Eternal Echoes

Chris- Update/ lessons in letting go...

Thank you to everyone who prayed for Chris again, his leg is much better now and his blood is slowly returning to the right level.

Chris has decided to stay at Cliff College rather than come home; on Sunday evening I was ready to jump in the car and mount a rescue mission..... but that is not what Chris wanted or to be honest what he needed. I am learning that as a parent of an adult with a serious medical condition I have to let go, he needs to know I am here, but I cannot make decisions for him! He has sensibly organised his week so that he can be involved at just the right level, I have to respect and applaud that....

...and I wonder how often those of us with a strong pastoral call want to launch a rescue mission without really listening to the true needs and desires of those we are seeking to help! Sometimes the best thing we can do for people is to let them go forward, enabling growth might well mean stepping back and praying hard! Chris not only wants, but needs to stay at Cliff, he has taken control.... I have had to let go just a little more!

Reluctant obedience? - Lectionary musings John 14: 15-21

I hear the word obey and instantly something within me rebels, I equate obedience with a burdensome requirement to follow rules, to tow the line, to do something I would rather avoid, or even run from!

Even as I shrink back from the command I know deep within that Jesus commands are different, his yoke is easy he says and his burden is light(Mtthw. 11:28-39); he calls us first to be with him (Mark 3: 13-19), his commands centre upon a call to a life-giving relationship not a requirement for slavish subservient obedience. I shrink back because too often I see a parody of relationship played out, last night I watched Channel 4's Dispatches programme where according to Channel 4:

"Hard-line Christian activists are now mobilising believers in an attempt to make an impact on society nationally. Followers believe abortion and homosexuality should be illegal, there should be no sex before marriage and that the law of blasphemy should be strictly enforced.

They say the Bible is the definitive word of God and is literally true and are intolerant of other faiths. The film follows well funded and politically active Christian groups and shows them emerging as a significant voice in British politics."

Whilst I have no doubt that the programme would have been edited to show the extreme vies of these believers, it is "Christianity" like this that makes me want to run a mile, to ensure that others know that I do not think in that way, that I do not believe in the God whom they portray, for it seems to me that their God is filled with hate and lacking in grace; blind obedience seems to be their path, and I wonder who exactly they are obeying.

Yet Jesus comes, asking for our obedience, and promising the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out into the lives of those who would walk in his ways. I know that today I need to step beyond my own apprehension, my own reaction to the word "obey", and to enter fully into a relationship with God through Jesus, allowing him to shoulder my burdens, taking his yoke and walking in his ways, if I do so without disengaging my brain, but with an open and expectant heart I believe that there I will find life, and life in all it's fullness!

Each day and each night, may the wisdom of the Wonderful Counsellor guide us. May the strength of the Mighty God defend us. May the love of the Everlasting Father enfold us and may the blessing of the Prince of Peace rest upon us; now and always. Amen.

Based on Isaiah of Jerusalem (8th century BC)

From the Methodist Church web-site

Picture: My Yoke is easy by Ann Tanksley

       

                        

Archbishop of Canterbury on Saviour Siblings

"Science can tell us what is possible but it is up to individuals to decide what is right, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said ahead of the second reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

Dr Rowan Williams said he welcomes the opportunity for "further serious debate" on the "difficult issues" raised in the Bill.

The opportunity to create "so-called 'saviour siblings'" to help those suffering serious illnesses was "one of the most poignantly difficult areas in the whole discussion," he wrote in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.

Dr Williams said a better understanding of the science involved would help people to make up their minds about some of the issues, but added: "Science in itself is never going to be able to tell us what the right thing is for us to do. It can only tell us what is possible."

He said most people agree that it is morally wrong to use someone else for your own purposes.

"So we condemn rape, torture and blackmail. We don't allow experiments on people's bodies or minds without their consent. And we don't breed human individuals to create a pool of organs that could be transplanted to save the lives of others."

He said non-reproductive cloning raises worries about babies created as 'saviour siblings' with the intention of using their genetic material to help a seriously ill or disabled brother or sister."

More here

Does the Trinity prove anything about gender?

.....not much according to Prof. John Stackhouse, who says;

"Many theologians (I among them) strongly endorse circumspection when it comes to the attempt to use one of the great mysteries of the faith—the internal life of God in the Trinity—to shed light on some other doctrine. Some doctrines do require deployment of the doctrine of the Trinity to understand them properly—most notably Christology, soteriology, and pneumatology. But the question of gender seems to be one of those theological subjects not much improved by reference to the Trinity—as is evidenced by the fact that everyone seems to be able to selectively access this doctrine in the interest of contradictory understandings of gender.

In short, I find this whole line of theological reasoning unhelpful to an investigation of gender. There are lots of good arguments to consider on both sides. But this isn’t one of them."

More here.

Interesting post- I believe he makes a good point, and worry that we sometimes try to turn the Trinity into a westernised nuclear family.... as if we could contain God so neatly!!!

I have questions- Lectionary reflections : Job 38: 1-21

I hear your words to Job,

"Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this."

But I have questions for you…

I have not measured the mountains,

Nor have I fathomed the oceans depths,

And though you cloak yourself

In mystery

I have questions!

.

I want to know why some

Are burdened,

And others walk through life,

With ease…

.

But then I ask myself,

What do I know of real suffering,

I have never been hungry,

Or thirsty,

Or in terror for my life…. ?

But then suffering comes

in different guises...

.

I hear your words to Job,

"Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this."

But I have questions for you…

I have not measured the mountains,

Nor have I fathomed the oceans depths,

And though you cloak yourself

In mystery

I have questions!

Do you hear my cry?

.

Prayer request

                           We've just arrived home from a weekend away, I stayed with my parents while Tim was working (teaching) in a near by town, we came home earlier than we'd expected to though, because Chris has had some problems with his Warfarin medication this weekend which has resulted in extensive bruising on his leg, carrying with it the possibility of internal bleeding. Warfarin can be a tricky medication to balance in people with heart conditions like Chris's, his blood has become too thin, for now the medication has been stopped but it will take time for him to recover. Your prayers would be appreciated.

Lectionary musings- Numbers 11: 16-30

Moses is struggling under the burden of leadership- the word comes from God " gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel"- and in obedience Moses clls them together, and they gather before the tent of meeting.

God then takes the initiative of spreading not only the burden of leadership, but also the Spirit's annointing for the task amongst the gathered elders...

Two of the elders had not gathered with the rest before the tent of meeting, but had remained in the camp, this did not stop them from recieving the Spirit's annoointing and they began to prophecy where they were... a young man disturbed by this reported to Moses, and Joshua, felt that they should be stopped....

Moses reply is interesting, he is not jealous, and he is not interested in seeing the Holy Spirit's annointing stopped in these men- rahter he declares:

"Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them."

We live of course in post-pentecost days, the Lord has poured out the spirit on all flesh, we should expect to see visions, to dream dreams, to experience healing and other kinds of tongues.... but more we should expect to find God at work in the world outside of our churches wooing his people, calling us to see his work and to join in.

Tom Stuckey in his book "On the edge of Pentecost" calls us to look for signs of the spirit rising, signs outside of the four walls of our meeting places, out in the world, for the earth is the Lord's;

Commenting on the reading today Methodist Minister and Chair of Cornwall district Chris Blake says:

Is the Holy Spirit only active in places and in ways that we understand or feel are appropriate? What should be our response when the Spirit seems to be at work in a way that seems to us to be 'out of the ordinary'?

The Holy Spirit will surprise us, working in and through unusual places, people and situations, Lord grant us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to respond.

                                          

Church Times Interview with Gordon Brown...

GORDON BROWN’s commitment to eradicating Third World debt is rarely questioned even by his critics, and has been described as his passion since his party was in opposition. Perhaps if it were not, our interview, marking the tenth anniversary of the 70,000-strong “human chain” for debt relief, would itself have been cancelled.

A few days after Labour’s devastating results in the local elections, Mr Brown looks tense and exhausted, having come straight from Prime Minister’s Questions.

Despite this, and his tendency to drop statistics into the conversation at an alarming rate, the subject still seems to stir up that passion, as it does occasional moments of warmth. He smiles as he recalls his own first attempt at campaigning on world poverty — taking part in the “Freedom from Hunger” Oxfam campaign of the 1960s.

“My brother and I made a newspaper that we sold, like a news-sheet. I must have been less than ten years old. It was my older brother’s idea, really: I was his assistant. The terrible irony is that we are having to run another campaign now, all these years later, because of the food crisis in parts of the world.”

Mr Brown goes on to say:

“We must understand that globalisation cannot work unless we can find a way of including everybody in the benefits of global change. One of the ways we can help people understand they have responsibilities to each other is not simply that what happens in one place can happen in another — like economic change or terrorism — but also that we share similar values, and we share similar beliefs that compel us or impel us to make big social changes.” This is evidence that Mr Brown at least believes that he is practising what his father preached from that Kirkcaldy pulpit. Poverty reduction Some of the effects of debt relief attributed to debt cancellation so far: • Teacher numbers have doubled in three years in Tanzania: more than 62,000 teachers have been recruited or retrained • Primary-school fees have been abolished in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and in rural areas of Benin • In a free childhood immunisation programme in Mozambique, almost a million children were vaccinated by the end of 2004 • User fees have been abolished at rural healthcare clinics in Zambia • New roads have been built in Burkina Faso, particularly in rural areas, Source: Unfinished Business, Jubilee Debt Campaign, 2008 See the full interview here