At the ballet

Learn something new about your wife. Remember it. Act on it. “I love watching dancing, ballet,” she said as we accidentally watched Strictly in September. Happy Christmas.

So to Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre in January for my ballet-watching debut. Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, interpreted and performed by Scottish Ballet. I have a general understanding of what I’m going to see (dancing) but not much more. My ignorance must be obvious to the rest of the audience because I’m a man – there are about ten of us present and some look like they’re here because they lost an argument.

Looking through the programme I read the plot synopsis, which adds up to little more than a warning not to invite fairies of any sort to your child’s christening, and a hundred-year slumber for all the Russian royal family, which both spares them from the Bolshevik Revolution and two world wars, and allows for more costume changes. It also means that the story ends in London, 1946, which just so happens to have been when this ballet was first performed on these shores. I like intertextuality, even when I don’t understand it.

What the programme’s photos promised, the performance delivered: a constant flow of movement and rich colours. They are a vibrant, mesmerising combination, most captivating in the duets and ensembles where the complication and harmonisation of the choreography was staggering. How two people could unite so perfectly, how a crowd could move in so many different ways simultaneously without disaster. The most impressive aspect of an individual performance, except for the ongoing mysteries of how their heads moved when they spun round and how they kept moving on their toes, was that of the (mostly non) Sleeping Beauty herself. Moving through the air seemed as natural to her as treading the boards, and the transition from one to the other disappeared.

All of this led to an initial sense in my mind of separation that was greater than the orchestra pit between me and the stage. Anyone who has seen me on a dance floor or football pitch will know that I’m less balletic and more Balotelli trying to put on a bib. I’m much more comfortable with words in one form or other, which isn’t really ballet’s style. But as the performers moved across the stage and through the air, I searched for metaphors to speak about their power and grace, and the sum of what they were doing. Nature failed me again and again. Their limbs had the sinewy strength of plants, their speed of movement was like that of birds, but that wasn't enough. Maybe my imagination failed me but the ludicrous beauty of it all, how wonderfully unnecessary the whole event was, led me to the conclusion that this was too human a thing to be described and comprehended in terms of anything else on earth. I couldn't join them on stage any more than I could help Rembrandt in his studio, I might not understand them as well as I could a poem or game of football, but I could smile and applaud with unexpected affinity.

Review: Good To Grow

This time five years ago, I moved to Catford in south-east London to spend six months on an internship with Steve Tibbert, the leader of King’s Church. I’m so grateful to Steve for investing in me (getting next to nothing in return) as this was a key moment in my life. I grew up considerably as a result of being outside of my comfort zone for the first time in years, and I learnt a lot about church and leadership – some of which I had instinctively thought before but couldn’t articulate because of my inexperience. I continue to lead and think in ways that were shaped by this time, and expect that I always will.

Many of the stories I heard and saw, and the leadership values I watched Steve live by, are now contained in a book, Good To Grow, which describes the fifteen years in which he has led King’s from a dispirited group of 200 to a church that well over a thousand attend every week, and had 2,700 at its carol services this Christmas. It is a remarkable story of a remarkable leader’s co-operation with God.

The complexity of church leadership is highlighted by the large number of issues Steve addresses as the story goes on: everything from the leader’s relationship with God and his family, to building and rebuilding teams, to  financing multi-million pound property deals. It is both daunting and exciting: I really enjoyed reading the story to see what God would do next, and wondering how I would have coped with it!

Co-writer Val Taylor has managed to retain Steve’s personal style: honest, self-deprecating but confident, passionate about God and His purposes. The book is easy to read but is full of big challenges, and hard questions. Steve’s conviction that church growth is hindered primarily by wrong priorities among leaders will be unsettling to many. He repeatedly tries to demonstrate principles rather than prescribe practice, acknowledging the diversity in God’s methods, but his convictions have borne fruit. King’s Church is ‘ahead’ of many churches, experiencing God’s favour in ways that others of us long for; Good To Grow is a great encouragement and tool to help us get there.

Ten years of truth

Of all the unlikely things to remember, I’m sure I can recall exactly where I was when it dawned on me that I needed to start reading the Bible. Really reading it, that is, as a part of my life more pronounced than the last resort. I was sitting in bed near the beginning of a year, feeling rubbish for several reasons. In that moment, I was convicted that one of my fundamental problems was the lack of God’s truth in me and that action was required to change this. On December 31st I finished the whole thing, my life having been altered, accelerated even, over the course of the year.

I’ve just realised with a shock that this happened a decade ago. Regular Bible reading has been an essential part of me for ten years. What is less surprising, given that fact, is how much God has done in me and even through me over that time. All of life has been illuminated. I have known God’s company. Truth and love reside in me in unprecedented ways, treasures to savour and share.

Being a Christian and not reading the Bible is like being hungry and not eating a feast put before you, like feeling lonely and not calling a friend. Like anything that really matters, it involves effort; like anything that’s really important there are questions and frustrations along the way, but it can change you for good like nothing else in the world.

Maybe 2012 is the year that you take hold of this great gift, the best news.

-

A paper copy of the Bible is available for just £1.99, many others are also available. BibleGateway and YouVersion have plenty of resources to help you get started and keeping going, most importantly free online access to the text. I use a reading plan by Robert Murray M’Cheyne, going at half speed, which means two chapters a day – easier to digest and to catch up when I've missed a day. A printable version of that is available, and you can follow it with comments by D.A. Carson.

Trails for 2012

There are many important things to look forward to and prepare for in the coming year, but I'm a sucker for movie trailers and I'm excited about two of 2012's blockbusters in particular...

The Dark Knight Rises



This will be the concluding part of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, a series that raised the bar for what to expect in a big box office movie, though I haven't found it completely satisfying. This teaser suggests that Occupy Gotham could be one its many concerns ("There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne… when it hits, you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”). Along with dizzying IMAX sequences, a strong cast of characters, a director keen to ask hard questions and a master of menace, I'm looking forward to seeing how the psychology of Bruce Wayne / Batman will be explored further. You can check out Empire Magazine's detailed breakdown of the trailer here.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey



Yes, children's stories are involved again, but that's an issue for a more thoughtful post. The Lord of The Rings trilogy are my favourite films, they've ruined me for most other movies, certainly anything that attempts the epic. The attention to detail, the love of story-telling, the boldness of the ambition, the beauty of the cinematography... and on and on I go. Director Peter Jackson has decided to go on with the story, stretching The Hobbit over two films, and presumably filling in a lot of the gaps that are hinted at in the book and many of Tolkien's other writings. Close-up emotional shots of Sir Ian McKellen's Gandalf gave The Fellowship of the Ring in particular much of its emotional depth and, as Aragorn doesn't seem to be involved in this production, the long story of the Grey Pilgrim's great triumph over evil looks like being key to the heart of these prequels too. Jackson continues his generosity with ongoing production videos on his Facebook page, and Empire has seen fit to explore this trailer in minute detail too. Gets the hairs on my head (and toes) tingling.

Challenging the Christmas story

You know the story.

In the middle of night, with Mary’s contractions getting more frequent, Joseph knocks on door after door in the hope of finding somewhere to stay in Bethlehem. Door after door is slammed in his face, it’s busier than Edinburgh in August and no-one wants to help. Eventually, they find a barn full of animals where Mary gives birth to Jesus. He glows.

That’s a story, but it’s not the story. Here’s what more likely to have happened...

Luke’s gospel says that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem. “And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.” (2:6) That’s not quite the same as, “As they arrived”, is it?

Although Bethlehem was heaving with visitors, the idea of Joseph running around asking for help and being repeatedly refused goes completely against the Middle Eastern concept of hospitality (see Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey). A Judean’s home was not his castle, and if someone was family, or in need, you helped them: Joseph, whose ancestors came from Bethlehem, and Mary, who was very pregnant, were both! It would have brought shame on the whole community for them to be treated as we imagine they were.

One of Joseph’s relations, distant or otherwise, welcomed the two of them into their home and gave them hospitality. They were such accommodating people that they’d already invited others in, which is why their guest room, unhelpfully translated as “inn” (2:7), already had people in it. As my Maths teachers used to say: show your working. The word Luke uses in 2:7 that’s been translated “inn” is used by Jesus himself in 22:11: “Tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” He also uses the more usual word for inn when telling the story of the Good Samaritan: “He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.”

So what’s with the manger, the animal feeding trough? He must have been born in a barn because that’s where you keep animals, isn’t it? Again, no: not in that culture. A family would keep the couple of animals they owned in the third part of their house at night. Separate to the main family area and the guest room, but still part of the same structure, it was the safest place to keep their most valuable property, and it even helped keep the place warm. One of their feeding troughs these filled with straw makes a pretty comfortable, warm and safe place to put a new born baby in a world without Bugaboo, so that’s what they did.

That, I think, is what happened. It wasn’t chaotic, it just wasn’t much.

Is this just me being fussy? Of course Jesus didn’t glow, but a work of art that shows Him doing so shouldn’t be criticised for being unrealistic because it’s still communicating something about Him. So why bother with the details of the story?

Well, for one thing, Christianity is rooted in historic reality, so details can matter. For another, this story needs no embellishment. The most amazing thing that has ever happened had happened: God had come to Earth as one of us. We need to stare at this story, amazed. Amazed! We should take time to think about the mind-boggling, life-changing truths in it. I recently preached about this. Doing so may even transform how we sing carols and give gifts.


P.S. Please don’t heckle nativity services for being unrealistic in light of this.