The Overflow of the Heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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

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

“…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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!