Eat Pray Love

I read recently that Julia Roberts decided to convert to Hinduism after playing the lead in the film "Eat Pray Love". The viewing public had lapped up this film and females friends had fallen over each other to praise it saying, "You've got to see it" and not one (that I was aware of) made any comment about the "faith" portrayed in the film.

It occurred to me - would this film have been so successful if the "pray" part of the film had not been Hinduism but had been Christianity? Somehow, I suspect not...but why? This is my gut reaction - it's not based on any sound research.

I've googled "Christianity Eat Pray Love" and read some fascinating reviews - showing the whole range of views but the Bible says;

"I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6)

So it seems fairly straightforward, if this is to be believed then Elizabeth Gilbert has been barking up the wrong tree.

Falling in love again and again

Christian friends would often talk about getting to know Jesus and I would really wonder what they meant. The more I try to understand faith, the more I realise it is much less about the intellect / the academic and much more about an intensely personal relationship with Jesus.

If one views getting to know Jesus as a personal and living relationship then so much seems to fall into place. I hope I'm not stretching the analogy too far when I compare knowing Jesus to a love relationship on earth. 

You could go on-line and look someone up, you could read their biography (if they have one), you could google them, you could talk to their friends, you could perhaps even email or text them. But if you want the relationship to grow deeper then there comes a point when you just have to say Hi to Jesus. And of course, if you say Hi to someone you would expect an answer. The key then is to be ready to listen out for the answer.

I have felt far away from God the past few weeks but I haven't panicked about it as I recall a friend describing her marriage - sometimes there is the mundane, humdrum but then sometimes she looks at him and love outpours. They have a Christian marriage so the commitment they made on marriage is a commitment to the commitment i.e they have committed to something much bigger than two people.

I think that a relationship with Jesus is like a Christian marriage whereby a commitment is made to something bigger and that it can't always be like the first flush of romance.

The one where it all gets a bit weird

As this blog develops I have noticed that there has been a gradual shift from the observed to the personal. In the older posts I shared other people's thoughts and opinions whereas now it's getting personal and that makes it harder for me to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard.

"He put on righteousness as a breastplate,

 and a helmet of salvation on his head;

he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,

and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak"

That's a quote from Isaiah chapter 59 verse 17. Interestingly he describes the armour of a Roman soldier hundreds of years before the Roman republic and its famous army.

The reason I mention this is that I want to discuss spiritual warfare. This is where it all gets a bit weird. I invited some friends to the Gospel Choir Concert last night and they came! This in itself may not sound particularly surprising to you but during the concert I felt a headache clamp down on the left side of my head. I am not a headache type person so it was a mystery. I took two strong pills and they did not touch the sides of the pain. I was wondering how I was going to get home I felt so bad.

Then Martyn and Liz prayed over me and that brought enough respite for me to be able to drive home. I staggered into bed. Martyn had prayed that I would be well by morning and when I woke up I was much better. This incident got me thinking about spiritual warfare. Check it out on wikipedia or google it if you want to find out more.The theory is that I had taken a spiritual risk in bringing my friends to church and the devil does not want that so will do anything to stop them - make them ill, make me ill. So it is important to cast out that demon and to pray for protection. Simply you can say "Be gone in the name of Jesus".

I don't know what to make of all of this. I don't know where to start or where to finish but this is what happened so it's in the blog.

Religious tolerance

OK this is going to be a difficult post. One of my major stumbling blocks in fully committing to christianity is the church's treatment of homosexuals. When I started this blog a year ago this was uppermost in my mind. I had been going to St. Matthew's Church and spent an hour and a half discussing this issue with the vicar. I remember saying "It's easy to tell a church full of people that those who have homosexual sex will go to hell but try sitting in the sauna at the gym with me and try out your argument". I never went back to that church. I just could not believe that God would make a group of people and then say "Ooh, yes I know I've made you with all the normal drives - to want a sexual relationship etc but you know what - if you want to get into heaven - you can't have sex". A christian friend said to me "God didn't make homosexuals, the devil did". So...where do I start?

I get the feeling this could be a lot more than one post - such a big topic. I am going to start with a couple of links to various sites on both sides of this argument.

If you read Nicky Gumbel from Holy Trinity Brompton - founder of the Alpha course - then you'll know that he believes that someone can pray not to be gay and then get married and live happily ever after. You can even find websites with testimonies.

Or for an alternative point of view you could have a look at;

www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm

It's all so confusing and it's making my head hurt.

How to design a perfect building?

So the idea is that God’s most perfect bit of design was man’s body and the way for man to design a perfect building is to use the proportions found in the human body that are God-designed.

Da Vinci was the first person to attempt to diagram God's perfect design.

What a wonderful example of God / science / maths combination in Vitruvian man.

I'm bowled over by the fact that there will be avowed atheist architects out there who will build beautiful buildings based on God's ratio and yet not see or know the link.

Staying in love

Regular readers, of which I now know there are a few, will know that I have a daily battle with faith. The people I admire and am attracted to intellectually are Ben Goldacre, Brian Cox etc and Marcus Brigstocke for humour. What they all have in common is - they are atheists.  I love "Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People" - Google Nerdstock and you will see where I am coming from. I've attached the video from youtube for part one from last year and hopefully you will find your way to the next parts.

There are Christians I am admire such as Desmond Tutu. However, when I watched Nine Lessons last year I recognised a group of people that I felt familiar with, if that makes sense. 

However, I am trying to be a person of faith. I wonder where all this fits in? My recent reading of "The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman has helped. Did I think that faith was going to be a bit like falling in love? Have I had unrealistic expectations of faith that somehow the high octane head rush of falling in love was faith and if I wasn't feeling anything then there was no faith.

Perhaps faith is a love relationship with Jesus and like any relationship it has to be worked at, sometimes it can feel mundane and sometimes it can feel transcendent. People truly committed to a marriage learn to understand that they will feel different things at different times and those feelings are valid and perfectly OK. 

www.fivelovelanguages.com

Falling in Love

Ferdi (miniature dachsund) and Poppy (retriever) - an unlikely love combination

I'm thinking that perhaps, just maybe a light has gone on in my brain - albeit a a low wattage one. OK so here goes - when you meet someone and fall in love you take a chance with them. You might try to gain as many facts as you can...."Is he a sociopath?' "Is his OCD bearable?" and various other personal and social tests. You may spend hours discussing with your friends "What was he like at school?", "Do I like his friends?" "Do we share interests?" "Will he put up with me?" but ultimately there comes a point where you know there is chemistry and you just take a leap of faith and maybe that's all I need to do with Jesus - I've read and discussed and analysed and perhaps now it is time to take a leap of faith - the chemistry's there, a significant number of my friends whose opinion I value are there, our lifestyles are compatible - I've been going to Church for over a year. So maybe it's time to stop asking questions and make that commitment to the man - Jesus.