iGod

Life Version 2.0

(My article reproduced from Community News)

I have a love-hate relationship with technology. I love it when it makes my life easier, but absolutely hate it when it interferes with my routine and it becomes the master, not the servant.

Quite unabashed, I have been an Apple Mac user ever since my second year at ‘vicar factory’ back in the early 90s. Before then I kindly borrowed someone’s Toshiba Portable MS DOS computer, which in truth wasn’t that portable. Not only was it heavy and left dents in my knees, but the battery life was shorter than a queue to the Crazy Paving Appreciation Society’s Annual Lecture.

Nowadays, alongside my lighter laptop, I also have my mobile or should I say ‘smart phone’, but as I discovered recently this has not been without its problems.

I attempted to upgrade my phone software to the latest whizzy-whiz, faster, better-than-ever-before version. Also known as iOS 5. In truth, I was not unhappy with how things were before, but the thought of something better and free, well…it was simply an offer I couldn’t refuse.

So on a quiet weeknight I hit the download button to let technology do its best. Unfortunately it decided to do its worst. With a big gasp I watched my entire set of emails, calendars and contacts disappear before my eyes. (And, no, my emails weren’t backed up!) If ever there was a time to find a grown man crying in a corner it was then. The promise of a better-connected life had let me down.

It has made me think how we can often put a lot of blind faith in things that are not necessarily proven, but given enough hype can accept anything as truth. We want to believe that something will make our lives better.

It is natural to want to upgrade the standard of our lives. We can look at the current version and think, “This just sucks! Maybe something has to stopped functioning in our life or we see something in someone else’s and want what they have.

The late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple said famously in a university plenary speech:

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

The immensely successful and talented Steve Jobs recognised his products were not ultimately enough in them self. That is quite something, isn’t it?

Life has a spiritual profundity that modern science still struggles with any integrity to make redundant. There remains this longing in us all to be known, loved and accepted for who we are, not for what we have achieved. Many Christian commentators have called this a God-shaped hole wanting to be filled by himself through his Son Jesus Christ.

If the promises of God are true and Jesus is who he says he is, it requires a full upgrade to a new way of seeing and experiencing life. The old version will never do.

St Augustine, the early church father said rather wryly:

“I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: ‘Come to me all you that labour and are heavy burdened.’” [quoting Jesus]

Is God’s Life Version any better than the modern alternatives around?

I give the last word to Paul the low-tec Apostle who said this about the great iPriest, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

ASD

Warning: keep the red safety cable attached at all times

Recently, I took my daughter and her friend to Go Ape! in Thetford Forest. It is one of those three-hour treetop experiences with zip wires and high-tension cables where you move around 12 metres above ground wondering why on earth you ever agreed to do it.

Described as the ‘mother of all our courses’, it features a crossing some 26 metres from platform to platform. It feels like 260.

Now, as you might have guessed, I am not one for heights, but sometimes a dad has to do what a dad has to do.  So not wanting to come across to my daughter’s friend as a wuss, I reluctantly got all kitted up with a safety harness and, armed with weak smile, headed for the first rope ladder.

Okay so 12 metres might not sound very high, but I tell you when you are walking on a wire between one narrow pine tree platform to another it might as well as be wing-walking on a circus stunt bi-plane.

Our safety trainer had given us clear instructions: we were to keep the red safety cable attached to the high-tension wires at all times. Also, and this bit really got me, I was solely responsible for the safety of the two young girls. I thought, “You’re kidding me. right? It’s every man for himself up there!”

Of course, fatherly instincts kicked in and after a couple of crossings I got to trust the thin red cable which my life and theirs depended upon. What’s more, I think the girls almost trusted me that I really wouldn’t let anything happen to them.

All too often we can find ourselves in situations which, well, quite frankly scare us. Sometimes these are self-made, sometimes not.  We are out of our comfort zone and begin to worry how we are going to get though it all. 

It might be marriage difficulties, money worries, serious illness, impending redundancy - you name it.  As adults we can feel embarrassed. I know this is quite likely true for blokes. And for the young single mum I think it is especially true. It is hard to be brave in front of your kids when it is just you making the decisions.

It is at times like these good to know that we can call on help from a loving and personal God. One of the most effective prayers I have learnt along the way is: “Oh, God, oh God, help! Amen.” It is perhaps not the most religious or wordy of prayers, but it sure does work.

The Bible has some great words of encouragement for all of us struggling with that high wire experience: “Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders.” (Deuteronomy 33:12)

There is something inside all of us that wants to know that we’ve got a red safety wire attached to us - ready for when we slip or fall. Because it is very likely that we will. The wire that God offers us in his son Jesus Christ, but he brings more than comfort or reassurance, he saves lives.

John Donne, the great 17th century writer put it eloquently when he said, “No man is an island.” None of us are meant to go it alone whether faced with fear and difficulties or not. It is far from weak to rely on God as being our red safety wire. In fact, it’s just plain wise.

ASD

The beauty of love

This is the season for awards. it is the annual opportunity for mortals to be made Greek gods.

In the midst of the recent deifications are fun-lovin' folksters Mumford and Sons who won Best Album of the Year at this year's Brits.

To be honest, I was not sure about them on first listening, but then that might just be my hang ups with folk per see. However, I have been forced to rethink my position and find myself having some kind of conversion experience to this ancient genre. A big thanks also to BIlly Bragg here too.

The lyrics that Marcus Mumford has penned are nothing short of thoughtful and probably, most of all, surprisingly beautiful.

Take for example the title track of Sigh No More:

My heart was never pure
And you know me
And man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design, an alignment, a cry,
Of my heart to see
The beauty of love as it was made to be.

There is more than a touch of the psalmist in his words. They are reflective, real and spiritual - without being 'religious' or platitudinal. That means they are going to shock us once in a while too.

I dare you to read some of the psalms without a religious head or without first listening to a worship CD. They remain fresh and honest in an age where personal disclosure is seen as a sign of intellectual weakness. Just read Psalm 88:

LORD, you are the God who saves me;
   day and night I cry out to you.
² May my prayer come before you;
   turn your ear to my cry.

 ³ I am overwhelmed with troubles
   and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
   I am like one without strength.
⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
   like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
   who are cut off from your care.

 ⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
   in the darkest depths.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavily on me;
   you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
⁸ You have taken from me my closest friends
   and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
 ⁹ my eyes are dim with grief.

   I call to you, LORD, every day;
   I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
   Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
   your faithfulness in Destruction?
¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
   or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

 ¹³ But I cry to you for help, LORD;
   in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, LORD, do you reject me
   and hide your face from me?

 ¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
   I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
   your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
   they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbour—
   darkness is my closest friend.

A deserved award for the Mumfords at the recent Brits for sure.

However, I am pretty sure me calling them new gods of folk will cause more than a little consternation...if not a chuckle or two.

ASD

Being true to yourself and all that jazz

Article reproduced from Community News

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a friend’s fiftieth birthday party. A sure sign that I am getting older. The only 50 year olds I once knew were my parents’ friends.

My friend, being in the music biz, had arranged an informal lunch, but not before we were entertained by some of his friends from the jazz world. It was some of the most sublime music I have heard for a long time. Birthday boy declared, “If you are not into jazz now you never will be”.

I recognise jazz is not everybody’s cup of coffee and I am sure there were some who secretly wished for a little U2 or Motown, but the musicianship and songs weakened all natural human defences.

I first got into jazz purely by accident as a spotty-faced angst teenager. For a short time I was in a punk band called Sub Division. Though more aptly, it should have been called Sub Standard. Anyway I was looking through my father’s vinyl collection to find a song we could ironically cover. Everything was ironic in those days.

Through my searching I came across an album called Live from the Montreux Jazz Festival. As I played it I was stopped dead in my tracks by a song called All of Me by the legendary Ella Fitzgerald. A light went on inside of me and I found from that day on I was living a double life. I was a punk rocker by night and a jazz lover by day. My credibility, little that it was, was ruined.

The older I become the more I feel that life for many can become a missed opportunity, as we find it easier looking for social acceptance rather than being true to ourselves. The perils of peer pressure are not to be underestimated for sure.

Mustering up all the courage in me I was eventually able to share my love for jazz with my friends and they sort of got over it. It made me different. Later at college it kind of became a bit more hip to like what they call Cool Jazz - Charlie Parker, Miles Davies and the likes. Of course, it did not mean that everyone wanted to come to jazz clubs with me, but I was accepted. But you know the truth is, like my friend turning fifty, you find you want to share your life’s passion with your nearest and dearest. You want them to share in the things that move you. To coin a phrase, we become ‘evangelical’ for the things we have a passion for.

It is why I make no apologies in encouraging people to explore the same rich spiritual fulfilment that I have found in being a Christian and following Jesus. For my friends, and friends they remain, they not only put up with my love for jazz but my enthusiasm for the gospel.

As a society I fear that we have become wary of anyone showing too much enthusiasm. For someone to show too much excitement must mean they can’t be all there in the head, surely?  Our national attitude has changed so much over the last twenty years that at every level we have become personally critical and disrespectful towards each other. Some notable stand-up comics have traded on this currency to good effect.

For those not wanting confrontation it’s seems best to keep your opinions to yourself, rather than make yourself an aunt sally. Vulnerability has almost become outlawed in our society, so we learn to fit in to get on.

Now imagine admitting that you went to church last Sunday to your friends and family. Will your deepest fear be that you’ll be met with some mockery and derision? Quite possibly, but I would encourage you to go with your inner convictions and hang in there.

Paul the Apostle wrote unapologetically to the Roman Church:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”

19 century American author Mark Twain said:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I am well over that thing where I care that people know that I have an eclectic taste in music. Hang it, I love jazz, deal with it!  More to the point, I love God. So what? It’s much more satisfying being true your own self.

And that’s jazz.

ASD

Very brief reviews of Sacred Treason & The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Well, I am back from my hols in France and have to tell you that I am not as tanned as perhaps hoped. However, I feel rested and raring to go for the new term. While away I have had time to read, which is no mean feat having three children.

I purposely did not read anything theological, though I did sneak one in the bag just in case I became weak.

One book I read was Sacred Treason, which was a Tudor conspiracy type thriller written by historian James Forrester. The other was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Both quite moral books in their own ways, but from quite different perspectives. In both cases, the message is clear: crime doesn't pay.

However, Stieg Larsson's book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, after a slow start, makes room for plenty of sexual abuse and infidelity, but in the author's mind It is interesting that these two are never connected. I couldn't help think the Swedish hero was a little too much of the author's own projected alter ego, but happy to be challenged.

Forrester's hero, on the other hand, is exemplary and well behaved, if a little sanctimonious, who against the odds restrains from taking advantage of a woman's weakness. He is clever, respectful and far from presumptive. Through the story he is having to work out faith in God versus faith in religion and power. Not easy in the Elizabethan age.

Both books portray life as brutal and both heroes are middle aged, but it is Forrester's attention to Tudor life and clever twists in the plot which saw me favour this book over the flavour of the moment.

I look forward to seeing Sacred Treason made into a film like the Millennium trilogy. It might not have the sex angle to sell copies, but it has the substance and wonderful historic detail to hold your attention all the way through. And, therefore, I found it a much more satisfying read.

My next book to read is far less contentious, but I am sure no less challenging: Consuming Religion by Vincent J. Miller. However, I suspect Hollywood will choose to pass on this one. Probably you too.

ASD

X Factor - pantomime

I woke up to find the UK not unexpectedly twittering about X Factor. The Twitter Trends Map showed the that 'Jedward' and X Factor have become national talking points.

Last night's judges' decision saw John and Edward and Lucie Jones go into 'Deadlock', which meant the public got to choose who would stayed in the talent competition. It  was nothing short of pantomime. We have a rags-to-riches story, songs, some dance, something for the kids, something for the adults. We have a goodie, two baddies and a fairy godmother in the unlikely shape of Simon Cowell.

However, unlike all good pantomimes where the fairy godmother is seen as light and beauty our fairy godmother, ours turned a little bit cynical and showed a dark side. 

Of course, before we all throw our remote controls at our television in disgust we do have to remember this all about entertainment. And the entertainment business is all about ratings. Quite simply you can't have a pantomime if you see off the villain half way through. It would suddenly become quite prosaic and dull.

Sometimes I wonder if the Christian life isn't more panto than serious life drama. It was mooted by the authors in God is Back that the Church is more powerful when it has opposition. When it doesn't it becomes complacent and weak. In other words, 'ratings' go down.

While we in the Church might complain against the wicked stepmother of Secularism or the evil old old witch of Other Religions, it is undoubtedly part of the story of the Church. We have our songs and script for this narrative and know ultimately it will have a happy ending. Meanwhile, it is all about perspective.

Although Church is not in the business of entertainment, perhaps it should learn to not take itself too serious and take an opportunity laugh at itself once in a while. After all, didn't the writer of Proverbs say something about laughter being the best medicine? (Proverbs 17:22)

ASD

All Seeing - new song from The Alarm.

Now here is something I didn't expect to be blogging about in 2009, a new song by 80s group The Alarm.

One of my best buddies Steve 'Smiley' Barnard has been drumming with singer/songwriter Mike Peters this year and, on hearing this song, I had to tell him that I thought this sounded like a worship song to me.

Maybe what gives this song some of its strength is the experience of Mike himself being diagnosed with cancer and finally being given the all-clear this year.

Although, to my knowledge, he has never talked publicly about his faith, I think this song speaks volumes. In some ways it reminds me of some of the Trent stuff. See what you think. It seems a far cry from '68 Guns', but like a good bottle of wine, the writing has undoubtedly matured to produce something beautiful.

ASD

‘The name's Bond, brand Bond’

I have succumbed to the hype and bought the new Ian Fleming James Bond book Devil May Care. Or should I say Sebastian Faulkes as Ian Fleming. This is the power of the franchise: an established prize-winning writer like the author of Birdsong putting pen to paper and continuing the spy story in the original author’s tradition.

This might seem strange, someone writing as someone else, but I have discovered that this is nothing new. Apparently Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum are both franchises and have a bank of writers turning out stuff on their behalf, which explains their prolific writing!

Of course, ‘ghost writing’ is nothing new. I don’t think anyone really thinks that footballers and their WAGS are that literate to actually write their own biographies (forgive me if I do any injustice to celebrities here) or when we receive charity letters from chief executives. These are written by copywriters at direct marketing agencies to ensure they are at their most persuasive.

The Guardian makes the point that Faulkes will be under the spotlight.  First because he is Faulks and secondly because this is prime geek territory.  Attention to detail from character detail to literary style, i.e. short sentences, will all come under close scrutiny.

When I was as theological college, I remember standing in the queue for lunch with my Old Testament lecturer where he was discussing his latest work in progress, a commentary on Isaiah. It is long thought by most respectable scholars that there were in fact two authors of the book, which they have dubbed Deutro-Isaiah. However, my now retired lecturer thought he had unearthed as many as 18 scribblers, as the words shifted so frequently in tone and style. Maybe he is right. Only God knows.

Does this take anything away from the Word? Of course not, the Word remains the inspired Word of God, so therefore it doesn’t matter if there is more than one author.  (I’ll let you know if Faulks pulls it off as Fleming .) The first five books are traditionally seen as being authored by Moses, but the reality is they would have been recorded by his people around him.

Truth is truth and we all take inspiration from the one author of life. Meanwhile, I must get back to my little bit of escapism as I sit on yet another delayed train into Liverpool Street. Now if I was Bond I would have got out the micro-glider and simply soared above the tedious disruptions. 

ASD.

 

Sweeney Todd and the perpetuation of violence

Well, Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp and Helen Bonham-Carter has arrived and is receiving top reviews.

I came across Jim Wallis' blog this week God's Politics and saw a great comment by blogging friend Gareth Higgins from Northern Ireland. He makes an interesting connection with the story and political dogmas that give rise to continuing violence.

He writes: "If the film is trying to make a serious point, it is that Sweeney's spiral of violence never ends. The previous night I had attended a meeting of the Consultative Group on the Past – a body established by the UK Government to examine methods of helping the people of Northern Ireland to address the legacy of our own violent recent history. Two things were clear from the comments made at this meeting by members of the public: first, that the levels of genuine sorrow in this society are unfathomable – families ripped apart, minds taken to the edge of destruction, small communities shattered. This is real, and not interpretation. Second, we often lack the ability to empathise with the pain of the 'other' community. It is all too easy to see 'our' pain as exclusive, and to become blind to the suffering of the community on the other side of a political divide."

Cutting edge stuff. (Sorry, couldn't resist it!)
ASD

Happy Christmas from the Grinch and me!

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!"

The Grinch, Dr Suess

Have a great Christmas and a peaceful New Year. God's blessings.

ASD