Tonight's evening service took the form of a 'street labyrinth', a walk along the lanes (narrow cobbled streets) and streets around church, pausing at various points to consider or pray for people who live, work or pass by there. The library, a swimming pool, restaurants, derelict buildings, green spaces, fly tipping, homes, shops, the Subway station and so on.
I don't know what struck other people, but the defining moment for me was as we turned a corner in one of the lanes and a street musician began playing Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'... I had to chuckle to myself, but it also seemed quite a spiritual moment too.
Joanna Rowsell, Olympic Gold medallist defining beauty and health.
Courage and confidence - a shining example to inspire many generations.
Not sure if this is highly inappropriate, but into my mind came this plagiarism of the Mica song title...
Bald girls, you are beautiful!
Having been one, albeit temporarily, I hope I can be forgiven any impropriety...
Edit: I posted a link to the above photo on a well-known social networking site and someone commented that Joanna is not beautiful, and that outward appearance is not an appropriate way to judge women. Now I wholeheartedly agree that no-one - female or male - should be judged on the basis of their appearance, but that does not alter the fact that I do think Joanna is beautiful - both in a physical and, based on what I have observed, in the spirit (if not the letter) of a Pauline Biblical sense. So, if anyone wants to debate with me appropriate use of the word beauty, feel free, in the meantime I'm re-posting this steroid-bloated shiny-pated photo of myself from December 2010 because I stand by my assertion that bald girls are beautiful...
This pleased, but also challenged, me: I am really pleased that an accommodation has been made to allow a devout Muslim woman to complete; I am challenged that many of the Muslim women in countries permitting women athletes for the first time face criticism (or worse) for participating. When we mutter in the west, we do well to remember what other people live with day and daily.
This morning I was writing my sermon on the death of John the Baptist - which reminded me that actually I'm a coward. May be that's a useful message for further pondering by my people, not that I am a coward (though it may be), but the fact that a lot of us are cowards when we compare ourselves to J Bap and others.
Hmmm. Need to work out how to hold together the encouragement I got from Jeremiah with the kick up the behind from Mark...
Today's PAYG focused on Jeremiah at the house of the potter, a singularly beautiful image of Israel as the lump of clay that the potter gently caresses into shape... but despite the best efforts of the potter the clay distorts and the pot is spoiled. What should the potter do? Throw the clay away and start again with a new lump? Cut some of it off? Add some more to it? No. The potter squishes it up and tries again, and what emerges is beautiful and purposeful - even if not perhaps what the potter first had in mind.
Many things struck me as I listened to this, oh so familiar, passage...
The omnipresence of the potter in whose hands the clay is held - whatever happens to the clay, it is always held by the potter; the potter is intimately involved in every aspect of the process, and it is within the potter's hands, under the potter's touch, that the pot distorts and fails... hmmm.
The determination of the potter - if the pot goes awry the potter tries again. Just because the imagined vase or jug or cup does not emerge does not render the project a failure. Maybe, after all, this lump of clay contains instead a bowl or a lamp or a platter...
The squishing by the potter - ulp. We (I) don't like to think of God squishing us, perhaps because squishing is equated with crushing, as something destructive. Perhaps I need to imagine this as the potter folding in the sides of the bowl, incorporating the experiences of the clay into its very being and then reforming it to produce something lovely that would not otherwise have been possible?
The gentleness and patience of the potter. Shaping clay is not a brutal process, it's a gentle one, more akin to caressing than kneading, embracing than pushing. I found this little video that illustrates this brilliantly:
If you watched the video, did you notice the frailty and vulnerability of the finished pot? It is easily damaged even in the hands of the skilled potter, only once it has dried out or been fired does it become solid - but even them it remains fragile and easily broken.
In 2 Corinthians we read of treasure in vessels of clay, often understood as being the cheap, disposable first century equivalent of a paper cup. But what if we hold the two images together? What if the treasure is in the clay jar, and the clay jar is the carefully worked and reworked clay of our lives, held in the tender, nail-scarred hands of the divine potter...?
