More Snow Splendour

True Enough

Neighbourhood Wonderland

Neighbourhood Wonderland, originally uploaded by Laurence Barber.

Here it comes again !

A Hole . . .

There's a hole in the world tonight.
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow.
There’s a hole in the world tonight.
Don‘t let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

– The Eagles

Limitations of the Linear

Nature connected her things in a net, not a chain; but humans can follow only by chains because their language can't handle several things at once.

- Albrecht von Haller

Micah Challenge

The Old Testament prophet Micah reminds us that there are three things God requires of us: ‘to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God." (Micah 6:8)

Perhaps the Micah blueprint can be visualized by the following: 

Walk Humbly With God - addressing our spiritual lives: personal commitment to Christ, spiritual disciplines, worship, serving God, becoming a devoted follower of Jesus, sharing in and seeking to build up the Christian family and community.

Love Mercy - addressing individual symptoms of brokenness, lostness and need in our neighbour and others around us, locally and globally; through acts of kindness and service, by meeting basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, medical assistance and care; by sharing of our abundance with those who have little - and especially who have few choices, if any, in life.

Act Justly - addressing the causes that create the symptoms; job creation andjob training, teaching how to read, helping people prepare for life; fighting for liveable wages and sustainable jobs; tutoring, mentoring; helping change issues of unemployment and under-employment

Many Christians think that the whole of their spiritual life and discipline happens only in the context of the first aspect. The need is for individual disciples - and for churches - to prepare and respond holistically to the challenges and opportunities of all three.

Dare

It is not the critic who counts: not the one who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievements; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. 

-- Theodore Roosevelt

May It Be

May it be an evening star

Shines down upon you
May it be when darkness falls
Your heart will be true
You walk a lonely road
Oh! How far you are from home

Mornie utúlië (darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornie alantië (darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

May it be the shadows call
Will fly away
May it be you journey on
To light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun

Mornie utúlië (darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornie alantië (darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

A promise lives within you now
- Enya

Harvest Rolls

Shortened Days of Autumn

I Love This Time of Year !!!

Our Stories

We live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidescope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, making up a single monologue. We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.

- Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero

Solitude of Heart

Without the solitude of heart, the intimacy of friendship, marriage and community life cannot be creative. Without the solitude of heart, our relationships with others easily become needy and greedy, sticky and clinging, dependent and sentimental, exploitative and parasitic, because without the solitude of heart we cannot experience the others as different from ourselves but only as people who can be used for the fulfilment of our own, often hidden, needs.

- from 'Reaching Out' by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Soul Sowing

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the heights of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the levels of its unchastened desires, and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.

- from As A Man Thinketh, James Allen

Fly, Beauty !

The Modern Age led people to organize, and analyze, in this case to chlorophorm beauty and to pin it on white-board (complete with frame) and give it a Latin name (on the reverse side). Postmoderns may not know the name(s) - and things seem somewhat more random - and they would rather that the butterflies be ALIVE - and just FLY.

Profundity

God is Present

Doing Something About It . . .

“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”                                                                                                      - Karl Barth 

Help to Become . . .

“One can listen someone into existence.”
                                         - Mary Rose O’Reilley

Glad Expectancy

“Our whole life is to be poised on a certain glad expectancy of God; taking each moment as material placed in our hand by the Creator whose whole intricate and mysterious process moves toward the triumph of Charity, and who has given each living spirit a tiny part in this vast work of transformation.”
                                                                                      - Evelyn Underhill, The Secret of Charity

Sad . . .

Sadness is a wall between two gardens.
                                           -- Kahlil Gibran

Burning

Lord of the Starfields, Ancient of Days
Universe Maker, here's a Song in Your Praise
Voice of the Nova, Smile of the Dew
All of our yearning only comes home to You!
Oh Love that fires the sun, keep me burning
                                                                              - Bruce Cockburn

Life's Reasons

The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on. But everything has its cause and its meaning. Every life, every love, every action and feeling and thought has its reason and significance: its beginning, and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see. Sometimes, we see the past so clearly, and read the legend of its parts with such acuity, that every stitch of time reveals its purpose, and a kind of message is enfolded in it. Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny, precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be. Shantaram, p. 871

The Kiss

It was a long kiss. We lived out a life together in that kiss: we lived and loved and grew old together, and we died. Then our lips parted, and that life we might’ve had retreated, shrinking to a spark of light we would always recognize in one another’s eyes. Shantaram, p. 639

Loved and Lost . . .

At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread, of course, is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they’re gone. . . . Sometimes, my friend, the love that I have, and can’t give to you, crushes the breath from my chest. Sometimes, even now, my heart is drowning in a sorrow that has no stars without you, and no laughter, and no sleep. Shantaram, p. 629

Politic and Reality

The formula – the one million, the ten million, the hundred million – that is the real truth of all politics. The world is run by one million evil men, ten million stupid men, and a hundred million cowards.

The evil men are the power – the rich men, and the politicians, and the fanatics of religion – whose decisions rule the world, and set it on its course of greed and destruction. There are only one million of them, the truly evil men, in the whole world. The very rich and the very powerful, whose decisions really count – they only number one million. The stupid men, who number ten million, are the soldiers and policemen who enforce the rule of the evil men. They are the standing armies of twelve key countries, and the police forces of those and twenty more. In total, there are only ten million of them with any real power or consequence. They are often brave . . . but they are stupid, too, because they give their lives for governments and causes that use their flesh and blood as mere chess pieces. Those governments always betray them or let them down or abandon them, in the long run. Nations neglect no men more shamefully than the heroes of their wars.

And the hundred millions cowards are the bureaucrats and paper shufflers and pen-pushers who permit the rule of the evil men, and look the other way. They are the head of this department, and the secretary of that committee, and the president of the other associations. They are managers, and officials, and mayors, and officers of the court. They always defend themselves by saying that they are just following orders, or just doing their job, and it’s nothing personal, and if they don’t do it, someone else surely will. They are the hundred million cowards who know what is going on, but say nothing, while they sign the paper that puts one man before a firing squad, or condemns one million men to the slower death of a famine. Shantaram, p. 349-350

Forgiveness

Forgiveness characterizes the human race. It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive. Shantaram, p. 370

Love Won't Die

You can’t kill love. You can’t even kill it with hate. You can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can’t kill love itself. Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own, and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. Every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: its’ a part of God . . and it can never die. Shantaram, p. 740

The Good Earth

The soil you turn and the seed you sow are all you really have, when you live and work the Earth. And sometimes, much too often, there’ s nothing more than that – the silent, secret, heartbreaking joy God puts into things that bloom and grow – to help you face the fear of hunger and the dread of evil.  Shantaram p. 114

God is - Impossible . . .

There is no believing in God. We either know God, or we do not . . . I’m inclined to think that God is impossible to believe in, at least most of the notions of God that I’ve come across. . . . O, of course, naturally, God is impossible. That is the first proof that He exists. Shantaram, p. 194

Dreaming of . . .

A dream is the place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and the fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare. Shantaram, p. 150

Heart's River

There is a ‘ river, one that runs through every one of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world. It’s the river of the heart, and the heart’s desire. It’s the pure, essential truth of what each one of us, and can achieve.’ Shantaram, p. 136

Cost of Living

. . . no happiness exists without its woe, no wealth without its cost, and no life without its full measure, sooner or later, of sorrowing and death. Shantaram, p. 129

The Soul

The soul has no nations. The soul has not colour or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has no moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can’t be stilled . . . .Some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you. Shantaram, p. 124

Present . . .

There’s a king of luck that’s not much more than being in the right place at the right time, a kind of inspiration that’s not much more than doing the right thing in the right way, and both only really happen to you when you empty your heart of ambition, purpose and plan; when you give yourself, completely, to the golden, fate-filled moment. Shantaram, p. 119

Fixing Things . . .

It’s good to know what’s wrong with the world. But it’s just as important to know that sometimes, no matter how wrong it is, you can’t change it. A lot of the bad stuff in the world wasn’t really that bad until someone tried to change it. - Shantaram, p. 97

You Come Now . . .

The author of Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts was born in Melbourne, Australia. Sentenced to nineteen years in prison for a series of armed robberies, he escaped and spent ten of his fugitive years in Bombay - where he established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for a branch of the Bombay mafia. Recaptured, he served out his sentence, and established a successful multimedia company upon his release. Roberts is now a full-time writer and lives in Bombay. (from the book's jacket)

The Washington Post writes of his 2003 novel, Shantaram - "A sprawling, intelligent novel . . . full of vibrant characters . . . but Bombay itself is Shantaram's strongest performance and Roberts' love of India and the people who live there is unmistakable and a joy to read about . . . Roberts brings us through Bombay's slums and opium houses, its prostitution dens, and ex-pat bars, saying, You come now. And we follow."

Man of God's Peace . . .

My son shared with me a book that I've found difficult to put down. It's called Shantaram and I've found in it all kinds of ‘wisdom.’ The author is Gregory David Roberts (published by St. Martin’s Griffin, New York).

Ostensibly a work of fiction - caution - the book is very earthy but also extremely real - and hauntingly beautiful. Perhaps almost autobiographical, it mirrors much of the experience of the author. In a little and remote farming village in India, he was given the name, 'Man of God's Peace' - i.e. Shantaram. Writes the author: "I don't know if they found that name in the heart of the man they belived me to be, or if they planted it there, like a wishing tree, to bloom and grow. Whatever the case, whether they discovered that peace or created it, the truth is that the man I am was born in those moments."

On reviewer states of the book: "Shantaram has provided me with the richest reading experience to date and I don't expect anybody to unseat its all-round performance for a long time. It is seductive, powerful, complex and blessed with a perfet voice." 

Says another, "I haven't had such a wonderful time in years. Shanataram is, quite simply, the Arabian Nights of the new century. Anyone who loves to read has been looking for this book all their reading life."

I shall be sharing a random thought or two from the book in several blog-articles in the future.

Here's one about Truth. "There’s a truth that’s deeper than experience. It’s beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It’s an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception. We’re helpless, usually, in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay. It doesn’t always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world. And the only way to know that truth is to share it, from heart to heart . . . just as I'm telling it to you now."  p. 82

Nairobi

One of the most beautiful cities in sub-Saharan Africa, Nairobi is a city of contrasts - of great wealth and great poverty, of things that are ugly and squalid with things that are gorgeously brilliant.

Byblos

From a recent trip to Byblos, Lebanon. The city which is about an hour's drive north of Beirut may be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world.

Easter

Every year it strikes me anew how in practically every instance when the resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples they do not recognize that it is He who is alive and well and present with them.

The Emmaus two, though their hearts burn within as he shares with them about Himself on the way, a rehearsal of the Scriptures of all that spoke of Himself, only recognize Him as He breaks bread and blesses it, sitting with them in the quiet hospitality of an early evening in their home.

Have you opened the door to Christ in the intimacy of your own heart and home?

Mary Magdalene, who is so loved and known by the Saviour, and with whom He seems to have had a special bond (without admitting any of the nonsense in such books as The Da Vinci Code), also fails to recognize Him. She thinks at first – looking up into the light of the tomb entrance through her tears, that it is only the gardener. And indeed it was – the Gardener, Creator and Sustainer of the earth. He calls her name – ‘Mary’ and she instantly knows that it is He.

Has Jesus called your name?

The Disciples, too, in the Upper Room scarcely believe that it is Jesus again before them, moving in, suddenly appearing, ghost-like in their presence. But with a little food, he eats and displays that He is alive again, wounds and all - into which precious scars the absent, doubting Thomas will one week later press his own hands, and be overwhelmed in faith and worship.

Have you encountered the risen Lord despite all the implausibility and your own doubts and fears?

Peter went back fishing. Even though he had seen the resurrected Lord, been with the disciples in the upper room, he can’t believe that Jesus would have anything further, really, to do with him, anything new now, for his action and bidding. He’d failed, miserably, denying his Lord, fleeing with the others when his fear overcame his love, just as earlier (O, what great promise he’d shown) he’d sunk beneath the waves when reality had seeped into his conscious. For by faith he’d walked on water – but one can’t walk on water (!) after all. He can’t honestly believe that God can forgive such miserable failure and denial.

But Jesus waited till Peter had caught nothing, expert fisher that he was, and directed him to try again on the other side of the boat – as if fish couldn’t swim to and fro beneath the heaving hulk. And suddenly there were more fish than Peter and his colleagues knew what to do with. ‘It is the Lord' – He knew instantly, casting his garments aside and swimming naked to the shore

(Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling; naked come to Thee for dress; helpless look to Thee for grace . . .).

And very soon Peter is restored completely in the love and service of the Master – commissioned for the impossibilities of the Christian life to which each of us is called.

Have you cast aside everything and made your way to Jesus?

And – I wonder how many times I have failed to see evidence of the Presence of the living Christ in the everydayness of my every day.

Holy Week

Holy Week reminds us of the death and resurrection of our Saviour. It’s like a long birth canal, this week, in that the Gospels reveal the story of the culturally contextualized, incarnational womb-like existence of Christ, embedded in the unique and particular ancient culture of Judaism - for thirty years, privately and then 3 years in public ministry.

As in childbirth, there is a period of excruciating pain (in the crux and crisis of the Cross) that soon gives birth to the new, resurrection life of the First of a whole new Race, the Second Adam, our Saviour, our Friend, the Firstborn, our Lord and Master - Jesus.

This is the One who overcomes the guilt and the bondage of the world and its citizens, the One who took the place of sinners that they might be set free – to be the fully human Creatures once again, and to the restored hope of a fully restored Creation one Day. He became ‘sin’ for us that through Him we might receive - indeed might become, the righteous and the righteousness of God.

This is the One who overcomes shame and blame. When reviled, accused, scorned, abused and spit upon (in the midst of a shame-culture, where blessing and cursing and ‘tit for tat’ was the norm), even then He opened not His mouth. Even though He was not to blame, He took the blame. He for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame . . .

This is the One who overcame fear. His perfect Love (for His Father, for the elect citizens of earth, for the world – ie. cosmos, itself) overcame fear. He came to that point in his ministry when, his time - his hour having come, He set His face like flint towards Jerusalem and toward all that would await Him there.

Thanks be to God for His incredible Gift !

St, Patrick's Day

I have two links with Irish roots in my family tree, from both my mother and father's sides of the family.

My mother's mother's mother's mother was Monica Kelly. Her parents were James Kelly and Mary Ann Connor (O'Connor). Though Monica was born in London, England, her parents were born in Cork Ireland. Mary ann Connor was the daughter of Owen Connor and Catherine Unknown, both from Cork, while James Kelly was the son of Edward Kelly and Monica Unknown. All of this gets me back to around the early 1800s

On my father's side, the name is Willoughby (not a popular name at some times in Irish history for, no doubt this English (and earlier, Norman) family was likely part of the 'subduing' of the Irish at the time of Cromwell who moved in ways both bloody and stupidly oppressive). There is the usual family story of being descended from a Lord and Lady Willoughby. My ancestor, Charles Willoughby came from Killaveney, Co Wicklow, with his wife, Sarah Langrill (whom he married in 1849 at Ballinatone COI Parish Church, near Cappagh, Aughrim, Co Wicklow), and with his family in about 1850. Their eldest daughter, Sarah, married my ancestor John Barber in Guelph, Ontario.

So, there's green in my blood . . .

I must say I'm interested in all public and media 'hoopla' as they visit pubs serving green beer and other incentives for a big drunk - and where there's singing, and Irish dancing and weekend parades. When interviewed everyone advows that they are Irish or wanna-be Irish for a day.

But nobody seems to know what St. Patrick was about or how 'the Irish saved civilization.' It's not so much that he explained the trinity if he did, supposedly, with a shamrock, or that he in some generic sense ‘brought Christianity to Ireland,’ and managed to rid the land of snakes - but that he introduced people to the saving life and work of Jesus Christ, God’s Son our Saviour, into which friendship, forgiveness and new relationship with God, hope for individuals, families, the land of Ireland - and through them many others in the world, this new Life was made possible.

Ready or Not . . .

And then I got thinking of folk I've lost for awhile, who've gone to the Bright Country, and thinking of how soon any of us might get there - oftentimes without a moment's notice, though it may well be that each of us has a whole lot yet left to accomplish. . . Eric Clapton's haunting music and lyrics come to mind . . .

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven
Will it be the same
If I saw you in heaven
I must be strong, and carry on
Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven

Would you hold my hand
If I saw you in heaven
Would you help me stand
If I saw you in heaven
I'll find my way, through night and day
Cause I know I just can't stay
Here in heaven

Time can bring you down
Time can bend your knee
Time can break your heart
Have you begging please
Begging please

(instrumental)

Beyond the door
There's peace I'm sure.
And I know there'll be no more...
Tears in heaven

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven
Will it be the same
If I saw you in heaven
I must be strong, and carry on
Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven

Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven

Thinking as I Age

Recently I turned 60, and boy does that ever get your attention. Thoughts like - What have I, or what am I getting done in my life? sprang to mind as I contemplate life which is exilerating much too quickly. While musing on some of this, I listened again to Johnn Cash's swan song. It reminds me of the necessity of seizing the day and finding a way before it's too late.

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt

I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stains of time
the feelings disappear
you are someone else
I am still right here

what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt

I will let you down
I will make you hurt

if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Along the Path

The path of the righteous is like the morning sun,
Shining ever brighter till the full light of day . . .
- Proverbs 18

Rake Farm, Glaisdale

 

The home of my ancestor, Elizabeth Pennock (born 1780 - died after 1841), who was first married to Thomas Gatenby, through whom I descend, and then to John Leng. She was the daughter of John Pennock and Hannah Garbutt. Thomas Gatenby (born 1771) was the son of Andrew Gatenby and Mary Oxley. This farm is in Glaisdale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Workspace

Where I hang out most days . . .

Back on PhaseBook

Thank you for reactivating my account.

I still confess that I'm at a lost to comprehend how this has happened. There is no gauge indicator anywhere of how much is too much in terms of how I am browsing PhaseBook. I mean, is once an hour check too much - once a day? Are you penalized for being on too long, when it's open and you're doing other things with your computer, online? Am I breaking something in one of your machines by doing something more, somehow?

I don't get it. I'm also afraid now to enter the site for fear I'll trip or trigger, inadvertently, some trap door that will exit me out, once more.

I would have thought that the more activity you engender the better it is for everyone - including PhaseBook (purpose and business, etc.). If I subscribe to a server site (that hosts my personal site, URL, etc.), there is given clear indication of band-with and how much material I'm able to upload - and I assume I can look at the site for unlimited hours or make countless 'hits' to it. In fact aren't more 'hits' the point?!

On such services I'm told how much capacity I have and when or if I'm reaching the limit - and if I'm at or over the limit I'm encouraged to 'up' my capacity by buying more access and space. Is it because PhaseBook is 'free' that you have a limit, monitor it, but don't tell anyone what it is? Rather, you just shut them down with inadequate (in my view) explanation as to why.

I see there's a whole site (at least one) of disgruntled, confused people whose account you've also bumped, just as you did mine - which is perfectly your legal right as per disclaimers, etc. in signing on. (I don't expect there are too many knowing abusers or pornographers or peeps on that site - only those who are genuinely concerned, frustrated and unfairly marginalized folk.)

But is this a good way - or even ethical or a neighbourly, good-citizen way of conducting business for PhaseBook? Isn't this site about fellowship, relationship and interaction - about your understanding, getting in on and providing for people to be face-to-face in a day when people want community, want so desperately to connect and stay in touch, almost constantly and globally. Are you 'getting it' in some way - but 'missing it' in another major way?

I expect excellence, good service, customer support and fairness, in partnering together to make PhaseBook a success - not just one party riding the wave for your own purposes. Why don't you increase capacity or find some other way of ensuring that unwarranted abuse doesn't occur?

I think you need to seriously work on this or you're going to kill a perfectly wonderful service - that is, you may be 'killing the goose that laid the golden egg.' I'm sure that, as a team, you are seeking constantly to improve this service and conduit - reflecting and working on such things that will enhance and make it better. I know you'll address and work on this concern, to the benefit of all parties.

Again, thanks for reactivating my account and for the courtesy of getting back to me personally.

All the best.

Sincerely, etc.

Bumped From PhaseBook

I Got Bumped From PhaseBook -and I’m not sure what I did wrong. I mean, I know there are rules and all (I probably even read some of them when I signed up) , but I’m unaware if or how I broke them – or is it just a machine error – some glitch?

Our systems indicate that you've been highly active on PhaseBook lately and viewing pages at a quick enough rate that we suspect you may be running an automated script. This kind of Activity would be a violation of our Terms of Use and potentially of federal and state laws.

As a result, your account has been disabled. Please reply to this email with a description of your recent activity on PhaseBook. In addition, please confirm with us that in the future you will not scrape or otherwise attempt to obtain in any manner information from our website except as permitted by our Terms of Use, and that you will immediately delete and not use in any manner any such information you may have previously obtained.

We reserve the right to take any appropriate action in connection with any activities that violate our Terms of Use and/or applicable laws, including termination of your account and pursuit of legal remedies.

Please reply to this email.

Thank you,
PhaseBook Customer Support

I did respond - but no hint of a reply. There's a whole website of other's who've had the same happen to them - with similar results. Way to go, PhaseBook.

I mean I can see them removing people for clear abuses – abusive talk, pornographic images, bugging people who don’t want to be bugged, spamming others and cluttering the system – even massive ‘pokes’ that abuse the system . . . but I did nothing like that. Nor did I rip off or copy something on the site (like taking a copyright picture or whatever and publishing it elsewhere).

I only have 115 friends online and I know people who have many hundreds – and I know too PhaseBook allows for you to have 5000 friends – so it’s not that. The only thing I can think of is that I had two computers open at once to the site (as I transfered files from my laptop to my new IMAC, over the weekend) and maybe that triggered something in their stupid system. At any rate, I can’t gain entrance to the site – and I can’t access my friends – my emails – and hundreds of albums and pictures that I have painstakingly added over the past months. I want my profile back !! - and my good name, my access, my friends, my pictures . . .

I hate injustice, unfairness, lack of communication – especially when it relates to me (if I’m honest), but also in how that relates to others, wherever it happens.

Trouble is, I really like the service – the contact, intimacy, friendships, collegiality, fun . . .(though I know it bugs people that old crocks are now online when it was intended for high school and college students – as if only they should have such social interaction. Come to think of it – maybe it’s a purge of anybody over 40 – and some of you are next !) : ) But now I also I feel really angry and want to walk away from the site entirely; never ‘darken the door again, so to speak – and yet I also like it enough that I want back on – back in. But mostly I want to know what happened? What’s going on? What did I do wrong?

That happens also in the rest of life – such questions: in the spiritual life – in our everyday, as our days and years unfold (or, maybe, unravel). We ask: what’s going on? How do I please You, God? What did I do wrong to deserve this? Sometimes, to be honest: What can I get away with and still stay in? But then: How do I get access in the first-place or renewed access if I get spiritually bumped off line. (I assume we do this too ourselves, while I’m not sure how the PhaseBook thing works).

I discovered, online, a whole web-site of those to whom it’s happened. They’re also angry, disillusioned. Some of the language is very colourful. Some of the letters sent to PhaseBook (samples) a little richer in content than the one I sent. Some had groveled and begged forgiveness (not knowing what they did wrong –guessing). Some got back on – only to be bumped again. Others still await an email answer.

All of this has made me wonder too, in reflection, how people see the Church or the Gospel – or God?

With what sometimes seem like arbitrary rules and actions. They maybe can’t understand church or other people – or God . . . so they write them off. They are bitter. Lots of us, even, have had excruciatingly bitter experiences within the church that we sought to have access to and that we trusted – and even from friends who were very close.

We have such letdown experiences in all of life – with family, friends, lots of institutions – and with God. Dame Julian of Norwich: God, if this is how you treat your friends; no wonder you have so few of them!

Interesting that  PhaseBook - which is about Friendships, if it keeps up this kind of stupid action will end up with even fewer friendships or subscribers. Big mistake on somebody's part!

Changing Direction

Frederick Buechner writes: “Faith is the direction your feet start walking when you discover that you are loved.”

I suppose the change of direction may come for any of us prodigals who remembers a birthing, nurturing Relationship and a safe place of provision, care and love, and a house and rules we somehow thought we’d escaped, and whose steps take us back along roads and parthways to that place once more, hoping to find at least some measure of forgiveness.

And I suppose that when we discover that at that home and in those arms we not only receive mercy (in not getting what we deserve) but also grace (!) (in getting so much wonderfully more that we deeply, truly need and than we could have ever imagined or considered) - then our steps will also turn again, in faith compelled by Love, to take us out to find others who’ve not yet heard about such love, so that perhaps their steps too may turn homeward to its firery warmth, and to dreaming of newly imagined possibilities.

What a Mess !

road near the Rift Valley, Kenya

Who would have thought that such quick and steep descent into raw evil could have happened, as it has in Kenya in the last few weeks? Some would argue that it's always been there - as it is everywhere else in the world, if only an inch or two beneath the surface of 'civility' - such violence born of poverty, greed, corruption, injustice, lusts and fears - all the kinds of things I find too often in my own heart.

The rift that goes right through Africa, the rift of evil that goes right through the universe, as Russian novelist Alexander Solzenhitzen use to point out, goes right smack through the centre of my own heart.

O that God would deliver us from the enemy within as well as from others circling without.