Early Mornings, Wisdom More Than Knowledge All those years ago when I worked in radio, I loved the early morning journey into the middle of the city. I loved waking before the rest of the city and surveying her peacefulness as she woke. I loved watching the dawn from the 11th floor of the Peace Tower.. sun sliding over the harbour and the traffic slowly snaking it’s way in and out of the city centre.
I love early mornings still, when I’m at Eastercamp and I unlock the doors to the sanctuary space, waiting for the youth leaders to pile in. I love the emptiness of the enormous room, but how home-like it feels. I love the mist and fog of an early Waikato morning like nothing else on this earth.
I love early mornings now, just because the birds that sit in the macrocarpa outside my window, on my window sill, in the olive trees and on my tin roof are full of song, and the dawn feels like a slow golden glow rising over the horizon into my kitchen window.
I love early mornings on Tuesdays, because I gather with precious Jesus-hungry teenagers and we dig into the Word. I just love it. I love them with such a joy because they are full of goodness and challenge and life.
What’s so great is that this group is in dogged pursuit of wisdom, not knowledge. The knowledge is empty, but they have hearts that crave wisdom. I am relearning the wonder of Proverbs 3:5 .. leaning NOT on our own understanding.
Tide Is Turning, The Sun Is About To Break Forth The past couple of weeks have been really challenging. Tough times. But the sun is about to burst forth, and I’m looking forward to the feeling of the Sun’s rays on my face. I imagine this is sometimes what Peter would have felt like.. the constant ache of frustration and exhaustion.
I reckon Peter was probably much more of a thinker than what we traditionally give him credit for. Sure, he was a hot-head, but I can’t help but think that he pondered and mused on his actions, reactions and would’ve/could’ve equations. Methinks that’s when the dark shadows would have rolled in, self-doubt and anxiety would have shown themselves on his face.
Thankfully, me and Peter are standing on the shoreline together today, knowing that the sun is going to rise, bursting forth glorious light.
there are times when i’m lead to be graceful and times when i don’t care at all for the words that fall from my darkened lips, prayers and troubles, and ills
there are times when i know you’d like peaceful things times that i can’t measure up with my failings and worries my secrets and crimes, i too easily carry my heart on the line
i know you’ve got plenty of angels watching and i know you’d be hardpressed to leave me but i’m falling off the world… hold on to me it’s hard to face courage & darkness at once
there are times when i pray cos i should, not cos i’m able and times when i want everything complicated made simple when my life is just a shadow formed by your light
i know you got everything held up in time and i know you got me right where you want me but i’m falling off the world… hold on to me it’s hard to face courage & darkness at once
there are times, love, when my hands are so open it feels, love, i’ve got nothing at all left there are times, love, you need to take me by the hand so lend me your eyes, lend me your strength, hold on to me.
Grace, She Takes Her Place Interesting times are afoot in our community – we are working through a series in Revelation on the letters to the churches in morning services. Yenot taking her place at the table.sterday was on the letter to the church in Sardis. It was full of good and decent truth. It highlighted some truths to me that I hadn’t thought about recently, but I was not convicted, nor chided by it. I simply interacted with new knowledge and filed it.
Then in the evening service, the message was on the sinful, fallen woman hauled before Jesus by the Pharisees. It was dissected with methodical intent, designed to show the goodness of God’s grace and the justice, the cleverness with which Jesus saves her from the stones. It failed to hold my attention because I am familiar enough with the story, and the mechanics of Jesus’ interaction with the woman and the Pharisees that I’m not sure what else mechanical there is to know.
Is it I, that is failing so in not engaging purposefully with the truth presented to me? Or is it a case of Grace not taking her place at the table yet?
I become more and more compelled to believe that in this task of teaching, preaching, guiding and reminding the Bride of her identity in the “Truth”.. that we have taken again picked up the Law as the mode of conviction and behavioural discipline.. and I think this is more in reference to ‘other places’…
But it is always Grace that convicts me most. That compells truth into my heart. That demands a response from my too-often hard heart. Grace that softens and moulds at the same time. Grace that effortlessly holds the tension between my humanity and Christ’s divinity. Grace that abounds with forgiveness and holds my confessions. It is Grace that holds my hand and walks me back to the foot of the Cross. Grace that walks me back to my path. It is Grace that compells me to open the hands that have clenched tightly onto what I have deemed precious, usually some foolish thing. Grace that is content to enter a dark heart and bring light with her.
It is always Grace that brings the most poignant truth to life in my flesh.
Lord… you have heard the words of the poet behind every beauty there is some kind of pain my burgeoning labour weighs heavily on me with the unanswerable questions like “why do you believe?”
I have no answers but a voice that sounds like yours it’s a voice on the wind it’s the summer i long for it’s the hope in the picture i’m painting where late summer sun will warm my skin again please let me not be cold that long
Lord… you know the wrestle of my heart unseen the knifeblade of decision that sharpens on integrity where is my justice Lord, where is my hope? I have rested in your strength these years but i am weary, the skies darken over me You are not weary Lord, uphold me
everlasting one, draw near to me and i will yield to you make my confessions of longing and hold on to my breath catching my tongue on tears, kneeling on fist, head to floor oh in this moment not to be alone not to be in silence, not out of arms
and here is my whole heart and vision falling under shadows here is my will submitting Where is my justice Lord, where is my hope? what now for the people? what now for tomorrow? what left is sacred, what is left?
Wash the mud and spit from my eyes, heal my sight wash the mud and spit from our eyes, heal our sight make uncertainties clear, truth to light from fear the many, make simple, make few, make right… make You.
We work on the corner of Symonds St, Mt Eden Road and New North Road. We have several excellent coffeehouses in our immediate vicinity. We’re just up the road from Mt Eden Village, and from K’Rd. We’re equally as close to Kingsland and Newmarket. What’s all the geography go to do with it?
Well, in the small trapezium formed between those reference points, live and work lots of people that we know. I love the ritual of the drop-in, the treats run, the lunchtime coffees and the ‘walking’ route that leads me past the doorways of friends and others who are all in business, life, ministry and habitation in the vicinity of one another.
It seems to me to be good practice, to know the names and lives of the people at Altezano, at Canteen, at the various workplaces around here. It seems to me to be good practice to know the names of the homeless who make shelter around our office building. It also seems good practice to intentionally walk, and take notice of what is happening around us. More than just the changing billboards or street posters, but the businesses that open and shut, the parking wardens who get this round. It helps to feel grounded and connected to the “real world” that happens outside the office door.
For those of us that are in business literally ‘together’ (as much as location joins anyone together by proxy) – it is also good to be the presence of sanity and joy.
So, while I am waiting for my communal house or for my holistic community to grow.. I can at least take comfort in my holistic, communal work environment. Learn more names, greet more familiar faces. Make everyone feel like a regular in your world. That is the extension of the arms of Christ.
Confession I can’t say too much more without spoiling the surprises but… suffice it to say..
I have been thinking a lot about the connection between secrets, secret lives, fantasy, sin, silence, darkness, hopelessness for young believers and Confession. I think that the Prodestant church has not excelled in providing a response to sin that expresses appropriately the grace, mercy and forgiveness of Christ.
After all, the Bride is designed to be the instrument of God’s grace to one another. But if we whisper our confessions in quiet, solitary prayer and let our tears fall alone – where can we hear the sacred words… you are FORGIVEN?
How much too, does our understanding of our forgiveness – the weight and the sanctity of it, affect our participation in Communion rituals? Thoughts welcome.
Being Seen So, as the exterior things change – the interior things are brought to light. I see more of myself and I’m letting more of myself be seen.
Also, it shows you something of the eyes people have. Some people have eyes that see everything of who you are, to the depths of you. They don’t recognise your skin as much as they recognise your soul.
Others have eyes that only see the skin, the colour of you. I thought that as I saw people for the first time in months and they recognised the changes in me, that I would enjoy the surprise. But I enjoy more… the lack of it. I enjoy that they recognise me by my eyes and by my laugh first, before they take in the changes on the exterior. It’s good to be known by your soul.
Tash McGill is a broadcaster, writer and strategist who works with people and organisations to solve problems and create transformation. She believes people are the most important thing and that stories are powerful ways of changing the world. You can find out more at tashmcgill.com or by visiting her LinkedIn profile.
