January 28, 2009

Like a Child


I've been reading some interesting thoughts from Desmond Tutu on how much faith it takes to walk on a pavement, whether or not you believe in God. The point was that–even if you are an atheist–life cannot be lived without faith. It takes faith to drive your car and believe that everyone else is going to drive sensibly. It takes faith to put food in your mouth and trust it will not poison you, and faith to step onto the street believing that the ground will remain firm beneath you.

If you do not believe in God, you are still a person of faith.

With this in mind, can anyone tell me why the word 'faith' has become such a dirty word? Sometimes it's all we've got. It's not weakness to admit this, it's beyond strength and takes courage. It turns you into a child again, which isn't wrong, but it does go against the grain when you've spent your adult life working out the sense in, say, evolution, only to discover it forces you to make an off-putting case for oppressors, the sort that suck away all the world's resources for themselves, or systematically murder off people living on land they want. What stops people doing those things? Faith, that this rubbish is not the final word.

Faith tempers the arrogance of the fool.

Say a prayer, go on, don't be shy.




{Today's soundtrack: Pete Seeger - Oh, had I a golden thread}

January 21, 2009

{ extra soundtrack }

A special new year kick, I heard this on the radio on my way home from climbing the other night–it summed things up and made me clench my teeth and fists a bit firmer! It's been out since December so don't know why it's not being broadcast from rooftops everywhere with the volume up to 11, drowning out some of those miserable journalists.

{Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over}

Blue Doors


So, winter time, here we are. It's all a bit frozen with nothing coming in and nothing going out, isn't it? At least that's how it feels much of the time. It takes a lot of grit to insist that there really are little streams trickling in–hidden as they are under layers of ice. However, after reading the Jan18th post on this page, I'm reminded that winter time is all about life being very still, necessarily so in preparation for the seasons ahead. And it will always be!

Standing at doorways like these I feel a curiosity about what lies concealed, ahead or around the corner. This is how my winter view feels, but I know there's something special in the waiting and dreaming that is intentionally so. Perhaps this desire is what shapes life when it does come pouring in again.

With this in mind, let's try not to lose heart over a freezing economy, lack of sunlight hours, society in hibernation or seemingly unanswered prayers. Friends, hold your nerve! These times feel hard relatively speaking, but there's nothing happening now that you can't deal with. It's winter, and rightly so before spring presses up its shoots...

...such as a black man elected American president while those looking on remember being disallowed from travelling on a bus in the 1960s because of their colour.

Anything is possible, but Winter has to come before Spring.





{Today's soundtrack: Fleet Foxes}