The blaze of green which has appeared on Wales’ trees is at least as stunning as the turning on of any Christmas lights.
Springtime is a glorious shock, when nature makes a Rocky-style comeback after the pummelling cold of winter.
In the temperate British Isles, when we think of natural phenomena we picture snowdrops breaking through the ground and flutter-pasts by Red Admirals.
We are not familiar with the sound of a rattlesnake on our porch, the curve of a Great White shark’s fin or the spiralling terror of a tornado as it licks calamity across a landscape.
But the emergence of so-called swine flu has reminded us that nature is not a kindly nanny who reappears each spring with a cheerful bouquet but an unpredictable force which can bring destruction as easily as beauty.
While we look at the workings of cells with wonder, we recoil in horror at the nefarious ingenuity of a mutating killer virus. This fusion of genius and malevolence is disorientating and troubling.
We struggle to understand the ideologies of suicide bombers, but the sheer violence of killer diseases is so arbitrary, relentless and starched of mercy.
Communities in western Europe have lived for several generations largely untouched by the ravages of nature. We have been preoccupied with the baffling phenomenon of evil with engineered the Holocaust and the crimes of the Balkans.
The idea that something could come out of the natural world to threaten our existence has not been at the forefront of our minds, in contrast with the experiences of most peoples throughout history.
Sure, we have discussed the possibility of pandemics, calculated the likelihood of an asteroid strike and set targets to slow climate change, but we have not recognised the utter fragility of our species.
Our American cousins are familiar with the destructive effects of hurricanes striking their coast, and Californians live in anticipation of an earthquake of atomic proportions. Millionaires are used to worrying about raging wildfires around Malibu and campers know not to cuddle grizzly bears.
In contrast, a British man who has tamed the great outdoors will know how to identify 30 different newts and have a salvo of tips for avoiding mildew.
In movies such as Independence Day and Armageddon, the threat of global annihilation compels people from different nations to collaborate on a shared mission of survival.
It is probably too much to hope that a less romantic but more respectful regard for nature will encourage us to prize human life as a remarkable one-off gift with a new awe and to cherish our most vulnerable citizens.
But the new vague worry which has swirled into our society should give us an inkling of an appreciation of the true fear which millions experience every time they see a mosquito, drink water or pray for rain.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Internationalists 2.0
Jack Jones volunteered to fight fascists in Spain and went on to become one of the most powerful men in Britain as leader of the largest trade union.
His death at the age of 96 on Tuesday evening marked the passing a man who personified and pursued a socialist vision which he considered worth fighting and dying for.
If he was a young man today, where would he invest his extraordinary energies?
Anyone who reads Mr Jones’s obituaries will be struck by the utter transformation of politics which has taken place in less than a century.
When people remember the union movement of the 1970s they often recall the Winter of Discontent.
What is easily forgotten is the idealism and power of conviction which burned in men like Mr Jones. They envisaged a system of industrial democracy which would protect communities and drive the economy.
Wales today is drenched in the rhetoric of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility, but these commitments are essentially about restraining capitalism’s most self-destructive tendencies. While any effort by government and corporations to protect the planet for the next generation of consumers is welcome, such efforts represent a taming of market-driven democracy, not an alternative to it.
But within living memory, people of brain and brawn, idealism and action, invested hours away from family, television, wireless and pub in seeking to build a just society.
As Mr Jones and many other young idealists demonstrated when they volunteered to fight Franco’s forces in Spain, they had an uncompromising commitment to internationalism.
The irony today is that the rhetoric of spreading democracy through armed intervention is now associated with neoconservatives (many of whom were former Marxists) who successfully urged the Bush administration to give history a nudge by invading Iraq.
But as Mr Jones is laid to rest, it would be a mistake to write the final epitaph for his vision of border-crossing solidarity and justice.
Barack Obama’s internet-alert presidential campaign harnessed the rhetoric of change and transformation and excited at least as many people beyond the borders of the United States as those entitled to vote in the election.
Opinion polls for the most respected intellectual regularly honour radical luminaries such as Noam Chomsky. Visit the politics section of any mainstream bookshop and you will find a plethora of polemics against the dominance of corporations and growing inequality; these titles find readers because there is a gnawing sense among left and right-leaning people that something is wrong.
The new tools of social networking may well be used in the coming years to develop truly international groups of level-headed people committed to values Mr Jones would have shared.
If citizens can pool intellect and cash to help fight disease, share knowledge, defend rights and expose corruption, Mr Jones’s dream is not dead.
His death at the age of 96 on Tuesday evening marked the passing a man who personified and pursued a socialist vision which he considered worth fighting and dying for.
If he was a young man today, where would he invest his extraordinary energies?
Anyone who reads Mr Jones’s obituaries will be struck by the utter transformation of politics which has taken place in less than a century.
When people remember the union movement of the 1970s they often recall the Winter of Discontent.
What is easily forgotten is the idealism and power of conviction which burned in men like Mr Jones. They envisaged a system of industrial democracy which would protect communities and drive the economy.
Wales today is drenched in the rhetoric of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility, but these commitments are essentially about restraining capitalism’s most self-destructive tendencies. While any effort by government and corporations to protect the planet for the next generation of consumers is welcome, such efforts represent a taming of market-driven democracy, not an alternative to it.
But within living memory, people of brain and brawn, idealism and action, invested hours away from family, television, wireless and pub in seeking to build a just society.
As Mr Jones and many other young idealists demonstrated when they volunteered to fight Franco’s forces in Spain, they had an uncompromising commitment to internationalism.
The irony today is that the rhetoric of spreading democracy through armed intervention is now associated with neoconservatives (many of whom were former Marxists) who successfully urged the Bush administration to give history a nudge by invading Iraq.
But as Mr Jones is laid to rest, it would be a mistake to write the final epitaph for his vision of border-crossing solidarity and justice.
Barack Obama’s internet-alert presidential campaign harnessed the rhetoric of change and transformation and excited at least as many people beyond the borders of the United States as those entitled to vote in the election.
Opinion polls for the most respected intellectual regularly honour radical luminaries such as Noam Chomsky. Visit the politics section of any mainstream bookshop and you will find a plethora of polemics against the dominance of corporations and growing inequality; these titles find readers because there is a gnawing sense among left and right-leaning people that something is wrong.
The new tools of social networking may well be used in the coming years to develop truly international groups of level-headed people committed to values Mr Jones would have shared.
If citizens can pool intellect and cash to help fight disease, share knowledge, defend rights and expose corruption, Mr Jones’s dream is not dead.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Politics goes to the dogs
If you visit a pet shop within walking distance of Westminster, do not be surprised if a hefty man with a deep Scottish brogue is examining the merits of a selection of puppies.
A politician’s career would be fried if he attempted to deflect a tough question in a press conference by playing a banjo. But play with a dog and photographers will drown out bleating inquiries about bail-outs for billionaires with the snap of flashbulbs.
Times are tough for Gordon Brown and a canine could be a source of solace and spin.
In the run-up to the 2001 election, Tony Blair attempted to rekindle the youthful euphoria of 1997 by arriving at Downing Street with a guitar case. What are the chances we will soon see Brown clamber out of his car with a five-week-old wolfhound?
Global fascination with the arrival of the latest White House dog demonstrates the genius of President Obama’s news-spinning and contrasts with the clunking despair at the heart of the Labour machine.
On the night of his election, Obama promised his photogenic daughters a puppy. This was one campaign pledge that was quite easy for the press and public to track.
He soon added a new twist by announcing the hound would have to be hypoallergenic to protect the health of his eldest daughter. This portrayed Obama as America’s super-dad. Yes, he was cautious and hyper-intelligent, but he was not a closeted boffin; just as his daughters would have to wait for a safe puppy, so the populace could not expect an instant solution to financial malaise.
Economists will argue for years about the merits of his stimulus package and political opponents will disparage early claims that the nation is on the road to recovery.
But each time Americans see Obama’s daughters frolicking with Bo, the Portuguese water dog (the decision not to imitate JFK and buy a Welsh terrier should not be taken as a snub), they will remember that their president is a man who keeps his promises and their hearts will throb with hope.
Choosing to announce the selection of this pooch as he approaches his 100th day in office is a honeymoon-prolonging masterstroke.
Brown’s spin-hacks should have been emailing each other ideas for interesting pets (or, if they wanted to be radical, great policy concepts) rather than concocting lurid nonsense about rivals’ family lives.
Despite Obama’s respect for America’s pioneering presidents, for some reason he chose not to follow the example of John Adams, whose wife had a dog named Satan.
And Brown should be advised not to imitate ostrich-loving music legend Johnny Cash who was nearly killed by his giant bird.
All Prime Ministers long for a place in the history books, but being the first forced out of office by an ostrich is an accolade nobody wants.
A politician’s career would be fried if he attempted to deflect a tough question in a press conference by playing a banjo. But play with a dog and photographers will drown out bleating inquiries about bail-outs for billionaires with the snap of flashbulbs.
Times are tough for Gordon Brown and a canine could be a source of solace and spin.
In the run-up to the 2001 election, Tony Blair attempted to rekindle the youthful euphoria of 1997 by arriving at Downing Street with a guitar case. What are the chances we will soon see Brown clamber out of his car with a five-week-old wolfhound?
Global fascination with the arrival of the latest White House dog demonstrates the genius of President Obama’s news-spinning and contrasts with the clunking despair at the heart of the Labour machine.
On the night of his election, Obama promised his photogenic daughters a puppy. This was one campaign pledge that was quite easy for the press and public to track.
He soon added a new twist by announcing the hound would have to be hypoallergenic to protect the health of his eldest daughter. This portrayed Obama as America’s super-dad. Yes, he was cautious and hyper-intelligent, but he was not a closeted boffin; just as his daughters would have to wait for a safe puppy, so the populace could not expect an instant solution to financial malaise.
Economists will argue for years about the merits of his stimulus package and political opponents will disparage early claims that the nation is on the road to recovery.
But each time Americans see Obama’s daughters frolicking with Bo, the Portuguese water dog (the decision not to imitate JFK and buy a Welsh terrier should not be taken as a snub), they will remember that their president is a man who keeps his promises and their hearts will throb with hope.
Choosing to announce the selection of this pooch as he approaches his 100th day in office is a honeymoon-prolonging masterstroke.
Brown’s spin-hacks should have been emailing each other ideas for interesting pets (or, if they wanted to be radical, great policy concepts) rather than concocting lurid nonsense about rivals’ family lives.
Despite Obama’s respect for America’s pioneering presidents, for some reason he chose not to follow the example of John Adams, whose wife had a dog named Satan.
And Brown should be advised not to imitate ostrich-loving music legend Johnny Cash who was nearly killed by his giant bird.
All Prime Ministers long for a place in the history books, but being the first forced out of office by an ostrich is an accolade nobody wants.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Happy Easter, 2009!
It is easy to believe that Jesus was a good man.
It is also easy to believe that Jesus was killed.
Good men are often killed young, in horrible circumstances.
We can think of Martin Luther King,
Gunned down before he could see his dream come true.
The history of the world took a sudden turn
When JFK was shot in his motorcade in Dallas.
The list goes on.
Buddy Holly changed the trajectory of the pop song.
They called the moment of his plane crash
The day the music died.
And Jesus is
As good,
As great,
As famous,
As any of these men.
He had the dream of a kingdom,
Where sinners were forgiven
And enemies loved.
He looked to the plight of the poor
With the eyes of a prophet,
But extended the hand of a friend
And the embrace of a brother
With the touch of a healer.
Jesus introduced ideas which were more revolutionary
Than any political manifesto.
Love your neighbour as you love yourself.
Judge not lest ye be judged.
These words are in the patterns of our speech.
The ideas have powered change and transformed lives,
Shaped our ideals of justice
And crafted hopes of mercy.
In his life we see a work of art.
He taught fishermen and zealots to cherish children,
And consider the beauty of lilies.
He took them onto mountaintops where they would see eternity open.
When he wanted to teach them theology,
He gave them a meal we call communion.
Jesus painted in words and work, attitudes and action.
And like martyrs past, present and future,
The darkest forces in the world colluded to strike him down.
Political corruption and religious hypocrisy
Came together in an act of public murder.
He was hung up to die.
We have seen it before,
We will see it again.
Jesus ranks with the greatest visionaries, leaders and artists in history,
And like so many he died a tragic death,
At once a public display of humiliation
And the cruellest gouging of loneliness.
But –
And this is where people pride their common sense may despair –
Christians believe he came back to life.
To make matters worse,
This was no ordinary resuscitation.
It was not as if God came to the tomb with a magic defibrillator
And shocked his body awake.
No, the Jesus who rose would not die again.
In his resurrection death had been conquered
And God had been revealed.
The same Jesus who ascended to heaven
Cooked fish on a beach
And met Mary in a Garden.
The Christian community
Are people on earth
Who make the audacious claim:
“We have seen God in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
As Robert Jenson says:
“The Crucifixion put it up to the Father:
Would he stand to this alleged Son?
To this candidate to be his own self-identifying Word?
Would he be a God who,
For example,
Hosts publicans and sinners,
Who justifies the ungodly?
The Resurrection was the Father’s Yes.”
This is the Christian story.
Has a myth or legend ever been repeated in human time
Which can touch its glory and power?
This is a God who reveals
His essence and life
In the tenderness of the intimate.
We are embraced within the infinite,
In mercy we see the magnificent.
Judging the Christian story
By the clumsy mistakes of Christians,
Is as daft as refusing to listen to a song
Because you don’t like the colour of the CD.
The Church does not own this story,
It is good news for the world.
But it is one thing to enjoy its beauty and drama
As a splendid myth,
Like the Odyssey
Or the original Star Wars trilogy.
It is quite another thing to accept it as true.
We can wonder whether or not there was a Big Bang,
But it does not make much difference to our plans for the day.
Yet if Jesus Christ is alive,
This is the touchstone of all reality.
The implications are inescapable.
I am a human being,
I will one day die.
I am a created being,
I need to know my creator.
If I do not know Jesus,
I will not know that death
Need not be feared.
If I do not know Jesus,
I will not know God.
Nor will I know that there
In the darkness between the stars
Is not hollow emptiness
But blazing love
Which binds the cosmos together
And brought forth the first spark of life.
Christians believe
Jesus want us to know these facts.
Facts which require faith.
But more than that,
He wants us to know him.
This is different from knowing “about” Jesus.
You can read every speech by Martin Luther King,
Sit in the chair where JFK rocked through the Cuban Missile Crisis
And track down every Buddy Holly recording in existence.
You can become an expert about these three men,
But you will not know them.
This side of heaven
We will not be able to ask
MLK and JFK
What they think of Barack Obama.
There is no chance of ever asking Buddy Holly
What songs he sang in the bath.
They are gone.
When Christians talk about Jesus being alive,
They do not simply mean he is “not dead”.
No, they believe that his presence is real,
That he is shaping this world,
And that he will come again in glory as lord of all life.
In the Book of Revelation the risen Jesus declares:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in and eat with him,
And he with me.
The one who conquers,
I will grant him to sit with me on my throne,
As I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
He who has an ear,
Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
This is why Christianity is more than humanism with tambourines.
It makes claims so epic that the proper reaction is to
Spurt tea in all directions.
Does the church actually believe this?
That a Galilean carpenter defeated death on the cross,
Rose to eternal life
And now sits with God the Father on his throne.
And not only that,
He calls you and me to join him on this throne –
A throne from which all existence flows?
It is hard enough to believe in miracles of bread and fishes,
But this message –
This hope –
It is too glorious,
Too terrifying,
Too unwarranted,
Undeserved, unrequested
Surely, to be true?
Joseph Ratzinger says:
“Excess is God’s trademark in his creation;
As the Fathers put it,
‘God does not reckon his gifts by the measure.’
At the same time
Excess is also the real foundation and
Form of salvation history,
Which in the last analysis is nothing other
Than the truly breathtaking fact
That God,
In an incredible outpouring of himself,
Expends not only a universe
But his own self
In order to lead man,
A speck of dust,
To salvation.”
This is the real story in the Bible’s pages,
The Gospel in widescreen;
The director’s cut,
Which has converted kings
Thrilled slaves,
Motivated missionaries,
And shaped saints.
This is why churches were built on lonely hills,
Where clusters of shepherds would worship with their families.
This was not a duty,
A tradition,
Or a pastime.
Worship was,
Is,
A glimpse into the deepest workings of the universe.
For the past 20 centuries,
When Christians have gathered for Communion,
They have not been coming together to remember a dead Messiah,
But in drinking wine and eating bread,
They have seen and shared wonders
Not even the Hubble telescope can reveal.
And if the real story is really true,
The risen Jesus has been herding his people together,
A shepherd with a plan,
Knocking on the doors of our hearts,
Making this world new.
But the message of Jesus is not just a challenge to our values,
Our ambitions,
Our codes,
Our identity,
Our heroes,
And our hopes,
It seems to contravene the laws of physics.
Will we, too, one day be hauled from our graves
To experience resurrection ourselves?
Is this what lies ahead,
As surely as tomorrow is Monday?
It is beautiful to think that in a world of tyrants and terrors,
The person on the throne is a God of love,
Who has shared in all the sorrows that life and fling,
Yet knows when a sparrow falls,
And died to bring new life to us all.
It is beautiful,
But can it be true?
So many of the churches where the shepherds and their families sang
Are now empty on a Sunday.
They are tombs of a vanished time,
But has the hope gone?
Does the empty tomb of Easter
Still have the power to save?
Sledgehammers of sadnesses
And dragoons of doubt can beset us.
What are we to make of the words the church carries
And the Bible declares.
When a planet seems ransacked by wrong,
Where is the love and the life in which we were taught to hope?
In the Gospel of Luke,
Two friends were walking to the village of Emmaus,
Asking the same questions.
The Jesus in which they had invested their dreams
Had been scourged, crucified, and buried.
And now there were wild tales of a resurrection.
Come on,
Life’s too short for fantasies.
Yet in their fear and bewilderment the risen Jesus draws near them.
Not in a Technicolor revelation of his “Godness”,
Not with strobe lighting, dry ice and a deep Hollywood accent,
But in the person they needed,
A friendly fellow walker on the road.
One who asks them “what things” they are discussing.
They turn to the stranger and tell him they are talking about:
“Jesus of Nazareth,
A man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,
And how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death,
And crucified him.
Moreover,
Some women of our company amazed us.
They were at the tomb early in the morning,
And when they did not find his body,
They came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels,
Who said that he was alive.
Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said,
But him they did not see.”
Any faith these men had in “chief priests and rulers” was gone.
And what could they make of the women’s story?
These were their friends,
Not strange fanatics.
What was going on?
What had they seen?
What had they done?
As Stanley Hauerwas puts it:
“One worships only God.
Yet they worship him.
They had not worshipped the angel who announced Jesus’ resurrection,
But now they worship Jesus.
These women of Israel,
Formed by Israel’s commandment to worship God alone,
Worship Jesus.
If this is not the Son of God
Then they are surely idolaters.
But this is the crucified Jesus,
The Son of God,
Who alone is worthy of worship.”
The men on the road
Had seen no angels.
They had the memories of Jesus the orator and visionary,
And leader and miracle maker.
But now, like us, they were confronted
With spectacular testimony,
That seemed at once glorious
And preposterous.
And yet this Jesus is closer to these men than they have dared dream.
Just as the Messiah who had come to Israel
Did not look like the warrior prince they were raised to expect,
The true Jesus was by their side and they did not know him.
The stranger speaks:
“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,
He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
It is getting dark and the two men urge their new friend to stay with them that night.
They gather around the table and
When he breaks a loaf of bread and blesses it
Their eyes are opened.
They seem him,
The real Jesus.
Yes, he vanishes from their sight,
But now they know
That he is alive.
Luke tells us:
“They said to each other,
‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road,
While he opened to us the Scriptures?’”
They raced back the seven miles to Jerusalem to share the Good News.
Before his death and resurrection,
Jesus had told his disciples:
“[Where] two or three are gathered in my name,
There am I among them.”
When these Christians next gathered to break bread,
They knew this wasn’t a metaphor,
Or a nice idea.
No,
They had seen him at their table.
He had taught them about himself,
They had been seized with joy,
And emboldened by a truth
Worth telling the world.
If on a dull day in church
You start to smell smoke,
It is this secret smouldering
In the Scriptures.
The Holy Spirit wants to flame bright,
Anoint us, empower us,
Heal us and change us
To the delight and the glory of God.
Our own resurrection begins
Today.
Read it in Romans 8.10-11:
“[If] Christ is in you,
Although the body is dead
Because of sin,
The Spirit is life
Because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
Dwells in you,
He who raised Christ Jesus
From the dead
Will also give life
To your mortal bodies
Through his Spirit
Who dwells in you.”
This promise took Saint Patrick to barbarian tribes
And persuaded the Apostle Paul to tramp Europe with his message.
This is the audacious tale of Jesus Christ
And if it makes our hearts burn,
Don’t reach for the Alka-Seltzer of doubting detachment.
We should embrace its fire
And believe that he as real here
As on the lonely road to Emmaus;
Ready to fill rooms, worlds and lives
With resurrection joy.
We now live in a creation
Where new life
Is born again, and again, and again.
It is also easy to believe that Jesus was killed.
Good men are often killed young, in horrible circumstances.
We can think of Martin Luther King,
Gunned down before he could see his dream come true.
The history of the world took a sudden turn
When JFK was shot in his motorcade in Dallas.
The list goes on.
Buddy Holly changed the trajectory of the pop song.
They called the moment of his plane crash
The day the music died.
And Jesus is
As good,
As great,
As famous,
As any of these men.
He had the dream of a kingdom,
Where sinners were forgiven
And enemies loved.
He looked to the plight of the poor
With the eyes of a prophet,
But extended the hand of a friend
And the embrace of a brother
With the touch of a healer.
Jesus introduced ideas which were more revolutionary
Than any political manifesto.
Love your neighbour as you love yourself.
Judge not lest ye be judged.
These words are in the patterns of our speech.
The ideas have powered change and transformed lives,
Shaped our ideals of justice
And crafted hopes of mercy.
In his life we see a work of art.
He taught fishermen and zealots to cherish children,
And consider the beauty of lilies.
He took them onto mountaintops where they would see eternity open.
When he wanted to teach them theology,
He gave them a meal we call communion.
Jesus painted in words and work, attitudes and action.
And like martyrs past, present and future,
The darkest forces in the world colluded to strike him down.
Political corruption and religious hypocrisy
Came together in an act of public murder.
He was hung up to die.
We have seen it before,
We will see it again.
Jesus ranks with the greatest visionaries, leaders and artists in history,
And like so many he died a tragic death,
At once a public display of humiliation
And the cruellest gouging of loneliness.
But –
And this is where people pride their common sense may despair –
Christians believe he came back to life.
To make matters worse,
This was no ordinary resuscitation.
It was not as if God came to the tomb with a magic defibrillator
And shocked his body awake.
No, the Jesus who rose would not die again.
In his resurrection death had been conquered
And God had been revealed.
The same Jesus who ascended to heaven
Cooked fish on a beach
And met Mary in a Garden.
The Christian community
Are people on earth
Who make the audacious claim:
“We have seen God in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
As Robert Jenson says:
“The Crucifixion put it up to the Father:
Would he stand to this alleged Son?
To this candidate to be his own self-identifying Word?
Would he be a God who,
For example,
Hosts publicans and sinners,
Who justifies the ungodly?
The Resurrection was the Father’s Yes.”
This is the Christian story.
Has a myth or legend ever been repeated in human time
Which can touch its glory and power?
This is a God who reveals
His essence and life
In the tenderness of the intimate.
We are embraced within the infinite,
In mercy we see the magnificent.
Judging the Christian story
By the clumsy mistakes of Christians,
Is as daft as refusing to listen to a song
Because you don’t like the colour of the CD.
The Church does not own this story,
It is good news for the world.
But it is one thing to enjoy its beauty and drama
As a splendid myth,
Like the Odyssey
Or the original Star Wars trilogy.
It is quite another thing to accept it as true.
We can wonder whether or not there was a Big Bang,
But it does not make much difference to our plans for the day.
Yet if Jesus Christ is alive,
This is the touchstone of all reality.
The implications are inescapable.
I am a human being,
I will one day die.
I am a created being,
I need to know my creator.
If I do not know Jesus,
I will not know that death
Need not be feared.
If I do not know Jesus,
I will not know God.
Nor will I know that there
In the darkness between the stars
Is not hollow emptiness
But blazing love
Which binds the cosmos together
And brought forth the first spark of life.
Christians believe
Jesus want us to know these facts.
Facts which require faith.
But more than that,
He wants us to know him.
This is different from knowing “about” Jesus.
You can read every speech by Martin Luther King,
Sit in the chair where JFK rocked through the Cuban Missile Crisis
And track down every Buddy Holly recording in existence.
You can become an expert about these three men,
But you will not know them.
This side of heaven
We will not be able to ask
MLK and JFK
What they think of Barack Obama.
There is no chance of ever asking Buddy Holly
What songs he sang in the bath.
They are gone.
When Christians talk about Jesus being alive,
They do not simply mean he is “not dead”.
No, they believe that his presence is real,
That he is shaping this world,
And that he will come again in glory as lord of all life.
In the Book of Revelation the risen Jesus declares:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in and eat with him,
And he with me.
The one who conquers,
I will grant him to sit with me on my throne,
As I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
He who has an ear,
Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
This is why Christianity is more than humanism with tambourines.
It makes claims so epic that the proper reaction is to
Spurt tea in all directions.
Does the church actually believe this?
That a Galilean carpenter defeated death on the cross,
Rose to eternal life
And now sits with God the Father on his throne.
And not only that,
He calls you and me to join him on this throne –
A throne from which all existence flows?
It is hard enough to believe in miracles of bread and fishes,
But this message –
This hope –
It is too glorious,
Too terrifying,
Too unwarranted,
Undeserved, unrequested
Surely, to be true?
Joseph Ratzinger says:
“Excess is God’s trademark in his creation;
As the Fathers put it,
‘God does not reckon his gifts by the measure.’
At the same time
Excess is also the real foundation and
Form of salvation history,
Which in the last analysis is nothing other
Than the truly breathtaking fact
That God,
In an incredible outpouring of himself,
Expends not only a universe
But his own self
In order to lead man,
A speck of dust,
To salvation.”
This is the real story in the Bible’s pages,
The Gospel in widescreen;
The director’s cut,
Which has converted kings
Thrilled slaves,
Motivated missionaries,
And shaped saints.
This is why churches were built on lonely hills,
Where clusters of shepherds would worship with their families.
This was not a duty,
A tradition,
Or a pastime.
Worship was,
Is,
A glimpse into the deepest workings of the universe.
For the past 20 centuries,
When Christians have gathered for Communion,
They have not been coming together to remember a dead Messiah,
But in drinking wine and eating bread,
They have seen and shared wonders
Not even the Hubble telescope can reveal.
And if the real story is really true,
The risen Jesus has been herding his people together,
A shepherd with a plan,
Knocking on the doors of our hearts,
Making this world new.
But the message of Jesus is not just a challenge to our values,
Our ambitions,
Our codes,
Our identity,
Our heroes,
And our hopes,
It seems to contravene the laws of physics.
Will we, too, one day be hauled from our graves
To experience resurrection ourselves?
Is this what lies ahead,
As surely as tomorrow is Monday?
It is beautiful to think that in a world of tyrants and terrors,
The person on the throne is a God of love,
Who has shared in all the sorrows that life and fling,
Yet knows when a sparrow falls,
And died to bring new life to us all.
It is beautiful,
But can it be true?
So many of the churches where the shepherds and their families sang
Are now empty on a Sunday.
They are tombs of a vanished time,
But has the hope gone?
Does the empty tomb of Easter
Still have the power to save?
Sledgehammers of sadnesses
And dragoons of doubt can beset us.
What are we to make of the words the church carries
And the Bible declares.
When a planet seems ransacked by wrong,
Where is the love and the life in which we were taught to hope?
In the Gospel of Luke,
Two friends were walking to the village of Emmaus,
Asking the same questions.
The Jesus in which they had invested their dreams
Had been scourged, crucified, and buried.
And now there were wild tales of a resurrection.
Come on,
Life’s too short for fantasies.
Yet in their fear and bewilderment the risen Jesus draws near them.
Not in a Technicolor revelation of his “Godness”,
Not with strobe lighting, dry ice and a deep Hollywood accent,
But in the person they needed,
A friendly fellow walker on the road.
One who asks them “what things” they are discussing.
They turn to the stranger and tell him they are talking about:
“Jesus of Nazareth,
A man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,
And how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death,
And crucified him.
Moreover,
Some women of our company amazed us.
They were at the tomb early in the morning,
And when they did not find his body,
They came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels,
Who said that he was alive.
Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said,
But him they did not see.”
Any faith these men had in “chief priests and rulers” was gone.
And what could they make of the women’s story?
These were their friends,
Not strange fanatics.
What was going on?
What had they seen?
What had they done?
As Stanley Hauerwas puts it:
“One worships only God.
Yet they worship him.
They had not worshipped the angel who announced Jesus’ resurrection,
But now they worship Jesus.
These women of Israel,
Formed by Israel’s commandment to worship God alone,
Worship Jesus.
If this is not the Son of God
Then they are surely idolaters.
But this is the crucified Jesus,
The Son of God,
Who alone is worthy of worship.”
The men on the road
Had seen no angels.
They had the memories of Jesus the orator and visionary,
And leader and miracle maker.
But now, like us, they were confronted
With spectacular testimony,
That seemed at once glorious
And preposterous.
And yet this Jesus is closer to these men than they have dared dream.
Just as the Messiah who had come to Israel
Did not look like the warrior prince they were raised to expect,
The true Jesus was by their side and they did not know him.
The stranger speaks:
“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,
He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
It is getting dark and the two men urge their new friend to stay with them that night.
They gather around the table and
When he breaks a loaf of bread and blesses it
Their eyes are opened.
They seem him,
The real Jesus.
Yes, he vanishes from their sight,
But now they know
That he is alive.
Luke tells us:
“They said to each other,
‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road,
While he opened to us the Scriptures?’”
They raced back the seven miles to Jerusalem to share the Good News.
Before his death and resurrection,
Jesus had told his disciples:
“[Where] two or three are gathered in my name,
There am I among them.”
When these Christians next gathered to break bread,
They knew this wasn’t a metaphor,
Or a nice idea.
No,
They had seen him at their table.
He had taught them about himself,
They had been seized with joy,
And emboldened by a truth
Worth telling the world.
If on a dull day in church
You start to smell smoke,
It is this secret smouldering
In the Scriptures.
The Holy Spirit wants to flame bright,
Anoint us, empower us,
Heal us and change us
To the delight and the glory of God.
Our own resurrection begins
Today.
Read it in Romans 8.10-11:
“[If] Christ is in you,
Although the body is dead
Because of sin,
The Spirit is life
Because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
Dwells in you,
He who raised Christ Jesus
From the dead
Will also give life
To your mortal bodies
Through his Spirit
Who dwells in you.”
This promise took Saint Patrick to barbarian tribes
And persuaded the Apostle Paul to tramp Europe with his message.
This is the audacious tale of Jesus Christ
And if it makes our hearts burn,
Don’t reach for the Alka-Seltzer of doubting detachment.
We should embrace its fire
And believe that he as real here
As on the lonely road to Emmaus;
Ready to fill rooms, worlds and lives
With resurrection joy.
We now live in a creation
Where new life
Is born again, and again, and again.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
In Praise of the Amateur
Students in Cardiff rarely go into spaniel-contortions of excitement when they learn they are getting a visitor from beyond the boundaries of the city.
It is very different in Aberdeen.
I spent three years in the Scottish city and the suggestion that someone was even contemplating the wild trek north was a cause of jig-dancing joy.
So when word filtered out that Malcolm McLaren – the legendary zeitgeist-conjurer who helped invent the “punk” phenomenon – would give a talk at the Lemon Tree arts centre, it was the equivalent of learning that Barack Obama was playing a ukulele in your living room.
As the fuzzy-haired legend downed swiftly refilled glasses of white wine he delivered a wonderful homily in praise of the amateur, the person who is utterly unqualified to embark on a creative endeavour but with punkish pluck has a go.
Leaning forward, Mr McLaren declared it was better to be a spectacular failure than a benign success.
I was reminded of those words when my landlord mounted a ladder to perform a task of considerable ambition involving a saw and a drainpipe.
Most people, he explained, will not begin tasks they do not how to accomplish and fail to appreciate the human power of figuring things out as they go along.
If we removed the contribution of amateurs to art and science, astronomy would be impoverished, the best blogs would go unwritten and early Olympian legends would never have set foot on the track.
I recoiled in horror recently when a friend told me about a computer program called Songsmith which allows you to create complete works of music without touching an instrument. Essentially, you sing into your computer’s microphone and it alchemises one’s warblings into a fully arranged song.
But as I walked back from a day’s work, the concept began to glow as a shining opportunity to create a “spectacular failure”.
I opened the front door and dashed to the laptop to download Songsmith. By now an idea for a song about a Russian sailor making paper boats on a deserted Coney Island pier had germinated.
Before Newsnight ended, the computer’s speakers were playing a finished big band number featuring a brilliant alto sax.
When I sent a recording to a formidable cellist she responded: “Don’t give up the day hobby.”
Subsequent efforts to write another song have only produced sonic abominations which send cats hurtling down rabbit-holes.
But the experience has left me reeling in new appreciation at the skill and creative prowess and sheer labour which true songwriters demonstrate.
The digital revolution has allowed us to consume more media than ever before, but if it allows us to create – to have a go – then we shall also take deeper pleasure from works of genius, even if we never actually make one.
It is very different in Aberdeen.
I spent three years in the Scottish city and the suggestion that someone was even contemplating the wild trek north was a cause of jig-dancing joy.
So when word filtered out that Malcolm McLaren – the legendary zeitgeist-conjurer who helped invent the “punk” phenomenon – would give a talk at the Lemon Tree arts centre, it was the equivalent of learning that Barack Obama was playing a ukulele in your living room.
As the fuzzy-haired legend downed swiftly refilled glasses of white wine he delivered a wonderful homily in praise of the amateur, the person who is utterly unqualified to embark on a creative endeavour but with punkish pluck has a go.
Leaning forward, Mr McLaren declared it was better to be a spectacular failure than a benign success.
I was reminded of those words when my landlord mounted a ladder to perform a task of considerable ambition involving a saw and a drainpipe.
Most people, he explained, will not begin tasks they do not how to accomplish and fail to appreciate the human power of figuring things out as they go along.
If we removed the contribution of amateurs to art and science, astronomy would be impoverished, the best blogs would go unwritten and early Olympian legends would never have set foot on the track.
I recoiled in horror recently when a friend told me about a computer program called Songsmith which allows you to create complete works of music without touching an instrument. Essentially, you sing into your computer’s microphone and it alchemises one’s warblings into a fully arranged song.
But as I walked back from a day’s work, the concept began to glow as a shining opportunity to create a “spectacular failure”.
I opened the front door and dashed to the laptop to download Songsmith. By now an idea for a song about a Russian sailor making paper boats on a deserted Coney Island pier had germinated.
Before Newsnight ended, the computer’s speakers were playing a finished big band number featuring a brilliant alto sax.
When I sent a recording to a formidable cellist she responded: “Don’t give up the day hobby.”
Subsequent efforts to write another song have only produced sonic abominations which send cats hurtling down rabbit-holes.
But the experience has left me reeling in new appreciation at the skill and creative prowess and sheer labour which true songwriters demonstrate.
The digital revolution has allowed us to consume more media than ever before, but if it allows us to create – to have a go – then we shall also take deeper pleasure from works of genius, even if we never actually make one.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Where is Europe's Obama?
Elections to the European Parliament are around the corner but it is fair to say the final result is not the subject of fevered speculation.
But if Europe cannot prove its potential to defend the livelihoods of families across nations at a time when an economic tsunami threatens to devastate the EU’s economies, then when will it persuade a sceptical public it is a force for good?
The rise of the European Union is one of the great phenomena of the post-war era but the twists and turns of its evolution fail to set the pulse racing.
States with a legacy of routinely plundering each other’s works of art are now engaged in unprecedented projects of cooperation. Great swathes of UK law are responses to EU directives.
This extraordinary pooling of sovereignty has taken place in successive summits where elected politicians gather in conference rooms and barter late-night deals.
The Irish public dealt the Lisbon Treaty a shilelagh’s blow when they rejected it last year, and euro-enthusiasts have had to put all hope of a formal constitution on ice. But these flourishes of popular discontent are rare examples of direct democratic intervention in Europe.
The greatest concern for the long-term future of the EU is not the No votes – which are often in response to domestic political issues – but the absence of fervent grassroots supporters for the utopian project, the people who will champion Europe in pub conversation.
The EU’s record on acting to end the violence in the Balkans was widely considered one of its weakest hours. Atrocities not seen on such a scale since the darks days of World War II were taking place on its doorstep yet the perception – no doubt unfair – was that bureaucrats would rather discuss cheese regulations than act to stop massacres.
If the EU has failed its greatest foreign policy test, then it is all the more essential it does not flunk the challenge of responding effectively to the credit crunch and global recession.
But Britain’s focus has not been on how Europe can provide a model of financial reform but how the powerful nation states which constitute the G20 can act in concert.
Eastern European countries warn they face fiscal collapse unless their richer neighbours help them out. Ireland has fallen from the heights of hi-tech prosperity to face mass unemployment.
The EU needs Benjamin Frankins and Thomas Jeffersons – even Barack Obamas – who will step forward with a hard-headed but real and inspiring vision of how states can work together to spread opportunities and inclusive values through every strata of society.
Free trade and the free movement of diverse people are ideas which can both excite and frighten. The future of the European project will either be secured or decapitated in the public square.
But if Europe cannot prove its potential to defend the livelihoods of families across nations at a time when an economic tsunami threatens to devastate the EU’s economies, then when will it persuade a sceptical public it is a force for good?
The rise of the European Union is one of the great phenomena of the post-war era but the twists and turns of its evolution fail to set the pulse racing.
States with a legacy of routinely plundering each other’s works of art are now engaged in unprecedented projects of cooperation. Great swathes of UK law are responses to EU directives.
This extraordinary pooling of sovereignty has taken place in successive summits where elected politicians gather in conference rooms and barter late-night deals.
The Irish public dealt the Lisbon Treaty a shilelagh’s blow when they rejected it last year, and euro-enthusiasts have had to put all hope of a formal constitution on ice. But these flourishes of popular discontent are rare examples of direct democratic intervention in Europe.
The greatest concern for the long-term future of the EU is not the No votes – which are often in response to domestic political issues – but the absence of fervent grassroots supporters for the utopian project, the people who will champion Europe in pub conversation.
The EU’s record on acting to end the violence in the Balkans was widely considered one of its weakest hours. Atrocities not seen on such a scale since the darks days of World War II were taking place on its doorstep yet the perception – no doubt unfair – was that bureaucrats would rather discuss cheese regulations than act to stop massacres.
If the EU has failed its greatest foreign policy test, then it is all the more essential it does not flunk the challenge of responding effectively to the credit crunch and global recession.
But Britain’s focus has not been on how Europe can provide a model of financial reform but how the powerful nation states which constitute the G20 can act in concert.
Eastern European countries warn they face fiscal collapse unless their richer neighbours help them out. Ireland has fallen from the heights of hi-tech prosperity to face mass unemployment.
The EU needs Benjamin Frankins and Thomas Jeffersons – even Barack Obamas – who will step forward with a hard-headed but real and inspiring vision of how states can work together to spread opportunities and inclusive values through every strata of society.
Free trade and the free movement of diverse people are ideas which can both excite and frighten. The future of the European project will either be secured or decapitated in the public square.
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