Freedom Bound!

Creation Sermon - Genesis 1

2009-02-04T16:17:00.001Z

In 586 BC
the Hebrew people had witnessed the destruction
of the Kingdom of Judah
by Nebuzar-adan
the captain of king Nebuchadnezzar’s body guard.

He had razed towns and villages to the ground,
split families,
burned crops,
stolen wealth,
and deported the Judaean nobility and leading citizens
to Babylon.

Perhaps most painfully,
certainly most symbolically,
the temple in Jerusalem,
built by King David himself,
was destroyed.

Gone was the worship,
gone the sacrifices,
gone the priesthood,
it was all over.

They even lost their language –
Hebrew was supplanted by the tongue of their captors – Aramaic
which 500 years later
would be a carpenter from Nazareth’s native tongue.

“How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

The dream was over.

And they could not forget it.
Babylon was no shy beast,
her glory was on evident display,
as any who see their work
in the British Museum
will know.

Statues of gods looked out proudly over the people.

Sin – the sun god
Harran – the moon god
Anu, Enlil and Ea - gods of the dome of the sky
Apsu– the god of the sea and rivers
Nisroch – god of crops and fruit
Lahar – god of cattle and beasts
and Marduk – the god of life

And these statues reminded the Hebrews
of their predicament.
a people lorded over by new masters,
speaking a new language
and with their homes
and faith destroyed.
With no temple,
no sacrifices,
their God defeated,
what did they have?

“How can I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

And so they told the stories from home
the stories about Abraham
and Sarah
and Moses
and Miriam
and Aaron.
And the stories took shapes
that could be remembered
and one day written down.

And they heard the stories of the Babylonians,
the flood and the Utnapishtim’s ark with its animals,
of the fiery angels who flew round the thrones of gods,
and the story of the creation of the world
from the waters of tiamat – of chaos.

And they began to retell these tales.
And like the enslaved after them,
from Roman to African slave,
they subverted their captors’ tales.

Noah not only had an Ark
but he witnessed the destruction of the proud,
the proud like the Babylonians.

The God of the burning bush
now also had seraphim,
literally burning ones,
who flew round God’s throne,
and the fiery ones of the Babylonians
worshipped the Hebrew God!

And then the Enûma Eliš
the Babylonian creation story.
The Hebrews retold this creation story,
but with a subverting current,
they told it against their captors,
and they even used the Babylonian seven day week…..

You have the night and day god?
Our God created night and day!

You have the dome gods?
Our God created your dome!

You have the water god?
Our God created the waters!

You have the crop god?
Our God created the crops!

You have sun and moon gods?
Our God created the sun and moon!

You have the god of the sea?
Our God created the sea!

You have the god of cattle?
Our God created the cattle!

With its repeated refrain,
There was evening and there was morning – the first day.
There was evening and there was morning – the second day….
And it’s repeated lines,
and God said,
and God said….
This song could be learned and chanted by the oppressed.

Like the afro-american spirituals
with their hidden anti-slavery meanings
Genesis chapter one,
the first of two different creation stories in Genesis,
was not a plodding explanation of the world,
but a song of hope and faith!
A song of high revolt!
A song of belief that their God of justice and freedom,
was above the gods of those who oppressed them.

And that freedom and justice did come,
and the gods of the Babylonians were lost in history,
in unexpected ways,
fulfilling the hope of the Hebrew song.
A song once sung by the captors,
but retold by the enslaved,
was remembered and recorded in rebuilt Jerusalem!

And then,
five centuries after the song had been sung
amongst Babylonian statues,
Yeshua ben Yosef,
Jesus son of Joseph,
who knew that song,
walked among the statues of mighty Rome,
of Jupiter and Mars and Caesar,
and went down to the waters,
where the Spirit
which the song spoke of brooding over creation,
hovered over him.
And he descended into the chaos of the world,
into its temptations and horrors,
in order to sing the song again.
A song of hope,
of justice,
of love,
of faith.
A song stronger than the one oppressors sing.
And coming out of the waters,
baptised, drenched, in that commission,
Jesus took up the song,
that leads through captivity
to true freedom from others’
and our own
hatreds, fears and oppression.

And now, 25 centuries after Babylon,
we are invited to allow the spirit to move us,
we who are baptised in the name of the Hebrew God,
to recite Genesis chapter one –
not as some trite, mindless explanation against science,
but as what it always has been,
a song of future hope,
of justice,
of faith,
of freedom,
before which fiery angels
and oppressors
bow down before!

Christmas Sermon

2009-02-04T16:12:00.002Z

God said “let there be light”

The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.

The Christmas stories are full of light and darkness.

Stars, and shining angels,
in the middles of darkness.

Yet we hear about this light so often
that we may miss it in the story.

Where is the light?

Where is the darkness in the Christmas stories?

Let us remember the story and look for the light and the darkness.

Upstairs in their house in Bethlehem,
Joseph’s family huddle safe behind closed doors.

They are safe from soldiers who march the streets
reminding them daily of the occupation of their country.
Safe from the influx of visitors
who have invaded their quiet town.

With the animals in the lower storey of the house,
the family slept the night in the family space upstairs,
the “kataluma”.

They knew how important family was
– and the importance of family values.
The family must be held in honour
and shame avoided at all costs.

So when their relative from Nazareth turned up
unmarried and with his pregnant girlfriend in toe
there was certainly no room for them in the kataluma,
a word sometimes also translated as Inn –
but here it is the family living space –
and instead they offered a place downstairs with the animals.

This is no kindly inn-keeper offering a stable
but a disgusted and proud family sending a pregnant girl
and her boyfriend
to sleep with the animals..
Because they knew what people thought of Joseph’s type.

So they were kept downstairs.

After all – what would the neighbours think otherwise?

So downstairs in the house in Bethlehem,
Joseph and Mary huddle with the animals.

Rejected by his family,
Joseph stays by the side of his disgraced fiancée,
in spite of the shame it has brought on him,
and the uncertain future it may bring.
Even if his family disapprove of his lifestyle.

Upstairs in the living space with family values and rejection
downstairs with the animals and public shame and love that risks everything.

Where is the darkness?

Where is the light?

In the synagogue in Bethlehem sit the local religious leaders.
They know who is in who is out.

To belong to the community you should do things properly
attend worship at the right times
after preparing yourself properly
and wearing smart clothes
and acting in the right way.

It’s not about judging people,
just sometimes you have to be tough
and keep the social order.

In the fields outside Bethlehem sit the local shepherds.
They know who is in who is out.

Their work means they can’t get to the synagogue all the time,
and have to work on the Sabbath.
They can’t do all the actions to keep themselves religiously clean,
and so they aren’t allowed to attend worship
or join in the festivals.
Though folk still eat their lamb
and use their wool.

Yet sometimes these shepherds
who live beyond the pale
see angels in unexpected places
and have to courage to seek peace on earth.

In the synagogue in Bethlehem with the socially acceptable.
In the fields outside Bethlehem with the outcast and angels.

Where is the darkness?

Where is the light?

In the power houses of the capital city are those who know the answers,
and can quote the Word of God to the minutest jot and tittle.
They tell folk what God says
and make sure that other people accept their authority.

They know that sometimes drastic action needs to be taken
for God’s word to be kept,
and for those to whom it is entrusted to keep control.

So when rumours of a new religious leader reach their ears
they know it may take violence to keep their power pure
and their version of faith and God’s control in place.
So children are slaughtered by soldiers
in the name of God ordained power
and by those reading God’s Word.

On the roads to the capital are those from distant lands,
foreigners who speak a different language,
who call God by a different name,
read different religious books
and are open minded enough to travel
and meet people who believe differently to them,
and listen to them,
and change their own ideas,
in order to discover a bigger truth than the one they thought they knew.

In the power houses of the capital city
On the roads to the capital

Where is the darkness?

Where is the light?

And tonight,

tonight, here in Bournemouth,

Where is the darkness?

Where is the light?

Where is darkness of judging others, and social seeking and close minded bigotry?

Where is the light of selfless love, outcasts who meet God and those with open minds?

Where are we?

Jesus said “You are the light of the world.”

All hearts are open

2008-11-20T03:13:00.007Z

Well - it's been ages.....

After a really difficult first few months of the year, with horrible revelations and betrayals and with them the ending of my relationship, I had a great summer finding my feet, laughing LOTS, having an amazing Greenbelt, and being surrounded by amazing friends - some I'd known for years (Graeme, Su, Marty, Marcos...... and Mark proving his friendship and love so amazingly - i'll never forget how quickly he was at my side when I most needed him) and some brand new friends who have also turned out to be gold (Kevin, Nate, and Ant - I am so glad to have met you guys!!). Life has been fab - a grain needs to die etc..... and a new crop comes! By the time I got to Greenbelt (that spiritual and prophetic centre of my life) I felt fab!

BUT things then got even better.......

Just when i was centred, happy, sunny....I went and fell in love. Yay! I met the most amazing guy and it has all been awesome. He is funny, intelligent, inspiring, witty, loving, charming, sexy (oh boy!) - ok, ok, you get the impression I like him? LOL

I feel like me again. :-)

So now it's November and I'm heading from All Saints to Advent. This time of year I always read a text from my own tradition. This year I'm reading "The Cloud of Unknowing". Like many of the fab things in my life it is anonymous and mediaeval! LOL!

The book is about realising that knowledge is relational, that the heart beat of our life is love and embracing the mystery at the heart of all things pimarily through love. I love books and knowing stuff - but know that my life finds meaning in love (as the last two months testfy!). To enter into love is to enter the cloud of unknowing....in a real, lived-out, practical way.

What is "God"? - i don't know. Certainly (if that is anyway possible!) not the god of the fundamentalist nor the strawman of the radical atheist. I don't recognise those transparent deities. Yet there is a love at the centre of all things that i have discovered in and through the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and in his person. It is a way - a word beyond words. We may as well call it "God" I guess. It is expressed by ++Tutu:

Goodness is stronger than evil,love is stronger than hate,light is stronger than darkness,life is stronger than death,victory is ours through him who loved us.

That is the mystery - that love will out. And the Cloud of Unknowing is about daring to approach that radical loving and to risk living it ( this is no vague, squshy love - this is the stuff that makes you feed the starving after all... ).

I hope i can learn to live this - cos i know that love does conquer all. A certain someone has transfomed my world with it....

The book begins with my favourite prayer. I've known it all my life and it is an English prayer - first known in the English Mediaeval Mass, where it looked like this:

Deus, cui omne cor patet,

et omnis voluntas loquitur,

et quem nullum latet secretum,

purifica per infusionem Sancti Spiritum

congetationis cordis nostri,

ut te perfecte diligere

et digne laudere mercamur.

The Cloud of Unknowing translates it:

God, unto whom all hearts be open,

and unto whom all will speaketh,

and unto whom no privy thing is hid.

I beseech thee so for the cleanse

the intent of mine heart

with the unspeakable gift of thy grace,

that I may perfectly love thee,

and worthily praise thee.

The version I grew up with was a modernisation of ++Cranmer's one in the book of common prayer:

Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open,

all desiers known,

and from whom no secrets are hidden.

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts

by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,

that we may perfectly love you

and worthily magnify your holy name,

through Christ our Lord.

Yum!

I'll let you know how the book goes.

I am

2008-10-02T22:11:00.003+01:00

Loved this today on Asbojesus.....

Asbojesus is one of my fave blogs - always worth a visit or three.

The price of love......

2008-10-02T13:13:00.002+01:00

....committed same sex love at least....

Some odd pics

2008-10-01T18:40:00.003+01:00

The West Window of Salisbury Cathedral,

reflected in the new font.

An outside service with inspiring Iona folk.....

Mmmmmmmmm hot chocolate!

But the company made this so good.....

Greenbelt quotes

2008-10-01T18:07:00.003+01:00

As always, Greenbelt was awesome!

Lots of special times - many in the beer tent - but some challenging stuff too.....so two for you which really jump out of my notebook:

We read the Gospel as if we had no money,
and spend our money as if there were no Gospel. (Christian Aid)

and a reason why we never get of our arses and change the world....

I think I'm waiting to be Jesus. (Aradhna - amazing band!!)

Pick up your cross

2008-10-01T17:53:00.002+01:00

Oh boy - let this slip again.....!!! Blame Facebook!

Firstly, a sermon from ages back....

Will you come and follow me,
if I but call your name?

Carrying crosses is never easy.
There is no place to put a handle,
no way of folding it neatly away,
no way of hiding it.

The call to carry your cross
is a call to live out your life following Jesus
at the risk of public disgrace.

Jesus calls you to love radically and outrageously
in public.
To give your whole life to loving his way.
You cannot carry a cross
half-heartedly
or secretly.

And simply preaching at people
to tell them you are carrying Jesus’ cross
is not the same as carrying it.

If you choose to care for the hurting,
to love the unloved,
to stand with those others find disgusting,
to speak for those with silenced voices -
your manner of life may draw attention to you.
Those who feel exposed by your radical loving
may choose to attack you in order to remove the spotlight from themselves.
They will find names to belittle you,
even mine the scriptures
for words they can throw
in order seemingly to have God on their side.

Just as happened to Jesus as he went to Jerusalem
and took up his cross.

And he calls us now to do the same.

To risk the hostile stare,
and carry on loving inclusively and completely.

Will you come and follow me,
if I but call your name?

The call to carry your cross
is a call to live out your life following Jesus
at the risk of your loving being unnoticed.

How often had Jesus healed and made whole,
touched and held,
and fed and brought new life
to the folk around him.

And yet on the way to the Cross
the love shown
is forgotten by those determined to hate.

Your love may also be missed by the crowds.

Jesus calls you to love radically and outrageously
even if no-one thanks you
or gives you honour.
To give your whole life to loving his way.
You cannot carry a cross half-heartedly
or without risk.

People may ignore your loving,
and not seek to praise you.

Just as happened to Jesus as he went to Jerusalem
and took up his cross.

And he calls us now to do the same.

To live at risk of being unseen,
and carry on loving inclusively and completely.

Will you come and follow me,
if I but call your name?

Carrying crosses is never dignified.
There is no place to hide on a cross,
no suit to disguise your nakedness,
no way of hiding your very self
as vulnerability and pain reveal the self you’d rather hide.

The call to carry your cross
is a call to live out your life following Jesus
as yourself, loved and vulnerable.

Carrying your cross
will show up all that is in you,
anger and hatred
prejudice and bigotry
are all shown up when we have to struggle.

You could claim a lemon was an orange
but under pressure
you soon know what juice it contains.

Jesus calls us to carry the cross of vulnerability,
to discover what is really in us.
But carrying the cross does more than
simply reveal what is in you
it is the way of healing.
When revealing what is in you
Jesus wants you to know that you are loved
not the you you pretend to be
but the real you that you hide inside.

Knowing that you are loved
is part of carrying your cross –
letting go of the way you may attack others
to reflect attention away from your true self,
or beat up yourself in disgust.
And as more and more
you find yourself loved
so more and more
you find that you can love God and others
as you love your self.
For this is carrying your cross.

Maybe for the first time in your life
you may find your true self on show.

Just as happened to Jesus as he went to Jerusalem
and took up his cross.

And he calls us now to do the same.

To live at risk of true healing vulnerability,
and carry on loving inclusively and completely.

Will you come and follow me,
if I but call your name?

To carry your cross and follow Jesus

is a call to live out your life
at the risk of public disgrace,
is a call to live out your life
at the risk of your loving being unnoticed,
is a call to live out your life
as yourself, loved and vulnerable.

Because it is the call to abundant life,
true life,
life that transforms the world around.

Will you come and follow me,
if I but call your name?

+Gene pronounces blessing.....

2008-08-18T02:26:00.003+01:00

I found this today via his holiness Fr Madpriest...

Great words with which to head to Greenbelt - so this is for all who will go there with me, and for those I leave behind to make my pilgrimage...

I think I shall be learning these words.

cake!

2008-08-15T01:23:00.002+01:00

Why is it that the gym has food programmes on the tv's when I'm trying to think about the X-Trainer? Thank goodness the guy in front had a nice arse to distract me!

Gorau awen gwirionedd

2008-08-10T21:18:00.004+01:00

Well - it's five months since I blogged, and after some nagging from unexpected friends (I really thought it was only the holy ones who read this.....!!) I'm finally back.

The big thing since my last post was breaking up with my partner of four years. Lots of tears and pain..... those who know me well know the details and those who don't can safely leave it all in the past....

Work, in spite of the machinations of several episcopal bigots, is fab and keeps me fed and feeding which can't be bad. Read some good stuff, seen the odd good film (go and bop to Mama Mia if you haven't yet!), had a fab holiday (Gran Canaria with two ace guys), being looked after by awesome old friends and making some great new ones, some fab dates :-), and got my life back in gear.....

Through all of it I kept returning to a Welsh expression - Gorau awen gwirionedd - the best inspiration (lit: muse) is truth......

Anyway - I need an early night due to the Olympics last night (watching NOT participating) so catch you soon.

xxx

suffering in silence...?

2008-03-08T10:47:00.004Z

Tomorrow is Passion Sunday (in the Anglican Church - it's next week in the Roman Catholic Church, but that's a whole other story!).

Passio is the Latin for suffering. Of course the suffering of Jesus on the cross, his passion. But it gives us time to be honest about our own.

My sermon tries to encourage us to do that. I nicked some of the words from John Bell - they were too good not to share. Some of it is mine. Some of it may be helpful.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive

to the voice of my supplications!

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep.

God does not guarantee a painless life.

The bones of dinosaurs
who walked the earth millions of years before men and women,
show evidence of cancer.

There have always been fault lines in creation.

The issue is not how to escape hurt,
but how to handle it.

We are often surrounded by stories of pain
and unwarranted suffering,
and the apparent disinterested randomness of natural disaster.

And you wonder ... you wonder ...
what kind of world is it ...
and what kind of God is it
who allows one person to live into old age,
and another young person in their prime,
with their life just beginning to bear fruit,
to be cut down.

Phrases like `only the good die young' are no comfort.
There's an injustice in it all.

Why does God let one person live into old age,
and complete their life's work-
yet cut others off in their prime?

But more,
why should those who never give a tinker's curse
about the establishment of justice and human wholeness be spared,
and those who are committed to these things
be separated in death from all that they could have done
and all they were doing?

One of the very discomforting things
that we have to cope with is that whatever else it is,
the way of Jesus is not an inoculation
against road accidents,
cancers,
persecution
suffering
and death.

Much though we might like it to be so,
much as we hope fervently it might be,
when we say our prayers for our safety
and the safety of our loved ones,
we seem to get even treatment
with those who never utter a prayer
when it comes to accident and illness.

Though truth to tell,
from our Bibles we see that is not a new insight.

The Bible has scarcely begun when Cain kills Abel ...
a man in whom God was well pleased;
Samson, for no evil in him,
gets his eyes gouged out and dies in his prime;
David loses an infant child
and then his son Absalom;
and Stephen,
hardly a year into his discipleship,
is hideously stoned to death.

It would seem that no-one is favoured
when it comes to death and danger.
There is no insurance policy,
no ethereal safety-net
preventing the faithful from falling off a cliff
or falling under the wheels of a car.

So how are we to respond? ... when disaster strikes.

Have we just to grin and bear it,

say it's a hard life?

I want to suggest not the answer,
or even a clue to the answer,
of the mystery of hideous suffering
or untimely death.
But I do believe that there are ways
in which followers of Jesus should respond.

We should respond with honesty,
deep honesty.
If someone we love dies suddenly,
is killed,
is diagnosed as having a fatal illness,
and we feel aggrieved at this,
angry about it,
then the last thing we should do is put on a mask of false piety.
We should be angry!
We should complain to God!
We should ask why!
And we should not be afraid to do that.

For God is not some fragile doll
who will fall off the perch if our voice or our temper rises,
if we dare to tell the truth.
And no one,
no one in the Bible
was ever told off by God
for being justifiably angry, or confused or hurt.

If that were the case,
Jeremiah would have been struck down
a hundred times for arguing with God.

If it were the case that God didn't like complaints,
a third of the Psalms would never have been written.

If Jesus had no time for people complaining,
then when Mary came to see him and said,
`Lord, if you had been there, my brother would not have died!',
Jesus would have told her
to shut up and get on with her life.

But no, what does he do? ...
He listens to Mary's anguish, anger, sorrow,
he sees her tears
and then he cries himself.

God enters into grief
when we share that grief with him.
To refuse to grieve,
to suppress anger,
to avoid shouting at heaven
the things we mumble on earth,
is to keep God out.

We know those we love
not when they pretend to be fine
but when they are honest about their pain.
Only then is relationship real.

When bad things happen to good people,
when the innocent lose their lives,
we express our outrage,
when we suffer,
we show our true feelings ...
to let God in.

As Jesus walks the way of the cross,
from palm-led procession to demanded death-sentence,
we see that suffering is universal,
even for the innocent,
and as we try to share those sufferings,
we are invited to be honest about our own.

Let us pray.

What did they think, Lord,
those who watched you cry in front of women,
in front of men,
for your dead friend?

Did they admire your tenderness having seen your toughness?
Were they disgusted by your tears and loss of self control?
Or were they drawn into your sorrowfor the plight of the worldand the pain of its people?

For, Christ,
you wept
when grief was raw.

Just for Marcos....

2008-02-16T01:17:00.000Z

¡Hola!

Percy points the way

2008-02-11T17:30:00.000Z

I love Percy Dearmer - he is one of my absolute heroes.

Recently, I'm geekish enough to be rereading his "The story of the Prayer Book" and a sentence in a chapter on the first English prayer book really shone out. It's represents the vision of Anglicanism that I wholeheartedly say Amen to! He may be writing about 16th century liturgy and how it reflects the "English Character" (I wish!), but it's true for how the whole Church should be....

[The First Prayer Book] is indeed throughout an exemplar of what we proudly claim as one of the best elements in the English character: alike in ritual, that is, in the wording of services, and in ceremonial, it endeavours to avoid the extremes of bigots and fanatics, seeking to establish what is true and right without regard to prejudices, reactions, and the cruel generalizations so characteristic of religious controversy.

If ever we needed this man back, it's now!

Welcome!

2008-02-07T18:26:00.000Z

Cheers to Mario for sending me this one! (And it's so way past time he blogged!)

And where have you been....?

2008-02-07T09:04:00.000Z

Having disappeared into the ether way before Christmas - finally I return!

Most of the past few months of my life have been taken up turning things like this.....

...into this....

But more of that later.

Last night was Ash Wednesday and Mass was fab. I'm not really a Lent type person, it's all a bit somber for me - give me Advent and Christmas, with all their English traditions, beautiful ancient music and candles burning in the dark any time - but last night I was really hit by a sense of wanting to get back to simply following Jesus, which is what Lent is all about I guess. It's so special putting ash on peoples' foreheads as they come forward in church - the sense of shared humanity not just through the words but through the very act of touching them is holy. Before the Tories (spits) debased the term, it really is about getting back to basics.

Sadly the congregation had to listen to me preach - and don't think you can get away with it, here is what I offered.....

ASH WEDNESDAY SERMON

Here we are

the echoes of police car sirens
and of the trundling of escalators;
the call of door bells
and of the ringing of mobile phones;
the demands of alarm clocks
and of the spring in the toaster;

Here we are

the foot falls that surround us,
the cries of children,
and the Big Issue seller pricking our conscience;
the worrying rattle in the car,
the squeak of a familiar step,
and gurgling of the washing machine.

Here we are

the theme tune to Hollyoaks,
the call of seagulls,
and reminder that the shop is closing;
the crash of waves,
the brakes of the bus,
and the thud of the morning post.

Here we are.

And in this noisy place,
surrounded by the echoes of our daily lives,
the desert may seem a beautiful place to be.
A retreat where the starlight is not drowned out,
where silence brings peace,
and where the starkness denies complexity.

And tonight
it may seem a relief
that the Church calls us to go into the desert,
to leave behind our business and noise,
and to celebrate the starlight,
and the stark silence.

To find a place to which we can escape.

But the Lenten desert
offers us no such easy place.

It is not easy
because we do not go there alone.

Of course the God of the burning bush
goes before us into the desert.
The God who is always surprising us,
who will challenge us to see God
not as we have made God,
but as a dancing flame,
unpredictable,
unexpected,
challenging,
changing our preconceptions.

We will be challenged to listen to the call of our God,
not as we hope it will be,
nor as we make it,
but as challenging and unexpected as it was to Moses.
And if we meet a God who does not surprise us
it is not the God of Moses that we have found.

Of course
we are called to meet with God in the desert.

But it is not only God whom we will meet.

Tonight sisters and brothers,
you are called to journey into the desert
to meet yourself.

You are challenged to meet yourself as you truly are.
With all your temptations and demons.

In the desert there is no noise
to drown out your demons
or silence your lusts.
There is no audience to play to
or other folk at whom to point
in order to detract attention from yourself.

In the desert
you will be stripped of the allure of your prejudices,
your lust for power,
the desire to judge others,
and the longing for personal gain;
because none of these things bring life.

And there is the key to our call to the Lenten desert.

God does not call us into the desert
to point out our sin,
or to humiliate us,
or to threaten us,
or to make us grovel.
No.
God calls us into the desert
that we may see more clearly
the things that deny our God-given potential,
that strangle our ability to love,
that make us less than we can be.
Our prejudices,
our fears,
our power-seeking,
can be stripped away in the desert,
so that we may live abundantly.

Remember the words echoing in Jesus’ ears
as he responded to the desert call:
“this is my son,
the beloved,
with whom I am well pleased.”

We enter the Lenten desert,
not aware of a God who is repulsed by us,
but of a God of absolute love,
who is love.
And who sees our potential to love.

And when, very soon,
we are invited to receive ashes,
and to be reminded of our humanity,
it is knowing that we are made in God’s image,
and that God longs to restore us,
lovingly,
making us whole.

Jesus returned from the desert,
having faced the things
that could have stopped his potential,
and having turned from them,
began his ministry of outrageous love.

We are called to do the same tonight.
Knowing our dust-from-dust,
God-created,
God-loved humanity,
we are called to enter the desert.
The place where we can face
our prejudices,
our longing for power over others,
and our desire to judge;
and turn from them.
So that we may leave the desert more loving,
more ourselves.

And all this is for one thing,
that you may discover more and more how to love.
To love your self,
(the one whom you find in the desert,)
to love your neighbour as yourself,
and to love the God who met you there.

Clap your hands!

2007-12-03T22:50:00.000Z

I preached at High Mass on Advent Sunday. For me it's the second highlight of the church year (the first is the first Mass of Christmas!), but it was special for me in more ways than just the date this year.

Part way through my sermon, as i spoke against the fear-mongers in the anti-gay brigade, my somewhat elderly, English, mainly straight congregation spontanaeously clapped!!!
They even cheered!!! In the middle of a high anglican mass!!!! It was awesome. I LOVE THEM! Just when you think the Kingdom will never come you find it's right here among us......and there's nothing *they* can do about it.

Some have asked to read the sermon - which is sweet, especially as you were gonna get it anyway! ;-) I've marked in bold the point where my congregation cheered and applauded.

Deo Gratias!

As Chicken-licken was going one day to the wood, whack! An acorn fell from a tree on to his head."Gracious goodness me!" said Chicken-licken, "the sky must have fallen; I must go and tell the King."So Chicken-licken turned back, and met Henny-penny."Well, Henny-penny, where are you going?" said he."I'm going to the wood," said she."Oh, Henny-penny, don't go!" said he, "for as I was going the sky fell on to my head, and I'm going to tell the King."So Henny-penny turned back with Chicken-licken, and met Turkey-lurkey. "I'm going to the wood," said he.Then Henny-penny said: "Oh, Turkey-lurkey, don't go, for I was going, and I met Chicken-licken, and Chicken-licken had been at the wood, and the sky had fallen on to his head, and we are going to tell the King."So Turkey-lurkey turned back, and they met Ducky-lucky….

And the story continues,
as we all know,
with Goose-loosey, and Drakey-lakeyand all the gang.

Of course, chicken licken had a point.
After all, he had the evidence.
The sky was falling,
and Goosey Loosey and Henny Penny and friends
joined the panicand ran……

Chicken Licken is a story about scaremongers,
folk who don’t dare to question their assumptions,
and who drum up panic.

“The sky is falling!”

And it’s a story about people who allow these scaremongersto make decisions for them.
People who don’t ask questions about what they’re being told.
No-one even asks Chicken Licken
what evidence he has that it was the sky
they manage to hide the ridiculous nature of his tale
because they accept the call to panic and run…

“The sky is falling!”

The Church has its share of Chicken Lickens,
those doomsday geniuses,
who are sure we face the end of the world,
and who state that what they claim is obviousand expect the rest of us to panic and run.

And often we do.

They notice that global tension is rising,
that disease is spreading,
they even notice tornados.

The sky is falling they tell us,
and fill the falling sky with their own assumptions and fears.

But they never dare to question what they think is obvious.
They never dare to ask if what they say is actually true.

One of these doomsday characters in the United States
is Pat Robertson,
who has the ear of President George Bush Junior.

This man warned the city of Orlando Florida
that if it continued to fill its streets with gay pride flags
it would be struck by a tornado.

This was based on the obvious truth
that God had punished New Orleans for its gay pride march
with horrendous flooding and tornado.

See – the sky is falling down!

But one woman dared to question Robertson’s assumption.
She questioned his obvious evidence.

Janis Walworth investigated the claims
of this Chicken Licken.
She studied the correlation between the occurrence of tornadoes
and the gay population in those places.
She found that higher proportions of gay people lived in areas
with very few tornadoes.

So she went on to ask the question,
where do the tornados occur?

Walworth discovered
that the most tornados actually occurred
in areas with the highest population
of fundamentalist Christians!
Like Pat Robertson and his ilk!

So she cheekily pointed out
that maybe God was angry with them!

But such facts rarely stop the Chicken Lickens
or those who run with them.
They don’t stop to ask questions.

They ignore the words of Jesus that
“you do not know on what day your Lord is coming”.
They sidestep Jesus showing us
that the coming of God’s reign
is not a threat to frighten us into faith,
but an inspiration to liberate us to live faith.

But often they will quote some words from Jesus,
just to give their unquestioned claims
a touch of divine authority,
just in case you were thinking of daring to question them.

Words like:‘There will be …distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world…. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads.’

The Chicken Lickens act as if these words prove their point.
And when combined with their prejudice and assumptions…
and money
and books
and TV programmes
and magazines
and newspaper editorials
they make a frightening cocktail.

“The sky is falling down!”

But when Jesus tells us about the coming reign of God,
he did not drum up panic,
or mindlessly shout “The sky is falling down!”,
Jesus wanted his followers
to greet the world
not with panic and confusion and chaos,
but with confidence that God
was working out God's purposes for peace, joy, and justice.
Jesus is saying,
when it looks like the sky is falling down,
or others claim that it is,
don’t panic,
don’t run around shouting,
don’t get others to join your crusade of fear and hate,
insteadremember God is a God of justice and joy,of wholeness and hope,
and keep on loving and living lives of peace,
because God’s rule is bigger and beyond all this chaos.

The followers of Jesussee the bigger picture.
They look to the skywhen others are shouting that it is falling down,
and they instead focus on
the power and glory and hope of God.

Which way are we looking?

At the chaos in panic?
Or at the glory of our God of justice and hope
and the promise of God’s reign?

Which voices are we listening to?

The ones which say how bad the world is,
which claim to have all the answers,
and know whom to blame,
and shout that the sky is falling down?
Or the voice of Jesus,which calls us to stand up and raise our heads?

Are we listening to
the voices which call us to panic and point fingers,
or the one which calls us to live lives of radical love and peace?

Remember what happens to Chicken Licken
and those who follow him without question…

So Turkey-lurkey turned back and walked with Goosey-loosey, Drakey-lakey, Duckey-lucky, Henny-penny and Chicken-licken. And as they were going along, they met Foxy-loxy. And Foxy-loxy said: "Where are you going?"And they said: "Chicken-licken went to the wood, and the sky fell on to his head, and we are going to tell the King."And Foxy-loxy said: "Come along with me, and I will show you the way."But Foxy-loxy took them into the fox's hole and he and his young ones soon ate up poor Chicken-licken, Henny-penny, Duckey-lucky, Drakey-lakey, Goosey-loosey, and Turkey-lurkey.........................and they never saw the King.

Unexpected peace

2007-11-28T09:16:00.000Z

I've said before that my favourite word is serendipity - and I had some again recently!

The Hebrew word for "Peace" or "Wholeness" is "Shalom" - which in printed Hebrew looks like this: שלום

But when modern Israelis (or anyone!) write Hebrew by hand they don't use the same form of the characters, there's a modern "cursive" version of the alphabet, and when using that the word looks like this:

You can then imagine my joy when I saw this on the hoarding around a building site near Asda's.......

Wholeness and peace among the realities of life - aint that what we all want?

PS: I do wonder who was expected to be able to read this graffitti! Maybe it was for me.....

We all matter

2007-11-11T15:39:00.000Z

Long time no see.

The BF and I are now houseowners and spend most of our non-working life painting, building, ripping down, etc etc etc - we're almost straight!

Anyway - as a break from such macho activities - a bunch of us hit the scene last night. A new mate came along with us. He's only recently come out, and we have the priviledge of being the first mates he's made who are gay and out.

We had a fab time - and it was great to be told by a mutual friend about how relaxed and peaceful and at ease with himself our new mate is these days....since he came out and has met gay guys who do the ironing and drink beer and pay mortgages etc, and can be himself with all his friends.

It reminded me about how important we all are to each other, and how we continue to be so. It reminded me of how when I came out to my mum and dad, my dad's first words were "That sounds like a cue for a hug". How when I told my brother over a beer his first word was "Cool!"!! How Su and I would judge men according to cake flavour as we walked round Tesco's (mmmm - yummy chocolate cake!. How Mark took me by surprise! How mates stand by us and keep us all going (gay or straight). How straight folk in the Church are daring to stand by us gay folk in the Church (Cheers all at OCICBW!).

We all matter to each other.

I remember my dad worrying that he was somehow responsible for me being gay - not cos he thought it was wrong but cos he might have been able to avoid risking me being subject to homophobia. I reminded him that what he did make me was strong and loved enough to be able to cope with homophobia etc.....

We all matter to each other. we're meant to be that way.

So for all you folk a little song:

And for the guys I drank beer with and danced like a madman last night:

Wrestling

2007-10-21T22:18:00.000+01:00

Well - I've been away from blogger-land for way too long. Due to loads of stuff - a fab retreat, nearly dying on the M1 and buying a house among them....

And reading all the Harry Potter books....wow!

I'll give you more details on all that soon (although much of my life is spent doing DIY on the new place at the mo!) - and in the mean time, to keep you entertained [ ;-) ], my sermon from today. It owes a lot to John Bell, but I was chuffed with the stuff about the Bible, which was all me!

The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

(Genesis 32. 22-31)

It’s quite a weekend for the sports enthusiast this week,
from rugby pitch to Formula One racing track.

And this week,
in a flight of fancy,
I was wondering
to which sport following Jesus
might be best compared……

Is it a team game, like rugby,
which needs people who are light on their feet up front
and people who are very solid to prop up the rear?

Or is it like cricket
which, from the outside looks absurdly dull,
but which the enthusiasts are keen to assure us is really exciting?

Is it like tennis,
fairly predictable,
but with the word “love” used in public from time to time?

Is it like golf,
something essentially easy – putting a ball into a hole –
until you see the size of the hole, the size of the ball
and how far away they are from one another?

Or is it like snooker,
something which only a few folk can play very well,
but which has a vast army of armchair critics?

And then….
then I remember God’s favourite sport
which isn’t any of these,
which doesn’t require special equipment like tennis,
which doesn’t involve mainly one part of the body like football,
which doesn’t have to be played at a special venue like ice hockey.

It’s a sport that links such unlikely names as
Giant Haystacks
Johnny Storm
and Paul of Tarsus….WRESTLING.

Why is it God’s favourite sport?
Because as distinct from what others might say
or we might think,
to follow Jesus of Nazareth is to be involved in struggling.

At the heart of our faith
is the express intention of God
that our religion should not be
an opiate
a drug,
an escape,
a fundamentalist chant,
but an encounter in which we wrestle and fight and pray.

I want to briefly look at three areas,
arenas,
rings,
in which we are called to wrestle.

Firstly we are called to wrestle with ourselves.

Inside each of us
there is a debating chamber
where we wrestle with our ideas and conscience,
the cause of sleepless nights,
the cause of struggling over decisions,
the place where we can question our own actions,
our desires,
our prejudices.

And this wrestling only works
if we keep it informed.

we need to seek out truth,
to face the reality of our lives and the world,
to allow the teachings of Jesus into our internal wrestling.

The wonderful thing about the teaching of Jesus
is that it informs our conscience
about duty to God …yes
about prayer …yes
about personal morality …yes

but also about what our money is for,
whom our compassion is for,
how rulers should govern,
and the intrinsic value of the natural world.

We need to keep our consciences informed
of all the purposes of God
and the state of our world
in order that we might truly wrestle with them.

Then there is a second ring
in which we are expected to wrestle,
and it is Paul of Tarsus who summons us to combat.

He says:
We are wrestling not against human foes,
but against cosmic powers,
against the authorities and potentates of this dark age,
against the superhuman forces of evil
in the heavenly realm.

What strange words to our ears.
But while we may no longer see the skies
as full of evil spirits desiring to create havoc on the earth,
I don’t think we could deny that there is evidence around us
of the forces of darkness.

Notice what Paul says,
We are wrestling not against human foes
but against cosmic powers.

Too easily we demonise other people.
Our news is full of personalities,
of celebrities,
whom we are dared to ridicule,
or even to hate,
instead of wrestling with real issues,
with cosmic powers.

Often in my work
I meet students who are caught up in the spiral of drug addiction.
I may see the issue as simply
how to help them off their particular drug.

But if I am following Jesus,
if I am hearing Paul’s words,
my struggle has to go further.
It has to do with the cosmic power of evil:
it has to do with iniquity in high places.

It has to address the fact that whenever
in western society,
people are put out of work,
a propensity for alcoholism or drug addiction can quickly follow.
And that is a structural evil.

It has to deal with the global trafficking in drugs,
with cartels and triads.

It has to do with the poorest farmers
harvesting drug crops
with the encouragement of their government,
because national debt is so extortionate
that this is the only crop that can feed their families.

My fight is with the realities of the forces of evil.

This is the difficult and uncomfortable wrestling
we are summoned to,
if we are answering Paul’s call to wrestle.

So we wrestle in ourselves,
and we wrestle with the evil in our world,
but there is a third ring
in which we are summoned to wrestle.
And here we wrestle with the one for whom
wrestling is a favourite sport.
God.

Our story of Jacob this morning,
began with the information that Jacob had two wives,
and ended with an injunction to butchers
not to sell certain meat.

But the centre of the story is about a man,
who, when alone,
is made to wrestle by a total stranger.

And the initiative is the stranger's not Jacob's.

This is not Job wrestling with his doubts
This is not Jeremiah wrestling with his anger
This is not Jesus wrestling in Gethsemane with his vocation.

This is God.
This is God who is the wrestler.
This is God who decides to intervene and upset.

It is not what we pray for!
It is not what we expect of God!

Yet God sometimes irrespective of our wishes
chooses to engage us in a struggle which we would rather avoid.
Perhaps ... perhaps in order that we might know God better.

The people whom I have come to love most dearly
are not necessarily the people who agree with me
or say yes to me every time.
Such people have only shown me
what in them is like me.

The people I have come to love most dearly,
are those with whom I have argued,
and disagreed,
who have said the things I did not want to hear
yet said them in love.
And through the dispute,
through the struggling
I have learned more about them
and have revealed more of myself.

So God, in order that we may know God better,
has always the option to upset us,
to come not just as our friend,
but also as a wrestler,
and, as with Jacob,
to bless us and make us vulnerable.

We are called to wrestle with God in prayer.
We are called to wrestle with God in worship.
And we are called to wrestle with God in the Bible.

Too often we forget how Jesus saw the Bible,
how generations of his followers have seen the Bible,
and we cease to wrestle,
we stop radically engaging with its words.

Instead we turn it into a Christian version of the Qur’an,
and see it as dropped from heaven,
complete, as if given, word by word, to a prophet in a cave.
For the text to be “inspired by God”,
does not mean that it was dictated semi-colon by semi-colon,
because that is not how the God
who wrestled with Jacob,
and argued with Abraham,
and cajoled Moses,
engages with human beings.

There is a reason we do not say “these are the words of the Lord”
after our Bible readings.
Because it is “the Word of the Lord”,
when we wrestle with it.

God inspired the Bible through human lives and cultures,
because God delights in human beings
and doesn’t see us as puppets to be instructed from afar.
God inspired the Bible,
with its conflicting accounts of the same events,
its factual inconsistencies,
and simple contradictions,
– from creation myth to erotic poetry,
from political polemic to the rage of monarchs,
from history to folktale -
and God calls us to wrestle with the words
and there to discover the word of God.

That is how Jesus treated the Bible.
And he roundly condemned folk
who hurled verses at other people to condemn and control them,
and who treated the Bible like a God dictated book of proof texts
to support their arguments.

Jesus shows us how to wrestle with the Bible.

Listen to him…..

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’
Jesus quotes Exodus 20. 14
‘I say to you to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery.’
Jesus develops the text…..engages with it……wrestles with it.

Listen to him…..
You have heard that it was said,
‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’
Jesus quotes Leviticus 19. 18
But I say to you, Love your enemies.
I’m sorry Jesus, what was that?
But I say to you, Love your enemies.
Are you disagreeing with Leviticus, Jesus?
But I say to you, Love your enemies.
Jesus you’re disagreeing with the Bible!
But I say to you, Love your enemies.

Sometimes Jesus argues with the Bible!
He wrestles with it,
and there discovers the word of God.

How sad that some of his followers instead just quote verses,
like some in Leviticus,
without questioning it,
or really wrestling with it,
even though Jesus shows us that is how we truly hear God.

When together we hear the Bible’s words,
and together wrestle with them,
then we proclaim
“This is the Word of the Lord”.

And we leave this wrestling,
like Jacob,
changed,
understanding that God is bigger than we imagined.

Oh yes, our God loves to wrestle,
though our God is a God of Peace.
And those who experience God’s peace
are those who
for God
and with God,
wrestle and fight and pray.

Invisible guests

2007-09-23T12:14:00.000+01:00

This weekend has a mixture of flavours for me.

It's the pagan festival of Mabon. This feast on or around the autumn equinox is a time to celebrate the goodness of the earth, to reflect on our lives and to impore the divine for a good year.

Yesterday was Yom Kippur - the Jewish day of atonement. A time to put things right in our lives.

We are still deep in the days of Ramadan - a time for reflection and acts of charity. (The reading of the Qu'ran still going fine!).

And this morning we had Harvest festival at church. We use the resources produced by Christian Aid and thought about our responsibilities and celebrations - why not go and read their stories from Zimbabwe? The kids did loads of stuff and were totally brilliant. And some of the adults weren't too bad either! The central theme of the service was these words from Jesus, which brought all the weekend flavours together:

Jesus said: "When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me,

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,

I was homeless and you gave me a room,

I was shivering and you gave me clothes,

I was sick and you stopped to visit,

I was in prison and you came to me.'
"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'
"Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—

I was hungry and you gave me no meal,

I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,

I was homeless and you gave me no bed,

I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,

Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'

"Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'
"He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'" (Matthew 25:31-45 )

And that's one thing I love about following Jesus. Harvest is not just about being thankful and celebrating God's goodness. It's not just about hoping things go well for me in the future. Jesus simply calls us to show the values in Harvest, Mabon, Ramadan and Yom Kippur.

We respond to this goodness with lives of justice - for this is what brings the harvest. we remember the invisible guests at Mabon, at Yom Kippur, at the Iftar feasts in Ramadan, at Harvest festival. Those who are hungry, thirsty, imprisoned, naked..... because Jesus reminds us that all are invited, all must be honoured as if him, and that we are responsible for making this so - otherswise all of us, Pagan, Jew, Muslim, Christian are the worst of hypocrits....

We celebrate, confess and change.....

So Blessed be this Mabon! G'mar chatimah tovah! Ramadan Mubarek! Happy Harvest Home!

Something Fishy

2007-09-16T15:54:00.000+01:00

Serendipity is one of my favourite words - and last night had a real moment of serendipity. We went into Poole to find some food and stumbled across Peixos - a performance by the Spanish company Sarruga.

It was magical.......

It was organised by Inside-out Dorset, who described it:

Find yourself immersed in an exotic underwater world where colourful aquatic creatures swim among the crowd. Marvel at schools of darting tropical fish and watch the luminescent jellyfish dancing above your head as you follow this watery procession accompanied by music and light.....Barcelona-based artists Sarruga have perfected making their giant creatures from ingenious bicycle-powered mechanisms which are pedalled along to create an amazing processional spectacle.

And this is what itlooked like - you'll have to imagine the flares, and lively music, and movement and shouting......it was fab!

Ramadan Mubarek!

2007-09-15T18:07:00.000+01:00

From Rosh Hashanah, those of us who work in a muti-faith context fall this year straight into Ramadan - the holy Muslim month of fasting.

Last year I read a superb book on the 99 names of Allah. as Ramadan is the time when Muslims believe that Allah revealed the Qu'ran to the Prophet, I thought this year I'd read the Qu'ran again.

It's a while since I've read it, and it's always good to explore what other folk hold holy.

I don't plan on blogging much about it - but the opening Sura (chapter) is so famous and is worth reading on its own account.

It's called Al-Fatiha - which means "the opening", and it goes:

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
الحمد لله رب العالمين
الرحمن الرحيم
ملك يوم الدين
اياك نعبد واياك نستعين
اهدنا الصرط المستقيم
صراط الذين انعمت عليهم غير المغضوب عليهم ولا الضالين

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful:
Praise be to God, the Lord of the Universe.
The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Master of the Day of Judgment.
You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help
Guide us to the straight way;
The way of those whom you have blessed, not of those who have deserved anger, nor of those who stray.

You can hear it read verse by verse in Arabic here.

It centres on God and on a quality of God that I love - حيم rahim.....

The opening is literally "In the name of God, the most merciful, the ever merciful". Rahim is God's mercy. It is the same root as the word in the Bible - רחם rahem - which we often translate as mercy or compassion. I've discussed this word before, (it's one of my faves!) and I especially love it because it literally means "womb". God's mercy is like the love of a mother.

That is what I'd like to dwell upon this coming month - as the Muslim world observes Ramadan, and the Jewish world heads towards Yom Kippur. I'd like to show more and more the compassion, the mercy, the motherly-love, the womb of God.......

Al Fatiha

Simply because it's fabulous.....

2007-09-13T21:41:00.001+01:00

Happy New Year!

2007-09-13T20:04:00.000+01:00

Today is the Jewish feast of Rosh Hashanah - the main New Year in the Hebrew Calendar (there are three others just to be confusing!). So לשנה טובה ! For a good year!

Rosh Hashanah literally means "head of the year" and calling it "New Year" can be a bit misleading. It is far away from the singing of Auld Lang Syne and drinking too much. In the Synagogue the Shofar is sounded - the call to the world to be judged.

God is Sovereign and will judge the world - not like a parent catching us being naughty, but like a light shining onto our lives to show us where we do not live lives of justice and peace.

Ten days after Rosh Hashanah comes Yom Kippur - the day of Atonement - when Jewish folk say sorry and put things right. If we think God's judgement is about being caught out when we're secretly having fun that doesn't make sense - surely we should be told off. Instead God's judgement at Rosh Hashanah is about God showing us where our lives can be more full of justice, more giving of peace. Then we can change and put things right.

Or, (as a Jewish friend said last week when I asked why Yom Kippur came after the judgement of Rosh Hashanah), "cos God loves us to have second chances...." Amen!

May we all hear the call of the shofar to live more just lives.

Once a god.....

2007-09-11T20:12:00.000+01:00

I had to nick this from Father Madpriest cos its so damn true!

see - they've never forgotten that the Egyptians had the sense to worship them!

Mass appeal

2007-09-04T22:46:00.000+01:00

Mass was beautiful on Sunday....

The choir sang Darke's setting (in F) of the service - which i love to bits.

It was lovely and sunny through the stained glass.

There were lots of friendly holidaying visitors.

A priest I admire greatly was deaconing for me as I celebrated Mass (that is - he was my main assistant as i did the holy bits! ;-) )

And I cried........

I cried because a very "ordinary" Church of England little old lady led our prayers. She mentioned about the issues in the Anglican Church and then prayed that we may be an inclusive church that celebrates diversity!!!!

As she prayed that, tears welled up in my eyes - but I held it together, cos I had to say some words next!

Then we went up to the altar for the communion part of the Mass. I waved incense around and the others prepared the chalices etc then I stood there and sang the ancient prayers as I led the congregation......it looks a lot like this in our place:

As I was there, voicing all our pain and praise, facing the beautiful reredos behind the altar,incense rising, vestments shimmering, my eyes got very damp.

It was so special.

After the service a few folk came to say thanks for my sermon (they're easily pleased!) - and one of the altar servers looked me in the eyes and said "He was really here this morning, wasn't he?".

You know what - I think he was........

Pride and Prejudice

2007-09-01T12:00:00.000+01:00

For those with insomnia - tomorrow's sermon....

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely....When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’
He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’ (Luke 14. 1, 7-14)

"Healing of the man with the dropsy" by Alexandre Bida

“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you can't see something that's above you.” (C S Lewis)

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.” (Jane Austen)

“Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way,
I can't wait to look in the mirror 'cause I get better lookin' each day” (Mac Davis)

Pride.

Pride – the lack of humility.

Jesus knew all about pride.

Jesus knew about this pride.

Jesus was watching it.

Jesus watched the guests
as they chose the places of honour,
as they looked for seats that reflected how they saw themselves –
superior,
worthy,
respected,
honoured.

We can too easily imagine how they felt this pride,
at this feast of the Pharisees.

They had pride in their religion,
their purity of belief.
They had faith sorted,
they alone knew what God really wanted and thought,
they alone understood God.
Because of this they could look down on others.
It was only right -
other people were surely deliberately ignoring the truth,
they didn’t deserve to be honoured,
they had made their choice.
The proud chose the places of honour,
reflecting their religious status.

They had pride in their social status.

They had pride in their social standing amongst others,
their purity of class.
They had society sorted.
They lived in the nice part of town,
away from those blatantly collaborating, unsubtle tax collectors,
away from those forced into the sex trade,
away those whose skin revealed the diseases God had given them,
away from the lower types.
These others just didn’t get how society worked,
surely they had made their own choices,
and had made their own beds.
The proud chose the places of honour,
reflecting their social status.

These were the proud.

Their pride meant these folk could look down on others.
They could put others in their place.
They could deny other people any sense of equality.
Afterall – they deserved the places of honour,
they had worked, believed and acted to get them.

These folk showed pride – their lack of humility.

And Jesus watched them.

And he told them a story about their pride.

This type of pride
was not part of the Kingdom of God.

And Jesus proclaimed to the proud that
all who exalt themselves will be humbled.

“The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.” (William Blake)

“I am what I am I don't want praise I don't want pity” (Gloria Gaynor)

Pride.

Pride – the lack of shame, the lack of disgrace

Jesus knew all about pride.

Jesus knew about this pride.

Jesus had been watching it.

Our Gospel reading today jumps from verse 1 to verse 7 of Luke 14,
leaving out a story only told us by Luke.
We missed Jesus healing a man with dropsy at the meal,
on this Sabbath day,
in the midst of the proud Pharisees,
in their places of honour.

Jesus had seen this man’s lack of pride.
The man’s condition
meant he knew the shame of the guests at this meal,
afterall he was unclean!
Leviticus told them that this man brought impurities with him!
He had no place of honour.
He was to be looked down on,
disrespected
ignored,
treated as less than fully human,
kept in his place.

The proud could not sit at table with such types.
They simply weren’t equal.

Pride was denied this man.
it was taken from him
in order that others may feel superior.

Jesus could have left his healing.
He could have waited for the next day,
at a different time,
in a different place.

Instead,
Jesus offended the pride of those in places of honour.

Luke tells us that Jesus took the man and healed him.
He recognised the man’s humanity.
He made him the centre of his attention.
He saw an equal child of God,
made in God’s image,
loved, delighted over, respected, honoured.
Jesus celebrated a man whom God loved just as he had been created.

Jesus restored the man’s pride.

When seeking our own places of honour
Jesus tells us that all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

How do we live to restore other people’s sense of pride?

How do we live so that others know that they are loved,
respected,
honoured?

How do our daily lives challenge those who seek to put others down?

How do our daily lives give pride
to those who have been told they are worth less,
to those who have no place of honour?

How does our life together
proclaim that those groups of people denied pride
are worthy of respect,
equality,
and a place at the table?

Humility isn’t putting ourselves down,
it is recognising and respecting the image of God in others.

How do we find our humility?
By seeking to restore other people’s pride.

Profound potties and propelled pusscats.

2007-08-30T21:27:00.000+01:00

Folk spend ages in our toilet - various reasons I'm sure! The main one is hopefully the magnetic word board on the back of the loo door, made up of those word magnets most people stick on their fridge.

All sorts of wonders and profanities, and wonderful profanities and profane wonders appear on it. Whilst I was at Greenbelt one appeared that spoke to me when I got back.......

men reduce my religion.

Also just caught our little lad trying out a new form of transport!

Cute hey?

Heaven in Ordinary

2007-08-29T21:43:00.000+01:00

WOW!

Well - finally sat in front of the PC having got back from Greenbelt, which Peterson Toscano describes as...

a fabulous, funky, one-of-a-kind Christian arts festival loaded with bands, amazing speakers, performances, dance, an organic beer tent, a tiny tea tent and some very lovely people.

...and he's right (and he was one of my highlights this GB)! I went to some great seminars, and had some iffy beer and good wine (and the odd cocktail - not that type Graeme!! ;-) ). But the best bit by far was the lovely people.

There were folk I know well and who give glimpses of heaven in ordinary....

And there were folk I had met prevously at Greenbelt - and there were new people. The OuterSpace group were fab - cheers for what you did folk, it helped this (L)G(BT) guy laugh, cry and worship.

There was the "what a small weird world" moment when I met the guys in a photo I found in Glasgow and posted on here after our trip to Scotland - and had to tell them they are on my blog!!

There was the funny moment of not being able to breathe cos your friend is making you giggle so much!

There was the random conversation, with a complete stranger, over beer, at 2am about what following Jesus is really about.

There was singing Scottish folk songs in a tent in gorgeous harmony, surrounded by beautiful apprentice angels with the Iona Community as host and trying to hang onto the glimpse of heaven.

There was a fabulous pink tutu!

There was seeing how fab Kathryn looked in her Saree.

There were the chats over beer, and traditional falafel, and deep honesty with Evo - love you mate!

There was spending time with the fabulous Mark and Su - big hugs!

There was the beautiful weather - thanks to my fellow sun-dancers!

There was wishing I'd had more time to chat with Karin.

There was taking my Mum and Dad tea in the mornings - miracles do happen!

There was the great Communion Service (wow those balloons were amazing!).

There was heaven in ordinary. Thanks Greenbelt!

And now.....

It's fab to be back with the BF (and our resident monsters who have both been giving me purry cuddles - -actually so has the BF! ;-) ). I missed him so much.....

And there is also what David Walker has shown:

I have all of these right now. I'm elated by how the world can be and the wonder of it all. There's the sadness it's over for another year. And there's the accepting that it's all meant to help me live in the real world.

Deo Gratias!

Clare of Assisi

2007-08-11T12:52:00.000+01:00

God of peace,who in the poverty of the blessèd Clare

gave us a clear light to shine in the darkness of this world:

give us grace so to follow in her footsteps

that we may, at the last, rejoice with her

in your eternal glory;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen.

What a shame....

2007-08-08T21:48:00.000+01:00

Andy has been falling into the arms of Satan and his minions at Brighton Pride!

In the vain hope of him returning to a pure and (self)righteous life I reproduce this wonderfully annointed article from The Onion.......

Small Town Holds Annual Gay Shame Parade
August 8, 2007

GRAND PLAINS, NE—A tight-knit rural Midwestern farming community commemorated the demonization of homosexuality Sunday with its annual Gay Shame Parade, a three-decade-old tradition that has become a cornerstone of the town's cultural identity.

The second-place float in this year's parade cruises down Grand Plains' picturesque Main Street.
"Every year, the whole town turns out to enjoy Nebraska's famous summer sunshine, sample foods, browse the craft bazaar, and shame homosexuals for their repulsive, decadent behavior," said Frank Mitchell, mayor of Grand Plains, NE and parade marshal. "This year was our biggest turnout yet. Everybody had so much fun ostracizing the gays."

The parade featured the usual assemblage of police cruisers, fire trucks, antique cars, and farm equipment, which local residents had draped in red-white-and-blue banners that read "Burn in the Eternal Flames of Hell!" City Councilman Fred Brandeen, this year's "Jesus," entertained children by making mock finger-wagging gestures of admonishment and passing out buttons bearing the parade's traditional slogan: "NO!" Members of the Grand Plains Area Wives Association followed behind with a 15-foot hand-sewn banner, cosponsored by Jerry's Auto Body, which read: "GPAWA and Jerry's Cringe To Think What You're Putting Your Family Through."

Organized every year by the Grand Plains City Council and a coalition of area churches, the Gay Shame Parade has been an annual event here since 1977, the year that citizens first became aware of gay people's existence.

"To see a whole community rally together like this around a good cause—it's really an inspiration," said Ellen Lundblom, a mother of four enjoying the festivities with her youngest son, first-time reveler Timmy, 3. "If I were a lesbian, this would have really made me feel awful about myself."

"My favorite part was the balloons," Timmy Lundblom said. "They had all different colors of angry frowny-faces on them."

The event got off to a rousing start with the Grand Plains High School Cougars marching band playing such classics as "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Onward, Christian Soldiers." The mood grew palpably more sober during the middle portion of the procession, as members of the Grand Plains Baptist Church marched with folded arms in stony, judgmental silence and stared at the spectators lining the streets as if to ask, "Are you gay?"

The spirit of levity returned, however, toward the parade's finish, which featured balloon giveaways, a float contest, and an appearance by 6-year-olds Christopher Weiland and Courtney Wendt, who were crowned "Junior Mister and Miss Heterosexual" on Saturday. The parade concluded with a group reading of Leviticus 20:13.

After the last bit of confetti fell, spectators praised the parade's highlights, including a float, presented by local Little League team the Tigers that depicts a mother, sitting alone with her head down on a kitchen table, crying. The first-place ribbon went to "Sodom and Gomorrah," a miniature version of the two Biblical cities engulfed in flames. The float's designer, McPhee's Department Store window dresser Bruce Carlson, was not able to accept his prize, however, as he was away visiting an aunt in Lawrence, KS for the weekend.

Despite the pageantry, parade organizers stressed that the event has a serious message.
"Everyone loves a parade," PTA chairwoman Agatha Buell said. "But it's about a lot more than the clowns, the decorations, and those Shriner fellows in their tiny cars. It's about making folks feel sickened by the deviant homosexual lifestyle, like God wants us to."

Spectators couldn't help but be delighted by the parade's surprise finale, when, after dutifully leading the marching band for the entire mile-long parade route, local music teacher Colin Atherton was marched past the county line and told never, ever to return.

Time and a Tardis.....

2007-08-06T23:17:00.000+01:00

Well - just had a fab and relaxing week - not that it was quiet.

A fab day in Brighton last week (which included a beautiful few minutes praying in the oasis that is St Paul's with the glow of candles and the smell of incense in the air), and a couple of great evenings out......cheers guys, Friday was just fab!!! Some good time reading too (I've finally given in to reading Harry Potter!! My Dad has started singing "Harry Potter" to the tune of Hare Krishna to me - both good symbols of my horrendous backsliding hey Themiscyra!?).

One quote from last week's Church Times also felt close to how I see the world....

Jesus of Nazareth (is a great inspiration). Not the Jesus that the Church often preaches about - who comes across all too often as a master and a judge - but the simple Galilean preacher who loved those the world had rejected, and lifted sinners back up into grace.
Mark Townsend (magician and priest - and rather cute to boot!)

I've also had some occasion to spend time more of Brother Roger of Taizé's last letter - and spend some time with God - which is always good. Beginning to feel in touch with myself again.....

Anyway - I still haven't ended our trip to Scotland. We spent our last days there in Glasgow.

To be honest it's not my favourite city in the world - I find it a tad depressing, run down and not as welcoming as Edinburgh. We did spend some time in the only truly working class Gay pub I've known that isn't a complete letchy dive... he he! The Waterloo - Scotland's oldest Gay Pub:

The Waterloo

The Bloc Bar - Gay friendly and worth seeking out!

The scene is bigger than Edinburgh's, but a bit spread out (rain stopped us doing a complete pilgrimage!!). I'd advise going to the LGBT Centre on Bell Street where you can find out what's open and what type of evenings are on offer.

After seeing a Darlek in Edinburgh, it was good to see help was at hand in Glasgow!

Our last day began with the essential gay pilgrimage to Ikea.....then we flew back home. It was great to be away - also good to get back and watch my mum and dad watching the plane land.....and to have two cute cats soooo pleased to see us!

As always - it's the simple things that count.

Bread and beauty

2007-08-01T21:40:00.000+01:00

Today is Lammas Day. Our Anglo-Saxon forebears knew the feast as hlaefmass - loaf mass - when the first bread of the wheat harvest was brought to Church. My pagan sisters and brothers also hold today sacred, calling it Lughnasadh - Blessed Be my friends! Let's all give thanks for the good we receive - from bread to friends to love.

It's All Because

2007-07-31T16:42:00.000+01:00

Very, very funny - and scarily close to some folks' thinking......

Simply Scottish

2007-07-31T10:48:00.000+01:00

It's funny how life plays several cards at the same time to remind you of things.....

Last week i suddenly became aware of all the negative influences on my life. Not necesary bad - but things that constantly emphasised struggle, oppression, bigotry etc etc. Although much of this was about positively working against such rubbish, it dawned on me that my life was mainly focussed on crap stuff.....

I passionately believe Jesus shows us how to have abundant life. Part of that is making sure we are centred on and draw our energy from goodness, love, shalom - the one we call "God". Then we have the energy to face the storm around us.

The day it struck me I also reread Brother Roger of Taizé's last complete annual letter (here in French and English):

One of the first things Christ says in the Gospel is this: “Happy the simple-hearted!” Yes, happy those who head towards simplicity, simplicity of heart and simplicity of life.
A simple heart attempts to live in the present moment, to welcome each day as God’s today.
Does not the spirit of simplicity shine out in serene joy, and also in cheerfulness?
A simple heart does not claim to understand everything about faith on its own. It says to itself, “Others understand better what I have trouble grasping and they help me to continue on my way.”
Simplifying our life enables us to share with the least fortunate, in order to alleviate suffering where there is disease, poverty, famine…

When we find that simplicity of life - that shalom at the centre, we can walk on the waves, face the storm, confront the powers that seek to oppress.

It reminds me of that song of the Shakers (the tune of which was nicked for the song Lord of the Dance - "I danced in the morning"):

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

I think it's like when Jesus is confronted with hatred etc - he often pauses, and literally writes in the sand, so he can respond from a place of wholeness rather than negative anger etc. I need to make sure I spend time writing in the sand....

This all made me decide that I need a month, heading to the wonder that is Greenbelt, focussing on what fires me up, what gives me life, so I can face the bigotry without going to bed angry and letting the bad stuff so influence my mood and relationships.....

And so Scotland.

The first day brought this to mind again. It was fab being away together. On that first day gorgeous BF had to do a few hours work (which was the official part of the trip) - I spent some time in a gorgeous little Episcopal Church praying before the Sacrament, such an oasis:

....and then time walking round a misty loch.

It was so peaceful and simple. The water was so flat - the trees so mysterious. We all need those moments.

We took the road south, via a site that had me quoting Shakespeare at my patient BF for the rest of the day...(where would we be without great words?).

And we arrived in Dundee to find food, and a bookshop where I finally gave in and bought some Harry Potter! We even saw a monkey!

And some scary natives!

But don't fear - help was at hand in Glasgow, but I shall leave you in suspense about that! And before Glasgow came one of my favourite places, and some gay scotsmen........ more soon!

The boys are back in toon...

2007-07-29T23:49:00.000+01:00

Just back from bonny Scotland...loads to share but that must wait till I've slept!!

So just one image from Pride Scotia that caught my eye to whet your appetite......

Made in God's image......

Mary Magdalene

2007-07-23T12:29:00.000+01:00

Christ our healer,
beloved and remembered by women:
speak to the grief which makes us forget,
and the terror that makes us cling,
and give us back our name;
that we may greet you clearly,
and proclaim your risen life. Amen.

(Collect by Janet Morley)

Feline fine.

2007-07-23T00:13:00.000+01:00

I'm sure my sister is round here somewhere......

Queen Kylie!!

2007-07-22T16:29:00.000+01:00

Dr Who - Christmas 2007.......

..........I may have just wet myself a bit with excitement!!!

Pride is the opposite of shame.....

2007-07-16T22:23:00.000+01:00

Pride - "a sense of dignity and self-respect"

Collins English Dictionary

This Saturday the gorgeous man in my life and I made our way to Pride.......

.......it all started with a procession along the beach and a fabulous afternoon of sunshine and entertainment in the gardens. (Not that the gardens aren't always full of gay men entertaining themselves......)

Then a couple of hours to eat at Wagamama's (where God eats lunch) and change into yet more fabulous outfits for the dance arena in the evening......

With friends who make me proud......

Cheers guys for making life so good.

Then a night in the clubs - all free - with lots of beer, boogeying and outrageous behaviour......and finally getting to bed long after the sun had got back up for the next day.

It was fabulous. From the mayor saying how proud she was having the Rainbow Flag flying at the town hall to the fact that one of the three main organisers of the whole thing is an ordained minister. Yay!

Deo gratias!

What it's all actually about:

Testing, testing.....

2007-07-09T18:03:00.000+01:00

Well, it took me in!

glumbert.com - Can you count the passes?

Impressive

2007-07-08T19:03:00.000+01:00

Just because it is so good.....

Beach bums

2007-06-30T14:56:00.000+01:00

On Thursday Themyscira (who was once Polly) and I went to the beach for lunch. I can't share the horribly healthy salad with you - but the view was fab......

Excuse me miss.....

2007-06-28T17:15:00.000+01:00

This story has all sorts if issues in it. Gender identification, religious fundamentalism, the role of women etc........and how screwed up folk can get about sex.

...but it also kind of makes you laugh at just how silly people can be sometimes - especially "religious" people (and especially if it involves sex or even just thinking about sex).

It's all about this man:

אליהו פייזקוב (Eliyahu Faizikov)

Eliyahu is a young single guy (20 years old) from Netanya (twinned with Bournemouth!) and he follows Heredi Judaism - which is the most Conservative form of Jewish faith. He also likes singing and has made a CD which he gave to the religious radio station Kol Chai. They loved it and played it a fair amount until the complaints poured in.......

The problem?

Poor old Eliyahu sings like a girl! Honest! Go here and listen to him if you don't believe me! (The page is in Hebrew but scroll down a bit and you'll see the players so you can listen).

The problem with that?

Well Heredi Jews don't believe a man should listen to a woman singing cos he may be tempted sexually. (I can understand that - for several years of my life I felt that I should have been having sex with Mark from West Life when ever he sang!!). Because Eliyahu sounded like a girl they rang in whenever his songs were played and they felt they were being let down by the radio station and led into temptation.

This of course means they were being tempted by a man........ (evil giggle).

The radio station has withdrawn his songs from their playlist.

Legion

2007-06-24T17:42:00.000+01:00

My sermon from this morning.......and after it the song we used in the service.

This one is for Rachel.

Jesus and the disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. (Luke 8:26-39)

Rachel G**** was in my class at primary school.

She had a great smile
and loved being friends with anyone.

Rachel was different to most of my classmates.

She had a genetic disorder
and this meant
among other things
that she had a weak heart,
and that she ran awkwardly,
and that she had less layers of skin than the rest of us,
and would bleed for hours if she fell and grazed herself
in the playground.

She still wanted to join in the rough and tumble
of primary school games.

But she was different.

And so her classmates often excluded her from their games.
She wasn’t fast enough for their teams.
She didn’t look right for their gangs.
She wasn’t clever enough to work with in class.

Rachel played at the edge of the playground.

As Jesus stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs.

When Jesus found him,
the man had been "for a long time"
not in a house in the city with family,
with friends,
but among the tombs,
with the rest of the unclean,
with the dead, shut out from among the living.

He was vulnerable to all kinds of dangers
-- to the elements,
from which he lacked clothes as well as a house to protect him, and also to all of the predators
that the city gates shut out at night.

For a long time he'd been dead to the world,
living among the dead.

This man played at the edge of the playground.

He was a frightening man,
different from others,
so he was shut out,
literally.

His difference made others ask questions they didn’t want to,
so the gates were closed to him,
he was chained up out of the way.
The voice of “Legion” reminded them of all their own demons.
I wonder what “Legion” was.
Maybe it was the echos of all the taunts this man had endured,
that played over in his head,
and erupted from his mouth.
Maybe.
Whatever, “Legion” reminded the townsfolk
of how different this man was,
and how they felt about him,
and they didn’t want reminding.

They didn’t want to face up to their own bigotry,
their hatred of the man,
so they didn’t just restrain him for safety,
they put him out of ear shot.

Sometimes,
rather than face our prejudice,
rather than dare to name the demons we create,
we shut out the ones who show them up.

Rather than face up to how horrible they were,
Rachel’s classmates called her names.

At Sunday school we had our weekly collection.
Everyone put their money into the collection bag
that was taken to church
to join the grown ups’ collection.

Rachel’s coins were always meagre.

Rachel was made to notice the difference.
Suitable names for her were chosen.
Even in the Sunday School classroom.

We try to shut out those who are different,
who show up our prejudice.
We put them outside the city gates,
at the edge of the playground,
out of our gang,
so we don’t have to pay them real attention.

Jesus paid attention, though.
He paid particular attention to those shut out,
those who had nothing and so sat outside the gates to beg,
the lepers and others considered 'unclean,'
women called "loose" after they were rejected by their husbands and not received back home by their fathers.

Jesus healed people.

When Jesus healed a leper,
he wasn't merely restoring someone with a physical diseases
to physical health.

He wasn't just healing a leper.
He was healing a community,
restoring to community someone who had been shut out from it.

Jesus confronts every power that stops us knowing wholeness, every power that divides us from one another,
every power that stops us knowing the love of God
in a loving community that celebrates diversity.

Jesus shows us that the edge of the playground
isn’t the place for God’s beloved children to be sent.

And the powers in each of us,
the powers that make us shut people out,
these powers are legion.

In our epistle for this Sunday,
Paul names the deep divisions of his society,
between Jew and Greek,
slave and free,
male and female;
and names the truth,
that in Jesus these divisions are to be overcome.

We are not to shut people out.
We are to be like Jesus.

There are many such powers in this world,
a thousand varieties of hardness of heart,
that shut out some people,
and trap us in.
Poverty. Racism. Sexism. Homophobia. Religious Bigotry.

There are deep divisions in our society.
The demons that seek to shut people out
in the world today
are legion.
The demons that seek to shut people out
in the church today
are legion.

We are to follow Jesus though,
to save the outcast,
and to heal communities from their prejudices.
We are to bring wholeness,
what the Bible calls “shalom”.

We are to name the Legion of demons that shut people out,
and to end their power.

Rachel died soon after we left primary school.

My memories of her have faded over the years.
I remember being annoyed
when she fell over during one of our games.

I hope I also made her feel accepted once in a while.
I do remember a kindly Sunday School teacher,
encouraging us to love her rather than tease.
She paid Rachel loving attention.
The teacher’s name was Veronica,
a name which means “True Likeness (of Jesus)”

That is what we are here at St ****’s.
I’ll say that again.
That is what we are here at St ****’s.

We are likenesses of Jesus.

Have you experienced that?
Have you caught a glimpse
of what it might be like for each one of us
when all of us live as God's children?
When we celebrate our diviersity?

Declare how much God has done for you.
Declare what Jesus is doing for the poor and outcast.

You might find yourself feared as they were –
as Jesus was in the city after he healed the Geresene demoniac – be real about that too, as you pray and work for reconciliation,
you are not alone.

You are of the Body of Christ,
sharing in Jesus’ power to bring God’s healing,
sharing in Jesus’ mission -
bringing in the shalom of God.

WILL YOU COME AND FOLLOW ME
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know
And never be the same?
Will you let My love be shown,
Will you let My name be known,
Will you let My life be grown in you,
And you in Me?

Will you leave yourself behind
If I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
And never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare,
Should your life attract or scare?
Will you let Me answer prayer
In you and you in Me?

Will you let the blinded see
If I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free
And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean,
And do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean
In you and you in Me?

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
To reshape the world around,
Through My sight and touch and sound
In you and you in Me?

Lord, Your summons echoes true
When You but call my name.
Let me turn and follow You
And never be the same.
In Your company I’ll go
Where Your love and footsteps show;
Thus I’ll move and live and grow
In You and You in me.

Graham Maule & John L. Bell.

Dum-de-de Dum

2007-06-23T21:15:00.000+01:00

HERE COME THE DRUMS!

Brussels sprouts

2007-06-23T10:36:00.000+01:00

According to the BBC: The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, paid tribute to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the current EU president, and handed her a bunch of flowers.

Yeah right! If you ask me, more went on at the EU leaders' meeting in Brussels than we were told........just look at these two! But hey - if that's what Europe is all about I'm for it!

Feline fine....

2007-06-21T23:22:00.000+01:00

Sometimes you wake up, and there are two snorring bundles of fluff on your duvet.....

.....but five minutes later they've transformed into two furry monsters, wide awake, and planning their joint mischief for the day.......

De Profundis

2007-06-15T20:37:00.000+01:00

...ממעמקים...

...OUT OF THE DEPTHS...

This phrase has been echoing around my mind today. It started with Idan Raichel's song of the same title - simply haunting. His use of traditional Ethiopian music is stunning in this track.

The words "out of the depths" are from the Bible were originally sung by those heading to Jerusalem for festival. They left lives behind that were harder than most of us can even begin to imagine. They gathered to share stories - the ancient stories of a people, andthe new stories of family and friends. From the ordinary they sought a moment of community, of hope, of belonging. The threads of the people were woven together on the roads up to Jerusalem.

Out of the depths they cried as they gathered.

They are words of honesty and hope. They do not fear to be real about the world, and yet they also dare to dream of what could be.

Maybe part of our human experience is to sing out of the depths together - to be real with one another and seek hope. Together to sing and walk towards Jerusalem for festival. (Greenbelt is on the horizon folks!)

I'll end with those ancient words, and the song that drew them to mind today -it is a haunting song......enjoy! I'm off to read Oscar Wilde's own cry from the depths now.....

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD,

Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive

to the voice of my supplications!

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,

Lord, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with you,

so that you may be revered.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,

and in his word I hope;

my soul waits for the Lord

more than those who watch for the morning,

more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the LORD!

For with the LORD there is steadfast love,

and with him is great power to redeem.

It is he who will redeem Israel

from all its iniquities.

(Psalm 130)

A quick giggle

2007-06-14T22:17:00.000+01:00

Just been enjoying XKCD cartoon site. Some of the jokes there are not for the technophobic (I didn't get them!) - but there are some classics there too! How funny is this.......?

Sometimes....

2007-06-12T13:02:00.000+01:00

...after hunting with your sister all morning, you just need to crash out......

Cross Fertilisation

2007-06-12T10:07:00.000+01:00

Just recently I discovered the music of עידן רייכל (Idan Raichel). An Israeli singer, he sings mainly in Hebrew and incorporates immigrant Ethiopian musical traditions in his work - along with parts in Arabic and Amharic and African languages - wanting to celebrate diversity and community. It's good stuff!!

I love these words from his website.....

Our ability to live in peace with each other,

depends first and foremost on our ability to accept

all that is different between us.

I want to get closer to you,

but let me be who I am.

I welcome you coming closer to me,

while respecting who you are.

On our own individual paths

we are all looking for the bread,

the water,

the wind

and a dignified life.

And yes we all cling to love.

Don't blink!

2007-06-10T15:21:00.000+01:00

DONT BLINK!

DON'T EVEN BLINK!

BLINK AND YOU'RE DEAD!

Hitting the streets......

2007-06-07T16:15:00.000+01:00

The delightful folk at Westboro' Baptist "Church" are setting up a new website...

Your Pastor Is A Whore.....

Face it. Your pastor is a whore.

You know it's true.

He takes your money just to tell you what you want to hear!

He's whored himself out to the devil!!!

He he!

Freedom Bound in his new vestments.....

I'm forever......

2007-06-04T21:03:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking about bubbles this week.

It all started with the film הבועה (Ha Buah) - which means "The Bubble". Another film by the awesome Israeli director Eytan Fox. It's about......

Three young Israelis, two guys and a girl, who share an apartment in Tel Aviv's hippest neighborhood. Trying to put aside political conflicts and focusing on their lives and loves, these progressive 20-somethings are often accused of living in a sort of escapist bubble.
While on army reserve duty at a West Bank checkpoint, music store clerk Noam crosses paths with Ashraf, a Palestinian guy. When they meet in Tel Aviv, no cultural taboo can hold back their sexual attraction...
Noam and Ashraf fall in love, and the Israeli friends decide to help the Palestinian stay illegally in Tel Aviv....From a traditional upbringing, the young Palestinian is taken by permissive city life and yearns to share his new love with his sister.
Dreaming of the day their beloved Tel Aviv will be free of political problems, the friends organize a beach rave against the occupation. But their good times soon meet up with more than just disappointment and romantic entanglements. The friends must face the bitter truth that love and friendship cannot withhold the harsh reality of the region’s on-going violence.

It looks stunning throughout....

But it's really just about bubbles. Some good bubbles. The Bubble that is the western, liberal city of Tel Aviv - with its Pride Marches and chic cafés against the Middle east. The Bubble that is a group of friends. The Bubbles of language and culture. Bubbles we make for ourselves - that naturally form. It's about what happens when these Bubbles touch and meet.

When one bubble meets with another,

the resulting union is always one of total sharing and compromise. (from Bubbles)

Love, friendship, justice all cause these Bubbles to meet in the film - beautiful!

But it's also about Bubbles that are forced on us. The Bubble that is the Occupied Territories. The Bubble that is the Israeli settlements. The Bubble that is being Gay in a traditional Muslim village. Because these Bubbles are created by others - and grow through fear rather than openness, they do not share or compromise. They cause division rather than give opportunity to merge. They insist on hate rather than love. This is also vividly and powerfully explored in the film.

It's enough to make you cry......

We all have Bubbles which can protect us as we grow - and which can merge with other bubbles as we grow. They can float in the breeze and reflect the sunlight.

And many of us have bubbles that are given us by others. These constrict us - they stop us being a challenge to them. They drag us down.

How I long for the time we can all float free and touch freely.

Whilst you think about your Bubbles and order a copy of this gorgeous and heart breaking film, part of the soundtrack sung by the gorgeous Ivri Lider.

Birds and bees

2007-05-25T18:13:00.000+01:00

Looks like flamingos don't use Catholic Adoption Services!

Gay flamingos pick up chick

A pair of gay flamingos have adopted an abandoned chick, becoming parents after being together for six years, a British conservation organisation said Monday.
Carlos and Fernando had been desperate to start a family, even chasing other flamingos from their nests to take over their eggs at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge near Bristol.
But their egg-sitting prowess made them the top choice for taking an unhatched egg under their wings when one of the Greater Flamingo nests was abandoned.
The couple, together for six years, can feed chicks by producing milk in their throats.
"Fernando and Carlos are a same sex couple who have been known to steal other flamingos' eggs by chasing them off their nest because they wanted to rear them themselves," said WWT spokeswoman Jane Waghorn.
"They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents."
Gay flamingos are not uncommon, she added.
"If there aren't enough females or they don't hit it off with them, they will pair off with other males," she said.

From Yahoo News

No doubt they won't be invited to Lambeth now!

Serendipity

2007-05-23T09:16:00.000+01:00

This morning, mug of tea in hand, I turned up Grandmère Mimi's beautiful contribution to the blogosphere (blogosphère shorley!) and read part I had never really seen before.

How I had missed it is beyond me - but today, after all of yesterday, was the right time to be reading it.

Dear friends, make yourself a brew, and sit and read her beautiful Confessions of a Recovering Homophobe.

...because the dawn will come....

2007-05-22T23:54:00.000+01:00

Often said at Greenbelt...

Keep kicking the darkness until it bleeds light!

Today continued.....

2007-05-22T23:32:00.000+01:00

The man, who speaks for the man who hates gays so much he wants them all put in prison, has said this about the fact that their nigerian-bishop-in-America (who's English born - shame on us!) isn't invited yet (but hasn't been told he won't be):

Since only the first set of invitations had been sent, it is premature to conclude who will be present or absent at the conference. However, the withholding of invitation to a Nigerian bishop, elected and consecrated by other Nigerian bishops will be viewed as withholding invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria.

The Lord bless you as you remain in Christ

The Venerable AkinTunde Popoola

Director of CommunicationsPrimate's Office, 24 Douala Str., Wuse Zone 5, P.O. Box 212 ADCP, Abuja,F.C.T., Nigeria.

The gay bishop who spends his time doing bishopy things like telling people God is crazy about them and making sure vicars are ok has said this:

It is with great disappointment that I receive word from the Archbishop of Canterbury that I will not be included in the invitation list for the Lambeth Conference, 2008. At a time when the Anglican Communion is calling for a “listening process” on the issue of homosexuality, how does it make sense to exclude gay and lesbian people from the discussion? Isn’t it time that the Bishops of the Church stop talking about us and start talking with us?! While I appreciate the acknowledgement that I am a duly elected and consecrated Bishop of the Church, the refusal to include me among all the other duly elected and consecrated Bishops of the Church is an affront to the entire Episcopal Church. This is not about Gene Robinson, nor the Diocese of New Hampshire. It is about the American Church. It is for The Episcopal Church to respond to this divide-and-conquer challenge to our polity, and in due time, I assume we will do so. In the meantime, I will pray for Archbishop Rowan and our beloved Anglican Communion.

One threatens "do as we say or we'll sulk" the other says, through personal pain, "that really hurt us all, but we'll think carefully about what we should do as followers of Jesus and keep praying for you"

Jesus said:

You'll know my followers by the fruit they produce.....

Today....

2007-05-22T17:19:00.000+01:00

.....this man sent out invitations to the traditional gathering of all Anglican bishops:

....this man, (who supported laws that make it illegal to speak about homosexuality in his country, which also mean that gay men can be imprisoned or even executed for being gay, and who, contrary to church law, made his own bishop in America cos he didn't like the others there) is getting his:

....this man (who was legitimately and democratically elected bishop by his diocese and has broken no church laws), will not get his ( because his "appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion" - whereas the other bishop hasn't done this by his actions apparently):

The first man has also threatened to uninvite anyone whose "appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion." If you have an invitation and you do this, for example by being an American bishop who refuses to do what the Nigerian says, this could be you. If you support the execution of gay people and break church law you will be fine.

There is one instance of buggery in all this that is to blame.

When the man on the right allowed the man on the left to bugger him completely.

It all has very little to do with this man:

Today I cried when I heard all this news in the car.

Today I moved from not understanding ++Rowan to despising him.

Today I have nothing but disgust and despair.

Today there is nothing else I can say.

Pied beauty.....

2007-05-20T21:53:00.000+01:00

Just some pics taken with my mobile phone that caught some "wow" moments.....

By our back gate is an aweful piece of ground that grows very little. There used to be a pine wood here, and the ground is sandy and full of old roots. But look what has struggled from close death to stunning beauty since we cleared the weeds around it after arriving 2 years ago.....

Our little boy discovering the tropical fish - he spends hours watching them.....

Some of the many flags at the Eurovision Party at The Queen's Shilling, Bristol. We won't discuss the actual Eurovision result the next day......

In spite of way too many vodkas, I somehow managed to take this of my gorgeous BF and a fab mate chatting at Bolts - another fab mate joined me in the bearly able to stand stakes....

And the cats may love chasing each other round the house and playing games, and jumping on us when we least expect it ("Your early morning call?") - but even they need to curl up and rest sometimes, even among the towels!!!!

Gloria in excelsis!

2007-05-20T15:30:00.000+01:00

Choirs of angels fill the sky - waving their vegetarian Society membership cards and singing in jubilation.........

Mars bars get veggie status back

The move affected Masterfoods' chocolate and ice cream barsMars has abandoned plans to use animal products in its chocolate, and has apologised to "upset" vegetarians.
The firm had said it would change the whey used in some of its products from a vegetarian source to one with traces of the animal enzyme, rennet.
The Vegetarian Society organised a campaign against the move, asking members to voice their concerns to parent company Masterfoods.
Mars said it became "very clear, very quickly" that it had made a mistake.
In just one week, more than 6,000 people bombarded the company, which produces the Mars, Snickers, Maltesers and Galaxy brands, with phone and e-mail complaints.
Forty MPs also signed a petition to voice their opposition.
Fiona Dawson, managing director of Mars UK, said the company had listened to customers and decided to reverse its decision.
"The consumer is our boss and we had lots of feedback from consumers who were unhappy about the change," Ms Dawson said.
"It became very clear, very quickly that we had made a mistake, for which I am sorry.
"There are three million vegetarians in the UK and not only did we disappoint them, but we upset a lot of the consumers."

More here!

Freedom Bound (a very strict vege!) is rather chuffed with this news. They fail to mention btw that the products also became anathema for kosher, Hindu and halel folk as well......now we can all eat between meals again!

Start 'em young!

Who says?

2007-05-19T23:52:00.000+01:00

For all good Anglicans at SPCK - remember your 39 Articles!!!

XXI. Of the Authority of General Councils.

General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes. And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.

Let the sun shine......

2007-05-19T14:54:00.000+01:00

Ok - i love the work of Matthew Chilleli

These are two of his earlier films - I wonder what they say to you?

Matthew's comments in italics......

My class didn't get this at first; can you? This was my second time using film. The assignment was to create a montage and give it diagetic (source-present) sound.

The bolex cameras we used as freshmen are too loud to record sound WHILE filming, so I had to go back and basically foley everything afterwards. Unfortunately, this project went right over the heads of my classmates.

Ironically enough, I showed this project to my Mom at summer break and boy, did WE have a talk afterwards.

Yet another freshman project shot on film - this time in color!

As you can tell, I spent my freshman year in college exploring visual metaphor and not wearing particularly nice clothes. haha.

Shooting on a Bolex camera, of course, records no sound; it had to be added later.

Holy Daze

2007-05-19T14:45:00.000+01:00

Of Course I Could Be On Vacation...

A new blog - where those who miss Mad Priest (who's off sunning his white bits!) keep their peckers up.

It's fab - go visit! (OK - I'm one of the contributors!)

ORTHODOX SABBATHS

2007-05-19T14:36:00.000+01:00

Unbelievably there's more incredible stuff coming from the new bosses of the British Christian bookchain SPCK.....Now they're claiming it's Christian to instruct their staff to work on Sundays......

You couldn't make this stuff up:

Saint Stephen the Great/SPCK BookshopsPress Release'
In an effort to exercise the objects of our Charity, Saint Stephen the Great SPCK Bookshops will begin offering its ministry and services on all Bank Holidays and Sundays beginning in May, 2007. There will be some exceptions, however, it is felt by the Charity Chairman, Mr. Mark Brewer and the company president, Mr. Philip Brewer, that due to the nature of the Christian Charity of Saint Stephen the Great, the most important time for this ministry would be when the Churches are open and in use.'According to Mark Brewer, keeping the bookshops open on Sundays is not only a vital part of the Charity’s ministry; it finds sanction in the Ecumenical Canons. Canon 29 of the Synod of Laodicea (AD 343-381) states that “Christians shall not stop work on the Sabbath…” (This important Council also ratified unanimously Canon 69, which decreed the present Books of the Bible.) We want to make Bibles and spiritual books available as much and as often as possible – to pilgrims and seekers alike. 'As Henry Percival wrote in 1899, the Canons of the Seven Ecumenical Synods – including the famous First Ecumenical Council (325 A.D.) at which the first half of the Creed was bequeathed to us –are “infallible and irreformable.” It is to be remembered that the Canons were adopted during the Ecumenical Councils in unanimous decisions. These decisions set forth Ecclesiastic definitions. It was also the councils that accepted and defined other very important Church decisions, such as the doctrine known as the Trinity, establishing the books of the New Testament, acceptance of the role of iconography to name but a few. 'It is felt that a very important part of the Christian ministry that takes place on Holy Days and the Sabbath, should by necessity include providing believers, seekers and pilgrims an opportunity to garner much needed information about their faith from our generously supplied and well run Bookshops. This policy is not only consistent with our charitable objects, but could be considered as best practice for extending the opportunity to those seeking information and knowledge about the Christian Faith at a most important time.'

Thank goodness it's nothing to do with making money then! Naturally all Christians want to buy Bibles on Sundays - or maybe it's just that all those pagans out there will suddenly have the urge to get one.

They also fail to mention that staff at present are not required to work Sundays by their contracts and English and Welsh employment law means they can't just make them. Instead they're pulling the "you're not real Christians if you don't do what we say" card......sheesh!!!

They're expecting the shops to open on Good Friday too - and told the shops to open for visitors on Christmas Day last year.

Fundies - they're the same even with Orthodox beards.

Apparently the Sabbath was not made for people, but for lining your bosses' pockets.

By their fruit...........cos this is just how Christians treat human beings they employ isn't it????

For the sake of the staff, my friends, stop shopping there and tell the bosses why!

Just do it!

2007-05-06T00:14:00.000+01:00

Just for Graeme... LOL!

This week's sermon....

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

It really is as simple as that.

Love one another….By this everyone will know that you are my disciples

What more, in all honesty can we add to this?

Love one another….By this everyone will know that you are my disciples

I imagine that today
in pulpits around the world
preachers stand terrified,
terrified that they may drown out these simple words
with too much trite explanation,
too much sermonising,
and that in their words,
the simple challenge to live these words
may be lost.

Perhaps we need just a simple reminder.

Too often, we churchy people
live as though Jesus had said something more to the effect
that the world will know whose disciples we are
by the fish stickers on our cars,
or by our prosperity,
or by the indignation with which we condemn others,
or by how much we appallingly claim persecution
and moral outrage,
or worst of all, by our respectability.

John’s Gospel says none of those things.
It says that the world will know whose disciples we are
by our love for one another.
How easily we forget it is all about love.
Even Peter fell into that same trap.

He found words and Bible texts
to bolster his prejudice and assumption
and to put limits on love.
He defined who was in and who was out.
Taking texts for particular times and seasons
and for specific situations
and by not reading them in the context of God’s outrageous love,
Peter turned Bible verses into reasons to exclude others,
reasons to condemn those different to him.

Just as he was refusing to eat certain foods
because of his “literal” reading
of certain verses from Leviticus,
so he was refusing to acknowledge the equality and humanity
of folk different to himself
by the same fundamentalist way of reading the Bible.

God simply and decisively
showed that Peter was mistaken in reading the Bible that way,
and had forgotten the law of love.

The voice answered from heaven,
‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’

Peter changed from that day forward.

Other Christians weren’t happy with him for this,
and they called him to task.
How dare he be so unorthodox
as to ignore the plain and obvious meaning of the Bible
as they saw it,
how dare he not follows the rules of exclusion and judgement
which they found in its commands.

But Peter now knew that was not the way.
He was instead called to live outrageous love.
The love Jesus had demonstrated in his ministry.

It was the love shown
at the feeding of the five thousand,
when food was shared regardless of with whom it was shared,
with no questions about whether folk were clean or unclean,
acceptable or excluded.

It was the love shown
when Jesus shared meals
with those others considered beyond the pale,
when he touched and healed those
whom others said were cursed and abominations.

It was the love shown
when Jesus did these things
even though he knew that it would make him unclean
in the sight of other folk,
that it would lead others to throw Bible verses at him
about why he was unorthodox, a heretic and damned.

And yet how often do we make Peter’s mistake,
the mistake of the fundamentalist,
the one who seeks to judge and exclude with Bible verses?
To what extent are we more concerned with screening,
with determining whether the guests are the right sort of people
and the gifts the right sort of food?

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another

We are here called to show that same love
in our fellowship with one another.
We are to be a picture of that love,
God’s love shown in Jesus,
to the world.
Outrageous,
inclusive,
welcoming,
love without barriers.

Whenever a soul,
hurt by the brokenness and pain around us all,
comes through our church doors,
they will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.

Whenever we meet folk in our work places,
who face the future with anxiety,
and are preoccupied with worry,
they will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.

Whenever we encounter people where we live,
in need of peace
needing to know they are loved for who they are,
they will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.

Whenever a stranger asks for our help,
or seeks a smile,
or longs for real human contact,
they will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.

But that is enough words,
because Jesus’ words are best preached,
they are best understood,
not by filling the air with yet more words,
but by doing them.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Make the gay go away.....

2007-05-05T00:01:00.000+01:00

Nicked from Mad Priest - cos it's hilarious....

Pale blue dot

2007-04-28T18:34:00.000+01:00

"Pale Blue Dot" - a Voyager 1 photograph of planet Earth, showing it situated against the backdrop of the Solar System..... awesome isn't it?

It inspired some amazing words by the late, great Carl Sagan.....

Live love....

2007-04-28T18:28:00.000+01:00

This Sunday's sermon.....

John 10:22-30

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand.My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.’

Words

Some people obsessed with them
and what words other people use.

They spend their time making sure other Christians are “sound”
making sure they believe the right things,
that they use the right words
and then they pronounce on who is and who isn’t a Christian…

Often they appeal to readings like the one from John…

The Father and I are one

There is a strong temptation to make this an “obvious” statement
to demand that folk accept it
or they are not real Christians
and therefore going to hell!

Jesus and God the Father are exactly the same thing!

You must intellectually accept this
or you are literally damned……

After all – that’s the clear meaning of the Bible here!

Jesus was never into such clear statements -
phrases that could be used to test who’s in and who’s out.

Questions like
Who is my neighbour?
Why don’t your disciples fast?
never got nice, simple answers,
instead they get a story.
And these stories leave us with more questions,
Who's really the good son?
What's really fair?
Who is really wise or successful?
Who is NOT my neighbour?
Jesus leaves us with stories and questions to lead us on in faith,
rather than statements to use to judge other people.

It’s not that Jesus isn’t helping us,
it’s just that simple answers won’t help us,
they turn us into judgemental fundamentalists,
and the world has enough of them already!

The community who wrote what we call John’s Gospel
knew the temptation to have simple answers,
to point the finger at others.
They were experiencing serious persecution,
they had been cast out by their communities,
they had lost everything,
and now they were fearing for their lives
from those who would turn them in
to the Roman authorities, as disturbers of the peace.

They could have produced a Gospel that just gave easy answers,
so they could have judged all those persecuting them,
those who said that they weren’t sound,
who said that they were abominations.

But still,
even in John’s Gospel,
especially in John’s Gospel,
Jesus doesn’t give easy answers,
and simplistic statements,
to help us judge others.

John’s Gospel give Jesus words to keep challenging us
to be better followers of Jesus in the real world.

The Father and I are one

Think of it this way,
Jesus' saying "the Father and I are one"
is saying that if you want to know what God is doing in the world,
if you want to know what God is like,
if you want to know how to treat people,
look at what Jesus does.
If you want to know how God treats sinners and outcasts,
look at how Jesus treats them.

And in the parts around these words
in John’s Gospel,
we have pictures of Jesus
accepting those other people rejected,
feeding the hungry,
eating with people others said were “unclean”,
washing feet,
and refusing to judge people.

We don't need simplistic answers.
We need love.
We don't need religious ideas.
We need a person to show us the way.
They way Jesus lived shows us what God is like
in a way no words ever could.

The Father and I are one
is not a doctrine but a way of living.

Francis of Assisi is reported to have said:
"Preach the Good News at all times.
If necessary, use words."

We can talk about truth until we run out of words.
We can try to boil truth down to a creed
or fundamentalist doctrines
or three easy-to remember points starting with 't'
but it is our lives that show truth.
Truth is not to be understood and explained,
it is not something we know like maths,
but someone we know like a lover.

Just like Jesus knew God.

The Father and I are one….

These words aren’t given as a test
to see how sound someone is:
“do you believe Jesus and the Father are one?”;
as if the meaning was so obvious,
and the one asking the question so perfect.

Instead they show us
how Jesus lived God’s way,
and how to live our lives.

God’s way can be seen when we look at Jesus.
That’s how we can also have real life.

Jesus doesn’t tell us to believe certain words,
or accept someone else’s “obvious” doctrines.
He doesn’t give off-pat answers
that everyone must accept or be doomed.

He simply tells us to love,
God’s way,
and shows us how it’s done.

We show how we know Jesus
not by what words we agree with,
but by how much we love.

More Machelli

2007-04-27T17:51:00.000+01:00

Yay! - more cute/entertaining/inspirational genius from Machelli...

Another one for the angels' chorus......

2007-04-27T09:19:00.000+01:00

The celebrated Russian cellist and conductor, and awesome musician, Mstislav Rostropovich has died at the age of 80.

"Slava" ("Glory") Rostropovich playing as the Berlin Wall came down.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

Cello Concerto in C Major - J Haydn

Treasures

2007-04-24T09:05:00.000+01:00

Last night I popped into Jared's place and loved his post Ordination Song. It's a beautiful montage he has put together - scenes from his life to a song that speaks to him.....

It sent me off to bed thinking about the moments, songs, people that we carry through our lives and which also carry us through life. So many faces and memories.

This morning I awoke with the hymn Father, hear the prayer we offer going through my head. In case you don't know it, or to remind you, the words are:

Father, hear the prayer we offer:
not for ease that prayer shall be,
but for strength that we may ever
live our lives courageously.

Not for ever in green pastures
do we ask our way to be;
but the steep and rugged pathway
may we tread rejoicingly.

Not for ever by still waters
would we idly rest and stay;
but would smite the living fountains
from the rock along our way.

Be our strength in hours of weakness,
in our wanderings be our guide;
through endeavous, failure, danger,
Father, be thou at our side.

My earliest memories of the hymn are in my childhood church, where after leaving Sunday School I served at the altar. It's a thoroughly Oxford Movement Church, which in my later teenage years drove me mad, but Anglican Catholicism is ironically now once again my spiritual home - after journeying through all sorts of theological byeways en route.

An image of Anglo-Catholic worship I couldn't resist nicking!

One strong memory of this hymn was at my final selection conference for ordination - a scary 13 years ago! I was playing organ in the worship (I often wonder if on arrival in heaven I'll be asked to do the music......LOL) and we sang this, so i chose the tune I've always preferred - Sussex.

And then there was the year we sang it at Greenbelt Communion.....

I love the realism of this hymn. Life can be difficult - no pretence it's all green pastures and still waters. And there's a real urgency about our need on the journey. But the title this hymn was given by its author Love Maria Willis (1824-1908) was aspiration. It is about hope in the face of difficulty. May we ever "live our lives courageously" in spite of the rubbish - especially that in the Church!

Willis ended the hymn with a verse seldom printed:

Let our path be bright or dreary,
storm or sunshine be our share;
may our souls, in hope unweary,
make thy work our ceaseless prayer.

She sounds a fab Unitarian and I'm so thankful for these powerful and honest words. Maybe our courage begins with honesty about what we face. False piety always seeks to silence the voices that point out its meaningless dreams and becomes fundamentalist - real vision of what we all face can fire in us courage to live real lives and stand alongside others who feel the pain of the rugged pathways as well.

Playing safe

2007-04-23T14:54:00.000+01:00

With thanks to Sophie......

First Time Sex

A girl asks her boyfriend to come over Friday night to meet, and have dinner with her parents.
Since this is such a big event, the girl announces to her boyfriend that after dinner, she would like to go out and make love for the first time The boy is ecstatic, but he has never had sex before, so he takes a trip to the pharmacist to get some condoms. He tells the pharmacist it's his
first time and the pharmacist helps the boy for about an hour. He tells the boy everything there is to know about condoms and sex. At the register, the pharmacist asks the boy how many condoms he'd like to buy, a 3-pack, 10-pack, or family pack. The boy insists on the family pack because he thinks he will be rather busy, it being his first time and all.
That night, the boy shows up at the girl's parent’s house and meets his girlfriend at the door. "Oh, I'm so excited for you to meet my parents, come on in!"
The boy goes inside and is taken to the dinner table where the girl's parents are seated. The boy quickly offers to say grace and bows his head. A minute passes, and the boy is still deep in
prayer, with his head down. 10 minutes pass, and still no movement from the boy. Finally, after 20 minutes with his head down, the girlfriend leans over and whispers to the boyfriend, "I had no idea you were this religious."
The boy turns, and whispers back, "I had no idea your father was a pharmacist."

God says....

2007-04-20T15:16:00.000+01:00

...you have to go and vote for Mad Priest at the Bloggers' Choice Awards here....

MP - enthroned in blogger glory

...and then you may rest from your labours and enjoy Machelli's latest act of genius.....

Monkeying around......

2007-04-17T22:22:00.000+01:00

We've spent fab time with our gorgeous friend Pete this past week - and there's more yet to come!

Spontaneously he descended on our abode last Sunday - and we all headed out to drink too much vodka and dance to cheesy dance music..........it was great!

BF, Pete and Laurence - as blurry as this photo!....

Later in the week Pete headed into deepest darkest Dorset with his son (my godson), his daughter and his mum. We met up with them on the Friday and went to Monkey World - one of my BF's favourite places in all the world. In spite of some rain we had a great day looking the primates (oh to have other world primates safely locked away........), and the kids showed the monkeys how it's done.....

and Pete.....

.... looked scarily like one of the orangutans.......

It was so good spending time with one of our most favourite people - and he's back down this weekend! Yay!

Loads more to blog - and several memes to repsonded to (not forgotten you Dennis and Kathryn!) - promise to do more soon. But as I go, some grafitti from our church carpark which made this priest giggle more than was seemly.....

Presenting....

2007-04-11T23:12:00.000+01:00

Bartleby! Known to his friends as Bartley!

Still bemusing his feline kindred, the ineffable Osca.....

Ploughed ground

2007-04-11T10:13:00.000+01:00

I've just discovered the poetry of the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai after chancing on his work in Doubts and Loves by Richard Holloway - also a great book!! I'll just give you the poem that started it all - The place where we are right. It speaks profoudly to me........

From the place where we are right

flowers willl never grow

in the Spring.

The place where we are right

is hard and trampled

like a yard.

But doubts and loves

dig up the world

like a mole, a plough.

And a whisper will be heard in the place

where the ruined

house once stood.

The naming of cats.....

2007-04-10T19:41:00.000+01:00

We have a new addition to the family! Look who arrived today!

He's eight weeks old and sits in the palm of your hand (when he's not bedding down on my Church Times!)

Here's the other member of the house acting all non-plussed by the new feline!

He's yet to be named....Arthur...Bartley....Tybalt.....Balthasar..... are all being bounced around. Any thoughts?

Alleluia!

2007-04-08T12:48:00.000+01:00

Christ is Risen!

Just returned from a fab Mass - great music, lots of shouting "He is risen indeed! Alleluia!" Yay! And the sermon was OK........he he, it was me!

Statue of Mary at church.

O unfamiliar God,
we seek you in the places
you have already left,
and fail to see you
even when you stand before us.
Grant us so to recognise your strangeness
that we need not cling to our familiar grief,
but may be freed to proclaim resurrection
in the name of Christ. Amen.

(Janet Morley)

Freedom!

2007-04-08T00:11:00.000+01:00

The last one of the weekend! The Easter Day sermon......

Freedom!

Upton Hill January the 12th 1862
from John Boston

My Dear Wife
It is with great joy I take this time to let you know where I am.
I am now in Safety in the 14th Regiment of Brooklyn
this Day I can address you thank god as a free man
I had a little trouble in getting away
But as the Lord led the Children of Israel to the land of Canaan
So he led me to a land where freedom will reign
in spite of earth and hell
I am free from all the slaver’s lash.

Freedom!

Just two weeks ago we commemorated the 200th anniversary
of the day that a Parliamentary Bill was passed
to abolish the slave trade in the British colonies.
And amongst the issues of guilt
and the complexities of history,
and the fact that slavery continues for many,
we have heard of the joy of those released from enslavement.

Freedom!

In the weeks since that anniversary
we have all witnessed a very public imprisonment and release
as we watched and heard reports
of the British service personnel being held in Iran.

Most recently we have seen the images
of them returning from Iran,
embracing families and friends,
and speaking to the press.
The joy and relief of freedom can be seen clearly on their faces,
the sense of what they described as
“a huge moment of elation”
when they heard of their freedom,
having endured an imprisonment
that thankfully few if any of us can begin to envisage.

And these are just two stories of freedom
from a shameful catalogue of slavery
and imprisonment in human history;
but they remind us also
of how different the world can look when you experience freedom.

On Easter Day we can see how different the world looks
when we know freedom.

Jesus has walked the road to freedom.
He has shown up all our pride
and power seeking
and hypocrisy;
yet he refused to strike back with hate,
to be enslaved by it,
and instead has shown us that there is a way to live
without being slaves to these things.
We can know freedom.

And now we see how different the world will look
when we live in that freedom.

When Mary first sees Jesus,
she doesn't recognize him.
There's something different about Jesus
after God has raised him from the dead in our Easter stories.

Things look different when we know freedom.

Relationships look different.
Folk who mistrusted each other
find themselves called brothers and sisters.
Those traditionally seen as second class
are restored to the freedom of equality.
The inclusiveness and affirming love of Jesus’s community
is beyond anyone’s expectations.
As we live into the freedom Jesus brings,
we find ourselves receiving those who were friends,
or even enemies,
as our sisters and brothers.

Power looks different.
Jesus hasn't become the fearful bringer of judgement
that some wanted him to be before his death,
and some still want him to be now.
In the Easter story
Jesus still works among the people by serving:
he cooks breakfast for his friends.
Indeed, his friends seem to recognise him
because Jesus does what he has always done,
calling them by name,
breaking bread,
breathing peace,
showing freedom.
When we recognize Jesus’ freedom,
we can see how wrong we were about power.
We finally understand
that Jesus' unconditionally welcoming everyone
to feast with him wasn't a way to pass the time
until God came with “real” power
to set things right:
this is what power really is –
unconditionally, inclusively, radically loving.
It is not the power of a Pharaoh,
it is the power of the last supper and the cross

The way we see is different.
When we take in the freedom Jesus offers,
we can see God's presence everywhere
-- in Creation
and in the creativity that is God's gift,
in the eyes of a child,
in the heart of an enemy.
And in injustices and wounds,
we see opportunities to participate
in God’s bringing of freedom.

Our heart looks different.
The more we take in Jesus' freedom,
the more we experience God's compassion.
We learn to see others
as people God loves and has given gifts.
We learn to truly value each other,
and to celebrate our diversity
and be enriched by each other.
And as we learn to love those whom we saw as unlovable,
we experience the unreserved love
which God has for us.

Our sense of what's possible is different.
In Egypt,
the freed slaves saw armies advancing against
and saw no way out;
but prophets like Miriam and Moses saw a way forward,
by plunging into the waters!
Knowing and trusting freedom
they saw things differently
and saw new and incredible opportunities for life.

In Judea,
some looked at Jesus' cross and saw death;
some looked at the empty tomb
and anticipated death for themselves,
as Roman law decreed death to grave robbers.
But what looks like death is an opening for new life.
Those walking Jesus’ road to freedom saw things differently.

It might be hard to recognise at first,
but freedom has come among us,
and we are invited to live life to the full,
more truly ourselves;
to live God’s freedom in the world.

Today we could choose to prefer the comfort of slavery,
to go back to the narrow place of our pride,
and envy,
and lust for power,
and prejudice,
and hurt,
and guilt,
of whatever hems us in;
or we can walk into the promised land
of the freedom Jesus has shown,
and the world will never look the same again!

Passover

2007-04-07T00:39:00.000+01:00

I've just had a fantastic evening. I was invited by the local Reform Rabbi to Shabbat Service and Shabbat Passover Seder at the Synagogue.......it was fab! I had such a good time.

There was lots of big stuff that was great - the singing, the excellent appraoch to Bible stories, the theme of "freedom"....... But it was the small stuff that really touched me. Firstly of course was simply being invited. But there was also the moment I walked in and one of the members looked at me and said "oh dear - here comes trouble"! And then after the Shabbat Service the Rabbi dragged me aside and said "I've sat you next with me on the top table". It was such an honour.

Now driving my poor boyfriend mad singing random songs in Hebrew!

Anyway - it's time for bed - and into the depths of Easter Eve.......

The alternative

2007-04-06T16:59:00.000+01:00

For those who dare - my sermon today, Good Friday.......

Folk praying at vigil before the sacrament after Mass last night.

Walking the road to freedom.

Centuries before that Friday,
the people of God had left Egypt,
where they had been enslaved for over two centuries.
Finally they left behind all that had imprisoned them.

God had opened up the road to freedom
where before there had been none.

And as they walked the road to freedom
the oppression they left behind was shown up for what it truly was.
The pride and fear of Pharaoh was exposed,
and the oppression of the people had been on the public agenda.

The people of God had left Egypt.

And yet,
when taking their first steps on the road to freedom,
the people found that the road was not what they had expected.

The road to freedom was not passive,
as if doing nothing could end the oppression and abuse of power.
They had needed to make preparations and move,
they had needed to commit.

Neither was it about the wrath of God
about revenge,
and just deserts being paid,
with God demanding blood for its own sake.

It was about the transforming and challenging love of God.
The surprising and unexpected road to freedom.

But this is not what the people had expected.
This is not the easy road they had hoped for.
Suddenly the people become frightened and declare:
We’d rather be slaves in Egypt! (Exodus 14. 12)

Slavery,
living in a narrow, constricted place,
had one great advantage.

Taking revenge,
but leaving the prejudice and hatred in place,
had one great advantage.

Comfort!

But neither doing nothing nor taking revenge
are the road to freedom.
They are not God’s way.

But God’s people, for that moment,
preferred comfort to freedom.

How often we are like that.

We see only two options when faced with hatred or hurt,
with prejudice or persecution,
with arrogance or agony –
do nothing
or take revenge.
Accept the narrow enslavement,
or strike back.
Fight or flight.

But these ways do not bring wholeness or freedom.

Jesus faced the same choices
when he walked the road to freedom on that Friday.

Jesus was confronted
with the powers that oppress and enslave us.

There was the power of the religious elite
who sought to exclude some from God’s grace
and use people’s desire for God to control them.

The was the power of the political elite
who sought to control the crowds
so that their comfort and power could remain dominant.

Jesus could have chosen to do nothing
when faced with these powers.
To remain in Nazareth
or even in Bethany,
and live a quiet pious life.
Submission and passivity could have been his response.

Or Jesus could have chosen to strike back at these powers
as he saw them oppress his people.
Knowing God was angry with this oppression,
knowing that God heard the cries of the enslaved,
Jesus could have claimed
that God’s wrath must be brought to bear.
He could have gathered force to march with him on Jerusalem
and overthrow the powers that be.

But neither doing nothing
nor seeking revenge and acting in wrath
are the road to freedom.
And Jesus, instead, walks the road to freedom
that we may follow.

Jesus had already spoken about this road to his followers,
he had already shown that there was another way.

“Don't react violently against someone who is evil,"
he had said.

And Jesus had given a memorable example,
back in less threatening times.

"If anyone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn to them the other also."

Why the right cheek?
The only way one could strike the right cheek
with the required right hand
would be with the back of the hand.

A backhand slap
was the normal way of admonishing inferiors.
Masters backhanded slaves;
husbands, wives;
parents, children;
men, women;
Romans, Jews.

When struck you could doing nothing.

Or you could fight back.

Or you could offer the other cheek.

Then the only way to strike you again
is with the palm of the hand.

It is like saying: "Try again.
I am a human being just like you.
You cannot demean me."

This action shows up the oppressor.
It reveals their desire to control and demean others.
It frees the one struck from the humiliation and control of the other.

There is another way.

And for Jesus these were not just fine words
once spoken in peaceful times
under the Galilean sun.

On that Friday Jesus lived out his words,
and he walked the way
that we may follow.

Jesus came to Jerusalem.
He came
and when preaching, teaching, and casting out traders,
he confronted the powers that be.

And now the powers strike Jesus.

In the garden they take him by force,
and then physically and verbally
he is beaten and humiliated…..

But Jesus is true to his word

"If anyone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn to them the other also."

Jesus refuses to play the power games in religious court
or in political palace.

As he stands in silence
or allows questions to reflect back to the powerful,
the oppressors reveal their true colours.

The ones who claimed religious purity
show their hatred,
and anger,
and venom,
and pride.

The ones who claim political control,
are shown to pamper to the desire of the crowds
simply to keep their own position,
and show their weakness,
and fear,
and pride.

And even as nails are hammered home,
Jesus refuses to respond with hate or anger.
Jesus does not put his tormentors to shame
by hitting back,
but with words of healing, of reconciliation,
bringing together the human family with his last breath.

The cross is not about wrath and anger,
it is about transforming, radical love.

In walking this road to freedom
Jesus reveals all our narrow places,
the things that keep us trapped.
Our pride,
our hate,
our lust,
our fear,
our insecurities,
our seeking after power.

And in taking action,
but refusing to strike back;
by loving to the end,
Jesus not only reveals our narrow places
he shows us the road to freedom.

Jesus shows us the way to leave all that enslaves us.

It is finished.

Enslaving one another
and ourselves to ambition,
to fear and hate: it is finished.

The Messiah on the cross has proclaimed,
once and for all:
Enough bloodshed.
Enough shame.
Enough suffering.
Enough fear.
Enough oppression.

One even greater than Moses
has come to free us for all time from those narrow places.

And we can be free.
Free to love,
free to serve,
freed from every system and every habit that made us,
those we love, and our world suffer.

It is finished – all of it –
and we are free to claim the vision of a world made new,
the promised land awaits us.

Narrow places......

2007-04-04T23:40:00.000+01:00

For those so inclined - my Maundy Thursday sermon.......

עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָיִם
Avadim Hayinu l’Pharoh b’mitzrayim.
We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. (Deuteronomy 6:21)

In every generation,
as year followed year,
families and friends took their places at the tables at Passover.
And in every generation,
as year followed year,
these words were heard at the heart of the meal.
Year by year the reminder rang.
Year by year……We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.

Egypt!
In Hebrew its name is מִצְרָיִם Mitzrayim
literally - the narrow place.

We were slaves……in the narrow place.

As slaves we were constricted.
We were hemmed in.
Trapped.

So as year followed year,
from exodus to exile,
from tent to temple,
that Mitzrayim, that narrow place, was remembered…..
It was a place where freedom was denied,
where power was abused,
where human worth was destroyed,
where the innocent were punished,
where difference was a threat,
where the cries of the persecuted were silenced.

Mitzrayim – where Pharoah kept the people narrowly controlled and trapped.

And so, the story of the slavery was retold again and again.

But Passover was not simply a remembrance of times past,
a recollection of former slavery.

In the Bible remembering is always more than just recollection.
To remember is bring the reality into the present,
to be truly present to what you are re-membering.

At Passover every generation is to see themselves
as if they had personally left Egypt – the narrow place,
to know for themselves the slavery,
to long for liberation,
not as a history lesson,
but as a real experience in the here and now.

The Passover order of service says:
In every generation,
a person is obligated to show themselves as if they had left Egypt:
for God did not redeem only our ancestors,
but even us as well.

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.

And so at each Passover.
year by year,
each person prayed to know God’s deliverance from the narrow place.

Everyone lives in their own mitzrayim,
their own narrow places,
where they feel constrained and constricted,
unable to be truly themselves.

The Pharaohs that keep people trapped
can be real present situations:
maybe it is financial worries
or health concerns that trap people in a narrow place.

But the Pharaohs can also be more subtle,
spectres from the past can make powerful slave masters.
Guilt over pain caused to others,
or anger over hurt caused to you,
the torment of failed relationship,
or the agony of the betrayal of trust,
the stinging words of the bully,
or the living under others’ prejudice and bigotry.

Yet other Pharaohs can be subtler still:
the abuse of our own power over another,
or our stereotyping and exploitation of different folk,
our desire to be better than others
or our controlling of facts to suit our own ends,
our pride,
our lust,
our hatred
our fear.

Even the Pharaoh confronted by Moses
had his narrow places.
Not only the enslaver of others,
he was bound by his own ego,
which led him to ruin everything he valued.

All of these,
and many others,
keep us trapped in our own Mitzrayim,
our own narrow places.

All of us know this slavery –

And at Passover this slavery was symbolised in bread,
the bread of affliction.
This bread that is broken to shown the brokenness of humanity
when that humanity is trapped and constrained.
The bread which enables people to remember,
to remember the slavery of the narrow place,
but not to remember simply past slavery,
but their own in the present.

The bread of affliction calls us
to face up to the reality of the narrow place.

In our narrow places
we can never be who we were made to be.

In our narrow places
we can never live life in all its fullness.

Constrained, and constraining others,
we will never know life.

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.

And once,
only hours from his execution,
Jesus of Nazareth met with his followers to remember,
to hear the words about the narrow place again,
to remember them.

The Passover story was told,
ancient words were recalled,
and before them lay the bread of affliction.

And Jesus took the bread,
the bread which reminds us of our narrow places,
and broke it,
remembering our slavery,
and said:
This is my body……

And from our narrow places
all of us need liberation,
all of us need hope.

The remembering at Passover is not hopeless.
There is the remembering and promise of liberation.

God heard the cries of those enslaved,
and offers the opportunity to leave the narrow place,
to step into the unknown,
into new life.

God commands the powers that trap people
to “let my people go”,
and where before there seemed to be no way out
a way is opened,
and the choice to leave is possible.

And this chance,
this hope of liberation,
this promise of freedom,
is all present in the Passover meal.

A cup of wine stands on the table,
waiting for the time when all people can leave their narrow places,
waiting for the time when all people can live life to the full.

This is the Cup of Elijah,
the Cup of Liberation,
the Cup of the time of the Messiah.

But this cup may only be drunk
when the time of liberation has dawned.

And Jesus took the cup and said:
This is my blood……..

For Messiah Jesus is our Passover.

This night is different from all others.

On this night,
taking bread among us,
the bread of affliction,
Jesus calls us to re-member Mitzrayim,
to face the realities of our narrow places;
to face the places where we are enslaved by others,
and to face the places where we enslave others
and trap ourselves and them.

On this night,
taking the cup,
the cup of liberation,
Jesus calls us to remember the hope of freedom,
to find the opportunity to leave our narrow places,
however cherished they have become;
Jesus calls us to drink the wine of promise,
and to follow him to where before there seemed to be no way out,
to where a way is now opened,
and the choice to leave is possible.

Tonight we face our narrow places.

Tonight we are offered liberation.

עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָיִם
Avadim Hayinu l’Pharoh b’mitzrayim.
We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.

Turn, turn, turn

2007-03-31T18:49:00.000+01:00

The wonderful (sic) Archbishop Akinola has been uttering words of deep wisdom again. And thank God he has - for all you straight men's sakes. He has said that "the continuance of the [human] race is threatened by gay practice" (Church Times, 30-03-07). You mean little old me could be so dangerous??

I'm assuming that if straight men realise how fabulous gay sex is they'll all give up women and turn........and the human race would then end. Wow!! I mean gay sex is fabulous - but who would have thought? By me being allowed to be out and just myself, this man:

would instantly become this man:

Such power!

I never realised that that happened! Hey gay guys - for the sake of the race we must all act straight! They'll all want a bit of arse otherwise it seems! Thank goodness Akinola pointed it out!

I never knew Akinola would admit that gay sex was just so damn tempting!

Just following Jesus.....

2007-03-31T17:44:00.000+01:00

I once thought I had all the answers.

Now I'm just a guy trying to follow Jesus.

Another place I go has been discussing ministers who don't believe the right stuff, especially when they doubt the existence of "God" - especially what other people say God is.

It led me to post this - quickly and from the heart. Anyway, I thought I'd share it here - as one who used to be scared of questions but now thinks they're what life is actually all about....

I remember the film Keeping the Faith which said:

"Catholics want their priests to believe the things they can't believe themselves."

Most of us are just human beings asking questions and trying to be honest about all that. Are any ministers anything more than as human as the laity?? But you should see the sh*t thrown at us when we simply ask the questions other honest folk ask.

We only have two places to ask these questions - in public (where we're accused of being unfaithful to someone else's expectations of our ordination vows etc) or in private (where we're then accused of being intellectually dishonest). I don't remember vowing to be a superhero.

Please don't expect your ministers to be Messiahs and consider what incredible pressure your theological expectations put on them. The pressure to have all the answers and have absolute faith, even when babies die and buildings tumble, is immense and, to be honest, outrageous.

Some days I don't believe in God.

What else do you expect of me as a human follower of Jesus?

Or is it better I lie about that? - cos if you only want minsters who always absolutely believe in God or at least claim to, I suspect you'd only be left with the likes of Pat Robertson......

Or is the real issue that people are scared when those of us who have spent a professional lifetime studying theology and Scripture etc, sometimes doubt? Cos that's reality.

It aint all as certain intellectually as some would like to place their faith in.

Thankfully, with John of Cross et al, that aint the kind of faith we're meant to have.

However much others wish it was.

Some weddings but no funeral....

2007-03-29T23:25:00.000+01:00

Well - I think most if not all vicars could tell you stuff about things that go wrong at weddings. (It's my experience that we only talk about the funny things that happen at funerals to other vicars!). These few made me giggle - hope they do you too......

Snot and Pasta

2007-03-29T17:51:00.000+01:00

Well - I'm sat at my PC with a headache from some horrible mancold which took hold last night during Yoga! Downface Dog Pose with a snotty nose is certainly an experience!

Adho Mukha Svanasana - Downface Dog Pose

In spite of that, Yoga was fab - and I'm slowly getting to grips with it at the most beginner of levels. It's teaching me a lot about patience and I could do with living a more balanced lifestyle - which is certainly at the heart of Yoga. Balance. It's so easy to keep rushing......

Anyway - to help me through the horrors of mancold - the suffering of which is beyond that even envisaged by women folk - I've been lost on Youtube this past hour. Mainly with the genius that is Machelli (Matthew to his friends). He is a gifted guy - whose sense of humour gets me giggling (as does yoga with a cold - at least it did last night!) and whose film stuff is superb. I liked this take on "Americana".....

Also been having a fab time with the Lent group I'm leading. We're using some of the material from Living the Questions - which is a fab course, highly recommended to all fellow heretical liberals! The group are so nice - we have had some great conversations. Today we chatted about how to break the cycles of violence in our lives - like letting go of grudges. It could have been theological piffle. It wasn't. It was real folk, sat in a chapel in our glorious church building, having a real conversation. I forgot my headache..... (Also for a while I forgot fundamentalism and bigots - and they don't like to let you do that so it must be good! Andy's been fighting one bunch off this week.)

Now it's time for tea - big plate of pasta for me - I love pasta! And then I have the DVD of The History Boys to watch....will let you know.

Game for a laugh....

2007-03-20T18:38:00.000Z

Funny stuff!!!

And lots of it!!

Just found this guy on Youtube! So funny! And kind of cute in a "guy next door" type of way (yeah - I fancy him!!!!). Here's Machelli on The Bible and Gay Marriage......Enjoy....

And if you liked the bit on Gay Marriage, this might tickle your fancy.......

And lastly - why not mosey over to MP's Place and watch the video there - it is fab!

Sense from Canada

2007-03-19T17:16:00.000Z

There's been loads written about Gay responses to the Tanzania Communiqué. I rather liked this.....(Madpriest aming others pointed it out). If it's your type of thing please read:

Church must do what is right for homosexuals

The Edmonton Journal
Published: Monday, March 19, 2007
Bradley J. Willis

Full acceptance and inclusion of homosexuals in the Anglican Church -- not merely the blessing of same-sex marriage -- is clearly the right thing to do now, despite the risk of schism.
Almost all discussions I have read or heard concerning "What To Do" start by assuming that in the Anglican tradition, persons actively homosexual are in need of repentance and reform, and are definitely excluded from priestly office.
Wrong. All this time the real Anglican tradition has been that homosexuality -- and I mean sexually active homosexuality -- has been not only tolerated but also tacitly accepted.
It just had to be kept quiet.
Thus it has been everywhere in our part of the world for many years, including our own Diocese of Edmonton. Show me an Anglican who says his or her diocese is different and I'll show you a whited sepulchre. Or at best, a person of surpassing credulity and simplicity.
How long has the Anglican tradition of hypocrisy been going on? So long that nobody quite knows when it started. That's as good a working definition of "tradition" as any.
Here I confidently appeal to a moral principle that Jesus Christ repeatedly affirmed: hypocrisy is bad. If we cull the hypocrisy, we are left with a long tradition of acceptance of homosexual priests and bishops. That tacit tradition is now consistent with our law, which has evolved to the point where it not only tolerates homosexuals but also requires that they be treated precisely like other citizens.
The text that springs readily to mind in this context is John 16:12-13: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come."
Christ left no recorded comments about homosexuality, but the analogy of his openness to the despised and ritually impure has been convincingly pressed in support of our real tradition. Opponents are reduced to relying on two irrelevant passages from Leviticus, and three equivocal extracts from the letters of Paul.
Scriptural support for opponents of divorce and female ordination was several orders of magnitude stronger. But no matter. Whoever has the better of that scholarly dispute, we have it on the highest authority the Spirit of truth trumps it.
How then, may we ascertain what, if anything, the "Spirit of truth" has to say? Here our real tradition provides a guide, or at least a rebuttable presumption. The truth about the prevalence and acceptance of homosexuality in the Church should have been obvious to Anglicans for hundreds of years.
Why only now are we able to admit it? Perhaps because most of the civil disabilities of minorities had to be removed before (most of us) were able to bear the truth: namely, that the category "homosexual" is as spiritually irrelevant as the legally irrelevant categories of "slave," "woman," "Jew" (and Greek, for that matter).
"Most of us": There's the problem, indeed, for the worldwide "Anglican communion."
Unfortunately, most African Anglicans -- with exceptions, of course, starting with Bishop Desmond Tutu -- appear to have been affected by the fact that they live in societies that cannot yet bear to hear the truth about homosexuals, and may not be able to bear it for a long time. Famously, and fatuously, Bishop Akinola of Nigeria, who appears to be the heaviest hitter among the African bishops, has gone so far as to claim that homosexuality doesn't exist in Nigeria, "even among animals."
"What we got here," to quote a phrase from the 1967 classic film, Cool Hand Luke, "is a failure to communicate."
So let's at least try to avoid hypocrisy. We already are out of communion with those who think like Bishop Akinola, and we have been since at least 1998, when a number of the African bishops embarrassed themselves and their Church by their conduct at the Lambeth Conference. Not only by what they said, but by what they did -- for example, conducting public "exorcisms" of homosexuals!
What will be lost if we admit "officially" to being "out of Communion"? True, we won't be able to say there are 86 million (or however many) Anglicans. The number will be cut at least in half. But the number of "bums in the pews" is not a spiritual desideratum.
Of course, we can keep talking. But it would be naive to expect a rapprochement in the near future. Let's not forget how recently we in North America have come to these understandings:
I, and many of my readers, antedate the feminist movement, let alone "gay rights."
Egalitarian ideas, aided by the social solvent of capitalism, took Western society half a millenium to accept -- and that only recently and imperfectly.
It is unreasonable to expect that they will be welcomed in very different, mainly traditional societies, in a few scant decades. But it is still more unreasonable to use Third World intolerance, allied with the remnants of intolerance at home, as an excuse not to do what is right.
The matter has come to a head because of a September 30th "deadline" announced by a group of reactionary bishops, demanding a long-term moratorium. One result of acceding to that demand would be that homosexuals seeking ordination or preferment would continue to be even more strongly tempted, and probably encouraged, to cover up their sexual orientation.
This would plunge us back into an intolerably dishonest situation.
In that case, my ears are anticipatorily ringing with the epithet that our Saviour, for all his meekness, didn't hesitate to apply to whoever deserved it, however righteous they might otherwise be: "You hypocrites!"

Bradley J. Willis is an Edmonton lawyer. He serves on the vestry and sings in the choir at St. Luke's Anglican Church.

© The Edmonton Journal 2007

Brook, borders and bin lids....

2007-03-19T15:56:00.000Z

Hey - it's a been a fair while since I blogged anything.

Been doing loads.

Last week I ended up going to see Martyn Joseph doing a gig at the Brook in Southampton. He was awesome. He sang his song "Turn me Tender" - which feels like my anthem at the moment. Inspite of the all the hatred around us, and the battle wounds we all carry, it is a prayer to keep us/me centred on the work of following Jesus and staying tender - I'll admit to shedding a tear (easily done hey Polly?). Martyn, as always, touched my heart - roll on Greenbelt!

I sent to Sabbath Prayers at my local Reform Synagogue. That was great - such a welcoming bunch - and I took my parents along, who loved it! Yep, I'm now leading others astray with my liberal theology! Picture of the Synagogue as we waited for the service above. I've been asked to preach next time I go.......I can't express express what a priviledge it is to be asked and how encouraging I find that.

I spent a day with the Iona Community learning about the work of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestime and Israel this week - which is a very unsexy name for a rather cool bunch of people. Affiliated to the Iona Community (which makes it practically perfect) and administered by the Quakers in this country (which makes it very cool!) EAPPI seeks to stand alongside folk in Israel/Palestine to end the occupation of the Gazza strip and West Bank and works with non-violent Israeli and Palstinian groups. I really am in awe of their work. All very inspiring - and to spend a day with Christians who want to change the world and work for justice and peace and away from the nasty bigots in the Church was fantatstic.

One thing that really came home was how many innocent lives are so caught up in cycles of horror and violence and hatred that started so long ago and feed on so many prejudices and fears. No-one is neutral when it comes to fear and pain in the conflict. Only a radical change can end this pain - again we need to be turned tender.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Mothering Sunday was fun. I resurrected the tradtiton of "clypping" the church. In Mediaeval times folk would form a circle round their church in order to bless it. Our building is huge so we stayed indoors. We formed a circle round the outside of the pews - first facing in and we gave thanks that we are a diverse community called simply to love each other, then we all turned and faced outwards and prayed to be able to love the world. The simplest acts can bring the most profound moments sometimes.......

Amongst all that has been all the small moments that make up daily life.

A drag act....

My mates snogging...

The cat "hiding" in the bin lid.....

I have a dream....

2007-03-11T00:42:00.000Z

Thought i'd share this lads and lasses cos it's always made me laugh......

Go Martyn!

2007-03-08T22:52:00.000Z

Martyn Joseph - whose music keeps me going - has been telling it as it is and getting noticed. Yay! I was at the concert in question and he was awesome - and I cheered when he gave his graphic critique of Pat Robertson!

Read and enjoy........

Singer refuses to back down over lyric
Mar 5 2007
Robin Turner, Western Mail

A WELSH folk rock singer has refused to back down in his unlikely transatlantic row with a top American TV evangelist.
In one corner is Penarth-born musician Martyn Joseph, who uses his work to highlight causes such as aiding Brazilian landless workers and children made homeless by war.
In the other is American former faith healer Dr Pat Robertson, known for insulting Islam as a religion, suggesting Venezuelan President Hugo Charvez should be assassinated and opposing gay rights.
Joseph, Best Male Artist at the 2004 BBC Welsh Music Awards, is including a live recording of a song which lambasts Dr Robertson on his new album.
The song, delivered at the Christian Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham last year, has been criticised by Dr Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network.

The “offending” track, entitled Mr Robertson, left the 6,000-strong audience in no doubt about Joseph’s feelings for controversial US televangelist, a former faith healer who markets “age-defying pancakes” on his website.
Joseph, regarded by critics as one of the UK’s finest singer songwriters, took an unusual approach for a committed Christian when he unexpectedly threw in the F-word during the song and encouraged the audience to sing a chorus effectively telling Robertson to “go elsewhere”.
The song contained the line, “I’m gonna find me a TV evangelist and punch him in the face”.
Martyn Joseph told the Western Mail, “The majority of the audience at Cheltenham were happy to sing along.”
Speaking of the criticism he has since received, the singer added, “I don’t know why it is that some within the Christian realm are unable to handle or recognise irony, even if it seems a bit harsh.
“I wasn’t putting the words of the chorus in God’s mouth or anything.”
Once signed to Sony and with five top 50 singles to his name, Joseph regularly tours America where he has a large following.
He says he was surprised by the reaction of some after the Greenbelt festival, including one who called him “a misguided protest singer whipping up anti right-wing prejudice”.
He said, “I had a press review and a few letters about my language. As long as they also wrote to Pat Robertson to complain about him asking for certain leaders to be ‘taken out’ – which was my point – then that’s fair enough.”
Awarded an Amnesty International accolade for his work with the Brazilian landless movement, the singer said he had no wish to offend anyone, especially his legions of fans, but felt the song should appear unedited on the album, which is simply called MJGB06.
Joseph who has shared stages with artists ranging from Art Garfunkel and Celine Dion to Jools Holland, has sung about a wide range of issues from the Bush administration to Kosovo refugees and the plight of the Welsh miners.
He once wrote a song about Welsh hero Dic Penderyn.
He said, “ I don’t see anything wrong with voicing my opinion, through song, on those in positions of political power who claim to act for God.
“I’m not personally interested in building bridges to Pat Robertson – I wish him no ill but he needs to sort himself out. In the end that’s all my daft little chorus was about.”
The Western Mail contacted Dr Robertson at the Christian Broadcasting Network but he has not issued a reply.
MJGB06 will be released on Joseph’s Pipe Records label on March 13, when his UK tour opens in Southampton.

I'm free....

2007-03-08T21:11:00.000Z

Among the secret vices of my bf and me lurks the clandestine collecting and watching of Are You Being Served on DVD.....

Today we sadly learned that John Inman has died.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

John Inman 1935-2007

These Latter Days

2007-03-05T21:43:00.000Z

Well - it's been a week of being ill with a nasty virus (my bf passed out with it at the beginning of the week - not fun!), topped off with our wireless router/modem dying and cutting us off from the virtual lives we lead. Not sure which was worse........LOL

Anyway - during the week I managed to find time to sit up in my sick bed and watch the film Latter Days. A tale of out gay lad/play-boy and closetted Mormon gay lad falling in love. It aint a Yossi and Jagger (Yehuda is mine Polly!!) - but wasn't a painful watch! Some great eye candy, and at times moving and at others funny.

It did have some great quotes, so for your enjoyment......

Your church doesn't like alcohol or homosexuals. Hmm... Well, I definitely won't be joining. Can't imagine heaven without both.

[after having sex] Well, I'm already going to Hell for kissing you, so I may as well take the scenic route.

Do you ever read the Sunday comics? ...Well, when I was a little kid, I use to put my nose right up to them. And I was just amazed because it looked like this mass of dots, and none of it made sense until I pulled back. Life looks like that mass of dots to me sometimes. None of it makes any sense, but I like to think that, from God's perspective, life, everything - even this - make sense. It's not just dots. Instead we're all connected, and it's beautiful and funny and good.

Being NEIGHbourly

2007-02-28T14:36:00.000Z

Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, is playing the lead in the play Equus.

Many others have written words about this.

So purely for cultural interest I bring you some pictures. Enjoy......

Words of Encouragement....

2007-02-27T17:26:00.000Z

God will continue to show forth God's glory and God's goodness in our lives. The reason that we have made progress with our brothers and sisters in theChurch is that GOD has shown forth God's glory and goodness in our lives sostrongly, that God cannot be denied at work in us. Many of the faithful have changed their views on homosexuality because they see GOD showing up in our lives, our ministries, our relationships and our families. That is the witnesswe can and must continue to make to the Church – not pointing to ourselves, but to the God we know in our lives. As I have said before, and will continueto say: JESUS is our agenda – the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, and the sins of the whole world, so that we might know God's love and goodness in our lives. In the end, God will reign, and all will be well. I believe that with my whole heart. Bishop Gene Robinson

Are we ready to offer the blessing, God's blessing? You know, I don't marry a man and a woman. In the church's understanding they marry themselves. They are the ministers, and all we do is to seek to communicate God's blessing on that union. And I would, myself, say 'Why not?' I mean, I've met very many people who are gay, and they are incredible people -- gifted, some of the most gentle, most compassionate, and we treat them like dirt. I, for myself, would say 'If that is how God wants us to treat them, then, thank you, that God I don't want.' I will not worship that God! The God that I want is one that says 'You are beautiful, and I have made you as you are, and I want you to develop to the fullest possible extent, all that you are, become all that you have it in you to become.' Archbishop Desmond Tutu

O for a Church, a Church deeply rooted in the old earth, yet drinking in every dewdrop of the new day. John Malcolm Ludlow , 1850.

The whole of Bish Gene's awesome letter is here - enjoy!

Ecce homo.

2007-02-27T16:03:00.000Z

So....your starter for ten.....

"Archbishop" Akinola continues to spearhead anti-gay legislation (an excellent blog btw!) in Nigeria that will lead to further imprisonment of folk just because they dare to be "unafrican" (his word!) and partake of the evil of homosexuality which is a “perversion of human dignity”. Some will be killed as the laws allow for the implimentation of Sharia law. Others are already receiving death threats, apparently encouraged by the Archbishop's theology and words.

Meanwhile in the USA a gay man has been democratically elected bishop by church folk. Some vicars pray for God to bless some gay, faithful and permanent relationships.

Now if you were the Archbishop of Canterbury for which of these would you support creating systems to control and watch and also then talk about in your address to synod? Which would you not mention in public?

Why ++Rowan?????????????

Please let ++Rowan know how you feel about what is happening in Nigeria to gay men and ask him to denounce it........

The Press Office,

Lambeth Palace,

London

SE1 7JU

There is general info here, here and here. Akinola's invovlement is described here.

Fence Sitting

2007-02-26T19:44:00.000Z

There are a fair amount of sore arses in the Anglican Communion these days - and they've nothing to do with anyone's "manner of life". They come instead from a growing brigade who seem to think that listening carefully and doing sod all are the same thing. A group who want to sit on the fence and hope those with views will go away - or just fight it out among themselves.

Often they pretend to be listening when in fact they're fence sitting in order to disguise their true opinion (like the bishop who told my mate he'd fully support him privately but would deny it all in public....).

Anyway - that all came to mind because of a prayer by Janet Morley I'm using for Lent.

I commend it for anyone else who's fed up with false fence sitters......

Spirit of integrity,
you drive us into the desert
to search out our truth.
Give us clarity to know what is right,
and courage to reject what is strategic;
that we may abandon the false innocence
of failing to choose at all,
but may follow the purposes of Jesus Christ. Amen.