the adventures of retirement
Pleasant weather today for a walk. So we went from A to A via the reservoirs: bit of a chilly breeze though.
This epidemic has caused an inversion of values – using public transport is now possibly antisocial for a spell* – but I can’t yet bring myself to drive everywhere. Maybe there’s not that many journeys I need to make.
* Quite a long spell, more than likely. Not sure at the moment how it impacts our walking plans for later in the spring.
All three of our family have walked from Land’s End to John o’Groats, all in different years and with variations of route. There are a lot of photographs, and some of them are of the same place, taken years apart. I’ve been tagging such photos with Google’s help, and there’s a kind of mysterious pleasure in noting that a little wayside place that was logged 17 years ago was logged again more recently; like the padlock, which once was locked, but was open seven years later, or signs that have aged – or been renewed, or a parish notice board that’s changed, or the picture of a hemp leaf that’s mysteriously disappeared from a communications hut. Also it makes me think of Psalm 139. Not sure why.
Maybe it’s because these very different journeys, years apart, are connected by these things which are very small, very specific, in a very big landscape. They are in some way ‘special’.
The readings are here.
Genesis – we used to think it was all in the genes.
Psalm 121 – here’s a photo on a hilltop overlooking the M62 and South Pennines…
Romans 4 – it’s not all in the genes after all, but even underlying that old story is a meme – [the Good News that leads to] faith.
John 3 – being part of the kingdom of God is not about who you are born as in the conventional way (genes), but about being born “from above” or “of the Spirit” (meme), belief in Christ, the ‘word’ of God. All people can be part of the story.
Matthew 17 – depending on how you run the Christian year, this Sunday could be ‘Persil Day’ instead of a couple of weeks ago.
To pray about…
We have seen fire, floods, disease, often considered to be acts of God. But they are all connected with our twenty first century habits. Please pray especially for people who are vulnerable to these impacts.
Went into Manchester yesterday to watch a steam train climbing the bank between Manchester Victoria and Miles Platting. Amazing sound as the Stanier Jubilee tugged its load up the hill. I could hear that something was going on before I could even see it in the distance…
…And that thing I remember from childhood of a column of smoke and steam momentarily getting snuffed out, then reappearing on the other side of the bridge. Then I walked back to Ashton under Lyne for the bus…
…but my attention has been drawn to this, from America. What do I think? Was Jesus raised from the dead? Of course, for the God who created the universe*, anything is possible – it might not even involve breaking the laws of physics, except for the one about entropy increasing – so incredibly improbable if not impossible. But I still find the idea troubling, mainly for the reason that my greatest understanding of the faithfulness of God comes from the reliability of the laws of nature. Sure, those laws contain within themselves randomness and uncertainty – but we find we can think about and begin to understand the randomness and uncertainty, their nature and their limits. Why would God want to break the very rules that demonstrate his love so clearly? Likewise, I am troubled by what Paul writes about this.
I believe that Jesus is alive. This belief gives me no trouble, only joy. And I can believe he was raised from the dead in the way that is traditionally understood – but it does trouble me. More important right now, though, is that people love and follow him and his life makes a difference to the world.
* or ‘universes’ if you will. Language is changing – I used to think that ‘universe’ meant everything that is, not just everything that we can in principle interact with. Although even the word ‘is’ is troublesome when time itself is part of the universe.
A thin layer of snow this morning. Not hail this time, but actual snow. I doubt it’ll hang around long, and not much of a threat to travel plans at this elevation anyway, but pretty as far as I can tell in the morning gloom.
Is it selfish to thank God? Maybe: especially considering what the weather is doing to others now it’s in the tender mercy of Big Oil*. But there remains something wonderful about God’s created universe.
* Oversimplification I know.
Merciful God,
we repent in dust and ashes
of all in our common life that is wrong.
We; churches, families, nations,
think again and turn around,
and look to you for hope
and new beginnings.
Just back from a walk along the Trail, under lots of sleety showers, so it was a slightly uncheering experience. But I was very cheered that I don’t have to drive across the Pennines any more (except visiting family). Also the distant hilltops look lovely. Here’s a wet window with a snowy hill behind and a snowy hill with a wet window in front…
The first Sunday of Lent is about Jesus being tempted. And there’s backup from the archetypal temptation story (or coming-of-age story) in Genesis. But those stories are so different it can be hard to understand the Jesus story as the reversal of the other. Above all, Jesus has to struggle with his demons and decide what he’s going to be and how he’s going to be it, knowing how the world goes, and what the likely consequences will be for him. Yes, Jesus is the son of God. And how is he going to be the son of God? – in humility and humanity and pain and struggle. As to Genesis, it sets down the pattern for hundreds of generations of buck-passing (this comes a little after our passage in Genesis 3:12): “It was the woman who made me do it, Lord.” “She was asking for it, Your Honour.”
Weird TV last night, when I looked up from my laptop at a drama and saw a group of nuns cheerfully watching the crowd burn an effigy of a Roman Catholic. Such was the big finish of ‘Call the Midwife’.
It is raining this morning and at 67 I’m just beginning to experiment with tying my bootlaces a different way – reef style instead of granny style.
Lent is coming, and numbers are powerful. Forty days, like Jesus in the wilderness, or Moses on the mountain, or the forty years for the people in the wilderness. There’s also twelve apostles/tribes of Israel, and seven crops up here and there as well. It’s a deliberate connection with the Old Testament heritage. There’s different things people do in Lent, like giving something up, or taking something up, or spending time reflecting. Maybe the wilderness time is a chance to wriggle free of old habits, of previously unquestioned ‘necessities’ of life, to throw everything up in the air and see where it all comes down again. It’s like going for a long walk and life reduces to food, water, shelter, warmth, health – and these things can be needs that are felt in our guts again.
PS I think I’ve clicked the button that enables comments – but some deeper magic is preventing the box from appearing.
We visited the local chippy last night, and I ate their last bean – ever. From now on, baked beans are off the menu, because they can’t sell enough. Not hugely sad, because I can get beans anywhere, but it’s a small ending. A bigger ending is the butcher’s down the road, which has closed to concentrate its operations in the other two branches. This was the location for Hilary Briss’s butcher’s on the TV, which sold ‘special stuff’. Janet suggests it could be repurposed as an escape room … “You’ll never leave.”
A bigger ending still will be the BBC itself, which I fear for. This has been a source of reliable information all my life. What shall I do after it is emasculated?
Churches also end and begin. But Jesus Christ is for ever, each new generation shining a different spectrum of light onto him.
God of love
I see changes all around me,
the small and the earth-changing.
I see decay,
and I see growth.
In all that unsettles us, we pray,
help us to know that you
are to be trusted.