Author: cobdenmerv

It was at a funeral where a friend of long ago asked if I was ‘still deconstructing’. I said I was. Later, the question prompted me to think about this lengthy and disconcerting process of deconstructing my faith.

I had imagined that when all had been dismantled and discarded, re-building would start on that bare foundation. I have been building houses all my life, so it seemed to me a natural thing to do – a new one to replace the old.

Now I am not so sure. Living on the foundation seems preferable. There is an uncomplicated simplicity about it that has much appeal. All we need. ‘We’ being two old best-friends, a dog, and the colourful birds we feed. Yes, it is a problem for visitors, for they so often give suggestions that would make things better for us – as they see it. For it bothers them that we have discarded so many things they couldn’t live without. Like the blueprints of their faith; it bothers them that we have discarded those as well yet seem to be fine without them.

Actually, I have a very old blueprint that shows that in the foundation I have enough. A bit ill-defined in parts, but with enough detail to know what could be done without, and what represents part of the foundation. That blueprint is the early followers of Jesus. Notice I didn’t say ‘early church’ for that is another set of blueprints with all sorts of structures added that obscure the foundation so completely, it is prudent to make a distinction between these two groups.

While the history of the Christian church is authoritative and well documented, the material on the early followers of Jesus is sparse. Histories are written by the elite, the literate, and the men; not by the followers who were essentially poor, nearly all illiterate, and predominately women. What fragments we have of the time were written by people who despised them, so much thoughtful conjecture is required to be able to speak with any authority of the early followers of Jesus.

There are, however, some things we can be sure about. Perhaps the most significant is the sensational growth while surrounded by hostility, persecution, and concerted efforts to destroy them. In the early years they had no leader, no bible, no church buildings, no creeds, only a few memorized passages from what people could remember Jesus saying on the mountain, as well as some powerful prophecies from Isaiah. One could call it foundational to be discerning; to retain vital parts from this library of ancient writings, and avoid treating the rest with a reverence it does not deserve. If the early followers had enough to inform their faith practice, probably that’s enough for us too.

Also surprising is the fact that they did not evangelize. They believed the ‘great commission’ was for that time only, and besides, there is little point in trying to persuade people to embrace a way of life that is both illegal and dangerous. And yet this counter-cultural way of life spread throughout the Mediterranean region at a rate something like forty percent each decade, and reaching an estimated six million at the time Emperor Constantine made it the state religion.

They may not have left much in the way of historical material, but they certainly left us convincing proof that embracing what Jesus said and living their lives accordingly, is a formidable transforming cultural power for good. Not just for the elites, but for ordinary people, and therein lies its power. The ‘Gospel of Jesus Christ’ was good news for all, not just some. Foundational one could say.

It is not difficult to see the contrast between these followers of Jesus and the Christian churches today. I believe the point of difference is the gospel – the ‘good news’ message of Jesus Christ. One a message so persuasive it gives life and sustains an other-centered, counter-cultural life orientation for all who embrace it; the other a message so unconvincing it is largely ignored, except for a dwindling number of mostly elderly believers. And for the masses who have replaced this central message with smoke and mirrors, coloured lights and music.

So, one could ask, what is foundational about this persuasive message? It is a message that presents God as father, and puts an end to the idea of god-as-deity. When his disciples asked Jesus about praying, he said start this way: “Our Father …” It may not seem a big deal for us, but for his listeners it was huge. They were the first people in a long and well documented history of their race to be given that opportunity to address God as ‘Father’. A shift from a name-that-must-never-be-spoken, to one reflecting intimacy and allowing for relationship and conversation.

As well as the message prompting a change of mind about who God is, it changed their minds about themselves. Instead of living in fear of the capricious wrath of a far-off deity, they could live at ease within the love of a father and his family. All made convincing and possible for them because the speaker turned out to be who he said he was: the savior of the world. One who by his death and rising from the grave, brought right relationship between God and his creation.

The early followers may have been poor and illiterate, but they understood the message of good news. They would have heard about the time John the Baptizer pointed to Jesus and declared to his disciples, “Look … the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. A declaration they would have believed, for John got that insight from his father, and he got it from the angel Gabriel himself. And the good news for them was that the thing that Jesus took away was a false view of who they were. No longer did they see themselves as fear-driven creatures trying to appease a distant angry god, but loved and provided for by a father who wants the best for all his children.

That is very different from what we have always believed – sin as wrongdoing. And our identity, instead of children made in the father’s image, we became sinners and depraved. The idea of ‘image-bearers’ was linked to the fall so convincingly that we dare not consider it. Those brave deconstructing souls however, do consider it, and grapple with the notion of Jesus either completing his mission or not. I prefer to use the more accurate definition of sin, and rejoice in the assurance that Jesus’ work was finished and our mistaken identity was taken away. A foundational assurance.

Jesus gave his disciples a good description of his central mission: “to seek and to save the lost”, and the early followers, used to living unnoticed lives, felt sought-out and known. And the word ‘saved’, they took it as it was meant, a verb meaning ‘to heal, deliver or preserve’ rather than what we have done by making it a noun ‘salvation’. The verb is foundational; the noun has opened up a whole belief structure that I have been happy to live without.

The early followers also appreciated being delivered from false thinking about God and themselves, and delivered from ‘lost-ness’ with all its attendant perplexity and confusion. They now lived with purpose and direction. Foundational. If we put these verses together, the first one is about knowing who we are, and the second one knowing where we are going. That was a persuasive good news message.

Similarly, the object of their devotion dying in agony, cried out “It is finished” and they took this finished work to be the sin of the world (believing a lie about themselves) had been taken away. The finished work to them was that they had been found, and put in right relationship with God and each other.

Even with their enemies. For this message was good news for all humankind. It was a message for all people; divisions and barriers had been broken down with the spreading of love to all. It was a message that disallowed ‘us and them’ thinking, for it held that God has no favourites. Now there’s a foundation for us.

More than that, they had no fear of death. Jesus had demonstrated his power was greater than death, and promised them they too, would pass through a corridor from this life to the next. And while the idea of final judgement was part of the message, the notion of hell for those who didn’t hear the message, wasn’t. No wonder the early followers didn’t have to evangelize; the way they lived with such assurance and confidence was enough.

It is my view that this addition of hell to the central message of Jesus has done more than any other to render good news into bad news. Like, Very Bad news. The pain of burning is bad enough, the proposition that it is forever; that there is no escape, not even death itself, is beyond imagination. Then to add that this is the declared fate of more than three quarters of the earth’s people. No wonder so many don’t regard this as good news, and don’t want anything to do with people who say it is. I can state that there is no act of discarding that has given me so much delight, than that notion of hell.

It is possible to see how ideas like eternal conscious torment in hell for non-believers crept in to the gospel message of later centuries. My belief is that it started with Paul not taking seriously enough Jesus commandment to love your neighbour, even ones you don’t like, and to treat others like you would like to be treated. He didn’t want to upset the elites of his time, so the buying, selling and ownership of slaves was never challenged in his writings that became blueprints for the church.

Similarly, being a product of the elites himself in that patriarchal society, even after his miraculous conversion, he retained a view of women that Jesus didn’t hold. He wasn’t used to them being any part of the serious religious talk, and disliked their questioning when they were included later. No doubt the busy women questioned so much of Paul’s emphasis on stuff that didn’t involve them. It wasn’t foundational to their life orientation of helping others, including women and slaves.

Later influential church leaders, such as Augustine, also played to the elites of his day. They had private armies, and while somewhat impressed with Augustine’s remarkable intellect and his gospel message, they refused to countenance this ‘love your enemies’ bit. Hence, they were accommodated by Augustine’s ‘just war’ theory, a blueprint that meant every war from that time to the present is fought with the absurd notion that God is on their side.

The early followers had too much regard for what Jesus said to discard anything. They held to the prophecy that God will do a new work and their swords will become ploughshares, their spears pruning hooks, and there will be no more war. They had no difficulty living with this hope and following to the letter, what Jesus had taught. They loved their enemies. They decided they may as get along with them, having discarded ‘us and them’ thinking and embracing as they did, the ultimate restoration of all. We know this because the artifacts with Isaiah’s words outnumber any other quotation by a large margin. It was a foundational tenet of their life orientation. I do wonder how many Jesus followers live this way today. I don’t wonder about how many are on one side in the current unholy mess in the Holy Land.

Paul’s thinking influenced the writers of the gospels. While the four individual writers give us a wonderful glimpse of what Jesus said and did, Paul’s training and background ensured the sacrifice and atonement thinking remained in the structure. He placed too much emphasis on the sacrifice of Jesus and his blood shed for the atonement of sin. All very important to the Jewish mind, but, being more influenced by the Essene-type teachers, Jesus had no regard for sacrifice or bloodshed. Take his outburst in the temple that got him killed. While we read his disappointment was that the house of prayer had become a ‘den of thieves’ the word is actually ‘flesh tearers’ or slaughter-men. More like an abattoir than a place of worship. No wonder he put an end to it all. Seeing he discarded it, so can we.

So I regard it as disappointing and ultimately detrimental to the gospel message, that ideas of blood, sacrifice and atonement become so emphasised. Take blood for example. Jesus is supposed to have said ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’. It caused massive headaches for the early followers, because their taking in of abandoned babies was seen by their hostile neighbours as child sacrifice and cultish practices. As I discarded the inerrancy of scripture doctrine long ago, I am free to question if Jesus actually said such a thing. The earliest fragment found with that reference is from partway through the second century. Scholars are certain John never wrote it, and chances are that Jesus never said it.

Similarly, much of Paul’s writing focuses on a theory of atonement – another very Jewish concept. Scholars point out that Luke, the only non-Jewish gospel writer, while copying much of Mark’s writing, in every passage where Mark has atonement language, Luke changes it, or gets rid of it altogether without replacing it. Perhaps we can too, only replacing it with a gospel that has Jesus at its centre.

We would be in good company. The scroll material being examined now is showing that the discarded ‘gospels’, point to a Christ-figure whose primary emphasis is on what his followers were to do, not just believe. He is presented as the ‘sent one’, a miracle healer, and the great teacher of righteousness. Sadly, these writings, ordered to be burned by the church fathers, are regarded as heresy, mainly because they lacked the ‘high Christology of Apostolic thought’.

With or without high Christology, I believe these mis-placed emphases on such theoretical concepts have been a distraction. The Gospel message, instead of a gift prompting a life orientation, becomes conditional on believing a set of ideas. A set of ideas that, don’t seem to have much appeal among today’s easily distracted, non-believing people. Clearly they are not foundational.

I believe that people living like the first century followers of Jesus would be intriguing enough to be taken seriously today. They may not have a mission statement, nor could they explain high Christology or atonement; they wouldn’t have the time. For, dealing with widows (read single mothers), orphans, homeless, the sick, and getting rid of demons in people takes people working together and cooperating. It takes a lot of love as well as a lot of time, and it relies on an other-centered, self-giving life orientation. The message that enables people to live like this is clearly good news, a foundational message.

No, I am no longer deconstructing. Nor am I re-building. The foundation is all I need to flourish as a Jesus follower.

I must give my friend this current answer in case he thinks with more deconstructing, the foundation will disappear along with everything else.

(Edited from an education conference address and journal article, 2005)

I love books with catchy titles. If you want to be rich and happy, don’t go to school … riches and happiness and school in the one sentence? How could a teacher resist getting it sent to their home address in plain wrap – I mean, not the thing to land on the staff room table with one’s name all over it. And how about: What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy  … video games teaching us anything after all we have said about them? Catchy titles, and very interesting content.

As it turned out, I had been out of school for several years, rich, happy, and playing video games. No, seriously, out of school long enough to reconsider what different approaches I would use if I were to take up the game again. Then from a local school came an offer I could refuse but didn’t – taking the kids that didn’t want to be there. I made it clear at interview that whatever these kids had known for the last ten years hadn’t worked, so what happened next had to be very different. I also told the panel that I was an old dog with some new tricks, a dog that needed a long leash. They hired me, forgot about the leash, and the tricks turned out to be a stunning success. Success by my definition: visible, tangible and equitable. Different to the prevailing definition of intangible individual high scores.

Robert Kiyosaki’s book: If you want to be rich and happy don’t go to school, talks about the failure of a system that was never designed for the present needs and expectations of education stakeholders. He also describes methods that can make a difference, and while these methods are best suited to the training organisation Kiyosaki runs, they appeal to teachers looking for new approaches. In short, the book gave me confidence to ditch the stuff that doesn’t work and try some new thinking for getting better results.

It has long baffled educators, how kids – including functionally illiterate ones – can get the required information on new video games, process it, and apply it with obvious success. According to popular thinking, if they haven’t read the instructions they will not know what to do; what the strategies are; and how to play to win. Popular thinking – or should we say our generation thinking – is wrong on each count. James Paul Gee, Professor of Linguistics, Madison University in Wisconsin, opens up lots of new thinking in his remarkable book: What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. He describes about thirty learning principles in detail, and three are worth considering here: ‘stealth’ learning; virtual identities; and thinking as a social activity.

I want you to be alert but not alarmed with this notion of ‘stealth’ learning. And before you start thinking you need flak jackets and night vision eyewear for the model, consider this definition:

…when the learners are so caught up in their goals that they don’t realise they are learning or how much they are learning or where they actively seek new learning.

Professor James Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach
Us About Learning and Literacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)

How, then, you might ask, do learners get ‘so caught up in their goals’ that they don’t realise they are learning. Stealth learning works best when the various learning activities (or ‘subjects’) are embedded into a single project. This allows learners scope to face the tasks without any pre-conceptions from the labels of ‘maths’ or ‘English’. It also provides for the two agendas of stealth learning to function. One agenda is overt, the nature of the project as understood by the teacher and the learner. The other agenda is covert, specific learning objectives – such as creativity, visualisation and emotion management – embedded into the project work.

Now before I describe the project work, let’s look at the second learning principle from Professor Gee’s book, the identity the game-player takes on. They play with a whole set of skills, attributes and resources they don’t have in real life.

Taking on a virtual identity constitutes a form of identification with the virtual character’s world, story, and perspectives that become a strong learning device at a number of different levels.

And the third principle helps explain why many young people get left behind in the learning process; thinking is essentially a social activity, not an individual affair. Gee’s study of electronic games confirm that brain function is interactive with its environment (in this case a virtual one), not isolated from it. So our challenge as educators is to create a learning environment in which young people can take on all the characteristics of a successful person, someone not carrying the limitations – real or otherwise – of past learning.

The question becomes: “Can students be encouraged to take on an identity for the purpose of learning better?” My answer is yes. I start with images of success – sailing around on a yacht, airline travel, house, car, family – some I propose, some they propose, all embraced at an emotional ‘this-can-be-me’ level. I use visualisation and guided imagery, manipulation of digital images, and constant application of the question: What would I look like if I were very successful at this task?

I use two projects that integrate four discreet ‘subjects’ – Maths, English, Personal Development and Work Related Skills – into a single real-world activity. The way this activity is undertaken creates the learning environment conducive to new thinking.

• • • Design Projects – creating and presenting a design to a review panel, a response that has maximum effect with a minimum of construction and equipment involved. Uses image manipulation to show finished design in full size context.
    • Information Communication Technology Project – builds on skills this generation already have – computer fluency. Involves the preparation of teacher resources for online delivery and automatic correction. Young people provide instruction for the teacher in the process on a fee-for-service basis. This funds their travel.

The young people have to ‘apply’ to join the projects and undergo a ‘selection’ process involving several psychometric tests. They are taught to relax and visualise the task and various solutions, as well as seeing themselves confidently explaining their work to visiting teachers or a news reporter.

My role is split between a classroom teacher and a ‘project manager’. The former is providing some instruction and lots of assistance to the young people in completing, on time and on standard, the tasks set by their ‘project manager’. This latter role is done online. All my contact in this role is by emails written as a person managing the project and coordinating the expectations of the client with the performance of the ‘professional’. Sounds confusing, but not to the generation raised with the new forms of interacting with their environment – real or virtual.

Let me give you an example. Last term, there were clear signs that the development of a positive work ethic was not taking place. I was disappointed, and told them so, pointing out the specific areas of concern. I also told them that I would be reporting my concerns to the ‘project manager’. The next day each student received an email from the project manager (me) detailing the specific concerns, and asking them to show cause why their contract should not be terminated. The kids took it very seriously, and asked me to help them prepare their replies. Were they confused? Not at all. I asked one of them later if it was confusing getting me to help him write a letter to myself. His response was: “I didn’t think about it.”

Let’s look at the Design Projects. There are twelve on offer but we can look at this example here. The young people respond to this advertisement:

The ‘registration of interest’ includes the writing of a ‘vision statement’ – what skills/attributes they could offer the team – and project information including a Project Specification is sent to them to consider. This message thanks them for their interest, and includes the statement that they have been shortlisted. They are later sent the URL’s for two online personality and learning style questionnaires with a request that they summarise the results and forward them to me. Pretty real stuff, and the amazing thing (to those of us who have not ‘played’ a range of roles in computer games that is) is the extent to which the young people take the ‘selection process’ very seriously. It is clear they don’t want to ‘miss out’ even though they realise they are all doing the projects anyway.

Teachers who were involved in the project last year were convinced the kids would not take it seriously. “Why apply for a place on a team when they know they are all going to be doing it anyway?” they asked. Well, the teachers learned a good lesson – the sweat on the brow of the young people as they presented their designs to a panel of strangers or prepared to teach teachers, was very real. The current generation is used to playing all sorts of roles as if they are real. Playing video games often requires someone to take on a persona and think like a drug runner, a feudal lord, or a special operations team. This is thinking and pattern matching at a pretty sophisticated level, and we do well to recognise the value of duplicating this virtual environment for the development of other skills.

The Design Projects are unique in a number of respects. One is the focus on process, not product. Few classrooms can facilitate the construction of full size projects such as these panels. If, however, the finished result is an image presented to a review panel, the project can be part real and part digitally manipulated image. This overcomes the issue of storage, because the several modules manufactured for the above project would not fill a shoe box, even though the images show hundreds of them assembled as houses, fences, and water storage units.

Another aspect is the use of simple plastic forming equipment, an oven and a vacuum cleaner can turn any ordinary classroom into a facility capable of producing quite amazing design options. And before you start thinking about the skills you think you lack, remember this project work is being done in primary and secondary classrooms all over Australia by teachers who claimed to have no hands-on skills. Supported by an extensive set of online resources, they have surprised themselves, and discovered the benefits of learning by doing.

In a recent interview with David Lipman, producer of the movie Shrek 2. He was asked the formula for achieving such record-breaking ($129 million in the first 5 days) success, not to mention the acclaim from film critics as well as children:

We’re not about making a critically successful movie or entertaining 10 year olds … we’re looking to entertain ourselves as much as the kids.

The Age A2 19.06.04 p11

The reason I refer to it here is to help you see your role in a new light. It is possible to try too hard to please our various masters and finish up pleasing none, not even ourselves. When I think of my career highlights, like taking young people to sea, to Disneyland, to the Whitsunday’s, to remote indigenous communities, I recognise they each began with what could be seen as a selfish passion – essentially something I wanted to do. Passion infects people, and before long you are surrounded by people sharing the vision. I believe there is good reason to grasp an idea that appeals to us, like chartering a yacht for a week, going overseas, making a movie, not as a ‘retirement’ project but as part of your present involvement with people who are waiting for that something and that someone to fire them up. You might even write a book – with a catchy title.

NOTE 1: The journal article can be seen here: Fine Print (VALBEC Journal), June 2005
The keynote address can be viewed here: Feel Good, Think Smart: the role of emotion in learning

NOTE 2: This post, while somewhat dated, is as applicable to education today as it was then – perhaps more so. The essential components of the curriculum program, both online and physical, are still available. To any teachers or home-schoolers that may be interested in using them at no cost, please feel free to contact me: merv@humangivens.com.au

We wanted a special place to celebrate our fifty years together, and we chose well. The city on the coast is certainly special; touristy for sure but for good reason. There is an old-world charm and the efforts the city planners have gone to preserve its character and history is commendable. Take the old power station, you know those huge red-brick buildings with rows of arched windows, each brick laid by artisans and their apprentices in an age where the priority was to create enduring structures that had style. Well the building now houses boutique shops, a dinosaur museum, eateries and a grand piano for free concerts. Yes, with many of the pipes, pulleys and cranes still in place.

Holidaying in a popular tourist city does not come cheap, with even basic accommodation anywhere downtown around $400 a night. As luck would have it, Robyn and I stopped off at Bass Pro on our way back from Florida, not to buy anything but just to have a look around. The superstore is BCF on steroids plus some more. Even an actual float plane hanging over a campsite with fire and all. As much museum as store, hunting, fishing, camping and everything macho in between. One feels like a pioneer outdoors man the moment he enters, or maybe a fur trapper, an explorer, or other manly pursuit. Fearless, brave, adventurous, and maybe a little bit thick but no matter, this is the sort of shop I don’t mind going into. I mean where else can a man get this feeling just by going shopping.

Anyway back to the costly accommodation. Well in this superstore (called this because it spreads over several acres) there was a stand for representatives of a vacation/timeshare company hidden among the guns and knives section to trap unsuspecting unarmed hunters like us. Yes a good catch for them, and a good deal for us. Providing we were prepared to give the company a couple of hours of our time they would accommodate us in downtown Savannah for three nights in a luxury hotel plus a $150 meal voucher, plus a $50 gift card for Bass Pro. How could we pass up that sort of deal? So we didn’t. Sat through the sales pitch with genuine interest and fake wealth, come to the sign-up time and we decided that the exchange rate did not suit our buying for the moment, shook hands and walked out on a time share to explore the charming historic city.

And the rows of rail and shipping warehouses, some several stories high, have all been repurposed into a major college. Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is the city’s major employer and the students are everywhere. The market square will have a model being studied by a group of students in a life drawing class, and studied I might add, by the passersby too. The students certainly bring a youthful dynamism to the city, they dress like art students and are noticeable as they move between the various campuses scattered around the city. Many work as wait staff in the fancy restaurants. But one wonders what their future holds, I mean how many artists does a country need?

Perhaps Carolyn has the answer. Carolyn is a waitress in a restaurant and I was impressed with her lack of note taking and capacity to remember our complex order. Remember, this is America, the land of choice so a meal order, even just for two people becomes a long list, fries or salad, house, Ceasar, or rabbit food (no, I added that last one), ranch, aioli, or thousand choices and so on. Anyway, I asked her how she could possibly remember all this. Turns out she is a theatre studies graduate and memorizing is her thing. So Robyn asks her what her favourite play is, a simple enough question but one that tapped into a well of passion. Carolyn’s eyes lit up and proceeded to describe ‘Wit’, a play neither of us had heard of, described in such detail we felt we were in the theatre. Our meal came, exactly as ordered, but Robyn wasn’t finished her interrogation yet. She asked about the rest of her life. “You sound just like my parents”.

Carolyn is nearly thirty, had started in theatre as a director, an industry destroyed by Covid, lives at home, and hasn’t been able to get back into the industry. She drew a chair to our table and nearly cried. Whoops, methinks Robyn you have dug a bit too deep on this one. Too deep for me, but not for her. She held her hand and reassured her she has so much to offer. Was able to refer to something we had noticed about her people skills and how she moved with such elegance and grace, we told her how she had prompted a memory from my teaching days so I recounted the story. It was late in the evening so she wasn’t under table pressure, and we found out later she has seniority among the wait staff so has a little autonomy.

Needless to say, her juniors were wondering what had drawn her to our table. It was an amazing encounter. I took the liberty to outline some possibilities, each one met with an excited “Yes, I am already doing that?” Taking notes, that is, with a view to writing her own play. She described her direction skills, and we encouraged her to do her own auditions and select people like her who need a break on to the stage, how good she would be in demonstrating each role to her cast, and generally inspired her toward following her passion. We promised to come to the premiere, and when I told her we would sit with her proud parents, she hugged us both. Yes, we left a tip. A generous one.

We love our encounters with wait staff. Robyn draws them out and they respond with photos of their kids. I respond by paying the tip that Robyn insists -‘with a bit more for the littlies’. . Sometimes it isn’t the wait staff, but a fellow diner. We were partway through our meal somewhere when a petite 25ish woman asked if she could join us because tables were scarce. She was from Nepal, been here five years, works in admin nearby. Delightful company. A curious type too it seems, for she asked “Have you known each other for a long time?” “We’ve been married fifty years, and about ten years before that” was Robyn’s reply. It surprised her – impressed and intrigued. She mentioned her partner and her uncertainty was evident. She yearned for something permanent, something stable, unlike her own parents in a conflict-ridden marriage.

I took the liberty to speak up (not being one to stay quiet) and told her I taught psychology to high school students, mostly girls and this subject often came up for discussion. “What did you tell them?” she asked, the darkest brown eyes looking for the wisdom she thought I had. “I think it was Audrey Hepburn or some other famous actress who talked about her ’30-minute rule’. “On a first date, if he hasn’t asked a ‘you’ question he is likely to be more self-centered than interested in you – not a good start for companionship”. “Hmmm”, she said reflectively, then “Go on”.

“I also told them to take notice of how he treats his mother, because chances are he will treat you the same. And in social or family occasions, watch how he relates to children, and how children treat him. A ‘red flag’ if he only connects with his mates”.

Then the thought struck me – who said her partner was a male? “I am sorry, I just assumed your partner was male, my mistake”. “Oh no” she said, “My idea of marriage is a man and a woman, besides I became a Christian last year and try and live in a right way”. She spoke convincingly of her awareness of the holy spirit, the delights of prayer, and the guidance of the bible. Her partner is not a Christian, but she is aware that if she becomes his wife the bible says she must submit. “Be careful”, I said. “It’s in the bible but Paul didn’t write it”. “Look at how Jesus treated people and be guided by the holy spirit”.

Some time later I thought of those girls in the psych class. Or, one in particular, her name escapes me but her face is clear; “What if his mother is a real bitch?” she asked. “Still take notice how he treats her” I say, “Because chances are, after your third child you will be hard to live with too; you need to know how he deals with things neither of you expected nor want”. I am not sure what it is like teaching now, but I can say my opportunity to interact with young people gave me so much pleasure. I just hope their marriages are lifelong and tolerable companionships. Even after their third child, and to fifty years or more.

Robyn and I took a road trip to Mobile, Alabama. Pronounced, according to the lady in the Information Centre, Mobeeeel. I spelt it out for her MOBILE. She was not for changing, and much to the delight of fellow road-trippers, had me say it ten times, with emphasis on the string of eee’s. About four times before we all fell about laughing.

Why Mobile? Well a number of reasons: it is a simple five hours on the Interstate; we had never been there, and there is a military park with a WWII battleship, an aviation museum, a submarine, all in one big area off the Interstate. We spent the day there. I mean a 45,000 ton ship, home to 2,500 men who led the fleet into Tokyo bay after the war, cannot be seen with haste. Climbed up and down the narrow ship stairs to every deck, saw where crew worked, slept, ate, and fired sixteen-inch shells to whatever they wanted to blow up from miles away. Cramped quarters, but nothing like the submarine, where crew slept between torpedoes if they slept at all.

But it was the SR71 Blackbird that took my interest. Yes, I actually touched its unpainted titanium fuselage. It was parked outside the hangar so I took advantage of a gap in the barricade where workmen were preoccupied. I felt like I was touching history, and famous speed records, and a remarkable tribute to design and manufacturing genius. Reconnaissance missions over Vietnam in the sixties and everywhere else until the end of the century. Speed records like Los Angeles to New York in 67 minutes. And an aeroplane that flies over three times the speed of sound at the edge of the atmosphere. Watch ‘Brian Shul and LA speed check’ if you are interested in the story of a man as remarkable as the aeroplane he flew.

Then it was two nights of lakeside camping. Robyn seems to have broken her ‘no more camping after 70 promise’ – it’s hard to get old with a youthful mindset. Site B9 was the only one available (out of nearly 200) due to a cancellation. You see it was a Halloween festival so every RV in the state and beyond was there. Each with spider webs, skeletons, blow-up pumpkins, ghosts, witches and what-have-you. And of course the infernal compressors to keep them alive. One grotesque apparition looked like a statue until every now and then it would come to life with a spine-chilling groan from the depths of depravity to frighten the hell out of the kids riding by on e-scooters.

Yes, only in America, a country that produces remarkable aeroplanes and small-minded obsessions at the same time. And two old counter-culturals with a car and tiny tent and the only blow-up was a mattress with an occasional unwanted sound that didn’t frighten anybody.

Selma to Montgomery. We travelled along the famous fifty-four mile route walked by thousands of people in 1965, demanding better treatment and the right of African Americans to vote. Then stopped at the National Memorial interpretive centre for a look around. History came alive. History in our living memory that we kind of knew about but really didn’t. The injustice and outrageous behaviour of bigoted civic leaders and clansmen, including random lynchings, brought things to a head in Selma, Alabama. After being initially stopped at the Edmund Pettus bridge, beaten savagely, and pursued into the churches and homes (called ‘Bloody Sunday’), and partly as a result of national attention, another march was organised, this time with the President pulling rank on the governor and authorizing the National Guard to protect the marchers. All the way to the state capital in Montgomery. Their efforts brought change.

I talk about history coming alive. Robyn was in high school when all this was playing out. She had an English teacher who used the protest songs of fellow marchers, Joan Baez and Peter Paul and Mary for lesson material and the awakening in her students of a consciousness of history in the making. The teacher, probably one we would call a ‘hippy’, was certainly enlightened, for the President (LBJ) said: At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

History comes alive when one can see it in a context, sort of being ‘on location’. It also came alive when the sound system in the corvette was turned up to full volume with those same protest songs blaring in our ears. On the very road they walked. Only us at eighty mile an hour.

Talking about National Monuments, before we left Alabama, we saw a sign to another one, the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee Institute was set up by black academics (including George Washington Carver of peanut-growing fame) to assist their people to advance through higher learning, as they were prevented from entering many such institutions. The courses included flight training, and during the war they tried to train black airmen for the services, but failed because the view was that black men were incapable of flying planes and learning pilot skills like weather and navigation.

Until Elenore Roosevelt visited the base with a film crew and asked the chief pilot if he would take her for a flight. Her security detail were apoplectic but she was a strong woman on a mission. After about an hour in the air, they landed and the next day a report was on the President’s desk and the newspapers all ran headlines and photos of the First Lady and a black pilot challenging prevailing racism. The Tuskegee Airmen later formed their own squadrons, and when equipped with mustang fighters, escorted bombers on raids over Europe, with the enviable record of having never lost a bomber. One airman shot down was asked by the German commander taking him prisoner “Why are you fighting for a country that lynches your people?”

The display did not include his answer. And I cannot give one either.

Our King payed a visit to Australia last week. We were born the same year; I think that’s about the only similarity I have with him. He didn’t draw the crowds or the adoration his mother did, and the picture books on the Queen’s Visit, or the Royal Family will not be published this time around. Probably because of his imperfections.

I guess we all have our imperfections – some more than others. The one that annoys my church friends is a cavalier attitude toward the church traditions. They are more passionate about checking my theological excesses and tardy attendance than worship. You see, I only show up when my organist wife is needed; a sort of ‘one go-both go’ thing that seems to creep in after five decades of delightful companionship. And they remember the times we showed up regularly, and for all intents and purposes were one in spirit and truth.

Not anymore. In their view Merv has delved into things he should have left alone, asked too many questions they would never ask, and now faces the prospect of burning forever. That is unless they can check his errors and steer him back to the fold.

The error they tried to check last week was from a song. I loved it; they didn’t.

The truth is I am my Father’s child
I make him proud and I make him smile
I was made in the image of a perfect King
He looks at me and wouldn’t change a thing
Megan Woods: The Truth

“It reeks of pride and pretention … not Christian at all” And, “No recognition of our sin and the need for a saviour?” Whoa, serious heresy it seems; the sort of thing that in centuries past would likely see me burnt at the stake. Hopefully, not before I could make a defence. In my defence I would raise three issues. One, my view of God; two, image-bearer, and, three, I am OK as I am.

When I worshipped with my friends all those years ago, my view of God was uncertain. I held some vague notion of a heavenly being, somewhere beyond those huge timber roof beams I spent too much time admiring. Despite the term ‘father’ rolling off my lips at nearly every service it was just a word, not a relationship. The idea of God as a father who smiles at his children – it had never entered my head.

It hasn’t entered the head of a lot of people it seems, for when a pastor presented a TED talk in a curious linking of theology with Technology, Entertainment and Design, they were outraged. Rick Warren, in a brilliant talk about finding our identity and purpose said “God smiles when you be you”. A misplaced outrage in my view, for just because one can’t find it in the bible or the creeds doesn’t mean it has no relevance for today. Especially if the quote helps us find our identity and purpose, and brings a distant God close enough to relate to.

Relationships are uncertain when one’s view of themselves is through a lens of original sin. A mirror that shows imperfections no matter which way we turn our head. It all started with Augustine, another man with imperfections whose reflection on fidelity was blurred. With his passion for intimacy without restraint, and then a dramatic conversion to Christianity, perhaps his guilt-ridden view of his new self shouldn’t surprise us. Nor the evangelical zeal for the righteousness of celibate restraint and attaching God’s disfavour to marital relations that were as good as written into church law. And into people’s hearts for generations.

Yes, I have a cavalier attitude toward the total depravity of man doctrine; this idea that we have no inherent goodness because of an all-pervasive curse of sin – sort of like imperfections on steroids. And yes, a recklessness that embraces with passion the conviction I am made in the image of a perfect King. A relationship of intimacy made possible because the last words of the dying Christ: “It is finished!” were a declaration that the sin of the world had been taken away, and the differences that it caused were reconciled. God not counting sin anymore.

Cavalier for sure, but also thoughtful enough to examine what the word ‘sin’ actually means – believing a lie about ourselves. Not seeing ourselves as we actually are. And observant enough to see the church defines sin as something that wasn’t and can’t be taken away nor not counted – missing the mark of perfection. Always with us, because it is seen as what defines us. And I’m also reckless enough to discard a lie, and embrace with tenacity a view of myself as made in the image of a perfect King.

What about the need to change? Well that idea took on a new meaning when the sin of the world was taken away; when one sees the truth rather than believing a falsehood. The change happens as a result of knowing who we are, not dealing with the depravity the church has shackled us with. It is an organic and hopeful shift toward perfection, not a chronic despair of never being good enough. A shift in language too, for with the change of definition, that all-pervasive inescapable thing called ‘sin’ can be replaced with ‘futility’; the former linked with judgement and punishment, the latter having a ready solution in hope, direction and purpose.

I came across another man last week. We weren’t born the same year, for Nicholas Herman died in 1691. Having been discharged from the army as a result of injury, he entered the monastery and became the community’s cook. For the next thirty years, he worked seven days a week. He didn’t have time to write any more than a few letters and after his death they were collated and along with many recollections of conversations with his fellow monks, they were published as Practice of the presence of God, one of the most widely read and beloved devotional books.

The practice of the presence of God in a busy kitchen? Brother Lawrence as he was called, wrote: The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen … I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees. Now I don’t know Brother Lawrence’s view on the total depravity of man, but I think we can be sure that statement looks like a father-child relationship in its purest form. One not suggesting anything other than the smiling approval of his father. For he also wrote: This sums up your entire call and duty: to adore God and love him, without worrying about the rest. No wonder his colleagues wrote his sayings down while the smell of fresh bread wafted along the stone-walled monastery.

Yes, the truth is I am my Father’s child, and we are all made in the image of a perfect King. Free to adore him, and worship him prayerfully in the kitchen; in the office, on the farm; while making bread, negotiating contracts or tending to children, animals or crops. Knowing all the while we are loved in spite of our tendencies toward futility and our fascination for folly.

I am glad the King of England and the Commonwealth came to visit last week. For in spite of his imperfections, he represents something biblical; something the people wanted so badly, that God in his enduring toleration for our folly, gave them. Some were good, some were bad – just like the rest of us. All made in the image of a perfect King; some taking that as their identity, and others not.

Listen to Megan Woods sing The Truth

Reading posts on a forum of people re-examining their faith practice brings me such delight. So many are discovering grace. It has prompted thoughts on when, more than a decade ago, we embarked on a similar post-church journey. A journey that has led to an intimacy with God as Father, Jesus as friend, and Holy Spirit as constant companion; relationships of substance and joy I had never thought possible.

You may remember Jesus talking to his disciples about a change in the relationship.  “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all things I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). From slave to friend, now that is a change in relationship: in a sense from hired hand to part of the family; from slave quarters to dining room. And in case you are thinking job promotion, no, something much more significant than good servants being rewarded, it is an invitation of grace not merit, and it opens up the prospect of knowing what our Father is doing.

I lived the better part of my life as a good servant – I knew what I had to do, so I did it. It was the ‘right’ thing to do, it was part of ‘filling my place’ and ‘fitting in’. I had no yearning to know more, and besides I hardly knew the Father so didn’t need to know what He was doing. All pretty much sweetness and light, until … Yes, until that desperate cry that will probably resonate with many of you: “Where is God in all this mess?” Isn’t it wonderful how God shows up, for he wants us to know what he is doing, but we have to be close enough to see where his focus is. Thus a change in the relationship, from slave to friend.

Jesus tells us what a good servant looks like. It is in the story of a man with two sons, one a real loser and the other a real servant. Although a son, he saw himself as a servant, he was doing the right thing – working in the fields instead of realising he actually belonged in the house knowing what the father was doing. The father was looking afar off, there was something on his mind of great import; a loser looking for substance, something he could hang on to. Things the servant/son didn’t know about because he wasn’t there, too busy working. Even the house-boy knew more than he did for it was the house-boy that told him about the father celebrating. Nothing in the story to indicate he wanted to know that anyway, deciding the father was being far too generous with his welcome. Compared to his own dedicated service in the fields, caring for the assets and not celebrating at home with his friends, this waster and trouble-maker was not entitled to anything.

We should celebrate servants like that surely – tireless workers, dedicated servants in the fields, years of service and knowing who was entitled and who wasn’t. So why the letters of resignation? There will be many reasons, all individual and personal. While I didn’t know at the time, I have come to see that while we hold the entitled/not entitled mindset, and the slave identity we think it is what God wants from us. But it is missing what God wants for us. To be close to him, even if this closeness comes after us being afar off, and a waster. And close enough to know what he is doing – getting ready to celebrate, to fill the house with joy and feasting. A celebration of grace, not merit or entitlement.

The good servant in the story was in fact a son, but he saw himself as servant. Important distinction. Prior to his taking on humanity, Jesus had to decide his earthly identity, and considered coming as a god ‘was not his for the taking’. So he took on the form of a servant without ever losing his true identity as son. We see how beautifully appropriate this was, especially in the context of his time when society was so structured, maintaining the fierce distinctions between free-born and slave, with all the attendant trappings of class and hierarchy. Things Jesus said should ‘not be named among us’. So much of his mission was breaking down barriers and building bridges. A mission of grace, where relationship in the family was an invitation to all, not just the entitled.

For all the servant-like dimensions of Jesus life, he never lost his true identity, he took on the form without discarding the substance – closeness with his Father. That’s why he could tell his disciples he had told them everything his Father had said, so that they might know what the Father is doing (notice the tense – not has done, or going to do). Talking as friends that is, not servants.

And this, I believe is a sticking point for those still embracing the entitled/not entitled mindset. When we see ourselves as servants with work to do, not as sons and daughters, the form takes over the substance, and it leads to us not knowing what the Father is doing, and worst of all, not celebrating as family. Does this mean we celebrators don’t serve? Not at all! In fact, we take on the form of servants willingly and serve out of a wonderful sense of deep gratitude that the relationship is secure, and not dependent on how much I do or don’t do.

I know this because I was a good servant, travelling hundreds of miles to church events, working bees on Saturday and often weeks at a time if building work was needed. Never missed going to church, even on holidays. We would tie the sailboat up to a jetty somewhere and get a taxi to church. Proud of the fact that we were the only family in dress-up gear walking along the jetty, for this was part of ‘doing God’s work’. Oh brother, to think of it now. But worse than that, when we left, we still carried the mindset. Mission trips, and even teaching at a remote Indigenous boarding school – Christian of course. Serving and doing. Then grace entered our consciousness more fully and everything changed.

I wish I could tell you how it happens, but I can’t. I can say two things based on my experience, firstly it happens individually. I know people who had a revelation from reading Yancey’s seminal text “What’s so amazing about Grace”, and others, like me coming to it slowly, organically, encounter by encounter, revelation by revelation.  And secondly, it is revealed not learned. It is, after all a mindset, a way of viewing things, a window through which we see the world and people we share it with. It is knowing who we are, our identity as sons and daughters, not entitled but through grace.

Free to do what we like eh? Doesn’t sound very Christlike does it. Something else I can’t explain, freedom. For yes, I am free to do what I like, but the qualifier is, being saved by grace, knowing who I am, and seeing the world as I do, what I like to do comes out of a sense of gratitude. Let me give you an example. Our son lives in the US and in the early part of our visit, I sit down with him and we talk deep stuff. This year I found myself saying something that surprised me, yet it was what I meant to say.

My wife and best friend of over fifty years, Robyn, does volunteer palliative care work. One client had a dying concern: who would take care of her reclusive son. Robyn said without hesitation, ‘We will’ and we do. He comes once a week, has done for more than a year now, and we work in the shed, making model boats and planes. The thing that surprised me was what I told my son: ‘I have never done anything that has given me such a deep sense of pleasing God’. I don’t say that boastfully; it is just that it is so different to what I used to do to please Him. Now, we are retired, mid-seventies, so we have time to do such things. Out of the main tide-flow of life, but still in the stream enough to know there are recluses out there everywhere. If not recluses, people who for whatever reason are in a far country wondering about home and family. Hungry enough to eat pig-food, but they are slaves, so in their eyes even the pigs have more value. But not in God’s eyes, and he sends in the writers of church resignation letters. Understanding grace and who we are gives us spare capacity.

Jesus’ mission was to reveal his Father to humankind, because the law and written stuff didn’t do it. Jesus, (the Word) pitched his tent alongside ours, and for me nothing Jesus said and taught portrays the nature and character of his Father better than the idea of celebrating the return of a loser. Not because the waster was entitled to anything (he wasn’t) but because when he turned to inquire of his father, he found what we have found: the very nature and character of God is love, and grace allows us to celebrate being part of the family. And to know what He is doing.