Author: Danny Webster

Waiting on an Angel – Chapter 2

Danny Webster Leave a comment

The keys came out of the jeans, the purse out of her jacket pocket and hit the black tray proffered before her. She stepped forward still bleary eyed and progressed through the scanner and the noise was unbearable. Maybe after a full night’s sleep and without the anxieties of what lay ahead she would not have reacted so badly.  

The guard gestured towards her belt and gently encouraged her to step back. Inclined to swear at the guard in one of several languages she slunk back and removed her belt, and boots were now demanded to be taken off as well. Kathy had suddenly taken a step or two up the register of potential terror suspects at the parochial airport outside Avignon.

The months on the road and country lanes across France had not endeared her any more to the culture. Which was a bit of a problem, learning languages had seemed like a great way of travelling the world but maybe Kathy didn’t like the world she had envisioned travelling quite as much as she had hoped. Suddenly the leafy suburbs of Surrey were a dream, but a dream tinged with nagging questions that had been conveniently avoided throughout the summer. She knew that after a few days grace they would return, and with a more urgent tone. Manifested mainly through the quiet concern of her parents, and generous suggestions of friends, various options would be presented to her. And right now she had considered them all and mentally written them all off already. It was not that they didn’t mean well, but they were thinking about it all the wrong way round.

The extra week she had stayed after Emma had left had mostly been about not coming home. She’d seen all the sites there were to see and spoken enough French to convince herself that she had achieved her purpose. But the seven days had given her too much time to think. Especially as she sat in the ramshackle farmhouse across the river from the historic centre. It had seemed quaint when they were together, it was also incredibly cheap, far less than the hostels five minutes away. But the quietness of autumn drawing in had drained the last customers away and after consecutive evenings alone with the owners she started wandering back into town at night to find an escape from the tedium.

Kathy supposed it was fair enough for Emma to want a few days with her brother after a summer apart and before a job consumed him once again. But the hassle of changing flights to return together had seemed too much and the alteration fees and non refundable deposits all made it seem an unnecessary waste of money. And money was something she didn’t have. It was always difficult to explain to people that she had no money, they always assumed she was part of the Surrey Set, born ready to live a life of luxury and extravagance. But that never quite matched up with her life.

She had made it through security desperate to find a cup of coffee to shake of the weariness that was haunting her. The hourly bus out of the town to arrive at an airport not yet open. Waiting for the check in staff to arrive for work, manually changing the flight boards which remained from yesterday’s flight to Paris. The inane questioning, the pointless suspicion, all conspiring to make the trip home as interminable as possible. Kathy found the lounge, or Formica chairs and tables, arranged around a bar which few self respecting hotels would place in their bedrooms, and was not surprised to find that no one was there.

Finally the bar opened and caffeine was forthcoming, from the check in assistant. This was the most comical excuse for an airport she had yet encountered. Kathy realised that perhaps despite the rural privations of the summer or the development tourism she had experienced on trips to Africa she liked her comforts. It was the expectation of what an airport should be that shook her, especially one in France. Had this been a bush landing strip in Ecuador she would have had no problem. She said this to herself despite never having been anywhere near Ecuador never mind a bush landing strip. As she ruefully considered her coffee as actually rather good Kathy granted herself a little chuckle at the prospect of the surly security guard turning out to double up as the pilot.

Kathy had hardly spoken to anyone during the past week. She was not a shy person by nature but the limited social contact and the pointlessness of any interaction when she was about to leave made her mind up for her. So when the young French chap sauntered over to her table sat down and started speaking she resisted the urge to switch to French for his ease and hoped over a few pleasantries he would go on his way. The problem was that unless he worked here, which he didn’t, then he too was on his way to Gatwick.

“Can I use this seat”. She silently wondered what he would use it for but politely assented with a universal nod of the head and picked up the coffee cup to preclude any immediate conversation. It was at times like this she wished she was a little ruder. There were plenty of free tables, so she could have suggested he used one of the numerous other chairs and tables on offer. But she didn’t and he sat down and just as Kathy reached into her bag to retrieve her book and provide further insulation against prolonged conversation he launched into another faltering sentence. “Have you had a holiday? Is it that you had a good time?”

Convinced that she could not ignore him any longer she carefully chose her words so as to not offer any unnecessary encouragement. “Yes, I have been in France all summer, mostly travelling with a friend but she went home last week”. But Kathy had committed a fatal error, one she would remember in the future: when trying to stop a conversation do not leave any unanswered details.

“Where have you travelled? What was your favourite place? I love Paris, did you go to Paris?” If it wasn’t happening to her she would have laughed at the cliché riven questions. Instead she switched to polite and informative hoping that perhaps someone else might join the conversation. After wishing to be alone it was now safety in numbers she sought.

“I started off in Calais, travelled into Paris and stayed there for a week and did all of the usual tourist activities. Then we mostly walked through the country staying at villages and in farmhouses. We got to Avignon two weeks ago and, this is a city I really like, but I am ready to go home now.”

Kathy paused and then did the dutiful thing, “Do you live in Avignon?”

“Yes, I live in Avignon, but I am travelling to London to see my friend who is studying.” Kathy caught herself before she tried to work out if he was referring to a girlfriend. It seemed a little odd to be travelling at the start of term to visit someone who had presumably just left, to see a girlfriend made a little more sense, it also would have provided the reassurance against the suspicion that had been lingering in her mind for the past few minutes that he was trying it on.

“What should we do in London, what are the best places to visit?” This what not a question she was well equipped to answer, never really into tourist attractions she had tagged along to the day trips to London to get out of school for the day, but struggled to muster much enthusiasm.

“There are lots of museums and places to visit. The Tower of London is my favourite,” Kathy decided on the spot, “where are you staying?” This was a twofold device, firstly it steered the conversation away from something where she would only disappoint, but also reckoned she could have another go at finding out if he was visiting a girlfriend.

At first Kathy thought he had perhaps not understood, but then thought for a horrified second that her unprompted question could be considered an offer of accommodation. Fortunately he found his voice, seemingly only hesitating to decide how to translate into English what he wanted to say, “I will stay on my friends floor.” This did not answer Kathy’s question in quite the way she had hoped. She also realised that she had given far to much thought to this rather insignificant conversation. But it occurred to her that if it was a girlfriend then this was a rather strange arrangement, either they would sleep together, or surely he would stay elsewhere. She knew of no couples who would be happy sharing a room but insist that one gets the carpet.

“This London Tower, it is good? Do you have a bit of paper so I can write it down to remember?” Kathy was suddenly aware of the power of her words, she’d never been, what if it was dreadful, anyway, this seemed like a way to end the conversation on a good note. She rooted into her bag and failing to find any paper aside from her precious Moleskin notebook, which this situation did not warrant the desecration of tearing a page out of, she eventually landed on a card which brought a wry chuckle which she failed to suppress. In her remarkable optimism at the start of the summer before she embarked on her little expedition Kathy had got some card printed with her details on to hand out to anyone she thought might be able to offer her a job as she travelled through France. She scribbled ‘Tower of London’ on the back of one and handed it over.

The card flicked over as it crossed the table, “Kathy Lawrence”, he said as he turned it over and thanked her, “my name is Sebastian Gillette and it is very nice to meet you, thank you.” With that he slowly picked up his bag as the solitary flight leaving Avignon was now called for departure, and Sebastian made his way to the gate. Kathy was completely flummoxed. Not only did this strange French man know her name but she realised that card she so thoughtlessly handed over also had her phone number and email on. This could all be unnecessary worrying she thought as she made her way, thankful for the few passengers now between her and Sebastian, to the plane.

Waiting on an Angel – Chapter 1

Danny Webster Leave a comment

Samuel waited. He’d been waiting for a while, slightly uncomfortable with his tie done up too tight and the shirt that fitted well just a few months before now rather snug around the collar.

This was a rather novel experience for Samuel. He wasn’t accustomed to having to wait for very much in life. He either got it or he didn’t. And now he was waiting for a church minister.

Samuel fidgeted on the seat and thought that maybe he had made a mistake. He gazed through the glass partition and saw the people seemingly lounging around. He could swear that a couple of them were just chatting over a cup of coffee. He played around with his keys in his pocket, restrained himself from pulling his phone out and tapping out a tweet or two. In fact, he was sure it had vibrated a few times in the moments since he had sat down. Only good manners stopped him from drifting back into the digital space.

It was a day like this two months ago that Samuel had first met the Rev Dr Adam Glynn. The clouds hung low in the sky, desperate to trap the heat in, a day when public transport verges on a health hazard and makes you glad for a change of clothes. And it was only since that day that he had adopted the full form of his name, trying to get used to it so as to not make an inauspicious start to this next stage of life. It had not been a normal interview. Far more examination as to whether he felt that abbreviating his name was paying disservice to the biblical hero of Samuel, than to any skills or qualities that had been nervously rehearsed the night before. The reverend doctor went as far as to suggest that it might be considered a minor form of blasphemy to truncate such an inspirational name.

That was the thing that had very nearly persuaded Samuel not to take the job. His stubborn independence stretched beyond not being inclined to change his name on dubious hermeneutical grounds. He wondered what other points of confrontation would lay ahead, and on reflection it was this aspect of challenge that made him take the leap.

Samuel was also surprised not to have to defend his decision to give up teaching. Virtually every other person who he had spoken to had urged him to think again, quietly suggested that he had a very strong career development programme and should be very grateful for the opportunities that had been presented to him.

“Samuel Engle”, and suddenly he was dragged out of his frustration with his family as the reverend doctor came out from behind the glass doors and clasped his hand between both of his. Samuel also realised at this moment that the tie was the right choice. He’d spent a good few hours going back and forth over whether it was too formal, or not. And everyone had different advice, they might as well have suggested turning up in Bermuda shorts he thought. He’d been tempted to lose the tie, set his stall out straight away and refuse to be defined by tradition or anyone else’s behaviour. But as Adam stood before him, shoulders forced back and elbow pads just visible, wearing a tie seemed to be the only thing Samuel had got right.

“We begin our week with a time of Bible study together as a staff team, it’s expected that everyone contributes, but we’ll go easy on you today, perhaps you could read the passage?”

Samuel nodded in grateful relief, this I can do, he thought to himself, also silently proud that he had remembered to bring his new Bible. He followed Adam into the small hall where the staff had assembled and was introduced to them all. Suddenly before he had acclimatised to the draught that was running across the floor from the side door he was asked to read from James 2.

As he lifted his Bible out of the bag he noticed a few suspicious glances at the book, but he ploughed on and read the chapter in the firm and authoritative voice that had developed in the classroom. Samuel was slightly pleased as he reached the end, no stumbled words, and no difficult names; all told he felt he’d got through that unscathed. But his dreams were shattered as the reverend doctor turned to his left and suggested that Esme might like to also read the passage from her version. Later as they filed out even more furtive enquiries were made in the direction of Samuel’s Poverty and Justice Bible.

“That was perhaps a little unfortunate Samuel” Adam started as they sat down in his office. “As a church we are firmly in the word-for-word tradition of biblical translation and while looser translations can provide an enjoyable read they do not secure us in the same depth of understanding.” Samuel made to point out that he hadn’t actually bought the Bible but it was a present from his sister as he started this new job, but already sensed that this would be futile.

Samuel had attended Holland Park Baptist Church (Continuing) for the past two years, but suddenly everything seemed different now he was on the inside. He glanced around the office for some solace of comfort but between the Hebrew dictionaries and tomes of commentary he wasn’t entirely sure what might offer any encouragement. Adam started up again and Samuel girded himself up for another rebuke to an indiscretion he had not yet noticed.

“You are a very bright young man and we are delighted that you will be working with us. The next year will be full of challenges, the life of a minister of the gospel is never easy, but it will also give you some fantastic opportunities.” With his ego suitably boosted he sat a little taller in his chair and started to speculate what these might be. Before the pause between Adam’s instructions had taken its last breath he had begun to conjure an image where he was stood in front of a large crowd, clearing and firmly guiding them into a full knowledge of what the Christian life was to be. “I will be personally mentoring you this year, and I expect you to apply yourself to all parts of church life as well as your theological study.

All parts of church life seemed positive enough; Samuel had been worried that as a lowly apprentice he would be the receptacle for all the tasks no one else really wanted to do. All parts of church life meant that he would get a chance to preach: because that’s a part of church life isn’t it? And the subsidised theological study, that was the clincher in him deciding to move on from teaching and find a challenge in a more stimulating and enriching environment.

As the revered doctor set out the programme for his first few days he thought back to the interview and wondered again why he had ever doubted he would get the post. Samuel did not consider himself an arrogant man, only one who is confident in what he can offer to the life of a church. Surely they couldn’t have been deluged with candidates for a job that barely pays and a life of the pressures already becoming evident.

Samuel’s sister Emma still hadn’t got her head around what he saw in this church. As his mind wondered he realised it was probably best he hadn’t elaborated on where his new Bible had come from. If there was anything he was going to set as his ambition for the coming year it would be to reconcile the relationship between the churches they both attended. How could it be that he had to tread so carefully when he referred to the church she attended?

In the interview he had been asked about his testimony, in fact he had been asked to prepare a three minute presentation on how he became a Christian which he used when none believers enquired of his beliefs. He was a bit shaky on this, since the halcyon days of conversion he had grown steadily worse at this practice known as evangelism. But at least he had a good testimony, that’s what he reassured himself with, none of this rather boring growing up in a Christian family malarkey. He even had a feather in his cap because Emma had become a Christian after he had so he reckoned he could notch that one up as a successful piece of evangelism.

Samuel didn’t really understand why Emma wouldn’t come toHollandPark, it was also an acute source of awkwardness, having to skirt around the fact that she was living inLondon, close by but attended a different church. When he’d got the post Samuel had suggested to his sister that it might be nice if they both went to church together. This idea, as uncontroversial as any he had proffered was met with a hasty rebuff. Before he got completely sidetracked from following what his induction programme was for the next week he made a note to try again and find out quite what it was that kept Emma away.

The reverend doctor appeared to have finished his spiel, and suggested that they take a tour around the office and meet all the staff. Samuel hadn’t imagined that this many people would work for the church, he knew it wasn’t just a one man show but Adam did preach virtually every week. But the office was a hive of activity as he was introduced to the various different departments. Suddenly Adam drew him to one side and suggested that the following staff were not publicly known to be working for the church because their project was rather on the confidential side. Had this been big business he would have understood the concern about industrial espionage, but in a church it seemed rather over the top. And the two men in question were hunched over a bank of screens playing around with images of an empty unfamiliar church hall.

“We are working on a new project with St Peter’s Stratford; they have requested our assistance during their ministerial interregnum so I will be preaching to both congregations from a few weeks time.” An idea pounced into Samuel’s mind and thought carefully before he spoke.

“Technology can do some wonderful things can’t it? Are St Peter’s looking for a new minister?”

“Not at the moment”, Adam swiftly responded, “We think that there is no reason why should this arrangement work out it can’t be used for the foreseeable future.” And as quickly as the thought had entered Samuel’s mind that he might be being primed for this role it was vanquished.

As Samuel sat down at his desk he looked around and realised that this was an unusual environment. It was an office, everyone was busy, there was a finance department, a communications team, but it was not quite normal. Because the business was not making money, but running a church, and he reminded himself, a very successful church.

So despite the slightly awkward beginnings, and the confirmation that the reverend doctor might not be the easiest person to work for Samuel was content. He had only been teaching for a few years but had realised that it was not the life he wanted. He was not minded to wait for a better option to come along, or to hope that the life of a teacher miraculously transformed into the enriching and stimulating career his parents had promised it would be.

Over the summer he had realised that waiting was not his strongest of qualities. He had even asked if he could begin work during August, previous summers had put pay to the common misconception that teachers got gloriously long holidays as he spent days while the sun shone preparing lessons and researching new topics. In hindsight he thought, perhaps it was never worth the effort, the students did not appear to appear to appreciate his carefully researched and revolutionary explanation of the battle ofAgincourtand the alternative trajectory of European history that quite literally hung on a shoe string.

It was the commitment to biblical scholarship that had attracted him to Holland Park when he moved to London, not just a church committed to God’s Word, but one where his desire to further his theological understanding would be embraced and nurtured. This was why in turn Samuel was content as he found his way around his small desk and realised that it had not been fully cleared from its use by last year’s apprentice. A reminder had he needed one that he was only here for the year.

Samuel thought it was about time he got on with whatever work they had for him but the reverend doctor seemed hesitant. He suggested that Samuel might want to spend some time looking through the church handbook and come to him at the end of the day with any questions or concerns. “Once you have signed the church compact we will have plenty of work for you to be getting on with.”

He thought a little before he opened the red folder which continued the policies and positions ofHollandParkBaptistChurch(Continuing). He knew that this was coming, but he was still apprehensive, he was pretty certain he was going to have to lie. Not really the beginning he wanted. Somehow he had hoped that this formality would not arise and he would avoid putting pen to paper to confirm his deceit.

NANOWRIMO (or am I really this insane?)

Danny Webster 1 Comment

Tomorrow I start writing a novel. And thirty days later I will hopefully have finished. At least that’s the plan, because November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, or just plain NaNo. And the idea is to write 50 000 words in a month.

The point is quantity and not quality, so I have to get my inner editor into a straight jacket and stop worrying too much about whether things make sense or not. Or otherwise important aspects like whether characters have depth and are believable, or encourage you to empathise with them.

There is another challenge. I don’t really have a plot. I’ve got a few characters, and a few key events and plot twists. But can you really have a plot twist if you haven’t got a plot in the first place?

Perhaps the biggest problem though is that I’ve never written a substantial work of fiction before. I’ve written academic theses, I’ve even got 30 000 words of a non-fiction book stashed somewhere in my computer, but I’m reckoning the last piece of creative writing I did was when I was back at school. And they were called stories back then.

I found an old school exercise book at my parent’s house and I had a habit when I was seven of writing these wonderfully repetitive stories each Monday morning in which I would describe my weekend and go into an unnecessary amount of detail of the number of peas that I ate. Hopefully this attempt will be better than that.

The bones of the next months are this: I will aim to write 2 000 words a day, a bit more than needed but I’m sure I’ll need the slack. I’m not going to kill myself, so if it all goes wrong, then I’ll bail. But I want to have some fun, I’ll go along to a write in or two, I may even try and organise one for anyone else out there doing it.

One other thing, I’m going to blog it as I go. So for the next month that’s pretty much all you’re going to see here at Broken Cameras, no relationship advice, no open letters to the girls and the guys. No slightly strange pieces about the pace of our lives. 

Except the novel will include relationships, and maybe just a little poking of fun at the dysfunctional Christian dating scene, as well as just about every other part of the Christian world which I find amusing. So you can’t get away from it altogether. 

To make this abundantly clear, this is a work of fiction, none of the characters are based on anyone I know. Of course my imagination comes from somewhere, but where I’ve taken particular character traits from real life I’m going out of my way to give them to completely different people. There are one or two anecdotes that simply have to make it into the novel, but rest assured, if the anecdote belongs to you, the character is not you. It’s also not autobiographical; I toyed with writing myself into one of the lead roles, but not only would that make me a Nanowrimo Rebel, but it would mean I could do less with the character without people asking all sorts of questions about what was true and what was not. Because my life is not interesting enough on its own. 

I hope you enjoy, the novel doesn’t have a title yet, hopefully inspiration will strike.

Is singleness an issue in the church?

Danny Webster 4 Comments

Should the church do anything about the single people in its midst?

I threw this out on twitter and got more feedback than on anything I’ve ever tweeted before. So one thinks there might be a few things to ponder here.

The responses fitted into two broad groups, those who thought it wasn’t really an issue, and those who wanted the church to stop being so sympathetic and patronising.

But maybe we conflate the church with the church leadership, or the church staff, or the officially organised and sanctioned programmes of the church.

Because the church doing something about it is you and me deciding to help people get together. Or encourage people struggling with relationships. Or discipling people to help them not find their identity in being someone’s girlfriend – or having that girl on your arm. The girls blame it on there being too few guys, and the guys say there’s too many girls. (seriously, they do.)

And I’ve heard enough sermons with the intentional brief asides that challenge guys to man up and ask girls out. And I’ve had enough conversations with girls frustrated with guys not asking them out, and with guys daunted by the prospect, or dizzied by indecision.

The core criticism seems to be that the church treats married people as the norm, and single people as those who are waiting for the right person to come along. Thrown into this mix are those with the specific calling to be single, which we are told to remember to affirm as a gift from God andSt Pauland John Stott are cited as our exemplars.

This description lets two groups of people off the hook and leaves the people out side these mutually exclusive groups rather stranded. If you’re married then you’re ok, if you want to be single, you’re affirmed. If you are single and pretty desperate not to be you’re kind of in trouble.

You are in trouble because the church doesn’t know what to tell you. Should they tell you that marriage is an ideal that you strive for? Of counsel that singleness is a wonderful calling?

We’re not very good at living in a place where things don’t add up. We’re unable to handle the ideal of one thing, the gift of another, and the role of God in redeeming humankind and working in each of our lives at all times.

We want it simple. We want someone else to do something about it. But we also want our independence. So we like the idea of speed dating in the church. Of semi arranged marriages avoiding the social awkwardness of dating, and well, removing the risk element from it all.

But that’s the fastest post I’ve ever written, so I haven’t really thought this through. What are your thoughts? Is there such a thing as a singleness problem, and if so, is it in the number of single people or the way in which they’re treated?

Please tell me.

Failure is compulsory

Danny Webster 1 Comment

The waiting, for whatever comes next. The hoping, for that which you dream of. The silence, when it does not appear. The anguish, when the hope starts to fade. The joy, when dreams turn to reality. The peace, when silence is a pleasure.

I’ve wondered why we can be so obsessed with achievement. Whether it is the hunt for money, for status, for a woman to wear on our arms. Whether it is in our family on the monopoly board, among our friends as we embellish to impress, or at work when we drive ourselves crazy to get ahead.

Does our affirmation come from what we achieve, or how others view us? And in the end does it all come down to the same thing? That we are judged by others on our achievements. It could be as simple as whether we are funny. Or if we got through the day at work without knocking over the tea.

But it drives us to distraction. This constant effort to impress. Often impress ourselves above all. To think that we have done something. To not feel like our existence is without meaning.

It distracts us from who we are. We allow ourselves to be defined by what we do well.

Here’s a thought: what if we got a whole lot better at failing?

At getting things gloriously and magnificently wrong. What if we embraced failure with the same enthusiasm with which we greet success? Getting it right can be so tiring, so demanding. The pressure to maintain an aura of invincibility. Yet we still try and pretend that failure doesn’t bother us, we try to shrug it off and move forward. Surely a thorough grappling with failure would not deny the pain that it can cause, the upset, the let downs, the cost.

We’re not to pursue failure out of some martyr complex, but we must address it because, and I hate to break this to you if it is news, but we are going to do it quite a lot.

When it all goes wrong and you want to run away from the world. When no one seems to care that the time you have spent has been wasted. When you summon up the guts to tell a girl you like her, and she turns you down. When the world falls from around your feet.

But not everything that does not go as we planned is a failure. There is pain, there is embarrassment and then there are the adventures in faith we take. The paths we tread even when we know not where they lead, when the outcome is vague, perplexing, daunting. I sometimes wonder if the lives we lead are the instruments of a capricious God, one who toys with us, playing games with our lives. Pushing us down roads that will lead to heartache and disappointment.

Failure is not only about learning lessons. Sometimes there seem none to learn.

Failure is not just about building emotional capacity. Sometimes the pain is too much to bear.

Failure is not the opposite to success. Sometimes it is the only option.

And it’s too often us who judge what success looks like. Perhaps we have a warped take on it all. Perhaps the greatest failures are the greatest achievers. After all, isn’t that written somewhere else?

For a little while I’ve played around with whether utilitarianism is consistent with Christianity (yes, I just brought some philosophy into this). Surely we all want what is best for the greatest number of people.

Except it assumes that we know what is best.

So here’s a thought to end with, is utilitarianism just the philosophy of delusions of grandeur? That we know what is best for the most. And this is worth whatever cost it requires.

The art of (enforced) waiting

Danny Webster Leave a comment

It’s been a long day.

Up early, far too early, especially after a late night. But that was my fault and I knew what I was letting myself in for. I’d chosen to take a slightly psychotic day trip to Liverpool for the Labour party conference. Even with everything going to plan I wouldn’t be home before midnight.

But everything didn’t go according to plan, and there was nothing I could do about it. My train home suddenly stopped at Rugby station. And then the announcement came over the tannoy, that we were being held here indefinitely because of a fatality near Watford Junction.

I looked around the carriage and there was the awkward mix of reactions fused across my travelling companions’ faces. Frustration of delays on a late night train, questions of how they’d get home, whether they’d be stranded here all night, along with a sense that such annoyance was out of place when a life had been lost. I turned to twitter and the outrage was less filtered. The train buffet car suddenly started doing a brisk trade, the coffee machine getting exercise usually reserved for the breakfast rush.

So I wait. And there is nothing more I can do. There are no words that I can say that will make any difference, my actions would be less futile.

And I wonder: just how much do we rely on ourself? How frequently are we lulled into thinking that we are the masters of our existence? When all too often we are ships that are tossed on the waves, subject to the whims of the elements, affected by the comings and goings of the world we live in.

When we are forced to stop. And we have to listen. To the next announcement. And wait. For the rumbling of the train’s under carriage as we hopefully resume our progress.

But even in my compulsory reflection I am focused on where I am going.

How often in life do we do the same? Have our eyes so firmly fixed on someplace else that even when we are made stop and consider our current circumstances we are oriented by the goal that we aim to achieve. Could it be that we miss something of the wonder of the present in our hurry to reach tomorrow.

So for now I continue to gaze across the platforms of Rugby station. My frustration unabated, but without any purpose so I put it to one side.

What else do I think is my responsibility that I need to put to one side?

From one to another

Danny Webster 5 Comments

Dear guys,

Last week I wrote a letter to the female race, you may have read it. If you didn’t, it might be a good place to start.

This is quite a different letter, to the ladies I was trying to give a glimpse of insight into the way one particular guy thought, felt and acted. To you I’ve got a few words of advice.

Decide if you like a girl, find a way to let her know, and explore if that liking turns to love.

I told you I only had a few. Because, who am I to try and tell you much else?

You have walked a road that I have not travelled. The chances for love may have been punctuated with disappointment. I do not think I can write for every situation that you will have experienced.

It is not my place to opine about you longing after a girl who has walked away.

Can I with any credibility chastise the philanderer who leads each girl on and into his arms, but finds that there is another more pleasing to his eyes?

When you tell me that you have asked out one woman and then the next, and this has happened time and time again and they continue to turn you down: because my rejection count does not compare, I cannot advise.

And when you meet the one who you love, when she takes a step into the church and you turn and gaze up the aisle, the joy that overwhelms must be contained.

Because I have not been there. I have not lived the life you live.

But in fact, we need to help each other. We need to be honest about the challenges we face, share the hopes that we have and the dreams that one day might be our reality.

We need to cry when sadness darkens our day, confide when we’ve nowhere left to turn. Tell each other when we are being idiots, encourage us in our pursuit, or caution against heartache that might lurk ahead.

We do not know the life that each other leads unless we let each other in. We cannot help each other until first we welcome help. We are not ready to love a lady, with all our heart, with all our strength, if we have not first learnt who we are.

We cannot use the exceptionalness of our lives as a shroud to permit secrecy. Of course we all have experiences that others have not shared, and we will sometimes struggle to comprehend what greets each others’ day. The words of advice may be idiotic, the comfort we bring ineffectual, but that is not an excuse to close our lives off. And how will we ever get better at helping one another if we do not give it a go.

I talked to a few girls before writing this letter, and basically, they want to know if we like them. I recounted a story, maybe because it’s quirkiness hid my true vulnerability. That there was a girl who I liked, and I chose to spend time around her, and as my affection grew I realised that my actions could be construed as evidence of my interest so I backed off. I was worried that the girl to whom I was expressing an interest might actually realise how I felt. I also didn’t want anyone else getting onto the idea that I liked her. That might puncture my charade.

That’s how crazy I can be, I can tie myself in knots. And the ladies I told struggled to comprehend this ludicrous behaviour.

And I know that in other ways, you too can act a little crazy. Sometimes we purport ourselves as content on our own that we ignore the interest of the fairer sex. Sometimes we are so desperate for attention that we take the easy chances, find the girls that will have us. Sometimes we stay with someone long after our interest has waned because our fear of conflict takes over.

We have also emasculated our emotions in an attempt to conform to the cultural caste of gender.

We think that guys should be manly, concerned only with adventures, hand-wrestling grizzly bears and we have turned Jesus into that man. We have tried too hard to make God masculine. We have forgotten how to cry.

As Joe Carter put it: “Young men don’t need a Jesus who strolls like the Duke, squints like Clint Eastwood, and snarls like dick Cheney. They don’t need Jesus the cagefighter, they just need Jesus the Savior”.

Until we are comfortable with Jesus as a paragon of vulnerable masculinity we will try to live a life that isn’t reflecting Him. And I think for a start this means countering our pride. I’ve made it clear before that I’m open to girls giving a relationship a kick start. This can be a hard thing for us, it seems like we’ve been pre-empted, had our role taken. But we get things so very wrong so very often, whether it is about misplaced attraction, about ignorance of how other feel, about how we may have led a girl to think we were interested. About how we may shy away from facing that spectre of rejection, and if a girl gives a guy a helping hand we should welcome it and not resent it.

Finally, a word on singleness and marriage. We have got to esteem marriage more highly, and stop just thinking one day it will come to us, at a time when it is convenient, at a moment when we are less busy, less lustful for the next beautiful girl, at a time when we are ready to settle down.

But it’s also a problem when we are too desperate for marriage, I could pretty much quote all of what Max Dubinsky has written over at the Good Women Project, but this will suffice: “The enemy loves that you so desperately want to be married, that you’re crying on your bedroom floor begging God for a boyfriend or girlfriend because you can’t handle being alone. That your attention is focused on finding someone to marry. He loves that you don’t think you will be happy until you find ‘the one’”. We have to learn to be single well.

If this all sounds a bit too emotional, that’s okay, we’re all made differently. But if it does sound like I’m trying to get you to open up, think about your feelings, then I am. I think there is nothing worse that the facade that we perpetuate that we men do not have feelings. That we are unemotional beings with a lustful intent that we conquer by brute force as Ulysses chained himself to the mast to avoid the charms of the Sirens.

There’s much more I could say, but for now let’s end it here, and let us also remember to talk. So maybe my words were not as few as I made out, or my advice as limited as I suggested, but we shouldn’t shy away from taking time to grapple with complexity.

Your brother.

Girls, if you’ve been reading I guess that’s okay. Give us a chance, and help us where you can.

Dear ladies,

Danny Webster 7 Comments

Dear ladies,

I wondered how best to start this, how to address you. I thought about women, but that seemed too sterile, I thought about girls but that seemed too infantile. So I write to ladies everywhere. I want to give you the status you deserve, I want to honour you and encourage you. I want you to be better people, as I want to be a better person.

That’s not so hard an ask is it? But then it comes down to the task of working out how I am going to say this, because this is a little hard. I know most of the people who read this blog, and I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that when I publicise my introspection you read it.

Let me start with a bit about me. I’m not a ladies man, I don’t have the skills to charm the girls and lead them into my arms. My experience of relationships is equivalent to Neil Armstrong’s knowledge of moon walking before he stepped foot on Apollo 11. A lot of thinking, a lot of playing it out in the mind, but rather short on actual experience. So I write out of friendship and not as a response to bitter experience.

Here’s the thing, my fellow guys and I like you. And one day I hope that I will get to spend the rest of my life with one of you. That makes it all a bit scary. Because there we are, stood in front of this mass of femininity with the same dilemma you face and thought was perhaps the exclusive preserve of your gender. Which one is for me?

And if you thought it should be easier for us because there are more ladies than men, please think again. It just ups the pressure.

I think, and think again, and then tie myself in knots thinking about the thoughts that started it all. I play convoluted games in my head trying to work out what I want.

I want to be a good guy, but I hear that they come last. I want to be the person who everyone likes, but I find they get ignored. I want to be funny, but I struggle to make people laugh. I want to be wanted but too often I am all alone.

In the end I don’t know if I would be any better off if I got all that I wanted. I dream dreams, I conjure lofty thoughts of happiness and satisfaction and then they come crashing down to earth. I wonder if the girl of my dreams will ever walk into my waking hours.

And then I remember. I am to live in the day, not drift in my dreams. So the lady I really want should not be a figment of my imagination but a part of my life.

Ladies, there’s quite a lot of pressure on us, I don’t want this to be an excuse, but let me try and explain. What we hear time and time again is that there are many ladies who are just waiting for guys to step up to the plate and ask them out. Pause for a minute on this.

What if my heart is not stirred to affection, or there is no one in particular who has caught my eye? Am I to act anyway, pick someone and do my job, ask them out, wine them and dine them, and see where it goes?

That would cheapen and demean the hope I have for a lady to one day share my life with. It’s not the now that matters most; it’s the future that stretches out from this day. The years that are to come and the eternity that has already begun.

So what I do today really does echo in eternity. Even if I choose to do nothing. Choose not to raise a ladies’ hope. Choose not to pursue a romance that is not meant to be. And doing nothing is the surest way to come last. Being a good guy and not ruffling any feathers, being a good guy and not causing offence. Being a good guy because one day I might hope to be your best guy.

Ladies, you are beautiful people. And you deserve a guy who will commit to you and love you. But that doesn’t let you off the hook. It doesn’t leave you with nothing to do but wait.

If my heart is moved towards you I will let you know. I might not want to, I might wait a while, I might try and rationalise my way out of it but this is my commitment to you. I will tell you.

And if I don’t know you all that well I will try to. So if I’m hanging around you more than usual, or I turn up at parties where you are the only person I know, if I find time in a hectic week when a chance to see you emerges… well I hope you might see where this is going.

But I’m a quiet guy. I don’t do bravado very well. I’ve also taken to talking a lot about relationships recently, and a lot of you ladies have talked back. And that’s okay, but it also leaves it all a bit messy.

Passivity is not the answer: for me it’s okay for a lady to give me a nudge. If they are confused about whether I like them I’d rather they said something than contorted their emotions to try and fathom me out. If the guy does like you he should jump at the chance to get things moving. If he doesn’t share you affection then it might be a tad awkward, but we’ll work through that.

A while back I wrote about when friendship can get in the way, I know it has for me. I want to have female friends but here is a request: if you only want to be friends, hold back on the flirting. And I don’t mean the overt provocatively sexual behaviour, I mean the more casual signals that you send to guys.

You know what I’m talking about. When there are guys who will turn up when you text, who are the first to arrive and the last to leave. And these are the ones you choose to hang out with. They like you. If you like them, this is the right response, if you don’t: hold back. If it is just the attention we are giving you that you like, please be careful how you take it, and there maybe a time when for all of our sake you learn to live without.

I’ll be writing to the guys soon, they’re more confused than you are. If you thought that was possible. They generally want to do the right thing. We’re a fragile breed, not quite always the strong and emotionless creature we are sometimes portrayed as.

I hope we can make this work. I think it will be worth it. It might be hard but let’s try and give it a go. Let’s not find convenient excuses to stay in the comfortable track.

Your friend.

The dark underbelly of internet dating

Danny Webster Leave a comment

I know nothing about internet dating. So I’m not going to blog much about it, if anyone wants to write a guest post about why it’s great, or why it’s dreadful please get in touch. I’m sure it’s something people are interested in and a challenge for Christians to know how to engage with it. Otherwise you’ll just get my ignorant ramblings at some point in the future.

But that’s not what I’m writing about now. This is something that I do not need to know much about to be outraged. Advertising encouraging people to have an affair. It is wrong, it is immoral and it is a deeply disturbing aspect of our society that tolerates and perpetuates such damaging behaviour.

Jon Kuhrt has taken on this shameful type of advertising before, last year a website ran billboard posters encouraging affairs, Jon stepped up to the plate, took them on and won. But now they are back at it again, different name, different website, same horrific attempt to profiteer by ruining marriages. Jon’s written an open letter to the boss, Ross Williams, of the parent company, Global Personals. Read through his letter and I’d encourage you to give them a call and express your thoughts in a kind and considered manner. Also, join the facebook group for the campaign. For good reason the name of the site is being kept out of this, the controversy could just end up sending more traffic to the site.

And that’s almost all I would have to say on the topic.

If it wasn’t for www.justchristiandating.com which I stumbled upon while digging around the Global Personal website, which conveniently seems to be undergoing some redevelopment right now.

So a Christian dating website is part of a company which also runs a site which promotes unfaithfulness. It would seem so. That is, if you want to describe Just Christian Dating as a Christian dating website. Because it can’t be, unless you want to also call the mafia turning up for confession as the epitome of radical discipleship.

There are somethings which we shouldn’t accept. They may not be illegal, but the brazen attempt to make money by pulling people’s lives apart should not go unnoticed. And the thought that by putting ‘Christian’ into a dating site’s address could make it so.

Actually, that’s not so uncommon a problem. It’s not just online dating entrepreneurs who market their products to the church. We do it too. The books and the music, the conferences and the courses. If we call something Christian then surely Christians will buy. Sadly we are too often sucked into this lie.

I’m not convinced about Christian dating websites, but if we are going to use them, please make sure they’re not money spinners tied to an enterprise which Jon Kurht describes as “like a drug dealer who promotes what they are pushing as harmless when really they are trading in something deadly and destructive”.

Are women too mysterious?

Danny Webster 2 Comments

So I posted this question on facebook, and I got my first response within seconds, and it was something like this: deearry, deary, dear. Which was later clarified as the facebook equivalent of a sigh.

And the lack of an answer. It would be easy leave it at that, leave the question of whether women are too mysterious as, well, as one of life’s mysteries. But it’s a question which I’m not going to ignore, particularly since reading this blog over at the Guide to Women blog. And yes, I have been reading some interesting blogs over the past few weeks. Partly to know what other people are saying, partly to see what the current hot topics in the world of Christian relationships are, and just a little bit because I could do with a guide to women.

To paraphrase that post for those of you not heading over there to read it, it goes something like this: women act all mysterious to pretend there is actually something interesting about them. Women who are worth the bother don’t need to try and hide anything. But go and read the post and see if I’ve been too unkind.

But lets take a step back and think about why we want to remove mystery.

Is it that we want to know someone, or perhaps know stuff about them, or maybe we are just curious? Or is it that we find we have a need for certainty in who someone else is because we are unsure of who we are?

To the first question, it might help if we switch to French, they have two words for knowing. You can know information and you can know people. I’ve thought before that the way we talk about our relationships sometimes confuses the two. Via the wonders of facebook you can learn plenty of facts about a person, you can follow their life. But that is not the same as having a relationship with them, there is no feedback, no conflict, just you and your thoughts imagining something that doesn’t exist. You can live without mystery but only by crafting your own mythical storyline.

When you meet someone, and talk to them, and listen to what they have to say you begin to get to know them in a completely different sense. It can be so much more than you imagined, or so much less than you concocted. It can be the point when the myth is debunked and the mystery embraced.

After all, what is wrong with a little bit of mystery? Is it just our desire to have answers to all the questions, to have everything nailed down. With our relationship with God we might do just the same, substitute theological knowledge about God for the real hard work of building a relationship. And with God we get another glance at this thing called mystery. We get to see that we will not ever know it all.

When we want to know it all we are putting ourselves in the driving seat. We are insisting that unless we have the answers and know how everything fits together then we won’t play ball. Except that’s just not how life works.

I want to get to know one person above all others, I want them to be honest to me and not hide behind a false personna. But I am under no illusion that I would ever banish all mystery. Perhaps when we want to do that we are just showing how little confidence we have in who we are. Showing that we need affirmation from other people, and security in gaining understanding, and certainty in the removal of all doubt.

But doubt doesn’t go away. And nor does mystery, so maybe we are better off embracing it than worrying about it getting in the way. But what on earth does embracing mystery mean?