So it's been a while since I last blogged. Now I'm just doing one of those posts that are really just hot air, but hey, who knows, this could turn into something really deep.
So the reason I haven't blogged in ages is because my husband and I had two great, relaxing weeks on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia (facilitated by some friends who had a flat out there - the ONLY way a broke newly-wed couple could afford a holiday), and right after that I started my new job, and now I'm sick and so have all the time in world to blog, when I'm not doing actual work from home.
Our time in Croatia was so lovely, but a little sad. I've been several times and my family have good friends out there. I'm reminded of it especially since we just watched Richard Loncraine's film The Special Relationship (on BBC iplayer till 25th September if you want to catch it). It's a feature length film that deals with Tony Blair's relationship with Bill Clinton, especially over the Serbo-Croat conflict. Like any conflict, the Serbo-Croat conflict was horrendous. As you walk round certain parts of Zadar (which happens to be one of my favourite cities in the world, SO charming) you can still see bullet holes, scars still not healed. It's only really the newest generations that have no experience or memory of it.
Strangely though, the Conflict is not the reason why most of the older women walk around the island of Ugljan perpetually dressed in black. Ugljan is 52 square kilometres, just a few nautical miles from Zadar, and is the home of a little town called Kali. The Adriatic's most renowned fishermen come from this little port town - as do their widows. If you're not looking for them, it's easy for them to slip by unnoticed by the tourists. But they're there. Often walking to and from their patch of land where they grow tomatoes, grapes, lettuces, pomegranates, tilling the ground by hand or with a donkey. They're incredible women. I don't know what got me thinking about them. Maybe because I'm ill at home and have the luxury of not having to work when I'm sick. Maybe because I've been thinking a lot recently about justice and forgiveness and how the world can't operate without both of those working together. Maybe because I'm looking at my crop of rocket that has gone to seed... I don't know.
23/09/2010
02/08/2010
What should we do with life?
In September 2009, I started a part-time job working with adults with learning disabilities. My work days are spent at different centres doing various activities from drama school for adults with learning disabilities, to gardening, to informal music sessions. It has been great fun and a really lovely working environment to be in. I have learnt so much about the difficulties of living with a disability, as well as the value and nature of human life.
What struck me in particular was how these adults are in the unique position of being able to live life just for life’s sake. Many of them can’t be in employment because of their learning disability, and so they are given money to go to different activity centres to “do whatever is meaningful to them”, as one occupational therapist put it. In fact, everyone, learning disabled or not, seems to say we should be doing just that with our lives – whatever is meaningful to us.
And what is meaningful? What should we be doing with our lives? How should we be using this time on earth that we have? Are there any guidelines? Any frameworks? A grander scheme that we fit into? What does it even mean to be human? Thankfully, we take after our Maker. And we show it a lot of the time too:
God is love. So we endeavour to have loving relationships. God is creative. So we create good things. God helps. So we help others too. God judges. So we uphold justice and fairness. God eats. So we eat well. God parties. So we party. God mourns. So we mourn. God is Truth. So we can live in reality. The list goes on…
So I made it my aim to give these adults that I work with, and indeed myself, the opportunity to foster loving relationships, to be a helper as well as be helped, to think about what is good to eat, what is good to make, and what is good to celebrate. Most of all, I want to give them, and myself, the opportunity to consider our present reality, the state of the world, and whether there is any redemption.
"From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" Acts 17.26-28
What struck me in particular was how these adults are in the unique position of being able to live life just for life’s sake. Many of them can’t be in employment because of their learning disability, and so they are given money to go to different activity centres to “do whatever is meaningful to them”, as one occupational therapist put it. In fact, everyone, learning disabled or not, seems to say we should be doing just that with our lives – whatever is meaningful to us.
And what is meaningful? What should we be doing with our lives? How should we be using this time on earth that we have? Are there any guidelines? Any frameworks? A grander scheme that we fit into? What does it even mean to be human? Thankfully, we take after our Maker. And we show it a lot of the time too:
God is love. So we endeavour to have loving relationships. God is creative. So we create good things. God helps. So we help others too. God judges. So we uphold justice and fairness. God eats. So we eat well. God parties. So we party. God mourns. So we mourn. God is Truth. So we can live in reality. The list goes on…
So I made it my aim to give these adults that I work with, and indeed myself, the opportunity to foster loving relationships, to be a helper as well as be helped, to think about what is good to eat, what is good to make, and what is good to celebrate. Most of all, I want to give them, and myself, the opportunity to consider our present reality, the state of the world, and whether there is any redemption.
"From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" Acts 17.26-28
31/07/2010
Thank you, Mum and Dad
Today is my parent's 29th wedding anniversary. Thank you, Mum and Dad, for being faithful to each other and to Him for 29 years. And thank you for praying for our marriage partners since the day we were born, and for continuing to pray for our marriages now. Such a precious gift.
"God has made marriage the showcase of his covenant love where the husband models Christ, and the wife models the church (Ephesians 5:21-33). And God calls single people to bless this vision and to cultivate an expression of leadership and support appropriate to their different relationships." --John Piper, A Sweet & Bitter Providence, p. 132
"And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her" Ephesians 5.21-25
"God has made marriage the showcase of his covenant love where the husband models Christ, and the wife models the church (Ephesians 5:21-33). And God calls single people to bless this vision and to cultivate an expression of leadership and support appropriate to their different relationships." --John Piper, A Sweet & Bitter Providence, p. 132
"And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her" Ephesians 5.21-25
30/07/2010
Health food-ism
It is always a pleasure to walk into a health food shop. The kind where everything is fairly-traded, eco-friendly, wholesome, homemade... They make it really easy to uphold justice for labourers around the world and to be a good steward of God’s creation. I really appreciate all those who work, often voluntarily, in such shops. I’ve yet to try any of the herbal stuff. Maybe one day… But I can see how people become evangelists for not just herbal stuff but health foods in general. I agree that there are lots of things in our foods that wouldn’t naturally be there (and probably shouldn’t be there), and that eating natural can help our general health and prolong our life. The fact remains though, that healthy people will still only live till their 80’s or 90’s. And the bigger issue is not how long you will live, but what you will live for.
I am a Christian, so my view of the world is changed by my view of eternity. Namely; eternity is long and glorious, life on earth is limited and hard. Jesus is the Lord of both. So how should I live now?
For me, a great epitaph would read something like this: “Here lies Katie Rogers. Ransomed and freed by Jesus Christ, she was freed to hold her life here as cheap and to serve others, that they may know real life in Him.” Dying young isn’t so bad in itself. But living and dying for nothing? Now that is a scary thought.
"If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it." Matthew 16.25, The Bible
I am a Christian, so my view of the world is changed by my view of eternity. Namely; eternity is long and glorious, life on earth is limited and hard. Jesus is the Lord of both. So how should I live now?
For me, a great epitaph would read something like this: “Here lies Katie Rogers. Ransomed and freed by Jesus Christ, she was freed to hold her life here as cheap and to serve others, that they may know real life in Him.” Dying young isn’t so bad in itself. But living and dying for nothing? Now that is a scary thought.
"If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it." Matthew 16.25, The Bible
Inception
I had the pleasure of going to see Christopher Nolan’s new film Inception with some good friends last night. It is a film worthy of the high praise it has been receiving. Some excellent acting, good scripting and some very interesting concepts. The film seems to reveal its primary concern towards the end, when Mal (Marion Cotillard), Cobb’s (Dicaprio) late wife, says
“You keep telling yourself what you know. But what do you believe? What do you feel?”
It seems like she’s saying that what Cobb believes or feels is more important than reality. Thankfully, Cobb responded by saying that as much as he wishes this dream were true, he knows it isn’t, and his real children need a real dad. It seems Nolan is shouting back at the postmodernists with a plea for rationalism – we ARE constrained by reality and we DON’T create our own meaning. And that is why I am a Christian…
“You keep telling yourself what you know. But what do you believe? What do you feel?”
It seems like she’s saying that what Cobb believes or feels is more important than reality. Thankfully, Cobb responded by saying that as much as he wishes this dream were true, he knows it isn’t, and his real children need a real dad. It seems Nolan is shouting back at the postmodernists with a plea for rationalism – we ARE constrained by reality and we DON’T create our own meaning. And that is why I am a Christian…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)