The categorisation of blindness

Blindness is often associated in the Gospels with the inability to perceive Christ and when the blindness is alleviated the person often either praises God or follows Christ (Mark 10.46-52). It is quite useful to use this category, without being detrimental to those with poor vision, as we look at ourselves and our lives in Christ. The very first thing that we actually need to do is admit our blindness. What! I am not blind. Well as soon as we open our mouths and state this it is obvious that we are. We are all well aware that for many things the first response is denial and once we have denied we have actually admitted that we have the issue, challenge, etc. It is only when we are honest with ourselves about our own perceptions and our own knowledge can we begin to fashion a comprehensive plan of action that enables ourselves and those around us to come into the light and see for the first time. Our challenge then is to freely admit that we are blind and need God's grace to heal our blindness and lead us into a new world; a world that God has deemed ours.

At the beginning of Job's trials we can see that he was blind to the truth and yet held on to his faith. At the end Job's eyes are opened to the truth and sees how his faith has assisted him in his trials (Job 42.1-6). It is only when Job confronts and is confronted by God's presence does he realise the truth of his faith. It is only when we allow ourselves to confront God and come into Christ's presence are we able to understand the truth and how this affects our faith. We can so easily give up; we can so easily give in; we can so easily rest in the lies that surround our everyday lives. These are the friends that console us on our journey, these are the friends that lead us away from our journey, these our the friends that lend their worldly wisdom to our trials with God. We bitch and moan at every turn of our lives because things are not how they should be. Yet, if we hold to the path that God has set we are able to overcome so much, just like Job, and we are able to forgive so much just like Job (42.9-10). In doing so we are given so much by God's grace who has asked so little of ourselves.

Have you chosen your attitude towards Christ?

Yet, our attitude is one of the age, the miracle of the secular age is ours to play with and to re-invent our lives forgetting the miracle that is God's grace promised to us forever. Ours is not the attitude of thanksgiving it is the attitude that it belongs to us; the attitude of the age. If you cannot pay your way in today's society you are nobody. Well, this is where we are asked for our sacrifice if we want what we have to continue. Only when we begin to understand the sacrifice that God has given will we begin to appreciate our need to sacrifice ourselves fully and totally to God's purposes. We find it excessively hard to speak of God in our lives just as Job does; we find it excessively hard to make a sacrifice of time, talent and tarnished gold to fulfil God's purposes in today's world.

What does it take to change our hearts from stone to flesh that holds love of the other above all? What does it do to remove our own parochial blindness to see Christ in our neighbour and enable ourselves to sacrifice our lives to God? It takes the one thing that we control ourselves. The one thing that nobody can take from us no matter what they do to us. We need to approach life with one thing knowing that it cannot be changed irrespective of what is thrown our way. It takes us acknowledging and owning the attitude that says the God is in my heart and I find joy in God's presence. It takes us changing our hard attitudes to each other and to the other from the blankness of granite to an attitude that encompasses everyone with the softness of a lovers embrace. It is ours to undertake, it is ours to do, it ours to control. Once we have changed our attitude we have begun the process of removing the blindness that we all suffer from, the blindness that allows us to say "we are not blind."

Joy or happiness

One is permanent and is found even in the depths of despair. The other is fleeting and is found wherever one can for a moment. God responds to Job by asking him questions not through levity and laughter but questions that are fundamental to our understanding of God's presence and joy in our lives (Job 38.1-7). Even when we are in our deepest depression, when all the world around us abounds in horror we can and do experience the joy that is God's presence in our hearts. It overcomes our deepest dread and our inability to give of ourselves to God in the most meaningful and sacrificial way that we can. Whilst it is an emotion that is deeper even than happiness it is without doubt an emotion that is linked to our attitudes and our hearts.

Happiness is an emotion that is available to us at the most trivial level. It is levity and laughter that is generated by others around us. We chase happiness the same way we chase our standing in society. We want only the best so that we can be happy. We want our friends around us so that we can enjoy the moment and be happy. All of these things are ephemeral and fleeting in our lives. We will find this feeling and often we are so obsessed with our need for happiness in our lives that we forget that it comes from outside not from inside. Just like a drug that gives us a momentary high. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with being happy, of course we should achieve happiness in our lives. We do however need to realise that happiness is fleeting and can easily be destroyed. It is something that others can assist ourselves in achieving or destroying through their attitudes and actions. Whilst happiness will lead us into joy, joy is much more than the fleeting insubstantialness of happiness.

Only when we accept ourselves at the deepest level do we find joy

Joy does not come through the antics of others. Joy is generated in the heart that is willing to sacrifice itself for others so that others may come to find joy in their hearts no matter the circumstances of their lives. It is a much deeper emotion and one that is understood through our own attitudes rather than through the attitudes of others. It is a fundamental change in our hearts so that we too may experience the suffering others feel to bring joy and love into the hearts of the other. Christ understands this when he his requested by the Sons of Zebedee to bring them happiness by elevating their status (Mk 10.35-37). The sons of Zebedee are looking for temporal happiness they are not looking for the deep joy that comes with the presence of Christ in our hearts.

This deep joy is also alluded to in the Hebrew scriptures and in the epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. 1.1-10). The greatest joy to be found is in the sacrifice of the Priest Melchizedek, thought to be the son of Moses. It is not a simple sacrifice but a sacrifice of dedication to God beyond everything. It is our sacrifice when we allow ourselves to go the extra mile and not hold back our hearts and our efforts. It is Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross to grant us the grace of God's presence and salvation. If we are to find joy we need to adjust our attitude towards the other and not towards ourselves. If we are looking for Joy because we have lost it we are looking for the ephemeral happiness of the everyday rather than the deep joy of God's presence. It is our attitude towards each and every person who build up the community of Christ that expresses joy in the midst of disaster or destroys its presence. God asks us at our baptism and confirmation to sacrifice ourselves totally. It is only when we do this on a daily basis that we begin to experience the true joy which is God's presence in our lives.

The extent of faith

One of the ongoing words that I often speak about is "commitment". In today's society this word surfaces almost daily within the faith community usually accompanied by words that are negative, i.e. "not", "fails". "under", etc. Yet no matter what portion of the scriptures we read the word comes up time and again in a positive light. Often associated with praise or at least as an example for those that are hearing, seeing the story develop around them. Mark's gospel is graphic and forms a delightful picture, no matter how we interpret its origins (Mk 10.25), on the need for us to be committed. However, the wider passage that this small sentence is embedded in is so full of our need to ensure that we are fully committed to our faith and its journey in our lives (Mk 10.17-31). If we still think that this is a passage that holds up only on its own then we need to look further to see that there are a number of texts that speak to this commitment in faith (Job 23.1-9; Heb 4.12-16).

A small total commitment means that we share the greatness of faith

The commitment we make is a commitment from baptism onwards, it is not one off, it is persistent throughout time as we grapple with our own faith journey. There are times when we are right on the edge such as portrayed in the passage from Job there are others which are not quite so knife edged and yet we fall back from that full commitment that we make within the promises of baptism. In embracing our faith journey, irrespective of what that may look like, whether it is enjoying the presence of the Spirit and singing with manic delight or sitting quietly contemplating God's presence it requires a total commitment to our life in the journey towards the Christic indwelling in our hearts. This is not a simple commitment to say a date. The whole provision of our faith is a journey towards God and a movement towards becoming Christlike. For Job this is the culmination of his faith to speak to God and demand answers of the most puzzling questions that we can think of.

It is also a commitment that is beyond the petty. We can quite easily commit to one thing and at the end of the day say well done we have achieved the goal through our single commitment. However when we are talking about our own journey in faith this a a work of a lifetime not a single moment. It is a total culmination of the whole of life rather than a small piece of life. It does not discriminate on who we are but is totally inclusive of all believers. It is this wholeness that makes the faith journey something to undertake for our selves and our community. It is simple, we do not have to undertake a journey, we do not have to undertake a fast, we do not have to undertake any of these things. All we have to do is to ensure that our whole life is part and parcel of God. That means that no matter how rich or how poor in financial, time, or even talents we place everything to the fore for God's use. Our commitment must be such that not one thing is left to the vagary of chance but our whole life is placed on the line. A commitment such as this is seen in people like Theresa of Calcutta and the other saints. This is what makes them saints.

We are not loose change people when it comes to our giving. We should not be the type of person that gives out of the loose change that they find in their pockets. In other words we do not give to our faith the small amount of time we have spare between our round of golf and the family dinner party. Our commitment in faith must be greater than this for it to achieve the desires of our hearts for the community of God. It is only by committing our greater resources and only leaving the change for ourselves that we are able to achieve that which God desires.

Complaints - The Good and the Bad

Have we learnt anything over the past 2000 years or more? Probably not, even if we are meant to learn from history. Job was and is held up as a person of supreme faith within his community (Job 2.1-10) and yet as a result of that faith appears to have everything go wrong. On the face of it we are always confronted with some form of disaster or another and are asked to overcome it in some way through our faith. The disaster may be a natural one such as the recent earthquakes in the Indonesian peninsula or the threat of extreme weather events. It may on the other hand be a change in our lives that has upset our equilibrium or it may be that our faith community is in the throes of struggle in an unending series of setbacks. Consider our response in each of these cases and any other that we may confront. We actually have a series of decisions that we personally have to make and these decisions impact on our lives and the lives of the community that we belong to.

What do you see? Despair, hope or picture

Response: Positive energy. In the midst of doubt when disaster strikes it is possible to find a path which consumes us with positive energy. Such a path is one that is generated by God's presence encouraging us to not only give of ourselves in time and expertise but also to give of ourselves to the greatest possible sense. This is the path of Job; the path of integrity to our faith and to our baptismal vows. It is a remembrance that irrespective of the good and the bad we are committed to the presence of God in our lives. We give thanks to this presence by in turn, dedicating our lives to the presence of Christ. This means that we give fully of ourselves in everything to our faith our work, our time, our finances, our lives, etc. It is not a part time commitment that is only as deep as our interest in the present time. It means that if we have committed to giving 100% of ourselves to God then we can not and should not fall away from that commitment. Often when we financially or time commit ourselves we often vary our commitment depending on our own circumstances in the world. Yet, God commits 100% of God to ourselves irrespective of the circumstances. Can we not do the same in our own faith commitments? If we say we will commit time to our faith can we not continue this no matter the circumstances or is our commitment to our faith journey but a move towards the supermarket? This is the hope seen in Job's response; the hope that is embedded in the shema. If we lose this, we just trash that which we do not use and move on to some other thing that becomes important to us allowing our faith to slowly become beached in the narrow shallows of some forgotten creek.

Response: Leave everything as it is. This is a very Australian way of looking at life. She'll be right mate, just leave it be everything will turn out ok. It has worked in the past it is guaranteed to work in the future. God does not give us the opportunity to grow God just allows us to be. We can keep on repeating and repeating the mistakes of the past and not worry because God will keep it going. Yet, God is the God of change and metamorphoses. God continually draws us forward so that we can willingly follow as children follow their inquisitiveness to discover the next thing in their growth. Just like children we are encouraged to explore the depths and heights not just sit and do nothing whilst surrounded by possibility. Christ blesses the children (Mk 10.13-16), not in indolence but in activity. In exploring the children invest themselves in the future so we to as members of Christ body, as children of God, need to invest ourselves in our faith journey and those instruments that assist us to grow. We cannot just leave things be but rather invest time, money and work into our tools and places that help us to look to God.

Response: Give up. This for some is the natural response. To lie down and roll over so that nothing bad will happen. For us as people of faith to do this means that we give up our response at baptism to Christ. We declare that every single vow or promise that we have made is void. This means even those promises that appear to be secular in nature. We give ourselves up to the void of depression and an endless cycle of grief and sadness. We all know of someone or some structure that has appeared to give up. Job in his response to disaster is also tempted by his wife to just give up (Job 2.9). This can never be our response as people of faith rather like Job we need to respond with an understanding that all things are possible even recovery in the deepest of disasters.

Angelic hosts celebrating

The apocalyptic visions that come out of the scriptures can be somewhat overpowering and leave the modern person with a question "What on earth were these people smoking?" to give them such stupendous visions (Ezekiel 1.4-12; Rev. 12.7-12; Dan 7.9-10, 13-14). Most likely younger generations may want to find a similar experience through the use of what we now fear synthetic and man made drugs. Some may even be driven towards more natural substances such as marijuana, peyote, etc. All of these natural substances have cropped up in religious induced ecstasies of one sort or another through out history. So the question with regards the visions of the scriptures is not such a poor one after all. Can we afford to dismiss these as the ravings of a drug induced mind or are they something that we need to pay attention to and celebrate?

In esoteric literature through out the Western world and indeed with variations through out the world there is an understanding of the fight against the good and the evil. Even when we look at books that are grounded in fiction many of them that deal with the esoteric borrow and expand on this suppressed mythos. We can perhaps see it in the Star Wars franchise or even in the books of people such as Katherine Kurtz  and others. The whole perspective is shifted into a glorious technicolor vision of the unending battle that we as humans participate in at one level or another. In the scriptures it is the glorified Son of Man who is the hero or the Archangel Michael and his angelic host who is celebrated in the Church's calendar. In typifying the hero we are able to raise our hopes towards the eradication of evil and evil intent within our lives. Our goal is not apocalyptic destruction of the earth but rather the apocalyptic destruction of evil and its consequences. We are shown the archetype in the lost heroes of mythology and cinematic glory but it is we who need to personify that archetype in the conduct of our lives.

In the absence of God we descend into instant gratification and chaos

What we term evil / corruption etc. is our understanding of how we should behave towards others. Christ is our path towards refining our own lives to live them in harmony with the understanding of good and evil. The rampage of  "evil" is allowed because we enable it in the way we live our lives in jealousy, hatred, etc. The visions that we read of in the scriptures is the undoing of this thinking. Their apocalyptic nature is a result of the apocalyptic devastation that occurs when we turn away from these darker aspects of our own lives. The explosion of emotion and turmoil that results in our lives as we turn towards or away from the darker aspects is enormous and impacts on the lives of those around us. As Christ followers we need to become aware of the enormous positive backlash that comes when a person changes their outlook from a negative one to a positive one. It is almost as if we are always on the search for the opposite and celebrate that each day. Our news headlines and our social media are always concerned about the negative not the positive.

Our lives should be like the prophets of old who had these visions. They took them as signs of the positive involvement of God in our midst. When the youth and not so young turn to the psychedelic dreams of synthetic drugs they close their minds to the reality of God's blessedness in their lives. In our chasing of the new or the vibrant in modern society we encourage others to devolve into our cultures happiness pill rather than to seek the glory of God. We celebrate Michael and the archetypal angelic host as they overcome the temptations to follow the short term highs of mortal synthetic hope for the longer term and greater high of God's presence in our lives. It is not the quick release but the longer effervescence of the Spirit's presence. This is more work for greater gain rather than the modern quick fix for an immediate but short high. Only when we realise that it is through constant contact with God that we find our greatest delights will we be able to put aside our short term solutions for a long term challenge.

Stop...Pray...Think...Speak

How many people have we, each of us, hurt with the use of our tongues? Speech as the letter to James is extraordinarily clear about, can so easily harm our neighbours (James 3.1-12). We react with a verbalisation quicker than we can process the effect our words will have on those around us. I have spent a greater portion of my life being shown the error of my ways for it is not only what we say but it is also the tone in which we say it or the attitude in which we deliver it or the silent communication that attends it. I spend a whole session with prospective couples prior to their marriage delving into this aspect of a true partnership Communication upsets whilst sometimes due to an obvious irresponsible word is more often than not a result of our inability to understand the effects of all our other communications have on the words we use.

Whilst James rightly spends time on the role of the spoken word, there are other dimensions of communication that affects what we say that need to be seriously considered. Proverbs can be seen as being rather misogynistic there is at the end of the book some valued words that need to be attended to not only, as implied by the text, by women but also by everyone without exception (Prov. 31.26, 30). We concentrate very hard on an acknowledge our skills in the verbal arena. Thus, when Proverbs praises the wife who opens her mouth to speak wisdom this should be our goal as well. Yet if we do utter wisdom we sometimes utter it in a manner that is unbecoming of the God we hold sacred. We use our ability to shower scorn on others by changing our tone and our non verbal communications so that the good words we speak become the words of destruction. Yes, we need control of what we say but we also need control of how we say it. This is the true measure of wisdom in our language and our lives.

It is not only our tongue that becomes overheated

In our speech we tend to forget that we have other ways of communicating and more often than not it is our non-verbal communications that constantly create the challenges that we find in life. How many times have I wonder, we heard the cliche from an grieved person "I didn't say anything wrong". We scratch our heads and nod wisely when we actually hear the words agreeing that yes they did not say anything wrong. The issue is in how or in what manner that they stated the innocuous words. We can say I love you in so many different ways that some are loving and others convey our utter distaste. Children say what they mean without any form of or degree of attitudinal change as this is a learnt behaviour. Sometimes the learning is unconscious as this is how they obtained what they wanted and were not chastised as a youngster. However, when we begin to acknowledge that we need to be aware of non verbal communication we can begin to correct our own behaviours as well as those around us. We need to mirror the attitude of the young child with their innocence rather than manipulate to obtain what we want through tone, and misplaced attitudes.

In participating in an act of communication we need to be aware that all our ways of conveying information are open to abuse. We just need to look at the Evangelical Christian voice as they criticise the Graham dynasty to see how easy gaffes create issues. In receiving others as a young child we welcome the unconditional love which is God's and begin to convey it to those in our community, we begin to prove our words by the wisdom and action of our hearts. It is not just the sleight of hand produced by our tongues. In controlling our communication we are more able to convey God's love and the Christ that lives within us.

Wisdom in applying faith

There is something to be said about not mixing politics and religion but there is also something to understand about this statement. In suggesting that we must not mix politics and religion it says nothing about mixing politics and faith. These two are integrally entwined and cannot be divided as the one informs the other and without it there is little wisdom in politics. Most recently this debate in my mind has been sparked by our readings and by an article referring to Archbishop Justin's speech regarding economic policy. If we are to act in the community to bring God's presence closer to those around us we need to be aware of our own faith and how it interacts with our politics.

Our faith should by its very presence in our lives guide our decisions. Politics is about making decisions that affect the community. If we are to utilise our faith in works that enable God's presence then we must operate at the political level. However, there are an infinite variety of ways that this can take place and the choice of our intervention must conform with the faith that we hold. We can see this taking shape in the discourse outside Caesarea Philippi (Mk 8.27-38). Peter jumps in immediately following his announcement and belief in Christ. His faith is right but his actions that follow are wrong as they are politically motivated but do not conform with the faith he has just announced. It was his own agenda that was being followed or his political agenda and not his faith. The two must marry up in a complete conjugal joining. Our centre is God's call to us to participate in the Eucharist and to take this out into the world in the form of action. Eucharistic action that is filled with the wisdom of God and brings justice, peace and God's presence into the lives of the other.

This should not be a crossroad. We should merge into a single road.

We are often too quick to respond by using our own thinking rather than responding in Christ to which we have been baptised. Faith without works is too inward and leaves the practical wisdom of God behind closed doors. However good works that are without faith  have no life and do not bring light into the world. They may temporarily ease the pains of those we minister to but do not ease the soul which is slowly dying behind the false gratitude that is displayed. How can it  be anything less? To bring faith into our works we must spend the time to discern and walk with the other, it cannot be a quick fix either of faith or of good works. The quick fix of faith leads to a shallow religiosity often found in mega churches were there is little time for the individual or else we spend our time in retreat from the world pretending that what we are doing is spiritually rewarding but leaves us dry and unrewarded so that we move onto the next incarnation. The quick fix of works leaves us flitting from one good agency to another trying to help everyone by spending our money.

God's wisdom should pervade everything that we participate in. If we lock God out and rely on ourselves we become cold and heartless. Only when we are able to encompass the wisdom of God that is freely offered into our hearts we can then become true people of God integrating our politics and our lives into one. By divorcing the one from the other we make the misery of the world rather than bringing the light into the world. At the end of the day the question that we must ask ourselves when we throw ourselves into our good causes and our never ending cycle of programmes and  works is: does our decision conform to the faith that we believe in or does it arise out of what we perceive to be the right thing for ourselves? Are we making a name for ourselves or are we actually following what God would have us do?