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A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life - Page 284

  • I AM - the Gate

    Yesterday we looked at the first part of John 10 and the strange predicated saying, "I am the gate for the sheep"

    I paired it with the wide and narrow gates saying from Matthew, and used an idea I'd picked up from PAYG a few weeks back, added some others from years ago and hopefully ended up with something that made some sort of sense!

    The picture above shows a narrow gate set in a dry stone wall.  The path is also narrow and leads uphill (but is hardly steep, rugged or hard!).  But the context is important - the gate is a transit point from one field to another; one broad, green place to another equally broad, equally green.  The significance is the size of the gate is not what lies beyond it, but that on order to get through it, a person need to set down any large, bulky items.

    Someone once said, the will of God is like a broad meadow, with space to play and explore, rest and take picnics, along the route marked by the path.

    PAYG suggested that in order to pass through the narrow gate that leads to life, we must first lay down the burdens that deny life... bitterness, regret, grudges, anger, pride... and maybe also success, wealth, possessions... only by travelling light, or at least lightly, are we able to find life.

    And Jesus as gate?  Gate here is a threshhold, a place that is crossed and re-crossed in and out of the sheepfold which is, by definition, a place of temporary shelter.

    So maybe Jesus is the door/gate/threshold of our own inner and outer worlds as we come in to rest and reflect and go out to live life fully?

    Maybe Jesus is the threshold between the church and the everyday, where, with others, we draw aside in a simmilar way, not to hide from reality but to be refreshed to be part of it.

    And perhaps the church as the 'body of Christ' is the gate for others, enabling the same sort of shelter, rest and refreshment to be experienced.

    Maybe prayer is bringing ourselves and our world to the threshold place that is Jesus Christ, in whose name we offer our petitions...

    Not the easiest I AM saying to reflect on, but worth while... and blow me down if the evening service didn't pick up a similar theme "open door" completely independently and based on different readings!  "Cue spooky music"

    Read more ...

  • Pray for...

    Every few days it seems there is a new hashtag or temporary, social media, profile picture 'cast' along the lines of 'pray for the-latest-place-to-have-a-tragedy'.

    And I totally understand why people use them, because rendered helpless but whatever it may be, this is something that anyone can do. 

    But pray what, exactly?

    It troubles me not just because I am not sure what to pray - let there be peace/healing/reconciliation/justice etc - but because I am not sure it isn't just a sop to our own consciences.  We utter a quick prayer and go back to our own world.

    What is needed is not so much to 'type the prayer' but to 'be the prayer' - and that's much harder.  Because it inevitably means being selective, taking a standpoint, doing something other than wringing our hands or sighing holy sighs; it means accepting we cannot do everything whilst recognising that we must do something.

    What might I do, small and local, that lives out that prayer?  Pray for [insert name] by all means, but, if I may plagiarise the book of James, prayer, like faith, without deeds, is as good as dead.

  • Apple Christening Day

    My Dad always called St Swithin's Day 'Apple Christening Day'.  I never gave it any thought until today when my neighbour observed that it was St Swithin's Day and it had been raining a lot all day.

    A bit of googling and it seems my Dad was not alone in this practice - and that rain on St Swithin's Day was sometimes seen as christening the apples... I guess there may be a corelation between rain in mid July and a good harvest of apples, but I haven't checked.

    It more reminded me of the lore that every family has, with sayings and associations that mean little or nothing to others.  Not so very different from churches or the Church then...

    May the apples be blessed with sweet juiciness... and can we not have another 39 wet days straight!

  • Unexpectedly Intriguing!

    One of the things I enjoy about preparing sermons is their propensity to take me in directions I had not anticipated, or to make links that I had never before made.

    So, I am intrigued that for the second week running I have made links between the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the I Am sayings in John.  No doubt loads of poeple have done this before, but it is intriguing me, at least as long as it works (which may not be much longer, but it's been fun!).

    This Sunday will be 'I am the Gate" which is intriguing for all sorts of reasons.  Hope I can communicate something of what it's got me thinking about!

  • Grandsons and Grannies...

    This poem...

    Grannie

     by Vernon Scannell

     

    I stayed with her when I was six then went

    To live elsewhere when I was eight years old.

    For ages I remembered her faint scent

    Of lavender, the way she'd never scold

    No matter what I'd done, and most of all

    The way her smile seemed, somehow, to enfold

    My whole world like a warm, protective shawl.

     

    I knew that I was safe when she was near,

    She was so tall, so wide, so large, she would

    Stand mountainous between me and my fear,

    Yet oh, so gentle, and she understood

    Every hope and dream I ever had.

    She praised me lavishly when I was good,

    But never punished me when I was bad.

     

    Years later war broke out and I became

    A soldier and was wounded while in France.

    Back home in hospital, still very lame,

    I realised suddenly that circumstance

    Had brought me close to that small town where she

    Was living still. And so I seized the chance

    To write and ask if she could visit me.

     

    She came. And I still vividly recall

    The shock that I received when she appeared

    That dark cold day. Huge grannie was so small!

    A tiny, frail, old lady. It was weird.

    She hobbled through the ward to where I lay

    And drew quite close, and, hesitating, peered.

    And then she smiled: and love lit up the day.

     

    And this video...