Author: crackedceilingvw

Down with pedestals!

Jesus seems to have a hearty distrust of the pedestal, implying that the degree to which we idolize leadership, we go wrong. He warns us in no uncertain terms: Don’t put anyone up there, and don’t, for that matter, allow yourself to be maneuvered up onto one either.

The pedestal dehumanizes – or rather supra-humanizes – as well as isolates. Whereas, being very, very much human, every leader needs community, i.e. connection, friendship, accountability, and relevance if their leadership is to have any chance of truly flourishing.

A couple of the red flags signaling the pedestaling process? First, we start taking a leader too seriously; second a leader starts taking themselves too seriously. Sometimes the process is reversed.
Then, before you know it, there they are – the latest poor soul atop a pillar of high repute.

And, by the way, a bright, fluorescent target for anything humanity can throw at them; a magnet for both adoration and hatred; an elevated sitting duck for the highest of praise and the sharpest of criticism. One minute their ego is inflating to absurd proportions, the next, they are being pummeled almost into oblivion…

Of course, Jesus has the perfect antidote, if you are one of these unfortunates:
Find your bearings again, recognize the true Boss.
Climb down off the pedestal, and join the rest of the human race on wonderfully solid, equal ground.
Serve others, don’t expect them to serve you.
And no more masks, enjoy simply being yourself.

You may still be the target of abuse, but you no longer have far to fall.
Plus the company and comfort of fellow-travellers will ease your journey.

Photo: Tree frog contemplating a leap in the dark

Thoughts taken from The Message; Matthew 23: 8-12:
“’Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.
Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.’”

It probably has something to do with the intensity of recent days, plus the furnace heat of full blast Filipino hot season, perhaps also the mild fever of a persistent cold, but in a moment of rest there was a moment of clarity when it felt like the whole meaning of life could be summed up in one sentence.

So, for what it’s worth, and at the risk of stating the obvious, here it is:

The Divine is both involved in the very fabric of our lives, and desires to be even more involved in our every interaction, not only in ways, but also to an extent beyond anything any of us can ever imagine.

Fever notwithstanding, I think this could be true.

Photo: Wednesday’s sunset skies

These last 6 months have been some of the most stressful in my life. The difficulties are not over yet, but it does feel like the worst has passed. Though hopefully this is not simply wishful thinking.

Just to be clear, this was not one lesson learned per month; my life at least is not that cut and dried. In fact, let this untidy caveat be about Lesson One: Real Life is, more often than not, an utter mess.

Lesson Two

When curled up in a fetal position overwhelmed and whimpering, or crying hard, ugly tears of despair, don’t expect to see the light. Because dark is dark. Night is night. ‘This too shall pass’ is a truism that doesn’t necessarily take into consideration how long the tunnel is.

Lesson Three

A song can save me. For example, ‘You’re Gonna Be Ok’ by Brian & Jenn Johnson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjF9IqvXDjY

Lesson Four

Receive the comfort of nature, whether it’s the companionship of pets; the singing of crickets or pied fantails; the colour of sky, the green of pine, or the smell of cut grass.

Lesson Five

This is precisely the time NOT to stop any healthy habits to do with eating and exercising. Good nutrition is a godsend, and pushing my body to its limits, sweating it out, can be a great release.

(Screaming into a pillow is also a great rage-releaser, very handy if you don’t want to alarm the neighbours, but not very kind to your voice box.)

Lesson Six

Ask for help. Especially for prayer. It need only be from one or two friends, but it helps. Don’t know how – in my four decades of being a Jesus follower, the mystery of love and prayer has only grown deeper – but praying friends have buoyed me up like a life-saving jacket in a raging river.

Courage comes as a grain of steadfast hope: turning to face the future even as fear breathes its merciless threats down the back of your neck.

Photo: Late afternoon garden sunshine, Northumberland, U.K.

What were your two most boring subjects at school? For many of us these were R.E. (*) and grammar. For you too?

Did you know that theology has much in common with grammar, especially when it comes to the teaching thereof?

As the idea of good grammar is to open up the human faculties to a language, so is the idea of good theology to reveal the ways of God.

And just as the bad teaching of grammar shuts down the understanding, so the bad teaching of theology closes the door to the divine.

To some degree this explains my empathy as an English teacher for Jesus’ outrage over the Pharisees: the very ones who should have been showing the way, were blocking the way.

Teachers have a lot to answer for.

(*) Religious Education

 Photo: Garden path, Northumberland, U.K.

“I’m after mercy, not religion. I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”

Guess who said – the Aramaic equivalent of – these words?

Right!

I suppose He knew it wouldn’t be long before we’d be boxing our devotion into a religion.

And that we’d need reminding that His priorities tend to radically differ from our own, especially when it comes to the pampering of religious insiders.

For no man-made institution can fully contain His love.

He invented Thinking Outside the Box.

Just as the religious top nobs were offended all those years ago, when Jesus seemed to prefer to hang out with the “crooks and riffraff”, would we, in all likelihood, be somewhat taken aback by the kind of people Jesus wants to spend time with today?

The kind of people He wants us to spend time with.

And shouldn’t we be so, SO relieved.

Because, let’s be honest, if the riffraff are His kind of people,

those are the kind of people

we are.

Photo: Awhitu Peninsula, New Zealand

Quote: The Message; Matthew 9:13

How far is my fixation on this handheld device coopting – even corrupting – my life?

Does staring into its ‘light’ feed my greed and my prejudices?

Does it fan flames of distrust?

Does it make my soul squint?

Does it darken my heart and mind against understanding?

Inspired by thoughts expressed so long ago, yet right now they seem more relevant than ever:

“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!” 

The Message; Matthew 6:22,23

Photo: Wide in Wonder, clouds and sunlight over Manila

Let’s not say
anything
we don’t
mean.
We only make
things
worse
when we lay down
a smoke screen
of
pious talk,
saying,
“I’ll pray for you,”
and never
doing it,
or saying,
“God be with you,”
and not
meaning it.
We don’t make
our words
true
by embellishing them
with
religious lace.
In making our speech sound
more
religious
it becomes
less
true.
When we manipulate
our words
to get
our own way,
we go

wrong.

Based on The Message; Matthew 5: 33-37

Photo: New Year’s Eve Filipino sky

Photo: Hope in the storm

This year, for reasons both within and beyond our control, we haven’t hung up a single Christmas decoration. It’s surprisingly liberating!

There’s an unexpected benefit from these circumstances. With the clutter, the glitz, the glamour, the tinsel gone, I can see who is in the room and who is not.

Or in the stable, to be more specific. The occupants: this precious, new family; the calming (if smelly) companionship of these animals. The visitors: a bunch of salt of the earth, behind the scenes folks, these shepherds – the street sweepers, factory workers, bus / jeepney drivers of our world – in a state of dazed shock after their very own angelic live hillside show.

And that’s it.

No, razzmatazz, VIP three kings-wisemen delegation. They come much later to another location.

The family, the shepherds, the animals.

This is where and with whom God chooses to make His entrance.

Let’s not miss it.

The blood, the sweat, the straw, the dung.

There’s something else here.

Hope.

Hope which has absolutely nothing to do with anticipation triggered by the glitter and shimmer of hanging ornaments, or piles of boxes.
No, this is hope of something beyond imagining, charged by the actuality of something that has already happened: the Divine Personified stepping into the room, our room, into our reality, our muck and mess.

Hope is here.

Merry Christmas!

What do you think of when looking at this picture?

(Besides it being “a shouting teabag”, as an observant friend pointed out.)

It’s one of those feel good photos, isn’t it!

Appearances can be so very deceiving.

You want to know the truth behind this shot? An hour or so earlier, I was striding out of the house in a fury of despair. Despite my Englishness, I had no thought of getting a cup of tea at that moment. I just needed to exit before exploding.

It was a curious sensation pressing “post” to share the picture on my Facebook wall. I was intentionally crossing a line, acutely aware of conscious deception: a deliberate choice to present an illusion, an implied reality. I had put on my mask.

My fake subliminal message: I am a cool person who totally knows how to make the most out of life.

My excuse? I tell myself that folks will see through any self-promoting propaganda. After all, they must know I’m just a fellow human being!

Indeed, perhaps the biggest problem with all this feel good photography, is not deceiving others, but rather deluding ourselves.

Who we say we are, is often who we wish we were.

Lord, help us to know when

and how

to take off our masks.