Today I met with a family to plan the funeral of their much loved mother.  They had already been sorting through her possessions and had found a box full of handwritten poems and verses, among them one which will be used at her funeral.  I have tried Google it to find online to no avail - maybe she even wrote it herself, I don't know.  What I like is that, although it is a bit Patience Strong like, it isn't too mawkish or too maudlin, but instead combines honesty about life with unquenchable hope. This woman knew life in the raw, believe me, yet right to the end her faith was strong... 

We Can't Have a 'Crown' Without a 'Cross'

We all have those days that are dismal and dreary

And we feel sorta blue and lonely and weary,

But we have to admit that life is worth living

And God gives us the reason for daily thanksgiving.

For life's experience God's children go through

That's made up of gladness and much sadness too...

But we have to know both the bitter and sweet

If we want a good life that is full and complete;

For each trial we suffer and every shed tear

Just give us the strength to persevere.

As we 'climb' the 'steep hills' along life's way

That lead us at last to that wonderful day

Where the 'cross' we have carried becomes a 'crown'

And at last we can lay our burden down! 

Author unknown.

 

On Sunday I took as the Bible readings Micah 6:8 (do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God) and John 13:31 - 14:4, focusing on 13:34-35 (love one another).  Having watched the Home Mission 'video' (at 25 minutes rather long) I wasn't about to preach, but wanted to allow these texts to speak into the idea of 'transforming communities' (with all its delicious ambiguity - are we communities in which personal transformation occurs (yes) communities which are transformed (yes) or communities which bring transformation to the communities of which they are part (yes)).

As part of 'love one another' I mentioned that my friends and I from time to time lend each other our cars - we do, it is no big deal, if someone else needs a car and theirs is off the road, well they can use mine if I don't absolutely need it (and provided they are insured of course...).  The looks on people's faces were a picture - I might have been suggesting, oh, I don't know, wife swapping.  But surely this (lending cars, not swapping partners) is consistent with the 'love one another' mandate, isn't it something of the Acts 4 model - before Ananias and Sapphira messed it up?

I don't think we are called to be some kind of holy commune, nor yet to be mugs or doormats, but if we can't actually get the 'love one another' at least to the point that it is more meaningful than being politely tolerant, then how can we ever be 'a light for the world'?  Only when our communities are transformed by this love can we hope to bring transformation...

A wet Bank Holiday - a great excuse to curl up with some of the books that have sat on my 'light reading' heap, having been picked up in supermarkets and on charity book tables in recent weeks.  I enjoyed having the time to read these books - three over the course of the weekend - though none of them would really pass as literature: two were pretty much pulp fiction and the other - well I'm not sure really, ostensibly autobiography/social history it also had hints of theology, or at least spirituality.  The last one woke up the research corner of my brain making we wonder yet again just what constitutes history and how it may or may not be useful.

There was one thing that really annoyed me with the last of the books, and is increasingly annoying me, which was the use of American English not only in the idiom (which just sounds daft when put into a middle England context with middle English characters) but the spellings - which are creeping more and more into the writing of people who, in my view, should know better.  Accounts of people 'waiting in line' for a bus in London (whatever happened to queueing?) or having 'gotten wet' irritate but don't infuriate.  It is 'smelt' for 'smelled' and 'spelt' for 'spelled' that really offend my sensibilities.  Smelt, as any purist knows is either (a) a small fish or (b) a product of melting metal ore - in the UK it has nothing to do with aromas or odours (however pongy the fish!).  Likewise 'spelt' is a cereal crop - having as much to do with the arrangement of letters in words as a alphabetti spaghetti.  So, my inner Lynn Truss has been awakened once more.

Rant over!