A Christian perspective on Jericho

Not long ago, I enjoyed watching the first season of the TV series Jericho. It wasn’t fabulous viewing, chiefly because it descended to the realm of post-apocalyptic soap opera, but there was another side to the story that I found fascinating. I don’t think everyone notices this (and I’m not even certain the writers see their show in this light!) so I want to draw attention to it. To me, Jericho is a story about the failure of capitalism.

Capitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

This is the way we live today. Life is about the pursuit of wealth. I devote enough time to that pursuit as a means of survival: to enable me to keep a roof over my head and to buy those things that make life liveable. I could probably have a high-flying IT career if I put my mind to it, but instead I chose to do a job I enjoy, regardless of the lesser wage. I’ve got some perspective. But not everyone does. Some people devote their entire lives to the accumulation of wealth. And it’s no wonder. It’s essentially what school teaches us to do: get as qualified as possible, so you can get the best job you can, so you can make as much money as you can. When you’re a kid, and you spend six hours a day, five days a week, under the pressure of that mentality, most of us end up buying into it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for education, but education with a little wisdom thrown in would be better.

The reason I like post-apocalyptic fiction so much is because we get to sweep away all the things we hate about present society and start again. Never mind that all the good things get swept away, too. I get a kick out of radical change. In Jericho, the USA is devastated by a nuclear attack. Some towns survive unscathed; Jericho is one such. Initially, the townsfolk get together under the guidance of the mayor. The US government no longer exists. Life is thrown into such disarray that the only course of action that makes sense is neighbour helping neighbour. But what’s really interesting about Jericho is that few of the people buy into it. They’re so infected with capitalistic thinking that not even the end of the world can bring them to their senses. First, there’s the old lady who runs the store. Suddenly, everyone needs what she’s got, so she uses it as an opportunity to drastically raise the prices. Later, a teenage boy inherits the store, and is fierce about retaining personal ownership of it. His girlfriend think he’s so cool because he kicks ass to stay on top of his rights. Likewise, one of the farmers is determined that he still owns all the of the grain in his fields, and any decision to share it will be made by him. When refugees arrive, they are all housed together uncomfortably in one building. It takes the townsfolk so long to allow the refugees to live in the empty homes in town, out of some ridiculous loyalty to the owners who are most likely lying dead in another part of the country. Things really heat up when Jericho has to have dealings with its neighbouring town. A willingness to share resouces and help one another is put aside in favour of an “if I do this for you, what are you going to do for me” attitude. Jericho withholds what the other town desperately needs, and the end result is war.

I found it amusing watching the people of Jericho blindly clinging to the self-centred ethics they were accustomed to and seeing it fail them at every turn. I have to ask myself whether this “message” was deliberately put into the series, or whether the writers were simply writing what they considered to be normal, decent behaviour. I honestly don’t know! Regardless, the message is there.

The thing is, this is probably how the human race would behave in those circumstances. It’s all me, me, me. Life revolving around accumulation and ownership, which is daft when you consider that the only things that are of any use to us are the things we can make use of while we’re alive. You can take nothing with you when you die.

I’m always impressed with how things were done in the 1st century Church:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. (Acts 2:44-46)

There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. (Acts 4:34-35)

That’s a far cry to today’s Church, isn’t it? People arrive on Sunday morning, sit down and listen to a sermon, then leave and disconnect themselves completely from the lives of everyone else there until the following Sunday. If someone in the Church suddenly lost their home, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone else offered no more assistance that an apathetic, “Sorry.” Will the Church ever be like it was in the beginning? Probably not. But at least if some of us realise how utterly infected we are by the fallout of capitalist life - greed, in other words - then it’s a step in the right direction.

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. (Proverbs 23:4-5)

DeLorean: A dream within reach

Some of you know I have a thing about DeLorean cars. It’s based on nothing more concrete than a childhood memory: I recall being about ten years old, glued to the TV set, watching a documentary on the now-infamous car, and wishing I could own one. The power of nostalgia compells me to love this car today; I can’t help it.

There were only ever about 8,000 DeLorean DMC-12 cars made, 6,000 of which are believed to still be in circulation, most in the USA. Now and again, I tap the name of the car into eBay. Occasionally they show up for sale, in various locales and conditions. I never seriously thought I would have an opportunity to own one. However, last week, one of these cars showed up in County Down, of all places - just a short drive from where I live. The car was described as pristine condition, and had had its original rust-proof stainless steel panels painted black by one of its owners. I liked this unique look a lot. DeLorean Noir! Bidding began at £10,000, but with a reserve of who knows what.

So I started thinking, was it truly possible for me to buy this car? Well, the only way for me to raise the funds was to remortgage my house. It’s not as drastic as it sounds. I have a pretty small mortgage currently. More importantly, was it worth it? Let’s say the total cost came to £15,000. Fifteen grand just to make driving feel like piloting an X-Wing Fighter. Since I’m currently getting around on a bicycle (and intending to keep on doing so), the car would be for special occasions only - largely kept in storage, free from wear-and-tear, retaining its classic status for a long, long time. Again, I have to ask, is it worth spending fifteen grand to own a car that you will hardly ever drive?

At the end of the day, it wasn’t money that put me off; the car would retain its value over time and could be re-sold whenever. I opted out because I thought long and hard about what owning something like this does to your mind. I pictured myself driving with acute paranoia about damaging the car. I pictured myself parking in public, leaving the car there and going shopping, constantly worried about someone deciding to run a key along the side of the door because the car is so eye-catching. This mental issue can be summed up in one Bible verse: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). What the verse is saying is that the things we own form attachments to us, or rather we form attachments to them. It’s a basic, unavoidable principle of human life, rooted in our own greedy natures. We care deeply, usually too much, about what we own. Naturally, the less you own, the more your heart is free to set itself on what’s important in life. Bottom line: I don’t want to become the kind of person who owns all sort of pretty things and worries about them constantly. That’s what the DeLorean would provoke in me. In my youth, I had a terrible collector’s mentality for books and videos. I seem to have grown out of it, to the degree that I hardly ever buy anything these days. If I buy a DVD, I’m usually thinking about its resale value on eBay! I’m glad about that and I don’t want to be lured into materialism again. Maybe I have a better grasp on my mortality than I used to.

So I let the DeLorean go. All things considered, I would be better served pursuing my dream of one day owning a boat. On the surface, it sounds like the same pursuit as the DeLorean, but what I’m really after is the experience of life on water, away from civilisation and close to nature. And experience is far more valuable the ownership of rare treasures. After all, if we get to take anything with us to the afterlife, it will be our memories of what we did in this life.

Altruism - Part II

I was hesitant to put my previous post online, because I felt I hadn’t fully worked through the issue of altruism in my mind. This post will hopefully add a little balance to the matter.

I think I’m being a little hard on myself. My problem is not that I don’t do anything to help others, it’s that I often don’t do the things with the right attitude. What it boils right down is, what kind of a person am I? Am I a giver or a taker? Are my actions motivated by the good I can do or by what I can get out of it? Saly, I have to admit that a great deal of my recent life has been motivated by taking. Even though I have managed to avoid the trappings of materialism to the degree that I rarely purchase things other than the necessities of life, I am still motivated by the desire to consume, whether it’s videogames, DVDs, novels. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with these activities - except when they’ve risen to the level that they’re almost your reason to live.

I think this kind of a trap is a lot easier for married people to avoid, because they are caught with the business of looking after each other and their children. But, of course, no one is without responsibilities of one kind or another. The responsibilities of my job, for instance. And this is primarily where I have allowed myself to slip.

When I first started working at Clounagh, I loved the place. And my feelings stayed that way for many years. I even dedicated my first novel to the pupils, with the heartfelt words “To the pupils of the real Clounagh Junior High School, who make it a special place to come and work in each day.” I would look around me at all these jaded and complaining teachers and think to myself, “You folks have forgotten forgotten the wonderful and privileged position you occupy in these children’s lives, as a force for good, equipping them for life ahead.” Guess what? I’ve become one of those jaded and complaining people. At some point, I started looking at my job for what it could do for me, rather than taking pleasure in what I had to offer. It would be so easy for me to make excuses (and I’ve made them). I could talk about how the attitudes of children in society have gone radically downhill since seven years ago, when I started working at the school. And that’s actually true, in general; there is way more disrespect in the classroom than there used to be. But when I make that excuse, it only illustrates that all I’m interested in is what the job can do for me, not what I can bring to the job.

Well, I’m making an effort to change my attitude. As well as my usual IT duties, I have some involvement with the Scripture Union, with teaching First Aid, and with raising money for charity (at the same time encouring children to read, even if it is my own novel). These are all activities that have so much pleasure to give, when the person doing them is thinking about the good he can do.

I guess altruism was the wrong word for what I’ve been trying to get at. I’ve been criticising myself for being a couch potato in the evenings, when really there’s nothing wrong with relaxing, as long as you can do so in the knowledge you’re the sort of person who’s motivated by giving instead of taking. My own times of relaxation have been poisoned by my selfish attitude to life. Now that I’ve woken up to this, it’s refreshing to wake up in the morning and think, Here’s a brand new day. What good can I do in it?

Altruism

If you’re a long time reader of this blog, you may have noticed that it goes through phases, reflecting my changing interests (obsessions) as the months and years go by. What I’m noticing is that it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything remotely personal, especially about my Christian life. This, sadly, is a reflection on my spiritual state. Until yesterday, I can’t remember the last time I actually picked up my Bible; the only things I’ve been reading are novels. For a long time, my faith has taken a back seat, and consequently I have no spiritual adventures of which to speak … except this one.

Over the last year or so, one particular philosophical theme has been occupying my mind: altruism (definition: the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others). Astute readers of Chion might have noticed that this is a major theme of the novel: altruism as it relates to the meaning of life. That sounds overly intellectual, but what it boils down to is this: The only kind of life that has any meaning is a life lived for the benefit of others; everything you do for your own self-centred interests ultimately amounts to nothing when you’re six feet under and gradually turning to dust.

I got some worrying news just before the weekend regarding my health. I’ve developed a touch of osteoarthritis in my neck, due to an old injury aggravated by overly long periods in front of the computer and games console. It’s not serious, but it is permanent. This news had the effect of getting me thinking about mortality again - how we’re all on the way towards death, with our bodies gradually decaying and picking up damage through the wear and tear of living. So I decided to ask myself: “If you knew you were going to die tomorrow and you looked back over your life, what would you say you’ve have done with it, in just a few words?” In my case, the answer is, “I have entertained myself as much as possible.”

I didn’t like the answer, but I felt it was honest. Maybe you think I’m being unfair to myself. Maybe you think that the fact that I’ve written novels and made movies counts for something. To be honest, most of it’s pretty self-serving, even all the charity stuff I’ve done selling copies of my books in the school where I work. All I cared about was being as widely read as possible. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying there’s going to be no more books and films. I’m just saying that my life has to amount to more than these things.

One of the most startling Bible passages is when Jesus bent down with a towel and a basin of water and washed his disciples’ feet. It’s a strange lesson he was teaching, because foot-washing is not something that is done in the modern day, with our cotton socks and perfectly moulded shoes. I suppose the modern equivalent might be the Queen bending down with a tin of polish to shine your shoes. Jesus was saying that true greatness lies not in the magnificence of your achievements, but in simple humility and a willingness to serve your fellow man. And if the master - the Messiah, the savior of the world - is willing to humble himself to this degree, how can we think such actions are beneath us? I find that inspirational. Not only is it radical, but it forms a meaningful alternative to the futile hustle and bustle of Capitalistic existence. Serving your fellow man is the only way to lead a meaningful life. Since you don’t gain from what you do for others, not even your own death can rob the meaning from what you have done.

The trouble with me is I’m all talk. My working day has gone from something that I used to find inspiring to something that I’ve gotten used to and merely tolerate. I look forward to getting home in the evening and vegetating on the sofa in front of DVDs and videogames. On the eve of 2007, I made a stab at trying to change, but it didn’t amount to anything. I started writing a diary, which I intended to put online as a secret blog where no one would know my identity. The blog was intended to be an adventure in selflessness, where I would document the various things I was doing for others and hopefully grow spiritually and inspire others. I didn’t have anything to write, because I didn’t have the heart for the quest. And I’m not even talking about anything grand here. My intention was merely to keep a look-out for situations where someone was in need of my help, and to offer my help. But I’m so wrapped up in my own selfish pursuits that I don’t keep my eyes open for others’ needs. And on the occasions when I do help, it’s rarely done with a sense of joy in being useful; I consider it an irritation to be overcome as quickly as possible, so that I can get back to the more important work of serving myself.

Are any other Christians relating to this? Because I don’t think I’m the only one who is affected. I think this is a problem that’s affecting the whole Church. Our lives are steeped in mediocrity. And we’re like that simply because we belong to a society that teaches us to be like that. We’re Capitalists, but we’ve forgotten that we’re called to be in the world but not of the world. The sad thing is that I’ve lived most of my Christian life without realising my responsibility. We can easily fall into the trap of measuring our spiritual growth in terms of the avoidance of sin, whereas it should be about the pursuit of the highest good. At least I’m no longer blind to the problem.

So what’s next? Well, I don’t think I’ll be jet-setting off to the Third World, or anything so radical, but I think I need to start seriously keeping my eyes peeled for ways that I can be of help to others. I have a couple of brief memories from the past, where I beat the odds and did something special for somebody when everyone else was blind to the opportunity for service, but these really are only a couple of memories - although they are the very best. Better even than receiving the very first copy of my novel in the post. Sadly, these memories are not characteristic of me.

I hope this post is an encouragement to other Christians to “beat the odds,” and I hope it shows the nay-sayers that there’s a lot more to the Christian life than merely a crutch to lean on. When you read between the lines, Christianity is not for the faint of heart.

The Christian book minefield

The first time I walked into my local Christian bookstore, as a fresh-faced seventeen-year-old convert, I was amazed. The shelves were crammed with literature on all aspects of life; many intriguing titles leapt out at me, and I found myself wishing I could learn everything at once. Nowadays, in stark contrast to what I felt then, I can hardly walk through that shop without becoming depressed.

What has changed? Nothing except the sharpness of my mind. You see, it takes years as a Christian to learn that our religion is littered with divided opinions on all sorts of things, from whether God made the world in six days to whether we’re now living in the Last Days. There are Christian authors who deny the existence of hell; the Baptists are never going to agree with the Presbyterians on infant baptism; then you have the Reformed Presbyterians who shun the use of musical instruments in worship while the Pentecostals prefer a full band. Authors from all these camps and more are lining the shelves of your local Christian bookstore.

The Christian publishing industry can curse me for saying this, but my advice to young Christians is this: avoid! Unless you want to become confused and opinionated in all the wrong ways, stay away from Christian literature. Well, maybe that’s too strong, because I’m not entirely taking my own advice to heart. I recently read a book called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. I read it because of a friend’s recommendation and because the theme of the book was masculinity - something I’ve never heard talked about in Christianity before. And, you know, it was a good book. I learned some important things about what it means to be a man. But I read it with my “BS detector” on full power, and some elements in the book just didn’t ring true. If I were reading it as a young Christian, I think the book would have helped me in some ways and harmed me in others. This is the curse of Christian literature.

Here’s a few pointers to help you step through the minefield and come out unscathed:

1. Read your Bible. It’s what God gave us, and it’s there for the taking. We can’t very well go wrong with that, can we? But it’s hard to read. And that, I suspect, is why so many readers buy Christian books - as an alternative to reading their Bible. That’s a dangerous place to be: your head full of other people’s interpretations of the Bible before you’ve filled it with the Bible itself.

2. Read commentaries. Commentaries are designed to help you interpret difficult passages in the Bible. There are good ones and bad ones; the good ones help you explain the meaning of a text by clarifying the translation from the original language and explaining the history and culture of Bible times. The not-so-useful ones are sermons-in-print.

3. Read biographies. Reading about the exploits of another Christian can be encouraging, and is fairly safe because we’re dealing in the facts of a person’s life rather than his wobbly Bible interpretations.

4. Read other Christian literature if you must, but only when you’ve already grounded yourself in a solid knowledge of the Bible.

Growing in knowledge as a Christian is unfortunately a matter of unlearning as well as learning. Right now, I’m in the middle of unlearning some things. A few years ago, a friend of mine became a Roman Catholic. After we got past the initial heated discussions, I started coming round to the idea that maybe the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity is legitimate. One of the breakthroughs was in reading a Catholic book called An Exorcist Tells His Story by Gabriele Amorth; I was amazed by the centrality of Christ in the author’s writing. Some fellow Protestants may be reading this with horror, but it takes you to read something by a Catholic to help you see through the propaganda you’ve imbibed over the years.

What I learned from being an agnostic

Once upon a time, I stopped believing in a personal God, and this lasted for a couple of years. I was an agnostic (which lots of people are), meaning that I did not know for sure whether God existed or not. It’s worth noting that agnosticism is the same as atheism at a practical level; since you can’t be sure that God exists, you shape your life around the idea that he does not. I want to talk about the impact that agnosticism (or atheism) had on my life.

One of the big things an agnostic has to let go of is the belief in an afterlife. Some might argue against that point, but when you take a personal God out of the equation, all you are left with is an impersonal universe. You may have some kind of faint hope of an afterlife, in the same way that you might have the faint hope of God being real, but it’s not the same thing as believing in it. For all intents and purposes, you’re not expecting anything but oblivion when you die. But maybe that’s OK. Maybe it’s true, and maybe it’s something that can be faced.

The problem was that my own future death was going to make a mockery out of all my accomplishments in life; nothing would have any ultimate significance. Thousands of precious memories would die along with my soul or spirit or essense or whatever it is that gives us life.

But one day something clicked: life was only meaningless when it was lived for the self. A life lived for the benefit of others was vastly different. Anything you do for someone else, without expectation of reward, is meaningful; you may die tomorrow, but the impact you had on someone else’s life goes on.

I thought I had grasped something vastly important about the meaning of life. Memories are not important; personal ambitons are not important; your self is not important; the only thing that goes on without you is how you’ve treated your fellow man. Suddenly Christianity seemed so egotistical, with its emphasis on the soul surviving death. Even the selflessness talked about in the Bible is not presented without some kind of future reward. I, however, had discovered a way of life that was truly selfless.

Something still didn’t sit right, though. If you make your own ego unimportant, how can others be truly important, when they are just like you? You may impact another’s life for good, but that other person will die one day, just like everyone else after him. If there is no ultimate significance behind the self, then is my philosophy perhaps just a smokescreen? Things look even grimmer when you consider that our sun has a lifespan. One day, millions of years in the future, all life on earth will cease, and what significance will our lives have then? None.

The idea of evil was also something of a problem to me, but not in the way you might think. With God out of the picture, I did not become more evil, I became more good, because I did not have God to lean on for strength and forgiveness. I knew it was all up to me not to make a mess of my life. As human beings, we all struggle against the temptation to do wrong, but I could never quite shake the idea that there was something more to some of those wrongs than mere “bad behaviour” - something almost demonic. I couldn’t categorise every sin in my life as mere mischief. But this knowledge didn’t make sense in a universe without a God (and a devil).

Another thing that would not sit right with me as an agnostic was that popular opinion told me I should side with the pro-choicers and the gay rights people. Looking around me, it seems to be fairly constant that if you’re an atheist you’re pro-choice and if you’re a Christian you’re pro-life. Likewise with homosexuality. It’s beyond the scope of this article for me to go into any kind of debate on those issues. Suffice it to say that here I was as a lonely agnostic, still believing that the Christians had got it right.

It’s almost funny that I found myself as an agnostic who had taken hold of the entire Christian ideal for living, but left out the faith.

But the worst thing about agnosticism is the depression. It’s not a big thing, just a minor irritation that gnaws at you. I could be out on my bike, enjoying a cycle through beautiful countryside on a warm summer day. All five senses in my body are feeding me pleasure and telling me to enjoy myself, but my joy is crushed by a subtle sense of gloom that never quite goes away. It’s a nagging voice that says, “Someday you will be dead, and it will be as if you had never been here doing this.”

And that gloom, friends, is one of the reasons why agnosticism (and atheism) is the wrong philosophy of life. If you learn one thing from an experience like mine, learn this: surely man was not meant to live a depressed life. Surely the depression is a signal that I’m not living the way I’m supposed to be living, a pointer to the idea that life must have ultimate meaning. And for that to be possible, there must be an afterlife. And for that to be possible, there must be a personal God.

Encounter with a dragonfly

Here in Northern Ireland there aren’t many exotic bugs going around, so it was with surprise that I noticed this little critter sitting on the pavement during a Saturday morning walk. It is, of course, a dragonfly. I haven’t seen many in my lifetime, and never one this big (take a look at my thumb for an idea of scale). At first I thought it was dead, but on closer inspection I spotted the occasional tiny movement on its head.

I decided to go home and return with a camera. Five minutes later I was back on the scene, expecting the bug to be gone. It was still there; something must have been very wrong with it. My only other experience with bugs was encountering a bumble bee that had run out of steam; it was walking along the pavement, unable to fly. I fed it a bit of half-chewed apple, and watched with fascination as its little proboscis came out and sucked up the fuel, after which it took off. I tried the same tactic with the dragonfly, not knowing anything about its diet. Although the photo shows it on the apple, it is merely sitting there, completely disinterested. On closer inspection, I noticed it had mandibles similar to a caterpillar, so I went home a second time and came back with a spinach leaf from my fridge. Again, I found the dragonfly exactly where I had deposited it. It showed no interest in the leaf whatsoever.

At one one point, when I was on my knees on the pavement, with my head close to the ground and my butt in the air, and my bike lying next to me, two older women stopped their car next to me. I thought they were looking for directions, but when I approached, one of them said (with a look of grave concern), “Are you all right? Did you fall off your bicycle?”

I had a brainwave. I remembered witnessing massive dragonflies on a holiday to Majorca when I was eleven; so they thrive in the heat, I supposed. Maybe this guy was just plain cold. So, after getting the fly to crawl onto the leaf, I carried it over to a nearby copse of trees. It was much warmer in there, and sheltered from the wind. No sooner had I put the bug down than it started walking about and flexing its wings, clearly much more comfortable. And that was that. Diagnosis correct.

Afterwards, I did a little research on dragonflies. This from Wikipedia: “The life cycle of the dragonfly, from egg to death of adult, varies from six months to as much as six or seven years. Female dragonflies lay eggs in or near water, often in or on floating or emergent plants. Most of the life cycle is spent in the larval (nymph) form, beneath the water surface, using internal gills to breathe, and catching other invertebrates or even vertebrates such as tadpoles and fish. In the adult (flying) stage, larger species of dragonfly can live as long as four months.” (Read full article.) What a cool creature! Reminds me a bit of TV’s Invasion. The species I found is called the Libellula quadrimaculata or Four-spotted Chaser. Turns out it’s one of the commonest dragonflies in Ireland after all. Still, it’s new to me, and it was a great photo opportunity.

Maybe you think it’s weird that I should invest so much time in a tiny insect. Well, if you’ll permit me to go a little spiritual on you: the whole animal kingdom, large and small, is wonderfully diverse and complex and beautiful. And it’s a reflection of God’s creative power. I love it. Think about that the next time you’re about to put your foot on a spider.

God’s free gifts

I’ve been swindled three times this year so far. Back in January an eBay gangster refused me a refund to the tune of £70. Lately, when I moved into my new house, I had to pay £310 to get the oil burner replaced due to the negligence of the previous owner. Then I purchased a wardrobe, which turned out to be so badly made that I arranged for a refund, and the shop held back a £50 “handling fee” (so called). Pah! But you know something? None of it really matters.

I’ve been doing a lot of cycling lately, winding my way around the country roads not far from where I live. I like nothing better than a warm day, with the sun shining down, the wind in my face, and the green countryside all around me. This kind of thing is one of God’s many free gifts to mankind. And we take it for granted, don’t we? Actually, having greatly missed living at this end of town for the past three years, I’m certainly not taking it for granted at the moment. I’m realising afresh just how important these gifts are - way more important than how much money I’ve got sitting in my bank account. Those small financial losses I suffered seem even smaller when I think about the things that God gives freely to us. You can’t put the countryside in a cage and call it your own; it’s a feast for the eyes that God gives to everyone, and it seems much more important to me than all our obsessing over wealth and the ownership of things. There is so much enjoyment to be had in life that has nothing whatsoever to do with getting.

My 13-year war with doubt

There’s a certain type of atheist that lets out a big guffaw and says something like, “What kind of a person believes in God these days? I mean, come on. Some people just haven’t got a clue.” I can’t stand a person like that. Not becuase he’s an athiest, but because he ridicules the most intense and frustrating debate of my entire life. I’ve struggled with the question of God’s existence on and off for thirteen years, and this guy is basically saying I’m an idiot for not getting it straight away.

Literally days after I became a Christian (aged seventeen) my beliefs came under immediate attack by my best friend, whom I suddenly discovered held pretty strong athiestic views. Still in my spiritual nappy, I was no match for this guy, and within a few days, my faith was snuffed.

But it didn’t stay dead for very long. I discovered that many of the apparent contraditions in the Bible could be resolved. But sooner or later, something would come along to make me doubt again - some big whopper of a contradition that I couldn’t ever imagine being solved. As a young Christian, the learning process was a difficult one. I sometimes envied less intellectual people, wishing I could be more like them. Wishing I could just accept things without the need for evidence. I was the kind of person who needed to act on what he had learned. I could not simply shelve information in my brain and act on it at a later date. If I found out something that made me doubt the validity of Christianity, I needed to act on it now.

Those early years were torturous. I would become anxious that I was throwing my life away, believing in a pipedream. I would go out walking at night, praying that God would let me know for sure that he was real. And then the lack of any answer would only serve to increase my doubts, and my anxiety. Christianity is, after all, something which affects your whole life - that is, if you’re prepared to become more than just a typical churchgoer whose religion amounts to two hours on a Sunday. If Christianity was true, I wanted it to be real and vibrant and life-changing. If it was false, I wanted nothing to do with it. I gave up Christianity and re-affirmed it again so often that my mates used to say, “Sloan’s away on another trip again,” when I’d start believing.

As for the later years, looking back, I’m aware of something that I wasn’t aware of at the time. Sometimes my reasons for abandoning Christianity were not based on reason at all, but on emotion. Sometimes my religious life would become so agonising, for one reason or another, that I looked for a way out. All I had to do was take a look inside my head and grasp hold of a few unresolved arguments against Christianity. They weren’t hard to find. Presto! Instant agnostic. Then, after a while, the agnostic life would get me depressed, and I’d look inside my head for a reason to believe again. I would find it, and presto! Instant Christian. I’m probably over-simplifying things here, but it’s worth noting this dangerous and deceptive trend that our brains are capable of.

Let’s cut to the chase. Now that I’ve been a solid Christian for about three years, I feel some justification in finally closing the book on that massive period of doubt in my life. So, what is it that makes things different now?

Well, what I finally learned to do was to take a step back from all the noise of all the debates, and take a very simple look at the universe and our place in it. On the one hand you have earth, teeming with life, beautiful and complex; on the other you have the rest of the solar system and beyond, vast and lifeless (insofar as we have discovered, of course). Now, I don’t want to minimise the wonder of the heavens - astronomy is fabulous - but there is a contrast here between earth and the universe that people need to be more aware of.

This contrast is not always seen, due to a sort of “scientific propaganda,” for want of a better term. To a spiritually-minded person, the growth of a plant from a seed is a wonderful mystery to behold. To a scientifically-minded person, it is a process to be probed and understood and catalogued. Too many people in this world think like the latter person, when really they need to learn to think both scientifically and spiritually. The propaganda that I spoke of is when science is allowed to convey the vague idea that mankind now understands the way things work and why they work that way - that life is nothing more than a series of biological reactions. But the truth is, nobody knows why life happens. We’ve put life under a microscope; we’ve observed how things behave; we’ve tampered with genetics. But nobody knows why things do what they do.

Even if someone proved evolution, you are still left with the wonder of why creatures evolve. We’ve allowed science to take the mystery out of this planet, when all it has really done is put labels on things.

All I’m trying to say is this: the big reason why I believe in God (and I mean a personal God, as opposed to some mystical force) is because I’ve finally started seeing that there is something going on here with this planet that is unique and wonderful and unexplainable by science.

You can tell me that life happened here on this planet because all the conditions were just right. But all you’re doing is sticking labels on things again. Even if I conceded that there might be another big blue ball out there somewhere, you still haven’t answered the deeper question: why do the processes of life exist at all?

This clicked with me three years ago. And that is why I haven’t doubted the reality of God since. And what’s really great about it is that anyone, regardless of their IQ, can grasp this contrast between earth and the universe. Even though I’ve ranted for ages, the observation is a pretty simple one. The big problem is seeing through the pseudo-scientific fog we’ve all been subjected to.

My first steps as a Christian

I’d like to share my Christian testimony with you, but there’s just one problem: I don’t have one. Well, what I mean is, I don’t have a dramatic story about recovery from alcholism or drugs or crime. You see, I was a nice guy, and nice guys tremble at the question “Would you like to give your testimony at the meeting tomorrow night?” because we have nothing interesting to say. When I get asked that question, I usually end up talking about all the stuff that happened after I became a Christian, because it was a rocky road for me. But we’ll get to that later.

In short, I became a Christian when I was seventeen. I did it because I believed in God, and because somebody enlightened me regarding what the Bible says about salvation and damnation. There were no tears of repentence, just a quiet willingness to follow God’s ways and an expectation that something which had been missing from my life was about to fall into place. Before I made the commitment, I asked myself if this decision would mean I would lose out on the best things in life. But I knew the answer was no; I understood that God’s wisdom was perfect, so his way must be the best way to live. I didn’t realise at the time how deep that thought was. You see, I’ve since met plenty of people who don’t grasp it; they believe in God but won’t commit. They say “Maybe next year” or whatever. Aside from the risk you run with your soul if you should die unexpectedly, the mentality behind this attitude just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t give God proper recognition as the one who knows perfectly what’s best for us. But then, I guess sin is pretty seductive. To my shame, I’ve learned more about that since becoming a Christian than I ever did beforehand.

People like me have one important thing they can say in their testimony: sin is sin, no matter how great or small. All of it is against God. And we are dealing with a God who demands perfection. The small-time sinner needs forgiveness just as much as the big-time variety.

So, this expectation of something falling into place - did it happen? Well, the answer to that is yes, but not in a permanent way. Only weeks after becoming a Christian, a fierce battle began with an enemy called Doubt. And I would fight this enemy for thirteen years before I would win. And that’s a story for next time.

Looking back … and forward

I recall two really good things about 2005: (1) making the film Don’t Look in the Attic with Andrew Harrison, and (2) getting 80% of my second novel written. But overall 2005 was probably the worst year of my life. The theme of 2005 for me was “loss.” (1) My mother died. (2) I went behind the back of someone I love in order to stop them harming themselves, and now I live in fear that they hate me for it. (3) In work, the two guys I chummed with have now moved on to other jobs. (4) Of the few friends I keep, one is shortly moving to America permanently. (5) As a Christian I have lost ground in a big way, struggling with a vice I thought I’d overcome for good.

There’s a prayer that goes something like, “Lord, give me the strength to bear the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Well, number five on my list is something I can change. I’m going to start by attempting to read the Bible in a year again. I’ve done it before successfully, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it turned out to be the most productive year I’ve experienced in my Christian life. This is something I would like to do every year, if I can manage it. Imagine the knowledge you’d have if you could say in ten year’s time, “I’ve read the Bible ten times.”

I decided I needed a reading plan, so I had a hunt online. There are plenty to choose from, but this one struck me as best, chiefly because it splits the Book of Proverbs and Psalms up over the course of the year (from experience, Proverbs cannot be learned all at once).

The only other thing I’m determined to achieve in 2006 is to get Chionophobia finished and published.

Dealing with death

On Friday 1st July I lost my mother to cancer. For the past few years I’d been aware of my mother’s age and I’ve sometimes played over in my mind what it would be like to be at her funeral. The scenario never went well in my imagination, because my mother made no claim to being a Christian, and I always pictured some travesty of a sermon being uttered about my mother being at rest, etc. The way it played out in reality was very different.

A few days before she died, I mustered up enough courage to talk to her about the Lord. It’s always a hard thing to talk to your elders about salvation, because the gospel is a confrontational thing and generally it’s wrong to get confrontational with your parents. I was driving home the 25 miles from Belvoir Park hospital, playing over in my mind what I could possibly say to my mother, and just when I was almost home, I swung the car around and headed straight back to her, determined to get this done and avoid living with the terrible regret of keeping my mouth shut. I got a good response from her; no excuses, just a promise to put things right with God. It’s not an absolute guarantee, but I can live with that.

Death hits people in different ways. Some get angry at God, others depressed. I’m at peace with what has happened, and it’s because of the knowledge I’ve gained from the Bible. I understand that eternity matters far more than our short lives; that this life is a training ground for the life to come. I also understand that the pain and suffering we endure are part and parcel of living in a fallen world; whether you believe the Adam and Eve account to be factual or allegorical, the idea is that something dreadful happened a long time ago - some kind of fall - that put the world into the state it’s been in throughout recorded history; it’s too shortsighted to throw this back in God’s face and blame him for the death of a loved one. Being a Christian really helps you at a time like this.

Mum has always been a mystery to me. She took me to church now and then when I was a kid, but had no definite commitment to Christianity. If I could sum her up in one words, that word would be “selfless.” Over the past few years, I became acutely aware of how much she lived her life for me. And that’s not the moral quality of the damned, is it? To a lesser extent, I learned a little of this selfless devotion, when someone special drifted into my life for a couple of years - someone I just decided one day to start praying for on a daily basis, and never stopped. It’s a wonderful thing when your happiness depends on someone else’s happiness.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

Finding stability in your walk with God

Something really important clicked with me last night when I was lying in bed thinking. I was musing about how there are times in my life when it’s easy (or easier) to be a good person; times when temptations seem to hold very little power and I’m able to sense a stability about my life that makes me feel very happy. Then there are times when I feel like I’m way too close to becoming a different person; when I’m dealing with all kinds of secret thoughts, fighting off temptations left right and centre, feeling quite unstable and quite depressed about it. Why does this happen? What causes a person who wants to please God lose his way so easily?

I got thinking about King David, when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, then arranged for her husband’s murder, to cover up the fact that he’d got her pregnant (2 Samuel 11). What a mess! And to think this was the same David who was once a shepherd boy who had enough faith in God to stand in front of a Philistine giant (Goliath), armed with nothing but a slingslot.

There’s something important about David’s life, when he committed adultery. The first verse of 2 Samuel 11 says: In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. David was a king who had gotten lazy in his duty, and it was his undoing: One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her.

I remembered that as Christians, we’re supposed to be different from others in the world. We don’t think the we they do; we don’t tolerate the same things they do; we don’t accept things the way they are just because everyone else is doing it. We’re part of the kingdom of God, and we do things the way God wants.

So, the big question is, are we living too close to the world? Are there things in our lives that need to change? And is this why I’m having so many problems struggling with sin? Yes, it is. I get lazy as a Christian and I start tolerating things that I know are wrong. Before I know it, I’m on a downward spiral. At some point I always manage to pull myself out of the hole, and slap some sense into myself, but now I have finally clarified why I keep falling in in the first place.

This is really important for me because a year and a half ago I moved away from my parents and got my own house. It’s all mine, and I can make any lifestyle change I want without consulting anybody. For many, that means the freedom to party, but for me it’s an opportunity to create an environment that’s free from temptation, where nothing bad exists; a place where I can rest and feel the presence of God.

It’s up to me now to stop getting lazy in relationship with God - to stop tolerating the little sins that keep wanting to worm their way back in, and to make whatever changes I can in my life to tempation as far away from me as I can.

When God’s plans seem to backfire

I discovered a very special little nugget of truth recently when reading the book of Exodus. To summarise: The people of Israel have been living as slaves in Egypt for centuries. God chooses one Israelite man, Moses, to be his spokesperson - to demand Israel’s release before Pharoah. First, he goes to the Israelites and tells them that God has heard their prayers and is going to free them. Then, when Moses confronts Pharoah, the Egyptian ruler basically says, “I obviously haven’t been keeping you Israelites busy enough.” And he doubles their workload. Israel’s joy evaporates, as they realise they were better off before Moses opened his mouth. It must have felt like a slap in the face from the Lord, as they saw God’s intentions literally going backwards. But God did free his people - just not immediately. It was his plan to do so through many miracles (ten plagues and a path through the middle of the sea), so that everyone would know of his power.

The important lesson I drew from this Bible story is this: When you see events conspiring against you, assume nothing! It doesn’t mean God isn’t powerful enough to help you; it doesn’t mean he has turned against you; and your experience certainly isn’t unique. God blesses those who love him, but sometimes you have to feel your way blind through some tough experiences to get to that blessing. Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better, and only God knows why that is. However, sometimes you do get to look back on it all later and can say, “Yes, I see it now. And I’m glad it happened this way.” But when you’re right in the middle of it all, the important thing is to have faith.

Reflecting on a difficult summer

Summer was tough, this year. My workplace (a school) largely turns into a ghost town over summer, which means I spend a lot of time alone in there for two months. On top of that, now than I’m a home-owner (and single), I was spending a lot of my evening time alone, too. I found that it affected me in ways I didn’t like, and I was very glad when things got back to normal in September.

Summer was also tough on me spiritually. I found my enthusiasm for Bible study and prayer and church waning drastically. I let things slide in a big way and it became increasingly difficult to live a holy life. In the end, the only thing for it was to pick a short time each day, reserve it for God, and absolutely force myself to sit down and read a chapter of the Bible then pray for a couple of minutes, while every impulse in my mind is telling me to do something else. Makes you wonder if there isn’t something (or someone) else affecting my mind, if you get my meaning.

I’ll tell you something else, this kind of experience is something that the critics of Christianity should note - those who think we’re weak-minded and in need an emotional crutch to lean on. Being a Christian is hard work at times. Sometimes giving up gets very attractive, and the only things keeping you going are your confidence in its truth and your sense of duty to God.

I still haven’t really got back my passion for the Bible, but I’m persevering, keeping in mind that it’s the things I’m learning bit by bit are helping me to be a better person. And in the future I’ll be able to be more useful to God.