Flotsam And Jetsam (1)

"I've gone through life wondering, "What if the hokey-cokey is what it's all about?" Have you ever thought about that? It could be, couldn't it? 'Cause that's what I was told, when I was a kid. "You put your left leg in... that's what it's all about." I'm not saying it is, I'm saying "what if?" I never really knew what it was all about so any signsin that general direction I was willing to pick up. And that's a view of the world my parents regularly expressed to me at moments of high mirth and emotion. That's cockney Zen, that is."
-Billy Bragg "The Word" Magazine, November 2006


Haiku
by Simon Bird

Ironically
This haiku's final word is
Monosyllabic

If
by Arthur Smith

If you can roll along at a decent pace
And you find that your rear
Contains lots of space
If you have windows at the front
Yet none at the side
And offer a smooth unflashy ride
If you have a red and white flag
On your bonnet
And can never imagine doing a ton
Then yours is the road and everything on it
And, which is more, you'll be a van, my son.

Christians

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mohandas K Ghandi
Interestingly enough, I have mellowed quite a bit since I had the intention of writing about Christians, but- though the spirit is more benevolent- the criticisms still stand.
My problem is that Christians seem to deny their creed and their belief in a life-changing God by being so... well, Unchristian!
Ultimately, it is they (correction: we) who put me off the system known as Christianity. It's our hypocrisy- the gaping abyss between our beliefs and our practice; our selfishness- our complete inability to see others' needs; our religiosity- our little obsessions with silly rituals and rites which have nothing at all to do with Jesus of Nazareth; and our self-righteousness- our sick tendency to look down on others without seeing how filthy we ourselves are. There are many other traits too, but I would wind myself up into a frenzy...!
Now, I know what the response is to this: "We're saved by Grace...none of us are perfect...let he who is without fault...". Granted, we will not attain perfection in this life, but surely the Church is meant to be an outpost of heaven, a community of God's people, and surely we believe in a God that transforms lives into being more like Jesus, not more religious or self-righteous. I always liked the quote on the "Jesus Freak" album (DC Talk) about Christians confessing Christ with their lips and then denying Him with their lives. And I echo the sentiment that that is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
But I continue to seek Jesus...

One step at a time...

I went to church on Sunday. I would have added a sarcastic "what a surprise" if it weren't for the fact that this is unusual nowadays. In truth, I turned up in order to collect a package a friend had left for me. The sermon was okay, but the interesting thing was that the assistant pastor decided to sit next to me. I am completely unable to lie, so when he asked me after the service how things were, I had to admit that things were quite crap. I can't hide my feelings either, so I would've been on a loser... The conversation was good and he was (externally at least) optimistic. We agreed in the end that we would meet up on Friday to read the Bible. We'll see how it goes...

I'm reading a book called "The Case Against Christ" at the moment, by John White. Unlike a few other Christian books, it's not overly patronising or pompous and presents a very intellectually rigourous argument in favour of Jesus' life and work. And more positively, it's making me want to read about Jesus in the Gospels about him.

Next post: why I don't like Christians!

Honestly...

Let me put my cards on the table. I do want to believe. I would like to follow Jesus.
Why?
In order have a purpose in my life? Possibly.
Because I have no other options in my life? No longer the truth- hence, possibly, the reason I've been more off the rails than ever before.
Because I want to be moral? Well, there are other, more self-righteous and self-glorifying ways...
The true reason is that I would like to follow Jesus because I know that otherwise I'm on a handcart to hell...

Cheese and wine

I have a female friend with whom I get on very well. She's got a very strong character and I don't think she realises how attractive I find that. The only problem is that when we argue/discuss, we rarely find common ground since neither of us is willing to concede any ground. So we were discussing my intention to look into the person of Jesus by starting to read an apologetics book. She couldn't understand why on earth I was so anti-church in many ways and why I felt the need to start reading into this on my own first of all. I tried to explain that my approach was one of starting at the bottom in order to build up from a basis of "who Jesus is" then confronting Him and then following Him (hey, let's be honest about the desired outcome of this journey). Be she started to accuse me of not believing in the power of preaching, that I wasn't open to the possibilities of God using preaching to speak to me (nice reformed evangelical girl that she is). If the truth be told, I'm not sure if I do believe in all that in the state I'm in at the moment. So if you're reading this (you know who you are), that's one of the reasons.
Let's just say we agreed to disagree...

Forgive me...

This goes by way of an apology to anybody I inadvertently offend in these blogs. I don't intend to. I hope not to even name anybody (hey, if I'm anonymous, why should they be famous?!). So this goes out to my friends, family and acquaintances along the road.

In the beginning...

I'm not quite sure why I'm starting this blog. I guess it's because I want to record an account of my pilgrimage or lack thereof. I suppose I'd describe myself as a "struggling Christian" at the moment, slightly on the verge of falling off the Gospel wagon, but less so since about a week ago.

I hope to record my thoughts about various issues (I nearly wrote "spiritual and non-spiritual" but remembered I don't believe in there being a division!) and my progress or regress as regards my soul. In the word of an ex housemate: "Fun and games"...

Regarding the title, "Dicebamus hesterna die", it means "As we were saying yesterday". It was spoken by a great thinker called Fray Luis de Leon, professor in the University of Salamanca. In 1573, he was arrested by the Spanish Inquisition (no Monty Python quotes, please!) for daring to translate The Song of Solomon and The Book of Job into Spanish. Five years later he returned to his lecture theatre, placed his books on the lectern and uttered the memorable words above.