Healthy living IV


I read about a saintly man in north-east Tibet whose compassion was so great he opened his house at all times to the poor. When, as an old man, he knew he was about to die he gave this instruction: ‘When I die you must not move my body for a week; that is all I desire’. Soon he did die; and his body, wrapped in old clothes, was carried into a small room. The bearers noted that although the old man had been tall his body already appeared to have grown smaller. On the sixth day when the family peeped into the room they saw it had grown still smaller. On the eighth day when men came to bear the body to the cemetery they undid the coverings and found nothing inside save nails and hair. When the family reported the event to the local lama he said that this had happened in the past and was a matter of saintly people ending up being absorbed into the Light. There is a lot of wisdom in the east and it can work to remind us of Christian basics. We were made not to be full of ourselves but to lose ourselves to God and other people. Self-sacrifice is what we’re meant to be about. We were made to lose ourselves in love to Jesus so Jesus can live within us and make us selfless with his selflessness. 

How do you see death? The instinct for self-preservation would see it as an enemy. So much so that modern medicine sees the death of a patient, however old, as almost always being a defeat. As we mature in spirit we see death less as an enemy and more as a stranger. We ponder its strangeness as we seek the meaning of life, not least when those we love are taken from us. Death puts a strange, uncomfortable question to every one of us about why we are here in the first place. Many stay with death as enemy or stranger. Some though, and here faith comes in, some go on to see death as a friend. If faith means anything, it has to see beyond death to an unseen God who sees all, loves all and desires nothing to be lost. When Christian faith and death meet it is death not faith that is changed. In the words of John Donne ‘Death, thou shalt die’. Death only becomes our friend through this inner wisdom of faith built on the resurrection of Jesus, wisdom that presses us forward to live in hope day by day and to give ourselves in love to God and neighbour. A Christian is someone far sighted whose confidence in the victory of Jesus over death spurs them on with buoyant hope that trusts dying is no loss but gain for those who love the Lord. 

In his book Future Minds Richard Watson considers how the digital age is changing our minds, why this matters and what we can do about it. Watson picks up on how the sheer volume of information brought our way by computers and the internet is drowning out learning and wisdom. I picked up from this book Einstein’s distinction between what he called the intuitive and rational minds. ‘The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant’ Einstein wrote. ‘We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift’. Our minds are given us to reflect deeply on the world around us and help us make a difference. This intuitive sense is far above the so-called rational mind which, computer-like, serves processing information. Part of healthy living is giving our minds space day by day for reflection upon our life situation and engagement with creative study. The technology that serves to gather knowledge and spread information at high speed can distract us from this vital activity of what we call cogitation, chewing things over in our mind. As cows eating grass must chew the cud for it to create milk so our take up of information needs pauses for reflection by the intuitive mind if we are to be creative.

Our minds have a continuous stream of thoughts, helpful, harmful and neutral.  These thoughts can come from God, the devil or human nature. It’s often only in retrospect we know a thought was creative and God-given or otherwise since it is by acting on a thought and seeing the consequences that we can identify right or wrong thinking. When the organic chemist KekulĂ© dreamed on a bus about a snake eating its tail he woke and saw this thought solved the vexed structure of the benzene molecule – a ring structure. Science is eternally grateful for KekulĂ©’s thought and recognises its creativity. Contrast many evil schemers who’ve brought much sorrow into the world - and these include you and me when we fall foul of destructive thinking. How do you deal with bad thoughts in situations where you’re poised to turn them to hurtful action? St Paul writes how we need to take them captive and expel them from our minds before they do damage. Here it may help to imagine the Holy Spirit spraying on them like a fire extinguisher and dampening their fire to leave you in peace.

'Quick’s dead and hurry’s in its grave' my grandma used to say - and how wise she was!

I can't remember the things I hurried at in grandma’s day but I know how hurried I get now as I work to satisfy e mails, texts, tweets and the demands of work and family.

My grandma's saying is actually against greed. When we hurry we're often attempting to pack in to life or get more out of life than we need. The world we live in today gives us unprecedented choice. We can access people and leisure options at the click of a button or the flick of a computer mouse. It means our time gets quickly filled with desirable options that we seize upon. Sometimes we hurry crazily from one thing to another on account of texts, e mails and tweets that come to us at the speed of light! Through electronic media we’re exposed ruthlessly to an abundance of welcome and unwelcome demands. Never a dull moment – but is that so? Demands on our time can bring a hurriedness that dulls our lives deep down. We get distracted from the best use of time.

 And that includes wasting it! I won't stay human unless I can waste time.

 I'm going to do my best to live unhurried today and to waste as much time as I can.

 Join me if you dare!

We save time so we can waste it but it’s not straightforward.

 Not so long back I had a fortnight's holiday. It took me days to fully relax to the point I wasn't checking on how I was using my time. Eventually I found myself living hour by hour, almost minute by minute, going with the flow.

The workaholic strain in us, at best, makes us use time well, but, at worst, blinds us to the wonder of life for the gift it is. ‘A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare’. Taking time to be still, to stand and stare, is no waste of life.

The best use of time is wasting it with those we love. The very best is spent with God, who loves us most of all, as we savour all he has made. 

Someone said God can only be found in the present moment. Our capacity to be in that moment is linked to our being able, at times, to stand against time pressure and determine ourselves to waste time.

You can only waste what you possess. Our engagement with time is so often preoccupied with past failure or future fears that it’s blind to the present moment. Past and future, though important to us, are mere mental constructs. God is in the present moment ready to lift us from time into the grand sweep of his eternity.

 

‘Look forwards and let the backwards be’ is a good thought. All too often we get snared by the past. What we’ve said or seen or done or not done in the past attaches itself to us and pulls us backwards It’s as if when driving the car we were fixated with what’s in the rear view mirror. That wouldn’t get you very far. When driving you keep your eyes mainly on what’s ahead as you enter new scenery. Such a forward perspective is deeply Christian as Paul makes plain in his letter to Philippi Chapter 3: ‘forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead’, he writes, ‘I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus’. To maintain that forward gaze we may need to repent this morning, to give past failures to the Lord so our eyes can be once more upon Jesus and all he’s got in store for us. It’s not what and where we have been but what and where we would be that matters ultimately. As a medieval Christian writer says ‘it’s not what you are or have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes but what you would be’. 

Mahatma Gandhi said we should be the change we want to see. In his own life he demonstrated the humility he taught and so brought down the colonial administration paving the way for modern India. His saying ‘be the change you want to see’ was advice he lived up to in his non- violent protest movement. I’ve got a passion like Gandhi to see the world changed by welcoming the love of God offered it in Jesus Christ. Too often I speak from that passion unwisely setting back the change I seek in those around me as I hose them down with enthusiasm. They naturally react against what seems pretty close to self-indulgence. I need to take pain to cultivate the love of God in my life so my passion for his cause is better served. Would that any truth I tell might be a loving response to people I evidently love whether they hold my beliefs or not!  Enthusiasm for God is good but sympathy and practical care for people that includes listening to them speaks more powerfully. At the heart of the Christian religion is One who not only spoke transforming truth but laid down his life for it. In dying and rising Our Lord gave us the supreme model of being the change we want to see. I want to be a better evangelist. The old me needs to die so God’s new creation can rise up in me. In that way I can model what I believe and want others to believe.

Is there a Church like it? I mean the Church of England. Few churches make worldwide headlines as the Church of England does – even if those headlines embarrass and shame us! People love it enough for it to be newsworthy. They care about it, either that it keeps up with the times or that it challenges the times with unchanging values. There’s the rub. The Archbishop of Canterbury may rank with the Pope and the Orthodox Patriarchs but the last one said you need the hide of a rhinoceros to bear the brick bats in his job! No wonder - it’s a Church that holds conservative Christians, feminists and gay activists under one umbrella.
So-called Christian atheists love coming to its services. Many Evangelicals prefer the Church of England to fish for souls. Charismatics find space to dance down its aisles.It calls itself ‘the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed’, not Roman Catholic or Protestant but a middle way true to the faith of the church through the ages. Is there a church like it, welcoming honest seekers after truth and the Truth that seeks us in Jesus? Liturgical beauty, community care and thoughtful engagement with a fast changing world? These are of course qualities found outside the national Church. We’re by no means the only brand but we’re a good brand. It’s not because it pays my pension, but because of all I’ve just shared, that I take courage and dare to say: Long live the Church of England!

I'm sure you've cast a glance at yourself in the mirror today.

 Some of us spend longer before the mirror than others. As we age I somehow think we find it harder to dwell there. 

I want to think a little about mirrors - Mirrors of the soul.

 How can we see and brush up our spiritual appearance?

 Friendship is the answer. Friends are most precious for they have access to our heart of heart as well as having our best interest on their own heart.

 Without friends, without intimates, how unbearable we'd be! A soul never corrected and put in its place! A soul never affirmed or praised or loved!

 Most human depth and awareness is attained through friendship and this extends to the spiritual life. We should value and seek out especially friends who can bring us closer to God.

 As Christians we seek Jesus as true mirror of our souls - in the bible, in the eucharist, in spiritual reading, in nature's splendour, in a godly friend or spiritual director - we seek Jesus - look at him - and see our disarray!

 Look to Jesus, see yourself in his light, brush yourself up and shine the more with his light. 

'Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in Heaven’ (Matthew 5:16). 

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