Down with this sort of thing

Yesterday Steve Bray, the 'Stop Brexit Man' who has spent many days outside parliament protesting against Brexit and calling for the government (and the country) to reverse the decision had his equipment ceased and he could be prosecuted under the 'Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act' which was passed on Tuesday. This act introduces an offence of intentionally and recklessly causing a public nuisance. It's an attempt to try and stop the tactics of climate change protestors like Extinction Rebellion who have brought parts of London and the M25 to a standstill on a number of occasions. 

Now I've seen Steve Bray protest, and yes he is noisy, I'll give you that, but he stands alongside other occasional and more regular protestors around Parliament Square, passionate about his campaign and wanting to be heard. One MP described her pleasure at his arrest and described his noisy protests as violent, but many others have stood by him, saying 'yes he is annoying, but it should be his right'. 

Whatever we think about his cause and methods, the very public confiscation of his equipment and threat of persecution is disturbing, because it is a sign of what this bill could do. As humans in a free country we have a right to protest, it is enshrined in human rights law, however this bill says that if it is annoying or too noisy then it can be shut down, just like that. Carefully worded, the bill doesn't sound that bad, but many people are worried about what it might mean for our future right to protest. 

As a Baptist, one of my core values is one of dissent. The Baptist Movement began under persecution - One of the founders of the General Baptists, Thomas Helwys was arrested and imprisoned because of his views and campaigning on the separation of church and state. Jesus was crucified by the religious and political powers of the day - his very existence challenging established religion and speaking of a power greater than the ruling Roman Empire. Inspired by this Baptists believe that neither the state or institutional church can dictate what to think or how to behave. Freedom is a key value and all should be able to participate in the political process. 

When voices are silenced, their ability to take part in the political process is suppressed. We are in a situation, which is not new, but is swinging in a dangerous direction, where the voices of the elite, the Oxbridge educated, those with more money and resources than they know what do with, those with connections, those subscribing to divisive ideologies and who are actively challenging a convention of human rights that has been around for decades have the loudest voices in politics. Where the volume is turned down on protest, where fear of speaking out is filtering out into the nation, these voices can only get louder, and the voices of the majority will be silenced. 

Protest has had a part to play in many great movements in history and continues to do so today. Silenced voices are heard when people choose to speak up. Solidarity with and freedom for the oppressed has been found because people have protested. Trade Unions, Votes for Women, the Civil Rights Movement in the US... more recent the Black Lives Matter movement and Climate change protestors have raised new voices in ongoing justice struggles. History shows that where people rise up, authorities crack down - the Peterloo Massacre, the imprisonment of suffragettes, Selma. 

We might see the attempt to silence Steve Bray as an incident that will pass by and its only one man with one agenda, but the big question is what is to come ahead, and whose voice will be silenced next. As we see our government question our fundamental human rights on protesting, we cannot help but draw parallels with the loss of human rights of those who are destined to be on the next flight to Rwanda and we've got to ask where this is going to stop. The path ahead looks murky and dangerous. Where is our voice in that? What does walking in the way of Jesus look like down this road?  

Jesus said this:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour"      Luke 4:18-19

Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/34976963870

There, There, it'll be OK (ahem)

 "It's going to be OK"

"Give it time" 

"You'll find a way"

"Smile, it might never happen"

"You'll get over it"

"They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say when there is no peace" Jeremiah 6:14

This verse came up in the Northumbria Community Daily Readings today. It's nudged me, reminded me, raised up stuff inside me, agitated me, frustrated me, made me itch (although that could be forgetting to take an antihistimine). It reminded me of the empty sentiments we often use to make people feel better - like giving them a little stroke. The McDonalds of sentiments that satisfies for a moment (I'm not saying it's not good to use these sentiments - in fact, in the moment, often it's what you need to hear and an occasional McDonalds (or fast food momentary satisfaction equivalent) can make a difference). 

Last night I came across a note I'd written in the middle of a particularly difficult pandemic time when I was struggling to get out of bed each day because I didn't know what I was going to face. It reads like the prophet Jeremiah - he was really fed up with the world around him - people weren't facing up to their problems and were making some very poor decisions and his writing is full of 'we can't carry on like this, something has got to change - you've got to start making some better decisions'. We've all had times like that, I am sure, and some people live most days with the every day dread of what is going to happen next, and these softly softly sentiments don't work, because in reality, they are not going to change anything and often aren't truthful, because things will only get better when we learn how to deal with and even live with the stuff that is making us hurt and groan - it's Ok not to be OK, but we can't sit in this place forever. 

On the day of one of the biggest strikes for some time - a strike that most of us, although inconvenienced, understand and support, because we're at a loss of what to do about how the cost of living crisis and an economy that is falling apart for ordinary people - it's affecting us all. We are very much aware of how empty empty sentiments are. It's like when someone tells us to calm down when there is much to be agitated about - it just makes us angrier. 

So what do we do with all of this? What do we do when the phrases that are meant to make us feel better don't make us feel better anymore because we know that, at least in the near future, it's only going to get more difficult? 

I think we start by acknowledging that yes it is rubbish. When I was finding stuff particularly tough, people who walked with me and said 'yes, that is a really hard thing and I'm finding it hard too' made a difference. Being honest about our feelings, being vulnerable, being open.... it all makes a difference. Times ahead, times now, they will be and are difficult. For some of us it's a long road we've already been travelling. We can't always give people answers and solutions, but sitting in the rubbish together for a short while - it makes a difference. We can't stay there forever though.... so....

We can also encourage and help people on their way and let people do that with us without taking umbrage. Someone said to me the other week - 'you know what you've got to do, you just need to it'. It was very blunt, but perhaps I needed the bluntness. We can far too often label ourselves as a person who sits in the rubbish - but, although, you can find peace in a difficult place, it's still a difficult place. Finding your way out of that difficult place to a different place with new opportunities can be too painful to face because familiar feels easy. Jeremiah reminds us that just because we say things are OK it doesn't mean that they will be - sometimes we've got to do the things we don't want to do to discover what OK really means. We all need people around us who will encourage us to do that, who are truthful about where we need to go next and will help us on our way. 

We can keep pointing to what we know to be true, not the 'it'll be OK', but the 'one day it will be glorious'. Jeremiah, whilst full of doom and gloom, is full of hope. His book is full of 'but God'. God is not a God of sitting in the rubbish, he is a God of restoration. The way things are are not the way things have to be, and whilst we acknowledge that there are some seasons of life that are ridiculous, we also know that there is a path that brings a deeper peace than the 'peace peace' equivalent of a fast food fix. It's the path that takes us on the long haul road to better. It's a path that takes us from sitting in the not OK to finding more than OK. It's an ancient path that has been there from the beginning of time. It's a path marked with a cross that is a symbol of deep love and shalom in all of its brokenness as Jesus was hung on it and changed the world. It's a path marked with suffering, but full of life. When you look at Jesus and hear his teaching, you see what a good - the best - way ahead looks like and what life could become. 

We can't carry on like this, we've got to start making some better decisions. Our Government has got to start making better decisions. Our communities have got to start making some better decisions. We have to start making some better decisions. Saying 'there, there' isn't going to cut it - we need to seek a peace and a healing that lasts beyond tomorrow - in words, in action, in attitude and by choosing carefully who to follow. 

Jeremiah reminds us of a better way....

"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls" Jeremiah 6:16a

The frames through which we see

When you look in the mirror what do you see? Do you see what other people see? Are you the same but backwards? When you take a selfie is it the story of everything you are? 

Probably not, because when you look in the mirror or take a selfie you frame it with everything you already think about yourself. The frame contains the words that stand out from what other people have told you in glowing letters. It contains both the words that have made you secure in your identity and the words that make you doubt who you are. The labels hang off the hooks you've put in the frame - successful, failing, beautiful, ugly, identified by your job, your relationship status, your emotions that day. The frame is self made with input from those around you and the marks it contains affect what you see. 

I am quite enjoying taking photos from inside things, from beside things and through things, framing the way the object sees. It changes what you see, helping you to notice different spaces and shapes - shadows and edges that otherwise would not be there. By watching through a frame, it limits what you can see and it affects the way you see the objects that are in focus. 

We can choose to frame anything - not through a hole in a fence but through our thoughts and ideas - and we can shift that frame as we see fit - get (in our opinion) the best or worst angle, showing the view in all its glory, or in all its lacking. Journalists do this all the time - the framing of good and bad people and politics is all relative to the writer's own choice of positioning. 

When we frame others through the lens of our own ideas and experience, it changes the way we behave towards them and treat them. If we see someone as good or the same as us, we shift our frames to a place that remind us to listen to their story. What they say and do influences how we react. If we see someone as bad, in the same way, we shift our frames to a place that reminds us to be hostile or to walk away. 

The person who might have rubbed you up on the wrong way once is forever someone to be cautious of. 

The person who challenged you once on something you did is always someone whose behaviour you'll watch - just wait until they put a step wrong. 

The person who has a different view point to you is always, in your frame, up for an argument. 

The person from a different political party to you is always wrong, because that's what the frame says. 

The person who dresses or looks funny is to be avoided just in case you become like them. 

The person who has a different social status to you is someone to be helped but not someone who can help you. 

The person you disagree with will be forever wrong, your frame only contains your right interpretation.

The person who you are speaking for doesn't need to speak because you are more articulate than they are. 

The person who travelled across the sea in a dinghy is not a person like you and me, let us send them back across the sea, or fly them to a country they do not know and do not want to go to.

The person in the mirror who struggles to find their way. 

How about if we consciously shift our frames? 

How about we shift our frames from a place of fear and control to a place of embrace? 

How about we shift our frames to see people as human first - made in the image of God, with beauty and potential for good. How about we see that people have the ability to change, surprise, bring joy.... be loved. How about we see possibilities rather than problem first, love rather than hatred, cooperation instead of animosity, promise instead of threat, blessing instead of condemnation....

Before our frame is fixed in a place of judgment, let us listen, let us wait, let us pause and take time to breathe. There is far more to who is in front of us than the labels we use to position the frame through which we see. 

A prayer based on Psalm 139:23-24..... 

"Search me oh God and know my heart (help me to see people as you do); test me and know my anxious thoughts (show me where my frame needs shifting). See if there is any offensive way in me (help me to not be so rigid that I don't see people's potential), and lead me in the way everlasting (with a community full of human beauty that includes those that my own prejudices and ideas try to cut out of the frame)." 

I don't want to do that

 

I hoovered my grass today. Miracles happen. 

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a gardener. I struggle to keep a houseplant alive never mind make a garden look beautiful. My peace lily flowered for the first time in a number of years this summer - not through me doing anything to it apart from put in a sink of water whilst I went away to make sure it got watered. I put a spider plant (a baby from my friend's very fertile spider plant which continues to fill her shed with more and more spider plants) outside after there were annoying little mites on it and it died in the storms. It's now started to grow into two spider plants. All I did was feed it some stale bread - well put it on the table around it for the birds and something happened. I grow weeds like I am an expert weed gardener and cultivate a favoured habitat for frogs in my grass. Cutting the grass makes me itchy and has started to give me headaches leaving me with no option but to lie down for the rest of the day. I occasionally have a burst of 'I'm going to do this' and plant new plants in a bed I have cleared a couple of times and if you look between the weeds you can see there is still a hope of something happening, perhaps, one day that won't be a wilderness. I'm not even bothered about sitting in the garden - I don't know whether it's because it's a mess or I'm just not bothered - although in the south in a sunny garden (if it wasn't for the healthy growing trees) I can see the attraction. 

But sometimes I know I've got to do the jobs I don't want to do. 

So today I decided to at least tackle the grass. I started by pulling out the giant weeds. I nearly pulled a muscle. I think they gave me a rash. Then I decided the sensible thing to do was to strim the grass. The strimmer started smoking (it clearly doesn't know it is bad for it). I unplugged it, gave up and sat down, defeated. 

Two hours later I got a second wind and got my lawnmower out and hack-hoovered the grass. It's still a mess, there were moments when my lawnmower suggested it might want to take up smoking, the vicious sounds being made by trying to chop up the hiding small plastic balls, but it's shorter, and there is hope that the garden could become something more than the wilderness it was settling into. 

Sometimes you've got to do the jobs you don't want to do. Like the gardening if you are not a gardener, or the cleaning of the drains, or disposing of excessive amounts of gravy (that for some reason makes me want to hurl), or facing a difficult situation where you wonder if the process is worth the end results. It would be great if, like on a computer game, you could just press a button and everything would be perfect, but that's not the reality of life. 

We need to remember that facing those jobs we don't want to do but need doing is rarely a thankless task. The impact that we make may seem small,  but once it's done, even if we can't see much achieved, it makes the next part of the journey possible, even if it means mowing the grass again to make it look better along the way, even if it itches and you need to lie down for a while afterwards. 

Sometimes stuff in life is hard and presents you with jobs you don't want to do or face. That conversation you've been putting off, that change you need to make, that thing you need to stop or start that you don't want to even contemplate, it's very likely that facing it and the rashes it gives you on the way will be a small step on the way to making things better. It might mean developing your spirit of perseverance and resilience or learning new ways to be tactful and graceful or facing what feels like an endurance race, but when the job is done it's done, and you can begin to move on. 

Go on.... 

I'm going to have a go at weeding next. 

 

I don't know what to talk about.....

 

I don't know what to talk about anymore. Well I kind of do, but it's been a bit weird not having the events of the work days as a topic of conversation. 

At the beginning of my sabbatical I went to a retreat centre where they specialise in exhausted ministers or ministers in crisis. I didn't fit the second category but I did fit the first. Arriving at a place where nobody was asking anything of me apart from to take care of myself and a small bedsit type room in the middle of beautiful countryside was the best thing I could have chosen to do at the beginning of my long pause. I was exhausted there was no doubt - I was carrying shopping baskets under my eyes the size of trolleys and my head was all full of stuff. 

The place I stayed had a few rules, but not the ones you'd expect. You were not allowed to ask people what they do or where they are from. You had to talk about other stuff instead. The rule is designed to protect those for whom any mention of work or the place they live or theology even might trigger in them the thing that they are trying to find rest from. We were encouraged, if we met anyone, to talk about books or music or what we had seen that day. I actually hardly talked to anyone whilst I was there - the person working in reception who showed me around was the main conversation I had. I actually didn't really talk to anyone for about two weeks. I found it much easier than I expected..... and I just about managed to switch off. 

But, then, once I began to see people again, my thoughts and words flew to what I do and what is happening at church whilst I am not there. At the beginning of the pandemic my life was only work - there was no opportunity for other kinds of fun - and so what I was doing became completely what defined me - and it has become a lot of what I have talked about as I sought to navigate the rocky road of covid with my church family. What I have been doing has been by main topic of conversation.... and as I have walked through the last month or so I've got quieter I think, because I haven't needed the words to explain who I am. Who I am is simply me. Who I am is simply who God made me to be ..... and I'm finding I am having to rediscover that. 

God didn't make me as someone who never stops. He didn't make me as someone who wakes up every morning and worries about the day. He didn't make me as someone who is always thinking about the next thing. He didn't make me as someone who finds herself overthinking every thing she has said. He didn't make me as someone who needed to keep doing more and more to make something of myself, because he has already made something wonderful in me. 

Our need to define ourselves by what we do means that we miss finding our identity in who we are - and who we are - I believe - is who God made us to be. He calls us to be faithful to his call, not the competing internal and external voices of the other demands in our lives, not in the way the person up the road ministers to their church or does their job, not in the way other people think we should be.

It is when we sit closer with God we find our identity. 

As I rediscover my passions and joys in life (a lot of that is actually work - I am beginning to miss it, I'll have you know...) I'm rediscovering who I really am in God's eyes, and I'm finding more new and old, interesting and mundane, slightly bizarre (I've been reading about clandestine marriage in the 18th century - let me tell you all about it if you've got the time) and random things to talk about. I am learning about my passions, about what makes me tick, about how to find joy in the every day and how to appreciate the world around me better. I'm learning how to chat to God about life and not just about work again, and I'm rediscovering what it means to live fully as me. 

And that..... that can only be a good thing. 

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