by emma | Mar 8, 2008 | Faith, Film, Music
Last night I went to see U23D with some friends here in DC, and wow, was it incredible! You need to go see it now!
No joke, but watching/experiencing a U2 concert is a deeply spiritual event for me. I connect with God so much through their music and lyrics, more than I do in many church services to be honest.
I watched this massive crowd of people being caught up in something that is so much bigger than any of their individual experiences.
They connected with each other, with the music, with the message. It makes me question what we as a church can do to draw people towards Jesus. Why do we not make better use of the techniques used in experiences like a U2 concert and redeem them?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the theology of music. I think I’ll do a separate post on it, but over the last month especially I have been connecting with God so much through “secular” artists than through “Christian” artists. U2 are the modern-day theologians for many Irish people, and probably many other nationalities. It was a strange experience to be sitting in a room full of Americans listening to Bono sing Sunday Bloody Sunday (Bloody Sunday wikipedia), knowing that it probably has an entirely different effect on you than on anyone else in the room. When you come from a country where your entire land has been torn in two because of religion, where the only differential is whether you go to church or chapel at the weekend, to hear a fellow Irishman sing, “No more…” is a powerful experience.
And the battle’s just begun
There’s many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trenches dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, how long?
‘Cos tonight
We can be as one, tonight.
I may not agree with everything Bono says or does, but in a country where church is irrelevant for many people (check out this video from the Republic of Ireland for an idea), to be getting your theology from U2 is not a bad starting place I reckon…
Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don’t make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahewh, Yahweh
Still I’m waiting for the dawn…
by emma | Jan 7, 2008 | Faith
I read a great article over on the Wrecked for the Ordinary wesbite a few days ago that I wanted to post a link to… I think you should go read it. It’s called Follow Me by Lindsey McDonald, and it describes a lot of where I am right now. This is a new year, a new season for me (will make the official blog announcment of big changes when they are all official and completed!), and I’m incredibly excited… and also quite scared!
Here’s an excerpt (emphasis mine)… though you really should go read the whole thing!
– – – – –
“Follow Me.”
But, Jesus, what about comfort? What about safety? What about my desires? Jesus I want to go. I want to follow you. It’s just why does it have to be so difficult? I look around me, and I see the lives of my peers. They seem to live such normal lives with jobs that actually pay money and happy hours after work, engagements, marriages, and children.
They seem happy and it seems so easy and safe. There is a part of me that wants that right now, yet there is this louder part of me that does not.
There is this part of me, that many find ridiculous, that believes I can actually make a difference in this world; a part of me that longs to free the oppressed, to love the orphan, and to help the widow; a part of me that longs to be like you. I know I cannot be like you, though; until I leave my self behind, and it is no longer me but you. Why is it so difficult for me to forget myself?!
by emma | Dec 24, 2007 | Faith
Every homeless refugee, desperate for a bed for a night, understands the agony of Joseph of Bethlehem.
Every frightened teenage girl, pregnant and lost, comprehends the bewilderment of Mary.
Every executive, trying to reconcile commercial realities with moral imperatives, identifies with the local innkeeper.
Every working person, in a daily routine awakening to a sudden reverence for life, experiences the awe of the Judean shepherd.
Every ruler or intellectual, coming to the limit of human power, evinces the humility of the Magi.
Every tyrant who keeps in control by means of ruthless and harsh practices knows the insecure fear of Herod.
Every infant, born on the rubbish heap of a city slum, shares the indignity of the Holy Birth. Bethlehem speaks in many tongues….
Every working person, in a daily routine awakening to a sudden reverence for life, experiences the awe of the Judean shepherd.
Every ruler or intellectual, coming to the limit of human power, evinces the humility of the Magi.
Every tyrant who keeps in control by means of ruthless and harsh practices knows the insecure fear of Herod.
Every infant, born on the rubbish heap of a city slum, shares the indignity of the Holy Birth.
Bethlehemspeaks in many tongues….
[Zoughbi Zoughbi]
H/T: Kester
by emma | Dec 23, 2007 | Faith
Open our eyes Lord,
Especially if they are half-shut, because we are tired of looking
Or half-open, because we’re afraid of what we might see
Open them wide so that we are aware in the midst of the darkness this Christmas, of signs of hope and light speaking to us of the birth of liberation.
Open our eyes to see the hope that the hungry will be satisfied.
Open our eyes to see the hope that change can come in oppressive regimes;
Open our eyes to see the hope that the baby brings.
And lest our courage fails us,
Open our eyes today, tomorrow or this week, to one person, or one place where we can be the very embodiment of hope. In the countryside, in the cities, through the corridors of power and the streets of despair, to help, to heal, to confront, to convert.
O Come O come Emmanuel
Amen
H/T: Glenn
by emma | Nov 25, 2007 | Faith
Tonight I was standing in a church on the south side of Glasgow, singing a song that is so familiar to me, and in an instant I was back in a wee room in Ballintoy with a group of about 20 folks…
—-
The room was in a hostel in Ballintoy, on the north coast of Northern Ireland.
The group of people where my Exodus team from 2005 – our Holland/Scotland team, and Ricks England/Scotland team.
It was our first chance to really get to know the other team.
We worshipped together.
We ate together.
We exercised together(!).
We went for long drives/walks on beaches.
And we met with the living God.
—-
One night during our residential, we watched a talk by John Piper from the One Day event in 2003 (part of the Passion movement). We listened and we grew restless as Piper spoke on boasting in the cross…
“But may it never be that I would boast,
except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through which the world has been crucified to me,
and I to the world.” Gal 6:14
“You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by a few great things. If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries and into eternity, you don’t have to have a high IQ or EQ; you don’t have to have to have good looks or riches; you don’t have to come from a fine family or a fine school. You have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things, and be set on fire by them.”
—-
And we worshipped. We encountered God in ways I’ll never forget.
We we’re singing “How Great Is Our God”.
What a beautiful song, and what an even more beautiful truth.
That song became a vital part of our cry during those few days in Ballintoy.
It became our cry for the nations…
“Let all the earth rejoice…”
I stood in that room with about 20 other young people my age, with my heart burning for Jesus, and a passion for the nations… and a thankfulness for like-minded friends. [ A generation is rising up… ] Several months later, we headed out to different countries. We shared our lives and our hearts with each other, and many of us are still close friends.
—-
I have sung that song so many times since that night in April 2005. But never have I been so vividly reminded of the beginnings of this journey, of the birth of Generation 24.
Yes, God.
I still say yes.
by emma | Nov 2, 2007 | Faith, Social Justice
[This is long… you have been warned.]
I have a lot running through my head right now, so please forgive me if this doesn’t come out in a highly coherent form…
I went to hear Shane Claiborne speak on Wednesday night in Bishopbriggs, which was cool, but it was as much about meeting other people there as it was about hearing Shane. It was encouraging to be reminded that I’m not the only crazy one. I’m not alone. Sometimes this journey is hard and it feels like I’m the only one whose facing these struggles and feeling like giving up… but I’m not. There are so many people in this city who are passionate about trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus in this place, in this time. I’m thankful for people like Chris and Lizzie, like Holly and David, like Paul and Esther… and so many others I haven’t named. (Forgive me if I leave you out… I can’t write a full list of you who inspire me and aid and encourage the Kingdom life in me.)
I am constantly reminded of how eclectic I am. Eclectic is the word I use… some people would call it other things. I’m just off the phone from trying to arrange bagpacking to raise funds for going to East Africa in the summer. I wrestle with how much stuff I have. I question how much of it I really need. I look around my room… and I have so much… why should I have all this? I keep coming back to this idea of gifts, of how nothing I have is my own and it’s all a gift. Life itself is a gift. I stumbled across a book by Lewis Hyde, called The Gift, the other day when I was wandering through Waterstones. In it he talks about the ‘cardinal property of the gift: whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept.’ He shares some stories from different tribes and how they treat the gift, when he makes this comment:
“The important point is that with them to possess is to give – and here the natives differ notably. A man who owns a thing is naturally expected to share it, to distribute it, to be its trustee and dispenser.”
I keep thinking of things like 1 Chron 29, when David cries out, “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” Of Luke, when Jesus says, “If you have two coats, give one away.” (Luke 3:11). Or when Luke tells us, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” (Acts 2:44-45)
Maybe I’m just crazy. But I find it hard to take Jesus seriously on things like ‘tithe your money’ if I don’t also take him seriously when he says things like ‘give it all away’. We have become people with highlighters. We read our bible with highlighters. (I’m not saying this is wrong. I do this. I have lots underlined in my Bible.) But we highlight the bits we like and leave out the rest. We highlight things like “I’ve come to give you life in all it’s fullness,” (John 10:10) but not, “When you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look. Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.” (Isa 1:15)
And I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. I stumble. I fall. I fail. I’m hypocritical. I’m trying to figure out what it means to live simply and pursue Jesus, and yet I keep buying more stuff and following the crowd instead.
I care about justice. I really do. I long to make a difference in this world. The people who grow my coffee and sew my jeans and make my bed sheets are my brothers and sisters. We are all human. We are in this together. I have the immense privilege of trying to guide GUCU on this journey of caring about social justice. (And on that note, I’m so excited and encouraged by the folks who have been getting involved and speaking up for those who can’t speak up for themselves.) I plan stuff. I have crazy ideas (most of which are not my own, I just facilitate finding them and sharing them). Sometimes people think I’ve got this sorted. How wrong they are.
Sometimes I just want to be a 20-year-old girl who falls in love, goes shopping, and chills out with her friends. I wrestle with the depth of my longing for relationship, to be a wife and a mum. I wrestle with my finances and how I use them. Sometimes I want to be ‘normal’. Sometimes I want to see a pretty top and buy it without thinking, who made this, and how were they treated? Sometimes I wish I could leave this all behind for a weekend and just be silly. Be young. Be carefree.
But I can’t.
The reality is it would never satisfy me. I could never settle for the house in the suburbs, the big car and 2.4 children. There is so much MORE. More to life. I’ll always think about the kids in sweatshops who make the clothes I admire, that are being sold for 100s of times the cost of production. I’ll always remember those stats I heard about coffee… On 2003 prices, Ethiopian coffee farmers got paid about 10 Birr (about 1p) for a kilo of coffee… I can’t ever forget the words of an Ethiopian coffee farmer who said, “50 Birr would change our lives forever”… 50 Birr is about 5p. And you question paying an extra 10p for your Fairtrade coffee?? When I walk through Glasgow city centre and stroll into Cult, and admire that nice £45 Superdry hoodie I like, I will always remember the words of Dorothy Day who said (paraphrasing Jesus), “If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.”
I’m not trying to make myself out to be some superhuman person here. I’m trying to be honest about my struggles. In the summer I wrestled with the surrealness of going from sleeping on a floor to sleeping in a 5-Star hotel. I struggled with going from being with people who have almost nothing materially to being in NYC and almost buying an iPod… for no other reason than because I could. I’m not trying to say having material stuff is wrong. Though I do wrestle with how we highlight ‘you must be born again’, and not ‘sell everything you have and give it to the poor’. I do wrestle with why we take some of Jesus’ words literally and write others off. I’m not trying to say I’m perfect either, because I screw up. I’m messed up. Welcome to the dysfunctional family of Yahweh, as Claiborne says. I’m not trying to say everyone should give away everything they have and move to the poor places. But I’m trying to say, open your eyes. Look around you. I am reminded of the words a wise friend of mine said recently… You can’t love the kids in Africa until you love the kids 2 streets away. It is easy to give to charity sometimes. It removes the need to actually come into contact with any of the broken, bruised, bleeding children of God we want to help. It keeps us safe and clean and at a ‘professional’ distance.
Jesus was no professional.
Jesus got his hands dirty.
Jesus hugged kids, loved the dying, gave direction to the lost.
You don’t need to go to developing nations to find needy people. Go next door. So much can be done in Glasgow. Male life expectancy in Bridgetown is 53.9 years, a full 26 below the Scottish average. Some friends have just moved into Possilpark to do life with that community. I’m getting involved in Maryhill Youth Theatre a bit this year hopefully.
Maybe I’m just a little bit crazy.
But I’m ok with that. They called my hero crazy too.
– – – –
Here’s to the Crazy Ones
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas & see a work of art?
Or, sit in silence & hear a song that’s never been written?
Or, gaze at a red planet & see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they
can change the world, are the ones who do.
[From an old Apple advertising campaign… HT to Douglas.]
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