We have a lot going on, not least of which is seeking to avoid too much sun, for at 34+° each day with a heat wave to come (so what was the last 10 days?)… anyway as an outside observer to the UK here are a few thoughts.
Churchill has reluctantly gone, and might try to re-appear (Boris as ‘Churchill’); we are about to get a reincarnation of a former Prime Minister, the one ‘who was not for turning’. (I have been convinced for some time that the next was going to be a woman.) The England football team have won the Euros with the help of a certain Dutch woman: Sarina Wiegman. As one smart person responded to the suggestion that she become the next English men’s coach – why would she want to do that and take a step down? (And on the game, apologies to our European German family – I think that was a hand ball not given…) But my comments this day are not about football so moving on.
I am thankfully not a politician and of course it is very easy to criticise from an armchair, so my comments are not personal to those involved, simply noting that they seem to act as signs. So much hope / hype from certain Christians about Churchill back in the person of Boris; and I am sure that our next will act (hopefully a little tempered) Maggie-esque. Male commentators will come along saying ‘I have always supported the women’s game’, thus getting in on the act…
It all illustrates the issue we are currently seeing in many places, the battle for true humanity, with a true balancing of the masculine and feminine; without it toxic-masculinity and also toxic-femininity manifest.
I have a chapter in one of the books I wrote about the ‘new creation’ being feminine. Or at least I went on to qualify that statement that it will appear ‘feminine’ as it is in contrast to the patriarchial one that is around us (a fallen creation). One of the Scriptures that I hold as central is the transformation that takes place for those who are in Christ:
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Cor. 5:16,17).
A new creation is our context, and that affects sight. Old categories prove inadequate, with ‘a human point of view’ falling away. Indeed Paul uses stronger language – has passed away… everything becoming new.
Looking in from the outside there are signs in the UK around the masculine / feminine. Paul looking in on that one-world-government anti-Christ system challenged them – and challenges us – with regard to our sight.
Sometimes something (someone) inadequate holds space, but there has to come a time when that space is filled. Perhaps the creaks and groans will give way to substance. It is a time (when was it not?) for imagination, for a way of seeing that registers a new reality though it remains invisible if one holds to a human point of view. Imagined, responded to with repositioning, so that it truly rises.
‘From now on…’ That is a time reference if ever there was one.