TRICKY

Tricky the ex-member of Bristol based Massive Attack was in concert at Lille last night.
The venue, Le Spendid, was full. The crowd were a mixed age group, which is often the case at concerts in France (at least the ones that i go to.

Tricky, the Knowle Wester, gave a great 1 1/2 show. he was backed by a tight talented band.

see link to a live show (not Lille) with same band:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh8f4EH4DS4

His recent album - False Idols is worth a listen
:)

Prayer and the freedom of not knowing

Prayer is largely just being silent: holding the tension instead of even talking it through, offering the moment instead of fixing it by words and ideas, loving reality as it is instead of understanding it fully. Prayer is commonly a willingness to say “I don’t know.” We must not push the river, we must just trust that we are already in the river, and God is the certain flow and current.

That may be impractical, but the way of faith is not the way of efficiency. So much of life is just a matter of listening and waiting, and enjoying the expansiveness that comes from such willingness to hold. It is like carrying and growing a baby: women wait and trust and hopefully eat good food, and the baby is born.

Spiritual Awakening

"The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw - and knew I saw - All things in God and God in all things."
Mechtild of Magdeburg

Cranky, Beautiful Faith

I've just finished reading Cranky, Beautiful Faith by Nadia Bolz-Weber. It's an autobiography packed with stories of faith, hope and honesty. Honesty,  being real is what undergirds this book and makes it so interesting and challenging. Nadia bears her soul and much more.

The book imparts  spiritual truths and insights that reflect the love and grace of our Savior.

Here are a few quotes:

"God's grace is a gift freely given to us. We don't earn a thing when it comes to God's love, and we only try to live in response to the gift."

"Grace is not God being forgiving to us  even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word...instead God makes beautiful things out of even my shit".

"Grace is not God creating humans as flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like a hero to grant us grace- like saying 'it's ok, I'll be a good guy and forgive you'. Grace is God saying 'I love the world too much to let your sin  define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new".

Nadia stresses that the Christian message is one of death and resurrection. We need to die to our selves, our addictions, our selfish desires and rise to a new life in Christ.

She also numerates the Lutheran ethos in which she is grounded.

- No one is climbing the spiritual ladder. We don't continually improve until we are so spiritual we no longer need God. We die and are made new, but that's different from spiritual self-improvement.

- We are simultaneously sinner and saint, 100% both, all the time.

- The Bible is not God. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ. Anything in the Bible that does not hold up to the Gospel  of Jesus Christ simply does not have the same authority?

- The movement in our relationship with God is always from God to us. Always. We can't, through our piety or goodness move closer to God. God is always coming near to us. Most especially in the Eucharist and in the stranger.


Here's her take on preaching:

"The job of the preacher: to find some good news for people. Good news about who God is, and how God works, and what God has done and what God will do. What passes for preaching in many cases is more ' here's the problem, and here's what you can do about it' - this is not good news."

On suffering:

"There is no knowable answer to the question of why there is suffering. But there is meaning. And that
meaning is related to Jesus - Emmanuel 'God with us'. We want to go to God for answers, but sometimes what we get is God's presence."

On repentance:

"Repentance, 'thinking differently afterward', is what happens to me when the truth of who I am and the truth of who God is scatter the darkness of competing ideas".

I highly recommend Cranky, Beautiful Faith - it's down to earth full of stories that recount the lives of ordinary ( and not so ordinary) people who are on a journey of faith, like us they haven't yet made it, but they often limp their way through life by the grace of God. This book is packed with beautiful poignant gems that could and possibly will change your life.

Accepting the Mercy

Yet in facing the contradictions that we ourselves are, we become living icons of Yes/And. Once we can accept mercy, it is almost natural to hand it on to others. You become a conduit of what you yourself have received
Richar Rohr

Pleasure, Joy and Life

You will show me the path of life; *
     in your presence there is fullness of joy,
     and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

Psalm 16: 11

A wonderful verse found in today's psalm in the Book of Common Prayer...

I love the idea that God is kind enough to reveal to us the path of life...abundant life, real life...

God isn't some sort of old mean guy who looks down at us ready to pounce at any wrong move 

that we may make. Thank God he's not like that.

He wants to give us pleasure, joy and life!

TRINITY

A few interesting thoughts on the Trinty by Richard Rohr:

Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist who was a major contributor to quantum physics and nuclear fission, said the universe is “not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think.” Our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the nature of the universe and the bare beginnings of the nature of God. I think the doctrine of the Trinity is saying the same thing. The “principle of three” breaks down all dualistic either-or thinking and sets us on a dynamic course of ongoing experience.

God is not only stranger than we think, but stranger than the logical mind can think. Perhaps much of the weakness of the first two thousand years of reflection on the Trinity, and many of our doctrines and dogmas, is that we’ve tried to do it with a logical mind instead of with prayer. The belief in God as a Trinity is saying God is more an active verb than a stable noun. You know it in the flow of life itself.