GBShaw Blog

I’ve sub-themed my newly-started blog with the above heading. I expect I’ll roam fairly freely in what I write about, probably drawing on my studies in Economics, English Literature and Theology. But I’ll keep returning to the questions I am always asking – where is God in this, what is he saying and can I discern any of it? So I’ll lay down some basic tenets of how I see the world, foundational to which are the opening chapters of the Bible.

The aim of everything, in history and in the Bible, is the creation of a better and, ultimately, an ideal world.

Genesis chapter 1 begins in darkness with the raging waters of chaos everywhere. The subsequent creation is wonderful, culminating in the creation of human beings – male and female who are all made in the image of God and so have infinite dignity and are able to ‘connect’ with God.

However, creation is marred by the continuing presence of darkness and the waters of chaos, though their power has been limited. Heaven, or kingdom of God, as envisaged in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, is without any sea and there is no darkness. That is our destiny.

So I do not hold the view that the world was created perfect and then human beings messed it up (though we certainly do that). Historically it makes no sense. The universe we know is about 14 billion years old and earth itself several billion years old. Creation is ongoing, costly, and dependent on the Spirit of God who still moves creatively over his creation.

The second account of creation begins in Genesis chapter 2. It is a story, a parable, which powerfully illustrates the consequences of representative human beings making bad choices. In particular, Adam and Eve listen to the wrong voices. The wily snake plays on their own inner desires: to be their own god, to make their own decisions and to satisfy their own carnal desires. And, of course, the story is illustrative of the human predilection to be dissatisfied with the plenty that they do have and to always want more, particularly what they are told they can’t have. These are what separate Adam and Eve, men and women, from God.

And what about creation itself? In Genesis 1 it is very good, but still shot through with darkness and chaos, as history continues to reveal. In the second story, human beings are made from the earth, and God breathes into them the breath of life. They are given the task of caring for their world on behalf of God. Their disobedience not only curses them, but also the earth to which they are inextricably linked.

The next chapters of Genesis illustrate that the natural path of human beings is to chaos and self-destruction; everything that can go wrong does. God’s solution to this apparently disastrous start begins with Abraham and Sarah through whom the nation Israel is founded. Its task is to be a priestly nation, making God known to the world. Its failure (like Adam and Eve’s) reflects the failure of all humanity to live according to God’s laws, until the Spirit of God gives birth, through Mary, to Jesus. Jesus is the Israelite who ticks all the boxes, the true servant of the Lord. His life, death and resurrection saves the world from the consequences of sin, and ensures the promised kingdom of God, heaven on earth, will come.

Jesus was anointed by the Spirit of God for his mission. He instructs his followers to await the anointing of the same Spirit and when that happens, to go and be witnesses to the ends of the earth that in Jesus God’s kingdom has come and will be fulfilled.

The final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation sets out God’s promise that good will finally triumph over evil, and darkness and chaos will be no more. The separation between God and human beings, illustrated by their ejection from the Garden of Eden, will be ended. God will wipe away every tear and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things will pass away and creation will be complete.

To finish this whistle stop (and woefully inadequate!) tour of history and the Bible, I just want to highlight one very formative image: the Spirit of God moving creatively over the waters of chaos. This image from Genesis 1 is a picture of what God is still doing, is always doing. It fills me with hope again and again. It forms my prayers and gets me doing something.

Whatever the situation, however dark or chaotic it seems, it is not God-forsaken. God is always there, amidst the darkness and chaos, working for good, inviting us to see it, to know it, to join in and work with him.

Janet and I moved to Cheshire in December. We miss the Yorkshire Dales. It’s pretty flat around here. But there are lots of oak trees. We didn’t notice them until they starting dropping acorns which often carpet sections of our local walks.

Seeing the acorns in their bespoke little cups takes me back to childhood days. I used to love to pick up and bring home the most beautiful ones. Sadly they would wrinkle and change colour and come loose from their cups and lose my interest. And now the acorns here are turning brown and the carpet crackles underfoot as they harden and we tread on them.

There are chestnut trees here also. They take me back on the same route to exciting times gathering conkers at the start of the (primary) school year each September. There were places we’d go with my mother to pick up the ugly spiky green husks dropped by the trees, with their sleeping beauties inside, or those already ejected from the crib and lying about on the ground. Then, as now, I wonder at the extraordinary beauty of the conkers, cocooned like perfectly polished mahogany in their lily white beds.

If there weren’t many conkers lying beneath the tree, we (my bothers and I) would climb the tree and knock down the shells. But often, we’d open them up to find the conkers white and (as I thought) ugly inside. They had their time to fall and we’d come too early.

On a good day we ‘d go home with bagfuls of conkers. We’d hole them and string them and play conkers by swinging them to hit the opponent’s conker (or frequently their hand – ow!) in a battle to see which broke up first. There was always a champion conker with the most victories.

Some conkers went into the oven to be hardened or were soaked in vinegar. We took these to school for the real battles which occupied most children during break for several weeks in September and October.

The transient beauty I’m thinking about is certainly seen in the acorns and chestnuts that fall from the trees, and is repeated year on year. It fades and is trampled into the ground but out of the carnage of thousands of conkers and acorns, some take root and new tree grow.

Beauty is dynamic. it doesn’t exist except in the eye of the beholder, in the relationship. In my child’s eyes the beauty of acorn or chestnut was fleeting and soon forgotten. Yet it left its mark. It formed me. The child I was is still a part of me, still shapes me. And the acorns and chestnuts go on to fulfil their purpose despite losing their first beauty. Losing their first flush of beauty is essential – the death of the seed is necessary for it to be changed and to grow into a new tree.

Let’s not forget the lasting beauty and magnificence of the trees themselves. Beautiful as a seed, and beautiful in the sustained full vigour of life. And perhaps beautiful in ‘death’ – providing wood for a treasured table or picture frame, or simply warmth as they are sacrificed in the fire.

Having lived in Sudan and Uganda where the seasons are very different (e.g. long rains and short rains) I have a deep love for the annual cycle of seasons which is so easy to take for granted. It’s a cycle of life, fruitfulness, death and renewal. Trees are subject to this cycle but, like us, have a grander cycle of life, sometimes over hundreds of years from acorn to tree to a natural demise and reabsorption into the earth. Every year leaves its mark on the tree and is recorded in its rings of life.

We often think that everything is, ultimately, transient. There is a truth there, but my reflection leads me to think it’s better to say ‘everything changes’.

Like the seed that is planted and is changed into a tree, we are born from a seed and have our seasons and regular cycles of life. Through it all we are being changed again and again until we die and become a seed once more planted and changed to live in the beauty and mystery of all that lies beyond death – when what is mortal takes on immortality. (So St Paul in the New Testament, in his first letter to the Corinthians , chapter 15 verses 50-54)

I find the words of John Keats (Ode on a Grecian Urn) equally inspiring:

Beauty is truth; truth beauty – that is all

ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.