What, no doughnuts?

Free doughnut? Yes please…. Well just sit here for a while and I’ll get you one…. 

There was a thing when I was at uni when you put an event on with the Christian Union (CU) that if you wanted people to come then you offered free doughnuts and people would just come. I remember a discussion about whether it was ethical to put up posters that said ‘free doughnuts’ without any sign it was a CU event - if you give someone doughnuts they’ll be happy to sit through a gospel presentation. (I’m not sure my CU did quite that kind of event - we were, I hope more up front about who we were). The whole thought of an underhand way of getting people to come and sit in a room and have beliefs thrown at them is a bit reminiscent of the timeshare ‘come to my party’ invites of the later 20th century - when you got there it turned into a ‘buy a bit of a curtain in this holiday home’ sales pitch and those who were not interested felt duped…. or being accosted by someone on New Street in Birmingham asking if I want to do a personality quiz (yes please I love quizzes) and inviting me in to a building to discover what Christian Science (or some other strange organisation) could do for me. 

I’d almost forgotten about all of this until I went to visit the well dressings in a Derbyshire village. Well dressings are a traditional Derbyshire thing where community groups decorate wells - the origin is in giving thanks for the water. The designs are beautifully made from petals and the way in which they are made and the thought that goes into them is fascinating. Interested in their story and how they are made I was happy to see that there was a video on in the parish church about the well dressings. We’d missed the beginning but it was good to go in half way through. 

The well dressings have a clear link to Christianity, given that over the years each well dressing in each village or town is generally blessed by the local clergy and are giving thanks to God for the water and that the themes of the well dressings are very often faith based - including Bible verses and stories and Biblical themes, and so you’d expect there to be some exploration around the Christian nature of the well dressings. 

But what happened was not quite what I expected and threw me a bit, and took me back to the time of free doughnuts as a mask for some sort of 3 point clever talk around what makes up doughnuts and how that relates to Jesus and all of that (doughnuts have a hole and it’s a bit like the hole in our lives). 

On going through the door, we were directed to specific seats by a man in a raincoat. There were two couples in the church. The film was made during 2021 and was talking about the well-dressings pre covid and the pictures of the number of people in the village were far removed from the few people around on that day. The film finished with a little bit of a description of the faith behind the well dressings and as I thought about getting up to find the light outside again the man in the raincoat got up to the front and threw at us a full on evangelistic message with accompanying powerpoint. 

And you know what? Me, a Baptist minister, felt really uncomfortable. I just wanted to escape. There was nothing in what he said I disagreed with but it was the way he said it. It felt like it all was being forced on me. 

On leaving we were offered (if we wanted to know more) a copy of John’s Gospel and a chat. I swiftly moved beyond the offer. 

I’ve been chewing over why it made me feel so uncomfortable over the last few days. Why did I just want to escape? 

I think it’s because I felt like I was manipulated into listening to something beyond what I asked for - the extra talk at the end wasn’t necessary - it took the whole thing a step beyond…. To leave it with the video and to hand out John’s gospels as we were leaving would have been just about enough. The style was old fashioned - we don’t sell time shares in that way anymore, and free doughnuts don’t come with conditions. 

I don’t believe it was what Jesus did either - yes he preached, he talked, he told stories - he sent out his disciples to do the same, but they weren’t told to hide who they were until they had a captive audience, and they were told if people weren’t interested then to move on. He sat down with people at tables, he gave out invitations to follow, and accepted invitations into others spaces. He showed in word and action the good news he was and is and as he sat down with others and ate doughnuts (or something similar) he met them where they were at. 

So I sit in tension - as I am pleased the message of Jesus has been shared with those who were in that church, I just wonder if it could have been done in a more gracious gentle way, and I wonder if an opportunity to love has been missed. 

Free doughnut anyone? 

Insect Encounters

In the last week or so I've travelled north - first north of the river (I've discovered since moving to London that if you travel north of the river it's like you've travelled to a foreign land - it does take forever to get there....) and then north up the M1 to the places I feel most at home as I spend some time with my family. As I left the M25 after the forever drive round half of it and drove onto the M1 the clouds parted and the sun came out - the great escape from the south accompanied by a party in the skies. 

My two trips north have involved two encounters with insects. Not the 'get in your hair, don't bite me, stop buzzing' types of insects, but big metal insects, formed and crafted into sculptures that sit above the landscape around. I'll start with the second because I want to talk more about the first. 

Yesterday we went to a free exhibition at Chatsworth House (I've only ever been to the free things at Chatsworth) called The Radical Horizons: Art of Burning Man at Chatsworth. Large sculptures scatter the landscape outside of the main Chatsworth House - they look to celebrate creativity and collaboration as part of the exhibition which is formed of sculptures first exhibited as part of the burning man festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, US. They aim to bring the unique creativity and possibility of the festival to the landscape around Chatsworth. 

One of the sculptures was le Attracta - about the embodiment of what one is attracted to. Rather than just being attracted to heat and light, the sculpture is designed so that the moths embrace fire - they become it rather than be consumed by it (I guess unlike like one of those moth catchers that fizzle them to smithereens they come alive in the fire). Unfortunately the fire part of the sculpture wasn't working or in action as we saw it yesterday, but the magnificence of the sculpture was clear and its design and concept was still fascinating without the fire. You could sit beneath the insects and participate in the attraction to the source of light and heat in the middle of the it. 

The beautiful thing about these sculptures is that they just sit there in the middle of the grounds of the house. Sheep and lambs play on them, deer gather in a congregation not far away. I'd imagine at night there would be moths flying round the giant moths and the sculpture, even without the fire, might come alive. There is something in the concept of the moths becoming all that they are attracted to I quite like - the concept of being, of embracing and not being consumed - it's something I can buy into. However, when you experience a sculpture in a place like Chatsworth, there is a connection that you can never have, you can't completely embrace the story of the sculpture because of where it is - it's only here for a period of time and it it's there to visit, not to dwell. 

The sculpture I saw north of the river was in the community garden in Bonny Downs in East Ham. I went to visit Bonny Downs Baptist Church to experience the work they are doing in that community through Bonny Downs Community Association and the way in which they embrace worship and discipleship within the intertwining of church and community - blurry church is the words we used - words I'm still chewing on, but the sculpture is part of that. I think it's a beetle..... (correct me if I'm wrong). 

You might say that the sculpture has the same values as the one in Chatsworth. It's creative and it's beautiful. It doesn't light up (but it is near a fire pit). it's in the community garden which is part of the home of the church (where they meet for worship in the summer) and rather than set out to be simply a sculpture that points to something, it embodies all that it is made to represent. Made out of knives seized by the police in the local area, it is a physical embodiment of turning swords into ploughshares or death into life. You can hear their senior minister, Sally, tell its story here (I'd recommend you watch if you have time). 

The beautiful thing about this sculpture is that it just sits there in the garden as part of garden life. Insects make their homes in it. There are no sheep or lambs or deer, but there are people and soon to be chickens and every day life is around. I love that it embodies the values of all the church and community association is called to be - transformational, peace makers, bringers of hope, justice fighters, changemakers, full of abundant love..... 

What makes it so much different from the sculpture in Chatsworth is that the connection to where it is is clear. You can completely embrace the story of the sculpture - you can get up close and personal and if you are from that community or a community similar to it, you can see the embodiment of the values that burst out of it in those who came together to create it and tell its changemaking story. 

That sculpture stands in the middle of the community garden where the church meets for worship, created as part of a community project of which the church led and were part of, that declares the good news that things can be transformed. From the values of the community, from the desire for common good, the gospel of Jesus Christ, who brings life in all its fulness sings out. There is hope, things can change, there is so much more. In its prophetic action, there is an ongoing legacy that speaks love abundantly and where new beginnings become possible. The good news is here in this neighbourhood. 

We're not just visitors when it comes to embodying all the values of the gospel we are attracted to - the love and the hope and the grace and the justice, the mercy, the restoration, the transformation, the new life, but those values are something in which we are all called to embody in the places that we live and in the communities to which we are called to dwell. 

"....they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore" - Isaiah 2:4

A blessing (of sorts)

 

As I pause, I've been doing some deliberately slow reading, a chapter a day, read alongside a notebook and highlighter so I can pause and reflect when I need to and chew over what is said all day. It's the opposite to the way I normally read, which is fast and often, and I have wanted to read on at times but haven't. Reading this way has been (and generally is) a blessing. 

The book I've just finished is "Altar in the World" by Barbara Brown Taylor. It's been a good and helpful read - much to agree with, and much to challenge. One chapter in particular really shook me and I couldn't deal with it, and I will be chewing it over for some time as I learn to find beauty in everything (see previous blogs). 

Her final chapter is about blessings or benedictions. She suggests that these shouldn't just be saved for an ending of a service or a time with someone else, or for blessing a particular place or a person for a special time or moment but that saying blessings is a way of understanding and walking in the world in a different way. She suggests that as we are attentive to the world around then we might bless the things we see and it will change the way that we are able to live in the world, and it might help us to deal with some of the difficult stuff better. 

Yesterday I forgot how long my staircase is and I kept running at the bottom and fell dramatically on my knees. In that moment all my anger I had been compartmentalising and hiding away came out and I then had to go and take it out on the grass and the weeds in my front garden. Perhaps in Taylor's world I might have found a calmer reaction in blessing the floor for breaking my fall. 

Being a minister is so often a great privilege - you get to be with people in their celebrations and their sorrows, walking alongside them as they face whatever life faces. You are people's confidante, their wise voice, and the one they go to for blessings and prayer. Being a minister is also a great challenge - you are often the one people take out their frustrations on and who takes the responsibility for things that are going on, and whilst Jesus holds the strain, sometimes it can feel really heavy as you end up taking on the broken and the bruising in more ways than being a listening ear. 

As I was thinking about what Taylor said about blessing in the context of the ups and downs of ministry, and that perhaps by blessing, it might help me deal with some of the unregulated emotions I felt as my knees hit the floor. So here it is (and you might be inspired to write your own!).

A Minister's Blessing

Blessed is our God - God knows all things, sees all things, and holds all things together. 

Blessed is God the Father, who opens his arms for us to run into, and places us on his lap, listening to our day. 

Blessed is God the Son, whose arms stretched out on the cross embrace us with love. As he lifts us up he puts us on steadier feet than we've ever had before. 

Blessed is God the Spirit, whose arms are there even when we think they are not, giving us more than enough comfort and strength to carry on.

Blessed are those who we meet on the way....

Blessed are the ones who knock on the door and ask if everything is alright. 

Blessed are the ones who run away when things aren't going their way.

Blessed are the ones who put their hands on your shoulder and remind you that there is good in the world. 

Blessed are the ones who raise their voices above their own listening and silence your voice before your speaking began. 

Blessed are the ones who seek to reconcile, who recognise the humanness in both you and in them. 

Blessed are the ones who refuse to talk or listen because its your fault that everything in their life is wrong. 

Blessed are the flowers on the doorstep givers and blessed are the scathing message senders. 

Blessed are the facebook posters who bring joy and grace at the right moment in the day and blessed are the posters who make your friends bristle with rage and leap to your defence. 

Blessed are those who have walked before you - the steady ship bringers, the chaos causers, the ones that people miss more than most, and the ones that people would rather forget. 

Blessed are those who are walking behind you, the next road is already being built with hope. 

And blessed are those who are here in the now, brought together as family and companions on the way in which God calls. 

Let us walk, let us love, let us hope, let us thrive. 

Landslides

I've been walking a bit of the south west coast path - the weather has been on the whole, glorious - maybe too hot and sunny at times for walking, but I carried on anyway..... I'm now tired, peeling a bit from unexpected sunburn, and processing all I have experienced. 

There was a point on the walk that I wasn't paying attention and followed the path that would have taken me down the cliff rather than across it, because, as often happens along that coast, there had been a landslide. Thankfully I realised my mistake before getting to the edge and I adjusted my walk to the path diversion, one of many path diversions on my route. 

When you see the change caused by the landslides, you can't help but wonder what it would have been like before. The cliffs were bigger, the plants holding on in different way, the rocks sitting in different places, the beach easier to walk along perhaps. How far was the path away from the cliff edge before the landslide and where did it go? 

Regular landslides have been changing the coastline since the coastline was formed. It's part of the make up of the Jurassic coast. It's one of the reasons why those are are interested keep on finding fossils that tell the stories of millions of years ago. It's in the landslides that new and old beautiful things are found and the might and strength of the earth proclaims the might and strength of God. 

And the beauty of what is left, the changes and the things that have survived the landslides, mingling together, that is what brings about a sense of wonder and awe....

The word 'beauty' continues to sing to me as I keep on walking in this time of pause. 

Over the last week or so I have been continuing to reflect on the beauty around, on the things that God has created and I've also been challenged to find beauty in the continuously changing situations we are living in and in my questioning and worn out self. 

I've had the song 'Beautiful Things' by Gungor in me head for most of the last week or so. He sings this:

All this pain
I wonder if I'll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change, at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come out from this ground, at all?

As we consider how everything has shifted in the last few years, and how it is continuing to shift, there is no doubt that we are grieving and many of us are in pain and we have questions. When fault lines develop in the earth that holds us,  that rock us and our way of being to our very core - when these fault lines cause landslides to happen that change the landscape around - it's difficult to see how we might find our way out of places that are not particularly beautiful. 

But, if the landslides of the Jurassic Coast can teach us anything is that even though there are landslides, there is still beauty to be found. We might need to wait for the ground to settle, for the new roots to be established, for the old stuff that is still there to find a new way into the light, but beauty will be found. We might need to hold the brokenness of the fault lines for a while, but what is lost and needs to be found will be discovered, and a new garden will grow. 

After the chorus, the song goes on:

All around,
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found, in you

The nature of a landslide is chaos. Where mathematical models can predict how it will fall, they can't fully tell where it will end up - a slight shift, a crack opening up in a previously thought to be strong place, can change it's size and direction completely. A tiny little stone added into the mix, a bird flying too close, a tree falling on the cliffs above, a wave in the sea below hitting a branch washed up three days ago can change everything. The landslide finds its own path before it settles. Yet in that landslide, there is hope of new beauty being revealed - new beauty already being found in the path of the earth as it falls. 

There is still a huge amount to be hopeful for, even amongst the chaos around (not despite it - we mustn't forget that there is beauty even in chaos - that's one of the reasons the cliffs aren't strengthened to stop the landslides from happening - because the earth - God's earth - knows what it is doing, even if we do not). We see hope in the continued fight for justice, we see hope in the way that people love others, we see hope in the arrival of new life and in the voices that are like stars shining in the night sky that are punching holes in the darkness. We see hope in the plants that survived the fall, and the seeds scattered to grow in places they never belonged before. We see hope in the promise that Jesus makes when he promises life in all its fulness in John 10:10 and then in Revelation 21:5 where he says "Behold, I am making all things new". 

The chorus and bridge say this:

Oh, you make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

You make me new,
You are making me new...

In the dust, in the settling landslide, in the faults of the earth that have diverted the path; in the waiting, in the confusion over the way ahead, in mine and your worries over our identity and place in it all.... in us.... there is a beauty already formed in the mind and hands of God, ready to be discovered.

May you know beauty both on the steady path and in the landslide

May you find beauty in however the earth settles

May you know that beauty that God sees in you

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I took a huge amount of photos whilst I was walking. I've put them in a video (a very rough and ready video - you'd think I'd be better at this after 2+ years of 'video maker and editor' as an unexpected part of my job description) with the song 'Beautiful Things' as the backing track, if you want to have a look at what caught my eye and hear the song, here it (apologetically) is:

No...... no cows.....

"Let's go through this field of cows"

If you say that to me, my initial reaction will always be a big, loud "NO!". Cows scare me. Cows close to me freak me out (if there is not a wall in between). Cows on the move - well..... I've read stories of people being trampled to death by cows. 

I have gone through fields of cows in the past. I navigate the danger by sticking as close to the opposite side of the field as possible or I have a friend or family member in between me and the cows. I go through the fields of cows because other people make me. I go through fields of cows because it is the only way through.... and I haven't died yet by cow trample. I'm still here to tell the tale. 

But I'd rather take a diversion (or go home). 

On my walk yesterday I headed through a footpath through a field when I noticed a whole herd stood round their hay feeding trough cage thing. I thought to myself "I've been through worse than this, I can do this". So I opened the gate and took a few steps. Then I looked to my right and saw everything I dread. 

They weren't cows. 

They were bulls. 

And from what I know about bulls, they were likely not to live in such a herd for long so these bulls would be young and frisky and their behaviour would be erratic. 

So, I decided not to risk it. I retraced my few steps and went back through the gate and took the road route instead. 

We all have our limits. 

In the pandemic years we've all had to face our fields full of whatever scares us most. The isolation, the fear of getting ill, the loneliness, the lack of physical contact, the worry about others behaviour, our mental health deteriorating, our jobs being uncertain, not seeing family members, losing those closest to us, everything we've know being taken away...... 

And we can all manage for a while, but..... we all have our limits. 

Our limits are reached at the most unexpected times when our mind and eyes realise it's not just cows in the field (who we might manage), but it's bulls. The unexpected text message, the next piece of bad news, the nasty words from a nice persons mouth who you wouldn't ever dream they'd say something like that, being let down for the 27th time (the first 26 you could manage), stopping and not being able to move again as you're overwhelmed by it all.... 

I've had a number of pandemic moments where it has felt like there are bulls in the field and I've had to find another way (stopping has rarely been an option). I've learnt and am still learning my triggers that lead me to the brink of falling apart. I've learnt to say no more. I've learned when to stay in the field and when to leave for a while. I've walked away leaving others to deal with the field. I've learned some of my limits, and where I haven't, others have held me as my limits get broken. 

One of the purposes of taking time out is to work through the stuff that has felt like going through a field of bulls because there has been no other way. My question in those fields has always been "when do I keep going and when do I give up, and if I'm to keep going, how do I find rest and sustenance on the way". 

My calling is one of courage, so unlike a meeting with a real bull in a field, I will try to keep on keeping on, and so I've had to find that rest and that sustenance on the way. 

Jesus said "come to me all you who have heavy burdens, and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light". 

It's not that easy to understand when you're walking uphill through a field of bulls (I didn't mention there was a hill too). Perhaps it is in the outlook ahead - far ahead you know the exit to the field is there, so that hope of an ending is always a motivation.... but what about when you are in the thick of it? 

In the thick of it - it's about seeking out goodness despite. It's knowing that what you are going to have to face can be faced because Jesus is with you. It's choosing to accept that this isn't the way things are meant to be and seeking out better ways within. It's about not expecting the worst and being justified when it happens, but expecting the best and learning to roll with it when you are disappointed. In every struggle there is always hope, in every lament there is always signs of restoration. The  good news of Jesus tells this. 

It's knowing that despite the threat of the bulls in the field, that there is hope. It looks promising, that when the climb through the field is done, there will be something better ahead. It also looks promising on the journey that even if it hurts, that even if you feel you can do more, face no more bulls, that there will be rest stops on the way, even if they don't look like the usual rest stops. The hope of rest is now, and the hope of rest is ongoing. The hope of rest is fulfilled on the journey as well as at the end. 

We all have our limits, and where the only way through tests them as far as they can go because it seems like the only way through is through a field of bulls, Jesus promises to help you rest and keep on doing what you need to do too. It's OK to retrace your steps and find another way round..... and It's OK to sit down for a little while, even when the field ahead appears to be more challenging than you'd hope. Let Jesus take the strain. 

Beauty in whose eye?

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" -  or so say all of us. Well, actually, (a quick google says), so said (sort of) 3rd Century BCE Greeks and so said Shakespeare in "Love's Labours Lost" (well sort of, but why not attribute it to him because he said something like that once - that's what we do with any common phrase). The first person to write this down in the form written above was, according to the quick google, actually probably a female writer called Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, who in her book "Molly Bawn" written in 1878. Does it matter though? Perhaps a little. It's a concept that is ancient, but a phrase that is more recent. 

As a beholder of beauty, as it seems the phrase says all human beings are, my eyes have been caught by many beautiful things over the last few days. I've stopped and had chance to look around. My eyes have started to reopen from the shock of getting Covid in Holy Week and the exhaustion I've been feeling since the beginning of the year and as I head out on the long pause of sabbatical, I have had time to simply stop and look. 

The first I want to mention is in St Paul's Cathedral. When you are not joining with your own church family to worship because one of the points of a sabbatical is to get space from all that has put demands on your limited energy and spiritual resources to refresh and rebuild, the question of where to worship is a perplexing one. However, as someone not averse to choral evensong, I felt taking the opportunity to worship under the dome of St Paul's had to be taken up (with the added bonus of an excellent preacher). 

You're not meant to take photos when you go to worship in a Cathedral - it makes sense - it's as distracting as when someone tried to put a camera in my face when I was taking a wedding, but I took a sneaky one.... phone flat on knee in selfie mode looking up... because I like to take photos of beautiful things.... and looking up at the dome caught my breath. There is something about worshipping in a place where thousands and thousands have worshipped before and a place that was built so beautifully because its very purpose is to glorify God. Sitting in that place, looking up at the beauty above and listening to the Vicar's Choral, I couldn't help but be awestruck at the greatness of God speaking through those things. 

The second I want to mention is when I arrived on retreat. After my cup of tea and getting my bearings, I decided to explore the grounds. I walked towards the views surrounded by the songs of birds and sheep declaring so much of who they are. I then walked into the woods - it was early evening and there is something about that time when everything is getting ready to go to sleep. I stumbled across an open air theatre that I had seen on the map but had forgotten about. It looked like it hadn't been used for a while, the grass growing and tumbling down the tiered seating punctuated by flowers of purple and pink and white. I ascended the steps into the woods from the theatre stage, the steps were almost hidden, like they were designed to not interrupt the flow of the forest floor, instead absorbing a field of wild garlic flowers and bluebells that took my breath away. I couldn't help but be awestruck at the greatness of God speaking through those things. 

The first designed and realised by creative humans using the gifts given to them by the one who created them. The second revealed as the seasons and the ways of the woods took hold, a beauty that is timeless, yet intricately woven by the the one who developed the natural systems that made it all possible. 

Beauty - in the eye of the beholder. Beauty - to glorify God and celebrate all He has made. What we see takes our breath away because God made it that way. In the hands of the artists and craftspeople who built St Paul's massive dome and painted the art it holds mightily, in the hands of the seasons and the spreading of the roots and the seeds. God places his gift of beauty to grow and to flourish and to form and become all it can be. 

Into our hands God gives the ability to create something beautiful, something to be gasped at, something to enjoy. To our eyes he gifts ready made beauty to inspire, to celebrate and to stop and wonder. 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the ultimate beholder, the creator, beholds us, and from the beginning of our lives, before anyone had even met us, he beheld us and declared 'very good'. When we look at the world around us, and are awestruck by its beauty and value, we need to remember time and time again that that is how the creator looks at us too. 

I've gone through all the emotions the last few months and years - feeling like I'm brilliant, feeling like I've done good work, feeling like I am the worst person in the world, feeling like I am useless, feeling like I will never live up to expectations, feeling like I'm winning, feeling like I am failing, and perhaps I've been all of those things .....but.... when I look at that dome and I walk through those woods, it reminds me, that however I am feeling, however I am winning or however I am failing, God is there, and he is helping me be the best he created me to be, wherever I am (I might have to listen better sometimes, but he is, he really is).

And he is doing the same with you too. It's him that makes you and the work of your hands and your mind and your heart beautiful, and where it feels no-one else can see it, he does (and you'll probably find that there are others that have seen it too). 

(I'm now off to be creative in the art shed.... good job God sees the beauty in that....).