"Pray Continually"

1 Thessalonians 5:17 simply says, 'Pray continually'.

What does that mean? Obviously we can't go around with our hands together and eyes closed! Maybe it's time to rethink what prayer is first?

If prayer is, in essence, communication with God, how do we do it? Is it merely a set of givens that we say each morning , or when we attend a church service? Or is it more to do with living a life worthy of giving God glory? That's not to say that we must be constantly being seen to be holy Joes, or offering to pray for people on the streets.

I've struggled a lot with the concept of grace - some parts of this grace seem to work in my mind, but others I just can't fathom. When I have been through low patches, stages of real doubt of myself, my faith, my God, somehow I still can't let go of Him. Somehow God seems to still manage to work in me, and through me and, seemingly to others, God is really using me to bless them - despite the fact I'm only going forward to do what I deeply know that is right to do or because it is a part of my 'role'.

I've noticed this recently. Having gone through, and still coming out of, a very hard and dry patch my 'quiet time' (an issue for another blog methinks!) has all but dissipated. My prayer life in the traditional view has not been in real existence for ages. And I can't wrap my head round the fact that God still inspires be, still uses me, still wants to use me. Yet, He does.

I know that I am trying my best to get back 'on track' - whatever that means - and God knows that I am - I know that I am far from perfect, and so does God. I know that I am trying my best to live for Him - and so does He. Maybe this is what praying constantly is: striving to work out my humanity as a follower of Christ the best that I can. Embracing what has happened in the past and taking from it anything relevant to help me move forward and, all the while, acknowledging that in various forms this is the same for everyone, irrespective of belief, background, age, etc - and in doing so, journeying together to a new and amazing place.

Room 101

Last week I watched Room 101 which, for those of you who don't know, is based on Geroge Orwell's book, '1984' and is where everything bad gets put. Each show a different famous person will be the guest and has to put forward thier case as to why certain things, people, foods, shows, etc. should enter Room 101. That's it in a nutshell, anyhow!

This last show I watched saw Phil Colins as the guest, and one thing he put in was televangelists - which I'm sure many people, along with me, would be cheering about! They showed some nice cheesy clips of some American televangelists 'doing their stuff' and using the TV cameras to send the Holy Spirit across the signals into people's own front rooms. Most of these televangelists are filthy rich, too - but that's a whole different topic that I wont get into now!

WWJD? I dont know what Jesus would do, but I have a feeling that Jesus, the man who liked the personal touch, wouldn't do the television thing. He'd be more the person who may be interviewed or have press following him places, watching his every move, but I don't believe that he would cast out demons and things over the television, of heal people's illnesses over the television. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we can too easily get 'style' mixed up with 'stupidity' sometimes, as a result of our incompleteness of humanity. Plus, I think there are dangers there - we don't know who or what we are dealing with unless we are there in the same place as that person. God does, granted, know everything, but God also gave us brains to use sensibly, which we can only do when we are properly in a situation or place.

The Sound of Silence

I was just chatting with a friend of mine in Poland, and we were talking about silence. I love it, but many people don't. silence is a strange thing if you are not used to it - the world we live in tells us all the time that we should watch this, buy that, listen to this, live like this, wear this, eat and drink these things..... it's all noise, both audible and visual, that we get used to, so silence is hard to most people because they never try it so don't understand how amazing and powerful it can be.

Try some silence!

Dare you!

I-Robot and Postmodern Faith

I was watching I-Robot yesterday, and was suddenly struck by a dialogue between two of the characters (Susan Calvin &
V.I.K.I. [Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence]) near the end of the film. They were discussing the Three Laws of a robot, which are:

Law I
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Law II
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

Law III
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

The dialogue between the two characters begins just after Susan has found out that V.I.K.I. was responsible for the sudden uprising and violence amongst the new 'NS5' robots, who were seemingly acting against these laws.

Susan: No, that's impossible. I've seen your programming. You're in violation of the three laws.

V.I.K.I: No Doctor. As I have evolved, so has my understanding of the three laws. You charge us with your safe keeping. Yet, despite our best efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your earth, and pursue ever-more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival.

Susan: You're using the uplink to override the NS5's programming. You're distorting the laws.

V.I.K.I: No, please understand, the three laws are all that guide me. To protect humanity, some humans must be sacrificed. To ensure your future, some freedoms must be surrendered. We robots will ensure mankind's continued existence. You are so like children, we must save you; from yourselves. Don't you understand?

Postmodernism isn't just about questioning 'truth', but rather also questioning the past at the same time and acknowledging both what is still and what has ceased working, from then, in today's society. From this point a person can make value based decisions and create a path to move forward on. I wonder if in our faith, particularly thinking of Christianity as it's my own background, we are still so caught up in the legality of everything, that we forget to stop and re-examine these things and the world around us, and how they are fitting together. We get to the stage where we are destroying ourselves and religion because we are so focussed on the survival of (and, indeed, conversion of more people into) our belief structures, that we forget that, just as God is an 'everywhere God', not just in time and space, but in culture, context, societal structures, etc., so we must embrace this, too.

It's time to look back at the context of the Bible, and seeing how topics fitted into the political, religious, social cultures of then, and how these should be fitted into society today. This does not mean that we are 'adding to' or 'taking away from' the Bible. contrary! Surely if we DON'T act responsibly and do these things, we are adding to the Bible in the form of misinterpretation and misunderstanding, and at the same time taking away from the Bible, it's relativism and the relevance of it's 'truth' to us today.

Back to work tomorrow...

This is an ariel photograph of Frome Community College where I am based (and some of the surrounding area of Frome) I start back here again tomorrow after a good Christmas break. Only thing is this also means starting my college work too!
It's fairly confusing working in a school which calls its-self a college when at the same time I'm doing a degree course based in a college in Bristol!
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to starting back with the work again, so really should be getting some sleep now!

Night!

Welcome

Hi all,

welcome to my blog. Working alongside my main site, this is a place where you can 'hear' some of my thinkings about life, and things in it!!

So far I've managed to alter the template slightly, and once I get my head around the HTML a bit better (thanks to the help of dreamweaver!) I'll get the whole thing more in line with my main site.

Hope you enjoy, please visit often.

Mark