Burma update

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New readers here (welcome!) may not be aware that I am half Burmese on my fathers side. I have only really been aware of this for the last 15 or so years and since then have taken a keen interest in Burma as a nation. Things are moving positively in this nation … but with the release of Aung San Sui Kyi I have noticed a complacency setting in from the west thinking that the country is now sorted. It isn’t …  Sui Kyi was recently asked ‘where do you think Burma is on a scale of 1 to 10 in its move to democracy?’ her response ‘on the way to one’.

Please keep campaigning; the start is good but there is a long way to go! Please respond to the letter below as best you can:

Dear friend

My name is Wai Hnin Pwint Thon. In less than 2 weeks’ time, on Saturday 20 October I will be jumping from a plane 2 miles high. I am jumping to raise funds to campaign for the release of all political prisoners in Burma and also to provide direct help and support to those prisoners who have been released.

Please support me by sponsoring me.

There are hundreds of political prisoners who have been released who need direct support and who are suffering form trauma and stress after years of torture and persecution in Burma’s prisons. Hundreds more remain in prison now.  Hundreds of families are suffering as I did. Sons are without their fathers and daughters are without their mothers.

As a daughter of a former political prisoner, I know how it feels to be separated. When I was four, I first saw my father, a democracy activist, through prison bars during the first of two long prison sentences. When I was growing up I always wondered why my father could not be with us.

I am determined to bring freedom for all jailed political activists in Burma and to provide direct help and support for when they’re released.

Please support me by sponsoring my jump. Your help will give enormous encouragement to them that they are not alone in this struggle for freedom in Burma.

Thank you for your support.

Wai Hnin

 

Returning to first principles

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I am really looking forward to being at the launch of Ian Mobsby’s new book on Thursday evening at the London Centre of Spirituality  – it looks like it will be a great couple of hours so why not come along too?

I am in the incredibly lucky situation to have Ian as a mentor. Since being placed with Ian many years ago at Moot while training on SEITE I have been meeting with Ian regularly to chat about what I do. Ian has been a great support and a great challenger … as every good mentor should be.

What I have really appreciated about our relationship, apart from Ian’s friendship and honesty, has been the way Ian has explored this whole role of the Trinity in mission. Sometimes he has blown my mind, or confused me, or challenged me. It has all been good stuff as part of the write up says here:

‘In this presentation, Ian Mobsby explores a central theme of his new book ‘God Unknown: The Trinity in contemporary Spirituality and Mission’.  The Holy Trinity is the central reality and concept that makes Christianity a distinct faith and not a jewish cult. As such God is a missionary God that challenges the Church and all Christians to participate in this mission and ministry of reconciliation, as God seeks to restore all things into renewed relationship with the divine.  In our increasingly post-secular context where people are more interested in spirituality than religion, it is the reality of the Trinity that gives us hope and opens up the spiritual landscape of the faith to those who are un-or-dechurched’. 

So … as I said above … come along …. you won’t regret it!

lost at home …. avoiding puke church!

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I am now 4 weeks in to a new way of working. It’s hard to reflect and to know what to write because what is happening is slow and due to that it is pretty tough; but that’s not a bad thing (and neither do I feel negative). The toughness at the start of a new mission role (and probably all mission) is just a fact of life. Mission, in the main, is not exciting as many like to write and believe, it is simply heartbreakingly slow work. I remember 4 years ago saying that I was bored, lonely and not sure what to do …. well I am simply at that stage again.

It’s not comfortable but I think it is necessary and right to enable stuff to happen.

I am finding that it is a real effort to get up and go out each day to be available to people. I guess in Rochester the requirement to be at Morning Prayer helped to provide structure in that it gave a clear start to the day. Without that structure the role is quite a lot harder. It’s not enjoyable, it’s not exciting and it is simply just ‘bloody hard work.’ I do not know where to go each day, I have no idea what will happen, who I will speak with (if anyone) and on days like today when it has been raining virtually non stop and people just want to get out and back home quickly it is nearly impossible to engage with people. This ‘trudge’ that I am experiencing at this point in time is what many people I have spoken to over the years experience as an everyday reality in their particular jobs. For me, this is a necessary phase or stage to go through.  In many ways, although it is a tough and uncomfortable place, I really value this time. I value this time, because of its harshness, because this is a time when I can learn and get a greater understanding of what is going on around me, within me and how God is working in this community.

The big temptation now, for someone like me that loves to achieve ‘stuff’, is to start something. Gillingham is an area where lots of things are needed and could work. It would be fairly easy to start a new project or a new mission initiative. A month of observing and watching seems like an age for someone like me …. yet it is far too short a time to try and understand what is happening.

I believe the wrong thing to do now would be to fool  myself into thinking that I have observed enough and that I am now in a position to know what will work here and try that something out. At this point in time I long to get my teeth into something and immerse myself in activity but, if I am brutally honest with myself and others,  I have not yet got a sense of what God is doing here and neither do I have that understanding of how this community works. That’s actually bigging up my current level of knowledge; I have no idea what God is doing here or what I should be doing! If I started something now I would be regurgitating or bringing up old ideas that I had seen work elsewhere. That sounds to me like puke church! I must avoid that at all costs  … we simply don’t wish to go there!

I am lost, disorientated and confused. I have followed many paths and lines of enquiry and conversations only to find myself back tracking and being even more confused. I look out across the area that I am called to work and I do not recognise it and nor am I able to describe what I see in any meaningful way. I am simply lost in the town I have lived in for the best part of 25 years. (It had changed massively in the last 4 years which is another reason to continue to watch and understand!)

So, I continue to search. As I search I am mildly encouraged by these words of Richard Rohr: ‘The Way of Jesus is not about rushing to the ‘right’ destination. The way of Jesus is a way of bringing the kingdom of Love to the reality of this present moment, through the Way we travel, through the Way we are, and through the Way we are with God’

It’s pretty clear that if that is correct, and it makes sense to me, that that will take a fair bit of time. If you are the praying kind …. I need to gift of patience!

a licence to ….

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Last week I was licenced as Priest Missioner in the Gillingham Deanery. For me this was a special night as I was commissioned by Bishop James. The role I have been licenced for has taken a lot of work and discussion to get off the ground. Bishop James himself mentioned how complicated a licence it was to encompass all the different areas I am working in.  I’m really thankful for the people that have been working behind the scenes to get this off the ground.

It was very important to me personally to receive the bishop’s permission and backing for this work and incredibly encouraging to see so many friends and family members there to support me. I was genuinely so surprised to see so many people turn up.

Bishop James spoke from Isaiah 52 and spoke particularly about the role of the ‘watchman’ or ‘sentinel’ in verse 8. He spoke about how my role, and the role of the pioneer, was similar to the that of the watchman in Isaiah.

The watchman had a variety of roles. There was the role of guardian, watching over the walls and alerting those inside to what was happening outside. There was the role of looking out, to notice what was ‘out there’ and thinking through what an appropriate response would be to what had been observed. Bishop James implied the role could also be one of bridging, of being a person that linked quite well between the two … between those ‘inside the walls’ and those ‘outside’.

I have been playing round with these words and images in my mind over the last few days and have noticed some other words that further illustrate the watchman role. We could use, bouncer, chaperone, lookout, custodian, defender, shepherd. Although I can see how they are all valid; of them all the combination of guardian and look out probably resonate with me the most as I seek to notice, respond and then develop something that fits within the ‘walls’ of our orthodox faith.

Often it is not a comfortable place, but it is a place I am happy to be in for the time being…

change overload?

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there has been a lot of change this month …

the change of leaving the city of Rochester to work in Gillingham
the change to working predominantly alone again rather than being based in a team
the change of moving from a place where I know lots of people to a place where I don’t
the change from being on a staff team of a cathedral to a role of supporting parish clergy
the change of no longer having Tom around who we dropped at Uni last week
the change of Sarah having a new job, and missing the classroom
the change of seeing Gillingham at the top of the division

change has a massive effect
there is not just the actual change itself
but the emotional stuff connected with the change
the normal everyday acclimatised stuff you do not normally notice
but become painfully aware of when it is ripped away
and is no longer an everyday occurrence
causes change, I think, to be quite draining
emotionally exhausting
mind numbing

I am not sure if you can have too much change … well, that’s not true …  I am sure … because 3 weeks in to this new role  I feel drained because, I think, I have been overloaded with change. Change has been their everywhere I turn. At the moment nothing seems constant.

As a pioneer I think I am supposed to say that change is my friend, and that I crave encounters with her spirit. I really do believe that she is my friend and do crave that change in my community. I am also being reminded, however, what a demanding friend she can be. She seems to be ever demanding, constantly there, always calling, challenging, cajoling.

Over these last few weeks sometimes I have felt that I am just clinging on … and on occasions I have found the Psalms to be a great source of strength. Particularly, amongst many, Psalm 121:

I will lift up my eyes to the hills – 
From whence comes my help? 
My help comes from the LORD, 
Who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to be moved; 
He who keeps you will not slumber. 
Behold, He who keeps Israel 
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is your keeper; 
The LORD is your shade f at your right hand. 
The sun shall not strike you by day, 
Nor the moon by night.

The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; 
He shall preserve your soul.  
The LORD shall  preserve your going out and your coming in 
From this time forth, and even forevermore.

That Psalm has been a great provider of strength when I have felt myself becoming over-awed by, or fearful of, the size of the task before me. There have been other times, however, when I have found myself having the conversation with myself that says something like … ‘just stay in today, it won’t make a difference, it won’t really matter ….’

On days like this I have returned to one of my favourite poems which I believe to be truly God inspired through Miroslav Holub which I have blogged about here before if you want to read the poem fully. For this point in time however, it is the following final words through which I have found not strength as with the Psalm, but motivation to get up …

Go and open the door.
    Even if there’s only
    the darkness ticking,
    even if there’s only
    the hollow wind,
    even if
              nothing
                          is there,
go and open the door.

At least
there’ll be
a draught. 

That inspires me. It inspires me because it reminds me of something pretty cool when involved with mission with God. It reminds me that I merely need to turn up, open and genuine and simply be willing and available for whatever God had for that day.

Not a lot has happend over the last few weeks. But I believe two things: my help is from God, and whatever happens, at least I am causing a draught!

I don’t know where I am going

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Today has been a bit of a reflection day. It hit me that I have jumped from one world of the cathedral and Rochester, over to the world of Gillingham and the prison very quickly, and I have had no real time to think about how to change my practice, how to prepare myself to start again and how to actually go about that whole thing of starting again.

The geographical closeness of the 2 places along with my familiarity with the Gillingham that used to exist means the temptation to carry on and just do what I have done on a daily basis for the last few years is quite a powerful temptation.

It may be right to start again in exactly the same way …. and that is what I intended to do, but last night I realised I had not really thought or prayed much about this. So today has been pretty much a thought and prayer day.

Today, in particular, I have found this prayer of Thomas Merton to be both powerfully challenging and warmly comforting in some way. These words help me to accept where I am, and give me the permission to rest in the knowledge that although I have no real idea what is going to happen, that I can be comfortable in that ignorance. Too often we feel pressured into acting, or developing, or birthing something new quite quickly and often too soon. So now, as I enter this time of reflection and listening and uncertainty, I draw strength from knowing not only have I been here before, but so have many others before me:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. 

1st day

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Yesterday was a first day.
A first proper day of working in the prison.
A first day of wandering Gillingham High Street.
A first day of being a priest missioner in GIllingham deanery … whatever that may be.

My first day went quite well. Some highlights included sitting in the exercise yard with some lads and learning a little about their stories. Another was popping in the club in Gillingham for a drink with a friend and my dog collar on … there was a hush for a little while before they realised it was me!

Of course there were lows as well … the frustration and pain I could see in peoples situations. The hopelessness in the daily routines of so many. But with that hopelessness comes a desire to see change, and part of my role involves me in looking out for those people that wish to be involved in something transformational;  both personally and collectively.

The day ended with a pretty special experience when I got together with some young people and their leaders to plan a youth service. I’ve not done this in a while, but I am still smiling from the privilege of that creative experience. I look forward to working morre with this group as they try to create something different.

So … all in all a pretty interesting day …. I have to go now and do something similar all over again …. the beginning of a new work, I remember, takes a lot of time, repetition and patience.

I am golden!

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The gathering got together yesterday afternoon to think about our identities. After Sharon creatively got us to think about what society says about image and identity through collage and other things we listened to the words of Psalm 139 and were struck by …

Lord, you created my insides, you built me and put me together inside my mother’s womb. I will praise you because that thought is scary and is wonderful. The things you have made and done are amazing.

In our reverb time  we chatted around people being good at things and then it hit us that we had drifted from the point. One of the children earlier described himself as ‘golden’ in his collage and, and as we re-read the Psalm we realised how spot on he was. The Psalmist seemed to be reminding us that we are amazing, wonderful, created by God …. and, yes, golden not because of what we can or cannot do. We are golden simple because we are. It’s not about what we do, but it is about who we are. We are created amazingly. We are created golden!

In light of that, as we shared bread and wine together we used the words ‘become what you are‘ as we acknowledged our true identity in and from God our creator.

It was a pretty exciting afternoon for the gathering!

4 years on …

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On this weekend 4 years ago I was ordained in Rochester Cathedral. That experience holds as one of the most important and amazing days of my life, beaten only by our wedding day and being present at the births of my three children. The moment was captured by Peter, a good friend from Nailsea, in this sketch.

Four years have flown by, and it has been an amazing four years. The blog has been quiet this week as it has been, quite understandably, an emotional time as I started to leave. There were lots of people to say goodbye too and it has taken the best part of a week for me to catch up with everyone I needed to.

It has struck me that I have found the moving from this role to be particularly hard, uniquely so as, being a pioneer, I quite like change … thrive on it even! This toughness has caused me to reflect upon why leaving, in this instance, is proving to be quite a unique experience.

I need to say first, though, that I am in an odd situation that does not make a lot of sense. I am very excited, as well as daunted (as I was 4 years ago) about the new task in front of me. The thought of starting afresh in a new area is exciting and scary all together … but this time it is tinged with a massive sadness of leaving Rochester behind.

In my reflections I have wondered and have realised:
It’s not really about the city of Rochester, although it is very lovely and a wonderful place to work.
It’s not really about Rochester Cathedral, although it is a magnificent building and to start my ordained journey there has been the most amazing experience. I have done things there which I would never of had the chance to do elsewhere and not a day has passed when I have not realised how fortunate I was to be a curate at the cathedral.
It’s not about wetherspoons despite their massive choice of good real ale and cheap prices and the way they have welcomed and embraced pub theology.
Surprisingly it is not even about Deaf Cat which is by far the best coffee shop in Medway, probably the whole of te south east!

My sadness at moving has not been about any of these places  ….. it has been about the people I have spent my time with in these places, the people who have invited me into their lives and the people who I am incredibly lucky to now be able to call friends. It is these people that I will miss chatting with on a daily basis and it is these people who have had such a profound impact upon my life while I, in turn, have had the immense privilege of being able to listen and then share our dreams, our hopes and our struggles. Sometimes we have laughed together, sometimes we’ve cried together and other times we’ve got angry … and each was right in its time. Each of these friendships are very special to me and I will continue to treasure them massively. The only thing I can say is ‘thank you – you are amazing people!’.

But now, for me, the time has come when my focus must shift as my ministry and life look to be useful in a new part of God’s world. I move on taking special memories of special people and I thank God for those friends and experiences, and I look forward with expectation at how God will continue to bless us as I acknowledge again the sometimes gritty reality of Romero’s Long View…

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
more here

a good cinema season ahead …

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This season is looking good at the other cinema …. which has become one of the highlights of my week. If you’ve not been before, and you love film, why not join in. 7.45pm, Thursday nights, Chatham Odeon.

There’s also a facebook page and a twitter account if you do that stuff.