“How was your holiday?”
“Oh yeah. We had an amazing time. We got this amazing deal at this amazing hotel which was amazingly cheap. The weather was just, well, amazing. Didn’t you see the pictures on Facebook? They were amazing.”
And you think about your holiday…Well Piddle-Sea On-the-Swamp isn’t too bad now they’ve reduced the fly tipping on the beach. I suppose it could be said to be sort of amazing—or not.
So you keep quiet.
And so it goes on. People find this amazing restaurant which not many know about and they have the best pizza/burger/whatever, they’ve had in their lives until you meet them next time when they’ve amazingly had another best pizza in their life in another amazing place. Life seems to progress through a series of amazing best evers, recorded on Facebook.
Sometimes people seem to need to persuade you that their lives are amazing or they themselves would be failures. Or perhaps they’re trying to convince themselves that they are fully satisfied and fulfilled with what life offers—that they’re fine thanks very much, got the answers or at least proud to know that there aren’t any. So they think— can we please stop bothering them with the difficult questions? And let them get on with the holidays and restaurants that are strangely reported as never far short of amazing.
Do you think people might be doing a sought of double take, a bit of mental smoke and mirrors?
“I know about the serious questions, what’s the meaning of life, why are we here, is there a God, what’s he like, what does he want from me, what happens when I die? But I’ve decided it’s OK to ignore them. There’s evidence that I’m wrong but it’s too uncomfortable to think about so I’ve just decided that life without any of this stuff is OK. But ‘OK’ isn’t enough, I need more. I seem to need ‘amazing’. So I’m persuading myself and my friends that it’s all amazing.”
Perhaps they sort of know the truth deep down but just decide to ignore it. Perhaps they say they can see but in fact they are blind. Their thinking has become unwise—even, perish the thought—foolish.
The Bible seems to say just this. Read Romans Ch. 1. v. 18-25. It talks about suppressing the truth and exchanging the glory of god for worshipping created things. I suppose if people think something is amazing, they are on the way to worshipping it.
Read John Ch. 9 – the story of a blind nobody who had his eyes opened by Jesus in more ways than one and the cool people who said they could see but in fact were spiritually blind. If you want something amazing, that story is.
How often do you read fairy stories? They sometimes contain deep truths. Do you remember ‘The King’s New Clothes’ by Hans Christian Anderson?
A vain king was persuaded by con-men into wearing (after paying for) a suit of magnificent but unfortunately non existent clothes which were supposed to be visible only to the wise and invisible to fools. All of the court and society joined in the mental double take to appear wise. But along came an innocent who wasn’t in on the con, and showed they were all fools.
I think it sums up something of the Bible’s view of how people are conned and decide to disbelieve and suppress the truth. It inspired me to write this short poem about what might have been going on in the mind of the kings subjects.
Recite this out loud:
The King’s New Clothes
The king is amazingly dressed.
Everybody says so.
And we and our lives are blessed
And we’re normal, and we know
Normal is JUST FINE!
So the king is amazingly dressed
And we will praise the line
And admire the cut of his suit.
And we will compete in interviews,
To define his essential style.
So the king is amazingly dressed
For if it were, let us say, “otherwise”
The system would fail— the stress!
Normal, would then not be fine,
We would no longer be cool.
So we hold to the party line,
The king is amazingly dressed.
We’re not fools, not led by a fool.
So it continues — the braying,
Well dressed!
A triumphant fanfare,
Unlike the innocent saying
Politely, “Excuse me— he’s bare!”
When we point out the truth about life —the gospel— be encouraged. We are not being unreasonable and just asking them to make an unpopular decision. They are not taking a neutral stance and after a fair assessment of the evidence, making a perfectly reasonable and innocent decision to reject it.
The Bible says we are humbly presenting The Truth. It says it is unreasonable and deeply morally wrong to suppress it and reject it. We are also effectively saying, according to The Bible, “Stop being conned, you know the king’s clothes aren’t there. Stop bigging it all up. Life without following Christ is actually not amazing at all”.
Let’s try not to be ashamed of the gospel.
St Paul in Romans Ch 1. again, v. 16. “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…”

Have you ever had a young child, grandchild, niece or nephew, sit on your knee and unashamedly, closely inspect your face, kneading you like a piece of play dough? This is written for you.
Suppose I’m on fire with rage, smouldering with resentment, awash with satisfaction, bubbling with hap-hap- happiness or just horizontally laid back, floating above all emotions.
How much of it can I stop from showing on my face?
St Paul said we could reflect God’s glory on our face–even better than Moses did. (2 Corinthians ch 3 v 12-18). Perhaps he was speaking figuratively at least in part. But a lifetime of resentment and frustration can surely leave it’s real marks on people’s faces. There are unfortunately such things as habitual expressions. Perhaps a lifetime of the fruit of the Spirit can show as well.
What, despite all our efforts at pretence, do our faces say to those judges which are more difficult to fool than most others–the eyes of a child.
Read this slowly and you need to read it out loud:

Face Time

Your infant eyes, diamond bright,
Steel grey, ice white
Gifts of grace,
Set in the soft perfection
Of a cherub’s face,
Innocent, intense, intent,
Orbiting in-close, planet Grandpa’s Head,
Mesmerised they scrutinise
The landscape of my face.
Are there signals for your guidance,
Any words from my story
That read themselves to you
Unwitting reader, through your survey,
And despite my silence?
What have I laid down in my geology?
A fissured perma-frown of discontent,
Or smooth plains of sweet apology?
What has been the chief creator
Of my surface?
What, the dominator,
Flesh’s fires’ volcanic rages,
Spirit’s rain, reigned down my ages?
Data’s there, my life’s arranged it.
Is there yet the time to change it?
You then send in a surface probe.
Small fingers on an arm,
Seeking more than eyes can tell,
Investigate a lobe.
“Grandpa you’re so squidgy!”
And so you break the spell.

For ages, we’ve tamed the Christmas story and made it nice for the kids–time to face reality. Recite this out loud:
She said God made her pregnant!
What was in her head?
Was that what, what she said meant?
There were less idiotic ways to explain her
Being in the family way—it’s a no-brainer.
Well, was that like, BONKERS or what?
Or so disgusting in her day as to get her shot.
Except that guns, they’d not then got;
No, then she could’ve got stoned to death
(And I don’t mean overdosed on crystal meth)
For this crazy combination
Of blasphemy and fornication.
Nobody sane would fake it, make that up,
But, if she was mad, no-one’s ever raked that up.
You might think, hang on!—Honour killing,
‘Cept it was the law
So fall-guy Joe was willing
To sweep it under the—mud floor,
Let her drift off-stage after the divorce
(On the quiet, hush hush, of course,)
Until he’s put on-message, it would seem
By—what else?—an angel, in a dream!
Hadn’t been any a’ them for about five hundred years,
Up until this story, where they’re stackin’ ‘em in tiers.
Then Joe and near-term teen have to struggle eighty miles.
Forced head-count. (To bleed them, they need them on their files).
We’ve given her the donkey-riding, blue dress, haloed look.
Forget it; none of them are in the book.
“The Hotel staff were wonderful”—not. They said “Shove off.”
So, in some cattle shed, the smell, the crap, a cattle cough:
The One, The Always, Lord of Time,
Beginning’s Owner, Name unsayable
Beyond, “He is”,
His, creation’s game, unplayable
By any other,
Sprayer of a million, billion, billion stars
Across forever,
Never losing count of countless worlds,
Exhaling star-birthing clouds,
A sigh
A trillion Everests high;
He!
Gets squeezed down through the tunnel of his mother’s agony
And gets expelled, a wrinkled scrap of human progeny.
Then, tightly bound in strips of cloth,
Gets bunged into a feeding trough.
How silently, how silently the wondrous gift…COME ON!
Show me any labour ward that is cathedral-calm.
Who did The Universe’s Lord, Rescuer of our World
Choose to hear the news? “He’s here,” made meat, The Word.
Celebs? Upright? In-crowd? At least some solid folk?
His pick was just annoying, a slap-in-the-face. A joke?
Shepherds—scum! One-up from lepers, living dead.
(A loaf, refused by shepherds was officially not bread).
Then some guys—rich but travellers, untouchables, unsound,
Dabblers in the horoscope, dodgy ways, foreign land.
Oh, and the two wrinklies, today could be in-care—
End of life, past it, bless! (Lot of time, “in prayer”).
So what’s the take? I ask myself, what’s that all about?
Last first? First last? Everything inside out?
Born to be…born to show our sickness, to be killed, the cost of cure.
He was the pill, so bitter-sweet, so pure
As we could only vomit out, so he
Straightway’s a member of a refugee family,
Angel-led, on the run from a puppet king from hell
Who slaughtered toddlers for power—we know such things so well.
‘Cause, hey what’s new, it’s just a few and rather little boys that died.
Nowadays, to us, a mere mini genocide.
Born to be king, he got his crown–made out of thorns.
Eventually we brought him down in blood and phlegm and scorn.
Regarding mission Earth, he nailed it, but got nailed
To a piece of wood, that is, but when all thought he’d failed
There’s this stubborn, awkward evidence, wormed into my head
That this story ends, I’m serious, with him, back from the dead
But we trivialize and gluttonize and sentimentalize it,
Avoid, deny, commercialize and trite-nativitize it.
If the baby is The King, we insult him with this goo.
They couldn’t make this story up. I should face it—could be true.
So, despite my fears, the danger, yes perhaps,
Do I give him, my life’s crown?
Or do I keep him in the manger, under wraps,
Tinsel him out of town?

Let’s eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Fine, thought St Paul (tongue in cheek) if this life is all there is, (1 Corinthians 15, 32. What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought wild beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”. )
But if there is a life beyond and a judgement beforehand, God thinks this is a very bad guide to life.
Isaiah 22. 12, 13. In that day the Lord, the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth; and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering of sheep, eating flesh and drinking of wine.

“Let us eat and drink,
For tomorrow we die.”

For many people today, this is their guide to life. How do we get inside their head? How can we shock them into sense? It’s the Spirit’s work, but He uses us.
I wrote this a few days ago—the idea came to me on a train—don’t know why:
Recite this out loud:
Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
If we like, though, let’s diet, for appearances’ sake
And when the mood takes us, be civilised,
Unless the mood takes us, otherwise.
But let us not make many waves, not shake
The foundations, don’t start.
Let’s keep calm and our comfort at heart,
For tomorrow we die.
Let’s, as a side effect, rape the whole Earth,
Reluctantly take her for all she’s worth.
Let’s not ask, why not? Let’s milk her dry,
For tomorrow we die.
Let us not think of the stroke of midnight.
Stuff the glass slippers, the coachmen turned mice.
Let’s have a do like– there is no tomorrow;
Tomorrow we die.
Let me love you, the ones who are closest to me,
But the deal only comes with a guarantee,
You don’t clip my wings, I’m free to fly
For tomorrow I die.
And when it’s too late and we’re in it too deep,
Let’s have second thoughts, and think, “Oh, no, not yet.”
Then let’s start the weeping and gnashing of teeth,
And eternal regret.

“In the beginning was The Word and The Word was with God and The Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him, nothing was made that was made…
And The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us…”
John chapter 1
Recite this, slowly, out loud:
Being’s being,
Meaning’s meaning,
Lord in Persons three–
A thought, became a word
Proclaiming, “Let there be”.
The Always, Lord of Time,
Beginning’s Owner, Name unsayable
Beyond “He is”;
His, creation’s game, unplayable
By any other,
Sprayer of a million, billion, billion stars
Across forever,
Never losing count of countless worlds,
Exhaling star-birthing clouds, a sigh
Four trillion Everests high,
Folly, wiser than all wise,
Made meat upon this speck of dust
And come to die.

APOLOGY: This blog was originally published with the last line missing … oops, the blogbot must have eaten it! Please read it again and relish the significance of the last few words.

 
Read this:
What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?
Mark, ch 8, v, 36
Recite this out loud:
He swung a weird brass bucket to and fro—
Like a bucket, but not quite.
Something you would never really know
Outside the rather alien rites
And technicalities
Of the undertaker’s trade,
Its equipment and its practicalities
Which, ostrich-like, we prefer to evade.
He must’ve pulled some little trigger-thing
And out there flowed a stream of dust,
Like emptying a Hoover, carpeting
The patch of crematorium that’s just
Reserved for scatterings.
Deftly, he missed his smartly polished shoes.
You might wonder, does it matter if
It’s scattered here or there. Is there anything to lose?
But my mother, then was saying through a screen
Of tears, “Near the flowers, or we won’t remember where.”
And on the grass it settled, grey on green.
Hope softly smothered in a layer of despair.
Unfortunately as the years have gone,
Together with the dust that was my dad,
My mother’s memory’s become
Just a memory. Steadily she’s losing all she had.
It matters less then, if the flowers live or die.
She won’t remember what or where.
And his eighty-seven years of life—
Achievements, friendships, obsessive, crushing cares—
Being pulled down a slope, clawing vainly at the grit,
By the thief who stole his sight, his hearing and his touch,
The disease which took relentlessly, his senses, bit by bit;
Not rich but neither poor—fine, he never asked for much.
Is that it, that really it—
“Over by the flowers so we’ll know another day”,
But she’s forgetting anyway?
But he knew and served The Lord for forty years,
A steel-worker tempered, not destroyed
By alternating, fiery trials and cooling tears,
Then to his carers singing shameless hymns of joy
And amongst his final words, “I’m not afraid”
And then to sleep till clocks forever are re-set.
And then to rise, complete, refined, remade.
That’s it–or, “By the flowers, or we’ll forget”

“In Flander’s fields the poppies blow…” This is the first line of one of the most famous of the WW1 poems (By John McCrae, 1915).
“And you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free”, John 8.32
“I am the way, the truth and the life”, John 14.6.
I wrote the poem below, on and around 11th Nov. 2014, the Centenary of Armistice Day, after an early morning train journey to London on the East Midlands Line.
Recite this out loud:

In East Midlands Fields

In the carriage’s sweet limbo, slung between
The first and last, early morning stations,
Some, still in the night before’s delicious dream,
Dreamt smilingly through, we hope, other’s destinations.
Some gamed on mobiles and other streamed distractions.
Some with seeming vacant stare, pierced the sky,
Focussed Londonwards towards the day’s transactions.
I assumed all felt on track, with no need to justify
What they hoped life might have in reservation.
Then up the carriage trench, cheerful, chatty, charming,
Came the poppy man, selling floral blood spurts of a nation.
“Want a poppy? Or are you already poppied?”–Quite disarming.
That day just one or two older people bought them.
I had one at home from someone else’s shopping list.
How long would we remember those who fought then?
I joined the mute conspiracy that death does not exist
As the carriage largely, silently, politely ignored him.
An Eastern European pushed a wagon bringing tea.
Our occupation with the poppy might have bored him
Whose freedom’s history crossed another century, a sea
Of blood and hardship, before breaking through to the East Midlands Line.
Through the window I could see, distant, solitary, free
A man in fields clear of poppies and unscarred in our time.
How forever to remember them?
By seeking for the truth and the truth shall make us free.

Pride.

(Re-read, Code Ode; Prat and Pride Part 1, Prat.)
(Read Luke Ch 15, v 24-32)
Recite this, out loud, walking along, to the rhythm of your footsteps. Best by far in a Ray Winstone / Bob Hoskins accent. (If you are reading this on your phone, turn it on its side).
So there’s cat’rers – a mobile disco.
They’re largin’ it well hard.
Next thing that we get is,
Oh no, it’s only Big Bro,
Parked up in the yard,
Face like a dead lettuce.
A bloke there’s hangin’ about.
Oldest gives him a shout.
“What’s the blimmin’ row?
What’s happenin’ in the ‘owse?
What’s this going off in
There – they tell me nuffin’. “
“Yeah guess what?” He says.
“Your brother’s back here safe and sound.
We’re partyin’ – innit.
Your dad he’s pushed the boat out,
Got cat’rers – a disco round.
Come on – join in it!”
But the oldest goes bananas.
Has a tantrum in the car.
Says “That’s beyond the limit
The party – you can bin it.
No way I’m joinin’ in it
Dad’s gone a step too far”.
They fetch the old man out.
Says “What’s this all about?
Get out the car and come in, son.
For Pete’s sake give us a grin, son.”
But he doesn’t wanna play.
He’s got to have his say.
“I’ve had the best intentions,
Stayed and slaved here all these years.
Not carted off – not me.
You’ve never even mentioned
Having my mates round for beers
And you doing it for free!
Now this prat of a son of yours
Takes what you’ve built over a lifetime,
Says ‘Thanks I’ll have a nice time’;
Blows the lot on slags n’ whores.
He comes crawling back to you,
Broke – with his cap in hand.
What do you go and do?
Hire cat’rers, – a flippin’ band!”
“My son, just keep your wool on.
No need to be so full on.
Come on now, shake my hand.
Together we’ll always stand.
(It’s a disco s’not even a band).
Come on now, say no more.
Everything that’s mine is yours,
But we had to paint the town red.
He’s back alive – it’s like he was dead.
We had to have folks round.
He was lost and now he’s found”.
Then my mate Josh piped up,
“God’s like that geezer – with his sons.”
I said, “You’re getting all hyped up.
I think you’re having me on.”
He said, “No – not nearly – really.
Open your eyes – you’ll see it clearly.
And now I think it’s your round!”

Prat

Read Luke Ch 15, v 11-23
(Recite this, out loud, walking along, to the rhythm of your footsteps. Best by far in a Ray Winstone / Bob Hoskins accent. If you are reading this on your phone, turn it on its side).
My mate Josh down the pub,
Got a story about this bloke;
He’s minted. Now then,
He’s got this, fam’ly business.
He could give them anything ,
He never stinted–on them.
Got blokes , working for him,
Bespoke, load a’ stuff, and so
He’s got these two sons. The oldest,
A straight-down-the-line
Sort a’ bloke. Not rough, yer know?
The other – was a bit of a lad, a bit mad.
Could be a prat, I’m told,
Bad news and how!
Saw what the old man was worth,
Said “I want some a’ that, pot a’ gold,
An’ I want it now!”
So he kicks off – like chronic.
Father has to give in–to him.
Put hisself and the business on the line.
He risked everythin’–for him.
Packed in, pulled out, retired.
Split the lot between the two–of them.
Soon as the youngest got his share,
He decided what to do–right then.
Cashed in his bit.
Loads of the ready was what
At his insistence, he got.
Right up the young prat’s street.
All them breathin’ down his neck –
Wanted freedom, distance–a lot.
He voted – with his feet.
Goes abroad to some hellhole,
Where he was into
Everything, real deep.
‘Everything’, I mean you could buy
Anything, dead cheap.
Talk about a walk on the wild side,
More a marathon run–then some.
Enjoyed hisself to death,
Laid everything in sight.
Sure, he was havin’ some–great fun.
“I get tarts for free, (and high class pros,
I pay for, as well.)”
If you asked him. “Any regrets?” “Regrets!
On what score? Like hell!”
Then the money ran out,
He got no clout, no more.
S’no use to shout.
He found out, for sure,
Without a doubt
What a bunch of louts
His friends might
Really be. – They headed out
Of sight, off site.
Then the economy goes down the drain.
It goes well, insane.
There’s no welfare state, there mate.
So earning a living’s
One hell, of a game.
Some of the things he did! –
Lowest of the low, he was–gettin’.
Sometimes he could have ate
The leavings off folk’s plates,
But he couldn’t, cus they wouldn’t–let ‘im.
Then (Josh said),
A light bulb went on – flash!
In the plonker’s little head.
“I’ll put an end to muppetry.
I’m bonkers, must be said.
In this puke hole, I’m well up-a-tree.
Here I am – me,
My father’s son, I’m starving
And even blokes what work for him,
Aren’t short of grub,
Not even one, they’re larfing.”
Although it took a while
The big idea hits him.
Genius! – With style.
“I’ll go back home!”
But there’s more to it than that.
He saw for, the first time in his life,
And since he set out on the roam,
He was – a prat.
He had to confess.
He’d been a right bar steward, no less.
“I’ve stuck two fingers up to Dad.
I must’ve driven him up the wall.
And if there is a God,
Where He’s concerned
I’ve stuck two fingers up, an’ all.
I’m not fit to be my father’s son,
No more, I know the score.
The time for grovelling has come.
It’s all your fit for chum.”
So, sty-fell-ing a sob,
He decides to say “I’m sorry.
I’m not fit to be your son no more.
Just gizza job.
Any job, ‘cause basically I’m poor.”
So he goes home.
Now the old man’s front drive’s
The length of a small runway.
When father sees him, at the gate,
Well, there’s only one way.
When he sees him comin’
The old man sets off runnin’.
The old man–there’s no way he’s fit.
And running, rich old guys avoid
If they can–get away with it.
The son – he starts in.
“Dad I’m not fit to be – ‘”
The old man interrupts him.
He starts up – and butts in.
“Come on don’t be a mug.
Come on don’t make me laugh.”
He gives him the old bear-hug
And calls in his chief of staff.
“Get him kitted out
In the Armani and the Gucci.
Come on now!
The best that we have got.
This here is my son now.
He’s got to look the part
He’s got to have the gear.
We lost him now we‘ve found him
We’re having the biggest party,
You lot have seen all year.”