flying by the seat of our pantsJanuary 5, 2017
Our security is divine, the Lord will provide for all our needs, we will be like a well watered garden, we will flourish under his steadfast hand, the well of Christs riches will never grow dry.
Isaiah 58:11 and Philippians 4:19 are comfort indeed. Mission isn’t really sold as flourishing though, more denial. We should give up, walk away, choose a tougher path. Mission is about facing the unknown sure that God wants you to walk through that door and opening it… is’t it. Our banks shouldn’t know the security of large black numbers, our dreams never tie us down for too long, our stability be held loosely in open hands. It’s true that at times mission is about just that. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s about living a lifestyle that’s really not all that dissimilar to the one we left, just with a whole lot of substitutes. Sometimes it’s about building a long term life in a place you never expected. Sometimes it’s about digging in your roots, and growing oaks not daisies.
Speaking of Oaks, have you every watched one grow. There is a great 8 month time lapse of an acorn growing into an oak. It takes months before anything other than a crack appears. Mission is so similar. The initial crack with it’s bucket loads of anticipation and potential is often a tough first step but then everything plateaus. Out of sight something could be growing, but we are never sure. Even when we are months and months down the line, years even, it’s still such a fragile thing, so easily destroyed. It may have a foothold but it’s far from where you’d want to hang a swing.
And one day I’d love a swing. I’d love a house that didn’t come with landlord restrictions. I’d love to have all those normal thing like insurance and pensions and keepsakes to pass onto my grandchildren if we were ever blessed such. So this year I’m pulling the break. I’m not going to live as if any day we’ll be called away, with our seat-belts loose, flying by the seat of our pants into another year of uncertainty. I’ve never had the joy of staying long enough to watch the tree grow ever day, I’ve never seen a full decade in one place. Perhaps I never will, but I’m so sick of always being ready to run. So this year I’m going to invest. I’m going to build by digging foundations, resharpening old tools, putting new ideas aside to develop what’s already with us. Perhaps I’ll find I’ve been sitting on buried treasure, perhaps I’ll get part way through and everything will change, but it’s about time I put my running shoes away and bought some gardening clogs.
Tonight Santa comesDecember 31, 2016
He’ll arrive in a similar style and with an much magic as he did on December the 25th, but here Santa comes on new years eve. Adam is still blissfully unaware, he’s unconstrained by dates, he had many an unopened present left on Christmas day, the whole shebang means little to his world. As aspects creep in we are deliberating what Christmas will mean to our family. I like the idea that Santa comes on a different day, that the birth of the saviour and the flying reindeer are separated somewhat.
This years Christmas for me was a stripped back affair. Slowly as the years have passed I’ve had to choose what events I’ll keep up with and which will knock my ‘feeling Christmassy’ by their absence. This year for the first in many I had no church family to return to, something that left my pillow damp many a night. There was no nativity, I neglected to even make a crib scene, I sang no carols prior to Christmas day, and entered no church building during advent. On Christmas morning our family entered a strange church with a warm welcome that wiped much fear and lifted more than a few prayers of thanks from my lips.
I did celebrate advent, delving deep into the big story that weaves it’s way through Abraham, Isaiah, John and Mary to the child that flails in it’s straw lined manger. As years pass I find myself clinging more and more to the church year, a calendar of faith that spins with as much certainty as the Gregorian system we use. In a land of multiple calendars, to choose to follow yet another must seem very odd. Somehow it roots me, even if it makes major church celebrations harder to engage with locally.
In just a week we’ll be once again celebrating the saviours birth as the world I grew up in will be reaching day 13 and wiping clean all traces of Christmas. Somehow this elongated season is much closer to the church year than the ‘big day’ concentrated one I was so familiar with. It’s something I’d come to appreciate long before this years word focus, it’s a season where the baby is born and the celebration continues, we are not so eager for him to grow old and walk to Calvary, rather we sit in the moment and like a new mother stare at the gift we have been given.
So 2016 ends. A year I’ve tried to ‘appreciate’, though moments of joy and times of struggle, though things I could control and aspects beyond me. It’s been a great word for the year and one I’ve found much growth in. 2017 dawns and I’ve already chosen the word that will adorn the year – Invest. I want to invest in building our own traditions, invest in the lives of those around me, invest in the objects we keep and the space we keep them in, invest in long term plans and fleeting seconds. But today I’ll sit and appreciate my little world as the new year rings in around me. Happy New year friends.
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Appreciate updateOctober 25, 2016
So back in January I chose a word for the year, and that was Appreciate.
It was a word that would change my perspective.
It was a world that would push my comfort.
and it was a word that would expose that which was ugly.
Mid way through I learnt it’s the art of treasuring, the point of recognition, the mild mannered admiration… in it’s truest form it’s a gentle prompt to show love.
But right now it feels more of a harsh command, a heavy burden, a bright light showing only grime.
That push to appreciate erodes pessimism, negativity and judgement with a sandblaster.
Three big traps that I know so intimately.
I fell backwards to find this. I joined a group about raising kids in a more liberal christian way, a group whose definition of Christianity was broader and more encompassing than many I’ve found. There I found pain and sorrow, hearts broken from years of misguided indoctrination and a yearning to find a way of parenting authentically in light of their faith. It’s a beautiful group. But I also saw bucket loads of negativity, bitterness and quick judgement. I saw echos of my self righteous teen self and cringed as people tore strips off statements whose heart was not so far from their own. And as I went to unsubscribe the appreciate word hit. For in the midst of my own perspective I was just as unappreciative of that meandering faith journey as those I criticised. In the midst of their muddle and maddening words they too were struggling to place their faith in a context they had not seen it in before. Indeed this new expression of faith was a whole new culture to some, just as odd as leaving home for a new land. The signs were clear as I stared the familiar bitter walls of the trap I too had come to lay in.
To appreciate is tough. It’s a beautiful word of hope, a delightful word of gratitude, a reminder to count our luxuries, not just our scars, and a challenge to lay aside the bitterness for an exposed heart willing to be changed.