silence

‘Silence is the first language of God.’

This is really simple (you can feel the but coming), but simple does mean easy and it definitely does not mean shallow. Actually simple can be really hard to keep simple, because before you know it a very simple thing can become a complex and intricate thing (like this sentence). Simplicity is a constant effort, like pruning a topiary. It’s a simple lollipop tree, but to keep it like that takes constant effort.

And that is precisely what the core is of all spiritual disciplines. Effort. Now just to make it clear effort is rather different from works, works expect a reward or compensation but effort implies a deliberate striving towards God, a conscious seeking or an intended action.

Silence is the King of all spiritual practices. And the one we need most. Deepak Chopra once said that if you chose only one thing to do to live a long and healthy life, then chose to spend time regularly in silence.

When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Lam 3:28,29 msg

Yet silence is the furthest thing from us. At any given time most of us, have a cell phone, an mp3 player or radio either on us or around us. We race so quickly that we leave our selves behind. Jesus walked at around 3km an hour someone once told me, but how we love to outrun him.

‘Hurry is not of the Devil, it is the Devil’ – CG Jung

Spending time in silence (simply) says:

Here I am God.

Change me as you will.

Form me.

I can’t. You can.

Silence show our dependence on God, our submission to his will and purposes. It shows physically the intention of our hearts.

Silence is praise to you, Zion-dwelling God, And also obedience. Ps 65:1 msg

After a while you will begin to develop a lifestyle of silence, a constant awareness of the still peace of God that fills the spaces around you and inside you. It is a quiet waiting for God, waiting to see what he is up to, so that you can join him.

...In returning and rest you shall be saved; and in quietness and hope shall be your strength... Isa 30:15 mkjv

So how do I do this simple yet complex but very necessary thing? Here is one way, a very old way, which I happen to like.

1. Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.

2. Sit comfortably on a chair, feet on the ground, back straight.

3. Let all thoughts flow through you letting them go as soon as they pop up. Don’t try and block them. This is impossible.

4. Then return your heart gently to God. Use a word such as ‘holy, welcome, peace etc’ as a kind of a bookmark to guide you back to God. Gently say the word in your mind when you catch yourself in a thought and return to the silence. You can also use a mental image, or some movement in your body (such as your breathing or heartbeat) to guide you back.

5. Try and do this for 20min or build up to 20min a day. Use a cell phone alarm or some soft timer.

6. It doesn’t matter how many thoughts you have, or many times you need to ‘refocus’. There is no such thing as a good or bad time in silence. Because it is God that is the one touching your heart, seeing your intention. The power is never in the practice, it is in God’s hands.

7. Take note of how your life and your reactions to others change over the next few months.

len on arts in the church

check out this short clip:

http://vimeo.com/5740404

hmmm.

reflect.

What is our purpose? I suppose that is the question. What am I suppose to do with my life... I think we all have gone through this frustrating and extremely annoying stage and if you haven’t you soon will (especially in your twenties). And if you think it’s over and you have arrived. Just wait. It’ll hit you again like a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick*.

Stupid jokes and silly quotes aside what are we suppose to do with our short lives? As a follower of Jesus this becomes an even more interesting and hotly debated question.

Are we trying to earn our way to heaven? Which can quickly be shot down as that dreaded word in evangelical Christianity often said as if you are holding something back in your throat; works.
Then we need not do anything! Obviously we can’t earn our place in heaven, you can feel the but coming, but what about James? A friend of mine said the other day that before you get to Peter at the pearly gates, you’ll have to deal with James first. Especially that annoying thing he wrote about faith being useless without works. So what to do?

Maybe we should do good things because we are so thankful that we have been saved. Sounds good right? So if you don’t help smelly old ladies, you are not thankful and will lose your savedness. Hmm, it’s like works but backwards and that still doesn’t work.

So let’s just do what Jesus did (you know WJJD), because well we like him a lot and would like to be more like him. That sounds perfect. Right? Only one snag, you are not Jesus. It’s like asking me to sit down at a piano and play like Beethoven. Not going to happen. But what if I could be possessed by Beethoven and he could play through me? That could work, right?

Len Sweet says something like, ‘don’t try and be like Jesus, just let Jesus be himself in you’. Now that sounds a way to go.

In Exodus, Moses goes up a mountain and comes down with two stone tablets. He does this twice actually since he has a bit of an incident with Israel involving a golden calf and smashing of tablets the first time.

Can you remember what the third thing on the tablets say? In other words what is the third commandment?

‘You shall not take the name of the LORD in vain.’

Now we often interpret this as meaning not to swear using Jesus or God’s name. And that’s right, you shouldn’t, so don’t start. But like most things in scripture it goes deeper than you stubbing your toe and losing control of your tongue. The word ‘take’ also means ‘carry’; do not carry the name of the Lord in vain. It implies your whole life that you shouldn’t say that you follow Jesus and not really mean it. Don’t stick that name on your back if you are not going to walk the walk. In short when you say you follow Jesus or are a Christian, you become a name bearer of God. You represent him, when you do something it’s like him doing it.

This leads me to another scripture, which you may have guessed by now, in Genesis it is written that we are created in the image of God. Now this means a lot of things and can be understood in twice as many ways. But one of those is that we represent God on earth. We have to take care of this creation for him. Like an ambassador. An ambassador has one purpose to represent his King or country. Paul even calls us ambassadors for Christ 2 Cor 5:20.

Another image Paul uses is that of a mirror, in 2 Cor 3:18 he says:

‘But we all, with our face having been unveiled, having beheld the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord Spirit’ MKJV

Or in the Message translation:

‘All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him’

He says this happens because of Christ, he fuses metaphors (again). When Moses came down the mountain after meeting with God, he face shone with God’s glory. He hid his face, since the people were afraid to look at him, but in Christ this veil is taken away. It refers to the veil covering the most holy place that was torn when Jesus died and also the veil that covered Moses’ face. So now two things can happen, we can see God clearly and reflect him clearly.
The word he uses in the scripture goes both ways. It means reflect but also behold.

It’s simple really, if you want to reflect God, you have to be turned towards him as a mirror is to the sun in order to reflect the light.

So the first step to finding out what you are suppose to do with your life is not praying for a roadmap, rather it’s adoring God, turning your heart towards him.

We are very keen to reflect God, but not so good at beholding. So for a moment leave all the questions that you might have about God, the bible, why good people maybe go to hell and just turn your heart towards God. Take just a few minutes a day and turn your heart with no questions or requests. Just adoration and see how your day changes,
how your life changes.

The more time we spend in God’s light, the more we become like him. Like a poker left in a hot fire. At the start you can see the poker clearly but after a while it becomes like the fire (this process is part of the threefold way, ancient understanding of spiritual growth, but more about that in another issue).

So then, we do good things, because God does good things.

We love the world, because God loves the world.

We comfort, because God comforts.

We are on mission, because God is on mission.

We are gracious and compassionate, because God is gracious and compassionate.

We are merciful, because God is merciful.

________________________________________________
*The same effect the best drink in the universe has, a pan galactic gargle blaster, according the The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Mama Mary

Hi guys, haven't posted in a while.. so here goes:

Last week 3rdplace did a roadtrip tp Mama Mary's. Mama takes care of around 100 orphans and abandoned kids in Soshanguve. We went to play with the kids, paint pretty pictures on the creche, braai and eat super sweet doughnuts.

Now I am supposed to write something super theological and philosophicallish...

This wasn't a outreach, it wasn't a mission trip, it wasn't evangelism. It was some Jesus like humans spending time with other holy lumps of dust. All life is mission, all life lived in love in particularly is mission.

Here are some pics for your enjoyment, O and thanks again to Dylan Victor and Marais for organising the mountain bike trick thingy show! You guys rock.

Abe still smells like boerewors

wedding dress

This story made me cry a little this morning:

A girl walked into a well known bridal fabric store in the east of Pretoria, she promptly asked the shop assistant for the noisiest white fabric that they have.

Frowning a little, the assistance pointed out the nosiests white fabric they have amongst the mountains of soft silks and laces..

While cutting her order, he couldn't help but ask:

'Why are you buying this stiff nosy fabric, normally brides look for the softest flowiest ones?'

She answered: ' My future husband is blind, and I want him to experience the wedding and my dress'


beautiful.

grace&peace

pierre

new space

Hi guys
Today is big day in the story of 3rdplace.. we just gave notice at our current venue and trusting God for something more central and more with the people...

anyways, the way we view/use our gathering spaces.. is that it is part of the message.. i'm sure you've heard the whole the medium is the message message.. 'you can paint a smiley face on a atomic bomb.. but it won't change the message' or something like that at least.

So our first space was a reputated gay bar, owned by our buddhist mates. It taught that we are part of this city part of this world.

second space continued that line. It was 'the bar'. A friend of ours owns a bar, that is closed on sunday's so we used it as a gathering space. It taught: God is everywhere. We need to live towards and in the 'world'

the third space, is a completely stark white gallery like space with a concrete floor and no chairs. you had to bring your own. I taught two things.
1st: The person is important, no people no church. The people are like artworks in the stark space, the beauty that exists in us is that which the world needs.
2nd: It teaches us to live simply, to engage God in silent, to move towards a contemplative life

now we are moving again, I've been wondering and we have been chatting about what the 4th space should be..

at the moment I am thinking, maybe 3rdplace should be a story space.. wherever our community gathers it should create space for stories. Lately stories have been bubbling up more and more in 3rdplace.. and it's taking centre stage. Stories inspired and teach. We live in a story, we define ourselves by the story of Jesus and scripture. We live our lives in God's story.

So where ever 3rdplace gathers, we should make space for stories...
houses, coffeeshops, bars, a rented hall.. what ever..

whacha think?

people

sunday at 3rdplace was an interesting one...

I taught on narratives and told some crazy stories, I asked one girl in our community to share her story.. she was amongst other things.. a 3rd level inca high priestess..

seriously, an inca high priestess..

afterward a guy came up to me and said: I am just a pretoria boy, who likes fast cars.. I can't believe that story!! (or something like that)..

then i thought about the church, and about 3rdplace and about how it is the craziest mixed bunch of people:

an inca high priestess
a pretoria boy who likes fast cars
a guy who was in a mental institution
a couple of people with various psychiatric disorders
some dancers
a girl who paint murals in goth clubs
rugby fans
various creatives
programmers
an ethiopian refugee
a manchester boy
germans
a american 'refugee'

and we all love Jesus..

i think Paul might be proud.

grace & peace

pierre