Author Archives: crawfordmackenzie

No Fool

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An unusual package came to our island home on Eigg in the Western Isles sometime in the early sixties. It was a package of books. How they arrived there, who brought them or where they came from I do not know. It may have been a gift from someone or it may have been brought by Robert Crawford, a colporteur for the Bible Society who travelled around the islands of Scotland on a heavy Raleigh bicycle, carrying with him a selection of bibles and Christian literature. He often lodged with us while passing our way. There were four hardback titles with missionary themes. Two, “When iron gates yield” and “God holds the key” were written by Geoffrey Bull, a Christian missionary to China who had spent several years close to the Tibetan border before it was joined to the republic. During that time he was arrested, believed to be a spy and spent years in prison where he endured persistent brain washing techniques. The other two were devoted to the life of an American missionary, Jim Elliott who, along with four others was killed by the Huaorani in the Amazonian jungle of Ecuador in 1956.

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This was brought to mind when I heard, earlier this week, of the death of Elizabeth Elliott, who was Jim Elliott’s widow, and the author of “Through Gates of Splendour”  now recognised as an international best seller.  It was Jim Elliott’s story that captivated my young mind and I remember pouring  over the pictures, photographs of the men and their families blissfully happy, the jungle from the air,  the light aircraft, the landing strip, the days making their temporary home on the river bank and the graphic shots of bodies floating facedown in the water after the massacre. I was haunted by the look on the wives faces as they were trying to comprehend the tragic news

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Later, I became enthralled by the story of these young men with their young wives and families and there calling to go to a remote and almost inaccessible part of the Amazonian jungle to tell the good news to the people there, a people untouched by any other civilisation and reported to be extremely hostile and murderous. I followed the preparation, the language study, the careful finding of a suitable landing site, the first forays, the landing, the first promising contact, the radio reporting back to their wives, and then the thrill of meeting a large number of the people who were making their way to where the missionaries had set up camp on the sandy bank of the river. There were great expectations of that meeting…and  then.. silence.IMG_0326

It was soon discovered that all five had been murdered. While the party who came up the river to retrieve the bodies were armed and warning shots were fired into the jungle, the missionaries themselves took with them no means of protection against a possible attack. They had come to bring the good news of Jesus Christ and the thought of being armed would have been anathema to them. They died at the hands of those they had come to reach with the Gospel.  They were true martyrs. I was fascinated by their story and later, as I read it for myself,  by the person and character of Jim Elliott as told by his wife in “The shadow of the Almighty”.

There was something about the man that tugged at my heart. His unbounded joy and delight in life in all its fullness and his love for his Lord. He was a true hero and someone that I, though still some years off being a teenager, wanted to emulate. I can still recall incidents from his life, as Elizabeth Elliott recorded them.  Incidents that showed this joy and excitement even in simple things when he threw himself into some activity, following the wisdom of Solomon:

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might”,

when he saw with the hymn writer George Robinson:

 “Heav’n above is softer blue/ Earth around is sweeter green/Something lives in every hue”

and in his most famous quote  based, I am sure on Paul’s “for me to live is Christ to die is gain” :

“He is no fool / Who gives what he cannot keep/To gain/What he cannot lose”

There was something about the driving logic of this truth that was inescapable and impossible to deny. It in itself provided, for me,  a guiding light , a clearing, as I found my way through the jungle of teenage and adult life with its many traps, pitfalls and near disasters. It was a constant reminder that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

IMG_0302The books like almost all of our parent’s possessions were lost, given away or simply thrown out. I’d have loved to have them still and to pour over them once again. But it doesn’t matter, I have them in my memory and am so grateful to Elizabeth Elliott for  recording them for us.

Crawford Mackenzie

What no Lines?

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A Story Retold

ferrals le momtagne

It was a story C S Lewis told. Where, I do not know, although I am sure a trawl would find it. Like so much of what the great master has written and which I never tire of reading, it explained so beautifully and so clearly something that that has eluded my understanding for so long.  He could tell it so that the ordinary guy, me, could understand. But this story had a special significance, because it was about lines and I am a dealer in lines. Ever since, as a toddler, my mother shoved a pencil into my hand and directed it towards a sheet of paper, I have found my hand drawing. The call of the pencil pulls me. There is something about that newly sharpened point, not the boringly uniform cone from a pencil sharpener, but the hand formed chiselled point with its broad and short edges, long bluntness and wild sharpness and the virgin whiteness of blank cartridge which calls out, beckons me to explore, once again a new world of endless possibilities.

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The lines define the space between them and they together tell the story. They are not the thing but only a hint of the thing. It is somewhere else. It is the lift of the wave in that moment before it crashes over the dark rocks, the memory of the sun drenched day high up on the ridge, the secrets hidden in the dark brooding wood, the fear, the love the joy  and the feeling you are trying to express. I earn my living by lines. Most often they are lines that define something which is not yet there. It is something that is yet to be and hoped for. The lines describe in two what becomes a reality in three. Most never get that far but are aborted abandoned and remain as frozen images in a gallery of lost causes. But what joy, when the lines come together with the spaces they define and with the graft and effort become a reality, a building  with real spaces and light and shapes and textures and movement and colour a home, a work place, a teaching space, a worship space, a healing place, a garden.

merton door

She was a woman of great courage, vision, intergrity and compassion. She cared and carried the heavy burden not just of her family but of her people in their plight.  She spoke out against the injustice, committed herself to the long haul and relentless and tirelessly pursued the rightness of the cause.   She put her life on the line. So it was, that her enemies frustrated in every attempt to silence her, finally had her arrested on a false charge and committed to a life in prison with no prospect of release. Fearful that they would have a martyr on their hands, they took great care of her and in her prison, provided for her health and safety, convenience and comfort. They gave special care as she carried her child and in the delivery she was offered the best facilities and support.  The little boy was born into a safe protected world with everything he needed and plenty of stimulus to grow and learn but with one major handicap. He did not see, or breathe or taste the outside world. All he knew was the square of blue above the exercise yard, the square of light  that Oscar Wilde describes in Reading Jail:

“I never saw a man who looked/With such a wistful eye/Upon that little tent of blue/That prisoners call the sky”

As the cheery lad grew his mother wanted to tell him of the outside world and prepare him for the time when he would be released, even if she never saw it herself. She was not an artist but she knew how to draw and with pen and paper she taught him each day, drawing from her memory the animals, flowers, mountains and waters, towns and cities and people at work and play, of explorations and discoveries, and as the boy grow he was totally enthralled in this world she had described and looked forward to the day when he would see it.  He loved the stories and they provided great joy and release in their limited environment. And then it happened. One day as she was drawing and describing a scene, he said something which brought her up with a jolt. It dawned on her that he had not grasped anything she had been teaching him.  She stopped and began to explain that the real world was not pictures, not pencil and ink, lines of paper, not shapes in two dimension but real things. For the first time in his life great sadness creased across his face and a look of terrible disappointment clouded his eyes.

“What…in this real world there are no lines?”

 

Crawford Mackenzie

 

 

 

 

 

A Purposeful Habit 3

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Telling the Good News

leaving 2

It was a bright Saturday morning in September. With a fresh breeze and a clear sky we were sailing across the Clyde from  Ardrossan to Brodick, coming late to join a team on a mission to bring the Good News to the hordes of young folk from Glasgow crowding into the Island for one last fling before the winter . It was “Operation Arran”. We were not the only ones who missed the connections the night before and we gathered on the top deck to get reconnected. Among us was Captain Stephen Anderson. He was an evangelist, a former farmer and soldier whose parents had high hopes, at one time, that he would become  the Raj of India, before independence changed all that. He had turned his back on his former life and worked full time, to use the gift that God had given him, to tell the Good News of Jesus to the high and mighty, the ordinary folk and odd balls, the smart guys and rough diamonds and anyone and everyone he met, wherever he went.

Our paths had crossed before on two occasions. One was at Port Seaton holiday camp on the forth estuary. I clearly remembered arriving at the site and being dropped off by my future in-laws who, on seeing the down at heel huts and the noisy crowds made a quick exit. I was to sing for a children’s event outside the tiny wooden chapel at the centre of the camp. An evening service had been interrupted the previous week when a motorcyclist drove throughout the main door up the aisle and out through the south door. It was hot and sweaty and the crowds of children loud and sticky and over enthusiastic would hug you and leave you with the strong desire to start scratching. When I came to sing, I was crowded in and could hardly hear my own voice far less the guitar but when I began something strange happened. The crowd of children and young folk and hangers on were suddenly hushed and seemed to be hanging on every word and when I finished my set Stephen spoke to this rapt audience about Jesus and in his characteristic winsome way.

The second was in the BBC studios in Queen Street Edinburgh, to record a series for “thought for the day” on what was then called the Home Service. The equipment seemed ancient and the microphone looked like it came from the ark. There were lots of tests and misfires before the recordings were put down. I had simply to sing a line of a song as an intro and then stop. There was no cutting and pasting.  While we were sitting in the studio with the producer and technician next door, trying to sort things out,  Stephen suggested we pray. So right there in the dark panelled draughty room with the floor covered in coiled cables and  strange pieces of equipment and quite unaware than anyone was listening,  we bowed our heads and  prayed that God would use this time to bring the message to many across  Scotland . When the team came through to get us started, they were clearly moved.  The prayer had come right through to the monitor.

So there we were, up on deck with crowds of others in the warm sun gliding across the Clyde when Stephen said ” Do you have your guitar with you? Get it out and let’s sing” I was shocked and didn’t like the idea but he was persuasive and we did. Others pulled their instruments from there cases and we gathered in a circle and sang through many of the songs that had become part of our life. Now everyone was listening and Stephen used that moment to speak directly to the crowds of fellow travellers, sitting on the benches and hanging over the deck and gazing out to sea , to tell them who were we were, why we were going to Arran and in the simplest and natural way  why Jesus. On the Sunday afternoon at three when the pub up the hill, discouraged its customers, we were sitting around in the local church hall. Many revellers were diverted into the hall and joined in with the singing, taking over the venue. It became very raucous and we felt we had just about lost control. One of the girls sang “Amazing Grace” recently made into a hit by Judy Collins and the crowd became strangely silent. When she finished, a hush descended and once again Stephen seized the opportunity and speak directly to the crowd.

I learned so much from the man and this was all brought back to mind recently, when I was asked to convene the evangelism committee in our local church. I knew I was not an evangelist. That gift had not been given to me. I do know those for whom the gift has been given and it is a wonderful thing to see, but I knew that was not me.  But reading Paul’s letters, I discovered that Timothy didn’t seem to be an evangelist either yet Paul still encouraged him to “do the work of an evangelist”. So it is for everyone who is a follower of Jesus. We may not have the gift but if we love him, it must be part of our DNA to tell the Good News, for that is what evangelism is.  Leslie Newbigin put it succinctly when he was talking about the difficulties in communicating the gospel to the people of his inner city parish in Birmingham

“How can this strange story of God made man, of a crucified saviour, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world that can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the Gospel: congregations who believe it.

Does that sound too simplistic? I don’t believe it is.  Evangelism is not some kind of technique we use to persuade people to change their minds and think like us.  Evangelism is the telling of good news, but what changes people’s minds and converts their wills is always a mysterious work of the sovereign Holy Spirit and we are not permitted to know more than a little of his secret working.  But – and this is the point – the Holy Spirit, is present in the believing congregation gathered for praise and the offering up of spiritual sacrifice, scattered throughout the community to bear the love of God into every secular happening and meeting.”

 So we could ask ourselves why is that, as followers of Jesus, we seem to be so poor at this task? Why do we seem so reluctant to tell this Good News? Why do we drag our feet and need to be coerced and organised into doing it? The answer, which we would probably not really want to think about and could be quite disturbing, is that maybe we are not ourselves sure if we believe it.

In the past week, I met up with people on two occasions who bounded up to me, their faces full of joy and excitement, with a generous hug and desperate to tell me-  “I’ve got Good News!” One was over a new job the other that her mother’s visa had at last come through and she was able to come and visit.   And I thought “Yes – that’s it”

Crawford Mackenzie

leaving

Bearing Shame

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Jerusalem

At the back of the hotel, where we were staying, just outside the walls of the old city and close to the Damascus gate there was a marshalling yard where buses were turning, reversed and revving with cars and taxis horns from early in the morning.  You couldn’t sleep after that.  At the edge of the yard was an outcrop of limestone rock pitted and hollowed with small caves and vegetation. If you looked closely it would not be too difficult to imagine the shape of a face or a skull in the fissured rock. I fancied it was here.  I somehow imagined it as a place like this, not up a hill, but on a principal artery leading out of Jerusalem to Damascus, a very public place for a very public spectacle, deliberately chosen by the Roman occupiers to make examples of those who would defy their authority, to terrorise any would be rebels and subdue these troublesome Jews.  The chosen execution of nailing the criminal through the hands and the feet to a wooden post was itself designed to inflict the greatest pain and prolonged suffering. But the greatest terror was the shame of it, the curse of it. The words written on the cross in three languages were “The King of the Jews”  but the word written across this whole defining scene, as if in six foot letters or in indelible ink was “SHAME”.

 They say that shame is an emotion that has been banished and eradicated from our contemporary life. I don’t believe it. I have seen it deeply ingrained on the faces of the men who I used to visit in prison. The awful sense of having been so bad that the punishment was incarceration, with their freedom removed and the forced separation from the friends, family and their normal lives. I found it a very powerful and strange experience on these visits and very hard to deal with. The worst point was when you said your farewells and left, they to their cells and we to our freedom. I have also known shame in my own heart: the emotion that goes beyond an awareness of guilt provoked by an active conscience that could not be silenced. It goes beyond the sense of failure and foolishness to the shock and realisation that you could be such a person who would think these thoughts say these words and do these deeds.  It is one, if not, the most powerful emotion in the human spirit, which has the ability to permanently cripple and ultimately destroy any sense of self-worth or value. It is present in the memory of punishments being meted out, the beltings, the penalties, the exclusions, the reprimands, the forfeit of freedom and, in the ultimate case, the forfeit of one’s life.

 There is something here that is so difficult to comprehend. It is hard to begin to feel yourself into the situation.  It is hard to make sense of it and it proffers a very disturbing and unsettling problem. The prospect that you could be found guilty of a crime so heinous that it could justify the forfeiting of your life, stirs at something so deep and so worrying, way beyond any fear or distress and I think it touches the rawness of shame.   You would have to be a clinical rebel if you could shut your heart to its sting.

 So on this day, this Good Friday and on every day, I want to remember the one who took my shame who bore it willingly so that I can stand guilt and shame free before the Holy God now and when I see him face to face.

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As Philip Bliss has it:

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In my place condemned He stood…

Hallelujah,   What a saviour!

Crawford Mackenzie

A Purposeful Habit 2

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cellThe Four Disciplines

I met Dan (not his real name) some years ago when I was visiting a local prison not far from where I live.  I was with a small group of volunteers who went into the prison once a week to meet, chat, share coffee and biscuits and have a bible study  with the men who were interested enough to come. Dan shared in the sessions and we talked a lot. He seemed genuinely interested in discovering Jesus and, I believe, came to faith in him over that time. As volunteers we would often ask after home, and family and work and how long they had before release, but we had one self-imposed rule, which we rigidly kept to – never to ask why they were there. It was simply not our business or our concern. Occasionally, however, some would tell us and Dan let me see his papers: the documents that had been put together to process his appeal for parole.  As well as making an assessment on his character and his suitability for release, they described the actual crime in forensic detail. It involved arson and murder and made for chilling reading. It was hard to reconcile these awful facts with the man sitting beside me drinking coffee and the kind of person that your heart seems to go out to. But sharing in our study of the bible I knew and we knew that before God we were all in the same boat and neither of us had a leg to stand on.

When it came close to his release date or “liberation” as they called it,  Dan became more anxious about how he would be able to continue in his Christian life outside, when he was back in his old environment and under the influence of his old friends. He feared that he would simply return to his old ways.  “I don’t think my faith is strong enough” he would say, “I don’t think I have a good enough hold on God”. I did my best to reassure him by pointing out that it was God who had a hold of him and I tried to offer some practical advice. I suggested four things that were essential in the Christian life: things that you had to work at and make your habit, because they didn’t come naturally. At times it would be a struggle, often a battle as malign and subtle forces pitted against you, intent on damaging your new life and your new desire to follow Jesus Christ.  You had to practice them and continue practising, so that they would become part of you. It had to be a discipline and a regular one – weekly, daily, hourly, and at all times.

If you know anything about the Christian Faith you will know that they are:

  • Praying to God by his Spirit in Jesus’ name
  • Reading the Bible, recognising it as God’s Holy Word, inspired by His Spirit proclaiming Jesus
  • Meeting with other followers of Jesus, to worship God
  • Doing Good, as an expression of your love for God, by serving others, with the help of his Spirit, in Jesus’ name

They are not, were not and never were rule things. Things you had to do to please God. Things if you do better and longer with more zeal and effort would somehow achieve for you a higher place in the scheme of things. It is not the legalism that Paul, in his letters, exposes with such ruthlessness, but aids, means, helps and the essential life blood, food, and fresh air to live a life in gratitude to God.

I lost contact with Dan soon after his release and often wonder where he is and how he is doing. I see him in my dreams sometimes. I keep praying for him, I have never forgotten him and I am slowly learning to listen to my own advice to him – to practice these disciplines.

Crawford Mackenzie

The Purposeful Habit 1

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how to

“How to be a Christian without going to church”  Kelly Bean       A Book Review

I am not in the habit of writing book reviews. I am such a slow reader and others do that so much better, but after creating a little stir with a rather flippant post using a play on the title of a book I had just read, I felt I had to explain myself. It was a light hearted jibe but one with a serious point.

It is “How to be a Christian without going to church”  by Kelly Bean, published by Baker Books.  The title catches the eye as it is clearly intended to do and the book addresses the issue of what the writer calls “No-Goers”, of which she is one. These are people who no longer go to church. They are not people who have been believers, have become disillusioned with the church , “lost their faith” and say that they no longer believe,  they are people who leave, yet maintain and continue to practice their orthodox Christian faith.  From the research, which the writer quotes, this has become, in recent years, an unstoppable flood.

There are a series of stories and testimonies from people who have left, to give put some flesh on the background and explain the reasons for leaving: “for their own sanity”, “the structure was killing my faith”, “I felt undervalued”,  “I faced rejection and judgement”,  “The system was broken”, “It didn’t match my style” and many other painful stories. It seemed an endless list of damaged and frustrated people who appear to be stifled but flourish when they finally take the step to leave “After 17 years of not going to church my faith is stronger than ever”.  It is a sad and depressing catalogue of failure, but one than anyone who is involved in the church in the west today will easily recognise.

Kelly Bean makes it clear at the outset that she is not against the church. She wants it to be there, to continue and to grow. She would never discourage anyone from joining or sticking with it, she just feels, with a growing number of likeminded people, that it is not for her or for them. She is not, however, advocating being a solitary Christian in fact quite the opposite and here is where her argument seems a little confused and contradictory. She talks about the big shift from “Going to Church to “Being Church”. The first suggesting simply the activity of regularly going to a place, a building , to do whatever. It is understandable why this should be derided because we are called “to be” a holy nation, a people of God, a light to the world.  But if we are to share with any believing community, it involves some movement –we have to go there unless we are always living together. So “Going to Church” is just as relevant and expression. Towards the end of the book she describes intentional communities “ Something is taking shape and spreading as Christians far and wide come together (my emphasis) in a variety of small communities committed to a life lived in simplicity, humility and for others”  so clearly she sees the new movement of non-goers actually going somewhere and it looks like to another church.

I think she is also a little muddled. On the one hand she makes it clear that the church is, as we have always been taught, not a building, a structure, a denomination, an organisation, but the people of God, wherever they come together in twos or threes or in hundreds.  As a “Non-goer” she doesn’t want to be part of this church but, I believe, despite her protestations to the contrary, she is actually trying to set up another church. In her guide to “alternative forms of Christian community” there is alternative worship, alternative bible study, alternative money, alternative baptism and dedication of children, alternative missionary work and even alternative Sunday school and youth groups. In her turning away from all the structures of the church she has defined another church which looks remarkably like the one she has rejected. And what she fails to see is that this simply repeats so much of what has happened throughout the Church’s history.

All the problems she described in “Why are people leaving” are failings in the structures, the organisations, the leadership, and the people but not with its essential reason for being, or with its King and head. The church, I believe, needs reformation not rejection.

I was also struck by two things, which I have to say coloured my whole feeling about the book:

The first is that there is little or no mention of whose church it is. The church is seen as of the people, by the people, for the people, for the community and for the world, when all the time it is God’s. It belongs to him.  It is the church of Jesus Christ.  It is not ours. So we can’t decide what it should be, what it should be like or who should be in it. That is entirely God’s business not ours. Maybe this was taken as read but the fact that it was never stated makes me wonder if the thought was ever in the writers mind.

The second is that, while the Bible is mentioned in a few occasion and quoted very occasionally, there is no hint that these new alternative ways of being community are based or grounded at all on Scripture. Maybe that is also taken as read, but, again, I don’t think so. This omission is serious. At a stroke it knocks away the foundation, disconnects from the basis of the true faith and opens the way for any kind of whimsical and transient philosophy or personality cult to take over and lead to anywhere. The “Non Goers” movement doesn’t seem to be rooted in the Bible but centred on “shared values” and focused on “core beliefs” like those outlined in one quote:

  • God is good. I will practise trusting God with my life
  • God is love. I will practice taking care of myself and loving others
  • God is with me. I will practice peace and not being afraid
  • God wants to talk with me. I will practice listening to Him and talking with Him
  • God always forgives. I will practice forgiving myself and others
  • I feel blessed with this Good News. I will practice being thankful and celebrating moments
  • God has a story of love. He tells it through us. I will practice partnering with Him to bring it to others

At first sight it is maybe hard to find fault with this. But where does it come from? What is it based on? Where is the underlying authority for such statements? How are they defined? When you actually look at the list, there is nothing specifically Christian about it. There is nothing of Christ in it.  I am curious why his name is not mentioned. Is it because, in this creed, Jesus is unnecessary and redundant?  The “Good news” seems to be that “God always forgives”. He will forgive anyway. “It’s his job” as someone has said. If this is an example of where the “Non-goers” movement leads then it is not just alarming it is potentially very dangerous.

If you have read this far you, may not agree, but you will understand why I am concerned.

This is only my take. Go and read it yourself and see what you think and if you disagree let me know.

Crawford Mackenzie

The wedding

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the band

I can’t pretend that I am a fan of weddings. I just can’t get excited about the details, the outfits, the flowers, the hair, the cake, the photographs, the music, the waiting around, the hours mingling with glass in hand, trying hard to make conversations, the partying before and after and the mountains of work in preparation and the outrageous cost that goes into just one day. But… and here is the strange thing, there is nothing that moves me so much, that chokes me up and causes tears to dribble down my face as that moment when you see the bride, radiant and beautiful, the friend, the niece, the sister, the daughter approaching with such confidence and poise, the one you have known for years or for just a little while, perhaps you have watched her grow from childhood and you see her now as you have never done before. Immediately all the mean thoughts are banished. She is worth every bit of it, all the work and all the expense. Nothing is to be spared for this, her day.  And then you catch the look on the bridegroom’s face and see the sheer delight in his eyes and the sense of unbounded joy that fills the whole place… and I am converted.

It is something that is very hard to explain or to understand but yesterday as we were basking in the wonder of Jesus’ first recorded miracle, the turning of water into wine at Cana -the subject of the sermon at our evening service, we were beginning to.

Crawford Mackenzie

the band

TEMPEST

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titanic 1

I have almost all of Bob Dylan’s’ albums, can recognise and recall most of the lyrics from memory, and never tire of singing them. Without doubt he is the master of the genre and his work has so far never been eclipsed. In my book, he is the Shakespeare, the Beethoven, the Rembrandt of this art form – the English popular song. There are many fine singer/songwriters too, but none really come close. It isn’t surprising then that hundreds of books have been written about his songs and I guess all of it has been said before and better. But it is not only as a songwriter, but as a singer that he surpasses the rest. Many people have been fiercely critical of his singing voice, describing it as “one quaver short of an octave” or simply dismissed it by saying he can’t sing. But for the range (just try and sing some of the songs and you will find that), the expression and the timing, which alone is masterly, there is none like him. It is interesting that in his recent speech at MusiCares he asks why it is that so many singers like, Tom waits, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Dr John, Charley Patton, Robert Johnston and Muddy Waters sing like they are being dragged across gravel, twist and distort their voices, scream and scratch but he is the one who is singled out for the dismissive treatment. I have wondered about this for a long time.  Singing styles are, of course, very much a matter of taste, what is not in dispute is the standard of the songs.

The one which, in my opinion represents Bob Dylan’s finest work, is  “Tempest”,  the penultimate song from the album of the same name.  Since hearing it a year or so ago, I wanted to write about it, review it and, hopefully, draw it to the attention of others. I didn’t got round to that until now. It is in the tradition of many of his ballads that tell a story with just enough detail to let you in on what is happening.  Like “Hurricane” telling a contemporary story introduced like stage notes for a film or the “Across the green mountain” following an observer through the tragedy of the American Civil War to a funeral drum beat, in “Tempest”  he takes a well-known event and without the hint of moralising or preaching lays out the story and lets the hearer decide, with a melody that glides across the waves.  The forty four verses, without a chorus or musical break, paint a gigantic picture where every brush stroke counts, its crafted understated descriptions makes the disaster all the more realistic and terrible.  Like “Cross the green mountain” the narrator observes what is going on in every level of the ship, the individuals and groups and families caught in that moment when all they have lived for and loved is about to disappear. It is inevitable that reviewers, commentators and critics will see different things in the tale. I have read quite a few but the best comes from “the gardener is gone” weblog

It is a terrific allegory for our dogged embrace of everything that does not ultimately matter in the very moment of its not-mattering. Every snapshot of sacrifice, affection, betrayal, heroism, faith, doubt, even the reckless gamblers, is set ruthlessly against the glimpses of implacable destruction. The song’s melody has a patient, rocking feel, and Dylan begins most verses with a merciless delivery of each syllable like a fist pounding a podium, and ends with softer, milder tones. So the sound of the song is a pendulum:  sacrifice and doom; affection and doom; valour and doom; faith and doom.  The vignettes range from the stock moment of the Astors unaware that their days of luxury sight-seeing are over, to the clever and sort of ballsy choice of having Jim Dandy “come to the rescue” of a crippled boy, to the subtle irony of Davey’s whores getting their final command from a man in the form of being released to their deaths. The web of religion that runs through the song is viciously tangled against itself: Jim Dandy dies in peace amid a vision of the rising Eastern star; the bishop admits at the last that human can’t save human; disembodied love and pity send useless prayers; there are angels, and they turn aside; the captain reads of apocalypse and weeps–this here-and-now apocalypse occurring under and over him was his to prevent. At one point Dylan undoes whatever transcendence you may want to glean from his tale by blaming “the wizard’s curse.”

The artist gets it right: in a single moment Leo grasps the disaster, acts with altruistic reflex, and loses his mind.  It’s the truest moment in the song for me; he’s the central character for me. His doomed sketches would have given the glorious ship art’s eternal life.  He’s struck and undone by love just as his muse the ship is struck and undone.  And he is the opposite of the watchman for whom the calamity is the phantom of his sleep: Leo the artist sees the calamity for what it is, acts because the impulse to preserve life is irrepressible, and in that moment knows the full weight of an absurd universe and goes mad.

titanic 3

Where I differ from the writer, is over the central character in the drama. For me is not Cleo but the watchman who, appears in regular stanzas through the song and who sleeps through it all. Even at the end he is sleeping in that dreadful line “He dreams the Titanic is sinking and he tries to tell someone”.  When you are dreaming you find you can’t run from the bear who is chasing you or from the building that is on fire. No matter how you try you just can’t move your legs.  The watchman can’t tell anyone, and this is the biggest tragedy, because he is fast asleep.  So in this apocalyptical scene the person who should have called out the warning is out for the count. If what is in the artists mind, and he is certainly not going to tell us, is the collapse of western civilisation, then the real tragedy is that no one foresaw and no alarm was given. If, what he sees is the final apocalypse, the end of time and the final judgement then the tragedy is that the ones who could have given the message, sounded the seven blast on the ships whistle, blown the trumpet, the prophets, the preachers, the churches, were silent and found sleeping at their post. This is a most sobering thought.

Crawford Mackenzie

IN THE PRESENCE

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Paul's conversion 2

On Thursday our little group of internationals from China, Nigeria, Cyprus, Malaysia , Ireland, Latvia, Romania, Iran and Scotland shared a meal and sat round the fire to read and think about what Jesus said. We were studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. We had come to the part where Jesus speaks about prayer and where he teaches the “how to” in the model for all prayer, which begins with these astonishing words “Our father in heaven…”  Before that he gives two negatives – two “how not to”s: hypocritical praise seeking prayers and mechanical repeating prayers. There was so much to think about but the first one stung. It clearly pointed out that you can’t be praising God and seeking praise for yourself at the same time. It was one or the other.

This was particularly on my mind as I prepared to lead the pastoral prayer at our church on Sunday morning.  I wanted it to be good, which was a worthy thought and I wanted people to think it was good, which wasn’t. I struggled with these two conflicting attitudes for some time and I thought I had it licked. But standing at the back of the church while the congregation were gathering, filling up with so many people, I began to panic and was almost overwhelmed with the dreadful thought of failure. The anxiety continued to grip me through the early part of the service and then something happened. We were singing our confession, a version of psalm 51 to the tune Ottawa, unaccompanied, with the tangible sense that we were in the presence of the almighty God- all powerful and all loving. It was as if the whole place was filled with a dazzling all-consuming light that penetrated every corner and crevice. Then it came to me with astonishing clarity “You are coming into the presence of the Holy God and you are worried about what these people think?!”  “You are coming before the creator of the whole universe, the judge of all the earth, the King of kings, the Lord of lords and your are bothered about this lot ?!

When I reached the podium, the Holy Spirt took over and gave me the words so that I could give voice to the prayers of the people, to our Father in heaven, in Jesus name. It is something I hope I will never forget.

Crawford Mackenzie

“All you really have is God”

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I have been a Christian, a follower of Jesus, since as long as I can remember. You could say, I was brought up as a Christian, which was certainly true, but the faith which I saw in my parents had to be true for me too, I could not survive on borrowed faith no matter how strong. At various points, and continually, in my life I have committed myself to Jesus Christ, signed up, and effectively said, “you have saved me, I belong to you and you are boss” But there have always been doubts: sometimes small ripples, at other times gigantic waves that look almost certain to sink this fragile dingy. But doubts do a funny thing. They make you realise that you do actually believe. If you didn’t believe, doubts will never bother you. It is a bit like pain which is a sign that you are still alive. On the mountains when the artic wind is cutting through your clothes and skin to your bone the time to worry is when you stop feeling the pain in your fingers. That’s when frostbite strikes and they can almost literally fall off. The time to worry is when you feel warm and comfortable and just want to lie down in the snow and sleep. It is, of course, a sleep of death.  Feeling pain is a sign of life and having doubts is a sign of faith.

Doubts have many angles: over suffering, over exclusiveness, with science, over the bible, over the whole idea of the supernatural,  but for me it comes with an unannounced sense that the whole things is bizarre, ridiculous and absurd. To believe seems utterly insane and so much nonsense, but the strange thing is that it hits a rock and one that doesn’t seem to want to move. It is the conviction that there is nothing else: that I have nothing but God and that there is no other way but Jesus. It is what Jesus’ disciples said when people were turning away from him and his teaching. (John:6:68). He said “Do you want to leave too”. Peter responded “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”

It all struck home with a new force, when I read Kayla Mueller’s letter, which her parents released after her death, this week. It was not clear when the letter was written or what actually was her fate, but it was hard to read without becoming totally choked up, not so much by the tragedy for her and her family, or the blind wickedness of her captors, but by the sheer beauty of her expressed faith in God and her first concern, not for herself, but for the ones she loved.

“I remember mom always telling me that all in all in the end the only one you really have is God. I have come to a place in experience where, in every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our creator b/c literally there was no else … + by God + by your prayers I have felt tenderly cradled in freefall. I have been shown in darkness, light + have learned that even in prison, one can be free. I am grateful. I have come to see that there is good in every situation, sometimes we just have to look for it. I pray each day that if nothing else, you have felt a certain closeness + surrender to God as well + have formed a bond of love + support amongst one another … I miss you all as if it has been a decade of forced separation.”

Crawford Mackenzie