secrets heard?

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I change the blogs and sites I look at from time to time. I don’t know how, but I managed to stop following Post Secret and forget all about this amazing site until recently. If you have been following SHP for a few years you will remember I have blogged about this before and even bought the (well one of the) book(s) which is a beautiful book to leaf through.

For those of you who have not come across Post Secret, the site came out of a community arts project where Frank Warren invited people to mail their secrets, anonymously, on a postcard. The project ended but the postcards kept coming and so Warren developed a website which now publishes some of the postcard secrets each Sunday.

I guess my attention has been drawn back to Post Secret as I think more about confession and forgiveness. Some of the postcards certainly seem to have a confessional element to them. Others are celebrations and some are pleas (a bit like the one I have shown in the pic which makes me feel a bit sad). People go to great lengths to be creative in expressing their secret some of which must take great courage to even put into writing. There is also, I think, something about the vulnerability of the artists in this as there is at least some risk that they will be recognised by a reader.

I guess a big question I ask is ‘why?’

Why do people send in their secrets?
Why are these people exposing themselves to risk of exposure?
Why do people take such great care to be part of this online community of secret sharers?
What are these people hoping to achieve?
Is it, as Warren suggests, part of a coping or a healing process?
What is it about writing a secret on a postcard and sending it to someone you do not know that has become so ‘popular’ and helpful to some people.
Some of the secrets are confession like, others are celebrations … all are shared openly, I assume, because
the person wants to express them and wishes for them to be seen and heard.

There are no doubt more questions that I should be asking, and quite a myriad of possible answers.
As I think on this whole area, and chat with people, I am coming to think that part of the answer is a combination of sharing something with another human being and simply being heard. But … is there a spiritual element to this too …. that’s the question I need to dwell on more!

photo Friday: contrast

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this weeks entry over on Photo Friday

what’s ludicrous today ….

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This tweet from Roy (re-tweeted from ship of fools) made me smile thoughtfully today:


‘Galileo was born today, 1564. He championed the ludicrous idea that the earth goes round the sun. Thankfully, the Church put him right!!’


It is quite scary that those in authority in the church thought they were so so right in condemning Galileo. His idea seemed madness to the extent that he was tried by the Inquisition and found guilty of heresy and placed under house arrest.

I find it interesting that we look at that now and wonder how the church could have been so wrong. Were they missing the big picture? Were they scared of the new? Were they just closed to a new idea that they themselves had not had? Was it simply because the bible did not say  ‘the sun is at the centre of the universe’ that it could not, therefore, be right!

The comment made me smile; but it also concerns me. What is the church condemning today which future people will look back at in disbelief?

you matter!

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Today is St. Valentines Day and some will be eagerly awaiting the postman, some will be excited, some will be puzzled, some will be disappointed.

We seem to know very little about St Valentine and there is even some suggestion that this day may have been used to celebrate a number of saints. We do know a little more about Cupid who is also associated with today.

I was challenged yesterday  in the excellent sermon from Justine, vice principal of SEITE. Today is a day to remind someone that they matter.

temples alone but church together

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I really enjoyed the gathering today. Lots of people were involved in the creation of what happened and I really love this as it means that i am always made to think differently about something. Unusually for us we took just one verse, 1 Corinthians 6:19, to look at today and particularly asked ourselves what does the text really mean when he says our bodies are temples.

We chatted and shared a lot, but two ideas came out of our discussing that I have been thinking about for the rest of the day. The first came from the idea that tempes were built by people as places for their gods to show off. The building was dedicated to a particular god and everything about the building was an expression of worship to that God. This was a place to show off for the god.

If my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit how do I show that off?

During our time together we set the task of getting ourselves into a living sculture of a temple. This was a creative and funny time but also challenging. It became very clear very quickly that we needed each other to help illustrate everything we thought a temple should display … things such as love, worship of a king, a saviour, a creator, trinity …. and the list could go on.

We are temples alone, but we are the church together and need each other to be able to more fully express the love of God.

I think today marked a change in outlook for the gathering in how we work with each other and express together the love of Christ …. I look forward to where we may be going next!

photo FRiday: Breath taking

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a shot taken in the cascades .. better image here.

entered for this weeks photo friday

love god-love yourself-love others

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After my KCME training session earlier this week (which was good) I was able to pop to London to spend 90 minutes with Ian Mobsby, my mentor, in the new home of Moot at St. Mary Aldermary.

We were able to have a good discussion on where I am with what is happening and how the gathering is taking shape. For me its invaluable having Ian being able to input from his wealth of experience while looking at the gathering from the outside. In many ways it is like a life line as Ian not only understands what I am saying, he seems to have an idea of how I am feeling because he has experienced this stuff himself.

We spoke a bit about the expression of Jesus’ commandment in Matthew 22 of loving God, loving ourselves and loving others. This tied in really, I guess, with myself wondering what, as the gathering, our mission should be? It became clear that we aspire to love God through our worship, we believe that we will be able to try to love others through our mission (whatever that may be) … but we can’t do any of that until we start to love ourselves.

Jesus says in that passage above ‘love others as you love yourselves’. I wondered when looking at that afresh – ‘how do we love ourselves?’ … or maybe the question is ‘do we love ourselves?’ Before we can love others it would seem that we need to be able to love ourselves. So, as the gathering, we need to learn how to love ourselves before we are able to love others. Or, to turn that around, we will find it extremely difficult to love others if we dont love ourselves first.

I’m going to raise this tomorrow at the gathering as I think this is something quite key to our development as a missional community … if we want to love others we need to love ourselves … so we need to wonder what can the gathering be doing to help that. As the theme is ‘our bodies as temples’ then it may well fit in quite well.

‘its about letting go’

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I saw Black Swan this week … quite a disturbing film which I think explores how one persons desire to achieve perfection can have a serious impact on their perception of reality with subsequent consequences for how they treat themselves.

I think this movie explores idolatry in that this persons whole life is made up of performing the ‘perfect’ dance. The desire for perfection consumes her whole life so that, in some perverse way, she ends up being interested in nothing else …. a kind of worship of herself in the role.

This worship of herself, or her role, causes her to lose all sense of reality so that she finally starts to disregard her body which was the initial object of her worship.

At some point in the film when Nina is talking about perfection she is told that ‘perfection is not just about control. It’s about letting go. Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. Transcendence! Very few have it in them!


In her endeavour to lose control and ‘be perfect’ she transcends reality.

I guess the saddest thing about the film for myself, as a Christian, is that the person was already perfect, not simply perfect as a dancer but also made perfect by Creator God. She was striving for something that she already had … but simply failed to see what others saw.

I think I know a few people like that too.

sometimes …

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I led the Taize Prayer at the cathedral on Sunday night. This is a short, contemplative service which I love due to its simplicity and space to dwell with God. I also love the fact we are now holding this in the nave of the cathedral which means the place does look quite stunning because of the candles.

The theme this month was prayer and I was made to think by this writing of henri Nouwen:

There are as many ways to pray as there moments in life. Sometimes we seek out a quiet spot and want to be alone, sometimes we look for a friend and want to be together. Sometimes we like a book, sometimes we prefer music. Sometimes we want to sing out with hundreds, sometimes only whisper with a few. Sometimes we want to say it with words, sometimes with a deep silence. In all these moments, we gradually make our lives more of a prayer and we open our hands to be led by God even to places we would rather not go.

Taize is held on the first Sunday of the month at 8.00pm in the cathedral … why not check out the next one.

racing around

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The weekend, well Saturday, has been a hectic one with me racing to different parts of the diocese.

It started with speaking about my role at a prayer breakfast at St. Augustines Bromley Common. It was a great breakfast and the conversations I had with people before I spoke were excellent as well. The people there seemed very interested and had some very good questions. (Thanks Kev for the opportunity)

I then hopped in the car to join Diocesan Synod which was being held in St. John’s Tunbridge Wells to again talk about my role as part of the Mission and Unity report. This was a good opportunity for me to share the reality of my role and what I have been doing for the last 2 years. I think that one of the downside of the Fresh Expressions marketing is that pioneer ministry is seen by some as exciting and full of fun … it’s ‘sexy’ ministry as someone in the diocese said to me not that long ago. I ended my report by sharing that this is the hardest thing I have ever had to do (even harder than working with knife carrying gangs when we did detached youth work!) and that most of the time I felt vulnerable, isolated, tired …. in other words pioneer ministry is just hard work like any other ministry and work. But … this is what I am called to and I love it! (Thanks Jean and Paul for the opportunity)

I think the people there ‘got’ what I was trying to share and I was certainly encouraged by comments afterwards.

After synod I jumped back in the car to race (well …. as far as you can race in a Citroen C1!!) back to GIllingham and arrived in time to watch Gills unluckily score a 0-0 draw against Oxford before then heading for the cathedral to be quiz master at the cathedral quiz …. which was a good way to end a long day with lots of laughter and banter! (So … finally thanks for the opportunity there Lynn and Colin!