A "difference that makes a difference"

Learning 'to do' the beatitudes

It's always a bit of a worry writing a blog post that assumes a reader or two... what if there isn't one? Well that doesn't matter too much, in a way I'm the reader and the explorer. I'm almost writing for my own good, to see what I write about, what I would say to help someone learn the sermon on the mount. If you look through some of my earlier posts on learning, you'll see I don't think much of preaching. So, how would I go about helping people learn to do the sermon on the mount?

Well, I guess that we could start by reading those famous few verses

They're verses that can make us glow aren't they? But how might they make us live differently?

Ok, so to work that out, I'll use the three 'ways of attending' mentioned in the last post

Ideas

So, what Ideas strike you from this reading?  What do you notice?  Don't worry at the moment whether you've got the meaning right, you can come back to that question later. For the moment we're interested in what we might do having read the passage, not what we might reliably know.

So what ideas strike you?  What gets your pulse racing?  What strikes you between the eyes? What puzzles you? What surprises you?  Do you see how we're asking very different questions to what a sermon might normally focus on?  Normally, well anyway normally within an Evangelical/'bible-believing' church context I know, we'd focus on questions about the meaning.  But we're interested in what we're going to do, not what we might know, so we ask different questions.

For me, and there's nothing new here, I notice how God's standards turn the world's standards upside down. Jesus seems to think that the 'wrong people' are blessed. (it's even more striking in the Luke version).

Now, If I'm surprised at the sort of people who Jesus thinks are blessed, does that mean that I've got some 'wrong headed' and unhelpful ideas about what Jesus values?  And will my wrong headedness lead me into lifestyle decisions that don't help me become more like Jesus?

Inquiry

The thing to do with questions is to find answers, and the method for that is inquiry. Now, I don't know what 'ideas' struck you, maybe different to mine but now is the time to ask how you can take things further. Two actions to choose from, you can either seek to explore or experiment. Both of these inquiry methods will help you get some answers to the questions that the ideas from the passage opened up.

What you want to think about now is (a) do I need to explore that idea further or (b) can I try something out.

So, for me, I'm challenged by the high value that I put on success, doing my job well, being praised for doing a good job. It's all too important to me. Now, maybe I could think about giving up my present job and going for a less prestigious one? I think that the work I'm doing is what God has called me to do, but maybe I could do it in a different context (not a university).  Now, I might be able to explore that idea further when I go on retreat next week, but I might also be able to experiment with some ideas.  Just giving up my job would, I think, be too extreme, but what could I do that would try out a new way of valuing 'success'? Two options spring to mind. I've got to write a report on a project that I've been involved in. I don't think that I'm going to write a good report (too long to explain why) and I've been delaying, putting off the evil day when I'm criticised, and maybe found wanting by colleagues I value, maybe I won't be asked to do a project again?  How will I handle that? Secondly, I'm going to try to organise some time over the winter to take my work up to a community house I know well. What will it be like to fit my academic research writing within the rhythms of a 'monastic' day?

So what explorations or experiments could you try to test out your emerging 'ideas'?

Relations

Learning is rarely done well on our own. Who can you bring into your new learning journey?  Who will ask you challenging questions? Who will pick you up if you make a mess of your 'experiment'? Who will encourage you and value you in your learning efforts? Who will take the time to walk alongside you?

There's more to a 'noticing of relations' than that, but it will do for the moment.

So, are you going to come on a learning journey with me? 

Learning to do the Sermon on the Mount

Ok, the start of a series on the sermon on the mount. Not me explaining what it means. I'm not qualified to do that, no... I'm going to try and look at how we might go about learning how to live out a sermon-on-the-mount lifestyle.  That is, how we can practise that kind of life rather than nod wisely at some sound exposition.

So, how will I do this... well, I'm not sure... this will be an example of what I call in my blog strapline, "half baked thinking". But I hope that as I explore where these posts take me, then I (maybe even we) can learn something. 

What's guiding my thinking?  Well a while ago, I developed a learning process that I called Practice Centred Discipleship and I suggested that there were three recurring phases of such a discipleship Exploration, Experimentation and Explanation. So, I'm going to see if these ideas help me work out a way of learning.

Linked to that, I'm going to take some ideas that I've been working with in my day job (university lecturer) about a Scholarship of Practice.  Now this scholarship is, I think, a scholarship of attention rather than a scholarship of knowing. By that I mean, that I think learning owes more to what we pay attention than to what we know. Noticing things, paying attention to things said, attending to what is going on... all help learning more than knowing stuff.

Now, I think that there are three aspects of life to which we should pay attention if we wish to improve how we life our lives:

• an engagement with ideas
• a practise of inquiry
• a noticing of moment-by-moment relations

so, I'm going to use these 'methods' to help me learn how to live the sermon on the mount. I do hope that I haven't bored anyone rigid yet... I'll end this post here before I do and start the process in the next post.

BNP candidates getting elected...

is causing some angst and soul searching.

and so it should

as the Labour party have gone is search of middle class votes, it has deserted or at least taken for granted its core voters: the poor, the voiceless, the people who don't reckon voting is worth a candle 'cos "them politicians" with their moats, second houses and expenses fiddling are only looking after themselves and their 'sort'. Who now is speaking for the 'back streets' and 'estates' of our country?

We have reaped and are reaping what we sowed with our consumer politics

the trouble is that when dealing with consumers you 'segment' the market, look for those who'll buy your product, who'll give you a return: the educated, the prosperous, the people with something to lose...

and then you peddle some solutions...economic 'magic snake oil'... that will make these prosperous people even better off

Isaiah (ch65) suggests that God's government agenda

• is not about economic growth but economic justice (People get rewards for their work, they don't work purely for the benefit of oppressive, powerful people).
• it's about looking after the weak, (in the passage the youngest and oldest of our community. It is not about looking after the rich (tax cuts) so that wealth trickles down...
• it is about creating a place where people are not condemned by their birth place to a particular form of life..
• but it is also a place of joy... a place of "bread and roses"

And that, I think, is why the BNP got votes... because the political party that should have cared, should have designed policies for the poor and voiceless, should have worked to persuade others of what is right, instead chased power giving votes and offered consumer 'products/policies'

Lord have mercy.

On my way to vote...

Perhaps I'm one of the few, but Euro elections are the ones that get me out to vote...  normally, the nearest I get to voting in UK elections is to go into the booth and write "none of the above" on the voting slip, so 'spoiling my ballot'

But in Euro elections we have proportional representation and my vote (in a safe Conservative constituency) counts for something, normally my vote is utterly wasted, so the most positive thing that I can do is to make a point to the candidates...

But what about the women who campaigned and suffered to get women the vote?  I reply that we have abused their efforts with a political system that means that the votes of only a few thousand actually affect who gets in, where millions are disenfranchised because their votes are taken for granted "they've got nowhere else to go...", so elections are decided on the whims and needs of swing voters, largely middle class, reasonably prosperous... 'pebbledash' people..

I wrote a poem about the way I feel about electoral politics here

But today... I vote GREEN and hope that maybe, just maybe an extra couple of seats might mean that our arguments get to be listened to a little more.  We have not persuaded enough people to be involved in government, but we have earned the right to be heard above the greenwash din of the main, free market blinded parties.

Normal, non-party political service will return to this blog tomorrow! :-)

Improv, improving and working with colleagues

Can learning about Improv theatre help people work well and positively in organisations? Oh yes!  An increasing hero of mine is Keith Johnstone. I' m just reading his book Impro for Storytellers in it he writes of some of the things he has noticed when getting groups of actors to tell stories together (contributing one word at a time or telling each other 'what happens next'), here are just three:

people avoid taking the story forward, preferring to just describe the scene

ever been in a meeting where everyone's just telling each other what the situation is... but avoiding actually working on what to do next?

people tend to resolve dangerous or difficult scenes with one big 'solution' "with one bound our hero was free!"

every been in a meeting where managers or participants tell you the big idea that will solve everything? Ever been in a meeting where a particular strategy was proposed as providing the best way forward?

people tend to be negative with their comments

every been in meetings where 'but' is the most common work, where participants tend to knock each others' ideas?

Now, ask yourselves a question... if you work in organisations, what would you do, say, ask about... just to improve any of the above situations by, say, 10% ...

... if you come up with an idea, then you've just taken the first step on the long journey of IMPROVement!

enticing isn't it? 

Forty years of discipleship!

It's just struck me that I've been a Christian for forty years...

and the depressing thing is how little I've progressed in Christian maturity. Oh yes, I can talk the talk (really quite impressively), but can I walk the Way... sigh how little progress I've made in becoming like Christ,

but there has been a little progress, so maybe I shouldn't be too depressed.

Anyway, these thoughts reminded me of something Peter Maiden said at a University Christian Union event, (30 years ago)

"Moses spent 40 years learning to be a somebody, 40 years learning to be a nobody and 40 years learning how God can use a somebody who's learned to be a nobody"

I love that, but fear that I'm no very far along the road!

Grace and the conversion of pig's ears into silk purses

Over at the wonderful ASBO Jesus conversation we have found ourselves discussing whether God intervenes to make up for the Christian church's shortcomings.  I found myself remembering a couple of stories that I've been told or been a part of.

Derek, Lyn's son, did not meet up with Lyn for some ten years during his teenage years.  This separation was largely due to a decision made by Lyn, but still it caused great anguish on both parts. At one level, there can be no good that can come from the separation of children from parents, but Lyn told me of the amazing development in Derek over this period. During that ten years he had obviously wanted to spend time with Lyn but couldn't meet up.  Consequently, he had learned how talk, ask questions, give time for answers and be interested in others... (how many teenage boys offer more than a grunt in communication?) A silver lining or a 'severe mercy'?

The second story happened to me. About 5 years ago, I went for a promotion at my previous university. I didn't get the job and the way that I didn't get the job was horrid (a message left for me on a mobile phone answering machine. To make things worse, the message was left on someone else's mobile phone not mine!) There followed a painful period where I had to come to terms with the fact that any chance of progression at that university was over for me and, given my age, I was probably going to struggle to get to another university and get promotion there.  All sorts of 'demons' about my feelings of self worth ripped into me. I spent a miserable year 'plodding on'.  Looking back now, I can have a more balanced reflection on the mistakes that I made and the insensitive folly for the dean of the school there.  What I remember with more gratitude, however, was how God met me in that wilderness and used that time to speak to me in a new way, offering me a new way forward, offering me a new relationship. I'm not sure that I would have heard his still small voice without missing out on that job. I still haven't been promoted. I still struggle with the pain that my vanity and consequent lack of worth from that detail causes me. But there is also a joy in that story, a joy of a relationship recreated, a new pilgrimage started upon and I am glad that that painful year came my way.  CS Lewis wrote of a "severe mercy" I can understand that now.

Sometimes God transforms horrid situations (I think of when he healed my son, Pat of meningitis), but often, he just walks through a situation with us, grace somehow seeping into the situation to bring beauty - maybe not to us, but someone else? And sometimes, I sense that Jesus weeps, sharing the agony of a fractured world; grief stricken that he can not change the situation without denying our freedom... there's a grace to be found in weeping beside our Lord... it changes something in the situation, even if we can't quite spot what it is that has been changed.

Easter Saturday Meditations 4

Evening Prayer, Saturday

Psalm 46:1-3 

  God is our refuge and strength,
       an ever-present help in trouble.

  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
       and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

  though its waters roar and foam
       and the mountains quake with their surging.

Isaiah 58:6ff 

  "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
       to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
       to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

  Is it not to share your food with the hungry
       and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter -
       when you see the naked, to clothe him,
       and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Romans 8: 19-21

All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. For…there was the hope that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Reflection

Jamie Owens wrote:

“all creation’s straining on tiptoe just to see
the sons of God come into their own”

Do you think, if the world could see it,

if we could make it so obvious,

That the world would stand on tiptoe,

in excitement,

To see the difference that we,

          The children of God,
                   the channels of His peace,
                             God’s hands and feat,
the difference that we could make to this world?

“We are living in a world of Easter Saturday

Somewhere between the death

          Of what we thought we could trust

And the birth of new hope”

Can we live a resurrection for our world?

A new glory?

Morning Prayer, Saturday

Psalm 23:4

 Even though I walk

       through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,

       for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

 

Haggai 2:1-9

    'Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?  But now be strong … Be strong, all you people of the land,' declares the LORD, 'and work. For I am with you,' declares the LORD Almighty… And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear…. and I will fill this house with glory,' says the LORD Almighty. … 'The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the LORD Almighty.

Revelation 21:1-5a

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the

Holy

City

, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them … I am making everything new!"

Reflection

“We are living in a world of Easter Saturday:

Somewhere between the death

            Of what we thought we could trust

And the birth of new hope”

 

Easter Saturday: the moment when doubt appeared complete;

“If only… why couldn’t he? Why did they?”

Haggai’s friends, re-building the temple,

started to lose hope

“It’ll never be the same” they grieved.

 

It’s Easter Saturday; can we see any hope?

Or are we blinded by credit crunch, recession,

         the end of churchgoing,

                 the ruins of an abbey or

                           a way of doing church?

 

“It’ll never be the same…”

No, maybe not,

but what will the present glory,

the New Jerusalem, look like?

What will we, new builders, make of it?

The second of my four Easter Workshop meditations on Easter Saturday

Evening Prayer, Good Friday

Psalm 22:1-2 

 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 
       Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

Isaiah 42:1-4 

 "Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
       my chosen one in whom I delight;
      … A bruised reed he will not break,
       and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.

Matthew 27:50-51

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.

Reflection

“We are living in a world of Easter Saturday:

Somewhere between the death

            Of what we thought we could trust

And the birth of new hope”

 

We are at the start of the Jewish Sabbath that Jesus would have known. It is Easter Saturday, the day after Jesus died, the awful day before Easter morning.
Today, we know that something huge has happened, but at that moment it was invisible to the world. Today we know that resurrection is just around the corner, but at that moment all hope had been destroyed.

So, now we are abandoned, left for a day.

The world around us crumbles,
the security we thought we had evaporates.

What have we to offer? So few, so scorned, so invisible;
what have we to offer an Easter Saturday world?

Here, on Easter Saturday,
a bruised reed – thrown away by the musician;
a smouldering wick – giving no light,
is all that our Lord needs
to do a wonderful, invisible work.

 

 

A thought for Good Friday morning:

 

Psalm 22:6-8

But I am … scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.

 

Isaiah 53:5

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

 

Mark 15:21-32 

They brought Jesus to the place called

Golgotha

... and they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get...They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So, You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!"

 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

 

Reflection

This morning we start our journey through Good Friday towards Easter by spending some time at the cross of Jesus. Particularly, we will spend some time in the hopelessness of his first disciples.

 

“We are living in a world of Easter Saturday

Somewhere between the death

          Of what we thought we could trust

And the birth of new hope”

This morning, spend a moment with one of those gathered around the cross, maybe

•  Simon, carrying his cross,

•  Mary, watching her son die

•  or John His beloved disciple, given a new responsibility at a moment of huge loss

•  or the Roman centurion, his callous duty interrupted by a sense that something bigger was going on here.

Don’t try to understand or explain – just spend a moment of your day with them

Easter Saturday World

We are living in a world of Easter Saturday
somewhere between the death
        of what we thought we could trust
and the birth of new hope

Jon Birch is threatening to link to this blog, so I had better write something just in case someone is foolish enough to visit... I wrote a series of meditations for the Northumbria Community Easter workshop on the theme of Easter Saturday, so I shall post these over the next day or so.

I had never noticed Easter Saturday, until Maggi Dawn blogged about it a few years ago... now, I suspect that it is powerful image of the world we are currently travelling through

Harry and the Flying Club

Harry Hippo sat in his own bit of mud disconsolate.  This was his mud, a place where he could lock the world outside and wallow... his space.  The trouble was that he wasn't really enjoying his wallow.  The trouble, he sighed, with wallowing on your own is that you lock out all the smiling that friends might do, but remember all the bruises that are a natural part of being a hippo and tending to have rather large, clumsy friends. Those memories kind of came into the loneliness with you and hung around when you'd really rather they'd head off to the pub with someone else.  So Harry sat there, feeling a bit bruised, lonely and generally sinking deeper into the mud.

The bruising had been going on for a while now.  Somehow, over the last few months Growth Club had just not been scratching where Harry was itching.  The trouble was, he thought, that focusing entirely on growing, when you were already a pretty substantial hippo was a little bit like going round in circles.  Harry couldn't help but feel that this wasn't getting anywhere.  But the problem was he couldn't put his discomfort into words. Hippos are notoriously inarticulate, you know.  And every time he tried to explain to Roger and Elinor, it just came out as though he was doubting the truth of growth and they would rehearse all the reasons for growing that he'd once found so compelling.  Sometimes the conversations had become arguments and then the arguments had become accusations and then the accusations had become an angry turning and stomping away. (boy, when you have sturdy legs like Harry, Roger and Elinor you can really stomp!)

So Harry sat, wallowed and ruminated in a bruised, grumbly sort of a way.  He wondered if this was how Polly had felt all those years ago.  He wondered where Polly was; he hadn't seen her in ages. He wondered if he had hurt Polly as much as he was feeling hurt today.  His wallow moved from being grumbly to being angry.  All the answers that he couldn't think off when arguing with Elinor and Roger came flooding to mind.  "That would have stumped them, that would have shown them, that would have got them off my case!" But, of course, thinking like that didn't make Harry feel any happier. Indeed, it made him feel worse because he began to realise that it wasn't just his friend who had hurt him, but he was pretty certain that he had hurt them.  So Harry wallowed there and thought the day couldn't get much worse.

Just then, it did.  Around the corner of the mud bath, Harry's mud bath, came Augustine Hippo.  Augustine had never really been Harry's sort of hippo. In fact he'd never really fitted into Growth Club, even though he had been impressively large (with spectacularly sturdy legs).  Harry remembered that Augustine had frequently allowed birds and other small animals to ride on his back - an action considered most inappropriate in Growth Club, where you were supposed to associate only with large and growing animals.  No, Augustine Hippo just wasn't the sort of person to hang around with. Odd, there was no other word for it.  As he came closer, Augustine called out "Hi there" and Harry replied in his best, mock jaunty, voice.  Augustine stopped, raised an eyebrow - a very strange sight in a hippo - and asked "are you ok?"  "Oh yes, I'm just fine" said Harry "just thinking and planning what to do next".  Augustine, dropped his head slightly, as if uncertain, "mind if I join you?" he smiled as he waded into the mud. "ah, this is good stuff" he sighed as he sank in.

Augustine didn't say anything for quite a while.  Harry found it strangely comforting.  Company without a debate or argument.  Company without having to explain.  The two hippos wallowed peacefully together for several hours. "I've been learning to fly" mused Augustine absently... "what?!?" said Harry, "Hippos can't fly".  "yes they can" said Augustine, "I've recently joined the Flying Club" . Harry's concern was on the way to becoming foreboding but was worryingly mixed with interest.  The Flying Club was often the object of scorn and disapproval at Growth Club... not true believers in growth was the generally help opinion.  Harry repeated "Hippos can't fly"

"Yes they can," said Augustine again "Well, we do have to borrow some large wings - called a hang-glider, but if you get sorted out with a pair of wings, then you can fly. It's wonderful, exhilarating, joyous..." Harry was amazed to hear such words.  He realised that he hadn't used words like that since those games he Roger, Elinor and Polly had played as kids.  "Joyous" he mused almost to himself in a dreamy sort of way.  "you should come along," Augustine suggested. and just before a sensible voice could say anything different, Harry blurted out "yes, that might be an idea"  He had reason to reconsider this folly the next moment, when Augustine told him that the club training was held in Northumbria... Harry's geography was just good enough to make him aware that it would be cold there and that there would be a shortage of warm mud baths...

"oh, what have I let myself in for" Harry moaned to himself...

Still, the next Saturday he joined Augustine at the top of the Cheviot hills and was fitted with a large set of wings.  There was loads of smiling and laughter, especially when people saw Harry's face on being introduced to his flying coach, a mouse.  "Oh, my goodness, what would the Growth club think?" thought Harry.  Harry and Mo - the mouse's name - were harnessed together, and it has to be said they did look an odd couple.  Mo explained that the art of flying was not to think about it too much and trust in his wings... it was the wings that did the flying, you just had to hang on, go with the flow and ride the updrafts... (Harry wasn't sure about drafts ... he had never felt a draft in his mud hole and the drafts that he had met in Northumbria were distinctly cold and unpleasant). His flying lesson was about to begin.

Harry walked to the cliff edge and, feeling certain that plummeting 120 metres to his death was possibly not a great way to escape his problems with the Growth Club, blindly he charged off as he was instructed to do.  He waited for his appointment with the ground below... but it didn't come. Instead he felt a strange, very strange, rather chilly, but.... yes, undeniably wonderful feeling of air rushing below his tum... he dared to open his eyes... there was the ground not 120 metres below him but 200 metres below him... he and Mo were soaring... the shriek of delight had escaped his mouth before he could organise himself to 'play it cool' .... wheeeeeee... followed by whooooaaaa.... and yeeeeeehaaahhhh came shortly afterwards.  The lesson lasted for 3 hours and included several flights with Harry taking more control each time.

Now you must fly on your own, the wonderful Mo said... Harry blanched... no! no! I couldn't fly without you Mo.... strange how this odd little mouse had become so important to Harry.  "no," Mo said, looking quite serious "flying is something you must do on your own... you must learn to fly on your wings.  You must learn to trust the wings not an instructor or your friends... flying is between you and your wings.... Harry understood but, he had to confess, understanding didn't diminish his fear. But it was too late now, he and his wings were going to take their first flight alone together.  Harry suspected that his launch technique, which involved closing his eyes and then charging - he thought that Roger would have been better at that - was not elegant.  But a moment or two later, there he was flying.  He wasn't nearly as good at is as Mo.  His movements were jerky, so that his ride was bumpy... I can't get the hang of this he thought... but a while later, early into his third solo flight, it all came together... it was as if he and his wings merged into one, as if he could trust his wings with his life, which is exactly what he was doing.  He relaxed and, of course, in relaxing he flew better. 

He found himself smiling for no other reason than ... he wanted to smile.  He started to look around.  there were other people flying nearby and one caught his eye... a strangely familiar python... "Polly?" gasped Harry.. no surely not. Pythons can't fly.

Exploration

How have we learned of Space or the deeps of the sea or Antarctica?  Through those people who have explored them.  How then can we learn of the deep places of God?  Again, an answer is through our exploration.  Words like ‘wonder’, ‘maybe’ or ‘where’ exemplify the activities involved in exploration.  Those of us involved in facilitating discipleship therefore need to act and speak in ways that give space for others to wonder and explore.  We would want to avoid those actions and words that restrict learners to the right answer or the correct meaning of a text.  I am not saying here that there is no best way or correct interpretation merely that telling it as it is will restrict learners from appreciating it, contextualising and enacting it in their own lives.  I suspect that the cell, retreats, contemplation and soul friendship are mechanisms that currently exist to encourage exploration but I think that we can do more. We have all eternity to explore the infinity of God and I think that gives us some time for a few diversions.  Additionally, it should provoke in us a certain humility when we define what God is like or what (s)he requires of us!  However, diversions can become being lost and freedom of definition can become sloppy thinking – here again we see the need for community in learning for, dare I say it, availability and vulnerability.