Reflections On Life And Faith

Harry Burggraaf. Trowel & Sword. August 2000

Preamble: What does the future hold? This question may well have been on the minds of Adam and Eve as they were “shown the gates” of Eden. It may also have been on Harry’s mind as he wrote this reflection. Does Leonard Cohen, (I’ve heard of him), have the answer? Do the Indigo Girls? (I’ve never heard of them). I still remember the uproar among the youth of our church when Rev. Groningen criticised the Seekers song “A world of our own”. But I digress. Here’s Harry.

Reflections On Life And Faith

“Behold I am coming soon… I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Jesus Christ) 

“I’ve seen the future, baby: it is murder” (Leonard. Cohen)

Usually the talk at our dinner table is fairly mundane: ‘How was your day’? ‘What will the weather be like tomorrow’? ‘Teachers who set a lot of homework should be strangled’. ‘Do we have to eat sprouts again’? ‘My friend Wendy bought a new CD today’, and more of such trivia. Sometimes the conversation is a little more elevated and we discuss more substantial issues: ‘Is John Howard a better Prime Minister than Paul Keating was’? ‘Is work for the dole a good thing’? ‘Are safe injecting houses justified’?

The other day we really scaled the dinner chat heights and discussed, or argued, about the shape of the future. Much of the conversation seemed to focus on future gadgets and things, but, with a little leadership from the olds, we did manage to reflect on what society and life might be like in the next twenty years and beyond. Mind you, we were soon back to the favourite television programme for that evening. Serious reflection, it seems, is hard to sustain. 

The future does make for interesting discussion. It has generated some vigorous theological debates.

Futurist books have become best sellers. Alvin Toffler’s books ‘Future Shock’, ‘Third Wave’ and ‘Power Shift’ have sold millions of copies. Hugh McKay, one of Australia’s foremost social analysts, sells well when he writes about the future shape of Australia. Futurology is big business. Successful companies are into ‘future needs assessment’ and ‘contextual forecasting’ to make sure that they capture an increased share of the future market.

Christians should be discussing the future and praying about it. Reflecting on the future and, what has been dubbed a ‘post modern’ age, we are faced with a challenging picture. There is all the potential of the information and communication explosion, fascinating technological advances, economic development, international co-operation, biotechnological innovation. Yet at the same time there is a terrible lostness, shattered memories, burnt out ecology, economic anxiety, technological overload, dehydrated imagination, and above all the fragmentation of world view, where there is no shared understanding about the great questions of life, no framework for truth.

This lostness and fragmentation is so cogently captured in some of the popular music of our day:

“Things are going to slide in all directions. 
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure any more
The blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned the order of the soul.’
(The Future. Leonard Cohen)

“I am trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white…
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.” (Indigo Girls)

 Cohen’s image of people in a postmodern age being trapped in a blizzard, where there is total disorientation, no sense of direction, no clear way forward, no boundaries, no coherent ‘story’ or framework to give life meaning, stands in stark contrast to the Biblical picture of the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the sovereign God, Jesus the Lord of heaven and earth, in charge of the future and providing hope and direction.

Brian Walsh, a challenging author and scholar, suggests that in this age of confusion and loss of meaning Christians must be in the business of ‘sensitive discernment’, ‘critical discrimination’ and ‘redemptive engagement’. What the future needs is a ‘re-imaging of world view and the great ‘story’ or narrative’ of the Christian faith must be communicated and lived in a fresh, dynamic way. The Bible presents us with that great unfinished drama of – Creation, the Fall, Israel, Jesus, the Church and the Eschaton. To a culture that has ‘lost the plot’ Christians must provide the story line. This is a challenging task for church, home, Christian school, individual Christians. God has not provided us with a day-by-day script to live by, nor should we try to re-live the old script of the past. 

With the conviction that God is in charge of the future and directs the course of history and, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are invited to make innovative and courageous responses to the problems and issues the future brings in technology, the economic order, social structures, business and the market place, the legal system, work and leisure and everyday life.
Edna St Vincent Milloy captures the challenge for Christians vividly:

“Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower of facts –
they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill is daily spun,
but there exists no loom to weave it into fabric.”

Ecclesiastes reminds us that the overall pattern of the fabric is God’s.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they can not fathom what God has done from beginning to end”.

He has provided the loom and we have the privilege of being weavers in the task of faithful improvisation.

Harry Burggraaf

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