Bob Warwicker's blog

I’m sitting in the car, parked by a back road, next p her speed, and decide when I expect to see her. As the moment approaches, the expectation builds. It’s a bit like waiting for the tour de France, except at 2mph rather than 30. And there’s no advertising procession beforehand. But there’s the same growing anticipation.Sometimes I walk out to meet her. I strain my eyes for a glimpse of red cagoule in the distance beyond the trees or shops or traffic. Sometimes I’ve just caught sight of a pillar box and experienced a moment of misguided joy (we’ve all had those, haven’t we, brothers and sisters).Waiting for Janet. When’s she coming through? She’ll be coming at walking pace, a humble mode of transport. Multiply this by thousands of bystanders in Jerusalem, and you’ve got the anticipation before Jesus rides in, maybe rather more like the Tour de France than me waiting for Janet. But the crowd changed their minds. Or maybe it’s just that other voices shouted louder later on. The people have spoken. Sometimes they speak with love and sometimes with hate.Today is a long day for Janet: extra time and extra distance on the day because of a visit to the Eden Project. I think it must have been worth it, though. Its a treasure trove of gardens and flowers and art and adventures and economics and ecology. It is world class.

Excellent walking from Janet. She has now been going three days, and the distances are a little greater than planned — a consequence of short diversions to see stuff, minor route alterations on the fly and a couple of percent for GPS inaccuracies. Nevertheless she keeps on going brilliantly, despite the largely unpleasant weather — though when the sun comes out, the landscape sparkles. Hats off to Janet!

Radio 4 Spoonergeddon
It’s strange what routes your train of thought takes when you lie awake at night. I wonder if I’m still remembering OK. Would I be able to remember the names of the main cabinet ministers if asked? Probably not. I note that Jeremy Hunt hasn’t been given a portfolio beginning with C since he was Culture secretary — although how many Cabinet posts are there beginning with a letter whose Scrabble value is 3?
Also, how do you spell Armageddon? Someone once said it’s named after Megiddo, so one G and two Ds maybe. Some people in America look forward to an apocalyptic battle. I remember some uncomfortable parts of the Bible. Matthew 10:34, for instance. The writer tells us Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” You’d have to look at the context to understand it, but my default understanding is that this is a prediction rather than a manifesto. But is it really?
I also note that the same people say different things depending on what mood they’re in or what the circumstances are (even maybe the people of Britain). Could at least part of this apply to Jesus – look at Luke 10 … “35 He said to them, ‘When I sent you out without a purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack anything?’ They said, ‘No, not a thing.’ 36He said to them, ‘But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. 37For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, “And he was counted among the lawless”; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.’ 38They said, ‘Lord, look, here are two swords.’ He replied, ‘It is enough.’”
These hard things, because they are difficult to fit with my overall preconceptions may, if anything, be more likely to be genuine, because whay else would the writer include them?
It’s Lent, and a time to remember the passion of a man acquainted with the dark side of humanity. And Sunday’s readings include the story in John’s Gospel which is close to passion as in ‘my night of passion with the bishop.’

Janet starts her walk tomorrow. Each person who does the long walk does it in their own way, and tomorrow it starts.

Over the weekend it was great to see my sister and her family on the way across the SW peninsula. They were very hospitable and generous.

Today we had a couple of small walks and saw some good stuff, like this rock….

From Sunday coming, “Passion Sunday”, Isaiah…
“43:16 Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, …43:19 I am about to do a new thing…”

In our exploring, and in our discovering…

Janet Lees is soon starting her long walk. Here is the blog.

As we are gathered
by copper, glass, gigahertz,
we are not alone.

The Lectionary…
The opening verse of the Isaiah reading, after millennia of interpretation, is what we churches think we are offering. We are offering people something free, the love and mercy and forgiveness of God, as seen in Jesus Christ, a way of life, and much more beside.
But it doesn’t look free from outside: there is a cost. I take my cue from some apprentice gas engineers in Blackbird Leys many years ago. “I wouldn’t go to church — it’s not worth it.”
This implies there’s a perceived cost. Here’s some suggestions;-

• The time it takes out of a precious weekend.
• The cost in self-respect.
• The mental contortions of believing something that goes against the grain.
• The cultural shift required (what’s all this with the smoke that smells of burning rubber — or, from my tradition, this public singing of strange songs).
• The stress of not knowing when to sit/kneel/stand.
• Being an outsider.
• Doing something only old people do.
• etc. — you may have other suggestions.

Note that going to church isn’t necessarily the same thing as believing in Jesus – many people do one without the other.

Won’t be long before we head south now, for the start of Janet’s journey. To get us in the mood for Cornwall, we went to see Fisherman’s Friends. Excellent!

This time as I lay awake in bed, I invented double skin stained glass. There’s a fair gap between the two skins, maybe enough for people to walk between, and the thing resolves into different small images or words, depending on the time of day and year. The sunny side is smooth and the inside side is frosted. It could be modelled on a computer. As it turns out, I didn’t invent it — Janet tells me there’s been something similar at the National Memorial Arboretum.
See the effect of light coming through coloured glass here.

I can see from the window a telegraph pole and a lamp post which are wonky in opposite directions. I could take a picture, but it would have to include other people’s windows, which is intrusive.
It is still raining: the weather is improving, so I think this must be a warmer, more drizzly kind of rain.
The Bambi is still a non-runner, but Janet has some plans about how to get it going. Meanwhile, preparations for her walk continue, assuming fixed accommodation for at least the first quarter.

The Lectionary

There is a kind of logic that goes: if you do right, you will be rewarded, and if you do wrong you will be punished. Therefore if you are doing well, it must be because you are doing right, and if things are going wrong for you, it must be because you are doing wrong. Jesus takes a sledgehammer to this logic in the Luke reading. It doesn’t work like that. The Galileans were all wrongdoers, even the successful ones. Actually, reading elsewhere what Jesus is reckoned to have said (e.g. according to Matthew 5:48 – “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”), we are all wrongdoers. We hurt other people, we hurt our planet, we are part of a network of hurt. God’s dreams for us are so great, and we just haven’t got the oomph to fulfil those hopes. We have to change our ways, seek forgiveness and offer forgiveness. The good bit is that forgiveness is possible – it is always possible.
It feels as if Jesus is talking to the Galileans en masse. We are all individuals, yes, but we also share in the messed-up nature of all humanity, and of every group and organisation we are part of. What would a new beginning look like? I am white, West European, male – what would it look like if people like me could relate better to the rest of the world? I was never a fan of Brexit – but I do remember the misgivings I had when we first joined our European partners … it felt like dumping the Commonwealth. Maybe now will be an opportunity to make the Commonwealth a thing again, a thing that does what it says on the tin: dream on, Bob!

Thank you God for Lent,
a time for turning,
a time to think again,
reconsider,
to get the first intimations of change
in the grey world:
a time when all things
become possible.

Also, I lay awake in bed for a bit last night, thinking maybe there I things I should do that I’ve never done before. After about fifteen minutes’ deliberation I decided against Marmite in porridge.

The Bambi is a non-runner and stands outside our house covered in a green shroud. Thank you very much to Janet’s friends who brought it here on their trailer! Bambi is not done for yet.

Meanwhile the plans for Janet’s walk go ahead. We now have accommodation as far as Bristol.

It’s a good day for being indoors: storm Gareth is doing its thing.

Sunday’s readings:
The key to unlock some of this may be the idea of citizenship … “3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven….” in Philippians.
The promise in the Genesis passage has been used by many peoples to claim the right to lands where other people were already living. (Citizenship becomes greedy, grabbing – one person’s jealous protection of their citizenship leads to another’s statelessness). But Paul turns this on its head in Philippians – our citizenship is in heaven. For me that goes with his new idea of the people of God. It’s hearing and accepting the good news of Jesus Christ that makes you one of the people of God, rather than genetic inheritance. And the territory is the territory of the mind, of the will, of the spirit, rather than earth.
However place is still important. We read in Luke 13 that Jerusalem is to be the stage where Jesus will do what he has to do. But Jerusalem itself is not without sin. Neither is Washington, or Brussels, or London BTW.

The Bambi is not well. Treatment options are being considered. Meanwhile, at least the first phase of Janet’s End to End will be done by Youth Hostels and Independent Hostels.

Tomorrow…
…What kind of Messiah was Jesus going to be? A time of testing can be a time of discovery, it can be a creative time – but it’s hard. Also there’s a sting in that last verse, “4:13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” … “You haven’t seen the back of me yet, mate.”