wait … look … learn

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Mark Berry has started to blog again over at CMS community and mission.

I partcularly have liked his recent post, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic as I think many will find this helpful. As for me, personally, I had not thought of this defining part of our liturgy in terms of relationship. I am particularly struck by Mark’s definition of ‘apostolic’ as being ‘about our relationship with context, with the world and with God’s KIngdom in it’.

I think that hits it on the head for me. Relationships take time and a relationship with our context, the communities we find ourselves in, possibly take longer to develop, than a relationship with another human being. Getting to know one person, to understand what makes them tick, to earn trust and to trust can take an age. How much longer with a whole community of lots of persons responding and relating to each other?

It takes a lot of patience and time to really listen and to learn from the place we find ourselves in. I think it takes a commitment and a vulnerability of great cost which you are not really aware of until it hits you. That costs is a cost of time, a cost of reputation,  a cost of misunderstanding and sometimes, as I speak from personal experience, a cost of (losing) friendships. But it is worth it.

I shudder at quick fix solutions. Over the last four years I have had many conversations and people have seemingly been looking for quick fix ‘secrets’. But there are none. If we are really going to ‘reach’ people with the gospel we cannot expect a quick fix one size ‘something’ to be right for every person in every community. One size does not fit all, we do not all need or want exactly the same thing, despite what many advertisers try to tell us! But … it is easier to take something ‘off the shelf’ or use something you have seen working down the road and get instant results than it is to simply wait, look and learn.

But …. as apostles … as those looking to build relationships with our context … waiting, looking and learning is all we really have.

 

the divine ordinary

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Today I had the great delight of attending the private view of ‘Frozen Estuary and other paintings of the Divine Ordinary’ an exhibition of Billy Childish’s work currently at Chatham Historic Dockyard. I can say nothing other than the work is simply stunning and very engaging. I could have simply stayed for hours and lost myself in some of the work.

I have had the pleasure of having 1 or 2 chats over the last 4 years with Billy and others in Deaf Cat. He is a wonderful person, very creative with great and interesting ideas and stories to share, but also a very ‘interested in others’ sort of person. He has a unique style and way of looking at life … and I have both enjoyed and been made to think by our brief encounters.

If you can get to this exhibition – it’s there until 30th September – then get yourself there!

Happy Birthday Aung Sang Suu Kyi

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As someone of a half Burmese ancestry, it was amazing to be able to see Aung Sang Suu Kyi finally deliver her Nobel Peace Prize lecture …. albeit 21 years late. I am deliberately drawing attention to that speech today, because today is her birthday. Happy Birthday Aung San Suu Kyi; you shown great stamina and courage in desperate circumstances while the world has, shamefully, looked on, seemingly unable to intervene.

Please read and respond appropriately to the message below from Burma Campaign UK.  It is vital that we, the free world, do not start to believe Burma is fixed and democracy has come. It has not …. recently when interviewed and asked ‘how democratic is Burma on a scale of one to ten?’ Aung Sang Suu Kyi replied ‘on the way to one’. Progress may have started, last year Burma was not even on the way to one, but progress is painfully slow and atrocities still happen ….

Aung San Suu Kyi was finally able to deliver her Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 21 years after receiving the award.Significantly, she used the occasion to make an impassioned call on governments to increase funding for refugees from Burma who live in camps in Thailand. She recently visited one of the refugee camps, and was concerned to hear stories of the situation in the camps, where people have faced ration cuts of 25 percent and no longer get support for clothes and shelter.

Speaking in Oslo, she said: “Can we afford to indulge in compassion fatigue? Is the cost of meeting the needs of refugees greater than the cost that would be consequent on turning an indifferent, if not a blind, eye on their suffering? I appeal to donors the world over to fulfil the needs of these people who are in search, often it must seem to them a vain search, of refuge.’

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Please send an email to Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development, calling on him to increase British government funding for refugees. You can send an email by clicking here. It will only take two minutes, and could stop a child going hungry.

in the right place

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The blog has been quiet, not this time due to business necessarily, but rather due to the reading, contemplation and the need for space to mull, think and reflect.

I have completed a lot of reading recently. I recently started Nicholas Vesey’s Developing  Consciousness and am enjoying the reflection this forces me into. Nicholas has set up the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre. I like what they are doing and it grabs me in a way that has caused me to part with money to but this book that contains some of the journey and lessons from that journey that these people have been on.

I’m really enjoying the book and the way it is challenging me to think and slow down and wonder. A flavour of the book can be summed up in this quote from page 4:

You are always in exactly the right place to be able to take the next step.
It is an amazing realisation, that you are, right now, in exactly the right place to begin this journey.
Your whole life has brought you to this point. Everything you have ever done has brought you to the point of reading these words now. And everything has conspired for you to be in exactly the right place. You could not be in a better place.
And that is true for every single moment of your life.
You are never in the wrong place. All you can do is to not recognise you are in the right place, and then automatically you miss the point and opportunity of that moment.
To be in the right place at the right time you simply have to acknowledge  the rightness of the moment, and thus the moment become yours.
Do it now, without qualification.
Whatever our circumstances, wherever you are. Trust this moment as being one that is right. One that has meaning. One that is setting you on a journey outside the box, and it will be so. And what is the next step? Well … ask yourself that …. what is the next step? What do you do right now as the next step?

There is a liberation in being free to recognise that I am in exactly the right place, where I should be, right now … this very minute. Sometimes I have struggled to accept that, and over the last 5 or 6 days I have wrestled with that thought. But, I have come to realisation that I may need to embrace and accept this so that I can claim the moment, rather than miss the opportunity before me.

In that embracing of the moment, I am discovering a freedom to move forward. This seems to echo well with much of the stuff that has challenged me over the last few months, such as being rooted, Chardin’s trust in the slowness of God, Taylor’s total presence.
Accepting the moment … seems to be the way forward!

our journeys so far

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Yesterday the gathering got together. We had a very thoughtful, and sometimes challenging, time as we considered our personal journey’s, which for all of us (as with everyone) are a mixture of highs and lows, joy and sadness, fun and scarey. The group that planned yesterday did so skilfully, enabling us to have this time for reflection and questioning.

For the next few months the gathering is following what will be a very heavily adapted version of of Essence, a course looking at spirituality from SJI. Essence aims to give an ‘experiential introduction’ to Christianity. As a course it seems to take a lot for granted which is why we are heavily adapting it for our needs…. to be more ‘gathering like’ in giving people opportunity and space to explore and discover. It’s particularly relevant for the gathering as we value and accept very much the concept of ‘all being on a journey’ and all being in the right place on the journey while all being at different place on the journey.

We listened to Psalm 23, we drew or created images of parts of our life journey using lego or chalk/paint/crayon. At the start of out time together we were asked to illustrate our life story using 5 or 6 beads with a willingness to share what one of the beads represented. Each ‘life’ was then placed around a central table and, for me, showed the strength of how coming together caused our journeys to become connected in some way.

Personally, this simple activity gave me an opportunity to think about what I have in my life, and how rich my life can be if I only take the time to remember. By that I do not mean material stuff; but rather the quality of experiences, the beauty of people I have got to know, the strength of relationship of family and friends.

Next month the gathering will be looking at ‘the journey within’ as we think more about our identity and image. If that sounds interesting to you … feel free to join us … Sunday 8th July, 3.30 for 4.00pm.

patient trust

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Last week I met up with Sister Diane, my spiritual director in Edenbridge. After we had chatted Sister Diane thought this  reading from Chardin would be helpful; I share this as I think it connects with the ‘waiting’ stuff I shared at CMS and in my last post:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God

We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end withour delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of progress
that it is made by passing through
some states of instability —
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually — let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and cirsumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

totally present

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Today was a good day. Today I joined people at CMS and was the speaker at today’s Pioneer Witness.  The website explains this as ‘‘Pioneer Witness’ is a unique learning opportunity where Pioneers will share their stories face-to-face and give us the chance to question, listen and learn.’

I enjoyed the experience of sharing my story and answering peoples questions … but the session has also resulted in myself having a chance to question to listen and to learn and not only from the other people there!

As I planned for this session I was plunged back into remembering what is was like in the early days. It seems such a while ago and it is really difficult to believe the extent of loneliness I experienced and the real hardship of stuff in the early days when I used to sit i places and feel uncomfortable or ill at ease due to the reactions of others. I quoted the following from my training journal from the first few months which made up the content of my first year assignment which outlined a series of ‘exchanges’ between myself and God:

Dear God, Thank you for calling me to this role. Today, however, I have an issue. I got home and Sarah asked me ‘What have you done today?’ This may seem a perfectly innocent question, and indeed it was, but it has plunged me into quite a cloud of uncertainty. When I  attempt to answer Sarah’s question I have nothing to offer. The answer is quite plainly ‘nothing’. I have sat in Wetherspoons in Rochester with my dog collar on and waited to see what will happen. Today, nothing happened. Much of the time ‘nothing’ happens. I arrive, I order my coffee, I sit in a comfy sofa and I wait.  God, I have been doing this for months and I am starting to wonder what it is that I am waiting for! I feel disorientated, confused and have no purpose. I feel lonely, anonymous and have been rebuffed and ridiculed. I feel as if I am in a new country as everything around me has changed. 

The pain of those few months is fairly evident in that short statement. I have thought for a while that no one really talkes about the pain and struggle of starting up … the nothingness of ministry and the vacuum that can be created by simply waiting. People like to share the good stuff, the exciting stuff and the stuff that makes ‘pioneer ministry’ seem exciting and sexy …. and yet a lot of what we do is the simple hard graft of work and ministry that everyone else does. A difference might be that pioneers are misunderstood that bit more! Maybe I should write a book about all this stuff!

I also shared today that in those early days while struggling with waiting that I came across Vanstone’s ‘The Stature of Waiting‘ which had a lot of good stuff in it, notably for me at the time these words about waiting:
‘Waiting can be the most poignant of all human experiences – the experience which, above all others, strips you of affection and self deception and reveals to you the reality of your needs your values and yourself.’
The waiting was very necessary to my ministry with the people I came across.  During the waiting I do believe I learned more about myself and my values. I realised in great pain how I need to work with others and not just because it is a good idea but because I NEED to work with others. The waiting also revealed to me the masks of titles that I had allowed myself to hide behind … titles of jobs, titles within YFC and titles within the church. Waiting helped me discover more about the Rob that God had created …. as well as learn more about this new community I was placed within.

After talking for a little while we had around 40 minutes of questions, all of which helped me to think more, i concluded with a quote from John Taylor’s Primal Vision. Seriously if you have not read this book, which I believe is a classic book that should be read by everyone interested in mission, then you need to do so. Taylor writes from the perspective of believing that we should listen and learn from the indigenous culture while seeing ourselves as guests. I read this quote regulalrly to challenge and question myself and can even tell you this quote is on page 136. I leave this with you in the hope it may challenge and be a support to you in the way it has to me, and may we be delivered from that air of professionalism that renders us ‘not all there’:

‘The Christian has nothing to offer unless he offers to be present, really and totally present, really and totally in the present. The failure of so many professional Christians has been that they are not all there.’

 

rhythm service

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It was a real pleasure, honour and exciting to join with Moot last night for their annual Rhythm of Life service.

Moot were great at their normal hospitality and welcome, the Bishop of London was very encouraging in his words.

As the community made their commitments to the the rhythm of life there were two particularly poignant and challenging moments. Each person of Moot knelt before the bishop, was handed a cross and then the Bishop prayed for them individually. This was a very powerful moment of mutual commitment to pray and journey together.

This was followed by the Bishop giving Ian his licence as priest in charge of St Mary Aldermary. I observed two friends in the faith sharing something deep and moving; a moment of trust, acceptance, encouragement and commissioning. As I looked around I found it was not only myself fighting to keep back tears at this very special moment.

So … continue to hold Moot in your prayers … and Moot   – thank you for allowing us to travel with you as well! On a personal note to be back at Moot was special … and I must get back in the routine of joining more often!

Hero or Zero

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There is a great and free event coming up at the cathedral … well in the Garth, the cathedral garden. The play, ‘Charles Dickens – Hero or Zero’, is a new play written by Alis Hawkins.

Our publicity says: Charles Dickens – great man of nineteenth century literature, social reformer, outstanding example of the Victorian family man – in short, a National Treasure. But National Treasures have private lives and, in Dickens’ case, he made sure it stayed private.

So, imagine what would happen if the real Charles Dickens were to appear before a live studio audience to be interviewed, if his family and friends were to paint a picture of the real Charles Dickens – flawed father, flawed husband, flawed man?

Be part of the LIVE audience – listen to those who knew Charles Dickens best, and see episodes from his life. Seeing both the best and the worst of the author you thought you knew, at the end you will have the opportunity to cast your vote – was Charles Dickens, hero or zero?

There are only 4 chances to see this … you want to make sure you are there on one of them!

a place for all

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Following the ‘new era’ post yesterday you can read the new Dean’s installation sermon here over at his new blog, 604 and all that.

Two encouraging, challenging and exciting but realistic comments : ‘…So what is this place for? It is a place where all people, regardless of all the false and divisive barriers that men and women erect to protect themselves; where all people can gather, explore and encounter the things of God……This will not always be safe and it will not always be comfortable but by living in this way we will be true to the calling of Jesus, true to our Benedictine inheritance and will be living witnesses to our faith in both word and deed….’

But … go … read them in context!