amazing

Every now and then I am overcome with what some of you go through every day. People I meet and people I know who daily struggle with depression, eating disorders, domestic violence, bi-polar disorder, bullying, schizophrenia, mental health issues, physical pain, bereavement, loneliness, and all kinds of other things.

Some of you have found faith in the midst of these issues; some of you have held on to faith in the midst of them; some of you have lost faith in the midst of them.This is a tribute to all of you, some of whom wear your experiences on your sleeve and some of whom keep them so well hidden no-one would know. No-one.

Faith is a dirty and messy thing because faith is part of all this crappy stuff, clinging on, falling off, picking itself up, falling off. Faith is very real. And is certainly not escapism. Some say that faith is a crutch for the weak and the desperate and yes, the weak and the desperate are very welcome. As is everyone. Jesus is my teacher and my inspiration, and I see him sitting with the weak and the desperate, and the strong and together, who turned out to be weak and desperate anyway. He incarnated – became flesh – as one of us. That matters. He’s not a quick fix fix-it magic wand kind of God. Inadequate as that may seem, when a magic wand to take away the problem might seem better.

You are amazing. Amazing when you carry on, amazing when you cannot. And you are loved. Loved when you cope, loved when you do not. Loved when you function, loved when you cannot. Loved when you give in, and loved when you do not. Love is patient, when we cannot be. Love is kind, when we cannot be. Love protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, when we cannot.  Love loves when we have run out.

Words are so inadequate, quoting the bible is so trite, for the depths of pain some of you daily feel. So I thought I would go ultra-cheesy and post this song because it truly is ultra-cheesy and it makes me smile and you people, you make me smile because you are amazing, you keep my faith real and grounded and in perspective where it should be. Thank you for what you give me.

When you smile the whole world stops and stares for while. Because you are amazing.

And it that is too cheesy, there’s always the Mumfords!

stuff and nonsense

stuff and nonsense

Taxidermy is the act of mounting a dead animal for display. Hunt it, kill it, stuff it, display it. Trophies of success. Look at what was alive and is now dead. Look at the power I have. No longer will the animal roam freely, because its freedom is not convenient for me.

The drastic cuts the Conservative Coalition government is bringing in reminded me of this. The poor are a nuisance, an inconvenience. So stuff ‘em. Them with their dirty scrounging fingers, a bunch of frauds and benefit cheats. Like foxes who steal our eggs. The welfare burden is so great that we must reduce it; we will change the rules about what constitutes illness, striking fear into the disabled community; we will punish childbirth by not increasing benefits according to the size of the family, striking fear into large families. We will caricature poor communities as lazy and we will say that we support ‘hard working families’ (code: middle class, who prove their worth by their income), no matter that people on (less than) the minimum wage often work the hardest for the least reward.

Hunt it, kill it, stuff it, display it. Stuff the poor, so those in wealth and power can stay comfortable. Christian activist and anarchist Philip Berrigan once said this:

The poor tells us who we are, the prophets tell us who we could be. So we hide the poor, and kill the prophets.

For our current situation I suggest this:

The poor make us feel bad, the profits make us feel better. So we blame the poor, and we keep the profits.

If we are passionate about justice – if we really believe that Jesus meant what he said about speaking good news to the poor, freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind and liberation for the oppressed – then we must be concerned and in more than a ‘hmph’ kind of way. Passion comes from the Latin ‘pasi’, which means ‘to suffer’. Passion involves suffering. If we are not poor, and passionately believe God’s heart is for the poor, then we must be prepared to suffer for them.

So if we are ok for money, instead of protecting our assets and income how about shouting “tax me!” If it is a choice between reducing welfare payments to dangerously low levels, or me paying a few hundred a year more in tax, tax me! And if that doesn’t work for you, then be generous in your charitable gifts, in your  actions, in your opinions. Not some “Big Society” nonsense, but Kingdom of God sense.

The poor must not be stuffed. They are not a plaything, a trophy, something we use to display our power. They are our sisters and brothers, our people. Anything else is stuff and nonsense.

tent. temple. intentional.

god in the garden

God began revealing himself in a garden. Then a bush. He continued to reveal himself through action and experience. The people wanted to carry him with them on their travels and being humans needed some formalised structure, so they carried the Ark and plonked it in a tent. The tent became the sanctuary. The holy place.

When the people became settled the tent became permanent. They built walls, structures, created rules. Who can go in, who can’t. When you can go, when you can’t. How much you paid. The tent became the Temple, God on the move became stationary. Instead of him coming to you, you had to go to him.

Jesus came along and blew that whole idea out of the water. Or at least, he tore the curtain separating God from the people in two, he destroyed the Temple and all it stood for, it’s separation and exclusion. He revealed God, exposed to the world, naked, vulnerable. Dead. And resurrected. Everything changed.  The Temple was no longer the focus, because God no longer lived there. He made us holy. He lived in here, in us. We became the Temple.

We don’t go to him. He came to us.

The thing is, how often does church feel like a return to the Temple model? You have to go there where priests do special things, God is especially present and worship is organised. The building gains an importance because of what happens there. It becomes the centre, the focus. The outside becomes devalued, the furniture becomes valued. The community becomes devalued, the priests valued.

god iin the temple

Every now and then we need to make a stand against this. Remind ourselves. Especially us Anglicans who confuse the issue by using words like priest, altar and sacrifice. God does not live in church buildings or services. God is present, of course; God loves it when we gather in once place as the people of God and worship him. When we his people gather and worship he may make himself feel especially present; but we do not invoke him, summon him, magic him by our words or prayers or actions. God is present in us, his people.

Church is not a temporary tent nor the permanent Temple. Whilst worship in the church is the powerhouse of the rest of our mission, as a friend recently reminded me, worship does not rest solely in the building, with a priest, and special words. Intentional worship is essential, but our lives are worship – from the way we do our relationships to how give our money; from the way we do our daily work to the picking up of dog poo in your neighbourhood. It’s worship, but unintentionally. Naturally. Instinctively.

May we keep encountering God wandering in the (urban) garden, rather than trying to force him back in the Temple. And may we be encouraged and inspired as we gather for intentional worship, but not devalue the rest of our lives lived in worship. However unintentional.

knock knock

Who’s there? Lord only knows. Living in a vicarage is a somewhat unique experience.  You never know what the knock on the door will bring. We have found ourselves becoming something of a local resource, a cross between Wilkos, a youth drop-in, a community café and just occasionally a house where people live. To give something of an insight and hopefully to bring a chuckle to your day, here follows a list of some of the things we have been asked for over the last few months…

string for conkers  / stamps /  broadband /  cookies / postman’s wee-stop  /   trampoline storage /  trampoline usage / duct tape /  brownies / a football /  puncture repair /  advocacy / fixing up a gate post /  cushions /  banter /  first aid /  Facebook /  umbrella /  a step ladder /  laundry /  a garden fork /  oranges /  downloading Enrique Iglesias / telephoning social services  /  a shower /  odd jobs / water /  a lift in the rain  / a youth club / Nesquik  / time

Living here is different from what we expected… unpredictability and spontaneity and risk-taking amidst the normal routines of life and the job. Truth be told I love it, though I don’t always love it at the time. I get grumpy! Believe it or not.

Still, I look forward to the next unpredictable request from the Wigmore Rd massive. Hang on, is that the doorbell…

knock knock

suffering fouls gladly

When the most interesting statistic in a football match  is “fouls suffered” you know things are bad. That was my experience watching Valencia vs Man U on Wednesday. And Utrecht vs Liverpool on Thursday come to think of it. A waste of 90 minutes? Arguable! Intending to switch my brain off, I was bored so I began to think. Isn’t that an interesting thing to count. And interesting language. Are fouls suffered? Or received, experienced, taken?

there he goes again

Players have different attitudes to suffering fouls. For some, the slightest touch is enough to bring them diving majestically to the floor sporting toddler-style tantrums. Think Drogba. Or it brings an angry retaliation. Think Rooney.  Other players are built of stronger stuff and suffer fouls more gladly. You get knocked down, and you get up again. You are, after all, playing a contact sport. Think John Terry (on a good day!). How they respond to those fouls will often define them as players.

Following Jesus brings up some similar issues, for leaders yes, but for everyone else too. We know we will be fouled, sometimes badly, sometimes innocuously. It is how we respond to those fouls that define us as followers of Jesus.

There’s much biblical precedent for expecting to be fouled, on purpose or not. Prophets, preachers and ordinary people are repeatedly ignored, mocked, confused, disheartened; and more seriously beaten, imprisoned, executed. So the odd (or frequent) argument, hurtful comment, draining conversation, thoughtless remark, conflicting vision, broken window, verbal abuse or black dog of lingering depression are to be expected. Anticipated. But, I hasten to add, not yearned for to earn “bruise badges” to show how tough or effective we are, nor milked to gain attention or sympathy we feel we deserve.

Sometimes we will need to take time out and rest. Sometimes get straight back up and run it off. Sometimes we will have the wind knocked out of us. Sometimes we will be tempted to make more of it than we need to – for a rest, for some attention, because we’re irritable, or because there’s been so many small fouls we’ve ignored that we’re darn well gonna milk this one.

Maybe we could follow the lead of the Psalmists, whose God led them through the valley of the shadow of death towards green pastures. Fouls come, knocks come, bruises come. But by the grace of God we can carry on, learning, parrying, sometimes weeping and sometimes not seeing a way through but always hoping there is one. Because how we suffer the fouls will define us.

And if we really need to be things put in perspective, watch this: