War of the Worlds: How to Avoid Leading a Double Life

WAR OF THE WORLDS

WAR OF THE WORLDS

How to avoid leading a double life

Adrian Plass

Copyright © 2011 Adrian Plass

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First published 2011 by Authentic Media Limited

52 Presley Way, Crownhill, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ES

www.authenticmedia.co.uk

The right of Adrian Plass to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78078-015-3

Cover Design by David Smart

CONTENTS

Introduction

1 Death

2 Prayer

3 Entry into the outrageous, fightening, funny no-man’s land of true Christian commitment

4 Unauthorised fire

5 Wasted weakness

6 The elephant in the room

7 Bringing the Bible alive

8 Sacred cows

9 Uniting our inner world with our public one

10 The playful God

11 The bottom line – positive crucifixion?

12 Coming home

Endnotes

Introduction

Themes are strange, elusive creatures. One moment they are there in front of you, as clear as clear. All of a sudden, as Bertie Wooster might put it, they seem to flicker, and are gone. As this has been my experience throughout the writing of this book, I thought it would be a good idea to attempt to explain what War Of The Worlds is about before you take your first tentative step into Chapter One.

I should begin by saying that almost all the ideas and explorations in this book were born out of reflections arising from the two years my wife and I have spent as community members at Scargill House Conference Centre, just up the road from Kettlewell in North Yorkshire (home of the Calendar Girls). Joining a community as ‘Writer in Residence’ held a particular challenge for me. Travelling and speaking all over the world for twenty-five years has been a very enjoyable, but somewhat isolating experience. How would I get on in the unavoidably exposing ethos of intentional community? It is relatively easy to exude confidence when you stand up in front of groups of people who have come to hear you because they like your books. Was it not possible that cracks and faults would become horribly apparent in this new, intense situation?

Then there was my perception of a loving, laughing, hurting, puzzling, strangely lonely and misunderstood God. Would that hard-won notion survive the religious rough and tumble of community life?

Well, living at Scargill turned out to be challenging in all sorts of ways that I never anticipated, but we would not have missed it for the world. It truly has been a joy for both of us to mix on a daily basis with community members and with guests, and to find a valid role in both of these contexts. It is undoubtedly true that there have been times when all we wanted was to run or drive screaming out of the gates, and I think I love my own space far too much to live in this way for the rest of my life. But yes, I am reassured and warmed by the way in which the core of myself has somehow remained intact in day-to-day interaction with a bunch of (mainly) lovely people who simply cannot avoid one another.

And God? Ah, that, or rather he, is the reason for this book. Close, ongoing ministry with all sorts of folk over the last two years has made me more certain than ever that authenticity in individuals and churches is essential if we honestly do want to see the Holy Spirit working supernaturally in men and women, and loving them to life. To make this possible we may have to go to war. What kind of war, and for what reason?

The war in individuals is a conflict between the world of inside and the world of outside. Jesus does not call people to deny what they feel and think and fear and yearn for. He calls them to tell the truth and to discover a freedom that is the more spectacularly satisfying because it deals with all that we are, instead of an edited version of ourselves. It is a battle between giving in to the shame of inadequacy, and understanding that the one imperfect sacrifice that God will gladly receive from us is our flawed selves. We are called, not to be wonderful Christians, but obedient failures. We may be asked to cooperate with God as he works on changing aspects of our personalities, but in the meantime there is work to be done and, if we wish, he will use us to do it.

The planets warring with each other in the church are interesting, because there are times when they look oddly similar. In both worlds, you will see what appears to be spiritual fire. In one world, the fire is from God and has real power: in the other, it is fabricated by man and is impotent and misleading. On one planet there are words and music and patterns and claims, that appear to demonstrate a real concern for the desires of the heart of God, but are actually hollow and virtually meaningless. On the other, these things are filled with the sincere aspirations of those who know that they are weak and can do nothing, but who also believe that God is strong and can do anything. In one world suffering, damaged people are told that they can find release and healing if they become committed citizens, but are actually not allowed freedom to properly express their pain and are forced to role-play healing. In the other, the care never shuts people down. It opens them up and stays with them exactly as they are for as long as is needed. On one planet, dangerously open spaces are filled quickly before God has a chance to get in: on the other, there are large areas left for God to stretch his muscles as much and in any way that he wants.

Enough. My theme is beginning to do that flickering thing. Lots of laughs and tears in this book. I do hope you enjoy it. What shall we start with? I know, just to cheer ourselves up, let’s consider the subject of Death.

One

Death

As I have pointed out on many occasions, if you scratch a Christian you will generally find a human being. But why is there a need to scratch? What are we afraid of, and which fears are allayed or hidden by these carapaces of carefully controlled religious observance or mindless, unconsidered optimism? Is it the case that we as a church push away the dread of inevitable darkness just as the rest of the world does, but through the employment of different means? We would-be followers of Jesus are going to have to accept that we are solidly in the life and death business, especially if we wish to respond to the call of Jesus in the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel when he calls us to become labourers and give him a hand with the harvest.

Almost nobody wishes to embrace death, but in the granular world of spiritual reality we must.

Heading for the grave?

Let’s start with me moaning about getting closer to actually experiencing it.

Writers of Christian satire know that this genre is likely to involve an element of risk, particularly if they recognise the need to retain a cutting edge. Some you win, some you lose, that’s what experience suggests, but when you think about it, that’s what risk is all about. And this death business is a good example.

As I approach my sixty-third birthday, I find that death is working its grinning way fairly quickly up the queue of concerns that continually dogs my glorious, faith-filled life. Getting older is a pain. I don’t want to. I don’t like it. Now that I’ve finally begun to do a bit of sensible prioritising of activities in my life, it seems ridiculous that I’m not going to have much longer to put them into practice. Here is a silly poem that expresses some of my current angst.

You know you’re getting old

You know you’re getting old when an attractive woman crinkles her eyes playfully, calls you ‘Young Man’, and asks with a little rippling laugh if you’d like to be her toy-boy

When most of the parties you go to are gatherings of cadaverous or plump people sitting like grey statues in the same chairs all evening drinking two thirds of a gloomy glass of wine, and talking about the value of their houses and the state of their legs

When no-one asks for proof that you qualify for Senior Citizen rates at National Trust properties

When men in their mid-thirties with black-rimmed spectacles and resonant voices who steeple their hands tell you that you still have a lot to offer

When you find yourself deeply fascinated by the fact that ‘love’ is an anagram of ‘vole’

When the nearest you get to a night on the tiles is a game of Scrabble

When you know precisely which part of your mouth you’re eating with

When a trip upstairs is a journey into the unknown

When, having arrived upstairs, you find yourself in a bathroom, and realise that it could be any bathroom, anywhere in the world

When everyone else in the universe believes that most of your problems can be solved with a cup of tea, and all the rest with a digestive biscuit

When you feel threatened by young people with long upper bodies and peaked caps turned backwards who hit tennis balls ferociously

When you start drooling and cooing and aaahing over a baby buggy before checking that there’s a baby in it

When your children try to persuade you to spend money on yourself instead of on them

The impenetrable wall

Mildly humorous as those grim indicators of doom might be, the eventual death of someone we love is, generally speaking, a horrible thing. Bereavement can seem a hopelessly high, solid and impenetrable wall. There’s nothing you can do about it, no way in which you can climb it or indeed change any aspect of it. And it is frequently made worse by crass comments or behaviour from those of us who simply cannot or will not conquer our own feelings of fear and inadequacy when we are faced with the harrowing pain of bereavement in others. All of the unhelpful comments in the piece that follows were kindly contributed by folk who endured them at one time or another. There are other, worse ones that I have not included. Some you would not believe. Many tell me stories of friends, acquaintances and fellow church members actually crossing the road to avoid the awkwardness of an encounter with such raw sorrow. Let’s be honest about this. Most of us have been guilty of such neglect at some point in our lives, often because we simply do not know what to say or how to behave.

And that is why (in my view) it has been worth the risk of reading and presenting ‘Have You Moved On Yet?’ in public. For the vast majority of those who have suffered loss, it has had a liberating effect, not despite but because of the moments of humour arising from the text. One or two have found it upsetting. The point, though, is that it offers an opportunity to talk about helpful ways of relating to folk who are wrestling with the agony of loss. Here are just a few suggestions that have been made.

I really want to talk about the person I’ve lost. Please ask me. Just be there. You don’t have to do anything special.

Don’t try to solve my problem or dilute my pain with hollow religion or false optimism. It won’t work.

Don’t be afraid to laugh with me. I need to keep those muscles working.

Meet my eyes, otherwise I shall end up comforting you.

Try not to be afraid of me. I need you.

Make me an apple pie.

Our friend Liz has been very helpful in thinking about these things. Liz was devastated by the death of her husband Ian. He was original, creative, enormously kindhearted and extremely knowledgeable. Bridget and I met with Liz at her home on the first anniversary of Ian’s death. Among other things we talked about the interesting variety of clichés that bereaved people have to put up with. From Liz’s point of view, the worst was the one that I’ve used as the title for this piece.

Have you moved on yet?

Have you moved on yet?

No, I have not moved on. I have not moved at all. I’ve been like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, standing still and looking sad. If by any chance I have moved infinitesimally, it is most likely that I have moved off, as opposed to on

She’s just slipped into the next room

The next room? Slipped into the next room? She’s been in the next room for the last eight years. I’ve nursed her and fed her and read to her and watched her dying in the next room. I can assure you that she is not in the next room any more. She’s not in any room. I’ve looked. I’ve searched. She’s somewhere else

Time is a great healer

Not for him, it wasn’t

Do you know, my uncle died of exactly the same thing

That is a huge comfort

Well, he had a good innings

You don’t know much about cricket, do you? When you have a good innings you don’t want it to end. In fact, the nearer you get to the magic of a century, the more determined you are to get that last sweet boundary. One hundred runs – or more! Now, that’s a good innings

She’s gone before

No, definitely the first time, never went before, never dead before, always alive before

At least he’s in heaven now, so he’s happy and at peace Gosh! I do so admire theological certainty. Do you have as much faith for yourself as you have for him?

She’s in a much better place

Thank you. This was quite a nice place when she was here. Actually, it was a very nice place. I’m afraid I never did realise just how nice it was

I know exactly how you feel

Do you?

In a way it’s for the best

For the best? Whose best? My best? Your best? The Duke of Edinburgh’s best? Shirley Bassey’s best? It’s not for the best. It’s for the worst

He didn’t suffer at the end

No, and I’m glad. But I did. I suffered

She wouldn’t want you to grieve

Okay, I won’t then. Actually, I think she might be a bit disappointed if I remained – totally unmoved. What do you think?

You mustn’t blame yourself

Mustn’t I? Well, I do. I do blame myself. I blame myself for all sorts of things. I blame myself for not telling her I loved her three million more times than I did. For not changing the little things in me that would have made all the difference. I blame myself for things I did and didn’t do. Commission, omission, all sorts of things. Yes, whether I must or mustn’t blame myself – I do

He’s with you now just as much as he ever was

No, he’s not