a blessing …

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urlI guess I find myself pretty frustrated that the church sometimes not only moves slowly, but seems to move insensitively. In this case I refer to the blessing of gay marriages, which to me seems to be a no-brainer! Surely, we can bless people in loving caring relationships, no matter what our view may be. After all, we bless gates, cushions and (when I was at the cathedral) lumps of stone …. I even bless rosaries in the prison when asked …. so why not people in love?

Bishop Alan blogs well on most things and his comments speak well:

‘If the Church wants to provide compassion, it can stop talking about gay people and start talking with them. It can demonstrate the genuinness of its care by ceasing to belittle and patronise them and start taking them seriously. If it wants to pray with them, this institution which cheerfully blesses nuclear submarines, hamsters and buckets of cement can start blessing their often stunning relationships.’

you can read the whole article here.

Don’t hate, donate!

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dole-460x276Some of my friends have expressed some surprise that I have remained quiet(ish) over the news from Monday. I make no secret about being very anti the policies of the government from that era, and particularly the harshness of the then Prime Minister in her dealings with certain people groups and communities. I consider those polices to have seriously harmed this country and destroyed the feeling of community that we did have, and replaced it with a personal selfishness with no regard for others, which is still rife today.

Plenty of people have written good stuff without being offensive  people with far more of a right to write than me! I linked this morning to Russel Brand’s piece in the Guardian – well worth a read. An article that ‘identifies the whys without the expletives’ accurately noted a friend.

Despite my dislike (you will no doubt even notice my reluctance in even having the name on my blog) I cannot condone, nor would I join in with, so called ‘hate parties’. I could never celebrate someone’s death, not even if they had hurt me personally. As a Christian, and as a human being, death only separates and causes more pain and to maintain our human dignity I think the reality if that pain and loss in others needs to be respected.

There is a much better way to ‘protest’ if that indeed is the correct word. Don’t hate, donate is suggesting rather than have parties that we can donate money to help charities who work with people who are still suffering due to those policies, such as the homeless, miners families, gay teenagers, Hillsborough survivors and victims of Apartheid in South Africa.

Hate breeds more hate …. donating just might be a more satisfying alternative that can make a real difference.

 

COTA video

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A few years ago I had the amazing experience of being on placement with COTA in Seattle. I’ve just seen that the Episcopal Church You Tube channel’s latest video shows the creativity and authenticity of COTA. I don’t tend to post videos here, but COTA is special so I am today.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned here that I’m looking forward to going back to COTA in June for a week …. and have the real privilege of conducting the wedding ceremony for a very special and beautiful couple, while staying with another wonderful couple as well! I think it’s going to be an amazing time. The closer it gets to June the more excited I seem to be getting!

Anyway … if you haven’t done so yet, click the video and have a watch.

an emerging (monastic?) community

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IMG_0612I had a great day in London today at Church House at the invitation of the Advisory Council for Relations between Bishops and Religious Communities. The purpose of the day was to allow dialogue between the council and new monastic and emerging religious communities.

Bishop Graham Cray gave an interesting opening talk in which he spoke of the Holy Spirit seeming to be creating  new kind of monasticism that pre-dates the Fresh Expression movement. He got us thinking by talking of overlap between Fresh Expressions, Prayer Movements and New Monasticism. He then challenged me, and I guess all of us, by asking how we sustain mission, develop disciples and catechesis.

The rest of the day was taken up with hearing from a mixture of new communities and traditional communities and it was exciting to see both lern from each other. The day was exciting and interesting and, for me in particular, amazingly encouraging to spend time with others who think the same as me and are experiencing the same kinds of frustration, feelings of isolation and challenge over developing disciples that can be sustained in a counter cultural community.

The day was then concluded with a lot of laughter and a few beers with a good friend, at a great pub – thank you, that was cool!

Oh … and you might wonder why I was at this day at all. Currently the gathering is considering who we are, as in what kind of community are we developing and growing. Some think we have the marks of a new monastic community, and on Saturday we are spending a day with Ian Mobsby as we explore and discern this a little more. So – if you are one of those praying kinds please remember the gathering this Saturday, as I think it will be  key time for us as a community.

We are going up!!

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IMG_0682Today is a very exciting day.
The Gills are promoted.
League 1 football next season!
Top of the league for most of the season and promotion with 3 games still to play!
I can’t explain how excited I feel!
That is all!

creating THAT space

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jpegLast night I had a first. I joined an online video conversation, by using webex,  with others involved in mission/pioneering/fresh expressions, most of whom were in the US … at least on this occasion I was the only person from the UK. The experience was great, it was good to ‘link’ with others and hear the stories of others. For a little while now, Thomas has been inviting me … and at last I managed to be around for one. It was even more of a pleasure as I can’t even remember how I got on the mailing list for this.

Tom gathers people like this on a monthly basis on a Friday at 4.00pm EST (9.00pm BST) for a 90 minute discussion. The strapline is: ‘an online gathering for those leading Missional Initiatives of all sorts, shapes and sizes.’ I kind of think that sor of connects with me!

Today Teresa Pasquale was interviewed. She was great to listen to. Teresa is working in SE Florida where she is creating  sacred space for worship, food and discussion particularly for the 20’s/30’s age group. . What I loved about listening to Teresa is that she is exercising her mission out of her personal experience and pain. When she was asked, ‘how are you developing your approach?’, she responded with something like … ‘I used to be these people, so I am using the experience of what I needed … I am creating a space that I’ve been looking for all my life.’

Isn’t that amazing?! Terea’s calling is one of challenge and pain and danger …. and yet I believe she has hit on something in her outlook that embody’s a realistic honesty towards our lives. A gritty honesty that acknowledges we are created in the image of God, and trusts that we are called by God as we are in our humanity.  By that I mean, the yearnings and desires and needs that we have from God are also to be used in our mission.

Too often we look at ourselves and think what we want or need are things for God to deal with as we progress in our journey. And, of course that is partly right …. but if we are called as we are, in the here and now, that maybe some part of our calling meets some part of our need also.

Our personal need for community and belonging, although not to be a driving force, could be something God given that drives our missional calling. Finding, or creating, a space that others are looking for is right and a massive amount of my own calling; but in that creating, I wonder if that also needs to be a space that I myself have been looking for as well.

Creating space together, that helps us all as a community to experience God in a meaningful way that makes a difference to how we we live speaks to me a lot of journeying together, supporting together, and growing together.

I loved what Terea said tonight and I think it linked in amazingly strongly with the ‘ministry of presence’ stuff that has been bouncing around the walls of my mind over the last few months and written about here and here amongst other places!

I’ve checked out Teresa’s blog and I’d recommend going to some of the stuff that is there. I particularly love the Homemade Dinner Prayer which you can link to at the foot of her page …. all I can say is ‘wow!’

Thanks Thomas for the invite, and thank you Teresa for your story.
I look forward to next time!

Burma Update

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UntitledOften we can think that because Aung Sang Suu Kyi has been freed, that the situation is Burma is now ok. It’s better, but is worth remembering that when Suu Kyi ws recently asked where Burma now as on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of democracy, she replied ‘working towards 1’. This is the latest update from Burma Campaign UK. Please write the letter if you feel able .. it won’t take long, but will make a massive difference. Thanks.

Dear friend

Political Prisoner jailed since 1999 must be freed!

There are still hundreds of political prisoners in Burma’s jails and all the repressive laws that put them in prison still remain in place.

Aung Naing is an activist from Burma, and he is a son of U Kyaw Min, who is a former political prisoner.  In 1999, Aung Naing was arrested for his involvement in a student protest the previous year. He was falsely accused of possessing drugs and charged under the Narcotics Act. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison with hard labour in Insein Prison. Take action to free Aung Naing here.

In 2005, his family members, including his father, were arrested and Aung Naing was put on trial again along with his family. They all were charged with two counts including under Section 18 of the 1982 Citizenship Law with the accusation of obtaining Burmese citizenship and concealing their Rohingya origins. The entire family is from the Rohingya ethnic minority group.

The Citizenship Law introduced by General Ne Win in 1982 is not compatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or with Burma’s legal obligations under international treaties. It arbitrarily stripped many people in Burma of the right to citizenship.

According to the verdict from the 2005 trial, 17 more years were added to Aung Naing’s existing 26-year prison sentence. However, due to a Presidential amnesty, Aung Naing received a reduction on his prison sentence to 17 years. His family were released in 2012 but he still remains in jail. According to his family members, he has been suffering from heart problems and he urgently needs an eye operation.

Please write to British Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire MP asking him to take action to secure the immediate release of Aung Naing and for the release of all of Burma’s remaining political prisoners:

Thank you.
Wai Hnin
Burma Campaign UK

If we choose Christian ..

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DSC_1399 copyA few years ago, I found Cheryl at Hold This Space. Her creativity has made me both laugh and cry and a lot of her words have inspired me. This website oozes challenging creativity. I found her writing today to be something that every Christian would no doubt be immensely challenged by.

If we choose ‘Christian’ as our identity
and as our community
then we are actively giving up the right to choose how we treat other people.
We are actively giving up the right to pre-judge another person, or a group of people
We are giving up the right to condemn.We are actively giving up the right to think we are better,

read it all here

falling into God?

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DSC_1445So Easter has come and gone, bank holidays are over, lots of people are back at work, or doing other, normal,  things …. and everything seems to have returned to normal.

Or has it? Throughout Easter the Church of England has been using the #everythingchanges on its twitter account. Gimmick … or has it? Or is it simply that nothing changes because the resurrection has already happened …. and so already everything has changed.

Over this Lent and Easter I have managed to get on to the allotment a little bit more (today, for some reason I was one of only two people there as we dug with snow falling around us!). While I have been digging, or tying up raspberry canes, or whatever I have found myself uttering the Franciscan prayer:

Who are you God? And who am I?

Such a simple unassuming prayer that I did not even know that I knew. I must have forgotten as it came from my subconscious to being verbalised somehow. An open ended prayer that asks everything while assuming nothing; and in its very asking invites that charge of ‘everything changes’. As I have dug and contemplated, I think I have learned a little more of God, and a little more of me in my digging. But …. in that mini revelation I have become aware yet again how little I know and how immense God is …. but even more …. how immense I, a creation in his image, must also be.

As I dug today in the snow, I started to understand something of my own significance and validation from the Creator God who ‘knit me together in mothers womb’. Even as I write that my 50% Britishness kicks in and urges me to press and hold the delete button …. but today, for a few moments, as I turned soil, God seemed to sift through my thoughts and re-affirm me as the person he created, approves of, and validates.

And the reason easter is so exciting, so amazing, is that this affirmation is true for everyone. It’s not just me, it’s not just Christians, it’s not just people of faith … it’s every single person who is significant to God. They must be, we must be, if we believe God created us all because “God hates nothing that he has made’. I believe ana wakening to that knowledge, or a remembering of that sentiment that is so easy to forget in the monotony of everyday life, mens that ….. for all of us … everything changes.

I was hit between the eyes this morning as this very prayer was the subject of Richard Rohr’s daily meditation:

Evelyn Underhill claims it’s almost the perfect prayer. The abyss of your own soul and the abyss of the nature of God have opened up, and you are falling into both of them simultaneously. Now you are in a new realm of Mystery and grace, where everything good happens!

falling into God … I think that’s good news …

come … because all are invited

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eucharistToday is Maundy Thursday; a day which, for me, over the last 5 or so years has been a day to contemplate, reconsider, and dwell on the whole basis of my faith. In particular on this day I am always drawn to think about what celebrating eucharist is all about.

It’s quite pertinent for me this year as I have already had a number of conversations with around a dozen people which have fallen into two broad categories; one being of whether children should be ‘allowed’ to take part, the other with (Roman) catholic friends about who should be allowed to share.

Both questions shock me really. The first really saying, ‘when do children fully understand?’ To that I answer when do any of us fully understand what God is doing in Eucharist? If, as I heard the other day, a child saying ‘..but I love Jesus just as much as anyone else…’ then surely that understanding is enough. I know that is a simplistic viewpoint, but sometimes simplicity is necessary.

The second question really makes me shiver. This question really talks about people in some form of authority making a judgement; it’s people deciding who is or is not worthy of receiving communion. I think this midset betrays a forgetfulness. A forgetfulness that is missing the fact that this is Christ’s table, and that it is Christ that invites because, actually, none of us are worthy to join Christ around his table. No human can refuse to ‘allow’ someone to come to Christ’s table for it is not us inviting others, but Christ himself.

In the gathering we have started too use this invitation which i have seen versions of flying around in various places, but this is taken from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals:

come to this table
you who have much faith
and you who would like to have more;
you who have been here often
and you who have not been for a long time;
you who have tried to follow Jesus,
and you who have failed;
come.
It is Christ who invites us to meet him here.

In his daily thought today, Richard Rohr shares:

‘The issue is not worthiness; the issue is trust and surrender. It all comes down to “confidence and love,” as Thérèse of Lisieux said.  I think that explains the joyous character with which many celebrate the Eucharist. We are pulled into immense love and joy for such constant and unearned grace. It doesn’t get any better than this!’

Today I shall be walking into the Chrism Eucharist this morning reflecting on this meal, and remembering the immense love, acceptance and grace that welcomes and draws me in … and that that welcome and grace and love is not just for a few, but for everyone.

This Easter time come … because you have a personal invite from Christ himself.