snatch a glint, or a brief sniff of this great and underlying truth so clearly declared in the Gospel, as expressed in the above creed.

The day approaches when of all of life will be replete in such artistry.

What it's really all about...

Now, we see dimly, like a reflection in a mirror,
but the day comes when there will be total clarity,
Now, we know only in part,
but then we shall know fully,
for love never ends -
all that is partial fades,
but perfection will come,
for the greatest is love.

Paul - 1 Corinthians 13.

How do you make sense of this crazy, messed up world?
What is it that makes life worth living, when you see the sheer ugliness we not only encounter,
but can generate from our own hearts?
When you see a tragedy like the shootings in Cumbria last week, how do people find the strength to get out of bed in the mornings?

The brilliant 20th century physicist, Richard Feynman, who had some pretty genius ideas in his life, said something major in a letter to a friend:
"Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science — for to fill your heart with love is enough".

When you see the pain of our world touched by love, then even pain becomes worthwhile.

The message of Christianity is essentially about that - God has come to heal a broken world, not through rules and regulations, but through totally unmerited love.
Here's a new song by Amy Grant which touches on the value of such love in our darkest moments...