U2, Newton, and Jesus’ Grace

25 02 2011

In 2001 the rock band U2 released ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind’. The album won 7 Grammy Awards and was voted number 139 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of ‘The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time’.[1] One of the album’s songs is called ‘Grace’. Its last few lines are surely appealing:

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Of course U2 vocalist, Bono, was not the first to sing about grace. Perhaps the most well-known song on this theme was written in the 18th century by an Englishman, John Newton. A slave trader for many years, Newton then renounced the profession, according to him, due to a profound experience with God. Reflecting on his life’s trajectory he composed ‘Amazing Grace’.

As far as we know, Jesus of Nazareth didn’t write a song about grace. Nevertheless, he told a story that is probably one of the most impressive illustrations of what grace means:

“There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, “Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.” So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. That brought him to his senses. He said, “All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.” He got right up and went home to his father. When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: “Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.” But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, “Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!” And they began to have a wonderful time.”[2]

Jesus is clear to portray who the story’s characters represent. The father is a picture of God while the sons are a picture of humanity. Jesus’ teaching, and definitely also his life, demonstrates that God has literally run towards humanity, is willing to forgive it all and genuinely desires to reconnect us to himself. In other words, grace is at the centre of existence. It is no surprise that John Newton, U2 and so many others have decided to sing about it.


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Categories : The Heart of Faith

Mirror Image

23 02 2011

“Please help. Who am I?”

Tomorrow I’m catching up with Sarah, and I care so much about her. If it plays out as it has every other time we’ve conversed over coffee—once a quarter for six years—then we’ll scan the universe and barely scratch the surface. But in one way or another, every conversation will circle around this question, like a 747 in a holding pattern, desperate to land: “Who am I?”

Some background: Sarah is 21 and can’t work out what she wants. After 5 jobs and 3 university courses, she’s settled for studying tourism. In a world of supermodels, Sarah feels like a fat failure. She struggled with eating disorders, but finally gave up trying. She went to see a psychologist. Sarah asked “Who am I?” She was made to stare in the mirror in search of an answer. “Look deep within yourself … what are your fears, your desires, your likes and dislikes?” Sarah now has new techniques to manage the self-loathing—constant travel and shopping.

Sarah used to believe in God. But God was confining. The church was controlling. She wants to be free. Still, she prays late at night, sleepless in bed, whenever she’s sad. Sociologists have a name for Sarah’s religion. They call it moralistic therapeutic deism.[1] (Of course, Sarah would never call it that!) For Sarah, ‘God’ is some distant deity who set up the universe and stepped away. This God just wants her to be good, and feel happy—much like her therapist. This God is a projection of her own reflection.

Sarah is in search of an image. She wants an icon around which to build an identity. In this “new branded world”[2] I think Sarah has latched onto iPod—the alternate rock-chick stencil in green, to be specific. Sarah wants to be the sovereign solo artist, listening to her private soundtrack, individually styled and dancing for personal pleasure.

Superficially, Sarah’s life centres on friendship. She compulsively scans Facebook, and nervously checks her cell phone for texts every five minutes or so. Yet Sarah has never really learned to be interdependent—she vacillates between co-dependent relationships, and strident individualism with no strings attached—to do what I wanna’ do, be what I wanna’ be, “freedom.” But it’s always a negative “freedom”—freedom from … freedom from expectations, from rules, from commitment.

It’s impossible to answer “Who am I” independent of a story. There’s a plot to our lives: a beginning, a middle, and an end. We all live in a story. But for Sarah—and many of her peers—it’s not a metanarrative or a grand story. Instead, it’s the sitcom starring moi, a story of secular happiness, where friends, family, and even God play cameo roles. And this story doesn’t have much of a plot.

Take one of Sarah’s luminaries, Lady Gaga, in her song Just Dance. She’s drunk, lost her man, alone, and can’t see straight anymore: “What’s the name of this club?  I can’t remember but it’s alright, alright, just dance. … Gunna’ be okay, just dance.”

Sarah has bought into this story. But she’s not confident like her iPod icon. And nor is she popular and edgy like her musical idol.  Deep down these ‘answers’ don’t work. She is depressed. The counselling bills are racking up. And so we soar once more around the same question: “Who am I?”

Throughout most of history—and presently across most of the non-Western world—Sarah’s individual story would be couched within two larger stories. Take Africa, with the concept of Ubuntu: “I am, because we are.” Sarah’s personal identity would only make sense within the story of our community. Or take Asia: Sarah’s family name would come first, as this is foundational to who she is.

And community is couched in an even larger story of the Creator. If Sarah is created, then she will only know who she is by knowing from whom she came. For what was she created?

Sarah suppresses such questions. But what if? What if she is not ultimately her own?  What if the answer to “Who am I” isn’t staring her back in the mirror?  What if Sarah is actually the image—the icon—of a Creative God? Perhaps “the knowledge of God and of ourselves is mutually connected.”[3] Sarah didn’t bring herself into being, so what makes her think she can answer “Who am I” by focusing on her reflection?

Maybe things have changed. Maybe Sarah has grown tired of her glass prison and the echo of an answer. Maybe she’s ready to face the One in whose image she is made, and to find a deeper freedom for commitment—freedom to love.

I hope so.  After six years, this plane is definitely ready to land.

Dave Benson

[1] Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 162, 171.

[2] Naomi Klein, No Logo (Hammersmith, London: Flamingo, 2001), 3, 76.

[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, chapter 1.


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Categories : Bar Conversations and Cheap Advice, On Anything and Everything, Spirituality for the Rest of Us

Do Science and Religion Contradict One Another?

21 02 2011

“Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science?”, asked Albert Einstein. This question has dominated some of the most important debates of the last centuries, yet today secularist and religious camps have grown so far apart – in language, method of knowing, accumulated prejudices, communities and institutions in each side – that a true, sincere encounter between the two sides seems hardly imaginable.

But the answer of a scientist at awe with the universe may surprise us. “Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer.”[1] In Einstein’s perspective, science and religion are not in contradiction, not will ever one render the other useless.

Einstein arrives at this curious conclusion for two reasons. The first regards the origins and motivations of science. “… science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason.”[2] To aspire toward truth, and to believe that our universe is stable and intelligible, assumes the intentional work of a Creator, in other words.

Einstein points here that the birth of empirical science did not emerge in ancient Greece where, though there was philosophical debate, a polytheistic view of gods at war with one another did not foster an a systematic investigation of reality. There were exceptions, of course, such as Aristotle, but who believed precisely in a primal Cause behind the universe. Instead of Greece, empirical science emerged in early modern Europe, in the times of Copernicus and Bacon and Galileo, inside a Christian framework. Only after centuries of belief that the world was caused, that it was stable and reasonable to the human mind, could modern science be born.

If Einstein’s first reasoning regarded the motivation for science, his second consideration examines the effects of scientific enquiry. The person in the lab, or who looks at the world through a telescope, does not remain unaffected. “… every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. The pursuit of science leads therefore to a religious feeling of a special kind…”[3]

There may be several unresolved debates still going on, be it in biology, astrophysics or archaeological history. But in Einstein’s overarching view, science emerges from religious motivations, or at least is sustained by the assumptions born of a belief in a Creator, and leads to religion, as the delicacies of our universe are better known and better appreciated. Not only are science and religion not in contradiction, but, according to Einstein, “I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith.”[4]

I imagine our scientific research would be sharper, and our religion less divisive, and our minds less fragmented, if we could hold the study of the universe and the worship if its Creator closer together, as Einstein did. We may not be involved in high-end research, or pursue doctorates in quantics, but the passion of a ground-breaking scientist is nonetheless intriguing, even for those looking out the window with the naked eye. “I want to know how God created this world. I’m not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.”[5]

René Breuel

[1] Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science: Irreconcilable?,” The Christian Register (June 1948).

[2] Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (London: Castle Books, 2005).

[3] 24 January 1936 letter in response to a sixth-grader (Phyllis Wright) asking whether scientists pray, and if so, what they pray for.

[4] Einstein, Out of My Later Years.

[5] E. Salaman, “A Talk with Einstein,” The Listener 54 (1955): 370-371.


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Categories : Tough Questions

Green Grass Fun

18 02 2011

“Be joyful,
Though you have considered all the facts.”
–Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front”

My husband and I bought a Great Dane puppy in March. She’s now a 6-month old, 70lb (32kg) puppy―and still growing (think of Marmaduke or Scooby-Doo if you’ve never been around a Great Dane and you have a good idea of what we’re dealing with). Every morning since we bought her, we take her for a walk, usually along some abandoned railroad tracks behind our house. As she’s grown, we’ve explored more and more of the tracks that go through the woods, through a Catholic retirement community and then to St. Mary’s College.

Ziva (that’s the puppy’s name) loves these walks: since she spends most of time “off-leash” she can explore all sorts of interesting things like rabbits and groundhog holes, mostly empty beer cans, chocolate bar wrappers, and brambly thickets that (apparently) smell very interesting. As fun as the woods are, Ziva’s favorite part of the walk is the many-acre lawn at the entrance to St. Mary’s. After passing through a second bit of the woods that separates the retirement village from the college, the trees open upon a stately expanse of weedless grass, always perfectly raked and mowed to about 3 inches long. Since we walk in the morning, the grass is usually heavy with dew and sparkles in the sun, which is just starting to peak over the trees. Edged by thick woods on one side and the lovely brick architecture of St. Mary’s, the wide grass is a fabulous place for Ziva to run and play.

Since she has been big enough to walk that far, Ziva has loved arriving at this lawn. As she sits there, looking across the grass and waiting to be released, her hind-legs quiver with anticipation. The minute we say “OK” she starts down the small hill, nose to the grass, sniffing the earth and licking the dew. Then, burying her nose deeper, she rubs her head in the long, wet grass and does a somersault―a full-on, bum-over-head flip in which she lands on back and then wriggles into the grass before getting up and starting all over again. Across the entire lawn she will repeat this process of rolling and wallowing in grass, looking up at us after each flip and panting with joy.

Watching her pure puppy delight in the wet, grassy newness of the morning, day-after-day, has got me thinking about the whole idea of “praise.” Typically, I think of praise as a verbal affirmation of something, usually a sort of respectable singing to God, telling him how great he is. It can seem a bit removed from reality: an intellectual exercise of affirming the divine in his divinity (as if the almighty needs to hear me tell him he’s great) and an affirmation of my own righteousness (after all, I am singing praise to the divine in an approved religious manner). Or I think of Job: “Though he slayth me, yet shall I praise him.”  Or I think of the tradition that all our work and lives are praise but I’m never quite sure what that means, in practice at least. While singing ― in good times and bad― or working with all diligence are perhaps types of praise, Ziva’s rolling in the grass seems to be praise of a different order: it is a visceral delighting in the immediate goodness of creation, as if wallowing in the wet grass, face covered in dew is an active “YES!” to the open lawn stretching out before her.

While it is quite true that the world frequently sucks and terrible things happen pretty routinely, watching Ziva has made me want to adopt a more puppy-like approach to the world I am faced with every day. It would be good to learn to nose-dive into a full, bodily celebration of the good at hand, even when it is as simple and routine as dew and a nicely mowed lawn.

Jessica Hughes

Photography provided by shootingforyou.com.


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Categories : Spirituality for the Rest of Us

Appreciation

16 02 2011

Let’s talk about something really controversial: Getting kids to sleep.

For those who haven’t climbed that mountain yet, there are generally two sides in this controversy. One is the “Attachment Parenting” School, who argue that babies should be almost constantly connected to their mothers, usually sleeping in bed with you. The other side is the “Controlled Crying” School, who argue that children are perfectly capable of sleeping alone, but just need to be trained to do so, which initially involves crying a lot. Advocates of either position can get really nasty – Attachments think Controllers are mean and horrible, Controllers think Attachments are indulgent and co-dependent.

For our baby, we never went fully attached, but we did begin by gently rocking her to sleep for a few minutes. However, over time, this grew and grew to us singing, patting her, stroking her hair, while also rocking her in five different positions. Each new thing would work for a while until she got used to it, then she’d cry no matter what.

Finally, in desperation, we tried Controlled Crying (she was crying a lot by now anyway), and Controllers promised it would take a week at most to work. Three weeks later, it wasn’t, and we were all emotional wrecks.

Then one night I put her in her cot, and just patted her back for about thirty seconds. Astonishingly, she settled, and fell asleep. This happened again, and again, usually within 5 minutes. For two whole weeks, it was bliss.

But then she started taking longer and longer to get to sleep again. Realising where we were headed, we made a “semi-Controlled” policy: ten minutes of settling her, and if she doesn’t settle, ten minutes of her crying, then ten minutes more of settling. That pretty much always works for her.

This whole process got me wondering what was going on for this little person. After much reflection, I decided it was an intuitive sense of appreciation. Appreciation is that feeling of enjoying what somebody does for you, and expressing that enjoyment to them. Sometimes, people focus on the second part of that (usually with some guilt involved: “You make me feel unappreciated!”). But I think we forget the first part is important too. Our baby wouldn’t go to sleep when she was unappreciative of our patting her back. Once she’d not had the pats for a while, she appreciated them again, and they sent her to sleep. Please note, I’m not saying she should be appreciative to make me or my wife feel good. I’m saying her appreciation of us made her feel good.

We often hear how we’ll be happier if we appreciate what we have. As simple as it sounds, when I choose to be grateful for the life I have, I feel better. When I don’t, and instead focus on what I want but don’t have, I feel miserable. Some of the happiest people in history chose to be utterly poor and yet were also astonishingly exuberant (Francis of Assisi, for example). They simply cultivated the mental habit of appreciation.

This obviously has implications for lots of things – sustainability, depression, consumerism, to name a few. But along with those points, I also suggest appreciation is most powerful when it is not merely had, but given, because that makes it relational. Our baby doesn’t just want pats on her back as she’s going to sleep – she wants our pats, because she senses they are an expression of our love, and that makes her feel nice. A large part of the joy I feel about my country’s wellness, peace and freedom, is because I recognise they are utterly undeserved gifts from a loving divine Father. It’s not just that I should acknowledge God’s grace if He’s really gracious – it’s that I’ll be happier if I do. Francis of Assisi certainly saw life this way, too.

Some might not believe there’s a God giving them everything they have – that’s their choice. But if you do have some tiny sense that He is there, lovingly giving you everything, I invite you to cultivate that sense of recognition. And that invitation isn’t just because you’d be right to think that He is, or that it would be ethically right to appreciate Him. It also will give you that wonderful sensation, appreciation.

Well, I should go – time to put the baby to sleep…

Matt Gray


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Valentine’s Day Sugar

14 02 2011

Heart-shaped pillows. Teddy bears who send kisses. Movies which exalt the magic of love at first sight. Girls receiving jewel-priced flower bouquets at work. “I love you more than ever” banner from Ju to Ro in front of your house. That soft, mellow voice on the radio wishing everybody a happy Valentine’s Day “from the bottom of my heart.”

Aaaaahhhh!!!!! (Stumping of feet and pulling out of hair). A tsunami of sugary romance floods an otherwise fine day, and we are all forced to think cute thoughts, carry baby pandas on the bus, and open our chest’s to Cupid’s arrow. Our world feels enchanted, true, even for a day, but couldn’t it be a less pinky enchantment? Our air is infused with flower aromas, even if polluted air was good enough, and our ears get to hear celebrity gossip, who are the cutest guys in the office, and about  Matt’s plans (Matt is one of the cute guys) to propose in the evening, hiding the diamond ring inside a chocolate cake to be discovered while an uniformed band plays “The Way You Look Tonight.” Not to mention those of us who are single, and have to sit behind to the panda on the bus and endure giggles and that minute-long kiss in the seat ahead. (I’m considering taking a Swiss knife in my pocket, so I can at least discretely remove the eyes of the panda while the kiss goes on).

Why are we repelled by such Valentine’s Day sugar? Some people would point that the problem is the excess: honey-sweet,  chocolate-sprinkled, marshmallow-embedded, cascade of caramel Valentine’s Day. Good point. Less sugar, folks. Others would speak against the commercialization of love and the commodification of intimacy. Good point too. Still others would point to baby talk – “my little sweety strawberry pie!” –  and defend how mature love should be, well, mature. Another good point.

But my guess is that sugarest portion that repels us from Valentine’s Day sugar is over-shared intimacy. You know, that six-meters banner “I love you forever!!!” from Ju to Ro didn’t need to meet my precious eyes. That was meant for the two of them; outside of their shared intimacy it does not have the same meaning and sounds, if we may choose a more salty taste, cheesy. I haven’t met Ju yet; I haven’t been bewitched by her smile; I haven’t played pranks and done laundry and watched horror movies by her side so that her spirit could impregnate into mine, and command my attention, and so that those words “I love you forever!” could lift my soul to the highest heaven and make me feel the luckiest man alive. I’m sure Ro feels this way, but I don’t. For me Ju is a name; for him she is a person.

And I guess that’s how many of us feel when we hear about God’s love. Our sugar-thermometer rises to diabetes-level when we hear the words, “God loves you.” It sounds artificial; we think more of heart-shaped pillows than of the thunderous presence that summons everything into himself. Declarations of God’s love have been bathed in too much sugar; they have met us in mere bumper-stickers and lost the connection to real life.

Valentine’s Day overwhelms us with its sugar, true, but we still know that true romance is possible. In a similar way, just because the words “God loves you” meet us in children stories and bumper-stickers it does not follow that, in fact, God’s love for us is not true and real. They may sound artificial, but because we still miss the connection that makes those words meaningful. Maybe we are yet to meet God, and be enthralled by his face, and play pranks and do laundry and watch horror movies by his side, so that his Spirit moves and impregnates us to the core, and so that the mere thought that God loves me – God, the God behind all else, the fountain of all life, the severity that adjusts galaxies and knows with perfection – that love, that impossible, undeserving love, the mere thought of it lifts my soul to the highest heaven and makes me sing aloud on the street, even if it looks sugary to others.

René Breuel


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Who Has Truth?

9 02 2011

Truth: who has it?  Anyone with a basic philosophical awareness realizes that this question is not a simple one.  How is “truth” to be defined?  In what sense can a person (or group) have it?  In my less guarded moments, I’m tempted to answer, “I have it, just ask me,” but that is, of course, ridiculous.  I am a finite person whose grasp on truth (however defined) is tenuous at best.  Just ask my wife.

Now, I know that this blog doesn’t really major in current events, but if I could, I’d like to reflect again on the current uproar in Egypt.  Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably been reading about the economic and political turmoil in Egypt, about the recent church bombings there, about the call for President Mubarak to step down, etc.  With all that ringing in my ears, a friend pointed me to a remarkable picture of a group of Christians protecting Muslims while they prayed during the protests.

This is a beautiful example of people reaching across religious and social boundaries to help others.  It is especially poignant given the often violent disagreements between these two groups in a variety of other contexts.  It is important to note that the Christians did not demand a mass conversion or renunciation of Islam before protecting their fellow protesters and that, when the protests are all said and done, there remain real theological, ethical, political, social, etc. differences between these two groups. However, what actions such as this do is open the opportunity for dialogue.

Inter-religious dialogue is fraught with difficulty. (Actually, dialogue between any two people who disagree strongly about any subject is difficult, but religion is on the agenda today.) If one believes in a single God who is the creator and ruler of all that is and who is to be worshiped in a particular way (however that may be defined), it isn’t really a viable option to “agree to disagree” and leave it at that. To attempt such a solution is to ignore the totalizing claim of such theological convictions. While the conversation may end amicably with each party still disagreeing, the dialogue cannot be over.  The question remains, who has the truth?

One of the beautiful aspects of Christianity, at least in my mind, is that while it does claim a monopoly on Truth (note the capital “T”), it never claims one for truth (with the little “t”). That is, the presence of God with us in the person of Jesus, who died, was raised and was glorified and who is the mediator between God and his people through a new covenant (to put it in one sentence) is Christianity’s totalizing claim for “T”ruth. But, this same God also created the world and all who live in it. All humanity is made in his image and thus shares some portion of his likeness.

It is a striking feature, long noted by biblical scholars, that both the Old Testament and the New Testament “borrow” things from sources outside their religious tradition. There is a good case to be made that a large chunk of proverbs (in the book of the same title) was drawn from Egyptian wisdom literature. In the New Testament, there are striking affinities between the thought of Paul and his Stoic contemporaries. Indeed, in the book of Acts he is portrayed as citing a Greek poet (Acts 17:28). Heck, even Jesus, who is himself the way, Truth and life borrowed images and language from his environment. (Incidentally, he was also well known for having conversations with those who were from the other side of the tracks.) Some of this, to be sure, can be chalked up to the fact that all people absorb elements from their environment to varying extents. But, while Christianity claims the ultimate truth about God, it never argues that others from other religious (or philosophical, or political, or sports) groups can’t say true things.  Of course, determining whether or not the thing said is true is a problem in itself…more the matter for a philosophical treatise than a blog entry. Nevertheless, God’s universal love for his creation provides this space for dialogue between disagreeing parties. One can genuinely learn from the “other” in dialogue and dialogue provides space for loving action. Love begets dialogue, which begets love et cetera.

Ben Edsall


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Surprised by Empathy

7 02 2011

This past week the world caught its breath. Throughout the Arab world, masses took the streets, and in Egypt the protest movement achieved epic proportions. Thousands if not millions of people invaded the central squares of the country to demand a new government, greater freedom and better living conditions. What were inspiring peaceful demonstrations became a nightmare when president Mubarak refused to leave, and apparently launched a disguised movement that incited violence and created crude battle scenes for the world to watch. Yet for the number and resilience of protestors, for the camaraderie it inspired throughout the Arab world, for the surprising indignation of a people accustomed to bow down from the time Pharaohs commanded them to build the pyramids, this past week was charged with momentousness and seemed to articulate a longing for a new world order.

Is there one awaiting us? Who knows. Egyptians, and inspired fellow Arabs, may emerge from this crisis feeling more empowered, even if they don’t reach political aspirations, yet feeling proud of their own stand. These mass movements could increase social ownership, forge a mid-course of political representation and reduce the perceived polarization against the West, which could in turn weaken extremism and the lure of terrorist action. The century born out of 9/11 could be less polarized after all, and genuine democracies could flourish in the Middle East, after the war-forced ones failed. Maybe the 2022 World Cup in Qatar could celebrate the coming-of-age of a renewed, more empowered and more peaceful Arab region, standing tall like Dubai’s skyscrapers, like the 1990 World Cup celebrated the end of the Cold War and 2008 Beijing Olympics cemented China’s forestage position. Or the scenario could not be as rosy, who knows.

But one benefit those of us far from Cairo have already felt. A curious feeling developed inside many following the protests, a surprising, yet benevolent, reaction: empathy. We have appreciated the cause of the people; we could visualize the dissatisfaction with their government; we have been amazed by the resilience and courage of the crowds; we have followed the news and hoped the crisis would finish. It is a surprising feeling because many of us have not seen the world out of Cairo before; those people on the street were them, a very distant them.

Empathy brings a good shake-up of our prejudices. It warms the iciest polarization, when we see the human face on the other side. It helps us recognize beauty and character and humanity we would not expect. It also helps us recognize God better, because when he came to be with us, it wasn’t the safe Jesus we would expect. It was a Palestinian, probably darker-skinned, Aramaic-speaking Jesus, someone we would probably avoid and cross the street to the other curb side, if we saw him today. It was a strange Savior, a foreign person, with a subversive rhetoric. We could reject him simply out of prejudice, if empathy did not teach us to look in strange places, and to be taken by unexpected humanity, and to let God appear as he may, even while we long so hard to make him look and act like we do.

René Breuel


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Categories : On Anything and Everything

In Sickness and In Faith

4 02 2011

I think about food a lot, probably more than most people. I read the ingredients list on every item of food I buy, even packets of sweets and chewing gum. I am the person who phones the host of a dinner party in advance to ask what’s in the dishes they’re preparing, the one who asks for the croutons to be left out of the salad at a restaurant, the one who more often than not says “no” to plates of delicious cakes and biscuits and chocolates passed around over coffee, the one who can’t bite her daughter’s macaroni to see if it’s cooked, and who has to use separate chopping boards when preparing food for my family and myself. Sound like a fussy eater? I am, but my food choices are conditioned by two chronic conditions: diabetes and coeliac disease.[1]

I’ve had Type 1 diabetes (insulin dependent) since I was 16 years old and I’m 31 now, but while I’ve probably had coeliac disease my entire life, I only became aware of it through a routine pregnancy blood test in October. I was already accustomed to avoiding certain foods, but this latest news came as a complete shock. I now have to cut out all wheat based products (bread, pasta, noodles, beer, to name but a few) and all products containing even a hint of wheat or other gluten-containing substances. In addition to grieving the loss of some of life’s simplest pleasures (fresh baked bread to name but one), possibly the hardest part of this is not being able to break bread with my family at home and my family the church.

Perhaps, like me, some of us wonder how to reconcile faith with incurable sickness. Contemplation of these conditions and their consequences has opened my eyes to new spiritual things. On a good day I am not conscious in my body of either illness and must therefore, bizarrely, effectively live by faith in the diseases, trusting that although I don’t feel sick, sickness is at work in my body and I must eat and live accordingly.

What part does sickness play in a life of faith in Jesus Christ? As I read the Bible I come across all sorts of people afflicted with all sorts of sicknesses, some physical, some social, some psychological, all with spiritual implications. Some suffered for a lifetime, others were miraculously healed. As a Christian, I live within the paradox that God is a healer who didn’t cure his own pain. Jesus didn’t build a house for himself when he had nowhere to stay, he didn’t turn stones into bread when he was hungry, nor did he summon angels to take him down from the cross when he was dying. To what end? The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered (5:8). As man, Jesus—like the rest of us—knows what it is to suffer. He also knows, therefore, how to trust in God in good times and in bad, so that we can do the same. It is in God’s nature to heal, but it is also in God’s nature to empathise and to strengthen us to endure. That gives me hope for the future and comfort in the present, in sickness and in health.

Madi Simpson

[1] chronic failure to digest food triggered by hypersensitivity of the small intestine to gluten.

 


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Categories : Tough Questions

Sifting Trash, Sorting Treasure

2 02 2011

When all threatens to be swept away, what would you save?  As they say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”  Last month my sleepy city of Brisbane had a wet season that lived up to its reputation.  Inundated by global attention, this dilemma tumbled from hypothetical into turbulent reality.

For nearly a month the rain fell.  Seventy-five percent of Queensland was flood affected—think France and Germany combined.  The low-system settled over us.  Freak storms hit the Toowoomba range, immediately west of Brisbane.  Locals looked on, horrified, as the centre of that city became a tumultuous river.  Cars were swept away like sticks.  And on the waters cascaded, through the Lockyer Valley.  With little notice an inland Tsunami hit towns like Grantham.  Stories abounded of parents clambering onto rooves, holding their children aloft, praying for a helicopter to fly them away.  The water accumulated in Wivenhoe dam, soon straining at nearly 200 percent capacity.  Thankfully the wall didn’t give way.  Nevertheless, each day a body of water the volume of Sydney Harbour was released toward Brisbane.

My suburb was one of the first hit.  The Brisbane River peaked at 21 metres, a silty sea sweeping away our local park.  Houses were built high, so our worst experience was isolation for 5 days.  We moved a friend’s house contents above the predicted flood line, and then two days later moved it all back again, unscathed.  Deciding what was worth saving was subjective at best.

By the time the waters passed through Brisbane city, however, it was a different story.  The 4.5 metre peak was enough to take out nearly 20,000 properties.  Once the waters receded, the sight was staggering.  Kilometre after kilometre, houses were covered in silt.  The streets were lined with trash.  So many families lost everything.  The devastation compounded when insurance companies informed residents that, technically, this wasn’t a ‘flood’—the river banks never broke, even as the waters rose.  Everything was gone.

I could dwell on the details, but one image sums it up.  Back in March 2010, close friends had their house damaged by local flash floods.  So they formed an evacuation plan in case of serious storms.  Each of the family members set aside a box of priceless items to protect at all costs.  Yet as the Brisbane floods hit, they were trapped up the coast with no chance of clearing their possessions.  The waters rose and swallowed their house.  Upon returning, everything was ruined.  Dozens of people volunteered to clean up the mess, but like I said earlier, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”  Each of the kids searched for their box of items.  Tom, a twenty-year-old dental student, followed the garbage trail out to the nature-strip, scanning for his missing items.  Thus far he had been stoic.  But then he saw the legs of his childhood stuffed toy poking out of the dirty pile.  Without over-dramatising, he fell to the ground, frantically sifting trash with his bare hands.  Items he held dear were destroyed.  A guttural cry passed through his lips and the streams flowed once more.

When all is taken away, what do we value the most?  At times like this, “You are what you own” rings hollow; retail therapy is exposed as a placebo.  As outsiders, we prioritized large and expensive items to secure above the waters for our evacuated friend.  But for insiders like Tom, when it all washes up in the end, what matters most isn’t material at all.  This is really about that.  This photo is about that friendship.  This CD is about that first date.  And this muddied toy is about that childhood memory.

Our ‘flood’ experience seems overblown compared with Brazil and Pakistan, displacing Australia’s entire population.  But common to us all is that which holds ultimate worth.

In our consumerist culture, ‘stuff’ should always take second place.  We can thank God for material blessings, but even my prized laptop is just trash compared to the worth of a life, of love, and of shared memories.  All our possessions will perish.  And tears will flow.  But for Tom and his family, hope remains afloat.  They have taken Jesus’ teaching to heart: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and he will give you everything you need.”  Their ‘home and contents’—their treasure and centre of identity—is built on the rock.  As the floods come, and the elements conspire, it cannot be shaken (Matthew 7:24-27).  I only pray that the floods we face prompt us each to sift trash from treasure before that great day when God’s love and justice inundate us all.

Dave Benson


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Categories : On Anything and Everything, Spirituality for the Rest of Us


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