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
It's raining today, and rain changes the mood even on the best of days, but when you are stuck in on week 6 of lockdown there is something about the rain that reflects the mood of the nation, of the world. It feels like this week the grief is really setting in, and the news doesn't seem to get any better. There are glimmers of hope. There are moments of joy, but they are interspersed with moments of sadness and bad news. We are getting to the point now where most people know someone personally who has been kicked in the guts as they have lost someone they love or life as they know it has been completely torn apart or the brokenness has just got too much.
The rain today is crying for a very broken and sick world.
In the Bible there are many stories of people who are at this place - where they have suffered great loss, who have had to abandon everything they have always valued, or they have had everything ripped apart and the poetry books in particular are full of the agonising sadness and frustration at life. One verse shared on facebook in the last couple of days was from Psalm 57. Psalm 57 is to the tune of "Do not destroy" which seems kind of appropriate for this time and it was written for the time when David had to run from Saul who wanted to kill him and hide in a cave. When we are threatened from the outside, sometimes all we can do is hide, and today, we're hiding the best we can. It doesn't mean that the threat is going to go away, and there are still people out there who are facing it head on, hiding when their role allows, fighting it for us, all the time, just like, I guess people were fighting David's corner, but it means we will stay safe for a while. And as we hide, we have time to reflect and deal with all the emotions inside. We have time to shout and cry and laugh inappropriately. And that is what this Psalm is all about - a Psalm from a cave. Do not destroy.
Here is the coronavirus version.
Have mercy on us, oh God, have mercy on us
for in you we take refuge, as we shut our doors and look out of the window at the crying skies.
We will take refuge under the shadow of your wings, we will sit in loneliness and grief and mourning, in the safety of your arms until this disaster has passed.
We cry out to you oh God, we know you will save us, you give us hope.
You send songs from heaven, moments of joy, moments of peace and they lift us from the pit,
You rebuke the unseen enemy that threatens to destroy
And you send forth your love and your faithfulness, your promises stand firm.
We are in the midst of an uncertain threat. We are forced to dwell in a land that poses insurmountable risks. A virus that sits on door handles and shopping, which knows no boundaries, but hits the hurting hardest.
Be lifted up, O God, high above all this, may your glory be seen across this earth.
Every time we cross our doorstep, we recognise the risk we face ahead.
We step cautiously in our fear. We wear makeshift masks and wash our sore hands again.
There may be a threat beyond these walls, but it will not defeat us, it will be destroyed.
Our hearts, O God, are focussed on you. We will fill our time with good things. We will listen to songs we love and make music ourselves.
Awake us to new things - new notes - new melodies - awaken our voices and teach us your song, your song will awaken the dawn.
We will praise you, Lord, despite being apart, we will praise you alongside all nations, so far scattered.
We will sing your songs above the chaos around - for your great love reaches as far as we can see. Your faithfulness reaches beyond where we can imagine.
Be lifted up, O God, be lifted up. Let us see your light in the darkness, your glory within the days ahead.
God is there in the isolation with his arms wrapped around us
He is there in the challenges holding up our arms when they just want to fall
He is there in the all, in the everything, in all moments
With help facing devastation, and the troubles that lie ahead.
And we’ll try not to fear, yet the fear overwhelms us
Though everything feels like it’s breaking up in pieces before us
Though all that was strong is torn down in the storm
Though the floods threat is to consume us and the barriers give way.....
There left behind is a river where life is lived in all fullness
God is here and he lives, Word made flesh dwells amongst us.
God is here, there is Hope, there is promise, there is future
A new dawn will rise, because the brokenness will not last forever.
Nations run, nations swirl, nations crash to the floor
People seek self before all and leave others flailing behind them
But God the creator, he speaks, do not harm them and all wait.....
God is here. God is here. God is here.
Come and see because before you lies his story of healing
Of devastation overturned, re-restored, and unfaded
He ends the pain of this unknown, the enemy lying before us
And it changes, all changes as the attacker is left dormant
He breaks the chain, stops the spread, and destroys it completely
Saying
Be still. Be still my child and know that I dwell among you
I hold your hand in your pain
I sit beside you in your loneliness
I bring my peace to your racing mind
I shut your eyes for a while so you can’t see
Rest in me and be still. Be still and know that in the darkness light will always shine.
The way I am working at the moment goes against all my instincts. It's like circuit training - going from one task to the other, only pausing as the whistle blows to down tools and move onto the next. Some seasons are like that. Some seasons leave no space for breath, no space for dreaming.
It's a season of change - of massive change in my own life as I deal with moving 252 miles south east and of trying to stay upright as those I lead now explore what that change means for them. It's a season of excitement and joy as I co-lead on #doyouknowHim? which is one of the most joyous and challenging things I've ever been involved in. It's a season of challenge as I have been facing some of the things that nearly broke me early on in my ministry and learn to walk on with grace and generosity. It's a season that involves a lot of goodbyes and it's well hard at times.
Thankfully that season, I hope, is just beginning to open up a bit and provide me with space to draw breath, but as I sit here this afternoon and begin to write my sermon for tomorrow (too last minute for me to even contemplate) about Jesus taking time out in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry I was challenged to pause and question this way of working that goes against my instincts and how I might deal with it better.
At college I was taught to think of ministry and life as a sink that was sometimes full of water, but was emptied out by those things that pull the plug, but that after the plug is pulled, that you need to put it back in and fill the sink again with what is good and what is fulfilling, ready for when the plug puller returns. After I had gone through a challenging season (affectionately known as the 'summer from hell') a while ago, I developed ways of dealing with when that plug is pulled to fill up, bit by bit to take me to a better place.
However, the sink that desperately needed filling up nearly broke it was so dry on Thursday afternoon.... and I was reminded that working myself into the ground does not make for the better side of me.
So what do I do about it? Well two simple things to start......
In the next few weeks I am going to celebrate the joy with gusto - I will post on facebook (probably too much - but block me if you'd like), I will fulfil my 'leaving the enclave' bucket list to the best of my ability and declare each little win from the roof tops.
I have turned the e-mail off on my phone and, while my addiction is making it hard to wean off, there will come a time when I will stop checking and stop answering straight away.... and what a joy that will be to those around me who get frustrated by e-mail efficiency and for me when I won't need to know everything in the world straight away. I may, just may, also just turn off my phone to find rest.....(perhaps a bit too radical).
It is sad that so many of us have a habit of working ourselves into the ground before we stop and see, and my call, perhaps for lent, perhaps forever, is to not get to that point again, and to fill up more than leak out.... and it will make for a better me.
The circuit training has to stop at some point, and while the achievement is great, when physical exercise tires you out, your body knows to rest.... and rest you must.
"How do you do it said night
How do you wake up and shine?
I take it easy said light,
One day at a time....." Lemn Sissay
"Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" - Jesus (Matt 11:28)
Now to get on and write that sermon.....
