Author: a fool

All alone with Jesus

Doubting Thomas?

Today is Low Sunday, the Sunday after Easter. The traditional gospel for today is about Thomas’ doubt. Our Vicar preached a good sermon on how it is not really Thomas’ doubt that God draws our attention to in this gospel but rather the apostles’ failure to proclaim and embody their faith. I thought it was a very good sermon.

Yesterday I started reading a book by Michael Harvey, Skepticism, Relativism, and Religious Knowledge: A Kierkegaardian Perspective Informed by Wittgenstein’s Philosophy. I think I have started it before as there are notes in the ebook. The topic of religious epistemology really interests me. Some of the problems, I think, of modern Christianity centres on a misunderstanding of faith and in particular placing faith within the sphere of knowledge. So, for example, fideism is faith without proof. I think this book makes a number of very good points from a Kierkegaardian point of view about today’s gospel and Christianity as a whole.

So I have three quotes from the Foreword by Stanley Hauerwas:

… what cannot be forgotten is that truth for Christians is not just another object but a concrete person, Jesus of Nazareth.

This point needs to be made again and again. Jesus say “I am the truth” not “I will give you the truth and then you have it apart from me”. Truth for Christianity is a person and not an object – a person who is experienced and encountered but may never be understood.

… To be a Christian, which to be sure involves “believing,” entails an ongoing transformation of the emotions. Such a transformation means to believe in God is to know how to do something. In particular it means knowing how to go on when you often do not know where you are or where you are going. The truth of what Christians believe cannot be separated from who they must be.

Faith is about living – living with hope. Faith is a resolution to “abide in Him” more than a conclusion reached at the end of an argument. The Truth that is encountered in faith makes me a different person – it transforms me and calls me to change every day of my life.

Skepticism arises from our desire to know without the self being transformed. Ironically skepticism is but the result of our anxious desire to secure certainty by being “at home in the world.”

I really like this idea – the search for certainty is a desire to find a home in this world. For Christians “truth” is transcendent and otherworldly because God is transcendent. For science “truth” is imminent and an object that can be measured and described. God is beyond our measuring and defining. So faith is always a leap into the uncertain.

Our modern age holds truth at arms-length and thinks that I can know the truth without that truth changing me. The opposite of faith is not doubt – because that would place faith in the sphere of knowledge – but sin, a refusal to be transformed by Jesus.

my hermitage

This is my view most Sunday mornings. I like doing the “computer stuff” – it is a way I can serve the community. But more importantly, it is a way that the community helps me with my struggles. It serves the “inner hermit” in me and really makes me focus on the liturgy. So … my hermitage!

Another day, another counselling session

After the storm yesterday morning, I am calmer today. My thoughts are a little less rapid – when it gets dark I often have thoughts on top of thoughts. I am seeing my counsellor today which is always a very encouraging and transforming experience. My walk this morning was much more relaxed and less emotionally intense.

So all I am going to do is share a verse from Matthew that has been running round my head:

… for God all things are possible.

Matthew 19:26

I often think of that verse when things get dark. And, for me, that is “hope”. No matter what, no matter how dark the world might seem, God has a way. In Jesus even death itself is no longer the end. And that helps me make one more step in the darkness. And then another, and another.

So today is another day in which all things are possible. Today is another day with Jesus!

all emotions in one day

Sometimes people say that Melbourne can have four seasons in one day. Today, for me, has been all emotions in one day. I have been anxious and very sad but now I feel balanced and ready to move ahead. The anxiety from this morning has worked itself out. I have leveled out this afternoon which has given me some time to think about anxiety and how it affects me.

My anxiety often stops me from acting which, in turn, creates more anxiety. I am often so paralyzed by my anxiety that I cannot even imagine a world outside. The most basic and simplest of things can become a problem.

Basically, I find it very hard to trust myself. I simply do not see myself the same way that other people say they see me. I am always anxious before anything – meeting people, telephone, driving, speaking. Even the people with whom I have a relatively normal relationship I freet and act weird. I am always worried that I will offend people by simply being me. And every time I reflect back on things after the event I know I can do all those things and the anxiety was rather misplaced. And often the reality is that the inside is nothing like the outside – I am not nearly as weird and awkward as I think I am.

So the lesson for me is to remember before I allow my anxiety to throw my mind into a spin. Or simply to trust me – I can do it and there are even a few things that I can do well.

unless you live sacrifice

Fr Pontifex has been on my playlist for some time. I am a huge hip-hop/rap fan and he is without a doubt my favourite Christian rap artists. And I always love his videos – they are really well made, directed, and scripted. (Yes, the imagery is very Catholic but that is the tradition that formed me and in which I feel most comfortable.) So I thought I would share this song from his 2011 album The Symphony and the Static.

Eloquent words, our King is so quotable
We print his verses everywhere it’s just so notable
If I remember correctly Jesus said “I am THE way”
He is not one among wise men and the words they say
And if you put his words on your lips, check the tag for the price
You can’t say that you know him unless you live sacrifice

Pontifex, Count the Cost

Jesus asks one thing of me, “Follow Me”. And, as the song says, that means living sacrifice.

Sometimes …

Today has not started well. I have had to take more medication to get a little balance this morning. My mind ran away from me on my walk and now I am all worked up inside. I had a cry before I said Morning Prayer. Morning Prayer (and the cry) helped. But facing a whole day is looking quite daunting at the moment. I have committed myself to a couple of things today so I will try to make them.

I feel pressure to have some idea about where my life is going. I have absolutely no clue. I cannot think about tomorrow so next month or next year is way beyond me at the moment. And people do not always understand when you tell them that my life goal is to survive. So I hide! And, to be honest, it is not much of a life when survival is all it is about.

But … sometimes life is simply a struggle to survive. Like walking it is learning to put one foot in front of the other and then the hard part – do it again. I am trying to do the things that I know will give me some balance – posting here gives me an outlet for my insides and also makes me accountable. I am trying to shut out the negative voices in my head and the ones from my past (which are very loud at the moment). I have not written about the personal side of my depression – the particulars – and I may never write about that side. Today is about surviving, getting to the end of the day, doing the things I have said I will do, and not falling apart. Because at the moment all I want to do is simply give up and float away into nothingness.

I will try to post later today.

… does in fact please you

To be honest, I have found prayer very hard for most of my life. I have tried to “intellectualise” it and go searching for the perfect prayer book or liturgy. This made prayer ever more and more complicated and involved. Naively I thought that the more complex it was the more God must want to listen. It never worked as the bookshelf of prayer books will testify.

Recently I have started using the standard Prayer Book for Australian Anglicans – A Prayer Book for Australia. It has an order of Morning and Evening Prayer for every day of the week. The Psalms are divided over a longer period than older versions of the Prayer Book.

Maybe it is not about “how” we pray but “why” we pray that matters?

This morning I thought about how I feel that I am a little “aimless” at the moment. A time of waiting and I do not really enjoy waiting. And Thomas Merton’s Prayer came to mind:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton

I have always been struck by the phrase “does in fact please you“. The desire for communion, for intimacy with God, for openness, does please God. And this desire sets the tone of daily life.

Prayer is not about getting somewhere but about being in the presence of God. The “how” of prayer is less important than the desire to be open in prayer – to listen and speak with God in intimacy. I like the obedience of using a Prayer Book and it is very much within my own personal tradition. But it is not the how but rather the desire to set aside time to rest.

Like Merton, I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

Well …

Just to illustrate my blogging expertise!? I was wondering why no one had ever commented on a post. Today I worked out why – I did not allow comments on this blog. Grrrrr?!?!?! So comments are now available on future posts.