The Manger Exposed

To be vulnerable means to be exposed to the possibility of physical or emotional harm.

We see it everywhere, all the time.

I saw it as I walked past a little one sitting in his vest on the woman’s knee, his round cheeks flushed red, waiting for the medicinal effect of the Calpol to kick in.

He sucked pathetically on his dummy, crying half-heartedly, and clearly feeling very sorry for himself.

Take Heart Daughter

It takes a minute to figure out what I’m looking at.

Feet.

My nose automatically wrinkles in aversion to the men’s bare sandaled feet in the picture but I keep looking.

A hand.

If I’m looking at feet on the ground then why can I see a hand?

A thought that begins with a book club and ends in tears.

It was my first book club experience.  Normally if I talk about a book that I’m reading, extolling the wonders of the written word, people’s eyes glaze over - it’s a very one sided conversation. Not so at book club, sitting on squashy leather sofas in a café in Belfast, waitress on hand to supply tea, coffee, and caramel squares, whatever a book club attendee may require for his or her comfort.

The Drowning Undercurrent of Love

‘Mary saw all that was passing in the other’s mind: no, not all; all the hostility, the disappointment, the disapproval, the unhappiness, she did see; but not the undercurrent of love, which was strong enough to well up and drown all these, if only time could be allowed for it to do so.’

Anthony Trollope, ‘Doctor Thorne’

A fabulous quote from the pages of Anthony Trollope’s, ‘Doctor Thorne’ - a book that I’ve been reading since August. More than six hundred densely packed pages which I am enjoying (apart from the political electioneering stuff) but I have resolved to not pick up another book until I’ve finished it. I forbid myself!

If you see me reading it anywhere, please do not disturb me!

However, I’ve closed the book just for a little while this afternoon so as to mull over these few words.

The brace position for Christians

So the first week of September is just what I thought it was going to be. September will never take me by surprise. I will never begin the month with an expectation of calm transition from holidays to work. It’s a bumpy ride.

Brace, brace, brace!!!

We’re feeling the impact of early mornings with a new school routine involving buses, loaded schoolbags, traffic jams and diversions. New timetables, homeworks, and the dreaded backing of books.

First week nerves, mishaps and mistakes all make for family tension. Throw in extra late nights at work, meetings at church or school, music lessons, social get-togethers, Bible studies and we’re going to have four tired people by Sunday and a week will have flown by.

One Sunday to the next Sunday.

And I suddenly realise that it was on Sunday that we assumed the brace position.

Seasonal Fruit

The kitchen smells so good right now. The aroma of cinnamon, fruit and sugar coming from the oven makes me want to stick out my tongue just in case I can actually taste it.

Fresh, ripe plums straight from Val’s tree and into the oven to make a cake. A birthday cake but also an end of summer cake. A reminder that there are lovely, beautiful things to enjoy at the end of the summer holidays. I need the reminder.

My head is only slowly emerging from the summer sand, to accept the fact that it is very nearly September. I’m right at the end of the exhale and have no choice but to inhale deeply because a new season is just around the corner.

So instead of denial, instead of closing my eyes and waiting for the busyness, the routine, the have-to’s and the must-do’s to hit, I’m going to be thankful for the fruit of the season and to try and look forward to the new growing season. To not be so negative and embrace the fact, that every season has a beginning and an end. Every season has its own rhythm and special flavour.

So we’re having plum cake tonight, remembering that God makes good things grow in every season, that there is more to look forward to. There will be more fruit and cake of a different variety to enjoy and be thankful for because God grows fruit, lots of it.

Amen!

The Churchyard Cat

I am not a grave visitor. It’s not something I feel compelled to do in order to remember the dead. I know others regularly visit graves of loved ones to lay fresh flowers, clean headstones, trim grass, pull weeds and remember but personally, I find it more upsetting than helpful. So far in life, it’s not something I choose to do.

I do like church graveyards though. I like the still, peaceful atmosphere. I like the dark, shady yew trees and rambling ivy. The narrow grassy paths between rows of headstones. Benches set in quiet corners. I like reading the names and dates on the headstones, the Scripture verses, quotes, or lines of poetry that people have chosen. I like wondering about those people, who they were and what happened to them. 

I wandered the graveyard of Holy Trinity church in Headington, Oxford on holiday in England recently. It was a deliberate wandering, as it’s the churchyard in which C.S.Lewis is buried. The church is tucked away down a narrow residential street that I don’t suppose you would easily happen upon, unless you had set out intentionally to find it as I had.

It must once have been a more rural area but houses squeeze right up to the gate now and it seems like the church is in a strange place even though it was there first, rather than the houses. I’ve since browsed the church website where it says they have described themselves as ‘The Village Church in the City.’ It does have an incongruous feel to it but as soon as you walk through the gate, churchyard quietness takes over and the imagination doesn’t have to stretch too far to picture yourself surrounded by English countryside.

I had a look at the information board just inside the gate, which points out where to find the few memorials many visitors will have come to see. It’s not hard to find the Lewis grave, it’s not a big cemetery. Past the small, stone church, off to the left, and in the second row under a tree, lies the large, flat, memorial slab with the engraved names of Clive Staples Lewis and his older brother Warren Hamilton Lewis.

It was a totally unexpected and strangely emotional experience. Why should I cry for someone I never met or knew? Why would this be anything more than curiosity about a person whose books I have read since childhood?

I’m not the only person to do it. On the gravestone were several single flowers and quite a few pine cones set carefully around the names and dates. At the bottom right hand corner were two handwritten notes, the sodden paper ripped, and the ink smudged. It was those personal notes that really moved me I think. ‘

‘Dear Jack,’ began one note, ‘Thank you for Narnia. I can’t wait to meet you in Aslan’s country. Your friend _’

The other was addressed to ‘Mr Lewis’, ‘Thanks for your contributions to academia’. The torn paper meant that most of the rest of the text was missing apart from the words 'goodness' and 'beauty'.

People have been so strongly moved that they need to express themselves in response to Lewis, even though he cannot hear them or read their notes. 

In reading his books, people feel connected to him because it’s not just about the books, it’s about the person you are connecting to via the book. The person on the other side of the pages who lets you get to know him as he writes, who chooses or even at times is compelled to open himself up and allow himself to be known through his own words.

It made me think that if a human being can do that, if one person can touch the life of another, regardless of place or time through the pages of a book then what can God do? What does he do through his book? We are able to open the pages of the Bible and personally get to know the author, to be connected to him, to know him.

And it doesn’t matter how many editions or translations are published. It doesn’t matter which one we personally prefer because the author speaks Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, King James English, modern English, any language you can think of in the history and future of the world. This writer cannot be confined to a single era, a single language, a single leather bound cover with gilt page edging and red gospel text.

What do we do in response? Are we so moved by this author that we want to express ourselves in some way, to let him know how much gratitude we feel for what he has done? Do we want to tell him that we are his friend and that we look forward to meeting him face to face one day?

What a travesty that instead of having our minds and souls opened up to the wonders of meeting the ultimate author, we close ourselves off from such friendship, that instead of our own lives being so affected and profoundly changed by the experience of this meeting, we use his book to hurt others, to dehumanise, and criticise. Instead of being the intersection of relationship and expression of love, the Bible becomes almost weaponised.

I read the books of C.S.Lewis and those of other beloved authors because they open doors of my imagination, they speak truth with openness and honesty, they encourage me to question, to wonder, to think and ultimately I believe they move me closer towards God and those are surely the best kind of writers. They learned their craft from the Master of words.

As I passed the notice board again on my way out, a ginger and white cat padded towards me. I bent down to stroke him and say hello. I thought of ‘The Horse and His Boy’, when Shasta spends a night amongst the desert tombs with only a cat for company and Aslan tells him at a later meeting, ‘I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead.’ I smiled to myself and to the cat winding itself round my legs, there amongst the tombs of Oxford.

Jack Lewis isn’t here but Aslan is.

Beach work

‘Sand is made from all those little pebbles and stones and shells being ground down by the sea over a really long time. Eventually, this will all be sand.’

And with that said, I came to the limits of my geological knowledge.

A year of Blogging

Hold on to these verses with me. Let’s hold tightly to them together.

It’s been a year since God clicked caps lock as he typed these words into my mind and onto my heart. He underlined them, highlighted them and then pressed CTRL B.

Return. New paragraph.

He typed one more word.

3 thoughts on prayer

 ‘Go out deeper,’ he said. ‘Go further out into the waters of faith.’

The words of the preacher were a call to me that night long ago and a restlessness of spirit was stirred up. As I put my foot forward beyond the shallows, I could feel the tug of the ocean tide. The vast, immeasurable ocean that is God’s love draws us and I think restlessness is sometimes a gift of the Spirit.

Books for the summer hols

It's summer holiday time at last!!

No school runs to do, no packed lunches to make, and no organised routine to abide by.

Exhaling happily.

Best of all, extra reading time so, here’s my to-read list.

Simple and Elemental

‘I like you.’

In the middle of a busy day, surrounded by children and all their accompanying noise, a three year old boy said these words to me and it made me stop in my tracks.

I mean, how often does anyone say that to you?

What can you do but smile? It’s so disarming.

His simple, transparent honesty was incredibly endearing. A heart-warming moment that could easily have been missed. Isn’t it far too easy to get caught up with organising and cleaning and disciplining and teaching little people? The frustrations, the push-your-button moments, and the unbelievable mess they are capable of making in an unbelievably short space of time, driving you to the brink of sanity and then…………….

‘I like you.’

And suddenly all that other maddening stuff, just melts away.

It’s not something we big people say. It’s not something we do.  We don’t retain the straightforward relational simplicity of childhood. Conversations take a sharp turn into awkward, self-conscious territory. We shift uncomfortably and don’t quite know how to respond.

Jesus said, ‘Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom.’ (Matthew 18:3 Msg)

He said it to the disciples who are asking about rank order in God’s Kingdom. Messy competitiveness, jealousy, a jostling for position, fraying of friendships and fracturing relationships. Anything but simple!

Jesus answers by calling a child over to stand amongst them and tells them all to go back to square one.

As that small child stood, perhaps shyly, in the midst of all those adults, what did he or she see in their faces when those words were spoken?

Puzzlement? Incomprehension? Shame?

The flat ground in square one puts everyone on the level.

The only person who can and does stand above us, taking the highest honour in God’s kingdom, is the only person who knows best how to live with a child’s fresh, simplicity of heart. It is anything but a slight thing, when he loves us.

It is the most profoundly moving and life transformative moment when we stop and actually listen to him telling us,

‘I like you’

‘I made you, you are mine’

‘You are precious to me.’

‘You are my child.’

‘I love you’.

We are disarmed.

Become.

So there we stood. One big person. One little person. Thirty eight years my junior and he was doing a much better job of being present in the moment, speaking simply and honestly. A disciple being pulled up short and humbled. Back to square one it is.

I imagine the conversation changed as the disciples all moved off. When we hear Jesus say words like that to us, how does the process of becoming begin?

Do we become more able to face each other and speak with sincerity without the need to dissemble?

Do we become more able to turn to the person beside us and speak words of love, encouragement and affection?

Do we experience moments of true personal connection because we are deeply and personally connected to Jesus?

The letters of the New Testament give evidence that yes we do. Those first disciples experienced and went through the process of becoming simple and elemental again. They rank high in the kingdom of God.

Children looking up at the face of Jesus.

Benches

Be at peace. Rest a while.

It can be a disappointment when you follow a path only to discover that it leads to a dead end.

Dead ends make you feel  a bit cheated. A path should take you somewhere instead of ending abruptly, leaving you seemingly nowhere. A sense of expectancy or adventure can turn into annoyance at simply having to turn back.

At the end of this path is a bench.

You haven’t arrived anywhere in particular, the path simply stops but you’re invited to sit down. If you take up the invitation, you then immediately wonder why you did. All you can see is the path you’ve just travelled along and the scenery of a dead end which really isn’t all that attractive, at least not at this time of the year anyway. The trees are still mostly bare, the ground is very damp and soft underfoot, there is no scenic vista, and there is no apparent reason for this to be a place to have either travelled to or to spend any time lingering.

Pointless, slightly frustrating, a waste of time until…

you close your eyes.

and listen.

By not concentrating on what you can see, you become more aware of what you can hear.

A bubbling stream. Chirruping birds. A sighing, gentle breath of air. Sounds of nature that help ease out the tension in your shoulders, encourage you to inhale a little slower, a little deeper, soothing mind, body and soul.

Maybe there is something worth paying attention to here after all, and in order to notice it, you have to stop moving, and stop concentrating on just the path.

Our focused, determined strides don’t always take us where we intended. Life can be full of dead ends. Pathways that don’t seem to have led anywhere at all.

We come to the end of our energy. The end of our ideas. The end of our plans. The end of our theology. The end of our prayers. The end of ourselves and we find a bench waiting for us in the spot.

What if we stop for a moment, sit down and wait before moving on.

What if God is inviting us to sit down for a little while, to close our eyes and simply listen. What if he has been walking beside us the whole time and he has made sure that there is a bench at the end of the path. A spot for us to simply rest, breath, and listen.

The soft cooing of a gentle dove ministers to our spirit, the soughing of a holy wind through the unattractive bare branches of our thoughts clears the mind, and the sound of living water that flows from the deep places reminds us of all that is pure and true.

Eventually we have to get back on our feet and keep walking, sometimes backwards, sometimes forwards but whichever way it is, there will surely always be a bench when and where we need it.

Shelter

Last week there was sunshine and some warmth. We were turning off the central heating, drying clothes on the line, and going for walks in short sleeves. This week, we’re back to rummaging through the bag under the stairs for hats and gloves. A bitter wind blasts faces and knuckles as we pass one another on the street and joke about the weather.

Waking up each day, of each passing week, we don’t know exactly what’s coming our way. The weather perfectly reflects the nature of life. It’s unpredictable, changeable, and constantly reminding us that we shouldn’t take anything for granted. Sometimes we bask in the goodness of life and all its pleasures, while at other times, we are bracing ourselves against the icy coldness of difficulty and suffering from ‘inward toil and dejection’, as Amy Carmichael puts it.  

Signs

Walking through the park, the trees are still exposed frames standing stark against a dull grey sky. Their architectural frameworks are ready and waiting to bear their load of bud, blossom, flower and leaf. It’s still a cold breeze blowing across the open football pitches, making you regret not having a pair of gloves in your coat pocket. Dogs race over the grass and track muddy paw prints across the tarmac path. Deep puddles still lie in indentations of the ground on either side and there is still the possibility of a thin film of ice hardening the surface overnight.

Waiting in the silence for Sunday

The Journey:Daily Meditations for Lent, John Pritchard, 2014

‘It’s Friday but Sunday’s coming!’ It’s all over social media today. It’s Good Friday, I get it. Of course I do. Don’t worry, this is not the end. We know what’s going to happen. We've read the last page, the ending is amazing and we’re going to cry tears of joy, not grief. Hold on because Sunday is coming!

Judas, Bonhoeffer and Jesus

Sometimes you read a book and you know that it is going to stay with you for a long time.

This is one of them. It goes on the list of ‘books well worth making the effort for’.

I don’t know anything about Eric Metaxas the author, apart from he’s American, and he’s a writer (although a cursory glance at his website says he has other strings to his bow) but it’s not Metaxas I’m interested in, it’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Being Disciples

During Lent this year, I’ve been reading The Journey by John Pritchard. Written imaginatively from the perspective of John, you travel with Jesus and the disciples as they journey throughout Galilee, and of course they will eventually make their way towards Jerusalem where the story will take its horrifying turn which distresses and saddens us even though we know the ending. 

Every day you pick up the book, you are simply walking with the disciples. It’s not offering profound and deep insights or detailed commentary on Luke’s gospel, it’s just waking up morning after morning and seeing what happens on the journey with Jesus. The conversations, the stories, the people, the miracles, the debates, the emotions, all while we are walking. We go here today, we eat with these people this evening and we lie down to sleep in this place tonight.

Wild Worship

Apparently the beach was ruined, no longer deserving of its Blue Flag status. The west coast of Ireland is dented with myriads of beautiful beaches and this particular one lies at the foot of Croagh Patrick in Co Mayo. A storm had thrown tonnes of stones, rocks and pebbles up into large mounds along the sand, the dunes were steep faced, uprooted fence posts lying around like driftwood, and the white painted lines of a car park buried under all the debris. The wild Atlantic had violently smashed wave after wave onto the land and altered it beyond recognition.

Ordinary Sanctification

I got a text message from a friend today. Right in the middle of an ordinary day, doing all the usual ordinary things, someone said,

I’ve prayed for you.

Heavy Basket or Easy Yoke

Hoisting the heavy shopping basket up onto the shelf at the end of the checkout, I stretched my arms, regretful of once again not having used a half-trolley instead. The man in front of me, most likely in his seventies, shuffled a few items forward on the conveyor belt and politely offered the little bit of space to make room for my groceries.

A pebble heart

A 'pebble' found by a friend on Facebook over the weekend! 

Take courage and wait for the Lord this week.

Posted by GirlfriendsInGod on Saturday, 16 January 2016

Moments of Hesitation

At the outset of a new year, change appears imposingly on the horizon. Like the floods created by the torrential January rains, it lies across your path and before you take another step forward, you hesitate.

A Year of Words

‘Reading is a gift, but only if the words are taken into the soul – eaten, chewed, gnawed, received in unhurried delight.’  Eugene Peterson