The Lion King and the Deep Story of Life #1

A few weeks ago I watched the Lion King. Again.

And I love this film, I love it so much it is ridiculous, I have seen it on VHS, on DVD, even in 3D. At some point I’ve probably seen it illegally. But if ever a film was worth a criminal record, that film is the Lion King.

One of the reasons that I love it so much, is because I think it’s true. Now, obviously, I don’t quite mean that. I don’t mean that the lions really do sing and dance or make schemes with hyenas or friends with warthogs, what I mean is that a lot of the basic story in that film (which is, apparently, based on Hamlet) is the same as the deep story of humanity. We love it so much because it’s us.

Now, as you probably know, I’m a Christian. And I believe that the story of Christianity is the deep story of who we are, the true story of us and the world and God.

So I’m going to attempt to tell what I believe is the story of humanity with a few clips from the best film ever.

#1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG0aNqeMNIk

Watch it first, we’re only really bothered with the first 40 seconds.

So. The picture we’ve got here, is exactly how the story starts. We’re Simba, God’s our Dad. He’s our Dad and he’s the King. And he shows us a beautiful, epic, exciting kingdom, and says, “Kid, it’s all yours. There’s just one thing…” The whole of existence is ours to enjoy, but then there are the shadowlands, the darkness, the danger-zone, and our Dad tells us we should never go there. There’s danger there, there’s pain. There is fear, and darkness, and death.

And what’s our shadowland? Like Simba says: “I thought a King can do whatever he wants”. The shadowland, the elephant graveyard for humanity is simply us deciding to do whatever we want, not whatever He wants. Our Dad, the King, loves us, and he wants to give us everything, but we were born free. We were born free to follow ourselves and not our Father, to follow the voice that tells us that “the bravest lions” can do whatever they want. Free to leave the land where the light touches, and wander into the shadowlands of pain – our pain, each other’s pain, His pain.

And isn’t it funny that as soon as Mufasa tells Simba he should never go there, we know that he will? Because that is what people always do. We want what we shouldn’t have, eat the forbidden biscuit, all that jazz. We are born free, and we are born doing the thing that we’re not supposed to do. And at the start we’re just throwing our food and eating our little sister’s sweets and that’s quite cute, but we get older and it gets nastier. The shadowlands get darker and more dangerous.

But good news is, our Dad is running…

TO BE CONTINUED.

*Relevant bible bit: Genesis chapters 1, 2 and 3: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%201&version=NIVUK

An Unexpected Metaphor

Two delightfully surprising things have happened to me this week – and it turns out one is a metaphor for the other. Which, as an English Lit student, I find rather pleasing.

I say two things, but in truth there have been many delightful things this week because Rachael came to visit. While I’d love to take up hours of your life with witty prose on the multiplicity of entertaining escapades and, lets be honest, packets of biscuits that made up our time together, I will restrain myself and only mention one little thing. Rachael does a thing occasionally, * SOPPY ALERT * * SOPPY ALERT * where she says ‘thank you’ to me for being lovely. And this is a uniquely wonderful thing. Unique because those ‘thank you’s are ones that no part of me is asking for. It’s not like when I get someone a present that I think is a goodun, and as soon as I choose it I’m looking forward to the gratitude they will no doubt display; or when I hoovered my room before she came and was so proud of it that I told all my friends, then her when she arrived, (and now anyone that reads this as well…) in the hope of people being impressed at my good-boyfriendness! The alleged ‘loveliness’ that I have displayed in these moments is not something I do because I think I should. It’s not something I do because I’ve been told its what good boyfriends do, or because I think Rachael will be grateful for it and think I’m great. The best times are when I’ve done something simply because * SOPPY ALERT * I love her and it is a joy to be kind to her. It’s what I want to do. And then she thanks me and I think – what? And I say ‘it’s a pleasure’ and I actually mean it. It’s an honour. It’s what I want to do.

So in technical terminology that was the ‘vehicle’, and now for the ‘tenor’. That was the metaphor, and this is the thing it’s a metaphor for. If that makes sense.

Just now I was chatting to my brother on Skype. Which again, was lovely in itself but I won’t waste your time. And at the end I just asked him to pray for me, because I realised that recently I’ve been reading this awesome book * ADVERT ALERT * (‘The Cost of Discipleship’ – Dietrich Bonhoeffer – EPIC) and it’s talking about how brilliant it is to obey Jesus. To do what he wants. How letting us obey him is actually awesome kindness from him. But anyway, it’s making me dead keen to know what he wants me to do – for him to tell me to do something so I can obey him. This probably sounds quite strange but bare with, bare with. I told Andy this and asked if he could pray for me to sort of realise or hear what Jesus wants me to do. And then he said,
“Well, I think to be honest brother, what you’ve been talking about, just loving people and being with them and telling them about Jesus, I think that’s the thing.”

And I thought, ‘Oh’. 

I thought, ‘Good point’.

I thought, ‘Well yeah, this week we started an Alpha course and chatted about Jesus and that was amazing and I really got to know people and I loved it. And all the way through the last few weeks I’ve been getting to know awesome people, and I’ve had so many beautiful conversations about Jesus and how beautiful he is, and exciting things are happening in my friends lives,  and… so on and so forth...’ 

But the feeling was a lot like the feeling when Rachael thanks me for being lovely.

Talking to people about Jesus – whether other Christians or not – started out quite scary. I knew it was the right thing to do because God was way too good not to share, but I still had to really battle with myself to get the courage and actually say something. But without me noticing really, that’s changed. What started out as doing what He wanted me to do, is now just what I want to do. I was surprised when Andy said it because it doesn’t even feel like obedience any more. I talk to people about Jesus simply because I love Him and I love them. It’s just a joy. It is a genuine and constant delight. It is what I’m here for, sharing Jesus and his love has become genuinely the best bit of my life, * CLICHÉ ALERT * it’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.

So this is an unexpectedly marvellous thing about trying to do what Jesus wants. After a while, you find that, somehow, you want what he wants. And you do it. And it’s epic. And it feels like you were born for it because you were.

Some theologian once said: “If you love God, you can do what you want.” I think he was right.

A Momentous Night in Revolution

Well then, tonight might just turn out to be one of the most important nights of my life. That feels a little bit silly to type, but I honestly think it might be true because tonight I found a church. I went to a bar, and I found a church. I went to a bar called Revolution which is not a particularly great bar but it is a great name, and some people called Kingsgate Community Church meet there on Sunday nights and eat together and love Jesus together with their whole hearts.

I could write a whole blog trying to tell you all about it, but in a way I think you had to be there. Jesus certainly was, in a way that was very difficult to ignore. I’m not sure if you can sense through these words the ridiculous level of enthusiasm that is pouring out of me right now, but honestly me and my mate Jo walked down two flights of stairs and out onto the street laughing every step of the way. With sheer joy. Because God is epic.

Anyway, I’d love to just enthuse so much that you get it, but I think instead I’ll share some of it with you. The leader of this merry bunch was speaking, and he was speaking about God and how perfectly, how permanently, he has forgiven us and has made us his children – children that he is proud of whatever and forever. And he told this story, from South Africa a few years ago, from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

A frail black woman rises slowly to her feet. She is something over 70 years of age. Facing across the room are several white security police officers, one of whom, Mr van der Broek, has just been tried and found implicated in the murders of both the woman’s son and her husband some years before. He had come to the woman’s home, taken her son, shot him at point blank range and then set the young man’s body on fire while he and his officers partied nearby.

Several years later, van der Broek and his cohorts had returned to take away her husband as well. For many months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then almost two years after her husband’s disappearance, van der Broek came back to fetch the woman herself. How vividly she remembers that evening, going to a places beside a river where she was shown her husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips as the officers poured gasoline over his body and set him aflame were, “Father forgive them…”

Now the woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions offered by Mr van der Broek. A member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns to her and asks, “So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?”

“I want three things,” begins the old woman calmly, but confidently. “I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial.”

She pauses, then continues. “My husband and son were my only family, I want secondly, therefore, for Mr van der Broek to become my son. I would like him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining in me.

“And finally,” she says, “I want a third thing. This is also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr van der Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven.” As the court assistants come to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he has just heard, faints. As he does, those in the courtroom, family, friends, neighbours – all victims of decades of oppression and injustice – begin to sing softly, but assuredly. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

In that incredible old woman, I see Jesus. He is that good. And tonight, I am very happy indeed.

Bicycle Crashes (But Only Metaphorical Ones)

I think human beings are a bit like beautiful bicycles that have crashed into walls at speed.

The reason I make this observation now is that I went to a fresher’s free lunch put on by the Christian Union at my college yesterday, and had some really interesting chats afterwards. One of the first things my mate Zoe said was something along the lines of:

“They kept saying how people are bad, but for me religion is about trying to be a good person, that’s where it all starts.”

Now I’ve been thinking about this. And, as I said before, what I think the bible says is that people are like beautiful bicycles after a dramatic crash. Let me explain.

The bible insists that people are epic. We are beautiful. We are positively sparkling with potential, the masterpiece of creation. It insists there is something in us that worth more than the whole world, something priceless and golden and precious. It relentlessly tells us that we are loved, and that we are capable of literally changing the world. We are shiny new bikes, and we have got 97 and a half gears, and we can hit some serious speeds.

But then the bible notices that that’s not quite the whole picture. And I’ve noticed that too. I do feel like something about me seems to have had an unexpected meeting with a wall a long time back, and got twisted. There are still lots of shiny parts, and sometimes you wouldn’t even guess if you saw me that the bike had ever crashed – but somehow the frame is warped, the wheels are bent. I’m sure I’m pointing the handlebars straight forwards but a bit later I look around and I’ve veered off somewhere and I’m thinking “how did I end up here?!” I plan to go somewhere but then I realise I’m actually just going round and round in circles. I make the same mistakes over and over again. Some of the time the ride is just a bit awkward, it’s just hard work, but I get there; and then other times I find myself clipping the kerb and things get properly messy.

I seem to be broken, and I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t.

But then every time, the bible seems to nudge us, and say well, what do you need? And the honest answer is that I need someone who’s strong enough to straighten out a twisted bike frame with his bare hands.

And I know just the guy.

Jane Eyre and a Delightful Evening

Friday 11th October 1:23am.

Tonight I am more delighted than I have been in a very long time, more delighted than I can properly describe. This is a rare and beautiful joy – so I’ll try to share some of it as best as I can.

Prologue 1: Three days into my English degree and I have already resorted to watching the DVD instead! I’m doing Jane Eyre next week and I have read it but a long time ago, so I got the film out of the library today just for a bit of a refresher! Anyway, it was a bit frustrating because my computer kept spitting it out, and then I borrowed a DVD reader from my mate Ellis and that for some reason was working on her computer but then not on either of mine! So that’s prologue one, frustration of my ingenious film-watching schemes.

Prologue 2: I should also introduce you to the other main characters in this evening’s story – Eve, Jo and Mollie. Eve is also doing English, she’s cool and northern and we had a fun adventure the other day looking for her lost phone and trying to stave off cardiac arrest. Jo is doing theology, which is COOL, and is a generally bizarre and wonderful person – and we have already developed the sort of hilarious bullying relationship that made somebody ask the other day if we were old friends from school! And Mollie is my ‘college sister’, and she’s crazy good at French, and learning Russian too, and is generally hilarious and actually does feel a bit like my sister (although of course, I don’t know what a real sister is actually like).

This Evening: So that brings us to the source of my current delight. Jo, Mollie and I came back from a debate thingy at the Union tonight, and I was going to just go straight to bed, partly because I was tired, and partly because Jo was so tired she fell asleep during the debate. But she said we could chill in her room if we wanted, and I realised I had been hoping to try the DVD in her computer to see if it would work. So I did, and it did, and then the three of us got chatting. And I ended up telling the story about my passport (which appears on here in April if you haven’t seen it yet) and then more stories about how I became a Christian, and about the times when God has been amazing and done amazing things to me and to my mates. And we discussed loads of things about Jesus and Christian Unions and the bit in Amos where God shows Amos a bowl of fruit, and it was all just ridiculously good. It felt right, it felt peaceful, and joyful, and full of love. And I could see in Mollie and Jo’s faces that they were sharing the sense of the evening being something strangely beautiful, somehow profound. We’re all Christians, but we were talking about how it felt like tonight God was starting something new. I think someone said, “It’s going to be different now, I think.” And that made me smile so much my cheeks hurt. And Eve joined us for an enjoyable while, and we had great chats until she had to sleep, and then we kept chatting, and in the end we prayed together, and then had a massive, childhood-friends sort of group hug, and went back to our rooms. And in the midst of the warm residue of peace and joy I thought I might as well try Jane Eyre one last time; and wouldn’t you know, it worked fine. And I thought, maybe God wanted me to go and chill in Jo’s room. Maybe He loved that conversation as much as we did. Maybe the smile on his face tonight is as wide as mine and a thousand miles wider.

Apple Cricket and Luna Lovegood

I’ve spent the last few days with my girlfriend, Rachael, stationary shopping, and pottery painting, and blackberry picking, and praying, and baking things that were supposed to be jam tarts but were actually a kind of cakey-biscuity-jam-fusion, because I (ignoring Rachael’s gently expressed doubts) used self-raising flour. And before that I went camping with a few mates in the back garden of someone from my mate Harvey’s church – and we walked places, and drank tea, and overcooked bacon, and miserably, hilariously failed to cook sausages on a campfire (“Urm, Naffy, the grill you’ve fashioned out of sticks has now, actually, caught fire…”), and rode on the outside of Harvey’s car, and talked about God and our lives and what we were scared of and prayed for each other, and played cricket with windfall apples and large pieces of plastic tubing (I highly recommend this game, the apples explode in a thoroughly satisfying manner).

And I had an immense amount of fun. But thinking about it, almost none of those activities would have been particularly enjoyable alone. Definitely not the pottery painting. That would just have been weird.

Things are just better done with other people. I saw two kids cycling around their estate aimlessly the other day. And I remember doing that with my mate Ralph – it is, bizarrely, quite fun. Together. It’s why we go on holiday together, work together, play sport together, it’s why I wanted to play the guitar instead of the violin so I could be in a BAND, it’s why Jesus invited a bunch of random people to live and work with him for three years even though they were all, by their own accounts, pretty much useless from start to finish. All the good stories are about people going on quests together. Imagine Harry Potter without Ron and Hermione (or, more importantly, Neville and Luna Lovegood). How rubbish would Lion King be if it was just Simba, and not Timon, and Pumba, and RAFIKI? How much more awesome is the end of Lord of the Rings because Sam is next to Frodo, going “I can’t carry it for you, Mr Frodo, but I can carry you!”?

Anyway, I’m going on this rant because I was praying today for some people I love, who are going back to uni about now. And I was thinking about what I really want to happen in their lives. And for almost every single one of them, it’s the same thing. I know it sounds like a stupid thing for me to want, but hear me out. I want them to be part of a church. Because probably my favourite thing about my life, especially while I was away this year, is that for a lot of my mates, I get to actually be church. I get to be the place where they come to ask questions, to wrestle with stuff, I get to go on adventures with them and climb mountains with them and listen to them, and stare at sunsets and talk about the meaning of our lives with them. I get to be the place where they hear the truth that they are loved like they’d never believe and there’s nothing they can ever do to change that. I get to be the one that gives them a massive hug to prove it. I get to laugh and cry and pray and sing and do stupid dances with them. (Which reminds me, I really need to show you all my new move, ‘The Typewriter’. Curious? You should be.)

But moving on, (although honestly, it’s a beautiful move), what’s really gutting is that for pretty much every one of these awesome friends that I’ve had, there comes a point where it ends. Where one of us goes somewhere. And that’s when I find myself praying. Praying that they will go wherever they’re going and find a bunch of people who love them and want to do all of that stuff with them like I did – ideally better. And usually better, because one of me was never really enough in the first place. Praying that they will find church. 

I keep saying ‘they’ but to be honest I’m hoping that some of the people I’m praying for are reading this blog, that’s the only reason I’m writing it, so I’m going to start just saying ‘you’, just in case.

I am praying for you, that you will find a bunch of people who love you and love Jesus. A bunch of people who will ask questions with you, and wrestle with you (perhaps literally) and play apple-cricket with you, and stare at sunsets and talk about the meaning of our lives with you. A bunch of people who you can do good things in the world with. Who you can laugh with and cry with and climb mountains with. Who can remind you, with a hug, that you are loved like you’d never believe and there’s nothing you can ever do to change that.

So, yeah. This is me pretty much getting down on my knees and begging you to go and look for these people – they are looking for you I promise. And I know there are some dodgy people out there, and some dodgy churches, but there are some awesome ones too. And if you do watch the video – it’s beautiful, and there are thousands of churches all over the world trying to be like that. And if you’re not sure where to look I will honestly ask people and google it and do my best to help if you want me to. Because you have no idea how happy I was on the day I drove past my mate Tom on a big country road near Alcester, and when I facebooked him that night to ask where he was going, he told me that he was walking to his church, and they were awesome.