Fragile - handle with care

This hasn't been the easiest week.
Funeral ministry is part of the warp and weft of bread-and-butter vicaring. 
Always a privilege, sometimes touching, at others almost joyful.
But not this week.
This week has been dominated by 2 funerals - for 3 tiny boys, who never drew their first breaths - but who are beloved and precious to their families and to God.
Placing baby A's little coffin in the ground yesterday seemed almost impossibly hard...but we had planned each moment of his service so carefully together and there was no doubting the love that surrounded him and his parents in the damp greyness of a November afternoon.
The church was almost full - for a baby whom most of us had never seen.

This morning, there were just 4 of us in the crematorium chapel as tiny twins were handed on to God's care - but the feelings of love and grief were every bit as real and intense.
Both days, there seemed scant comfort to offer to parents whose minds were numb with pain, whose  arms were empty.
But I dare to believe that this is not just senseless waste.
That the Love that holds all of creation in being reaches out to touch both these lost little ones and their desolate parents.
I've stood where they parents stand now.
I've wanted to howl at the moon, that one unanswerable question "Why"
I've wondered if this tangle of love and loss, hope and despair, can ever be unwound.
But somehow, weeping o'er the grave, I've glimpsed part of the truth of the fragile treasure that is life - that it is no less complete when it is short - and, of course, that it is no less precious - its loss no less lamented.

Susan Hill, one of the wisest writers I know, wrote of her own experience of this grief in her book "Family",that was a huge resource and comfort to all of us who mourned lost babes. She pointed us, too, towards these wonderful words - which I still turn to when my own fail.

  It is not growing like a tree

         In bulk, doth make men better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:

          A lily of a day

          Is fairer far, in May,

      Although it fall and die that night,

      It was the plant and flower of light.

In small proportions we just beauties see;

And in short measures life may perfect be.

                                                                                   Ben Jonson "To the immortal memory..."

A Taste of Prayer

An overlong post tonight - some thoughts that I put together for "Cake or Death" (not its actual title) - a discussion forum 

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,

God's breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth

Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

Reading Herbert's poem Prayer can feel rather like hearing in swift succession all of those parables of the Kingdom – it's a bit like a mustard seed – a merchant – a man sowing seeds – a woman sweeping a room...Just as you settle down to focus on one idea or image, it is replaced by another, - like trying to hold onto mercury -so that there's a risk that you might emerge more confused than enlightened.

But I think there's a reason for this.

It is that both the Kingdom – AND Prayer – are concepts that are beyond the normal range of our understanding.

So as we try to explore them, we get brief glimpses of the truth – but need to remember that the truth is always greater.

How can we be in conversation with the creator of all things?

What do we think we're doing when we come to God with our agenda?

No wonder we struggle.

So often we seem to treat prayer like a slot-machine...we pop in our requests, push the button & wait...and if nothing recognisable (and ideally matching our desires) happens in short order, well then we say that the prayer “hasn't worked”

But if prayer is less a process, and more a relationship – then things can look rather different. You see, in a relationship changes happen but they happen within those who are involved as the two parties find their world views, their shopping habits, their style of speech and much else influenced by one another. Those changes may not be conscious, or delibrate ..more often they happen gradually, almost imperceptibly.

Listen to Rowan Williams

There’s something about sunbathing that tells us more about what prayer is like than any amount of religious jargon.

When you’re lying on the beach or under the lamp, something is

happening, something that has nothing to do with how you feel or

how hard you’re trying. You’re not going to get a better tan by

screwing up your eyes and concentrating. You give the time, and

that’s it. All you have to do is turn up. And then things change, at

their own pace. You simply have to be there where the light can get at you....

God is there always. You don’t need to fight for his attention or

make yourself acceptable. He’s glad to see you. And he’ll make a

difference while you’re not watching, just by radiating who and

what he is in your direction. All he asks is that you stay there with

him for a while, in the light. For the rest, you just trust him to get

on with it

So – it's really not a question of trying harder – though sometimes prayer CAN feel like very hard work.

If you feel as if nothing much is happening- it's horribly tempting to give up...but remember that looking at a garden in winter there's no sign of the amazing life dormant beneath the surface.

Remember, too, the ancient tradition of going out into the desert to pray.

Yes, that's partly about being somewhere where there are no distractions – but it's also a reminder that deserts can be surprisingly fertile places

In Christianity the desert is a place of discovery – a place where we can expect to meet God, as well as meeting our deepest selves.

Another bishop, Stephen Cottrell

If something has happened in our life to make God feel absent, God can use that experience to nurture in us a deeper understanding of his constant presence. If we are going through a period of spiritual dryness, even if we do not know the reason, we need to begin to trust that God is leading us

through this experience to a deeper understanding of his overflowing love. What troubles me is that so many Christians are ill-prepared for the dark times that will inevitably come. I feel that many people not only give up on prayer, but give up on God when they find themselves in the desert, because they were never told that this is a necessary part of faith.

Stephen Cottrell, Praying Through Life, pp. 127–8

Prayer is part of how we express our inner, spiritual life – a way in which we make explicit to ourselves the fact that we KNOW we are more than just bodies & brains. So it follows that prayer is a necessary exercise for our spiritual well-being, something we do to keep the muscles working...If we stop, then those muscles may atrophy and die...But if Christianity is about life in all its fullness, then not to pray is to fail to keep the essential core of ourself alive...to risk suffocation, almost.

If all this talk of sun bathing, excursions to the desert or the exercise of spiritual muscles feels alien – here's another thought.

God IS relationship…the community of Father, Son and Spirit into which we are invited in prayer.

Human beings are made for relationship with God…I pray, therefore I am. When we pray we discover the truth about ourselves, that we are children of God. Within this relationship we can flourish and become truly ourselves as God has intended us to be. Stephen Cottrell

Prayer is paradox…It is all about the gift of God and God praying in us, but is also has to be an act of human will. If we don't allow for the possibility of God's action in our lives, then we are likely to miss the evidence of it. God won't muscle in – we have to get ourselves and our agendas out the way, in order to be open to the possibility of his presence and his action.

But we CANT pray without God's help.

“An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him (the Holy Spirit). But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary person is saying…prayers.” ~~C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Prayer is the most natural thing in the world – an expression of who we are and what we are for.

“You have made us for yourself” said Augustine – and the way in which we can enter into that relationship with God is through our prayer...

But because we struggle so much with our all-pervasive egos, prayer can also be the hardest thing we do.. . Like any relationship it involves letting go and allowing someone else to be at the centre of life – but we are programmed to place ourselves there....It isn't easy, even if it is natural and instinctive.

But easy or hard, prayer is never solitary. Even if we retreat to a hermitage, we never pray alone, but are part of something much greater than our individual selves. Our prayers are part of the great outpouring that has gone on since the world began...and so we pray ”with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven”…

Together we tune our voices, our hearts, our wills til they are one with God's loving purpose for the whole of creation - for prayer is always, in some way, a gift of love

a relationship with God for others

“Prayer is the way to both the heart of God and the heart of the world – precisely because they have been joined through the suffering of Christ.

Praying is letting one’s own heart become the place where the tears of God and the tears of God’s children can merge and become tears of hope”

Henri Nouwen Seeds of Hope

Do - be - do - be - do

After a madly busy day, with little time to breathe, still less to reflect I find myself in urgent need of a blog post for this evening.

So, as quite often when I'm in need of friendly advice of any kind, I turn to twitter...

Twitter - such a difficult concept to explain to those who don't belong.
So often I find myself trying to answer questions that go something like this...

How is it possible to form meaningful relationships with anyone based on 140 characters?

Don't you just tell the world "I'm on the train"...?
How do you deal with all that shameless self-promotion?
Actually, my reality is more like this:

Twitter - the virtual common-room where I'm likely to find at least a few friends with time for a chat at almost any hour of day or night.

Twitter - my place of first resort when I need prayer, comfort or a really good laugh.

And because you can get a really good idea of someone when they offer you 140 characters at regular intervals every day for several years, 
Twitter- the place where an appeal for inspiration for today's blog post netted in under a minute two words linked, I think, by my own somewhat manic lifestyle

"Being" said Christine.

"Wholly" said Alice.

Just seeing the words in my twitter stream inspired instant guilt.

Only this morning I had noised my busyness abroad!

One of my first tweets this morning ran thus:

Morning prayer,funeral, curate supervision, dentist, Trustees meeting, pastoral visiting, team meeting #dayinatweet #praying4stamina

I know I am disturbingly susceptible to the clerical vice of shouting about an over-full diary, - a defence against the anxiety that I might actually not be doing anything worthwile at all. I don't THINK this morning's tweet was part of that process, but I also think it's important that I should ask the question.

If I need to tell other people how busy I am in order to bolster my own self-worth, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark but at the moment I'm not feeling particularly defensive. Indeed, after a recent hard look at the shape of my ministry, in preparation for a forthcoming ministerial review, I'm particularly aware of what I do in the course of bread and butter vicaring - and it's startling how much actually gets done in the course of a week. 
Some of it is even quite close to the centre of my calling - rather than simply feverish running around the parish squawking as I go!
So, I'm feeling rather brighter about  the things I do to live out my vocation...and I'm quite clear that even on a bad day at least some of the things I do, maybe even a majority, have their roots in a response to God's over-riding call to priesthood, or the more specific call to be HIS person in this place.

But DOING is one thing - BEING quite quite different.

In these days of Common Tenure, though clergy remain office holders rather than employees, we no longer have quite the same sense of being licensed to "the living".

Though the stipend I receive is designed to free me from financial anxiety so that I can most effectively live out whatever God wants of His priest in this place, it's far too easy to see the sum that arrives each month in my bank account as payment for feverish activity.
A recent conversation on (yes, you've guessed it) Twitter highlighted the perennial issue of work with porous boundaries...
Is it good to share a pint with a friend who is also a parishioner on a day off? 

How does one explain to even the most loving of congregations that sometimes the absence of their company is a blessing?
And, for heaven's sake, what does the vicar DO all day that means she can't be instantly present when I need her?
But that's all about doing again...And we are called to BE
As someone who is disturbingly distractable, the thought that I might be wholly present to whatever situation, whichever person is before me both attracts and terrifies.

But I long to be that sort of priest.

One with the gift of making everyone I encounter feel uniquely attended to, uniquely important.

One who doesn't have to hurtle round in anxious orbit of my own diary.

One who has enough sense of herself to be at rest in the here and now, neither scattered nor distracted but wholly focussed on the present moment, since that is the only time when I can hope to encounter God.

In January every year, when I pray for my Methodist friends on Covenant Sunday, I am struck afresh by the terror of that most beautiful Covenant prayer.

How, I wonder, do quite ordinary quiet little congregations cope with praying those words and expecting God to honour them?

Would I ever have the courage to pray

"Let me employed for you, or laid aside for you", to just stand in God's presence with no activities or achievements to distract?

I truly don't know, but it seems to me that it would be a wonderful thing to try.

What will remain?

Regular readers, even those who don't know me "in real life", will probably not be surprised to learn that I have a pretty constant stream of music playing in my head, morning, noon and night. I'm told that I was singing recognisable tunes long before I learned to talk, and for many years if I needed to learn something new - a string of dates, some Latin vocab, a chunk of the periodic table - I did so by setting it to music.

With my sons now cheerfully working their way through much of the standard choral repertoire I'm regularly delighted to find that it's all very much still THERE - maybe a bit dusty and underused, but if you throw me a line of anthem text I can pretty much guarantee to sing my way through the top line of the piece from beginning to end...so I'd kind of assumed that if at some stage in the future my short-term memory deserted me completely, music would always be the way to reach me. For Proust it might be madeleines - but for me it would be "O clap your hands" or "Selig sind die Toten" that would recreate times past and connect me with my former self. I'd even envisaged a slightly surreal world in which most of my everyday conversations happened via the words of hymns - for those seem to be even more firmly engraved on my memory - and have told the children to try reading the English Hymnal to me if I ever vanish down the dark corridors of dementia.

It had never occurred to me that those corridors might be so very long and winding that even music could not penetrate....but last week that confidence was shaken. We were at Cheltenham Town Hall to hear, among other things, Elgar's cello concerto. We have series tickets this year, so have the same (rather dreadful) seats for every concert - and some of the same neighbours too. When we arrived, an elderly couple were sitting just in front of us - but it transpired that they were in the wrong place. The rightful owners of their seats appeared and after a brief conversation the man stood up - and began the laborious business of explaining to his wife that they needed to move. It soon became obvious that she was utterly bewildered by the whole situation, but he took her hand and they went on their way like a couple of elderly babes in the wood. Their allotted seats were, in fact, immediately opposite us - and I watched the gentleman seat his wife and help her off with her overcoat with great tenderness. Charmed, I thought to myself "How lovely that he is bringing her out for a treat, even though she is obviously frail and rather fearful. I'm sure she'll love the concert".

But - when the music started I wanted to weep.

She sat there in passive confusion - a good little girl observing a conversation that was taking place in a foreign language, but with absolutely no idea what was going on,why she should care or how she should respond.

The cello soloist (who looked about 12) was impressive,and the audience applauded warmly - but all my pleasure in the evening evaporated as I watched the husband glancing repeatedly at his wife...as if he hoped to catch her awares for once, recapturing her former self enough to remember that clapping is part of the convention of concert attendance even if you haven't enjoyed the performance that much.

Poor lady, she sat marooned in her own world - utterly detached from all that was going on around her - lost somewhere that even music could not reach.

When the concert ended she looked relieved as her husband helped her on with her coat and led her away through the crowd. He seemed calm and unperturbed and I hope that perhaps the evening brought him some joy - that he was, for a while, less painfully conscious of the losses he is living through, able to focus for the duration of the performance,on the pleasure that remains.

Perhaps it wasn't really so awful - but it certainly seemed that way. 

I cannot begin to imagine a world in which music might be powerless to move me...and I'm thankful that I can't.

If, one day, the cruelty of age so separates me from myself that I'm no longer connected with life by the constant processions of words and melodies that fill my head today, then I must throw myself on the mercy of the One who knows me better than I do myself - and who rejoices over each one of us with loud singing even if we can no longer make sense of the melody.

All Saints Sunday - Homily for 8.00 at All Saints, Uplands

“I  believe in the Communion of Saints...”

That's what we assert week by week – but I wonder what it means for you.

It's very easy to picture The Communion of Saints as simply the shining ones who are quite out of our league...those who have made it...who stand in glory around the throne of God....who have passed through the great tribulation and washed themselves in the blood of the Lamb...

Such wonderful finished products – overflowing with holiness, love, joy, and peace – in painful contrast to the rest of us who toil onwards, falling over our own feet, letting God down on a daily, even hourly, basis.

Saints and sinners...

As dear Bishop How puts it in that truly wonderful hymn

“Blest communion, fellowship divine – we feebly struggle, they in glory shine”

That's one vision...Is it yours?

If it is – this morning I'd like to invite you to rethink.

Have you noticed how often Paul, in his letters to young churches, writes to “the saints in Ephesus...Philippi....Corinth...”....But as we read the substance of those letters we see that the recipients are very much works in progress, making just as many mistakes as we do ourselves. They are real people – messed up, sinned against and sinning but CALLED TO BE SAINTS in just the same way that we are ourselves.

If we use the Beatitudes as our yardstick, we may well feel we'd prefer to avoid sainthood– for if it is really blessed to be poor, to weep, to be hungry, hated, insulted, rejected...then, please Lord, could you choose someone else

In truth, we can often see God's light shining most clearly at times of the greatest darkness – so perhaps it's no surprise that those who suffer are also those who shine.

And it's all about shining...

Remember Leonard Cohen's wisdom

“Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.”

It's their flaws that enable the saints to show us God's grace at work...It's our flaws that may show that same grace to others.

So let us celebrate the every-day saints, as we are invited to by the priest and poet Malcolm Guite in his sonnet for All Saints

And blessed are the ones we overlook;
the faithful servers on the coffee rota,
the ones who hold no candle, bell or book
but keep the books and tally up the quota,
The gentle souls who come to 'do the flowers',
The quiet ones who organise the fete,
Church sitters who give up their weekday hours,
Doorkeepers who may open heaven's gate.
God knows the depths that often go unspoken
Amongst the shy, the quiet, and the kind,
Or the slow healing of a heart long broken,
Placing each flower so for a year's mind.
Invisible on earth, without a voice,
In heaven their angels glory and rejoice.

“Holy, holy, holy Lord”

That shining circle who stands around the throne of God is still very much part of our story…for we worship together, our prayers and praises connecting with theirs across time and eternity.

When I first celebrated Mass, the day after my ordination as priest, I was completely bowled over by the overwhelming presence of that heavenly company….MY saints. - the people whom I’d known and loved, who had shaped my journey…and those who had died long before I was born, but whose words or deeds had inspired me. They were all there, standing beside me at the altar – and when I’m properly attentive, they are there still, week on week, singing with us, lending power and life to our song.

Pause to listen for their voices yourself, this morning, and be thankful.

Oh yes, I believe in the Communion of Saints alright...I'd be lost without it.

Without them – and without you - the saints of Uplands, of Stroud, Cainscross or Slad...(the saints of twitter and Facebook too)

We may not think of ourselves as holy in any way…but actually, by virtue of our baptism, holiness IS our calling.

We are, every one of us, set apart for God…called to be saints, just as we are.

Flawed, imperfect people, but people through whom the Light of the World is content to shine.

“Yet all are one in thee, for all are thine....Alleluia”

Journey On

"Our past is wrapped up in the heart of God, and of our future he will take care"

Each year since I've been at St Matthew's, we have invited our funeral families to join us for two very different kinds of remembering.
Of course we offer the traditional All Souls Requiem - and every year I am almost overwhelmed by the weight of privilege and responsibility as I read aloud that list of names - some long gone, some whose funerals I've taken just a few weeks before.
But I remember all too well that feeling of waiting to hear my parents' names read out...the leaden weight on my heart as we journeyed through the alphabet towards "W" for "Warner".
It was almost unbearable - something I really don't think many people are ready for in the first months and years of bereavement.

So, though we tell our funeral families that the Requiem will take place, and many ask for their dead to be remembered there, we also offer them a gentler way to pause on their journey, to bring their sadness and their gratitude to God, and engage with all that is happening inside them as they move hesitantly towards healing.
This afternoon some 40 of them gathered, dodging the downpours that seemed to underline just how tough the going is when you're mourning...
They arrived chilled and dripping, somewhat bedraggled - and the church did feel like a sanctuary as we listened to the wind getting up outside.
Each one of those present represented a story of remarkable courage...
The son who had cared devotedly for his mother through long years of dementia
The mother whose son took his own life when the world seemed to harsh to endure
The young mum and her sister who came remembering a baby lost to SIDS - but who came with their arms full of the toddler who is not a replacement but is so very clearly a sign of hope.
Each of them has mourned and struggled and wondered if there was really any point to getting up in the morning.
Each of them, simply by being there, reminded us
"And now faith, hope and love remain - these three"

Their presence in church represented a huge act of faith - and an expression of hope, that the darkness of loss would not hold them forever.
And the love? Well, that was evident in everything that they did...
In the tears and the smiles as they lit candles and remembered - of  course - but still more in the care that they took of one another as we gathered for tea and far too much cake in the church hall.

The wonderful Ally Barrett had written a new All Souls hymn this year, which we sang just before we embarked on lighting the candles.
Its words carried exactly the message I wanted to leave with today's congregation
We place into your hands, O Lord,
our future and our past:
And as you bless us on our way,
and travel with us night and day,
your love will hold us fast,
your love will hold us fast.

So often in ministry, my job is to get out the way so that God can work.
Today I watched as these lovely, beloved and hurting people reached out as agents of God's healing for each other.
Indisputably, non-negotiably holy ground - where I am privileged to have stood for just a little while.

For all the saints

So November begins - and with it for writers across the internet a month of specific daily commitment to their craft. My beloved daughter is focussed on not one but two novels (and being her, I'm confident that she'll achieve them) but I lack her creative gifts so it's all about the blog here. The hope is that having someone else in the house who is writing manically every day will ensure that I manage something too - so I'm taking a deep breath & attempting a commitment to NaBloPoMo. Some posts may be negligible, but I promise to do my best.

1st November is the feast of All Saints - surely one of the loveliest of all the Christian calendar. On twitter this morning there were many many posts with the #forallthesaints as people gave thanks for their own personal saints, who had inspired, encouraged and blessed them.

So, today and on every day "I thank my God on each remembrance of....."

J- the larger-than-life director of music at my school - who took the risk of allowing a girl to become head chorister - whose passion for perfection in the music of worship opened up a world that I longed to inhabit, which drew me in and shaped everything I have been and done from then on.

Another J - the farmer who was our neighbour when we first moved out from London. One of the kindest and most truly courteous people I have ever encountered. When we moved to the village, life was rather a struggle:the children were tiny, the house was a building site, we had no money and for about 2 years it felt as if I was never out of jumble-sale clothes or to be seen without plaster-dust in my hair. But the route to school was past J's gate - and the unfailing warmth of his greetings, his unaffected compliments and the sheer goodness he radiated always left me feeling that life WOULD be alright in the end.
When he died of cancer, the entire community came to a halt for his funeral and we realised that he had been a kind of honorary guardian-angel for much of the village. Whenever I see a tweedy type with a black labrador, I smile as I remember.

A & J - an elderly couple who adopted my children as "church grandparents" when we first moved from London. Sunday by Sunday, the welcomed the children to sit with them, read their collection of church books, fed the toddlers with breadsticks where necessary and generally made a gift of their time to me - so that I was free to listen, to pray, to worship. Were it not for them, I suspect I would never have heard God's call to ordination.

T - the first parishioner with whom I journeyed through the long march of bereavement and, in time, on his own journey towards death. As we put one hesitant foot in front of another along that inexorable road, it was wonderful to see the fear replaced by a quiet confidence and courage. He taught me so much, bless him.

J, my precious beloved godmother, whose unconditional love and affirmation supported me through some of the hardest times of my life. Her letters, in that beautiful italic script, were a treasure - offering glimpses of her life, her pleasure in the changing seasons, her family, her animals, her garden. I'm told that at her funeral (in Denmark, on a day when I was committed to a wedding here) her parish priest described her as a "thin" person - one through whom the light shone for all to see. She always shone for me.

My parents, and those who hugged and cherished me when they had gone...
The hugely different priests, women and men, who have showed me different ways in which I might live a calling that seemed impossible at the outset...
Friends, living and departed, who encourage me, pray for me, trust me with their vulnerabilities and listen as I share mine.

Then, of course, there are those long-gone, whose lives or work inspired and blessed me...
Herbert, Donne and Andrewes among the writers; Bach,Tallis, Gibbons, Byrd, and countless others whose music weaves patterns of sound that echo the perfection of that chorus around the throne of God.

My favourite story for today concerns an apocryphal small boy who was asked in the "children's spot" at church to define a saint. In a moment of panic, he forgot the carefully prepared lesson his Sunday school teachers had offered, and casting about for inspiration saw the haloed figures in the stained glass...
"A saint", he said, "is someone the Light shines through"

.

I'm thankful for so many, today and every day.

"God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Sermon for the last Sunday after Pentecost, St Matthew's.

God have mercy on me, a sinner

How does that simple prayer make you feel?

It sounds rather more abject than our usual tone, perhaps...but I'd want to say that it should be a part of our prayer each and every day.

You see, in the past few decades – throughout my lifetime, I'd guess, - the Church has been encouraging us to focus on God's love more than his judgement...and that is absolutely as it should be.

Hear me now – for this is surely the heart of the gospel...

God loves you – absolutely and unconditionally.

There is nothing in the whole world that you can ever do or say or think that will make God love you any more or any less...God loves you so much that if you were the only person ever born in this world, Christmas and Easter would still have happened – just for you.

God loves you – and has created you for a relationship of love with Him.

Alleluia!

Thanks be to God!

But – love is a two way street.

Though every body born into the world exists within that boundless, eternal love – many of them are oblivious to it...and we who know intellectually that we are loved will often struggle to experience that love as our deepest reality.

Jesus tells us in the great commandment not only to love the Lord our God – but also to love our neighbour AS OURSELVES...and that's often a huge struggle, because, you see, we very often don't love ourselves at all.

We grow up believing that inner voice, like that of a little devil sitting on our shoulder telling us “you're not really anything special...You're stupid....lazy....inadequate....”

You can pick your own adjective here – because I'm pretty sure that you'll have one.

You may know, with your rational mind, that this is all a load of nonsense – but very often vestiges of the lies take root and so as we go through life, when sadness hits – when a loved one dies, or illness strikes – that same little voice will whisper “There you are...It's no more than you deserve. Whatever makes you believe that God could love you”.....

and so, often, we find ourselves living a daily lie.

We affirm with our mouths – and maybe even with our minds – that we are God's beloved children – but at a deeper level we fear that actually we are a waste of space.

And that has a huge impact on our connection with God – it makes prayer harder – it makes EVERYTHING harder.

How can we have a loving connection with the Creator of all things if we actually see ourselves as akin to something on the bottom of a shoe...

And, of course, that's where the cross comes in.

Atonement – making us AT ONE with God

Showing us, once and for all, that we ARE beloved and loveable...despite all those negative voices, despite our own deepest fears...

God loves you so much that he CHOSE to die for us...What greater proof could there be?

How much does he love you?

THIS much....and beyond.

But often it's hard to accept that...and that's where reconciliation comes in.

No, of course we are not the worthless beings that our inner voices might claim – but when we raise our eyes and open our minds to reflect on the God who is wholly love, light and eternal perfection – we will surely be very conscious of the gulf between us. We may, at this point, be so overawed that we cannot believe that he loves us...

The closer we come to His light, the more we see of our own inner darkness...

So – we need to face that darkness– to look honestly at ourselves...at the people we really are, deep down...at the mess of contradictions, good intentions, failings and fears...all those things that push our buttons and determine that, as Paul famously put it

“I don't do the good things I want to do, but the bad things I try to avoid, I find I do ALL THE TIME”

Does that sound familiar? It's certainly a reality for me..

So -what to do?

I could retreat – let that reality become my main driver, filling me with the fear that I am fundamentally unloveable.

I could move further away from the light of God's presence, settle for being always less than I'm called to be.

Or perhaps I could pretend – pretend that I really AM the person I'd like to be – the one who is always kind, always loving, who always trusts God and is never afraid.

Sometimes I've carry on that sort of pretend game for months on end – and I doubt if I'm unique.

But you can't build a relationship on the foundation of a lie – particularly when that relationship is with the One to whom all hearts are open.

And deep down, I don't want to.

I want to be at one with God, to know that he loves and accepts me as I am...

I want us to be reconciled....and that means being honest about my situation.

True reconciliation never comes through glibly denying that there is anything wrong.

That's why the Pharisee, who was so very busy applauding himself for being better than anyone else, was completely on the wrong track. He was trying to distract himself – and maybe to distract God too – from the mess within by his loud protestations of holiness...

Anyone who spends so much time praising their own endeavours clearly has a whole heap of problems – whether his words came from the pride of an inflated ego or the insecurity of one who thinks that God needs to be appeased by extravagant offerings, or bribed by lavish gifts.

And there's really no point in doing that – because God knows us through and through, better than we know ourselves – and STILL LOVES US.

So, reconciliation is about learning to be honest about ourselves, about facing hard truths and offering to God those things which we wish we could change.

It may come through a lot of heart-work...as we, like the tax collector, pour out our soul to God in true humility in our private prayers and as we come to worship week by week (that's part of why saying sorry is one of the first things we do during the Eucharist)

It may come as we explore our inner life with the help of a wise “soul friend”, who can make it easier to understand the twists and turns of our spiritual journey.

It may come through the sacrament of reconciliation – a gift that the Church offers to all who are serious about facing the hard truths about themselves and inviting God to transform them.

Always, reconciliation involves finding the courage to be honest before God about our inmost being....those things we cannot love, those things we wish we could change

Because, of course, once we've acknowledged the truth, we are open to the good news that God can and will change us from the inside out, that God will justify us and straighten out the tangled mess of our lives

Reconciliation isn't easy – for us or for God. It costs God the life of his Son – but for all that it is joyous and wonderful because it rests on that central truth that whoever you are, whatever you've done – GOD LOVES YOU ANYWAY.

If you dare to believe this, then it's safe to be yourself with God – to pray this simple prayer

“God have mercy on me a sinner”

and then to let him begin his work of setting all to rights – transforming you as he transforms creation and makes all things new.

"Reconciling the world....."

Recently,  Archbishop Justin told a group of church leaders how much he valued the practice of Sacramental Confession...and I have to say that I agree with him wholeheartedly! But the conversations that arose when I linked to his words on Facebook brought home to me once again just how unfamiliar this sacrament is within the Anglican Church...so I've been pondering ever since and have realised that for liberal Christians like me, it may seem almost a contradiction in terms to be advocating it at all. A face to face chat with a parishioner who was full of questions helped me to clarify my own thinking and just why I am so grateful that in the Church of England though "none must, all may and some should" receive this sacrament.

You see, we do rather struggle with the concept of "sin" in my church. In preaching and in conversation I tend to talk about "brokenness", "failure",  "disappointing ourselves and God" "hurting God and the people God loves" - but I steer clear of the language of "sin". Generally, I think I'm right in this. We have alot of lee-way to make up after generations of preachers offered so much by way of the fear of God that people were (and are) apt to forget that God both loves AND likes them. Also I'm not sure that it really helps those who are tentatively exploring faith if the first thing they are invited to do when they first arrive at an act of worship is to dwell on their utter unworthiness...While beginning the Eucharist with an act of confession may seem as natural as washing before a meal to some, others feel quite definitely "got at" - and not by God but by an institution that they rightly recognise has its own fair share of confessing to do. 

So - while I value the role of a weekly general confession within public worship, I'm not much given to laying stress on how much we need it as individual sinners. 
Then, of course, the rhythm of the service is such that it's quite hard to enter into deep and specific self-examination...We may manage to apologise in our hearts for the time we were exasperated with a colleague, or moaned to a friend about a mutual acquaintance...but we rarely have the time to think about what it is in us, those deep habits of thought or behaviour, which have driven us in our bad behaviour. So we join in the general confession, receive non-specific absolution - and move on to celebrate as God's forgiven children.

That's fine. I'm not in any way suggesting that the corporate confession and absolution are not effective - simply that in my own experience there are things that I do again and again which have their roots in parts of myself that I really do need to spend time reflecting on, places where I am acutely aware of my need for God's grace.
And for me, that's where the Sacrament of Reconciliation comes in.

I've blogged about it before ...the way that grubbling about in the depths of my soul makes me all too aware of the things I hoped I'd buried forever...the sheer misery of having to articulate painful truths about myself when they are such a far cry from the person I long to be. I can honestly say that when I'm engaged in the process of confession, the shame that I feel is 100% provoked by the sins - that I have been content with so much that is a distortion of my best self, the person Christ calls me to be...It has nothing to do with what my confessor may think of me - because, once the rite has begun, I'm almost unaware of them. This is me, taking a long hard look at myself and admitting to God those things that God already knows all about....

When I've looked those unpleasant truths in the face with as much courage as I can muster, - then it DOES matter that there is another person there - for while the actual process of confessing is about me and God alone, it is hugely helpful to receive the thoughts, wisdom and compassion of another human being - a priest speaking with the authority of the Church but with their own experiences of being a fallible human being to shape their words. There have been times when I have been quite resistant to making my confession to the particular priest "on offer" that day - but always, EVERY SINGLE TIME, they have said exactly what I most needed to hear - and those nuggets of wisdom have stayed with me long after the sins I'd confessed have sunk without trace.

And, of course, that's the really wonderful thing.
Having shared those things which are so hard to acknowledge, harder still to deal with - I not only receive help with reshaping my life so that their influence is no longer strong - but I ALSO hear words of forgiveness spoken directly to me - ME...absolution for all that STUFF and "those other sins I cannot now remember".
God has looked at the whole of me, has helped me (as the psalmist put it)  to understand my errors and now cleanses me from my secret faults..
God looks at me just as I and accepts, loves and forgives me.

Regardless of the words I am given to reflect on, or whatever process of penance is suggested to help me to rest on God's forgiveness, I always leave confession with my confidence renewed that nothing 
"Not death nor life, neither angels nor demons, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,...."
- not even my own willful determination that "I'm not really that loveable, honestly God, if you knew me..." NOTHING 
will be able to separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Small wonder that I feel as if all my Christmasses and birthdays, all the spring mornings of childhood and the most joyful awakenings of life have come together.
Reconciliation is a wonderful thing!

I want to get my baby christened

That's generally the way the conversation begins in these parts.
A bit of me registers minor professional irritation...why won't people use the word baptism? do they actually expect a naming ceremony?....but I disguise that as I go into smiley vicar mode.
KF "How lovely...We need to get together to talk about this"
Parent "Can I have it on Christmas Eve/Easter Sunday/Sunday week..."
KF "Let's meet first and try and talk through what we'll be doing, what the service is about, what promises you'll be making......then we can fix a date"
Parent "But I want to get the invitations out...."

So, before we start, there's a risk that the conversation will derail.
Our expectations seem so very different.
I'm thinking longingly of on-going Christian commitment, of growing the Church, of God's saving grace in action, God's love affirmed and celebrated.
They are thinking.......well, actually, I just don't know.

Sometimes (and I ask forgiveness for it) I've been far too quick to jump to conclusions, to decide that "all" the parents want is the opportunity to celebrate their family life with a really good party thrown in...that the "church bit" is just an embarrassing preliminary that they really don't see the point of.

Oh Kathryn! REALLY...

I admit that sometimes the wider congregation of friends and family who come arrive for a baptism are not on board with the service - despite my  best efforts to make it as accessible and easy to understand as I can. 
I know that sometimes (but ONLY sometimes) the whole thing can feel like an unsuccessful exercise in crowd control.
But even then - well, who knows what is going on beneath the surface?
I remember one such that felt deeply discouraging...parents and godparents struggled to join in with their promises...children ranged far and wide expressing themselves with full confidence at the top of their voices even as I tried to draw them in and engage them fully. I was convinced that I was an extra in a rather complicated photo shoot - and my anxieties were not allayed as I listened to a couple of very young mums, teetering on high heels  and shimmering with enough bling to make the eyes water, dismiss the service thus
"Well, that was WELL EMBARRASSING wasn't it?"
"Yeah babe, but it had to be done"

It had to be done.
I've wondered so often what the motivation is...why "it had to be done" at all...
Vestigial folk religion? Social constraints? To satisfy Grandma? (but even Grandma is increasingly unlikely to be part of the church, so that bit of reasoning has had its day)
Actually, you know, I'm beginning to come round to the opinion that - shock! horror! - it might just be God at work.

You see, I'm surprised so very very often.

Surprised by the young soon-to-be godparents who come to talk about their own necessary baptisms...who struggle at first to articulate anything that I can recognise as faith language but then share some profound questions about the point of life, or explain how they have talked to God each and every day and cannot imagine how they'd get through without Him.
They won't offer me neat little sound-bytes about "repentance" but they often say "I've done some stupid things and I'd like to draw a line - and to help my godchild not to make those mistakes"

Sometimes, no such encouragements are forthcoming - and so I approach the baptism with minimal expectations. I find myself apologising in advance to God, worry that I am peddling cheap grace - and then, something happens.
You see, it's impossible to trace the cross on someone's forehead without looking them in the eye as you do so...
"Windows to the soul"?
Apparently so - and again and again at this moment I find myself taken un-awares, standing on holy ground in company that I would never have expected to meet there.

They have such care-free, care-less facades - those young men who discover that they can't be godfather to their best mate's son unless they've been baptised themselves. 
It can be really hard to persuade them to go deeper in conversation...but then, as we stand together beside the font, with the Paschal candle creating a pool of light in the shadows, something happens.
"Do you turn to Christ?" I ask
"Do you repent of your sins?" and then, with growing confidence
"Christ claims you for his own..."

And, without fail, He does.

We know, all of us in that tiny group at the back of the church, that we are not alone...that One greater than all our hopes, our dreams and our imaginings, has been invited in and has arrived and made Himself at home.

Afterwards, the newly baptized may be gruff, trying to reclaim that nonchalance that was part of the deal at the beginning - but they will say something like
"I'm glad I did that. It was special. I feel different"

And I don't know, and I can't know,  what will happen next for them...whether the promises they have made will translate into on-going active membership of the Church...how things will work out with their godchild as the years go past...
But I do know that, as I tell them
"Today God has touched you with his love and given you a place among his people.  God promises to be with you in joy and in sorrow, to be your guide in life, and to bring you safely to heaven. In baptism God invites you on a life-long journey....

And it is just that.

An invitation.
The response is not within my control but in welcoming all comers to the sacrament I do at least ensure that the invitation is issued.

So I remain unapologetic about my "baptise anyone who asks" policy - and confident that no preparation I could offer could in any way make any of us ready for that moment when the Spirit descends, as gentle as silence, and we are made new.