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.  

Onwards we row (together).....

Onwards we row....

A phrase I’ve said a lot recently. It speaks of the journey I’ve been on in the last year where seasons of change and celebration have arrived almost monthly as I’ve encountered exciting and challenging and life changing events that not only have affected my legs and my feet like a long walk, but have meant putting my whole self in and pushing onwards with my full being for the ride - occasionally just floating and enjoying the view before picking up my oars again and continuing on.....

Onwards we row.....

Around this time last year I was in York and stood watching three rowers in the river - racing rowers in their long thin boats. One boat had somehow got stuck on a tree trunk and couldn’t go anywhere. The other boats came up beside them and with much manoeuvring and team work they managed to remove the offending tree and dragged it back as the trapped boat was released to row once again. I watched as they manoeuvred the trunk to the side and then set off again on the journey. 


Onwards we row..... 

That picture of the boats in York has struck me again and again and as I sit in the week between induction when I was surrounded by those who have helped the path over the last year be as smooth as possible and Bapass where I will be handshook alongside some of my favourite dreamers (and missing the Eurovision finals again) I’ve come back to it.

We can’t be lone rowers because sometimes the tree trunk rises up from beneath. We can’t be lone rowers because sometimes we are so tired we need someone else to take the oars. We can’t be lone rowers because sometimes we might need to help others remove the the blockage from their path. We can’t be lone rowers because in those moments where we pause to glide we would have nobody to turn to and shout ISN’T THIS GREAT!! 

And that’s why community is so important - and why, for me, beyond and before leading a church community, being part of one is so important, because sometimes the rowing needs extra strength, and when I’m surrounded by those who get it, that extra strength to take the tree trunk to the shore appears without me even knowing and sets me again on my way. 

Onwards we row.....

The writer of Hebrews encourages the readers to “not give up meeting together” (Heb 10:25) - as we meet together we spur one another on to live out our faith and encourage one another to keep on keeping on....... Value your church community, value your support networks - your friends and your family - because you never know when you might need them to surround you and help you over the tree trunk that’s getting in the way. 

Onwards we row.... 

Don't pick your scab.

Don't pick your scab. 

Some of the best advice that I was given when growing up. If you pick your scab it won't heal very well, it will bleed again, it will get infected. I once was running home from a friends house wearing my ballet shoes (I never did ballet - I've never been dainty enough or had the coordination - but I had ballet shoes) and I fell over. I seem to remember I was carrying roller skates. Why I was wearing ballet shoes with roller skates anyway I have no idea and am surprised I didn't fall over earlier. Anyway, I fell over and my knee did that thing - it bled everywhere. I got an amazing scab. 

A little while later (days? weeks?) I was at a Girls Brigade party and the scab that I had evidently been picking was knocked off in a game. My knee started to bleed again and as a result I have now on my right knee a white mark where it never had chance to heal properly. 

Don't pick your scab. 

As we journey through life we pick up wounds - some of them heal completely, some of them scab over. The trouble is that the ones that simply scab over get picked at at random intervals and they begin to bleed again. They stop us in our tracks as we realise that once again we need to clean up the mess and put a plaster on and wait for them to scab over again trying to get to the point where we stop picking so they heal completely - so that the scar is all that remains. 

Don't pick your scab.

I've noticed in being part of a church community that people have their favourite scabs to pick at - it starts with the choice of biscuit, the choice of hymns, the way things are done, the steps we are taking forward, our particular view of theology, our deep held beliefs that we are reluctant to challenge, our theological bugbear...... some of these things needed to be removed completely, some simply healed over, some actually left to flourish - but the problem we have is that we keep picking at them because it feels familiar and quite nice to pick a scab and make it bleed again so we don't have to look forward to the next hill we need to run up (or down) to get to the next place that God is taking us. 

Don't pick your scab.

I've been involved a lot in discussions about the future lately - as part of the wider Baptist family, as a Methodist circuit, as a college, as a church and as just me and one thing that has struck me is that however big the decisions that we are making we all have those scabs that at the right moment we pick at, make bleed and stop us in our tracks. 

I've decided in the last few months that I'm going to stop picking at mine. I'm also going to try and stop other people trying to pick at mine too (although that is a little bit harder). If less people picked at their own and others scabs the journey would become so much less messy (or different kind of messy) and we might actually get somewhere. 

Don't pick your scab. Just stop it..... stop.... it.....  

"I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back."              Philippians 3:12-14 (MSG)

Taking time over the journey......

When I was learning to teach I quickly learned the art of the three part lesson. Starter, teaching and practising, plenary. Starter gets your brain going, then you do the deep stuff (maths is well deep), then you sum it up. I always felt a bit of a bad teacher when these three parts didn't quite link together. For me the forming of a lesson was a bit of an art form - the flow from one part of the lesson to another meant that the pupils needed to be taken on a journey - whether they liked it or not. 

Sometimes my lessons would not fit nicely into a block of an hour and the three parts would be extended over a series of lessons. These were lessons that generally involved some kind of project - that dreaded group work that I inflict on others but find difficult myself. In these lessons I would be the facilitator and not the teacher, I'd guide and answer the questions, but the learning and teaching would be done by the pupils themselves. These lessons were at their best when I could leave them to it and dream..... Again though, these lessons took the pupils on a journey where from the same base thinking they came up with something beautiful and often very creative, taking the mathematical journey to different stages and arriving at different places. These were the lessons I tended to enjoy most as I watched the learning unfolding before my eyes. 

I've brought a lot of my experience from teaching into ministry. Only a couple of times have I had people say that I sound a bit like a teacher - perhaps when I am getting people to be quiet or when I get people to write stuff down. One of the things that I often have said to me, particularly after a worship service, is 'you put a lot into that' - mostly not in a bad way (like information overload) but in a 'you put a lot of effort into that' kind of way.

I've just finished reading 'The Art of Curating Worship' by Mark Pierson. I wrote a post about it a while ago (it takes me a long time to read any kind of Christian book I'm not reading for college or in preparation for something). What attracted me to this book was the idea of worship leader as curator - it resonated with what I saw as my role in the classroom as more of a facilitator whenever it was possible. Pierson talks of the planning that goes into any worship event, the journey that people are taken on and how the aims of the service should not only be reflected in the preachy bit but throughout the whole event.... and for me.... this feels right. 

So this is why when I am thinking about and planning worship I become absorbed in the event throughout the whole of the week preceding, why it might appear that I put a lot into it (most of the time the ideas are formed when I am doing other stuff, it's just gathering it together). I try and put as much thought into the whole journey (which should continue after the blessing has been said) as I do the sermon. Pierson suggests that planning an act of worship needs to take serious thought and time.... when balancing life sometimes it's difficult to do that... but to honour God, perhaps that time needs to be taken..... the effort is most definitely worth it. 

Interestingly Pierson also says that number 37 of his list of things the church he is part of must be and do is 'party well'. I like that. We should have more parties as church, it's part of our journey of knowing and loving one another (and I love good parties, they are excellent fun). 

Some ifs and not so many buts.....

When you watch children do things... get places.... discover, often the way they do it seems strange and alien. It doesn't make sense because we have developed our own ways of doing stuff that are simple and on the whole make life that little bit easier. 

Take this morning for example, to get the the raisins held by a 2 year old's Mum involved climbing over a large inflatable bed thing.... we looked and wondered why she didn't just walk round. It doesn't make sense for us to take the difficult route, but for her, it was the most direct route and made the most sense. The inflatable bed thing was climbable, so why not climb it? 

There will come a day when she won't choose the most difficult route, as through trial and error she will learn that walking round the obstacle is easier. It makes sense. To walk round the obstacle means avoiding any difficulty. She won't remember climbing over, but it will be engrained in her subconscious that it is not the best route. She will learn from what happened and then move on..... there's no 'what if I had done it differently, it would have been easier', it's more like when it comes to next time the flow of movement might be different....

Sometimes I'd love to be 2 again - where the decisions we make are immediate, and the 'what ifs' don't even come into play. When you watch a child discover you see their freedom from what has gone.... but as we grow it is easier to care about what others think, about our chosen routes being wrong, about how we might have done things differently. 

When we ask 'what if?' we can't change what's happened. Yeah, we took a difficult route, we can learn from that.... We said the wrong thing, we can apologise and move on..... We did something really stupid... life still maps out in front of us and not behind us....

I spend too much time thinking about the what ifs. I am a deep thinker by nature so will evaluate and analyse every encounter I have had and every thing I say or someone else says. This is great most of the time - makes me a reflective practitioner..... but sometimes I get bogged down in the 'what ifs'. It would be so much easier if I could look at the inflatable bed thing I've climbed over and say, 'well that was really hard and actually hurt' and then work it out differently when I am in that situation again. I might learn to do it differently next time, I might have to deal with the hurt or the consequences of bad decisions, but I'm not going to get hung up on the what ifs.....

We can't change the past, we've got to work with what has happened. Whether it is someone else doing or saying something really stupid, or us doing it ourselves, we can't lie down in the what ifs and dream of a time where the paths might have been different. Past decisions, experiences and mistakes might need to be worked through to take the next step, but perhaps the question should not be 'what if it had been different?', but instead 'what can I do with this now it has happened?'. 

So....my what ifs - they are God's - I give them to him to take them away... and now....I need to trust God that he will help me do what it is right with the things that have happened so I can continue along what is the best path that he lays in front of me. 

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;    he’s the one who will keep you on track.                                Proverbs 3:5-6

My not so secret love of shoes

It's no secret that I love shoes and I have many pairs. You can tell that I do wear many of the pairs I have because of the number of pairs of shoes strewn around my shoe room (yes I have a shoe room, which other people would call a porch, however, for me it is the living place of my shoes that I walk through to get in and out the house). 

My favourite pair of shoes are my TUK shoes with stars on. They have something sophisticated about them (well, they have heels) and something a little bit woo about them (I love anything with stars on - reminds me to shine like a star in the universe - Phil 2:5). I don't wear them very often. They are my best shoes, so they are saved for those best occasions when I don't need to walk and I like to tower above people who are less than 5 foot 5 (rather than 5 foot 3). By putting on a different pair of shoes I feel different - tall, relaxed, warm, sophisticated, business like, like a hill walker... but inside I am always still me - the person who loves shoes. 

Today I was looking around the lecture room at college (I was concentrating, honest) and looking at peoples shoes. What did the different shoes say about them? I have to say that it was the Baptists that had the best shoes - I don't know why that was - perhaps we are more shoe focused - and of course it is all down to my own perception of.... well..... shoes.  

Was the person with bare feet a free spirit?

Is the one who takes his shoes off every lecture just too relaxed? 

Are the ones with the boring shoes..... well........ boring?

Were the ones with the trainers the most ready to run?

Does it matter what shoes you wear? I have to confess that I am judgemental about shoes. I once decided someone would not be a good youth worker because of his choice of footwear (I was a impressionable teenager at that point.... but....)

I think that shoes probably do say something about who you are. They are a floor level identification mark. If I saw shoes first I might be able to work out what kind of person someone might be.... and I am going to try it next time I meet someone new. If I look down first, it's because I'm working you out by your shoes. 

What struck me today (as we were talking about judgemental attitudes in our two days of racial justice training and I was judging people by their shoe choice) is that shoes might say something about our personality, but they don't express who we really are. It's where we go with those shoes that matters.

Those shoes that I keep for best.... perhaps I need to wear them more. In my journey I need to be prepared to squelch in the mud, walk so far my feet are covered in blisters, get wetter than I have ever been before, because where God has called me might mean that I could be taken to places that are not comfortable and are not easy. 

Shoes say something about who we are, but our true identity can only be found in Christ. My toes need to always point to him as I seek to follow his path. 




(The picture is my current shoe want, but in red. I go in the shop and I dream..... http://www.schuh.co.uk/red-or-dead/womens-silver-red-or-dead-shirley-glitter/1164527660/)

Journey From Old to New

I'm enjoying the last few weeks of working part time before I get back to college by trying to make sure I get some time off more than the one day I normally have off. I've lost the guilt complex I had at the beginning of the summer about working too little and have begun to relax and have more time to just enjoy what is going on around me. I love lazy days when I can sit and watch and just simply be. 

I've been thinking a lot about the journey from old into new. On Sunday we had 'Pie and Praise' - partly inspired by somebody in the congregation who told me how much she valued the old hymns as they helped shape her faith when she was younger, and partly inspired by the people who are so passionate about the history of the Baptists and Methodists in Ramsbottom. We looked at some things that had been stored by people in the church including many many old photos. As a family history geek I love knowing where things came from - where I and the people around me originated from and what made things happen to become what or who they are today. 

Today I went to Hardcastle Crags. There is an old mill that sits above Hebden Bridge. It is the only National Trust property that is self sufficient in terms of creating its own energy and dealing with its own waste. It is a beautiful place. What fascinated me most was the journey that had happened to get that place to where it is today. Once a mill, and when there was no need for it to be a mill it became a tourist destination with tea dances and shops and camping in the area. It then became derelict before it was made into a museum and beauty spot for people to enjoy today. The museum takes you through the history of the building, but also takes you into the future as you see how it has been made self sufficient. The historical use of water to generate power is combined with solar power to make electricity to serve the mill as it is today. 

History doesn't stop at a point where we think that it has stopped being beautiful. We don't stop at the point when the hymn writers died because we like their music, or at the point when the mill stopped producing cotton because we liked to use it...... history continues and we begin to make new history for the future. If our ancestors could see us now, worrying that in thinking forward we are moving too far away from the history that took us to this place, they would tell us just to get on with it and not worry about taking risks and doing things differently, because they did, and although they did not necessarily like it at the time, they see that now it was a good thing as history evolved and we became who we are today.

God has the power to turn where we are upside down and to make beautiful what was once ugly. We've got to let go, stop clinging onto the pew in front for dear life and let him do it - the time is now, not tomorrow. That's why we are where we are today - because throughout history, pioneers of faith have let go and let God.

I want my journey to be a journey. I don't want to be in a stagnant pool where the surroundings might be familiar, but the future is the same. I want my journey to be to places where the future is uncertain, yet is filled with the blessings of God. I want to be able to look back and learn, but I don't want that to stop me from looking forward and seeing God do new things. If I ever stop and look too comfortable I would hope that someone would kick me and remind me that the time for change never goes away..... keep journeying. 

"So we are not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever."                  2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (MSG)

Tourists in a city of contrasts

Today we were proper tourists with the look of proper tourists. Here is Andrew looking like a tourist.

We were dropped off at the Victoria Memorial Hall. An impressive building that was built in 1921 in memory of Queen Victoria (which you'd expect!), driven by Lord Curzon. It suggested a British stamp of authority and grandeur on a city that was increasingly rising up against British rule. A man asked me if I was from the US, I said that I was English - he told me that I had built this, I was sort of embarrassed because of everything it represented....  It was interesting reading the history of the British rule and the uprising that led to India's independence. William Carey was mentioned as the compiler of the first Bengali dictionary, which was exciting as we are here with the BMS. 

We then tried to go to St Paul's Cathedral and Louise was up for doing a mock up of the occupy protest, but it was closed 12-3, so we were disappointed. We ended up eating our lunch beside a statue of Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1984. While eating our lunch an Indian family tried to take surreptitious photos of us as strange westerners but then stopped being secretive and asked us to stand with them for a photo. Slightly surreal.....

Our journey took us next to the Museum of India, after travelling through lines of mouth watering street food stalls which we avoided (for fear of illness) but I craved after. The museum of India is like across between the British Museum and the Natural History Museum, but smaller, hotter and less well looked after. A bit 'Night at the Museum' especially as the Cheetah's glass had cracked where it had clearly tried to get out. By this point we were flaking out and needed a rest (here are Andrew, Louise and John resting!).

We then braved a trip to New Market, where we split up into pairs to try and avoid being conspicuous. It didn't work as immediately on entering the market area Jon and I were followed by at least 3 'guides' who were working on commission. While Jon was buying presents one of the guides looked me up and down and said 'you need clothes' and proceeded to get out piles and piles of shirts...... an experience I was expecting but wasn't expecting at the same time. We caught an auto rickshaw home to Hotel Heaven, which had it's scary moments, but we wanted to do it to get a feel for a 'true' Kolkata experience after being driven around all week.

It was good to spend time seeing the sites and doing our own thing, but you still never get away from the poverty and the amazing varieties in people and what they have and what they are doing. We were dropped off outside a shiny landrover garage and then walked past people sleeping on the street as we went back to the hotel. 

A city of mind blowing contrasts..... 

I loved this image - at the gates of the Victoria Memorial Hall. It reminded me of the story of the Happy Prince which speaks of a self sacrificing care for the poor, very relevant for the things I have seen this week. 

Hotel Heaven

Sitting in the reception of Hotel Heaven, I have had two hours sleep in the last twenty five, travelled about seven thousand miles (I think) and am listening to the sounds of beeping horns which I'm sure I will forever associate with Kolkata. My first meal is cheese sandwiches and the spiciest crisps ever..... they actually hurt more than the spiciest ones I had before.


It's difficult to explain how it is here, apart from the fact it is exactly as you might imagine it. It's busy. It's noisy. It's hot. The air is so humid that I left my lovely air conditioned room and my glasses steamed up so I couldn't see until I got to another air conditioned room. The journey from the airport to the hotel took us through a lot of amazing and quite bizarre sites. People on mopeds with sandals and umbrellas, cows by the side of the road and being driven on the road. People pulled carts, bicycle pulled carts, motorized rickshaws, full to the brim buses and hundreds of yellow taxis all jostling for space on a road with no lanes. Yes, people do go in the wrong direction on the wrong side of the road, yet I did not see anyone crash or fall off their bike. 


I'm ready then to be challenged, to be surprised, to be disturbed even..... at the moment it all feels a bit unreal, but it is very real, I'm very here, very now.....


On with the adventure.....

Missing the signs and avoiding the margins

Something went wrong today. I think I may have driven on the wrong side of the road. It was at that moment when the road changed from one way into two way and the road system was one I didn't know. I was looking for where I was going and I totally missed the signs. I'm still not sure if I did do wrong as there were no cars coming in the other direction, but I still have that feeling......

When you are driving you so often have to really concentrate to see the signs, particularly when you are in a new place. I will not rely on sat nav but in new places I normally end up doing a u-turn at some point because I miss the signs. 

My trip today was to a BU Women in Ministry Day - a gathering for women to think about what it means to minister as a woman. I arrived and I saw a sign that said 'Baptist Ladies Day' pointing down the hill. I nearly did a u-turn there and then because I'm no lady. 

In one of the sessions we explored 1 Timothy 2:8-15 which everyone in the group had been confronted with at some point in exploring their call.

I was reminded of the time that my music teacher told me that if a male student wouldn't speak at the college carol service then no-one will because a woman shouldn't do it.

I was reminded of the time that I was told that a clearly gifted woman was not allowed to speak at a Christian Union because women couldn't teach men.

I was reminded of the time that, after been separated into male and female groups the guys came and told us that they really appreciated the fact that we dressed modestly because it meant we didn't tempt them.

I was reminded of the time that I was told (by a woman) that it didn't matter if the church I chose to go to wouldn't let women speak because it wasn't a Gospel issue. 

But then I was reminded of how one of my ministers told me, after talking about me possibly being called to ministry, that he had struggled with women being in ministry and weighing it up against scripture, but had wrestled with it, read books and come to the conclusion it was right. 

And I was reminded of how affirming Paul was of women in his letters - Phoebe, Lydia, Junia, Priscilla...... and also of how much I love Paul's letters, which always need to be read with an appreciation that he was writing in a different culture, recognising that God speaks to us today through them, and that we need to be prepared to explore those passages that are hard because they're there and they are part of the canon of Scripture which is God breathed.

I wonder if sometimes we are so focused on our destination that we drive on the wrong side of the road without noticing the people on the margins who are waiting at the traffic lights where someone has switched them to permanently on red. We might have missed where they could be going. 

Who is on the margins that I miss because missing them is so engrained in my culture?