A friend in need...

Last evening, as those 70 mph winds started to whip up, there was an unexpected knock on the Manse door.  We opened it to a neighbour we had never spoken to before, who had thoughtfully come across to tell us our blue bin had blown over and our recycling rubbish was now making its way into every garden in the close!  Amid the howling gale this was actually a very nice encounter, full of friendly banter and, at the request of our neighbour, an opportunity for him to meet the dog.  He’d only heard her bark before! 

After saying ‘goodbye’, and before I dashed off to lead a Housegroup, we organised a family activity to clean up our rubbish and secure the bin more firmly for this morning’s collection.

Isn’t it so often the case that we humans seem to get along more easily if we can lend a helping hand.

If someone seems to have life sown up we sometimes avoid them, yet if we and they share a common need, or if we can lend a hand, then empathy flows and the door of friendship opens a little easier.

Perhaps that old adage is right: A friend in need, is a friend indeed.

Certainly Jesus found that often those who felt accomplished and self-sufficient avoided him.  Yet those who ‘owned’ their vulnerability in life readily opened their hearts to him and his message.

And perhaps that’s the key. It’s as we recognise and appreciate each other’s humanity, both its weakness alongside its strength, that we covenant together to walk as friends, with Jesus in the middle.

Blog holiday next week.

Change and Stability - Brother and Sister?

 

Talk given at LunchBreak on Tuesday 8th February 2022

70 years is a long time and a BBC programme on Sunday evening, one of many I guess that will help us celebrate the Platinum Jubilee, charted the social changes that have occurred in our society over these past seven decades. 

With the inevitable help of a sprinkling of celebrities the programme recalled the Queen’s first PM was Winston Churchill, that the rationing of the early 1950’s seemed even more severe than that of the war years, that opportunities for women were now unrecognisable compared to 1952 and that the World Wide Web seems to have changed everything with Sir David Attenborough making the dry observation that ‘nowadays people spend more time talking to their phone than to one another’.

Perhaps the TV programme was a little bland as the general conclusion was that so much was now much better than it was at last century’s half way point.  I suspect we’d need more than just celebrities to have a true and in depth evaluation.  And, after all, there is no need to be Pollyanna-ish about change.  It isn’t inevitably positive.  Indeed Princess Anne was asked a couple of years ago if she thought the Queen was an optimist about the future and she replied, quite honestly, ‘probably not’!  I suspect a long life gives a more balanced and nuianced perspective.

The other year I was given a 1957 copy of The Radio Times for a Christmas present.  That’s because it had a piece by one of my heroes, Alistair Cooke, about the 500^th episode of his radio talk Letter from America.  It makes for fascinating reading!  There is a page of TV listings, and I noted that programmes didn’t even start until 3pm and concluded around 11.30pm with an Epilogue and the National Anthem!  Many more pages were devoted to the radio – the wireless – listing the Home Service, The Light Programme and the Third Programme.  I looked up the Sunday schedule and found that across the network there were no less than five church services broadcast every Sunday – now it’s just Songs of Praise after lunch!  Other things have changed too, such as Women’s Hour being in the afternoon and Listen with Mother broadcast around mid-day.

I was struck by Lulu’s words in Sunday night’s programme, she rather affectionately said of the Queen: I can honestly say she’s been the one constant in my life.

I suspect that change and stability are brother and sister and need each other.  You can accept change much better if there is stability at the core of your life.  And stability fossilises unless it adapts and changes when greeting life’s new phases.

You can always take lines from hymns out of context, so let me be a bit naughty and do that now.  There’s one such line that runs: for nothing changes here. And sometimes that’s what people say about some churches, and I suppose it’s true.  It’s sad to see a congregation dwindle because it no longer feels relevant to people who might otherwise have joined it.  It’s equally sad to see a church ‘implode’ as a result of too much aggressive change.

I sense that we love the idea of the stability and faithfulness that comes into our lives through a belief in God.  To have a faith that believes God is always present, always trust worthy, always loving, and always ‘for’ us, can bring us comfort and confidence in our ever changing and challenging lives.  Prayer, worship and faith ground us and offer a great foundation.

So, here’s to the next 70 years with a prayer that change and stability will continue to walk hand in hand.

Sells Owt Tha Wants

 I was listening, rather than watching, a news report on the telly this week about Mary’s Farm shop located, so BBC Yorkshire said, in the hamlet of Colden, near Hebden Bridge in the ‘middle of nowhere’!

I thought the owner Mary had a young voice, yet as I looked up and saw her she was telling the camera she was 81 years old and didn’t want to give up.

Mary has been running her shop since 1974, which has a hand painted sign advertising its wares saying ‘Sells Owt Tha Wants’.  She freely acknowledges it’s in the middle of no where and once the local Pennine Way closed, she thought the shop would too.  Yet, it’s thriving, as is Mary.

Mary Stokes puts these 48 years of success down to ‘True Yorkshire Grit’ and she may be right.  But I think she’s also discovered a particular Elixir of Life that keeps us young, namely the joy of ‘service’ and the value of ‘community’.  Mary so obviously loves serving her community.

This weekend many of us will pause and, in our prayers, give thanks for the Queen’s 70 years of service as she marks her Accession Day on Sunday. 

Now there’s two names to note: Mary and Elizabeth.  In the bible they too were women who willingly and faithfully served God.

‘Service’ and ‘Community’, two ingredients that characterise the ‘young at heart’.

A Chink of Light

 

Two weeks ago we sat up in ‘The Gods’ at Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House to watch the ballet Romeo and Juliet and it was a lovely occasion.

One little incident struck me just before the performance began.  As the houselights went down it became apparent that those famous enormous red curtains on the Opera House stage were not quite closed.  Through a gap that must have been no more than an inch, a chink of light shone through from the brightly lit set behind.  It felt a bit like an ‘Advent’ moment of the light piercing the darkness and giving us all hope.

I had a similar sense on Sunday after the COTHA united service at St John’s.  The clergy were waiting outside to greet folk but no one came because everyone wanted to stay indoor and listen to the beautiful music being played – it often happens!!  Well in the ‘lull’ we looked over and saw a large clump of snowdrops in full bloom standing proud in St John’s gardens.  It was a welcome sight, and one I seem to regularly see around the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity!

We are eager for signs of hope as we begin to emerge from winter and as we approach the second anniversary of the Pandemic.  And, I say this very quietly, such signs do seem to be coming, for which we are immensely grateful.

Wherever, and whenever the light shines, we give thanks to God.

Attention Spans

 

My children, apparently, belong to Generation Z.  That is, they were born between the mid 90’s and early 2010’s.  I, on the other hand, am a Baby Boomer!

The other evening my youngest son told us that the average attention span of his cohort, sometimes also known as the Tiktok Generation is 50 seconds.  So, when using their Smart Phones or other Social Media devices, the article or sales pitch has to grab their attention pretty fast before they inevitably move on.

I’m not sure where that leaves the twenty-minute, three-point sermon in church?!  It’s hard to see how complex issues, the sort that make up everyday life, can really be grasped in such a short time frame.

I was having coffee this week with a ministerial colleague who told me of plans for his upcoming Sabbatical.  He and his wife are hoping to do the Camino de Santiago, a walking pilgrimage through France and Spain called the Way of St James, ending up in the cathedral at Compostela.  This isn’t going to be quick!  Indeed, they have given themselves 40 days.  It’s an intentional pilgrimage and everyday will bring fresh surprises as they travel alongside fellow pilgrims sharing walking time, meals and hostel accommodation together.  Their prayer is that into this measured and ‘slow’ experience they will discover new things about God and themselves. 

We are almost through the season of Epiphany when, among other things we recall the biblical story of the visit of the Wise Men.  It’s surely significant to note their journey was also a long one, taking probably up to five months to travel 500 miles.  Yet they kept going and didn’t give up.

All generations, not just the Z one but also Baby Boomers like me, need to realise that life is a marathon and not a sprint in which some of the lessons that take the longest time to learn turn out to be the most important.

Sabbatical Sunday visit to Farm Street Roman Catholic Church, London

 This week's blog is found at the other website View From The Pew - chronicling the visits I'm making to other church during my 'Sabbatical'.

Last week we visited Farm Street Roman Catholic Church in London, red the blog here.

Epiphany

 

I always hate the Family Boxing Day Quiz when religious questions come around, because I’m expected to know the answers and frequently don’t!

This year my mother-in-law’s quiz asked the name of the second king.  Of course, I got it wrong!

Actually, I grew up in a church where we never sang We three kings, because we were constantly told it was more biblical to refer to them as Wise Men.  That said, there was always three of them and that is equally unbiblical as that number relates to their gifts alone.

It’s only been in later life I’ve discovered the tradition that calls them Melchior, Balthazar and Caspar.

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany when we remember their story.  This visit to the Christ child ‘internationalises’ Christmas.

These days I care very little about whether or not we reference them as either kings or magi.  For as with all biblical myth stories the historicity is never the important part but the theology behind the narrative.

Epiphany theology is about being open to truth, sincerely searching for it and being led to unexpected wisdom.

Giving the kings/wise men names is a way for us to bring the story to life and ‘inhabit’ it for ourselves.

Part of the Ignatian tradition for people going through Months or Weeks of Guided Prayer, is to be given a piece of scripture every day and spend time putting yourself in the story and listening out for what Jesus might have said to you as he feeds 5,000 or calmed the storm on Lake Galilee.

I remember when I was asked to do this at an Ignatian Retreat and it was presented as something new.  At that point I realised it had, actually, been part of my life since Sunday School days.  For every Sunday at 3.00pm, we would gather to listen to the ‘Stories of Jesus, to live in these and become part of them.  I’ll always be grateful to my Sunday School teachers who introduced me to these stories.

And now, in my seventh decade, just as it started in my first two, my story is grounded in THE Story, and I can think of no better foundation upon which to build in this New Year of 2022.

May yours be a Blessed Epiphany.