Banana Cake

Yes, I'm afraid its come to this. My 3 or so months of unemployment have driven me insane. I'm due to start my new job on Tuesday, but its too late. I am alone at home, my wife in South Africa for a little break, and what do I do with my spare time?

Guess.

Nope, not guitar, not reading, not walking, not blogging or taking pics.

Baking.

As I sit here, a banana cake rises to perfection in the oven. My first every baking effort.

And do you know what the best thing about being mad and alone is?

You get to lick both the spoon and the bowl!! ;-)

Getting into you

Another favourite...

Hallowed

One of my many favourites...

Wild at heart

Perhaps you've seen some of those "Just for Christian Men" type books, .e.g. Wild At Heart, Fight Like A Man. They address the basic issue that the church seems to be made up primarily of women and children, and those men that are there are often emasculated wimps.

I've read some of these books, generally written by Americans, and whilst its difficult to stomach quite a lot of it, the fundamental message rings true: that men are fundamentally wild at heart, and don't do well tamed. We are taught that Jesus was loving and gentle, we sing "Jesus is my boyfriend" type songs, we are soft and without passion, apathetic.

Yet Jesus was a fierce, rugged carpenter, with sufficient presence to drive people out of the Temple with a whip! I'd like to see a blue-eyed, milk-faced sop try that on. Jesus was a Man, a man's man, full of courage and strength, whilst gentle and loving. His love was not sickly sweet, but deeply passionate and committed to the extent that He surrendered without a word to probably the most severe punishment devised by man. The word excruciating literally means "out of the cross".

This Jesus is my master, worthy of my unconditional allegiance and devotion. I would say love too, but that word has largely been hijacked by the wimp brigade and sticks a little in my throat.

So having said all of that, I was sitting in the lounge chatting to my wife about why I like pictures of lush greenery as well as harsh desert landscapes. She came up with several theories, but I reckon the green landscapes represent the tame part of my life, full of responsibilities and duties, whilst the desert represents a deep unrequieted desire to be free, to go hunting with other men and make fire.

Please don't tell me my wife. If she finds out I have spare time she'll make me do the dishes! ;-)

Threat

What do you think the biggest threat to the Church in the UK is? I reckon its neither Atheism, nor Pluralism, nor Islam, but APATHY. Its a nasty disease that is harder to fight because it offers no tangible target. Its a bit like walking in sludge - it just soaks up your effort and eventually drags you down.

But what is surprising is that the apathy is not just external to the Church. Measure the percentage of church members who pitch up regularly to prayer meetings. I bet its less than 10%. The Church in the UK appears lukewarm, ineffective, dying, apathetic. We offer a confused, diluted Gospel that lacks power to contend with the dogmatic assertions of Atheism and Islam, and we are too frightened to suggest in our pluralistic society that we have THE TRUTH lest we cause offense.

“In the late 1800’s there was a great evangelist named Gypsy Smith. He had traveled the world twice, preaching in every Continent, in many countries. Wherever he preached, revival broke out. One day a delegation of people from a certain community came to Gipsy and said, “We so desperately want to see revival in our area. It’s so dry and dead. What can we do to see revival?” Gipsy said, “I’ll tell you exactly how it will come about. You go home. Lock yourself in your bedroom. Take a piece of chalk. Put a circle on the floor of your bedroom. Kneel in that circle and pray fervently and brokenly that God will start revival in that circle.”

Faith

It occurs to me that we all live by faith, even those of us who claim not to believe in anything. Faith is trust in something that is unproven. Now before you shoot me down, let me clarify.

Systems of logic rely on axioms (things that are assumed to be true) and rules of deduction whereby further truths are derived from our initial set of axioms.
However the difficulty with making assumptions is that they might be wrong, so axioms need to be questioned when the deductions they result in are contradictory.

Everybody makes assumptions. Even scientists rely on the work of other scientists - its just not possible for a person to work out everything himself from first principles. Even if it were, that person would be assuming he could do the work correctly, thus requiring faith in something unprovable.

For example, the atheist assumes there is no God. This assumption means that in some cases otherwise unrivaled historical documentary evidence to the man Jesus is dismissed as being deeply flawed because the testimony is made by people who believe in the supernatural.

Faith must not be blind. As I said earlier, you look for consistency in your deductions to validate your assumptions. This "reasonable" approach should methinks be no different for a believer or an unbeliever.

What is the basis for your faith? An experience of your emotions or something more concrete?

The problem with one's emotions, senses and even mind is that they can be quite unreliable. Someone close to me has Bipolar Disorder - from her I learned that the mind, one's sense of what is real, is very fragile, and one should seek confirmation from other sources before assuming something is real.

My faith in Jesus is primarily based on reason. This has to some extent been confirmed by my experiences over the years, but I have also had very many difficult experiences which are more troubling on the surface and could destroy a faith that is based only on warm fuzzy feelings.

Job!

I have accepted a job offer and hope to start May 5th. It was a very tough decision because it wasn't quite what I was looking for, a case of is the bird in the hand better than two that are perhaps hiding in the bush? I prayed for wisdom and then made my decision. I did briefly consider praying and then flipping a coin similarly to what the disciples did when they selected Matthias but didn't have enough confidence in the theology to do it. ;-)

Times are hard in the financial sector. My old company laid off another 100 people and I've heard rumblings of other companies in London doing similar things because of the credit crunch, so its a good time to have a job, imperfect or otherwise.

Thanks for your prayers.

P.S. My pointless has a particularly good post at the moment.