from little things

I am thinking about this song right now. My Year Ten History class have been listening to it as a way of remembering the names and story of the Wave Hill protest and it's making me remember some other stories. Like Jesus' ones about the mustard seed and the yeast. From little things big things grow.

It's the way the world works and it's direct evidence that goodness is much bigger and quieter than noisy, ineffectual evil and destruction. And yet my mind insists on defaulting back to the assumption that I need to see or do this or that RIGHT NOW, witness immediate effects, and if I don't then I'm doing something wrong.

Two minutes ago I saw evidence of that big, quiet goodness residing in and working away through a Year Ten boy whom I have despaired over many times this year. What does it mean God? Are you bigger (and quieter) than the sadness and waste I'm confronted with in these teenagers' lives? Are you still present and working away? Can goodness work away right next to evil?

And am I so lucky, have I become so used to a glut of goodness in the people around me that I am unable to see it quietly working in my kids?

It makes me want to stop. And breathe. And rest in the small acts (very small) towards goodness that I am able to do.

And you can take those small acts, watered with the kind of despair that chooses to trust something bigger than itself anyway. And if we wait...

some thoughts from Chapter 3

I am in love. And I have been reading this book. Being in love threatens to distract me from really thinking through the concepts in this book, but I really want to understand them so it's as though God is using this book to teach me about the stuff in the book, but also about how being in love is very different to loving, leaping, trusting, watching and learning...

So here are some of the really good thoughts from Chapter 3:

"...doubt not only can be seen as an inevitable aspect of our humanity but can also be celebrated as a vital part of faith... the believer who encounters serious doubt does not renounce his or her faith but rather uses it a an opportunity to affirm it... Only a genuine faith can embrace doubt, for such a faith does not act because of self interested reason (such as fear of hell or desire of heaven) but acts simply because it must.... celebrate this dark night of the soul, understanding that this is not a threatening darkness which conceals an enemy but rather is the intimate darkness within which we embrace our faith."


"If we are to guess a motive for Jesus' miracles, then we would have to think that he performed them out of love rather than as a means of compelling belief... Instead of religious discourse being a type of drink designed to satisfy our thirst for answers, Jesus made his teaching salty, evoking thirst. Instead of offering a scientific explanation that would convince, or publicising the miracles so as to compel his listeners, Jesus engaged in a poetic discourse that spoke to the heart of those who would listen..."



"The silence that is part of all God-talk is not the silence of banality, indifference or ignorance but one that stands in awe of God... the Christian faith is extrapolated via a powerless discourse which, at its most evangelical, attempts to create a space in which others can seek for themselves... our approach must be a powerless one which employs words as a way of saying that we have been left utterly breathless by a beauty that surpasses all words... we use words in order to tear through them and glimpse at what lies beneath..."


extracts from How (not) to speak of God by Peter Rollins, SPCK Press, London, 2006

still holding a trembling hand

the title of this blog is beginning to seem very ironic... did I unknowingly create a sarcastic mission statement for myself when I composed it in two seconds flat in January of this year?

I was looking back through some entries from last year's blog, trying to recapture a sense of the inspiration or purpose I lived with while i was on team, and I found this quote...

"God uses people to perform his work. He does not send angels. Angels weep over it, but God does not use angels to accomplish His purposes. He uses burdened broken-hearted weeping men and women."



David Wilkerson

friday joy

Is it just that it's Friday? Or does the euphoria come from elsewhere?

I know it can't last, but I just feel really happy. I felt so confident about all my classes today - even the ones that were rowdy and required lots of energy in controlling. School relationships are starting to be a bit happier, in that doing battle in the classroom doesn't have the same sting now that we are all understanding each other a bit better. And yesterday I experienced the joy of teaching my Year 9 English class something, and realising they actually learned it - WAHOOOOO!

Well we take it as it comes hey? The best way (I think)...

When it's tough: head down, teeth gritted in tight grin of determined defiance of evil and firm expectation of good. When it's great: arms out, thankful spirit alert with the fire of inspiration, enjoying freedom, flying as strength is stored for dark days ahead.

They say it all comes from the hand of the same God: good times and tough. Is it possible that he also gives us strength to stand up under difficult times and the wisdom to experience the good times well?

heart with heart, love with love, being with being...

Hester, in George MacDonald's Weighed and Wanting, sits beside the bed of a cold, hungry, sick woman and yearns to help her. This is what the old Scotsman says...

She had yet to learn that the love of God is so deep he can be satisfied with nothing less than getting as near as it is possible for the Father to draw night to his creatures - and that is into absolute contact of heart with heart, love with love, being with being. And as that must be wrought out from the deepest inside, divine law working itself up through our natue into our consciousness and will, and claiming us as divine, who can tell by what slow certainties of approach God is drawing nigh to the most suffering of his creatures?

God Help Me to live with this kind of faith, hope, love...