The owls are restless

When I renewed this blog in 2012, I began with a quotation from Welsh poet and priest R S Thomas. Having had a silent period on the blog front since Easter while I helped my family with their new venture, I find myself quoting him again now as I return to blogging.

"The owls are restless

People have died here

Good men for bad reasons

Better forgotten"

I have seen collections of Thomas’ poetry on the shelves of many colleagues and I wonder what it is about the bleakness of the poetry of this country priest, cut off by his calling and his learning among people that he served faithfully but distantly, that so resonates with other ministers.

 I read the quotation again today when I picked up Alan Garner’s The Owl Service for the first time in years. I had gone to find it to lend to a friend about to leave on holiday; she was seeking something good to read.  The book begins with that quotation: “The owls are restless…”

It is sad that few people younger than me know of Garner, who was a towering figure in the literature of thinking teens in the 60s and 70s. A writer who lived to write, Garner’s style was to revisit and rework older stories. He takes the view (and I agree) that there are no new stories, only new ways of telling.

In a secluded Welsh valley ringed by wild mountains, the characters and quarrels of three young people unfold. Two men love the same girl and tragedy follows, leaving successive generations to play out the terror of that ancient triangle. It suggests that people faced with the same challenges as former generations are compelled to repeat their mistakes unless they choose to break the pattern. The Owl Service reworks a powerful story from the Mabinogion, the earliest prose literature of Britain. The stories were compiled in the 12th–13th century by Welsh authors from much earlier oral traditions. It won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award when first published.

Some readers cannot revisit novels once read; I find myself drawn back to enjoy and explore my favourite books again though there can be quite a gap between readings. Having gone looking for it, I found the slim novel on a low-level, rarely-visited bookshelf. Reader, I have to confess that I opened it over breakfast and was drawn-in again by the foot of page 1. So I won’t be parting with it this week.  

I recommend The Owl Service as an imaginative novel.  When I have finished re-reading it, I will also need to track down my copy of Elidor by the same author; as I recall, another powerful and imaginative story.

Don't look - it's not nice to stare

I was brought-up to look away.

Not to stare at people who are different.

I don’t slow down and gawp at road traffic accidents or watch paramedics tending to people on the pavement.

To do that isn’t kind or necessary or right. 

My response to people in pain shouts aloud (in a discreet whisper, of course) the values by which I was brought-up.  It’s not that I don’t care or that I don’t have the stomach to see people suffering, it’s simply that I am English and middle-aged. We believe that people deserve their dignity, most especially when they are vulnerable or in distress.

Yet, in the past couple of years, on the Facebook pages of friends, I have seen severed heads. I have seen the smouldering bodies of those who have been burned alive. Girls who have been raped, murdered and left hanging from trees. Blast victims from bombings. Fatal exit wounds from gunshots.

Those appalling images can be cleared from my view at the click of a mouse. And I can be angry for the moment that ‘friends’ have published such graphic images on their pages where I (and others, including children) will see them. For surely the victims of such barbaric acts deserve the dignity in their deaths that was denied them in life?

And surely I, living in Pleasantville and trying hard to live a good life, deserve not to be confronted with their terror and indignity?
 

I hate what those images do to me.
 

But I think I now begin to understand why good people might post such pictures online.  Maybe the real indignity is not that the torn bodies of what were once human beings like me and you should be displayed for all to see. The real indignity is that their blood cries aloud for justice and that I can silence them again by looking away or by checking my email.

Perhaps the way to show these lumps of flesh the dignity of once being human beings - fellow sons and daughters of our common Parent - is to look, briefly, and be appalled at what has been done to them.

Thoughts from Palm Sunday

Mark 11: As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, ² saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³ If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’”

⁴ They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, ⁵ some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” ⁶ They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. ⁷ When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. ⁸ Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. ⁹ Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” ¹⁰ “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

The Sunday before Easter is called Palm Sunday – all four gospel writers tell us the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.  People pulled palm leaves down and waved them in the procession. 

I took part in such a procession once.  We were staying with friends in Cornwall on Palm Sunday one year and we joined the local Methodist church as it paraded through the village waving leaves and following a donkey. There was a great sense of atmosphere – both among those of us in the procession and those looking on. No one asked what the donkey thought of it.

All these people who are crying out “Hosanna!” – “Save us!”  What did they want to be saved from?

Well, they lived in enemy-occupied land and we know they wanted freedom to rule their own country. They wanted freedom from arrest and torture.

Just 2 weeks ago, you will have heard on the news that Taliban bombs had exploded outside two churches in the Youhanabad district of the Pakistani city of Lahore. 16 people were killed, 10 critically injured and around 80 more affected by blast injuries. A local pastor friend of mine was preaching in his church nearby when the blasts were felt.  Another contact of mine lives just 4 minutes’ walk from one of the damaged churches.

Both of these families have since spoken of how Christians in that place live in fear of arrest, injury or death for their faith.  I know what they cry ‘Hosanna’ for…

Today, what is it that people around us in Southend want saving from? 

When we ask God to save us, what do we really want God to save us from? 

What about anger? Save me from my credit card debt or the Department of Work & Pensions? 

How about save me from the arguments that rip apart my relationships?  Save me from the people on my estate. Save me from my addiction to booze or weed or porn. 

Jesus riding into Jerusalem in this way is an event of significance. In Luke 19, the Pharisees beg Jesus to tell the crowds to stop their hosannas. "I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out!"

The stones by the roadside would start to sing because God is on the move, wanting everyone to know and celebrate that, through what Jesus will do, there will be a new creation where everyone can have a fresh start.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem I hear an echo of His first words in Mark’s gospel: “Now’s the time!”  God is saying “Enough is enough!”  A change is gonna come!  It may not be the change that you think or seek but it’s on its way…

That’s why Palm Sunday is more than waving branches and singing hosannas. It shows us a God who loves all of us enough to take the journey through Jerusalem; to pain and humiliation and death and then beyond that…to life and a new hope for the future.  

Mothering Sunday—a day for honouring all our mothers.

Mothering Sunday...

A day to honour all those women in our lives who have loved us—whether we call them  mother  or  gran  or  sister  or  wife  or daughter  or  aunt  or  nan  or  friend or boss.

And also a day for honouring all those women in our family of faith who have loved and nurtured our church community - whether we call them friend or sister or minister or elder or  deacon or the lady who does the teas.

Today, I want to remember four women from the early church, who showed what it is to love God and then to nurture a church community.  The first is Lydia, a gentile business woman, who out of her generosity provided the meeting place for the first gathering of Christians in the Greek city of Philippi. We read about her in the Book of Acts chapter 16.

And then Priscilla, a Jewish tentmaker, who, with her husband Aquila, instructed Christian communities and leaders in three of the principal cities of the Roman Empire—Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome itself. We find more about her in Acts 18; Romans 16; 1 Corinthians 16 and 2 Timothy 4.

Then, the two unnamed slave women in Bithynia (now modern-day Turkey) who were deaconesses in the church there in the second century.  The Roman governor, Pliny the Younger, had them tortured just to find out what Christians really believed. We read about them in Eusebius – a collection of documents from the early church.  I find it difficult, 1900 years later, to read the few lines about these two women leaders being tortured to satisfy a politician's curiosity without tears.

And finally, I think today of Correne and Ann-Marie and other women who have been at the heart of Church from Scratch.

A prayer for today:

O God, help us to retell the stories of the mothers of your church. We repent of the way in which the church has so often treated women in the past and commit ourselves to honouring one another in your church. 

Create in us a spirit like that found both in Lydia and in Priscilla—a spirit open to yours, eager to receive and act upon your good news. Help us to have the same courage as those two slaves. 

Thank you for all we have treasured in the Godly women we have known.

In the name of the risen Christ, we pray this. 

Amen.

Touching on a serious matter

Today is Valentine’s Day.  

If we forget the commercialism of it all, it’s a timely moment to think about a topic that is loved, hated or best avoided, depending on your point of view: hugging and touching.

Hugging is a way to tell someone you care about them. It can show a lot more than words can say.

One of the amazing things about my closest family is that we hug a lot. There are people who love hugging their mums, dads, children, grandmas, granddads, brothers and sisters. Others don’t hug.  Some people who are not in traditional families hug a lot; others do not like to be touched.

Sometimes friends put their arms around each other for a quick hug when they are having their picture taken or when they just see each other for the first time that day.

Now most of the people reading this will be English (with apologies to the Scots, Danes, Pakistanis, Brazilians and others who regularly read the blog).  As a nation, we English sometimes we find it hard to understand when it’s OK to touch or hug someone and when it is not.  When someone isn’t comfortable with touching or hugging, they often step back or pull away from you.  When this happens, we step back also – showing that we respect their preference.

Maybe it’s a generational or a cultural thing.  When I was a child, men didn’t seem to hug at all; now footballers hug on the pitch.  Many of my male Muslim friends give one another a swift hug on first meeting each day, as well as a firm handshake.  Our French neighbours will greet family, friends and colleagues with a kiss on each cheek!

In lively charismatic churches, where people may be very demonstrative, there is now a bizarre kind of open hug that shows affection while straining to avoid any appearance of invading personal space.  It seems more than a little forced.

So what’s the purpose of this reflection on touching and hugging? 

I used to avoid any hugging beyond immediate family, in view of the complexity of knowing whether it would be welcomed and the embarrassment (or worse) arising from getting it wrong.  But I am a tactile person:  if I have affection for someone then that, for me, is naturally shown in touch as well as expressed in words. 

Happy Valentine's Day!