Month: November 2020

The cloud was still low this morning, but had an encouraging variation in darkness.

If the rumours are true that Philip Green and has family have abstracted a ten-figure sum from Arcadia, how is that even legal? It crosses my mind that we need more regulation, not less.

The Lectionary for Sunday includes Isaiah 40, starting… “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” It’s been a long, hard road, a punishing time, and relief is coming. God has made a promise.

God of love,
we need comforting,
we need strengthening.
We are tired of all this
and we need hope.
As the first glimmer of Advent light
begins to grow,
as the clouds lighten,
as the wind rises,
we place our hope in you,
and get ready to welcome
your chosen one.

So it’s Advent again and we’re waiting to celebrate the coming of Jesus. I’ve never been particularly fond of waiting – those rooms filled with strangers and dreary motoring magazines, the prospect of pain or bad news, and so on. Buses aren’t much better – you have to stand out in the weather as a storm of aggressive traffic goes past. The only real pleasure in waiting is for trains – where you can watch other trains pass. Perhaps Advent is most like waiting to perform – whether it’s an interview, exam, music or theatre – because there’s also the aspect of being ready, preparing. I already said that we’ll not be perfect – but we do try and give it our best shot.

Living God,
may your light grow in us,
as in the world.

Welcome, light of dawn!

And the growing light is an Advent theme as well – a little bit atavistic. But don’t knock it – this is God’s world, including the wonderful rhythm of the year.

Also the US Supreme Court is wrong to overturn New York’s limitation on attendances at religious worship. The privileges accorded to religion don’t extend as far putting people’s lives in danger. For instance there’s no right to take your hands off the steering wheel to pray. Having a constitution that guarantees certain rights is bound to end in tears, because sooner or later those rights are going to come into conflict with each other, and it’ll be the rich and powerful who decide how to resolve those conflicts. The reality is that we live in a difficult and complicated world and we struggle at times to understand what God’s holy love is calling us to do. According to Mark 12:28-31, “One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’” It’s not very loving to let your neighbour catch a potentially fatal disease.

Experiment today with two sticks instead of one, so as to wear joints less maybe. OK so far.

…i.e. waiting for the waiting, it’s kind of nested. Like yesterday’s javascript self-amusement when I wasted a load of time trying to use tweet.full_text when I should have been referring to tweet.tweet.full_text, because I’d given the name ‘tweet’ to something that already had the tweet in it.*

Anyway, the waiting isn’t passive – it’s getting ready for the coming of Christ. However…
Do you ever get that thing when you’re busy getting ready for a guest and you come to a point where you just have to say, “Sod it: this’ll have to do.”? Well, Jesus comes with forgiveness – and we know we’re not going to be perfect for him – but it’s OK. It’s OK not to be perfect.

This was a beautiful morning for walking. I started in the gloom, not quite dark enough for the headtorch to be any use. As it got lighter, I could see that the soft, thin, low clouds varied in colour from muted yellows to pale bluish greys. The clouds covered the hilltops in a fuzzy blanket, but were not so heavy as to darken the day. It was all too subtle to come out in a photo. There was hardly any wind and no rain.

* (I downloaded my Twitter history and converted it into a document).

… I think it went something like that. Anyway, isn’t it hard to not try to touch one’s face? I knew this already, having wandered around inside nuclear reactor pressure vessels wearing a respirator. You don’t realise you want to do it until you can’t. No hidden meaning there – it’s just one of those things.

Meanwhile, it’s still raining on and off for a while – maybe there’s a little bit of cyclogenesis going on above the Manchester area – but not so much as to prevent walking.

In Sunday’s Lectionary. in the Mark reading, Jesus urges his listeners to keep alert for the signs of the times, also saying BTW that these dramatic things will happen in their lifetimes. And dramatic things did happen, although it wasn’t the end of the world. What are the signs for our times, of the coming of the ‘Son of Man’ and God’s dramatic action? A couple of notes – I believe Christ comes into the life of the world right now, a companion, one to suffer with those who suffer and inspire the world into a new way of life. Also in Mark’s gospel, to use a small cliche for a big statement – it’s darkest just before the dawn. The disruption of normal life can raise the social temperature enough for the world to re-think itself, preferably with God’s help. But such times can also be dangerous – it’s too easy to imagine we hear the sound of jackboots marching once again.

God, we don’t know what is going to happen.
Give us insight to see your Way
through what does happen.

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”, so says the Isaiah reading from the Lectionary for next Sunday (Advent). It’s a violent image, but it represent the passion of someone who sees the urgent need for God to do something in a troubled world.

And yet … sitting in an armchair is a hypocritical position from which to be praying. It’s all too easy to be passionate about God doing something, and being less passionate about doing it ourselves. There are times, though, when it feels as if we don’t have any kind of handle by which to influence what happens in the world.

The bracken’s dying back now and it was easier to see this milestone yesterday.

Please pray for the families of Brixham
after the loss of a fishing vessel,
and for the people of the USA
as they prepare for a new presidential term.

Five corvids just appeared over the roofline of the house opposite, in a perfect ‘W’. Soon the formation broke up and they went their separate ways. It was just an accident, a coincidence, not really all that freakish. How much meaning do we ascribe to things that happen like this? Is it the work of God? … but the whole created universe is the work of God – isn’t that enough? Sometimes things can at the very least remind us that God is about the place, though. When Paul asserts that “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God…” (Romans 8:28) we may start looking for meaning in everything that happens, good or bad. I do believe that God can rescue meaning from situations that seem totally bad and even meaningless – but that belief has never really been tested in any kind of extreme way. And if you read on in that section of Romans, it seems what Paul has in mind is a greater scope, a longer and bigger view than today or tomorrow.

God help us to understand
the things that happen.
Help us to know Christ,
even in the pain.
Help us to feel the Spirit move
in our ordinary lives.
Help us to hear in every cry of pain
your call to make things better.