C.S. LEWIS.

During the Second World War CS Lewis gave a
series of radio talks on the BBC. These talks were
subsequently published as "Mere Christianity".
In one talk on 'Forgiveness' Lewis said this:-

"Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in
the paper. Then suppose that something turns up
suggesting that the story might not be quite true,
or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's
first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite
so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment,
and even a determination to cling to the first story
for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies as
bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am
afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed
to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is
beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If
we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to
see grey as black, and then to see white itself as
black. Finally, we shall insist on seeing everything -
God and our friends and ourselves included - as
bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be
fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.

Mr Grumpy.

With the start of a new year I generally dust of my old 'New Years'
resolutions and simply carry them forward into the next twelve months;
2007 is no exception! I'm usually full of good intentions but often lack
the application. James Baird once said, 'we judge other people by
their actions and ourselves by our intentions'.

So one thing I would love to have some resolution on is a little Christ
like humility. If I evaluate myself by my intentions then I'm an
amazingly creative, friendly, thoughtful omni-competent man, but in
actuality I know that I'm not. And no sooner do I think I've acheived
a state of humility that I realise that that very thought indicates the total
opposite. Humility is a slippery customer that is difficult to pin down,
like trying to grasp droplet of mercury. Perhaps humility is less of a
destination and more of a path. The instant that you think that you
are humble - you're not! Eventually you have simply to learn to laugh
at yourself. Was it CS Lewis that said 'humility is not thinking less of
yourself, but thinking of yourself less'? Whoever it was I think that
that has to be right. In lieu of humility maybe the next best thing is
simply to lay my soul bare and cut out all the fudging - isn't that what
Psalm 32 v2 is really about? Blogging - with all its self attentive
fussiness - isn't a medium conducive to humility is it? (So watch out for
my forthcoming lit obit this year!)

I had some discussion a while back in someone else's blog about the
nature of love. 'What is the opposite of love?' they had asked ('hate'
being the usual suspect) that particular blogger had suggested 'fear'
as the answer: an acquaintance of mine suggested that 'indifference'
might be a good candidate. While these answers have their merits I
believe the Biblical answer to that question of love's antithesis is
self-love. Love is not so much about feeling/not feeling something;
in reality it is all about focus. Who is the object of my primary affection?
Is it myself? Or is it another? And again we come back to that same
answer of self-forgetfulness as we have for 'humility'! In fact true
freedom surely means release from self-centredness and self-seeking.

John Piper in his brilliant book "Future Grace"* talks about self-pity
as a form of pride because it arises out of a sense of 'unrecognised
worthiness'. I found that definition very helpful because that certainly
gets under the skin of my pride! Frustration and irritability are functions
of disappointed expectations; and I've had to examine myself as to why
I get irritable and grumpy.

My conclusion is that [at times] I'm a functional unbeliever!
(Or is that a dysfunctional believer?! Or, more likely, is that the
normal Christian experience?) Sure I can tick all the boxes to do
with my Christian doctrine but I don't always live as if I believe;
my natural default setting is to be rather worldly and self reliant......
hence the pride and self-pity. I'm full of good intentions but often fail
to live out the doctrine I profess. Isn't that what Paul meant by
"what a wretched man I am!" in Romans 7 v24? Fortunately in the
next verse is the solution and that's found in Christ. Thank God.





*"Future Grace" by John Piper is published by Multnomah/IVP,
US ISBN 1-57673-337-8 / UK ISBN 0-85111-162-9.

Villa Isinda; a Solar Eclipse
and a New Year.

This Christmas it was my turn to cover the shifts on the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at 'The Saline Nerve Child Hospital' [which is a new children's hospital based on the Sonata Smith's site]. I spent it looking after a three and a half year old with Leukaemia. Helen was 'on call' and got
called in to work too - she works as a nurse at 'The Humanity Lives Wiser Hospital'. So Christmas was a bit of a wash-out from our point of view. My back pain flared up again in mid
December but I would have been mortified not to have covered my allocated shifts over the bank holidays, so I'm grateful to God to help me in this. In fact I've generally come to realise just what a blessing good health is - something I've hitherto taken for granted.

"Christmas" proper started on the 29th December with our flight to the south coast of Turkey to join some good friends there at their holiday home in Kas (pronounced 'cash'). Villa Isinda is a modern build with a swimming pool overlooking the town of Kas on The Lycian Coast...check out the website at www.villaisinda.co.uk Kas is a two hour transfer from Dalaman Airport, but on the plus side that means that the town is well off the tourist trail. [Marmaris by contrast is a hideous tourist trap popular with loutish Brits - and I've never felt so embarrassed to be British!] Turkey is a fascinating country steeped in history; this was our sixth visit. The country is predominantly Muslim but has a secular constitution.

The weather at this time of year can be unpredictable; we had a couple of days of rain but several days of sunshine - and it was warm enough to have breakfast on the veranda! It did turn chilly once the Sun set though. Some of our party went for a drive in the mountains and got caught in a blizzard - the next morning the distant mountains were covered in brilliant white snow while we enjoyed the Sun on the coast.

We were all here for the Total Eclipse of the Sun in March 2006. That was a unique experience! As the Moon crossed the disc of the Sun and we neared totality the light became very peculiar as if it had had its power washed out. The Sun was reduced to a bright ]star and then winked out. The dark side of the Moon was a black disc surrounded by a glowing white light. A distant cheer went up from the town. The horizon - all 360 degrees - was lit up like a strange sunset with red and grey cloud and the planet Venus stood out like a jewel in the sky. We all gasped in amazement at such an eerie scene. It was utterly amazing, standing there in this strange
twilight world. Then a tiny chink of sunlight appeared and rapidly grew brighter until the gloom lifted. Then large banks of cloud drifted in and we could see the crescent shaped Sun through them.

We saw in the New Year warming ourselves by a brazier outside a bar in the harbour square and then back at Isinda. I may not know what this year has in store but that was starting it in some style!

KIDOLOGY OF DOOM!
Epilogue to an Agnostic Calendar.

Followers of this blog will recall that for
Christmas 2005 I was given an agnostic calendar
which featured quotations from a variety of
sources, the purpose of which was (I assume) to
challenge, in a gentle way, my trust in Jesus.
Over the course of 2006 we have been examining
those quotes which often touched on the handful
of issues most frequently raised by people in
conversation with Christians.

Early on I decided to make good use of these
quotations as material for my 'blog'. The
calendar, which I impishly called "The Calendar
of Doom", was just too good not to make more of.
Even though my agnostic friend had not required
a reply it struck me that it would be a 'poor
show' if I had nothing to say by way of rebuttal.
This doesn't neccesarily mean that my arguments
win the day, it merely indicates that I'm prepared
to answer back. This could be because I am a
naturally supercilious sort of person, or it may
mean that I genuinely believe in the merit of
Jesus Christ, or it might, confusingly, be both of
these, in which case I hope that my ego does not
obscure the truth (that might make me a hypocrite
- but it wouldn't make me wrong!) And you, dear
reader, will have to work that one out.

Having concluded "The Calendar of Doom" series
I'd like to end with this epilogue by saying
how much I benefitted from the exercise, and yet
the most striking aspect of these quotations
is how many were founded on a false premise.
This is surprising because one would logically
think that there should be sufficient grounds
for disagreement without recourse to invention.

It is fair to say that the God my agnostic
friend doesn't believe in I don't believe in
either!