marks in time

Every life’s chapter is read by a searching eye;
And those who tread on our footsteps are just passers
Who walk on by through our story and the times that we have spent.
Those marks you have left will be left in cement for those that can see.
And for those that can read-they will read the words that you have left.

It is just to some, a mark in time;
But for those that you know you have left marks in their heart
And in mine.

Your season’s chapter is seen by each seeking eye
And those who tread in your footsteps aren’t really just passers
Who walk on by, but those who will shape those marks you have left
And take them to heart-remoulding their own life’s cement.
Because they can read those words you have left.

It is to them a great mark in their time
For those that you have loved-And in mine.

john

As soon as Mary’s final words had left her mouth, my legs, filled with an energy that I have never yet experienced, drove themselves forward, flung my body around and propelled me towards the garden where I knew He was supposed to have been laying. The beating rhythm of my feet against the dusty streets sent shocks through my bones that reverberated through my entire soul, and the only thought that ran through my mind seemed to sustain me. A space once filled, now empty that should not have been. It was impossible surely?

Trees and streets blurred past my face. The day was just being born with the familiar sounds of the market awakening, and my mind desperately searched everything I could remember to try to seek out some hint of evidence, a clue that this was supposed to have taken place. I could feel the heat and wind blowing against my tunic and a sandal coming loose around my ankle. As the ground came closer to my face I remembered the words He so tenderly spoke to us about the House His Father had made.

‘And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.’

The gravel grated my body as I landed in the street sending pain through my chest and a black dark through my eyes. I lay still, with my cheek to the ground, waiting for the throbbing to pass. He knew this all along and countless times had he tried to explain it to us, and oh, how stubborn we were. I turned my aching remains over and rested my head against the hard, dry earth. Was this real? Had He really returned to us like He promised?

As a wave of doubt flowed through me, I pulled myself to my feet, letting the energy of His return flood my heart and I hurled myself forward. I longed to see the truth of all this.

Peter’s slow, sagging body ran along beside me, his fat legs thumping the ground with every landing step. He looked older in these last few days, and even more so now with his head hanging low and greying hair loosely flying around his eyes. We had journeyed together through all of this and once more we were side by side again. Together we had heard Jesus speak of vines and branches, of death and betrayal. We had spoken out about our Lord together, broken bread together, drank wine together, laughed with Jesus together and cried aloud at the sight of His broken and bloodied body hanging limply on the cross. We were silenced together when the Lord’s chest heaved its last and sank with his head hanging in his last moments.

The words ‘If they persecute me, they will persecute you also’ rang through me. I knew that what we had entered into together those three years ago had now altered significantly. Israel had been forever changed since the arrival of Jesus, and in His exit, they had changed once more.

I thrust my body forward seeing the garden and the doorway ahead, leaving Peter behind. Running as hard as I could, feeling my lungs burn with being worked so and my mouth dry with the dust in the air. I lifted my head towards the sky urgently sucking in air, yearning for something to satisfy me.

I stood numb at the doorway of the tomb that lay in the shade. The hard stone grey walls were cold from the morning-a gentle relief from the hot, dry, sandy ground that had just been rushing over my feet.

Empty. The tomb was empty.

Peter’s thudding came slowly behind me, but he did not stop. His path carried him inside the tomb where, with a great cry, he threw his body against the stone table. His chest heaved and as he grew silent, I stooped down to walk in.

White linen strips lay carefully on the stone bench and a cloth folded neatly lay beside them.

He was gone.

My memories flooded me with the words and prophecies Jesus had brought us returning the overwhelming feelings of peace and passion that His presence had so often brought. As my soul released the tears that drenched my face, I knew that His return had come to pass.

Peter’s chest still heaved with deep, silent cries and as I laid my hand against his shoulder his entire body became hushed.

‘Look Peter’, I said. He slowly raised his head allowing his red, wet eyes to meet mine, his great mouth gaping open.

‘Do you see?’ I asked.

Calm.

His face changed, his big brow un-knotted and he struggled to bring both lips together to speak.

And finally, after a long silence preceded him, he birthed his first words with what seemed like revelation and joy.

‘It truly is finished.’

on a dream of community.....

i watched two love stories yesterday, both unexpectant in ending and both quite thought provoking- Moulin Rouge and Shakespeare In Love, and unwillingly, i watched the end of another today- My Girl. all three explored the tender heart of human relationships, and explored the vulnerability that we endure on that journey- one relationship impossible, one returned but second to honouring a covenant of marriage, and another a life sculpting friendship that ends in tradegy but is remembered with beauty.

the one question that always courses through my mind is 'how does this play out in real life?', or even still, 'is this kind of relationship really obtainable?'. i wonder how much the media has hyped the glory of relationships, and forgotten the hardships and awkard stumblings of the human nature. movies like crash and 21gramms explore in depth the broken vulnerability that we carry [and almost benefit from] when we gently reveal ourselves to those we love-and this is much closer to reality than the unbalanced view of love that we get from the Walt Disney classics, and the even more so unbalanced view of the Bridget Jones duet that airs on the side of ridiculous: but warms our hearts because we know that there are so many elements of the unrealistic in so much of hollywood.

i have a love story in my life right now that is more beautiful than i ever expected, and more fulfilling than i ever realised. i have someone who is so hung up on me that he teeters on the side of insanity, but the beauty of that is that, as much as it seems crazy to me, it is actually normal to him. for us, to think that someone would love us so much that they were willing to be brutally murdered and endure more in the spiritual realm than we can ever think of, would be out of the question. i would like to bargain that there is a minority of the population of our western world that would give their lives for another, truely. but for him, this insane and unrelenting love is comepletly normal.

but beyond all this love from God is another incredible gift. human relationships. not only did God give us an opportunity to be intimately aquainted with Him, but He also gave us friends, family and partners. He loves us so much that He gives us more than just Himself, but He also gives Himself through the medium of others.

the body, in the form of our churches, is designed as an incubator for these relationships-where we get to test drive how we work out our inhibitions, passions and visions with each other, graciously and awkwardly, for the rest of our lives. but it doesn't always work out this way when the troubles of this world get interwound into the way that we are supposed to live, so much so that the body suffers, and our relationships end up tainted and genetically modified by the world. we end up giving only to our needs and birthing a generation that is spiritually autistic-unable to connect their faith with their life.

compartmentalisation is the love child of selfish desires.

community is brutally tainted by the enticing passions that this world so generously gives.

the solution?

without vision, the people perish

i think, we have to have a vision for community by studying the Word, the advice that Paul gives and the model that Jesus painted, to look at other cultures besides our own and feed from their wisdom. and above all, i think time will tell. for those that have a vision of what they know community is meant to look like, to model that.

we have to lead by example.

people don't change overnight. and if one person cannot change overnight, neither can a whole group. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindess, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. these are the fruits of the Spirit-the things that will gently nurture and grow community as we desire it.

patience-the great virtue of community.

and in living out this patience and step by step vision that takes time and patience and the Fruits of the Spirit, we endure with one another, and ourselves walk and work out love in community.

the great thing about Moulin Rouge, My Girl and Shakespeare in Love is that they inspire us and feed our dreams of how we desire to live-the love that will go to no ends to serve another, the friendship that shapes the ways to come, and the love between two people that inspires and ignites vision and passion that God so beautifully placed within us.

favourite song

Let Go
Frou Frou

Drink up baby down

Are you in or are you out?

Leave your things behind'

It's all going off without you

Excuse me too busy you're writing your tragedy

These mishaps You bubble-wrap

When you've no idea what you're like

So, let go,

Jump in-what you waiting for?

It's all right'

There's beauty in the breakdown

So, let go, Just get in

It's so amazing here

It's all right

There's beauty in the breakdown

It gains the more it gives

And then it rises with the fall

So hand me that remote

Can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow?

Such boundless pleasure

We've no time for later

Now you can't await your own arrival you've twenty seconds to comply

THE LORD'S BEEN DOING SOMETHING REALLY DEEP in my heart lately, and especially so these last few weeks. i dont think the experience could be in any way described as 'hormonal' or even cliche, but i feel like im starting to discover something more about being, for want of a better word, human.

being of an emotional disposition in character, i find it very easy to connect quickly with characters from movies or shows, and i soon get lost within a voyeristic life-a life looking in on another. i've never really understood why, and in the past, lonliness has sent me to familiar characters for comfort. but lately, these familiar characters are revealing something new to me, and i know that it is only God that is speaking, purely because i can hear His voice through them.

their experiences and their situations have been dreamt up by writers who share the same human quality as the rest of us, and express through something we can at least hope to understand, things we all share. and it encourages me that they are expressions of something real. although often heightened with comedy and unrealistic one liners, there are still characters desperately lonely, looking for fulfilment, searching for acceptance, being failed, feeling like failures, doing well, getting married, dying, being born, living and learning.

ive been meeting a friend recently who shares with me parts of her personal walk. everytime we meet and everytime she shares some more, i'm moved in my heart to realise what a beautiful exchange occurs. in being raw and honest with each other, we are playing out a state of 'relationship' that God intensely desires from us. and the more i meet with people i love, be it short or long, the exchanges we experience together remind me of my loving Lord who wants the same.

sharing these intimate and raw truths with one another creates something that you both experience-the time together goes beyond the systematic rule of number 1 talking and number 2 listening, and then in reverse, but it fabricates, through each word, something to experience together.

in the depths of a soul lies a longing to be in relationship-an echo of our creator, and in the deep of my spirit is a new feeling of discovery about humanity's role with its creator. we are meant for relationship-that exchange of spirit that goes beyond a conformity, when you share intimately everything. and when that fear of rejection sets in, to carry on further.

and in being afraid of revealing yourself yet continuing to gently bare your soul, you engage in the most beautiful exchange ever known to man.

one day of sunshine and you feel like you own the world

today was the first day in march that has been both sunny, and warm enough to sit outside and eat lunch. in fact, i think it could well be the first day of 2007 that you could sit outside without being drenched on, gustfully blown, or just downcast upon by some very sodden looking black masses that woefully call themselves 'clouds' [nimbostratus/stratocumulus if i remember my science correctly..low hanging black clouds with a large density of precipitation]

and it was funny how one day [with something that vaugely resembled hope] can change the course of perception. for once, it didnt matter to me that 4.30 came around and i was tired. i didnt care that i had work to get on with whilst it was shining outside, because it was doing exactly that. shining outside. it was glorious. as i sat in the local college atrium, i felt the warmth on my back, people smiled, girls wore skirts and boys wore sandals and all was well in the beautiful kingdom of vancouver.

since january ive been mulling over big life decisions that involve my whereabouts this time next year. now how, when your career is all about other people you love can you make a decision like that?! how can i choose which group of people i will spend time with next year, when your heart is deeply in love with both?

it's like a dark love story, where a woman is passionately in love with two men, but she cannot decide who it is that will have all of her, because how can you decide that? its not a question of 'where' she is, its a question of 'who' and asking the 'who' side of the question makes you asses the ones you love.

Gods been teaching me peace amidst personal chaos in all of this too. And in this conext, it hasnt been the geographical 'where' of it all, its been the personal 'where' of my heart. am i staying in vancouver for purely selfish and personal reasons? [nb ive been discovering too, that its okay to have personal reasons for things....just as long as they dont come before the kingdom stuff] i had to ask the questions that made me cringe to find out whether or not i wanted to be here or there because i want to look good and have a good job with a flashy title.

on the days where the sunset bounces off the tips of the Two Lions and Grouse, where the cherry blossoms line the streets and their smell is more enticing than that of the local JJBeans and where the sun is so bright you feel like you could own the world, i want to give my entire life to vancouver.

on the days where its raining so much your socks can feel it, i want to get as far away as possible.

[i dont in heck know what i will be like as a wife. can you imagine? one day when his hair looks great, ill be all mush and love, and then the next, when the middle age spread sets in, i'll be further away than china. hopefully i will have more integrity and perseverance than that!]

but love is more than fuzz and feelings. and ive really discovered that with God. love is a covenant, which is even more meaningful and loving than a promise or decision. its a promise to stay with the decision, not for prides sakes, but for the sake of something divine. a covenant is a decision full of pure desire for the other to see your true intentions, even on those days when you cannot remember those intentions [God wanted to wipe the Israelites from his book....]

i've even been toying with the idea that we make a decision like this for our church. i dont think time itself has much to play here, we move on with God's leadings, but for those brief months/years that we are based in one church, do we make that desire filled decision to commit and serve? [i dont think to commit and serve your church necessarily means turning up 12 hours early for the service to clean the sanctuary and make sure you know how to use mediashout] to commit to the churches vision and listen out for God's voice when you ask him 'whats my reason to be here in this church?'

it also means that in those days where i couldnt really be bothered with my spiritual walk, i persevere. not because of some great person i will become because of it, and not even for the great feeling that we get when we connect with God [although that is surely a real gift], it is because of that marriage vow, covenant, commitment, desire filled decision.

maybe i am learning to be a better wife than the one who flees at the sight of some grey straggly hairs and the senior moments......

a truth enema [an ode to lisl baker]

A Truth Enema.
[an ode to Lisl Baker]

-noun Medicine/Medical

the injection of fluid to cause a bowel movement
the fluid injected.

Not something you would necessarily attribute to the Christian faith is it? But upon having conversations of a ‘deep and spiritual’ matter over the past few months, and reading some sort of, quote, ‘post-modern’ literature of late, I have come to the conclusion that some of us need a so-called truth enema.

Maybe I should explain a little clearer. I have been reassessing the word ‘evangelism’, and what it means to me, since reading a particular book on such subject. A ‘traditional’ view of evangelism, to an imagined modern person, would be someone of Christian faith, who strikes up a conversation, either planned or random, in order to share their faith. Now some conversations will be more siding towards the description of ‘forced’ and others maybe not so bold. We also have the ‘tele-evangelists’, again, some siding towards the ‘forced’ region and others less so.

In my experience I have been involved in such ‘evangelism’-at times purely through conversation where I have made my faith choice obvious to the listener, and other times, I have forced myself upon an un-expectant Christmas shopper, armed with a tract that would look like it had better social standing in the late 1980’s, and planned responses in case people had questions, or a retort to my somewhat biased opinion.

As Christians we often have ‘labels’ for the, well, ‘lost’. What do we call someone who doesn’t have faith? Matter of fact, do we even have to call ‘them’ anything?

And thus brings me to my point. Evangelism has been treated as a compartmentalised activity that we so often take time out of our busy weekly schedule to be a part of. Should we not consider that people who do not know or have not heard about the ‘Gospel we profess’ deserve more than bombardment? Of course this matter is one of such importance, but if we consider that evangelism, so to speak, should surely be an integrated part of our lives, it would change the way we look at outreach in a radical way.

The paradigm shift from modernism to, quote, ‘post-modernism’ should not be viewed as a new birth born from an old failure. The term referring to this growth and maturity from one to the other has been recently likened to puberty, in which someone changes, not because their former was bad or in anyway wrong, from a young person, to a teenager. They alter from one section of their life to another, only to have more of these ‘alterations’ ahead of them. In their maturing, they see that some particular old ways are no longer necessary, and that other ‘old ways’ take on a new light because of their new feelings/education/ideas/morals etc. Puberty is not an instamatic camera that can be processed overnight. And neither is it a final destination.

A Christian writer put in a book recently the question that considers Christians to be ‘lost’ rather than those around us who do not share the same faith. He questioned our methods for reaching those around us, and the terminology that we fling around, that is so often not meant to be judgemental, but in reality, most probably is. Recent post-modern light shed on the subject of Evangelism and its place in our lives has turned out some interesting prospects for Christians today. Are we, as people of faith, lost in a world, chasing around and shouting too loud, when we should be reaching out in a way that the ‘lost’ need? Do we need to reconsider our relationships, our priorities in how we share our faith and fulfil the great commission, and great commitment that we made when we ourselves became people of faith?

Do some of us need to face a truth that our job of fulfilling this commission just is not cutting it any longer?