A good story takes a long time

We are preparing for our feast of stories. Looking for the right speakers (we have a couple already).

A good story really can be something to feast on. Right now I am reading Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald and each sitting is like a little feast of good things. As well as being transported to a different time, place and world I am allowed to catch a glimpse of the glorious soul behind the story. It's gold.

And I have been listening to my friend Ben's last demo, Postcards from a garage. Many stories told, delicately shaped until they become songs, humorous and moving, lovely and light.

My favourite at the moment...

She was born with a fiddle on her chin
the imprint there for all to see
little calloused fingers and she gave herself
to the whisper of horsehair on steel.

While the papers complained of a retail lull
each roll and cut her hand knew well,
and her memories were like musical lines
and she walked the street in 4/4 time...

Is it all for nothing?
Is it all at stake?
What defines a person but the hammers we find
and the ground we break?

So pretty, so sad, such great questions...

Last night I was treated to a larger story in song. It was a history of temptation, and lasted 1hr 40mins. Needless to say lots was left out! But what was said was enchanting. I couldn't help but be caught up in the excitement of the tale.

I am part of a larger story - the story of of a broken but splendid humanity...


Go to Ben Scott's myspace music and have a listen.
www.myspace.com/bensong or www.myspace.com/limeandsteel

Mexican Ganglord

So recently Vanessa sent me this message and I found lots to think about in it:

"I really like that quote [Ed- Henri Nouwen book - see previous post]- it is particuarly timely because I am realising that I will often focus on perceived rejections or negative things instead of on all the love and kindness I am extended. My prayers have suggested that the key is to focus on all the good things and be thankful for them...

I think we are meant to be here to enjoy life - maybe original sin or being fallen is that we can't see all the good around us anymore. But God is slowly waking us up and setting us free to be dazzled but how much good and beauty and love there actually is in the world.

We just don't see it. But as we get our eyes opened we learn to cherish, and to feast. And get happier. And feel less pain, or a different healthy sort of pain. Maybe its like the itch and ache you get when a wound is healing? Hah, thats nice and poetic :)"

Thanks Vanessa, my good friend.

Thankfulness

It's my friend Helen's birthday today. She and her family are suffering greatly at the moment. But when I saw her, her eyes were shining.

"I love my birthday," she said. "When I look back over the past year and see the journey I have been on from despair to great hope, I can't help being thankful."

It's a good gift, this ability to be thankful. I have recently been meditating upon the following admonishment, from Henri Nouwen's Home tonight, attempting to let it fix onto and grow inside me...

The first rule is simply this:
Live this life and do whatever is done in a spirit of thanksgiving.
abandon attempts to achieve security, they are futile,
give up the search for wealth, it is demeaning,
quit the search for salvation, it is selfish,
and come to comfortable rest in the certainty
that those who participate in this life
with an attitude of thanksgiving will receive its full promise.

From Always we begin again: The Benedictine way of living by John McQuiston, 1996.

the good son

This post assumes familiarity with Jesus' parable of the lost son - sometimes known as the prodigal son: found in Luke 15:11-32

Reading through the parable of the prodigal earlier this week I found it difficult to choose a character to identify with. Henri Nouwen's book begins by asking you to listen and decide which character in the story represents the place you are at in the journey at that moment.

All good and well, but I know the story too much. It just seemed naff to identify with any of the characters. Then I remembered the possibility that the God-Spirit would use this story to show me something new and important.

"Oh alright, the good son then..."

Immediately the piece that stood out to me was obvious - you know the bit where the father says, "You are always with me, and everything I have is yours..." to the good son? I remembered that I have always been confused by this bit because of the subconscious thought, "Yeah well that might be true but the good son can't very well slaughter the fattened calf for himself whenever he wants." A literal kind of hang-up I know - but I'm a fairly literal (and therefore potentially gullible) person.

It came to me almost clearly. If life is a gift, why hanker for the fattened calf? the good son understands that all of life is a good gift from the father. In that sense the party and fattened calf is for him as well as all the times the family shared (happiness and sorrow) in between. Ahh, what a relief. It helped me to remember that life - God's gift to me - is full of goodnesses that don't have to miss!

iron grey with big bold eyes

I am reading a book about heroes at the moment.

James Chalmers, courageous prankster. The perfect man to head over to New Guinea 'n introduce them to Jesus there. Here's Robert Louis Stevenson's description...

“a man nobody can see and not love… a big, stout, wildish-looking man, iron grey with big bold eyes and a deep furrow down each cheek… with no humbug, plenty of courage, and the love of adventure… he has plenty of faults like the rest of us but he’s as big as a church…”

I love it. Oh to have something like that written on your tombstone! Even better - if I could actually live like that. Looks like I better go and cultivate some habits.

The Coona team turned up by surprise today. What an awesome one! We had fun together! I got Irish danced into a corner and we sang heaps and had a whale of a time. I loved catching up with brothers and sisters and I'm in a thankful mood now. Thankful for good friends and a man who lived in the jungle and let it bring out of him something more of who he was created to be...

Excerpt from Pollock, J (2008) Fistful of heroes

joy

a friday afternoon double period of Year 8 English ended, and the next one as far off in the distant future as it is possible for it to be (not including holidays)....

the prospect of seriously relaxing bro time ahead...

meeting with my favourite Sophie tonight...


Mike Goheen tells me that I can give thanks because I am aware that my creator exists and that every aspect of life is a gift from Him. Father accept my thanks!

Mike Goheen, Living at the Crossroads (2008)