Eternal Echoes

pre-retreat musings....

Well I am finally off on ordination retreat today, the wonders of Methodism and the differences in the systems mean that I will be ordained 3 years after many of the folk that I trained with, and more perplexing for them is the fact that I have had authority to preside at communion ever since I was stationed nearly 2 years ago.Add to that the fact that I trained on a part time course the training stage of this journey began for me almost 6 years ago, so I might be forgiven for feeling that this is all a little surreal at the moment...

So this morning I've been wandering around the garden talking to the plants (as you do), wondering that the strawberries have chosen the week I'll be away to ripen up, and thinking that I really ought to be getting some of the peas and beans into the freezer. As for the spinach, my family will be left with instructions to eat it, looks like it will be a spinach with everything week! If anything my garden has taught me something about patience,  and I continue to be surprised at the amazing way that a tiny seed will turn into an edible plant, in some cases producing as our peas seem to be doing this year, a bumper crop.

Ordination for me is a step in a long process, right now I cannot explain what it means, maybe retreat will help, maybe not, all I know is that I responded to a call, and I still can't believe where that call has taken me. Some of it has been simply placing one foot in front of another, some has been in the company of friends, and some simply between myself and God and there have been struggles along the way. One Sunday morning, a training weekend I informed the course Principal that I was going home, all credit to him he did not bat an eyelid, just said I'll pray for you; I got into my car, drove 2 miles down the road, turned around and went back, the silent wrestling with God in that was all connected with my own sense of worthiness...

And here is the secret, and it has taken me a long to to arrive at the wonder of it, and that is that for some reason by grace God has called me to this, not that it is higher than any other calling, it is simply what I have been called to. A wise lecturer once remarked that maybe it was because some of us need the discipline of being called to preach or we might get so busy that we'd never open our Bibles (she has a point)...

But the wonder of it remains for me, that God would choose to know me, seeing all that I am, and loving all that I am is immensely humbling and not a little scary. One of the mad things I did this weekend was to go out in the boat with Tim with the express purpose of throwing ourselves into the lake; yes that's right, we went out to capsize; we went because I needed to know that I could get back into the boat, that capsizing is not the terrifying thing that I had got into my head that it was. So we went out, we sailed around for an hour or so, caught some excellent gusts and generally had some fun, and then we went for the capsize....

The water was warm enough, and it was nowhere near as scary as I'd had in my head, though as we started to go over I'd had a moment of panic all was well. We righted the boat but because she was so full of water she sank a bit at the back (transom) and we went in again, the next time she was not so awash so we came up sorted ourselves out and off we went. I think the boat has forgiven us for throwing her in quite unnecessarily, and I think the friend who we'd asked to take photo's has got over the folk telling her how mean she was to do so!

Right now I feel that I am on the verge of a spiritual capsize, and there is nothing I can do to stop it, it is not a bad thing, it is simply that it is suddenly that I am completely in God's hands for these days and I am choosing to stay there. I may sink a bit, I may stay in the water for longer than I'd anticipated, but all will be well...

So by the grace of God I'm off on retreat , leaving my computer behind, taking a couple of books that I might not read, having probably packed far too much (I always do)...

I'm the one the other side of the boat, throwing the jib sheet over (rope)

 

ON RETREAT, well almost.

Back in ten days, may the wind of the Spirit bless you and fill you...

On blessings...

Over the past few days I've been pondering the power of blessings, this follows on from my experience on Sunday morning when offering blessings at a baptism I was inundated with folk coming forward to be blessed and to meet with God. There was a real hunger for blessing present that morning, and it is not the first time I have encountered this; again and again I meet people who feel that God might want to do anything BUT bless them, they know that they don't measure up, they know they have faults and flaws, and many are convinced that God would not want to have anything to do with them. 

Draconian images of a  displeased God are what fills the minds of many, and they don't want to be known by such a God and so they turn away from him unaware that God is in fact a God of grace. As I have been pondering this I have spoken to others about it, and asked about their experience of receiving a blessing from God. Again I met with surprise even from Christians that God might want to bless them, yes they are trying to live as they feel that he wants them to live, but they do not see themselves as blessed.

I returned then to God's promise to Abraham:

¹ The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

 ² “I will make you into a great nation, 
   and I will bless you; 
I will make your name great, 
   and you will be a blessing.
³ I will bless those who bless you, 
   and whoever curses you I will curse; 
and all peoples on earth 
   will be blessed through you.”

"All the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you"; this is not the promise of  a blessing withholding God! That got me thinking about how so often evangelical Christianity asks folk to repent and then to believe, whilst Jesus healed and accepted those who came to him and repentance followed the touch or the blessing!

The folk who came for a blessing last week were responding to an invitation,as I ponder the Spirit led invitation to come for a blessing I am aware that it involved a change in "vision" on my part, these folk are loved by the God who loves me. If I am blessed then I must pass on the blessing, and offering it means choosing to see beyond the surface to the heart that longs to meet with the ultimate lover and creator of our hearts, minds, bodies, souls and beings...

So I am left with a question: Who am I to withhold a blessing if I myself am blessed?

I have more to say, but I am interested in your response!

The Spirit is moving....

Trinity Sunday/ Father's Day brought a baptism Service to Sherburn In Elmet, and a service that was filled with surprises. Again and again I am told that people are not interested in God, that they are far from the reach/move of the Spirit. Again and again I have contended that people ARE interested in spiritual things, that they want to know the God who loves them.

Today I wanted to give those folks a chance to respond to the God who loves them, and they did! When invited to use "Be still for the presence of the Lord" as a prayer they did so, and after the baptism when I invited folk to come up during the hymn for a blessing 3/4 of the baptism party did, and I was moved to tears when one young woman asked me to bless her and her unborn child. I did, and God was with us powerfully.

At the end of the service one lady approached me shaking visibly, it was the first time she had been in church for years, and finally she had been shown a God of love, we prayed, and she wants her story told! 

People ARE interested in God, they want to know the author and perfecter of their faith, the lover of their souls, and s/he wants them to know that they are not only known but loved beyond their imaginings! 

The Spirit IS moving; we MUST respond!

On ordination, and being a chump!

Following a recent conversation via Twitter I am pondering ordination. I am due to be ordained as a Methodist Presbyter on the 3rd July this year (there are still a few more days for the church to rumble me then). Interestingly many of the folk I began training with were ordained 3 years ago as Deacons and 2 years ago as Priests in the Church of England. Another friend has been ordained 4 times, he left the Church of England for the Roman Catholic Ordinariate, a tough decision but one through which he has found peace and integrity.

Interestingly, and challengingly for some of my Anglican friends, I have been granted a dispensation to preside at the Eucharist for the last nineteen months, in fact as soon as I was Stationed the dispensation was granted. Some of my Anglican friends find that problematic...

So what are we saying then? I am personally not, as my friend Mark puts it, a rabid sacramentalist, but I do believe that the sacraments are important and even essential. I have said before that I see through the sacraments the creation of a thin place where earth and heaven meet, in broken bread and poured out wine, in the water of baptism, through the marriage vows and even in the commendation of the departed we find a touching place with the divine...

Do I believe that some folk are called (set apart) o facilitate that touching place? Well yes I do, and that is one of the reasons why ordination is important to me, and why the confirmation of what I see as my call is essential...

But I hold to this lightly, with so many denominations and so many different interpretations it is easy to become embroiled in a bitter argument. As a Methodist and as a woman I am aware that some of the folk I trained with will not accept my ordination as valid, but although that saddens me I refuse to allow it to make me bitter. As I quoted earlier this week the Scriptures remind us " by their fruit you will recognise them." (Matthew 7:20) and so I will press on prayerfully....

What saddens me most however is the way that disputes over calling, and arguments over practice make the press headlines, I am saddened that the gospel is veiled by our silliness, and that we forget the central call to make disciples because we want to be right. But there is hope, another friend who struggles both with women priests and Methodism sums it up beautifully he says: "I have to hold all that I believe lightly, I have to be prepared to stand before St Peter at the pearly gates and to hear the words; " X, you were a chump, but still, you are loved, welcome good and faithful servant..."

Being a chump suits me, and I suspect that I will find myself in good company!

Image by Tim

Pentecost at ground level

Title and picture borrowed from Dave Perry:

she came,

calling us

to wakefulness,

sweeping in

raising us up,

surprising us

with gentle,

yet insistent

power…

+

she came,

blowing away

our doubts

and fears,

brushing aside

our excuses,

filling us

with her gentle,

yet insistent

love

+

she came

purging,

and cleansing,

restoring

and renewing,

unstoppable;

and still she comes,

gently,

powerfully,

wooing us

to life

again…

+

she comes...

she still comes....

Dreaming a dream.... ( presentation to two Circuit Meetings this week)

It is 9:30 am, Tuesday morning, only a few months ago the village would have been quiet, the Post Office closed a year ago and the butchers and bakers are long gone, but this morning there is a buzz in the air, the church has just pulled up on the green while the tables are being set out the kettle is boiling and the smell of coffee fills the air. In the church there are Traidcraft goods for sale and good quality cards and wrapping paper, but that is not why folk are coming; at last they have somewhere to meet again. At about 11:15 am there is a short service, but even when it is finished people want to stop and chat. The church has to get packed up again and on the road, it is due in the next village at 2:00pm....

It is 11:00am, Wednesday morning, the church pulls up in the busy super-market car-park, the kettle is on again, and today it is offering a prayer space, the "driver" and his assistants are there to chat with folk. People drop in and out all day until 3:30pm when it is time for Messy Church.

On Thursday the church is on the road again, a repeat of Tuesday in different places. It will stay in the second village until the evening when  it will become a drop in Cafe for the youth in the village, invitations will be handed out because there is a plan to show a film there next week...

On Friday the church is being transformed for Saturday's village fete/ town gala, there will be prayer stations in the van and a fun area just in front of it. A programme for Saturday has been arranged, starting at 10:30am with an open invitation, the kettle will be on again, and plenty of folk will be available to chat. At 11:30 am there will be a meditative service, at 1:00pm fun and games Messy Church style, by 2:30pm all will have changed again as folk are invited to pick a favourite hymn, tea and cakes will appear at 3:00pm and a labyrinth will be laid out on the grass where the Messy Church-goers parachute had been...

On Sunday afternoon the church is out again, pulling up onto another village green where once again chairs will be set out for a Songs of Praise Service...

The next week Tuesday and Thursday look the same, but on Wednesday it will host a book group at the request of some folk in a village where the library has closed and the folk there want somewhere to meet and chat and swap paper-backs! On Friday it will be out again... the possibilities are as ranging as our imaginations...

BBQ's, Family Fun Days, a Mobile Meditation Centre.... 

A church with wheels, and a diverse congregation....

 

 

a question of anthropology?

In my last post I talked about women and leadership and how it is that some Christian groups insist on arguing that, as my friend Pam puts it "ontologically equal and functionally subordinate" in her view a fancy way of saying simply separate but equal, and that puts a whole new slant on the meaning of equal!

She also raises the questions: " Are there categories of people who God views as inferior to others?If the answer is "yes", then we start trying to figure out who God thinks is inferior and we can come up with a whole range of answers which jive with our own prejudices..."

The thing is that people are always categorising other people, it is a trait of humanity to define ourselves as normal and then there are others. We define others by gender, sexuality, colour, race, creed, religion,wealth, poverty, ability and disability... the list goes on...

My son recieved a letter today from a Bible College that shall remain nameless, offering him a place on a MA course, it went on to add that he must find a suitable ministry to be involved in, adding that "folk like you" might find the job centre helpful. Folk like you was a reference to his heart condition and complications following surgery that have left him with a limp! It seems that although they found him a suitable candidate for an MA they needed to offer him advice about job seeking, perhaps they thought that "folk like you" would not have thought of that...

Needless to say he has turned them down, they were patronising in the interview and continued to be so even in their offer of a place...

But all of this has made me stop and think, who are the people I define as other, and the answer is probably those with whom I strongly disagree on matters such as sexuality and gender, ability and disability, race, creed, poverty etc, etc...

I can only pray; Loving God help me by your grace to see others as you see them...

 

Being a woman in leadership...

 
Over at his blog 42 my friend Dave is talking about the New Frontiers stance on the place of women in the church, another friend Pam recounts a recent experience in an interview where bias against her as a woman was thinly veiled...

Again and again we are told that we are making a fuss when we bring up the issue of gender and leadership in the church, but again and again women in leadership meet obstacles (and dare I say it they are usually men).

Obviously my own denomination has no problem with women in leadership, my Superintendent Minister is a woman, women are District Chair's and this year both the President and Vice-President of Conference are women, and I have no doubt that like me they find that on occasions their voices are dismissed, in fact worse, they are dismissed not because they are incapable or incompetent, but because of their gender.

Bias against women in leadership can make ecumenical relationships very difficult, a previous minister in my position was treated extremely rudely by folk at a joint service, one woman came up to the communion rail as if to receive communion looked her in the face told her she should not be there and walked off. In the same village I was recently assisting at a funeral with the Anglican Priest and was told by another parishioner that I had no place in his church. That said I am welcomed in two of the other villages I work with as the reception for women in leadership is not consistent, even within my own inclusive and egalitarian denomination it is not impossible to meet with folk who support male headship!

So what to do? Well frankly I choose to simply get on with it, the Methodist Church has recognised my call to Presbyteral Ministry just as it recognises the call of women to all forms of leadership within the church. With this affirmation and support and by the grace of God I seek to minister to those who will accept the ministry I offer. I firmly believe that if my calling is valid that it will produce good fruit:

Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?

    ¹⁷ Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

    ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

    ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

    ²⁰ Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them. (Matthew 7: 16-20)

In the places where I am not received I will not push or argue to be accepted, I will simply move on, for I have plenty of other things to do, as Dave rightly points out if I took to ranting about unfairness and inequality I would be heard by those who support me and dismissed by those who don't, but that does not mean that the issue is not relevant or important. Like Pam I have been a member of a church where women were not encouraged to be leaders, I have been told I am stealing my husband's ministry, that I should bake cakes rather than preach, that I am harming my family, the list goes on, and those are not small obstacles to overcome, the undermine a God given call and can make it difficult to step into.

For women within the denominations where male headship is taught and practised this may or may not be an issue, some (it seems) happily and even gladly accept the teaching, but others are clearly oppressed by it, and it seems odd to me that a woman can be, for example, a Headteacher but will not be allowed to speak in church on anything other than "women's issues". Then of course there comes the question: what are women's issues? Well one particular church I attended in Texas concentrated a Bible Study on Esther's beauty treatments and special food almost completely ignoring the remainder of the book! The point being made was that we should spend time making ourselves beautiful for, and therefore acceptable to our husbands! I did not go back to that Bible Study group...

So what can I say? Where there are women who are feeling oppressed by and questioning teaching about male headship, I cannot be silent. To be told it is a sin to ask questions is no small matter, to have your voice dismissed and silenced is to suffer abuse, and perhaps especially so when that abuse comes from other women! So I have to say that I believe that the teaching of New Frontiers on this issue IS WRONG, I do not find support for this position in Scripture, and where folk point to specific teaching they almost always take the teaching out of context. New Frontiers are not alone however, we must not dismiss the struggles in the Anglican Church nor in many other denominations when it comes to the issue of women in leadership....

I could go on, but I have many other things to do today, such is the life of a woman in leadership...

 

In honour of Father's Day...

In honour of Father's Day we are trying to see how many of you are willing to change your profile picture to a photo of your Dad and keep it there till June 19th. I did and so have several others. If you like this idea, please repost this to your status so everyone gets the word and see how many Father's show up on Facebook...

My Father will not be showing up on facebook...

My relationship with him was disjointed,

I do not remember many good times,

I remember drunkeness,

I remember arguements,

I remember violence,

and absense...

My Father will not be showing up on facebook...

though I did love him,

and I know that he loved me,

 our relationship was

sad,

and complicated...

BUT

I have a step-dad

who restored my hope,

and a surrogate dad

who showed me God,

and I have a Father in heaven

who loves me

more than life..

and

though my relationship

with my earthly father

brings

regret,

it cannot

overshadow

LOVE,

for LOVE

cannot be

quenched,

AND

I AM LOVED!

I AM LOVED...