Crutch

'God is just a crutch for people who cannot cope with life.'

I have heard this from many people, especially while I was studying the philosophy of religion. When people are saying this they generally mean it as a slight insult to point out the seemingly obvious flaw in religion - it is only for people who are messed up and if you are doing all right then it's essentially pointless - no healthy person walks around with a crutch, it's just wrong. The prime motive of religion is seen as resolving difficult problems  to which there is no real answer. It pursues these resolutions above the pursuit of truth and therefore the latter bends to meet the needs of the former. Thus making it null and void.

Many Christians have responded to this saying that it is not true, God is not a crutch, he is a loving father, a real, personal, powerful, active God. While I believe this sentiment is true I wouldn't respond this way.

What would I say? Well probably something along the lines of ...

Amen! I have tried doing life my own way and I have tried doing it Gods way and without a shadow of a doubt I can confirm that life without God is like trying to walk with broken legs. My legs are broken, I need a crutch. In fact I would say that a crutch is being far too generous to me ... If we are going to analogise God with a piece of medical equipment then he is a defibrillator! I am just a sack of meat and bones without him. Life is void, pleasure is meaningless and death is hopeless without God. The fact that the outcome of a life with God is a positive one is not evidence for the falsification of Gods existence, it is proof of it! To say that a system is fabricated simply because it fulfils the yearnings  of the parishioners   is an absurd use of predetermined logic.

More to the point however, when a person accuses God of being a crutch they omit a very important element of analysis. They do not reflect on their own lives. If they did so then they would very quickly realise that their legs were broken and what they really need is a crutch to lean on. A God to carry them through.  But, as a very good friend once told me 'No one is as deaf as the one who does not want to hear, no one is as blind as the one who does not want to see.'

God puts just one single condition on salvation. Acceptance. You have to accept that your legs are broken before you will be willing to take up a crutch. You have to accept that you cannot make it on your own, you don't have all the answers and you need the help of the one who does before you are ever going to take his hand and let him pull you out of the pit.

Jesus said that he did not come for the healthy but for the sick. What he meant when he said this is not that some are healthy and some are sick. He was effectively saying - I have come for those who are willing to accept the help. Those who recognise their sickness and decide to give it to me instead of just denying it, those are the people I have come for.

Hypocricy

I think many of us are familiar with the searing red hot burn that the innocent heart experiences in the face of hypocrisy. Authenticity is so often assumed (frankly why shouldn't it be - it is definitely the way things should be even if it is not the way things are. ) and the let down when the veneer peels off can be quite devastating. It can take some time to regain trust and the more times we are let down the harder it becomes to believe the hypocrite at all.

That is at least  how it starts - as we get older  and the veneer falls too many times we simply become disenfranchised, disillusioned and disinterested altogether. The norm shifts from authenticity to errancy. There are a few prime examples of this in our culture, the one that was most recently highlighted to me was that of politics.

Jeremy Paxman recently interviewed Russell Brand and the video went viral. Why? Because so many people can so readily sympathise with Brand. He is correct to say that my generation has given up on politics. So many are just so thoroughly  bemused by the hypocrisy of it all that they find themselves asking why bother? Why entertain a system that consistently produces the very antithesis of what it promises?

While I disagree with a great number of other things that Russell suggests in the interview I cannot fault him on how well he captures the despondency produced in people who consistently witness hypocrisy.

Closer to home for me however is the issue of the Church. For as long as politicians have been criticised for being hypocritical so have Christians - particularly church leaders. They are meant to be beacons of righteousness, paragons of purity, towers of truth! But we all know that if you look close enough (or wait long enough) you will inevitably see the cracks and often not little ones either - we are talking grand canyon here. You never have to wait long before you hear another story of a vicar who has been caught with child pornography or cheating on his wife. You can take one look at god TV and get blinded by the gigantic diamond ring on the hand of a man who is talking about giving sacrificially.

And this is just talking about things that get media attention, equally we will find the Christians that we know personally will uphold a moral standard with their mouth but they will live out a very different reality.

Just as it is with politics: the more you hear the less interested you become - church is a lie, God is a crutch and these people are either deceiving or deceived ... Or both.

But here is some good news...

First things first hypocrisy usually has far more to do with the expected standard than it does with the actual action. What do I mean by this? If politicians didn't make such grandiose promises while they were trying to win an election the fact that they messed up during their term would not be such a big let down. Equally if Christians didn't profess such a spotless moral code so the disparity would not seem so great in their lives. Now this is the bit where politics and Christianity part ways. The Bible is a compilation of 66 books written by messed up, broken people who were trying to follow God. The authors do not shy away from the fact that they get it wrong. Often. You can trace deception, murder, rape, adultery, pride, gluttony and just generally plain old failure throughout the pages of the bible. Christians don't (or rather I should say shouldn't) shy away from the fact that they are anything but shining examples of perfect people. Much of the disenfranchisement that people experience from Christianity is birthed from a misconception that it is about being perfect. It really isn't!

So the question then is not 'how come you fail?' everyone fails the question is more 'what does one do in the face of failure?' There is another misunderstanding here too.

To an onlooker it can be quite simple, you condemn the people who totally mess up and you pardon the ones who get it right. Simple. The problem with that is highlighted very well by Jesus himself - 'let him who is without sin cast the first stone.'. Somewhat ironically it would be incredibly hypocritical to pronounce such a judgement on anyone given that whoever it is throwing the stone will themselves have royally messed up at some point in their lives ... Who are they to judge?

The bible offers an alternative to condemnation in the face of failure. Grace. A second chance. Redemption. So while Christianity is littered with people messing it up throughout the ages it is also full of the same people being given another chance to try to do better next time. Sadly the 'trying to do better next time' is often communicated in a very judgemental way, listing off things that we all do and saying 'these are all wrong!' It gives the impression that you can't 'join the club' if you do these things. That is not the case at all... It is more saying look at all these terrible things that we all do yet seem incapable of stopping - we need to join the club to rescue us from those things!

So next time you see a Christian who sets their standard as perfection and falls short of that standard, don't leap to the conclusion that they are a hypocrite, perhaps realise that they are trying to be a better person but that it doesn't happen over night.

So what am I saying here - Christians always have a perfect motive but they are just not the best at executing the plan? No. I am not even saying that Christians are not hypocrites... Just less than they are accused of being. I would say that to be a hypocrite is to be human. No, hypocrisy is not a good thing but it is a common thing among all people. So if you have problems with Christianity because of the hypocrisy of Christians then you should feel welcome, they are not so different from you after all.

Finally I would address the distinction between a hypocritical person and a hypocritical system. Sadly for us all there are some Christians who don't just set standards for themselves but for everyone else as well. It is one thing to set perfection as your own standard but to hold other people to account on that standard is quite another thing. this is what gets us really hot under the collar. When someone is 'Holier than thou' and pronounces everyone else sinners as though they themselves were faultless, all the while trying to cover up their own shortcomings. While there may be people who call themselves Christians who behave like this it does not change the fact that this is anything but Christianity. In fact it is this group of people who Jesus most strongly opposed. The Pharisees. If people had arch enemies Jesus would have picked the Pharisees to be his. They were the religious elite who made ridiculous rules that were impossible to keep so they could puff themselves up and be 'holier than thou'. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs and a pit of vipers. Sadly there are still some Pharisees around today but try not to let them put you off Jesus even if they profess to follow him. 

Capacity

Lately I have been confronted by my limitations. This might seem quite proud in itself - how are you ever not aware of your limitations? Well perhaps it is pride that puffs you up enough that when you catch a glimpse of yourself you are shocked at just how deflated you really are.

Anyway, lately I have been confronted by my own limitations, but first some background. It is now approaching 2 years since I handed in my resignation, left my job and my home and flew off to South Africa (things have never been the same since). Before I left for South Africa I was not doing great, somewhat disillusioned, lacking drive to really do anything I was in serious need of some focus in life. Well, I certainly found it. It is amazing how much more we find ourselves able to do when given the right drive. When you find that thing that you know you can do, that you are good at doing, that you love doing and won't ever get bored of doing it can be ecstasy.

I found I was able to push myself for longer, live louder, bigger and stronger. Naturally this was not so narrow as to be limited to my work in South Africa. It spilled over into my social life, Prayer life, exercise , eating, breathing... Everything had more depth, life was just more full. My capacity was significantly bigger. I was far more busy in those 6 months than I had been in the previous 6 yet I had more time for people, more time to listen, more to invest.

This increase in capacity was much more than perhaps meets the eye. Finding that thing that you are good at ... Finding your thing is much more than discovering something about yourself. It is discovering what God has placed in you. And when you start living in line with Gods will using those gifts for his purposes it changes everything and that is good news.

It is good because that thing, that gift, no longer terminates on you, it is for a higher purpose, a deeper meaning, a fuller expression. That gift is for God, for his glory as an expression of part of who he is. It is good because the pressure is no longer on you. Let's take one example. How many men have found that they are naturally gifted in business? And how many of those men have felt that the success of their business is such a reflection of them, so dependent on them that they are willing to sacrifice so much to make it thrive ?... How many marriages has that destroyed, how many families has it torn apart? But when that gifting is recognised as being about God, rather than the man, how releasing is that? He no longer has to prove himself as the most successful business man out there, no longer has to compare himself to how everyone else is doing, no longer has to sell himself and his life and his families lives into his business because it is no longer his, but Gods.

I am not saying that recognising the gifts God has given you is permission to be lazy with them, on the contrary how much more would you want to nurture and train in a God-given skill. Neither am I saying that  God is simply a tool for getting a good work/rest balance, plenty of people do that without the help of God. What I am saying is that all your skills, and in fact every breath you take is a gift from God, not just a human function and the difference of those perspectives is like the difference between shadows and real forms.

So ... Why did I start with talking about limitations? Because the year since coming back from South Africa was one very long kick in the stomach. Because despite the fact that I had tasted and seen and lived life to the full for a time did not make me impervious to royally messing up. Being in line with God's will for your life is a matter of choice and just as being in line results in life to the full so being out of line results in chaos.

Now It is very important that you do not read what I am not writing here. I am not saying 'follow God and your life is going to be all rainbows and sunshine.' Some people would have you believe that and they are simply wrong - anyone with any amount of life experience can testify to that. Neither am I saying that if you don't follow God your life is going to be one long train wreck. - That is also perfectly possible with God.

What I am saying is that your outlook on life (irrelevant of whether your life is hard or easy)will radically change. Your talents, pleasures and laughter will have a greater capacity - because they are no longer limited by you. And your tears, aches and mourning will not be hopeless because your hope is no longer limited by you or those around you.

And yes, when you have been through a season of serious trial you still come out the other end feeling beat up and very aware of your limitations. But the good news is that whatever your limitations you can know a God who is limitless, with whom all things are possible. So I want to be honest, following God doesn't necessarily stop the storms of life and it doesn't remove the opportunities to make stupid choices. It does something far better. God can take your joys, talents and laughter and make them less hollow. And He can take your anxieties, limitations and helplessness and give you hope.

Title font used: '814yzx'

Innocence

There is a unique beauty in innocence. It is something to be treasured, marvelled at, enjoyed and protected. Fiercely.

The edges of the world seem less sharp and pointed, more accommodating and generally better when we are innocent. Why? Innocence is guiltlessness, it is having no red on your ledger, no debt owed, nothing to worry about. It is freedom. Freedom from caution, the caution that that is birthed from an expectation of attack, retribution, disappointment and pain. Innocence says that the default is good, not bad, that the outcome will be positive not negative. Innocence is the opposite of being jaded.

Innocence is often associated with naivety, negative connotations of unreality, blindness and foolishness... The waiting period before waking up to the cold harsh reality of life and the smell of ash. It is the cushion that makes you feel safe but doesn't actually break your fall or stop you from snapping your legs.

If this is what you think of innocence then you are not alone. You must have been jaded by life's kicks to the stomach. But there is yet hope. Truth is that you can change your view on the whole thing, if you choose to.

Now you might be pointing to your circumstances right now and saying 'There really is no way I can look at this mess and have any other view than my one right now - and yes I am jaded - for good reason! My Jadedness reminds me that this is what I should expect and that makes this circumstance less shocking and easier to deal with.'

Well, I have no idea what your circumstance is right now but I do know that I have been kicked in the stomach a few times and I have felt the same way about life. Hard exterior keeps me safe. But then I stumbled upon a little nugget of truth (well actually it came and found me out).

You lost your innocence? Welcome to the club, now chew on this: Your innocence can be restored.

You might think I am saying that because I don't know just how deep the pile of filth is that you lost your innocence in a long time ago, but that's not it. I am saying that because it is true, was for me and is for you - doesn't matter who you are.

His name is Jesus and he can be your innocence. Bit of a weird concept to the uninitiated so give me a second here... You, me and literally every other person out there has lost their innocence to a greater or lesser degree. All of us except for this one guy - Jesus. Now one of the most amazing things about innocence is that it holds on to hope, even in the face of the worst situations. That is what Jesus held onto - despite the fact that he knew all of us were a complete mess he held onto the hope that some would decide to choose freedom from all the entangled mess. So he gave up his innocence, took the punishment that he did not deserve, and absorbed all of the guilt of whoever would decide to make the trade.

Now here is a weird thing about guiltiness, once you have been condemned, jaded, broken - you get used to it. This is the reason that criminals so often keep re-offending - they have lost their innocence. Even though they might do their time and pay the sentence for their actions they still feel jaded even though in the eyes of the law they are now innocent. So they just keep on acting like they did before because the way they perceive themselves is not as clear cut or as quick to change as the legal system is. So they re-offend and go back to square one.

We are all exactly the same as this - we might not be breaking the laws of our country but we are all constantly breaking moral, spiritual laws that we generally agree are good. Do not steal. Do not lie. But we do!  That is why Jesus is SUCH good news because he can make you innocent again! But here is the danger - we do the same as the re-offending criminal. We get declared innocent but we don't feel that way. Well here is a lesson we Christians need to learn - tell  your feelings to line up with the truth.

The good news continues here as well. God doesn't just release us from prison and let us wander around aimlessly - he helps us. He is our crutch that lets us stand even with broken legs. If we ask him, he is faithful to restore to us what the locusts have eaten. We might not ever be what we were before but we can retrieve our innocence and we can be stronger than before we ever fell in the first place.

Even though I have done my time

And paid for my crime

Everything is not just fine

I can't get my feelings in line

Cant shake the guilt in this heart of mine

-  Oh pine my soul, pine!  -

For the ineffably divine

To make sense of this mess where there is no reason or rhyme

To his purity and innocence let my life bind

That freedom and release in him I might find

He is open, compassionate and kind

Powerful and pervading, able to renew my mind

Sets me free from the meritocracy grind

Oh my soul, let your worth by him be defined

Amazing grace! Now I can see, I am no longer blind!

Title font used: 'Euterpe'

Yoke

My head is down , remembering its place in the yoke

Compunction and terror, bahal

morally broke.

Is this a Joke?

How am I here again?!  Walking in the path of sinful men

Sitting in the seat of scoffers am I completely off my rocker?

How far can I fall, how deep does it go, have I no sense at all?

Am I just a sucker for a beating, do I still look for meaning in things that are fleeting?

Get up my soul. Stand firm. It's time to let the old man burn.

It was for freedom that Christ  set you free

 do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Remember it now and remember it well

 you have been released, no matter how far you fell.

He is your strong tower, your tower of refuge. He is the rock on which you stand and he shelters you under his wing.

Follow the Sheppard to the hiding place, tucked  away from the storm in the crevice of the mountain's shadow sing.

Surrounded by storm, fire, smoke and dust

quite yourself and trust.

/Selah/

Hear the still small voice of your loving father.

He calls you by name, feels your pain and reminds you again...

"Oh child of mine, you are known to me, even if you flee to the other side of the sea

 there is nowhere you can go that I won't be.

You are mine, my own and I will never leave you alone.

Don't you know how much this cost? Don't belittle what I have lost

My only son, that's right that's what I've done, the price I paid so you could come

Now sit down at the table take off that yoke remember you are planted by the river like a mighty oak

By the streams of living water your soul will be quenched, tread deeper and deeper get thoroughly drenched.

This grace is limitless, the ocean bottomless forget the superfluous worries of this world and fix your eyes on the prize and let your gaze rise to the skies cause I am coming back to rescue my bride.

So forget those chains of sin and put on this band of love, you are only here for a time but you were made for heaven above."

Gatekeeper

 

Who are the gatekeepers, the guards at the door of your life?

Who are the stoic fortress wardens, armed with wisdom?

Who stands watch, remains vigilant through the night?

Who sees with perspective, the inside and the out?

Who are the key keepers that discern, to enter or not?

Recently my life has come under a certain amount of trial. I say 'my life' meaning more than simply my immediate experience, because while this trial had me at the centre it affected the majority of the people connected to me.

While trials in this life are both inevitable and uncomfortable they are also often moments of decisive clarity. They provide a unique perspective on ones view of themselves but also give an opportunity for us to see how our friends and acquaintances will respond.

Jaffa Gate - Jerusalem, Israel

To borrow a parable it is often not easy to tell whether we have built our house on the rock or on the sand until the rains come down and the floods come up. If your house is still standing by then end - you built it right.  It is the storms of life that are proving of our relationships.

If we take Job as an example (no I am not likening myself to Job) he experiences a trial the like of which most of us will never have to endure, unfortunately for him the people surrounding him were less than perfect in their response. Even his wife (one of his few remaining relatives) tells him to just give up and die! Hardly the kind of encouragement needed to persist through life's trials.

Abandoned Syrian Bunker - Golan Heights, Israel

Thankfully my story is very different! Over the past few days it has become blindingly obvious how well 'insulated' I am by a great number of people around me who care, pray for and support me, often in ways that I never even see. Many of them will in fact be the ones reading this and so to you I say thank you.

Among my friends and family there are a few who have the position in my life to speak louder and clearer to me than many others, their position in my life is decided by me. They may not even realise it but they have more influence over me than most other people. They are in many ways gatekeepers that have the power to discipline, correct, encourage and shape me in ways that most will simply never be able to.

Derelict Shack - Gloucester, England 

The truth is that we all have people like this in our lives, the question is whether they are good gatekeepers or not. Are they wise, discerning, kind? Do they have your best interests at heart? For most people when they are born it is at least initially their parents who fulfil this role - they protect, nurture and direct their children. Or at least they should. Because we are all human we have all experienced disappointment with our gatekeepers, times when we needed them to be looking out for us but they were absent. Or for some of us we found out the hard way that someone we had given the role of gatekeeper to was toxic. They did not have our best interests at heart and they did not just not protect us but attacked us.

What do we do when our gatekeepers fail us? - We fall onto God.

Jobs gatekeepers were pretty useless but he cried out to God and while the response he had was not what he had hoped for it was exactly what he needed. You may have been let down by your parents right from day one but God is the father in heaven who never fails to love you. Your friends and colleagues might be like sand around you but Christ is the rock on whom you can build your life. You may be in the midst of a storm but He can be the anchor.

You may be under siege from all sides but God can be your gatekeeper.

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Ruach

ר֫וּחַ

roo'-akh - Breath, wind, spirit.

 

It is free, more completely free than anything else. Illusive it cannot be seen. It is unpredictable, capricious. It can be gentle and consistent or a forceful torrent. It is exhilarating, uncontained, untamed. It goes where it pleases and dances to its own tune. It takes no heed of outside opinion, it is active and pervading. It sweeps up whatever is in its path. It is deep in the lungs, it is life, it is freedom. It is the great mover. It does not capitulate to demands and cannot be threatened, it is without fear. It knows no bounds and never ceases. It is playful and ecstatic. It cannot be measured and is not to be trifled with.

 

It is weightless and shapeless and whatever falls it its path is helpless to resistance.

It knows no inhibition chooses its own direction and pursues us with the deepest connection.

Its burden is light and it does not grow weary and in the fullness of time it gives sight to see clearly.

Ineffable, invisible, exhilarating; its absolutely incredible.

It does not stop nor does it tire, ever lifting, lifting us higher.

Effervescent and ever present it is the experience of the transcendent.

Unrelenting force and unbridled power yet to the righteous a refuge and a strong tower.

Smoke and fire, flame and dust through the wilderness it is the one to trust.

Beauty unleashed though always unseen, pure and faultless, perfectly clean.

 

 

Title font used: 'Sverige script'

Overgrown

A new week, a new project. A veggie patch. You might think that this is a pretty poor time of the year to be starting a veggie patch - just as we head into Autumn with Winter right around the corner but the inspiration and drive to do it is here now so it is happening hear and now. That and it gives us a good few months to be able to prepare fully for the Spring.

It is not the most amazingly lit patch but we will have to make do

It is easy to confuse a new project with a blank canvas, when it comes to gardening this is absolutely not the case. In fact, if you can at any point get to a blank canvas you have already done pretty well. I think Jesus understood this and it is possibly one of the reasons that he used the imagery of a gardener to describe God. The truth is that in our little patch, and in everyone's lives there are an abundance of weeds. Life sucking, fast spreading, tough to kill, deep rooted, weeds. If these are not dealt with you don't have a veggie patch. What  you have is at best a patch of problem-inducing dirt that is going to overgrow and starve anything useful that you try to plant.

Other than the single Rhubarb plant and the grape vine everything green had to go

Looking from this perspective it is very easy to understand that a piece of ground is completely incapable of ridding itself of weeds, where the weeds are they will continue to grow. Simple as that. Yet it is amazing how quick we are to draw the conclusion that we are able to de-weed our own lives. The ever growing self help section of Waterstones stands as testament to this. Offering up every kind of burying, ignoring and weed-hiding technique there is. Pouring into the false hope that we are able to tackle our own habitual sins, change the broken condition of our hearts and patch ourselves up so we can live the way we were meant to.

Our very wobbly makeshift work bench made the woodwork that much more exciting

The hope is false because we cannot change those things about ourselves. We can maybe change the way that the symptoms of our brokenness manifest in our lives or we can simply ignore the fact that we are overgrown with desires and behaviours that we cannot shake. But at the end of the day we are as helpless as a patch of dirt trying to de-weed itself.

We made stakes to support the panels for edging the patch

The only way that our little patch was ever going to be productive was if we got the tools out, got stuck in and worked hard at removing all the junk that was bedded in. So, being gardeners that wanted our patch of land as productive as it could be that is exactly what we did. Similarly the only way that any of us is going to grow in maturity and start bearing fruits is if we allow the divine gardener in to clear out the choking weeds of sin from our lives and sow the seeds of the gospel in us.

re-installing edging around the patch

Our first foray into this latest adventure was satisfyingly hard work, there was lots to dig up and some parts were more work than others (we found rather a large piece of metal nestled a good half meter down in the ground - it was one of the harder parts). We completely overhauled the ground and it took some time, all the while excitedly discussing plans the for the future. 'Go big or go home' my brother would say. I imagine God is equally as thrilled while he is working on our lives. He sees that his work in saving us is glorious and he gets excited about the culmination of his work in us which will be ... well glorious.

During our discussions there was also the recognition that while these first steps are big ones the journey of our veggie patch will be continuous work. De-weeding is going to have to be a day by day, intentional activity. There will also be some big milestones along the way such as the construction of the lean-to green house which is going to cost us, but it will be worth it. Again this must be the practice of all of us who wish to grow in Christ-likeness. We are to recognise, challenge and do our uttermost to give over these things to God and allow him to fix us.

Whether you are totally overgrown with sin or you are steadily waging the ongoing war with your weeds, my encouragement to you is this - let the Gardener till you, de-weed you, prune you and burn up in you all that is not from him. While we cannot kill sin by ourselves we can make the choice to allow God in, to release to him the most insidious of our problems and trust that as the good gardener he is shaping us for a mind bogglingly exciting, hopeful, glorious future.

We found a few gems while digging from the previous occupier of the patch

N.B  Once again the pictures that feature me were (unsurprisingly) not taken by me but the rest were. Thanks to Charlie and David.

Title font used: 'Bleeding Cowboys'

Life on the edge

Over the past few weeks I have met a number of like minded individuals when it comes to 'extra curricular activities' Most of them involve some kind of danger, be it fire breathing, shooting or knife throwing there is always the adrenaline rush of having survived the latest feat.

For as long as I can remember I have always enjoyed the idea (and also usually the practice) of living dangerously. The base instinct to leap before looking (or to look, see that it's unsafe and then leap anyway) has been with me from childhood and I had the joy of sharing that with two older brothers who to put it bluntly would make me seem rather tame at times.

It may surprise you to discover that this tendency has at times put me in rather tricky situations... As a fearless (or simply misguided) young teenager I was suspended from my school for breaking out of my boarding house in the middle of the night (yes I went to boarding school) in order to climb around on the roofs and see if I could make the infamous 'ML1-ML2 gap!' 

Our Modern languages lessons were taught in prefab temporary huts that were situated a few meters apart from one another and it was qudos to you if you could scale to the roof of ML1 and make the jump to ML2. 

This kind of attitude might sound reckless, fool hardy or even outright insane but I think it's important to make a distinction here.

The desire to live life on the edge is not simply to try and do the most dangerous thing that can be found, such a lifestyle would result in death very quickly. For example skydiving without a parachute is 110% more dangerous that skydiving with a parachute but no one in their right mind would do that.

There is indeed a fine line between outright idiocy and a calculated, well rewarded risk. Now this line is of course down to perspective, something that is key in photography. For example from the perspective given in these pictures it might be inferred that we were essentially being a bunch of idiots, however what the pictures don't show you are the two foam fire extinguishers, the fire blanket, the bucket of water, the nurse and the first aider standing by just in case something went wrong (which it didn't).

When things are in perspective the question changes from 'are you sure that's a good idea?' to 'are you sure that you can't do it bigger?' Just to be clear here I am not advocating senseless risk taking, what I am saying is that if the risk has been removed why oh why are we not pushing this life to it's limits?

How do I remove risk? You get in line with Gods will. Never has there been a more reliable safety net, never has their been a stronger rope or fool proof protection than standing squarely in the will of God. Through the ages there have been some people who have understood this, there perspective has been shaped by God and they can see clearly. To the world looking on they look like fools. When Jesus hung on the cross bleeding out he was openly mocked by the people who passed him by because it looked like he had been a fool. He had played with fire and been burned. What he saw however was something quite different. He saw God's perfect and pleasing will and he understood it to the point of going beyond the grave to stand in it. He trusted that his father would be his ultimate safety, even from beyond the grave and the world stood in awe 3 days later when God did the impossible and rose Jesus back to life. Where were the mocking passers by now? Jesus lived a far more radical life than any of us and he is the one who quite rightly gets the glory. 

As Christians this same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us. This is such a small well known biblical principal but oh the magnitude of it! How quickly we skim over and how much of life we miss. We are called to live on the edge, to go far beyond the boundaries of the pattern of this world, to live dangerously for Christ, knowing that he has got our back. 

NB. The pictures in this post were not taken by me but two friends from college. Thank you Tim and Andy

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Woodland

Walking under a canopy of green, taking deep refreshing breaths of the pre-autumnal forest air. Meandering along dirt roads, strewn with fallen pines, taking in the familiar smell of the forest that evokes childhood memories of Sunday afternoon walks.

Dappled sunlight breaks through the canopy, dances on spiders webs, casts a rainbow.

The ground littered with life; bugs, fungi, spiders - the longer I look the more I see. Passing patches of ferns the aroma shifts, the next course of the sensory feast is served.

The aged and weathered trees stand firm, gnarled roots stretch deep into the ground, the trunk clothed in lichen and branches draped in Ivy.

The noise of the world outside is dampened, absorbed in all the undergrowth, the serene call of birds is carried through the woodland and the soft scuffling of unseen animals emanates from the road side.

Blackberries on the verges are sparse enough to make it feel like an earned reward while snacking on them through the journey.

A yearning grows, the desire to remain. To rest in the lush, vast green of this sprawling world. The urge to sing, to smile and enjoy the creators handiwork, to revel in its beauty and celebrate its complexity.

After a thoroughly enjoyable perambulation we headed back home for a cuppa. Thanks to you my friends who organised the trip and drove us to the forest of Dean.

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Cider

There are a few avenues that can be used to justify the brewing of cider... The fact that the colleges alcohol ban has just been lifted, I come from the west country so it's almost mandatory, we were given a crate of pairs for free or the fact that brewing alcohol has been a tradition within Christian institutes  for centuries. But the fact that it is just an interesting/amusing thing to do was probably a more significant factor in this evenings activities.

It takes a surprisingly short amount of time to conceptualise, plan and execute the production of cider. From the discovery that a crate of pears was up for grabs to sealed jars of pear juice waiting to ferment was no more than an hour. Tidy work for a Wednesday evening.

While making cider is an art form; developed, tweaked and perfected by professionals (monks) over the years it is actually very simple to make a plain old brew. With a 5 minute google search it is easy to find a recipe that involves less than 3 ingredients (results may vary)

Of course when a whole crate of fruit presents itself, it comes with the opportunity to experiment! For the first batch we decided to go purist - no added yeast, nothing fancy just pear juice and touch of sugar... okay a fist full of sugar.

Things seemed to go our way, we happened upon an old juicer (it required a thorough cleaning) which saved us the curfuffle of pressing the pears by hand. In hindsight it would have probably been a pretty spectacular fail if we hadn't found the juicer.

Juicing pretty much anything tends to leave one in possession of rather a lot of pulp, we have thought about it a bit and a few ideas have been banded about including pear flavored home made sausages, pear jam, pear cake?! Anyway if you have a good idea for what to do with it and better still if you can provide proper instructions/ recipe then maybe we will make it ... maybe.

Until then David is going to have to figure out a green solution for disposing of it.

This is the slightly disgusting-looking result of 'juicing' the pairs... then just to sieve and store it

In other news our South African got bored of waiting and raided our warm dry cupboard full of meat ... the results were rather enjoyable...

So now you can know that the instructions in my previous post do actually result in delicious biltong. We now have room to experiment with some more exotic recipes.

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