The importance of the Sabbath

  

What I'd like to talk to you about today is the Crown of Creation. Typically, the Crown of Creation has been thought of as human beings. Not only were we created last but we were created in the image of God. Therefore, everything that comes before the creation of human beings was seen as something of a lead-up to that event.

So, if we think of the Creation story as a movie, the typical way of looking at it was that the creation of human beings was the final scene. All the other days of creation were just scenes leading up to that climax. And in our anthropocentric view of the Creation story, sometimes these earlier scenes were thought meaningless by themselves. Their only purpose was to provide an environment in which the grand climax, the Creation of humans, could occur.

Of course, the Creation story has seven days in it, not six, the seventh day being the day that God rested. The Message Bible says:

By the seventh day 
      God had finished his work. 
   On the seventh day 
      he rested from all his work. 
   God blessed the seventh day. 
      He made it a Holy Day 
   Because on that day he rested from his work, 
      all the creating God had done. 

But if we thought about that rest at all, it was a bit like the credits at the end of the movie. Sure, it was part of the movie. We could pay attention to it if we wanted to. But it didn't add anything to the story. If we walked out of the movie theatre at that point, we didn't really miss much.

Jurgen Moltmann, who has a completely different view of the Sabbath and whose work I'll be drawing from a lot in this talk, puts it like this:

The seventh day of the Sabbath was often overlooked. Consequently, God was presented throughout merely as the creative God. The resting God, the celebrating God, the God who rejoices over his creation receded into the background. [1]

Of course, seeing humans as the Crown of Creation, rather than the Sabbath, gives us a completely different view of ourselves, of nature, and of how humans can treat nature. It's led to the kind of thinking where we believe the earth was created solely for humans. It's also led to us treating the earth as though its only purpose was to benefit humankind. While it may not be explicitly stated this way, we have seen and treated the earth as though it belonged to us, not God.   

When we ignored the Sabbath rest at the end of the Creation story, we were focused on a God that was doing something. To be in God's image then therefore meant doing something too. It meant that we saw purpose and meaning in activity, and anything that wasn't useful wasn't seen as all that important. While people may not relate it back to how they view the Creation story, this is still the predominant view today. We tend now to see busyness as important and rest as meaningless. We must be doing something, achieving goals, striving for something.

We must also always be plugged in. I saw an article the other day about a patent by Nokia for a tattoo that vibrates when a person's phone is ringing. Now I'm not sure who this kind of tattoo would appeal to, but the fact that Nokia think there are people who are so scared of missing a call that they want their body to vibrate when it rings, says something about our priorities and our idea of what's important. Not only are there people who don't want to tune out of all the communication technology we now have, but they're almost afraid to. A body that vibrates when a phone rings is not embracing the Sabbath rest that God wants for us.

So if we return to Moltmann again, this is how he views the Sabbath:

It is the Sabbath which manifests the world's identity as Creation, sanctifies it and blesses it.[2]

So the Sabbath isn't the unimportant bit at the end of Creation. The Sabbath is the most important part of Creation. Moltmann says the whole work of Creation (including the Creation of human beings) was performed for the sake of the Sabbath. This is the time when God delights in his Creation. Furthermore, it's the time when Creation simply exists in God's presence and God completes his Creation by being present within it.

While Jesus did say that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, this was in the context of the Pharisees complaining about Jesus and his disciples picking grain on the Sabbath. What he was addressing was the way the Pharisees turned the Sabbath into a whole heap of rules that had to be obeyed, regardless of whether they were beneficial or not. Sabbath observance had become more important than human beings. While the Sabbath is meant to benefit the whole of Creation, Sabbath observance must never result in putting rules before the very people, and the Creation, it is meant to benefit. 

But the Sabbath, according to Moltmann, is also a foretaste of what's to come. It's celebrated in anticipation. It points towards a future when Creation and God's revelation will be one. It points towards the redemption of Creation.   

To return to our movie analogy, instead of the Sabbath being the credits at the end of the movie, it's the bit where the good guy triumphs, the bad guy gets stopped and everyone that was in danger gets saved.

Moltmann says the Sabbath commandment was the longest of the ten commandments and therefore the most important. I'll just read the Sabbath commandment now as it is in the Message Bible.

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don't do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day.

One of the interesting things about this commandment is that even the animals have to rest. In Exodus 23:12, it says:

Work for six days and rest the seventh so your ox and donkey may rest and your servant and migrant workers may have time to get their needed rest.

And just before that, in verses 10-11, God says:

Sow your land for six years and gather in its crops, but in the seventh year leave it alone and give it a rest so that your poor may eat from it. What they leave, let the wildlife have. Do the same with your vineyards and olive groves.

So we see then that the Sabbath is not just for humans. Not only the slaves and the foreigners are required to rest, but even the animals get a break. And on the Sabbath year, the land itself rests. The food that it produces goes to the poor and the wildlife. Can you see any of the big corporate farms doing that nowadays? Imagine trying to explain that to their shareholders. To celebrate the Sabbath is not a good way to maximise profit.

The Sabbath then is a time of rest that all Creation enjoys. It is also a time for all of Creation to rejoice in Creation and in God. It is a time to simply be.

So what might it mean for us today if we recovered the importance of the Sabbath?

Firstly, it would mean that we take the time to appreciate nature and God's presence in nature. That we stop seeing nature as something to be used, and start seeing it as having intrinsic value in its own right. That we recognise the beauty of nature, and not just its utilitarian value. And that we take the time to enjoy nature, to simply be in nature, rather than doing something in or to nature.

Because we live in a very busy society, we tend to always be doing something. It's hard to just do nothing. But when we spend time in nature, it seems easier to just stop or slow down. There is a type of peace that we find in nature that can't be found elsewhere. Our focus moves from the 'us' of individuals to the 'we' of every part of Creation. The worries and stresses of a busy life seem to fade away or at least grow less important for a while.  Nature almost seems to be telling us to stop doing and just be.

There is a poem by Wendell Berry that really captures that feeling of the peace that comes when we spend time in nature. Let me read it to you:

The Peace of Wild Things

BY wendell berry 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

I would love to make it compulsory for everyone to spend time in nature at least once a month. I think it's that beneficial. Turn your phone off. Or even better leave it at home. That way, even if you have vibrating tattoo on your body, you won't be interrupted.

Secondly, if we are to recover the importance of the Sabbath we need to ask questions about whether we are letting all of Creation rest and what steps we might take to give Creation more of a rest than we are currently giving it.

Once upon a time, not actually all that long ago, most things were closed on Sundays. Nowadays, most things are open. This first of all has implications for the opportunities humans have to rest. Not only does there need to be people working on Sundays, but it's harder for those of us who aren't working to rest too. When everything is open, it's too easy to go and do something. Shopping has become our Sunday leisure activity. But shopping is the complete opposite of what the Sabbath rest is meant to be. Shopping is not a time to simply be, and let Creation be. Shopping is not a time to rest in God's presence. Shopping is a definitely doing activity.

And this Sunday shopping also makes further demands on Creation. Every purchase we make is a drain on the earth's resources. Even buying locally grown vegetables uses up the earth's resources in some way. And using the earth's resources is not necessarily bad. We need to eat. We need to clothe ourselves. All of these involve using the earth's resources. But the purchases we make often make huge demands on the earth's resources - demands on the earth's resources that are not sustainable. And we never give the earth a break.

Perhaps Sunday ought to be a time when we try to avoid stores and purchases. And sometimes that's easier to say than do. Even though I would love to see stores start closing on Sundays again, because it's good for the earth and good for people, I also know that, in the past, I've sat in front of a bookstore at 9:30 on a Sunday morning, feeling hard done by because it wasn't opening until 10. Yes, I think stores should close on Sundays - except for when I want a book!

Another area we can look at is electricity. Now most of us won't be prepared (and in some cases can't) go a day without using electricity. But what if we just tried to limit it for a day? What if we recognised that the land needs a rest too and made a concerted effort to give it more rest than usual? Could we perhaps make Sundays a day of no TV, no mobile phones and no computers? And honestly this is another area I find difficult No matter how many times I tell myself I am leaving my computer off this Sunday, I usually find a good reason to switch it on. Or a not so good reason - like changing my Facebook status.

I've talked about Sundays here, because that's the traditional day of rest for Christians. But it doesn't have to be a Sunday. And it doesn't have to involve any of the activities I've listed here either. To recover the importance of the Sabbath, we don't need a whole heap of rules. What we do need is a recognition that the Sabbath is important, that it is a time for us to rest with Creation, enjoying God's presence. It is a time for us to rest ourselves and it is a time for us to think about resting the land in some way. The Sabbath is when we switch from doing to simply being. The Sabbath is when we, along with all of Creation, rest in God's presence, sharing God's delight with his Creation.

Now all of this may seem a little boring. And I can imagine saying this to my children and them replying with, 'Right, so Sunday is the day that we can't have any fun.' But the Sabbath is certainly not meant to be about not having fun. We don't just appreciate nature and rest in God's presence, we delight in God's presence and celebrate nature. After seven cycles of the Sabbath years, so after every 49 years - which kind of makes it the Sabbath of the Sabbaths - there was the Year of Jubilee. That doesn't sound too boring to me. That sounds like a party.

And rejoicing in God's creation should be a party. It is a time for celebrating. A time for feeling fantastic just to be alive. A time for saying, 'Woohoo, I'm so glad I'm here in this wonderful world that God has created.' It's not just a colon, end brackets. It's the biggest smiley face you can find.

My kids might think it's boring to go without TV or computers. But maybe it's only when we force ourselves to take a break from these things that we really learn how un-boring life can be. We delight in a sunset, smell the flowers, walk barefoot through the grass, stand in the rain, feel the waves against our legs as we walk along the beach, climb a tree, and jump in puddles. There's no agenda. No purpose. We are free to simply be. And I think we've forgotten just how fun that can be. Maybe we need to recover it again.

And maybe sometimes it doesn't seem like this earth has much to celebrate. Climate change, melting ice caps, mountaintop removal, islands of plastic in our oceans, extinction of species, dwindling water resources, destruction of rainforests. It can be all to easy to look at the earth and think we have reason to mourn, not rejoice.

But while these are all serious problems that need to be addressed, the Sabbath reminds us that we also have reason to hope. We celebrate not just what is happening, but what will happen. God's presence in the world reveals to us the time when God's presence will be completely manifest in the world. Moltmann says the God's creation and his revelation will be one.

To return to our movie analogy, not only is the Sabbath the climax of the movie, but it's the bit where we realise that there's going to be a sequel. And unlike most movie sequels, the sequel of the Sabbath won't be a pale imitation of the first movie. It's going to be much, much better. 

So if it's a celebration, it's a bit like an engagement party. Yes, we have reason to celebrate now. And we should celebrate and rejoice. But this celebration points towards a future celebration. The wedding feast is still to come.

Moltmann, J. (1985). God in Creation; The Gifford Lectures, 1984-1985, an ecological doctrine of creation: SCM Press Limited.

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[1] (Moltmann, 1985)

[2] (Moltmann, 1985)

A life without germs is not much of a life

Last week in Australia came the news that the government had created stricter hygiene and sanitary regulations for childcare centres. These new standards included children not being allowed to blow out candles on a communal birthday cake and having to use hand-sanitiser before and after playing in the sandpit.

Later on came the news that a study by Stanford University revealed that actually exposing children to some germs may be good for them, as it builds up their immune system. Out of all the mothers I have spoken to about it, not one was shocked by this news.

So why do we have such stringent requirements when it comes to sanitation and hygiene? And what is that doing to us?

The emphasis on germs really began in the post-war period. This was a period when women were forced back into the home after doing work during the war. It was also a period when a new wave of household appliances supposedly freed up house-wives' time. It was also a time when consumerism really took off.

Having more stricter cleanliness requirements not only meant that women were kept busier, but that there was a ready market for more products particularly aimed at house-wives.

Things have changed a bit since that time, but I can't kept thinking that at least some of our ideas about cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation come from the very companies that are trying to sell us products.

We've all seen the ads where a women cleans the bathroom, but (shock, horror) doesn't get all the germs. No, if she wants the germs, she has to buy this particular brand of product that is guaranteed to pick up germs that the other products leave behind.

I remember when I was a new mother, receiving a free magazine and pack. The pack contained lots of samples of things I might need for my new baby. The magazine was filled with ads for more products. And looking back, I would say that many of those ads really capitalise on the fears that a new mother has. Many a new mother would have looked at those ads and thought they immediately needed to go out and buy a million and one things just to keep their baby safe, healthy and free from germs.

And this is probably a good time to say that an emphasis on hygiene and safety can be a good thing. The discovery that it was important to wash hands in hospital actually saved lives. And I for one am pleased that someone created products to keep cupboards locked so that little fingers (and mouths) could not get into them.

But have we gone too far?

The rules about birthday cakes are only for childcare centres. Parents can still choose to have a communal birthday cake at their own party if they wish. And I'm sure that many parents will. But will some parents see these new laws and suddenly worry that their child should not eat any cake where another child has blowed out the candles. I can all too easily imagine a scenario where little Tommy has a birthday party and little Jane's mother says Jane can't have any birthday cake if Tommy blows out the candles - spoiling the moment for both Tommy and Jane.

Birthdays are special, magical, joyful times for children. And one of the best things about birthdays (besides the presents, of course) is blowing out the candles. Children have been doing it for years. And I don't think we've suffered too much for it. And if any of us did catch someone else's cold, it's a small price to pay for sharing this moment together.

And that's one thing about strict sanitary regulations. It keeps people apart. Yes, when we share things, we may share germs. But we also share special moments. We are together as a family, a group or a community. The occasional cold is a small price to pay for that.

Some churches have now stopped allowing parishioners to share from the same cup during communion. Again, this is an attempt to stop the spreading of germs. And while I can see times when this might be a good practice (for example, when deadly viruses are widespread), it kind of ruins the meaning of sharing communion. In communion, we all come together. We partake in the one bread and the one wine. We share in the one faith. That's symbolic and it's special. And yes, we can still have that drinking from separate communion glasses. But something is lost if we do.  

At some point we need to ask ourselves if the price we're paying to keep ourselves free from germs is actually worth what we are losing. And part of what we are losing is our sense of belonging to the one community. We focus on the individual rather than the shared sense of being together.

We are not only isolating ourselves from each other. We are isolating ourselves from nature. The hand-sanitising before and after sandpit use is an example of how we wish to protect ourselves from dirt (and often nature).

Nature can make us dirty. Nature can expose us to germs. Nature can make us cold and wet and lower our immune system. Nature can bite and sting and hurt us.

So what do we do in our super-safe, super-sanitised (and super-comfortable) world we have created? It's telling that many eco-holidays are now held in very clean, very comfortable and very safe resort type settings. People get to experience nature without being exposed to any of the risk. But it kind of seems that that super-safe, super-sanitised and super-comfortable experience of nature is missing at least some of what nature has to offer.

And what about the backyard? Or the park? Or general everyday places where kids get to experience nature? Do we keep our kids far from any of that because they might get hurt or they might catch germs? I personally think that a childhood where we don't experience nature is far worse than a childhood where we might get sick or get stung now and then.

My son got stung by a bee just recently. I asked him whether he thought it would have been better to not play outside, because therefore he wouldn't have got stung by a bee. His answer was no. When asked why he said, 'Because then I wouldn't get any exercise or any sun and I wouldn't have fun.' When I said, 'What if you knew you would get stung by a bee again if you played outside, would you still play outside?' His answer, 'yes' and he didn't really need to think about it too much.

There's one way to keep children safe. Keep them isolated in sterilised rooms, with nothing dangerous and no contact with anyone or barely anything. But that's not living.

We're not meant to live highly sterilised, highly safe, highly comfortable lives. Whether we like it or not, we are connected to each other and we are connected to nature. And that involves some risk. But the risk is worth it. Because a life that's connected to other people and connected to nature also contains much joy. And anyone who has experience that joy would say that it was worth the risk to get it.  

Discovering God (in nature)

When people talk about becoming a Christian, the term sometimes used is 'finding Jesus' as though Jesus were hiding somewhere and one only has to look in the right place to find him. In fact, a number of cartoons have illustrated this possibility, with Jesus hiding somewhere behind a curtain or a couch.

Putting the emphasis on Jesus indicates that the only way to 'find' God is by 'finding' Jesus. You may feel spiritual, you may seek to know God, but until you 'find Jesus' it is actually you who is lost.

The other thing this term does is make 'finding Jesus' a one-off event. When you find something, you've found it. No further looking is required. Of course, you may lose it again and then have to find it for a second time. But there are times when you have 'found' something and times when you haven't, with no middle ground. You can't half find something and once you've found it you don't keep looking. It's either found or not.

Despite the claims of many born-again Christians, I don't believe that 'finding God' can be so neatly differentiated into a before and after stage. Rather than a game of hide'n'seek, it is an ongoing journey. We are continually seeking and continually finding. The word 'discovering' therefore seems more appropriate to me than 'find'.

Furthermore, God is not just discovered by Christians, but people who aren't Christians are continually discovering him too. This includes not just people of other religions - but also agnostics and even atheists - although they may not recognise what they have discovered is God.

In The Mind of God, Paul Davies[1] says: 'even hard-nosed atheists frequently have what has been called a sense of reverence for nature, a fascination and respect for its depth and beauty and subtlety, that is akin to religious awe.’ That to me sounds very much like the process of discovering God.

And while I believe God can be discovered in many different places - in religion, in relationship, in receiving kindness from others, in feeling solidarity with others, in feeling compassion for all living creatures, in seeking to correct injustice - it is in nature that I believe many people do find God.

Nature is incredibly beautiful and incredibly complex. That in itself often causes people to think about the reason behind it all. While not everybody will come to the conclusion that that 'reason' is God, many will - even if they reject religion. And even those who do not believe that God had anything to do with it, the very act of thinking about that 'reason' is part of discovering God.

If I stand in front of the Mona Lisa, and I think about the one who painted it, I am at least partly discovering Leonardo Da Vinci - even if I come to the conclusion that the painting occurred by someone accidentally throwing paint onto a canvas which just happened to land in such a way that the Mona Lisa face appeared.

Secondly, the beauty of nature often is so breathtaking that all we can do is stand in awe. To stand in awe of what God has made is to discover God. To feel wonder and delight and joy while looking at God's Creation is to feel part of the same wonder and joy and delight that God feels. Although, as finite beings, we will only feel that wonder and joy and delight on a limited scale, when we are truly captivated by nature I believe we sense for just a moment a tiny portion of what God feels. It seems we are raised just a little bit above our finitude and humanness.

Something else we often sense in nature in peace. Partly, this is because nature is soothing. There is a reason why when people want to relax, they listen to CDs of bird calls rather than CDs of bulldozers. Discovering that peace is part of discovering God.

So too is the recognition that we are not just individuals but part of the community of Creation. Nature often brings peace because it helps us forget about ourselves. We are lost in the moment and our own concerns are either forgotten or become less significant.

It is hard to discover God when we are solely focused on ourselves. Being in nature often turns our focus outward. The 'I' as an individual is enveloped in the 'we' of Creation. We are then able to see not just that we are part of a larger picture, but how we might act in ways to help that larger picture. Discovering God is not just about saying, 'Yes, I've found Jesus' and now I can put him on the mantelpiece along with my rock collection to stare at. It is about discovering his will, not just in our lives, but in the whole of Creation, and helping to see God's will be done.

I don't think God can ever be 'found'. Human beings will never be able to completely understand him or completely know him. We can't put him in a box, label him and store him somewhere safe so we can't lose him again. But we can catch glimpses. We can come close. We can have moments when we seem to rise briefly above our human nature. And we can keep looking and discovering, knowing the journey will never end, that there will always be new things to find and new things to search for - and that's what makes the faith journey so exciting.

Davies, Paul. The Mind of God; Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning. Maryborough, Victoria: Penguin Books, 2008.

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[1] Paul Davies, The Mind of God; Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning (Maryborough, Victoria: Penguin Books, 2008).

Seasons (of life and nature)

Every Christmas and Easter, I feel like the seasons are all wrong. They're right for Australia of course. And I have never had any other experience than Christmas happening in Summer and Easter happening in Autumn. But they're wrong in terms of the Christian year. When Christmas is celebrated in the middle of winter, the birth of Christ into a world of darkness resonates with the coldness and the darkness that people are experiencing. When Easter is celebrated in Spring, the new life that people see around them remind them of the new life that Christ's resurrection brings. I feel that in Australia we miss out on a lot of those connections to the seasons - and therefore to nature. The Christian days that we celebrate are divorced from the world around us.

Last Christmas, I gave my boys a raised vegetable garden. As we walked off to the nursery to buy plants, they were telling me about all the vegetables they wanted to grow. I had to explain to them that there are certain seasons for growing certain vegetables. Just because we can buy carrots all year round in the supermarket doesn't mean we can grow them in the backyard. To a certain extent, we do notice the season as we buy our fruit and veggies. Summer is the time for buying mangoes, for instance. However, the fact that we can buy certain foods all year round again disconnects us from nature and the world around us.

We do still have lots of reminders of what season it is. Even if I didn't know the date and had no idea what season I was in, I would still know it was summer because the air-conditioner is out rather than the heater, I have been watching cricket, the mangoes are cheap in the supermarket and I am buying back-to-school items for my boys.

However, despite these things that tell me it is summer, our world seems to becoming more and more disconnected from the seasons. For anyone who works in an air-conditioned office and drives there in an air-conditioned car, the temperature of their surroundings for most of the time will stay almost the same the whole year around. If we want to (and I'm sure many people do) we can eat the same food the whole year around.

The impact of the weather can hardly affect some people. If it's raining, they dry their clothes inside. If it's blistering heat, they sit in their air-conditioned houses. While the drought in Australia may have caused water restrictions, we still knew we could get water every time we turned on the tap. It's only if there's some extreme weather event that either impacts us directly or indirectly that we take any notice of the weather at all.

When Europeans first came to Australia, some of them looked at the Australian native trees that keep their greenery all year around and complained that there were no seasons. While the Australian landscape has since become loved by many (including myself) I wonder whether that differentiation between the seasons is important and whether we are diminishing it ourselves? Or is it the case that Australians actually have less need for difference between seasons anyway? Our topsy-turvy Christian celebrations and our evergreen trees mean we don't need the same amount of difference that perhaps people in other countries do.

As well as thinking about seasons of the year, I have also been thinking of seasons of our lives. I am not just buying back-to-school items at the moment. I am buying start of high school items. My eldest boy has finished his season of primary school and is beginning his season of high school. This brings with it both joy and sadness. Every mother knows that feeling of wanting to keep your children young forever. And yet, relating it to the seasons, I know that, while the blossoms on a cherry tree may be very pretty, they need to disappear before the cherries arrive. And a cherry tree's purpose after all is to provide fruit not pretty flowers.

In sharp contrast to this moving from spring to summer is the winter I see in my grandmother's eyes. She recently had a massive heart attack. She is getting better and has been moved from the high dependency unit. However, I know that she is old. Even if she does go home, she will not live forever. Visiting her in the hospital, I was reminded of the beauty of a deciduous tree in winter - the type of tree the first European Australians pined for, I suppose. Though all its leaves have gone, it has a splendour and an elegance not found when it is filled with blossoms or laden with fruit or losing its multi-coloured leaves.

Just as we recognise the beauty in these winter trees, we must recognise the beauty in people nearing the end of their life. It is a season, that is all. And as a season, it has its purpose and a place along with all the other seasons. We must not be so focused on summer that we forget to notice the beauty in winter as well.

If summer is the time of youth, vigour, fruitfulness and productiveness, then we as a society seem to want to prolong summer for as long as possible. The music videos, clothes and tween marketing encourage little children to grow up too fast. The beauty treatments, hair dyes and wrinkle creams try to convince people in their autumn years to recover the summer of their youth.

Gardens could not survive if it was always summer. And why would we want them too. Yes, summer is a fantastic time of year. But so is Spring and Autumn and Winter. I want them all. I don't want to trade in three seasons just to have one. There is so much I would miss. Whenever people ask me what my favourite season is, I say the beginning of every season. I don't have a favourite. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, they all have their good points. But that beginning of every new season, when you know things are about to change and you'll experience things that haven't been experienced for a year, that is simply wonderful. Summer all year-round, I can't think of anything worse.

I wonder whether it is our growing disconnect from the seasons that makes us hold up the summer of our lives as some kind of ideal. Have we become so disconnected from them that we fail to appreciate the importance of seasons in our own lives? Can we no longer recognise the beauty and the splendour of every season that we live through?

My grandmother has always been a gardener. Maybe that's why she continued to have beauty and grace even after a massive heart attack, lying in bed with many machines attached to her. Maybe that is why, despite being unable to talk, her eyes shone brightly as my son sat next to her and spoke. She understands the importance of seasons. She knows that she is in one and my son is in another. And both of those seasons are important. They both have value and beauty. 

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Dreamworld and White Water World: where the waves are our servants

I just spent five days in Brisbane, which included a visit to Dreamworld and White Water World. I’m glad I went. My boys definitely enjoyed the experience. And theme parks are kind of fun.

            But the reason why they’re such fun is because they’re so different to real life. My kids don’t use this word, but when I was their age when something was fun, it was unreal. Well Dreamworld was unreal - both in the sense of being fun, but also in the sense of being unrealistic. There's a variety of different experiences, but none of them bear any resemblance to reality. They’re the safe, sanitised, plastic version instead.

            In real life, when you open a door made from old wood, it feels rough, not smooth and it may give you splinters.

            In real life, pirates’ swords were made of sharp metal, not feathers, and they didn’t come with a corresponding plush toy.

            In real life, when you pull a tiger’s tail, he’s likely to turn around and kill you not do a trick for the crowd.

            In real life, if you float down the river on a log, you will very likely end up uncomfortable and possibly end up drowned.

            And I pity anyone who visits Dreamworld’s Australian Wildlife Experience and thinks they’ve actually experienced Australia. In real Australia, the animals do not live in small, isolated enclosures behind glass screens. Real Australia is wide, unstructured and free, not cramped, planned and controlled.

            In White Water World, I heard a little girl, who was waiting for the perfectly timed, perfectly uniform, perfectly controlled waves to arrive, say, ‘The waves are my servant.’ Maybe in White Water World they are. But in the real world waves are never our servant. They’re just as likely to dump us as they are to bring us to shore. Plus, they come with sandy beaches, sharp rocks and jellyfish.

            And that’s what makes theme parks so fake - yet so enjoyable to visit. They remove all the bits we don’t like about real life. Real life is unpredictable and untameable. It is sometimes dirty, sometimes unpleasant and sometimes dangerous. People often don’t want that - or they don’t want to pay money for it anyway. They want the experience with all the downsides sucked out. So they make do with their no-risk, cleaned-up, highly structured versions of those experiences - never minding (in fact preferring) that they’re nothing like the real experience at all.

            We like risk-taking. But we prefer to do it without putting ourselves in too much danger. We like to see animals, but we want them to come to us in a safe, controlled way, where they are easy to find, easy to identify and easy to watch without getting hurt. We’d like to visit the past, but the actual past would be too smelly, too dusty, too dirty, too dangerous - and too much hard work. We want to see everything and experience everything - but we want to do it on our terms.

            For many years, humans thought they could tame nature, that we were the ones in control. The recent Queensland floods, New Zealand earthquake and Japan earthquake and tsunami have shown us not only that nature can’t be controlled, but she often can’t even be predicted. For a society brought up on the familiarity and consistency of MacDonald’s and other brands, unpredictability and uncontrollability is a bit too hard to accept.  

            But in a MacDonaldised world, where everything is controlled, homogenised and sanitised, maybe we actually need a little dose of reality. So perhaps we should stop seeking unreal experiences and start seeking the real thing. The real thing can be dangerous. It can be unpleasant. It can be inconvenient. It can be unpredictable. It can also be downright heartbreaking at times. But there is also a definite beauty to this wildness, even when it does some ugly things. And maybe we might respect and appreciate this world more if we learned to appreciate its wildness, rather than trying to tame it or ‘recreate’ it on our own terms.          

Queensland floods - Uncontrollable nature, Uncontrollable God

            Before I start this blog post, I would like to extend my sympathies to everyone who has been affected by the Queensland floods, especially those who are missing family members. My prayers are with you.

            I was not sure whether I should write this post. Although it was a post I really wanted to write, I think it is too easy to turn tragedies into an opportunity to espouse political or religious views, without any real consideration for the people directly impacted. I know that for many people this is not a news story or a speech or a blog post, but a tragic reality in their lives. If this post comes across as insensitive at all, I am truly sorry.

            When watching the news stories, it was the personal tragedies that struck me most. I don’t often cry during the news, but I find myself crying a lot lately. I think we see so much death, devastation and destruction on the news that we become a little immune to it. Perhaps it shouldn’t be the case, but it is much easier to find empathy for people ‘like us’. As I watched the news, I could so easily imagine myself in the position of those whose homes had been lost or whose family members were missing.

            But another item that struck me was the information that the Wivenhoe Dam was meant to prevent a flood like that experienced in 1974, but that dam was not coping.

            I think we have become a bit complacent about nature, especially those living in urbanised areas in the western world, where we seem so removed from nature. For a couple of hundred years, man has sought to control nature. They wanted to bend it to their purposes, mould it to their will. It was not man at the mercy of nature, but nature at the mercy of man. And to a certain extent, they succeeded - even if our control is undoubtedly more limited than we realised.

            Undoubtedly humans have a huge impact on nature. And we can control nature in a way no other species can. But if we think we’re the one’s controlling this big huge system we call earth, we are much mistaken. Humans aren’t the ones in charge.

            God is the one in charge. But leaving the theological discussion for a moment, let’s stick with nature.

            Nature is more powerful, more forceful, more in control than we are. No matter what we do to try and bend nature to our will, nature will often do what we don’t expect - and don’t want. Natural disasters remind us that our influence over this world is very limited. And it must also remind us to respect and even fear nature. Nature is not something that bows down to human’s will. Nor is it something cute and cuddly that only wants to keep us safe. It is wonderful and awesome, fearsome and dangerous. It can bring us much joy and bring us much sorrow.

            Humans don’t like to be at the mercy of anything. We think that the decisions we make and the actions we take can direct our own lives. We feel control of our own destiny. Nature reminds us that this is not always the case. Not only is nature uncontrollable, but it has the ability to sometimes control us.

            This desire to be in control of our own destiny also affects how we sometimes view God. Like nature, we think we can control God, rather than realising it is God who controls us. Instead of seeing ourselves at the mercy of God, we try to bend God to our will and our purposes. Read many books on prayers and you will see what I mean. Many of them devote a lot of space on how to get our prayers answered. As I heard in a YouTube video recently, we have our own greedy desires and we presume they are God’s will for us. But maybe the purpose of prayer should not be to try and get God to do what we want, but to realise that He is ultimately the one in control.

            Of course, especially in the light of the Queensland floods, this raises all kinds of questions about why God would cause this or even allow it. That’s a big question and one I don’t have the space to do even the tiniest bit of justice to here. The short answer is, I don’t know. But then, I’m not the one in charge. And I know God is loving and I know he is just. But I also know he is fearsome and powerful. Maybe God is just letting the laws of nature taking their course. If He stepped in and prevented this natural disaster, he would have to step in and prevent every natural disaster. And maybe the whole laws of nature would then be changed. I certainly don’t think it is any kind of act of righteous anger or judgment. I believe God is just as sorrowed by this as we are.

            I also believe that God doesn’t only feel empathy for the people who are ‘like us’, but for all humans everywhere in this world. He cries with the people affected by the Queensland floods, just as he cried with the people affected by Hurricane Katrina or the Victorian bushfires or the Asian tsunami or wars and natural disasters everywhere. It is easy to focus on what happens in Australia, either because we are directly impacted, we know people who are or we can relate to those who are impacted. But there are people hurting every day in this world. And I believe God cares for them all.