The World's Jigsaw

Reflecting on the Passion Mark14-15

The World's Jigsaw

Did God create the world
a jigsaw?
to be carefully fit together,
at times dismantled
and re-struck,
but with patience
and persistence
to be completed.
If so, then
the paucity of process
is rather exposed
as your son
seems to have been
wrongly placed,
wrongly timed.
Ripped from the board
and trimmed
so he would fit.
In all this
I feel my own picture postcard
no longer resembles
who I am
what I wanted to be
or how I thought I would be cast.
This jigsaw,
Jesus, me, the world,
Seems like no easy game.
And doesn't seem to fit.
I am prepared to believe
that, maybe,
it all makes sense
but, today at least, and often
I don't see the picture

Your accent betrays you!

Matthew 26:73-74

Your accent betrays you.
It is not so much in the northern brogue
which I have lost
so carefully and well
but in my heart.
So when caught out;
in the poshest way
betraying everything
I believe in, and the whole way I was raised;
I begin to swear.
Oh, f&*k!
Done it again.

The darkness of the night

Matthew 26:47-56

It is the darkness of the night
and I will kiss you
then betray you;
and you will still
call me friend
having done what I would do.
It is the darkness of the night

If it were not so

Thinking about John 14
(some will know which particular Georgian mansion this is, here, it featured prominently in my childhood)

The early part of this chapter is often read at funerals.
I guess it is meant to remind people that we do not just sink into oblivion when we die
But in the last few days I have had a different sense of this

Do not let your hearts be troubled
believe in God believe also in me
in my Father's house there are many mansions.
If it were not so
would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you.

I think we get distracted by the mansions!
(One of my friends is certain  that he wants a strictly Georgian mansion!!)
But for me it has been about dealing with anxiety...Do not let your hearts be troubled
And the key (Jesus is saying) is believe in God which also means believing in him
This rather emboldens me to remind people
that the way to address their uncertainty/anxiety
is to at least try to come to a place of belief.

I think we current mob of Christians (myself included)
have a lot to answer for in the way we have become timid
I have no doubt that I should be encouraging people who are troubled
to believe.

But it is perhaps the latter part that has been rich for me
in the last couple of weeks
(thank you Ignatius for such wonderful exercises!)
If it were not so...would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you
This is Jesus speaking to me  and you simply saying
do you think I am playing games with you?

And MY answer is No.


Lord I believe...help my unbelief!

Being bathed in love

In this week of the general season of the year one of the ideas that is presented to us is that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  

It is not necessarily an idea that Anglicans or Protestants readily warm to, smacking of pious pictures which are a bit too cheesy for most of us.

It is, however, an idea that most of us might find enriching. The open, welcoming Heart of God in which all can find a place of comfort, consolation, welcome, and healing.

It also has about it the idea that love flows out of God’s central being into the world, and we are invited to share in that work and be agents of it ourselves.

Two actions might focus us this week. 

First, where do we need to receive this tender touch of God. 

Pray each day for God’s healing, loving presence to flow into us from the heart of Jesus.

Second, no doubt we are also called to be a source of love to others, too. 

Who might that be? 

Is one act of kindness each day too much to expect of ourselves

Touching the dead

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK:Pentecost 3 Proper 10 (June 9, 2013) First reading and Psalm:1 Kings 17:8-16, (17-24) Psalm 146,Second reading: Galatians 1:11-24, Gospel: Luke 7:11-17

 There are a few troublesome things about any story which deals with dead people being brought back to life!

The truth is that the experience is probably not as strange as we are inclined to think it is. I imagine that if we talked to each other for half an hour about our experiences of death we find quite a few strange things. Only a couple of weeks ago we had a funeral for a beloved parishioner who was told forty years ago that if he survived an operation then he would probably have ten years to live.

One of his sons joked that he delighted in proving people wrong.

Of course we also live in an unprecedented period of human history when people are living longer and surviving conditions which even in your life and mine were certain killers.

This is a source of great puzzlement to us

Where do we place ourselves in this story?

Let’s not get so puzzled by the supernatural in this story

It may be that this story tells us a human truth

that there is much about death that

we do not understand

and yet we are all engaged with it.

As we picture the story,

where do we identify our own need today?

Am I the young man

who looks and perhaps feels dead

and who is awaiting the Jesus touch.

If Jesus touched me what would I want that touch to do for me.

Am I the grieving woman

so bereft, perhaps by a recent death

that I need the consolation of Jesus?

Or am I one of the crowd who are just amazed

by what the presence of Jesus might mean at the time of death.

A wonderful story I read during the week told of a sister who whilst grieving for her own brother at age 40,

and praying that he might know the peace that we pray for in death

recognized that Jesus was also healing her too.

Can we be so open to death

that we allow Jesus to touch us in our own life

and experience resurrection now?

For thought and prayer and action

During this time we are trying to care for ourselves, to allow Jesus to touch the place where we might be dead

What do I want Jesus to do for me today?

Can I allow the work of resurrection to begin in me immediately?

Wish I'd seen this before yesterday

Good You Tube about the Trinity

Uncovering the mystery

Readings for the feast of the Holy Trinity May 26 2013 can include Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31, Psalm 8, Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

I could sing you more than a couple of hymns or songs, some ancient some modern, that praise the Trinity.

The reasons why songs, hymns and poems might be a launching point, is because we are trying to come to grips with something that is essentially unfathomable.

And the depths of intellects, our hearts and our spirits

are more readily tapped

by poetry than by scientific analysis, or even logical deduction.

God is without bounds (infinite)

God is outside our understanding (unknowable)

God is deep within (the ground of our being)

And yet the Christian experience is

that God limited himself to bodily form in Jesus

that we can know God by relationship as Father, friend and brother,

and that the Spirit of God dwells deep within us.

The words themselves begin to blow our minds

we can’t always get our heads around this

The writer of Proverbs is telling us what is often repeated in the Bible

that God was there before anything

 

St Paul is telling us that we are in relationship with God, through Jesus.

That this is unlocked through the way we live our life, in suffering and in joy

Building character through endurance and filling us with hope.

A hope that builds up in us through the outpouring of God’s Spirit .

The Love of God poured into us through the Holy Spirit of God.

It sounds good doesn’t it!
Give thanks for the great glory of God who is our Creator!

Pray for the growth that comes through allowing God to use my suffering .

Ask for a new sense of hope and renewal from the Spirit of God

Practically

Yet it’s a bit difficult to take in

So let’s just focus on three key elements to pray to God for

1. That we ask God to give us a sense of awe and wonder about what it means to approach God closely (Holy, holy, holy)

2. That we ask Jesus to show us how to live as he lived. In the midst of a real life, with real suffering.    This, I suggest simply means using our prayer-imagination to talk about what is happening in our life today.   What is this character, this endurance, that God might be building in me. Am I cooperating  or do I simply not care?

3. To pray to the Spirit of God to be filled with the great sense of hope that flows from all this. That we might love unconditionally and well

These three things are not unrelated.

To do less is not to do quite enough.

Praise of the God of majesty

Closeness to the God of life

Love at the very depth of our being

For thought and prayer and action

Give thanks for the great glory of God who is our Creator! 

Pray for the growth that comes through allowing God to use my suffering .  

Ask for a new sense of hope and renewal from the Spirit of God

Repaying a compliment

John 16:12-15

16:12 Jesus said to his disciples "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

16:14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

16:15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

It is sometimes said that according to Genesis 
"God created man in his own image 
and then humanity duly repaid the compliment 
and did likewise!"

There is more than a grain of truth in this!

Archbishop William Temple suggested 
that we need a doctrine of the Holy Trinity
-that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit-
because otherwise our doctrine of God would be too small.
At its very crudest 
our God is idolatrously small!

We create an image, an idea or a program and call it God.
But that "image" can be an idea, or a philosophy
or a conception

 (eg....that God is simply a powerful example of a superman)
and is deceptively simplistic.
Even our ideas of Jesus 

can get fundamentally distorted.
We often seem to talk 

as if Jesus is only a pretend human
that he just seems human, 

but is really God disguised.
Or that he is pretend God,
he is really just a man 

who gets as close to being Godly as you can.
Both of these ideas are inadequate,
they do not agree with what Jesus says about himself
or with what the Scriptures say.

We need to take care 

that we are not just fitting God 

into our own little box
and making God 

what we want God to be
rather than seeking 

to encounter God as God really is.

There would seem to be little point in doing anything less.

This week reflect on: 

What do I think of God? 

What is my experience of God? 

Do the two match up?

In what ways is my idea of God too small? 

Ask the Holy Spirit to deepen your understanding of God

Ken Halstead- my bikie friend

I will leave it up to Heather to tell you why she married a bikie!
But we can see from the pictures on our sheets today
that he was something of a catch
there is no doubt that Heather was too!
When I came to this parish ...17 years ago
I was glad to be met by a Churchwarden
who was excited that I was an ethnic Cumbrian
as he was!
Ken was born 40 miles from where I was born
and knew the town I grew up in.
To us, the Lake District, was not a tourist destination
it was where we lived.
We both went to one of the fine Cumbrian County Grammar Schools
Ken to Carlisle
and me to Whitehaven.
We rejoiced in this shared life.
[I would speak Cumbrian to you now
but you are too ignorant to understand its beauty
and the only other person here who understands
is in the coffin
Like all Cumbrians
we know we are right!]

What we also rejoiced in was our shared life as members of this parish.
He was, by and large, respectful
but also opinionated and sometimes wrong!
(Despite the fact that Cumbrians are always right...
Father knows best!)
He didn't always get it.
And often he just went on and on!

He said to me once after one of these talks
at a funeral about a fellow parishioner
"I wonder what you will say about me?"

I don't think he was worried
But the thought often stayed with me.
And he had noted enough to observe that I tried to say
what was important about this person's life.
This is really what a funeral might be about
We try to say what electrified them about life.

He had a terrifying sense of duty
...it was often couched in the language...You should do this and you should do that
He wasn't always right.
Though I would venture to say
He understood the basic guts of what it meant to be a Christian man.
That above all you have to love each other,
that loving each other means you have to know how to forgive and accept.
That some times those who love you will hurt you
and you will hurt the ones you love.

I want to say this, particularly to his lovely and fine wife Heather,
to all you his children
and particularly to you his grandchildren
...and all those who have been dragged in to that circle
He loved you, was proud of you, thought the best of you
and hoped for the very best outcomes .

You have not disappointed him
(though sometimes he may have wanted to 'advise' you otherwise).
Can you forgive him for sometimes being cranky, difficult, and obstinate?

He loved...or wanted to love..as Jesus loved
without condition
with an open heart.

He was not without fault
but he was a man of love.

And we, his friends should know that his Christian conviction
wanted that for you and me too.

Thanks be to God for this man.
Ken Halstead, our husband, our father, our grandfather and friend.

A Prayer for Pentecost

Dream in me today

my heartfelt lover;

should less than highest height

or ocean’s depths

be found

then dream in me
a  little more today

May 2013

Getting off your backside what the Spirit helps us do!

The story of Pentecost is in Acts 2 but there are many readings which help us reflect on the Spirit's place in our lives. Sunday 19 May -Pentecost (Whitsunday)...reading are here

We are not very good at accurately stating the way Father, Son and Holy Spirit relate to each other
And it is fraught with doctrinal minefields.
But we can note a couple of things.

First it is about relationship

Although it would be innacurate to say that God is only Father, Son and/or Holy Spirit
These words do highlight that we use the language of relating 
to talk about God, and not just the language of function.
If we are to understand what God is like, 
then he is like a Father, he is like a Son.
This language is rich and powerful and meets us more than half way in understanding.
But it is not the only language.
We also use the word Spirit...when we talk about the Spirit of a relationship
or understanding the Spirit of an idea, person or thing;
this also meets us half way.
It is about what is at the core.
What is important, what is essential.

We could (and should) also note that God is not just these things.
There is, for example, and in particular a whole stream of feminine imagery
which is missing in the male-oriented language of history.
Mother, Wisdom, Birthgiver
these and more are  used in the Bible
to help us understand what God is like.
These are also relational words.

Our God is a God who relates.

Perhaps we are best helped to understand this by the title that is sometimes given
to God's Holy Spirit in the New Testament:
where the Spirit is referred to asThe Spirit of Jesus.
We will encounter this Spirit

• in the person of Jesus himself
• as we exercise the gifts that God gives us
• as we encounter Christ in the community of the Body of Christ.

The Spirit enables us to discern Christ in the lives of others,
Jesus himself points out that 
when we see in the poor and weak
those who should be served 
we are encountering Christ himself.

Like a relationship 
this is not just a static one-off experience
but rather a growing emerging encounter.

The Spirit 
draws us into this relationship
in order that we may encounter 
the risen Christ
in our lives
in others
in the world and in the Church

The risen Christ 
opens up to us
the life of God our Father and Mother
This too is a gift of the Spirit.
This week

• Where do I see Christ in my life today?

• What is the Spirit inviting me to understand about God through the relationships in which I see Christ?

• Pray for renewal in my life through these dynamic encounters with God.

Doing the Gospel today

Some thoughts for the Sunday of the Ascension (Easter 7) May 12 2013

Let’s not make evangelisation too hard!

In this Ascension period, Jesus tells the disciples that we must now be the ones

who take responsibility

for telling other people about

God’s Good News.

I often get a sense

when we I talk this way

that people nod sagely

but that there is an undercurrent going on which is saying

that is for someone else other than me to do.

We don’t actually get that what is required is simply to help people connect the dots

So let’s not be surprised

if our world seems to be losing the Christian story

or if we have a sense of being overtaken

by an atheism which is stridently

proclaiming there is no good

or by an Islam which is taking its proclamation of faith

way more seriously than we seem to.

A couple of mistakes

The first mistake is that we may make it too hard.

In sharing Christianity

we may think that this means we have to understand everything about, the Bible, theology, Church History, spirituality and prayer.

And we don’t…At least I don’t

And as we look at the curious group of people that Jesus chose

we saw that not many of them were learned, bookish or scholarly

What they did have was a belief that when God said

I am giving you something to share (The Good News of love, forgiveness, healing, salvation)

That they had indeed been given something

and that they had the means to do it

A big stick

What God did not give us was a big stick.

We sometimes tell the Gospel very negatively

“If you are not good, then you will be punished”

Doesn’t actually sound like GOOD news!

What we are being asked to do is to share what God has done for us.

This is much easier to grasp.

And we might add the word….What has God done for us  lately?

This way we are likely to relate the positive,

and get in touch with what is meaningful.

We need to take time to do this

We should not keep silent

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have to have a university degree to do this.

And if you are tempted to express this negatively…then think again

What am I trying to say which sets people free….

rather than how can I control and manipulate others

For thought and prayer and action

What has God been doing in my life lately?
 Is there someone who would find this interesting or uplifting
 Can I get someone to behave better by telling them my story…then forget it…we are not to wield the big stick!

An Ascensiontide poem

Even as you wave goodbye

 

On a mountain somewhere,

lifted up for all to see

you went

Just when we were beginning to have fun.

So, as if to comfort me,

a little while

you promised to be with me

not just now but always.

How could I have believed you

(fool that I am)

“I’ll be with you always”

as you waved goodbye.

Now on that same mountain

years later,

and then a little while,

why do I stand looking up

wishing, waiting, wanting

your return.

My soul longs for you.

And as I stand there gazing

I look sideways,

left and right,

and backwards

and see you standing here with me.

While that for which I am least grateful

tries to tell me

you deserted me

That for which I am most grateful

reminds me

that you enlivened me

you thrilled me

summoned me.

Not to float away

but to remember

that with you

a promise is a promise

even as you wave goodbye.