Wrestling with God at The Wall

The following continues a series exploring Vibrant Spirituality and the Wall. 

Part one: Vibrant Spirituality and the Wall can be read here.
Part two: Face-to-Face with the Wall can be read here. 

Part Three:

“The Wall” is this distinct experience of disenchantment in regard to your Christian faith.   

It’s where you realise that what has worked for you for so long, in terms of how you out work this thing called being a Christian, some sort of a relationship with God, the rule and reign of Jesus in your life, well it just doesn’t seem to be working for you anymore. Not like it used to. Everything seems up in the air.

While a place of disenchantment though, “The Wall,” is also simultaneously the promise of new possibilities. At first it might just seem like remote possibilities; just a rumour or echo. But increasingly you get that sense, that suspicion, that there has to be more to this Christian thing. There must be something on the other side of the wall. And of course, there always is, there has never been a wall that doesn’t have something on the other side.

If we are to move forward we must embrace honesty, abandon ego and accept discomfort. Most of the time we try to arrange our lives to be as comfortable as possible. We few discomfort as a bad thing. Discomfort, at times, is just a part of the journey though.  

Let’s now briefly consider the life of Jacob. See Genesis 25 – Genesis 32.

Jacob is one of the great Hebrew Patriarchs. We’ve Abraham, we’ve Isaac and we’ve Jacob. He is the son of Isaac and Rebekah. A twin to his brother Esau. Esau was born first but Jacob followed soon after clutching at Esau’s heel.

Esau mean’s hairy. Jacob or Yakob (Hebrew) means heel grabber or deceiver, we could add to this though, wheeler and dealer, schemer and plotter, smooth talker; Mr Slick (as BZ put it in a sermon one time).

Esau is an outdoors kind of guy; hunting, fishing, craft beer, rugby league. Jacob is a wheeler and dealer, drinks Pinot Noir, dresses nice. He’s the kind of guy who likes to work the angles, always trying to find some sort of advantage for himself.  He’ll happily use people for his own advantage without the blink of an eye. He manipulated his brother out of his birth right, talked him into trading it for a bowl of stew. He deceives his father into giving him the first born blessing, wears goat skins. Wheels and deals his uncle Laban in regard to speckled sheep, speckled goats and who owns what. He has a knack for winning. He’s a success. Mr Slick always seems to come out on top. 

Now he’s going to try and get a scheme going with God.

In Genesis 28 Jacob has an encounter with God. He’s sleeping on the ground, a rock for a pillow and he has a vision of a stairway to heaven with angels ascending and descending. It’s a mysterious encounter. In his vision God promises Jacob descendants like the sand, land and favour. Essentially the same blessing that his grandfather Abraham received and that his father Isaac carried as well.

Not content to just trust God though, Jacob wants to set up an agreed upon arrangement.

Genesis 28:20-22
Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my God. And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and I will present to God a tenth of everything he gives me.”

This 10% thing is something started by Jacob’s grandfather Abraham. Abraham in an act of worship honours the King of Salem, King of Jeru-salem, the priest who comes with bread and wine (a type of Christ). Abraham’s gift of 10% is an act of worship and devotion and fidelity.  For Jacob, it isn’t an act of worship, it’s a deal, a bargain, a transaction. If God blesses him he’ll give God 10%.

Jacob thinks he’s bargained God into a corner. Jacob thinks he’s got God by the heel. Mr Slick. God’s smiling though. God knows he has his foot in the door of Jacob’s life.

I think sometimes we’re more like this than we might realise. God if you just answer this prayer ________. I’ll never ask for anything again. This is one of my official three wishes in life God!  God if you could help me through this mess I’m in at the moment, I’ll double tithe for a year. Really though, it’s subtler than that, we come to unspoken arrangements in our head in regard to how giving works, how prayer works, how fasting works, how doing good and loving our neighbour works. Specifically, in regard to how it all “works out” for us. We’ve formulas of how to engage God, what we’ll do and then what God will do for us. A transactional faith that we’re happy to participate in.

Techniques. Strategies. A hand-shake kind of agreement with God. Wink, wink, nod, nod. We’ve got God by the heel. God smiles. God’s just got his foot in the door.    

   

Jacob sees in God the potential for some advantageous transactions. God’s not about transactions though, God’s about transformation.

20 years come and go for Jacob. He’s now middle age. He has wives and children, wealth and riches. He decides to head home with his substantial flocks and herds. He is afraid though. How will Esau receive him?

As he gets closer to Esau’s territory Jacob decides to hedge his bets, diversify his assets you could say. He’s still a player and he doesn’t want to get played. He’s camped by a river, but in the middle of the night he divides everything he owns into two groups. His family, his cattle, his sheep, his goats etc. He sends the two groups across the river and then splits them up, sends them in slightly different directions. If one gets taken perhaps the other will escape.  

Genesis 32:24-31

This left Jacob all alone in the camp. (Returns to the camp all alone. All by himself. No stuff now. No family. No distractions. Just him. He’s been reduced down to himself. Rare moment of stillness. He has a troubled mind. He’s worried about Esau. Worried about an attack. Can’t see much in the dark. Can’t hear much), and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. (All of a sudden Jacob is attacked, Esau has found him and is going to take his life, he’s wrestled to the ground… But this man isn’t hairy… Who is this man? No time to figure it out, he’s fighting for his life and he’s not going to give up. They wrestle through the night. At times Jacob thinks he’s got the upper hand, but then he is pinned down again. This is the hardest thing he has ever done in his life. They are evenly matched. Until near the end of the night. In one move. Just like that. The stranger dislocates Jacob’s hip. Jacob knows in that moment this is no ordinary man. He’d thought they were evenly matched but he was being toyed with the whole time. He’s in agony, the hop wrenched from the socket). Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!”

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (There is not fight left in Jacob now, but he is holding on. That’s all he can do. He’d been trying to get away, but now he won’t let go. He’s holding on to God, but he has given up the wrestle. He’s broken but he knows now that this isn’t an ordinary man; “at least bless me”).

“What is your name?” the man asked.

He replied, “Jacob.”

“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.” (No longer is this man Jacob a smooth talker, a deceiver, a heel grabbing Mr Slick. Now his name is Israel; “one who wrestles with God.”)

“Please tell me your name,” Jacob said.

“Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” (Jacob didn’t get the name of the stranger, but he called the place of the wrestle, Peniel “face of God”). The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, left his face-to-face encounter with God, and he was limping.

Jacob limped forward into the next season of life. Broken but blessed. Never again would Jacob use people. His story continues but Mr Slick is dead and gone. Never the hustler again. The stranger took his old life and gave him new life. No longer was it about transactions that might advantage him. It was now about transformation. He was now Israel, one who wrestles with God. Eventually, a few hundred years later, Israel came to be the name of the Jewish people. Those who wrestle with God.

Who are the people of God?
The people who wrestle with God.
Israel is not the people who have God all figured out.
Israel are the people that wrestle with God.
And all that are in Christ, as the Apostle Paul says, are the people of God.
We are the people of God, but, we are not the people that have God all figured out.
We are the people that wrestle with God.

Part of the experience of “The Wall,” not all of it, but a part of it, is a wrestle with God. We thought we had God by the heel, God’s been smiling for a long time though, God's got a foot in the door and now wants to move in. A non-hostile takeover. I want to go as far as to say that sometimes a part of our experience of the wall is a new experience of God. A wrestling with God over whether or not God can be who God is, or whether God can only be who or what we want God to be. Our will verses God’s will.

In appreciating this wrestle though, we’re best to quit fighting early and instead just hold on tight. If we’ve any sense of being able to bend God to our will, win the wrestle, we should appreciate that we’re being toyed with. God will be God whether we want that or not.

Jacob met God, bargained with God, supposedly made a deal with God, wrestled with God, but then was broken and blessed and made into a brand new man.

Another guy, a whole bunch of years after Jacob, said that you have to lose your life to find it. If you lose your life you will find it. If you try to keep your life you will lose it.

Appreciate that a part of the “The Wall” experience is a wrestle with God. We should quit the wrestle early though and instead just hold on tight. Even if there is only one thing left we feel we can hold onto, (everything else being up in the air), hold on tight to that one thing in amongst all the uncertainties.

God is good.
God is like Aslan.
God is the creator of the heavens and the earth.
God spoke to me in 1992.
God will be faithful to begin the good work he has begun in me.
I feel God’s presence when I sing, when I worship, I’m going to keep on signing at least.

Hold on to something of God, even if it just one thing.

Next invite a friend into your story. Maybe give them these blog posts to read and then organise to have a coffee with them. Let them know how you are feeling, the questions you have, what you are unsure about. Let them come alongside as a companion. Don’t expect them to have all the answers, to solve everything. This isn’t about getting all the answers this is about going on a journey, a pilgrimage of re-enchantment. Answers will be a part of it, but so will mystery!

Having done this. Pick one thing that is up in the air and then start exploring this, digging into this. You can’t process everything at once, it has to be one at a time. What about suffering? Isn’t God all powerful? You mean tithing is a guaranteed strategy for personal prosperity? What exactly is hell? Do we even need to go to church? Was this prophecy I got in 87 legit or not? How do you pray? Why read the bible every day when it doesn’t make sense? I feel numb to God at the moment? My church has let me down? I don’t love my neighbour, I hate them. Wow, wow, wow. Slow down, slow down. That’s a lot to process. Takes time. Can’t do it all at once. It may take a long time.  

Grab a friend or two, find someone a bit wiser in the faith than you, take them out for coffee, explain the situation, start working through just one thing.

Embrace honesty.
Abandon ego.
Accept discomfort.
Give up the wrestle.
Hold on to God.
Invite a friend into your journey.
Start exploring one particular issue or frustration or question.

As we do this. We discover the first glimpses of what’s on the other side of the wall; the ministry of Christ to us. 

We begin to see a journey unfolding.

Christ is for me – Becoming like Christ – Ministry for Christ – Ministry of Christ (to us)

Awakening – Learning – Doing – Transforming

Enthusiasm – Community – Responsibility – Exploration

Ministry of Christ: Here we hold fast to two fundamental truths that undergird Christian spirituality. 1) that we hunger and thirst for more than bread and water, and 2) that God’s love actively seeks the hungry and thirsty. The trouble here is that we are no longer sure how to drink and eat of the life of Christ. Mostly we don’t feel like there is something we can go back to that will help in the process. And to keep doing the same things and expect a different result, well, that’s insanity. We are unsure where to head next. (We’ll start looking at this next week).

Transformation: What’s taking shape though is a season of receiving a fresh from Christ, a season of transformation into something new. Or at least that’s on the cards! This is a mystery and an adventure, and fundamentally different from a transactional faith which weighs and measures or performs a cost-benefit analysis on the Christian faith. We’re entering into God as Mystery now and we don’t necessarily know where that will take us. There is a lot less control when you embrace faith as transformational rather than transactional. But there is also a lot more adventure.

Exploration: What will be required is a fresh exploration of faith. How are we going to receive this ministry of Christ? How are we going to sort through some of these issues that might feel all up in the air at the moment? We’re going to have to engage in some new practices, find some fresh voices and new conversation partners. This does not mean new in the sense of North American hipster pastors with all the right answers. New can be something old that is new to us. Eugene Peterson is old, he was new to me when I started reading his works and it changed everything!  This season is about discovering expressions of faith and spirituality that one can own for oneself. This doesn’t mean reinventing Christianity but rather is about finding ways to inhabit it that feel authentic and credible.

Our original wide-eyed acceptance of the Christian message as it was presented to us over the many years on the front side of the wall, has given way to doubts and questions and we have to deal with this. We shouldn’t be surprised by this though. Most people come to know Christ and are discipled in following Christ between the ages of about 14 and 24. We shouldn’t be surprised that some of what we picked up and learnt in this season needs visiting.

There is plenty more to cover in regard to this sometime soon.

Genesis 32:32
The sun was rising as Jacob left his face-to-face encounter with God, and he was limping.

How awesome is that!

A new day dawning.
An encounter with God.
Limping forward into a whole new season.
Transformed. 

PS: The thoughts above are some of my reflections on life, ministry and the journey of following Jesus. They are informed by more than just my own journey though and a tip of the hat must be giving to Fowler's Stages of Faith, Hagberg and Guelich's The Critical Journey, Tomlinson's Re-Enchanting Christianity, Alexanders work in Dancing with God, and a sermon by Brian Zhand one time.  

Friday Craft Beer Review: Eagle Brewing’s RED IPA

In craft beer world the IPA is pretty much the most manipulated style of beer on offer at the moment, even more so than stouts. While most brewing associations officially recognise three varieties, an English style IPA (hoppy but with malts coming through), an American style IPA (tends to really focus on the hops and only a touch of malt), and an Imperial or Double style IPA (very hoppy and very high ABV); there are all sorts of other varieties on offer.

You have Belgium style IPAs brewed with Belgium yeast, white IPAs which tended to be witbiers brewed in an IPA style (witbier esters plus notable hops and bitterness), Indian Session Ales brewed at a lower ABV so you can share a couple of pints rather than having to stop after only one, so in other words - all the IBUs of an IPA without the ABV, these are normally about 3.something %. You also have Wild IPAs brewed with multiple fermentation processes that also include wild yeast. There are spiced and herbed IPAs, flavoured IPAs e.g. coffee, and also Black IPAs. More technically these black IPAs should be referred to as American-style black ales (essentially though they are IPAs brewed with specialty dark roast malts).  And then you also have Red IPAs, one of which we are going to sample today.

Red IPAs are essentially a variant of a traditional American red ale, which is a beer brewed with darker style malts in order to create a ruby red coloured brew that is toffee like, sweet and malty. To turn it into a Red IPA though, this traditional ale is “hopped” up a few notches to bring additional notes of fruity bitterness and is also brewed at a higher than usual ABV. The result essentially being a combination of sweet butterscotch malts and the herbaceous bitterness of tropical / grapefruit / herb like hops (depends on the variety used). None of which sounds like a bad idea to me. Red IPAs are a delicious IPA variant. 

I’ve got Eagle Brewing’s RED IPA. Eagle are a Christchurch based brewery that has been brewing since 2010. There website doesn’t really tell you anything in terms of their story, their history or their philosophy of brewing but you can see they have a number of established ales (RED IPA, South Island Pale Ale, Coalface Stout, an ESB [Extra Style Bitter, an English style pale ale], Big American Yank IPA, and a Pilsner). As well, you can see they have offered a number of experimental beers over the years, Golden Sour (a grapefruit sour beer), Mr White IPA, a May the 4^th Padawan Pale Ale, a Jawa Juice Intergalactic Brown Ale, and a Light Saber Pilsner. So they must be into Star Wars too.

Let’s pop this RED IPA and see if it is as good as it is promised to be on the label: “The finest new world malts and hops contribute all they have to this shining example of the style. Toffee and caramel together with fruity hop aromas…” etc etc.

Price: $9.99 500mls

Alcohol content: 5.8%

Colour: Browny / ruby red colour with a slight head. Nice and red when you hold it up to the light. A little cloudy.

Aroma: Smells both sweet and hoppy. Promising.

Palate: Bitter hops at first, grapefruit and lawn clippings. Very much like an IPA, even a double IPA. 

Finish: The toffee like malts come through lovely and strong in the finish. Caramel, marmite, malt biscuits for sure. In saying that though, you can't escape the hoppy bitterness. 

On the Chart: This is a beautifully balanced beer. Quite a bit more hoppy than malty as expected with an IPA, but the ruby red malts have their moments. It's not a sweet beer at all though. So we're well left of centre and up a bit in terms of complexity.

Conclusion: I really enjoyed this. I prefer a bitter beer to a sweet beer, and this is certainly bitter. At the same time though the sweet toffee profiles of the malt come through as well. It's really nice. Well done Eagle Brewing on your lovely RED IPA. Highly recommended! 

Face-to-Face with The Wall

(Face-to-Face with the Wall is the second part in a series of posts that started with Vibrant Spirituality and The Wall which you can read here. Part three Wrestling with God at The Wall can be read here).

Part Two:

And so, you find yourself face-to-face with “The Wall.” A place where the faith you once had “oh so” figured out now seems “oh so” terribly broken. You’re asking yourself, “what’s happening?” Well, you’re backsliding of course. Plain and simple. No I’m joking. Some might suggest that, bless their hearts, but you know that’s not what is happening. You’re not falling away. You haven’t lost your thirst. You’re thirstier than ever it’s just that what once quenched your thirst doesn’t seem to be working any more. Even more than that; your struggling to work out how it ever could have.

At the wall the rhythms, habits, practices and disciplines that have framed perhaps your whole Christian journey seem strangely obsolete. Perhaps even disingenuous. And the thought of recycling yourself back through enthusiasm, community and responsibility, well, you’re probably not sure you could handle that.

The wall is a distinct experience of disenchantment.

Simultaneously though, the wall is also a catalyst that awakens us to new possibilities. Even if at first they only seem like remote possibilities; just a rumour or echo in your heart there might be more to this whole Christian thing than you’ve ever realised. This should of course make perfect sense, after all, there is no wall in existence that doesn’t have something on the other side! The question is, “but how?” How do we find our way around, or through, or over the wall? And, what waits for us on the other side?

It is here that most people feel lost, confused, and overwhelmed. And it is here that we need the help of those wiser than us in the faith. Specifically, the help of those that have made their way through the wall at some stage or another in their journey. Because the truth is, if you haven’t experienced the wall and processed it for what it is, then very little of this will make sense. Thus leaders who’ve not themselves experienced the wall will find it both hard to understand what’s going on and to guide folk wisely who are experiencing the wall. They’ll be inclined to perceive in someone a “bad attitude,” a “lack of faith” or even “divisiveness” and the encouragement will be to get “fired up” again, sort out one’s “attitude” and recycle back into enthusiasm, community and responsibility.

But a pilgrimage of re-enchantment is not one where old habits or practices are resuscitated and given a second chance. Re-enchantment is discovered in the declaration of the prophet; "Behold something new is happening! Now it springs up; don’t you see? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." Here one finally accepts that streams of living water cannot be bottled, marketed and consumed as a magic elixir for life. You can’t simply register for a “Jesus-fix.” Let’s be honest about this. Well actually, it’s hard not to be honest about this at the wall. Indeed, the wall is actually an invitation to some rare moments of deep honesty. The wall is the chance to be honest about some things we’ve perhaps not been honest about in a long time. Things slow down at the wall, and when things slow down we discover space to reflect rather than simply to hustle and bustle our way through life. The wall is a place of honesty.  

Honesty in regard to God – God is more mysterious than we care to admit. Less in tune with our agendas it seems. Perhaps even more distant than we’d like to acknowledge.

Honesty in regard to church – it’s a lot more sociologically driven than we care to admit. We’d like everything to be Spirit driven, but much of what we do is because we’ve always done that. Many Sunday’s are just another Sunday, not life changing, not “one you better not miss!” You could have missed it and you would have missed out on nothing.

Honesty in regard to truth – truth is more hard to pin down than we care to admit. Not everything is black and white. Much is grey. That can be disconcerting.

Honesty in regard to others – they’re not “wrong” and we’re not “right.” Those Catholics or Baptists or Pentecostals or Small Church folk or Mega Church folk or even those Emerging Church people (heaven forbid). We’ve much we could learn from each other.

Honesty in regard to authority figures – they’re not as all powerful as we care to admit, as they care to project, as you might care to project if you are one of those figures. They’re regular, every day, ordinary people. It would be good if they could admit that too.

Honesty in regard to our spiritual practices – they’re not as life giving as we care to admit. Though they once may have been, now they seem like dead ends and heavy weights.

At the wall, when we’re brave enough to be honest, we realise we don’t have a handle on everything like we once might have thought we did. We’ve questions about God, truth, the church, leaders, others and how exactly to outwork this Christian faith thing. What we were once so certain about, we’re not so certain about anymore. And it’s not like only one or two things are up in the air. Everything seems to be up in the air.

This can be pretty daunting.
This can be pretty overwhelming.
This is why some get stuck at the wall.

To try and get back to how things were would be to sell out in regard to something you intuitively feel God is doing in your life. At the same time though, it feels like a sell out to acknowledge you’ve less figured out than you thought and that much of what you’ve known might have been broken. [This isn’t necessarily true though and hopefully I can address this down the track]. Either way, to go backwards seems impossible, to move forward seems impossible. Where would you start?

Honesty is a good start. And one needs to be honest with oneself.

We are more broken than we care to admit. We’re selfish, we like to be in control, we’re very concerned about what others think. We need to be needed. We’re insecure. We worry about tomorrow. We worry about the clothes we will wear. We worry about what food we will eat. Most of the time this is all suppressed beneath the multiple layers of excitement and enthusiasm, the dynamics of community and the weight of responsibility. At the wall we need to be honest with ourselves. About all of this.

At the wall we need to acknowledge our true self, our shadow self, and our ego or false self; the self that we project to the world around us. It’s not that we have three selves, all of this is collectively who we truly are, but these are useful ways of thinking about oneself.

True self = our “true self” is the divine image bearing core of who we are, children of God created to reflected his likeness to the world. This is the part of us that is growing in the knowledge of God and in the likeness of Christ in order to reflect the fullness of the image of God in our world. It is that within us that has been animated through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and our ongoing journey of discipleship, healing and sanctification.

Shadow self = this is the fallen bias that we all have. It is the “fleshly” part of our nature that is weak and that requires ongoing sanctification. It’s the broken, un-discipled, dark side that we all have.

Ego / False self = this is our projected self, the way we cast ourselves to the world around us in order to be accepted, find approval, fit in and even get what we want.

Prior to the wall we’d be hard pressed to admit that we are not primarily a flourishing “true self” with a slight “shadow self” and “ego” that needs to be kept in check.  At the wall we realise this may not be true. More of our life than we realise is being lived out of the ego, out of a false sense of self than we realise. At the wall we realise that much of what we do is all about keeping up appearances rather than birthed from our “true self.”

It’s not that we are hypocritical in the sense of being white washed tombs, clean on the outside but dirty on the inside, the rebuke that Jesus had of some of the Pharisees in Matthew 23. But rather that often a lot of the doing we are up to our ears in, doing all the right things when it comes to church and prayer and leadership and whatever it might be is because basically because that’s what you have to do. Isn’t it?

That’s what you have to do to prove your faith to everyone else in your faith tribe.
That’s what you have to do to prove your faith to yourself.
That’s what you have to do to prove your faith and devotion to God.
That’s what you have to do to because, well, isn’t that what faith us?

Doing certain things. Ticking certain boxes. Taking on certain responsibilities. Jumping through certain hoops.

There is clarity and confusion in regard to all of this at the wall. Clarity in regard to how much we are living out of religious obligation and duty, out of an unhealthy commitment to the uniformity and conformity that might see us accepted as a stand out in our particular religious context. Clarity in regard to how much of our life is sociologically driven in order to fit in rather than Spirit driven and birthed from a place of delight. There is also confusion though. Confusion in regard to what it might look like to live in a true place of freedom in Christ Jesus. Would we simply be doing all the same things but from a different motive? Would we quit half the things we are doing? What would we change? What are we missing? What needs to be reformed and renewed? What needs to be discarded and deleted?

Answers to these questions will come. In time. For the moment though, the questions themselves are an attack on our ego.  There is a greater sense of obligation at play than we might care to acknowledge. We’re experts at “keeping up appearances.” Much of our Christian practice might very well have been about projecting the right picture to others. Pharisee on the corner, who loves to pray using impressive words, big sentences. Surely not!?! And yet yes, because at the wall one senses a need to disengage in some way or another, at least for a bit to process some of what is happening, but; “what will people think?”

Some of our Christian practice is probably actually the false-self feeding straight back to the shadow self. There is a self-centred and self-serving shadow side to you that desires to be someone important, someone needed, someone successful, someone looked up to. Your shadow self can’t bear the thought of being, well, a nobody. An “average Jane” Christian. The false self is busy, busy, busy, keeping up appearances feeding the shadow self’s desire to look the part, fit in, stand out, be acceptable.

But Jesus says we’re already accepted. And it’s not based on doing.  

In Dancing with God, Irene Alexander writes; “Most of humankind is caught, to some extent, in this construct of the false self. To put it in other words, we continue with certain behaviour that serves to make us feel acceptable in the dominant paradigm. Most of us do this most of the time, but some people escape from this.”

The wall is an opportunity to escape from this. The wall is the chance for one’s true self to find resurrection life in the face of the shadow self and the false self. The wall is an opportunity to be born again, again. To find new possibilities on the other side of the wall. 

There is much more to be said… But the starting place is honesty and the abandonment of ego.

The broken are advantaged here because they find themselves at the end of themselves. They’ve no strength to do, to please, to prove, and so they throw themselves to the mercy of God. Ego is no more. They look at the rules and regulations of religion and give up. “I can’t do it; I can’t reach those standards.” They find themselves naked and not ashamed. They’re no longer hiding behind fig leaves. They’ve given up on trying to clothe things with ego. And they find a God who responds; “Come as you are…”

The mystics and monks have a head start too. These are those rare people who’ve long given up trying to master techniques of faith and instead have learnt to lose themselves in the awe, wonder, beauty and mystery of God. Their talk is never of “5 steps to supernatural breakthrough,” but rather of bread and wine and friendship and of the reality that God is “the Lord of heaven and earth and lives not in temples, and is not served by human hands, but rather gives everyone life and breath and everything else.” That God is “never far any one of us, from any that would seek him, because it is in him that we live and move and have our being.”

The mystics and the monks never ask “Am I doing OK?” It’s an irrelevant question. For them to die is Christ to gain. They’ve no ego to protect. They aren’t trying to climb to a higher plane, some next level as a Christian, they’re already lost in the wonder and beauty of the truth that God stooped down into our world! That’s grace. The simple truth is that God holds us, we don’t hold God. They’ve let go of worry and concern for the things of this world. After all Jesus says, don’t worry about tomorrow, about food and clothing. You Father knows all that you need.

Hafiz wrote this in the 14^th Century…

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows 
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God.
And the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is continually 
Tripping over Joy 
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying "I surrender!"

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.

The challenge is to accept at the wall a call to honesty, to the abandonment of ego and to pilgrimage. To see as a mystic and to live as a monk having cultivated a “monastery of the heart.” To go on a slow journey of rediscovery, a pilgrimage of re-enchantment. Here the pilgrim is not one who travels from New Zealand to Israel to be re-baptised in the Jordan river. The pilgrim is the one who is willing to journey with God, to places they may never have been before. Inner places of the shadow self, true self, false self and find healing and wholeness and personal transformation. Inner places of pride and resentment and addiction and control. The pilgrim is also one who is willing to have another look. To reconsider. To explore afresh God and church and prayer and community and what it means to be a Christian.

Do you love your faith so little that you have never battled a single fear lest your faith should not be true? Where there are no doubts, no questions, no perplexities, there can be no growth. – George MacDonald

This isn’t a pilgrimage that everyone is willing to make. Too costly, too unsettling, too messy. And of course, it isn’t a necessary journey for everyone. Not everyone hits the wall. For some people everything rolls around swimmingly in the enthusiasm, community, responsibility cycle. For many though, it’s what they have been looking for.

Dave Tomlinson in Re-Enchanting Christianity writes; “The gap between critical approaches to Christianity and the simplistic spirituality promoted in many spheres of the Christian community lies at the heart of so much of the disillusionment with Christianity today. Many long for an expression of the Christian faith that reconciles heart and head, that offers a positive, engaging spirituality which is also committed to grappling honestly with difficult and painful questions.”

The pilgrim is willing to go on a journey and consider things in a new light. They are willing to chase the Wild Goose wherever it might go, a Celtic term for the Holy Spirit. Some though, can’t stomach the thought of the Holy Spirit being pictured as a wild goose. New ways of considering things can be too much. But oh, to be born again, again.

Grace and peace and more to come. 

Part three in this series Wrestling with God at The Wall can be read here. 

PS: The thoughts above are some of my reflections on life, ministry and the journey of following Jesus. They are informed by more than just my own journey though and a tip of the hat must be given to Fowler's Stages of Faith, Hagberg and Guelich's The Critical Journey, Tomlinson's Re-Enchanting Christianity, and Alexander's Dancing with God. 

Friday Craft Beer Review: Good George's Black (and also White) Rocky Road Stout

Coincidently we’ve another Good George offering to review this Friday. Two actually. I’ve just come back from some time overseas and while in the States managed to try some delicious beers. Stone’s “Enjoy-By” IPA, Russian River’s “Pliny the Elder” double IPA, and the very delicious “Viva La Beaver” by Belching Beaver, a peanut butter and Mexican chocolate milk stout, were all real stand outs. With that in mind, when I saw Good George’s recently released Rocky Road Black Stout and Rocky Road White Stout, I couldn’t resist. Maybe we’ve something that could compete with “Viva La Beaver.” Tonight we’ll review both the black stout and the white stout side by side.  

Before we get started though, let’s consider the use of the term “stout.” Both of these beers highlight the sense in which “anything goes” in craft beer land. That is, I’m not really sure that “stout” is the right label for these beers. Originally stout was the term used for a particularly strong beer, 7% ABV and above. “Golly-gee, that’s a very stout beer old chap!” Over time though it came to be primarily associated with the dark malty beer known as porter and favoured by London porters. Stout was the name reserved for the strongest of the porter beers and was a dark malty beer. Imperial stout was the term reserved for the strongest of the stouts, with these strong stouts originally exported to the Russian court and normally over 10% ABV.

With this in mind the term stout isn’t really appropriate for either of these beers. They are both only 5% ABV and thus the white stout isn’t strong enough to claim the name stout in the original sense and the black stout isn’t strong enough to claim the name in the more traditional sense of a strong porter. Here we probably need to appreciate that stout is now often associated with malt/coffee/chocolate flavours, with brewers referring to a beer as a “stout” if it has these flavour profiles. This has opened the door for brewers to brew both white and also golden “stouts.” It is a pretty liberal use of the term, for sure, but I guess it highlights how language changes over time. Personally though, I think stout should be reserved for black beers that are 7% ABV and above. If brewers don’t want to use the term “porter” for black beers under 7% because of marketing, surely the terms “black ale” or “dark ale” would suffice.

Enough mucking around though, let’s try both of Good George's Rocky Road Stouts, the black and the white. We’ll compare them side by side. Oh, I should also note that they are brewed in conjunction with the Hamilton based chocolate company Donovans. So a local collaboration going on here. Nice. 

Price: $5.25 330mls (both the black and the white stout)

Alcohol content: 5% (both the black and the white stout)

Colour:
Black: Deep black even when you hold it up to the light. Slight macchiato head but faded quickly. Very little bubbles.
White: Golden and slightly cloudy. Not cloudy like a wheat beer though. No head or bubbles really.

Aroma:
Black: Strong raspberry smell coming through. Maybe a hint of chocolate but mainly raspberry. A touch of malt as well.  
White: Again a very strong raspberry smell. Basically the same as the black but perhaps this white is a little more hoppy. I'm not sure if the black beer is making me think malt and the white making me think hops. Essentially a very similar smell though.

Palate:
Black: Slightly hoppy but mainly sour. Doesn’t really taste like rocky road or raspberry. Not a lot of body and watery through the middle. Kind of the opposite of a stout. Tastes like a raspberry sour. 
White: Not as sour as the black, but still just tastes like a sour mix ferment. You wouldn't pick rocky road in a million years. Not anything like a stout either. No chocolate and if there is coffee it’s more like green beans than a dark malt roast.   

Finish:
Black: The sour notes give way to a quite pleasant malt biscuit finish. Again, without wanting to labour the point, nothing "stout" like in this beer.
White: Here the sour notes give way to a hoppy finish. It’s not that impressive. There are at least some coffee notes that come through here. 

On the Chart:
Black: It’s more malty than hoppy for sure. And there is a degree of complexity. It’s not the complexity of chocolate, coffee and raspberry though. The raspberry comes though like a sour fruit beer and then there is some malt.
White: Again more malty than hoppy. The hops are there but the sour notes of the raspberry stand out more. Slightly complex but in a confused way more than anything.

Conclusion:

Black & White: Lot’s of promise in these two cans of beer but at the end of the day they delivered little. Neither are really that nice at all to be honest. They are unusual at best, but proably more accurately; unpleasant and confused. Not enjoyable at all. Belching Beaver’s Viva La Beaver Peanut Butter and Mexican Chocolate Milk Stout is the beer I’d line these two up against in terms of potential wonder and complexity, but wow did they fall short. Can’t say I would recommend these but at the end of the day I preferred the black over the white if you are going to grab a can.

  

Friday Craft Beer Review: Good George's Coffee IPA

Good George is a Hamilton based brewery started by a couple of mates who wanted to convert people from mass produced “bland” beer, to the more creative and quality beer that is craft beer. You can visit the Good George brewery and dining room in Hamilton and see where all the action happens while enjoy some quality food and a cold beer at there onsite bar. Around the town Good George is pretty recognizable in that their beer is often seen in 1 litre squealers (946ml on the bottle actually). The squealer is the main stay for their main line of beers, but they also produce a whole variety of beers that come in cans and bottles.

I’ve got their Coffee IPA which has been brewed in conjunction with Rocket Coffee. Craft beer and espresso; what could go wrong!?! The only thing is, this is an IPA not a stout. It's not unusual to have coffee flavours coming through in a stout but an IPA is pushing things potentially. We'll have to see. 

So, remembering that IPAs are a balanced beer with both sweet malts and tangy hops coming through (normally slightly more hoppy than malty), it’ll be interesting to see where this one goes. 

Price: $4.99 330mls

Alcohol content: 6%

Colour: Dull golden colour. A little cloudy. Plenty of bubbles and a nice thick white head.  

Aroma: Smells fruity but there are also the unmistakable notes of hops coming through. There is an earthy kind of smell to it as well, a slightly objectionable smell. I’m not really picking up any coffee notes.

Palate: Refreshing, but not terribly sweet or fruity. You certainly get the hoppy flavours coming through. If there is any fruit it is pink grapefruit. No malts and no coffee as it swirls in your mouth.

Finish: The finish is quite clever. Here is where the coffee kicks in, as you swallow and the aftertaste in your mouth. The citrus notes blend nicely with the coffee here, especially if you’ve enjoyed sampling different varieties of single origin coffee shots, as they often have a real fruity citrus notes similar to what you get in this IPA. The coffee lingers, but the taste this more like what you expect in coffee flavoured milk or those cans of coffees you find in Japan. Not exactly delicious.

On the Chart: In terms of hops and malt, I’m not really picking up any malt flavours in this version of an IPA. The hopps are there, but it isn't over the top, perhaps just a bit more hoppy than a pilsner. There are some clever complexities that make it interesting enough to drink. So hoppy and somewhat complex.

Conclusion: This coffee IPA by Good George is interesting and somewhat refreshing. I wouldn’t champion it as a delicious beer though. Worth grabbing one time for something different, but you wouldn’t stack your shelves with it in preparation of some doomsday apocalypse. Stick to Tuatara’s Indian Pale Ale for that. I find the espresso type coffee that comes through in a coffee stout far more enjoyable than the canned coffee flavours I’m picking up in this IPA. This is all good though, even if I decide not to finish it.