Bob Warwicker's blog

The 25th will be the international day for eliminating violence against women…

God of love,
we pray for an end
to violence against women.
May the end come soon.
May the secret violence,
happening behind the closed doors
of our friends, family and neighbours,
of workmates and fellow churchgoers,
… may the violence end.
We pray for all women who feel
desperately alone and afraid,
with seemingly no-one to protect them
from those who are violent towards them…
…may they find shelter and safety.
We pray that all public places
may become safe places.
We pray that you will protect women
from violent and biased judicial systems.
We pray that you will strengthen
everyone who works to keep women safe.
And if all this sounds wildly optimistic,
because violence runs deep
in the human soul,
God bring a new beginning we pray.
May the strong learn peace.
And may peaceful people learn
to be strong and to stand up.
In your mercy, God,
hear our prayer.

In tomorrow’s lectionary, Jesus is being interrogated by Pilate before he is executed. And according to John’s Gospel (I’m not sure of the writer’s sources for this account!), Jesus displays almost Johnsonian levels of failing to answer the question. It’s as if each question is not being answered so much as being treated as a trigger for Jesus to speak some more about something deep.

But Jesus is sort-of answering the questions (something that other person never even attempts), and what he has to say is so much like dismantling the categories in which Pilate and everyone else has been thinking, that it’s completely necessary to give a non-straight answer….

…His kingdom is not from this world.

Like I say, this is John’s gospel, and there is a load of stuff in there about who Jesus is, and it’s deep, and the experts are striving hard to work out where Jesus’ actual words are in all this. Nevertheless, these are words we need to hear, words that tell the truth about the first Christians’ understanding of Jesus and no doubt Jesus’ own understanding too.

A ‘king’ of that time would have had real power and would of course have been a threat to the Roman Empire (unless he was a puppet king). Maybe the nearest modern equivalent would be a dictator. But Jesus Christ is not like that anyway. And the reign of Jesus Christ is not like that anyway. We read elsewhere about a domain of the human heart and soul and will – in which the least of people get the greatest respect, and the first come last, in which love and mercy and justice rule.

Back again now from small hols. Normal service will resume. Meanwhile, tantalising glimpses from the escarpment on the way home.

Today is St hilda’s day. She ran the council of Whitby in the seventh century at which the churches decided to fall in line with the roman model.

On the plus side, a really good precedent for having women in leadership of the churches.

On the minus side, let a single flower bloom. Why did celtic Christianity need to be pushed aside?

About lunchtime, after a little rain, I suddenly noticed that after a misty morning, there was no longer even any haze, and the air was clear. Lunar halo visible this evening.

Christ the king on Sunday. Very different from either the bloody dictator or the ceremonial monarch.

Another rosy fingered dawn…

As I walk in the quiet dawn, this high-up band of travellers is streaking towards the sun…

…We’ve a very long way to go before we’re anywhere near zero-carbon aviation. Don’t imagine there’s no need for hard choices.

Meanwhile, today we remember. It always seems to me to be remembrance-plus … remembrance plus Johnson-style flag-waving, or remembrance-plus a particular agenda of one kind or another. I’m probably as guilty as the next person of piggy-backing my agenda onto someone else’s tragedy.

Can’t we just remember those who died, those who were traumatised, their families… ? Gratitude and sorrow?

Looking at nice stuff is one reason I walk.

Another is to balance out the eating I also like to do.

Another is that I like to say ‘hello’ to people. When I feel that people care about each other, it helps dispel a sad thought I sometimes get, which is that the government is complicit in a collapse of community feeling. It sometimes feels as if the only people who still care about life as a community are people of faith, and we’re not always all that great about practising what we preach.