NiCK'S SANCTUARY

Modus Operandi

2024-05-19T22:24:00.002+00:00

I feel that God has been speaking some forgotten truths itnto my heart. Many years ago I got into an online scuffle where I had taken another blogger under my wing (back in the days of MSN Spaces), and had leapt to their defence when a hostile blogger had staqrted trolling them, My response was to start posting on the bloggers wall and try to be supportive. All this resulted in was being targeted by the young man doing the trolling, and drawing all his fire on to me. In truyj, I was okay with that in truth... because I had achieved my primary onjective and that was to take the heat off my friend. It subsequently tuned out (after multiple deletions of pure trolling attacks), that my would-be adversary let his mask slip and actually made a genuine point about some personal pain and grievance in his life. What he probably waasn't expecting was my not deleting that post and actually directly responding to it. In the end an uxpected peace and respect broke out.

Why am I bringing up this anecdotre? Well I believe ir turns out that past is prologue. You see, it turns out that my usual method wah of dealing with issues used to involve me ecomiing a tank. Let's just say in D&D terms I'd probably be a hill dwarf fighter paladin with massive healing.

Anyway I'd forgotten a lot of this personal character trait but I've recently been reminded of it because I think God may have use of it for me once again, hence the reminder.

So I figured I'd leave you with an example of this behaviour in action. For a comparison see Captain Sulu's timely arrival at the Battle od Khitomer in Star Trek VI.

Gifts and Curses

2024-04-07T20:26:00.001+00:00

I've b een reflecting recently on personal sacrifice and the passage of time. In my memories last week I was reminded on Facebook, how 8 years ago, as that years Len't was about to finish, I briefly showed affections for a girl at the start of Lent that year. I felt quite burdened to surrender those feelings to God. I didn’t want to do it but I felt it was the right thing to do. I was reminded of the words of Aunt May in Spider-Man 2:

“ I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, givns us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.”

In the end I chose to be steady… but it yielded me little. Lent passed and Easter came and the chance was gone. It was quite frustrating as a couple of close fiends have in the past made similar sacrifices for God (having been asked to surrender in turn... but on every occasion, God only made it a temporary thing and it was something he always gave back. Converesly it NEVER works that way for me. God it seems invariably wants these sacrifices to be permanent. And so it was, that after Lent ended and I was ready to leap into action once more, the girl in question had moved to anpther local town and got a new job. As it happens I worked out where that job was, but never felt it right to pick up that thread. For one it would be weird on a number of levels without bringing in the spiritual element.

In essence it feels like I've rocked up like Abraham with Isaac, and The Angel of the Lord as far as I am concerned did not stop short, and nor did he provide a ram.

Now you may think I’m a fool and I threw hope away needlessly. But I remained true even when it cost me (first time for everything lol)

As C.S. Lewis wrote in Screwtape::

“Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Nor do I have hope that circumstances will change in some way it some miracle. I’ve been around the block enough to know the rules of the game.

Sometimes you can’t expect a fairytale or Job-like turn around. What matters is faithfulness to the Most High and you just have to trust that good will come of it, not necessarily in the way you conceive or imagine.

Will the door open again at this late stage? Incredibly doubtful. Will some over course correction prove to be the case? I do not see how and don't have reason to hold out hope.

For now, I’m good… I can only hope that my cost meant something to The Lord and that in some small way, on some day… I’ll be remembered like Rachel.

I think I'll leave it there with I wrestlea video from the sountrack of Spider-Man that includes quotes that reflect the rhings I wrestle with,

But I shall say this.. may God be praised in wherever the walk leads.

The Illusion of Impermanence

2024-02-25T21:34:00.000+00:00

I've been watching with some interest the news coming from Alabama about the pause being enforced on IVF due to a court decision that fertilised embryos are considered children:

Pause in IVF in Alabama due to court decision

I'm sure u think I have a osition on this... particularly given I have spiritual leanings. I do of course but I like to position myself in an Israel-like stance of nuclear ambiguity. However my post today is not taking a direct position on this. Instead, I want to take the opportunity to talk about how it is a microcosm of a wider human behaviour that I'm unhappy about.

I'm deeply uncomfortable with the human habit of treating things as "movable feasts".

What do I mean by this? Well it's my concern about people shifting their positions (be they theological, ethical or moral), on nothing more than whim and emotion.

To use the matter at hand as an example... I respect people who have ariived at a position based on experience, teaching or debate... even when those views differ to my own. I'm not comfortable when people chop and changethir views based on how the ourtcome makes them feel.

I'm remindedof a time when an acquaintance was in a place where their marraige was breaking down and it was apparrent to me that their was a very strong argument that they were the belligerent party. Marriages occassionally break down and that is a sad and unfortunate fact of life. It's deeply sad when it happems, but I must say that I lost respect for peoplewhen they huddle round that person and caim out with trite nonsesne like "he obviously wasn't the one".

Why are eople so swift to swap out people like stickers or trading cards? Shouldn't their be a pperiod of reflection or contemplation before jumping n from one lily pad to another?

Nobody is denying that there are difficult questions asked of all of us... but all I am saying is that when we are faced with them... we should acknolwedge them for what they are. Whatever position you arrive at in these situtions you should take time and give them the respect these matters deserve.

I have friends who have lost children at an early age, and it's only a few tears ago after a deceased baby was found in a local river. So to the catalyst question at hand, I can very much understand why prospective parents would feel the need to take a view on th status of unborn children? Would you really deny parents the right to grieve an unborn child because you view life bginning at birth. You cannot deny that their grief is real and tey have that right to express those emotions.

In principle my issue is with the disposable nature of things and how little respect we treat the people and thing we exncounter as disposable nappies. It isn't right. I would point out that our understanding of when human life begins has been coloured by science as well as religion. Theologically there is a view that life begins at birth and it could be argued that science at least generated the doubt. There are arguments from both camps that go either way... and I think whatver your personal position is, you should treat the matter with resect.

Maybe you could level critcisim of me and say that mt perspective is coloured by the fact I haven't experienced much of these things.. That isn't an issue of me lacking perspective... it just means that I have a different one

It is Time...

2023-07-02T19:50:00.000+00:00

I've experienced a time when I've started to notice the waters are lapping at my feet. There is no threat in this for me, I just feel that I'm entering a phase where change is afoot. I think it all started rougly after a home group meeting, where I'd spoken to a friend and highlighted some of my grievences and my own dissatisfaction both with them and my own contribution to them. To my perception t seems that some of the classic damage I've taken in the past has led me to me throwing up a few robust defecnces. Some of these are understandable. Given my past decisions and the fact it took a case of divine intervention to snap me out of it and give me the courage to break away... I'm cautious in regards to leaving myself exposed to the same weaknesses that led to my earlier downfall. However that hasn't stopped me from throwing up my own set of "Excalibur tests" for good measure.

I think that night at home group was a way of setting the scene - a reminder of the state of play as it has stood.

A couple of weeks later, I was due to preach om Isaiah 42, and I chose to use the paternal/maternal instincrts of the eagle as my theme. In truth this has been something that had been close to my heart for many years... and it just seemed to fit naturally to the theme (it was Trinity Sunday), In short, I portrayed the Trinity in terms of the Father being the parental eagle watching over us, the Son being the first born eagle that has tasken flight and shows us the where to go and how we grow to go in that direction, and the Spirit as the breeze that lifts the chick when the time is right... to give it the courage to take the step off

Things have taken an interesting turn of late. the ledge. One of the points I made to the congregation was that if we are the chick in the nest, there is no wrong in wheat place we find ourselves. We might need to see where Jesus has led us before going... we may be waiting for the Spirit to empower us. We might feel that we have takemn a tumble and our ego is bruised... but the Father is able to pick us up and set us ready for another go when the time is right.

I didn't think too much about the implications of that last one for myself... then it happened.

An unexpected opportunity arose that on the face of things completetely terrified me. Somebody had posed me a scenario that completely blindsided me (I'm not going into detail here, as at the moment it is still live). My paranoia, mistrust and fear had kicked in and I went into automatic shutdown.

It took me a week to emerge from that state by which time it might be too late, but I wrote all my feelings down and got it out of my system - why I am the way I am and why I'm so reticent. Kind of hard to do that because nobody ever asks me about stuff like that... and maybe when I do offer a response (or perhaps because of that fact), they are just as uncomfortable about what comes out. However, I did leave my response with a positive end and the prosepect of hope.

Not long after this, I felt God was reminding me of an image from a book I'd read (Grail in Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle). In the book there is a low point where King Arthur has hit rock bottom and is in the doldrums - his sword has been stolen, his queen has been kidnapped and his trusted righthand man has apparently betrayed him. Following this scene, Merlin confronts the king and prophetically strikes the floor with his staff repeatedly and with each strike, he urges the king to shake off what drags him down and look to the state of play an, I got the feeling that God was rep0d encourages him - he needs to rise up and resolve the situation and not leave himself in this fitful sulk.

Likewise, I got the feeling that God was repeatedly striking my floor and telling me to get up and no choke myself on the past. For after all, past is merely prologue... and we are only doomed to repeat if we do not learn from it. I think maybe I've been overlearning it.

On TikTok I've recently come across a few posts with a sermon illustration about the painting "Checkmate". How the human player is in despair becasuse the devil player has seemingly won. The anecdote in the TikToks talk is basically that the king has one last move to make and the human player is saveable. Now I've read up on the painting and apparently the literal anecdote isn't true because its hard to tell what the pieces in it resemble on the board. However the moral is true... because the same could certainly be said of the devil's pieces. If we can't see how he's got checkmate, then I would argue his position is not a dead cert either. I think the truth behind that painting is that it is a character study. The man who thinks he is losing has given in to his fears and is accepting the devil at his word. But the thing is that the devil is a confidence trickster. He doesn't have checkmate - he's never hadd checkmate, but his sole objective is to terrify you and bluff you intop thinking he has. Never remove yourself from the game - listen to God's encouragement and accept his guidance and it is never over until God says it is over.

So anyway, a week has passed since all that happened... but confronted about my own sense of checkmate... I feel like I'm clawing my way back and have got a renewed sense of positivity. Whatever happens, I've learned not to retreat and cave on the broad stroke theme of this lesson. Yes, the specific circumstance may not pan out... I may lose another piece... but I will not allow the devil to put so much emphasis on that piece... I'm going to push on his king instead. In good time and God's grace, I have faith that the landscape will change. Whatever major pieces of lost, I have a fistful of pawns.... and they are only a step away from becoming knights, rooks, bishops and who knows, even a queen.

This morning at church we wee reading Genesis 22 - God's testing of Abraham. We were asked in the sermon what things that we might be holding onto that God might be asking us to let go of. My heart at this point was drawn to an exchange from Babylon 5... because I was thinking there wasn't much I could add to the conversation... and God was reminding me otherwise:

Marcus Cole : You asked me to give something up, Delenn. I don't have anything left. It's all gone. My brother was the last of our family and he died because of my stupidity. He warned me of the Shadows; I didn't listen. And when they came, I lost, him, our home, the colony where we'd grown up, a woman I was quite fond of. I escaped with only the clothes on my back, and went off in search of these "Rangers" that he'd been going on about. Because he believed in them, and in you. Everything I was, everything I had, all of it, died that night. I don't have anything left to give.

Delenn : Then that is exactly what you must give up. Yes, you have lost much, endured much, sacrificed greatly. But you cling to the memory of your sacrifices, of all the things you have lost or left behind. They drag behind you, like chains of your own making. They can have a terrible power over you, Marcus: the power of grief, and loss, and regret. Yes, you have let go of the people, places and things, but you have not let go of the pain. You have not forgiven yourself.

Marcus Cole : For what?

Delenn : Being alive

There it was again, God's not going to let this go... he's not going to let me go either. It's down to me to rise up from the ashes and have faith that he's going to remove the dead weight that has held me in check. All I need to do is to take courage and stand upon the rock. The only thing that stand between a vibrant pridelands filled with life and the current perceived state of affairs, is a roar!

Nadhim Zahawi: The Importance of Ministering Justice to Ministers.

2023-01-29T22:06:00.005+00:00

This morning, Nadhim Zahawi - the Member of Parliament who was Chairman of the Parliamentary Conservative Party who is also constituency MP for Stratford-on-Avon (namely the constituency that I live and work in), was fired by the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.

Nadhim Zahawi, MP for Stratford-upon Avon

It was found that he had breached several aspects of the Ministerial Code including misleading HMRC over his tac affairs. This was discovered during his short tenure as Chancellor of Exchequer - the very role that has oversight over matters of taxation policy within the UK. Previously it had been claimed that Mr Zahawi's "mistake" was "careless" and not "deliberate". The subsequent probe found his activities and inactivies made this an impossible line to maintain though, and action had to be taken.

It is not the first time that Mr Zahawi has gotten into hot water over his poor choices.in offic. In 2018 at the height of the #metoo movement, he was serving as Children & Families Minister and was caught attending a gala at the scandal-hit President's Club. It was only when he was tipped off that the optics of his attendance were not great, that he made his excuses and left the gala.

Then there was his involvement in the downfall of Boris Johnson. Now I'm not a hypocrite... I'm very grateful that Johnson is political toast, but it should be noted that Mr Zahawi used the opportunity to wrangle up through the ranks and secuiring the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer from the then Prime Minister before promptly turnimg on him and stabbing him squarely in the front. Now you might say that this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things - he was in that post for under two months. However, the fact remains that by virtue of serving in role AT ALL, he is granted a pension for being in that role.

We also have his role in the expenses scandal some time back, where he notoriously charged the taxpayer his expenses for keeping his stables warm.

When he has been caught out in these findings, his modus operandi seems to be that it's all an embarrassing but honest mistake which he will pay for and do better next time.

It was the author Ian Fleming who once noted in his James Bond book "Goldfinger":

“Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action'.”

I put it to you that Mr Zahawi's history of actions goes far beyond happenchance, and coincidence... ad should be classed as enemy action. You might consider that he has received his punishment from the Government - having been consigned to the backbenches at least for now. But as his constituent, I'm not happy to leave the matter there. So what should be done?

Well ironically, Mr Zahawi provides the suggestion himself in a blog on his own website, written in April 2010, entitled - People Power. kicking out bad MPs:

However our People Power manifesto changes that introducing a right to recall if a Member of Parliament is found guilty of wrongdoing. So unlike in the current system whereby MPs, who have broken the rules and have been officially sanctioned by parliament and the Standards and Privileges committee, can continue to represent a constituency until the next election, we will give constituents the right to recall their Member of Parliament. Under a conservative government if an MP is found guilty of any wrong-doing then a right to recall will be offered to his or her constituents. This process will begin with the filing of a notice-of-intent-to recall petition to be signed by at least 100 constituents and submitted to the local returning officers. A recall petition will then be circulated within the constituency. If this petition has been signed by more than 10% of the electorate (in the case of Stratford by 6,936 people) within 90 days then a by-election will be triggered. This is a radical change, and a change that is truly needed, it removes the concept of the “safe seat” and makes MPs directly answerable to their constituents over the whole, parliament not just every five years. Most importantly it will force MPs to remember who they are are there to represent first, their constituents.

I remember that Mr Zahawi was a vehement supporter of Brexit and yes indeed, my constituency sadly voted for it. However, during the debate the major employers in his seat (most notably the National Farmers Union), spoke out against it. Whatever your views on Brexit, I'm forced to consider that his position in the debate was just another case of the pattern - the enemy action. One does not simply ignore the most important voices you have a mandate in your tenure to represent. For me, this all points to a potential personal agenda and that for me seals the deal. Mr Zahawi should go on trial locally for the future of his political seat.

Indeed I believe that the Recall of MPs act as limited as its scope unfortunately is, does contain the remit in clause 3 to do this:

If an MP is convicted of providing false or misleading expenses claims, regardless of whether they are imprisoned.

It seems to me that this has been satisfied, so my appeal to my fellow constituentts is to get om this... because the betrayal (though internal) is to my mind as bad as that other Stratfordian MP of old's (John Profumo), external one.

Or perhaps to put it in the words of Stratford's favourite historical son William Shakespeare:

For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like another fall of man.

An Epic E-Bike Eclipse Excursion in Espana?

2022-10-30T08:00:00.001+00:00

For the past couple of years I've had my mind on a possible adventure on the continent - more specifically I've been looking at the prospects of travelling a route along the ancient pilgrim trails that lead to Santiago de Compostela. In short I'm aiming to do the Camino de Santiago or in English, the Way of St. James.

The Camino in case you didn't know is a network of pilgrimage trails that leade to a church in northwest Spain. It has been a journey (I wouldn't call it a destination, as any person with an ounce of spiritual enlightenment will tel you that pilgramage is never solely about the destination), since medieval times. However here in the uk, it has found a new lease of life since the Camino adventures of some celebrities have been televised on the BBC, and even more recently the former children's TV presenter and accompilshed artist -Timmy Mallett, went on his own Camino and documented it in his book. You can read about it and his motivations behind his pilgrimage briefly on his website, or even better buy his book and get the full "Utterly Brilliant" lowdown. It is Timmy's journey that has provided me with a lot of my recent drive,,, largely because he used an E-Bike and as I'm not the most active person (at present), and if my current plan bears fruit, I'll be off on my intended journey in the height of summer... and as we have seen this year the climate in Europe in August has proven to be capable of being deadly. I have had to conclude that to avoid becoming barbecued and dessicated, I'll need to make my own journey a two wheeled one.

So why do I want to go in August when the height of Camino seasons tend to be in May and October?

Well, my plan is to travel on the Camino in 2026, because this is a year of total eclipse. It will also be in the week of my late father's 86th birthday and 30th year in my employment in my current job (in fact fate has so far been kind to me in my planning as the days of annual leave entitlement I have accumulated due to COVID lockdowns in the past two years have led me to having so many that I have been afforded the opportunity to use them in a one-off sabbatical (which is kind of fitting, given the old tradition that a 30th year in employment somewhere is something to celebrate).

However I'll obviously need to make preparations.

Where am I going to start; how long will it take to get there and back again; where will I stay; what budget shall I set for an appropriate bike; what spec will I need; finally, how should I go about training (terrain and length of bike journeys preceding to increase fitness and route readiness?

All of these questions and more, I hope to explore in the months and years leading up to what I hope will by *my* Camino.

Watch this space.

"You Never Knew"

2022-10-16T19:17:00.000+00:00

You never knew...
How dark was my night;
When you extinguished a torch held too long and crushed childhood dreams.

You never knew...
How disappointed I was in you;
When I had grown a little and gained self respect, but a moment's flirtation at an inappropriate moment surprised and annoyed me.

You never knew...
How proud I was of you;
When you had willingly contemplated a much harder path for a divine purpose, even though it seemedto my mortal mind to be a waste of temporal material.

You never knew...
How happy I was for you;
When in backing down from the most extreme aspect of that path, you carved out a new road for yourself, filled with hope and promise of future blessing.

You'll never know...
How I have watched from a distance;
Your harsh struggles with the brokenness that has accompanied those blessings, you have come to be respected in my eyes.

Until that Day before Almighty God to whom all thoughts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden, when we all know fully - even as we are fully known...

You'll never know.

Cobwebs

2022-10-15T20:25:00.000+00:00

Revisiting my blog after what seems like an eternity, is a surreal experience. Even logging into the platform that hosts it reveals much has changed (although thankfully the fundamentals seem intuitive enough and the editor visuals seem largely cosmetic).

I'm minded to think of my childhood haunts on the edge of Cold Comfort Woods in Alcester - they too, were sanctuaries of mine. I'd usually find a place alongside the Spittlebrook that ran alongside the dirt track leading to the woods that was lined by trees. The gentle flow of the stream coupled with the wind softly blowing the btanches were a source of tranquility and a place for me to mull over my thoughts... much like this place was when I first set it up.

Here's the thing though; from time to time I neglected those places for one reason or another (busy school or work schedule, places to go and people to see), but I always came back... I never forgot them. Sometimes I'd have to clear the place out and make them accessible by pushing through thorns and brambles, or occasionally get a helping hand from mother nature where deer had crossed the stream from the other side and forged new places I could use.

I guess that sometimes this place can be like that. I may go away for long periods be it through distraction, priorities or being lost in my thoughts.... but it always here. My reasons when I come back are diverse (on this occasion I want to voice my thoughts on a topic and I want to see where it will end up if I just push the big red button and publish it.

Sometimes when I do, like an archeologist it feels like I've stumbled through a cavern or underground tunnel that breaks open into the works I have fashioned in this place... the whispers of words I have spoken or pondered in the past... the treasury of memories and dreams long forgotten, and the echo of hopes resounding off the walls.

But they aren't forgotten... they are always waiting for me and whoever wonders among them, only slightly veiled beneath the surface and awaiting rediscovery.

Even now I'm reminded about a piece I wrote several years ago concerning digital footprints and how what we write online might be here long after our time in some format... and that our words are a witness to our thoughts and feelings... that how we may think time and tide erase those things and consign them to the shades of lost memory... science has proven that even prehistoric footprints can be recovered.

So here I am again weilding my machete and chopping dow overgrown roots and branches, brushing off the dust and uncovering all the things that went before... thinking what needs to be added next. Sometimes I think a refit helps these processes, like the Doctor's TARDIS having different "scrensaver" modes.

Let's see what the future holds.

The Hammer on the Horizon

2019-12-10T22:43:00.003+00:00

No your eyes do not deceive you, yes I really am writing a post after so long. Where have I been for so long? A question for another time I think.

The reason I am writing this latest post is with regard to the coming election. When I consider all the probabilities and potential outcomes, and the current fractious and fragmented state of the electorate... I have deep concerns. Who do I think will win? Well, in some ways I don't think it will matter.

"What?" You cry. "How can you say something as important as this won't matter?"

Let me try and put some flesh on the bones I am dangling in front of you with that odd statement. There are two instances in the Old Testament that have been on my heart of late. The first is from the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah's calling was a hard one. He was born into a time when the people of Judah were spiritually and morally going astray... and yet, the same people buoyed by recent blessings received under a prior godly king, believed they were on the cusp of a revival. Those appointed as prophets engaged in backslapping and proclaimed how in the dreams that they had experienced, everything was going to be rosy.

But God - the only person who mattered, saw things *very* differently. And into the midst of this mutual appreciation society, he sent Jeremiah... to stand against them and say that far from a revival, a hammer was coming to the nation of Judah...a hammer that when it fell, would bring ruin and exile.

In the final analysis, it was Jeremiah who was proved right and his opponents who were revealed for who and what they are.

The second instance in the Bible that came to mind, was an incident in the reign of King David. David - the man after God's own heart, had an uncustomary blip in his confidence and decided to tot up the number of fighting men in the land -he took his trust away from God and placed it in mortal strength. Pretty soon after this, his conscience nagged at him and he sought to make amends... in doing so, he received God's discipline:

Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer. ‘Go and tell David, “This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.”’
So Gad went to David and said to him, ‘Shall there come on you threeyears of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.’

2 Samuel 24:11-13 (NIVUK)

The reason these two moments resonate so deeply with me at the moment is because I feel that Britain is in a similar position. We have false prophets on the hard left and hard right, who promise great things if we but follow and endorse them... and yet they remain wilfully oblivious to the great harm their respective trajectories hold in store for us. Yet we have vast swathes of the country who are ready to sign up wholesale to them... just because of vague unrealistic empty promises and falsehoods.

And this is why I feel it "doesn't matter". Of course what happens to the country matters... but if something is rotten at the core of our society, then that has to be dealt with first. We became proud and arrogant as a whole... but a hammer came and broke the whole... yet the arrogance and pride remain - in opposing factions. They still need dealing with... and that requires humility.

Fortunately for David, he was equipped with that quality. His response was as follows:

David said to Gad, ‘I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into human hands.’

2 Samuel 24:14 (NIVUK)

Though he feared for his own well-being, he decided to let God determine his fate. God subjects David to the briefest of the punishments, but many people die. God even relents when plague reaches the borders of Jerusalem. Shortly after this, David finally accepts the need to make amends falls solely with him, because the burden of his mistake is his alone.

And are we not in a similar situation. The three outcomes - Tory majority, hung Parliament and Labour majority. Each have a heavy price to pay if they come to pass.

Yet we as a nation don't have the humility to prostrate ourselves before God and admit how our pride has harmed us internally, and now that we are at loggerheads... cuts us openly too.

There is a crumb of comfort in this though. Should we accept what we have done to ourselves, our nation and one another and seek God's help... the seeds of true renewal and revival can be sown.

God instructed David to buy some land in Jerusalem, build an altar there and make a sacrifice of repentance. It ended the crisis... but more than this, that altar became a deposit for something greater.

It was on that very spot that the great Temple that represented God's presence among his people, was eventually built.

My hope and prayer is that if we turn our eyes away from our own arrogant ambitions for the country, and acknowledge our collective need for God again, that when the mess that is coming our way subsides, something unimaginably far greater will grow and stand in its place.

Whichever way you vote on Thursday, do keep in mind the need to tend this nation's deeper wounds... the ones that can only be healed by God.

CROSSover: Jesus & Darmok

2018-02-04T19:57:00.001+00:00

I've recently started binge re-watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix. For some reason I decided to rewatch the other Star Trek spin-offs first... so like Eric Morecambe, I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.

That last sentence is actually a useful metaphor for what I want to talk about today. It's all about people behaving in a completely alien fashion, and how it bemuses us, possibly angers us and how we need to overcome that hurdle if we are to move beyond that.

So, in the TNG episode "Darmok", the Enterprise crew encounter a species known as the Tamarians/Children of Tama, who are desperate to open a dialogue with the Federation. Great, no problem... except there's a catch; while the universal computer can translate all the relevant words into English... it can't make sense of how those words are utilised by the Tamarians in dialogue. All prior attempts at communication with the species have failed and no working relationship has ever been achieved.

Picard struggles to understand the Tamarians in the TNG epsiode, Darmok.

It turns out that the Tamarians speak in metaphors and use short statements from their mythology to convey the literal idea they wish to express. In the episode, the Captain of the vessel - Dathon, takes the radically unusual initiative of beaming himself and Captain Picard (the latter against his will), onto the planet surface to fight a creature in circumstances akin to those from Tamarian mythology. The idea eventually works... but does so at the cost of his own life and all the while, as Picard is struggling to understand and establish a dialogue... the situation in space between the two starships, deteriorates and culminates in a brief firefight. When the Enterprise is finally able to retrieve Picard, he hurries to the bridge and finally manages to speak to the Tamarians using what he learned from the encounter on the planet. The possibility of friendship finally exists between the Federation and the Tamarians... as they finally have a way to communicate.

This got me thinking about today's epistle reading, particularly the last verse:

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross."

Colossians 1:15-20

Scripture tells us that God's ways - like the Tamarians with the Federation, are completely foreign to us:

""For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.""

Isaiah 55:8-9

If you read the Bible it becomes very clear that humanity has struggled over the millennia to have a proper dialogue with God. There are a few touched individuals through the ages who are blessed with the ability to convey or interpret God's messages in prophetic manner but the struggle to grasp what God's agenda is, is often a very real one as from a temporal perspective, his motives don't always seem consistent... because of our wrongdoing, our sin... we look at the world through a limited perspective that is tainted by our selfishness. In order to overcome this language barrier, God - like Dathon, took the extraordinary step of allowing his fullness to dwell within the confines of the full human experience. However even then, in the Gospels... it becomes painfully apparent that the people he lived among struggled to understand the message he brought. You can clearly see Jesus acknowledgement, acceptance and even frustration with this at various times in the Gospel narratives.

Something even more radical needed to happen for God to be able to get through to us.

And that brings us once again to the cross.

There are many ways to look at Christ's sacrifice on the cross and I think some people (foolishly) fall into the trap of stating it means only one of those things... at the expense of the others; to do so, I think, means we miss out on the fullness of the message. To apply human psychology to God's reasoning for acting as he did... is to make the early mistakes of the Federation in dealing with the Tamarians - it is to foolishly use our own mindset to try and understand what somebody else (in God's case, infinitely higher and deeper), is saying. Some theologians have argued that the idea of God punishing Jesus for our sin is "cosmic child abuse"... but that is to entirely miss the point of Jesus's nature. If the fullness of God is within Christ... then it is not about God projecting His anger onto a wholly separate child, it is about Him taking responsibility for what angers Him, upon Himself. It is also to deny the gravity of our situation... God has to take extraordinary harsh means to deal with a situation we are utterly incapable of dealing with in our own strength.

But I want to look at one thing Jesus' sacrifice does, that is echoed in that Star Trek episode... and that is that it provides a "Eureka" moment. Regardless of any physical functionality behind Jesus' death, when we step back at look at the simple facts - that God, believing us to be unable to save ourselves from a very real danger that he perceived... decided to send himself in the form of his Son, to alert us to our circumstance and confront us with the fullness of divine love, set against the heart of human darkness; we are presented with an opportunity to recognise and respond to that love.

Humans respond to love - when somebody (known or unknown) does something moving for us as an act of love in any form, we are burdened to respond. We might find it inappropriate or incompatible with how we feel, and choose to reject it... or we might change our behaviour or circumstances to acknowledge or even embrace it... but love always by its very nature, demands a response.

When Jesus died on the cross and revealed his reasons for doing so, we were confronted with the depth of God's love.

If we choose to embrace that love... the door is opened. We begin to speak God's language - the Holy Spirit is available to us, in a way that before Jesus death... just wasn't possible.

But it all starts with a single, audacious and extraordinary event instigated by someone who seems alien to us.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

God and humanity at the foot of the cross.

Doctoring the Doctor

2017-07-29T12:21:00.000+00:00

As anyone who has been reading my blog over the years has probably realised, it would appear as I have not written anything for some time... that I had apparently gone on some kind of hiatus. It would therefore be a little ridiculous for me to begin this post by saying something like "I have been strangely silent on the topic of recent developments in the world of Doctor Who", when silence has pretty much been my modus operandi.

Nevertheless, my silence has largely extended beyond the realms of blogging... I've not said much on Twitter or Facebook. Instead, I've sat on my mountain watching the shenanigans. I think now is as good a time as any for me to re-enter the fray on both the micro and macro level.

I suppose I should start by giving you some context. I have been something of a traditionalist in terms of casting the Doctor. In the past I have maintained that the Doctor should be male, largely for two reasons - firstly because of in-universe consistency and secondly in terms of supporting a feminist counterargument about the fact that in terms of progressive non-violent fictional male role models, the Doctor is pretty much alone... and that taking that away is arguably killing the golden goose (this argument is similar to the one put forward by Peter Davison). I also do not find it a healthy way of breaking the "glass ceiling". To truly do that, a female character has to be positive and strong in their own right... without borrowing a male legacy.

I would say that in the case of the first argument, that it seems highly odd that a member of a species for which we now are to accept treats gender as physically flexible between incarnations, would take over a millennium to decide that he'd have a go on the other side of the fence. Incidentally and purely for the record, I never treated the issue of race in that argument. So does this mean that I would never be accepting of a female Doctor on this front alone?

No, not at all.

There are several ways on that sole argument that I would be happy to find a workaround. In my own head, before Peter Capaldi inherited the role, I would have been content for the Doctor to have an entire set of female regenerations in the new cycle gifted to him (although I think the way he *received* those regenerations was written terribly). I would have also have been content for him to die permanently and bequeath his title to say - Jenny, Susan or Romana... after a reunion with any of them. Aside from this, there's also the notion that actually, the only reason the Doctor has never been a woman over the show's run until now, may have more to do with British societal attitudes restricting producers choice. It would seem the original producer never felt that the role would always be male... and fourth Doctor - Tom Baker, also provocatively put the idea of a female Doctor forward when discussing his departure.

It was my second argument, which whilst slightly more simplistic... provided more of a block. Whilst I still maintain there is a valid point to be made in the argument... it is a wider problem that transcends Doctor Who and I think all progressively minded individuals could find common ground if we accepted that actually there's a need to deal with such things on the macrocosmic rather than microcosmic plain. Both arguments are actually correct. Girls need more positive role models and boys need more progressive ones. If we wrote more characters that covered both these bases, this would be a non issue... nobody would need to demand any character be one thing in terms of representation... because representation itself would no longer be an issue.

For me it's not so much that there is a glass ceiling and more that both male and female characteristics have grown too big for the floor of the building they now occupy and the divider needs to be removed for both their benefit - the ceiling may be too low downstairs, but the floor is also too high upstairs.

However... all that musing is now by the by.. We find ourselves in a different world. We all must face things as we find them... and not as we wish them to be. No doubt some, having read my contextual arguments... will assume that when the announcement of Jodie Whittaker's appointment came through, that I went all Chicken Licken and lost my mind in a red mist of vitriol.

And yet, they'd be wrong.

Jodie Whittaker is the new Doctor

Admittedly it did help that I wasn't watching the dedicated TV show (I was playing D and D at the time and caught the announcement via BBC News apps headline announcement), so I was removed from all the high emotion. However, I have to say that when the announcement came through I had a genuine peace about things. I think I'd compare my emotional journey as having been akin to an aircraft breaking the sound barrier. As a vehicle approaches supersonic speeds, compressibility and drag generate flight instability, but once the craft has passed beyond supersonic, flight becomes smooth again.

There's a minor character in Babylon 5 who goes on a similar journey. Early in the third season, he is sounded out about the possibility of rebelling against Earth... and he seems against it (much to the disappointment of the command staff); however when everything hits the fan in the middle of the season and a fleet of Earth ships rocks up, he's given the choice to walk away... but stays loyal.

You can't always tell what way a person will jump based purely on their prior convictions. It's also equally dangerous to make assumptions about a person's motives or about where they stand on a topic, purely on the basis of their arguments. One of my recurring fears at the moment is the polarisation of modern society. Suddenly it seems, everything has become about "us versus them". There is no middle ground. At first I noticed this with the ultraconservatives and ultraliberals.... but it is a malignancy that has spread much further - Brexit, generation conflict, gender, nationalism... the fallout over all these is rooted in the same disease. It damages friendships and destroys dialogue. It takes no prisoners and causes collateral damage in the middle ground that gets denied. This is a much larger topic which I hope to return to at a later date.

Returning to the topic of Doctor Who through the lens of this disquiet, I would encourage all fans of the show to be patient and bear with others who have different feelings about the change of direction/format. It seemed to me no sooner had the announcement been made, that a number of exaggerated responses came out from people with strong feelings on both sides:

People saying the show is dead and refusing point blank to watch it any more.
People making misogynistic remarks.
People pre-empting negative responses and making vitriolic statements that those who held different views were never fans of the show.
People "Virgin shaming" others who were against the idea.

That last one is something that particularly annoys me. I find it ridiculous and unacceptable. We live in a society that quite rightly frowns on and calls out against those who abuse/persecute select sexual minorities and yet turns a blind eye when people use another as a badge of shame. There is no shame... celibacy is a perfectly valid choice. And for those who don't necessarily make that choice, but find themselves living under the banner... I think getting hung up on that one aspect of life leaves you a bit lopsided and sets you up for more trouble.

But really all these reactions are over the top. We absolutely need to respect that in many cases, people are needing to make a journey along the change curve. Though I personally accept the change in direction, I do still harbour a few reservations... and having sympathy with some of those who now find themselves ostracised for the position they maintain, because I once trod their path... I find personal attacks and aggression towards them, unacceptable.

Capaldi's Doctor openly defies regeneration.

In conclusion though, having thought long and hard about the way The Doctor Falls ended, I'm actually starting to think that the show itself is going to do something very meta to the audience. The Doctor's stubborn and this time physical refusal to regenerate, mirrors the emotions and thoughts of many people who are not sold on the idea of Jodie Whittaker taking over. The fact he runs into the First Doctor who seems to be at the point in his journey when he has to make the same decision only amplifies this. Could it be that this year's Christmas special will serve as group therapy for those who feel this way and are stuck on the change curve in the 5 stages of grief?

I think it just might.

All that remains to be said really is "good luck, Jodie".

How do you feel about the change in direction/format of Doctor Who
What are your hopes and fears going forward?

Bridges Across The Great Divide: A Christian Response to #Brexit

2016-06-25T13:32:00.001+00:00

In light of recent events, I feel it would be remiss of me not to make some form of comment on Britain's decision to #Brexit - that is, to leave the European Union.

First of all, for the record I am one of the 48% who voted to remain within the European Union and I spent a lot of time researching my decision and campaigning with its merits, having weighed them against the perceived costs. I won't bore you with all that detail here, because as things stand what's done is done and whether you voted one way or the other... we have to face the future together. Suffice it to say I felt both shock and deep grievance over Britain's decision to come out and have my own deeply held concerns about where this road may lead us.

But I'm not writing to whine about that here and now - perhaps if people feel like responding in the comments, I may go into more detail there. My principle aim in this blog entry is to look at where we are at now... and talk about how British Christians have a unique perspective, opportunity and sacred duty to help our fellow citizens in the coming days, years and months.

So let's look at the lay of the land at the moment - the state of the union. Weeks of bitter campaigning have rocked families, friendships and relationships up and down the country. I've even become embroiled in a few regretful tussles myself. The endless stream of charts show us that most of England and Wales are at odds with London, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and that divides are not just limited to the geographical but extend to rich versus poor, old versus young and left versus right.

The United Kingdom is very much shaken.... and that's where we need to come in.

During the Scottish referendum, I felt that God laid a scripture on my heart and as polling day loomed, the same passage came to me again... even clearer:

"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe"

Hebrews 12:28

Paul's letter to the Philippians assures us that we are citizens of heaven and we therefore have an identity that is not founded on the temporal confines of an earthly nation. That's not to say that we are any less patriotic about our nation... but it is to say that our British identity is defined by our Christian identity - and not the other way around.

How can this help other people in the country who are not Christians? Well, whilst Britain may be shaking, we don't have to shake with it. As the psalmist wrote we should turn our eyes to the mountains and remind ourselves that our help comes from - the Lord God. The book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that life "under the sun" is full of futility... all things come and go in cycles and have their beginning and end. However if we remember our creator we have a perspective that sees us through that futility - we live life "above the sun" or perhaps we should say "under the Son and not under the sun".

If we live in the unity of our belief we can be a shining example to people who are broken and grieving in the current political situation. As Christ's ambassadors we also need to open our spiritual doors to non Christians. Our hearts and homes must be places where we offer welcome and refuge and a friendly ear to people who have not come to terms with where the country is at (even if we have not ourselves). This may very well become more and more important as time goes on, if the country goes down a road we like even less.

Beyond prayer for our nation and its people, we have a part to play in God's service. So let's pick ourselves up, refresh our spirits with the common identity and greater truths we find in Christ... and ready ourselves for the spiritual work ahead.

Thoughts for further (respectful) discussion:

How do you feel about Britain's exit from the European Union
How can Christian's serve God in its wake?
Would *you* like prayer with regard to anything that has come out of the result?

Feeling "Lent" Upon

2016-02-23T10:08:00.001+00:00

As you may or may not have noticed, we are now firmly in midst of yet another gripping season of Lent.

People often assume that Lent is about giving something up, but actually the act of abstinence in itself isn't at the heart of what those of us who are Christians, do. Interestingly a poignant and relevant bible verse cropped up twice yesterday, in two different church services I attended. It was from the psalms:

"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise."

Psalm 51:16-17

The first service I attended, I was responsible for the morning's prayers and felt compelled to use the words in my petitions. In the second service of the morning, the rector of the church used the phrase in his sermon. In my mind it perfectly encapsulates what Christians should be aiming towards during Lent (and indeed in a macrocosm of this, throughout our entire lives on Earth as well). It isn't about taking a break from something naughty. It isn't about refraining from something we like. It's about taking part in a regular, committed activity that draws us nearer to God. It is the personal cost and commitment that are important, not the action. The former is the purpose is the driving force, the personal cost involved is the fuel... the actual act is merely the vehicle that transports us there.

Not being a creature of many traditional vices, I have often struggled to come up with something I felt able to commit to in terms of giving something up. This year, I opted to commit to spending at least an hour every night in a state of personal lockdown. Simply put, at as close to 6pm every night since Ash Wednesday (or as close as I can get to it, where practicable), I have shut my door, stuck some Christian music on and just put myself in God's presence for an hour. Sometimes I nod off; sometimes I prefer to choose silence over music; sometimes I try to finish a theology book I've been reading and I also try to read scripture and pray as I feel led. The format differs periodically, but whatever happens to me in that slot, is purposefully and intentionally pointing towards the presence of God.

Not that I'm boasting... far from it!

You see all that writing was just some preamble before I talk about what is really on my heart for this post... namely, the matter of when God himself seems to raise the ante.

Please excuse me for one moment if I talk somewhat vaguely on a personal matter:

I have been quite encouraged of late by some personal turns in circumstances and have been investing time, thought and energy on what may easily be a fools errand. Then, all of a sudden... just before Lent, any ideas I may have had were frustrated... that's not to say they were derailed... just that no opportunities have arisen for me to do *anything* in regard to them.

The thought has occurred to me that maybe this is not mere coincidence. I find myself asking, "What if God has decided that this is the thing *He* actually desired me to lay on the altar during Lent?" This thought is somewhat reinforced by the fact that praying over the way I felt about the matter and committing those feelings to God just prior to Lent, seems to have been the catalyst.

It's incredibly frustrating but it is very much in line with some of the things you see God doing in scripture with notable characters. Just when things seem to be turning around for a character, God throws a curve ball. Think of Abraham who after receiving a son, is seemingly called upon by God to sacrifice him... even though he is his true heir and a child of promise. Or think of Josiah who after rejecting the ways of his fathers, embraces the worship of the one, true God... only to discover that the same God who called him to righteousness had now revealed just how far His people had fallen, just how hard the journey back into the light was going to be and that there were no shortcuts... and had then in the narrative basically challenged the new king along the lines of "Are you *really* still up for this? Your move."

Those are just two examples, but there are others. The amazing thing about these men of God, is that when God pulled the plank from under them... they didn't back down and they didn't turn away - Abraham solemnly obeyed but was delivered; Josiah tore his robes and pressed on with the reforms.

And of course these point to the greater, ultimate truth of the sacrifice Jesus Christ himself carried out in the Garden of Gethsemane.

When you are faced with such circumstances, you basically have only a few limited choices. You can stomp your feet about and yell until you get your own way (but you probably won't get anywhere, and you might not find what you wanted is all you hoped if you do - again look at Israel's demands for a king, and God's response). You can passively accept things as they have been and continue to swim against the tide and hope for a lucky break. You can lose faith in what you have already attained and walk away from all God's providence and promises.

I don't think any of these responses are correct. I don't believe God wants us to abandon hope or rob us of it any more than he wants us to try and impatiently snatch it out of his hands. I believe he wants us to surrender our hopes to Him and to entrust them to Him.

Abraham had to trust that God would somehow allow Isaac to walk away from Mount Moriah; Josiah had to trust that God would guide him and strengthen him as he reformed his nation. Jesus had to trust that in obeying his Father's will, and paying our ransom through his sacrifice, that he would be raised to new life.

In my case I have to trust that in surrendering my ideas and intentions to God, that he will give them back to me in a meaningful way that is pleasing to Him, when the relevant time is accomplished. I have resolved not to try and engineer any circumstances for opportunity myself in my personal situation until Lent ends. There may well be natural opportunities that arise, but I have committed to not explore them fully in my favour until that time, or unless God himself turns things around.

In all cases, this is hard. The flesh (the sinful aspect of our human nature), tells us there are no guarantees... that is the cost of the sacrifice and the journey. However, the Spirit and scripture say:

"And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose."

Romans 8:28 (AMP)

It is this knowledge... this belief, that sustains us through our sacrifices - this and the knowledge that we have One at the Father's side who endured the greatest sacrifice and is able to show sympathy and empathy to our situation through the Spirit.

It can be a hard thing to know and accept that God is sovereign... that He is the potter and we are the clay, but at the same time, that same knowledge is at least equally reassuring.

The question we have to ask ourselves when the time comes, is are we prepared to trust our faith in the One we serve, or let our feelings about our circumstance overwhelm and dominate our actions.

For further contemplation and response:

Have you felt leaned upon, this Lent? What are your experiences?
What do you think of personally when you consider the idea and theme of "sacrifice"?
How does the idea of God being "deeply concerned about us", help you when He asks you to make a personal sacrifice?

Forces Awaken

2015-12-14T20:25:00.000+00:00

I'm very excited.

We are so very near to two big events in the calendar - one secular, the other religious. The first is the release of the new Star Wars film this week (I've got my tickets for a 3D showing on Wednesday (going solo... Han Solo), and a 2D showing with friends on Thursday. Here's a fan re-edit and mash up of the trailers:

The second of course is Christmas... the time of year when Christians like me celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the new hope that the law and prophets spoke of in the Old Testament.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what links these two very different events personally, in my own mind. I've found it very interesting and poignant that all through the promotional months we have seen precious little of the main protagonist of the original trilogy - Luke Skywalker. Fans have been getting very anxious about it, some are worried it means that Luke has turned to the dark side, others think he won't be in it much at all... still others have come up with the (crazy) idea that Adam Driver's character (Kylo Ren), is actually Luke and the casting of Driver is all part of some big conspiracy. I share the anxiety but not the fear. We've all become hung up on the question of "Where is Luke Skywalker"?

However, I keep going back to what J.J. Abrams said about accepting the job of director for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. He said that originally he was not going to take the job on, but then he was told the synopsis by Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy. It was a single question - "Who is Luke Skywalker?" That single concept turned him around 180 degrees... and he was on board from that moment on. He has since been quoted in interview as saying:

“The idea that Luke Skywalker now, nearly 40 years after the movie came out, I started thinking he would be as good as of a myth to people who are 19, 20 years old. The idea of a new group of young people, not knowing who he is or who any of the characters were, is the beginning of what became the story of the film.”

And there in a nutshell is what for me is connecting the release of the new Star Wars, with Christmas. Let me adapt that Abrams quote and alter the subject... because I actually think it says something quite important about the subject of faith:

“The idea that Jesus Christ now, nearly 2,000 years after his public ministry, I started thinking he would be as good as of a myth to people who are 19, 20 years old. The idea of a new group of young people, not knowing who he is or who any of the characters were, is the beginning of what became the story of the film.”

You see therein lies the heart of the matter. As Christians we get so hung up about demanding "Where is Jesus?" in the festive celebrations... but that's defensive and about fearing what we care about will be ignored by others. True evangelism isn't driven by the fear of rejection... it's driven mutually by the love of the subject and the love of the uninformed audience. We actually need to move the question on. We need the question to be "Who is Jesus Christ?".

One of the main trailers for the Force Awakens has a line of dialogue between Rey and Han Solo, it literally made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Rey is talking to Han about the history of the Rebel Alliance and mentions that there are stories about what happened. Han's response is brief and to the point:

"It's true. All of it. The Dark Side, the Jedi. They're real."

That it is Han Solo who speaks this way of the Force is deeply significant; after all in the first movie he appears in, his view on the Force is very different, telling the young Luke Skywalker:

"Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense."

That's quite some turn around.

It may well be that Han's concept of the personal significance of the Force isn't much different, but for him to have come forward as a kind of reluctant evangelist and state "it's real", is immensely powerful.

The changing views of Han Solo

For the record, I'm not saying in any way that Jesus is a myth... I'm saying quite the opposite. I'm merely saying that if we want to stop people seeing Jesus as a myth, we need to move on from repeating stories to them that they already know (when they know them), and show the reality of Christ in how we live.

Often people get hung up on dressing Christianity up, be it with the bells and smells of tradition or an explosive light show that would put even Michael Bay to shame; but actually if we took a step back we'd see the simplicity. It all boils down to conviction - a person or a group of people stepping forward and demonstrating with sincerity that it happened... that Jesus was, is and always shall be real and has had a tangible presence in their life.

Han Solo is not a Jedi... in fact he was (and almost certainly still is), a bit of a rogue. He can't levitate X Wing fighters and furniture and he can't perform mind tricks... but what he can do is be honest about his loyalties and the things he has seen. I think what I'm saying is that for Christians, it doesn't matter how the Holy Spirit has gifted us in relation to things like prophecy, healing, speaking in tongues, leading, teaching and the like... we might think we are fairly lacking in any or all of those areas, but God still speaks through our everyday lives and we should not underestimate the power, relevance and importance of our own day-to-day testimony. It's because Han Solo has known Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance that he is able to speak with total conviction about their reality. Likewise because we have known the presence of Jesus in our own lives we too can speak of him with conviction:

"It's true. All of it. The sinful nature, the Saviour. They're real."

Over to you:

What excites or worries you most about the forthcoming Star Wars film?
What excites or worries you about Christmas?
Is Christmas true for you? All of it? Is it real?

Unmercifully Blessed

2015-07-27T21:44:00.001+00:00

In recent days I've found myself thinking about and re-exploring the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. It's a story of Jesus that only appears in one gospel (Matthew), it features a man who having a great debt faces terrible punishment. at the last minute his master has a change of heart and mercifully forgives the debt. Shortly after this, the servant tracks sown another man who owes the master a debt and threatens him with the same punishment he narrowly avoided, when the master hears about this... he reverses his decision and comes down on the unmerciful servant like a tonne of bricks.

In hindsight, the point of the story post Jesus death, resurrection and ascension is quite clear to us because those of us who are Christians recognise that in Christ, God forgave each and every one of us an unpayable debt, and therefore we accept the importance of forgiving others their own sins, however manifold.

However, I believe that the parable has applications beyond the obvious.

Why do we always assume that this attitude only applies to God's grace in respect of the bad things he has forgiven us? I put it to you that in fact, this applies equally to God's providence - the good things he gives us. When God blesses us, should we not equally acknowledge that we also don't deserve the good things he gives us. When we see people who have not been so fortunate or have yet to experience blessing in a particular way, should we not be merciful to them? Should we not remember what it was like to manage day by day before God blessed us? Should we not recognise in others, the difficulties and trials we may once have walked with and escaped, or may have completely avoided simply because God chose to bless us in a particular way?

The most obvious, stand-out example for me is the concept of marriage and the family. Time and time again I see people move into family life (with or without children), and they go through a personality change. I'm not talking about the increase of responsibilities and the change in priorities - these are natural. What I'm talking about is a personality swap that seems to occur. Where once you could joke around with your friends, the humour is lost and actually becomes offensive to the point they feel feel they have to defend one another. These are just the first few subtle cracks of an invisible chasm that begins to widen as time goes by, one that begins to create two tiers within the church... haves and have nots; one that has led to the idolatrous worship of the family unit within the Church... where those who do not meet the criteria are seen as eccentric lepers who we find discomfort in being around, whose presence embarrasses us and who we don't like to talk about because they have become so foreign to us.

In some ways, attitudes like this remind me of the final scene in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers:

It may sound ridiculous, but sometimes it really does seem sometimes like you can strike up a conversation with someone you once knew following a positive change of circumstances... and they just react as if you are some kind of aberration, foreigner or alien. The idea that your friends have become replaced by pod people is laughable... but the feelings associated with it are also not very nice.

There's another parable that Jesus told (this time in Luke's gospel), it's the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. In this tale, a man who has been abundantly blessed with the things of this world remains blissfully unaware of a poor man named Lazarus who can only hope that leftovers might come his way. However when both men die, the situation is reversed and Lazarus enjoys the company of Abraham in heaven, whilst the rich man longs for drops of water to cool his tongue from the heat of Hades. Isn't it telling that Jesus doesn't even bother to give the rich man a name? Because of their attitudes, the rich man is temporal and Lazarus is eternal. It is a tale of two chasms - the lateral and eventually... the vertical.

This then is another take on the temptation to be unmerciful. Had the rich man remembered where his blessings came from, had he been mindful of Lazarus... he could have a voided his fate.

So in conclusion then, what am I saying? Am I suggesting that if you are married with kids, you've had your lot in life and if you forget your single friends you are in danger of hellfire? No, of course not. I was merely using the paradigm between the married and the single as an example as it is the one that is most prevalent and relevant to me (and I should add that it isn't even universally true... I am blessed with several groups of married friends who treat me well).

No this isn't my point at all. My point is simply this... that each and every one of us has an obligation to recognise the manifold ways that God has blessed us... and not hoard it from or lord it over the people around us. there must be no ivory towers in God's kingdom.

Let it not be said of us that we are "unmercifully blessed". Instead, let us seek ways of using our blessings to raise others up. Let us use what God has given us to bless others.

I'd like to finish with a quote from Ridley Scott's take on Robin Hood. I think it sums up in many ways the kind of attitude we should have with regard to the undeserved providence we may find ourselves the beneficiary of:

"We can't repay our good luck with bad grace, it invites darkness."

Paul's Prayer for a Deeper Experience of Christ

2015-07-26T12:19:00.000+00:00

At present, the churches in Alcester Minster are doing a series on St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Last week, Adrian Guthrie preached on the reconciliation that comes through Christ as explored in the previous chapter of Paul's letter; on how Christians are being built together as one body to create a single nation, family, building and entity in which God dwells by his Holy Spirit; and how the need for reconciliation with God and one another is as relevant to our minster church, as it was for the Ephesians almost 2,000 years ago.

In this morning's passage, Paul writes that he is moved to prayer for the Ephesians. I find it interesting that Paul chooses to include his prayer into this part of his letter. It's a little counter intuitive to our sense of order. In the modern world, we are quite used to having set moments for prayer... We begin and end meetings with prayer and we have special slots in our services for our prayers of supplication, but here... Paul just stops in mid sentence and drops to his knees in prayer, before carrying on in the letter.

I think for Paul, prayer was as much a part of the conversation as the rest of his dialogue... and if the Holy Spirit tapped him on the shoulder in the midst of what he was doing, then engaged God in prayer with regard to whatever was on his heart. This morning I'd like to explore three questions with regards to Paul's prayer for the Ephesians... and demonstrate why it is so important to us in developing as spiritually well rounded individuals, as An effectively functioning and growing minster, and as a true family of Christian brothers and sisters in the universal Church. I'll be looking at what things Paul prayed for; why Paul prayed for those things, and why Paul was confident
in his prayers for those things.

So what exactly did Paul pray for?

Verse 15 tells us that Paul prayed for the Ephesians for the following things:

1. That they may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in their inner beings
2. That they may have power together with all the Lord's holy people.

On the surface that looks like he's asked God for the same thing, the same power twice, but I don't think that's the case. You see, in the first instance Paul has asked that the Ephesians are filled inwardly as individuals. In the second instance God has asked that they be filled with power together with all God's people as a collective. Paul is stressing the need for God to play an active role in both our personal lives and public fellowship.

3. That they may know Christ's love that surpasses knowledge...

That seems a bit odd too, doesn't it? If something surpasses knowledge... How can we know it? Isn't that a paradox?

I don't believe it is a paradox. Knowledge of the facts is one thing, but living in the truth of those facts is quite different. Reading a book about Michelangelo will tell you a lot of information about what the composition of his work. But it won't tell you what it feels like to stand in the Sistine chapel and take in all the sights, sounds and smells.

You can know what the concept of love is, but that's not the same as knowing the love of another person.

To know something in a way that surpasses knowledge requires that we connect with the subject of our knowledge and let that take us on a journey. Here on Earth we cannot fully know God... he's too big...

But we can know what it is like to live in the fullness of God.

The second question I wanted to ask, was why did Paul pray for the Ephesians.

Well he prayed that they would be strengthened inwardly, so that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith. The more time we make for God in our lives through prayer and meditation, reading the Bible and through fellowship with one another), the more our gaze is turned towards him and the stronger our relationship with him grows. Paul wants us to put our roots down deeply... as he words it, to be established in love.

This flows into the next reason that Paul prayed his prayer because the more deeply rooted in God we are as individuals, the more that benefits the Church.

Paul also prayed because he wanted the Church to truly understand how much Christ loves it.

When we see God at work in one life... be it our own, or another person's... it is invigorating and life changing. But when people see God at work in the life of a church or a community... that's when renewal or even revival happens!

As an example, did you know that there is a type of heat resistant grass that thrives in volcanic soil? However it can only do this because of a fungus that lives on it, that protects it. But scientists have discovered that the fungus itself can only survive because it too has a heat resistant virus living inside of it.

In this respect, God is like the virus, we are like the fungus and the church is like the grass. The more we experience God personally and the more we share God in fellowship with one another, the more the church thrives.

"Panic grass" grows in the geothermal soils of Yellowstone Park in America. It can only do this because of the protection afforded to it by a fungus, which in turn is protected by a virus. This to me illustrates how the Holy Spirit strengthens individuals in a hostile environment, and how a fellowship of these Spirit filled individuals in turn generate the right conditions for renewal and revival.

The third reason Paul prayed the prayer is because he wanted his readers to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I was saying earlier about the difference between knowledge of a person and knowing a person on a personal level... and this here is what Paul reinforces - know God cram as much of him into your life as you can! Jesus said to the apostles in John's gospel that:

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.
Instead I have called you friends, for everything, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."

Paul is reminding us that this offer is extended to all who follow Jesus, not just his apostles. Some people get uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus being a friend... It seems disrespectful, but it is important to remember that Jesus being a friend to us, does not negate him being our master either. The difference is that Jesus is running a family business and not a faceless corporation.

Which brings us to the final question. Why was Paul confident in his prayer?

I believe the answer is because, knowing and experiencing God in his own life, in the ways we have explored this morning, he *knew* that God *is* able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

I just love the magnitude of those words. Immeasurably - beyond our ability to calculate.
More than all we ask or imagine - beyond the scope of things we can even conceive.

God is limitless.

And the wonderful thing is that God's limitless power and resources aren't just something that he dispenses from on high, but verse 20 tells us that this power is at work within us.

His power is at work within us. What a privilege

And so if Ephesians 2 last week told us where we need to go in terms of Christ reconciling us to one another in the church, the minster and the communities we live in, then this morning essentially tells us how we are getting there.

I have to confess that this short passage is one of my favourite scriptures, and I often use it as a model for prayer when taking part in some kind of mission. Let me finish by praying these words:

Heavenly Father, this morning we pray that out of your glorious riches that you may strengthen us with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And we pray that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to you who are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to your power that is at work within us, to you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

Amen.

Pentecost: The Promise

2015-05-24T21:40:00.001+00:00

Today is Pentecost Sunday. I was down to preach this morning and what follows is an adaptation of my talk. The reading for the service was Acts 2:1-21.

A very rich man once held a huge party to celebrate his 50th birthday. He had a pool in which he collected all sorts of alligators, I think he must have made his money being a Bond villain. After an extravagant lunch, he announced he would be willing to give away his luxury cars, 1 million pounds, his home or even his daughter's hand in marriage to the man brave enough to swim across the perilous pool.

No sooner than he had made the announcement, there was a loud splash. In the pool is a man and he is swimming as hard as he can. Tails are thrashing in the water, jaws are snapping but the man just keeps on going while the alligators are gaining on him. Finally he reaches the end and gets out of the pool, tired and soaked. The rich man walks over the exhausted young man and loudly proclaims, 'I am a man of my word, anything of mine I will give, my Ferraris, my house, absolutely anything, for you are the bravest man I have ever seen. So sir what will it be?' The young man looks up and replies:

"I don't want your money or your daughter sir. I just want to know who on earth pushed me into that pool!"

In a sense, God is like the rich man in that joke. Now I don't mean that he keeps a swimming pool full of big alligators; I mean that like that rich man, he is all about great big promises.

Previously in John's Gospel, Jesus had promised that he would ask the Father to send another counsellor or advocate to help all Christians and to be with us forever. Today on Pentecost Sunday we celebrate the day that God fulfilled that promise and poured out the Holy Spirit on the group of roughly 120 followers of Jesus who met in his name. Before it was celebrated in the Christian faith, Pentecost was already celebrated as part of Judaism. It marked the 50th day after Passover and the bringing in of the first Harvest. It is also the feast day when Jews celebrated the giving of the Law to Moses. This is why there were Jews from all over the world gathered in Jerusalem.

It's really important that God chose to give the Holy Spirit at a time when the people present were focussed on the Law. If the Christian life was merely about keeping the commandments, we would really struggle because as human beings, we are limited in our understanding of God's will and we lack the spiritual strength to obey him on our own. Scripture teaches us that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, that he convicts us when we are disobedient and that he enables us to understand and obey the will of God and express our needs to the Father, even when words fail us.

Someone once said "All word and no spirit, we dry up; all Spirit and no Word, we blow up; both Word and Spirit, we grow up." That the giving of the Law and the Spirit were being celebrated on the same day shows us how important it is for us to have a balanced relationship with both those elements.

But how did the apostles get the Spirit? Well we are told in the passage that they simply received it. God gives freely and abundantly, but he does it in his time. It does not depend on our desire or effort, but on God's mercy. Nevertheless Paul teaches us that we should eagerly desire the gifts of God. There's no doubt that God could pour out and equip his saints abundantly at a word, but I believe we demonstrate our faithfulness and discipleship when we actively seek these things in prayer.

Verse 2 speaks of a rushing wind filling the room and causing tongues of flame to appear. Whenever I read that, it calls to my mind the triangle of fire - heat, fuel and wind. Our lives are the dormant fuel waiting with hidden potential. Calling upon God in prayer to fill us and empower us, is the heat. When the wind of the Spirit blows.... The fire comes.

As Christians we already have access to the Spirit, but if we spend time in meditation and quiet, we can be filled anew. When I was preparing my talk for this morning, I felt that God laid the word "promise" on my heart. That it was important to illustrate that God didn't just casually let the Spirit into our lives, he committed himself to doing it. Did you know that if you take a banknote out of your pocket and examine it, it has the words "I promise to pay the bearer upon demand" emblazoned on it? In olden days you could go to the Bank of England and demand gold sovereigns equivalent to the value of your notes. Or again consider how a politician may be elected on the basis of what they promise to the electorate. Or yet again take the example of marriage - how two people who love each other make a commitment to love and serve one another in a relationship confirmed in vows. The point I'm trying to illustrate is that even as humans we don't make promises lightly... and when someone makes a promise or commitment to us, we take that seriously as well.

Well in this morning's passage, God makes his own promises known to us. If you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved. He will pour out his Spirit on all people. Can we as Christians treat God's promises with any less weight than those of the people around us? When somebody offers us something of great value, shouldn't we embrace it? Thinking back to my initial joke, when God offers us the opportunity to serve him with his many gifts... What do we see? Do we see the worthiness of the giver and the worth of his gift? Or do we preoccupy ourselves with the fear and suspicion that there might be alligators in the swimming pool?

What will it take for us to get swimming, are we ready to be hungry for what God wants? Or will it take a sneaky shove in the back?

Essentially though, there are three things that I'd like us to take from this morning's reading:

1. The promise of the Holy Spirit is for everyone who follows Christ. Whether you are young or old man or woman, high church or low church, rich or poor, ordained or laity. The passage that Peter quoted in our reading today says that God pours out his Spirit on ALL people.

2. The Holy Spirit meets each of us and speaks to us where we are at individually. All the Jews in Jerusalem that day could speak Hebrew and Greek, and yet God chose to publicly address them in their local language in a manner that was personal to each of them. The church is one body, but every part of it matters and never think for s moment that God doesn't care about your individual needs.

3. The Spirit is given that we may make God's presence known to a world that needs his love, forgiveness and direction. So that as verse 21 tell us, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. God will in grace respond to all who call. But how shall they call if they have never heard the gracious invitation of His word? We must go.

Finally I wanted to give an example of how being filled with the Spirit does not mean losing who we are as individuals... and that we don't have to be afraid of the good things God gives:

Imagine you had two identical bath sponges. If you took one of them and saturated it with water, its properties and internal nature would change. It's heavier, it's wetter but essentially it is still roughly the same shape. It is still a sponge just like its dry counterpart.

So it is with the Holy Spirit. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we are still the same individual. We are till the same person, but we carry something life giving that has changed our properties and our condition. When you look at a sponge filled with water you cannot tell where the sponge ends and the water begins.

When people look to us and scrutinise our way of life and responses to their questions, let us hope to be the kind of Christian where an observer cannot tell where the person ends and God begins.

Letter to Nadhim Zahawi (and Others) RE: The Proposals to Repeal and Replace the Human Rights Act (1998)

2015-05-22T08:07:00.001+00:00

I have recently written a letter to my MP (Nadhim Zahawi), voicing my grievous feelings towards the proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act. I have copied the text for anybody who reads my blog and would be interested in reading:

Dear Mr Zahawi

I am writing to you as one of your constituents who has grave concerns over the Government’s proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act (1998), with the intention of replacing it with a more UK centric Bill of Rights.

I have studied your rhetoric on Europe and my understanding is that your position is moderately Eurosceptical. For the sake of clarity, I will say that I agree with you that Britain’s best interests lie with us remaining as part of the European Parliament, but whilst I am also in agreement that the EU and European Parliament need reform and that the best solution lies in not “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”, I am generally less sceptical than you and disagree with you on where the “baby” ends and the “bathwater” begins. Whilst I hope to obtain your support on the basis of my own argument, I accept that a more convincing case may be to illustrate to you how Britain’s position within the EU may be threatened by the consequences of a successful repeal of the Human Rights Act.

My concerns on the matter of the Government’s position over the Human Rights Act date back to 2011, where I set out my thoughts at the time on my blog, www.nickssanctuary.com.

In 2011, when this first became an issue for me, the Home Secretary attempted to convince the public that a Bolivian individual escaped deportation on the basis of owning a cat (when in fact the cat was merely cited as a minor example on a very long list of criteria illustrating that a human relationship the individual in question had, was genuine and thus fell under the right to family life), it became apparent to me that the reasons for trying to repeal the HRA were ideological and not merely practical. The argument most proponents for the intent to repeal make, is that it is simply a transfer of jurisdiction about where and who determines the same rights. I believe this is a straw man argument - a selling point that highlights a potential beneficial consequence of a repeal that conceals its actual purpose. Besides, it is our own judges who uphold rulings like these and so the issue is not about who interprets these laws, but on the laws themselves.

When you look at the primary text of the HRA, there is nothing wrong in principle at all with it, we would be right to frown on anybody who objected to them. However, if the HRA is being misinterpreted, it is only because civil case law has gradually, over time, eroded or mutated its intent. I have little doubt that the same fate would eventually await any British Bill of Rights.

We must always be aware that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Even if the reasons for repealing the HRA were noble (something I do not accept), by committing to this course of action we would set a precedent for countries with a far more disturbing human rights record to emulate us. Great Britain helped lead the way in bettering human rights. As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, we helped secure the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights; it was a British citizen who subsequently helped forge the document that became the European Convention on Human Rights. It would be shameful if having played such a significant role in bringing other nations into the light, we enabled the door to swing the other way and became facilitators for nations pining for the darkness.

What happens when we start deciding that for whatever reason, on principle, one human being has more value than another? Is it not a slippery slope that has potential to result in dark episodes?

We must also take the long view with regard to this legislation. If a Bill of Rights becomes something malleable that successive Governments can use to further their own private agendas then even if it were used for a good purpose, the spectre that a more questionable or nefarious use for it would always hang over it. If Government overplays its role in scrutinising who and what is acceptable, the very notion of who is protected by the Bill of Rights becomes a movable feast and this is dangerous.

I don't necessarily oppose the composition of a Bill of Rights as it could be a useful tool to accompany the HRA in defining the responsibilities that accompany the freedoms. However, I don't see why it should need to replace the HRA. The Act doesn't just defend my rights; if I abuse the rights of another, then the Act works against me too. In fact technically, the legislation could be protected against the politicians who wish to do away with it:

“If any of these rights and freedoms are breached, you have a right to an effective solution in law, even if the breach was by someone in authority, such as, for example, a police officer”.

Does that not suggest that if the Government (being a lawmaker and source of authority), tries to repeal the Act, then they are actually violating our existing statutory human rights and are prosecutable themselves? In my view the only legitimate way around this would be to hold a referendum. If the electorate clearly demonstrate by two thirds majority that they ultimately reject HRA, then I could see (regrettably), a case for doing something about it, but that mandate at the moment is far from clear.

These are my arguments for retaining the current legislation but as I said earlier, I recognise that if I’m to win your support, I must make a different case and this is it:

As a moderate Eurosceptic, you appear to believe that we have a place within the existing EU and that in the case of a referendum; you would prefer us to stay within it. I put it to you that should the law pass within Britain our position within Europe would be threatened from other influential nations within the EU. I also put it to you that should the law fail to pass, less moderate Eurosceptic rhetoric will gain more traction and the influence of Europe may be used as a scapegoat to deflect or embellish embarrassment over Government defeat… this would likely have an adverse effect on the subsequent referendum to remain within the EU. If Great Britain did regrettably exit the European Union, I believe that then and only then would be the a more reasonable time to have a Bill of Rights in place as a legislative successor to the HRA.

In conclusion then, I ask once again for your support. I would be extremely grateful for a response on this occasion; in the past I have tried communicating with you via email and Twitter and whilst I recognise that the latter isn’t the best format for formal political engagement, I am deeply disappointed not to have had the courtesy of a reply to my previous correspondence. I apologise for the somewhat lengthy nature of this letter but I hope the amount of time I have taken to write this demonstrates the level of feeling I and many like me have on this matter.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. I would be grateful if you would consider what I have to say and let me know how you intend to proceed.

Kind regards

Yours sincerely

Nick Payne

Incidentally I have also dispatched similar letters (modified to reflect party position and general commentary), to David Cameron, Harriet Harman, Nick Clegg, Caroline Lucas, Alex Salmond, Jonathan Edwards, Tom Watson and Stella Creasy). I did so in deference to their position as respective leaders of their parties or in the case of the latter two MPs, because I have a modicum of respect for some of the notable high profile work they have done as individuals.

I additionally intend to follow these efforts up by corresponding with Justin Welby, John Sentamu and Prince Charles.

I will keep you up to date as to any response I receive. In the meantime here are a few links to some campaigns if you want to show some support... and a couple of questions for feedback here:

Liberty
38 Degrees
Tom Watson

What are your thoughts and feelings with regard to the Government proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and replace it with a UK Bill of Rights?
Are you planning on doing anything to make your views known?

Mysteries of the Force

2015-05-04T22:48:00.002+00:00

Several weeks ago, the second Star Wars Episode VII teaser trailer was released. I, like many of you I'm sure, was as giddy as a schoolboy. I wanted to post something about it then... but I thought I would wait until Star Wars Day to remark on them, as it gave me an opportunity to talk about it in a wider context. First however, just in case you've been hiding underneath a rock on Tatooine and have somehow missed it, here is that teaser:

It was exciting stuff. When I saw the initial trailer, I was happy... but the highlights of that was the sight of X Wings and the Millennium Falcon in flight. However when I saw this second trailer, I was overjoyed. It was just a step-up. Yes there's that big reveal of Han Solo and Chewie at the end... but for me, that was icing on the cake. The general feel of the teaser just recaptured some of that old Star Wars magic. It was the clever use of specific John Williams scores, coupled with dialogue from Luke Skywalker that most caught my imagination.

A hooded cyborg (in all likelihood, Luke), affectionately places a hand on R2D2 in the new teaser.

When I look back to the flawed works that were the prequel films, I think it is pretty fair to say that for some people one of the things that annoyed long time fans, was the introduction of midichlorians as a way of explaining the nature of The Force. Star Wars works best as space fantasy and mythology... it doesn't require an overly heavy explanation as to the mechanics of its universe in quite the same way that Star Trek or Babylon 5 might.

Part of the beauty of Star Wars was the idea that the Force *is* a mystery - something to be probed, contemplated and explored, but never really answered. This is probably never more evident than in The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker begins his training under Yoda. Now it's true that Yoda's musings slant towards Eastern philosophies, but I think they are general enough that the wider world can lap it up and draw its own parallels.

However, in the prequels the mysticism seemed to take a firm back seat to the action... it just didn't seem to be as important - to the films detriment. Curiously when George Lucas originally came up with Star Wars, the need for young people to ask questions about religion, was clearly in his mind:

"I put the Force into the movie in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people--more a belief in God than a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery. Not having enough interest in the mysteries of life to ask the question, "Is there a God or is there not a God?"--that is for me the worst thing that can happen. I think you should have an opinion about that. Or you should be saying, "I'm looking. I'm very curious about this, and I am going to continue to look until I can find an answer, and if I can't find an answer, then I'll die trying." I think it's important to have a belief system and to have faith."

George Lucas - Time Magazine, 1999

Yet strangely despite Lucas' motivation, I've always found the stories where these themes were explored with the most depth and the most explicitly were in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Both of these were co-written by Lawrence Kasdan.

This is why I'm greatly reassured about The Force Awakens... Kasdan is back on board. Going on this fact and the feel of the trailer, I am quite hopeful that this new batch of films will be the spiritual successor of the original Star Wars trilogy.

I do wonder if the new films are going to explore an evolution of Jedi beliefs. As uncomfortable as I am with the idea of midichlorians in the past, what if Qui-Gon Jinn's death and the subsequent Jedi purge, became the catalyst for a Jedi Reformation? Qui-Gon was the first Jedi to return from the netherworld of the Force; what if his spectral instruction of the exiles Yoda and Obi-Wan, led them to a deeper understanding of the Force... one that led them to realise that midichlorians were not the Force... but were just present on/in many beings who were Force sensitive? Maybe they were symbiotes or harmless parasites that hitched rides on many Jedi because they could feed off Force energy.

It's a way of bringing back and reinforcing of the concept of the Force as primarily being mystical in nature as opposed to biological.

Finally, as it *is* Star Wars Day (still, just) I want to leave you with two more statements from George Lucas from that same TIME interview back in 1999 and a couple of questions to you as food for thought:

I think there is a God. No question. What that God is or what we know about that God, I'm not sure. The one thing I know about life and about the human race is that we've always tried to construct some kind of context for the unknown. Even the cavemen thought they had it figured out. I would say that cavemen understood on a scale of about 1. Now we've made it up to about 5. The only thing that most people don't realise is the scale goes to 1 million.

I think there's definitely a place for organised religion. I would hate to find ourselves in a completely secular world where entertainment was passing for some kind of religious experience.

Do you think there is a God?
Has Star Wars in any way influenced you on a spiritual level?
Do you agree or disagree with George Lucas that organised religion has a place in society?
What are you most looking forward to in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens?

Habeas Corpus

2015-04-12T14:07:00.002+00:00

I was asked to preach this morning on John: 20:19-31, which recounts the tale of St. Thomas and his moment of doubt (I refuse to call him "Doubting Thomas" because I don't believe that one incident defines him as a character).

I titled this talk Habeas Corpus which means "you may have the body", for reasons that I hope by the end... should become clear. But let me begin with a little joke:

A defendant was on trial for murder. There was strong evidence indicating guilt, but there was no corpse. In the defence's closing statement the lawyer, knowing that his client would probably be convicted, resorted to a trick: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you all," the lawyer said as he looked at his watch. "Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom."

He looked toward the courtroom door. The jurors, somewhat stunned, all looked on eagerly. A minute passed. Nothing happened.

Finally the lawyer said, "Actually, I made up the previous statement. But you all looked on with anticipation. I therefore put it to you that there is reasonable doubt in this case as to whether anyone was killed and insist that you return a verdict of not guilty."

The jury, clearly confused, retired to deliberate. A few minutes later, the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty. "But how?" inquired the lawyer. "You must have had some doubt, I saw all of you stare at the door." The jury foreman replied: "Oh, we looked... but your client didn't!"

A couple of years ago I preached about Thomas and defended him as a passionate man who despite his moment of doubt, was a person who clearly deeply cared about Jesus and a man who we could all relate to.

However when I read the passage in preparation for this morning, I was struck by how Thomas's experience and the manner in which he expresses his doubt is especially relevant to our world today. Throughout history, people have had doubts about the resurrection of Jesus... But today we live in an age where for many outside the church, cynicism has been superseded by passionate and zealous unbelief. Some share the thinking of certain prominent critics of the Church that something cannot be believed without empirical evidence.

I felt that these demands very much echo the words and attitude of Thomas when he meets the disciples following their encounter with the risen Jesus.

Thomas didn't merely say "I can't believe" or "I struggle to believe"; Thomas declared "UNLESS I SEE... I *WILL NOT* BELIEVE". He was adamant!

Doesn't that sound familiar?

Usually when we see this part of the gospel performed in a play or a film, no sooner has Thomas uttered the words, then a great shaft of light breaks into the room and Jesus stands before Thomas. However if we read the text, we see that an entire week passes before Jesus is seen again. It makes you think, doesn't it? God doesn't always answer our doubts immediately... sometimes he gives us time to reflect on what we say and feel.

What is important here, is that although Thomas and the other apostles were in different spiritual places... they didn't disassociate themselves from one another. Thomas didn't dismiss his friends as crazy and disappear never to be seen again; for their part, the apostles bore with Thomas as he struggled to deal with what he must have considered to be outlandish claims.

I think there's a lesson for us all there, wherever we are. If we are struggling... don't give up. If we see our friend struggling... don't walk away from them just because they are on a different page. Isn't there a subconscious temptation to move towards a subtle parting of the waves when we gradually learn that a friend is moving in a somewhat different direction that disappoints us? If so... we should learn to wise up to it and resist its pull.

After the feast of Passover was finished and Thomas and the other apostles have had pause to reflect, Jesus returns to their presence to give Thomas his definitive answer. Thomas is confronted by the significance of his own words quoted back to him in the response of the all-knowing very real and living Jesus:

"*Put* your finger here; *see* my hands. *Reach out* your hand and put it *in* my side".

The wonderful thing about Jesus' response to Thomas is how accommodating he is. Last week we read how in the garden, Jesus asked Mary Magdalene not to hold on to him as he had not yet ascended to the Father. Yet here Jesus not only invites Thomas to observe his wounds, but to actually reach out and touch them in an intimate way.

It shows us that when Jesus meets us at our point of need, he is selfless and personal. It does not matter to him how much it might cost, hurt or inconvenience him... he us wiling to offer his life and his wounds that we might believe and have life.

But the thing I feel most burdened to write about this morning, is how we are to witness to those who have that passionate disbelief about the nature of Jesus, as represented by Thomas.

Earlier I joked about a lawyer who tried to use the absence of his client's victim as a way of proving reasonable doubt of his crime. If you recall, the punchline was that the jury didn't believe the client because even though *they* looked to see if the victim would enter the court, the client in the dock,

didn't.

The Holy Spirit is like the defence lawyer in that joke. Now I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit is lying about the resurrected Jesus, far from it. What I am saying is that the Spirit prompts the people of the world to look to the idea, the reality of Jesus being alive. Yet so often, it's when people look back at us as his followers in the dock that their decision as to whether or not they are willing to believe is influenced.

If we aren't looking to the return of the resurrected Jesus, if we aren't living a life that acknowledges the resurrection in some way... do we not falsely make out to other that the Spirit lies?

Habeas Corpus. Can we present the body of the risen, living Jesus to the passionately disbelieving?

One day, whether it's tomorrow or in a million years, the Bible tells us that Jesus will walk through that courtroom door... every eye shall see. The people asking the question will have their empirical evidence. But what use is it to them then? In order to have life, they need to know it *now*.

Yet, while we wait for that day we have the opportunity to bring forth the body of the living Jesus, every day. As Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians, While he sits at the right hand of the Father, We the Church *are* the body of Christ:

"Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."

1 Corinthians 12:27

While we don't necessarily bring empirical evidence to people's lives, by our words and our actions we *can* demonstrate Christ alive and at work in us.

Here are three steps taken from this morning's readings, that I believe we can take that will do this:

Be at Peace and receive the Holy Spirit. Verse 21-23 tell us:
"Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

John 20:21-23

We need time to pause and reflect in God's presence... to breathe in the Holy Spirit and let God permeate our beings. We also, when talking with people about God, if they get angry with us, need to do our best not to lose the peace God bestows on us and turn our conversations into verbal fire-fights. This is especially important in the Internet Age, where what starts out as well-meaning debate so often descend into a vitriolic slanging match.
Secondly, we need to let that peace, that sense of God's presence, develop our discipleship. The Acts 4:32-35 reading today encourages us to be one in heart and mind. Serving and loving God and one another in such a way that his grace works in us powerfully and testifies to the resurrection.

The German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer... who 70 years ago this week, was martyred by the Nazis once wrote:
"Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ."
If we breathe in the Holy Spirit in moments of peace and breathe out the Holy Spirit through our discipleship, the living Christ becomes evident to those around us.
Finally, we should allow God to use the marks of our own wounds to witness to others. Jesus said that as the Father sent him, He sends us. The Father sent Jesus in frailty to be one of us. When Thomas required physical proof of the resurrection, Jesus allowed him to touch his wounds.

Similarly when we see people struggling in faith with something we've been through, we should seek to show our empathy and demonstrate that although God may sometimes allow us to experience hardship, he does walk beside us and lead us through it.

So to recap...

Let us willingly receive the Holy Spirit
Let the Spirit direct our discipleship
Let those who suffer see the marks of our own spiritual testimony.

Peace be with you

Heroes Come in All Shades and Sizes

2015-02-22T13:37:00.000+00:00

I've recently been observing an interesting debate/war of words going on over at Twitter. It seems ever since Marvel & Sony did the deal to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel cinematic universe, there has been a small but vocal reaction to the possibility of Peter Parker being recast as a black character (even though this hasn't even been decided... as far as I am aware). Dan Slott (one of the writers), is currently engaging these voices head-on.

Now those of you nerdy enough to be in the know, will be aware that in Marvel's Ultimate universe, there is already a black/hispanic Spider-Man called Miles Morales... and that the Nick Fury of that universe is also black (as indeed he is, in the Marvel cinematic universe), despite the fact that in the mainstream comic universe... he is white.

The future ethnic heritage of Spider-Man has recently been a matter of debate on Twitter

This is where I stand on the topic:

If the Spider-Man of the Marvel cinematic universe is a rebooted character then he can be of any ethnicity, it really doesn't matter... it's a fresh start and if we are honest, there is nothing, not one thing that says that Peter Parker is defined by ethnicity.
If there were any new universe versions of Spidey... they could be any ethnicity whatsoever... new universe, new rules.
If something happened in the main universe whereby the writers "did a Psylocke" or another plot along the lines of Superior Spider-Man, whereby Peter and his powers ended up in the body of somebody from another ethnic group... again, no problem... as long as the narrative gives a reasonable explanation for how the transfer happened.

I think the real reason that people are getting their webshooters in a twist is because they relate to Peter Parker as a fictional character. They know what its like to be the nerdy kid in class who was picked on or looked over... and they fantasize about having the powers and responsibilities of Peter's heroic alter ego. All of this is fine... but we need to remember that our own relationship with a fictional character doesn't give us exclusive ownership of that character.

An important step in human maturity is developing the ability to decentralise our existence and understand that we are not the heart of the universe... and that other people have the right to appreciate the same things as us and relate to them in exactly the same way we do. This isn't something that is just restricted to the realms of fiction either. People might be quick to point out that in the West, artistic and cinematic representation of Jesus Christ has largely been restricted to that of a white Caucasian... usually with flowing locks and blue eyes; this is despite the fact he was racially Semitic in origin. However the truth is far more kaleidoscopic and wonderfully complex than that. If you take the time to explore other cultures where Christianity is present, you will see that Jesus is actually manifested in the dominant ethnicity of the country/region in question... and not just our own.

Rather than see different representation as a threat, isn't it better to use it to develop the commonality and empathy we share with these people and see past the superficial differences?

And ultimately in the final analysis... isn't what draws us to fictional characters like Spider-Man or real people like Jesus, the values, ethics and personality they exhibit... rather than the colour of their skin or shape of their body?

A Disquiet Follows My Soul

2014-10-04T00:22:00.001+00:00

First off... this is not a Battlestar Galactica related post at all. I simply used the title of one of the episodes because the phrase has been running through my head a lot of late.

Secondly I have been silent for far too long. This place has gathered dust while I have been distracted... and this seems to be a habitual tendency, one that I should really get out of.

It's a funny thing but I have made a point of waiting upon God for direction as to whether I should embark upon a certain course of action, on the understanding that should I not get a definitive response before a set point in time, I would resolve to move on it myself in an act of blind faith and blind faith alone. Yet as that time nears I find myself both disturbed and moved on the subject. I see the world moving to spur others on and yet find silly things get it my own way. You want to take the opportunity to talk to the vicar and elderly ladies gravitate in and do the "lovely service vicar" small talk routine and totally block access... that sort of thing.

At the same time it feels like various images and songs that have spoken to me... come to the fore... and my Bible notes are talking about being more focused.

There's a great sense of pressure building within me... but I am coming to understand that it is not negative, it is like the tension in the bowstring before the arrow is launched, or the stirring of champagne working against the resistance of the cork that holds it captive within the bottle.

I have always struggled with human impedance - the sense that people deliberately or unwittingly sometimes work against you because their own interests clash with your own. Yet as I type that sentence I am reminded of Christ's words to St. Peter at the end of John's gospel. Jesus has just given Peter an indication of the kind of life his ministry will end in, and yet Peter finds himself distracted and asking what the fate of John will be.

At the heart of Jesus' response is a question and a statement: "What is that to you? You must follow me.”

So back to this idea of disquiet... what does the Bible have to say about this word? Well in a few translations, the term comes up in a couple of Psalms:

"Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."

Psalm 42:5

It is easy to look at our frustration as a negative, to assume we aren't going anywhere because resistance is present or because we are held in some kind of suspended animation. However that's making the same mistake as Peter. Instead we should look towards what God is doing: what God is doing in us; what God is doing to us; what God is doing for us. When the bowstring is drawn, it is no longer in an inert state... potential energy is being built up and will soon result in it being released as kinetic energy, propelling an arrow towards its target.

Likewise when we feel frustration, we don't need to get wound up (an ironic choice of words there), instead we should be prepared to accept that we are being built up with the necessary energy to take us forward to the next phase of our walk with God.

All that potential energy has to go somewhere... and the more it builds up, the more you should take courage that it will one day, strike or move its intended target... perhaps sooner than you think.

Disquieted - is it really such a bad thing? The NIV translates the word as "disturbed" - the same word that lies at the heart of a prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake. So wherever life finds you I'd like to leave you with the words of his prayer and ask you to contemplate anew what being disturbed means:

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Amen

Contact

2014-04-05T14:25:00.000+00:00

Happy First Contact Day everybody.

In the Star Trek universe, April 5th (in the year 2063), the Vulcan race makes contact with Earth as a result of the flight of the Phoenix spacecraft flown by Zefram Cochrane:

Also if you are a fan of Babylon 5 (to your credit), you may know that the 7th April marks another first contact day for humanity - that of humans and Centauri.

Babylon 5 also celebrates a First Contact Day Around this time.

First Contact in science fiction normally represents a sea-change in the fortunes of the human race, an even that leads to a renaissance of technological and socio-political advancement... or in some cases to cataclysm. Often it leads to humanity reaching for the stars and spreading its influence across the galaxy. In Star Trek, it leads to the end of many of humanity's self imposed troubles and basic survival struggles.

As time goes on, fans of Star Trek commemorate the event and even here in Britain, the National Space Centre plays host to a gathering of fans who meet to celebrate (this year they are attempting to break the world record for redshirts in one place).

I can't help thinking that there's a better way to celebrate though, one that is all inclusive. Here, today on Earth... we have yet to encounter sentient alien life and are not therefore as yet challenged or encouraged in a manner in which such a discovery would present us. As a Christian I do believe we have had a very unique and special first contact - with God himself (something I wrote about two years ago), so I think there are other ways of looking at it.

Let's look at those famous words of dialogue from the franchise (taken from the Next Generation format):

Space, the final frontier.

These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.

It's continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds,

to seek out new life and new civilisations,

to boldly go where no one has gone before.

While none of us have an interstellar spacecraft at our disposal, each of us is on a similar journey in life. Our hearts, minds and souls contain the culture we carry to the outside world... and our bodies are the vessels with which we carry them to the universe outside.

So here are my suggestions/challenges for how you can celebrate First Contact Day throughout the course of this weekend in the everyday world... and stay true to the maxim of Star Trek:

Go to an unfamiliar place - a new pub, a new cafe, coffee shop, place of worship, library etc or visit a new town and study the environment around you.
Follow some new people on Twitter or other social media... preferably someone random and not suggested by your feed.
In each of those places try and strike up a conversation with an unfamiliar face - make first contact. You get bonus points if you connect with someone of a different worldview or background.

From my own Christian perspective, this is what the early church was best at - not just proselytising... but listening and observing the culture and needs of the people around it before sharing the wisdom of the Gospel message. True evangelism requires ears and heart... not just mouth. St Paul listened to the people of Athens and learnt about their shrine to an "unknown god", before proclaiming his belief in who that God was. I also believe that in a couple of verses, the Bible has its own version of the Star Trek intro:

"He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’"

Acts 1:7-8

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Matthew 28:19-20

However you choose to spend the next couple of days, may you live long... and prosper.

What things do you think we can do to celebrate First Contact Day?
Are you doing anything to commemorate it?

The Approaching Flame

2013-11-17T20:07:00.003+00:00

Due to commitments at the wedding of friends and a holiday in Spain, I've been off radar at Church for a while and not really done anything by way of preaching or leading a service. This mini sabbatical came to an end this morning as I climbed back into the preaching saddle for what will be the last time before the interregnum at Alcester Minster ends. I very much felt a call to address the topic of transition from interregnum to leadership under the forthcoming new ministry of Adrian Guthrie.

When I saw what passages I had been given from the Lectionary, I jokingly suggested that I was being punished for my absence because all the passages seemed to be related to judgement and carried apocalyptic overtones. In the end I decided to preach on the old testament passage in Malachi but expanded it to include the whole of the (brief) chapter:

"Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. ‘See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction."

Malachi 4:1-6

After reading that text, you may be forgiven for thinking that my talk this morning was going to be all doom and gloom and the stuff of apocalyptic nightmares.

But I promise my intention was in no way to get all fire and brimstone. There were a couple of reasons why I felt led to preach on the Malachi verse and in order to convey them, we need to take a look at the context in which the book was written.

Malachi was written after the Jews had returned from exile in Babylon & Persia and had rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and the temple. God had brought them back at exactly the time had told them he would through the prophets.

Yet the rebuilt temple that they found themselves worshipping in was a shadow of its predecessor. Solomon had taken great care to build the first temple with great splendour in accordance with the plans of his father, King David; the second temple was a much more modest affair that also lacked the Ark of the Covenant and the Shekinah - the glory cloud of God's presence. In fact when older Israelites returned from exile and saw the foundations being laid, they wept openly because they could remember these things in the old temple. On top of this, the land was still a vassal state and not a free power under their own rule.

Many of the freedoms and blessings they were anticipating following the end of exile and the predictions of Haggai and Zechariah had yet to come to pass and the people began to complain that God was unloving and unjust... allowing the wicked to prosper (and if we are honest, these are complaints that prick our hearts with dark thoughts in the modern world from time to time).

In this spiritual climate of deep doubt, the people had begun to waver in their commitments. The priests were being halfhearted in their duties (using sick or lame animals in sacrifice). The people too were beginning to drift again as well. They were holding back from there own covenant commitments to God (especially with regards to tithing and marriage).

It's actually quite heartbreaking. They'd just spent 70 years in the captivity of foreign powers asking themselves "how can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" and just when it seems they've begun to understand the gravity of the errors they made that led to their exile... they start to turn back to those errors and begin to forget their unique relationship with God again.

It's into this scenario that God motivates Malachi to write to the priests and to the people to answer their complaints and reveal to them his perspective about their situation.

Now it is s true that thee is a lot of heavy language with relation to judgement in chapter 4 and there are eschatological references in the passage... but let's remember where we are in the Bible and what God did next.

Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament and it points us towards the New Testament. Verse 5 talks about God sending the prophet Elijah to turn people's hearts to repentance... This would happen in the form of John the Baptist's ministry.

Verse 2 talks about the sun of righteousness rising with healing in his wings for those who turn to God and remember his ways. We are familiar with this terminology, especially as we draw near to the festive season; Charles Wesley uses this same poetic language to describe Jesus in his Christmas carol "Hark the Herald Angels Sing":

Hail the Heaven Born Prince of Peace
Hail the Sun of Righteousness
Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings

Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

So given that the next things God does in the Bible are acts of love and not judgement, what are we to make of Malachi's words on judgement?

Well Malachi twice strongly uses the metaphor of heat in his book. The first time he uses the image, he describes a refiners fire, one that burns away all our spiritual frailties and impurities and makes us holy. It is only towards the end of the book that the temperature increases and the refining fire becomes a furnace that consumes all.

As I was writing my talk, I was praying for a way to express what I thought God was saying about the nature of these fires... and in response to this, I was given a picture of a bonfire.

Now it is not that long ago that we celebrated Bonfire Night and many of us at one time or another will have stood around a large burning fire and felt the warmth radiating out from it. Now obviously, the nearer you stand to a fire, the warmer it gets. I don't know if you've ever tried the silly macho teenage thing (I say teenage but yes I admit I had a go two years ago and was temporarily left with half a red face and half a white face) and tried to stand as close as you can to a bonfire for as long as you can, but it is an incredibly hard thing to do... isn't it?

I want you to hold that that image... thought in you head for a minute.

You see I believe it a picture of God's movement and longing as he works hard to get close to us.
God is constantly drawing near to us and we need to respond to that. As sinners we can feel the heat of God's presence - his holiness as he draws closer and closer and it makes us uncomfortable. There are two ways we can respond to this growing warmth. The first is to try and run into the cold and dark (but in the final analysis that will not avail us). The second response is to turn and face the warmth of God - to seek the Lord while he may be found... and to trust that the refiners fire is there as a prelude to his glory, to make us ready for his presence.

The holiness and awesomeness of the Father are why He sent His Son and His Holy Spirit ahead... to save us and to transform us - that we may be ready for his presence in our lives.

God draws nearer every day and he is holy. That holiness challenges us and it convicts us, and in the final analysis when We stand in God's presence, that holiness will test everything we have done and whether or not it is built on his values and person.

So firstly there is a personal reason as to why we need to respond to God's coming holiness... his approaching fire.

But I also wanted to look briefly at the situation of the people in Malachi's day and draw some parallels with where Alcester Minster is at.

As the minster is now very near to the end of interregnum, it too has reached the end of a kind of exile. In the days that are to come we might see things change that we don't expect. Or we may not see things change at all and find our hopes frustrated. Depending on who we are and where we are, this may leave us feeling similar to the Israelites who were complaining and falling short in the time of Malachi.

If we find ourselves in that place then we need trust our faith and not our feelings.

I believe Alcester Minster finds itself on the borders of a potentially exciting time where God may be seen vibrantly at work in new and exciting ways. But like the people of Israel, I think we need to heed God's words through Malachi if we are serious, committed and truly desire to take hold of it. We need to examine our hearts and get ourselves right with God id=f we are not to be disappointed.

These words are taken from Malachi 3:

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,’ says the Lord Almighty."

Malachi 3:10-12

So for each of us as individuals and for Alcester Minster as it prepares to leave interregnum, let none of us fear the consequences of the furnace fire and turn away from God. Rather, let us embrace the refiners fire. Let us bring to God all that he requires of us... Whether that is time, tithes, relationships or talents. Let us bring it all into His storehouse and let his Holy Spirit anoint us to proclaim good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to bring his release to the prisoners... That they and we may know a year, a season of God's favour.

One Moment of Eightness

2013-11-17T00:57:00.000+00:00

I quite literally gave out an audible squeal of joy earlier this week when the preview "minisode" for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special first came out on the Internet.

Entitled "The Night of the Doctor" (itself a clever play on the title of the forthcoming special "The Day of the Doctor"), at just over six and a half minutes in length, the episode is a unique treat that nicely adds a bit of onscreen continuity and connectivity from classic Doctor Who into the revived series.

The moment I am referring to of course is the return of the Eighth Doctor to our television screens after a 17 year absence - has it really been *that* long?

He's back... and it's about time! (Do you see what I did with the TV movie tagline there?)

Paul McGann's brief onscreen tenure as the Eighth Doctor is divisive for some people because of the nature of the 1996 TV movie and its subsequent legacy. I for one was there in 1996 - a mere 21 year old spring chicken at the time of original broadcast. Looking back at the movie with hindsight, I can see all its faults and failings and why it received mixed reviews at the time. It also didn't help that in the US, the movie was broadcast in a graveyard slot that didn't endear it to the audience who were deemed necessary to bring the Doctor into a new revived series.

However there's one thing about the TV movie that was in my opinion absolutely perfect and beyond question; that was Paul McGann's interpretation of the Doctor.

Now when asked who my favourite Doctor is, I have *always* maintained that choosing between the Doctors is a bit like choosing your favourite uncle... you kind of shouldn't do it. I still believe that and I always will.

Yet in spite of this I will say is that of all the Doctors, McGann's is quite possibly the one I most relate to - as much for off screen reasons as onscreen ones. Onscreen because of his character and nature (not so much the well meaning kleptomania), off screen because of the troubled way he has been received and the struggle for him to gain at least some recognition in a pantheon of equals.

The Eighth Doctor as we first saw him (well... once he'd appropriated some clothes)

What I really loved about the way the episode was shot, is that it gives us a couple of insights. The first of these for me personally is the Doctor's wardrobe. In the classic series, the Doctor was always renowned for carrying an Edwardian vibe about him. However when Christopher Eccleston appeared onscreen in 2005, this had seemingly disappeared. However this seems to have been gradually seeping back in with progressive regenerations. With The Night of the Doctor we can see a reason for this. The interference with the Doctor's character that was caused by the conditions of his regeneration on Karn, provides a suspension of his character... and the change of his wardrobe provides a visual signifier of this. To my mind it seems very clear that the chalice the Doctor drank on Karn wounded or stained his personality and just as wounds and stains fade over time or some scars gradually come away as dead cells are replaced, the visual signifiers of who the War Doctor was, gradually fade from The Doctors reclaimed outward appearance. I don't think this is necessarily something that Steven Moffat intended... but it's a nice little touch that I think is there if you want it there as an explanation.

What I do think is interesting though, is the fact that Moffat decided to host the events of the Eight Doctor's regeneration on Karn. Long time Doctor Who fans will know from The Brain of Morbius that the previous story written on this world is one of the hot points for debates as to how many regenerations the Doctor has left. Off screen this seems to suggest a deliberateness behind Moffat's writing - a statement of intent if you like, that indicates he is absolutely aiming to take on the explanation of how to get round a Time Lord's 13 life limitation during his tenure (probably even in the 50th or Christmas special themselves). Perhaps we aren't even done with Karn either. Some of the lines of dialogue in the episode seem to imply the Sisterhood of Karn's abilities may yet prove to be a part of the deal with regard to bypassing the dreaded number 13 issue.

So all in all a televisual treat to see McGann again... and now it has spawned calls from various quarters for him to have a mini series that will give him a bit more meat to flesh out the bare bones of his TV appearances. This is something I would approve of, especially as McGann seems so comfortable in the shoes of the Doctor.

One final random thought I've had. We now know all 13 faces of the Time Lord we know and love as the Doctor. Shouldn't someone be commissioned to do a spoof of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper... featuring the First Doctor in the central position and John Hurt's War Doctor in the place of Judas?

Would love to hear your thoughts on the mini episode and any hopes and fears you have for the forthcoming big Doctor Who stories.

Here is the episode in case you have not managed to catch it on Red Button or online as yet: