Andrew McFarland, Liberal Christian

Three Crosses

11 June 2009

Over the last couple of years I have become more and more interested in the visual aspects of religion, or maybe I should say the visual aspects of my religion. There are several reasons for this. I have a good friend who is Roman Catholic, and it was through him that I was first exposed to religious symbols in a welcoming environment. Another reason is I met a couple of very nice Russian Orthodox nuns at the Christmas market in Belfast, where they were selling plaster crosses and other similar objects. I’ve also had an intensely spiritual experience where a cross played a role.

The visible result of this is three crosses in various places in my life. The first is a small blue and white cross that hangs on the wall above my bed. The second is a different blue and white cross that hangs on the wall above my desk in my study. Like the one over my bed, I bought it from the nuns at the Christmas market in Belfast. The third is a small silver cross that hangs on a chain around my neck. I never take this off.

Each of these three crosses helps me remember Christ, in different ways, and at different times. The cross over my desk reminds me that in my work I am working as a servant of Christ - it is certainly much harder to fire off a rude email when there is a cross near your screen.

After a long day, sometimes I forget to pray, but the cross over my bed reminds me to pray before I sleep. It also reminds me of Psalm 3:5: “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me” (NIV), and of course Ephesians 4:26. It is in the small hours of the night that all sorts of problems can assault your sleepless self, and the cross over my bed helps me remember “that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ” (Romans 8:28).

The cross around my neck is perhaps the most important one for me. It is a continual, physical reminder that I am Christ’s. Often, when I pray, I touch it through my shirt. I don’t think the act of touching it has any significance, other than it helps me concentrate my mind on prayer.

The spiritual result of this is I find myself thinking about spiritual matters more than I used to. All in all, the three crosses are good for me, spiritually speaking.

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What I Believe

20 May 2009

So how do I currently understand Genesis? Well, before I can explain that, I have to remind you that I write fiction.

Writing fiction is a funny task. It is very rarely that an idea for a compete story just pops into my head. Most often I’ll get an idea for a scene, and I will build a story around that scene. Sometimes that scene will be at the beginning of a story, but more often than not it will be towards the end. I will then construct a universe around the characters so that the get into the position they have to be in for the scene. Suppose the scene I first see in my head is a man running into a registry office to stop the wedding currently in progress. To write the story, I have to create a back story for that man. Who is he? Why does he want to stop the wedding? Generally speaking by the time I have finished the story the man will have quite a detailed life. I might know what school he went to, what university, what job he has, what his house looks like. From my point of view, all of those things came into existence after the wedding scene.

But what about his point of view? The character in the story would see his life happening in chronological order: school, university, job, wedding scene. It may have taken him three years to go through university, but it only took me a few seconds to create that part of his life.

It strikes me that God’s acts of creation are similar to a fiction writers. Consider 1 Peter 1:20: “He [Christ] was chosen before the creation of the world”. And what about Ephesians 1:4: “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” (Both quotations from Today’s New International Version.)

When I create a story starting with the finale I am choosing my characters from before the foundation of the story.

These similarities between God’s creation and my own creative processes are what influences my understanding of Genesis; I don’t see it as simply a description of creation in “the language of the day”.

The theory of evolution describes the origin of life from the point of view of people in our universe. The early chapters of Genesis, on the other hand, describe what creation was like from the point of view of someone outside our universe - that is God.

I’m not saying this is a perfect way to harmonise a belief in evolution and a belief in creation. But it does seem to work for me.

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Updated 11 June 2009