Friday 17 August 2012

Ifs

The word "If" counjours up two pieces of writing. The first is the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling "If you can dio this that and the other without it bothering you then you'll be a man my son" or words to that effect. The other is a collection of sayings by Amy Carmichael gathered into a small book saying things like "If the ultimate, the highest cannot be asked of me, if my fellows hesitate and ask another, then I know nothing of calvary love" again or words to that effect. There is a similarity between the two. I used to have the little Amy Carmichael book and it was one of my prized possessions, I used to regularly beat myself up psychologically after reading it.

These days I treat such writings with a great deal of suspicion. They seem now to be a bit self righteous; an unreachable bar. I know Amy Carmichael spent a lot of time bedridden in the days before T.V. I guess you have got to occupy youself somehow. She is a person I greatly admire, don't get me wrong, but her writings didn't do me much good as an intense young christian wanting to be holy. As a not particularly macho bloke Rudyard Kipling's "If" just left me feeling inadequate.

What I believe defines a person is not the gritty determination to overcome all obstacles but the failures, the skin of the teeth escapes. The lucky goal that goes in off your backside. None of us are good enough that's why we need Jesus.

Thursday 16 August 2012

Dentists waiting rooms

When I sit in the waiting area of my dentist there are two watercoulour pictures on the wall opposite. They are obviously by the same artist and on the face of it of the same scene. the scene is a large white house with several sections with different roof heights on top of a hill. Surrounding the house is grassland and some wooded areas. Although the pictures appear to be of the same building they are drawn from a different place. One of the things I try to do is work out by looking at one picture where the artist was located when he drew the other one. I think I have it worked out but it is not conclusive.

In life what we see depends a lot on where we are looking from. That is why two people describing the same thing sometimes differ massively in what they describe. I don't think it is possible to really climb into someone elses shoes; however, the recognition that there are other veiws than our own which can be accurate, if different from ours is one step down the road towards unity.