Standing On Holy Ground

I’m sitting catching up with the five prospective Prime Ministers. So depressing! Boris Johnson our unelected PM!!!!  Then President Trump is launching his re-election campaign in Orlando and I cannot see a strong Democrat candidate to beat him. It’s so easy to despair if all we had is human desire for power. I’m really enjoying “Years and Years” a frightening prediction of the future if we carry on being so selfish. The danger of populist leadership is real. Vivienne Rook’s Four Star Party is attractive as she offers a way we can all progress, but it is at the expense of anyone different. It’s like Germany in

1933 all over again. Not just depressing, but frightening. 

We need a new focus. We need a return to God and a vision again of a world where ALL matter. 

If we take God seriously then we will encompass again a world view that isn’t into power but is inclusive and into serving others as a response to the God who in Christ has served us. 

Who is God? I can do no better than quote from the fabulous “Mister God, This Is Anna” classic:  

Mister God made everything, didn’t he?”

There was no point in saying I didn’t really know. I said “Yes.”

“Even the dirt and the stars and the animals and the people and the trees and everything, and the pollywogs?” The pollywogs were those little creatures we had seen under the microscope.

I said, “Yes, he made everything.”

She nodded her agreement. “Does Mister God love us truly?”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Mister God loves everything.”

“Oh,” she said. “well then, why does he let things get hurt and dead?” Her voice sounded as if she felt she had betrayed a sacred trust, but the question had been thought and it had to be spoken.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “There’re a great many things about Mister God, we don’t know about?”

“Well then,” she continued, “if we don’t know many things about Mister God, how do we know he loves us?”

I could see this was going to be one of those times, but thank goodness she didn’t expect an answer to her question, for she hurried on: “Them pollywogs, I could love them till I bust, but they wouldn’t know, would they? I’m million times bigger than they are and Mister God is million times bigger than me, so how do I know what Mister God does?”

She was silent for a little while. Later I thought that at this moment she was taking her last look at babyhood. Then she went on.

“Fynn, Mister God doesn’t love us.” She hesitated. “He doesn’t really, you know, only people can love. I love Bossy, but Bossy don’t love me. I love the pollywogs, but they don’t love me. I love you Fynn, and you love me, don’t you?”

I tightened my arm about her.

“You love me because you are people. I love Mister God truly but he don’t love me.”

It sounded to me like a death knell. “Damn and blast,” I thought. “Why does this have to happen to people? Now she’s lost everything.” But I was wrong.

She had got both feet planted firmly on the next stepping stone.

“No,” she went on, “no, he don’t love me, not like you do, its different, its millions of times bigger.”

I must have made some movement or noise, for she levered herself upright and sat on her haunches and giggled. The she launched herself at me and undid my little pang of hurt, cut from the useless spark of jealousy with the delicate sureness of a surgeon.

“Fynn, you can love better than any people that ever was, and so can I, cant I? But Mister God is different. You see, Fynn, people can only love outside, and can only kiss outside, but Mister God can love you right inside, and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so its different. Mister God ain’t like us; we are a little bit like Mister God, but not much yet.”

It seemed to me to reduce itself to the fact that we were like God because of the similarities, but God was not like us because of our differences. Her inner fires had refined her ideas, and like some alchemist she had turned lead into gold. Gone were all the human definitions of God, like Goodness, Mercy, Love, and Justice, for these were merely props to describe the indescribable.

“You see, Fynn, Mister God is different because he can finish things and we cant. I cant finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years before I can finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and so its not the same kind of love, is it?”

Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday, a Sunday we try and grapple with the nature of God and what matters. We attended three services on Sunday in our new area. The first had a preacher use Rublev’s icon of the Trinity to describe the inclusiveness of God who is everywhere. I’m afraid I rather lost her as her service was extremely involved! The church though we were in, Trinity in Wisbech, perhaps shows God more by having a cafe open every day offering basic Christian hospitality to the community. You don’t have to preach God’s love, you can show it in a baked potato. The place was packed when we were there today! 

How else do we know what God is like? On Sunday afternoon we worshipped at Tydd St Giles, we made a congregation of four, six! The preacher there used Psalm 8 and the image of the Psalmist looking up at the night sky and seeing the stars and believing God is in control. God is so vast, he’s got it all sorted but there is much about him we haven’t get discovered. She also used this parable:  

It   It was six men of Indostan,

To learning much inclined, 
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind), 
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind. 

The First approach'd the Elephant, 
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side, 
At once began to bawl: 
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!" 

The Second, feeling of the tusk, 
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp? 
To me 'tis mighty clear, 
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!" 

The Third approach'd the animal, 
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands, 
Thus boldly up and spake: 
"I see," -quoth he- "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!" 

The Fourth reached out an eager hand, 
And felt about the knee: 
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," -quoth he,- 
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant 
Is very like a tree!" 

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, 
Said- "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most; 
Deny the fact who can, 
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!" 

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope, 
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope, 
"I see," -quoth he,- "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!" 
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long, 
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong, 
Though each was partly in the right, 
And all were in the wrong! 

So, oft in theologic wars 
The disputants, I ween, 
Rail on in utter ignorance 
Of what each other mean; 
And prate about an Elephant 
Not one of them has seen! 

But far more than theological argument, this little church showed us God’s way by making us welcome and feel wanted and glad we bothered to turn up! We will go back this Sunday. 

Then finally, on Sunday evening, we went to the Minster at Kings Lynn for Choral Evensong. The preacher there, Angela Rayner, who is being priested at the end of the month, shared some thoughts on the call of Moses in Exodus chapter 3. We cannot, she said, save ourselves, we have to turn aside and see what God is doing, we have to put God first and ourselves last by recognising we stand on holy ground and we need to know our place! 

I’m still watching Boris and co. They all want to be PM but none of them are asking the right question: how can we make a difference in the world? How can we show community matters? It has to be putting huge love first and we must decrease while divine possibility increases. 

I was in London yesterday. I have to go to London every Monday for the next few months. There were so many people about! Two weeks living in quiet ruralness has got to me. We look up when we hear a car at the end of our drive! I wondered what matters to people rushing along or checking their phones. Everyone wants to prosper. Everyone wants life to be rich and full and healthy. Everyone wants to matter. We all need a bit of humility! Basically I believe we need an urgent return to spirituality to learn again there is so much more than our narrow human agenda. 

The Psalm on Sunday night was a warning what will happen to us if we keep wanting our own way at the expense of God’s inclusive Kingdom:  

“Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.

How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.

As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image”.

Madly maybe tonight I see the rainbow through the rain of politics and selfishness and I still believe there can be another way...

Take off your shoes for the place on which you stand is holy ground: it isn’t yours! 

When the Holy Spirit danced with me in my kitchen...

Today has been the feast of Pentecost. I’ve now done the whole set of not leading the major festivals of the Christian year! 

Two readings have been in my head today as the day has progressed. The first is the fun poem about divine unpredictability by Anthony Wilson:

When the Holy Spirit Danced With Me in My Kitchen 

the first thing I noticed was his arms,

thick and hairy like a bricklayer’s

with a tattoo of an anchor

as Churchill had.

‘Coming for a spin?’ he grinned,

in an accent more Geordie than Galilee,

and he whirled me

through tango, foxtrot and waltz

without missing a beat.

‘You’re good,’ I said.  ‘Thanks,’

he said, taking two glasses to the tap.

‘You’re not so bad yourself,

for someone with no sense of rhythm

and two left feet.’

He gave me a wink.

‘It’s all in the waist.

The movement has to start there

or it’s dead.’

‘You’ll find it applies to most things,’

he went on, grabbing the kettle.

‘Writing, cooking, kissing,

all the things you’re good at,

or think you are.’

He winked again.

‘You don’t mind me asking,’ I said,

‘but why are you here?’

‘I thought it was about time,’

he said. ‘I mean, you’ve been full stretch,

haven’t you, what with your job,

feeling like a taxi for the kids,

your family living far away,

and you ‘in your head’ all the time

as you said to someone last week.’

I looked at him and nodded.

‘Go on.’

‘I was going to.’

He got down some mugs.

‘Let’s say I was concerned about you.

The thing is, the three of us,

we like you a lot.

We think you’ve got real potential

as a human.  You’re kind and humorous.

You’re also a little scatty.

We like that.  By the way, that fish curry

you made on Saturday was first class.’

‘You know about that?’

‘Everything you get up to,’

he smiled.  ‘It’s nothing to panic about.

Really.  To tell you the truth

you could do with loosening up a little.

Try not beating yourself up the whole time.

A little less rushing everywhere

would do you good, too.’

‘I thought you might say that.’

‘Look at me,’ he said.

‘I came to say:

Keep Going, and Relax.

Also: keep things simple.

If you are doing one thing,

do that thing.  If you are talking

with someone, listen to them,

do not blame them for being hard work.

Write as if you were not afraid,

and love in this way too.

Be patient with everyone, especially

your relations, who (I can assure you)

think you are rather special.

Make big decisions slowly, and small decisions

fast.  Do not make bitterness your friend.

Pray (I will not mind if you use

made up words for this.)

Garrison was right: ‘Why

have good things you don’t use?’

What you have been given to do,

give yourself to it completely,

only by emptying yourself can you become full.’

We never made it to worship this morning. We read the Circuit plan and found a communion service but it looked dodgy when we arrived to find the car park empty! I tried the door. It was locked. I found out later they had decided to join another church for their service this morning so that’s why no one was there.

We did find worship this evening though in the Minster in Kings Lynn: a quiet healing service. Some went up for laying on of hands to be renewed by God’s spirit. A lady said to us afterwards, “couldn’t you feel the heat from the Vicar’s hands?” !!! 

When the first disciples gathered in Jerusalem the day the Spirit came on them, they had no idea what would become of them. Previously not very reliable, they became faithful witnesses of divine possibility. They went out into society convinced of their call to transform it. They had enough to be the Church...

As we left the Minster, there appeared a fabulous rainbow: the rainbow the sign that God’s final word is that it will be okay after all. 

The Spirit of God leads God’s people out on new journeys and to expect healing and peace and hope and to live his Kingdom now, even when that feels mad. We are at the moment discovering new roads, and after a week in a new place are beginning to see a future as we find God ahead of us. The second bit of writing I’ve thought about today speaks of that compulsion to go out, if the Spirit in us is real... It’s called For The Traveller, by John O’Donaghue. We look out and expect...

 Every time you leave home

Another road takes you

Into a world you were never in.

When you travel, you find yourself

Alone in a different way,

More attentive now

To the self you bring along,

Your more subtle eye watching

You abroad; and how what meets you

Touches that part of the heart

That lies low at home:

When you travel,

A new silence

Goes with you,

And if you listen,

You will hear

What your heart would

Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:

May you travel in an awakened way,

Gathered wisely into your inner ground;

That you may not waste the invitations

Which wait along the way to transform you.

Our story given to God

Most of you will know we moved house this week. The removers did amazingly well and finished a day early but now we are left with boxes everywhere. I can’t get in the room that will be my study but I’ll have fun sorting it out and binning quite a bit...

I’ve had to come to Mum’s today for a man to fit a time clock on the heating and to get my car which I left on the drive last week. It’s been an interesting journey! 

The picture above is of our busy main road!!!! There is one bus into Wisbech a day. I asked where the bus stop is the other day. Apparently you just stand by the road anywhere and wave at it! My faith in the bus coming,  needing to be in Harpenden by 3pm, was minimal, so I called a taxi firm last night. The taxi came bang on time at 9.30 to take me to the bus station in Wisbech. My faith in the taxi coming was minimal as well but I was glad to be wrong!

I had time for a coffee, and I had time to go to the shops. 

And then those of us waiting for the Peterborough bus waited. I love the blitz spirit in Britain in adversity. There suddenly begins corporate humour... 

Lady to other lady: "has it come yet?" 

"No - we're not waiting for a bus we are waiting for Christmas!"

"We've got more chance of that coming!"

"You have to make sure you get on the right bus. One says Norwich on the front and it goes to Kings Lynn and he changes the sign on the front after you’ve got on it." 

At least the Norwich bus came, and another Norwich bus came. The Peterborough one was 35 minutes late. Some were fretting that they would miss their train being so late at Peterborough station. 

They needn’t have worried! The train was late. Just like the bus. And the train was so full, I had to stand. We got to Kings Cross about 1pm. I’ve only been in rural middle of nowhere for a week, so I was surprised how so many people in London was really difficult for me. People in a hurry, looking at their phones rather than ahead. 

I arrived in Harpenden about 2pm where it was tipping down with rain. I dripped into the Methodist Church for a coffee and then sat in the sanctuary. A new journey lies ahead of me at the moment and it feels strange. I’ve often used High Street Harpenden’s fabulous worship space to say some quiet prayers before travelling on, so it was good to stop today. 

I then walked on to Mother’s and the heavens opened! It’s a good job I left some towels in her airing cupboard. Then after about five hours of taxis and buses and trains and coffee and walking, the man took five minutes to fit the thing!! Now I am resting before seeing my friend Helen at teatime then driving home.

While travelling, I’ve been thinking about stories on the journey. 

People early this morning were walking through the village to get a paper from our one shop, or taking the dog for a walk. What would their story be today?

People wanting to travel, reliant on others taking them somewhere, having somewhere they needed to be. What would their story be today?

People meeting friends in a church coffee shop, and others sitting quietly praying in a peaceful sanctuary. Some needing company, others communion with God in quietness. What would their story be today?

Meeting one of my closest friends later, even though we are both not free for long, we will share our stories.

Sitting in my Mum’s house which has now been sold subject to contract, I’m acutely aware of the story these walls have had, my upbringing. It will be strange to let this place go soon. 

Every day, we travel and make a story, and we need blessing as that story happens. Every day, we open the door to continue our story and God joins us blessing us in it or giving us comfort in it when today’s chapter isn’t a happy one. 

I am reflecting on these words preached by the fab Nadia Bolz Weber at her friend’s funeral last week:

“Jesus invites us into a story bigger than ourselves and our imaginations, yet we all get to tell that story with the scandalous particularity of this moment and this place. We are storytelling creatures because we are fashioned in the image of a storytelling God. May we never neglect that gift. May we never lose our love for telling the story.”

Our journey with its twists and turns and delays and roads we never expected to travel, our story of today and before today, is joined to the bigger journey and story of God in Christ. Our journey and our story is a faithful response to the journey of redemptive love and a story of inexhaustible hope. In our story we are charged to tell the story bigger than ourselves, and support people where they are today, in exasperated bus queues or with major pastoral need. 

What’s my story today? Where’s my journey going? Surrounded by chaos, we woke up in a strange house this morning, our home until August next year. I find myself now officially stationed by the President of Conference without appointment to The Fens Circuit. The Circuit Meeting on Wednesday were told I’m now there. We are slowly meeting people and will enjoy listening to their story and trying to understand their journey, in some very tiny churches. I have struggled with this enforced change but am so grateful to those who are making it easier, and I’m beginning to go with it and find a peace in just seeing what happens. 

Psalm 131 is one of the Psalms for evening prayer today: in the end no matter how hard the journey and how involved the story, we just trust I guess...

 O Lord, my heart is not proud; 
   my eyes are not raised in haughty looks.
I do not occupy myself with great matters, 
   with things that are too high for me.
 But I have quieted and stilled my soul,
      like a weaned child on its mother’s breast; 
   so my soul is quieted within me.
O Israel, trust in the Lord, 
   from this time forth for evermore.

Moments of transition

We travelled on Friday night to Cambridgeshire from Hailsham, after six months of living in the manse on Windsor Road. It was hard to leave. We worked hard, as we did when we left the manse in Hastings, to leave it ready for the next person to move in easily. It felt very odd handing my keys over to Jenny, the steward at Hailsham. We are now in an Air B and B annexe. It feels like we are on another holiday. We are actually in the village where we shall be living for the next fifteen months. The house we are moving into can be moved into on Wednesday when our stuff is delivered, and also stuff out of storage, which I’ve not seen since last October: three quarters of my books!! 

Packing up and moving on is always hard. By Wednesday we will have had twenty three moves since August last year. Adapting to sudden new circumstances is also hard, especially if we had no choice but to embrace them. I’m looking forward to building myself up over fifteen months without appointment being stationed in The Fens Circuit. It will be a privilege to gently work with the eleven, mostly small and rural, churches as I build myself up. I pray I shall be able to enter stationing in the autumn for 2020. But it will take time to adapt. I still deeply care about my people who I’ve tried to care for over the last seven years in the Hastings Bexhill and Rye Circuit, I didn’t want to leave at all. But sometimes hard decisions have to be made and you just have to see what happens after you’ve made them. 

Points of transition happen suddenly. There’s a sold board outside my mother’s house! It will be very strange not to have this house which has been part of my life since I was born, anymore. We need when things change some certainty and assurance. 

Psalm 143 is helpful here.

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
    for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
    for to you I entrust my life.
9 Rescue me from my enemies, Lord,
    for I hide myself in you.
10 Teach me to do your will,
    for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
    lead me on level ground.

We remember that God holds us at those times we think we can’t cope with rapid change and we feel the ground is far from level! On Thursday, I had to go and be at a family funeral. One of the readings was the summary of love from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians. We were reminded in the service that love never fails. At times when we haven’t a clue what is going on, we hold on to God who as the old hymn says is working his purpose out. Times of transition, moving, sudden bereavements, illness, certainties taken away need us to be held and to know in the end it will be okay. 

In his book The Dance of Hope, William Frey, a retired Episcopal bishop from Colorado in America, recalls how he volunteered to read to an older student named John, who was blind.

One day, Bishop Frey said, I just had to ask him, “How did you lose your eyesight?” “A chemical explosion,” John answered, “at the age of thirteen.” Still curious, Frey asked John, “How did that make you feel?” John responded, with brutal honesty, “Life felt like it was over for me, I felt helpless and I hated God with all my heart. For the first six months, I did nothing but stay in my room and I ate all my meals alone, by my choice. Then a curious thing happened. One day my father entered my room and said, ‘John, winter’s coming and the storm windows need to be up. That’s your job. I want those hung by the time I get back this evening or else.’” Then John’s father turned and walked out of the room and slammed the door. John reported that he was so angry that he was thinking, “Who does he think he is? Who does he think I am? I’m blind.” He was so furious, he decided to do it. “I’ll show them. I’m gonna try to do it and I’m gonna be not only blind, but I’m gonna be paralyzed, ’cause I’m gonna fall. I’ll get them.” He felt his way to the garage and found the windows and located the necessary tools.

He found the ladder, and all the while he was muttering under his breath, “I’ll show them. I’ll fall, and they’ll have a blind and paralysed son. That’ll be great payback.” Eventually, he did complete the goal, the assignment; he did get the windows up before evening.

But the assignment achieved more than that. It achieved the father’s goal as well. John reported that it was at that point that he slowly realized that he could still work and even more so that he could begin to reconstruct his life. As John continued to reconstruct his life. As John continued to tell Bill Frey his story, John’s eyes, his blind eyes began to mist. “Seven years later, I learned that something else important had happened that day, that the entire day my father was no more than three or four feet from me.”

So on the first few days of a huge transition for me, I need to be held, I need the Father no more than three or four feet from me, I need to believe the declaration of faith  above I found the other day in Celtic Daily Prayer, I need to remember while I’ve left a role I loved, I might have left my mark on some things there, I need to embrace change and see what the next page of the story is. 

Over the weekend we’ve explored Wisbech, and the village we shall be living in. It will take time to adapt! Not least to living somewhere where everyone knows who you are...

We told the owner of the Air B and B we are in for a bit we had a table booked in the village pub. 

“I’ve just been down there,” he said, “and I’ve told them about you!!!”