Longleat

You may have seen the pictures. Apparently some went on Facebook (or something similar)! On Saturday we went to Longleat Safari Park. It was originally planned for earlier in the year for Zac’s birthday, but it got postponed. So we went on Saturday for Meg’s birthday. Great when it works like that! Whatever you think about animals in zoos (and there are some positives), it is incredible to be so close to so many animals you otherwise would never see. We began by taking the safari. Slightly nervously we chose to go through the monkey enclosure. They didn’t disappoint. Well not us anyway. But the guys in the car in front had no idea what happened to their truck! First the monkeys ripped off the handle of his open back cover! And they then proceeded to take off all the letters and numbers from his rear number plate! Happily clicking away with their camera, taking pictures of all the cute little monkeys all over the truck, they had no idea of the devastation being wrought in places they couldn’t see! Mind you, the monkeys weren’t the only ones entertained by their antics! We saw some Oryx’s extinct in the wild, but safe in the park. We saw animals we didn’t even recognise as animals: some kind of stick insect that looked so much like a leaf it was hard to know if you really were looking at an insect or a leaf. Brightly coloured parrots who climbed all over you to get the nectar from the pot in your hand pulled in the crowds. But what we all wanted to see were the big animals: the lions, tigers, gorillas, cheetahs and hippos. And we did. Just. They don’t always make themselves easy to see! We heard some extraordinary facts about these animals: did you know for example that the hippo is by far the most dangerous, killing around a thousand people each year? Or that more people are killed by corks (yes…corks) than by gorillas? I couldn’t help wondering as I gazed at the extraordinary array of creatures from tiny to huge, from innocuous to dangerous, from ugly to cute, how did this all become the world around us? These animals all have their habits, behaviours, habitats and diets all unique to them. They can’t survive without them. And they do it all out of instinct. They don’t read a script. Nobody tells them how to be. They just are. And they just do. And I wondering how that is possible? If it all began by chance the odds are extraordinarily low. Extraordinarily low. Ridiculously low. It’s less than 1057800 (which is 1 with 57800 zeros after it!) To give you some idea of the size of the number there are 1080 in the universe! If, on the other hand it all began from the hand of loving creator it speaks of one who is endlessly good, uncontrollably generous and irrationally loving. And I know which one I go with.

Weddings

I went to a wedding yesterday. I had to I was the minster leading the service and the person signing the new Marriage Schedule as ii’s now called. Gone are the days of multiple books and registers where everyone had to sign four times. Now it’s one Marriage Schedule and everyone signs once! And it’s better than that for me because now I don’t have to fill out all the books and certificates either. The Marriage Schedule is printed by the Registry Office so all I have to do is sign like everyone else. Well almost, but I have to do a lot less than I once did. Anyway, even though I had to be there, it was a lovely day. What was really lovely was to see two people who had waited until they could have their wedding they way they wanted it, so this was the third date they’d set for it (July 2020, April 2021 and then yesterday). To watch them finally get to the day they were to be married was lovely. Really lovely. I do love to see people get married. It is God’s best way. Having been dad and minister at Meg and Justin’s wedding just over a year ago, I think I felt even more the emotion that is found at a wedding. But a thought strikes me: why is it that we wait until something like a wedding to tell people what we think of them? The other place we do this, strangely, is at funerals! In wedding speeches and in a funeral eulogy we say how great someone is, or was. There’s absolutely wrong with that, except that we wait until these moments to say what is in front of us all the time. Maybe some of us do tell those we love what we really think of them at other times. But I can’t thinking, when I hear speeches at weddings that I hope you say that often! And after a eulogy at a funeral I find myself thinking: I hope they said all those tings while the person lived. What I most love about weddings though is the bit where the bride walks down the aisle on the arm of her father looking radiant and being watched by the groom. His face as he watches her approaching the front of the church is filled with joy. It is, it turns out, one of the best pictures in understanding the part of the blessing we sometimes read from Numbers 6: “The Lord make his face to shine upon you…” When the Lord makes his face to shine upon us that’s what is happening: God himself has turned his face to watch his beloved. His heart is filled with great, great joy as he watches one of his children the way the groom’s heart is when he sees his approaching bride. It is a wonderful picture to hold: that God would shine his face upon us. Upon you. And that’s what he does: he looks at us, at you, with a heart filled with great, great joy. It’s a wonderful thing to pray for someone: to ask that God would shine his face upon them and look upon them in his great love. It’s not surprising really that the picture is from a wedding, since a wedding itself reflects the great and magnificent love of God. So, whenever I go to a wedding I am remined that God longs to shine his face upon me and that he looks upon me with great, great joy. May the Lod make his face to shine upon you. Yes you!

Wrestling

I’m writing this blog in Wimborne, Dorset. It’s a lovely place. I’d like to live here again. I grew up here and have fond memories of the place. Funny how memories can be rose tinted. I also have memories of not enjoying life here, or maybe more accurately, not enjoying school when it was too hard, or friendships when they went wrong. You know, the stuff that happens in every life. But, whenever I come back to Wimborne, I feel I’ve come home. I loved my formative years here. I was steeped in my faith here. There were lots of good people here when I was growing up and I’m thankful to them all for the way they lived their lives in front of me and gave me some pathways to walk. Thing is, I’m here today because I know this might the last time I can do what I’m doing. I’m sitting in the kitchen of mum’s bungalow. Mum died just over a year ago and the bungalow has sold. We’re in the process of selling and it takes a little time. At some point in the near future I won’t be able to stay here. So I’ve made what is probably one last visit. And I’m also here to visit mum’s grave. A month ago we held a small graveside service, just the family, and laid mum’s ashes in the ground. She’d be pleased with the plot. She looks over Wimborne, the place she was born and was living in when she died. We laid a headstone to mark her life and her death. I wanted to see it again. What surprises me is that I’ve felt quite strongly about wanting to come and visit. I’m not sure why. I talk to people through my work at St. Catherine’s Hospice all the time about this kind of thing and yet I can’t explain it. And here I am. And when I went to her grave this morning, I felt more emotional than I have at any other time after she suffered a heart attack and then died. I have some thoughts as to why this is so, but I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that I’m wrestling with a whole load of thoughts and emotions. And what I also think I know is that wrestling with thoughts and beliefs is a good thing. I am reading a book titled “Die Wise” at the moment. I’m reading it partly because of my work at St. Catherine’s, partly because I am a minister who takes funerals, but partly too because I am convinced that we don’t wrestle enough with death. And our own death in particular. (If you’re wondering why I’d write a blog like this at all, you’ve probably made my point for me!) In this book, the author, not a Christian, makes a powerful claim: that we would do well to wrestle with the truth of our death. it’s not a morbid thing. It’s about facing the truth and living well in the light of it. I think that’s what the whole book of Ecclesiastes is really about. And the author understands wrestling to mean to dance! Dancing requires a proximity to another, a choreography that makes something meaningful and it strikes me that is a very Christian thought: we live in a fallen world and wrestle with what happens and why it happens in the light of the truth we know about God. When we do that well, it becomes a dance. It becomes a dance of love. It is a dance we learn to dance. It is a dance that embraces life and death. It is a dance we dance on God’s great dance floor. We chose a verse to go on mum’s headstone and we chose it partly because she believed it with her whole heart, and partly because we who are left believe it too: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:21). So, in my wrestling, I’m learning to dance. And to dance is to live and to live well in the truth about my death.

The evil in me

The news from Afghanistan is tragic and distressing. For years we, the West, has pronounced that there is a better way to live and we have tried to help a country find it’s way to a different way of being a nation. Some of that has been for the very best reasons: we really believe there is a better way to live and treat people. Some of that has been for selfish reasons: a stable nation that doesn’t hate us is better for us! Whatever the reasons, we have now decided it is time to withdraw a military presence. It has cost many lives on all sides. It is tragic and distressing. What was supposed to bring change seems to have failed, for now the very regime we had hoped to silence, is back in power with a vengeance. Many more lives are at stake. Some, according to the British Foreign Minister, will not be able to get out in time to save tier lives. When I reflect on it I am truly at a loss as to what to think. I am not directly responsible for what is happening. I am not the cause of the trouble. I am not responsible for the tragedy the Taliban seem set on reaping on those who do not hold their beliefs or values. I can look at them and think they are evil. And, maybe there is truth in that. I can look at them and think I am not capable of anything like what they appear to be responsible for. But, I am reminded of a story I read about a man who had been a prisoner of war in a German concentration camp in World .War II. After the war, at the trial of a man who had been an officer in the camp, the man fainted when his oppressor was brought into the court. Everyone assumed he had fainted because seeing him triggered traumatic memories. But he later explained that when he saw the former concentration camp officer looking dishevelled and untidy being brought into the court, he realised how he was just a human being like himself. And that if one man, in many ways just like himself, was capable of such cruelty and hate, he realised how he too, might be capable of the very same thing. It is an extraordinary challenge to people like me, who might choose to believe only others are capable of evil and that there is no evil in me. It might even cause me to think about how my heart really is. Jeremiah 17:9 shouts at us: “The heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. Who knows how bad it is?” (NLT) I have no desire to excuse the evil of others. But I might do well, in such tragic times, to examine my onw heart and ask some hard questions. How’s you heart?

Endings and beginnings

So the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has come to an end. I’m sad because I love to watch it. And there’s a part of me that wishes it could go on on and on and on. I know that’s ridiculous because sport doesn’t work like that. A game is a game. It has a start and it has an ending, otherwise how on earth would you now if you’d won? A race is a race. You start, you race, you finish. Someone wins! But there’s still part of me that doesn’t want it to end. I can be like that in life too. There are some things I don’t want to come to an end. A round of golf when I’m playing well. A holiday that takes me away from the cares and worries of everyday life. My health. Thing is, life isn’t like that. Things come to an end whether I want them to or not. And oddly, that can be a good thing, endings that is. Because sometimes what is really needed is a beginning. And beginnings follow endings. It is perhaps a deep and profound truth that some things have to end before something better can begin. One day, Jesus stunned everyone by saying that he had to die in order for the best to come. Actually he said: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24) When Jesus prefaced his words with “Very truly I say” it meant he had something really important to say. And what was important was that for him to bring life to others, he would go to the cross and give up his life. It is a deep, deep truth that out of his death comes our life. And in order for us to live that life, something in us has to die. I don’t think it’s a one off deal either. It is fantastic when a heart turns to God for the first time. There is an ending and there is a beginning. It is the end of one way of living and the beginning of a new way of living. I wonder though how many times in life we might need an ending and a beginning. If I’m honest, there are things about me which I like and don’t want to stop. Habits and behaviours that I think work for me. Some of them may be fine. But some of them may need to stop if I am going to live well in the Kingdom of the Heavens. I wrestle with that! Maybe you do too. Thing is, we might say we believe that God is the God of transformation, and yet be unwilling to bring to an end things which stop that transformation from happening. Which, if we also believe God only has our best interests at heart, doesn’t make much sense. I, for one, can be very fickle. I can desire transformation at the same time as being unwilling to embrace an ending. In the life of faith, beginnings follow endings. And in the life of faith some things have to die for others things to live. Jesus is quite blunt: “Anyone who loves their life will lose it.” (John 12:25) That’s a challenging thought. Perhaps endings are needed for us to live well, to live in a way that means God can bless us. Endings can be hard. But maybe endings bring new beginnings that are better by far.

Remarkable

So, great news today: Great Britain have won the gold medal in eventing for the first time in 49 years! That’s a remarkable achievement. And it’s made all the more remarkable when you hear the story of one of the team who won gold. Laura Collett was competing in her first Olympics, which in itself was remarkable. In 2013 she suffered a heavy fall in which she fractured her spine, shoulder and ribs, punctured a lung and was left blinded in one eye. She was in a coma for six days following the accident in which she was evidently saved by the air jacket she was wearing at the time. To go from being in a coma with those injuries, not knowing if you’ll live, let alone ever ride again, to winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games, is remarkable. It’s a lovely story. And there are other stories of athletes who have overcome incredible odds to win. Some overcome incredible odds, don’t win, but never give up. In 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics, British 400m runner Derek Redmond was in the semi final of the event. Tragically, part way through the race his hamstring tore. For the uninitiated, to tear a hamstring means that you can’t run. Sometimes you can’t even walk. To tear a hamstring during a race is every runner’s nightmare. To tear a hamstring in the semi final of the Olympic 400m race means the end of a dream. Redmond fell to the track in pain and distraught, but he was determined to finish the race he had so hoped to win. He rose to his feet and staggered on around the track, hardly being able to stand. As the crowd rose to their feet to encourage him on, a man leapt over the barrier and ran to Redmond. Track officials tried to stop him fearing him a danger to the athlete. But the man waved them away. He was Derek Redmond’s dad. Recognising that his son was determined to finish the race, and understanding how much it meant to him, he put his arm under his son’s shoulder and the two of the walked the rest of the track to the finish line. They finished the race to the thunderous applause of the crowd. It was a remarkable sight. Sometimes winning is about the courage to get up and go again. Winston Churchill once said: “Never, never, never give up!” When the odds are seemingly against us it is sometimes easy to feel like giving up is the best option. The picture of Derek Redmond’s dad running onto the track and helping his son finish the race, captures a beautiful truth about God: he is the one who is with us, the one who comes to help us even in the toughest and most desperate times in life. He is the one who urges us and helps us finish the race. He is the one who longs for us to reach the finishing line however hard that turns out to be. He is the one who is cheering us on and rejoices like that crowd when we have the courage to keep going and not give up. It is the remarkable truth that God will never leave us or forsake us, simply because he loves us too much.

Winning

It seems to me we are obsessed with winning. You have probably noticed the Olympic Games have started and already we are studying the medal table to see how the GB team is faring. Maybe you are like me and you expect to see GB somewhere near the bottom of the table, if indeed we even make it onto the table at all. Maybe I’m being harsh. Maybe I’m remembering Olympic Games gone by when we didn’t win lots and lots of medals. We did in 2012 when London hosted the games. That was our best games ever. We invested a lot of money in those games as a nation because we wanted to win medals. Apparently it says something about us as a nation if we do that kind of thing. It seems winning medals is a way we can compare our nation with other nations. And that’s true it is one way of comparing our nation with other nations. I guess the question becomes: is that a good or useful way to compare our nation to any other nation? Some would say yes. Others might disagree. Just recently there’s been a big debate about the reduction of giving to overseas aid from our GDP. we’ve reduced it from 0.7% to 0.5%. Christian Aid say that in doing this we have compromised our country’s values and broken our foreign aid promises and that it is the poorest people in the world who will suffer the consequences. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything particularly celebrating the winning of the saving of lives of the poorest people on earth. And how would you do that anyway? We don’t give out medals for that kind of thing. Maybe I’m guilty of comparing different things. Maybe. But what if we measure our success as a nation by how much we help other, much poorer nations? By being less obsessed with what makes us look good and more concerned about the quality of human life we can bestow on others? I love watching the Olympics. I do. And I do love to see GB win. I do. What I think plays on my mind is the place we give to winning and what that tells us about ourselves. Perhaps if I’d been good enough to compete at an Olympics I’d think differently. I’m not trying to do anyone down or belittle anyone or anything. But I am reminded of the words Jesus spoke: “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you do for me.” (Matthew 25:40) I might be wrong, but it does seem to me that wining in the Kingdom of the Heavens might be different to winning so that we can compare ourselves favourably to others.

Identity

For those of you who don’t play golf, please bear with me. This is not a blog about golf, although you may be tempted to think so if you don’t read far enough (or you completely misunderstand what I think I’m trying to say). I have been invited to play in a memorial golf day on Saturday. It’s lovely to be invited to play, especially because it’s a memorial golf day - a day to remember a lovely man whose funeral I took 18 months ago after his sudden and unexpected death. He was a good golfer. A very good golfer. I know that because everyone said so and I once had the privilege of playing with him and was able to admire his golf. (Just for the record I actually beat him on one hole where he got a 4 and I got a 3 on a par 3. Just saying!!) And, as you probably know, I quite like to play golf, so an invitation to play golf is always well received. But, I’m really, really nervous about it. I’ve even dreamt about it. I’ve found myself lying awake in the middle of the night worrying about it. No, honestly I have. And I think I know why. Firstly and most practically, I haven’t been playing well lately. I seem to have lost the knack somehow. It happens in every sport and at every level: you have times when you play really well and times when you don’t. And I’m currently in a patch where I’m not playing well. When it’s just me and Terry, that’s ok (if frustrating). Terry’s really calm and we’ve played a lot together over the years so he knows how well I can play, even if I’m not. And we’re mostly having a chat as we go round the course, putting the world to rights! But a golf day is a bit more intense. People keep score! And there are lots of rules that come into play when it’s formal competition that when playing as friends we can choose to ignore. And then in a competition you play off the white tees, which means you have to hit the ball further to get to the hole. It basically makes the game just that little bit harder. Secondly, I have this challenge that if I don’t play well enough, I’ll struggle with what others might be thinking of me. Sounds a little pathetic doesn’t it. But if you have the same thing going on anywhere in your life, you’ll know what I mean. It’s not about having to win. It’s not that at all. It’s about being “good enough”. It’s about being accepted. It’s about identity. From my perspective, the odds on Saturday are against me. And I don’t want to let me or anyone else down! But here’s the thing: no-one else is thinking what I am about my performance on this forthcoming golf day. And I know that! Trouble is the “good enough” script is written deep into my psyche. It works out in the comparison thing: comparing myself to others. And, at it’s worst it’s destructive. When Jesus and Peter are on the beach (John 21), Jesus talks to Peter about the future and invites Peter again, to follow him. Peter does what I often do. He sees John and asks: “What about him?” Jesus tells him it’s none of his business what happens to John. It seems a bit blunt if I’m honest. But, maybe it’s Jesus way of being kind to Peter. “Peter you are not John and you don’t need to be like John. I’ll never ask you to be like John or answer for what I’ll ask John to do.” Truth is, I don’t need to be good at golf. It’s not my identity and it’s not what defines. It might feel like that when it’s not going well, but it’s not the truth. The truth is that, whatever happens on the golf day on Saturday, I am held by God’s magnificent love. I am greatly loved. Always. that’s what defines me. That’s my identity. It would be great to play well. But maybe I’d be better off remembering a better truth than what others might think of me!

Defeat

Yes…I watched it. Pity we lost. It wasn’t the best game I’ve watched, but we had our chances. And on the night, probably, the better team won. Funny really because if you’d asked me at the beginning of the tournament who’d be in the final, I don’t think I’d have picked England or Italy. But what do I know? England surprised us and played well in some games. They got to the final for the first time in 55 years. And we all thought, maybe they can do it. Even me. Until the Italians scored! I hate losing. I really do. When I was younger the worst thing that could happen to me was to be beaten in anything. And the very worst thing of all was to be beaten by my brother. Good job it hardly ever happened! It’s a great motivator. It’s what drives teams and individuals on in whatever game or sport they’re playing. No-one wants to lose. The very thought of losing is, well, unthinkable! To see those professional footballers crying at the end of the game because they lost or missed a penalty tells us how much it hurts them to be on the losing side. But here’s something that really disappoints me: it’s when the losing team take their medals off immediately after receiving them! I get that they hate losing. I get that. But it seems you can lose graciously or you can lose badly. To lose graciously you keep your medal on, being grateful you made it to the final and acknowledging that on this day, in this game, the other team were better than you. To lose badly is to take your medal off and sulk ,pretending that if you do that you’re not a loser. It’s somehow to try and deny the truth about what just happened. Just for the record, I’ve kept all my losing trophies! Defeat is hard. Especially when it’s used to define you. And I’m wondering if God sees it differently. Is God particularly bothered who won Euro 2020? Probably not. But he is bothered about winning. And he is concerned about defeat. And here’s the thing: love wins. It does. Ultimately God’s love wins. That’s not a way of saying that if we’re on Gods side we win at everything all the time. Neither is it a way of saying that if we’re on God’s side we win in some things some of the time. But it is a way of saying that, in the end, in what is ultimately the most important thing, love wins. We will have many, many battles between here and the final whistle. Some of them will be hard and tough. Sometimes we will lose them. Sometimes we will feel like giving up. Sometimes the odds will look overwhelmingly against us. Sometimes we will see victories. Sometimes they will seem small , sometimes huge. What we hold onto though, is the deep and profound truth that love never fails. That there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love, absolutely nothing. And, that ultimately, love wins. And that one day, one fine day, I’ll be given a winners medal that I’ll never have to take off. Well, actually, it will be more of a crown. But the truth still stands: one day, one fine day, when love wins, I will be given a crown that lasts forever. We’re already talking about the World Cup in 2022, Euro 2020 forgotten. God’s love enables us to see way, way beyond that!

Kindness

I’ve seen two examples of kindness that have made me stop and think and have changed my heart.. When Zac was 14 months old, we took him for the fist time to visit his grandparents in the USA. That was a flight we (Lisa and I) will never forget, but one Zac will never remember! Four hours in to an eleven hour flight, Zac fitted and we thought he had died. There was a San Diego fireman sitting behind us and he jumped into action. He assured us that Zac was breathing and he checked his vital signs to make sure he was ok. The next seven hours of the flight were awful not knowing what was wrong with him and wondering what was going to happen when we landed. When we landed I went with Zac straight to the children’s hospital of Orange County because he fitted again while we were still on the plane. He spent three days there having a multitude of tests. Turns out there was nothing seriously wrong with him and he’s been fine ever since! The kindness I saw during that flight, and afterwards, came from one man. He was a US Army soldier travelling to Hawaii. He spoke to us at the start of the flight when Zac was unsettled and offered to help us. He spoke to us again during the flight and again offered to help. He ‘phoned Lisa’s dad from the plane (he knew how to do that as an Army man) and he asked his wife to contact us after we had left the plane to see how we were and how Zac was as he was travelling on to Hawaii and couldn’t do it himself. Six months later, yes six months later, when he had finished his tour of Hawaii, he ‘phoned us to ask us how we were and how Zac was. He said it was the worst day of his life watching us go through all that we had on the plane and he had to know how we all were. Amazing kindness. Last week Lisa and I were in the USA again, this time to visit her dad who is in the end stages of life. I watched as Lisa and her brother Bryce extended kindness to their dad in many and varied ways. Larry is not able to eat or speak so communicating is difficult, They sat together so he could share memories of times they have spent together and of their shared family history. Knowing it is the last time you will see you dad alive is hard. Knowing you have to leave and knowing you won’t see him again is hard. Trying to put off the last moments of time together is hard. But to give time to someone in those moments with all the emotion you carry in your heart is a great act of kindness. It would be easier not to be there and be confronted with the hard truth. But perhaps, in those moments it is the greatest gift you can give a person and a great act of kindness. I was privileged to witness it. It was both beautiful and hard to watch in equal measure. When we see kindness like that, our hearts are moved. Romans 2 v 4 tells us that God’s kindness is intended to move our hearts to turn towards him. If my heart can be changed by watching the kindness of others, how can it not be changed when I reflect on God’s kindness towards me. And how can yours not be?

Victory!

It doesn’t happen often. In fact I can honestly say it’s the first time it’s ever happened. No, really it is. And I now have to figure out how I’m going to respond. Yesterday, like many English people all over the world, I sat down to watch England play Croatia in their first game of Euro 2021. Yes, I decided that I would watch the game rather than go for a walk! And you could argue that I made the right decision because England won! Never before in my lifetime have they done that. Never before in my lifetime have England won their first game in a European Championships. In ten tournaments they’ve never before won their first game! And, they beat Croatia, who you may remember beat them in the semi-final of the World Cup in 2018. Its’ a first! I almost didn’t believe it. I’ve got so used to them losing the first game that’s what I expected. I thought I knew what was going to happen, because it always happens. Not this time though. We won! We actually won. And now I have to decide what to do. Am I now going to be an England fan who is fully behind the team supporting them through whatever happens now? Will I trust in their ability to win? Will I criticise the manager if he picks a team I’m not convinced about? Or will I support whatever team he picks, bowing to his superior knowledge of the players and the opposition? Am I now, suddenly, simply because we won, a proper England fan? Here’s my challenge: am I only a fan because England won? Would I be more of a fan if I stuck with them when they lost? Wouldn’t I be more of a fan if I supported them with vigour irrespective of the results? Isn’t a real fan one who supports the team through the good times and the times equally? And, will I lose interest if they fail to progress in the tournament? The question I am faced with is: what kind of fan am I really? And here’s the thing - it’s got me thinking about how I am with faith. What kind of faith do I have…really? Am I a person of faith only when things seem to be going well, the way I want them to, when I get what I want from it? How is my faith when things don’t go so well? Do I talk God up when things are good and fail to do that when things are tough? It begs the question: what is my faith really? It seems to me lots of us think of faith as a set of beliefs we say we follow, and the more faith we have, the more we follow our beliefs. And, the more we can persuade ourselves of our beliefs, the stronger our faith. Faith and belief though are not the same thing. Beliefs, however right or wrong they actually are, are written down and mostly unchanging. Faith is a conviction. England might go on and win this tournament. That would be good! Victory in a major tournament. Fantastic. Faith is a conviction in another victory, in a far bigger and far better story: it is a conviction that love wins. It is a conviction that, there is a bigger and a better story than the one we see on front of us, the one with all the challenges and disappointments. It is a conviction that, in the end, God has the victory. England’s victory was fantastic. But it’s gone now. The victory that God has won is eternal. And that is better by far. And faith in that is what hold me in all things.

Football...again?

Well done if you’ve got past the title and you don’t like football. Thing is, this isn’t really abut football. Although it’s football that got me thinking. You may or may not know that the Euros (that’s Euro 21) start later this week. The Euros, in case you don’t know, is the nations of Europe playing in a cup competition (well, some of them as not all of the qualified to be in the finals). One of those teams is England. And here’s the thing: I’ve been here before. I’m now old enough to have experienced many football tournaments. I’ve got excited about the possibility of England doing well and maybe even winning one! And that’s just it: I’ve seen it all before and so far England hasn’t won. Anything. Ever. So it’s football…again! I have the choice on Sunday to either watch England in their opening game of Euro 21 against Croatia, or go for a walk and a picnic. There was a time when it was no choice at all. Now though, I’m seriously considering going on a walk! Truth is, watching England has lost it’s appeal, it’s excitement. Do I still want them to win? Yes. But I’m less bothered about seeing it happen. The question is: am I less of an England fan or am I just a bit more mature? What I’m wondering is, am I also like this with my faith? I’ve been doing this faith thing for a long time now and some of it has become very familiar. I feel I know how it works. I’ve seen things many times before. I’ve got excited about things that have not come to pass. I’ve wanted God to win and struggled to find the evidence that he has. Does this mean I’ve lost my faith? I don’t think so. Actually I think my faith is as strong as it’s ever been. It’s just that it’s different now. I don’t see things in the same way as I once did. I don’t understand things in the same way that I once did. And that’s a good thing. It means I’ve matured, I’ve grown. Now I’m older, I hold the football lightly compared to when I was younger. There are some things in faith that I now hold more lightly. That’s a good thing too! But there’s also a part of me that’s not bothered about the football. No, really I’m not. It’s caused me to wonder: are there things I’m no longer bothered about in my faith? Or, perhaps more challenging: am I still bothered about my faith? Truth is, I’d love it if England won Euro 21. I really would. And I’d celebrate it! And even if I don’t watch them play Croatia on Sunday, thinking about it all has given me cause to think about my faith too. And that’s a good thing. A very good thing. And maybe something I would do well to do more often. And maybe you would too!

Journey

Today we will make plans for a journey we don’t want to make. Today we will book tickets to the USA. Today we will confirm travel arrangements to visit Lisa’s dad in California. We have made this journey before. But before we made the journey for very different reasons. Before, we went for a holiday. Before, we went so the grandparents could see their grandchildren in the flesh and comment on how much they’d grown. Before, we went because we wanted to go and chose to go. This time we are choosing to go, but we don’t want to go. It’s not that we don’t want to see Lisa’s dad and step mum. We do. But we don’t to go because it will b a goodbye. And a difficult goodbye. This will be the last trip we make to California. This will be the last trip we make to see Lisa’s dad. We know that, He knows that. We all know that. We all know it’s a journey none of us want to make. But today we are planning the journey, buying the tickets and making plans. Today we have to confront the truth. There’s another journey that confronts the truth. A journey that speaks to our journey. He left all the glory of heaven. He chose to dwell with the very people he had created. He chose to take the risk of trusting himself into the hands of two Jewish teenagers. He chose to trust himself to the bigger and far better story of his father’s love. Ii was journey made out of love. In the Garden of Gethsemane it was journey he really didn’t want to make: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” (Luke 22:42) I sometimes think we deny the humanness of Jesus. In this moment his humanness is real: “This is a journey I don’t want to make!” He gets it. He really gets it. His journey is not our journey. But it speaks to us, today. That he chose to make his journey, speaks to us in our journey. Because he went on the journey he really didn’t want to, we have hope for our journey. It doesn’t mean our journey won’t be painful, challenging and full of tears. It will. But it means that we can trust ourselves to his bigger and better story. The story that he has confronted death, defeated it and made another journey possible. The journey of life with God, which is better by far. In our humanness we will find our journey very difficult, but, because he made his journey, we can trust ourselves to God’s bigger and far better story and know that he holds us in all things.

Judging

I’ve just finished reading the book; “The Madness of Grief.” It’s written by Rev. Ricard Coles. You may have seen him on the TV or heard him on the radio. He is sometimes known as the TV vicar. And he has the privilege of being the only vicar to have had a number one chart hit in the British charts. In 1985 he joined the band The Communards. In 1986 they had a number one hit with the song “Don’t leave me this way.” The song was the biggest selling song of 1986. A classically trained musician, Richard Coles played the keyboard. As I understand it, he was brought up with a faith, left his faith and then returned to his faith. He in Anglican priest. He is gay. He was in a civil partnership with, as he says it in the book, the love of his life, David Coles. David Coles was also an Anglican priest. In fact that’s how they met. When I first saw Richard Coles on the TV on QI, I remember thinking, how does a vicar have time to be on programmes like this? Turns out he combines his media work with being a vicar, Has done for years. I have grown to admire Richard Coles. He does not live the life that I live and if we met I would love to talk to him about life, his faith and maybe even sing with him! What struck me most as I read his account of losing David to alcoholism, was the challenge of how much I judge people. And not just people like him, lots of people. He writes deeply of his loss and of his faith and of the hate he has received because people don’t like they way he lives. Here’s my dilemma: some Christians talk about the God of love and yet have the capacity to be extraordinarily unloving, hateful even. I’m not making the depth of this up either. After David died, Richard received letters telling him his beloved David would rot in hell and so would he if he didn’t change his ways. These letter, tweets and messages came from people who claimed to be Christians. This is considered a hate crime and the police have been involved. How can this be? Christians who believe in the God of love! Have you ever considered why God said Adam and Eve could not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? It was because judging good and evil is God’s job, not ours. As soon as we judge others, we are back in the garden. But we love to judge, don’t we. My heart was softened and hugely challenged as I read Richard’s book. How many times, I wondered, have I judged others and condemned them to pain and isolation? How many times have I played God and got it terribly, terribly wrong? Truth is, I love to judge because mostly it makes me feel better, bigger, more right. But if God really is the God of love, and of that I am absolutely convinced, then he loves the one I am judging. And I would do well never to forget that. Love wins. It won on the cross and it will win in the end. Love is what we are called to as Christians. Thank you Richard for sharing your heart at one of the most painful times of your life and helping me to look again at my heart. May God bless you.

Complex

Life it seems is complex. I’d like it to be simple so that I know what I need to do and how to do it. But it’s not like that. At least not for me. After a year of some tragic events, I was hoping for a smoother ride. But that doesn’t seem to be happening either. We’ve known that Lisa’s dad has cancer for a long time now, nearly twenty years in fact. But now it’s at critical point and he is facing the end of his earthly life. We don’t get to see him often. In fact I haven’t seem him in the flesh for nearly ten years, which is the last time I was able to visit him in California. Lisa has made three visits in that time, all because things weren’t looking good, but she went on her own. And if there’s one time we would really like to go it’s now, because he’s dying. But there’s a global pandemic on. What would have been relatively easy is now, complex. Looking through all the guidelines from the UK and the USA and trying to work out if we can visit, who visit and on what grounds, has been like looking for a needle in a haystack. Why someone can’t just write a list of things you need to know, I simply cannot fathom. And trying to work out if, and where, we’d have to quarantine is equally elusive. And then, we don’t know where we’ll end up going in the USA, because they are in the process of moving house! And not just across the road: from California to new Mexico, a distance of about 1,000 miles. Man, it couldn’t be more complex. Until you try to work it around significant dates, likes Meg and Justin’s first wedding anniversary, which, after a lovely, but very different wedding last year, we are simply not going to miss. Throw into the mix that the government, any government, might suddenly change the rules and you’ve just about covered it. Complex. What I have to hold onto because it’s what I’ve been learning through preaching about Jesus coming to his disciples by the lake, is that God is, in all this, closer than I think. And, although it’s really hard to face life in all its complexity, I have to hold onto the deep and profound truth that he has not, and will not abandon me, or Lisa, or Larry, the family in all the places they are, or anyone else affected by this complex set of challenges. I also want to hold before me the bigger and better story of God’s great and magnificent love, the love that never let’s us go, that never changes and never gives up on us. And the deep, deep truth, that nothing can separate us from that love. Not even death. I can’t pretend to understand how that love works, it’s complex. But the really good news is, I don’t need to. And neither do you.

Celebrating

It was Zac’s birthday on Saturday. We had planned to go to Longleat Safari Park. We booked our tickets, but then the weather came. The forecast was for heavy rain all day, not fun if you’re outside at a safari park. Then we realised quite how far away Longleat actually is from Crawley: about two and a half hours just to get there! And we’d booked a table at a restaurant for the evening, so we’d have needed to leave in the middle of the afternoon to get back in time to eat! Things were not going well. So we changed our plans and went to Top Golf instead. Last time I went to Top Golf I really struggled. Not so much with being at Top Golf, but with everything that went on in may head while I was there: the whole failure thing But I was determined to be different this time. I make it sound like you can just turn on and off the struggles that you live with. I don’t mean to make it sound easy because I know It’s not. But I was at least going to try. At Top Golf there are people whose job is to drive around the driving rage in a small van (all covered with protective metal guards) to collect up all the golf balls on the range. In a moment of excitement (or madness) I said to Zac, “I’ll give you £10 if you can hit the van!” His immediate reply was “How about £20?” His mother, who shall remain nameless, then said: “Make it £100!” All of a sudden there was an excitement as was watched Zac try to hit the van. Each time he missed I breathed a sigh of relief. But the tension rose with every shot. I’m not recommending you do this - I’m not sure the man in the van would have been pleased to know what was happening. But it was fun! And, when he finally did hit the van, we all cheered and gave high fives to Zac. Zac got his £100. We’ll talk about that moment for ages in our house. No doubt he’ll one day tell his children! It made me think. We got great delight in setting a silly challenge and then watching someone achieve it. How much more does God celebrate when he sees us growing in love or walking in grace. When we show the family likeness and treat others as he treats us. When we achieve even the smallest success. And I wonder how he celebrated that I enjoyed my trip to Top Golf and didn’t let my mind go to the dark places that swirl there. Maybe no-one else noticed it. But I know God did. And he celebrated that victory because he is always there, cheering me on. And cheering you on.

Relentless

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. Maybe it’s because I’m getting wiser. Maybe not. But it seems to me that the world is just relentless. Things come again and again. I guess they always have, but now I notice in a way I didn’t before. When I was younger everything seemed liked an adventure. Each big moment had it’s own magic. And when one had finished, I was already looking forward to the next. I remember when I first used to preach. I would preach every now and again. I loved it. And when I finished one talk I’d already be looking forward to preparing the next. And, I wanted to preach more! I would happily have dome it every week, even though I was teaching at the time. Now I do preach most weeks. and have done for many years. And the feeling is different. Sermons come round often. Relentlessly. It’s hard to keep up sometimes. And I find that with life. Everything seems to come round more often. There’s less time between events, challenges, things I need to prepare or organise. Perhaps it’s because I fill time with so many things and never really give myself time to stop, or take a break. I am my own worst enemy. I say yes to too any things. A few years a I decided to let go of some things for this very reason - life was relentless. I did. I let go of some things. But then I trained as a counsellor and picked up a whole new set of things. Maybe that’s ok. Maybe it’s not so good. I wonder if Jesus ever thought the same: that life was relentless. After all he never got a break from those who were trying to kill him, or the attacks of the evil one who wanted to to stop him,. His disciples never quite seemed to get what was going on - certainly while Jesus lived. The people were always following him, wanting him to heal them or help them or feed them. And, Jesus knew and understood where it was all going to end. Having that hanging over him must have made it feel relentless. And yet, he was the most content person ever to have lived. .How was that possible? Perhaps Jesus had grasped the bigger picture in a way I have not. Perhaps Jesus was secure in the magnificent love of his Father in a way I am not. Perhaps Jesus really did understand that the universe is a perfectly safe place to be when you are help in the Father’s love. perhaps I would do well to learn from Jesus. Perhaps you would too.

Distance

Zoom is great for some things. It really is. It’s literally been a life line during the last year. Where would we be if we hadn’t been able to meet remotely? We’ve been able to meet with people in all sorts of ways we never thought possible. My own family have been able to meet together - all of us - on Zoom. We didn’t manage to do that in person for mum’s 85th birthday in November 2019. We could find a way to get everyone to the place we met: either the timing or the business of life didn’t allow. But we managed to get everyone on a Zoom call just after Christmas! Amazing! Zoom (and there are other ways of meeting virtually) has made distance smaller. It has brought us closer in may ways. But Zoom is more difficult for some things. Some things work better in you’re there in person. What we have realised in the last couple of weeks is what many people have experienced during the pandemic: talking to a dying loved one over Zoom is, well, difficult. You want to be there. You really want to be there. Perhaps it’s better than nothing, that’s probably true. But there is no substitute for being with people in their darkest and hardest moments. What I’ve observed during this last year is that we’ve had to do so many things at a distance. Even now at the hospital there are security guards on the door. You can only go in if you’re staff or if you have a valid reason. For most people that means visiting at a distance: we call it Zoom. I don’t know why it’s called Zoom, but maybe it’s something about making the distance smaller - zooming in. Maybe. And maybe it’s true. But it’s not what we want. We want to be there. We want to be present. Mostly distance is not good. Sometimes distance is good. Trying to beat the virus requires distance. And beating the virus would be good. But it brings consequences that are not good: distance from loved ones, from community, from company, from friends. It seems to me too, that lots of people are wondering where God is in all this. He seems, well, distant. I know that feeling because I’ve felt it too. It’s been a tough year and it’s not getting any easier. And I am tempted to ask why God is not close, why he seems distant. I love the story of Jesus meeting the disciples on the beach after his resurrection in John 21. Peter and the others go fishing and they fish all night catching nothing. Exhausted and hungry, they are returning to the shore when the man on the beach tells them to throw their nets over the other side of the boat. They do and they catch what is probably one of the biggest hauls of their lives (we’re even told how many fish they caught). Here’s the thing that bugs me though: why did Jesus wait until they had been fishing all night to help them? Why not come to them at the beginning of the night: “Right lads, here’s where you need to fish, trust me!” But no, he lets them go all through the night. I’m not sure I’ll know the answer as to why he did that. I can speculate and so can you. Lots of people have. But here’s the thing: Jesus was not as far away as they might have thought. And what looked like a huge distance to Peter and the others wasn’t quite the same distance to Jesus. He was there, they simply couldn’t see and didn’t know. Perhaps it’s really true that when we feel God is distant, he is very close. I’m going to hold on to that truth. And maybe you can too.

Rollercoaster

I got a gift card for my birthday. Gift cards are great because you can choose a gift for yourself! And with this one I could choose a shop from a selection, so I had lots of choices. My problems started when I went to scrape off the strip on the back of the card to reveal the code. It’s supposed to come off easily. It didn’t. In fact it became a complete mess, so much so that I couldn’t see the whole code! Which meant the card was useless. Ahhhhg! A trip to Sainsbury’s , receipt in hand, ensued. But guess what? Although they sell the cards, they won’t have anything to do with it if it goes wrong. Oh no, you have to go online and contact the card company. Fat chance of that I thought. That’ll never work. But, because it was a gift, I thought I’d better give it a go. I managed to find the customer services part of the website and I wrote a very polite email explaining my predicament. To my great surprise, I got a lovely response for Roderick. He apologised and asked me to provide a picture of the card with the damaged strip, and if I had it, the receipt. Well, I did have the receipt when I went to Sainsbury’s, but somehow by now I’d lost it! I duly took the photos and explained I didn’t have the receipt. That’s that then, I thought. But no. Two days later I had another email from Roderick giving me the complete code and instructions for claiming a gift. And he thanked me for my patience! I was impressed, so I sent Roderick an email thanking him for his help (I can be kind sometimes). I proceeded to activate the code, chose my store and went to buy a gift. I found a new pair of swimming trunks and went to the checkout. Whatever I did it wouldn’t accept the code number I’d been given - it said it was an invalid code. Ahhhhg! I tried everything I could think of, but I didn’t have a four digit pin that I apparently needed as well! Roderick received another, not so polite email expressing my frustration. Explaining my frustration to Lisa , I demonstrated how ridiculous this situation was, only to discover that I hadn’t quite completed the process with the card, so I hadn’t in fact, yet got the correct code and four digit pin number I needed! Oooops! I completed the process, went back to the store, and, hey presto, was able to purchase a nice new pair of swimming trunks! I felt obliged to contact Roderick again and explain I had figured it out…and thanks for his patience! It struck me that the experience of flitting between excitement and frustration and disappointment and success was a microcosm of how life so often is. One moment it’s great, then next is isn’t. One moment there’s some good news, the next there’s some tragic news. It’s a rollercoaster. Up and down. Fast and slow. Exhilarating and frightening. Yesterday we received the heart breaking news that Lisa’s dad, who has been unwell for a long time now, most probably has a tumour that is life threatening. The prognosis is not good. A Zoom call is not good for that conversation. Frightening and devastating. Our emotions are on the rollercoaster. How do you process these things? How do we hold these things? How do we find a way through these things? How do we survive on the rollercoaster that is life? Job said that he had only survived by the skin of his teeth (Job 19:20). And sometimes it feels like that for us too. Perhaps we can do what Job chose to do: to live our story in the far bigger and far better story of God’s great love. To trust that God has it, however much we can’t see it. To trust that God has and holds our loved ones. To trust that God is at work even in the ruins: that God brings transformation is ways we might never know or understand.. Life is a rollercoaster. It is. But there is a God in heaven…

Crisis

It’s been a privilege being a Chaplain at East Surrey Hospital over the last year. It’s been a year of crisis. And one of the things that’s been lovely is to be able visit people and pray with them when others have been unable to because of the pandemic. To be able to read the Bible to, and pray with a friend of thirty years only a few days bef9re she died, when the family were not allowed in the hospital, was a privilege for me and a blessing to them. When I had my own visit to A&E as a patient, Lisa was comforted by the knowledge that if I had been admitted, the Chaplains would have been at my bedside, reading the Bible and praying when she could not. And I know it would have brought great comfort to me too. I have also had the privilege of praying with the Emergency Department and Intensive Care Unit at the beginning of their shifts.. The Chaplains have been doing it every shift change. One of us is there, to pray and, if it’s helpful, to chat with staff. I went yesterday morning at 7am to the ED and 7.30am to the ICU. A crisis brings us together doesn’t it? A crisis brings out the best in us doesn’t it? A crisis makes us stop and think about what’s really important and what’s not. It’s been great to see how the nation has pulled together in the last months to help and support those who are really struggling and to protect the most vulnerable. With the successful role out of the vaccines perhaps the crisis is over. With the opening of shops, hairdressers and gyms, perhaps the crisis is over. And, perhaps because we are beginning to believe that the crisis is over, we don’t feel the need to pray anymore. Yesterday was the last day the Chaplains will visit the ICU at the beginning of a shift to pray. We’ll still be available 24/7, but the crisis is over. so…we don’t need God anymore. God is supposed to be there to make things right. Maybe that is God’s job: to fix the stuff we don’t think we can fix! And maybe God does do that, sometimes. So, in a crisis we need God…to fix it. But, maybe it’s not God’s job, not all the time. Perhaps it’s not God’s job at all. Some people, good people, people we loved and cared for, died during this pandemic. Isn’t God supposed to stop that kind of thing when we pray, when we’re in a crisis? Maybe. It seems to me that the story of the bible is that God does indeed sometimes intervene in a crisis and that he does so, sometimes, because people pray. But he doesn’t always do that. And he never promises to as far as I can tell. Actually his promise, rather than that he will be with us in a crisis to fix it, is that he is with us always. Always. Crisis or no crisis, he is present. Isn’t that better? That God is with s always, whatever is going on? Probably! Perhaps, rather than just fixing things that might go wrong again, God does something far better. Something far, far better. For God holds us through all things. He keeps us through all things. He loves us in all things. And, one day, one fine day, he will make all thigs right. All things. And then we’ll never be in crisis again!