Reflective Practice – Mike Mason

“The gospel is a license to love. It is a unilateral declaration that from now on there is only one law: the law of love. All other laws, all other organizing principles, all other systems of morality have been superceded. There is no longer any need to live for anything but pure love. The gospel is the granting of full permission to devote ourselves unashamedly to this foolishness. No longer is there the slightest justification for pursuing any other goal” – Mike Mason, Practicing the Presence of People

Dear friends,

This last weekend was an emotional roller-coaster ride for me. Last Saturday i attended the wedding of one of my church youth (now an adult) and on the same day, i had to comfort a family who’s father, a close friend of mine, was dying of cancer. i knew and spent considerable time with the newly wed couple in their teens and Uni days. But i also invested time with my friend who is dying. Both incidents prompted me to think about relationships and the way we love one another.

Then i remembered an incident…. and it helped me process some of the feelings i had.

i was in Singapore Bible College Library to use it’s vast journals and periodicals. And there was a couch in the library. A blue couch. It sat there neatly in the otherwise cold and sterile environment. It should really fit in. After all, it was in a relatively new building and the library with all her theological books fitted well with its electric blue color. Rather, it stood as a stark and vivid contrast to the otherwise bland and tasteless drape of monochromatic steel cabinets. Somehow, over at that little corner of the library, it simply sat. Waiting. Many passed by it daily not even looking at it. Some did, but like all typical students caught in the maddening rush of assignments, they gave it a pass. It was a couch unused and unloved.

And I sat down on it that one afternoon….

The warm fabric immediately caressed my cold arms and it felt good. The delightful backrest simply cushioned my lower back, offering a welcoming respite from a long and hard day of study. In that quiet late afternoon, I found the joy of rest. Not physical resting, but rest. More pleasantly, it was the joy of rest – taking time to do such a simple thing as sitting on a couch. Had I known that it felt so good, I would have sat on it earlier. Taking off my shoes and propping up my tired legs, I took time to read Mike Mason’s “Practicing the Presence of People.” Strangely, as I lay snuggly on the unwanted couch, people seemed to suddenly notice the couch, and me sitting on it. One lady came up to me and commented, albeit sarcastically, “So comfortable huh?” Another walked by and said, “Wow! How I envy you!” Still another asked how does it feel to sit on it. But all three declined my invitation to experience first hand for themselves how it feels to rest on that inviting couch. They had a similar conclusion – no time!

Practicing: A Process

Odd as it seems, in that short few hours of quiet reading and meditating on Mason’s book, I found myself drawn to the author and the couch. Practicing the Presence of People became to me Practicing the Presence of Now with My Couch. Yes, the couch became my couch. The couch was no longer alone. And I wasn’t alone with all the books and journals. In the most curious ways, I felt one with my couch. I began to appreciate what Mason described as the love of people, and love of self. But it wasn’t the love “of” that struck me most about the book, but the love “for” that I was practicing there and then, with my couch. Suddenly, in that briefest moment, I tasted what Mason was trying to point out in his book – to love again. What an exhilarating experience!

It might appear peculiar for me to take time to have a love affair with an inanimate object as a couch. But that’s exactly the point. Why are we taking our time and our energy for work, for visions, for goals… when ultimately, all these lead and point to God’s people created in God’s image? We all want to serve in a school, an organization, a church, but yet in the midst of our busyness, we have forgotten that it is people whom all we truly serve. People! This realization may not be too shocking for some of us. And some of you would even lament that i am belaboring the point too much. But unless we pause, stop dead in our fast paced and never ending tracks, we will not be able to fully comprehend what God said in Psalms 46:11“Be still and know that I am God!” From this comes the outflow of what Mason has been crusading throughout his book, that is: To serve God, we need to serve man, and this begins with ourselves.

It is just like the relationship with my couch. We know that we need to stop and contemplate. We even attend courses or seminars to teach us how to pray and meditate. Courses on contemplative theology attempt to take us to that level plane. And we know sitting on a couch as inviting and available as the blue couch in the library at 9-15 Adam Road, Singapore feels good and fulfills exactly what the couch is designed to do, and yet we don’t. Why? Because we are so restless and hostile to our own self (and others) that we fail to recognize this restlessness and hostility is an outrage to our creator God. Unless we cease striving, and completely surrender to our self and to our desires, we will not and cannot know God’s design for us – to worship Him!

The disease which plagued most of us today is not that we don’t love, not that we cannot love, but we try too hard to love. And in trying, wasting our human efforts to do so, we have fallen short of the “glory of God”. Man’s way is not God’s way – a cliché we have heard time and again but have not fully grasped its significance and impact. Joshua stood still and allowed the battle to be fought by God. Jesus slept soundly as the storm raged and crashed around him. But if we were there with Joshua or Jesus, surely we would be fooling ourselves by saying that the battle belonged to the Lord! More likely, the silence is the result of our utter fear rather than that of complete rest!

The three people who stopped by in my interlude with the couch and Mason’s book were cases to point. The invitation was made, the reality was available, and yet the tyranny of busyness seems to seize their day rather than to size up the opportunity. Pity…. But what was tragic and sad about it was that they did not even try. Like love, one cannot love or be loved unless one tries. Mason wants us to do that. God certainly did because God gave His ultimate Gift to demonstrate His divine love for us. And indeed He tried to let all know! Like Jesus’ disciples, we are unaware that Jesus’ very present manifestation of love in their midst was available to them, and to us today. All we need is to cease doing and start being….

Love verses Chaos

God controls both history and nature, the chaotic threat which both may offer to human existence and may be faced fearlessly. The very worst manifestation of chaos is merely a threat, for the Creator God has mastered chaos. The order of creation has been established, and yet the reality of our human existence is that there continues to be manifestations of chaos. Chaos stands in direct opposition to this love. Faith in God’s protection, expressed so profoundly in the Scriptures, is both present and proleptic, reaching forward to the time of God’s ultimate conquest of chaos and establishment of peace. Until then, we as creatures in a fallen world live in it without hope, save the Hope of all mankind. And to love is to witness this hope that God has already freely bestowed to us Christ-ians. And it is this hope in Christ that the Gospels urge us to proclaim, and this hope that is for us to embrace.

In the process of knowing people and forgetting ourselves, we can open up glorious new dimensions in our relationships. We can discover new things about those we love, understand them from inside out, tenderly identify with their weaknesses, and celebrate that they were lovingly made by the hand of God.

Jesus stated that the greatest commandment of all was to “Love your neighbor as yourself, and love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your might.” True Christ-like love is an important thing to learn as a Christian, and when we come to know Christ, we enter into a love relationship that requires commitment, self-control and many other characteristics.

Reflecting on Relationships

Reading the book, sitting in the snug blue couch, one late afternoon, I have been challenged to practice and build deep, meaningful relationships with others. The marriage and the mourning i experienced last weekend is a cumulation of the love invested years past. I have seen that the harder I work at building close relationships with people the more my character develops and the closer my connection is with God. When I forget about the things I think I “need,” and humble myself before other people and my Father, I can examine and identify with others’ weaknesses and see the weaknesses in myself. In essence, the more we draw close to others, the more we get a glance into what our own hearts look like. The sad truth about this invitation to be close to others, thereby exploring the inner dimension of ourselves, is that it is scary to do so. Fear of rejection, of hurt, alienation, or even discovering our true identity prohibits us from attempting even to draw nigh to others.
Whether we are outgoing people persons or introverts, when we learn to show compassion and love for others, we are able to grow as a person and be able to celebrate the life that we have all equally received through Jesus.

The Psalmist proclaimed, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” For that few hours quietly meditating on His goodness, I did not just taste that the Lord is good. I took a whole bite out of life, perhaps a slice so rich and wonderful that it took me a while to comprehend this marvelously delicious feeling of belonging, of wanting and not needing. The end of the equation is that love has taken on a fresh new life of its own for me. And this is found simply and unspeakably through a blue couch, at the corner of a library!

Practicing the Presence of People. The back cover of the book jacket says that this book explores the vital question, “How do we learn to love?” This is perhaps not too accurate a conclusion about the book. It is not just another “how-to” book on love itself, altough some may conclude that it is so. Rather, to me, the heartbeat of the book is to live life and to challenge us to love the way God intended us to love. Mason showed us the way through his well chisel sentences. It is easy to love from a distance, but Mason shows us how to love up close and personal – like taking time to experience the comforts of the otherwise forlorn couch….

For those of you who are interested in reading Mason’s book, drop me an email…. i’ve only got one copy!

Please pray for the following:
a) Mr Jason Yogawin (Principal BBS Bandung) went to the hospital yesterday for dizziness. His blood pressure was high but blood tests were inconclusive.. Please pray for his complete recovery.
b) Parents’ Fellowship will be held this Friday at BBS KJ Primary school. Pray for the message by Romo Eko Aldilanto to be Word-centered and touch the hearts and minds of the parents attending.
c) Give thanks for the one month of marketing blitz in various malls around Jakarta. Pray for the follow-ups by various campuses and enrollments target we need to hit next year.
d) Continue to pray for the victims of Mount Merapi and the tsunami that hit Mentawai islands. Several campuses are now collecting “sembako” (staple food) and money for the victims. Pray for wisdom and accountability for this work. Please contact me if your campus is collecting these donations.
e) Pray for our students who are now in the midst of their preparation for the mid-year exams. SA 1 is only a week away. Remember our students who are still attempting their AS papers and IGCSE.
f) Ask God for wisdom for our Directors and leaders of the school. As the schools rapidly expand one area of needs is to allocate our resources wisely. We have been searching for suitable land for some campuses and pray that God’s will be done.

Have a great week ahead and love your people….

desmond