Friday, August 27, 2010

On the Edge...

I came across the photography of Yan Seiler a while back. I love the way he captures people and gives you glimpses into the life of so many different cultures... especially people groups who are more on the edge of society. I wanted to post nearly all his photos on here, but instead i recommend you check out his website. His shots are powerfully emotive and compassionate... particularly his series 'The Outsiders', which shows people suffering from leprosy in India, and his series documenting the lives of those living in garbage dumps in Cambodia.

Photos:

Thursday, August 26, 2010

His words..

In Your words there is certainty. The only words in existance that come with a life-time guarantee. I'd like to live inside Your words.. like little caves, take refuge in them. Hide away in the curls of each letter, clinging on to each stroke. Your words abide forever. I'd like to set sail in them.. in Your boat; carved and knitted from Your thoughts, Your phrases, Your promises. I'm sure such a boat could never sink. It will carry me safely to Your shores. Your words are life, as YOU are The Word. So there is no better place to abide. Let me abide in Your words forever.

- I wrote the above in my diary a year ago, i just found it and it reminded me again of the truth that is found in God's word alone.... truth that is so much richer and provides so much more security than all the World's lies...

Stoop Sitting...

Everyone Forever Now - "Stoop Sitting" from Everynone on Vimeo.

I like this little video a lot....

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Hopeless??

" Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing. There is no-one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sore, no healing for you. All your allies have forgotten you; they care nothing for you. I have struck you as an enemy would and punished you as would the cruel, because your guilt is so great and your sins are many. Why do you cry out over your wound, your pain that has no cure? Because of your great guilt and many sins I have done these things to you.......... 'But i will restore you to health and heal your wounds,' declares the Lord, 'because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no-one cares.' This is what the Lord says: "'I will restore..... and have compassion..... the city will be rebuild on her ruins... From them will come songs of thanksgiving.... I will bring them honour.... You will be my people and I will be your God.'" - Jeremiah 30.12-32

I have always thought this is an incredible passage. I read it again today. It strikes me as incredible because God says to Israel that their wounds are so bad that they are completely incurable.. there is absolutely no hope for them... no one who can restore them, no way for them to be healed... literally NONE.. everyone has given up on them, they have no allies left... NO-ONE cares for them anymore... basically, according to what God says, there's not a hope in the World for them.. they are afflicted, in pain, wounded and crying out and their state is beyond healing, beyond a cure.. Not only this, but it's actually caused by their own sin, it's not just a case where they are suffering because of the sin of others, or because we live in a fallen World and sometimes affliction happen to us.... but they are guilty, they are actually to blame for this. If there is an example of an utterly hopeless situation then this is it. YET despite ALL this, God then says the most amazing and incredible thing... right in the midst of declaring how incurable they are, how sinful they are, He suddenly says "BUT I WILL RESTORE YOU TO HEALTH AND HEAL YOUR WOUNDS." Just like that. Despite everything, God then declares that actually, there IS hope after all... that even though they have hit rock-bottom, even though there is no hope left in the World, even though they are black in their sin, even though they can do nothing to heal themselves, God will still come and restore them. And the reason He gives for coming to them and restoring and healing them is this: because they are outcasts, because no-one cares for them. It's not because they have thousands of people pleading on their behalf, it's not because they've suddenly sorted themselves out, it's not because they've found some worldly way to be better... it's not because they've done anything great, it's simply because they are nobodies.. they are outcasts.. they are sinners.. they are afflicted... and no-one cares for them. God is simply demonstrating the absolute depths of His mercy and compassion and love and choosing to come and save and heal and restore them, just because He loves them and because it pleases Him to do so.

This honestly gives me such a sense of hope. I was thinking yesterday about how weird prayer is.. i was thinking about how some people might have thousands of people praying for them, but others may have never had anyone pray for them at all.. and i was wondering if the way God acted towards them depended on this. To be honest, i was thinking it seemed a little unfair, that God may show favour to one person because they have had so many prayers offered up on their behalf, whereas someone else, who lives all alone with no support and no-one to pray for them, may be overlooked.. but this passage suggests otherwise... and i'm really glad about that... as much as i value prayer and think we are called to plead on each other's behalf, i'm still so glad that God doesn't ignore those that no-one cares for, that no-one pleads for. He still sees them. He still goes to them. He still chooses to heal them.. even if not a single person on earth sees or cares. And i'm glad that even if sickness or afflictions are caused by our own sin (and obviously that's not always the case), but even if they are.. then there is still hope.. and God still promises to heal and restore and declares that we are still HIS people and HE is still our God.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Friday, August 20, 2010

LOVE

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on it's own way; It is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things." 1 Cor 13:4-7

I was thinking about the word love recently and how many different ways we can use it and how it has different meanings. Often people use the word love to describe things that they like; things that they appreciate or admire or see something good or beautiful in. Like we say that we love a piece of music, or love a sunset... what we mean is that there is something in that music and in the sunset that appeals to our senses, that makes a sense of appreciation rise up within us, that makes us feel a fondness towards that thing. We might not even know exactly why, but quite simply the other thing brings us some level of joy, which makes us love it. But i was thinking how this type of love very much depends upon some merit in the object that we love. One of the ways in which we love God is probably like this... we see something good and beautiful in Him and we love Him for it.. we love Him, because He first loved us... even the Bible says that... we appreciate Him.. we admire Him.. we want to praise Him... quite simply there is something altogether beautiful and love-able about Him that makes us love Him. And i think we often love people like this too.... often we might say to a friend that we love them, and we are basing it on things we see in them which we love... certain qualities and attributes, certain mannerisms... just things that we value about them. I don't think this is a bad thing... i think it's good to love people like this, it's good to see the best in them, it's good to appreciate things about them... and there are definitely so many things to love in every human being we come across, because every person is made in the image of God. So i think this is definitely part of what love means, but still i'm pretty sure it falls short of what the Bible often means by love. The problem with this type of love alone is that it's almost inactive - it doesn't require us to do anything, or give anything as such.. except that we give praise and we appreciate what we see in the other..... infact, rather than asking us to give, it almost demands something of the other person instead... it demands a love-able characteristic in them... It requires something good in the thing being loved.

However, i think there is a whole other depth to the meaning of love that is far beyond a simple appreciation of something or someone, and i think that this it the type of love that God is getting at when He asks us to love others. It's the way in which He loves us... He didn't originally love us because of good things He saw in us.. it wasn't that He just admired us... but He loved us while we were still sinners. He felt affection and tenderness towards us not because we deserved it, or merited it in the same way that a beautiful sunset might, but simply because He chose to. I can't get my head round this. All i know is that this is what He asks us to do for others too. He asks us to love even our enemies... It's not an inactive love, He's not simply asking us to admire them for certain things as such, but He's asking us to actively show them an attitude of love.. to be patient and kind towards them, rather than rude or resentful, to forgive them, to give to them when they are in need, to bear with them, support them, encourage them and help them. It's not demanding something of the other person... but it's demanding something of US. It's the love that asks us to give ourselves to others, to feed the hungry and visit the sick and care for widows and orphans, to clothe those who are naked, to share truth with those who live under lies.

The main difference i noticed between these two types of love, is that the first requires a positive thing in the person, whereas the second reaches out to fill a deficit. And the reason it can do that is because it is actually LOVE itself that contains everything good and beautiful, because love IS God and He is the only One who actually is perfectly good and beautiful and worthy of admiration and praise. He knows that He is the only source of anything good and if we do see those things in others, it comes from Him anyway.... so what He asks of us, is not to just admire things in others, but to love others in a way which lets His very self live in us and overflow from us and impart His goodness to them. What i'm getting at, is that in a way, the fewer characteristics that someone has that we think are love-able, the more they probably need love... because love itself has a redemptive and restorative effect... it bears fruit, it's the source of life and goodness... in our act of loving others we are letting God, who is love, flood into that person.. and He is the one who is the source of anything that we may later appreciate in them. I guess it's a little like land that is completely parched.. the more dry and cracked it is, the more it needs water... it would be stupid to say that the land had to be looking lush and green and overflowing with flowers and trees BEFORE we ever watered it... it needs the water to turn out like that.. and if it's just bare, with no flowers or trees that doesn't mean we withhold water, it means we give water even more.. because it is truly in need of it.

At the same time though, i'm not suggesting that love is devoid of affection or feeling.. even though this love is more active and doesn't require anything of the other person, i think we are still asked to love deeply and warmly and to feel true affection towards the person, not just do things out of duty. And the only way that is possible is to ask God for His love for others, and to let that be what abides in us. Our own love is feeble and half-hearted and nothing at all in comparison with His. My desire is to let Him live in me so fully, that His love and His heart for others naturally overflows from me.

Skin Stories....


I had a few sleepless nights recently and spontaneously decided to doodle on my skin... maybe not the best way to spend a sleepless night, but never mind... i did several different doodles on different days and when you put them together they kind of tell a story.. at least a story that makes sense to me, even if no-one else would understand it. I was going to turn it into a stop-motion.. not cos i think it's good, i don't (they are doodles and the photos are bad and there are annoying shadows from the flash due to the fact that it was late at night...), but more cos i wasted the time doing it, so figured at least it would have some meaning for me... but i can't get the stop motion to work, so here are a few random photos from it instead!..

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Light...

"I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less that God wishes - that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens" - Spurgeon

If you could paint with flower heads..


The light today was so nice - i kinda wanted to use the flowers as a paintbrush and draw on the sky with them....

Shadows..

"They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the vine.... It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit." - Hosea 14:7-8

The shadows of flowers...


I loved the way the flowers cast shadows on my hand today... i could have sat there for hours and watched them dancing from the movement of the wind...

Friday, August 06, 2010

Masquerading signs and wild flowers....

I had to go out to get some stamps today and on the way back i was tired, so decided to follow a footpath which i presumed would be a short-cut home. But i was wrong. Very wrong. I walked for ages and ended up coming out on a main-road about 5 times further away from my house than i had been to begin with! I think i laughed out-loud at this point. However, despite the tiredness, this footpath did take me on a nice walk... through fields of cows and down pretty paths which were laced with wild-flowers and blackberries. I broke the law and picked a few so i could put them in a little vase in my room.

One of the fields that i walked past had so many poppies in it... i love poppies and really wanted to be able to pick one, but there was a barbed wire fence so i couldn't go in.... so i whispered a little prayer instead, that maybe i could find a poppy by the side of the path.. and a few minutes later i did. It was a bruised and battered poppy, but i loved it and it made me smile, cos i figured God has put it there just for me.. and then i saw a couple more unbruised poppies, which i couldn't help but pick. I know maybe that was bad of me, but i decided that seeing as God has answered my childish simple prayer, then maybe He wouldn't mind if i picked it and brought it home to put on my window-sill and to remind me that He hears even our little whispers and bizarre requests! Anyway, there is absolutely no point whatsoever to this post... except i'm grateful that even on long-detour-routes there are things to make you smile on the way.

Sitting by the sea

Yesterday, on my way home from seeing a good friend of mine, i stopped on the seafront and sat on the pebbles for a while. I didn't read much, or listen to music, or do anything at all, i just sat there. But it was nice. Really nice. I felt completely at peace and like it was good to just sit, and to just be. I watched these kids playing in the sea - personally i would have thought it was far too cold to be in the sea, and obviously the kids parents thought the same - they were huddled together under several layers... but the children themselves were running around completely free... half-naked, uninhibited and unconcerned by the wind or the temperature, or anything at all. There was another little boy who was standing on this rock. His parents were trying to change his nappy. He was obviously so excited to be by the sea that he was just standing there, twirling round and round in circles, whilst his Dad attempted to clean him up and change his pants and his Mum was trying to wipe his nose. It made me smile. The way he was so free, and so unaware of what his parents were doing for him. And i loved the way that his parents just let him twirl, and just let him be, even though they had to change his pants and wipe his nose and completely take care of him at that same moment. And i realised again how much joy children give and children have, even though they don't achieve great things, or try to prove anything - i mean they don't even take care of themselves, or know how to make themselves clean. They let other people do it for them. They are completely humble, they know how to receive. They know how to just be. You can learn a lot from kids.