Love is 100 Blogs

So here it is, Blog 100. I have a number of things to say about Ireland, but that can wait for another day.

Today I want to write about love.

This is NOT an engagement announcement, don’t get excited!

But I do want to talk about boyfriend. We went on a very normal and ordinary date on Sunday night. Tea out at a TexMex kind of place and then went to the cinema to see Despicable Me 2 – ordering 2 tickets for 2D Despicable Me 2 is rather a tongue twister.

Boyfriend and I have been through a number of stages, we were long distance for almost 4 years, before the 3 ish months where we were house mates, as he took over my spare bedroom. And now he lives in the next city down, about a 30 minute drive for me or an hour on the bus for him. Therefore going on traditional dates is not something we often do.

Similarly I don’t do well eating food when stressed, I have an ex who never saw me eat in the whole time we were together. One of the ways I knew that Boyfriend was special was that I could eat in front of him.

I’m a bridesmaid at a wedding in the summer and was asked for some suggested Bible readings. So after a discussion on the UK Methodist Facebook group, and a nose through the Methodist Worship book I found a long list and knocked it down to my top three for that wedding. My fave gospel passage is that of when Jesus went to a wedding- how he turned water in to wine and the ordinary into the extraordinary.

One of the other obvious passages is the Love is....

What would you say love is?

I’m very blessed that when I went to A&E with chest pain last month Boyfriend (with only a small amount of pestering) came to sit with me and then bought me a subway sandwich.

To balance that this morning Boyfriend was feeling a bit under the weather so I drove over, with breakfast and drove him to work ready for his big presentation this evening. Plus he was in a smart suit – swoon.

I love the song by Paul Bell – What I call romance. It talks about the everyday things that make love work. You can listen to it here

Love is, just sitting together eating, looking after the other when they are ill, and having someone to watch kids films with.

And here’s to another 100 blogs.

The Long Goodbye

Today was another goodbye! You may recall a year ago I was getting ready to leave, started saying my goodbyes and then circuit meeting decided to keep me, I was called to stay. But now, I really am on the move.

I’ve been putting off writing this blog for ages. This is blog number 99 and I wanted 100 to be special which meant not writing the one before it as then the next one had to be something important. Then I got offered a job! Which could have been blog 100 but I hadn’t written 99! I decided this evening it was about time I got back in my blog seat and update you on what is going on.

Tonight was my last youth fellowship at one of my new churches. It’s a church I love to pieces. The members there care about the children and young people and I feel valued and loved when I work with them. It is sad that today was my last evening with them.

When I got home I found a card from a couple at the Church I live closest too and preached at last Sunday.  They thanked me for my service, the address as well as the choice of hymns. They wished me well in my future. At church this morning a few people asked me about when I was leaving, and were relieved they would see me again before I go.

The next few months are full of working, packing, sorting, and hopefully buying a house – but more about that another time.

For now I’m just starting to say goodbye, the beginning of the end of this six year chapter. Thank you loyal blog reading for journeying on with me as life changes and all seems to be new again.

And as for my new job, more on that in due course. 

Labels

Before I start I’m not exactly sure where the blog is going, nor am I really sure when it starts. You know they say a good story has a beginning, middle and end and at the moment this blog has a middle!

I’m looking after a number of animals this week. Now I’d not really describe myself as an animal person. People usually label themselves as either a cat or a dog person; as I’m allergic to cats I have to be a dog person, and actually this week I’ve been on two dog walks.

The first one was with my parents and brother and our dog. She’s become an old lady at 15 and can’t go very far, but it was very nice for the five of us to walk down the road to a bit of grass. Then this evening I took the two little dogs who’s names I can never remember / I’m not sure which is which so are generally known as black dog and white dog- or just to mix it up red dog and blue dog – due to the colour of their leads. I learnt its not easy with a dog in each hand when they want to go in opposite directions.

The news today has been talking about the seven social classes. You can find out what you are here 

I’m an Emergent service worker. Now I’ve never been particularly happy with being middle class, it seemed such a stalk contrast, but I know because of mine and my parents education I couldn’t be counted as a working class. Actually with the conversations about five years ago about giving youth work a professional status would mean despite its dosser image – well we all know all I do is play pool and table tennis -  it's actually equal to teaching and social work.

BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat were saying that the people on twitter didn’t think class was important, and I’m not sure it is, I just think it’s about labels. We like to label things. We like to know who is like us, who is different.  As well as finding new ways to describe ourselves.

My understanding of discipleship is based around identity. Matthew 16 tells the story of Jesus asking the disciples who people say he is, and who they think he is. It is Simon who declares “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Jesus says, “You don’t know that, God told you that.” So the first part of our discipleship journey is about working out who God is – and it’s not about us, but how God reveals that to us. The conversation goes on with Jesus renaming Simon as Peter, and telling him that Peter means rock, and on this Rock Christ will build his church. So knowing who Jesus is, working out who we are in Him and then working out what that looks like in our lives.

Being a Christian is a way I describe myself. I’m not always proud of what is said and done in my name, but more recently the church is standing up for those caught in poverty by the governments plans –but you could read more about that in the wonderful Youth Pres’ (Hayley) blog 

I’m about to start job hunting again, working out how to label myself is part of the technique of making myself look good on paper, and then bring out the best of myself in interviews – as well as keeping it real!

Who am I? That’s the question I feel like I’m constantly coming back to. Do any labels really help? Can they really describe a full living human in just a few words. Who knows? I don’t. 

Simply waiting

While I was in Italy as part of our devotions we all shared something we were waiting for. Whether it be; news on a church event going on while we were away, news on the health of a relative, waiting for healing, waiting for a suitcase to arrive from the airport. Then it came to me, I could have talked about waiting to find a new job, knowing what God has as the next step, but I talked about waiting for the other side of my future, for when my relationship turns into a marriage.

Last night I went to an act of worship. I’d been involved in setting it up. However I still managed to engage with it, much better than I’d expected. We started by singing then there was space for people to go around the 14 prayer stations. I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts as I went around the stations, looking into some of the characters in the story and taking an item to represent their part of the story.

Take a piece of jewelled cloth...

... to remember Herod dressing Jesus in a fine robe and mocking him.

This led me to ponder on when I mock Jesus, when my faith is a joke, when I go through the motions thinking I’m doing it right, when all I’m doing is going through the motions.

Take a piece of wood...

                                ...  to remember Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross.

Is it me helping Jesus or Jesus helping me? What is my cross, what is my burden, what is it that I have to carry? Who journeys with me?

Take a nail...

                ... to remember the Roman soldiers nailing Jesus to the cross

An everyday item, used in an extraordinary way.

Take a shimmery blue stone...

                                 ... to remember Pilate washing his hands when he handed Jesus over to die

How often do I want to keep my hands clean? Make me dirty in your work Lord.

Take a piece of sponge...

                                ...  to remember the person who offered Jesus a drink.

Let me be the one who feed the hungry, clothes the naked, houses the homeless and quenches the thirsty.

Take a piece of rough cloth...

... to remember the criminals who died with Jesus

What can you say? Those who died with him, one who understood who he was. Jesus’ act of forgiveness while dying beside him.

Take a heart...

                ... to remember the mother Mary’s love and sorrow.

Here I prayed for friends. Mothers who have lost their children, mothers who are pregnant, mothers with new babies. A mixture of joy and sorrow – all surrounded by love.

Take a stone...

... to remember the stone that Joseph of Arimathea rolled in front of the tomb.

I took the stone to represent why Jesus needed to be there, and thought as it is rolled away everything that it took with it – death and sin, thoughts, words and deeds. Gone.

Take a strip of cloth...

... to remember Nicodemus wrapping up Jesus’ body.

A simple bandage. Plasters in children fix many things, in this case Nicodemus did all that he could.

Take a coin...

                ... to remember Judas betraying Jesus

How often do I sell out? How often is money the most important thing?

Take a feather...

                ... to remember Peter disowning Jesus three times before the cock crowed.

The completed bag

A feather, so colourful, so free and so light – I love placing one on my outstretched hand and blowing on it to make it float. Peter, Jesus’ best friend, disowning him,  saying I don’t know him. When it comes down to the line can I stand up and say yes I know Jesus? I hope so.

Take a piece of torn cloth...

... to remember Caiaphas tearing his clothes in anger.

What do I do when I’m angry, or break in spite? When things are out of my control...

Take some cloves...

                ... to remember the women who watched and waited.

I often feel like I’m always waiting for something.

By living simply during lent I’ve tried to live in the moment, not worry about what is next, what I’m longing for and waiting for. But, here we are Holy Saturday. A day of mourning and sadness. Waiting for the dawn. Waiting as we know what we celebrate tomorrow. God who holds us while we wait, be our light. Amen

PS - you may have noticed that was 13 and not 14, the final one was about the people of the world and we took a cut out person to think about where we are in the story and write a prayer on a cross.

Happy Easter.

Holy Week Journey

When I first started this blog it was meant to be about how my job was changing me. But actually I haven't written much about work at all. However, I'm rather pleased with my Messy Easter Morning on Saturday at my most local church - I have 23 in all across the circuit and love working in all the ones I work in, so this isn't favouritism at all, it just happens to be photos I have.

It was a very snowy morning on Saturday so we didn't get many families - well we got one. But we had a number of crafts covering the Holy Week Journey.


Palm Sunday - this was a mixture of Weaving Palm leaves (from Baker Ross) and painting Jesus on a donkey and a crowd.




Maundy Thursday - more painting, the last supper scene painted by the mum of the family and mine and two of the kids favourite meals: theirs was both Pizza!



Good Friday - three simple crosses on a hillside.


Easter Sunday, the empty tomb surrounded by beautiful tissue flowers to represent new life.  As well as the only craft that didn't end up on the wall, and disappeared before I photographed it - chocolate nests. yummy!



Unlike Christmas which seems to last months, Easter is a blur, there is so much in the story to tell, we often skip from Palm Sunday to Easter Day. Or worst still tell the story of death without the joy of new life. For me the whole journey is so important.

So may you know the journey, from celebration and jubilation, to a meal with close friends, to confusion and change, to death and finally to resurrection.

Simple Extravagance

For lent I’ve tried to focus on simplicity. However the past few weeks have seemed to be more about extravagance.  Now I realise these aren’t exact opposites but they do seem to be at least partially opposing of one another.

Extravagance has come up in a number of ways.

March is a month of two halves. Though the first half has been what I’ve thought about when I talked about March. The first two full weeks of March I was meant to be in work for 4 days out of 14. Not that I was off work the rest, but I’ve been up and down the country / continent. The first obvious example of extravagance was at Connecting Disciples, the Connexional lay employees conference. I don’t mean the freebies or even all the sweets. I might mean the food, which there was a lot and it was very good, but the extravagance of love and friendship. Spending time with friends and colleagues from across the country as well as in the office in London. We were spoilt in the variety and brilliance of the speakers, workshop leaders and general team who provide the top notch conference that it was. I’m blessed that work send me to Connecting Disciples and the time of rest, fun, friendship, worship and learning. Maybe that is something simple.

The second full week in March included in it “The trip to Rome.” Memorable for having my purse stolen on the way home – as well as all the flight delays. Like my most recent post about my love of MWiB, I do have to say thank you for the incredible experience. I was in Rome when the white smoke went up and Pope Francis I was decided upon.  I then had two full days where I worked very hard as secretary, but that did include a trip to the hotel and my first Italian cappuccino. Lots and lots of food, with a pasta dish and another dish at every meal and lots of bread and oil on the side and fruit for afters. Again the fellowship of those 7 other women was powerful and made all the hard work easier. Next year’s Joint Area Seminar is going to be fab. As well as the extravagance of food, and a trip to Rome – and even the air company who gave free chocolate on every flight as well as meals, there was also extravagance shown from work letting me have two weeks away from the circuit next to each other.  I also got to spend a morning wandering in Rome. I had breakfast in a cafe, after being asked if I wanted to sit down or stand up – they don’t seem to do take away! I got to see some beautiful buildings, fountains, churches and parks. A glorious morning, despite the awful way the rest of the day panned out.

In between those two remarkable weeks was a weekend! The Saturday of which was spent with MWiB at the Connexional forum. The afternoon session started with a bible passage, the story of the perfume being broken over Jesus’ feet and the woman drying his feet with her hair. This was also the story Mum used on the Sunday morning after Rome when I was at her church unexpectedly. The conversations at the Forum were about extravagance. What can we give to Jesus, worth a whole years wages? In what ways do we give things to Jesus. Though our families, our churches, though MWiB. Our love, our time, our experience. To listen, to share, to grow, to love. It may be extravagant, but that sounds pretty simple to me.

Why I love MWiB

One of the recent times I’ve been grilled about Methodist Women in Britain (MWiB) I was asked about what difference the movement has made to me. That along with what does it offer to under 60s is a gift of a question. There are many things I love about being a part of MWiB. Now I just want to clarify I love men. I have a wonderful boyfriend, some great male mates who are very supportive. However there is something very special about women only movements.

There’s something special about singing and worship. I grew up going to church with my Dad and Brother. I know my Mum must have been around before I was ten, but then she preached a bit then. Most of my memories of church as a child are when Mum was a minister and therefore I sat with Dad and Brother. It is for this reason I get confused in hymns with a split mens:womens part. Anyway when I’m at an MWiB event the worship and singing is something rather beautiful, the different tones of women’s voices. I know the first time I wasn’t impressed as I had just come straight from Spring Harvest but now I love the sensitivity of it. 

There something special about the way they care. Again this is not an anti-man thing as I know I have male friends who care – as a wonderful Boyfriend, Dad and Brother. And in the case I’m going to come to later it was a male friend I text for advice first. But knowing that on a certain day of the month women all over the connexion are praying for me is rather special. The sisters, mothers, aunties, cousins and friends I can call or go round and see when I’m upset, or happy. When life goes my way, or when God’s plan isn’t obvious just yet. When my purse was stolen in Italy – I was there for a Methodist and Uniting Church Women in Europe Seminar Planning Meeting, but more about that in another blog later in lent (I will go back to simplicity soon), it was a random stranger, an angel disguised as an American women who came to my aid and gave me the money to get a new train ticket. It was my friends who I had spent the week with who texted and called later to check I was home, and even emailed telling me how excellent I had been at the planning meeting.  These are my sisters with whom I cry and laugh, sing, pray and smile.

There’s something special about the way they enable me to grow. These women are the ones who give me incredible experiences – travel to South Africa and Rome, speak to hundreds of women, introduce me to a baroness, suggest my name to go to Irish Methodist Conference. The way they support me when I’ve had a grilling about the exclusiveness of a women’s group – or the history that is older than me. They even trust me to use the twitter account. 

MWiB isn’t about members, its bigger than Methodism, bigger than women and bigger than Britain. Next year we get to meet with women, from all over Europe, in July we finish our rubber glove campaign about world wide child domestic workers when we hopefully go to Vince Cable’s office. Whether you are a man or a woman you can find out more at the MWiB website or please ask me questions.

Its special because it engages with anyone, just as they are, accepts and loves and helps us all to grow together.

And  if you still don’t believe we have anything to offer to the under 60s check out my video