Advent Day 5 - Praying

I didn't sleep very well last night. I had images of planes bombing innocent people in Syria in my head and politicians applauding an appeal to send those planes. Apparently today's bombs have been "successful." Lord have mercy (like yesterday!) 

I love living by the sea. I love skies all of colours and I love when the sun breaks through. I took this picture on my way to get my hair cut at 9am on the sea front. Lauren, my temporary hairdresser was determined to get me "smart for Christmas" - she has gone mad with the razor and I look ridiculous, but that's another story. As I walked along the sea front, the sky spoke to me about just a chink of God's light being there today, just enough, to keep me going. I am angry about the vote to bomb Syria with no exit plan, although I am also angry about so called Labour party supporters intimidating MPs who in consciousness made it known they would be voting with the Government, but you have to do something positive with that anger, and I think the best protest is to focus on a different way, to come together with others to reflect on how we change the world, to pray, to talk about our fears and to believe that in the end war and bombs cannot solve things. You don't in an area where refugees are caused by fleeing bombs then drop more bombs, do you? You don't applaud a call to bomb and then the next day, as we expected, tell the nation it may take time. To do what? 

All I can do is pray really, and reflect with my folk where they are at with all of this. Everyone I have spoken to today pastorally believes IS is evil and needs to be stopped, but not this way. People need to talk. I need to seek God in all of this. I see to see skies like this a lot. I need quiet and peace and to believe that if I give my fear to God, he will answer. 

I read this unbelievable sentence today :

"Praying to God to change, halt, reverse a particular process is wrong. If there is a Creator, it is an insult to the provider of all the laws of physics which so powerfully determine the progress of evolution of life on earth." I think this is saying there is no point to prayer and that God cannot change events. I don't believe that. Surely if we seek God, the God who seeks peace and gives peace, that will make a difference. The frustration is that we never seem to learn. 

In an Advent group this morning, someone suggested that in the incarnation narrative. the only ones who aren't in trouble are the angels. I had never thought about that. The coming of God on earth long ago involved frightened teenage unmarried mothers; bemused fathers; a tyrannical census, unstable rulers, outsiders, foreign characters seeking peace, genocide, refugees, and filth. The angels meanwhile speak of the glory of God, good news, and peace on earth, achievable in the child and to be spread by everyone who encounters it. 

So, I share my little picture of the light on the fifth day of Advent and I hold on. I have no answers to IS and how dropping bombs will end. But I hold the Christ light in the night time of my fear... As the quote says, "one light says to the darkness, I beg to differ."

I look out to sea and see the light and I hold on, because I trust the power of this light far more than I trust the power of a bomb.