Here be dragons

Last Monday, in a community "devotion", I spoke about an experience of many years back that suggests to me that God intentionally tells us to do things he knows perfectly well that we cannot do. Biblical examples include the promise of a son to Abraham - who tried to make it happen, and Mary before Jesus' conception who wisely responded "be it unto me according to Your word".

God promised Abraham a son,

But Sarah laughed and said, "It can't be done;

I am too old," she said; "it is impossible,"

But in due time a son was born.

The Red Sea lay right in their path,

And Pharoah's army pressed them from behind;

They were so desperate, they had no place to run,

One step by faith, the seas did part!

God said to Noah, "Go build an ark;

All living things are soon to be destroyed."

The people laughed and said,

"It's not been done before,"

But those inside the ark survived.

So stagger not through unbelief,

Be strong in faith, give God the praise.

It looks uncrossable, with God it's possible,

Have patience, then in God it's done.

A similar thing happened to Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  He became a dragon easily enough through his own lust, but it was not so easy to un-dragonify. He was told to peel off his skin but however many layers he removed he was still a dragon. His attempts at least demonstrated his intent and I think that is what God looks for when He tests us with impossible tasks. For "intent" in this context you can read that much misunderstood word "faith". And so, later on, the Book says that God tested Abraham in telling him to sacrifice his son, his only son, the son of the promise.

[Eustace] "Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

"Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - "You will have to let me undress you." I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them.

"After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me -"

"Dressed you. With his paws?"

"Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."

"No. It wasn't a dream," said Edmund.

It wasn't easy to rehearse the past... Back then whilst praying for a particular need in a 14 year old here, I had the very strong impression that "I should not be afraid to get involved in his life". The boy had never known a natural father and perhaps as a result had certain tendencies that rubbed others up the wrong way, like always wanting to justify himself. When I talked with other adults here and particularly with his mother and sister they all seemed to confirm that I had "heard God" and so I began to gently encourage, teach, love and discipline him, always openly and with his mother's knowledge. But what started well soon came to grief - I think he did not appreciate my endeavors and, blood being thicker, I suppose his mother heeded him rather than me. I was counselled to cease all communication with him because "it was not working". I could not, indeed still do not, agree that temporary failure meant I had been deceived, and it became a hard thing for me to accept how things had turned out. But I began to see that the task I believed I had been set was humanly impossible, and eventually I realised that, wonder of wonders, I could in fact continue to be involved in his life indirectly through prayer. Like Orual enabled Psyche to carry out her impossible tasks in Till we have Faces.  And so I distanced myself in person but set myself to repeatedly petition our Heavenly Father to be a father for him where I and his natural father had failed.

Whether my prayers have made any difference I may, of course, never know, and indeed I should not need to know. Although one part of me would like to.

Having dug up the past and re-stated my position I thought there might be some negative comments afterwards from those involved, but strangely there were none apart from one or two perfunctory "thanks for sharing".  Does this mean the matter, which seemed big at the time, no longer concerns anyone other than myself?  It concerns me now, by the way, because upon it hangs, to a large degree, my ability to hear from God. Or maybe we have moved on and it is no longer an issue. Or is it that no-one wants to open a wound - better to leave dead dogs lie. Or maybe everyone else reckons I had lost the plot back then and my speaking about it again was "just Michael again" so let's humour him?

And why do I post this personal struggle?  In my very first blog post I noted that "writing an honest blog is a bit like undressing in front of the world".  It is easier for me to write because I get so tongue-tied when speaking: even with writing I edit and re-edit something like this many times before I am happy enough to post it, and even then my style and logic is sadly lacking. The boy is a young man now and is making his own life-decisions. As for myself, I have learnt to never again get too closely involved with anyone outside of my own immediate family: once bitten twice shy.

Life, what is it but a dream?

I am tired of living a lie. But I am not even sure what the lie is or whether it really is a lie - I know it is something to do with these trappings we bolt onto basic Christianity. It started in my parents' open-brethren-cum-evangelical church, with the weekly "gospel service", door-to-door evangelism, the implied exclusiveness "we have a corner on Truth". Whilst I knew no better, even then some things didn't sit well with me. Like a special evangelistic weekend to which we were encouraged to invite our non-Christian friends to (then what were the weekly gospel meetings for?). Discussion as to whether an elder's son-in-law-to-be should be allowed to "break bread" because he came from a pentecostal church. Warnings about those who claimed God healed now-a-days, or warnings about the new vein of charismatic Christian songs that were effectively quotes from scripture. The implication that other denominations were, at best, inferior - or more likely plain deceived. Strong but opposing arguments about perspectives on eschatology. Women having to wear a hat and the question of exactly what constituted "a hat". Women not being allowed to speak in meetings (except for women's only meetings). In spite of all these quandaries it was probably the most Bible based church in the neighbourhood and I still miss the breaking of bread service (or I like to think I do, for I've not gone back to see).

Don't get me wrong - those folk meant well and I have been blessed beyond all that I deserve in being born in a free country to God fearing parents, as a child attending a Bible believing church, freely receiving a good education...

I've noted before of my church experiences in Oxford and, on moving to London, the "Friday Fellowship" that evolved from youngsters wanting "more of God" than they saw in the local Baptist church. A group in which Ali and I and another couple assumed de facto leadership. And teaching we received on the Baptism in the Spirit and on Speaking In Tongues, etc.

I look back with mingled horror at the way I harshly ploughed ahead cognisant of but not acting on my parents' warnings, thinking I was following God rather than man. Something I have since done in other circumstances and called it faith [see note]. We sold the house that my parents had helped us renovate, pooled funds with this other couple to purchase a larger property where we could live together In Community. I gave up my secure job with the BBC and became self-employed doing odd-jobbing building. We started to home-school our kids. All this in what we believed was a direction God had given us. And I still believe this, but faith can sometimes be tenuous.

My worried parents wrote to us. Not being sentimental I do not as a rule stash letters, but this one I have kept all these 37 years because I recognised its wisdom and truth even then as I still do today: here are some extracts which I think they would not have minded me sharing in retrospect [my emphasis and ellipses].

Although there is much in your fellowship that is good, and loving, and caring, admit you have a bias towards the gifts of the Spirit. And that there is part that is emotionally motivated... All this we believe in and do not condemn... Do beware, both of you, because God has given you common-sense also, beware of anything that is not real, because this intense atmosphere of sharing, can lead in time to disillusionment. We are still, and shall be until we are finally redeemed, human beings, subject to human failings. These things you take part in, can lead to splits among brothers and sisters in Christ, lack of security because you have lack of time to be alone with your immediate family. It can even lead to marriage breakdowns, and also physical and mental breakdowns. Just try to keep a right perspective, or you may have to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship. 

Later a group of us moved to Northern Ireland to join an established Christian community there, and squandered all our funds therewith. During this period Ali and I were demoted from leadership for reasons which evade me. And we watched as that community went bad and started to fall apart, and a group of us left en-masse before it was too late, but penniless.

By a miraculous coincidence the property we now live in was purchased using funds left in trust "for Christian work". When we moved in, there was hardly any heating and it was a bitter winter, but we were happy enough just to be free from the oppression and nonsense of that former community. We started a window cleaning business and the pittance we earned was enough to purchase basic food: the locals whose windows we cleaned were bemused at English folk cleaning Irish windows mid winter. Hard graft and a common vision to survive, and what we believe was the blessing of God, brought us to where we are now, with money in our pockets and enough reserve over the years to have paid outright for various extensions and renovations to our property without getting in debt. And today, all things considered, as community inmates go we are very well off thank you. But prosperity breeds contempt and contempt can lead to destruction.

On the stairs I passed a younger family heading bed-ward the other evening: child "Does God speak to us?" - mother "Yes of course he does" - child (gazing up at the ceiling) "Hello?.... no he doesn't".

There is a key to my disillusionment in my parents' beware of anything that is not real. In my life I have seen plenty of unreal nonsense in the name of God but not so much reality. Repeatedly I have asked God to make himself real / tangible to me. I am taught that I should have a "personal relationship" with the Lord but, if so, it seems very one way: I talk to him, period. Yes there have been times when I believe God has led me in a particular way, but these instances are the exception. In our little group I'm nominally a leader but I cannot preach, I'm not sociable, I hate confrontation rarely being sure enough of my own position to challenge that of others. My mother told me I was stubborn and this might be my sole redeeming feature - or is it damning?

If life is but a dream then anything goes. But otherwise there must be something that makes the distinction: like pinching oneself - although I've done that in dreams and it did hurt so I surmised it was real and then I woke up.  Two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus discussing rumours circulating after the crucifixion, later observed "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"

I like that - burning is tangible - burning is real. I wonder - is it the same as the strong emotion I can feel for instance when I listen to Stainer's God so loved the world?

If this counts as "tangible" (as opposed to mere chemicals coursing through my bloodstream) then maybe it is because of the gospel truth in the words. And if this is truth then life is not but a dream and there is purpose.

"But, look here," said I. "This isn't child's play. Are you quite certain that this Dark Lord, this depraved Oyarsa of Tellus, really exists? Do you know for certain either that there are two sides, or which side is ours?"
He fixed me suddenly with one of his mild, but strangely formidable, glances.
"You are in real doubt about either, are you?" he asked.
"No," said I, after a pause, and felt rather ashamed.

I vacillate between doubt and being ashamed about doubting. But above all I long for reality. But I'm also a coward - afraid that if I abdicate I will loose eternal salvation.

Only a minority even know of Bruckner: of those who do an even smaller minority enjoy his music. He was an unusual and lonely man but a Catholic of intense faith [see my note again]. I have just enjoyed listening to Sergiu Celibidache's rendition of Bruckner's 5th. I do not often allow myself to listen to serious music, partly because I just don't and partly because it can be rather antisocial in my context. I'm also reading Anton Bruckner - Rustic Genius by Werner Wolff which seems a more positive biography than some I have read. He quotes Bruckner as saying:

When God finally calls me and asks, what have you done with the talent I gave you, my lad, I will show Him my scores and I hope He will judge me mercifully.

and

They want me to write in a different way. I could, but I must not. Out of thousands I was given this talent by God, only I. Sometime I will have to give an account of myself. How would the Father in Heaven judge me if I followed others and not Him?

Here was a man, laughed at by many in his time and still today, a timid, obscure, odd, awkward, simple, unassuming, yet devout man. But from his pen so many have been uplifted, set at peace, enthralled, gob-smacked, wowed. In his music we find sheer beauty, lasting reality.

His music: when I listen to lesser composers; Mozart, Haydn, and such like, I hear music for the sake of music. When I listen to the later works of Bruckner I do not so much hear the music but am immersed in the atmosphere it creates. The music is still there, of course, and expertly arranged, but it is no longer the sole purpose but only a means to an end. I am so glad that he was dogged enough not to "write in a different way".  Like: but men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

I once heard a visiting preacher pooh-pooh a man in his home congregation who associated the uplifting found in music with experience of God. First it grated on me that he should shun a brother publically. Second, I am not at all sure that he was right. The purpose of Christian praise is to lift the participators into a recognition of the greatness of God. Like a telescope makes a distant object appear larger and brighter but does not actually change the object. Could not performing appropriate absolute music just as well be praise? I imagine there were no words When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.  Sometimes words are cheap and inadequate but music can be sublime.

This post has taken several weeks to write and I am still unsure whether I have made my point clearly enough. The lie I think I have lived is not some objective "God is dead" but is inside me. It feels as though I am finally waking up and my former life has been but a dream. I wake and grope around in the semi-darkness and wonder: where am I, who am I, what am I doing here? Movies have used this idea and gradually little clues suggest a previous existance. Yes, I was alive back then, but I didn't understand, and I am not sure I understand any better now.

When I look at heaven

And the works of Your hands

How is it Father

You are mindful of man?

Your loving kindness

Simply amazes me

Simply amazes me

When I look at Jesus

And the marks on His hands

How is it Father

You are mindful of man?

Tony Gemmell Copyright © 1981 Thankyou Music

A note on faith
Abraham, we are told, was the father of faith. He believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness. But his faith also led him to do some dumb things like the conception and disposal of Ishmael (though God blessed him). Based on this I suppose that when we act on what we genuinely but mistakenly think is a word from God, it is sort of divinely overlooked or at least side stepped - because it was, after all, an act of faith on our part. This idea is similar to the case of Emeth.

I believe in God...

It is acceptable to be religious in modern society provided you give credence to multi-faith. But to be a radical, believing (or real) Christian is generally considered to be very whacky. Incidentally I deeply respect those with other beliefs but that does not mean I necessarily agree with them.

Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem... All that I have lived for depends on this premise. And yet I find it to be paper thin.

Perhaps the problem is the tendency to interpret the creed as suggesting that I have to work up these "I believes". One meaning of the English word "faith" goes along with this idea: "Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof."  But the Bible meaning is much more along the lines of being "trustworthy" or "faithful" e.g see here.

So when that "father of us all", that patriarch Abraham heard (or thought he heard) God promise him a son, he tried making it happen in Ishmael, but the true heir Isaac was born a full 25 years after the promise was given with no more effort on Abraham's part than I exerted when I sired my children, and that at 100 years old and his wife barren. And we are told that God reckoned Abraham righteous because he believed. With the benefit of hindsight we know Abraham did not give up on God even when, years later, he was told to offer up Isaac as a living sacrifice. Although at the time perhaps his "faith" was as wobbly as mine is.

This desisting from my own efforts, this "be it unto me according to Thy word" goes against human nature. I want to succeed, I want to be able to do it (whatever it is) "I want to be like Jesus" (a song which sticks in my memory because someone I was fond of at the time sang it, but one of those many songs with rather weak and muddled theology), but in fact I find myself to be a humbug like the Wizard of Oz.

the Wizard of Oz

In Christian circles we are told that it doesn't matter how bad we are provided we come to God for forgiveness - conversely it doesn't matter how good I have been up till now if then I apostatise.  This doesn't make sense in terms of "belief" because it begs the question of degree. But it does make sense if what really matters is - will I remain faithful? - i.e. will I not give up on God never mind what circumstances He throws at me?

I am aware that such a theory might only be a self fulfilling prophecy. One cannot know for sure until the matter is finished and, unfortunately, by then it is generally too late which principle is beautifully if inaccurately portrayed by Flanders and Swann.