Do you mean this negatively or positively? I can see it making sense both ways. Negatively, because the church has lost her original mission to love the neighbour and clothe the naked from sight, and is thus going nowhere. Positively, because the church, in its truest form, simply (and profoundly) follows God’s will, ignoring statistics, popularity contests and whatever boxes the culture it inhabits requires it to tick for it to be “successful”. The church doesn’t live up to any other standard than God’s standard, thus goes nowhere.
Miriworm (#7) — maybe you should be a little more careful with your use of jargon?! That isn’t what “retrograde” means. (Just in case anyone is interested, it means rotating or revolving in the opposite direction from most other planets, for example the outermost satellites of Jupiter — and they’ve been doing that for a very long time and are not about to crash into Jupiter!)
I don’t want to extend the metaphor too far, but an object in orbit isn’t actually “going” anywhere. However the movement around its primary (another bit of jargon — the primary is the thing which the object is in orbit around) is needed to prevent it from crashing into the primary. So the movement is critical even though the object isn’t going anywhere. It represents a long-term steady state.
Rebecca I stand corrected although the meaning of retrograde (a backward step) does seem apt. Your point about an object (i.e the church) not going any where was what I was getting at in my round about or orbital way.
PS: Wikipedia says : An orbit can also decay by tidal effects when the orbiting body is large enough to raise a significant tidal bulge on the body it is orbiting and is either in a retrograde orbit or is below the synchronous orbit. The resulting tidal interaction saps momentum from the orbiting body and transfers it to the primary’s rotation, lowering the orbit’s altitude until frictional effects come into play.
For a long time I have been part of a church that was not going anywhere (or nowhere). This however annoying it might have been was necessary as the crew were trained, the and the church ( rocket) prepared and fuelled. Now we are looking to take off…. I hope it all workds!
Physically any body in motion can’t be going nowhere. It is always going somewhere on some scale. Irony is essentially an incongruity between what we expect to happen and what eventually does. What I see in the cartoon is an expression of the frustration that is often expressed in churches about what we should or should not be doing as organisations, AND concern at the increase in mangerialism (mission statements, objectives, outcomes)in churches, which links with the jargon cartoon below.
I also find these things personally frustrating for a faith which talks so much about journeying as a metaphor we do not seem to value the journey as much as the destination. To follow Captain Kirk, in truth, we shouldn’t know what our destination is, we are looking for new life, we don’t neccesarily know where it is.
themethatisme @19: one of my favourite ways of thinking about my journey of christian faith is, to borrow a phrase from Ursula Le Guin, as:
an unsafe voyage to an unknown end
in token of which I wear a small boat alongside the cross round my neck (maybe one day it will repace it completely). Sometimes I wonder too whether God is perhaps on just such a journey as well.
I see behind the church is the ball that might be the “next big thing” that Jon drew earlier. Perhaps the church stopped chasing the next big thing and is now chillin’ to see where it should go next instead of running around like a free range chicken with its head cut off. Just a thought.
Surely that is our fault. As the constituent elements of the body of Christ it is our responsibility to get our hands on the controls and start driving.
If we are boldly going nowhere we’d better meekly grab a mirror and give the crew a good talking to!!
@#19 & 21,
I personally like C.S. Lewis’ “Further up, further in”
He had great imagery for the Christian journey and/or heaven. In some of his writings, like the Great Divorce, he presented the idea of heaven being a place that expanded and became more and more real and full of weight (weight as in significance, or fullness) as you journey further into it.
I’m prepared to hope and believe that we ARE going somewhere. Not because we’re making a good job of flying our church-ship – we’re SOOO not! – but because God’s capable of constantly readjusting our course settings in spite of us.
annedroid… you’ve made me think… and this really is me thinking out loud… although i believe that the god who created the universe is capable of anything, i wonder whether that is the way he relates to the church. it seems to me that god lets things be and that we have full responsibility for how we do things and what we do. i think it is true, that here and there through church history people come along when things are in a proper mess and show a better way, but i’m not sure that god really intervenes that much. i think it is up to us to intervene as god’s reps if you know what i mean. hmmmm… what do you think?
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While I’d heartily agree with Robb’s comment @ 25, I think both are involved Jon although, like you, I don’t understand God as acting in a directly interventionist manner. But of course, what you or I or AnneDroid mean by that could be very different…or indeed the same but I think we would need to know what it was before trying to discuss whether or not God can ‘[readjust]our course settings’!
What we are told (in Romans) is that ‘in all things’ God is working for good.
I don’t think that means that God intervenes to clear up our mess or overrule us in some way, rather, I
think that somehow, God has a way of adding an ingredient of Grace, into our messes that results in
good coming out of a situation (alongside the bad).
How do you understand that [God adding grace] as actually happening though Caroline Too? I’m not being sarcastic/cynical here – I too believe very strongly in God’s essential nature expressed as persistent,redemptive love – but I am trying to work out how I would articulate what I think that means in reality, outside of an interventionist framework – or perhaps re-imagining what the notion of ‘interventionist’ might actually entail.
at a quick glance, God-adding-grace might look like a silver lining…
two stories might help here…
umm, but they’re long… so I’ll take them over to my blog rather than tell them here…
just at times, even when things have been going horribly wrong, there has just be a sense that God
was there, plumbing the depths with me… helping me plod on, dropping spots of love on me, a
bit like a spring shower…somehow helping me act with grace within situations (sometimes of my own
creation) where pain was in evidence.
Then there are times when, somehow, hurtful sayings and actions, somehow bring gracious
responses…
Thanks Caroline Too – and I’ll go to your blog and read the stories. I have no problem with what you’re saying here – and could identify these sorts of things within my own experience – but I guess my ‘how’ question is really wanting to get at the foundational level below this narrative/experiential one…..how do we think that God does this? And how is that different say, from me calling on my past experiences or my skills or the things that I have learned, to help me see something in a different light, or go the extra mile, or redeem a particular situation, or prevent my hurts from overwhelming me? And how does this fit into the idea of how God might, or might not, intervene in things to alter outcomes?
Have nothing to say. Just want to say it first
Comment by Laura — May 11, 2009 @ 11:54 pm
Boy, Jon, you nailed it!
Comment by queermergent — May 11, 2009 @ 11:55 pm
And we feel so good about it as we sing our gushy little choruses!
Comment by Forrest — May 12, 2009 @ 12:14 am
Do you mean this negatively or positively? I can see it making sense both ways. Negatively, because the church has lost her original mission to love the neighbour and clothe the naked from sight, and is thus going nowhere. Positively, because the church, in its truest form, simply (and profoundly) follows God’s will, ignoring statistics, popularity contests and whatever boxes the culture it inhabits requires it to tick for it to be “successful”. The church doesn’t live up to any other standard than God’s standard, thus goes nowhere.
Comment by Arni — May 12, 2009 @ 3:34 am
Haha!!
Comment by Mimou — May 12, 2009 @ 5:31 am
Absolute Quality!!
Comment by dennis — May 12, 2009 @ 6:23 am
Shouldn’t it be in retrograde orbit (i.e. going round and round in ever decreasing circles before crashing and burning).
Comment by Miriworm — May 12, 2009 @ 7:27 am
I don’t feel we are treating this subject with the gravity it merits.
Comment by Carole — May 12, 2009 @ 7:48 am
Miriworm (#7) — maybe you should be a little more careful with your use of jargon?! That isn’t what “retrograde” means. (Just in case anyone is interested, it means rotating or revolving in the opposite direction from most other planets, for example the outermost satellites of Jupiter — and they’ve been doing that for a very long time and are not about to crash into Jupiter!)
Comment by rebecca — May 12, 2009 @ 7:57 am
I don’t want to extend the metaphor too far, but an object in orbit isn’t actually “going” anywhere. However the movement around its primary (another bit of jargon — the primary is the thing which the object is in orbit around) is needed to prevent it from crashing into the primary. So the movement is critical even though the object isn’t going anywhere. It represents a long-term steady state.
Metaphorically, is this a good thing?
Comment by rebecca — May 12, 2009 @ 8:06 am
Arni @ 4 – I really like your response to this as a potentially positive statement
. Lots to think about there – thanks.
Comment by Pat — May 12, 2009 @ 8:18 am
After seeing the new Star Trek movie, this somehow seems appropriate.
However, I have to say that I really like comment #4.
Comment by Christian — May 12, 2009 @ 8:38 am
Rebecca I stand corrected although the meaning of retrograde (a backward step) does seem apt. Your point about an object (i.e the church) not going any where was what I was getting at in my round about or orbital way.
PS: Wikipedia says : An orbit can also decay by tidal effects when the orbiting body is large enough to raise a significant tidal bulge on the body it is orbiting and is either in a retrograde orbit or is below the synchronous orbit. The resulting tidal interaction saps momentum from the orbiting body and transfers it to the primary’s rotation, lowering the orbit’s altitude until frictional effects come into play.
Comment by Miriworm — May 12, 2009 @ 8:53 am
Ye Cannae change the laws of physics!
Comment by themethatisme — May 12, 2009 @ 9:59 am
For a long time I have been part of a church that was not going anywhere (or nowhere). This however annoying it might have been was necessary as the crew were trained, the and the church ( rocket) prepared and fuelled. Now we are looking to take off…. I hope it all workds!
http://www.beatthedrum.wordpress.com
Comment by beatthedrum — May 12, 2009 @ 10:05 am
#14 That’s a big assumption.
Comment by herbeey — May 12, 2009 @ 10:09 am
Nope, it’s irony.
Comment by themethatisme — May 12, 2009 @ 10:23 am
Could you elaborate? I’m intrigued.
Comment by herbeey — May 12, 2009 @ 10:31 am
Physically any body in motion can’t be going nowhere. It is always going somewhere on some scale. Irony is essentially an incongruity between what we expect to happen and what eventually does. What I see in the cartoon is an expression of the frustration that is often expressed in churches about what we should or should not be doing as organisations, AND concern at the increase in mangerialism (mission statements, objectives, outcomes)in churches, which links with the jargon cartoon below.
I also find these things personally frustrating for a faith which talks so much about journeying as a metaphor we do not seem to value the journey as much as the destination. To follow Captain Kirk, in truth, we shouldn’t know what our destination is, we are looking for new life, we don’t neccesarily know where it is.
Comment by themethatisme — May 12, 2009 @ 10:41 am
“Meekly going nowhere” might have been a good caption!?
Comment by JF — May 12, 2009 @ 10:47 am
themethatisme @19: one of my favourite ways of thinking about my journey of christian faith is, to borrow a phrase from Ursula Le Guin, as:
in token of which I wear a small boat alongside the cross round my neck (maybe one day it will repace it completely). Sometimes I wonder too whether God is perhaps on just such a journey as well.
Comment by Pat — May 12, 2009 @ 10:55 am
May I just say I find this cartoon aesthetically pleasing…very.
Comment by Carole — May 12, 2009 @ 11:13 am
‘rocka’ mi soul, in the arms of Abraham’
- or, isn’t that the point, we are shaped, held, caught and formed by God?
Comment by subo — May 12, 2009 @ 12:15 pm
I see behind the church is the ball that might be the “next big thing” that Jon drew earlier. Perhaps the church stopped chasing the next big thing and is now chillin’ to see where it should go next instead of running around like a free range chicken with its head cut off. Just a thought.
Comment by beckyG — May 12, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
Surely that is our fault. As the constituent elements of the body of Christ it is our responsibility to get our hands on the controls and start driving.
If we are boldly going nowhere we’d better meekly grab a mirror and give the crew a good talking to!!
Comment by Robb — May 12, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
There’s summink about this that reminds me of the Sistine Chapel ceiling…
Comment by Carole — May 12, 2009 @ 1:31 pm
ballsy…and I feel tyhe same way most of the time.
Comment by jon — May 12, 2009 @ 1:45 pm
Is ET the sheep in other folds?
(John 10:16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also).
Comment by Miriworm — May 12, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
@#19 & 21,
I personally like C.S. Lewis’ “Further up, further in”
He had great imagery for the Christian journey and/or heaven. In some of his writings, like the Great Divorce, he presented the idea of heaven being a place that expanded and became more and more real and full of weight (weight as in significance, or fullness) as you journey further into it.
Comment by Andy M — May 12, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
If only we were going ‘nowhere’ boldly, that would be a great improvement
going there vaguely or by accident or unintentionally…
If only we were going ‘nowhere’ meekly…
rather than going there assertively, politically infighting or exclusively…
sigh,
but I did enjoy the cartoon!
Comment by Caroline Too — May 12, 2009 @ 7:16 pm
I’m prepared to hope and believe that we ARE going somewhere. Not because we’re making a good job of flying our church-ship – we’re SOOO not! – but because God’s capable of constantly readjusting our course settings in spite of us.
Comment by AnneDroid — May 12, 2009 @ 7:23 pm
carole @ 8… bad gag!
btw, the cystine chapel probably took a little longer.
‘meekly going nowhere’… like it!
Comment by jonbirch — May 12, 2009 @ 11:08 pm
annedroid… you’ve made me think… and this really is me thinking out loud… although i believe that the god who created the universe is capable of anything, i wonder whether that is the way he relates to the church. it seems to me that god lets things be and that we have full responsibility for how we do things and what we do. i think it is true, that here and there through church history people come along when things are in a proper mess and show a better way, but i’m not sure that god really intervenes that much. i think it is up to us to intervene as god’s reps if you know what i mean. hmmmm… what do you think?
Comment by jonbirch — May 12, 2009 @ 11:19 pm
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While I’d heartily agree with Robb’s comment @ 25, I think both are involved Jon although, like you, I don’t understand God as acting in a directly interventionist manner. But of course, what you or I or AnneDroid mean by that could be very different…or indeed the same
but I think we would need to know what it was before trying to discuss whether or not God can ‘[readjust]our course settings’!
Comment by Pat — May 13, 2009 @ 8:00 am
What we are told (in Romans) is that ‘in all things’ God is working for good.
I don’t think that means that God intervenes to clear up our mess or overrule us in some way, rather, I
think that somehow, God has a way of adding an ingredient of Grace, into our messes that results in
good coming out of a situation (alongside the bad).
Comment by Caroline Too — May 13, 2009 @ 8:27 am
How do you understand that [God adding grace] as actually happening though Caroline Too? I’m not being sarcastic/cynical here – I too believe very strongly in God’s essential nature expressed as persistent,redemptive love – but I am trying to work out how I would articulate what I think that means in reality, outside of an interventionist framework – or perhaps re-imagining what the notion of ‘interventionist’ might actually entail.
If that makes sense
Comment by Pat — May 13, 2009 @ 8:46 am
at a quick glance, God-adding-grace might look like a silver lining…
two stories might help here…
umm, but they’re long… so I’ll take them over to my blog rather than tell them here…
just at times, even when things have been going horribly wrong, there has just be a sense that God
was there, plumbing the depths with me… helping me plod on, dropping spots of love on me, a
bit like a spring shower…somehow helping me act with grace within situations (sometimes of my own
creation) where pain was in evidence.
Then there are times when, somehow, hurtful sayings and actions, somehow bring gracious
responses…
I suspect that Calvary is an example of this
Comment by Caroline Too — May 13, 2009 @ 11:02 am
Thanks Caroline Too – and I’ll go to your blog and read the stories. I have no problem with what you’re saying here – and could identify these sorts of things within my own experience – but I guess my ‘how’ question is really wanting to get at the foundational level below this narrative/experiential one…..how do we think that God does this? And how is that different say, from me calling on my past experiences or my skills or the things that I have learned, to help me see something in a different light, or go the extra mile, or redeem a particular situation, or prevent my hurts from overwhelming me? And how does this fit into the idea of how God might, or might not, intervene in things to alter outcomes?
Not sure if that makes any more sense
Comment by Pat — May 13, 2009 @ 11:17 am
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