Please....de-baptize me

"Please de-baptize me," she said.
The priest's face crumpled.
"My parents tell me you did it," she said.
"But I was not consulted. So
Now, undo it."
The priest's eyes asked why.
"If it were just about belonging to
This religion and being forgiven,
Then I would stay. If it were just
About believing
This list of doctrines and upholding
This list of rituals,
I'd be OK. But
Your sermon Sunday made
It clear it's
About more. More
Than I bargained for. So, please,
De-baptize me."
The priest looked down, said
Nothing. She continued:
"You said baptism sends
Me into the
World to
Love enemies. I don't. Nor
Do I plan to. You said it means
Being willing to stand
Against the flow. I like the flow.
You described it like rethinking
Everything, like joining a
Movement. But
I'm not rethinking or moving anywhere.
So un-baptize me. Please."
The priest began to weep. Soon
Great sobs rose from his deepest heart.
He took off his glasses, blew his nose, took
Three tissues to dry his eyes.
"These are tears of joy," he said.
"I think you
Are the first person who ever
Truly listened or understood."
"So," she said,
"Will you? Please?"

                      - Brian McLaren

A tale of two Gibsons

I was up early this morning to take delivery of some fencing panels, which meant that I was standing outside the house when Gibson was taking his grandma for their morning walk.

Gibson is the black Labrador who lives round the corner.  Though he enjoys a friendly fuss, he always wants to get about on business of his own, so he gives an impatient bark if Gran spends too long chatting with neighbours.

When first introduced some months ago I had assumed he was named after Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC DSO DFC of the Dambusters, who himself had a chocolate brown Labrador, which [spoiler alert] doesn’t make it to the end-credits of the film. Guys of my generation were raised on black-and-white British war movies, with heroes that don’t say too much but go out and give Jerry a good pasting. You can watch the film's original trailer by clicking here.

It says much about us Brits that we cry buckets for the dog but not so for the thousands affected by the successful raid on the Ruhr dams. But then if the Germans had sensibly elected a Labrador instead of Hitler, things would have taken a very different course. I mean, we sometimes think of Churchill as a bulldog. And listen to him speak. The clues are all there...

As it happens Gibson is named after the Gibson Les Paul guitar. Hmm.

Anyways G, with his sense of smell up to 100,000 times more acute than mine, immediately detected that I had just eaten a bacon sandwich.  This was reason enough to put the walk on hold while he quickly identified the fact that it was smoked bacon, Danish from western Jutland, from the right-hand loin of the pig. A few moments more and he would have identified the donor pig by name (Labradors are pretty clever). But for once Gran wanted to make some progress and so they set off once again.

This week Dr Michael Mosley set out the startling fact in the excellent BBC TV science series Horizon that eating bacon may well curtail your life by up to 2 years. I like and respect Dr Mosley.  We are roughly the same age and he seems to know a thing or two. I admire the fact that he experiments on his own body, for example by infecting himself with tapeworms or by trying the 5:2 diet. I see no reason to doubt his claim about the foreshortening of life.

Guy Gibson in the centre. He was only 26 when killed in action

Moderation is key to diet, I feel. "Steady on, old chap," as the Wing Commander might have said. "Not bacon every morning." And, of course, I don’t.  Mostly it’s toast or muesli or grapefruit when I can get it.

But the Dambusters of 617 Squadron (like all RAF crews on ‘Ops’) tucked in to bacon before taking off on their fateful flight.

So I thought I’d share that neither Gibson nor I have any intention of eschewing the occasional rasher of back or streaky, whatever the medics may say. If that means clocking-off a tad early, then 'cheerio'.

What are you doing here?

Have you seen the film High Noon?  

It's an Oscar-winning 1952 western starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. In black and white and in real time, the film tells the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers alone, when everyone else deserts him – including all the ‘good’ townsfolk. Throughout the film is the haunting melody of Tex Ritter singing “Do not forsake me Oh my darling…”  You can watch the original trailer here.

This is the kind of western where the hero is a loner, usually driven towards a showdown with the bad guys against his will.  It comes down to the hero versus the rest. He's generally a reasonable man, pushed that little bit too far. And then he has to face down the baddies.

I love the story of Elijah in the bible, not least because it shares some of the same themes. Ancient Israel has been under the rule of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. The Bible tells us that Ahab was more evil than all of his predecessors. Bad stuff is happening. It is against that backdrop that God sends Elijah, the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, to go and stand in front of King Ahab and announce a drought which, it turned out, was to last for nearly three years. 

Elijah must have been quite a character.  All that we really know about him is that he was from Tishbe, which can mean “pioneer town”.  He was a settler, maybe quite rough and ready - probably ill-at-ease in the sophistication of the King’s palace. 

Ahab and Jezebel got pretty fed up with Elijah being the spoilsport, who insisted on reminding them of their obligation to live life with a moral dimension. It got messy. It all came to a head when, in chapter 18 of the First Book of Kings, Elijah steps forward in front of all the people and asked them how long they were going to sit on the fence?  They have to make a choice for God. There then follows quite a shootout…

And yet, not long after in the story, we find Elijah lying under a bush praying for death.  And here is another reason why I love the story of Elijah.  Despite the very different culture and context, it rings true to human experience.  Elijah experiences the whole of life – he is not a cardboard hero. There are not only the mountaintop experiences but also the valleys; the peaks and troughs that human beings experience as part of ordinary life. Just like us.

And now, in chapter 19 (which you can read here), we see that the greatest of the OT prophets finds himself in the wrong place.  He’s lying feeling defeated, curled up in the foetal position,

anxious and hidden.  But God then gives him the three things he most needs: sustenance, company and encouragement.  With the strength of the food and encouragement, Elijah is able to take a step forward in his recovery. 

In life, of course, we have to start from wherever we find ourselves.  As human beings we often make a mess of things and often we are not in a place where it’s easy to see a way forward. We sometimes feel anxious. Yet while he is most in need, in the story God asks: “Elijah, what are you doing here?”

I wonder if any of you reading this are in such a place today? Down a hole. In a pickle. Can’t see the way back or forward.  Like Gary Cooper, facing something that you dread.

God who speaks and reveals Himself to His people at all times and in all places, not in a loud and noisy way but in a gentle whisper, says to you today, “why are you in that place where you find yourself right now?” Not a finger-wagging, blame-laden question but one that brings with it the offer of sustenance, company and encouragement.

Is that where you are today?

It is part of life that we experience the peaks and troughs; the mountaintop experiences and the places where the light finds it hard to reach. As the next part of the story unfolds, not all of Elijah’s questions were answered. Yet God gave Elijah the opportunity to carry on journeying with Him. He gave him nourishment, company and encouragement, some tasks and a purpose for living.

Though we may lack answers to our questions, the place where we most can hope to receive clarity is in the company of the God who still seeks relationship with people today. People like us.  

One hundred years on

Harold Smith was a Sergeant in the 9^th Brigade, Field Artillery, when he was killed on Friday, October 26, 1917 in Belgium.

John and Elizabeth McGonegal mourned for their son, also called John, a private in the Light Infantry. He was 20 years old when he died on Friday, August 30, 1918, and was buried in France. He was the second one from his village to die in service of King and Country. 

William Robert Muckle, 87^th Battalion, had been killed in France on Saturday, October 21, 1916. His body was never found, lost in the mud and shells of the battlefield.

Sergeant Frederick James – my half-uncle: the eldest of my father’s siblings. In the trenches, he received a letter from home in 1916 from his mother, my granny, which finished with ‘love from brother Don,’ referring to my dad who was just a few weeks old and a brother Fred didn’t know he had.

Four names. Plus millions of others that are now remembered, perhaps, by no one except by those who visit the huge war memorials like the one at Vimy Ridge and who we commemorate at the centenary of the start of the First World War on Monday, 4 August.

The men who returned were not the same people who volunteered following declaration of war in 1914.  For them, the world had changed forever and they had to learn to live with what they had been through. It was supposed to have been so different: soldiers fighting to rid the world of an evil. They were to make the world safe when they entered the Great War in 1914. But those young men had had their idealism challenged and often shattered in the mud and trenches of the battlefields. 

Some of them came from the town where we live or maybe the house we now call home. They looked like us; had the same hopes for life as us.

And neither do we forget also those brave men and women who, because of their principles – including their faith - would not bear arms but served in other ways.

Most of us cannot comprehend the horrors of war.  But sometimes, great loss comes closer to home.  On 11^th September 2001 we saw evil unfold in front of us, committed by the people who crashed 4 civilian jet liners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania. The horror of it and why and how had they taken control of the airplanes and turned them into weapons of destruction; we wonder still and are shaken.

I remember working at my computer and, as so often, having the Internet news running quietly in the background.  I saw the breaking news and then walked to the television where I stood, numb, watching the airliners crash again and again into the towers as the news clips were repeated.

Someone watching those same events, wrote some lines to help deal with what he saw:

I remember the fallen,
those lost in thick black smoke.
I remember the terror-stricken in four planes
Above the earth before the crash.
I am reminded of the fear of those trapped 110 storeys above the ground.
Tears are my prayers.

One hundred years after the beginning of the Great War (the “war to end all wars”), conflict and strife remain in so many places: Ukraine, Syria, Gaza – as well as those many hundreds of ‘little’ wars that simmer just below the threshold of attracting TV news coverage and therefore pass unnoticed by us.

Yesterday, Life & Faith Group – a Friday lunchtime collection of friends and truth-seekers I belong to – had a discussion  about arguments: their causes, their effects and how we as followers of Christ should approach them, given that they are so common to our race. In one sense a little, local argument over something trivial should not be compared to a conflict where people are being injured or killed. Yet each arises from the same causes: fear; frustration; misunderstanding or selfishness.

Jesus told his followers that when they visited a home they should pray peace upon it. We are called to be peacemakers (something that requires effort and activity, not simply standing back and keeping quiet).  We are led to speak the truth, lovingly – meaning not that we should coat our words in sugar but that we should care enough to speak truth even when people won’t want to listen. 

On Monday, 4^th August we commemorate the deaths, injuries and losses experienced by soldiers in the Great War and their families: British, Belgian, French, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Indian, Australian, New Zealander, Canadian. Oh yes, and German, Austrian, Hungarian and others too.

There will be a lot of sanctimonious talk  by politicians about their 'sacrifice' but life was as precious to them as it is to us. On this day, we are asked to remember. But remembering alone is not enough. We must prevent strife from taking root in us and we should care enough to be peacemakers.