No, it's not a date!  It's something that was prompted in my mind by today's PAYG which was based on  Isaiah 40: 25 - 31, a passage that I used to shape my 'testimony' bit in my ordination service 8 years ago (to the date) yesterday; hence the 8.  The 14 is the number of years since I 'heard' my call on 5th December 1997, the 5 is the number of years since my end of NAM interview by the MRC ahead of full accreditation as a BUGB minister.  As I listened to the reading, I was transported back to each of these 'places' momentarily, and to past reflections thereon (check back the archives for any year I've blogged and I will have mentioned it!).

For whatever reason, this year it had pretty much slipped my mind that these anniversaries come in a rush at the start of December, linked in my mind with Advent 2, and I concluded that's actually quite a healthy thing... a sense that given time, being this minister-type-person becomes 'normal' and no longer noteworthy, even for me.  I think it's helpful, too, as a reminder that other things that seem large and significant will, given time, relegate themselves to the background.

I still quite like to recall these dates, to take a moment to reflect and rededicate myself to the promises I made.  Perhaps, though, just as birthdays are less significant for adults, these anniversaries matter less to 'grown up ministers'?  Anyway, I am 14 or 8 or 5 or something!

This morning I woke up to the radio news telling me that "over 40% of cancers are due to lifestyle"... and then went on to cite alcohol, smoking, poor diet and obesity as causative factors.  Helloooo... firstly, that's not new, those factors are already well known, and secondly that means for 60% of us (still most) they are not.  And as the boring, never-smoking teetotal, healthy eating, exercising type... well clearly it was my yellow wellies* that caused the problem. 

These are the useful things I've heard in the last year or so...

The biggest cause of breast cancer is.... having breasts (substitute other part of body as appropriate)

It is just one of those random things that happens (paraphrase of my oncologist)

You'd be amazed how often I hear that (paraphrase of my chemo nurse on being told of my boringly healthy lifestyle)

People with cancers can have enough guilt or anxiety about their lifestyles without being told almost half of us contribute to our cancer.  Yes, of course we should live healthy lives - but that's just plain comon sense given how many other conditions and diseases are linked to obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise etc., etc. Yes, of course there are the people who stand outside the cancer treatment centres puffing away on fags; yes there are people who live on rubbish or drink like fish (do fish drink?), but most just want to do their best to get, and stay, well for as long as possible.

I have spent far too much time reassuring other people they did nothing to cause their cancer, it just happened that they were the unlucky "1 in 3" (overall UK), they really don't need to be told this.

OK rant over

* Yellow Wellies... this utterly brilliant spoof Daily Mail article was posted on the bcc forum a year or so ago and has formed part of the 'lore' when the media reporting gets annoying:

Hope your wellies were green or black... and I dread to think what patterned ones might do... :-))

Golly gosh, this quest for hints and glimpses of 'peace' in the Northumbria Community daily Prayer readings is proving a real challenge!  Today we have:

Psalm 139: 13 - 18

Song of Songs 4:9

Ephesians 5: 31 - 32

One of these is still very sensual/sexual/metaphorical, one, put bluntly, links the mystery of procreative human sexual activity to the relationship of Christ and the Church, so I am left with the psalm, and words which are very familiar and comforting...

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

If attributes of peace include security, freedom from anxiety, a sense of being held safe, then these words are rich in peacefulness.  I'm not sure there's much to add by way of comment, merely an invitation to rest in the safe, loving, enveloping peace of God...

God of Peace,

These words are lovely, the poetry delights the mind, the imagery thrills

Yet real life is never so cosy

Anxiety, regret, bewilderment, travail, grief...

These and so many more

Cast ugly shadows across the paths we walk

Help us move from trite truth claims and twee smiles

To a deep sense that ultimately our security and rest is, indeed, in you

That despite appearances, your never abandon us

That in the most turbulent storms of life

You are the still centre

The point of calm

The source of hope

Of peace

In our busyness

In our frustratedness

In our lostness

In our delightedness

In our beginning

In our ending

And forever

Grant us peace

Amen.

So, first it was the silent monks, then it was the flash mobs, now it is this less elaborate offering from Alaska.  Enjoy!

So, the Northumbria Community stick with Song of Songs (Solomon) this week, and it's really not so easy to work with that when I'm hunting elusive glimpses of peace.  The three readings are:

Psalm 90:12

Song of Songs 2: 10 - 15

Ephesians 4: 26, 32

Of these, the one that seems the most helpful, or 'on theme' is the Ephesians but, two verses peeled away from their wider context, but with important messages:

"In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry... Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

"Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath" - words I recall my Dad saying to us as children when it looked as if childhood squabbles might not be resolved by bedtime.  Let it go, today's anger belongs to today, but held onto it becomes bitterness which is pernicious and destructive.  I once did a funeral for someone who told me that there would be people attending with whom they had fallen out years ago and did not speak.  They had no idea why they had fallen out, just that they had, and maintaining the feud was important.  For crying out loud!  If ever there was a time to let bygones by bygones...  Life is too short for grudges; I've always felt that, but the last year has sharpened that opinion.  Let is go.  Be cross.  Be angry.  Shout.  Scream.  But sufficient unto the day is the good thereof, and also the evil thereof... move on.  Or, in the famous last words of famous film... "tomorrow is another day"

Be kind and compassionate, forgiving one another... it's not rocket science, but it makes all the difference in the world.  This is not the place to go into a theological treatise on forgiveness, just to note that it is a conscious act - we choose to forgive - and it is a process - forgiveness takes time to flourish.  In my experience, forgiveness is cathartic - it helps me to 'heal' and blossom.  In my observation, those who cannot, or will not, or do not forgive often become 'unhelahjty' and shrivel.

Hints of peace then in our attitudes and actions, as we choose how we repsond to the quarrels and hurts of everyday life.

God our Parent

How often you must watch our childish quarrels and weep

How disappointed you must be when we fight over the same old silly disagreements

"You took my...." 

"Didn't" 

"Did too"

"I won't speak to you again ever..."

"I don't care"

(Well I do, but I won't admit it...)

"We don't have anyhting to do with them..."

"Why not?"

"Just because..."

As the sun slips towards the horizon, in these shortest of winter days

Help us to let go of our anger

Bitterness

Grudgingness

Childishness

Displace our ire with your peace

Teach us gentleness

Compassion

Forgiveness

So that we, too, may be bringers of peace

Heralding the dawn of a new world

Amen