Seeker

One of my favourite names for Jesus is from Isaiah, "Emmanuel" . This, as Matthew's Gospel explains (Matthew 1: 23) means "God with us" . I like the name Emmanuel because I find comfort in its meaning. I believe that in Jesus' coming, God comes to live among us. That is good news. It means that even when life is dreadful we are not alone. God is with us, God has come, is always coming and will come to save. I realise that I would not find the idea of 'God with us' comforting if I did not believe that 'God is love'. What if your concept of God is of an entirely vengeful, destructive being, always looking for ways to punish people? Or if that is your gut feeling about God, so that when something bad happens in your life you think, 'what have I done to deserve this?' During WW2 Nazi military uniform belt buckles had a design of an eagle symbol perched on a swastika. Over this was inscribed the words, 'Gott mit uns', the German...

Advent begins today, the 1st Sunday of Advent. Much has been spoken and written about what Advent (4 week season before Christmas) is about. One of its aspects is preparation for an expected coming, the coming of Christ, past present and future. A few years ago, I attended an Advent retreat during which the retreat leader quoted these words from a prayer by a New Guinea Christian. "At Advent we should try the key to our heart's door. It may have gathered rust. If so, this is the time to oil it, in order that the heart's door may open more easily when the Lord Jesus wants to enter at Christmas time! Lord, oil the hinges of our heart's doors that they may swing gently and easily to welcome your coming." from The Lion Prayer Collection, Lion Books 1992, p. 321 Image Credit: Colinfoo, Pixabay Licence

  Because this is Remembrance (Armistice) Day, I revisited this photo which I took in 2014, the year that saw the 100th anniversary of the start of WW1. It was in the grounds of the  Hooge Crater Museum  in Flanders, Belgium. Ironmongery from WW1 left in the area of Hooge Crater near Ypres in Flanders is a poignant reminder of the waste of that war that was supposed to end all wars, but didn't. Waste of so many young men and boys, waste of horses, waste of material resources, waste of energy, destruction of farmland and woods. And what was that all for? What did WW1 achieve? And what did the Armistice and the Peace Treaty that followed achieve? The seeds of WW2 among other things. Maybe like me you struggle in the silence to make sense of it all and to crave and pray for true peace to prevail. It's always hard when it seems there are always new wars, bloodshed and violence somewhere in the world today.  I think that's way this poem speaks to me so powerfully today as...

  Today is Ascension Day, 40 days after Easter and 10 days before Pentectost.  I seem to have written several posts for this feast day, So today, I will just share this wonderfully colourful image by Ed de Guzman, an artist's interpretation of what is described in Acts 1: 1 - 11 and a prayer based on that same Bible reading. Risen Lord, draw us to you. Let your kingdom come through us to the world as we live as your witnesses until you come again; you live and reign, now and forever. Amen. from A collection of Prayers Image Credit: Image of painting by Ed de Guzman

  For Good Friday this year and conscious of so much suffering in the world today, here's some words by Michael Mayne that I find helpful: "Only the Passion and death of Jesus can reconcile those two apparently irreconcilable truths: that God is in love with us, and that at some point in our lives we all experience suffering, pain and dereliction. Either God was not in Christ and the Cross is the ultimate symbol of all the meaninglessness that can destroy us, the absence of God, the triumph of the secular powers. Or God was in Christ and the Cross is the final word of a God who shares the pain and the dirt, the loneliness and the weakness, even the frightening sense of desolation and the death we may be called upon to experience ourselves. That was the audacious claim of the first Christians, that God is now reveraled as the one who pours himself out in love, a serving, foot-washing, crucified God, whose love cannot be altered or diminshed." Micheal Mayne, A Yea Lost and...

Between parades We're good at planning! Give us a task force and a project and we're off and running! No trouble at all! Going to the village and finding the colt, even negotiating with the owners is right down our alley. And how we love a parade! In a frenzy of celebration we gladly focus on Jesus and generously throw our coats and palms in his path. And we can shout praise loudly enough to make the Pharisees complain. It's all so good! It's in between parades that we don't do so well. From Sunday to Sunday we forget our Hosannas. Between parades the stones will have to shout because we don't. Ann Weems, Kneeling in Jerusalem (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994) p. 69 Image Credit: Palm Sunday, a painting by African artist Evans Yegon

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Blessed Virgin May, celebrated by Catholics, Anglicans and some other churches on 25 March each year. In England this used to be New Year's Day until 1752. It is also called 'Lady Day'. It is an approximate pregnancy length of time from the next Christmas, when Christians celebrate Jesus' birth. Today is about the Angel Gabriel’s astonishing announcement to Mary that she was to bear a son, to be called Jesus, who would be 'great'. You can read the account in Luke 1: 26 – 38. Today's feast gives me an excuse to share a memory of a visit my husband and I made 3 years ago to the Marienkapelle, a church in Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany . We were with a small group being shown around the church by a knowledgeable and entertaining local guide. Towards the end of the tour he asked us, 'how did the Virgin Mary get pregnant?' Somebody said 'by a miracle', another said, 'by the Holy Spirit...

This Lent I am occasionally posting on the theme of kindness. Today is St Cuthbert's Day and I found myself thinking about the kindness of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne. He died on this day in 687 A.D. Here is his statue near to Holy Island, Northumberland, England. Cuthbert is one of the most popular English/Scottish saints. Cuthbert was born around 640 in the Scottish lowlands (then part of the Northumbrian Kingdom). As a child he had a vision and decided to dedicate his life to God. He became a monk at Melrose Abbey. From there he began missionary work, which he continued from Lindisfarne where he became abbot. He became a bishop in 685 and continued travelling and preaching, walking all over the rough hills of his diocese, spending time as a hermit on Farne Island in between. On 20 March 687 he died and his body was eventually laid to rest in Durham. There are many stories about him. Here’s one that illustrates his kindly nature and his care to teach others to share what you...

  Mothering Sunday is on the 4th Sunday of Lent, which this year is today. It was was once a day to return to the 'mother church' of your area or to honour Mary, mother of Jesus. On this day Lent fasting rules were relaxed. It was therefore sometimes known as 'refreshment' Sunday. At one time children employed as domestic servants or apprentices were given the day off to visit their mothers and perhaps take a cake or posy of flowers. Some people call today 'Mother's Day'. I'm not keen on that as the name 'Mothering Sunday' is a more inclusive way of looking at it. Not everyone is or can be a mother but we can all try to do what the best mother's do in the sense of providing a safe space for others to grow and flourish. And we all need to receive welcome, nurture and refreshment from others. I think that is part of what the church should be about - reflecting the perfect 'mothering' of God for all her children. (In saying that I am not...

An act of kindness can be something simple, like an act of courtesy. This morning I went on an adventure. Well, it felt adventurous. I entered a supermarket to do some shopping for the first time since December. It was a relief to find I'd not forgotten the behaviour protocols for Covid risk reduction. I'm grateful that other masked early morning shoppers were careful to observe the 2-metre apart distance rule. How strange that the kindess of courtesy now includes keeping physically distanced from other people. The highlight of today's supermarket trip was provided by the young man working the checkout till. The staff in that particular place are always courteous, but he seemed especially so, going the extra mile in what he said to me and how he looked at me. Even though he was masked, the smile on his face was obvious by his eyes. I give him full marks for courtesy, because today his courteous behaviour felt like a kindness, a lovely gift just for me. That young man's ...

Can dogs be kind? In my Lent series on the theme of kindness, I thought of entitling this post, 'Kindness of Dogs'. I decided that might be an anthropomorphic step too far. My experience of dogs is that they seem to be kinder than cats. If you are a cat lover you may disagree. I think that in a sense dogs can be kind. There are so many examples of loyal dogs doing good things for their owners, being faithful companions. I called this post 'Kindness through dogs' because people can find kindness through dogs, even if that was not the dogs altruistic intention. Going back to my childhood, when I felt miserable there was always comfort to be found in stroking the family dog. Like most dogs our mongrel was sensitive to human moods or sickness. When our children were growing up, our pet labrador was there for any of us not feeling our best. Kindness can be spread through posting images of dogs on social media. During lockdown I have enjoyed seeing photos and videos of the do...

  During Lent, I've decided to post as often as I can about kindness. (See my post of yesterday, Ash Wednesday 2021 .) So today I'm starting with an early memory of how someone was kind to me. It involved plums and plum stones. I was about 4 years old and attending a kindergarten school. Usually I went home for lunch. The day of my plum stone memory was, I believe, the first day that I had lunch at school. It was a hot meal cooked in the school kitchen. The dessert that day was stewed plums. I ate one. It tasted good, but it contained the plum seed, hard as stone. What was I supposed to do with the plum stone? At home I'd been taught to spit the plum stone into my spoon and place the stone on the rim of the pudding bowl. My immediate problem on that 1st day of staying for school lunch was that the school bowls had no rims. My longer term problem was that I was then a rather shy little girl. I didn't dare ask what I should do with the stone. I knew I shouldn't put it...

  Ash Wednesday feels very different this year. In the UK we are several weeks into another lockdown due to Covid and expect several weeks more. Last year, just before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, someone asked me if I planned to give anything up for Lent. My answer was that I hadn't yet decided, but had a feeling that "something would emerge". I didn't in 2020 make any decision about giving something up. In the end, at the start of the 4th week of Lent our 1st lockdown began and that included closing all public worship where people physically gathered together. So what I eventually gave up was 'going to church' for the rest of Lent and many weeks afterwards. I  didn't give up church, just the regular habit of going to a church building to worship with others - at least temporarily. Church is a community of Christian believers. Those local communities have continued to worship, pray and care for others throughout the pandemic in all sorts of cr...

I am not a cat lover, partly because of a slight allergy to them, especially the long-haired variety. That doesn't stop me admiring their beauty or their easy ability to completely relax. Many years ago, I heard a Christian speaker refer to a 'pussy cat experience' as a way to describe relaxing into the sabbath rest of God. Jesus said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11: 28) The cat in the photo at the head of this post, seems truly at rest. I love D.H. Lawrence's poem called 'Pax' which uses the analogy of a sleeping cat in relation to the experience of being at home with 'the living God'. PAX All that matters is to be at one with the living God to be a creature in the house of the God of Life. Like a cat asleep on a chair at peace, in peace and at one with the master of the house, with the mistress, at home, at home in the house of the living, sleeping on the hearth, and ...

I really don't like cold weather and today is bitterly cold. Cold suits some people, but not others, certainly not me. Some flowering plants can be at their best in winter. One example of this is the humble snowdrop.   To see snowdrops gives me hope that spring is coming. In the words of the late Captain Sir Tom Moore , they inspire me in lockdown to keep putting one foot in front of another, to keep going, in the hope that “tomorrow will be a good day”. Snowdrops are also called ‘Candlemas Bells’ because they often flower at the feast of ‘Candlemas’ (2 February). If you don’t know what that feast is about take a look at the post Candlemas 2018 . In our garden the earliest green shoots of snowdrops appeared just after Christmas. They were at their best on 2 February, but are still flowering now. Towards the end of the dark cold winter, snowdrops are a sign of more new life to come when spring really gets going. For many months, they hide under the earth, beneath the dead leaves in...

You may have seen recent reports of hospital workers overwhelmed by relentless work, physical and emotional exhaustion.  Maybe you are one of them, or know someone receiving their care. Running on empty is such a hard situation to find yourself in. Human resources do run out. And the joy can go out of life for all sorts of reasons, especially when burnt out, ill, or bereaved, or simply because we are weary of staying at home in lockdown.  One of the things keeping me going is the odd moment of joy in ordinary life: a blackbird singing; the snowdrops in our garden about to flower; in heavy rain, several woodpigeons using our flat garage roof as a spa facility. Even this morning, when it was snowing while we were out on a walk, the fallen snow made the ordinary and family seem more beautiful. When we notice such things, they can become what the poet George Herbert described as “heaven in ordinarie”. Herbert was talking about prayer, which is one of the ways God’s heaven breaks t...

Here is a prayer I love. I should pray it more often. It is appropriate to pray at any stage of life, in any circumstances. The first 2 lines seem particularly appropriate just now with all the fear and anxiety around due to the current rapid spread in the UK of Covid-19. I do not know the author. If you do, please tell me. Free me   from all fear of the future,  from all anxiety about tomorrow,  from all bitterness towards anyone,  from all cowardice in the face of danger,  from all laziness in the face of work,  from all weakness when your power is at hand.  Fill me   with love that knows no barrier,  with sympathy that reaches to all,  with courage that cannot be shaken,  with faith strong enough for the darkness,  with strength sufficient for my tasks,  with loyalty to your kingdom's goals,  with wisdom to meet life's complexities,  with power to lift my eyes up to You! Image Credit: John Hain on Pixabay, Pub...

  I wonder how you feel at the start of the UK's 3rd Lockdown in an effort to stop the spread of Covid? Thinking about what to write, conscious of people who are tired, anxious, ill or grieving, the word that came to mind was ‘perseverance’. I write this on a gloomy Wednesday. It is 6th January and so the Feast of the Epiphany, a day to remember the 'wise men' from the east. You can read about them in Matthew 2: 1 - 12 . They followed a star, expecting to find a special king. To make that journey they must have needed much perseverance. Was it fuelled by hope? At the end of their journey, they found a young child with his parents, in an ordinary house in Bethlehem, on what was presumably for Mary, Joseph and their son Jesus, an ordinary day. Were the wise men disappointed? No, they were overwhelmed with joy. It was as if God opened a window in heaven to enable them to see what others could not. It was an ‘Epiphany’ moment. Did the memory of that revelation encourage them on...