So here's some thoughts on reality;
We each have our own little world in our head. We make sense of the world around us through a kind of story that identifies us, and in which we try to place every new experience to help us orientate ourselves with the world. The story is constantly adjusted and reassessed, especially when new experiences don't fit the old story. It gets updated and we carry on using it. In this story are our failures and fears, but also our triumphs and expectations. Popular culture would tell us that it's ok that everyone's little worlds are different. Each is equally valuable and valid. Each one is true to us, which is true enough. Furthermore, we are not entitled to tell anyone else that their little world is wrong, especially if ours also happens to be right (which of course it is).
The problem is that this isn't the case. There's one reality. One world, one history, one Earth. We can't all be right, and this is our experience, but it hurts. Isn't it interesting that we get really stressed when our expectations aren't met, however unrealistic they may have been. When human beings with a non-functioning or paralysed limb can see it but not control it, they experience physical pain. People who are blind often find that sounds around them become "noise" when they can't mentally assign them a source - thinks that don't make sense to us frustrate and upset us. The point is that when people get their world-view wrong, it causes pain, first to themselves, but often soon after to those around them. These discontinuities confuse us and introduce doubt and fear. Fear imprisons us, and we live half-lives filled with empty expectations, self doubt and general unease.
To be free, we need to live in reality.
Realistic expectations don't breed disappointment. Sometimes we see this, and we see the freedom. Think of it like "living in the moment". It comes like simultaneously holding life lightly and embracing it enthusiastically.
Here's the next thing, there's more to reality than we see if we just look on the surface. To make my point, here's some physics as an analogy (stay with me here)..
Sound (yep; noise, music, voices etc) is simply ripples of vibration in the air. The average position of tiny air molecules vibrates back and forth, transmitting the vibration onto the others around it. You can measure it, you could set up a microphone, and draw a trace of these vibrations over time. To be honest, it wouldn't look that great. In fact, it would pretty much look completely random most of the time. You could tell when the sound was loud or quiet by looking at the amplitude, or height, of the peaks and troughs, but that's about it. In fact, when people like engineers, scientists or music producers look at sound, they don't normally look at the vibration over time. Instead, they look at frequency. Frequency is how many times the vibration happens in a given period of time. A frequency of 50 Hz means fifty full vibrations per second. There's a whole load of very clever maths that's used to turn the time-based information into frequency information, and mathematicians who use it talk about the time domain when you look at what came straight from the microphone, and the frequency domain when talking about the analysed frequency distribution. With the frequency information you can start to recognise pitch, musical notes, voices, even words. Frequency is the first killer-app with sound. Frequency is true: You can use this analysis to measure the energy distribution in that sound wave, you can do maths on it, it's not a quirk or trick- it's valid physics, just like the original time-based signal.
Maybe the world's kind of like that. Look on the surface and you see something, but it can fail to make sense, or appear to be random. Sure there's some cause and effect going on that's very consistent, but to understand it, really understand it, can be tricky. Perhaps impossible. But in the very same physical matter, the same motions, mass, energy and events, deeper patterns exist. There's the "physical" domain, where we see consistent laws at work but seemingly random (or at least highly unpredictable) high-level outcomes. But this is not the whole story. Filter the same reality with a higher-order analysis, and there's more meaningful things afoot. Call it another domain if you will.
If you walk into a room, God's already there. If you go somewhere that nobody's ever visited, God's already there too. If you go somewhere where truly horrific things have been, or are being done, God's there too (although I put it to you that He's not particularly enjoying the situation). He is in and through and beneath everything. If the universe is the substrate through which our existence ripples and moves and expands, interacts and plays out, then He is the substrate on which the universe finds it's being.
And above all, He's personal. With God it's always personal. He doesn't work to a broad set of policies, a divine manifesto laid out before the making of the world by which we can live or fall. No, that thing we know as love, that roaring fire in our bellies, that blazing light that ignites our hearts, that desire for right and life and liberty, that thing that makes your heart jump, that's God. He's so relational that somehow he's sort of multiple- even within His very self is sacrificial love and intimacy.
Put all that together, and you start to realise that in every room He's not only already present, He's got a very distinct intention for that place, and even more so, the people who occupy it. He is specific, precise, intentional and focused. He is incredibly down-to-earth.
So there's this other domain present and active in the very fabric of our surroundings. God is here at work. So how to live in reality..? How do we engage with this implicit meaning? It has to be in partnership with God, because it's not about Him, it is Him. His intentions are not to make the world His kind of way, be precisely to His specific plans (which include our freedom). Only with His view can we tap into the absolute reality around us. But this is no distant challenge or pie-in-the-sky dream. It is imminently available. God is right here right now and He's made it staggeringly clear that He is accessible to us in the very present. In one sense, all there is to do is choose, trust, and receive. But that's all a bit passive isn't it? How about this: Search it out, look for reality everywhere, like lost car keys- turn your world upside down and put everything on hold. It's there, everywhere (unlike the car keys!), so get personal, look for Him and His specific plans. Find out what God is up to in every room you enter and join in.
Like the clever maths used on sound signals, we can be translated, transposed, transformed into this world-within-the-world. We can live a kind of transcendent life more fully in the here and now than we imagined possible. The domain is at hand, the domain of life in, and with, and in partnership with the Life Force, the Ignition and the Fire of the universe. He wants to be known.
Reality is at hand, engage!
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Revisions
So it's a new calender year and I haven't blogged for a while. Time to give my innate creativity a chance.
My thoughts are still on the Road Back. That leg of the hero's journey where the crisis is over but the climax is still to come. Where the war is won, but not the battle. The occupying enemy is inevitably destined for utter defeat, yet the empire stands. Spot fires of the New Order pop up spontaneously as the cracks in the old way show themselves, but they are quickly snuffed out as the enemy seems to have the upper hand. It can feel like one step forward precedes two back, this is the time of the Allies. The hero is away, or making his final ascent, and it falls to the friends and followers to stand in the gap and show their colours. Here, the friend becomes the hero, the weak show their inner strength and the Hero's influence on his company is finally tested. This is the hour of the follower, as the hero charges for the final confrontation and the fulfillment of the journey. I am dwelling on all this as I try to write songs for our time. If we can understand when we are, we can better work out what to do.
I am also very much enjoying my wonderful and life-full family, especially following a good break for Christmas. I'll write more about this soon. Right now, time to get something out, and hope the creativity is unstoppered.
My thoughts are still on the Road Back. That leg of the hero's journey where the crisis is over but the climax is still to come. Where the war is won, but not the battle. The occupying enemy is inevitably destined for utter defeat, yet the empire stands. Spot fires of the New Order pop up spontaneously as the cracks in the old way show themselves, but they are quickly snuffed out as the enemy seems to have the upper hand. It can feel like one step forward precedes two back, this is the time of the Allies. The hero is away, or making his final ascent, and it falls to the friends and followers to stand in the gap and show their colours. Here, the friend becomes the hero, the weak show their inner strength and the Hero's influence on his company is finally tested. This is the hour of the follower, as the hero charges for the final confrontation and the fulfillment of the journey. I am dwelling on all this as I try to write songs for our time. If we can understand when we are, we can better work out what to do.
I am also very much enjoying my wonderful and life-full family, especially following a good break for Christmas. I'll write more about this soon. Right now, time to get something out, and hope the creativity is unstoppered.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Leadership
I met with my mentor the other day, and we talked about leadership from the bottom. I feel like I've been exploring this concept lately, especially at work where I am now starting to see some tangible changes, which I hope that I've contributed to at least in part. If I have, then this process of transformation has come as the result of a huge number of seemingly insignificantly small nudges of influence which I have been able to impart upon the people around me. Just like a heavy ship, many tiny actions, impulses of force, applied in the same direction will inevitably wield their influence.
I am not a manager in my work, nor do I hold a senior position. In fact I am a bog-standard engineer. But as a follower of Jesus, I can't leave this world alone. I find myself in an environment, as is common in business, saturated with management but starved of leadership. Management directs a group fulfill its purpose; leadership feeds it with identity and direction. I exist in a community, with good qualities and destructive ones. I can speak into this; I can call out the good, give voice to it and affirm it, offer it a direction, a plane of influence, of reality.
Leadership is a different language; a human language.
The call of a leader is to first identify with the their people, be of the community, integrate in the real meaning of the concept. Then to speak into that corporate identity, provide meaning, location, reference and purpose. The leader facilitates the group to fulfill its potential, he or she allows the people to go where they want to go, to achieve their goals, to live the dream. The leader discerns, refines and articulates a direction, and is the architect of the "how" as well as the "what". The leader liberates the people to be and do more fully.
The other thing I've realised is that it's easy to be the loudest voice when no-one else is talking. In a vacuum of leadership, if you place a bit of this vision-food before a group, they will follow.
And so it is that I feel that I can lead. Having spent six years being in my little workplace community, I now find myself with a vision for them; I can see what they could be. There is room for growth. In my particular case, I can see what they believe in, but I can also see such a low corporate self esteem that they fight it just to stay secure.
Here's the stupid thing: The business wants the same thing they do; for them to do great work in a great way. The problem is the relationship's a bit of a mess and communication is very poor. What can I do? Well I can't stand in the gap of communication- that comes in the form of a whole bunch of stressed out middle managers, that's not my place. I can, however, whisper the simple truth, and the full potential I see, in the collective ear of the people. Conversation by conversation, greeting by greeting and meeting by meeting, I can lay out a simple vision; that we raise the bar and fulfill that company believe in excellent engineering. It's a simple message; "We can do it, let's!".
I try to be an example. That sounds big headed, but I don't mean I do my job really well or I work really hard (but if my company's reading this, I do..). I mean that I try to do it in a quality that speaks this vision. I do endorse the good things in the company image. I do try to improve our processes, our tools, our habits and our presentation. I guess that secretly, I believe that our department can lead the business from the bottom. We do things right, we do things well.
Sometimes I have nudged the boundaries, I venture beyond my specifically defined role. It's been a journey, for my manager and myself, as I've tried to perform my function with meaning. I always follow orders but I don't always tow the line, and I definitely challenge the underlying status quo. I think we've found a peace, something like the way CS Lewis put it; "'Course he isn't safe. But he's good."; they know I'm effective, they know I change things, but they know I'm for them, not against them.
My company, just like my motley bunch of engineers, has some good qualities along with its inevitable flaws. It could be the kind of company that changes the world for the better, that honors Jesus. I aim to sow the seed of that possibility in the hearts and minds of my colleagues. I guess that when you lead from the bottom, the only way is up.
I am not a manager in my work, nor do I hold a senior position. In fact I am a bog-standard engineer. But as a follower of Jesus, I can't leave this world alone. I find myself in an environment, as is common in business, saturated with management but starved of leadership. Management directs a group fulfill its purpose; leadership feeds it with identity and direction. I exist in a community, with good qualities and destructive ones. I can speak into this; I can call out the good, give voice to it and affirm it, offer it a direction, a plane of influence, of reality.
Leadership is a different language; a human language.
The other thing I've realised is that it's easy to be the loudest voice when no-one else is talking. In a vacuum of leadership, if you place a bit of this vision-food before a group, they will follow.
And so it is that I feel that I can lead. Having spent six years being in my little workplace community, I now find myself with a vision for them; I can see what they could be. There is room for growth. In my particular case, I can see what they believe in, but I can also see such a low corporate self esteem that they fight it just to stay secure.
Here's the stupid thing: The business wants the same thing they do; for them to do great work in a great way. The problem is the relationship's a bit of a mess and communication is very poor. What can I do? Well I can't stand in the gap of communication- that comes in the form of a whole bunch of stressed out middle managers, that's not my place. I can, however, whisper the simple truth, and the full potential I see, in the collective ear of the people. Conversation by conversation, greeting by greeting and meeting by meeting, I can lay out a simple vision; that we raise the bar and fulfill that company believe in excellent engineering. It's a simple message; "We can do it, let's!".
Sometimes I have nudged the boundaries, I venture beyond my specifically defined role. It's been a journey, for my manager and myself, as I've tried to perform my function with meaning. I always follow orders but I don't always tow the line, and I definitely challenge the underlying status quo. I think we've found a peace, something like the way CS Lewis put it; "'Course he isn't safe. But he's good."; they know I'm effective, they know I change things, but they know I'm for them, not against them.
My company, just like my motley bunch of engineers, has some good qualities along with its inevitable flaws. It could be the kind of company that changes the world for the better, that honors Jesus. I aim to sow the seed of that possibility in the hearts and minds of my colleagues. I guess that when you lead from the bottom, the only way is up.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Songs are for Singing
And this has struck me.
So far, my song writing has been for a context, for God and for me. But I've always been a bit too evasive about the idea of 'performance' to really consider an audience.
So, who?
Is that up to me? Maybe not (maybe so), but given that that's a big question, I hope that it's enough for now to have gained the realisation that the songs I write have purpose, rather than just a large amount of identity. They are for someone, and that kind of adds a bit of an edge to a media which is communication..
Right now, it feels different, so I'll give it a try.
Monday, 12 September 2011
Two Today!
So it's my daughter's birthday today. And I have been challenged by my wife to write about that rather than some other random fodder circulating my mind. And because it really matters to me, here goes..
Firstly, I'm just blown away by a whole person. It's amazing that she is. That we (well my wife) has given birth to another whole human being. Not a mini-person, or a sub-person or a second-generation person. An original, genuine, state of the art, complete and fully spec'd human being. As valid, important, valued and amazing as anyone. Wow, reproduction rocks!
Secondly, she is the ultimate hero. I've discovered that children are. Because heroes change, they are transformed. That's what they do, it's their thing. And unlike "adults", children actually expect this as part of basic existence. My daughter develops. In every dimension and direction, she is constantly on a forward trajectory. It's like her life is made of just two components; love (of us, friends, family, the cat), and "education"; she just wants to learn and do new things. She wants to say more words and better, communicate more things, express herself more clearly, jump higher and further with less hand-holding, swing higher, climb harder, sing more of the words, dance more groovy moves, do more stuff!!
And as we were discussing today, she has accomplished more in the last year than us by a good order of magnitude or two, and she will again next year. Which of course is good and right. But why do we ever stop expecting to change? I'm sure that we all can (and should) keep on getting better, but the dimensions in which we grow should be deeper.
So here's to my beautiful girly. A true heroine. And here's my commitment to expect to change myself. I can already use a potty, and I can already climb the stairs, and I've already got a little sister, but I'm sure there's room for some major growth in this particular child.
I thank God for my beautiful family and His love which I cannot understand.
Firstly, I'm just blown away by a whole person. It's amazing that she is. That we (well my wife) has given birth to another whole human being. Not a mini-person, or a sub-person or a second-generation person. An original, genuine, state of the art, complete and fully spec'd human being. As valid, important, valued and amazing as anyone. Wow, reproduction rocks!
Secondly, she is the ultimate hero. I've discovered that children are. Because heroes change, they are transformed. That's what they do, it's their thing. And unlike "adults", children actually expect this as part of basic existence. My daughter develops. In every dimension and direction, she is constantly on a forward trajectory. It's like her life is made of just two components; love (of us, friends, family, the cat), and "education"; she just wants to learn and do new things. She wants to say more words and better, communicate more things, express herself more clearly, jump higher and further with less hand-holding, swing higher, climb harder, sing more of the words, dance more groovy moves, do more stuff!!
And as we were discussing today, she has accomplished more in the last year than us by a good order of magnitude or two, and she will again next year. Which of course is good and right. But why do we ever stop expecting to change? I'm sure that we all can (and should) keep on getting better, but the dimensions in which we grow should be deeper.
So here's to my beautiful girly. A true heroine. And here's my commitment to expect to change myself. I can already use a potty, and I can already climb the stairs, and I've already got a little sister, but I'm sure there's room for some major growth in this particular child.
I thank God for my beautiful family and His love which I cannot understand.
A Thing
So here's a thing..
I am amazed at the in-everything-ness of God. He is in it all and He defies all our instincts about a deity. His ways are the inverse of our intuition (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RiboB3dlIQ).
Maybe that's what we were meant to do. The universe follows causality. One thing happens, it causes something else. Everything's the result of something(s) else. The outcome? Big and strong things persist, weak and small things decrease. Our universe, evolution, nature, they all inevitably, necessarily exaggerate imbalance. It has to be that way. Entropy brings order but pulls us to the cold grey. The non-linearity brings about stuff. But how to go further? How to take the cosmos higher? How to make beauty and diversity not only physical but spiritual? A leopard is beautiful, but violent. Biology facilitates life, but generates pathogens, parasites and predators.
When God's living image enters the scene, things can be different. Love is the active agent. It causes the big and strong to nurture the weak and small. It drives us to care. To medicate, domesticate. Us humans have an amazing capacity for technology and love, the creative flame. We could take it forward, or we could reassert the old way. Or worse. We can use our authority for anarchy, destroy order and promote chaos. Sometimes it seems that's what we've chosen; to decay.
We are shocked by our inhumanity. But maybe we should be more inspired by our likeness. What is more surprising? That hurt and pain, exploitation and humiliation are given voice in the song of humanity? (After all, this is the resident condition.) Or that, despite the pain (there's so much pain in this world and this People), despite that, sacrifice and generosity and healing and forgiveness and hope and trust and goodness and love are? Surely that is miraculous, it is certainly improbable, seemingly impossible. Humanity is miraculous. The occupying empire, the base state, the cosmological operating system may be flawed, but we are intrinsically, fundamentally, essentially made like Him.
In the beginning, He gave us work to do. In the present, He works in us and out of us. We are made in His likeness, reformed by Him Like Us, and revived with Him in us..
So let's get creative.
I am amazed at the in-everything-ness of God. He is in it all and He defies all our instincts about a deity. His ways are the inverse of our intuition (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RiboB3dlIQ).
Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”How do you break the cycle? What on Earth (or around it, or mind-blowingly distant from it) can subvert this convention? Could there be some kind of creative leveler, some absurd, abundant, illogical return loop that could take things further forward? Maybe life isn't the summit of creation.
When God's living image enters the scene, things can be different. Love is the active agent. It causes the big and strong to nurture the weak and small. It drives us to care. To medicate, domesticate. Us humans have an amazing capacity for technology and love, the creative flame. We could take it forward, or we could reassert the old way. Or worse. We can use our authority for anarchy, destroy order and promote chaos. Sometimes it seems that's what we've chosen; to decay.
We are shocked by our inhumanity. But maybe we should be more inspired by our likeness. What is more surprising? That hurt and pain, exploitation and humiliation are given voice in the song of humanity? (After all, this is the resident condition.) Or that, despite the pain (there's so much pain in this world and this People), despite that, sacrifice and generosity and healing and forgiveness and hope and trust and goodness and love are? Surely that is miraculous, it is certainly improbable, seemingly impossible. Humanity is miraculous. The occupying empire, the base state, the cosmological operating system may be flawed, but we are intrinsically, fundamentally, essentially made like Him.
In the beginning, He gave us work to do. In the present, He works in us and out of us. We are made in His likeness, reformed by Him Like Us, and revived with Him in us..
So let's get creative.
Monday, 22 August 2011
On the Road
Thanks to Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler for their works.
The Hero's Journey. This is where I have been prospecting for revelation. What is it? It is the result of research. It is the common essence extracted from the myths, legends, folklore and fairytale of many cultures around the world. I've been going on the basis that the Hero's Journey is common throughout ages, places and cultures because it is somehow intrinsically present in the human nature. My assumption, given that it speaks so richly of God's own actions, and resonates so strongly in His image bearers, is that this structure of story is God-inspired; God's plan, law and good news wrought in the hearts of men. Everywhere. Deep truths require the language of story, and Story has a heart, a fundamental core which has it's origin in The Origin, The Author.
It is a journey and it is a journey of transformation. Transformation of the person though sacrifice; ultimate sacrifice; death- for a greater cause. This is what rings in the human soul, it is our highest self, it is some dynamic part of the image of our maker, for the Hero's Journey is His journey, and the repeating journey of every human being.
So let me take you through the content of this thing. It will be familiar, because you have followed this path yourself, many times. It is also sewn into the stories we're told, through paper, voice and screen, because the Hero's Journey speaks to the soul. There are twelve stages to the Journey, which the hero undergoes on the road of change. Who is the hero? The One who is Transformed, who makes sacrifice for the many and who on the journey deals with death.
1. The ordinary world is where we begin, but in this life there is an unspoken imbalance, the suppressed niggle of incompleteness.
2. The call to adventure comes when the balance is finally tipped. Something's wrong, the hero needs to act.
3. But instead there is refusal of the call. Who comes quietly when they really have to leave their comfort zone, and when sacrifice is finally a present possibility?
4. Meeting with the mentor provides the required kick and equipping for the adventure. But..
5. Crossing the threshold requires the hero to overcome a guardian, by absorbing and redirecting their power the hero enters a special world of new rules and powers.
6. The special world has both allies and enemies to be identified, and challenges that test the hero's true character. The stakes keep rising as the journey goes on.
7. But even this special world has an innermost cave, where the hero must venture to reach their goal. This is the approach.
8. And in the deep dark of the innermost cave the hero finally undergoes the ordeal of sacrifice, dealing with death itself, but finding a rebirth.
9. And the ordeal wins them the opportunity to seize the sword, grab the prize and reflect on their rebirth from death itself.
10. But there is a greater cause still at steak, the prize must be taken home, so the hero must begin along the road back.
11. The battle isn't done, however. The greatest confrontation takes place in Resurrection, where the final victory is sealed and the trouble overcome.
12. Finally the hero can return with the elixir to the ordinary world. Bringing a gift of life and revelation and the fruit of transformation.
Surely the language, the wise truth, the blatant Jesus-ness has struck you?! Sacrifice and suffering, death and rebirth, the elixir of life.. It is The Story. God's Story. Creation's Story as His subject. Jesus's story as God in Matter and as our model, our leader, our example, our Way, our Reality, our Life.
Our story. As we follow.
In fact it is played out like some fractal form in the realm of spirit. Through ages, generations, lifetimes and moments it is played out as the journey of transformation. Each lesson and adventure is woven of these incidents.
1) The Hero's Journey is all about transformation; God has changed. Unchangeable, yes, but free to change- of course. And He has chosen to. His character remains, but now there is flesh on the Throne and humanity in the Trinity. God has changed in order to regain us and we are called to follow.
2) Our identity grows from our willingness to go on the adventure of engaging with our Origin and Destiny. Life in contact with God is our Special World, where the very Life Force, the Essential Spark meets with us, flows through us and resides in us. He makes us and remakes us. He breathes life. He Names us and He Chooses us. A Hero is Chosen. You are a chosen hero, called on a dangerous adventure of transformation in communion with The Maker.
3) Our purpose flows from the Journey of the World. God's inevitable plan is that All Things will be transformed and made New. Our purpose, our Road Back is to excercise this transformation in our world.
4) Of course, this gives us insight into the practical things. The Journey tells us that even the best heralded call to adventure will typically be refused, and the mentor is needed to catalyse a decision to act. When we're Called the most normal and natural response is to deny it and carry on. But how many mentors are involved in really early discipleship; before any decision..? What on earth do we expect after people get baptised..? Tests? Allies? Enemies? They are all to be expected on entering the Special World.
But now to my question from the beginning;
What is the context to "unanswered" prayer? Why, when we believe God is all good and all powerful, and some things are just good, like healing and finding and loving? What's the back story to this world around us; the horrific sick distortion, hatred and hurt and the miraculous radical uncompromising unbounded intricate and elaborate action of God seemingly randomly distributed and in such close proximity?
I believe that we are on the Road Back. So, a little more flesh on the bones of this leg of the journey:
The road back follows seizing the sword. That's the moment when you realise you are reborn, you've made it, come through the ordeal and now you sit, fresh and unburdened, on the edge of the alter, a new creation with the prize in your grasp. You know that moment in the film, when the hero has apparently been overcome by their arch enemy but now, somehow, miraculously after all was lost, they have returned from the brink, or maybe even beyond it. But now they realise that the job isn't finished, they must get back, rescue the captives, escape the enemy base, difuse the bomb, save the day or save the world. Then comes the chase. The crippled but maddened enemy lashes out in a final attack, often more vicious than before. Now they are really threatened, their empire crumbling around them already. They make one last ditch attempt on the life of the hero and their now hopeless ambitions. The hero runs to win the Greater Cause, the enemy pursues.
On the road back, the hero has to throw everything they've got back at the enemy simply to buy time to make good. In myths and fairytales, the gifts of the special world often transform magically into great obstacles to the enemy as the hero casts everything down in the chase. The Road Back follows the great crisis of the story, but it is only the final ascent to the climax to follow; the greatest conflict and the great refining of the hero.
This is the bit I find the hardest - conclusions. Here's my start.
1) We're on the road back, not the home straight. The crisis of redemption has taken place, but the climax is to come, followed by the final fruit. It isn't an easy ride from Easter to New Heaven and Earth. His Kingdom breaks in but this is not the final conversion.
2) On the road back, a prize stolen is followed by fierce retribution, a prize divinely bestowed is accompanied by provision. Our reconciliation and redemption are both; we have been snatched from death and decay, and through Jesus' sacrifice the Father joyfully calls us His very own. What can we expect but ferocious attack and abundant treasure. The present is the most extreme, intense time point in all history, and the intensity increases. Sparks are flying as Love and sin clash, and we occupy the threshold.
3) God has chosen the Heroic Way. He will transform the world but through His own transformation and sacrifice. He will not overpower Creation, but instead He has become it.
His road back, His re-commission to the cause of Creation, is to make His Church His bride, in unity with His Spirit; bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh.
God is love. And with Him it is always personal. His work in the world starts in us, our own transformation comes first. We are called to die to our ego and follow Him before anything else. His priority is the person. But then we follow His way to join in His transformation of the World; through Love, the sacrifice of self for the thriving of another, we will invert the order of this plane.
It is confoundingly powerful and offensive, love and sacrifice subvert the occupying empire. We are rebels of the revolution, the exiles reclaiming the land. We are insighters of civil rest. We can expect marvelous things but the base condition is still the mess. We deal with life and death. We draw from the deep.
And nothing sacrificed is wasted.
His Kingdom will burst into this horribly wrenched world where we go. Expect suffering, expect joy. Expect brokenness and expect healing. Expect to loose and expect to win. Expect death, expect life, expect Resurrection. Expect the whole world to be turned upside down and inside out on itself. Expect to be transformed. Expect change.
Watch the seed that falls to the ground and sprouts fresh new life. Watch the tiny sparrows, when their heads rest in the dust it is counted. Watch out because this world was created good and the Good Creator has launched His rescue mission.
We are God's very children, called to know Him and sent out to do what He does. He is the Hero of the World, and He is our Way. Our reality, and our Life!
It is a journey and it is a journey of transformation. Transformation of the person though sacrifice; ultimate sacrifice; death- for a greater cause. This is what rings in the human soul, it is our highest self, it is some dynamic part of the image of our maker, for the Hero's Journey is His journey, and the repeating journey of every human being.
So let me take you through the content of this thing. It will be familiar, because you have followed this path yourself, many times. It is also sewn into the stories we're told, through paper, voice and screen, because the Hero's Journey speaks to the soul. There are twelve stages to the Journey, which the hero undergoes on the road of change. Who is the hero? The One who is Transformed, who makes sacrifice for the many and who on the journey deals with death.
1. The ordinary world is where we begin, but in this life there is an unspoken imbalance, the suppressed niggle of incompleteness.2. The call to adventure comes when the balance is finally tipped. Something's wrong, the hero needs to act.
3. But instead there is refusal of the call. Who comes quietly when they really have to leave their comfort zone, and when sacrifice is finally a present possibility?
4. Meeting with the mentor provides the required kick and equipping for the adventure. But..
5. Crossing the threshold requires the hero to overcome a guardian, by absorbing and redirecting their power the hero enters a special world of new rules and powers.
6. The special world has both allies and enemies to be identified, and challenges that test the hero's true character. The stakes keep rising as the journey goes on.
7. But even this special world has an innermost cave, where the hero must venture to reach their goal. This is the approach.
8. And in the deep dark of the innermost cave the hero finally undergoes the ordeal of sacrifice, dealing with death itself, but finding a rebirth.
9. And the ordeal wins them the opportunity to seize the sword, grab the prize and reflect on their rebirth from death itself.
10. But there is a greater cause still at steak, the prize must be taken home, so the hero must begin along the road back.
11. The battle isn't done, however. The greatest confrontation takes place in Resurrection, where the final victory is sealed and the trouble overcome.
12. Finally the hero can return with the elixir to the ordinary world. Bringing a gift of life and revelation and the fruit of transformation.
Surely the language, the wise truth, the blatant Jesus-ness has struck you?! Sacrifice and suffering, death and rebirth, the elixir of life.. It is The Story. God's Story. Creation's Story as His subject. Jesus's story as God in Matter and as our model, our leader, our example, our Way, our Reality, our Life.
Our story. As we follow.
What does this mean?
1) The Hero's Journey is all about transformation; God has changed. Unchangeable, yes, but free to change- of course. And He has chosen to. His character remains, but now there is flesh on the Throne and humanity in the Trinity. God has changed in order to regain us and we are called to follow.
2) Our identity grows from our willingness to go on the adventure of engaging with our Origin and Destiny. Life in contact with God is our Special World, where the very Life Force, the Essential Spark meets with us, flows through us and resides in us. He makes us and remakes us. He breathes life. He Names us and He Chooses us. A Hero is Chosen. You are a chosen hero, called on a dangerous adventure of transformation in communion with The Maker.
3) Our purpose flows from the Journey of the World. God's inevitable plan is that All Things will be transformed and made New. Our purpose, our Road Back is to excercise this transformation in our world.
4) Of course, this gives us insight into the practical things. The Journey tells us that even the best heralded call to adventure will typically be refused, and the mentor is needed to catalyse a decision to act. When we're Called the most normal and natural response is to deny it and carry on. But how many mentors are involved in really early discipleship; before any decision..? What on earth do we expect after people get baptised..? Tests? Allies? Enemies? They are all to be expected on entering the Special World.
But now to my question from the beginning;
Where are we now?
What is the context to "unanswered" prayer? Why, when we believe God is all good and all powerful, and some things are just good, like healing and finding and loving? What's the back story to this world around us; the horrific sick distortion, hatred and hurt and the miraculous radical uncompromising unbounded intricate and elaborate action of God seemingly randomly distributed and in such close proximity?
I believe that we are on the Road Back. So, a little more flesh on the bones of this leg of the journey:
On the road back, the hero has to throw everything they've got back at the enemy simply to buy time to make good. In myths and fairytales, the gifts of the special world often transform magically into great obstacles to the enemy as the hero casts everything down in the chase. The Road Back follows the great crisis of the story, but it is only the final ascent to the climax to follow; the greatest conflict and the great refining of the hero.
So what?
This is the bit I find the hardest - conclusions. Here's my start.
1) We're on the road back, not the home straight. The crisis of redemption has taken place, but the climax is to come, followed by the final fruit. It isn't an easy ride from Easter to New Heaven and Earth. His Kingdom breaks in but this is not the final conversion.
2) On the road back, a prize stolen is followed by fierce retribution, a prize divinely bestowed is accompanied by provision. Our reconciliation and redemption are both; we have been snatched from death and decay, and through Jesus' sacrifice the Father joyfully calls us His very own. What can we expect but ferocious attack and abundant treasure. The present is the most extreme, intense time point in all history, and the intensity increases. Sparks are flying as Love and sin clash, and we occupy the threshold.
3) God has chosen the Heroic Way. He will transform the world but through His own transformation and sacrifice. He will not overpower Creation, but instead He has become it.
His road back, His re-commission to the cause of Creation, is to make His Church His bride, in unity with His Spirit; bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh.
God is love. And with Him it is always personal. His work in the world starts in us, our own transformation comes first. We are called to die to our ego and follow Him before anything else. His priority is the person. But then we follow His way to join in His transformation of the World; through Love, the sacrifice of self for the thriving of another, we will invert the order of this plane.
It is confoundingly powerful and offensive, love and sacrifice subvert the occupying empire. We are rebels of the revolution, the exiles reclaiming the land. We are insighters of civil rest. We can expect marvelous things but the base condition is still the mess. We deal with life and death. We draw from the deep.
And nothing sacrificed is wasted.
Watch the seed that falls to the ground and sprouts fresh new life. Watch the tiny sparrows, when their heads rest in the dust it is counted. Watch out because this world was created good and the Good Creator has launched His rescue mission.
We are God's very children, called to know Him and sent out to do what He does. He is the Hero of the World, and He is our Way. Our reality, and our Life!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)