Blurred vision

Last weekend I was home again. My mother was much the same. She has little panic cycles in which she repeats a set of questions several times. No matter how many times you answer them and comfort her, she returns to them. It's really hard to know whether she understands the comfort that is offered. Sometimes I wonder if she really even understands the questions.

It made me think once more about how I relate to God. There are a number of questions that I am forever asking him. Am I missing his answers, and failing to understand completely the hints and directions I do receive?

This week my exploration of Henri Nouwen's writing unearthed the following

The main questions of religion - Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going? - are not questions with an answer but questions that open to us new questions which lead us deeper into the unspeakable mystery of existence.

And also this one

Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility.

Which square very well with my experience, if perhaps not being wonderfully encouraging!

Travelling days

The last few weeks and months have been both a spiritual and emotional journey, the destinations of which seems as far distant now as they did when I set out. The next month or so I am off on a real journey, and so may be away from this column. In all these journey though I echo the words of this prayer, which a friend pointed me to the other day.

My Lord God
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that my desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Baby steps

"Fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it." Romans 12: 2a (The Message)

The search for vision continues. Although I confess I have not been good at asking God about it. A few days ago, however, I decided to revisit Romans 12. Over the last couple of years I have used this passage as sort of creed. The basis of a code by which to try and live. But it is hard, not least when you don't entirely understand it.

Take the verse above. The question which immediately springs into my mind is how do I recognise what it is that God wants? Surely if it were that easy everyone would be doing it already? It's like saying to a blind man "shout out every time I show you a different colour" or to a deaf man "tap your foot to the beat of this drum".

And then it hit me. Maybe it really is that easy. Perhaps the reason I don't recognise what God wants is because I'm always looking for big things. Some huge voice to tell me to go on a quest of great importance. Perhaps, however, the voice is not huge - but just the gentle prompting of scripture. And perhaps the quest is seemingly minor. Fix your attention on me. Spend a few more minutes a day with me. Get to know me better.

A friend of mine came round this evening and brought the story of David Wilkerson to my attention. He is well known for his outreach to the gangs of New York. Yet, according to my friend - the beginning of his call was being told to sell his TV. If he had never got past that, he may never have gone on to achieve what he did.

Perhaps the reason I see no big vision is because I am too ready to compromise the apparently smaller one which sits in front of it...

Solitude and growth

"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father." John 15: 11-15 (The Message)

Once again I find myself considering whether hardship is a prerequisite for growth. A problem that I thought had been solved months ago resurfaced this week. My initial response was one of anger and the urge to lash out at those behind it. This was followed by a need to retreat - if only briefly. I took myself off to the nearest available piece of green space - a cemetery - and wrestled with God. After this the need to fight remained, but my target changed. The problem itself is the thing to be fought, not the people who raised it.

Now, a few days later, I can see that response as a relatively new progression for me. The retreat to a place of solitude prior to action. I suppose my initial retreat was born out of conflict. However, since weaving solitude into my daily life I have moved away from that root. The race into God's arms stems as much from a desire for his presence as for his help. I suppose it is a more mature response.

It seems to me that if we only rely on God in times of conflict the seed is desperation not relationship. Such a seed engenders growth because we see God's ability to intervene and protect. It breaks our independence. But it is feeble growth compared to that which arises from relationship. Time spent with God leads to inter-dependence. A richer experience of a bigger God who is not just a protector. It sounds almost wrong to say it makes us less dependant on God, but I can think of no better way to put it. Or perhaps it is more that it changes the source of our dependence from desperation, hopelessness and lack of self-worth to a knowledge of acceptance. We are friends, not servants. We come not as beggars or refugees as a last resort to flee from disaster, but rather as members of the family confident that disaster has already been averted.

Unconditional love

"We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him." Rom 5: 7-8 (The Message)

This weekend I was once again looking after my mother. There is very little now that she can do or wants to engage with. She cannot read, and does not want to be read to. She has very little conversation - and quickly loses the thread of anything that you tell her. About the only thing she enjoys is going for a walk. So, despite the cold, we did a lot of walking. Most of it in silence - because it becomes hard to hold a conversation with one who has so little to say. It's heart-breaking to see how much she has lost. I realised once again just how much I miss her. Yet despite all of that I still love her and treasure the time we spend together. Just to give her a hug, or hold her hand. To share a little silliness and raise a momentary smile.

It got me thinking a bit about the way that God loves us. Since finishing Finding Sanctuary I have been working my way through an Henri Nouwen reader, Seeds of Hope. It is a collection of snippets from his various writings. This morning I came to the following:

The great temptation is to use our many obvious failures and disappointments in our lives to convince ourselves that we are not worth being loved. Because what do we have to show for ourselves?

But for a person of faith the opposite is true. The many failures may open that place in us where we have nothing to brag about but everything to be loved for. It is becoming a child again, a child who is loved simply for being, simply for reaching out.

This is the way to spiritual maturity; to receive love as a pure free gift.

It made me stop short again. God's gift of love does not depend on what I achieve for him. It does not depend on my search for his kingdom. It is not reduced by the set-backs and failures I encounter. The fact I've hurt him or missed a few quiet times does not make him feel awkward or sullen in my presence.

I wonder, ultimately, if this is what the kingdom is. To be accepted for who I am not what I can do. Maybe the best I can ever do for anyone else is just that...

Persecution

"I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning. When you put on your next prayer-performance, I'll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I'll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you've been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody. Go home and wash up. Clean up your act. Sweep your lives clean of your evil-doings so I don't have to look at them any longer. Say no to wrong. Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless." Isaiah 1: 14-17 (The Message)

I've shied away from dealing with the eighth beatitude. "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This is a tough message; the kingdom of heaven belongs to the persecuted.

Persecution is not something that I have had much experience of. When I was at school I encountered a bit of trouble for my faith - but the worst that ever amounted to was repeatedly having small bits of blu-tac flicked into my hair by one rather obnoxious young girl who took it upon herself to disrupt Christian Union meetings. It was painful to remove - but nothing compared to the ills experienced by many who profess the faith.

Last week a colleague of mine gave me an article from Open Doors magazine. It asks the question are we in enough trouble for our faith? It quotes a Beijing pastor:

"When you become a Christian you identify with God, and his enemies become your enemies. And so you become the object of a pursuit by the world and the devil. That is where the trouble comes from."

So the challenge became: how could the idea be brought back to the UK. "Find the defining evil in your area, in your society," said the pastor. "Become a threat to it through the power of God, and then watch for the persecution."

I'm not sure I know how to deal with this. To go looking for persecution sounds all wrong to me. But I believe in doing what is right for the right motives, and maybe a lack of persecution demonstrates that I'm not actually putting that into practice?

Be thou my vision

"My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving." Col 2: 6-7 (The Message)

A few days ago I came again to the critical realisation that I have no longer have any vision for my current job. It is not an entirely new thought, but it is one that I have either pushed away or forgotten on previous occurrences. The problem with this is that, as a leader, vision is a crucial part of of what I should provided for my team. Ps 29: 18 says "Where there is no vision the people perish". I don't think my team is exactly perishing, but there is a lack of focus, a lack of urgency and a general feeling of floundering.

Bill Hybels has this to say in his book Courageous Leadership:

Vision is at the very core of leadership. Take vision away from a leader and you cut out his or her heart. Vision is the fuel that leaders run on. It is the energy that creates action. It is the fire that ignites the passion of followers.

So what am I going to do about it? This is slightly more tricky! I decided last week that at the very least I should pray for vision, which I have started to do.

This morning my bible readings brought me to the passage in Colossians, quoted above. Whilst not entirely helpful it gives me pause to think. Maybe living out my faith should be my vision - and if that is not the focus of my job, then maybe I'm no longer in the right one...

The word made flesh

"I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. " Ps 119: 10-11

It's been a while since I have written. Moving house, a bout of ill health and other preoccupations have kept me away. The last few weeks have been a spiritually dry place. I have yelled at God a lot. His answers are, more often than not, non-answers. I see this often in scripture. God does not answer man's direct question, choosing rather to focus his replies on strengthening our relationship with him.

Last weekend I was home again, helping my father look after my mother who's Alzheimer's continues to get worse. During this time he told me how little time he had to himself these days. He hardly even finds time to read his bible. Here is someone who has a real cause to yell at God. And yet his words were tinged with hope and joy not sadness or anger. He went on to tell me that many days he just picks a story in his mind and goes over what he knows of it. He has read the bible so many times it has become part of his thinking. So deeply ingrained in his soul that being deprived of the text is no hardship.

As I left, I stole two of my mother's Henri Nouwen books. She cannot read more than a few words without losing the thread these days so I figured she would not miss them. In one of them I found this.

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish and when the fish are caught the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to snare rabbits and when the rabbits are caught the snare is forgotten. The purpose of the word is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.

In my thinking about the sermon on the mount I am drawn to conclude that the words are not the important thing, beautiful though they are. It is the lifestyle that is important. The concepts need to be so deeply carved into the fabric of our souls that we live that way without thinking. Looking at the example of my father I fear I still have a long way to go...

Hope

"We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love." 1 Cor 13: 12-13 (The Message)

At some stage soon I really ought to return to Matthew's gospel, and the search for the kingdom - but not right now. The last few weeks have been interesting. Madly busy moving house and a number of other things going on which have sapped my energy and taken my focus off God. This morning I had a bit of a rant at him, but through the day my attention has been directed to two scriptures. The first was the passage quoted above. The second is the refrain from Psalm 42 & 43. "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God."

I'd been thinking a bit about hope in the last few days, after a friend gently chastised me for saying that I held out little hope. I'm not entirely sure how any of this relates. I'm tempted to conclude that maybe what hope I had was misplaced; but I feel that is perhaps too pat. But I'm grateful for the injunction to hope unswervingly and love extravagantly. It has lifted my eyes, and turned my thoughts to praise even if the fog still preses in...

To thine own self be true

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." William Shakespeare

The last couple of weeks have been quite difficult for me. There are a number of situations in which I am struggling. As I have lain awake and wrestled with them two refrains have been whirling around my brain. The first "what would Jesus do?" and the second "to thine own self be true". The latter I was convinced was Thomas Merton (until I found it to be from Hamlet) - but it is not far from his teachings.

I've still not quite resolved this. I'm created to be me - and who I am is very different to who Christ was. I believe that my life's agenda is governed by God - and that Christ's example should guide me in all I do. Ultimately, however, I find that "what would Jesus do" offers little guidance and less comfort. Why? Because I can't help thinking that Jesus would not be in my current situation. That does not necessarily mean my situation is wrong - it is just different. I suppose I have to make the best decisions I can in the light of his example and accept his word provides no step by step solution.

I am reminded of a vicar I once knew who talked of looking at his decisions and despairing at the many mixed motives behind them. Eventually he could do no more than say to God, "please accept what I have done in the light of my best intentions and forgive me for my worst".

Good Conversation

"And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say 'yes' and 'no.' When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong." Matt 5: 33-37 (The Message)

According to Christopher Jamieson one of the essential elements of community is Good Conversation. By this he does not mean enjoyable, entertaining or even intellectually stimulating conversation, but rather real honest conversation.

The busyness of their lives can lead people to neglect speaking directly to colleagues or spouses about serious matters; the superficial is always easier to talk about. People find it particularly hard to express their feelings about what is happening and it is important to create a safe space within which people can express themselves.

Looking around my circle of friends, I realise that the few really close friends are those ones with whom I can be completely honest and I know that they are the same with me.

I am struck by the example of Jesus. He did not pull any punches when he spoke to people. Some it astonished, some - such as the religious leaders - it repelled, but to many people it appears to have been a breath of fresh air.

But the greatest of these is love

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Cor 13: 4-7

A month ago I posed some questions to myself on the topic of Self Denial. Today, whilst looking for something else entirely I stumbled upon the following passage from The Weight of Glory by C S Lewis:

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.

I'm not certain that I agree with Lewis' opening statement - I'm sure most Christians I know would say "the greatest of these is love" - but the essence of what he is saying strikes a chord. While I might say the greatest virtue is love, I act and measure myself as if it were unselfishness and the narrowness of that definition is no substitute for the wide open spaces of real love.

Community

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2: 42-47

Several years ago I had the opportunity to go to Rwanda. I will never forget the first rural church that we visited. We drove in down a long dirt track and parked some way from the church. It was a fairly basic affair, mud brick walls and a tin roof. We could hear the drumming well before we went inside. The volume was phenomenal. On stepping into the gloom I was surprised to see only about forty people inside, mostly women, singing their hearts out. Many of them were widows of the genocide, or with husbands in prison. On Sundays they worshipped together, for five days they worked the fields together and on Saturdays they built a house. Not for themselves, but for people around the village who were in need. They called themselves "The Fellowship of Believers". They welcomed us as honoured guests, but their simple community lifestyle put me to shame.

Last year I had the opportunity to work with a small team all dedicated to the same task. For seven months we worked together, prayed together, shared our hopes and fears, trials and joys together. It was one of the most enjoyable times I have ever had, despite coinciding with one of the most difficult periods of my life.

Last week I reached the section on community in Finding Sanctuary. I haven't really assimilated it yet, but it reminded me of these two incidents. It reawakened the desire in me to return to that close-knit team. Real community is not something that I know very much about. I am still fumbling my way to identify the biblical basis for it. Yet it seems, where it exists, to be such a rich source of support and enjoyment. I must maintain this note to self and explore it further.

Peacemakers

"'Yes we will have peace,' he said now in a clear voice, 'we will have peace, when you and all your works have perished - and the works of your dark master to whom you would deliver us. When you hang from a gibbet at your window for the sport of your own crows, I will have peace with you and Orthanc.'" King Theodon to Saruman(The Lord of the Rings).

Peace, as I am fond of saying, is not the absence of war but the opposite of it. Sometimes the only path to it is through conflict. But what should my role as a Christian be in that? The seventh beatitude says "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God". I doubt somehow that Jesus had in mind the kind of peace-making that Theodon is talking about. Or the cynical attitude that led to the name Peacemaker being given to a handgun or a ballistic missile.

In Finding Sanctuary, Christopher Jamieson says this:

People have to build peace in relationships and they do so by creating relationships founded on fairness and respect. [...] Yet the greatest test of building peace is how we react to unfair treatment at the hands of others. We need to respond to such treatment not only fairly but also compassionately; only then do we really build peace. Hating our enemies, for example, does not build peace. We must resist injustice, but the high calling of peace-building invites us not to hate those who perpetrate it.

Grace

"A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him." Orson Scott Card - Speaker for the Dead.

Over the years I have wondered about the lists of the Bible. The fruit of the spirit for example. Is this an exhaustive list or some examples? Has Paul researched and distilled the fundamental attributes which spirit-filled life results in? Or take the beatitudes. Is Jesus giving a set of exhaustive statements that if you do A then you get B? Is it only the pure in heart who see God? Is it only the meek who inherit the earth?

With a modern mindset it is easy to approach the bible as a user guide for life. A systematic set of instructions with associated punishments and rewards. The style, however, is more poetic than that. Jesus expresses attitudes rather than rules; grace rather than judgement.

The structure of the beatitudes is interesting. Recently I heard a theologian say that the repeated refrain "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" is simply a literary convention of the day to indicate that this is a self-contained section. Possibly. I wonder, however, in parenthesising the statement with the refrain whether Jesus was not saying that all of these things are the kingdom of heaven. Seeing God, being comforted, being shown mercy...

For me the beatitudes represent a flavour of the kind of behaviours which characterise the kingdom. I doubt they are an exclusive set but they are, undoubtedly, a challenging set.

Am I hungry enough?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" Matt 5:6

In his book The Jesus I Never Knew Philip Yancey devotes an entire chapter to the beatitudes. In it he unpacks the concept that the beatitudes represent a "Psychological Reality".

Not only did Jesus offer an ideal for us to strive toward, with appropriate rewards in view; not only did he turn the tables on our success-addicted society; he also set forth a plain formula of psychological truth, the deepest level of truth we can know on earth. The beatitudes reveal that what succeeds in the kingdom of heaven also benefits us most in this life here and now.

He goes on to talk about the hopelessness which sits at the core of so many lives we would consider to be successful - the movie stars who are drug addicts, the comedians who are pathologically lonely - and the blessing which enriches the lives of many who we would look on as servants.

I love the way that The Message puts this beatitude: "You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat". So why is it that I so often find myself running after the things which don't fill me up? It takes a concerted effort to stop judging success by the world's standards. Even a daily focus on God has not stopped me straying.

God's megaphone?

I've been thinking a lot recently about the place of conflict in our lives. I think it's pretty fair to say that it is a biblical concept that God uses trials to shape our lives and teach us more about both himself and ourselves. But I've been wondering whether they are a necessary part of discovering God, or whether it is the only way that he can get us to pay attention.

I raised the idea with some colleagues the other day, and the the responses varied. Some thought that trials were inevitable - life is never straightforward and God just uses what comes up to refine us. Others thought that even if we were able to cut straight through and learn directly about God, that we would still struggle but just with more advanced things. To my surprise none of them seemed to feel that we could grow without trials.

The conversation brought to mind the film Shadowlands. In it C S Lewis is depicted as saying

I'm not sure that God particularly wants us to be happy. He wants us to love and be loved. He wants us to grow up. I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he makes us the gift of suffering. Or to put it another way, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

At least part of this is a quotation from The Problem of Pain although I haven't been able to verify the full statement as being authentic Lewis. Regardless it is a hard statement, and one I find I cannot entirely buy into.

I see that being put in a place where we have run out of our own resources places our dependence on God. I'm just not entirely sure that it follows that such a place is the only place where we can grow...

The long defeat

"Together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat." Galadriel (The Lord of the Rings)

Tolkien's Elves are strange creatures. Jolly yet serious, mischievous yet wise, joyful yet without hope. Over long ages they have witnessed the decline of all they hold dear, and yet still they sing. Treebeard the Ent says this of them. "They always wished to talk to everything , the old Elves did. But then the Great Darkness came, and they passed away over the Sea, or fled into far valleys, and hid themselves and made songs about days that would never come again."

Sometimes life seems like a long defeat. Fighting a battle where no victory is possible but which is still worth fighting. Like the fight to keep the quality of life for a slowly declining patient. I spent this weekend looking after my mother again. It's hard to see her looking so lost. She descends into panic so easily. No matter how much time you invest, she always reverts to it. And yet still I strive for hard-won smiles, even if they are all too soon replaced.

In contrast last week I was encouraged once again upon Romans 8 in the Message:

That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

That sounds more like a "Long Victory" to me. Somehow - I don't know how - I hope Paul is right. That the expectation is valid and all will come good. Maybe it's in those times when things don't seem to work together for good that we need to believe it most.

Create in me a pure heart, O God

"Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart " Psalm 24: 3-4

The sixth beatitude contains a lovely promise. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God". Something to greatly desire. Yet the route to the promise is not an easy one. To see God we must be pure in heart.

In the opening chapter of Finding Sanctuary Christopher Jamieson talks about the doorway to our personal sanctuary as being virtue. Interestingly he defines virtue primarily in terms of our relationships with others, saying: "The basic starting point for entering sanctuary is the quality of your day-to-day dealings with other people". Our dealings with those around us demonstrate the grain of hearts.

It seems to me that the outward demonstration has to be driven by an inner change, and the inner change is not something we can effect in our own strength. In C S Lewis' book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Eustace - who starts off as a nasty piece of work - places a bracelet on his arm and wakes to find himself changed into a dragon. The bracelet which fitted his arm as a boy, is too small for his dragon limbs and is very painful. To ease the pain he wishes to bathe in a pool - but Alsan tells him first he must undress. He makes several attempts to peel off a layer of skin - but all are inadequate. Finally Aslan offers to do it for him.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought he had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I have ever felt. [...] Well, he peeled the beastly stuff off - just as I thought I'd done the other three times only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and as soft as a peeled switch. [...] As soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again.

Eustace's experience reflects my own. My efforts are feeble. My resolutions get broken before the ink is even dry. I need God's help for this. My prayer is the prayer of David from psalm 51: "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow."

Small is beautiful

I'm not quite sure how to approach the beatitudes. They are so counter-intuitive. Are they a promise for the future or a statement of fact? Is Jesus saying that they are ideals or reality? It is easy to see them as being a nice piece of speaker's rhetoric; a poetic statement of contradictions which sounds profound but contains no real substance. Yet somehow I think they are more than that.

Take the third one for example. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. On the surface it seems all wrong. We know it is the rich, the powerful, the ruthless who run things. And yet do they truly inherit the earth? Is anything they create built to last? History is packed with empires which crumble when their founder dies. This is true in the business world too.

In the book Good to Great Jim Collins comes to the surprising conclusion that what sets apart the most successful leaders is "a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will." Humility at the heart of success? Maybe Jesus knew what he was talking about after all.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the establishment of the kingdom is not something which can be franchised. The most successful examples of kingdom life spring from small groups of people engaging with their communities in projects that they are passionate about. As such projects grow there is the temptation to become more professional. To move away from the model of Christ and to take on business principles. The danger of this is that the workers become employees not disciples. It doesn't always happen, of course. There are some excellent Christian charities with dedicated staff. I believe, however, that these are the exception, not the norm. The kingdom is about the insignificant rubbing shoulders with the disenfranchised and both being transformed in the process...

Perseverance without understanding

I am currently re-reading one of my all time favourite books - The Lord of the Rings. It's interesting returning to the book after many years, with my childhood memories now coloured by Peter Jackson's blockbuster interpretation. On the whole, I thought Jackson did a good job with the first and last films. The original cut of The Two Towers was somewhat ruined for me by the undermining of Faramir as an honourable character. The extended release (a much more satisfying experience) reveals a superb sub-plot explaining this. Slightly sad that in making an admittedly much-needed cut for length they rendered the subplot incomprehensible.

What impressed me, however, was the way that Jackson picked up on many of the core themes in the trilogy and plays them out, either with direct quotations (albeit some of them moved across entire books) or in his characterisation. The entire last film is a tale of the friendship between Sam and Frodo. The sacrificial love which allows a gardener to accompany his master on a quest which is beyond his comprehension. I had entirely forgotten that Tolkien presents this theme right at the beginning. As early as chapter four of the first book Sam says to Frodo:

"I know we are going to take a very long road into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains that I want - I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me."

I love the quiet, humble determination represented in Sam. He seems to have grasped the message of Gandalf's statement to Frodo in the second chapter (or to Pippin during the battle for Minas Tirith if you prefer the films) "All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us..."

Thinking is the best way to travel...

"The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think." James McCosh.

I have always been a reasonably quick reader. It's a habit born out of an impatient nature and a diet of fiction. The need to race for the end just to find out what happens. But reading a book slowly has its advantages. Not least it delays that slight feeling of bereavement one feels when finishing a really good book.

When I started Finding Sanctuary I read nearly half of it the space of a few short hours. The problem was, although I knew it was deep, I took almost none of it in. So I returned to the beginning and started again more slowly. Taking time to reflect on what I was reading.

Today I concluded the chapter on obedience. Here I find that Jamieson presents an answer to the conundrum I posed at the weekend. A resolution to the issue arising from the section on Thomas Merton. It is an answer not dissimilar to the one that I had independently arrived at.

Let's now look at the powerful question about who sets the agenda in your life. As you 'pray for your own discovery', the agenda of your life is set neither by other people nor by yourself; it is set by God. Life becomes the search for God's agenda in your life. When you find it, then you have found your true self. You have found the ultimate obedient freedom.

It's good to read Jamieson's take on the paradox - but I'm glad I took the time to wrestle with it. It's far easier to remember a lesson learned through struggle than one passed on as a complete package.

As an interesting aside, the McCosh quotation above was on the bag provided when I bought Out of Solitude. A quick Google brings up many references to it. Most of which omit (as did my bag) a second sentence from the quotation:

"The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that."

Out of the depths

"Out of the depths I cry to you! Oh Lord hear my prayer. Listen to my cry for mercy. If you kept a record of sins who could stand before you? But with you there is forgiveness, so you are worshipped. I wait for the Lord and put my hope in his word. My soul waits for you, oh Lord, more than a nightwatchman waits for the dawn." Psalm 130: 1-6

The beatitudes intrigue me. They are beautiful and strange. They seem to sit at the core of Jesus' teaching, and yet they are very enigmatic statements. The first tells us more about the kingdom: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I'm not sure exactly what it means to be poor in spirit. I wish I could remember what Yancey said in The Jesus I Never Knew but I have lent my copy to a friend! Maybe an understanding of what it it is to be poor could help. The current trendy definition of material poverty is "lack of choice", but I'm not sure how useful that is here. A more conventional definition of material poverty would be a substantial lack of the basic resources needed to daily living. So how does this translate into the spiritual realm?

The Message expresses this beatitude as "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule." I love that. I remember reading it on a hill above Buttermere last summer and thinking that the end of my rope seemed a long way behind me.

I'm not sure about the accuracy of this translation, but the feel of it rings true to me. I think that spiritual poverty is more about acknowledgement than absolute status. Some people do not recognise the need for spirituality. Some think that they have it all figured out. Some shun help and struggle on with a brave face. It takes courage to admit spiritual poverty. Yet this scripture seems to say to me that it is only when we admit to it and looking for resources beyond our own that we start to see the kingdom.

The search for self

I've been in a bit of a head-spin this weekend. My thoughts circling like fighting cats. I'm still not quite sure which tail to pull to unravel the mess. I'm not even sure I can adequately frame the issue.

It started with the section on Thomas Merton in Finding Sanctuary by Christoper Jamieson. He writes this:

The real task of being true to oneself is as slow and profound work; it is not a fixed way but involves search and change. And in the end being true to oneself can only be achieved by listening to God. Keeping busy is a way of avoiding being true to oneself. 'In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be.'"

The question which this raised in my head runs something like this: is the search for one's true self diametrically opposed to the concept of self-sacrifice and self-denial? Is it not self-indulgent to commit vast amounts of time to that search? In a sense this is purely an intellectual challenge. My instinct says otherwise. In giving my life wholeheartedly to God it seems fitting that I will be released to be all that God intended. God did not create me a certain way just so he could ask me to painfully become something else entirely. So maybe it is just the emphasis of the statement that I find hard to accept.

When I was at university I knew a guy who was very hot on self-sacrifice. He had given up a whole raft of things which he knew to be wrong, in order to be a better Christian. The thing was, he wasn't very happy. To an outsider it was pretty clear that he regretted the sacrifice. He'd placed a whole load of things on the altar, not because he wanted to, but because he thought he had to. As a consequence they weren't really dead, but they followed him around, snapping at his heels.

The Christians who I have most admired have always struck me as very humble, centred people. Their focus is on God. He is the core of iron that runs though their gentle lives. It's never really occurred to me to ask them about self-sacrifice and it is not something that they have talked about. Yet I bet if I did ask I would find that there had been sacrifice there. Silent, under the surface sacrifice; undertaken willingly, not regretted and not returned to.

I know it's jumping forward, but the picture I have in my mind comes from the two-sentence parable in Matthew 9: 44. "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." It brings me back to what I wrote a few days ago. Love does not spring from obedience, but rather the other way around. If there is no joy in the sacrifice, then maybe the real treasure is still to be found.

Good news

"Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people." Matthew 4: 23

After his baptism and time in the wilderness Jesus begins to travel. What is interesting to me is that people seem eager to hear what he has to say. He calls a number of people to follow him and they do. People flock to hear what he has to say. Okay, so many of them are just there to be healed or perhaps have come along for the spectacle, but the central message is magnetic. Good News.

In the twenty-first century, the church has a patchy reputation. People often see us as kill-joys. They certainly do not associate us with good news. Sometimes I think that secretly I don't either. If I did, why do I so often choose to be of the world as well as in it? And yet I wonder if integrity was the key to Jesus' magnetism. The fact that he lived what he believed wholeheartedly. He was honest enough not to reduce the gospel down to a religious system, but rather to live each moment as an expression of his relationship with God.

The message of the gospel is counter-cultural and it's difference is part of what makes it attractive. By blending in, am I watering it down? Am I turning it from good news to bland news. Living differently is hard. All too often I give in, but I guess I'll never really know if it works - unless I try…

Spiritual pathways...

Having looked in my last entry at the value of silence in drawing nearer to God, I feel that it is worth pulling back slightly. There are many traditions and authors who would advocate silence. I can endorse from my own experience that it is beneficial. However, as Christopher Jamieson has said, silence is not the aim but rather a means. It is a means of allowing us to get closer to God, and it is far from being the only one.

One of the things that I have learned increasingly in recent years is that people are different. Intellectually, I think that most of us know this even if we resort to stereotyping as a way of simplification. I do wonder, however, how many people realise the extent of the differences and how they affect people's world-view. The phrase I catch myself using is "but most people would think that". It is, I suspect, more often wrong than right.

For some people silence and solitude come naturally. Their soul sings whenever they have the opportunity to spend time with nothing but their own thoughts. For others solitude is a long, slow death. The important thing here is not to get hung up on the techniques, but rather to look firmly towards the goal. Spending time getting to know the heart of God.

In his book, Courageous Leadership, Bill Hybels writes

Years ago I notice that various leaders whom I respected went about their walks with God in vastly different ways. The variety was stunning to me. I started to keep a mental list of all their different approaches. Then I came across a book called Sacred Pathways, written by Gary Thomas which further pushed my thinking on this subject.

Sacred pathways are like doors which open into a room where we can feel particularly close to God. Just as different leaders have different personalities and combinations of gifts so they have many different spiritual pathways.

The challenge to me from Bill Hybels book was not directly to spend more time in silence, but rather to explore the way that I relate to God. To find the things that make my spiritual life blossom, and then to order my life so that I can spend as much time pursuing them. On one thing Jamieson and Hybels agree. Spending time in this place is not self-indulgence, it is essential.

All of the concepts I am exploring seem to revolve around this core point. Finding the kingdom, being transformed, repenting, serving, dying to self: all start with a journey into the heart of God. I'm still struggling with my spiritual pathways, but it is a rewarding struggle. One that I thoroughly recommend...

The powerhouse of silence...

After his baptism the second act that Jesus undertakes before commencing his ministry is to withdraw into the desert and fast. We are not told what he did for most of this time, but I think we can make a good guess. Throughout the gospels we find Jesus periodically withdrawing to quiet, lonely places to spend time alone with God.

Mark 1 verse 35 is a good example: "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." In the short yet powerful book, Out of Solitude, Henri Nouwen makes the following observation on this verse:

The more I read this silent sentence locked in between the loud words of action, the more I sense that the secret of Jesus' ministry is hidden in the lonely place where he went to pray, early in the morning, long before dawn. In the lonely place, Jesus finds the courage to follow God's will and not his own; to speak God's word and not his own; to do God's work and not his own.

The time Jesus spends in his father's presence is the powerhouse for his ministry. It is how he centres himself on his purpose.

I am currently working my way through the book Finding Sanctuary by Christopher Jamieson (the Abbot of Worth Abbey). The book, subtitled Monastic steps for Every Day Life, is a remarkably accessible look at applying the Rule of St Benedict to ordinary living. In it Jamieson describes quietness as the carpet of our personal sanctuary.

Silence is not an end in itself; it is there to let inner silence grow so that the inner life might flourish. A gardening analogy may help here: if you have not been used to silence, the first thing you will notice when you enter into it are the distractions inside yourself - the weeds. Even when you pull them up and throw them away, they grow back again quickly and you wonder why you bothered. But you need to keep weeding in order to let the flowers grow. The flowers in this case are the words from God that can grow if you have cleared a space for them.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with this. Trying to weave silence into my life. It has not been easy; there are distractions from without and within. Jamieson suggests starting with five minutes a day and working up from this. Most days I fail even my five minutes. The clamour of my head is just too loud. Yet in persevering I am beginning to see some of the benefit. Moving towards God does not offer any easy answers, but it does provide a new perspective. The kingdom does not reveal itself easily, but perhaps the process of searching for it is required to change us so we can dwell in it?

Holiness

It is interesting to note how Jesus begins his transformation. Matthew's gospel shows Jesus undertaking two concrete actions before commencing his public ministry. The first is a symbolic act, baptism.

New Testament Christians associate baptism with Jesus' death and resurrection - symbolising death to sin and new life. John, however, did not have the benefit of Paul's letter to the Romans. For the Jew it is likely that baptism would have been seen as a purification ritual. Such rituals were performed to cleanse people or objects. To make them fit for worship. The old testament outlines many such rituals for making things pure. For setting things apart, or making them holy.

It seems to me that the concept of holiness has become devalued. We think now of holiness as being an aloof perfection. Holy people are not comfortable to be with because they will judge us and look down on our failings. Yet Jesus is the ultimate in holiness, and for the most part he seems to have been a very approachable person. People were fascinated by him. 2,000 years have gone by and people are still captivated by him.

This throws down a challenge to me. In repenting; in realigning my life towards the kingdom of God; in being transformed I should be becoming more approachable. More open to those around me. More visibly Christ-like. It is a high standard to attain.

Fortunately we are not expected to attain it unaided. The baptism of John was symbolic. John says of it "I baptise you with water for repentance, but he will baptise you with the holy spirit." The baptism of today should be more than symbolic. Baptism in water is external. It cannot actually change our hearts and attitudes. The baptism of the spirit is internal. The spirit wells up inside and powers the transformation. But this will happen only if I let it, and all too often I don't.

Transformation by service

Last November my mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. Over a period of a few short months she deteriorated from very tired and mildly forgetful to being almost incapable of looking after herself. In the early days before a care plan was established things became a little fraught at home. To help my father I spent some time looking after mum. Part way through this I found myself washing her (very dirty) feet. It was not a task that I would have naturally chosen.

It was not an easy few days. I had very little sleep and was emotionally and physically exhausted. Yet those moments stick out in my memory as immensely special times. In caring for someone I loved, I found myself able to do jobs which under any other circumstance I would have found distasteful and looked back on in horror. On reflection it was not really my mother who benefited. Certainly her feet were cleaner and her toenails cut. She would have been more comfortable for a few days at least. I doubt that she has any recollection of it now. The impact on me runs far deeper. I learned things about myself I never knew. It made me think in new ways about what it really means to love my neighbour.

Each evening after I had settled my mother to sleep I read a bit from The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey. One chapter talks of an encounter with Henri Nouwen. Yancey was staggered to find that Nouwen had given up a high-profile job to look after mentally handicapped patients.

Nouwen told me it took him nearly two hours to prepare Adam each day. Bathing and shaving him, brushing his teeth, combing his hair, guiding his hand as he tried to eat breakfast - these simple, repetitive acts had become for him almost like an hour of meditation.

I must admit I had a fleeting doubt as to whether this was the best use of the busy priest's time. Could not someone else take over the manual chores? When I cautiously broached the subject with Nouwen himself, he informed me that I had completely misinterpreted him. "I am not giving up anything," he insisted. "It is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our friendship."

Now, nearly six months later I am still absorbing this. Nouwen was a well-known author and theologian. He had earned world-wide respect for the insight of his books, and yet he dedicated the last ten years of his life to the direct care of others. This takes me back to the idea of living sacrifice I started with. And yet losing his life to serve others Nouwen gained so much. Yancy goes on to write "He had learned to love Adam, truly to love him. In the process he had learned what it must be like for God to love us."

Transformers...

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12: 2

This week I saw the movie Transformers. Lots of slick CGI and overly fast action sequences interleaved with some clumsy, moralising dialogue, good old fashioned heroics and a fairly standard good versus evil plot. The best bit for me were the sequences where the robots transformed. In the space of a few skidding yards Optimus Prime changes from a truck into a towering biped robot, and turns to face the enemy. Despite the transformation, however, you can still see the elements of the truck from which he has come.

Transformation is one of my favourite biblical concepts. Although the actual word occurs only three times in the new testament, the idea is deeply embedded. In Matthew 3 and 4, we see Jesus change from a carpenter from Nazareth into a rabbi, from a private to a public figure. The gospels tell us almost nothing of his early life, and then after his baptism and retreat into the wilderness he explodes into action.

In Matthew 4: 17 he takes up John the Baptist's cry: "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near." That word again. Repent. Turn about. Change. Transform. Reconfigure yourself for life in the kingdom.

Unlike Optimus Prime, I fear I cannot transform in a few seconds. For me it is a gradual sometimes painful process. Bits of me turning more towards God, bits turning away. Paul's take on the subject in Romans is at least encouraging. Be transformed. Not transform yourself. Transformation is something which happens to us rather than something we do. At least - I hope so…

What do we repent from?

Having said it is more important to focus on what we repent to, I still feel I need to take a quick look at what we repent from. I hope that the whole focus of this blog will be what we repent to, so one brief post on sin from is not out of order.

What exactly is sin? Over the years the church has created long lists, in much the same way that the Pharisees did in Jesus' day (which he criticised them harshly for). Over time I have come to wonder how much of what we label sin is actually an offence against some absolute definition. Don't get me wrong. I believe that there are things which are morally wrong. It's just that I wonder if many of the other things that are encapsulated in the law are more for our benefit than because God suffers a sense of outrage when we disregard them.

In Perelandra C S Lewis expounds the idea of laws which serve no purpose other than for man to demonstrate his love for God by obedience. It's an interesting concept from a thoroughly fascinating book. It reminds me of the verses which are scattered through both John's gospel and letters which follow the form: "if you love me you will keep my commands."

It seems to me then that there are potentially three categories of sin. Offences against God, offences against others and offences against own best interests. In its simplest expression sin is not obeying God's commands which, according to Jesus, can be expressed in two statements: love God and love others.

In my experience love does not start with obedience. It is the other way around. Obedience springs out of love. It may be something of a chicken and egg problem, but it seems to me that the path to the kingdom starts by actively seeking to move towards God, rather than trying to clean our lives up. Ultimately of course both are necessary, but the former makes the latter easier. I could spend a lifetime throwing rocks out of my back yard but unless I start planting flowers I'll never have a garden.

So what is repentance?

In starting this blog, I feel I may have made a mistake. I really don't want it to appear that I know where I am going with this. These are issues that I am wrestling with. The problem is that as a writer I want to write something neat. Something that reads well. I am finding it hard to present my inner struggle without sounding like I've already reached my conclusions! Maybe as I push deeper the uncertainties will become more apparent. Anyway...

It would be easy to race on into Matthew, but I can't get past this just yet. What exactly does it mean to repent? The definition of the word is relatively clear. To turn away from wrong-doing. The application is less so.

I have heard it said "you get what you focus on" and, whilst I don't entirely buy this, there is a grain of truth within it. There is a story told about a group of novice parachutists jumping from a plane to land in a huge empty field with a single bush in the middle. As each one jumped the instructor said to them, "Whatever you do, don't land in the bush." Most of them focused on the bush for their entire descent, and as a consequence that is where they landed.

Over the years the church has had a lot to say about sin, and about all the things God expects us not to do. As a consequence many of us become either resigned to or paralysed by our failures. We forget the grace of God. Yet the message of the cross is surely that sin is dealt with. If we ask forgiveness God does not dwell on our sin, and I don't think he expects us to either.

If we concentrate on sin we become insecure, judgemental and critical, and the church becomes an unwelcoming place for the outsider. I know I am often guilty of this. In consequence Jesus, whilst totally honest, was very welcoming to the outsider. The people he was hardest on were the religious leaders who made it hard for people to approach God.

I used to equate repentance with saying sorry. A long list of wrongs to apologise for. Now I am not so sure. Asking for forgiveness is clearly important, as is genuine penitence, however, I am increasingly unconvinced that the focus of repentance should be on wrong-doing. Paul tells us in Corinthians 5 "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" In turning away from wrong-doing we have to turn towards something else. I am starting to wonder if what we repent to is far more important than what we repent from.

Reject the false kingdom

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C S Lewis, a young boy named Edmund finds himself in the magical land of Narnia. There he meets a queen who promises to make him a prince and one day king of Narnia. Edmund, understandably is highly tempted by this offer and initially has no qualms in aligning himself with the queen. As the story progresses he finds the queen, who is really a witch, has neither the desire nor the right to make him king. What he does not realise is that, along with his brother and sisters, his claim to the throne is more real than her own.

The devil often offers us things which, if we but knew it, are already ours. Quick assurances or easy pleasures which turn out to not be quite what they seem. In Matthew 4 he tries this with Jesus, taking him to a high place and offering him all the kingdoms of the earth. The price? Bow down and worship me. Jesus rejects the temptation. This is not the kingdom he came to establish, and he will worship none but God.

It seems that there is no easy route to the kingdom. To take one is almost certainly to be deceived. Once gained, however, the benefits of the real kingdom are far better than the pale substitutes the devil can offer. The repentance John talks about means turning my back on the false kingdom. Rejecting the quick fix or the pat answer. It means getting down to business and searching for the kingdom. Investing the time in getting to know the mind of Christ. Sometimes I'm not certain I have that dedication in me - yet somehow I feel compelled to try.

The kingdom is at hand...

The very first reference to the kingdom comes in Matthew 3. Here we find John the Baptist crying out in the desert "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near". His message carries immediacy. For John the kingdom is not some distant promise - a hope for the far future - but rather it is at hand and his reaction to Jesus shows that he recognises him instantly as the one of whom he has been talking

Later, in Matthew 11 we see John, in prison and plagued with doubt, send messengers to Jesus to ask if he had in fact been right. Jesus characteristically does not answer the question, but points to what is happening around him. If John's proclamation was true, that the kingdom was at hand, then perhaps what Jesus points to tells us a little of what the kingdom is. "The blind see, the lame walk, the sick are healed and the good news is preached to the poor."

If the kingdom was at hand nearly 2,000 years ago then it is here now. The kingdom is not something we are waiting for, but something we are called into. Right here, right now. Yet the kingdom Jesus points to seems very different to my daily experience.

Setting out

Most journeys are easier with a roadmap. Especially trips to unknown destinations. The roadmap to the kingdom is an old one. The pages are partially obscured by centuries of comments from other travellers. Some are helpful, many less so. And this is no conventional map. We see tantalizing glimpses of the destination and hints as to the route, but the junction by junction directions are strangely absent. Perhaps this is because it is a personal journey. Everyone's route is different. Like a mountain with no paths, we must all pick our own way to the summit. For all the uncertainty, however, we must be assured that there is a summit and it - like the starting point - is the same for all.

In John's gospel we see the question of an early traveller:

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me..."

I have a lot of sympathy for Thomas. There is a tendency to look down on him - one of the lesser disciples. He is forever tarred as a doubter. But Thomas has two things going for him which place him ahead of many. He wants to go where Jesus is going, and he's not afraid to admit his ignorance. Over the years I have come to realise that so much of what I have been taught with so much confidence, comes from people who aren't certain, but are afraid to say so. In my journey I hope to find some answers. I hope also to admit when I don't find any. After all if it had not been for Thomas' question, we might have missed one of the deepest statements in the bible.

In an expedition to find the kingdom the only place to start is with the person of Jesus. He is more than a map, he is a guide. We find his thoughts on the kingdom scattered through the gospels. By my count there are 139 references to the kingdom of God in the New Testament of which 105 come in the gospels (and 49 of these are in Matthew). So it is with the Gospels that I will begin...

To die would be an awfully big adventure...

I love that quotation from Peter Pan. Like so much of the children's literature of its era it seems to communicate a great profundity. But I love it even more because it reminds me of Romans 12. The concept of offering our bodies as living sacrifices. The Message puts it so much better than I ever could.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.

This is scary stuff and I'm not entirely sure I know what it means, or that I've got what it takes. This is not dying on the altar, but living an entirely different way. Living for something bigger. Living for someone else.

Today I'm not so much starting on as committing to a journey. I've been meandering on this quest for many years. I suspect I will still be doing so for many years to come. But in searching for the kingdom I have concluded I need to track my progress. Hence the blog. It's really just for me - but part of the fun is seeing who else is travelling.

To die? Maybe. To live? That's harder. To live for God? That really would be an awfully big adventure...