any comments will be welcomely received!
There is a long awaited Blah Tour on the horizon and, as expected, promises to be good.
You can find more details over at Jonny’s blog.
I hope to get to the Oxford day so may see some of you there!
I am a third of the way into using up unused leave from last year. I have 3 days which I have needed to use by the end of March and so I am taking them now. As Sarah and the children are at school I am using the time to write assignments that need to be handed in during the middle of April.
I have just finished writing my report of my placement at Harvest. My placement there finished a few weeks ago and having the break before writing properly has enabled me to reflect and change the opinions that I originally had. I have found the placement challenging as I have struggled with some things but on gaining a greater understanding of why things happen as they do has helped me to grasp the complexity of the issues surrounding the practice.
My placement here has caused me to ask some serious questions of myself, how I prefer to ‘operate’, what inclusivity actually means and looks like in reality and the cost associated with developing along that whole journey.
One thing in particular that I am continuing to reflect upon is whether there is anything you can do to encourage the growth of authentic community that maintains a missional edge?
It seems to be in my observations that something can start and have quite a missional focus, but as it develops people like what they have, grow accustomed to the feelings of being comfortable and then, if they are not careful, start to get all protective over their inclusive community so that it becomes exclusive. As these protection barriers are built, people retreat behind them, mission then grounds to a halt and before you know it a new exclusive community has developed – and there are already a number of them around! Is there any way that a community can become aware of this gradual shift happening before it becomes irreversible, or is this just inevitable due to our human nature and desire to be safe?
I guess I am asking does a time ever come when mission becomes secondary to other things? Personally I don’t even like that question and my head is already shouting ‘NO!’ in great massive bold letters.
Today I have simply been considering how fortunate I am as today Sarah and I have been married for 19 years. This year is the first year we can say that we’ve been married longer than we’ve known each other (we met when we were 18).
Marriage, like any relationship, takes effort. My love for Sarah is not what it was 19 years ago; it goes deeper and it is more integral to who I am. Sometimes this deepness presents a risk of it becoming taken for granted. I can’t imagine life without Sarah and I can’t remember life before Sarah.
Relationship with God can be similar to marriage in that as time moves on we forget life before we were in relationship with God. The effervescence of the early relationship dies away and something deeper and more beautiful emerges. Some relationships fail at this stage as they interpret the change of feeling as as ‘falling out of love’. In fact the change of feeling is due to a deepening of love and to a growing understanding that love is about concern for the other persons feelings and not ones own emotions.
I guess the early effervescence needs to die away as maintaining that intensity would be all consuming and alow little time for anything else. Interestingly for me I’ve known God 8 months longer than I’ve known Sarah and so can reflect on the past 19 years with both my creator and soul mate.
19 years seemed to have zipped by – the joy, the pain, the annoyances (mostly caused by me)and the grace and forgiveness (shown most by Sarah)all seem to flow into one long interestimng journey … long may it continue!
Today has been a day of great hope and Joy.
This morning I heard the resounding traditional call in church:
‘He is risen!’
‘Hallelujah, he is risen indeed!’
To be part of a church excited bu the hope of a risen and living Jesus was just a joy.
The rest of the day with my immediate family and then with Aunty Sarah and Uncle Andrew, Rachael, JT and Emily added even more joy to the day.
Easter day is always a highlight of my year and spending it with my family has been excellent.
As I reflect on my day, however, it is lined with a slight tinge of sadness as my mind wonders ahead to next year. I guess this will be my last year sitting in the congregation on Easter Sunday at St Marks. As I look ahead I wonder how things will be different, what will ordination mean on days like today when I am separated from those I have known for many years?
I am now on a 6 month countdown where I look ahead with something of a challenging mix of Easter hope and fear as I contemplate the road ahead.
Today was an awesome day.
Loads of great conversations.
Lots of surprises over peoples creative abilities.
Lots of connections made between heaven and earth.
You can see my photos from Living Hope here.
I’ve been enjoying the interpretation that the BBC’s The Passion has given.
It has turned out to be a great portrayal and drama and portrays the earthy and gritty Jesus which I have always hoped to meet.
Evangelism UK has done the hard work of collating comments in the press which I find fascinating:
* Daily Express – Page 15 – Hickey – Fresh from plaudits which are already pouring in for his portrayal of Jesus in BBC 1’s new drama The Passion which began last night, actor Joseph Mawle is preparing to star in a new play with a similarly Biblical theme at Islington’s Almeida Theatre.
* The Times – T 2 Page 19 – Greatest Story Told Again – Joseph Mawle, the hard of hearing actor from Soundproof, plays him as meek, mild and hangdog, as self-questioning as Hamlet. That had to be wrong. If He did not believe He was 100 per cent He was right how could He have persuaded everyone else? I longed for the panache of Dennis Potter, who took a grip of this story in his 1969 Play For Today: Son Of Man and made Jesus a political revolutionary. But the proof of the Passion will undoubtedly be its crucifixion scene.
* The Independent – Extra Page 22 – Last Weekend’s TV – Don’t Pass Over This Easter Treat – If you believe Christ is your redeemer I can’t so far see anything in The Passion that would have affronted that faith. And if you don’t, it’s account of the politics of a week that was crucial in world history proved surprisingly gripping.
* The Guardian – G2 Page 31 – The Easter story goes real-time in the BBC’s down and dirty new adaptation – and it’s brilliant. There’s a vitality and realness about the whole thing that you rarely find with this story. A passion, you could even say, in another sense of the word.
* The Guardian – G2 – Page 31 – picture – You could watch The Passion and totally forget that this story was central to a major world religion. And that’s good.
* Daily Telegraph – Page 30 – The Weekend On Television – A faithful retelling? – The programme provided exactly the kind of intelligent and engaging drama you’d expect from a series written by Frank Deasy and produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark.
* Daily Star – Mike Ward On Telly – I must confess the whole thing goes way over my head. Try as I might during last night’s opening episode, I couldn’t see beyond a load of identical-looking beardy blokes in bits of old sack.
* Daily Express – Page 51 – Television Express – Gritty take on Easter epic – A lavish enterprise with the production values of a feature film and a cast of known faces from the small screen who fit remarkably well into grimy biblical garb, it is clearly a serious attempt to set the Passion story in a convincing historical context, aiming at believers and not-believers alike.
It also seems that the BBC have decided to repeat the first 3 episodes on Sunday afternoon before screening the final part on Sunday evening.
I am amazed, challenged, humbled, moved, excited and generally awestruck.
A large part of today we have been setting up Living Hope and I am massively grateful to the artists and to the very kind people that gave their time in the setting up.
I am struck by both the variety and creativity of the stations that people have brought. I’m not going to say too much here (that would spoil the surprise for those coming)but I will post some pics in the next few days.
I’m really looking forward to tomorrow!
Following from my post yesterday I received a comment which pointed to <a href="http://virtualteahouse.com/blogs/ann/archive/2008/03/18/the-one-armed-bandit.aspx
“>this post which shares further the feelings of the weakness of humanity and useless-ness when things go wrong. Thanks Beth for pointing me to this.
It seems apt to be thinking of suffering on the evening of Maundy Thursday. I would never want to parallel my suffering with that of Jesus. It does strike me today, however, that my pain and that of Ann’s came unexpectedly and we had to get on with it. In fact that’s a present term – we have to get on with it.
Jesus did not have the luxury of unexpected pain. He knew what was going to happen, was aware of the pain he was about to endure and I can’t imagine the mental anguish that must have caused beforehand. How long before did he know? Did he always know? If so, did he sleep – or was it always there nagging away at him, tormenting him. I have not really thought about that before and I’m glad I don’t know about the pain that is coming towards me.
While thinking on the passion and the ‘story of the season’ it seems that we have forgotten all about suffering and the consequences. I have just been putting some final things together for Living Hope and was struck by the scene in John 20 where Jesus meets Thomas and asks him to put his finger and hands into his wounds.
The risen Jesus is alive but wounded. The pain may have disappeared but the marks that caused the pain are still an everyday reminder. Because of the reminder there is still pain. The pain may diminish and be forgotten but on seeing the scars there is a constant reminder of the pain that occurred.
Today I chatted with a friend and we shared that we struggle with forgiving people who hurt us in childhood. As I reflect on this passage I wonder whether forgiveness has happened (which, if so, I am surprised by!) but that I have just not noticed it because I expected the scars and the evidence of that pain to disappear. I think I have been led to believe in the pst that this would happen …. but I look to Jesus and think that if the evidence of his pain is still with him today then why should I expect any different for myself?
Today was a day of great tasks and plans. YFC are good to me in giving me half a day a week to study for SEITE. Today the plan was to get a large part of my placement report from Harvest written up so that I could start on the other assignment which is looking at the role of the Holy Spirit in the creation of Christian communities.
As I was making a coffee at about 8.30am I felt my back muscles start to contract across the middle of my back and within minutes I was unable lying on the floor in agony and unable to move. This has to go down as the most painful experience in my life to date – even more so than being run over in Bristol!
There is something very humbling about having to call to your 14 year old son as you can’t reach the painkillers which are centimetres out of your reach. I don’t know what would have happened if Tom had not been home today due to teacher training that’s an interesting thought!
I was forced to lay on the floor for just over an hour until the drugs started to relax the muscles and then was able to get back to my feet although only able to walk carefully around the house. Sometimes sitting is good, and sometimes moving is good, or lying or whatever!
My humanity, or the frailty of my humanity, caused my plans to change today. I have achieved a fraction of what I should have achieved and I am feeling a bit peeved over how I am going to fit stuff in now. Some people have said that this could be God calling me to slow down, others that this may be a form of spiritual attack – maybe its some or all of them, I’m unsure.
Today. though, yet again I find myself thinking how weak and useless I am without the power of God in my life. It’s easy to think I do my work and that I am good at what I do – whereas in reality I am nothing without God or the gifts he has given me to use for the Kingdom.
Today I have reflected upon that fact quite painfully and amidst the tears of pain today I was forced to cry out to God in a concrete way that I have not called out to God in a very long time. This was a cry out of my pain and panic of a need for God’s action now in substantive way rather than some theoretical hope which is where a lot of my prayer seems to have gone recently.
I am currently praying for the pain to ease and healing to occur – particularly before we set up for Living Hope after the meditation around the cross on Good Friday. Please feel free to join with that prayer!
The Shiny Headed Prophet 