Lost in the shadows.....

At the beginning of the story of Peter Pan, Peter and Tinkerbell enter the Darling house searching for Peter's shadow. Their search wasn't exactly quiet, but it is Peter's sobs at being unable to find his shadow that wake Wendy and she asks:

"Boy........ why are you crying?"

Peter Pan was mourning the loss of his shadow. He saw it as part of him, what made him kind of ‘normal’ – something of his past that he wanted to keep as part of him. A trail of a former life. Where that shadow had been and what it had seen, perhaps he couldn’t remember, but the shadow was an important part of his life he felt he needed to carry, even if he didn’t know what it meant.

I have been reflecting on the Biblical story of Nehemiah which is a bit of an adventure story – a bit like Peter Pan but without the fairies. It is a story of discovery, a story of trying to find something that has been, even though the story is not clear. It’s a story of change, a story of discovery. It’s a story of coming home, even though the Israelites didn’t really understand where home was.

Nehemiah was a leader in Israel during a time of significant opposition. The Israelites are trying to find their home again in Jerusalem and face all sorts of rubbish. Nehemiah is a gifted administrator who can get stuff done, and he leads the Israelites in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem so that they can feel safe in their home city.

Nehemiah's task, however, goes beyond the rebuilding of what has been before, to bringing the nation back to where their roots are founded – not in a place or a building but in God. Therefore, the first thing that happens once the building is finished is that Nehemiah gathers the people together to ‘read from the book of the law’.

Every morning the people get up, go and stand in the square, and Ezra reads to them, the priests explain it and then they split into groups to discuss it. This goes on for a week. The people are reawakening a tradition that had gone on for centuries before – where at the beginning of a new year, where, not the whole of the Torah, but passages from within were read out in public.

It was the first time of an old tradition. It was time for the people to rediscover their story – rediscover their place in history as the people of God. It is a reminder of the teaching of God and a telling of his covenant – a retelling of their very own story.

Our stories can be powerful and life changing. Our stories inspire us and remind us of who we are and where we have come from. Our stories spur us on.....

It's been a chaotic and crazy year for me and I have begun a new chapter in my life. My story has reached the time for a new sequel and as that happens I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the story so far....

Our stories are what make us. We all have our stories – our faith stories, our home stories, our church stories and they remind us of what has been, what could be and what will be. 

Our stories are our past present and future..... if we don’t tell the truth of our stories they become legends – embellished and not real; stories that speak of past greatness, of golden years, and we have got to always ask ourselves if those years were really much more golden than now, or are they a shadow we find in a drawer and sew on because the shadows of the past are much easier to understand than the unknowns of the future?

The Israelites thought they knew how great their story was – they thought they knew what God was going to do next. They thought they knew the story of a successful nation. They knew where they come from, they knew they were great in the past, and they had the possibility to be great in the future.

The glory days when Jerusalem sang, when people prospered, when peace reigned.

But then the story made them cry. Why? Why were they crying?

The glory days when Jerusalem sang – were they not as they expected them to be?

Why did the story make them cry?

Perhaps they were looking for their lost shadow – they realised they wanted to go back but knew that they couldn’t because too much had happened since. Maybe they wanted to sew their story back on, have an impact like they used to have it – perhaps their story was so far away from God’s story the shadow it cast hid away the work of God – their story as they’d like to see it was not something to be clung to.

When we tell our stories there is a danger that we get so caught up in our own past that we miss the fact that God’s story has moved in a different direction. We do that in churches – as we look back at the glory days, as we revel in our fullness, we think that we’ve got God’s direction sorted – we miss where we’ve walked off to a different rhythm..... we are so busy telling the stories of our past, we make legends that inform where we are today instead of coming to God’s word afresh. 

We’re living in a changing world, where God is still at work.... as we look at God we need to think (quoting one of my former tutors) – who is God, what kind of world are we living in, therefore what kind church is he calling us to be?

We need to try not to mourn for too long the loss of our shadow - that’s gone, this is a new start, a new beginning, a new world..... This is HIS day. There is a time for mourning – but we've not got to forget that there is a time for dancing too.

As we revisit our stories, we need to revisit them with our centres on Christ – discovering new things from the impact they made. As we retell our stories we learn of our roots, but that doesn’t mean we need to keep sewing our past back on - that makes moving forward more difficult......however golden our past is, it is not where we are now. 

Why are you crying? Stop mourning the past and look ahead. God is here, he is building now..... we need to remember the lessons learnt from history and learn from them, but not cling on to them or sew them back on - instead, we need to cling onto God and centre our stories on him. The next chapter - the sequel... has the potential to be so much more.

(and we probably need to begin to party a bit more....)

"Nehemiah said, "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength"                                

Nehemiah 8:10

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.... 

Onwards we row (bake).....

A quickish bloggish thank you for all those who have been involved in making my leaving weekend really amazing and have sent me off in great Ramsbottom style (happily without pie....). Thank you so much for all your generous gifts and beautiful words and prayers and company and all the joy...... a little overwhelmed really.

Here's a little of what I shared with Christ Church at tea and cake on Saturday..... 

As you may know, cake features quite heavily in my life. I actually don’t eat huge amounts of it, but I do like to make it. This is a very cakey church – the most memorable line from my ordination was ‘Jesus is looking after the cake’. I’m not allowed to bake that often because others get in there first…. I bake when I am stressed (when I was going through settlement I was a baking maniac), I bake because I enjoy….. I bake….

My most read post on my blog is about cake – Baptist cake – after being challenged to really go for it in my inventions for college I made cakes based around the Baptist declaration of principle – the thing that holds Baptist Union churches together – revels cakes because we are all different and you never know what you’re going to get, but we all hold Jesus as Lord, coffee drizzle because baptism full immersion new life, and sherbet fountains because we have to tell the whole world about it….. the pinnacle of my experimental cake experience….

You may know that I have been baking through the great British bake off book and I’ve just finished the bread section with some really quite dodgy doughnuts…. It’s been a challenge, because bread is not my natural instinct – I don’t even really have a great passion for bread – it serves a purpose but…..

What I tend to do when heading for the next recipe is leave the book open for a while on my work surface…. I read the recipe, I half memorise it, I think about it, and then I make space and begin. The thing about bread though is that it needs time to rise and you never know how long you might need….

The way I approach baking is a bit like the way I approach the big decisions in life. I leave a book open, share my ideas with God who shares his ideas with me and we sit on it together for a while…. And this is what I have done with thinking about whether to move on from here or not. In March last year I sat on a train, having bought the wrong train ticket, but to the right place, and pondered…. And I decided to start testing the waters to see if moving on was right. There were a number of things that happened in the months following, some of them challenging, some of them exciting…. and I spent some time exploring the challenges around and the possibility of moving on and decided to test the waters….. to actually begin the rollercoaster ride to today.

Sometimes when you bake, what you come up with is not what you expected it to be.

I entered settlement in September (otherwise known as Baptist dating agency) hoping that I might move closer to my family or stay in the north. Easy? God had other plans. Unexpected plans.

I got the list of churches and nothing really looked right, but then I was sent the profile for a church that didn’t fit any of my criteria but when I read the profile it was clearly the right place. It was like the church and me were walking to the same rhythm…… and I visited and every time I raised a concern, a question, it was answered by God with a ‘but, what if?’

In many ways the move doesn’t make sense – #doyouknowHim? is just beginning, we’re beginning to see signs of new life in church after a period of loss, my church family here is one of the best. I have great support networks, I’ve just got involved in a number of different projects in wider Baptist life…… this is home.

But God calls…. And one of the advantages I have in my calling is that I can just (just ha ha) pack up and go….. and so I must.

It was a bit like God said…. Right, let’s do this – we’ll make this a quick rise….. but it’s also been coming for a long time – God has been preparing us all for what comes next. A slow riser with a speedy explosive ending.

This will be always be the church where I began my ministry and will always have a unique place in my heart. From giggling at the name of the town to being surprised that God would ever call this Baptist by complete and utter conviction to an ecumenical context to being part of a Christ centred community that has changed so much in the last 7 and a half years. We’ve grown deeper and more confident in our faith as the spirit has breathed new life into us. This church family is a true family – in all its challenging oddities (I wouldn’t say it’s always been a smooth ride) and in its deep loving nature, and that’s one of the reasons that me leaving has been so difficult. But this has never been about me, this has always been about following the way in which Christ calls us.

Everyone here has walked with me in different ways – as part of this church family and so many of you beyond……some of you have seen me at my worst when I felt like quitting and running away – some of you have held me up without realising how strong you actually are. I’ve been allowed to run with it when it didn’t seem to make sense and you’ve embraced my creative bonkerishness with great gusto even when I smash stuff up and make people cry. As I’ve grown as a minister I have come to understand the kind of minister who God has called me to be – a community builder – a lurking with intent minister – a fire in the hearth that helps make a house a home.

Since I announced I was leaving it’s all been a bit bonkers….. and I’d love to be staying longer to just say goodbye properly and put everything into place. I’d love to be staying longer to wrap up #doyouknowHim? better – the craziest but one of the most brilliant times of my ministry life…. But I can’t. The bread is ready, and as I head off to a place I don’t really know where it is, I am assured that God, in the craziness of it all, knows exactly what He is doing.

In my first January here it was our 40^th anniversary and I was reminded of our verse for the year from that year as I sat with a small group of people last Saturday night renewing our baptismal vows conscious that each person there had been key on my journey…. So let me leave you with this:

“Your life in Christ makes you strong, and his love comforts you. You have fellowship with the Spirit, and you have kindness and compassion for one another. I urge you then to make me completely happy by having the same thoughts, sharing the same love, and being one in soul and mind. Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble toward one another, always considering others better than yourselves. And look out for one another’s interests, not just for your own’. Phil 2:1-4

Onwards we row..... 

On walking alone......

If you know me well, you will know that I am generally content just the way I am. I don't crave after things I don't have (apart from, perhaps, shoes) and I am quite happy sitting on my own in front of Netflix watching a box set and playing angry birds..... 

I love that I can make my own decisions and can just get on with them. I love that I can just go on my day off (ahem) and not tell anyone where I am going. I love that I can get up when I want, leave a mess where I want and not have to worry about what someone else is doing next or what they are doing that they shouldn't be doing or what they are not doing that they should..... 

I love that in the Bible Paul holds up the benefits of being single - you can totally focus on what God is calling you to do - and in the last six months I've experienced just that - my call to move has been so strong, so personal, that to factor someone else in would have been really quite hard. 

There are times though, that it's tough...... 

One thing that someone said to me when I began the journey to ministry was that as a single person it would be particularly hard. I have never forgotten this... and as I face the next part of my life on my own and have to make decisions about whether to keep or give away the wine bottle with a glass on the top that has never left its box and have to remember to tell everyone from my mortgage company to my membership of the obscure ingredients in cake club and as I have to wash up because the dishwasher broke and remember to eat sensible food when the fridge is empty, it's hard. 

As I pack and am reminded of the stories of failed relationships through the memories I discover it's hard. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely better off single.... my stories of dating disasters and love lost could be enough to fill a comedy set or a a series of episodes of Friends before Ross and Rachel got together. I am happy on my own - I don't regret not having children, as I have ones who I love in my life and who love me back, but I don't have the responsibility of bringing them up in this weird world we live in. I don't crave affection (perhaps a hug (normally one armed) very occasionally, when a wall has walked its way towards me or a tractor has driven into me or when I'm facing a big change, like, say, moving... or work is hard or I have had bad news). I don't even want to go there with the bizarre world of dating.... it's a minefield more difficult to deal with than the Baptist settlement system.... 

I guess what I am trying to say in this weirdly quite personal blog is that it's hard....and also that I am thankful.... for those who bear with when I am losing my common sense for a while and tell me to eat.... for those who hold me up when I'm tripping up wherever I go.... for those who don't say to me, 'one benefit of moving is that you will have a bigger pond to fish in' (yes, it has been said).... for those who include me and welcome me as part of their family because they like me, not because they feel sorry for me (there is nothing to feel sorry about)..... for those who will laugh at my ultimate dating party piece and not look at me with sad eyes.... 

One of the problems with church is that too often we have the sad eyes when we look on someone who is single. Questions are asked; 'what do we do with all the single people in church - how can we include them?'. We assume that marriage is the ultimate destination and the singles must have something wrong with them. 

In ministry, there are added challenges; 'she can do anything, she has no responsibilities'. When you work on your day off there is no one to keep you in check.... when you are out every night there is no one to challenge, when you work in your holidays nobody tells you off.... when you need to offload there is no one to offload to. 

What we can first do is avoid the sad eyes, us becoming an issue (we are not covered in scales, we're people, with gifts and greatness like any other). If church is to be a community that is family, it needs to include everyone - the married, the single, the grandparent, the child, the weird cousin that everyone would like to avoid but knows they shouldn't.... 

And when your minister is single, just check they're OK occasionally. And when they're not, avoid those sad eyes, and walk with them - because even those who appear strong need a (normally metaphorical) hug sometimes. 

"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mentioned and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance" 
1 Corinthians 12:25-26 The Message

God’s Comfort Blanket

At the moment we’re in the middle of 10 weeks of #doyouknowHim? and as part of that we’re out in Ramsbottom every Saturday morning blessing the community with God’s love.  #doyouknowHim? came from the church in Skipton who did a similar 10 weeks last year and continue to regularly spend time in the community blessing those they meet. 

One thing that Skipton have done that we have chosen not to do is take blankets out in the town, enfold people in them and pray over them the prayer of St Patrick’s breastplate. I’ve been struck by this - as a not-very-often-hugger I’d find it strange but I love the idea - that God’s love enfolds us like a comfort blanket. 

Right now I need some of that comfort blanket - it’s hard work with moving and everything and although I love all we are doing with #doyouknowHim? and it's really exciting, there are times that it has almost broken me (who’d co-lead on something so big whilst preparing to move?). 

Yesterday was one of those days where one last kick sent me into hiding. I was packing, reminiscing, planning, dreaming and I reflected on some news I’d had that brought up some stuff that was tricky.... 

So this morning I began again, went back to my calling, went back to God with breakfast in the garden centre. And as I did I reflected on God as comfort blanket. As I did I reflected on the Bible and God threw out Matthew 11:28 in more ways than one. 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest”

And so I wrote...... a kind of comfort blanket blessing for me and for all those I know who are finding it tough right now. It’s not easy at the moment with so much uncertainty and change so sometimes we just need to accept the blanket offered and rest: 

God’s Comfort Blanket 

May the arms of God surround you
With the fibres of His warmth
May His comfort blanket enfold you
As you shelter in His wings

May the strength of embrace protect you
As the fleece and wool surround you
May you feel His love, His peace
As you rest in His arms

May you gradually unravel 
As the threads ravel round you
May you begin to let it go
And feel release in his grace. 

May the arms of God surround you,
Protect you and enrobe you 
May His comfort blanket soothe you
As you shelter in His wings 

Children of the Revolution? Perhaps....

Last Friday I went to see 'On the Basis of Sex' - a film that tells the real life story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The film begins in her first year of Harvard Law School; her husband, Martin, a second year student, falls ill with cancer and she goes to both his classes and hers whilst also looking after her young daughter. The film tells the story of how difficult it was for Ruth to be respected within the legal community and she struggles to get a job as a lawyer, going on to become a professor instead, specialising in Sex Discrimination and the Law. This is in the 60s and 70s, and the idea of sex discrimination is only just beginning to be engaged with, but not necessarily taken seriously. She went on to challenge gender discrimination in US law, taking each law one by one and campaigning for the equality of women and men in law.

I won't say much more about the film - I knew nothing about Ruth Bader Ginsburg before watching it, but the film really inspired and resonated with me, not least because of the challenges that she faced and the arguments against her becoming a 'real lawyer'. The arguments against her are ones I have heard so many times as a female minister - how would she look after her family, women are too emotional to be lawyers, women's voices don't need to be listened to.... and she wasn't taken seriously - just a professor - just a wife - a homemaker - just a woman.... not enough to be anything. Yet she kept pacing onward and had a massive impact on US law and culture. 

It's 100 years this year since the first Baptist woman entered college to be trained for ordination. It's 25 years since the first CofE women were ordained as priests. Last year was 100 years since women got the vote..... yet still we have to put up with challenges to our very identity in private, in public, in so many ways. Priests who happen to be women have campaigned on twitter recently with the hashtag #justapriest standing up for the day when they wouldn't be called women priests by default, or lady vicar, or....lady minister, lady pastor.... The Baptists Together Women in Ministry celebratory edition has been censored in our churches because the voices of women who we disagree with are better shut down before anyone thinks about what they are saying too deeply. The arguments against Ruth Bader Ginsburg becoming a 'proper lawyer' are still arguments used today. And they're wrong.

I sat down to begin to write my sermon - week 5 of #doyouknowHim? Jesus: Revolutionary and I began to think about the film I watched last Friday, T-Rex  and what I have experienced in my first 7 and a half years of ministry, and I chewed a little on what Jesus would do.....

And I thought about the stories of women who encountered Jesus. And I thought about my exciting new book 'The Infographic Bible' which has two pages dedicated to women of influence in the Bible and how radical it is for a mainstream Christian book to have so many pages particularly focused on women (I recently attended a conference with a ridiculously male dominated bookstall reflecting the attendees of the conference itself I guess) and how that shouldn't be radical. And I thought.... if we are really following Jesus the revolutionary - why do we so often leave aside his treatment of women? His treatment of women was revolutionary. Valued as people, affirmed as leaders and as learners, identified as friends, sent out to testify, first to encounter him resurrected.... and so much more. 

#doyouknowHim? is a massive question, and one important part of that question is answered in looking at the way he treated those who were different to him - and the way he treated women in particular - and I believe that if we really knew him, and we really knew how he treated women and how revolutionary that was, we wouldn't still have people in our churches who seek to undermine and challenge and shout out simply on the basis of sex. 

Give yourself a break

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.....