nothing is written

it turns out that yes, you can.

November 5, 2008 · 3 Comments

Even down to the presence of death and grief in the campaign’s final hours, this election stayed close to the script that started out in the brilliant mind of Aaron Sorkin. The coming days will more than likely see the two plots continue to twin, with a high-ranking Republican being announced for Secretary of State.

But the closest link in my mind comes from the mouth of Bartlett, not Santos.

What’s next?

What’s next for America? Will you navigate the chaos of two wars, a recession and a freshly-legitimised minority now finally finding a voice? If we can guess anything, sorely it is that the past two years that have bruised Obama are nothing compared to what follows.

What’s next for the rest of us who - noses smearing the screen - have hoped that you Americans would take such a giant leap forward as this? Will we get over ourselves and allow you out of the box? Will we allow you to become something other than the cliche of hefty buttocks and narrowed perception? Will we let you lead?

Lead? Isn’t the era of the American Superpower over? No way. There’s a reason that we’ve all been captivated by the election, and that’s because - however begrudgingly - we in the rest of the world still look upon the US as the best candidate for superpower number one. Four more years of a Republican White House might have brought that to an end, but maybe, just maybe, there’s life in the old dog yet.

I was talking with a friend today about how the split Christian vote was a sign of real health. When either party secures the God Vote it surely can’t be good. Perhaps Christians disagreeing with each other isn’t so bad after all.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: new normals

which way is up?

October 20, 2008 · 1 Comment

I’ve read two different versions of the same statistic in the last week. It seems that these days everyone’s looking for a yard stick against which to measure the state of the spluttering economy. One of the measurements in fashion right now is this; the ratio of household debt to GDP.

If, like me, you virtually flunked your economics and have a little difficulty telling your macro from your micro, some explanation is in order. Household debt to GDP (Gross Domestic Product – a fancy title for the effective income of any given country) simply shows how much on average households are borrowing against what the whole country has coming in.

Last summer, according to some reports, the UK broke through an invisible – but significant – barrier; we started borrowing more than we were earning.

A few months later and the whole thing has gone crazy. We’re now in a situation where the world’s ‘wealthiest’ countries are caught up in the chains of debt, as the stats reveal:

Household debt as a percentage of GDP

(2005)

France 56.2%
United States 98%
United Kingdom 104.2%
Netherlands 116.5%

Another, more up to date, version put the UK in overall lead, with about household debt now at over 170% of GDP.

Yikes.

Here are a few more shockers for you…

The freshly-bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland’s liabilities alone exceed the total national income of the U.K. So far this year UK debt has grown at a rate of £1million every 8.5 minutes. The current rate of 104 house repossessions every day is sure to rise as is the fact that 1 person every 5 minutes is declared bankrupt.

There are a couple of questions that line up behind this; what does all this debt say about us? And what’s all this credit crunching going to do to our new-found passion to change the world and eliminate poverty?

We’ve all heard greed blamed as the number one fuel for the current financial crisis. But I doubt it’s really as simple as that. Why? Because – as I found out when I opened the results envelope and saw a shiny ‘D’ next to A level Economics - nothing ever really is that simple. Yet what we can be sure of is the fact that the current threat of Depression 2.0 tells us this; we really ought to be a little more sceptical of the hype that we pump out here in the wealthy west. All our strutting and strolling and summiteering (Ok, I just made that up, but you get the drift) is worth far les than we assume. We think of ourselves as the global leaders and yet we can’t even manage our own interests properly, let alone deal with the fact that 2 out of 3 people on this planet will be forced to try and get through the next 24 hours on less than £1.

Right now, if you ask me, we look a lot less like global leaders and a lot more like the prodigals taking our first look at the pig-sty which pretty soon could become our home.

But what about the other question; is this the end of our brief attempts to be the first generation in a while that makes real efforts to correct the problem of global injustice? Are we going to be too busy licking our own wounds over the coming years to worry about anyone else’s? Has charity got to go back to basics and start over again at home?

Opinions, please.

→ 1 CommentCategories: new normals

the end of life as we know it?

October 10, 2008 · 1 Comment

Now, I like this guy called Steve Strang. Personally, I find him to be pretty good company. Of course there’s plenty that we would disagree on, but I get the feeling that had he been born in Mumbai and found his faith, Steve would have ended up being one of those remarkable influential nobodies that are quietly changing their world.

Oh, he published a book I wrote too, so that makes him a pretty rare man.

But Steve wasn’t born in Mumbai, and he’s become - for what it’s worth - the kind of guy that features in Time magazine’s list of the Most Influential Evangelicals in America.

And this is his latest blog posting:

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Life As We Know It Will End If Obama Is Elected

I was amazed that during the presidential debate this week Sen. John McCain didn’t make the point that if Sen. Barack Obama is elected, life as we know it in many ways will end. America will be more socialized and have less free enterprise and freedom.

It seems that due to the current economic crisis, a percentage of Americans are clamoring for change in the White House. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to realize that change will mean gay rights will be encoded into law and abortion rights laws will be strengthened. The result will be an alteration in our entire social structure and the likelihood that Roe v. Wade—the case that led to the legalization of abortion–will never be overturned. Recently someone sent me a video put out by Roman Catholics on the sanctity of life. Take time to watch it at www.catholicvote.com. It makes the point that protecting human life from conception to natural death is one of the most important responsibilities we have as Christians.

I believe if Obama is elected, the government will tax, tax, tax the citizens who are most productive. Yet it’s been proven that tax increases lead to economic downturn, while tax cuts lead to economic growth (which we desperately need). There will also be a “take from the rich, give to the poor” type of socialistic mind-set throughout the nation. And I believe our country will be weaker militarily around the world.

In addition, people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms. Christianity is already persona non grata in academia and in the liberal media. People such as Bill Maher and Michael Moore, who hate God and God’s people, will think the election verifies that the nation as a whole believes as they do and will jump for glee. Meanwhile, Christians seem almost asleep. There is no outcry! And there is a group of Bible-believing Christians who appear to have decided to overlook how dangerous Obama will be and plan to vote for him anyway.

A few weeks ago McCain and Obama were even in the polls. However, the economic crisis seems to have pushed some Americans toward Obama. So in the 25 days to the election we must pray as never before. And we must work to wake up Christians. That is what happened late in the 2004 election—Christian leaders rallied believers, and as a result, George W. Bush was re-elected president.

Even though polls are often right, there are exceptions, and we must pray and work–before it’s too late–to see that Obama is not elected. I receive lots of interesting e-mails having to do with the election and the issues surrounding current culture wars. Below is some of what someone sent me and urged me to pass on. There are links to several interesting videos that you should take the time to watch. Much of what you will see is disturbing. I urge you to forward the information below to your friends.

The only reason Obama is competitive is because people do not really know who and what he stands for.

Barack Obama’s Views:

Endorsed by:
- ACLU
- AFL-CIO
- National Trial Lawyers Groups
- NARAL
- Planned Parenthood
- Homosexual and atheist advocacy groups
- Moveon.org
- Radical leftist national groups

These groups have provided the largest support for his campaign, along with the Saudis. And every one of them hates serious Christians and Zionist Jews. How can a Christian or a Jew vote with them? He promised the trial lawyers that he will fight against Tort Reform.

He promised the unions to vote for the Union Intimidation Act (aka Employee Free Choice Act)–a laughable name for legislation that will devastate American jobs. He promised the abortionists to vote for the Abortion Anytime Act (aka the Freedom of Choice Act).

He promised the homosexuals that he will support the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, and he is already fighting the California Marriage Amendment. And he has no experience! Hello?

Serious Political Videos and Articles that Expose the Truth about Barack Obama

Article: See Obama’s Illegal Campaign Contributions
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/Obama_fundraising_illegal/2008/09/29/135718.html?s=al&promo_code=6BD9-1

Video Clip: Mohammar Khaddafi on Barack Obama. Quite real and quite damning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSemkPChvHo

Video Clip: A History of Barack Obama’s Life and Politics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUdjhKbImwE

Video Clip: Barack Obama on Defense Spending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sj91NH5fvw

Video Clip: Little-Known Barack Obama Scandals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sawN7uJ8s8s

Video Clip: Hillary Shreds Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQadAAlK9c4

Video Clip: Biden Slams Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV14xqelWxY

Video Clip: The Hypocrisy of the Liberal Media Exposed in Their Attack on Sarah Palin’s Prayer for the Troops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hpwM4Jjyrs

Video Clip: School Children Sing Praises of Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08iomNFrzU4

I know many of you are as disturbed as I am. I think this information on Obama speaks for itself. Let’s pray for a shift in our country. And let’s get this information into the hands of as many people as possible. If you missed my endorsement of John McCain, click here.

And be sure to add your thoughts to the blog.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that his tone and pitch have revved up just like McCain’s, but I have to confess that I was a little taken aback by this. But what made me smile were the comments that followed. Read them for yourself here.

What I want to know is are these the final kicks and snarls of a fatally wounded beast - is this the beginning of the end of the religious right? Or is this the first signs of a drastic counter attack that will lead us into the kind of future that Atwood glimpsed in The Handmaid’s Tale?

→ 1 CommentCategories: we can do better than this

not so great

October 2, 2008 · No Comments

This is plagiarism, but since I can’t remember whether or where or when I read, heard or overheard someone saying this I’ll just have to go ahead and spew it;

In years that followed it the 1914-1918 war was the seen as one of the most brutal periods of human history. It was the war to end all wars, the like of which nobody assumed would be seen again. So they called it the Great War.

1939 - 1945 changed all that. With over 70 million dead on both sides the Great War was no longer so unique and as a result it was renamed World War I.

There was another event that shaped the twentieth century; the Great Depression. From 1929 to the 30s and 40s, the largest and most significant economic depression devastated the economies of once-wealthy nations. The cause? The 1929 stock market crash.

It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is heading; could it be that soon we’ll be forced into rebranding the Great Depression? Are about to start GD II?

Whether this happens or not, what we call it is surely the least significant part of it all. But I’m wondering if, right now, tinkering with the packaging is about all we can do.

→ No CommentsCategories: Uncategorized

a thought in my head this trip

September 26, 2008 · No Comments

Where to start.

There was the flight over here. I was near the toilet and it was not so pleasant. And then I saw some actress whose name I constantly forget – Scarlett Johanson, that’s it. She was quite short. Then there was fact that I trusted the Sat Nav to help me avoid traffic congestion. It did, steering me away from the string of red lights and into the darkness of the Los Angeles gangland suburbs.

But none of that really helps as a diving board for a description of this trip. This, however, is a better place to start; a transcription of a meeting between the best President the US never had and the next one it might end up with. Aaron Sorkin’s a genius, and Jed’s on top form:

BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.

BARTLET Senator.

OBAMA Mr. President.

BARTLET You seem startled.

OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.

BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.

There have been many words written already about the links between the build up to this current election and the one played out by the characters of Santos and Vinick in the final season of The West Wing.

If you want the introductory guide then read the BBC’s exploration here. If you’re already familiar then the following should make sense;

Vinick’s assertion that nuclear power is safe just ahead of a serious accident at a Californian nuclear power plant

Vs.

McCain’s ‘the fundamentals of the economy are strong’

Or how about old Jed engaging his troops in an armed conflict between China and Russia – a decision that would have massive financial implications for whoever become the next President…

Vs.

$700 billion

Even the will he/won’t he show up at the first debate joins the dots between McCain and Vinick, who’s erratic behaviour in the final weeks of the campaign left the Democrats struggling to comprehend their motives and control the debate.

Anyway, those links being what they are, the point of it all is this; what happens next? Hopefully the imitation of art by life stops soon and neither of the VPs suffers like Leo McGarry with a fatal heart attack. But could it be that this election will go the same way? It’s clearly a close one.

The way I see it, Sorkin got it right; Obama wins. I’m basing my prediction on nothing more than almost completely insubstantial and anecdotal evidence. But, hey, isn’t that what blogs are all about?

So, from the swirling remnants at the bottom of my teacup I see the following as signs of things to come;

The religious right are split. Stephen Mansfield’s ‘The Faith of Barrack Obama’ is not the sarcastic savaging that you might expect from the man who gushed his way through ‘The Faith of George W Bush’. And while most of the usual suspects are breaking right for McCain, churchgoers appear unwilling to deliver themselves as a block for the GOP.

Oh, and I’ve yet to meet an Evangelical Christian on this trip who’s saying that they’re voting for McCain.

There are probably a whole load more spurious reasons I could come up with, but the point is this conclusion; if Obama does win then it will be a gigantic tick in the box for optimism. Change sits well with Obama’s race but do mavericks really keep going in their seventies? No, if Obama wins it will be because more people in the country are fueled by a belief that the future is worth investing in.

For the moment we Europeans have lost faith in this kind of hope. That last century was the final nail after the previous wind down of our time as individual superpowers. Yet here in the US – with its audacious crashes and even more outrageous rescue plans – the belief that things can and should improve is strong. The country is still young enough for cynicism yet to have choked it, and now old enough to tackle some of the problems that are crying out for its attention.

Love him or loathe him, but President Bush has done well in his fight against the crushing weight of global poverty Africa is a better place because of his place of work these last eight years.

Another eight years on from now, and it’s worth wondering just how much further the message of change could have spread.

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i have something to say that’s not about death!

August 27, 2008 · 2 Comments

Eight months with my head out of the loop and I finally wake up to a double portion of shame, betrayal and intrigue.

First up, Todd Bentley – the guy with all the tattoos and tv interest – has left his wife. One minute he was being heralded as the edgy, awkward deliverer of the very latest brand of God-Soaked Things. The next, he’s been far too edgy and awkward and left people are left wondering whether it was all a fraud.

Not so much need for the wondering with Mike Guglielmucci. The guy wrote a song – ‘healer’ – and added to his creation by letting people know that he was suffering from terminal cancer. It turns out, however, he hasn’t and never did suffer from cancer – just a sixteen-year addiction to porn.

Our Healer! all the more..., Mike or Michael Guglielmucci, writer of HEALER

Of course many are responding with shock and disappointment, and words like betrayal and fraud are never far from the screen. God TV – the station that appeared to do all that it could to promote the meetings in Florida that Bentley hosted – now has little to say on the subject, let alone show. I heard that ‘healer’ has suffered a similar punishment, having been quickly yanked from YouTube as well as various forthcoming live albums; how – the logic goes – can people sing the song knowing such lies have been woven into it?

I don’t know what I think about Bentley. I mean, I know what I think – I wrote about those thoughts a while back – but the sad news that his life is so obviously in some kind of free-fall does not really change how I feel. If anything it makes the fault lines even clearer; yet again the Church has missed the point and got blinded by the lights, pumped up by the sugar rush of something that seems New and Exciting. We wanted Bentley to have caught hold of something truly dramatic, radical and utterly transformative – something that would change our world as we know it. And because we wanted it all so desperately I can only assume that he fell into the same trap of so many others, where delivering on expectation eventually became more important than pursuing personal integrity.

We wanted the glitz and the excitement, and in a way, I suppose that’s exactly what we got. And if there’s any shame in the story I think it belongs to us, who forced our heads into the trough and gorged on the assumption that transformation, drama and radical experience could be found simply by turning up to a meeting or flicking a tv remote. We want change? Well, it comes through us, not to us. We want something that could change the world? What more do we need than the ancient and eternal truths that bind our faith together?

When it comes to Guglielmucci and his lies, I feel sad. I feel sad that he treated cancer as a dressing-up box accompaniment, a tool for advancing his art. Life deserves more respect than that. It is clear that his own freefall has been going on for some time, and it saddens me that secrets and lies lasted well into their second decade. I feel sad that he felt the need to develop a good story to help promote the song. But none of it surprises me.

I suppose I feel more sad about the reactions of others. The way I see it, the background to the song is now utterly different, but the lyrics remain just as true as they have over the millennia. Surely now, at last, Guglielmucci can sing those words out loud without having to shield the deceit? Why, then, can’t we? Doesn’t he need us to sing for him more than ever? Doesn’t the song now have far more authenticity that we know the truth behind it? Isn’t it now finally about God alone, rather than a terribly human attempt to create something to impress the congregations?

So I don’t see why Hillsong has yanked footage of Guglielmucci speaking at one of their events with an oxygen tube strapped across his face like a misplaced smile. I don’t see why this song must be buried without trace. If the work of fallen songsmiths should disappear then where does that leave us with the Psalms? By extension, what do we do with Martin Luther King’s words? Do any of us make the grade?

What I do see is that yet again this fall exposes our own failings. Once more we missed the point and made the story about us rather than God. We got seduced by the hype and got lost in the crowd.

It will happen again, I suppose. These wanderings off course have a familiar feel to them. But we really ought to know better. And if we continue to pursue excitement and frills and easy-answers to complex questions, if we reduce our part in the faith to hopping on a plane or singing a sing with enough passion, then the world will rot on our watch as this bride of Christ flirts with the wedding guests.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: we can do better than this

i’m a bundle of laughs these days

August 26, 2008 · 1 Comment

I turned up to a meeting last Friday and got chatting with one of the guys. We exchanged a few bits of chat and then he said that he’d had a look at this blog before he came out to the meeting. He commented on the fact that I don’t seem to be holding much back.

I’ve wondered about it for a few days. Self-absorption? Perhaps. Stuck in a creative rut? Possibly. But the only real point I can make with any certainty is that these pages are here act like some kind of skimming pool filter; whatever’s up on the surface will make its way out. That’s not to say that there isn’t other stuff deeper down, but these little bobbins are the ones that just seem to keep on coming back out.

Pain is loneliness.

I’ve been wondering why this seems so true of late - why is it that with a wife of 11 years, 3 kids, numerous friends within a five minute walk of here and plenty of scattered soul-mates across several countries I still feel a profound sense of loneliness these days?

There’s a feeling I have that has become familiar of late. It’s more geographical than emotional, as if it’s some kind of second-hand deja-vu I’ve mysteriously inherited. To the side and behind me is fog, the kind that is saturated with rain that defies the laws and hangs in the air, refusing to fall. I think there may be people nearby – or there may have been. Perhaps I’ve been walking with them, but since I cannot hear, see or touch them they don’t feature too heavily in the scene.

I know that I have travelled some distance and gained some altitude to get to this place; my body feels a little tired, yet excited by the fact that it is working well enough to get me this far. But as I stand here – wherever here happens to be – something becomes clear; all that has gone on before is just the beginning. Ahead of me lies nothing more than a mile-high mass of fogged-out emptiness across which I must travel. Alone.

This is the sense I have so often, that recent times have taken me on some kind of mini-epic journey, forcing me to climb higher than ever before – so high I don’t even have to look down to know how precarious this position has become; the sense of risk is all around. Six months on since the first funeral of the three and there have been clear signs that this initial phase is drawing to a close. Days of suffocating tears have long gone, as have the moments of feeling utterly allergic to the toxic shock of Normal Life. I have been able to work, to write, to laugh and reacquaint myself with the new normal.

But this feeling – this sense of the months having only just been an introduction – this is something new and at times overwhelming. The sheer length of time ahead feels like too much

Last night a friend talked to me about the ‘ancientness of sorrow’. He said that loss connects us with something bigger, something timeless, something that to some extent we have to shoulder on our own. I’m wondering how many characters - Biblical and otherwise - fit the mold: David, Job, Jesus, Jonah, Paul, Lear. The list could be long.

I have to stop now, before I find myself putting on old Cure albums at an unreasonable volume.

→ 1 CommentCategories: grieving

return to something harder. something better.

August 12, 2008 · 1 Comment

Thanks to those of you who have read, commented or sent messages. All your kindness is truly appreciated.

The five of us - Emma, myself and the three little Borlases - returned home from a few weeks away in France at the weekend. It was late - 2am, I think - and despite the pep-talk in the car about how this time we really weren’t going to do anything other than just put the kids and ourselves straight to bed… I was still up at 3.27am checking emails. Ever since I returned home from a week away a couple of years back to discover that I was about to be sued by an irate fellow-author, I’ve been nervous about opening up the inbox after a long absence. Perhaps that’s why I always seem to do it when everyone else is asleep.

It turns out there was no need to be nervy this time (or, in fact, last time either; the threat of litigation never came to anything, in case you’re wondering). But as I worked my way up the column a sense of familiarity settled uneasily next to me. Old feelings - and recent ones too - told me I was home; the sense of time stretching out in front of me and a past now partially boarded up with mum and step-dad now gone… the sense of there being so much life to be lived ahead of me, but without so much of that which sustained me up to this point.

This was outside one of the gites we were staying in. I guess you could make it into a visual representation of how things are these days - the fact the influence of life carries on long past the actual business of being alive is over, the way that the new growth at the bottom seems so fragile and temporary by comparison to the weather stone and wood. But I think it’s probably better seen as just a boarded up window.

What I am sure of is that there are some broader reasons to be genuinely excited and optimistic these days, as well as plenty of the personal stuff that requires a deep inhalation and determined step forward. It seems like we’re in the middle of a subtle yet potentially significant shift… a slight move away from the corporate and commercialized Christianity towards a more authentic, less impressive way of putting this faith of ours into flesh and blood. Little by little I wonder whether we are getting less impressed by the people we are following and more inspired by the change we are making.

I hope so.

→ 1 CommentCategories: new normals

five familiar phrases these days…

July 16, 2008 · 4 Comments

I can’t quite believe I get to write sentences with the words cancer/terminal/died yet again.

On Monday afternoon my step-dad died. It was five months to the day since my mother died, and 72 days since my mother-in-law died. They all had cancer, faith and years of treatment which finally was no match for the chaos inside their bodies.

It is strange to have written those words to various friends and colleagues at certain points over the last few months. In some ways death feels very normal right now. Like playground bullies and icily-beautiful women, death is profoundly less intimidating up close than it is from a distance. I fear it less today than I did a year ago, and I don’t think that I have drifted into paranoia – I mean, I don’t worry about other members of my family getting sick and dying. There aren’t that many of them left anyway.

But who am I kidding? We’ve chucked the microwave, upped the fruit & veg and I’m back to my old hobby of entering half marathons and running them very slowly.

It’s aliveness that I’m pursuing.

It was after my mother’s death that I realised that I was experiencing something odd in the midst of the grief; happiness. It seemed bizarre at first until someone wise joined the dots for me; he talked about ‘exquisite grief’ and it suddenly became clear that experiencing the pain of missing someone does not mean that life becomes grey. Grief is not necessarily welded to depression. In fact, the root of the word links it in with the carrying of something heavy. It takes strength to do this and the work is not without reward. Maybe, in some way, the deeper the relationship one looses, the better prepared one is for the carrying. It might not be a lighter load, but perhaps one is able to take it further. I don’t know about the details or reasons, but I do know that my wife and children and friends are richer rewards to me these days than ever before.

Remember Dumbledore’s pensieve? I want one of those – to be able to pour my thoughts out into a bowl and examine them as an observer.

Too often I feel like my mind is full. My default position in times of stress is twofold; I sweep the floors in our house and my mind goes blank. Somehow the cleaning helps and I just have to wait for the fog to clear.

The possibility of joining Harry and watching memories as an invisible observer is so appealing, but like the rest of the saga, it’s too far from reality to translate literally. So I’ll just have to make do with writing self-indulgent blog postings instead.

I’m pregnant with words.

There’s something brewing in here. I was talking to a publisher about writing on grief and she mentioned that they were considering doing something on prayer and loss. I had to duck out of the conversation at that point because I have no solutions or suggestions or tales of success on that particular topic right now. But the rest – the story of how this year has been the hardest, fullest, brightest, saddest year of my life – there are lots of words coming there.

I know how to plan a good funeral.

Honestly, I reckon there’s a niche market out there and the events of this year have fast-tracked me towards some kind of vocational qualification. I’d recommend a bit of Sigur Ros for accompanying music, particularly this:

→ 4 CommentsCategories: grieving

of sunshine, cynicism and bloody sheets

July 7, 2008 · 1 Comment

Forgive the jargon here, but this one’s for the flock.

Every once in a while the word revival makes an appearance among the faithful. Like some astronomical phenomenon that slices the skies its warning signs are often quickly followed by a sparky display of light and power. Pretty soon it seems like every believer who’s in the know will be transfixed by its power; head, eyes and heart straining to catch whatever stardust falls from its trail.

It’s happening right now. In Florida, so they say. I don’t know any more than the basics of the equation – (guy with tats + divine healings) x media exposure = great excitement – but I’ve heard a couple of stories.

I picked up the first one third hand last week. It concerned a woman whose husband has been impacted by the recent events in Florida. She returned home one evening to find blood in her front room, trailing to the bedroom. There she found her crimson-stained husband, doubled over in what I can only assume was a unique combination of post-adrenaline woosiness, drastically-crashing blood pressure and pure, unchecked agony.

She asked what on earth had happened.

‘The Lord told me to self-circumcise.’

The second story is this. I was talking to a friend about it all. He was cynical – I mean, really cynical. He went after the guy in tats - questioning the authenticity of the claims being made – as well as the integrity (and intellect) of those flying out to get a slice of the action. He made sense at times, but mostly his blanket declarations that it was wholly corrupted just sounded like the mirror image of those voices who claim that everything the guy with tats says right now is touched by the divine.

I love the smell of dualisms in the morning.

It’s hard to hold opposing truths in the same mind. It’s hard to see good and band, corrupted and innocent, utterly stupid and profoundly wise in the same place. But I suspect that what’s going down in Florida right now is a mixture of both.

In fact, I’d go further. I don’t think we need to obsess so much about whether it is or is not branded by the divine – or, at least, we don’t need to look at the numbers or the tv exposure or the level or mainstream interest or even the quality of healings in order to make up our minds. I think that God deals in a different currency to all that. He doesn’t just put on a show or try to make occasional headlines. He deals in partnership with those that follow him, and it’s the impact on those people – and the impact they then have on the world around them – that really counts.

It’s probably bad form to quote yourself, but here’s a bit I wrote once before:

‘I heard that Jackie Pullinger brought up the subject [of the ‘revival’ in Toronto back in the 90s] among a number of Christians over a series of visits a few years back. She told them the story from her perspective, of how over in Hong Kong, amidst the drugs and the gangs and the death, they had all heard of the phenomenon that was taking place.

“Rich Christians were jumping on airplanes to visit the place where the laughter was,” she said. “We thought to ourselves, It will only be a matter of time before they board airplanes to visit the places where the crying is. We waited. But you didn’t come.”’

Click here and you can see a sample chapter I wrote about another ‘revival’ I once experienced. Unlike the current one this was smaller, but no less powerful. And it made a dramatic impact on the lives of those living near it. The only trouble was the fact that it took pace among a poor, unimpressive community. Who’d want to hear a story like that?