Ambition and Achievement

Since leaving home and going to university I’ve found myself frequently worrying about achievement and success. Not in terms of financial and material gain but in relation to my faith, spirituality and discipleship. I’ve often taken a step back, looked at my life and thought ‘What have I actually achieved?’ Examples of people who started churches at a young age or spent years committed to campaigning for a worthy cause often spring to mind. I keep wondering about what I could do in order to make my mark, establish myself as a success.

A few months ago I was reading a chapter of Thomas Merton’s book ‘New Seeds of Contemplation’. He explores in detail this kind of mindset, and says about people that think this way,

‘They can only conceive of one way of becoming real: cutting themselves off from other people and building a barrier of contrast and distinction between themselves and other men…. I have what you have not. I am what you are not. I have taken what you have failed to take…. I spend my life admiring the distance between you and me; at times this even helps me to forget the other men who have what I have not and who have taken what I was too slow to take’.

For Merton, this kind of attitude is unhelpful and ultimately destructive. The alternative he suggest is,

‘I must look for my identity, somehow, not only in God but in other men. I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from the rest of mankind as if I were a different kind of being’.

I suppose this would mean to view the success of others as my own success, and to view my own success as the success of others. Not easy in reality, when all the messages we receive from our culture point in the opposite direction.

Blog Birthday

Well, I was really looking forward to it for weeks, and then I blinked and it went by without me remembering. My blog was one year old 10 days ago.

Altogether now,

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you..............

I would also like to share another great flash game with you all. Anyone who has supported English football since Italia 1990 and enjoys violence will love it.

A few little things....

After recieving some abuse for not posting for a while a thought I should do an update.

Just started the NVQ section of my probation qualification. This basically means that I will be spending hours and hours collating and numbering evidence over the coming months. Joy!

Went surfing for the first time in four years last Sunday. We headed for Llangennith hoping to find some lovely clean and small summer surf. Instead I got battered in 3-4 foot heavy waves for two hours. Didn't get out the back and resigned myself to fooling around in the white water. Things did get better though. On the way home we stopped off at Caswell and spent the last hour in 1.5ft waves which meant I got to ride a few before returning home absolutely knackered.

A question: How on earth can you justify preaching a health and wealth, faith based message to the homeless, the mentally ill and substance abusers?

And finally....

Scrivner sent me an email a while ago telling me it would be a good idea to repost a theological worldview quiz thing I did a while back. Well the quiz is here, and my results were

Emergent/Postmodern 89% Neo orthodox 86% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Roman Catholic 61% Reformed Evangelical 32% Modern Liberal 32% Classical Liberal 29% Charismatic/Pentecostal 14% Fundamentalist 0%

I read the blurb about what that means I should believe but I don't think it's completely accurate. I'm also suprised by the 61% Catholic.