Moving Swiftly On - handling the baggage of transition.

As my earlier post may possibly have suggested, Greenbelt matters alot to me. 
So much so, in fact, that being invited to contribute to a panel at this year's festival had much the same impact as a receiving a sign of approval from someone much loved and admired...or (for those who like such things) an O.B.E.! My silver wristband seemed ridiculously precious and the thrill of walking into the CONTRIBUTORS' LOUNGE (gasp!) was so great that it took me til Sunday to actually have the courage to do so.

Of course, the only reason that I had the courage to offer myself as a contributor at all (contributors, after all, are Seriously Grown Up People, whom other people have heard of and to whom they are prepared to spend time listening) is because I have some rather splendid and more courageous friends. And so it was that on the Sunday evening I found myself leaving Grace Petrie's set on the Canopy stage rather earlier than I would have wished, in order to appear in the Living Room, as calm and adult as possible...

Together with the aforementioned Splendid Friends I had already planned the overall shape of our conversation...so here's the gist of my contribution - though the fun of the evening, from our perspective, was the opportunity to bounce off one another and to say things that we hadn't planned at all. Thank you Sara, Claire & Emma for making it all so easy.

1. What did you find the most unexpectedly difficult part of the change you've just made (what are the things that crept up on you and made you cry?) 

The big difference in this move was that it was, unlike the move at the end of curacy, one I had chosen. In other words, have been intimately involved in the joys and sorrows of a community whose self confidence was never particularly high, I was deliberately walking away…

This was hard enough in itself – as a wise colleague said, There would never be a good time to leave that parish – but what compounded it for me was the necessary secrecy about the process. 

I spent what the parish thought was an autumn break hiding at a friend’s house writing an application…

In the week before Christmas, when I should actually have been leading 1001 carol services I dropped out of circulation in order to attend 2 days of interviews, and I knew I had been appointed just a few minutes before walking into the end of term service for my much loved church school…but could tell nobody - NOBODY in my congregations. 

To say that I felt like an adulterous wife would be an understatement – and those weeks between appointment and the clearing of DBS checks, medicals etc seemed like the longest of my life.

Later, I was overwhelmed by the sadness of leaving behind the ordinary, everyday things of ministry which I had handled and interacted with unthinkingly almost every day. On Holy Saturday, during the Grand Annual Spring Clean of the church, I found myself reduced to helpless tears as I cleaned the Paschal Candle stand -and thought about those babies I had baptised, whose continuing stories I would not be part of, those bumps whom I would never get to know...and the reality of departure hit home with a vengeance.

2. What was actually easy, but you were you expecting to find difficult? 

Following on from my response to the last question – for me the easiest thing turned out to be telling the congregation. They were all uncompromisingly delighted and excited for me at what they saw as a promotion to a Cathedral job and, I think, genuinely proud that “their vicar” was going on to something bigger and, they presumed, better. Though one Warden told me later that she had gone from the meeting when I told her of my new job and cried for 2 days, she didn't let on at the time but was all encouragement and congratulations, bless her. 

3. How have you been able to "create a good letting go?" What would have made it easier? What would you do differently? 

This was my 3rd experience of letting go during this journey of ordinatnion - and by far the easiest. I think this was because we actually acknowledged what was being left behind and, inspired by a friend, created a farewell service that was in some ways a mirror-image of of the service that happens when a new priest arrives in a parish. Thus, during the service I not only gave back my keys to the children of the parish, who placed them on the altar, but also formally handed over to my colleagues the "cure of souls" which I had received from the bishop - whilst making a new commitment to continued prayer for the community I was leaving.

When I left my curacy, none of that happened. I had a very lovely farewell service and party, I got to preside and preach, and to respond to the many generous things that were said about me - but there was nothing to recognise the change of relationship that was going on, or helped me to deal with the process of uprooting that whole community from my heart. 

The scars were real and painful - but this time, though I wept buckets, and miss many things and many many people dearly, I found myself able to move forward, knowing I had ended as properly as I could, and that the things I was leaving behind were being formally and properly received and looked after

4. What would you do differently? 

In a way, I think I've answered this already. I changed my approach to letting go, and made it easier for myself, and perhaps for others, by making space to formally hand back the people I had loved and journeyed with...which made this leave-taking the best so far.

The other thing that I would do differently is to avoid too long a gap between jobs. 2 weeks is a rush, 3 is fine -but 4 gave me just long enough to lose all confidence that I could possibly manage the work that lay ahead...I felt that I was spending a week gazing into the abyss before jumping - which is never a good idea!

Our prepared questions were followed by others from the floor - and I was amazed and delighted by the way strangers stopped me to continue the conversation for the rest of the weekend. Transition is the hardest stage of labour, the bit where one decides that actually, we won't bother to have this baby today (the babe usually arrives in short order after such decisions)...and it's not easy even when it is chosen and prepared for so maybe, having agreed initially that our topic was "of no possible interest to anyone who is not involved in ministry in the C of E", there was more use in our discussions than I had dared to hope.

The thing that I didn't say during our conversation, though it was always hovering on the edge of my thoughts, is that all these leave-takings are, of course, a preparation for our final departure. No matter how much I may long to be ready, the truth is that I am almost bound to leave some unfinished business. My desk will not be cleared, nor my to do list completed and it is the simple and unlikely things that I will miss most as I take my leave.

The work of liturgy in making sense of those goodbyes is one of its most important functions - and as priests we tread this path beside so many. It is no longer popular to talk about preparing for a good death - but to be ready to move on, travelling light and abandoning excess baggage is surely part of our discipleship

Greenbelt Moments 2014

Alas...the last of my offspring has returned to their place of employment/study - so I'm home alone contemplating with delight the mix of challenge and inspiration, joy and discomfort, discovery and homecoming that was Greenbelt 2014.


A new site meant that I, along with many others, was slightly nervous before the weekend. Apart from one unhappy visit in the early 80s (when my friends wanted me to like Christian rock and I only enjoyed Renaissance polyphony!) we've only been Greenbelters for the Cheltenham years, so had no memories of happy nights on a greenfield site to encourage us, and with one uber conscientious site steward in the family concerns about arrivals, departures and associated logistics weighed somewhat heavy in the week before the festival.

And yes - getting on site on Friday was hard. 
Very hard for those with particular needs and not that straightforward even for the able bodied who had taken the theme of Travelling Light to heart....though when we arrived we seemed to be surrounded by people who were so happy to be there that the grumps and difficulties were soon sorted - and the lovely lovely volunteers who met us as we parked and asked how the journey had been, whether we were 1st timers or needed particular help were just the icing on the cake. 
For me, Greenbelt is home in all sorts of ways that I can't quite articulate - and as we came down the hill and saw the camp-site spreading out in front of us, I totally failed to suppress squeals of delight.
I know I should know better at my age - but...you know...GREENBELT!!!

It was a vintage year in many many ways. 
Sometimes the festival makes me sad about paths not taken as I look wistfully at families towing cart-loads of golden children and fall into that familiar trap about which Ann Lamott warned 
"Never compare someone else's outside with your inside". 
Sometimes I waste time wishing that I had grown into myself earlier, had not spent my 20s and 30s trying so very hard to be the sort of good girl who never walks on the grass.
This year, though, it felt good to be me. 
It was at Greenbelt 2013 that the first conversations happened that led to my move to Coventry - and I guess I'm absolutely where I should be, since there was not a whiff of envy or regret about the place  - a gift I've both noted and been thankful for.

 As the weekend unfolded, my hopes and expectations were not disappointed. But - as so often - it was the surprises that delighted me most.




Chief among them, to my utter amazement, was the absence of any reliable signal on my phone. Occasionally, a window would open for a few moments and whole raft of texts would arrive -but every time this happened, by the time I'd read them the signal had vanished and I couldn't reply...and I LOVED IT! Instead of spending the weekend anxiously working out how I could see all the people whose numbers I had carefully collected in advance, I wombled happily about the place, went to a good number of talks, heard some amazing music - and managed to see a remarkable number of dear and special people through serendipity alone. I have to accept that there is never enough time for all the conversations that I long to have, - so being relieved of the responsibility for organising them was wildly liberating - so much so that I'm tempted to try a technology fast for one day each week.

There were the predictable joys - some splendid talks (Ann Lamott talks as she writes - and is officially confirmed as the additional god-mother whom I'd not yet met: Sara Miles & Nadia Bolz Weber were as exciting and inspiring as ever);
great music (Yvonne Lyon, Grace Petrie & the Benefits Culture & more) and the annual delight of sharing Communion with friends whom we rarely manage to see much outside Greenbelt...
There was the thrill of finally becoming a contributor (interestingly this felt very much like approval from some adult whom I love and admire...) and the sheer fun of the panel itself, with friends Sara, Claire and Emma, the pleasure of basking in Sunday's sun while my youngest god-child did what three-year-olds do...and the deep deep joy of having all my children on site for at least one day, and getting to spend time with them. I love that Greenbelt is our "other Christmas", the time when we will do everything in our power to be together. This year an MPhil thesis and a complication with work shifts meant that we only had one day - but that day was quite wonderful.

Interestingly, perhaps my most powerful Greenbelt moment came about because I wasn't doing something that I normally would. 
On the Monday evening, as the rain fell in torrents, I was part of the Taize service that is almost always a Greenbelt highlight.
There was so much light in the venue that, instead of focussing on candles and icons, I closed my eyes for a while and then (completely unheard of) 
I stopped singing. Singing is my default route into prayer...It's part of who I am, and how I come before God...If there is singing to be done, you can pretty much guarantee that I'll be doing it.
But - I stopped.

And, as I sat there with my eyes closed, the voices of my fellow worshippers joined with the Communion of Saints as they sang to me
"Trust in God, do not be afraid..."
And - it was so.

Verging on the ridiculous...

Those who know me even a little will also know that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a details woman. 
I'm not bad at the big picture, at dreaming exciting dreams and even, on a good day, sharing those dreams with others...but the step by step process of getting from here to there is really not my thing. 
For this reason, as much as for many others, I'm really glad that I share an office at the Cathedral not just with the Precentor and the Director of Music - but also with the Head Verger.
Otherwise, I might just have been so seduced by the seamless performance of our verging team, again and again, that I  failed to register just how much work is involved.

However, fortunately J is there so I see at close quarters quite what it costs her small team to keep things running smoothly - and a couple of weeks ago I was also allowed to be a supernumerary sub-assistant-under-verger for a morning shift...and learned so much.
First - that our beautiful marble floor is punishing if you are walking from end to end of the Cathedral repeatedly all day. Think long shopping trips on London pavements and you're in the right area.
There's lots of walking and your feet know about it by the end of the day.
Second - that the essence of verging, beyond the obvious remit of loving service, is THINKING AHEAD
(you see - I would undoubtedly make the world's worst verger...I am incapable of anything that smacks of a plan...so life is an endless series of surprises, which can be fun but would be useless in this job).

I began my (abbreviated) shift after Morning Prayer - by which time the duty verger had already been at work for 90 minutes, unlocking the building, switching off alarms and making everything ready for the day ahead. Then said verger attends the Office, usually reading one of the lessons. If by some mischance no cleric appears at all, then it's also her responsibility to lead Morning and Evening Prayer...and it seems to me that the motto must either be "Ich dien" or "Expect the unexpected"....

As I followed in A's wake that morning he was constantly thinking ahead - the books that we were putting away after Morning Prayer in the Prayer Circle at the West End would next be needed in the Lady Chapel, so now was a good time to get them there...
Would there be enough quiet moments now to refill the oil candles, so that it wouldn't be a problem the following week when we would be a verger down due to holidays?
We were passing the votive stands quite early in the day - a good moment to clean off the wax before the stands were crowded with candles...
There were chairs and tables to move, safes to empty, service books to mark up with the many-splendoured ribbons of Common Worship Daily Prayer, mics to set up for prayers on the hour, litanies to introduce (and lead, if nobody else is detailed so to do)...
And so it went on.
Vestments were loving set out for Sunday, with due regard to the height of all the sacred ministers...
Questions about art, faith, history were answered - for to the public, of course, anyone in a cassock must be the fount of all knowledge but also fair game if you're feeling unhappy about entrance charges or really really don't get why Graham Sutherland envisaged Christ looking like that...
And, of course, every time a member of the clergy has a bright idea about prayer stations for General Synod, an extra service for a special occasion, poppy petals dropping from the ceiling for WW1 Remembrance, extended opening hours or a longing to pray the Litany standing on her head in a bucket of water (yes, I am making that one up - but you never know) the process of making it happen will involve the ministry of the vergers.
Those poppies were the work of any number of people, who, in the week leading up to the WW1 commemoration spent any spare moment cutting out petals. The visual impact on the day was stunning - the team work beforehand even more so!

As Head Verger J undoubtedly keeps about her person a Swiss Army knife, a tape-measure, some spare batteries, a polyglot dictionary and probably a small hip flask..
If you find yourself in pretty much any kind of need in a Cathedral, your first and best port of call  is bound to be a verger.

But the frustrating thing, of course, is that as long as everything is running smoothly (and with our team, even under-strength, that's pretty much what it does) nobody will notice at all.
If the Cathedral is a swan gliding effortlessly down the bright stream, then the vergers are those feet paddling like mad that keep her moving forward.
I don't know where we'd be without them.


[The splendid diagram is, of course, the work of the still more splendid Dave Walker, Copyright © 1999-2013 Dave Walker
and published here with his kind permission.
For more delights, visit http://davewalker.cc/
Dave understands all the foibles of the church so very well, but always balances frustration with love.]

Collaborative ministry

Having presided this morning and officiated and preached this afternoon, I found myself approaching my desk with a distinct lack of enthusiasm for a homily tomorrow morning.I'm very fond of both John Henry Newman AND Clare of Assisi, but somehow neither of them seemed to strike a chord for me - partly, I think, because I'm not convinced that people actually need a word at 8.30 on a Monday morning.This being so, I appealed to twitter for inspiration - and within minutes tweets had come in from all directions...a non conformist friend pointing me to an RC hagiography, assorted Franciscans recommending pet sites, and at least two wise friends reminding me that Malcolm Guite's poetry is almost always the answer in any search for inspiration.
So, I did some patchwork - and because I am genuinely delighted at what I garnered from my assorted friends, I'm posting it here. Practically every word either comes from Clare herself, or from the collective wisdom of the internet...so my apologies if you feel I've borrowed your words without leave. I'm just amazed at what we found together, in the space of 10 minutes on a wet Sunday evening. Thank you all.

We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become...

Words from Clare of Assisi, whose feast we celebrate today.

Friend and companion of Francis, and founder of the order of the Poor Clares, her love for Christ, her share in the vision of St. Francis and her extraordinary gifts as spiritual director, friend, and leader made her a shining light and a clear mirror of Christ for thousands in her lifetime, and she remains a light and inspiration to Christians from many denominations today.

She was above all committed to the Crucified Christ in His poverty, encouraging her sisters, in this letter to Agnes of Prague,to share the way of poverty as the heart of their vocation.

If so great and good a Lord, then, on coming into the Virgin's womb, chose to appear despised, needy, and poor in this world, so that people who were in utter poverty and want and in absolute need of heavenly nourishment might become rich in Him by possessing the kingdom of heaven, then rejoice and be glad! Be filled with a remarkable happiness and a spiritual joy! Contempt of the world has pleased You more than [its] honors, poverty more than earthly riches,  You know, I am sure, that the kingdom of heaven is promised and given by the Lord only to the poor: for he who loves temporal things loses the fruit of love. 

O blessed poverty,

who bestows eternal riches on those who love and embrace her!
O holy poverty, to those who possess and desire you God promises the kingdom of heaven
and offers, indeed, eternal glory and blessed life!
O God-centered poverty,whom the Lord Jesus Christ Who ruled and now rules heaven and earth,
Who spoke and things were made,condescended to embrace before all else!

If she had been familiar with the concept of a life-verse, hers might have been
“Where your treasure is, there your heart is also” and she encouraged her sisters to focus constantly on Christ whatever the apparent cost.

What a great laudable exchange:
to leave the things of time for those of eternity,
to choose the things of heaven for the goods of earth,
to receive the hundred-fold in place of one,
and to possess a blessed and eternal life.

One radiant image in Clare's letters is the mirror. You can gaze at her words as you might gaze at an icon of Christ, tracing your own reflection in Christ’s love, and being transformed little by little into an icon of Christ yourself. Here is a template for the three fold way of prayer which others would express more fully...Gaze, consider, contemplate
or – as her Poor Clare sisters present it today...behold, hold and enfold - the Lord whose likeness you are called to bear in love.

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!
And transform your entire being into the image
of the Godhead Itself through contemplation.
So that you too may feel what His friends feel
as they taste the hidden sweetness
that God Himself has reserved from the beginning
for those who love Him”

We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become. 

Finally, some words by the poet priest Malcolm Guite, from his most recent anthology The Singing Bowl, which is every bit as wonderful as Sounding the Seasons

Santa Chiara, lovely claritas

Whose soul in stillness holds love’s pure reflection,

Shining through you as Holy Caritas,

Lucid and lucent, bringing to perfection

The girl whom Love has called to call us all

Back into truth, simplicity and grace.

Your love for Francis, radiant through the veil,

Reveals in both of you your saviour’s face.

Christ holds the mirror of your given life

Up to the world he gives himself to save,

A sacrament to keep your city safe,

A window into his eternal love.

Unveiled in heaven, dancing in the light,

Pray for this pilgrim soul in his dark night.

Evensong for Trinity 8: Psalm 86

Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you;
save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God; 3 be gracious to me, O Lord,
for to you do I cry all day long.

The opening of our psalm as it appears in the NRSV – and variations of these words have surely been poured out in many places across the world this past week.

In Gaza, in Iraq, in Syria...and closer to home as well, men, women and children have cried out to God in the face of unspeakable violence, terror and pain.

They have cried for deliverance and yet the violence continues.

Where is God?

Why does he do nothing?

Does he not care at all?

Today's readings may not present an answer to those agonised questions...but this Cathedral, itself born from the ashes of war, of hatred, cruelty and violence, must surely be a safe place in which to ask them...for they are real and urgent, not simply for those who find themselves under fire as I speak, but for all of us as we try to live on in a world where such things can happen, where children are beheaded or buried alive – and nobody seems to intervene.

So – is there anything in our Scriptures to help us?

Can we find something to allow us hold on to faith in God, if not in humanity?

Today's psalm is one of many in the Hebrew Bible that give voice to lament – for individuals and for nations.

Already, by turning the stuff of raw suffering into prayerful poetry, the psalmist implies that there must be a pattern somewhere.

He fits his bitter experience into a framework that contains and shapes it, so that it may not simply overwhelm his life, and leave him in despair.

As we hear his words sung, the tranquil chord progressions of Anglican chant belie the intensity of the writer's emotions, - so that the music provides a short-cut from current pain to the equilibrium he strives to discover.

Beyond the cataclysms of here and now, is there any certainty of a larger purpose, an ultimate good – or is it all pain, discord, horror...?

Let's use our psalm to reflect together – on the pain of our brothers and sisters, on God's role as they suffer, and what this might mean for our faith.

It is, and always has been, a huge problem.

Sometimes, it seems that we in the Church have ducked the issue, refused to engage with it, as if some questions were too huge, too fearful to bring to God, lest God's answer is somehow inadequate...but such evasion is futile.

Better by far to follow the lead of our psalmist, who begins by being absolutely real about his situation.

There is no room for polite pretence here.

Things are utterly bleak and he is at the end of his tether. Poor and needy, with no resources of his own – all he has is a relationship with the God whose past performance encourages him to believe that God will, against the odds, act again.

Sometimes, of course, the past is all we can hold on to...the remembrance that once upon a time the world seemed a kinder place, God's presence a tangible reality, everything ordered as it should be.

It's that kind of understanding that shaped the words found scratched on a wall in Auschwitz

“I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when I cannot feel it. I believe in God, even when God is silent”

But those are not words I would dare to offer in Gaza this week...nor drop unthinkingly into conversation with a family grieved beyond imagining by their experience of loss and suffering.

Remembering sunshine does not warm you as you shiver with cold, and past performance does not, of itself, guarantee a future hope.

Still the psalmist revisits a happier time, both to reassure himself and, it seems, to remind God of what God could be doing.

He enters the long established tradition of bargaining with the Almighty, hoping to persuade him to change his mind, take a different approach – as Abraham pleaded for the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, - as the Samaritan woman would with Jesus...

In point of fact, he seems to be trying something very much like flattery

“there is none like you among the Gods O Lord...You alone are great and do wondrous things” - like rescue me from my enemies...

But the evidence is not encouraging. The enemies remain present, rising up against him...and God is doing nothing.

Tempting at this point to walk away, to abandon faith...but this way lies ultimate despair and the end of any impetus to make a difference.

Eli Wiesel realised this, writing in the wake of the Holocaust.

"Master of the Universe, I know what You want- I understand what You are doing. You want despair to overwhelm me. You want me to cease believing in You, to cease praying to You, to cease invoking Your name to glorify and sanctify it. Well, I tell you: No, no - a thousand times no! You shall not succeed. In spite of me and in spite of You, I shall shout the Kaddish, which is a song of faith, for You and against You. This song You shall not still, God of Israel."

Though God can't be won round, manipulated to suit our agenda, though the pain of life may be more than we can bear, yet still, retaining the audacity to believe despite everything is the only way to move forward.

As Job discovered, having walked a path of deep and bitter suffering, in the end God is God, his thoughts and ways beyond us...

This is the place that our psalmist reaches, when he prays

“Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;”

That is the only way.

There is no sense that his problems have eased, for his fervent pleas continue til the very end of the psalm...but these lines are a turning point, as he recovers an underlying confidence that has nothing to do with the external situation, a new equilibrium that comes from believing in a greater purpose.

While he is still surrounded by enemies, his inner being is stronger than ever before for he triumphantly reasserts his relationship with God, his refusal to be driven to unbelief

“You have delivered my soul from the depths”

Fine – I hear you say.

And that helps the children of Iraq, the Palestinians shelled out of their homes, the Syrian refugees exactly HOW?

And you're right.

On one level there is no help, no comfort here at all – and there is so much need

But if we pray that prayer seriously, then perhaps help will come...as we find ourselves moved by our prayers to become an answer in ourselves.

Perhaps the inhumanity that fills our tv screens can become an impetus for responses from us that proclaim a greater humanity – a demonstration of what it means to be shaped by and held in relationship with the God whose whole being is sacrificial love.

Pray with sincerity, and with an openness to God's call, and who knows what may happen.

Andrew White went from this place to achieve incredible things for God as the Vicar of Bagdhad...and I'm certain that Coventry has something particular to bring to the table as human intransigence and a longing for peace confront one another across the Middle East and beyond.

Certainly, there is nothing to be gained by disowning God, by placing all the blame for human suffering on his shoulders and walking slowly away.

After the war, a group of rabbis met to reflect on the atrocities that had taken place (atrocities that are used somehow, to give Israel a mandate to perpetrate further crimes against humanity)

They met to determine where blame might lie – in human sin or in divine indifference.

Could God have prevented the slaughter of God's chosen people?

Could God BE God, if He was either powerless or unresponsive?

The conversation was long, emotional, exhausting and the debate lasted painfully into the night.

Finally a decision was reached.

The ultimate guilt lay with God.

That group of men whose adult lives had been dedicated to serving God and his people looked at one another.

What would happen now?

How could they go forward from this place?

There was a profound silence.

Then someone went to the window, drew back the curtains, and they saw that it was dawn.

"Come," said a voice from around the table "It's time to worship God."

So in the face of human hatred and human need, in the face of our own indifference and our own helplessness, in the face of all the powers of darkness and destruction that seem to have the upper hand – it is time to worship God...to reaffirm our faith, however fragile, and to ask that God will enable us to walk in his truth til that truth shapes the whole world, and the Kingdom comes.

100 years ago

it had been a long golden summer...the last of its kind

The upper classes were looking forward to the "Glorious Twelfth" and the start of the grouse shooting season.

And then the music stopped...the lights went out...the world changed.

"History repeats itself. It has to. Nobody listens"

That seems to be the saddest message we glean from the past century.

Though the Great War was fought as the "war to end wars", there has not been a day since when the world was at peace.

Last night the Cathedral was full for our special service of Commemoration.

Towards the end, red petals fell from the ceiling, swirling, dancing, catching the light like jewels.Though we knew they were cut from very ordinary paper, the work of several of the Cathedral community the previous week, they became beautiful in themselves as well as in their symbolism, as they fell to the ground...for long minutes while the girls choir sang.

It was unbearable to realise that, as I looked out at the crowded Cathedral, even the losses from our city were far greater than that congregation that filled the nave...I imagined a congregation of the dead there...Young men, the same ages as my sons...11,358 casualties from the Warwickshire Regiment alone...and still the poppies fell, covering the altar, resting on the cross of nails.

From my stall I watched them, and realised that they were falling before the eyes of the Christ on our great tapestry...the Christ who told us that no sparrow falls without our Father seeing and caring.
It must have hurt him so much.
It still hurts him so much.

And afterwards, when the music was over, when we had pledged ourselves to work for and live in peace, when the VIPs were ushered to their special seats to watch the moving tableau in the ruins, I came past the sanctuary - to find 2 beautiful children lovingly collecting the petals they could reach.
And I realised that this was how it always is.
Our children clear up the mess that we leave behind us...the mess of hatred, killing and despair.
And I realised that this, THIS was why we were remembering.
So that maybe those children will never have to clear up a worse mess than those paper petals on a marble floor.

Compassion, loaves and fishes - Sermon for the Cathedral Eucharist, Trinity 7 2014 Matthew 14:13-21

I suspect I'm not the only parent who remembers vividly, and without much delight, the days when it was impossible to go anywhere – even the bathroom – without a determined escort of toddlers.

I have always loved my children extravagantly – but nonetheless there were times when I was so desperate for a few minutes on my own that I was tempted to consider violence...
and that was just on ordinary days, with no particular need for personal space.

But today's gospel starts with Jesus in need of time out.
In the verses immediately preceding those we have just heard, he learns of the cruel death of John the Baptist.

Jesus is hurt, grieving the loss of his cousin.

He may well be anxious...
What does this mean for him and for his ministry?

He needs space to reflect, time with his heavenly Father – but the crowds, as relentlessly demanding as any gaggle of small children, are completely unable to leave him alone.

He takes to a boat – to no avail.

Desperate!
Exasperating!

But Jesus is Jesus – and, rather than snapping at those crowds like an exhausted parent, rather than telling them to go away and leave him in PEACE – he has compassion.

Nothing surprising in that..

“Jesu, thou art all compassion” we sing, following Charles Wesley …and then watch that compassion unfold in action.

Jesus puts himself in their place and suffers with them...because co-suffering is the essence of compassion – but as that's not the whole story.

Compassion, essentially, goes beyond empathic feelings to action to alleviate the pain.

And naturally, this is how  Jesus responds.

He recognises the people's need for healing and hope and he acts.

And so we find ourselves involved in one of our favourite miracles...
We all know the story – so what on earth can I possibly find to say?

Wouldn't I be better off with the other reading? So much richness in that account of wrestling with God til we have secured a blessing.
Surely that would be a better message for us as we engage with the news this week.

How can loaves and fishes help us to cope with the memories of 1914 and the pain of 2014?

For me, the clue lies in that word compassion.

As we have watched events in Gaza unfold over the past few weeks, as we have heard of the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Iraq, as we've contemplated the plight of the Syrian refugees, and reflected on the grief and fear of those close to the centre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, I'm confident that we have all felt sympathy.

How could any human being fail to do so?

The pain of the world has been real and oppressive wherever we turn.

Men, women, children are enduring horrific situations...and we long for that to change.

We pray for them, we do indeed wrestle for a blessing....but we feel, for the most part, utterly helpless.

What can we do, you and I, – such ordinary people, so very far away?

But this is where our gospel comes in.

You know exactly what happens...of course you do.

There are crowds of hungry people, Jesus is exhausted and sad – and the disciples go for the practical option.

These people need to go home.

There's nothing else for them here.

“Send the crowds away” they demand.

But they've reckoned without that overwhelming compassion, which means that Jesus cannot and will not fit in with their sensible solutions.

Of course, he could simply feed them himself – produce a meal from thin air and satisfy everyone.

He COULD, after all, have turned stones to bread in the wilderness.

But his compassion has yet another layer – for he responds to our need to be part of his work of grace.

C S Lewis wrote

“"If He who in Himself can lack nothing, chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed." 
His essential impulse to love and give unstintingly meets our human longing to be needed - and that meeting point is fertile ground for something extraordinary to flourish. 

Jesus recognises this.
He chooses to involve his disciples - “You give them something to eat”

He chooses to involve the crowd themselves.

It always delights me that it is a child who offers his lunch.

Only a child would have that kind of spontaneous generosity...

Only a child would not, prudently, keep his resources to himself

“Pick me, I've got a packed lunch...pick me, pick me...”

Those same children who pursued me relentlessly as I longed for space were the ones who, when I wept over money worries, offered me necklaces of daisy chains “to make things better” - and somehow, they did!

Only a child would believe that what his mother had provided for him would be enough to suffice come what may...

Only a child...

Small wonder, then, that they are Christ's model for the Kingdom

All of us would surely have hung back...trying to hide our smiles at such naivete....perhaps tutted a little that the disciples don't immediately shoo this urchin away, and get to work on a more practical solution.

But that's not how Jesus reacts.

He understands that impulsive, unreasonable generosity – that longing to make things better, without any resources to achieve it.

He takes that tiny, pathetic, inadequate offering – blesses it – and transforms it into something impossible.

Food for 5,000 plus – with leftovers as well.

Enough for the needs of everyone and to spare.

And that's what he does every time.

He takes what we bring, however tiny, pathetic, inadequate – blesses it – and transforms it into something impossible.

That's what happens whenever we make Eucharist together.

We bring our longings, hopes and dreams, our failures, disappointments ...for they are all that we have to offer.
Augustine wrote to his congregation
"You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love. In you and through you the work of incarnation must go forward".

In other words, this offering of our broken selves is as necessary as the child's lunch.

We bring those selves to place them on the altar – and receive in exchange God's own life, given to us in a fragment of bread and a sip of wine.

But we have to risk bringing ourselves as we are – with all our inadequacies – if that transformation is to take place.

We have to accept that we may well look foolish...for all that we have is our broken selves and just enough faith that God will work his miracle of transformation, so that, by his grace, we are enough.

Do we dare to practice active compassion?

Our world surely needs it, and however small we may feel in the face of the enormity of its pain, as I seem to have read somewhere.“Our task is great but our God is greater”.

Can we trust him to use our small deeds of compassion to make the big difference that is needed?

If we look back 100 years, each individual cigarette give out to the troops by “Woodbine Willy” made no difference at all – but the impact of his kindness endures today.

As we turn to the news, the loss of those doctors who contracted Ebola as they fought against it may seem a pointless waste, but their courageous compassion will surely have been a light in the fearful darkness that encircled their patients.

We won't have much to bring ..maybe even less than 5 loaves and 2 small fishes – but we know that if we offer them with goodwill, then through God's grace they will be enough and to spare, for in God's economy our meagre resources are transformed to satisfy the needs of all,  friend or foe, neighbour or stranger, those whom we long to help and those that we would never choose
All can be satisfied - with 12 baskets left over.

Evensong Sermon Trinity 6 27th July 2014 1 Kings 6.11–14, 23–end Acts 12.1–17HC

“For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory”

Familiar words that many of us pray daily – in one version or another....but I wonder what we think we mean as we remind God of his own omnipotence.

Do we actually expect to run into evidence of the truth of our assertion – or do we envisage divine power as something remote from everyday life?

In the REAL world power surely lies with the state – or with those individuals and organisations whose material resources apparently enable them to do exactly what they please, with no thought of consequences.

Even a very cursory glance at the news would support this – which is, as it always has been, part of the challenge of faith.

Today's readings are all about power – visible and hidden, expected and surprising, human and divine.

There is human power aplenty in our Old Testament lesson, as Solomon sets to and builds a Temple – a house of God whose 7 long years of building, to an exacting blueprint, seems somewhat familiar to those of us who love and work in this place.

Every detail is prescribed by the architect and catalogued to the nth degree.

Goodness knows what would happen to anyone who dared to move the cherubim or challenge the approved dimensions of the doors.

Solomon's Temple. Famous to this day...A work of skill and beauty but one whose existence is conditional on something that Solomon, in all his glory, cannot control at all.

You see, God has a view about things – and it cannot be overlooked.

He makes it very clear that Solomon cannot and must not view the creation of the Temple as an exercise in self promotion...

If the building is to mean anything at all, if it is truly to stand as the House of the Lord – then it must represent Solomon's continued commitment to live within God's laws.

The Temple is to be a sign of covenant, of value only as long as that covenant continues

if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then (and ONLY then) I will establish my promise with you, which I made to your father David. I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.’

Though the Temple is long gone, of course – we might usefully pause to reflect whether God's special relationship with Israel is honoured in recent events...and whether any house of prayer, however beautiful, however impressive, can stand true to its purpose if that fundamental obedience to God's way of love is forgotten, even for a moment.

“Thine is ...the power...”

There is human power at work in Acts too, as Herod determines to please the Jews by crushing Christianity before it can do further damage. With first Stephen and now James dead, it looks very much as if he is going to have things his own way.

Even though it is Passover, the great Jewish festival of freedom, Peter is imprisoned...and we can imagine how that act resonated with the beleaguered followers of Christ, as they remembered what had happened to him at the Festival of Passover just a few years before...Small wonder they were fearful for Peter, as they waited for Herod to bring him out to receive the people's judgement.

What could they hope to do?

Human power must have seemed very much in the ascendant and I'm sure that some followers of the Way were tempted to meet that power on human terms – to take up their swords as Peter had done in Gethsemane.

But – they too are people of the Covenant – the NEW Covenant confirmed on the cross...and they remain true to it.

Instead of turning to violence in their turn, they mobilise their forces in prayer.

Imagine that!

How charmingly naïve.

They PRAY!

We're often inclined to look back with admiration, even envy, to the New Testament church...to celebrate their courage, their zeal, their absolute faith in God.

But this passage is rather comforting for those of us who, from time to time have wondered whether prayer is a bit of a cop-out, or suspected that we are resorting to words in an attempt to shift the responsibility for a situation from our own shoulders to God's, with no great expectation that this process will actually change anything.

It's comforting because clearly neither Peter nor those praying for him are actually looking for direct action from God at all.

The angelic visitor who arrives in Peter's cell, bathed in light, perhaps recalls those who visited the shepherds in the field. I love the detail – the way he prods him in the ribs - “Get up quickly”.

Certainly this angel is the bearer of good news – but it isn't until he has left Peter alone in the street that the sleep-fuddled apostle really believes what has happened to him.

“It's just a vision...I'll wake up in a minute”

Again, this experience seems quite familiar (though in far less dramatic circumstances)...

I am often all too quick to dismiss and rationalise my own encounters with God – because, perhaps, it feels safer that way – and it's helpful that even those who were closest to Jesus in Galilee had the same bad habit!

It's just my imagination...surely I'm still secure in my prison cell...except that I feel the pavement beneath my feet,

What's more, though the Christian community were engaged in deep and fervent prayer for Peter's safe release- they just couldn't believe it when it happened either!

Oh WHAT a relief for me on my more wobbly days.

I try to live in faithful expectation – but more often than not I carry on as if I have no thought that God might be actively interested in my daily doings, that he might actually intervene as I have asked him to do.

And I'm not alone.

EVEN the early Church, so close to the fire of Pentecost, fell into the same behaviours..the same pattern of faithful doubt and doubtful faith.

There's dear Rhoda, so beside herself with joyful excitement that she leaves Peter standing on the doorstep...And her community telling her that she has lost the plot in claiming that their prayers were answered...while Peter, the one for whom they have been praying, just keeps on knocking on the door!

I really don't think that anyone at that all-night prayer vigil was expecting a day-break like this.

Divine comedy indeed - but also a reminder of who really holds the power – even now,

even in the face of the hatred, violence and misery that assail us whenever we look at the news.

There is power at work – and the long view reminds us that, whoever seems to hold the upper hand, that power rests finally with God.

It's true that in time Peter will be silenced by the state

It's true that, too often, bad things happen to good people...Stephen and James are among too many – a line stretching from 1^st century Jerusalem to 21^st century Iraq...

But beyond these truths, the truth of the gospel continues to work...and the mission statement that Jesus presented in the synagogue in Nazareth continues to be worked out in the world

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor...to preach deliverance to the captives...to proclaim the day of the Lord's favour”

So, in the face of fear and doubt, in the face of anger and grief,we can still dare to pray for the coming of God's Kingdom with confidence that our prayers will be answered, that the kingdom, the power and the glory are HIS now and forever.