Sometimes We Sting... Sometimes We Save

In the past on this blog I have referred to a couple of images/anecdotes that look at the different behavioural attitudes we adopt in our relationships with people. What has been on my heart for a little while and what I thought I'd do in this post, is combine all three... and look at them together.

The first is a joke; an amusing anecdote that we are supposed to use to look at life when it gives us one of its occasional knees to the groin. The saying goes like this:

"Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue".

I know its a joke... but I have never felt comfortable with it. What it says to me is that when life drops a bucket load of guano on your head... its okay, because some day you'll be the one depositing the guano on somebody else.

The second is the infamous story (once referenced in Star Trek: Voyager), of a scorpion who wanted to cross a swollen river.  Aware of his shortcomings and knowing that any attempt at swimming would result in certain death, the scorpion attempts to coerce a nearby fox. The fox being cunning and wise points out that its a stupid thing to do because the scorpion will sting him and kill him. The scorpion reasons with him and points out that if he does sting the fox, they will BOTH drown in the river and die... so it isn't in his interests to betray his unlikely ally. The fox can't fault the scorpions logic and allows the arachnid to hop on his back. The couple begin their crossing and all is going well. However, when the fox reaches the deepest part of the river... the scorpion rears up his sting and plunges it into the neck of the fox.  As the neurotoxin begins to take effect and the creatures begin to sink below the waterline, the fox gives one last look over his shoulder, stares forlornly at the scorpion and asks "Why? Why did you do this? Now we'll both die!"

The scorpion answers "I'm sorry... I couldn't help it. It's just my nature."

That story is a constant reminder to me that we all carry an element of the fallen nature inside of us... that even when our intentions are good and honourable, some times we fall prey to the remnants of the sinful nature that lurk deep inside waiting for moments to strike... just like a scorpion's sting.

The last anecdote also contains an equally aquatically challenged scorpion who is in dire peril. This scorpion keeps slipping off a riverbank and falling into a river to his doom. Fortunately for him, two monks are washing bowls in the river nearby. One of the monks spots the scorpion and rescues him. In return for the monk's kindness, the scorpion... yep you guessed it... stings him before scuttling off. However, the scorpion is soon in trouble again and falls straight back into the water. The monk wastes no time in rescuing the scorpion again... and again. Each time he does so, he receives a sting for his trouble. This goes on until the monk's companion asks him "Why do you keep doing that? Don't you know that scorpion will just keep stinging you?  That's its nature!"

"Ah..." replies the other monk "... but it is my nature to save."

Looking at those stories together tells us something quite profound about life. There are going to be times in all our lives when we mess up and hurt the ones around us - the ones who we care about... and who care about us. We can't help it... its in our nature (albeit a nature we need to resist). However if we strive with all our heart to adopt Christ's nature... the one that His Spirit calls us to, we can bear with one another's brokenness and faults with mercy and compassion... encouraging those around us to do likewise by the righteous examples God works through us.

Sometimes we sting, sometimes we save... how we feel about those two facts reveals a lot about our character and our relationships with one another and God. What it is NEVER okay to do is to be the pigeon.  Everyone knows what it feels like to be the statue... everybody knows how bad it feels when someone bombs your life with emotional excrement. We all know what it feels like to be stung... so can we really afford to take a blasé attitude with others, every time we feel an irresistible urge to unfairly offload our rubbish attitudes on those around us?

We can't.

Sometimes we sting.  When this happens (as it does), we need to recognise we are doing it, what is driving it and ask forgiveness in all sincerity for it.

Sometimes we save.  We need to be watchful for those around us who are openly hurting. We need to go the distance and do what we can to help them out, even if it is just praying for them. They may sting you for your trouble, but never forget their value... or the fact that someday you may need a friend to save you in spite of your own stinging.

The Running Man

In the past couple of weeks I've decided to take up running as a bit of a pastime. My current tactics are to run for approximately 30 minutes - one day on, one day off.

It's not something I've really done before and it already feels like it is taking some time to make any progress whatsoever.  It is something that isn't helped by my stubborn attitude and disregard for regimens that are there to help build me up slow and steady. In my first week I was supposed to be walking for 90 seconds and running for 60... but I was literally deciding to run before I could walk and doing it the other way round... something I wasn't supposed to be doing until this second week.

I'm also being aided and hindered in equal spades by my iPhone and its random music selection. I find myself running/jogging to the pace dictated by the music rather than setting something that is comfortable for the length of time I'm engaging in the activity.  It gets worse if a track pops up that spurs me on.... because I abandon any timing discipline and then just throw myself into pushing through the entire song at pace.

All this aside, I have noticed some benefit. I'm able to push myself for slightly longer for those songs for a start; I'm also shaving off the time it takes me to get round the course I've plotted out for myself. This is forcing me to look at ways to expand the distance I run because I'm in danger of coming in from my runs too quickly... I need to keep to that 30 minute window.

So what on Earth has spurred me into this formerly uncharacteristic course of action? Is it just a desire to lose a bit of weight and get fit... or is there more to it than that?

I have several reasons and yes, fitness and wellbeing are among them. However at the heart of my actions lies a far more fundamentally important reason. Ever since I have returned from Italy, I have felt a spiritual energy that has kept me buoyant and forward thinking. I don't want to lose or forget that... I need to remember. There are beacons in the distance that I need to be aiming for, beacons that at the moment I have no idea how to to reach... but at some point in the not to distant future I'm going to have to punch the core and make a break for them. However, I live in a quiet corner of the galaxy that has a habit of putting dreams and ideas to sleep... of subjecting you to a kind of spiritual oppression and putting you in your place... even if it's not the place you need to be.

More than this, I feel I've returned to a land of pessimism that needs to remember its own hopes and promises. There was a baptism in my church the other week and several people commented that "we'll not see them again". Furthermore, I also caught myself feeling quite glum at the prospect of worshipping in what felt like a godless environment... until I realised the magnitude of what those feelings do to you and fought back hard with a renewed  sense of zeal and evangelistic vigour.

If you've ever seen the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Unforgettable", then you'll have seen a parallel of what I'm talking about. In the episode, the first officer Chakotay falls in love with a woman from a species who fade out of a person's living memory when they leave them. At the end of this particular episode, the woman Chakotay has a relationship with leaves... and as she does so, a the ship's computer memory banks and the crew's memories begin to lose the knowledge of who she was. Desperate not to forget the memory of this woman and what the time spent with her meant to him, Chakotay resorts to the most rudimentary of writing implements - pen and paper, in a bid to permanently record the memories before he loses them forever.

That is kind of what I am doing. I don't want to lose the memories of what I have felt, what I have experienced and what I have learned about myself... and until such a time as I find a way to commit to a course of action that honours those sentiments, I am determined to do what I can to hold on to what I have already attained. I also don't want to see what life that remains in my church, choked out of it... I want people to learn once again to look at the Son (sic) and not at the shadows.

And so I run... and I keep on running... pushing myself and reminding myself that every strained breath keeps the other, nobler, higher more distant aims fresh in my mind until an opportunity, a path or a choice appears that I can commit my energy to.

And I'm not just running with my body.

A few of us have been in the habit of praying weekly at church... but different people's commitments are making it hard to stick to the agreed time and day. This I decided was an opportunity and not a difficulty to overcome... and so I now do my best to pop in every work night, even if it's just for a few minutes, to make sure God gets more... not less out of the new set of circumstances.

I run now... to better myself in every way - body, mind and soul, in the hope that I can glorify God by becoming the man he wants to be as and when he chooses and to sustain the momentum that he put in my heart.

Do you hear a call to start running in some way today?

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Rights and Wrongs

Several days after the Home Secretary - Theresa May literally let the cat out of the bag (bad joke I know), I thought I'd take a fresh look at what all the political angst is all about... namely The Human Rights Act 1998.

Many Tories including Theresa May and the Prime Minister David Cameron, are opposed to the current legislation because they believe it hampers the immigration service by protecting criminals and stopping them from being deported. Those who are against the Human Rights Act propose instead that the UK should have a bill of rights (similar to the USA), that outlines responsibilities as well as entitlements under law.

Before I go on, I just want to take a look at a summary of the Human Rights Act that you can find on the DirectGov website:

The Human Rights Act 1998 gives further legal effect in the UK to the fundamental rights and freedoms contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. These rights not only impact matters of life and death, they also affect the rights you have in your everyday life: what you can say and do, your beliefs, your right to a fair trial and other similar basic entitlements. 

Most rights have limits to ensure that they do not unfairly damage other people's rights. However, certain rights – such as the right not to be tortured – can never be limited by a court or anybody else. 

You have the responsibility to respect other people's rights, and they must respect yours.

Your human rights are:

• the right to life
• freedom from torture and degrading treatment
• freedom from slavery and forced labour
• the right to liberty
• the right to a fair trial
• the right not to be punished for something that wasn't a crime when you did it
• the right to respect for private and family life
• freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom to express your beliefs
• freedom of expression
• freedom of assembly and association
• the right to marry and to start a family
• the right not to be discriminated against in respect of these rights and freedoms
• the right to peaceful enjoyment of your property
• the right to an education
• the right to participate in free elections
• the right not to be subjected to the death penalty

If any of these rights and freedoms are breached, you have a right to an effective solution in law, even if the breach was by someone in authority, such as, for example, a police officer.

I wonder... can you seriously look at that list and see anything wrong in principle? No. There isn't a single thing I would disagree with. As a Christian, everything I see in that list is covered by Christ's command to love our neighbour as ourselves.

You see in my opinion the problem often isn't to be found in laws themselves... but in the people who interpret them. I don't believe swapping out one law and replacing it with another would find any permanent effective solution. There will always be people who seek to manipulate law or exploit a loophole or create a legal aberration for their own devices and eventually civil case law gradually ushers common sense away and we find ourselves back at square one. This is not something that is limited merely to criminals and their defending lawyers... judges, prosecutors and lawmakers are equally guilty.

Take Theresa May's own words for example. She took the case of a Bolivian immigrant and cited cat ownership as the deciding factor in preventing his deportation. In fact it was not... even in her own quote she refers to a "they". In context, the Bolivian had an unmarried partner and the acquisition of a cat was merely used as an example of the things they had done together as a couple... it was not the driving force behind the judge's decision.

None of this is new... politicians, authorities and legal experts have been worming their way around laws and statutes ever since the gleaming rays of the dawn of civilization first warmed mankind's cheeks.

Christians should be acutely aware of this because in the Bible, The Pharisees practically turned it into an art form! I was reading up on Matthew 23 while writing this blog and it struck me that a lot of the patterns that Jesus criticised the teachers of the law for, are common to those in authority who are drawn to power and use legislation as a way of procuring or preserving it.

This is the problem you get in society when you literally "enshrine" the law but neglect to leave room for grace. The letter of the law takes over and the spirit of the law diminishes. Pretty soon you find yourself straining out gnats and swallowing camels or painting whitewashed tombs. Jesus summed it up perfectly... the most important matters in law are justice, mercy and faithfulness.

Sometimes I wish judges or people in the right circumstances just had the conviction and authority to just metaphorically tear up legal papers pertaining to a case and call it on its common sense merit. People aren't stupid, they often know when someone is feeding them a bucket of manure, they don't need a piece of paper to tell them. If a criminal or lawyer is twisting the words of the law to apply a level of protection or prosecution to imply something it doesn't actually mean... then I say it is this that needs to be changed and not the laws themselves.

I don't necessarily oppose the composition of a bill of rights... but I don't see why it should need to replace the Human Rights Act. The Act doesn't just defend your rights; if you abuse the rights of another, then the Act works against you too. In fact technically, the legislation could be protected against the politicians who wish to do away with it:

If any of these rights and freedoms are breached, you have a right to an effective solution in law, even if the breach was by someone in authority, such as, for example, a police officer.

That kind of suggests to me that if a politician (being a lawmaker and source of authority), tries to repeal the Act, then they are actually violating all of our human rights and are prosecutable themselves.

In conclusion then, I would support a bill of rights that accompanied and worked alongside the Human Rights Act, one that clarifies what society finds acceptable behaviour and expected responsibility... without removing or diminishing the rights of citizens under the current set up.

After all... the Human Rights Act is not just a bureaucratic bundle of papers imposed on Britain by the European Union. It finds its origins in the Declaration of Human Rights that Britain signed up to as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with powers of veto. We helped lead the way... how great would the burden and sense of shame be if we turned our backs on it?