SNOWDROPS make me think of warm and sunny Spring days – and each and every year I feel I’ve been kidded when I go outside in shirtsleeves to photograph them and get blown over by the freezing wind! That’s why the dear little flowers are called snowdrops. No matter how insistent the wishful thinking it’s most assuredly and decidedly not yet Spring!
EARLY-ISH NIGHT with a warm pillow now. But not before I’ve offered a heartfelt thanks for my kind dentist – whose “emergency” ministrations came to the aid of a vicar who, prior to his assistance, had been rendered helpless, entirely hopeless (yep! – faith flew out the window), and utterly hapless. I wonder how many things in this life are more tormenting than the fiercest toothache, and how many men or women are looked upon more gratefully than is a dentist – when the pain stops? I’ve not been able to get one of those quotable quotes out of my head since I drove home from the surgery in Hale. I think it was probably uttered by one of the desert fathers, though I’d have to look that up. Anyway, it bears a message pertinent to a great deal more than just toothache:
… this, too, shall pass …
A MIX OF GOOD, “BAD” & SAD today. Wonderful Family Eucharist at 9am when Rachael Elizabeth introduced us to a transfigured Jesus and to (William Blake’s ! ) Emmet the Ant and the Glow Worm who showed him the way home; and a happy encounter later with a couple planning their August wedding. But, alongside these, the phone calls and the home visits to people struggling with illness, mortality and / or bereavement. Most every day of my working life someone asks the all-too-often unanswerable “Why?”. And truth to tell, faced with a thousand unanswerables we just have to learn to surrender sometimes. Don’t we? Don’t I?
William Cleary always hits the spot for me:
God Creator of our life, of human hearts dancing with hope, God of falling leaves and long memory, of children racing through days and years, of energies for hard work, of surrendering with grace to the demands of time, we raise our minds into yours – however slightly we can manage it – and rejoice that life and vitality and the dynamism of relationship throbs on and on, and we (with You) are a part of it. May your presence teach us gratitude, and your wonders give us awe. Amen.
Our Minds into Yours: Surrendering to life
from We Side with the Morning
TURN UP YOUR SOUND, click on the photo and do nothing for 2 minutes … to extend the benefits of a quieter day. Anytime. Anyday …
I REALLY BELIEVE in the importance of praise where praise is due. And praise is absolutely due to the newly refurbished Glasgow Central Hotel - fully deserving of every delighted accolade it receives. A whirlwind 24 hour trip North was made doubly delightful by excellent reception, stunning accommodation, all-round comfort, a fab night’s sleep, extremely friendly staff, and a splendid breakfast. And all at a very, very reasonable price – with access directly off the station concourse. It’s a pleasure to be able to recommend such a resource without hesitation. Well done Principal Hayley!
PEOPLE LEARN TO SING with one of these gorgeous little bundles in their arms – if only to drown out the “singing” powered by heartier, healthier infant lungs. It’s well over twenty-five years since I first “wrote” some baby-song lyrics of our own to Brahms’ Lullaby, but they came back to me tonight, and to good effect – though I’d forgotten the tininess and the nervousness in the first holding. Night night Jack Robert – and his clever old Mum and Dad xx
WONDERFUL FUNERAL THANKSGIVING for Edward today. Deeply, deeply moved by the tender care that went into its preparation and celebration. Visceral honesty, integrity, decency, tender loving care and goodness in Peter’s tribute. Gospel incarnate celebrating the reign of God in and through all things. Church of England liturgy working alongside ad lib and Mahler, Westlife, Katherine Jenkins and Sweet Sacrament Divine. And all supported and upheld by the bereaved working in close partnership and trust with the priest. And all working with supremely sensitive funeral directors, St Ann’s Hospice staff, Rowan Chapel staff and one another. A beautiful occasion of a kind that enables one truly to celebrate good life on the one hand, and good death on the other; an occasion of a kind that brings one face to face with a profound reality in and about all humankind: that we’re every one of us less than perfect and every one of us also capable both of loving and of being loved much. I wept for the joy of being alive today, and for the privilege of my calling as a priest. At a funeral.
MONTH AFTER MONTH there’s a blessed gathering in the blurred and candlelit silence of our Monthly Monday Meditation. If Messy Church is important (and we absolutely believe it is) it is also of fundamental importance that we recognise the power of silence, of meditation, and of prayer, for the proper undergirding of our many and varied activities. No apologies for non-attendance are necessary or invited. This is not a numbers game. We don’t count. There’s nothing to do when we get there, except just be, in company with the “we” that makes up what the Quakers call a “circle of trust”. But, touchingly, beautifully, people send little notes or emails if they can’t make it sometimes. “I treasure this monthly gathering more than gold” said one such tonight. “And though I can’t be there in person you’ll know that I’m there in spirit”. And I do know, actually, that they’re “there”, even as I know that most of those who gather on these occasions couldn’t describe what happens either in the silence or in themselves. They / we are only able to say that it pulls us back, again and again. We just know, somehow, male and female, old and young, that it’s something necessary. Something important. Something of God.
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.John Gillespie Magee | High Flight
MESSY MOSES reminded me today of a couple of things: that we’ve got a wonderful bunch of people at St Michael & All Angels Bramhall. And that Messy Church – albeit Messy – needs all the marvellous and extraordinary organisational skills of a Messy Moses! There has to be some order and some organisation to keep the Messy afloat! And our needs were well supplied.
Let my people go! said Moses to Pharaoh. Let people go to Messy Church was the cry donkeys year later in Bramhall. Major adventures involving patience, perseverance, pragmatism and prayer got underway in both cases. Manna from heaven was supplied to the wandering Israelites. Chicken noodle soup and apple pie was supplied to the happy assembly gathered to hear about the basket and the bulrushes, the burning bush, the encounters with power, the people who consistently moaned like drains, and the vision of better times, better places and higher things.
Messy and magnificent: both the Exodus and a richly laid Saturday afternoon in Bramhall. Congratulations to all involved, then, now, and in the future.
STOP THE CLOCK! Where does time go to? Surely Christmas was only half an hour ago and Ash Wednesday’s already just around the corner. God grant me the grace when Lent arrives to spend a bit of time alone in the “Wilderness” (gorgeously described by many commentators as a place undisturbed by the “works” of humankind). We understand that Jesus was led out into the wilderness alone. He wasn’t facing down demons in a Lent Group.
One of the demons I shall have a go at facing down is the one that’s constantly telling us all to run faster. It might as well be “jump down from this Temple and I’ll catch you”. Will anyone “catch” me? You know, I don’t believe that any more than Jesus did. It’s my own responsibility to slow down a bit – and I know that that involves a bit more effort than just shouting “stop the clock”. But let no-one pretend that it’s easy, that’s all. Because it ain’t.
And let no-one be persuaded by the voices that encourage us to abrogate our personal responsibilities to them or to the institutions they represent – especially the “religious” voices. Because a) they don’t mean it, and b) God made us capable of recognising that if we’re to have a share of responsibility for all life we must first learn to be responsible for our own.
