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Archive for September, 2011

Sep 14

The Fosse Way

The Fosse Way.

Ancient, straight, unbending.

Full of old memories.

Roman soldiers marched it. Horse carts stuck in its mud. Cars still drive most of it.  My friend and I walked some part of it today, heads tossed about in the wind, hairfree, carefree, glad to BE.

We walked.  We talked.

Glossy black cows and speckled herds were over the hedgerows.

We found blackberries sweet, small, sun-kissed.

There was a sadness in each of us, a year or more of hard places.   Parents departed. Children making nests empty. Struggling spouses. Illnesses. Finances. Life.

And the book I recently encountered.  Eucharistic moments – the breaking of bread, the giving of thanks in the brokenness, the miracle ensuing. Looking for charis, gifts of God, so often unnoticed yet there for our accepting.

We strode on, the ground dry and cracked, the path hard to our feet.

And then.

The farmyard, horses, a tractor from which to stand aside.  The gate to the next field, always open – always there a puddle thick with farmyard mud to straddle.

More dry earth, more fields, more cows.  More sun and wind and glorious freedom in the views. And then that final wet stretch, teetering along its edge, trying to find a pathway through, and I knowing it to be always wet, “Perhaps it’s a spring, fresh water always leaching through.”

Hop skip jump and we are over and onwards.

Remembering later, I write to her.

Thinking of that cracked dry soil we saw in some places this afternoon; and the puddles which never seem to be dry – a metaphor of what happens when joy and grace and God’s gifts penetrate our broken, cracked lives.  

And looking for the Gifts.  Searching out the Eucharistic moment. Allowing Him to leach into our crackedness.  Dry hardness becomes soft.

Life giving.

Life healing.

Life refreshing.

Life in all its fullness.

His life filling into ours.

Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”  John 4:13.14

Sep 11

Tenth anniversary of 9/11

Try praying says the banner.

It blows in the wind which blows the people and the sounds and the smells of fast-food-side-stalls.

Try praying.

Prayer before anything else or there won’t be anything else.

So why did I not pray?

Why could I not pray?

9/11 and a daughter missing.

A phone call abruptly cut off as a Tower collapsed.

Her scream and the line going dead.

Hours of not knowing.

Manhattan had swallowed my daughter.

An eighteen year old daughter and her second day at work.

I could not pray.

I could worry.

I could cry.

I could cling to my family.

But I could not pray.

Words would not come.

Shock took over.

And then friends prayed.  Friends there, friends here.  Friends nearby and friends far away. Friends with comforting arms outstretched.

I felt cut off.  Longing to be back in England because America was closed down. Stranded. But not wanting to leave my daughter.

Wherever she was, however she was.

Try praying.

But sometimes prayer is impossible. Its words will not come. I am stranded – on a mat stranded, unable to help myself.  I need carrying friends, friends who will bring me to the feet of Jesus.

Ten years ago I could not pray.

A year ago I could not pray.

A daughter restored but a mother dead.

I need carrying friends. Praying friends. Friends who care.

And then -

I am a carrying friend

a praying friend

For you.  To Jesus.

Try praying.

For she who needs your prayer.

For he who cannot pray.

Have you tried?

Tried today?

Have I?

Sep 3

Cotswold Walls

I found myself between Cotswold walls today.

I’d walked a mile or two, enjoyed the views and the warm caress of the late summer sun.  Found a place I knew not before.

Peered into old churches ringing with centuries of worship and liturgy and people.

Imagined ancestors kneeling with toil worn fingers and rheumaticky knees.

Imagined them listening to the chants and the anthems.

Imagined them slouching on the ancient pews, kept awake by fear of the wardens’ poking poles.

Imagined their prayers and cares, their dependence on God.

And heard their silence.

So I walked in the sun again, followed the lane as it wound through the trees, past the grand Manor House and the small thatched cottage.  Smelled the last of the summer red roses, ran my fingers through the rosemary.

And found myself between Cotswold walls.  Higher than my head, topped with apple trees weighed down with the promise of harvest. The sun unable to compete with the height of the walls; I was shadowed.

Shadowed – and conscious of the heavy, heady silence.

Sheltered.

Away from reality.

Away from the sunshine.

Away from the views I was enjoying.

The walls kept pace with the path.  Or the path followed the walls.

A narrow road.

A dark road.

A road of silence.

Beyond: sunshine. Views.  The sound of a lawnmower being tidy.

But here, for me, for now. Narrow. Dark. Silent.

And it was the parable of the past twelve months.

The year of mourning.

The year of narrow and dark and silent.

Cut off from the land of the living. From the warmth and the sunshine. From the laughter. From the outward view.

Confined to walk this path, hearing no-one, seeing nothing, on and on.

And I knew that One had walked this Way before me. Cut off from the land of living. Confined to silence and darkness.  Narrowed. Broken even.

For me. For you and for me.

I trudged on.

Glimpses of sunshine broke through.

Glimpses of a vista, hints of spaces.

I came to the chestnut tree and saw the horizon. And my eyes were open and my ears could hear and once again I was in the world around me.

And this is how it is.  For Him, the narrow, the dark, the silence of the tomb.And then the bursting forth.

I greet the sunshine. The view.  And know that it is His Power at work in me to enable me to burst forth too.

Slowly.  Carefully.

But it’s happening.  He’s doing it.

May He do it for you, too.

Sep 1

A New Thing

The End of Summer

And so it comes – the end of the idyll that was our summer.

A summer’s worth of weeks.

But now it’s time.

Time to return. Yet -

time for a new thing.

We felt it, American daughter and I.  Just a few days ago. The air is different, we said. It’s hotly glorious, sky clearly blue. But a change is coming. We know it. We can feel it. We can sense it.

It feels good and right and timely.  Welcome, even.

So we put away our shorts and strappy tops.  There was the ceremonial binning of much-worn well-loved worn-out summer sandals. The joy of rediscovering favorite shrugs and cosy sweaters and proper shoes.  The purchase of a new woolen skirt and dressy pumps to accompany it and exultation in that feeling of being well-dressed after a summer of short shorts, skimpy skirts and simple sandals.

It’s time. Time to grow up again. Time for routines and schedules and restoring order.

And yet. And yet there lingers a love of lazy summer days, of daisies, doing whatever whenever. However. It will return, we promise ourselves: next year, it will come again, but for now we are content, with our summer memories and still-golden tans, content to let the summer go, thankful for all we have done and all we have been and all we knew, for those eight long weeks.

I pull on long pants, slip a shrug over my shoulders – and drive with the roof down still, enjoying natural air conditioning after the hot, heavy, closeness of the humid summer air.

Anticipation. I almost long to sharpen my pencils ready for the new school term, to begin a fresh exercise book with its invitation and expectancy and openness and possibilities. To write my name on a new fly leaf and know I can begin afresh, in a new place with a new desk and new seat.

Time to return. Yet -

time for a new thing.

The promise is there.  I’m doing a new thing for you, says God.  Don’t you see it?

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18,19)

God says

CHANGE YOUR FOCUS:

STOP LOOKING BEHIND!

START LOOKING AHEAD!

Walter Brueggmann writes of this action of God:

“It is remarkable that Israel is told to forget the old exodus narrative in order to notice the new departure. The ‘new thing’ is not only more contemporary, but also more spectacular and exhibits the power of God in more effective ways. In these verses all the accent is upon the new experience which pushes the old memory aside. It may be worth noting that in the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, in so far as Christians are concerned, the same accent is upon the new at the expense of the old. Our God is doing a new thing.”

Our God is doing a new thing.

Because the past won’t sustain us.

God says, Forget the former things, I am doing a new thing.

The children of Israel had seen God have many victories in their past.  It had been a good past.

Leaving Egypt

Conquering the Land of Canaan

Fighting off prospective conquerors

Surviving a split in their country

But all their previous victories were doing nothing for them in the present. They needed a new work, a new miracle, a new victory.

So the question isn’t: what has God done?

There’s no doubt about that!

The question must be:

What new thing is God doing right now?

The children of Israel had a choice to make. They were in exile, looking back at former glories.  And looking back wasn’t helping. Yet all they could see in the present was problems, and their own powerlessness. They didn’t like where they were at the moment, and yet they didn’t seem to trust God to change things for them nor to want to be open to the possibilities He had in mind for them.

And so there is a choice:

They can continue as they are, nostalgic for what has been, yet not happy in the present, not trusting the Lord.

Or they can focus on what God wants to do in their lives. And God wants to do a new thing.

Can I see possibilities if God is in charge of this new thing?

The summer is the end of my year of mourning.  I am returning – to the memories, to the first anniversary of The Day, to the return of what must become normal-but-without-her.

Can I see possibilities if God is in charge of this new thing, this new life, this new beginning which is now beginning.  A chance to start over, sharpen the pencil, open the new page, take a new seat.

Claim the new thing HE is doing for me.  In me.  Through me.

Returning – to a new thing.  It’s in the air around us. Routines. Schedules.  School. It’s time.  Time to return to God and to the new thing He is doing.

O gracious God

Give us wisdom to perceive you

Diligence to seek you

Patience to wait for you

Eyes to behold you

A Heart to meditate upon you

And a life to proclaim you

Through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord

Amen,