The Epic Story, Part I

1 02 2012

At Wondering Fair, we love the little story. We understand a universal God through the gritty particulars of animal instincts and awaiting adoptions, of breastfeeding babies and ‘Black Friday’ blues. Through the prism of our everyday experiences, we sense thin places where the eternal breaks into the everyday. The Divine Score resonates through the humility of crotchets and quavers, and we pause long enough to hear the music. Perhaps we may even recognise the Creator playing in the least expected places.

EpicStory.jpg But not necessarily. Like a sonata, we may add note upon note of immanent experiences, and never understand the transcendent song. Our apprehensions from below may be beautiful, but we require revelation from above to take ethereal sounds from the unknown God and return them heavenward in a reverent cantata of praise. To switch metaphors and put it simply, our little stories only make sense in light of the Big Story. So as this new year is taking form, and that we may not miss the forest for the trees, I thought it timely to tell the old, old story once again. But let’s begin with you: what kind of story are you in?[1]

Ever feel like an actor without a script? From the day you entered the world with a cry, you sensed that you’re part of something bigger: an epic story of sorts. But what kind of story are you in? A comedy or a tragedy? A meandering Indie flick? Or a sweeping drama like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, with a battle to fight, and where love wins? How to tell? Stories abound: I’m a cosmic accident; I’m just an animal; I’m a reincarnated lost soul; I’m the experiment of a disinterested deity. Which, if any, is the true story?

What if there is a story that just fit? A story that embraces your own story, and everyday experience? A bigger story that makes sense of how we got here, of life’s meaning, the heart of our problem, and the solution to it all? What if there is a Director who isn’t silent, who has told us stuff we could never work out for ourselves, even about what happens when you shut your eyes for the last time?

We all live according to the story we think we’re in. So take a chancDescribetheWorld.jpg e and step into the following epic: a story with five scenes.[2] It’s a basic summary of another story, The Bible, which Christians believe is the Director’s take on how all our stories hang together. Let’s start in the present though.

Look around. Describe the world. What do you see? Good stuff? Like friends, footy, flowers, mountains, concerns, travel, Thai food, and so on. (Is there another planet where you’d rather be?!) But is that all? Flick on the news. What about the not so good stuff? Like addiction, depression, divorce, death, rape, corruption, war, global warming, poverty, pollution, and on it goes. Do you ever get the sense that something’s gone wrong? That this is not the way it’s supposed to be?

Why is that? We’re thirsty for a perfect world, but what can satisfy? Maybe it was good, or will be good, but right now it’s messed up. Let’s enter the Director’s Epic Story, right at the beginning, and it’ll start to make sense. …

DesignedforGood.jpg Scene #1: Designed for Good. The epic starts with God. Drop the images of a distant deity wilding lightning bolts. This story’s Director is passionate and relational, an artist who paints an Oasis and plants us there. And in the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. Why? Well, He made us to love God, love each other, and cultivate the world as good gardeners should. (Imagine connection with your Creator, society in harmony without selfishness, and work which you enjoy that helps the world thrive.) This is the form in which we find freedom. But just as love is only real when it isn’t forced, the Director gives us all a choice. And clearly we’re not in Eden anymore.

DamagedbyEvil.jpg Scene #2: Damaged by Evil. “Who’s God to tell me what to do?” So we, the actors, rebelled against the Director and tried writing our own script in a form we preferred. We’ve eaten the forbidden fruit, and tried to play God. Meaning? We’ve ignored and despised God, abused each other, and vandalized the planet. That’s sin—missing the mark for which we were made. We’ve turned inward, and act like the universe revolves around us. And we’ve built our lives around good stuff that can never satisfy like God: relationships, sex, status, sport … our symptoms differ, but the syndrome’s the same. The result? The world’s damaged, our relationships are divided, and our identity (our heart) is a mess. We’re broken, and we break. Worse, we’re to blame. God is loving and just, so what’s a passionate Director to do?

For that, you’ll have to tune in on Friday The Epic Story Part II.

Dave Benson

[1] See http://issuu.com/nikanddaveabroad/docs/epic_story, http://thebigstory.org.au/ and http://issuu.com/nikanddaveabroad/docs/big_story for a graphical take on The Epic Story.

[2] Adapted, with permission, from James Choung, True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In (IVP, 2008).


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Is Doubt the Enemy of Faith?

25 01 2012

Doubt gets a bad rap. We live in a world where we are not supposed to doubt, it is unhealthy—bad. Doubts, though, are like confrontations, which also have a bad rap. However, it is in confrontations that change can happen. Sometimes my wife needs to confront me, and at that point there is a back and forth until eventually one of us realizes our error (or often we both do) and we change. Today—we are so afraid of confrontations—we don’t have them. In a Facebook generation we just unfriend, ignore or avoid—but then we are depriving ourselves and others of possibly growing.

Doubts are the same way. We often are afraid of them—or we don’t deal with them—but then we never grow. In fact they may actually help. How do I know? Look at the famous, but often misunderstood biblical story of Doubting Thomas often used to illustrate how it is wrong to doubt. It can be found at the end of the Book of John.

What does Jesus do when he approaches Thomas here? Two things: First, he calls him out for doubting clear evidence—the other apostles eyewitness accounts. Most people highlight this aspect of the story. However, the second thing Jesus does is actually gives into the demands of Thomas! Thomas demands to see Jesus, his pierced hands and side, and then Jesus—after rebuking Thomas, actually gives him exactly what he demands. Why would he do that?

Jesus is trying to keep Thomas, as well as the listener from falling into one of two camps prevalent in ancient and modern culture. The first camp can be called the blind faith camp.  This group of people thinks doubts are the enemy of faith. That blind faith camp never questions their faith, never ask hard questions, and never seeks answers for when doubts rise up. They say that the definition of faith, is you don’t know, so stop trying to ask questions and just believe. There is almost a fear if that if you do ask questions then you will lose your faith.

The second camp out there is what I call the persistent cynicism camp.  These are individuals who try to poke holes in everything and mock all truth statements, and undermine all claims of purpose. I know these people exist because I was one of them. Whose to say what is true? What is true for you is true for you, but what is true for me is true for me. In some respects these people are committed to the belief that there is no belief—there is nothing else out there.

Through his actions, Jesus wants to avoid both extremes. Notice he rebukes Thomas not for doubting in general—but for doubting clear evidence from his friends. In other words, he was in the
persistent cynicism camp. He was not seeking or trying to find answers, he made a blanket statement and he was not going to budge. However, on the other hand—Jesus actually gives into his demands, and validates and even answers Thomas’ demands. So it seems, from a fresh reading of the passage, doubts are not necessarily the enemy of faith, only if they stay in a persistent state of cynicism.

In fact, they may actually boost a faith/trust paradigm. How does Thomas respond after Jesus shows him the evidence? All the gospels have Jesus trying to show others who he really is, but the one person who confesses Jesus’ full nature is Thomas!  No other human being had a higher view of Jesus than Thomas. In verse 28 he says, “My Lord and My God.” This is a personal expression of intimate relationship that is accomplished through processing doubts. So use them, search them, and build off them.

Michael Keller


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Man Seeks (Straightforward) God

23 01 2012

Over the last decade or so, the conversation about God and religion in the public square has been dominated by the extremes.  Whether angry atheists convinced that religion “poisons everything” or defensive and dogmatic believers who condemn atheists in equally strong language, the impression often given is that there are two groups of fundamentally different people out there who can do little besides shout at each other across the huge and unbridgeable chasm between them.

But the picture sketched above does not tell the whole story.  In between these extremes exist more moderate atheists and believers, as well as a growing demographic of people referred to as the “nones”—a name derived from checking the “None” box on surveys asking for one’s religious preference.  Simply put, Nones aren’t sure about God and religion.  They’re not, by in large, atheists (93% claim to believe in God or a higher power), nor are they adherents of any particular religious tradition.  They’re searching, seeking, inquiring.  They’re open to God, but not in traditional forms and expressions.

Former NPR correspondent Eric Weiner speaks for the Nones in his new book Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine.  In a recent article, Weiner expresses his exasperation with the “true believers” and the “angry atheists” that have dominated (North) American religious discourse over the last decade or so.  Like many of us, Weiner sees the world as just a bit more grey than the black and whites offered by these two groups, and is open to a much wider range of questions and answers than they are.

According to Weiner, Nones

don’t get hung up on whether a religion is “true” or not, and instead subscribe to William James’s maxim that “truth is what works.” If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people—more loving, less angry—then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.”

Nones are, apparently, characterized by an extremely pragmatic approach to issues of God and religion.  The fundamental question, according to Weiner, is not, “What is the good, the true, and the beautiful?” but “what works for me?”  Of course, there are numerous unstated assumptions about the nature of the good and beautiful embedded in Weiner’s assertion that if a spiritual practice makes us better people it is “true,” but this is, nonetheless, an undeniably human-centred approach to questions of God and religion.

A little later, Weiner makes this even clearer:

We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious. Like Mr. Jobs’s creations, this new way would be straightforward and unencumbered and absolutely intuitive. Most important, it would be highly interactive. I imagine a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment. A religious operating system for the Nones among us. And for all of us.

“Straightforward,” “unencumbered,” and “absolutely intuitive.”  These are interesting adjectives to place alongside of the quest of faith, to be sure.  Historically, the pursuit of God has been one of great joy, self-discovery, and peace, to be sure, but also one of self-denial, struggle, and even periods of great doubt and suffering, as countless people of faith down through the ages would attest.  A prominent image of the path to God is one of ascent—an image evoking the long and arduous process of climbing a mountain.  There is exertion and pain and struggle on the path to the top.  Indeed, Jesus himself said that “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).  Evidently, faith isn’t supposed to always be easy.

We have just made our way through the Christmas season.  If the Christian story is to be believed, the light of the world entered the human predicament in a most unusual, unexpected, uncomfortable, and possibly even embarrassing manner.  Jesus’ arrival on the human scene did not nicely align itself with what human beings thought ought to be the case, with how they thought divinity ought to look, with the way in which they imagined a rescue operation ought to be undertaken. It still doesn’t, for many of us.  We have all quite likely imagined other, more “straightforward” ways for God to save than the way represented by the birth and career of Jesus.

But perhaps the truth isn’t always comfortable or unencumbered or straightforward or intuitive. Perhaps, in addition to our capacity to interrogate reality, the truth asks questions of us.  Perhaps it is we who must conform to what is real and true and good and beautiful, rather than adapting and adjusting these concepts and behaviours to fit our preferences.  Indeed, if truth really is something that exists outside and independent of human minds and hearts, then perhaps the first question to ask—for Nones and for all the rest of us—is not, “what works?” or “what seems to make the most sense to me?” or “what do I prefer?” but “what is true and how do I align myself with it?”

The Christian conviction is that the struggle of faith—with all of the wrestling and sorting through our embarrassment and confusion and discomfort as we align ourselves with what is true—is worth it.  And that the view from the summit of the mountain is spectacular.

Ryan Dueck


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Hide and Seek

4 01 2012

What is it with hide-and-seek? Spanning thirteen years, three nephews and six nieces, there must be something addictive about this game. Just this weekend my five and seven year old nieces came down to stay.  As my wife likes to say, Lizzie and Abbey are as cute as a bug’s eye!  So when they ask Uncle Dave if he wants to play, I can’t resist.  And the first game of choice, without fail, is hide-and-seek.

Regardless of culture, I’m sure you’ve played it.  The concept is simple.  One person (usually the most mature) is deemed ‘it’, and the others run and hide.  Then you find them.  Got the idea?!  But don’t be fooled, there are more mysterious elements at play.  For instance, I’m expected to count out loud.  They want to know I’m coming.  Granted, they always look for a dark, obscure place to hide—behind the door, or under the blankets.  But if I take too long, they’ll always supply hints: a knock on the wall, a little voice ironically crying out “We’re not in here!”  Abbey in particular has a mischievous sense of humour.  Her favourite version is when I describe my plans in advance, saying which room I’ll explore next: “I know, Abbey’s hiding … in … HERE!” At which point I’ll lunge into the laundry, all the while knowing she’s two doors down in the guestroom.  By the time I go to where I always knew she was, she’s bursting at the seams with a big smile, waiting to be grabbed almost unawares.  Much tickling and laughter ensues.  Even as I’m ‘it’, there’s reciprocity: it’s less about hiding than being found.  My nieces need to know they’re wanted, desirable, and worth seeking.  The anticipation only adds to the excitement.

When did you last play hide-and-seek?  At some point it stops.  Usually when it shifts from play to competition.  Like Monty Python’s skit in The Flying Circus.  We find two forty-year old men engaged in the Olympic Championship of hide-and-seek.  The time to beat was set by Don Roberts from Hinckley in Leicestershire: 11 years, 2 months, 26 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes, 27.4 seconds, found in a sweetshop in Kilmarnock.  In the second leg, Francisco Huron the Paraguayan is the seeker.  Standing together in Trafalgar Square, Francisco covers his eyes: “Uno, dos, tres, quattro.”  Meanwhile, Don grabs a cab, hops a flight, hires a bike, and hides behind a pillar in a castle deep in the heart of Sardinia!  Cut back to Francisco: “Neuvecian no nuevetay ocho, nuevecientas nuevente ye nueve, mil [998,999,1000] …. Ready or not, here I come!”  Six years later and Francisco is highly agitated and hunting in Madagascar, officially described as ‘cold’.  Cut to the last day of the final, 11 years on and sporting an impressive beard.  The commentator analyses the action: “The sands of time are running out for this delving dago, this saviour of seek, perspicacious Paraguayan. … It’s beginning to look like another gold for Britain.”

You get the picture.  Hide-and-seek only works if you want to be found.

There’s something deeply human, and deeply Biblical, in all this.  Jesus “the saviour of seek” loved to tell stories of lost-and-found.  And the technique differs depending on the hider.  Take Luke 15 with three parables of seeking.  The sheep is hiding by accident; it went astray.  So the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in safety and risks his neck to recover the one.  His familiar voice echoed across the hills, “Ready or not, here I come.”  And as dumb as the sheep was, I’m sure it didn’t mind being slung over his shoulders and carried back to safety.  Same goes with the silver coin.  Nine coins in safe-keeping, but one is missing.  It’s hiding, in the dark.  So the owner lights a lamp, scours the whole house, and in the very last place you’d expect, there it is.  She picks up the coin, and calls a party!  Laughter ensues.

Yet the tone changes for the lost child.  (Or is it a recalcitrant young adult?)  This one doesn’t want to be found.  He tells dad to get lost, hiring a cab and hopping a plane to hide where he’ll never be uncovered: living wild in a distant country.  The dad counts out loud, standing on the balcony, ever watchful.  He’s already humbled himself by absorbing the son’s rejection in love.  And he seems aware of his boy’s movements—perhaps he sent messengers in advance to describe his plans of reconciliation.  He passionately pursues, calling his name.  But without reciprocity, the play is dead.

As Robert Farrar Capon notes, the strategy of right-handed direct power at this point won’t do.  It’s effective to pick up a sheep or a coin, but may only harden his boy’s heart.  Instead, the Father extends with the left-handed subtle power of love.[1]  He shines a light and calls his name, scouring the whole world all the while totally aware of where the rebel is hiding.  And when the time is right—stomach grumbling and loneliness overwhelming—his child knocks on the wall and ironically cries “I’m not in here.”  The Father runs to his son and embraces him, almost unawares.  Laughter is loud, and the party runs long.

More deceptively resourceful than Don Roberts from Hinckley, we are each prone to hide.  The Bible tells this story of a God who seeks.  And when we grow too old to play and don’t want to be found, he shifts technique to a “rhapsody of indirection”—left-handed power condescending in love.  At Christmas we remembered how light came into the world, even as we hid in darkness for fear of exposure.  But if we desire to “live by the truth” then we’ll reciprocate: we’ll come into the light (John 3:19-21).  Only, of course, if we want to be found.

So, when’s the last time you played hide-and-seek?

Dave Benson

[1] Kingdom, Grace, and Judgment (Eerdmans, 2002), 15-25.


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An Young Father

2 01 2012

Oscar Wilde’s first and only novel narrates the chilling story of a man called Dorian Gray. [1]  Dorian was handsome, splendidly handsome (not quite like Jeremy Kidwell or Dave Benson but getting close), to such an extent that a painter depicts a portrait of Dorian. When Dorian sees his own beauty on display, he expresses the wish to remain young, and to woo the world with his handsomeness forever.

Sometime later Dorian gets to know a girl, a Shakespearean actress, and proposes to her. She is ecstatic – what a gorgeous groom! – but when Dorian finds out that she lost her acting skills because of her consuming passion for Dorian, he rejects her, and she commits suicide. When Dorian arrives home, there is a change in his portrait – his face now displays a cynical smile – and Dorian realizes that his wish came true: from now on his portrait will wrinkle and age, and he will maintain the eternal freshness of youth.

Free from the visual consequences of time, Dorian succumbs to a life of pleasure and vices, and at one point kills the man who painted his portrait. His portrait grows ever uglier, grimmer, more disgusting, like an unsettling mirror of his soul. At one point Dorian is so scared of his disfigured face hovering over the living room, and of the hopeless odor of his life, that he decides to kill his portrait, in a last attempt to find some form of redemption. But when he stabs the portrait with a knife, Wilde narrates that the servants of the house hear a cry, and when they arrive, they see the portrait back in its original form, and the body of an old man on the floor with a knife stuck in his chest, wrinkled, dreadful, deformed.

It is a chilling story, yet Wilde makes us see graphically a curious observation: sin ages us. At every vice Dorian experimented, his portrait grew older and uglier. He saw his acts result in a sunken face, withered hair, eyes screaming with dread. His sin aged him, like it ages every one of us, weakening our minds, darkening our spirits, turning us in on ourselves. Sin makes us bitter and cynical, and I think that’s why we feel so old, even those of us who are quite young.

Yet, if that is the case, well, it may be that our Father is younger than we. G. K. Chesterton observed once how children like to play the same games over and other: you throw a girl into the air, and she asks, “Do it again!” You throw her another time, and she begs, “Do it again!” You throw her again still and she shouts, “Do it again!. So what about God, who created galaxy after galaxy, who did not tire of creating cell after cell or leaf after leaf? “It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun;” inferred Chesterton, “and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon… It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” [2]

I’ve always imagined God as an elderly man, weakened by the endless seasons of eternity. Yet he may be younger than we think; vigorous, fresh, spirited. We may worry to approach a cranky senior yet find a presence of joy instead, we may we muster a serious prayer yet be interrupted by jokes – “finally, my dear Lord…”- “Hold on, what did the duck say to Vladimir Putin?”. The hours are longer on his clock, and his memories may stretch way back, yet his heart is younger than ours. We mature and wise up as we approach him, but we are refreshed and enlivened too, hearing not the sigh of a face tired of seeing us come in repentance one more time, but the vigor of a young father who shouts, “Yes, do it again!”

René Breuel

[1] Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Three Stories, (New York: Tribeca Books, 2010).

[2] G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), 54.


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Christmas in the New Year

30 12 2011

While Christmas decorations are starting to come down and the world’s attention is turned to the celebration of the new year, I am still immersed in Christmas. Many people where we live try to observe the entire Christmas season—all twelve days of it—as a time of celebration, feasting, and reflection.  Amid all the figurines and pictures of Baby Jesus and Santa, the Christmas trees and lights, and the banners reading “Joy to the World” and “Peace on Earth” that continue to surround us, it is easy to think of Christmas as a holiday of babies and presents, a holiday for sentimental families and little children too young to realize that Santa isn’t real. Perhaps this is why so many people in so many places quickly turn their attention to New Years and its more adult concerns, its personal resolutions for being thinner, fitter and better people in the new year…and of course to more adult celebrations involving libations and general merriment.

But New Years and Christmas are integral to each other in ways that we frequently miss as we turn our attention to the Harbour Bridge, Big Ben or Times Square. The central message of Christmas is the initiation of a new order, a new kingdom in the world: the kingdom of God characterized by peace but also by justice. Peace—suggested by images of cuddly lions and lambs snuggled together—makes a nice Hallmark card but justice is more difficult. In fact, peace without justice is not peace at all—it is merely silencing the abused for the comfort of those in power.

In Mary’s celebratory hymn announcing the birth of her son, she declares the revolutionary new order that begins with her son’s life…and it isn’t just a spiritual kingdom. Mary declares that the character of the new kingdom which God initiates through her son is one of justice for the poor. In her hymn God scatters the proud and mighty but exalts the humble and meek. He “fills the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:46-55). This message of freedom and justice echoes Isaiah’s earlier proclamations that the messiah will shatter the “yoke that burdens” Israel and the “rod of their oppressor,” reminding us of Israel’s slavery in Egypt and, consequently, that justice is a physical, material reality and not just a nice idea (Isaiah 9:4). This language of justice, of setting right the relationships between the rich and poor, the mighty and the weak, the powerful and the oppressed permeates the traditional Christmas readings, reminding us that the lovely thoughts of “peace on earth” and “goodwill toward men” are only possible because God’s kingdom is characterized by justice.

As we move into the New Year and take stock of the world in 2011, making our resolutions to be thinner, fitter, better people, the most important New Year’s resolution we can make is to remember the message of justice that shapes the Christmas story and to resolve anew to participate in the work of God’s kingdom, striving for justice and peace in our still imperfect world.

Jessica Hughes


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Last Words Approaching the Afterlife

14 12 2011

“What do you think happens when you die?”

“That’s a strange question!” your average university student might reply. “When you die, you die. The plug’s pulled out, and the lights go out, that’s it: the eternal void. If there was something more, we would have discovered it by now. There would be proof, right?”[1]

Discussion over. And with that she heads back to party. But of course! For if death really is the end, then as the apostle Paul said, “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!”

Well, what of the afterlife? The future looks fuzzy at best—extinction, reincarnation, Valhalla, harp concerts in the sky … who knows? But in a world where death is more certain than taxes, do we have the courage to face up to ‘strange questions’ that define human life?

As I see it, most people respond in one of three ways to the afterlife: we ignore it, we deplore it, or we explore it. Which are you?

Maybe you ignore the afterlife. Your theme song is “Forever young”. Like Edward from the Twilight saga, you’re blessed with immortality. Or is it ‘amortality’? As sociologist Catherine Mayer dubs them, ‘Amortals’ “seek to arrive at the best time of their lives, and then linger there indefinitely, with the help of vitamins, plastic surgery, Botox, gym workouts, and of course Viagra.[2] (Think Australian cricketing legend Shane Warne, sporting Liz Hurley as his latest trophy. He’s tight like a tiger, but the clock is ticking.)

Even for Amortals, death is hard to ignore. Every second roughly two people around the world die—that’s 150,000 per day, 55 million per year. And contrary to popular opinion, they don’t disappear, pass away, fall asleep, or retire. They die. It’s not someone else’s problem. I will die. You will die. We could party hard and desperately grasp onto what life is left, but our last words may be tragic like whiskey merchant Jack Daniels. As he died from a blood infection, all he could say was “One last drink, please.”

Well, maybe you deplore the afterlife. Who knows what lies beyond? Heaven is a distraction, so make the most of now. Death is as natural as birth, so just accept it. As the Epicureans had engraved on their tombstones, N.F.F.N.S.N.C. (non fui, fui, non sum, non curo): “I wasn’t, I was, I am not, I don’t care.”[3]

Like Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple. Jobs battled with cancer even back at his Stanford University Commencement address of 2005. Equivalent to an epitaph, he remarked:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything just falls away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

When he died this October at the age of 56, everyone spoke of his success and legacy. His accomplishments were admirable.

But let’s get real. Apple will continue on with or without his vision. Jobs won’t be there to appreciate it, and within a couple of generations his name will be a footnote in a design textbook. I have to agree with Woody Allen, who quipped, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen. I would rather live on in my apartment.”

When death knocks on our door, all our ‘immortality projects’ are meaningless. As the writer of Ecclesiastes said, “All our strivings under the sun are but chasing the wind—utter vanity.”

Okay, I recognize this is depressing, especially during the festive season! But it is a virtue to number our days aright—to face life as it really is. So you can ignore the afterlife, or deplore the afterlife. But can I suggest a third option. Will you explore the afterlife?

What if? What if there is an afterlife? It falls short of mathematical proof, but there are rumours of transcendence that have defined entire cultures across history, from the ancient Egyptians embalming the dead to African Americans singing gospel tunes around an open casket. They could be right or wrong, but the question of the afterlife is anything but irrelevant.

Philosophers and luminaries across history have spoken about hope in the face of death. But only one pointed to himself as the source of this hope. Jesus of Nazareth claimed “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25). His last words came with confidence from a crucifix: “It is finished.”

What is finished? Apparently death as we know it. This wasn’t resigned acceptance. Jesus saw his death as mission accomplished.

Well, do we believe this? Should we believe this? It’s hard to know what ‘proof’ would satisfy a sceptic.[4] As I mused with one such university student, we’d only discover what lay beyond our last words if someone were to truly die and come back to tell the tale.

“True” she laughed, “if only, hey!”

If only.

Dave Benson

[1] Dialogue adapted from director Clint Eastwood’s movie, “Hereafter” (2010).

[2] Simon Smart, “Living like tomorrow never ends”, 15 October 2011, Sydney Morning Herald.

[3] N.T. Wright, “Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins,” http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm.

[4] To further explore this topic of “Afterlife: Christian hope in the face of death”, see here or watch the full length talk here.


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

People Watching

5 12 2011

Some days ago my wife and I introduced our 3-months-old son to one of our favourite sports: people watching. We crossed a street filled with trattorias with live music, and walking toward the sunset, emerged at the top of Piazza di Spagna, a 138 steps stairway always crowded with people ready to see and be seen. We could view almost all of Rome from the top – the tall, picturesque trees, a few candlelight restaurants, a convent by the hill, upscale, perfumed shops, church domes all the way to St. Peter’s across the river. But nothing was as amusing as watching people march up and down the stairways as their own world-stage runway.

We sat down, crowned ourselves as jurors and started giving out prizes to people. The prize of the most elegant person went to a lady in her sixties, flowing down the stairs holding hands with a couple of grandchildren, wearing a brown skirt and high heels, beige blouse and a collar of pearls. The most entertaining scene came from Bengalese salesmen offering fake Gucci and Louis Vuitton purses, who ran away when the police arrived, hid behind a wall, then came back the next minute, then ran away again, then came back… Meanwhile, a couple was exchanging innocent looks and brushing one another’s hair, and a bride-to-be rang a bell and walked among the crowd sheepishly, while her friends laughed and took pictures.

Then we started picking up winners according to their nations. The most Japanese group had last-model cameras hanging from each of their necks, and the most Brazilian couple was wearing… uhm, Brazilian soccer jerseys. The most American person, though not easy to spot at first, was unmistakable when found: moustache, tight jeans, and cowboy hat (don’t we all love Texas?). Not that Sarah and I were any more fashionable; she had borrowed one of my pullovers, which is just to be downgraded to the pyjama category, and my t-shirt was filled with the vomit Pietro had poured over me an hour before.

It was then that someone emerged from the crowd. It was a girl in her twenties, from Eastern Europe or maybe Russia, dressed as for an evening cocktail, with elaborate make-up and hair spotless as in a shampoo commercial. She was taking pictures with several poses and looks, so we figured she was a model. But as we observed better, we noticed that the photographer was not of the usual kind: it was her mom and her little sister. They were following the model-to-be and taking pictures maybe for her first portfolio, which would appear on the desk of some agency among several thousand other young ladies’ pictures, trying to get a dim light of attention.

That girl stood out for her poses and looks, yet she was striving hard for something everybody else in those stairways also secretly wanted: to be noticed, to be valued, to be appreciated. People were there to hang out and enjoy a strawberry and lemon gelato, for sure, but also sitting and waiting with the hope that somehow they would be noticed and stand out from the crowd. They wanted glamour, wanted to be part of a colourful postcard, and feel special and cultured and desirable. We all joined the crowd but we wanted pictures to be taken of us too, and feel that somehow we transcended the multitude. Tourists or locals, fashionable or not, we were all looking at the human spectacle, revelling in it and yet yearning for something more, yearning for someone special to stop by and look us in the eye. We all craved for a more splendorous presence, Someone distinguished that would come, woo everybody in the crowd, and yet select us for his company.

I looked down to Pietro. He was drinking his baby milk with closed eyes, happy in his own world. But I felt like saying, “When your heart becomes restless, when you come to seek something higher, and yearn to be bathed and included in glory, and long for a bliss of transcendence, Piazza di Spagna is not the place to come. Nor any other piazza, runway, stadium or shopping mall. Look for God, son. Look for God.”

René Breuel


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Black Friday Blues

2 12 2011

Black Friday—the traditional American shopping day that occurs the day after American Thanksgiving or the final Friday in November—has long been a tradition in the United States. For those who don’t know about it, it is the day that many retailers “go into the black” for the year, finally making a profit. Of course, because of the extensive sales (often beginning at 4am), many people have traditionally used this shopping day to begin purchasing gifts for Christmas. The final Friday in November has also, traditionally, marked the beginning of the Christmas season in North America. With the thanksgiving turkey eaten and all hints of Pilgrims, Native Americans, and other potentially disturbing history lessons happily buried beneath an evening of American football and a stomach ache from over-eating, the day-after-Thanksgiving used to greet those venturing into public with garlands, wreaths, bows, lights and Christmas carols buzzing in the air.

Not this year….

This year, the aforementioned Christmas accouterments began appearing sometime closer to November 15th or even November 1st. No one really seemed bothered by this remarkably early appearance of Christmas. However, some people were outraged when stores in America decided to start “Black Friday” sales on Thursday, adulterating a traditional public holiday both by making people work and by tainting the holiday with consumer practices (not that Thanksgiving wasn’t already well-consumerized, but the opening of retail stores on the holiday meant that the marketplace was more obviously and unavoidably infiltrating the day).

I, on the other hand, am deeply bothered by the early appearance of Christmas, not just this year but every year. Historically—as in before the Victorian invention of the modern celebration of Christmas—Christmas didn’t begin until the night of December 24th. At that time, the faithful marked the birth of Jesus and continued celebrating for 12 days. The celebration was, from what historians tell us, frequently marked by gift giving, lots and lots of drinking, eating, and general merry making. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The period before Christmas is Advent, a much ignored season of the year in modern culture. Sure we have advent wreaths but there is no real sense of “advent,” from the Latin “adventus” or coming. Coming: as in not here yet…not arrived…expected…hoped for…looked for….

Some Christians—who initiated the celebration of Christmas in the first place—do try to keep the celebration of Advent alive. In Christian practice, Advent is kept alive through fasting, prayer, and a focus on the future, on things yet to come (not Christmas carols, lights, bows, wreaths, or garlands: these are the signs and symbols of celebration not expectation). What is it that Christians look for, long for, pray for, hope for during advent? Christians look for, hope for, expect the coming of Jesus. Advent is a time of remembering God’s promise to restore the world he created and of looking for the fulfillment of that promise. Christians believe that Jesus is that very creator-God come to dwell among humanity for a time, beginning that work of restoration and renewal. Yet that work isn’t finished yet. During Advent, as Christians re-live the historical hope for renewal, they also continue to hope for the completion of God’s work of restoration in a world still broken and still in need of healing.

So, what’s wrong with decking the halls early? Why is it worse than shopping on Thanksgiving? For the simple reason that in celebrating Christmas before the holiday comes, Christmas day and the celebration of Jesus’ birth becomes the end of the story, the main event that we then pack-up. By celebrating in advance, we lose the practice of hoping and of praying, we lose the holy expectation that sees our broken world and longs for it to be made whole.  In celebrating Christmas as the beginning of a new season—the Christmas season—Christians acknowledge that the process of God’s restoration begins with the coming of God in the person of Jesus but that restoration is not completed in a day. It is ongoing, continuing, even in this Advent season. So, I say, let’s not deck the halls with boughs of holy because it is not the season to be jolly… not yet. Right now, it is the season to be subdued by the darkness that engulfs our world and to long for God to come dwell among his people once again.

Jessica Hughes


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Rootedness in a Transient World

30 11 2011

In the six and a half years that I have been married, we have moved seven times. Eight for me if you count moving in with my wife when we first got married. Throughout my life (and including my various undergraduate moves) I have moved house roughly eighteen times. It almost feels as if I’ve become nomadic, moving with my food source…of course the “food source” in this analogy refers to various degree programs and the search for cheap housing (but not cheap housing, if you know what I mean).

On top of changing houses, my wife and I have been in three different countries on two different continents in the last few years. And, given that my current program only lasts about another year and a half, another move is looming – perhaps another drastic one. I might as well be in the military. (Okay, I know that I wouldn’t do well in the military, but you get the point.)

What I long for at this point is a place, somewhere I can settle down with my family where we can become stable members of the community. Or, from another angle, I want rest: rest from the upheaval that comes with moving, rest from the effort that entering a new community requires, rest from feeling torn between where I was and where I am.

Of course, as I mentioned, I don’t see this coming my way any time soon. And, if I’m honest with myself, this sort of settled rest may well make me unhappy in other ways, such as feeling guilty for having too much. I find myself drawn to Jesus’ declaration to some would-be followers, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man [=Jesus] has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58). Still, the longing for place and rest persists, whatever objections I may raise. In this way, I am not alone.

The Bible (in both the Old and New Testament) recognizes this need for place and rest. However, it also affirms the elusive quality of these things in the here and now. One place where these themes are clearly brought out is in the book of Hebrews (one of the lesser read books in the New Testament).

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents” (Hebrews 11:8-9a).

Earlier, the author discusses the entry of the Israelites into the promised land under Joshua in terms of rest. Joshua, he claims, did not ultimately lead the Israelites into rest (as the book of Judges abundantly illustrates) but rather the rest was still to come (Hebrews 4:8).

For the the New Testament generally, true place and rest will come, but only with the end, when the earth is made new and we dwell with God in his city. As Hebrews says about Abraham, “he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10).

So, yes, we may long for true place and rest, but this longing will not always be frustrated. The New Testament holds out this hope to us in the hands of Jesus Christ.

Ben Edsall


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