T'was the night before Easter...

For the last 3 years I've signed up to the #40acts - a series of daily emails on the 40 days leading up to Easter aimed at encouraging generosity (rather than giving stuff up) for Lent. Each email contains a short blog, a Bible reference and 3 suggested activities depending on how much time / money / skills / courage you have to give. It's fun and it's easier than giving up chocolate. Or alcohol. But it comes around at such a mental time of year for us that I end up doing slightly less than 40 Acts. This year I did three. (Three and a half - if you count the chocolate giveaway which involved some of the chocolate coming right back to me).

Anyway, we live under grace and not the law so I'll focus on the 3 and a half Acts that happened:

#Act3: Roots
We can live somewhere for decades and never really put our roots down there. What does it look like to get more deeply rooted in our home community? Today's act will help you to explore ways of generously investing in your home town.

Action: Joined a gym
This was a complete surprise to me too. I have never joined a gym in my life. I do not consider myself to be a gym type of person. Do you ever wake up from a dream having behaved in a particular way and feel confused because it was SO out of character for you to have done something? That's what this whole thing was like. I mean why pay good money to sweat indoors when you can sweat outdoors for free by walking or jogging anywhere you have the energy to go? Or sweating almost for free in the comfort of your own home to a 2nd hand Davina McCall DVD?

Answer: Because I don't. I need people to sweat alongside me. I am a rubbish solo exerciser. I've literally just realised this. And not wasting money is a great motivator to get me to do anything, so the prospect of paying for a gym membership I never use is worse than joining one in the first place. So there we go - I'm attending 2-3 classes a week, putting down roots and becoming bendier with pilates. ✓

#Act12: Chocolate Tuesday
Slip a bar of chocolate into someone’s bag with a note saying ‘#40acts’. Or leave a bar or two in your local library, on a park bench or on the train.

Action: Bought chocolate bars to give away
Recipient (husband) shared chocolate with me without prompting. I think that's allowed. He's permitted to be generous too. ✓1/2

#Act24: Stand
It's easy to get weighed down by the injustice and need we see all around us, and to imagine that there's nothing (or very little) we can do about it. Choose not to shy away from a cause today. Lend your voice to the voiceless, stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves, and don't wait for someone else to be the solution.

Action: Standing as a Lib Dem councillor on May 4th
This is in a local safe labour word I am PROMISED I have no chance of winning. It's purely a paper exercise so the party can gauge their support base and perhaps attract protest votes. Although the party has experienced a surge in membership since the snap general election announcement so now I'm a little anxious that a bunch of people may actually vote for me even though we've never leafleted and I'm not really sure what councillors do aside from attend meetings and listen to complaints about hedges. I just got fed up of complaining about the way things are and God clearly said not to wait for someone else to be the token opposition solution. ✓

#Act33: Hats Off
Matthew 22:34–40: Jesus answered 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Action: Went to a Jehovah's Witness meeting
#act33 arrived in my inbox on the same day as an invitation from the Jehovah Witnesses to attend one of their services. I concluded these 2 events were related and God wanted me to go: These people are my neighbours and I don't know who they are. And that's more my fault than theirs - they knock on my door maybe twice a year and I never knock on theirs. So I went. I explained why I was there to the woman on the door (I'm doing #40acts and you're my neighbour) who excitedly ushered me in and found the woman, Kirstin who had given me the invite. I sat next to her and listened and heard some familiar stuff and some unfamiliar stuff too. We talked for a while and I commented on feeling underdressed in ripped jeans and a hoody (Their church is very suity and dressy. My church is neither of these things). She said that didn't matter and it was nice to see me. She said it was brave of me to come on my own and not know anyone. I said it wasn't really brave because it didn't faze me and I shaved my head 5 months ago for my best mate who was having chemo and raised a grand for charity and lots of people said THAT was brave too, but really it wasn't because that didn't scare me either. We chatted some more and she said, 'I don't get the impression you're here searching for anything.' And I said 'No - I'm not!' Then I left. ✓

#Act33: Scene 2
Except the Lentish lesson continued.

Kirstin turned up on my doorstep 3 days later on good Friday with another woman from their church and they came in and we had coffee and we chatted for about an hour about the Bible and religion and #Act24 and why they don't ever vote.

And then I didn't sleep properly that night because I'd played Breath of the Wild for about 7 hours that day and watched the kids play for another couple of hours on top of that (they are further ahead than me). THEN I read a load of theology about JW beliefs on my phone in bed which triggered a weird tangle of  BoTW/JW half dreams which involved climbing and gliding and searching all over Hyrule for fragments of truth which made my Sheikah sensor beep like crazy as I approached them, but when I was JUST about to reach them, the beeping would stop. And Kirstin was there, talking to me like she was holding something, but her hand was empty.

At 4am I was still awake and exhausted and lonely and unbelievably SAD because I desperately wanted to talk to Jesus about everything on the one night of the whole year between Good Friday and Easter Sunday when we remember when he wasn't around.

And then I realised what was different. There was a huge undercurrent of expectation and rules in how Kirstin had explained her beliefs to me. The closeness of a father/child relationship was absent. Doctrine had dominated our conversation - and I had gone along with it. 

And now, in the middle of the night on Easter Saturday I was still looking to doctrine to reconcile her theology with my own, but Jesus wasn't there and I realised I was grieving for Him. Like really, proper missing him. Aching because the love had nowhere to go and I was lost in Hyrule with a broken Sheikah slate.

Come back- please.
I never left. I'm right here. 
Oh thank God!! Where did you go?
Nowhere - You were wandering all over the place. I was following you.
I couldn't see you.
I saw you the whole time.
Don't ever leave - please.
I won't - I can't. I love you.
I love you too.
It's 5am. Go to sleep.
OK.

Playing by the rules

Three or four times a year the kids get out the Monopoly board and we start a game that will involve all of us having dinner scrunched up at one end of the kitchen table for 3 evenings in a row, regular accusations of corruption against the banker, a few tears and at least one major argument. The game will end after a gradual slide into destitution as I slowly haemorrhage all my possessions to the eventual winner (which by the way, is never me).

It's interesting to see how the kids' personalities play out as the game progresses:

E: Rules are rules are rules. They are there for a reason. They make the game function. What's the point of playing it if you're going to show compassion? This is futile. It only prolongs the inevitable (and delays my rise to absolute power!! Mwahhhh haawhh haaaaaawhh...)

J: Lighten UP. Rules are a guide- a framework, if you will. It's people that are important. Playing the game should be fun. If you have to pay that massive bill then you'll loose Piccadilly and Coventry Street and be sad, so why not just pay me HALF the money and let me have some bubble gum bottles from your secret junk drawer instead? Oh - and if there's going to be an atmosphere about all this then I'll be in the garden playing football...

M: But I like the rules. If we aren't playing properly, then I won't play. Oh, unless you want to show me a little bit of leniency. Then that's OK- because I am the youngest.

The whole purpose of the game is to win, and to have a winner, everyone else must loose. Without an imbalance of power, there IS no game. Which is why I hate Monopoly. But because we play it so infrequently, my memory recovers well enough to convince me that it wasn't really that bad and we're teaching life skills like risk taking, conflict resolution, losing gracefully, blah blah blah, plus we need something to do on happy family no gadget Wednesdays that involves us all being in the same room of the house. Then the whole process repeats itself from the start and I realise once again: Yep - I really do hate this game.

There comes a point, no matter what chance card you pick or how the dice falls, the event horizon of bankruptcy has been crossed and there is no going back. From now on the future involves only Foodbank vouchers, zero hours contracts and eventually dying alone in a damp bedsit, perhaps covered in your own vomit.

The game starts off so fairly, doesn't it? Everyone starts off with the same amount of money.  The iron, dog and top hat all receive the same amount of money for passing GO. The same opportunities for success exist equally for all, yet the outcome is always a situation that is very unequal- although supposedly fun to play.

Does life imitate art or vice versa? Do I have issues with Monopoly or the values it stands for? Because the game has been going on for real since forever and we start playing as soon as we arrive - even if we'd rather play football in the garden or wander off to the toilet and forget to come back to the kitchen table or (me only) rearrange all the cupboards in the entire house then post the photos to Buzzfeed.

Except in the real game there is no level playing field anymore. There are no equal opportunities - start up capital sums vary and property portfolios are often predetermined at birth. There is no set amount for passing GO- each person receives a different amount that reflects their market value. Because some people are inherently more valuable than others, right?

Race, gender, income, education, background - all kinds of things influence the gameplay. Some people are naturally predisposed to wealth or power and the game belongs to the wealthy and powerful. Some people live their whole lives waiting to roll the dice. The article here explores what the Monopoly rules would look like if applied today in the USA alone. Factor in global wealth statistics and the game rules only get more skewed. It's so weird. Every one of us being born into a time and place and situation that we have NO control over. How is that fair?

And how do we play the game fairly now that we're here? Fulfilling the responsibilities of adulthood, enjoying whatever rewards genetics, IQ and geography bring and sharing our (sometimes limited) resources based on the priority of need - without being embittered by what what other people have or immobilised by guilt about what we have or frustrated by the apathy of those who could really make a difference if they wanted to.

It must be possible to live here yet not be tainted by the system. To be in the world but not conform to it. Jesus managed it. He spent his whole life doing so and was eventually killed for it as the system was SO unjust it couldn't cope with him. The culture and context changes, but the same game plays on. And while the rules are still enforced by the powerful, we can learn stuff from the way he approached the rules while he was here:

Jesus made religious people mad by refusing to condemn a woman to death who'd been caught in adultery, telling the crowd, 'Let him who has never sinned throw the first stone.' One by one they dropped their stones and left. The religious people liked their rules. They liked catching people out who had broken the rules. But they chose which rules to follow and which rules to ignore (where was the man she was caught with??) Jesus knew all about the rules but loved people more than being right. He knew all the rules the religious guys had broken too - and exposed their hypocrisy.
• Love people more than rules

One time his friends were challenged about paying taxes to Caesar. Jesus instructed them to fish in the nearby waters and the money would be found inside the mouth of a fish. And it was - they were given what they needed at the point where they needed it. Jesus didn't make a direct stand against the taxation system (he could have done) - but used the situation to teach about God's ability to provide.
• God is bigger than the rules

Another time he advised some people that 'If one of the occupying troops forces you to carry his pack for one mile, carry it two miles.' This sounds like caving in to power, but was actually an act of quiet rebellion. A first century Palestinian could be forced to carry a soldier's supplies for one mile- but making anyone carry the weight further than this was forbidden and resulted in disciplinary action. Jesus wasn't being submissive - he was showing people a way to flip the rules back onto the rule makers and exploit them to their advantage.
• Make a stand against unfair rules

He didn't really have a permanent residence. He travelled loads- always surrounded by people. Someone once declared he would follow Jesus anywhere, to which he replied 'Foxes have dens, the birds have nests, but I have nowhere to lie down and rest.' He didn't have much stuff because stuff wasn't that important to him.
• Using the rules to acquire lots of stuff is not a good use of time

The longest recorded conversation we know about is between him and a Samaritan woman. This is massive. Hanging out with a woman? With a dodgy history? Who belongs to a people group we hate? This was beyond shocking. It was unimaginable. Things like this were never done - ever. 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you' he said.
• A rule that makes you hate someone is not a good rule. Ignore it.

Hmmm. Would Jesus rather play Monopoly or football or organise a cupboard? (One of these activities -my favourite one- has no rules at all).

Giving and getting

in·car·nate [in-kahr-nit]
in·car·nat·ed, in·car·nat·ing
1. embodied in flesh; given a body, especially a human
2. personified or typified, as a quality or idea
3. flesh-coloured or crimson
4. to put into or representing in a concrete form, as an idea: The building incarnates the architect's latest theories
5. to be the embodiment or type of: Her latest book incarnates the literature of our day

Synonyms:
embodied; exteriorised; externalised; manifested; materialised; personified; substantiated; typified; human; in human form; in the flesh; made flesh; physical; real; tangible

Imagine the worst Christmas present ever. Maybe something along the lines of a plastic moustache from a Christmas cracker, chewed by the family dog. Or a pair of unwashed socks formerly owned by a teenage boy.

Contrast this with the bestest most amazingly extravagant present ever- maybe a mansion in the country with acres of gardens complete with personal cleaner, cook and gardener. Or a brand new car. Or (if you are a child in our house) a wii-U.

Now I know we don't give to receive, but that's generally what happens between family and friends at Christmastime. So imagine a gift exchange thusly:
• Give a wii-U to person X
• Receive a plastic moustache from person X
That would be insane and embarrassing. Insulting even. 

It doesn't even work the other way round:
• Give a plastic moustache to person X
• Receive a wii-U from person X
(Awk.....ward...)

Unless you are God. 

The gift exchange there is:
• We give him our mess and sin which suffocates and enslaves us
• He gives us new life now, and the promise of life with him forever (Free to us, but which cost him his son).

I have believed this for a long long time, yet the more I get to know and love him, the less sense the whole arrangement makes. The more familiar I get with the nativity story the more mysterious and risky it all seems. And like moustache vs mansion, how is it even fair??

A deity of unimaginable power and creativity. Wanting nothing. Needing nothing. Omnipotent. Giving it all up. (Seriously- my brain is scrambled by this). The maker of a billion planets choosing to visit just one of them and making it his home planet for 30 or so earth years, living there in the guise of a created inhabitant in an age before Lynx grooming products, biro pens or tea bags. 

Not only that, but he first arrived there in a baby's tiny frame, dependant, incontinent and immobile. He grew up limited by the physical laws of gravity and time, subject to discomforts such as hunger, fatigue and the inconvenience of getting up in the middle of the night to pee, or to counsel people who couldn't make it during normal opening hours. 

Limited does not even begin to cover it. (And that's without even trying to factor in the torture of crucifixion). I really don't get it. I'm eternally thankful and loving Jesus more and more for choosing to go through with the whole thing, but I don't get it. 

Something happened this morning though that gave me a glimmer of how the exchange thing works. There were many, many presents under our tree at 7am. Most of them were for our 3 kids. They were revealed to be board games, books, sweets, clothes and toys. Our big family present this year was not a mansion or new car. It was a Wii-U! Yay!! The kids were made up. We are still playing on it now as I type this (NB- No Gadget Day was YESTERDAY this week, so this is allowed, Gareth Birt!).

My most significant present this morning was from our 10 year old who, inspired by the bulging rugby sock at the foot of his bed, took a pair of his own socks and put a pop up pencil and a satsuma in each one and presented them to K and me. Then apologised that his feet aren't bigger.

And so:
• Give a wii-U (Complete with Zelda's WindWaker, Pikmin3 and the promise of downloading Mario 3d as soon as the wii store is functional again)
• Receive a pop up pencil and a satsuma from your own fruit bowl

This is more than a fair exchange because I love him more than life itself and it's all he had to hand this morning.

Arrival

I seem to be in an incredibly long tunnel. I have no idea when I got here or how. It's probably a dream then- either that or I'm an architect in Inception?

The ground is covered in a soft moss-like surface. I'm walking far quicker than I know I'm capable of and I cover loads of ground fairly quickly with hardly any effort at all - like I'm on a travelator at an airport. I can't see a source of light but the walls themselves have a dull glow about them so I can see my surroundings easily. The environment is completely alien to me but I'm not anxious. I'm not excited either. I just am.

I gradually become aware of a light up ahead. The tunnel is coming to an end. As I get closer still I see there is a mesh like material all around the exit. I brace myself for getting caught up in it, or maybe waking up. The mesh looks quite flimsy so maybe I'll be able to rip it and get through. Instead when I reach the material, I put my hands out and there's nothing there. 

I stumble out into a bright and noisy courtyard. I'm completely overwhelmed. My senses have gone from minimal stimuli to maximum in a second. There's colour, sky, sunshine, birds, music, trees and people- lots of people. Pretty much shoulder to shoulder. Jostling. Chatting. Laughing. Singing. Crying. Hugging. There's even a conga line of them snaking past. All nationalities are here. And all ages- little kids walking hand in hand with old people. Maybe even different eras are represented too- judging by what people are wearing. There are business like people, kids in school uniform, other kids in jeans and t shirts, soldiers in military gear, goths, tramps, hippies, surfers, elegant looking people in designer labels and everything in between. Some of them look like they've just stepped out of an old photograph- except they're not black and white but dressed in muted browns and greys. It's such an eclectic mix of people it's like a costume party.

The courtyard appears to be part of a city built on a hill. The walls are painted white, dazzling in the sun. There are passageways leading off it in every direction, intersecting with adjacent buildings. As I'm processing all this and trying to orientate myself, a stranger makes his way towards me, jostling a few people out the way and breaking through the conga line (shouting 'Oh- sorry, excuse me..') then when he reaches me his smile grows even wider than before and he embraces me in the biggest bear hug ever. 'You're here at last!' he exclaims, 'I can't believe it!'

I squint stupidly at him because I'm certain we don't know each other. He's wearing a stripey cotton shirt (the non iron crinkly kind), ripped jeans and a navy bandana. I study his face and will my brain to access some clue as to his identity. He's in his 30's maybe with a goatee beard. His kind dark eyes bore into mine, crinkling at the edges with his smile. He is genuinely made up to see me (or whoever he has mistaken me for). He squeezes my shoulders and chuckles to himself 'I've been waiting ages you know- AGES...'

I open my mouth to tell him he must be thinking of someone else when he suddenly grabs my hand and starts pushing past the crowds, towing me along 'Come with me- there's so many people you need to meet!' Before I can argue we're off- pushing our way through the laughing, hugging, singing, conga-ing crowds. In and out of buildings, passageways, cobbled streets and more courtyards.

I am introduced to loads of people, some of whom I know and some I don't. Each one of them seems to know the friendly stranger in the bandana though, and our progress is hampered by exchanges between him and various people who approach us. I am still totally disorientated but don't have time to ask questions- even of the people I know, as I am constantly being whisked away to meet someone else or see a fountain or statue or something else of interest.

One of the people he takes me to is John, an elderly bloke I knew as a child. When I knew him before he was blind, but now his eyes are bright, sparkly and 100% functional. He touches my face with his hand and says I look just like my voice. I want to ask him how long he's been here and who exactly is this stranger in the bandana who has mistaken me for his long lost friend, when I am tugged off once more with 'Ah there she is- come on. See you later John!' And off we go again. John waves to the back of bandana man's head and as I look back at him, he's laughing and dancing with the people on either side of him.

My tour goes on for ages. There are endless introductions and reintroductions. I loose track of who's who and how they are related to each other. I'm exhausted by the newness of it all and yet not breathless at all, even though the city streets are steep and hilly and we have been rushing around between all these different buildings.

Eventually we come to the biggest room yet. It is HUGE with a long wide table down the middle of the room, laden with food. There are big bowls of fruit of genetically modified proportions (grapes the size of satsumas, melon-sized oranges), silver covered serving dishes with delicious smelling contents and pitchers of water with yet more sliced fruit floating on the surface. No one seems to have time to stop and enjoy it though. There's too much chatting and excitement. 

We pass by the top of the table and I'm being led out to an annexe of the hall when I spot the throne. It's the most impressive looking thing ever. Elevated 2 steps above the rest of the room and about eight feet high. It's made of gold with dozens of glistening stones embellishing the sides and back. I know at once the jewels are authentic and it belongs to someone of massive importance.

'Where's the king?' I ask, trying to slow down and look at it properly.

'Huh?' Asks the bandana guy, barely slowing down and excusing us past yet another group who are in the way.

I stop dead. He's still holding my hand so rebounds back towards me. 'Where's the king?' I shout this time and point to the throne. He waves a hand at it dismissively. 'I'll sit down for a while later- I can't sit still for two minutes now you've got here!' He takes my hand and turns to go off again, but I tug his hand hard and force him to stop and look at me.

I uncurl his fingers from mine and turn his hand over. My heart lurches up to my throat, suddenly pounding wildly like I've been running up and down cobbled city streets for the past few hours and it's only just realised. I grab his other hand and examine it too. Like the first, this palm is also badly scarred. A loud sob comes from somewhere near my stomach and I crumple. 

The crying is uncontrollable. I sob against his chest in a mixture of awe and love and appreciation and snot. I'm so overwhelmed I think I might explode. Like a little child who can't command their emotions, I struggle to express them AND breathe. I cling to the bandana man digging my fingers into his arms and choking on my words 'I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry...' 

He's silent for a while, like he knows I need to say it, then eventually disentangles himself from my grasp and holds me at arms length, staring at me with his head slightly cocked to one side. He looks happier yet (if that's possible) and maybe even slightly bemused. 'I know you're sorry. You told me before. A long time ago- remember?'  

'Yes but this time I reeeaaallly truly am!' 

I have never meant those words properly before. NEVER.

'I know. You said before. I forgave then. We moved on- yeah?' He embraces me again as my breathing slowly returns to normal. Then he pats my back furiously and yells in excitement, 'Oh there's Karen, from your student halls- 4th floor- remember her? Come on!' And he grabs my hand and we dart off together through the crowds.

Holding his hand, I laugh and run and know I am awake.