justice & mercy

A few of us from my church met up with 3 inspiring ladies on thursday night who are reaching out into their local communities via a ministry (connected with their churches) called Besom in east belfast and ballynahinch. Very thought provoking... and challenging. We are just trying to think about ideas of ways we, as a church, could maybe help meet the needs of the community around us.... it's one thing to know we want to 'do justice and love mercy' but how exactly to put that into practice as a church is more difficult.

"If justice is the heart of God's vision for his redemptive work, we are bound to see the ecclesia as the alternative society in which those who are 'called out' of oppressive societies live that vision out." Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement p130

"Mercy is a command of God, yet it cannot simply be a response to a demand. It must arise out of hearts made generous and gracious by an understanding and experience of God's mercy. It is the hearts of the congregation that must be melted until they ask, 'where is my neighbour?'" Tim Keller, Ministries of Mercy p135

friends

Met a few friends last night for a late dinner in town and loved being able to catch up and just share life...

“Those who lack friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts….This communicating of a man’s self to his friends works two contrary effects; for it redoubles joys and cuts griefs in half.” (Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship,” 1625)

Yay for friends :)

by love

"I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God."
....
"When I said early in this essay that we live in a world that was created and exists and is redeemable by love, I did not mean to sentimentalize it. For this is also a fallen world. It involves error and disease, ignorance and partiality, sin and death. If this world is a place where we may learn of our involvement in immortal love, as I believe it is, still such learning is only possible here because that love involves us so inescapably in the limits, sufferings, and sorrows of mortality."
-Wendell Berry

for the context of these two quotes check out this speech... Health is membership.

bittersweet dichotomy

A few years ago, I had a 5 day trip to the States for a friend's wedding / to see another friend (the joy of having friends all over the world, but rarely seeing them is the bittersweet dichotomy of an mk's world). One of the random memories I have when the 3 of us met up after over 4 years apart was that we were all wearing the same kind of shoes... i'm not sure if that was to be attributed to globilisation, good taste or just pure coincidence... but I bought a new pair of shoes this week to replace the ones i've been wearing for the last 3/4 years of my life that were about to die (about time!)... and the memory made me smile. i couldn't bear to break tradition...

anyway, here's to distant friends... I wonder if the 3 of us will be on the same continent again before this pair die?

spontaneity

I loved the spontaneity of yesterday. My sister and I caught the train into town, met some cousins and other friends to watch the st patrick's day parade (which was pretty lame) and got lunch. Then we decided to head north and loads of us ended up in ballintoy harbour and white park bay and watched the amazing sunset while walking the beach, before headed to my aunt's for irish stew and guinness & a bit of craic... a proper holiday feeling, hanging out with my family & co... hard to beat :)

it's days like yesterday that i'd miss if i decide to jump ship to NZ to find a job....

naija music

A friend sent me a link for this artist... this is the kind of music that makes me feel a little homesick... in a good way... I'm loving it :) Her latest song is Jailer... but this is Asa with So Beautiful (no video, just wanted the music!). Seemingly she wrote this song below for her mother:

coffee spoons and TS Eliot

On Monday, Foy Vance was singing a cover about measuring life with coffee spoons and TS Eliot... So coffee in hand, here's a quote from the man himself... (from Choruses from the Rock, 1934)

What life have you, if you have not life together?
There is not life that is not in community...
---
When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?"
What will you answer? "We all dwell together
To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"?

Maybe how this community reacts in the coming days... facing difficult political and economic hurdles... might say something about the meaning of this place.

i'll remember

I was at an amazing gig last night in the ulster hall of 'ALL northern ireland's music greats' as one guy at the end kept saying... although I think there might be a few missing! Because I didn't grow up in Belfast, it was a valuable part of my education catch up!! Despite what the picture below suggests, I actually had a good time! It must have been taken in between the long breaks when they were get organised for the radio broadcast... and I blinked... not sleeping... promise :)
For me, Foy Vance's second song was the best of the night... he's just so good live and I love his facial expressions when he sings too :) Looking forward to his next album already!

I wonder if anyone else noticed the lack of female musicians represented last night, despite the token few in the lovely Lowly Knights...

Overall, a mixture of the random and the amazing, the old and the new, the bold and the beautiful... definitely a night to remember!

save the world?

My cousin's husband is a clinical psychologist and he was speaking in belfast today.... He shared this quote which I like:

"We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts." -Pema Chodron

for lent

"Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points, so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged." -J.I. Packer

And from another ''borrowed" book, this time from my dad...
"If we ought ever to exercise our affections at all, then they ought to be exercised about those objects which are most worthy of them. But is there anything which Christians can find in heaven or earth so worthy to be the objects of their admiration and love, their earnest and longing desires, their hope, and their rejoicing, and their fervent zeal, as these things that are held forth to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ?" - Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections

wayfaring

"Here we see but through a glass darkly. It does not yet appear what we shall be. We are now but as wayfaring men, wandering in the lonely night, who see dimly upon the distant mountain peak the reflection of a sun that never rises here, but which shall never set in the 'new heavens' hereafter." Horatius Bonar, Home

I love this version of Wayfaring Stranger...

thankful

I was chatting to my granny tonight and decided to ask about our family history... she pulled out a family tree that she had started and I found out the names of some of my great-grandparents - names I've never heard before. James and Hannah, Charles and Elizabeth. And great great grandfathers Robert and John.

She also pulled out a booklet I'd never seen that was dictated by my grandfather (on the other side) near the end of his life. It recounts his childhood memories, his family history, the changes in his life as a dairy farmer. This is how the booklet ends...

"I give thanks and praise to Almighty God for his love and direction over every aspect of my life and work down through the years. Now in my blindness I recall many many years of happiness and I patiently wait until my Lord says "Come up Higher". Then I shall be in Heaven for all Eternity."

Mood: thankful