Bono and Jesus (Love Rescue Me)

Love rescue me
Come forth and speak to me
Raise me up and don't let me fall
No man is my enemy
My own hands imprison me
Love rescue me
Many strangers have I met
On the road to my regret
Many lost who seek to find themselves in me
They ask me to reveal
The very thoughts they would conceal
Love rescue me
 And the sun in the sky
Makes a shadow of you and I
Stretching out as the sun sinks in the sea
I'm here without a name
In the palace of my shame
I said love rescue me

So what is this love that Bono sings about?

The following exchange between Bono and [music journalist] Michka Assayas took place just days after the Madrid train bombings in March 2004, an act of terrorism that left 191 dead and more than 1,800 wounded. The two men were discussing how terrorism is often carried out in the name of religion when Bono turned the conversation to Christianity.

Bono: My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean? What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor. I don't let my religious world get too complicated. I just kind of go: Well, I think I know what God is. God is love, and as much as I respond [sighs] in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that's my religion. Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love. Now that's not so easy.

Assayas: What about the God of the Old Testament? He wasn't so "peace and love"?

Bono: There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend. When you're a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross. [Later on in the conversation]

Assayas: I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?

Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma… I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.

Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled… It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

Assayas: That's a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it's close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that far-fetched?

Bono: No, it's not far-fetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: "I'm the Messiah." I'm saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You're a bit eccentric. We've had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don't mention the "M" word! Because, you know, we're gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you're expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he's gonna keep saying this. So what you're left with is: either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we're talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we've been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had "King of the Jews" on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I'm not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that's far-fetched.

The life that I have

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

by Leo Marks


This poem started out life as part the Allied resistance in WWII, but has since become a favourite at weddings. (The New York Times reported that a friend of the couple read this lovely little ditty at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.) The reasons are not hard to see. There is something so instinctive in its description of love and self-giving, the giving of oneself to the beloved, one that is reiterated in countless love songs. I belong to you. You have my heart. I am yours.

The very dynamic of love draws out total commitment, complete vulnerability. Love is self-giving, because Love, gave Himself for us.

In the person of Jesus, God’s self-giving love becomes a particular human being – God truly with us as one of us. In a world that has become increasingly deaf to God and broken in its life together -- God enters, and never leaves. God the creator is God the redeemer – God, the repairer of all brokenness.

Carol Jacobson

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.

A beautiful sadness

Listening to Jay Chou, I can't help but wonder why so much of Chinese pop music consists of sentimental ballads about heartbreak, loss and regret. The compact beauty of the Chinese language, in which great depth of emotion is expressed in but a few words, seems to be uniquely suited for such lyrical lament. The end theme from the movie Curse of the Golden Flower, is a wonderful case in point. A valiant attempt is made to render the song in English, but even so, it is hard to capture the full richness of the original Chinese. The combination of poetic lyrics with intricate minor-key melody creates a feeling of exquisitely beautiful sadness.



Perhaps sadness is always preceded by joy, and a heart will only break for losing what it once treasured. Perhaps the beauty of sadness is in the joy of what once was. Perhaps joy and sadness are inextricably intertwined.

Is there no beauty, no joy, no love, that lasts?


The earth will never be the same again.
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this grief
As distant stars participate in pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
Is Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried,
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies then would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
That every life is noted and is cherished,
And nothing loved is ever lost or perished.

Madeleine L'Engle, from A Ring of Endless Light

God lives in eternity, and although we live in time, through the grace of the Spirit we may also be freed from time. But that is difficult for us to understand in the dailiness of living. We are born into time. Our bodies age according to time, and in time they will die. It is not easy for us to understand that eternity is not a time concept, that it has nothing to do with time at all, but is that fullness of God's love which transcends time.

Madeleine L'Engle, "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth"

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Psalm 136

Good Friday: This Is Love

This is love
Hanging on a tree
For all the world to see
Holy sacrifice

This is love
Dying in my place
Bearing my disgrace
Giving me new life

This is love, perfect love
Like I have never known
Father God, in your righteousness
To think You would claim me as Your own

This is love

This is love
Reaching for me first
When I was at my worst
On a lonely road

This is love
My sin as black as night
Covered in a robe of white
That your grace bestowed

This is love, perfect love
Like I have never known
Father God, in your righteousness
To think You would claim me as Your own

This is love
This is love

by Todd Vaters

Cheaters

We were talking about how keen we both were to watch The Bridge Project's The Winter's Tale.

- Do you like Shakespeare?
- I like Ethan Hawke.
- But he's an adulterer! He cheated on Uma Thurman and their two kids!
- You don't know what happened, what it was like to be in his shoes. Maybe he had his reasons. You can't judge.

I mumbled something about penance and repentance, but this kept stewing in my mind all the way home. For all my mock protestations about Ethan Hawke's adultery, I am very excited about the play and the fact that he is in it - I loved Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. In the latter, he might very well have alluded to why his marriage with Uma Thurman broke down. In conversation with Julie Delpy's character, Celine, he (Jesse) describes his unhappy marriage as akin to "running a small nursery with someone I used to date."

We all judge. We judge people for judging. We are self-righteous about the self-righteous. We all have standards of some sort and according to our standards, some people are right, and some are wrong. We cannot avoid making judgments. Despite the ever-present danger of hypocrisy, I still think that it is important to make such distinctions about motivations and action, especially with regards to ourselves. Hate is wrong. Lying is wrong. Cheating is wrong.

However, when we make moral distinctions about other people's actions, the most important thing is to recognise that had we been in their position, we would have done the same - or worse. The difference between making a moral judgment (or being morally discerning), and judging someone - is humility. This is the honest admission that you are nobody's moral superior, and are probably morally inferior in so many ways. Jesus told us as much when he allowed himself to be crucified - for us. He took the judgment that we deserved to bear.

We are all cheaters. God loves us with a faithful, everlasting love, but we have been faithless. We love other things more than Him, in place of Him. Willful self-determination, money, power, success, romance, human approval... the list goes on and on. Even though he gave his whole heart to us, we gave our hearts away - and we have done so at our own peril. We do not love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and as a result, we do not come anywhere close to loving our neighbours as ourselves.

We have caused God - and consequently each other - so much pain, and yet his reponse to our betrayal is not to lash out in anger, to hurt us like we have hurt him. Instead, he takes all the pain and hurt of the world - that we have caused - upon himself, so that we may be reconciled to him. We deserved judgment, but he showed us mercy. We deserved his anger, but he showed us forgiveness. We are cheaters, but he is ever loving, ever faithful.

I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and let your glory be over all the earth.
Psalm 108:3-5

He's just not that into you

The movie was passably pleasant but what really surprised me was that it was actually based on a book which had earlier been published in 2004. Both writers had been involved with Sex and the City, one as a writer and the other as a consultant. I actually remember this line from the series. In one of the episodes, go-getter career woman Miranda has a relational revelation one fine day, when she realises that she doesn't need to keep agonising over whether or not a guy calls back or reciprocates interest. If he doesn't, it just means that he's just not that into you. Armed with this new-found knowledge she goes round the city trying to dispense this wisdom, but is unceremoniously rebuffed by women who want to persist in their self-denial. "He will call," their friends assure them (despite all evidence to the contrary) and they blindly believe.

Which begs the question - why are we so blind?

The contents of the book reads as follows, and the movie is structured along the same lines:

1. He's Just Not That Into You If He's Not Asking You Out
2. He's Just Not That Into You If He's Having Sex With Someone Else
3. He's Just Not That Into You If He Only Wants to See You When He's Drunk
4. He's Just Not That Into You If He's Breaking Up With You
5. He's Just Not That Into You If He's Married

None of these statements are earth-shattering revelations - in fact one would think that they are common sense. And yet the movie - and the book - seems to have struck a chord with quite a few, which leaves me to conclude that we have an amazing capacity for self-denial and deception. What is patently obvious to a disinterested outsider is hardly obvious to the one who is in the throes of a largely one-sided, intense relational experience. This is best exemplified by the character of Gigi (played endearingly by Ginnifer Goodwin). Guy after guy, rejection after rejection, she persists in the hope that the current object of her affection will reciprocate.

I've been reading a bit more about the science of decision-making recently, and one of the things that comes up again and again is that our minds are extremely good at filtering information to confirm pre-existing notions and desires. We all suffer from cognitive biases. (Try this exercise.) I'm guessing that this is one of the main reasons why so often, we just don't see that he's just not that into me/you. So what's a girl to do?

Personally, I know I'm much more susceptible to relational idiocy when I've spent more time marinating in our romance-obsessed culture and not enough reading up on real love. We so often reserve 1 Corinthians 13 for wedding readings, but how often do we singles need to be reminded that love is patient and kind and not envious, boastful, proud, or self-seeking. Armed with such truth, we're much less likely to fall for any cheap love knock-offs.

And probably the best antidote to this relational settling is being filled up with perfect love. The kind that casts out all fears, that was offered to us first and when we were still wretched messes. Love that's unconditional, sacrificial, unending. Love that comes from the One who knit you together in your mother's womb, who knows the number of hairs on your head, who gathers your every tear in a bottle, and who's etched you on the palms of his hands. And why does he do all these things? Because he's just that into you.

From "Men Behaving Badly, Women Being Idiots"
by Camerin Courtney

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Much of the film's romantic and philosophical posture hinges on Benjamin and Daisy getting together at the right time, and they do so in an entirely satisfying way; by the time of consummation, with Brad Pitt now in full physical glory and Blanchett at her womanly peak, they - and the audience - are more than ready for it. But their passion is all the more pointedly ephemeral due to the consciousness of being headed in opposite physical directions. The necessary acceptance of this fact produces a sincerely and genuinely earned sense of melancholy about the transitive nature of love and life. - Variety

The movie left me with a wistful sense of longing - does nothing truly beautiful last? Perhaps we all pass through this life - and meet here - but once. Benjmain and Daisy only have a few blissful years together - she is growing older and he is growing younger, and they cannot help but grow apart. He leaves before this happens.

We might have a few more years - a few more decades even - than they do. Yet everyone and everything we love is fleeting. Everything is slowly falling apart. Time catches up with all of us and in the end, death rips us apart.

Why does this feel so unnatural? Why does this hurt so much? Deep down, something tells me that this is not the way things were meant to be. This atrophying world can't be all there is. We were made to last. Love lasts.

If you really are the product of a material universe, why don’t you feel at home in a world where you die and disintegrate? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did would that not strongly suggest that they were once not purely aquatic creatures? Why are we continually shocked and repulsed by death? Unless, indeed, something in us, is not temporal.

Tim Keller paraphrasing C. S. Lewis
in Death and the Christian Hope

The Punchline

I heard a really good wedding speech today. Of all the groom speeches that I've heard so far (and I've heard quite a few), this was the first one that started with a personal admission of weakness. The speech went something like this.

"I can't love you as much as you deserve to be loved," he said to his bride.

Cue a collective "Awww..." from the guests.
"Hang on," said the groom, "this is not the punchline."

"Love in its purest form is unconditional. But I have come to need you so much. I can't imagine my life without you."

Again, a collective "Awww..."
"Wait, this is not the punchline."

He continued, "I can't love you as much as you really deserve to be loved. Only Jesus can. He loves you more than I ever could and His love can, and will, satisfy your every need. Knowing that His love covers my weaknesses and binds us together, I am not afraid to be myself with you. I am not enough but Christ more than enough for me, for you. For us."

Can I just say - "Awww..."

A deep and terrible mystery

In the face of great suffering, oftentimes we want so very much to be able to give people an answer, to give ourselves an answer. I do not know if there is an answer to be had. In the face of the deepest and most terrible of pain, I do not know if there is an answer. Why? Why did this have to happen? I believe that ultimately, there is a reason - but we might never know what that reason is, at least not on this side of eternity.

Suffering is a mystery as deep as any in our existence. It is not of course a mystery whose reality some doubt. Suffering keeps its face hid from each while making itself known to all.

Nicholas Wolterstorff in Lament for a Son

I keep thinking about what Locke said about the limits of human knowledge: The divine creator gave us enough light to traverse the oceans, but not necessarily to plumb all its depths.

There is a deep and terrible mystery about suffering.


To love is to suffer. There is a deep and terrible mystery about love. To love, to really love, is irrational. The Bible tells us that God loves us. He loves us so much that he left heaven for us, gave himself up for us, endured infinite suffering for us, went through hell itself, for us. Why? What did we ever do that was deserving of his love? Why does God love us? How can he love us? Does he not see the utter darkness within each of our souls? Does he not see what we do to each other? What we do to him?

Jesus Christ looked down [from the cross] and he saw the people he was dying for - some cringing, some snarling, all of them clueless. And in the greatest act of strength and love in the history of the world – he stayed.

Attributed to Spurgeon

God does not give us an answer for suffering so much as share in it, and ultimately defeat it, defeating death itself. Because he loves us. And to love is to suffer.

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world.

But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness.

That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered out world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his.

There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolizes divine suffering. ‘The cross of Christ… is God’s only self-justification in such a world’ as ours.

John Stott in The Cross of Christ

The Cure for Pain

 

I'm not sure why it always goes downhill   
Why broken cisterns never could stay filled   
I've spent ten years singing gravity away   
But the water keeps on falling from the sky   

And here tonight while the stars are blacking out  
With every hope and dream I've ever had in doubt   
I've spent ten years trying to sing these doubts away   
But the water keeps on falling from my eyes   

And heaven knows... heaven knows 
I tried to find a cure for the pain   
Oh my Lord! to suffer like you do...   
It would be a lie to run away   

So blood is fire pulsing through our veins   
We're either riders or fools behind the reins   
I've spent 10 years trying to sing it all away   
But the water keeps on falling from my tries

I've been listening to this song again and again. I remember when I first heard it. On an episode of Grey's Anatomy. I was so thrilled that they played a Christian artist's song on a major network TV show. I remember when I last saw you. At the Switchfoot concert earlier this year. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that you were a fellow Switchfoot enthusiast. I wish so much that we had met again under happier circumstances. But it was not to be.

We are one in suffering. Some are wealthy, some bright; some athletic, some admired. But we all suffer. For we all prize and love; and in this present existence of ours, prizing and loving yield suffering. Love in our world is suffering love. Some do not suffer much, though, for they do not love much. Suffering is for the loving. If I hadn't loved him, there wouldn't be this agony. This, said Jesus, is the command of the Holy One: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer. God is love. That is why he suffers. To love our sinful world is to suffer. God so suffered for the world that he gave up his only Son to suffering. The one who does not see God’s suffering does not see his love. God is suffering love. So suffering is down at the center of things, deep down where the meaning is. Suffering is the meaning of our world. For Love is the meaning. And Love suffers. The tears of God are the meaning of history. Nicholas Wolterstoff, in Lament for a Son

Oh my Lord! to suffer like you do...
It would be a lie to run away

Let Your Love Be Strong - Your Love Is Strong

"Let Your Love Be Strong" is one of my favourite songs on the new Switchfoot album, Oh! Gravity.

Listen to the album version of the song here.

In this world of news, I've found nothing new
I've found nothing pure
Maybe I'm just idealistic to assume that truth
Could be fact and form
That love could be a verb
Maybe I'm just a little misinformed

As the dead moon rises, and the freeways sigh
Let the trains watch over the tides and the mist
Spinning circles in our sky's tonight
Let the trucks roll in from Los Angeles
Maybe our stars are unanimously tired

Let your love be strong, and I don't care what goes down
Let your love be strong enough
to weather through the thunder cloud
Fury and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your eyes
All of my world hanging on your love

Let the wars begin, let my strength wear thin
Let my fingers crack, let my world fall apart
Train the monkeys on my back to fight
Let it start tonight
When my world explodes, when my stars touch the ground
Falling down like broken satellites

All of my world resting on your love

"This one means a lot to me. 'Maybe I'm just idealistic to assume that truth could be fact and form, that love could be a verb, maybe I'm just a little misinformed.' I wrote this one after a long walk in the early morning before the sun came up. I was sitting out by the train tracks halfway between the ocean and the freeway. When everything in your life falls apart you begin to realize what's worth holding on to and who's got a hold on you. Let the world fall apart ... all of my life rests upon the love that created every breath I have been given."

Jon Foreman (lead singer of Switchfoot)

Recently, Jon Foreman released a series of four solo EPs made up of his quieter and more worshipful material. "Switchfoot is more of the public address with the lights and megaphone, whereas these songs are more my confession," he says.

"Your Love Is Strong" is an absolutely amazing song. The first time I heard it, it brought tears to my eyes. I love how the song is filled with Scripture, how he makes the words of Scripture his own as he talks to God, weaving eternal truth into the very fabric of his soul. Here he says that this song is the sequel to "Let Your Love Be Strong", and a very apt sequel it is. This is the answer to the question.

Listen to the album version of the song here.

Heavenly Father
You always amaze me
Let Your kingdom come in my world
And in my life

Give me the food I need
To live through today
Forgive me as I forgive
The people that wrong me

Keep me far from temptation
Deliver me from the evil one

I look out the window
The birds are composing
Not a note is out of tune
Or out of place

I walk to the meadow
And stare at the flowers
Better dressed than any girl
On her wedding day

So why do I worry?
Why do I freak out?
God knows what I need
You know what I need!

Your love is
Your love is
Your love is strong

The kingdom of the heavens
Is now advancing
Invade my heart
Invade this broken town

The kingdom of the heavens
Is buried treasure
Would you sell yourself
To buy the one you've found

Two things you told me
That you are strong
And you love me
Yes, you love me

Your love is
Your love is
Your love is strong
Your love is
Your love is
Your love is strong

Our God in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Above all names
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven
Give us, today, our daily bread
Forgive us weary sinners
Keep us far from our vices
And deliver us from these prisons

Brideshead Revisited: A twitch upon the thread

I've just finished reading Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. It's been some time since I've read a good, no, great, novel - witty, urbane and profoundly moving all at once - mired as I am, in the more functional and prosaic prose of current affairs reporting. Even though I got through the novel in fits and starts, it is probably a testimony to Waugh's brilliance that every time I picked it up again to continue from where I had left off, I was immediately wrapped up in the poetic beauty of his words and transported to a different place, a different time. And yet, despite the rarefied air of the world that his characters inhabit, much of what they struggle with is universal.

The book is about one Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains, an eccentric (often comical), aristocratic, Catholic family, and the "rapidly disappearing world of privilege they inhabit" (so says the blurb at the back of the Penguin edition of the book). Charles Ryder first falls in with the enchanting Sebastian when they are at Oxford. This episode opens with one of the loveliest descriptions of Oxford I have ever come across.

Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman's day; her autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days - such as that day - when the chestnut over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance...

Through his friendship with Sebastian, Charles is introduced to his "madly charming" family and years later is swept up in an adulterous affair with Sebastian's ethereally beautiful sister, Julia.

Here, after having been together with Julia for two years, Charles recalls a conversation that he and Julia once had.

'It's frightening,' Julia once said, 'to think how completely you've forgotten Sebastian.'
'He was the forerunner.'
'That's what you said in the storm. I've thought since, perhaps I am only a forerunner, too.'
'Perhaps,' I thought, while her words still hung in the air between us like a wisp of tobacco smoke - a thought to fade and vanish like smoke without a trace - 'perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.'

Earlier in the book, Charles declares that "to know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom." But by the end of the book the imperfection and insufficiency of love between two flawed human beings becomes tragically clear. And yet, all is not lost. The book ends redemptively, with the Marchmain family returning to their spiritual roots and Charles back at his beloved Brideshead Castle during the second world war, now a Captain in the army, saying a prayer - "an ancient, newly-learned form of words" - in the chapel, finally finding what he had always been searching for, even as he is found.


In the 1959 preface, Waugh writes that the theme of this book is "the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters". In the middle of the book, just after their mother has passed away, Cordelia (Sebastian and Julia's younger sister) tells Charles:

'Anyhow, the family haven't been very constant [in their faith], have they? There's [Papa] gone and Sebastian gone and Julia gone. But God won't let them go for long, you know. I wonder if you remember the story mummy read us the evening Sebastian first got drunk - I mean the bad evening. "Father Brown" said something like "I caught him" (the thief) "with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread."'

A Deeper Magic

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

I sped through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows over the weekend, thoroughly enjoying the ride (I'll have to read it again). The book did not disappoint; though some may have wished for a darker ending, I found the resolution satisfying. This is, after all, a children's book. I don't think Rowling can be faulted for happily-ever-after. I was, however, very much taken by surprise by the general tone of the book; the Christian symbolism which the earlier six books had hinted at came right to the fore in this one.

At one point in the story, Harry is led to the Sword of Griffyndor, a sword that will enable him to destroy the Horcruxes (objects housing parts of Voldemort's soul). Rowling writes, "The ice reflected his distorted shadow and the beam of wandlight, but deep below the thick, misty gray carapace, something else glinted. A great silver cross..."

Christmas Eve finds Harry and his friends in the church graveyard in Godric's Hollow, where Dumbledore and Harry's family are buried. On the Dumbledore family tomb, the inscription reads, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (from Matthew 6:21) and on Harry's parents' tomb are the words, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (from 1 Corinthians 15:26, part of a passage about resurrection).

When Harry meets Dumbledore in the existential in-between, Harry asks Dumbledore why Voldemort could not kill him. Dumbledore tells him that "That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped."

Right from the beginning of the series, we are told that it was Harry's mother's substitutionary sacrifice that saved him from certain death, for such love had power that not even the darkest magic could defeat. In the Deathly Hallows, Harry himself willingly lays down his life for his friends, surrendering himself to Voldemort. (Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:13) In a sense, Harry dies and is resurrected. In Rowling's world, the deepest magic is clearly love.

In an interview with the Vancouver Sun in 2000, when Rowling was asked whether or not she was Christian, she replied "Yes, I am," continuing, "Which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books."

Good Friday: Sunday's Comin'

Once again, my weak and wandering heart is reminded of just how much it cost. Just how much we are loved. And just how much we have to look forward to.


Come and see, come and see
Come and see the King of love
See the purple robe and crown of thorns he wears
Soldiers mock, rulers sneer
As he lifts the cruel cross
Lone and friendless now he climbs towards the hill

We worship at your feet
Where wrath and mercy meet
And a guilty world is washed
By love's pure stream
For us he was made sin
Oh, help me take it in
Deep wounds of love cry out 'Father, forgive'
I worship, I worship
The Lamb who was slain.

Come and weep, come and mourn
For your sin that pierced him there
So much deeper than the wounds of thorn and nail
All our pride, all our greed
All our fallenness and shame
And the Lord has laid the punishment on him

Man of heaven, born to earth
To restore us to your heaven
Here we bow in awe beneath
Your searching eyes
From your tears comes our joy
From your death our life shall spring
By your resurrection power we shall rise

by Graham Kendrick

Love is...

We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, loving-kindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see that face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish and no turning away from our earthly Beloved. First, because we shall have turned already; from the portraits to the Original, from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do.

C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves

Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.

Song of Songs 8:6-7

Tell me the truth about love

It has just occurred to me that I have a penchant for admiring the work of writers who attended Oxford, struggled with their homosexuality all their lives, and eventually returned to Christianity. Actually, I only have in mind two writers but then they are both great favourites of mine. When it comes to favourites, there is another writer who could be mentioned alongside the first two, but then he went to Cambridge, swung every which way sexually, and, as far as anyone can tell, never returned to Christianity. The first two writers are Oscar Wilde and W. H. Auden, and the third, Lord Byron. Though Wilde and Auden were publicly villified for their homosexuality (Wilde more so than Auden), I think that they both recognised in Christianity something that the more extreme elements of the Religious Right are often loathe to remember: that we are all sinners who stand on equal ground before the cross of Christ.

Auden saw in Christianity "a radical levelling principle that eliminated hierarchies and distinctions between people—smart and stupid, even good and bad—and left them all sinners in a single boat." He wrote: The Catholic faith [i.e., the ideal Christian faith], while it condemns no temperament as incapable of salvation, flatters none as being less in peril than any other. In the same way [a Christian] has to make his public confession of belief in a church which is not confined to his sort, to those with whom by nature he feels at home, for in it there is neither Jew nor German, East nor West, boy nor girl, smart nor dumb, boss nor worker, Bohemian nor bourgeois, no elite of any kind [and in a sense no "gay" or "straight", either] ; indeed there are not even Christians there, for Christianity is a way, not a state, and a Christian is never something one is, only something one can pray to become.

cited in The New Yorker

In a time where ethnic and tribal divisions were everything (perhaps they still are), the apostle Paul's words were absolutely revolutionary (and Auden almost certainly had this in mind when he wrote the previous paragraph): Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Colossians 3:11-14

Which brings me back to the question that I often ask myself, one that Auden clearly asked himself too -

So what is love?

(I love this poem, by the way.)


Some say that love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round,
And some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway-guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer house;
It wasn't ever there:
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
Or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greetings be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

January 1938
XII, Twelve Songs
W. H. Auden

Christmas Greetings: East Timor PM to Osama

East Timor's Prime Minister, Jose Ramos-Horta, sent a message of peace and goodwill via the BBC to Osama bin Laden. Ramos-Horta won a Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to the Indonesian occupation of his tiny homeland, which won its independence in 1999 in a U.N.-sponsored ballot. Listen to his message here.

ON this occasion when we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, my words, words of peace, are sent to my brother somewhere in the mountains, in the caves, of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Osama bin Laden. Yes, I consider you to be a brother.

We share some common beliefs, beliefs that come from God the Almighty, that teach us about love and compassion. Yes, there are some differences between yourself, my brother Osama bin Laden, and myself. The differences are that while you seem to have a profound resentment towards those who have done centuries of harm to Muslims, and today to Palestinians - I do understand those grievances - and yet I fail to understand why you carry this resentment, this anger, on to attacking innocent civilians, and that includes also Arabs and Muslims who do not share your vision of Islam.

I come from a small country, East Timor, that was invaded by the largest Muslim country in the world. I lost brothers and sisters, yet I do not hate one single Muslim, I do not hate one single Indonesian. That's the only difference between you and me, my brother Osama bin Laden. I beg you to rethink and extend your love, your solidarity, your friendship, the same ones you feel about Palestinians, extend to the rest of the world, extend to Europeans, to Christians. You will then win them over that way, more than through hatred and violence. I thank you, may God Almighty and Merciful, bless us all.


If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

Hermann Hesse

C. S. Lewis writing just after the second world war.

EVERYONE says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. "That sort of talk makes them sick," they say. And half of you already want to ask me, "I wonder how'd you feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?"

So do I. I wonder very much. Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion even to save myself from death by torture, I wonder very much what I should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you ... what I could do--I can do precious little--I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us." There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do?

It is going to be hard enough, anyway, but I think there are two things we can do to make it easier. When you start mathematics you do not begin with calculus; you begin with simple addition. In the same way, if we really want (but all depends on really wanting) to learn how to forgive, perhaps we had better start with something easier than the Gestapo. One might start with forgiving one's husband or wife, or parents or children, or the nearest N.C.O., for something they have done or said in the last week. That will probably keep us busy for the moment. And secondly, we might try to understand exactly what loving your neighbor as yourself means. I have to love him as I love myself. Well, how exactly do I love myself!

Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently "Love your neighbor" does not mean "feel fond of him" or "find him attractive." I ought to have seen that before, because of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can at look some of the things I have done with loathing and horror. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this is a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life--namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact, the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.

Consequently Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.

From The Joyful Christian

A Christmas Gift

This being the season that it is I’ve been thinking about gifts, giving and receiving. I wasn’t as well-prepared as I would have liked to been this year, gift-wise. I was quite organised with the cards, but not so much with the gifts. There were times in which I found myself being presented with a gift that I had not prepared to reciprocate. Then came the attendant feelings of guilt, and feeling that I had let the other party down; because they had given me a gift I felt obliged to have had one prepared for them too (which I didn’t, not really). Sometimes, giving a gift is so much easier than receiving one, especially when you have nothing to give.

We sang this song at church and at our Christmas Eve party.

As little children
We would dream of Christmas morn'
Of all the gifts and toys
We knew we'd find
But we never realized
A baby born one blessed night
Gave us the greatest gift of our lives

We were the reason
That He gave His life
We were the reason
That He suffered and died
To a world that was lost
He gave all He could give
To show us the reason to live

As the years went by
We learned more about gifts
The giving of ourselves
And what that means
On a dark and cloudy day
A man hung crying in the rain
All because of love, all because of love


God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say ‘seeing’? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath’s sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a ‘host’ who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and ‘take advantage of’ Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves.

C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves

In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.

C. S. Lewis in Miracles

In this season of giving we remember most of all, God’s gift of love. Infinitely costly yet freely, and gladly, given.

For to us a child is born
to us a Son is given
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

Perhaps the greatest challenge that we all face is learning how to receive a gift that is, all at once, both incredibly humbling and hopelessly exhilarating.

Heartfelt thanks to all my dear family and friends.

Wishing everyone a joy-filled Christmas season, and a very blessed New Year.

In the bleak midwinter

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;
heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,
worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
yet what I can I give him — give my heart.

by Christina Rossetti

love has made me hollow, love has made me whole

I came across this beautiful, moving poem in a wonderful book called "Finding God at Harvard - Spiritual Journeys of Thinking Christians." It's a collection of essays published in 1996, and this poem was written by one Poh Lian Lim. She's a doctor who grew up in Malaysia and graduated from Harvard in biochemistry, before receiving her M.D. from Columbia University. She is currently practising in the States.


De Noche

I am hollow for loving
without return.
I am chambered, echoing
only your name.

falling from wretched fingers,
a handful of shriveled grass
died this long hot shimmering summer,
in the little well-loved garden;
to the eyes worn with wearied hope
the rains never came
(and tears cannot sustain life).

a whole year the wound waited,
willful with venom, throbbing with desire;
alternatively a fever and a shaking chill,
bone-deep, world-vast, consuming as a fire.

rising on a morning sweet with spring
the light spills warm onto the windowsill
the violets purr, delighting in the sun.
all the world is radiant blue and gold;

and far beneath, the distant traffic hum
beside the gray-blue Hudson
murmurs ten o'clock silences
and a leisurely cup of coffee.

and wondering if I'm missing much
of that lecture when it's really
so much nicer sitting here,
listening to the gurgle of pipes;

till, piercing deep and twisting
some thought of you comes, swifter than desire
(vivid sunlit flickers of the now-closed past)
pain catches on my breath; I recognize
familiar as only an adversary is,
in one vast inchoate cry
blotting out all affections and appetites merely human,
my old and hopeless yearning.

I wrestle, reaching wildly for a grip
on this pain that lives by the pulsing of my heart;
and in the darkness of my unknowing,
bitter with tears,
flung out like rope into the abyss
paying out endlessly
prayer yet brings easing
for this one night.

I am come into a Presence.
passionate with patience
familiar as sorrow,
stern as a rock that questions dash against
and die like waves away

into a stillness
worn and dear as a mother's hands,
a space of mercy, a space or quiet
a dear and gracious place.

and shall I truly know
some day
that high, glad, lifting joy
that lilting happiness?

I am open to the earth and sky
washed by rain and dried by sun,
the scarecrow stands in empty fields
as happy and as free.
And wheeling seasons circle like the birds
in my embrace
transparent now of any fear

and love has made me hollow
and love has made me whole.

De noche iremos, de noche - By night we shall go, by night
que para encontrar la fuente - seeking to find the source
solo la sed nos alumbra - thirst alone our light
solo la sed nos alumbra - thirst alone our light


I don’t think I really understood heartbreak until last weekend. A dear friend’s father had passed away so very suddenly.

I went to the first memorial service on Friday, and the burial on Sunday. Seeing a family torn apart by grief, yet hearing my friend thanking God for so very many things, and singing hymns of hope as the coffin was lowered into the grave, I could not help but weep.

We are none of us, immune from hurt. It's a fact of life in the fallen world that we live in. Sheltered as I am, I never had such a close encounter with heartbreak until that day. Lesser things than death, like break-ups and broken relationships, break our hearts. The thought of being completely cut off from someone whom you have known and loved all along, never to see them or to speak to them again, things never again being the way they used to be, the end of a cherished relationship as it were… I don’t think I ever knew how badly I could hurt till that Sunday.

The only thing that comforted me in the midst of all that despair, was knowing that God himself is not immune to heartbreak. God himself knows exactly what it is like to lose a loved one. God himself suffered infinite heartbreak, ultimate loneliness, and complete abandonment when He was cut off from the Father on our behalves - My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? – so that the Father can say to us, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

When Jesus died on the cross, God the Son was cut off from God the Father – they who have known and loved each other for all eternity – so that we could be brought in from the dark. It must have been agony beyond comprehension. It must have been hell.

So maybe this is love. Unchanging, unfailing, and completely unconditional. Self-denying, self-giving, and utterly sacrificial.

So maybe this is freedom. So maybe this is peace. So maybe this is joy. To know that you are loved that much.

So the seasons whirl around me - the tender buds of spring, the bright blue heat of summer, the golden leaves of autumn, the silent snow of winter (there is a season for everything) - but I hold them all lightly in my embrace.

Transparent now of any fear.

Dominus Illuminatio Mea. The Lord is my light.