The Rubbish Grace

In my Royal Navy days I heard of a Christian sailor so pious (and in my view astoundingly naive and self-defeating) that he would pray ponderously for what seemed like an eternity before every meal in the mess onboard his ship.    There he’d be, at the table, hands clasped, eyes closed, praying as if his life depended upon it (mind you, with some food those days, it possibly did!)Now, sailors can be funny, they can be rough, rude and amoral, they can be the best mates you ever had but they can also be, very typically, merciless in the face of pretension.    They will zero in on it and torment brutally.   This situation was no different.    As he sat engrossed in his ‘can everyone see me being very holy?’ mantle, surrounding sailors, helpless with almost silent laughter, would lace his dinner with everything from hot pepper to tab ends (‘tabs’ = Geordie word for ‘cigarettes’).    Rising from his pious ministrations he’d then rescue what was left of his dinner with a look, which said that he was ‘suffering this for Christ and that the pain now endured was a small price to pay for his reward in glory.’    All he actually achieved was to make Christianity the laughing stock of the mess (Royal Navy word for where sailors live on the ship/submarine).    It’s one thing to be thrown into the fiery furnace, quite another to jump in willingly to prove how religious you are.

I think he got a somewhat masochistic kick out of being seen as persecuted.    I do wonder however, whether it was entirely his own fault.    The military has always been a rich hunting ground for the evangelical right and my early experience of the Naval Christian Fellowship….but that’s another chapter!    Stay tuned folks, more rubbish in the not-too-distant-future.

The Rubbish Conversion

I became a Christian, in the evangelical sense of the word, when I was in my mid-teens.    Then, throughout the years, I’ve gone through different phases ranging from full on commitment to outright rejection of my faith.   What it hasn’t been, in true Rubbish Christian style, is a steady maturing march towards the Kingdom.    Instead, it’s been more of a dizzyingly chaotic series of lurches from one crisis of faith to the next with stability glimpsed only in the passing during the inexorable swing from one extreme to the other.   So, where the reassuring certainty of the Lord Jesus ‘living in my heart’? I actually have a real problem with that sort of ‘living in my heart’ language. It’s all a bit girly and embarrassing; wot with me being a bloke ‘n’ everything.

Did you ever see the episode of the Muppets where Sam (the American Eagle) is asked to sing ‘Tit Willow’?   He’s reassured that it’s high culture, ‘light opera’.    So, with full defensive grandeur, he accompanies the singer by duly singing the lines ‘Tit Willow, tit willow, tit willow’ and the look on his mortified face shows that he does indeed, feel like a complete……willow….for singing it.   Perhaps then, in our western world, some of us let our hair down (I’m virtually bald so this is metaphorical) or express intimate emotions in some circumstances but not in others.

Whether rightly or wrongly, it does cause a few problems.   I don’t know; the phrase ‘accepting the Lord Jesus into my heart’ just sounds, quite frankly, mawkish.   I mean, think of it, you’re down the pub with yer mates, having just been to the footie (Soccer for my North American readers) or something and everyone’s talking about what’s going on for them: -

“So, what did you all get up to at the weekend guys?”

“Oh, I had a great night out with some old mates!”

“Yeh, I played in a Snooker/Pool/ Billiards competition and won”

“I sprained my back playing Rugby.”

“Great weekend. I was down the local community centre at my Boxing class”

And then, the Rubbish Christian has to pipe up. “Oh me, well, I invited Jesus into my heart”

Embarrassed silence and lots of, “Right, well, er, that’s nice, erm…”

It’s just sooooo, well, mawkish!

So, I struggle along, most of the time, happy to accept I’m a Christian but at other times I wonder.    Not having that ‘blessed assurance’ in my heart, I have to rely on hope.    Is that good enough?    Maybe I’ll just change my name to Thomas (but I ‘doubt’ I will).    Why does Christianity have to sound so, well, girly?!

Rubbish Prayer Groups

Ever since I can remember, I’ve dreaded prayer groups. Not because they’re not worthy and not because I don’t think they’re essential but simply because I get bored, I’m counting the minutes until I can do something more interactive, more interesting. I’m one of these people who cannot ‘still the mind’ as others (claim) they can with consummate ease. As soon as I hear the dreaded words, “Let’s spend a few minutes in silence ‘before-the-Lord’ as we wait on Him” my mind thinks this is the starting pistol to go flying off in all sorts of directions, none of which have got anything to do with the prayers. No matter how much I try to concentrate, I simply end up thinking about trying not to think and therefore thinking as opposed to not thinking and ‘waiting upon the Lord’…….er……are you still with me?

Remedies (yes, I know, I said I’d not provide solutions, but bear with me) – You know; I struggle to read my Bible regularly and I find my mind wandering off it. It’s ironic therefore that one of my solutions to ‘stilling myself before the Lord’ in prayer groups is to read a Bible. I could try reading FHM but that might raise eyebrows. The thinking behind this is that it will focus me on ‘higher things’ during the silence………and it actually works! Oh yes, I read away and find myself feeling most holy! Have you ever stopped to consider that reading to yourself (if you’re not sure what that is, it’s the activity you’re undertaking now) is a quiet and peaceful affair? Well let me tell you right now, it isn’t! Having already said I get distracted when reading the Bible, I find in this situation that I read it in chapter-loads! This of course, means turning the pages. Turning the page of a book has to rank as one of the noisiest activities known to Man (which necessarily includes Wimmin but I’m just being awkward….for the sake of it). There, in silence, the page turn cracks the silence no matter how careful you are. It’s like when you’re at the cinema and trying to get a few sweets out of the packet. Just as you start rummaging, there’s a quiet spot in the film and your fumblings echo around the hall with breathtaking clarity.

Well, the net result is that you disturb the holy silence of those around you who are clearly more holy than you and so you just can’t win! So, thinking that the pages of a Bible are simply noisier due to their make up, I decided to try using a hymn book instead. It’s astonishing how much you can learn by reading a hymn book during a silence. I worked out that you can get through all 5 verses of ‘O Jesus I have Promised’ three times and each time, using a different tune in your head. I found this very useful for ensuring that I don’t have to turn over the page to another hymn! The main problem with this ‘coping mechanism’ is that with my meagre grip on reality, I fear bursting into song in the middle of the silence! I suppose I could always pretend I’m singing in tongues (not that hard to believe, given I’m a Geordie living in Scotland).

I then discovered a neat trick. Now, I say ‘neat’ for I would not normally find anything like this remotely interesting, or useful, or anything else like that but here, in this context, we’re trying to make it, sanity intact, to the end of the silent bit in the prayer group. Where was I? Oh yes, neat trick. I discovered a game where you try to fit a hymn to a different tune and see, however it goes, if you get to the end with no notes or words to spare. Try ‘Jesus Loves Me’ sung to the Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’. How the long winter nights just fly by…..

So, where were we? Ah yes, the prayer group. A Minister friend of mine once said that the prayer group is the boiler house of the church. I believe her. That doesn’t stop me finding it difficult to concentrate.

Once the silence bit it over, it’s ‘praying for others’ (or variations on a theme). I’m relieved at this point because you just know that it’s going to be during the silence that someone’s mobile phone is going to go off, tummies are going to rumble or worse, someone’s going to start imitating brass band trumpet sections as their digestive system decides it’s time to put the garbage out! Think ‘Blazing Saddles’ bean eating scene. It’s amazing what you hear during a silence….the trouble is, I wish I heard the Holy Spirit like everyone else seems to do.

I have to admit, that I really find it hard to work out how to talk to God as I just feel as if I’m speaking into thin air. At this point I simply take Him at His word and say it, praying that He’ll take what I’m saying and turn it into something spiritual.

Other assorted sundry Rubbish Christian observations during the Prayer Group: -

What happens when two people start praying at the same time? In my experience, this leads to “Uh-oh, we’re in uncharted territory here. How do we resolve this when we’re supposed to be in a state of contemplative prayer-like silence etc.?” from the two who interrupted each other. It all gets very awkward.

What happens if someone falls over and collapses or something? Is everyone too embarrassed to come out of their ‘state of prayer’ to do something. It always feels so awkward when something goes wrong during silences or prayers. I remember a prayer group a few years ago when the leader said we should now sit in silence and wait for any word from the Lord. A mobile went off and I said, “I honestly didn’t expect him to ring!”

What happens when the person leading the silence ‘nods off’? Who breaks the silence and actually does something when snoring echoes around from the leader….or anyone else for that matter?

What happens when someone gets a fit of the giggles….for no reason whatever or perhaps because someone’s broken wind?

Yes, prayer groups can be terrifying experiences for even the hardened Christian let alone the Rubbish one;

This is often what actually goes on for me at prayer groups – “Nearly at the end….sneaked a look at the watch….only a few minutes to go. Surely the leader will break in during one of the silences between the prayers and ‘close in prayer’. Ah, a nice long silence, surely he’ll…..nope, someone else’s just snuck another quick prayer in…we’ll have to wait another couple of minutes in silence before the close…..silence….more silence….4….3….2….1….Doh, another prayer! The relief that floods through as the sound of, “Thank you Lord that you hear our prayers, even the rubbish ones from the Rubbish Christian and shall we say the grace to one another (another – small but significant – hurdle as we awkwardly ‘say’ the Grace to ‘each other’ and the Rubbish Christian actually feels spiritual saying this, but not to ‘one another’, just generally, into space). Ah well, a two week respite until the next time.

The Good the Bad and the Rest of Us

Have you ever seen those ancient pictures of Biblical stories?   Moses coming down the mountain with the tablets of stone, the Disciples, strong and brave, battling bravely against all adversaries with stoic looks of thunder and piercing eyes. Angels looking, well, angelic.

Looking at these one immediately gets a sense of, er, well, inadequacy….well, I’ve often done at any rate. These figures, looming large in their historical context seem to me to have just walked on to some Shakespearian stage, with their voices booming, “Lo, thou sinner” (ever noticed how they seem to be about to spout forth in Authorised Version language? No? OK then, well I do). Towering over us mere mortals, they present us with an image of perfect Christianity, of which us lesser mortals can only dream (that’s when we’re not dreaming of stardom, greatness, adulation and other stuff we’d rather not tell our friends and family).

Then there’s the pictures of Jesus, standing there with his right hand raised, two fingers cocked like the barrel of a gun, blessing us. It’s a bit like the church Minister does as s/he stands in front of the congregation at the end of the service blessing us all (aahhhh, isn’t that nice?). Jesus too, is portrayed as some sort of aloof authority figure, pouring out his condescending blessings, ‘for which we are truly thankful’.

I’m not having a go at Jesus, Moses, the Disciples, angels or anyone else in the Bible; it’s just that I wonder sometimes whether these images accurately reflect reality. I mean, let’s face it, Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, the disciples did all sorts of things including bitching, position jostling, ‘denying’ Him and being racist and as for Moses, well he murdered someone and ran away!

However, it’s another great way to ensure that I’m a fully paid up member of the Rubbish Christian Club.    Join now, you know it makes sense.