River wide

I like running by the river. I find it clearer thinking there. The wide expanse of the water, the clear air, the blood pumping with the exercise. It feels good. Reese Witherspoon, in a dizzying display of logic in the film “Legally Blonde” explains it : “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands. They just don't....” ( ** love that quote)

Today I ran as far as the NATO Summit perimeter fence and back again. Excuse me, Mr Obama, aside from the many other things they may accuse you of, you have chopped at least 2 km off my morning run and kept me and everyone else from a lovely part of the riverbank by the Atlantic Pavilion and the Oceanarium!

So why am I happy today? ( I mean apart from the endorphins ) Why do I feel like rejoicing? Well, the wide expanse of water matched with what I had read in the Bible earlier on in the morning from Romans and Isaiah ***

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” screams out Paul. “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”—And Isaiah writes : “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”, declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Somehow, the river, with its vast clear expanse to the other side this morning, is a good image of all this, as I run by. Here at the edge the water is agitated, shallow and brown with mud and sediment. My thoughts. Out there, its clear and it runs deep and it is steady in its course to the sea. God’s thoughts. Or rather, you have to go right out down to the ocean, past Alges and Belem and plumb its deeps to get even a tiny understanding of the dimension of Gods thoughts and love.

A children’s chorus I used to sing many many years ago has got it theologically corrects.

Wide, Wide as the ocean. High as the heavens above

Deep, Deep as the deepest sea, is my Saviour’s love...

**http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coemj2qdWMw&feature=related

*** Rom. 11:33; Isa. 55:8, 9

When the Saints go Marching in...

Today is All Saints day, so its a public holiday here in Lisbon. No great big celebrations. Not even a religious parade to explain what its all about. Just quieter streets. No traffic jam on the Segunda Circular. Families off to visit the parents in the Alentejo. Kids playing in the park. That sort of thing.

But tomorrow’s All Souls Day. So what is it all about. Well, according to Wikipedia, (not necessarily to be trusted every time) the “saints” in questions are those who have made it through to Heaven and are currently enjoying paradise, while the “souls” refers to those still making their way through Purgatory, hence the need to visit graves, say prayers for the dead and pay for masses for their dearly departed.

Sipping coffee in Cascais and watching waves break this Bank Holiday morning, I find myself with a lot of unanswered questions. For example, how long do you get to stay in Purgatory? Or, if no-one ends up praying for you when you’re dead and gone and paying or masses to be said (because your family were particularly mean, or, maybe they just forgot about you) do you stay there forever? Or, where exactly in the Bible does it tell us about this intermediate state of grace, where you’re not exactly saved and you’re not exactly lost either? Or maybe I’m just missing the point.

I think I’d rather stick with what Paul says about “saints” in Philippians, greeting ordinary regular believers in Jesus in the town of Philippi as “saints” and sending greetings from ordinary regular believers in Jesus in Rome, whom he likewise calls “saints” (phil 4:21,22). Knowing that Jesus has already paid all the price necessary for me throughout eternity, in order for me to be totally forgiven of all my sins, to be considered holy, a saint, and accepted by God - that is enough for me, and it’s what the Bible tells me. Or is the church so badly off, that it needs to meet its bills through the payments of gullible relatives, plagued by guilt about the eternal destiny of their dearly departed?

Let the saints go marching in, I say, and let me be in that number!