i can only imagine

The sunset was stunning today on my drive home . . . it made me think of heaven. And a few quotes...

"I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then it has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits, but it is only lovelier for that." (Gilead p65)

but it's hope / glimpses of so much more than a sunset...

"Jesus, unlike the founder of any other major faith, holds out hope for ordinary human life. Our future is not an etheral impersonal form of consciousness. We will not float through the air but rather will eat, embrace, sing, laugh and dance in the kingdom of God, in degrees of power, glory and joy that we can't at present imagine." (The Prodigal God p104)

just another patient?

I’ve just finished a book one of my lovely doctor friends gave me for Christmas. I’ve actually been meaning to read this book for ages – it was recommended by one of my lecturers 3 years ago during an in-depth discussion about caring for patients with communication difficulties and the perspective of the patient. It’s called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly written by a guy (the former editor-in-chief of Elle) who had a massive stroke and could only communicate by blinking one eye – that’s how he dictated the book. It’s a reflection on life (past and present), his relationships, emotions and thoughts in this ‘locked in’ world. Some of the most interesting parts for me were his impressions of the hospital staff...

“...gentle, rough, caring, indifferent, hardworking, lazy, the ones you can make contact with and the ones to whom you are just another patient. At first some of the staff had terrified me. I saw them as my jailers, as accomplices in some awful plot.
Later I hated some of them, those who wrenched my arm while putting me in my wheelchair, left me all night long with the TV on, let me lie in a painful position despite my protests. For a few minutes or a few hours I would cheerfully have killed them. And later still, as time cooled my fiercest rages, I got to know them better. They carried out as best they could their delicate mission: to ease our burden a little when our crosses bruised our shoulders too painfully...”

It reminded me of a quote I read in one of my ‘required reading’ articles a few months ago... “One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient” Francis Peabody 1927

I'm back to the hospital world on monday :)

had a dream...

The world's eyes will be on Washington and Obama tomorrow. The BBC have uncovered footage of Martin Luther King in 1964 predicting an African-American president in less than 40 years... even in less than 25 years, which I just think is amazing... in 1964! I admire MLK's belief - maybe that's part of what made him so dynamic - he had a dream. Regardless of what you think about politics, and specifically american politics, it is a significant week. Know hope.

view out my window

the sunrise this morning...

exact places

Reading about church planting in belfast and portadown and trying to get in touch with another friend who has recently moved to start a galway church plant has made me think about a quote I read last summer...

Driscoll, referring to John 17:15–18 says: “Jesus prayed that we would not leave the sick and dying world and huddle into a safe subcultural ghetto of Christian nicety, but that we would stay in the world.” (from The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World)

I’m still trying to figure out what that looks like for me. In the next year, I’ll have to figure out where I’m heading... what continent, never mind what city, town, or 'ghetto'... At this point in my life it will be largely influenced by where I can find a job. But I hope having a vision for the community where I choose to live will be part that decision...

‘...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...’ acts 17:26-27

In the meantime, I still don't really know my neighbours...

sense of sweetness

Tim Keller in his book The Prodigal God (great book!) quotes Jonathan Edwards saying:

“The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is a different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its sweetness.”

John Owen talked about this head/heart perspective this way:

“When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth—when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us—when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the thing abides in our hearts—when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for—then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men. And without this all our contending is, as to ourselves, of no value. What am I the better if I can dispute that Christ is God, but have no sense of sweetness in my heart from hence that he is a God in covenant with my soul?”

Here’s to 2009 – a year I long to have more sense of that sweetness...

the bigger you dream...

I had a mid-revision ‘clearing the head’ walk yesterday and was listening to the lovely Gemma. But I’ve still got a line of a song stuck in my head.... Maybe it stuck because I’ve spent a lot of the last week dreaming or looking out the window at my street (instead of revising).

“You say the bigger you dream, the smaller your street looks in the rain...”

I’m trying to decide if I think that’s a depressing thought. I guess it depends on what you dream. Or if you dwell on the big dreams or on the small street. Or maybe streets only look smaller in the rain. Who knows, maybe this small street should be in my big dreams. Or are dreams always of some other place?

So much for clearing the head.

Good thing it’s from a song called Out of our hands.

tell me the story

I want to echo the words of this song over the next few days.

'Sit with me and tell me once again
Of the story that's been told us
Of the power that will hold us
Of the beauty, of the beauty
Why it matters...'

(sara groves)

advent whispers

On this crisp winter’s morning
Waiting for a train.
Gazing in the direction of its coming -
Anticipating.
An announcement over the tannoy,
A promise of imminent arrival.
Train stopping – for me...
Stepping in, finding a resting place.
Waiting again –
But now with a destination.
A new perspective through train windows
In an ever-changing, fast-moving panorama.
A fresh sense of wonder at the beauty
As sunlight breaks through grey over Belfast.
Stopping only to bring others along on this journey...

I heard whispers of advent this morning.

Gilead

I just finished a book tonight called Gilead. I was one of those books I didn't really want to finish because I've been meandering through it a few pages at time over the last few weeks and I just wanted to drag it out a bit longer. I loved it. It's a book about beauty, grace, memories, family, love... mixed in with thoughts on age, death, regret, heartache, loneliness... It's written as a letter from a old pastor to his young son as he approaches the end of his life.

Here's a couple quotes I read tonight... (it's not all this intense!)

"There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it be subordinate itself to cause or consequence?"

"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparant, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us. Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true. 'He will wipe the tears from all faces." It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required..."

"Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. It think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave - that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us...to make ourselves useful."

Anyway, read it if you get the chance. It's was the perfect book for a night like mine - a quiet night in a cosy room with christmas lights. It made me laugh, cry, think and hope. The best combinations.

belfast city

I'm feeling hopeful tonight...



My church has a new pastor and he wanted this song played for his induction service tonight. My God is the God of this city that I've come to love... this song just resonated with new beginnings as a church and also with advent - to be able to look forward with expectation...

knowledge?

I read an article today trying to fight the voice in my head that’s telling me systematic reviews that have conflicting conclusions are completely pointless and discovered this random quote to ponder on a chilly winter’s evening:
“When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.” –Confucius

Just thought I’d share :) I'm sure you're glad I did...