Bob Warwicker's blog

In the Lectionary readings for today, from 2 Corinthians, we read about the perils that the early Christians faced, but in each apparent hurt there is cause for rejoicing, because it’s all part of serving God. I’m nowhere near that attitude; and Christians in the 21st century West mostly don’t have that amount of persecution… but it’s sobering reading for Ash Wednesday nevertheless.

Drove a car for the first time since Boxing Day, going to the Co-op now deliveries can’t be had. I might’ve considered walking, but my heel is cracking and there was a lot to carry anyway. There’s a little bit of a feeling of power to be sat behind the wheel, and it’s so handy to have the versatility of a car, especially on quiet roads. I get why they are so addictive, and it’s going to be so hard for us to go cold turkey on fossil fuels. BTW there is no zero emission car until there is zero emission electricity – and that will be a long time, even on these wind-rich shores.

And for more secrets of a successful Lent, another quick look at Ash Wednesday’s Lectionary… According to Jesus’ words as reported in Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21, it’s about not showing off your piety. So there we are.

From the Isaiah reading in Ash Wednesday’s Lectionary…

“58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn…”

What more is there to say?

Here’s some snow. It’s soon going to melt.

Meanwhile, with the transfiguration, up on that high mountain, Jesus’ friend Peter wants to make dwellings for him and Moses and Elijah that they saw in this shining vision. Admirable hospitality. But perhaps we try too hard to make dwellings for the Living God, and suppose God will always confined within the walls we build – only to find that God is also somewhere beyond those walls, somewhere where people are suffering, or in need of a shining hope. The vision dies, dissolves into memory like the melting of snow. But God lives on.

In this case that residue of memory is telling us that Jesus is the what the traditions of the Law and the Prophets were looking towards.

Yesterday’s jab must be working. My immune system was having a go within 12 hours, shivers and everything. Much better now, but still liking the excuse to stay in bed for longer than average.

Interesting to hear the Mail Group’s language in response to the judgement given to them about the Meghan Markle case. “Surprised and disappointed” sounds like a headmaster admonishing a previously obedient schoolboy. Is that how they see the judiciary?

Also got my jab this morning. Great! Though I thought maybe bus and taxi drivers, schoolteachers, food shop workers, police etc. should probably have been ahead of 68-year-old me.

… though the weather’s fair, feeling if anything rather more chilly than the previous few days.

“You just can’t see it, can you?” Reading from the Lectionary in 2 Corinthians, we see how that is (in part) the writer’s response to people who don’t believe what he believes. It seems a little unsatisfactory, and we know from other letters and from the Acts, how Paul (if it was he) was eager to argue the case for Christ in every setting. But “you just don’t see it” is often how we feel, about someone who just hasn’t ‘got’ the change of mindset needed to follow the Christ of Love. At the same time, Christians need to be eager to ‘see it’ and understand (and respect) where others are coming from. This too is following Paul’s example – he listened and observed and tried to understand before he debated.

From the first sun on the far side of the valley…

…the light spreads…

Living Christ,
known to us in daily life
and in blinding light,
known in the hurt and forgiveness of
human life,
and in the shining hope you
hold before us;
may we never let you go.

Cold this morning, some light snow from dissipating showers. There was some wind, not as much as I expected, but some gusts enough to whip up small puffs of spindrift. There were tiny snowdrifts where larch twigs had fallen on the Trail.

Next Sunday’s Lectionary is about the Transfiguration. I wonder what stories we have about the events which uncovered to us the hidden nature of things; or when we discovered what Christ was doing in a particular situation.