New Year's Resolutions

How was your 2013?

I feel like mine was fun, but unless ‘join Twitter’ and ‘watch the entirety of Gilmore Girls’ was on my list of New Year’s Resolutions, I didn’t succeed in any of my goals for the year ( I actually can’t find the list of resolutions I drew up. Maybe ‘get more organised’ should be on there).

In an attempt to achieve at least one of my life goals this year, I spent Christmas in Iceland to see the Northern Lights, but despite having a fantastic time, the weather didn’t cooperate and that goal still remains unfulfilled.

This sent me into a bit of a faith crisis as to why God never seems to answer my prayers and whether praying was in fact pointless. Of course, after I’d had a nap and thought about people in Syria a bit, I gained a modicum of perspective over God not micro-managing the weather on my nice holiday for me. But it did make me realise that my faith is quite fickle, and I’m not convinced that when I talk to God he’s actually listening.

I don’t think I believe in New Year’s Resolutions anyway - changing yourself through sheer will seems like it’s destined to fail (at least in my case). So here are my only concrete plans for 2014:
1. Pray every day.
2. Leave time for listening.
3. Read the whole of the Bible.It’s not as glamorous sounding as ‘run a marathon’, but I can’t think of anything else that will be as worthwhile. Happy New Year, lovely people!
4. Also have a plan to go back to Iceland very soon to try again with seeing the Northern Lights. I suffer for my faith.                    5. Plus, manage my money better. Not necessarily compatible with number 4. 

Holding Message

For anyone that’s interested – Bible In A Year will be starting on 1^st January. I need to finish reading ‘How To Read The Bible For All It’s Worth’ before commencing, and the guide I’m using starts on January 1^st. I’m too rubbish at maths and play too much by the rules to deviate from that.

Baptism - It's Not Just For Weirdos

Since last I wrote, I've moved house back to Brixton; an area I love despite a branch of Foxton’s moving in since I’ve been away (yes I’m one of those people who love up-and-coming areas but bitch when things get too gentrified). I haven’t exactly unpacked yet, but the bin bags containing clothes are at least in the vicinity of the wardrobe . . .

I’ve also spent some time in Leeds to celebrate a very close friend’s birthday and baptism – the start of a new chapter in several different ways. 

This friend became Christian not long after I did when she was a guest on an Alpha table I was ‘helping’ on. I say the word ‘helping’ dubiously, as we bonded over my asking more numerous and difficult questions than the guests I was meant to be looking after. That and a mutual love of The Wine. 

We’ve shared many of the same struggles with trying to reconcile our modern world views and cynicism with newfound faith, so I definitely wanted to be there to witness the occasion of her baptism. I hadn’t considered it would be so powerful though.

As she read out her testimony she spoke with such articulate, painful honesty that the energy in the room changed.

She spoke of her brokenness.

She spoke of words of knowledge and healing declared over her.

She spoke of coming to know Jesus as loving and kind, and not the God of punishment she had always pictured.

She spoke of finding freedom from harmful behaviours.

She spoke of learning the truth of knowing joy regardless of circumstances.

Believers and non-believers alike started wiping their eyes with tissues. Something holy was happening. 

As worship music played in the background and she descended into the baptism pool, people started openly weeping. I cried so much that the church leader paused the ceremony to see if I needed the towel intended for my friend (embarrassing).

I felt struck by the knowledge that God weeps at our pain, combined with his overwhelming joy at one of his children stepping out in faith and being restored to Him

Sometimes God transforms us overnight. Usually though, it’s such a slow process we can’t even see it at the time. This baptism was a wonderful marker of what God had done for us, reminding me: “Remember when you both travelled down to the Alpha weekend away rolling your eyes at the thought of ever being one of those people singing along to worship music? Remember when you thought a person’s self worth was only ever tied to how you looked or how successful you were, and you felt how little you measured up? Remember when you thought this life was all there is and the future scared you? Did you ever think you’d be here? Look how far you’ve come!”

It was a visual signifier that when Jesus promises to heal, restore, redeem and transform, it is real. 

God’s true revelation of Himself is in Jesus. In this life we can never know everything about the mysterious, superlative God. As Paul so rightly said in one of the most beautiful verses in scripture: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”. 

How can we know the character of a God too big for us to comprehend? Jesus simplified everything: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”. You want to know what God is like? Look to Jesus. It’s that simple.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I have decided that the best way to ensure you DON’T do something is to tell people that you’re going to do it. Preferably publically. 

Mwahaha! Happy Halloween!

By this point I’d hoped to have started reading the Bible in a year, but it’s proving to be trickier than anticipated to find the time to do so (and yet, I’ve still found time to catch up on ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘Scandal’. Bizarre). My study guides and reading material have all arrived and are sat in a fat pile on my floor looking intimidating but sadly neglected and unloved, whilst I flit around doing other things and pass them over for a Neil Gaiman novel, like a now bored lover who’s moved on to greener pastures.

And like that bored lover, my excuse for not calling is that I’ve been busy. I was in bonny old Scotland for a week to celebrate my Granddad’s 100^th birthday, and to generally eat, drink and be merry with eighty of my Granddad’s closest family and friends (EIGHTY PEOPLE! I couldn’t get eighty people to come to my birthday if I tried, and yet my wee Granddad, who pretty much shuns company, has people lining up to celebrate with him!).

My granddad is, I have to say, pretty awesome, and made his grand entrance to his 100^th birthday party doing the conga. The Queen and Prince Phillip (my costumed uncle and brother-in-law) made guest appearances to personally present the birthday telegram to my Granddad (“One hopes one has a very happy birthday, and that one’s Annus is not Horribilus”) and make lots of racist remarks (Phillip, obvs.), whilst us commoners stood and chorused a belting rendition of God Save The Queen. My own personal Damascene moment was when I realised that I had the exact same dance moves as my Granddad. So good for one’s self esteem.

We’d barely touched down back in London when I was launched into pretty much my favourite week of the year – Halloween and Bonfire Night! Now, I know that some Christians don’t approve of Halloween, and I do understand the thinking behind that sentiment, but I love Halloween not out of any worshipping of the occult (definitely Team Jesus here), but because I love fancy dress and anything a bit spooky and scary. As the nights draw in - all darkness and fog - I can totally imagine how and why, before the invention of electric light, people thought that ghosts walked this time of year, and that the vale between the two worlds, that of the living and that of the dead, was somehow thinner than usual.

On Halloween after work, I slipped into a bloody surgeon costume and went with a friend-turned-vampire to Phobophobia at London Bridge. This basically involves descending into the tunnels under London Bridge and making your way through an assortment of scary scenes, with actors dressed as axe murderers, clowns and zombies jumping out at you to make you shriek. Favourite bits included a strobe lit corridor of hanging severed heads, a claustrophobia walk where we had to squeeze through inflatable walls that pressed in on us, and a spinning tunnel of mirrors. It was all super fun and just the right level of scary (adrenalin pumping screams and laughing rather than widdle-yourself-with-terror type of scary).

The following evening me and my housemates had an autumn themed drinks party in honour of the fact that we’re all moving out of our lovely flat. We garlanded the house with dried leaves and candles, carved out pumpkins, cooked a ton of food, mulled hot cider and handed out sparklers. An assorted biscuit box of lovely guests came, and getting to catch up and hang out with them was what made it a really great evening.

To bookend such a fun week was Bonfire Night. There’s nothing like the bright explosion of fireworks against the night sky to make you feel sentimental and reflect back on the year as it approaches the closing stretch of its old age (“So, what have I achieved this year? Erm, don’t think about that just now, drink your mulled cider instead”). 

"Ooh, Ahhh" etc

I do have one very pressing question: just what the flippin’ heck has happened to bonfires? I’ve been going to the Battersea Park fireworks display for years and the bonfire has always been a thing of beauty – flames twenty feet high, like a beacon of warmth and light in the cold autumn darkness. This year it was piddling – so small we didn’t even see it until we tripped over the fencing area that cordoned it off. Has the dreaded Health and Safety struck again or did someone just do a piss poor job this year, because I’ve started bigger fires with my toaster.

ANYHOO, now that my liver and my blood sugar levels are righting themselves, it’s time for me to start clearing my stuff and packing boxes as I’m moving house next week (I’m under strict instructions by the house-moving-angel who always assists me that she won’t help me move anymore unless I cut down the amount of books I own by a substantial amount. My life feels like Sophie’s Choice right now). The move concluded, I’m planning on lying in a darkened room for a couple of days. I’ll get round to the Bible In A Year soon. Life just keeps getting in the way.

Bible In A Year - T-Minus A Couple Of Days

I'm slightly concerned that I might have bitten off more than I can chew with this Bible In A Year thing (and any of my family members will tell you that I can cram a lot of chocolate biscuits in my mouth in one go so chewing isn't usually a problem for me).

Lucas Cranach, Adam and Eve, Courtauld.

I haven't even started the Bible In A Year project yet, and already I'm running into problems. To read through the entirety of scripture in a year works out at around three verses chapters a day, but just scanning through Day 1 it struck me that I may not be able to resolve the questions it raises in a single day (or even a lifetime). Admittedly, Day 1 is a pretty full on day, scripture wise . . .  Genesis 1-3 are the verses chapters that cover God creating the earth, which throws up some PRETTY MAJOR questions for someone like myself, who buys into evolution and old earth theory (incidentally, I've read several articles lately that criticise writers who capitalise words as being morons, to which I articulately say: SUCK IT! I love capitalising words - it releases pent up frustration).

The project hasn't even begun yet, and already I feel like I've encountered a disconnect between my head and my heart.

Yesterday was one of those beautiful autumn days when London is at its best (although you wouldn't know it by the pouring rain and grey skies outside today). The sun was shining pale watercolour gold but it was chilly enough to wrap up in a scarf, and after busing it to my old neighbourhood to get my hair cut, I was sat in my favourite coffee shop stirring sugar into a cappuccino. This cafe is stuffed full of old wooden furniture and copper pots and pans, none of the chairs match, plants hang drying from the ceiling, and I had a new book open that had arrived from Amazon that morning in nifty brown cardboard packaging. I also, over optimistically, had my current knitting project in my bag in case I had 'spare time'. I got over any self consciousness about whipping out wool and knitting needles in public ages ago, and now like to think that it gives me some eccentric hipster credentials, when really it probably just marks me out as a weirdo spinster in the making - but I am OK with that. It really couldn't have got much better.

I sat contentedly (if I could've purred, I would have) thinking about several different options of places to live next, and offered up a quick prayer to God that he would help me make the right choice. As I did so, I realised how wonderful it was to go through life with God there with me, to guide me, speak to me, to love me (although it's possible my feeling of well-being was due to the caffeine. I have, on occasion, been in church revelling in how joyous and full of the Holy Spirit I feel, only to reflect that it may actually be the double cappuccino I scarfed back before worship kicking in).

My point being - I feel like God is with me, my heart tells me it's so.
But verses chapters like Genesis jar me alarmingly, like wheels skidding when the brakes are put on too fast. I wonder if my heart can be trusted, when logic and reason make it seem as though parts of the Bible are just comforting stories.

My research so far has not been massively helpful - most of the articles on the Internet I've found are from alarmingly fundamentalist creationists, who work from the assumption that the Bible is always true, and fit science and world views accordingly. Not really useful to me right now . . . The upshot is that I've decided to give myself a little longer than a day to work on these particular verses - read a bit, pray a bit, see if any answers present themselves. I'm also going to read the Bible chronologically, not in the modern trendy fashion of 'a bit from the Old Testament, a bit from the New Testament, a proverb and a psalm'. I understand that this new approach makes it easier to digest, or, as a friend put it, "like hiding your vegetables under the meat", but personally I want to read it in the order that it happened.

So - here goes. I'll be back in a couple of days when my study guides comes through from Amazon (sadly less excited about these than my usual orders. My priorities suck). Yikes.

Eternal Doubts About The Bible

If you’ve been reading any of my previous posts you may have noticed that whilst I am most definitely a Christian, I don’t exactly find it an easy journey (‘journey’ – bleurgh! That word has been ruined for everyone by X-Factor. Thanks, television).

Does anyone have a faith that they don’t question? I’m half envious, and half disparaging about those that don’t prod, pick at, question and analyse. What’s the source? Who said? How can that be true?? Etc etc . . .

I seem to be cursed with a spiritual longing for God, but the inability to surrender to it completely. At any given time I am roughly 85% believer, 15% doubter, but that fluctuates depending on circumstances, some of them as trivial as pondering ‘does God REALLY love Nigel Farage/Jordan/Jeremy Kyle as much as me?? (I know, I know, arrogant, don’t shoot me).

My faith isn’t challenged by questioning the validity of the resurrection or the virgin birth. I enjoy grappling with apologetics issues such as how a loving God can allow suffering (much longer discussion than I can bash out here). I’m an over thinker. That’s what I do.

My main bone of contention is . . .the Bible. More specifically, whether we can trust the Bible and how literally to take the stories it contains. How do we reconcile the apparent contradictions that don’t match up with what we know about science?

The gospels are, quite frankly, the best reading material that will ever grace your bedside table, but if you doubt one bit, doesn’t the whole thing unravel?

I’ve been pondering this sort of thing since Primary School (I went to a Catholic school so was well versed in all the Bible stories from school R.E lessons). At circa six years old I remember asking my dad roughly the following questions:

Me: “Daaaaaad”

Dad: (Puts newspaper down patiently in the version in my head) “Yes?”

Me: (Probably butchering my Barbie’s hair do) “So you know how the universe was created in the Big Bang?”

Dad: “Yes . . .”

Me: “And you know how the earth took billions of years to form and animals took millions of years to evolve until we got to humans?”

Dad: (Still patiently) “Yes . . . .”

Me: (Getting to the point) “Well then how can THAT be true, and also the story of the Garden of Eden and God creating Adam and Eve be true at the same time?? That just doesn’t make sense!”

I don’t want to imply that I was precocious or anything . . . ‘Gifted” “intelligent” and “ahead of her time” are words you COULD use to describe me, but I’m not going to put words in your mouth.

I do know these questions caused me spiritual agonies at age six, and that I’ve been experiencing existential doubts ever since, like a miniature Woody Allen in a dress.

Such queries caused me to gradually become an atheist around age thirteen. And then at twenty six I started investigating the whole ‘church shebang’, and found there was enough there to make me believe in God again. It was a fairly long and winding ‘journey’. ← Heh! Said it again.

Most of the time, when I come across passages in Scripture that trouble me, if I do some research and digging on that there internet, then I find answers that, if not resolve the matter, at least offer plausible explanations. But not always.

SO - I’m thinking of reading my way through the Bible in a year, researching any areas that I struggle with, and blogging about it for anyone that’s interested, no matter what the results may be.

Always fancied reading the whole Bible? Always meant to investigate those weird bits that don’t make sense but somehow never got round to doing it? Let me do it for you! You can sit back, make yourself a cup of tea, and benefit from my existential battles.

It’s pretty servant hearted of me when you think about it . . . .

ANYWAY! More to come when I’ve a wee gander at what’s involved and got myself a reading rota and a study guide sorted.

In the interim, do any of you struggle to believe in parts of the Bible? Do you take it all literally?  And which bits specifically do you find difficult?