New Year's Eve

There were a lot of people on the train from Ashford to Hastings earlier this afternoon, clearly travelling to get to parties. People were armed with bags of food, bottles of wine, large cases full of party clothes I guess, one man struggled on at Rye with an enormous set of golf clubs! 

I used to get worked up about tonight, especially if I was not invited to a party. In Storrington, the Rector had "New Year Bells" followed by "seasonal refreshments" - any excuse for the then Rector of Storrington to have "seasonal refreshments"! That little service where at 11.55 we went outside and were quiet together at the end of the year altered my needs for this night. Similar was New Year's Eve in 1999, where we were all invited to light millennium candles prior to the year 2000. I remember having boxes of them in every room in my house in Mossley and the vicar, Father Lindsay being obsessed with candles for months before we lit them! 
I did parties as a teenager with church youth group. I remember walking along Harpenden High Street with about ten others (you know who you are!) dressed as a hedge. No drink was involved!

But Malcolm Acheson's dear old New Year bells in Storrington and those millennium candles are more important in memory for me really. The end of a year is a chance to light a light to say thank you God for light shining through some pretty dark times in 2015. I guess most of my readers will have had some. I will light a candle here at 11.55 and remember you.

Perhaps you might do the same to remember others who need to know that light tonight. 2015 for me has largely been a very good year. Work (I think!) is going well, my Circuit (I think!) is in positive spirit; my four delightful churches (I think!) have strong foundations on which to move forward to in some cases exciting new possibilities in 2016. One will be worshipping elsewhere from the end of September, another will have some major refurbishment, the other two will have looked with me at some material for small churches doing rural ministry. Messy Churches, school work, some integration into the community will develop further. I have a delightful group of people to work with. Personally, my friendships have deepened, I thank God for them every day. I delight in the people who build me up and make me laugh and who walk with me when things are tough. My divorce is still not complete and I wish i were now, The passing of Molly hit me really hard. I loved that cat so much :) My Mum is not in a good place and that is hard. I have a problem also that doesn't seem to go away after nearly two years of it rumbling on and it is a dark shadow for me. But as I say, 2015 has been largely fab. 

2016 will at last bring my sabbatical, well overdue. I love my ministry here but to have a gift of three months doing something a bit different and having no phones ring or e-mails sent and no pastoral responsibility sounds good just for a bit. I then have to think hard about whether I am going to offer to stay here beyond 2017. The reinvitation process is not pleasant. I will not make the decision to offer or not offer until after my sabbatical. (I think some of you know what I would like to happen though. Hint - I am VERY HAPPY here!!)

So, what to do with tonight. I am very content, the introvert that I am to be here and to be quiet. Last year some of us enjoyed Facebooking and texting through Queen and Adam Lambert from Central Hall. I hope some of us in might join together that way later on. I read this though in today's Guardian:     
"We will turn the television on, and see in a heart-stopping moment of panic that BBC1 is literally spending the last half-hour of 2015 broadcasting a live Bryan Adams concert, even though nobody on Earth has wasted so much as a single thought about Bryan Adams for two full decades, and you all sit there watching it anyway, watching Bryan Poxy Adams sing the Robin Hood song over and over again on New Year’s Eve, wondering if this is how you wanted your life to turn out and if this is how it’s going to be for ever? The fireworks come on afterwards and you notice that the only thing worse than seeing a full-length firework display in person is watching a full-length firework display on television?"

Well, if you are joining me watching Bryan, come and join me in a virtual celebration. Light a candle and weep at that Robin Hood song. Has Bryan Adams enough hits to last over an hour? We shall see. Sir Tom Jones is on Jools Holland on the other side.     

I wish you whether you are quiet (introverts can do New Years Eve quite happily) or loud tonight, at a party, at a church, with family, or alone, with a glass, or without, a peace filled and hope filled 2016. Whatever 2015 has brought to us, we need to remember our blessings. Often the small things need celebrating. Without them, acts of kindness especially, life would be poorer. Thank you if you reading this for being you. 

Regular readers of this blog will know it is titled after a Bonhoeffer quote.  I end these thoughts with him. One of the last messages received from Dietrich Bonhoeffer before his execution was a poem entitled “New Year 1945.”  Written from a Gestapo-run prison during the air raids on Berlin, Bonhoeffer’s words speak as New Year 2016 dawns:

With every power for good to stay and guide me,
comforted and inspired beyond all fear,
I’ll live these days with you in thought beside me,
and pass, with you, into the coming year.

While all the powers of Good aid and attend us,
boldly we’ll face the future, be it what may.
At even, and at morn, God will befriend us,
and oh, most surely on each new year’s day

The old year still torments our hearts, unhastening:
the long days of our sorrow still endure.
Father, grant to the soul thou hast been chastening
that Thou hast promised—the healing and the cure.

Should it be ours to drain the cup of grieving
even to the dregs of pain, at thy command,
we will not falter, thankfully receiving
all that is given by thy loving hand.

But, should it be thy will once more to release us
to life’s enjoyment and its good sunshine,
that we’ve learned from sorrow shall increase us
and all our life be dedicate as thine.

To-day, let candles shed their radiant greeting:
lo, on our darkness are they not thy light,
leading us haply to our longed-for meeting?
Thou canst illumine e’en our darkest night.

When now the silence deepens for our harkening,
grant we may hear thy children’s voices raise
from all the unseen world around us darkening
their universal paean, in thy praise.

While all the powers of Good aid and attend us,
boldy we’ll face the future, be it what way.
At even, and at morn, God will befriend us,
And oh, most surely on each new year’s day!

The Sunday after Christmas - considering change

I shared these words today - it was good to preach incarnation...

Does your house look like a bomb site when you come downstairs on Boxing Day? You leave everything where it is late on Christmas Day and go to bed, perhaps a bit worse for wear. Saucepans and remnants of dinner, wrapping paper and crackers, all over the place. It is done and dusted and all that is to be done is to tidy it away.

But actually this is only the third day of the Christmas season.                       

Imagine for a while you are just getting on with life, it is hard, you don’t expect anything exciting to happen. Imagine today you are a Palestinian shepherd in the hills above Bethlehem.   

Sheep were considered dirty, dumb, and stubborn and the men who herded them were just a notch above.  And if they claimed to hear any angel it was entirely possible because they were either mentally ill or drank a little too much cheap wine. No one thought very much of shepherds and what happened to them or what they said.  You get the picture: there are plenty of “shepherds” among us now. They may not be herding sheep but they’re in front of us every day. Chronically unemployed, mentally ill, homeless, not clean, and generally people we would not have over to our homes for dinner. In fact, we often turn away when we see them or maybe even pretend to we don’t see them at all.  

But in Luke’s Gospel, these are just the people the angels first reveals the birth of Jesus to and it is intentional. 

 I read this quote which helped me:

“Should we really be surprised, then, that these are the first people who will hear the message of God’s redemption? Across Luke’s Gospel one of the dominant themes is that God comes for those who are on the outside—those who are poor, vulnerable, and of no account to the world. Why? Perhaps because they are the ones predisposed to listen and rejoice. Angels could have visited Herod or Augustus or Quirinius or any of the other powerful characters that have made their cameo appearances in Luke’s story.

But why would they rejoice at the announcement of a king? . . . What need have they of God’s redemption when, to all outward appearances, they themselves were like gods?

No, the angels come and sing their news to those for whom it means something. Outcasts, ne‘er-do-wells, the lonely, poor, and lowly— unwed teenage mothers and loser shepherds and all the rest—all, that is, who are in need. For, ultimately, the only requirement to receive God’s love is to need it.”

Isn’t it true that we know God’s love when things change for us suddenly? When we need to reach out for help?  Doesn’t God come in the dark? To people when they need him desperately to lift them up? Isn’t Christmas Day about remembering we are loved, whether through being with family, feeling better watching a positive film, being affirmed by fantastic friends, or being quiet in prayerful reflection? 

Jesus in his life reached out to the marginalized so the fact his birth is announced to the shepherds makes sense. It helps set the tone from the beginning of Luke’s Gospel and proclaims something new is happening here. God, through Jesus, is coming into the world in a new way and saying in essence, who I find valuable is very different and much broader than who the world finds valuable.

Perhaps because life was hard for shepherds but it was all they knew, and they got on with it, the theophany of angels in the sky blew them over so powerfully they were able to see and respond in the way we all should, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

Consciously and with a sense of anticipation, not necessarily certainty. They didn’t know exactly what they would find but they went anyway, which may be as good a definition of faith in action as any there is.  

Here is the promise of Christmas: God will reach out for us often from the most unlikely of circumstances or persons: a shepherd, even a tiny baby born to an unwed teenage mother but the essence of the message will always be, “listen to me, come to me, and know you are loved.” Christmas is an event in which we can rejoice and be glad and full of joy even if life is routine filled and hard at the moment.

David Adam in his book “The Awesome Journey” tells of his time as a very shy choirboy in St Michael’s Church in Alnwick. The boys were practising the anthem for the fourth Sunday in Advent which was based on the epistle for the day “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, rejoice.” David Adam says they practiced the anthem again and again until the choirmaster felt they had mastered it. At one point the choirmaster came over to him and put his face close to his which was terrifying enough – before saying in a loud voice, “Rejoice, boy! Let me see you smile when you sing this. Show that you are glad that the Lord is with you!” Perhaps that is the response to incarnation – “Smile, the Lord is with you.” Change has happened. You know what, God is going anywhere. You can’t tidy him away, not bother with him anymore and get him out again next year like sprouts. You know what God is in the change and will continue to surprise us with the manner of his coming. He comes when we are just getting on with it. He comes in our deepest need and blubbering tears when we think we cannot go on because the pain is too awful to bear. He comes to churches and encourages us to see what is happening. To get up and go rather than remain with today. 

I look at the churches I try and help every day here. We are not where we were because we’ve been open to the Spirit of God changing us. Messy Church here is a prime example of that as we move to doing it monthly in my largest church. Ninfield is another example, no longer in my care, but they have a youth group now as well as Messy Church. I went to the youth group party and said to one of the older members “if I had told you three years ago you would have a youth group in your church, you wouldn’t have believed it would you?” They had 60 – lots of families  - there on Christmas Eve.

My St Helens church are perhaps about to do something interesting as we end our time in our rickety old building in September. 92 there for Messy Church on Christmas Eve. A group of people embracing change that is coming, scary change but a deep sense that God is calling us to something different.     

           

So, let’s try and embrace change. Let’s try and see God in the changes that come. That way we will have understood what we have been singing about and listening to in his word in these last weeks.

Let me finish like this. I am so grateful to Sam Funnell my neighbouring Superintendent to the east in South Kent. Sam turned up on my doorstep yesterday as I was writing this with a little package for me I might she said “find helpful.” I led a quiet morning in Advent for our Circuit staff and her Circuit staff and quoted from my favourite book for this time of year Maria Boulding’s “The Coming of God.”  I told them I had lent the book to someone years ago and never got it back. In the package was a new copy of the book. So grateful… I end with Maria Boulding’s words about God changing us and being in change:

“ “Come” is God’s creative word to us. He calls us into being at our first creation, into the light of life. All our lives we are creatures of becoming, always incomplete, always pilgrims and discoverers, finding our way to our destiny by our choices, our orientations, and our decisions about where to set our love. This is the law of our creation, and still more the law of our new creation, whereby God calls us out of darkness into his marvellous light. Revelation and salvation are a love affair in which God says “Come” to humankind, calling us to come and see him as he is, and share his life.”   

I guess we can pack Christmas away, tidy it up.

But we could perhaps live it. Look around us, see angel song, and be invited to encounter what God is up to.

We could perhaps recognise even when we don’t get what life is doing to us that God is in those fragile vulnerable moments and gives us his peace.

We could perhaps not hope things carry on as we are, but expect and welcome divine change.  

Let’s carry on Christmas for a bit - celebrate the birth of an infant in whose life lies the hope and great promise of the world.   May all of us say this season and beyond, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this that that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

Boxing Day - Reflecting on Christmas

I was not looking forward to Christmas after my horrible few days and missing Molly. But sometimes you know God comes when you need him most through the kindness of God's people who turn up just when you need them. I had Christmas Day on my own and last night before zonking out post Baileys (!) lit a candle and was powerfully quiet. 

We had an amazing Christmas Eve here. I didn't want to lead worship a few hours after saying goodbye to Molly but I found the strength and we have had four very special times over the last couple of days. 92 people rolled in for Messy Church at St Helens, and later 53 at Calvert on Christmas Eve - wow! 

I was upheld by phone calls and messages from special people in the Circuit here on Christmas Eve, and a fun time round my neighbours (Christmas pudding vodka!) then encouraged by two lovely friends at church to join them at an Anglican Midnight Communion to enable me to be and receive of God. That helped. Christmas morning services were lovely, people were lovely and I enjoyed a quiet day, chocolate liqueurs, Christmas Top of the Pops, the Queen, Wizard of Oz, a nice dinner, too much Baileys hence I missed the programme I had been waiting for all day! I was thought of by texts from friends. A lovely day in the end, even if the house felt empty and I expected a cat to appear.     

This quote spoke to me yesterday:

"God has acted. Darkness has been overcome! The son has been sent and because he is born–glory is given to God and peace to those whom he favours. That is us! The ones he favours! That is us!

The Mystery has spoken without words. In the smooth cheeks of a baby, in the loving touch of a mother, in the tear filled eyes of dad, in a herd of shepherds come to see, the Mystery speaks. Today the Mystery speaks again. How are you going to hear it? How am I going to hear it? It remains with us in our joys of this day and even if we are sad this day and are coping with huge loss. It remained with Mary and Joseph and shepherds and kings. It has happened." 

My Mum has decided she is not well enough to come and stay - so it is looking like I will be in Harpenden on Tuesday and Wednesday. If any Harpenden readers want to lure me out on Tuesday night let me know... 

Happy Boxing Day everyone!

Christmas - a different one - remembering Molly

Thank you for all the kind words and sensitivity about Molly no longer being with me. It was a real shock for me to be told she was so poorly. Her last week here was horrible - she was so weak, but she is now at peace, after nearly 13 years of being bonkers and absolute joy. 

Molly came to us from Sleaford in Lincolnshire in March 2003, about six months old. She was in a state with a broken pelvis and other problems, probably from being kicked. There was no hesitation in deciding to take her home to Oakham with us. She loved her first manse in Oakham, especially the wooden posts to scratch in the lounge, embarrassingly, and horsing about on the long landing upstairs. She also loved climbing on the church roof next door, leading to trips to the vet for pelvis pain! She often trotted round to church, passed the windows mid service, and once appeared in the room above church through an open window during a funeral! We moved manses in Oakham in 2004 to a new house. I will always remember David Cook, the Circuit Steward fitting a cat flap in our kitchen door, and trying to catch her armed with a tape measure. I asked him what he was doing. He said "the instructions say "measure cat"!" 

Molly moved to Shildon in County Durham with us in 2006 and changed character a bit. She didn't like living in a manse where there had been a dog and had to fight her corner in some cat turf wars in the park up the road. We then brought her to Storrington which she loved, a lovely garden, and a field at the back with plenty of field mice to bring home. 

Molly always liked to explore but never went far. She loved being in Hastings and trotting to the cemetery one way and to see the neighbours the other!  

               

Molly has got me through some tough times. Many of you will know I was very very seriously ill in the autumn of 2011 and couldn't walk or talk very much for four months. She knew when you were poorly and we bonded on the sheepy blanket especially during Downton Abbey. To almost the last day. we had to have an hour on the sheepy blanket before bed! I miss her most at the end of the day. Sadly her tumour was so uncomfortable she needed to sleep and sit on the floor towards the end. Molly also got me through marriage break up. She was our cat, but I am glad I was able to keep her after we split.  

       

I don't think I will ever have a cat with such attitude again - she loved rooves, and she loved coming to meetings and being involved. She once sat on the Chair of District's head which was a tad embarrassing! Molly was one of God's gifts to me for which I am thankful. She was a one off and made every day fun. She hated cat camp - Uncle Eddie in County Durham used to have to wear a cricket glove to deal with her! She hated the cat hospital. The vet in Hastings used to say I must love her very much as she was so vicious! She growled there to the end but was too weak to fight the vet this last time.

Rest in peace dear friend. Thank you for everything. 

 

Oh, and how am I going to finish the Circuit preaching plan now???!?! 

Advent Day 23 - Sunset Song

I've been to the cinema in Rye on my day off and have sat through two hours of hard viewing but brilliance in the adaptation of the novel "Sunset Song" set around the outbreak of World War One. The relationships in it are not easy to watch. The abusive father,, a turn-of-the-century farming patriarch torn between the anger of devotion (he sings hymns while harvesting) and the demons of violence and lust (he beats his son and beds his wife “like a breeding sow”, the screams of sex and childbirth intermingled). The yearning female voice, Agyness Deyn providing internal monologue narration for Chris, who is torn between the beauty of the ancient Scottish land on which she toils, and the “sharp, clean and true” English words of an education that may yet take her away from all this. And there is unforgiving religion, from father’s belt to the damnation poured from the pulpit upon those (including Chris’s true love, Ewan) who have no enthusiasm for war, branded as “pro-German cowards” in league with an Antichrist Kaiser.

There are in the film themes of denying yourself, anger, violence, love, death, duty, and narrow religion, coming back from war damaged, and much more. I thought of Christmas and darkness as the last words of the film and the novel were shared about the last light of the day: 
" You can do without the day if you've a lamp quiet-lighted and kind in your heart."

A hard watch - but a worthwhile one. 

Advent Day 22 - More carols!

A good day: three carol services, a lunch round the neighbours and a Christmas tea and the right result on The Apprentice just now!

I used this reading today. So tired so have no original thoughts tonight but share this. It is from a book my colleague Peggy brought to a quiet day earlier this month called Kneeling in Bethlehem by Ann Weems.

The words point me to the heart of what I have tried to share today. It has been a real joy to be with three of my congregations today - the atmosphere in each was very powerful. 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

God’s mercies never come to an end.

They are new every morning.

The Lord God gave the peoples of the earth a garden,

and the people said; “That’s very nice, God, but that’s not

enough. We’d like a little knowledge, please.”

The Lord God gave them knowledge,

And the people said, “Now that we have knowledge,

we’d like things.

The Lord God gave the people things,

but they always said, “That’s not quite enough.”

So the Lord God gave them gifts unequalled:

the sun

lightning and thunder

rain and flowers

animals and birds and fish

trees and stars and the moon.

God gave them the rainbow.

God parted the Red Sea and gave them manna.

God gave them prophets

and children

and each other,

 but still the people said, “That’s no quite enough.”

God loved the people,

and out of ultimate merciful goodness

God gave them the Gift of Gifts,

a Christmas present never to be forgotten.

God gave them love

in the form of God’s son,

even Christ Jesus.

There are some that don’t open their eyes

or their ears or their hearts

and they still say, that’s not quite enough.

They wander through the stores looking for Christmas.

But others open their whole being to the Lord,

bending their knees to praise God,

carrying Christmas with them every day.

For these the whole world is a gift!

Advent Day 21 - A song to be sung

Has anyone reached the point where you would like to rip certain carols out of every carol sheet and hymn book because you never want to sing them again? Oh just me then!

I am using these words to introduce my carol services tomorrow. I find them powerful:

"When nations rage with hatred and war, and innocent people are slaughtered for no cause, when humans terrorise one another in body and spirit and the clamour of the streets is but a massive cry of despair and groans of hunger; when there appears to be no reason for a child to be born to endure the insensibilities of life, when it seems that all is lost and there is no hope, there is still a song to be sung, a song which unites the music in the soul."

I do more carol services and carol singing in this appointment than any other I have had. Tonight we have been at Pickham Farm in Pett in a barn surrounded by cows and sheep and donkeys and we have sat on hay bales and excited children have loved it: "That cow has just done at POO!" exclaimed one little boy. Carols express some of the deepest incarnational theology we have, I wonder if people who sing them once a year understand what they are singing. Whatever, they lift us up and help us see a different way. 

Advent Day 20: Last times

This is St Helen's Church in Ore Village in Hastings, an old picture from some years ago. Our notice board is no longer there and the roof is not as good as this any more. I have been out with the folk from St Helens carol singing round their community tonight.

We had a good time, an all age gathering, dreadfully out of tune but good fun, mixing with and laughing with our neighbours.

What hit me was this was the last time we shall go out at Christmas from this building as we are leaving it on 18th September 2016 due to it being so poor and beyond repair. Five years ago the people at St Helens had a definite vision to be church somewhere else and this will happen next year. A lot of the people there tonight have known no other way of being church, no other building to worship in, but they are full of hope and confidence that something will happen next year for them, we have a temporary home from 19th September and we are hoping something exciting might be possible for us to relaunch in years to come if something that is being mooted happens! If not, we will do church out of our temporary home permanently because it is still in the community.

So, next year's carol singing will happen, just not beginning here.

I guess this reminds me that sometimes we just need to stop worrying and trust. St Helens are an inspiration to me - a lot of doors have shut for them concerning partnerships in the future, but I lead them into 2016 with some better ones opening. Perhaps this is incarnation - to take a journey you don't know all the details of, but to go and find out what might be possible is to find God's plan for you and God's blessing. Imagine if people in the Christmas narrative had said no, we like the familiar or it is too difficult. Christmas encounter is about anticipating surprise and believing in a future. Our out of tune ramshackle choir will return next year round our community, and in uncertainty, that certainty feels good.

Advent Day 19 - Lights in darkness

This is Sackville Road in Bexhill on Sea. We have a church in this street, looked after by my colleague Tricia Williams. 

The church is an enormous building which, in its day, had a congregation of over 400, including, in retirement, Rev Dr Leslie Weatherhead. Now the congregation is around 30, mostly older folk. The premises are used by some groups and a toddlers group but the church has needed some hope and a new focus. 

On the first Friday of December, Bexhill's Christmas lights were switched on. The church was open for free refreshments. Over 140 people came in and much conversation was had. A major publicity drive had happened in the weeks before along this street. Some people apparently came in and had never been in. The local congregation were amazed at the response. They opened their door on an important night in the town and saw that if they open the door people might well come through it! 

I share this story nineteen days into Advent when we think with our Advent calendars opening doors on them. We are often surprised what lies behind a door. People largely don't know what is behind church doors and are surprised when they come in what is there. Our welcome the other side of the door matters. I suggested in an Advent group tonight this weekend with carol services and people who come in through our doors perhaps only once a year, this weekend is the most important we do. Can people find light not just in pretty lights on the street, but inside a church by our attitude and our hospitality. Can we make room for people as the light of the world makes room for us by coming and brightening us up? 

      

Advent Day 18 - Cats and Carols

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Quite a day! Molly was looking miserable first thing so off to the cat hospital we went - she has swollen glands and possibly an overactive thyroid. We are on the medication and back in two weeks. 

Then the day brought a meeting with the Circuit Administrator to do some of the annual returns on line. I love the fact one of the churches to the question "when was your safeguarding policy displayed on notice boards" wrote "1st January 1970!" I hope he misunderstood the question! Then a really big Christmas dinner at our Circuit lunch club, then onto our lovely Trinity church for their open door, carols led by the lively Rosalie and more food. Then home to check on my mother who is better post a visit to the doctor this afternoon, then a phone call about my divorce, and then we were out in the community around our Calvert church for a couple of hours carol singing. I was given a festive hat to wear! A highlight every year is the lady who brings out alcoholic mulled wine and mince pies because she says we make her Christmas. 

I guess today reminds me that life brings a mixture of good and bad, thrown at us to get on with. 

I was so worried about my little cat this morning and got upset, She is getting on and I couldn't cope with losing her. I have had fun doing Christmas things, perhaps a little too many carols but I have had fun. My personal stuff is not easy at the moment but I have enough support to get through. 

If incarnation means anything, it needs God comes into everything. And I have praised him today, and cried at him today and laughed with him today and shouted at him today. Why does stuff come whe you are snowed under? I wanted to use the best Lord Sugar line at God from this year's Apprentice:

"It is all about supply and demand. I demand the answers, you'd better bloody supply them." But you know what God does supply them. Molly was treated by Mr Cooper and I hope the medicine will perk her up. She has lost a kilo in weight. People in the Circuit seem in good heart after a difficult time. My Mum seems better with a reassuring GP today. I am deeply thankful my ex wife and I are on good terms even if we had to end our marriage, and it was brilliant tonight to see a church meeting its community and the community looking forward to the local church coming. 

So, cats and carols and conversations  - all part of life's rich tapestry. I hope though tomorrow will be quieter. !!!

Advent Day 17 - Travelling

Those of you who follow me on Facebook will have seen this picture already today. I love it because it looks like the snowman is queuing for a ticket. I took this at Battle station this morning. 

Christmas is all about people on the move - people ask "where are you going for Christmas?" Christmas involves journeys - journeys to family, returning home for some people; journeys to parties or to other gatherings; journeys in your mind to Christmases past where people were with you and now are not; journeys to something special for some, getting away from the norm and escaping to sunnier climes. 

I think especially at this time of Mary and Joseph who were forced to travel away from the familiar because of a regime edict and then found no room (and they say this story has nothing to do with today!!!) 

I also think of Mary after receiving news of her baby journeying for sanctuary and wise counsel with Elizabeth. 

I think of shepherds who were eager to journey to see for themselves the events in Bethlehem.

I think of magi journeying for ages from distant lands following a star, getting the direction wrong and then returning another way.

I think of the toddler Christ forced to flee for his life through impending genocide protected by his parents and welcomed as a refugee in a foreign country (again I say, they say this story has nothing to do with today!!!)

Wherever we travel in these weeks, let us remember the journeys in the story. All took courage and risks. Read the story and focus on journeys and you see that to journey might be hard but it leads to life. To stay where you are only leads to a stale boring dull existence. 

Mind you, if Heart play Chris Rea "Driving Home for Christmas" much more, the radio in my car might be permanently broken...! :)

Advent Day 16 - Another road

I have been in Harpenden today, visiting my Mum who rang me this morning early feeling very poorly and very frightened. After a doctor's visit and some medication she was beginning to feel better when I left this evening. 

This is a picture of the street I grew up in. Our house is on the right hand side of this street, some way  up. It is now a very busy road but when it was built in the 1930's (see picture below) it was a country lane. My Mum and Dad bought their house in 1959 after marriage, and Mum has lived there ever since.

We still call going to the shops at the bottom of the road " going down the road" - and I have been "down the road" a lot today to get prescriptions and do shopping. I have walked down this road a lot in my life, to go to primary school round the corner, to catch a bus to secondary school, to go to church, to shop, to now get things for Mum. It is interesting to see how the road has changed in 48 years. It is much busier. The shops at the bottom have changed - no more sweet shop where we used to buy half pence chews. no more newsagent where we used to buy those football stickers you used to swap, no more Stuarts of Wheathampstead outfitters, even the church at Southdown is not as vibrant as it was. I remember very well their new church hall being opened above a new supermarket (Fine Fare!) in 1980. There are now three cafes within spitting distance of one another!

 I used to know this road well. I knew people on it. I used to stare out of my bedroom window at it. In 1977 I had a silver jubilee trumpet and blew it at it! It was all I knew. 

Then in 1994, I left it and discovered another road, and that was the road to Manchester and ministerial training which changed my life. It wasn't easy to leave, but I needed to, to enlarge my vision and my experience of life. It is easy to stick with the familiar and never take another road. But isn't that narrowing what life is about? I think about magi tonight who were called to travel another road. The road they thought would bring them life was actually not the road to take. 

I cherish my upbringing and this road, but while it is good to return, I am glad other roads opened up for me and I am glad in my life to be invited to travel down other roads to see what is down them>

Advent surely if it is about coming is an invitation to travel something new whilst cherishing what we have travelled in the past.                   

Advent Day 15 - Rejoicing in being loved

Someone posted this on my Facebook wall today and I can't stop laughing about it!

The third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudate Sunday. Sadly because of nativity services so early I didn't have chance to speak about it today. It would be a bit high church of me to put a pink candle on the Advent ring but it is a good thing.   I know, it seems that no matter where you look there is bad news! However, all of the pain, hurt, fear, worry, and that awful killer on the loose in our modern mania, fear and stress, need not distract us from the source of true Joy, God revealed among us. We rejoice on Gaudate Sunday, because the Lord is always near, He is always coming to those who have the eyes of living faith. 

Zephaniah had the right idea:

"Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart,O daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has removed the judgment against you he has turned away your enemies;the King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst,you have no further misfortune to fear. On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem: Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged! The LORD, your God, is in your midst,a mighty saviour;he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you,as one sings at festivals."

Not easy I know sometimes to rejoice, the meaning of Gaudate. Perhaps another picture illustrates this nicely: 

We used to do our exams at Townsend C of E School (the great Miss Legerton, our Headmistress, eccentricity personified, pictured here) facing the school motto "rejoice in the Lord alway" - there wasn't much to rejoice about as you sweated over algebra let me tell you. The text reminds us to keep going in adversity and be reminded of what is good and lovely and true while we journey. What have you to rejoice about today as you read this?

Today has been a day of little rejoicings:

Watching little Charlotte at Pett Toy Service this morning putting a wrapped toy on a pile then spotting another pile and saying to her granny "are these for me?"

Watching three adults playing three kings pretending to ride camels!

Singing in a choir for fun this afternoon.

Enjoying a leisurely dinner (and missing Circuit events to do so) with some special friends. 

Being reminded I am cared for. There is plenty to rejoice about, to be pink about in the midst of the travelling. And if you are in love with a tape dispenser tonight, rejoice in that!    

Advent Day 14 - Community

I am today thanking God for the privilege of being the minister at Rye Methodist Church.

Our church in Rye is only small but our presence there enables me to get involved in an amazing amount of community stuff, an example of which has been today. 

Rye has been alive with Christmas today, a major initiative bringing every business and community group together. I took this picture this afternoon, and it was busy. By the time the procession with Father Christmas and a very large green dragon came along the High Street and the Mayor switches on the Christmas tree lights above The George hotel, the place was so full of people you couldn't move. There was a wonderful atmosphere of everyone just getting on together, enjoying the event ad being there. We opened our church for refreshments but there were no other events in our part of town to attract people past our building so that was sad, but a greater use of my time was getting involved and mingling with people for a few hours. I had more conversations about God in the street and in shops than I do in church. It was good the event ended with a carol service in the Parish Church shared between the clergy of the town. It was good for folk to see the three of us larking about and getting on. I guess the 400 or so in there were largely unchurched so we hope their image of church might have been a positive one tonight. I got a laugh anyway when I announced the last carol and reminded everyone we would all be home in time for the X Factor final! 

Like my post yesterday said, if Christmas brings people together, can't we stay together after it? If Christmas is about God coming to everyone, shouldn't we have more community times of celebration? With the church at the heart of them? There was an appeal to join the Christmas Committee tonight - I am tempted! And Rye businesses, wouldn't dreary January be better if I came into your shops and you greeted me with mulled wine, coffee, food, prosciutto, cake,  more coffee etc etc like you did today??! 

Advent Day 13 - Fear not

This morning in the town where I live a man went into Macdonalds, placed a package on the counter, said "Happy Christmas" and left. This was followed by police evacuating the town centre, and a wide area round it for several hours, and the bomb disposal squad arriving and there being a controlled explosion of the package. It was a hoax but it was taken very seriously in the current climate. I know people who are frightened to go into big cities at the moment, but actually this sort of thing can happen anywhere. One tweet I read said "ISIS on the sea front" - it wasn't ISIS but you do wonder what made the man, who was later arrested on the sea front do what he did. I would love to have a conversation with him. 

Alongside this I have heard the nativity story for the second day in a row shared by 90 children in our Methodist primary school and then tonight I have shared in a bit of heaven on earth as our choir gave us a lovely evening of carols and readings and reflections, apart from one item - the minister murdering the Christmas Song. But in those two events the contrast between words of peace, togetherness, goodwill and hope and the events of today in town hit me hard. As one song in the school nativity said we hear this tale every year and it never goes stale. The sad thing is we need its message every year more and more.

How do we cope with a world of bomb hoaxs, of bombs, of terrorism, of floods and tragedy, of Donald Trump's lead in the republican party having grown since he said those awful things?

I do see you know hope, I see hope in people coming together in small groups to make a difference. In Hastings today people helped one another as there was uncertainty for a while; the rising up in the main against views that are simply dangerous is happening; communities in Cumbria have come together to help people who have lost everything. Have a look at Sandylands Methodist Church website or Facebook page. We are also seeing people come together to reflect on our forces being sent to bomb in Syria. We are seeing that discrimination of the other is wrong. We are I think seeing a more tolerant, cohesive community. I can't change the world but I can change my bit of it by my attitude, by my standing up for injustice, by my being there for others in pain. The other bit of the incarnation narrative that speaks to me tonight is how often angels say "Fear not"! Perhaps angels are in our community especially at times of crisis.

What is the Christian call in a world of fear? Well, the comedian Milton Jones sums it up for me in his little book of 10 second sermons: "Christianity is not so much a religion, more the beginning of a realisation of how things really are."

So Mr Bomb Hoaxer causing chaos in my town today. So Mr Donald Trump. So Mr Politician who thinks war still is the answer. As Private Eye puts the campaign so well we are "pissing in the dark." So bad news, depression and anxiety and crazy world all this means you will not have the last word.

If enough of us believe that and act on that, what a difference we could make.

And for a laugh, I love this link from the Archdruid Eileen today -  - enjoy:

 http://cyber-coenobites.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-liturgy-of-fairytale-of-new-york.html






   

Advent Day 12 - Talking

On Thursdays during Advent I am leading two groups in the Circuit and we are using this table talk material. There are 16 cards each week with questions about Christmas on them, some are more serious than others, but the people who come are enjoying seeing where conversation takes them. We've done some deep theology today about what the Christmas story means to us, the need to be able to receive well, and where the Prince of Peace is. We have also discussed together our favourite Christmas drinks (I serve a load of drunks!) and who we would like to invite for Christmas dinner. 

In a world where we stick our noses into smartphones and tablets so easily we forget good old fashioned conversation with no distractions around a table. We have also enjoyed sharing food as par of our sessions, lovely turkey broth this morning and tonight lovely cheese straws and shortbread. 

I really recommend this material - but more than that, it is good and vital to stop and share what we think this season is all about. About 30 people are rediscovering the privilege of shared conversation, and are learning much from shared knowledge, memories and companionship. 

That's why I love leading groups!       

Advent Day 11 - Light

Hark the herald angels sing has surely the most profound and deep theology we sing and share in these weeks - "light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings."

I love driving in the dark in these weeks and seeing the lights around me on houses. This is the lights of love tree outside the Methodist Church in Ninfield in our Circuit. The local hospice organises services in this area and trees and Ninfield has a tree for the first time this year and they had a good time on Sunday remembering loved ones and switching on the tree lights. 

This will be a strange Christmas for many people. We hear of war and terrorism in the world on a daily basis. People in Cumbria near Christmas find businesses and homes ruined post flooding. People who have lost loved ones in the year find the first Christmas with an empty place at the table painful. Others get very unwell because of the pressure on them to do it properly. 

But it is into darkness and pain and fear that God comes. And I believe one light can make a difference. How we light up life for others matters but also how we receive the light into our own darkness is important. I treasure my very special friends, my four lovely churches, people who make me laugh and dance with joy. I hold onto a God who brings light and answers when we least expect them or think the future is dark and unclear. 

The little church at Ninfield when I arrived in the Circuit four years ago were a lovely group of people with an afternoon service but not a lot else. They were determined to follow where the light of Christ might lead them. They have working with my predecessor Ian, then with me and now with their new minister Tricia, changed the time of their worship, started a cafe worship once a month, refurbished their premises, begun Messy Church which has grown through partnership with the local primary school, formed a new Messy group for year 6 children, and have received new members and on Sunday have a baptism of an 11 year old. And people in the village are perhaps for the first time in many years noticing they are there, the light shining out of a little group of faithful people who simply want to be there for others and enthuse about being there for others. So it is highly appropriate a tree about lights of love stands outside this chapel.

We need the light and life and healing wings in a very dark world. Some of us are mad enough to believe the darkness of pain and death and floods and bombs and knife crime and crazy billionnaires in America talking utter bilge will not have the last word. Christmas is about God coming to transform the dark. We always picture the Christmas story in the dark and in the cold - I guess it was neither, but I think it helps with the message it brings. 

Advent Day 10 - Prophets

Sometimes word fail you. I am deeply disturbed by this man. So today on the 10th day of Advent I thank God for prophets pointing people to the right way. Rachel Held Evans blog this morning says it far better than me so I leave tonight's thought to her:

"Time for all of us to speak up. This isn't a joke anymore. To the cheers of thousands, Donald Trump has called for committing war crimes against women and children, for banning Muslims (including U.S. citizens) from entering the U.S., for shutting down mosques, and for tracking religious minorities with a database and possible ID badges. (In addition, he shared false information from a white supremacist Web site to spread lies about African Americans and crime, and has called for the deportation of millions of immigrants.) We've seen a Christian college president urge his students to take up arms and "end those Muslims before they get here." And across the country, Muslims report that their mosques are being vandalized, that they are receiving death threats by the hour, and that women in head coverings are being harassed when they go out in public. Needy families fleeing terrorism in their own countries, who have spent years being vetted to receive refugee status and a safe home, are arriving to the U.S. only to be turned away by state governors. The hysteria and xenophobia has gotten completely out of control, and it runs totally contrary to our country's commitment to religious freedom and especially to the teachings of Jesus. If a pastor, family member, friend, or acquaintance expresses support for violent rhetoric against minorities, speak up. Call it out. It's not okay. We can stop wondering if we would have protested the anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. This is exactly how it begins. Now's the time to speak up and to act."

Meanwhile in Syria this is happening. Lord, have mercy...

Dear friends This email is challenging for me to write as I am still processing this news. On Saturday afternoon the office of one of our partners in Damascus was hit by two rockets.  We are immensely thankful that there were only two staff members there at the time and that no one was killed. One of them was injured in this attack, but we thank God that their injuries were not too serious.  As you can imagine, the whole team is very shaken. Their kitchen has been badly damaged and their office was also hit.   They have lost some of their computers and the glass from all their windows has been blown out.

They are asking for our prayers, and for us to remember the persecuted church in Syria at this time. This partner has an amazing and inspiring ministry to the displaced people inside Syria and they have a church in Damascus and also in the South.  They support 1,000 displaced families (around 5,000 - 6,000 people) every month with food parcels and other relief items.  They support families from all backgrounds regardless of faith, political views, gender, ethnicity, and all aid is given freely without expectation. Many of their staff have fled over the last few years as the conflict has intensified, but they still have a team of Christians, which includes 90 leaders, who are fully committed to serving the vulnerable and hurting people of Syria.  Many of these people are volunteers, and they recognise that the needs of the people are far greater than just the physical need for food, clothing and shelter.  More than anything, these people need love and hope. Already I work closely with this NGO's team in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and soon their team in Syria will be helping to distribute some of the aid we send. They urgently need our prayers for their safety and protection, as well as financial help to get back on their feet to continue the essential and desperately needed work they are doing serving our brothers and sisters who have lost everything. Please pray for their team, their safety and protection in this vital work they are doing, and if you or your church, business or community are in a position to help with finance to get them back on their feet please contact Samara on 07960 937 716 or reply to this email if you would like to give directly.  You can also donate online https://give.everydayhero.com/uk/rebuilding-hope-in-syria.  Donations for this appeal are separate from our usual appeals. Thanks so much for your care and support. Love Samara