Rediscovering GodMaking sensein a broken world

Tim Attwell

cingela pressCape Town, South Africa

Cingela PressPO Box 352, Betty’s Bay, Western Cape, South Africa 7141www.cingela.co.za

© Tim Attwell

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to theprovisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduc-tion of any part may take place without the written permission of theauthor.

First published 2015

ISBN (print edition): 978-1-928313-05-2ISBN (reflowable ebook edition): 978-1-928313-06-9

Design: Arthur Attwell

Contents

Acknowledgements 5

Preface 6

Introduction 10

1 Ceaseless creativity 15

2 News junkie 20

3 Beyond self-indulgence 23

4 Okay, not okay 26

5 Will it be alright? 29

6 While minding our business 32

7 Jesus’ wife 35

8 More than ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ 38

9 Not about the silly boat 41

10 The young man blew it 48

11 It’s despair that ruins us 51

12 I am somebody 54

13 Creative transformation 57

14 In the spotlight 60

15 Useless vessels 65

16 Less is more 68

17 Mature love 71

18 Attila’s Lent 74

19 Bad goodness 77

20 Transcending goody two shoes 80

21 Two men in big trouble 85

22 Not kidding 88

23 Love inside outwards 93

24 Homecoming 96

25 Old self, new self 99

26 Spirit 104

27 It’s all good 109

28 Mutant missions 112

29 Stardust 115

22

Not kidding

The French Renaissance essayist Michel de Montaignehad a friend by the name of Étienne de La Boétie. Thefriendship lasted a mere four years before Étienne de LaBoétie died. Eighteen long years later Montaigne stillmourned the loss of his friend. He wrote: ‘If I comparethe rest of my life … to those four years … it is butsmoke and ashes … since that day … I merely dragwearily on.’ (Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philos-ophy, page 147).

What was it that was so special about that shortfriendship? Montaigne explains: ‘He alone had the priv-ilege of my true portrait.’ In other words De La Boétieallowed and enabled Montaigne to be himself. Mon-taigne contrasted Étienne de La Boétie’s friendship with

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other friendships in which, to avoid raised eyebrows ordisapproval, he could present only an edited version ofhimself. And that was five hundred years ago!

More recently a Salvation Army theologian with thedelightfully simple name of Fred Brown observed: ‘Theworld seems to be full of people whose primary aim inlife is to be somebody else!’ (Fred Brown, Faith WithoutReligion, page 64).

It is very hard to come to terms with the truth aboutwhat we are and accept ourselves as we are. We know,or at least we think we know, what kind of people wewould like to be. Although we try to live that way, it isoften with a sneaking sense of frustration that we arenot getting it quite right or fear being ‘found out’ andexposed as a fraud.

Other, perhaps darker, sides of who we are keep pop-ping up when our defences are down. We entertainthoughts and feelings we can scarcely acknowledge toourselves let alone to other people. It’s these unac-knowledged or, to us, unacceptable, often darker, sidesof who we are that keep messing with our lives andrelationships – usually unexpectedly. So we make it ourprimary aim ‘to be somebody else’.

Having made that point, we hear Jesus saying thesewords: ‘My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and theyfollow me.’ (John 10:27).

‘I know them.’ Who was Jesus talking about? First, hewas talking about Simon Peter, James and John, JudasIscariot, the woman at the well and all the rest.

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Jesus had an uncanny ability to see right into theirinner core. He knew that Peter would deny him beforePeter knew it. He knew that James and John were jock-eying for positions of status and privilege behind theirfellow disciples’ backs. He knew Judas was plotting tobetray him. He knew about the woman at the well’sdubious relationships with men. So when Jesus says: ‘Iknow them’, he’s not simply saying he has met them.He’s saying that he knows things about them they areafraid to admit to themselves.

When he says further: ‘I give them eternal life, andthey will never perish. No one shall snatch them out ofmy hand’ (John 10:28), he’s not talking about givingthem some sort of reward for good conduct. Their con-duct was far from good. So when he says he will ‘givethem eternal life’ he is promising them resurrection.

It is important, at this point, to notice that resurrec-tion and eternal life are the same thing.

Readings from the Books of Acts and Revelation giveinstances of people who were resurrected. In Acts9:36–43, Dorcas’s ‘resurrection’ was in this life. In Rev-elation 7:9–17 the ‘resurrection’ described happens inthe afterlife. The point of the readings, taken together,is that ‘resurrection’ is to be experienced before andafter we die.

‘Eternal life’ does not only mean ‘everlasting life’.Eternal life, or resurrection, is not about adding an infi-nite quantity of years to our life. Eternal life is aboutadding an infinite quality of life to our years.

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Eternal life refers to a quality of life, a quality of ful-filment, of ‘wholeness’, of ‘reconciliation’ and ‘at-one-ment’ with one’s self, with other people and with God.Eternal life is a quality of life, to be experienced now, inthis life, that transcends the barriers that shut us offfrom ‘life abundant’ or ‘life in all its fullness’ – whichJesus refers to in John’s Gospel chapter 10, verse 10.Eternal life is for now, in this life. It is merely a bonusthat ‘life in all its fullness’, eternal life, resurrection,transcends the barriers of death and has an infinitedimension.

So what does eternal life feel like? Words like ‘fulfil-ment’, ‘wholeness’, ‘reconciliation’ and ‘at-one-ment’sound great, but what do you feel when you experiencethem?

Basically, you feel accepted and acceptable. You beginto experience eternal life when you discover that youare known fully and that you are still loved! For exam-ple, eternal life, or resurrection, began for a middle-aged woman whom Fred Brown wrote about, who saidthat the happiest day of her life was when she stoppedpretending she was twenty years younger (Fred Brown,Faith Without Religion, page 64).

When Jesus says ‘I know them’, he is really saying, ‘Iknow them as they are, not as they would like to beknown.’ And he also says of them: ‘No one will snatchthem out of my hand.’

It is that assurance that sets us free. Eternal life startsfor us when we realise that the good news from Jesus is

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that we are accepted and acceptable as we are. That iswhen we begin to grasp real fulfilment, reconciliationand ‘at-one-ment’. No more pretending, no more hid-ing, no more ‘dark side’ that catches us unawares andmesses with our lives, no more sneaking feelings thatwe aren’t getting it right or are about to be found out.It’s a resurrection, the beginning of a whole new qual-ity of life.

referencesActs 9:36–43, Revelation 7:9–17, John 10:22–30

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26

Spirit

Whenever I visit the Little Karoo I go looking for a par-ticular plant. It’s called Astroloba corrugata. Very fewpeople notice it, so it doesn’t have a common name.Mostly I find it among sharp rocks in dry windsweptplaces, sheltering under another plant or hiding behinda rocky outcrop. Although it can get bigger, it’s a nat-ural bonsai, about as tall as your middle finger. Itspointy, thick, spiky, knobbled leaves are neatlyarranged around a tough little stem. It’s a perfectlyformed, feisty little aloe with attitude, wonderfullyadapted to its harsh world. I love it!

The most marvellous feature of planet Earth is thecontinual emergence, growth and adaptability of life ineven the toughest circumstances. Aeon after aeon life

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develops new forms, becoming ever more complex.From primitive life barely distinguishable from the pri-mal ooze it started in, to the complexity and beauty ofclassical music, the ingenuity of technology, the forma-tion of organised communities, the making of art andthe splendour of human love, life grows, adapts anddevelops. When catastrophe strikes, within nanosec-onds life begins again and grows, better adapted to thenew situation.

Life is a dynamic process, always on the move tosomething more. To be alive is to be continually on theway to what can be but is not yet. Philosophers andtheologians speak of the way life ‘transcends itself’.

That wonderful Psalm 104 connects this dynamicprocess with ‘spirit’:

O Lord, how manifold are your works!In wisdom you have made them all;The Earth is full of your creatures.

When you send forth your spirit,They are created;And you renew the face of the ground.

For nearly seventeen hundred years we have declaredin the Nicene Creed: We believe in the Holy Spirit, theLord the giver of life …

When we say those words, we declare our confidencethat human life, the most marvellous and complex of alllife forms, is deeply affected and transformed by the

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same Spirit who enables the natural world to transcenditself through the slow and majestic movement of evo-lution. No wonder we call that Spirit ‘Holy’.

The same Spirit of life in the tough little Astrolobaenables you and me to develop personality, mind, intel-ligent imagination and reason. The Spirit enables us toexercise the skills of conscious understanding and per-ception, intention, will and purpose. The Holy Spiritenables us to work with our drives, instincts anddesires, to negotiate our way through social trends, dif-ferent moral, ethical and cultural traditions and rela-tionships in even the toughest social, economic andpolitical circumstances – so that we are able to adapt, tochange, to gain new understanding and skills, get alongin a changing world and flourish alongside each otherand all people.

This is the real point of Luke’s account in Acts chap-ter 2 of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the follow-ers of Jesus. The point of that story is not merely thatJesus’ followers were suddenly able to speak lots of for-eign languages. The more important point is that theywere able to be understood by many different sorts ofpeople and presumably were able to understand themtoo. In a word, the Spirit enables you and me to ‘tran-scend ourselves’ and become what we can be but arenot yet.

That’s why Jesus says, ‘If, in my name, you ask mefor anything, I will do it.’ He’s not promising to be somesort of genie in Aladdin’s lamp running to our beck and

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call; he deliberately links his promise with the Spirit.He says, ‘I will ask the Father and he will give youanother Advocate, to be with you forever. This is thespirit of truth …’ (John 14:16, 17).

He does, however, also say (rather alarmingly), ‘Thisis the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive.’Now what on earth what does he mean by that?

He means that you and I and all conscious humanbeings have a way of ‘blocking out’ important aspectsof the Spirit’s work. We do this by harbouring in our-selves another ‘spirit’.

Note that other ‘spirit’ isn’t some sort of supernat-ural bogeyman, but rather a collection of attitudes andways of thinking, a collection of feelings which quenchthe influence of the Spirit of life in important aspects ofour lives. St Paul, writing to the Romans (chapter 8,verse 15), speaks of ‘the spirit of slavery [which causesus] to fall back into fear’.

As long as we harbour negative attitudes towardsourselves (that’s ‘the spirit of slavery’), as long as weentertain attitudes of suspicion and fear of other people,as long as we fear living positively and as long as wedread the future, we are unable to be energised by theSpirit whom Jesus promises and therefore we, and thecommunity around us, become unable to flourish.

When we put aside those negative, enslaved andfearful attitudes, ways of thinking and feeling, we cele-brate the Holy Spirit, ‘the Lord, the giver of life’. Wecelebrate the same Spirit who gives life to the little

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Astroloba and, as St Paul says in Romans 8:11, ‘whoraised Christ from the dead and who gives life to [y]ourmortal bodies’.

referencesActs 2:1–21, Romans 8:14–17, John 14:8–17

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