Peace Shoes

Some time ago, in the near distant past, not here, but there, I was let down - betrayed perhaps - the ground had shifted underneath my feet and the now, it felt rocky and uncertain. 

I asked God how I was going to keep walking whilst I was hurting and unsure of what the consequences would be, and as I was reading, he distinctly led me to Ephesians 6 and the armour of God. Put on the shoes of the Gospel of Peace, he said. 

It was in that moment that I realised the impact of those shoes. The language of the armour of God suggests war, but when the shoes you put on your feet are ones of peace its a different kind of endeavour that you are preparing for. 

Imagine walking and leaving physical footprints of peace. If you're wearing peace shoes, surely that's what you do? 

In my disappointment, frustration and anger, the action of putting those shoes on turned my angry stomp into a walk where I discovered wholeness again. 

This is the Jesus way. 

A Blessing for your Shoes

May your shoes, in your walking, create footprints of peace.

May their imprints speak gently of the one who restores. 

As you stomp out your anger, may they find softer ground

As you walk off your frustration, may they help you find wholeness

As you walk without direction, may they take you to a safe place. 

As you trip over the changing landscape, may they help you find your feet

And as you walk on beyond, may your footprints bring peace

to the people and the places you encounter on your way

image from https://pixabay.com/photos/shoes-used-worn-cloth-shoes-4059754/

 

Coming Home

I just looked in my diary and realised I came home a week earlier than I meant to. How did that happen? 

I think that maybe I was ready. I think my internal diary shouted over my written diary and told me that home was where I needed to be. I considered avoiding the now red alert furnace in the south. I've loved being able to spend time with family and friends and to feel safe and free to be exactly who I am. I have spent a lot of time over the last two and a half months processing and considering and thinking and waiting and reading and talking...... and being deeply loved. 

I've remembered how to laugh again, just laugh and not stop (that can be a problem, but it's a good problem!) and how good laughter is for us. I saw a photo of some of our church leaders in our new community kitchen garden (which is very exciting) and they were laughing and I wanted to be there to laugh with them. 

May there be so much more laughter. 

I've learnt how to completely rest and switch off. One of the best feelings at the beginning of my sabbatical was sitting down in my little retreat sanctuary and realising I had no demands on me. I could just be. I've struggled with retreating in the past because I haven't found that space, but now I've found it, I am hoping when I go through a season of demand, it won't be too hard to find again. I spent a lot of last week just being, sitting, reading, watching fish, and it was glorious. 

May we all find the time and space to simply be. 

I've been surrounded by people who know me well and have reminded me of who I am. I've been reminded many times that I am me and nobody else. I am the person who God created me to be. The minister that God calls me to be. I lead from who I am not who anybody thinks I am or expects me to be, and its in doing that I can be all I need to be. God chose me because he loves me and knows what is best for me. I am enough, and don't need to be something I am not. God chooses you because he loves you and he knows you better than even you do - he knows what he is doing. 

May we all know that we are enough. 

I've been climbing hills, both in real life (those cliffs on the south west path were steeper than I expected) and in my thinking. Someone said to me that the more you tackle the difficult hills, the quicker the recovery time afterwards and I found that to be true. I've had some difficult stuff to process, but I think I'm nearly there. 

May we all have the courage to face the hills. 

I've sat and asked myself the taxing questions and have had others do that for me. I've spent time with those who can pull even the most entangled stuff out of me and make it into something beautiful, bringing insight and wisdom so simply and straightforwardly into things I've not quite understood. I've discovered more of the kind of minister God is growing me to be. 

May we all be blessed with those who will help us untangle ourselves.

I've known more of what I've always known, that God loves me with an everlasting love. If I can learn to love even a smidgen of how he loves, I'll be getting something right. I've been reminded to seek God's Kingdom first and that's where I will learn how to love more deeply.

May we all know God's everlasting love.

I've been reminded that home is where I am called, it's where I feel pulled to, and whilst for a while I've been pulled away, I wonder if now, as my internal diary shouts louder than the ink of the pen with which I'd written my schedule down the direction of the pull has found its centre again. 

Sometimes you just know, you know.... 

Psalm 126 (The Message)

It seemed like a dream, too good to be true, when God returned Zion's exiles. We laughed, we sang, we couldn't believe our good fortune. We were the talk of the nations - "God was wonderful to them!". God was wonderful to us; we are one happy people. 

And now, God, do it again - bring rains to our drought-stricken lives. So those who planted their crops in despair will shout "Yes!" at the harvest, so those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing" 

Consider the Wildflowers

Earlier this week I spent some time in Southwell, and wandered around the Minster Gardens. The gardens are beautiful and time and care has been put into making it a good experience to visit with different things to look at and explore and the most beautiful array of flowers. Towards the edge of the garden is a circle made up of wild flowers - you can walk down the middle of it where a circular bench is placed. Sitting on that bench you are surrounded by all the colour and activity that comes in what, I suppose,  you might describe as a meadow of wild flowers. 

There were poppies and cornflowers and daisies and pink flowers and yellow flowers and bees buzzing and the sounds of birds in the trees around. It's the kind of place where being still is the only option and it soothes the soul. 

As I was sat there I was thinking about the verses in Matthew 6:25-34 that remind us not to be worried - like the birds who get on with the day as it is and the flowers that look beautiful and just grow like that. I'd had a dream the night before which had shaken me a bit and I'd woken up a little anxious - I was reminded of one of my daily readings which had included these verses, and as I looked at the flowers I wondered how considering them might actually help. 

Life over the last few years has felt like a London public transport journey - the kind where the times all match up and you step from tram to train to tube without pausing for a breath. The uncertainties over what's ahead, over the changes in government, over the cost of living, over how much to use the car, over what is coming next..... they have been never ending..... and at times it has been difficult to imagine a time when the movement might stop. 

Reflecting on those verses as I thought about the wildflowers I stopped at the place where the wildflowers stop. We so often read those verses as a whole, which is where they belong, attaching them to an encouragement to not worry or be anxious, but perhaps sometimes we just need to stop and stare before we move on. 

Consider the lilies. Consider the flowers. Consider the wild flowers. 

In the middle of that circle of meadow, everything felt right. That stillness, that time, just to bask in the beauty of the colours and listen to the sounds of the world simply being was a thin place where God's creation made everything well for now. 

We don't need to wonder how considering the flowers might help, we just need to consider the flowers, because those flowers, in that moment, contain everything needed to mean the next words and verses can find a place to be at another time. In that moment, the song that the flowers sing is the only song we need to hear.

Consider the wild flowers - their petals, so neatly shaped and not quite but nearly uniform, their colours so vibrant, bringing diversity as they thrive alongside others so different themselves. Consider the wild flowers, so carefully made by God, intricate, resilient, delicate, full of life. Consider the wild flowers, who tell something of the effort and care God puts into you and your life. Consider the wild flowers, they have a beautiful story to tell. 

Who are they to be..... ?

Who is this person who stands in front of you? You try and read and make sense of them as you form your reply. They disagreed with you and challenged your thoughts and ideas and have raised up all sorts of feelings inside you and you don't know whether to laugh or cry or shout or walk away. They stand in front of you sharing words that divide in a space more public than you'd have liked. 

Who is this person who stands in front of you and irritates you to the core with their very presence? They make you angry and you know they shouldn't but they talk and exhibit an identity you cannot identify with. They make choices that go against your moral code and your shackles are up because you don't understand or tolerate. 

Who is this person who stands in front of you and talks of their own lives with no interest in yours or your thoughts on what they might do. They speak in a language you don't understand and can't engage with but want you to know what they mean. They appear to hate you and choose to confront you on every little thing without letting you speak. 

Who is this person who stands in front of you find really difficult to manage to love? Why do they make you feel this way and why are they the way they are? 

Who is this person who stands in front of you? 

First and foremost a human, with a story, with a life of brokenness and pain. A person with tales of love and of joy, and of sorrow and of loss. A person with a voice who remembers moments where their voice was taken as someone else spoke for them without being asked. 

It's someone who who might have seen something that you haven't noticed and before you shout back their presence is calling you to shift your eyes. If you look beyond your irritation there is something in this person that is good and that connects to you in surprising ways. 

It's someone who has struggled coming to terms with their own identity and is hoping you might not struggle quite as much as they are as they share their story with you. They came to your space as a safe space because they had nowhere else to go. It's someone who is never really listened to and is hoping that you might be the one who hears. 

It's someone who has thought carefully about their choices, who has studied and wrestled and found a settled place for themselves, and is hoping you might just sit with them for a while. Their story is far too difficult to tell and they need sanctuary in a place that feels further from home than far can be. They struggle to articulate themselves and know that it always comes out wrong (but its better than it used to be). 

It's someone who doesn't know how to be loved, so your difficulties are theirs too, and you journey together. As they choose to learn how to react to and receive love, you choose to follow the rocky path of learning how to love. 

It's a someone, a person, a human, a life, a reflection in a mirror, a story of shadow and of light. 

It's someone who reminds you that you're so caught up in the struggle that you've forgotten how to choose love. You've forgotten the love languages of listening and of patience, of kindness and of pausing, of hearing, of being, of taking down of walls. They remind us that we can choose to live in the tension of difference and forget that our opinions only matter as much as theirs.

It's someone who is lovable just like you, with potential, just like you, worth listening to, just like you. 

Just like you. 

"So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them...... God saw all he had made, and it was very good" Genesis 1:27, 31a

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)."