Day 7 - FAIL!
I didn't give anything yesterday. I had intended to give the gift of time and work on a CV for my parent's gardener so that he could use it to find more secure employment, but I ended up focusing on my work all day and focusing on my own enjoyment in the evening - leaving me no time to edit his CV.
I was too busy prioritising my own interests to think about other people's interests. That doesn't mean I've given up. Back on the band wagon tomorrow and perhaps I need to double up a gift one day to make sure I meet the 40 gift target.
So today I'd like to reflect on a comment that was posted on yesterday's blog.
I am focusing this lent on some of Jesus' most difficult teachings about our attachment to possessions and our selfishness in that. The risk I run in blogging about this is to give the impression that Jesus' laws are tough and that there is no room for error or selfishness. So perhaps it's a good thing I failed at giving today.
I certainly don't want that to be the impression. I am focusing on this during lent because it's a spiritual journey I need to take and one I think many of us would do well to reflect on. BUT, that needs to go hand in hand with a proviso that ultimately Jesus reaches out to us, no matter whether we are giving or in need of gifts, no matter whether we are deliberately seeking spiritual growth or holding out our hands to just feel his touch for a moment, no matter whether we are living grateful lives or searching desperately to see where God might be in the quagmire of our lives.
Basically, we cannot ALWAYS be focused on being grateful and giving and being deliberate about growing spiritually. Sometimes we need to retreat into ourselves, to mourn, to be angry with God, to feel our loss and wonder where God's blessings are... Sometimes we need to be a little "selfish" in order to heal.
Importantly, Jesus reaches out to us as much, if not more, in those times.
I think though, in God's great plan or us, that when some are in situations when they are in desperate need of receiving God's love and community compassion, others are in positions where they are able to willinglingly and joyfully give so that those in need are able to receive.
40 Days 40 Gifts Day 6
Today I am reflecting on lighter things about giving and today it is a short one. How many of us who are in relationships (friendships, family relationships and love relationships) bemoan (even inwardly to ourselves) the fact that we would like to get more from the relationship – gift wise. Valentine’s day for example – we hope we will get given something. I know I would love to get flowers more often. Yesterday I bought something for Beert. As I was looking for the right thing (which incidentally turned out to be the wrong thing) I found myself reflecting on how much I get from our relationship. I don’t necessarily get flowers but I get so much more – friendship, someone I can rely on no matter what, someone to offload on when the day has been too much, someone who knows exactly how to make me laugh and cheer me up, and someone who respects me and loves me for who I am (even though I can be a handful, especially when I’m reflecting on giving) – so much more than flowers!
Is this perhaps what Jesus means when he tells us that in order to discover the kingdom of God we must be willing to let our possessions go? Perhaps he means that when we take our eyes off our possessions we get to glimpse the boundless blessings that God's kingdom has provided for us.
Lesson 6: When we are focused on getting we are focused on what we don’t have, when we give we realize how many blessings we do have (have I learned this lesson before – well I learned it again today in a whole new way – sometimes you need to be bashed over the head to learn these things!)
Is this perhaps what Jesus means when he tells us that in order to discover the kingdom of God we must be willing to let our possessions go? Perhaps he means that when we take our eyes off our possessions we get to glimpse the boundless blessings that God's kingdom has provided for us.
Lesson 6: When we are focused on getting we are focused on what we don’t have, when we give we realize how many blessings we do have (have I learned this lesson before – well I learned it again today in a whole new way – sometimes you need to be bashed over the head to learn these things!)
40 Days 40 Gifts Day 5
The theme of Day 3 and 4 is still bugging me so bear with me as I reflect on this a little more. Today my gift was to the group of young adults that went river rafting over the weekend. Each person contributed money towards breakfast, snacks and lunch but I decided to go over budget a little to make sure that the food we had was enough and enjoyable. As I was doing the shopping again there was the worry – am I leaving enough for me to survive until the end of the month (just a reminder to self – this is an unrealistic worry. For many it might be a realistic worry but for me it is socially constructed)?
I have to admit that giving to people I know was a lot easier than giving to people I don’t know. And I realized why. When I was giving money yesterday a person I was with in the car criticized my decision to give money instead of food. His argument was that you never know what a person will do with that money. Fair argument and one that many of us buy into. It is also probably the explanation as to why I am more comfortable giving to people I know – because you know how that gift is being used. But here’s the problem with the argument. The third inner attitude of simplicity is: Make what you have FREELY available to others. If I treat the money I give as a GIFT rather than a DONATION then I can not have control over how it is used. When we give birthday gifts we don’t give them with a condition of how they should be used or enjoyed. We give them freely. When we give money to people on the side of the road however we expect that the money should be used productively – for food and not cigarettes. We expect that because we have more and deign to hand over some of it that we should also control how it is used. Money gives us a sense of power over others. I didn’t like to admit that to myself, but I do hold onto it. When I give money I expect it to be used as I would see fit, not as the person I am giving it to sees fit. However, if I am truly giving it as a gift then there should be absolutely no strings attached. When we physically hand over the money we need to also emotionally detach from it – it is no longer mine to control.
Jesus reflects on this in Luke 6:30: “Give to everyone who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again.”
Jesus is calling on me to have as Foster puts it “carefree unconcern for possessions.” I need to learn to let go of my hold on possessions and money.
Lesson 5: Money gives me a sense of power over others who don’t have money. This is affects my ability to see the humanity and equal worth of all people.
REFERENCE: Foster, R. (1989) Celebration of discipline. Hodder & Stoughton: UK
I have to admit that giving to people I know was a lot easier than giving to people I don’t know. And I realized why. When I was giving money yesterday a person I was with in the car criticized my decision to give money instead of food. His argument was that you never know what a person will do with that money. Fair argument and one that many of us buy into. It is also probably the explanation as to why I am more comfortable giving to people I know – because you know how that gift is being used. But here’s the problem with the argument. The third inner attitude of simplicity is: Make what you have FREELY available to others. If I treat the money I give as a GIFT rather than a DONATION then I can not have control over how it is used. When we give birthday gifts we don’t give them with a condition of how they should be used or enjoyed. We give them freely. When we give money to people on the side of the road however we expect that the money should be used productively – for food and not cigarettes. We expect that because we have more and deign to hand over some of it that we should also control how it is used. Money gives us a sense of power over others. I didn’t like to admit that to myself, but I do hold onto it. When I give money I expect it to be used as I would see fit, not as the person I am giving it to sees fit. However, if I am truly giving it as a gift then there should be absolutely no strings attached. When we physically hand over the money we need to also emotionally detach from it – it is no longer mine to control.
Jesus reflects on this in Luke 6:30: “Give to everyone who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again.”
Jesus is calling on me to have as Foster puts it “carefree unconcern for possessions.” I need to learn to let go of my hold on possessions and money.
Lesson 5: Money gives me a sense of power over others who don’t have money. This is affects my ability to see the humanity and equal worth of all people.
REFERENCE: Foster, R. (1989) Celebration of discipline. Hodder & Stoughton: UK
40 Days 40 Gifts Day 4
So, in light of the revelations of Day 3 I decided to dedicate Day 4 to letting go of money and interrogating the hold that money has over us. As I mentioned in Day 3’s blog, I was a little taken aback by my lack of willingness to part with R50 so I gave it some thought. It seems to me that we are socialized to hold onto what we have – our possessions and our money – and to fiercely protect it.
This is something we take for granted – the idea of ownership. The idea of land being ours to own for example is in fact a relatively new phenomenon. Previously land was ours to steward – to look after and to make productive for our survival, but ultimately to be returned to the community for the next generation. That got me thinking, isn’t this notion of PRIVATE property, of ownership ultimately what drives the fact that so many people have so little? If we were to hold onto the concept of stewardship then we only make use of what we NEED to survive – that leaves more for others to also use to survive. Stewardship relies on the concept of trusting others to also use what they have for the good of all, and committing to using what I have for the good of all, so that when we have a bad time of it, there is surplus to be shared. But if we OWN something then we want to own more and more, and make sure that we secure our own future and the future of those closest to us, never mind the future of others. This is when it becomes a whole lot harder to part with what we have – because it threatens our survival.
But in actual fact, parting with what we have does not threaten our survival. Parting with R50 for me will not mean that I can no longer survive until the end of the month. I know that I am assured of a roof over my head, fuel in my car and food in the fridge until pay day. So in actuality, parting with R50 or even R150 shouldn’t be a big deal. And yet it was. Day 4 was about giving money to those in need – car guards and beggars. I parted with a total of R150 and felt very uncomfortable about it all day. Unrealistic worry set in about whether I was giving too much. Surely there shouldn’t be a worry about giving too much – we should be far more worried about giving too little.
So I am journeying with Jesus’ reflections for us on the birds and the flowers (Matt 6:25-33):
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 3herefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
So lesson 4: I am a product of the society in which I was brought up in which places value on private ownership. For me to give joyfully I need to be able to let go of more of what I own and trust that God will provide for me – this is not something I am going to be able to achieve overnight, or even perhaps in the next 36 days. This might be a lifelong journey.
In order to do this I will need to reflect on the three inner attitudes of simplicity that Richard Foster notes: 1) To receive what we have as a gift from God; 2) To know that it is God’s business, and not ours, to care for what we have and 3) To have our goods freely available to others.
This is something we take for granted – the idea of ownership. The idea of land being ours to own for example is in fact a relatively new phenomenon. Previously land was ours to steward – to look after and to make productive for our survival, but ultimately to be returned to the community for the next generation. That got me thinking, isn’t this notion of PRIVATE property, of ownership ultimately what drives the fact that so many people have so little? If we were to hold onto the concept of stewardship then we only make use of what we NEED to survive – that leaves more for others to also use to survive. Stewardship relies on the concept of trusting others to also use what they have for the good of all, and committing to using what I have for the good of all, so that when we have a bad time of it, there is surplus to be shared. But if we OWN something then we want to own more and more, and make sure that we secure our own future and the future of those closest to us, never mind the future of others. This is when it becomes a whole lot harder to part with what we have – because it threatens our survival.
But in actual fact, parting with what we have does not threaten our survival. Parting with R50 for me will not mean that I can no longer survive until the end of the month. I know that I am assured of a roof over my head, fuel in my car and food in the fridge until pay day. So in actuality, parting with R50 or even R150 shouldn’t be a big deal. And yet it was. Day 4 was about giving money to those in need – car guards and beggars. I parted with a total of R150 and felt very uncomfortable about it all day. Unrealistic worry set in about whether I was giving too much. Surely there shouldn’t be a worry about giving too much – we should be far more worried about giving too little.
So I am journeying with Jesus’ reflections for us on the birds and the flowers (Matt 6:25-33):
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 3herefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
So lesson 4: I am a product of the society in which I was brought up in which places value on private ownership. For me to give joyfully I need to be able to let go of more of what I own and trust that God will provide for me – this is not something I am going to be able to achieve overnight, or even perhaps in the next 36 days. This might be a lifelong journey.
In order to do this I will need to reflect on the three inner attitudes of simplicity that Richard Foster notes: 1) To receive what we have as a gift from God; 2) To know that it is God’s business, and not ours, to care for what we have and 3) To have our goods freely available to others.
40 Days 40 Gifts Day 3
So this giving thing is a little harder than expected. Yesterday I was set on giving my colleagues some snacks for our staff meeting – healthy snacks since they’re all healthy people. So I decided on crudités and cottage cheese. Off I went to the shop to find cottage cheese. The car guard greeted me with a big smile and I ran inside. No cottage cheese. I had R50 in my purse and no small change so when I ran back to my car I was faced with this dilemma – R50 to the car guard or give him nothing. I generally do tip car guards but with a R2 or R5 coin. There was absolutely no way I was going to be handing over R50 to the guy, no matter how friendly he had been. So off I went and as I drove to work I found myself obsessing over this car guard and my attachment to money. Why could I not part with R50? I know it’s unusual to hand over R50 for watching my car for two minutes but I am supposed to be giving for the next 38 days. And if I think about it R50 is not that much for someone like me who earns a fair to good salary. It is a lot of money for someone like him who relies on the tips that people give. So why was I so attached to that R50? And what does this mean for my spiritual life.
The bible is quite clear about our attachment to money and possessions. Luke 16:13 reflects Jesus’ words “no servant can serve 2 masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.” Now I am not sure about the words hate and despise, but I realise that in very subtle ways my “trust in riches” (Prov 11:28) is constrains my ability to connect more deeply with God and with others and to have faith in God’s provision. This is a journey I must continue on. Lesson 3: When we only focus on our own hand in making our money (as opposed to God’s provision), then we have only ourselves to rely on in terms of making sure we enough money for a rainy day so we obsess about holding on to it. However, when we begin to recognise how utterly dependant we are on others and on God, then we can’t help seeing how dependant others are on us. So in the end the guy didn’t get his R50, my colleagues did get their healthy snack and were appreciative, and I got a lot more than I bargained for in taking on this challenge.
The bible is quite clear about our attachment to money and possessions. Luke 16:13 reflects Jesus’ words “no servant can serve 2 masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.” Now I am not sure about the words hate and despise, but I realise that in very subtle ways my “trust in riches” (Prov 11:28) is constrains my ability to connect more deeply with God and with others and to have faith in God’s provision. This is a journey I must continue on. Lesson 3: When we only focus on our own hand in making our money (as opposed to God’s provision), then we have only ourselves to rely on in terms of making sure we enough money for a rainy day so we obsess about holding on to it. However, when we begin to recognise how utterly dependant we are on others and on God, then we can’t help seeing how dependant others are on us. So in the end the guy didn’t get his R50, my colleagues did get their healthy snack and were appreciative, and I got a lot more than I bargained for in taking on this challenge.
40 Days and 40 Gifts Day 2
Day 1 got off to a good start. Perhaps the promise of Ash Wednesday has me inspired. One point at the Ash Wednesday service that particularly jumped out at me was this: Ash reminds us of our own mortality and the fact that we are not as important as we think we are. That's not to say that we are not important - we most certainly are very important to God, but in reality, our lives on earth and the mark we make is very small when we consider the universe and the length of time - when we see time through God's eyes. And so we are not as important as we think we are. I think this is a very important starting point in the journey towards simplicity. Simplicity is about not being so concerned about what I have and how hard I work and how much I bring home at the end of the day. The discipline of simplicity asks us to take a step back and take congiscance of the utter dependability we have on God.
That got me thinking – what we have, what we hold on to and everything about our identity that is tied to possessions (that car, those clothes etc) will die. U2 calls it “all that you can’t leave behind.”
So I was feeling inspired and choosing to give yesterday was not too difficult. Each day on my route to work I drive past a beggar who is always smiling and always friendly. And I don’t ever give him anything. So yesterday, as I was leaving home I thought about him and wondered what to give him. I opened my freezer and in there I had a loaf of bread.
This highlighted something for me – Lesson no 1: I have food in my home that I can’t possibly eat by myself in the amount of time it takes to go off and so I have to freeze it. And this guy has very little. How do we live in such a society where some have so much and others have almost nothing? That's a difficult thing to think about. If we link back to the teaching of the discipline of simplicty then we have to think about it like this: What I have is not about what I do to earn my money - it's about God's graciousness. And me simply taking what God has offered and not sharing it with others is what leads to a situation in which some have so much and others have so little. For the first time the situation struck me as ridiculous and I realised that I am partly responsible for the inequality and poverty that exists around me. So it made sense to give this guy the loaf of bread.
In the moment I was stopped at the robot I also had an opportunity to say hi to him and ask him how he was doing. Lesson no 2: Consumerism and our desire for more keeps us focused on ourselves only. Giving connects us to those around us. The inner work of simplicity asks us to shift our perspective away from ourselves and what we do and how great we are in order to seek the Kingdom of God. When we seek the Kingdom of God then our eyes are opened to the disjuncture between what God seeks and what we seek.
It seems that God has many lessons in store for me over the next 40 days. I hope that your experiences with lent will be as soul searching and growing.
That got me thinking – what we have, what we hold on to and everything about our identity that is tied to possessions (that car, those clothes etc) will die. U2 calls it “all that you can’t leave behind.”
So I was feeling inspired and choosing to give yesterday was not too difficult. Each day on my route to work I drive past a beggar who is always smiling and always friendly. And I don’t ever give him anything. So yesterday, as I was leaving home I thought about him and wondered what to give him. I opened my freezer and in there I had a loaf of bread.
This highlighted something for me – Lesson no 1: I have food in my home that I can’t possibly eat by myself in the amount of time it takes to go off and so I have to freeze it. And this guy has very little. How do we live in such a society where some have so much and others have almost nothing? That's a difficult thing to think about. If we link back to the teaching of the discipline of simplicty then we have to think about it like this: What I have is not about what I do to earn my money - it's about God's graciousness. And me simply taking what God has offered and not sharing it with others is what leads to a situation in which some have so much and others have so little. For the first time the situation struck me as ridiculous and I realised that I am partly responsible for the inequality and poverty that exists around me. So it made sense to give this guy the loaf of bread.
In the moment I was stopped at the robot I also had an opportunity to say hi to him and ask him how he was doing. Lesson no 2: Consumerism and our desire for more keeps us focused on ourselves only. Giving connects us to those around us. The inner work of simplicity asks us to shift our perspective away from ourselves and what we do and how great we are in order to seek the Kingdom of God. When we seek the Kingdom of God then our eyes are opened to the disjuncture between what God seeks and what we seek.
It seems that God has many lessons in store for me over the next 40 days. I hope that your experiences with lent will be as soul searching and growing.
40 Days and 40 Gifts - lent begins
Today is Ash Wednesday – the beginning of the lentern and passion season in the Christian calendar. Most of us associate lent with giving up something we enjoy – usually chocolate. But few of us delve deeper into what lent is and why we participate in it.
Lent is a gift – an opportunity to prepare ourselves inwardly for receiving and reflecting on the gift of God’s grace over the Easter weekend. We prepare ourselves by doing as Jesus did in his 40 days of temptation in the desert before his ministry began. Whilst Jesus was being tempted he relied on God. We are asked to do the same. But lent is so much more than asking for God to help us not eat chocolate for 40 days – it is a real opportunity to commit ourselves to 40 days of spiritual growth.
So as we decide what we need to “give up” in the lentern season we need to ask ourselves why we are doing it – are we doing it to show to others that we can, to demonstrate our own will power? Or are we doing it to seek God daily?
Last year I gave up eating meat over lent. Initially I did to prove to myself that I could do it. But then God started throwing reading material at me. A vegetarian colleague gave me a book about being vegetarian to read. The lady I buy my organic produce from sent articles about how animals are treated for commercial purposes. I found myself coming across article after article about the benefits – physically, environmentally and socially – of being vegetarian. Ultimately the discipline of not eating meat helped me to reflect on God’s kingdom and on how we treat it. My experience led me to commit to leaving a smaller footprint on God’s earth and to treat his creation with greater respect.
This year, I have decided to explore my ties to things material. The journey to this decision has most certainly been God inspired. It started with me questioning my own values earlier in the year. I have always thought of myself as being someone who is not particularly materialistic – I don’t lust after the latest gadget or desire to drive the fanciest car. But God pointed out to me that I am tied to things. I opened up my clothes cupboard after my domestic worker had been in my house and found that she had packed away all of my ironed clothes. The only trouble was that there was hardly enough shelf space for her to pack everything away. I found myself looking at my closet through her eyes and wondering why I needed so many clothes. I felt guilty. For the few weeks after that I felt more upset than usual by the poverty that surrounds us daily. I had to keep asking, why do I have so much and why do they have so little?
I was then given the latest Kingsley Holgate book – dispatches from Africa’s outside edge – as a gift. Reading it I realised how little him and his family lived on for over a year as they sought to save people’s lives by handing out malaria nets to mothers in every outside edge town along the coast of Africa.
At this point I still hadn’t decided what to do for lent but I did know that had to do with my things. Last night (I was supposed to decide yesterday) I read an article in the latest SHAPE magazine called 29 days, 29 gifts. In which the writer commits to giving a gift each day for 29 days, and reflects on her experiences. I don’t think that I opened to that article on Shrove Tuesday for no reason. It sparked an idea about what to do for lent – 40 days, 40 gifts.
Giving is often difficult for us to do except if an occasion calls for it. So committing to giving something to someone each day for 40 days is going to be difficult and will keep my eye on God’s gifts each day for 40 days. I see this as being rooted in developing a commitment to simplicity. As Richard Foster says in his book In Celebration of Discipline “Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others.” Simplicity therefore goes hand in hand with giving. And so for these forty days I will be reflecting on God’s gifts to me, why I am so tied to things, and the ways in which that distracts me from God and from His Kingdom. The act that will encourage me to do this is the daily practice for forty days of giving.
I hope that by blogging about this experience I will a) be held accountable by others seeking spiritual growth, and b) will be able to share my reflections on simplicity with others. We all live in a consumer culture and questioning that can provide a lot of discomfort but ultimately I think it will lead us to a stronger connection with God.
May the lentern period be a profoundly deep and spiritual experience for you as we prepare to receive Christ’s gift of grace.
Lent is a gift – an opportunity to prepare ourselves inwardly for receiving and reflecting on the gift of God’s grace over the Easter weekend. We prepare ourselves by doing as Jesus did in his 40 days of temptation in the desert before his ministry began. Whilst Jesus was being tempted he relied on God. We are asked to do the same. But lent is so much more than asking for God to help us not eat chocolate for 40 days – it is a real opportunity to commit ourselves to 40 days of spiritual growth.
So as we decide what we need to “give up” in the lentern season we need to ask ourselves why we are doing it – are we doing it to show to others that we can, to demonstrate our own will power? Or are we doing it to seek God daily?
Last year I gave up eating meat over lent. Initially I did to prove to myself that I could do it. But then God started throwing reading material at me. A vegetarian colleague gave me a book about being vegetarian to read. The lady I buy my organic produce from sent articles about how animals are treated for commercial purposes. I found myself coming across article after article about the benefits – physically, environmentally and socially – of being vegetarian. Ultimately the discipline of not eating meat helped me to reflect on God’s kingdom and on how we treat it. My experience led me to commit to leaving a smaller footprint on God’s earth and to treat his creation with greater respect.
This year, I have decided to explore my ties to things material. The journey to this decision has most certainly been God inspired. It started with me questioning my own values earlier in the year. I have always thought of myself as being someone who is not particularly materialistic – I don’t lust after the latest gadget or desire to drive the fanciest car. But God pointed out to me that I am tied to things. I opened up my clothes cupboard after my domestic worker had been in my house and found that she had packed away all of my ironed clothes. The only trouble was that there was hardly enough shelf space for her to pack everything away. I found myself looking at my closet through her eyes and wondering why I needed so many clothes. I felt guilty. For the few weeks after that I felt more upset than usual by the poverty that surrounds us daily. I had to keep asking, why do I have so much and why do they have so little?
I was then given the latest Kingsley Holgate book – dispatches from Africa’s outside edge – as a gift. Reading it I realised how little him and his family lived on for over a year as they sought to save people’s lives by handing out malaria nets to mothers in every outside edge town along the coast of Africa.
At this point I still hadn’t decided what to do for lent but I did know that had to do with my things. Last night (I was supposed to decide yesterday) I read an article in the latest SHAPE magazine called 29 days, 29 gifts. In which the writer commits to giving a gift each day for 29 days, and reflects on her experiences. I don’t think that I opened to that article on Shrove Tuesday for no reason. It sparked an idea about what to do for lent – 40 days, 40 gifts.
Giving is often difficult for us to do except if an occasion calls for it. So committing to giving something to someone each day for 40 days is going to be difficult and will keep my eye on God’s gifts each day for 40 days. I see this as being rooted in developing a commitment to simplicity. As Richard Foster says in his book In Celebration of Discipline “Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others.” Simplicity therefore goes hand in hand with giving. And so for these forty days I will be reflecting on God’s gifts to me, why I am so tied to things, and the ways in which that distracts me from God and from His Kingdom. The act that will encourage me to do this is the daily practice for forty days of giving.
I hope that by blogging about this experience I will a) be held accountable by others seeking spiritual growth, and b) will be able to share my reflections on simplicity with others. We all live in a consumer culture and questioning that can provide a lot of discomfort but ultimately I think it will lead us to a stronger connection with God.
May the lentern period be a profoundly deep and spiritual experience for you as we prepare to receive Christ’s gift of grace.
Polygamy
Is polygamy building or destroying our society?
How different is it from promiscuity?
What role should the family play in a potentially polygamous relationship?
Life in all its fullness
Welcome to my first Hillside blog. I've delayed doing this because I was trying to think of something deep and meaningful to say but I'm not Ghandi or Jesus and those fleeting moments of insight are few and far between so I decided to take the bull by the horns and just blog.
And what I would like to blog about is taking the bull by the horns and just doing it. I preached late last year on this theme but feel that this being the beginning of the year (if the 1 Feb counts as the beginning of the year) it is a good time to renew my commitment to that.
One of the reasons I follow Christ is because of his message about the fullness of life. That promise gets me because I feel, like so many others, that living in Jozi, getting caught up in the rat race, means that I tend to only half live my life. So what does living life to the full or the fullness of life mean?
I think that it means being fully human - experiencing everything that humanity has to offer - our capacity for sadness and immense joy, our capacity to love and be loved, our capacity to empathise, our capacity to connect emotionally, spiritually, physically, sexually, our capacity to do good work, our capacity to plant and nurture and see things we have nurtured grow to fruition, our capacity to connect with God in relationship.
It's about fulfilling the desires of our hearts, souls, minds and bodies and helping others to do the same.
I'm an adrenaline junkie so for me it's a roller coaster ride or a bungee jump or a sky dive.
But how do we get there in day to day life?
A couple of things:
1. It is about not sweating the small stuff - life is too short to let your blood boil over the taxi driver that just cut you off. Save your energy for the big stuff
2. It's about taking notice of the small stuff - sound like a contradiction? Well the contradiction is that we really only take notice of the irritating small stuff. We hardly ever stop to admire that plant or that bird or the people in our lives that we take for granted.
3. Plan for big stuff - is there something you've wanted to do forever? This is the time to do it. And don't spend too long planning - JUST DO IT remember! I jumped off Bloukrans bridge last year and fell 216m before bouncing back on the bungee rope - what a rush! Leap of faith like I've never experienced.
4. Live in community - find people who are asking the questions you are asking, doing the things you are doing and let them affirm you as you affirm them. One of the first things Jesus did was call his disciples. We don't live or do ministry alone - we work and live and find ourselves in others
5. Live out of community - contradictions, contradictions... What I mean is sometimes when we socialise with the same people we don't challenge ourselves or push our boundaries. Stepping out of our comfort zones and meeting people from different faith, class, race, work, or area backgrounds gives us a glimpse into other parts of God's kingdom
6. Be alone - sometimes when we are constantly surrounded by people (and remember the cast of Grey's anatomy and the DJ's on the radio also count as people that you surround yourself with) we block out our inner voice and the voice of God. It is so important to take time to reflect, to pray, to think and to JUST BE... sometimes that's hard but often it's just what we need
7. Serve - we never fully know our or God's capacity to love and empathise and be fully human until we serve another person. Think of something that you are passionate about. How can you turn that into an opportunity of service.
Wishing you and me the fullness of life this year
And what I would like to blog about is taking the bull by the horns and just doing it. I preached late last year on this theme but feel that this being the beginning of the year (if the 1 Feb counts as the beginning of the year) it is a good time to renew my commitment to that.
One of the reasons I follow Christ is because of his message about the fullness of life. That promise gets me because I feel, like so many others, that living in Jozi, getting caught up in the rat race, means that I tend to only half live my life. So what does living life to the full or the fullness of life mean?
I think that it means being fully human - experiencing everything that humanity has to offer - our capacity for sadness and immense joy, our capacity to love and be loved, our capacity to empathise, our capacity to connect emotionally, spiritually, physically, sexually, our capacity to do good work, our capacity to plant and nurture and see things we have nurtured grow to fruition, our capacity to connect with God in relationship.
It's about fulfilling the desires of our hearts, souls, minds and bodies and helping others to do the same.
I'm an adrenaline junkie so for me it's a roller coaster ride or a bungee jump or a sky dive.
But how do we get there in day to day life?
A couple of things:
1. It is about not sweating the small stuff - life is too short to let your blood boil over the taxi driver that just cut you off. Save your energy for the big stuff
2. It's about taking notice of the small stuff - sound like a contradiction? Well the contradiction is that we really only take notice of the irritating small stuff. We hardly ever stop to admire that plant or that bird or the people in our lives that we take for granted.
3. Plan for big stuff - is there something you've wanted to do forever? This is the time to do it. And don't spend too long planning - JUST DO IT remember! I jumped off Bloukrans bridge last year and fell 216m before bouncing back on the bungee rope - what a rush! Leap of faith like I've never experienced.
4. Live in community - find people who are asking the questions you are asking, doing the things you are doing and let them affirm you as you affirm them. One of the first things Jesus did was call his disciples. We don't live or do ministry alone - we work and live and find ourselves in others
5. Live out of community - contradictions, contradictions... What I mean is sometimes when we socialise with the same people we don't challenge ourselves or push our boundaries. Stepping out of our comfort zones and meeting people from different faith, class, race, work, or area backgrounds gives us a glimpse into other parts of God's kingdom
6. Be alone - sometimes when we are constantly surrounded by people (and remember the cast of Grey's anatomy and the DJ's on the radio also count as people that you surround yourself with) we block out our inner voice and the voice of God. It is so important to take time to reflect, to pray, to think and to JUST BE... sometimes that's hard but often it's just what we need
7. Serve - we never fully know our or God's capacity to love and empathise and be fully human until we serve another person. Think of something that you are passionate about. How can you turn that into an opportunity of service.
Wishing you and me the fullness of life this year
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