Thoughts on Life

‘Fill your lives with love and bravery and you will lead a life uncommon’ - ‘Life Uncommon’ – Jewel

The life Jesus lived was a life uncommon. In fact it was so uncommon that no-one has been able to lead a life like it before or since. It is a life which gives us the ultimate guide on how to live in a Godly manner. And now we have the Spirit to give us power - the power to do what is right. That is why Jesus said that when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth (John 16: 13). When we live this life, a life lived in total devotion and commitment to Jesus, we too live a life uncommon.

Romans 12: 2 says to not be conformed to the pattern of the world but to be transformed by the renewing of your minds. It is a life lived against the grain, a life of swimming against the tide of popular opinion and cultural norms.

Martin Luther King talked about this when he spoke of living the life of a transformed nonconformist in his magnificent Strength to Love. Most of us don’t live this life, preferring instead to live a life of maximum comfort. As we think of people like King, Gandhi and JFK - the latter having told his countrymen 50 years ago this week to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country - we remember that such people inspire us, but how many of us would actually go as far as to take that life seriously and actually live it?

When Jesus talked about coming to give us abundant life (John 10: 10), He was not referring to simply enjoying the life we live here and now (although life certainly is to be enjoyed). He was talking about living a life of following Him, which starts by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. The life uncommon that we then lead, the counter-cultural life, the life of swimming against the tide, is the only life worth living.

“Days turn to minutes, and minutes to memories. Life sweeps away the dreams that we have planned” - John Mellencamp, Minutes to Memories

There is a scene in the movie Up in the Air where George Clooney’s character is trying to convince his brother-in-law-to-be to not jilt his bride on their wedding day. The groom has cold feet and isn’t sure he wants to go through with such a huge commitment. And Clooney, who is starting to realise the loneliness of his own 24/7 casual jetsetting lifestyle, asks the groom to remember all of the happiest times of his life. As the groom starts to think, he realises that they were all spent with other people; the happiest times of his life were when he was not by himself.

I was being shown some photos of the family of a friend the other day. This person has eight siblings and the family gets together often to celebrate birthdays and other special occasions. As I was driving home that day I felt a sadness come over me. I am one of three brothers who all live in different cities. Soon we will all be living in different countries. I don’t have a large family to see here. I was then reminded of some family friends whose extended family now spans four generations. The first and second generations of this family have spent every summer holiday for the last 40 years at the same place. Some would say “how boring!” but I think it’s wonderful. This family can associate that place with the best moments of their lives. I have sometimes joined them on their holidays and I have always felt just as much a part of their family as the blood relations themselves.

We have been sold a lemon in our busy 24/7 lives. We have been taught to believe that our happiness actually lies in having more stuff and not having people bother us all the time. Many of us would rather live on our own than go through the hassle of sharing a house with someone else. And many of us would rather the all-fun-and-no-responsibility of casual sex than the hard work and struggle of a committed relationship.

We live a lonely existence in the western world. I heard someone say recently that we know more of what is happening on the other side of the world than we do about our next-door neighbours. We build our fences higher and spend more time online than we do getting to know people face-to-face. I remember growing up in suburban Melbourne and knowing every person or family in our street. I still have memories of our next-door neighbour passing some of our kitchen chairs that he had just fixed back over the fence to us. I wonder how many of our children today will have those memories when they look back in 30 years’ time.

I was talking to a colleague on the bus during the week about this. This lady is African and has been living in Australia for about a year now. As we were discussing what life is like for her compared to back home, she remarked that one of the things she has noticed is the number of people who either live alone or who spend time alone. She said that in her country it was a duty to introduce yourself to your neighbours when you moved into a new area. It is just part of what you do. And sure enough, people quickly get to know each other and there is a lot less fear in their neighbourhoods than there is in much of suburban Australia. We are poorer for the fact that we generally don’t do that as well in this country.

Our deepest and most cherished memories are indeed of those times spent in relationship. It is often difficult but it far outweighs the pain of the lonely crowd, of not feeling connected to the people closest to us. Dave Andrews has said that community is somewhere where there is always someone you don’t want to be around, and some friends of mine once said that anything worth doing is never going to be easy. Our lives in this world are short and we never know when our time is up. The writer of Ecclesiastes was right - our lives are vanished in an instant; we come from the dust and to the dust we will return (Ecclesiastes 3: 20). And it can all seem like a chasing after the wind. Life does indeed sweep away the dreams we have planned.

The hard work of bringing in community, of getting to know our neighbours, can be so simple. A friend of mine said during the week that just having a kick of the footy in the street can bring other children out. Then all of a sudden conversations start, people get to know each other and walls of fear and mistrust break down.

Jesus did this when He broke all the social conventions of 1st century culture by associating with tax collectors and ’sinners’. Jesus knew how to have a good time, and He told His disciples of the joy He had within Him. His life was about relationship and the early church followed in His footsteps. They endured the daily struggle of living in community, they shared all they had; they passed their kitchen chairs over the fence to each other, if they even had fences. And their lives were so attractive that they added to their number daily those who were being saved from their own loneliness and self-absorption to life in the community of Jesus.

Does all this stir up a longing within you, a longing for things that once were? Do you have similar childhood memories to the ones I have related and wish they could be the reality once again? One day when the new heavens and the new earth come together and all things are made new, we will enjoy that community again. But this time it will be complete and we will create new memories, memories which will live forever. And the wonderful news of the Gospel is that Jesus calls us to that new life now. He calls us to deny ourselves, to do the hard work of relationship and to put our lonely, selfish ways behind us.

He came that we would have life in all its fullness. And that life is only found in community. It is found in community with those who are also living for justice and peace, those who struggle with each other in the now but who also live in the hope of the not-yet, that time when all barriers will be broken down and all things reconciled in the glorious world to come.

There is much more to say about these profound lyrics by John Mellencamp. Memories can be cherished and they can be painful. Far too many people have memories that are just too traumatic to raise again. All of us have dreams that have been shattered, expectations that did not eventuate, and hopes that were never realised. One of the best pieces of advice I have heard, from two different people, is that life is mainly about how we deal with loss, ultimately to the loss of our life.

Psychologist Larry Crabb says we can use disappointment to drive us to hope. What Crabb is referring to is the ultimate hope of the renewal of all things. When days turn to minutes, and minutes to memories, and life sweeps away the dreams that we have planned, remember that we are destined for more. This life is not all there is. Remember too that everything we do in this life matters. What Martin Luther King Jr called the beloved community starts now. The greatest things in our lives are those done in relationship. When we live this out we will be able to look back and have memories that move us to gratitude - gratitude to God for giving us the courage to follow the One who calls us to remember, to remember what He has done in sacrificing His all and giving us the privilege of working with Him to bring in the kingdom where our dreams of love and justice, and forgiveness and grace will finally be realised.

I love you ‘cos I need to, not because I need you. I love you ‘cos I understand that God has given me your hand – U2, Luminous Times

I was walking through the café at work the other day and heard this U2 song playing over the airwaves. The next line of the song says “hold on to love”. Love is the only force that triumphs over anything. It often comes across as weakness but it succeeds where others perpetually fail.

Much of what we call love though is really an emotional neediness which comes across as being nice, but is actually designed to protect us from rejection. I know this because I do it all the time. As I realise this more I realise how committed I am to not experiencing the pain of someone not loving me in return. My good deeds are often cloaked in the convincing veneer of niceness. And I am further blinded to this when people feed back to me about how nice I have been to them.

True love comes out of a deep conviction that love does indeed transform an enemy into a friend, as Abraham Lincoln said so long ago. It comes out of a deep conviction that love is the most powerful force in the universe. That’s why the words of this song are so powerful.

The paradox of true love though is that there is a genuine neediness about it. True love loves because of a human need to live this way; it is the way we are wired. At the same time, true love does not need the other in a negative self-protective way to boost its own ego or identity. It is free of all that; it is free to truly love the other no matter the response. If the response is hatred, true love continues to love; if the response is indifference or apathy, true love continues to love; and if the response is love reciprocated, true love still continues to love.

As I write I am reminded of two famous people who both talked and walked this attitude in their lives. I speak of course of Martin Luther King Jr and Mother Teresa. Dr King talked often of the power of redemptive, suffering love, and Mother Teresa has the following words attributed to her, which were apparently written on the wall of her home for children in Kolkata, India. Even if they were not written by her, they fully encapsulate the life she lived:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centred. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

Hold on to love. Cultivate it, learn it, and most of all, ask God for it, because we simply don’t have in us the capacity to live a life of love without the Spirit of Jesus living in us and guiding us. He will redeem the ugliness of our self-protective neediness into a love that only the Divine can empower us with.

“All the books you never read, just started; all the meals you rushed, never tasted”
- U2, Falling at Your Feet

I lament our loss of reflection in this information age. We are the most informed generation in history but we are losing the art of reflection. We are constantly wired - and I don’t mean just connected to an iPod or iPhone, but emotionally wired. When we are constantly consuming information, we are no longer being still and thinking about the deeper issues of life. Everything is rushed. We are overwhelmed with choice and we no longer feel at peace with ourselves. We have everything at our fingertips but don’t know anymore how to be. We think we have to always be doing something; we feel guilty when we aren’t being ‘productive’; and we wonder if we’re being lazy when we’re lying around on a Sunday afternoon.

Linked to this loss of reflection is our culture’s obsession with experience. We have a terrifying fear of missing out. We are the addict who thinks we cannot do without more and better. We talk about things being boring or cool. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe in leading a boring life. The life of following Jesus is anything but boring; it is counter-cultural and filled with opportunities. But what this means is that we live a life that is other-centred and not based on how we feel at a certain time. A life of other-centredness is one that doesn’t have to look for the next fix because it is inherently satisfying. It is borne out of a deep knowing that we are loved by God and therefore don’t need to spend our days and years trying to prove ourselves to others. We are free to love and serve our fellow human beings. This is what it is to be a follower of Jesus. This is life, and deep down we know it is the right way to live.

The way of Jesus gives the most satisfaction, the most depth and the greatest enjoyment of life. This is anything but boring, but it is not a life that seeks to avoid boredom as an end in itself. It is a life that has a higher end; a life that has found something better. For, if we do not find what we are really looking for, we will inevitably go back to the life we lived before, and, such being human nature, we will pick up where we left off and it will be worse than before. Jesus spoke of this when He told about the house from which a demon has departed but then has other demons more evil than the first one come back and make the house worse than before (Matthew 12: 43-45).

Life in the information age promises so much but delivers so little. We are still dependent beings. The fact of human nature is that we simply cannot live without outside help. We are created with a God-shaped hole and, as St Augustine and others down through the ages have said, we are forever restless until we find our hope in Christ. No wonder Edward Mote could write the words of that famous hymn back in the 1830s, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand”.

We are indeed in trouble when our information age gives us so much to take in but leaves us with so little time to reflect on it. The Christian message is one which offers a way out of our malaise; a way out of the self-centred slavery to which we are addicted. The way to life is to fall at the feet of the One who is Life itself; Jesus, who says to our weary and information-burdened age, “Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest”. It is when we reflect on this that we come back to reality and find the life that is truly life, where we share with those people down through the centuries who have had their lives unburdened and their hopes transformed.

Some more words from Falling at Your Feet sum it up eloquently:

all the information
all the big ideas
all the radio waves
electronic seas
how to navigate
how to simply be
to know when to wait
this plain simplicity
in whom shall I trust
how might I be still
teach me to surrender
not my will, Thy will

‘I’ve got no shame…oh can’t you see what love has done?’ - U2, Window in the Skies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeQzoBrCxh8

Therapist John Bradshaw talks about the concept of toxic shame, which arises out of the core belief that you are a bad person rather than a loved person who still tends to go their own way.

Bradshaw uses this concept in relation to the addict who hates their destructive behaviour but is unable to stop it. He then goes on to talk about the inner child and how that child has been deeply wounded and has never grown up. And so we have, in our society today, many children walking around in adult’s bodies. Toxic shame is destructive and must be distinguished from healthy shame. The latter is born of a healthy conscience which lets us know when we have done something destructive. Some might also use the term ‘convicted’ as in when we are convicted of sin.

The huge difference between healthy shame and toxic shame is that when something destructive is done, toxic shame concludes, “I’m a bad person”, whereas healthy shame says “I’ve done the wrong thing but I’m still loved”. The difference lies deep down in the human psyche; it has to do with our core beliefs about who we are. The person filled with toxic shame has a core belief that “I am not worth loving and so therefore it makes sense that I would take part in behaviour that is destructive, both to others and to myself”. The person who is able to feel healthy shame when they do something destructive has a core belief that they are loved unconditionally, and the fact that they occasionally do the wrong thing does not take away from that.

The person filled with toxic shame is much more likely to participate in behaviours that result in a downward spiral of destruction even though they don’t want to. The prime example of this is the addict who desperately wants to stop but finds themselves absolutely powerless to do so.They are trapped in a cycle where their behaviour confirms in their own mind that they are hopeless, so they may as well act like it. So then they act like it, which further confirms their core belief, and so the cycle continues.

The person with such a core belief is also trapped in another sense. They are trapped in the sense that they are unable to focus on anything outside of themselves. Their lives are focused ever inward and they are unable to give. Thus they are self-centred in the extreme. They often want to be a different person, but because they are trapped in the cycle of self, they are never able to realise their full potential. They are therefore despondent and miserable, without joy, unable to think clearly, and riddled with anxiety.

The only cure for the deep wound in the human heart is having a deep knowing of divine forgiveness. John Smith said many years ago that the effect of acceptance of forgiveness on society is much more powerful than any social welfare theory.

Knowing that you are a loved child of God quite literally makes all the difference in the world. It frees you from the bondage of self; it frees you to be able to give and to love, and thereby find the life you’ve always been looking for. The old words of the 1st letter of John are true - we love because He first loved us.

In a society where we are (literally) sold the message that having more stuff will cure the ache within, where the idea of ‘retail therapy’ is believed by millions, the words of Jesus have more relevance than ever - “what will it profit you if you gain the whole world but lose your very self?”.

May you know the life that is truly life; a life of service of others in the name of Jesus. Perfect love drives out all fear, all anxiety, and all toxic shame. Never again need we resort to acts which hurt others and which in turn hurt ourselves. If the Son will set you free, you will be free indeed. We have been given grace upon grace. Freely we have received, so we can freely give, all because He first loved us.

‘Love rescue me, come forth and speak to me. Raise me up and don’t let me fall. No man is my enemy, my own hands imprison me. Love rescue me…I’m here without a name, in the palace of my shame…Love rescue me’ - U2, Love Rescue Me

Most, if not all, of what we say is spoken out of the deep recesses of our being. Out of the heart the mouth speaks. We are only so good at hiding what is really going on inside. Those with eyes to see however, and with hearts to care, will notice and gently bring to the surface the deep things that are troubling us. We are privileged if we have such friends in our lives.

In this haunting ballad, Bono seems to sing of a deep need for redemption. We are adept at bringing across an image of togetherness, of security. Our greatest fear is that we will be exposed in all our ugliness and as a result rejected - discarded on the scrapheap of life. Every day we bring across an image that all is well with our souls. The reality though is that, as we put on our make-up and get on the bus to struggle through another day, the way we look on the outside often betrays the reality of how we feel on the inside. Struggling through the tiredness as we head towards the office, we know that deep down there has to be more than this.

But love offers a way out, indeed offers and - amazingly - provides a life beyond ourselves. Salvation is the restoration of the image of God inside us, and the glory of God is a human being fully alive, to quote some words of long ago.

The good news is that, as in the last verse of this song, and is in many of the Psalms, all is well that ends well. We can turn the first verse of this song around and sing ‘Love rescued me, came forth and spoke to me, raised me up and didn’t let me fall’. Here’s how U2 put it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68De1d2bJHM