Streams of living words

Movies about losers

2012-01-29T12:31:00.005Z

It may surprise some that my first post in a long time is about movies. I haven't had much time to watch any recently, but during a long flight, in which I was able to take advantage of long-distance flight benefits, I was able to view a whole bunch of very enjoyable films on a very small screen. The interesting thing was that the quality of the image didn't impinge so much on my enjoyment of the movies, because the quality of the story shone through (though I'm sure a better quality image wouldn't have bothered me).

The movies I'm talking about are recent productions: Moneyball, The Beaver and Larry Crowne.

The first is nominated for the Oscars, which I think a bit excessive, but I guess it speaks to Americans in a way it never could to non-Americans, being focussed on baseball, but what I found fascinating about these three movies (and the other two didn't get amazing reviews) is that they're movies about losers. These movies are particularly timely now that America is having to review its identity as a country of winners, however, what's really interesting is that they're not necessarily huge productions. The movies have an odd pace about them, the scripts are pleasant but not particularly complex, and the stories, interestingly, integrate very strong moral values. What is even more interesting, in my opinion, is that it is actors who are backing these movies, as opposed to big production houses. Moneyball is produced by Brad Pitt, while The Beaver and Larry Crowne are directed respectively by Jodie Foster and Tom Hanks. In this great time of crisis, the big production companies are still making idiotic, frenzied and clichéd entertainers, like "Real Steel" and another G.I. Joe movie (which I may even watch), that are just that: entertainment, distractions, things to keep people not thinking about what's happening in their world, in life, and keep them almost believing that the world is divided into beautiful, good people and into ugly, bad people. Funny enough, famous actors seem more in tune with reality and are taking on the challenge of speaking to the American and Western people about hard truth, namely, the harshness of life, and the hope that can still be found.

As I said, three unaccomplished guys are the main characters in these movies.

In Moneyball (a true story), Pitt plays a baseball manager who, in his younger years, was hailed as a new star in baseball, but in the end, didn't rise to the expectations placed on him. He chose professional baseball over a scholarship in a prestigious university and we find him embittered against the old baseball talent scouts who had promised him greatness. What he does though, is find a way to take a whole bunch of losers in baseball and make them achieve something no-one else had before. The baseball factor makes it not so easy to understand for Europeans, but the principles therein are understandable and they come through, in spite of the medium. But what makes this movie great is that, as opposed to many sports movies that hail the sport they talk about as the greatest ultimate objective, the big decisions that the protagonist finally makes are actually based on how to best love his family (I'm not saying any more so I don't ruin the movie for you), which shows there are things worth winning at that are much greater than sports or careers.

The Beaver was the most touching for me. Mel Gibson plays a clinically depressed man whose wife has tried everything to save him and who has to go through his very own journey of madness and loss in order to find himself and be reconciled to himself, his wife and the son who hates him. Really worth watching. It's funny and painful. All three movies talk about divorce, but this movie upholds marriage and the idea of fighting for a marriage more than any movie I've seen in recent years.

Larry Crowne was a sweet movie about a guy who gets fired and has to accept to make difficult, humbling decisions in life in order to adjust to a new lifestyle in the present economical situation. He faces it with optimism, pushing through his despair. The story pits him against another type of man who chooses to abdicate responsibility in life and loses everything because of it, an interesting praise of chivalry and manly virtue, even though as I said, it's not perfect. But it's honest, and it cuts through the heart of many things.

I don't know whether I'm putting the right words to this post, I'm trying not to give away key elements of the plots, but they're really worth watching.

I find it interesting that we haven't heard much of the last two, just like another picture that came out a couple of years ago and who never made it to cinemas here in Geneva, or I didn't hear about it, and wasn't able to watch it: The Company Men. A movie about corporate executives getting fired during the crisis and having to reassess their lives and identities in light of their socio-economical standpoint. These are movies that are made to shake people up from their slumber and to show them: here's reality, and here's hope. It seems though that people don't want to be shaken up and would rather stay in a stupor of shallow entertainment, while this world crumbles and the fabric of our society is falling apart.

I don't know whether any of this makes sense, I haven't been writing in a while, especially not in English, but I find it funny how as one grows, one's preferences evolve. I myself feel like I've awoken from a stupor and am seeing reality better than before. Indeed, even though this whole post is about films, one of the best things I've learnt recently is this: switch off that screen.

Meeting her

2011-11-05T18:23:00.015Z

What was I doing at a Chinese New Year party, and, what’s more, why was I the only guy wearing a Chinese shirt? Those who know me well know the answers to those questions, and their reaction is usually “Joey…” Anyway, apart from my Asian movie fandom, my Chinese housemate had invited me and it was nearby. And food is always good. Anyway, there I was. I won’t lie by saying I wasn’t on the prowl, but only as a perennial single such as myself normally is. In reality, you don’t really believe you could meet someone right for you at a party, but it’s always nice to impress and feel appreciated. In my own philosophy/theology of relationships, I’d swung from one end of the Calvinist pendulum to the other: on the one hand, believing that predestination is also for details of life such as who I’m going to marry, and on the other, giving up on believing the perfect woman for me exists and that I should just get on with life, and if someone who can put up with me shows up (idea which by then, I’d pretty much given up on), take them on with their own flaws. When one thinks about it, those two are not in contradiction. And while I believed both, like for most things, I didn’t fully believe them until I experienced them that very night, though I only realised it much later. But now, I’d say that’s the only advice I have for those in the same situation. Trust, and walk. Don’t settle for cheap sensations. You may be forfeiting something far greater…

“Wow, at least I’m not the only one wearing a Chinese shirt now! I’m Joey, what’s your name?” I get a weird look back. I must admit, that was lame. Then again, what do you expect? This isn’t a movie with scripted lines. I’d seen her walk through the door, and knew I must speak to her. ‘What was it?’ I thought later … I guess she was just really gorgeous. That’s the first time I saw Nikki.

How we got together is a funny story, already told to death, involving, at some point, a surprise romantic pick-nick on our first date (not that she was aware of the fact it was a date), and you can ask me when you see me.

It’s really strange for me to write about her, so used as I am to being single, as used as I am to being the odd person who doesn’t really fit anywhere. There must be a connection there, somewhere. Indeed, I always knew that the day I met someone crazy enough to stick around and who would ‘get me’, that girl would be the one for me. I remember writing up interminable lists of things that I wanted in my woman when I was younger, then later scrapping them when I realised how embarrassing that was. Those lists stick in one’s head though, as they represent one’s taste. Thinking back, it’s even more shameful for me to realise they were, by and large, lists of external qualities and skills and experiences, much like a (very extensive) CV, and hardly about character and internal qualities. The amazing thing is, she fulfils qualities I never realised I would have needed from a woman. Forgiveness, for example. Sweetness, kindness, gentleness. Openness. She has a humble heart, as I’d always hoped for in a woman, but she humbles me. And she fulfils me in ways I’d never expected: she is so funny. I can honestly say she’s become my best friend, something I hadn’t thought possible for quite a few years now, and I want to fight for her. Now that I’m in a serious relationship, I see my own flaws more clearly and bigger than ever before, and I want to beat them down more than before.

All these things are no different from what one would hear at any talk on relationships in church, but until one experiences them, they mean nothing to him.

When we started dating, I was shocked at the way, every time I saw her, she just looked more beautiful, as though I was seeing her for the first time all over again. And better. And the bizarre connections we have are so wonderfully refreshing, I just couldn’t have asked for anyone better. That is also why I haven’t been blogging for months. Too busy writing to her, talking, hanging out. Oh, and working like a maniac, which is completely unrelated, except for the fact that it’s all part of a new stage in life, and an exciting one at that…

Love is a strange thing. I was already convinced of the fact that it is a choice. It has never been truer than in my relationship with Nikki. Of course I’m drawn to her in a way I am to no other woman, but I realise I could easily choose to be unfaithful. Making the choice to love her builds my love for her, strengthening it and making it more beautiful. The choice is for the singles too, not to let oneself be tossed to and fro by sensations and sensuality, but to let the greater love of God overcome one’s need for those and aim for true relationship. And I know that isn’t something that applies only to Theists. One can also appeal to humanist beliefs to help them respect the opposite sex and draw out the best in them instead of the worst.

I know that it’s been a ride for the both of us. Nikki’s getting to know my flaws, my peeves, the way I act when I’m tense, my strange interests. Thankfully, she has a few of her own!

Anyway, after a whole lot of praying, thinking, discussion, flying over to England to speak to my mentors, I just cannot see a reason not to marry her. So that’s what we’re going to do.

Three weeks ago, I asked her to marry me. Through teary eyes, breathless, she whispered “yes…”

www.joeyxnikki.org

A Love Story of Patience

2011-08-07T11:13:00.006+01:00

It's wedding season more than ever (even more than the epic 2006 summer of weddings across England) and young couples are tying the knot all over Geneva! Week-ends at ICF are spent setting up for weddings, attending weddings and clearing up the mess afterwards (for the unlucky ones, whoops, I meant the most servant-hearted ones, which I'm not a part of!).

But it is really good to know that God does reward the faithful who seek him and these couples are now enjoying the wonders of marriage within a great community of people who care for them. Marriage is SO last century for more and more people it seems and the hope they have for their relationship is really depressing when it comes down to it. It seems relationships are characterised more by selfishness than sacrifice: what can I get out of this, over what can I bring to this. I'm not saying that one does not seek their own good in the relationship, but I am saying that the true good can only come out of giving oneself fully. Now clearly that's never gonna work if the other person isn't ready to do that, which is also why we need our mentalities changed, our vision reshaped, our hearts softened again. Why is the need for companionship something even people who have no interest in spirituality recognise? It is within us. We cannot live well with a string of relationships, cannot enjoy any peace, comfort, joy, with loose ties. And one cannot enter into marriage with the thought "when this gets tough, I'm outta here!" Marriage is ultimate: it can be an ultimate blessing or an ultimate curse. But anything less in a relationship is just trying to work around the fact that man and woman are meant for union, not usage.

Enough of my unplanned platitudes. This post is to honour my friends Sébastien and Danielle who got married last month and for whom I wrote this song.

A Love Story of Patience

(Chanson pour Séb et Dani)

30/06/2011

Well bro, I don’t know if I can make it

There’s not a day that goes by without me wanting to say it

But she made a promise, shall we say, not to date until May

I think I love her and think that she just may

So I’ll try to stay put and pray…

C’est tant de temps que j’attends ce moment

Que saurais-je dire sans tomber dans un délire ?

Cette cour touche à sa fin, s’il te plaît prends ma main

Tu es la fille dont j’ai longtemps rêvé

Et tu sais que je vais t’honorer…

Es tanto tiempo que yo he esperado

A un hombre como tú, por Dios desesperado

Tú no sabes desde cuando oro, lloro por ti tanto que te adoro

Y creo que lo vamos a lograr

Pues te dejare llevar…

Today I looked into your eyes and felt bliss

We made each other vows and enjoyed our first kiss…

And with our family and friends we’ll pull through to the end

But dedicate this to the one we trust

And started it all, our love Jesus…

Turnaround

2011-04-04T18:59:00.007+01:00

Harro! I'm posting my new song. It's the rawest thing I've posted here I think, with least recherché lyrics, but it's also the most overt snippet I've posted about my relationship with Jesus, and about the work he does in my heart, miraculously, again and again.

Musically, I love the way it goes from a lullaby to a love song, then into a full-on rock song, to go back to a mix of the first two. The initial chords came while I was leading worship in my small group a few months back during a contemplative moment.

Here it is:

Turnaround

20/02/2011-04/04/2011
Dedicato a Gesù e Neko-chan

My heart sinks walking home, I purse my lips and groan,
As frustrations start to surface and I’m alone…
Sit and ponder in my room, in moody ambient gloom,
Disappointment strangles and worries loom.

But you, you call out my name,
Oh you, you call me by name,
And the air, all around has become an embrace.
My whole world is turned around, while sitting in the same place.

How can I put words to moments like these?
You’ve stuck your hand in my heart and are helping me breathe!
After writing a few refrains the lyrics always sound the same,
How can asking for your filling sound so banal and mundane?!

So come on and tell me the story once again
Of how you sought me out to be my lover and friend,
Though I rejected you and couldn’t see
That you were the only true one for me!

Oh the love – you expound
In this masterful turnaround!
How you blow me away
Every single time you find me!

You catch me unawares,
Cast away my fears,
Show me how you’ve answered all the prayers
That I would’ve prayed
Had I ever only dared to trust in your name…

And now I, I realise, the need to sacrifice
All the things I hold dear but make my affections unclear,
To make my heart completely yours, and thus make my joy secure,
And anything that Love would plan, I will take from your hand.

An’ so now I’ve come home,
At the feet of your throne.
Basking in your presence I will never be alone.

What we most need…

2011-03-10T19:06:00.003Z

A while back, I read a very honest post from a fellow translator from my school talking about man’s basic needs. If I remember correctly, he broke them down to something like food, sleep and sex. I understood his reasoning, but my reaction was “that’s pretty cynical, isn’t it?” What’s more, considering the excesses that occur in these areas, the staggering numbers related to obesity and pornography addiction, calling these things “cyclical needs” is actually downplaying a reality that eludes us consistently. Indeed, if they were only needs, then satiation should bring satisfaction, but it doesn't, it actually leaves us wanting more. Our greatest need is to “outpour”, or to use another word, worship.

This fact came vividly to mind recently as I happened to watch a report on the latest sensations in the music industry: Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. Though I pretty much avoid listening to the radio as much as possible, and get depressed every time I do, this bizarre blonde bagger has managed to weasel her way into my cultural references and I’ve eventually had to take notice of her. As for JB, I don’t mean to hate on him, I love YouTube celebrities and actually think he’s probably the best role model teen pop music has had in at least a decade… We’ll just have to see how he turns out once his teenage audience dries up and his producers offer him a new contract, with guns, girls and grills. Nonetheless, you should notice a couple of things about these two pop stars. First of all, they’re not particularly talented, nor original: the little Lady is a scarily identical rehashing of Madonna’s earlier stuff, without any particular new addition, in fact the music’s pretty boring, except in her perverted excesses, appropriate for our generation; Justin Bieber is imitating Usher and Timberlake, who in turn are imitating Michael Jackson. He’s not an amazing singer, nor dancer, but he got noticed as being pretty good and having a cute face, and was enabled to work on his skills under the supervision of Usher; his great hit “Baby” audaciously uses its title keyword 55 times, and his latest hit, whose music video is really good (“Somebody to Love”), is actually a cover of an Usher song that never made it to video (and its lyrics sound awfully similar to an old rock classic). The producers have realised they don’t need to pay composers to write actually good music (and that goes across the spectrum of pop, R’n’B and even rock these days); why?

Because people go crazy over them anyway. The following is insane. Publicity is everything. How can it be so easy? People are just craving for something to worship. What’s funny is that their message is “love yourselves”, “do whatever makes you happy”, but the result is throngs of people worshipping them. People need to worship.

It was drilled into me even further as expectation built up during February for the Oscars. Being a film buff, I started out looking forward to them, but then I caught myself as I realised: “why are these people getting awards? Some of them are the richest, most ridiculously beloved people on the planet and they get to do a job that is fun and are paid millions to do it! Why do we need to praise them any further? Why doesn’t the single mum who works all week and raises her kids on her own get an Oscar?

These examples may not prove the point to some, so let me push it further. The Greeks got it: everything could be a god in Hellenistic culture. Money, beauty, work, the elements, even war. That is because anything can be a god! Most often, it’s a question of taking something good, something which gives pleasure or something recognised as important, and making it an absolute.

Let’s take for example my cultural background. Did you realise I’m mixed race? Italian and British, raised in the French school system. In these cultures, there are different cultural gods that pervade relationships, mentalities and focus; they tend to vary and are shifting in this period of history, but are quite clearly visible. In Italy, as well as most traditional cultures, family is a god. As a result, all things related to family receive divine status. Food is worshipped religiously, and deviating from traditional recipes is a sin, mothers become the source of all love and you elevate Mary, Jesus' mother, to divinity. However, when you put the pressure of being the “all in all of life” on your family, you get the social monstrosity of men staying home until the age of 40, in-laws ruining marriages and worn-out children rebelling against their parents. In England, independence and self-expression is the other end of the spectrum cultural god. That creates not few social problems of its own, demonstrating the power of selfishness, shown in its moral decadence. And in France, knowledge (aka Athena) is the cultural goddess, and those less cultured or who deviate from the norm of what is generally believed are considered less worthy. All this added up makes me a food-worshipping, self-expression-seeking, intellectual narcissist.

Where do I get this strange idea that all these things are elevated to the status of gods? I ain't smart enough to come up with that on my own. Genesis shows us that God created the world as a creative outpouring and then created us in his image, as outpourers. Our capacity and need to outpour is such that even in our separation from God through sin, we never cease to do it and we find things, normally beautiful things, to be the object of our outpouring, of our worship (am I outpouring through my writing to serve my conceited self or to honour God? Drawing lines is difficult in matters of the heart, as our motivations are often mixed). To those things we sacrifice our other most valuable things, because we attribute even greater value to them. In antiquity this took extreme and atrocious forms such as child immolation, but as Tim Keller so astutely points out, child sacrifice still happens today: if you want to have the high paying, successful career in the financial world in the City, you have to sacrifice your children for the sake of your career. Or, you may sacrifice your unborn child for the sake of your total independence and sexual “liberation”.

That's why it's so easy to make Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber into gods, you mix a bunch of great things together and you get an iconic idol: music, beauty (more in the case of JB than LG) and sexual self-expression (obviously more Lady Gaga), and great advertising elevate them to this status.

It doesn't even need to make sense! If you ever get the chance to read or watch interviews of the obnoxious freak that is Lady Gaga, you'll be amazed at the nonsense that can come out of her mouth. And I get flack for having a faith that the rationalists spurn... Give me a break.

People place hope in their idols. Watching 30 Seconds to Mars' – a band which I actually really appreciate – great music video “Closer to the Edge”, they placed mini interviews at the beginning and end, with young people saying random stuff that they were thinking. Two in particular struck me: a sweet little girl saying “I just wish there was no such thing as fighting, that the world could be just, like, perfect and that everybody could get along... but obviously, that can't happen”, and a tatted-up guy saying “music makes the world go round, and for me, if it wasn't around right now, I wouldn't be around right now. Music means e-ve-ry-thing to me... It's all I can say”. So, what, are you placing your hope in music to solve all conflicts in the world? Sorry, but you're a dead man walking. At least 30STM own up to it: they wrote it sarcastically in the middle of the music video, “Yes, this is a cult”, and the reason why their followers don't make any sense is that their own lyrics don't make any sense, if you read them, it's gnostic mysticism all over. Funny enough, musical idols conflict with each other: the little girl wishing all fighting could end will most probably become a teenager who despises other people in her school because instead of listening to emo-rock, they listen to pop, rap, or they just don't like 30 Seconds to Mars.

Politics is another great example of conflicting idols. People place all their hope in their political leaders and their ability to make their country a better place, and sometimes really hate on their opponents, which is funny when one considers the fact that disregarding someone's opinion has become the capital sin of our culture.

The worst idol, however, is probably still religion. In Jesus' time, the people he had the greatest problem with were the religious leaders. I love the way he kicks their asses so nonchalantly:

'The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Without washing their hands before lunch, author's note) And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“‘This people honours me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”'

(Mark 7:5-7 ESV)

Church traditions become obligatory practices and the traditionalists judge the innovators for not keeping them. Then the innovators come up with great methods to do church and crap on the traditionalists and anyone who doesn't apply them, as if it were the only way to honour God. The Protestants who liberated themselves from the Vatican's oppression of the Middle-Ages became themselves the religious conformists within a few generations and the new and hip churches mock the traditionalists as well as the older church down the road, which half a generation ago was the innovating church, and which in turn judges the new church for its doctrinal looseness (I'm pointing out my own sins here by the way). In the end, religion is still self-salvation, your idol is still yourself and your personal righteousness, not God. Isn't it amazing that God would choose to use a bunch of crazy people like us to make up his church all over the world? His Grace and goodness truly know no bounds.

“So what are you selling then? What are you going to try and push our way: if everything can be a god and cause damage, then you can't place any one thing above another. We need to keep things relative!”... But as you say that, you're just avoiding the inconvenient truth of the idols in your own life. As I said, we are outpourers and worshippers. We can't help it. We always end up enslaving ourselves to created things, to levels where we destroy ourselves and people around us. You're gonna worship something, you're going to make a good thing into an absolute thing. But if it isn't an absolute thing to start with, it will never satisfy you, and you'll grow bitter and frustrated.

I'm certainly not making a case for syncretism, “liquid church” or agnosticism, for those of you who know what I'm talking about. I just, as usual, want to talk about Jesus.

How is Jesus any different from our other idols... First of all, he isn't one. An idol is something that replaces God, it is a created thing worshipped instead of the Creator. Colossians 1:15-16 tells us of Christ: “He is the image of the invisible God … by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible”. He is the Creator, the only one whose position truly deserves the worship. “But if you do that, you'll automatically bring hatred on people who don't believe in the same thing you do!” is your next objection. But how different he is: in the same breath, he can unashamedly demand your utter worship, and that you love every other person on the planet: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” (Luke 10:27 ESV) He's the only person who can ask you to sacrifice your idols for his sake, but then be the one who sacrifices himself totally for you, to the point of death. Christ suffered the brutal oppressiveness of our idols so that we could be free of them, and suffered the righteous punishment due to idolaters such as myself, so I could be free to worship the true source of satisfaction, of joy, of life. He's SO WORTH IT!!! You ain't gonna find that anywhere else... Your idols will always beat you down, disappoint you, and ultimately lead you to death, but the gospel is this:

… Though we chose darkness and death, by wanting the things God could give us, but without wanting God, Jesus came into our darkness and went through death to bring us life in God, through his resurrection, delivering the greatest gifts of grace and forgiveness, to a world where conflict could never be solved fully, consensus could never be reached, because we keep placing our hope in statues that have no power, but whose weight crushed us. And he crushed them.

So don't place your hope in Lady Gaga, or in Justin Bieber, or in anything that fades with fashion... Jesus may not wear the coolest latest gear, and probably listened to traditional Jewish music (urgh...) but he is a solid Rock. The only rock worth basing your life on. And your outpouring to him will be poured back in exponential measures of true love, his love.

John Piper on the love of God as inseparable from doctrine

2011-02-16T14:50:00.002Z

This quote brings tears of joy and sadness to my eyes at the same time:

"Wherever the passion for Christ, the treasuring of Christ, the affectional embrace of Christ is missing, doctrine becomes intellectualistic, and the counter-error is debunking doctrine as though it's not important.

Wherever that passion, that joy is missing [...], behaviour becomes legalistic, and the counter-error is antinomianism because nobody wants to be legalistic, and therefore, getting our hearts passionate for Christ, getting churches emotionally engaged with the infinite value of Christ is hugely significant in the world, and when it's put in its proper place as a means of glorifying God [...], then doctrine has the magnificent function of [being] roots feeding into that joy, and therefore everybody loves it because it’s producing something beautiful, and out of that joy is overflowing the fruit of love and sacrificial, laying down your life, giving yourself away for other people.

And therefore, doctrine is really important, [or to use other words], right views of the glory of Christ make all the difference in the world, in the church.

And it’s a sad thing in our day, that doctrine – having a God with contours, edges – this is what he is, this is what he’s not – he’s not […] a fog, the Cross is not a fog, neither is the way He saves people, there are contours, an in and an out, a right and a wrong, a good, a bad, an ugly, a beautiful – it is tragic, that that is trashed today. Really tragic. And not because of any intellectual ego trip that anybody’s on… But because of joy being ruined! Because of love being destroyed!

[…]

“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14)"

(From the Reformission conference 2004)

Chasing after the sun

2011-02-14T07:34:00.005Z

So it's taken a lot of time, prayer and meditation, walks, runs and train rides, but here's my new song. Expression is soooo hard when you want to use the right words while being theologically correct, literarily aesthetic, metrically functional and sonorous... But I'm pleased with it, like a baby that took several months to come out. And one day it'll be recorded.
In the meantime, here are the lyrics. You may try to find the several themes interwoven, I'd love your comments.

Chasing after the Sun

Initial concept sometime around 2007
writing from mid 2010 to February 2011

I stare into a counterfeit light from early in the morning ‘til late at night
False love, false relationships, false self-sufficiency.
And I get the nagging feeling, stirring from my passive screening
That it’s killing my emotions and my creativity.

Then I step outside, it burns my eyes but heals
In the true light I encounter what’s real…

Well, would you give me a break!?

Because you’re making me feel like a teenager again, something I hate,
With every glance you throw at me, the ground beneath me shakes

An arrow streaks across the sky

And you pierce me with your eyes
You shut me up, I’m so afraid,
Can I back up what I’d want to say?
Taking the lead in a dance for two,
And learning to lay my life down for you...

Well I thought my insecurities would end along with puberty
But years later they come on stronger all the more…
I catch a whiff of evening jasmine on my run, but I keep on chasing after the sun
Its final rays reach to my shore, pierce through my core, leave me wanting more…

Various brushstrokes of grey paint my 6a.m. sky
Smoke blurring all the lines as winds make battleships collide
Was I not better off, in a world that’s spurious
Sheltered and safe from an inconsistent reality?

Because it’s making me feel, so impotent again
Face to what I can’t ignore
A world that’s dead and motionless which I won’t even mourn...

But something streaks across the sky…

And the city comes to life
Eyelids cracking open on the buildings of granite,
The trees yawning and stretching their arms as they wake,
And morning whispers sliding down the mountains, onto the lake.

It’s lit a spark within my heart, the thought of which just satiates
And colours in the grey and dark as the distant fire coruscates…

I can see it happen almost like a pattern
But even in the know I'm overcome
Though it may be dominated by strata
You show me to whom this firmament belongs
When the clouds scatter…

But my puzzle’s still undone,
Guess I’ll keep on chasing after the sun,
Over the hill and down the moor…

Geneva coming to life

2011-02-01T10:01:00.002Z

Just to post a piece of a song I've been writing for the last few months in occasional moments of inspiration...

30/10/2010 (7 a.m., Pont du Mont-Blanc, Genève) -01/02/2011

Something streaks across the sky, and the city comes to life
Eyelids cracking open on the buildings of granite
The trees yawning and stretching their arms as the wake
And morning whispers sliding down the mountain, onto the lake.

Voilà. Short and simple, hope it'll be part of a great song. Comment if you like it! ;)

Des hommes et des films... et des autres choses

2010-12-14T17:20:00.004Z

Je peux finalement prendre une pause après plus de trois mois de rédaction pour… rédiger quelque chose de différent que mon mémoire. Première version finie, je ne peux toujours pas célébrer car je ne connais pas encore les réactions de mon directeur de mémoire, qui a été extrêmement patient et courtois avec moi. Si ce n’est que pour une chose, ce mémoire m’a forcé à écrire en français plus que je n’ai jamais écrit de ma vie, donc je pense que l’impact sur mon style ne peut être que positif. Mais ça m’a aussi obligé à réfléchir sur certaines questions que je n’aurai pas nécessairement considéré autrement, de traductologie, rhétorique et théologie (mon mémoire est sur la traduction de théologie, avec un regard sur la rhétorique… pour ceux que cela intéresse).

Trois mois sans écrire autre chose qu’un document signifie que je me suis retenu d’écrire plein de choses, dont aujourd’hui je peine à me souvenir, c’est frustrant. Y’a des chansons, des réflexions, des critiques de film… Ben voilà, je veux parler de deux films en particulier.

Récemment on dirait que la question de la foi est en train de resurgir dans les médias généralement (finalement). L’esprit de l’homme ne peut pas rester trop longtemps soumis aux contraintes d’une vision du monde matérialiste, nous posons-nous la question pourquoi ? Hmm, mécanisme évolutionnaire, sûrement.

Le problème c’est qu’il y a trop d’enjeux pour la vie d’un homme quand il adresse la question de la métaphysique, sans parler de Dieu. Historiques, intellectuels, mais surtout personnels. On garde tant de ces questions dans le monde imaginaire du mythe, que les amener dans la sphère du rationnel est extrêmement difficile pour plusieurs. Je crois que ma génération est dans une des pires positions pour parler de ce sujet, mais peut-être meilleure que la génération moderne post-guerre, ancrée dans son rationalisme religieux. Le problème c’est que ces gens là ont été nos profs de littérature, de philosophie, de science… de plus dans le monde francophone, sous un système absolument voué à la suprématie de l’illuminisme comme le summum de l’illumination, justement, humaine.

Donc nous avons été élevés dans une mentalité rebelle à la croyance, mais nous ne savons plus pourquoi, pour certains d’entre nous. Ce n’est pas la frustration naturelle des jeunes italiens avec l’église catholique, qui ne leur offre pas plus que des règles qui aujourd’hui ne semblent qu’obsolètes, mais un principe de base qui nous empêche de penser que Dieu doive avoir la position principale dans nos vies. C’est l’humanisme moderne. Fondé sur l’empirique de l’histoire, il relègue la question de la foi à un domaine secondaire, traditionnaliste et personnel. Le problème, c’est que de cette manière, la soif qui n’est pas étanchée de ceux qui ne font pas partie de cette élite intellectuelle, c’est-à-dire la majeure partie d’entre nous, va trouver des autres sources de satisfaction. Mais bon, je disais qu’on allait parler de films.

Récemment j’ai vu deux films diamétralement opposés dans leur approche et leur message. La chose qui m’a surpris était le fait qu’ils étaient tous les deux décorés du festival de Cannes. L’un, faisait partie de la sélection officielle hors compétition du festival 2009, l’autre a obtenu le Grand prix du Jury 2010.

Je me suis retenu d’écrire un post sur « Agora » jusqu’à quand j’ai vu « Des hommes et des dieux ». Ceci parce que je ne savais pas quoi faire d’autre que de me plaindre et de dire que c’était une tonne de conneries, motivé par ma frustration tout au long du film. Pour ma défense face à ceux qui tenteraient de dénigrer mon opinion sur ce film, je l’ai tout regardé, même si vers la fin, c’était en accéléré. J’ai réellement détesté ce film sur plusieurs plans : celui historique, celui philosophique et théologique, ainsi que celui cinématographique, étant fan des trois. Une fois que « Des hommes et des dieux » est sorti, je me suis dit que j’avais un point de comparaison. Il est évident que ce film détruirait n’importe quel autre si l’on se mettait à faire des comparaisons, il est d’un niveau tellement autre que le cinéma populaire actuel, c’est même surprenant qu’il ait eu tant de publicité !

Une autre raison pour laquelle j’ai hésité à parler d’Agora est que je ne désirais pas faire de la publicité pour un film qui ne fait que masser les esprits auto-satisfaits des ceux qui considèrent toute forme de croyance tout simplement un sujet de moquerie. Ce film reflète la mentalité majoritaire dans l’élite intellectuelle française, qui se sent libre de commenter sur la théologie et la croyance d’un point de vue complètement biaisé et parfois tellement ignorant, tout en brandissant le drapeau de l’objectivité.

Donc, tout d’abord, j’ai été frustré par ce film sur le plan historique. Mon oncle Fergus a un jour dit : « je ne suis pas fan de ces films où l’on réécrit l’histoire » ; il parlait de « The Patriot », que même si j’étais jeune à l’époque, j'ai dû éteindre après cinq minutes, parce que je voyais entièrement ce qu’il disait. Amenàbar, censé être un réalisateur respecté, n’a fait que ça dans ce film. Il s’est basé sur des spéculations historiques et en a fait un film qui se veut une vraie histoire. C’est l’histoire d’une philosophe égyptienne vers la fin du IVème siècle, Hypatie, qui aurait apparemment fait de grandes découvertes sur le mouvement des planètes un millénaire avant des individus comme Copernic. Le problème, c’est que le christianisme est devenu la religion dominante et cherche à dominer le pouvoir dans tout l’Empire romain. En Alexandrie, c’est le méchant Cyril, l’évêque assoiffé de pouvoir qui réussit à tourner les masses stupides contre la grandeur de la philosophie grecque, incarnée par Hypatie. Typiquement le film préféré de certains : les religieux sont des cons, les hommes sont des cons, la religion est l’opium du peuple, les puissants en profitent ; la perfection absolue est représentée par une femme agnostique.

Le problème avec ça, c’est que l’histoire d’Hypatie n’est pas aussi claire que ça. Je n’en connais pas assez pour commenter ; il paraît qu’elle ait vraiment existé, et l’histoire montre que Cyril est au gars au moins pas entièrement digne de confiance, mais le film est juste rempli d’anachronismes épouvantables et d’ajouts au plaisir du réalisateur. Il crée une police civile de moines, pratiquement les brigades noires du fascisme italien, qui se baladent en noir avec des sacs plein de cailloux et s’amusent à lapider les infidèles. Leurs commentaires ne font aucun sens théologiquement, ce sont des lourdeaux et pratiquement, le réalisateur leur a donné l’allure des talibans afghans, choisissant même des acteurs avec des teints plus sombres que les autres et des barbes noires (ce qui me paraît également un soupçon de racisme, puisqu'il joue sur les réactions discriminatoires des blancs). Hypatie est typiquement agnostique, comme si cela existait à l’époque. Les commentaires de certains personnages semblent exactement ce que des gens d’aujourd’hui diraient vis-à-vis de Jésus. Les personnages sont des caricatures absolues. Un critique a bien appelé ce film une allégorie. Moi, je l’appelle un scandale. Je sais que l’histoire de l’église est pleine d’injustice et d’abus, j’en sais assez sur ça, et cette époque était le tournant pour l’église, où elle a commencé à se perdre dans des jeux de pouvoir, mais ce que le réalisateur a complètement zappé, c’est le fait que les chrétiens avaient souffert deux-cent ans de persécution avant cela, leur attitude était absolument non-violente pour la plupart. La seule personne qui ait dit quelque chose de sensé dans tout le film est le personnage Orestes, qui dit a un moment : « [Cyril] utilise les Écritures pour son propre intérêt ». Mais j’ai aussi adoré quand le seul chrétien qui semblait gentil jusqu’à ce point tout d’un coup retourne sa veste avec la finesse d’un Inquisiteur du Moyen-Âge.

En gros, c’est de l’histoire orientée, présentée d’un point de vue biaisé avec un message clair : la religion est la cause de toute violence dans le monde, le christianisme est le diable, il faut plutôt décider de ne croire en rien.

Je l’ai également trouvé extrêmement frustrant d’un point de vue du scénario, vraiment mal écrit, les acteurs étaient tous tellement beaux et « emo », avec des coupes super-beau-gosse, les expériences scientifiques d’Hypatie sont vraiment banales, même un enfant saurait que la science ne peut être écrite ainsi. La réplique la plus hilarante a été quand Cyril, questionné par le gouverneur au sujet de la lapidation de certains juifs par les parabolani (la gestapo que j’ai mentionné ci-dessus) inventés par le scénariste, répond : « ils n’étaient pas en train de respecter leur Sabbat. C’est pour cela que les pierres les ont touchés. » … ça me rappelle l’inventivité de Berlusconi quand il répond à certaines accusations. Ce qui est génial, c’est que cette réponse satisfait tout le monde ! « Okay, if you say so… ! I’ll be out back throwing rocks at people and seeing who was predestined to get randomly stoned by God today! » Juste, wow quoi. Et pourtant, il avait bien commencé, ça m’attriste rien que d’y penser.

C’est pour ça, et aussi parce que personne n’arrive à lire un blog trop long de ces jours, que je passe à « Des hommes et des dieux ». Je ne veux pas trop en parler, parce que vous devez aller le voir. Je veux tout simplement en tirer des comparaisons claires. C’est l’histoire vraie d’un groupe de moines français en Algérie dans les années ’90 qui ont dû prendre le choix de rester ou partir en plein dans la période de terrorisme horrible qu’à vécu l’Algérie à ce moment-là. Bien sûr, ici il y a l’apport des témoins oculaires, on parle de films historiques de bien différentes époques. Mais simplement, les comparaisons que je veux apporter sont les suivantes : l’histoire est documentée, point barre. Dans l’autre film elle est fabriquée. Le problème avec cela, c’est qu’aujourd’hui, tout le monde apprend l’histoire, comme ils apprennent tout, par les films. La communication orientée est donc un danger énorme de notre époque et surtout des jeunes qui viennent après nous, puisque nous n’aurons bientôt plus les filtres pour accepter et rejeter correctement ce qui est vrai et ce qui ne l’est pas.

Deuxièmement, le commentaire religieux est fait de l’intérieur, pas de l’extérieur. Le problème avec « Agora », c’est que ce n’est pas ainsi que les gens pensent, parlent ; ils ne montrent même pas de vie spirituelle alors qu’ils sont censés baser leur vie dessus. Ce n’est simplement pas réaliste. « Des hommes et des dieux » nous offre par contre un regard sur l’intérieur de la vie spirituelle intime de moines, qu’on n’aurait probablement pas moyen de connaître autrement que par ce film, sauf en allant rencontrer des moines trappistes nous-mêmes. Les acteurs ont fait un travail incroyable dans l’identification avec ces hommes et leur foi. De même, la religion alternative, l’islam, n’est pas présentée d’une manière qui en fait un antagoniste, il y a un respect pour l’autre.

Finalement, le scénario est phénoménal, les acteurs sont incroyables, les prises de caméra sont spectaculaires, au contraire d’ « Agora », qui m’a semblé être filmé constamment en image de synthèse (même si le problème est peut-être celui de l’écran sur lequel je l’ai visionné).

À la fin du film « Agora », j’avais envie de pleurer, parce qu’il y a tant de mensonges et tant de haine. Je peux comprendre que beaucoup qui lisent ceci me diront que je suis positionné par rapport à cette question, mais je veux que tout le monde ait les faits sur le christianisme, et non les constructions d’un système qui les favorise et pour lequel un film comme celui-ci n’est rien de différent. De plus, je vous dirais, vous l’êtes aussi.

À la fin de « Des hommes et des dieux », j’ai pleuré, mais parce que ce film est réellement beau. J’ai mes réservations vis-à-vis de la vie monastique et bien sûr du catholicisme, mais j'ai été touché profondément.

L’effet de confronter ces deux films est similaire à quelque chose d’autre qui m’est arrivé récemment. Suite à avoir élargi ma culture sur le monde japonais, l’histoire, la langue etc. j’ai revu « le Dernier Samouraï » un de mes films préférés. Le scénario est excellent et il est spectaculaire sur le plan esthétique. Le problème c’est que j’avais vu quelques semaines auparavant un film japonais de 1968 appelé « Kill » (en fait il s’appelle « Kiru » en japonais, ce qui signifie « couper »), où le mythe du samouraï est complètement démonté. Cela m’a ôté beaucoup du goût pour le film avec Tom Cruise, même s’il reste une bonne fable, extrêmement bien filmé. Une telle comparaison chamboule nos perspectives.

Voilà, je vous laisse avec ces pensées, allez voir ces films et faites-moi savoir ce que vous en pensez.

The gospel for a twenty-six year-old underachiever

2010-09-18T12:18:00.001+01:00

This morning, on my birthday… I felt like crap. It’s not the getting older which is the problem, but all the implications attached to that. The twenty-six year-old I am is not the twenty-six year-old I’d like to be. I’ve no career, am struggling to finish my master’s, have no wife, no children, no money, I still don’t perform my own music live; my dreams to become a great pastor are constantly being frustrated, I’m not well-thought of by some people in my own family, in my own church, even within my groups of friends; I still struggle with the same sins I did ten years ago; I’m still proud and arrogant, but filled with insecurities… I’m a certified underachiever. Plus, I had a headache.

Now, as I meditated on how rubbish I am, and spiralled into my own self-pity, I realised I wasn’t doing myself any favours, but I struggled to look up and seek guidance, also because of pride. As I prepared breakfast, my old housemate who is again staying with us for some time came up and we started talking. As we shared coffee and our personal struggles, I gradually realised once again… I am loved beyond my wildest dreams, by a God who knows all my weaknesses, all my filth, and yet is willing to constantly pour his love on me. What have I done to merit this?

Nothing.

That’s the gospel. Not even despite, but BECAUSE of my failure, my sin, my weakness, Jesus chose to save me. He chose to get involved with my muck and wipe the tears from my eyes. That’s grace… And I’m relying on it, for everything.

My joy is found not in my achievements, but in his achievements for me. As we meditated on our situations as well as on various complicated doctrines, we realised this is what we needed:

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

too great and too marvellous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD

from this time forth and forevermore.

(Psalm 131 ESV)

… Closeness with our great father. So I must preach the gospel to myself again, because I need it more than ever.

Calvin and his mates

2010-08-08T13:52:00.013+01:00

Finally grabbing some time to post a new entry!

A few weeks ago, as I walked through the Parc des Bastions in central Geneva to soak up the sun, and strolled along the little wall beneath the monument to the Reformers, looking up at the smiling faces of J.C., G.F., J.K. and T.B. I noticed something which despite having walked past them countless times, I had never seen before: every single one of the four great reformers is holding a book, but not just holding a book, they are holding a page inside a book! This led me to a thought that made me chuckle to myself, imagining the ridiculous anachronism of a photographer trying to get the four camera-shy reformers all at once on camera, forcing them all to get away from their reading and to stand in one place for a moment, just to get a decent group pic… Hence the smiling faces (not!). This may seem strange, but they really are holding a page (picture proof!!!). If one looks closely, one will even notice that though Calvin is trying to do the intellectual co ol guy pose by showing what he’s reading, he’s cheekily holding another page at the same time!

Now of course, this statue wasn’t built from any group photograph or painting, but the artists were smart guys, and this detail was obviously intentional.

I recently read Herman Selderhuis’ (expert on the history of the Reformation) biography on Calvin, which he wrote by using pretty much everything Calvin has ever written; loved it, he really brings Calvin to life in a realistic, non caricatured way, presenting him as a true human being, in fact, an extraordinary human being, and showing all of his personality traits in a balanced way. In speaking of him as an intellectual, he used the word “humanist”, which at first surprised me, but after some reflection it opened my eyes to something. The original concept and movement of humanism came before the “Enlightenment”, and was actually led mostly by Christians. Its original meaning and scope were not those of today, which are to “live and let live”, by placing humans at the centre of the universe. The supporters of the original humanistic movement were people who attributed value to all humans and believed that humans can change the world, and a major tool towards that, as it still is, was the education of everyone, which is why these people were avid readers, thirsty for knowledge. They were tired of the power being in the hands of the rich, who kept both temporal and spiritual knowledge for themselves and used it (or didn’t use it…) for their benefit over others. That is why the tagline of the reformation is: “Post tenebras lux”, meaning “after the darkness (of the obscurantism led by the Catholic Church), came the light" (of Christ, as people were allowed to read the Scriptures for themselves and discovered Jesus as he truly reveals himself in the Bible).

This explains why contemporary humanists and thinking Christians have very similar ways of reasoning, parallel streams of thought; is natural for their thinking patterns to look alike, when they share the same cultural ancestors.* It also explains why it is so hard for them to understand each other, and why so often they, or should I say ‘we’, are suspicious of each other! The basic assumptions are completely different and therefore the conclusions are different (quick example: Christians: “God is the centre of existence and giver of all joy, therefore humans can only find true and lasting meaning and joy in life by centring their lives on Him”; humanists: “Man’s existence is what defines the future of this planet, therefore humans can only find true and lasting meaning and joy in life by focusing their efforts on making everyone agree.” Caricatured, but generally true). There are so many similarities between the two steams of thought, and I greatly respect many humanists. We both believe in the intrinsic value of human beings. We believe in equality. We believe in the importance of education. One thing that could help open up the dialogue more would be if they could admit that they are just as exclusivist as Christians (and of course, all other monotheistic religions). Another would be to realise that the intrinsic value of human beings and equality were not invented by humanist philosophers, but are biblical values that had never existed in history before the Bible, and that obligatory education for everyone is something that was first instituted by Christians, not communists. This isn’t to knock la laïcité, which means secularism, but to note that if this value which is so held to by continental Europeans is truly respected, it has to include and honour the “laity”, which means everyone, not just the intellectual élite.

Back to our reformers, these guys basically, were readers! And contrary to what people believe, they didn’t only read the Bible. Calvin’s first book as a young man was a commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia and before he got into Theology, he was a Law student. Believing in education, with Thédore de Bèze, he started both the Collège and Académie de Genève (de Bèze is holding the Academiae curriculum in the statue).

These guys were working for change, nothing else. They weren’t there to make a name for themselves. That’s why they had a huge impact on history, and probably why today they are among the most misunderstood personalities of history.

… The other day I was showing the old town of Geneva to some mates from the UK, and we walked into the cathedral… It’s pretty boring. Nothing much to see there. Having lived in Canterbury for six years, with the stunningly beautiful cathedral at its centre, it seems truly unimpressive. Walking around that area where Calvin supposedly taught, walked, sat, slept, it looks old, but there’s nothing particularly aesthetic about it. There’s a reason for that. It was never intended to be. In the Bible, the church is the dwelling place of the presence of God, but “church” doesn’t mean “building”, it means “people”. The building, in Reformed tradition, is a purely functional place for believers to meet, not considered more holy than any other, or a place where God is more accessible than elsewhere. That’s why there are no items there to make one think so. Calvin’s biggest beef with the Catholic church was concerning idolatry (which is coincidentally one of God’s biggest beefs with Israel in the Bible!). That’s why the cathedral sucks as a museum. That’s why his house sucks as a museum. If I had to choose a museum to visit, I’d probably choose the Vatican several times over any other, because of its extravagant beauty. And even though I love the history of the Reformation, I still haven’t brought myself to visit the museum of the Reformation, right next to the cathedral: because visually, there’s nothing to see. I can read it all in a book. How weird do you think Calvin would find it that people actually visit his old house, his bed, his crapper? How weird would you find it, if you found out that after your death people came to visit your quarters? I remember the funny story of a toilet which was considered by its owner as a monument, because Sir Sean Connery had once taken a dump there… Weird. That’s idolatry.

Calvin and his mates knew that history wasn’t about them, and led unglamorous lives just like you and me. That was their joy. Contentment with what they had, and discontentment with obscurantism, elitism, malevolent dictatorship and idolatry. They made their lives to be about the glory of God and the good of mankind. Their buildings don’t shine out as some others do, but their lives and legacy shine on.

* Anyone wanting to argue about these definitions should first visit: http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/humanisme

Sublimating...

2010-03-11T21:49:00.006Z

So it's been a while, but here's another song. It's been on my heart for a very long time and I have just finished the lyrics. I prayed to God whether I needed to change anything and checked out the passage of Scripture that has in part inspired it, and reading through it I thought "That's it, I don't need to change it." I'm still a bit iffy on the melody, and my voice is sounding like an angry cat at times these days for whatever reason, the cold I think, but the lyrics are sweet as, even though I do say so myself. But it's like a legal download from heaven, so the copyright is kinda Jesus'. But I still put my name on it.

I want to give special thanks (this is the first time I've ever done this) to Dr. Tim Keller who has profoundly impacted me with his teaching on the subject matter, my Connect Group and other people at ICF who have forced me to think through my theology to explain it better, which only reinforced it and taught me grace, a few people who shall remain nameless whom God used to shake my world and break my heart, teaching me something about humility, and ultimately God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who lovingly opened a can of whoop on me and especially on my own idols this last year and broke me down to build me up again... who keeps doing this, and who provided me with very vivid images that have undergirded the making of this song.

I have been able to come up with an adage which describes my objectives when I write a song, it may seem pretentious, but whatever, I don't care, I'm a wordsmith, that's what I do (though not always very well), and this is it: "Sublimating theology into music"... I love it. That's what I want to do.

As you can see, there's a lot of my heart poured into this song, so by all means, leave a comment, but be gentle. That'll be much appreciated.

I will redeem you
(Bringing down idols and grinding them into
dust to feed them to the wind...)

Written between 08/2009 and 03/2010

We are so alienated but I know you still long for me,
Every plan frustrated spelling how much you are weak.
The things you were so attentive to have caught you off guard
and turned themselves against you, bracing chains to your heart.

Weighed down by the very things you’d hoped would free you still
I’m coming after you, my feelings so strong they could kill…

Let my words come, running through the fabric of what makes you,
gently traumatising all you thought you knew…
Let my word go, cut right through the fetters that defiled you,
hurting, hurting to renew…

(Could anyone foresee or understand…?
For whose sake this blow will land?)

I’ll reach into my heart, and tear it asunder
hoping that my cry- will break the spell you’re under.
There’s fire in my eyes, I have nothing left to ponder.
My hammer will rain down the fury of a lover!

And all the statues came crumbling down, rubble covering all the ground,
perfect man-made carved detail, shown for imperfection veiled.
As the idols broke apart they lost their hold on your heart,
crushing gods crushed in this scene, there you stood, spotless, pure, redeemed…

You shine, with the knowledge that turns all things upside-down…
The splendour reflected in you is the beauty of all things true.

I want to sing my song over you,
I want to sing my song over you,
to call your name, forever: My Delight Is In You,
I’m here to sing this song over you.

That once barren ground has now grown a tree,
a garden of pleasures for just you and me…

© Joseph Antonio Natali, 2010.

14th Feb

2010-02-13T23:16:00.001Z

Feel like I’m gonna get a lot of hate mail from dudes in a few minutes, and potentially even from girls!

I just wanted to comment on the subject of relationships, since it’s Valentine’s period, one which I’m not a fan of, not so much for personal reasons, I got over those with adolescence, but for corporate reasons; it’s one of those non-days which of course are just used for commercial purposes, but worse than that, I believe there are more depressed people on these kind of days than there are happy people, and that doesn’t just go for singles.

I’m sure couples experience crises on these kinds of days, when they’re not stable and they don’t know whether they’ll be together in a few days, or weeks, or months from now, usually because the guys don’t want to commit. I can’t speak as a guy who has his life all sorted out, so I’ll speak with a pastor’s heart: ladies, you’re worth fighting for. You’re worth respect, worth a guy who’s ready to invest into a relationship with you, so don’t settle. I don’t mean that you set ridiculous standards for his looks, style or income, those things can be worked on, but for his character, yes. You’re not his saviour, you can’t change him, something else has to. So if he’s indifferent, if he’s verbally abusive, if he’s physically abusive, if he can’t keep a conversation with you without his eyes darting to the next pair of buns that walk by, if he’s only affectionate on one day of the year because it’s the one day which he is reminded of by everything else, he’s not the guy for you, or not yet. Expect more from him, “I can’t help it” isn’t good enough. I’ve heard countless guys tell me things like: “I’m faithful to my girlfriend, but not in my mind”… And grin. As a guy, I know of the weaknesses of the mind, but that’s nothing to be proud of, nor accepting. As a pastor I deeply respect says: “When you’re dating, he’s on his best behaviour, so later on, you can only expect it to go worse…” let us use for a wonderful example the really nice guy I met on the train with a friend on Thursday. Engineer, fun guy, married with four kids, somewhere between his late 30s and early 40s. What I suspect his wife isn’t aware of is about what he told us in the most casual manner, while talking about Canada: “Oh Montreal, great place, wonderful dancing parlours.”… By dancing parlours, he meant those gentleman’s clubs known as strip-bars.

“I see it like going to a museum. What’s the difference, it’s all art.”

“Well the difference is the sleaziness”, says I.

“Right. Well I try to stay out of the really sleazy ones.”

Really? Wow, what an effort! The shocking thing is that he mentioned it to us because he expected us to high-five him like Borat would. When he asked us whether we went to those type of places, I just said “no, we’re good church boys”, which was a good enough answer for him, but not for us. We would have loved to tell him that it’s not our religion that prohibits us from going there, that even if we were offered, we wouldn’t, that there’s a huge difference between that and a museum, that the value of women is being thrown in the mud in those places and that he should repent and praise God that he still has his wife and four kids with him… And we felt frustrated that we didn’t.

See, if he doesn’t have the ideal to be faithful with his whole self from the start, it’s not going to get better 20 years down the line. Don’t settle for anything less, in fact, expect more than that!

So if you haven’t found the right guy yet, why don’t you let Jesus be your Valentine. If you’re lonely, he’ll comfort you, if you’re hurting, he can heal you. If you’re addicted or enslaved to something, he can free you, if you need help, he can support you. If you feel lost, he can direct you. If you feel worthless, he can show you how much you’re worth. If you feel unloved, he can love you. He’s the saviour you need. In fact, he’s the saviour that guys need! That I need! I’m not John McClane, I’m the kid who gets himself in a mess and who needs help, and eventually, thanks to him, I can grow up and get it together (cultural reference: Die Hard IV). When you realise that you’re not the hero of your story, that you’re just messing it up, his intervention can change you and really give you the tools to be a good guy… That’s one of the main points in the Bible, whether you believe in it or not.

So there you go, here’s an e-card to tell you Jesus loves you today. As cheesy as that sounds. But he really, really does.

Shed that skin...

2010-01-24T15:47:00.008Z

Here’s another post that probably only 3 people out of my 5-fan readership will understand…

Exam periods are always the same… Ups and downs, you’re undulating with emotions, eating patterns, sleeping patterns etc… How I long for the time when I have a job and don’t have to suffer the whims of teachers.

After spending a whole day indoors last week, I decided I could take it no more. It had been snowing for days and I hadn’t even taken advantage of that. I was frustrated physically, intellectually and emotionally. I put my jogging gear on, plus a scarf, bonnet and my crappy torn woollen gloves and ran out into the night, flakes still descending upon the already white blanket covering Collonges.

There’s something quite special about running in the snow. Whatever light there is, it is reflected by the snow on the ground, so on a late night walk through the city with a friend last week, it seemed like it was daytime, but on this starless night it was an opaque continuum interrupted by luminous patches, depending on the presence of lampposts. There was so much snow and it was so dark that, when I reached the fields, I couldn’t differentiate the path from the field with my eyes; I had to feel the path’s harder ground. However, after a while, I decided the road most travelled wasn’t the right choice, since I’d decided to go for a shorter run than usual and wasn’t getting any exercise, so I dove into the open field, ending up a foot-deep in snow with soft ground underneath. That got my heart racing! I pulled my foot out of the snow with every step, jogging uphill towards the mountains I couldn’t see, starting to breathe heavily, looking back from time to time to see the marks I was leaving on the previously immaculate carpet, but the snow was so pure and thick, I couldn’t even see them…

I don’t know how long I ran for. Nonetheless, on my way back, going through the same fields, reaching what I judged was the centre of the biggest, whitest one, I rolled, landing on my back, and just lay there. I made an angel in the snow and just stared at the blank sky. No Betelgeuse, no Deneb, no Cassiopea. Just a sheet of grey. I felt better physically, but still couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me, what I needed to evacuate… Then I heard it. I can never tell how I do, I just do. “Shed that skin… just shed it.”

The words rang deep. I was lacking the vision of eternity. I’d been living off of cheap grace, that asks nothing of me and gives me nothing to live for, instead of the powerful and costly grace I’ve received, that asks everything of me but gives me all things. Flesh was obscuring my sight and killing my thoughts, my moods, my heart. I was living contrary to my calling. It’s really hard to express this with words, even for me, but I just needed to realise anew the depths of the joys of living in light of eternity, the freedom of living in obedience to God (that awesome paradox, wonderfully explained throughout Romans chapters 5 through 8 in the Bible), the joys of running effortlessly in the grace of Jesus Christ, no matter what I do. I needed to shed my skin. To rid myself of patterns of thought set in over years, hidden in my flesh.

I got up, looked back at the very realistic angel imprint and back-flipped my way out of the field, that is, until I realised that isn’t feasible in the snow…

Days later, I realised that comes also from an attitude I have of waiting and hoping for something to happen in my life, something that is missing. I need to live in the ‘now’ of eternity, I have all things NOW, in Christ. Christ has to be my ultimate satisfaction, or else I’ll be constantly disappointed. And it’s not that I have to put that on him: He already is! I have to understand that again and again, and go to him to drink, not mess around with other dirty sources of water, as Lewis points out in his address “The Weight of Glory”, when he declares boldly that our desires are “not too strong, but too weak”!

I formulated it this way today in a note to myself:

“There’s no expiration date on God’s faithfulness, goodness, ‘betterness’ for me. If I start thinking like that, I’m just using him as another functional god and not worshipping and seeing him as the one true God. That kind of ‘use by date’ worship can never satisfy. There’s no time in life when God will stop being the only important thing and will only serve the purpose I assign to him if I have this or that other things as well. You can’t tell God “well, I’ll live my life for you, but I’d better be married by the time I’m twenty-eight, otherwise my life will be wasted.” That’s using him, and elevating your self instead of giving it up and finding your place at his feet, as his child. You end up like the older son in the parable… Only when God takes his place as the centre and source of everything I live for will his joy, love and power truly flow and overflow into every area of my life, and make sense of everything that doesn’t, existentially satisfying me.”

John Calvin said that our hearts are idol factories. I have to regularly kick the things that would take their place in my life as functional gods out of my heart, or else my heart will grow sick. There’s nothing else that can be my saviour… No-one else can take the pressure, and all things material will anyway pass away in the face of eternity. And when eternity fully comes, the things I worry about now will lose all meaning, so might as well live like that now, trusting in God’s faithfulness, goodness, ‘betterness’.

That’s kind of two posts in one, sorry for the battyness, but I don’t care, nobody reads this anyway! (Except for you, thank you very much!)

Music that runs shivers down my spine as I'm writing this: Tonight, by LaRue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWZEJQTlEks

Prophetic Fields again

2009-09-29T17:38:00.005+01:00

So I know I haven't blogged in a long time on either of my blogs... My French theology blog readers are going to get a treat in a few weeks' time, stay tuned if that's you, and here there are a couple of things I've been wanting to write, one of them a Translation Studies (traductologie, it sounds so much cooler in French) short I should be writing for my School's paper, then a couple of reviews for some very cool EPs (stay tuned, I haven't forgotten about you!).

Truth is, I haven't been very creative at all in the last two months, three weeks of boarding school sucked the life out of me, both physically and spiritually. And since my only means of inspiration and creativity is relationship with God (so really, he gets all the credit), I can't do jack if my prayer life sucks! :) But I like that, otherwise I'd be like those kids who always write about how depressed they are. For some reason, their music sells, and mine stays in my basement! ;)

That having been said, I picked up my electric guitar for the first time in ages the other day and just now I had a bit of a jam. Clearly inspired, after changing a string, I played a song I wrote a few months ago, a song I was afraid I was going to have to throw out... But now it's been redeemed, as I just brought some final changes and touches to the lyrics that make it just right. What's really cool is that it sounds great both in quiet acoustic and in shredding diminished chords with distortion. I love it.

Racheté le 29/09/2009

Fields of prayer

Seasons come and seasons go,

You live in moments and never know

What the person who looks back to this instant will be like…

I was walking through these fields only a few months ago,

frozen in the winter who’d think anything would grow?

(It feels) there’s a beauty that eludes me, just can’t focus it in one place,

like the petals of a flower that dried and … were blown away…
Looking beyond the things I see that are so temporary,

there’s something deeper that somehow is not quite so ordinary…

Well, I’m here, I’m real, I’m flesh, I feel,

I’m no fake, feel the wrinkles on my face…
The presence of the divine impinging upon time

washes over troubles and perplexities of my mind…

Now the focus has been brought, this elusive beauty caught

The writer of this play has written all over it his Name.

Every little detail of this ever-changing landscape

gets meaning from the brushstroke of a painter that creates.

The symphony of colours finds coherence in this state

and harmonies placed here and there hang unexpectedly in the air… (in the right place.)

And having tuned my ear to this fugue now I can hear

…The song, composed for me, played through everything I see. …

And when the fields are ripe for harvest, I’ll hold her in my arms,

Walking through the wheat so fair, like diving into silky hair…

Every word I speak or write, a step of faith towards you,

Week after week praying and fasting for you.

All my senses being played on in this feast of art laid out

Generates a conflict somewhere deep inside of me.

‘Cause what I’m being shown, at the moment, I don’t see.

So the timing’s not quite right… But I’ll trust in the might

Of the comprehensive artist who orchestrated this whole sight…

Ripe cherries and wild strawberries bring me to this song,

Sprouting behind leaves, appearing as I walk along!

The sun goes down, the shades grow longer on my fields of prayer,

I turn to give them once last glance, tomorrow I’ll be back here…
(I can hear …)

When the fields are ripe for harvest, I’ll hold you in my arms,

walking through the wheat so fair, like diving in your silky hair…

And you should know that to see your smile, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do,

So but for now, I’ll keep on praying and fasting for you…

When the fields…

What a coincidence, last night, I had an awesome time with God...

Whitest homeboy in Italy (apart from all the tourists!)

2009-07-22T10:01:00.009+01:00

Mardi, 21/07/2009

I stepped out into the Roman heat about a week ago at Fiumicino airport, where my parents picked me up to drive me back up to Tuscany. This is my first Italian summer in a couple years, and I’d forgotten how heavy it can get. Many envy the fact that I get to spend time here over the summer, and though I do love coming here when I can, I’m quickly reminded of the many ways in which I don’t fit in… I’d really love to come here with some other people, so as to look more Italian than someone else and enjoy this truly lovely place with the company of some mates, hopefully one day… On the Feniglia beach, on the first day here, sporting slightly embarrassedly the tighty-brownies I found at home (sorry for putting that thought in everyone’s head), having forgotten a decent pair of trunks back in Switzerland, I realised I’m the whitest guy in Italy, and as the days have gone by, I saw that fact confirmed in more than one way.

Last week-end I went to my first Italian wedding ever, which was interesting after the never-ending wave of English weddings I’ve attended in the last 4 years. Great opportunity to get a new suit, so a couple days previous to the event, Dad took me to our favourite local “negozio d’abbigliamento” to have a suit fitted. I couldn’t help but notice a lovely linen white jacket and once I’d put it on, that was it. H-O-T! With a swish red linen shirt to go with and brown leather shoes, I was ready to rock the Casbah… It’s not that I try to stand out, it just kind of happens! Upon arrival at the celebration, I quickly realised I was the only guy wearing a white suit, and that the only other blondes there were the girls with bleached hair. I clumsily attempted to introduce myself to the other guests as “Giuseppe”, but failed miserably; anyway, at the table I was sat at in the evening, I was the only guy from out of town, so my ever-confusing story came out pretty soon. Funny thing, an Italian wedding: tons of amazing food, plenty of wine, some of the guys looking like Mafiosi with massive sunglasses, others looking like gigolos, with their striped suits and collars pointed upward, all women wearing décolletés down to their solar plexus as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Another gaffe I made was to answer, when asked what is the best food in the world, after all my travels, not having quite realised it was rhetorical, “Oh Italian of course! … Though the Chinese are pretty good too…” I almost got stabbed and mauled by the girl I was talking to. “I’m just saying (blargh! Dying…), we owe them a lot… historically… Marco Polo (last breath)…”

But it was a lovely wedding and I had a great time, even the Catholic ceremony was really enjoyable, though it led me to many thoughts concerning the papist dogma. The priest was actually fun to listen to, something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced, and some of the theological points he made were spot on, but my dad did notice me seething with my fists clenched and my head bowed in groaning when the aforementioned speaker declared the omnipotence of Mary and invoked prayers for dead people… (my thoughts at the time, something along the lines of: “Sho-Jesuuu-ken!”)

As I write this, I’m actually sleep-deprived, and should be in bed right now, there’s another story. We’re actually right in the middle of a heat-wave here in Italy, and it’s killing me. Now some of our southern readers living in northern countries are saying “heat-wave, gimme some of that!” but that is something I’m just no longer used to. Lying in a puddle of sweat in the middle of the night, worrying whether you are actually going to dry up and they won’t find your body in the morning, is not a nice thing. Which is why I am sleeping in the basement, where there is yet a bit of humanly liveable atmosphere left. However, since I’ve been going from place to place, I’ve found myself in different accommodation settings for the past few nights. The most fun was in my sister’s room, on the fifth floor of a block of flats in central Rome.

I hadn’t actually been to Rome since December 2007, when I did my CELTA course there, and I suddenly decided two days ago to head down to what I’ve tentatively denominated the “beautiful chaos” of the capital. My sister spent last week-end touring the north of Italy with a friend, trying to promote her album which is just wonderful (and available on iTunes: Eli Natali, Interprétation), by playing in skanky bars. As she came down to go back to work, I hopped on the train with her. I spent half of yesterday recording some of my own songs on her awesome system (for my own use, so don’t worry about being asked to listen…) and then indulged myself to a walking tour of the beautiful cultural capital of Europe. It has been several summers since I came to Rome, but I realised after a while… Rome smells. In the winter it’s not noticeable, in fact that is why it’s the best time to visit, but as the sun beats onto the rubbish dumps and the dog poo at the corner of every street, the odour rises to create something quite unpleasant in some parts of town. Thankfully, the historic spots are taken care of a bit better and I was able to enjoy all those places yet again. There’s something quite nice about having familiarity with a place, and I’m getting to know parts of Rome quite well. My walk took me all the way back to my private spot in the metropolis, a café in the Feltrinelli bookshop of Via del Corso, within the great Alberto Sordi arcade. Italians don’t do cafés the way Brits and Parisians do, enjoying a mug over a couple hours with one friend or just on their own, no, they sometimes come in loud groups of even four or five, something I’d consider quite bothersome, say, on the first floor of Nero’s in Canterbury. In fact, I’m often the only freak in Rome sitting on my own with my cappuccino reading or jotting thoughts down for several hours! Anyway, even on my own I enjoyed doing the touristy things, taking photos here and there, even though I’d love to take someone round those places, share them with others… I finally ended up in Termini for dinner with some old friends of mine…

Working in a language school you get to meet some interesting people. I’m down with the Chinese-Roman crew, a group of second generation Chinese kids grown up in Rome… Good kids, but even they are more Roman than I am. I was so pleased to be able to meet up with them after such a long time: we met at an awesome Hong Kong restaurant right next to Termini station (go there if you get a chance), owned by my friend Angelo’s parents, but he was the boss that night, and soon, Paolo, Mirko and I (obviously, they have Chinese names) had about a dozen plates of different specialties on the table, eating Chinese style, just picking and choosing randomly from dish to dish. I was proven right: real Chinese food is on par with Italian. Fried sausage, chicken’s feet, whole fish, Korean gnocchi, breaded chicken, Cantonese rice, the list goes on… At the end, I ask my Chinese brother: “Chyin, geiwo júu…” Got any liqueur? “I’ll sort you out.” He comes back with a bottle of what appears to be sake, fills my glass to the brim and says “drink up!” After the first sip, I was sure it wasn’t sake… I can’t believe the Chinese, who can hardly handle alcohol, would make 62% drinks!!! Cao Liang Chiew… friggin’ punk. Burned a hole right through me. But it was fun. For them. “You not gonna have any?” I asked. “No, no, I’m fine.” Anyway, it was a good night, and in the end, he didn’t charge us, because he’s a legend.

My night ended later on, as I got a lift back to near my sister’s and went to meet her where she was at. Having dinner in the street, with a table and everything, in this hippie corner of town, where people just hang out. It was quite something, to see all the neighbours sitting round the table in their alleyway, eating and drinking, and talking about the deep stuff Italians always end up talking about… Out of a film almost, like Stealing Beauty. A part of me couldn’t help but feel out of place, slightly bourgeois, though I’d probably do that every night if I could! Following this short trip I have some more thoughts about the Roman life, still need to formulate them properly though…

So there it is, don’t know whether I said anything interesting, but I’m back off to the beach for some chillin’ and swimmin’…!

A place to rest

2009-05-24T00:39:00.002+01:00

(Song written and played for Pat and Jeanne on their wedding day, the 23rd May 2009)

Vésenaz, 01/05/2009

A Place to Rest (ballad for two big-noses)

My thoughts float around the room
Trying to write a few lines,
Conversations, looks and places
Vividly come to mind.
Time and distance separate us
But can’t change memories of mine.

But now you are each other’s
And creating something new.
‘N’ though I am still your brother
I’m separated from you.
We’re moving on into life,
How we’ve changed, how we grew!

Writing songs to seduce him, and never playing them when he’s around.
Spending hours talking to her, but never gaining any ground.
Eventually you found each other, no more drama for the crowds…
You should know, you’re the best,
Glad you finally found a place to rest.

Mint tea:
I would talk and talk and talk
While you’d listen happily.
Your most quiet words of wisdom
Speaking sanctity to me.
Hey, I’ll see you after class,
You alone who would just let me be.

Fresh coffee:
We would talk and talk and talk,
Even sometimes disagree.
Your kind and brash demeanour
Bringing me maturity.
In our worn-out, empty houses,
In apparent poverty.
I wanted to be there for you,
Hope to still have your esteem…

Writing songs to seduce him, and never playing them when he’s around.
Spending hours talking to her, but never gaining any ground.
Now that you have found each other, there's no more drama for the crowds…
You should know, you’re the best,
Glad you finally found a place to rest.

Song for Jude

2009-05-15T11:41:00.001+01:00

28/09/2008-21/12/2008

(Tune created sometime in August 2008)

Who are you?
Making everyone around you pull the strangest faces
And change the way the talk like they rejuvenated…
Do you even realise what your presence here creates?
You’ve only just arrived, but since then this is a better place.

Oh, pretty child,
I’ve only known you for a while,
And though everything’s new to you
You teach me so much with your smile…

Oh, pretty baby,
I could stare at you for ages,
Lost in your wide-open eyes
Seeing everything for the first time.

Kneeling down beside your bed
Just to hear you breathing,
Wondering what’s inside your head,
What could you possibly be dreaming?

As I put you in your cot tonight and turn off the lights,
Your crying slowly stops and you’ll soon doze off.
And I know that soon or late you will cry for a good reason,
‘cause this world’s so unfair, but don’t worry we’ll be there...

And I’m not going to tell you to make your Mama and Papa proud,
‘cause I know they already are…

Bilingual news/Nouvelles en bilingue...

2009-03-31T09:35:00.005+01:00

(Pour le français, c'est quelques paragraphes plus en bas, for English speakers, it starts here!)

I’ve come a long way, since the time I started once again attempting to write poetry at 18, then starting this blog at 20, after the French school system had succeeded in beating most of the creative juices out of me. The blog itself started as a means to the end of motivating me to write, and after a while it became the means to putting in the public sphere what I wrote and deemed worthy of publishing… If you look into the archives, you’ll see that writing truly is, as with any other art, about practice. Now I can confidently say that I enjoy rereading myself, which is quite an important step to achieve, and recently I’ve been experimenting and learning different ways to pitch my entries to as broad a variety of readers as possible. I’ve been particularly touched by some of my old students of English, who, from France to Japan, have confessed that they have been reading my blog and enjoying it. I know some of my course-mates at university read it, and some of my friends from church do too… The thing is, I put such a broad variety of things on my blog that they can’t really know what to expect when they go there for the first time. Usually, people who are visiting a blog will know whether they want to come back to it by the time they’re halfway through the first post, and while I didn’t have much to say back in the day, anyone who goes to it now can clearly see that has changed. My posts go from songs I’ve written to poems, from short thoughts for the day to articles challenging the common cultural beliefs and practices of today, and to Bible studies. Now, I’m not shy about my faith, as some will know, but I want as many people as possible to get a chance to read my blog, and when I invite them to read it, and they go on it for the first time, I don’t want them to feel cheated, and start thinking I’m using it as a subtle way to tell them the gospel (in fact, it’s not a subtle way at all!). I want them to be intrigued, challenged, provoked by what I put there, sure, and I want anyone who has questions about what I believe, or comments to make about that to feel free, but I don’t want them to avoid my blog because they feel like it’s got nothing to say to them.

Nonetheless, theological content has been steadily growing, and in the past few days I’ve been meditating on the purpose of my blog as it is, and on the question: “whom do I write for?”

I guess for a long time I was writing for myself, and that’s okay for a while, but I believe there should be more scope for the writer, going beyond personal satisfaction – but that’s just my opinion, and that doesn’t go for everything: some of the songs I write, I write for myself. I must confess that often, one of my driving factors in writing and publishing on my blog has been to gain the approval of guys I greatly respect; I realise now how dumb that is, and that I need far more vision than getting a pat on the back. Now, if I’m putting reflections, and results of personal study out there, I should aim them more specifically, by communicating directly to a group of people to whom they should be relevant, and that would impinge on the way I write…

Indeed, since I believe in serving first and foremost the local church, and the area of mission to which I am assigned – by God that is, I have decided to start a new blog, without shutting down A Man on Fire, no, not at all, but putting all theological content on this new blog, for the resourcing of anyone who wants to be resourced…

Now, some of you may be thinking: “What’s the point of creating yet another theological blog? There are hundreds on the internet, and 99,9% of them are utter trash!” I’m with you, but the answer is simple: that’s only for English speakers. Whenever you want to be refreshed by good theology, you can go on to The Resurgence, The Gospel Coalition, The City Church Canterbury, the Newfrontiers, the Mars Hill Church websites and download great resources! Most churches of over a couple hundred people now have websites with great links. Every month there’s a new great book to read, written by the latest hot theologian… Not here. Though I belong to a great church, there just isn’t the variety of resources that English speakers have. Our local Christian bookshop, though it has a lot to show for, can at best offer the top best-selling Christian paperbacks from America, which I’m sorry to say, I’m not too thrilled about. Most of the bible study resources are outdated and look like they were written sometime before the flower-power revolution… If you know what I mean.

One of my greatest desires is to see what is happening in the Anglophone world, with regards to new Charismatic, Reformed, Restoration church movements, brought to continental Europe, which is lacking in hugely in this area, and part of the reasons for doing my Master’s in Translation is so that I may have a hand in making the phenomenal, excellent resources that are being produced in the UK and the US accessible for people here on the continent. I’m living in a mainly Francophone place (with a heavy international influence) and am a part of a mainly francophone, but also bilingual church; that is why the blog will be bilingual, in that I’ll try to write mainly in French, but there will be some English content. I will be translating bits and bobs from resources already available in English and writing my own material as well… It’s an exciting endeavour, and the beginning of something bigger, which I hope will bear great fruit in time and be a factor in making the New Reformation of the Church in Europe happen!

I already have an enormous amount of ideas rushing in, am starting to make a list of priorities, but there are no limits… Which makes it SO exciting!!!

http://nouvellereforme.blogspot.com/, put it on your RSS feeds!!! Anyone is welcome to read it, but I warn you, it’s gonna be radical…

Français

J’en ai fait, du chemin, depuis quand j’ai recommencé à écrire à l’âge de dix-huit ans, après que le système scolaire français avait réussi à me saper de toute créativité, et ensuite quand j’ai commencé ce blog à vingt ans. Au début, c’était un moyen de me motiver à écrire, mais une fois reprise l’habitude, c’est devenu plutôt un moyen de rendre public ce que je jugeais digne de publication. En vérifiant les archives, vous verrez vite que l’écriture, comme toute forme d’art, est une question de pratique. Depuis quelque temps maintenant je peux dire que j’aime me relire (en tout cas en anglais), un accomplissement considérable (selon moi !) et récemment j’ai même pu expérimenter différentes manières de viser mes articles vers une plus grande variété de lecteurs. J’ai été particulièrement touché par certains de mes anciens élèves d’anglais langue étrangère, qui m’ont laissé des commentaires provenant de la France jusqu’au Japon, me confessant qu’ils ont lu mon blog et qu’ils aiment ce que j’écris. Je sais que certains de mes camarades universitaires le lisent de temps en temps, ainsi que certains de mes amis de l’église. Mais le fait est que personne ne sait pas à quoi s’attendre quand il tape l’adresse dans sa barre de recherche pour la première fois, en raison de la vaste gamme de textes et de sujets que j’y publie. Et en général, un visiteur saura déjà s’il a l’intention d’y retourner même avant d’avoir lu la moitié de la première entrée qu’il trouve. Or, jadis je n’avais pas grand-chose à dire, mais quiconque se met à lire mon blog aujourd’hui verra bien vite que ce n’est plus le cas. La gamme d’écrits qu’on y trouve va de la chanson à la poésie, du mot du jour à l’article verbeux défiant les croyances et pratiques culturelles d’aujourd’hui, et à l’étude biblique. Comme plusieurs le savent, je n’ai pas de problèmes à partager ma foi, mais je veux permettre à autant de monde possible de suivre mon blog, et quand je les invite à le lire, et ils y vont pour la première fois, je ne veux pas qu’ils se sentent victime d’une subtile (mais pas tellement) ruse que j’ai utilisé pour leur prêcher à la figure, sans qu’ils s’en rendent compte ! Je veux éveiller la curiosité, défier les présomptions, provoquer les esprits avec ce que je publie, et j’aimerais que ceux qui ont des questions, ou des commentaires, à propos de mes croyances, se sentent libres d’en faire, mais je ne veux surtout pas qu’on évite mon blog à cause d’un sentiment que ce que j’écris n’a aucun rapport avec eux.

Néanmoins, le contenu théologique du blog est en croissance continue, et depuis quelques jours je médite sur le but de mon blog tel qu’il est, et sur la question suivante : « pour qui écris-je ? »

Je suppose que pour longtemps j’écrivais pour moi-même, ce qui va très bien pour un moment, mais je pense qu’il devrait y avoir plus d’ambition pour l’écrivain, au-delà de la satisfaction personnelle ; bon, ce n’est qu’une opinion, et je ne la partage pas pour tout : certaines des chansons que j’écris, je les écris pour moi-même, point. Je dois confesser qu’une de mes grandes motivations pour écrire a été de gagner le respect d’amis que je respecte énormément… Je me rends compte maintenant de la stupidité d’un tel effort, et du fait qu’il me faut une vision bien plus grande que celle de m’entendre dire « bien joué… ». Donc, si j’ai l’intention de publier mes réflexions, les résultats de mon étude personnelle, ils devraient être visés de manière plus spécifique, et je dois penser à les écrire de manière pertinente pour ceux auxquels ils sont adressés. Ceci aurait un impact sur mon style…

Et vu que je crois à l’importance de servir là où Dieu m’a mis, dans l’église locale avant tout, j’ai décidé de commencer un nouveau blog, sans arrêter A Man on Fire, au contraire, mais dirigeant tout ce qui est théologique vers ce nouveau blog, afin des ressourcer toute personne qui en a envie…

Laissez-moi vous présenter mon raisonnement : dans le monde anglophone, il y a des millions de blogs théologiques, la majeure partie desquels sont inutiles, voire contre-productifs, mais en tout cas, il y a l’embarras du choix, et on sait où aller si on cherche des bonnes ressources ; la majeure partie des églises de plus de 200 membres ont des sites internet avec téléchargements gratuits de matériel très bon ; tous les mois, il y a un nouveau livre qui sort, écrit par le dernier théologien branché… Mais ce n’est pas le cas ici. Bien que je fasse partie d’une église fantastique, il n’y a tout simplement pas la diversité de ressources dans le monde francophone. En termes de matériel contemporain, le mieux que la librairie chrétienne du coin offre, même si elle se présente très bien, sont les derniers livres chrétiens de poche américains, dont je ne suis pas particulièrement fan. La majeure partie du matériel d’étude biblique est vieux et semble avoir été écrit avant la révolution hippie… Si vous voyez ce que je dire.

Un de mes rêves serait de voir ce qui arrive dans le monde anglophone part rapport aux nouveaux mouvements de restauration de l’église, charismatiques et reformés, arriver en Europe continentale, qui en a gravement besoin. Une des raisons pour lesquelles je fais ce master en Traduction c’est pour avoir un rôle à jouer dans la traduction et distribution ici des ressources excellentes qui sont produites en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis. J’habite dans un milieu plutôt francophone (sous influence internationale) et je fais partie d’une église à majorité francophone, même si maintenant on a un culte bilingue ; c’est pour cela que le nouveau blog sera bilingue, c’est-à-dire que j’essayerai d’écrire surtout en français (bonne pratique !), mais il y aura quand-même certaines choses en anglais. Vous y trouverez des extraits de ressources déjà existantes en anglais que je traduirais en français, ainsi que du travail originel (même si en général je m’inspire de plein d’autres auteurs !)… C’est un projet passionnant, et j’espère, le premier pas vers quelque chose de bien plus grand, qui apportera beaucoup de fruits avec le temps, et contribuera à la Nouvelle Réforme de l’Eglise en Europe !

Evidemment, ça allèche ma créativité et ma tête explose d’idées, donc je suis en train de faire une liste de priorités, mais il n’y a pas de limites à ce que je peux faire avec… Ce qui le rend TROP passionnant !!!

http://nouvellereforme.blogspot.com/, inscrivez-vous au flux RSS !!! Tout le monde est bien sûr invité à le lire, mais je vous préviens, ça va être « trash » ! (Comme on dit à Genève)

Peace...

Midnight entry

2009-02-15T16:41:00.005Z

As I jot down thoughts for this post, it’s midnight and I’m holding my 9-month-old nephew, because he was crying so loud in his cot I couldn’t stand waiting for him to calm down and fall asleep, so I got him up to give him some food and just calm him down. Presently, he’s absent-mindedly pulling my hair and putting his hands in my face, looking around, quite obliviously. He’s generally a happy baby. Since his parents put him on solids though, I just realised for the first time that he has bad breath. Of course, no one brushes his teeth, since he only has one that’s not even above surface yet, but that’s about to change… I’ve gone through so much recently, bringing to an end the first semester of my Master’s degree; I spent a lot of time in the library, for multiple reasons, I fought through my exams and came out on top. I’m about to dive into the second semester, which will no doubt be lots of fun and hold plenty of challenges.

My latest “catch-phrase” (not sure whether that’s the appropriate term) is “such and such is proof of God’s existence!”… It generally relates to food. For example, “meringue is proof of God’s existence”, or “pancakes are proof of God’s existence”! But it applies to so many categories of things: waking up in the morning with snow falling outside your window, covering everything with a sheet of white; riding on the bus seeing light mist hovering over the lake; walking in the centre of town to see the sun rise above the city, breaking atop the buildings, “God exists!”

… One can see proof of God’s existence in the smile of a woman, the cry of a baby; or, in the cry of a woman and the smile of a baby, for that matter. The truth is, evolution doesn’t explain everything, even for its greatest advocates. How can music be a product of evolution? How can art? To take us back to the earlier subject, how can great, tasty food be the product of evolution, if all that differentiates us from other animals is our greater mental faculty, if all we are meant to be is thinking animals, whose unique purpose is reproduction and survival? These are things some people live for, yet, there’s nothing functionally useful about them, indeed, we’re going into the area of existentialism.

And why, oh why are we so appalled at the violence and suffering that happens in the world? Surely, that’s perfectly in line with the evolutionary worldview: there is no rhyme to the world, the strong eat the weak, how can we morally judge the world when we believe that’s the natural order of things, and therefore it’s perfectly normal for powerful nations to devour weaker ones… The base of the worldview does not warrant the moral outrage issued from our hearts.*

As such, we are freaks of nature! We call for judgement of a behaviour which should be perfectly acceptable, by the standards of nature. But this world isn’t fair, and without God, there is no rightful judgement of evil, indeed there is no such thing as good or evil. In an effort to make scientific sense out of the world, but taking God out of the equation, we have created an existential mess, generating more questions than answers, which simply bring on more hypotheses that are based on nothing much more than the fantasies of people with degrees. But since it comes from them, it’s called science. **

It’s easy to miss it when that is the world that you live in, where everyone thinks the same way, and God-whom-I-do-not-believe-in forbid, someone challenges the comfy worldview that glosses over the big questions, but these are all signs of man running away from God. People judge the Bible, calling it the product of man, and then go and produce theories (which are, therefore, product of man) and tell others to believe these! I can’t help but see that as a little hypocritical, to denounce someone for making a claim to know the truth, and then go ahead and create one’s own truth.

No, I believe in a beautiful Maker, with a sense of beauty, of holiness, and goodness. And I believe in sin too, which is the act of running away from that maker. To me, this baby I’m holding is proof of God’s existence, for he is beautiful.

And you could say that the reason I see him, and all those other things as beautiful is because I am born into it all and I have a socially constructed view of beauty, but that just doesn’t satisfy me, neither existentially, nor intellectually. And the thing is, it can’t satisfy you either, and you know it. And if it does, friend, nay, I do not judge you. I weep for you.

* Point taken from Tim Keller’s “Reason for God” series, part. “Suffering: If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?” (Link in the title, little Easter egg there!)

** I'm more thinking about the multiverse hypothesis than evolution right here... I thought that came out wrong after re-reading.

The Farmer King (Parables of the Kingdom)

2009-02-10T10:08:00.004Z

21/12/2008 – 10/02/2009
These words you spoke, as pictures of who you are,
Patient, joyous, tearful, a humble king, on a farm…
And as two world collide, you take over with your love
Making those who once were fatherless adopted, through the flood.

Friday, 27/10/2006

You start making bread in the morning, hiding yeast within the dough,
You walk into the fields with the seed you sow…
You pour your wine into new wineskins, but it’ll taste better than the old.

I’m seeking for a treasure in a field which isn’t mine,
Opening seashells by the seaside looking for the finest pearl.
I’ve sought joy in other things, but for the adventure set for me
I’ll leave it all behind.

The fishing season’s open and you cast out all your nets,
You’re sending out your sons and friends to pick up all the harvest.
Oh, what a feast, oh but what a tragedy,
For your friends who lied, and the crops that died,
I know you already cried…

I love you, but you still remain a mystery to me.
I’m fumbling through the adventure of what you’re calling me to be.
But I’ll enjoy your peace and gentleness 'cause I am satisfied in you.

Then I’ll eat the bread you baked in the oven, it rose, rose, rose.
I’ll pick the fruit off your trees as they grow…
I’ll drink with joy at the party, where you’re host.

I’m trying to dig deep and build a house upon the rock.
I fed the soil as you told me to I hope to grow a crop.
I’m reading all your letters as I make my way home to you.

© Joseph Antonio Natali, 2006, 2009

The fundamental elements of a nutritious breakfast

2009-02-05T16:27:00.006Z

I know what you’re thinking: “Hang on! I’ve seen the back of cereal boxes, they show what a nutritious breakfast is, and they always include chopped up fruit, orange juice and a bowl of All-bran! (Seriously, even when the box is chocolate “cereal”, they show all-bran on the back!) All that stuff is fatty, addictive and you certainly can’t digest paper!”
Backtrack, let’s think about this: nutella? Awesome. Coffee: awesome. The Bible: verrrrry awesome, and mighty nutritious!
I know this is making me come across as the good Christian boy who reads his Bible every day, though I don’t, but seriously, this is a practice that has blessed me powerfully ever since I discovered its existence: Bible in the morning, the most nutritious bad boy there is! After all, “man does not live by bread alone, but […] by every word that comes from the mouth of YHWH.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)

If you’ve been through a bunch of books in the Bible already (like at least one of the gospels, Acts, and some of Paul’s letters), and you’re wondering where to go next, you may want to consider going through the non-Pauline epistles (the letters not written by Paul). They’re at the back of the Bible, covering so few pages you wouldn’t even know they were there, but man! can you get some spiritual mileage out of them? (The answer is yes.) I remember the first time I went through them, about 3 years ago, I was so amazed! The thing is, the two main authors of these are Peter and John, the men who were closest to Jesus in his time on earth, you know, guys who just knew him personally, so it’s quite special to read them; I guess you could imagine these guys giving a best-man’s speech at Jesus’ wedding, which in some sense they are, praising him as only the closest of friends could do.

I started reading 1 Peter last week and was blown away afresh by the verve, the passion, and the discourse of Peter, so much so that I believe an appropriate title for at least the first part of the letter would be:

An Ode to Security in Salvation

The particular, and fantastic thing about Peter, is that he doesn’t present a systematic theology, a logical sequence of arguments to make a point about God, like Paul does in Romans for example (another letter I absolutely delight in, it’s like porking out on bacon at breakfast), but rather his whole rhetoric flow is intricately woven to speak of the character of God, the salvation Christians receive, the person of Jesus in a way that one could easily miss if they didn’t meditate on every word; it’s like music, each word being a note, seamlessly following each other in uninterrupted sequence, as a stream of water. I say it’s not presented as a systematic theology, but it’s absolutely packed with weighty theological meaning, in a way only someone who is absolutely overflowing with the knowledge of God in his mind but also in his heart could formulate it! In fact, as you read it you can only say, “it must have been written by Peter, because only someone who knew Jesus intimately could speak so freely, lovingly and passionately of him!” (In fact, there’s another clue as to the fact that Peter really wrote it, which comes later in the letter, and which I absolutely love.)

Yet, at the same time, there’s this weird and wonderful fact that someone else helped him write the letter: Silas, or Silvanus (which today, I guess, would be Silvio), as Peter admits at the end of this letter (5:12) helped in the penning of the letter. This was probably for the simple reason that Peter didn’t write very well in Greek, the language used in the letter, and his mate helped in the translation and the editing of the letter, which is quite long. However, even considering Silvio in the writing process, something is just odd: Peter was a fisherman. In French slang, there’s a great word to describe what kind of person he would have been: un bûcheron, which means a wood-chopper… “Uh, didn’t he just say he was a fisherman, oh, maybe, part-time job…” no, it’s a word used to describe a guy with a big physical structure, big hands, maybe not much mental activity going on (though not necessarily), basically, a brute: “Me, cut wood!” Now, this is no disrespect to wood-cutters or fishermen, in fact I met a very nice wood-cutter a few weeks ago, whom I would have described as a bûcheron upon first glance (the guy was like a wardrobe!), and who made me crack up when he told me that was his actual job! But Peter probably wasn’t a very intellectual or artistic guy to start with, in fact, you can see him put his foot in his mouth more than once in the gospel accounts written by his mates and even the one he gave through Mark, and having that in mind, going back to this letter, there is this elusive fact about it: it’s beautiful.

In order to understand how on earth we are to reconcile these two facts, I want to bring us back to a bit of narrative in the book of Acts, specifically chapter 2. This chapter tells of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all believers. This is no small thing: it marks a new era in the history of the world! It means that anyone who believes in Jesus can receive the Holy Spirit, dwelling within them, giving them a new life in Jesus. What happens after this event is that Peter, who was always doing silly things and saying wrong things during his time with Jesus, suddenly stood up and preached to a multitude, quoting Scripture and explaining why Jesus had come and had to die and rise, and explaining why all the believers were speaking in all the languages of the Mediterranean, something he wasn’t even expecting to happen until that day. It was phenomenal, so much so that three-thousand people converted to Jesus that very day! ... The Holy Spirit, that’s who the co-author of this letter is; he’s the one who inspires the most beautiful music, the most gripping narrative, the most captivating poetry.

Going back to the title, why do I call it an “Ode to security in salvation”? Well, as I said, it’s not in the style of Romans, that explains bit by bit why this is that and how this works with that, but it’s a big mix of rhetoric and he doesn’t bother explaining anything, debating opposing opinions, he just sings the truth that he knows is truth! Predestination, the supremacy of Christ, these things are things he simply assumes, and that is why it’s good for all Christians to study this letter, because it’ll sort out a lot of nonsense. He doesn’t do it in a mean way, he’s just loving every moment of life in the knowledge he has through Jesus!

But I’m getting ahead of myself; gosh, I’d love to just get lost in detail, but I have to try and keep it short, in the hope that someone will actually read this through!
For the purpose of simplicity, let me cut and paste the whole first chapter here: ESV, © Crossway publishing. (Thank you, e-sword!)

1Pe 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
1Pe 1:2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
1Pe 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1Pe 1:4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
1Pe 1:5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1Pe 1:6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
1Pe 1:7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1Pe 1:8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,
1Pe 1:9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1Pe 1:10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,
1Pe 1:11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
1Pe 1:12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
1Pe 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1Pe 1:14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
1Pe 1:15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
1Pe 1:16 since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."
1Pe 1:17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,
1Pe 1:18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,
1Pe 1:19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
1Pe 1:20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you
1Pe 1:21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
1Pe 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
1Pe 1:23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
1Pe 1:24 for "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls,
1Pe 1:25 but the word of the Lord remains forever." And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

First of all, I love the introduction verses! Peter, with the ease of a rhetorician such as Cicero, sums up the gospel in two verses, while expressing the Trinitarian character of God, and the functions of the three members of the godhead, finally expressing what the Christian life, indeed the Church of Jesus, is all about: grace and peace. A community of believers should be characterised by grace and by peace. Sure, there may be storms, but the children of God should always be rooted deep in the Word of God, which is grace and peace. Antonyms for grace and peace: legalism or religion, and strife.

What I want to do now, is pick out some words and phrases that I consider quite significant in this chapter, and show you why they are important and what they mean…

v.1: “elect”, v.2: “foreknowledge”, v.3: “mercy”, “he has caused us to be born again”, v.4: “to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading”, v.5: “by God’s power are being guarded through faith”, v.18: “you were ransomed”, “not with perishable things”, v.21: “[you, who] through him are believers”, v.23: “you have been born again”, “not of perishable seed, but of imperishable”…
Then there’s the final bit again:

“through the living and abiding word of God; for "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever." And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”

… I remember a few years ago, before I started reading the Bible avidly, my best friend Liam challenging me, asking me where in the Bible it said that salvation is secure… I didn’t know what to say to him, ‘cause I didn’t read the Bible for all its worth at the time… But he did! In fact, he wasn’t doubting that salvation is secure, rather being a smarty-pants, but really, he was showing me that I needed to read it if I was to become a teacher… Thanks bro.

The truth is, there are so many passages that talk about this awesome, powerful, life-changing fact, that God is the one who saves, not man and his efforts, and as a consequence, there is nothing that man can do to unmake the work of God; you don’t even need to get to the New Testament to know that! God shows constantly throughout the history of Israel (really, anywhere in the Law, the Prophets and the Wisdom) that God’s will is supreme, and man’s will is not. In fact, man isn’t free! That’s why we needed to be “ransomed”, like a hostage. Better word yet, “redeemed” (alternative translation), delivered, set free! I would say, rather than the film where the dad pays the ransom and gets his kid back (that film never made it to the big screen, too boring isn’t it?), it’s more like the film where the father (someone like Sylvester Stallone, or Schwarzie, they’re always getting their kids abducted), locates the kidnapper, preserves his kid’s life whilst having an amazing, daring battle that leads to a crucial point where he’s bleeding badly, but manages to deliver the final blow (like a flying spinning kick), slash reach the gun and blow the bad guy’s brains out, not before having said an epic sentence like: “Sayonara, mutha’****a!”… I’d go see that film.

Hmm, I digressed slightly, but you see my point: God chose us. We did not choose him. God is the good guy. We’re the ones in need of saving. God’s hand is steady, his word stays true, his faithfulness endures, ours doesn’t. If we had any say in the matter, we wouldn’t want to be saved! We’re set against him, enemies of God. We became children of God, because his love is so overwhelming, his grace so complete! I met a girl recently who said she didn’t believe in predestination, though she was a Christian. I was like, “uh… Did you read Romans?” She had. She just wouldn’t believe it, because, in her eyes, that meant God is unjust. Though I appreciate that it’s hard to get one’s head around this stuff, if you’re a Christian, you need to adjust your worldview to what the Bible says, you don’t get to pick and choose what you believe and what you don’t. People who do that are just creating their own new religion, which doesn’t do any good for the salvation of anyone! If you can tell God how you want him to be, then he’s no god at all, he’s just an idea that makes you feel comfortable, and he will never be able to challenge you or get you to change. If you disagree with the Bible, consider the eventuality that you may be the one who is wrong… (Admittedly nicked that last main point from Tim Keller.)

How do I know that I can’t lose my salvation? Well, are you the one who saved yourself? (The answer is no, otherwise you have some serious problems…)
You were born again. Born again… Born. Again. That is not something you just do. It’s something that God does, and it’s not something he unmakes; what does he say? Of “imperishable seed”!!! Immortal salvation! Because of God’s mercy! Is the precious blood of Christ (v.19) good enough for your eternal salvation?

If you believe in this salvation obtained through the sacrifice of Jesus, his factual resurrection and his Spirit touching your heart to know him, then rejoice, because no one, NO ONE can take it away from you!!! Not even yourself, in all your stubbornness. Not even myself, with all the sin that I know I do!

If you don’t believe, I’ll admit that this was all quite full on, but I would say this: consider believing. No one else can offer you what Jesus does.

I’d love to keep going on into chapter 2, that tells us about Jesus being the cornerstone on which the whole Church rests (not Peter, as some would have us believe), but I’ll stop now; I’d love to hear feedback and questions from anyone who sincerely was touched, or confused by this.

So there you go, breakfast is good, and sometimes you get to have a bit bigger one, more like brunch with pancakes (which I had this morning) ;)

Ciao y’all.

Challenge

2009-01-29T23:57:00.003Z

Nicked this off someone else's blog. Made me laugh!... I sincerely hope this isn't what I hear when I meet JC. By the way, Pete's not at the entrance of heaven, can you imagine how annoying that would be, if you were Jesus' closest friend and just wanted to hang out with him, but he gave you the job of waiting outside to direct people to the party?... That would suck. Please people, re-read Matthew 16 and understand that passage the way it was meant to be, not the way some religious guy misread it...

A legacy

2009-01-24T17:02:00.002Z

Mythopoeia - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

To one who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver.'

Philomythus to Misomythus

You look at trees and label them just so,
(for trees are 'trees,' and growing is 'to grow');
you walk the earth and tread with solemn pace
one of the many minor globes of Space:
a star's a star, some matter in a ball
compelled to courses mathematical
amid the regimented, cold, Inane,
where destined atoms are each moment slain.

At bidding of a Will, to which we bend
(and must), but only dimly apprehend,
great processes march on, as Time unrolls
from dark beginnings to uncertain goals;
and as on page o'erwritten without clue,
with script and limning packed of various hue,
an endless multitude of forms appear,
some grim, some frail, some beautiful, some queer,
each alien, except as kin from one
remote Origo, gnat, man, stone, and sun.
God made the petrous rocks, the arboreal trees,
tellurian earth, and stellar stars, and these
homuncular men, who walk upon the ground
with nerves that tingle touched by light and sound.
The movements of the sea, the wind in boughs,
green grass, the large slow oddity of cows,
thunder and lightning, birds that wheel and cry,
slime crawling up from mud to live and die,
these each are duly registered and print
the brain's contortions with a separate dint.

Yet trees are not 'trees,' until so named and seen -
and never were so named, till those had been
who speech's involuted breath unfurled,
faint echo and dim picture of the world,
but neither record nor a photograph,
being divination, judgement, and a laugh,
response of those that felt astir within
by deep monition movements that were kin
to life and death of trees, of beasts, of stars:
free captives undermining shadowy bars,
digging the foreknown from experience
and panning the vein of spirit out of sense.
Great powers they slowly brought out of themselves,
and looking backward they beheld the elves
that wrought on cunning forges in the mind,
and light and dark on secret looms entwined.

He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath an ancient song,
whose very echo after music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother's womb whence all have birth.

The heart of man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
man, sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sow the seeds of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

Yes! 'wish-fulfilment dreams' we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!
Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem?
All wishes are not idle, nor in vain
fulfilment we devise -- for pain is pain
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is dreadly certain: Evil is.

Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate,
that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate;
that seek no parley, and in guarded room,
though small and bare, upon a clumsy loom
weave tissues gilded by the far-off day
hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway.

Blessed are the men of Noah's race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have turned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends -
if by God's mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and that,
your world immutable wherein o part
the little maker has with maker's art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day-illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.
Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see
that all is as it is, and yet made free:
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,
garden nor gardener, children nor their toys.
Evil will not see, for evil lies
not in God's picture but in crooked eyes,
not in the source but in malicious choice,
and not in sound but in the tuneless voice.
In Paradise they no more look awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not being dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their head,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.

Feel free to complain

2009-01-07T18:21:00.014Z

Saw this loser the other day, with a t-shirt printed like so walk past me in the library. I thought those kinds of t-shirts were only found in England. What an intellectual... Seriously, women should line up to kick this guy in the nuts; I don’t know which would be more beneficial for him, a sit-down and chat or a few rounds of smacking him about in the octagon…
Now, much ink has been spilt, and keyboard keys used over the issue of male and female roles and such, and though I’d love to, at some point, present a full study of biblical exegesis and hermeneutics on this issue, I’m just going to say a few things from my recent experience and reflexions… Many are, or would say they are offended at my point of view, but the truth is, men lead. It’s in their nature. The problem is that most men lead badly, because of ... selfishness, indifference, whatnot... I don’t think I’m saying anything new here, by the way. It’s seen at a macro scale in the way western society has evolved in the past several decades, where so many women have become more and more the kind of girls guys think up in their fantasies and look at in magazines. The kind of leadership offered by men in most arenas is one of selfishness and indifference. The justifiable answer to the mess created by such an attitude is seen in the feminist response: “Screw you, we’re doing our thing!” And why should they follow such bogus leadership? Are they any less intelligent or capable? (Though does that mean they would be any less selfish...?) Equality is good - yes, I know, I’m saying more and more exciting, incredible new things - the problem is that the attitude backing a lot of those arguments exacerbates an existing issue. Feminism, at its extreme, calls women not to coexist, but to separate from men. This creates a mentality of division and war, how is that going to solve anything, when half the people in this world are the opposite sex from you.

Did we start it? Maybe… Stupid jokes which I myself have laughed to, comments en passant, both men and women have been at it really, and they get nastier as one pushes the boundary; once you snap out of it, you should realise: we’ve created a culture of rivalry between male and female, where we think about what we can get out of the opposite sex and what we can get away with saying and doing, instead of one of respectful complicity, where we aim to serve one another and look for opportunities to do so, since yes, we do have different gifting and wiring!

But instead, because of the rightful disgust thrown at the macho stereotype, masculinity is being redefined, and he should really get out of that chair and stop that makeover, ‘cause it’s not looking good. Oh what the hell, I said it! Now, real masculinity isn’t necessarily looking like Randy Couture (on the left, the warrior himself); but it certainly doesn’t have straightened hair and shaved armpits (look at me! guy on the right with overpriced haircut and probably wearing eyeliner): what can you expect from a guy who spends that much time on his appearance? Does he have his priorities down?

My point is definitely not that outward appearance is what matters in masculinity, it’s about inner conviction and motivations. And there’s a sort of tug-of-war between people who want men to be, well, men, people who want men to be more like women and then there are those who just accept and conform to the trend in comfortable political correctness. Recently, I happened to talk to a few girls who admitted to really liking the style of “emo” guys… Why is that? What can they expect from them? Emotionality without substance. Fashion wins. Everyone else loses. (Someone told me recently that because I show sensitivity, I’m in touch with my feminine side… I’m not in touch, nor do I need to get in touch with my feminine side; I don’t have one, because, oh yes, I’m a man. On the other hand, I have plenty of honest, masculine sensitivity.) I know smart, sensible women who date losers without any vision or scope in life, and they just accept the state of affairs.

Why should women settle for anything less than solid, gentle men? They should be able to expect a better quality of men, men who, in the words of Chris Rock, “handle their business!” Neither the ones who treat them like toilets, nor the ones who expect them to be their mum; guys who run into relationships without thinking about what it will take to carry it forward, who really just want a girl hanging from their arm, like you wanted when you were a teenager. I had a chat with a girl at a party a couple weeks back, and talking about relationships, and about how I’ve not had any stories with girls for several years, she told me that I over-analyse situations and girls, and I don’t get into relationships because of a fear of getting hurt… This doesn’t happen to me very often, but though there may have been some truth there, I couldn’t help feeling that statement was wrong, something didn’t feel right about it (you know how when someone lays truth on you it just hits you right there - not that feeling). I put my finger on it several days later: it’s not that I have a fear of getting hurt as much as how I don’t want to cause unnecessary pain to someone else, because there’s no need to jump into relationships just to then jump out of them having hurt and left emotional scars on someone else. I felt good about that! I’m not saying this to praise myself, but in order to say “that’s what our thinking should be!” That’s how we treat women! Don’t go into a relationship you don’t think you can, or want to, lead!

Now, some may say “I find that offensive! The idea that men lead relationships is outdated and incoherent with our society!” Let me say, that means nothing: opinions are ever-evolving and so is society; the incoherence of society is phenomenal, where people judge those who hold to “outdated” ideals while thinking theirs are “innovative”, when these cycles have been happening for thousands of years, and 50 years down the line, people may believe something completely different anyway. I’ve seen marriages broken by indifference, struggles of leadership, and seen others, led by great men, blossoming with ever-increasing joy. So my ideas are outdated. But what’s the fruit? Gentle, sacrificial, caring, leading love. Wouldn't it be great to set that as the standard for men?

I’m not speaking as one who is qualified, but rather one whose eyes are fixed on that goal, to become less selfish, more caring, and ultimately, the kind of guy who will honour all women equally and love the one he marries all the way to the end.

Amazing still it seems, I'll be 23...

2008-12-24T11:55:00.005Z

Nope, I didn’t make a mistake in the title and yes, I know I’m already 24, going on 25 (as strange as that seems). What I’m doing, is taking a retrospective look at this last year of my life, during which I was 23 years old. I find it kind of hard, especially when it seems like two weeks ago I was 22 and a lot of time went by without me doing much at all… And the best way for me to do this is by talking about the music I’ve been listening to.

I pity those who don’t appreciate music and its power, because they don’t realise that our very lives have soundtracks to them. That’s probably why it’s so normal for films to have soundtracks… It’s quite something though, when the music you’ve been listening to actually fits with the themes of your life… And I’m not talking about those who listen to depressing music because they want to stay depressed, nor those who listen to last month’s R’n’B star, then go dress and talk like them… More like, the bands I have come across and listened to over and over for the sheer pleasure of their music, displaying lyrics that actually sometimes lay my heart bare...

(Philosophical rant mode for the next 382 words, skip if uninterested)
It’s funny, thinking in the last few days about the way I relate to music, and how I relate music to other people, I realise I have grown up quite a bit: as a teenager I was a music fascist, meaning that I would try to force my music on everyone else, and anyone who didn’t like the same kind of music as I did got smitten by words of condemnation. I remember I used to fear becoming someone who would appreciate other styles of music, like drum’n’bass and lounge chill-out, and stop liking Metal. Moving to England… Anyone who has a strong opinion about anything is bound to get shot down by fierce sarcasm, in the old U of K. It’s harsh, but teaches one not to take themselves too seriously. You grow up from there. Silly comments about my music don’t faze me anymore (but if you do make a comment, prepare your face…), I’ve grown to appreciate a broader variety of music, amongst which, some drum’n’bass and lounge chill-out. I still like Metal, though I listen to a lot less. In fact all my old favourite bands have stayed at the top of my preferences, by far; actually that position has strengthened from listening to different styles… I still believe that my music is the best and that anyone who disagrees doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but I tend not to say that to their face (the operative word being “tend”). I would say I’ve gone from being a “music fascist” to being a “reformed music fascist” (kind of like the way you go from… Better not go there, let the reader understand). I realise I’m a 90s guy! The bands I love the most are the alternative/indie rock bands that came out of the US in the nineties… Of course, it’s not about 90s or not. It’s about the passion in the lyrics, in the music, the seamless marriage of lyrics and music creating metric and linguistic beauty… So if I hear something like that, I’ll like it. I’ll always be made fun of by English people for the music that I listen to, that’s because they produce some of the worst pop and rock… Hmm (abstaining from specificities, for the sake of the peace). I don’t need to defend the bands I love, but I can explain why I do. I keep it for myself now, and if someone is interested, I’ll tell them.
(Phil. Rant mode switching off…)

One of the bands I got totally picked on for listening to non-stop this last year is a Japanese rock band called Asian Kung-Fu Generation. It’s strange that English people are so big on sarcasm and yet fail to understand the sarcasm of others.

I had a lot of time on my hands at some points of last year, being on and off work, and came across them through the anime I watched. Finding more of their music I grew to like them more and more. They’ve made several albums, not two of them sounding alike, demonstrating a real creativity in their music. There was real passion in their rock, something drawing me to them as one is drawn to someone else because of a sense of commonality. Of course, lyrics being so important to me, I had to find their translation. Thank God for internet fans! I found a full-fledged fansite with translations into several languages of their lyrics. It seems that Masafumi-san (lead singer) is always writing about similar things. If Ajikan (diminutive of the band name) had a colour, it would without a doubt be blue, aquatic blue… The theme in so many of the songs in the albums Sol-Fa and Fanclub are relating to being a twentysomething in the middle of the city and still feeling like the only person on the planet, without direction and meaning to one’s life… Almost despair, but never totally, always with a sense of hope for better things in lying ahead… I understood why I liked them so much:

“How many times on a boring day have my dried up memories poked above the surface?”
“How many times at midnight have my dried up memories faintly shone?
Shine on this town…” A rabbit in the backstreet, Fanclub

It may not seem particularly meaningful. But it was to me.

Without wanting to sound too melodramatic, this last year has been one where I have had to meditate a lot on my life; I also sat on my ass a lot... It creates a kind of quiet and complacent depression. Not a good place to be in for too long. You’d want to “erase… and rewrite.” (Rewrite, Sol-Fa)

But… I managed to finish writing songs that had been started years before, and that wasn’t out of depression, as some say that the best music you write is when you’re down; who would want to rehash their depression to others (I mean repeatedly)? I remember my friend Geoff speaking truly prophetically when he said “you want to be creative? Get close to the Creator?” (Not exactly in those words, I’m making him sound cooler than normal.) I was able to use some of the time on my hands to pray and spend time with God, and actually, out of those times, my creativity was stimulated so much… And is now at a different level, as I am again and again being inspired (truly) for new tunes and lyrics, something I believe God has put on my heart…

I tried to stay faithful to what I believed would come during this year, even though this mantle of visionlessness covered me… But I can now say, that is what you have to do if you’re ever in that place. Hold tight to the hopes and promises that you have hidden in your heart and plod along until you’re out.

Another band I used to like, but that actually got a hold of me this year is Jimmy Eat World… They have a knack for making really catchy tunes… Not in a pop type of way, it’s actually quite unique, they can express the sentiment of a song, just make one go “Yeah!” and identify, with a guitar bend (see Crush or Blister from the album Clarity) or a voice harmony (Authority Song); they also fit some cool words into their texts, just catching you off guard... !

And I’ve got to say… I was caught off guard one day recently: I was walking down the street with Jimmy playing in my ears, a great track I hadn’t really heard before, when halfway through, I was left speechless, as I listened to the singer telling me my life for the past year and expressing my sense of hope throughout it…

“Amazing still it seems, I’ll be 23…
I won’t always love what I’ll never have,
I won’t always live in my regret.

You’ll sit alone forever,
If you wait for the right time
What are you hoping for?
I’m here, I’m now, I’m ready,
Holding on tight, don’t give away the end,
One thing that stays mine!” 23, Futures

How could he know?... I lived in regret, wanting what I didn’t have, what seemed so out of reach! Sitting on my couch waiting, hoping, holding on. So often I wanted to know how it was going to end, but the resolution was so amazing, so shocking, I’m glad I didn’t know, because that made it all the more glorious! I caught the vision for my life again, and ran with it! The depths of my heart roar like a lion for truth, that is my life’s battle. I still don’t know the end, but it’s exciting… However, I have an inkling.

In November, the Red Star EP came out, foreshadowing the release of Third Eye Blind’s next album in 2009, Ursa Major. This is something 3eB fans have been waiting for, for over 2 years! I heard the tracks and flipped! (www.myspace.com/thirdeyeblind)... Say what you want, NO ONE writes lyrics like Stephan Jenkins. The quality of the musical production, the lyrical choices and disposition, are just breathtaking. Another reminder of the fact that good things are worth waiting for...

Another good thing that was worth waiting for is my sister’s album: Interprétation (by Eli Natali, www.myspace.com/elinatali) came out this month and I’ve just been listening to it over and over. Walking down the street (again) at one point I cried out “for goodness’ sake, Lisa! How can you write such good lyrics!?”

I think I’ll review them individually in a later post, but I just wanted to mention them to say that I believe this next year of 2009 is holding stuff which I’ve been expecting for a long time and it will spur me on into further musical endeavours (amongst others), as I follow in the steps of those who inspire me. (Even K’s Choice might release a new album this year!)
... And I wish the same for you all in this next year of 2009. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I didn’t get a chance to mention him up until now, but another guy who is just phenomenal, and doesn’t need anyone to interpret his thoughts: Cosmo Jarvis (I don’t know whether that’s his real name), a 19 year-old kid from Devon. Just go on his myspace page (www.myspace.com/cosmojarvis), you’ll see what I mean.

So, I don’t know if it came across, but our lives have soundtracks, and though the music we listen to dips in and out of it, I have a giant theme, accompanying me through everything. It’s called Grace. It’s composed by Jesus. (... www.myspace.com/Jesus... not really, it'll take you to a latino guy's page.)

Theology of Pornography

2008-10-27T17:50:00.002Z

This e-booklet is really great and helpful for all you people out there with questions or struggles. It's quite raw and shocking, with some eye-opening stuff, but truly frank; if you read it while being honest with yourself, you won't be shocked but blessed.Here's the link:

http://relit.org/porn_again_christian/
Shaba, keep it real!

Joey

I love Tim Buckley

2008-10-18T16:13:00.002+01:00

He says what is needed.

More of this @ www.ctrlaltdel-online.com

Life in a new place

2008-09-27T12:08:00.004+01:00

Here I am, almost a month into my new experience of life in Geneva. As I expected, it is extremely different to what I lived over six years ago, when I lived here with my family. What’s more, it’s also quite different to my first year experience when I moved to Canterbury exactly six years ago, something one would expect when moving from a small city to an international centre that is several times the size of the first, in population, economy and horizontal as well as vertical development. The most important thing though, is that I am lacking nothing: I have a great house, a great course, great food on the table and great support from family and friends. God really provides all things.

Being something of a theologian, I have to bring everything back to God, sorry for those of you who don’t tend to do that, and at the risk of contradicting the fundamentalists, atheists, agnostics and Arj Barker*, I have to see God’s sense of humour in one aspect of my present situation… My inner workings are pretty weird, so sorry for leaking some of that out to you here, but recently I actually started worrying whether I had become a sexist; not in belief, which contrary to what some think doesn’t leave any place for sexism (I'm talking about Biblical theology), but in practice. See, about 5, 6 years ago, most of my friends were women. I don’t know why, maybe because guys are such jerks, but anyway, I realised how unhealthy it was for me to have all these female friends who would give me some chocolate, say “ooh…” and watch Friends with me whenever I was feeling down and went to find some good guys to hang out with, which I did, and have never looked back since, I mean, I love hanging out with dudes - not jerks - in fact, I’m so happy that God’s provision has gone as far as giving me some friends to watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship** with, here in Switzerland, where already in England hardly anyone had heard of it! I love being a guy! And I love growing as a guy, learning to become more of a man, not in the macho way, which I find fun to promote, but only as a joke. Anyway, I guess that I’ve landed on the complete other end of the spectrum and I started thinking recently: “Hmm, do I treat, or unconsciously think of women as less important, intelligent etc. than men?”, which I think is a good sign, because if I’m worried about it, there are great chances that I’m not a sexist. Truth is, I’ve spent so many years with so few female friends that I think I’ve forgotten how to relate to women in a real way. This also may come from the fact that many English girls are so incredibly closed and guarded against guys that it has made it extremely difficult to strike up any real conversations with them in my time out there. Russell Peters had it right, and I know others who would agree, when he said “What have the English men done to the English women? Whatever it is, it’s ruined it for the rest of us!"***

Anyway, what is so funny about that that you have to bring God into it? It’s not funny at all; oh, but it is, when you walk into my seminar classrooms and lecture halls, and all you see are… Women. Over the two years of Master’s students in my course, there are between 6-8 guys, amongst maybe 80 women. But in my department and year, I believe there’s only one: moi. Watch your thoughts! Joey: “Hmm, I’m worried I may have become sexist, I’m not really sure how to relate to women”. God: “Ok, here’s a class full of women, knock yourself out! It’ll definitely build character!” The Lord does work in hilarious ways. Now, I’m not about to put the “trans” back into “translation” just to fit in, but I am kind of failing to fit “bad-ass macho man” into the job description, even though I walk into class with my shaved head and goatee, muscles rippling etc. In the end, I’m just a nice guy and it’s hard to fool people otherwise. What I have concluded through this experience is that women are definitely more intelligent than men, since they all seem to go for languages, when so many guys shy away from such a glorious discipline ;)

In church, it’s the same thing, I’ve met an overwhelming amount of girls, which no doubt will make my dad happy, since I’m sure he’d like to eventually meet a woman I’m actually seeing, which, you know, I’d like to meet a girl I’m seeing as well, but hey, good things are worth waiting for, and once again, that’s something I’m having to exercise faith for. Speaking of faith and theology, God is hilariously challenging the nitpick in me, getting me to formulate my thoughts beyond the blur of “huhhhh…” at times, and teaching me to pick my battles, and words, carefully, because I tend to overreact to certain things. I miss a lot of my friends in Canterbury, I love them deeply, but I am so happy to be here, knowing and seeing already how God is shaping my character, picking out the ugly bits of me and replacing them with Grace.

*****************

*Who some time ago debated in a rather humorous way against the question “Does God have a sense of humour?” which you can find on YouTube.

**And the last one was, oh so sweet! Seeing Dan Henderson and Richard Franklin fight so well among others…

***In another stand-up show that you can find on YouTube.

John 6

2008-09-05T17:27:00.009+01:00

John 6

Unless otherwise mentioned, and it's never mentioned, all quotations that are biblical come from the ESV (that's English Standard Only Accurate Version) translation of the bible... Into English.

It's probably best you get your bibles to follow this, otherwise you're not going to know what I'm talking about. In my bible, John 6 is right after John 5. And before John 7.

(Those who don't have one at hand can go straight on to http://www.biblegateway.com/ for multiple translations in multiple languages.)

Let's get started!

6:1-15 This passage is interesting, obviously it is a famous story, but understanding its implications really shocks. Verse 14 helps us understand these implications:

The people realise that Jesus is the Prophet! This is the prophet with a capital P (though the Greek had no capitals probably, but the article helps us understand the "one-of-a-kind"ness of this prophet) spoken of by Moses in Deuteronomy 18. Though there had been many prophets since Moses, there was always an expectation of a prophet of the same calibre of Moses who would be a Messiah. Here, the people realise Jesus is this Prophet because of the sign he performs: a great crowd is hungry and in a desert place, and he is able to feed them with multiple bread and fish; this is like the manna that Moses prayed for and God sent, except that it is greater: it is barley bread and fish, much nicer :) and on top of that, they don't have to wait until morning to pick it up from the ground, it comes straight from the hands of Jesus! He is showing that not only he is a prophet like Moses, but he is a prophet greater than Moses! On top of that, he is showing that he is God, because though he prays to the Father, the food comes from him! On top of that, it is an abundant meal, pointing to the beginning of the season of the new covenant, an era of abundance in God, of Grace...

What we see then, is that in Jesus' ministry, what he was doing all the time was showing through spoken parables, acted parables, and outright fulfilment of prophecy who he is! It seems that everything he does in the gospels, whether intentionally or not, he is just revealing that he is the Messiah and telling people what has happened and what is about to happen, fulfilling ancient prophecy and then fulfilling prophecy that he speaks himself about himself (namely, his death, resurrection and ascension)!

The amazing thing is that he only does this after thirty years of hard work in carpentry, to sustain his family. He has already shown his character... He has been obedient in all things, endured life as a normal person, living for three decades among sinners and never sinning, leading his family since the death of Joseph (since he was the oldest son), and only then does he bring revelation and start his ministry... That is humbling, to think that even Jesus did not start his outward ministry until he was 30... He isn't just a guy who has great gifting but a lacking character! Praise Jesus, because he is all that he says he is and shows no inconsistency in any aspect of his life.

His ministry therefore is all about declaring who he is to Israel, and his disciples' ministry is about telling the world who Jesus is! That is the reason why we contextualise the gospel and preach the Bible, always telling people who Jesus is, whether they already know him or not! (In discipleship and in evangelism) We imitate him and take it further in a sense, because we don't need to go on the cross, so we spend the rest of the time building church, evangelising and discipling.

Another thing is that we see that Jesus is into megachurch! A crowd of thousands, he has no problem teaching them and catering for them! We see this fulfilled properly in Acts, where there are the crowds meeting to hear apostolic preaching, then meet in small groups in homes. Anyway, that goes beyond this passage!...

6:22-59 Following on the feeding of the Five Thousand and the walking on water, the atmosphere of this passage changes as Jesus turns up the theological temperature in his speaking and in response his hearers turn on the hostility, right after an awesome demonstration of his power!

Even though these people were caught up in a sense of wonder, which we see from 6:2, then because of his feeding them, and even mystery, wondering how he got from one side of the sea of Galilee (which was a lake, but still pretty big) to the other without a boat, which would have taken him about 35km round the lake, when actually he walked across, then seemingly teleported (6:21) to Capernaum Pier...

There seems to be a big divide concerning what the people believe the Messiah should be and the way Jesus thinks of his role, purpose and who he is... The immediate reaction of the people upon realising that Jesus is the Prophet is to make him the king in order to establish the Kingdom of Israel again (v.15); heavily influenced by zealot teaching. Then they ask him what works they should do to honour God (v.28); they show the influence of the Pharisees here, always talking about works. Jesus probably frustrated them, because he was different from what they were expecting and he just asked them to put their trust in him...

And here's the weird thing: in verse 14 it seems that many recognised Jesus to be the Prophet like Moses because of the sign he performed, but suddenly, in verse 30, they speak as if it had never happened. "What sign to you do? We want a sign like the manna!" I can just imagine Jesus' jaw dropping hearing that comment. If he was short tempered, he would probably have called them a bunch of idiots, I mean, every bible commentator in 2000 years will know that the feeding of the 5000 refers to Jesus imitating Moses! Of course, his character is perfect, so he doesn't do that, instead encourages them to look back at what happened and see that he is the one who gave them the bread and indeed, he is the bread sent from God vv.32-35 and they should trust in him. He encourages them, but he also uses rather ambiguous language, suggesting that he doesn't mind people misunderstanding what he is saying, because those whom the Father gives him, will come (v.37). It is also ambiguous for us theologically, because as in other passages of Scripture (like in Paul's writings), Jesus talks about the Father giving him people (so chosen and predestined, see v.37 & 39) and then also about people looking to him and believing (vv.40). He says "whoever believes has eternal life" (v.47) right after saying "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (v.44). It's confusing, but it talks about God's absolute and unquestionable Sovereignty in salvation, somehow including our personal, conscious, intelligent response...

But at the same time, the Jews were just showing their bad attitude, by choosing not to understand his words, which were clearly figurative (..."How can this man give us his flesh to eat?", v.52)
Here, he is not talking about communion as much as communion talks about this; what he is saying is that his perfection, his holiness, people will have to eat and drink it, trust him, believe him if they want to be saved. He is saying that there is no work they can do to do God's will (v.28), only believe in him who does it, so that they may be included into that righteousness. They need to say I belong to Jesus. The Lord's Supper is about sharing in Jesus' sacrifice, his flesh punished replacing ours, his blood flowing to cleanse ours, about saying, I'm at the table with Jesus, I'm in his family, that's where I belong, I belong to him!

He is also saying some amazing things, if you think about it; not only that he is greater than Moses and the Son of God (vv.32-33), but that the bread he has to give them is greater than that of the desert time...! (vv. 35, 49-51) He is saying that he has a better covenant, a better relationship to establish than the one of Moses, a greater grace from God!!!

And then he explains what he came to do, so that the original concept of the Jews is challenged: "And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh" (v.51). He is alluding to his sacrifice. And he explains how much greater this grace is: Eternal life!... Following D.A. Carson's thinking on Jesus' prayer in John 17, here we see Jesus' purpose in coming in the world: verse 57: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me."
That verse seems very ambiguous, but if we explore it in depth there is such power within it! "I live because of the Father"... What could that mean? Is he saying that he is created? That he is in some way dependent on another being for sustenance? No. The reason he lives is for the Father; the reason he came to live in human form is for the Father, his eternal aim and objective is FOR the Father, to honour the Father, to glorify the Father. Jesus lives because there is a God, and Jesus is that God, and so is the Father and his life is about loving God; eternal life is about enjoying perfect relationship of glory, honour, love forever, just like God does within himself. The Father and Jesus' purpose in sending him/coming to earth is to glorify and honour each other, continuing their perfect relationship, but with the other aim of revealing this relationship, this love to men and welcome them into this, which is eternal life! And "whoever feeds of this bread will live forever" (v.58): whoever believes in Jesus, feeds on his words, on his truth, whoever gives himself, says "I belong to Jesus" they will also "live because of me."(v.57) Their life will become one of eternal love and glorifying someone else, namely Jesus, just like Jesus eternally loves and glorifies the Father. We get included into this awesome family!

This passage, as glorious as it is in the truths it uncovers, is a really powerful anticlimax to the previous one: as we see his might and power displayed and people being fed, we see the same people walking away because they didn't like what he had to say and didn't realise they needed to change, not him.
It is all the more telling about the state of the Jewish nation, when just two chapters before a whole village of hated, heretical Samaritans believed in him, and they only had the Samaritan Pentateuch (their Scriptures) to go by, while the Jews who even had the Prophets to read and check didn't accept him. All this goes to show that Jesus was right from the start not to entrust himself to these men, "for he himself knew what was in man." (John 2:25) The chapter shows how much man is inconstant and how even those who are supposed to understand the things of God, the religious, who seek righteousness, can completely miss the point: it's not you who finds Jesus and understands him, it's him who finds and understands you.

6:60-71 Interestingly, after that, he does give some final explanation to those still listening: I'm speaking about spiritual things. "The flesh is of no avail" (v.63). Are you offended? Are you going to stay offended if you see me in my full glory, ascended and mighty, but judge you for not believing in me? I think that's the sense of what he's saying. In a humorous way: "You're offended by this? Well, maybe I should just get outta here and cruise on back up to heaven, blazing with glory..."
And indeed, after this, many people leave him... But it wasn't a failure: he sifted the wheat from the chaff! Those who truly believed from those who were just in it for a fad.

It is so easy to miss the depth and power of a verse...: "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life"(v.63). The very words spoken by Jesus ARE spirit and life! He is expressing spiritual truths in physical terms so that unspiritual people may understand, though many don't, but this is much deeper than intellectual understanding. Words contain so much power in the Bible, but particularly John reveals something about the power of words in his Christology, starting from the beginning: Jesus is the Word (1:1). "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men." (3-4) As the Word of God, Jesus created all things, he holds in himself life which he can impart to others...
Expressing things of the spirit in words is a life-giving action... And we have received the words of Jesus and received his life and his Spirit, if we have believed in him. "For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me."(17:8)
Our job is very simple. Speak the words that Jesus spoke, explain in human terms the truths of God, hoping that others hear and believe... That is how Jesus did it, even though many did not believe. In knowing the truths, the words of Jesus, and living in them and speaking them, we will have his joy in obeying the Father fulfilled in ourselves... (17:11-13) That is just awesome... Words can only attempt to express the beauty of this truth.

Back to the dialogue:
... The disciples understood: "You have the words of eternal life!" (v.68) Peter says, "We get it, you're God, you're the one who gives life, I understood your talk just now, and I'm going to apply it to my life, right now, by staying by your side..." He calls him "the Holy One of God". Now, in the Old Testament, the only one who is the Holy One is YHWH (other "holy ones" - without "the" juxtaposed - mentioned would be the Messiah - which is interesting - in a couple of prophetic Psalms, and angelic beings, mentioned in Daniel)... Isaiah calls him the Holy one of Israel; the only other times when "The Holy One of God" is mentioned is with the demonised man who calls Jesus that! (Mark 1:24, Luke 4:34) So Jesus is God, sent from God! It is a brilliant theological statement! And as an aside, it confirms that even the demons believe that there is one God, and shudder (James 2:19). I love the internal consistency of the Bible!

Christianity in the World, part 3

2008-08-20T17:43:00.007+01:00

Christianity in the world, part 3: Discipline & Punishment (31/05/08 – 20/08/08)

Some of you guys aren’t going to like this… *Groan*

Christians should be stewards of God’s Word and teach it faithfully. Some of the greatest tragedies of intellect and of human lives in history have occurred because those who were supposed to be stewards taught wrong doctrine, twisting Scripture, the effects of which sin being visible and continuous, still today… When truths of God’s character and words are distorted, the two usual responses in people are the following: superstitious devotion and over-reactionary rejection, neither of which are desirable; let me explain: the superstitious devotion happens in the religious people who think they can please God by following rules, and the wrong teaching taught becomes assumed doctrine; the rejection of the teaching usually happens after seeing the devastating effects on people’s lives that this religious behaviour has and overreacts by rejecting not just the bad teaching, but also anything from the Bible, because glorious truth was being hidden by false doctrine. These two reactions can be seen as the opposing camps of conservatism and liberalism, both of which have messed up attitudes and values.

One value whose core is being completely missed is that of discipline in the family: there are people in the UK lobbying against parents smacking children, trying to get it classed as a penal offense. These people must’ve had some very angry parents, because they believe that when a parent smacks a child, it is always out of unreasonable anger, in fact, in the ads they produce against smacking, the mum is portrayed as a frustrated and exhausted mother who just wants her child to shut up and suddenly jumps in the face of the camera like an enraged velociraptor, letting out the beast within. Now, I don’t doubt that some parents strike their kids unnecessarily, but to be honest with you, the majority shows the opposite. Nowadays in the UK there is a culture of minding one’s own business and indifference towards things that might be troublesome, to the point where this has seeped into the family and parents don’t know how to discipline their own children, to set proper boundaries. The result is that at home and in school, kids do what they want and while parents don’t do anything, teachers can’t do anything, because the laws of the government have robbed them of their disciplinary power, and the students have no concept of authority.

Indeed, the concept of authority is the one in question here: who has the authority to judge an action as right or wrong? If people think that punishment is an unreasoned reaction, of course they will denounce it. But they’re missing the point: good parents who love their children must discipline them, must punish them, to show them that what they did is wrong and that there are consequences for disobedience. Loving parents will reason about what punishment to administer in order that their child will not become spoilt and understand why what he did was wrong. The opposite of loving parents are indifferent ones… But enough of social polemics, that’s not the purpose of this paper.

With a messed up concept of the reason for discipline and punishment, people will naturally misunderstand the character of the originator of such a teaching, e.g. God. God is into discipline; he knows that our natural selves are selfish and lacking in character and for our own good, he tries us so we can grow, learn, become stronger, taller, wiser, more loving and compassionate, more trusting in him. The author of Hebrews puts it better than I ever could:

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and chastises every son whom he receives."
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:5-11, quoting Proverbs 3:11-12)

One mustn’t confuse discipline and judgement; although the two share a lot and can be used interchangeably sometimes, there is a clear and immense difference between the discipline to a child and the judgement of a criminal!

No matter how much society gets messed up, there is still an inner sense that there are certain things which go beyond the line of what is wrong, even though the worldview of the postmodern person doesn’t allow for them to believe in right and wrong, since they should be tolerant of everyone, but anyway, that only goes as far as the first person who disagrees with them.* Why do we have an inner morality, no matter how hard we try to kick it out of our fabric? I believe it is because the God who created us is moral and believes in right and wrong. In fact, God is into judging evil! He hates far more than we do all the horrible, heinous, perverted, tragic actions that occur in this world, but he actually has the power and authority to judge them righteously. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”(Romans 12:19) Judgement is his to make, for he is sinless and he is the Creator, therefore people who wish to judge but are in no authority have nothing to say. That is the reason why each country has a legal and judicial system: so that flawed men can attempt to make right judgements, based on the laws in place and the authority conferred to them by another… The only reason why we are not consumed by his wrath is that he is also a compassionate and merciful God and is patiently waiting, allowing time for more people to repent. (Romans 2:4)

And people long for forgiveness as well as the judging of the evil that occurs. All people want to be forgiven for the mistakes they have made, the horrible things they have thought, said and done which caused pain to their friends, family, others and themselves. We desire mercy, we want acceptance after screwing up. Why do we even hope for it? Maybe God has put inside us that longing for someone who could forgive sins… Maybe that’s why people came to Jesus, weeping between sorrow and joy, for the things they had done and the fact that right there was one who could bring them peace. (cf. Luke 7:36-50) Maybe that’s why a parent who sees their child is sincerely asking for forgiveness after having disobeyed will withhold punishment, acting in mercy and graciously embracing them, because that’s what God does.

In fact, God somehow majestically fulfils both the longing for judgement of what is wrong as well as the longing for forgiveness and acceptance of the repentant, fulfils both the roles of the judge and of the loving father, in two main, and massive ways.

Jesus… YHWH Yeshuah: I AM Saves. In the same book of Hebrews, it says that Jesus, the one perfect and sinless man who ever walked the earth was still nonetheless disciplined and put to the test, in order to show that he indeed shared in every difficulty that men and women have to endure, also making him the perfect person to make a way for man to be reconciled to God, he himself being both totally man and totally God (Hebrews 5:7-10, this is a running theme throughout Hebrews, see 6:16-20, 7:23-28, 9:23-28).Jesus’ sacrifice was a priestly act, where he stood in between man and God and represented each party to the other one, as a perfect mediator; and here’s what happened: the Father, in total agreement with the Son, poured out his wrath on Jesus as if Jesus were all the sinful people in history, who deserve to be punished. Jesus’ death was a sacrifice, a pure and perfect one at that, which God consumed unto death, satisfying the required justice of God, but at the same time, beautifully showing God’s mercy to all by NOT consuming them, withholding the punishment they deserved and instead punishing his Son, who knew no sin, with the consequences of sin. The Cross is this amazing place and event where God’s justice and mercy come spectacularly and masterfully together, in a completely unique way, unprecedented, unrepeated since then and inimitable for the rest of history!

At the end of history, however, there will be another phenomenal, unique and terrible demonstration of the utter mercy, grace, as well as justice and anger at sin that God embodies. God doesn’t take lightly the evil in the world, as previously mentioned, and for those who have accepted Jesus’ sacrifice and lordship over their lives, the punishment has been lifted, the wrath satisfied, but there will be a time when God’s patience towards the rest of man’s unrighteousness ends and Jesus comes with the righteous judgement of the evil of all time. At that time, there will be a glorious acceptance into the Kingdom for those having known and accepted Jesus’ righteousness to cover their sin, and his punishment to pay for theirs, but at the same time a frightening judgement towards those who persisted in sin through their life, not acknowledging the authority of God over their own lives and choosing to be their own god or to worship other gods apart from the true one. That will be the righteous outcome of history, as it is depicted in John’s Revelation... No one will be able to tell God, to tell Jesus, that he isn’t fair, as he will still bear the same scars while he declares the verdicts. And thank God that he is just. I wouldn’t want to worship a God that doesn’t punish sin and evil. And thank him that he is forgiving, otherwise no one would escape his judgement. And thank Him that he’s loving, because otherwise, that’d be a pretty difficult God to please. And thank Him that he’s sovereign, because I need a God that’s mighty to save me from my problems, my enemies, and myself. And thank Him finally, that he finds a way to reconcile all those attributes while I struggle to understand how he works them all together.

My sins are forgiven. My guilt is gone! Honestly. His sacrifice has yielded fruit. I am loved like no other, and this love is patiently changing me to become a better man… I had some great time with God last night, and as I chatted to him I marvelled at the way he turned this whole year round for me, where wasted time has somehow borne fruit, my wrong thinking has been made right and my visionless outlook has been spurred on into great vision for the future. I haven’t got it all together, but I know that he does and he’ll help me work it out as I go along faithfully. His discipline has yielded fruit.

*****

* The postmodern thinking is actually to varying degrees bending people's natural perception of things, coming against what people see as plain normal: I recently met someone who told me they believed that prisons shouldn't exist. When I asked them how else one would punish crime they didn't really answer me, just alluded to the fact that all is relative and judgement is not ours to make... While to some degrees I would say that the prisons that exist aren't necessarily the best places to reform criminals, I don't think this person’s thinking (nor the criminals’) was as civically minded as they thought it was. And thankfully, the government thinks so too. This matter however, is an interesting one, on which I want to stop for a moment. As I said, this thinking bends our natural perception of things, and this extreme happens when one takes all the way the belief that there is no moral basis, no truth and that people should do whatever makes them feel good, believe whatever they want to believe (essentially the foundations of postmodern life). It is also going all the way in the nowadays common thinking that talks about people’s “rights”: “I have the right to do this, the right to do that”, basically the right to sin and not ever face the consequences of my sin. This has already been seen in the liberalising of abortion to frightening degrees. Such thinking always springs out of the self, even if those advocating it genuinely believe they are doing it to help others. They never talk about responsibilities, always rights. In a sense it could be seen as a solidarity towards all those who want to sin, just like me, or, a collective effort of legislation change created by people all involved with self interest in doing something only they want to do (which of course is a tautology, I mean, how often do people lobby for things they don’t want to do? How many people are pro liberalising cannabis who don’t smoke it? From a positive point of view of the argument, real socialists should want to pay taxes, provided that ensured that the public services functioned well). The truth is, the theoretical basis for this thinking is rooted first in the desires of the person and secondly the intellect. It stops right where suddenly someone is wronged and desires justice or vengeance for this terrible sin against them. It doesn’t always work in practice…
In conclusion to this appendix, this kind of thinking, which is founded in postmodern thought, is essentially an outworking of Romans 1 that talks about the unrighteousness of men “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (v.18) and who, “claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (vv.22-23) Christians who elevate the supremacy of Jesus above all things in the world, live and think differently from this, showing men and women everywhere a higher calling and greater way of living.

Like in a movie (summer rain)

2008-08-15T18:29:00.002+01:00

15/08/2008

Fretting leaves flicker in freeze-frame in the furious fervour of the fanciful wind.
Buckets of rain are flushed down so suddenly it seems fake, then it stops.
Drops fall on us, curiously under a bright sky.
These are the paradoxical inconsistencies involved in reconciling “summer” and “Britain”.

Save me from Christian facebook groups!!!

2008-06-21T14:59:00.005+01:00

I'm infuriated! Why must people create and/or join facebook groups that are so useless!? I don't think this post is ever going to stop idiotic groups from being created or people from joining them, but I need an outlet for my frustration. Ironically, as my brother pointed out, I'm complaining about complainers, but hopefully I'll get away with it by making some sense in my argumentation.

A few months ago I remember being invited to a group called "let's see if we can find 1,000,000 Christians on facebook" and another one called something like "spread the word, Jesus, the saviour of the world" with gospel presentations in them. The worst thing is that I saw some of my friends join those groups!!! What on earth is a group that has a few Christians on them going to do for the gospel cause??? The most recent one, "facebook MUST ban the group entitled: F... Jesus Christ" is even more stupid and insulting to my intelligence and principles. Why on earth should facebook, a non-Christian service provider ban a group of unbelievers from writing their foolish statements? Why should facebook, provider of a free service, listen to what anyone has to say about their programme, since these people aren't paying for anything at all (thinking about the group entitled something along the lines of "petition to make facebook ban adding friends to applications")! With all the amount of trash that's online, it would be lovely if it weren't there, but telling people they can't say stuff like that is certainly not going to do anything to win them over to Christ! The group itself was invoking articles of British laws against racism and religious offenses (which is weird, since facebook is American to start with), saying it is wrong for anyone to say something bad against someone else's religion... What on earth? Other people may stoop to these petty levels, but Christians know that we are promised persecution and insults by Jesus himself, why on earth should we complain when people discriminate against us??? How was the early church created? Out of persecution! We should answer with intelligent responses, not childish tale-telling.

On top of that, we believe in freedom of speech! Why should we expect people not to say what they wish to say, even if it is trash, when we want people to hear what we have to say? What's more, that kind of title, e.g. "F... JC" is clearly not an intellectual one, the guys just thought it would be funny, which granted, it's not, but I think Jesus doesn't need people to stand up for him in the playground, he's a big boy. What he wants is people to stand up for him in the courtrooms, in the lecture halls, in the real battlefields of the faith!

And I'm sorry to say, but at the same time, glad, that the internet is not one of them, in most cases. Chat forums, facebook groups, those are places where foolish and ignorant people can, with no accountability, vent their anger, uninformed thoughts and frustrations. How is getting loads of Christians on one group going to save anyone? I think it's actually counter-productive to spreading the gospel: how is anyone going to have an intelligent and mind-changing debate in one of these virtual places? Just take a look at the list of posts on the group I'm talking about! There are the racists, the over-sensitive prigs, the zealous followers, the zealous atheists, throwing insulting, self-righteous comments and ungratious internet grenades to each other, taking turns... Which ends up making them more frustrated and hurt, since words do hurt.Finally, someone in that stream of messages said something that made lots of sense, not that I agree with everything he says on this or other of his posts:

"Other than the name, there is nothing wrong with the group and even more wrong with this group. They may say what they wish. It's funny that more people have joined this group than the group in question, so you are making a mountain out of a molehill. You've given them more publicity than they deserved.They say something you disagree with, so you wish to ban them. Their group shows no similar desire to ban you or your groups. Live and let live.I'm off to join them as well. Call it a protest vote."

There's my case... I edit this note singing: "I lay my life down at your feet, cause you're the only one I need... One way, Jesus, you're the only one that I could live for."

Jude

2008-06-20T08:59:00.001+01:00

20 Juin 2008

So, I’ve experienced my first few days with my nephew… It’s pretty surreal. So surreal in fact that I don’t take it in all the time and I have moments of realisation during the day where my brain actually understands that this cute little thing that is just under 60cm long and maybe 5kgs in weight is a full-fledged, brand new human being. He is just about seven weeks old, I think that’s the youngest baby I have ever handled, and the things that amaze me about him are the things that come to him naturally: he breathes… No one told him how to do that, but he has picked up that habit and keeps it going; he also loves his mum’s milk and attaches himself to her breast automatically (it was a little weird at first, but since she’s my sister, I can handle it); he swallows what he eats, doesn’t spit it out. These things are part of his instincts… He has blue eyes (for the moment), an inquisitive and very funny face, and twenty tiny digits on his hands and feet. It’s the detail that’s amazing. He’s generally very happy, but even when he cries he looks so sweet, with his cute little pout. The world revolves around him, whatever room he’s in, all eyes are on him. I find it hard not to look at him when he’s in the room, he’s just too gorgeous. He’s so fragile and needy… That’s the thing that makes me fearful and blows my mind the most: he was created totally dependent on his parents. Every time I handle him I’m afraid of breaking him like a porcelain doll, so I am most careful. Seeing his parents love him is a beautiful thing; my sister and bro’s hearts are melted when they talk to him, look at him, think about him… And so is mine. I’m overwhelmed by this new creation. I’m shocked at how God so carefully knit this human being into life and his effect on everyone around him, where old and young men will sing songs to him, old and young women want to play with him, and he doesn’t get bored of gesticulating, watching, lying down, sleeping, breast-feeding, burping, pooping, having his nappy changed (he loves that in fact) and starting over again.

Prophetic Fields

2008-05-24T10:22:00.002+01:00

Prophetic Fields, 23rd May 2008

God has taken the habit of using the fields in the back of Wincheap to speak to me... I guess those are the times when I’m most attentive and he jumps in while I’m still listening! Last year, I remember him showing me, through the progression of the stages of growth and harvest, the way in which he is always operating, even when there doesn’t seem to be anything happening for long periods of time, and that is eventually shown in the quantity and quality of the fruit produced, be it fair-coloured hills covered in grain or red, juicy apples that finally get harvested to be put to use.

As I was running yesterday, I noticed that out of the ground that has been looking so arid for the past weeks had sprouted leaves that looked like they might be corn plants, not that I’m a farmer or anything, so I wouldn’t actually know... That resonated in my mind and in my heart, felt like God was saying that fruit is going to come after this period of aridity in my spiritual life... And I am seeing some fruit of his word spoken in my life already, which is really exciting. But I need to be more excited, less apathetic, more ambitious for seeing his promises come to fruition. God doesn’t know how to make small plans, everything works towards his greater plan, to which I have the privilege, along with many others, of being a part.

Poetry on a run

2008-03-12T17:20:00.002Z

01/03/2008

Waves of blades flutter in ripples across the field
As if the wind were the strings of a bow
Playing gently upon the instrument below,
The music being made, inaudible to me,
but rather than a melody I'd hear, one that I see.

The Right Fight

2008-02-24T21:55:00.000Z

The Right Fight, 24.02.2008

In over five years living in Canterbury, I have heard many a story about street thugs, but have never actually had to really face-off with any of them, until last Thursday night. This story is amazing to me, and if you would indulge me, I will tell it right here.

I had had a long day: we had taken a group of students on a day trip to Oxford, leaving around 8.15a.m, and due to traffic, we didn't get back to Canterbury until 8p.m. This meant that it was late and everyone was tired, but the students needed to be walked home by their group leaders (since they were twelve-year-old Chinese kids).
I was debating on whether to go to cell group or not, since I was already late upon arrival in Canters, but for some reason, I decided I'd go - passing through Tesco, since I had no food at home – and I started making my way up St. Martin's Hill, where I used to live. As I walked up, I saw a group of my students ahead; my immediate reaction was to think “Oh, no, let's slow down, I'm too tired to start talking to them and on top of that, we're going in the same direction...” (just to show you what a great guy I am), but as I started thinking that, I saw a group of big guys walk through them and push them in the street, a dangerous road at that. My pace quickened as I felt what I can only describe as my first experience of “righteous anger” flow from my heart through my body.
I caught up with the students and they immediately turned to me saying (in Chinese accents): “Oh, teacher, teacher, thank you, teacher is here, those boys...” They explained to me that these guys had bullied them, just as I had seen them do. I asked them where their teacher was; they said “gone home”... I was so annoyed. By this time, these three boys were ahead of us by about 60 metres and didn't seem like they were going to bother the students any more, when suddenly I saw one of them pick up a plank of wood lying on the grass (and by plank, I mean like the side of a barn), and start running towards us! Now, this guy might have been joking, but as I pushed through the students, he slowed down, looking very surprised, until he came to a halt in front of me:
“Hey man, what are you doing?”
“Oh, just carrying this plank...”
“Yeah? Why don't you pick on someone your own size?”(I can't believe I used that line, especially since, by then, I had realised he was about a head taller than me.)
“Yeah? Like you?”(starts pushing me)
“Hmm... Maybe I'll call the police!”
“What, why?”
“Why are you pushing me?”
“Well, you're starting on me, aincha?”
“Why did you push these kids in the street?”
“Well, they wouldn't move, chattin' nonsense and everything!”
“They're Chinese, they don't understand what you're saying!”
By this time, his other two mates had joined our friendly conversation, a fat guy and a little kid on a BMX. The two big ones could easily have been nineteen. The kids stayed behind me as we walked along, but the thing was, we were all going in the same direction, so I had to keep talking to these felons as we walked along, while they threatened to beat us up with their “boys”: one of them was on the phone, pretending to call up his crew. I said to him:
“What are you doing?”
“I'm calling my boys to come over and sort you out!”
“Why would you do that?”
“Well, you're standing up to my boy and everything, you don't even have anything to do with this!” (They always have to say, “and everything”... I don't get it)
“I'M THEIR TEACHER!”
So I kept threatening to call the police, I actually had my phone out and dialled 999 a couple times, but then thought it wouldn't do much good, since this would be over sooner than they could arrive. The fat guy actually said, “You're calling the police? Go ahead, my name's (...)” (Can't remember...)
But he did accelerate his pace.
However, they said “Come on, we'll take you down this dark alley and sort you out!”
When they got to their dark alley, he grabbed a stick and as we walked on, waved it at me threateningly, “Come on then! Where you going?”
“I'm taking them the right way!”, I said.
That's as far as I can remember, the conversation we had...

I would have liked to beat their arses (just to show you what a loving guy I am); I would have liked to have a sit-down and talk about why their attitude was so wrong, their lack of logic so startling, about how they needed Jesus in their lives. I had a lot rushing through my head at that time, but my primary concern was getting my kids home, safe and sound. I texted a friend of mine in the cell meeting to come and meet me at the end of that road, just for safety, but his phone must have been off.
As I walked them on, I thought how brilliant that picture was: these guys trying to lead us down a dark alley in a path of evil and me leading these boys on in a path of light, a path of righteousness. The most amazing thing of all of this is that it had nothing to do with me! I wasn't even going to go to cell group that night! This could have happened a few minutes before and after I showed up and I would have missed it! I remembered that the previous night I had been meditating on how God has prepared good works in advance for me to do, as I walk in faith and his grace operates in me. I believe that it was Jesus who planned it all to happen right then and there, and the result was that there was a peaceful, non-violent solution, because God is a peace-maker and he used me to bring his character in this situation...
As we got into the road where they were staying, which “godincidentally” was the same road where I was going for cell group, in fact, the houses they were staying at were literally opposite my friends' house (except for two who went off to their own house one road up), and I reflected on these things, the adrenaline started rushing out of me, all the confidence built up left me and my emotions started playing up... I told my students: “Next time you're in trouble, ask Jesus to help you, I'm serious... You know why I'm here tonight? Jesus brought me here!” They said: “OK!”, they could see I wasn't joking... Now this might have been wrong for me to say on the work level... But it was true, what else could I say?
So I walked them to their homes, then knocked on my friends' house, where I entered to tell them all the story and marvel in worship at God's faithfulness and sovereignty...

Christianity in the world, part 2: Political Participation

2008-02-13T13:47:00.004Z

Having set the scene in the first part of this series I wish to continue on discussing the involvement of Christians in politics. As mentioned in the previous part, Christianity is neither left nor right, nor central for that matter; it separates itself from the mainstream political scene, by its completely different set of priorities and values. Having said that, I am often worried by a strange attitude that some Christians have of not participating in the political life of their nation.

I'm pretty sure that if we took a poll, the political participation of Christians would reflect the rest of the population's, showing a great degree of apathy, since in the last forty years there has been a verified decrease in political participation across EU countries (David Broughton, Developments in West European Politics 2, ed. by Heywood et al), going down in the UK from 75% in the seventies to 69.9% in the nineties and then 59.4% at the 2001 national elections. This also has to do with the general sentiment of people concerning politics and the way it impacts their lives: in 1997 an average of 75% of European citizens thought that corruption among politicians was increasing. But surely this sentiment would draw people to do something about that? It seems not.

A phrase which I keep hearing and makes me mad is “the lesser of two evils”, which is what a lot of Christians and non-Christians say, even people I respect: “the choice between the lesser of two evils is no choice at all, that is why I won't vote!” Because there are policies that I disagree with on either side, I won't vote for either! May I say, that is a ridiculous statement and not a good reason not to vote; why instead of focussing on the negative policies, not look at the good ones, the ones that will have positive consequences on society as a whole, maybe look at the priorities of the candidates, see what they have to say that is worthwhile. The last thing we need to do is separate ourselves from the world and become some kind of fundamentalist group of people who don't want to have anything to do with it. That is an effective washing of hands, saying that we take no responsibility for the way our nation goes, but right then, we become guilty of not doing what ought to be done. Need I remind us that democracy has been set up in our nations through lots of social and military battles?

It is indeed frustrating to hear so many American presidential candidates claim to do this and that thing in the name of Jesus, to hear them shamelessly use his name to push their own agenda, but I don't believe that is a good enough reason not to go to the urns. It is also very frustrating to hear of pastors and bible teachers, even very good ones, who tell their congregations to vote for a particular candidate because they are against or for the issues which they consider priorities. I think that a good pastor should not tell his congregation who to vote for, but give good guidelines on how to make up one's own mind about who to vote for: look at what they say, what does your conscience draw you to do, etc. John Piper (a prominent bible teacher) made the brilliant statement in a preach that all candidates are sinners, all are flawed, and that is why democracy is the best system for men and women to live in, apart from Jesus coming back and ruling perfectly like only he can do: because there is at least a consensus over which one of these flawed individuals gets the place of president. On top of that, this person cannot exercise complete authority and in the end, if we don't like them, we can vote them out at the next elections.

As I write this, the campaign race is going on in the US and Italy has lost its Prime Minister, the only man who could steer that crazy boat. I am seriously worried about the future of that country, of which I am a citizen. On top of that, the archbishop of Canterbury has bizarrely declared that Muslims should have the right to be run by their traditional law, thus implying, I imagine, that Christians should be allowed to run themselves, which clearly goes against what Jesus and his apostles say about honouring the government (Luke 20:19-26, 1 Peter 2:13-17). The political world has significance in our lives, though I find it sad that so many are caught up in everything political at the loss of what is more important.

If your conscience draws you not to vote, there's nothing more I can say, but when it comes to it, I would say that Roberto Benigni's (Italian actor, director and intellectual) words are worth considering: “vote for who seems most honest, most truthful”... As simple as that.

Christianity in the World, part I

2008-02-06T13:48:00.003Z

What I have been reading these days is very thought provoking, and combined with my experiences of the last few months, particularly the time I spent in Italy in November and December, is provoking me to express in written form things that are going to open up cans of worms all over the place, since they have to do with world views that are common to most people, but I think that's a good thing, since one of the worst things I can do for someone, in my opinion, is not tell them why I disagree with them, because then I'm not loving them, not respecting them.

Everyone in this world, eventually, in one form or another, chooses a team to be on, be it political, religious, cultural, often it's a combination of these categories, and interestingly, all these teams of people have something to say about Jesus, who they think he is, and what they think about his Church. They also usually either totally reject Jesus and the Bible, or they pick and choose passages and images from it to push their own agenda, because after all, one can interpret the Bible any way one wishes to, isn't that right? (Rhetoric question, just in case you're confused, the answer to that is a screaming “NO!” coming straight from my mouth)
One of the things I wish to clarify here (in this series, if I manage to write more than one) is the question of Christianity and politics, because a lot of people are rightfully confused about it, since all sorts of people claiming to be Christians do all sorts of things in the name of Jesus.

The first thing I need to do before I start out proper though and before anyone switches off, because they just read the word “politics” is that Christianity and the Bible are neither “left” nor “right”, though they have something to say about all the issues on the political boards across most countries in the world. However, I have never come across a political party that had 100% Christian values as I have never come across a political party claiming to be Christian in whose members there were the visible spiritual fruits of character and behaviour I would expect to see in Christians. Those who know me, probably know my political leanings, which I do not wish to express here, but they might very well show as I continue to type.

As I have mentioned earlier, people have to react to Jesus and to the Bible, there's no way around it, and they usually either reject all of it, or they use what they think they know about it in order to push their personal agenda and world view.
One of the world views which has highly influenced modern history and politics is communism. As a young man (I mean younger) I tried to see Christianity and communism as working hand in hand, but at a closer look, the most obvious thing is that Christianity is not communist (and it is not capitalist either).

The premise of Marxist communism is that every nation of the world is in a constant social struggle of classes: the poor, oppressed, working class against the rich governing class, and the dream of communism is that one day the proletariat (literally, those who for riches have only their children) would overthrow the leading class and change the nations into a government of equality, complete financial redistribution and mutual respect. The inconsistency of communism within itself is this: everyone is equal and deserving of the same respect, unless they disagree with me. The inconsistency there is between communism and Christianity is that communism identifies evil with the rich minority and sees everyone else as oppressed victims, while the Bible tells us that everyone is evil and all need to repent.

In his film called “Il Vangelo secondo Matteo” or “The Gospel according to St. Matthew” (which I admittedly have not seen), Pier Paolo Pasolini depicts Jesus as a Marxist preacher who attacks the powers of his day in favour of the poor people. This would be a perfect example of someone who uses the name of Jesus to push his own agenda, because in no gospel is Jesus rooting for anyone but his Father in heaven. Jesus was telling the religious people of his time that they had distorted the truth of the Old Testament, and never did he say anything against the Roman Empire, which was the real political power at the time; on the contrary, he told his disciples to live peaceably in the world, but that's something we'll talk about later. Pasolini, in his understanding of the world and probably to some degree his respect for the person of Jesus, saw something that was not in the text.

That interpretation, however enticing for those who hold a similar world view, is not shared by all communists, since most of them outright reject the Bible and its teachings, because they see that it is not consistent with their world view, but at least that's an honest reaction and they read the text right. However, I would point them to some places in the Bible they have obviously not read.

The Bible does actually talk about poverty and social iniquity: the purpose of the Law which God gave Moses was primarily to govern a nation effectively and in Deuteronomy we see probably the first mention in the whole of history of the need for social welfare (Deut. 15:7-11). This was revolutionary and that behaviour would indeed shock onlooking nations. The purpose of Israel as a nation was to be a light unto other nations, for them to see that the God of Israel was the one true God and glorify him as such. I add this parenthèse because most people will then say that God was unjust in choosing one nation above others and I would say to you, think about it as God's starting point in redeeming mankind (I would also say, you're not allowed to judge God).

About social and political injustice, the Bible cries out, particularly in Psalms 14 and 73, and the gist of them is this: God will judge those who commit these things, in this life or the next. The scary thing here is that people will say “that's not enough!”, because they look at these people and judge them, then look at their own lives and, making that comparison, declare themselves righteous, and thus doing, they sin, because instead of humbling themselves and repenting of their own pride and self-righteousness, they elevate themselves to the place of God and bring judgement upon others.
The Bible also talks against the rich capitalists who accumulate money and greedily do not pay proper wages to their labourers (James 5:1-6), but it generally talks against loving money instead of loving God! (Matthew 6:24) (Just in case people thought I was communist-bashing.)

My dad has a big problem about the fact that supposedly the Bible does not denounce slavery, which was a big social issue at that time, a very good reason for not believing it to be the Word of God. But what does the Bible say about slavery? Paul says to slaves: “obey your masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart”. Oh my goodness! So does it condone mistreatment of humans? No! Paul says to masters: “Treat your slaves in the same way” (that is, with respect and fear and sincerity of heart!) (Ephesians 6) The fear he talks about is that of God. Why? Because God says “Love your neighbour as yourself”, and Jesus qualifies your neighbour as meaning everyone! (Luke 10:25-37)

So the Bible doesn't talk outright about whether slavery is right or wrong. Well, this is one of those cases in which we must say, “those were different times” and there were people who were slaves, that was their job and they were happy about it, if their masters treated them well. They were like full-time staff and I make no excuses for the analogy, because the way we think of slaves in our time is not the same as the way people thought back then and when we bring our own thinking to a text that has a different historical and cultural background, we automatically do a disservice to our understanding of it. God made every human being in His own likeness and wishes that all be treated equally. It's not because one's job is to serve another one that they are not equal and deserving of the same respect, it's their response to that that will show what is in their heart. *

But the point I want to get across here is that the Bible, though it sometimes does talk about social issues and social injustice, is not a book about social issues, it's not a book about the struggle of social classes, and it makes no apology for it, because it is talking about things that are far greater than the communist and capitalist world views!

Here's an interesting quote from Paul: “Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave.” (1 Corinthians 7:21-22)

If you can gain freedom, do it, since in Christ you have freedom, but the one who was free when he became a Christian is a slave to Christ. This might seem very confusing to some, it's talking about being free but a slave at the same time, how does that work? Here's where the vision widens: it's not whether you are a slave or not, it's who you are a slave to! The Bible declares that the whole world is a prisoner, a slave to sin, but that if you trust in Jesus, you can become slaves of righteousness! In God's eyes there are only two teams: the World, a prisoner to sin and Satan... And the Church, those who have been rescued from their sin, by no merit of their own, thanks to Jesus' works and sacrifice! The problem with communism is that it says that when the working class gains power everything will be fine, but the truth is, those who are then in charge will become corrupt, because that is the condition of man's heart! But the great thing is that Jesus can change men and women's hearts by his power, granting them repentance. And the final outcome of the whole of history is going to be a new government, a monarchy, whose king is Jesus, but who will reign righteously forever and his people will all be equals, enjoying one another forever! And that is a far greater hope than any other.

---

* On a side note, when the Emperor Constantine came to power around at the beginning of the 4th Century and the church started getting some influence over his opinion and decisions (which also marked the beginning of the decline of the church, but that's for a different post), one of the things that happened was that they influenced the laws on slave-trade, to the point that people weren't allowed to be branded in the face any longer, which of course is wrong and barbaric, and parents were discouraged from giving up their children as slaves, by giving them a family allowance from the imperial treasuries, a practice way ahead of its time (similar to welfare state laws)! (ref.: F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame, p.296) Now, that doesn't seem like much, but the church didn't have all that much influence on matters outside of itself, and that seems like one of the first examples in history where Christian ethics influenced for the better the laws and practices of the Roman Empire, whilst only a few years previously they were getting persecuted by the same empire.

Arsenal VS Fulham, pensées

2008-02-01T11:44:00.001Z

This is going to be mean, but I said I'd write about it...

Two weeks ago, for work I was invited to accompany our students on an excursion to see the Fulham - Arsenal game in Fulham Stadium... I honestly thought I would get into the atmosphere of the game but...

If I believed in evolution, I would say that evident proof for it is seen in the crowds of supporters at a live football match; I have never seen so many apes together in one place at the same time, standing up and sitting down at random moments, flinging things erratically, making odd hand gestures and sounds that would suggest there might be intelligence in there, to the hopeful scientist...
I mean, come on there is clearly a type of football supporter that is loud, hairy and overweight, with the man-titties that those apes have too, though I couldn't help notice a pair of twin gibbons, sitting fairly close to me, skinny and bald, the sounds they made were more like imitations of everyone else, rather than spontaneous... They frustrated me more than anyone else because they wouldn't shut up! On top of that they started swearing at the goalkeeper from the other team, who was just playing and doing his job!

I honestly tried to enjoy the game, but it was one of the most boring things ever! The players themselves were clearly unevenly matched, Fulham was getting rinsed and I couldn't believe that its supporters were getting angry and frustrated, their team was so far inferior to Arsenal. In truth, apart from the three goals, nothing much happened and actually, being so close to the game just helped me realise one of the saddest things ever: these men here were just playing a game and 25,000 people were watching them. Worst of all, the people watching were there to make a sacrifice to their idol, by spending money, time and standing up to chant nonsensical things and swear at the players of the other team.
That night, over half of those people went home unfulfilled by their religion.

Post-Scriptum: Admittedly, many football supporters are not the way I have just described them, these are just my humourous thoughts about this experience (sorry if you don't appreciate the humour). However, it is a sobering truth that many in this country and abroad organise their lives around football and it becomes their idol and their worship, detracting their attention from far greater things...

Hello... It's been a while!

2007-11-22T16:38:00.000Z

Hello, I know very few people will actually read this but please believe me when I say I am truly sorry for the lack of new posts which has lasted now for about six months. I do intend to start posting again regularly and to do the things I said in the last post but my life has been somewhat disjointed in the last six months, as you may or may not know! My plans changed for this year, I was unemployed and homeless for a couple months (thank God some great people put me up in that period!) but now I am in Rome, yes indeed, and am following a course with the International House organisation, to teach English as a foreign language... Guess that's the employment path I'm taking, languages, and I'm actually very excited about it, because I get to be pedantic without being made fun of! It's real fun and I am learning so much! There is so much to know and the teaching I'm getting is not only top-notch but also, I believe, the kind in which I thrive: hands on learning, practical seminars, stimulating subjects and self-improvement aims.

I'll try out for the Université de Genève exams in March again, hoping to get in, but this could be a good career path for the next few years... I do want to keep studying and there are so many things to study and learn, but one has to do it one at a time... One thing I really want to do is form my ecclesiology really well; for those who don't know what that is, it's just a smart word to say "the way I believe church should be built and why"; why? To know what I stand for and why, what is un-negotiable and what doesn't need to be that rigid and to be able to convey to people who ask me and who want to argue why it is the best way, not because I say so, but because God does.

A book which I am re-reading and which is greatly, not only stimulating me, but also confirming a lot of my personal meditations on certain church matters is called "Confessions of a Reformission Rev." It is, quite simply, one of the best books I have ever read! Mark Driscoll has been given great insight by God into many church matters through the extraordinary experiences he and his congregation have had in building their mega-church from nothing in the space of a decade. What I love about Mark is his unswerving commitment to elevate Scripture and God's will above his opinion and his unwavering focus on the mission which Jesus has set him on: to reach Seattle with the power of the gospel. I need that attitude in my heart when it comes to ministry, and I want to learn not only to cultivate it, but also to infect others with it!

Right, gotta go, keep checking if you can!

Writing Projects

2007-05-16T13:51:00.000+01:00

Hello bloggers and blog-readers! I don't know how many of you out there are still checking this website, I realise the last time I updated it was over a month ago, whoops! The reason for this, apart from the fact that I still don't have internet at home, is also because I am not doing much creative writing. I've got a few ideas in the creative pipeline, but my writing efforts are at the moment being employed in a pretty big project, which should be over soon. I'm writing a chapter for the Youth Work Manual of my church, something I'm very excited about. I get to write about "discipleship", the question about following Jesus, biblical models for it, useful tools etc. It is nearing 5000 words at the moment and might be in the end something like 7000 words. Just like my dissertation, only interesting and helpful to someone! Anyway, that's what I hope...

When I finish that, I have the intention of starting a series of posts on the Bible, writing first about the power of Scripture then going through some books and writing some passage commentaries. Hopefully, they will encourage and feed people who are interested in understanding Scripture better. I'll still be posting my creative writing and other stuff of course.

Great books that I have read recently and recommend:

Chasing the Dragon, the story of Jackie Pullinger
Taming the Tiger, the story of Tony Anthony
No Well-Worn Paths, the story of Terry Virgo and how God started his move of the Spirit in the '60s in the UK.

All three are exciting and encouraging books to read, they are great autobiographies of people who have seen their life being shaped by God's purposes. The first two are very fast-paced and full of exciting adventures, the third one just pumps me up for seeing God use me for his purposes and for seeing Jesus' Church restored to its beauty!

Peace out!

Joey