The Nativity

I've just watched The Nativity on www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer Well worth it. But interestingly it very much follows along from what I was saying in my last post, about Mary being despised, Joseph struggling to accept it all - very much as one would expect a young man to be when his betrothed shows she's pregnant. Jesus is born away from friends and family and, even though it is never said, a prostitute is the midwife. Must be because she doesn't have her head covered.

A friend of mine has been having dreams that God is going to be doing something very new, and I think getting our heads round the idea that Jesus was born alone, with the despised of society around Him and that even though now Mary is revered at the time she was nearly stoned to death, and that wonderful Joseph took a while to be able to accept this truth.

I am interested to know what God is up to and wonder how much time I'll get over the holidays to pray and ponder it all?

Mary and Joseph

I have been pondering Mary, the mother of Jesus, and it was pulled together a wee bit by the sermon I heard today. She is totally amazing in what she endured and yet so little is known about her or mentioned, which I suppose for the early readers didn't need to be said because it was known.

Here was a young girl, probably barely 15, who gets a visitation from an angel and becomes pregnant. God has put her with an awesome fiance who can understand dreams and is obedient to God. Following on from hearing the Jewish guy the other day with the key factor of Jews being they obey God this makes these 2 people pure Jews, totally ready to parent the Son of God.

But what must these 2 people endure. Did anyone suggest to Mary she have an abortion? Did anyone encourage Joseph to get her to get rid of the baby? We know he considered "putting her aside quietly" but as for what had been suggested to him about the baby we will never know.

I have been pondering on the whole thing of there being no room for them in Bethlehem even though she was heavily pregnant. The usual bit at the moment is that this was wrong and the couple would have been welcomed in by Joseph's family and she would've had the baby in the place in the home surrounded by Joseph's female relatives. But what if they had decided that she was duping their man, and that he was a bit of an idiot to still be hanging around with her. Maybe when they turned up at his family home he was told that he could come in but not the trollop and that if he was going to stay with this awful woman who had duped him into taking her on as his wife even though she was pregnant with someone else's child they he was not entering their home. This makes Joseph even more amazing than at first glance, being willing to be rejected by his family to obey God, but also makes the birth of Jesus even more of a place of rejection. It was not that the inn keeper would not let them in but there was no room for them in Bethlehem with anyone and that they were seen as total outcasts.

Wow! Again as I ponder the birth of Jesus I do wonder if I could obey God that much to be rejected by my family and be totally alone. Not such a great fluffy, fun story as most of our nativity plays and sermons make out.

As someone was saying the other day "Your God's not fair" meaning how only those who believe will get to live for eternity with Him, but I do wonder just how fair God is to allow His only son to be born not just into such poverty but into such rejection and for Him to have not emotional scars. He couldn't have done because He was still willing to lay down His life for us!

Our Heritage

Yesterday in our Cultural Studies lesson we had a lovely Jewish man come and talk about his faith. Our current unit is religion and philosophy.

Listening to this Jewish man talk about his faith, which they don't call a faith but more a way of being, a lifestyle, a who they are, the more I could understand deeper some of the things of Jesus.

One of the things he said about was that they mustn't avoid legitimate pleasures, and there are rules about having to drink wine, of getting drunk at least once year, and of how many times a married couple must have sex, as well as other things! But what struck me was that when Jesus said "I will give you life and life in abundance" he was referring to these rules, because we must always remember that Jesus was talking to Jews. I think we so often forget that and put our western mindset on things. I believe what Jesus was saying was that we were no longer bound by rules but by Grace and so really our lives should be even more about grabbing the legitimate pleasure of God, not about being assure, miserable, solemn.

Another one was that the Levites were the priests because they were the most war-like of the tribes and it meant they would never carry weapons again. As Christians we are known as the Royal Priesthood, amongst other things, which to me means if we have those war-like tendencies lurking about which would make sense of the Crusades, Inquisition, etc.

Another he mentioned was that Jews expect God to have prepared a place for them in the world to come that will reflect how they lived their lives on earth, how they fulfilled the destiny God had for them. To me this is saying about when Jesus says "My Father has prepared a mansion/room/house" (depending on translation) to the Jews again this would be that reassurance that God knew what they were doing and was preparing things for them as He has promised.

And he talked about how Jews do the rules because the important thing is to obey God and that is what defined Abraham. This guy didn't believe Abraham was the only person God was talking to but he was the only one who obeyed. Again for me that is what defines me as a Christian, not that I remember to keep the rules, do the right thing, even that I live a good life, but that I obey God.

God was speaking to me about obeying Him and of Him having put me just where He wants me on Sunday during worship time and after in the talk, which I did need as I've been feeling like I'm having a hard time both at college and at home. And for me this whole thing of obeying God is what will mark me out as being different.
I noticed some in my class who had come with their own thoughts and theories and were going to voice them, and that is so how Christians can be. We think we know what is right and we are not going to listen to anyone else but, as I know I've said before, if we are all made int he image of God then we all possess a piece of God, and for me this Jewish man says he prays to God 3 times a day, he must be able to share with me, with us all, a piece of God and help us to grow in our spiritual journey here on earth.

If I get time I will continue these thoughts but ....

Living the Mystery

Hey three weeks running and I've been to the same Anglican church. In fact I can't remember when I last went to church 3 weeks running. In fact its been 4 weeks running as I was at a large charismatic church before this 3 week run!!

This morning the talk was about how we should be living the mystery of Advent and of Jesus in us not just talking about it, and not just coming to church. This all fitted in very nicely with a lovely friend who always makes me think, who asked if my blog was always faith based. I haven't replied to her email yet but this sermon got me thinking. And you know what I think that everything I consciously do should be faith based. Ok so I know too that everything I subconsciously do should be faith based too but I'm not so good at that. I screw up, I swear, I make mistakes, I lose my temper, I do lots of things that I'm not ready to confess here as yet. But deep inside what I really want to be doing is living my life based on Faith and Trust in Jesus, the Son of God, who came to bring me into right relationship with God the Father.

I am reading more and more books as I slog back and forth on the bus and all of them are leading me to want my life to be open to God so that through that I'm open to others and in bring them to be able to touch with God. I know there are some out there who are hungry for Him, some who are settled in where they are, some who really do not care, but I am hoping with all those God puts across my path they can see some of the mystery of Him lived out in my life.

How will I be able to do this? I don't quite know but I am hoping His Spirit in me and my being tuned into Him and want to live my whole life as a faith based life bring this into being.

Worshiping!!!

Last night I took Ian out last night to see the Saw Doctors, a folk rock band he use to follow ages ago that he hasn't seen in the time I've known him. It was my early Christmas present to him. I had never seen or heard anything by the band before but really loved it.
They were a great, lively band of older men, like most of the audience in age, full of fun and vitality. But much of it was like the average charismatic church but without the preaching, collection and prayers.
We all faced the band (always good when you've paid to see them), people knew the words (though with the band it was from listening to the songs not from the OHP), there was lots of clapping (some in time and some out of time), hands in the air waving, dancing, people generally being friendly and enjoying being in the crowd. It got me wondering though, as I was swept along with the atmosphere, how much of what goes on in the average charismatic church is really worshiping God or is it being swept along by the atmosphere. And who's to say when and where the Holy Spirit turns up anyway. There was one point when the song was very deep and meaningful and the saxophone was really taking the crowd that it felt like a true God moment. To me it felt like God had turned up.
The similarities were amazing and as I looked at my ring which says in Greek "No one lives for themselves" I felt like God saying that this was not just for us Christians but for all mankind - we all live for each other and that we are, not so much pack animals, though one can see that so often, but more connected to each other in some deeper way, something more spiritual. There is something in the fact that, if one believes the Bible, we are all children of God whether we choose to follow Him or not, He still made us all, and so there is that God connection in all of us.
Was last night worship? Maybe! But also sometimes on a Sunday morning we are worshiping the band, the sound system, the choice of songs, the whole set up rather than God.

Advent

I got invited today to our local Anglican church's woman's Bible study. It really does cater for busy women as it is at 10.30 on Sunday morning to coincide with the main service so those with children don't have to look for a baby sitter, those with husbands who don't go don't have to make another day to be out of the house, and those who are busy don't have to try to find another space in their calendar.
Now I don't know what it is about Anglicans and how time just seems to stand still for them. I have always found that Anglicans, maybe because they are so clear at what they do can do twice, three times as much, as charismatics and can make one feel more special and more relaxed Maybe I just hit lucky, or maybe God's trying to tell me something.

Anyway we were looking at Advent, which for me feels very important as I know so many people, including myself, who have something they are waiting, often not as patiently as they should, for God to help them give birth to something, to reveal the next piece of the plan, the puzzle, to give them the leg up to the next bit of the journey. So like the established church so many people are waiting. And I was expecting something about this.
The person leading got us to think instead that this is a time to remember we are not just waiting for the remembrance of the first coming of Jesus, but also to be remembering the second coming of Jesus, which as we should all know from reading our Bibles will be a totally scary time, a time of judgments, and God coming in Power, and of the moon turning to blood and many other quite scary things. Even though it will also herald in the amazing time of Jesus living on this earth with us, it is not a pleasant period to have to live through. But it is what we should be looking forward too as well.
We looked at 1Thess 4:13-5:7 and how Paul reassures the people that all, even those already dead, will be risen with Christ in the last days, but what we all noted was that twice he says to encourage each other. This is a hard journey the Christian one. Christianity, when we truly open ourselves up to Jesus is a hard journey of changing our sinful ways and becoming more like Him, and there are so many different ways of doing that, and some of them maybe not Holy Spirit led. But in this hard journey we do need to connect with people who are going to walk with us, how are going to encourage us and who will understand how hard it all is.
Do we get this in church? I think at times we do. But I think most importantly we get it with friends who really know the struggle we are going through, who really know how much we are changing and how much we want to change. Fellowship is about being with each other together on the journey

Maybe some of what we should remember...

I have carried on pondering these thoughts of remembering and it has struck me that we do need to remember so many things but one is that we live in a free country where it is safe to protest.
My daughter was on the student protest in London on Weds (10th Nov 2010) and she has some photos of some of the demonstrators who got into the Millibank building. She did also get glass in her eye when they knocked the windows out which a kindly policeman sorted out for her and she is fine. Just a boosted ego!!
But what has struck me, especially as we are doing about apartheid in Cultural Studies is how free were are in the country to protest and how people are seen, on the whole as individuals. Oh people will cry Police brutality at some things. I wonder if we expect are Police to be more than human at times.
But when Tabi was hut she was seen as something separate to what was going on, and was treated accordingly. In many other countries she could have been beaten and arrested just because of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even these anarchists will not be beaten until they confess, will not be placed in a dank prison where they may never get out of.
Ok we might say that the government will not take any notice of these protest, which is what has led to a lot of apathy over recent years on protesting but at least we are free and safe to do it.
Let us maybe remember what we could've been.

Remembrance Day

A day to remember.
But to remember what?
The origins of Remembrance Day were so that Europe would remember what happened in The Great War.
That was the 1st World War to us now.
So many wars have happened since then.
So many young men have died.
What are we remembering?
I find it all very confusing, especially as I spent years as a Peace protester - an interesting oxymoron!
I forgot again to remember the 2 minutes silence at 11 o'clock as did my young companions. But what could I have told them if I had remembered.
In Bath at 8.45 Monday morning a group of soldiers were putting poppies in the a lovely stone cross on the ground outside the abbey and seemed to be doing the 11th November service which seemed a bit strange.
Now these soldiers they know what they are remembering. I'm sure many have lost comrades.
My son is still talking of joining the army and still keeps going to the selection dates and being deferred for one reason or another but still the journey there continues. I pray that war will be over by the time they let him in but Jesus seemed to promise that there would be wars and rumours of wars till He returned so unless He comes back before the Army or whoever take Ben then the wars will continue.
As I've been writing this I think what I shall remember is Jesus who fought the ultimate war with the evil one for our sakes so that we could be reconciled with God. Jesus took on Himself all those things that cause wars; jealousy, fear, greed, control. And because of Him we can find peace and freedom in this world in our hearts, and in the next totally.
So often too the world does the same to Jesus as they do for the soldiers that have died; they don't understand and so they just ignore it.
Please help me, Lord, to remember those mortal men who died so that I live in a free country, so that we can go an protest like the students did yesterday, but also help me to remember You, dear Jesus, who died for me so that I can be totally free.

Course!

Oh and forgot to say in update - I've sent off my university application to do History and Creative Writing in Bath Spa, and 2nd choice of History in either Bath or Bristol. My tutor was full supportive. My personal statement came together really quickly and easily. Interesting how that is so often the case when we do what we should be doing. So now it is just waiting for the whole UCAS process to happen and to get accepted in one of these.
Please pray its Bath Spa as it would just be so much easier to get to and I'd love to do the joint honors of History and Creative Writing.

Witnessing

I have realized when I decide to let God in on stuff just how much I want to talk about Him.
Since starting college life has been a bit up and down, a struggle to put it mildly. I have had a long chat with God after being told I needed more inner healing, after a throwaway remark I made, and not having the time to be able to spare to fit it in. Interesting one of the things I'm stressed with is finding time to do everything and yet here was someone suggesting how to fill more of my time!! Duh!!
Anyway long chat which seemed to help, but one of the things I did ask Him was, silly though it may seem, what book I should do for my book review. We had to do something fictional and I just love reading so it was hard to choose which one to pick. The one I was reading at the time didn't seem right. Anyway I picked a Francine Rivers one, Atonement Child, which is about a Christian girl who gets raped and people's reaction to the whole thing of whether she should abort the baby or not. In my talk I managed to link it in with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and of how maybe she'd had it suggested that she have an abortion, and maybe that was why she went off to stay with Elizabeth until she was too far pregnant. I managed to weave in God being a God of love and grace who we can trust not a God of rules.
But the most interesting thing to come out of this, even before I got to do my talk, is that I have had so many opportunities to talk about God; from my testimony, to explaining about love and grace and so much more.
It is like I was willing to make my self vulnerable in doing this book talk, which actually was only 2-3 minutes with no questions after, and God has just opened doors for my willing heart to just speak out. It is all very exciting.
Also for me it is all much more real than going to do Healing on The Streets or other forms of street evangelism or witnessing. I have always preferred the sitting around chatting to friends and telling my story. And what has amazed me is just how accepting people are of me.
Maybe its because this time together is going to be short but maybe too its because having been challenged on hurts inside me I have opened up my relationship to God again and let Him in to do the healing - not a course or program!!

Medicines

Another chance for a quick blog before starting back to college on Monday!!

This time I've been thinking about how we in the West view healing and medicines. I have seen how the British health service has taken my father-in-law and step father and treated each of their ailments as individual ailments but never as holistic. And yet as Christians we are happy to send someone to the local hospital after we've prayed for healing for them if nothing happens. But to suggest sending someone to a herbalist, who deals in holistic medicine and how may or may not be a Christian is seen as wrong. We seem to put our trust in the trained professionals whether doctors or preachers. Again I find that if I, in certain places, were to stand up and preach, prophecy, whatever, I would be asked where I got my training from and if I said just from God I could be looked as askance.
I am not saying that we go to untrained herbalists or acupuncturists or other types of alternative healers, but I am also saying that not all doctors are Christians and so maybe we should not put so much trust in them as we do.
Perhaps again we need to go back to trusting God and asking Him what His plan is for our healing!!

Best Laid Plans.....

I was planning to blog every day because of it being half term but there has been family and friends to catch up with and assignments to get sorted and God on the move.

There seemed to be a plan at one point at to what I was doing but now things have shifted. I think I am being led down a path I'm not sure about which will not have the same clout and recognition I had been hoping and then this morning I read in "Reconciliation and Justice as a Way of Life" in an article from John S Holden called "A Witness and a Testimony" (oh this is where college seems to be kicking in - everything is referenced!!) that I am very slowly working through, 'You want for instance to do some great service and to fill some great sphere. but Christ's answer to your longing is to set you down to face the difficulties of a small work in a place where there is little recognition'.
I have had to put together a personal statement in my university application process and have found it very hard. It is very much about honouring oneself which is just so hard anyway. But I had planned to do Social Policy on a number of accounts; it makes going to university at my age worth it as it will be doing something worthwhile, and also I have had this prophecy about how I have the keys for industry, agriculture, the arts, education, government, and so much more that I believed going into something Social Policy related would be the way God would fulfill that.
Well after a trying week trying to do a Sociology assignment and get this personal statement to be on the Social Policy angle I gave it up to God. Oh why didn't I do that in the first place. And then started on a Cultural Studies/History assignment which I was really enjoying.
Well what seems to have come out of it, and from this sentence from this article and other types of confirmation is that it looks like I'll be doing History and Creative Writing. I've always wanted to do Creative Writing but have been put off as it seems so popular at the moment. I just love to write. And also I have always loved History and in fact said not so long back that I wish I'd been encouraged to do History when I was 18.
I have a friend at the moment who is struggling with his life but he says he wont pray about it because God may not give him the answer he wants. I know God isn't obtuse but sometimes if we are willing to say, and mean, 'Jesus, You are Lord of my life' then sometimes He does what we don't expect. Or what I feel in my case, is pushing me where I wanted to go but didn't think it was 'good enough'.
Thank goodness we have a loving Father who's on our side. Shame we don't trust Him more :-)

Jesus Christ Superstar

I've been meaning to blog the thought on going to this for about 3 weeks now but the busyness of college and family life is taking its toil, so some of my first impressions will not be there but here goes -

Firstly it was great to see an amazing rock opera done with such skill and style by an amateur dramatic group. And with the director being an acquaintance of ours that made it even more fun.
From what I remember neither Andrew Lloyd Webber or Tim Rice were Christians when they wrote this and I know this director isn't which actually makes it an interesting piece to wonder at why they did it. But to me, in that last week of Jesus' earthly life so often in Church we forget that He was fully human as well as full divine. Here was a real man, with feelings, knowing He was going to His death, a death that He had witness probably hundreds of times and so knew how horrid, how painful it could be, and by this point would know what His human body could endure. He knew what the total humiliation was going to be and I do wonder if He feared He would let everyone down, that His humanness would totally take over.
I'm not sure about others, but for me very much the fact that Jesus could go through all that fully human and still obey God, that He did have fears and concerns, that He did wonder what the whole point to it was, why after all His time on earth there were still beggars, cripples, people who needed healing, people who still didn't recognize who He really was, what was really inside of Him, and yet inspite of all that He was still willing to obey God, still willing to go to the cross and die in the hope that He and His Father had got things sorted, that He was doing the right thing.
Sometimes I get upset that people don't know who I am, that they don't see what is inside of me and because of who they are hear things that I say in a different way to what I mean, and yet God knows and actually I am just to be open and to obey God. And if Jesus truly was fully human, as well as fully divine, if Jesus also felt insecure in His mission, and had real human feelings and yet still obeyed then I know I can do it too.
I wonder why so often though we do not want to see the humanness of Jesus. I wonder if that would mean that if we did then we would know that His live and His obedience to God are obtainable, whereas if we accentuate His divinity over and above His humanity then we can keep telling ourselves that we will never attain to what Jesus did!!!
I do remember someone once teaching that if we could get our heads round the fact that Jesus' divinity in His humanness came from the same Holy Spirit that lives in us then we would be so so different.

College and busy life

I'm afraid I've been very lax in write and reading blogs and emails. I am taking today for a big catch up. I started college 2 weeks ago and I love it but having to be on a bus at 7.55 4 mornings a week and then 9am on the other day, having homework to do, and having taken on a couple of part time jobs, and then there is all the other things like running the home that have kept me busy beforehand. I have often felt for women how have to work full time and how hard it must be for them to effectively run a home, be with their kids, their husband - who I do find is the one I neglect! - and have time to read a book too, and now I totally sympathize with them. Though at times I still feel a light weight when I hear of these women on my course who are running families, doing this course and working loads more than I do but we are not to compare.

It has been great though too in that most mornings I get 40 mins head space. I am using it to read a book by Tommy Tenney on Esther called "Finding Favour with the King". It really is about how we can be lazy Christians; how we find it easy to give thanksgiving to God, esp when He is giving us things, to praise the One who gives us great gifts and to look to the gifts, but of how few of us really want to just worship God for the fact that He is God, including all the bits we don't understand. Are we willing not to give God a list but to find out what He wants and to get close to Him, to really get intimate with Him for intimate's sake?

I have found this time so helpful. Reading a chapter and then letting it sink in as I wait for the bus to complete its journey is really refreshing me. I'm not sleeping well because of so many things inside my head but chewing on these thoughts and wondering how to be intimate with God during a hectic day really does put a different light on things. It is make life easier with my husband, with my slightly wayward son at the moment, with my busy daughter, with my hectic routine, with missing my friends who I don't get the time to see.

I really do want to spend time with Father God just because of who He is not because of what I might get out of Him, and actually deep inside what I am hoping is that through that being with Him it can flow out of me and change the world around me.

Oh I'm not saying I don't lose the plot with everyone at times and find, esp immediate family frustrating, but I do know that I can get back to that place much quicker than beforehand.

Oh loads more I still want to explore. Joanna, Fawn Parish who runs the Reconciliation week I was on has written a great book about Honor called believe it or not "Honour: What Love Looks Like", which I have read and "The Power of Honor" which I haven't read, both of which are on Amazon!

FatherHeart

First I want to say that a lot of the reason I keep going with this is the great comments I get from people. So thank you to you all for your comments, on the blog, in emails to me and on Facebook. Thank you!

Well it was an awesome week. It was a great time to catch up with people who I had not seen in over 6 years and to find that there was still that heart connection, and to meet up with new people and establish something there too. It was like coming home, like finding family, finding my tribe. I seem to have a tribe scattered world wide and someone did pray that I would find some of my tribe nearer to home too. And knowing God answers prayer I will wait and see.

It was great to be with some "big people" in the world of reconciliation and to hear them say that they are still learning, wanting input and that even though some of them are known names we are all important. We sat in a circle and though Brian and Rhianon were the main people to share their stories there was room for everyone to input, my stories being as valid as theirs, and lots of room to ask questions, to explore and tease out things, and to realise that for some things this side of heaven we really do not know the answers and we do not want to put God into a box, no matter how big!!

I've got loads I want to share but am going to start with things I learned from Rhianon Lloyd, which I know will expand as I have time to unpack all this, explore it, reread my notes and to pray.
Rhianon is involved in trauma counseling and reconciliation in Africa and really God put together what she does as she was doing it when she went to Rwanda 12 weeks after the genocide. And we need to realise that we should not go in with a set program but to let God lead and direct and be willing for Him to take and use us and go from there. Yes Rhianon had some training which was why she was asked over in the first place but she is a humble lady, and again this shows what the word humble means - someone who has total confidence in God and that He will take the lead, and a willingness to trust that leading.

It appears in so many things that we so often start the story of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, in the middle. Rhianon goes into these stricken countries and meets with those who many not even know Jesus yet and talks to them about what they see as the perfect Father and they spend some time exploring this. Then she is able to tell them actually God is the Father they have been looking for and that He can be trusted with all their hurts and pains, which as you can imagine after a genocide are more than many of us could even imagine. Though actually God was talking to me and telling me just how real He sees my pain just as much as He sees that of the genocide victims.
Once one knows one can trust God the Father then the Cross can be introduced as the safe place to put all one's hurts, pains, sins, sinned againsts, and place it all at the Cross and accept God's forgiveness through Jesus. I feel that very often we say God is Father and that Jesus died so we can be forgiven but actually we do not help people to see that this Father is one who can be trust and who wont use what they say against them. And how a lot of the time we come to Jesus with hurts and get told He will forgive our sins.
Very much even in those who are victims of genocide they have sinned too by the attitude they have taken to their oppressor. They, understandably, want to see vengeance, our human form of justice happen. And Rhianon takes them through this journey of putting them accepting God's forgiveness through Jesus for their attitudes, and many repent for what they did not do, and getting them to a place where they truly want those who brutally murdered their families to have that same freedom and forgiveness as they have received through Jesus. How many of us want that from those who've hurt us? Hutu and Tutsi are together repenting and forgiving and blessing and honouring.

Now that is something I want to explore next time - the whole concept of honouring!

Healing

I'm off for a week conference, though will be a sort of retreat too before the busyness of work and college, from today till Friday. I leave in half an hour and am all ready packed and sorted. Hopefully I will get time to put some of the highlights in when I get back!

Here is a thought before I go - I have been reading my way through the gospels and it amazes me how many times when Jesus heals someone he tells them not to tell anyone and yet when there are healing services in churches we are always told to bring our friends and to tell everyone about what goes on. I wonder why this is.
To me we seem to use healings as a sort of testimony that Jesus/God has power and can heal and this is the big thing. Whereas Jesus said the greatest commandments, which is meaning the main things we are to do, is to love God with everything we have and love others as ourselves.
I wonder if at times we like miracles because then we don't have to do the lifestyle? This is why I love the reconciliation group that I will be with for the next 5 days because it is all about lifestyle, loving the unlovable, which is usually the person that winds us up the most, but also many others, of building bridges and seeing God's glory come in healing hearts as well as limbs and for lifestyles of those who are being reached out to and those doing the reaching.

Again for me I see so many things that are not something that can be quantifiable as a leg growing or sight being restored but that actually goes a lot deeper and empowers people, produces a love and acceptance so that all can reach their God given potential.
I am not saying physical healings are wrong because they must be right because Jesus did them but I am saying that they are like the icing on the cake and really we are to love God and love others and our lifestyle must reflect this.

Summer Rushed By

It has been 12 days since I last had time to really sit down and write anything. Summer has been a whirl - a whirl of what I'm not sure because even when I look back in my diary I cannot quite see what has gone on.
Tabi and I did get our trip to Blenhiem Palace in at last, though the plan for the summer was to do lots of stately homes but the time just flew by. Its that whole thing of working out how to be spontaneous and how much one needs to plan in. It really has got me thinking about how so often things can just get caught up in today and trying to keep the whole show on the road.
This is a bit how life has been for us as we have got busier. Sometimes time really is just doing the house, cooking meals, working (which I have just started on - and then go on to college soon!!) and of how the more one does that the vision disappears.
I have been praying a lot about the whole thing of the church leaders in Weymouth and of them having to keep the whole show on the road as their congregations expect a sermon every week, pastoral care, the leader to turn up and endorse their various other meetings, etc, etc. But I have also been praying and pondering about what God wants us to be doing. I did have a vision for our town and of praying stuff for it, and we seem to be being blessed by another couple wanting to start a simple church idea in our home, but I wonder with that what vision we should have.
We have been busy, busy just living life, and I feel that we have lost the connectedness between us as a couple and from that have lost the vision we should be praying about. Ok so we suffer from the fact we do see the world very differently and so getting a joint vision is hard work, but it seems to me that the busier we have got the more we have got in with just the business of living life and have forgotten to make time to hang out with God, with each other, not just to watch TV but to pray and to find this vision we are meant to be having.
Oh I could make lots of excuses as to why we haven't been able to do that, and most of them are really good. In fact some of the excuses would involve helping others, but still we have lost the point and purpose to why we are here and we need to refind that.
Hopefully in the busyness of college, family, keeping house, working, etc we are going to understand the urgency of making time to keep that vision in place. And maybe too we will be able to be kinder to those who have got so caught up in keep the whole show together that they have lost the bigger picture.
My prayer today is to help me/us to find that bigger picture, the vision God has for us for now

Next Wave - Please Pray

Still things roll on with the 2012 Olympics and it would be great if you could all pray about the YWAM boat Next Wave getting the only berth left in Weymouth harbour for the sailing side of the 2012 Olympics. The local churches have to put together a proposal to say why the boat should be there to convince the local council. YWAM very much want to use the boat to serve the area and serve the Olympics so it would bring a team who would be willing to volunteer for other things, would be a safe place of hospitality, and would be willing to just be there for people.
The proposal needs to be in very soon and the local churches seem to be having trouble just finding the time as well as running their churches. Something I think happens so often in local church; one goes into survival mode and cannot see that bigger picture, but that is for another blog :)
My son Ben served on it for 4 weeks when it was first here in the UK back in 2006 so we do have a connection with it. And Brian Sloane, the man in charge, has said he'd like me to be involved in the planning of things if the boat gets accepted. This would be a great chance of us to reconnect with YWAM and find a space to serve our country at this amazing time.
I really do feel that 2012 is a significant year and that there is something in that Mayan prophecy which the movie 2012 was based on. I don't think the world will end like that but I do think something significant will happen, maybe on the lines of the Gutenberg Press which changed the way people lived and view the world back in 1436!!

Labeling

Labeling is a funny thing, esp as we use it more and more to identify people these days. Box people some would say. But we seem to have a concept on what labeling is, whether it is good labeling or bad labeling. If I say I'm prophetic that is seen as good labeling, if I say I'm greedy that can be either depending on what I say I'm greedy for. Why is it ok to be greedy for God and yet wrong to be greedy for power?
Just recently we have been looking into Asperger's Syndrome because my lovely husband displays an awful lot of the characteristics of this way of looking at life. It is totally amazing the traits in it, all very frustrating for those of us who don't see the world that way and who have to work around this lovely person but very much without these people we could all still be stilling about drinking tea in caves and talking about what needed doing.
But it has been interesting how why Ian has tried to explore this with people, esp Christians, he has been told not to take on board that label. It is seen as a bad label, hence then finding it hard to work out how we live as a Christian couple with seeing the world so differently. I do wonder if he said that he was an evangelist, that would be a good label, and if we were struggling as a couple to deal with his way of looking at life of wanting to evangelise everyone he saw then we would get loads of help.
It seems to me that good labels get help but "bad labels" people struggle to accept and to deal with, esp in Christian circles.
I wonder what other differing labels like that come to mind?

Humility

I've been having an interesting chew over on this one after recently my other half has been told he's humble on 2 different occasions. Now I am not saying he isn't but I did realise that the suggestion of him being humble is that he is quiet, thinks a lot before he speaks and is quite wise, on the whole, when he does speak. Very cool but is this really what humble is? Are those of us who seem to speak quickly not humble? Very much we are often not seen as humble by others.

I was looking up what humble meant in a recent Bible study I was doing about Jesus who was the most humblest person ever but He was quick to speak, often put people in their place, though I know too that what He said was the right thing to say too.

So after much prayer, thought, chewing over whilst doing other things, the conclusion I have come to is that being humble means being totally reliant on God, knowing that with God we can do all things but without Him we are nothing. Its not about being quiet and not doing things, of sitting meekly in the corner, it is about being bold enough to step out there and be and do knowing how great our God is and how much He wants to do with us.

Wonder if I'm right? But I know I'm going to keep on working on learning to rely on Him.

Torn Ligaments

I was with a neighbour the other day talking about another neighbour who'd had a car accident. Her and her daughter had similar injuries but her daughter had broken her foot, the mother had torn ligaments. What my neighbour said fascinated me. She said that the torn ligaments were not so noticeable to begin with and would take longer to heal.

In Ephesians 4:16 it says "from whom the whole body, joined and knit together tightly by ligaments, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love"

As I keep being burdened by a need to pray for unity in The Church this really has struck me. I wonder how many of the divisions in the Body of Christ weren't noticed at first, were just a bit painful, but then as time went on one knew something was wrong but wasn't sure what. But then when the problem is discovered it will take a long time to heal. This is, I think, why its a burden few want to carry. If I'd have known that it was so hard maybe I wouldn't have taken it on either :)

But anyway this is a long drawn out process. In fact once a ligament is torn then it often never heals the same. Also it is not uncommon for people with torn ligaments to get depressed. I wonder sometimes if that goes on in our congregations as a collective, not as individuals, but as a corporate body. There is a malady, a feeling of not wanting things to change, of needing to potter on in the same old same old just because to do anything else takes too much.

What we must realise too, which is encouraging, is that even when a ligament is severely torn and the person may never walk again the body is still intaked, just not able to function and be as effective as it should be. Perhaps too this is why we often wonder why The Church seems so ineffective in some areas, but that could just be because it is a useless ligament that we need to wait for it to heal.

Father God we need You to do a might miracle and heal these torn ligaments, to help us see the tearing and to try to use these joints when things are still torn.

Sun Waking up?

I thought I'd just post this from SpaceWeather.com. I posted a while back that they were predicting that the sun was waking up and I was wondering what prophetic significance it had - accentuated after watching the movie 2012!!! But very much they were saying on SpaceWeather.com that what happens with the sun will dramatically effect here on earth.
Maybe this is why we are feeling restless. Jesus does say when He comes back we will all see. So?
Anyway read on and see what you think - (Probably to get the links to work you'll need to go to the webpage on SpaceWeather.com as I'm not sure how I get them up here and working!!)


COMPLEX ERUPTION ON THE SUN: On August 1st around 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was sunspot 1092. At about the same time, an enormous magnetic filament stretching across the sun's northern hemisphere erupted. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action:


Click to launch a movie (EUV 304 Å)

The timing of these events suggest they are connected, and a review of SDO movies strengthens that conclusion. Despite the ~400,000 km distance between them, the sunspot and filament seem to erupt together; they are probably connected by long-range magnetic fields. In this movie (171 Å), a shadowy shock wave (a "solar tsunami") can be seen emerging from the flare site and rippling across the northern hemisphere into the filament's eruption zone. That may have helped propel the filament into space.

In short, we have just witnessed a complex global eruption involving almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by the event is heading directly for Earth: SOHO movie. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when it arrives on or about August 3rd.

more images: from Francois Rouviere of Mougins, France; from Rogerio Marcon of Campinas SP Brasil; from Didier Favre of Brétigny-sur-Orge, France; from Cai-Uso Wohler of Bispingen, Germany; from Wouter Verhesen of Sittard, The Netherlands; from Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, California

Dilemmas

Dilemmas are interesting things to have to deal with. I have just come back from only the one day at New Wine, a huge Anglican based week long conference, based in a field near where we live. Its interesting that we have never been there before, even though it happens every year and is only 40 mins drive from our house. Probably the reason. Have you noticed how we also like to do mission in places that are not on our doorstep too?

I have been a bit challenged by God on a few personal things recently and realise that the congregation I went to last Sunday does speak a lot about getting oneself right with God and going from there, which is a great place to start, but the talks we heard yesterday, on the whole, were much more about doing, getting out there, justice.

I love the 24-7 ethos that speaks of prayer, mission and justice though am still trying to work out how that works in the world that I live in. It would be great to have some like minded people on board but as yet God has not revealed them.
So my dilemma at the moment is to try to work out what it is God wants, not just for me but for us all. Not the whole world but us as a family which with Ben and Tabi growing up looks very different every day almost.

I would love to buy a big house and fill it full of children in some deprived part of the country. I would love to start a Simple organic church here in my home and release people into who God has called them to me not to just fit the mold. I would love to go abroad on an internship but the ones I like seem to want graduates. I am about to embark on a course that will open doors to go into university.

Sometimes you see and hear people who's lives are just so sorted and it seems all so straight forward. I wonder if that is true?

So as I wrestle with my dilemma I may not blog so much, but then I may use this as a space to voice what I feel and then see what feedback I get.

God really does want us to be involved with Him in justice and setting people free. In fact He says so very clearly in Isaiah 58 and 61 amongst other places. Someone said recently that there are more mentions of justice issues in the Bible than being born again and yet so many congregations labour more on making sure everyone is born again than walking justly.

How do we do this in the places God has placed us? in the families He has given us to protect and release? the partners He has given us to love and cherish? the neighbourhoods where we are now?

Heroes or Anit heroes?

We were listening to the news on the radio today about this Facebook page paying tribute to Raoul Moat and how badly the social services and police had let him down. Here is man who has murdered one person who's only crime was to go out with Raoul's ex-girlfriend, and attempt to murder his ex-girlfriend who he claims to love and a policeman who was doing this job. What makes this man a hero?

We live in strange times when someone like this can be help up as a kind of hero and those who are doing their jobs, like the police, as criminals because this man committed suicide. What are we teaching people? Is this going to encourage people to want to join the police force, want to fight for justice, to join in with the social services teams to help people out. I am tired of it all.

But then as I looked more and prayed into it, it feels to me as part of a scheme to stop people trusting in authority, to stop them trusting in the very people that have been put into our society to protect us. There is so much in the news at the moment, from the Baby P horror where it was again the social services who were seen as the bad guys not the people who had tortured the poor baby, and then the incident with the Brazilian boy who ran when the Police shouted "Stop" and they killed him. Why did the boy run anyway when he was from a country where Police carry guns and do shoot people? In fact in Brazil they shoot street children just to get rid of them, and that is the Police there who do that.

We may not have a perfect police force or social services but it would be great if we didn't keep running them down, but saw that people make choices and some of that involves them deciding to commit suicide after murdering one person and shooting 2 others. Surely this person cannot be a hero? or even an anti-hero? Dear Jesus please help us get things back in perspective.

From the Graduation speach in the Movie Eclipse

Will write more on what I think of the 3rd Twilight Movie, Eclipse, in some other blog but for now just feel this speech by Jessica at their graduation is what every young person needs to hear, and also every parent.

“When we were five, they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our things were answers like astronaut, president, or in my case, princess… When we were ten, they asked us again. We answered - rock star, cowboy, or in my case, gold medalist… But now that we’ve grown up, they want a more serious answer. Well, how about this… Who the hell knows? This isn’t a time to make hard and fast decisions. This is the time to make mistakes. Take the wrong train and get stuck somewhere chill. Fall in love - a lot. Major in philosophy because there’s no way to make a career out of that. Change your mind. Then change it again because nothing is permanent. So make as many mistakes as you can. That way, someday, when they ask again what we want to be… We won’t have to guess. We’ll know.”

Faith Filled Church

Whatever do we mean by this expression? Just recently I have had people coming to me to try to persuade me to come to "their church" and the main thing that each of them tell me is that their congregation is Biblically based and faith filled!!! Some even mention that it is "really following The Lord".

You know I am really pleased for each and everyone of them. I just hope they are in the place God wants them to be not because that for the moment the person in charge is saying what they would like to hear.

I remember when I moved to N.Ireland and decided to look for a church where one could feel the Holy Spirit moving in. Well we went to Presbyterian, Baptist, Church of Ireland, New church, Pentecostal, and more. The biggest problem was that when one waited and listened one could hear/feel the Holy Spirit moving in each one of them. And actually given free reign in most of them but in the style to which each person denomination was comfortable in.

Ok yes I know we can all say we have seen the Holy Spirit quenched, stopped from moving, but I often wonder if that is because there are people who have come because that place at one time suited their needs, that they would say it was "faith filled" and yet now the teaching has moved on to something that isn't what they want to hear and so they squash things from moving. I'm sure there are loads of theories why at times it feels like the Holy Spirit isn't moving and I know as I made Christian friends in N.Ireland that they would tell me that Holy Spirit wasn't moving in certain places but I can only say what I got from God on my 1st impression of entering many buildings.

I think really we need to see the whole gamete of the different congregations like a diamond. A diamond only shines so wonderfully when it has many polished sides. If it doesn't have the many sides then actually it is a piece of glass. It is the way the light catches all the different facets of the diamond that made it so beautiful and as it moves so the way it reflects the light changes and can be awe-inspiring.

So why can't we let all those other denominations, small groups, simple churches, high churches, etc shine the light of Jesus in the way He wants and all join together so that the rest of the world just gasps in wonder?

A Dog Example

This week as well as the usual stuff we are walking a friend's dog whilst she is a nurse at Glastonbury music festival.

I find dogs amazing. This dog totally adores his owner but now when we go for a walk he follows me. I have become the new top dog to be followed. I have been reading about the change that comes over us when we start to accept Jesus and follow Him, of how we go from following our own path to following Him. And I think often we can be like dogs where, even though at times it looks like we might have gone off for a wander on our own in fact we are just having a sniff about to see what is around, doing our own thing, but in the end we know how is the one who wants to be with us and so we, eventually, go back to following who we are meant to be with. The dogs always know, even when they have gone off to play with each other, just who they belong to and who to follow home.

It gives me courage when I think of both my children, who both have made that move to follow Jesus and yet at times at the moment look as if they have forgotten who they are following. Using the dog example either one day they will lift their heads up from where they are sniffing and remember or He will call them and they will come scampering.

Made to feel Welcome

This week I am in the chorus of a local amateur dramatic production of King Lear. Tabi has been in it for a while and asked me to join with her this time.I have found this group to be warm, welcoming, friendly, supportive and accepting of all. We are a team.
I also help with the Citizens Advise Bureau (CAB). I have found this group to be warm, welcoming, friendly, supportive and accepting of all. In both these groups I don't feel like the new girl, though in both I am one of the least experienced and with a potential for screwing it all up. In fact at dress rehearsal last night I did because we are wearing masks and I am almost blind under mine as I have to take my glasses off. Instead of people saying I shouldn't do this everyone has made sure I am looked after and cared for. I did need to make my needs know but felt like I was in a safe place to do that.

I have been in Christian groups that have been warm, welcoming, friendly, supporting and accepting of all, who have picked up those who were struggling and made sure they were part of the team. But I have also been in Christian groups where that does not happen.
Until recently I thought I had a problem with authority as I can get quite fearful around certain leaders and I have done all my inner heal pray with that but still had that fear. Last night I realised I was being open and talking to the director about my sight problem without a stutter and without fear. Also at CAB I was having a laugh and a chat with someone who is very much in a senior position here.
So do I have a problem with leadership or is it to do with the fact of the way the leader is?

As I think more and more about dechurching and what comes next I hope that I can get to be part of a team, build a team, that can be warm, welcoming, friendly, supporting and accepting and going somewhere. I want to say of course this will happen with God at the centre but both the AmDram group and CAB do not have God at the centre. But they do have confidence in what they are doing and trust in their cast/team. I pray that for all congregations this will happen because actually with God at the centre us Children of God should be able to do this with even more warmth, welcomingness, friendliness, support and acceptance.... But also with a huge dose of love :)

The Garden

A quick update on the garden and the whole no dig things!

It was all very hard work at the beginning digging up all those shrubs and weeds but it is looking good now. And is all reasonably simple to look after, especially if I knew what where the first vestiges of veggie plants and what are those hard ass weeds that will just keep on coming. I am now very good at identifying ground elder and withe-wind, both of which have to go. They are the hardened weeds. And the faithful old bramble that I have been battling with these past 3 years, as well as some Japanese maple that no matter how many times it is cut down sends up suckers to keep the whole processes going.

But we have lots of lettuce, so many in fact that for some the joy of salad with every meal is wearing a bit thin. And there has been red currants that have never really seen the light of day yielding plenty, though as yet I am not sure what to do with them!! There isn't enough to make jam but too many to not do something with. And we've had a nice crop of strawberries, though really only enough to pick and eat. But maybe if we didn't eat them as we picked them we'd have lots! And there are broccoli and courgettes and many other exciting things fruiting along the way.

But knowing that in the beginning I was comparing this whole no-dig gardening to our spiritual lives I do like to ask God what He has to say on it all.
First I notice that to keep it easy I do a little weeding in the morning when I am sorting out the chickens and rabbit, usually in my dressing gown as I'm a morning person and Ian a night owl. In totally animals and weeding takes about 20 mins. But that made me see that this is how I need to be with my inner life with God, checking on it when I get up, pulling out the bad stuff that has grown up over night and getting ready for whatever the day has to throw at me. In fact I have been making sure I get in an hour of Bible reading, journaling and praying most mornings before doing the animals and garden and I have been amazed at the difference that does make to just how I am looking at many things.
Then I notice when I go out later in the day to just check on things that often a few other of the hardened weeds have crept up and need pulling out or they will start to get big in the sunshine. Now this is where with me I am not so good, I do not often take stock of what is going on in my heart during the day and pull things out. These are the things that I can ignore and let grow, and often they are the hardened weeds of attitude, of those niggles with family and friends that always seem to occur. This one I need to let the gardener in a bit more often to deal with my hardened weeds.
Then at the end of the day I have a final check on eggs and then water things, especially any new plants I have put in. And again there are some of those hardened weeds that have some how reappeared. I am learning at night that before I sleep, as my head is on the pillow, I need to just go through with God where I've screwed up, where I've let in those weeds, and also to make sure we water what needs to be grown in my life.

Today Ian noticed that some withe-wind had grown up with the runner beans. It had managed to disguise itself and had grown to the height of the beans and was all twisted round them. It took ages for him to unwind them and not harm the runner beans. But again this makes me see how easy some of the strongholds in my heart can hide and look like something good and grow up together. And how then I have to be more careful how I deal with them as I could destroy some potential fruit too.

I am learning that for my garden it is an every day thing, even with the easier no-dig gardening, and for my heart, my spiritual life, it is also an every day thing even though I am as one with Jesus and have the power of the Holy Spirit walking with me. Neither can just be left!

Dechurching

I have been following some comments on Neil Cole's blog about Organic church, something that God has been talking to me about for a long time now. Sometimes I listen and "get it" and give it a try and other times I just don't get it at all and get despondent or even try to join a church, which seems to often end in tears, on my part.

But there was one comment that struck me from someone in Arizona about how when they have people come to them to talk about organic church they tell them first to detox from what they are use to. This comment has sat with me a few days and then I had an email from someone wanting me to help someone out who's daughter has had a rough time at school and at 13 is going to go for home schooling. Well interestingly the first thing I suggested to her was that she deschool. Deschooling is a way of the child and parent getting all the stuff of school out of their system, detoxing, and then being able to get into home schooling without trying to do school at home or feel guilty that they aren't doing what school would be doing.
Please don't get me wrong, even though I am/have been a dedicated home educator I have nothing against schools and people who send their children there. As I write this I do wonder if I could say the same on the church front. I think I can with home educating because apart from a year and then 5 weeks in year 9 for Ben and now this year at college for Tabi we have not done school so to speak, so really apart from things I've got to get over about when I was at school :) we haven't had any issues with school at all. So can be happy with our choice and happy with others.
Now as I said I feel that organic simple church is something God has placed on me years ago and yet I have never really dechurched. I do it for a while then want to get involved so I can be a part of something. So all the things I'd started to detox on all came back, but a bit like a drug addict or exsmoker the hit is harder than before and more destructive.
Again I am really not saying that this path is for everyone and I feel I am working towards the place where i can say, as with school, that so long as people have made an informed choice and can be who they are meant to be then I have nothing against organised church in whatever form it comes in from CofE to Pentecostal, Charismatic to Catholic, but that for me, like home educating, simple organic church is for me.

And very much like the child who goes in and out between school and home school they actually are the worst behaved, hardest to get on with, hardest to fit into a group, whether that group be home ed or schooled, I think I am bouncing between the two and need to give myself permission to detox, to dechurch and then to see what God decides He wants to do with me.

For another blog but so often I try to sort out God's plan for me and really do need to carry on with where I was on the last blog and trust that His will will be done.

Your Will Will Be Done

Apparently, according to Nehemia Gordon, in the correct Hebrew translation of Matthew's gospel the "Lord's Prayer" should read "...Your Kingdom come Your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven...". Now that puts a whole different slant on things. In fact as one friend said it makes your prayer life different.

How?

Well if God's will will be done then we can relax a bit because what He knows is the right thing to happen will happen. But also it ups things a bit too when one gets one's head round prayer as being a partnership with God. We really do need to know what God's will is so that we don't waste countless hours praying for something He doesn't want to happen. I know with the partnership thing we can be negotiating because we do have that amazing honour of, through Jesus, being allowed into Father's throne room. But still we need to know we are coming in in His will not in our own great ideas.

So once we know what God's will is we can be praying in His will that will be done, which then makes more sense of Jesus putting this line in for His disciples to simplify the whole prayer thing.

Surprises

I was doodling this in church the other Sunday and decided to submit it to the local Climate Change group who are publishing a book on people's thoughts on climate change and they have decided to publish it! Surprised or what!!

CLIMATE CHANGE!!

Changing, changing! We know the climate is changing!
Everything in the world is always changing!
With it comes floods
With it comes rain
With it comes total change in the whole system of climate as we know it
We are told to embrace change
Told that change is always with us
Change when ecospheres are destroyed
Changes when species die
Changes when what we knew has gone
Changing, changing! We know the climate it changing!
Should we embrace this change?
Should we try to change and stop this change?
Is all change good?
Is all change bad?
How can we see and harness what is good from this climate changing?
How can we deal with and stop what is bad?
Can we stop what is bad?
Is life as we know it all over?
And yet, and yet!
In all of this what picture can we hold on to
Is there hope is all of this?
Is there something to help us through all this?
When we see the world leaders not seem to be able to agree
When we see protests appearing to be ignored
What can we hold on to?
And yet back in a flood
Back in a time of total livelihood being destroy
There comes a symbol of hope.
There comes something we can hold on to
There in that tree as helicopters fly above the floods
There is the woman, labour induced by the trauma
There she is giving birth in a tree
There is our symbol of hope
There is a sign that God has said He will not destroy the world with a flood again
There is a sign of new birth
There is a sign of hope
In all this fear,
In all this disillusionment
There in a tree in an forgotten African country
There is a symbol of hope
There is new birth
Help us hold on to that symbol of rebirth
The symbol of hope
In all this change and change and more change there is hope
Hold on tight to it

Family Part 2

Thank you to everyone for the lovely comments I've got about this. Shame you can't get them on the blog so we can get a discussion going sometime but never mind!!

I've been chewing this whole family thing over a lot and its not often I visit a topic a 2nd time so quickly. But I keep wondering if instead of just saying the Church is Family we need to start teaching more on what that means. To the 1st Century church this was all so easy because they were use to families living together, having to get over disagreements because their livelihood depended on it with the whole farming things. And with the early Church they couldn't bitch about each other because they were in a persecuted minority.

I have been looking at families. A friend of mine has recently got engaged. Very romantic story about meeting her fiance on Facebook, but then with him being in Canada and her in San Diego they decided she would live with him family in Canada for a bit to see how the relationship developed. A great way of getting to know someone warts and all. I think of another friend in California who married 3 years ago where the two families were so intertwined and so close to each other that even when she was not seeing her now husband (they took about a 4 year split) his parents still supported her in mission, and of course everyone was so delighted when they got back together. And because they were all so close there was room to include us when we went over for the wedding.

Now that's a question how come its the closer families are to each other that there is always room for someone else? Maybe this is the same for church? The closer those in the congregation are to each other, the more secure in all things, the more truly welcoming they are? The more the less of a threat if someone new gets invited to dinner, someone knew speaks "a word", the leaders are safe in who they are and what is going on that there is space for people to make mistakes?

Actually that is something I think is a biggie too for families - the space to make mistakes. My kids are great but they do screw up but I still love them, help them out and give them some love whilst they sort out the next move and because of this they seem to try lots of things without fear. And I know this in other families too where it is safe to make mistakes.

Again though going back to the congregation thing, because that is really where the rubber hits the road, I think in the West we have a luxury of being able to fall out with each other. In the parts of the world where the Church is persecuted for just being they do not have that luxury. But also I see in those parts of the world a deeper understanding about the survival of family.

I do wonder if here in the West we have lost a lot of what connected family is what with the nuclear family, of being able to survive without the help of parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and that has fallen into our congregational life?

.......But You Cant Choose Your Family!

I've been pondering church/congregational life after a very poorly attended 24hrs of prayer in our town, and the phrase that came to mind was "you can choose your friends but you cant choose your family" We keep going on about how the church is family, of how we are brothers and sisters in Christ but we often think that should be that we are all friends and all get on with each other.

We have just had a bit of a family filled weekend, seeing Ian's parents and one of his sisters on Sunday and me seeing my Mum and having a bit of a heart to heart with her on Monday, and also of watching how Ben and Tabi react with them too. All these people are my family, whether in-laws or parent or children or spouse. Mustn't forget Ian in this equation!! But all of them react differently to each other and I react differently to each of them, and differently to them when other combinations are about. But they are all family.

I wonder often if we actually say/know we are family in the Church (Big C world wide church) and yet expect to act like friends. I tell my friends things I wouldn't tell my family. I do things differently with my friends than I do with my family. I choose my friends because our interests are similar, our ways of thinking are similar or challenging. I see one friend and we talk about something, another and we talk about something else. Some I see or email on a very regular basis, some I see very occasionaly. But with family its different. With spouse and children I live with them and my life does have to fit in with theirs and visa versa. With the wider family because we life a distance away we made arrangements to see each other but often we have to grit our teeth and deal with certain things, the way Mum refuses to see her son has grown up, the way another parent doesn't want to see there are problems that could be their fault. With some families they see each other every day because they live across the street, with others they live in different countries. Some families have gone through so much that the mention of a parent just causes so much pain because of the abuse that has been done, with another its just a hurt because of misunderstanding and breakdown in relationship.

So as we can see there are happy families, ok families, close families, distant families, families full of hurt and pain, all only held together by blood ties.

As the Family of God we are held together by the blood tie of Jesus and actually sometimes I think we need to accept that this is all that holds us together. Yes in some places there is a close bond within the congregation, with others its bond through a para-church movement, with some its through a distance but a share association, but also with some it is only that blood tie because there has been hurt and abuse and pain, relationship breakdown, expectation, a congregation so large that the quiet ones get lost in it and never get to use their giftings, with others an openness and a way of sharing for all.

I think we need to stop expecting the blood tie of Jesus to make us into one big happy family. Yes this is what He prayed for in John 17:20-21. Actually He prayed that we would be united as Jesus and God are united, but actually I think that also comes by hard work and wanting it not just by expecting it!

Not sure where I'm going to go with this at the moment but I'm going to pray and trust and see what help my Heavenly Father can give me. I wonder too how much we as children try to do the family stuff when I know as Mum that I have to be helping my children. Maybe, just maybe we need to lean on God more and let Him help us to be a close happy family in Him. How does that work when others don't seem to want it or get it? I don't know but I think I'll go for a long walk and pray about it!

Canadian Geese

Do you remember me saying about the joy of the honking of the Canadian goose sometime in the winter telling the whole world that one of his kind had arrived on his river?

Both are a long way from a migration route so it is so lovely for him to have a mate now. And they have now had babies. About 4-5 little goslings to look after. Ian saw them the other day. They have made a nest at the bottom of the old Chantry, a lovely house and gardens, and parent Geese where taking baby geese for a swimming lesson. Ian said that Dad stood on the side looking so protective whilst Mum led them into the water. I felt so pleased for him.

Again it reminded me of how life is, of how we need to protect those things we have waited so long for and have finally been given. It is so easy to take things for granted once we've had them a while, like our relationship with God. Someone was pondering on a blog where they would be now if they hadn't gone into that 1st 24/7 prayer room over 10 years ago. They now work full time for 24/7 prayer.

Again the lovely Canadian goose has given me a good example of keeping an eye on what I have got and not taking it all for granted.

Busy/Distractions

I have been really busy of late and so haven't had time to blog. Actually I haven't had much time to think too deeply so there has been very little in my head.

I was exploring this with a friend and she had just read how people with my motivation can get caught up in being busy, pleasing people - as in not in that people pleasing way but just going with the flow as they like to be with people to encourage them on their journey, doing lots of little things that lead to that feeling of being overwhelmed. But as well as this they lose out on their calling, on what the God given plan for their lives is.

This is where I got to. Oh it didn't come on all of a sudden but has been creeping up on me. First I take on this job, then that friend wants to see me, then this other job, then another friend, as well as the regular family commitments. Suddenly my day is too full to think, to really pray without getting distracted, to have time to write and be creative, even no time to do the CAB study that I really want to. I had to slow down, to rethink, and this is what I have been doing, in the gaps, between this conversation.

I know God has a plan for me in this town and I don't think it is to do with cleaning old people's houses, no matter how much they need it and how lovely they are. I have spent time sorting out what I do and how much time it takes and then cutting it back. Yes we could do with the money, but I have survived on less when I have been doing what God has called me to. I wonder where that trust has gone? God will provide for all our needs so I do not need to be doing jobs that then distract me from what He wants for me. And even though this is probably another blog space I do wonder why it is so much easier to trust God when one is with people who also trust God? In Ywam we all had to trust God but it does seem in regular congregational settings we trust more in programs. But I digress........

I am having to set good boundaries, to learn to say No. I need to go back to being a human being rather than a human doing.

The interesting thing though I noticed yesterday when Ian and I took time out from doing what we ought to do and just did what we wanted to do that there was time in our garden. Time to plant and time to weed! And I remember God saying when I started on this whole thing with the chickens and the no dig gardening that this was part of the establishing the land. It is interesting that when we took time out to be there was time to establish something in our land. There was also time for a neighbour to share a confidence, and for Tabi to cook us a meal. Both things are rare as the neighbour is very private person, and Tabi really does not like cooking. But I believe this came from slowing down, from being not doing, from doing what we wanted not what we ought to, for having time for us rather than others.

My prayer is that I am bold enough to stick to my boundaries when people try to push them, when others need me, and to then find that space again to keep exploring what it is that God is wanting us/me to establish, what His vision for me is and how I get there.

Avatar

Oh started something this morning!!! There is a Facebook link saying about how Avatar the movie is linked to occultic things, thus seeming to imply that the director is into all this, or that the anti-Christ is ruling, or something. Not quite sure what really. But to view the link you have to click the "like" button and then it registers on your Facebook status! Now if that isn't up to something I am not sure what is.

Anyway I put some dismissive comment with it on my FB and have had an interesting response from one friend. Thought it would set him off actually but......

Anyway what struck me is how much do we as Christians go looking for the paranormal, the occult, the dodgy when actually Jesus never commissioned us to do this? We were sent to tell the good news of Him, of how through Jesus we can actually talk with God, how all the wrong things we have done in this world can be forgive by what He did for us and so from that we will not just have a more connected and peaceful time here on this earth but will go to spend eternity with our Father in heaven. And from this we are meant to be discipling people into following this awesome God, becoming more like Jesus whatever that may mean (another subject for another blog day!) and going out to heal the sick, release the captives, etc, etc.

Does putting a link up to tell people that a movie is from the devil really help them?

At the recent prayer school at our nearby congregation one of the things that struck me was how we often tell people the bad news of Jesus, that they have sinned and are going to go to hell if they don't turn to Jesus, rather than the good news about the destiny He has for them in Him, and the whole being in touch with God. I feel that this Avatar link comes in the bad news part rather than the great news about Jesus. And yes I do know both the whole being forgiven for sins is as important as the being connected with God but should we not be proclaiming rather than making people feel bad?

Elections

It is only 6 days now till the UK general elections. I know it is my democratic right to vote, but the question is who for? This is not a political discussion but just to say how with our local candidates they have all 3 taken very strange tactics, identical tactics but all the same. Each has chosen not give points from their manifestos but to rundown the other candidates. Some of the things they are saying are very silly and just obvious too.

If I was taking my vote on who gave me the clearest picture of what they stood for it would be one of the minor parties just because they are telling me what they stand for not how rubbish the other parties are. I have even written to one of the candidates to say how disappointed I was that when he gave me a card what only had 3 points on why I should vote for him these were 1. that he was local, 2. that in our area it is only a 2 horse race, and 3. that the other main horse didn't live in the area. At least the English Democrats (where did these come from?) can tell that they will give good hospital treatment to me when I'm only and a good pension and jobs only to people who speak English. I'm not saying I'll vote for them but at least they told me what they stand for rather than how rubbish everyone else is.

At least with these televised debates we can know at least what the leaders of the big 3 stand for.

Ironic

This made me mad a first and then made me smile at how institutionalize one can get.

It's a friend's 30th birthday next week and he is having one of those age crises that some people seem to get on the "milestone" birthdays. The usual "what have I done with my life" stuff. All very normal. Anyway his wife is trying to organise a party for him. They have a house group they are part of so many from that were going to be invited. Since letting everyone know the date of his birthday and subsequent party the congregation they go to has announced a series of prayer meetings on Weds nights. Jon's birthday is on a Weds. The of the couples from their house group of 5 couples are not now going to come to the party but will go to the prayer meeting. Fine!

But here is the ironic bit - the prayer meetings are about how they can do church differently and be more relational!!!!!! Need I say more?

UK Elections

I was praying about the elections this morning and had some thoughts

There is all this talk about how really there are only 2 parties, Labour and Conservative, and that a vote for LibDems is a tactical vote. It is interesting to note that only 100 years ago the Labour party was in its infancy and was seen as a bit odd and radical. And yet it was made up of people who were passionate about what they believed in, had principles they were going to fight and die for and so by the end of the Second World War they are strong enough to be voted into power and to implement the principles they had so diligently fought for for the last 50 years or more.

I was told on Monday that Clement Attlee, the 1st majority Labour prime minister in 1945, stuck to his principles of a health service for all, housing for all and education for all even though Britain had a huge debt falling the Second World War. He believed that to go through with what he had promised the people and had been voted in for was the important principle. Do we have politicians like that now? Do we have political parties like that now?

I was also led on to pray for those Christians that I know who are standing for parliament this time with the major parties. I do not know why they have chosen them and not gone for being part of the Christian party, but I do believe they have chosen the harder route. We need to be praying that these people can stick to their God given principles even if the parties they have felt led by God to stand with may not be so committed.

And maybe too we need to be praying for our young people, those who were part of the Wilberforce Academy in Oxford in April this year, those doing politics and law degrees, those feeling a calling to human rights, politics, etc whether Christian or not to be able to be passionate about things, to have principles and to be able to stick to them.

Rumours

I was wondering about what we really know to be true, as in from the horse's mouth true.

As we approach our UK General Election date of 6th May we are hearing all sorts about all the various political parties from the other parties. What do they base their truth on? And how much do we believe about these parties from those tidbits and from satire programs? And where will we go to find out the truth? Who can we believe?

There were rumours of Barak Obama, that even though he went to church with is wife he was really a Muslim. What was true there? How will be know? I feel there reading his book helps, but that takes time.

I feel that in a lot of ways we now live in a world where we are all too busy so it is easier to believe the little bits and pieces others find out for us rather than go looking ourselves. We just do not have the time! We have got lazy! We do not check the credentials of the teller, or if they have an axe to grind, or with some of the comedians just that they know how to tell a funny story well.

We need, with this election coming up, to take the time out to find out for ourselves, to spend time reading those manifestos, chatting not just with the candidates we like but with all the parties, and being willing to ask those questions on things that are dearest to our hearts.

That means too we need to find out what is dearest to our hearts!

What We Don't Know

I have been reading Barak Obama's book on his early life. Even though he is half black half white it is the being black that stands out. As he explains how other black young men felt and the conflict he had inside about being discriminated by white people and yet having a white mother and white grandparents is very interesting. There is something in what he says his black friends say about continuously feeling oppressed in a white man's world and the anger that causes inside of them, that feeling that they will never really be able to be true to themselves, that whole depth that slavery has done to the psyche of this people group. And of how people who were mixed race actually did not want to recognise the black African inside of them. All this is something I will never understand and neither will most of my friends.

It got me to pondering something that was said at church yesterday, of how we shouldn't call someone a "chav", a word that came about originally to apply to young men, generally white, who lived in large council housing estates, went around in gangs and were violent. And yes like lots of words it has become an insult but also to me I was feeling like it describes a people group, again a group that have been so down trodden that we, as in motivated, educated, encouraged to reach our potential will never know.
These are young people who listen to a certain aggressive style of music, girls wear provocative clothing from a young age, boys in tracksuits and trainers, under age sex is common, but the main thing that gives them this hopelessness way of life is that they are 3rd or 4th generation unemployed, their schools are deprived schools where teachers do not want to come, and they have people in government trying to help them out by throwing money at them, but not understanding the depravation in their souls.
Brenan Manning talks of people like these before the word came into being. Of how even when they meet Jesus they cannot get out of this cycle. Yes Jesus gives them some hope and they do want to change but with such little education, being stuck in slum housing, maybe having to resort to prostitution to feed their families, to feed themselves, not because of a drug habit but because there are no jobs.

Sometimes at church I do wondering if we do try to reach people we know nothing about like the "chavs" when we have never lived like them, like the black person who even though they have never known slavery feel something deep inside. In fact with the "chavs" they have finished up in the housing estates they have because to a point they were the white slaves of the oppressive landlords, mill owners, etc. We have never walked their road, we do not know.
So maybe it is ok to use the word "chav" as a people group so long as we are not using it as an insult, but also maybe we need to be careful we do not think we can understand when we have never ever been there.

Sheep

Went to a friend's son's Christening yesterday (thoughts on Christenings to be left to another day!) and they acted out the story of the Lost Sheep with some of the children. The woman who was the shepherd took all the sheep with her when she went to look for the lost sheep.
You know I had never seen it that way. Some how I'd seen it as the shepherd being more concerned over the one missing sheep than the safe 99 so had left them behind, a sort of safety in numbers thing. Bur really there is no way Jesus would leave us who are with Him to look for one who isn't. Of course He would take us with Him. And remembering the whole thing of middle eastern sheep is that they follow the shepherd wherever he calls and wouldn't have stayed behind anyway.
So does this mean that as Church we really should all be going off to look for the lost, in a crowd, rather than just waiting for the lost to either come to us or for those "called to evangelize" to bring the lost back?
At the end of this story the sheep had a party along with the shepherd. Suddenly this story makes loads more sense. Now to work out how to put it into practice.

Romans

Woke up praying and thinking about Romans this morning! Basically I've done lots of spiritual mapping and very much there is always this whole things about the control of the Roman empire on our land and then the control of the church of Rome on our land and the aftermath of all that, leading very much to a spirit of control. And very much in whatever you read, be it on spiritual matters to fiction books Rome is seen as the bad guy, wanting total control, who walks across the land and stamps out the indigenous cultures and uniforms them.
We live in an area that actually welcomed the Romans over. They were trading with the Romans before they invaded and actually appear to have given them a foothold in England. There is a swath of land that had Roman style villas dated before 33AD when Roman came a conquered and settled.
So what sort of things should we be praying when we see the control in this land but know that it welcomed in the control of the Romans? a area where the whole idea of organised life was clearly welcomed, even maybe happening beforehand.
We will keep praying and see what God leads us to but it would be interesting to know what it was the led the Romans and the church of Rome to want to control others in the first place.
Or really is everyone like that, likes to know how things go, keeps away from letting everyone have total freedom, just in case they lose their position, their place of being. How controlling are we all really?

Meetings Mondays

I do not know what goes on in this town but it seems to be meetings can only happen on a Monday!
Yesterday we had at least 3 we could go to, 2 to do with prayer and one a canoeing one - for Ian not me that one!! And once a month here on Mondays (different Mondays) there is Churches Together, Climate Change, and something else which I forget.
I am already committed, as is the car, to take Tabi to and from drama in the next town. This use to be on Weds but they changed it to Mondays!! And we missed out playing 2 of the witches in the local amateur dramatic society's production on Roald Dahl's Witches because instead of rehearsing on Tues and Thurs they changed to ....... Mondays and Thurs!!
Though actually I say that is all happens on Mondays but maybe that's not quite true, though so much does, it also happens on Tues which again seem to be able to go into the same spin of there being a choice of 2-3 things on the same Tues :)
And my way of dealing with it all so often is just to stay home and read a book!! So much easier than trying to make a decision :)

Oh to 18-25 again!

After the last post of debt and young people I am now wishing I was that age again. Maybe not a teenager but very much in that age of 18-25 when life seems to sort out a bit more, people start taking you seriously, the hormones are calming down, and the door of opportunity is wide open!

We came back from IAM10 24-7Prayer.com party with a bag full of leaflets. It has taken me a month to get around to look at them and they are totally amazing. It is all on the justice and prayer angle, which is awesome, but all very much aimed at the 18-25 year olds.
Oh I could go on about all sorts but really I am just awfully jealous of these young people who have so much energy too. I'm suffering with lack of energy at the moment too - menopause and chicks flying the nest!
I was wondering what there was out there for those of us who didn't get to Jesus till we were older (30 plus for me) and are only just starting to work out what we are called too. There is loads and I am just trying to get over the things that our society can be prone to throw at us, that by late 40's we are over the hill, which is so untrue but can leap up and grab one at times.
I am now waiting with excitement and anticipation for when my energy comes back after menopause and Ben and Tabi getting a bit more sorted and just see where I will fit. But sometimes there is that frustration of missing out because so little is about to encourage those who are older, no 40-60's group to join. Life very much is geared towards the younger generations
And also to make sure that I don't get too jealous of these opportunities and frustrated when these young people settle for just the ordinary!! :)
Like my dear friend Mavis I want to still be causing hassle for the Kingdom when I'm as old as she is. Bring it on!!

What we are letting our young people do!

I do wonder what we have let our young people become. Interestingly at the moment I am reading a book by Francine Rivers about Rome in about 75AD and again how the youth are just after pleasure and what they can get for themselves. It seems like we have allowed our young people to seek after pleasure, look to themselves and not too worry too much of what comes next, what the consequence are. But as with the observation in Francine Rivers' book it is the parents who have allowed this to happen.
As you know I work in the Citizens Advice bureau (a charity that shows people how to deal with difficulties they have got into) yesterday there were 3 young girls all with major money problems. I was only observing so cannot say anything but what I wanted to say was "what have you been spending your money on?". One girl had a £6,000 car because she needed it to get to work. In my day (oh dear here we go) we use to get cars for a few hundred pounds, and I know they are still out there because we have been looking to get another car and there are loads for not much. But also one's first car was always an old banger not bought on finance. Actually I remember a dear friend on mission who was in a muddle because she had a car on finance and her reason was "because everyone did it".
But it was the attitude of the Adviser I was working with with these young girls. Very much his thing was that these debts were not that bad, that they could get away with paying very little, and even writing the debts off.
We wonder why our economy is in a muddle when an awful lot of people are being able to get rid of their debts by paying £90. Just working the basic sums of 100 people with £10,000 worth of debt and how then that adds up.
Also why it is so easy as a person to be able to get rid of one's debts and yet there are developing countries that if they could get rid of their debts could give health care, education, etc to their people.
I will launch some more of what I have seen and heard with young people in another blog.
But the question I come back to in my head is what can I do? What can the church do? is the church doing anything? I see many young people in church with stuff. Are they in debt? I know not all are as I remember one lovely young girl who was dress making for the whole of her university course so that she wouldn't even get a student loan, which is very much an accepted part of life.
What did Jesus say about money? and our love of it? Again back to the sheep and goats - as a developed, rich country what are we doing for those little ones?

How we should live!

There are a couple of good pieces out there on the blogs - one from Emerging Mummy, which you can get to via Accidental blog and one from the 2churchmice - and what has been buzzing in my head which sort of fits with them. Hey I'm a connector and I like to connect things!!

How do we live our lives? What do I do that makes a difference to other people? How do i walk out my Christian walk in the doing what Jesus would do?
I am very caught up in this whole act justly and behave righteously and am exploring what it means. But when I suggest to people that actually we could form groups to pray blessing over the town, over the area, they look at me as though I have lost the plot.
I am told that one fellowships and prays for each other, that we learn so that we can grow. I am not sure if I understand this when I read what Jesus and the early disciples got up to.
Yes we are to grow in Christ. We are to die to self and take up our cross and that this is a daily thing. But we must be caring for others. What is it Jesus says about how people will be seperated? The sheep and goats story? Those who do good things to others, who see what is going on and take care of them. And He also says "I can only do what I see the Father doing?" and how do we know what the Father is doing? By praying more and more, by seeing the presence of God come down when we pray.

2churchmice look at a book where and Christian and an atheist go round different congregations in US. The atheist notice that there is a lot of talk about self help and very little about caring for others. Yes I know I must care for my fellow believers, but I am afraid for me that is with a desire to lift them up and to see what a difference they could make for the area they live in if they pray and pray and pray some more, hear from God and expect Him to reveal what He wants them to do, and to just see what a difference His Spirit makes when we pray and call Him into a situation.

This is what I want to do. And as Emerging Mummy says I don't want to be remembered for clean floors and a nice house but for so so so much more.
Interestingly in the week my 16 year old daughter said she would keep following God because she wanted to finish up in heaven with me. Now I think that means I must be doing something right - hopefully in my journey with God.