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.

 It’s true that the older you get, the less knowledgeable you become. A younger version of me arrogantly thought I could change the world. You can imagine my surprise when my world ended up changing me!

A couple of years back, I travelled to Turkey for six months on an English-2^nd Language teaching secondment with the school I had been working for in London. The idea was to serve the people I met, get to know them and share my spirituality with them. I guess it was also an experiment. I wanted to see how my faith would stand up in a completely new culture, one where even the calendar didn’t remember my Christian heritage! When I got there was that I felt completely overwhelmed and alienated. I remember being initially quite freaked out by the Islamic call to worship every morning. The evening classes started and I made friends with the business English students. I didn’t expect to feel as lonely as I did. Then each student, one by one, invited me to their house, took me on visits to the sites of Istanbul and took me out for meals. I was readily included in every social activity and warmly received into the community. They showed me a tangible kind of love, a love that doesn’t just talk but actually is shown in action.  

I know that my culture does not place such a high value on welcoming foreigners. I know my faith does but bizarrely the Turks showed me what the story of the Good Samaritan is all about. I was humbled by their love. I found God there. On the day I left the school I was laden with gifts. Not just feeble, last minute gifts but beautiful ones: a little Turkish carpet and bag, a beautiful delicate Turkish plate and a fantastic coffee book on the sites of Turkey. I was flabbergasted. My perspective on my earth-shaking abilities changed. If I did change their lives in any small measure, I think the favour was reciprocated in triplicate.  I guess I have issues with the whole evangelism thing. But I’m not exactly sure what my method is, if there is one. It doesn’t rest easy with me to impose faith on others, unless they are genuinely interested and ask. I don’t know how the rest of you feel about this…  

But I totally identify with this discovery:“Instead of bringing God to unreached places and unreached peoples, I find countless missionaries who say that, while this was how they once thought, time and again they find that these unreached places are the very sites they must go to find God and to be reached. How many of us have learnt too late that that our initial idea, that by serving the world we will bring God to others, has eclipsed the wisdom that in serving the world we find God there.”  Peter Rollins  “How(not) to speak of God”  

“Ask Square Pig how much she paid for that box,” says Square Pig Senior, chuckling under his breath and staring at an old green kist in SP’s lounge with the paint peeling off. Square Pig’s friend turned around and raised an enquiring ear.

“Five hundred rand,” Square Pig mumbled through her snout. Senior roared with laughter.

“Well I like it – it’s old!!” she stated, stamping her hoof into the ground. They all stared at the green box in Square Pig’s lounge. It WAS old – there was no doubt about that!!

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I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels comforted by old things! In a world of microwaves, overnight building developments, shopping malls and quick fixes – there is something reassuring about old things; the amount of time it took to make them and the clues they give us to a by-gone era less superficial than our own. 

I went to the Irma Stern museum a while back and was literally transfixed by the figures she had painted on her dining room furniture. Not only were they hand-painted but they represented all the mystery and strangeness of Medieval times. I loved them.

I don’t think I’m alone in this fascination. “Harry Potter”, “Lord of the Rings”, victorian wall motifs, ”stressed” furniture, retro chic and a thousand Long Street antique shops (all with exorbitant prices) speak of a generation’s longing for something old and mysterious, something grounded in the tried and tested, something which instinctively we know has inherant value, something we’ve lost and desperately want back! 

In spiritual terms, I see this longing too - yoga,  mysticism, monasticism and meditation, in the pilgrims we make to England, India, China where we hope the “ancient” walls will tell us something we don’t already know, something which can’t be listed in “wikipedia” or “iol”!!!  

So it was with some delight that I found this quote in the emerging conversations about Christianity:

…it seems as if those involved are charting a new direction for Christianity. Yet time and again familiar – sounding place names gently remind us that this discovery is at the same time a re-discovery…and my conclusion is this: the terrotory I thought I was helping to chart was actually discovered a long time ago by my ancestors. It is both frustrating and comforting that no matter how fast I run, those who have long since died have already arrived at where I am attempting to go. (Peter Rollins “How (not) to Speak of God”)