Archive for the “thoughtz” category
On negative wisdom
by Geoff Hall on 8 July 2011 with
Ever gone to church struggling with this thing called ‘an artistic life’, to then unwisely share what is on your heart with people who think ‘know you’ or at least ‘what you are about’? Ever done that and regretted it? Me too!
Wisdom is shared during those moments of your vulnerability, in those times of heaviness of spirit. This is why it has so powerful an effect on us, not a positive but a negative one, adding to the burden of our ‘momentary’ struggles.
Yes, I’ve had plenty of moments like that. I’ve shared in other places some of the wisdom passed on to me, but let’s move on with some other gems.
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Standing on the street-corners
by Chris Lorensson on 7 July 2011 with
I love Matthew 6—it’s one of those verses which thrives in blatant contradiction to Western culture. The issue is from whom your glory is coming. I’ll be honest here. It’s hard to truly do good things in secret, but it’s the way of the Kingdom. If we do things to be seen by others, we trade our heavenly reward for a sucky, Earthly one. (Say that ten times fast… ;-)
1Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
2Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 3But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: 4That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
5And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
Matthew 6:1-6 KJV
A crisis of faith
by Geoff Hall on 7 July 2011 with
In May 1944 Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words,
All Christian thinking, speaking and organising must be born anew out of this prayer and action…We are not out of the melting-pot and any attempt to help the church prematurely to a new expansion of its organisation will merely delay its conversion and purification…Till then, the Christian cause will be a silent and hidden affair, but there will be those who pray and do right and wait for God’s own time. May you be one of them…
‘Letters and Papers from Prison’. Edited by Eberhard Bethge, Published by SCM Press, 1986. p300.
The Church’s complicity in the Nazi horror show was something which Bonhoeffer could not be accused of being a partner in. He knew that any future the Church had must start with its own conversion and purification. Whilst Bonhoeffer practised resistance with his ‘non-co-operation with evil’, the Church collaborated.
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So, it’s all about the drugs!
by Geoff Hall on 5 July 2011 with
I was awakened by our alarm clock this morning to catch the end of an interview on BBC Radio 4 with two white-coated, learnèd scientists who were talking about teaching science in schools and how they felt that the subject was undervalued as a future vocation for young people. (Imagine the mocking laughter on this end of the radio and my acerbic wit “you should try being an artist, mate!” Cutting, eh?)
I was aghast, because for me it is the opposite, as scientific knowledge is given the pre-eminence, promoted as the way of knowing the world – what with its verifiable knowledge and all that jazz! It trumps the notion of the epistemic function of art any day, or so we are told. Read the rest of this entry »
Oh shit, the ‘cursing’ issue again, and related conundrums
by Chris Lorensson on 27 June 2011 with
I’ve noticed a funny thing in the past 10 years, amidst the onslaught of the ‘emerging church’ and the (relatively American) need to be different, even among Christians. Some of these youngsters, Christian hipsters (such as myself) have almost entirely done away with the Christian ‘mask’ leftover from the 90′s and indeed, much earlier. In fact, this Christian sense of propriety can be traced back to the Pharisees (read the Gospel of Matthew. Yes, all of it).
It’s probably safe to assume that once Christianity was popularised, and even before, that the common, social understanding of some religions was simply as a list of things you do not do. Even today a lot of people who don’t identify with a faith would describe popular faiths in the same way, as a list of things you don’t do. This is obviously a twist of the truth, since faith is mostly an addition to life, rather than a subtraction from it, but this common understanding must come from somewhere. I would suggest it comes from the ‘mask’ of goodness—the tendency for people of faith to succumb to social (rather than doctrinal) pressure and expectations by suppressing their otherwise human tendencies. Read the rest of this entry »
A Core Value of Lifestyle Minimalism
by Chris Lorensson on 19 June 2011 with
Today I was journalling and fleshing out some of the deeper issues of the complexity of my own life and lifestyle. (I love how God fleshes these things out in His own time—it’s truly revelatory.) I want to talk a little bit about what I believe is one of the core values of living a simple life, in my ongoing pursuit of what I believe to be a biblical principle: what I’m calling lifestyle minimalism.
Matthew 16:25 is the verse I’m talking about—one that is very dear to our hearts:
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Matthew 16:25, King James Version (1769 Oxford ‘Authorized Version’)
Sharing the lamp-oil
by Chris Lorensson on 11 May 2011 with
This is something I wrote after the 12th annual Schloss Mittersill Arts Conference.
As each year previous, we have each been shocked with light in conversations which will effect immediate and lifelong change, and yet we also make the sad journey home. This journey is the red flag we are forced to stake in order to continue in life, but it represents a physical and almost vicious tearing away from what we hold dear- community, creativity, and ultimately the experience of meeting Jesus again and again with each new conversation of art. Read the rest of this entry »
Community member investment
by Chris Lorensson on 5 May 2011 with
This post is about the philosophy of personal buy-in — the idea that, unless one has invested into something in some way, the commitment and “buy-in” will not be significant enough to make a difference.
In communities, this means that each individual member should invest into the community, or have a previous investment into it before ‘joining’. Using my involvement with the LoveBristol Community as an example, their ethos or vision paralleled with my own in some areas. The fact they’re focused on local social regeneration in a practical and spiritual way was something into which I already had a deep personal investment. I also shared the desire to be a part of growing a new community through action, as well as the journey of learning together. Read the rest of this entry »
Can ‘created’ communities thrive?
by Chris Lorensson on 28 April 2011 with
One of the questions I’m asking in this series is can ‘created’ communities thrive? This question is a little grandiose, but hear me out.
In my experience of roughly 10-15 very different and wide-ranging experiences of Christian community, only one of them which was intentionally-created and also flourished and ‘worked’ was the Schloss Mittersill Community. Read the rest of this entry »
On Creating Community
by Chris Lorensson on 22 April 2011 with
Ruth and I have been chatting a lot lately about community, and more specifically, can/should communities be created? I have had an experience which has lead me to believe we’ve got it all wrong, and I’m inclined nowadays toward organic community. That is to say, communities maybe shouldn’t be organised. Perhaps even can’t (successfully) be organised, unless the community was first grown organically. I’m going to ask a lot of hard questions in this series. Read the rest of this entry »