The long, dark night...

"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal." John 12:24-25 (The Message)

Looking back at my Good Friday post I had planned a triumphalistic follow on. Posts to follow Easter and reflect on the wonder of the resurrection. The truth is, however, I'm still stuck in that pause for breath. The last few months have been "interesting". I have watched the organisation I work for once again seemingly tearing itself apart. People have left who are still committed to what we do, not because they want to go but because of financial pressures or a perceived need for efficiency. A lot of it has been at best badly-handled and at worst unnecessary.

My own walk with God still seems stuck in the silence that I talked about last September. Small signs of growth and movement are visible - but the big picture still has not emerged. In the midst of it all I continue to cling to one thing. God knows what he is doing. As Adrian Plass would say, "Nothing is wasted".

For my colleagues moving on to new things I hold firmly to Romans 8: 28 - "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose". The loss of a job is painful - but each ending is a new beginning. The circumstances may be regrettable, but God can weave something amazing from them. If I am unable as yet to see the pattern that is emerging I am left once more to just to wait.

The longest night

"I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night, but if you have been - if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again. At any rate that was how it felt to these two." - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S.Lewis)

It is impossible to fully comprehend the joy of Easter Sunday without appreciating the despair of Good Friday. Much like my Christmas Eve comment, it is all too easy to race forward to Easter Sunday. Yet Christ's resurrection only makes sense in the light of his crucifixion. Good Friday is sombre and bleak. It is the ultimate breakdown of relationship between God and man. Its sorrow a long shadow of the grief which would ensue if it truly where the end and not just the pause for breath before a new beginning. In holy week we see a model of the whole of history. Man's rebellion and God's salvation. Millenia of struggle compressed into three short days.

Understanding the pause helps too. The long night and empty day between the Friday night and the Sunday morning. For in some ways we're still in that pause. Salvation has arrived - dawn is already breaking. But for those on earth it feels like night still lingers on...

A thrill of hope! The weary world rejoices

"But amidst all these rejoicings Aslan himself quietly slipped away. And when the Kings and Queens noticed that he wasn't there they said nothing about it. For Mr Beaver had warned them, 'He'll be coming and going,' he had said. 'One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like to be tied down - and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild you know. Not like a tame lion'" - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (C.S.Lewis)

On Christmas Eve I find myself thinking about God's timing. History pivots on this night. The old testament leans forward towards it. The new testament is possible only because of it. The message renders Romans 5:6 as "Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready."

As an evangelical it is too easy to race on forwards to Easter. To view this night solely in the context of the future. But perhaps tonight we, like Mary, should treasure the moment in our hearts. For God acts when he chooses to act. His coming, his transformation, his salvation are on his terms, not ours and our understanding of his actions is so very limited.

In the words of the carol

"Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by his cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from orient land.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Behold your King."

The people walking in darkness

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth." East Coker (TS Eliot)

Advent, I was reminded this morning, is a time of waiting, of anticipation. A time for reflection. It leads up to Christmas, which is a time of joy, of fulfilment and surprise. The outcome of the waiting transcends expectation. God's gift, whilst long anticipated, is nevertheless unexpected. God's solution to the worlds problem begins not as grandiose intervention into human history, but in the cries of a child in stable in a backwater town.

I'm not very good at waiting. I get distracted and wander off on to other things. But a distracted waiting is not really waiting. All too often it degenerates into attempts to find my own solution. To construct my own gift. To frame my desires, my hopes, my agenda. Yet as Eliot implies true waiting has no agenda. It's not that it is without hope - but rather that hope arises out of the prospect of the surprise rather than in the definition of what it will be. My hope is in the character of God, not the expectation of what he will do. Or at least it should be.

The importance of history

"Remember your history, your long and rich history. I am God, the only God you've had or ever will have — incomparable, irreplaceable — from the very beginning telling you what the ending will be, all along letting you in on what is going to happen, assuring you, 'I'm in this for the long haul, I'll do exactly what I set out to do'" Isaiah 46:9-10 (The Message)

When the Israelites first came into the promised land Moses words to the people are clear. "Do not forget". Isaiah picks up this call. Looking back at history is useful. It reminds us of God's activity in our lives. It strengthens our faith. It moves us to praise. It should make the waiting easier - although often I confess it does not. Confidence that God has acted, does not always translate into confidence that God will act. In fact as I learn more about his character I realise that I often look for him to act in places that he does not. The danger is in looking for the action I want, I fail to notice the unexpected actions. History, therefore, should inspire but not limit our expectations of God.

Recently I came across an interesting quotation (I wish I could remember where!) which ran roughly "God takes you on roads you do not wish to travel to places you didn't expect to go but never want to leave".

Silence and growth

"It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive." C.S.Lewis - The Magician's Nephew

Sometimes breaking silence is useful even if you have nothing to say. If only because saying something gives a basis for new thoughts to crystallise upon.

Reflecting on my last post I realise that it is not so much the quality of the silence which is different, but the emotional state I am in as I experience it. This may be so obvious that it hardly needs stating, but I found it a helpful thought. Why? Because my emotional state is only part of the equation. God's view of the silence may be completely different.

Occasionally I am asked to preach. Initially I used to worry about this. Now I find I quite enjoy it. Not least because I am sure that I learn far more from it than I am able to pass on. The last time I preached I was given a free topic, and I chose the life of Abraham. In preparing, I found myself wondering how Abraham coped with the silence. From God's initial call to the fulfillment of the promise he waited twenty-five years. And if the bible records every conversation God had with him, for the majority of those years God was silent.

The next line of the Pink Floyd quotation I used in my last blog is "of promises broken". If the story of Abraham teaches anything it is that God keeps his promises. Just because God was silent it didn't mean he was not active, or that Abraham was not growing.

The quality of silence

"There's an unceasing wind that blows through this night
and there's dust in my eyes, that blinds my sight
and silence that speaks so much louder than words" Pink Floyd - Sorrow

I knew it was a while since I last wrote; I hadn't realised it was two whole months. Silence, however, is not inappropriate because that is where I find myself. A few months ago I wrote "it is almost as if I have run out of words" and to an extent that is how I still feel.

Have you ever noticed there are different kinds of silence? When I walk, hand-in-hand, with my mother around the grounds of her care home, we are often silent because she has so little to say. This is a companionable silence. At the theatre an expectant hush descends in the time between the dimming of the house-lights and the opening of the curtain. Office banter gives way to preoccupied silence as people work. Sometimes I find myself pausing in conversation as a new, unrelated thought hits me - a distracted silence. And then there is the stony silence after an argument. I remember once driving around Scotland with two friends. We had disagreed on the goal for a day. Two of us wanted to get to the coast - the third wanted to climb a mountain. The silence from the back seat of the car became almost like a physical presence. I could feel it's negativity reaching out and suppressing the joy of the holiday.

This last couple of months I felt most of these types. It started by getting distracted with some new project. This drove me into preoccupation and - dare I say - a month where I pretty much ignored God. Awaking from that I realised just how much I had drifted. Moving back toward companionable silence has been hard work. I'm still not entirely sure I have made it. Sometimes even companionable silence stretches out and becomes stony. It is hard to break that kind of silence, when you don't know what to say.

Surprises not dissapointments

"So, friends, take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high. Keep a tight grip on what you were taught, whether in personal conversation or by our letter. May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech." 2 Thess 2: 15-17 (The Message)

Another encouraging prayer from Paul. Looking back on the past few months I can see many disappointments. Things which did not work out the way that I wanted or planned. But the gifts of confidence or hope are there also. In going through the disappointments it is surprising how much God is present. He has not always answered. He does not appear to have intervened often. But he has been there. Encouraging. Comforting. Restoring hope when hope has faded.

Moving forward I am praying for that fresh heart and enlivened speech. I guess it may be a dangerous prayer, because the process of gaining a fresh heart is not without pain, but it is nevertheless an exciting prospect.

The joyful anticpation of things unseen

"But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.

We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you" Ps 33: 18-22

It seems everywhere I look at the moment I see waiting, from the words I read in the bible to the friend who has just had a hospital operation postponed for the second time. And then last week I read these words in Daily Bread.

Biblical hope is stronger than wishing and wanting. It is an expectation grounded upon our Father’s word. Corrie ten Boom knew she could wait in hope in a Nazi concentration camp. Joni Eareckson Tada learned to trust in his holy name even when she wasn’t healed. We too have good reason to hope, even when life seems hopeless, because God’s love for us is unfailing and he is faithful in all he does.

It is almost as if hope and waiting are two sides of the same coin and one does not make sense without the other. Yet while waiting continues unabated, hope ebbs and flows.

The stature of waiting

"My soul is waiting for the lord
and in his name I trust,
more than a watchman for the morning,
more than a watchman for the dawn.
More than this my soul is waiting,
waiting for the lord" Adrian Snell - Out of the deep (Ps 130)

Reflecting on what I wrote the other day about being in the middle state between "To be and not to be" I recalled to mind some words of Henri Nouwen. He has quite a lot to say about waiting:

Waiting is active. Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? You cannot do anything about it, so you have to sit and wait.

But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Those who wait are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. That's the secret. The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment in the conviction that something is happening where you are...

It brought to mind the title of a book I've seen on my mother's bookshelf. The Stature of Waiting (W H Vanstone). This morning as I was reading some more from Nouwen I find him quoting that very book. Perhaps I need to borrow that one as well!

As I reflected further the following came to mind: "I know not that for which I trust, but I know him in whom I trust". It sounds like a mangled quotation - but if it is I cannot find who said it. It does, however, sum up where I find myself.

To be or not to be

"'Oh, Trees, Trees, Trees,' said Lucy (though she had not been intending to speak at all). 'Oh, Trees, wake, wake, wake. Don't you remember it? Don't you remember me? Dryads and Hamadryads, come out, come to me.'

Though there was not a breath of wind they all stirred about her. The rustling noise of the leaves was almost like words. The nightingale stopped singing as if to listen to it.

Lucy felt that at any moment she would begin to understand what the trees were trying to say. But the moment did not come. The rustling died away. The nightingale resumed its song. Even in the moonlight the wood looked more ordinary again. Yet Lucy had the feeling (as you sometimes have when you are trying to remember a name or a date and almost get it, but it vanishes before you really do) that she had just missed something: as if she had spoken to the trees a split second too soon or a split second too late, or used all the right words except one, or put in one word that was just wrong." CS Lewis - Prince Caspian

It feels like I've been handed some promises; that things are waiting in the wings to change, happen and breakthrough in my life. Yet they never quite seem to. I am not sure if this is because the time is not quite right, or there is something that I need to do to kick them in to touch. I'm wondering if the problem is that I'm looking for a code? Some secret form of words that unlocks God's plan. That tells me what I want to know and gets me to where I want to be.

Every time I enquire or push the answer seems to be the same. It is not my place to be making the big plans. I need to be be faithful in small things and the rest will fall into place. "Live the good that you know and leave the rest up to me". But this feels wrong to me. So passive.

There are questions which I don't have the answer to which I cannot seem to escape from. There are places where my choices are not clear - contradictory paths neither of which has the monopoly on rightness or goodness, but which cannot both be taken.

One of these at least finds me oscilating. Not doing enough in either direction to make any difference - but with no clear guidance as to what I should choose. The echo of my own heart and reflection tells me the more difficult path is right - but will not lead where I want to go. Set against it the guidance of my friends who tell me the path is closed. So I am left with an internal debate. Is it a case of the foolisness of path one against the wisdom of path two (where foolishness is God's path) or the dead past of path one against the living future of path two (where the future is God's path)?

Hamlet's words seem profound at this point. To be, or not to be? That is indeed the question! Yet the middle state of neither being or not being seems to be the hardest place of all.