Yesterday, a prominent Christian cited this quote from Bonhoeffer on social media...

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

I found this very challenging - in the light of the attrocity towards the LGBTQI+ community in Orlando and the murder in Yorkshire of a democratically elected MP, I have found myself lost for words.  Whilst there have been some powerful and eloquent responses, there have been as many, if not more, ill-considered, unhelpful and (especially in relation to events in Orlando) evil and vindictive responses. 

Silence, at least short term, if prompted by a sense of helplessness, impotence and, yes, fear of saying the wrong thing, doesn't seem to me to be intrinsically evil.  Less than ideal, perhaps.  Not what some feel is needed.  Imperfect.  Falling short.  Sinful if you must.  But evil?

Yet I remain challenged, deeply challenged.  I have a host of sayings and Bible verses whirling in my mind...

"A still tongue shows a wise head..."

"There is a time to speak and a time to keep silent..."

"Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than them."

Perhaps I should have said or done something - but at the same time I am wary of empty symbols and hollow gestures.  How easy it is to change a profile picture on social media and then forget all about the issue.  How easy it is write some eloquent words and then move on to the next pressing topic.  How easy it would be to make emotional responses to emotive matters, blowing with the wind and never doing any more.

Perhaps, and I hope this is not an excuse, I am allowing myself to confuse "malign silence" with my own "bewildered quietness".  Perhaps I mistakenly read "inaction" when I am trying to "work within the systems to redeem". Perhaps quiet, sometimes subversive, hopefully transformative words and deeds, will never be enough.  Perhaps I should be bolder and  brasher and less fearful.  Perhaps it is my own insecurity that creates a sense of guilt or inadequacy at what feels to be an honest response.  Perhaps, too, I am far from alone.

God who speaks in the sound of silence

Christ who sleeps amidst the storm

Spirit who hovers over the chaos of this disordered world

Show me not only when, but how to speak

Not only when, but how to  keep silence

And into the aching void of grief of all who mourn

In Orlando and Yorkshire

In refugee camp and war zone

In public and in private

Pour your unconditional, unending, accepting, all-embracing love

Amen.

Events in the news this week are shocking and horrific, and the blogosphere is filled with comment, some articulate, conciliatory and hope-filled, some clumsy, aggressive and hateful, and of course everything in between.  I have chosen not to post any responses, not because I don't have any views and not because I don't care, but simply because words fail.

Vigils, candle-lighting, petition-signing, social media ranting, reasoned reflections - each of these can be hugely meaningful and helpful.  But they pass, the intensity fades, another horror emerges to capture attention and the cycle repeats.

So, this blog post not withstanding, I am choosing to be silent, to dwell in the darkness of unknowing, un-understanding, with the God who waits and walks in the darkness and whose presence may be glimpsed in absence.  And as I do, I allow these sets of words to emerge from deep within to comfort and to challenge me...

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood (overcome) it"

"It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness"

"Light is stronger than darkness, Good is stronger than evil, Love is stronger than hate, Life is stronger than death"

The horror, the media outpourings, the petitions, the candles - all these will pass.  Only faith, hope and love remain, and the greatest of these is love.

This morning I've been leafing through oodles of books of poems and prayers.  In the course of it all, I happened across this, which was worth paw-sing to read...

From Jubilate Agon by Christopher Smart (1722 - 1771).

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having considered God and himself he will consider his neighbor.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he’s a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defense is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord’s poor, and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually–Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can sit up with gravity, which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick, which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Icneumon rat, very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the electrical fire is the spiritual substance which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

(PS this is a pretty old photo of the girlies who are now much rounder of tummy!!)

I've already posted about my "farewell" to Northampton and the moment the finality of it hit me as the train pulled out of the railway station, southbound, to Milton keynes: the irony of cheap tickets to go north!

I think part of the significance of the moment was that so many significant events in, and stages of, my life began with train journeys from this station, on a small branch line in the English Midlands.

My earliest conscious memory, was a family trip to London, which must have been in the late 1960s.  I recall the collection thing for St Christopher's Railway Orphanage, and a little courtyard garden where, much later a cafe would be found.  It was exciting, this trip! I recall wanting to see Piccadilly Circus because I was sure there would be clowns and trapeze artists!  I remember on that, or maybe another, trip going to London Zoo where my two youngest siblings rode round in a bright yellow, hired pushchair, and among other animals we saw Chi Chi the panda.  Buckingham Palace, Downing Street, The Embankment, Horseguards, Kensington Gardens... these and many more we visited by train.

I remember a school trip to the Natural History and Science Museums with our teachers herding thirty-odd nine and ten year olds on and off the trains, via the underground to South Kensington and back again on a hot summer's day.  And another trip, the first year I was at secondary school, to Boulogne which involved two lots of trains, and crossing London by tube.

There were a couple of trips to Glasgow to visit grandparents - change at Rugby, change at Crew - and the hope that it would be a "corridor" train where we could claim a whole six seat compartment to ourselves...

Teen years, and here I departed with a friend, as part of an "initiative test" for the Girls' Brigade Queen's Award, that required us to travel unaccompanied to London - easier for us than for many I suspect.  And over the next couple of years would be a similar trip for a Duke of Edinburgh's Award course in Bexhill on Sea.  University interviews in Birmingham, Manchester and London all required me to travel from here (and memorably, the return journey from Manchester saw me get on the wrong train and create my own diversionary route via Stoke on Trent!).

Whilst once or twice taking coaches because the trains weren't running due to snow, from here I travelled to London to study - my official 'leaving home' and later to job interviews in Derby. My bike in the guard's van, and carrying it up the steps to street level to cut off a corner!

Although most of my adult life I've owned cars and driven, there have still been train journeys to and from Northampton to Warrington, to Manchester and, over the past few years, to Glasgow.

So it was that last Friday I boarded the 18:05 London Midland service to London Euston, calling at Milton Keynes to begin the homeward journey from what I feel is the time I left Northampton with absolutely no need to return.  The green and white train, with automatic doors and recorded messages - a far cry from the blue, British Rail commuter trains (one door between every pair of seats) I recalled from childhood. The collection thing from St Christopher's Railway orphange is long gone, even the station as I once knew it has been closed and (virtually) demolished to be replaced by a snazzy new glass-fronted thing with WH Smith and Starbucks (Coffee Republic has already failed and closed) rather than Pumpkin (the successor to Traveller's Fare)... Times move on and things change.  At least for now the paper tickets are still orange and cream, and the red double arrow sign still indicates a railway station.

But the adventures and significant moments are mine to treasure... and for me, at least, Northampton (Castle) Station (Mr Beeching having closed others long before my time) remains a significant landmark from which many adventures began and many memories were created.

The photo was taken from the train standing at Platform 1, looking towards Platform 2, and I find it somehow appropriate that a young man, engrossed in his phone is waiting to begin a journey of his own... I may never pass that way again, but the station will continue to carry new people on new adventures for a long time yet.

This week I really did have the final visit to Northampton - not that I can never return, obviously I am free to do so any time, but it really was the last time it had any direct family link with my childhood.  And I very consciously chose where I had my lunch or breakfast or tea, becuase each was knowingly a 'last'.

A last pot of tea in BHS cafe was a last in more ways than one, of course, because in a short time it will be no more, and never will be again.  A last trip to what was once the first branch of MacDonalds outside a major city in the UK!  A last coffee in the new Starbucks.  And one last lunch at Debenhams (photo above).

When Jesus knew that the end of his life was nearing, there seems to have been a week of meals at various homes, meals that would become permanently significant for those who were there.  "Do you remember..." they would say in later years, and the stirred memories would evoke something precious that time and distance could not destroy.  The "Last Supper" with it's "whenever you do this, remember me" is one such, in fact it is "The" one such, a meal shared precisely to evoke memories and retell stories of what it is that holds this extended family/community together.  Bread and wine; memory and mystery (and sacrament for those who must); old story, new story and continuing story; then and now and still to come.

As my train drew out of Northampton station, I found myself waving and saying (quietly) "bye, bye"... and then the tears fell.  Not many, I'm not a crying kind of a girl, but in that moment an era ended.  I have another post in mind that arises from that moment, and a photo I took form the window of the train, but for now, it is "final repasts" that occupy my thoughts.

Whenever you do this, remember me:

In broken bread and poured out wine -

Or pots of tea and strawberry flans -

Take a moment to pause

Deliberately call to mind this moment

And what it meant

Live the memory

Re-live the memory

Remember the meaning

Re-member the meaning

Because every time you do

You restore the moment,

Renew the promise

Recreate the meaning

Until the day when all things are made anew in God's Kindgom of Shalom.