PUFFIN THE KAYAK has been lifted from her perch in the garage rafters and safely delivered to her summer season on Ullswater, on what must surely have been one of the loveliest days of the year. Just enough of a gentle breeze to cool but not to throw off course; progress atop the blue, blue lake gentle, slow and quiet enough to be able to come within a few yards of protective Canada Geese watching their still very tiny and fluffy young paddling furiously to keep up with the grown ups. Lakeland children still in school today, of course, but if the weather stays like today’s there’ll be a much larger picnicking presence here tomorrow morning. I shall sleep like a baby tonight, every muscle and sinew having been reminded of the part it must play to navigate a small boat upon and across the queen of the Lakes.

THE LANTERN TOWER at Bramhall Parish Church was internally renovated in 2009 and is currently clad in scaffolding for external repointing. It’s a bold statement in our community. Added to a fifty year old parish church in 1960, the brick and concrete structure was immediately detested by some in the neighbourhood and loved with a passion by others.

Towering above our baptismal font, and acoustically the church’s sweet spot, fifty+ years on it now houses one of the church choirs. I enjoy the generous sense of space and light and glory it affords; it is the very opposite of cramped and mean, and I’m delighted too that the tower provides exhibition space for suspended artworks and painting. But, most of all, this tower gives me pause to contemplate the connected values of light and vision.

Bertie Barnby was the energetic and inspiring 3rd Vicar of Bramhall in 1960. Several hundreds attended Sunday worship and he was “on the case” of those who didn’t on Monday mornings – which I admit, being an introvert by comparison, would probably put me off forever!

Canon Bertie’s autocratic style wouldn’t win him much approval in 2012, indeed there were mutterings and grumblings back in 1960, but fifteen years after the end of the second world war his vision was bold, brave and efficacious. An accomplished church musician, Bertie insisted upon the Christian virtue of “giving thanks to the God who made us, in the Lord’s House, upon the Lord’s Day”. That was how the Church was built. That was how good and just society would be maintained. The Church was to be the lantern set upon a hill. And so the Vicar’s powerfully envisioned dream of a lantern tower prevailed.

What value has this huge and powerful “statement” of a tower for me and my fellow disciples today? Does it speak of vision in 2012? Yes it does. I want to pause to consider the source of this lantern’s light. And I want to do so in the wake of a friend’s describing a recent sermon he’d heard in which the preacher implied that life inside the Church is full of light and “out there” is full of darkness, for I beg to differ. Bramhall’s tower opens my eyes. At night, when electric light glows inside the Church, there’s a relatively low wattage presence in the road outside, from inside out. But much more powerful, and every single day of the year, too, our lantern tower is illuminated from the outside in. “Out there” is where the Light is, and “out there” is what lights up “in here”. No doubt there’s need for a great deal of healing and regeneration in the world “out there”. No doubt there’s need for a great deal of healing and regeneration in the world “in here”, too. But we’re – each and every one of us – caught up in a life-long process of being healed and vivified by the Light that comes into our lives (and into our tower space) from “out there”. The Church that recognises no need for healing and light from without its walls will crumble and fall. Churches (and individuals) that think they’re the only bearers of light are – in the long run – of no earthly use at all.

Bertie Barnby wasn’t daft. When he called people to offer thanks to God in the Lord’s House – this parable built of stone on Robins Lane – he was consistently inviting his parishioners to encounter God chiefly in the Lord’s House not built by human hands, the “temple within”. Human hearts and souls are built to be “lantern towers” – and in the quiet and contemplative moments of our daily thanksgiving we find that the life of the world is not an enemy, but the Source of the light with which we’re illuminated, from the outside in, so that we’re able to shine from the inside out. Our job is to love well, to reflect the light. The world is “changed from glory into glory” not in the first instance by churchy institutions but by the God, by the Life “in whom there is no darkness at all”.

That’s maybe why there’s such a sense of Presence at evening prayer in Bramhall Parish Church, when late afternoon sunlight glows in the tower space … of the parish church, and of our hearts.

“Bertie’s tower” is about repointing. God grant us grace and vision not to lose heart and to aspire – as extravagantly as God does – to ever more beautiful, ever more salvific and “towering” art.

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

JIM’S FUNERAL today was a really wonderful occasion. The weather lifted spirits and the tribute from his grand-daughter was both apposite and touching. Jim was loved dearly by his family, but also by a huge assembly of valued friends who, in their turn, thought the world of him. I thought of the Scottish philosopher John Macmurray (1) and Anaïs Nin (2), both quoted in Michael Paul Gallagher’s The Human Poetry of Faith

1 From Reason and Emotion: I am prepared to bank upon the faith that the essence of nature – human and divine – is love. The personal life is essentially a life of relations between people; to be ourselves at all we need other people. Religion grows out of our relation to persons.

2 Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.

We need each other, and I find few things more reassuring than a gathering of family and friends (in person or “in spirit”) who walk the whole way with someone they’ve loved well, all the way to the gates of Paradise.

“At some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth.”

May Sarton

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability Acts 2

MY COLLEAGUE David Stoter and I chatted for ten minutes after yesterday’s three consecutive celebrations of the Eucharist here. “The whole place is buzzing” today, David said. And it was. Bramhall Parish Church is never exactly a sleepy-sort-of-a-church but yesterday, indeed throughout the weekend, the place was “buzzing”.

A lot of good things have been happening and more are converging. David and I both articulated that we “don’t quite really know why”. And I’ve been pondering that thought since, delighted about the “not knowing” … and in the early hours of this morning something “clicked”. It’s Pentecost next Sunday, I thought, half asleep, and was jolted awake. It’s Pentecost next week … and we’re not in control. The outpouring of the very life and breath of God is what’s continually changing us here, “from glory into glory, till in Heaven we take our place”.

I remember smiling, twenty years or more ago, when I heard a friend speaking about her church family

“Oh! we do get ourselves in a pickle. We pray “Lord, renew us, set our hearts on fire” even whilst we’re anxiously trying to channel the Holy Spirit through the control centre – you know, the Church Council. And She will insist on listing where She wills! The Holy Spirit’s constantly dishing out gifts to every Tom, Dick and Harriet – and each in their own language! The Holy Spirit’s absolutely no better behaved than Jesus was when it comes to our rules …”

But churches come alive when we loosen our grip a bit. Green shoots are appearing all over the place in and around St Michael & All Angels Bramhall. The fullness of the Life of God has been engaging with growth action planning since before Adam was a lad – and without a great deal of help from us whole new worlds are constantly springing into being. We’re caught up in the act of co-creating with God, of course, but we do well to remember that it takes us a while to catch up with the sheer energy of God. It takes us a while to reckon with the fact that the Holy Spirit’s gift is patently intended for EVERYBODY – inside and outside churches and other religious bodies – (sometimes, rather inconveniently, it seems to us, if we’re honest, with people we reckon decidedly unqualified). And therein lies the Source of my greatest comfort and consolation as a Christian disciple and a parish priest. The universe is buzzing. And I’m not controlling it. As the late, great Welsh priest and poet R S Thomas put it so well in his Pilgrimages, God is

… such a fast
God, always before us and
leaving as we arrive.

We’d exhaust our little energies if we tried to keep running after God. And there’s no need. Pentecost illustrates for us that the gifts are generously dispersed anyway. God “keeps up with” us. So I can rest a little easier. I can encourage my fellow pilgrims to rest a little easier too. For all the evidence before my eyes is that the fire of God’s love draws no distinction between divers peoples. To each is given their own language and life “as the Spirit [gives] them ability”. The saving work has been done. It’s ours to celebrate that fact. All we need to do is open the doors of our hearts, homes and churches as widely as possible, eyes wide open to the beauty, grace and potential in human persons, making sure that everyone knows that all people are invited to the Feast of Life – in precisely those hearts, homes and churches, always.

From time to time, of course, we become irritated. Overwhelmed. Anxious to get a grip on the reigns again, to take control. I’m too easily irritated by those (especially so called “Christian”) people who are apparently quite certain that if only all humanity would follow their particular religious traditions then the world’s ills would disappear. But Pentecostal fire is ever intent on warming such irritations out of our systems. The more irritated we become the more persistent the “calling in the night” that suggests (have you noticed?) that we

enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for you Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him - Matthew 6, v 6-8

I OFTEN SPEAK about life’s being, for me, a colour-full affair. I’ve read on several occasions that some blind people can “see” in their dreams. This doesn’t surprise me.

Anger, anxiety,
adoration and awe,
celebration, communion,
confession, consolation,
consternation, contemplation,
dying, fear, joy,
lamentation, loneliness,
longing, love,
Magnificat, meditation, mediation,
passion, poetry, prayer and prose,
sadness, sleepiness, silence, song

- any and all forms of worship – often translate for me into vivid and fluid colour. The movement is gentle and healing. And thankfully, for a minimalist like me, the colour sometimes involves shades of plain and lovely uncluttered white. Neither the movement nor the colours are loud or aggressive or overwhelming. But they are bright. And each represents someone, some emotion, or some thing. A bit of time spent with “Alleluia” above may reveal some faces and one or two particular spaces …

In common with many artists, pray-ers and writers I think of our ultimate Heaven as fullness of life expressed in colours hitherto beyond our wildest seeing and dreams, but utterly reminiscent, too, of experiences we’ve known throughout our incarnate lives, here, in “this world”. Our hymn book contains a (much too long) version of the Ascensiontide “Hail the day that sees him rise”. Printed service orders (our Sunday usage) allow for discreet pruning. Not so when we use the hymn book, as we did on Thursday. So lots and lots of alleluias! For me though the words sometimes become the means of transport to a different level of seeing and / or hearing.

This “Alleluia” developed whilst humming “Hail the day” on and off over a period of about 48 hours. Sometimes these paintings start out with canvas or paper, paint and brush, and are photographed and digitally developed later. For this one the “medium” has been entirely my miracle iPad with BoxWave stylus. Have a great Sunday-after-Ascension. And may your Alleluias be colour-full and joyful.

NINETY-SIX vigorous participants ran for gold in today’s Messy Olympics at Bramhall Parish Church. A wonderful occasion – supported and undergirded by our marvellous Young Church team and a host of adult helpers, together with Double Act our much loved puppet ministry, and some of the best loved “caterers” in the business – it showcased junior / infant athleticism par excellence, enthusiastic worship, and a grand high tea of baked potatoes, cheese and beans and salad and, wonder of wonders, donuts for afters!

The Barnby Choir was rehearsing in the Church after a delightful Wedding had been celebrated in the morning. The Parish Hall, Lounge and grounds were buzzing with happy people of all ages. St Michael’s is a wonderful place to be on days like today … or pretty much any day really

Sheila Newbon oversaw the fabrication of our Olympic Flame – bearing the signatures of all participants – now placed close to the altar in the parish church where it will be for us a beacon in the coming months, and a reminder that we’ve more to be thankful for in this place and at this time than most of us could account for.

]]> http://simonmarsh.org/2012/05/19/messy-olympics-2012/feed/ 0 simonrobert 83ea10d6a1df11e19e4a12313813ffc0_7 http://simonmarsh.org/2012/05/18/that-chair/ http://simonmarsh.org/2012/05/18/that-chair/#comments Fri, 18 May 2012 13:25:24 +0000 Simon Marsh https://simonrobert.wordpress.com/?p=8444 ]]>

HOW MANY PEOPLE do you know who can fall fast asleep in the Dentist’s chair? Me? No, that’s not the point I’m making. I was just … you know … wonderi …

Reblogged from Words/Love:

On the last day of earth, people rose early. There was so much work to be done. Phone calls were made. Important sentiments were expressed. A new record was set for daily kisses.

No one went into the office. All businesses were closed. All eyes and ears and arms stayed open.

Some remained inside, cleaning their homes, returning everything back to its proper place.

Read more… 251 more words

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age – Matthew 28

JESUS DIDN’T SPEND a lot of time with his head in the clouds. He was a man, we might say today, who “had his feet firmly on the ground”. He was a man who commissioned disciples – learners – to wholly practical and diverse ministries here in this world. Today he might say “don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re of no earthly use”, or “don’t stand praying on street corners so that people can admire (or despise!) your praying. Rather, be the prayer!”

So if it’s required that I, or anybody, become too absorbed in the story of a man becoming a sort of ghostly sky-rocket on this, the Feast of the Ascension, we miss the depth of the myth. And the depth of the myth, it seems to me, points to the Christ-likeness, the Anointed-likeness of God that was patently present in Jesus, which presence, Jesus constantly suggested, was and is and will be present in all created things. The Christ-likeness of God, the Anointed-likeness of God, would be with our humankind “until the end of the age”. Forever. Always. No avoiding God, anymore than one can avoid the Life, the “anointing”, that flows from God.

Long ago I found reason to be profoundly thankful for the late and great Archbishop William Temple of Canterbury who died, greatly mourned, in 1944. In his Readings in St John’s Gospel the archbishop wrote

He is here now

In the days of his earthly ministry,
only those could speak to Jesus
who came where he was.
If he was in Galilee,
they could not find him in Jerusalem;
if he was in Jerusalem,
they could not find him in Galilee.
But his Ascension means that he is perfectly
united with God;
we are with him wherever we are present to God;
and that is everywhere and always.
Because he is ‘in heaven’, he is everywhere on earth;
because he is ascended, he is here now.

And James Brabazon, in The Turin Shroud, reflected

This is man

They say he will judge me. I’m convinced.
I am judged already. I stand before him, knowing
that like each man I am my own disaster.
He knows I know. He will be merciful.
This man looks like all that I ask of God -
I can call him both me and master.

]]> http://simonmarsh.org/2012/05/17/ascending/feed/ 4 simonrobert Ascension | simonmarsh