It's been a while since I last posted. The reason being that I hadn't heard any more news until today, and today's is not yet the "wow" I had been hoping for. There are apparently no indications of healing as yet and thus the family is preparing for the medical profession's solution. But they are still hopeful in saying "We're praying for a smooth journey through it but we're still praying for the spontaneous miracle!" And I am too. He will have his bone marrow tested on Friday and I guess the results will be the acid test of whether or not there has been healing so - watch this space.
Is this faith? Even if like "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar"? I am not sure that I am up for that kind.
My hope is that by my sharing all this publicly, anonymously though it must be, my reader will be, like I was, roused to stand with this boy and his family. A sort of crowdfunding.
20170331
Prayer meetings
Does anyone else out there have my problem with prayer meetings?
We evangelicals venerate prayer meetings. They are, perhaps, the evangelical's equivalent of penance. Like medicine, the nastier it tastes very obviously the better it must be for you.
Here in the community in which I live, after our evening meal sometimes one or another will share the needs of a friend, relative or local neighbour and, being convicted, folk will spontaneously pray out loud for the situation. To me that is good and wholesome and different from the sort of organised prayer meetings I am talking about.
After most everyone else has prayed out loud at least once one feels a certain pressure to follow suit. And this makes me up-tight and even less likely to think of anything to say. As if prayer should consist of trying to drum something to say!
"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." Mat 6:5-8
...and then follows what we call "the Lord's prayer". Which, apart from its familiarity, is about as far from any "normal" prayer I hear said here as you can get.
The account in the gospel of Luke tells us this was in response to the disciples asking the Lord how they should pray. Of course as Jews they knew about prayer so they were asking something deeper, perhaps after seeing the results of Jesus' praying. Like "teach us how to pray, the sort of prayer that has effect". Which are my sentiments also.
That "your Father knows" gives insight that the purpose of prayer is not telling God stuff as if He didn't know. Or, when folk wax eloquent in a prayer meeting, are they doing so to inform the others present rather than to inform God? In which case can it really be called prayer?
We evangelicals venerate prayer meetings. They are, perhaps, the evangelical's equivalent of penance. Like medicine, the nastier it tastes very obviously the better it must be for you.
Here in the community in which I live, after our evening meal sometimes one or another will share the needs of a friend, relative or local neighbour and, being convicted, folk will spontaneously pray out loud for the situation. To me that is good and wholesome and different from the sort of organised prayer meetings I am talking about.
After most everyone else has prayed out loud at least once one feels a certain pressure to follow suit. And this makes me up-tight and even less likely to think of anything to say. As if prayer should consist of trying to drum something to say!
"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." Mat 6:5-8
...and then follows what we call "the Lord's prayer". Which, apart from its familiarity, is about as far from any "normal" prayer I hear said here as you can get.
The account in the gospel of Luke tells us this was in response to the disciples asking the Lord how they should pray. Of course as Jews they knew about prayer so they were asking something deeper, perhaps after seeing the results of Jesus' praying. Like "teach us how to pray, the sort of prayer that has effect". Which are my sentiments also.
20170326
Spring is my favourite colour
Saturday bike ride to Rathdrum and back, the purpose being to suss out a possible route for a kid's camp later in the year. About 50 miles round trip and I got cramp several times. Argh! I must be out of condition.
My Sunday run (just 5 miles) somewhat affected by yesterday's bike ride. So many flowers are yellow at this time of the year!
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| Looking west from Wicklow Gap - it's mist not the sea! |
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| The beautiful Avonmore River |
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| Spring time Ballygannon tree tops |
My Sunday run (just 5 miles) somewhat affected by yesterday's bike ride. So many flowers are yellow at this time of the year!
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| Celandines |
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| My favourite |
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| Gorse |
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| My lake |
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| Dunno what these are but they're cute |
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| Specially when out of focus |
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| Dandelions |
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| Forsythia? |
20170313
Holiday
Google tells me it was Holi Festival a few days back. It looks like fun though what all those chemicals do to one's body when inhaled or ingested I dread to think. But, given my love of colour, perhaps I ought to be Hindu?
20170312
The lake (again)
Combining yesterday and today I ran (barefoot of course) 17.7 miles which sounds impressive but it doesn't count so much when summed over two days. I may have said before how much I love our lake but, because I do and there were some cool light effects with a storm around, I have to inflict some more photos on you. Sorry, but that's just the way it goes. It is, after all, my blog.
20170311
The bell
I've started reading The bell by Iris Murdoch. I admit I haven't yet got very far but already I am impressed by the telling detail of her description of unbelieving Dora returning, after a period of separation, to her alienated husband Paul who is now part of an Anglican lay community. His life is conditioned by the community. Hers by her shallowness of character and previous dispensing with religion. And yet of the two she is the more likely to give time to stand and stare...
I do allow myself a little time to stand and stare, well at least to run barefoot and stare. I try to get out four times a week although two of those are early morning when I am only half awake. These are good times for private prayer, and for dusting cobwebs from the mind and I like to think they also keep me fitter than I would otherwise be given my office job. The other great escape is my bed: how I love that feeling of laying my head on my pillow, relaxing every muscle and at last surrendering myself to sleep. Oh, and breakfast. Because I generally retire at a sensible time I also start the day earlier than most others here. This means I can take my breakfast in solitude, a practise that I firmly recommend.
But at other times I too, like Paul, am conditioned and imprisoned by my supposed beliefs. I say "supposed" because so much I find myself wrestling on the horns of the dilemma: is what we say we believe true or are we Christians fools?
I'm rather of the opinion that the truth is somewhere else. I am reminded of
But amidst all these rejoicings Aslan himself quietly slipped away. And when the Kings and Queens noticed that he wasn't there they said nothing about it. For Mr Beaver had warned them, "He'll be coming and going," he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild,' you know. Not like a tame lion." Lewis
When I was younger I had a problem with Lewis' theology as expressed here. We evangelicals are taught that God is omnipresent. But I find it to be true in my life that it at least seems like He comes and goes. And my fervour or lack of it doesn't appear to make any difference, again contrary to what we are taught. I don't want to exchange standing and staring at the beauty of this year's daffodils (my fav flower) for busyness and religious activity.
Then I wonder how I can have the gall to even contemplate such agnosticism when at the same time we are warned that over a million children might starve to death in Africa this year, and hear of atrocities in Syria, inhumanity in N. Korea, and so the list goes on. Not that either my being busy or standing and staring has yet, I regret, made any difference to the third world.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
William Henry Davies
I do allow myself a little time to stand and stare, well at least to run barefoot and stare. I try to get out four times a week although two of those are early morning when I am only half awake. These are good times for private prayer, and for dusting cobwebs from the mind and I like to think they also keep me fitter than I would otherwise be given my office job. The other great escape is my bed: how I love that feeling of laying my head on my pillow, relaxing every muscle and at last surrendering myself to sleep. Oh, and breakfast. Because I generally retire at a sensible time I also start the day earlier than most others here. This means I can take my breakfast in solitude, a practise that I firmly recommend.
But at other times I too, like Paul, am conditioned and imprisoned by my supposed beliefs. I say "supposed" because so much I find myself wrestling on the horns of the dilemma: is what we say we believe true or are we Christians fools?
I'm rather of the opinion that the truth is somewhere else. I am reminded of
But amidst all these rejoicings Aslan himself quietly slipped away. And when the Kings and Queens noticed that he wasn't there they said nothing about it. For Mr Beaver had warned them, "He'll be coming and going," he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild,' you know. Not like a tame lion." Lewis
When I was younger I had a problem with Lewis' theology as expressed here. We evangelicals are taught that God is omnipresent. But I find it to be true in my life that it at least seems like He comes and goes. And my fervour or lack of it doesn't appear to make any difference, again contrary to what we are taught. I don't want to exchange standing and staring at the beauty of this year's daffodils (my fav flower) for busyness and religious activity.
Then I wonder how I can have the gall to even contemplate such agnosticism when at the same time we are warned that over a million children might starve to death in Africa this year, and hear of atrocities in Syria, inhumanity in N. Korea, and so the list goes on. Not that either my being busy or standing and staring has yet, I regret, made any difference to the third world.
20170304
Cold, wet and dismal
Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. No, I'm not that far gone yet but sometimes in the winter I can kind of identify with "he gat no heat". Today it was cold and drizzling and misty and dismal and I ran my usual course plus a bit along the lake-side, 6.6 miles in all, followed by a long hot bath and then a book, an arm-chair, a large mug of hot tea and Cherry Bakewell for recovery.
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| Blessington lake in the mist |
20170301
Thou shall not tempt update 2
These are his parents' bold words a day or so ago: I believe that God wants ... to "be made whole by the power of the Holy Spirit" so this is what we pray and this is what we ask you to pray.
And I pray that the God who "made all the delicate inner parts" of ...'s body will re-knit them, that he will replace a missing chromosome, that he will renew faulty cells.
They don't strike me as "religious" people and they know the impossibility of what is being asked for. They have even wondered how to tell if there had been healing whilst waiting for the procedure - it seems the only indicator being the blood count levels which they will be watching.
I don't often get involved with this sort of thing: asking for the impossible, when frankly I do not think I have ever witnessed an obvious miracle - I like to steer clear and keep in the safe zone. But somehow this case touched me and made me cry out beyond the normal, something rose from deep within me, and I can only suppose this was God's doing. If not, if I was just reacting to emotion, then it makes me question if know God. If this boy is healed it won't me my doing. And if this boy isn't healed it won't be my doing either. Either God acts on his word, or not. As that centurion remarked so long ago, you only have to say the word, Lord, and the boy will be healed. So be it.
See also last update.
And I pray that the God who "made all the delicate inner parts" of ...'s body will re-knit them, that he will replace a missing chromosome, that he will renew faulty cells.
They don't strike me as "religious" people and they know the impossibility of what is being asked for. They have even wondered how to tell if there had been healing whilst waiting for the procedure - it seems the only indicator being the blood count levels which they will be watching.
I don't often get involved with this sort of thing: asking for the impossible, when frankly I do not think I have ever witnessed an obvious miracle - I like to steer clear and keep in the safe zone. But somehow this case touched me and made me cry out beyond the normal, something rose from deep within me, and I can only suppose this was God's doing. If not, if I was just reacting to emotion, then it makes me question if know God. If this boy is healed it won't me my doing. And if this boy isn't healed it won't be my doing either. Either God acts on his word, or not. As that centurion remarked so long ago, you only have to say the word, Lord, and the boy will be healed. So be it.
See also last update.
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