Oubliette

That’s got you going hasn’t it? What does oubliette mean? Ah well…here’s how I know what it means. I have been many times to Corfe Castle. It sits in the village of Corfe in the Purbecks in Dorset, although it would probably be more accurate to say the village is there because of the castle! It was built by Willian the Conqueror and has a lively history. And it’s because I visited Corfe Castle that I know what oubliette means. The castle, you see, has an oubliette. Oubliette is a French word that means “to forget” and in the castle, there is a place to forget! But not just any place. An oubliette is a place where you put a person you want to forget. It’s true! Oubliettes come in various forms. The oubliette in Corfe Castle is a dry well, except it’s not a well at all. It look like a well, but instead of having water in it, it had people. People you want to forget. This is the place in the castle you put the person you didn’t want to escape…or live. You simply dropped them into the oubliette and then…forgot about them! There was no way of escape. And twenty two prisoners never did! Oddly, I remembered about the oubliette in Corfe Castle because I was thinking about remembering! Don’t you love that! Or maybe that’s just me! I was thinking about remembering because I was speaking about how, many years ago, we as CBC gave what little we had to God and were amazed as we raised the money to redevelop the building, the cost of which was around the £2million mark! As I prepared that talk, I was amazed as I remembered some of the things we did, some of the things we experienced. And what struck me was how easily I had forgotten (there’s the link) much of the journey from raising the questions about the suitability of one building, to sitting in a brand new building some thirteen years later. That was an inspirational, challenging, wonderful, difficult journey, one on which I learned many things. And yet, one I realise I had mostly forgotten. The trouble is, life moves on and so does church! Now I’m worrying about a whole host of other things, things like the redevelopment project, I don’t think I can solve. What has occurred to me is that maybe I should do a bit of remembering. Remembering how we trusted ourselves to God for something we could not do, and how, when we gave what little we had, we went on an incredible journey. I don’t think I mean that if I can summon the right amount of trust in God (whatever that means), I can be assured everything will turn out how I would like or expect. More like, if I trust myself to God with what little I have, I can be assured of a journey of faith along which I will see the hand of God. So, oddly, realising how much I had forgotten, has helped me remember. It has helped me to remember God’s presence in the past and the promise of his presence in the future. And maybe that’s something I would do well not to forget!

Control

The scary thing is, I don’t really know what I’m going to write! Which might, ironically mean I’m not quite in control of what I write! Oddly though there’s a wonderful freedom in that. It means I can simply start writing and see where it goes. I’m going to let you into a little secret (apologies to those of you who think Christians, and certainly minsters, shouldn’t have secrets): that’s what I do when I’m writing a talk. I mostly just start writing! It’s not that I haven’t done lots of reading and thinking before I start writing. I have. Always. But mostly I don’t know what I’m going to write (or, I suppose in the end, say) until I put pencil to paper. And for those of you who are curious, I always write talks with a pencil and paper. It works for me! Anyway, I might already have lost control of what I’m going to say! What I’ve found when writing a talk is not to think I have to know exactly where I’m going before I start, but to follow where I end up going! On my word! I’m wondering how I’d get away with that in a workshop on preaching. I probably wouldn’t, because there are norms and protocols to writing a talk. And “just start writing” I don’t think is be one of them. But here’s what I think. I think God is creative enough to work with me as I “write” a talk. And, if I don’t have control, in the sense that I know the answer before I start, then maybe, just maybe, God has the room to move as I write! And here’s what I’m learning: I don’t have control of God anyway! How ludicrous to even think I might have control of God. But you know, I think when I first began to write talks (over thirty years ago now), that’s what I thought I was doing. I was trying to explain God, the things God did, had done and would do. It was like I was trying to be in control of God so that others could understand God for themselves. I was terrified of “getting it wrong” and leading people astray. What I think I’m learning is that I’m not in control of God (yes I know, in some ways of course I never thought I was in control of God) and God is so much bigger and better than anything I could ever write in a talk, I should stop worrying about it and learn to embrace the truth that God is beyond me. But that’s a bit scary if I have to “get it right” in a talk. So, here’s my dilemma: I love writing talks and talking about God (just in case you hadn’t noticed), but I’m less and less sure I can do that. On the other hand, the God I now think I believe in is so much bigger and better than the one I believed in thirty years ago, and I want to talk about this God, even if I find the words hard to come by! On my! Who’d be a preacher? (I don’t like that word, but I used it because I’m guessing you’ll all understand what I mean by it). So, where am I going with all this? Well…I think I’m saying I’m realising that giving up control of God is a good thing, even if it brings its challenges. I now don’t have to worry so much about “getting it right” because God is so much bigger than anything I will ever say. And, if I do “get it wrong” God is in control of that, not me! And I think he’s quite capable of finding ways to help us through any mistakes I might make. Which means letting go of control gives God the room to move. And that has to be a good thing doesn’t it?

Wrestling

I chose the title to this blog because that’s what I thought I’d write about. But now I’m wondering if I’ve chosen that title before! And I am now wrestling with that thought! Slightly ironic, don’t you think? But then, that’s what happens with wrestling. It tends to keep coming back. At least for me. And it has. Perhaps, more accurately, wrestling is something that happens over a long period of time. That’s certainly true for me. And it’s not an easy thing, wrestling, especially when it involves things you hold dear. And I hold my faith, if I may be so bold as to call it that, very dear. In some ways it defines me. I grew up in a Christian household where my dad, and then years later, my mum, were both ordained priests in the Anglican church. I am steeped in church and faith and following God. I’m not sure I could ever walk away from faith. Which sounds like I’m the kind of Christian we are all told we should aspire to be (at least that’s what I thought I heard when I was growing up). You know, the Christian who never gives up on faith, who always stands firm in their faith, the one who finds God in anything and everything. Hmmm. Well, I’m not sure that describes me very accurately. And, as I say, I’m wrestling. And have been for some time. Over different aspects of what I might call, my faith. If you have ever been in a place where you are wrestling with faith, then you probably already know what I think I’m discovering. It turns out that wrestling with faith is critical for faith to grow. The Bible is replete (that’s a word I never thought I’d use anywhere, let alone in a blog) with stories of wrestling with faith. One of the most well know is that of Jacob wrestling with God. And what I love about that story, is that it is God who initiates the wrestling! At the end of the wrestling, Jacob is different (he can’t walk properly because of his hip) and he has a different understanding of God. He met God in a new and different way, and that changed him, and his understanding of God. And, as if that’s not enough, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel, which means something along the lines of “wrestling with God”. And that was the name for the nation of the people of God! Love it! The people of God wrestle with the exile, and what that means for them as God’s people: what about all the promises that seem to have come to an end? What kind of God is this? And the whole of the New Testament is a wrestling with how to fit this Jesus, the Messiah, into Judaism, when, in truth, it doesn’t. Not even close. A crucified Messiah? That cannot be! It seems I’m in good company. What I know is that wrestling with faith in anything but easy. But what I’m also learning is that rather than make God and faith smaller, it makes God and faith bigger. So, however hard it becomes, I’m going to go on wrestling. And in that at least, I am wonderfully a man of faith. A proper Christian even!

Loosen Your Grip

It’s been a while I see since I blogged (that’s just a weird thing for me to write). And part of me feels guilty. I’ve been blogging (if that’s even a thing) since the lockdowns began because it seemed a good way to keep in touch with people I couldn’t see, or be with. That’s another way of saying I felt I ought to do something for people in the church during lockdown, because, let’s be honest, they’d never survive without some words from their minister! I hoped some words would, in truth, be helpful. And maybe they were. But once you start something, it can be hard to stop. Or rather, in may case, I’d feel a little guilty if I stopped! Which says more about me than anything. I know that. And yet, here I am. Still blogging. Just! Thing is, it’s hard to keep coming up with smart things to say. Or clever things to say. Or words of wisdom. Or sound theology in an ever changing world. Or things people might find interesting when there are so many other things to read. And it’s not that I have millions of followers, at least not that I’m aware of. I’ve probably had as many people tell me they don’t read these blogs as people tell me they do! Sobering. And, lurking behind the writing of blogs, is the question: what if I’m wrong? What if I’m wrong and I’ve written it in a blog? That’s a good question to ask but a hard question answer. And I’ve been reading and learning about this very thing: being wrong. Or rather, being right! Because that’s what we’re obsessed with: being right. That’s what the Pharisees were obsessed with: right theology. And they, of course, were the protectors of right theology. I was once in a seminar with R.T. Kendall who was asked what the “R.T.” stood for. He thought for a moment, and then said: “Right Theology!” While there as a little glint in his eye, he was convinced of his theology! But “right theology” is something Jesus seems to challenge. He certainly challenged the Pharisees. And maybe he challenges us. By now, I suspect some of you are worried Ian doesn’t care about theology - you can believe whatever you want! Well, if you think about it, that’s true. You can believe whatever you want to believe. That’s your choice, not mine. Jesus, it seems to me, isn’t challenging the idea that we might believe different things. What he challenges is how we hold our different beliefs, our different understanding of theology. What Jesus and the Kingdom of the Heavens leads us towards, is living in love. And in the Kingdom of the Heavens, love trumps truth. Jesus said, “He makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Mat. 5:45) God it seems doesn’t judge whether someone is “right” before he sends the sun and the rain. He makes absolutely no distinction. This challenges me. I like to be right. I like to get my theology right. I’m a preacher and I want to teach what is right. And, for the record, I work very hard to say what I mean, not what I think people might want me to say. But here’s the crux: I’m learning that I might be wrong! And I’m also learning that maybe that’s a better way to be in the Kingdom of the heavens, because it means I’m moving closer to be able to love people, rather than judge them. So, I’m trying to loosen my grip on the theology thing, so that I can move towards love. The story of the Bible, the story of the Christian faith, is that Love Wins.

In the clink

What gift do you give to friends you’ve known for years? Our answer… go to London and watch a show together. So yesterday we did. We went to watch Six, the stories of the six wives of Henry VIII. It’s a concert as much as a show. Each wife tells her story and tries to earn the sympathy of the audience. The point, though, is to ask how they are to be remembered. You’ll have to watch the show to find out what they say! Before we travelled home this morning we went to The Clink Museum, the museum of the oldest prison in England. We like to spend our time doing things that will cheer us up! Although it wasn’t something to cheer us up. Not really. It was a trip through the things people did to other people that weren’t very nice. Not nice at all. And lots of it was done in the name of religion. Sad, but true. You could perhaps say it’s about how badly you could treat someone if you happened to disagree with them. Or, how badly you could treat someone who chose to believe something different to you. The list of inmates included many who found themselves on the wrong side of the prevailing religious view of the time. Most of the methods of torture and death focused on how those on the wrong side of the prevailing religious view were treated. It’s actually shocking. The good news, of course, is that we’re not like that today. Hmmm. I wonder how true that really is. If we look around at the world today and ask the question how much of the trouble is about different beliefs, I’m not sure how much better we are. It’s a sobering thought. Apparently one of the main reasons people are put off the Christian faith, is the violence they read in the Bible, which they understand to be perpetrated by God. And, as they look around the world today, it appears it still happens in the name of God. It would be true to say, I think, that the vast majority of us are not violent towards others. And will never be. But we are, perhaps, left with the question of how we will treat and respond to those who are very different to us, and whose beliefs are very different to ours. Trips to The Clink at least make me think about it!

Christmas

So…here we are again. Christmas! I used to enjoy Christmas much more than I do now. Maybe it’s just because I’m older and more grumpy. Maybe it’s because it gets busy and, for people like me, there’s no break: it’s one service after another with little time in between to think and prepare. And the new year comes round remarkably quickly too, so there’s all that to prepare as well. One of the things I’ve done at Christmas for getting on the last twenty years, is to be part of the Thales Carol Service. It wouldn’t be Christmas if I didn’t make my trip there! And yesterday was this year’s Thales Carol service. So I took my guitar and amp, music and talk and went to Thales. When I got to reception, a voice said: “Hello Ian. You used to teach me!” Turns out I had taught the young lady the other side of the desk thirty years ago! Sadly, I could remember her brother’s name, but not hers! Ooops! We chatted about those school days and about her family. Last week I attended the Alzheimer’s Carol Service at the church, and afterwards a young man spoke to me, because thirty years ago I had taught him too! As I looked at him, I remembered him because I could see his mum in his face - his mum worked at the school and we got on well! As we chatted he said: “You ‘phoned us last year, Ian, when my dad died!” What? Did I? I asked him how he knew it was me. “You ‘phoned from East Surrey Hospital and I recognised your name and your voice!” I haven’t spoken to him in thirty three years! I ‘phoned the family in my role as a Chaplain at the hospital! Wow! It’s lovely to meet former pupils and to catch up with their lives, remembering things that happened a long time ago. And it got me thinking about Christmas. Perhaps the best thing about Christmas is to be reminded of something that happened a long time ago, and something, if I’m not careful, I might be inclined to forget: that at the centre of the universe is a loving God who came to be with us and do life with us. And still does! God comes into the mess. Again and again. If I am reminded of that at Christmas, that’s good for me. And for you. And everyone!

Death

Sorry…..that’s not a very welcoming title is it? No. It isn’t. But here’s the thing: I’ve taken a lot of funerals in the last few weeks, and I’ve still got more to do. Two today in fact. And then on Saturday, I’ll spend the day at a church in Redhill because I’m organising the Time to Remember service for East Surrey Hospital. The hospital invites the families and friends of everyone whose loved died, to a service to remember their loved one. It’s a huge task to ‘phone every family and to organise a service. Last year about 150 people attended, and, although I don’t know, it wouldn’t surprise me if there are more this year. Some people will come back and there will be new people. In the midst of this, I spend time with those whose loved ones have died in my counselling work with St. Catherine’s Hospice. Everyone deals with a death differently. No two funerals are the same. But, it sometimes seems that every death is a surprise! In some ways, that’s not true, but in other ways it is absolutely true. Some deaths are “expected.” When someone is old, or ill we know it’s coming, even if not exactly when. Some deaths are tragic. Some are cruel. Some deaths are a relief. Some are absolutely not. For anyone. As I’m writing this, I’m very conscious that right now, far more than I want to acknowledge, there are many deaths happening that are tragic, unfair, unjust and unnecessary. I’m thinking particularly of Gaza and Ukraine. I simply can’t get my head around what’s happening. I mostly can’t bring myself to watch the news because I don’t know how to process it all. Somehow, somewhere, there’s the belief (if that’s even what it is) that the way to bring about peace is to kill the enemy. I’m not sure what to do with that. I don’t understand how we got to that, and that’s not a statement about the history. There’s a lot of death around. And that’s problem for us isn’t it? Death is the big challenge to being human. We can’t stop it, and sometimes we bring it on ourselves or others. I’m wondering where the good news is, if indeed there is any. I have now wish to be trite, but there is one piece of truth that might be good news. We’re about to celebrate Christmas. There’s song about Christmas that has these words: “the baby born to die.” We know that story well: the baby in the manger will be the man on the cross, the man of the empty grave. And here’s the good news: death is not the problem to God that it is to us. I’m not sure I understand that in it’s entirety, but I understand it enough to believe that God has a better handle on it than me. Death, that is. So, in all my uncertainty, my questions and my wondering, I can trust that God can deal with death. For everyone. However it comes and whenever it comes. So, in all my angst, uncertainty and wondering about death, I can say thank God for we’ll be celebrating Christmas again soon. Celebrating the baby born to die.

Kindness

Being really honest for a moment, I just had one of these things happen where you wonder about the world. It was a small ting really, but nevertheless it made me think. We live next door to the dentist. It’s a business. They have a gardener who occasionally arrives to cut the grass, the hedge and do gardening things. He doesn’t come often and mostly the dentist’s garden is the one down the road that hasn’t been done. So, whenever I cut the grass, or the hedge, I always cut their grass out by the road as well as ours. And I always cut their side of the hedge between the two houses too. Nobody else in the road does that. They cut the grass outside their houses, but not their neighbours. I’ve done it for the twenty three years we’ve lived here. When he does come to do the grass, the gardener only ever cuts the dentist side of the grass. I know that because you can see it. And he’s done it again this morning! What I don’t understand is how he can’t tell that someone else must be cutting their grass because otherwise it would be up to his knees! No, really it would! And, apparently, no-one at the dentist surgery notices either. At least not enough to ever say “Thank You!” Maybe I’m just getting old and grumpy. But the thing is, the other day I had the opposite thing happen. I met someone I hardly ever see who thanked me for an act of kindness that happened nearly twenty five years ago. Before we rebuilt the church, the old church had a couple of pre-fab huts out the back that were used as meeting rooms. They were raised slightly off the ground, and the was a small crawl space underneath them. One morning, when I was still in training, I found someone sleeping under one of the huts. He was in a sleeping bag, but he was sleeping under the hut. I woke him and spoke with him, thinking he was a homeless sleeper. It turned out he wasn’t homeless, but had left his friend’s house to walk home, but decided to stop at the church and sleep there because it was a long way home! I made him a cup of tea and we chatted for a while before he went on his way. I met him this week, having completely forgotten about that moment. To be honest I would never have remembered it was this person who I’d found unless they’d told me! But they did. They recounted the story and then said: “I will never forget how kind you were to me, making me a cup of tea and chatting. Mostly, my experience of church had been being told off all the time. So, to be shown kindness made a real difference to me. And I’ve never forgotten it.” Wow! One simple act of kindness, that cost me nothing, and was nothing more than a human response to a moment, had a huge impact. Maybe, just maybe, how we treat people in a moment can affect them for life. Before I started writing this blog today, I had decided I was no longer going to cut the grass outside the dentist. Why should I? They never do the same and they never even notice. Having written this blog, I might have some thinking to do!

Thank you

I’ve looked for him before. In fact I’ve looked for him every time I’ve been in the church, which, to be honest, isn’t many times. I’m not often near the church, but when I am I’ve looked to see if he’s there. And, last week, he was! I hadn’t seen him for over forty years. I heard about him, and what he was doing, from my mum over the years. Actually, that’s the only reason I knew to look in the church. And when I did look in the church, I saw his picture! In the front entrance of the Minster, there’s a board with the pictures of all those who work in the team. And his picture is there. He looks a bit older than when I knew him, but it’s him (confirmed of course by his name written underneath)! I stopped off on my way back from my retreat - always do that because I grew up in Wimborne and something pulls me there! It turns out I arrived just as the Remembrance event was happening outside the Minster. And I thought: I wonder if he’s here today? And he was. I had to wait around for a while to speak to him because he had been leading the service and people wanted to speak with him at the end. But I waited. I waited because I wanted to say thank you to him. Over forty years ago he was one of my youth leaders. We loved him. He was fun and exciting and he loved being with us. So I wanted to say thank you. He didn’t recognise me! But why would he! Once we got chatting, the memories came flooding back: trips to the beach on summer evenings; playing football and French cricket, long conversations…We talked about life and faith and how things change. We talked about our different journey’s into ministry, about how he never thought he’d be a vicar and I never thought I be a Baptist Minister! We chatted for ages. I’ll probably never see him again. It was a chance meeting. But I’m really glad I hung around and took the plunge and asked: is it you? I thank God for him and all that he’s done in the years that have passed, and all that he’s still doing because he loves to help people find God. Which is what he did with me all those years ago. I walked away a little sad, knowing we’d probably never talk again. But also feeling I’d done a good thing, for him and for me. I hope he was encouraged. I know I was.

Lost?

We weren’t lost. No, really we weren’t. We weren’t lost because we could see where we needed to go. But we weren’t sure where we actually were. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? We weren’t lost, but we didn’t know where we were! It’s absolutely true. We were on Anglesey, on Holyhead Mountain. It’s the only mountain on Anglesey. The rest of Anglesey is flat! But we, Lisa and I, being the intrepid mountaineers we are, were on the mountain. From Holyhead Mountain you can see everything, even Snowdon on a good day! We were on a walk around the mountain which took us to the top (obviously), but also to the lighthouse (that we didn’t pay to walk around as we had no cash on us - there are still places that only take cash) and around the headland. On the way back, having conquered the peak, we followed what we thought to be the correct path. But the further we went along the path, the more we thought that it somehow wasn’t correct! The were things the book told us we should be able to see, we couldn’t! And yet we were on the mountain heading in the right direction. It didn’t make any sense. There couldn’t be a path closer to the sea than the one we were on, because we could see the sea. Unless…We found our way down because we could see where we wanted to be and we could see where we were aiming for. And because we met a man walking his dog who showed us the quickest way to where we wanted to go! We were never lost, but it turns out there was a another path closer to the sea that we had somehow missed. We never worked out how we missed it, but we did. The path we found ourselves on got us to where we had parked the car. We had a lovely walk, even if it was slightly longer than the book said…but then the book didn’t help us..! My journey of faith feels like that walk right now: I’m on a path I didn’t anticipate which is taking me in a different direction to the one I once thought I was on. But I’m not lost. There are things I find challenging about the path I’m on, and sometimes it seems very confusing, misleading and frustrating. But, I have no real option but to keep walking this path. On this path I might need some help from someone who knows this path better than me, someone who might say to me, like the man walking his dog on Holyhead Mountain: “Follow me, I’m going that way!” Other people will look at me and think I’ve lost my way because I’m not on the path they think I should be. I’m not on the same path they are. The might even think I’m lost. I’m not lost. Really, I’m not. I’m growing in faith in ways I never thought possible. Yes, it brings it’s challenges. Yes, it’s sometimes confusing. Yes, I sometimes wonder how I ended up where I am, but I’m not lost. And the God who waits and watches over me, has become more present with me on my journey of faith. That’s not a statement about God, but a statement about how my faith has grown as my understanding of God has grown. God is bigger and better than he’s ever been. It turns out that this new path is a great path to be on, one on which God has met with me in new and different ways. I simply need the courage to keep walking it. It might take me in ways I’m not expecting, but I’ll never be lost.

True

It would be wrong to say that I read a book while away on holiday. I almost finished one that I started while we were a way. But I did finish another that I began just after Christmas! It was a Christmas present and a novel. I don’t read many novels. There are far too many interesting theology books out there to spend time reading novels! But, because it was Christmas present from my wife, I began reading a novel. Well, I say novel. It was an historical novel. And by that I mean it was a novel written around historical events. I like that kind of book, because I like a bit of history. So I was looking forward to reading the truth about a Roman Catholic priest who lived in Rome in WWII and helped the allies escape. I found it a challenging book first because of the style of writing and then because I read it little snatches, so I was struggling to remember all the details. What I loved about it was that some chapters were transcripts of interview with the various characters in the story. Here was what they remembered twenty years after the events. It all made it much more real and extraordinary. The final chapter almost made me cry, as the two main protagonists met after many years and confronted the secrets they’d held from each other all those years. It was very moving. I found myself wondering if there was ever a way I could ever be as brave and courageous as this priest, literally putting his life on the line to save others. And could I ever see myself being so tenacious and daring as the others who were part of a network of support? I’m not sure that I could be like that. I don’t usually do this, but after I finished the book, I read the afterword at the very back of the book. I was…well…I wasn’t ready for what I read. I had read the book believing it to be a true story about real people and an accurate record of the events written into a novel. That turned out the be untrue! Wait! Wat? The transcripts of the testimonies to the secret service were fictional? Wait…you made them up? Some of the people might not have been real? You made them up? What? I was stunned. Had I been stupid? I sat there feeling let down and disappointed. What I had read as truth, historical truth, events that actually happened in the way that was written, wasn’t that at all. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t untrue either! There was a priest who helped people escape from Rome in WWII. He was real. People did escape. He did save lives. But the story I read was fictional. It was story written around the bare facts. The story contained pieces of history, educated guesses, speculation and an author’s ability to tell a story and make you want to read to the end. The book was both true and untrue. I’m sure the author did lots of research to understand the city of Rome at the time, the ways things really were under the German occupation. That kind of detail matters because it’s true. But the book is an interpretation. It’s an author’s understanding. It’s written through the lens of the one writing it. And maybe, in the end, it’s not the details that matter in the grand scope of the story. What’s important is that a priest showed extraordinary courage and perseverance, along with others, to help captured allied soldiers escape. Having read the book, I now know what I didn’t before. More and more I’m wondering if that would be a much more helpful and appropriate way to understand how the Bible works. I love the thought that God, in his wisdom, has let people write the Bible. And people do what authors do. They tell the story. And they do it through their lens. I’m learning to enjoy a Bible that didn’t just drop from the sky, but emerged over time, one that speaks of God in many and varied ways, but is also very human. That is not to say that God had nothing to do with the Bible. Of course he does. And we an meet him in the story. That’s what I hope I will continue to do. And that’s what I think God wants too. God is happy with the Bible and happy to meet us in its story.

Funerals

It’s a week of funerals this week. One of someone I knew quite well and worked with for twenty years or so, and a couple for people for whom I’ve done other family funerals. It’s always a sobering day because it’s a reason to reflect on how one lives. One of the most important parts of a funeral service, (or whatever we might call it), is the part where we share memories of the person who has died. We did that today and we'll do it at the two I’ll be a taking on Friday. I’ve taken enough funeral over the years to wonder what someone might say at mine. One thing is sure, I will have a funeral! Just not sure when yet! After the service today, a guy came up to me in the car park. I thought he’d been looking at me through the service as if he knew me, but I couldn’t place him. He rang no bells. But as we were waiting to leave for the committal, he came to speak to me. As soon as he walked towards me, I thought, “I know who this is!” And I did. We had played football together twenty fives years ago! He was one of the best players I played with, and I was always glad he was on my team. I wouldn’t have liked to defend against him, that’s for sure. We got into conversation, mostly about football and some of the memories we had, and then he said this to me: “I always knew you were religious, but I didn’t know you were that religious!” He didn’t mean much by that comment, certainly not in a negative way. He was simply saying he remembered playing football with me. He didn’t realise I was a minister. To be fair, I wasn’t a minister when we played together. At least I don’t think I was! And it’s the language people who are not familiar with church use: religious. I wouldn’t describe myself as religious, but I understand why others do. What strikes me though, is that however someone might describe me, it’s not the description they put on it that matters. Not really. It’s how I live that matters. You can call it what you want. What matters, is that I live in a way that is true to what I say I believe. I was listening to a minister talk about his church the other day. He was saying he doesn’t want his church to be stuck on doctrine or theology. What he wants, is for people to live what they say they believe. Amen to that. So I wonder what people will say about me! Funnily enough, it occurs to me that I might not be in control of what people say at my funeral, but I am pretty much in control of how I choose to live. And I and certainly in control of my attitude to life. If you asked right now what I’d like others to say at my funeral, I would use the words of an Amy Grant song. I hope they’d say something like: “Ian had his Father’s eyes.” That would be good enough. Actually that would be great.

Looking back

It’s almost forty years ago! I was asked by the then leader of Nefyn Beach Mission if I’d join the team that year. Everything in me wanted to say “No!” Both my sister and my brother had been part of beach mission teams, so why would would I want to do what they’d already done? I didn’t. And neither did I want to go on a beach, in the summer, and upset all the people enjoying their holiday! Everything in me wanted to say, “No!” The only reason I said yes, was because of who asked me. Chris was, at that time, the curate of the church I’d grown up in. We’d begun conversations when I was struggling, and he’d talked to me abut my dad. Nobody had ever done that. I liked Chris. He was on my side. But then he asked me to go on the beach mission team with him in the summer. Perhaps because I’m weak, perhaps because I have a strong people pleasing part, perhaps because I thought it would be rude to say no, I found myself saying yes. So, later that year, in the summer, I went with Chris to Nefyn to be part of a beach mission. It turned out to be somewhat significant. I found myself enjoying what I thought I’d hate. I found I had gifts I didn’t know I had because other people saw them. I met fabulous people from all over the country. I met amazing children, young people and adults. I was hooked. Ove the next fourteen years a lot happened. I became the leader of a Scripture Union Beach Mission with a team of over fifty people. I met a lovely young lady called Lisa, who became my wife (we’ve been married over thirty years now). I grew in leadership and because of that I am now doing what I’m doing, and have been doing for the past twenty seven years. Saying “Yes!” to Nefyn is responsible for quite a lot it turns out. And, when I look back on it, I would probably say that God was in it. That God was in the invitation to join a beach mission team. I think we do that a lot. I think we look back at events, or circumstances and see God in them. And I especially think we do that with the times in life that we would probably describe as the more challenging times. I cant count how many times someone has said something like: “I couldn’t see God at the time, but now as look back, I can see his hand in what happened.” I understand that. I understand why we do it. Even if we’re wrong! Ooops. You weren’t expecting me to say that were you? You weren’t expecting me to say we look back and see God, when maybe, that’s not what happened. Hmmmm. And here’s the really challenging bit: maybe we see that in the Bible too. Oh dear! Maybe, some of the writers of the Bible were looking back at events and they read God into it, when it might have been different. Whoah! I’m not saying that God isn’t present and I’m not saying that God can be at work even when we don’t, and can’t, see it. And sometimes it is only when we e look back that we have any chance of seeing what God has been doing. All I’m saying is that, maybe sometimes what we think God was doing as we look back, isn’t what God was doing. The point is not that God is absent, but that we don’t always know what God has been doing. Maybe God was in me saying “Yes!” to Nefyn. And it’s a lovely Christian thing to say that as I look back, I can see God in it. But even if he wasn’t, he has worked good in it. You might say that’s the same thing. And you might be right. Truth is, I don’t know! What I do know is that God is able to work in all things. I absolutely believe that. Absolutely. Ok, so here’s the thing: God is at work in ways that I can’t possibly know, and it’s probably far more complex than I want to believe or understand! And does this even matter? Maybe not. Maybe it makes a difference to how I understand God, who he is and how he acts. You may disagree with what I’m musing. That’s ok. But let’s not stop thinking and reflecting! God is still active and present!

Wrestling

When I was young (sadly I’m old enough to write that) there was wrestling on the TV on a Saturday afternoon. I never watched it because we didn’t have a TV in our house, but I knew the names Bid Daddy and Giant Haystacks! I never did wrestling either. Oh…unless the fights with my brother count! Actually, my brother and I are still arguing about a “wrestling match” we had once in the back room when we were kids. He still says I tripped him. The truth is, he tripped himself. The outcome was that he ended up in hospital with a dislocated elbow! I digress. I might not have watched or engaged in wrestling like you could see on the TV, but I’ve done a lot of wrestling over the years. And I probably do more now than I’ve ever done. I have all sorts of questions about life and family and growing older and faith. All sorts of things. I certainly wrestle more with faith now. I’m actually wondering how I’ve got this far in my journey of faith, in my time in ministry, without noticing some of the things that now trouble me. How have I missed them? I’m wrestling with the Bible and what’s in it, how it does, or doesn’t present who God is. I’m wresting with church, that complex gathering of people a bit like me, what it’s about and how we should or shouldn’t (emotive words I know) go about things. I wrestle with things I once believed but now I don’t, or don’t want to believe. Oddly, in all this, I’d say I’m more Christian now than I’ve ever been. Which I think is good! If tough. Very tough sometimes. I’m encouraged when I read the story of Jacob in Genesis 23. He wrestled with a man all night the Bible tells us, only for him to find out that he had apparently wrestled with God! As far as I can tell we have no idea what it meant for Jacob to be wrestling with God other than that he walked with a limp from them on. Oh…and that he was given a new name: Israel. And guess what the name Israel means? Yep: one who struggles with God! Beautiful. And Israel, the nation, has done that ever since: struggled with, or wrestled, with God. Seems like I’m in good company then. I’m really struggling to know what to say about what the prophet Nahum wrote and I’m supposed to be speaking on it in a week’s time! Perhaps one thing his words speak to us is that, whatever is going on around us, whatever our current circumstances, “the LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble.” (Nahum 1:7) We sing a song sometimes that starts with these words: “In my wrestling, in my doubts, in my failures you won’t walk out!” I think that capture a deep truth: wresting with faith and God is ok. God is not put off by it. He is not threatened by it. He even named his people by it! So…I’m going to go on wrestling. And, if God can meet Jesus in his wrestling in the garden of Gethsemane, (if there’s any other way…), then maybe he can meet me, in mine.

Disaster

What do you do with what’s happened in Morocco and Libya? What do you do when you’re a Christian? How do you understand these kind of events? How, if you even try, do you explain them? And how do you answer the question about where God is? Or what God was, or wasn’t doing? One response is the very human one of rushing to help and support those who have survived. And we’ve seen that happen. And that brings out the best in us. But questions remain. I spoke with someone who, at a very difficult time in their life, wants to connect with God in some way, but who, when looking at the events of the past few days, says: “And that’s my problem with God!” And for many of us, it is a problem. With God. To be honest I don’t have any answers. Maybe once I would have done. But not anymore. Maybe, at one time, I might have muttered something about the world being affected by sin, but even as I write that now, I’m struggling. I’m not saying sin doesn’t exist, or isn’t present. It does and it is. But I’m not sure how that answer helps anymore. The idea that somehow, in ways that we will never understand or see, God weaves life’s events together for his greater purpose is one I find it difficult to go with. Like we see the reverse side of a tapestry, with all the mess of the different threads, and God sees the beautiful picture on the other side. I’m not convinced about that. So what do I do? I struggle. I struggle to makes sense of it. I struggle to understand if God has any part in any of it. I struggle to understand why God wold “allow” these things to happen, if he even does. What I do is I look to books like Job and Ecclesiastes and I say: “Thank God they are in the Bible!” No, seriously I do. These are books that, to me anyway, challenge simple understandings of how the world works and that God is even present in some things. Job’s world is turned upside down for absolutely no reason. He’s done everything right. And what God said would happen, doesn’t. And he never gets a satisfactory explanation for anything that happened. By the end of the book things are better. But wouldn’t he rather have missed all the tragedy? And Ecclesiastes simply declares that there is no point to anything. Even after careful consideration by a wise person, the conclusion is that what God had said doesn’t really work. But then we get what I hold onto. At the end of Ecclesiastes, after coming to the conclusion that life is like a chasing after the wind, the book ends by inviting us to trust God anyway. No doubt there’ll be people who disagree with what I’m writing. That’s fine. But where I go when I see things like we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, is to say that, even in the face of terrible things I simply don’t understand, I’ll choose to trust God anyway.

Curtains

Last week was a busy one for contractors in the church. Lots of cleaning, maintenance and decorating going on. The decorating wasn’t to be finished until Saturday morning. Which was fine, except there was an event in the Rainbow Lounge in the evening which I was helping to set up. That meant I had to come into the church, after the decorating was finished, to put the room back to rights for the event in the evening. One of my tasks then, was to put the curtains back up in the Rainbow Lounge. You’d think that was easy, right? Well, first of all I had to figure out which poles went where. Although I discovered there was step before that: which poles went with which poles? Trying to figure that out, I realised the poles didn’t even fit together in any way! So how do they hold the curtains up? This was becoming far more complicated than I had imagined. Gradually I was able to figure it out, until I was left with only was problem. There needed to be eight curtains to cover the four windows. So why were there only seven curtains? I checked and checked again. Maybe I had this wrong somewhere. But all the poles were in the correct place (you have to trust me on that, but they all had “their place”). I couldn’t work it out. I checked to see if I’d put two curtains together. Nope. I began to search everywhere I could think of to find the missing curtain. Couldn’t find it. I contacted Clare to ask if it had been taken away to be cleaned - maybe some paint got on it. No, it hadn’t been taken for cleaning. Others were contacted and asked if they knew where it was. No, they didn’t. On Sunday morning, while I was at Sheddingdean BC, others looked for the missing curtain. Nobody found it. On Monday people looked. On Tuesday they looked. Nobody found it. On Wednesday, we found it. It was on the curtain rail where it was supposed to be, only on the wrong side of the middle! It had been there all the time. I had put all the curtains up correctly, apart from one thing: one curtain was the wrong side of the middle, so it looked like there was only one curtain. But I had checked that. And so had others. And yet, there it was. And it had been here all along! Sometimes, we can’t see for looking. Sometimes, however hard we look, we don’t look correctly. Perhaps, sometimes, we’re looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. The curtain, it turns out, was on the rail al the time. I just didn’t see it. And neither did others. I wonder where else we might do that? Lots of places perhaps. We get entrenched in views and opinions and hold to them because, well, that’s all we see. I wonder too, if we do that with God. And the Bible. We have our views, our opinions, our beliefs and we can’t see anything else. It seems to me, that over the many centuries of faith and the Bible, many things have changed. Even over my short lifetime, my faith has changed. And, dare I say, the way we understand God and the Bible has changed. And by “we” I mean people of faith rather than any one individual. Although it can mean that, too. Some might think that’s a bad thing. I’m not sure about that. I think it’s a good thing. And more and more I hope that I can come to the Bible and to my faith and not always be stuck in “what I know” or “what believe” or “the way I’ve always seen it”. And maybe then, God can meet me (and I would add, us), in new and better ways. I don’t see that as curtains for faith or the Bible. I rather think it might be drawing back the curtains to see new things about God.

Auschwitz

So…there was one more part to our rollercoaster break. A rollercoaster of a different kind. We stayed in Krakow, which is about an hour from Auschwitz. Our final day in Poland was spent with a visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau. We went with a tour because you have to go with a tour. But there were many tours on the day we went. And no doubt, whatever day you visit, there are many tours. We got our yellow badges because we were in the yellow group. As we stood waiting for the tour to begin, I couldn’t help wondering if what we were about to do was voyeuristic. In those moments before the tour, standing with our group and watching all the other groups, I couldn’t help but wonder why I wanted to be there. Why did I want to stand in the place where so many people had been treated so inhumanely, so dregradingly, the place were so many had died in the gas chambers and others from starvation, illness or because they gave up hope. I almost decided not to do the tour. The thought stuck with me as we walked through the camps, saw the huts, looked at the small spaces people had to exist, walked past the thousands of shoes and cases, and the mountain of human hair cut from prisoners. Looking at the photographs of the first prisoners (they stopped taking photos because it was too expensive) and noting their ages and how long they lived in the camp before they died, was harrowing. Walking in silence through a gas chamber knowing this was where people, just like me, were hearded and then killed, was, well, disturbing. And then we walked past the gallows on which Rudolf Hoss was hanged. It almost seemed too good for him. And that was my struggle. Was I was beginning to think like him? What I have always wondered is how anyone could become like the Nazi’s (to name but one group) who can treat other humans like they did in the concentration camps in World War II. But they weren’t the first, and they haven’t been the last. Over one of the door to one of the huts in Auschwitz are the words: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” by George Santayana. Perhaps in it’s original form it read: “Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.” I’m not sure we’re doing very well. The human race, it seems, has always had the choice between good and evil. Sometimes we find it in ourselves to choose good. But sometimes we find it in ourselves to choose evil. I read of a prisoner, present at the Nuremburg trials, who collapsed in the witness box when his former prison guard was brought in to stand trial. Everyone in the court assumed that he had collapsed because memories of his treatment by this man flooded back to him in those moments. But he said that was not the case. He collapsed, he said, when he saw this now dishevelled and frightened man standing before him, and realised that he was an ordinary man like himself, and that, perhaps, he therefore, was capable of the same crimes. The story of the Garden of Eden perhaps teaches that we all have the power to choose between good and evil. Being in Auschwitz and standing on the railway line at Birkenau like others who were on their way to be gassed have done, has caused me to wonder about myself and how I choose to live. How much do I value the differences in others and move towards embracing them? How much do I move towards finding fault with them and treating them in less than loving ways? I have some thinking still to do.

Poland

I always thought of Poland as grey and cold. And raining. Which it turns out is slightly unfair. And pretty inaccurate. I was in Poland on the next part of the rollercoaster hunt. You may remember that last year, Lisa and I went to Belgium and Holland as stand ins on a trip Zac had organised with his friends, to ride rollercoasters. Surprisingly we really enjoyed it and when we got back Zac produced a video of our adventures. That video ended with a teaser for the next part of the rollercoaster story: Poland! The rides in Poland are 150ft taller…Part of me hoped that, for reasons beyond my control, a trip to Poland wouldn’t happen. When we booked the trip, I was still wondering why. Why do I want to go to Poland to ride rollercoasters that are even taller than the ones I’ve already done? Poland it turns out is beautiful. The people are really friendly, the food is wonderful and the rollercoasters…Day 1 was just a taster. Only one ride that counted on Zac’s checklist! Day 2 brought the big rides! And I mean big! Hyperion stands at 253ft tall and reaches a speed of 88miles an hour. Zadra reaches a speed of 75 miles and hour, a height of 206ft, has three inversions and on one world ranking website is ranked the third best ride in the world! It comes second in my personal list! Being with Zac, the expert in all thing rollercoasters, was great fun. We rode 28 coasters in three days and ticked off all the rides on his spreadsheet. To tick all of them off the list we had to ride some rollercoasters that are really designed for children, because the park classifies them as rollercoasters! It was almost too embarrassing to be queueing with the children and their parents, but…we did it! And anyway, I was with my child. We are father and son. Just a bit older than every other father and son! And here’s the thing: I had no fear at any point in the three days we were riding rollercoasters! Two weeks before the trip I was getting nervous. I don’t have a great head for heights and I was worried about the height of some of the coasters. I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it, or even want to go on them. But once I was there and on the rides, all that fear disappeared and I was able to relax into enjoying the rides. It turns out riding rollercoasters is something I’ve learnt to enjoy, by simply doing them. And now I’m wondering why I didn’t do it before. I’m even thinking about a trip to Germany or Sweden where the next big rides are! Which makes me wonder what else I might find different if I simply had the courage to do it! And especially in my journey of faith!

Norfolk

I was, surprisingly nervous. I’m not really sure why. I was going to see people who knew me. And who I knew. But then they were also people I hadn’t seen for the best part of fifty years, and who last saw me when I was about nine or ten years old! That’s a long time. A long time. I don’t actually remember the last time I saw them, although it turns out it was probably at their house, which is where I was going to meet them. But I didn’t remember that either. Funny how I felt nervous. What exactly did I have to be nervous about? These friends knew and loved my mum and dad. And when my dad died they came to visit my mum. More than once. But, I was nervous. I guess part of it was that they’d watched me on the live stream and said I reminded them of my dad. What if, When I was sitting in front of them, in their house, I was a disappointment? What if, when they spoke to me, they couldn’t see my dad in me at all? What if we didn’t really have much to talk about? What if, although the idea of meeting up was a good one, it didn’t really work? It would be a long way to travel for a disappointing visit. It turns out they were nervous too! They had the same questions. Funny that! But it also turned out it was a lovely visit. As soon as we arrived we got chatting…and that was that! Memories, laughter, sadness, questions, wondering. It was all there. I saw pictures of my family I’d never seen before (on a really old slide viewer)! The five of us - mum and dad, my sister, brother and me. There aren’t many pictures of all of us. The conversation was lovely with much laughter and insight. And I learnt a few things about my family too. About my dad. The evening went really quickly. There was much more we could have said. There was more to say, more to hear, more to understand. We parted really, really pleased we’d overcome our nervousness. We parted really, really pleased we’d made contact. We parted looking forward to the next time we’ll get together. I was reminded part way through the evening that, because I was born on Norwich, I’m a Norfolk boy. It was good to be home. Very good. Sometimes going home, being home, can make us a bit nervous. Especially if we’ve been away for a while. Sometimes I spend a while away from home in my faith. And sometimes I feel nervous about going home. Now I’m wondering what me heavenly Father thinks about that?

Wondering...

I moved to Crawley the same year as Sinead O’Connor’s hit “Nothing compares to you” was top of the pops (remember that?). It was a song with a haunting melody about how hard it can be when a relationship breaks down. Sinead O’Connor went on to have a successful music career. Sadly, this week, she was found dead in her home. She was younger than me. Many tributes to her have talked about how talented she was, how she was courageous in speaking out on issues about which she felt strongly. Many have said what a loss she is, not only to the music industry, but to the wider world too. What has emerged is that she was troubled in many ways. And understandably so. She experienced a difficult family life, spent some time in a Magdalene asylum, lost her mother in a car accident when she was 18 and struggled with her self esteem. She ripped up a photo of the Pope live on TV in the USA and got banned for life from that station. She became a priest in the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church (a sect not recognised by the Catholic Church). She spoke out against child abuse (out of her own experience). She converted to Islam and changed her name. Her son died by suicide, a tragedy from which she evidently never recovered. And my wondering is: what does God do with someone like Sinead O’Connor? I guess there are many answers to that question, depending on how you understand God. I want to think that God has a heart for people like Sinead O’Connor. People who had a difficult time when they were young. People who are desperately trying to find their way through life that is hard and cruel, tragic and unfair. People who seek God, but maybe find him in places different to the places I think he should be found. I think that God wants to save everyone and that he can save anyone however he likes. It will always be because of what Jesus did, But God is, well…God. Isn’t he? No doubt some people will be upset by my wonderings. That’s ok. You can have you’re own. And whatever I might wonder, God is, well…God! And, in a twist on Sinead O’Connor’s massive hit song, nothing compares to God! So I’m happy to leave my wondering with God.