Facing the muddy path (happy!? new year)

"Mud, mud glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. So follow me, follow. Down to the hollow and there let us wallow in glorious mud"

There is something about mud. If I was a hippo I would love to wallow in mud. That mud has been put there for a reason. That mud has been put there so that hippos can have fun and enjoy the moment. That mud being there makes the hippos appreciate the clean(er) water of the river when they have their daily wash. 

There is something about mud. It's slippy and slimey and there is the continued fear that you are going to get stuck. There are the 'this mud is going to go over the edge of my shoes' diversion through the brambles moments and the 'will my shoe extract itself moments'. 

Apart from in the hollows, mud is unique to a time and situation - it doesn't go on forever, so despite the secret enjoyment in its clarty glory, in moments of mild peril, the knowledge that dry ground is just around the corner makes the mud easier to deal with. 

My knees ache this morning because it's particularly muddy at the moment. I went for a walk yesterday and one of my biggest victories was not falling over in the mud. My shoes almost got stuck, the splashes of mud went a long way up my trousers, my coat is covered in mossy mud from squeezing through the oddest thin person styles you have ever seen and I have cuts on my hands from diving into the brambles to avoid the glorious mud. 

I ache beyond my knees this morning as we come to the end of 2020, a year where, since those first two carefree months, it has been like walking a long path of clarty mud with an end promised, but no idea of when we will catch more than a glimpse of what that end looks like. I ache in body and mind and soul. It's not been the glorious mud that the hippos enjoy because there has been no time (or inclination) to wallow and enjoy the qualities of the mud - this has been the kind of mud that if you stop you will sink - to keep our balance we've had to do some kind of socially distanced dance not around but over the patches that threaten to suck us down. 

Even the most thrive in a crisis people are exhausted by this constant walking through clarty mud. 

It's New Year's Eve, so time to look back and look ahead. It's New Year's Eve and the feeling of wanting to get rid of the horrors of 2020 is strong, but the knowledge that this path laden with mud continues to lay itself before us makes us want someone to invent a new machine that will help us glide across and away from the mud and not have to face the entry to 2021 with the fear of entering Mordor. 

How do we face the unknown of what's next? This is not the time to get excited and play in the mud, but that image of the clarty mud might get us somewhere. 

We need to take it slowly, put each foot down gently, don't rush. The only way we will avoid slipping is testing out the path ahead and we have to do that ourselves - gently. If we are fearful, we need to pause for a moment and breathe and gather our thoughts. If our grips on our shoes are not good enough right now, then stopping for a moment to re-equip is not time wasted. If when we put our foot down it sinks into the clart, our gentle steps will mean we can lift it before it gets stuck. 

We need to adapt, take a different direction for a while, reshape ourselves when we have to climb a stile that has more mud at the bottom and involves some kind of circus performer contortion to get through. Things will look different for a while. That doesn't meant that different has to become normal, but it does mean we have to deal with it in new ways. We might get stuck in the brambles but those wounds will heal and hurt less as time goes on. If avoiding getting stuck means a 2 mile detour, perhaps taking it can only be the best option. 

We need to take what is offered to help us through. If that's being given a break but that break means sitting on a cold, mossy rock, then take it - even if you can't switch off from the mud that surrounds. If that's being given shoes that don't suit, wear them for a while and try and thrive in the uncertain tasks ahead - we're not all made to re-train in cyber but we can try the best with the training available - incessantly being online is not forever. If it's an injection we know nothing about, but is the equivalent of the machine that will help us to glide over the mud, then get that arm out and offer it for puncture - ignore the stories that send you down a deeper muddier path and trust in the narrow stile to a better, less muddy field.

We need to hold onto the hope that this is not forever. The clarty mud will end, perhaps slower than we might have liked, but there will be a moment sometime soon when sitting on the sofa watching Gilmore Girls (or your choice of comfort activity) having had a long hot bath with none of that aching is not just a possibility but a reality. 2021, I hope, will bring the beginning of that process soon. We will have stories to tell, we will appreciate one another more, we will have a lot of healing to do and a lot of trauma to process, but it will come. There is light and it shines in the darkness. 

May your 2021 end better than it will begin. 

“If you’ll hold on to me for dear life,” says God,
    “I’ll get you out of any trouble.
I’ll give you the best of care
    if you’ll only get to know and trust me.
Call me and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times;
    I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party.
I’ll give you a long life, give you a long drink of salvation!”  

Psalm 91:14-16 (MSG)

You are not Superwoman [or Superman]

You are not superwoman [or superman]

This is your advent [daily] reminder to give yourself a break.

As I walked into my kitchen today and it was, frankly, a mess, and I was once again disappointed with myself. I had to remind myself, once again, that I am not superwoman. I asked myself whether I was too tired to tidy up because I was busy or was I just lazy (I mean, noone else is coming in my house, so why bother) and then reminded myself that I wasn't superwoman. 

As I put together my online service today and wanted to spend hours making and editing a video I reminded myself that I am not superwoman. I am only one and as only one I can only do what I am able to do, and what I am able to do I can do the best I can. 

But what I am able to do is not just about capability, it's about being careful too. 

Advent and Christmas is turning out weird this year and the tendency amongst many of us will be to overcompensate by doing wackier and more time consuming things. A lot of us have decorated that little bit earlier, church leaders are getting their creative on but then spending hours and hours doing stuff that although is going to be great, is beyond the limit of what they can do and keep healthy. 

The reality in 2020 is that we have all at some point got to the point where we have had to say, well actually, enough is enough, this is going to break me..... yet we continue to overcompensate for the lacking of 2020 by driving ourselves into the ground. The reality of 2020 is we probably all need a few months off to deal with everything that 2020 has thrown at us and 2021 doesn't sound like it's going to be simple. 

Advent calls to us. Be still, wait up, take care, there is more, just hang on a minute. 

You are not superwoman [or superman], you have limits, and what you can do is not about capability but taking care too. 

Advent calls to us. Just hush a while, put that thing you are carrying down, stop telling yourself you are not working hard enough, sit still and wait, because the one who changes all is on his way.

"Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together....." Isaiah 40:5 

Living in the waiting

It's hard isn't it, 2020? Even with the hope of some sense of kind of normal ahead, the now is just hard. Some days are easier than others. Some days you find yourself sat sighing, wanting to curl up in a ball and for someone to make it go away. Some days your reactions are quite unexpected to the small things that you would normally let pass you by. I'm on one of those days. 

I decided I would dabble in a quiet day. I was going to do it properly, but my brain wouldn't stop thinking about my sermon about peace and I wasn't going to find peace until I began to write it.... so instead I listened to the led sessions and thought a little bit and intertwined it with writing the most badly constructed sermon sentences ever where I couldn't even extract the meaning myself when I read it back.  

It was an advent retreat - a focus on waiting and hope and advent things. As I sat listening I was stumped by the encouragement to think back to January and February - what were your hopes then? we were asked. Hopes dashed are so hard to deal with and the question threw me into a headspace I didn't want to be. I've spent so much time helping others walk through their own loss and look ahead with hope, I realised that there are things that I have lost that haven't emerged at all yet and have the potential to kick me over when I am least expecting it. 

My hopes for moving forward got stopped by the process of lockdown reorganisation. My hopes of walking the Thames path by fears of crowds not wearing masks on the train. My hopes of things changing by everything changing. 

It's not like God hasn't been continually reminding me that there is hope, that things will get better, that this isn't forever - the things he has been doing even in the last few days have been a very real representation of what the phrase 'my cup overflows' in Psalm 23 means. 

But it's just that it has been hard. We're often told to live in the moment, but we're always also told to look ahead and make plans - where will you be in five years time? What are your plans for Christmas? What are your ambitions and hopes for the future? 2020 hasn't been a year of planning, it's been a year of reacting, and in it all, at times, I've felt like I've lost my way. 

Yet God still says, I have called you, I have chosen you, I will lead you by the hand. And I want to ask where to? 2020 has no signposts, just boulders and road closures.  

Today I asked and God answered with this:

"Maybe my desire right now is for you to simply be all you are called to be in the current moment"

As the waiting of advent is all too real this year, perhaps in the waiting we might lean in and say OK then, and be.   

Facing ahead

 

I’ve managed to just sneak in a holiday. It was a holiday that even three days before it began I was unsure it would happen. It was a holiday where I could only see most of my family in almost chance meetings outside trainer shops and gin shops and on very wet walks. It was a holiday of rest and peace full of glorious views and a plethora of rainbows reminding me again and again that this dark cloud hovering will one day disperse and be replaced with the glorious technicolour of life lived in all its fullness. 

Much of my holiday was spent in internet silence with the continuous news cycle replaced by homes under the hammer and Australian traffic police stopping repentant scantily clothed male drivers for not wearing their seatbelts. Whilst the threat of a virus that destroys, divides and conquers was always there in the attempts to escape the shelf emptying shoppers and in the underlying anxiety of facing the unholiday ahead there were moments in the plot line we simply forgot. In our damp cottage surrounded by 1.5 miles of silence we were able to hide from the reality of the story that bites. 

Then in a pause on the journey we waited two and a half hours for the promised press conference and then a little while longer as the graphs that normally fascinate got in the way of the news we wanted to but didn’t want to know. 

Another month and more of hiding, of locking ourselves away, of relying on the internet for all we try and be..... it was not a surprise and I’m quite relieved that some decisions have been taken out of my hands and I’m not angry or upset, just resigned and frustrated as we face uncertainty about endings and trudge into November ready to bed in for the winter. I’m glad it’s come after a pause because the privilege of a pause will help me face it more easily. 

So how do we face this period of gloom ahead? Here are some thoughts..... 

Love. Don’t forget the signs of hope in community that we first saw in March. Don’t forget the neighbour you reached out to, the one who reached out to you. Don’t forget to love. 

Pray. This lockdown is not the same because the schools and colleges and universities are back and teachers and support staff are facing the next month with fear and uncertainty. Pray for them as they are unable to close the door and hide and put themselves in danger each day. Pray for our NHS and all frontline workers. Pray prayers of protection over one another. Don’t forget to pray. 

Give. The emergency support that was available in March is simply not there anymore. Charities and churches and councils are running out of money. Give time - volunteer to help the community. Give space to listen to those who are struggling. Give resources - people still need food and clothes and hope. Don’t forget to give. 

Hide. Having no internet or rolling news is a blessing. It helped me face what I didn’t know about with calmness and less worry. Winter is a time for getting out favourite films and blankets and just being. Don’t feel guilty if most evenings are simply that. Give yourself a break. Bed in. Cry. Lament. Don’t forget to hide when you need to. 

Look beyond. Hope. There is more than this. My holiday rainbows reminded me of that. Hold onto hope of more and better because knowing that this dark cloud will be replaced by life in all its fulness is what will keep us stepping onward in our darkest days. Don’t forget to look beyond.

“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying”. Romans 12:9-12 NLT

I look out of my window - Psalm 121ish

I look out of my window to the trees turning bronze

Where will my strength come from to face the winter ahead? 

My strength - it can only come from God

He made the trees, the earth they grow from, the water that quenches their thirst, the seasons that turn them from green to bronze to bare wood to pink....

He won't let me fall over, he won't let me down. He won't let a truck drive into me like the missing tree across the road. 

God who watches over me, he won't need an alarm clock - even if he's been up all night, even if I have exhausted him with my crying, my God who watches over me will never fall asleep. He won't even powernap. 

God is your constant watching over you companion, your eyes and ears, he is by your side. He will protect you from anything you face - viruses or injury, nasty talk and gossip, your own insecurities. 

He'll even protect you from the strongest sun, shielding you from the rays that burn. He'll shelter you even from the moon in case the moon is something that hurts.

God guards you from all the rocks that are thrown, from all the little virus laden water droplets that hang in the air, from your own mind that overthinks and worries and is scared... he guards your life which is so precious to him.

He guards you when you leave home and you fear what you may encounter. He guards you when get home and the overwhelming feelings of dread wash over you as you deal with what you encountered outside your front door. 

He guards you when you are isolating. He guards you when you feel alone. He guards you when you fear those you live with. He guards you when you fear your own mind.  

He guards you right now, he will guard you whatever you face ahead. He will guard you always. 

I look up to the mountains, where does my help come from?

My help comes from God, maker of heaven and earth. He will not let my foot slip. He will not let me down. He will not sleep and leave me to fend for myself. He will give me all the strength I need. 

He will help me rest. He will bring me peace. 

World Mental Health Day

Today is World Mental Health Day. It's a day when social media is covered in green ribbons and the words 'It's OK not to be OK' and 'If you need to talk I am here for you' are probably some of the most popular if you did some sort of phrase of the day algorithm to work out what people are interested in today. It's a day when we are reminded of the many many people who live every day with mental illness and we are encouraged to see what we can do to support them and raise awareness as well as look after our own mental health. It seems appropriate today then, that I write this blog. 

I live and serve in a community where a number of people suffer with significant mental health issues. For the past 18 months I've been learning on the job how to walk with, support and care for those for whom most days are a challenge and how to try and help them to access the help I've needed. Over the past 20+ years I've been walking with close friends who have faced significant challenges when it comes to their own mental health. Last month I went on Mental Health First Aid Training and I suddenly realised how much learning I have already done when I found I wasn't learning very much new. 

So I thought I would share something of what I have learnt as I have walked with people who have struggled with their mental health. 

1) Everyone is different

Those who have poor mental health are all different. Some are very quiet about it. Some will talk about it all the time. For some it is clear that they are struggling because of the attention they are giving to other people. For some it becomes clear because their attention turns on themselves. Some have back stories so difficult and horrific that you just want to cry and shout. Some suffer because of a result of a traumatic illness. Some are keen to access as much help as they can. Some are determined to go it alone. Some can be really very nasty. Some can be the most compassionate people you've ever met. Some appear to cope so well you wouldn't even know they were ill. 

Everyone is different. On World Mental Health Day let us celebrate one another's uniqueness and look for what support those individuals we know need as we try and walk with one another.

2) The Support offered is not good enough 

Mental Health Services are underfunded and in a right mess. You sit with someone, you talk to them, you ask them all the questions you need to ask. You suggest they need to get help, you try and help them access the help.

Then you hit a brick wall. 

The theory of getting help is there, but the resources aren't. NHS mental health services are stretched further than we thought stretching was possible and the voluntary and community organisations that encounter people in crisis are trying to make that stretch stretch even further. The focus is on emergency care, but without the underlying structures that can effectively help on an ongoing basis, the focus can only be on fire fighting and not healing. 

I have no idea what we do about this - but surely on world mental health day we need to be putting some pressure on the government to fund mental health services properly - that will be more effective in the long term than saying 'I'm here if you need to talk' (although that is still a good and important thing to say). 

3) Covid-19 has affected everything

The pandemic has only made things worse - which is expected. It's not just the closing down of services, it's the confusion in the information. We don't know what support groups are able to run from one week to the next. New guidelines are leaked to the media before they are announced and then the details are not put in place until after the guidelines come in. Music and Arts which are key to so many people's mental health have effectively been side-lined by our Government response and the way ahead looks grim. 

The pandemic has affected the mental health of even the most mentally healthy people, and in amongst that we are not able to do those things that keep us balanced. 

I am not sure what we do about this either, as we need to keep social distancing and following the guidelines when we know what they are, but on world mental health day perhaps we need to consider ways that we can help one another to do things that promote positive mental health within the guidelines instead of holding back from doing anything at all. My choir started back this week and I know it's good for my mental health, I know it is done in a Covid secure way, I know it is allowed, but I also know of people who want to shout at me (stop shouting at one another, please). 

4) Boundaries are Important

We cannot support people with mental health issues if we don't put up boundaries. Set a limit on the number of phone calls, set a day off in stone, set a social media boundary - use the post sharing privacy settings, turn off messenger, leave the groups that get you frustrated, don't walk with people alone. Eat cake (but not too much). Get out in the fresh air. Walk like walking is going away tomorrow (I really hope not). Be aware of your own trigger points and walk away if its too much. 

When your sink is emptied, find someone or something to put the plug back in and fill it to the brim again. 

On World Mental Health Day look after your own mental health. 

5) There is always hope

Committing to support someone who struggles with their mental health is a commitment to a long walk - there are no easy and quick fixes, but there is hope that when the right support is finally found that the way ahead will become easier. For some it will be a rockier road than others, for some the way ahead may be so blurred it seems impossible, for some the management of life and mental health will constantly be a balancing act. 

But

There is nothing more beautiful than standing at a friends wedding hearing her new husband talk of her amazing amazingness knowing the journey she has got to be there. 

On World Mental Health Day find stories of hope. 

6) Walking alongside people with poor mental health is walking in the ways of God. 

I have never forgotten the day that my eyes were opened to the story of Jonah in the Bible as a story of mental health. He faces an incredibly difficult challenge that he doesn't want to be involved in, and so he retreats, he goes down into the depths of the sea, he runs away. The description of Jonah's descent to the depths and the time in the stomach of the big fish could be a metaphor of the experience of someone who struggles with depression. The gentle care that God gave him at that time, whilst still encouraging him to see that there was a way through this and that he could face what life would bring ahead, is an example of the gentle care God calls us to give. He rescued him from the depths, he gave him time to deal with how he felt, he helped him through some effective cognitive behavioural therapy, he showed him a way ahead and he never left him to deal with life alone. 

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand"        Psalm 42:1-2

Be still

As the world around rapidly changes

As nothing seems the same 

Stop and stand for a moment

Be still

As twitter tweets panic

And Facebook shares conspiracy and worry 

Look up to the clouds

Be still 

As every decision is a risk assessment 

As stepping out of the door brings fear

Pause for a while

Be still

As uncertainty rocks normality

As waves threaten to overwhelm

Put down the uncontrollable oars

Be still

As voices around conflict 

As they challenge your existence

Look beyond the horizon 

Be still 

As work demands far too much

But the ways of working are slower

Remember you are just one, only one

Be still

As the new normal promised doesn’t emerge

And as non normal becomes usual 

Be sure that this won’t be forever 

Be still 

Be still and see what God has done

Be still and hear what God has promised

Be still and listen to the stories of goodness

Be still and sing the songs of hope

Be still and know that God is God

Be still and breathe for God is here

Uncertain Tenterhooks

I'm on uncertain tenterhooks at the moment. It's less than a month before I'm meant to be going away for one of my favourite parts of the year - my family annual shindig to the Lake District. This year it looks a little bit different - we've already scattered ourselves into cottages and caravans to ensure that we keep to the rule of 6 and we are not going to be able to spend the time together we would normally do..... but with talk of a London lockdown or a national lockdown, there is a the smell of uncertainty in the air. 

I did my online shop this morning and for the first time in four months there were no delivery slots available. There is talk again of limits on toilet rolls and other stuff and I could only get wholewheat noodles (too healthy?) - signs perhaps that we are trying to gain control in an uncertain world. 

But buying non-wholewheat noodles in abundance isn't going to bring any certainty in an uncertain world (even if we could get them). It'll just mean we will need more storage and will have to negotiate the Ikea queue. 

As we're stretched like a cloth on a tenter trying to find some slack somewhere to make it a bit more comfortable, the hooks that hold us pull us tighter, and something feels like it has got to give. 

As well as the spare room full of toilet rolls, that pulling and stretching comes out in other unhelpful ways - in snappy behaviour, in ill health, in retreating further within. Something breaks and we run right at the risk in front of us and beyond and find ourselves in the middle of a crowd with no way out and the edges of the cloth begin to tear...

This permanent state of uncertain tenterhooks is not good for us. So how do we survive? How do we loosen the tension a little and sit slightly less uncomfortably in amidst in the strain? 

Firstly, we have to accept we cannot control the situation. What will be will be. I don't cry very often, but in the last few weeks there have been moments where I cannot take the lack of control anymore and they've bubbled up inside. I have begun to learn to distinguish the things I can change and the things I can't and am trying to lay them down by distracting myself with other nicer things.... and laughing.... because sometimes laughing is all we can do. If we can laugh in the face of peril, then we are probably doing a little bit OK. 

Secondly, we have to accept that we cannot control other people's take on the situation.  In our frustrations with those who are not prepared to follow social distancing guidelines appropriately - who hug and kiss like it's gone out fashion and think that other people don't find mask wearing uncomfortable too but are wearing them anyway (over their nose) because it's the right thing to do right now. We can't go and force that mask on their face or drag them away from the embrace they are loving, so instead we must walk away, what will be will be, the problem is not ours to own. Choose to step back and not be involved. 

Thirdly, we must, we must indulge in self care. Like putting your oxygen mask on a plane before you give it to the person sitting next to you, there is a need to ensure that we keep doing things that release the tension of the hooks. For me it is walking like it's going out of fashion and releasing my frustrations on an unsuspecting person on the end of the phone or whatsapp or zoom. It's making space for a bath because that's the only time I simply am. It's indulging in my current addiction to Married at First Sight Australia (on All 4 - amazing). It's holding onto the hope that one day this will all be better. It's being determined to be more positive than negative however hard that is. It's continuing with the laughter before it turns more sinister. It's breathing, and breathing and breathing again. 

This practice of pausing, of catching our breath, of refilling, of finding rest, it's a practice that's been there right from the beginning of creation on that seventh day when God rested. In breathing in the rest that God embedded as normal in this world the state of uncertain tenterhooks becomes easier to bear, the laughing becomes more of a natural thing and the pulling feels a little less eye watering than when we are trying to control the tension of the hooks. Lean in, let go.... God is. 

Jesus said this:

"Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace" (Matthew 11:28ish-29ish (from The Message)).

A Covid-19 Lament (Psalm 80ish)

 

Psalm 80ish – A Covid-19 Lament

God listen to us.

You are our Shepherd who we know guards us, protects us and seeks our good.

God, you call us to follow your lead. 

You sit enthroned with the angels, your way is mapped out before us.

 

God – wake up! Wake up and do something about what is happening now. Come and save us.

Restore us, O God; make us better than we have ever been. Smile upon us so that we might be saved.

How long, God Almighty, will this virus continue to rage? We pray and it gets worse not better.

We feel helpless against its might, we cry out, we weep, we mourn. Sometimes we are just at the end of our tether. 

The country we live in is not dealing with all of this well. The mockery of non-compliance seeks to undermine any attempt to control an uncontrollable virus.

Restore us, O God; make us better than we have ever been. Smile upon us so that we might be saved.

You gave us promises. You brought us all here – a light on a hill, seeking to transform your community.

You showed us your way, you called us on, we became something great and we made a difference.

Why have you taken it all away? Why does every piece of legislation pick another hole in who we are?

Every step is an effort, every choice is exhausting.

When will it end oh God?

Turn your face to us, smile upon us, see what is going on. Watch over us….

You created us, you put us here, you gave us hope in Jesus

But now we are cut off from one another, and we do not know where it will end.

May your hand rest upon us, show us hope.

 

We will not turn away from you. Help us to look ahead. We call on you.

Restore us, O God; make us better than we have ever been. Smile upon us so that we might be saved.

Do not grow weary.....

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" - Galatians 6:9

This verse came up on my facebook wall at the weekend and I can't get it out of my head. It came up in the middle of a number of days that have been emotionally draining, both personally and in work. Where I've tried to escape in the last few days, my escaping has been interrupted by things that I wouldn't expect to happen on any normal day. Sometimes the hits just keep on coming. 

So where does that verse fit into this? It's a verse that I and others have used in the past to urge ourselves and one another on - what you are doing is good, keep on going, look at the difference you're making. It's a verse that has been used to encourage people to get through the barrier, to make a way through the wall of tiredness that makes the task ahead seem impossible. 

But it's also a verse that could just tip you over the edge. 

The voices that cry out in my Baptist Minister circles at the moment are ones that take this verse and use it as a reason to keep going, but are at that point of tipping over the edge. The reality of ministerial burnout, even for those who always appear strong and to have it together, is a concept that a number are having to wrestle with at the moment. The voices are crying out "I can't do this anymore", "I've had enough", "the mountain is too big to climb". Do not become weary of doing good has become a reason to not stop, not take holidays, not take rest days, to feed everyone except themselves. The pressure from congregations who want the ministers to have all the answers to questions they are not experts in answering is huge. 

Perhaps we need to pause for a minute and turn this verse on its head. Perhaps we need to let go of the need to focus on the 'do good' and focus on the 'do not become weary'. In churches led by action and programme and never ever stopping ever, perhaps we have come to our limit. 

Galatians 6 says not only verse 9, but also 'watch yourselves', 'carry one another's burdens', 'test your own actions', '[don't] compare yourselves to others'..... 

If we are not to grow weary, then it makes sense that we keep an eye on ourselves and one another, it makes sense that we check ourselves for weariness and do something about it, it makes sense that we don't compare ourselves to others, because it only leads to the myth that we're not good enough. I have no idea how some ministers do what they do, but that's them, and I am me. 

Do not grow weary in doing good calls us away from a life of self-centred laziness, but it doesn't call us to a life of exhaustion. God created sabbath. God put sabbath smack bang in the middle of the 10 commandments. God stopped the world that was full of humans trying to be saviours when the temple curtain tore in two.

Do not grow weary in doing good calls us to rest, it calls us to refill, it calls us to look ahead with a pause to resource ourselves for the way ahead. It calls us to remember that we are here to restore, but that we can't do that if we're lying on the floor and are not able to even crawl ahead. 

Do not grow weary in doing good. 

Do not grow weary, for as you take the path ahead which will bring much good, the possibility for burnout is real. 

Take care of yourselves, take care of your leaders, and make space for rest. That will enable the good to happen. 

Do not grow weary, for God is with us. Do not grow weary, for God calls us in his way. Do not grow weary, for the path ahead is not meant to be walked alone. Do not grow weary, because even though the future is difficult to see, the promise is that the future will be good. 

Do not grow weary. God gives you rest.

Pulling up the rug.....

Some of you might not relate to this because you are of the category of 'super-cleaner' - you always move your furniture and your rugs when you clean so the concept of what I am going to say will be beyond your comprehension, but bear with me..... 

For those of you who do not do that, think about that day you decide to do a more thorough clean than normal and you decide that your rug in your living room needs a big clean and the floor underneath as a result. You remove your coffee table from the rug - it's heavy because of all the stuff inside, so you remove all of the stuff too and pile it up somewhere to be replaced later. As you do so you remember the time you took that photo, the memory of the day you started the jigsaw that sits on top, but never quite got finished. You pick up that book you meant to read and put it on top of the one you've read 500 times. You move the pile of letters that needs filing to another 'to be filed' pile and you remove all the little bits and pieces that are handy to have lying about.....

And finally you get to the rug. You roll it up and discover things you'd put there to deal with later. The letter from an ex that you couldn't bear to throw away at the time. The card that tried to fix a friendship but you couldn't bear to read at the time. Pages from your old journal where you write in detail of the impossibly difficult time you had find their way into your hands and you remember why you hid them because to deal with them at any time would be painful and difficult. In amongst the mess you find an article that you'd kept because it had inspired you to dream big dreams in the past, but you weren't ready to dream quite so big just then. There was hope, but the hope got hidden under the everyday activities of life. 

And of course there is dirt, and there is dust, and all those things that got brushed under the rug you didn't know were there, the broken bits of that mug you dropped on the floor that didn't get hoovered up and there is a lot of cleaning to do..... 

You sit and you look at the mess, the piles around you, and you have a cup of coffee and you sit and you wait, but it doesn't move. If the mess is going to cleaned up, if the ghosts of the past are to be dealt with, if the dreams we once had are to be realised, someone has to do something about it.... 

The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown seems to have created an atmosphere that has shined a spotlight on what is under that rug. In our churches, in our organisations, in our government, in our lives, the things that have been brushed under the rug to be dealt with later or simply ignored because they are too difficult to deal with are being revealed, entangled in the mess we didn't even know was there. As all the activities and busyness of everyday life has been stripped away, what has been hidden beneath the rug has gained a life of its own and is really raising it's head. 

It's led us into all sorts of difference spaces - the blame headspace (it's not my mess), the 'someone else will clear up after me' headspace (I mean it's their job isn't it?), the apathetic headspace (it's not my job definitely and I'm just going to carry on the way I've always carried on), the 'let's unroll that rug again and cover it all up' headspace, the 'let someone else do it and we'll kick them while they do it' headspace ...... but none of that deals with the mess. 

Perhaps this is the time to face up to the mess, the broken bits, the past and do some mending, do some clearing out, do some dealing with, do some healing and when we've done all that, begin to dream those dreams again...... lay down the rug on a clean floor, place on top a new coffee table and step tentatively into a more pleasant, less busy, better future. It might be painful, it might tear us apart, we might ache because the sticky mess in the middle of the floor that we can't identify involves more elbow grease than we ever knew we had..... but something needs to be done, because as the brokenness is highlighted, the mending must begin, the mess under the rug we've been ignoring must be faced before it becomes even greater. 

Moving forward doesn't happen without a new start, forgetting the past doesn't happen if we are going to rediscover it again, put off the old, put on the new..... for that is the way in which we are taught. 

"....take on an entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you" - Ephesians 4:24ish (the Message)


image from here https://images.app.goo.gl/rAF55Zcregi3cqCW9

Are we nearly there yet?

Those long journeys in the back of the car surrounded by books and quizzes and things to spot, the anticipation that one day we could get out of this metal box. The questions begin. 

The delayed train stops in the middle of nowhere, you look out the window and the driver armed with a torch and his bag that should have already been by his front door at home walks to the other end of the train to turn round because the way ahead is blocked. The frustration sets in. 

The top of the mountain seems clear ahead but on arrival at the top the next climb ahead shows the top is much further away and the climb continues. The knees hurt, the legs ache, the end moves beyond the line of sight. 

The empty space sits waiting to be filled with the sound of singing and family, the smells of eating and the beauty of Christ centred community. The regulations and barriers are erected and all that was asked for is shifted to another virtual place. 

At the beginning of lockdown the whole Christian world was quoting Isaiah 26:20. I wrote a blog on it before it became THE verse. The expectation of the numbers pointed to a date 26 days away or 26th April or 2nd June or some sort of mathematical operation to the date of today that would mean lockdown would magically disappear. 

But it doesn’t work like that. The words ‘are we nearly there yet?’ don’t get us any closer. Manipulating the numbers doesn’t bring the magic miracles the manipulator would like. Just because we’re told we can meet for worship it doesn’t mean we can worship in a way that we actually want to......More than 100 days later that instruction from Isaiah 26:20 is still more than relevant - look at the second half of the verse. 

“Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by”

The danger isn’t over, in fact it’s still very much here. It doesn’t say hide until the pubs open or hide until you feel like it, it says hide until it’s gone...... take it slowly, don’t rush, pause for a while. The open door will come.....

In the meanwhile, it's time to discover and to use our imagination, look ahead, look beyond, because there are opportunities ahead we have never dreamed of before.  

Food, Faith and Lockdown

Those who know me will know I am passionate about the role of food in building faith community. The bonds we make around the table are key in building community. Relationships are built, we learn off one another, the table equalises us and we all have to eat. It's central to who I am as a person and in my calling to minister. 

And not gathering around the table has been hard. For us in our church community, food is normally central to what we do. From our community cafe that had just reopened and begun to build in momentum to our mental health support group that ends with a meal to our first Sunday gatherings around the most amazing bring and shares you've ever seen to the impromptu moments in the church building between and around the groups we lead to every meeting where someone will inevitably bring in biscuits or cake or chocolate to our holiday Make Lunch sessions where families come together round the table to share life together in what would otherwise be a difficult time.

Yet now, the only food activity that has continued since our building closed for anything but this very thing is the now twice a week deliveries of food from the amazing charity fareshare to households we support. As we sort the food for the deliveries we make, some of the value of the table is there - the conversations that go on in the kitchen echo with the joy of meals gone by and the opportunities that gathering around food brings for sharing life together are hinted at as we gather round tables to share out food. 

The question of re-opening our buildings and how that will work and what it will look like is hovering in the air. What does church look like post lockdown for a community focussed church without the resources of some of the bigger churches where during lockdown the support needed in the community has been magnified?

And it turns out that actually, the change in our gathering around food has given us some of the answers. In a community where physical presence is key, where internet connection is often on a mobile, where private outside space is minimal and where mental health issues are only going to grow as a result of the trauma we have experienced in the last few months the issues around social distancing in a building to worship are not the issues at the forefront of all of our minds. How do we build community when physically meeting is more difficult? How can we offer mental health support where through the screen we can't tell what the other is thinking? 

In a facebook group this morning, we had this discussion and we began to talk about how food has continued to be a key meeting, growing and life giving thing during lockdown. As we haven't as much gathered, but have paused as we play knock a door step back on deliveries, the deep love of Jesus has been felt in that two metre gap. Where food has been a reason for encounters, those encounters have become beautiful and, at times, essential. 

Often when you meet an individual or family on the doorstep you are the only person they have seen that day. The conversations that are had at that point are often pastorally important, absolutely needed and what my church community calls 'God moments'. One week I spent two hours delivering salad leaves, not because we had a lot (although we did) but because of the conversations we had and along with one of our other drivers who encountered someone at absolutely the right moment, we were able to be church on the doorstep through the moments we had on the way. We wouldn't have been able to have those conversations without the salad leaves. 

At the moment it's in those most needed encounters that we feel the presence of God most deeply. Perhaps post lockdown means building on that. Perhaps food is again the answer, not table gathering as such, because that won't be for a while, but door step encounters in the sharing of food, a moment with a neighbour across (or beyond) the garden fence sharing life, a picnic in the park with however many people is safe at that time, a moment outside the church building with coffee and prayer, an open air cafe, a pause outside a block of flats, a sit on a wall. Perhaps in the cake deliveries, in the church garden meetings, we might begin to feel and become the Christ-centred community we long to be. 

And one day, we will probably gather and we will probably sing and we will very likely sit tightly round tables in the small space we have, but those doorstep moments we have had on the way will enrich us as we speak of the encounters we have had with the deep love of Jesus, as we've not gathered, but stood, with food in between us, an excuse, a reason for a meeting where God's voice could be heard in the two metre gap. 

Calling in a world turned upside down

What do you do when your calling has been turned upside down, twisted and turned, snapped in places and left flailing in a weird liminal space that makes no sense to anyone, and you are trying to work out what it means to be called in a time that doesn't make sense in itself.....?

Someone said to me at the beginning of this pandemic when we had to shut down virtually all our activities that it must be hard for me as a community minister, but at the time I didn't really get it. 

But now I do. As I had begun to find a new identity in a new place it hasn't just been slowly unravelled, the very foundation of who I am has been ripped from beneath my feet. 

And I think I'm not the only one feeling that way. 

Why am I writing this blog? Because I want to acknowledge the pain. Because I want to recognise that this hurts. Because as we rediscover what life is, it's not some utopian dream, it's more like a rocky mountain climb where the top is far beyond anything we can see. As the present seems removed from anything we'd like it to be, where the things that level us and keep us upright are like greasy poles to cling with all our strength to, we've all got to recognise that we are not invincible, in fact we are right now the opposite of that, whatever that is. 

In YouTube algorithm style, the hymn 'Just as I am' came up on my YouTube given playlist. That hymn is so beautiful. The hymn writer Charlotte Elliot wrote it after a charity bazaar her brother held to raise money to provide education for the daughters of clergymen supported by the church. The night before the bazaar Elliot was kept awake overthinking about her own uselessness - she then went on to question the whole of her spiritual life and wondered whether she'd got it all wrong. The next day she remembered that to God, she was more than that and that his grace, his power, his promise overcame all of that*. 

When it comes down to it, however we are feeling, however true we believe we are being to the calling God has put on our lives - it is just as we are that God calls us to him, and it is just as we are we follow that call. 

And he will help us answer that call in all circumstances. Even now. 

Especially now. 

Just as I am - though toss'd about
With many a conflict, many a doubt
Fightings and fears within, without
- O Lamb of God, I come! 

*from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_As_I_Am_(hymn)

Picture from https://images.app.goo.gl/QUreGkT7UupUrdM78

Learning to ride again

This morning I read one of those articles that someone regularly puts up in ministers groups that speculates on what life will look like once what the new normal is is revealed. 

I realised after I read it that I don't want to read articles like this anymore. I don't want to read your musings which are influenced by your own dreams of church about what church will look like post lockdown. I can't do it any more. 

If there is anything this time is teaching us is that we need to wait and see. I remember just before we had to close our buildings and the feeling in those groups was that we had to make contingency plans and I did that but then two days later I ripped it all up and started again because all the social distancing ideas we put in place were not possible anymore. 

If this time teaches us anything it teaches us that we can't be in control of this. We can't predict how things are going to go. We can have ideas, we can have dreams, we can imagine that church will become everything we want it to be, but that doesn't mean that will happen. 

Our future practise will arise from our experience. I believe our call right now is to be reflective practitioners, to listen and to learn from what is happening and adjust our direction to the hand that is tugging us down the path we might not have quite noticed before. 

I was sat in a webinar (hate that word) on listening to God in lockdown on Thursday night after the end of a long day when the things that needed to be sorted in the long day had not been sorted and I was feeling a bit disheartened. One of the contributors (forgive me for forgetting who) used the image of learning to ride a bike. At the moment it's like our stabilisers have been taken off and we are very much trying to find them again to find balance.... but actually maybe our call is not to find the stabilisers, maybe actually what is happening right now is that God is helping us to learn to ride in the way he is calling us without them. 

Those stabilisers (the weekly gathering that grounds us, the routine that keeps us in rhythm) have been taken off completely, not just lost, and God has let go of the saddle as we learn to peddle in the way he has taught us to on a journey that has an unknown destination as yet. Perhaps right now, we just need to learn to ride. When you first learn to ride a bike, it's not to go anywhere, it's to learn to adjust your balance as necessary, peddle at the right pace without getting dizzy, to turn the handle bars when the signs tell you to, to press the brakes at the right pressure and to put your feet down to stop when that's what you need to do and not just fall off because the stablisers aren't there to prevent that falling anymore. 

We learn to ride by getting on that bike, reflecting on our experience when we end up with a grazed knee, and doing it a bit differently next time so it doesn't hurt in the same way anymore. 

Our destination is not in our hands right now, and while we can dream and hope, we can't fix our eyes on anything but the direction that will be revealed over time. Our future holds many possibilities, but now is not time to predict the one route that future will take us down. Now is the time to let that route arise from the steps to which we are called. Now is the time to let that route arise from within the community we serve. Now is the time for that route to be revealed by the one who knows when we will be ready to see the destination.

One of the meditations of the day in the Northumbria Community Daily Prayer talks about how "if you must lead, let it be like the wind and all its unshackled direction". That strikes me every time I read it, and is particularly appropriate right now. 

Now is the time to listen to the wind, because the wind, it blows wherever it wishes. 


Photo from https://www.flickr.com/photos/danbax/8568310235/