The Text of My Life

There are moments when you suddenly realize that the details of your life are not an accident and that there is a Master Storyteller at work somewhere in the background, weaving together the disparate fragments of your past to create a plot fraught with purpose.


A few weeks ago I remembered something, and in the act of that remembrance had an awakening.

I recalled how in my second year training for the ordained ministry in Nottingham I befriended an American Methodist minister. He was at the same theological college but was studying for a PhD in Professor Thomas Torrance's theology. It was for him a truly demanding and taxing task.

Bob - that was his name - asked me to help him complete his draft. He knew I had been a scholar of literature and that words were (and are) my area of expertise. So he asked if I would edit his thesis on a daily basis until he reached the point where he was happy enough to submit it.

I remember well how we wrestled together with a theologian whose language was dense and demanding, and how I wrestled on my own with Bob's language, which was even more dense and demanding! In the end, after much sweat (in my case) and tears (in his), Bob was awarded his PhD.

Looking back, I can see what a significant moment that was not just for him but for me. I was in my early twenties, training to be a Vicar, but spending my time doing freelance editing. From Bob's point of view, I had the 'Midas touch'. I had a God-given ability to turn base texts into gold.

Today, after nearly thirty years in Christian ministry, I am now editing texts again. Indeed, since setting up my new business - www.thescriptdoctor.org.uk - I have had the privilege of applying that Midas touch to many texts and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Alongside creating my own stories (through writing novels), I am helping good writers to become great authors.

In the process, I'm discovering who I truly am and what part of my purpose might be.

As if this wasn't enough, a good friend of mine recently introduced me to a radiant text in the Psalms.

I am, at the moment, delighting in the Psalms anyway because they remind me of a stunning truth about God's grace - that our follies and our falls do not disqualify us from excelling in the area of writing. In fact, some of David's best songs were composed on the back of his worst decisions.

While this is not a license to make catastrophic errors of judgment, it is a saline drip of life-giving help for the vast ranks of broken and wounded soldiers in God's army.

It tells us that our crushing can be the crucible for our finest creativity.

So I was already feasting on the songs of David when my friend said, 'have you seen the Message version of Psalm 18.24?'

When I said 'no,' he read it to me:

God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him.
When I got my act together, he gave me a fresh start.
Now I'm alert to God's ways; I don't take God for granted.
Every day I review the ways he works.
I try not to miss a trick.
I feel put back together and I'm watching my step.
God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

When my friend spoke those words over my life I immediately sensed hope rising in my broken soul - hope that there is meaning in my mess because the Divine Hand is rewriting the text of my life as I open up my heart to his scandalously compassionate and acutely penetrating eyes.

And that's happening.

As I receive help from trusted others (particularly through inner healing ministry and regular professional counselling), I have started to see my past with the eyes of my Heavenly Father and, in the process, begun to trust him to edit and rewrite the text of my life!

And as that has started to happen, I have reflected on this.

Our Heavenly Father is the greatest editor in the universe!

When it comes to the text of our lives, he has the Midas touch.

He can remove paragraphs and improve chapters.

He can change point of view and develop characters.

He can beautify and rectify dialogue and description.

He can turn tragedy into comedy just as easily as he turns winter into spring.

And so I have come to see a surprising synchronicity between what he is doing and what I am doing.

I am editing other peoples' stories.

While he is editing mine.

'Selah,' as David would have said!

A NEW SEA SONG

Tight Lines

They amble hand in hand along the leas
He with a fleece like the lining of a dog's bed
She with a scarlet anorak
That jars against her leaden hair

Two fishermen are setting up along the shore
One is thrusting a long rod into the shingle
The other a puny tent for both to shelter in
Should the lenient wind pick up

Two girls in crimson helmets pedal by
Calling to each other on their rusting tricycles
Their torn black leggings hustling eagerly
In three wheeled synchronicity

The twitching fishing lines are out
Linking the land's edge with the gravelly sea
Watched by the fishermen in dungarees
Sitting stoically together on the stony beach

A short legged hoodied woman passes by
Her tethered Dachsund trotting by her heels
His restless tail jerking like an agitated rod
His face turned up to hers adoringly

'We're in!' I hear the fishermen exclaim
As one begins to pull a flatfish from the surf
Its wide eyes fixed in startled rage
Against tight, intrusive lines

A HEAVENLY HOMECOMING

There are few words more emotive and evocative than the word home - and there are few moments in life more joyful or poignant than coming home. 

My novel, 'The Prodigal Father', is all about homecoming. In it, a father called Jake goes off the rails and leaves his family for Casino City in the far north.

He loses himself in a world of gambling and danger until he experiences an extreme downturn in his fortunes. He is forced to live rough on the streets and forage for food.

There Jake wistfully talks of his home to a fellow street dweller called Christine - a modern Christ-figure who teaches him how to survive in a harsh and unforgiving urban landscape.

She and her imaginary friend 'Gusto' share their home - a rusty old Ford Capri - with Jake.

With their unconventional help and wisdom, Jake begins to turn his thoughts from exile to return.

How it all pans out - well, you'll have to go home and read it!

                            *   *   *

Homecoming - the act of returning to where you feel most welcome and loved - is undeniably powerful, whether in literature or life.

As Charles Dickens once wrote,

'Every traveler has a home of his own and he learns to appreciate it more from his wanderings.'

This is true.

And it is also true that the older we get the more we appreciate it.

When we are young we grow up wanting to leave home. When we grow old we start wanting more and more to return home.

When we are children, we look up at the sky and long to be sitting in an airplane flying far away.

When we are older, we look down from the airplane and long to be with our loved ones again.

The young want to leave it.

The old want to retrieve it.

There's truly something about home.

                            *   *    * 

Why all this talk of homecoming?

The other day I was asked by a friend who works for the BBC to provide resources on the Ascension of Christ - in preparation for a program for Ascension Day (Thursday 9th May).

After some study, I came to the conclusion that for me the most moving aspect of the Ascension of Christ has to do with his homecoming to the Father.

The actual physical act of the Ascension doesn't interest me that much.

I am not so preoccupied with whether Jesus went up to a realm beyond the reach of any telescope.

Or whether he slipped through some invisible portal into a parallel universe.

These things seem rather prosaic to me.

At least in comparison with the idea of homecoming.

That is what intrigues and moves me most - the idea of the Stranger from Heaven returning home.

The Son coming home to the arms of his outrageously loving Father.

That's the stuff of poetry.

                                                          *         *         *

There are three things I have thought about over the last fortnight in relation to this.

The first has to do with REST.

That great philosopher Pumba in 'The Lion King' said that 'home is where you rest your rump.'

Precisely!

Home is where you can sit down, put your feet up, and sigh with uninhibited relief.

There would have been something of this for Jesus at the Ascension.

The Bible says that once he had ascended into the heavens he sat down next to his heavenly Father.

And he sat down because he had fulfilled his assignment.

He had won the race, fought the fight, gained the prize.

Now it was time to rest.

It was time to sit and sigh with relief and delight.

There was something about REST in this heavenly homecoming.

                          *   *   *

And there was secondly something about RELATIONSHIP.

Coming home doesn't always mean returning to a place.

Often it can mean returning to a person or people - to those who know you best and love you most.

As the actor Daniel Radcliffe has said, 'I love coming home to somebody.'

Not somewhere, note, but somebody.

As Radcliffe added, 'I love being in a relationship.'

Jesus' homecoming was all about relationship.

When he returned to his home in heaven, he returned to the immediacy of intimacy.

While he was on the earth, he related to his Father in his human body through the Holy Spirit.

When he returned to the Father he went from a long distance to a face to face relationship.

Homecoming was about RELATIONSHIP for Jesus.

                         *    *    *

And thirdly it was about REJOICING.

Guy Pearce has said that 'the thrill of coming home has never changed.'

Thrill - good word that.

It can be truly thrilling when a loved one comes back home - both for the one welcoming and the one returning.

This was emphatically true of the Ascension.

And here we have to dream a little.

Can we begin to imagine what this return of Christ was really like - after his thirty years on the earth, three years in Galilee, and three days in the tomb?

Did the whole company of heaven stand for the returning Son?

Was there an ovation beyond any the world has ever known?

How loud did the angels sing and what was their exuberant song?

And what about the Father?

What did he do?

Did he run to his Son like the father of the prodigal - his arms outstretched, his face beaming, his eyes streaming with tears?

And did the whole universe shudder in an inexplicable ecstasy as the two embraced in the wild, encircling arms of the Spirit?

Maybe one day we will know.

Maybe one day we will see.

But for now we glimpse and guess, like children peering through the misty glass of a car returning home, plaintively inquiring, 'Are we there yet?'

And my guess is this - Christ's homecoming was a moment of unbridled joy in which the Father spun on his feet and danced with a ludicrous abandonment that startled heaven.

The Ascension released a Hallelujah chorus that would have sent shivers up Handel's spine.

                           *   *   *

May I make a suggestion?

If you have problems getting excited about the Ascension, think about it in terms of homecoming.

Imagine the moment when the Son came face to face with the Love of All Loves and heard the words, 'welcome home.'

And consider this.

The Son of God came to live in our place so that the sons of men could one day live in his.

We will all go home one day - even if we do not have a home to go to here.

There is a welcome waiting for us the like of which the world has never seen.

Because in his resurrection Christ opened the grave.

But in his ascension, he opened the doors of heaven.

Now every son and every daughter can one day dream of coming home.

And that's something worth celebrating.



'The Prodigal Father' is available as an ebook on www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.com, www.lulu.com and at www.theprodigalfather.co.uk 

The Sound of the Sea

This month's blog is a poem.

My first ever book was a volume of poetry entitled 'The Drawing out of Days.' 
It was published when I was just 16 and it was reviewed very favourably by the wonderful Joan Bakewell.

So it's been very healing to rediscover this gift and especially healing to write about my last five days on the Suffolk coast.

Breakers 

It's always rush hour here beside the sea

As waves, like trucks and cabs, break noisily

Outside my cottage window.

'There's a different kind of traffic here', I muse,

As briny, white-roofed, cars and coaches 

Come and go unwaveringly.

Each day an unseen postman comes

- like a furtive oceanic messenger - 

To my dilapidated door.

'Look what the tide's brought in!' I shout

To the motionless seagulls surfing the wind, 

As they speed off effortlessly. 

I sit on a bench composed of rotting timber 

- a simple, decomposing offering - 

Brought in on generous tides.

There I contemplate the latest letters

Sent from the Maker of the Sea

Who writes to me so tenderly. 

I settle my mind and brood on his messages,

My arms stretched out like a seabird's,

My broken soul surrendered. 

'His words have the constancy of waves' I cry,

'They drown me in their raging love 

As they break upon me endlessly.' 

As I watch a murmuration of busy starlings

Darting over a brown and broken heath,

An inner vow begins to surge. 

'This is where unhurried hearts can swell with song, 

This is where my beaten ears belong,

Where the surf sounds mystically.'

CONVICTED BY YOUR OWN WORDS

It’s always fun to throw an archaic ‘turn of phrase’ into a conversation. One of the ones I commonly use is ‘hoisted by your own petard.’

Now I’ll be honest, I knew what this expression meant - namely, to be injured by the device with which you intended to injure others - but I had forgotten the origin.

A quick study revealed that ‘petard’ is a word of French origin meaning a squat, bell-shaped cannon (contained within a cubical box) that blew holes in the walls of enemy forts.

These boxed cannons were full of gunpowder. This meant two things. First, they were basically portable bombs. Secondly, they could explode in the faces of those using them.

As an amusing side note, the word ‘petard’ undoubtedly has some connection with the French verb ‘peter’, meaning to break wind. 

I’ll leave you to develop that thought!

Evidently the great William Shakespeare knew about these devices and their unfortunate and occasional tendency to blow up, propelling their inventors into the sky.

In his play Hamlet we read, ‘for tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his owne petar.’

In this instance, the ‘engineer’ was the person with the job of constructing the machines of war.

So the Bard is effectively saying, ‘what fun it is to see an engineer blown up into the air by his own weapon.’

Now why am I telling you all this? It’s because I have had this kind of experience - metaphorically speaking (obviously) - in relation to one of my own books.

Many of you reading this blog will know of my moral fall and the life that I was living up until recently when the Holy Spirit brought conviction.

I will say nothing more on that than I have written in my statement (www.theprodigalfather.co.uk).

What I will say is that the ways in which that conviction came are truly profound - so much so that I am writing about it in a small book called ‘Songs from the Far Country’.

Let me relate one of the most significant moments.

My oldest friend was reading through Every Day with the Father as part of his daily devotions. He had got to Day 355 where I write about Jesus’ restoration of Peter in John 21.

He quoted what I wrote (way before my own moral failure):

‘Jesus is going to make Peter confront his failure, not in order to destroy or humiliate him but in order to heal and liberate him.’

He added another quote that he liked:

‘The call is bigger than the fall. We all fall from time to time as we follow Jesus. But our Father is the God of the second chance.’

My friend didn’t add anything else except the assurance that he would always be my friend, that he was praying for me and that he loved me dearly.

Looking back now, I can say with sincerity that reading my own words - now directed at me personally - had a very deep effect on my heart.

Only the Holy Spirit knows the extent to which this message - along with other factors - brought an awakening to me in the Far Country.

But I can say this, reading my own words, intended to bring healing and hope to others, was like being blown into the air by my own explosive.

In short, I was hoisted by my own petard.

One of my favourite verses in the Bible is in 2 Samuel 14.14, which says that God devises many ways to bring a lost or estranged person home.

The ways he calls out to us in the Far Country are truly marvelous, mysterious and miraculous.

If you know someone who’s in the Far Country right now, keep praying for them.

Please do not give up.

As Zackary Coke (great name!) said in 1654:

‘The prayers of the saints will ascend and petar an entrance through the portcullis of heaven.’

Keep going and blow a hole in the enemy’s stronghold over your friend’s life.

Prayer is truly dangerous!

If you are in the Far Country yourself, please consider saying this prayer.

It is the prayer I wrote at the end of Day 355 in Every Day with the Father.

It is the prayer that my oldest, dearest friend quoted back at me at the end of the email I mentioned, when I found myself blown into the air by one of my own creations!

‘Dear loving, heavenly Abba Father, I thank you so much that the call is bigger than the fall. Help me to accept your process of healing and restoration in those areas where I have failed you. Keep me in alignment with the call and destiny upon my life, in Jesus’ name, Amen.’

THE GOD OF SHOW AND TELL

THE GOD OF SHOW AND TELL

If you ever go to church, I wonder if you relate to this habit of mine.

When I’m listening to someone speaking or reading, on occasions I can find that a phrase triggers a whole chain of thoughts in my head - thoughts which may not be what the speaker expects me to be thinking.

This happened just last Sunday.

There I was in the morning service in the local Anglican Church.

I was listening to a man reading Psalm 19, and reading it really well too (he is an artistic and sensitive soul, so I wasn’t surprised).

He read, ‘the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork’.

I’ll be honest.

I didn’t hear the rest of the chapter.

I was away in my head - swimming down a stream of consciousness which turned into a river of revelation (at least for me).

And here’s what tugged my attention.

I was pulled - no grabbed - by the thought that God is into showing and not just telling.

When it comes to communicating with his children, God is a Father who’s into ‘show and tell’.

Now why’s that important?

To me, it’s huge.

These days, I spend a lot of time writing stories.

One of the essential keys to composing a gripping story is the ability to know when to show and when to tell.

So what’s the difference?

Telling is when the storyteller reveals what a person is like through the direct description of their thoughts and personalities.

Showing is when the storyteller allows what the characters say and do to reveal who and what they really are.

What the experts say is this: if you’re writing fiction, don’t always reveal through direct description - through telling.

Reveal characters indirectly through what they say and what they do.

In other words, reveal primarily through showing and be visual (we live in a visual culture, after all).

In Psalm 19 God says that he reveals who he really is through showing.

As the divine storyteller, God does occasionally engage in telling.

He spoke from time to time though the prophets, after all.

And he has spoken uniquely through his Son - described as ‘the Word’.

But this all this is ‘special revelation’.

Much of the time God uses ‘general revelation’ - he reveals himself by showing.

The heavens declare who he is.

The firmament shows what he’s like.

So when we look up at the stars in the night sky

Or when we stare at a landscape of fields and forests

Or when we watch horses at the gallop or Meerkats at attention

The divine storyteller is showing us something.

And as readers of the world, it’s up to us to try and see.

James Bond and the Mum/Maam Factor

James Bond and the Mum/Ma’am Factor

There are very few films I’ll see in the cinema twice - not even on Orange Wednesdays - but Skyfall is one of those rare movies to have merited a return trip.

There are many reasons why I’m not alone in thinking that this could just be the best Bond movie to date (and how appropriate on the 50th anniversary since Dr. No).

Craig gives us a hero that mirrors M’s favorite possession - a bulldog made of (ultimately broken) China.

Bardem’s performance (check out his 100 second single shot intro) is both terrifying and compelling.

Dame Judi dexterously mixes ruthlessness with sentimentality.

And Ben Wishshaw is a fantastically minimalist Q.

I would have warmed to Skyfall just on the basis of its characters alone.

But there’s more.

As a bonus extra, we get a surprisingly strong story.

For here we are presented with two characters - Bond (Crag) and Silva (Bardem) - from the same stock.

Both have a background in the British Civil Service and have been nurtured by M.

And it’s here that the movie succeeds in moving us.

For ultimately the lasting significance of Skyfall is its exploration of M as Mother.

M is a mother to both Bond and Silva.

And these two men end up warring for her affections and attentions like jealous brothers.

In Skyfall, M is not just Ma’am.

She is Mum/Mom.

And to Bond especially, she is the closest thing to a mother he has had since he was orphaned as a boy.

Which is why M tellingly says to Bond: ‘orphans make the best recruits’.

There is so much more I could say here.

I could talk about the fact that Ian Fleming called his mother ‘M’ when he was growing up;

About the mother shaped void in Bond and how M fills that emptiness;

About the mother wound in people in our real (as opposed to celluloid) world;

About how we look for substitutes to fill that void - often ones that, like M, can be dangerous to us;

And about how this void is only ultimately filled by a greater, holier, and divine love.

But for now, I want to celebrate the rich contribution made by Skyfall to the Bond series.

Sam Mendes has done a masterful job.

For the first time, we have a Bond film that’s multi-storey - many layered not one dimensional, serious not frivolous.

And for me, one of the fascinating questions it leaves with us is this.

Will the orphan-spy in the next movie look to Gareth Mallory as he has looked to M?

Will he see in Mallory a substitute for his father?

Will M become F in Bond’s orphaned heart?