Change is weird.
It messes with your head in ways you don't expect. You get tired and can't work out why. You react in strange ways. Small extra changes throw you, so that you wind up depressed or anxious or listening to jazz.
There is rather a lot of change for us at the moment. There is also a very full schedule of goodbyes and packing and paperwork. The combination isn't too good, and I'm looking forward to getting on the plane in a little over two weeks and not having to do anything. I'm sure I'll be over it in after the first four hours, but the initial luxury of not needing to sort something out is attractive.
Tiny's arrival in about 16 weeks is the subject of even greater change, which while anticipated and joyous and so forth, is also substantial. I expect we'll just walk around like zombies for the next year till we get through it all. But we do the zombie walk really well, so everything will be fine!
Friday, 31 August 2007
Traditions
We have very few traditions. One of my favourites is the one where we eat pancakes with maple syrup and berries for Christmas breakfast before going off to church on Christmas morning.
There's another one which works really well, where we read to each other while we drive on long distances. We usually read Terry Prachett books, which lend themselves to being read out aloud and are easy to listen to while you drive (which is important because this full moon we're having is not bringing out the best driving skills in the general population). So, I ended up driving from Canberra yesterday while Levor read for the whole three and a half hours. He does the best voices! It was the good part of a really long day.
There's another one which works really well, where we read to each other while we drive on long distances. We usually read Terry Prachett books, which lend themselves to being read out aloud and are easy to listen to while you drive (which is important because this full moon we're having is not bringing out the best driving skills in the general population). So, I ended up driving from Canberra yesterday while Levor read for the whole three and a half hours. He does the best voices! It was the good part of a really long day.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
O Pity and Indignation!
Note: The title is a rather scrumptious line from a Gerard Manly Hopkins poem and has nothing to do with the post
I've been thinking about pity this week. This was partly sparked by a lot of interactions with people whose lives look to me to be in tatters, and who are facing the consequences of choices they have made or are continuing to make. I know that they would scorn to change or to be seen to be 'wrong', and would be indignant at my thinking they could have made better choices. But I maintain my position: if they had done things differently, their lives could be better than they are. But at the same time, I feel tremendous pity for them, particularly some of them.
It makes a difference to how I treat them, I've noticed. I am far more generous towards them and think of things I might be able to do for them, compared to other people. I don't honestly think I can 'make up' for what they have done to their lives, but I am sad that these are the lives they have to live out. I can't change their minds or their choices, but I would like to make something better for them.
I continued thinking about this through the week as I stumbled across Mark 5 again, a series of miracles Jesus performs for three powerless people in Palestine. "Deserving" is really not a category Jesus uses much in his ministry. It seems that often his actions are prompted by the immediate circumstances in which he sees people, and often the narrative offers "moved with compassion" as the reason for his actions. In fact, you could really see the entirety of Jesus' actions and words in life and death as an outworking of this 'compassion'.
I think we often think of compassion as weak or sentimental, but it doesn't look like either in Jesus' words or acts. It looks strong and commanding. He will give compassion full flight and change the course of his teaching (ch 2) or his actions (ch 5), even where there is a cost to that. Having complete wisdom to follow God's will in all things is of considerable benefit here!
But I do think it has implications for us as we imitate Christ in our limited way. It frees us up to be compassionate without being manipulated. It means that 'duty' and our responsibilities can be hamstrung for the needs of someone, which cry out to us and move us. We can give things up for people, with no expectation that they will be changed by them, but because we care. We don't always have to be strategic. We don't have to be 'non-emotional' as though this trumps logic or is in opposition to it. Our compassion can drive us into the field of good deeds prepared for us in advance in Christ Jesus.
I've been thinking about pity this week. This was partly sparked by a lot of interactions with people whose lives look to me to be in tatters, and who are facing the consequences of choices they have made or are continuing to make. I know that they would scorn to change or to be seen to be 'wrong', and would be indignant at my thinking they could have made better choices. But I maintain my position: if they had done things differently, their lives could be better than they are. But at the same time, I feel tremendous pity for them, particularly some of them.
It makes a difference to how I treat them, I've noticed. I am far more generous towards them and think of things I might be able to do for them, compared to other people. I don't honestly think I can 'make up' for what they have done to their lives, but I am sad that these are the lives they have to live out. I can't change their minds or their choices, but I would like to make something better for them.
I continued thinking about this through the week as I stumbled across Mark 5 again, a series of miracles Jesus performs for three powerless people in Palestine. "Deserving" is really not a category Jesus uses much in his ministry. It seems that often his actions are prompted by the immediate circumstances in which he sees people, and often the narrative offers "moved with compassion" as the reason for his actions. In fact, you could really see the entirety of Jesus' actions and words in life and death as an outworking of this 'compassion'.
I think we often think of compassion as weak or sentimental, but it doesn't look like either in Jesus' words or acts. It looks strong and commanding. He will give compassion full flight and change the course of his teaching (ch 2) or his actions (ch 5), even where there is a cost to that. Having complete wisdom to follow God's will in all things is of considerable benefit here!
But I do think it has implications for us as we imitate Christ in our limited way. It frees us up to be compassionate without being manipulated. It means that 'duty' and our responsibilities can be hamstrung for the needs of someone, which cry out to us and move us. We can give things up for people, with no expectation that they will be changed by them, but because we care. We don't always have to be strategic. We don't have to be 'non-emotional' as though this trumps logic or is in opposition to it. Our compassion can drive us into the field of good deeds prepared for us in advance in Christ Jesus.
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Our House
In a timely answer to prayer, we were offered accomodation at Oxford last week. We'll be living in 'Summertown House' on Banbury Road - all very English and quite charming!
Here are pictures. Small but enclosed, which is good for keeping out the snow (not to be taken for granted) and close to both Wycliffe Hall and Oxford. Tiny (21 weeks old today) will even get to have his own room. (What we will do with the two single beds I'm not sure). We're grateful that our address is settled. It makes leaving easier, and may even mean I can negotiate the NHS and book into a hospital. (Though the way English bureauracy works I hold out little hope for accomplishing this!)
A bit over five weeks till we leave. Wow.
Here are pictures. Small but enclosed, which is good for keeping out the snow (not to be taken for granted) and close to both Wycliffe Hall and Oxford. Tiny (21 weeks old today) will even get to have his own room. (What we will do with the two single beds I'm not sure). We're grateful that our address is settled. It makes leaving easier, and may even mean I can negotiate the NHS and book into a hospital. (Though the way English bureauracy works I hold out little hope for accomplishing this!)
A bit over five weeks till we leave. Wow.
Tuesday, 7 August 2007
Faith
Levor has just finished preaching through a series on 'Faith'at College. I guess you would call it a series, though the first sermon was on Genesis 15, then Romans 4 and today's was just on 'faith'. The first two were exegetical; today's was topical. I think it was a very good series for a number of reasons:
1. It was good to stop and think about faith. It's easy to come up with different definitions which capture elements of faith, but which don't cover the complexity. So, 'believing God's promises' leaves out the fact that when we have faith in God we genuinely engage with God; it isn't just a cognitive exercise. It was good to realise the insufficiencies of most of my definitions and hopefully to do more justice to faith whenever I speak about it.
2. Being reminded about the central place of faith, while being reminded that the fact that faith is central actually makes God central was great. Faith isn't an end in itself, but a look of desperation at one's own resources which calls out of us a cry to God. I guess in that sense faith is foundational for prayer. Not that faith makes God do things, but that prayer is the practical outworking of seeing oneself clearly and knowing the need for God.
3. I really enjoyed the insight that unbelief is not just a mere rejection of 'facts about God', or God's promises, etc. But unbelief is also a rejection of the goodness of what God promises. So when we have faith in God, we both believe God, and also see great value in what he is giving us or promising us (like the guy who sold his stuff to get the pearl of great price).
4. Faith is Christ-shaped. It pivots around the work and promises of Christ, and is based on union with him. So Christian faith is unique, because it is intimately related to Christ and his death for our sins, and for all he gives us when we trust him.
There is more I haven't captured, and this is mostly from this morning's sermon, which rounded out the exegetical sermons nicely and was uniquely Levorian. I really enjoyed the series, and I think it was well worth doing.
1. It was good to stop and think about faith. It's easy to come up with different definitions which capture elements of faith, but which don't cover the complexity. So, 'believing God's promises' leaves out the fact that when we have faith in God we genuinely engage with God; it isn't just a cognitive exercise. It was good to realise the insufficiencies of most of my definitions and hopefully to do more justice to faith whenever I speak about it.
2. Being reminded about the central place of faith, while being reminded that the fact that faith is central actually makes God central was great. Faith isn't an end in itself, but a look of desperation at one's own resources which calls out of us a cry to God. I guess in that sense faith is foundational for prayer. Not that faith makes God do things, but that prayer is the practical outworking of seeing oneself clearly and knowing the need for God.
3. I really enjoyed the insight that unbelief is not just a mere rejection of 'facts about God', or God's promises, etc. But unbelief is also a rejection of the goodness of what God promises. So when we have faith in God, we both believe God, and also see great value in what he is giving us or promising us (like the guy who sold his stuff to get the pearl of great price).
4. Faith is Christ-shaped. It pivots around the work and promises of Christ, and is based on union with him. So Christian faith is unique, because it is intimately related to Christ and his death for our sins, and for all he gives us when we trust him.
There is more I haven't captured, and this is mostly from this morning's sermon, which rounded out the exegetical sermons nicely and was uniquely Levorian. I really enjoyed the series, and I think it was well worth doing.
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