Month: March 2022

Set out at 03:45 with a thin hope of getting an aurora picture. As expected, I came back with this auroraless picture of the sky on a morning of freezing winds.

And since I came back and did more napping, snow has fallen and it’s loose enough to blow around a bit.

In the Isaiah reading of Sunday’s lectionary, we read… “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

It seems to me that church people can get so busy looking backwards that they do not perceive the new things God is going to do. May God give us grace to recognise it when God is doing a new thing … and join in if possible…

The apostle Paul famously changed his mind. This is mentioned in his letter to the Philippians in Sunday’s lectionary. We see an account of just how radical his own turning-around was. He’s put behind him the whole orientation of his previous life (although he carried into his new life his drive and knowledge and no doubt many more things about his personality).

It is scary to change one’s mind. It hurts to abandon a life’s work as if it’s worthless before embarking on something new (verse 7).

This kind of change is not always what God needs from us.

But maybe it is sometimes.

In any case, at some point there is a decision, however clouded in memory, however muffled by circumstances or half forgotten, to choose Christ. Remember that churches are sometimes a poor reflection of the love of Christ, so to choose Christ is not necessarily to choose a church or to choose a particular way of being Christ’s.

May God give us grace to know when we need to set out on a new path.

In next Sunday’s Lectionary (Passion Sunday), we read about Mary of Bethany’s extravagant gesture of devotion to Jesus and looking ahead to his death. For me, one of the meanings of ‘passion’ in Christianity is a conventional one (to people of all faiths and none) about having big emotions. Do not neglect the importance of the emotional drive in faith.

Love can be a hard thing – a struggle to do what is right for someone else – but emotion also plays a part sometimes.

‘Passion’ can also be rendered almost meaningless by, for example, “We are passionate about being a world-class centre of excellence.”

I did like those clouds. There is less haze now, and they are seen more easily.

Meanwhile, when people are in that church and many other churches this morning, they will be thinking about Mothering Sunday. ‘Mothering’ is a verb not a person (well verb-based anyway, present participle or gerund or something like that). It’s a job that we all need doing for us – maybe for much of our lives – for instance we must keep learning or die. Mothers do the nurturing thing for most people when they are young and we celebrate that. But so do fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, ‘The Church’ (the original meaning of this day), schools, workmates and so on. It’s an important job, an important relationship, and not to be neglected or exploited.

Also, as J reminds me, it’s bloody hard work.

Thank you God for everyone who has brought me on, helped me to grow up.

Apologies for gap in these blogs – this was COVID- related. Improving now.

Tomorrow’s Lectionary includes a bit from 2 Corinthians about reconciliation. The writer is on about reconciliation with God. And we do not need to fear alienation from God – however much we feel alienated.

It must follow from this that people will be reconciled with one another. Because one of the main causes of feeling alienated from God is not being able to stand God’s people, Christians have a very important job in trying to connect with those who do not share our faith – or who share our faith, but not our way of expressing it. Try to understand where people are coming from. Do not be unbending, but bend over backwards to be reconciled with others.

No pictures today, as I am confined for a while, having tested positive for COVID.

In Sunday’s Lectionary, the Joshua reading is about settling down in the new land. “The LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.”” … The idea of a national disgrace can be powerful, even dangerous. It is said by some that Putin’s motivation for his violent imperialism is a sense of disgrace over what happened three decades ago.

If you overuse the word ‘disgrace’ you may run out of things to say when confronted by a real disgrace. The state of the European cheese market springs to mind.

Never clocked it before, but this gentleman on a seat by the junction in Mottram is LS Lowry, who spent the last decades of his life nearby.

Next Sunday’s Lectionary includes the parable of the ‘Prodigal Son’. What you see in it depends on whose point of view you take. For instance I have sometimes been a bit irked by people who have a whale of a time when young, then find God in later life and then take it upon themselves to tell everyone how to behave. I read the parable like the other son and consider myself challenged about my attitude. Or you could read it as the son who goes away, and it’s about love and forgiveness and acceptance for those who reach ‘rock bottom’. Or you could read it as the daughter the man may or may not have had – what were her inheritance rights? Or you could read it as the divided audience. Jesus understands the feelings of the upstanding faithful people who are jealous that he talks to sinners. But he also knows that the sinners belong to God.

And so on…

…where would you stand?