is this christianity?

There are undoubtedly many mysteries in this world but being a Christian is right up there with the best of them. And I’m blowed if I can make any sense of it. It’s like being given the best map on the world and then getting lost. Or finding the love of your life and then discovering that you were allergic to it.

For instance, Jesus said blessed is the man who leaves his family and friends for me. Great you think, note to self; follow Jesus first. Then he says, seek first the kingdom of God, and you put that one on the list. Then he goes on to say, don’t worry about money (rock on); just have faith (tick); don’t worry about clothes (okey dokey); care for the poor, the needy, the outcast (poor, needy, outcast). And off you go, only to turn up a few years later as an accountant in Birmingham.

However, now you kind of need those clothes - smart clothes, and seeing as you also need a house you have to go and be worldly and get a mortgage. Which means you have a whole bunch of debt and it would be a very bad witness to default on any house bills. So the whole thing about not worrying about money goes out of the double glazed window. Reading about Jesus is like dipping into a mythical world where miracles really do happen and he’s calling out of the pages of the Bible to me ‘come on’ only I can’t find a way to reach him.

But all is not lost, even though I’m a Brummie accountant I can still do my bit. I can still care about the poor and needy; but they are either drug addicts or chuggers. And I’m not sure if giving them money is really helping. I offer to pray and tell them about Jesus but no one’s gets the sort of entranced, teary eyed bliss that should accompany the sort of shattering revelations I’m giving out for free. I’m saying become like me I’m free, and then rush back to the office where the back biting and bickering leave me feeling slightly embarrassed to make too much of my being a Christian. I feel as if the only difference between them and me is I’m trying to make my way in the world by sticking to a moral standard, which I can’t quite attain. Whilst they do whatever they want. They call me a hypocrite.

With all the uncertainties I’m not sure what following Jesus is anymore. It’s not money, or things, or family, or friends. It’s the poor and the needy but they don’t want anything I have, other than my money. It’s salvation and freedom but if I’m saved it’s a funny sort of saved and I know I’m not free. I was ready to die for the cause and then realised that I couldn’t even find the cause. And instead wondered around a bit trying to find something useful to do, and then drifted back into ordinary life. I still treasure the map but I can’t find the treasure.

our gods

Our gods are in us, they are small and weak and we feel the need to protect them. Someone who loves material possessions cannot jump up and exclaim. 'My desire to collect objects in meaningless' unless of course they've come to some great realisation. Because to them its not meaningless. To them it gives meaning to everything else. They cannot deny its meaning without being left directionless without feeling the pain of dieing inside. So we defend our gods because they give meaning to us, because they are us. And in order to leave the card game we need a God out there. One which is not us. Something external to ourselves which can draw us into a bigger world instead of our internal gods which draw us into an ever smaller and less satisfying world. This is why Alcoholics Anonymous makes reference to a higher power; someone going through AA is in the process of killing their god.

everything must consume

Everything must consume in order to live, but not everything must grow.
All human failings or weaknesses must consume. Low self esteem must consume, fear must consume; they have a diet. No one has a weakness that doesn't eat into the relationships of those around them. However, they don't consume in order to grow, they consume in order to remain the same. The diet of low self esteem wont cause it to grow into good self esteem.
For this reason our failings have a cyclic form but seem impossible to break out of. They feed and then the hunger seems to lift. But they have fed in order not to change.

The running man

All my life I’ve been running to catch up with love.

Occasionally I have,

B-r-e-a-t-h-l-e-s-s-l-y

run at its side

but more often

I have lagged miles behind.

But it has never stopped

It has never wanted to stop

and look at me and say

‘This is enough,

you and me’.

So I’m getting on the bus

I’m taking the train

The running man is dieing

And being born again

Christianity seems not to be enough

I have observed over several years, that in order for Christianity to be effective in a life, it needs to be built open solid formative years experience. So, for instance, if a person in their twenties makes a faith commitment they will find their faith a viable and rewarding experience only if they are a fairly well rounded person. If, on the other hand, they have had a screwed up childhood and then make a faith commitment, they will always be slightly nutty, extreme, or on the fringe of church. Although this later groups faith is often the most real thing in their life, it rarely produces the sort of holistic results which would set them free. It seems that the way we do Christianity has no power to heal deep seated psychological trauma, and so we use Christian psychologists instead. Which kind of works, gives people an airier cage, but doesn't set them free.

It has always seemed to me that people should have the right to be free, to balls things up them selves, and that that principle is one enshrined in scripture. And yet we know that a screwed up childhood means that a person is so damaged that they may never know what it is like to even start being themselves. They will simply hate who they are.

This principle of freedom seems so fundamental to me that i have spent many years on this one question, can God set people free?
And i have concluded that, yes, he can, it's all there in the bible. But its more about understanding than knowing. And that is hard to get across.

Mushrooms, an analogy

Our lives are dominated by fear, often subliminal. Fear is a mycelium threading its way invisibly through our lives. Hard to identify and impossible to uproot. It bares strange misshapen fruit - often when it detects change or an obstacle. Out of nowhere agoraphobia pops up, OCD unfurls its head, paranoia grows and deliquesces and grows again.

Fear dictates our lives to us, supplies the parameters for our existence, great strong walls which only our dreams are light enough to float over. Fear tells us what we're allowed to wear, say, or think. We are afraid and like fish hunted in the open sea huddle into a mass of same thought, same look, same ambition. And we, not wanting to admit it, tell others, tell me, tell you, that we like it like this. We are as slippery as fish when the truth is concerned, and yet fear has us right where it wants us. It is picking us off one by one, leaving empty eyes corpses sinking into the dark.

Bur what if the fear could be replaced by joy? A mycelium of joy running through the undercurrent of our lives. Popping up unexpectedly, bearing a new kind of fruit. A new kind of person.

That would not be a different concept, that would be a different world.

even God is not right

No one is right, we are all struggling to get there, to climb to the top of the mound and push away all those other, wrong, people who keep trying to push us off by proving that we're wrong. Christianity really, really wants to be right. But, it's not. Even God is not right. Right does not exist in the universe.
Because, if I, for instance, am right and you think differently to me then you must be wrong. So now I am right and you are wrong and our relationship would be about me trying to correct you. However, you believe what you believe because your life is a journey. So for me to insist hat you are wrong is tantamount to dismissing your entire experience of life. It is the same as saying you're worthless.
For this reason God in the Bible, takes advice from little humans, makes mistakes, appears to not know things. He is a God of Love and being right and being Love do not produce the same fruit. The one values humanity the other needs to bend it to its will.
That is not to say that people can't be wrong, they can. But just because i can see some one else's failings it doesn't mean I'm right. When i stand before God he isn't going to say to me ' you know of all the 6 billion people on the planet it was you who got me in the bag, well done'
There is a gentleness and humanity that comes with being wrong. Not wrong with a capitol W but wrong as in a state of being. Wrong, not because we do things we're ashamed of but just because we're not right and so instead of feeling the need to stand in judgement we can just love.

The Race

Some people run the race with long, easy, steady strides. They are the lucky ones. They were born on the starting line. Their whole lives can be measured on a straight and narrow lane.
But I spent the first thirty years of my life trying to find the stadium. Should I be judged if i trail behind, if i take stumbling steps.
This crowd will judge me on the race they see me running, which I will not win. But somewhere there must be some other judge who will see something other than losers in those that stumble, those that are last over the line. Somewhere there is a rostrum on which we will stand and instead of the stadiums fickle applause we will relieve a better and more lasting welcome. For we ran when no one was looking and when we could not run, we crawled.

Free Counter

any faith system which we adhere to as humans, should work in the real world. what i mean is, it needs to have an effect on our interaction with the present in order to make it more real. Many religiouse practitioners realise how difficult this is and so cop out of the idea of thier faith affecting the world now and declare that it will all happen after we die. Which is handy because who's to say it doesn't. But it is cheating. All faith systems must work here and now and this blog is primarily about that one question. How do i make my faith work and does it work? (that's two questions) - it's all very confusing.

If i had a magic tv remote - I've seen a film along these lines - which could control the world and everyone in it - a sort of push button God - then i would be right to worship that remote. I would be right to tell people 'this remote controls the world' they might be skeptical, but it would be the truth, and i would have a greater understanding of the world than anyone else.

But on the other hand if i have a faith system that doesn't work, whether Christianity or humanity, i have no right to believe in that system, it is worthless.

Faith in any system, whether religious or not, is the same. It is attributing power where power belongs. But if we have put our faith in the wrong place then we are wasting our time and our lives.

This is why a wrote the card game blog. To start the journey by saying that the way we build our identity is not currently working for any human being but the real question is where do we walk out to? what is outside the door?

card game

We’re dealt the cards and we play the game. I’ve got my deck, I hold it up, fan it out and climb inside. This is me and the game will be won or lost with me on board. I am the price that is paid.

I am holding: a male, a mediocre upbringing, a good IQ, a couple of traumas, good genes, poor education, low self-esteem…it could be a winning hand, but it’s doubtful, depends what everyone else has got.

We eye each other across the table. It’s a long game; goes on about 70 years and will make losers of us all in the end. We play for a ‘life’ - before death comes and stakes his claim – a ‘life’, which is measured by the value of our different hands. What we all want are the winning cards, ones which are so good, they make us feel good. But when we win we still feel like losers, so we change the rules and play on.

All I wanted was to go home and yet somehow, like the others, I was tricked into this stupid game. I’m betting my life on cards which aren’t worth it, I’m bluffing and cheating in order to even the odds and I know that all I can do is lose because winning isn’t enough. The cards I’m holding aren’t good enough to win the life I want, so I ask myself, why am I even bothering to play?

These cards aren’t me, how can they be, I never wanted them nor asked for them. If I had my way I would never have dealt myself these cards. I would have had a tall, a handsome, an amazing musician, a rich, an intelligent. I would make sure I never got any pain handed me. And yet I see death, abuse, terrible suffering and heartache –to name but a few – being dealt out. They’re ugly and useless cards and, even worse, lives being staked on them. Pain and suffering are laid down with a flourish, the player- in their need to win - having defaced the cards, written bravado and carefree across them. I hate this game.

I watch the cycle of winning and losing, losing and winning and gradually, over years, the truth dawns on me; there are no winners, it only feels so because we’re mesmerised by the value of the stakes, but the stakes are the only things that matter. I reach forward and pick myself up off the table. “You can’t do that” say the others “that’s breaking the rules.”

“It’s only breaking the rules, if I’m playing the game” I reply. And with that I push my chair back, get up, and walk away. As I pass a bin on the way out I throw my cards into it. They are nothing to do with me.

I imagine you might think that this story has nothing to do with church but it is to do with life and they are, or should be, indelibly connected