Daily Prayer

An Order for Daily Prayer At Home 

Ideally, this liturgy should be used towards the beginning of the day. 

Begin by finding a comfy chair, be still, know that God is with you just where you are. 

Light a candle if possible near you as a focus, and remind yourself as you prepare to pray that Jesus is the light of the world and that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out. 

Pray the Venite, Psalm 95, to enter into God’s presence and enjoy it. 

 

O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.

The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.

For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. 

God, our Father and our Mother, we are glad to come before you. We offer you our praise, our doubts, our worries, this uncertain time. We know that you care for us intimately and you know how we feel right now. Come to us with your peace. Renew us with your love, call us to be people of hope, even in a place of confusion and uncertainty. Breathe your Holy Spirit into us to renew us out of darkness into the light of what you have planned for us. Help us to trust you. 

We ask for your forgiveness when we forget you are there, when we try and face our problems alone, when our faith weakens because the world feels too tough, when we laugh at what feel like impossibilities, when we see nothing but bad news and we fall into despair. Come, O God, in Jesus, and help us to begin again. 

Here is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are forgiven. We can hope. We can start again! Thanks be to God.

We read a Psalm, remembering God is in the good and bad bits of life. Any Psalm can be read, Psalm 91 is suggested:

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.

This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God.

An Old Testament Reading is read. Isaiah 43: 1 - 13 is suggested but any can be used: 

But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name;
You are Mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.
3 For I am the Lord your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in your place.
4 Since you were precious in My sight,
You have been honored,
And I have loved you;
Therefore I will give men for you,
And people for your life.
5 Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your descendants from the east,
And gather you from the west;
6 I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
And to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’
Bring My sons from afar,
And My daughters from the ends of the earth—
7 Everyone who is called by My name,
Whom I have created for My glory;
I have formed him, yes, I have made him.”

8 Bring out the blind people who have eyes,
And the deaf who have ears.
9 Let all the nations be gathered together,
And let the people be assembled.
Who among them can declare this,
And show us former things?
Let them bring out their witnesses, that they may be justified;
Or let them hear and say, “It is truth.”
10 “You are My witnesses,” says the Lord,
“And My servant whom I have chosen,
That you may know and believe Me,
And understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed,
Nor shall there be after Me.
11 I, even I, am the Lord,
And besides Me there is no savior.
12 I have declared and saved,
I have proclaimed,
And there was no foreign god among you;
Therefore you are My witnesses,”
Says the Lord, “that I am God.
13 Indeed before the day was, I am He;
And there is no one who can deliver out of My hand;
I work, and who will reverse it?

This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God.

The Benedictus, a passage of assurance is shared: 

Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel,  

who has come to his people and set them free.

   He has raised up for us a mighty Saviour,  

born of the house of his servant David.

   Through his holy prophets God promised of old  

to save us from our enemies,

    from the hands of all that hate us,

  To show mercy to our ancestors,  

and to remember his holy covenant.

   This was the oath God swore to our father Abraham: 

to set us free from the hands of our enemies,

  Free to worship him without fear, 

holy and righteous in his sight

    all the days of our life.

  And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, 

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,

To give his people knowledge of salvation 

by the forgiveness of all their sins.

   In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, 

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Luke 1.68–79

Glory to the Father and to the Son

and to the Holy Spirit;

as it was in the beginning is now

and shall be for ever. Amen

A time of quiet reflection - spend ten minutes in silence. Think about:

What God has said to you in the passages you’ve just read. 

What things you have right now to say thank you for. 

What is troubling you today. 

What positive thing can you do to make today a good one.

A time of intercession.

After each bidding, please pray Come, Lord Jesus 

Into this space, my life and the lives of those here with me or who I miss...

Into our country at this difficult time, especially those who are unwell, or lonely or frightened...

Into our government, our Prime Minister, and all those responsible for leading us in this uncertain time...

Into our hospitals and GP surgeries, into places that are trying to help, into communities where there is selfishness and a need to remember everyone matters...

Into the lives of those who will find this day impossible...

Into the broken spirits of those who have been bereaved...

Into our churches, dispersed for now but still one body called to care for all...

Come Lord Jesus, with your peace. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer is shared in whatever form we prefer. 

A sending prayer into the day:

Go with us O God into the joys, opportunities, frustrations and unanswered questions of this day. 

Go with us Lord Jesus, give us your light when we feel afraid today.

Go with us, Holy Spirit, remind us that today is not how it will always be and that we need to hold on. You give us enough to keep going.

The Lord is here! His Spirit with us. We go in peace. Amen. 

 

T

Coronavirus and spirituality

There’s a lovely prayer in the Book of Common Prayer which I’ve just found. I use the Book of Common Prayer for my daily devotions as I love its language, especially the Psalter in the King James Version: 

FROM all evil and mischief; from sin; from the crafts and assaults of the devil; from thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation,
    Good Lord, deliver us.
    From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, 
    Good Lord, deliver us.
    From all inordinate and sinful affections; and from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, 
    Good Lord, deliver us.
    From lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death, 
    Good Lord, deliver us.
    From all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion; from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word and Commandment, 
    Good Lord, deliver us.
    By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity and Circumcision; by thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation, 
    Good Lord, deliver us.
    By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and by the Coming of the Holy Ghost, 
    Good Lord, deliver us.
    In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment, 
    Good Lord, deliver us.

We are living in uncertain times as this coronavirus spreads across the world. We need delivering from pestilence! But also from selfishness. The picture above is from a large Morrison’s supermarket yesterday. There wasn’t a  toilet roll in site nor any hand sanitiser or wipes or pasta and wine is being bought in vast amounts of bottles. I said in my sermon on Sunday we are living in an I society where I know my rights. I have a right to 100 toilet rolls and loads of sanitiser and if I’m over 70 and forced to stay in soon I’ll just get pissed and wake up when it’s over. There was that story in Australia of a man who took out a knife on the woman in the supermarket who dared to take the last toilet roll! And then in America there are queues for guns...

It’s so bad we may need to bring back Izal. My Granny Smith had Izal. It took your bum weeks to recover after being wiped with that stuff. Or, we will soon be using newspaper. Why are people stockpiling loo roll? Just pure panic and greed...

It is being suggested this coronavirus crisis is the worst to hit this country since World War Two. It also feels like, as it hasn’t affected us yet really, as we watch the news, that we are watching a horror film. It’s like 2001 when 24 hour news was a new thing and we watched the twin towers come down in New York after an indescribable terrorist attacks. When we knew it was real, we understood the world would now be different. We are now being told this virus even when it is over, will effect this country, economically, politically health wise and relationally, for many years to come. 

Over the last 24 hours we’ve seen new advice from the government. The Prime Minister looks shellshocked. He needs to comb his hair before addressing us! How on earth have we got to the state we are in with Boris leading us? Dear God! 70 year olds and over are being told they will soon need to stay indoors even if they are fit and well. We worked out in our Circuit yesterday that will leave only a handful of people and preachers to keep services goIng, but it is looking highly unlikely we will be meeting for worship until further notice. 

Over the last few days we’ve had things  cancelled; a couple’s diamond wedding party on Saturday is now off; even one to one meetings are not sensible. The whole of life is disrupted. I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that now I’m meant to be building myself up by doIng more, I may well have taken my last service in the Fens Circuit yesterday, that my informal farewell on May 3 will probably be off; and that maybe even my first service in a new Circuit in September might be off. Will we even move at all?  We have to ring a hospital in a bit to see if an outpatients appointment is cancelled. The whole of life is disrupted. But there is little choice but to accept that disruption. I’ll come back to that later.

The toilet roll selfishness is one picture of what is going on at the moment, but there is another one. We are seeing people being kind. An example of this is this notice I read yesterday:

 “Coronavirus notice: We are expecting many households in our parish to be self-isolating in the coming weeks, either as a result of illness or as a precautionary measure following official government advice.

In preparation for this we will be coordinating a volunteer group of residents who can offer support to persons/households potentially requiring it during this period. 'Support' here could mean delivering shopping, lending a book or simply having someone to talk to over the phone.”

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have put out a very helpful statement on line which includes this paragraph:

“We can find hope and courage in the goodly and wholesome spirit that is in so many ways common to all human beings, whether they are people of Faith or None. We must distinguish between a healthy fear – the beginning of wisdom, which prompts us to follow advice, and to care for those at risk - and unhealthy fear which is driven by pride, leading us to act, selfishly, doing harm to ourselves and others.” We need to be aware of those we shut ourselves away from like this cat in a pub desperate to get in...

Dame Esther Rantzen was on a radio programme yesterday talking about elderly lonelIness should social distancing have to last a long time. She said the neighbourliness we are seeing now needs be the norm, even when we haven’t got a crisis. It is sad Britain does a blitz spirit in a crisis 

but when life returns to normal we go back to our me first ways. It’s like when the church I lay worked in in Markyate in Hertfordshire had their sanctuary decorated. We had to worship for several weeks in the hall and we all sat together. It was great! But when we went back into church we again sat as far apart from each other as we could! 

We all have to face this crisis isn’t going to be over any time soon. For now, I’m limiting social contact to necessary meetings, trips for food shopping and fresh air. We await a decision from the Church about worship on Sunday. As I write the news channel says the C of E has suspended all public worship I now doubt any services will happen in my own denomination. 

I feel today especially for pubs, restaurants, theatres and other places who haven’t been told to close but from whom people will now stay away. I feel today for teachers in schools for now keeping going. 

How do we “be Church” when we can’t go to church? Well, we need to look out for one another. Use the phone and social media. Keep in touch. Provide services for Sunday. I’ve had several really kind messages about my blog over the last week that my ministry in this way really helps people. If so, I’ll keep writing through this period however long it lasts if my writing encourages you. For our own spirituality, read those books you’ve not had time to read, have quiet times, for me, get that book written. Use the Psalms every day. Practice Lectio Divina, read a bible passage slowly, what is it saying to you the moment you read it? 

 

For ourselves, let’s take a day at a time. Let’s keep well, enjoy the people we are with, do things we’ve not usually time to do. Let’s be because we cannot do... even watching those box sets collecting dust on the shelves! I’ve threatened my wife with the complete One Foot In The Grave this morning! What would Victor Meldrew make of coronavirus?

MIND has put out a really useful article which I gladly share: 

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/coronavirus-and-your-wellbeing/

But while we care for ourselves, let’s remember others... the President of the Methodist Conference released this prayer on Sunday. Maybe Barbara sums up how we get through the next few months, whatever Boris tells us... 

 We are not people of fear

We are people of courage

We are not people who protect our own safety

We are people who protect our neighbours’ safety 

We are not people of greed

We are people of generosity.

We are your people God

Giving and loving

Wherever we are

Whatever it costs

For as long as it takes

Wherever you call us.

The need to go

It’s been an interesting day. Back in the Fens after being away for two weeks, I have led worship in two of the Circuit's smallest churches today. There were six in the congregation this morning, four of them on the back row, then this afternoon there were three for a Church Anniversary service which was a bit sad as they hoped for more. The optimist among them put out ten cups for tea afterwards! We are now living at least for the next fortnight in a converted barn north of Sutton Bridge very close to The Wash. We took a drive to see where the land stops tonight. A veritable wilderness in Gedney Drove End! 

The lectionary passages today were all about taking a journey. I wanted to encourage the good folk at Murrow and at Tydd St Giles to think about moving on, however hard that is. Here’s part of my thinking today:

The old Irish joke starts with a driver winding down his window and asking for directions, “How do I get to Tipperary?”

To which the driver received the helpful advice, “If you want to get there, I wouldn’t start from here!”

Today we come and we are here, the eighth day of March 2020, the second Sunday of Lent, the people of God called Methodist at Murrow/ Tydd St Giles Methodist Chapel on our Anniversary. 

We are here amid uncertainty and confusion in the world, a world of corona virus where they are stockpiling loo rolls, the working out of Brexit, allegations of bullying by government ministers, stabbings, food banks rationing food the demand for them is so great and people struggling to make sense of what is going on for them as society seems to be getting more and more selfish. And it is here, with all this, the church invites people to come on a journey. 

Our cause today is a lot smaller and maybe we are now struggling. There are not many of us and we wonder how we can keep going. I’m not really meant to have given you ideas this year as I’m without appointment but you will have picked up I’m an optimist when it comes to churches and we work with what we have and we do what we can do. While our doors remain open, we have a task to be faithfully be God’s people. Jesus believes in you, he says wherever two or three are gathered in my name there I am in your midst. Well there are six of you this morning / four of you this afternoon! 

And we will say well, we can’t do anything because there are so few of us and we haven’t much energy. As the white rabbit said in the Alice stories, it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place. I get that. 

But suppose that God is calling us, even a few of us to a new journey? Remember Jesus started a whole new movement with twelve men, many of whom turned out to be totally unreliable! But he believed in them most days. I do love the day he loses it, though. 

“How long shall I have to put up with you?” he yells when they hint at giving up.

Someone once said “I used to be a Christian but I’ve retired.” 

Abram’s calling in Genesis was surprising for the very inappropriateness it seemed to represent. Perhaps there are now laws in place to guard against ageism in recruitment at the workplace but there is still the small matter of judging the best person for the post, then as now. And, if we honestly face the job description of ‘father of a nation to number in people as many as the stars in the sky or grains of sand on the shore’ is a tough one. A weighty responsibility. Surely stamina would be a prerequisite.

Abram was an influential and quite well off person in Haran. People would worship their house gods in their tent. Abram’s God was not their God. So imagine Abram coming to you and saying “We are leaving. We are going on a journey.” And you say, “where are we going? We like it here!”

And Abram says “I don’t know. My God told me he would show me a new country and I will be the father of many nations.” 

And you say “what? You don’t know where we are going. You are calling us into the wilderness for years leaving everything for a whim.” As Romans says “ Abraham believed God and it counted unto him as righteousness.” Despite being laughed at. Imagine the neighbours gossiping. “Has he lost his mind?” Abram is called to leave country, kindred and his Father’s house. He is promised land, a great nation and a great name.

It is a well-known story of God’s call, lauded as a great example of obedience and included in the great hall of faith in Hebrews: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”

The three words that begin verse 4 in Genesis 12, “so Abram went”, do not convey any hesitation on Abram’s part. We are not given any indication of whether he is more motivated by the reassurances of the promises than acting out of faithful obedience to what God has commanded him to do.

But reading around these few verses we learn that Abram was not unfamiliar with being on the move; his father Terah had uprooted the family to begin a journey to Canaan that had not been completed and it is towards Canaan that Abram chooses to journey.

It is on this journey that Sarai, not once but twice, would have to pretend to be Abram’s sister and become the wife of another man. And no wonder she laughed when she was told she would bear a son in old age.       

Then there is Nicodemus in John 3. Nicodemus’ curiosity was aroused by this Rabbi who called a motley crew of fisher folk and tax collectors to be his disciples, who has turned water into wine at a wedding in Galilee and turned tables in the temple on the threshold of Passover. He has condemned money- changers for exploiting the poor and putting a price on prayer. He has made scandalous declarations about rebuilding the temple in three days. And perhaps most interestingly and curiously, is drawing more and more people to follow and believe. 

Note he comes at night for fear of his mates finding out, but he does come. A story of getting out into the unknown not knowing what the unknown might bring. Another story of curiosity, reaching out in faith, wanting to know what might be irresistible about what you’ve set out to know more about.  So the question for us in today’s church is dare we journey? Dare we believe God is calling us to a better future. Dare we journey to find out more and see if Jesus is worth following especially if what we are doing isn’t giving us much joy any more? 

Two stories from our own story over the last few weeks might help us in our thinking. You may have heard that our home in Gorefield, being rented for us by the Church, has turned into a disaster. We were left with no heating or hot water for three weeks in a temperature of five degrees in January, we moved out in early February and returning to the house two and a bit weeks ago I developed my old symptoms and had to be put on steroids by the doctor. After much discussion, the Church have said we cannot return to the house to live so at the moment we are on a journey like Abram with no abiding city living out of a car if not a tent! 

We’ve been on Holy Island this past week and have enjoyed sharing evening prayer in St Mary’s even though the Old Testament Readings have been the miserable bits of Jeremiah: 

Do not go out to the fields

    or walk on the roads,

for the enemy has a sword,

    and there is terror on every side. 

Put on sackcloth, my people,

    and roll in ashes;

mourn with bitter wailing

    as for an only son,

for suddenly the destroyer

    will come upon us.

So we need help. Remember Psalm 121. Terry Waite held captive in Lebanon in the 1980’s used the hills in the Psalm as an image to brighten himself in the darkness and drudgery of a cell. He later said “I’m not the sort of person who wears their faith on their sleeve but I could say ‘you can do what you like, but you’ll never take me completely because my soul is in the hands of God not in the hands of other people.’ We keep going in uncertainty because God is in that dark time with us. That’s our faith. And maybe a journey might just be exciting! We’ve just changed Lis’s very elderly Rav 4 for a nearly new one. 

We need a reliable car to cope with the Yorkshire Dales in winter! It’s an automatic. I’ve not driven an automatic before. It takes time to get used to the fact your left foot doesn’t need to do anything! You press the start button and put your foot on the accelerator and it goes. And if there are hazards ahead it beeps at me if there is s speed camera, or if I’m whiggling in the lane and it has a built in sat nav with an awfully polite woman who tells me where to go. All of this despite uncertainties on the road, makes the journey bearable even enjoyable. 

So are we a people compelled to journey? Are we today even if we haven’t a clue where we see going called to take a first step? You know Joseph Goebels, the propaganda minister in Hitlers Third Reich once scoffed Christianity and talk of building a Kingdom. He said “you cant build an empire on moonbeams,” but Abram set out and Nicodemus enquired believing more was possible. 

Where are we going? Well, I guess we keep going. We are here until we decide we can’t do this anymore to be there for a people on an uncertain journey.  On Thursday, we were in St Mary’s Scottish Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh, one of my favourite holy places. There is a painting, called The Presence. The setting is the interior of the cathedral, and the painting shows a lady in distress kneeling in prayer and comforted by the presence of Christ, who bathes her in light in contrast to the surrounding gloom. He invites her into his presence into a new journey of light and hope, joining the journey of Christ’s people working out his will for them in the world.

I encourage us today to be a journeying people even where we don’t have the answers, I invite us to reach out and sense again even in uncertainty God calls us on. And to be a place where people who come might find peace again.  God said go and Abram went. What about us? 

Lenten journaling

I wonder what St Cuthbert would have written in a journal as he retreated from ministry on Hobthrush Island all those years ago. 

There’s a lot going on in my head at the moment with housing problems causing us again to move from place to place; worries about what that means for our stability and health and missing

our cats (especially my Velvet!) who have been in

the cattery since the beginning of last month and will be there until it looks like the end of May. 

But last night I chose not to go to evening prayer here and instead walk on the beach in the freezing cold and look out on what I think is the most wonderful spot in the world. And in those few moments came a huge sense of calm that maybe God is in my uncertainty...

The words of George Matheson come to me as I write this. In nineteenth-century Scotland he lived with an amazing amount of promise and potential. He was destined for greatness, and all was going wonderfully well for him. While engaged to be married he was suddenly hospitalized. He found he had a degenerative eye disease that would eventually blind him. Consequently, his fiancée broke off their engagement and left him with a broken heart. George Matheson, in blindness and brokenness, within a period of five minutes, penned these hymn lyrics:

O love that will not let me go
I rest my weary soul in Thee; 
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.

“I trace the rainbow through the rain.” From the depths of despair, Matheson traced a rainbow through his personal rainstorm. Often looking at a sunset, holding close those we love, listening to a blackbird sing his song into the silence, can bring us back into knowing we might be okay and despite the uncertainty God is with us. It’s similar to those words found in a wartime consecration camp:

I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there’s no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when he is silent.

I believe through any trial,
there is always a way
But sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
My heart cries for shelter,
to know someone’s there
But a voice rises within me, saying hold on
my child, I’ll give you strength,
I’ll give you hope. Just stay a little while.

I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love
even when there’s no one there
But I believe in God
even when he is silent
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.

May there someday be sunshine
May there someday be happiness
May there someday be love
May there someday be peace….

Today is our third wedding anniversary! I met Lis here on Holy Island in April 2016 on retreat in Marygate House. Seven months later I proposed to her on the beach here I walked on last night on a very cold November afternoon! We were married the following March and the day after our wedding we had a blessing here in St Mary’s Church, our special “holy space” - we still value doing evening prayer here as much as we can. I remember thinking sitting next to Lis in the choir stalls nearly four years ago now “gosh - there’s someone else who gets this place as much as I do!” I never dreamt what that would lead to... 

Later today as we’ve been through so much since we got married: ill health, moving house, journeying in a wilderness, more ill health, and now more journeying because our current house has turned out to be a disaster (🥵) before we hopefully can settle down for a long time in September, we have decided to renew our wedding vows in the church where our marriage was blessed and where we feel most in tune with God. We are glad that Sarah, the vicar here, is sharing this with us. She has been a huge part in keeping us going over the last year! 

I’ve always found journaling helpful. Writing down what you feel to process what is going on around you can be therapeutic. We all have a story. When we know the story we can then ask what is the story about and where is God in it? 

A good Lenten discipline would be to see how the Psalmist journaled. Life was not easy for him and he was never afraid to voice his angst at God. The thing is though all 150 Psalms are theocentric. Nowhere does he say God is not. He may not understand life’s lot but he places his confusion into the hand of God hoping God might come into where he is and sort him out! And it’s about accepting where we are even if we don’t want to be there today... 

As Barbara Brown Taylor writes in “Learning to Walk in the Dark”:

”Our spiritual avoidance of the dark may be even more dangerous. Our culture’s ability to tolerate sadness is weak. ‘We are supposed to get over it, fix it, purchase something, exercise, do whatever it takes to become less sad.”

I’m amazed how uncertain our world is at the moment. The corona virus and its spreading is a worry; the fact that food banks are now rationing food is a scandal; communities are counting the cost of flooding; and politically we are in a mess: we face an American election in November and I really can’t see anything but a Trump re-election, and then there’s the dear old UK... where we have Brexit with the prospect of us walking away from talks because we don’t like what the EU are saying; there are allegations of a bullying Home Secretary; a Labour Party who desperately need to unite around whoever wins its leadership next month because we need opposition with teeth; and a Prime Minister who is worshipped by some parts of the media for fathering another child and getting engaged while the ink on his divorce papers is still wet. 

How do we find sense while all about us is just so mad? I sense it is holding on to things we know won’t crumble when everything else seems to be changing. Things like a Holy Island sunset, the love of a very patient wife who could have walked away from the damage “stuff” has brought us over the last three years; and deep friendships and fun moments and yes, even stopping for a minute to hear a blackbird sing...