Here's something that Bo Stern has recently written about working on her new book, Ruthless - Knowing the God who fights for you.
"Here's what I'm convinced of, friend: God longs for us to know Him. Just like we long to be known and loved by those dearest to us; He longs for us to pursue an understanding of His character. I'm freshly aware of how painful it must be for Him when we shake our fist at the problems we think He caused or treat Him like a vindictive, volatile taskmaster. I'm also convinced that this ignorance regarding His ability and integrity (aka: bad theology) is why so many Christians are stuck in bitterness, frustration and purposelessness, especially when they face a Really Big Battle."
And something else, adapted from a book I've just finished reading by Salley Vickers, Miss Garnet's Angel. "What do you think a god looks like when he works in men? ... courage and truth and mercy and right action...", said by the Archangel Raphael to Tobias.
I apologise not to have blogged recently. I blame our daughter's new therapy puppy - but perhaps it would be fairer to accuse my own lack of resistance to Wimbledon and the Tour de France! And I'm trying also to get on with my own book....
6 comments:
Michael,
You’ve missed a very important fact! You havn’t told us the name of this beautiful puppy?!
“I'm freshly aware of how painful it must be for Him when we shake our fist at the problems we think He caused or treat Him like a vindictive, volatile taskmaster. I'm also convinced that this ignorance regarding His ability and integrity (aka: bad theology) is why so many Christians are stuck in bitterness, frustration and purposelessness, especially when they face a Really Big Battle."
CS Lewis portrays this in the final chapter of “The Last Battle”
Near the end of the story, some of the children who follow Aslan go out into a field where the dwarfs live. They want to make friends; they want to help them see the light and the beauty of the world which surrounds them.
When they arrived, they noticed that the dwarfs have a very odd look and were huddled together in a circle facing inward, paying attention to nothing. As the children drew near, they were aware that the dwarfs couldn't see them. "Where are you ?" asks one of the children. "We're in here you bone-head," said Diggle the dwarf, "in this pitch-black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable."
"Are you blind?" asks another child. "No," respond the dwarfs, "we're here in the dark where no one can see."
"But it isn't dark, you poor dwarfs," says Lucy, "look up, look round, can't you see the sky and flowers - can't you see me?" Then Lucy bends over, picks some wild violets, and says, "perhaps you can smell these." But the dwarf jumps back into his darkness and yells, "How dare you shove that filthy stable litter in my face." He cannot even smell the beauty which surrounds him.
Suddenly the earth trembles. The sweet air of the field grows sweeter and a brightness flashes behind them. The children turn and see that Aslan, the great lion himself, has appeared. They greet him warmly and then Lucy, through her tears, asks, "Aslan, can you do something for these poor dwarfs?"
Aslan approaches the dwarfs who are huddled in their darkness and he growls. They think it is someone in the stables trying to frighten them. Then Aslan shakes his mane and sets before the dwarfs a magnificent feast of food. The dwarfs grab the food in the darkness, greedily consuming it, but they cannot taste its goodness. One thinks he is eating hay, another an old rotten turnip. In a moment, they are fighting and quarreling among themselves as usual. Aslan turns and leaves them in their misery.
They children are dismayed. Even the great Aslan cannot bring them out of their self-imposed darkness. "They will not let us help them," says Aslan. Their prison is only in their minds and they are so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out. "But come now children," says Aslan, "we have other work to do," and they leave the dwarfs alone in their miserable world.
I have never forgotten this and have frequently prayed for the grace ‘not to be a dwarf’ but to see His love and grace afresh each day and not ‘shake my fist at Him’.
It isn’t easy when sometimes the darkness threatens to overwhelm and it’s frightening.
I came across your blog this morning when the synergy of prayer and the birds at my porch feeder led me to your comments on the Sparrow's Prayer and thus to your worshipful commentary on communion. I will be back DV my brother. Bill Wilson
Leafy, her name's Betsy. She already seems to know I'm a special-needs kid!
I too often think of the introspective dwarfs - and wonder whether we create our own hell. (Didn't Milton say something like that?)
Thanks for your encouragement, Bill. See you again - as they annoyingly say on radio!
I'm so glad you have the delight of Betsy. She looks lovely.
Yes I do think we create our own hell. Milton in Paradise Lost and CS Lewis in Screwtape Letters enlarge on this.
Thinking about the Screwtape Letters brings me back memories of my simply wonderful Mother. She used to talk to us about them and enjoyed them so much but with a great deal of humour.
I think we make our hell the way Faber describes it in his wonderful hymn.
"For the love of God is broader
than the measures of our mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make that love too narrow
by the limits of our own;
and we magnify God's strictness
with a zeal Love will not own"
Have fun with Betsy..
This may be slightly irrelevant although I hope not too much so.
Your reference to a “Special Needs Kid” made me smile Michael Not long ago our Grand Daughter gently rebuked me for referring to one of her Class Mates as ‘Special Needs’.“No Nana, you don’t say that. He just has ‘needs’ more than the rest of us.”
In my teaching days, centuries ago, there were ‘Special Needs’ Kids in my class. I remember with so much gratitude the attitude the others in the Class showed to these children. I am sure it was grace responding to grace that they were protective, kind, welcoming and sensible towards the children with ‘needs’. It could have been so different.Looking back I remember various incidents with a smile and gratitude..and wonder what they are all doing now.
"I order you, O sleeper, to awake! I did not create you to be a prisoner in
hell.
Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.
Rise up, work of my hands, you were created in my image.
Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you.
Together we form only one person and we cannot be separated!"
Ancient homily in Immortal Diamond
by Richard Rohr OFM (SPCK, 2013)
This lovely extract was in The Tablet the other week.
Post a Comment