Bob Warwicker's blog

Much excitement on Monday, as my attempted sourdough starter was definitely fermenting after several days: it smelt like sick, but who cares? So I tried to add some flour to part of it and try to make some proper bread. But the dough wouldn’t rise. This time I went unleavened and made some flatbreads. Last night, they were ready – they were tasty and interestingly chewy. This morning, after a night in the tupperware, they are basically baker’s biltong. I think I’m going to cut them into strips and gnaw on them to stave off the boredom. I don’t think Janet will feel any need to help use them up. I made an excursion to the local supermarket this morning and we have some proper bread. I’m OK with a short walk early in the morning – it’s easy to avoid people, especially on roadside pavements, and there aren’t many people. But negotiating the shops is harder. I forget the circulation protocols; or I don’t know what to do when I meet someone filling shelves (theirs is a job where it’s impossible to avoid people – Tesco should be giving them PPE); or I can’t organise my shopping in the order that we have to walk past stuff; or I get in someone else’s way. I really don’t want to have the virus unknowingly and give it to someone else.

So we’re not exactly trapped here – but we don’t go out much. Maybe in ten, twenty, thirty years, being indoors is going to be my life all of the time: and that would be normal. I probably need to get some more strategies in place for this.

So, a bit of an anticlimactic bread story. This coming Sunday is often called ‘Low Sunday’, the anticlimax after Easter. Days like Low Sunday are the bread and butter of a living faith – they sort out the women from the girls and the men from the boys. If you can join in worship when there’s no great ‘oomph’ in it for you, if you can love and serve when it hurts to love and aches to serve, if you can keep on going when you don’t really fancy it somehow, then you know your faith is going deep.

In this world though, things are worse than a mere anticlimax. It is a dark time, especially as the US seeks to undermine the global fight against the virus.

I believe that for the United Reformed Church in nearby Yorkshire, the fifteenth of the month is a day of prayer about COVID-19, for the duration. I believe that Jair Bolsonaro declared a day of prayer and fasting a week or two ago – good for him – although I’d be happier if he listened to advice and did more to protect his people.

God of love,
we ask you to comfort those who mourn,
bring healing to those who are sick,
work hand in hand with science and medicine
to bring this horror to an end.

We remember those thousands,
tens of thousands
who loved and were loved,
each one who will be missed.

We particularly think of the
uncounted, untested people,
those vast numbers who are ill
or facing death,
those who have been forgotten by the statistics,
and those who will be broken by
a new poverty.
We pray for the uncounted ones;-
people in residential care
people who can’t be counted
because their governments are poor
or secretive.

We pray, as the virus spreads
silently and unrecorded
through shanty towns,
markets and bus stations,
subsistence farms,
among people forgotten by the developed world.

Living God,
may your love and mercy
fall upon this whole world
from pole to equator.

Living God, holy Spirit,
breathe hope into our lives;
breathe on, where breathing is hard,
the rasping struggle of life;
breathe on, where people must
breathe through charcoal and cloth,
behind visors, trying to care,
trying to be personal,
where everything about the environment says,
“impersonal”.

Breathe hope, where hope seems almost gone,
give hope to people deep in grieving.
Where everything is ending
and springtime is another world,
holy Spirit, whisper to us
rumours of a new beginning.

Lord, in your mercy-
-hear our prayer.

This was good, from the BBC. It says a lot about Easter. The Lectionary for next Sunday is here. Psalm 16:5 goes like this, “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.” It’s happy days, but as we read in the Gospels, both in Jesus’ prayer in the garden, and in Matthew 20:22 or Mark 10:38, where Jesus speaks to James and John or their mother (depending on whose version you read), “the cup” of doing God’s will can be bitter. It’s as they said on the radio, tears and alleluias around the graveside.

Thomas the Twin (John’s gospel reading) is one of my heroes, both for his scepticism, and for the way he believes (which he does in the end) – for his belief is not about just agreeing to a statement, it is about something deeper, ‘faith’, relating to God: it’s about following Jesus, walking his way, for he says “my Lord and my God”.

Meanwhile, a virus which started as a small thing far away is now causing massive grief and hardship. We continue to fight it with science and prayer. Science and prayer can be a good team – pity they seem to fall out sometimes. When we eventually clamber out of this dark valley, may we do so with more respect and love for one another, and a heightened sense of social justice.

Happy Easter.

I went for a walk of exercise and remembering in the Easter dawn.

The lurid sky could be a ‘shepherd’s warning’. It could be a reminder that my Christian faith is ‘not normal’ – there is something rare and exotic about it, for I believe that Jesus is alive, and is the living presence (acknowledged or secret) in every deed of love and every greeting between disciples, whether we are separated by no distance, 2m, or an internet cable.

Things are, or course, ‘not normal’, but with the recent near misses of SARS and MERS, we should be ready for the current experience to be repeated. I pray that God will support our governments in the difficult decisions they have to make; and I pray that these people will have the decency to find their decisions difficult.

I seem to remember, from either the days of records, or of tape cassettes, that sometimes, when listening to very quiet music, you would get an accidental muffled preview of a loud passage to come. Either the neighbouring groove had pushed on the wall of the one you were trying to play, or the next bit of tape had magnetised the part it was jammed up against. Not sure how it worked, but I do seem to remember these events. The whispered promise of resurrection seems to infuse even today’s day of emptiness.

Jesus, God of love,
refugee
from the land of the living,
have mercy on us
in our days, months, years
of emptiness.
Take us by the hand,
take all people, and
lead us all to a
new beginning, a new hope.

We pray today for
all people in grief,
who are missing someone they loved,
and still do,
whose love now has nowhere to go.
Give them comfort and strength,
in their shock and anger,
their confusion and loss.
Even today, when funerals are not what they should be,
may every uniquely wonderful person
be given the honour they deserve.

It’s always weird thinking of Easter in the middle of Holy Week, but here goes. The Lectionary link is here. Here’s John 20:17… “Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'”” ‘Noli me tangere’ (don’t touch me’) is not as good a translation as what we read above, ‘Do not hold on to me’, but in one form or another, these words Jesus said to Mary Magdalene have triggered loads of artistic responses. In the joyful story of resurrection, there is also loss, separation. “Do not hold on to me” – anyone who has loved someone else will recognise the pain of separation.

We can Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, text, phone, send letters to those we love, but “do not hold on to me” – not for as long as the pandemic lasts.

God of all loving,
on the joyful day of resurrection,
we remember also all those people,
who cannot cling to
or hug, or kiss, or shake the hand of
the ones they love,
because of the virus,
or for whatever reason.
May they know, even in their pain,
that they love truly
and are loved still.
May the love of the living Jesus Christ
be with us all.

Living God,
we pray for bus drivers,
at risk of infection,
in need of protection.
We pray that they will be able to go about their work safely.
Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.

I discovered, by digging deep into our camera’s menus, that I can do ‘spot metering’. Therefore I can now take pictures of things like last night’s beautiful moon. It’s not like an astronomer’s picture, but it’s better than I expected.

The moon connects us to our past, because it still governs some religious festivals in the Abrahamic religions. For instance, it still controls the date of Easter. One of the Lectionary passages for Good Friday is from the ‘letter to the Hebrews’. The writer reminds the listeners of Jeremiah 31:33 … “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds,”” (Hebrews 10:16). The letter-writer has gone on at some length about priesthood, and Jesus being the high priest, in ways that would only really make sense to someone of Jewish heritage. But if you read the next verse in Jeremiah, you will see that the prophet sees a time which is the end of all priesthood. People won’t need to teach one another about God, because everyone will know God, from the highest to the lowest.
It is the end of priesthood. Nobody can claim to have unique, special knowledge of God, because everyone can know God.

Living God,
help us to know you
and not be afraid.
Help us to know your love.
Help us to know your solidarity
in times of stress.
Help us to know Jesus,
suffering with us,
and leading us to life.
Help us to inhale
your Spirit
and to know you
ever more deeply.

We pray for Mr Johnson, and all who love him. May he recover, we pray. We pray for all people worldwide who are suffering because of this virus. May their suffering end soon. We give you thanks for the courageous work of medical staff. Give them strength we pray. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

The weather here is restless, showers and sunny patches alternating. In common with millions of people in the developed world, I am indoors and also a little restless. I fear for what will happen in countries with no adequate health system.

God protect all people at this time, people like me and people different from me.