Friday 26 June 2020
Grace
This week's submission is a link to a recent piece on Mockingbird. It is simply, beautifully true, and nothing more need be said. Enjoy.
Friday 19 June 2020
Undiscovered?
"It's about the future - some people can be very frightened of change". Captain James T Kirk.
"There's something unsustainable about an environment that demands constant atonement but actively disdains the very idea of forgiveness". Elizabeth Bruenig.
There have been plenty of hours spent viewing over the last few months. One of the things that my brother and I have enjoyed doing during our Skype updates is watching some good Science Fiction together, and particularly the highly enjoyable re-visits to some quintessential moments in Star Trek - not the jingoistic, virtue box-ticking new dross, but the glory days when the show and movies were clearly heralding back to earlier great sagas.
Recently, we viewed what for me was one of the highlights of the classic voyages - Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country, which tells the tale of how two great powers manage to forge peace on the very brink of interstellar war.
Literally weeks from retirement, Captain Kirk and his crew find themselves thrust into the centre of a diplomatic endeavour to bring reconciliation with an environmentally wounded but militarily dangerous Klingon Empire.
Kirk finds himself in (and here's where it gets deeply theological) the Jonah seat (unwilling and morally unable), having to act as an Olive Branch to the very power responsible for the loss of his only son. What makes matters worse is he is placed in this position by his long-time friend, Spock, who presumes he knows how to bring about calm between the two factions in a reasonable, logical fashion (sadly neglecting, at least at first, some of the humanity he had found in some of the other movie adventures).
The consequences of prejudice on both sides are then played out as malevolent forces wanting only chaos pray upon these presumptions to their advantage. The Klingon Ambassador is assassinated presumably by the 'good' guys, requiring Kirk to surrender to save his ship from destruction, and then becoming trapped - literally imprisoned - by his own words at a show trial. Spock must cut the Enterprise off from Starfleet and use all his skills to discover what is really taking place and then rescue both Kirk and the forthcoming negotiations from a tragic end.
The story resolves in a highly satisfactory way (see below), but what I find (to use a Spock-ism) "fascinating" is how short-sightedness on both sides, even when coupled with honest intent, is used to almost bring disaster to the entire, highly precarious, moment.
The last few weeks have allowed us to witness shocking and unexpected events in respect to social issues - the injustice of the miss-use of power, bringing unwarranted death, but equally, the excessive desire to see suppression of certain aspects of culture and history in response to this.
I have watched and listened to people of remarkable passion and integrity on both sides, who have certainly deserved to be heard and who's concerns, for all our sakes, must be held dear if we are to see life remain tolerable, but as in the film, I have also seen many dark forces in play which are merely using these moments to "see the world burn".
The movie concludes with a last moment rescue by Kirk and company of the president from assassination, but the beauty of the event is what then follows - reconciliation between all parties.
If we are to see something truly valuable result from current events, then a tearing down, as history clearly shows, must be replaced by a raising up of something good and meaningful - a deeper peace. This is truly achieved for us all by Jesus Christ in His reconciling work, who brings all into one family through the blood and suffering - the redeeming work - of His cross.
A deep price has been paid to make each of us truly free, not merely from present inequality or discrimination, but from what disqualifies us from inheriting eternal peace with God and thereby with each other.
We need to look there, as others gone before us have done, to find a resolve in these needy times.
"There's something unsustainable about an environment that demands constant atonement but actively disdains the very idea of forgiveness". Elizabeth Bruenig.
There have been plenty of hours spent viewing over the last few months. One of the things that my brother and I have enjoyed doing during our Skype updates is watching some good Science Fiction together, and particularly the highly enjoyable re-visits to some quintessential moments in Star Trek - not the jingoistic, virtue box-ticking new dross, but the glory days when the show and movies were clearly heralding back to earlier great sagas.
Recently, we viewed what for me was one of the highlights of the classic voyages - Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country, which tells the tale of how two great powers manage to forge peace on the very brink of interstellar war.
Literally weeks from retirement, Captain Kirk and his crew find themselves thrust into the centre of a diplomatic endeavour to bring reconciliation with an environmentally wounded but militarily dangerous Klingon Empire.
Kirk finds himself in (and here's where it gets deeply theological) the Jonah seat (unwilling and morally unable), having to act as an Olive Branch to the very power responsible for the loss of his only son. What makes matters worse is he is placed in this position by his long-time friend, Spock, who presumes he knows how to bring about calm between the two factions in a reasonable, logical fashion (sadly neglecting, at least at first, some of the humanity he had found in some of the other movie adventures).
The consequences of prejudice on both sides are then played out as malevolent forces wanting only chaos pray upon these presumptions to their advantage. The Klingon Ambassador is assassinated presumably by the 'good' guys, requiring Kirk to surrender to save his ship from destruction, and then becoming trapped - literally imprisoned - by his own words at a show trial. Spock must cut the Enterprise off from Starfleet and use all his skills to discover what is really taking place and then rescue both Kirk and the forthcoming negotiations from a tragic end.
The story resolves in a highly satisfactory way (see below), but what I find (to use a Spock-ism) "fascinating" is how short-sightedness on both sides, even when coupled with honest intent, is used to almost bring disaster to the entire, highly precarious, moment.
The last few weeks have allowed us to witness shocking and unexpected events in respect to social issues - the injustice of the miss-use of power, bringing unwarranted death, but equally, the excessive desire to see suppression of certain aspects of culture and history in response to this.
I have watched and listened to people of remarkable passion and integrity on both sides, who have certainly deserved to be heard and who's concerns, for all our sakes, must be held dear if we are to see life remain tolerable, but as in the film, I have also seen many dark forces in play which are merely using these moments to "see the world burn".
The movie concludes with a last moment rescue by Kirk and company of the president from assassination, but the beauty of the event is what then follows - reconciliation between all parties.
If we are to see something truly valuable result from current events, then a tearing down, as history clearly shows, must be replaced by a raising up of something good and meaningful - a deeper peace. This is truly achieved for us all by Jesus Christ in His reconciling work, who brings all into one family through the blood and suffering - the redeeming work - of His cross.
A deep price has been paid to make each of us truly free, not merely from present inequality or discrimination, but from what disqualifies us from inheriting eternal peace with God and thereby with each other.
We need to look there, as others gone before us have done, to find a resolve in these needy times.
Saturday 13 June 2020
Angst
"Why do the nations rage, and the peoples imagine a vain thing? " Psalm 2:1.
An interesting satirical piece appeared on my Facebook reading page yesterday morning.
Following through on the current call for disbanding Police forces, it suggested hippies employing John Lennon's 'Imagine' as a salve for the moment was an appropriate response to the current outcry for social justice. It jolted a memory of a couple of moments from the film version of Tom Sharpe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" where a spectrum of 'colourful' responses arise in regards to a particular indiscretion which impinges on political, social and racial tensions, that become a public affair.
The 'summer of love' scenario evoked by Lennon and co is nostalgically sourced as an acceptable 'small corner' to many, because of its seemingly cosy, mellow invitation to a place where peace descends because we can so readily depict somewhere without anything beyond the 'now'. That, to use 60s language, is what 'feels' right.
The problem, of course, is that we're not living amidst some ideal 60s love-in. What we are living through is far more akin to M Night Shalayman's vision in The Happening.
The film begins with a breaking-in of the inexplicable. We witness nature and society erupting in a fashion that quickly drowns and swallows the entire 'normal' of life. What we then witness is the way in which people respond to this because they cannot explain what they witness.
Our world has been split this past three months by unprecedented change, and as humanity begins to seek to 're-settle' itself in the wake of what has transpired, we find a world aflame with all manner of questions and issues that such a breaking has caused to pierce us with terrible imminence.
The shifting has got us, and it isn't stopping.
Perhaps the thing to ask is why.
Back in early March, the initial response I witnessed was panic. People were clearly afraid of what was coming, because they understood that life as they knew it was over. Uprooted, at least for the present, so many of them literally ran to grab what they could - especially from the shops. It is estimated that there were some 97 million extra visits to supermarkets in those few weeks in March and April in the UK alone.
We haven't escaped what those days released in respect to the rout, so we're now in the throes of another cycle of reaction - this one seeking anything human to grip onto that can become the centre of our attention because we cannot, we dare not, look into the face of the Gorgon that the pandemic has unleashed upon our ruined world.
We are furious at what's happened; at the confused at best and woefully inadequate at worst responses to what has set us in a place where things may appear the same, but where they are as frail as dust, and we are powerless to change them.
Now, as the anger rises, cutting in wherever it finds the slightest pretext for its 'sanctified' expression, we begin to see how deep the wound truly is.
The events of the last few days show us where such indignation can quickly travel.
What does this say?
We are a truly marred race.
Scratch us, and we not only bleed, but we exude venom that so often is only quelled when exhausted by the brutality of violence (vocal and physical) or the blunt excess of war.
The cause, so many would say, is we are not empowered to be what we should be. We must have what will make us so, whatever it takes for that to happen.
Anxiety. Anger. Avarice. Activism.
The Psalm tells us that we are awfully concluded in just such a cycle, and that this is the trap that defines the maelstrom of our existence distant from God. The intention has to be to
'break' what we deem is stifling - to exorcise what holds and haunts us in respect to the shadow of something greater than our own ambitions. We are highly industrious to rid our lives of the burden of such a higher requirement - to see an alternative that truly makes each of us not only of astonishing value, but truly free to live well.
What we learn from the 'marginalised', the maligned, the miss-placed, is that given a little power, we are all equally capable of a savagery that will furiously hammer not only anyone else, but pulverise the divine image within us into the ground - because the truth is too painful to bear.
We are children of an eternal Father, who has given us the beauty and majesty we are meant to bear in the person of His Son. We took such grace and pulped it into the bloody mess of horrific crucifixion. That is the human condition which marks and condemns us all.
In that man, we see the expression of what we need to understand and need to be - a people destined to be 'one' with each other and our world because we are one with Him who holds it, who intends for it to become whole, and who desires each of us to find our place in such a splendour.
The Happening concludes with the awful truth that what we see in the present is cyclic - naturally, there is no escape from the horror that pursues us here. Only by coming to and 'kissing' the Son, as the Psalmist tells us, centuries before the Son is born amongst us, can we find true resolve to these ever-present troubles.
An interesting satirical piece appeared on my Facebook reading page yesterday morning.
Following through on the current call for disbanding Police forces, it suggested hippies employing John Lennon's 'Imagine' as a salve for the moment was an appropriate response to the current outcry for social justice. It jolted a memory of a couple of moments from the film version of Tom Sharpe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" where a spectrum of 'colourful' responses arise in regards to a particular indiscretion which impinges on political, social and racial tensions, that become a public affair.
The 'summer of love' scenario evoked by Lennon and co is nostalgically sourced as an acceptable 'small corner' to many, because of its seemingly cosy, mellow invitation to a place where peace descends because we can so readily depict somewhere without anything beyond the 'now'. That, to use 60s language, is what 'feels' right.
The problem, of course, is that we're not living amidst some ideal 60s love-in. What we are living through is far more akin to M Night Shalayman's vision in The Happening.
The film begins with a breaking-in of the inexplicable. We witness nature and society erupting in a fashion that quickly drowns and swallows the entire 'normal' of life. What we then witness is the way in which people respond to this because they cannot explain what they witness.
Our world has been split this past three months by unprecedented change, and as humanity begins to seek to 're-settle' itself in the wake of what has transpired, we find a world aflame with all manner of questions and issues that such a breaking has caused to pierce us with terrible imminence.
The shifting has got us, and it isn't stopping.
Perhaps the thing to ask is why.
Back in early March, the initial response I witnessed was panic. People were clearly afraid of what was coming, because they understood that life as they knew it was over. Uprooted, at least for the present, so many of them literally ran to grab what they could - especially from the shops. It is estimated that there were some 97 million extra visits to supermarkets in those few weeks in March and April in the UK alone.
We haven't escaped what those days released in respect to the rout, so we're now in the throes of another cycle of reaction - this one seeking anything human to grip onto that can become the centre of our attention because we cannot, we dare not, look into the face of the Gorgon that the pandemic has unleashed upon our ruined world.
We are furious at what's happened; at the confused at best and woefully inadequate at worst responses to what has set us in a place where things may appear the same, but where they are as frail as dust, and we are powerless to change them.
Now, as the anger rises, cutting in wherever it finds the slightest pretext for its 'sanctified' expression, we begin to see how deep the wound truly is.
The events of the last few days show us where such indignation can quickly travel.
What does this say?
We are a truly marred race.
Scratch us, and we not only bleed, but we exude venom that so often is only quelled when exhausted by the brutality of violence (vocal and physical) or the blunt excess of war.
The cause, so many would say, is we are not empowered to be what we should be. We must have what will make us so, whatever it takes for that to happen.
Anxiety. Anger. Avarice. Activism.
The Psalm tells us that we are awfully concluded in just such a cycle, and that this is the trap that defines the maelstrom of our existence distant from God. The intention has to be to
'break' what we deem is stifling - to exorcise what holds and haunts us in respect to the shadow of something greater than our own ambitions. We are highly industrious to rid our lives of the burden of such a higher requirement - to see an alternative that truly makes each of us not only of astonishing value, but truly free to live well.
What we learn from the 'marginalised', the maligned, the miss-placed, is that given a little power, we are all equally capable of a savagery that will furiously hammer not only anyone else, but pulverise the divine image within us into the ground - because the truth is too painful to bear.
We are children of an eternal Father, who has given us the beauty and majesty we are meant to bear in the person of His Son. We took such grace and pulped it into the bloody mess of horrific crucifixion. That is the human condition which marks and condemns us all.
In that man, we see the expression of what we need to understand and need to be - a people destined to be 'one' with each other and our world because we are one with Him who holds it, who intends for it to become whole, and who desires each of us to find our place in such a splendour.
The Happening concludes with the awful truth that what we see in the present is cyclic - naturally, there is no escape from the horror that pursues us here. Only by coming to and 'kissing' the Son, as the Psalmist tells us, centuries before the Son is born amongst us, can we find true resolve to these ever-present troubles.
Saturday 6 June 2020
Full Disclosure?
There's an amusing piece this week by David Zahl on the oh so easy mistake of getting things wrong when we think we know where things are going.
Recent events certainly leave us all wanting more certainty about what comes next, but if history tells us anything, it's never that straightforward.
At the heart of the city in which I live is a ruined church:
It's now a memorial to the devastation that happened through the bombing that took place in the last Great War.
Notice what stands behind it - another great cathedral, this one dedicated to the power of commerce in our times.
If I had stated 12 months ago that both buildings would be standing as empty as each other within the year, I doubt anyone would have taken me seriously, but that's exactly what has happened.
Can you imagine how crazy people would have viewed someone, when they were sinking the foundations of this shopping centre, who proclaimed that it would be closed by plague some 14 years after it opened?
People, no doubt, would have reacted in a similar way if someone had predicted 300 years earlier that the new place of worship was destined in just two days to be 'destroyed by fire reigning from the sky'.
And yet, here we are.
The edifice of what has happened should clearly warn us of what can and probably will unfold so easily around us.
So it is when we come to the foretelling of a book like Revelation. Notice how what God says to John begins in the very real events that were unfolding in his own day. The troubles that Jesus had told the disciples as they sat together on the Mount of Olives prior to His death and resurrection were unfolding as He said they would, and Jesus continues to speak to John on Patmos in that similar fashion, beginning with the troubles amidst the churches in Asia, and unfolding what 'must occur shortly' from that basis.
It's easy to get lost in all the signs and symbols that are employed in the book as it proceeds, but there are several key themes that are easy to identify as 'general trends' of what will mark the days that followed.
These include:
Power. The first 'horseman' would be conquest, and from the very days when John wrote amidst the hunger of Rome, our world has witnessed the rise of one imperial power after another, all seeking to subjugate millions beneath its sway. This, almost always, incurs the appearance of the second rider John sees - War. If there is one evil that truly marks the past twenty centuries of human 'triumph', it is the sheer carnage we have wrought upon each other by our continual invention of new and better ways to brutally kill. As one writer put it recently, we didn't split the atom to help each other, but to murder others more efficiently. The consequence of these two realities is seen in the third - Poverty. How many have been brutalised because of the greed and ambitions of others who have cruelly employed their power for evil? The conclusion to such days - Death. This, John is shown, will be the primary legacy of the days which were ahead, which would also include a continual persecution of the Christian church (John himself was already suffering because of this) and a destitution of the natural world, principally as a means of recompense for humanity's cruel actions.
It's easy to read this and to not pause and reflect on what this says about us - about our race. Think about the causes which exist in us to not only allow, but to commence such vile realities in our world. It tells us so much about the poverty and the misery of the human condition.
The book is then essentially a picture of the conflict that takes place between the expanding nature of the Kingdom of God and the ravaging yet inevitable termination of the powers of evil, which clearly become more savage and desperate as the end approaches, anger and anxiety becoming the hallmark of the age.
The book presents us with some remarkable images that define the 'key characters' of history:
The Woman (also called the Bride).
This is clearly those defined as God's redeemed people, 'brought out' (through) the travail of this age to become God's eternal joy.
The Child (also defined as the Victor/Bride groom).
Jesus Christ, who from the opening verse, is the key focus of what unfolds. He is the one in whom all history will find its true purpose and conclusion.
The Dragon.
The antagonist of the age - the Devil. The one who stirs powers against the most high and His anointed Son.
The Beasts (Land and Sea).
The world powers, which are clearly the final manifestations of those powers first predicted by the Prophet Daniel.
The Harlot.
The false 'church' or religion which seeks continually to raise itself up and above a true knowledge of God and persecutes and murders the true church.
Babylon.
The merchants of the world, who fund and support the false political and religious powers that are steered by the Dragon.
Since the first promise given to Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:15), human history has essentially revolved around this conflict, but in the last days (which commence, according to Peter, on the day of Pentecost as he preaches in Jerusalem), this conflict will truly reach its conclusion.
We can therefore no doubt expect an intensifying of what is both good and bad in the days ahead. Evil will abound, as it has so many times in this past century, but the kingdom of God will continue to grow until, at last, the whole world will witness His appearing.
Let's continue to encourage one another with the certainty of God what has done, is doing, and will bring to completion in the splendour and beauty of His wondrous Son, Jesus Christ, who is coming again soon. As with d-day in the last Great War, the cross and the empty tomb tell us that victory is already close by - we are merely seeing the death throws of a defeated foe. Let us stand fast in that certainty.
Recent events certainly leave us all wanting more certainty about what comes next, but if history tells us anything, it's never that straightforward.
At the heart of the city in which I live is a ruined church:
It's now a memorial to the devastation that happened through the bombing that took place in the last Great War.
Notice what stands behind it - another great cathedral, this one dedicated to the power of commerce in our times.
If I had stated 12 months ago that both buildings would be standing as empty as each other within the year, I doubt anyone would have taken me seriously, but that's exactly what has happened.
Can you imagine how crazy people would have viewed someone, when they were sinking the foundations of this shopping centre, who proclaimed that it would be closed by plague some 14 years after it opened?
People, no doubt, would have reacted in a similar way if someone had predicted 300 years earlier that the new place of worship was destined in just two days to be 'destroyed by fire reigning from the sky'.
And yet, here we are.
The edifice of what has happened should clearly warn us of what can and probably will unfold so easily around us.
So it is when we come to the foretelling of a book like Revelation. Notice how what God says to John begins in the very real events that were unfolding in his own day. The troubles that Jesus had told the disciples as they sat together on the Mount of Olives prior to His death and resurrection were unfolding as He said they would, and Jesus continues to speak to John on Patmos in that similar fashion, beginning with the troubles amidst the churches in Asia, and unfolding what 'must occur shortly' from that basis.
It's easy to get lost in all the signs and symbols that are employed in the book as it proceeds, but there are several key themes that are easy to identify as 'general trends' of what will mark the days that followed.
These include:
Power. The first 'horseman' would be conquest, and from the very days when John wrote amidst the hunger of Rome, our world has witnessed the rise of one imperial power after another, all seeking to subjugate millions beneath its sway. This, almost always, incurs the appearance of the second rider John sees - War. If there is one evil that truly marks the past twenty centuries of human 'triumph', it is the sheer carnage we have wrought upon each other by our continual invention of new and better ways to brutally kill. As one writer put it recently, we didn't split the atom to help each other, but to murder others more efficiently. The consequence of these two realities is seen in the third - Poverty. How many have been brutalised because of the greed and ambitions of others who have cruelly employed their power for evil? The conclusion to such days - Death. This, John is shown, will be the primary legacy of the days which were ahead, which would also include a continual persecution of the Christian church (John himself was already suffering because of this) and a destitution of the natural world, principally as a means of recompense for humanity's cruel actions.
It's easy to read this and to not pause and reflect on what this says about us - about our race. Think about the causes which exist in us to not only allow, but to commence such vile realities in our world. It tells us so much about the poverty and the misery of the human condition.
The book is then essentially a picture of the conflict that takes place between the expanding nature of the Kingdom of God and the ravaging yet inevitable termination of the powers of evil, which clearly become more savage and desperate as the end approaches, anger and anxiety becoming the hallmark of the age.
The book presents us with some remarkable images that define the 'key characters' of history:
The Woman (also called the Bride).
This is clearly those defined as God's redeemed people, 'brought out' (through) the travail of this age to become God's eternal joy.
The Child (also defined as the Victor/Bride groom).
Jesus Christ, who from the opening verse, is the key focus of what unfolds. He is the one in whom all history will find its true purpose and conclusion.
The Dragon.
The antagonist of the age - the Devil. The one who stirs powers against the most high and His anointed Son.
The Beasts (Land and Sea).
The world powers, which are clearly the final manifestations of those powers first predicted by the Prophet Daniel.
The Harlot.
The false 'church' or religion which seeks continually to raise itself up and above a true knowledge of God and persecutes and murders the true church.
Babylon.
The merchants of the world, who fund and support the false political and religious powers that are steered by the Dragon.
Since the first promise given to Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:15), human history has essentially revolved around this conflict, but in the last days (which commence, according to Peter, on the day of Pentecost as he preaches in Jerusalem), this conflict will truly reach its conclusion.
We can therefore no doubt expect an intensifying of what is both good and bad in the days ahead. Evil will abound, as it has so many times in this past century, but the kingdom of God will continue to grow until, at last, the whole world will witness His appearing.
Let's continue to encourage one another with the certainty of God what has done, is doing, and will bring to completion in the splendour and beauty of His wondrous Son, Jesus Christ, who is coming again soon. As with d-day in the last Great War, the cross and the empty tomb tell us that victory is already close by - we are merely seeing the death throws of a defeated foe. Let us stand fast in that certainty.
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