Day 80

Death always takes us by surprise. Even after a long sickbed, when we had time to reflect about the dreaded hour to come, most people will still have that “cheated out of life” feeling.

Henry Nouwen once wrote that one of our great difficulties in dealing with life’s realities is that we live under the illusion of immortality.

Take modern society as an example. The stuff that sell the most, are the kinds that promise to keep us young and pretty.

Or how about Mainstream Religion? From all walks of life Religion tends to take us out of here, focusing the eternal life to come, never really dealing with the common, everyday realities that this life has to offer as a gift and not a curse.

So we end up living and praying as if life will go on forever. As if sickness and difficulties will never cross our or our love ones’ paths.

But this is just an illusion.

We have to move beyond this way of living.

For Nouwen this move meant prayer.

To pray is to realise your own mortality, your own vulnerability and your desperate need for community, friendship and intimacy.

But Nouwen was not referring to bed side prayers and the endless list of wants and needs we communicate to God under the banner of Faith and Prayer.

He was talking about a life constantly engaged with God. Not just talking, but really listening to the inner voice of the Big Spirit who dwells in all of us, being guided by God’s voice instead up being tossed around by all the other voices screaming in cacophonic chaos from the top church pulpits, bill boards, magazine covers and Hollywood illusions.

Then, when death happens we might find the grace to embrace it as part of the trickiness of Life going through the motions.

Day 78

Last night I was called out to a young couple whose six months old baby boy died.

What do you say to people you don’t know who had just experience the biggest trauma every parent pray will never happen to them.

What do you say?

Nothing.

I had nothing to say. I was completely at a loss for words.

They told me their story, of how there was a change of serious complications during pregnancy. The doctors advised abortion. But then Faith kicked in and a beautiful baby boy was born, healthy as can be. Two weeks ago they had him baptised, believing that God will take care of their child.

And yesterday they saw him die.

"What the fuck?" that's all I can think of saying right now.

Day 76

A good friend send me the following words from the pen of Oscar Wilde: "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

Liberating and almost impossible.

From the start to the finish we are bombarded with images and messages that make us believe that our true selves are never enough. You need to change, upgrade and convert. Otherwise you will never fit in.

Somewhere down the line, through all your effort to keep up with the bunch, you lose yourself.

There is a great expression in my mother tongue: “Ek is gatvol”. You end up feeling depressed and tired. It’s draining hating who you are.

But true conversion, the real upgrade happens when you stop the chase, when you embrace the face in the mirror and when you learn to love yourself.

This truth goes way back.

Someone asked Jesus about the main theme in the Hebrew Faith. What’s it all about?

“Love God and others, like you love yourself.” he said.

To love starts with loving yourself.

Day 75

It’s Sunday morning, church as I know it is starting.

But I am not going.

Instead I’ll make another cup of chai and retreat into the winter sun. There I will write, read, pray and listen. There I will become part of an ancient understanding of what it means to be “church”.

I am the church.

We are the church.

In our everyday walking, breathing, living life, we can become the flesh and bones of Kingdom Come.

Not only in buildings made of bricks and stones, or in pews made of wood and plastic, but in the unfolding of plots, plays and stories through the lives of ordinary human beings God is being worshipped.

Let’s pray...

Day 73

At the start of this doubt and faith journey, I had the feeling that my soul is heading towards winter.

Well, I am smack bang right in the middle of it and it is freaking freezing out here.

I am getting the feeling that the winter of the soul is unavoidable. Anyone who decides to embark on a spiritual journey will have to deal with the cold of winter, the darkness of night and with the dreadfulness of the desert some time or the other.

It’s inevitable.

It happened to the Ancient Hebrews in search of something better than the slavery of Egypt.

It happened to almost every great prophet who battle with the truth of God and the lies of religion.

It happened to Jesus, right at the start of his Kingdom Story.

The winter and the desert prepare us for the big paradox in being followers of Christ, because to be a Christian is to be depressed yet hopeful, scared yet fearless, alone yet in love, fragile yet powerful.

Or in the words of Alanis Morissette:

I'm broke but I'm happy
I'm poor but I'm kind
I'm short but I'm healthy
I'm high but I'm grounded
I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed
I'm lost but I'm hopeful
I feel drunk but I'm sober
I'm young and I'm underpaid
I'm tired but I'm working
I care but I'm worthless
I'm here but I'm really gone
I'm wrong and I'm sorry
I'm free but I'm focused
I'm green but I'm wise
I'm shy but I'm friendly
I'm sad but I'm laughing
I'm brave but I'm chicken shit
I'm sick but I'm pretty
And what it all boils down to is that no one's really got it figured out just yet

Isn’t it ironic (scuse the pun), that in the first recorded sermon of Jesus he picked up on the same theme?

“Happy are the heartbroken...Happy are the poor...”

He preached these words straight after his journey in the desert, his soul was probably still recovering from frostbite...

Pit stop

Taking a break for a week and a bit.

Going into the wild.

Silence and solitude.

Next post:

17 July, God willing.

Day 63

A Japanese businessman, Masara Emoto did something strange with two glasses of water. At the one he swore and shouted words of anger like “I hate you”, at the other he spoke gentle words of love and grace, like “I love you”. Then he froze the two and studied the formations of the crystals that formed in both.

The one looked ugly and demented, the other beautiful like snowflakes.

When you Google his name, you’ll find arguments against his findings.

“Not scientific enough.” “The man is a hoax.” “What does he know?”

Maybe all true, in a modernistic way of looking at life.

But there is a Truth behind his finding as old as life itself.

Words create reality.

Way before Emoto, a Jewish Rabbi said that the tongue is the most toxic thing on earth. To call a man an idiot is to commit a murder. Words can kill.

But words can also heal.

The beginning of the story of God as told by an ancient farmer in the book Genesis happens with words of Life being spoken. When God speaks, Life happens.

Millennia’s later Jesus told his friends to listen and obey his words.

It was words of love.

According to one of his close friends, all Jesus had to say was this:

“Love each other.”

It starts with words.

Day 62

Last week I attended a workshop about radio meditations. One of the national radio stations are looking for new voices to do the bible and prayer readings on air. I went there with a lot of religious baggage. When it comes to the religious minute between the news and the rest of the day, I usually switch over to another radio broadcast. So I decided to be real and honest about my struggle with religion, especially mainstream media’s take on it.

But what I failed to see was that this workshop was the start to something fresh and new. It was loaded with energy and possibillities.

Everyone was excited.

Except me.

I was still dragging the past along.

The day opened with a group discussion on our expectations for the day, as well as for radio meditations in general. The first thing coming out of my mouth was critique. I blabbered on about how I turn the radio off every time one the meditations came on. I gave everyone a piece of my mind whether they asked for it or not. When I eventually stopped, someone else spoke. He went the appreciative inquiry route. He validated the good from the old and gave hope and meaning to the new journey the radio station decided to embark upon.

Guess whose words sounded like Kingdom Come.

Guess who got a call back to be one of those new voices.

Day 58

Today I had to make that dreaded unavoidable visit to a dressing room of a clothing store. Those little cubicles are the least flattering place on earth. What’s up with all the lights and mirrors? Do I really want to see that part of my body that I forgot existed? I bet they will make tons of more money if they soften the lights a bit, give the mirrors a slight tint and play some soothing music to prepare you for the disappointment in the pants you thought were just the right size, but did not even make it past your chubby knees.

Some religious places are like that. Eyes on you like florescent lights and a theology that mirrors all your faults.

What we need instead are sacred spaces filled with a gentle kindness that highlights our beauty instead of our flaws.

Through the centuries the followers of Jesus called this “Grace”.

But somewhere down the line Modern Christianity redecorated the Grace-space of Jesus. We replaced the candle lights with spot lights and instead of faded reflections we opted for religious x-rays.

No wonder so many people have the feeling that when it comes to church, they just don’t fit in.

Day 57

The problem with being a coffee snob is this: Not everyone you have coffee with buys freshly roasted coffee, grinds it just before making it and uses just the right amount of coffee to water ratio, not to mention the type of cup and temperature of the water used to make the coffee. No, most of the times someone offer me coffee, they mean the stuff coming out of that big yellow tin, which is fine if that is the way you drink your coffee.

But not me, I am a coffee snob.

So I ask for tea instead and I don’t even like tea.

That’s also the problem with being on a very specific spiritual journey. This doubtful believing path I have chosen to explore is in the end a very lonely path. Out there in Religion Country, most people prefer the more “straight and narrow” Way of life. So whenever someone offers me a cup of Spirituality, they mean to talk about God like the way they do at their church, or their bible study, or through the words of the latest paperback quick fix that they got from a friend who got from a friend who got it from their pastor whom in turn got it from the writer himself, which is fine if that is the way you unpack your Faith.

But not me, I am a doubtful believer.

So I change the topic and talk about the weather instead and I don’t even like winter...