I have a leak

I have a problem with water.

For some reason I cannot fully determine I have a recurrent puddle on the floor of what we call the ‘boot room’ (the little room by the back door where we leave shoes and other outdoor things) at my house. 

The only water that is meant to be in the room is in the heating system and the radiator and pipes are dry. There is no staining on the ceiling and no marks on the walls. All I can think is that there has been a lot of rain in the last few days and the drain by the wall there might be blocked (in fact I am off to see if I can unblock it shortly).

If it is then water will seep. That is what water does.

As I have been pondering about how difficult it is to find sources of leaks, though, because water seeps I have reflected that there are other things that seep in our lives. Jesus talked about the kind of things that come out of our hearts (anger, malice, etc…) and that people would know that we were His followers if we loved each other. We have seep-y hearts I think.

I suppose I am wondering if I only notice water-puddles or whether I am alert to the more spiritual ones too?

Cycling with boys

Last weekend I cycled 60 miles with my son and some of his friends.

I observe that reactions to this are sharply divided. Most people react with a “Wow, that’s a long way” response, particularly for the boys. Some, however, who are into cycling smile and comment that this sounds like a good starter by way of cycling trips.

We took it easy, stopping regularly and eating plenty of chocolate and I have to say it was a very pleasant couple of days without serious incident. What was lovely was seeing the character of the boys come through.

My main reflection, though, is that it is amazing what you can achieve if you just keep going. None of us are fit cyclists. When we set out it felt like the journey was going to be endless and might not be achievable. However, we just kept going. We didn’t rush, we tried not to grumble when another hill came, and the miles passed.

It is amazing what we, even the smallest of us, can achieve when we are willing to give it a go and just keep going.

Rhythms

OK, I admit it. I feel bad, even though there is no real reason I should. I have just noticed that it is almost two weeks since I last posted a blog and that is not very good. I have, though, been amazed at the number of different people who have said that they have been reading and I feel bit off that I have allowed the posts to slip.

What is interesting me more, though, is why they have slipped.

When I was abroad I had a rhythm for each day, to be honest because ‘being on sabbatical’ was the only thing I had to do. This meant that I got a lot written on the various projects that I have been considering and each day I wrote a reflection arising from that day. Back in the UK two things have changed. One is that I have been building the poustinia and the other is that I have been spending time with the family.

Building anything is unpredictable. It is possible to write for a two-hour block and the go to chapel, write a blog or go for a walk. It is not possible to stop with a wall half fixed upright or roof-felt half stuck down because, if you do, it is highly likely that you will need to redo everything you have done when you return due to wind and weather. Thus other things get pressed.

Time with the family has been wonderful. I hate being away from them. However what this means at the moment is that no two days are the same. I am spending 5 days a week away from home, and they join me at the weekends (so that we get most of the week together), but that means that one day I will be all alone with one rhythm, the next I have a journey, the next I am at home the next another journey, the next I am excited about them arriving and so on… It is lovely, but hard to settle into anything.

Why this reflection? I suppose it has made me realise again how important it is to find and use the rhythms of life. Sometimes they will be provided for us, sometimes we have to make them, and sometimes we have to muddle through without. They are a blessing to be cherished though.

Jack of all trades

Being a man who tries to keep his word… let me return to the subject of the Land Rover. (I did say I would about two months ago).

I know that my views are not universally accepted, but I do think Landrovers are fantastic cars. Mine has transported me to the Alps and back and spent the last few weeks lugging wood for the Poustinia around the country. This morning I arrived with a large trailer stuffed full of wood and roofing felt and other bits having cruised, albeit slightly noisily, back from collecting it all. It seems that whatever task I throw at it, it copes.

Yes, a Lexus would be quieter, a 2CV less bumpy, a Yaris more economical, a 1200GS quicker, and so on, but it gets there with all the things I ask it to lug around. Furthermore, get it in the mud and it is virtually unbeatable. It is a jack of all automotive trades and the master of off-road.

Omnicompetence is great in cars. I wonder, though, if it was the way that humans were designed to be?

Everything or nothing...

I am slightly concerned that this doesn’t just become a series of pictures of a shed going up but, apart from writing, that is what I am mostly doing at the moment.

The shed, soon-to-be-poustinia, is now up and largely weather-tight. You can possibly make out the plastic sheeting on the roof held on picturesquely by some large stones. It’s not pretty, but that’s not what I want to discuss; I plan to tell you about my temptations.

You see, there is still a decking bit with a roof to go in front of the shed. I can’t do that until I pick up the wood, DV on Wednesday. However my s-t-b-p is getting wet and that doesn’t seem right…

So, on the one hand I am tempted to stick the felt on the roof now to make it weather tight. That would appeal to my neater sense and would preserve the shed. However I would then have to bodge the new bit of roof on to make it waterproof.

On the other hand part of me says I should just leave it. It is only a couple of days and, even in Cumbria it can only rain so much… probably.

Neither would be quite right, so I scrabbled around for sheeting, but it did make me think that this was a microcosm of life. Too often I want to either do everything now (even though it will prevent me doing a proper job later) or not bother starting until I have a hope of finishing. Often neither will do. Life is dynamic. We have to do things for now and work towards a bigger picture. That’s the way that s-t-b-p’s turn into p’s.

Forget faith...

Well, the foundations are down for the poustinia. As you can see from the photo they are not a thing of great beauty, but they are level and resting on stone. They will support the beams on which the poustinia will stand, and they will be invisible and unnoticed until either the shed is taken down or the floor starts to wobble.

As I have been putting them in I have been musing on the whole topic of foundations. 

Whoa! Hang on. Although it would be true to say that following the commands of Jesus lays solid foundations for our lives and we should make sure that we do it carefully, actually that’s not where I am going with this.

The question I have been mulling is rather the anonymity and forgotten-ness of foundations. When was the last time you looked at the ones in your house for example? How does this aspect of foundation enlarge our understanding of enacted faith in Christ as the foundation of life? At first glance it seems rather to undermine rather than boulster discipleship.

However there are three rather important areas for contemplation, I think.

The first is that we do need to grow as disciples. In 1 Corinthians 3 (where Paul talks about building on the foundations of Christ), we see those who are not moving on from milk to solid food. They are not building up, they are messing around in the mud. Foundations are there to be built on.

The second is that we do not need to question the foundation. Now of course we gain from studying it, or Him, and questions are good if we are learning through them. But we can rely on what God has done. 

In Ripon there is a problem with Gypsum under the ground. Houses can suddenly drop into holes that weren’t there the night before. People check, particularly when buying houses that the foundations are solid. However, we don’t need constantly to dig down and check that Jesus is secure or that His death and resurrection is still holding us before the throne of grace.

Thirdly, though, we do need to be careful about the things that we build on the foundations. We are right to take certain things for granted in our own faith; to rely on them as foundational in the way we work out our salvation. However, we should always be aware that they are things that we have come to rely on, other wise we can become very judgemental very quickly.

Let me give you an example. My wife and I choose not to shop on Sundays. We find it a helpful way to mirror the work of God in creation, to invest in family and worship for ourselves and others, and to bring rhythm and order to the week. This matters to us, so, for example, as we have been looking for houses recently we chose not to look at them on Sunday afternoons despite it being the easiest time for us as it would make the estate agent have to work and thus disrupt their family Sundays.

Do we, though, or even should we condemn those who do work on Sundays? Certainly not. I have worked 90% of the Sundays of my adult life. There are questions that we would want to pose, but you can still get to heaven if you are spotted in Morrisons on a Sunday afternoon. This is a foundational thing for our family which helps in our faith, but it is not actually part of the foundation.

I don’t know if that ramble makes any sense, but it was what I was pondering as I wielded a pickaxe.

To thank or not to thank?

I found myself 'on the horns of a dilemma' yesterday as I was praying.

Like many of you I have been remembering the people of Japan in my prayers. How can we not be moved by the tragedy that is unfolding in front of our eyes? The world is a broken place with terrible ferocity lurking in its ravaged depths and I am convinced that, as people of faith, we need to learn more about responding with prayer not just with questions when things like this happen.


The questions are, of course, vitally important, it's just that the prayer is at least as important... possibly more so.


What flummoxed me, theologically speaking, was that later in the day I spent some time 'creosoting' the panels of the poustinia. As you can see from the photo I took with a different blog post in mind it was a beautifully sunny day. I painted and prayed ponderingly. I found myself thanking God for the wonderful sun which was drying my paint so well... but then found myself wondering if it was right to thank Him at the same times as I wept over the earthquake and tsunami o the other side of the world.


Questions are important. But so is prayer. 


I guess that's the dilemma which we need to inhabit. Both matter. Both matter to God, and both matter to us.