Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys!

You may have seen this phrase roaming around social media recently; it seems to be popping up all over the place. There's even a couple of pages by the name now - which is where this pic came from:-

As you can see, it's a Polish proverb, so I asked a Polish friend what it means, so I got the sense of it right (though, to be honest, it's pretty straightforward). She told me it's basically the same as 'none of my business'; though much more expressive. Which may tell you something about the English character.

Anyway, the phrase kind of stuck in my head and made me think about monkeys. I went to Kenya a couple of years back now, and when we were there, we saw plenty of monkeys. They weren't everywhere, but they were quite common, and there was one feature of monkeys that soon becomes obvious - monkeys do what they want to do. They're pretty much uncontrollable; and completely chaotic. So, what does that say about life? If the 'monkeys' are our circumstances, our feelings, everything that goes to make up our personal situations, does that mean that life is barely controlled chaos?

After all, even though circuses are made up of well rehearsed performances; they're still bright and colourful and explosively eye-catching, with what look like incredibly risky close calls sometimes. Certainly sounds like a much better description of life than business. Relationships should never be treated just as a business transaction. Ever. Relationships mean treating people as people, seeing them as interesting unpredictable individuals who can be worse than you fear and kinder than you dream - which will definitely be chaotic, and probably messy at times. But that's the difference between love and tolerance - which I also wrote about in this other post involving Polish people.

(And apart from the fact that God wants us to love everyone - not just tolerate them - there's always the fact that if you help others deal with their monkeys, they may just help you deal with yours...)

I Am Margaret

I recently read an ebook - a debut novel by a Catholic author. I was given Amazon vouchers for my birthday, and was wondering what to spend them on, when I saw an ad for this:-
                                              
                                                            

This is the cover for 'I Am Margaret', and I think it's brilliant. It's both simple and powerful, partly because it is so stark. It gives something of an impression of what the novel holds, while also showing somewhat the tone of the novel. Stark and powerful - both the cover and the novel itself.

Set in a dystopian future, it is the story of Margaret, who is judged imperfect and taken to the Facility, where she will ultimately be dismantled, broken down for spare parts while fully conscious - unless she can escape. But no-one has ever escaped from a Facility before...

And it is the story of those in the Facility with her, not all of whom survive. The Facility is the ultimate expression of the world they exist in; a world where people are valued for what they are rather than who they are, a world where the material is all that is allowed to exist.

Without giving too much away, I will say that there is more going on in this book than at first appears on the surface - and that 'I Am Margaret' is the title of more than just this book. It peels back the layers of society in much the same way as the society peels away the layers of those who are dismantled; and it questions whether people really are just what they seem on the surface. Is there more to life than this - and, if so, what?

I also really liked the characterisation of the various people in the book, both guards and inmates. Particularly the character of Sarah, who is brain damaged due to an accident in her childhood; and genuinely has no idea of why she is there, and not much more of what could happen, what will happen.

This reminded me a bit of 'The Cure' by Michael Coleman, and like that ended with a note of hope; but unlike that, the story doesn't end here. This is the first of a trilogy, and I have to say I'm very much looking forward to the next in the series. but for now, I'lll leave you with this trailer:-

                                                                  

Holiness And Boredom

A bit of an odd title, you may think - or you may be entirely happy with the idea that the two are linked. It is, I understand, quite a common idea that holiness is boring; or, at least, doing the things that lead to holiness are. I know where this idea sort of comes from, but I've never really understood how it developed. From what I know, the idea is all to do with the idea of asceticism being the ultimate 'good'; and, even for those of us who still live in the world, the idea of self-denial being what holiness is all about. After all, one fruit of the Spirit is self-control, isn't it?

But self-control does not mean self-denial; not at all. In the same way that the word temperance has changed meaning - it originally meant 'moderation', now it is used to mean 'abstinence' (particularly from alcohol - another idea that the Bible doesn't teach) - there has been an overreaction in the direction of caution. People didn't want to teach grace as being completely unlimited, because it felt like there would be no incentive to grow, to change. Or something like that.

                                                     

As we know, or at least think we do, that God loves us, but doesn't want us to stay how we are, we want to co-operate; and we also want some sort of reassurance that we are doing the right thing, that we are 'getting it right'. And it's not so very far from there to coming up with rules and regulations; so that we may see how well we are doing - and how well others aren't. And that becomes a cage; it is restrictive, painful, annoying, and yes, boring.

That's not what God wants. He wants to give us life - a full life, an abundant life. And life means growth. We can't be perfect straight away, just like we can't be fully grown immediately - but the idea is that we can and will grow into full maturity. However long that takes. And one thing we can be sure of is that it will take longer than we would like it to. Growing is something that takes a loong time sometimes, and it's not entirely in our control - but we can encourage it to grow the way we want to grow. By what we eat and how (much) we exercise, for example. And what we do spiritually has exactly the same effect. That's what holiness is all about in the end. And, essentially, it is the end...

Take Note - An Interlude

Some things God said to me at church tonight. The first thing was to Take Note - God Is Interested In You. Not in a sort of scientist studying a fascinating and obscure specimen way; but that He wants to encourage you. He wants you to remember that He is for you, that He has your best interests in mind, and He wants to guide you into that future. He knows your potential, and He wants to encourage you that you can give more, do more and be more than you dreamed you could. Especially be more. He wants you to remember that.

That was at the beginning of a talk on grace. Grace is all about God reaching out to us, searching for us before we even thought about Him. And keeping on doing that. But it means more than that. He doesn't just want to stay at at distance, He wants to get close to us, and us to get close to Him. As Adrian Plass has said, it was easy for him to think that God loved him, but that didn't really mean much - after all, that's sort of His job. But what really helped him, was when he came to the understanding that, as he put it, God is nice and He likes me. So remember, God Is Nice, And He Likes You.

And the other thing He said was about promises. He wanted people to know that what He has promised, both generally and specifically, are real. He wanted to remind them of the promises, and underline them. He has not forgotten. I don't know what it is He has promised you, but He does and you do - He has not forgotten.

So, take note and remember...

In Courage

I've been quite busy recently, as I've been working full time - and mainly on my own. As I haven't really stopped doing other things, I have ended up being really quite tired over this week or so. And when I get tired, I can get quite low and spending time with people is the last thing I want to do. Being an introvert, that makes me even more tired.

So, that was part of the reason I wasn't sure if I could make it to my life group/cluster meeting on Wednesday. However, I was pretty sure that God wanted me there, so I asked Him to help me get there; to give me His strength to get there. And I got there.

I can't really remember much of the evening, to be honest. We were discussing our third session on spiritual gifts, which was supposed to be on hospitality, prophecy and encouragement. As two of those are two of my main gifts, that would probably be a good reason to be there; but it didn't turn out that way.

First, we talked about hospitality, which is one I don't find comes to me naturally, and that took an interesting turn. Obviously, opening our homes up to invite people round, as people do for life group and small group each week is a vital part of it, but it was also suggested that just giving people time is being hospitable too. And someone said that it should be the case that if we really love each other, then any of us could phone or just turn up at someone's house because they need to talk. I don't know if that ever would happen, or even could; but wouldn't it be great if it did?

And then, the main part of the evening, which was a little unexpected. We talked a bit about encouragement, and then got on to the main part of the session, where we all got given a piece of paper with our names on it and passed it around for everyone to write something encouraging on it. Which took a little longer than had been anticipated, clearly. And that was presumably why I was there. It's always good to encourage people, and now we each have a permanent reminder of how some people see us.

The one of these I can remember clearly is that someone said I am incredibly kind hearted. I think I know who that is from, because there is one person who has said that to me before. But it's nice not only to know she thinks that, but she stands by saying it. I don't really remembe the rest, but that's fine - after all, the point is that I have them written down and I can reread it whenever I like. We all can.

Mothers, and Father

I have had a busy week in a way, this week. I've been working full time this week, as my manager is on holiday, and I've been too tired to really think about doing much outside of work. Which has meant that there hasn't really been anything to talk about on here. However, yesterday was Mothering Sunday (not Mother's Day), and was also the end of a conference at church.

Mothering Sunday is not Mother's Day (which apparently is in May)-the origin of it was to celebrate at your 'mother' church, to enable families to spend time together. Read about it here if you want to know more. But it's still a good excuse to spend time with my mum, which I did. I didn't go to her church, though, as I had to be at mine in the morning to sell tickets for a performance by Springs Dance Company called 'Bread of Life'. It's on Maundy Thursday (March 28th) if you're interested.
Anyway, as I had to be there at the end of the service, it only made sense to be there for the actual service. Where the speaker was one of speakers we'd had at the conference during the week. He started by getting people to pray for people who had problems with back pain, all of whom got better. One is a good friend of mine, and I spoke to her after the service, and I can say definitely that she frankly said the pain was gone. Which is cool. And a good way to start a talk. I can only really remember a few things about his talk; the main thing being a story about a guy in a gang who first came to his church because he wanted to shoot him. He didn't do anything, and left in a hurry at the end of the service. Shortly after that, he got arrested; and Robbie (Dawkins, the speaker) went to visit him in prison. He was aggressive at first, and was in his face, and demanded that Robbie tell him what he did to him. Robbie didn't know what he meant and said so; he told him that when he went to the church he found himself unable to move until the end, so he got out of there. Robbie told him that was God, and He wanted to give him the chance to have a different life. The guy refused at first, but on being told that most of the N.T. was written by a murderer decided he wanted to. Robbie prayed for him in the interview cell, and his face changed. He said that he had been carrying round rage, hate and shame all his life, and it had gone. I had tears in my eyes at that point, though that wasn't the end of the story. If you want to hear it all, you can listen here- the talk is 'The Presence in the Boat'.

So then, I went to see my mum. My sister wasn't there, possibly as her daughter had decided she was going to come home early from her dad's house as she "should be with you on Mother's Day", and she was going to make her lunch. I don't know how that went; originally she was going to do breakfast, which she was quite confident she knew how to do. And so I spent a nice few hours with my mum, talking about all sorts of things, but I remember Lent and church came up in the conversation a lot. Which was nice, but all good things must come to an end (and, thankfully, bad ones); and so, I went back home-or at least to the evening service.
Where the talk was on grace. I can remember him talking about waves and tides cleaning up beaches; about how after a holiday weekend, the beach is in a real state, but with time and tides, it gets restored. This may seem a small, simple thing, but it's far from that. To realise, to remember that whatever has happened God not only can but will restore is a vital truth to hang on to. It may be all you do have to hang on to sometimes, until He does it. If you need it, that talk is available too, on the same page.
And then, I had some good times with friends, some I've only started to get to know recently. And I spoke to Dan Browne, who tried to get me to go to the A.S.E.T. ball this coming week. When I said I couldn't afford it, he prayed for me to be given money. Just in general, not money to go. So it will be interesting to see what God does.