Bookaid

I have been on placement this week, and having completed my Common Purpose course (more on that another time), I thought I would take a look at some local charities and see where the church, public, private and not for profit organisations work together.

You can never have too many books just look at my house:

On Monday I spent time with BOOKAID in Ranskill, I bought some books too:

• Vol 1 & 2 of Simon Shama's History of Britain
• Can't Swim, Ride, Run- Andy Holgate (Brilliant book, review coming soon)
• Trianing Techniques for Cyclists- Bicycling Magazine  
• Eden Project- Matt Wilson
• The Bible Jesus Read- Philip Yancey
• Hello I love you: Adventures in Adoptive Fatherhood- Ted Kluck
• James: Mercy Triumphs (DVD)- Beth Moore

Thought I would list them to let you know some of the range of books available (I almost bought Calvin's Institutes's but I have a better copy of Vol.1 and want a set).

BOOKAID is a very simple charity established in 1987, they want to provide Christian books to serve the church in the UK and abroad. People travel from miles around to buy books and drop books off, yet it is not very well known in the area, I find it a brilliant resource.

Book Aid- Ranskill

It is however a difficult charity for those who have no faith to get behind on first glance, but this is where management of a shop (even by Volunteer's) makes a difference. I spoke with Russell and Stuart and they have begun to transform the shop, it now has a children's area, Complimentary tea and coffee (it doesn't give you nice comments, but is nice), with comfy chairs to sit on. They have opened up one of the back rooms and have a packing area to show what they do with books which come in and go out.

They want to make the venue a haven for people to come in, where they might be able to have prayer and relax. It's great, maybe a book club, or reading group. The venue could have many uses and it's rare to have parking for a project like this. You could easily have a computer club or conversation group, but it will need to work with the church opposite and others in the community to achieve this, always work with your neighbours! I know St John's in Bramcote where I trained support it and many other churches and Christians. It now has a good fiction and non fiction section too, though not sure where the Lance Armstrong Biography should go...

If you think this is a good idea one simple change could make a difference. It is likely that many popular Christian titles are in stock here, and more than likely some which are rarer, before you go to Amazon or the like you could come here instead...if you were in the building trade could you give time, could you volunteer? All you need to do is like books and be friendly (the second of which is the harder skill in my experience).

I like to buy a book, sit down with a cup of tea, maybe a cookie (OK, yes always with a cookie), and enjoy 30 minutes of peace and quite, so maybe it is already a haven...

Subversive Liturgy?

"The day the "world changed" was not September 11th but way back in 33AD. The most significant event in our pasts is not our most shameful transgressions but the death and resurrection of Jesus. Our pasts are defined not by our sins but by Christ's victory. God's story is the lens through which we understand our current world..." (Shane Claiborne, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals)

A few months ago i spent some time with my fellow curates in looking at Worship. I thought a quick read of this book would be helpful in continuing the conversation. As a priest in the Church of England, I spend a large chunk of my week planning the service, either the sermon series, the music way in advance, the All Age worship, Collective Worship, or the service looming in a few days. I feel a pressure in this to always come up with something creative and new, to keep the services fresh. Yet our said communion and evensong have a set format which has some seasonal variation but no scope for wholesale change. There is something good about this too. We have four services (Sometimes 5) on a Sunday, if each of them needed to be constructed from scratch then this would be unmanageable. Even if the framework was used from Common Worship.

In worship we join in the communion of the saints, which reminds us of our place as inheritors of the promise from those who have gone before us, but also reminds us of our calling to tell another generation too of the hope within us, we stand in-between those who have gone before us and a generation not yet born, but are also tasked with sharing the good news to all.

It is easy to restrict ourselves to a reduced diet, by that I mean both liturgically and scripturally. Think about it for a minute, it is easy to stay within the gospels(though obviously you can edit out the bits you don't want to preach) when it comes to our preaching and it is easy to say familiar words each Sunday (whether you have set liturgy or not). During our session at St John's one thing that came up time and again is that liturgy should help us remember we are part of the big story. Just as it is easy to preach David and Goliath as a moral tale, the bully got his comeuppance, do we then conclude by saying that by our own skill and cunning we too can slay the giant we are faced with? Is David a moral example to follow or is the story so much bigger than that?

Here's a link to the companion website for the book
http://commonprayer.net/about

Leitorgia- Is often translated "the work of the people" or "public worship" both express part of it, however what I enjoyed about Shane Claiborne's introduction is the way he asks us to overlay our annual calendar with the liturgical calendar. It helps remind us that though January the 1st is the start of the calendar we use in this part of the world, the liturgical one begins in Advent. The working week begins on Monday, but Sunday is the beginning of the liturgical week. Though Easter floats around because of the moon (why do we still do this?), Easter itself asks us to look at the one who made the Sun and the Moon and is the source of all life. The liturgical calendar is in fact subversive. It asks us to look at our lives and see them as part of the big story. We centre ourselves upon Jesus Christ, As we pray and read scripture we are drawn into a story, the stories of the children of Israel are our stories. We too wander in the desert, turn away from the grace of God and forget who we are. Just like the disciples we too reject and abandon Christ, but just like the disciples and the children of Israel we too experience the grace and mercy of God who calls us "chosen and dearly loved". We too can join in the family prayer:

Our Father
Who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one
For thine is the kingdom the power and glory
Forever and ever
Amen

You get me...

Dilbert comic strip for 03/19/2012 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.:



I think Dilbert is great. Sometimes I think we have too many words...



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Coffee and Ritual

The one treat I have indulged in is a coffee machine (thanks M&D). I think it is going through the ritual of making a coffee which is satisfying. Grinding the beans, and smelling the fresh grinds, running the water through the system twice. Brewing the coffee the aroma rising and then steaming the milk. It cannot be rushed or you end up with a luke-warm coffee.

It is anything but instant, and I don't always have time to do it. When I worked as mortgage adviser I would be in back to back meetings and would not always have time for a break, sometimes missing lunch or only having a snatched break but I liked making the customers a cup of tea as I had to go down stairs and boil the kettle and brew the tea or make the coffee which gave me time to think and clear my head from the last appointment.

As a trainee priest we have a lot of ritual in the Church of England but I am beginning to feel the need to emphasise the pauses within a service, that we might stop and prepare ourselves as we go. In fact this was a bit of the conversation I had with someone from church on Monday. In life leaving and entering are important, in our services our children leave the service and come back in for communion and we have a start and a finish, so some of my thinking over the last few days has been on this.

However back to the coffee for a minute sometimes you need tools to assist you and it takes time to do these things well. My lovely wife bought me this espresso cup:

You may have noticed it says Grumpy Mule on it, I think she may be referring to the occasional morning when a coffee seems to be an essential before saying hello.

It will take time before I have worked through some of these things and even with the right tools I still need to slow down and not rush and rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal more of Jesus.

I enjoy coffee and I think it is great hospitality to be able to offer it to visitors, a warm welcome and fresh cup of coffee I think are essential! I hope that our rituals may be life giving because God is the author of life and Jesus came to bring life and life in all its fullness...






Coffee drinks illustrated - Lokesh Dhakar

Freedom- What is it?

This weekend was a great one for good sermons. Chris spoke strongly on Gal 5.22 and Matt 5.1-12.

But my highlight was Rowan Williams on Radio 4 (Sorry Chris). Other than a great message on freedom, Bonhoeffer takes centre stage...It is worth a listen:

The Archbishop on Freedom (and Bonhoeffer)...

Rowan Williams summarises Stations on the Road to Freedom:

• Discipline
• Action
• Suffering
• Death

(Taken from: Bonhoeffer, D. (1956). Letters & Papers From Prison. London: SCM Press. (July 1944, p170)

He comments on how counter cultural true freedom is. Most people would avoid each of these, freedom for most people is to enjoy life the way they want to. It is about choices and enjoyment. Bonhoeffer provides a critique to this.

It makes Freedom something which is judged according to God's criteria, maybe the Jesus Manifesto (Luke 4) would be the way to express freedom:

¹⁸ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

   because he has anointed me

     to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

   and recovery of sight to the blind,

     to let the oppressed go free, 

¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ (NRSV)

In Nachfolge (aka Cost of Discipleship or the new addition Discipleship), Bonhoeffer goes through the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). Following Jesus is the call. Jesus Christ laid down his life freely, no one took it from him (John 10.18).  True freedom is a life laid down.

The link between the two sermons is fruit, Chris concentrated on Kindness and what true kindness would look like. The fruit of the Spirit is what we so want for our lives, but the fruit comes as we follow Jesus Christ and lay down our lives, not endless striving. Fruit takes time to grow.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, you call us to follow you,
Help us to lay down our lives and take up yours,
That you may produce a harvest in our lives and an overflow to the rest of your creation.
Come Holy Spirit.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit


Amen

Do you ever feel got at?

If you know me, then you will know only one of the above applies... though when I watched the DVD of my videoed sermon yesterday I did have a very shiny forehead maybe it is 2 of  3.

Monologue or Dialogue- Part 2

So was my sermon dialogue? Well, I shared some of the work with my prayer triplet, I talked it through with some friends who don't go to church and had to go through an outline (a slightly bizarre process as plenty of reading and research came into the form of a mind map) so I would say I dialogued with:

• The Bible
• Other Students
• Christian scholars (through commentaries and other resources)
• Faculty
• Friends

I would also say that in prayer and meditating upon the scripture that God spoke to me, though I want to be honest and say I am neither a perfect listener or a perfect vessel but I felt I got that point across.

It may be slightly fortuitous that I couldn't post straight away after the sermon I preached on the Sunday. It was my assessed sermon for college and unexpectedly it opened some raw emotions. For my entire placement I have had no issues with my Dyspraxia and thinking back over leading and preaching in the past it has come out in the prep stage and in my sermon structure. Yet on that particular Sunday it really came to the fore with missing out several sections of the service. Good job that I have a really lovely church to practice on!

So how to move forward?

My placement church have morning prayer on a Monday where the text for Sunday is read together and discussed, and I think this would be helpful to attend next time too, for instance I think I would have made more of "Stir up Sunday" rather than just "Christ the King" Sunday. I didn't talk it through with my placement supervisor, who knows the congregation and who is a good preacher. I have planned some time with him for the next assessed sermon.

One suggestion has been to work through David Day's Preaching Workbook which I am doing, but I have also found a great resource on itunes university, Preaching Christ in all of Scripture, I think Tim Keller has become a firm favourite, a preacher who inspires me not only to preach better but in my worship of God.

Another reflection has been I have heard loads of sermons via podcast and have decided to be better at filtering, why listen to bad sermons when there are some really good preachers out there to inspire and encourage. I doubt I will ever be a 3 point sermon affectionado, but I need better structuring in planning my sermon so others can follow a metaphor for my current preaching may be the problem of driving a new car and not getting the gear changes right, it clunks which sets people on edge.

Finally and most importantly, God is good and inspite of a fairly average grade for the sermon, a couple of people felt challenged and told me so afterwards, so however great or poor the sermon may seem to us (in spite of the hours spent preparing) God still speaks, whether through an Ass or a Angel.

The week that was...

This week has been an interesting one, I suppose the biggest one has been the realisation that I have not really come to terms with dyspraxia. I am not at peace with it for several reasons:

• College is so busy that taking time to actually think and read about it has been limited
• I am still waiting for confirmation of study skills sessions (only completed one whole year of study)
• When I talk about it, I often find people don't understand (why would they I don't)
• I have been really clumsy this week (I have the bruises)
• But mainly I have been grumpy with myself whenever I do something related to it (ie can't remember someone's name, bump into something, especially the bad key day)

I haven't lost perspective but I think I am on a different part of the learning curve. I suppose the denial (before being diagnosed) was several years so I shouldn't expect to get to integration already. It has been suggested that I do a project on dyspaxia and ministry and I think that this project is a fantastic way for me to really reflect and pray and find ways to adapt to life with dyspraxia.

Hero's and Saints-Light

*This was yesterday's post so just imagine it is Sunday!*

Today is All Saints Sunday, which is an opportunity to think about those who have gone before us in the faith. And I want to focus on what Saints do. I read a great essay recently on Theology as Narrative and a section of it concentrates on the difference between Hero's and Saints (For the article see: Hauerwas, S. (2010). Theology as Narrative. In: L Bretherton & R Rook (Eds). Living Out Loud. pp. 23-38. Paternoster: Milton Keynes). Hauerwas makes the distinction between the Greek ideal of Hero something which we understand well in Western thought, the Soldier. The problem he suggests is we all want to be the hero. A Christian is instead called to be a saint:

The hero is always at the centre of the story. By contrast, the saint is not necessarily a crucial character. The saint may be almost invisible, easily missed, quickly forgotten. The hero's story is always about the hero. The saint is always periphery of a story which is really about God. (Hauerwas, 2010, 35)

Saints are portrayed as outdated and unhelpful especially in reformed thought. However, coming to saints from a history of suspicion (my background is non conformist) looking at saints again is enlightening.


I think Hauerwas' distinction is helpful, because it helps reorient our lives. Without the light of the sun life is a struggle (see previous post on Light- Frozen Planet), without the Light of the World as the centre of life, then it too is a struggle, if we are the centre of everything then life really is all about us and our selfishness. There is no need to love our neighbour (unless I can get something out of it), there is no need to exercise grace in our relationships.

A hero fears failure, flees mistakes, and knows no repentance: the saint knows that light only comes through cracks, that beauty is as much (if not more) about restoration as about creation (Hauerwas, 2010, 36)

In the light of Christ and in the power of the Spirit let us pray with one voice.


Amen

Candles- Light

This keeps coming back to me while meditating on Light. 


Each Sunday at my placement church people are given the opportunity to pray by lighting candles, the candles seem to me to help in two ways.

• It is something physical- I think this really helps, because connecting with God sometimes feels remote, to know that the candle continues to shine after we have prayed 
• It is something that helps locate the prayer- In the midst of change or trauma or incomprehension using a ritual reminds us again that he never changes even though we do

I am sure people have many reasons for doing it, maybe this is something they have grown up with but it helps.

People don't forget who they are praying to it just reminds them that the one they pray to does hear and in the familiar and the ordinary a plain candle can help as light brings hope...

illuiminate

Looking up at the night sky is inspiring, if the glare of urban life dosen't obscure it, sometimes we are only reminded of the things that matter when we stop and quietly listen. It may seem like platitudes are romanticism but I am a Christian because I have seen the light shine on me, and even in the darkest times the light shines, at night the sky can be spectacular, I remember having a telescope for one Christmas and trying to see the stars the wonder of it. Standing in the rain as the sun breaks through, seeing life spring up again.

Our lives are punctuated by times and seasons, darkness and light. At times it seems full of life at other times it seems to barren, I know someone I care about dearly won't be around for very much longer and they have always been there, life will never be the same. Yet in the midst of all of this I know I can depend on the one who has proved himself faithful time and again. He didn't withhold but sent his son, and he doesn't leave us as orphans and sends another one of the same stuff alongside us.

Wherever you find yourself in life, light shines even in the darkness, though it cannot understand it or overcome it. The lyrics below are from the youtube clip above.

you should see the stars tonight
how they shimmer shine so bright
against the black they look so white
comin down from such a height
to reach me now, reach me now

you should see the moon in the flight
cuttin cross the misty night
softly dancin in sunshine
reflections of this light
reach me now, you reach me now

and how could such a thing
shine its light on me
and make everything beautiful again

and you should feel the sun in the spring
comin out after a rain
suddenly all is green
sunshine on everything
i can feel it now, i feel you now

and how could such a thing
shine its light on me
and make everything beautiful

and you should hear the angels sing
all gathered round their king
more beautiful than you could dream
i've been quietly listening
you can hear 'em now, i hear em now

and how could such a king
shine His light on me
and make everything beautiful
and i wanna shine
i wanna be light
i wanna tell you it'll be alright
and i wanna shine and i wanna fly
just to tell you now
it'll be alright, it'll be alright
it'll be alright.

cus i got nothing of my own to give to you
but this light that shines on me shines on you
and makes everything beautiful, again.
it'll be alright, it'll be alright.


Dave Crowder- Stars for the album Illuminate

Are the prayers of the saints...

 Having played far to many FPS (first    person shooters) on my xbox, I know how tracer rounds have a trail behind them as they help to see if shots are on target. 


 Maybe something like prayer, it helps us know understand where our priorities are.





 During the quiet day at college last year I spent sometime thinking about this passage:

 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand (Rev 8.4 ESV).

 The youtube video is of Matt Redman's song of the same name. The canvas at the top is my attempt to express this. 


Light pierces the darkness.

Light Shines

• This is a picture of the shattered safety glass in my oven. 
• Have a think about how the reflections have created an interesting pattern.
• What does it make you think of?

An insight into my mind!

Dave Walker adapted this cartoon for the Church Times and entitled it "the preaching creation process". This seems to be my default position lots of ideas plenty of research (if at times too much) and then the rest of the time is spent unjumbling the muddle. One of the challenges for my training is the need to do things quicker, as much as a sermon or leading the service are part of our communal worship, I don't think I will be able to spend 30 hours a week preparing for them!


So far I have had two mentors and two formation tutors ( the first has now moved on but is missed), a spiritual director and a placement supervisor, each of them has encouraged me to not take myself so seriously and let God speak to me as I prepare and lead and always make space, to develop rhythms which daily set my face towards the one who made me. Preaching has been interesting thus far, going from 30-40 minute sermons to having now preached a homily (previous shortest was a friends wedding)  but now learning to preach in just 20 minutes is actually a great training curve.

My new formation tutor has surprised me by asking me what I am at college to do? Is it to achieve an academic qualification or for ministerial formation? I answered it is the later, then the challenge which I have been putting off is to actually use this next year as a time to reflect on having dyspraxia and the implications for life and ministry. My prayer is the muddle of my mind will be able to clear while I actively receive one on one sessions and reflect and try different ways of doing things.

Light

It is coming to that time of year when the nights are closing in, and sometimes we forget that the dark cannot extinguish the true light…

(John 1:1-18 ESV)

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 was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
                

This is my attempt at curating a reflection on light for the 31st Oct. I will post once a day on this theme. Then if you look back by selecting the label light it should bring up all the posts on the 1st Nov (All Saints Day) then you will see the full picture.

Thanks

Paul

Work Life Balance?

Dilbert comic strip for 10/12/2011 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

The temptation to develop a culture of long hours is just as much a temptation for the church as it is for the work place or home (there is always something else which needs doing, as I look at a pile of washing). Scott Adam paints the picture well, the culture for a business is set by the manager of your place of work, they are the first in and the last to leave, commitment to your job is measured in hours (and not effectiveness just look busy), others expect if your target has not been met that you stay until it has been (though if you have spent 8 hours not getting there will another hour or two really work?), then you get the rare breed which understand you have a life outside of work, which means there will be times when a need will arise for late working or an early start but this will be done by negotiating rather than enforcing contract hour directives (most places I have worked have a maximum number of hours to be worked in a month or week and any hours between 7am and 7pm).

The temptation when things are going wrong is to pour more time into the issue, that somehow if we stare at the same screen the figures will miraculously change or by ringing the same 200 people we will get a different response. Work life balance is something which I always hear, in church and at work. At work we are reminded that we need to balance work and home life as both affect each other (just go to work after a row with your nearest and dearest or come home after a bad day at the office) yet in my experience this is largely lip service and I don't think the church at times is any better. As an ordinand (someone training for ordained ministry in the Church of England) the question turns on me, how am I allowing God to form me in his likeness? I can be an an activist frantically rushing to save the world one person at a time, which in reality fulfills a need to be wanted or a messiah complex. Jesus is Lord has been the declaration of the Church down the ages and though Caesar is no longer the competition, I am faced with the same temptation but to place myself as lord.

Bonhoeffer in Cost of Discipleship, points to the call to follow Jesus by saying Yes to God, which if we take Sabbath as part of God's pattern means taking time out from work (even as a priest). Jesus is Lord means not accepting a cheap grace which molds God in our own image but allows God to mold us in to his. I tend towards working longer and harder to get a job done, which means I can so easily circumvent prayer and taking time to read scripture for scriptures sake. If Jesus is Lord then that means that neither work or leisure are God. He is.

How do you handle stress?

Dilbert comic strip for 09/24/2011 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.:

As college starts up again it is timely to remind myself that it is not all about dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's. David Runcorn suggested we need two signs, the first for the house, and the second for the desk. The first is to say "We are not the holy family" and the second which says "I am not the Messiah".

Stress can affect us in many ways, but for me it is usually caused by trying to spin too many plates at the same time. How do I de-stress?

• Prayer
• Scripture
• Exercise

Having had a night to sleep on it, I would say that the best cure for stress is playing with my children though yesterday it was one of the causes of stress!

Like I have said before, I just need to live out my own advice!

Any thoughts?

'via Blog this'

Mission and Evangelism

In all cases, the church is called to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ with boldness and to participate in God's mission for fullness of life. It is the mission of the church to reaffirm with courage and persistence the unique and eternal value of each human person as being created in the image of the holy, mighty and immortal God.

(WCC- Mission and Evangelism in Unity #31)


I am currently writing my assignment and wrestling with eels again, trying to combine my placement, and the two modules: mission & evangelism and the prophets. Maybe this is some of the connection...

Perspective

When you are studying and life is so full of demands it is easy to lose perspective and to centre your life around yourself.  I am guilty of this on numerous occasions my little brain reaches its critical mass of information, which isn't quite as large a mass as I think it is, and lack of sleep which seems impossible to catch up on, I then feel that I cannot cope with any meaningful social interaction (though I am normally an ENFP see Myers Briggs). This means I project this to all around me a little black cloud following me around:

Yet though I may have to juggle all those bills on a lower income than I have had previously I am not living on the streets. Though I am tired I am not exhausted from trying to till unproductive land so my family have enough to survive. I am not faced with overwhelming circumstances but choices and the need to be inwardly renewed each day (2 Cor 4.8).

Nearer to home I have had heartbreaking news where I want to scream at God for what has happened to friends I care about yet feel hopelessly equipped to say anything?

This isn't a guilt trip, it is a reminder to me that I continually need to be renewed and refreshed each day and continually centred on Jesus Christ, as an Anglican ordinand the daily office is so important and each time it involves confession yet I can say the words and not really understand the consequences. So I turn again to the Jesus Prayer:

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

And the miracle is he does!

Surrogates

Fatigue has finally kicked in, I feel wiped out my brain has stopped working so I thought I would take my mind off Baptism and Exegesis/preaching on Esther by reflecting on a film!

Yesterday night I watched Surrogates, it's a Bruce Willis film so you know what to expect, but I really liked the concept. People living through their surrogates, no need to be real with anybody, fed up of being a bald middle aged man (I am neither bald or middle aged) then be a woman. Anything you want...shiny happy people!

************Spoiler alert*************

The plot starts with the invention of surrogates and then the eventual spread to 99% of the population using them, I guess that most people don't want to be real. It takes the idea of masquerade and takes it to the whole new level. Never knowing who you really are dealing with...people can live a real life but who wants to, you are not the image that everyone is telling you, that you should be.


Some people lived through a surrogate as they were too fearful to go outside, others because they want to live a totally different existence...how far from reality is that?

I won't spoil the rest of the film but it asks in a hackneyed kind of way why do we need to live real life?

It reminds me of a friends blog post about clothes that we are obsessed with the outside but it also reminds me about Jesus' words:

Matt 15.17-20 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.

[ESV]

True life is not about living a projection of yourself but living life and life in its fullness (John 10.10). With my spiritual director I have been asking the question how real am I with people? The answer is that at times I say what I think people want to hear, and if I have been misunderstood rather than being awkward I let it go...maybe that is the Englishman in me! Yet I cannot shake this sense that if I can actually be myself in Christ then it would take a lot of the pressure off me. Not having to perform to everyone's expectations.

I am convinced it is the best way to live, a freedom to live life that has been hard one by Jesus Christ...

Dying you destroyed our death,
rising you restored our life.

Jesus, come in glory,
Jesus, come in glory,
Lord Jesus, come in glory.

Feel free to let me know what you think...