Joy Upside Down

The life story of Henri Nouwen, a well-known Dutch theologian and author, has had a lingering effect on the decisions of the past few months. I have decided to move from the flash media world for a time and head back to ground-roots, working in a poor community in London. Part of this journey has been influenced by this theologian and so I tell his story.

Henri was a Harvard lecturer – an incredibly gifted teacher whose classes were always full and who had a profound effect on many young students’ lives. He also became a prolific writer and the success of his books led to speaking engagements across the world. Yet within this highly successful life he discovered a profound loneliness and struggled with bouts of depression.

A friend invited him to live at L’Arche where for the first time, living in a community that helped and lived with people with severe disabilities, he experienced a sense of acceptance and love that he had never experienced in his life. He was given the task of looking after a severely physically challenged boy called Adam. At first, he couldn’t stop thinking about all the writing he had to do and  all the time he was wasting by being with this boy and then slowly a transition happened within him. He focused on the job at hand and really started to value his time with Adam, to the point that it was this time that he valued above his writing. Although he couldn’t speak, Adam taught him much about living in the moment and being present, slowing down and discovering an “inner at-homeness”. He said Adam taught him what real peace was.

Since reading some of Henri Nouwen’s work and a commentary on his life – I keep thinking that the places where we think we will find fulfilment often leave us void and empty and it is sometimes the underrated places and people that we accept into our lives which hold the keys to our greatest growth and joy. Life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect but it is sometimes in these unexpected turn of events where we often find the treasures our heart is most longing for – a kind of  “upside down joy”.

I expected that coming to London would hold for me a high-flying job in marketing, radio or TV. I  couldn’t find work for 3 months and after much struggle, I ended up working at the English Foreign Language School I had worked at 10 years before, before my media career had got its day. It felt like I had gone back to zero – a humiliating and confusing experience. I moved on to another College for a full-time job and while I was there I could see some gaps in the running of the college that I could fill with my media experience so I offered my services and ended up being the Marketing and Student Welfare Officer.

It has been a journey where I have begun to understand that my identity is not found in my job title and that actually it is sometimes the works of service we give where we are placed that can be the most fulfilling . It is from this place of letting go and enjoying what the stage had to offer that I became more open to other career prospects. I can honestly say that had you asked me if I would consider doing Community Work in a poor area two years ago , I would definitely have said “No way”. I had other plans for myself. So with this new job starting in a week, I stand at a threshold excited at what this next phase has to offer. I am sure that not all of it will at first be what I might have expected but within all that I am sure that I can find again that  “joy upside down”.

“Are you a Facebook Narcissist?”

Article in Stylist Magazine 2010

I was struck by this title in a Stylist magazine I picked up in the tube last week. The sub-head read  ”Our whole lives are now played out online – is it harmless entertainment or the sign of an increasingly self-obsessed society?”

Something rings true in this. To do well  these days all seems to be about self-promotion, self-marketing and networking where we get to tell everyone how marvelous we are. Not only that but since we are living in a media saturated society, we not only do we tell people how marvelous we are (sometimes on an up-to-minute basis – thanks Twitter) but we get to show them in photos, videos and even cartoons of ourselves.

I have been struck lately reading AW Tozer’s “Pursuit of God” where he suggests that finding a higher more godly life means striking down the love of self. He talks about a veil which stands unmoved in many of our hearts which hinders a close relationship with our Maker and that veil involves the love of self in all its various forms: self-righteousness, self-admiration, self-sufficiency and self-confidence. He even goes on to reprimand the church for admiring such people who are naturally good self-promoters, who love the attention of standing in front of people and whose egotism and false sense of themselves have led others to follow blindly without questioning.

Tozer writes in a style foreign to us today. His 1950′s directness and talk of “sin” and “pride” is almost quaint in its tone. We live in a society so obsessed with not offending that we cannot speak with his authority. I find his manner refreshing and liberating and immensely challenging. If I look at the root of my heart, I can see there is a lot of ME kicking around. “Me” sneaks into conversations where I feel the need to tell people about the great things I have done, the places I have visited, the things I have read (ohh dear) and in those furtive glances in windows on the way to work just to make sure I am looking oh so good!

I realise that in all these things a balance is needed but I think the world is hungry for some “old-time” values and spiritual insight. The fashion world is obsessed with 1950′s style at the moment, people are making cup cakes and woman’s magazine’s bring up topics like the return in favour of  the “stay-at-home mom!” (women’s libbers block your ears!) We have come a full circle in many things. I think spiritually many of us have also come a full circle – looking to older theologians and even the monks and mystics from by-gone eras to find some depth, some wisdom, some amazing revelation. The superficialness and “quick-fix”ness of today isn’t satisfying the longings of the heart, a heart that I believe will only find its solace in its pursuit of God.

Tozer suggests that even being aware of our self-love is not enough to remove this thing which stands like a veil concealing us from God. It is really only He himself who can remove it and that we have only to come to Him. “Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life, hoping ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust.” (Pursuit of God, AW Tozer) May we all find a life more filled with God and a genuine concern for others and less filled with ourselves.

Shapes on the Mountain

There are shapes on the mountain top. At first there was just one. A minute figure – a wild dog perhaps. I could not work it out. But now there are more. The fact is we are lost and these mountains that looked so friendly in the midday light seem to be closing in on us in shapes and moods that threaten. I hear a stabbing growl. It vibrates in the wind from the high mountain. And it looses the fear inside of me.
I turn to my loved one and brim with all the doubt that is welling up inside. This is not my land. I have no place here. I have no crowns in this territory. Where is God in these desolate hills?
We stumble down the turrets of this castle edifice – like fugitives running for our lives. Eland antelope stare at us from a nearby hill. They are the lords of the land. I glance at the mountain silhouettes and see more shapes gathering. Fear now fluttering in me like a mad bird. Would they follow us those black imposing figures? What were they? Could they smell my fear?
How did we get here? The path, with promises of mountain treasure, deceptively lead us into a labyrinth. Hope gave our feet direction and light gave us illusions of security. Now in the dying light would we ever find our way out of this place? I start to run on the uneven ground, a beggar on wooden legs.
We push on, avoiding rocky outcrops with steep and dangerous cliffs. Surely around this bend we will see some landmark we recognise? I want to go back, the other path looked safer. I lose my sense of logic. I want anything but to be here – an instant teleportation to civilization would be nice. But I am stuck with this one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-reality. I know the only way to survive is to walk. The only person who can move me is myself and the encouragement of my husband who says, “This way.” I need to trust. Just simply trust that we will get out of here before the night’s black curtain falls.
After what seems to be a million steps and a million tufts of grass and shards of rock – we see a glimmer of what could be. This thing that we would normally overlook becomes a beacon of possibility. Oh blessed wire fence! I have never been so happy to see your humble wooden stakes! Still the uneven ground, still my ankle burns and pains to walk and yet how differently we talk. We know now that home is within our reach. We follow this simple line – a life line to civilisation and soon over the hill we begin to recognise the outline of chalet roofs in the distance and see the headlights of cars on country roads. We are out of our nightmare, we have seen our destination. The night closes in. We are not afraid anymore.
We cross the river and find the tarred road that leads to our car. All is suddenly restored. All is coming back to us now – like a gift, solid and familiar. It was a dream we were caught in for a few hours and it has passed. But how fragile my hope was and how fearful my heart! In unknown lands I hope to be stronger next time. I hope to carry my weight differently and not to be so intimidated by the sounds of dogs or baboons – whatever their cry. I hope to be better prepared next time. A torch perhaps? More faith perhaps? I hope in whatever terrain to keep alive the wonder and respect of God those mountains inspire.

Breathe in the peace…

I guess in life we are constantly coming back to the sacred things, the sure things, the treasured things that we have known and held onto for most of our life. Its a journey and it does loops. And somehow the loop always goes “home”.

I have had seasons of experimenting in my theology and have drifted on seas of theories, creativity, ideas and even indifference at times. They have grown and broadened me. But I seem this year to have made a little journey back to those sure and certain things.

In January in a car back from Sweden I read the rebuke to the Ephesus church, “You have forsaken your first love. Remember the heights from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” At the time, I was feeling a bit lost. I was miles away from home and felt a bit like the Jamie Cullum song, “I’m all at sea / Where no one can bother me /Forgot my roots../Just me and my thoughts /Sailing far away.”  The urge to return to harbour was reassuring to say the least.

So, I picked up my guitar again, found a church I liked going to and started attending regularly. Bizarrely, I was also ended up doing the job I started my career in – teaching. It was definitley a return to former things. I started to remember who I was. I remembered who I am.

Last month my boyfriend and I vistied Wales and came across this quaint stone church. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Yellow flowers were dotted over the grass and in the distance lay an expance of silent water stretching out for miles. With not much around us except the sea and the fields, the space felt almost timeless. People had been pilgrimaging there since the 12th century. The words in the church book seemed to carry a pointed weightiness. “Breathe in the peace and revelry of this ancient sanctuary.” We sat in silence and breathed!

I think we are called to constantly return to our beginnings, to be reminded of the simplicity, beauty and power of our faith and to be caught up again to the heights from which we seem so easily to fall.

A Universe to Explore

I just love this explanation … it just seems to open up space on so many levels!! I have never seen Christian escatology teaching in this way before. Simultaneously I never seen love relationships in this way either. All I can say is that its pretty damn cool. 

http://peterrollins.net/blog/

While John the Baptist preached that the kingdom was coming, Jesus preached that this kingdom was already among us. However, in saying this he did not overturn the message of John the Baptist but rather deepened it, for Jesus spoke of a kingdom that was here and yet as simultaneously being something that was looked to as still to come.

Following the image of the kingdom that was spoken of by Jesus, we encounter the idea that while it is still thought of as “to come” this does not mean that it will one day arrive at the end of a certain period of time, but rather that the kingdom is “to come,” i.e., the kingdom is already among us but in a manner that implies it is absent. ..This view of the kingdom is something that we also find confirmed in the writings of Paul, such as when he speaks of the kingdom as both the now and the not-yet.

Is this initially bizarre logic not what we also find being played out when we contemplate the presence of those whom we love? Is it not a great romantic truth that the presence of our beloved is always of a spectral kind? To truly know and love someone involves acknowledging that person’s inscrutable eschatological depths, understanding that the presence of the one before us is always manifested as a type of absence, as an opening. For each person is a universe for us to explore. In this way it is wrong to imagine that we long for someone we love to enter into our world, to come. Rather, when the one we love arrives in our world we encounter that person as precisely the one who is “to come.”

This is why our desire for those we love is born in our encounter with them rather than satisfied there. We cannot desire the one whom we do not know, for the simple reason that we do not know that person. We can only desire the one who is before us, the one who remains mysterious in his or her presence. The other is both the origin and the unreachable destination of our desire, for there is always something Other about the other, something “to come” amidst the presence of those we love. In the eyes of the beloved a universe opens up and envelops us.

The “God-particle” (&Turkish Kebab)

While I was coming to terms with the idea of digesting the biggest Turkish kebab in living history, in other parts of Europe Scientists were struggling to come to terms with the tiniest invisible particles - “the God-particle”.

A man by the name of Professor Peter Higgs almost 44 yrs ago came up with a theory that “there is an as yet undetected field which binds some of the basic particle of matter together aided by a mass-less substance nicknamed the Higgs boson” (Guardian- Severin Carrell) or what he refers to as the “God-particle”. People laughed at him then but now this dark star is getting his time to shine.

Astronomers apparently can account for 5% of observable matter in the universe – the stuff of stars and planets but then there is “dark matter” that makes up a further 25% leaving another 70% of “exotic dark energy, which drives the expansion of the universe”.  Quite a lot to digest on a stomach still expanding with Turkish kebab!! 

So the Large Hadron Collider is in search of this particle, this dark energy, ”a mysterious substance that stretches through the universe and clings around galaxies.”  I wish them luck. I have flashbacks to Christina’s talk which could have been titled  ”The Universe for Dummies”, with all our combined knowledge of the Scientific world. It was mind boggling but wonderful.

Well I thought my stomach was a black hole until I ate that Turkish kebab. Now I have evidence of those unmistakable particles of matter. I can hardly move!!  Perhaps the Scientists will have the same sort of discovery pretty soon….

Risky Business

Since arriving in London, my perception of the place has been coloured somewhat by John Caputo’s ”What would Jesus Deconstruct” (Thanks fakeexpressions for this gem!) He starts the book off speaking about the commecial success that’s been made with the “What Would Jesus Do?” slogan, reminding us that its origins are far from the American self satisfied gung-ho christianity that it seems to represent . The original text where Sheldon uses the phrase is ”In his Steps”. A heart-sick tramp in the story confronts a well-to-do church saying:

 “It seems to me there is an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn’t exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don’t understand. But what would Jesus do?” 

Caputo expands the idea further by saying later in the chapter, “ Were this figure of Jesus, who is the centrepiece of this poetics or theo-poetics, to return, what would he look like? An illegal immigrant? A child dying of Aids? A Vatican bereaucrat? And what do we imagine he would expect of us here and now? The questiion calls for a work of application, interpretation, interpolation, imagination and self interrogation and all that is risky business”  

I have wondered in the last few days that were Jesus a face in London, what would he look like? Its made me look at the people around me differently. One can’t help in this environment being slightly envious of the opinionated, overly confident city-slickers who hop on and off the tube in their latest fashion gear with their trendy cell phone, ipod and lap top computer. But whose body/guise would Jesus choose were he to come to London? Would it be the gypseys who walk around with their children asking for money, or the over-weight red head kid? Or maybe the Eastern European at the corner shop?

I am keenly aware that whatever Jesus would do, it would turn our expectations on their head and challenge us to the core .  Even as I approach the idea of working again (oh the reality must kick in too soon I fear) and finding a job, there is a sense of being in that amazing place of being able to redefine my direction. I could do a number of things. Motivation is always deadly apparent at times like this. Do I go for the big bucks or do I wait a bit and think where perhaps the face of Christ is most apparent? Challenging thoughts….and as Caputo says “risky business”.

Move it! Move it!

I’m moving to London in 3 weeks and with the move has come this strange sense of contemplation about my life thus far.

I’ve been trying to throw things away but inevitably start reading old journals and get totally distracted from the task at hand. Its amazing thing to see another version of yourself in the pages of the past. For the past 7 years in Cape Town I seem to have transitioned from a very dreamy person talking about all the things I’m going to do into someone who has actually done some things. There’s a confidence that comes with that. To be honest I don’t know how a simple pray of “Lord I want to be paid for my writing” has managed to become so many varied things. I know for a fact that every door that opened had the fingerprints of God on them (some only recognised in retrospect)  

On looking back aswell I am so grateful for the mistakes, for the confusion, for the pain. It’s always hard at the time to realise that my most challenging moment, biggest question, my most gruelling trial, my biggest skrew up – holds treasure that I will hold dear for the rest of my life. Wisdom for the journey.. 

The negative space – the darker it is – defines more clearly what the positive space is.

So I’ve been trying to throw things away but I realise that I don’t have to. Somehow the imprint of Cape Town and everything that has happened here is deeply etched into my character and heart. And every person brought into to my life has had an undeniable effect…I can see it. The journey I walk now is different to the one I walked before. I walk taller, a little less bewildered, a little more confident because of some very caring kind souls who took the time to get to know me and listen to all the heart ache, all the questions of faith and didn’t judge too heavily but rather encouraged the good!!

So thank you Cape Town!!! (Alanis Morisette style)

And all you lovelies in it!!

Bearing the Beams of Love

“We are put on earth for a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love” William Blake

 

The introduction to Thomas Merton’s “Contemplative Prayer” is staggering in its testimony to a life of love. The man who writes the introduction is a Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and his admiration and connection with Thomas is clear through what he writes:

 

“It is hard to describe his face in words, to write down exactly what he was like. He was filled with human warmth. Conversation with him was so easy. When we talked, I told him a few things, and he immediately understood the things I didn’t tell him as well. He was open to everything, constantly asking questions and listening deeply. I told him about my life as a Buddhist novice in Vietnam, and he wanted it know more and more….We had moments of great happiness and peace together, and the ground of our happiness was true communion and understanding….It is a pleasure for me to write these lines to introduce his book.”

 

I can’t think of anything lovelier than to be praised by someone who doesn’t see life or faith exactly as you do, but someone who still recognises and has experienced the undeniable evidence of love in your life. What an honour that is, what an example to live up to!

“Heart” Stuff

Sergio Milandri gave this great talk on “the heart”. It somehow managed to wrestle my mind down and access that indefinite place so I thought I would share some of the gems with you.

So here’s a reminder:
1.There are no nerves in the heart. There is no direct connection from the brain to the heart. The way the body “speaks” to the heart is through chemicals which are sent from the middle brain through the blood stream. So when your heart starts pumping from fear or excitement it’s a response the heart receives in the blood. The heart in a sense then doesn’t have a “mind” in the conventional sense!!! The heart is about feeling.
2.Messages sent in the brain are quick. The synapses fire and almost instantly messages can be coded, rent, resent, analysed, deconstructed, reconstructed. The “heart” messages take some time to reach the heart…they lag a little, they require a bit longer to register, to interpret, to respond to.

Of course, my dodgy biology lesson (doctors may elaborate further) has a spiritual side-kick. Loving God with “heart” is different to loving God with “mind”. I can read a scriptural text with my “mind”. If I’ve read it before it will probably bore me. If I read it with my “heart”, I read it differently. I linger there, I wait. I tread with sensitivity. I am awake to the nuances of how my heart is responding, what the heart is feeling and saying. It’s a different knowing.

The mind thinks in straight lines. It dissects, cut things in pieces, its “emotions” are often knee-jerk reactions, cut and dried. The “heart” builds relational connections, it ponders things, it’s much slower, it takes time for the emotions to well up.

On the road Emmaus, the men spoke to a stranger about the events of Jesus’ death. They were deeply troubled but somehow this stranger’s words made sense to them. Eventually they realised it was Jesus who had been talking to them all along that road. In retrospect they recognised the presence of God. They said “Didn’t we feel our hearts burn within us?”

I guess I’m chasing the place of “heart”. I know the chase requires an inverse response, a waiting, a patience, a listening… “heart” needs space and time. It’s not conjured up, it can’t be faked. Like a lazy afternoon when after a long time you feel the wind whispering in your hair.