Rut-Time, Rest-Time

I picked up a copy of the Times Ed Supplement resting on the coffee table.  There was an article about teachers (only to be expected) and the way in which the first three years of a teaching career is a flurry of learning and trying new things.  After three years, it would appear, teachers lose the ability to learn new things and fall into a rut.  Twenty years or more experience isn’t really twenty years at all – just three years, and then the rest of the time is repeating those first few years over and over again.

The article went on to contrast the life of a teacher with chess players who become Grand Masters and violin players who become professionals.  What makes them the Master or the professional is “practice”.  What makes the difference between the good players and the best players is down to 40% more practice and practising things they didn’t know.  They weren’t necessarily things that they found enjoyable to do, or fun to do, and they were hard work to do – but that’s what they did. 

It’s easy enough, I suppose, to triumph in your safety zone – but to push yourself out of it and do something you have never done before is a lot more challenging.

As a teacher I couldn’t help but reflect a little on whether that description applied to me - three years learning to teach and then repeating it over again and again for the next twenty to thirty years or more.  Did that describe my career?  Not entirely!  I can’t say that every year brings a flurry of new ideas and trying new things because that would not be true.  But neither are the things I am doing now, the same things I was doing thirty or more years ago.  I see it more as a series of jumps or hops – a flurry of activity and a time of rut-time, followed by another flurry and another period of rut-time.  Rut-time is the wrong expression.  If an activity has gone well it gets repeated, tweaked a little here and there.  If the car isn’t broken, don’t take it to the garage to get it fixed. 

More recently I am not in rut-time, but in full flurry. 

As I was reading the article what came to mind is whether the stuff written about teachers could equally apply to Christians.  I can’t think of any Christian that would not look back on the opening years of their life in Christ and see a flurry learning and activity as they explore the new relationship they have come into.  Is there are time when what happens next is simply a rehash of those first experiences?  Do we reach a time in our Christian lives when we have stepped over a line as it were, and we are safe, and as long as we keep going to church, reading our Bibles and praying, we have done our part.   We triumph in our safety zones and perfect our moves.

Does this in anyway describe my Christian life?  Again, I have to say, not entirely.  As much as I would like, not just every year, but every day, every moment to be a flurry of trying new things – actually I am not sure I would like my Christian life to be like that, or whether God would want it that way either.  There shouldn’t be any rut-time – but rut-time and rest time are very different things.  Just looking outside, trees are resting right now.  There are not leaves as yet, but I can see branches puckering and swelling, making way for a bud to explode as soon as the warm weather comes.  The trees are resting in readiness for activity that’s on the way.  

As regards my Christian life I am sure I am not in rut-time, I may have been in rest time but I am sure I am in bud time.

It is the 40% more practice that challenges me – that and practising the things that I don’t know.  I know how to study the Bible, and how to pray.  I know how to go to church every week.  I am learning how to use what I have learnt to bring my life into line with how God says I should live.  I am beginning to love my enemies and pray for those who hurt me.   There are other things that I haven’t even begun to learn to do, but I am going to start to learn to do them.

Delivered From the Tigers

I have only ever heard the pretty version of “I Dreamed a Dream” - you know - the Susan Boyle version. 

It’s a song from the musical “Les Miserables”.

 A couple of nights ago I sat down to watch the documentary about the film version that has recently been released in some places, but hasn’t made it up the A9 as far as Inverness yet. 

The documentary scrutinised the film.  Everything and everyone was pushed in front of a camera and asked to explain themselves.  Having read one or two reviews it seems that the film was faithful to the stage play – a little too faithful perhaps.  They expected something a little more than the stage show on screen.  Choosing actors who can sing rather than singers who can act was also something that was picked up on. 

With the documentary over, I scooted upstairs to find out what was special about Anne Hathaway and why everyone seems to be already giving her an Oscar for supporting actress.  That’s when I tracked down her version of “I Dreamed a Dream” with the lyrics so I could sing along if I was so inclined. 

Every poet who has  ever strung a few lines together must wish that they wrote the words.  Like most people I can warble the first line confidently, busk my way through the second line and hum the rest of it.  It wasn’t just seeing the lyrics that made an impression on me, but hearing Anne sing them in a context I had never heard before.  Like I said, I’d only heard the pretty version.  

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame
He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came
And still I dream he'll come to me
That we'll live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed

The “dreams that cannot be” and the “storms we cannot weather” drew me to the conclusion that this is really something that I can’t relate to. I have had dreams that never made it to reality.  They weren’t dreams that “cannot be” but dreams that, perhaps, were never meant to be.  I can’t think of any storm that I haven’t weathered – not because of any special talent for survival I possess or any closed eyes to the awfulness of the situation.  The storms in my life have been the turbulent, sink-the-boat type, and I have weathered them.   It hasn’t been anything about me at all but everything about God. 

Last week I had the opportunity to speak to someone.  He was on his way home after spending time with some of the Inverness Street pastors on Christmas day.  After a little food, a little company and a little Christmas present he was going home to an evening of drink and roll-up or two of something other than straight tobacco.  I think I suggested that there might be a better way of spending the evening like going for a walk.  I would like to think that I didn’t come across as judgemental.  The walking stick he carried should have clued me in a little as regards walking.   He talked a while with me. The drink and the drugs were his way of dealing with a medical condition that caused him a lot of pain.  I had churned out some easy answer to a situation that really didn’t have any easy answers at all. 

My experience of pain is a real one.  My history of dreams shattered can match the best of them and outweigh more than a few.  My storms are not merely gentle breezes.   I can relate to those things.   There are times in my life that really are the pits.

What makes me different, I suppose, is my response to all these things.  I have flung myself down before the throne of God with heart-wrenching sobs that all but tore my body apart.  My heart had been shredded by some of the things I’d gone through.  I screamed at God about the unfairness of life and stabbed a finger in the direction of people who seemed untouched by suffering demanding to know why they had a charmed life when I didn’t.

I never came to God just to get something off my chest and make myself feel better.  I came crawling onto his lap because I knew only He could do something about it.  Often He chose not to change my circumstances but always He changed my heart response.

I don’t have any tigers that come at night to tear my hope apart.  I have songs that I sing that speak of deliverance from all tigers.  My hope rests securely in God who rescues me and saves me each and every day.

Passing It On

I have heard more than a few sermons based on the story of the feeding of the 5,000.  I have even preached a few of them myself.  I wonder what preachers have against the feeding of the 4,000 that it doesn’t get so much air play.  Isn’t it just the same story with a thousand less people being fed and a few less baskets of bread and fish bits left over? Not really!

Three days of miracles set the scene. 

“Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.” Matthew 15:30-31

I can imagine that no one wanted to go home just in case they missed something!  Three days of celebration, during which they gave no heed to a physical hunger as a spiritual hunger was satiated.  God was no longer silent, no longer absent, but in Jesus He had stepped into their lives.  God was dealing with whatever it was that disabled them.

It’s Jesus that raised the point that they hadn’t eaten for three days.  I don’t think they had even noticed! 

The loaves of bread and the fishes were located and Jesus gave thanks and broke them.

What happened next wasn’t any different from what happened with the 5,000 – but I just didn’t notice it until now.  I suppose I got so wound up on counting people and counting baskets of left overs and other stuff that it just passed me by.

^“Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people.” (v36)

Jesus gave the bits of the bread and fish to the disciples and they in turn gave them to the people.  Jesus didn’t give the people in the crowd anything.  He gave everything to his disciples.  The responsibility of feeding the crowd was given to them.  If the disciples had not been faithful to the task that Jesus had given them, the people in the crowd would have remained unfed.  They would be hungry.  Instead the account goes on to say “They all ate and were satisfied.”

“They all ate” seems to suggest that it wasn’t just the crowd that ate the bread and the fish.  The disciples ate too – and they were satisfied.  There should be something very unsatisfying about eating our fill when someone else goes hungry.

The thought came to me as I read the verse – what has Jesus given me in the expectation that I will use it to feed those that are hungry?  What has he called me to share with others that I am, perhaps, holding on to?

Jesus didn’t step in to feed the crowd himself.  He supplied the necessary resources and gave it to His followers to distribute.

Jesus continues to supply the necessary resources and He continues to place these resources into the hands of His disciples. 

The reason why so many today are so hungry, both physically and spiritually, is because we are not giving to the people what Christ has given to us to pass on. 

When we withhold giving the things we are supposed to give, the church itself becomes starved, both physically and spiritually.  Our own spiritual well being is tied up with the well being of the people God has given us to feed.

Numbered Days

Each day from secret places

Into the cosmos hurled

Babies loud and lusty

Are born into this world

Imagine then for each a jar

That’s filled with numbered days

Each life has time bestowed on them

To spend in countless ways

Some jars are full and brimming

With decades rich, replete

Others jars seem empty

So bare and incomplete

Why are the jars not equal?

Why is it so unfair?

Is every child not worthy of

A just and equal share?

When God created people

And people walked with Him

The jars jam-packed with minutes

Were filled right to the brim

But men rebelled and squandered

Their time in selfish ways

They wasted hollow hungry years

With endless empty days

A life may last a hundred years

But never know delight

Another life a hundred days

Yet burns with passion bright

It matters not the number of

The minutes men possess

Men are measured not by years

But by the lives they bless

Woundwort's Weapon

“They’re not very big, are they? The Father-of-Lies isn’t going to be impressed.”  Tonguebite peered at the weapons display and wrinkled his nose.

Woundwort wasn’t sure whether he had been promoted or demoted when he was given the job of developing new weapons to arm the sons of darkness.  Chief Weapons Engineer was an occupation with a history of failure, a minefield of a task that had sunk many a promising career in the Underworld.  The Father-of-Lies, curse him, refused to believe that no weapons forged against the loathsome army of light had ever prevailed. 

“You asked for a weapon.  You didn’t specify how big it had to be.”  Woundwort grumbled a little and scratched a flaky patch on his arm.  He frowned, inspecting his arm carefully.  It was possible that his skin had come into contact with the materials he was using.  He chided himself on his carelessness.

Woundwort’s creations were, indeed, very small.   Significantly smaller than a household pin, they were very sharp.  The blunt end was festooned with a dozen fine, black hairs to aid flight.  The sharp end was small enough to penetrate the armour worn by the army of light.  All armour had its chinks, and Woundwort’s darts were engineered to seek out the chinks and find the soft flesh beneath.  Of course, Woundwort was aware that the armour of the army of light was not like conventional armour.  Chinks were hard to find, but, any armour is only effective if it is put on properly. Woundwort knew that any soldier, in any army, light or darkness, takes shortcuts.  A skirmish or two won and the soldier slackens up a little.  He becomes a little too confident and lax in his discipline.  It was this inattention to detail that Woundwort planned to take advantage of.

Tonguebite picked up one of the darts.   He had once heard a preacher deliver a sermon about Satan’s fiery darts.  He had never seen a fiery dart before, and wondered if these were them.  They seemed too small to cause any damage.

“Ouch!”

If Tonguebite had any blood coursing through his veins, which he didn’t, there would have been a small globule of blood on his finger. 

Woundwort took a single step away and snatched up a clipboard from the table.

“We haven’t tested the weapons yet, you understand.  This makes you our first test subject!  Of course, we shall have to factor in the differences between demons and humans –but sometimes the difference is very minimal. Things could get interesting from now on. You have to be very honest about how you’re feeling.” 

It was expecting too much from anyone in the Underworld to be honest, but in the interests of the science Tonguebite was asked to try.

“Well, don’t look so pleased about it.  My arm really itches.”

Woundwort scribbled furiously.

“It’s very warm in here.  Why is the heating on?”

Woundwort popped a thermometer into Tonguebite’s mouth, watched the clock on the wall for one minute exactly and wrote down some numbers on the paper.

“I have better things to do, you know…and it’s about time someone told you about your bad breath.”

Woundwort breathed on the palm of his hand and sniffed it suspiciously. 

“I’d ask for a cup of coffee or something but you don’t know how to make decent coffee.  And you never have any sugar…or milk.”

Woundwort frowned.  He liked his coffee black and strong and in a chipped cup.

“Well, talk to me at least.  Even your mindless chatter is better than this silence.”

Tonguebite harped on for some considerable time.  Every tiny irritation about everything was aired without restraint.  He didn’t like Woundwort’s laboratory.  There was a smell he couldn’t quite identify.  The white of Woundwort’s coat was just too white.  It hurt his eyes.  He didn’t really approve of Woundwort’s friends.  They were too unsavoury, even for the Underworld.  He didn’t like the fact that Woundwort never gambled.  A demon should have many vices, and Woundwort clearly didn’t have enough.

Woundwort kept writing.  His smile broadened with each complaint. 

Tonguebite’s spate of complaints gradually dried up.

“For a first weapons test that was definitely successful!”

Tonguebate raised an eyebrow.

The tiny darts were designed to get beneath the skin.  Little irritations made their way to the surface and were expressed.  Faith, Woundwort understood, could not flourish in such a negative environment.  Without faith the army of light were easy to destroy.

Tonguebite gazed at Woundwort with something like awe.