Disaster

What do you do with what’s happened in Morocco and Libya? What do you do when you’re a Christian? How do you understand these kind of events? How, if you even try, do you explain them? And how do you answer the question about where God is? Or what God was, or wasn’t doing? One response is the very human one of rushing to help and support those who have survived. And we’ve seen that happen. And that brings out the best in us. But questions remain. I spoke with someone who, at a very difficult time in their life, wants to connect with God in some way, but who, when looking at the events of the past few days, says: “And that’s my problem with God!” And for many of us, it is a problem. With God. To be honest I don’t have any answers. Maybe once I would have done. But not anymore. Maybe, at one time, I might have muttered something about the world being affected by sin, but even as I write that now, I’m struggling. I’m not saying sin doesn’t exist, or isn’t present. It does and it is. But I’m not sure how that answer helps anymore. The idea that somehow, in ways that we will never understand or see, God weaves life’s events together for his greater purpose is one I find it difficult to go with. Like we see the reverse side of a tapestry, with all the mess of the different threads, and God sees the beautiful picture on the other side. I’m not convinced about that. So what do I do? I struggle. I struggle to makes sense of it. I struggle to understand if God has any part in any of it. I struggle to understand why God wold “allow” these things to happen, if he even does. What I do is I look to books like Job and Ecclesiastes and I say: “Thank God they are in the Bible!” No, seriously I do. These are books that, to me anyway, challenge simple understandings of how the world works and that God is even present in some things. Job’s world is turned upside down for absolutely no reason. He’s done everything right. And what God said would happen, doesn’t. And he never gets a satisfactory explanation for anything that happened. By the end of the book things are better. But wouldn’t he rather have missed all the tragedy? And Ecclesiastes simply declares that there is no point to anything. Even after careful consideration by a wise person, the conclusion is that what God had said doesn’t really work. But then we get what I hold onto. At the end of Ecclesiastes, after coming to the conclusion that life is like a chasing after the wind, the book ends by inviting us to trust God anyway. No doubt there’ll be people who disagree with what I’m writing. That’s fine. But where I go when I see things like we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, is to say that, even in the face of terrible things I simply don’t understand, I’ll choose to trust God anyway.

Curtains

Last week was a busy one for contractors in the church. Lots of cleaning, maintenance and decorating going on. The decorating wasn’t to be finished until Saturday morning. Which was fine, except there was an event in the Rainbow Lounge in the evening which I was helping to set up. That meant I had to come into the church, after the decorating was finished, to put the room back to rights for the event in the evening. One of my tasks then, was to put the curtains back up in the Rainbow Lounge. You’d think that was easy, right? Well, first of all I had to figure out which poles went where. Although I discovered there was step before that: which poles went with which poles? Trying to figure that out, I realised the poles didn’t even fit together in any way! So how do they hold the curtains up? This was becoming far more complicated than I had imagined. Gradually I was able to figure it out, until I was left with only was problem. There needed to be eight curtains to cover the four windows. So why were there only seven curtains? I checked and checked again. Maybe I had this wrong somewhere. But all the poles were in the correct place (you have to trust me on that, but they all had “their place”). I couldn’t work it out. I checked to see if I’d put two curtains together. Nope. I began to search everywhere I could think of to find the missing curtain. Couldn’t find it. I contacted Clare to ask if it had been taken away to be cleaned - maybe some paint got on it. No, it hadn’t been taken for cleaning. Others were contacted and asked if they knew where it was. No, they didn’t. On Sunday morning, while I was at Sheddingdean BC, others looked for the missing curtain. Nobody found it. On Monday people looked. On Tuesday they looked. Nobody found it. On Wednesday, we found it. It was on the curtain rail where it was supposed to be, only on the wrong side of the middle! It had been there all the time. I had put all the curtains up correctly, apart from one thing: one curtain was the wrong side of the middle, so it looked like there was only one curtain. But I had checked that. And so had others. And yet, there it was. And it had been here all along! Sometimes, we can’t see for looking. Sometimes, however hard we look, we don’t look correctly. Perhaps, sometimes, we’re looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. The curtain, it turns out, was on the rail al the time. I just didn’t see it. And neither did others. I wonder where else we might do that? Lots of places perhaps. We get entrenched in views and opinions and hold to them because, well, that’s all we see. I wonder too, if we do that with God. And the Bible. We have our views, our opinions, our beliefs and we can’t see anything else. It seems to me, that over the many centuries of faith and the Bible, many things have changed. Even over my short lifetime, my faith has changed. And, dare I say, the way we understand God and the Bible has changed. And by “we” I mean people of faith rather than any one individual. Although it can mean that, too. Some might think that’s a bad thing. I’m not sure about that. I think it’s a good thing. And more and more I hope that I can come to the Bible and to my faith and not always be stuck in “what I know” or “what believe” or “the way I’ve always seen it”. And maybe then, God can meet me (and I would add, us), in new and better ways. I don’t see that as curtains for faith or the Bible. I rather think it might be drawing back the curtains to see new things about God.

Auschwitz

So…there was one more part to our rollercoaster break. A rollercoaster of a different kind. We stayed in Krakow, which is about an hour from Auschwitz. Our final day in Poland was spent with a visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau. We went with a tour because you have to go with a tour. But there were many tours on the day we went. And no doubt, whatever day you visit, there are many tours. We got our yellow badges because we were in the yellow group. As we stood waiting for the tour to begin, I couldn’t help wondering if what we were about to do was voyeuristic. In those moments before the tour, standing with our group and watching all the other groups, I couldn’t help but wonder why I wanted to be there. Why did I want to stand in the place where so many people had been treated so inhumanely, so dregradingly, the place were so many had died in the gas chambers and others from starvation, illness or because they gave up hope. I almost decided not to do the tour. The thought stuck with me as we walked through the camps, saw the huts, looked at the small spaces people had to exist, walked past the thousands of shoes and cases, and the mountain of human hair cut from prisoners. Looking at the photographs of the first prisoners (they stopped taking photos because it was too expensive) and noting their ages and how long they lived in the camp before they died, was harrowing. Walking in silence through a gas chamber knowing this was where people, just like me, were hearded and then killed, was, well, disturbing. And then we walked past the gallows on which Rudolf Hoss was hanged. It almost seemed too good for him. And that was my struggle. Was I was beginning to think like him? What I have always wondered is how anyone could become like the Nazi’s (to name but one group) who can treat other humans like they did in the concentration camps in World War II. But they weren’t the first, and they haven’t been the last. Over one of the door to one of the huts in Auschwitz are the words: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” by George Santayana. Perhaps in it’s original form it read: “Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.” I’m not sure we’re doing very well. The human race, it seems, has always had the choice between good and evil. Sometimes we find it in ourselves to choose good. But sometimes we find it in ourselves to choose evil. I read of a prisoner, present at the Nuremburg trials, who collapsed in the witness box when his former prison guard was brought in to stand trial. Everyone in the court assumed that he had collapsed because memories of his treatment by this man flooded back to him in those moments. But he said that was not the case. He collapsed, he said, when he saw this now dishevelled and frightened man standing before him, and realised that he was an ordinary man like himself, and that, perhaps, he therefore, was capable of the same crimes. The story of the Garden of Eden perhaps teaches that we all have the power to choose between good and evil. Being in Auschwitz and standing on the railway line at Birkenau like others who were on their way to be gassed have done, has caused me to wonder about myself and how I choose to live. How much do I value the differences in others and move towards embracing them? How much do I move towards finding fault with them and treating them in less than loving ways? I have some thinking still to do.

Poland

I always thought of Poland as grey and cold. And raining. Which it turns out is slightly unfair. And pretty inaccurate. I was in Poland on the next part of the rollercoaster hunt. You may remember that last year, Lisa and I went to Belgium and Holland as stand ins on a trip Zac had organised with his friends, to ride rollercoasters. Surprisingly we really enjoyed it and when we got back Zac produced a video of our adventures. That video ended with a teaser for the next part of the rollercoaster story: Poland! The rides in Poland are 150ft taller…Part of me hoped that, for reasons beyond my control, a trip to Poland wouldn’t happen. When we booked the trip, I was still wondering why. Why do I want to go to Poland to ride rollercoasters that are even taller than the ones I’ve already done? Poland it turns out is beautiful. The people are really friendly, the food is wonderful and the rollercoasters…Day 1 was just a taster. Only one ride that counted on Zac’s checklist! Day 2 brought the big rides! And I mean big! Hyperion stands at 253ft tall and reaches a speed of 88miles an hour. Zadra reaches a speed of 75 miles and hour, a height of 206ft, has three inversions and on one world ranking website is ranked the third best ride in the world! It comes second in my personal list! Being with Zac, the expert in all thing rollercoasters, was great fun. We rode 28 coasters in three days and ticked off all the rides on his spreadsheet. To tick all of them off the list we had to ride some rollercoasters that are really designed for children, because the park classifies them as rollercoasters! It was almost too embarrassing to be queueing with the children and their parents, but…we did it! And anyway, I was with my child. We are father and son. Just a bit older than every other father and son! And here’s the thing: I had no fear at any point in the three days we were riding rollercoasters! Two weeks before the trip I was getting nervous. I don’t have a great head for heights and I was worried about the height of some of the coasters. I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it, or even want to go on them. But once I was there and on the rides, all that fear disappeared and I was able to relax into enjoying the rides. It turns out riding rollercoasters is something I’ve learnt to enjoy, by simply doing them. And now I’m wondering why I didn’t do it before. I’m even thinking about a trip to Germany or Sweden where the next big rides are! Which makes me wonder what else I might find different if I simply had the courage to do it! And especially in my journey of faith!

Norfolk

I was, surprisingly nervous. I’m not really sure why. I was going to see people who knew me. And who I knew. But then they were also people I hadn’t seen for the best part of fifty years, and who last saw me when I was about nine or ten years old! That’s a long time. A long time. I don’t actually remember the last time I saw them, although it turns out it was probably at their house, which is where I was going to meet them. But I didn’t remember that either. Funny how I felt nervous. What exactly did I have to be nervous about? These friends knew and loved my mum and dad. And when my dad died they came to visit my mum. More than once. But, I was nervous. I guess part of it was that they’d watched me on the live stream and said I reminded them of my dad. What if, When I was sitting in front of them, in their house, I was a disappointment? What if, when they spoke to me, they couldn’t see my dad in me at all? What if we didn’t really have much to talk about? What if, although the idea of meeting up was a good one, it didn’t really work? It would be a long way to travel for a disappointing visit. It turns out they were nervous too! They had the same questions. Funny that! But it also turned out it was a lovely visit. As soon as we arrived we got chatting…and that was that! Memories, laughter, sadness, questions, wondering. It was all there. I saw pictures of my family I’d never seen before (on a really old slide viewer)! The five of us - mum and dad, my sister, brother and me. There aren’t many pictures of all of us. The conversation was lovely with much laughter and insight. And I learnt a few things about my family too. About my dad. The evening went really quickly. There was much more we could have said. There was more to say, more to hear, more to understand. We parted really, really pleased we’d overcome our nervousness. We parted really, really pleased we’d made contact. We parted looking forward to the next time we’ll get together. I was reminded part way through the evening that, because I was born on Norwich, I’m a Norfolk boy. It was good to be home. Very good. Sometimes going home, being home, can make us a bit nervous. Especially if we’ve been away for a while. Sometimes I spend a while away from home in my faith. And sometimes I feel nervous about going home. Now I’m wondering what me heavenly Father thinks about that?

Wondering...

I moved to Crawley the same year as Sinead O’Connor’s hit “Nothing compares to you” was top of the pops (remember that?). It was a song with a haunting melody about how hard it can be when a relationship breaks down. Sinead O’Connor went on to have a successful music career. Sadly, this week, she was found dead in her home. She was younger than me. Many tributes to her have talked about how talented she was, how she was courageous in speaking out on issues about which she felt strongly. Many have said what a loss she is, not only to the music industry, but to the wider world too. What has emerged is that she was troubled in many ways. And understandably so. She experienced a difficult family life, spent some time in a Magdalene asylum, lost her mother in a car accident when she was 18 and struggled with her self esteem. She ripped up a photo of the Pope live on TV in the USA and got banned for life from that station. She became a priest in the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church (a sect not recognised by the Catholic Church). She spoke out against child abuse (out of her own experience). She converted to Islam and changed her name. Her son died by suicide, a tragedy from which she evidently never recovered. And my wondering is: what does God do with someone like Sinead O’Connor? I guess there are many answers to that question, depending on how you understand God. I want to think that God has a heart for people like Sinead O’Connor. People who had a difficult time when they were young. People who are desperately trying to find their way through life that is hard and cruel, tragic and unfair. People who seek God, but maybe find him in places different to the places I think he should be found. I think that God wants to save everyone and that he can save anyone however he likes. It will always be because of what Jesus did, But God is, well…God. Isn’t he? No doubt some people will be upset by my wonderings. That’s ok. You can have you’re own. And whatever I might wonder, God is, well…God! And, in a twist on Sinead O’Connor’s massive hit song, nothing compares to God! So I’m happy to leave my wondering with God.

Nothing!

If ever you’ve tried to write a blog, one thing you’ll know is that you have to have something to say! I spend time thinking about what I’m going to write, and sometimes that can be quite challenging. I try to think back over the week just gone and look at what’s happened so I can reflect on it in my blog. Weeks that have a lot going on are great. There’s lots to reflect on. But some weeks are, well, weeks where noting really happens. Obviously things happen in every week. But not always things that make for an interesting blog (assuming that anything written in this blog counts as interesting). And I’ve had one of those weeks where nothing out of the ordinary happened. That’s not to say I haven’t been busy. I haven’t been in one evening this week, I’ve been out every one of them! And the days have been equally full. But it was the ordinary things that filled the time. The things I expect to find in any week. I like weeks when there’s a bit of something different. I like a bit of spontaneity. Weeks with some excitement or something different are great and they make me feel I’m doing something important. But that doesn’t mean that the weeks when nothing happens, aren’t also important. They are. Just in a different way. Perhaps I’m a child of my time. It seems to me that one expectation people today have is that life is always exciting. That there’s always something happening. Or should be. And if it’s not, then life is disappointing. But, mostly, life isn’t full with exciting things. Mostly, life is about doing what has to be done. Mostly…nothing happens! Maybe I’m wrong. I wonder too if we feel like this with our Christian life. Mostly we want to know that God is present and active. That he is awake and that he will intervene to make our life better. That we’ll be able to see where he is at work and we’ll know what he is doing. When I listen to people pray, that’s often what I hear them articulate. We ask God to be present in ways we can see, and ways we can recognise. But when I look at the Bible, it strikes me that most of the time, nothing happens. What the Bible records happens over an long period of time, some 1500 years! That’s a long time. A long time. When we read it, we tend to read it as if it all happened close together. But there are often long periods of time when, wait for it, nothing happens. Or so it seems! There’s a 400 year gap between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament! Am I saying God is doing nothing in these gaps? No, of course not. We just don’t what he is doing. And in those times, doing what they knew to be right became really important for those following God. And that’s still true. In those weeks when nothing happens, what’s really important is that keep doing what I know to be right, trusting that God is at work even when I don’t know what he is doing and can’t see what he is doing.

Voice

I’m in too many message groups to keep up with them all. It can be great way of keeping in touch with people and an effective way of communicating quickly, but I read so many messages I get lost in them. Too many voices! I had a really strange message on one of my group chats this last week. Really strange. I’m in a “Mum” chat with my brother and sister. We started it to keep in touch about our mum and to make sure we were all on the same page in what we were saying to her. And now we use it to keep in touch with each other, which we do sporadically. So far, so good. This week my sister put a short recording on the chat and asked me the question: who is the boy in the story? Weird. I listened to the recording, which was obviously quite old, and thought: I have no idea what this is about, or who this is, or even what her question means. So my reply was simply: “No idea.” She replied: “The boy in the story is you Ian!” What? What boy? Why is it me? This is…weird. And it stayed weird. It turns out that, unbeknown to me (and my brother it seems), there are reel to reel recordings of my dad speaking when he was a Vicar! Just so you get this, my dad died on the 1st July 1970, that’s 53 years ago! My mum evidently had some tapes (reel to reel) of him which she gave, at some point, to my sister. She apparently forgot she had them (weird), but has now found them and sent one recording to me and my brother on WhatsApp. So I’m listening to my dad, tell a story about me, and I had no idea whatsoever what was going on. Part of the problem was that I had no idea what my dad’s voice sounded like. In fact, when I heard the voice, I thought it was woman speaking (sorry dad). My dad grew up in Deptford and apparently when he went to theological college he had elocution lessons to make him sound…well…proper! The point though, is this: I didn’t recognise my dad’s voice. Why would I? I’d never heard it. I had no memory of what it sounded like. And, if I’m honest, it still doesn’t seem real. I’ve never heard God speak either as it turns out. Well, not an audible voice. And, it seems to me, that if we want to hear God speak, we have to learn to listen. We have to learn to hear him in the pages of the Bible. We have to learn to hear him speak through preachers (I’m really hoping that he does). We have to learn to hear him speak through nature. We have to learn to hear him speak in all the ways that God chooses to speak to his people. And, it can be hard work. And weird! But the more we recognise his voice, the more we’ll hear him speak. It may be, that over the coming months, as the recordings of my dad are put into digital format and I get to listen to more of my dad speaking, I’ll get to recognise his voice. And, maybe, after all these years, I’ll get to know him a little better.

Universal

Lisa and I got invited the Indian Orthodox Church last Sunday, to a service attended by their new bishop. It was an important service for them and it was a privilege for us to invited. We were invited because the Indian Orthodox Church meets at Green Fields Baptist Church. We had no real idea of what would happen, how long it would last, or what we might be expected to do, if anything. We knew there would be food afterwards because we were aske if we had any allergies! We rushed over the Green Fields after the service in West Green and arrived as the whole congregation was on the march! We watched them walk along the road from the church, cross the road and then walk back to the church on the other side of the road. They were, they told us, doing a symbolic walk around Crawley as a way for praying for Crawley! Which got me thinking…They have a different way of worshipping, a different liturgy, a different language, a different culture, a different expression of their faith, a different way of organising church, a different set of expectations on their congregation, but they have the same heart for God. We sat through their service, at the front and the only people with shoes on, listening to a language we couldn’t understand, watching people who in many ways we have nothing in common with, who have a different culture and understanding of the world, and yet who worship and serve the same God! It turns out they have many of the same challenges we do. They were extraordinarily welcoming, presented us with gifts and invited for a holiday in Kerala (God’s own country). I heard one scholar recently say that the most important word in the book of Romans, is “all”. Paul is writing a cosmic gospel: the Gospel that Jesus brings is for everyone. Everyone. That was new to the Jews who thought it was only for them. Jesus changes that. I wonder sometimes if we struggle with the very same truth. Not that we don’t say the Gospel is for everyone. We do. But I wonder how many barriers we put in the way of welcoming everyone: people who might be vey different to us, with a very different way of understanding God and very different ways of expressing their worship. it’s a challenging thought. But perhaps one we would do well to think about it.

Dad

Last week on Thursday I got home just before 10pm from the Life Group and Team Leader’s Banquet (having arrived at the church at 7.15am) to find a letter waiting for me. The writing on the envelope was hand writing I didn’t recognise and it was addressed to Rev. Ian Phillips c/o Crawley Baptist Church. That’s a worrying sign. Mostly when I get letters like that, it’s a letter about how upset someone is with something I said, or didn’t say, or did, or didn’t do. And I do get letters like that. From Christians. Not often, but I do get them. So it was with great reluctance that I opened the letter. As I began reading, the words seemed to confirm what I was thinking: “You may not remember us, but we remember you!” Oh great! Here we go. Someone I probably don’t remember who’s angry at me for something I won’t remember! But I read on. And I looked to the bottom of the letter to see who was writing. That’s when it all changed. I won’t use their names here, but I instantly recognised the names of the people writing to me. It turns out I knew them, or more accurately they knew me nearly 6o years ago when I was but a baby! They were in the church in Norwich in which my dad was the curate. I have no idea when I last saw them, but it must have been around 50 years ago when they came to visit my mum in Wimborne. I remember playing cards with them and having a right laugh. I think, although I may be wrong, they were in the youth group my dad led. As I read on, they had written to me because they have been watching the livestream services for the past year or so when unable to attend their own church through illness! I rushed to read the letter to Lisa, but hadn’t read it through and I suddenly hit a bit that made me stop. They wrote about how watching me on the live stream reminded them of my dad! I wasn’t ready for that. My dad died 53 years ago tomorrow (1st July 1970) at the age of 35. I never got the opportunity to know him. I don’t really remember anything about him. And there cannot be many people who would be able to tell me that the way I do things on a Sunday morning are like the way my dad would have done them. There are very few people who could say to me: “Ian, you are just like your dad!” When I told Meg and Zac about the letter, Zac asked: “Is that the first time you’ve every heard someone say that?” I think it was. I wrote them an email after the service on Sunday, having said hello to them at the beginning of the service, and in the reply I got this morning, they said that the way I spoke about how to pronounce Wymondham, was exactly the way my dad would have done it! This week I’ve been thinking about my dad more than I usually do and wondering about how I might be like him which, until now, I’ve never really done. I’m really grateful that someone wrote to me and told me about how I remind them of my dad. Which has got me thinking: about another “dad” I want to be like. And how lovely it would be if someone said that when watching me they could see a likeness to him. After all, isn’t that the reason Jesus came a lived in front of us? Not so much that he would get us into heaven, but that we would live like him and show his Father’s love in the way that we do that? I think so. Maybe it would be good to thank those people who have done that for us - lived in front of us in a way that has showed us what our heavenly father is like, who have their Father’s likeness.

Frightened

We had a good week with the family. We took them to Amberley and Arundel (to the castle) for a bit of English culture. And then we spent two days visiting London seeing all the famous pieces of English history! It was good, but full on. The good weather helped because we were able to be in the garden in the evenings and all day on their last day. Our cats, however thought differently! Gimli, normally very sociable and friendly, was not so present. The number of people and the noise put him off being around so much, although he likes his food so we saw him regularly. Floyd on the other hand, who is never seen when we have visitors, completely disappeared. So much so that we put out leaflets through our neighbours doors on Sunday asking if anyone had seen him. Floyd has his times and places where he will see us, but we hadn’t seen him for a few days and we had begun to wonder if something had happened to him. Then, on Monday evening, two days after the family had left, he crept into the living room through the open patio doors! It was relief to see him. But he still hasn’t been around much this week. He’s not sleeping under our bed, which was pretty much his home. He didn’t sit with me while I was doing my counselling sessions on Tuesday evening, a ritual that has been weekly for months! So he’s back, but not quite back. He’s been freaked, and he’s still not quite sure about being in the house. The family are long gone and not coming back (not for another twenty years maybe). He would be perfectly safe in the house. But he’s been freaked. And he’s not convinced. Yet. Which makes me think of parallels between me and God. And lots of other people and God. Sometimes I’m not convinced that God is safe. And, over the years, I’ve heard many people say the same thing. Not in those words of course. But they say the same thing. “What have I done to deserve this?” “I must have done something. God is discipling me.” Well…maybe. But mostly not. We have a warped view of God which gets us into this kind of thinking. And our understanding of the Bible doesn’t help us. We have convinced ourselves that we are far from God. Always. And simply because we are human. Tragedy is, that God thinks we are very good. Yes he does! He’s always thought that and he thinks that now. About you! That’s not say we don’t do stuff that draws us away from God. We do. But that’s on our side of the relationship. God is still for us. His relationship with us hasn’t changed. Ever. And we spend so much of our time thinking we can’t go back because we’re not good enough, or God will be cross with us or…I want to pick Floyd up and explain to him that he is safe in the house and the has nothing to fear. I want to tell him it’s fine. But he’s a cat, so I can’t! I wonder sometimes if God wants to do the same with us, to pick us up and tell us that we have nothing to fear and are perfectly safe with him. But we’re…stubborn. Maybe he wants to do that with you right now. Now there’s a lovely thought!

Family

We have family visiting from the USA next week. They haven’t been to England for twenty years. In fact, half of the family have never been to England before because they weren’t born the last time the others came! Those of you who have family a long way away will now the challenges of long distance families. You don’t get to spend much time with them. Unless of course you have lots of time and money. Which most families don’t. Keeping in touch with distant families has changed over the years with the advent of technology. And it’s cheaper than ever now if you use the correct form of communication. But it is still no substitute for being present with someone. It’s really hard to get to know someone when they are a long way away and you don’t see them often. Sure you can do all the things we can do these days with calls, video, pictures, live chats…but it’s not the same as being with a person. And one of the challenges we find is that it’s easy to drift in long distant relationships. It’s easy to be “out of sight out of mind”. Maybe you’re different, but you have to work really hard at keeping in touch. Busy life schedules, time differences and changing patterns all conspire against making it easy. However much we might want to keep in touch and up to date on all the family happenings, it becomes challenging. We miss stuff. We forget stuff. We can’t find a time to talk that works. And there’s so much in life that happens almost incidentally which, if we’re present, we see, but if we’re far away we don’t see, and by the time we catch up it’s gone and forgotten. We’ve moved on. No doubt during next week there’ll be lots of conversations along the lines of seeing each other again soon, doing this or that, going here or there, all with great intentions, but which will, in truth, never happen. Because distance doesn’t allow for that kind of relationship. And that’s often the way it is with God. Unless that’s just me. He is often far away, distant. At least that how it seems. When he’s close, it’s great. We talk and dream together. I feel his presence in ways it’s hard to describe. But, mostly, he’s not so close. A bit more distant. And then it becomes a drift. He’s not in my every moment thinking. Sometimes not in my daily thinking. I’m busy with other, important things. Mostly around church. And preparing things to say about him! Truth is, I sometimes find it hard to know what I think about him and to work out what he might be doing in the world. Recently I stumbled across a truth I’m really attracted to because it is changing the way I’m thinking about God. The first thing God says about his creation and of the people he created, is that they are very good (Gen. 1v31). I knew that because I’ve read that many times. But I hadn’t thought about, or grasped the importance of that statement. Because, as far as I can tell, nowhere in the rest of the Bible does that change. And the story of the rest of the Bible is God relentlessly sticking with the people he created. Sure Genesis chapter 3 is challenging as the freedom God gives to the people he loves allows them to move away from him. But God never goes anywhere. Ever. The wholes story of the Bible from creation to Revelation is the story of how God is always moving towards his people. The relationship God has with his people is steadfast, immovable. God is always for us. We, on the other hand seem to have lots of problems with God. I know I do. My relationship with him is patchy and often distant. Next week I want to show England off the my family. I want them to be impressed. I want them to be impressed with me and my home, the paces I go and the things I hold dear. They might be. But they might not be. It’s a delicate balance, family. It’s hard to love and be loved with all the challenges of distance and our own limitations. Because God looks at me and says I’m every good, I don’t need to try to impress him. He’s already impressed. And he is sticking with me, whatever happens. In everything. What I’m realising is that the more I can grasp and live in the truth of how the story of God begins, the more I can live in his great love. And as I enjoy being close to family next week, maybe I will see a little more of how God enjoys his relationship with me. Even when I am sometimes a little distant.

Grip

One of my presents for my birthday this year was golf lessons. I think my children took pity on me having listened too many times of my failings on the golf course! Truth is I know I’ve need some lessons for a while. I’d like to blame lockdown for my worsening golf, and whilst there may well be some truth to the belief that not playing at all for so long affected my swing, it’s certainly not the whole truth. Golf is a complex game. No, really it is. And someone once said the me: “Ian, if you want to get better at golf, you have to play three times a week!” I’ve never achieved that. And, post lockdowns, my golf was getting worse. The swing I’d tried so hard to perfect, was letting me down. I couldn’t figure it out. Shots I was once confident to make, I was missing. So…lessons. I’ve had one lesson. And changed one thing: my grip. John, my golf pro. took at look at my swing and simply said: “We just need to change that grip Ian. We need to make it a stronger grip.” To the uninitiated, that’s not a way of telling me to tighten my grip on the club. It’s much more technical than that. I won’t bore you with the mechanics, but, it works! For the first time in ages, I’ve hit the ball long and straight. Not every time. But it’s there. And with practice and patience and perseverance, I’ll be able to groove the new swing until it’s natural. At the moment it’s hard work. I have to check my grip on every shot. I’m learning a new swing. It feels different. And I don’t always get it right. But I can feel it when I do. And, there’s a parallel process going on in me that reminds me of changing my golf swing. There are some things about faith that I’ve held dear for a long time. I’m not sure if anyone told me them or taught me them, but I’ve held them dear for many, many years. But, I’ve been struggling with them. And they’ve become more uncomfortable as I’ve read and thought and reflected and wrestled. I’ve slowly realised that they don’t make sense to me anymore. And, harder than that, they don’t make sense of God anymore. However hard I try to make them so. Mostly, it’s come about because I’ve reflected and thought deeply about some of the things I’ve preached, about which I say I am convinced. It’s forced me to ask myself the question: “If I am convinced of that which I preach, what does that say about who God is? And what I really believe?” I haven’t gone looking for different ways of understanding these things, but as I’ve read and listened, I’ve found better ways of understanding them. And believe me, it’s a difficult and painful process. Like my golf swing, I’m still struggling and I don’t have it all sorted. But I’m in a much better place. With a much stronger grip (pun intended) on some really important parts of my faith. I didn’t want golf lessons because it meant I had to admit I needed help. But I’m really glad I’ve got them. I didn’t go out to wrestle with my faith, but I found myself in the middle of the wrestling, wondering where it would take me. To which the answer is, I’m not entirely sure. But I’m in a better place than I was. The journey is painful. And worth it. Because I’m discovering God is better than I thought and had believed for so long. Perhaps, sometimes, there comes a time when to wrestle with our faith, though slow and painful, is the best things we can do. I think so!

For you!

Sometimes it happens. Sometimes I speak and actually hear what I’m saying. Sometimes when I speak, I realise that what I’m saying to others is what I need to hear. That should probably happen more than it does, but I’m a flawed human being who is not always at his best. And this morning, as I was speaking, it struck me that I needed to hear what I was saying. I absolutely love the truth that God is “for” me. I’ve not always believed that this is true, but now I think I’m growing to believe it is true. It’s always been true for you. Just not quite so true for me. And, probably, you would say the same. Some truth is easier to believe for others than it is to believe for ourselves. But Paul says that “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Roma. 8:31) The idea that God is “for” me is, transforming. I’m still being transformed. I’m still trying to get my head around what it really means. But I am choosing to believe it is a deep, deep truth. I don’t always act like it’s true and I sometimes struggle to believe that it’s true. But I choose to believe that it is true. Believing it, is, I think, slowly having an impact on the way I think, the way I behave, the way I work and the way I understand myself. Because if God is “for” me, I don’t have to impress him or worry that he’ll give up on me. But here’s what struck this morning as I was speaking: if God is “for” me, then he is for you. And everyone I meet. And I everyone I don’t meet. In fact, he is “for” everyone. God doesn’t hate anyone. Ever! He might be disappointed in me, or you, or anyone else for that matter. He might, (actually he will because we’re all fallen human beings) mourn over some of the things I do or say, the things you do or say, but he will still be “for” us. Always. And if God is “for” everyone, then that makes a difference to the way I see them. Doesn’t it? Well…maybe it would if I grasped the truth of it. So this morning it struck me that when I really struggle with someone, it might be a good thing to look at them and think: “God is for you!” Hmmm. I can already see myself finding that difficult. Especially with the people I don’t actually like. Or find it hard to get along with. Or who have a different theology to mine. Or who don’t like what I’ve written in this blog…But maybe it’s worth a try. Really worth a try. And maybe the more I grasp that God is “for” me, the more I will be able to live that out in front of others, and let them know that God is “for” them too! Maybe I should listen to myself more!

Patient

I was in the hospital doing my ward visits in my role as Chaplain. I stop and talk to anyone who wants to chat. Some do. Some don’t. Often I’m quite a disappointment. I don’t wear a dog collar like some of my colleagues, so there’s no give away that the Chaplain is approaching! And so some people think I’m the doctor. And everyone is waiting for the doctor. Some even think I’m the consultant (even the staff). So when they realise I’m not a doctor, but a Chaplain, they are disappointed! I assure them they really wouldn’t want me as their doctor. And then I ask them how they are. Some folks want to answer and some don’t. I get a pretty good idea fairly quickly if a patient wants to talk. But I’m not always right. Like the visit to a chap last week. At first he was evasive and shut down the conversation. Then he suddenly asked me about a footballer he’d heard me talking about to another patient. And suddenly we were away. He had an real interest in sport and we got chatting about all the things he’d done. Turns out he was good footballer, a coach, and a counsellor for people with sporting injuries. I took the opportunity to talk about my dodgy football knee and soon found myself being the one who was accepting the help! At one point I thought he was asking me to hop up onto his bed so he could take a look at knee and apply his particular form of treatment. Actually he didn’t do that (which was a relief as I was beginning to wonder what this might look like to others on the ward). But he did refer me to his counselling service and recommend a book about golf. I left with his card and some information as to where I could follow this up if I wanted to. And here’s the thing: I was supposed to be the one helping him! We are encouraged to be the ones who “give” believing it is better to give than to receive. But it can be much harder to be the ones who are receiving. And especially if it comes from someone we are trying to help. Perhaps part of humility is not to put ourselves above others so that we cannot receive from them, whoever they are. Perhaps God can speak through people who we have written off or judge to be more in need of help than we are. I walked away from that bedside wondering how many times I haven’t received a gift from God because I could see past my own need to give. Maybe sometimes I am the one who needs to receive. Even when it might come from a most unlikely place.

Cake

For the first time in about 50 years, I made a cake! I used to make cakes when I was at school. We had “Home Economics” lessons in those day and I was a pretty good at making a lemon cake, or an orange cake. I even entered them for competitions. I don’t think I ever won one, but that wasn’t the point. The point was making a cake. But I haven’t made a cake since those days. I have never watched Bake Off (if that’s the programme where people make cakes) or any other baking programme for that matter. I’ve been more than happy to allow others to exercise their baking gifts and be the one who eats it for them! I decided to make a cake for a birthday, for someone who thinks a Betty Croker cake (that’s a cake mix cake for the uninitiated) isn’t a proper cake. So I got my Mary Berry cake making instructions, the ingredients and my enthusiasm, and made a cake. It looked great when I took it out of the oven, but some time later when the two parts of the Victoria sponge had cooled, it looked a little different. Perhaps a little disappointing even! I applied the jam and cream as per the instructions and mused as to why my cake didn’t look like the one with the Mary Berry instructions. Perhaps I had been over generous with the jam and cream. Almost certainly! But then a cake with jam and cream dripping out of the middle has a certain allure about, or at least that’s what I like to think. Everyone was very kind and said it tasted good. And it did. And everyone loved that I’d taken the time to make a cake after a 50 year lay off. But…and here’s the rub, my perfectionist tendencies were disappointed that it wasn’t perfect. Whatever that means about a cake. Well, it didn’t look quite like the one in the picture for starters. Years ago I would have wanted to throw it away because it wasn’t perfect. But not this time. We enjoyed the cake and laughed at the jam and cream spilling from the middle. And here’s the the thing I’ve been reflecting on all week: a perfect cake was never the point of me making a cake. It wasn’t about the cake at all. It was about moving towards someone else. It was about recognising that a small action that I could take, might make a big difference to someone else. The fact that I’d chosen to make a was what was important. How the cake turned was almost irrelevant. How many times, I’ve wondered, have I been put off doing something because I’m worried it might not turn out “perfectly” when all that was really required was to move towards someone. The life of Jesus shows that God is always moving towards his imperfect creation. Which is good news for people like me, who sometimes start things that don’t turn out as we’d hoped. God moves towards me anyway.

Coronation

The grass is cut. The strimming is done. I even bought a new lawn mower, although that was because the gear box seized on the old one and had nothing to do with the coronation (sorry your majesty). We’ve bought our “Ale to the King!” We’ve invited our friends. We (that’s the royal we - excuse the pun) have cleaned the house. (To be fair, I was cutting the grass.) The food we ordered has been collected. The final preparations are under way. And tomorrow we’ll watch the coronation of King Charles III. And here’s the question I will ask my friends when they arrive tomorrow: how many people do you know who are attending the coronation in person? And the only reason I'll ask is because they won’t know anyone who is actually attending. They won’t know anyone who actually had an invitation to be in Westminster Abbey to witness the crowing of King Charles III. But, and here’s the point, I do! I really do know someone who will be there! And that, strangely makes me feel important. I will not be there. I didn’t get an invite. I’ll be watching the whole things on the TV, just like my friends. But I know someone who will be there. I told her she had to wear a huge hat so that I could spot her on the TV and point out to everyone watching with me, that I know her. I don’t think she’ll do that. My friend is important enough to be invited to the service, the coronation. Knowing her is the closet I get. When I next see her, I’ll want a long description of what the whole thing was like. I’ll want to know how close she got the the King. That’s as close as I’ll get. I probably won’t say the pledge of allegiance when invited to do so by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But I will be a good citizen of the Kingdom. And while I’m sitting at home tomorrow, supping my Ale to the King, scouring the TV coverage for a sighting of my friend, getting as close as I can to the King and the coronation, I will be thinking of another Kingdom of which I am a citizen. A Kingdom that, unlike the one on the TV is an everlasting Kingdom. And one where, unlike the one I’ll be watching from a distance, I’m absolutely important enough to have direct access to the King. A Kingdom in which, in fact, I am invited to spend time with the King and be part of the business of the King. And I’ll be wondering as I watch the ceremony of the crowning of the King, who’s really got the best seats in the house: is it those who have responded to the invitation of King Charles III, or is it those who have responded to the invitation of the King of Kings? I hope tomorrow is a great day for all those involved. But there is a day…

Baptism

Today I’m going to a baptism. It’s not in our church. I’m going to drive quite a way to attend a church I’ve never been to before and will probably never go to again. I’m going because I’ve been invited. I’m going because I’ve been invited by someone I know and who will be baptised. I’ve known this person for a few years. We volunteered together. My friend, as they have become, has been through some real challenges in life and especially in recent years. When we met we had some lovely conversations about life and how things turn out. We had some lovely conversations about how we might better help the people we were volunteering to help. And we did lots of things to try to make a difference. But one thing we didn’t really ever talk about was faith. It wasn’t that they didn’t know who I was or what I did. They absolutely did. But they never brought it up and neither did I. Over the years I’ve visited a few times and wondered how life will go for them. There are still many challenges because of illness and circumstances. Every now and again we’ll have text conversation and sometimes a brief telephone conversation simply to catch up and find out the latest news. And, if I’m completely honest, I never thought I’d ever go to their baptism. But today I will get in the car and drive for over an hour to do exactly that. I don’t know the story of how this has come about. I can make some guesses, but I don’t know. And…I don’t really need to know. I just have to turn up and take on my part as sponsor. I’m privileged that I’ve been invited and get to play a small part in their story. What excites me about today, is that God is obviously at work. And God is at work in ways that I never imagined he would be. In ways that I have no idea about, God is at work in the heart of my friend. I’d like to think that in some small way at least, something in our friendship has something to do with what is happening today. But that may not be true at all. God can work in ways that I have no idea about! And that is good news. Great news. I have just been reading the notes from the latest BU Council meeting where people were evidently reminded by one speaker to notice the new things God is doing in unexpected ways and places. Today has come to me as an unexpected delight. And I will love being present for this baptism, one I never expected to see. It is wonderful to see what God is doing in unexpected ways and places. And it serves to remind me of exactly that: God is at work in unexpected ways and in unexpected places. Today I get to have a front row seat! But I can hold onto this deep truth even when I see nothing. Because God is at work. Always.

Ear Pods

So I had another birthday. Not that that I wanted one. They just happen. Every year at the same time! Kind people gave me presents and one present was ear pods. Ear pods are earphones that don’t have a wire attached to them because they work on Bluetooth, a wireless network. They are latest way of listening to music or podcasts. All the young people have them. And older people who consider themselves cool! I didn’t have any until my birthday because I’m old fashioned. Actually, I didn’t see the need for them really. After all I have earphones that work perfectly well. I can still remember buying headphones when I was younger. I went all the way to Bournemouth to buy them because I wanted to get good ones and Wimborne didn’t sell good ones! And in those days you had to go to a shop to buy electronic goods like headphones! I still have them and they still work. But now I have ear pods! And I’ve used them. They’re great - don’t get tangled up in the wires. But here’s the thing: this morning I went to the gym but didn’t use my ear pods for one simple reason: they don’t work with my iPod Classic! They don’t work with my iPod Classic because my iPod Classic doesn’t have Bluetooth! It’s too old! So today I used my earphones with my iPod Classic. And guess what? It worked perfectly. Which got me thinking: some things that are old still work! I was in the gym a month or so ago and another guy saw my iPod Classic and commented on the fact I still had an iPod Classic (which for the uninitiated, is only about 10 years old). I said: “It still works.” To which he said, “And it will for years to come yet!” And that’s the point: it’s old but it still works. Like breathing! It’s been around for a long time, but it still works. Parts of the Christian faith are like that. We have some old doctrines that still work: we are greatly loved by God; we are saved by the Easter story. Demonstrating love, kindness and compassion to to others is still the best way to live. I’m completely convinced that there are really important old things, Christian doctrines, that still work. And we should go back to them if we want to live well, as people and in community. But now I have ear pods, a new thing. Which work with new things. And it’s made me wonder: are there some things too that need to change? I think the answer is yes. Some things already have: we no longer justify slavery, as we did at one time, from the Bible. In fact, we’re now apologising for ever thinking that was slavery had anything to do with truth. We’re slowly figuring out that colonialism hasn’t been good for most of the world, and that it isn’t an appropriate way of being today, even though for centuries it was justified by followers of Christ. We have work still to do there. And maybe there are other things that might need to change. Saying old things still work doesn’t mean we ignore everything that’s new. Theology has always been changing. Christian history is replete with discovering more about who God is and how we live in the light of that, and so is the Bible! I have ear pods and earphones and head phones! There is wisdom in using the old thing that still works. But there is also wisdom in using the new thing. Perhaps the wisdom I most need is the wisdom to know what to keep and hold onto, and what needs to change. And maybe that’s a challenge for us all.

Easter

I love Timberland boots and clothes. For years now I’ve had a pair of Timberland boots. When my old ones finally came to the end of their life, I bought another pair. I wear them a lot. So much so, that one of the laces wore out, so last week I went online to buy new laces. I went to the Timberland online store because I wanted Timberland laces and not something passed off as Timberland laces! Sad, but true! I ordered one pair of Timberland boot laces. I ordered nothing else. I’m sure you can all picture a pair of new bootlaces, wrapped in that little piece of paper that is holding them together. I hope so. The laces duly arrived a few days later in a lovely Timberland box. Impressive! But here’s the thing: one pair of boot laces came in a Timberland box that measured 20cm x 15cm x 14cm. I know it was that big because I measured in to write this blog! Did you get that? One pair of bootlaces came in a box that measure 20cm x 15 cm x 14cm! They were literally rattling around in the box. There was no padding, no bubble wrap, no tissue paper. Just one pair of bootlaces in a box that measured 20cm x 15 cm x 14cm! They could have come in a an ordinary envelope. A Jiffy bag. But no, they came in a huge box. Maybe Timberland are so proud of their brand that they want everyone to see to name on the box! I’m pleased to know that my laces are genuine Timberland laces, but a box that size for one pair of laces. Really? God could have made a far more dramatic Easter entrance. But he chose a King on a donkey. And nobody spotted it! Well, maybe some people did for a moment. But pretty soon they’d forgotten. And then a trial. And a beating. And a crucifixion. I’m sure he could have chosen a great bolt of lightening. He could simply have obliterated his enemies. He could have done something so dramatic that everyone would have know who he was and everyone would have bowed and worshipped him. Couldn’t he? Maybe. But he did something far more important. He chose the way of self-sacrificial love. He showed that at the centre of the universe is self-sacrificial love. The self giving of the Son of God. Because he loves us. Because he loves. Because he loves us. And maybe, mostly, we don’t notice. And when we do, we quickly forget. On the cross, he was mocked. Nobody noticed what was really going on. The world was being transformed by self-sacrificial love. That’s what was really going on. No impressive branding going on there! His resurrection was impressive! Nobody before or since has done that! And yet, still, we miss it. Or choose to ignore it. Or find a way round it, a way to explain it away. When I ordered Timberland boot laces, I wasn’t expecting them to come in a box that measured 20cm x 15 cm x 14cm. Maybe, we miss the truth of Easter, because we’re not quite expecting the God we find in the Easter story. Thing is, he wants to be found. That’s precisely why he came. So, maybe we would do well to let the truth of the Easter story speak to us. To let God meet us in his self-sacrificial love, the love without the branding, the love that reaches to you and me and invites us into the bigger and better story of God’s great and magnificent love. Happy Easter!