Sensing Lent 26: A blue bowl

This bowl came back from my retreat on the Welsh coast last summer. It carries with it shades of the sand flats and the harbour at the edge of the small town there, the expanse of sky and the blue of the sea. As soon as I saw it in the local craft shop, I felt the need to bring it home as a reminder of everything the retreat meant to me.

I've never 'thrown' a pot (on a potter's wheel, that is. I've never thrown a pot either) but it must be very physically satisfying, to see something beautiful and useful emerge from a shapeless lump of clay.

It was the pre-Raphaelite William Morris who said 'have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful'. Bowls are useful, but this one's more beautiful than useful, if I'm honest. In fact the glaze has already slightly worn off due to a regrettable turn in the dishwasher, after I tried to serve some food up in it.

Really it's just beautiful. It couldn't be more blue, smooth, shiny, hard and redolent of the seaside. The light bounces off it like sun off water, and brown pigment runs into the base through the streaks of blue like rivers of sand when the tide's going out. 

It's just a bowl. But it signifies something deeper. It was on that retreat that I learnt to love myself a bit more. I sat in God's presence in the chapel. I walked with no bag and no agenda. I spoilt myself, sitting in a cafe eating an expensive salad I hadn't prepared and buying a blue bowl which would almost certainly not be useful.

Because God loves us, full stop. Not primarily for our usefulness. Which is quite a 'useful' thought in Lent.

Lent for extroverts 2: Ash, then Love

To peruse the table of dates for Ash Wednesday and Easter Day in the front of Common Worship is to watch your life slipping by, year on year, ending abruptly in 2030. From time to time Valentine's Day falls in Lent, for instance, 2002; 2005; 2008; this year and in 2016. 

In 2018, 2024 and 2029, Ash Wednesday will fall on 14th February itself, occasioning an interesting liturgical/cultural dilemma for church-going couples: those giving up chocolate and other delicious things for the sake of their spiritual life will be unable to eat the Valentine's gifts brought by their devoted partners to celebrate romantic love. Observant C of E partners will no doubt go straight from the sombre evening's Ash Wednesday service of ashing to their romantic candlelit meal, not knowing whether to feel spiritually chastened or celebratory/sexy.

There's always a cultural/spiritual mix of things going on at Lent. Plenty of non-Church-goers seem to want to deny themselves things for some reason not clearly specified, but which is possibly a mixture of any of the following: hoping to lose weight; introduce some self discipline into their lives; save money; save the environment; think about others who have less, make up for not having been to church for years and prepare for major chocolate gorging at Easter. Conversely there seems to be a trend in church circles to take up something for Lent - are there suddenly more extroverts in the church who want get a positive spin on what they fear will be an otherwise mean-spirited and spiritually un-focussed spirit of 'No' pervasive through Lent?

I like that Valentine's is in Lent this year. Self discipline without love is surely 'a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal'. The spirit of mean rule keeping that characterised the Pharisees was not upheld by Christ, who routinely broke the Sabbath to bring healing and wholeness to people. Doesn't denial through Lent need to be in order to contemplate Love more clearly?

At a very low point in my life, which roughly coincided with Valentine's Day 1999, a family member sent a Valentine's card to our house. On opening it, a host of small red and purple paper hearts spilled out in a shower from the envelope to the floor, making us laugh and cry at the same time. In the true spirit of St Valentine, whose life was marked by sacrificial love of Christ and his church, we felt and knew we were divinely held and loved even in the saddest time.

Ash one day, love the next. A propitious calendar combination.

Back to basics

Mark 12: 28-31

'One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ '

Isn't it a bit inflexible to command that someone love you?

Or is Jesus saying 'You shall love the Lord your God...' as in: 'this is a promise'?

Hopefully with a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone, we will love God; love is the fruit of the Spirit, the first listed in Galatians 5: 'For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control.'

We began looking at the 'fruits of the Spirit' at our All Age service today; one fruit each fortnight should keep us going till next year...

Far from being an inflexible command, love of God is the life spring of everything we do as Christians.

But the well occasionally runs dry (more than occasionally sometimes).

I have been wanting to 'up the anti' recently in my prayer life; something to do with a challenge presented to me on retreat - to spend some time in the middle of the day in contemplation, as well as the usual morning prayer (in which I rush through the daily readings before getting up...)

This would be 'extra'; agenda-less; unhurried; focussed entirely on drawing near to Christ.

Scary...

How would I do this? Where would I start?

Well, I have a 'prayer corner'; the Russians called it a 'poustinia', a special place where contemplation (attempts) to take place.
It's a small chair in the study so I have to be careful to keep thoughts of computers, emails and admin out of my head in order just to contemplate.
The comfort of the chair helps; a candle, a cross, any visual or tactile aid helps to focus on God.


I was encouraged in it all this week by an amazing story of healing (honestly, I don't often major on these; this one however is completely authentic and happened to someone I know). 
http://tracingtherainbow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/an-unexpected-outpouring-of-grace.html

The special place where the healing took place was a retreat centre in Wales where loving the presence of God is sometimes so strong that people cannot move from the place where they're standing or sitting. To be reminded of this loving powerful presence pervading the world is to be encouraged to keep on entering into the still centre. You can read about the retreat centre in the book by Roy Godwin.

But we don't need to be in a charismatic/contemplative/Celtic retreat centre to experience the well of God's love never running dry. A small corner of a study will do...Come down O Love Divine...

Jesus is (not) my boyfriend

I blush to remember that a couple of decades ago we thought nothing of singing a song with our Youth Group that began:


'Hold me Lord (hold me Lord)
In your arms (in your arms)...


These were teenagers, male and female; some quite street cred, not necessarily all church kids. It's a bit cringe-able looking back.


But not altogether unusual as worship songs in the charismatic tradition go.


The song 'Light of the World' (Tim Hughes) contains this line about Jesus:


'You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me,' a line which I was quite happy to sing, till a more, shall we say, gritty Christian, suggested that 'lovely' was a word unworthy of a man who hung on a cross dying a terrible death for us.


As subjective expressions of love for God abound within the contemporary worship scene, one is left wondering about the balance between objectivity and subjectivity. At Theological College our worship offerings in chapel were scrutinised by tutors for skill and appropriateness, but the other students who'd been on the receiving end were never asked 'how did you experience God during that act of worship?' - that was considered 'too subjective.'


If God isn't experienced as personal, is it worship at all? And yet someone else's 'personal' worship experience, recorded in soft breathy tones in a studio and brought out on their latest worship CD (which you can buy at all major Christian book stores and at all Summer festivals kicking off with New Wine A in two days' time) sometimes comes across as a bit self indulgent.


Try this:


'I still remember falling to the floor and 
Now I often wonder how I ever dared to let you come
Even closer, closer than the air around me,
Underneath my skin...' (Paul Oakley, 1999, I Still Remember, subtitled: Kiss the River').


Being generally way out of the contemporary music scene, I find it takes me a while to re-engage when I arrive at the New Wine festival. Maybe things are moving on. Maybe we're going to have a renaissance of the objective...a bit of Miriam's song writing skills perhaps:


"Sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea." (Exodus 15:21)


I kind of hope so because much as I am not ashamed to say that I love God; Jesus is not my boyfriend.

31. The woman who anointed Jesus - the fragrance of forgiveness

I remember the story from  Sunday School, circa 1974, and was puzzled by it then. 

In an impromptu after dinner appearance, an un named woman anoints Jesus' feet with perfume and tears. It's about the injustice of God's generosity and is thereby subversive, like Jesus. And when the powers that be sense subversion it doesn't always end well.

Jesus has been invited to dinner. Simon, the host, is a Pharisee and no doubt thinks he's being generous and hospitable to this strange itinerant preacher called Jesus. But while the men are 'reclining' after dinner (first Century Palestinian version of retiring to the smoking room in Edwardian England) a woman who has 'lived a sinful life' comes in and begins to weep at Jesus' feet, wiping them with her hair, kissing them and pouring perfume on them.

She's invading male space. Her actions are intimate, emotional and quite, quite embarrassing. If you're Simon. Clearly Jesus must be spiritually blind: 'If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is...' (Luke 7: 39).

But Jesus thinks differently. If two debtors have their debts cancelled, which one will love their master more? The one whose debt was greater. 

Oh, the unfairness of God! This woman's extravagant gestures are evidence she has already tasted forgiveness. 

With his cold hearted judgmentalism, Simon has barely dipped his toes in the shallows.

20. The Shulammite - the madness of love

It's all got a bit hot and steamy around here. We're deep in imagery of fruit and spices. We can smell pomegranates, cinnamon, wine, lilies and incense, as we enter the book Song of Songs today to find 'the Shulammite', a young maiden in the time of King Solomon, as enraptured with her lover as he is with her.

'You're looking nice today' is not part  of their vocabulary. Oh no. Try instead:

'Your graceful legs are like jewels,     
the work of a craftsman's hands. 
Your naval is a rounded goblet 
that never lacks blended wine' 
(Song of Songs 7:2). 

Better stop there.

It is a no holds barred celebration of erotic love, though they have their little 'moments', as do most couples. It's always in the timing isn't it? 

She longs for him in her dreams. She gets up to look for him and finds only the city watchmen. Then at last there he is, to be taken lovingly back to her home. At last he can enjoy her 'garden'... 

Another time he looks for her, banging on her door at night  ('it's damp out here, let me in...') but she's not in the mood ('I have taken off my robe - must I put it on again? I have washed my feet - must I soil them again?' (5: 2-3).)

Then all of a sudden she is in the mood: 'I arose to open for my lover, and my hands dripped with myrrh (...) on the handles of the lock...' (OOOHHH, the suspense....) but he's given up and gone home. She's distraught (of course).

It's a hymn of praise to normal, bodily, chaotic, unpredictable, frustrating, exhilarating, exhausting, death defying LURRRRVE.

Amen to that. 

14. Ruth - a love story

I never thought I'd fall in love again. When my first husband died I was still young, and childless. My only comfort was my mother in law, Naomi. At least I had her. She wanted to return to her own people, so I went too. I chose her people and her God and so we came wearily to Bethlehem just as the barley harvest was beginning. Poverty was our a daily reality but the field where I gleaned was owned by someone kind. He told the men not to molest me and to let more stalks fall for me as they gathered. I often went home with double. Naomi was curious so I told her about Boaz. I think 'glint in her eye' might be an apt phrase.

I thought I knew my position - a foreign immigrant, lower than Boaz's servants, but he continued to show me favour. Naomi had a plan. Boaz was a distant relation of her dead husband's. She thought he might be persuaded to act as our kinsman redeemer. It would mean redeeming the land she used to own before the famine forced her away. But it would also mean 'redeeming' me in marriage. The more I though about Boaz the better I liked the plan. It just crept up on me. Yes he was older, but a good man. He spoke to me so gently. He was loving. He would make a good father. Could it be possible?

I did everything Naomi said. I can't say I wasn't afraid. Women didn't go to the threshing floor after dark. The harvesters were in high spirits. Eventually people drifted away and Boaz lay down to sleep. I waited a while then crept over, uncovered his blanket and lay down at his feet. I couldn't sleep a wink. It was the middle of the night when he suddenly started and woke up to find me there too, under the covers with him! To say he was startled would be an understatement! A young foreign woman, there in his bed, signalling marriage. He took me seriously though: 'The Lord bless you, my daughter. This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier. You have not run after the younger men (...) don't be afraid. I will do for you all that you ask.' 

After that it all happened so fast. We were married. The baby came along. I blessed the God of Israel. The first person to cradle him, after me, was Naomi. I made sure of that.