Its only when it rains

Yesterday it rained for the first time in the whole of the month of September. It actually made me feel really homesick! Looking outside and seeing the rain fall against the trees, the grey clouds looked so familiar, but nothing else about the view was familiar at all. It was such a strange experience. Anyway, its sunny again today, so maybe the melancholy will go away…

Friends will be friends…

 

The past week has been one of delight in and thanksgiving for wonderful old friends! I have been enjoying excellent email banter with Carolyn on all sorts of interesting topics (!) as well as having lovely Laura as our first guest in Prague. We had a great time wandering around the city, and its was great being able to tell her a bit of the history of Prague. I am getting really good at my tour-guide speech..! And tonight I had a very brief, (but enjoyable none-the-less) conversation with Neil. It is strange and amazing how just the sound of someone’s voice can re-establish that feeling of home and comfortable friendship between someone, no matter how far away you are from them. I truly thank God for the special people in my life. It does make me feel a little home-sick though, which is obviously the downside… but I guess that is just the par for the course. Anyway, I haven’t got the photos from the weekend off Phil’s camera yet, but as soon as I have, I’ll put some up for you all to enjoy!

In the meantime, my friends, I want to thank you for being part of my life. I am so thankful to God that Phil and I have been able to make new friends in Prague. We would never be nearly as happy and settled as we are without the community of people around us who have made us feel so welcome. And at the same time, old friends are so very precious. Friends that will be treasured because they have overcome the test of distance with times of intimacy; times of disagreement with times of oneness of mind; and periods of poor correspondance with close, regular contact. These kinds of friendships do not just happen, they require love, effort and attention. Thank you for your part in our friendship. I hope that I and we, may bless you as much as you have blessed us.  

Litany at the End of the Century… the come back.

So I promised that I would give you a contrasting song to the previous song… Litany at the End of the Century. I know that it had pretty hard hitting lyrics, but I think that provocative words are good for us to reflect on from time to time. Anyways, this is a different take on Psalm 42, from Jaromir Nohavica’s CD Moje smutne srace (My Sad Heart) BMG, 2000.

As a deer that wants to drink water

Runs through the forest to the hidden stream,

As a deer that wants to drink water,

 

So I long to be with you

I feel anxious alone

So I long to be with you.

 

Help me in my loneliness,

Help me in my life,

Help my abandoned soul.

Every night I call to you

Every night I call for help

 

A deep anguish has settled in my heart,

What darkness in front of my eyes

A deep anguish has settled in my heart.

 

I have never been as lonely as tonight,

Over-reaching pride has built a wall.

I have never been as lonely as tonight.

 

Help me in my loneliness,

Help me in my life,

Help my abandoned soul.

Every night I call to you,

Every night I call for help.

 

I believe in spite of everything

That my calling will reach to your ears,

I believe in spite of everything.

 

When the leave of the aspen tree fall down in October

I accept without reserve all that will come,

When the leaves of the aspen tree fall down in October.

 

Help me in my loneliness,

Help me in my life,

Help my abandoned soul.

Every night I call to you,

Every night I call for help.

 

(Note: In the Czech Republic, the aspen tree loses its leaves in November/December. So you can draw your own conclusions about what he’s saying!) I really love the lyrics to this song, and the music is beautiful too. I love the honesty and openness of what he is saying to God. Our lecturer asked us if we thought that we would be able to pray this song as a prayer in times of hardship. Most of us agreed that we would. She pressed us by asking whether the words about the leaves falling from the aspen tree would be included. I think that most of us still said that we would say them. What I like about the lines ‘when the leaves of the aspen tree fall down in October, I accept without reserve all that will come…’ is that in reality, although we may say that we give everything to God, we often keep something back for ourselves. We want to give all of our selves, lives, plans and futures, but we’re also scared to do that. These lines attested to that reality. I think they’re beautiful. Anyway, that’s all the lyrically fun for now!

On a completely different note… have you seen the trailer for the film ‘Jesus Camp’? It is very scary… A short article on Ekklesia gives a brief description: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_060919jesuscamp.shtml Basically, it seems to be a documentary film about a camp in America (obviously) that is ‘training’ up young ‘warriors’ to ‘take back America for Jesus’. In the trailer young children are seen weeping uncontrollably, shouting out etc. Its scares me to see young children so indoctrinated and brain-washed. (And it makes me even more scared of what their parents must be like to be sending them on a camp like this!) The leader of the camp says that she wants to train American Christian children like Muslim children are trained. Firstly, I feel that her perception that all Muslim children are trained to be jihad warriors, is crude, wrong and highly offensive. I also cannot understand why she thinks that taking a violent approach is helpful. Surely if she took those same children into different faith communities so that they could meet children from those backgrounds she would be building much more valuable bridges? Why always the war rhetoric? Why always the ‘we’ll teach ‘em’ attitude?

I believe that the challenge to Christians throughout the world today is not to condemn, judge or shy away from people of other faiths, but instead to engage and work with others for peace, for safer communities and for an end to poverty, strife and hunger. I hope that we will take up this challenge, because if we don’t, the future is bleak.

On another different note… my wonderful friend from Edinburgh, Laura, is coming on Friday for the weekend! Hopefully she will be the first of many! I am looking forward to showing her around Prague in all its gloriousness! It also means that I have a lovely weekend off from thinking about my theology/philosphy essay… which is excellent because I am really struggling at the moment. I’ve never been a fast reader when it comes to academic books, and having had a years break has definitely not helped! If you pray, please pray that I will be able to read much quicker!

Lectures over… hurrah!

So I’ve made it through three solid weeks of lectures every day, for the whole day! I know that it might sound pretty easy going, but its actually quite challenging to stay focused for such a long time! It was easy to do when I only had at most 3 hours of lectures in a day when I was doing my undergrad degree, but its tough listening and concentrating for the whole day! Anyway, we had our last lecture on ‘Postmodernity in Continental Reflection’ this afternoon. Now that the intensive teaching time is over it means that we can do some other exciting stuff and get out and about in Prague more.

As part of our learning, we went to the Gallery of Modern Art in Prague yesterday, which was really interesting, particularly when considering the presence and absense of God in modern art. We also watched a Czech film called ‘Pupendo’, a tragicomedy set in communist times. It looked at the different ways that people behaved towards their government, how some tried to work from within the government, whilst others rejected the authorities. It was a very good film, and also very funny. Today we listened to the music of Jaromir Nohavica, a Czech musician. He’s a bit folksy, but not in a cheesy bad way. He looks like a bit of a scary, strange sort…

but his music is beautifully crafted, with regard to both lyrics and composition. Nohavica is well educated and this is displayed in the words of his songs, which are provocative, insightful and reflective. I thought I would share the lyrics of two of the songs that we listened to. The first one is translated as ‘Litany at the End of the Century’, from his album Divne stoleti (Strange century) which is about the 21st century and the events that shaped it.

Litany at the End of the Century

The number of men lying dead in the grass

The number of orphans and widows 

The amount of blood for his greater glory

The number of words.

 

The number of gods and goddesses

The number of torches in the streets of the towns

The number of prophets at each corner

The number of gestures

 

My Lord in the highest

My Lord, don’t you see and hear

My Lord, my blind God

 

The number of deceitful swine in their Panzer tanks

The number of leprosy pillars and leprosy wounds

The number of evil signs in the sky

The number of crows.

 

The number of yellow stars and striped clothes

The amount of rope and of guillotines

The number of small button-holes in children’s coats

The amount of guilt.

 

My Lord in the highest

My Lord, don’t you see and hear

My Lord, my deaf God

 

The number of wells filled with sand

The number of lost caravans

The number of obelisks and monuments

The number of gates.

 

The amount of golden shit from golden calves

The number of dead people by the gaping holes

The amount of fear of what to do

Alone

 

My Lord in the highest

My Lord, don’t you see and hear

My Lord, my dead God.

 

I thought that this was very powerful and interesting. Tomorrow I’ll share the second song with you, as it is a sort of answer to the strong emotions expressed by Nohavica in this song. As you might be able to tell, he is not a Christian, but he reflects on issues of spirituality and religion in many of his songs.

I am really enjoying being part of the community of IBTS. It is challenging and exciting to live and study with so many different people who all come from different cultures and contexts. Everyone has a different way of interpreting the Bible, God and his action in our world. Talking with different people is helping me to discover more about where my own passions lie, and what I want to do and what I think. Although I’m not necessarily clearer on an of these issues that I was, it is interesting to talk with different people about issues that affect us all in various ways.

Anyway, enough rambling from me… hope everyone has a great weekend and that the sun shines where you are like its shining in Prague!

Let the fun begin..!

This afternoon the new students of the International Baptist Theological Seminary were formally welcomed into the Seminary. It was a beautiful worship service, in which 3 students were also conferred their degrees, and the new students could be inspired by the end product! It really made me appreciate the amazing blessing that it is for me to be studying here, and the opportunities and experiences I will have as a result. (Massive thanks to my parents for giving me this brilliant opportunity!) I have already met many different people from various countries in Eastern/Central Europe, including Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Russia and Spain (not quite so exotic in comparison to the others!). The community of students and teachers is so vibrant and different, its a really rich cultural mix, and I’m loving it!

This is an except from the ‘Community Covenant’ that we said to each other this afternoon: “Believing together – students, lecturers, staff and community – that God is forming us into a community with vision and a clear mission purpose, we affirm our desire to work together in co-operation, praying regularly for one another and for the whole Baptist family, living lives worthy of our calling as faithful servants of Jesus Christ and of one another.” It was a privilege to be able to say these words to the different people that I will be studying with, and that we will be living amongst. They are powerful, challenging and inspiring words that will hopefully keep our feet on the ground!

 View across the main campus square of IBTS.

 The Chateau on the main square.

Phil is doing well so far, and getting into his English teaching lessons. The 5:30am alarm is a little early for us though, so we’re trying to get used to that! Apart from that, all is well. The hardest thing about living in a different country is that knowing what is what in a grocery store is a bit of a risky business! Fortunately most things have pictures, so that helps, but Czechs have some weird love of sour milk, which comes in normal milk cartons! We have only bought this once, and quickly realised our mistake! They also have the normal European cheese, bread and meat diet, which also takes some adjusting to.

Anyway, that is all for now, sleep is calling me..!

Dobrou noc… (Good night…)

Damn flipping annoying internet..! (in lovely Prague)

Sorry for the rant, but I just spent about two hours writing and crafting probably the most amazing blog post in the world, and when I tried to publish it, stupid wordpress decided to do only half of it. Obviously the over half just disappeared into the ether and my hard work is completely wasted! ARGH! Anyway, I was writing to tell my lovely friends and family (and random punters) how Phil and I are doing in Prague etc etc. I now am far too furious to attempt to redo it, so I will have to wait til I have calmed down. In the meantime, I will leave with you this lovely picture of a rainbow, taken outside of our flat window. Phil and I are well, I start my formal lectures tomorrow and Phil starts his first day in his first PROPER job as a fully qualified TESOL teacher. Please spare a thought (or a prayer… its propably more needed!) for him, as he needs to be at the company that he is teaching in at 7:30am tomorrow morning…. and most of you know that he is definitely not a morning person!

Dobrou noc… (Good night…)

(The only good thing about rainy days…)