Oh my friends, thank you so much for your wonderful supportive responses to my last post. You really are a huge blessing...Consider yourselves hugged, one and all.
I'm still not sure where I am with this intellectually. I am inclined as a rule to pray as Emily does, offering God lots of helpful options (or are they get-out clauses?) and would do this for sure if I were praying aloud with R and co. ( Songbird, we'll use the prayers at Morning Prayer, which generally only the vicar and I attend...so they will be prayed aloud, but privately) On the other hand, I worry too that, as Mary said, I'm thereby "fettering judicial discretion", and expressing a lamentable lack of faith.There are some further complicated issues around the whole thing (not least the fact that R's tentative approach towards God is not popular with all of her family), but there isn't really any option about praying in some way, is there? In fact, I suspect that praying and praying and praying some more is really what I'm called to in this, and being prepared to offer as much practical love as I can to accompany that.*
I SO don't believe that God allows our lack of faith to limit his responses to prayer, though, Liz. I wouldn't try to love and serve a God that worked that way, - not for a moment. We both know lots of situations in which we've not had the "right" result, and we know too that's nothing to do with lack of committment to the prayer...nor, I'm sure, is it indicative of a capricious God who doesn't love us as much as we want him to. It just is a mystery...but mostly one in which I'm content to rest, trusting that it will all make sense ultimately.
*Just after typing that, I read an email from a friend in the congregation who had dropped in here, and suggested that we should pray but also get a ramp to enable R to cope with the steps around the church....which strikes me as a pretty perfect illustration of prayer plus action! Clearly, going "live" with my blog was a Good Idea!
4 comments:
:)
posted on previous slot, before noticing this great and immediate answer to prayer.
faith and deeds, and deeds and faith.
thank you God
just reading what your bish said about confirmation
Q: doesn’t Confirmation make you a full member of the Church
A: not really…what it does is enable you to confirm your own commitment and we ask God to confirm the grace He has already given you at Baptism. You cannot be adopted TWICE!!
oh I love this :)
if he shows any inclination of wanting time in Finland, do send him my way pronto :) thanks
Over recent years the churches I work in have installed ramps, loop systems, bought large-print and Braille bibles and hymn-books, and in many other ways tried to ensure that no one is disadvantaged. All this before the Disability Discrimination Act required us to do it.
Didn’t Jesus encourage us to invite the poor the crippled, the lame and the blind to God’s party (Luke 14)?
How you can imagine you’re doing such a wonderful thing, in installing a ramp, when you’re only now starting to catch up with what the rest of the Christian world has been doing for years (and what the law already requires you to do), is beyond me.
I know I'm probably being silly to engage with Fatima MC, who has visited before with less than totally friendly intent, but I did want to stress that actually we do have loops, large print and disabled access to all of the church that is generally used by worshippers...The ramp we mentioned is to enable access to the vestries, so that R in the wheelchair can choose her own cake for tea, rather than waiting for someone to bring her a selection. I'm sorry if it sounded as if I thought we were making huge concessions in considering this, it's SO not the case....and R and I have actually done an accessibility audit together very recently, to confirm that nearly everything is fine.
Sorry to respond, but I felt it important to make clear that our church is not only accessible but actually quite focussed on this one.
Post a Comment