Two War Movies

I’m normally not a huge fan of war films. I never really got into “Saving Private Ryan” and their like. But this last week I watched two world war II movies in rapid succession, because they happened to be on the television channel and found both to be compelling viewing.

The one, “Downfall”, was in German with subtitles, and depicted the last days of Adolf Hitler in his bunker while Berlin fell around him. Bruno Ganz´s portrayal of Hitler was mesmerising.

The other, “Enemy at the Gates” from 2001, is a little bit earlier, but none the less, a remarkable vision of the Battle of Stalingrad from a Russian perspective. That was the first battle the Germans lost, and spelt the beginning of the end of the Third Reich (and apparently the battle with the highest number of casualties of all time)

I suppose I found them both interesting because they didn’t give the normal British or American interpretation of that particular period of warfare, and also because they both showed the devastating impact of all out war on a people and a city.

My generation grew up without the idea of war as an immediate reality on the doorstep. There were plenty of other issues to deal with in the 60’s and 70’s, but war was not one of them. It was hard for us to imagine the level of deprivation and suffering that marked our parents generation, for whom, values of honour, loyalty and endurance were not just on their lips - they were written in their lives and part of their beings.

The thing that I came away with from those two films, was the madness, the savagery, the hell that marks so much of conflict that tears up our world, but in the middle of it all, glimpses of human dignity and real heroism. On the spiritual level also, I see myself and those around me caught up in a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil, with the same measure of ugliness and pain, deception and betrayal, but also with a real hero and a confidence in victory

........................."He who does what is sinful is of the devil,

because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work." 1 John3:8

"You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them,

because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." 1 John4:4

Being Irish

Today I feel a bit ashamed to be Irish. Even though, being of Ulster Presbyterian stock, I could disassociate myself from dark misdemeanours of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Republic. I could join others in pointing the finger - that’s them, not us. But I feel tainted.

I feel tainted, when the world’s media glares on my island, and at an institutional abandonment of the principles of truth and light and care, in preference for lies and darkness and self-service. And all that in the supposed interests of God and His church.

I feel tainted by a shared humanity. And a deep knowledge within myself that, I too harbour the potential to do harm and to cover up the harm with lies, and under the cloak of religiosity and good works.

“Men have always loved darkness, instead of light,” says John the Apostle, “because their deeds were evil”.

I suppose what angers me, though, is that when something like this happens, and there is much apologising and wringing of hands, there’s also a kind of attitude of “let’s put this thing behind us, and get on with the business of managing our world better – after all, we’re not as bad as all that, are we”.

Why don’t we ever listen. Why don’t we ever see. Stories like this, and all the other sin-filled stories that fill the newspapers this morning, only go to show the truth of what was told long ago, that

..............................................The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,

and desperately wicked

We are all infected and impure with sin.

When we display our righteous deeds,

they are nothing but filthy rags.

Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall,

and our sins sweep us away like the wind.

But, God who is rich in mercy, because of his great love for us,

made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our sins—

for, it is by grace you have been saved.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

From Jeremiah 17, Isaiah 64, Ephesians 2 and John 3

Season of Mists

Morning. 7am. No birdsong. Muffled noise of cars from the northern Highway. A plane rising from Lisbon Airport. The usual sounds of the morning air silenced by a white shroud of November mist sweeping down the river to the ocean.

Its like this most mornings these days and reminds me that life is not always as clear as we would like it to be. And once the mist has cleared, which often happens around midday, the colours of day take on an amazing brilliance, and it seems the air smells sweeter.

We’ve just had a weekend of fog also in the calendar. Halloween on Oct 31 followed by All Saints Day, Nov 1st and All Souls Day, Nov 2nd . The one, a confusion of children’s parties thinly overlying a somewhat more sinister underworld, the other two days, vaguely understood religious traditions to do with the dead passing through on their way to Paradise.

It’s a pity that so little of the real majesty of a God who has made a sure and tested way of finding eternal hope and an escape from this world of sin and uncertainty is not more visible in these cultural events that dot the calendar. It’s easy to pass off Halloween parties as so much innocent fun and those who would say otherwise as spoilsports, but what if this world of ghouls and witches is not so make believe as they make out. Is it not so much better to celebrate the reality of God’s great rescue plan

He has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

....................................................................................................................Colossians 1:12

Mustard Seed

Sunday was the turn of the seed and the sower in our series on the parables of Jesus. Picking up with my finger tip a mustard seed, it amazes me that something so tiny, insignificant, infinitesimal, has the potential for life. To the untrained eye it has no more worth than a grain of sand, but for the one who knows, it holds a wealth of growth and fruitfulness.

Looking around our room on Sunday evening at where we are at as a community of Christians, we may seem a small and insignificant group, yet we have the most amazing potential for something massive and awesome that God is wanting to do. Holding out this Word of Life in a crooked and soulless generation, and shining here like stars in the universe

This last week, the Portuguese newspapers related two events which, in one sense, had little to do with each other and yet had everything to do with each other. One was the launch of a new edition of the Bible by the Sociedade Bíblica de Portugal to mark 200 years of its existence. Not so much a new translation but an elegant new presentation, without chapter and verse numbers, created to look and be read as a work of literature

The same week heralded also the launch of Jose Saramago’s new novel “Caim”. Saramago is Portugal’s nobel prize winner, and best known author, probably best known for his book “Blindness” for which . Unfortunately his words at the Press Conference showed neither much nobility of spirit, nor vision. In a vitriolic and bitter attack on the integrity of the Bible, he called it a catalogue of violent acts and the worst aspects of human nature, and not a book suitable to be put before children.

Yes, if you don’t know the difference between a mustard and a grain of sand, you would be inclined to sweep up both and throw them out in the rubbish.

Doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly

We live in a rich area. You can tell by the clothes the children wear. You can tell by the way the roads and the lawns are kept tidy. There are all the tell tale signs of prosperity around us.

On discovering that this week was a special campaign of the Micah Challenge movement here in Portugal and that yesterday, Saturday October 17th was the Global Day of Eradication of poverty, we wondered what do with our regular Saturday morning activity in the square. How can we inspire our little “Lusitos” who come to us every Saturday morning for crafts and colouring in to think in terms of need, and hunger and pain.

How do you communicate to four and five year olds these harsh realities that are so much a part of life for the half of the world they know nothing about. This was the result. A simple do-it-yourself little cardboard hut. It was easy for them to cut out and put together and provided a talking point. “How do you think it would be to live in a one-roomed hut with your mum and dad, brothers and sisters, grannies, cousins uncles and aunts. How would you all sleep? Where would you all go to the toilet?”

I think the message got across. It’s a constant challenge, knowing how to inject what we do (plasticine and colouring pencils) with the values of the Kingdom. But as Micah himself says.

He has shown you, o Man , what is good,
And what does the Lord require of you
To act justly
To love mercy
And to walk humble before your God.
...............................................................................Micah 6:8

In all that we are doing and trying to be, I think that has to be the key thing. It’s at one and the same time, a simple thing to follow, and yet a profoundly difficult balancing act to maintain.

What does it mean for me to practice justice and righteousness in my relationships with my friends. What is mercy and how do I show mercy to the people down my corridor. And when do I find clear time to walk humbly with my God.

http://www.micahchallenge.org/

http://www.desafiomiqueias.com/www.desafiomiqueias.com/DM.html

Who's Getting your Best

Does God sometimes speak to you through rock songs? Well, probably not. But I don’t know. The lyrics sometimes come from human experiences born out of deep pain and frustration.
So when Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters screams out

“Is someone getting
The Best
The Best
The Best of you?”

Do I not sometimes feel God shouting at me in the same terms. Am I giving Him my Best? In the morning when I wake up, does he get the Best part of my day? When I receive my income for the month does He get the Best of my money? When I’m working does He get the Best of my time, the Best of my energy, the Best of my concentration?

Dave Grohl growls out what any lover feels. Jealousy! And the Book of Exodus (34:14) looks at God and calls him Jealous.

“Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God”

We like to have all sorts of other names for God. Good, Loving, Merciful, Kind. But this Jealousy is as much a part of His character as the others. He wants us all of us all for Himself. Not just a bit. He’s not about to share us with anyone else..

And while on the subject of being faithful to one person, doesn’t it strike you as odd that, in an age when monogamy is history and lifelong commitment to one person is out of date and everything is swinging, the huge number of song lyrics we listen to every day of the week on our car radios long for, yearn for, commitment to the One, possession by the One, and life long love for the One

"I could hold you
For a million years
To make you feel my love" ........................Adele

"No one, no one, no one
Can get in the way
of what I feel for you" ................................Alicia Keys

"No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through
but you do

And I was made for you..." ......................Brandi Carlile

"Just like a tattoo, I’ll always have you" Jordin Sparks

It seems like people are crying out for something that will last, something that won’t involve the shame of lying, the wretchedness of leaving, and the pain and frustration of rebuilding. Amazing, isn’t it, that we already have that in God. And when we have God, we have everything else besides.

"Since he did not spare even his own Son

but gave him up for us all,

won’t he also give us everything else?"

* Romans 8:32

A Sense of Wonder

I don’t even pretend to be a literary buff but there was a poem by William Wordsworth that always caught my imagination. And it wasn’t “the Daffodils” either. “Intimations of Immortality in Early Childhood” was composed at Grasmere in the English Lake District aroud 1803. It is a long philosophical ode describing among other things, the “sense of wonder” that children instinctively have in all that is around them. As an impressionable 15 year old, the title itself of the poem was enough to intrigue me.



THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen
I now can see no more”.

Let's learn to look at stuff more with the eyes of a child. Today in our Saturday morning kids programme “os Lusitos”, we did autumn and falling leaves, and it was cool watching kids’ imagination run wild as they coloured in autumn leaves fantastic shades of purple and vermillion. Us adults, we would say, oh yes, the leaves change colour and fall to the ground. There's a simple scientific explanation. More than that it becomes someting of a nuisance to drivers. Children, on the other hand, possess that elusive “sense of wonder” that enables them to perceive the magic and the grandeur of their planet in a way that we have somehow lost as we deal with the prosaic.

Of course I have to quote Van the Man at this point. Anyone who reads my blog will know of my attachment to the music to my compatriot and his longings for East Belfast and the lost world (for him) of the Castlereagh hills. He describes Autumn and the passing of the seasons thus in “A Sense of Wonder”

.........................................“…I said I could describe the leaves for Samuel and Felicity
..........Rich, red browney, half burnt orange and green.
..................Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
....................Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision bright

Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame.

It’s easy to describe the leaves in the autumn

And its oh so easy in the spring

But down through January and February
It’s a very different thing.

On and on and on, through the winter of our discontent.

When the wind blows up the collar and the ears are frostbitten too

I said I could describe the leaves for Samuel and what it means to you and me….”
(Van Morrison "A Sense of Wonder" 1985)

And so the song goes on. The point that I am making is this. Let’s never lose that sense of wonderment at life and love and creation and redemption and us and God. I like to feel that I continue to nurture that sense as I look around me, at nature, at the lives of my friends and neighbours, at marriage and childbirth, sunset and high tide, and a whole host of other daily miracles that we can so easily miss out on, and never see the wonder of it at all.

God of the City

Over the summer we have been blessed through listening to a powerful song “You’re the God of the city” . It was introduced to us as one of Chris Tomlin’s but later we discovered its origin lies with a group of guys from Belfast, Bluetree. It speaks so powerfully to us of God’s hand over this city, Lisbon, and gives us hope that He is powerfully working here, and that great things will happen when we serve Him here

You're the God of this City

You're the King of these people

You're the Lord of this nation

You are

You're the Light in this darkness

You're the Hope to the hopeless

You're the Peace to the restless

You are

For greater things have yet to come

And greater things are still to be done

in this City

Isaiah 26 talks also talks about the city, God’s city well protected on every side, with salvation for its walls and ramparts. As I thought about that, and Jericho, Jerusalem and all the other cities of ancient times, it struck me that one of the biggest differences between old cities and new ones is the way in which they are defended. Thick walls, battlements, gates and ramparts is what made you sleep peacefully at night in the days of wild Barbarians, Huns, Vandals and Visigoths who roamed medieval Europe at night. Or, in Portugal’s case, the threat of the Spanish. The eastern border of the country is dotted with a line of fortified cities.

But now you can enter any city without problem. There is no need for walls and moats and portcullises. We live at the north end of Lisbon and as you drive north from there leaving the city through mile after mile of straggling suburbs, its hard to tell when you’re in and when you’re out. That’s because the defence of the city in modern Europe no longer lies in the thickness of its walls or the height of its towers. But rather in its bank balance and its stock market. That’s where the shield and the fortress is. That’s why, in our day, many are reeling. But

You will keep in perfect peace

him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.

He humbles those who dwell on high

He lays the lofty city low;

He levels it to the ground

and casts it down to the dust.

The Lord, the Lord is the Rock Eternal. Isaiah 26

Masterpiece

The Bible says of us that “We are God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago”. Now that’s in the second chapter of Ephesians which has all sorts of other wonderful stuff about passing from death to life and being incorporated into this amazing body of people, this community we call the “church” in which we are no longer foreigners and aliens, trying to make it through life it all on our own.

The word “masterpiece” strikes me as very important. It’s “God’s workmanship” in other translations and is actually “poema”, in the original. That’s the Portuguese word for poem. I’m a unique work of art, a poem written by my Father God, the creative expression of His heart! Now, I was going to upload a picture of a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt to illustrate what’s going through my mind, but then above my desk is the “Old man of Stour” in the Isle of Skye looking down at me in glowing colours of the setting sun. So I’ll let you look at that instead. It’s the September page on the Scotsman calendar that my brother sends to me faithfully every Christmas. So, before I turn over to October, here it is. Now there’s a wild work of art, a masterpiece in granite and heather, in light and shade.

All of the wonderful fine art down through the centuries has been just men and women repeating in a lesser way what God has been doing all along - creating form and beauty out of rough raw materials, out of ochres and pastels, and setting it forth for others to wonder at and respond to. It strikes me that, if art and creativity is so much a central part of the Creator’s relationship with what he has made, then why is that so much of what we do as “church” tends to become routine and run of the mill? We repeat a tried and tested format every Sunday, but where is the imagination, the creativity? A good sermon should be a true work of art, a painting in the air made of words, a conception of the God we can’t see, formed out of the pages of the Bible. Singing and praising and praying should be art in motion, emerging from vibrant, imaginative souls caught up in a passionate relationship with their Lord.

That’s why we’re His “masterpiece”. So that we can explore fully all those wonderful things that He has already planned for us to do in our lives, and in so doing create our own personal “masterpiece”. For His Glory.

Pó

Pó is the Portuguese word for dust. Powder. Two little letters that indicate something infinitesimal, insubstantial. Something that you would brush off your coat sleeve, something that you might blow out the window. And the Portuguese Bible says :

“lembra-se de que somos pó”

.... ..“He remembers that we are dust”.

I like it. Two simple letters. Reminding me of my total insignificance in the light of eternity. In the light of anything, really. We think we are something and we’re really not. The title of an early Chemical Brothers track was “In Dust we Trust” and it sometimes seems like that. That everything created adn fored and fashioned by humankind, this tottering edifice, is nothing more than so much dust. And as such, without God in the picture, it is all built on insubstantial crumbling foundations. This month, with elections in the air here in Portugal, and with so much bluster along the corridors of power, it is good to be reminded that theres a lot more to life and reality than our human dust.

Getting back to the psalm, its the juxtaposition of the two phrases “we are dust” and “He remembers” that makes it so amazing. It tells me that the One, the Eternal One, knows me. He knows who I am. He knows how I am formed, and how easily I fall apart sometimes. But, more than that, it communicates to me His, (and here’s that hugely significant Bible word), “COMPASSION”. He has compassion on me, my being, this dust bug. He showers me with His love, and has such a huge personal concern for all that I am and hold dear. Truly amazing stuff, and no matter how often I read it, still can’t fully take it in.

But there it is in prophetic print for all to read.

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
........slow to anger, abounding in love.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
........so great is his love for those who fear him;

As far as the east is from the west,
........so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,
........so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

For he knows how we are formed,
.........he remembers that we are dust

Psalm 103

Jesus Shows the Way

We have just finished a weekend retreat in Carcavelos, down where the river meet the ocean. The combination of a nice place to stay, good company and fellowship and the fresh September air by the sea has been extremely restful.

Our theme for the weekend was “Jesus and his team” looking at the way in which Jesus developed teamwork among his disciples. The funny thing is that when I went to the internet to look for an appropriate image to introduce the theme, I plugged in the phrase “Jesus e a sua equipa” (Jesus and his team) into Google and came up with something completely different.

“A Bola” is one of the three daily newspapers here exclusively dedicated to football (it gives a measure of how seriously Portugal takes its football) and this headline was the response to my search. Benfica’s manager Jorge Jesus saying, of his team, that we’re on the right path, after a good start to the season! Yes, we have more than one “Jesus” here in Lisbon. And it’s another interesting aspect of Portugal’s ambiguous relationship with its religious heritage, that the press love to make a play on this manager’s surname, in creating their headlines.

But back to the teamwork, and Simão Silva, one of the speakers at the weekend, pointed out how Portugal can produce such world class players in Deco and Ronaldo and yet a team that can barely manage to qualify for the world cup finals (time will tell). Jesus (not the Benfica one) took a bunch of nobodies and created a team that turned the world upside down. Its amazing how being connection to this person, this Jesus, can change a person. Not just individually, but also as he relates to others. I can do all things, says Paul, through Christ who gives me strength. And WE can also do ALL THINGS, as a group of believers, followers, disciples, bound together in love and commitment to Him.

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry

I never could figure out that song title from Bob Dylan’s 1965 “Highway 61 Revisited” for a long time and there wasn’t much within the songs lyrics that gave a clue either. In fact there wasn’t much in the lyrics of the whole album that made a lot of sense, but for a fourteen year old boy when it was the first LP record you had ever gone out with your saved up pocket money and bought for yourself, it was pure magic. That album, along with Jack Kerouac and John Steinbeck informed my vision of Americana, growing up as a teenager in Northern Ireland.

Now, having been through a number of goodbyes and farewells through the years, I think I get the hang of it. It takes somethng of an effort to create and keep your life filled with fun and happiness, but it only takes the mournful wail of a train drifting off into the distance (or the whine of an airplane) with someone you love on it to bring a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye.

On this occasion it is Ryan and Dana Bocock with their three little girls who are quickly passing out of our lives. They have been our neighbours here in Park of the Nations since we arrived a year and a half ago. They have helped us immensely in the early days of settling in and have played a huge part in the life of our growing community. We’ve enjoyed forest picnics, pancake breakfasts, and 4th of July parties with them, and we’ll miss them lots. Ryan’s laidback Texan style contrasted with Dana’s energetic go-getter personality. Though they were out and out Americans, they had an insatiable appetite for all things Portuguese, and a deep love of the culture and the people and every weekend had to be filled with visits to Sintra, to Belem, to the museums and gardens that this city excels. And this infectious exultation in life was carried on through their children, who we will always remember of an evening desperately fighting off sleep in order to keep on playing and enjoying all that the day still had to offer.

So it’s back to Austin, Texas and a different future and a new area of service. Their going leaves me with the two realities of living this life for God as we do. One that God brings just the right people into our lives for the right season of our lives in order to fulfil His plan and purpose for our lives. The second is that when God removes someone he always has another chapter about to open up. There’s never a vacuum with God. When the curtain closes on one particular scene, it lifts almost immediately on the next scene.

I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it. And then they will know that I am the LORD

A Walk among the Cork Oaks

“How the trees can sometimes bring you round”, was the title I gave to a piece of poetry I wrote when I was about eighteen. I don’t have it still. I wish I did, seeing as I don’t write poetry, as a general rule. As an eighteen year old you do a lot of things that get lost with the passing of time. All that angst and acne.

It was written sometime in between being an unbeliever and entering into a full and living relationship with Jesus Christ, and expresses that sudden awareness that there is a lot more to everything than meets the eye, when it comes to matters concerning God and atheism and faith and doubt. And it was the trees that brought me round to that particular realisation.

Tall trees, stately trees, swaying in the winter wind trees that whistled round our home back then growing up in Coleraine. Trees, that in their own way, spoke to my heart of a Creator who formed them, placed them there, and to whom they returned glory and honour…..simply, by existing. I remember back then as I tried to express my feelings in words “how the trees can sometimes bring your round, the tall trees, the stately trees...” I wish I could remember it all. It was kind of along the lines, and possible inspired a little by the words of Isaiah, “and the trees of the field shall clap their hands as you walk out with joy” * . Words from the old book that at that time I was not ready to fully acknowledge as the Word of God, were already speaking into my life. That would come later.

And now, thirtysomething years later, I find myself walking through an ancient forest of cork trees here in Alentejo, Portugal, and the power of the trees to express something of their Creator comes back to me. These trees in particular seem to possess an ancient wisdom, if trees can be said to have wisdom. Tolkein was good at investing trees with personality with his “Ents” and his “Treebeard” in the forest of Fanghorn. I feel something of Fanghorn’s mystery here in this forest of cork oaks. Their twisted wizened shapes, their weather beaten bark and their spindly branches reaching up to your heavens.

These trees don’t have voices. They are barely able to “clap their hands” either n this windless day of summer. But without words or actions they nevertheless bring glory to their Creator. They do so, simply by existing.

* Isaiah 55:12

Beat the Donkey

Friday night we listened to what to me was the most amazing anarchic energetic creative exhibition of musical theatre I have encountered in a long time. It was billed as a concert by Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista and his troupe of assorted musicians who call themselves “Beat the Donkey” and was part of the week long Festival of World Music in Sines 150 km south of Lisbon which we have been enjoying while here on holiday in the Alentejo Coast

The fact that these multi talented artists trooped out on stage at about one in the morning after two other sets by Polish and Indian musicians had finished did not lessen the surprise at how different this all was. It exploded on stage with rhythms and beats emerging from a whole plethora of strange objects. It seemed to be a case of if it can make a noise, it can make music. In retrospect, maybe that’s why they call their band “Beat the Donkey”- If tapping out a rhythm on the back of your donkey can help you express what’s in your heart, then go ahead and beat it (as long as you don’t hurt the creature).

Isn’t this something even just a little bit close to the words of Jesus when he claimed that if the people on the side of the road who were singing to bless Him were to be silenced - “even the stones on the side of the road would cry out" * , or the cacophony of praise described in Psalm 150. "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord". We are made for music. We are born with rhythm. It’s the natural way we know of expressing what’s inside of us. Lets find ways of harnessing this to what its meant to be – praising the One who made us who we are.

While on the subject. Isn’t it a bit odd that the whole world music scene is so devoid of any expression of authentic faith in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ There’s room for tree huggers, aryudevic massage and lingam stones. But the name of Jesus is so conspicuously absent. What have we, who know Him to be alive and with us, done to deserve that? Or more pointedly, what have we not done? If we claim that we desire to reach out to embrace the world with evangelistic zeal, how have we so completely ignored this celebration of richness and diversity in this wonderful world our God has made? The growth in world music, and the coming together of rhythms and harmonies from Mali, or Mongolia, Iceland or India, over the last thirty years or so is something that everyone else seems to have noticed and paid attention to. But the evangelical remains silent and uninvolved. So it’s really good when we do meet someone engaging in this so human of cultural expressions and trying to invest it with meaning and enrich it with authentic Christianity. Rave on, Rod and Donna, in the deserts of Sindh!!

Links

* Luke 19:40 in the New testament

http://fmm.com.pt/en/programme/

http://www.cyrobaptista.com/index_flash.cfm

What it Means to be Held

Another day, another premmy!! Yesterday we visited a tiny two week old baby, son of good friends here, who, according to the laws of pregnancy ought still to be safely tucked away back in that comfortable all embracing womb for anther two weeks before emerging into the light of day. But here he is, and his puckered up face expresses his distaste for having to breathe air so early and to cope with all these strange new realities around him.

And as Joana carries him off to be changed, screams of indignation filled the air to be placed on a changing mat and no longer held, even for a moment. All he wanted was to be held. The enduring picture in my mind is of the little one content and secure in his mother’s embrace. Sometimes all we want is to be held as well. News this morning is about possible panic surrounding the spread of swine flu, and about the rise of child poverty in Germany, Europe’s richest nation. We might be advanced, we might be prosperous, we might be comfortable in our lives, but there’ still a lot out there to make us anxious and afraid. We still need to be held.


Puts me in mind of Natalie Grants beautiful song “Held”. Written by American singer/songwriter Christa Wells, against the background of three of her friends who had had to cope with tragic loss, the first verse being inspired by one young mother’s loss of her baby after only two months

Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling

Who told us we'd be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
We're asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair.

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

You should listen to it. More than that, you should immerse yourself in the words of Jesus who promises us, not that we won’t ever suffer loss, nor that the sacred thing we hold most dear, will not be torn from our lives in some tragic moment, but that He will remain constant with us through everything we face, and will hold us in the palm of His hand. And reflect on your condition with the words of the ancient Psalm…

“….But I have stilled and quieted my soul.
Like a weaned child with his mother
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Put your hope in the Lord.
Both now and for evermore.

Psalm 131

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-hJ87ApWtw&feature=related

http://www.christawells.net/what-it-means-to-be-held.html

Perfect Love Drives out Fear

Now and again I find that I get introduced to new music by my kids. (well, it might be music that has been around for a while but it’s new to me). So it is that I am currently listening to “Muse” thanks to Colin, “Isabelle Boulay” because of Judith’s Francophile tastes, and “Death Cab for Cutie”, well, because it was on Sharon’s ipod!

This latter outfit are an American indie band, from Washington State, and their songs are thoughtful and melancholic. It was when I was running and listening to the song “I will follow you into the dark” * from their “Paths” album that set my mind thinking about Fear and about Religion.

“In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule

I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black

And I held my tongue as she told me

"Son fear is the heart of love"

So I never went back…”

“…If there's no one beside you

When your soul embarks

Then I'll follow you … into the dark”

Morose lyrics, indeed, morbid even. And, while it may paint an unfair caricature of life in church schools, it is a picture which most likely rings a bell in many minds from personal experience. But how far removed is the statement “Fear is the heart of love” from that of Saint John, when he said * *

“There is no fear in love,
Perfect love casts out fear. ~
Because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

And as I think of the way people shy away from us because we might seem somehow religious, or they suspect our motives, because we might want to share the joy we know and experience, then, I think what a stumbling block religion can become. Religion breeds fear, because fear has to do with the intangible, and the sense of powerlessness and vulnerability that comes from it, for religion deals with intangibles, mysteries, hidden things.

But what that dear old Saint John talks about is far from intangible. It is a living and loving relationship with a God who is there and who is not silent and who cares and who loves. The reality of that love drives out fear, empowers us and keeps us against the uncanny, the undefined and the dark unkown. I'm very glad to not have religion, but to have relationship, because religion kills, but relationship brings to life.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6XZsau7CSk

* * 1 John 4:18

Sometimes it's all about The One

Summer is supposed to begin June 21st. It began for us with a bang on Saturday the 28th. That’s when a small team from Roswell, Georgia in the USA arrived to be with us for a week.

It was very good, though exhausting, as we had prepared a packed week of activities for children and families in the area in which we live – games, crafts, stories, balloons, face painting, football, races – the works. Even a Fourth of July Party! The intention was that people would get to know us better, would connect to our growing community, and above all, would become acquainted with the Jesus we serve.

At the beginning of the week, our good friend Johan Lukasse gave some useful advice. He said that when you begin a week like this, you want to reach as many people as possible. Your focus is on the numbers. You want the whole world to know about you and about the One you follow. But sometimes, he said, it’s not about the hundreds It’s all about the one.

In His life, Jesus had the amazing capacity to deal with the multitudes thronging around Him and also to be intimately concerned about each individual soul. He spoke about a shepherd who was prepared to leave ninety nine sheep behind because He wanted to go after the one. And, by the end of week, that’s the way it has turned out. We can see God specifically at work in the lives of one here and one there. How good is that!

And thanks to you, John Brown, and your watercolours. You sat out in the square each afternoon, painting. Young and old gathered around him to see water and colour on parchment merge into writhing, dancing, swaying trees. They communicated energy and emotion, and you had wise words to accompany your work. And when you created something that was yours, that was a small part of your soul, your inner being, and promptly gave it away to someone who was passing by, you exemplified that spirit of Grace that was in your Father God. That Spirit that was in Christ, and that gave of itself for humanity not expecting anything in return.

http://www.johnbrownarts.com/

Coming up for Air

Yesterday morning at 6am I was down walking by the river. Couldn’t sleep – worrying about life’s imponderables – and the dawn air and the golden strip on the distant horizon of the opposite bank seemed the perfect antidote. At low tide (and the river Tejo is still tidal this far from the coast, why, sometimes you can see scraps of seaweed floating around in the murk) there’s a couple of hundred metres of mudflats and there are a few streams that follow their snaky courses out through the mud to the deeper water.

This morning there was a lot of movement and rippling in one of those streams, and all of a sudden with a flash of silver an eighteen inch fish leaps clear of the surface and splashes back down again. And then another and another. And the performance continues up and down the length of the stream. I’m wondering what on earth for. Are they catching flies this early in the morning? Are they exuberantly rejoicing and jumping for joy in the dawn light? Or are they coming up for air? Judging by the colour and consistency of the water, (and there will be some fishermen out there who will no doubt contradict me) this latter seems to be the best explanation.

Fish are meant to exist and flourish and breathe underwater, but sometimes the environment they’re in forces them to break the surface to find strength and air to carry on from another environment totally different and alien to their natures. Sometimes life can be murky. Can treat us badly. Sometimes the stresses and strains can strangle the life out of us, so we’re left listless – belly up.

Its then when we need to leap up through the surface into the Grace of God. Into that strange new atmosphere where God is and where Christ feeds our souls. Where we breathe spiritual air so rich it burns our lungs and fills our spirit. And then back down again into the murk. To live, revived restored and invigorated to keep going again. To reflect the glory of God and the aroma of Christ to those around us. It’s called morning devotions. Coming up for air.

Something to SHOUT! about

Yesterday was a day for discoveries.

Three new things to discover and they are all interlinked (well, kind of...)

Firstly, I discovered a new beach I didn’t know existed - Praia da Adraga.

Tucked underneath the lighthouse of Cabo da Roca, and the westernmost beach of continental Europe, it’s a jewel of a pirate cove with deep blue waters, shelving sands, caves and sharp rocky outcrops. With a few hours to kill on a June afternoon while Anna attended a board meeting in Rio do Mouro in nearby Sintra, I found my way down there and was immediately captivated. Well worth the effort to get there.

Secondly, I discovered that Primark exists in Portugal . in a brand new shopping centre in the northern suburban sprawl of the city.

This we had in fact discovered a few weeks ago, much to Anna’s delight – Irish styles and Irish prices. So today (and here’s the albeit tenuous link) in order to appear presentable at a concert that we were to attend that evening in the Centro Cultural de Belem, and having just crawled out of the surf at Praia da Adraga and without sufficient time to make it home to change and back again, a visit to Primark (shirt €7, trousers €5, comb €1) was considered appropriate.

Thirdly, I discovered a new kind of sound. a Portuguese version of Gospel music.

The concert we were to attend was be a group named SHOUT! And we were there on the invitation of our good friend Maria, whose colleague at work was one of the 9 girls and 4 guys who made up the choir. Sung from the heart, amazing harmonies, very well presented and with a central focus on the name of Jesus, this was a real blessing to experience It is unusual to find in today’s Portugal any form of Christian music achieving such prominence. Usually, in the popular mindset it is relegated to the ranks either of either dull hymns droning in dusty cathedrals, or off-the-wall Pentecostal ravings from Brazil. But this was professional, measured, rich and above all enjoyable. Openly enjoyable to the performers who were having a great time, and infectiously enjoyable to us also, the audience.

My only observation, is that they have adopted a musical genre that is still distinctly foreign, belonging as it does traditionally to black American culture. I’m sure that it could and should be developed with time into an authentic Portuguese sound that could become a dynamically creative musical expression of personal faith and hope in Christ for this generation. Portugal certainly needs it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q59FIQ19Gp0&feature=related

Portuguese summer

We have come to the conclusion that the Portuguese do summers well. During the grey days of winter, everyone seems to keep their heads down, and get on with life and work in a kind of semi hibernation mode. But summers are different. People even dress better. And by June in Lisbon with the Festa de Santo Antonio lasting up to three days it becomes one long party, full of sardines, sangria and sunshine.

Yesterday being officially the first day of summer, and the current heatwave set to continue a few more days, and not having church till the evening, Anna and I thought we would be smart and beat the traffic and the midday heat by heading out to the coast first thing. By “first thing” I mean 08:30 when conventional wisdom says most people are still in their beds on a June Sunday morning. Wrong! How come ten thousand other Lisboetas in their cars had exactly the same thought. Beat the traffic. Beat the heat. Find a good parking spot by the beach. And all converge on the narrow strip of Avenida Marginal to crawl along beside crystal waters with one hand on the gear stick and the other on the horn. I guess we must be starting to "think Portuguese" which can only be a good thing.

Anyway down on the narrow strip of sand it was good to watch the boats in the bay, to see the sunlight glistening on the clear water and to know that

“God has made everything beautiful for its own time, and planted eternity in the human heart, even though people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 4:11).

Bloomsday

Yesterday, June 16th, apparently was “Bloomsday”, which probably would have passed you by unless you were of a literary inclination. It would most certainly have passed me by, had it not been for an advertisement for a free show with a cocktail reception after that come into my email inbox the other day.

Anyway Anna and I trooped along to the Teatro Sao Luiz, in downtown Lisbon, to see what it was all about. Bloomsday celebrates the fictitious day in 1904, described by James Joyce in his classic book “Ulysses” and the Irish Association here in Lisbon had put on this one man show called “Jimmy Joyced!” in which the actor Donal O’Kelly delivered in the space of an hour and twenty minutes what amounted to a one-man dramatised year in the life of the writer James Joyce

Anna thought it might be a drag, one actor and a bare stage, but I had a hunch we were in for a treat. The Irish have a knack for storytelling in a way that keeps you enthralled to the end, even when it’s Norman McCracken up in the pulpit of 1st Presbyterian Coleraine telling one of his "shaggy dog" stories. As it happened, we were enthralled and enjoyed the evening immensely. The theatre was filled with what I guess would have been a mixture of the expat community and the Portuguese literati. The Irish may not have colonised the world like the British the Spanish or the Portuguese yet they have created a form of cultural colonisation with the likes of James Joyce and U2, so that wherever you go in the world there’s a warm and positive welcome if your Irish.

Contrast that with today’s news from the gentle emerald isle of racial tension and Romanian families in South Belfast being rehoused for their safety from thugs and vandals. That’s the eternal enigma of the Irish. Yes, the welcome’s there in the parlour, we’re warm, expansive generous and hospitable, but at the very same time, we can be narrow, bitter, intolerant and hard. And in Christian terms we have one of the highest concentrations of churches and evangelical communities in Western Europe, but we still find it tough to express the love of Christ in a way that wins over the man in the street.

http://www.donalokellyproductions.com/?p=136

Hymns to the Silence

For quite a few months I have been struggling with my right knee. An intermittent strain or stiffness that has kept me from running for ages. At least that was my excuse.

There was probably a lot of laziness in there as well. I had also dropped the touch rugby for a time. And during this time there’s a fear that the years are at last catching up. The old joints aren’t going to work any more the way they did. The freedom to be able to up and run down the river is going to be taken away.

But today was good. I was able to pound up and down the river and do the full four kilometres. I got “Hymn to the Silence” on my iPod and I set it to repeat, so it played over and over again. It’s got a nice easy beat that keeps you going. And Van Morison with his homespun wisdom, all about feeling the silence at half past eleven on long summer nights, and dreaming in God. Van, you’re the man. Silence and wind, and the river and the bridge. Clouds and sunshine and God is good

And alongside me, the bride-to-be is pounding her way along the river too. Getting into shape to look her best and fit her dress. Not that she needs to. I keep telling her she’s thin as a rake. If she works out any more she’ll waste away to nothing before the wedding day even come. But I’m laughing anyway.
I already have my suit (SEE BELOW FOR PREVIOUS ENTRY). So I can tuck into the Cadbury’s creme eggs without batting an eyelid.

Spring Station

“Em Abril, águas mil”. An old Portuguese saying reminds us that April is the month of one thousand rainfalls”, and it has seemed like that this year. At least it now feels as though it’s about to change with bright sunshine today and a cool breeze

The word for season in Portuguese is “estação”, which is the same as the word for railway station. It’s an interesting concept. Every season is another station, another staging post to stop at and be refreshed. Winter gives way to Spring, and Spring turns into Summer. It’s the same in life. The seasons we pass through kind of define where we are, and they’re all part of the one awesome journey.

There’s a song that’s been buzzing in my mind in recent days as its been played quite a lot on the radio. It’s “The Story” by Brandi Carlile and seems to sum up the impact that all these seasons have on us as we walk through life

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am

So many stories of where I've been

And how I got to where I am

But these stories don't mean anything

When you've got no one to tell them to

It's true...I was made for you

Talking about lines,
Peter Sluimer is a man with plenty of them on his face!!
Last weekend we were down in the Algarve for a specific purpose – a farewell service for these wonderful colleagues. Peter and Marianne Sluimer. Having spent twenty five years here in Portugal and starting the International Church of the Algarve, they are now moving on, not to retirement, but a new “station” in life, working with a small church in the Pyrynees.


On the Saturday evening there were many tributes from al over, but the most poignant and meaningful for us was from a Portuguese woman who lived literally just up the road from them. She came down to the front of the room and said with real emotion in her voice “I’ve known Peter and Marianne for just four years and now I’m angry with God. I‘m angry that I didn’t get to know them sooner, and now they’re leaving!” And she went on to share how meeting the Sluimers introduced her to the wonder of a real relationship with Jesus and enriched and blessed her life in many ways. I guess, I'm left thinking and praying that as we pass on from one station to the next, we will leave people enriched and blessed, and spread the aroma of Christ wherever we go.

Suntoucher

Yesterday, no, it was Sunday, Easter Sunday, and I found myself on top of a hill in the Algarve at 06:30 waiting for the sunrise. It was wonderful!
It had been ages since I took part in an Easter sunrise service, and my mind goes back to a Portrush headland in a dull grey dawn, to Tehran, to Faisalabad and to the beach at Karachi. But this was not an Easter sunrise service. Just me and the dawn and the cold wind. Because although it’s already the 12th of April, the early morning air is cold.

I settled down on the rough ground to wait, pulled my coat closer and leaned back against a tree trunk. And waited. Watching the hill to the east. First an intense glowing from behind the hill. Then, as it were, waves of golden light began pouring down into the valleys on either side of the ridge. Then a blazing wisp of cloud leapt up from the brow of the hill. And finally, and I watched, open-eyed in wonder, a silent explosion of light as if the very top of the hill had suddenly come off and revealed a boiling cauldron of molten – light. It boiled and hung in the morning air for some moments and eventually detached itself from the hillside. My eyes shut. Couldn’t cope with the intensity of the light. Burning into my soul. Blinding me to all else. The ground once visible and tangible, now suddenly plunged into a nether world of shadows once more. AND SO I THOUGHT…
This is what Resurrection means. A burning realisation that all we are in the here and now is transient, a vague dream that is soon over and gives way to the proper day. Thank you God for this moment.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. ~

See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples,

but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.”

Isaiah

“Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned”

Isaiah

“But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise

with healing in its wings.

And you will go out and leap

like calves released from the stall.”

Malachi

Bridge to Nowhere

Every morning we’re confronted with the amazing symmetry of the Vasco da Gama Bridge, all 17 kilometres of it crossing the River Tejo right by our house. It’s quite a sight especially bathed in early morning sunshine.

And on long summer nights with the window open, you can hear the constant hum of traffic, and the occasional roar of boy racers doing their illegal stuff across the bridge at two or three am. The point is, this bridge is going somewhere. It’s the gateway to the Algarve, to the Alentejo, to Sapin and anywhere else you might care to go. On Friday afternoons and holidays, it’s crammed with traffic getting away from the city.

A huge amount of thought, effort and expense went into the creation of this bridge. And much of that preparation would have included the approach roads on either side that define its usefulness and access to people. And then I see a bridge that lacks that. Solidly constructed yet with no function in terms of connecting people together. On the TV news last night there was a short piece on a motorway bridge over the A4 at Maia, near Porto. They showed a google map image of the bridge and you can see for yourself how its become a laughing stock after 14 years of just sitting there and going nowhere. Something to do with a dispute between the construction company and the landowners. And now its due to be demolished to allow for widening of the motorway.

Sometime churches can be bridges to nowhere. Either they are rooted in community, everyone has easy access, is welcomed on board, but then they find that their church does not actually deliver. It does not actually lead them on to know God, and move onto a road that will lead to a solid spiritual walk with the Lord. Or there are other churches, so well designed and constructed in their theology to deliver anyone on it safely to the other side, but so far removed from everyday life and culture, that few actually make it onto the bridge. Church needs to be rooted in both. Blaze a clear pathway to the other side of life with God, but understand and be rooted in the life and culture of the society it exists for.

Wales 15 Ireland 17

It’s nice to be Irish sometimes. Like tonight, at the end of a sunny day, in a packed Irish pub tucked round behind Cais do Sodré train station in downtown Lisbon.
(Apparently there are five such bars scattered around the city of Lisbon. But O’Gilins, as they´ll proudly tell you was the first and the only one with genuine Irish people behind the bar. None of your plastic replica shillelaghs here)

Anyway, back to the rugby match, and it’s in this amazingly colourful cosmopolitan atmosphere of Irish and Portuguese, with a few Welsh, Spanish and French thrown in, that the Irish have managed to do something that had evaded them for 61 years. And I thought to myself, my father would have loved this moment. To think that back then he would have been a young man recently demobbed from the military and making his way into civilian life during that last heady season when the Irish won the Grand Slam.

Now life has a funny habit of turning around on itself now and again, taking you way way back in an instant to something vaguely remembered and yet becoming crystal clear in that self same moment. Memory for me suddenly takes me out of the smoky pub (no EU directives here) and back down on the Belfast Dublin train line and to Lansdowne Road as a wee boy, clutching my father’s hand among crowds of flat caps and scarves hasting through the turnstiles, and then standing on the terraces in the drizzle. Those were the years when Van Morrison was writing lines like

“On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row
Throwing pennies at the bridges down below
And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow”

And amazingly, the man’s still singing those lines to packed houses in Hollywood. But that first album “Astral Weeks” which had had such a profound affect on my growing up years in Northern Ireland, still manages to take me back to times like that on the Dublin train, and conjure up that unusual affinity created in a moment between a father and a son. So, my father never did manage to see Ireland win the Grand Slam again. Although I do remember him clearly on the edge of his seat watching the matches, even in the nursing Home, wincing with every disappointment, groaning with every failure. And my poor mother had to take a walk and visit a neighbour down the corridor when the match was on to get out of the way of him.

So life turns around again. He has passed on to Glory. And we’re watching the Ronan O’Garas and the Brian O’Driscolls here in downtown Lisbon. And I’ll bet he’s looking down, pleased as punch. Well done , Ireland.

Chaotic Order? Ordered Chaos?

We live at the top end of the Park of the Nations just next to the Vasco da Gama Bridge. If you walk under the bridge you come across a wide expanse of wilderness.

I think it is earmarked for a Golf Course in the grand scheme of things. But right now with spring almost on us it looks magnificent. A glorious swathe of cowslip or buttercups or mustard or whatever those yellow flowers in the photo are. Botany never was my strongest subject. And this morning, walking there, there was a riot not only of colour but also of sound, as the grassland came alive with pipits and finches, stonechats and redstarts. Pity is, the wilderness is closed off to the public so you can’t walk through it, only enjoy it through a cross linked fence.

Then you turn around 180º from this vista, and the magnificent sweep of the bridge comes into view, and beyond it stretches the city. In one direction Chaotic Order – the wonderful natural kaleidoscope of God’s workmanship that is so incredibly ordered in every microscopic way but also so marvellously random to the casual observer. Look in the other direction and Ordered Chaos - man’s efforts to bring order and symmetry to his otherwise chaotic world. Because, beneath and beyond the concrete and steel and under the hum of the traffic and the roar from Lisbon airport, lie tired souls and aching hearts broken by lies and deceit, frustrated by unfulfilled promises, trying to make some sense out of an often meaningless world, longing to find hope and a purpose in the chaos.

God entered into chaos once, and said “Let there be Light”

God entered into chaos a second time, and said “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him.”