"What a work of art is man"
Hamlet
It would leave you astonished.
Imagine meeting someone who had returned home to find their wealth taken, their home vandalized, even their loved ones hurt, and yet they carried on as if everything was normal - the only way to view such behavior would be to conclude that this person had serious problems.
To live in denial of our true condition would be folly, and yet, we do it so very often.
Philosophy and Religion often place us in just such a place. Our home, and more to the point, our very nature's, have been broken and ruined by a diabolical thief, but these means of deceit are employed to assure us that everything is fine - just accept that the state of play is entirely natural, says one voice, or if you work hard enough for long enough, things will be much better in a higher state/future incarnation, says another. Both in essence actually despise the true value and worth of the real world, which was made for a purpose and culture so much richer than these approaches can ever provide.
Christ tells us that the thief of this world has not only blinded us to that purpose, but through the lies so common in so many versions of the same belief, he continues to blind us to the real 'message' of creation and it's true Creator - the one who by His goodness and mercy not only made this world, but through His Son, is at work to bring about it's full renewal and redemption.
The day will come when all men will see and understand the actual value and purpose of this world, not a temporal universe in decay, or a mere quick stop on the way to some ethereal paradise, but the home where creation will live in deep fellowship with God forever.
That truly needs thinking about - if we're not just dust, given to eternal decay, or jailed souls, going away, but truly creatures of an earth meant to continue forever, then how much of the world's philosophy and religion is woefully wide of the mark concerning who we are and what is to come.
God loves this world and the people upon it.
He sent His Son here, to rescue us and it from death and decay.
Christ will return to bring the day of renewal, when all things shall know the reality of what was intended from the beginning.
Will we be ready?
Will the lie be broken, and the light of truth be our delight?
Where are your beliefs holding you?
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Sunday, 15 August 2010
The Reflection that Bleeds
“A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?"
Charles Darwin.
No matter where, no matter who, when it comes to the children of Adam, we are all trying to hide from a reflection of our true selves - our real purpose.
Reflecting upon his countless observations, Darwin himself could not escape what Paul defined as the 'knowledge of God' written into creation. He wrote in the Origin of the Species of: "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist".
The issue which truly troubled him in the light of that reality, as it should do us, was the amount of pain, misery and chillingly cold suffering within the universe, which simply did not appear to marry with the Christian concept of a caring God, leaving him questioning, arguing, protesting against such seemingly blind ugliness and pointless destruction - the tyranny of death.
Will not the judge of all the earth do right? asks the scripture, and as we look upon life which is so tethered to the ruin of physical extinction, often after a long process of decay, it is a matter which must weigh upon us. That very concern, that very response to such a calamity informs us of something - that we require, we expect, something better than such futility, and such a response raises an equally telling issue about ourselves - why, if death and decay are merely natural, would we desire, even demand such a thing in our cold universe?
It is because, even amidst the coldness, as Darwin himself noted, we see something more - a power and a 'glory' which makes our cry for right and an end to the injustice of death even more vital and acute. Though we only glimpse it, that vision 'speaks' of a nature and character above and beyond the futile and the miserable - something which resonates at the deepest point within us, reflected in our need and our desire to be creatures which care, which know that we have a Creator and Father beyond the present pain.
Christianity provides us with two key answers regarding the nature of this present evil.
Evil itself is not eternal - it derives from fallen created creatures - particularly ourselves - and its working is therefore limited to the present age. It will be removed, and creation will be freed from bondage to this futility.
Evil was stripped by the work of God in Christ, especially at the cross. A new age has begun, and the resurrection of Jesus points to the day to come, when such pain and darkness will be gone.
These truths bring the entire issue back to our own doorsteps - to what we see in ourselves when we seek to deny our true nature, reveling in the mire of unbelief, or equally, when we stand, aghast at our ability to love and to see and receive love from others.
Life teaches us, amidst the bruises, to look harder and deeper - the truth may hurt, but it is indeed the fist steps to a deeper healing.
Charles Darwin.
No matter where, no matter who, when it comes to the children of Adam, we are all trying to hide from a reflection of our true selves - our real purpose.
Reflecting upon his countless observations, Darwin himself could not escape what Paul defined as the 'knowledge of God' written into creation. He wrote in the Origin of the Species of: "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist".
The issue which truly troubled him in the light of that reality, as it should do us, was the amount of pain, misery and chillingly cold suffering within the universe, which simply did not appear to marry with the Christian concept of a caring God, leaving him questioning, arguing, protesting against such seemingly blind ugliness and pointless destruction - the tyranny of death.
Will not the judge of all the earth do right? asks the scripture, and as we look upon life which is so tethered to the ruin of physical extinction, often after a long process of decay, it is a matter which must weigh upon us. That very concern, that very response to such a calamity informs us of something - that we require, we expect, something better than such futility, and such a response raises an equally telling issue about ourselves - why, if death and decay are merely natural, would we desire, even demand such a thing in our cold universe?
It is because, even amidst the coldness, as Darwin himself noted, we see something more - a power and a 'glory' which makes our cry for right and an end to the injustice of death even more vital and acute. Though we only glimpse it, that vision 'speaks' of a nature and character above and beyond the futile and the miserable - something which resonates at the deepest point within us, reflected in our need and our desire to be creatures which care, which know that we have a Creator and Father beyond the present pain.
Christianity provides us with two key answers regarding the nature of this present evil.
Evil itself is not eternal - it derives from fallen created creatures - particularly ourselves - and its working is therefore limited to the present age. It will be removed, and creation will be freed from bondage to this futility.
Evil was stripped by the work of God in Christ, especially at the cross. A new age has begun, and the resurrection of Jesus points to the day to come, when such pain and darkness will be gone.
These truths bring the entire issue back to our own doorsteps - to what we see in ourselves when we seek to deny our true nature, reveling in the mire of unbelief, or equally, when we stand, aghast at our ability to love and to see and receive love from others.
Life teaches us, amidst the bruises, to look harder and deeper - the truth may hurt, but it is indeed the fist steps to a deeper healing.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
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...
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...
Sunday, 8 August 2010
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.
From 'Double Cure' by Vigilantes of Love.
I came across this today - it pretty much says everything about why Christianity matters.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
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...
Find more videos like this on Miss Online
Sola Deo Gloria!
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...
Find more videos like this on Miss Online
Sola Deo Gloria!
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
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...
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