The woman speaks - Lent 3A at St Matthew's

It was just an ordinary day: hot, tiring, and very very lonely. Life is hard here. People don't like me, because I'm different. My life has taken many an unexpected turn, and events have left their scars...I know I don't fit in....and my neighbours make that very obvious.

When I go to the market for fruit the other women call their children to them, draw back themselves into the shelter of their homes...When I go to fetch water, I'm excluded from the friendly team work that makes light work of the heaving of those precious gallons from deep within the earth.

I'm not part of their group. I don't belong here and I don't really know where home is anymore.

Well, now I come to think about it, things may actually have changed here...There's a rather different atmosphere since that day.

But not then...not when I set out. You see, I couldn't bear the sudden silence that always fell upon any group I chanced upon, so gradually I'd began to shun the company of others even as they shunned me.It meant a few adjustments in the daily routine, like going for water at noon.Not the best use of time and resources – and yet, if I hadn't, I would never have met him.

So, there I was, trudging to the well....No way round it – any home needs water, many jars full each and every day...and somebody has to fetch it. And that someone is always and everywhere the woman...

But that day it seemed harder than usual. The sun beat down. The great jar weighed heavy and the distance to the well seemed to have doubled. My feet dragged along the dusty track, outside the walls of the village.

Outside.

Always outside...that's where life seemed to have thrown me. 

As I walked, I found myself mulling over the big questions once again, the ones that have you tossing and turning in the small hours.

“Why me? What's it all for? What if this is all there is?

I never thought I'd end up like this...

I feel such a failure! All my hopes and dreams turned to dust, as dry as the ground I'm walking on! I HATE my life! I hate what I've become.

Please God, there must be more - more to my life, more to me than this!”

I nearly spoke aloud – but I get enough looks askance as it is...so the words, the thoughts remained inside my head...

I rounded the corner and the well was in sight...

To my annoyance, there was someone there. A man, alone, rubbing tired feet and wiping sweat from his brow. He was bound to be bad news. I didn't recognise him, and I was sure he'd have nothing good to say to me, so when I got there I just carried on in silence, turning the handle, bringing up the bucket...weary work...

Of course, it didn't occur to him to help me. He was a man. I am a woman. End of story.

Except – he asked me for a drink...and when he spoke, it was with a Galilean accent. Then I noticed his prayer shawl

He, a Jew, asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink....

They say, don't they, that only mad dogs go out in the noonday sun...so clearly this man's mind had been touched by the sun...but all the same, I liked his voice...I stopped my work to reply

“Ummm....I don't think you'd want one from me. I'm a Samaritan. You're a Jew. We don't mix. History, you know...”

And then it happened. The conversation changed...We seemed still to be standing in that ordinary, everyday world...but somehow words had new meanings, simple exchanges were charged with extraordinary significance.

“If you asked me, I could give you living water...”

What could he mean? You didn't find living water, clear, running water in a well....Up in the mountains there might be a spring like that, but nothing for miles around here...

Well water was the best we could do...and at least it was wholesome here

Then he went on

“I could give you water that protects you from thirst forever.”

I knew then that our conversation had moved beyond buckets and water jars...He was talking about something different. I didn't understand him, but I knew that I wanted what he was offering more than life itself...

“Oh yes please....” I begged...

“An end to this daily slog...Refreshment whenever I need it....Oh, I long for that”

I stood staring at him, everything I was focussed intently on his face...Surely this was going to be a moment of transformation.

Living water...

But then he brought me back to earth

“Go and get your husband!” he said

“My husband?”

How did he know?

Much married, I am...I'm not going to say more than that, - but the man living in my home at the moment isn't a husband, that's for sure.

Why did this Galilean with the kind eyes have to bring that up?

Was he, after all, just another accomplice of the jeering villagers?

I flushed and looked away, mumbling “I don't have a husband”

But his response...Oh....I knew as he spoke to me that he was seeing into my heart, into my soul...that everything I had done, and that others had done to me, everything I'd longed to be, every dream I'd cherished, every tear I had shed, everything was open to him......that he saw it all, and accepted me just exactly as I was.

I didn't know who or what he was...but I could tell he was special...By telling me who I really am, he’d also shown me who he really was.

“You're a prophet, sir...Help me to understand who's got religion right. Does God prefer one style of worship to another...Should we worship him in the beauty of creation, over on the mountain side, or give of our best labour to make a splendid home for him? What should we do?”

“Wait...” he answered...”God's bigger than that....bigger than worship styles...bigger than churches, Temples, bigger even than creation. God is greater than your biggest imaginings...God is Spirit so you must worship in Spirit and in Truth”

Such huge words. Such huge concepts. I was out of my depth now, almost drowning in those living waters...Floundering, I remembered the age-old promise that one would come to save us...

“The Messiah...that's who we need”

And then,he spoke these heart-stopping words

“I AM”

And, do you know, as I stood there I believed him. No doubt anywhere. This was it. I believed so passionately that suddenly I longed for everyone in that unkind village to know for themselves....

There were some men coming, more strangers...it was time for me to make myself scarce...but now I was a woman with a mission. I left my jar there by the well, the hard won water sparkling at the brim....It didn't matter. Not compared with this.

EVERYONE must come and hear this amazing man...the man who knew me for what I truly am....who saw the secrets of my heart....the man whose words have given me a new purpose.

I was so tired of the treadmill, so thirsty for meaning that day...and suddenly, there it was...

Answers to every question, comfort for every pain, endless refreshment for mind and spirit....

The Messiah met by chance by a well in a small village in Samaria.

God in the ordinary, turning my world upside down.

In all things thee to see – some reflections on George Herbert and the life of faith 1: tuning the instrument

Today I found myself in the daunting position of leading a quiet day for my clergy colleagues in the deanery - at the beautiful Bernardine monastery of Our Lady and St Bernard at Brownshill. I'm never quite comfortable presuming to "lead" my peers - but I did enjoy revisiting some of my earlier writing and thinking about Herbert to provide three addresses - with a good long gap between.

28 years ago, I ran our of funding and reluctantly abandoned a PhD with the snappy title

“The use of musical imagery in the poetry of George Herbert as a metaphor for the human relationship with God”

My 1^st degree was in English lit and I began my explorations from an agnostic literary viewpoint, but I found that it was well-nigh impossible to linger amid what Herbert describes as “the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul” without absorbing at least some hint of the divine. In fact, it was through the heady mixture of Herbert, Lancelot Andrewes and a daily dose of Choral Evensong that God drew me to him – so agnosticism didn't stand a chance!

Fast forward 2 decades and my friend Justin Lewis Anthony published abook, advocating a healthier approach to parish ministry, with the dramatic, even provocative title

“If you meet George Herbert on the road – KILL HIM!”

Justin had succumbed to the view of Herbert as the model of priestly perfection, a devoted pastor whose writings in “The Country Parson” have provided ample ammunition for stressed clergy to use against themselves for far too long. Herbert was quite blatant about it

“The country parson desires to be all things to his parish”

he wrote – before cataloguing every desirable gift, from teaching and preaching to pharmacopia – so it's small wonder that most of us would simply roll our eyes and walk away at top speed. All of this, together with the suspicion that you already think you know Herbert's work pretty well, makes me decidedly dubious about asking you to listen to me today.

But I'm not wholly apologetic about inviting you to engage with the poetry of Herbert afresh...As I said, spending time with him was an important stage in my own faith journey – Though we might tend to think that he was such a sunny soul that his writings have little to say to us in a world where ministry has changed almost beyond recognition and the life of faith is rarely sweet and easy, he might just surprise you. Even those hymns which we sing most regularly include traces of a darker reality – mess and mystery, God's absence causing disorder and jarring dis-ease in place of harmony and grace. The fact that we encounter him most often when we sing his words as hymns means that the tune can subvert the meaning of the poem...So, in

“King of Glory, King of peace” (Praise 1) we pass smoothly over his painful consciousness of guilt. We chorus obediently

“Though my sins against me cried” but never stop to consider that feeling of contending with an army of rioting inner voices that threaten to drown out the the faltering voice of the person we aspire to be...Herbert's sins are witnesses for the prosecution as he finds himself on trial – and though we move swiftly on to celebrate the mercy God shows as judge “Thou didst clear me” this doesn't completely resolve the preceding tumult. We are carried on the gentle tune past the frantic desperation of a writer wracked with sobs as we sing cheerfull “thou didst note my working breast” - and barely pause for breath ourselves at all! The tranquil cadences of tune and rhyme working together seem to guarantee that peace is a foregone conclusion – but the lived experience is nothing like as tidy or harmonious. Perhaps this is why Herbert writes poetry, rather than simply journalling his inner struggles...No stranger to the dark night of the soul, to God as the great Absentee

(“Thy absence doth excell all distance known” he wrote in The Search) his constant quest is to arrange the chaotic jangling human experience so that he has some sense of control and order, creating harmony in metre and rhyme at least, as a way of holding unruly feelings in check.

That idea of harmony is crucial to Herbert's personal faith...Again and again he uses music as a metaphor for our relationship with the Creator...In our prayer and praise we catch the faintest echo of the everlasting song of heaven – but so very often our lives are out of tune..creating unwelcome discord where there should be peace and concord. This is very real to Herbert, whose sense of his own sin is as keen as his vision of the overarching perfection of God in creation....

I think that sometimes the perfection of his verse makes us miss the sense of painful aspiration. He so wanted to live a holy life – and was so consistently appalled by his continuing sinfulness: ‘I could not use a friend as I use thee’; - he says to God...

Like St Paul he is challenged by his own confusion and inconsistency, as he repeatedly does not do the good that he longs to...

‘I will complain, yet praise;/

I will bewail, approve:/

And all my sour-sweet days/

I will lament, and love.’;

Sometimes, it seems that God is absent, forsaking Herbert as surely as he forsook the psalmist. So in Denial, we encounter the poet is knocking urgently on heaven's gate – but seeming to find nobody at home, and here even the semblance of an ordered world is lost. Instead we share a sustained experience of doubt and abandonment that is frightening in its intensity

When my devotions could not pierce

Thy silent ears,

Then was my heart broken, as was my verse;

My breast was full of fears

And disorder.

My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow,

Did fly asunder:

Each took his way; some would to pleasures go,

Some to the wars and thunder

Of alarms.

“As good go anywhere,” they say,

“As to benumb

Both knees and heart, in crying night and day,

Come, come, my God, O come!

But no hearing.”

O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue

To cry to thee,

And then not hear it crying! All day long

My heart was in my knee,

But no hearing.

Therefore my soul lay out of sight,

Untuned, unstrung:

My feeble spirit, unable to look right,

Like a nipped blossom, hung

Discontented.

O cheer and tune my heartless breast,

Defer no time;

That so thy favors granting my request,

They and my mind may chime,

And mend my rhyme.

This is no mere intellectual struggle but an agonised lament, in which his whole being is caught up in chaotic earthquake of emotion...So, the structure of the poem breaks down too...Try and work out the rhythm of the piece and you'll see what I mean...His heart is broken, his breast full of fears. Here, knees and heart are numb with crying out day and night to God -"My heart was in my knee" -but still God is silent and unresponsive. The final line of verse 3 "But no hearing"is repeated in verse 4. Nothing the poet can say or do seems to pierce God’s "silent ears" – silent because they are stopped to the pleas of distraught humanity – but also embodying the divine silence the poet experiences. Further, it is God who has given mortal man (verse 4) the capacity to cry to God, and then not to hear…Is God wantonly cruel? Where is he? What, oh WHAT, is going on? God invites us to share our deepest pain with him, and then seems impervious to our struggles – busy with something more interesting, like the infinitely various designs of a snowflake perhaps. It seems monstrously unfair that in the penultimate verse the soul is seen to be laid aside, a broken viol abandoned in a corner "Untuned, unstrung"....

Does God have no use for it, for us, after all?

In her commentary on this poem, Helen Wilcox sees the coming together of the musical metaphor and the metaphor of war of verse 2: an unstrung bow cannot even send arrow prayers.

In the last verse, the narrative of the rest of the poem is replaced by a prayer that God will indeed meet with the soul and bring tune and harmony. Herbert finally allows harmony to come in the rhyming sequence:disjointed rhyme in the first five verses is replaced by a rhyming last line in the last verse. The final order in the words mirrors the new order to be found by the soul:outer form and inner spirit find harmony. and desolation is redeemed as Herbert once again celebrates a convergence of his mind with God's.

So a troubled and troublesome period is brought to a tidy conclusion but that, in itself, doesn't make Herbert helpful reading for those striving to find God in all situations, whether of pain or of joy. What does matter, though, is that even in the times of darkness when God's absence is the one certainty, Herbert keeps the one-way conversation going. Again and again he offers us the experience found most profoundly in the psalms of lament -the dogged refusal to leave God alone, the insistence on asking the question “Why” again and again, even when there seems no evidence at all that there is anyone there to answer. For Herbert, as for the psalmist, silence is just not an option. We are designed to communicate with God, to tune our prayers to his melody even if it is set in the darkest key.

I'm reminded of the story of the rabbis who met in the wake of the Holocaust to determine who was to blame...Was it God, or man? They argued and debated while day turned to evening, evening night and night dawn. Finally they agreed that there was no escaping God's culpability. A deep and despairing silence fell. At length, one of their number welaked over to the window and drew back the blind.

“Look,” he said “the sun has risen. It's time to worship God.”

There is nothing else.

To whom else shall we go. You have the words of eternal life....

Letting Go...

is never going to be my strongest suit.

My poor patient children know that, while I am absolutely OK with their absence once they've gone and delight in their independence and the new worlds that they inhabit - (and love that they invite me into their lives and bring home "travellers' tales" too) - nonetheless in the days and hours before they leave the vicarage, I dissolve into tears pretty much whenever I look at them. I'm rubbish -RUBBISH-  at Goodbyes of any kind - so I've known for a while that these last weeks at Cainscross were going to be hard.

I've thought mostly in terms of leaving beloved people behind - the frail elderly whose final journey I won't be part of, the babies I baptised who will start school in September with another priest leading collective worship, and those families who aren't securely anchored in the church, but who clearly value our presence so much as part of the community. I was Deacon at our parish Eucharist this morning, which gave me plenty of opportunity to look at the faithful congregation as they came up to the altar rail...so many lovely people with whom I've celebrated, wept, and just got on with the business of being church, week in, week out. It was very hard not to weep as I realised that we're now into single figures in the count-down of weeks before I go...that in just 2 months time, I'll be in another place entirely. 
As I say, I'm rubbish at Goodbyes.

Last week as I sat quietly in the church while others walked our Lenten labyrinth, I found myself saying "Goodbye" to the building - a space that has turned out to be far more flexible and accepting of change than it had ever appeared. Though it initially seemed limited by its firmly fixed pews, it's the space in which I have not simply broken bread and washed feet, celebrated new life and wept over untimely death, but also  the studio where amazing art was created by Messy Church families, the backdrop for adventures in alternative worship, and the place where I've simply sat still and waited for God. Actually, that quiet hour in the building was helpful as I reflected on those names that precede mine on the vicars' board...a line of men stretching back 177 years, who have, in different ways, tried to do what I too have attempted. In the space and silence I remembered that people do come and go, but the great Story continues...that regardless of what happens within the Church of England and the deanery of Stroud, God's people will still gather somewhere hereabouts to pray and worship, to share bread and wine and encounter Christ in word and sacrament.

But the thing I hadn't allowed for was the difficulty of setting aside my dreams and hopes and longings for the future of the church. I hope and pray I haven't fallen victim to the clerical vice of needing to "leave my mark". I've always known that ministry is in no way about me - that I'm here for a season to serve God and his people as best I can, and then move on to let another carry on the work in a new way....but however much I know that rationally, of course I've invested huge chunks of myself in the life of our church family, and most particularly in building links between church and community. 
Today was our APCM and already I can see cracks in a veneer that I had thought was solid wood. Perhaps my vision for the future was never the "right" one for this community. Perhaps I was guilty of imposing an agenda that was not God's, or of trying to make the church something that did not reflect its true self. I can't judge that, but certainly, if people were only running with my agenda to please me, it never stood a chance of surviving my time here...

Still and all, it's quite hard to let go.
It's another sort of bereavement - letting go of a future that I'll have no part in, without any certainty of what it might look like for a community I've loved and cherished as best I can during our 6 years together.
Time to remember the words that I share with bereaved families as we gather each year for our "Journey On" service
"Our past is wrapped up in the arms of God, and of our future he WILL take care".
If I can believe that for myself - and it's fair to say that I mostly can - then I must be able to do so for my church family too. Just another lesson in trust, then!

Disciplined hope for the Church

It was 20 years ago today...that my youngest son was teething, restless and miserable. 
Most of the normal soothing routines had failed to have an impact so we resorted to switching on our ancient black and white t.v. It was scarcely dynamic entertainment but perhaps the combination of other voices and the somewhat unreliable picture would divert him for a while. It was mid afternoon, I think - I was trying to do the ironing, the other children were hanging about the playroom...and suddenly everything stopped for me.

As we watched, history was being made and we found ourselves sharing in the ordination service from Bristol Cathedral. 32 women, called by God and finally, finally ordained to the work and office of a priest in His Church.
I was just beginning my Reader training and had no thought that this calling might be mine as well - but as I watched I found myself crying, without any idea of why.
Always enthusiastic hymn-singers, the older children joined me in boosting the Cathedral congregation.
My husband came in, and he too stopped in his tracks.
We looked at one another and at our baby son, happy in his bouncy chair now things were going on around him
"Isn't it wonderful" I said "that he will grow up in a Church that places no distinction between women and men, that honours all callings equally. He'll never know about the barriers that kept women from living out their vocations. All that has gone for good"

I wish that were true.
I wish that the Church in which I work today had reached the point where women and men could offer themselves as they are, in all their rich variety - with all their gifts, vulnerabilities, hopes, dreams and longings - and know that they were welcome. 
I long for the Church would be no more exclusive than is the God whose love that Church exists to share...but in the meantime, I'm thankful for those who worked and prayed and pushed and prayed and wept and prayed so that when I finally removed the fingers that I had kept steadfastly in my ears, I could walk straight through the door that they had opened. 
And I'm going to keep on dreaming.

I dream of a church that joins in with God’s laughing
as she rocks in her rapture, enjoying her art;
she’s glad of her world, in its risking and growing;
‘tis the child she has born and holds close to her heart.

I dream of a church that joins in with God’s weeping
as she crouches, wedged down by the sorrow she sees:
she cries for the hostile, the cold and no-hoping,
for she bears in herself our despair and dis-ease.

I dream of a church that joins in with God’s dancing
as she moves like the wind and the wave and the fire:
a church that can pick up its skirts, pirouetting,
with the steps that can signal God’s deepest desire.

I dream of a church that joins in with God’s loving
as she bends to embrace the unlovely and lost,
a church that can free, by its sharing and daring,
the imprisoned and poor, and then shoulder the cost.

God, make us a church that joins in with your living,
as you cherish and challenge, rein in and release,
a church that is winsome, impassioned, inspiring;
lioness for your justice and lamb of your peace.

-- Kate Compston

Disciplined Hope

Flat out for the past 3 days, so my "Disciplined hope" blogging is coming in a thoroughly undisciplined lump...
However, there were some very special moments - so perhaps it's worth it.

Friday saw "Cardboard City", a sponsored sleep-out in the church-yard of St Lawrence, our town centre church, in aid of MARAH - the homeless support charity of which I'm currently a trustee.
The event was designed to raise awareness as much as to raise money - and was quite staggeringly moving, in the end.
I'd not really thought through how it might feel to worship with 30 assorted people who had voluntarily agreed to spend the night in a cold churchyard, simply to show that they cared. As we sang and prayed and heard a cracking sermon " As Christians we stand in unconditional solidarity with the poor and marginalised" I realised that for once, the Church was living up to her calling. As I watched the group of voluntary rough-sleepers straggle out of the church, their homes bundled up in bin bags for the night, I glimpsed for a moment what that sort of costly solidarity could be like - and it was so utterly beautiful.
God stands in solidarity with us - showing us how it is done. To see a Church responding....wow!

Saturday was a much gentler day - if you leave aside the fact that it lasted through the hours of the Cardboard City Prayer Vigil so that by the time I arrived at St Matthew's coffee morning the following morning I'd already had nearly enough of Saturday! However, there were signs of hope - above all, the Y3 whom I'm to baptise in a couple of weeks - who brought him mum along to the coffee morning, so that they could begin to learn what it might feel like to be part of the church family. His contact has been entirely through school - so their presence in the church hall amid our elderly regulars was a huge affirmation not only of W's longing to belong but of the strengthening ties between church and school that have been so much part of my work here.

And then came Sunday - with 5 baptisms - 4 for my delightful neighbours opposite, whose 3 daughters and infant son joined the Church this afternoon. Here the sign of hope came from M., aged 5, whose enthusiasm for the whole proceedings was such that her answer to all the questions was, again and again, with ever increasing volume and joy "YES"
By the time we got to "Do you believe in the Holy Spirit who gives life to the people of God and makes Christ known in the world" I was encouraging everyone to abandon the script and just shout along with Molly  "YES, YES, YES". It's not often that a baptism candidate is so full of delight in the proceedings - she also asked for another go when one of her sisters seemed a bit dubious about the process. Oh for a church full of those whose response to God is "Yes, yes, YES!"

Disciplined hope - Lenten blogging begins

Today was my last "Bishop's Clergy Consultation & Training day" in Gloucester diocese...That's quite extraordinary, as after 20 years in ministry here (10 as a Reader, 10 since ordination) being part of the diocese seems rather like a synonym for ministry full stop. However, God cleiarly decided it was time I widened my horizons - and though I feel predictably sad at the prospect of leaving so many wonderful people and places where I have been so very happy, I've no doubt at all that the move to Coventry is in response to His call.

However, it was quite odd to realise that this was the last time I'd be part of this particular gathering...and I had high hopes of the day. Our speaker was +Stephen Croft, his topic "Evangelism and Nurturing Faith in 21st century" - and I came away with alot to ponder - not least the possibilities of the new "Pilgrim" course, which may be just what I need as I try to find new ways to nurture the Cathedral community in Coventry.

What struck me above all, though, was his emphasis on our need, wherever we are in the Church, to recover a sense of hope as a theological virtue. I'm all too familiar with the need to regard love as an act of will, a discipline rather than a warm and fuzzy feeling. Indeed, I say as much to every couple with whose wedding I'm involved - but somehow I had failed to make the transition from love to faith and hope. For me, hope had become mainly a feeling of fervent optimism - and not something to I focus on even when I feel no positive emotion at all.

But of course he's right. 
If we accept Paul's basic premise that 
"these three remain, - faith, hope and love" then hope must be a choice that we can make daily, a reflection of our confidence in God's endless love.
I'd been dithering gently over a suitable Lenten practice - but it seems to me that one has been presented to me on a plate in the faintly unlikely context of a clergy training day.

I will find at least one sign of hope every day - and will try to blog it, in word or picture, when I can.

Today's is a welcome counter to the despair I've been feeling in the past week over B. (aka S) a local alcoholic about whom I've blogged before. 
It was knowing him that propelled me into involvement with Marah, the trust that seeks to provide support for the homeless and vulnerable in our community - but B seems determined to shoot himself in the foot again and again, so that he is now excluded from virtually every kind of hostel and support scheme in the county. He spent last weekend sleeping in the church - but we all knew that this was no long-term solution - and it seems very hard to envisage any happy ending at all. 
However, when I turned up at the Presbytery for a Marah trustees' meeting, Fr Tom my RC colleague had a story full of hope to share.
He had been travelling to a funeral today, driving with the bearers in the hearse when one produced some money for the imminent "Cardboard City" sponsored sleep-out because, he said, he had once been a Marah client - but thanks to the intervention of wise and compassionate people he had made the journey from rough sleeping, through working as a volunteer in a homeless project in another place, to paid employment - and more than 10 years dry.
He told Fr Tom that his life had been completely turned around - because he had been shown that others had faith in him, that they refused to write him off as just one more alcoholic but saw his potential to change and grow.

I wonder if any of those involved in supporting him 14 years ago agined such a positive outcome. But they planted seeds of kindness that gradually bore fruit in a life transformed.
Something to inspire at the very least some fervent prayer - and the dawning of a faint hope even for B., and so many others like him.

Dust - some thoughts for Ash Wednesday 2014

How does today make you feel?

It might seem a wee bit gloomy, with its intimations of mortality.

The harsh reality of saying to each one of you

“Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return” is not something to undertake lightly – though the fact that it is said to me as well is a great thing.

We really are all in this together - this business of living – inhabiting our body, watching it change, grow, age...but it's very hard, I think, for any of us to believe that one day we too will die, even as with the passage of time we become more conscious of our bodies creaks and groans and the ills that flesh is heir to.

Next Ash Wednesday I won't be here with you. I imagine I'll be just up the road, in Coventry - but I don't really know.

Our journeys take us to unexpected places and sometimes take us by surprise in ways both good and bad

Remember, you are dust....

But – it's not just ANY mark that is made on our foreheads today.

It is the cross.

Ash Wednesday, with its reminder of our frail humanity, is balanced for each one of us by the resurrection hope that overflows at baptism.

On that day we are marked with Christ's cross – baptised into his death – so that we may each one of us share in his resurrection.

So, even as on All Souls day I read the Kontakion which finds joy in middle of mourning

“All we go down to the dust – yet weeping o'er the grave we make our song” , so today there is joy in the reminder that we are dust...

Yes, we are dust – but that dust is the stuff into which God, at creation, breathed the breath of life.

We are dust shaped by Him, - and that creative power which brought to life a substance that seemed so dead is still at work – and still brings the dead to life....again and again and again.

Dust – redeemed

Dust – transfigured

Dust – beloved of God

I've told you before of my friend Stu, who no longer uses the approved formula as he traces the cross in ash on the foreheads of his congregation.

Instead he speaks other words, words of Christ, to each kneeling soul

“I do not call you servants but friends”

“Abide in my love”

“God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son so that everyone who believes in him SHOULD NOT PERISH”

You are dust – but dust lightened with the life of Christ.

As we begin Lent, and try once more to re-orientate our lives so that they are more truly and fully Christ-shaped, remember that in all your fragility you are God's beloved.

“Rejoice, O dust and ashes

The Lord shall be thy part

His only, his forever

Thou shalt be and thou art...”

Thoughts for 8.00 on the Sunday before Lent

How's your vision? Mine's a bit ropey...in all sorts of ways. After a lifetime of wearing contact lenses for short-sightedness, then years when I could read fine if I took off my glasses, I'm beginning to realise that any day now I'll need to put ON reading glasses...so I've reverted to contacts once more. One way and another,I guess I've always been aware that vision isn’t something to take for granted,- and I'm sure that I often I fail to see things clearly, or recognise them for what they are.
Today we celebrate a moment in Jesus’s ministry when his identity became almost literally blindingly obvious. Even though we have left the season of Epiphany behind us, today we hear about a true epiphany – a moment of recognition that changed everything.

There on the mountain, everything that Peter, James and John had begun to suspect about their Master, became blazingly clear in the strong and mysterious light radiating from his body and face. The disciples were permitted a glimpse of God’s transcendent glory on the face of Jesus... For a brief moment, the veil which separates the invisible from the visible, the future from the present, was lifted, and everything was wonderfully clear. No room for any doubt...Jesus is THE ONE!
They had been prepared for this by a long tradition in Jewish Scriptures. Moses had his own direct visions of shining wonder, as he encountered God on the Mountain – and the reflected radiance was such that he had to veil his own face to protect others from the glare.

Now on another mountain the disciples saw Jesus emerging from that great tradition…speaking with Moses and Elijah, his glory outshining them both.
Moses could lead the way to the Promised Land, but couldn't enter himself. Elijah could enter the heavens, but could take no one else with him.

But something greater, someone greater is here.

Jesus not only leads the way, as the pioneer of our salvation, he is the way that allows the rest of us to reach home – and his presence makes this holy ground.

Unsurprisingly, the disciples both rise to the occasion and fall characteristically flat on their faces.

They can't miss what's going on, - but their response is way off key! Peter does it again, rushing in with both feet, intent on capturing the moment. He has recognised God here, in this place on this day,- so if he can only build the right structure, he is sure he’ll be able to guarantee God’s presence forever.

“Let’s build three booths….or a prayer hut…..a church...a Cathedrall”

Wherever we have once encountered God, we want to safeguard that encounter, to pour over it like a miser turning over his gold…when really we should turn from our encounters, our faces glowing like Moses, to our own task of enlivening and enlightening the world.

The Transfiguration is a beginning, a promise of what is to come, a vision of the glory we anticipate for the whole world once Jesus' redeeming work among us in complete.

But we can spot that glory here and now as well...if we only open our eyes. This week I've glimpsed it as I offered the Last Rites in a room full of loving family, gathered to say goodbye to their mum; in the way my housegroup rallied round to support ME as I struggled to deal with a rough sleeper, whom I know well, and for whom there really seems to be no happy ending; in the confidence with which an 8 year old asked me for baptism “Because I love God and I want to be like Jesus”.

Moments when the glory of God transforms our workaday reality...when we see for a moment that this world is brim full of His love, that changes everything.

But it's so very easy to miss those moments...Elizabeth Barrett Browning summed it up neatly

“Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,”

A colleague shared a story online about a friend of hers who suggested to his congregation one August that they might, during the “silly season” replace the sermon with a chance for one of them to share, for a few minutes, a moment when they had noticed God at work that week. He'd expected to do this just til the schools went back – but 8 months on they are rejoicing in the process week by week by week (even though it's now as well as, not instead of the sermon) – and getting progressively more and more excited at the stories of God at work in their lives and their community.

I wonder if you might like to try that...to spend time reflecting on that question “Where is God?” - not as a cry of existential angst but with the hope and expectation of seeing the glory for yourself.

For the point is that God's glory is there – whether we notice it or not – só as we come close to Lent, let's try to refine our focus and GAZE....to walk with eyes and hearts open, so that we may both see and celebrate the signs of God's glory breaking through in our world.

There may be more transfiguration around than you imagine. 

Inclusive Church???

As we travel through these last weeks at St Matthew's, I have, not surprisingly, been reflecting a great deal about the church I am leaving...about our health, how it feels to be part of the congregation, how we appear to the wider community. 
Our website says
" we strive to live by the message of Christ, in which there are no outcasts and all are welcome.

and visitors typically speak of us as welcoming or hospitable - so I have to admit that I found it uncomfortably challenging when a member of our congregation blogged thus 

On one level, of course, the answer to her question "Is church really for me" must be a resounding "YES"
If we cannot make church an experience for everyone - then we need to stop right where we are and have a long hard look at ourselves - and start doing things differently.

On another level - well, NO - church isn't for her - or for me - or for my godson, who's nearly 3, nor even for lovely M., in her 70s, and a lifelong servant of her parish church and the community beyond it.
If by "church" we mean what happens on Sunday mornings at 10.00 - then actually it's not for any of us.

We go there to worship GOD - and it's sometimes rather too easy to let the agenda slip into "going to church for reassurance/friendship/education" - all good things in themselves, which will in different measure be part of the church experience - but which aren't the core purpose of that time we spend within the walls every week.

There are some other things that I'd take issue with in  A's post.
For example, I did indeed find myself as the only mum with small children in a local church told that if I wanted any provision for them, it was up to me to provide it - and provide it I did (and from that all sorts of things grew over the years - but that's another story).
And there is, I'm afraid, truth in the saying that "like attracts like".
For whatever reason, outside the urban centres it seems very hard for churches to attract young singles. 
At that stage of my own life I was living in London, and attending church as a chorister - so I had a ready-made social circle based around singing. 
We spent lots of time together, with pub as an essential postlude to choir practice, Sunday Mass and Evensong - and friendships flourished in that context so that eventually we formed our own under 30s study group, thus giving us another opportunity to meet up in the week. That wasn't laid on by the church - I don't even remember whether any of the clergy attended, though we did have 2 young curates at the time...but for a while that group met our needs til we began to move on in our lives and out of London. 
I tend to think of that as in some ways my "golden age" of church membership but from what I remember of my view of the pews, there were very few young adults even then, beyond those whose partners were part of the choir.
At St M's now we do have clutch of thirty some-things in the congregation (something that just wasn't the case a few years ago) they are nearly all parents - so it's that much harder for them to join in any evening activities, or to commit to anything beyond the demands of work and family life - even though they may well aspire to that sort of "whole life" community that is often labelled new monasticism. So - though they are there, they aren't going to be much help for A., as she searches for authentic community - and that's a shame.
Which means that, though I long to produce a ready-made source of like-minded souls from her generation - it's just not going to happen. Mostly church IS messy...full of haphazard relationships, unlikely friendships that force you to reframe your own sense of self, or, more crucially, to leave that sense of self at the door as you focus on what you can offer to another in faith, hope and love. 

But of course she is right that we all have a mutual responsibility to one another - that if we're not doing enough to make any particular constituency feel welcome, then we are failing in hospitality, - one of our key Christian callings.

And of course, that applies to more than any particular age group.

We won't find a perfect church that meets the needs of all of us - and sometimes it's more important to say, in a kind of JFK way "Ask not what your church can do for you, but rather what you can do for your church" - but we do need to take seriously our calling to model God's inclusive welcome in all that we say and do and are...

The House of Bishops seem to see this rather differently from this very ordinary parish priest - and I do know that the responsibility of holding things together is apt to take its toll. I'll never forget how it felt when I found myself wearing +Michael's episcopal ring during a training event. I blogged about it here
and need to re-visit the experience whenever I'm feeling specially frustrated or impatient.
But it seems to me that the most recent "Pastoral letter" (which seems so very FAR from pastoral that it is in danger of redefining the word in an almost Orwellian way) has taken things in a new and rather alarming direction. Though the Pilling report opened the way for a period of dialogue, it's hard to see what conversation is possible now. There have been many responses in the past week, from those with a much more personal stake in the discussions. The legal situation has been analysed, the personal impact dissected and one wonderful blogging friend wrote a letter that I would love to have penned myself.

Since then, some bishops have manned the barricades for the sake of the poor - challenging the culture that divides society into deserving and undeserving in a way that would see us back at the Elizabethan Poor Law before we've turned round twice...

And I've remembered that this "being Church" thing is nothing like as straightforward as turning up on a Sunday morning.
It's not about St Matthew's, or the diocese of Gloucester or even about the whole C of E. It's not about what we do together in worship - though that's part of the story, of course.
Rather it's about our attempts to live as signs of God's kingdom...stumbling, imperfect, disappointing signs, but doing the best that we can. 

So - I'm turning again to some words I sang first at Greenbelt, words which are now a kind of personal creed.
This is where I stand.
This is the Church that I long for.
I love that just and unjust are equally welcome.
I've no idea what it would look like on a Sunday morning, whether A. would find kindred spirits, whether the noise of the children would distress the elderly who can't hear so well, whether we'd FEEL as if we were "getting it right".
I just know that this must be what "inclusive Church" is really all about - and one day, by God's grace, it will come to pass.

For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table

For everyone born, a place at the table,
for everyone born, clean water and bread,
a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,
for everyone born, a star overhead,
                and God will delight when we are creators
                of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
                yes, God will delight when we are creators
                of justice, justice and joy!

For woman and man, a place at the table,
revising the roles, deciding the share,
with wisdom and grace, dividing the power,
for woman and man, a system that's fair,
                and God will delight when we are creators
                of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
                yes, God will delight when we are creators
                of justice, justice and joy!

For young and for old, a place at the table,
a voice to be heard, a part in the song,
the hands of a child in hands that are wrinkled,
for young and for old, the right to belong,
                and God will delight when we are creators
                of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
                yes, God will delight when we are creators
                of justice, justice and joy!

For just and unjust, a place at the table,
abuser, abused, with need to forgive,
in anger, in hurt, a mindset of mercy,
for just and unjust, a new way to live,
                and God will delight when we are creators
                of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
                yes, God will delight when we are creators
                of justice, justice and joy!

For gay and for straight, a place at the table,
a covenant shared, a welcoming space,
a rainbow of race and gender and colour,
for gay and for straight, the chalice of grace,
               and God will delight when we are creators
               of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
               yes, God will delight when we are creators
               of justice, justice and joy!


For everyone born, a place at the table,
to live without fear, and simply to be,
to work, to speak out, to witness and worship,
for everyone born, the right to be free,
                and God will delight when we are creators
                of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
                yes, God will delight when we are creators
                of justice, justice and joy!

Shirley Erena Murray 
Words © 1998 Hope Publishing Company