Still Quarrying 14 - Happiness.

Ken Dodd sang about it:

‘Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I posses

I thank the Lord I've been blessed

With more than my share of happiness.’  

And today is the International Day of Happiness!  Since 2013 March 20th has been set aside by the United Nations for all member states to recognise that the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal and to celebrate every effort to bring happiness to people through education, sustainable development and poverty eradication.   Why the  date?  This was suggested by the prime mover of the Day of Happiness, the UN special advisor Jayme Illien.  March 20th is the March equinox, ‘a universal phenomenon felt simultaneously by all of humankind, and which occurs the moment when the plane of Earth’s equator passes through the center of the Sun’s disk.‘  (Wikipedia).    

A few years ago the UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon called upon all human beings to ‘dedicate our efforts to filling the world with happiness.‘   It would be churlish not to associate ourselves with such a positive and life-affirming aspiration but as in all things I sense my faith bringing some perspective to the whole concept of ‘happiness’.  

I have attended meetings with a friend and colleague who when he is asked if he is happy with a particular decision that has been taken will often reply: ‘I am not here to be happy!  I am here to serve.’  I quoted this once in a sermon and a few people thought I was  suggesting there was something wrong with being happy.  (Lord, set the angels to guard that space between my mouth and people’s ears!)  The point is that sometimes in the Christian life personal happiness has to be set aside to realise the priority which is to serve our Lord.  I doubt if Dietrich Boenhoffer was happy in Flossenberg Concentration Camp but he served.  I doubt if Martin Luther King was happy leading a civil rights march in Selma Alabama but he served.  I doubt if Mother Theresa was always happy dealing with the poverty she encountered in Calcutta but she served.  

For the Christian happiness has to go deeper than the inner satisfaction we experience when things are going well.  Health, wealth, achievement, important relationships can all be taken away and where then is our happiness?  The experience of the apostles was  that everything that made life easier and bearable could be taken away but still there could be joy in what they knew to be true concerning Jesus and joy in being faithful to Him.  

When Paul wrote to the Christians in Thessalonika he said: ‘Be joyful always . . . ‘  Yes, he said ‘always’.  (1 Thessalonians 5: 16)  Unrealistic?  Well, if that means working it up, forcing a smile unconnected to my heart, then that gets us nowhere.  What Paul has in mind is an inner life that is focussed on the things that come to us through our faith in Jesus: the promise of His presence in every circumstance, forgiveness through His death on the Cross, the gift of the Holy Spirit as our constant assurance, the reality of the Eternal Kingdom and our place in it.   These are things that can never be taken away by even the worst of circumstances, the ‘solid joys and lasting treasure‘  celebrated by John Newton.  

Paul did not call the Thessalonians to an attitude he was not prepared to adopt.  In Philippi he and Silas were stripped, beaten, flogged, imprisoned, their feet fastened into stocks.  I doubt if they were happy.  But around midnight the other prisoners heard something new in that place.  It was the sound of these Christian men praying and singing hymns to God.  Happy?  No.  Joyful, yes.  And continuing to be witnesses to what they had experienced in Christ.  (Acts 16: 22-28) 

I recently fell into conversation with a man who was behind the counter in a charity shop.  He asked what I did for a living.  When I told him he said: ‘Ah a sour-faced Presbyterian.’  It was one of those half-joking, half-serious comments which I didn’t take too much to heart.  I mean, me?  Sour-faced?  Well, maybe sometimes but at this moment my prayer is that my inner life is kept sweet with the knowledge of all that God has done for me in Christ.  

  

Still Quarrying 13.

Until now I haven’t had much experience of medication.  Headaches, indigestion, skin rashes have all been largely dealt with by over the counter products.  Now I am on a daily regimen of six different drugs including an anti-coagulant which I have to inject.  This is apart from the chemotherapy.  It takes a bit of organisation and there are inevitably times when the routine slips.  That’s when you appreciate having someone to remind you and if necessary to give you a nudge.  I often look around me in the waiting room at the Beatson and see frail, exhausted people and wonder how they manage to cope with their particular treatment program.  I can only pray that they have the same support as I have.  

Accepting your dependance on others is part of the cancer experience.  Quite simply no one could get through this on their own.  Apart from the skills and wisdom of the medical people there are so many practical needs that have to be met.  It is not advisable for me to drive at present so lifts to the Beatson have to be organised and friends have not been slow to step up.  Part of you feels a bit vulnerable.  Needing to be lifted and laid like this is not the way you like to think of yourself.  But there comes a time when you have to acknowledge and accept dependance.  And Jesus encourages us to embrace this wholeheartedly.  In John 21: 18-19 he sees the vulnerability of old age as being a metaphor for faithful Christian discipleship.  Jesus said to Peter:

 ‘Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”’

Jesus making it clear that there will be times when Christian witness will emerge not from strength but from weakness, not from the best laid plans but the twists and turns of circumstance, not from the way we like to think of ourselves but the way we are.  In the end Jesus was taken, made subject to the hatred of  men, but establishing a pattern of service at the heart of Christian witness and it involves vulnerability.  Learning to place your life in the hands of God might not be all sunshine and rainbows, as Peter would discover,  but in the service of Jesus what we lose is our gain.   I think it was Dietrich Boenhoffer who said that when Christ bids a man follow he bids him come and die.  The default position of the disciple is to live according to the will of God, trusting in His good and loving purpose,  no matter the cost.  

Still Quarrying 12- Champion's Story.

This time might just be an opportunity to weed out books I don’t need.  That will be difficult.  As far as I am concerned every book is a prisoner.  Marie Kondo says unless you get a flash of joy when you handle something then you should get rid of it.  What if every book gives you that?  Yes it’s that bad.  I’m sure a psychologist would regard me as a suitable case for treatment.  Now and again, however, you might call to mind something you haven’t thought of for a while tucked away in a seldom disturbed corner of the study.  I don’t know when I last took out Champion’s Story but in its day it was a high profile cancer story with the best of endings.

Bob Champion was one of Britain’s top five jump jockey’s when, in July 1979, he discovered he had cancer in two parts of his body.  A particularly demanding course of treatment began that placed considerable pressure on all his resources and led to days of weakness and despair.  He came through and eventually rode Aldaniti to triumph in the 1981 Grand National.  As the strap line on the book says, it is the story of ‘A Great Human Triumph’.  It later became an inspiring movie with John Hurt in the lead role.   I think maybe that was a groundbreaker.  I can’t remember a mainstream movie prior to that which told a cancer story.  

Looking at my copy of the book I see I’ve marked off some passages.  One concerns the time when Bob was so debilitated and discouraged he wanted to stop the chemotherapy.  He is allowed to wander around the hospital to think things through and finds himself in the children’s ward.  He speaks to some of the patients, some as young as three years old, bald from the effects of chemotherapy:

‘It was a very important lesson in my life.  There was I moaning and groaning at the nurses and everyone, thinking only of myself, and downstairs those poor little kids were going through the same thing without complaining.  Seeing them was a turning point for me.  If they could take the treatment then so could I.’  

Another passage takes us forward to the successful end of the treatment.  Bob returns to the ward where he went through his worst of times:

‘I realise why the others don’t want to go back and I don’t blame them at all.  But I know how much it would have helped if I had seen an example to encourage me.  When you are lying there being sick every five minutes, fearing the worst, it must be a tremendous tonic to see someone who had come through it all looking well and healthy again.  I know it would have made a big difference  to me especially at the times I was close to giving up.’  

What we are dealing with here is the potential of lived experience to make a difference to others.  I remember visiting a lady in hospital who was to undergo an MRI scan.  She was very anxious about it since she had a tendency to claustrophobia.   I told her about my mother who had recently gone through this and managed to cope.   Later with the experience behind her the lady told me that everything had gone well.  She said: ‘I just kept remembering your mother.’  Knowing that someone had been there before her and come through had made a difference.  

I have to say that in the number of MRIs I have had in the last few years my mother is never far from my mind.  But there is Someone else whose presence I can realise.  Whoever wrote the Letter to the Hebrews was deep with the Spirit.  When he says ‘We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses’ he may not have had MRIs, cancer or chemotherapy in mind but he speaks of our ‘weaknesses’, the things that make us feel less ourselves, that threaten to bring us to the end of ourselves.  For the High Priest has been there, completely exhausted, to the extinguishing of life itself.  So at the throne of grace we can receive everything that is needed for our worst of times.  (Hebrews 4: 15-16)  

I am grateful for people like Bob Champion who stand as an example of what can be endured and overcome at a human level.  But how much more encouraging to know that I have a God who is Emmanuel, ‘God With Us.‘    

Still Quarrying 11 - 'Of Gods And Men.'

It lay for months cellophane wrapped on a pile of DVDs.  Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for it.  The story of a group of French Cistercian monks in a mountainous region in Algeria becoming the victims of Islamist extremism.  I cracked it open yesterday however and felt that it was just waiting its moment.  It’s called Of God’s And Men and it’s a true story.   Slow paced, without spectacle, no incidental music and yet it leaves a lasting impression.  

The monks have been quietly serving a community, providing medical aid, living peaceably with local Muslims, studying and praying, when the shadow of Islamist terrorism falls upon them.  Their community is immediately under stress.  Almost paralysed with anxiety and doubt the monks have to make a decision to continue their work or return to France.  Opinion is divided and several seem to be on the verge of psychological breakdown.   Outside the community the pressure builds from local politicians and the military to abandon the work.    

Interspersed with scenes of personal anguish and intense discussion are times of worship when white-clad and still the monks sing together and pray.  An undercurrent of peace in the maelstrom of emotion.  In one scene the sound of a military helicopter intrudes on their worship and they stand as one, hands on shoulders, continuing their worship, bound together in their commitment to honour God above all.  

It is out of this fellowship in the Spirit that the resolution forms to stay as a witness to the love of Christ and if necessary to pay the ultimate price.  The test comes and it is hard to watch but you cannot escape the sense of fulfillment at the end of the struggle and the agony.  And not just for them.  When stories like this are told they have an impact.  

More than anything it is the worship that stays with me.  Under all kinds of pressure they continued and from this they gathered their strength.  I am constantly drawn back to Acts 1, the beginning of the community life of the Church, and reminded that before there was the outpouring of the Spirit and the powerful preaching and the miraculous healing there was a small group of people praying.  (Acts 1: 14)  From this there sprung that movement of people that was said to be turning the world upside down.  This is the end of our worship.  The hymns, prayers, preaching moving us to an engagement with Almighty God.  The cry in Psalm 42: ‘My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When can I go and meet with God?’  should never be far from our lips.  When our hearts are set in this way we can connect with the reality and the purpose of God, not just as satisfied individuals but as a people caught up in the divine surge towards the New Creation.  

I feel a bit like the Psalmist this morning as he remembers the days when he would lead the worship of God’s people ‘with shouts of joy and thanksgiving.’  I can’t be there and yes I am ‘downcast’ at the thought.  But I think of those who are there and pray that they have engaged with God this morning and that that will make a difference to our community and our nation and the world.  As for me, it is as it was for the Psalmist: ‘By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me - a prayer to the God of my life.’  (Psalm 42: 8)

Still Quarrying 10 - Crash!

Stories of an individual’s struggle against life’s challenges have become very popular in modern culture.  Sometimes dismissed as ‘Misery Memoirs’ they can undoubtedly bring some encouragement to those who are struggling with memories of abuse, present experience of illness or the constant grind of drug addiction.  Any indication that the sharp edges of human experience can be smoothed down and lived with are to be welcomed.  The problem is that for those on the outside there can develop an unhealthy interest in the dark side of life.  Someone has referred to this kind of book as ‘Misery Porn’.  I remember back in the day how avidly young Christians would devour books of former drug addicts who were wonderfully converted but who went into great detail about their former sordid lives.  I came to think that the attraction was was not all to do with the happy end.  

I never intended that this blog should become a Misery Memoir.  It helps me to feel more like myself if I am still quarrying and seeking to share what I am still gathering from God’s truth.  But days like today can be hard.  I realised more fully this week that any idea I had of continuing to work while undergoing this treatment was ridiculous naivety.  The problem is not the cancer but the cure - or rather the containment.  So far I have managed to avoid many of the unpleasant side effects I was told to expect.  No nausea, hair loss, stomach cramps, the list is endless.  It’s the tiredness that is the real challenge.  This is where vanity comes in but dragging this body on a short five minute walk that used to do three hard one hour sessions in the gym every week is hard to take.  

This is where the application of Christian truth can become a sheer act of will.  I have read Philippians 4: 11-13 constantly over the years.  I have meditated upon these words.  I have preached out of these words.  Now they have to kick in:

‘.... for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength.’

Paul says ‘I have learned . . .’  I have wanted to reflect Christ in my life but have not taken into account the means whereby His qualities might come to the fore.  I have to learn to be content with the circumstances presented to me knowing that this is part of God’s good and loving plan for me.  The call to be ‘content’ is not self-help advice.  It is a call to stand on the eternal truths that cannot be changed by circumstance and bring a strength that is beyond my own resources.  What are these truths?  Well, let’s start with the heart of the Gospel.  God thinks me worthy of the death of His Son.  That’s how He loves each one of us.  No wonder Paul could say that nothing will ever separate us from this love!  It’s the love that promises His presence in every circumstance, brings us forgiveness, the promise of union with the Father, the assurance of a place in the Eternal Kingdom.  Learn these things!  Learn their power!  The things that can never be changed.  

I wish I did not have to go through this time.  But if it means that I emerge with a fuller appreciation of the things that really matter, then perhaps with Paul ‘I will boast of the things that show my weakness.’  (2 Corinthians 11: 30.) 

Still Quarrying 9 - Buzzing With Hope!

It is not easy to be speaking about hope today.  49 people murdered and 20 seriously injured after two mosque shootings in Christchurch New Zealand - of all places.  When that is the first news you hear on switching on your radio it casts a shadow on the day. It also raises awareness of other atrocities going on across the globe which have dropped out of the news and are not receiving as much attention.   Humankind’s capacity for evil is powerful.  Sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists will continue to explore and seek to explain and it is right that they do so.  Eventually, however, they must come up against the unwelcome truth that humankind is a fallen species with a tendency to do the wrong thing, even to choose evil, and is in need of an influence outside itself to redeem and renew.  

It is no wonder that much contemporary fiction and cinema looks to the future with foreboding and dread.  Cormac McCarthy’s The Road sees a future where ecological disaster has rendered the civilised world barren and devoid of any technological comfort blanket.  Communities are fractured and people prey on one another in order to survive.  The worst of times does not bring out the best in people.  It’s one of those books I am glad to have read.  I admire McCarthy.  But I would find it hard to read that book again.  

Years ago a friend asked me if there were any contemporary authors who could be described as ‘optimistic’.  At that time, the late seventies, Saul Bellow was deemed to have a sunnier outlook than many but I really had to think about that.  Most of what was popular at the time seemed to reflect Henry David Thoreau’s view that ‘the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’  Not that I think we should distance ourselves from that.  That is a reflection of humankind without God and it is good to be in touch with it.  It is where we begin with humankind.  Alone without God and without hope.

Now and again there are glimmers.  It’s a while since I read Douglas Coupland’s Life After God but I remember the final impact very well.  Throughout the book he teases the reader that he has a secret which he will share in due course.  In the second last page he comes out with it:

‘Now - here is my secret:

I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words.  My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone.  I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love as I seem beyond being able to love.’  

I am not sure where this has led Douglas Coupland but it is significant that a life lived in ‘quiet desperation’ is looking beyond itself for fulfilment.  

One of the blessings of this present time for me personally is that I still have concentration to read.  As the day goes on things become a bit more difficult as the various medications kick in but it’s been good to catch up with some of the ‘trending’ stuff.  The History Of Bees  by the Norwegian author Maja Lunde is one for your list.  It is a novel that works on three different time lines in three different places: England 1851, United States 2007 and China 2098.  It can be read as three stories about families.  Parents expectations clash with children’s aspirations or lack of them, the effects of unforeseen disasters, the pain of lost dreams.  Bees are the big unifying theme and how three families were dependent on them for wellbeing and indeed survival.  The China sequences give a horrifying picture of a world without bees and the steps that have to be taken to artificially pollinate fruit trees  and crops.  

The three families live painful and apparently insignificant lives but in the end it is shown that they are part of a movement of connecting circumstances spanning the centuries that lead to an immense good for the whole planet.  In my experience it’s not often you get this kind of Big Story ( ‘metanarrative’ in today’s jargon) in modern fiction.  God is not explicitly mentioned except in a narrow, restrictive way in the England 1851 sequences but the vision of human history carrying a purpose which individual people may be unaware of but to which they contribute fits very well into a Christian perspective.  Paul speaks of life being like puzzling reflections in a mirror but the time will come when all will be made plain.  I love the idea of the small people in the story in their painful lives being made aware in the end of their contribution to an immense good.  

This is not to diminish the importance of recognizing the brutalizing effects of life for so many people and I have always distanced myself from the response of ‘pie in the sky when you die.’  But as we engage with the shadows that fall on human experience we also point to the light that is promised with the onward movement of our God, surging towards the New Heaven and the New Earth.  We are part of His Story.  

The Norwegian monk Eric Varden shares his spiritual journey in The Shattering Of Loneliness.  It is a quirky story in which many elements played a part to bring him to Christ.  One was listening to the music of Gustave Mahler:

‘I was alert to a palpable communion with mankind, which I saw before me as a suffering mass overshadowed by death.  Not to avert my gaze was a duty, I was sure: I had to have decency to see.  But a voice said within me: ‘not in vain’.  Mahler let me sense that one can face life without yielding to despondency or madness, since the anguish of the world is embraced by an infinite benevolence investing it with purpose.  Having encountered - recalled - this benevolence, I recognized it as a personal presence.  I wanted to pursue it, learn its name, discern its features.’  

From this Varden moved on to explore the Scriptures more deeply but his experience is at one with that of the poet and hymn writer William Cowper  who endured great personal suffering throughout his life:

God moves in a mysterious way, 

his wonders to perform; 

he plants his footsteps in the sea, 

and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines 

of never-failing skill 

he treasures up his bright designs, 

and works his sovereign will.

 You fearful saints, fresh courage take; 

the clouds you so much dread 

are big with mercy, and shall break 

in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense 

but trust him for his grace; 

behind a frowning providence 

he hides a smiling face.

Blind unbelief is sure to err, 

and scan his work in vain,

God is his own interpreter,

and he will make it plain.

We’ve come a long way from the bees but their story shows that even as we look forward to the renewal of the cosmos a foretaste can be experienced now bringing evidence of the ‘infinite benevolence‘ in which we are embraced.  In Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, another glimpse of a world in need of renewal, a character reflecting on how things have turned out is heard to say: ‘People stopped trying to fix problems and just tried to outlive them.‘   God is moving to fix everything and is calling men and women to get involved in the Great Project which will end when a Voice is heard: “I am making everything new!’  (Revelation 21: 5)

Still Quarrying 8: The Gospel On Steroids.

I am having a surprisingly bright start to the day at present.  I think that’s down to the steroids I am having to take as part of the treatment.  They were a big factor in the Consultant’s insistence that I had to be off during this time.  I’ll never forget what he said: ‘Steroids have a tendency to make you a bit manic.  We can’t have you standing up in your pulpit and saying outrageous things.’  I had to laugh.  The St Paul’s congregation have  been well used to that over the last 31 years!  But he was making a serious point that I had to take on board.

Mind you the Gospel is an outrageous thing.  Think about it.  The death of one man has paid the price of the world’s sin; his resurrection from the dead is the only guarantee of life beyond death; upon him depends our quality of life now and our security in the life to come.  Outrageous - if we stick to it.  The pressure to let it go and make it less outrageous and less offensive has been there from the beginning.  Paul’s letters and those of the other apostles would not have been written unless there was a real and present danger that the core message was under threat of at least dilution or at worst obliteration.  And not from outside pressure but from within the Church.  

C.S. Lewis once wrote of ‘Christianity and water’, a version of Christianity when the message is watered down to make it more acceptable to the world at large.  I have sometimes referred to this as cappuccino Christianity, all froth and no substance.  No death to deal with my sin.  No hope of resurrection.  No purpose in suffering. No promise of a New Heaven and a New Earth.  Nothing to distinguish the message from any other of the myriad items on offer in the ever proliferating spiritual market place.  

During the Mission and Discipleship Report at last year’s General Assembly the matter of ministry recruitment was raised.  When it came time for questions an Elder from West Kilbride raised a recent report that a Church of Scotland Minister had stated publicly that to believe that Jesus died for our sins was ‘ghastly theology’.  Her question: ‘Are we so desperate for Ministers that we no longer require them to believe the Gospel?’  

I did not envy the Convener’s task in responding to that in an Assembly that does not merely differ in opinion but is divided in opinion.  But the point was well made.  

An early influence on my Christian development was a book by Os Guinness called The Dust Of Death.  I see from my inscription that it was bought in July 1974.  I admired the way Guinness connected with contemporary culture and addressed the challenges it posed to orthodox Christianity.  Also his use of modern literature and music to illustrate various themes was impressive.  He quotes in full a poem written by Adrian Mitchell who he describes as a frustrated atheist.  It is called ‘The Liberal Christ Gives An Interview.’  

I would have walked on the water
But I wasn’t fully insured
And the BMA sent a writ my way
With the very first leper I cured.

I would’ve preached a golden sermon
But I didn’t like the look of the Mount
And I would’ve fed fifty thousand
But the Press wasn’t there to count.

And the businessmen in the temple
Had a team of coppers on the door
And if I’d spent a year in the desert
I’d have lost my pension for sure.

I would’ve turned the water into wine
But they weren’t giving licenses
And I would have died and been crucified
But like – you know how it is.

I’m going to shave off my beard
And cut my hair
Buy myself some bullet-proof
underwear
I’m the Liberal Christ
And I’ve got no blood to spare.

It’s what happens when we put Jesus through the sieve of what we find acceptable.  What we are left with is merely a reflection of ourselves and our own particular needs.  I think I read somewhere that this is idolatry.  

Phew, I’m really cooking this morning.  But remember I’m on steroids . . .