Month: January 2020

Yesterday morning, another walker coming back down the path told me about a thrush that was singing its heart out on a tree further ahead. “Carefree”, she said. And I have to admit, a singing thrush was enough to cheer up even a gloomy old so-and-so like Thomas Hardy. Well – actually he remained miserable in an evidence-based kind of way, but did acknowledge the existence of cheerfulness. I think what gives this apparently pessimistic poem the power to remind us of joy is its similarity to the carol, “It came upon a midnight clear” (more detail available on request). It sort of contradicts it and underlines it at the same time.

Yesterday also, we did a circular walk from a 237 bus stop to Hartshead Pike. It was unexpectedly good, with a pleasant stop at a pub for food along the way.

There was a layer of cloud over us and covering the moors to the east. But we could see it was sunny across in Cheshire.

Today is a gloomy day too: a moment in our history of transition to a third-rate nation. Safety, health, the wellbeing of our planet are all under threat in the name of freedom. I’ve lost. I accept that. I’m going to get on with life just like everyone else. But don’t ask me to celebrate.

There is also some blessed hope of which I am currently unaware. After all, Jesus is still alive: he’s still making a difference in people’s lives. After all, there are still people all around the world praying for God’s kingdom to come.

And there is good news in today’s events, too;- If the pound has lost value, it helps us to sell stuff. If house prices have taken a dip, it helps people to buy houses. If we can reduce duty-free allowances, it helps the exchequer and our health (it won’t happen though). And chlorinated chicken won’t actually taste of chlorine. (That last one was probably a bit of a scare story anyway).

This Sunday’s Lectionary has some classics. Like Micah 6:8, coming at the end of God’s complaint – because the people thought wrongly that worship is an adequate substitute for living right. (Or as it’s said in the sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, “I don’t object to the concept of a deity, but I’m baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance.”) “6:8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”. This verse was Jimmy Carter’s motto. Also like the Beatitudes. Maybe it’s not about analysing passages like this, but about hearing them and doing them.

Sometimes my train of thought takes the form of a replacement bus. One such train in the night brought me to the idea I had 40-odd years ago that the most violent football hooligans were fans of teams that had recently been good, but weren’t any more. ISTR at the time, this was Spurs, no longer in the Blanchflower days. And then I woke up to this. It also reminded me of local anti-United graffiti, ranging from downright offensive (“Manchester City celebrate Munich 1958”) to amusing (after the new Manchester City inflicted a crushing, epoch-changing defeat on United, “Do you have problems with football? If so, call the Manchester football helpline, 0161 616 1616”). And then the bus came to a halt with the thought that maybe this applies to other allegiances, not just football… that extremism and violence grow more easily when your allegiance is to something once-great, but now a bit rubbish, be it a nation or a denomination.

Anyway, hate is not the Jesus way. A couple of notes about this – (i) Don’t underestimate how hard it is to live like this. (ii) This is not about becoming entirely passive – you’ve still got to be ‘salty’ – think of how Jesus himself challenged people…. non-violence can still have great power and integrity. The Beatitudes give us some insight into God’s priorities here.

Another walk in the canal series last Saturday, this time taking us into the edge of Yorkshire, at Wilsden. A big thank you to the heritage centre at Littleborough, for their information and hospitality.

God of love,
in what universe is your kingdom going to happen?
When I see big men, not blessed with meekness,
they seem to be the ones to inherit the earth.
It feels all wrong…
Your kingdom come, God,
one earth as in heaven.
Amen.

Walked up the Trail this morning. It was like walking through a cloud forest. The trees were gathering the fog and forming it into drips – occasionally one would plop down, a little wet surprise.
At one point, when the visibility seemed to get better for a minute, I thought I smelt NOxes – but not quite like driving down into the bowl of Pietermaritzburg, or when there’s a gentle southeast wind here off the mainland, in the photochemical-y sunshine – it was more like chemistry lessons at school, fuming nitric acid maybe. Then there was a smell of damp hardboard. And then it was back to the smell of mould and trees, mercifully unpunctuated by dogsh*t.

Similar, but not identical…

I thank you God
for the world of smells,
for sweet peas, steel works,
farriers and the seaside.

I thank you for Jesus
who left this lovely world
for the sake of love –
– of friends and enemies.

I pray for those with anosmia,
who can smell neither delight nor danger.
God bless all people,
in waking and sleeping,
in going out and coming in.

Went for a walk this morning along the ridge which you see from the back window of our house. Met Janet and got back to Pixie Bakes before the landscape completely disappeared.

More on the 1st Corinthians passage from the Lectionary … ‘1:11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 1:12 What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”‘ … Sound familiar? There’s factionalism among the Christians, and Paul is appealing for unity. We see this in present day political life. BTW, the way to get unity is not to side with one of the factions. It does (in Paul’s case) involve bringing people back to the basics of why they are Christians in the first place.

God of love,
along with light, bring us
the insight to see past the murk
and smokescreens of human life
to the truth that people want to hide.

Forgive us for what we have hidden,
and give us courage to be honest.

It’s a lovely day today of mostly sunshine. The jet stream has gone looping off somewhere else and we’re sitting under the high pressure. The bare trees and still muddy Trail have a kind of understated beauty. There’s no wind pestering you for your attention, just some gently moving air.

Light of the people

Sunday’s lectionary is about the people who walked in darkness seeing a great light. We Christians say this light is Jesus.
If we want to get a handle on how significant this is, we might have to think about what darkness was like 2-3000 years ago. I live in northwestern Europe, and I can go out on the street at night, and it’s not really dark. I’ve been out on the Trail long before dawn, and it’s not totally dark – the streetlights of distant settlements reflect off the clouds, or fill the haze with a faint light. Planning for Easter Dawn one year, I looked up a sunrise website. Apparently, there are official gradations of darkness. With the sun 0-6° below the horizon, that’s civil twilight. 6-12° below is nautical twilight, and 12-18° below is astronomical twilight. With the sun below that, it’s really night. At the latitude of the eastern Mediterranean, the sun goes under more steeply than it does at my latitude.
Maybe it helps to try and imagine a place that’s really dark for you: for me that might be the landing at the top of the stairs at night, when all the lights are off in the house. Then imagine that deep darkness everywhere around you, everywhere you could possibly go. Years ago, the darkness could have been full of dangers, rocks and slips and trips, wild animals and robbers. Maybe there was a flickering light from a fire nearby, maybe not.
A light has shined on the people who live in darkness. Light is often a metaphor for knowledge. That can be ‘how to’ knowledge. Carry a light to light up the path so you know the way to go – wear a head torch when you walk the back way to the chippy. Let the light of Jesus guide you about how to live – that is to say, his words, his actions and his ‘style’. Knowledge can also be insight – Jesus opens a window onto the nature of God.
Just bear in mind that what you see may not be what you were expecting. Paul writes, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,…” – (verse 18a) – God who dies, vulnerable God, suffering in solidarity with the human race.

O God, shine a light for us.
Shine a light soon.
Show us how to live in peace with one another,
and with our planet.
Shine a light soon,
and do not delay.

“God is faithful” … this bald statement begins verse 9 of the 1 Corinthians reading in Sunday’s lectionary. I have to be honest – it’s not always easy to believe, when the world’s gone cattywampus. But in the Isaiah reading and the Psalm, it seems this perceived absence of God for long periods is normal. And the promise in Isaiah is not that it’ll be ‘OK’, but that God will do an even greater thing than we were hoping for. It’s worth noting that in Isaiah this even greater thing is done by the servant Israel; and that in the gospel, Jesus calls disciples to help him. So yes, God is faithful, even though things seem bad. But the great things God is going to do need people – these deeds need us. There’s no point sitting on the sidelines moaning. And that makes sense, because the reason the planet is in this state is down to us, and setting things straight is an ethical issue, not a technical one. Sure, technology can help us sort out climate change, but most of it will come hirpling along far too late to make any difference. What we need, first and foremost is the will. And where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Walk report

Good walk yesterday via the Pennine Bridleway to Mossley. Nice path mostly, but some of it is like walking on railway ballast – a good walk for new boots, not worn soles. Patches of the land are still recovering from the catastrophic fires a couple of years ago. There was one place near Swineshaw where fragments of age-blackened stone wall were partly hidden by the pale grass, giving a kind of soft effect. I took a picture, but the effect didn’t really show on the picture. Moan of the week – the one-way system in Mossley means that the same bus stop services the same bus going in opposite directions. The informations on the stop only list the time and the bus number. So you turn up for a 353 to Stalybridge, and it turns out it’s a 353 to Uppermill.

Prayer

Living God, make your Spirit come down on us we pray.
Teach us to breathe
in time with your breathing.
Inspire us;
help us to understand and love
your creation.
In summer and winter, rain and sun,
help us to know
the breathing of our planet.
Help us to find the crucified Christ
in the hurt of the world.
Make us ready for the new thing
that you will do in all the nations,
and give us hope.

Not a bad day today, good for a walk up the Trail around sunrise. A few pictures of benches as I thought about maybe looking into the outside prayer stations app again.

…looks as if someone’s been having a good time. Not so much fun for those who come after though.

Nice to start the new year with a visit to Canterbury, to have some trips and great to see H and T. The Crab and Winkle Way was brilliant, and the buses back from Whitstable (along with others) frequent and reliable. Unfortunately Janet is trapped in the generation of women who, in a colossal moving of the goalposts, won’t get bus passes or state pensions until 66.

Think global, act local
Various people are credited with inventing this phrase, starting with R Buckminster Fuller in the 1950s, in the form “think globally, act locally”.
The Lectionary passages for this Sunday coming remind me of that phrase.
Starting with Isaiah, first question, who is this stuff about God’s ‘servant’ about? It could be the people of God (Israel), their leader, about the prophet’s personal experience; for the Christian, it could be about Jesus. For me, though, it kind of doesn’t matter, because it tells us about the characteristic way God’s servant operates. And yes, for me that is Jesus, but also anyone who seeks to serve God, and also the churches themselves. The servant’s style is gentle, the antithesis of bullying … “42:2,3 He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” But, the servant is determined …“42:4 He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.” And despite God’s servant’s apparent meekness, the scope of her ambition is global … “42:1 Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” But I have to watch out here, because I find that the more I talk about justice, the less I do it. Maybe we have to survey what we can do where we are.
And in the Acts of the Apostles, we also see the global ambition of God’s love … “10:34,35 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” If you read the earlier part of that chapter, you discover that Peter had to change his mind before he was able to say this. He had only just discovered that the story of Jesus was for all the nations. So yes, it’s no bad thing to change one’s mind sometimes.
Read in Matthew’s gospel, and you see that Jesus submits to baptism. Once again, the un-bullying style is in evidence. John the Baptist was unwilling to do the deed at first, and Jesus could’ve surfed on John’s worship of him. But no, he went under the water to be baptised just like anybody else.