Simon Marsh

WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY JOY it was to be present at the Inaugural Conference of the new Affirming Liberalism network at Trinity College Oxford yesterday. Not much of a “party affiliated” person by nature I was surprised by the enthusiasm with which I greeted news of a new liberal-minded network within the Church of England.

But then it’s true that I’ve grieved in the past decade or so as I’ve watched fellow Christians become more and more deeply entrenched in one degree of “certainty” after another. It’s true that I’ve been distressed by my own disinclination to “fight back”. It’s true that my theological inclinations have always been more ready to seek out affirmations than assertions. So the 10 Affirmations unexpectedly set before my eyes by Affirming Liberalism were bound to bring a measure of relief and joy to my heart.

Affirming Liberalism seeks to enhance the ‘enrichment’ of the Christian faith and support ordained and lay Christians of the Liberal Anglican tradition by:

Affirming faith in Jesus’ life, teaching, death and resurrection as revealing God’s limitless love for all humanity in this life and the next.

Affirming the dynamic action of the Holy Spirit in dispersing this divine love throughout the world.

Affirming the positive impact of biblical, literary and historical criticism for our engagement with Scripture and Tradition.

Affirming appreciation of the distinctive nature of religious language in vibrant worship which connects us to the divine.

Affirming a philosophical approach to Christian faith and the search for truth through God-given reason.

Affirming the positive insights of the natural sciences and mathematics in the formation of a Christian world-view and understanding of the universe.

Affirming the positive impact of the social sciences for understanding human nature and society, and developing Christian ethics.

Affirming the vitality of the performing and creative arts in shaping a dynamic Christian vision of life lived in relation to God.

Affirming open, creative conversation with Evangelicals and Catholics as a means of enriching our understanding of the Christian gospel.

Affirming open, creative conversation with other faith traditions and cultures as a way of deepening our understanding of God.

SELF-AWARENESS, VOCATION, AND HOW?

How did Jesus prepare for leadership without the “help” of mission statements, or identifying key people, or setting targets? How did Jesus survive a wilderness environment that reduced him, body and soul, to barest essentials, leaving his character and instincts starkly exposed, whipped by the razor-sharp winds of the desert? How did he survive, with no apparent external assistance, to shore him up or sustain him? My dictionary speaks of wilderness as an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region. Tough training indeed. Even yomping SAS commandos have a bit more moral support around them than was available to Jesus.

APPEARING NOW TO LEAP FROM ONE SUBJECT TO ANOTHER

It’s Thanksgiving Sunday at St Michael & All Angels’ next week. The (actually only one) occasion in the year when it’s the Vicar’s task to encourage one and all to think and pray about what we might contribute to the work of God’s Church in terms of time, talents and money. And we’re all encouraged to think and to pray precisely because no-one else is equipped to tell us what we can or cannot afford to give or to do. Only we can know. Only we ourselves can square up to exactly what our relationship with God and the gifts he’s given us is. Only we, as individuals, can really know whether we’ve anything in our lives to be thankful for, or not.

“WILDERNESS” & THANKSGIVING ARE LINKED!

What kind of training and help do I need in order to arrive at a good decision about what I may or may not offer back to God? Is there anyone whose example I might follow? Is there man, woman or child who has risen above the grubby business of self-interest and temptation; anyone I can look up to, be inspired by, want to emulate? Where could I engage such a person in conversation? Where could I learn what inspired and motivated him or her? How can I learn not to feel pain when I give something away, but rather to revel in the laughter and joy of God’s creation itself? How do I learn to be a cheerful giver? Who am I? What am I called to be and do? And how?

THERE’S AN “ESSENTIALS” CLUE IN THE “WILDERNESS” …

I learn how to give when I’ve been to a place, in person or in spirit, where I’ve been brought face to face with reality; where I’ve been shown who and what I am; where I’ve come to know without shadow of a doubt that I am loved by my Creator, who is ALMIGHTY GOD, forever and ever, and that “I shall lack nothing”. I learn how to give when I’m even slightly more interested in even occasional quiet spaces alone with God than I am in my social life or in what I possess, or might some day possess. I learn how to give, and I learn how to love, and I learn how to “live life in all its fullness” on the very day, and in the very hour, and in the very moment, when I allow all of MY character and all of my instincts to be starkly exposed … to the inexpressible beauty, and the unimaginable generosity, and the surpassing glory and assurance, of GOD — who loves me, FOREVER.

 

THERE WILL PROBABLY HAVE BEEN TIMES in your life when you’ve been able to say with the priest and poet, R S Thomas, that God comes

That’s so often how it is with the coming of God. Unannounced simplicity. No immediate expectation that we should behave in a particular way. No expectation that we should speak in an out-of-the-ordinary or convoluted theological language. No expectation that the “saving of souls” will make clearly defined or absolutist demands of human-kind, save for the Divine expectation of the God newly arrived in the back-streets of Bethlehem, that some one might pick up a Christ-child and hold Him close to their heart for to keep the little Chap warm.

This little Jesus teaches you and me how we are to be bridge-builders. This little Jesus is Pontifex — the bridge-maker, Emmanuel, God amongst us, the great High Priest, the Son of the Most High, the sacrifice or Christmas present of Almighty God Himself to His beloved world. This little Jesus is God come among us. We are to be little like Him. We are to be loved and we are to love. We are to be remarkable, at Christmas-time and through all time, for the absence of clamour; knowing that Christ leads His children on to the place where He has now gone. Home.

¹ Suddenly - R S Thomas, COLLECTED POEMS 1945-1990

WHENCE COMETH LOVE?

From he who has in him of she

for she who has in her of he

who was and is

Eternity

click photo for full resolution 

WHAT WAS YOUR PERSPECTIVE

on the world when you were housed

here?

Was this shell a warm place -

a cocoon of security

a window through which you might gaze

out upon a world

more colourful than you?

Were these polished walls a safe haven

in the hours of your vulnerability? The soft

sensitive facets in me would be glad of such

a splendid shell as yours

from time to time

And yet I own gladness that I may stand for

your protected fragility is no more

and amongst the joys of today’s peaceful shore

I found only your shell and an echo

in what was once your land

 
Grateful thanks to Andrew Rudd, Cheshire Poet Laureate 2006, for inspiration and encouragement

I’VE ALWAYS LOVED CLOCKS. The long-case clock in our Sacristy here brings untold comfort and peace to me. The quiet ten minutes or so of silent preparation for Worship has made undemanding friends of the clock and I.

Tick … tock. Tick … tock. Breathe gently. Go placidly. Remember God. Redeem the time. Tick … tock …

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, for they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself.

 

Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune but do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

 

Max Ehrmann (1872-1945)

Tonight another clock bade me and my companions “go placidly” as we prepared for a quiet office of Evensong at Bramall Hall. And I recall the gentle, measured counting of the clock inside York Minster.  Perhaps Archbishop Sentamu has been touched by it. Please God that the world might be touched by the peace-full voice of the clock …

Breathe gently. Go placidly. Remember God. Redeem the time. Tick … tock …

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU OF YORK has given up a planned holiday in Austria this week. The “Watchman for the North” will, instead, “camp out” in York Minster calling men and women of goodwill, everywhere, to join him in prayer and in fasting for peace …

“We have an opportunity to stand up and be counted with those in Israel, Lebanon and Palestine and all over the world who seek after Peace. This is what this week will be about, people coming together for one purpose alone – to pray for peace in our troubled world and to pray especially for the Middle East”. 

Many will want to heed the Archbishop’s call - and bless his example. And I shall pray that York Minster will be only one amongst many centres of focused and purposeful gathering in the coming week. May temples, synagogues, mosques, churches, schools, workplaces and homes throughout the land be filled with peoples bound by common purpose. Filled with peoples united by their conscious longing for the peace that can only be granted to any of us - individuals or nations - by something or someone quite BEYOND ourselves and our limited horizons and aspirations.

And may that great and diverse gathering “for one purpose alone” renew in all of us a sense of our common brotherhood and sisterhood in the family of our humanity. May we remember that the Creator of the World hears the cry of the poor, of the little ones, of the bewildered and the dispossessed. May we remember that God bears no ill will or ill intent for ANY child of his making. May the Watchman for the North inspire each of us to be watchwomen and watchmen for the very food of our continued presence in this world: a united humanity. Peace. Peace. Peace.

Some of the prayers used by the Archbishop this week can be read here 

WE’VE BEEN WATCHING NEWS OF WAR in the Middle East with ever-increasing heartache: one father, mother, husband, wife, son or daughter after another struggling to come to terms with the nightmarish realities of war. The sound of fear resounds in their and our ears. News of foiled UK-based terrorist attempts cause us to wonder, once again, how it would be for us if tragedy on such a scale struck any closer to our own hearts and homes. God help our humankind: there can be no alternative to our learning to be more temperate. We are all God’s beloved children. Superiority — racial, religious, political, intellectual, gender-based or personal does the cause of our humanity absolutely no favours. It is the greatest and perhaps the longest lived of all the world’s myths.

However long it takes we have to learn to live without war - national, parochial or domestic. We must learn to live in and for peace. All women and men of goodwill must be seen to be people perpetually unwilling to engage in hot-headed, ill-informed opinion swapping. We can and must begin afresh (new every morning) to

“put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us”

- Ephesians 4.31

 

We don’t even have an accurate figure of how many Lebanese, Israeli and Palestinian civilians have been killed in recent weeks. More than 900,000 people have been displaced from their homes in Lebanon, and citizens of the Gaza Strip have little access to essential supplies. Thousands of Israelis have had to leave northern Israel to escape rocket attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Aid agencies are working in the heat of this situation amongst all affected peoples. May there be generous response to the urgent need for further gifts to support and sustain this vital ministry. And daily prayer is surely amongst the most important gifts needed — for that blessing that the world and each and every one of us needs more than anything else: the desire for, and the will to work, by word and quiet domestic example, for PEACE.

AMONGST THE VERY MANY JOYS directly attributable to my calling to be a parish priest are the daily conversations I enjoy with God’s people. Here is the anvil upon which is hammered into shape our theology - our learning about God - and the ideals of our Christian praxis. It’s these conversations that bring me back to my knees and reaching for the book shelf. It’s these conversations that bring me back to the priestly “chewing of the cud”. These conversations that call me back, afterwards, to contemplation.

Yesterday I enjoyed a happy couple of hours with a delightful would-be ordinand. What richness of experience, what breadth of heart and mind this man (who by rights would be entitled, in his early sixties, to a taste of the quiet life, by now) brings to the ministry of his local church. If the wider Church comes to discern in this man a future priest then I, for one, will applaud the recognition. I recommended (for the second time in a week) Richard Giles’ fabulous little “Here I Am - Reflections on the Ordained Life” - and having recommmended it turned again to, and learned again from, his Introduction …

The prayer life of a priest is essential if he or she is going to be someone who ‘is’, who has won through to that state of being in which we rest in God, healed and forgiven. The priest holds within himself the tension of being and doing, eschewing both self-indulgent spirituality and frantic, pointless activity. She lives the advice of St Ignatius of Loyola: “Pray as if everything depended on God, and act as if everything depended on you”.  

‘This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

2 Peter 1.16-19

 

 

KNOWN TODAY as the “Desert Fathers” the earliest Christian monks inhabited the desert land of the Middle East from the end of the second century AD and were the foundation upon which later monastic founders, including St Benedict, built their way of life. A great deal of the teaching of the Desert Fathers is expressed in the form of anecdotes. Here is one such story:

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.” *

 

Members of God’s family we are, nonetheless, caught up in the process of becoming the sons and daughters of God: being “changed from glory into glory”. Peter and James and John were present with—and to—Jesus upon the holy mountain—where they’d gone expressly “to pray”. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. Peter, James and John knew without doubt (“the prophetic message fully confirmed”) that this transfigured man was the Son of God himself—in the very company of heaven—by means no more convoluted than that he was at prayer. And wonder of wonders, that’s what we’re about in our Eucharistic worship today: for “If you will, you can become all flame.” 

* Joseph of Panephysis—The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: Translated by Benedicta Ward, Cistercian Studies Series, number 59. This is saying 7 of Abba Joseph—p.103

I HAVE BEEN ABSORBED by Tony Hendra’s moving and un-put-downable Father Joe. The late Dom Joseph Warrilow, Monk of Quarr Abbey, was for Hendra, and for countless others, “the man who saved my soul”. Hendra recalls that Father Joe, wonderfully warm, wise, present and humane, had said that “the only way to know God, the only way to know the other, is to listen. Listening is reaching out into that unknown other self, surmounting your walls and theirs; listening is the beginning of understanding, the first exercise of love.”

None of us listen enough, do we, dear? We only listen to a fraction of what people say. It’s a wonderfully useful thing to do. You almost always hear something you didn’t expect.

 

There’s no alternative to listening. The best debating listens; the best diplomacy listens; the best friendship listens; the best learning listens; the best loving listens; the best praying listens; the best teaching listens; the best worship listens. But none of us listens enough. None of us listens enough - whilst longing, in the midst of the perpetual noise of this world, to be warm, wise, present and humane. Tony Hendra’s story, and Father Joe’s example, encourage me to keep trying.
 

AGAIN AND AGAIN we see in the earthly ministry of Jesus how deeply aware of human need God is. To any who have sat through sleep inducing sermons, longing for lunchtime, Jesus will come across as both enormously sensitive and immensely practical—no good even trying to address a large crowd of people whose stomachs are rumbling! Let’s first address the more obvious, human need. Let’s feed the hungry. (see John 6.1-21) - There’s a good earthly starting point if we want then to go on to a bit of teaching about being rooted, grounded, established—in the fullness of God: in Love.

Again and again, too, we see signs of the heavenly source of the ministry of Jesus. A reputation for compassion—coupled with an ability to heal and to restore. A raising up of the little things—little boy, five loaves, two fishes. An awareness of wider needs than those immediately presented—requesting that nothing be wasted—phew!—now there’s a little something for us to take on board. An extra-ordinary understanding of human motives—knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force. A measure of the miraculous—the ability to walk on water. Compassion for our little human fearfulness—It is I, don’t be afraid. There’s so very much of MYSTERY to be seen in Jesus. So much that is beyond us. So much that cannot be tied down by words—or by Church pronouncements. For this reason, I kneel before the Father. For this reason, I do worship.

 

“let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it be rather a moving sea between the shores of your souls”

 

YESTERDAY, speaking about contemplation, I quoted from 19 year old Pilot Officer John Magee’s poem High Flight. Some have kindly enquired after the full text which is set down hereunder. John Magee flew a high altitude (30,000 feet) test flight in a newer model of the Spitfire V, on 3rd September 1941. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem — “To touch the face of God.” Once back on the ground, he wrote a letter to his parents. In it he commented, “I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed.” On the back of the letter, he jotted down his poem, ‘High Flight’. Only three months later, on 11th December 1941, Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee died.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of —
Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air …

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr

The apostles returned from their mission. They gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.

Mark 6.30-32

I LOVE TO RECALL FR JIM BRAND’S coming to address one of our Swanwick Clergy Conferences years ago. An energetic and inspiring priest, much of the gist of what he had to say has stayed with me, long after I finally lost the tapes I was in the habit, frequently, of loaning to friends. I keep promising myself that, one day, I’ll ask the Diocesan Office whether they’ve kept copies of those tapes.

Christian people, Fr Jim suggested, wasted many of life’s most wonderful opportunities simply because they were too busy rushing on to the next thing. When engaged in conversation, or administering the sacraments, Fr Jim reckoned to work hard at ensuring that the person in front of him, at that moment, received his fullest and best attention. I’ve tried, often unsuccessfully, to follow his example.

‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile,’ …

… said Jesus to his apostles, teaching them, much as Fr Jim would later teach our gathering at Swanwick, something of the spiritual discipline of retreat, or waiting, or contemplation. Of course we know that Jesus was pastorally compassionate, too: only a verse or two after his call to rest we read, in v. 34

… as he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things …

But that takes nothing away from the principle that Christian people need to take time for rest, refreshment, prayer and contemplation—time for the present moment. Time for God.

Fr Richard Rohr OFM—another priest who continues to teach me a very great deal, tells of an encounter between a Zen master and his disciple:

“Is there anything I can do to make myself enlightened?”

“As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.”

“Then of what use are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?”

“To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise”

Fr Richard goes on to say

“The contemplative secret is to learn to live in the now. The now is not as empty as it might appear to be or that we fear it may be”. ¹

Come, then, let us rest awhile

 

“in the Lord; in whom you (we) also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.”

Ephesians 2.22

FROM WHENCE CAME THE BRAVERY with which John the Baptist “explained the way of God more perfectly” to the Tetrarch, Herod Antipas, who had married his brother Philip’s wife? (cf Mark 6.14-29). From whence came the courage of the Christ of God who climbed the hill of Calvary and there gave up His Spirit? From whence came the bravery, the courage and the conviction of those saints and martyrs, and priests and people, who have proclaimed the Gospel faithfully, in season and out of season - seemingly untouched and unmoved by either public acclaim or the lack of it … from whence?

Well: the key is at a banquet. Not the debauched, drunken, revelling sort of a banquet. Not the stuff of the Kingdom of Herod - he, who, with puffed-up self-importance, promised “even half of my Kingdom” to a dancing-girl.  

The bravery, courage and conviction of John the Baptist, of Jesus the Christ, of saints and martyrs, and priests and people, through countless years, comes from the great banquet of the Kingdom of God. How very small a Tetrarch must appear to those possessed of higher vision! How small and really rather sad, and futile, the little lives of powerful men given over to quaffing wine, puffing out their chests, and a haze of belly-dancing. 

At the banquet of the Kingdom of Heaven in Bramhall today our sights were set rather higher than one of Herod Antipas’ parties.

High on yon celestial mountains stands his sapphire throne, all bright, midst unending alleluias bursting from the sons of light; Sion’s people tell his praises, victor after hard-won fight. [So] Bring your harps and bring your incense, sweep the string and pour the lay; let the earth proclaim his wonders, King of that celestial day; he the Lamb once slain is worthy, who was dead and lives for ay.

Job Hupton, (1762-1849) 

Half a Kingdom, King Herod? No thanks. Our sights our set on higher than that, and in God’s good time, at that. For:

Whoever is devoid of the capacity to wonder, whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life.

 

So said Albert Einstein. So, each in their different ways, did John the Baptist, Jesus the Christ, and the whole glad company of angels and saints. Let synods and sinners, and the saints and the sorrowing, and the Church in every time and every place, look UPWARDS, to the sapphire throne all bright … and chorus in unending alleluias with the saints in light. So shall we know a new bravery, a new courage and conviction. So shall we be, confidently, the Christ’s Church.

ON SATURDAY 15TH JULY 1910 the first portion of the new Church at Bramhall was opened … and the dedication sermon preached by the Rural Dean, the Reverend F A MacDona, Rector of Cheadle … the strong solid stone church had been built … Bramhall now had parish status, a parish church and a parish priest. A new phase of Church life was beginning.

The First 100 Years—A History of St Michael & All Angels, Bramhall, by the Reverend LM Dadson

 :: :: ::

On Sunday 9th July 2006—96 years later—the sixth Vicar of Bramhall rejoices in another new phase of Church life beginning, and he echoes, in company with his parishioners and friends, the Prayer for the Dedication of the Temple offered by King Solomon:

“Locus iste a Deo”, begins our Gradual anthem for today, “This is the Lord’s house.” The story of the Dedication of the Temple by King Solomon rooted me to the spot when I was a child. The detail of the account, in 1 Kings 8, opens with the words:

 

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven …

 

Rooted to the spot. Just 6 years old and an altar server in my home Church. I was, frequently, well nigh overwhelmed by the beauty, majesty and splendour of the Liturgy but what “rooted me to the spot” about the account of King Solomon’s prayer was, precisely, that before my eyes, centuries after the King’s offering, I had many times observed MY parish priest:

 

Stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of the people … spreading out his hands toward heaven …

 

And that’s the glory and the majesty and the wonder and the joy of what we’re about. What we’re really about is the abiding, centuries old Worship of the Almighty God, the Lord of all Creation.

Stood before the altar of the LORD … spreading out OUR hands toward heaven …

Yes! This great and ancient tradition and practice makes us kinsmen and kinswomen with King Solomon, with King Jesus, with angels and archangels, with prophets and priests, and kings and queens, and rank upon rank of saints and sinners. On our festal Dedication Sunday, indeed on every Sunday, we dedicate ourselves anew—to the beauty of holiness, and we bow down and worship. For He said: “My name shall be there”. ALLELUIA!

TO BE TRANSFORMED by the renewing of our minds. Our evening prayer suggests today that I - that we - are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And I’m glad to hear it, for I’ve discovered that renewal is good. My entire Christian pilgrimage has been about the renewing of my mind, about the renewing of our minds, about – to put it simply – growing up!

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12.1-8

Two streams met and looked ahead at a vast desert.

The trees were dry and withered: nothing grew; the mouths of the cattle were chapped: everything was dry, awful.

The first said to the second, ‘What are you going to do?’

The second stream travelled to the desert.

The desert said, ‘I am going to swallow you. There will be no change, for I am glad when everything is dry, withered and dead.’

The second stream flowed on.

The desert opened its mouth, swallowed the stream and remained a desert.

The first stream shook its head, turned right round, passed boulders, went on up, up, reached the infinite lake which looked at the stream and said, ‘I have long looked for a channel.’

The stream said, ‘Pour through me.’

The lake poured through the stream.

The desert said, ‘I will drink you up.’

The little stream flowed on and on and swallowed up the desert, and all the barren land blossomed like a rose.

Ephraim Alphonse: Panama

 

Truly this is to be our vocation in this dawn of the twenty-first century: to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And then, better equipped to discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect, streams of living water will flow on and on and on … and all the barren land …

Lord, hear us. Lord, graciously hear us.

 

Teachers who make room for cautious, doubting, experimenting, tentative disciples are the greatest mentors. And we are citizens, learners, allowed room for loving and laughing, for failing and trying, for praying and parting, for crying and dying. Closed doors present no problem to the Risen Jesus: He comes among us “though the doors were shut” to say “Peace be with you”. And we, who are allowed to doubt, tentatively step forward, beckoned by God’s “it’s going to be OK” … until the day when we can say, “My Lord and my God!” … becoming “Blessed” or “Happy”.

Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

John 20.24-29