The Rise of the Machines

I eyed it warily. All seemed in place. There was a handle, a hinge, some glass in the middle. Standard. Deceptively plain. I edged toward it. It remained still.

“Now calm down,” I told myself.

“It’s just ordinary. You have done this a thousand times before. You are the sentient being, it is the tool. Push through and claim your mastery over it.”
“But look, those ones are automatic!”

Indeed they were. I glanced at them. They were of a slightly different design, with hinges in the middle. They creaked apart then slid shut to the rhythm of the steady stream of shoppers, like great sets of teeth chomping away.

“Yes, but you aren’t going through those. These are your way out, and clearly they haven’t motion sensed you swithering on the spot like a frightened ostrich. Now come on, move!”

I screwed my courage to the sticking plate and girded my loins as far as they would gird. I seized the handle, and applied my weight firmly.

To my relief it opened, and I passed through unharmed. But wait. That felt too easy, it felt lighter than it should have… maybe it’s one of that cruel breed that only close by themselves!

I was being casually observed now by a man sitting on the steps outside. As nonchalantly as I could, I glanced back over my shoulder.

It stood wide open. Well I couldn’t leave things like that could I? The cold breeze wafting freely into the nice warm centre? I turned on my heel - a little annoyed with myself and the world - and grasped once more for it.

Before I could reach, as if on cue, it smugly shut itself in my face with an effortless hiss.

The man on the steps smiled, and a little part of me died.

In which I find a good self help book.

To begin with, a warning; this particular one will be quite explicit. Lock the doors and make sure the children aren’t reading. Is the coast clear? Marvellous, let’s begin.

I was in someone’s house recently, and in a dull moment I wandered over to the bookshelf. Bookshelves are normally so eclectic and unique that they reveal a great deal about a person. It was your average collection: motor maintenance manuals, reader’s digest collections, a couple of favourite children’s classics, and - high on the top shelf - the inevitable Bible. It was small, leather bound, and obviously untouched. I dragged it from its final resting place, and enjoyed the filmic experience of blowing the dust off. (Very satisfying - a proper cloud of the stuff that got in my eyes and caught in my throat.) Opening the front cover, my suspicions were proved. It was a presentation Bible - handed out fifty years ago in some primary school and unopened since. I suppose some childhood nostalgia must have convinced them to hang onto it.

The sad thing is, I feel that that is the place the Bible has in most people’s hearts and minds. It’s a nice looking book, full of good moral stories for children but not really to be fretted over. Nothing for intelligent, logical adults. People who actually try to live their lives by it? Well let’s just say, if the straightjacket fits…

Which brings me on to my main point. In this extract, God uses a metaphor to describe the nation of Israel, who he freed from slavery. He likens the nation to a prostitute:

“Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.”

That’s hardly the happy animals going in two by two in your children’s Bible, is it? The real Bible is far more cutting and direct than a lot of Christians dare to be today. Bear in mind the background here: all of Israel are enslaved in Egypt. Their lives are degrading and cruel and disgusting. So God frees them. You are no doubt familiar with the story of their escape through the red sea. That’s the story - choose to believe it or not. So you would think they’d be quite grateful, wouldn’t you? What with the miraculous rescue and all. Yet they want to go back? Yes! Unbelievably, they do, and we are left in no doubt as to that. Life living under God’s law is too hard. They want the easy route.

It’s all in there! That book is drippingly rich with relevant and challenging comments about how we really are. There is no holding back. It will tell you exactly where you slip up and leave you with no excuse - if you let it. There is a deep knowledge of joy there too. Not just a kind of thin happiness of flowers and sunshine, but of one who knows what it is for everything to be utterly perfect. I become more convinced daily that the Bible explores human nature in such a pithy and cutting way because the one who wrote it knows each and every stinking one of us better than we know ourselves.

Open to possibilities

My head might be described as a roundabout, viewed from one side. There are various bits of traffic that get stuck there, and they circle continuously, each coming to the foreground again and again until at last they become less prominent, so they take the nearest exit and dwindle off down the road to the subconscious or the long term memory...

I think my metaphor has become a little strained.

Anyway, one of these that has been doing its rounds lately is a story I heard about a frustrated little boy. He comes to his Father for answers:

“Well, what’s wrong? What’s got you in such a mood?”

“I was trying praying so I said to God please could you open the window but he didn’t.”

Now you could have responded to that in two ways:

1. Oh cute little silly child, not understanding our big theological concepts!

2. Ah. That’s me. Too often.

Because we come with all our little beggings and askings and naggings, when in reality God has prepared an excellent solution if only we move off our bums:

“I have given you four fully functional limbs, and you are young and in full health. You have all you need, so open the window!”

I have been thinking about this as I look ahead and apply to Universities. Of course I can (and should) pray that I may get onto a certain course, that God puts me where I should be et cetera, but if I am not actually taking the time to craft personal statements, fill in forms, and - in my case - practice audition material, then in many ways I do not deserve those prayers to be answered. I need to be on my feet, opening that window to the farthest I can stretch. Whatever pleasant breezes meander in as a result of that are what I have no control over. And like all of us I long to taste that fresh air as I go into new stages of life.

If my ramble has peaked any thoughts, have a stroll through the book of James at the end of the Bible. It is full of discussion of how faith should naturally beget deeds, and helps you to think about how to get your windows open just that little bit wider.

And now a musical interlude...

Framed into silhouette where glass and sunset meet,

Like mingling tree shadows caught in the last of the light,

They sway and pulse, all lost to the archaic beat

Of wood and tin and flesh and bone, honed bright.

The fiddler scrapes low tones to the depths of dark streams,

Hydraulic action scouring to the veins of the hills,

The voice flies the soul up into clouds and dreams

And plunges down through earth until it fills

Dark caverns, far away from light and love

Where pungent silence reeks and darkness hides

To strike the match that brings to life the hope

That we might find some shining truth inside.

How could I choose to willingly stagnate

In Luke-warm water, dyed a garish pink

That drains away to nothing far too late

To thrill my heart, or give me cause to think?

No, give me Celtic strings near ancient fires,

Long nights where stories jostle in the air,

Where nothing more is needed than for us

To bring and sing whatever we can share.

I picture a new world

Ah, the Taj Mahal. Always a wonder. True, as a choice of holiday destination it was dripping in unoriginality, but nevertheless eye catching. The razorcut grass, squared neatly against shallow crystal pools that caught the sky in their stillness and made it sparkle. Flanks of well drilled hedges keeping watch on either side. All that drew your eye ever forwards, on, on and upward. To the edifice itself. Fertile rolling curves flanked by piercing towers that declared in power that they protected grandeur.

He smiled and drew her close to him, and they both grinned as he raised his phone aloft. Their smiles did glaze over a little as he shifted and readjusted to try and find that perfect couple shot angle that would set the heart aglow of all who ventured to peruse it. He settled on one which missed out the shining waters but at least got in most of the building, and of course their faces. He reached for the button when...

He thought...

This isn’t a nice angle...

But how to improve...?

Could I...?

No...

Or...............

He let go of her and rushed over to a tall man in a slim blazer and slacks.

“Hi there, I don’t suppose you could help here?” He asked, presenting his phone to the stranger.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what...” replied the stranger in broken english. A European tourist by the sound of it.

“Well if we just stand off to the side of the pool there, could you take a photo of us?”

The tourist seemed a little confused, but he took the phone anyway. The young couple hurried to one side of the pool, and cuddled in close, and the stranger raised the camera aloft.

He clicked.

And in that moment, in that flash, they all knew they had discovered something miraculous. The old trends had had their day, and the selfie was no more. It was time for....

...the someone elsie.

How To Bear With Sacrifice

My first post. It was prompted tonight in church, when the offering was taken up and some thoughts drifted into my head about what makes us want - or not want - to give up that which God has given us anyway, and I thought other people might enjoy these thoughts or even find helpful.

I don't remember many of the presents I have ever given or received, but one will stick with me, possibly forever. When I was quite a bit younger than now I am, I bought my Mum a teddy bear. This was no ordinary bedtime companion though, no. This was a "hot bear". Inside him was a little bag of beans that could be heated up, so that when inserted you could enjoy lots of warm hugs on a cold Scottish night.

Now, I will admit that I took great pleasure - like any self-respecting young boy - in ripping out a teddy bear's stomach and microwaving it, but it was one of my more thoughtful gifts. My Mum fell in love with that bear's little sown-on smile as soon as she opened her present, and she christened him Alfie. He sits to this day on the rocking-chair in the corner of her room, patiently waiting for his services to be called upon once more.

What struck me about this tonight is that bear was utterly hers. It was her present, and it was bought with her money. I had no job at that age, no income. All I had was my parents', and so all I had done was given back their money in a fluffier form. Which to me is like what happens when the offering baskets do their rounds every Sunday, or when we pour our resources into ministry and outreach.

You see, what made that bear so special was not that I had sacrificed money I had worked for, or that I had any claim to. It was purely an act of love. I gave her something which was basically hers anyway because I knew it would warm her heart (literally, in Alfie's case). That moment wouldn't still be so precious in my mind if at the time I had been bitterly recounting exactly how much pocket money I had lost. That's an attitude which is not dissimilar to when we so often grudgingly give up that tithe or whatever out of some sense of duty. A gift is only worth the giving if it is motivated by love.

 So when I give up that which was never my own, I will try not to see those coins tumble away from my grasp into the basket like some sort of miserable Gollum mourning his precious. I will try to see God leaning back in his rocking chair, with an Alfie under one arm, and round Alfie's arm will be a little label which reads:

To Dad,

lots of love,

 Fergus xxx