celebrations of the reformation

my reaction to this blog post

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/some-thoughts-reformation-conversation/comment-page-1#comment-715732

yes we evangelicals have baggage. we can be obnoxious, heavy handed, judgmental, self righteous, pharisaical, but even given those elements, the fact remains that there is some underlying blockage to joint celebration of the reformation. i would venture to suggest that there is an elephant in the room.

i think that the elephant could be the so called "wars of religion".

this was one of the bloodiest times in world history if we look at the statistics as proportions of the population apparently. how ever the problem is finding the statistics. i suggest that this might be because of the size and effectiveness of the cover up and embarrassment factor. everything i have read about these so called "wars of religion" that followed the reformation on the continent or europe at least, suggests that although a few protestants took up arms, mainly reluctantly, on the whole we have to call what happened a genocide. an ethnic cleansing of protestants. it had already happened in Czechoslovakia after the Huss revival. it was at it's worst in france under king louis IV. the french population had been nearly 43% protestant at the height of the reformation "revival" and went down to under 2% due to massacres, forced conversions, removal and brainwashing of children, legalised persecution by official and non official bodies, death sentence, flight - refugees.

of course protestants aren't perfect but what did we do that deserved that treatment ? we damaged some statues, wanted to alter church organisation,  so we should be tortured and massacred ?

in england at least things were handled far more decently over all. even if  cromwell sold out on the issue of the poor laws (peasants were still left very nearly in a state of serfdom) but at least the protestants managed to invent the first ever war crimes public trial citing 22 atrocities committed by the king's side. it had a long way to go as legal affairs go but at least it wasn't the traditional method of bumping off kings by assassination and the knife in the bed chamber, and the motives were out in the open.the democratic changes demanded by the "naughty" levelers are now considered as normal in britain and anything else is unthinkable yet they are still portrayed as the villains of the piece most history accounts, dangerous extremists. the religious changes demanded by the "naughty" puritans are now considered as more or less normal in the church of england too yet to say someone is a puritan is still as much an insult now as the royalists made it when they came back into power.

in the catholic world history was rewritten before charles I's blood had the time to congeal. he was made into a saint and a martyr.

history was rewritten in ireland and scotland too. these situations were not handled well by any means, tho perhaps not that badly if you compare with the wars in iraq and afghanistan. in a very similar way the issues were never about those indigenous people, but about defensive action against internal and international forces. in the british isles religion it self was not even the deepest issue in my opinion even though the religious authorities sponsored it, but defense against alliances wanting to bring rival kings to the british throne - the catholic church backing ousted kings - james II (jacobite rebellion), charles I and II, bonnie prince charlie, to name but a few. these and others tried to re-invade england via the irish and scotish shores, but the full and willing help of those populations. the catholic church also encouraged a french invasion of england in the 13th century and by the spanish armada twice. england and france have had plenty of "neighbourly" wars of their own, i'm only thinking of where they have harboured the "enemies of national peace/rightful monarchs" - depending on which side of the fence one sits of course.

despite all this i have little or no problem with individual catholics in the present. i respect their faith and know i have things to learn from their approach to mysticism and other areas. now i know that the elephant is there, i don't think i can honestly have any dealings with the catholic church as such above priest level until it is dealt with. no one can go back to the past but as the french government has acknowledged in making holocaust denial an illegal act, they even have made it illegal to deny the armenian genocide, so i think there should be public admission of guilt of the protestant genocide. france says things in stone. their public monuments are very important to them. i think there need to be some pillars put up in the towns of some of the massacres of protestants. i think that catholic "saints" who were involved in such things should be demoted by the vatican and the marking of the saint day given to charles I on the 31st january should be abandoned and handed over instead to penitance for the massacres of so called "heretics".

i have forgiven. today i shall forgive again. tomorrow i hope i will forgive again. but i can't accept joint public acts of reformed and catholic groups. it's like a woman returning to a husband who beats her, or an abused child still hoping against hope that the parent is no longer an abuser. they should not be put in the position of having to do the emotional contortion act to try to have to do it. the success of the south african truth commission is exactly because it does not pretend that apartheid never happened. for there to be reconciliation as opposed to brushing under the carpet there has to be some sort of admission of guilt. we are walking round not just small piles of dust under our carpet but a mountain, maybe even an elephant.

Listening to dreams.

some thoughts following on from reading this link on exploring dreaming by paul wood.

i think ignoring dreaming would be as silly as ignoring any other part of our lives. it's just a question of knowing ourselves so we can know when a dream is saying something helpful.

brains seem to do lots of tidying up in the night, and can be completely random too. i've found that on the whole if it feels like normal dreaming (normal for me) not to worry about any of it, nor take any of it too seriously. just enjoy - or not, as the case may be. 

like with learning about hearing God's voice in other areas i've found that it's important to learn to recognise other voices so i can filter them out, or in, if that's what's needed. and learning the reflex to ask God about it rather than just puzzling over it myself.
 
so like learning to listen to my emotions. that's me, saying something to me, from me. if i have a knee jerk reaction to something said by an absolute stranger it's odds on it's not the stranger's fault, i need to listen to where i'm coming from. not to obey any old emotion that comes in my head or even analyse it every time, just to recognise that it's me.i'm very bad at listening to my own emotions. my instinct is to cope, put on a brave face, just not even let them near enough the surface to find out what they should be sometimes. God has released me to dream and this has been a vital way for me to find out about myself and my reactions. if it recurs or is distressing i've made a little book to write it down as fast as poss before it's gone, who was involved and how i was feeling, then i invite God in to speak to me, heal me, help me forgive, etc dreaming was a really important way of me coming to terms with a very difficult relationship where i was being emotionally abused but was trying so hard to be nice and care for the person i was just feeding the unhealthy side of the relationship. i had a repeated dream about planning that person's funeral which frightened me that i was committing murder in my heart. i did lots of repenting (which is never wasted) and God broke through to help me understand that my mind and heart had come to the limits of what i could cope with and that it was now right to rupture the relationship.

ditto with my imagination. if i get to recognise my own imagination's voice i can filter it out when i'm trying to work out if something is from God. it's good to imagining. lots of it. like brain storming, problem solving, day dreaming, story telling, hoping, searching, solution finding, enjoying, fantasising. i need to recognise when i'm doing it and to identify that that's what i'm doing.  for my personal integrity i need to be honest that that's what's going on. God may well use it of course but i mustn't confuse my dreams about skating, walking or leading worship as prophetic unless there's a clear other guidance that it's significant.

and my memory. i've occasionally thought something was a word of knowledge when in fact a while later i realised i'd picked up a detail in how someone looked or something they'd half said. it doesn't make what i said less valid but i need to be careful how i word it in order to have proper personal integrity. so the same in interpreting something i dreamed that includes someone. also a person coming to mind either in a dream or in the day i decided following hearing suzette hatting to not read too much into anything at first, just pray for them, which is never wasted and ask God if he wants us to do anything else after.  i remember a very vivid dream where a certain person came into it and somehow i ended up laying hands on her to pray at which point i woke up and was starting to think i wonder why, but stopped myself and carried on praying. yes i did later find out from another source that that had been a bad patch for her and she'd come through it.  i realised after too that it was really probably best i didn't phone her that time she probably didn't feel free to confide in anyone yet.

and my health. of course there's the ever ready too much spicy or rich food just before bed. all dreams following that are to be ignored ! also when we're over tired everything can take on a slightly more dramatic feel, even in dreams. pain comes through too. my daughter had a series of dreams about being the victim of a land mine. i was worried she had a victim mentality till we worked out that her leg was "going to sleep" getting numb and paralysed ( we now know it's a common symptom in our illness)and her brain was trying to make sense of what was going on. same with some extraordinary dreams someone i knew was having - really psychedelic and very vivid and he wondered if God was speaking to him. we prayed and then realised that all of them included the sensation of vertigo - including climbing a rubber lamp post and riding a bike with peculiar  wheels, and in fact it was part of a growing problem of vertigo which incidentally he was over riding during the day using his eyes to balance him up and getting head aches and exhaustion from that. God's advice following having asked him about it was to go to the dr and have time off work !

my social networks and outer social pressures - good and bad.  i'm from a particular family in a particular neighbourhood in a particular country, have had particular friends and other influences. I may want to please them or to battle against them, but i need to recognise they're there and are a very important part of how i interpret what goes on inside me. especially important are reactions against things and people that we pick up from others esp racism, classism etc and the pressure to conform. i think social interaction is a vital part of how we function and just the simple fact of having some social pressures inhibits the anarchy where sin and selfishness and bullying can grow freely. social contacts feed me and i feed others. encouragement, mirroring, all the rest so it's vital it comes out in dreams too. God can use those dreams but i need to identify whose voice is speaking that's all.

my desires. not what i'm against now, but what do i actively want. this can come up a lot in dreams where we want to comfort ourselves, give ourselves pleasure and so on. dreaming about a particular bloke is not a sign i should marry him :-) dreaming about blokes often could be linked to being lonely or feeling lack of appreciation. none of it wrong, just mustn't interpret it as God's guiding just cos it was nice !

then there's the wonderful way we're designed by God to have healing dreams. it seems i'm not the first person to have had a dream where my teeth become pearls and i woke up with a big part of my fear of dentists being healed. (the other part was when i had a tooth abscess starting but went ahead with leading worship at a ladies day as i was the only musician available. they prayed for healing. i was certain, just certain God had done something but i still ended up having to go to an emergency out of hours visit to the dentist to get it lanced. it was only a few days later i realised that the healing God had done was to actually look forward to getting to the dentists and being grateful for his fingers in my mouth - taking away the fear was a much bigger healing and the abscess was dealt with anyway PTL. just for the story young woman was very distressed at seeing my face swell up as the day went on and become deformed - she was prayed for, her fear of disability went and she ended up working with the handicapped !)

this voice should have been first but i'm putting last cos it's what makes it worth while making all the other voices shut up, or at least keep in their place,  cos it's so precious.  recognising Jesus' voice. my sheep know my voice and they follow me. the more i'm familiar with listening to his voice in my waking life, the better i'll recognise it in my dream life. as usual there's the three way spirit level, word, word and word. is it consistent with what God says and has been written down, the scriptures, graphos ? Is it is consistent with the life of Jesus, the logos, the spoken out loud verb of God ? Is it consistent with what the Spirit of God is saying at the moment to me, prophetically or in other ways - rhema ? am i familiar with listening to God in those ways so i recognise when it's him speaking through what ever source, including my dreams ?