the desert

Last week, we went on a road trip to Canberra for Ali's brother's wedding. 14 hours each way, driving across the hay plain...
For those of you who don't know, the Hay Plain is a huge strip of road that connects Adelaide and Sydney and Canberra. It's a couple hundred kms of road, that in places is just plain straight for kms on end.

It's a very desolate place, and as we were driving it, I found myself able to pray and think really clearly, because there was nothing to distract me and a thought struck me that I'd never considered before. One of the advantages of desert experiences, and, I think, one of the reasons they are so powerful is because there are no distractions. As we move into the desert (whether that is literally or figuratively) we move away from the distractions that stop us thinking clearly, hearing clearly, praying clearly.

The other thing that hit me is that the purpose of spiritual disciplines (including the discipline of simplicity) is to take us into the desert - into places where we can move away from distractions, and hear, listen and pray.

hoping to live... but not living

I read this quote from Blaise Pascal (French mathematician and theologian who lived in the 17th century) today - wow.

"We never keep our minds on the present moment. We remember the past, as if we wanted to slow down the passage of time. And we look forward to the future, as if we wanted time to accelerate. We wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think about the only time that does. We dream of times past and future, and flee from the present. The reason is that the present is usually painful. We push it out of sight because it distresses us - only on those few occasions which are truly enjoyable are we sorry to see time slip away. We try to reduce present pain with joyful hopes of the future, planning how we are going to arrange things in a period over which we have no control and which we cannot be sure of reaching... The past and the present are our means, and the future alone is our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live. We are never actually happy, but constantly planning how to become happy."

What a challenge to think about the present in a different way...

finally...

I had one of those "moments" the other day. I love watching House, and regularly, at the end of a show, they have incredible songs - real poignant, and generally real chilled. I've been thinking for the last couple years "why don't they bring out a CD of those songs", and... they have!


I bought it yesterday - love it.

trust

I've been doing more thinking about this whole trust issue (some of you know the reasons for that!), and yesterday, I journalled the following:

What have I learned about trust?

— It’s about believing in the unknown – you don’t need to trust if you know the answer.

— It’s about believing the best – trust is not expecting that the other party is going to do you wrong, but believing they want the best for you

— It’s about not being in control – you don’t need to trust if you’re the one driving… if you’re in the passenger seat, you have to trust the driver knows where they’re going

— It’s about moving into the undefined – not about a clear plan (so why keep trying to make them?!)

— It’s loaded with patience – you have to be patient and wait for the outcome

— It’s about peace – if you trust, you don’t stress, you just “are”, and you can exist in that moment, not worrying about the next

Still trying to learn how to trust...

the kingdom

As you can see from my "reading" list, I'm reading "The Secret Message of Jesus" by Brian McLaren at the moment. In it, McLaren writes about how the imagery that Jesus uses of the Kingdom of God may not be as helpful for us, because Kingdoms are largely irrelevant to us, so he lists a number of alternatives that he's been pondering.

The one I love the most is the idea of the Dream of God - stronger language than the "wish" of God - so when Jesus says "the Kingdom is at hand", we could interpret that as "the dream of God is at hand". Because I've done a reasonable amount of thinking on the Kingdom, I hadn't connected the truth that for Joe Public, this is probably a foreign concept - I think I've actually been interpreting "Kingdom" along the lines of "dream", but haven't had the words to explain it.

I also love the idea of the network of God, and the dance of God - again, very powerful images which help me as I consider what it means to live according to "Kingdom values".