The Big, and the Frustrating Bible

Lots of things I read in the bible frustrate me, reading it itself frustrates me. It frustrates me that my mind wanders when I read it. It frustrates me that I find it boring at times. It frustrates me that I don't remember what I've read. And the fact that all that frustrates me, frustrates me.
And then when I actually do read and understand it, there is a lot in it that I don't want to do. Some of it offends me. I find it restricting. Some of it doesn't fit in with what I want.
Let's take sinning. Sometimes, I wish the bible said it was alright for me to have sex before marriage. I mean, it would save a lot of awkward conversations, a lot of trouble. It would be easier to relate to my friends. I would be able to have some fun along with the rest of them. I could let loose a little.
And then there's the golden rule. Where it says to love our neighbours. Not just the ones who run up and down the stairs on the other side of my wall at all hours of the night, but everyone. Every rapist, every criminal, every big issue seller, every backstabbing person in my surroundings, every strong accented Belfaster. Everyone. Now sometimes, I think my life would be easier if I bent that rule and held a couple exceptions, a couple grudges. Not only them, but we're to love God too. A God who doesn't put an end to slavery and hunger and cancer. A God who is all powerful, all knowing, but lets me bask in my own doubt and doesn't just come knocking at my door, greeting me with a hug, saying "hey, let's spend actual time together!".
Why bother?
Let's get some perspective. I'm 2 centimeters taller than the average woman, but I'm actually rather small. Put me in a field, go a few hundred (thousand?) meters up into the air, and you won't be able to see me. Take a look onto our galaxy from one of the other ones, cause there are loads more we don't know about, and there won't even be a view of our earth. We're small. Compared to God, we're ridiculously small.
And he's big. Immeasurably big. He's so big, we can't exaggerate how big He is. To try and exaggerate Him would be an insult to how big He is. We're small, He's big.
So then, naturally (not!), we pick and choose bits of the bible we like. Francis Chan puts it like this: if you say there cannot be a God because you suffer, we suffer, then you're right. There isn't a God that fits the mold you want Him to fit. He's independent of you, and far greater too! So if you take certain aspects of who God claims to be, and refute others, then you're being your own God. You're not letting God be God. If a five year old decides she likes her dad's rule about being able to stay up an hour later on weekends, and is happy to obey that one, but thinks his ideas about not being allowed to walk on her own to school are preposterous, then tough! Her dad isn't going to step back and let her have her way because she doesn't agree with his philosophy. If he did, he wouldn't be acting as a parent. As a loving wiser being with her best interests in mind, he has a more accurate idea of what's good for her, regardless of what she thinks.
We hate this. In the world we live in today, intellectually minded, with an obsession with logic and being "open", the idea of putting what we think aside and surrendering ourselves to what God wants is so offensive. But ponder this: does the fact it's offensive make it wrong? Is it God who's wrong, or is it our cultural incline? Is it a God who is beyond time, ever constant, never changing, who is mistaken, or a trend that has only really been popular for a century, that will probably evolve into something new before 2076? Is it about what God thinks, or about what you think? How much more enriched would our lives be if we communicated our frustrations to God, told him what our problems with Him were, gave them over to him, and obeyed him anyway, trusting and knowing that we'll benefit from it?
He's big, we're small. But like the five year old's dad, He wants what's best for us. We may not agree, we may not want to, but He knows what's best for us. God is FOR us. Our small minds can't handle His bigness, hence the frustrations creeping in. Which is why we need His help to understand Him. Pouring out our frustrations to Him is what He wants us to do with them. We don't need to worry about the small things, we've got the big with us. So we can be big, and do big, we've just got to give up the small.

Um, what do I look like?

I've decided to have a different resolution for every month of 2012, make it more interesting than one thing for the whole year doomed to be broken in the first week. This January I've gone without two "necessities", diet coke and Boojum burritos. For February though, I wanted to raise the bar, do something a bit more challenging.
I've given up a fair few things in the past several years, and they've always revolved around my diet in some way. Partially because I love food so much, but mainly because I wanted to combine my resolution with toning up, looking good, with feeling better about my outward self. It never worked. I never felt better. So this time, I want my resolution to be about getting to the root of my insecurities, shedding my worldly identity and focusing on my heavenly one. Since my previous blog entry, I have been pondering ways I can learn to love myself more. Love myself the way God loves me. Unconditionally. My insecurities too often get in the way, but they don't get in God's way. I want him to teach me how I can get over and beyond them. So I'm kicking two of the things that stir up lies about myself for 29 days; facebook, and mirrors.

I've hesitated a fair bit about this, the idea of not being able to see what I look like, not being able to look my "best" for others and for myself is daunting, but all my reasons for not going for it are precisely why I think it's important I do it!
I check myself out in the mirror more often than I'd like to admit. It hit me a few weeks ago that I spend more time in front of the mirror getting ready on a daily basis than with God. After I got over the ridiculousness of this fact, the fact that it can't be good for me, I decided to do something about it. Mirrors reflect how YOU see yourself, not how others see you. The funny/ironic/somewhat sad thing about spending excessive amounts of time ensuring you look good enough for the eyes of others in front of the mirror, is that the end result isn't actually how they see you. They see you through their eyes, not yours. On top of this, you aren't the you you see in the mirror. The mirror you is just a reflection of what you look like when you stand in a specific way, pout in your favourite way, grimace in a particular way. You are so much more complex, intricate, elaborate, wonderful than that reflection. So if the person you think of yourself as being is in accordance with who you see in the mirror, it's bound to be incomplete. If you spend more time working on your mirror image than figuring out God's image of you, then you're bound to feel insecure and obsess over your looks.
Facebook, beyond being a sweet, entertaining, useful way to keep in touch and network with folk around the world, has become somewhere I show the parts of myself I want others to see, and somewhere I compare my whole self to the parts of others they want the world to see. There's something not quite healthy about that. And if I'm going to give up mirrors, it makes a lot of sense to simultaneously give up my virtual mirror. The mirror reflection of myself and my "reflection" I can share with others by updating my profile and commenting on others'.
For a month I want to loose the mirror focus, my superficial self, and replace it with one that actually matters. My identity is too tied up in what I look like, and it's getting in the way of my identity in Christ. I know it's not going change my life to the point where I'm not going to have a care about what others think, but I hope it'll be a step further in not letting my thoughts about what their thoughts are define me! It won't be an easy task. I rely on facebook to keep me occupied, to keep in touch with people. And my reflection isn't something that's going to be easy to get away from. I'm bound to catch a glimpse of it every once in a while, but I'm going to commit to not focusing on the image I see, to getting out of the habit of taking a sneaky glance when I walk past a shop window, to tame my hair with the help of my shadow. This woman is doing it for an entire year. AND she got married this year! Here's to getting through the shortest of the months!

You can't do it alone, by definition.

God calls us to love. To love Him. To love ourselves. To love others. Seems difficult. Flipping daunting. Like He's telling us to climb a mountain, and then cuts our limbs off and ships us off to holland where there are no mountains in sight to climb.
Loving god is something I've struggled with a lot in the past. The thought of falling for someone you've never actually physically met seems beyond impossible. I've written about it before, so to save some virtual paper, you can read about it here.
Loving myself. Now there's a tricky, uneasy, insecurity-reering and downright ridiculous thing to have yourself do. I've heard the christian message time and time again that says God "made me the way I am and loves me for it and there's no need to get myself down because I have a loving father who cares". Now all of that is true, but it never really helped me actually love myself. The reason being that my identity was wrapped up in all the wrong things. Or just things. Lots of things. Like being known as the skinny one.
For years I was the one everyone envied for being able to eat I could and not put on a kilo. I liked it. It became a big part of who I thought of myself as being.
When my body shape started to change, and I started putting on a bit of weight (normal, healthy, nothing to be afraid of weight), I freaked out. I couldn't not be that person anymore. I didn't want to no longer be able to chow down thousands of delicious calories and have my metabolism not bother effortlessly burn them all off. While fully aware I wasn't fat, I became down about not being able to be so carefree in enjoying my food.
My identity was so wrapped up in being the lightweight that losing it meant losing part of myself.
I was afraid of becoming something else. Being viewed differently by the world. And it was only when I lost this part of who I was that I realised it was part of who I was. That's when it clicked. That's when I realised I wasn't going to be able to love myself the way God calls me to if who I see myself as being is SO FAR from who I am in him. We were made to find our securities, joys, greatness and well, all of who we are in god. So it's only natural that we fail to love ourselves when we're so caught up in this world. We were made for so much more.
Loving others was something I always secretly prided myself in being able to do. I'm not really one to hold grudges. I don't really have any enemies. My life in terms of loving others has been quite blissful. Or so I thought. Until this summer, when listening to a series on Leviticus by Rob Bell. He got to the bit in chapter 27 that revolves around the year of jubilee. In this year, God's people of the time were called to have a year off. A year OFF. No work for a year. A year full of celebrating and feasting and worshipping and loving. My kind of year. As soon as the trumpet sounded to mark the beginning of the year, everyone was called to pay off the debts of those in debt, give them their land back, feed those who were without, extend a helping hand to those in need. Free of charge. Regardless of how they'd acted or behaved to get themselves into debt in the first place.
Now not only was this a beautiful thing for the people of the time, but it is also a picture of what Jesus did for us. He payed off our debts. If we choose to accept the offer, we're free from our debts. Out of the red, into the black. Love. And we're called to do the same to others. We've got to LOVE the people in need who are in need because of their own mistakes. Because of drugs, gambling, selfishness, sin. Our place isn't to judge whether or not they deserve love, we're just to love. Harder than loving an annoying brother I think.
So now here's the good news. The news that allows us to love. To love God, ourselves and others.
God is love. Love is God. We're not to do ANY of it alone. As if we could love without God. By definition, it's impossible. If God is love then wherever love exists, God exists. We don't have a choice if we want to love, God'll be there. I suggest we get our knees grubby and dwell in him, hear what He has to teach us on a daily basis about love. We do that, we do love.

Burning bones and poisoning chickens.

One of my modules this year is on Religion. It's not the first time I've studied the topic from an anthropological perspective, but a whole new level of learning is happening this time round!

Previously, I freaked out when doing some of my readings. Hearing theories on how all societies have a religion of some sort, beliefs that help them make sense of the world. Reading about the role of witchcraft in societies, and how it works to help them function. Learning about witch-hunting by Christians back in the 16th century, who decided particular groups of people were witches, and convinced a majority of people, including intelligent thinkers of the time, the stereotypes were true. About witch-watering in America, "justified" in the bible. About the cognitive-science perspective on religions, about Richard Dawkins and the God Delusion, about how religion is merely a coping mechanism, a comfort, to deal with death, and how others use it to frighten people into behaving "righteously". I was scared I was going to read something really good. Really convincing. Really disproving the existence of the super-natural. That the God I've thought to have believed in for so long is actually a hoax. A social construct. I feared the truth.

Today, I was sat in the library, after a morning of lectures and conversations about belief-systems, reading about more divination practices, and was overwhelmed with a sense of peace. Relief. Joy. That God is a rock. That He is consistent. A constant. The constant. That regardless of religion, rituals, my fears, my doubts, the intellectual trend of the moment, He remains unchanging, steady. Not boring. The furthest thing from it. But at peace, wanting us to forget all about religion and rest in Him. Well, not forgetting about it altogether, I have an essay to write!

Five and a half miles south of Comber

This time last week, Ariel Body and I returned somewhat exhausted but 100% refreshed from our micro-adventure. She on her not-so-trusty bike christened Murray, whom we have become experts at putting back together, and me on my rattling old-lady love of my life bicycle Hilda (48 quid on ebay).
We set off, with only a rough idea of where we were going, in that horrible kind of rain that feels like a wet cloud is chilling out on the earth, and stopped at the bottom of our road to put Murray's back wheel back in its place. We temporarily sorted that, and within the hour found the road/greenway that lead us to Comber (which we still can't pronounce properly). We made it there, stopped off at a newsagents to ask for directions, and more importantly purchase chemically enriched beverages. Then we set off nobly into the countryside, with the idea in mind that we were going to find some trees on a beach to set up camp under/in. It took us a while, what with the hills and the rain and the temporarily losing each other, but we eventually found a leek field with trees and a beach. After "tossing" the bikes and bags over the barbed wire, gathering leaves for my bed, careful tying Ariel's hammock, chowing down our low-budget pitta sandwiches, and excessive clothes layering, the sun was starting to set, and we welcomed the darkness. It took me a while to get to sleep, it was either because of how difficult it is to get into a comfortable position wearing so many layers without anything going numb, or because I was on a bit of a sugar high with all the haribos Ariel had thrown my way, but I didn't mind. Watching the tide come in in the glow of the distant city lights was reason enough to miss out on sleep.
I woke up at 7 with a coat over my face to Ariel telling me we couldn't see the sunrise because of the clouds. I ate breakfast (another banana, honey and peanut butter pitta sandwich) and fell asleep again, arising at 10 with the taste of peanut butter in my mouth. We got up and packed, and boldly went for a dip in the sea. It was cold, but the sun was shining so drying off was less of a drama than we had anticipated.
The return was pleasant, with the sun gleaming off the beautiful Irish greenery, and burning my face.

Twas a highlight of the summer.


p.s. If you read all that, you wasted your time. Ariel skillfully put together this video which sums up our trip far better than my jabbering ever will!

I've been the other son.

The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most well known stories Jesus ever told. There is an incomparable beauty in a father warmly and lovingly greeting his son, a son who returned after having seriously dishonoured him. There must have been some serious man-weeping going on when they embraced.
It’s a story I’ve heard a lot, a story I find wonderful, but a story I could never really relate to.
I’ve never dropped everything and ran away from God. I have been through “stages” with a “what’s the point?” attitude, I’ve been overwhelmed with doubt, but I’ve never slammed everything down and ditched God. I’ve stuck at it for the most part, though a lot of the time half-heartedly.
Two summers ago my dad’s brother, uncle Andy, was diagnosed with cancer and given 6 weeks to live. He hadn’t been terribly “tight” with God for about 20 years, but in his last weeks he prayed and said that he wanted god to use him, dead or alive, cause he felt like he hadn't given God the chance to over the years.
After he died, I toyed with the idea that he was now in heaven. It didn’t sit right with me that he’d spent his life, well the majority of it, away from God, and then got away with crawling back to Him in his final moments. Felt like he was taking the easy way out.
But check it. The father in the story of the prodigal son has an older son. This son portrays someone I can painfully relate to. When his brother came home and was welcomed wholeheartedly, he didn’t think it fair. He couldn’t bring himself to celebrate with everyone else as his brother had wronged the family, and come clambering back deserving punishment, but receiving huge festivities in his name instead. When his dad noticed his eldest son’s not-quite-partying mood, he told him his brother was dead, and now is alive. Think again, what’s not to be excited about?!
So here I am, two years late, on a sticky summer’s afternoon, celebrating along with God the return of my brother, Andy!

Love Actually

A mate challenged me about a year and a half ago with the question “would you still love God if Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead?” At the time I blurted out some intellectual-sounding answer. Behind the "right" words coming out of my mouth, the rest of me was panic-ridden with the possibility that I didn’t love God to the extent I always thought I had. It was the first time I’d properly questioned why I loved God. If I even loved him. How I could possibly go about learning to love him. The more I thought about it, the more impossible it seemed, to love someone who wasn’t concrete. Who wasn’t about. I started pushing him away from my world. Pushing him further up into the sky. Viewing him as a powerful being chilling out above us somewhere who loved us dearly, but who expected us to work insanely hard at loving him back. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I didn’t lose face, I kept the Christian act going, but I didn’t understand how to love Him. I begged God to teach me how to go about it, but the distance I’d put him at prevented me from seeing him anywhere.
Not sure entirely when or how it happened, but I accepted the situation. Or I just pushed the problem to the back of my mind and stopped thinking about it. I figured I would persevere with the whole Christian thing and have faith that it would make sense one day.
“Allah Allah Allah”
This song came on my iPod. By mewithoutYou. It’s a pretty feel-good song, singing away about how God is in everything. The penny dropped pretty loudly in my head. I had the whole concept of the nature of God muddled up. I was envisaging Him as being separate from the world, as a powerful force that looked over us. Major underestimation. God is in everything. He’s intertwined IN this world. He’s in that moment when I slowly feel myself warm up after I’ve got into a cold bed in a cold room. He’s in that first sip of a cup of tea. He’s in that excitement when I’m plummeting down the side of a mountain on a board. He’s in everything I love already. He’s the beauty of it all. I don’t need some secret theological doctrine to love some seemingly inaccessible God. He’s in me. He’s in the people around me. He’s in what I see. Now there’s a God I can’t help but love. God is love. And according to Hugh Grant, love actually is all around.