One Man's Web

I knew one of the saints. They were strong, resourceful, brave, full of persistence. Something terrible had happened in their life, I think, and they carried that with them, as we often do. They carried it by imagining a view of the world, and of God, which helped them survive, but which had set hard like concrete. I fear it meant they died longing to be loved, not able accept the love being offered them, isolated and trapped. I mourn for them still.

Their final and lasting gift to me was to wake me up to my own predicament. I was thinking of them one day when it occurred to me that I was precisely the same. Different issues perhaps, but just as trapped in now reflexive responses which I learned in order to survive as a child and teenager, and which now invade everything like couch that's got loose in your garden, and which seems even less eradicable... Read on >>>>

After the parables of Mark 4, Jesus embarks upon a series of works of power. Already there have been healings of individual people. Now, we have the stilling of a storm, and the death of thousands of pigs. After raising a child from the dead, and miraculously feeding thousands of people, Jesus will again aid the disciples out on the sea as a storm is building, this time walking out to them on the water, and climbing into their boat so that the wind ceases.

These stories have always had those who doubt them. But for our age they are not implausible; they are simply impossible. How, then, do we read them? The reductive materialism of our age sees them as nonsense. Their presence calls all of Mark into question. Most of us ignore the hard edge of reductive materialism; we accept the reality of morals and values, beauty, and love even though such things theoretically have no real meaning. But we know that storms are not quelled with a word. This is a reality which has no wriggle room... Read on >>>>

aka, Preaching to myself...

Someone, a stranger, told me a story of tragedy and triumph. Of a community banded together in an act of surprising compassion at a moment when events could have headed in a far more violent direction. This was a story of persistence, hope, and love. A story of flourishing. A witness to the effect of the Gospel.

Here is the first thing I notice about this story: It turns out I knew some of the players in the drama... Read on >>>>

In year five the school was swept by a craze. It was not marbles or YoYos. Instead, someone made a little slingshot out of a bobby pin and a rubber band, and soon, most of us had one. Farmer's kids went down to the implement shed and pinched a bit of high tensile tie wire, and used the vise and pliers to make souped up versions that would send a well folded spitball the length of the twin classroom.

The teachers soon caught on, of course, and one morning recess a goon squad of prefects began confiscating slingshots. In the next lesson, the headmaster visited each class, gave them a lecture on the danger of such things, and demanded that any slingshots which remained be handed over... Read on >>>>