Walking on Water

Panda Mania

2012-02-02T21:28:00.004Z

The narration was done by David Tennant and the subject matter of the documentary was about pandas – a dream combination if ever there was one.

My experience of zoos is limited. I can notch up a couple of safari parks and a wild life park with a small selection of not very exotic animals (apart from Kangaroos) but zoos are a bit of a mystery. I have never really lived anywhere that has had a zoo. I lived in Cyprus for a few years and there was a zoo but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Not much had been done to create habitats for the animals that mimicked their natural environment. The animals didn’t look happy and contented, but rather distressed.

That was not the case for the two pandas that took up residence at Edinburgh Zoo. I never appreciated the amount of preparation involved. I knew that they had to build something special for the pandas, but it never occurred to me to wonder where they would get all the bamboo shoots from.

There’s a joke doing the rounds, that absolutely delights my husband, that there are more pandas in Scotland now than there are Conservative Members of Parliament.

Somewhere between the weeks spent being trained to look after pandas in China and the specially chartered Fex-Ex plane touching down on the runway in Edinburgh (and all the panda merchandise in the zoo shop)a thought occurred to me. I know it is good to look after the planet, and do something to stop pandas from becoming extinct – but if only the same care was given to looking after people!

I know that pandas can’t really look after themselves and they are really cute and cuddly looking and they are an endangered species with only a thousand or so in the wild, and people can look after themselves and very few of them are cute and cuddly and they are far from being extinct but it does seem out of balance.

The government hasn’t been given the pandas, or even bought them. We are just renting them for a few years. Lots of money has been spent on bringing them here and training people to look after them and feed them.

It seems a bit unfair to spend so much on a couple of animals, cute as they are, while at the same time clawing back money from the welfare system and pushing a huge percentage of people into poverty and debt.

To think that I rate lower than a panda in the scheme of things doesn’t bring me much comfort.

I’d like to be a panda
With fur that’s black and white
So when I lose my habitat
You’ll step in, make things right
You’ll scour the towns and hamlets
And bring me things to eat
And build a lovely home for me
A tranquil, calm retreat
My every need provided
My comfort guaranteed
So petted and so pampered
A favoured life indeed
But I am not a panda
I’m just a quiet soul
Lacking those essential things
That make a person whole
My job pays peanut wages
My home a soulless box
I cannot pay the fuel bills so
I’m wearing thermal socks
The fridge is all but empty
The cupboards almost bare
I look upon the panda and
And I think it isn’t fair!

A Touch of Tartan

2012-01-27T16:30:00.001Z

It was Burn’s Night on Wednesday. We had the invitation to join friends for a marathon haggis, neeps and tatties night but I had too much homework to do.

The school is hosting a Burn’s Night celebration tonight. To get us all in the mood, and to raise money for a group of young people going to Romania in the summer, it was a dress down, or dress up, day. “A Touch of Tartan” was the theme - but as long as you paid your pound, you could wear just about anything.

Most people opted for something comfortable and casual. I saw at least one kilt during the day. Most “touches” were just that. A group of girls sported tartan fingernails!

I had trailed around the shops last night – having just been paid, looking for something tartan in the sales. It had to be something in the sales, not particularly expensive and something that I would wear again. There are too many things in the wardrobe worn once, or waiting for a slimmer me. Nothing took my eye sufficiently for me to dig out my money.

In the end I settled for a tartan ribbon. It had been tied on to one of the kitchen chairs many years ago. A box of chocolates, a presentation box of toiletries or some such other object had been tied with the ribbon. It was too nice a ribbon to throw away.

Sporting the ribbon tied in my hair I went to work.

The last time I can actually remember wearing a ribbon in my hair I must have been ten or eleven years old. Ribbons were not part of my growing up. Hair was tied with elastic bands.

I associate ribbons in my hair with a Roman Catholic orphanage. My brothers and sisters and I stayed there a couple of times in our childhood when my mother was very ill. It’s not a place that I associate with happy memories – but I loved the ribbons.

Nazareth House

The headline in the paper, bold and black stands out.
A nun, in an orphanage, knocking kids about.
My memory, like a tape, pressed to fast rewind,
Stops some thirty years ago to somewhere in my mind.

Nazareth House was hell behind a hedge
Smelling of carbolic soap, boiled cabbages and Pledge.
"It's only just for two weeks," Father Patrick said,
"While your mum recovers in a hospital bed."

Unlike "The Sound of Music", these nuns looked rather mean.
No compassionate expressions on their faces could be seen.
All black and white and waddling, like penguins in a zoo,
If they had a sense of humour, it wasn't getting through.

For their first "act of kindness" they took away my clothes
I wore someone else's dress, tied with someone else's bows.
The person that was "me" were they trying to rub out?
Was I just another kid to them, among thirty round about?

Some kids taught me skipping songs, and Irish jigs as well
I joined in complex clapping games that taught me how to spell.
I hid among the rose bushes in a game of hide and seek.
I counted up to twenty and I promised not to peak.

Some kids came to tease me. "Your mum is really dead.
You're never leaving here. Just get it in your head.
You'll not be leaving soon, You'll be here for quite a while.
If you want to be adopted, you must learn how to smile."

If days I could endure, the nights I never could.
Dormitories with many beds, and panelling of wood.
Embroidered in an ornate frame, and hung upon the wall
"God is watching you" - a grim reminder to us all.

Familiar sounds were absent, the creaks and groans I knew
Fears so small in sunlight, in darkness slowly grew.
Was it true, what they'd said, that mum was really dead?
Fear and dread surrounded me, and then I wet the bed.

I like a happy ending, two weeks was all I stayed.
On the outside I was fine, but on the inside rather frayed.
To be just one of many, neither special nor unique,
A thought that's quite unsettling, uncomfortable and bleak.

Should I jump upon the bandwagon, and sue those nuns in black?
The security I lost back then, can I ever get it back?
They never meant to harm me, they forgot one thing that's true
To know you're loved, that someone cares - that's important too.

Taking the Later Train

2012-01-15T20:54:00.001Z

The radio in the car switches between Radio 2 (for the Breakfast Show with Chris Evans), Radio Scotland (for the local news) and a medium wave channel that covers football matches.

Yesterday it was on Radio 2 with Graham Norton and a guest. A listener had either phoned in, or twittered, or e-mailed or written in to share an experience. Apparently a new person had started at her office and the two of them shared a train journey to get to work. At first the woman quite liked the company and the conversation. After a week or two, the woman realised that it was basically the same conversation each morning. Obviously not happy in her marriage, the new person settled down each morning to criticise her husband.

Graham Norton and the guest were invited to give advice on what to do about it. I have no idea who the guest was. Her advice was to take a later train, or an earlier one, so as to avoid sitting next to the woman.

Graham’s advice was to tell the woman straight that she needed to stop criticising her husband. If things were so bad between husband and wife may be they ought to think about separating. She didn’t need to be cruel about it, or aggressive, but simply not put up with being someone else’s dumping ground for what was wrong in their life. It was time to encourage the person to move forward, move on, and make changes and climb out of the rut.

I have been thinking on and off about the comment about Enoch in the book of Genesis.

“Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” Genesis 5:24

Imagine if it wasn’t walking, but taking the train every morning to work(for 300 years?). Suppose God was sitting next to Enoch and the two of them talked. How soon might God have decided to get a later train, or an earlier one, if all Encoh did each morning was regurgitate the same conversation bemoaning his lot in life, or pointing out the faults of fellow passengers or just complaining about the price of a season ticket on the train?

What was it about Enoch that made God allow him, encourage him, invite him to walk beside him each day?

I think there might have been days when Enoch might have bemoaned his lot in life, or pointed out the faults of fellow passengers or just complained about the price of, not exactly a season ticket on the train…but something. Enoch was a human being. If that is all he did I am not sure that God would have enjoyed their time together…and you kind of get the impression that He did.

Maybe it wasn’t so much about what Enoch said at all, but about what God was able to say to Enoch and how Enoch responded. God found in Enoch someone who would listen to Him.

It challenges me to know that God allows me, encourages me and invites me to walk beside him each day. The Bible says that I can cast all my cares upon God because he cares me for me – so, I can, to some extent, make God the dumping ground for all that is wrong in my life.

If that was all I did, I am not sure that God wouldn’t want to take the later train to avoid me some days!

God has so much to say to me moving forward, moving on, making changes and climbing out of my ruts. He would like to find in me someone who will listen to Him and respond.

Does he?

Walking Faithfully With God

2012-01-10T20:53:00.003Z

I have been mulling over the life of Enoch – just the part of it described in a few short verses in Genesis. I know that his name crops us elsewhere in the Bible, but I am not inclined to hunt down the references.

“When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” (Gen 5:21-24)

I confess myself to be fascinated with those first 65 years.
It is not until his son comes into his life that Enoch changed and began to walk faithfully with God for the next 300 years.

Another Son has come into my life. Not my own personal chromosomes and DNA reproduced in the next generation of human flesh – but the Son.

Can anyone say of me that I have walked faithfully with God in the 35 years I have known Him? It is unlikely that I will get 300 years of His company here on earth – but there will be a day when I will be no more because God takes me away and then I will have an eternity to be with Him.

I am not inclined either to do the mathematics to work out how old Adam was when Enoch was born. Or how old Enoch was when Adam died. But I will dig out the calculator and have a go.

Adam was somewhere in the region of 627 (feel free to check my adding up, I won’t be offended if you correct me) when Enoch was born. So, he and Enoch had some 303 years to get to know each other. Enoch was well on his way to walking faithfully with God when Adam died.

I wonder as Adam watched Enoch walking faithfully with God whether he thought about his own walks with God in the cool of the day.

I wonder whether my own walk with God challenges anyone to think about theirs.

I think, perhaps, that Adam and Enoch talked about it. I think, perhaps, that Adam encouraged Enoch in his walk and warned him not to make the same mistakes he had made. I think Enoch encouraged Adam to seek God out to fall in love with Him afresh.

I think, perhaps, there is much that I could say to encourage those in the faith younger than I. There have been so many conversations God and I have had in the cool of the day (and in the heat of the battle!).

There could never be a Garden of Eden for Adam or Enoch to walk in – but walking anywhere with God makes any place paradise.

A Thousand Origami Cranes

2012-01-03T11:53:00.012Z

I have in my possession 366 squares of coloured paper (A friend reminded me that it's a leap year). Each square is exactly the same size – 15 cms by 15 cms – and they all fit into a plastic holder. Yes, it’s a calendar. By the end of the year, assuming I will not miss a few weeks and toss the paper into the recycling bin, I will have 365 paper sculptures!

Three of my squares have embraced their destiny with an assortment of folds and creases. The motor sail, which will never take to the high seas, is on the desk just beside me. The nightingale, which will never sing a tune, is next to it. Today’s creation, a ladybug (that’s a lady bird to residents in the UK) is downstairs. She is unlikely to fly away home.

Three days in July are ear marked for frogs according to the index. For Christmas Day next year I have a Santa finger puppet to look forward to!

We are talking origami – the traditional Japanese art of paper folding.

I seem to remember that one Chinese New Year celebration many years ago fell on the day our Church house-group met. Ever looking for ways to build relationships, in among the Chinese takeaway, I issued everyone with a square of coloured paper and led them through the mechanics of making an origami crane. (According to my calendar index the crane is scheduled for a day in August.) I had been practising for days and it was no problem to me to fold, crease and twist the paper as instructed but it proved a little more difficult to those trying to keep up with me. I think there was only one person with the determination to produce her own crane. The other cranes remained in various states of incompleteness.

According to one article on the web “The crane is auspicious in Japanese culture. Japan has launched a satellite named tsuru . Legend says that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will have their heart's desire come true.”

The article goes on to tell the legend of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki. While she was just an infant she was exposed to radiation during the bombing of Hiroshima and became very sick. By the time she was twelve in 1955, she was dying of leukemia. She heard about the legend and decided to fold one thousand origami cranes so that she could live. However, she realised that the other children in her ward were also dying and she couldn’t fold cranes for them too. She wished instead for world peace and an end to suffering. According to some versions of the story Sadako folded 644 cranes before she died. Her friends at school completed the task in honor of her. She was buried with a wreath of 1,000 cranes to honor her dream.

I have no intention of folding a thousand cranes in hope that I will be granted my heart’s desire. There is a better way – a way that is guaranteed to work.

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4)

The Absent Voice

2012-01-01T19:35:00.002Z

I was reading Psalm 148 this morning. It is the psalmist’s call to praise God and he calls not just to people sitting in a pew on a Sunday morning to praise God, but to the whole created cosmos. The heavens and the earth are summoned to join the song of praise.

“Praise the LORD from the heavens;
praise him in the heights above.
“Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.” (Psalm 148:1-4)

There are many examples throughout the Bible of angels praising God. Some of them are before God’s throne constantly singing His praise and declaring His holiness. It’s not so easy to see how the sun, moon and stars praise God. Not all praise is audible, although that doesn’t mean that the stars are silent by any means.

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.” (Psalm 19:1-4)

In the praise that rises from heaven and earth to God’s throne – God hears every distinct voice. He hears the song of a single star in a galaxy of millions many thousands of light years away from earth. He hears the single note struck by one raindrop in the melody of a shower. He can identify the tune of a single sparrow in the dawn chorus. He would know if it was missing.

In among the cacophony of angels and stars, whale song and dolphin clicks, lightning and storms, lambs bleating and dogs barking, nightingales and song thrush – God hears my voice – my own distinctive song of praise.

He listens out for me.

Among the angel anthems
And songs from stars on high
And melodies from deep sea whales
And birds that fill the sky

He listens for my single voice
Unique among the throng
That soars throughout the heavens
To sing salvation’s song

My soul why are you silent?
My tongue – why are you still?
Where is the praise that tumbles out
To heaven’s temple fill?

My eyes so fixed on circumstance
His splendour cannot see
He shifts my gaze toward the Cross
It shouts its victory

I sing, His precious sparrow
In sunlight or in shade
The glories of the Great I Am
Through heaven and earth displayed

(c) Mel Kerr Jan 2012

A Tall Oder For a Short Person

2011-12-29T11:34:00.000Z

I have been looking for a Bible verse to lead me into 2012. I know it sounds super spiritual and maybe a tad legalistic – but it is neither. 2011 whizzed by in a bit of a blurr. Maybe the older one gets, the quicker these things pass by. I would like 2012 to pass at a more sedate rate and for me to not stand at the end of it and wonder where they days went.

I suppose I could churn out the resolutions that I made last year and the year before that and see if I get beyond January with them still intact. I could think that maybe this year will be different. History tells me that it won’t.

It’s not the New Year yet, but according to the Bible Notes I bought the other day, it’s 4th January. I thought I would get a head start. Once work crashes in, and it will crash, things will get busy, and one or two days may get missed. We are looking at 2 Corinthians – a letter that I am not so well acquainted with. Paul has this to say in verse 12.

“We can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we have lived with a God-given holiness and sincerity in all our dealings. We have depended on God’s grace, not on our own human wisdom. That is how we have conducted ourselves before the world, and especially toward you.” 2 Cor 1:12 NLT

Wouldn’t that be quite something to say at the end of 2012?

This is not a Bible verse to lead anyone through just one year. It governs not just a year, or Paul’s dealings with just one church. It’s a hallmark stamped upon the whole of a faith-walk from start of finish.

• I have a God-given holiness that should be seen in all of my dealings.

• I want to be sincere – but not to be sincerely wrong. (It seems a measure of humility is needed here.)

• I want to put aside my own human wisdom, with all of its successes and failures. (Sometimes the successes of human wisdom are more dangerous than the failures)

• My faith-walk began with God’s grace and should continue that way. (I will not switch suppliers!)

• The way I conduct myself between the world and the church, my home and my neighbourhood shouldn’t vary. (The end of “work Mel” and “holiday Mel”)

If I put these things in place, the other things, will fall into place.
I would say that it’s a tall order for someone not like Paul – but then Paul probably found it a tall order too but did it anyway.

A Sticky Situation

2011-12-22T22:26:00.009Z

I made myself a promise yesterday and almost wrote it on a pink sticky so I wouldn’t forget. After work I promised myself to visit the police station. I wasn’t going to confess to some horrible crime, but to ask if someone, a taxi driver, had handed in a walking stick in the last month or so.

There might have been a flicker of de javu in the eyes of the woman behind the counter. I’d asked her the same question a couple of years ago – a different walking stick, but just as lost. Her reply gave me hope when I was asked to describe the stick. It would have been nice if she had done a line-up of recently handed in walking sticks and asked me if I recognised any. It would have been nice to say “The second one from the end,” but the conversation didn’t go that way. My description didn’t match the one stick she had in the locker room. Red, metal and folding was not my stick. There was another ray of hope when she said that things not claimed after six weeks are given to the Highland Hospice charity shop.

I had a parking ticket to see me through the next couple of hours so I decided to stroll along to the shop to see if the walking stick, not the current lost one, but the previous lost one, was there somewhere. The door was in the process of being locked and the bolts drawn when I got there, but pulling a sad face seemed to do the trick. I was informed that there were no walking sticks.

I have done this charity shop crawl before looking for walking sticks, but the Highland Hospice had slipped through the net. I navigated a route around the town taking in the rest of the charity shops, trying to make sure I didn’t cross my path, or walk down the same street twice – quite a feat after a long day and trying to reach the shops before they closed.

• PDSA - new ones, black, metal and folding with pretty red flowers.
• Care in the Community – no sticks.
• Heart Foundation – no sticks.
• Oxfam – there were a couple of ski sticks, white with red flames on them
• Barnardos – no sticks, but directions to the mobility shop who sold new ones.
• Children First – “Yes”, said the woman confidently, “We have a stick!” She scoured the shelves and had to admit that they must have sold it.

As I was leaving the shop, I saw something in the window. It was a hybrid of sorts – a walking stick/umbrella combination. My husband’s friend had lent him something similar on the day of the Unions’ Day of Protest last month. There was no way Joe would have made it through the picketing and marching without something to lean on. He showed it me. It was a little smaller that was comfortable but better than nothing.

I picked it from the window display. It was just like the one his friend had lent him. Smaller than was comfortable but it was better than nothing. The price tag seemed a little steep for a charity shop and I swithered.

“Are you going to buy that?”

I turned to find a small aged gentleman standing beside me. I’m usually the smallest person in any meeting of two people over the age of ten.

He looked longingly at the object I was swithering about.

I surrendered it to him to try out, hoping that he didn’t really want it. They were obviously meant for each other. They matched size-wise and the umbrella part of it was even colour co-ordinated to match his dark coat.

“If you want to buy it…I mean, you did see it first…”

I did want to buy it, but it would have felt like some kind of robbery to deny him his prize.

“You take it,” I said.

I confess that I walked around the block, back around to the shop just in case he decided not the buy it, but it was gone.

A final stop on the way back to the car was in order. My parking ticket may have been good for another hour but the charity shops were closing quicker than I could get to them, and my boots were not made for walking. I decided to stop off at the railway station. We had checked the lost property office just day after the loss of the stick. I could picture it then lounging in the overhead luggage rack on the train from Glasgow to Inverness, blending in with the surroundings, ignored by the cleaners. It could have gone unnoticed for weeks.

“Any walking sticks handed in over the last few weeks?”

“Not recently…but…” The man went on to say that they had lots of lost property including lots of walking sticks. What kind of stick was I looking for? So high, dark wood with a curved handle I told him. He disappeared for a while and returned some time later with two sticks that fitted the bill, except that one was white and obviously used to belong to a blind person. The other wasn’t my lost stick either. It was black metal and folding but without the pretty red flowers. It was very sturdy looking and just the right height.

It had been rattling around the lost luggage locker for a long time unclaimed.

As I jauntily walked back to the car, imagining myself wielding the stick to defend myself against muggers in a poorly lit alley way on the way to the car park, I wondered whether to wrap it up and make my husband wait until Christmas, or just hand it over.

I handed it over. I couldn’t wait for Christmas to see his delight!

A Christmas Recipe

2011-12-22T17:47:00.001Z

Some poems are worth re-posting particularly at this time of the year. I wrote this three years ago and I still love it! Enjoy.

A Christmas Recipe

Begin with a night, so silent and still
Across the expanse a million stars spill
Cast into the heavens a star really bright
That fair draws the eye, with radiant light

Stir in a stable, a mother with child
A manger to lay him with hay freshly piled
A father to watch them, a smile on his face
Amazed to be part of God's glorious grace

Fold into the mixture a trio of kings
Complete with their camels and valuable things
Empty the gold, frankincense, myrrh
Hearts full of worship and gently stir

A pinch of shepherds, and handful of sheep
On a Bethlehem hillside sharp and steep
Blend in a choir with a heavenly tune
In the warm silver glow of a cold winter moon

Generously spread a dollop of joy
Lashings of laughter for a Saviour boy
Sprinkle with wishes for peace on the earth
Liberally douse with a belly of mirth

Cook in a prophecy, a secret foretold
Wrapped in a promise, spoken of old
Simmer and watch tepid hearts start to glow
Bear witness as mustard seed faith starts to grow

Dole out a portion to each hungry soul
That fills hollow hearts and makes all men whole
A dish to remember as each year goes by
The taste in our tongues no money can buy

(c) Melanie Kerr 2008

£16,000 or Nothing

2011-12-16T19:43:00.001Z

It has been a while since I have slept the night through. Last night was no exception. I woke up perhaps two or three times. I don’t remember long stretches of wakefulness between times. If I need to go to the bathroom, I make it a policy to keep my eyes shut, and not turn on the bathroom light. I don’t want my brain to wake up so no sensory stimulus is permitted.

Last night, just before the last sleep of the night, I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was a prayer, but I thought it would be nice to have an uplifting dream – a God-revelation inspired one, rather than a Mel-stress generated one.

I dreamt I was sitting with a group of friends having a cup of coffee. The table was strewn with newspapers and we were having a lazy morning, reading papers, drinking coffee and chilling out together.

Suddenly someone pointed out a page of poetry. It was one of the big daily papers, not a local rag. They were honouring new poets on the literary scene.

“It’s one of your poems! You are in the paper!”

There were just two poems on the page, and mine took up a small section of one column – so it wasn’t a long poem. There wasn’t any critical evaluation next to it – it was just my poem. Now that I am wide awake, I don’t remember which poem it was – just that I knew it was mine.

I was aware that the radio was playing in the background. It was one of those programmes where there were two people doing the show. They were singing a song making the tune up as they went along. The words were familiar – it was yet another one of my poems.

Neither the newspaper editor, nor the radio hosts, had said anything to me about using my poetry. I felt that I was owed some kind of royalties. It was my material they were making use of, without my permission.

I got into a taxi and headed off the radio station. I spoke to the head of broadcasting and pointed out that they were breaching copyright laws by singing the words to my poem without my permission. He didn’t seem particularly worried and wrote a five figure sum on the back of an envelope. £16,000 or nothing. I could take it or leave it. If I wanted to make an issue of it I could see him in court,

At that point I woke up. I could still hear the tune playing in my ear and see the back of the envelope with £16,000 written on it.

It felt so real that, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a prayer, I found myself asking God whether it was a prophetic or not.

If God could be said to have eyebrows, He arched one rather dramatically.

And said nothing at all.

Skin to Skin Immanuel

2011-12-11T08:52:00.000Z

I long to see your face
Without the tears
Each time I touch you
I long to see your joy
And not feel your sorrow
Every time I draw near

Once
We met in a garden
In the cool of the day
And walked
And laughed
And loved

I want to speak
Gentle words and
Throw away my angry men
Spilling rage and
Warning words and
Dire threats

Once
We talked in a garden
In the cool of the day
Devoted lovers
Sharing secrets
Cherishing communion

I want to stop time
Stay the passing
Of minutes, hours and days
Lest you forget forever
What life was like
When you loved me

Once
There was only me
And my voice
And my presence
To fill your days
And flood your heart

I want to stop
The past between us
Forever staining the future
I want to stop
The future we will share
Forever following the path of the past

Once more
We will meet
No garden rendezvous
No mystery, no majesty
But skin to skin
I will be Immanuel

Inspired by Amos 9:5 "The Lord, the LORD Almighty, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who live in it mourn..."

Piggy Banks and Pension Schemes

2011-12-04T14:52:00.005Z

On Wednesday afternoon, crammed into the function room of the used-to-be-called Caledonian Hotel in Church Street, a few hundred union members taking a day of strike action, listened to more than a few stirring speeches.

Earlier in the day I had dropped off my husband to join his picket line and we had arranged to meet outside the Calley Hotel at lunchtime. There was a mass rally, speeches and a march through the town centre.

I arrived at the appointed hour and the crowd outside the hotel was just a few dozen. The word “mass” was an inappropriate term. What I had failed to realise was that it was all happening at the back of the hotel, in the car park. There was a “mass” back there. Apparently the Fire Brigade was handing out soup and sandwiches and the outside door to the function room was open.

Three hotel receptionists of club bouncer physique told people the meeting in the function room was full, so I believed them and waited patiently outside for Joe to come and find me, unaware that he was scanning the crowd in the car park looking for me. At this point a mobile phone would have been useful. Joe’s was at home. Mine was in the handbag with a dead battery.

Cold and slightly miffed that I was not allowed inside I used the excuse of needing the toilet to get past the bouncers and slipped down the stairs to the function room. It was full, but there was standing room. I listened to the tail end of the speeches while looking for Joe. He had retired to the bar at this point – I should have guessed!

I have never been on strike before. The last time teachers went on strike I was out of the country teaching in a small private school in Cyprus. I am not sure that had I been in the country I would have been on strike. In those days I was a political dummy. I was a union member but not really convinced my subs were money well spent.

So there I was, leaning against the wall, scanning the crowds for a glimpse of Joe, listening to speeches, some stirring, some not so stirring.

Then, out of the blue, a picture came to mind, a memory of something that I saw months, if not years, ago. I was standing in the queue at the local Co-op. I don’t know what time of day or what I was buying. I dare say there was chocolate involved. The man in front of me was buying a bottle of alcohol. If it was whisky, it wasn’t an expensive label. It might have been a bottle of wine. To pay for the bottle, the man tipped out a bag containing lots of very small coins, one penny, two pence and the occasional five pence coin. It was a fair pile and it took a while for the checkout assistant to count them all. Once the transaction was done, he left with the bottle tucked in his pocket.

I am not the most patient of people in checkout queues, and I might have had a look on my face that indicated as much.

The assistant looked at me and said, “I know him…he lives nearby. Those coins…he has raided his sister’s piggy bank to get them. It’s really sad...” I wasn’t sure who to be sorry for – the man who could not get through the day without alcohol or the sister with an empty piggy bank or even the checkout assistant who became almost an accessory to the crime.

So there I was, on Wednesday, leaning against the wall in the hotel function room, scanning the crowds for a glimpse of Joe, listening to speeches…and I remembered the man and the bottle of wine and the money taken from someone else’s piggy bank.

There was something of an echo. It feels like it’s my piggy bank that is being raided by the big brother. It’s not a huge pile of money – not gold plated like they say.

They do know, don’t they, where the real money is? In the pockets of the fat cat bankers!

Wearing Jesus

2011-11-30T10:44:00.001Z

Whenever I am in Glasgow I always make a point of visiting the Pauline Bookshop. It’s a Roman Catholic Christian bookshop. You might be able to take a person out of the Roman Catholic church but you cannot take the Roman Catholic church out of the person. My days of first confession and first communion may be long gone but that does not mean that I have ceased to confess or commune with God – I just do it elsewhere.

I picked up a small book of advent devotionals exploring the thoughts of the saints. We are all saints, of course, but these saints are the RC designated ones.

Although it may be devotions for Advent – I can’t wait, so I’m dipping in. Romans 13:11-14 was among the opening verses to meditate on.

“The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11)

It’s an advent book, so one would expect passages to think about Jesus and the salvation that he brought with him, but it was the last sentence that caught my imagination

“Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!” Romans 13:14(The Message)

What are you wearing today? I am wearing Jesus.

Jesus isn’t really a made to measure garment so at times throughout the day, wearing Jesus got to be rather uncomfortable at times. Jesus isn’t only gentle, meek and mild – perhaps not even rather than not only. Jesus wasn’t any of those things when he challenged the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day. He wasn’t any of those things when he said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” (Meekness, BTW, is not weakness. The dictionary defines it as “the feeling of patient, submissive humility” – in Jesus’ case it was the submissive humility directed towards God. It was precisely because he was submissive to God that he challenged unrighteousness the way he did.)

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1)

Wearing Jesus is not about being soft and fluffy. Just ask Oscar Romero when you see him in heaven.

One particular encounter during my day was unpleasant. It’s quite possible that Jesus slipped off my shoulders somewhere in the conversation. It was not my best moment and I was left feeling rather mangled.

“Forgive them.” The Holy Spirit told me that if I was wearing Jesus then forgiveness was not an optional extra. As much as I would like to have replayed the conversation, adding the things I never said, and colouring the tone of what I heard and stirring myself up to sow and nurture a grudge – if I am wearing Jesus, forgiveness not an option.

An Effing Disgrace

2011-11-22T21:33:00.002Z

“Yobs should not be punished for hurling obscenities in public – because swear words are now so common that they no longer cause distress,” said Mr Justice Bean.

I seriously object to someone making pronouncements about what should or should not cause me distress. Yobs are apparently being given the freedom to hurl abuse at policemen and policemen are told swearing at them is not causing them any alarm or distress.

I beg to differ.

I have been on the receiving end of verbal abuse. It wasn’t a yob, but some woman in a car driving out of a car park.

I discovered quite early on in the visit to see my mum that the wheelchair was too big for the boot. Maybe there was some screw that unlocked and folded wheels or footrests more compactly – but in the end, pushing the wheelchair into town was the only option. She was not a heavy woman, but the pavements were not even, and wheelchair was demon-possessed.

As I said, the woman was coming out of the car park. She was travelling very slowly and I judged that I had time to cross the entrance to the car park in plenty of time, and seeing me crossing, pushing a wheelchair, she would stop. She stopped. She must not have seen me because she acted like she had just performed an emergency stop. There was no squeal of tyres, no smell of burning rubber. She was travelling at less than five miles an hour. She just wasn’t looking, but she stopped in time.

She wound down the windows and a stream of abuse came pouring out. “Silly cow” was in there somewhere accompanied by expletive after expletive. She made a right turn to a set of traffic lights. I was still in view so a second stream of abuse flew at me. She made another right turn at the traffic lights, leaving me with a final stream of insults. It was over-kill. It was unnecessary. Did she really think that I hadn’t got the message the first time?

Obscenities were hurled in public. Just because they were common swear words did not mean that I wasn’t distressed. I got back to my mum’s house and promptly burst into tears. I pride myself on not being silly, or being a cow – but some manic driver had accused me of both – in public!

Swear words may be common and they may not offend some people but they offend me. I realise that sometimes people litter their conversation with them and they really mean nothing. They don’t set out to be offensive. They are more than happy to keep a check on their language if they know someone is offended.

Do you know, I actually wrote a swear word in a short story once? I struggled over the “f” word. I agonised. I sweated. I searched the thesaurus for an alternative, until I finally surrendered and let it stay there – because it was perfect. My creative writing tutor raised an eye brow. I was a nice girl who didn’t swear – but he knew why I had written it, and agreed it was perfect. There are some situations that simply require a well-chosen swear word. They are not everyday situations and swear words should be used sparingly.

Giving anyone the green light to swear at any time and in any place seems to me like some kind of surrender. In some way we have given over ground that we should have held on to.

Verbal abuse isn’t something that we should get used to. It shouldn’t come with anyone’s territory.

I Blog Therefore I am

2011-11-16T17:26:00.000Z

I cannot live from birth to death
From day to day and year to year
Where no one knows, or thinks or cares
That I am really here

I must leave footprints where I’ve trod
Deep and crisp and clean and clear
To show a man, his wife, his dog
That I am really here

I have a voice and words to say
Precious views, opinions dear
Like seeds cast on the wind to say
That I am really here

I choose my words and weave my world
Secrets spill to lure you near
Drama drawn from dull days just to say
That I am really here

I deal out details, pictures post
Of people, places quaint and queer
My endless commentary that says
That I am really here

I write the words you want to read
My life, to you, to best appear
So scrubbed and speckless who’s to tell
That I am really here?

I know The Father looks at me
He reads my heart leaves nought unclear
His whispers stir my soul to know
That I am really here

Deeply Troubled and Greatly Distressed

2011-11-16T17:22:00.002Z

“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city. (NLT)

“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” (NIV)

The longer Paul waited in Athens for Silas and Timothy, the angrier he got—all those idols! The city was a junkyard of idols.” (The Message)

Now while Paul was awaiting them at Athens, his spirit was grieved and roused to anger as he saw that the city was full of idols.” (Amplified)

Acts 17:16 - words and phrases like “deeply troubled”, “greatly distressed”, “angry” and “grieved” leave me…well, just that - deeply troubled, greatly distressed, angry and grieved because the things that should leave me deeply troubled, greatly distressed, angry and grieved all too often don’t.

Free and Clear Speech

2011-10-29T22:33:00.006+01:00

I have a whiteboard discussion starter for a unit on Freedom of Speech. Clicking on coloured boxes reveal photographs of people associated with issues to do with freedom of expression. Most of the photographs are rarely easily identified by this generation – Mary Whitehouse for one.

I try to update it every so often to keep it relevant and interesting. A couple of years ago Russell Brand made it on to the board after he and Jonathan Ross got involved in unpleasant telephone conversations with Andrew Sachs. It is always interesting to debate where the lines should be drawn between what you can say and what you can’t. Last year, we waved goodbye to Arthur Scargill and Fred Phelps took his place. He was the church leader who encouraged his flock to wave banners at the funerals of soldiers insisting that God was punishing America for its attitude to homosexuality.

Who shall I kick off the board this time to make way for a photo of either Dr Rowan Williams or simply a picture of St Paul’s Cathedral?

I confess that I haven’t been keeping up to scratch with what the protest is all about. Interim reports have kept me busy for a while. Protestors have pitched tents outside the Cathedral to draw attention to the greed of capitalism, the fat cat bonuses of bankers and the way in which the ConDem’s cuts are unfair and discriminatory.

There was an article in the “I on Saturday” about driving the protestors away from St Paul’s and how such a move has divided the Church of England. The people that should be saying something – like the Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams – are keeping silent on the issue. Silence is often a bad move where the church is concerned. Silence equates to agreement and approval - not something the church should be doing.

What really bugged me about the article in the “I” was their additional fuel thrown onto the fire in the form of “What the Bible says…” It is never a good idea to rip a verse out of context to make a point. “Render to Caesar the things that a Caesar’s” (Matt 22:21) was never the focus that Jesus was saying. That seems to some to be written in capital letters while the “Render to God the things that are God’s” seems to be in the small print at the bottom of the page!

“If any would not work, neither should they eat” 2 Thess 3:10. The same group of young people that discussed freedom of speech issues this week, discussed poverty issues this time last year. Where do people get the idea that poor people don’t work? The problem is not that they don’t work – they do, and often very long hours in very poor working conditions. The problem is that get paid crappy wages! There is another verse somewhere that says that the worker is worthy of his hire. Pay people a working wage! If you, Mr Cameron, want people to work for their unemployment benefit – stop calling it unemployment benefit – call it a job and pay a proper wage for it!

But what REALLY bugged me apart from the verses taken out of context was the version of the Bible they had used. There are so many accessible versions of the Bible. Did the journalist pick the “New International Version” or “The Message”? In favour of the protestors Proverbs 22:16 was quoted. “He that oppresseth of the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.” “Want” what? Recognition? A fat bonus? Beautiful as it may be in language and poetry the King James Version was the wrong choice.

“He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich— both come to poverty “ is how the New International Bible put it.

“Exploit the poor or glad-hand the rich—whichever, you'll end up the poorer for it,” warns The Message.

It seems to me that by using the King James the writer is creating an impression that the Church of England, or the Church universal, is out of date and archaic, and has no relevance to today’s world, and has nothing to say about current issues that anyone can understand clearly.

I beg to differ.

The Lost Letter "G"

2011-10-23T15:22:00.003+01:00

Earlier in the week I read an article tucked away in a corner of a newspaper. The Scrabble World Championship in Warsaw had a Thai player insisting that an English player be strip searched to prove he had not hidden a missing letter “G” on his person.

The incident begged some kind of poetic response.

I insist you disrobe
So that I can see
You haven’t concealed
The lost letter “G”

A sleeve or a pocket
I’m sure you’d agree
Are perfect for hiding
The lost letter “G”

Just think of the triple
Word score that could be
If you would surrender
The lost letter “G”

I think you have cheated
The prize denied me
I’ll never get over
The lost letter “G”

Making the Connection

2011-10-22T17:11:00.008+01:00

We have just returned from visiting family south of the border. Normally I try to make sure that the house is left reasonably tidy – I wouldn’t want a burglar to complain that I am a lousy housewife. This time however, there were so many jobs about the house, and workmen to do them (or not do them as in the case of the loft insulation because of asbestos fibres) I just didn’t find the time or the inclination. I still don’t have the time or inclination but the house needs to be clean for visitors at the weekend.

It can be quite a hectic time visiting everyone and we NEVER manage to get round everyone. Sometimes it can feel very un-holiday-like and we miss out on just being tourists, so we plundered the box of tourist leaflets at the
B & B.

In all the years of living in Warwickshire, only a couple of months involved driving a car, so I have never really got to know the roads. I confess that I even got lost in the village of Crick where I grew up. There are one or two new housing estates that have sprung up, with a complicated warren of col-du-sacs. My brother in law sniggered as I phoned for directions to his son’s house. Lost in Crick ought to be an oxymoron, but apparently isn’t.

Joe and I headed out to Compton Vereny - “Warwickshire's award-winning art gallery, opened in 2004, delivering an exciting international programme of exhibitions and events in the setting of a Grade 1 listed Robert Adam mansion located in 120 acres of spectacular parkland.”

The art exhibitions didn’t just begin once you entered the building and paid for your admission but the” spectacular parkland” contained things too. Art means different things to different people. A giant spider web woven out of raffia might make one person think of art – it made me think of giant spiders!

A current exhibition inside the building was “What the folk say”. Presumably upstairs, where we didn’t go, there is an exhibition of folk art – not your classic poses in the usual medium in ornate frames, but lots of wood carvings and papier-mâché objects. Artists had been invited to take something out of the folk collection and place it alongside of an object or picture in the other collections and then write a paragraph to explain how the two were related. One object might bring out a truth about another object that wasn’t at first glance obvious. Some of the connections they made left you thinking “Oh Yes!” while others left you thinking “Duh?”

There was a huge picture of the battle of Troy and one of the main men involved had taken an arrow to his thigh. He was surrounded by women trying to extract the arrow and bind up the wound. An artist had teamed up that picture with a picture from the folk exhibition where a boxer with a black eye was being tended by his trainer reaching out with a cold flannel. Whether the battle is a big one with a cast of thousands, or a small personal one – injuries happen and people step in to try to help.

Another exhibit from the folk exhibition was a very large bullet. It was made out of metal and had ammunition stamped on it. It wasn’t a real bullet, but a kind of cartoon type bullet. It has been placed in the middle of a room dedicated to portraits of politicians. The artist was drawing the link between war and politics. Even on a non-war level words can be used like bullets to injure people. I have seen glimpses into parliament debates and the way words are used – not just the words, but the tone can be very damaging.

The whole thing was certainly thought provoking. One pair of objects that I found quite offensive involved a wooden carving of the resurrection scene. You could see the crosses in the background and Jesus in the foreground and a few witnesses. The artist had chosen to team it up with a knitted egg cosy. The egg cosy was in the form of a king’s head with a crown and it was placed over the head of Jesus. Yes, Jesus is the King – but the egg cosy over Jesus’ head seemed irreverent in some way. The egg cosy wasn’t even well knitted. What is was doing in the folk collection to start with beats me.

I was thinking of the idea of putting one thing next to another where one object reveals a hidden truth about the other object. That is essentially what a parable is – using the known truth in one story to reveal an unknown truth in another.

Swap the art of objects for scenes from the Bible and just a single word instead of the object from the folk exhibition and allow the imagination to ignite!

See in your mind, perhaps, the Calvary scene of Jesus on the cross, the nails, the blood, the darkness and Jesus’ cry of abandonment. For many people their word would be “death” or “defeat” but God writes a different word – “life” or “victory”.

See in your mind, perhaps, Paul and Silas in a prison at midnight, beaten and bloody, manacles biting into wrists and the sewer smell in their nostrils. What one word would moat people write? Maybe “misery” or “hopeless”, but again God writes something different – “freedom” and “praise”.

I never quite made some of the connections that the artists were making at Compton Verney – and sometimes I never make the connections that God makes with events that happen in the lives of people. To make the artists’ connections require me to think like the artist. To understand the connections that God makes I need to think like God.

Thankfully God doesn’t stick an egg cosy over His thoughts to conceal them!

Treasure in the Attic

2011-10-11T22:02:00.003+01:00

I have long suspected that my husband has a picture of Dorian Grey in the attic – well not exactly Dorian himself as that wouldn’t really work, would it?

I have not read the book, but I have seen the film where Dorian Grey commits all kinds of crimes, leads a less than honourable life and the picture in the attic takes all the depravity leaving the man untouched and beautiful.

I am not saying that Joe is a low life criminal and there’s a picture in the attic soaking it all up. What I mean is Joe is just as young and handsome as he was the day we married. He hasn’t aged. I tease him about a Dorian Grey picture in the attic – but there is no such picture.

I know this for sure because the contents of the attic are spread across a number of rooms in cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes. Some of the boxes might have been in better shape when they went up however many years ago, but are a little less sturdy now.

A man landed on the doorstep a few weeks ago asking if he could look at our loft insulation. I am not actually sure if he went into the loft, or just poked around the area near the door. It’s not an accessible loft. The ladder is a few rungs short of actually reaching the door and loft itself is an obstacle course of hot water tanks, beams and boxes.

He came back down with a page full of measurements and informed us that the insulation was way below the minimum and that we were entitled to a grant to pay towards adding a few more inches. The government may be clawing back the pennies in other places…but not in people’s loft insulation. Of course we would have to move the boxes out, or neatly pile them in a corner somewhere and they would insulate round them.

Neatly piling them into a corner would require one of us going into the loft. It was actually far easier to stand on the top step if the ladder, and reach in to extract them.

I thought it was all Donald’s stuff - our lodger from way back who was a photography man. We have boxes that never made it up the ladder into the attic of his car collections and his artwork given to us instead of rent money.

The boxes were all our stuff…and such stuff.

Joe’s old stereo system was up there. He has a collection of records that no doubt he will start revisiting now.

A box of folders from his college days has his notes on his business management and economics courses.

Another box of folders, this time mine, contained my old Gospel Outreach scrapbook – a commentary of life spent knocking doors and asking people if they were saved! It was a real trip down memory lane. I looked much younger then, much slimmer and looked like I was having fun.

There was also another scrapbook, less pages, covering just a few months. It covered our early days of dating – when Joe and I started to go out together! So cute…

And there was a box of letters. I don’t write many letters today, but then, sometime back in 1992 I was a prolific letter writer. A number of months ago I had sent a cyber blood hound into the cyber world to see if it could track down a pension account I had opened a long time ago and lost track of. I had opted out of SERPS, the teacher’s pension scheme and set up something else. I stopped teaching and closed the account and the scheme and I lost touch. I thought I ought to look for it, hence the cyber blood hound, but the scent was long gone.

Tucked in among the letters was a bunch of brown envelopes – my long lost pension scheme was less lost than it had been. I had an account number and a last known address and a tidy little sum sitting doing nothing.

So…attics…well worth looking into the boxes up there! Who knows what reassure you will find?

Finding lost treasures reminds me that there are other treasures that I need to dig around to find. The words given to me by God through sermons and quiet times are sometimes like my lost pension scheme with its tidy little sum of money sitting around doing nothing. God didn’t intend His word to do nothing, but to work for Him and produce a harvest.

“Every teacher of religious law who becomes a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a homeowner who brings from his storeroom new gems of truth as well as old.” (Matthew 13:52}

A Joe-ku

2011-10-08T10:38:00.006+01:00

It was National Poetry Day on Thursday. Joe was in the kitchen making East-West chips. The fridge door is littered with words from a magnetic poetry kit he bought me years ago - so he got creative.

you are honey
raw yet cool
but only the tongue
can pant and drool
delicate chocolate

As well as the writing the poem he has invented his own poetry form too calling it a joe-ku.

Rest

2011-10-06T21:13:00.004+01:00

Bone weary and dog tired
My heart-spring scorched and dry
I cannot feel the sunshine
For the clouds that fill the sky

I listen in the darkness
There’s a voice says “Come to Me”
A promise of a quiet rest
He bids me come and see

He asks that I will walk with Him
Work with Him by my side
And as I watch and learn from Him
In His grace I’ll abide

He offers me a gentle yoke
A burden that is light
And as I keep in step with Him
There’s joy and rich delight

Matthew 11:28-30

The Overflow of the Heart

2011-10-03T17:17:00.003+01:00

It was like a re-enactment of Old Mother Hubbard. The cupboard in question wasn’t in the kitchen and it wasn’t empty. It was a quick glimpse of the contents of my heart! The mouth had been speaking (it rarely stops) but what was coming out tending to be sharp and critical and over loud.

I decided that it was time to clear out the junk from the heart – confessing negative words spoken to myself and others, repenting of attitudes that were less than godly and seeking forgiveness for all manner of things.

Once clean, I felt the need to fill up my heart with some good things. It’s an active thing – much like gardening, I suppose. Good things are not just going to fall into my heart. They need to be searched out, held on to and treasured.

Among the bible readings and listening to worship music while I washed up, I made a date to watch Songs of Praise. The choice of hymns may not always be to my liking, but it was the 50th birthday celebration, and crowds of thousands were packed into the Alexandra Palace in London, and what’s not to like about Aled Jones?

Janet Street Porter wrote an article in the Independent on Sunday. Admitting to be a secret fan of Songs of Praise, she writes “is like saying you believe in God, or that you think marriage is a good idea – something not mentioned in public”. I believe both and mention them quite publically at times. She is not really impressed with the Church and thinks that it has failed to do what it is supposed to do – “taking belief out of out-dated buildings and into the lives of ordinary people in offices, canteens and schools.” I have to agree with her and ask myself whether I am taking faith with me into my workplace and neighbourhood. She lays the blame firmly at the feet of the Archbishop of Canterbury – but we are all responsible for demonstrating faith in every situation we face.

I digress – back to storing up good things in my heart and watching Songs of Praise. Andrea Bocelli was one of the guests on the programme last night. He sang “Ave Maria” and later on “Amazing Grace”. I have been dipping into a book “Beyond Amazing Grace” – a collection of sermons, letter extracts and hymns from John Newton. In one of his letters he talked about a young girl who became like a daughter to him. She had a mental breakdown and ended up in an institution and he visited her as often as he could. In his prayers he committed her to God’s care. He confessed that his prayers are not really for her, but for himself. Difficult times often lead people to abandon their faith. His eyes were failing and his strength was declining and he no longer had her help. His prayer ends with “Spare my eyes, if it please thee; but above all, strengthen my faith and my love.”

We sang a version of Amazing Grace a couple of weeks ago. I wondered them, as we sang the so-familiar words, whether when he wrote the hymn, or when he sang it, he could do so without tears. We all sing the phrase “that saved a wretch like me…” but I wonder if we really think the word “wretch” really applies to us. OK so John Newton was a slave trader and did some really horrendous things – “wretch” is perhaps an apt word. But do we apply it to ourselves? Do we think that we are just a little bad, as opposed to really bad – deep down we are nice people really and “wretch” doesn’t apply. If we appreciated our wretched state without Christ I think we would sing the hymn with tears.

“I once was blind, but now I see.” In the gospels there are no stories of men who have perfect vision becoming blind because of an encounter with Jesus. It happens the other way round – they start off blind and then they can see. John Newton and Andreas Bocelli have blindness in common. As a poet, I can’t help but appreciate the choice of words or the structure of the sentence. As a Christian I can’t help but ask whether I am blind – blind to what Jesus did on the cross, blind to His grace that is outpoured for us all, every day.

Looking back, September was a difficult month. I had so many opportunities to simply step aside and allow God fight the battle on my behalf. Instead I insisted on fighting in every skirmish, losing more often than winning. I came to the end of my resources. Eventually through the noise of the battle I heard God telling me to step aside, to stand behind Him, and let Him send the enemy running.

I don’t need another September! I don’t need a heart that is empty of good things! I don’t need a mouth overflowing with sharp and angry words.

“For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matt 12:34b

Playing with the Pastry

2011-09-30T17:04:00.004+01:00

There is a very cute advertisement on TV at the moment. I think it’s a Sainsbury’s ad. It features a father and son making a pie. It begins with each of them sprinkling the table with flour. Everything the father does from rolling out the pastry to tapping fingers on the counter, the son copies. The father places the rolled out pastry on top of the pie and carefully cuts away the excess, and the son completes the pie by adding the trimmings on top. The pie looks delicious as it comes out of the oven.

I don’t remember ever being in the kitchen and being given a bit of pastry to roll out while mum made the real thing, but that doesn’t mean to say it didn’t happen. When I think of learning how to cook I think of Domestic Science in school. Watching a demonstration and then doing it myself rarely led to any kind of success – except for bread. It is the one thing I ever made that turned out better than the teacher’s.

I suppose that I like the advert because it is a father and a son rather than a mother and daughter. It is all too safe to present the predictable images to sell products.

The son does what he sees the father doing – I’m sure there is a scripture somewhere that says just that. In the advert the father and son work together to make the pie. In the Kingdom the Father and the Son work together, with the Holy Spirit, to make something better than a pie!

Every member of God’s family is encouraged to join in – to work with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to build the kingdom.

“…the work of My hands, for the display of My splendour.” Isaiah 60:21b

The title of the chapter in Isaiah is “The Glory of Zion”.

How much of the work is the “work of My (God’s) hands”? How much of it is my work and not really God’s work through me? In the advert, the pie was really the father’s work – not much was the son’s. Did the father secretly scrape off the trimmings the son had put there, because the pastry, after the son had played for it a while, was just a little bit too grimy?

When I think of myself as a work of God’s hands – fearfully and wonderfully made – I begin to wonder sometimes if I haven’t really messed up Gods’ work, “myself”, with the grimy trimmings that I try to add. I begin to wonder whether God is able to really display His splendour through my life.

I don’t think the boy’s pastry trimmings were grimy because he had watched what his father was doing and copied him. He knew that he wasn’t just playing with pastry but making a pie. He watched his father’s every move - not just what the hands were doing, but the expression on his father’s face – the encouragement and approval. The father so desired for the son to succeed.

I will not spoil what God is doing in my life if, working with Him, I watch my Father’s every move, if I seek by faith to see the expression on His face and I am convinced He wants me to succeed.

I need to stop playing with the pastry.

Queues

2011-09-18T19:43:00.005+01:00

There’s an article in “The Independent on Sunday” about Martin Bell, the former BBC war correspondent who took up a career in politics for a while. He has now turned his hand to writing poetry.

He has published a poetry collection, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. At the launch of his book he shared a few of his poems, one of which was prompted by the war in Iraq.

“Other subjects he covered,” reads one of the paragraphs in the article, “included MP’s expenses, the Kindle, Marmite and the wedding of President Idi Amin of Uganda.” I like the variety of things that inspire him!

Later on he is quoted as saying, “I feel very deeply about things and it’s a wonderful way to express yourself.”

I also feel deeply about things but it doesn’t often translate into poetry. I complain – usually to the wrong people. I seem to remember from an exhibition focussed on the poetry of Robert Burns that he commented on the world around him through poetry.

Here’s my offering. Last week while putting money into our savings account this happened.

One morning I stood in a very long queue
To say it moved quickly would be quite untrue
I fretted, observing the clock on the wall
For ten solid minutes I moved not at all
All of a sudden a man from the back
Strode past the queue to the front of the pack
He walked to a window his business to do
Ignoring conventions that governed the queue
On mass we all whispered, we snorted and sniffed
Making it clear we were nettled and miffed
Where was the hero to take up our fight?
A queue without backbone – a pitiful sight!

Litmus Paper

2011-09-15T20:55:00.003+01:00

I was never very good at Chemistry at school. I can remember almost nothing about it. At least in Physics I can remember everyone in the class holding hands and the person nearest the electrical current touching it, and the electric shock passing through the wrists of each and every person in the link. But Chemistry has no such memories attached.

I remember litmus paper. It did something but I can't quite put my finger on what it did. It was a long time ago. Putting one particular element in a solution nestling at the bottom of a test tube caused a reaction that confirmed the presence of another element. Things would change colour, or let off a swirling cloud of gas, or make a distinctly unpleasant aroma.

There is a story in the gospels where a woman, named as Mary by some, emptied a jar, or broke the jar according to some, of very expensive perfume over the feet of Jesus, or his head in some accounts, and wiped the excess with her hair. It was an act of worship. There was, perhaps, a prophetic element to her action.

Suppose that you looked at it from a “science experiment” point of view. Put an extravagant act of worship (the one particular element) into a room full of Jesus’ disciples ( or the solution nestling at the bottom of the test tube) and watch for the reaction. How do they react to her actions? The presence of one thing might reveal the presence the other thing, or the absence depending on the reaction.

That one act of extravagant worship revealed something about Mary. Just as importantly, it revealed something about everyone else too.

The story tells us exactly what the disciples said, but let your imagination supply you with their thoughts.

"That was a bit over the top."

"That's taking things to the extreme."

"She'll regret she did that one day."

"That was embarrassing."

"Who does she think she is?"

"Typical of women - over-emotional."

"You won't see me doing anything like that."

If it had been a "science experiment" it had revealed that her act of worship left them cold and critical. There was no change in colour or a swirling cloud of gas. The odour from the perfume was present – but it all indicates the absence of a heart of worship. There was no echo in their spirits that led them to join in.

Let’s move away from extravagant acts of worship and broken perfume bottles.

Let’s try instead broken water tanks and leaks. Not so uplifting. Let’s imagine buckets under drips and towels laid down to try to protect carpets and floorboards. Some of us won’t really need the imagining bit seeing as the buckets and towels are there right in front of us.

Suppose that you looked at this scenario from a “science experiment” point of view. Put an a broken tanks and various leaks (the one particular element) into a house of a usually happily married couple (or the solution nestling at the bottom of the test tube) and watch for the reaction.

It wasn’t a pretty sight! While the one person remained calm and collected, phoned the plumber and patiently waited for them to track down a new tank and work out the maths involved to get the large tank through the small hole up to the attic, the other person freaked out!

A friend of mine used to call these kinds of things “refiners”.

I was refined.

Christ the Redeemer

2011-09-09T20:54:00.007+01:00

It was just a throwaway comment on a television programme that started the discussion. The programme was set in Brazil, exploring the issue of poverty. The statue “Christ the Redeemer” dominates the skyline of Rio De Janeiro. The narrator made the comment that the statue faces towards the south where the rich live and has its back to the poor people in the North. He implied there was something symbolic in it all. Christ stands with welcoming arms for the rich, but turns his back on the poor. I am sure that it was never intended to be seen that way.

The group of young people I was with thought it was unfair.

They suggested some solutions to the problem.

Could they not turn the statue around?

What about placing the statue on a turntable so it rotated – sometimes facing south, sometimes facing north then everyone gets the chance to be embraced and welcomed?

Can’t they carve out the face of Jesus on the other side so that the back of the statue is another front?

Perhaps they should just take it down so that no one is offended at all!

I dreamed about the statue last night. It was definitely Christ the Redeemer, but with one slight variation. One arm was outspread in welcome. In his other arm Christ cradled a child.

I want to be welcomed by Christ. And there are times when I want to be carried close to his heart.

The God Who Makes Things Grow

2011-09-04T21:53:00.004+01:00

I am ashamed of the state of my garden. I am equally ashamed of the state of my house (bar the kitchen that I cleaned on Friday night) but the pigsty nature of the house remains concealed behind brick walls, whereas the garden is open to all who pass by. I feel sorry for my neighbours who have to live next door to my wilderness. I wouldn’t want to live next door to me.

My shame provoked me to do something about it. Mowing the grass was always going to be a challenge. Too much rain, too long a time since I had last mowed the lawn left a lot of work for the mower. I wouldn’t have dared use an electric mower even had I possessed one. I had visions of electrocuting myself with all that water and electricity. It was me and a cylinder mower against the grass!

To mower spoke the long wet grass
“No matter what – you will not pass!”
But long wet grass could not evade
The slash and slice of mower’s blade

It took longer than I had anticipated. I am one of these I’ve-started-so-I’ll-finish people. Leaving the lawn half mowed was just not an option.

It is brown bin day tomorrow and the grass cuttings filled the bin a third of the way up. It seemed a shame not to present a full bin for collection, so I started weeding the flower beds. I use the term flower bed loosely seeing as there are rarely flowers in them. Once the daffodils and tulips have had their day, the weeds move in and stake their claim to the soil. They party well into autumn as I rarely get the time or the weather to evict them.

So, the two flower beds by the front door were cleared and the bin was about half full – still too empty.

They could have been buttercups – some long tall relations to the smaller lawn variety. I sensed them trying to duck out of sight at the bottom of the garden. They flaunted thorns in an attempt to scare me off, but I got them in the end. The bin was almost three quarters full but still too empty.

Joe hacked at overhanging branches from a climbing rose in the back garden and scraped away the moss on the flagstones of the patio. And the bin was full.

The garden still falls short of the standards of just about every other garden in the street, but it is a vast improvement.

I was reading 1 Corinthians 3:5-9

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labour. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

I thought for a while about the God “who makes things grow” – can I blame God for my garden chaos? Probably not.

What came to mind was the morning spent with our church family. We had a really laid back time of fellowship over tea and croissants. The conversation meandered through a lot of topics that you couldn’t exactly label as religious, but were about daily life. Advice was sought by some and offered by others. We shared history together.

Throughout the whole time there was planting going on and watering happening in a very casual and informal manner as people exchanged ideas and experiences. One person might have had a little more insight into one area of the conversation, but everyone had the chance to plant into and to water each other’s field.

God, who makes things grow, was present in the conversations and I look forward to seeing just what grows over the days, weeks and months ahead.

The End

2011-08-29T20:59:00.006+01:00

Suppose there are six people. They are all patients with terminal illnesses. One or two are at home, looked after by a family who are running out of resources. They have lost their strength and battle with tiredness and guilt. Maybe one or two are in a hospital where nurses are not really trained to deal with their specific needs, besides they are always rushed off their feet. The other two are living alone, managing to get by on daily visits from a team of helpers but finding it harder to cope each day.

There are just four beds in the hospice.

Who gets the beds?

It’s an interesting discussion perhaps, but for the Highland Hospice, it is a reality that they face on a regular basis. It’s the always-present challenge about the most effective use of limited resources.

I visited the hospice this afternoon, not in the capacity of friend or family to a patient there, but to talk to the chaplain. He had talked to a group of young people about the work of the hospice and we were performing the autopsy! We took the powerpoint and metaphysically weighed it on the scales. Was there the right place between information and pictures? Did it convey the information they needed to know? We dissected the discussion points to find out whether the task was clear enough and generated sparks. We consulted diaries to plan the next visit.

While my brain was engaged in the business side of things, my heart was elsewhere.

I knew I wasn’t in Spain. I knew it wasn’t the hospice in Cudeca. I knew that my brother wasn’t in one of the rooms losing his fight against cancer. I knew that all of that was three years ago. My head knew it…but my heart wasn’t listening.

The art work on the walls might have been different, and the garden wasn’t basking in Spanish sunshine, but the two places were involved in the same business. There was the same tranquility about the places as they sought to make the last days of someone’s life peaceful and trauma-free.

I think my brother’s experience had tilted me towards supporting living wills and some kind of euthanasia. Mike wasn’t going to recover and the final forty eight hours was very distressing for him and for those of us that were there with him. It wasn’t just those forty eight hours really but other days of not coping. It just seemed stretched out and anguished.

Part of the problem was a language one. The nurses knew enough English to deal with his physical needs of food and medication and cleaning him up. I am not sure how much opportunity he had to talk about his fears and anxieties.

Another part of the problem was probably a lack of cooperation from my brother. In life he kicked against the goad and he continued kicking when life was ebbing away. He wasn’t an easy patient. He did not want to join in and scorned communal activities.

I tell myself that Mike died at peace, that he didn’t just stop breathing, but I don’t know whether he had the chance to tell his life story in artwork or poetry – whether he wanted that, or needed it. He spent one evening playing tunes on an organ in the common room until someone told him to stop because it was late at night.

I got the guided tour around the Highland Hospice. Every picture on the wall had a story to tell. A dog made of plastic bed pans stood in on the counter in the craft room. The patents had laughed as they responded to the challenge to use only materials they could find in the hospice to make it.

I have to say that the balance has tilted the other way. If you can fill the time between diagnosis and death, not just with the right kind of medication, but things that stir the heart and spirit, there is something more than just waiting for the end to come.

Filling your days with things that stir the heart and spirit has got to be a good move for all of us. There is more to life that waiting for the end to come – the end of any season in our life – not just The End.

Car Boot Sale

2011-08-28T18:54:00.010+01:00

Following some dos and don'ts from a helpful car booting website:-

…get everything ready the night before… and pack the car

It was not our own personal car boot sale adventure, but one of our church’s “inside out” Sundays where we leave the security of our four walls and do something in the community. We were fundraising for Equipe - an international charity that works in different parts of the world.

Our house…our car boot was deemed to be the dropping of point for boxes of books, DVDs, toys, jigsaw puzzles, bric-a-brac and home-baking. It’s not a big car boot (as we found out one weekend trying to get mum’s wheelchair in it) and the boxes just kept coming. I think it had a Tardis moment!

There was some concerns that tempting glimpses of car boot treasure might prove too much for some passers-by. I have had bricks lobbed through car windows before but never in inverness, and never to take a newly washed soft toy on show. A blanket flung over the boxes in the back seat concealed the goodies within.

...check the pockets of sale clothing for money and other valuables

We found “a valuable” not in a pocket, but folded away in a book. No ten pound note treasure but a letter written to us by a friend a few years ago. He had been going through a rough time trying to make faith work miracles in his messed up life. He was a regular visitor to the house and shared meals with us. He wrote the letter simply to say thanks for looking after him.

...arrive early

7.00 am was too early! It wasn’t too early for the organisers who had sold us two table spaces. I couldn’t believe the volume of traffic there before us! Parking in the disabled spaces was permitted to unload stuff. You could tell the traders and the old hands who had bought trolleys and other things with wheels attached. Joe and I made what felt to be a hundred trips back and forward from car to table.

...choose a sunny pitch away from big muddy puddles

Seeing as it was inside we didn’t need to worry about sunny spots or puddles. We were allocated two tables somewhere in the middle of the room. I don’t know whether there is any advantage in being at the end of the row, or near a door.

On one side of us was a lady with lots of home-designed jewellery. She had a small selection of second hand clothes. Behind us was a lady from South Africa, with the same kind of stuff as us, who was seriously tormented by the smell of our home baking.

At 7.45 the doors were locked and we had until 8.00 to set up. If you happened to sleep in you lost your table.

At 8.00 the queuing public were let loose!

...go with someone else (it's so much easier as you can take it in turns to serve and it's more fun with two

As this was a church venture, people were lined up to take their turn. Joe and I did the early shift and planned to be back for the end. It seemed to me that the women did much of the work while the men went browsing the stalls, or found a cosy spot in the café to read a book. Not so Adam who had come to visit the in-laws and did his fair share of manning the stall. He had an easy banter with folk.

...have a look at your stall from the other side, the buyer's perspective - Is everything displayed to its full potential?

We had a lot of stuff. We could easily have outfitted a charity shop. There was too little space to display everything. (Not that some of us didn’t try!) The DVDs went really well – on account of them being really good ones! Many of the children’s books also sold well restoring my faith that some kids like reading. The baking didn’t really shift until later on in the morning. I guess that chilli and coriander sausage rolls are not great breakfast fare.

When you have a car boot behind you, I suppose you can leave things in to bring out later, but with the car boot and the car parked the other side of the car park (you had to shift it from the disabled spaces once you had unpacked) it wasn’t an option.

...resist the urge to price things with labels. It may seem like a nice idea but it puts buyers off - let them ask the price and perhaps haggle with you.

We bought a whole load of sticky labels and stuck them on everything, although we were open to haggling and making deals. I didn’t do the E-bay search to find out what was a reasonable price to charge so I think we priced many items too low. It is quite possible that some of our buyers were from other stalls buying cheap and selling on for a healthy profit.

I know for sure were selling cupcakes at 20p where another stall, a few rows away was selling them same size cakes for £1.

...keep in mind why you are there.

We were raising money for Equipe. We don’t know how much was raised, but some rather large notes were floating about. The next sale, planned for some time in January will be purely a Kerr affair.

A by-product of the car boot sale, however, was not about money at all but about relationship building. Seeing people in a context other than a usual Sunday meeting is always good. There was a strong sense of family!

The Power of Words

2011-08-24T20:49:00.004+01:00

There are a number of things that really irritate me about kindles – electronic reading devices. I treated myself to a kindle for my birthday way back in March believing my life to somehow be incomplete. Many of my friends had kindles, waved them before my eyes and waxed lyrical about them. I dreamed about how good it would be to own one. Yes, I coveted a kindle.

I miss the smell of a book and the feel of paper. New books in particular have an unread, new ink, freshly printed fragrance about them that I like to inhale. I suppose I could just go into a bookshop, pick a book off the shelf and sniff to my heart’s content.

I miss the opportunity to read a page or two before I buy a book. There are books that take just a line to get you hooked. Dick Francis always did that for me. The opening line was a hook and the rest of the page just reeled me in. If you can read the opening page before you download to a kindle I have not yet discovered how.

I miss the whole exchange at the cash register. At the click of a button on my computer or my kindle, the book speeds across cyberspace. It is all too easy to press the button. There is no need to check the contents of my purse or count out precious pennies and pounds. Just the click of a button! I have clicked too often and have spent more on books that I usually do.

What I really miss, though, is the ability to flick back through the pages to re-read paragraphs or chapters to remind myself of what went before. Once I have finished a book I like to go back to my favourite bits and read them over again. Bookmarking just isn’t the same.

The most recent book I have read on my kindle was “The Confession” by John Grisham. It follows the story of young man accused of murdering a young girl. He is not the culprit, but that doesn’t stop him being convicted and sentenced to death. Nine years down the line the real murderer turns up to own up to the crime and save the young man who has 24 hours before he is to be executed. It is a page turner of a story.

I discovered a favourite chapter. I knew, as I was reading it, that I would want to come back to it again and again. I suppose I should have taught myself how to book mark a page. I now know, after much button pressing, that it’s chapter 29.

If you haven’t read the book and don’t want me to spoil it for you, skip the next few paragraphs. Go and make a cup of tea and come back in a minute or two.

Sadly, the real murderer is ignored as one of these nutters that turn up at the last minute to stop executions, so the young man was executed. The prosecution lawyers, the judge and DA are unprepared give a day or more to investigate the new claims. One of them knows that a lot of bullying went on behind the scenes to get the young man convicted.

Anyway, chapter 29, beautifully written, really heart-rending, has the mother of the executed boy preparing his body for burial. She could have left it all the funeral home to do but it had been nine years since she last had the chance to hold him. She cries a lot as she gently cuts away the clothes he was wearing as he was given a lethal injection. She touches scars on his body and remembers the events when they happened. She sings hymns and kisses him and she saves up the prison clothes to burn in a private ceremony.

I cried as I read it.

I wanted to be her. I wanted to have a child and if, for any reason, I outlived him or her, I wanted say my goodbyes in such an intimate and loving way.

I felt robbed. I don’t have children. Some of the time, most of the time really, I don’t think about it. It is just the way life worked out. Sometimes it hurts. I ache for what parents take for granted. Sometimes I seethe with anger. I stand in a line at a checkout and watch a woman drag a child by their arm while snarling and hissing at them and I want to say something but never do.

The power of words – to evoke such strong feelings.

Writing doesn’t come much better than that.

National Bad Poetry Day

2011-08-18T20:20:00.004+01:00

Apparently it's National Bad Poetry Day. Here's my contribution to bad poetry. I wrote it as part of a month long challenge to write a poem a day a few years ago. The prompt was the word “Rebirth”.

I think it qualifies as a bad poem because it is awful. It is a very clichéd idea and lacks substance. You may disagree with me if you like and even comment on how much you like the poem but you won’t change my mind.

Phoenix

I stand within my nest
Of broken dreams
And disappointments

Ignite the fire
And let me burn

Then I will be
Reborn and
Made anew

And the ashes
Gathered by the wind
Will drift away

A Song the Angels Can’t Sing

2011-08-18T19:54:00.004+01:00

Once upon a time, when my husband and I were courting, I had this strong urge – yes, courting couples have to deal with strong urges. I had the urge to serenade my husband.

Late one night, with a moon shining overhead I wanted to stand beneath his bedroom window (or beside it seeing as he lived in a bungalow) and sing a love song. If I had been able to play any musical instrument, I might have given into the urge but as it was I wasn’t sure that I could convince a guitar playing friend to help out. Well, let’s be honest here, I think she would have been more than up for it as she was a romantic at heart. I am not always as courageous as I would like to be. I find it hard to get beyond the people-will-laugh-at-me stage.

I regret not doing it. There are just some things you need to do just because the moment will never come again. Some events, like falling in love, just need to be marked. I know that it is supposed to be the man that does the serenading – but it would never have occurred to Joe to so something like that. I wouldn’t claim to have a pitch perfect singing voice so perhaps it was all for the best.

I picked up a book in the sale at our local Christian bookshop - “Beyond Amazing Grace”.

My knowledge of John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace is very limited. I knew that he was a captain of a slave ship and he had an encounter with God that changed him. The film of the same title follows the life of William Willberforce. John Newton is there, in the film, barefoot and mopping the church floor saying, “I was blind but now I see.” I didn’t realise that he had written scores of other hymns.

The book is a collection of his hymns, extracts from letters and sermons. One section of a book has the heading “Songs angels cannot sing.” There is some debate about whether angels can sing at all. One person said that seeing as angels do not have physical bodies they wouldn’t have vocal chords so they can’t sing. Another scholar looked carefully at some of the references in the Bible where we think they are singing and the word in the sentences is “say” or “shout”. Another scholar pointed out that in Western Churches saying is simply just that – saying. In Eastern Churches saying is not really saying at all but singing or chanting. The liturgy of a church service is sung.

One of my favourite verses, which isn’t about angels singing, but God singing is Zephaniah 3:17

“The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

It seems to me that a God who sings will surround himself with others who sing. In Ephesians 5:19 we are encouraged to follow in our Father’s footsteps:

“speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.”

Poetry and song writing are not entirely unconnected. I can write poetry. What is a song without music but a poem? What is a poem but a song waiting to be put to music? Just what songs are the angels singing? Here’s what the song the shepherds heard.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
(Luke 2:14)

St John heard a different song in his vision of heaven while on the island of Patmos.

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and praise!”
(Rev 5:12)

The song the angels cannot sing is the Song of the Redeemed.

“Those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away." (Isaiah 51:10-12

When the angels fell from heaven led by Lucifer there were no second chances – no chance to repent. They had no excuse to turn away from God. They are not rescued by God and restored. Those that never fell had nothing to be rescued from. They can sing about God’s salvation, but is not a song born out of their experience.

Just because they can’t sing it doesn’t mean that they don’t love to hear it when it’s sung. I can imagine that when Paul and Silas began singing the Song of the Redeemed in the Philippian jail angels turned their heads to listen. Maybe they leaned against the walls of the jail as they listened. Maybe it was all the angels leaning on the walls of the prison that brought them down!

I wonder how often the angels hear the Song of the Redeemed. I am not sure that Christians today are singing it as loudly and as lustily as they should. If we sing it at all, it’s under our breath, perhaps just quietly hummed. More likely the songs that we sing are dirges and laments. We more often complain and grizzle about our hard lives and our trials. It’s not a song that lures the angels to listen and join in.

The absence of the Song of the Redeemed – if Paul and Silas had kept silent in the prison, or if their song had been one of complaint, chains would not have fallen off, prison walls would not have tumbled down.

The Song of the Redeemed is a powerful song. More things happen than just music filling the air and people exercising their lungs. Chains fall off, prison walls collapse…but too often they remain intact because the redeemed don’t sing anymore. They sing with their lips, perhaps, but the Song of the Redeemed gets its power from the heart and the spirit. It’s a declaration of God’s salvation – not as a done deed gathering dust on a shelf somewhere but as an ever-present, dynamic reality.

Get singing!

Every Living, Breathing Creature

2011-08-14T15:39:00.011+01:00

In the absence of someone willing to wield the remote control for the TV we watched the Proms on BBC 2. I am never quite sure where I stand on classical music – but seeing as it wasn’t exactly classic classical I knew where I stood on last night’s performance – somewhere out of earshot.

I haven’t been to the Proms, and the closest I have come to a Prom’s night atmosphere was during a five year stay in Cyprus. With there being a number of air force or army bases on Cyprus, I became acquainted with and developed a passion for military bands. Although we had no connection to the forces bases, we used to take the pupils from the boarding school out to the ancient amphitheatre at Curium for the concerts.

The amphitheatre is balanced on a clifftop overlooking the Mediterranean Sea is spectacular. It has been around for thousands of years and leaks ancient history, but for the few hours when the military bands play, it is like creating a very British event. I don’t remember there being any flag flying. It was all very stirring – the bands playing the great and good, a mixture of pure classical music and modern theme tunes. I know I loved it – and I think I loved it simply because of the venue.

I am sure that people have made all sorts of attempts to define what music is. Dictionary.com defines it as “the art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.” Beauty, it would seem, is definitely in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, the ear of the listener. The composer had married together the usual orchestral instruments with other stuff. I wish I could name the other stuff – a thing that make rhythm, that looks like (and probably is) a record player or two, you know…they spin the record back and forward to make interesting scratchy noises. Gosh, do I feel out of touch with youth? I suppose that the music world, like any other, makes progress by experimentation. This experiment, to my fussy ear, did not work.

I like my music to sound like music and come from proper musical instruments played in the proper way.

I was reading Psalm 150 this morning.

Hallelujah! Praise God in his holy house of worship,
praise him under the open skies;
Praise him for his acts of power,
praise him for his magnificent greatness;
Praise with a blast on the trumpet,
praise by strumming soft strings;
Praise him with castanets and dance,
praise him with banjo and flute;
Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum,
praise him with fiddles and mandolin.
Let every living, breathing creature praise GOD!
Hallelujah!
(The Message)

Praise Him where? Inside churches AND under an open sky!

Praise Him why? Because He has done mighty things and because He is awesome and great.

Praise Him how? Not always silently or in stillness.

This living, breathing creature will praise God.

Not Lucky But Blessed

2011-08-11T20:02:00.001+01:00

It seems that everyone is crawling out of the woodwork to offer an explanation for why young people are rioting. A lot of blame has been heaped upon parents for not doing their job properly. Schools have come under criticism for not equipping young people with sufficient qualifications for them to secure a job. Fears about cuts to the policing budget have lead people to think there are not enough policemen to deal with the lawbreakers. The obsession that bankers have for over-the-top bonuses make people think that money and possessions make the man lead the don’t-haves and unlikely-ever-to-haves to simply take when the opportunity arises. And, of course, the blame has been squarely placed on the government’s doorstep as the inevitable fruit of severe cutbacks.

I listened to one woman yesterday saying that solution is to bring back the birch, or corporal punishment and that the army is the right place to send the offenders.

Another woman was loath to condemn anyone. She would rather ask the rioters, assuming she could get close enough, why they were throwing bricks through windows and stealing goods. I am sure that very few of them would be able to explain their actions.

A liberal politician warned listeners to look below the surface. He spoke of young people being without hope. Even armed with qualifications there is no guarantee that there is a job out there for them. Lots of projects aimed at getting young people off the streets and out of gangs and into something positive or productive have been shelved because of cutbacks.

I would imagine that there isn’t one single cause for all the riots, but a mixture of all sorts of things. I have nothing but admiration for those young folk who manage to get through today’s minefield of setbacks unscathed. It wasn’t like that when I was growing up – I was lucky.

“Luck,” said the Spirit, “had nothing to do with it. You were not lucky but blessed.”

Luck is down to random chance and nothing more. I read a newspaper report about a girl who found a five leafed clover in the grandma’s backyard. She thinks she is for some special kind of luck. I have not been lucky but I have been blessed.

I have been blessed to know what I wanted to do with my life long before I met a career advisor. I never drifted aimlessly.

I have been blessed to be studying for a degree in the days of grants. I wasn’t faced with excessive fees and bank loans and a threat of repayments to haunt me for many years.

I have been blessed with family and friends that never allowed me to abdicate my responsibility to participate in the world. I was never allowed to claim that no one understood me.

I have been blessed to grow up at a time where there were no reality shows. There was no one to wave a promise of a music contract, or dancing on a Broadway stage or a number 1 Christmas single. There were no short cuts in my day.

I have been especially blessed by God’s involvement in my life. Eric Von Daniken tried his best to convince me that God was an alien from another planet, and I listened for a while. I don’t think I particularly gave my life to God, so much as He ambushed me with love and claimed lordship over me. God moved in and rearranged the furniture. If He moved out, I would be desolate.

I am blessed that I know myself to possess all the resources I need not merely to survive, but to flourish.

Because

Because I know that in all things
God works His good for me
Because He called me for his own
His Son in me to see
Because He stands beside me now
My enemies can’t win
Because I’m cleared of charges by
The One who bore my sin
Because Christ intercedes for me
And stands at God’s right hand
Because no hardship, famine, sword
‘Tween Christ and I can stand
Because I might face death each day
To life I have been raised
Because I know that I am loved
I’ll triumph all my days

(Inspired by Romans 8:28-37)

In Mark's Name

2011-08-10T16:38:00.002+01:00

Many will say to Mark Duggan on that day,

‘Mark, Mark, did we not riot in your name?
Did we not gather together
With bricks in hand to smash windows?
Did we not loot and pillage, carrying off all kinds of treasure
Not to take home and use
Or sell for profit
But to shatter uselessly on the pavement

And in your name did we not set cars ablaze
The roar of the flames
Echoing the roar of blood
Coursing through our veins
We stamped on all restraint
And on those who would seek
To restrain us

And in your name did we not send our children
Through broken shop windows
To steal?
We urged them on
Thinking them too young
To be punished
Hiding our greed behind their innocence
Did we not surely teach them
Our own evil ways?

Then Mark Duggan will tell them plainly
‘I never knew you.
Away from me, you evildoers!’

Carrying Seed to Sow

2011-08-01T12:25:00.002+01:00

A friend of mine hosts Monday Manna – an opportunity to meditate on a verse of scripture and share our thoughts with others.

“He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” Psalm 126:6.

I remember the event, not the specific day or year, or the person’s name or the exact conversation. I was living in Cyprus at the time, working in a small faith school in Limassol on the south coast. Many of my friends were from various missions working, not so much directly in the mission field, but providing administration support for colleagues working in the Middle East. Being surrounded by missionaries, but not being one myself, I suppose they rubbed off on me. Talking to people about my faith seemed much easier out there.

I remember that you had to be careful about who you spoke to. The Cypriot government allowed the missionary organisations to base their administration in Cyprus, but they were told very firmly that they were not to evangelise the Cypriots. As far as they were concerned the Greek Orthodox Church was the country’s denomination so they were Christians anyway.

The conversation I had took place one evening. I can’t imagine how it began, but I was talking to a man. I have a feeling he might have been really down on his luck and asking me for money. Although I was teaching, I didn’t have a teacher’s wage, but was supported by my church back home. I was struggling to make ends meet. I told him that I had nothing I could give and I told him why. I shared my testimony with him and I shared my faith.

I saw it in his eyes that he thought I was stupid. There was no light dawning, no faith ready to be ignited – he took nothing on board.

I went to a friend’s house and told her everything that had happened – and then I burst into tears. Mostly I was crying for myself because it seemed to prove that I was a useless witness and I would never get to chance to carry sheaves to Jesus. Some of the crying was for the man that he had not listened. He hadn’t taken the chance to see more of God. He was on the path to hell.

My friend quoted the verse from Psalms and together we prayed for the man, and my words, that they would produce a harvest.

I was reading yesterday, or the day before, the events in Isaiah 6. If ever there was a man who had cause to weep as he sowed it was Isaiah. When God had asked, “Who shall I send? And who will go for us?” Isaiah put his hand up and volunteered. God sent him to a nation where they were not going to pay any attention to his words. They put fingers in their ears. They closed their eyes and they turned their back. There were going to be no altar calls, no hundreds and thousands coming to faith.

What is not to mourn about a God’s Good News being ignored? It is almost worth not carrying the seed to sow if you think there will be no harvest.

But God’s promise is he, the sower, “will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves…”.

It brings to mind The Parable of the Sower. No one likes to think that the seed they sow falls on the path to get eaten by birds, or on to rock to spring up swiftly with no roots, or choked by weeds – some of the seed does – but not all of it. Some of the seed falls into the good soil and bears a harvest.

I am challenged by the phrase “carrying seed to sow”. Do I have a word of encouragement or a testimony that I can share with a friend, or a stranger? Or do I have an empty pocket and nothing to give.

Sometimes we divide our lives into segments – this is church, this is supermarket shopping, this is the school run. We have a pocket full of seed for church meetings and church related activities. When it comes to other aspect of life our pockets are full of other stuff – car keys, tissues, loose change – but not seed.

I think we all need to be carrying seed and carrying it with the intention of sowing it – listening to the Holy Spirit directing is to the good ground that He had prepared.

Third in the BoB

2011-07-18T15:53:00.003+01:00

I have been a member of Faithwriter’s since 2004. I would like to boast that I have never missed an opportunity to submit something in the weekly challenge – but I have entered a fair number. Every year all the entries that came top each week compete for the “Best of Best” title. This year I came third! I have won $75 – the first time that my writing has won any money! It is also the first time that my writing has earned me an interview! I have posted the interview below.

JOANNE:What was your reaction when you found out your piece did so well in Best of the Best?
MEL:I was in Glasgow for the weekend. I had traveled down on the Friday afternoon. I didn’t have the opportunity to log on anywhere. In the bus station on the way home there was an internet café, with only one working computer and a queue. I paid my £1 for a twenty minute slot. The connection was painfully slow and the bus was pulling in. I saw my name and wasn’t really sure I hadn’t made it up. I checked again when I got home. I was surprised and delighted.

JOANNE: Wow. What a way to end your vacation! Tell me a little about yourself. What do you do besides enter the challenge?
MEL:I am an avid reader. I bought a Kindle earlier on in the year. The first thing I downloaded was a Bible. It was the equivalent of baptizing it.

I am very involved in my local church. I am on the preaching rota and speak at least once a month. I am involved in a midweek bible study and we are about to launch into some of the minor prophets.

Living in Scotland, just a few miles away from Loch Ness, I love walking. I don’t hike with maps and backpack – I just amble slowly.

I like visiting art galleries, but not museums.

JOANNE:You’ve been at FaithWriters, and entering the challenge, since 2004 (that’s seven years, folks!). What has moved you to be such a faithful FWer and challengeer?
MEL:I had completed a creative writing course at our local college a few years earlier. I felt so at home with words that I wanted to continue writing. I joined FW and started to enter the challenge. Left to my own devices I lack discipline, so the topic and the deadline is something that I enjoy. FW is such a positive environment to grow your writing skills.

Every so often I think about stepping down from the challenge. I have been submitting stories and poems for a few years now. But why stop doing something that you love doing? I love writing and the challenge provides the opportunity to do that.

JOANNE:For you, what is the best part of the Writing Challenge?
MEL:It is being faced with a topic and having no idea what to do, but knowing that with a bit of thought and musing something will come. I need to find my way in. I cast about for days with different ideas, and maybe write a paragraph or two. Or a whole story. Or a poem. I will play around with it, delete it even to begin again. I reach that point where I think there is nothing I can do to make it better – or want to do – or have the time to do. The challenge causes me to meditate on Scripture a lot more that I used to. I want to stir people with what I write.

JOANNE:I loved your winning piece, The Frog and The Leper. Where did you get the idea? How did it come together?
MEL:Some weeks I am so busy that I come to Wednesday night and nothing is happening so I tell myself I will pass that week. The deadline in the UK is 3.00pm Thursday. At lunchtime on Thursday the first line “Rumour has it…”came into my head. Then the frog hopped into the poem. I thought about what rumours might appeal to a frog. Being kissed by a princess and transformed seemed a good idea. Getting the frog to the park I thought of various obstacles in the way. Then of course there wasn’t a princess. Girls dress up as princesses but that doesn’t make them princesses. The second part of the poem followed the same pattern. Just as people might dismiss the frog’s thinking as foolish, they tend to think of faith in Jesus as just as foolish and I wanted them to reach a different conclusion. It was one of those things that almost wrote itself. It wanted to be written and it was an easy birth.

I wish I could say that I pray about what I write – sometimes I do, but mostly I don’t.

JOANNE:When did you start writing? What do you most like to write? What are your writing goals?
MEL:My best friend and I used to fill notebooks of stories. We were twelve or thirteen at the time. We were into science fantasy stories – all swords and sorcery. She was the better writer. She was better at most things that I was, but it just made me stretch a little.

I love to write poetry. Many years ago I bought Stephen Fry’s book “The Ode Less Travelled.” He introduced me to the world of iambic pentameter. It is basically a how-to book on writing poetry illustrated with his poems. He sets challenges at the end of each chapter. Poetry to me is like doing a crossword – only one word will fit in a certain space and I love chasing down that one word.

There are a couple of things that I think God is nudging me towards. A local Christian community centre is looking for people to run classes and there is an opportunity to start up a creative writing class. I’m a teacher anyway, so it shouldn’t be a step too far out of my comfort zone. The other goal is publishing a poetry book. I produced a photocopied and folded over chapbook of my Easter poems and handed them to friends and family over Easter. The response was positive. A book is a bigger challenge. Knowing that “The Frog and the Leper” did so well in the BoB gives me confidence.

JOANNE:Praying for God’s direction for you. Now, brag on your family a bit.
MEL:I came from a large family – three sisters and two brothers. They have families of their own – children and grandchildren. There’s a lot of birthdays to remember. Only my mum and my eldest sister have a vibrant faith in God.

I have a wonderful husband, Joseph. I found an old love letter I had written to him years ago just the other day. He would die first rather than submit his thoughts to paper! He supports and encourages me in everything I do. He is my hero and role model. I would like to be as loving as him and as gentle.

My sister, Linda, and my brother, Michael, died within months of each other a couple of years ago. It was a very distressing time. I found comfort and strength in God. I also wrote some very dark and angry poems throughout that time. Writing was therapy.

Michael was the only one in the family with the writing bug. He lived in Spain and had a regular column in a magazine for Brits living in Spain. He was compiling an A-Z commentary of life in Spain when he was diagnosed with cancer.

The rest of the family are much more practical. One of my nieces has just earned her law degree, while her sister is an apprentice plumber! I am very proud of them all.

It was so nice to get to know you better, Mel! A big congratulations for your BoB placement, and keep writing those challenge entries!

Closer and Closer, Farther and Farther

2011-07-11T12:44:00.002+01:00

“As those out to get me come closer and closer, they go farther and farther from the truth you reveal” Psalm 119:150 The Message

I hate to admit it, but sometimes it is not always those who are out to get me that concern me. Jesus never promised that we would be without enemies but challenged us to pray for them.

I also hate to admit it, but sometimes I am one of “those” out to get another who has hurt or upset me. I rarely reach the point where I have the chance to actually get to them to do them harm, and I don’t really have it in me to cause them harm – but the desire is there for a while at least.

The inner dialogue that plays out in my head is not often godly.

God cares about that inner dialogue. It may remain just an inner dialogue, but it pollutes my spirit and there is always the possibility it may spill out in some diluted form.

He warns me that as I get closer and closer to refining my plans for some kind of revenge, I am moving further and further away from the truth that He has revealed to me.

Much rather, God would have me move closer and closer to the truth He reveals, and not just move further away from what my nature desires – but to put to death that nature.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

I best demonstrate the likeness of Christ within me when I choose the path of peace. The family likeness is marred when I seek revenge.

Never Put to Shame

2011-07-11T11:16:00.006+01:00

It might have been a day or two before Easter Sunday that I stood outside the door of the local Christian bookshop with a carrier bag clutched in one hand and my heart clutched in the other. The carrier bag contained a dozen or so photocopied, folded over, stapled in the middle books of poems that I had written about Easter. The poems covered Passion Week and had been written over a number of years. The first couple of days of my Easter holidays had been spent choosing and editing the poems and planning the format. The end product was impressive.

I was heading down to visit the family and had plans to take a few copies with me to hand out to friends and family. I intended to be very selective about who would receive one. I know that poetry isn’t everyone’s thing and didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to mock my efforts. So I chose not to sow the poetry books liberally and gave sparingly! My husband was less liberal with them handing them out to anyone he spoke to.

The dummy run, as it was, in Rugby, had gone down well that someone suggested that I might like to take a few copies to the local Christian bookshop and ask if they would like to sell them. The bookshop and I could split the proceeds between us. So I raided the savings to get some more books photocopied, folded over and stapled.

And then I stood outside the door of the shop with the carrier bag of books in my hand…and courage never really stirred. I didn’t open the door, but caught the next bus home, the carrier bag of books still intact.

Friday morning I walked past the bookshop – the one I stood outside of all those months ago. I was on my way to catch a bus out to Castle Stuart and the Scottish Open Golf Championship. I often think that Christian bookshops don’t do window displays well. This time, however, they had a sailing boat in the window. All connections to anything to do with the sea was in the window – books on Jonah and the Whale, Noah and the Ark and a handful of stones with bible verses written on them. What came to my mind was a poem that I had written - My Ship of Faith. The window display was the perfect setting for the jewel that was my poem.

I had a bus to catch and a golf championship to watch, but the thought of the window and the poem were not far from my mind. I told Joe about it later and the next morning, Saturday morning, dragged him to see the window. It was a good plan.

Again, I found myself outside the door of the shop with a carrier bag in my hand with one A3 photocopy and a dozen small ones just in case anyone asked for a copy. There was to be no haggling over splitting the proceeds – the poem was a gift.

There was a queue. Bad enough that I was in the shop, but to have to wait in a queue was adding moths to butterflies in my insides…but I didn’t run.

Finally it was just me and the woman behind the till.

I had pictured some kind of enthusiasm. She certainly didn’t smile or show any kind of encouragement. She didn’t read the poem. She explained that the shop manager was away on holiday and she didn’t have the authority to put the poem in the window. She agreed to keep the poems and tell the manager when he returned.

It was perhaps a little bit of an anti-climax, but I left the shop smiling anyway. I had seen the challenge through and not folded in the end. I had done my part and the rest was up to others to move forward on.

“No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame.” Psalm 25:3

I read these words this morning. We all have times when we turn from the challenge because we fear to fail. We wonder how we will deal with the embarrassment if the plan doesn’t succeed. If what we are doing is commissioned by God, and is for His Glory there is no shame – even if, at first glance, it looks like we have failed.

Disturbing the King

2011-07-07T10:34:00.003+01:00

“…who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14.

We know the setting of this verse. The evil Haman had manipulated the king to issue a decree giving him permission to destroy all of the Jews. A time and a date had been earmarked for the deed. Mordecai took the news to Queen Esther, along with the warning that if she did not act, someone else would rescue the Jews – but she and her family would still perish. He went on to comment that maybe it was for this one event that she had been raised to the position of Queen. She had the access necessary to the one person who could make a difference – the King.

Doing nothing at all would certainly lead to her perishing. Doing something like approaching the king uninvited might also lead to her perishing. Esther chose to approach the king.

I think about those times when I have chosen to do nothing at all – and I wonder what has perished because of it.

She didn’t slap on a suit of armour and buckle on a sword. Not every warrior wears armour and wields a sword to win a battle. She made use of the skills and talents that she had been given. She dressed carefully and organised a meal. She created the perfect environment to approach the king with the petition.

The issue she raised was one of life and death. Only such a serious issue would have justified “disturbing the King”.

“I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king” Esther 7:4

That phrase “disturbing the king” caught my attention. Esther would have kept silent if Haman’s intention had been to merely sell the Jews into slavery. That was not a big enough issue to involve the king.

I wonder what the reaction of the king might have been if it had been just slavery, and Esther had said nothing, and Haman had no one to stand in his way…and then the king had found out later what had happened. Would he have wanted to” be disturbed”?

We have a tendency to stick labels on things – some things are urgent life or death issues, or if not life or death then something that comes close. Other things we label as petty and trivial – and so they are compared to world peace and the starving millions in developing countries.

God says He wants us to disturb Him about those big things – those life or death issues, world peace and the starving millions. He would like to step in and be magnificent in these areas. Those are things worth disturbing Him about. If we are disturbed by them, it shows that we have a heart beat and a passion to change the world.

God says also that He wants us to disturb Him about the things we label as petty and trivial too. Sometimes they are not as petty and as trivial as we think they are. Sometimes it is the petty and trivial things that we deal with that sap our strength. They are the little foxes that destroy the vines.

What really disturbs God is that we don’t disturb him often enough about the things that disturb us, or, more seriously perhaps, that we are not disturbed enough about things that should disturb us, that provoke us to disturb Him.

Feckless and Faithless

2011-07-06T12:35:00.005+01:00

Yesterday’s quiet time readings were there to remind me to keep my eye on the final goal – heaven. I am but a traveller and this world isn’t my home.

The opening verses of Revelation 21 paint a vivid picture of the first heaven and the first earth passing away to make way for new ones. The new Jerusalem will come down from heaven from God, radiant and beautiful. God will dwell with his people and be with them.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Rev 21:4

I think everyone longs for a time when, as the Message puts it, “Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” As I read those words I was thinking about my mum. Death has taken away two husbands, two children and all of her brothers and sisters. As she grows older and a lot less mobile, and near blind and near deaf there’s frustration about not being able to do the things she used to do. When she is frustrated there are usually tears involved. Pain isn’t just a physical thing – but the isolation of being alone much of the time is painful too.

She may be into the closing pages of her first life but a new life waits to be revealed in the next chapter – a life without death, without mourning, crying or pain is hers to inherit. We get so bogged down in the difficulties of this first life that we fail to allow the glimpses of that new life just ahead to whet our appetites and take the sting off our short-while trials.

For some verse 4 is what they need to hear and they can afford to linger there. For me, though, it was verse 8 that pulled me up.

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. Rev 2:8

I would like to think that it doesn’t apply to me. Most of it doesn’t most of the time. I have certainly never murdered anyone. It is the cowardly, unbelieving bit of it that is apt to convict. The Message calls that bit “feckless and faithless”.

Feckless and faithless – I own up to times when I have shied away from challenges out of cowardice. I lack the courage sometimes to do what I know I should do. Most often it is because of a lack of faith, not that God’s resources are not there for me to grasp hold of and wield, but that somehow I have excluded myself from the right to wield them – this “not good enough” attitude.

What came to mind last night as I was thinking about these things is that I don’t always lack courage. I am not always a coward. I don’t always lack faith. I can so often clearly remember the times when the yellow streak is visible and I am running, or hiding from the challenge given. But there are times too, far more numerous, when I take the step of faith and move forward. That happens when God is firmly at the centre of all that I do and His glory is my one desire.

One day I will get to read the book of my life that is written by God. I will dig out the book that I have written – in my mind and memory – and lay it side by side with God’s book. Sometimes the accounts will be the same. Most often His book will contain the truth of the matter. My mind and my memory will have too often been written in the shadows, where truth gets twisted just a little. I will tear out those pages and toss them away because they are not God’s truth about my life.

God says, “Why wait till that one day? I can tell you now what was written!”

The Frog and the Leper

2011-07-04T09:53:00.002+01:00

Rumour has it
There’s a princess
Kissing frogs
In the park
So I’m hopping over
Armed with faith
That with a kiss
This frog can be transformed

I skip
Betwixt bike and bus
Squealing brakes
And strident horns
Mind the dog
And the kid with the skateboard
I think about the kiss
And how my life will change

A rumour – nothing more
Not a princess
Just a girl called Janet
In a pink sparkly dress
She has no power
To change me
A kiss perhaps but
No transformation

Rumour has it
There’s a man
Healing lepers
In Capernaum
So I’m stumbling over
Armed with faith
That with a touch
I can be transformed

I stagger
Betwixt hope and despair
Freezing fears
And promised possibilities
Mind the dog
And the kid with the stones
I think about the touch
And how my life will change

Rumour? No – but real truth
There is a man
Jesus of Nazareth
God clothed in human flesh, I think
He has the power
To change me
One touch
And I am forever transformed

Out of the Rut

2011-06-18T15:28:00.005+01:00

I have come to the conclusion that my life is far too predictable.

Except for the times when the supermarket has a serious shelf shift about, I can almost close my eyes to do the weekly shop. I know the shelves where I have to stand on my tip toes to reach a bottle of this, or a tin of that, or start hunting about for a tall person to reach it for me. I know which products I will pick up, carefully examine and put back on the shelf because the price tag is too high and I don’t really need it. I know the contents of the trolley, and can almost have the exact money in my hand before I reach the checkout.

I live in a rut!

This morning I climbed out of my rut most reluctantly. I was in town, visiting the usual shops in the usual order, buying the usual things when I noticed a new shop. It was a gallery of arts and crafts. I am usually inclined to go in and have a peek about, but this particular gallery was up a flight of steps and would require more effort than I was willing to expend.

I had walked past the door, having glanced at the array of crafts in the display window either side of the staircase. I have learned from experience that the absence of a price ticket somewhere usually means it is out of my price range.

I stopped just outside the boarded up window of the next shop. Shops going out of business seem to be common place just about everywhere. A shop opening, one that isn’t another discount store, is rare and should not be passed by and ignored – even with a flight of stairs.

There were a number of things that I really liked. There was a single rail of clothes each item very unique and not mass produced. There was a wonderful cream shawl that looked like it was constructed from spider’s webs. The price tag was a heavy one and beyond the contents of my purse…or my bank balance, come to that.

So, yes, I climbed out of the rut…and then climbed back in!

Earlier this week I bought a book. It doesn’t claim to be a book, with the title “This is Not a Book” although it looks like a book. The opening page tells me I am about to embark on a journey. It contains a series of tasks designed to make use of your imagination. I knew what it was when I bought it, and I bought it because I knew what is was.

There are two hundred and twenty pages of challenges to do. Some of them appear rather pointless like holding the book over your head for as long as possible and recording the time on a dotted line on the page. Other tasks are perfect starters for getting the creative juices moving.

I am vaguely happy to do a lot of things as long as I can do them privately – drawing little stars on a page every time I enter a room, or picking out random page from an encyclopaedia and a random topic and doing research and becoming an expert.

Some of the challenges encourage you to involve other people, strangers even, and I find myself not really up for that. And yet, those challenges are probably the ones that I really need to do to expand my world and my thinking.

Living out of the rut is living exposed to the unfamiliar. There are no comfort zones to wrap around yourself.

It's a challenge to live out of the rut.

Body Writing

2011-06-13T17:29:00.001+01:00

I googled the phrase “body writing” out of curiosity. I had just a snatch of a dream last night in which someone had written words all over my body. It wasn’t a pleasant experience and I got the impression that I had not been a willing participant in the process.

It would appear that all one needs to write on one’s body is something to write with – preferably something non-permanent. It’s not like a tattoo that stays forever. If one makes a mistake with the eye pencil, or the lipstick, one can simply wash it off and start all over again.

One website I checked out seemed to think that there was an erotic element about it. In the tattoo parlour, it’s a stranger writing the words, and it’s a business transaction. Body writing, however is done in the privacy of a home, a bedroom perhaps, by lovers or friends. What you write is…what you feel at the moment. I have enough surface area about me to write Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and still have room left over for footnotes.

With the right person I would not be unwilling to pen a poem or two on interesting parts of his anatomy. In my dream, however, I was not happy.

I have my moments of understanding the message in a dream. Not a certain interpretation by any means, but it speaks to me.

Some weeks earlier I had been talking with friends about the power of the spoken word – not so much about the written word, and whether it is possible that we end up cursing ourselves without really intending to. Just days earlier, a group of young people and myself had been looking at the story of creation in the book of Genesis. Everything, apart from people, was created by the spoken word – “God commanded…”

God’s words are creative. We are made in the image of God. That means that our words can also be creative. The trouble is that too often they are destructive, pulling something or someone down, rather than building them up.

I think the words in my dream were not about written words – but about spoken ones. The physical body was not my outer shell, but my inner me. The spoken words had somehow stuck themselves to my heart and soul – words that were not spoken to edify and to build up, but to pull down. They were words spoken by other people, and also perhaps, words that I had spoken to myself. Not poems written by lovers, but harsh and critical words.

The good thing is that like all good body writing, the ink is not permanent. It washes away. And once washed there is space again for more words to be written.

Best to let God fill those cleared spaces with His words.

Two Inches Off

2011-06-04T14:52:00.001+01:00

She really didn’t know what she was doing! That’s not entirely true – she’s a hairdresser and she knows what a classic bob looks like and “two inches off” is not rocket science. The trouble is that I failed to put the haircut in the right perspective!

There are some haircuts that are just haircuts – the classic bob and “two inches off”. They don’t come with any baggage – apart from the two inches that land on the floor and get swept up with a brush and dustpan. The hair is just too long and it needs a tidy up. If things don’t quite go to plan it’s inconvenient but it’s not a tragedy. As I have said before – paper bags come in all shapes and sizes.

Other haircuts are more than the haircut. They are a self confidence boost. A new challenge is around the corner and one needs to amass all the resources possible. A new haircut is part of the strategy.

Two inches didn’t seem a lot – it has been a while since the last visit, and I have gone through two fringe chopping moments. I tried to sense where the scissors touched the back of the neck. My neck isn’t long, slender and swan-like. In fact, I challenge anyone to actually find a neck at all. My head is simply perched on my shoulders. It’s best to conceal the absence of a neck with a bit of hair.

She asked me midway through the cut if the hair was feeling lighter. We had talked about the weather, as strangers do. We agreed that yesterday had been a very warm day. She suggested that, with my hair being so thick, I must be feeling the heat. I agreed.

She asked me if I was satisfied with how much she had taken off. Had I actually put my glasses on at this point I might have been able to give an informed opinion. The reflection in the mirror was not crystal clear. I knew I was there somewhere, but I wouldn’t have been able to pick myself out of a police line-up later.

Had I put the glasses on I might have suggested that she put some of the hair back.

She chopped away, snipping here and there, cutting into the side to take away the bulk, and thinning out the fringe. She smiled with delight as the hair went where it was asked to go when she dried and styled it.

The moment of truth always ccmes when I slip the glasses back on. I see things clearly for the first time. Regardless of what I actually think inside, I smile. There have been one or two times in my hairdressing history where the smile deserved an Oscar nomination – it was acting at its best. There have been quite a few moments when the smile really doesn’t do justice to the result – I looked fabulous and felt a million dollars.

That’s the kind of haircut I needed today – the fabulous and feeling a million dollars kind.

That’s not the kind of haircut I got. We haven’t quite descended to a paper bag moment, but it’s not that far from it.

It is not the confident booster I was looking for.

Lamenting to loss of hair, and the all too absent neck left to brave the elements, I was reading Psalm 138:3.

“When I called, you answered me; you made me bold and stouthearted.”

Bold and stouthearted is what I am looking for – and I am glad that it doesn’t come down to a fabulous and feeling a million dollars haircut.

The Grrr Inside of Me

2011-06-02T19:32:00.000+01:00

The Grrr that lives inside me is
A nasty, horrid beast
And all it takes is anger for
The Grrr to be released

Sometimes the Grrr is sleeping
But then one day he wakes
A pushchair banged against the legs
Is sometimes all it takes

At once the Grrr is hissing
He snarls and sometimes snaps
And if he gets to close to you
He reaches out and slaps

The Grrr has such a vast array
Of words he’s dipped in rage
He daubs it on a person’s heart
Like words upon a page

He’s very rarely sorry
For anything he’s done
And if the Grrr is challenged says
T’was only harmless fun

The Grrr is always ready
Whatever time or place
To be there in an instant
And show his ugly face

I wish that someone stronger than
The Grrr would rescue me
I’ve heard that there is such a man
The man from Galilee

Envy and Ergonomic Pillows

2011-05-27T22:21:00.002+01:00

A while ago I completed one of those on line tests. It was Christian based, designed to identify things like gifts and talents and areas of ministry you should be involved in. I should be a teacher – gosh, how surprising is that? (I actually took the test twice, deliberately changing my answers and I still ended up as a teacher.)

The test results also revealed areas of weakness. It didn’t make any suggestions of what you needed to do about it – just that you should be aware of it. My area of weakness was envy.

Most times I snort and scoff at results. Computer programmes are only as good as the designer. I would like to think that the computer got it wrong – that I am not envious at all – but that is not true. I spend far too much time comparing myself with other people and fail to measure up. Yes, there are good role models around and I am spurred on by what I see in others, but often I just want what someone has regardless of the sacrifices they made to get them. I want to take a short cut where no short cut exists.

Weeks ago I saw an advert for an ergonomic pillow. It was a television advert, one of the “you can’t find this item in any shop…phone this number now…have your credit card handy”. The pillow had different coloured layers of shaped foam that moulded to the shape of your head. According to the man in the advert, who had just woken up from the best sleep possible, he wouldn’t go back to ordinary pillows.

I will admit to a stab of envy. I liked the coloured layers, but more than that I liked the promise of “the best sleep possible”. I am not sure when I last slept the whole night through. There is something about three in the morning when I wake up, mind alert with obvious solutions to problems I have been churning over throughout the day. Neurons have been firing and the part of the brain that wants to go back to sleep has been singing lullabies to soothe the wide awake side! I seem to remember reading that Margaret Thatcher existed on three hours a sleep every other night. I don’t want to turn into Margaret Thatcher. If the ergonomic pillow could stop that from happening - I wanted one.

I had the opportunity to buy an ergonomic pillow. It was plain white, but the same shape. The hole in the box challenged you to “see for yourself” the dent you could create by prodding the memory foam the pillow was made of.

I was hooked and bought two. One for me and one for Joe. He has never really had the kind of sleep issues I have, but I didn’t want him to envy my pillow and talk me into giving it to him. I don’t think he quite understood the principle as the pillow was carefully placed on top of the pile of pillows he already had.

I evicted my pillows and replaced them with the ergonomic one and lay back waiting for it to do its stuff – herald me into “the best sleep possible”.

I might have been wide awake at three in the morning but not because of any eureka moment. The ergonomic pillow lay like a brick between my head and the mattress. It was not soft, and not that yielding. The memory part of the foam must have been someone else’s memory because it really wasn’t mine.

I retrieved my old pillows and promptly fell asleep.

It’s a learning curve. The body needs time to adapt. Old habits of sinking into soft pillows, doing who knows what damage to the position of the spine, die hard. I am not yet ready to abandon the ergonomic pillow.

However, the things we think we need for a better life do not always turn out to be the things we need for a better life!

Brown-Leafed and Plum-Shrivelled

2011-05-26T21:09:00.001+01:00

It irritates me just a little when the presenters that sit upon the sofas on breakfast TV programmes talk about the driest May, not quite since records began, but in a while. They show you graphics of little jars almost empty of contents and label them with percentages of rainfall at disappointingly low levels.

They go on to take you on a tour of a plum orchard somewhere in the south west and run fingers over dry brown leaves and stunted shrivelled plums. They remind you that most of our fruit is imported anyway, but with a likely poor harvest this year we can expect prices to go up.

I look out of my window. I would gladly sweep up the puddles outside (into a jar perhaps – a few jars even) and send them down to the farmer and his orchard.

This has not been a dry May where I live. It has been a very wet one. And, certainly for the last couple of days, a very windy one. There are few breaks in the clouds and no sunshine to bask under.

Over the weeks I have crawled back into the winter wardrobe – the sandals swapped for shoes, the bare feet covered in thick tights, the T-shirts exchanged for warm jumpers and the spring jacket replaced with a heavy winter coat!

I am sunshine-starved!

I was reading Jeremiah 17 this morning. Heat and drought isn’t something that the trees around us are suffering from. Everything is green and thriving. The picture that comes to mind, however, is those trees in the farmer’s orchard, brown-leafed and plum-shrivelled. The farmer, unable to rely on natural rainfall, irrigates with a hose and gallons of water. He scans the skies looking for rain clouds.

I wonder, sometimes, if I am more like his fruit tree than I am like the picture Jeremiah paints with his words. I am bothered by many things and worries buzz around my head like flies.

It’s time to trust in the Lord and to make him my hope and confidence.

“I trust in the Lord and have made the Lord my hope and confidence. Like a tree my roots are planted along a riverbank, roots that reach deep into the water. I'm not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. My leaves stay green, and I never stop producing fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:7-8 personalised)

Camel Stew

2011-05-22T17:42:00.002+01:00

God propelled Peter and the early church into new pastures. They were thrust into unfamiliar territory.

The church was growing nicely.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2:42-47.

They’d had their fair share of miracles, stirring sermons and prayer meetings that shook the foundations of the house. They’d also negotiated the white water rapids of arrests and executions, of leaders and liars put to death, and Saul switching sides. A small dispute about neglected widows was dealt with and men were set aside to meet specific needs.

Yes, the church was growing nicely.

It just needed something more.

It wasn’t intended to be an updated version of Judaism with all the bumps and bruises smoothed out.

Peter got the first glimpse of God’s intentions. Peter on the roof, praying, had a vision.

“He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” (Acts 10:11-13)

The animals, reptiles and birds on offer were not the usual things on the menu. Since for ever they had come with the label “unclean”. God wasn’t just talking about new recipes for camel stew. He is talking about people.

Enter Cornelius, stage left and the Holy Spirit, stage right and things begin to get really interesting. Nothing cryptic this time – the Holy Spirit poured out upon the Gentiles, and Peter as God’s witness to see it happen. God doesn’t always work behind closed doors.

It was all very new and the details of what happened filtered down to Jerusalem. Peter was called to give an account of his actions.

Yes, there was a lot of celebrating and praising God, but I think when the dust settled there was a lot of unease and discomfort. They had been so used to excluding the Gentiles from their faith. Asking them not just to open the door but to actively seek them out was a big step.

I began to wonder what would be in a net dropped down from heaven for me. What would God ask me to do that would have me saying “Surely not, Lord!”? It doesn’t take too much thought to come up with a few “net” items.

New adventures happen to us all. A number of years ago God asked me to join a gospel outreach team. There was definitely a “Surely not, Lord!” response. I wasn’t being asked to eat camel stew…but it was way out of my comfort zone. As much as I praised God for choosing me, I also fretted that the task was too big and I was too poorly equipped for it. God assured me that I wasn’t alone, and He wasn’t asking for the impossible…just for me to trust Him.

Broad sky above her
Peppered with stars
A road winding northwards
Empty of cars
Uprooted and moving
To pastures unknown
Friends left behind her
Feeling alone
She traces the patterns
Of stars in the sky
Fixed in their places
Shining so high
Some things are certain
They always will be
Like sunrise and sunset
And tides of the sea
God never changes
This much she knows
Fixed to this truth
Forward she goes

Swans, Dogs and Happy Babies

2011-05-17T21:08:00.004+01:00

Seeing as I have started to put the brain cells through some challenging moves with the web site design course, it seemed only fair that the body got its fair share of challenging moves.

An invitation came through the work’s internal email. The health and well being group had invited a keep fit instructor to come in one night after hours to lead people through their paces. No high impact jigging about and star jumps, but gentle stretches. I have always wondered what pilates are – now I know. It’s very yoga-ish.

Bare feet were required, and loose clothing. And a mat. And a very pliable body! And the ability to balance on one foot for long periods of time.

As we moved seamlessly and gracefully from one yoga position to another, the instructor called out the names of the various positions. The other people in the class might have been swans but I was definitely still the ugly duckling. My dog just couldn’t get its tail up far enough and the baby at the end of the routine was anything but happy!

It has been a long time since I have asked my body to perform interesting contortions. I either read or watched something the other day about someone with an obsession for standing on his head. I used to do that for hours on end.

There was a full length mirror in the dance studio where we were, but the instructor made the wise decision of covering it with a curtain. I think that watching myself trying to make the right shapes would have been too funny to watch. As it was I snorted at one point, on the brink of hysterical giggles. Someone thought I had sneezed and said, “Bless you!” I swiftly pulled myself together!

My over-riding concern throughout the whole hour was not really about making the shapes. I am not flexible. I looked like a comical parody of the real thing! There is a memorable episode of The Vicar of Dibley where Dawn French performs a ballet dance with Darcy Bussel. It was just like that. It brought to my mind a conversation I had with a neighbour many years ago. We were both involved in the village amateur dramatic society and regularly turned out for the annual pantomime. He was always the dame and he was often required to do some dance routine. He said that he never danced for the laughs. He never deliberately messed up his steps. He tried to learn the choreography as best he could. It was his very seriousness that made it so funny. Effort does not make up for the lack of ability.

My over-riding concern was that somewhere in the twisting of the arms and the manipulating of legs, and finding my centre, excessive air inside might find its way to the surface! My buttocks were firmly clenched not just for developing muscle tone!

The instructor made a point of praising me at the end of the class – not for my grace and beauty, but for staying the course. She assured me that in time, and with practice, I would improve.

Isn’t that what so many things in the Christian life are all about – staying the course and allowing time and practice to improve us in some way?

Closing tags

2011-05-15T14:44:00.005+01:00

My dreams of late have turned out to be rather interesting. I will be mid-way through a scene when all the various players will simply stop whatever they are doing. It’s a bit like playing a game of statues, stopping mid pose.

A voice will then shout “Closing tags! Closing tags!”

Two minutes later the same voice will shout “Opening tags! Opening tags!” and the scene will move on.

A week ago I started an evening class on an introduction to web design and I have been learning how to write web pages using HTML. There may be web pages already designed and waiting in cyberspace to be filled with interesting content and hyper-linking to other already designed web pages, but we are being taught from scratch. Like most people, what is on my mind comes out in some distorted way in my dreams.

I confess that I don’t know enough to explain what HTML tags are or what they do, only that you need them if you are designing web pages from scratch. They can open and close over a whole document or just one single word and govern what happens in between in terms of colours and fonts and all sorts of interesting features. You can soon tell if your closing tag is missing. The gobbledegook remains on the webpage and your instruction for font colour or the size of the border goes ignored.

To make sure that we don’t forget the closing tag, our instructor insists that we get into the habit of adding in the closing tag straight after the opening one and clicking in the middle part >< of the two tags to add the instructions.

If God used HTML to organise my life I think He would operate in the same way, that His closing tags are already in place and I just haven’t got to them yet.

Here’s nice closing tag to God’s intentions, not just for my life, but for us all. We sang it in church this morning and touched my spirit.

When I stand in that place,
Free at last, meeting face to face,
I am yours, Jesus, You are mine.
Endless joy, perfect peace,
Earthly pain finally will cease.
Celebrate, Jesus is alive,
He's alive!

Those Final Fifteen Mintues

2011-05-14T08:41:00.002+01:00

It seems that as far as writing goes I am a little constipated! There is stuff in the brain ready to be disgorged but there is a bung up in the system. There is a box of (unused) Senokot in the medicine box for the physical kind, but nothing that aids the written kind!

May Day has, in the early days, always been about May poles, May Queens and pageantry. I am sure there are lots of pagan rituals embedded in there if you go back far enough, but our village was ignorant of them. It was just a day off school and a chance to poke around the Manor House gardens once a year.

More recently, May Day has been our sailing weekend. My boss used to hire a sailing boat on the West Coast, cobble together a crew of friends and associates willing to help fund the adventure, meet together for a few nights to practice knot tying and assign chores and then head off into the sunset leaving the port behind. Sometimes, because of calm seas we didn’t actually do much sailing and merely bobbed about keeping out eyes peeled for evidence of a breeze somewhere else on the water. We recited the phonetic alphabet in case of emergencies. (That skill comes in handy for quiz nights, incidentally).

This year, May Day found us back on the water. Not on a sailing boat this time but a ferry. It was the last of my birthday treats – a proper day out, preferably not taking the car (but we did) exploring some of the places we had not yet been. Someone said Mallaig and we found ourselves on the “Road to the Isles”.

We had two hours on Rum. It’s not a very big island but when one walks as slow as we do, size doesn’t always matter. At one end of the bay is the ferry terminal and at the other end of the bay is the village and somewhere in the middle, closer to the village than the ferry port is Kinloch Castle. It has been restored some five or six years ago and there was a tour laid on. Our slow walk meant that we wouldn’t have had time for our picnic lunch if we went on the tour. We decided to eat our lunch at just take slow walks around the place. The village hall was set up to serve teas and coffees.

The trouble started about halfway back to the ferry port. About half way back round to the ferry port, I discovered I hadn’t got my jacket. It had been looped over my bag, thrown over my shoulder. It could have fallen anywhere.

The voice in my head did a quick inventory of things in the pocket. The car keys were not in the pocket, or the keys to the hotel. My school keys, usually cocooned in a nest of tissues, were definitely not there as I had deliberately left them at home. That left just the tissues – I could live without them. But could I live without the jacket? My mother, on our recent visit, liked the jacket and harped on about how she would like a jacket just like it. She was put out, perhaps, when I didn’t magnanimously hand it over. I felt that I had battled to hold on to the jacket, that to leave it abandoned somewhere on Rum was not an option. The voice in my head said, “Leave the jacket – buy a new one!” Instead I left Joe to make his way back to the ferry port and I headed back to the village hall.

There must be a rule somewhere – the distance between one place and another expands according to the time required to travelit! The ferry port seemed a lot further away and from the village end of the island I could see the approaching ferry.

Jacket retrieved, I headed back to the ferry port. I ran, I hopped, I skipped, I slowed down for a bit, I walked quickly, I trotted for a while, I stopped to let the heart beat slow and I sweated. I heard the ferry signal as the car ramp lowered. I had just passed the castle and I was…not going to make it.

The inner voice chastised me for retrieving the jacket and for believing that I had had enough time to do so.

Salvation came in the form of a car. Up went the thumb as I flagged it down. She stopped and I explained that…well, I didn’t explain anything. The red face, the sweat, the heavy breathing said it all. She invited me to climb in and drove me to the ferry port.

Joe was rounding the final corner so I asked the kind lady to drop me off next to him. I wasn’t in a fit state to hold a conversation so we walked the last hundred yards in silence.
He told me later of his plans to hold up the ferry until I arrived. We sat quietly in the cafeteria reading books and papers while the sun set on Rum.

My quiet time reading yesterday was…

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? (Matthew 6:25)

I was reminded of Rum, and the jacket, and how different my last fifteen minutes there could have been.

Virtual Farms

2011-05-06T15:47:00.004+01:00

On the BBC breakfast programme earlier this week they had a story involving a virtual farm in Cambridgeshire. For a modest fee a person with no experience of farming gets to make decisions about what crops to grow, what food to feed to pigs and all sorts of interesting things on a real farm. The idea was inspired by Facebook’s Farmville.

Obviously you are one of ten thousand or more people who have paid the fee, so it is not down to one single person making the decisions. It is a community vote. I am sure that the community will be given sufficient information to make a sensible decision – but even so, the fate of a farm in the hands of a non-farming community doesn’t sound so good to me.

The farm is owned by the National Trust so perhaps they can afford to underscore possible losses where a single farmer can’t afford that luxury.

The farmer and some prospective on-line investors were interviewed. It was all very noble – they both wanted people to get their hands dirty (or just their virtual hands) and learn where their meat comes from and where the wheat comes from to make the bread. A connection to the soil, however remote, would be made. Being involved in the decision making of the farm would make people better shoppers perhaps and more appreciative of the food chain. The farmer promised to abide by the decisions of his on-line community, and encouraged his investors to visit the real farm and see the cows they had fed.

I am glad that I am not a farmer with 10,000 people making my decisions for me about what I plant in my fields. It is all down to trust. Do the investors trust the farmer to guide them towards the right decision? Does the farmer trust the investors to make the right decisions based on the guidance he has given?

I got to thinking about other people making decisions on my behalf - telling me what to do and I do it. Could there be a Virtual Mel?

I don’t have 10,000 people emailing me, or voting on a list of moment by moment decisions – the clothes I wear, the food I eat or the way I spend my evenings. Actually, now I think about it – I could do with a few people at least doing so. They might make a better job at living my life than I do!

It did occur to me that I have one person – not a virtual team – to help me. God helps me live my life the best way that I can. He doesn’t make all the decisions for me demanding my obedience to His orders without allowing me to think for myself. Rather, He works with me and I work with Him in order to make decisions about living the best life that I can. We are in partnership.

He is wise enough to know what decisions I can make without too much supervision – the clothes I wear, the food I eat etc. He also knows that there are some decisions that I need to make where I don’t have all the information I need. He is the expert and in those times He asks me to trust Him.

When it comes down to trust, God is trustworthy.

Stones

2011-04-23T09:07:00.004+01:00

I am sure that we have all been to those places, tourist sites that tell you not to pick up things up and take them home. Imagine if everyone who visited the Coliseum in Rome pocketed a stone. The famous building would soon be dismantled. There is a reason why people are told not to pick up things and take them home.

If I could find the right coat hanging up in the closet, and find the right pocket – the one full of crumpled up Kleenex tissues, nestling at the bottom of the pocket would be a stone. It didn’t come from the Coliseum or the Acropolis or any other ancient monument. It came from an uphill path of a nature trail in the Cairngorm mountains. I don’t think for a moment that the stone is native to the mountain. It was just part of a bag of loose gravel poured over the path so that people didn’t have to squelch through mud, or bounce from one patch of heather to the next.

I picked up the stone because it glistened in the sunlight. It was a pretty stone. I had walked up the hill, felt my heart pounding, wiped the sweat stinging in my eyes and the stone was a memory marker of the day. There were no ominous notices about not taking the stones home. There will always be another bag of gravel to repair the path is people pick up stones along the route.

Not all the stones that I possess have been picked-up ones. A few years ago, the last time I attended Weightwatchers, the leader handed out small polished stones to commemorate every stone of weight that a member lost. I earned two stones before I fell by the wayside and chocolate crawled back onto the menu.

The other stone I remember being given was a small white stone. The pastor in my church had been preaching a sermon based on Revelation 2:12-17.

“To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.” (v17)

He had a basket of stones and encouraged us all to take one as an object lesson to what he had taught. I would like to say that I know where my white stone is but I don’t. I haven’t thrown it out – it has just become lost in one of the cups, jars or vases that hold stuff that I hoard. Although I may not have the stone to hold in my hand, I have the memory of it and all that it reminds me of.

Last night, in amongst a whole plethora of dreams, most of which were about re-writing paragraphs of the current book I was reading, I dreamed about the cross of Jesus. I don’t think it was the crucifixion itself but the concept of going to the cross as in laying down your burdens, of nailing your sin to the cross. In my dream the disciples were looking for a hallmark, something to identify that someone had done that. Some people who came were just spectators. They didn’t come in response to a call but merely a curiosity. The disciples decided that when people came to the cross, to Christ, they would give them a stone. It kind of ties in with Revelation 2:17

I remember feeling a sense of panic at the time because I didn’t have a stone. I didn’t remember being given one. Did that mean that I hadn’t ever really gone to the cross at all? I was told that I had a stone, I had just forgotten where I had put it. I got the sinking feeling inside that I would need to be able to show my stone to someone in authority before I could enter into heaven, or access the resources of heaven. I would probably have spent much of the rest of the dream searching through the cups, jars and vases looking for the stone…but I woke up at that point.

If only it was as easy as having a stone to hold – that hallmark of someone who has been to the cross.

Colossians 3 has much to say about hallmarks:-

”Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. …Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry…Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity…Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”

I may not know where my stone is, but I am working with God to show that coming to the cross of Christ has changed me - and continues to change me.

Run the Race

2011-04-09T17:54:00.000+01:00

I can’t actually believe that I had the audacity to preach a sermon last year based on the runners of previous day’s Grand National. It came to mind this morning as I was thinking about which horse would carry my hopes of winning not a huge sum of money but something.

Hebrew 12:1 was my starting point - “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”

For the uninitiated the Grand National Day is one of the few times of the year when the nation digs into their pockets to put a bet on. Sometimes it can be an office sweepstake where you hand over your £1 and put your hand into the hat and pull out a name. There are 40 horses charging around the course jumping over thirty fences of differing sizes and shapes and there is always a lot of controversy, a lot of action and so on. Animal Rights campaigners get very agitated with the race because they think it is animal cruelty with the length of the course, the conditions under which the race is run, the kind of jumps and the likelihood of horses being injured or killed. But as my sister says - if the horses don’t like the look of the fences they won’t jump them and any good trainer will not send out a horse onto the course if it is not adequately trained.

I found my notes - here are snippets from the sermon, posted because it's Grand National Day, and because it was a good sermon! The truths, you might say, are straight from the horse’s mouth.

King Johns Castle –It was a warm day yesterday and a number of jockeys once they had reached the starting line got off their horses to give them a break from carrying them before the race began. As all the horses gathered for the start of the race, they climbed back on and lined up – except for King John’s Castle. It took a few minutes to get the jockey remounted. The horses were all away except for King John’s Castle. He stood stock still. He didn’t want to race.

What do you think the trainer is going to do with the horse when they get back to the stable? The horse is not going to be destroyed and made into burgers! King John’s Castle came second in the Grand National in 2008. Yesterday he had an off day. It happens.

We have off days. We have times in our lives when we just don’t seem to be moving anywhere. We don’t seem to take up the opportunities that come our way and perhaps we are inclined to beat ourselves up about it. We are not judged by God on the basis of one race moment and we shouldn’t judge ourselves on that either.

God has an eternal perspective on things.

Joe Lively - About half of the races in Britain each year are handicaps. In a handicap race the better horses in the race are given the extra weights to carry. It gives the not so good horses a chance to run against the better ones. Joe was one of those better horses carrying heavier weights.

Only the best horses get to carry the weights – if this applied in a spiritual application that only the best Christians get to carry weights, you might find some comfort in that if you felt specially burdened – but it doesn’t apply. Everyone at some time in their life has burdens to carry. How heavy the burden isn’t really the issue – but how we carry, or how we cast that burden. God does put burdens upon us, but carries them anyway because He carries us.

“Throwing off everything that hinders” – what might be some of those things that hinder?

Joe Lively was a finisher – he came tenth.

Big Fella Thanks – Things didn’t quite go as expected. Ruby Walsh, the jockey, broke his arm in the previous race. It wasn’t planned. It was one of those things that life throws up. It’s not ideal, it’s not what the trainer wanted – but how do some people cope with unexpected changes?

The horse didn’t get put back in the trailer and driven home because the jockey broke his arm. The trainer found another jockey – not just any other jockey, but someone who was familiar with the horse. He swapped around the riders on his other horses, he got creative, switched about. Changes might surprise us…but they don’t surprise God.

Big Fella Thanks finished the race and came fourth.

Black Apalachi ran the race last year and fell at one of the fences the second circuit, the previous year he also fell at the second fence – not a great track record, perhaps.

How much do we allow past failure to dictate our future success?

Driving down to see my family involves a ten or eleven hour drive. The last drive back from Warwickshire had involved a tyre blow-out on the M6. The AA had come to the rescue and when I got home the tyres were replaced – BUT there was something inside that couldn’t be fixed as easily as the tryes – my imagination. Suddenly all long car journeys carried with them the possibility of a tyre blow out. I would have been happier if I could have hired a newer, more reliable car for the journey – but in the end Joe, the Daeoo and I made it.

Black Apalachi led for much of the race, didn’t fall over, battled for a while with the eventual winner and finished the race and came second.

Dont Push It – this is not so much about the horse this time around, but the jockey. “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” The dictionary defines perseverence as “Steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness.” A P McCoy had up until yesterday rode in some 3,000 races, broken arms and legs numerous times, rode in the national fourteen times before and never won – but yesterday he did it. He said in an interview afterwards, "If you get enough goes at something and you keep going, once you're in there you've always got a chance.”

Comparing the “race” that scripture talks about with the Grand National has its limits. In the world of horse racing it is not part of the race to stop your horse, dismount, go over to a fallen jockey, get him back onto his feet, give him a leg up back on to his horse, encourage him on his way, before remounting and getting on with the race. In the world of the Christtian race – it is compulsory. We should not be riding on when someone else has taken a tumble.

The Song of the Stars

2011-04-08T17:31:00.006+01:00

There was an item on the news this morning that caught my imagination and has stayed with me for most of the day.

So much of what passes for news often debunks the Bible and faith. It’s nice when science “discovers” something that the Bible writers already knew!

Nasa's Kepler space telescope has picked up sounds emitted by stars light years away from Earth. Sound waves are sent out as the activity of the star causes it to vibrate. The sound, perhaps just a single note a star creates, can tell someone about a star’s size, age and brightness.

Imagine all those millions of stars vibrating and each note being a part of a symphony. We may not be able to hear the music with ears – but it’s there!

The stars could not be silent
The day the Maker stirred
Throughout the vaults of heaven
Their song of praise was heard

God spoke light into being
And called the darkness night
And the stars sang of His wonders
As they echoed His delight

He said, “Let there be water
And the deepest bluest sky.”
And the stars in sweetest harmony
Sang anthems from on high

He called forth flowers and grasses
The tallest straightest trees
And the chorus of the stars’ song
Drifted on the breeze

A mighty light to rule the day
At night a sickle moon
And the stars sang their approval
With a glad and joyful tune

The sea was thick with fishes
The sky with birds o’erhead
And the stars’ uplifting melody
Across the heavens spread

God made so many creatures
That moved across the ground
And the stars sang out a symphony
A splendid, glorious sound

At last, his best creation
In his image, God made man
The stars sang on in wonder
As a precious love began

The Maker joined the stars’ song
And roared with deep delight
His music filled the heavens
And set the earth alight

Job 38: 3 – 4, 7 “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation, while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"

Choosing Joy

2011-04-03T15:03:00.002+01:00

It was a conversation with my sister that started it all. I had bought, if not sent, a Mother’s Day card and I wasn’t quite sure where to send it. Mum had been in hospital a while ago and I didn’t know whether she was back in her sheltered housing flat or in some convalescent home.

My sister was on her way to a day out with swimming, massage and drinks by the pool. It was her Mother’s Day present. She and her daughter (both mothers) and a friend (another mother no doubt) were being treated by husbands and children to a day of fuss and pampering.

Not being a parent, I don’t get Mother’s day treats. I don’t get cards or flowers or a day of fuss and pampering. I am on the outside and excluded and sometimes I find Mother’s Day a bit of a trial. Last night I took a mood dive downwards and grizzled for a while.

“I know it's Mother's Day tomorrow but please take some time out to think about some of us ladies who aren't mothers - not through choice, but flawed biology. It can be a rough day sometimes.” I wrote on my Facebook status.

This morning my Bible reading instructed me to “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil 4:4) and to “Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!” (Ps 32:11). It wasn’t quite the direction my heart was willing to travel but as I read my perspective changed. It wasn’t so much the Bible verses that touched my heart, but the devotional from Lucas on Life. I am a few days behind (on account of being rather enthralled with my new kindle) and I am reluctant to just miss a few days out to catch up just incase there is treasure to be had. I should have read the words on Wednesday, not this morning – but they were designed for today.

The opening sentence of the devotional began with “in my past battle with depression” and went on to comment on the “snap out of it” advice. This is a person who has been there. It is not always possible to snap out of anything leastways depression. He went on to say “I have discovered there are times when we can choose joy…We can make decisions about the way we will think and act…We are not called to be victims of our thoughts but rather to take authority over what we think and focus on.”

Psalm 32 begins “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the LORD does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.” The Message puts it this way “Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be— you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean. Count yourself lucky - God holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from him.”

I can choose to focus on what I don’t have…or think about the things I do have and be grateful about those things. If I choose to consider “things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Phil 4:8 The Message) there is a good chance that joy will colour my day.

I choose joy.

Cloudy with Outbreaks of Rain

2011-03-30T16:44:00.001+01:00

It may be the weather forecast for the day but it is also an apt description of how I feel right now. I am aware that it is coming close to holiday time and a million deadlines are not just looming on the horizon but are passing over me like birds flying south.

The clouds in my sky are mostly paper ones – newspaper articles that seem to have been dipped in poison, rolled up into little spit balls and carefully aimed at me with an elastic band stretched between two fingers.

I have a habit of scanning papers for interesting articles with religious content. It’s an on going challenge to demonstrate to the young people that I encounter that religion isn’t dead and that it still has the power to turn the world upside down. Too often all I find are articles about church buildings being sold or which church minister is having an affair with one of his parishioners. It is a sad testimony.

Last week there was a plethora of articles few of which were encouraging. Religion might not be dead, but according to a mathematical formula, it’s dying and will be dead in at least nine different countries. The formula was something along the lines of how many people express religious beliefs and whether they do so in an interesting and attractive way. A small group of boring people was basically how religion was summed up.

I followed a link – definitely a bad idea – to another article about a poll commissioned by a Humanist organisation to research people’s attitudes towards religion. Now, it seems to me that a humanist organisation is hardly going to publish evidence from their poll to state that religion is on the increase. You get what you pay for – and forget the whole notion of not being biased. I took it as said they would find “evidence” that religion is on the decline. I took that with a pinch of salt. What really got to me were the comments people had emailed in. Not one of them had anything positive to say about religion. They vented spleen leaving the reader in no doubt where they stood on the issue. Some of them came up with the usual suspects – religion causes war.

Another article was about the handsome, attractive young man on TV who unravels the mysteries of the universe before our very eyes on BBC2. He looks too young to be a professor. He professes himself to be a humanist, but lacks the axe-grinding gene. In fact, I think the article made a comment about him showing too much “wonder” about the universe. I don’t mind old, ugly professors dryly unlocking secrets but this man’s very youth and enthusiasm seem to have a special appeal.

I know there is a distinction between religion and faith, that one can have a name tag of “Christian” or “Muslim”. It is just a name tag and no indication of a vibrant faith walk. That kind of religion was never alive to begin with. Most people don’t really make my kind of distinction. Religion is just religion. I can also appreciate that when people talk about religion it is often prejudice speaking, uninformed and without the relevant experience.

The final cloud in my sky came through yet another article. I would stop reading newspapers but I happen to think it’s important to know what is out there, so I know what to pray about, and perhaps respond to.

This was about Religious Education in schools. Apparently there has been an increase in pupils taking certificated courses. Something at last to applaud! Read on, sir. The slant of the article was not so uplifting suggesting that RE was an easy qualification to get. The only reason it pupils opted for it was because they would get an A without the same effort as History or Geography. It was a soft option and the qualification gained wasn’t on par with the other subjects. I won’t go into detail on the comments posted about that.

So…that’s my cloudy day! My faith being diagnosed as terminal and my vocation labelled as “the soft option”.

A choice or rather a number of options present themselves. To swallow the spit balls and choke on them. To consign them to the waste paper bin where they belong! Or because I have already done the former – to take it to God, vomit up the spit balls and let Him douse me with disinfectant!

I am doused!

I think I see some blue sky!

On Yer Bike!

2011-03-27T09:54:00.002+01:00

This morning while eating my breakfast I caught the tale end of TV programme where a 53 year old musician was challenged to participate in a cycle race in America. It was something he always wanted to do and now he had the chance.

The point at which I joined the programme the narrator was explaining the dangers of the race. It wasn’t about doing a million laps around a velodrome circuit, but a route that took in over a thousand miles of normal US highway. Apparently one could get knocked over by a huge truck that came up from behind.

The RAF team consisted of four riders. I’m not sure if they each did just a part of the route or they did the whole route together. The musician was part of a cycling club, so it wasn’t like learning from scratch how to ride a bike, but his cycling club were perhaps not so driven as the RAF folk. They wanted to win – as did the musician – but it was apparent that he wasn’t anywhere up to their level and there was a man waiting for a call to step in at the last moment who would “bite your arm off” for the chance to be in the race.

A lot of the film footage was men on bikes going up hill or down hill or along canal paths – lots of bikes. There was also a lot of interview footage commenting on the progress of the musician. Certain phrases were repeated about his motivation, ambition and desire – mostly not in the positive. He had done one time trial of how many minutes it took him to ride a certain distance and he was slower than the other three riders who were probably half his age and couldn’t play a musical instrument between them. He was required to come back in six weeks and do the trial again to see if he had improved or not. He had improved a little bit but not a lot – but they took him on because he showed promise.

Once they got out to America and started training to get used to the heat it became apparent that he wasn’t coping with the heat, or the hills or the pressure of knowing that he was slowing the team down and there was a man willing to bite off his arm to take his place.

The rest of the team put in extra hours to help with training and motivation. While they were with him shouting instructions and bullying him onwards, he was fine, but left on his own, he would just put in his 100% where they were looking for 150%.

One thing that struck me was the level of their commitment – they lived and breathed the race. They pushed themselves to the edge of injury. They were focussed on the route, the uphills and downhills and adjusted their life accordingly. Every aspect of their being served the race. The musician wasn’t at that place. He didn’t want to push himself to the edge of injury.

I was thinking of Paul’s comparison of the Christian life being like a race. I am not sure that he had bikes in mind and open roads with trucks coming up behind you. He did make the same kind of points about motivation, perseverance and training. I find that I am not one of the three RAF men on the team – I know people who are like that. I am much more like the musician. I don’t want to push myself to the edge of injury. I want to be like the three RAF men but I also want to play safe – two incompatible standpoints. I know that I AM safe because I am in God’s hands throughout, but I also want to FEEL safe. Knowing should be sufficient but feeling seems to hang on and drag along too. I know that the race matters. And is there someone out there who would “bit my arm off” for the chance to do what I am commissioned to do?

I admit to being convicted about playing safe.

My life luke-warm, no power or clout
So God in Heaven spits me out

I am encouraged that God has not yet reached the stage of spitting me out! He knows my life’s path and while I might not think that I am making headway right now, His perspective is not mine. It is His work – not mine. He just asks me to cooperate with His Spirit.

I will be there at the finishing line – and not pushing my bike.

A Song In The Night

2011-03-22T13:13:00.001Z

I’ll tell of a song that I heard once
A song to make prison walls fall
I’ll hum you the melody gladly
And tell you of what I recall

I’ll tell of a man in a prison
The darkest and deepest foul place
He sat in the stench bruised and battered
Shrouded with shame and disgrace

I’ll tell of a night and the stillness
And into the silence a song
He sang of his precious redeemer
His shepherd so gentle and strong

I’ll tell of the longing that stirred me
A light in that dark place blazed bright
I glimpsed unseen worlds, things eternal
And I who was blind gained my sight

I’ll tell of the prison walls crumbling
Of chains that were severed apart
But whilst in the midst of the maelstrom
A peace settled over my heart

I’ll tell why I stayed, did no running
No walls and no chains kept me bound
The words of his song had ensnared me
A treasure eternal I’d found

I’ll tell of a vision so glorious
A kingdom that outlasts them all
A song that the saints will be singing
Of the King before whom all men fall

My Beautiful Place

2011-03-13T16:44:00.003Z

I was in the Christian bookshop yesterday. I had a half hour to kill before meeting up with the husband. It was cold and wet and window shopping didn’t have its usual appeal. I had spent a quarter of an hour putting a salesman through his paces. It’s my birthday tomorrow and an e-reader hadn’t quite made it on to the birthday list but I have been flirting with the notion of possessing one for quite a while. I am still flirting.

The Christian bookshop had moved premises last week and I had bought a book then – it was on sale. “God’s Gentle Whisper” – with the tag “Developing a responsive heart to God.” So, yesterday I was back in the shop, checking out the shelves just n case I had missed something from my last visit.

“Why are you here?” said God. We both knew the answer to that one – I was sheltering from the rain and the wind.

“You are not planning on buying anything?” It was less of a question and more of an instruction. At the time I was holding a book in my hand and reading the back cover.

“There is nothing in THAT book you don’t already know the answer to. In fact, there is nothing in any of these books that right now you will find the least bit helpful.”

God knows, this is not a ban on all Christian bookshops – this is a very individual “Mel” ban. It’s not a for-the-rest-of-your-mortal-life ban either. I have a habit of assuming that because it is written in a book, the contents on the pages have a special authority about them. I think that the author of the book has some special revelation on a subject – that they know more about it than I do. In some cases that might be true. The assumption that what someone has written it in a book has more authority than the notes that I write in a jotter is flawed.

Take “God’s Gentle Whisper” – the book I bought last week. I settled down to read the first chapter this morning. It was about someone else’s grandmother’s prayer life. Right from the start I am making no connections – I never knew either of my grandmothers – not deeply.

The author’s grandmother had a beautiful garden. Even less connection – my garden could not be called beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. In the book people passing by the garden stop and smell the fragrance and feel their spirit lifted and their world is that much brighter for listening to the birds in the trees. That doesn’t happen to people who pass by my garden. They probably mentally mow my lawn and do the weeding and the word “eyesore” features somewhere in their mind.

The author’s grandmother is often seen walking around her garden praying. OK – I stopped at this point. This is not a woman I know…This is not me. If I have to have a beautiful garden and walk around it praying in order to develop a responsive heart to God I am a lost cause. No doubt as I read further I will find something that connects – but from the start there is nothing that says to me “That could be me…”

This is entirely God’s point. I bought the book thinking the answer was somewhere in the pages – that someone else had done all the research and knew the answer, and all I needed to do was to read it and follow the instructions.”

“If you want to know how to get a heart that is responsive to Me – ask Me!” said God.

My heart is my heart – it’s not author’s heat, or her grandmother’s heart – it’s mine.

I think about my prayers. They are not spoken as I walk about a beautiful garden smelling flowers and listening to bird song. Most of the time they are fired from the battle lines of my work place. Sometimes they are poured out over a cup of tea when I get home from work. Or while I am clanking pans in the kitchen as I wash up. They are busy, part of life, on the go, moving about, filling in the empty spaces of a full up day kind of prayers.

I thought for a moment that one of us – the grandmother or I – had got it wrong. I don’t live in a world that has the beautiful garden. I’m not even sure I have the time or the skill to create a beautiful garden that I can walk about and pray in. Maybe when I retire…

Then I realsed that it may not be a garden but I have created a beautiful place to pray. It’s not a physical place at all. It is my relationship with God that is my beautiful place. I talk, He listens, He talks, I listen – sometimes.

Any Questions?

2011-03-09T21:32:00.003Z

"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” (Mark 12:28)

He hadn’t just heard them debating – he had listened.
He hadn’t just listened - his heart was stirred.
He walked away from his friends.
He walked away from the trick questions.
He walked away from the suspicion and distrust they told him to harbour.
He had listened.

He knew a good answer when he heard it.
He knew truth when it was spoken.
He drew near.

He asked his question.
He asked the question that had burned like a fire in his heart for so long.
He wasn’t seeking a word battle or a debate or an interesting discussion.

He needed the answer.
He needed to know.
He wanted to know how to please God
He wanted to know his part in it all.
He wanted to be able to tell the difference between what mattered and what didn’t.

He wanted someone to tell him the answer.
He wanted to know.

He asked his question
He received his answer and
He discovered
He wasn’t far from the Kingdom of God

Any questions?

Little Bits of Something

2011-03-06T14:27:00.001Z

A little seed
A little soil
A little sweat
A little toil

A little waiting
A little weeding
A little compost
A little feeding

A little sunshine
A little shower
A little miracle
A little flower

It was such a lovely day yesterday – sunshine without the threat of clouds or rain so I did a little bit of gardening – it was a little bit! If one were to walk around the garden, one might not be able to spot what little bit of gardening I did do – but I did.

I think it was The Great Gardener that chivvied me outside. It had been a difficult week and I had been feeling quite low. As a Christian I felt I was making a mess of things – I hadn’t quite reached Elijah’s low point and his “it would be better if I died” speech, but things hadn’t gone well. I was paying more attention to the wrong voices than the right one.

As I dug, weeded and filled up the brown recycling bin the Great Gardener gave his assessment – not so much on my garden but the state of my inner man.

On gardening He had two things to say.

“It’s good job you are tackling this now, Mel. In a week or two, those dead grasses and dandelion leaves would put up more of a fight. The snowdrops might have worked out that it’s spring and are thriving so well…but these weeds haven’t caught on yet!”

True. I had been surprised out how easy the weeds had surrendered to the mighty garden gloved hand. I had anticipated much more sweat and a few blisters. The weeds are still in sleep mode. Now they have moved to dead mode and about-to-be-recycled mode.

“This is looking all good. I can see the rhubarb now! You need to plant something into all this weed free soil. It’s not enough to get rid of the weeds…we need to replace them with something you want to be there. Empty space doesn’t stay empty for long.”

True. I had enough history of weeding and clearing ground to know that dandelion seeds, airborne, like World War 1 parachute troops dropping on French soil, would be tugging on the ropes to land on my patch of cleared land. There was only a rhubarb plant to contend with. A few inches and they would land next door where they would be hunted down and eliminated.

On me and my current state of spirit He had a couple of things to say.

“Get out more.”

My world is slowly getting smaller. Keeping on top of housework is proving time-consuming. Actually it has been a long time since I have been on top of anything! I think I will invest in paper plates or something. Work takes a big mouthful of the day and tends to follow me home. I just need to sift the must-do from the ought-to-do and need-to do from the would-like-to-do and so on.

Having messed about in the garden for a couple of hours, I feel the benefit of being outside and doing something other than the usual.

“Sop trying so hard.”

I am sure that just as you can put too little effort into the Christian walk, I am as equally sure that you can also put too much effort into it. Maybe it’s not so much too much effort as effort into the wrong things. Maybe not even so much as the wrong things, but not the right things – the better things. There are good things and then there are better things – I might be doing the good things but I am not always doing the better things.

So, getting out more and pursuing and directing my energy towards the better things should see a turn around in my current frame of mind.

Signatures

2011-02-22T20:05:00.005Z

My signature
Written in sins that ripped
And tore and crushed
Signed Your death warrant

Your signature
Written in body broken
And blood shed
Signed my release papers

You died
That I might live

Thank you, Jesus

Excited and Glowing

2011-02-20T16:11:00.005Z

Thursday and Friday nights had been earmarked as opportunities to see the northern lights. Some kind of unusual activity on the surface of the sun had erupted and sent a wave of energy to Earth. They promised interesting things happening to satellites and also a glimpse of the northern lights. They also promised vast amounts of cloud so the chances of seeing anything were always going to be rare.

It had been a sunny day on Thursday and I didn’t see why the evening should not remain cloudless, but as the hours ticked by, the cloud cover increased. Friday was a cloudy day, but I’d had a bit of a challenging day and thought God might be good to me by blowing away the clouds to make up for it, and I would see them at last. I even trailed out to Culloden Battlefield where the observatory is, thinking I’d join the sky watchers. They didn’t have my faith that God was going to blow the clouds away and stayed at home.

I went and stood, but did not see
The northern lights shine down on me
Too many clouds got in the way
Sadly nothing on display.

I’d done some homework. I read up on anything I could find about the northern lights. One website informed me that red and green lights meant there were oxygen particles up there and that blue and purple lights meant there were nitrogen particles. I also noticed that the pictures used to illustrate pages of UK sightings of the northern lights most often came from Sweden or Norway or Iceland or Canada. We didn’t seem to possess UK pictures!

BBC site had this to say about it all – “The phenomenon is caused by charged gas particles that flow away from the Sun as a "solar wind" interacting with the Earth's magnetic field. The particles "excite" gases in the atmosphere and then make them glow.”

I think it is the use of the word “excite” that captured my imagination. A woman on BBC Breakfast was talking about the northern lights and used the same terminology. She probably wrote the website content. She waved her arms around in circles to demonstrate to “exciting” part – so I am none the wiser about just how these particles are excited.

So often what happens in the natural has a correlating truth in the spiritual. I thought about the activity of the Son, as opposed to the sun. When Jesus is active and making connections with people, there is an excitement that happens and something begins to glow – faith perhaps.

God wants to interact with us. He wants to excite us. He wants to see us glow.

Crucifixion

2011-02-15T16:26:00.006Z

I saw the blood stained hands caress the wood
The fingers traced the path of knots and grain
He did not move, in quiet solace stood
And braced his tender heart to bear the pain

The path He walked was coming to its end
He would surrender to this ugly death
His battered limbs to wood and nails would bend
And seen by all He’d yield his final breath

Some other son, spoke to his father’s ear
“We have the wood, but have no lamb to give”
God has supplied and all has been made clear
This is the lamb that dies that we might live

The cross that He embraced must be my own
If I would stand as His before His throne

The Final Step

2011-02-14T21:46:00.003Z

The sky outside has darkened. Through the bars of the cell the pinpricks of the stars grow stronger. The air is warm and moist. The smell of burning wood from the outside brazier seeps down to where I stand. I long to stop my ears and erase the pitiful sound of weeping from another cell, but my heart stirs with compassion.

“Father, who fills the darkness with light, comfort your child and grant peace of heart and courage of spirit.” Without conscious thought, I lift my hand towards the sound, sketching the sign of the cross in the air. Quietness descends.

I stand beneath the window, casting about, uncertain of my next move. Should I spend the night in prayer, knees scuffed on the hard earth? Perhaps like Paul and Silas, in the Holy Scriptures I should rouse my spirit to sing a stirring hymn and witness my chains fall off as the walls of my prison crumble. I could spend the night in confession, but He knows more of my sins than I will ever know of. Should I simply gather my cloak about me and seek solace in slumber?

This is my last night. Death awaits me with the coming dawn. I confess that my heart yearns to be with my blessed Father. Soon I will be enveloped in His warm embrace. In just a little while I will gaze upon the face that gazes upon my own. I will hear Him speak to me. Will we stroll together along the streets of gold in His heavenly kingdom? What joy will fill my heart! Tomorrow, my Master, I will be home with You.

The final step – some say it will be the hardest. What if the blood of the martyrs does not run through my veins? I am not brave, or courageous and fear that in the end I will cry out and bring shame on my Saviour – He who spoke not a word. I hope to speak gentle words of forgiveness, but I fear that bitter words will spill from my mouth.

Suddenly my cell is transformed by a gentle light. The walls melt away and find myself standing in my old church. The familiar frescos on the wall greet me. The sweet smell of incense permeates the air. I see the shadowy figures standing just in front of the altar. A young woman clothed in a simple robe with a garland crowning her head in a halo of white flowers stands next to an awkward, tall young man. I can tell that he is nervous, his fingers twitching constantly, smoothing out his tunic. His eyes stray to the door, but return to the quiet face of the woman he loves. There – standing just in front of them – I am dressed in my bishop’s robe. Which wedding is this one? Julienne and Castor? Or Ariadne and Felix? I have married so many couples, whispering the solemn words of the ceremony, as candles blaze in their sockets during the watches of the night. I have listened to vows quietly spoken, love witnessed in the exchange of a shy kiss.

The vision fades and I return to the prison. Something scuttles in the dark corners of my cell, but in my heart there is a confident light.

“Oh Claudius..” My words echo in the emptiness of my cell. “How foolish you are. When a man has a wife and a family to protect he will fight against any army to defend them. You cannot stop love just as you cannot stop the tide flowing, or the sun rising, or the stars from shining. Do not think by silencing me that you can silence the marriage vows that lovers make. What God brings together, you cannot keep apart.”

A scraping sound by the window interrupts my thoughts. Something is pushed through the bars and falls. A rose lies on the floor, two of its petals torn away. A small scrap of vellum flutters to the floor like a broken moth.

“Courage, dear Valentine – there’s one more wedding for you to attend. Tomorrow angels will flank your right and left hand as you walk towards the altar.”

Valentine was a bishop at Rome and he secretly married couples against the demands of Emperor Claudius II. He was captured, imprisoned and on 14th February in the year 270 beaten to death with clubs and decapitated.

Nothing's Gonna Harm You

2011-02-12T21:53:00.008Z

A couple of weeks ago I treated myself to a new, reasonably cheap, CD/Radio for the kitchen. We had a double cassette player in there for ages. These were the days before CDs were invented. I had a collection of cassettes to get me through the piled up washing up, and those very rare days when I would actually spring clean cupboards. A little music helped.

I used to make tablet in the old days. I timed the boiling and simmering and stirring to perfection using one side of a cassette tape.

The CD player is a little bit smaller that the old cassette player, so it doesn’t take up much space on the counter. Some of the CDs have been decanted into the kitchen. One of then is Jamie Cullen’s “The Pursuit”. I like his kind of music and not just the music, but the man too.

One of the tracks is called “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You.” The piano arrangement is just wonderful – all those arpeggios (?). In googling the lyrics, I have to confess to a bit of a disappointment – Sweeny Todd? Is he not the barber that kills people and then the baker down stairs makes them into pies? It just seemed that they song was out of place – until I youtubed it and listened to it in context.

Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around.
Nothing's gonna harm you, no sir, not while I'm around.

Demons are prowling everywhere, nowadays,
I'll send 'em howling,
I don't care, I got ways.

No one's gonna hurt you,
No one's gonna dare.
Others can desert you,
Not to worry, whistle, I'll be there.

Demons'll charm you with a smile, for a while,
But in time...
Nothing can harm you
Not while I'm around...

Long before I goggled and youtubed, I listened to Jamie Cullen and his piano arrangement, and I thought about someone singing personally to me that nothing was going to harm me…not while he is around – not Jamie Cullen. I have a habit of reading God into many things and this was an easy read.

Someone can say, or sing the words, like the boy in the film singing to Helena Bonner Carter and no matter how sweetly they sing – they are often powerless to actually do anything to prevent harm from happening. However nice the words, and comforting – they remain just words when most people sing them or say them.

Not so if God were singing those words. When He says “Nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around,” we can be sure that He means it and nothing can harm us.

However, God chooses when to sing it, and He doesn’t sing it in every situation that we face. He does not wrap us in cotton wool and protect us from every knock and fall. Harm happens because we like in a broken world – but in every situation He does say, regardless of whether we whistle or not, “I’ll be there.”

For the Sake of Peace

2011-02-07T20:45:00.004Z

For the sake of peace –
Pilate
In a turbulent town
Under the constant threat of rebellion
Chose not to look too carefully
At the rebel
He washed his hands in water
And his heart in convenience
And
For the sake of peace
He had Jesus put to death

For the sake of peace
Caiaphias
In a glorious temple
Busy with activity but dead at heart
Chose not to look too carefully
At the blasphemer
He held firmly to his precious laws and traditions
His heart asleep to the Spirit
And for the sake of peace
He had Jesus put to death

For the sake of peace
Jesus
In human flesh
The invisible God made plain
Chose to show love unconditional
As the Lamb
He surrendered his body to the lash
His heart submerged in all men’s evils
And for the sake of peace
Reconciled men to God through His death

Such a Man

2011-02-07T20:37:00.000Z

On Saturday Joe and I saved our local library from being closed down. We were responding to an email that was fired out to everyone encouraging us to visit the library and borrow as many books as we were entitled to. I don’t know whether Saturdays are normally busy days anyway, but there were a lot of people there.

Joe doesn’t possess a library card. He has a history from way back of unreturned books and huge fines. We are not talking about unreturned books from in Inverness library, but from Guilford where he lived in the 1980s. He is convinced that he is blacklisted, although I am quite sure that his crime has been forgotten. I am sure that records don’t go that far back, and since everything went computerised he has nothing to worry about.

It has been a while since I went to the library. I am a book lover – but not a very good book borrower. Yesterday afternoon, a friend of ours was evicting cyber bugs from the laptop for us. He was admiring the bookcase behind him and commenting on the fact that there were a lot of books. Then he remembered a book that I had borrowed from him – a biography of a climber. I am not sure how many years ago I borrowed it. Returning books is not my forte – but people know me well enough to know I will not be offended if they ask for it back. It’s only the library that charges me for retuning books late!

So, we borrowed books. Joe borrowed a non-fiction book about the truth behind movie making. I am trying to wean myself off Dan Brown type religious conspiracy who-dun-its, and off novels with high body counts. I have enough angst in everyday life so true to life emotional train wrecks are also off the menu. I have started to read a thriller “The Dying Light”. It began with a bomb going off near a Columbian restaurant and the death of a government worker. They’ve just attended the funeral – a event that seems to be devoid of sorrow and mourning, however, a friend from his past has erupted with a very emotional eulogy. Whereas everyone else seems to be content to let the deceased person leave this world without due celebration of his life, this man speaks passionately about his friendship. The congregation are swinging between nodding their heads in agreement and cringing out of embarrassment that someone is breaking the rules of keeping it all civil and calm.

The man talks of his friend in such glowing terms and then ends with the line “Such a man makes you think God is possible.”

I have said to many people the words “There is a God”. I have dived into deep conversations persuading people through argument and rhetoric that there is a God. One can say the words but not necessarily live a life that demonstrates that there is a God. God is more than the words spoken. He should inhabit every act.

I am not going to say that it would nice if someone could say that about my life – that I lived in such a way as to make people think God was possible. It’s too passive – I can live that kind of life. And not just that God was possible – but beyond the “maybe” to “God really is.”

Worship

2011-02-03T21:45:00.005Z

Let me lift my face
And reflect Your radiant light

Let me raise my hands
And say that I surrender

Let me close my eyes to the visible
And fix my gaze on the unseen

Let me loose my lips
And free my heart to sing

Then will I join with angels
And worship You

Opposite Truths

2011-02-01T18:00:00.003Z

I once knew a man who knew a man who used to turn scripture on its head. One truth, for him, always had an opposite truth.

This morning I was reading the opening chapter of Romans. Reading from Romans 1:18-23 is not really encouraging stuff. It may be a sober description of the state of mankind in rebellion against God, and it may be an accurate description of “me” before Christ called me…but it is depressing reading. I thought I would have a go at turning it on its head to find some opposite truth.

“The mercy of God is being released from heaven upon all the godly and righteous people, who demonstrate the truth through virtuous living. What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so they refused to hide behind excuses.

Because they knew God, they glorified him as God and gave thanks to him, and they began to think the way God thinks and their hearts were flooded with light. They abandoned any claim to be wise, becoming fools in the eyes of the world. They refused to surrender the glory of the immortal God and they scorned images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

Not bad. I don’t think there is anything there that Paul would complain about!

I was wondering about the invisible qualities of God and whether they can be clearly seen in today’s world. It seems to me that there has been a lot of muddying of the water with all the different “isms” around, and by the denominational nit-picking that goes on in the Christian faith. And of course, there is science adding its own “truth” to the mix.

I guess there were “isms” around when Paul wrote his letter, and the nit-picking in the Christian faith was happening even then.

It is encouraging to know that “What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them”.

What ever the “isms” and nit-picking, what may be known about God is made plain because God makes it plain.

Turning the Turners

2011-01-30T21:37:00.003Z

I learned to swim late on in life. I was not a water baby, or even a water preschooler, or water infant– more like a water adolescent. The venue was the swimming pool at secondary school. Arm bands and polystyrene swimming floats got me from one end of the pool to another. It wasn’t a big pool, but when a person can’t swim, the size of the pool is pretty much irrelevant. I am not sure that it was a deep pool either but I am sure there is a statistic out there that one can drown in six inches of water.

I watched an amazing swimming feat the other day on a wild life documentary. The programme in general wasn’t so much about wild life but wild habitats and how the human population who lived there managed to survive. They lived in the arctic circle. Halloween trick and treat night was made that much scarier by a polar bear roaming the streets!

One family were reindeer herders. For part of the year the reindeer migrate to new pasture. To get to the new pasture there is a two and a half kilometre swim for the herd to complete. There were three thousand of them stretched out in a line and the camera under the water showed a picture of many hooves pumping away, the reindeer version of the doggy paddle.

The herd were being followed by the herders in a dinghy. They were there to make sure that the herd made it to the other side.

For the older members of the herd, they had done it all before. They were big enough and strong enough to deal with the current. For the youngsters of the herd this was the first time – perhaps not the first time they had been in the water swimming, but certainly the first time they were swimming such a long distance. It was the younger reindeer that the herders were watching. Somewhere, out in the middle of the water, where the land is far off no matter which direction you are swimming in, the young animals begin to panic. Although they are swimming next to mum or dad, and close enough to rest a neck on another animal’s back, they suddenly get frightened. Maybe it’s that moment when they realise they can’t touch the bottom! They turn around and start to swim back the way.

The herders are there to turn the turners back to forward. They lean out to the boat, grab the head of the reindeer swimming the wrong way and force them to turn around and continue swimming in the right direction.

“Even if one reindeer turns around to swim back the other way…the whole herd will turn around and join them.” The commentator commentated.

This is a great illustration of solidarity! In this case, it’s not good solidarity. The herd even if they made it back to the shore unharmed would have to do it again some other day. Suitable days are not everyday and I suppose you have to do something to build up their fitness and energy levels for a second attempt. It is better to turn the turners.

The ones who turn are the young reindeer. They lack the stamina and strength of the older animals. They lack experience and the task becomes too big.

This idea of the whole herd turning because of the actions of one animal is just amazing. If one animal in a herd of three thousand turns, they all turn.

It’s nice to know, in some ways, that the one who turns isn’t cast adrift to allow the rest of the herd to go on its way. They swim together…in one direction, or they don’t swim at all.

Where they were headed to was new pasture – essential for their survival. It’s not something they can afford to swim away from – but they will if one of them swims in the opposite direction.

There is so much challenge in living a vibrant faith life. At times it feels like a two and a half kilometre reindeer swim. There is always a challenge just out of reach to stretch towards. The Christian faith was never meant to be limited to the four walls of a church building, or the lyrics and melody of a hymn. It is daily.

There are things of God, not always reasonable things, or safe things, or comfortable things, or easy things - and sometimes quite scary things. Much better, it seems to head for the familiar and the known – so we turn around. Maybe the rest of the congregation don’t follow – maybe some do – but we are no longer going in the direction that is essential for our faith the grow and mature. The rest may go on without us – indeed, some of us may wonder of anyone would notice our absence at all! What I am sure of is that their faith cannot grow and mature the way God intended because our input into their lives is not present.

Better not to turn. Better to rest our heads on someone else’s shoulder for a while. Better to remind ourselves that God provides all that we need for life and godliness through his great and precious promises. Better not to fight God when he grabs us by the heart, and not just the head, and turns us around.

The Haggis Addresser and One of the Mels

2011-01-25T22:05:00.004Z

I never got around to reading the BBC’s cyber advice on how to conduct a Burns' Night celebration and I suspect that MacCallums didn’t either.

Joe and I met after work with no fixed plans in mind. We walked past an Indian restaurant and decided to retrace out steps if nothing else appealed. There was a restaurant around the corner that was hosting a fiddler, but looking in at the window it was very packed, standing room only.

“We could pop around to MacCallums.” He showed me the ticket. It promised haggis, neeps and tatties and live music. It was in aid of a charity. If the food was merely a mouthful or two, there was always the chippy to visit afterwards.

I wouldn’t say that we are experts at Burns' Nights. We have done s few – mostly low key, without speeches. I think we have the edge on MacCallums.

A work colleague of Joe’s was holding up the bar, clutching a brace of Burns' poetry books. He didn’t just read them, but knew a few by heart. He was looking a bit doleful as the woman behind the bar was doubtful that anything “cultural” was going to happen. The juke box was blaring out music and lights pulsated around the dance floor.

It wasn’t the biggest of public bars and seating was kept to a minimum, so we stood at the bar. There wasn’t anywhere to put a jacket and a scarf so I kept them on. I suppose I had all the appearance of someone not staying.

Joe and his work friend swapped Burns' trivia while I stood nearby. I was hot and working my way through a glass of the guest whisky – not a single malt, I suspect. I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and the whisky had nothing to mop up. The trials and tribulations of the day were becoming fuzzy around the edges.

An hour or so later, the barman asked Joe is he was willing to address the haggis. There would be a piper, the haggis would be paraded around the room, Joe was to wipe the wee sword on a napkin, address the haggis and then kill it. This was all new to Joe. An hour and a half ago we were looking in the window of a restaurant and addressing haggises was not on the agenda. It says something about the confidence that Joe exudes – he is a man that steps in.

Joe’s work friend lent one of his books to Joe. It had the address to the haggis in it, and Joe took a while to read through and practice.

He stood beside the table while the piper piped and the haggis was taken around the room. Then, with the barman holding the microphone, Joe did his bit.

He was impressive. No one looking on would have known that…an hour and a half ago we were looking in the window of a restaurant and addressing haggises was not on the agenda.

He did the business and was wildly applauded. He caught the tone perfectly. He has a tendency to rush through things when he has an audience and a microphone – but the boy did good.

Not a mouthful, but piled high, the haggis, tatties and neeps were wonderful. I passed on the red wine and onion gravy because I have a habit of missing the mouth sometimes and hitting the front of the jumper.

We were off…live music? Apart from the piper, there was still nothing. The juke box was back to blaring out music.

Someone really needed to step up and take the night by the horns and give it a good shake. It was all rather a bit disorganised. Joe’s friend volunteered to recite a Burn’s poem. Perhaps “Tam O’ Shanter” was not the best choice. It’s a bit long. I don’t know whether there is a link between how much alcohol you consume and how quickly your attention span deteriorates – but the crowd were not really listening. I thought that just the feat of reciting the poem was awesome, but there was a lot of talking. The longer the poem went on, the less confident he was in his delivery. He cast a couple of desperate glances in our direction. I think he regretted stepping forward. But he reached the end and was applauded – not quite the rapturous applause that Joe got.

Half an hour later, the live music began. There was a man and a guitar and a microphone and a well known folk song that people could dance to and join in the chorus. That, to my mind, was the right time to introduce “Tam O’ Shanter”. He would have got a hearing then. It’s all about timing.

So, what about “One of the Mels”?

Big George is a friend of ours. He works at the recycling centre. A week or two ago Joe has been in MacCallums after a day away in Edinburgh at a union meeting. He and another colleague, Joan, had just arrived back in Inverness on the train. They stopped off for a quick drink before heading their separate ways.

“Hi, Joe…Hi, Mel,” said Big George, assuming it was me standing there, with glass in hand.

Tonight I was introduced to Big George as “one of the Mels”. I guess you had to be there to appreciate the humour.

And...

A very good night was had by all...apart from the friend of Joe's who recited the poem.

Laughing at Nonsense

2011-01-21T17:10:00.002Z

My old Weight Watchers leader would turn in her grave – if she was in her grave, which she isn’t. I broke a cardinal rule – something that has been drummed into me over sporadic attempts at loosing weight.

Food should not be used as a reward for good behaviour!

Indeed, I was tempted and gave in. Someone at work said she was going into town during lunchtime and asked if anyone wanted anything bringing back. I was drowning at the time – under a sea of test papers - the contents of which were rather dismal. I had reports to do and groups of people to organise later that day…a little incentive was required.

We talked about the size of the bar. I marked out with my hands – so wide, so long – and assumed that we were both thinking about the small bars – five or six squares. She misunderstood the hands and came back with a much bigger bar than I anticipated.

I laid down a few ground rules as per consumption of the bar. I resisted the urge to tear off the wrapping and stuff the whole thing into my mouth. I carefully doled out one square for every four or five reports written, or bits of test paper read, digested and commented on. I was strict with myself. The sea of paper diminished slowly and I reached the dry land of the desk.

The comfort gained from the taste of chocolate melting in my mouth took the edge off the disappointment of the test papers. It seemed that more than a few of my learners had departed from the path of learning and had fallen into the pit of “dunno”.

I swatted a few accusations batting about the brain, that it was my fault, somehow, that they hadn’t learned the stuff. I had faithfully done my bit – and more. Truth to tell they were the faithless ones and hadn’t done their bit. Such truth didn’t bring that much comfort.

“Don’t you just laugh at some of the nonsense people write?” someone asked.

I probably would laugh if there were no league tables or targets to meet.

I got to musing about the whole “laugh” thing. It seems to me that sometimes laughing is not always appropriate. I am not talking about funerals and sad occasions. I am not talking about humour at all really.

When I went to secondary school I was placed in a middle stream of ability. Looking back, I was perfectly placed in terms of ability. The trouble is, my best friend at the time was in a top stream, and I wanted to be in her class. There were no transfers in those days until you took your options at the end of fourth year. I worked hard. I worked hard to get out of the middle stream and prove I was top stream material. Failure was not an option and low pass marks were not laughed at but mourned.

Kids today….rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb…I suppose that just because I am met with shrugged shoulders and, what can only be classed as “celebrating the failed test”, doesn’t mean that when they are on their own, out of the limelight of their friend’s approval, they don’t actually mourn the fail. I suspect not. But the joy of failure annoys me. It is not part of my mental make-up.

The opposite of laughing is probably crying. Maybe I don’t laugh at the things people write, but that doesn’t mean that I should be crying either - making myself responsible for the things they didn’t write that they should have. They chose to write what they did, just as they chose to forgo revising and chose throughout the year not to apply themselves to work.

You may take the student to the book, but you can’t get them to read it! You may present the material with technicolour powerpoints and a few dozen interesting five minute youtube extracts but whether they learn it or not…

Laughing at the nonsense suddenly seems a good idea.

Make way for a dozen light titters, a loud ho ho, a playful ha ha or two, a sprinkling of hee hees and a snorting honk.

I'll try not to sound too unhinged!

Down There...Somewhere

2011-01-17T18:52:00.004Z

I stand at the edge of the cliff
Looking down
Dizzy

I think I just pushed our friendship over

Just because I didn’t hear
It shatter and break
On the way down
Doesn’t mean it didn’t fall
Just because I cannot see
Fragments or
Clouds of dust
Doesn’t mean it’s not
Down there
Somewhere

I am left desolate
I can’t imagine a day
A moment
A single breath
Without you
The knowledge that
I failed to cherish
Something precious
Leaves me devastated

Saying sorry is inadequate
But I say it anyway
And more

Tell me, I plead
That there is something to salvage

Forgive me, I cry

Your word promises that
What’s broken
Can be restored

I beleive Your promise

(Inspired by Psalm 51)

Undiminished Enthusiasm

2011-01-15T09:03:00.000Z

I received a book journal for Christmas this year. It has all the appearance of an address book, with the alphabetical tabs along the edge. I am encouraged to fill a whole page with the book title, the name of the author and his or her nationality, the day I read the book and whether the book has any awards or was translated from another language. There is a huge space for a quotation and another huge space for my opinion of the book along with a five star rating system.

I have made just the single entry so far – “The Winter Ghosts” by Kate Moss. It’s a very well written, but very sad ghost story.

Our bookshelves are turning into a library – sometimes with multiple copies of the one book. You see, I love browsing the book shelves of charity shops. I will pick out a book, read the blurb on the back cover, allow my imagination to be ignited and buy the book – and then find that I bought the book a number of months ago – or years – perhaps even read it. My memory, never that great at its peak, is an inconsistent beast.

I am not quite ready for my next entry but I have found a quotation. The blurb on the back is about a shooting at a Salvation Army concert in the middle of a Norwegian city centre where the assassin realises he shot the wrong man. I am just about half way through the book and the shooting – and the realisation he has the wrong man – has just happened. Yes, it is slow moving.

“Harry had once said that what separates a good detective from a mediocre one is the ability to forget. A good detective forgets all the times his gut instinct let him down, forgets all the leads he that he believed in that led him nowhere. And pitches in, naive and forgetful again, with undiminished enthusiasm.”

As much as my memory forgets sometimes the essential things, the things that it seems to hold onto, with a fierce tenacity, are the not so good things. I remember the things people have said that have upset me or criticised me. I remember injuries done, deliberate or accidental. I remember disappointments and failures. The trouble is that I have gone over things in my mind, reconstructing conversations – the truth as I saw it – without realising that I have been revising it in subtle ways. My recollection of what happened that day is probably not what happened at all! Don’t call me for a witness at a trial – I will crumble at the cross-examination.

“The ability to forget” is something that is not just good for good detectives, but for us all. I am not sure when, perhaps as a teacher, my enthusiasm diminished. I dare say it wasn’t one single event, but the steady, slow drip of years of dealing with difficult classes, or teaching lessons that I had never really got my head around. I struggle with the ability to forget.

I think about all the areas of my Christian life and whether my enthusiasm is undiminished. I am not sure that I am the one to ask. If I say “No” you will perhaps say, “Show me the evidence!” If I say “Yes” you may perhaps seek to encourage me by sympathetically patting my hand.

My enthusiasm may not always be demonstrated in being the first to volunteer of something, or be shown in my presence at every meeting that happens. I may not always pray in the prayer meeting, or sing in the worship sessions, or take reams of notes as the preacher speaks – but those things are not indicators of my enthusiasm.

I have a desire to draw closer to God and invite him into my waking, eating, walking, working, cleaning, reading, writing, talking, resting, sleeping parts of my life – not just the singing, praying and reading the Bible bits.

Giving God unlimited access to my life means there will always be new challenges that will call me to “pitch in, naive and forgetful again, with undiminished enthusiasm.”

God sets the ultimate example in forgetting by placing my sin as far away as the east is from the west. Maybe forgetting is the wrong word. God chooses not to remember these things. His enthusiasm to see His purposes come to pass will always be undiminished

Tatoos

2011-01-13T22:15:00.005Z

I have been thinking of getting a tattoo – just thinking, mind. I am not half way to the tattoo parlour with an image on my mind and a place on my body where I want it put. It is purely a mental exercise that will never be translated into action.

I know a lot of people who have tattoos – I’m related to a few of them. It has never been something that I have wanted to do. There is nothing that I want to have written or drawn permanently on my skin. It’s not like you can rub it off when the novelty wears off.

I have a friend who has a tattoo down the front of her leg. It is some kind of flower. It cost a lot of money – money that she can ill afford. She is now saving up to have the flowers coloured in.

Another friend who is well on to her seventh or eighth tattoo, rather than going for a picture this time round, or some kind of hieroglyphics in a long dead language, is heading for a quotation written on some untouched part of the body.

The idea of a quotation has rather caught my imagination. I have been thinking of short but apt Bible quotations. After over thirty years of being in the faith, I am sure that I am not going to defect the dark side so I won’t need to think about removing the tattoo.

“Fearfully and wonderfully made” is my current favourite.

Maybe there is a company that does dabbities – the ones you lick and stick on to your skin for a less permanent effect.

Of course, the next question is where to put my quotation. Shoulders and bums seem to be the popular places. There is plenty of space on the bum right now – we could go for some fairly big lettering and still have room for a tasteful illustration. However, I think I want to be able to read it. What’s the point of having a tattoo where you have to do contortions in front of mirror to see it? Why should I be the only one not to be able to read my inspiring quotation?

“Rather than proclaim that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made” in neat black ink on some part of your anatomy,” said God in His still small voice, “why don’t you proclaim it through the way that you live your life? Live life gloriously because you are fearfully and wonderfully made!”

So I guess I’m not getting a tattoo after all.

The Duties That Are Ours

2011-01-08T16:57:00.005Z

I am into the last few days of my Christmas holidays. Work is peeking around the corner and the relaxed pace of life that I have enjoyed over the last couple of weeks will be cranked up to “manic”. Suddenly life will take on the appearance of a white knuckle fair ground ride, with weekends to catch my breath.

Did I start the holiday with a “To Do” list to work my way through? Not really. The house was clean for a while. The school reports never got written. Only today did I get round to phoning a joiner to replace the bathroom door. We are having visitors in February and I suppose we can’t expect them to put up with all the little inconveniences that have become part of our lives – like singing loudly in the bathroom to let someone know it’s occupied. There’s no lock on the door and it doesn’t close securely either.

There is a thing that is hovering in the background waiting for my attention. It’s not exactly tapping impatient feet, or pointing to its watch – but it is there, expecting some kind of action. I hesitate to spell it out, to give it a name, or describe it in any detail because then it would know that I know it’s there. Right now, I’m playing peek-a-boo.

A couple of days ago I was following some links from a friend’s blog. She had posted a link to an article at www.peaceforthejourney.com - "Entrusted - Word for 2011"

Something in her opening paragraphs caught my eye:-

We all need jobs that belong to us… need a focus and a reason to stir our hearts into action each day that we live on this earth. Without our attachments along these lines, we default to couch-livin’ and ample tears. We pass on the duties that are supposed to be ours rather than living out the responsibilities that are within our reaches and tethered closely to our hearts. God made our hearts for good work—for putting our hands to the plow and breaking up the unplowed earth beneath our feet. He understands that faith is best preserved when faith is liberally sown. Thus, he’s given each of us a job.

“We pass on duties that are supposed to be ours”. I find that to be extremely challenging.

Later on in the week, listening to UCB radio while cleaning the living room, the same truth was expressed in a song – “I refuse” by Josh Wilson

I don't want to live like I don't care
I don't want to say another empty prayer
Oh, I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else
To do what God has called me to do myself
I could choose not to move
But I refuse

I am stuck on the line “I could choose not to move”. I make that choice in so many ways, and I want to move on to “But I refuse”.

I know far too many people who seem to move on. What they do is not what God calls them to do, because for many they don’t know God yet. They recognize and respond to something that tugs at them. Maybe for a while was hovering in the background waiting for their attention. Maybe they played peek-a-boo with it for a while…but then there came a time when they stopped playing.

I don’t want to pass on those duties that are mine and say to God, “I chose not to move.”

Marching Out His Army of Stars

2011-01-07T22:26:00.005Z

At about 7.30 this evening, I stuck my head out of the front door and glanced upwards. I wanted to check that there was a clear sky. Then I scuttled back into the house, made a thermos of hot chocolate and put on a second pair of socks. The plan was to go stargazing.

Earlier on in the day, while listening to the local radio, I heard the invitation to join the Astronomical Society in looking at the stars. There were other things on offer to do on a Friday night – a local church was hosting an evening of top class bands. Created by “Open Doors Youth” – it seemed aimed at a younger generation, and even if the older generations were also invited along, I was sure it would be loud and throbbing. The stars were calling to me!

Isaiah 40:26 “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

The Astronomical Society has a website. I took a while looking through the gallery of the photographs of the stars they had taken. I even watched a two minute video of the stars in the sky. Nothing moved – I thought maybe they had caught a shooting star or something. It was the same patch of stars – for two minutes.

I read the page about “Star Gazing Etiquette”. I could do the dressing in layers, the hot chocolate and walking around waving arms to keep warm. I worried a little bit about parking beside the gate if I wanted to leave early. There was a 300 metre walk that required a torch. It was the torch that worried me. They were very insistent that the torch had a red light rather than a white one because it took the eyes twenty minutes to adjust to darkness and if you shone a white light, no one would see the stars quite so well for the following twenty minutes. I decided to just blunder around in the dark.

It seemed as if everyone and his next door neighbour took up the invitation. I arrived on time to discover the small observatory and its compound teeming with people and telescopes. Those that didn’t have telescopes had binoculars, and they were all looking upwards, pointing out various constellations to the uninitiated.

I have to admit that even without a telescope or a pair of binoculars, the sky with all the stars was just glorious. There were so many of them, and the more you looked, the more stars there seemed to be.

There was a slow moving queue to look at the big telescope inside a small observatory. The lens was fixed on Jupiter. I thought it was slightly out of focus, but the expert assured me that the problem was not the telescope but the atmosphere. I am used to seeing photos of stars and planets multi-coloured and dramatic. I guess I have seem too many episodes of Star Trek spin offs. My momentary anti-climax at seeing this small pale ball, with a dark band around the middle – Jupiter – was overtaken by a sudden realization that I was seeing something that was far, far in the distance. I thought about all those stars out there, and how some of them probably no longer existed. The light I was seeing in that spot was hundreds and thousands of years old. Amazing!

This is the handiwork of the God that I know.

In the words of The Message, He (God) marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name - so magnificent! So powerful! - and never overlooks a single one.”

It’s a big army!

And yet...

The One who takes the stars and flings
Them wide for all to see
Creation balanced on His palm
Yet still He cares for me

If I really Knew

2011-01-02T10:14:00.004Z

If I really knew
If I had carefully listened
And understood
The things that I have been told
From the beginning
I would know
That You sit enthroned above
The circle of the earth
That the rule of politicians
Prime ministers and presidents
Is fleeting, just a sigh
It’s Your power that
Puts the stars in the heavens
Each one named and placed and known
And what you do for the stars
You do for people
Each one named and placed and known
If I really knew
This
Would I complain?
Would I insist
My way is hidden from You?
If I really knew
You are the everlasting God
The Creator of the ends of the earth
Who doesn’t weary or tire
Who alone understands the deepest things
I would reach out
To grasp the strength You offer
To feel the power surge
Of connection
Then I would soar
Competing even with the eagles
I would run
Not stopping to hold my knees and snatch at air
I would walk
Secure and unassailable

These things I should know
These things I should understand
These things that I have been told from the beginning
These things…

I know.

A Delight and a Joy

2011-01-01T21:13:00.006Z

My husband moved into a new job earlier on in the year. The old job had been handed over to another branch of the Scottish Office to do, and, although he had the opportunity to move with the old job, he opted to take on a new challenge. I think the problem was that management, to be honest, didn’t really have another job for him to move into. So they created a new job for him. His new boss, a lawyer commissioned by the Commission, needed an administration assistant, but hadn’t really sat down and worked out exactly what assistance Joe could offer. As it was, the old job connections were proving more than a little challenging to close down. The other branch of the Scottish Office was new to Joe’s old job and the old job connections preferred dealing with someone who wasn’t new to it.

Eventually, my husband sat down and wrote out his own new job description and the goals he intended to cover in the coming year. The new boss nodded his approval and Joe settled into meeting his goals.

For about six months he had felt like a rudderless boat – drifting and directionless. Once he knew what it was he was aiming towards, he relaxed in his mind.

I do have a rudder to my boat in life’s ocean, although I act as if I am rudderless. I have a direction to head towards, but sometimes it requires me to row against the tide, and so I am inclined to drift.

Thinking about New Year’s resolutions I planned to make them vague enough so as not to put myself under pressure and to make them achievable at different levels too

1 Tim 3:1 holds my first one - “Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task.” I aspire not to be an overseer, but simply “to aspire to be” something. All the “aspiring” was taken out of the equation a number of years ago when someone confusing the church with a rapidly expanding business venture had us fill out forms and on the basis of the results, assigned us to a task that made best use of our skills and talents. At the time I aspired to join the worship team, but because my results didn’t swing that way I was denied access. I was firmly put into the teaching team – my day job was stretched to cover Sundays too.

The form filling has since been thrown into the bin and doors opened wider to aspire to something other than what the results say you can be. So “aspiring” is back into the mix.

I don’t think I want to aspire to one single thing in particular at the moment. I think I just want to have a “will do” kind of attitude, that doesn’t look around the room to see if there are any hands up from other people first before I make my move.

Isaiah 65:18 is my second plan. God speaks of creating a new heavens and a new earth. “But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.” The delight and joy refer to Jerusalem and its people, but the two words struck a chord. I have known people who have been a delight and a joy to be around. I wouldn’t say that I am quite the opposite with misery and heartache – but there are times when I am not a delight or a joy. I am somewhere in between. It is God that will do the creating in me, but I need to cooperate in His work.

My final plan comes from the chapter of a book by John Orthberg “When the Game is over….”. The title is a lot longer than that. The book is a comparison between the “Christian” game of life and principles about playing games generally. He is an entertaining writer. The chapter “Be the kind of player that people want to sit next to,” talks about monopoly. It’s not a game that I enjoy playing because I am not ruthless enough to win. However, he suggests that it is not the ruthless player that really wins in the end. They may win the game, but lose in the winning. Monopoly players, apparently, don’t like to lose to “browbeaters, insulters, know-it-alls and inconsiderate players”. I am not that kind of a winner – if I win at all, I feel very guilty. To win, someone else has to lose. The book recommends being a person that others don’t mind losing to because they don't rub anyone’s nose in it. It’s about living life graciously and dealing with people in a gracious way. It also includes losing graciously too and not bearing resentment and grudges.

I want to be that kind of a person.

What exactly did I say about vagueness and not being put under pressure? What I have written looks very sharp and precise and I see "pressure" stamped all over it.

BUT I don’t do this alone! It is God that will create these things in me if I will surrender to His hands.

Dull Orange Planets

2010-12-11T20:18:00.005Z

My optician took the whole looking into my eyes thing a step further this afternoon. He went so far as to take phtographs.

I seem to have reached a new mark in deteriorating vision. The NHS has stepped in the shoulder some of the expense of new glasses. I have moved into the next category or lenses too – a millimetre or two thicker and a whole lot more expensive to boot.

I remember the days of my youth when I used to try to memorise the letters on the card in the moments where the man was fiddling with lenses, just a few minutes before he asked me to take my glasses off. I felt sorry that my eyes were not improving at all and I didn’t want to discourage him, or make him think whatever he was doing wasn’t working.

Now I am bleakly honest. I am having a tough time reading the big letters, loet alone the next line down. I confessed that we were moving into the realm of guess work. I couldn’t see them clearly but knew enough to know the tall ones could be T and L, and the wider ones could be W and M – anything else was pretty much a hazy blob. Just because I guessed right didn’t actually mean I could see them!

“Can you read the last line?”

I laughed. They were the tiniest dots that could have been absolutley anything. They were beyond deciphering.

He had a good look at the back of my eye by shining a light in them. I couldn’t help but take my eye off the light I was supposed to be looking at to marvel at all the tiny little blood vessels that I could see. Amazingly delicate and fragile – it just made we think about how wonderfully and fearfully I am made.

Then came the highlight – the photograph. If 20/20 is perfect vision, I am more than half blind in one eye at least. With diabetes cropping up in the family, the back of my eye is getting more attention.

The picture he downloaded to his computer looked like a dull orange planet.

He muttered and mumbled as he entered data into a programme and I resisted the urge to tell him to speak up. Wihtout my glasses on, I am a tad hard of hearing. He gave the eyes a clean bill of health and told me to come back in two years time – or earlier if I felt like it.

I’d asked him if there were any eye exercises I could do to improve my vision. He told me that the eye wasn’t a muscle, so exercising wasn’t going to help. Not really believing him I checked out the internet. A million webpages seem to disagree with him. I could, apparently, improve my vision and reduce my presription by half if I stare at dots on the screen whilst holding a pencil somewhere near the end of my nose.

I actually think I look better with glasses than without – so I will pass on the dots and the pencil.

It's a Mystery

2010-12-11T17:32:00.000Z

Joe and I went to the theatre yesterday to see a play. It was, according to the flyer we picked up earlier in the week, an “enchanting adaptation of a medieval mystery play about the beginning of everything”.

Mystery plays are plays based on Bible stories. In a medieval world where very few people could read or write, one way of teaching Bible stories was through drama. This performance included music, dance, singing and a backdrop screen with famous paintings of various Bible scenes projected on to it.

In terms of performance I would say the music was good. The harp player was excellent. A flute played a merry little tune every so often, and a cello created mood by playing a single haunting note. The singers were adequate, the dancers too – but they weren’t professionals.

As the scenes progressed – it put me in mind of my time in South Africa when we took the film “Jesus” to various outdoor venues around the black townships of Durban. We had a big screen, a projector and a generator. The film was in Zulu, so but knew the story well enough to provide my own mental dialogue.

The film wasn’t watched in silence. The audience joined in. There was a lot of hissing at snakes and bad people, and a lot of clapping for miracles performed. There were sharp intakes of breath when the nails were hammered into Jesus’ palms and there were sobs when he surrendered his spirit. I am not sure if the film took it as far as the resurrection scenes – I seem to remember not, but I am sure that there would have been some loud cheers at the empty tomb.

Then - it wasn’t s silent audience.

I have a “joining in” gene that gets switched on sometimes. Last night, I wanted to “join in”. The audience at the theatre wasn’t a big one. We were competing with the pantomime in the main theatre – so we had a select few. There might actually have been more people on stage than there were watching. I got the impression that many of the audience were friends or relatives of the people on stage, there to show solidarity. There wasn’t an invitation given openly, or not, to join in. The pantomime in the main theatre would have encouraged joining in (Oh no it wouldn’t!), but not this play.

I imagined medieval days, and being outside and the mystery plays performed to various village and town crowds. What the audience watched was familiar to them from previous years. The Bible stories they told had been told last year and the year before that. The audience knew when to hiss, clap, sob and cheer – and they were not a silent audience. Heaven and hell were realities to them. Excommunication was a threat they dreaded. They wanted to see the devil come to a sticky end and they wanted to see the saints triumph. They wanted to hear the booming voice of God.

It’s hard to imagine that there are children growing up that don’t know the full repertoire of Bible stories that I know. They are told that it’s all superstitious nonsense and that rational people don’t think believe these things any more. There may be interesting moral lessons to learn – but you can get those same messages from Harry Potter books.

I enjoyed the plays. I was not quite sure that the Authorised Version narrative helped make the message accessible. I think I saw at least one person I knew on stage. What I loved about last night was not having to read the Bible account for myself and imagine the changing scenes but watch as it played out for me.

I immersed myself in the stories and, if I couldn’t visibly join in, I did so invisibly.

Feet as Sure as a Cat's

2010-12-06T20:29:00.000Z

We are into the second week of snow. There have only been two or three actual snowfalls, but with temperatures well into the minus numbers, the snow hasn’t had the chance to melt. It has just iced over.

It’s boot weather. Some people seem to wear boots well. They look fashionable in them. I look like some Siberian peasant in my boots. They are practical and for the most part keep my feet dry. I would say warm and dry, but the warm bit doesn’t really happen much without thick socks.

I have tended to wear the boots to get to work, then change into a pair of ordinary shoes. At the end of the day I change back into the boots for the homeward journey. On Thursday I couldn’t be bothered to change back into the boots, figuring the short journey through to car-park would not be difficult. I figured wrong. I minced my way to the car, taking very small baby steps, sliding everywhere.

There was an advert in one of the weekend newspapers. For a reasonable price I could have bought one-size-fits-all snow grips.

It brought to mind a Bible verse that I had read earlier in the week.

“The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak what is just. The law of their God is in their hearts; their feet do not slip.” Psalm 37:30-31.

I quite like the way The Message puts v31:-

“His heart pumps God's Word like blood through his veins; his feet are as sure as a cat's.”

Pumping God’s word like blood through the veins is a very strong image. It’s not something you can do in a few snatched minutes here and there. It takes the physical heart less than one minute to pump blood to every cell in the body. Amazing! It seems to take a lot longer for my spirit to pump truth all around my spiritual body!

Sometimes, with my encounters with people throughout the day, I do not always feel like I am on firm ground. It is good to know that there is a way we can walk securely – with the law of God in our hearts.

If truth is being pumped into the right places – my feet will be sure as a cat’s.

On Being a Sluggard

2010-12-04T08:59:00.002Z

“I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense, thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.” Proverbs 24:30-31

Let’s just move past the word “field” and the word “vineyard”. I don’t own a field or a vineyard. If only I could tiptoe past the words “thorns” and “weeds”. I do own a garden and those two words describe the state of it really well. My husband would love to replace the badly mowed grass, and the weed infested borders with gravel, but I resist, and he is too scared of me to press his case!

Snow is a great leveller when it comes to gardens. My next door neighbours, on both sides of the house, have immaculate gardens. The lawns are well manicured, the borders filled with a harmonious range of perennials and not a weed in sight. With the snow covering everything, who is to know what lurks under six inches of snow? Mowed lawns and neat edges there may be BUT it’s all hidden under the snow. At last, my garden is on an equal par with theirs!

In the physical world, I may not own a field or a vineyard – but what about in the spiritual world? Fields and vineyards perhaps equate to ministries or even just our daily walk with God.

I was aware as I went to bed last night that as well as being physically tired (I am sure that I have a very switched on hibernation gene!), I was also feeling weary of heart

One of the effects of being snowed upon is that it takes a little longer in the morning to de-ice and warm up the car. I am leaving the house a little earlier than usual. It’s not just iced up cars, but iced up roads. I am trundling along very slowly.

There is a missing fifteen minutes to my morning routine, and my quiet time is suffering. I am a morning person. That is when I am at my most receptive, my most creative and my most energetic. As much as I try to catch up after school with quiet times, the connection isn’t always great.

As I drifted off to sleep, God’s spoke.

“If the late afternoon or evening isn’t working for you, why not get up fifteen minutes earlier than usual to make up the time?”

At this point the word “sluggard” comes to mind! The dictionary defines the word as “A self-indulgent person who spends time avoiding work or other useful activity.” I think the key word her for me is “useful”. I wouldn’t say that I avoid work but I don’t always do what is useful. “Self-indulgent”? Ouch!

It’s not just for my own benefit to feel connected to God, but I want to be able to share my vineyard harvest with other people. I want to be able to confidently declare what God has done for me, not just at the hour I asked Jesus to be my saviour, but on a day to day basis.

Of course, what I really need to remember is that I can connect with God in a variety of ways. My Bible reading routine can become – well, just that – a routine. I can start to get all legal about it and think that God and I are not connected if I don’t read my Bible! Truth is, there are more times than I can count when, even with the open Bible on my knee, I am feeling disconnected!

God will find ways to talk to me as long as I am open to listen. He is not looking for His fifteen minute slot in my day but wants the whole twenty four hours! I should not be finding ways to give him a fifteen minute slot, but open up my whole twenty four hours to Him - which may include a specific fifteen minute slot, earlier than usual for Bible reading.

More Than Mere Paint

2010-11-23T17:41:00.006Z

I watched the last half hour of a documentary last night on the painter Peter Howson. He had been commissioned to paint a picture of St John Ogilvy. The plan was to do a really big picture. He had done a few sketches – crowd scenes with John Ogilvy, noose around his neck, about to be hung.

I confess that I know too little about John Ogilvy, but I know something of Peter Howson. I had plans, once, to send him a collection of my Easter poems, with the suggestion that he might like to provide illustrations for them – and we would share the royalties! I never quite talked myself into it. I am not entirely sure that I haven’t talked myself out of it either! I want my poems to stand on their own merit so that the illustrations and the poems are equal partners in the endeavour

Once he had the commission and the sketches, and an empty church building as a studio, and the really big canvasses, posted through a large letter-box-like hole in the wall, he lost inspiration. The documentary wasn’t called “The Madness of Peter Howson” for nothing. He downsized the picture to something less big, less intimidating for him to paint and he began. He backwashed the canvas in orange and then began to paint.

I suppose that just as a writer may be continually revising a manuscript, or a poet constantly tweaking words, Peter was constantly reworking the picture. The city in the background, with rays of light through the clouds, was painted over so there were just clouds.

I so wanted to take the brushes off him and say “It’s finished!”

And then I thought it was finished.

Brush in hand, he began to cover it all with black paint.

I suppose you have to stop somewhere. There was a deadline – the Pope’s visit to Glasgow. The cameras panned to the opening of the restored church where the painting was to be displayed. The canvas was covered and there were no sneak previews. I am not sure whether Peter was satisfied that he really was finished. He apologized to the crowd in anticipation of them not liking the picture.

And then it was revealed.

I am in awe of people who can paint in such a way that the picture twists your guts and drags out an emotion from you. Flesh and bone people sometimes have a lot less feeling expressed through their eyes than John Ogilvy did in Peter Howson’s painting. It’s just paint. It’s just chemicals mixed together. But those eyes spoke of suffering and sadness, of tranquillity and trust. Something more than mere paint.

I think about the stages of his painting and the times when I liked it and thought it was finished. I liked the city in the background. I liked the rays of the sun pouring through the clouds. I liked the lighter colours. I would have stopped there. But the artist didn’t stop. He took out the black paint. He did not yet see what he was looking for.

Romans 8:28-29 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”

God want to see the image of His Son when he looks at me. Much as I would like the lighter shades painted on the canvas of my life, often God chooses the dark colours. Sometimes he paints over the city in the background, or the rays of light through the clouds – because they don’t serve His purpose right there and then.

Dust

2010-11-22T20:57:00.008Z

I am but dust, a tiny speck
And yet He speaks to me
I marvel at such sweeping grace
And ask “How can this be?”

The One who takes the stars and flings
Them wide for all to see
Creation balanced on His palm
And yet He cares for me

Worthless, less than nothing yet
He gives His name to me
My spirit like an eagle soars
Because I am set free

An Axehead Floats - Mel's Alternative Version of 2 Kings 6:1-7

2010-11-13T14:30:00.006Z

The company of prophets talked among themselves complaining that the meeting place was too small. There weren’t enough seats for everyone if everyone was present.

“We need somewhere bigger to meet. An auditorium or something, with surround sound and a big screen to project the words onto.”

“Elisha is the leader…He is the one that makes those decisions.”

Eventually one of them brought it up in a meeting. Elisha frowned.

“Come on lads. It wasn’t so long ago that you were hiding in caves. I admit that there’s quite a crowd…but the numbers will drop when the novelty wears off. Besides, the Jordan River is not safe. Those woods are full of wild animals. Let’s not bite off more than we can chew.”

The prophets looked a little downhearted, but Elisha was the boss.

“Oh all right then,” said Elisha, “Go build your bigger meeting place. But don’t expect me to come with you…it’s your idea…you run with it. Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea…but…I mean, have you really prayed about it? Are you sure this is the direction God wants you to take?”

In the end, Elisha did go with them. He thought he should be there to pick up the pieces when everything began to fall apart. He wasn’t going to take an axe though. Cutting down trees was not his ministry. He had not been commissioned to do that.

The auditorium turned out to be a bad idea. They didn’t have enough money to hire a builder. That meant they would all have to chip in with the work. They weren’t really builders either, but how hard could it be to build a big shed?

And then it happened – as Elisha predicted it would. An axe head fell off the end of a handle and into the deep water of the Jordan River.

“Oh no, my lord!” someone cried out. “It was borrowed!”

The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha asked if anyone had some string and a magnet on them. “We could tie the string to the magnet…” but no one had string or a magnet.

“What about wading into the water then?” They looked at the rushing river, deep and churning and decided it might be a little dangerous.

Elisha wondered if this was the time to look for a miracle…but it wasn’t that important. It wasn’t a matter of life or death. It was just an axe head.

“It looks like the axe head is gone. Maybe your friend won’t ask about it if you keep quiet. You could say someone stole it. Ah well…I guess that puts paid to building a meeting place. I guess it wasn’t God’s will after all.”

The prophets sadly nodded their heads in agreement. They decided that they weren’t really all that good at hearing the voice of God. That kind of thing was Elisha’s gift. They should have listened to him from the start.

With drooping heads they went back to Gilgal.

It's sad that for many Christians my version of the story tends to be their reality - and mine too. Much better to live in the reality of the orginal story in 2 Kings 6:1-7

Picking a Poppy

2010-10-31T16:51:00.003Z

I never really think that I have much success with listening to God when it comes to moving in the prophetic. Give me a Bible, a week to seek out a verse and a partner to share my thoughts with and I am fine. Fill a table with a selection of objects, ask me to pick one that I think God may be using to say something that will encourage a partner and I am a little out of my comfort zone.

My partner was a young lad of primary school age and a Calley Thistle supporter. He picked up a poppy from the table. It wasn’t what I would have picked for myself, and I wasn’t sure that he knew what he was supposed to do with the poppy…but the results turned out to be really surprising.

It has been a while since we have had a world war and many of the up and coming generation have little idea about two minute silences and wearing poppies…and my partner was no exception. He knew you wore them in the lapel of a jacket but he wasn’t sure why.

We talked about battles and wars. We talked about fighting to protect freedom. We talked about lots of people loosing their lives in the wars to protect the freedom of their friends and families.

“Not all fights are physical ones,” I went on to say. “Sometimes you have to fight with yourself, not to loose your temper with someone who is being nasty to you. Sometimes you have to fight with yourself to do the best you can and not be lazy. The Bible says that being a Christian is like being in the fight – fighting against evil and standing up for good.”

We both agreed that sometimes school can be a bit of a battle ground. The poppy is a reminder about wars fought…and we are also in a war, on the side of God, against the enemy, Satan.

“Where do you wear a poppy?” I asked.

“Over your heart!” was the answer.

There seemed little point in buying a poppy if you weren’t going to wear it. It was no use putting in your pocket, or in a drawer in the desk. It has to be worn so that people know that you are supporting the cause –that you are remembering the soldiers who died in the wars. We talked about Jesus.

It seemed to us that there was little point in becoming a Christian is you were not going to do anything with your faith. It wasn’t something you could hide in a pocket or a drawer, but people should be able to see something of your faith demonstrated in your daily life. Wearing your faith over your heart was about being open about what you believed and letting people know that Jesus mattered.

Finally, we thought about Jesus dying. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus we have been given the gift of freedom. Jesus paid the price for our freedom. Sometimes we forget that we are free and we live our lives as if we weren’t. We forget that through Jesus we have been forgiven. We don’t have to try to pay God back for anything, or earn His love …but enjoy it.

I forget sometimes that I am called to fight a good fight.

I forget sometimes that my faith needs to be active and on display

I forget sometimes that my freedom was won at a price and it is essential that I walk in it.

Eat a Grey, Save a Red

2010-10-25T21:25:00.004+01:00

There must be a list of things that you just wouldn’t eat. In terms of “normal” food, I am not sure that I would want to eat frog’s legs, or snails, although other people have no qualms. I don’t like shell fish, although I confess my experience is based on pickled cockles and mussels (alive, alive, oh!) When it comes to the more outrageous stuff, I can’t imagine myself, for instance, eating any kind of bug – fried, boiled, baked or moving. I certainly can’t imagine myself eating someone. You know that you get these stories where the plane crashes in the mountains, miles from anywhere, deep snow in all directions and, since some folks died in the crash anyway, and you’ve ran out of pre-packed plane meals courtesy of “Cuisine al la Clouds”, the next step seems to be eat the dead people or die.

I came across something else I probably wouldn’t eat the other week. Rugby, a market town in Warwickshire, still manages to boast of an open air market. It has downsized over the decades to just a few select stalls. One of the stalls was a cake stall – delicious looking cupcakes at £1.25 a shot.

One stall was a pie stall. Melton Mowbray isn’t so far away, so pork pies featured heavily. There were other kinds of pies – pigeon pies, pheasant pies, beef and ale pies and such like. In the centre of the table were squirrel pies. They looked harmless enough, nothing to tell you that Peter Rabbit’s pal, Squirrel Nutkin was skinned and quartered, braised with vegetables and encased in pastry.

Grey squirrels are hardly on the brink of extinction – but pie filling? Is this a step too far? The stall holder didn’t think so. He didn’t confess to having eaten one, but he rattled off on his fingers the numbers of squirrel pies that he had sold each day at the market. He wasn’t swamped with orders, but there was sufficient demand from the squirrel eaters in Rugby to make it worth his while.

It was the advertising slogan that caught our attention – “Eat a Grey, Save a Red.”

A Lament for Squirrel Nutkin

Little Peter Rabbit had a very special friend
But poor old Squirrel Nutkin met a nasty sticky end
An enterprising baker with a greedy little eye
Murdered Squirrel Nutkin and put him in a pie

(Actually Squirrel Nutkin would be safe from pie making bakers on account that he is a red squirrel, not a grey one.)

Floozy Hexx and the Car Wash

2010-10-10T18:14:00.004+01:00

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7

Maybe God didn’t give us a spirit of timidity, but very often we clothe ourselves in one.

Once upon a time I used to be brave. I wouldn’t say that I have ever been really brave. There has always been a tinge of the coward about me, and although I have done some quite brave things, deep down inside, I have been quaking. Maybe what makes a really brave action is not about whether you were scared or not, but whether despite the fear you still went ahead and did it anyway.

Maybe it’s an age thing, that as you get older you get less brave. Maybe you are more aware of your limitations. I have some very young friends who are very versatile. One of them, who goes to ballet classes, can wrap her legs around her head, maybe not quite comfortably, but she can do it. I am not sure that I have ever been that flexible. I know for sure that if I tried to do it today – well, the imagination will not stretch that far…and neither will either of the legs!

Yesterday Joe and I took proud possession of a new car. It wasn’t brand new, just new to us. The last car was limping towards retirement.

Floozy Hexx is a three year old, Phantom Blue Mazda 3. Joe christened her using the various letters of the number plate. It has been a while since we have named our car. In fact the only one we named was the very first one – Austin. He was an Austin Maestro so it wasn’t that creative a name.

We collected Floozy yesterday from the garage. We handed over a selection of cards of various savings accounts, punched in the pin numbers and drove her out of the salesroom car park.

The salesman has assured us that she had been cleaned up, but it had been a windy day so she was looking a little dusty. We have this thing about making resolutions to look after cars better when we buy them. It lasts for a while. I am not car-savvy and Joe is not car-savvy either. We don’t tinker with stuff under the bonnet and wipe oil stained hands on oily rags. Incidentally the salesman was just a little annoying. When I asked him if I could have a look under the bonnet, he kind of made noises and said, “That’s our domain, dearie. We look after what goes on under the bonnet!”

We decided to take Floozy to the car wash. It was one of those jet wash things, playing with water and soapy brushes. However, the woman behind the counter gave us the wrong kind of ticket and we had to drive through a proper car wash thing. This is something I would never choose to do. It is all a little too precise for me, lining things up, and stopping exactly where they tell you to stop. Just give me a bucket of water and sponge and a squeeze of cleaning liquid.

It was a most unpleasant experience. I know there was a windscreen between me and these huge brushes that swept back and forward, but it was just too near. It’s not as if you can get out at any point and take a deep breath of fresh air. There is no pause button to push – just these manic brushes encasing the car.

Floozy was clean by the end of it, but it took a while for me to recover. The half pint of lager in the nearest pub was purely medicinal!

It made me think about how being fearful can really make our personal world small. There could be so many things that we never do, or try to do, simply because we are afraid.

This doesn’t mean that I am going to take up extreme sports or go bungee jumping off cliffs or high bridges – but I think I might take Floozy through the car wash again!

Respect

2010-10-01T18:34:00.002+01:00

I shall never look at church buildings in quite the same way I used to.

I have been carefully following a series of programmes on BBC 4 “Churches: How to Read Them.” I know that many Christians are reluctant to think of church in terms of church buildings, but I like church buildings.

The presenter is an architect and looks at the buildings from an architectural standpoint. He looks at the details of the buildings that most of us don’t really see unless someone points it out to us, inside and out. So much of what Christians have believed in the past is incorporated into the actual architecture itself. It is not just a place where Christians meet and worship – like any community hall. Just as a painting might be displayed to better effect in a particular frame, the people of God can also be displayed to a better effect in a building that echoes their heart of worship.

I have a rich tapestry of church buildings in my faith history. One that sticks out in my mind is a small Methodist chapel in an equally small village called Middleton-One-Row. It is a two mile walk from Teeside Airport. The teacher training college I attended was Middleton-St-George just at the end of the runway.

I made my commitment to Christ at the age of 18, the summer before heading off the college. I wasn’t really planted and nurtured into any particular denomination and drifted for a while. I was beginning to really lose touch with God and decided I needed to act before my baby-faith died of starvation. I started to attend this little Methodist chapel in the village two miles away. My best friend at the chapel was a little old lady in her sixties or seventies – a real dot of a woman. She was a lovely woman of God and took me home to lunch every Sunday.

What I remember of the chapel was the front wall. There might have been windows on either side of a panel, but the focus of attention was on a mural from top to bottom. The memory isn’t what it should be so describing the picture is beyond me. I have seen murals since then and they all get mixed up in the brain. I’m fairly sure there wasn’t a cross. There might have been a dove. It was uplifting. It drew the eye and focussed the heart.

There is a sense in which worship should be stimulated not just by an inner mindset but by something on the outside too. I appreciate that there could be much on the outside that distracts and perhaps even takes the place of the One we worship – but that doesn’t have to be the case.

I am digressing. The presenter is working his way through the ages. He did the Reformation last week. He moved on to new buildings at the time being constructed to reflect the beliefs of different denominations.

He was in a Baptist Church and introducing the viewer to the baptistery – the space that gets filled with water for adult immersion. He is not a believer himself, but he said that he felt compelled to take off his shoes to go down the steps into the baptistery – empty at the time. While he was descending, he was explaining about the sense of the old nature being put to death and being buried. He explained the rising out of the water as embracing a new life, being a new creation. There was almost this sense of awe and wonder and mystery as he talked.

Too often I am surrounded by people who do not share my faith. Maybe it is because they are young people, but they don’t seem yet to have acquired the ability to see that even though they might not share my beliefs, they have value to me. There is often little respect shown for what they have labelled as superstitious nonsense.

I suppose it is a challenge to me too. It makes me consider how I would present a programme about mosques, or Hindu temples. Even though I may not share their beliefs, would I still demonstrate respect when talking about those beliefs and the people who hold them?

It was nice to watch the programme where the presenter, not a man of faith himself, wasn’t there to demolish and undermine a person’s faith. I found joy in all the little details of the different churches – because he passed on his joy in those things.

The "Job" of a Roman Catholic Priest

2010-09-27T17:18:00.001+01:00

I have spent two hours in the company of a Roman Catholic priest, Father Piotr Koczorowski, today. At the end of that time I came to a number of conclusions:

1. If he was allowed to marry and I wasn’t already happily married, I would happily marry him. He was a lovely man.

2. If I had known a Roman Catholic priest like him when I was younger I would probably not have left the Roman Catholic Church. He was a lovely man of God.

There is a kind of arrogance about some Christians where they exhibit very little doubt about things. They are very sure that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They have a very clear list of what is right and what is wrong and everything is either black or white. Some Christians do not strike me as being very warm and affectionate people at all. They come across as quite cold and hard and judgemental. Not so my man today.

Father Piotr Koczorowski was talking to a group of young people about his life, his faith and his vocation as a Roman Catholic Priest. It was obvious that the man loved God. His was not an empty or shallow commitment. He admitted that part of the reason for being a Roman Catholic priest, as opposed to a church minister in any other denomination, or just a man of faith without the ministry, was being brought up in Poland where 90% of the population are Roman Catholic.

We have a tendency to think that our experience of something is the only possible experience and that no one can experience any thing different to what we do. When I think about my own Roman Catholic experience in my younger days I think in terms of being made to feel guilty all the time and it gave me no sense of comfort or encouragement. My husband’s experience was different to my own. He found a joy in the liturgy that I never did, and loved the ceremony and ritual that I found a bit daunting. I suppose no one ever told me why we did the things we did and I found much of it irrelevant.

Some people have never experienced the Roman Catholic Church for themselves and rely on word of mouth testimonies that are sometimes third or fourth hand, or gleaned from a book or encyclopedia. What they have learned tends to be someone else’s prejudices. They are told things in isolation without the context and repeat it back parrot fashion.

The one phrase that he repeated over and over again was that his “job” was to make an invisible God visible through serving the community. Isn’t that our “job” as Christians regardless of the label we stick on ourselves? I wonder what kind of “visible God” people see through our service in the community.

The young people today went away with a different picture of the Roman Catholic Church because they had talked to Father Piotr Koczorowski. He didn’t make any excuses or cover up his doubts. He admitted that, yes, he did swear sometimes but tried not to do so in public. What made him angry was evil in the world that was unchallenged. Sometimes he didn’t want to answer the door and serve someone. He didn’t really enjoy listening to people’s confessions. He wished that people would stop being lazy in their faith and made the sacrifices that God asks of them. He really enjoyed seeing people change for the better and knowing that he was part of that process of change.

It was a privilege to spend time with him.

I wonder if people come to that conclusion when they spent time with me!

The Visible Minority

2010-09-18T16:23:00.002+01:00

My husband introduced me to the term “visible minority” this morning. In the ever increasing battle to find a term to describe someone from an ethnic minority background that doesn’t offend someone, someone else has come up with the term “visible minority”. I wonder if it was a visibly minor person that did so, or was it a member of the “visible majority” (that’s everyone who isn’t a visible minority) who inflicted it upon them.

I asked the husband whether that meant that there was an invisible minority or an invisible majority for that matter. I expected a mocking answer along the lines of “That’s taking it too far, don’t be so daft.” The expected answer didn’t come. He answered in the affirmative. The invisible minority or majority comprises of the non-observable details that you don’t catch at first glance like left handedness, or right handedness, or some such other invisible quality.

So because I am Caucasian I am part of the visible majority and because I am right handed I am part of the invisible majority. However, I wear glasses so I also belong to the invisible minority (although my glasses are very visible). A left handed Indian gentleman would be part of the visible minority and the invisible minority.

I can only think of one person who would fit into all four categories at the same time – Superman. As Clark Kent he is Caucasian and righted handed – visible and invisible majority, but as Superman he is from a different planet so that definitely makes him visible minority and he is allergic to Kryptonite which makes him invisible minority.

The Pope in his message to folk in Glasgow, and folk in London was talking about an invisible minority – nothing to do with being right handed or left handed or allergic to Kryptonite – he was talking about the need for Christians to make a stand for their faith. There are too many of us hiding behind Bibles and hymn books and keeping our heads below the pews. We have become invisible. We chose not to stand up because it is the safer option. The world without the contribution of people with a vital and vibrant faith life has lost something said the Pope. And I agree.

Fiona Phillips is not of the same mind. I was reading her column in the Daily Mirror this morning. She doesn’t often resort to clichés and generalisations, but she did it today. She was commenting on the Pope’s visit and it wasn’t positive. She trundled out the old chestnut that religion is the cause of wars. Roman Catholic priests were all tarred with the paedophile brush, and women continue to be denied access into the hierarchy of church structure. It is lazy journalism.

Nothing is ever said to counter balance such a negative contribution. Nothing is said about Wilberforce who campaigned against slavery, or Shaftsbury who got children out of mines and mills all around Britain – both Christians. Mother Teresa in Calcutta, serving the poor that everyone else trampled on? Christian! Desmond Tutu speaking out against apartheid in South Africa? Christian! Oscar Romero in El Salvador taking on the corrupt governments? Christian!

War is about politics and greed and grabbing something that doesn’t belong to you. I wouldn’t say that Christian hands here are not dirty – but not all wars have religion at the heart. You might dress it up in religious garb to get support – but the heart of it is not religious at all.

Fiona ends with the line of treating other people the way you would like to be treated and how she didn’t learn it from reading a Bible – as if it wasn’t in there. It is there – and something similar to it is in every major world religions’ holy book

Sorry…I am ranting. But I am very cross with people that spew stuff out of their mouths that has very little balance contained in it.

So I guess that all goes to show that I am taking the Pope’s words on board and becoming a very visible minority on the question of faith. (minority? I don’t think so? Not with God standing beside me!)

Questions and Answers

2010-09-17T16:24:00.003+01:00

Someone asked me yesterday whether I was going to go and see the Pope. Perhaps if I lived in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or London or Birmingham – those places where he is planning to visit, I might have gone to see him. I suppose there is a sense of it being a historic occasion – coming not in a pastoral role, but as head of state, but as regards my faith, seeing him or not seeing him is not that relevant. Having said that, I watched the BBC’s coverage of the gathering in Glasgow, listening to what he said in his address to the crowd. Not speaking Latin, he lost my attention when it came to conducting mass. I could appreciate that for the tens or hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholic Christians, his presence among them was special.

It should not have come as a surprise last night that I dreamt about meeting the Pope. In my dream there was an absence of body guards and there was no list of the highly privileged who could get near to him. He was holding a surgery on spiritual matters, just as a politician would hold a surgery on political matters and it took place in the basement of my local village church. People were encouraged to come and ask questions.

I remember standing in the queue and being aware that I didn’t have a question I wanted to ask. I am not even sure why I was there – just curiosity I suppose, much like you might visit an interesting picture in an art gallery.

Eventually it got to my time. What impressed me about him were his eyes. They were very blue, very clear and bright and full of tenderness. There was an “ask-me-any-question-you-like” quality about them. I felt ashamed that there wasn’t really any burning question I needed to ask – so I made one up. I talked about my father who had recently had a heart attack and how he had come to a full stop in his life. All the things he used to do, like gardening and playing skittles in the pub, he had stopped doing because he was afraid he would bring on another attack. My question was about what I could do to help him regain his courage. The incident was a real one – twenty years ago and I’m not sure then that I thought about how I could help.

I can’t remember what the Pope said. What I remember thinking was “So, you are not infallible after all otherwise you would have known I made up the question and my dad died years ago.”

I don’t really need to look very far to work out why I was asking questions in my dream to a religious authority figure. We have a visitor with our church this weekend. He is our apostle or overseer, responsible for the well being of our church family. We don’t seem him very often as he doesn’t live close by. Sometimes we have the opportunity to deal with what you might class as household issues – practical things about the church. Other times he will share with us what is happening with the other churches he oversees.

There will be a chance to ask him questions. Some friends and I were talking about questions we might like to ask. I am sure you are familiar with the request for any questions being followed by a pin-dropping silence.

I have questions – not so much questions in plural but just one in singular. The trouble is that my question has some strong emotions attached, and I hate getting emotional. Do I really want to weep into a paper tissue as I ask it? Is the answer really that important? Answer “No” to the first and “Yes” to the second.

Why do some of us find it hard to ask questions? Is it that we know everything we need to know right now? Is it that we don’t really want to know what we don’t know? Maybe we feel it’s something we should know and don’t like to reveal our ignorance. Maybe we care too much about what other people might think of us so we stay silent. Or maybe it’s the answer itself that frightens us. I’m swithering between the last two.

I can, of course, live quite well without knowing the answer – but I am sure that I will live a lot better if I did know.

Treasure Hunting

2010-09-12T09:40:00.003+01:00

“Wanna come Treasure Hunting?” The invitation came through the email a couple of weeks ago. For the mystified “treasure hunting is a form of prophetic evangelism where we ask Father for words of knowledge that will lead us to people on the streets to bless them - offer to pray, heal, prophesy etc. You can learn how to do it in 5 minutes. It really is very simple.” I spent a year on Go Team part of which involved approaching people on the streets to talk about faith issues and had never felt that comfortable doing it, so these kinds of offers I tended to not take up.

This offer was different for a number of reasons:-

1. I’d had a dream a few nights before which involved me being there – out on the streets with my friend Mark and a group of people. The interesting thing about the dream was that Mark insisted that we turn up butt naked. My figure is such that not only will it fill the centre-fold of play boy magazine, but quite a few other pages too – there’s a lot of me. I was worried in my dream about being seen naked by the public. I must have got over it though, because I was there, and public were not offended. I woke up asking God about the naked part of it – the street part, I well understood. It was about Adam and Eve nakedness, not being ashamed. It was about being transparent with people, not hiding behind something. It was about not having “Mel” resources tucked away in a pocket somewhere that she might rely on, rather than relying on God.

2. I read Ephesians 2:10 that morning. “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” A number of years ago, in a previous church, we had been encouraged to learn verses off by heart – much like a Sunday School would do, the big church was also doing. I made up a little tune, which has stuck with me for decades – shame that singing it now as I type will give you no indication of the tune. It’s a catchy number. Anyway, reading the bit about the good works “prepared in advance for us to do” I felt sure that this treasure hunt was a good work that God had prepared in advance for me to do. I had other things I wanted to do, but this was “prepared in advance”. It rained heavily and I wasn’t sure if “prepared in advanced” was quite good enough to keep me there if it rained. I said as much to God and it stopped raining.

3. My friend, Mark, does a lot of these interesting and challenging things like treasure hunting. His faith has spiraled out of orbit and he has such a fund of testimonies that he shares with us all. His is enthusiastic. Having said that, I don’t know how many of us join him when the invitations come. There is a group of people that go with him, from a selection of churches across the city. I suppose that I wanted to show support for Mark.

So, I went treasure hunting. I filled in my map with “clues” like “steps” and “unusual hat” and such like. I was sure that they were not Spirit inspired because we had five minutes to do it and it takes me longer than that to feel connected. In teams of four we headed out.

Did I find any treasure? Absolutely yes! Not in the treasure intended. I looked at my list and looked for the things on it and when I saw something that might match up, I lacked the courage to actually go for it. I found a half-dozen things that didn’t match. I prayed for two people from a safe distance, but on the whole I wouldn’t say I succeeded. My mind got in the way. Some of the people we met and prayed for I knew and although they said they felt better, because I knew them, I wasn’t sure how sincere they were. Sometimes people say what they think you want to hear.

So, what was my treasure? It was in meeting Justin, the group leader. He was so encouraging and enthusiastic. He let me voice all of my concerns and never let me feel that I was jinxing the whole hunt. He talked of his own early efforts at treasure hunting. Any time it looked like I was dragging my heels – I wasn’t, I am an natural ambler – he came back to walk with me, put his hand on my shoulder and chat. At one point he just stopped and told me that God thinks I am wonderful, that I am a princess.

“I came, I saw, I conquered” – not quite. I went for sure. I am not sure if you have to have a gift for these kinds of activities. It is like looking at those squiggly lined pictures and seeing the 3-D image – I can’t see them. My gift does not lie in that direction – which isn’t to say that I can write it off and not be out there. I saw – I saw Jason’s enthusiasm and his kindness and compassion spread about liberally. And I saw that a lot of people were generous in giving him the time and the opportunity to talk and pray with them. I conquered? I was there, so I suppose there was an element of conquering – but, at best I paddled in the water. I watched others diving in and swimming in the Spirit and it was glorious to watch.

I met up with my husband at the end of the day. He asked how it had gone and I told him. He had spent the day watching some football match or other.

“I met a man,” he said, “he stood next to me at the bar and told me that he had met a group of Christians.”

The man carried a walking stick. Walking sticks might not have been a clue on anyone’s list but they asked if they could pray for him. He didn’t really want them to pray for his gammy leg which wasn’t giving him any bother right then, but he had hurt his toe on his other foot. He told them about his injured toe and asked them to pray for it. It got better. I don’t know whether he went to any lengths to take off his shoe and wiggle his toe, but, as he told my husband later, the toe was definitely better.

Time Out

2010-09-05T11:28:00.003+01:00

In my line of business you meet a lot of people who are still in the process of developing coping mechanisms. They haven’t quite worked out how to deal with stressful situations where people rub them up the wrong way.

A few years ago, the management introduced “time out” cards. They were either pink or blue, not depending on whether the stressed out person was male or female, but perhaps to do with who issued them, or what the nature of the stress was all about, or how long a person handing one over could absent themselves - I have forgotten. I hadn’t seen one being flourished in a while – until Friday.

I am ill-equipped to make a decision on who should or shouldn’t have a time out card. I see folk for such short periods of time. Even so, I wonder if there are people who milk the system. Are there individuals who are not really that stressed out, they are not really on the brink of exploding, or imploding. Take my Friday encounter – the person got a telling off for unacceptable behaviour. Out came the card and he left the room. Was he stressed out? He didn’t look like it. I admit that I am no psychiatrist – not all clues to a person’s mental state are visible.

I am not saying that every time out card wielder is playing the system. There needs to be something in place to help people deal with very stressful situations where some are clearly not equipped to deal with it.

One person for sure who was becoming clearly stressed out was me. Where is my time out card? The fuse can sometimes be a short one.

“I am your time out card, Mel!”

I have not been issued with a blue or a pink card that entitles me to leave the room when my coping mechanisms are about to grind to a halt. I have the indwelling Spirit of the living God present within.

Neither is it about “time out” – separating myself from whatever is causing me distress. It is a “time in” card – a time when I should be inviting God into the situation and learning on the spot to access and use the resources that He has made available.

Breathed Upon

2010-09-01T18:07:00.002+01:00

I am breathed upon
I am picked-up dust from the
Earth at His feet and
Carefully, deliberately and prayerfully shaped
I am stretched out arms and legs
Fashioned torso and head
Moulded in His Hands
He defines my boundaries
This - His image in clay
Form without animation
He imparts His life to me as
I am breathed upon

I am breathed upon
And I inhale
Drawing into myself
Wondrously, gloriously, humbly
His permission to exist
Nerves tingle, synapses explode
Thoughts tumble about my head
I am dizzy with sensation
Heat and light
Scent and texture
I proclaim with joy that
I am breathed upon

I am breathed upon
Yet where is His breath?
Sin pokes holes in my spirit and
Relentlessly, painfully and inevitably
His breath bleeds out
I swap intimacy for independence and
Vibrant life chills to luke-warm
The world wraps rough hands
Around my throat and I cannot breathe
I listen to a different truth
And surrender the knowledge that
I am breathed upon

I AM breathed upon
A truth He refuses to surrender
He wears my dust
Grace - amazing, astonishing and astounding
He chases me down
He swaps His righteousness for my filth
And mends what is broken
Hands outstretched He invites me in
I yield to His truth
His image in me is restored
And I know again
I AM breathed upon

(c) Melanie Kerr August 2010