The voice of prayer is never silent

It’s been a very windy and wet couple of days here on Holy Island. The place has been very quiet with few people about. Few tourists come here in the wilds of November! We met a young couple in church on Monday who had never been here until this visit. They were amazed nothing was open, it was too wet to walk about so they had spent most of their visit sitting in their car. 

It was a challenge tonight to get to evening prayer at 5.30 through Storm Diana which is hitting the north today and tomorrow.  But I managed it as I have every night so far, and tonight I was very conscious of two things: one, that prayer has been offered every day here since Saint Aidan’s day. The Venerable Bede, writing in c.731, records that St Aidan arrived in Northumbria from St. Columba’s monastery on Iona in 635 at the request of King Oswald and was gifted the Holy Island of Lindisfarne to establish his own monastery. It’s awesome to think prayer, morning and evening, has been offered here since 635 and this week we join in the story of those who faithfully plodge to church in all weathers to remind ourselves that the rumour of God is still alive. There were only  seven of us tonight who braved the journey through the storm, but it’s brilliant the rhythm of prayer never stops here, that people are doing this bringing the world to God thing every day when most of us forget to do it. 

Secondly while especially today I’ve been struggling physically, my lungs hurt so much, being here is proving to be healing and life giving and this connecting to community while we can’t be with our normal church life which is very painful, is giving me some peace. We are working being back here for Christmas as I can’t work and we know no one in Hailsham. This place gets us and we are blessed every time we are here. 

I thought tonight about a verse in The Day Thou Gavest, here, as in many other thin and holy places, the voice of prayer is truly never silent. This isn’t namby pamby Christianity where we pretend nothing is wrong, this is offering all of our rubbish and good stuff to God in an authentic and honest way. I may not be better yet, but systematic offering of my lot to God every day surely will do me good, even getting drenched to do it!!  

How will it end?

We have, after a very long and tiring journey arrived on Holy Island. After three months now of being laid aside from my ministry actively and another six weeks at least stlll signed off, I’ve realised how much this time has hit me mentally. I’m struggling and I need some time to have some space away from sorting our stuff in our temporary home and from endless medical appointments. There is no better place than here to do that especially when the tide is in and it goes amazingly quiet. 

Today is the last week of the church liturgical year when we are encouraged to think seriously about how things will end. Does a belief in Christ mean anything? 

“How is it going to end?” is a real question for many people today. 

“How is Brexit going to end?” We have a deal which now Mrs May needs to get through Parliament. How is it going to end if she is defeated? 

“How will a television programme I’ve invested time in trying to follow going to end?” I’ve tried to keep up with The Little Drummer Girl on a Sunday night. I don’t really understand it but I hang in there. 

“How will my current problems end?” Pastorally people wait for endings, a test result, a cry for relief in unspeakable pain, a letter from the DWP after a benefits assessment, there are many examples. I wonder how things will end up for me. I am physically not much better, I go for a walk and am shattered, I have conversations with people and am shattered. I am in the middle of tests and scans and hospital appointments and am now under the care unexpectedly of two consultants and await the results of the barrage of stuff they have called for urgently, to come. I don’t know the end. Where will we be living after the rental time on our temporary home in Hailsham comes to an end? I don’t know the end to that, either! 

Today, in church, we were reminded through readings from the apocalyptic parts of the Bible that the end with God will be a positive one. Christ will return in glory and his Kingdom will come. We sang mighty hymns like “Lo he comes with clouds descending” and “Rejoice the Lord is King” (No trump of God in the Anglican book and no mighty organ bit after the last verse - how I missed Clifford Foster today!) Words all about the end and no need to worry about it.

But we do worry about it!! I didn’t vote to come out of the EU and I am worried how it will end. I know people as I write this whose life circumstances mean they are paralysed in grief and fear and they don’t need Christian platitudes saying “pray harder it will all be okay, dear.” I am scared of the results of my scans because they may have long term implications for me health wise. I want to know where we wlll be living next year as the Central Sussex United Area need their manse back by June at the latest. How do we live not knowing our own personal ends but focussing on the end the preacher tells us about? How do we keep faith with the long term view? 

Kate, the preacher here on the Island this morning reminded us we make our own ends. If we believe the Kingdom has come and will come how we make it a reality in our world matters. If we believe the Kingdom might come we will be apathetic, but if we believe it will come and is come we live in the light of that reality, even in our uncertainty. 

This morning a small but devoted group of Christians became church and together here they heard the story and hopefully were encouraged through the liturgy to live positively this week as though they believe it! I was glad to be part of them. We’ve been coming here for many years now. This place puts us back together. A lady after the service told us she is tired in old age of being told to “take care” but rather she wants now to “take risks” and “have some fun!” I liked her a lot. It’s easy to wallow but even in hardship and uncertainty we hold on to what we know and we live in the light of that. 

I received communion this morning for the first time in three months. It was powerful to hold my hands out to take the elements in a church that is my spiritual home. I have prayed in it, I met my wife worshipping together in it, I have cried in it, we had our marriage blessing in it, and today I lit some candles for a friend who is in pain after losing her husband suddenly this week. In bread and wine today I seemed to be told even in your not knowing, you know more than you realise, the broken Christ is with you and gets it, and we hold on together for you know what, crucifixion doesn’t have the last word and nor does my illness, at least not having peace in it. I remember Cuthbert and his faith, even his time he needed to contemplate life away from the parish on his island and I remember the faithfulness of his followers who in persecution later carried his body to Durham where it now rests. 

So I don’t know the end but I do know the end! 

Yes I want to be able to do more physically, I want to be back in my churches, I can’t believe that I am unable to do Christmas, I don’t trust politicians and I ache for my fellow human beings today who hurt. But I live believing one day it wlll be different. Doing the liturgy, living faithfully, holding on to the certain, making a difference pastorally to people, and as Wesley found in uncertainty preaching faith until you have it are all vital. 

I nicked the liturgy from today and hold on to this prayer: 

God the Father, help us to hear the call of Christ the King and to follow in his service whose kingdom has no end, for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, one glory. Amen. 

Tonight I am hoping for a good end. 

Receiving Remembrance

Not being able to lead a Remembrance service this year and having to be at an appointment in Peterborough tomorrow and needing to break the journey as I can’t drive all that way in one go, we have spent Remembrance Sunday in Hertfordshire. 

This morning, it was a privilege to be in Wheathampstead where my family come from, to do Remembrance. My Grandad, Harry Smith, is buried in the churchyard at St Helens and went to the First World War with his pals the Folly Boys, enlisting in 1914. He survived the war, despite being injured. An exhibition in the village today told me he received a gratuity of around £50 - £70 after he was demobbed in 1919 for the loss of his finger. 

 

Several things have struck me receiving Remembrance 100 years after the Armistice. 

It was deeply moving to be in the middle of a village community this morning of all ages. We made a communal promise to reject the ways of war. If only we would do that together after Remembrance Sunday! We need more respect, we need to admit our mistakes, we need to try and understand each other more, we need to work out together how to put things right when something is a mess, we need to work harder at community. What makes so many people come out and stand in silence and make promises together one day in November? Remembering is literally putting something back together. We work for peace, we live in grace, we put others first, we say enough of the dark things of life. Canon Ian Black has it right in this extract from his sermon preached for Remembrance in his church:

“On Remembrance Sunday our remembering is not just a roll call of death and loss. It is a sober pausing to reflect on what happens when we stray from the kingdom of justice and peace and travel a road that leads to so much destruction and death. It is a call to the ways of peace, to build social relationships where all are honoured and oppression is ended. That pause and call is as real and necessary today as it has ever been. When we have disagreements – and there are many not least with the mess we are in over Brexit and with how we care for the poorest in our society, welcome the stranger in need and protect from those who wish us harm in terms of organized crime and exploitation – when we disagree it is important to remember that those on the other side are our neighbours and fellow siblings in Christ. Battles destroy lives, but also the bonds that connect and build.”

How often do you have to queue to get into church? The church In Wheathampstead was not large enough to get all the village in it! I had to stand. In the service in church some of us were given a little card with a fallen soldier from the village on it. When their name was read out each person with their card was asked to stand. It was moving to see just from a small village how many stood. These ordinary folk were real people, who were led to do their duty in an impossible situation. I was struck how many surnames of the fallen I recognised. I know I sat in church as a child with at least two ladies who lost their husbands abruptly. 

The exhibition in the village memorial hall I visited after the service had the story of my Grandad and his friends Sid Arnold and Jim Elmore. While I was there I had several conversations with people about Grandad. People knew him and my family. We all thought it important the stories continue to be told. We need to learn from sacrificial living in a world that is very selfish, never admits it is wrong and lashes out at the different. We need a commitment to try harder every day. Otherwise the stories we remember of my Grandad and those who fell just become history. 

Tonight there was another moving service in Harpenden of music and words. We focussed in the service of the horror of war then moved to think about hope. The minister Mark Hammond, had found sermons from 1918 by the minister in Harpenden then, the Rev Frank Bertram Clogg. His sermon on 27 October was on the resurrection of the body. He spoke of people being found out at the last. He said the bully will be found out. But also those who work faithfully and sincerely to make a better world today. We ended the service and my day like this: 

Peace in our time, O Lord,

To all the peoples – peace!

Peace surely based upon Thy will

And built in righteousness.

Thy power alone can break

The fetters that enchain

The sorely stricken soul of life

And make it live again.

Too long mistrust and fear

Have held our souls in thrall;

Sweep through the earth, keen Breath of Heav’n

And sound a nobler call!

Come, as Thou didst of old,

In love so great that men

Shall cast aside all other gods

And turn to Thee again.

Peace in our time, O Lord,

To all the peoples – peace!

Peace that shall build a glad new world,

And make for life’s increase.

O living Christ, Who still

Dost all our burdens share,

Come now and dwell within the hearts

Of all men everywhere.