Month: October 2021

Please pray for the people of Calderdale,
Cockermouth, river deltas in southern USA, Bangladesh
and other places prone to flooding,
low-lying islands; and everyone who fears
the next rains, the next high tide.

Please pray for people who fear
losing their livelihoods through drought,
warming of the seas,
climate change.

Please pray for people, and industries,
so wedded to fossil fuels
that they cannot see any other way forward.

Please pray for all those who long to see
the earth being a good place to live
for generations to come,
but don’t know how to make a difference.

Please pray for all people,
for all the earth:

O God, set us free from this mess.

In tomorrow’s Lectionary, the writer wants the readers of this letter to be able to worship the living God. The living God would have been known from the Hebrew scriptures as the one who led the people to freedom, who went ahead of them in their harsh desert years … and so on. God is not to be frozen into structures, physical or institutional, but is on the move. God is alive.

Meanwhile, it is raining here. It had a beginning. We are past the middle. And the end will be in an hour or two. Rain will fall, regardless of climate change. But there will be more, more often, sometimes in devastating amounts.

Speaking of which, our wolf-in-donkey’s-clothing of a PM is more intelligent than we can possibly imagine. There are two universes which inhabit that colossal brain of his, one where we are acting urgently to combat climate change, and the other in which we are cutting air passenger duty for short-haul flights (precisely the type of journey that can often be made by train). Let the good times, and the landslips, roll!

From Sunday’s Lectionary – “When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.” (Mark 12:34) – and who would have the chutzpah to say that? – The One in whom God is made flesh. You or I wouldn’t have the nerve to say that to an archbishop, for instance – or would we? Should we be able to ‘speak truth to power’ – if we know what it is?

Also, coffee with toothpaste tastes like thyme or oregano or some such. And ISTR tea and cheese taste like blackberries.

I though I saw a line of leaves here, as if formed for a reason. It was of course completely random – but it’s testimony to my need to see patterns in things … even when the patterns aren’t really there.

Still, where would the human race be if we hadn’t searched for patterns and sometimes found them – in physics, epidemiology and so on?

In Sunday’s Lectionary, Jesus begins by quoting Deuteronomy 6…
“12:29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
12:30 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.’
12:31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”” (Mark 12)
This sounds vague enough to have loopholes and variations in interpretation. But much as it does indeed need interpreting, it turns out to be really challenging. Can we really in all circumstances love God with so much passion and energy? Can we really in all circumstances want everything for our fellow human being that we would want for ourselves?

Some clocky work the last day or two – helping attach a clock mechanism to a tree section Janet has, and exploring the feasibility of having and date/time display on an old broken phone for D.

Next Sunday’s lectionary includes the beginning of the Ruth story – this is a great human story – and it seems the boundaries of the people of God are not quite as fixed as some of the Bible authors thought.

Sometimes the old sayings hold true (they don’t when the weather comes from a less common direction). In this case the red morning sky was followed by (mildly) unpleasant weather…

Went to a good service today, about Bartimaeus (today’s lectionary gospel reading).

When it comes to tomorrow’s lectionary, is it significant that Bartimaeus is known only by his father’s name?

Sunday’s Lectionary includes Psalm 126. The writer recalls how when things went well, it was like a dream, then pleads with God to bring the good times back. It could be a football fan’s reflection on how things go up and down – as it is, it’s about the fortunes of the people of God. And I might also say Christians also feel the ups and downs of our faith (which is not necessarily the same as the church).