March 2016 - Dwelling Spaces

Thursday 31 March 2016

Tracks

I love beaches! Being by the sea always restores my soul, and so it is lovely being down here in Minehead for a couple of days. On sandy beaches there is a sense of constant renewal and restart. Even the most wonderfully creative sandcastles or deepest tracks disappear in the rise of the tide and the wash of the waves. And then there is that magical moment of being first on the beach after the tide and looking back and seeing exactly where you have been. As more and more people come onto the beach it is harder and harder to see where each one has been.

I wonder what it would be like to look back over our lives and see very straightforwardly how we've got to where we are, but life is a confusion of tracks and collided lives. Some encounters literally change our lives and others more gently shape us, hopefully for good but sometimes in not so good ways. I have been thinking a lot recently about meeting Jesus and how significantly that has redirected my life. And not just that, but how that encounter begins to make sense of all the other tracks. It moves 'random' encounters into part of God's plan for my life. I will never figure out which of those tracks is most significant in God's plan for my life, but I know that I want to come away from each encounter having grown closer to God both by what I say and do and through what I learn. Sometimes that's easy, sometimes hard but I thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit who helps make sense of things and always points to how God is at work.

Saturday 19 March 2016

Water


On Thursday I visited Winchester Cathedral for the first time. In the crypt there is a sculpture by Antony Gormley which, depending on the level of flooding from the river, looks like it is standing in or on the water. The figure is looking at water in its hand, and the combination of seeing that and the burial casket of King Canute made me think... 

I liked the story of King Canute as a child. Although considered to be apocryphal it is profoundly important. Canute is reported as having his throne set in front of the incoming tide and commanding the water to come no further. Of course it continued and covered his feet and wet his robes. We don't often hear the rest of the story which was him turning to his courtiers and saying: 'Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth and sea obey.' He knew that only God is the one who holds true power and authority over all creation. However much power and authority a human being has, it is nothing compared to that of God. And so the story goes Canute understood that his kingship was in service of the King of Kings. There is a lot to learn from his example!

Jesus could command the storm to cease and the waves to still. He has the power and authority to command all creation to obey Him. And yet what does He do for us? He comes to wash our feet and die so we might live. He calls us into a relationship of mercy, forgiveness and love. This is the power of the cross, the wisdom of God which seems so foolish to us because we want to grab power and hold control over others.

So taking time to look at a handful of water and realise who I am and who God is, seems a wise thing to do.

Wednesday 16 March 2016

Play

One of the things I enjoy about having young children around is getting the opportunity to play. It's a strange thing that as you get older it becomes less 'acceptable' to play as a way of learning and working things out. Maybe because I don't have children of my own it always seems like a great chance to play when spending time with other peoples children! This photo is the result of adults playing earlier as part of looking after some of the college children, I think one or two of them may have got a look-in, but it was mainly an adult activity!

I'd like to play more, it makes me more creative and helps me think in different ways. Jesus encourages us to come to the Father like little children, this seems to me to be about trusting but also curiousity, playfulness, looking for different possibilities because you haven't been programmed into a particular way of thinking yet. So maybe our worship of God should include more time to play for people of every age!

Sunday 13 March 2016

Sixteen

So...today's my sixteenth birthday! Well, sixteenth Christian birthday :-) 13th March 2000 was the day I became a Christian and in some ways it seems like yesterday. At the time it seemed quite a dramatic change, but it is interesting to reflect back over the years before that, and the significant moments on a journey towards (and at times away from) faith. I liked going to church as a child and particularly being allowed to do the readings now and then in the services, and I definitely had some sort of spiritual encounter during my confirmation, but my main memory is the huge internal conflict that being a Sunday Anglican in a Monday to Friday Catholic school introduced. The actions of Christians made me think God was a hypocrite, and along with normal teenage angst it made me dismiss belief in God, although I kept almost unconsciously testing whether God was there over the years.


Starting my first job as a new graduate was a turning point for me, and working next to and becoming good friends with Adrian who was a committed Christian. The next 6 years were marked by many, many discussions about God and faith, and going along to occasional Christian things with Adrian and his wife Ruth. I don't know who was more surprised, them or me, that I finally accepted their invitation to church in August 1999. I had just driven to France to watch the total eclipse which had had a profound impact on me, and caused me to really wonder if life and the universe really was an accident of nature. I really didn't like their church and swore I wouldn't go back, and yet the following week woke up with a desperate desire to go to church! I went and cried all the way through the service which quite alarmed me. Cue 8 months of reading Christian books, doing an Alpha course and asking never-ending questions, trying to get to the point that no-one in the last 2000 years has managed, to rationally prove that God was real.


There were so many significant points in those few months, but the simple challenge of a young girl from church, who said 'God says let your barriers down' was enough to trigger a willingness to believe God might exist. And that was enough space for the love of God to pour in with a weight of absolute certainty that God was real. It is a strange experience to suddenly feel like you are known intimately and accepted totally. That there is someone who not only can forgive everything you have done wrong but wants to forgive you and has already shown how much they love you. That immediate conviction that I must respond with everything in me has not left me in the last 16 years, and has deepened and filled out in extraordinary ways. The nature of faith is that it is rarely 100% certain, but the faithfulness of God towards me is constant and unchanging. So I am so grateful to be able to say with more assurance than ever that 'the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, Jesus, who loved me and gave himself for me' (Gal 2.20).




Photo Credit: SaraElizabethCakes

Saturday 12 March 2016

Gift

The last 3 years have been another journey of faith, living without a salary, albeit with basic living costs and academic costs paid for by the church. That in itself has been a gift, unexpectedly after 20 years of full time work being able to study full time again has been wonderful, and a real privilege that I have not taken lightly. It has also been very humbling to receive gifts from charities and individuals which have helped me buy books, go to conferences, repair my car, make pension contributions, replace worn out shoes, have little holidays and go on retreats. 

When I was properly 'living by faith' 12 years ago for the first time, it was hard to overcome my pride and accept what people wanted to give me. It was a good lesson though in learning how not to be controlled by money. Since then I've lived on a good salary and no salary, and have learnt how to be generous in different ways at different times. It still seems easier to give than receive, but learning to do both well is a spiritual discipline I think. 

Receiving God's gift of love, mercy and forgiveness is not as straightforward as it seems. Grace is hard to come to terms with, somehow we feel we need to earn these things rather than simply receive them with a grateful heart. But they are a gift, and accepting this greatest of gifts, is good training for learning how to receive and to give well in all areas of our lives.

Thursday 10 March 2016

Miracle

Miracle - 'an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency'.


The last couple of days the setting sun has been startlingly bright reflecting off the leaves of the bush outside my window. It looked almost like the bush was on fire - which alongside the fact that we have been reading the start of the book of Exodus in chapel this week - has inevitably made me think about the story of the burning bush in Exodus 3. Moses, out in the desert shepherding flocks, saw that although the bush was on fire it was not burning up, and so he went to have a look. God called him by name - Moses! Moses! - and told him he was standing on holy ground and before commissioning him to return to Egypt to help set Israel free. It's a brilliant story.


As I watched this bush in Bristol look like it was on fire without burning up, it made me wonder how often I am prepared to be stopped in the midst of my regular day by the voice of God bringing the extraordinary out of the ordinary. Because I do believe that God speaks all the time to us. There have been lots of times even over the last couple of months where I have strongly felt I should do something at a specific time, and then been surprised when it has been just right. Is that coincidence or am I responding to the prompting of God's quiet whisper? Is the burning bush an optical illusion or a miracle? I suppose the answer is, this side of heaven, there is no way we can know for sure, but I have chosen to believe that God has both created me, and is intimately concerned with the life I live. So if I am willing to turn aside and listen, then why shouldn't I expect that miracle to happen, and for God to speak to me?



Wednesday 9 March 2016

Jigsaw

At the moment in Carter (the building I live in at college) we've got a jigsaw on the go. It's rather nice after an intense day to gather around it and have a chat and try and put a few more pieces in. I like doing things like that together with others, it's a good way of deepening relationships and so building community.

It's probably a cliche, but living in community feels like a jigsaw to me at times. At the beginning you are all thrown together in a jumble, and it takes a little while to figure out who your close connections are and how you all fit together well. This is the fifth year of my life that I have lived in a large community and there has been a similar pattern of community formation each year. The classic process of team development is forming-storming-norming-performing, and I see elements of that, but the process of forming is an interesting one in itself. 

There are always those who settle quickly, who are less riled by the idiosyncrasies of community life and who people start to turn to, to offload about the things they are finding difficult. The quick settlers are the corners of the jigsaw, perhaps unintentionally setting the framework for community life and then as others begin to settle around them, the picture of roughly how the community will be for the year becomes clearer. The way a community works is utterly dependent on its members, and each new member re-forms the community, which is where the jigsaw analogy breaks down. But we can always bear in mind the picture of how we are aiming to live as a community so that our bit plays it part in creating that well. 

Monday 7 March 2016

Journal

Time has come to start a new journal, and here it is! Journalling was a spiritual habit I picked up from my friends who were very key in my journey to becoming a Christian and from those who discipled me in the early days of taking baby steps in faith. I'm really glad I stuck to it as well! I'm not consistent in when I write, sometimes a few times a week, other times a few weeks can go by, although I usually like to take notes during sermons. I haven't counted how many journals I have now piled up at home but it is quite a few across the 16 years.

Journalling really helps me process what I feel God has been saying. I like writing about the good things that have happened as well as the challenges I am wrestling with, and around the new year and around my birthday I like to read back over the past year of entries and take stock of the general flow of my life. It helps me orient myself and not lose track of significant words that have been spoken. So here I am with a whole book of blank pages before me...lots is going to happen over the next few months and I'm excited about the journey that is going to appear on these pages. Life following Jesus is never dull!

Sunday 6 March 2016

Mothers


Since it's Mother's Day, I have, unsurprisingly, been thinking about Mothers! In particular thinking about how fortunate I have been to have such a great Mum and Grandmas and women who have been like mothers to me at important times in my life. This photo is of my Mum. A few years ago I had to write a couple of paragraphs on people who had influenced me as a leader, and my Mum was top of the list. I'm not sure whether she sees it in herself, but her perseverance against the odds, her care for others, her ability to draw people together and work to make the world a better place, her sense of fun and creative mind, her heart to explore and see the possibilities rather than problems, and many other things have had an enormous influence on me. Her mum, my Grandma, seemed a woman ahead of her time to me, she seemed so confident and adventurous, and inspired me to push myself. My Dad's mum, who I wrote about a few weeks ago, has taught me what it means to love and to serve others without seeking reward, and to both dream dreams for the future and be content with the present. And of course the greatest gift has been knowing that I have been loved unconditionally by them all, even if it has not always been articulated like that.

In Kathy, Sue, Nikki, Louise, Pat, Sue, Pat and Vicky I have also had great mentors, givers of wise counsel, who have encouraged me to grow into the woman I am now, who have given me a hug when I have needed it, and a kick when I have needed that too.  In different ways at different times they have been a great gift to me. And have helped me know that although I won't be a biological mother, that I can be like a mother to others at times, it is a real privilege when I get to do that. And of course I love being a godmother too :-)

So today, thank you Mum and all those other 'Mums' I've had. I miss those who are no longer here, but rejoice in all that I have been given through them all, and hope that in some small way I can be as good a 'mother' to others as they have been to me.

Friday 4 March 2016

Pruning

A whole road of trees near me have just had a very radical prune. They look a bit sorry for themselves now, kind of a cross between hair-standing-on-end startled, and too-many-legged spider! I know it's handy to keep their growth under control, but they do look weird.
I'm very inconsistent with my pruning approach. The plants I'm not bothered about killing I prune radically, and unsurprisingly they flourish, but I'm too scared to radically prune the plants I love in case I kill them, so they grow a bit haphazardly! You'd've thought I would've learnt the lesson of that by now...

In John 15.2 Jesus likens God the Father to the one who prunes the branches who bear fruit so that they will produce more fruit. He knows how to handle the plants so they can do what they're made to do even better. The next few months are going to hold big changes for me, some of the familiar routines and places will be gone, but it's comforting to know I'm in the hands of God, and He knows how to prepare me well.

Wednesday 2 March 2016

Focus

As the rain, hail, sleet and snow was pelting against my window this morning I was drawn away from my normal view of the trees and college buildings around me to the raindrops and rivulets running down the window, and it got me thinking about focus. It is pretty easy to get distracted and end up focusing on the things that are right in front of us, the urgent things that sudden pop up and demand attention. But it's not good to have your focus there too long, for a start it does take a lot of energy to keep focus on those things so closely because they are changing all the time and it makes you feel like you need to keep looking at them. I felt a bit like that looking for a new house, because I really wanted it sorted out quickly I ended up checking the new sale details really often until I realised what I was doing and how much time and effort I was wasting.
It is good to know when to refocus from the immediate onto what is just beyond. The trees are changing at the moment, but not as rapidly as the raindrops on the window. Changing your focus on to the things that are moving at a slower pace is helpful to put short-term things into their right context. The urgent always needs to be balanced with the important.

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Access

Trinity College is in quite a wealthy area of Bristol, and when I first arrive and started prayer walking around the roads nearby I felt quite shocked and sad about the number of houses shut behind gates. Whilst I hoped people were just away, the last couple of years it has been the case that many of the gates remain shut for much of the time. We live in a society that doesn't really know anymore what it's like to live in close proximity as family or community. I wonder in how many countries it's the norm even for parents and children to sleep in separate rooms? When I visited migrant workers in their homes in Washington State USA it was common for one or two families, up to 20 people in total, to be in one 'house' about the size of the downstairs area of my house. And yet they were so kind and welcoming and made space for us to come and sit. They knew what it was like to be connected to people.

Lack of proximity to others drives fear. We don't understand those 'other' people because we don't share life in any way. I saw this in Israel with the very strict separation of the lives of Jewish and Palestinian people. They never get to chance to meet as people with common social interests, it's no wonder then that misunderstanding and divisive rhetoric leads to growing fear which becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. So I have been praying as I walk that the gates would be opened and that people would give others access into their lives. That intense loneliness that marks communities like this would be transformed into connected lives and stronger community. That the desire to protect ourselves doesn't become so strong that we end up hurting ourselves because we can't let anyone else in.