Day 29 - Can't Stay Here.

One thing is for certain...... we can't stay here. 

As I am waiting here, a little sentence from the end of chapter 14 of John's gospel comes to mind. Jesus says, "Let's get up and go from here now."

Last Friday we had a fun time playing a concert in a beautiful church near Redditch and we played an arrangement of a lovely song by Patsy Burton, 'Arise, my love.' The words are from the book in the Bible called the 'Song of Songs' or the 'Song of Solomon' and they are the words of the man to his beloved, "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. 

The flowers appear on the earth and the time of singing has come."

Time marches on and life keeps changing, rather like the clouds on a windy day. But sometimes we need a nudge to move on before circumstances force us to change. As a student, I lived in a lovely big Victorian house with six other students and when I got my first job after my course had finished, I stayed on, living in the house. Only a couple of months down the line we had a massive house fire, and although none of us was hurt, we all had to find alternative accommodation. This led to a set of circumstances that brought me and my husband together. It was time for me to move on.

Maybe it's time for you to move on. Maybe you've been in that job you hate for long enough and it's time to take a step of faith and  hand in your notice. Maybe you're in an abusive relationship and it's time to acknowledge that you need to walk away from it. Like the beloved in the scripture above, there are better things on the horizon and it's time to move. Maybe you're so comfortable where you are, that so much that could be, or so much that you could become, might be lost  because you're too scared to accept change.

However, not all change is easy. When Jesus said, "OK, it's time to move from here," he was walking further towards his capture and ultimate death at the hands of the Romans. In the 23rd psalm it says, 'If I walk through the valley of the shadow (of death) I will fear no evil for you will be with me, your shepherd's rod and staff will comfort me.' Wherever life takes us, we know we're never alone, and we're only passing through!.... at some point we'll reach the end of the valley!. I'll leave you with some words from one of the Narnia books by C.S.Lewis (sorry, I can't remember exactly where!):

'Arise and let us go and take the adventure that Aslan sends us!'

Day 28 - Only for a while.

Can you imagine a world in which wasps had no sting? With their pretty black and yellow stripes we might view them in a similar way to ladybirds or butterflies.... with great affection. It is the sting which makes us afraid of them.

Now imagine a world in which death has no sting. How would we view death? Well, it would certainly be without fear, though maybe not with actual affection. Tonight in my time with God I pondered on the words of Paul's first letter that he wrote to the Corinthians (chapter 15) and I listened to the movement of Handel's Messiah which uses the words from this chapter, 'Oh death, where is thy sting, oh grave, where is thy victory?' I felt overcome with the strength of God's love for us and the truth of this word. The power in the sting of death is in our own sin, and as all that has been dealt with on the cross, death loses its power. The way Handel treats this material is in a duet, where the singers repeat one after the other, 'Oh death, oh death, where is, where is thy sting?' It really is as if he is poking fun at death. 

Many of us have been hurt by death. I was introduced to it at the age of seven when my mother died. I felt rejected and abandoned though only realised the extent of this as I grew older. But for me, now, there is no more sting. Just for now we live with the separation, but we know that it is only temporary. When I say goodbye to my daughter as she goes off to University, I know I will miss her but I carry her in my heart always, and know that we will be together again soon. So it is with friends who've passed on....

it's only for a while.

Day 27 - Wings

Here I am, praying in the middle of the night. To start off, I listen to some music written by Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine Abbess from the 12th century. For those who've never heard of her before, her music is mainly for female voices and is modal and is written in plainsong, which is basically a melody line with no accompaniment (except perhaps a drone) and it follows the rhythm of the words so there's no time signature. You might think it sounds boring, but actually, Hildegard's music seems to be full of light and joy. It's lovely to listen to.

Throughout the ages the Catholic and Orthodox churches have venerated certain Christians who lived a holy life and called them saints. As we read the Bible nowadays, we have come to realise that every Christian is a 'saint' (or holy one) because Jesus' death on the cross means that he has bridged that great gulf between God and humans and we can all become right with Him through faith. However, we in other church traditions have our own venerated Christians who we look up to. I have been personally inspired by D.L. Moody, an American evangelist who lived in the 19th century, and Smith Wigglesworth, an amazing man of faith who took the church by storm in the early 20th century. There have been many others..... John Bunyan, John Wesley, Martin Luther, all the Celtic saints, Gladys Aylward, and Mother Teresa to name only a few. 

It is good and right to have people we look up to and who inspire us. However, it isn't good for us to let all the 'great' people be up there, next to God in heaven, so that we can just be the ordinary ones. We can live an ordinary life, doing a few good deeds here and there, and when we do make it to heaven, we'll wave at Jesus from the back benches.

I read from John's gospel yesterday that Jesus said we'd do the same sorts of things he did, and more, because we have the Holy Spirit living in us. That sounds more like an extraordinary life to me.

Here are some words I wrote as I waited on God in the stillness of the middle of the night:

'How can I inspire people to greatness?

If I could lift them and carry them on eagles wings
It would be easy.
But I must inspire them to grow wings of their own
And take a few tottering steps....
Using their faith, like a weak muscle,
Gradually gaining strength until they're ready
to fly.'

Day 26 - The best medicine

My dog Jessie doesn't do humour. She doesn't like it when we laugh or dance or sing and she starts to bark at us. Humour is so human.

Although 'The Goons' was before my time, I have since learned to love that kind of zany humour. I was brought up on Monty Python, Morcambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, and my dad used to love Dad's Army! I'm not so good at telling jokes though... although... go on, I'll tell you my favourite one. (And this is just for Lydia!):

A man walks into a bar, orders a drink, and is surprised when someone says to him, "nice tie, mate". He turns around only to find no one there. Again, he hears the words, "Wow, neat haircut!", and sure enough, when he looks around there is no one near him. 'That's weird', he thinks and settles down to finish his drink. Once more he hears the words, "Great aftershave, mate!". This time he calls over to the barman and asks what it's all about.

"That'll be the complimentary peanuts." came the reply.

This joke seems to get me laughing every time I hear it! 

Humour doesn't translate well. It's one of the hardest things to understand in a foreign language because it relies on slight differences of meaning and inuendo. Consequently, I think we miss much of God's sense of humour in the Bible. The best verse I can think of is from Proverbs (17:22): 'A merry heart does good like a medicine!' Some of the best preachers are really funny! They get us laughing at ourselves and as we lighten up, it somehow seems easier to accept the deep issues of life. I think humour dispels fear, and it's fear which freezes us and causes us to harden our hearts. 

I'll always remember when my daughter met a new friend when she was five years old. They took one look at eachother and one said to the other, "Let's go and be silly!". I have to say that that was the start of a long friendship between the two girls! And to totally misquote the Bible......

'Go and do likewise!!!' (If you want to look it up it's Luke 10:37)

Day 25 - Peaceful

When we think of the word 'peaceful' we imagine some still water with beautiful reflections of countryside and no wind; it's a stillness that is unruffled. The word 'peace' comes up rather a lot in the Bible. Jesus is described as the 'Prince of Peace'. He says to his disciples, "Peace be with you", and says that the peace that he gives is different to anything the world has to offer. So what is peace?

In some of the traditional films about the life of Christ, Jesus is portrayed as a quiet person with big searching eyes who looks rather sad most of the time, and when he speaks it is very slowly and deliberately. Where is the partying Jesus, who loved sharing meals and laughing with people, and where is the passionate Jesus who was white hot with anger when he saw the Temple being used as a place of extorting money from the poor? Did Jesus lose his peace at these times?

I think the peace that God wants us to have is more to do with the Hebrew word 'shalom' which means more than just peacefulness, but a wholeness of person, a completeness and prosperity of life. So we don't have to look like we're in a trance all the time.... we can laugh and cry, jump and yell and still keep our inner 'shalom'. And it's about being comfortable in our own skin and accepting ourselves for who we are.

Day 24 - Safe Sex

I begin my time with God in song tonight - The Lord's my shepherd and an old one from my childhood, The Lord of the Dance. It's good to be here again. Tonight, for the first time, I have lit a candle and relax in its flickering light. I think about the Bible verse I read earlier from the book of Romans, chapter 12 about offering our bodies to God. He's not just interested in our spirit, our thought life and our emotional well being. He's interested in physical things too. My body matters to him. 

The traditional Christian view, backed up by many references in the scriptures, is that sex before marriage is not good. This doesn't sit nicely with the experience of our modern society. The word the Bible uses is 'fornication' and for many, it's viewed as old fashioned and simply not relevant. After all, what could be wrong with expressing our love for one another? Surely love is a good thing? Here are my thoughts on why God asks us to wait till marriage:

Here is a snail. They're rather cute, aren't they? Inside the hard exterior is a little creature with a very soft skin, and it would be very vulnerable if it didn't have such a strong shell. This is our heart, so soft and vulnerable. It's been in the news recently where a young woman has posed, naked, for her boyfriend, only to find, after the relationship has ended, that he has posted the photos up on the internet for the world to gaze at! The poor girl feels totally abused. Her nakedness is so precious and now it's like the soft inside part of her heart is exposed to the wind and the weather.

Inside the very depth of our being is a loneliness that came when we lost relationship with our Father God. Sexual union is the closest we can get to becoming one with another person. The Bible calls it becoming 'one flesh'. In fact, having Sex was described in the Old Testament as 'knowing' someone. It's the most intimate we can be with another person, and people treat it like it's just a physical act. We are whole people. What we do with our bodies affects our souls and affects our spirits. 

I believe marriage is to sex what a shell is to a snail: a safe place. You might say to me that many marriages don't last and plenty of hurt comes from divorce. Yes, that is true, and there is always healing available to the wounded. However, let's not give our innermost being to every person we meet. Let's trust that God might just have our best interests at heart when He shows us that real 'safe sex' is in marriage. 

Day 23 - Success? or failure.....

We have a fake egg in our house. It looks like a real egg but when you throw it to some unsuspecting person, they try so hard to catch it only to see it..... bounce!
We all know the nursery rhyme, 'Humpty Dumpty':
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
I believe it started out as a riddle. Humpty is often portrayed as an egg, and of course you couldn't put an egg back together again if it falls and cracks open.



I felt a failure today.
The dictionary said 'failure' is not achieving success. 
So we're sitting on the wall with Humpty 
or we're lying on the floor in a mess. 
It's one or the other.
Or is it?

I started thinking about the story of Adam and Eve in my time with God today. They ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? They were alive because God breathed life into them, so why did he plant the tree of life in the garden....why did they need it if they were already alive? He said they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit...but they didn't die, did they? What's going on here? 
There is a life that God wants us to have which is something we choose for ourselves. And yes, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought death into the world - death and sadness and sickness and pain. If only they'd eaten from the tree of life instead! They chose death, not knowledge. God never intended us to even think about good, ... or evil. He only wanted us to have ever growing life and have it in abundance. 

Maybe there's an alternative to success or failure. If we look at the Humpty story and see sitting on the wall as success and falling off as failure, how many of us have felt that we've missed the mark in life? We just haven't made it, or if we have made it, we live life terrified that we might fall off! Let's relax because there is an alternative. It's faith, it's hope and it's love.

His love for us, -  inspiring in us, through faith, a hope that is certain and sure.