... for a week on Sunday, as you do (or I do anyway) using the trusty tool that is HymnQuest and I spotted this one, which I won't be using, but it made me pause...

The trouble with many of our churches
is that they are not singing the blues.
The trouble with its staunch belongers
is the detached way they watch the news.
The trouble with our Sunday buildings
is people staying glued to their pews.

The problem with religious people?
They can't read graffiti on the wall,
they argue finer point of dogma,
their ears are too full to hear the Call.
The problem with those holy people
is that they are too sure they won't fall.

So many males, mitred in splendour,
are stifling their passion like a yawn,
telling peace-makers they should 'cool it',
huddling in prayer while earth is going-gone.
The holy people in procession
are leading (having) us on and on and on and on....

No wonder Christ wept for the city,
over the rulers and Pharisees,
he sings the blues of love and struggle:
'If only you knew the way of peace'.
He still calls his people to follow,
to fight against death and make a feast!


Fred Kaan (born 1929)   
© 1985 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Fred Kaan died just a few weeks back, so no more gems like this from his pen.  May he rest in peace, and we be stirred to hear God's voice.

At the moment one of the joys I encounter daily is my walk through the Botanic Gardens on my way to church.  Although the crispness has given way to sogginess, the late autumn colours of the trees are stunning and I love the way they carpet the paths as they fall (though I'm sure the gardeners don't!).  The change of the clocks back to GMT means that it is now, for a while, light again after a couple of weeks of sunrise strolls, and I miss the stillness of the early darkness.

A week or so back at church we sang 'Colours of Day' which is, I finally spotted (duh!), an urban hymn not a rural one.

'Go through the park on in to the town' is exactly what I do each morning, and I love it!

'Go down in the city, into the street, and let's give the message to the people we meet'

In the red-gold-brown soggyifed-former-crispness of leaves in the park the song lifts my spirits and I almost skip along to work each day.

In a world where sad and bad news abounds, it is good to recall one of my favourite portrayals of God, in the film Dogma (which is pretty grim overall): God is a young woman turning cartwheels in a garden.  A God who delights in colour and brings hope amidst the 'stidegeon gloom' - this is Good News indeed.

Nothing remotely profound about this, just the stuff that characterised yesterday.  Three things beginning with 'B'

On Sunday evening I discovered that my car wouldn't start and that the immobiliser kept kicking in and setting of the alarm... not good!  Was this the result of all the rain or something more or less sinister?  Because I didn't have time to get it fixed there and then (I needed to be at a service) I waited overnight to call the AA.  The nice man arrived at the appointed time and after various checks announced it was the battery, now defunct.  So all but £80 lighter, and the car was now happy again.

Moving house always brings with it the risk of 'freshers flu,' the exposure to 'new' bugs to which there is no resistance and the inevitable cold that follows. So it was/is.  I am pretty sure it is not the dreaded porkine lurgy since after 24 hours it has settled into the normal patterns of a heavy cold.  Even so, it impacts my week as I seek to keep my bugs to myself!

Lastly was a phone call late evening from someone 'down south' to let me know of the safe arrival of her first grandchild - a baby girl.  This was a lovely end to the day.  And somehow, in that perverse way that things balance out, this fitted with the sad news of Saturday evening.  Among my fondest memories of life in Dibley are the weddings I performed for a couple in their seventies, one of whom died suddenly on Saturday, and the cross-cultural ceremony for the couple who became parents yesterday.  In the words of Job, 'the Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord'

Yesterday was the final day of the Baptist Assembly in Scotland and it was a good day.  The thoughts on work with children and young people were brought together in some powerful and striking prayers of confession about our attitudes towards these members of our churches.  Recognising and naming that sometimes people are secretly glad when the children 'go out' or that we can see them as 'bait' to bring adults into church was important, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to confront my own sins in this respect.

The closing worship included a 'come forward to receive' communion with some creative elements such as the opportunity for prayer and anointing and symbolic transforming of burdens at the cross.  Although the logistics didn't quite work, with queues getting tangled and it all taking a lot longer than envisaged by the planners, it was meaningful and moving.  The background music of the Barber Adagio for strings (in a choral version, if that makes sense) momentarily transported me to the 'In Memoriam' of the English Assembly, something I missed here.  As someone who does 'mystery' alongside a (stubborn!) Zwinglian view of communion, it was a special moment.

How stark the contrast then, as I alighted from the subway and picked up a voicemail on my phone to let me know that one of my Dibley folk had died suddenly.  Shock, numbness, helplessness and the fact that of course these are not, in the former way, 'my' people cut right through the warm fuzzies like knife.  A few phone calls later and I had done all I could - all I can - to respond.  This death was a shock for everyone, not one of the frail folk but one who only the day before had been out and about doing what he always did; one of those you sort of thought would go on for ever; one of those diamonds in the rough for whom you have a very soft spot (whilst simultaneously trying to repair the damage they cause along the way).

Tonight I am sharing in a service called 'Grieving and Gratitude', a kind of All Saints and All Souls space for people bereaved recently or long ago.  I never anticipated it being quite so significant in my calendar!  If you know Dibley, please hold them in your prayers, if you don't please think of those you know who live with the tension of gratitude for lives lived and grief of loved ones lost.

JBM RIP

Last night I was formally welcomed to the BUS at Assembly at Queen's Park.  It was a special moment, one where your mouth insists on twitching into a smile even though you are probably meant to be sober and serious.  Standing on a platform with a group of other ex-pat BUGB ministers (and a few others) some now fully accredited BUS ministers being (in BUGB parlance) 'handshaked' and some retiring ministers was one of those moments when God's presence pierces the ordinary and allows us to glimpse something more wonderful.

Assembly has had (and will have today when I set off in a few minutes) all the same niggles it has 'down south' and is, for me, the same wonderfully whacky Baptist family that I love so much.  So they had 'that song' and David Coffey told 'that parrot joke' but I have also met lots of lovely people, been hugged by total strangers (partly because of what I represent) and made to feel very much at home.

The great cloud of witnesses will be unlike anything we may ever imagine, and way more wonderful, but as an Assembly-phile (albeit a slightly critical one) there are aspects of what I experienced this weekend would make it a great place to be.

More reflections to follow in due course.

In the meantime...

Behold I go, riding on the train,

Off to Queen's Park to join the happy throng

Having fun at Baptist Assembly

With new friends who all love God.

(Now that is a MUCH better version! ;-) )