The day God died

Having to come up with a talk for a primary Easter Assembly that spans the entire story of the death & resurrection of Jesus all in one go is quite a challenge. 

The phrase 'the day God died' came to mind and wouldn't go away, so here is what I offered. 

Amazingly a few hours later I had 20 minutes spare and was just settling down with the novel I'm reading, by Maggie Hamand, a wonderful writer who I met a funeral, and my eye immediately fell on these words: 'If he is both fully human and fully divine (...) how are these two opposites combined, and what happens where they seem to be contradictory? For example Christ died on the cross but God cannot die', (The Resurrection of the Body, 2008, p. 89-90).

So I'm hoping I might have been on the right track.

Please feel free to use it if it's helpful. Target age: 5-11 year olds.

The day God died.

The day God died, was a terrible day, but it didn’t end the way you might have thought.

The sun had come up, but didn’t know whether or not to shine.

It hung in the air like a big question mark.

They brought God out in the morning.

It had already been a long night in the garden.

God was tired.

He was wondering where his friends had got to.

No one was in the mood for God.

They were ready to make fun of him.

He needed to be taught a lesson.

Obey the rules and keep quiet.

Try not to be a troublemaker.

Don’t heal people on the holy day; don’t bring someone back to life: it’s too difficult for us to cope with.

God was teased, he was pushed around; it was frightening.

It got worse; it seemed like everyone was against him and now was their chance.

God was led away, towards the hill.

Someone carried the cross of wood upon which he was to die.

They arrived at the hill and God was lifted up for all to see.

Underneath the cross, they played a gambling game to see who would get his cloak.

There was more teasing: he saved other people, can’t he save himself?

Can’t he come down from the cross?

That’s just pathetic.

What a big joke, to boss God around.

Three hours passed.

The sun was very confused.

At midday it gave up shining: it couldn’t be a bright and happy day, the day God died.

It wouldn’t be right.

That made everyone even more grumpy.

The darkness lasted three hours.

People began to get nervous.

What had they done?

At 3 o’clock God cried out – he felt so alone on the cross.

Someone tried to give him a drink, but it was too late.

In the middle of the darkness and the teasing

and the feeling so lonely,

God died.

But this is not the end of the story.

The next day was a holy day and no one did anything.

The sun came up and it was quiet from dawn till dusk.

People sat at home, eat their dinner and went to bed.

The day after was the first day of the week.

Time to get up and get on with things.

Mary and Mary got up bright and early.

They went to find where God was buried.

They wanted to be the first visitors.

However, they were not expecting an earthquake.

Or an angel, bright as the morning washing.

The whiteness was unbelievable.

The guards around the tomb passed out in fear.

Mary and Mary carried on standing,

holding on to each other in amazement.

The angel spoke: God isn’t here – look!

He’s alive (of course!)

Go and tell everyone!

The women were filled with excitement.

God’s not dead!

They ran off, out of the garden, away from the tomb.

They suddenly had good news to share and they wouldn’t stop until everyone knew about it, even throughout the whole world…

Until everyone knew about what happened

The day after

The day after

the day God died.

Adventures in Silence

Sheep in the fields around LLannerchwen, near Brecon.

My first two tastes of ecclesiastically managed silence were not terribly successful. Anglican Ordinations are always preceded by 'silent' retreats but for these to work, silence really needs to be accompanied by solitude, and a theological college stuffed full of 2 or 3 dozen other retreat-ants, a number of whom have never encountered silence at all and have no idea what to do with it, does not work well; especially for the more extrovert amongst us.

My next proper attempt at silence took me in 2012 to Loyola Hall (now sadly closed) where silence was plentiful, despite the presence of perhaps 20 or so others, but the difference was I didn't know anybody. A guided retreat (this one in the Ignatian tradition) sees you all arrive and eat the first meal together, chatting and settling in, then from day 2 there is silence throughout the building and grounds, except for the acts of worship and 30 minutes of daily one to one spiritual direction. 

Apart from the lovely modern chapel, the building was a bit institutionalised; you needed a bus ride to escape the suburbs; but the Jacuzzi was fun (seriously). I found the evenings long. When you've got no one to talk to, no TV, radio or social media, you do wonder how you can fill all the hours in the day. And silent corridors are very silent. I came away just beginning to glimpse the power of silence to help me enter the presence of God more fully, but it still felt a bit 'difficult' (see here why) http://parttimepriest.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/reluctant-retreatant.html

Beautiful Pembrokeshire, near Ffald y Brenin

In 2013, I decided Pembrokeshire was the place for silence. Having heard lots of amazing stories about Ffald y Brenin, a house of prayer in the Welsh hills, I phoned to see if I could be accommodated. They were full 9 months in advance, but after being encouraged to stay off site, like many other hopefuls, and drive in each day for worship and prayer in the chapel, I found a local hotel and, come July 1st, set off down the M4.

Ffald y Brenin was utterly gorgeous, the countryside stunning and the worship in the celtic style round chapel truly uplifting.

Ffald y Brenin. Wonderful worship but not silent.

But it wasn't very silent. There were lots of fascinating visitors (pilgrims) each day and the temptation to be ultra sociable was too much. In addition, down in the valley for the evenings, I lost the impetus to stay silent and instead would come back about 7pm, eat stodgy hotel food, watch three hours of detective shows on the TV and go to bed. 

I learnt a great deal that week about the charismatic and the celtic (and, obviously, Lewis)  - see here http://parttimepriest.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/eitheror-spirituality.html
however, real silence was still beckoning.

Welsh hills, and the spirituality of the great outdoors had just begun to seep into my consciousness, so I returned to Wales this summer, and on someone's good advice, got a place booked at Llannerchwen, a small Catholic retreat house run by the Society of the Sacred Heart. This time I would be on site all the time, self catering, and have guaranteed silence from sun up till sun down. 

I was nervous: silence AND solitude - I imagined a blasted hillside with nothing to do but pray, but I was determined 'this would be it'. Llannerchwen was suitably tricky to find, up a long winding track off a 'B' road above Brecon. It was gentler, greener and prettier than I'd imagined, consisting of a small cluster of 'hermitages' and a tiny chapel, with the sisters (all 2 of them) taking it in turns to live on site, alternating with an ecumenical team of lay spiritual directors, so there's always someone 'in' with a warm welcome and friendly advice when you knock on the main house door. You also feel connected in a small way to the others staying there, with a half hour of communal silence in the chapel at 5.30pm.

As soon as I arrived in Llannerchwen and saw the view from my window, and took my first walk across the field to meet the sheep, I realised what I hadn't ever properly understood about 'silence': outdoors at least, it's not ever properly silent. Instead of being an absence, what silence is, is space to be: space to listen to creation, to God and to yourself.

A typical self contained residence at Llannerchwen.

Apart from my 2 requested sessions of spiritual direction, which I found very helpful, my main 'guide' was Sara Maitland (or at least, her book). Maitland is a writer and practising Catholic who has sought out silence in some of the remotest places in Britain, and chronicled the effects of silence on human beings, from long distance sailors to hermits and explorers. I knew that rereading her book 'A Book of Silence' (2008) would help me navigate the hours spent alone without talking to anyone. And it did. 

The real joy was discovering I wanted to be outdoors all the time. I was very lucky with the weather. I took long walks in actual walking boots and read OS maps (very unlike me) and I listened. Mainly to sheep. But also to birds, insects, farm machinery, the odd jet, the wind rustling the grasses. I became attached to the sheep at the bottom of 'my' field'. Ridiculously attached, because they never shut up. Not even at night. It was immensely comforting. 

Easy to pray looking at this: you just sit and think 'wow', and watch the bunnies.

And I had one of those experiences Maitland warns about, towards the middle of the five days, when I knew I'd used up all my own spiritual/emotional resources. Reading was boring, I was tired of walking and tired of the inside of my own head. 

It was Paschal who said 'all man's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone'. It's true. I was thoroughly tired of my poor inner self by then, and low in spirits. I was grateful for the good advice of one of the sisters the following morning, about God's delight in us, and desire to give us everything as a gift. I spent the last day enjoying some more human company in Brecon, glad of the smile of a passerby, the free sunshine, the welcome of an ancient place of worship which cost nothing. Learning that everything that is worth anything in life is free, and that we own too much and consume too much was both freeing and sobering.

St Francis in the herb garden outside Brecon Cathedral

Most precious of all was this revelation: I'd spent a couple of years wondering why it seemed God didn't speak very directly to me. Why does he appear silent so often? In spending hours looking at those Welsh hills, and walking in them, I realised with a shock that God had never stopped speaking. He is constant. He is there. It's just that life is too full, life is too noisy, we want quick results in ministry, we want God to jump to our tune. That's just not how it works. I left that place absolutely steeped in a quiet joy, in gratitude, and in the silence which was in fact full of God and full of creation. A silence full of speech.

At last a retreat where 'silence' did what it does best: bring us to the end of our own resources and reveal the normal default of God's abiding presence everywhere.

Pen y Fan: the view form Llannerchwen.

Lent for Extroverts 24: Climbing trees

I had to rescue a kitten from up a tree today. When I say 'had to', it was a difficult call: it was the kitten's first tree experience, though she's been practising on a tall fabric screen in the study, so I knew her balance was already amazing, but the first time she went up that she couldn't get down either. 

She had no hesitation in shimmying up the apple tree - nice day, a bit windy, but Spring is on the way and here it was, right before her, a vertical brown object just perfect for digging your claws into, up you go fast, lots of smaller sticky out bits you can hare along too, amazing feeling, no one can catch me...until you suddenly discover the ground is rather a long way off and going down feet first is not quite the same exhilarating experience....in fact it's really quite tricky. So after going back up higher and back down to the same spot fifteen feet off the ground several times, you just stop and look at your owner with those big hazel eyes and start mewing helplessly.

If I'd been in less of a hurry to go to work I would have stayed and watched a bit longer but I began to anthropomorphize rapidly, imagining my little black dot was stuck for ever and needed her mum to save her (classic mother-knee-jerk response). One wobbly stepladder, several fruitless attempts at calling her name and tapping the branch and a desperate grab later, and she was in my arms and swiftly into the kitchen with the door closed.

She probably spent the rest of the day thinking 'I don't know why that strange being got me down from a most enjoyable romp up the vertical brown spiky object; I was having such a great time...beats climbing up those green swishy things that hang near the windows any day...'

The response to small inexperienced beings appearing to get into trouble is so immediate; one wants simply to rescue them. It's just as well we never really see what goes on when we leave our tiny tots at child minders/nursery/school etc. We'd probably never be able to watch what they go through in order to grow up, without wanting to intervene every ten minutes. When I first left one of mine at nursery, they would lift him up at the window to wave goodbye, but I would have preferred not to see his little face crumpling behind the glass. Maybe a certain amount of ignorance is bliss.

And God lets all sorts of things happen to us in order that we should grow up. There would be little point in him rescuing us from this and that, even if think we need him to come and take it all away; we'd never learn to stand on our own two feet if that were the case. Perhaps we are more often the answer to our own prayers than we realise. 

I'm going to need a lot more stamina to allow the kittens up the tree and let them make their own mistakes, whatever that means. Growing up is too precious to keep intervening. But I'll probably be standing under there for a while yet; worrying.

3. Hagar - 'Where have you come from and where are you going?'

There's a whiff of Eastern promise in the air...the hot desert sun, the tent, the attentive Master, the hope of something better for a slave-girl nobody. Then it all goes horribly wrong....

It's always in the desert where God finds us and it was the same for Hagar. She was an Egyptian; a slave; young; beautiful. Finding yourself pregnant by the mistress's husband is never a good living/working arrangement and female bullying is a horrible reality. She flees to the wilderness in despair. There's nothing like a pregnancy to remind you of the frailty of human life. Things happen to you beyond your control. Another being is brought into the world and they are your responsibility. You worry about the mess you are brining the child into. It's very probable that God doesn't exist and we must make our own way alone.

But then hope. A spring of water in the desert. This is where God finds Hagar and asks perhaps the oldest question of all: 'Where have you come from and where are you going?' (Genesis 16:8.)
It's not Existentialism after all! 
Someone sees and Someone cares.

At the spring of water, there's a promise of blessing for the new life swimming within her. Hagar names the well 'Beer-lahai-roi' - 'the well of the Living One who sees me.' 
God sees and finds a desperate, pregnant woman and she responds in a beautiful act of divine re-naming.

It's all in the eyes...