The Creativity Within

"[T]he chief sources of variation in metrical composition reside within the norm itself. Indeed, modulation is possible only so long as the meter is respected. Only by adhering to the basic structure of the line can the poet achieve, within it, arresting or pleasing rhythms that point meaning and tone."

- T. Steele, All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999) 39.

It’s within boundaries that we are most beautiful, creative and fulfilled, and, in a sense, most free. This is true in poetry, dance, music – and life. We have been made to live life under God and within his boundaries, and that is a beautiful way to live. It’s when we think that we will be happier free of his boundaries that we lose these things. It’s a discordant, degrading sort of freedom.

You Can Be Anti-Abortion and Pro-Women

Anti-abortionists are sometimes accused of persecuting troubled women. It's true that we do want abortion to be made a criminal act. This is because we think that aborting foetuses is killing new baby boys and girls. But it's about way more than criminalisation. We'd love to see Australia (and other countries) be the sort of place where newly conceived babies are actually treasured and protected; where Mums in crisis receive good support; where overseas travel, career advancement or buying a house aren't prioritised over children's lives.

People are against abortion because they care for the vulnerable. So the assumption that people who are against abortion don't care about distressed, confused, vulnerable Mums makes no sense. Of course, so much energy can be spent protecting babies that none is left for their Mums. This is bad and I'm sorry for it. But I don't think the answer is to forget the kids and focus only on their Mums, especially as having an abortion is often a profoundly traumatic and distressing experience for women.

Quiet Time Guilt

Thanks to Christine for this (facebook) link.

Wise Advice

I've received all sorts of wise advice, but here's some that sticks with me.

• Your relationship with God is like any relationship - you have to MAKE TIME FOR IT.
  
• Don't be modest about your godliness - for it's not your own work, it is God who is keeping and growing you.
• The key to not burning out in ministry is to have a narrow focus.
  
• It's better to be profoundly broken and weak than to put on a brave face.
  
• To die is to live!

I thank the people who God used to give me such good advice.

What advice has stayed with you?

Manners

I read somewhere recently that “sorry”, “please” and “thank you” should be the hallmarks of a Christian life. I totally agree. “Sorry”, that honest, humble and contrite confession of sin and breaking of relationship. “Please”, the humble requesting of what is the other’s to give. And “thank you”, the happy gratitude for kindness received. I’d like to teach these things to my kids – for courtesy’s sake as well.

Response to the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Bill

I wrote this as a letter to last weekend's Age and Australian. I don't think it got in.

A friend of mine who is 32 weeks pregnant found out last week that she has gestational diabetes. So she is changing her whole diet to ensure that her baby's development won't be harmed. Another friend gave birth prematurely. Her baby girl was cared for in a neonatal ward until she was well enough to go home.

We live in a country where we value and strive for the life and health of babies like these, but at the same time we are happy to allow the destruction of other unborn babies of the same age. We are repeating what we did to the Aboriginal people, declaring them not-people and seeing that as licence to destroy them. This should not be.

The Heartbreaking Task of Living Christianly

You try to live rightly each day.

At day's end you look back and know you have sinned - as you did yesterday and will always.

So you seek forgiveness, go to bed and begin another day.


This demoralising experience is different to my day. My day goes more like this:

You try to live rightly each day. It's a welcome challenge because you really do desire it.

At day's end you look back and know you have sinned - as you did yesterday and will always. Yet you know you're getting better. And you remember that God loves you dearly and only asks that you press on.

So you ask for and receive forgiveness, go to bed and begin another day, secure in your Father's care and thankful to him.


The crossover happened for me when I became a Christian. Before that I tried to live Christianly, attempting to measure up to God and never really humbling myself before him. Then I confessed my sin, gave my life over to him and was washed clean and grew to love and delight in him.

An Open Letter to my Socially Conservative Brothers and Sisters

Dear family,

I hope you’ll indulge me because I’m writing to get something off my chest. Since moving to Sydney at the start of the year I’ve been struck by the social conservatism of people in Christian circles. Social conservatism is something that, for a number of reasons, I shy away from, so I’ve found living amidst it both a frustrating and humbling experience. This letter is the result of my trying to work out what is valid and constructive in my frustration, as well as what I have been overlooking. See what you think.

I’ll begin by listing the concerns I have with social conservatism.

1. Social conservatism leads to Christian cliques. Not much life is lived outside of the clique.

   Christian cliques cause us to lost touch. We don’t know what’s going on for other people in society, what they’re thinking and feeling. Fewer opportunities present themselves to care for people, and anyway, we don’t know them well enough to know what would be considerate of and helpful for them.

And when we try to care for them in the one way that all people need caring for – by telling them the reason for the hope Christians have – we find we have forgotten how to do this in normal, not Christiany, language. We are unable to explain how Jesus answers people’s hopes and fears because we don’t know what their hopes and fears are.

2. Social conservatism is what people will notice. People already think that Christians are the people who don’t swear, drink, dance or have sex before marriage. If we don’t swear, drink, dance or have sex before marriage then I suggest they will look no further. We would do well to work out what Christianity is and isn’t about, and, if that’s at any point different to social conservatism, we should probably change our behaviour so that people will notice what Christianity is really about.

3. Social conservatism goes dangerously close to adding unnecessary rules and restrictions to the gospel. We need to think about the things that are normative for our Christian circle, the things that everyone does (dressing conservatively and without creativity?) or that no-one would think of doing (going to a nightclub?). Are these things loving or upright – or are they just easy and safe?

Jesus became sin and died for us so that we might have life to the fullest, so that we might look forward to being with him in heaven and live beautifully everyday on earth – forgiving people who hurt us, not complaining or gossiping, being generous with our money and possessions and time, being honest and reliable. Don’t detract from his glory by living as if other things are the important things.

These are my concerns. But I know life is complicated and the rightness of how we live also has to do with the reasons and motivations behind our actions. So I’ve also come up with some ideas about why Christians end up being – or remain – socially conservative:-

1. Because the world’s a scary place. People don’t share the Christian outlook or values. They may think less of us or treat us differently or even be hostile. Socially awkward or embarrassing situations may arise because of what people know we believe. People can be cruel and hurtful and the world can be a violent and dangerous place. Leaving the relative safety, warmth, acceptance and unity of the Christian clique can be terrifying.

2. Because the world’s a tempting place. You step into a club and there’s a soft porn clip playing. You catch the bus and teenage girls are mouthing off and saying crass things. Your friends all break the road rules without a second thought and expect you to do the same. And you know from experience that it doesn’t take much before you find yourself doing things you know are wrong and you later regret.

It's wiser to keep away from dodgy situations and to stick to black and white rules about how you’re going to live – the grey areas can be dangerous.

3. Because our upright living and morally conservative views make us most closely aligned with socially conservative people.

4. Because life seems pretty black and white. It seems pretty obvious what’s right and wrong and what it means to live as a Christian.

I’m very glad I took the time to think about these motivations – because it turns out they’re either unavoidable or great! My respect goes out to anyone who is socially conservative because of these things. God has made us all different and some people are tougher and more gutsy and more disciplined than others. It’s just the way it is and we each need to be aware of our weaknesses and failings and do whatever we need to to look after ourselves. The last thing I want this letter to achieve is for you, my brothers and sisters, to end up sinning.

Having said that though, my concerns about social conservatism still remain. So I just ask that you keep in mind what I’ve had to say. And don’t forget that if you pray to him, God will be pleased to give you strength and grace to live as a child of light even in the midst of darkness.

In closing then, my brothers and sisters, I’d just like to say thanks to our Lord and God for making you and me and bringing us all into his family. Let’s continue to live in unity, respecting our diversity and learning from each other. xox your sister Fiona

Too Heavenly Minded

I keep coming across false dichotomies. Here's a false proverb: "Too heavenly minded to be of earthly good". It's false because an intimate relationship with the God who is love and who commands us to love our neighbour is exactly the sort of thing that will cause us to be of earthly good.

The Christian world is replete with false dichotomies that set studying the Bible/proclaiming the gospel over against something else, classically love or social action. But the Bible does not say we should chose between these things - it commands them all!

Before we start defending the Bible over against something else, we must open it and see what it says.

Friendly Fire

This is my friend Mike Jolly's record of what Mark Driscoll had to say to Christian leaders about the church in Sydney.

Wise Terror

"You need to be scared, and you need to be concerned, and you need to get your butts out of New Orleans right now." Ray Nagin, New Orleans Mayor 30/8/08.

This is good advice about Hurricane Gustav. It struck me that it's the sort of advice Christians want to give people about hell.

Catholicism is not OK

I believe I was riddled with sin.
I believe that though I did some good I wasn't good enough for God.
I believe that trying harder would never have overcome my sin.
And I believe that God hates sin.
I believe he cannot tolerate or overlook even one petty evil deed.

So I believe that until Jesus was born I was screwed - we all were.
I believe that Jesus lay down his life for us.
I believe that on the cross he became sin for us and received our judgment.
I believe that if we say sorry for the way we have lived and thank you for his sacrifice, we are completely forgiven and made able to start following him as we should.

This is why Catholicism distresses me. Because at the same time as praising Jesus and affirming the things I have written above, it spits in his face. In so many (subtle) ways, Catholicism says that Jesus' sacrifice was not enough, that we also need priests and Mary and saints to intercede for us, that we also need baptism and the Eucharist and penance and purgatory to be wholly saved.

He deserves greater honour than this. He deserves the honour given him by the angels "numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand" who in heaven sing:
"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!" (Revelation 5:11, 12).

Plagiarism: Materialism

This was written in about 1000 AD (italics mine):-

"It is natural for a man to desire what he reckons better than that which he has already, and be satisfied with nothing which lacks that special quality which he misses . . . . If he is clad in a rich garment, he will covet a costlier one; and no matter how rich he may be he will envy a man richer than himself. Do we not see people every day, endowed with vast estates, who keep on joining field to field, dreaming of wider boundaries for their lands? Those who dwell in palaces are ever adding house to house, continually building up and tearing down, remodeling and changing . . . . And nowhere is there any final satisfaction, because nothing there can be defined as absolutely the best or highest. But it is natural that nothing should content a man’s desires but the very best, as he reckons it. Is it not, then, mad folly always to be craving for things which can never quiet our longings, much less satisfy them? No matter how many such things one has, he is always lusting after what he has not; never at peace, he sighs for new possessions. Discontented, he spends himself in fruitless toil, and finds only weariness in the evanescent and unreal pleasures of the world. In his greediness, he counts all that he has clutched as nothing in comparison with what is beyond his grasp, and loses all pleasure in his actual possessions by longing after what he has not, yet covets. . . .

"It is so that these impious ones wander in a circle, longing after something to gratify their yearnings, yet madly rejecting that which alone can bring them to their desired end, not by exhaustion but by attainment. They wear themselves out in vain travail, without reaching their blessed consummation, because they delight in creatures, not in the Creator. They want to traverse creation, trying all things one by one, rather than think of coming to Him who is Lord of all. And if their utmost longing were realized, so that they should have all the world for their own, yet without possessing Him who is the Author of all being, then the same law of their desires would make them contemn what they had and restlessly seek Him whom they still lacked, that is, God Himself. Rest is in Him alone. Man knows no peace in the world; but he has no disturbance when he is with God. And so the soul says with confidence, ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee; and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. It is good for me to hold me fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord God’ (Ps. 73.25ff)."

- Bernard de Clairvaux, On Loving God, from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bernard/loving_god.ix.html, accessed 14/7/08.

Perfect Children

I was listening to John Piper articulating a biblical theology of singleness the other day. He was, in part, challenging his listeners to consider if they had bought into the world’s view of marriage and singleness. He asked if, like the world, we place more value on marriage and less value on singleness than we ought.

I wonder if this comes from idealising children. Do we think that cuteness and innocence are synonymous with goodness? Do we think that there is nothing so fundamentally good as raising little children? I’m not for a moment wanting to deny the worth of this or the beauty, charm and sincere kindness of children. But I do want to say that these things will pass. They will not always be children. Before all else, they are people.

Those of us who are single have not drawn the short straw. There is nothing second-rate about only ever befriending, caring for and guiding other adults (and ‘adopting’ a few of their kids along the way). They too are people – little people grown big. It’s an enormous privilege and joy and pain to have involvement and influence in any person’s life.

As Piper makes plain, God’s people are no longer mostly the children of Jewish parents, but can now include all men, women and children from all races and nations. Let’s rejoice in the people that have been given us to care for.

Activity and Passivity

The biblical view of men and women’s roles, as I understand it, is that men are to lead and women to help and follow. Helping and following are fairly passive. To do them well requires a patient ‘sitting back’, waiting to see how things pan out or what we are asked to do. They require women to adapt and mould themselves to whatever situation presents.

But this is too simplistic. Done well, there is a strange activity, alertness and intelligence to the passivity of helping and following. Like ninjas (perhaps) women need to have a ‘readiness’, so that once we see what to do we can take action. There is also a creativity and generativity in changing ourselves and in working out how best to help or how best to achieve what has been asked of us. It’s not a robotic completion of requirements, but an innovative contribution – yet one that has the humility to be ‘overruled’.

The man’s leadership also has an active/passive mix. It is active in that he does lead, and yet, his goal is, in a sense, passive. He aims to serve the woman and sacrifices himself to help her be all she can be.

As I always say, it’s like dancing.

How to Please God

Lately I've been thankful for the freedom of the Christian faith. There is something strange yet very good about the fact that we can be sad or ill or disabled or confused or weak or failing and God can still be very pleased with us. In a way, he doesn't care about our situation or standing (though of course he is compassionate and will help us) - he just cares about our character. All we have to do to please our Father is to love him and love the people around us.

The other stuff will trouble us, but it doesn't reduce our value in God's sight. If each day we have strived to think and act and speak in love and repented when we have not, then it has been a good day.

Of course this is a very high calling. It means we must run to patience, kindness, humility, self-sacrifice, mercy, forgiveness, protection, trust, hope, perseverance and rejoicing in the truth. And we must flee their opposites - impatience, cruelty, envy, boasting, pride, rudeness, self-seeking(ness), anger, bearing grudges, delighting in evil, neglect, distrust, losing hope and giving up. But it is a very beautiful calling, and a better thing to worry about than happiness and success.

Plagiarism: Mutability

"A woman can't visualize too well because she has too many possibilities. She can be anything. Anything can happen to her. But it's out of her hands. It all depends on this man who's going to find her."

- V.S. Naipaul, Guerrillas

I think this is true of most women, even after marriage. And it's not necessarily a bad thing - we were made to be helpers afterall. I wonder if men long for a helper (as women long to help), or if 'gaining one' is more of a bonus? Of course the situation is difficult if women remain single a while - or if women are so caught up in helping that they forget their own identity. I think the trick is to trust your own worth and usefulness as an individual - and to get on with helping the people who are around you.

An Easter Romance

Romance softens our hearts. Women love to be given flowers and to be tenderly kissed. More than anything, we love to be loved. There is nothing more romantic than this. But sometimes the love we receive is a half-measure, and sometimes we don’t know we are loved.

This is how we know what romance is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. The Easter cross with its dead man hanging, bruised and bloody, is the most romantic thing in all the world - because he did it for us.

If we were absolutely lovely, beautiful and admired women, then its romance might be less remarkable – “for a good [wo]man someone might possibly dare to die” (Romans 5:7). But only one man cared enough to die for women who hated him, who did their own thing even when they knew it hurt him. Such was God’s romance that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

We are more ugly than we have ever guessed, and more cherished than we could ever dream. That man was whipped and mocked for us. He hung on that cross and it was for us that he cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He did it for us: to make us holy, to cleanse us and present us radiant, “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 4:27). “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (1 John 3:16).

Sorry

On February 13th the Australian Prime Minister said sorry to Aboriginal people. It happened a week before I started attending a church in Redfern, where many Aboriginal people live, and I know they were all deeply appreciative.

I started thinking about people who are never told ‘sorry’. Must their lives be on hold, without resolution, with ongoing bitterness or despair?

The answer to this question requires faith and trust. The first part of the answer is that even if people are never sorry or never tell you so, they are accountable to God, and he does not overlook a single wrong. When the Lord Jesus died, he bore God’s wrath for each evil deed done on this earth. So the second part of the answer then, is that through Jesus, God offers your enemies mercy. They can say sorry to God and he will accept Jesus’ punishment in their place. But if they do not, justice will still be served. So this leads to the third part of the answer – our role is to show the same mercy we have been shown. To forgive as we have been forgiven.

It is some comfort to know that judgment is assured. But is there no more hope and comfort for this life? Jesus has risen, he has given us his Spirit and called us to follow him – surely the world can be transformed. But there is actually little hope for this life, for as long as people are cruel and careless, the world can never be very good. Suffering and heartache will always be the norm in this world. This does not mean, of course, that we should turn a blind eye, just that there will never be heaven on this earth. And yet, the fourth and final part of the answer is that there is hope, a hope so good that it eclipses all the pain of this world. “[O]ur present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18, italics mine). “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) The hope of heaven is a hope that will not disappoint. We will be with God and he with us, and we will be glad to sing him praise all our days.

When this life is ugly, we are to trust in God’s justice, to show mercy, to be kind and to work towards justice and to wait patiently and eagerly for the new heaven and earth. It is simple, it is hard and it is good.

Plagiarism: Christian Hedonism

Though I love John Piper, I haven't read The book til I dipped into a bit today. He quotes C.S Lewis talking about the modern virtue of 'Unselfishness', a negative term where once was 'Love'. Lewis goes on to say:

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."1

We should find our pleasure and joy in the Lord, and so finding, we should praise Him. Or, more correctly, we will praise Him, for that's what people do when they love a person. "I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."2

1 C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1965), 1-2 from J. Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Inter-Varsity Press, 2003), 20
2 C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958), 94-5 from ibid, 22

Today I got up then I ate breakfast and checked the letterbox and then I walked into town and

Just thought I'd say that I finished my church apprenticeship today. Tomorrow might feel a little odd as I feel like I've always worked for Crossroads. It really has been a remarkable, wonderful experience and the fact that it's been very hard at times has somehow added to it, not taken away - maybe because it's taught me lots or because that God has kept me and looked after me through it all. I've loved the thinking, praying, reading, 'peopling', leading way I spend my days. I've loved not having to dress up for work and go to an office and be there from 9 to 5 and account for my time. I've loved working from home and being autonomous. Once I sorted out how rest and fun and friends and errands and chores fitted in, I've loved plunging in head-first and having it be my whole life. And I've loved working under my pastor, whose integrity, care, wisdom and insight I highly respect. And I've loved my church, which is open to wierdness and to correction, where everyone is striving to love one another more.

Next I'm heading to Sydney and Bible college. Not to be a priestess or a nun, but to be better equipped to continue on with the sort of work I've been doing, but probably overseas. I'm not that excited about it, but it's my prayer that the knowledge won't be dry, but will be great truths about God that will broaden and humble my mind and soften my heart. And I pray that Sydney will be my second home - a vibrant, multicoloured one to complement my gentle, welcoming, Eden-like first home.

I used to be distrustful of where in Romans it says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him" (8:28). But all I've experienced during this apprenticeship has taught me to start to trust that it is true. I haven't always liked his means, but maybe that's what it took to have me keep on turning to him. He has given me perseverance, the ability to bear up, strength, comfort, blessings and a growing understanding and appreciation of how I am loved and free and with hope. There are things better and richer and holier than the things I can touch. And so, I'm glad to keep on humbly serving him. Amen and amen.

The Horror of Mercy

Sometimes mercy seems an absurd and horrifying thing.

Christians do not have the luxury of looking at the world and pretending all's well. We must see the evil in us, the evil prompting our nasty words and selfish deeds. We must face the fact that sometimes people and situations are rank. Jesus asks us to look that rankness in the face and to believe that he was punished for it and that justice has been fully served. That is why he asks us to be merciful.

Still mercy can feel absurd – utterly inappropriate, a madman's conjuring. It can seem horrifying – as wrongs appear to be overlooked and accomodated. The prospect of showing mercy can be enough to bring us to despair.

It is okay to despair. Righteous men do sometimes despair and when they do, they cry out to God. A righteous man remembers his God is a sovereign God who loves to answer his children's prayers. Our God is a God who will help us bear up, who will teach us how great is the mercy and love we have been shown, and how wholly sin has been understood and how fully it has been punished. He will teach us that there is no thing that can take us away, nothing that can separate us from his love.

I pray that he will give you his mercy, that thing so holy that it at first appears horrifying and absurd. When mercy stems from a heart that is grateful, generous and warm even in the midst of hurt, it is in truth a thing amazing and lovely.

Absurdity at Christmas

Christmas celebrates the birth of a baby. It's a little reminisent of the Buddist rejoicing when a small boy is found to be the reincarnation of a lama. Both occasions seem silly and naïve – grown men and women idolising helpless, purposeless children.

Reincarnation seems particularly silly – a ridiculous theory conjured up by people terrified that it might all end at death. But I'd suggest that the Christian belief is far sillier and far more implausible. Christians celebrate the birth of the baby boy, Jesus, not because we believe he is the reincarnation of another man, but because we believe he is God. Christians actually believe that the LORD God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the eternal, omniscient, omnipotent God came to earth as a human. This is why Christians look at Jesus as a newborn and join the righteous Simeon in declaring, “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

It sounds too absurd and outrageous to believe, and yet many do. We believe because as this baby became a little boy, a teenager and a man, he did no wrong. We believe because he triumphed over death and his opponents could not produce his body. We believe because these things have been written about by those who were there.

And we rejoice that this newborn baby was God because he came to earth to fix up our shit – for the sake of his Holy Name and because he loved us. He made himself nothing and became obedient to death, that we might live. When we behold this ordinary, new baby we can scarce understand that he is God, but we can begin to grasp God's hatred of evil and his love for his people.