Experiencing loss

Last Thursday I went to London on a one-day Bereavement Course run by CRUSE.

…..An exceptionally useful and enlightening day, and I hope that I will be able to use what I have learned for the benefit of others. But it was also of help to me I have to say. None of us go through life without some experience of painful loss….the hardest to bear is invariably the loss of a loved one, but there are lots of other things that can happen to us which bring about dramatic changes in our daily lives.
Recently, the Lincoln Branch of Norwich Union (formerly General Accident where I had started work in 1970) closed. I went over to meet former colleagues, and effectively say goodbye to them all at once! I had continued to do business, with people who had worked with me back then, for most of 37 years. Now it feels so strange to have ‘lost’ them, a kind of mini-bereavement.
People retiring, moving house, friends who go away all experience loss. Sometimes we call it by another name; such as ‘homesickness’, but there is no denying that, as with a death of someone close to us, we need enough time (and time is no measure) to come to terms with it…..a process where we may be going round a spiral, up and down, until there is a return to ‘normality’….things will never be quite the same, but we have learned to get on with life.

On the bereavement course there was an interesting variety of people, three prison officers, three crematorium workers, a solicitor, an infant school counsellor, a helpline operative for carers, and others. I was the only church worker there (I have a feeling that there were one or two ‘hidden lights’ there, though, because I could see it in their faces). The trainer often asked me for a view on issues….that was a challenge! One of the trainees raised a point about an individual who had been bereaved some months before and was clearly being far too demanding on her. I held my counsel while the others investigated further and discussed around the table. Finally, I was asked for my view. I said ‘Say to this person… "What makes you think that the whole world revolves around you?"’ …that caused great amusement. On reflection the circumstances where it would be right to say something like that are, I would suggest, quite rare. WWJD? I have since questioned myself "Did I really say that?….surely I would never say that to a bereaved person!". But I had started the day by asking God to give me the right words to say in all circumstances, so however risky the strategy I trust it must have been the right one. I should like to have been there to see the outcome....
Words can heal or hurt, encourage or undermine. To verbally go 'on the attack' is not something we should ever do lightly. Jesus did it on a number of occasions, but always to jolt people into recognising their folly (as with his friend Peter...'Get behind me satan!'Mark8v33.....but he didn't then dump Peter. On the contrary he continued to encourage and challenge him). Just occasionally we all need a sharp word of warning; 'Look out!' 'Stop there!' 'Be careful!', don't we?.....to keep us alert or to bring us back to our senses.

How about some comments?

link to CRUSE:
http://www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk/about_bereavement.htm

What's your ideal Christian community?

Rarely have I read anything that ticks as many boxes for me as this. The challenge is in the last line.... Am I prepared to give everything to try and make it happen?
Impossible? When we say 'Yes' to God, the impossible happens... Luke 1 v 37

"I want to be part of a community that I love and that loves me. A place where
we get past the polite niceness, beyond the pretence and the masks, and get
really irritated with each other. And then stick at it and stick together.

I want to be part of something that is marked by its welcome, its hospitality and
its inclusiveness. A place with fuzzy edges, where no one decides who belongs
and is ‘in’ or ‘out’. I want to be part of a group of people who are obsessed with
Jesus, rather than Christianity. A place that is passionately focussed on Jesus
and learning to live as followers of his way in real life today. A place where
we’re becoming more like Jesus as we learn the ancient spiritual disciplines and
work together to make them part of our lives.

I want to belong to a community where I can be myself, warts and all.
A place that, on the one hand will accept me as I am right now, but on the other
hand will provoke and inspire me to become more of what I could be. A place
where my brokenness, fears and habits are part of the process. A place where
we hold on to the ‘ideal’ but also celebrate the ‘real’.

I want to be part of something that treats people like adults. A place that values
everyone’s experience and perspective. A place where people are motivated by
love rather than guilt. I want to be part of a community that is both of our culture,
so that it connects with the language, images, music and experiences of
everyday life; but one that also goes against the grain of our culture because we
serve one another, live sacrificially and cross boundaries of class, age and colour.

A place that makes the difference in the things that feel too big for us as individuals.
Whether that’s the hassle my kids will get when they can’t wear designer
trainers or the impotence I feel in the face of ethical and environmental
issues.

A place that makes us yearn for justice and beauty. A place that equips us for
life in the worlds we live in, and gives us the fire we need to change them.
An oasis in the desert......but at the same time..... a desert in the oasis.....a place that makes us more thirsty for Jesus and His kingdom.

Of course my dream is impossibly idealistic, but I’ve decided that even if we
never get there, I want to give everything to trying."

Richard White. ( Leadership Link. Cell UK)

You can do it!

Anita Roddick once said:
“If you ever think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never been to bed with a mosquito.”

Discovering glory in everyday life.....

I just had to bring you this on a cold November day:

GLORY = when your messiah drives a minivan by timothy paul jones

Heat shimmers upward from the pavement, birthing miniature mirages that dance madly between bumpers and fenders in an endless chain of automobiles. A revolving bank sign reveals that the time is 4:12pm,….Oklahoma on a late summer afternoon…
The conflicting messages on the bumper stickers and the varying rhythms of the heads bobbing above the drivers’ seats divulge the diversity of this area. Hummers and Harleys wait alongside mud spattered pickup trucks and compact cars past their prime.
Nothing here seems glorious. It is an ordinary afternoon filled with ordinary people trying to find their way home amid the hubbub and hullabaloo of their ordinary lives.
My seven-year-old sits beside me in the car, face upturned as she sings along with the latest single by U2. As our car curves to the right, something on the opposite side of the intersection seizes Hannah’s attention.
‘Look!’ she points towards a battered minivan, a fading remnant of that brief moment in the 1980s when Americans inexplicably used the words minivan and cool in the same sentence. ‘Look! There’s Jesus.’
I glimpse just enough of the vehicle’s lone occupant to grasp the reason for her momentary delusion. The driver is long-haired, bearded, and olive-skinned, white teeth glinting through a gentle smile.
The Jesus of a thousand Sunday School take home papers.
Without thinking I smile and reply; ‘No, Hannah. That wasn’t Jesus. It can’t be. Jesus lived on earth a long time ago….almost two thousand years ago. It was just someone who looks like the paintings of Jesus.’
‘But,’ Hannah is staring through the rear window, eyes still riveted to the minivan, ‘It was Jesus! I saw him.’
‘No, Hannah,’ my tone is harsher than I intend. ‘It wasn’t Jesus. It couldn’t have been.’
The minivan vanishes into the jumble of vehicles crisscrossing the intersection, and Hannah coils back into her seat with a whisper, ‘But Daddy, it was.’ As her moment of childlike wonder chokes in a sea of grownup logic, a gentle murmur wends its way past the dry bones of a soul that once found magic wands in the branches of ordinary trees and glorious wonders amid the stars of a common sky.
What if she’s right?
What if God’s presence is nearer than I ever imagined?
Years of rational thinking and theological training recoil at this thought, this alien intruder from a childhood long past. God in a minivan! That’s as absurd as…..as…. The other voice—the voice of childlike wonder----whispers again, As absurd as the glory of God erupting from a burning shrub on the far side of a Middle Eastern desert? As absurd as the Messiah, enfolded in the flesh of a peasant’s baby, tumbling into a feed trough in Bethlehem? As insane as the King of the Universe screaming from a wooden stake, stabbed like a dagger into the heart of the Hill of the Skull? As crazy as all the other wonders that you claim to believe, that you’ve embalmed in the pages of your theology but that you’re unwilling to look for here and now?
‘But then again, Hannah.’ I hear a voice speaking and realise that it must be my own, ‘who knows? Maybe it was.’ And suddenly an ordinary afternoon is filled with extraordinary possibilities. For I find myself realising anew---even, in some shadowed corner of my soul, believing---that God is always present, always available, even in the moments when I least expect it.
What I am experiencing is a reminder of glory.

From ‘Hullabaloo' by Timothy Paul Jones. Used by permission.
More information about Hullabaloo, as well as musical playlists:
http://www.timothypauljones.com
Order copies of Hullabaloo here.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0781444837?tag=timothypauljo-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0781444837&adid=0P2WGPJX8P2Y846AECCX&:

TROUBLE !

Freak incidents involving animals topped the list of the most bizarre claims made to insurer Norwich Union last year, with food-related prangs also featuring highly.
"A frozen squirrel fell out of a tree and crashed through the windscreen on to the passenger seat."
"The car was parked when a reindeer fell on the bonnet of my car."
"As I was driving round a bend, one of the doors opened and a frozen kebab flew out, hitting and damaging a passing car."
"A herd of cows licked my car and caused damage to the paintwork."
"While I was waiting at traffic lights, a wasp went down my trouser leg which made me hit the accelerator and prang the car in front."
"A cow jumped on my quad bike."
As an Insurance Broker, I reckon the funniest incident I ever had to deal with was a household claim where the guy’s dog had chewed up his false teeth. He came into my office and tried, with no teeth in, to describe what had happened….

As Christians we should not be surprised when trouble comes. It may be hard to take at the time. I remember, at the age of 19, disconsolately sitting in my car with a burned out clutch outside the Royal Albert Hall, wondering what to do next. I had a New Testament there and opened it at the first chapter of James;
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance.. Perserverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature, and complete, not lacking anything."
That was like God speaking directly to me!
The car was repaired for £25 (2 weeks wages at the time) and I got it back from London, of course.
That was a lesson I never forgot, and so when more serious trouble comes along, as it does from time to time I’m ready for it !

"I've told you this so that my peace will be with you. In the world you'll have trouble. But cheer up! I have overcome the world." Jesus. (John 16 v 33)

NON ANGLI SED ANGELI

11th November....Remembrance Day.
2007....the year we remember the abolition of slavery 200 years ago.

Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy was a First World War Chaplain. He wrote many poems around 90 years ago in and around the trenches.
Below is an excerpt from Studdert-Kennedy's long poem NON ANGLI SED ANGELI, recalling the encounter between Pope Gregory and ‘Angles’ (English slaves) when he famously stated ‘not Angles but Angels’.
In editing it, I have found that Studdert-Kennedy, though long dead, directly challenges many aspects of our society today (even abortion). PC he is not. Some might say he glorifies war but does he?.... and maybe today we glorify peacetime when in fact evil abounds amongst us, and slavery takes new forms.
comments welcomed

He saw it with the eyes of Christ, and spoke
in all unconscious prophecy, the doom
of slavery, which these same blue-eyed boys
would one day die to banish from the world.
And I have seen them die in these last days:
Yes, I have seen their bright blue eyes grow dim
with agony, yet never lose their smile,
The dauntless smile of Angles that reveals
their angel souls, and crowns them Kings by right,
the destined saviours of the world from sin,
and from the curse of tyranny which kills
the souls of men, and turns them into slaves.
The day of tyrant kings is dead, and thrones
shall nevermore dethrone men's souls.
But now a dull inhuman monster takes their place.
The minotaur of Mammon tears the wings
from new-fledged souls and flings them bleeding down
to dogs of greed and lust.
To him they are dead hands, machines that make machines,
and grind out gold to swell the coffers of the rich.
So Satan takes new forms, and when he finds
the sword is weak, too weak to win brave hearts
as slaves, creeps snakelike in, in time of Peace,
to fetter free-born men with golden chains
and lead them helpless captives down to hell.
O England, when this wave of war is spent,
and rolls back baffled from thy rocky breast,
wilt thou be strong to slay the Minotaur,
and strangle that great golden snake that crept
in time of Peace about thy home to kill,
with venom of low greed and lust of wealth,
the soul of Freedom and the heart of Love?
Shall wealth still grow, and woe increase to breed
in filthy slums the slaves of poverty?
Shall senseless pride and vulgar luxury
by gilding over evil make it good?
Shall souls be only hands again, dead hands,
That toil for wealth that makes none rich save those who need it not?
Shall men still seek in drink a refuge from the burden of their strife,
And from that dull monotony of grey
that shadows half our cities from the sun?
Shall women still be bought and sold, like dogs
upon the streets, because the wage they earn
by work will not keep bodies for their souls?
Shall children come to birth, too weak to live,
Not even hands of strength, but feeble hands,
that clutch at life and die--just born to die
and cry--cry shame upon the grimy world
that murdered them?
If this be what must come,
then blessed are the dead who die in war,
Their bodies shattered, but their souls untouched
by slime of sin, unpoisoned by the snake,
For war is kinder than a Godless peace.
O England, let this message from the past
ring down the ages like a trumpet call,
Not Angles these but Angels, souls not slaves,
let not thy wealth be counted in base coin
but in chaste mothers, comely maids, strong men
with kindly eyes, in sound of children's play,
and in those happy aged ones who stand
between the seas of life, and, looking back
and forwards, vow that human life is good.
So must our land be reckoned rich or poor.

LINKS:

Studdert-Kennedy's poems:
http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/dasc/TUB.HTM

modern forms of slavery:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics/slavery/modern/modern_print.html
http://paulfield.com/cargo/
http://www.stopthetraffik.org/default.aspx

Humility

Some thoughts on humility...found on GODTUBE: