Why do we sing?

Nice little thought piece from KingdomRain

http://www.kingdomrain.net/content/view/285/32/

THIS 'BLOG IS MOVING

After 124 memorable posts, I have decided to move my 'blog here.

I have no overarching theory of why - it's just all shiny and new over there, with lots of features I like. Plus I've been a fan of aboutlife.com for a while, but they never used to accept people outside of HTB / New wine ministries.

So Adieu 'blogger. It's been emotional.

In a spirit of nostlagia, here are a few memorable posts - well, I think they're memorable, for one reason or another.

Breakups
Crashes
Breakups Continued
Callings
Wrath
Bible
Evil

Pre-emptive Character slur

Roberto has taken it upon himself to begin the cursory judgement of all his locally linked and related 'bloggers. He aspires for this to be a tongue in cheek venture, yet the guilt has got the better of him in the form of guilt-absolution disclaimer posts about how it's all a joke. It appears he cannot and will not stick to his guns.

I thought I would fill you in about the 'Real' Robin Mitchell.

Robin Mitchell was born Jose Luis Muscato in a New Mexico slum in 1979. His early years were spent mugging TV game show hosts to feed his $100 a day biscuit habit.

At the age of 12 he smuggled himself aboard a DHL flight to Uzbekistan. Here he inspired the masses into Marxist rebellion, and began a land war in central Asia in 1995. He is currently wanted by the UN War Crimes Commission for crimes against humanity in relation to the nationalisation of the Uzbeki biscuit industry, whereby 15m people were deprived of a nice cup of tea and sit down due Muscato's insatiable appetite for Jammie Dodgers.

Fearing the wrath of the International Community, the youthful looking Muscato began taking hormonal supplements to suppress the onset of puberty, and swam across central Europe to a parochial pocket of small town , left wing sympathisers known as the city of Bristol. Falling upon the mercy of an ex party member, and assuming the family name, this shady character emerged as the long lost eldest son of local TV evangelist David Mitchell.

Now you know the truth, or a version thereof. Forewarned is forearmed.

The foolish things I do

I just had a phone call through from reception; there's four parcels for you , Matt.

Matt goes and is presented with four parcels weighing lots, stacking about a metre high.

See, Matt foolishly regarded himself to be at a loose end before Christmas and applied to be on Imperial's Distance Learning Programme for 2007. Matt's work are paying. Matt has now realised that they now expect him to absorb this metre squared of ecological and sustainability knowledge in the next 18 months and pass exams to prove he did it.

My first priority (as I switch effortlessly from the third person) is to get the materials up the hill in the worst snow fall since the last one. . . Continual learning is a worthy aim - just not quite sure my life has the room for it. Sure God knows what he's doing, if I'm to save the world from all its ills I need to persuade myself and others of the changes that are required.

M

Da Blues . . .

Da Bears give me the Da Blues. Got the overwhelming feeling they were just out classed and out thought by the Peyton super brain . . .

UK readers no doubt are bored of all this American sport dalliance - and so am I!

For what should occur on saturday in the walkabout with the assembled masses (Once Jim remember to come get me) but the fairytale boy making a fairytale return to action. His metronomic left boot is a lot like Jesus; faithful, dependable and reliable. Though Jesus wouldn't have claimed THIS was a try ...

Frankly, after 8 straight defeats including one to the Argies, who gives a ...?

Dearly beloved

We are gathered here, in the sight of William Perry and Walter Payton, to plead for Rex Grossman's mental state.

Dear Lord, this sunday in Miami, let Rex be the player that downed seven teams with a passer rating of over a 100 in the regular season, not the panicky little kid who rated sub 50 in five more interception strewn failure fests, culminating in being pulled with a rating of ZERO vs the mighty Green Bay (Please note, my allegience will always lie with Green Bay, but the Bears are my boys as long as Joy lives in our house).

Dear Lord, let Rex see with the vision that picked off three plays for a final drive of 69 yards in 4Q of the Saints games, not the one who spilled four versus the cheeseheads.

Dear Lord, let him, you know, just not be rubbish. Please?

In the name of the father (Lovie Smith) , the Son (Brian Urlacher) and the Holy Spirit (those umpires in their funky new duds. Nice . . . )

Words that sustain

Jamming with Caddick Tuesday night, was moved to recall the songs that have kept me on my walk since this time last year. Thought I'd share them with you - poetry and truth are a potent mix.

• I've given like a beggar and lived like the rich
  crafted myself a more comfortable cross
  Yet what I am called to is deeper than this,
  It's time you had my whole life
• Reach out your hand to save me where I've have fallen down
  And in your grace, O Saviour lift me from this place
• Your beauty and your majesty are far beyond compare
  You've won my heart now this will be my prayer
  Take the world but give me Jesus
  You're the treasure in this life
  For time and for eternity I know I'm in your care
  You've won my heart now this will be my prayer
• When satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within
  upward I look and see Him there, who made an end to all my sin
  Because the sinless Saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free
  For God the just is satisfied, to look on Him and pardon me
• Long my imprisoned spirit lay
  fast bound in sin and nature's plight
  Thine eye diffused a quickening ray
  I rose, the dungeon filled with light
  My chains fell off, my heart was free
  I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

More on Dawkins

Was thinking around some of Roberto's comments on a post late last week. I don't think it's as simple as dismissing someone as un intellectual if they don't bother doing the research before they write on something. There's other words for that. Dawkins is no doubt an extremely capable and intelligent man - in his field. But in the same way I wouldn't pretend to have the capacity to write about, say, organic famring methods in Yemen, with any degree of accuracy, perhaps dawkins could take the lesson on board? That the overwhelming response to his work from rational, real, intellectually capable Christians is that he simply misses the point nearly all the time - by assuming his presuppositions equal truth and 'setting up straw men to knock them down'. If I were the receiver of all this criticism (or Christicism (C) ) from an established school of intellectual enquiry i.e. theology - I might want to listen and learn from them . . . ?

Bishop Mike put me the way of a review, which included this gem about the nature of God.

Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.

Anti-hero

Ladies and gentlemen of the UK, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Senator James M.Inhofe . Famous quotes and other bon mots are the stock in trade for your average blogger, and the Marshes even have an entire blog of quotes. So here is one from that (thankfully) outgoing head of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee.

"(Climate change is) the greatest hoax ever perpetrated"

Now join with with me in thanking the democratic process for enabling the removal of this man from any kind of environmental policy committee. He is now free to expose other, similar, great conspiracies of our time designed to rob the US of its economic productivity, like, you know, the Holocaust, or the Earth being round. God speed you, sir - all the way back to Oklahoma.

180 numero two

Crikey

The things done in His name . . .

Matt

The root of all of evil

I always feel really refreshed when Dawkins attacks Christianity. I am grateful for the opportunity to show that Christianity as an experiential, holistic and personal reality stands up to intellectual criticism.

Is religion the root of all evil? I don't think so - I think Humans are. The one constant behind every instance of all that is depraved, life stealing, dark and abhorrent is, sadly, a human being. Sin, defined by Luther, is humanity turned in on itself. This makes every single human enterprise capable of both the highest high of purity, charity and integrity and the lowest depth of selfishness, de-humanisation and cruelty. The church is, sadly no-exception in its current state.

Many technologies or systems in the modern world are entirely neutral, until turned toward a particular purpose by human desires. Case in point - I just read an incredibly helpful article from a website which distributes high quality teaching for free. I then read here that the same technology platform is being used by obsessed and abusive ex-es as a means to torment and torture their former partners.

I wish the zeitgeist would turn the way of G K Chesterton's awareness of sin. When asked to contribute to an essay competition of leading thinkers, on 'what's wrong with the world' he answered ' Dear Sirs, I am. '. More than an echo of Romans 7 there . . . ! If well realised the depth of our fall as a race, maybe we might welcome the one who provided a rescue . . .

Happy new year!

Haven't got much time as I just got in and we're driving to Vancouver to see the Sopwiths and Phil in an hour, but here is where I saw the new year in. The party was in the EMP, an amazing musuem which gives you the history of Seattle residents like Jimi Hendrix, and all kinds of crazy cool stuff, plus massive stages and live disco covers bands like these guys .

We went to a church called Quest yesterday and had an amazing time reflecting on the year gone past. It's been a good one for me overall. Bring on the '07! Jump on it! Jump on it! (private joke).

See you all soon,

Matt

Something someone said about song lyrics

Present me with vapid, airy familiarities about God sung in a ballad
and I'm nowhere - give me orientation as to my fall, my rescue, and my
blessing in Christ and I'm ready to overflow with thanksgiving.

Now - answers on a postcard as to who said it.

Happy Christmas BTW

XXV

The 14th of December is my 25th birthday. Or more precisely the 4 year anniversary of my 21st birthday, which is the way Billy Connolly suggests we should look at things.
I remember my 21st party. Late in the term of final year, half the CU showed up and left by 11.30 (I’d like to be able to have a dig at their conservatism but the reality is that they all went to ‘drive by’, a D&B night). I found a photo of myself from then, and it’s bizarre that the man I am now was the young man there.

In essence we’re the same, but we’ve diverged from each other. The things I care about now don’t match what he cared about. He was also a free-er person, but in some senses naïve. He had yet to fall in love – lol. For the most part, when I’m not exasperated at my own weakness as a man, I like who I’m growing up to be, and I like the way God is shaping me. I am excited by the way he is moulding me because I can see where it might take me.
I spent some time with my parents last week, and got to thinking how my mum and dad must feel watching me grow up, and become my own man. I wonder if they feel proud, or are scared, or wish they could make my decisions for me. I think there are things about me that they have directly shaped and influenced of which they can be proud – and I hope I bring a measure of satisfaction that having kids was the right thing to do (my dad was dead set against, in the context of a cold war 70’s).

Watching someone grow who you have a direct influence on must be such a mixed joy. I have been reading Luke’s gospel recently and have been struck by the things that happened as Jesus and John grew up , having children soaked in prophecy from the outset, seeing the purposes of God being worked out in their children – Mary’s reaction being to ‘treasure all these things in her heart'(2:19 and 51) and 'ponder them'.

My challenge to myself and whoever cares to listen is this – who has God out you in a similar position in relation to? Who do you have the privilege of sharing life with, reflecting with, praying into and releasing into ministry? Are you pushing too hard, or are you letting God do what He will do as his good pleasing and perfect will dictates , being content to ‘treasure these things in your heart’ until the right moment? Do your duty for sure, but wait for the sense of God’s timing. It could be thirty years.
Matt

Take two

Blogging from Bromley

As part of a series of ex-bristol blogs I blog from Bromley this fine sunday morning.

It is nine. Englands droppped Ponting on 35 who then went on to make a big ton. This has affected my mood. I have another three hours drive back to bristol before getting tired out doing the mix. What fun. TTFN

Christmas Party 16th Dec

At our place with these guys. And Dan Aykroyd.

On being in the office before the heating is on

Having never seen the office clock before 8am before, I now know why. The heating doesn't com on 'til half eight.

Things are much quieter when no-one else is around. Which leaves room for thoughts.

How will tonight go? Will God heal people? Will He heal Kirsty before she goes into surgery? Will my neck and headaches rear their nasty little head?

I have no doubt in my mind that He can. I'm just not certain it will happen.

Which brings me to last night, reading and learning about Romans 8 together, the 'pinnacle' of the New Testament. I thought to myself lots last night that the promise of God is not that we'll never see trouble, hardship, famine, death, or experience demonic influence, but that these things cannot separate us from the love of God that is in Christ.

M