Eternal Echoes

Grace breaks through

Why "o" why am I astonished when grace breaks through???

Looking around the room at the start of the meeting, and I was concenred by the defensive body language... we took time to pray....and...

... we held a really positive Worship Consulataion, it was obvious that all who attended had prayed, and were looking for a way forward, rather than an opportunity to stand their ground and state their case.

The discussion was filled with grace, and a decision to move forward whilst embrassing the breadth and depth of expression was reached...

God is good!

Guilty secrets..

A new survey reveals just how much women spend on 'secret wardrobes' their husbands know nothing about. Lesley Thomas  from the Daily Telegraph reports                                         

                                                                                                                                                

Every time she walked past my seat I noticed her casting a surreptitious, lustful look at my feet. Finally, just before landing, the air hostess came over and said, breathlessly: "Those shoes are just adorable." Under normal circumstances, I would have received this compliment with sisterly warmth, recognising and bonding immediately with a fellow shoe addict.

It would have been but the beginning of a conversation about square toes, flats, buckles and leather soles that would segue into a debate about the perfect in-flight footwear.

On this occasion, however, my blood chilled as I braced myself for the next, inevitable question. "Where did you get them?" she beamed. In my peripheral vision, I saw my husband's ears prick up like a West Highland terrier's. There was no evading the question.

I leant over to her and mumbled the shoes' designer provenance. "Sorry, I can't hear you," she bellowed. The seat belt signs were on. There was no escape. I cursed myself for taking the aisle seat where the shiny shoes had no chance of camouflage. I took a deep breath and tried to sound unapologetic: "Prada."... read more here

Why is that that dozens, no hundreds, no thousands of women feel the need for clothes and shoes, cosmetics and hair products, are we victims or conspirators, or a little of both???

How do we pursue a healthy self image? Is this related to cultiral pressure and what does it mean to be made in the image of God?

I'd be interested in your comments...

Spiritual questions- qi and the Holy Spirit...

It has been a long day, I did get to my Tai-chi class and spent an hour swimming/ using the sauna, and feel physically much better for it. I also had a chat with the centre manager about nutritional support for stress... all of this got me back to a familiar way of thinking- one that hovers just below the surface for me and occasionally insists on being heard.

Tai chi is a "soft" martial art, it literally translates as "supreme ultimate" its practitioners aim to achieve a yin/yang balance in their lives. Yin and yang are sometimes called male/ female, or possibly more controversially positive/ negative energies. Neither of these descriptions are really adequate to describe the chi or qi energy.

The movements in tai-chi are slow and deliberate, with a focus not on aggression but diversion ( in fighting) and healing when practised as an exercise.

I am fascinated by the concept of chi or qi energy, for although the focus is not directly spiritual there is a sense in which practitioners are encouraged to meditate, to know themselves both grounded and at the same time focused on the heavens, and connected to both heaven and earth.

At the end of the session we performed some self massage to encourage healing/ continued health in our bodies. I have attended a few healing workshops at the centre, and in both experienced a phenomena that I am interested in researching more, it is in some ways related to chakara points and the colours associated with them. We were asked to meditate ( I usually use the Jesus prayer as a beginning mantra) , and then to simply pair up and hold one anothers feet ( yes I know it sounds weird), and to see what colours/ sense we experienced. As I talked to my partner about the colours I saw I correctly identified a couple of issues she struggles with by their relationship to the chakara points concerned.

I find this mind blowing, and did offer then to pray for her, in the orthodox Christian manner of laying on of hands and anointing.

Is this syncretism? Or is it simply allowing God to be God, and moving in the unforced rhythms of grace?

Do we know how and where the Holy Spirit is at work, do we know how connected our bodies, minds, and spirits are? Is there something more holistic about allowing the body and spirit to work together???

Right now I am not offering answers, merely asking questions!!!

                                  

How to become a famous blogger...

now which route shall I take?

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Busy busy....

My family have all been gone for a month now.... oh sorry that's not right for Em and Chris have been home, and even when we've had the house to ourselves  Tim and I have been rushing around almost every weekend, if we haven't been preaching we have had to drive miles to meetings etc...

This weekend will be no different, I have a study weekend and Tim is taking Emma her now mended cello and a dinning room table.

Study and work are competing with one another for space on my desk and in my brain... and depression keeps creeping back to bite me rendering me useless when it comes to rational thought.

I wonder if anyone will notice if I sleep all weekend at Ditchingham??? And why am I thinking weekend on a Tuesday evening?

Tomorrow ( dare I risk making a definite statement?) I am going down to Shining Tree for a Tai-chi class and a sauna/swim, abandoning the computer and the phone and the piles of paper work! I've just remembered, this is a week off, I had booked holiday... I'm off to make a cup of tea and watch Spooks.

                                    

Finding the ancient paths

This is what the LORD says:
       "Stand at the crossroads and look;
       ask for the ancient paths,
       ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.

Jer. 6 :16

What are the ancient paths in the Christian tradition?

I am interested in a survey conducted amongst teenagers in the UK as to what they expect from church, asked where and how they might choose to worship a sizable group rejected thoughts of worship bands, lights and guitars in favour of cathedral spaces, candles, robed clergy and silence.

This was a small group survey and it could be argued that it was not truly representative, but in my experience of listening to people talk about spirituality there is a deep hunger that cannot be satisfied with contemporary music and snappy programmes, there is a genuine need for depth, and for connection with mystery.

The unspoken longing it seems is for God to be more than we could ever grasp, higher and wider and deeper than we could ever imagine.

So often we reduce eternal truths such as the love of Christ broken and poured out on the cross to a series of propositions to be agreed with. How can we ever understand such love?

So often we reduce the work of the Holy Spirit within and around us to a "slot machine" where we pray/ act correctly and God produces the blessing! No blessing- you got it wrong, try again....

We fail again and again to deal honestly with texts that perplex us, brushing them aside or hiding our confusion, we fail to bring a hermeneutic of holistic wisdom, owning ourselves completely with faults and flaws and questions, and so we reduce the text, and reduce God at the same time....

...but the world around us wants more, and the Holy Spirit is pushing against the dam like walls of the church ready to break through upon us as a flood if only we would allow the chink in our armour to show...

... and if we do we might just find ourselves swimming in the depths of the mystery of the love of God who is more mysterious, more holy and more loving than our small imaginations can possibly contain...

... dare we open the flood gates, dare we look for the ancient paths, embracing the mystics, the saints and the prophets of ancient times whose words leave us with more questions than answers and call us to stop paddling in the shallows and strike out for the deep?  For when deep calls to deep, and we allow the call to be answered setting our spirits free we might just find ourselves overwhelmed by the God of love...

... dare we open the flood gates? Dare we ask at the crossroads?

Many of our ancient traditions such as meditation and complentative prayer offer us a way forward, can we seek out a contemporary, and yet non commercial expression?

Releasing truth...

If I grasp a

truth

And hold it in

For fear that it will

Be snatched away.

And

Yet in the

Holding

I loose it…

For truths

Were never meant

To be caged,

Rather they

Should be

Set free

To fly

On thermals of grace,

To grow, change

And become more

Than I could ever contain…

.

Where/ how to worship? Reflections on a question... 2

I have spent a good deal of time today writing up a theological reflection on worship, and the place of worship in the pastoral work of the church. This reflection was prompted by a conversation with an individual and a report I am writing for a worship consultation scheduled for one of our Circuit Chapels.

As I wrote yesterday questions of how and where and even when corporate worship should take place can evoke strong emotions, and I was surprised at the emotions and questions writing this piece has revealed in me!

I am not a cradle Methodist, indeed I am not a cradle Christian, having come to faith through learning to pray when one of my children was born with a serious heart defect. I do not hold tightly to any particular tradition, and enjoy many different forms of worship, and yet the need to be worshipping in spirit and in truth is real, and urgent....

This morning having a rare morning off Tim and I attended a different church- we indulged our charismatic side! It was good to spend a time simply worshipping- connecting with God in song and through music, now I can do this just as easily by listening to Bach, but my point is that the emphasis was not on my filling the air with words but rather on being in relationship, finding a deep spiritual connection too often neglected in a life filled with words.....

Where and how should we worship, let's set aside arguments about form and style, and seek to understand what it means to worship in spirit and in truth...

Jesus answers the Samaritan woman's question about where true worship should take place in a way that surprises her, true worshippers he says will worship in spirit and in truth. Their prayers will be inspired by the Holy Spirit for the Holy Spirit will be dwelling within them, releasing streams of spiritual refreshment and nourishment not only for their thirsty souls, but will they will overflow with life giving streams that will touch and feed others also.

True worship brings us into an encounter with the living God, and we cannot walk away unchanged, we are transformed in and by love if we allow ourselves to be loved, and that is perhaps the key, to drop our masks of self sufficiency, of strength and of morality, to come as we are, to know ourselves loved and to give love in return. True worship is an act of true love regardless of style or form or location...

                                              

My Daughter the professional

  She is doing well: details here . Emma currently has a number of private pupils for both cello and violin and works for Northern Music Services in a primary school where she teaches both violin to a selected group of students, and penny whistle to the whole school. She plays with Durham Sinfonia, and hs formed a Quartet with 3 of the other members. Music has always been very important to Emma, and we are very proud of her!

Where/ how to worship? Reflections on a question...

I listened to her story, as she told me how she was searching for something more, something deeper, a style or form of worship that would set her free.

Worship, what is it? Often when the subject is discussed at Church Councils/ meetings we are discussing what we do in one hour set aside during the week, usually on a Sunday morning. These meetings and discussions can become quite heated and emotional, or should I say these meetings usually become quite heated and emotional...

So often we as individuals and groups spend time and energy defending our traditions and dare I suggest preferences and somehow miss the underlying issue, and the unasked question... we should not be asking so much where and how but why....

Jesus had the question of where posed to him by the Samaritan woman when he met her at the well, it came in the form of a statement....

Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."  ( John 4: 19-20)

A statement to draw Jesus away from the original topic of discussion- herself.... when Jesus had touched on painful and difficult aspects of life she shielded herself with a discussion about worship, flattering him by calling him a prophet.

How often do our discussions about worship, what where and how belie a deeper cry from a parched place within our souls, a place where we know ourselves disconnected from God and are inwardly weeping and raging against this harsh reality?

How often do we look for solutions in form and practise rather than in relationship?

How often does God come close offering us living water that we dare not drink for to drink it would entail owning our dryness and allowing it to show?

These are questions I live with on a daily basis, questions that need more than systematic answers, questions that require us to draw close to Jesus whose promise is that streams of living water will flow from within us as we draw closer to him....

Drawing close to God in the daily things of life, recognising that although we bring our worship to him, it is only real if we can grasp the truth that it originates in him and flows back to him, that we become channels for his glory.

Back to my conversation again C is a busy young mum, who works 3 days each week in a professional job, her life is hectic, and she is often tired. She needs Sunday morning to be an oasis where she can come and drink freely from the well of life, but the form and structure of the Methodist service we offer is not meeting her needs.

I understand- I am a member of the staff team and yet I often feel that way myself, it is easy, and lazy to produce a 5 hymn prayer sandwich which satisfies the majority of the congregation, or at least that is how it seems on the surface.

So, is another meeting called for where we discuss where and how we should be worshipping God, or would it perhaps be better to refocus on why?

What might the question why achieve?

As I think this through I am aware that for me it would wake me up to the wealth and depth of the message I preach, to draw close to God in prayer, to draw living water from his abundant wells and to pour out this water on thirsty ground.

For others in might mean a re-engagement with familiar words, a fresh understanding of the Scriptures and a sense of adventure and expectancy as we come together.

Is this an excuse to maintain the status quo? No I don't believe it is, I believe that it is a re-awakening to the possibilities offered  ever day to worship, and how to celebrate those possibilities when we meet to encourage one another on a Sunday (?) morning.

Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth."

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." 

Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." ( John 4 21-26)

This declaration triggers an open-eyed, open hearted recognition in the Samaritan woman, and she runs into the town calling out to her neighbours, no longer afraid of their criticisms she has been set free by the one who pours living water onto barren land and brings forth life.

Back again to my conversation with C- she is embarrassed as she and her family have been attending another church in the town that more fully meets their needs as a young family. They have not left, they have simply moved on, and have found a place where they are able to worship in spirit and in truth. I find I can rejoice with them, but I am aware that the problem od spiritual thirst may run deeper than she is currently aware of, and may be more to do with relationship with God than lack of lively music.... but as I said, for now I rejoice.....

... for me a question remains; am I worshipping in the flow of God given living water, or am I simply paddling in stagnant pools of tradition? I have a lot to think about.