"There once was a wonderful woman..." (Nothing Compares)

There once was a wonderful woman,
A woman called Madame Larue,
She was kind, she was warm and compassionate,
And she was wonderfully beautiful too.
She had a rich air of authority,

And cared deeply about what was fair,
The people of Hampton so loved her,
That they asked her to be the town mayor.

She ruled over Hampton for thirty-three years,
But then it was time to give up,
She retired from the job after all of that time
And was awarded a shiny gold cup.
“But that isn’t enough,” the Hamptonites said,
“There is more we must do to say thank you!
We shall commission a sculptor to start work at once,
In the town square, to make us your statue!”

But quickly they noticed a problem,
The town budget for art had been cut!
So they had to find somebody reasonably cheap,
And they settled on half-blind Joe Schmutt.
He wasn’t that great of a sculptor,
But they reckoned that he’d have to do,
So they gave him the plans and a picture,
And paid him in pairs of old shoes.

He did what he could, did half-blind Joe Schmutt,
And they gathered when the big day arrived,
And they thought that the sculpture wasn’t too bad –
But they didn’t know it was alive!
Now it couldn’t quite move, nothing silly like that,
The thing was all made out of stone!
But the statue could hear, she could feel, she could speak,
And at night she would feel quite alone!

She had seen her original walking around,
At the opening – the old mayor was there;
Smiling and loving and saying kind things,
You could see in her eyes that she cared.
And the statue thought she was beautiful,
Such warmth and such marvellous joy!
To represent her was a priv’lege, she thought,
‘Twas an honour to be so employed.

For the first several days she was happy –

Pride swelled in her statuesque chest –

To be made in the image of beauty, she thought,
What a joy to be based on the best!
But then one day her dream – how it shatters!
Her pride –  how it crumbles and falls!
She caught a glimpse of herself in a selfie;
And she didn’t look lovely at all!

She looked nothing like her original;
There had to have been a mistake!
Her eyes were all narrow and bitter and mean,
And the twist of her smile just looked fake.
Even worse she was made out of metal –
She looked cold and shiny and hard –

So much for the pride and the privilege!
The image of beauty was marred.

Now at night when no one was listening,
She’d let out a little sad sigh.

And whenever the rain came and ran down her face,
She was glad to be able to cry.
Then one night, as the dark and the rain fell,
A boy came running down the street,
He was carrying handfuls of strange looking tools
And tears were fresh on his cheeks.

“What happened?” she asked, without thinking,
And he, without thinking, replied:
“They won’t let me be an apprentice –
And the boss didn’t even say why!”
“What trade were you hoping to learn then?
And what is that strange looking knife?”
“I was hoping to be a great sculptor,
And make statues that look true to life!”

She let out a gasp and a giggle –
It seemed just too good to be true!
And he turned, and he looked, and he jumped several foot,
And he said, “Hang about – who are you?!”
She said, “Can’t you see? I’m a statue!
And you see I don’t look all that good!
All I want is to look like the person I’m based on -
Could you help me? I think that you could.”

He looked at the tools that he held in his hand,
Then he looked up at her and he grinned –

“I’m Jonny,” he said, “and I’ll fix you alright!”
And then out of sheer joy he broke wind.
Then he set to work carving and chiselling,
Said, “I’ll fix you, I promise I will!
You’ll start looking better in no time at all,
Just remember to stay very still.”

She laughed at him, then stony silence,
And he worked for a while, then he yawned,
And he looked up and said “Urm, I’ve finished, I think”
Took a step back as day gently dawned.
His face didn’t radiate confidence.
And he quietly murmured a curse;
“Look, I tried, but I really am sorry,
I think that I’ve just made it worse!”

He picked up his tools in a hurry,
Mumbled “I’ll come back tonight.”
Then he turned away quickly so that she wouldn’t see
His tears in the soft morning light.
So she stood, all that day, and she waited,
And she thought about what she could do,
To show just how lovely the old mayor had been,
To reflect what was actually true!

So that night when the boy came up running,
She knew what she wanted to say.
She said, “Look, I will never be like her.
We just can’t do her justice that way.

So there’s just one more thing you can do for me –
Please, no more silly repairs –
You see there the plaque with her name on?
Just carve by it:
‘Nothing compares.’ “

The End.

So there you go, that’s a little slightly ridiculous poem for you. But if you know me you’ll know that there’s always a metaphor; and my brain did indeed start thinking about talking statues for a reason. I was thinking about my arrogance – and actually the arrogance of some Christians in general. I don’t mean the whole idea of it being arrogant to think that what you believe is True – that’s a whole different conversation – what I mean is my tendency to always defend myself. To say, “I’m not perfect… but actually in this situation I’ve not done anything wrong!” To say, “Oh no, Christians aren’t like that at all – no we’re lovely and generous and forgiving and so on and so forth…” To constantly be on the defensive against any allegations of Christians (and especially me) doing anything wrong. I think I have this sort of subconscious idea that I need to convince everyone of how great Christians are (and especially me) so that everyone will like Jesus.

And to be fair this makes some sense – after all, as followers of Jesus we’re supposed to be like him. We’re supposed to let him transform us so that when people get to know us, they get a glimpse of him. He offers to redeem us, to restore us to our original glory – so that once again we can be what we were made to be: the image of God. But it occurred to me the other day that we’re never going to get there. I believe that God will do incredible things within us, and that we can be transformed beyond recognition, but even after a lifetime we still won’t be close to being what Jesus is.

I can give away everything I own and it won’t get close to how generous he is. I can spend my life defending the cause of the poor and the oppressed and I won’t get close to how just and how righteous he is. I can listen to the cries and the silences of the hurting and let them soften my heart for years, and I won’t get close to his compassion. I can grit my teeth and forgive the worst things anyone will ever do to me, and I won’t get close to his grace.

In the end, however hard I try, one of the most important things I can do to do him justice – to represent him to the world in all his beauty – is to remember and to admit just how far we Christians are from being like him. It’s to apologise openly and regularly for our failure to look like our original.

There are a lot of people who have had really bad experiences of Christianity and of Christians. I just want to say, I am really sorry. Especially if those Christians were, in fact, me. And I want to say please, don’t write Jesus off because of our failures. Don’t let us obscure your view of him. Read through a gospel – if you don’t have one let me know and I will send you one, honestly – and see what he’s like. I’m telling you that however stupid and unpleasant we might be, if you’ll come to him, if you’ll trust him; he is patient and kind. He is not envious, he does not boast, he is not proud. He is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, and if we’ll ask him to forgive he keeps no record of wrongs. He does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. And he never fails.

So what I’m saying is that I am sorry, and that Jesus is so much, so much better than me or any of us. I’m trying to say, nothing compares.

With You.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about mental illness. A terrifying number of the people I know and love – especially people who are at uni now – are fighting some kind of depression or anxiety. Apparently universities across the country have got far more students needing counselling and support than they can cope with, and that doesn’t surprise me at all. I am so grateful that I haven’t had to fight it myself yet (and I do realise that this makes me completely unqualified to talk about it) but from being close to people who’ve had depression I can say for sure that it is an unbelievably horrible thing. I think it’s the most frightening thing I could ever imagine. For a really powerful description of what it’s like from the inside, you should all go and look at my friend Tom’s incredible blog - lighthouse318.wordpress.com

From my perspective, as a friend looking on, it makes me feel spectacularly useless. Because there is so little that anyone can do to help in that situation. I should say that from what I’ve heard CBT therapists and full on counsellors do an incredible job, and are incredibly useful – I’m talking about ordinary people like me. I mean, I can pray, and I have seen those prayers get answered, but still you can’t just run away from a situation and pray and that’s it. It’s not enough.

So I’m going to take a strange detour at this point to a story that I’ve stolen from one of my favourite books: Love Does by Bob Goff. He starts with this story and, (as I say whenever I tell a story in a blog) I love it way too much. It’s a true story from his life.

Basically what happened was, when he was 16, Bob decided to drop out of school, and be a mountain climber in Yosemite. He figured he’d just get a job in the valley, and climb in his off-time. The day he got started on this crazy plan, he drove by his friend Randy’s house on the way out, just to say bye. Randy was a friend who worked at Bob’s school for Young Life, a Christian organisation who tried to introduce young people to Jesus. Bob wasn’t interested in Jesus, but Randy was still interested in him, so they’d become friends.

Anyway, a few minutes after Bob knocked on Randy’s door, he opened it, bleary eyed, and Bob explained what was happening and said goodbye. Randy looked confused, and clarified that Bob was leaving soon? Right now, said Bob. Randy had a strange look on his face and he asked Bob to wait for a minute, before disappearing, and coming back two minutes later with a rucksack over one shoulder. “Would it be alright if I came with you?” said Randy, “Just ‘til you get settled in, then I’ll make my own way back.” Bob was surprised, but quite liked the idea. They got in the car and drove six hours to Yosemite.

Bob didn’t have much money, so the first night when they arrived, the slept in the back of a rent-a-tent, ready to make a run for it if anyone came round. No one did, and in the morning Bob said he was going to go and get a job in the valley. Randy just said, “I’m with you Bob.”

No one would give Bob a job. He was sixteen, completely unqualified, and the competition for jobs in Yosemite was incredibly fierce. But Randy kept encouraging him, and told him, “Bob, I believe in you – you can do this thing if you want to. But whatever happens, I’m just with you.”

The next day, as they crawled out the back of the tent, Randy turned to Bob, grinned and said: “Let’s go climb some rocks”. So they climbed rocks all morning, taunting each other and arguing about who was the better climber. Then they headed back into the valley so Bob could try his luck at the last small shops that he hadn’t been to the day before. Still nothing.

They sat on the front of Bob’s car and watched the sun start to set over the mountains. After a long silence Bob turned to Randy and said, “Look, thanks for coming with me and everything, but it looks like I’m striking out. Maybe I think I’ll just head home, and finish school.”  Randy said, “I’m with you, Bob” because that was really all there was to say.

They got back in the car, and drove the six hours back. They pulled up in Randy’s drive, alongside Randy’s girlfriend’s car, and Bob followed Randy into the house. He hadn’t actually been invited in, but he just felt like coming. As they got into the living room, he noticed a whole load of boxes and wrapping paper on the floor, and a microwave, half in its box on the sofa. Had he missed Randy’s birthday? Then Randy’s girlfriend came bounding out of the next room, and threw her arms round Randy – “Welcome home, honey!” she said, beaming.

And suddenly Bob realised what had happened. These were wedding presents on the floor. Randy had literally just got married, and instead of spending the first few days of married life with his new wife, he’d spent them sleeping in the back of a tent with some stupid kid who had a stupid plan to drop out of school.

Bob says that now, whenever he hears Jesus called ‘Emmanuel’, he thinks of Randy. Because ‘Emmanuel’ means ‘God with us’.

And that’s what I keep thinking recently, when I think about this feeling that there’s nothing I can do to help, is that my God calls himself ‘Emmanuel’. He calls himself, ‘God with us’. He says again and again, “I’m with you”. “I will never leave you or forsake you.” “You are not forgotten, you are not alone.” “I’m with you.” My God left complete perfection, and waded into our slimy world, and walked right into the darkest places so that he could whisper in our lonely ears, “I’m with you.”  So that not one of us really knows what it is to be alone, because he’s always by our side. Even if we hate him, even if we’ve never given him a moment’s thought, he’s there – waiting. Weeping for us and waiting for us.

And I want people to know that. I want it so badly – for everyone that hurts to know that they are not forgotten and they are not alone. And I also want to be that. I want to be like Randy – to drop anything, and give anything to be with someone when they need a friend. I want to be like my Dad in heaven, who says, “I’m with you.” Whatever it takes, wherever you go, however much it hurts, I’m with you. Because sometimes that is all there is to say.