Rocks and hard places

Here's a picture from our recent 247 Prayer Room. This activity station had 2 rucksacks that people were invited to pick up and wear. The instructions were...

Choose a Rucksack

One of these rucksack is filled with rocks
The other one is filled with water
Both are heavy, but only one is useful

What are the rocks in your life?
What refreshes and sustains you, like water?

Ask God for help to put down the rocks and supply you with water.

I tried on the water rucksack, buckling it up the way a Runner would. It had a built in bendy straw thing so you could drink the water while wearing it. I wandered around the room feeling heavier than normal as the water sloshed around. 

There was a treadmill at another prayer station. I ran on the treadmill with the water rucksack. I pretended to be a Runner. I imagined being super fit and drank water from the bendy straw. (Is Covid still a thing?) I ran for 10 minutes and got bored. 

I swapped the water rucksack for the rock one and ran on the treadmill some more carrying the rock rucksack instead. I ran for another 10 minutes and got fed up. I am not a Runner.

I got off the treadmill, but didn't discard the rucksack of rocks. 

I pottered round the room and did all the other activities. After a while, the rocks got uncomfortable. When I lay down on my stomach to write stuff and read, the weight of the rocks on my back made it hard to breathe. The water rucksack had been heavy, but had moulded to the contours of my back and distributed the weight evenly - plus it got lighter as I drank it. The rocks were always bulky and weighty and dug into my flesh through the material of the bag. 

I thought and prayed about the rocks. 

What are they and why do we carry them? 

Some people don't have rocks (lucky them). 

Some people do have rocks but don't seem to mind them. Their rocks don't cause problems because they have coping strategies and support mechanisms in place. They structure their lives wisely and are flourishing - even when life has rocks. That's great too. 

Some people have rocks but deny having them - which is OK if they're still functioning for now and not ready to deal with them yet. 

But what about the rocks we have that we want rid of? 

What do we do with things that are heavy and damaging and just plain wearisome. Why do we lug them around when we could could be carrying the water? Or nothing at all - and just stopping regularly for coffee and cheesecake?

The reasons are many and swirled in my head until I made this flowchart. (There are probably countless other reasons why we carry rocks around but the prayer room was finishing and I had the last slot and limited time to think).

1: It’s just a season in my life, and for now, this is my rock and I need to carry it. 

That’s fine! How can I help you with that? We are instructed help each other carry their heavy stuff!
'Help carry one another's burdens, and in this way you will obey the law of Christ'. (Gal 6:2)

2: I don't know what's wrong with me - I put the rocks down then pick them up again. Repeatedly...

How amazing that you KEEP putting them down. If you can't stop picking them up - then keep doing what you're doing and put them down again when you realise they are back. I salute your perseverance.
'Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him.' (‭‭James‬ ‭1:12)‬ 

3: They are a part of me- I inherited them

OK - but did you check that out recently? Because something quite remarkable and incomprehensible happened when you became a Christian. In purely physical terms, DNA isn’t as static as we once believed. Some genes get turned on and off due to environmental factors, age or injury. In spiritual terms, it gets even weirder. There was literally a BC version of you and an afterwards one.

How critical are you of thoughts like this? Check what you believe about your inheritance. Is the rock still really yours to keep? Forever?

4: It just hurts 

That must be exhausting. What drugs are you on? (Honestly - Thank God for pharmaceuticals). 

Also - without minimising it or denying it exists or dealing with the current real time effects of the pain, can you see this situation any other way? Could you zoom out to a viewpoint beyond the boundaries of the pain and see something bigger? (Like when Chandler goes so far over the line it becomes a dot?)

Or as Jenn Johnson sings in Gravity:
But then You come
And take me by the hand
You say come up here with Me
And then my feet came off the ground
You lifted me above the clouds
As I look down the whole world seems so small
Past the stars through space and time
And I forget what's left behind
As I'm surrounded by these grander things
Up here in perfect harmony
You're orchestrating galaxies
They're lighting up as far as I can see
The majesty
The mystery
Your gravity
Pulls me close to You
And I can breathe again
Here with You

5: It’s comforting to have the rock - even tho it’s uncomfortable and painful - it’s FAMILIAR.

I get that. After carrying something for so long, it can be scary to put it down. Who are we anyway without all our packaging and memories and experiences that brought us to this place - right here, right now? 

You look like you could be a Runner, though. Why not put the rocks down and try on this rucksack instead? It's heavy, but you're strong from carrying all those rocks around. Just try it on and feel the weight of it and give it a go. The rocks will still be here if you really want them back again. Drink from this bendy straw thing when you're thirsty. Just letting you know - I've used it myself, but I wiped it afterwards and I don't have Covid.

6: OK - I might try the water thing, but honestly - I prefer caffeine. And did someone mention cake?

Seeking and hiding

It's 3am and I'm in our latest 24/7 prayer room. Our theme is Fixing Broken Things. All the activities around the room feature it on some way. Loosely sometimes- but there if you look for it.

Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul. (2 Chronicles 15:12)

We have a roll of lining paper gaffer taped to the floor with verses and prayers scribbled all over it. I look at the verse from Chronicles for a long time. I become fixated with the word seek. Isn't it weird to single out one particular word and overthink it until it sounds like something you've never heard before. A foreign syllable that feels strange in your head when you think it and on your lips when you say it and your ears are like - Whoah! That was a brand new sound.

Seek

Seek

Seek

Honestly - what does it even mean?! What does it look like to seek for something? To seek for God? And how do you seek God's presence when it's essentially everywhere? Seeking is kind of like searching, but more intense. Like there's more riding on the outcome. Like your life depends on it or something.

This song starts playing over the PA. It has a line about seeking in it and the printed lyrics are in the prayer tent. I go over to the tent and crawl inside to read them. There’s a sleeping bag and pillow and camping lantern in here. It’s 3am and I could lie down and sleep, but I’m too busy thinking about seeking, here in the tent. Hidden from the rest of the room. Hidden from the world. I’m seeking while I’m hiding. Hiding and seeking at the same time. That's kind of cool.

I remember an incident from years ago when the kids were little and my parents were down visiting us. Grandparents are nature's built-in babysitters and were playing with everyone while I tidied up after dinner. There was lots of squealing and running and laughing as they played hide and seek. There was a distinct lack of stealth to the whole thing that comes with toddlers, but no one seemed to mind and it didn't affect the enjoyment of the game. After a while, the house became quieter as the game moved on and attention (or grandparental energy) ran out. I was making a cup of tea when a muffled voice almost made me drop my mug. 'Do you think they're still looking for me...?'

It was my mum. She'd been hiding in a cupboard for the past 20 minutes, squashed next to the ironing board, 8' from where I was standing and I hadn't know she was there. The kids didn't know she was there either, and what's more, they weren't looking anymore. They were watching TV with Grandad.

Sooooooooo..... My Mum won at hide and seek.

If the end goal is to out manoeuvre the other players and stay hidden until it's decided you can't be found, then everybody gives up and declares you the winner, then that's what happened. Technically and actually. My mum was the winner.

Except that wasn't the point. The point was the game itself. The laughing and being engaged with what's happening in the moment. The being alive together.

It's so easy to beat a little kid at hide and seek. Toddlers are monumentously poor at
1: Being quiet (unless they are asleep)
2: Finding a good hiding spot
3: Staying there for any length of time

As illustrated here (pinched from my mate Michael - engaged in a covert hide and seek operation with his daughter, Abby). I love this picture. It illustrates everything that's beautiful about playing with your kid. You can't win at anything with them because you can't win at relationships. You build them. The game - the stories you create together make the whole thing work.

I think about all this in the prayer tent while I hide. I get a sudden image of God in the fringes of my mind, counting. I zip up the prayer tent to hide even better. I even lie down to make myself smaller. 4..... 3..... 2...... 1...... OK - Where are you!?

And I burst out the tent, surprising him (because you can totally do that) and he laughs and bolts and beckons me to follow him. I don't know where to run to first. He's everywhere. Divine hide and seek.

Is that even a thing? I google and unsurprisingly, other people are writing about it: There's something deep in our hearts that wants to be pursued. We love the feeling of hiding, knowing full well people who care about us are pursuing us, seeking us out. I believe there is a God-given desire in all of us to be pursued, to be sought out. We want someone to pursue us. It makes us feel wanted, worthy, and desired. God is no different. He wants us to pursue Him. I believe that He even hides Himself sometimes to see if we value Him enough to seek Him. www.wholeheartedmen.com

I think this guy's onto something. I think winning is in the connection of relationship, not the victory of the outcome.

And if you really, really want someone to find you, then you hide in plain sight. Just like Abby.

How to look good naked

Our church finished a 247 prayer weekend a few days ago. As requested by Madi, our room contained a prayer den. It was an ace idea. Both kids and adults could engage with it and it took 5 minutes to assemble and cost NOTHING: 1x table, 3x blankets, some pegs, a random assortment of cardboard boxes and a huge length of white gauze fabric that we pulled out of a skip in London 9 years ago after an event. A few hours after it was set up, the den even included a pillow. Genius.

The den, along with the other activities, encouraged people to pray and think and sing and write in sand or on stones and maybe cry at the state of our world and be thankful for grace and pray for more of it to go around because things are broken and we have to live on a dysfunctional planet and not go crazy in the meantime.

I did all that. But the most significant thing I found was purely accidental -  the position of the prayer den itself. Although the table, blankets, pegs and cardboard boxes were there to be constructed by other people, we had to set it up in such a way so that it looked like a den in the first place - otherwise it's just a bunch of clutter that someone forgot to clear up. It ended up being right up against the wall by the lectern at the front of the church so as not to obscure the other activities in the room. If all the seats were out in their usual place (which they weren't), they would all have been facing towards the den.

While we were still setting up, I was totally distracted by the juxtaposition of the den with the lectern. The hidden and secluded vs the prominent. The seen vs the unseen. Secret vs public.

What we want to be known about ourselves vs who we actually are.

Of course some things need to stay private or you're (perhaps correctly) branded a social weirdo - but how much energy and time is wasted in keeping our seen and unseen lives separate things? Regulating both of them to ensure they touch in only controlled ways lest they collide abruptly and splinter into a million component parts that scare other people - or God - away? Or worse still maybe, kidding ourselves that what happens in either of these two realms is contained there in isolation and bears no relevance to anything happening in the other one.

What an absolute and tragic waste of time. Jesus totally got this and made a huge point of teaching that thought processes are JUST as important as outward actions. One directly influences the other. Like cause and effect, they are inextricably linked. This is simultaneously wet your pants scary and the most liberating thing ever. There may be no place to hide - but there's no need to hide either.

Unlike the Orwellian thought police, God wants healing of our motivations rather than control of them. He's arguably more interested in mending the secret damage of the heart than the public stuff that we tend to fixate on. If the story in Eden ended with humankind hiding from the creator and covering up with fig leaves, Jesus offers the chance to reverse that process - but far beyond the physical limitations of naked flesh. Further even than Robbie Williams went in the banned Rock DJ video.
The offer is to unwrap it all.
Every last secret thought.
Every buried attitude.
Every concealed motivation lurking on the fringes of consciousness.

Then to stand bare-souled and healed before him - unafraid, unashamed and loved.

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us. (Tim Keller)

Going barefoot

Home [həʊm], noun

1. a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household.

2. the place in which one's domestic affections are centered.

3. an institution for the homeless, sick, etc.: a nursing home.

4. the dwelling place or retreat of an animal.

5. the place or region where something is native or most common.

6. any place of residence or refuge.

7. a person's native place or own country.

Scene 1: We are all at ManChild's new school for a scheduled progress update with his form tutor, a bloke who has known him for seven weeks. The conversation is short, positive and pretty much contains all the information we expect to hear. He works hard. He performs well. He behaves. He appears happy. He's abnormally good at maths, computer science and all things geek (the teacher does not actually use the word geek). He's VERY quiet.

Teachers have been saying similar things about him for the past ten years. And because teachers like goals and action plans and filling in paperwork which proves there are goals and action plans in place, they usually follow it up with 'If you know the answer, put your hand up.' But this teacher doesn't suggest that. This teacher has already discerned that on pretty much every single occasion when an answer is requested from the class, Manchild could probably provide the correct one but chooses not to. Unless he is asked outright - in which case he will provide the answer in a clear, concise way and not whisper something unintelligible while looking at his shoes as he did until year three. (See? That's progress right there). This teacher concludes with 'He's quiet, but it's obviously his personality and part of who he is. We won't try to change it.' 

I like this teacher. He gets my kid. We all go for a McDs tea to celebrate the geekiness and avoid the end-of-day traffic nightmare that is Bristol every weekday evening.

Scene 2: It's 3am and me and a friend are in the 24/7 prayer room, working our way around the stations from opposite directions so it's like being there alone. We're both in our jammies. The heating is on. It feels like the rest of the whole world is asleep and it's wonderful. Thermos of tea in hand, I plod barefooted around the carpeted room having abandoned my crocs at the door. It's a lot like being at home. But it's church. But not church as we know it because there's all this creative prayer clutter all over the place that's helping me think and pray and formulate thoughts about what I believe and why. I sit for the longest time at the foot of a wooden cross which has been upcycled from an old pallet, reading Psalm 65 from The Message:

Blessed are the chosen! Blessed the guest
at home in your place!
We expect our fill of good things
in your house, your heavenly manse.

I am fixated by the home thing and make a list about what HOME means:

Shelter

Basic needs met

Family

Love

Communal living

Discipline
Getting along after an argument

Bringing friends round for tea

Boundaries / structure

Fun

Entitlement / inheritance

Chores
Responsibility

Belonging

Being understood

The first thing I do when I get home is kick off my shoes and put the kettle on. It's all tied in with relaxing and being at home in your own space. (If you ever find yourself in a position where can do this in someone else's house too, then this is a wonderful thing. Hang onto that friend).

So being at home in church - what does that mean when you're NOT wandering around there barefoot and in your jammies (i.e. most of the time)?

It can't be a license for a 'This is who I am and I'm not changing' type of thing. That's kind of arrogant and puts huge limitations on what God is capable / incapable of. He's paid the mortgage and legally owns the house.

But equally, having a healthy sense of who we are and how we belong is a liberating thing and actually frees us from the tyranny of comparison. The form tutor who has known ManChild for a mere half term can already make observations about his character and adjust his approach accordingly - because he understands something of the raw material in front of him.

So how much MORE so does God? The one who knows and understands our deepest thoughts and motives when we don't even get them ourselves? The one who always knew we would be. The one who created the raw material in the first place?

Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? (Luke 9:23-25)

The real you. I love that. 

I'll never be a worship leader. But I'm not meant to be. I'm meant to be a worshipper. 

I'll never be a teacher. But I'm not meant to be. I'm meant to locate good teaching, listen to and apply it, ask questions when I need to and share what I learn along the way. To be teachable.

I'm really, really not a morning person. I have tried the whole get up early to exercise / read / bake cookies nonsense. It really doesn't work. But I can do creative middle of the night barefooted praying in my jammies with sharpie in one hand and cup of tea in the other.

There are other goals on the action plan. I won't bore you with the details. But the form tutor gets well excited when I reach them.

Singing in tune

Multitasking: This term originated in the computer engineering industry and refers to the apparent performance by an individual of handling more than one task, or activity, at the same time, for example taking phone calls while typing an email. Multitasking can result in time wasted due to human context switching and apparently causing more errors due to insufficient attention. However, studies have shown that some people can be trained to multitask more effectively, with practice, where changes in brain activity have been measured as improving performance of multiple tasks. (Wiki)

'There’s no such thing as multi-tasking – just doing lots of things badly. The correct term is multi-failing' (Pete Brockman, Outnumbered)


I multitask (or fail) frequently. I can accomplish a lot in a short time by overlapping undemanding or repetitive tasks such as talking on the phone, formatting a document, checking homework or cooking tea. But I've also had to re-write emails that were drafted when I was distracted by something else or agreed that the kids could do /eat something because I wasn't focussed on the question. Also, as previously disclosed, doing anything + cooking must be approached with caution as it can go really wrong.

It depends on the thing, right? Big things like cuddling a child who's fallen over or anything involving these symbols (+ - ÷ % x) demand one's full attention. 

What happens when we multitask the big things? I ran an experiment to see. (NB: There was only one individual in this cohort and the trial has not been independently verified, so any real researcher reading this can legitimately question and reject my findings). 

Introduction:
Our church was set up for a whole night and day of continuous prayer. People signed up for 1 or 2 hour slots and had a range of creative ways to help them connect with God. Props included individual iPods preloaded with worship material, oversized scrabble tiles, a map of our local area, information about current world events, quotes from famous people - living and dead - about suffering, justice and the meaning of everything, and a collection of collage materials and PVA glue for those who wanted to make their prayers out of pom-poms and glitter.

Method:
It was the middle of the night and normal people were sleeping. No one else was in the building. The door was locked and I had the whole prayer space to myself. The kick off room had a looped video of global demographics and poverty statistics framed against a cover version of Mad World. Quotes about freedom and imprisonment, IS and the fall of the Berlin Wall surrounded the screens. There is much suffering on this planet. But much hope too. And triumph in the face of genuinely awful things. I remained in the room for 6 loops of the song and one cup of tea. I learned all the lyrics to Mad World without trying.

Moving into the main room, this prayer space was completely quiet and still and with the doors to the last area closed, Mad World could not get in. It did not remain quiet. With worship-to-go on an iPod and ear buds in, I sang, scribbled, glued and cried my way through several tracks, kneeling on the floor on top of our map, pritt-sticking song words around our town and colouring stuff in with Sharpie pens. The God Songs were all I could hear. Singing the God Songs was easy and natural. It was actually hard NOT to sing them.

Needing more tea, I went back into Mad World room to make another drink. I stopped in front of the screen and watched some of the looped video listening to the God Song on the iPod rather than Gary Jules- which didn't quite work. God Songs speak of power and love and the bigness of God. The video reminded me our world is still broken and confusing and grossly unfair. Why isn't God fixing it? What am I doing to fix it? How much worse can it get?? I unplugged one ear and Mad World mingled together with the God Song, which I was still singing.

It got harder to sing the God Song.

Phase 2 of the trial. I had no control over the volume of Mad World (where do we keep the TV doofer anyway?) but I did have control over the God Song and turned the iPod volume down. My own voice suddenly sung out louder. This did not help.

I turned the God Song down some more, but still kept on singing it. Man, this is hard. Mad World is now way too loud and it's making me want to sing that rather than the God Song I've already decided I want to sing.

Lower still - and I can only just hear the God Song in my one plugged-in ear. And all around me there are worn out faces and places and pointless races and all kinds of screwed up things which don't speak of God's greatness and sovereignty in a world of 1% starvation, 14% illiteracy and 7% computer ownership. I'm still singing the God Song, but singing it badly. I keep missing the start of the lines and forgetting which note I'm aiming for. It's a good job there's no one else here.

Test concluded. We have enough material.

Conclusions:
• There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Mad World. 

• Or any song that's not the God Song. 

• We have the freedom to pursue activities that don't don't reinforce the God Song or remind us to keep singing it. But focus on anything else for too long and the song quickly fades. You miss the start of the lines. Other tunes mingle in with it and you don't reach the right notes anymore. 

Recommendations:

• Have at least one ear plugged in at all times.
• Adjust your volume when you encounter interference

• Be aware of the Mad World and fight to change what you can wherever it is broken - but don't be immersed in grief over it. Things won't end this way. 

• Sing every day.

• Sing with other people who also sing the God Song. 

• Especially those who harmonise.

Birthday crusts and caviar

2011 has become quite unique. Keith and I have actually managed to SEE each other for BOTH our birthdays. I honestly cannot remember the last time this happened. Unfortunately both days were also spent away from the kids, but hey ho- you can’t have everything.

The 2 days in question could not have been more different (aside from the heat, long hours and copious fluids).

Mine: Worked 14 hours together in air conditioned 4-star hotel in Barcelona with tea and coffee on demand (via a magic phone on my desk) finishing off evening with gala dinner meal that was so posh I had to google the menu later back in hotel room as I had not recognised anything I’d eaten. Excellent wine in a strangely self re-filling glass that did not run out. I was careful. (I have been tricked by such self re-filling glasses before).

Keith’s: Worked 14 hours together in hot and sweaty field in Norfolk where we were delivering a youth festival. Tea, coffee and squash on tap in the staff tent (Thank you Bev and Mike), finishing off with birthday cake and lukewarm diet coke in office tent at midnight, having spent most of the evening sweeping the shower and toilet trailers, stocking up the bog roll and hand towels, unblocking 3 toilets and emptying all the bins.

Both days were fun and are connected with 2 very different organisations, who are great to work with. But I am so aware of BEING aware of these different experiences because it makes me a bit shallower than I’d like to be. I want to not even notice the difference between crusts and caviar.