This morning we started a short series of services looking at the topic of 'prayer', with the title "how do I pray?".  As I had pondered this during the week, I found myself starting to recall stuff around connections between personality 'type' and spirituality/prayer preferences.  So I dug around a little on the interweb, and came across some excellent material on the 24/7 Prayer International website including this quick and simple quiz to help you to discover approaches to prayer (and a gospel!) that might suit you better than others.  It seeemd to be quite well received, so I hope it was helpful.

I also found some fun prayers for Myers Briggs personality types - several variants can be found easily online, and here's a link to one of them.

In between watching the Lord's Prayer being signed in BSL and making up our own signs/actions and verses for 'thank you Lord for this new day' (the best verse was 'thank you for the NHS' complete with whirling arms (blue lights) and siren sounds!) we experienced some different ways of doing prayer, which I hope was helpful.

Yesterday I travelled to Manchester for a 'quiet day' for Epiphany entitled "Follow Your Star" and which centred on creative writing.  This was quite a big deal for me - I was the "straight As" student who always C for creative writing because, as still happens today, when the words travel out of my brain into my arm they get lost.  I could write A+ discursive essays, and was grateful that at least one such always appeared in English exams, but ask me to write creatively...

Anyway, yesterday a group of eight women (as it happened) gathered together to ponder aspects of star following, receive some input on the creative writing process and then have a go.  At the end of the day, we shared our work - a truly humbling and affirming experience for everyone, and a great diversity of work from poetry and hymnody to story-telling and meditation; humour that made us laugh out loud, simplicity that expressed profound ideas and moments of awe and wonder.

This is my attempt, which drew on various ideas expressed during the day...

The stars just "are"

Silent sentinels since time began,

Seeing all things, saying nothing.

Was it under the gaze of Orion

That Jacob stood at Jabbok's shore

Fearful of what lay ahead,

Wrestled all night with an angel,

Then, limping, crossed the river?

Did the watchful eye of Virgo

Trace the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem,

To the place where a young woman

Laboured through the night

To bring forth her son?

What familiar constellations spangled the sky

As eastern astrologers rode onwards through the night

Seeking - quite what, they did not know;

Encountered the divine in the face of a child

Then left by another route?

The stars just "are"

Silent sentinels since time began,

Seeing all things, saying nothing.

Guardians of my own wakeful, restless nights

Wrestling with God

Labouring to bring ideas to birth

Seeking, quite what I cannot know,

And experiencing -

Just occasionally -

Epiphany.

Over the last few days, this image, and others like it, has popped up all over social media.  There have been lots of posts from people who have done it in 2016, saying how much they've enjoyed reading their memories.

I've decided to give it a go for 2017 - there were lots of good and wonderful moments in 2016, but I have had to dig deep to recall them from among the 'heavy' memories, so I hope that a jam jar filled up with memories and 'blessings' will be helpful.

Today's PAYG was the passage from John's gospel where the first disciples encounter Jesus, two of them guided to him by John the Baptist.  The phrase the listener was invited to reflect on was Jesus' question to them, "what are you looking for?"

It's a good question to ponder, and like the best theological questions, can be read in many ways at many levels.

What is it that you seek? 

Have you lost something and hope to find it?

Do you yearn for something and hope to obtain it?

Is it something concrete, tangible, measurable?

Is it something nebulous, intangible, ill-defined?

What am I looking for at the start of this year?

For me the answers (for there is no one tidy answer) tend to be nebulous rather than concrete, internal rather than external, individual rather than corporate.

Last year was so incredibly busy, with barely time to draw breath, so this year I am seeking more balance, more space, more tranquility, more time to 'be'.

Last year, also, the incredible busyness was centred very much in short term bursts, so this year I am seeking to step back and take a longer view, to think about what ministry might look like not just this week, month or year, but in the longer term... how best can I serve the Gatherers, what is it that I need to be/do going forward?

After six and a half years 'AD'- and at risk of tempting providence by saying this - it feels safe enough to think longer term ... not the carefree unquestioning expectation of endless tomorrows, but a sense that it's reasonable to make personal plans that look further ahead than just the next couple of years.  At the same time, I don't want to lose the greater spontaneity or spirit of adventure that came with loss of certainty.  So I think I'm seeking a middle course there.

What am looking for?  I think I am looking for rhythms and disicplines in all areas of life that will nourish and sustain me, will serve the 'purposes of God' and so bring a sense of wholeness and peace.

Holding together 'who are you?' with 'what are you looking for' seems to be a good and helpful challenge for the year ahead.  And maybe, just maybe, by writing it here where the whole world can see, I might just hold myself to it!!

Today's PAYG focussed on a passage from Ecclesiasticus (that's in the Apocrypha in case you don't recognise it) and focussed on an intriguing phrase, "my soul grappled with wisdom".  Wisdom is personified as a woman, or at least as feminine, so I think I can be permitted the connection that popped into my mind with Jacob wrestling all night at Peniel.

These are strong words, challenging words... grappling, wrestling... demanding, risky concepts that risk failure in the quest for success.

In a recent evening service, I used the Jacob story alongside that of Nicodemus as night time encounters with Christ/God and spoke of the value of wrestling with ideas and concepts, of asking questions and exploring possible responses.  I think that 'grappling with wisdom' is somehow similar.

Over the last year or so, I think I have been so busy getting on with personal and practical matters that there hasn't been so much grappling, rather I've had to draw on the resources of grappling in past seasons.  I don't think that's wrong, but it is limited... To change metaphors, if you keep drawing from unreplenished wells, they will, eventually run dry.  So I am taking myself in hand and setting out to be far more intentional in seeking out places and spaces for a bit of 'grappling' as well as refreshment and renewal.

This will begin on Friday, with a day trip to Manchester for a creative writing day (eek! never done that before) cum quiet day (which was what attracted me) for Epiphany.  I am quietly excited at the prospect of being challenged and nourished... grappling with wisdom, searching for her until the end.