Submission and authority

"And now, being an old man, I will add a word I might not have known then. Abishai, no man knows his own heart. I certainly do not know mine. Only God does. Shall I defend my little realm in the name of God? Shall I throw spears, and plot and divide... and kill men's spirits if not their bodies... to protect my empire? I did not lift a finger to be made king. Nor shall I do so to preserve a kingdom. Even the kingdom of God! God put me here. It is not my responsibility to take, or keep, authority. Do you not realize, it may be his will for these things to take place? If he chooses, God can protect and keep his kingdom even now. After all, it is his kingdom.

As I said, no man knows his own heart. I do not know mine. Who knows what is really in my heart? Perhaps in God's eyes I am no longer worthy to rule. Perhaps he is through with me. Perhaps it is his will for Absalom to rule. I honestly don't know. And if this is his will, I want it. May God be finished with me!"

- Taken from 'A Tale of Three Kings' by Gene Edwards, spoken by David.

Miracles Liturgy

Lord God,

You spoke into darkness and chaos and then there was light;

You imagined this earth in its complexity and beauty and called it into being;

You created humanity in your own image and gave us a home to live in;

We believe you can do miracles.

But even if you don't, you are still God.

Lord God,

You walked with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego through the fiery furnace;

You shut the mouths of hungry lions and kept Daniel safe until morning;

You gave Hannah a family when she despaired of ever having a child;

We believe you can do miracles.

But even if you don't, you are still God.

Lord God,

You changed water into wine so the wedding party could continue;

You calmed a storm, and your disciples, with words of quiet authority;

You transformed a boy's picnic into a meal for a multitude, with plenty left over;

We believe you can do miracles.

But even if you don't, you are still God.

Lord God,

You healed a woman from 12 years of bleeding and rejection;

You asked Bartimaeus what he wanted and then restored his sight;

You watched a paralysed man being lowered through the roof and helped him to his feet;

We believe you can do miracles.

But even if you don't, you are still God.

Lord God,

You called Lazarus from the tomb and restored him to life;

You walked past the mourners at Jairus' house and gave his daughter back to him;

You suffered a horrendous crucifixion and defeated sin and death;

We believe you can do miracles.

But even if you don't, you are still God.

Lord God,

You told your disciples that they would do greater things than you had done;

We hear and read stories of miracles in our world - of you healing the sick, setting prisoners free, releasing drug addicts from their addiction;

Providing the right amount of money at just the right time;

We believe you can do miracles.

But even if you don't, you are still God.

And yet, Lord, we don't see many miracles happening around us:

We have friends with cancer, and we pray, and they are not healed;

We have friends who long for children, and we pray, and they do not conceive.

Our doubt is mixed with faith;

Our trust is accompanied by questions.

We acknowledge the mystery of faith and prayer, and the ways in which they are connected;

We acknowledge that you often do things differently from the way we would do them;

We long to know you better, to understand more of your ways.

And we believe you can do miracles.

But even if you don't, you are still God.

Lord, we believe.

Help our unbelief.

- Taken from 'Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength' by Jenny Baker

The Belfry

I went to church tonight for the first time in a while. Sitting there during the rituals and proceedings, I thought of R.S. Thomas' poem 'The Belfry':

I have seen it standing up grey,

Gaunt, as though no sunlight

Could ever thaw out the music

Of its great bell; terrible

In its own way, for religion

Is like that. There are times

When a black frost is upon

One's whole being, and the heart

In its bone belfry hangs and is dumb.

But who is to know? Always,

Even in winter in the cold

Of a stone church, on his knees

Someone is praying, whose prayers fall

Steadily through the hard spell

Of weather that is between God

And himself. Perhaps they are warm rain
That brings the sun and afterwards flowers

On the raw graves and throbbing of bells.

R.S. Thomas, the poet of the absent God. His phrases and poems have come to me frequently lately. He writes words that convey how words fall short.

I have questions. I have lots of questions about God. For God. It seems, it has seemed for a long time, that all there is is silence. I feel like I am 18 again, a young, distressed, naive teenager back at Wycliffe, sitting alone in the chapel in the dark quiet, praying and asking and sobbing, the chapel door closed, silence and cold all around me, waiting for God's voice. Waiting, unsure of what it would sound like, unsure of where or what God is. I feel like that little girl again, waiting and hoping desperately, confronted and confounded by the silence.

I sit in church and in conversations amongst other Christians these days feeling the words wash over me. I wonder whether this is something that many people go through, or whether I have passed the point of no return, where all meaning has been lost and I will no longer understand the language and experience of faith and trust and the journey with God. The vicar introduced the service tonight and opened with a declaration containing phrases like 'God's grace and salvation is available if we repent of our sin and turn away from our ways'. I felt a strange sense of disconnection then; the words washed over me, they didn't make any sense. I didn't understand what they meant. All the subsequent bits of service felt similar. I feel like I have lost all connection and understanding of faith; these words of faith, these rituals and liturgies, have lost their meaning for me. I sit, feeling lost and disengaged, bored and uncomfortable.

My husband is a youth worker, a committed Christian servant. He has his doubts and battles, but sometimes I look at him and the rest of the people that I know who are Christians and I feel like I am an alien impostor - that they think I am one of them when I am not. They know what they believe and they trust in it. They know what it means. They have difficulties as the journey is difficult, but they are on the journey and they know what that entails. I feel like I have faith-Aspergers. None of it makes any sense and I feel like I go through the motions because I am in a position where I am expected to, and it doesn't make any difference to me.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a real independent choice over whether to go to church, whether or not to self-identify as a committed Christian. Whether or not to confess that I have so many questions, so many doubts; that it all means so little to me that I don't know whether I even believe or whether it even matters to me anymore. That it has no impact on the everyday motions of my life and the inner stirrings and yearnings of my heart. That I don't even remember the last time I thought about the connection between my faith and my actions. I wonder what it would be like to be in the position to admit all this, to leave the church behind.

I am a Christian youth worker and minister-to-be's wife and sometimes when I am honest with myself I think that if I wasn't, if I did not love my husband so much, I would have abandoned this faith long ago.

I suppose some would say that this was all God's provision for me so that I wouldn't fall away.

I continue to wait, anyway.

On thinking too much

When I was in my teenage years, I used to constantly be told that my problem was that I thought too much. I resented it, it made me so angry. I thought, How can I just switch it all off? If I could just elect to think less about things or stop thinking altogether, then I would, but I can't. I am stuck in my pathology.

Now that I have grown up that little bit more, and life has happened to me those few years more, I have finally arrived at the stage where this is possible. I am able to numb my mind, to put things on hold, to distract myself sufficiently that I can stop myself from facing up to things and thinking about the things that are in the foreground of my mind. I can go on autopilot and get on with the robotic motions of life, suspend all feeling sufficiently to function as an unnoticeable, ordinary human being who gets on with all the normal things that people do.

I have arrived at the pitiable realization that it doesn't work. All that happens is the biding of time until the next inopportune moment when everything that ever happened to you comes flooding at you like some insane monster and you lose complete control, and you are left feeling stranded and helpless, thinking obsessively that you are better off dead. When it subsides, all that is left is the immovable feeling that you have no idea where to go from here.

Last Sunday I spent 70% of the service in floods of tears, unable to control myself and stop my tears from coming and my nose from running embarrassingly. I spent the next few days unable to stop looking at my life and consequent wishing for death. Now I am back on autopilot, getting on with life for the most part.

When I sleep I dream. Many dreams. Last night I remember two dreams. I dreamt I was watching a stranger that had become my friend flirting with and winning over my husband, while lying to my face about having no such intention, and eventually telling me exactly what she thought of me. I watched the beginnings of an affair unfold, feeling the insane jealousy of every turn. I woke up from this dream only to have another dream about my brother threatening to push a blade into my genitalia, and the only way that I could stop him was to hack off his limbs with a knife. My dreams are disturbing. They scare and distress me.

I feel stuck in my life. I am still stuck in my pathology. I can't escape it. It haunts me. But no matter what, life goes on. I get on with it. I do chores. I cry and dream.

It feels merciless sometimes.

Empty moments

I wait patiently for Dave to get home from work. Sometimes time seems to stretch itself out, and it feels like there isn't enough to fill the hours of the day. Life seems empty and I sit, waiting, wondering what to do with myself.

Sometimes I look back on my life and I think, my life is a joke. I think, all the facts and information about me, all my interests and drives and passions, the movements and motions of my life could have easily been very quickly looked over by a psychological profiler and they would have come to this simple, ludicrously direct conclusion and explanation of why I do the things I do and make the choices I make. It feels a bit like a farce, a bit of a sham. I know that's not the point of the realization that the counsellor helped me towards, but sometimes, in these more empty moments, it does all feel a bit pointless. I look at my life and I wonder why the point of it was.

I suppose when you dig deeper than you usually content yourself with doing, you don't always find what you're looking for. You don't always know where to go from there, and the knowledge doesn't always bring power and clarity and direction.

I suppose this is where God comes in, where I am meant to be doing what I'm doing, throwing up my hands and saying, I have no idea what to do Lord, I have no idea where or who I am, please help me.

'Casimir Pulaski Day' - Sufjan Stevens

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes