The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Frederick Buechner
Guiding Light
BANDWIDTH / Foy Vance from Bandwidth on Vimeo.
If you have the time watch this entire video but, if not, at 3.45 Foy Vance excels himself with 'Guiding Light'. It's absolutely beautiful. The end of the video is also truly special. Enjoy.
Goodbye 2010
Hi folks,
It has been a while since I blogged but I thought I'd say hello. Hope you had a good festive season and wish you and yours a very happy New Year.
Here's to life, love, change and creativity in 2011.
I'll leave you with my song of the year... Nathaniel Rateliff's 'Early Spring Till'
Enjoy.
J.
You never trust a millionaire quoting the sermon on the mount
Arcade Fire's critically acclaimed new album, The Suburbs, is loaded with spiritual references.
Buried in the middle of 'City With No Children' are the great lines:
'You never trust a millionaire quoting the sermon on the mount
I used to think I was not like them but I'm beginning to have my doubts
My doubts about it
When you're hiding underground
The rain can't get you wet
But do you think your righteousness could pay the interest on your debt?
I have my doubts about it'
Win Butler, thems is some heavy lyrics. They are pointers to what, I feel, God has been telling me lately.
My faith, if it can be called that in this context, still seems to start with me, not with God. That its now time I ditched my self-made spirituality where my pursuit of God is riddled with selfishness.
I'm slowly coming to realise that this approach is fundamentally wrong; it's God who pursues me. To quote another well-known lyric, 'Sometimes, you can't make it on your own'.
'But do you think your righteousness could pay the interest on your debt?
I have my doubts about it'
Mumford & Sons
I had the pleasure of going to see Mumford & Sons in Belfast this week as part of the Open House Festival. It was, naturally, a great gig. This is a picture I took on my phone as I left the marquee at Custom House Square.
Towards the end of the show they played a song called 'After the Storm' which Marcus Mumford admitted they didn't often play live. Here are some of the beautiful lyrics:
'And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair'.
It's not a race
This pretty much sums up how I feel at the moment. I'm fed up with the competition cause I've realised there isn't one. It's not a race.
Though the scriptures speak insistently of the divine initiative in the work of salvation, that by grace we are saved, that the Tremendous Lover has taken to the chase, (our) spirituality still seems to start with self, not with God. Personal responsibility replaces personal response. We seem engrossed in our own efforts to grow in holiness. We talk about acquiring virtue, as if it were some kind of skill that can be acquired through personal effort, like good handwriting or a well-grooved golf swing. In seasons of penance, we focus on getting rid of our hang-ups and sweating through various spirtitual exercises, as if they were a religious muscle-building program.
The emphasis is always on what I do rather than on what God is doing in my life. In this macho approach God is reduced to a benign spectator on the sidelines. It orients us to attribute any growth in the spiritual life to our own sturdy efforts and vigorous resolutions. We become convinced that we can do a pretty good job of following Jesus if we just, once and for all, make up our minds and really buckle down to it. Well, if that's all there is to Christian discipleship, then in the words of the singer Peggy Lee, "Let's break out the booze." All we're doing is transferring the legend of the self-made man from the economic sphere to the spiritual one.
What makes this day good?
This poem was used at a Good Friday church service I attended over Easter. Here it is:
If you have ever believed that love inevitably leads to betrayal
this day says it doesn’t.
If you have ever believed that some people are unloveable, irredeemable
this day says they aren’t.
If you have ever believed that there is a limit to forgiveness
this day says there isn’t.
If you have ever believed you aren’t worth saving
this day says you are.
If you have ever believed that you don’t deserve freedom
this day says you do.
If you have ever believed that fear, anger, hate and despair will always win
this day says they won’t.
And this day is good for you.
Cheryl Lawrie
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