Grieving (2) and reading

 Many weeks ago, when I first knew my truely wonderful family member was near the end her life and I was going to get to visit her in hospital I went to my favourite local bookshop to ask for a cosy book. 

I had previously loved Clare Pooley's the people on platform 5, (still the best book I've read this year) so Bert recommended The Authenticity Project. 

Its taken me weeks to read as in the midst of preemptive and then present grief I've found reading really tough and reading 2 chapters at a time beyond me. I've been sad about this cos I've recaptured my love of reading through hanging out at the book shop, and had any many books for my birthday. 

But in the last couple of weeks and mostly cos I've spent hours on trains so I've been able to power through and I've devoured chapters and chapters and last night finished that book. 

Grief is interesting in that I'm finding it's making me both more numb but also more emotional. In both, I guess, it's the rawness. 

This book was lovely but not as cosy as I'd hoped. And the ending just got me. I sat having finished the epilogue and needed a minute. Our pillow talk that night was all about Julian and Monica and Hazard and the others. The world any book draws you into is sometimes an escape but this one has very gently sat alongside my own grief and life. 

Also yesterday afternoon I went to see Marvels and wow that scene, the musical music, the sound effects, the acting, and then the weightnessless, it just moved me. 

I feel a different person: more raw, more emotional, more aware, and more sad. My work capacity is hopefully growing as I move towards that busy season. But I still need to journey gently.

Now which book next?

Grieving (1)

I'm currently grieving a truely wonderful family member. Someone who loved me so well and brought joy, passion and justice to all that she did. 

I'm a mix of all the expected emotions.

I'm away at college and so have had to tell a number of people, and the conversation multiple times today has gone like this. 

Them "hey Rach how are you?"

Me "oh not great, my relative died yesterday"

Them "I'm so sorry"

Me "that's ok, actually it's not ok, it's really crap. Anyway how are you?"

Basically I need to learn to say thank you when someone tells me they are sorry rather than trying to make them feel better. It's ok serves no one.

Grief is tricky, especially when it's fresh and raw, I guess also when it's not but that's not today's issue in this case. 

I don't wanna do the same as those conversations and try to make this blog have a happy ending, cos I'm devastated but also since I found out I've been held by people who love me, been sent chocolate biscuits and been glad to spend time with others also grieving the same person. 

So I can, as I must learn to do, be thankful, but also it's really crap.

Easter Day 2023 - Believing Women and other marginalised people

Sermon shared on Easter day at sunrise

Based on Matthew 28:1-10

There’s an African proverb, if you educate a man you educate one person, if you educate a woman, you educate a whole family. Of course gender roles are not, thankfully, what they have been in the past, there are many stay home dads now a days too. But the idea stands. Back in 2012 I heard the previous Archbishop of York’s wife, Revd Margaret Sentamu, who herself grew up in Uganda, speak of that proverb and of how women gossip. And here we see women ready to gossip the gospel. 

Gossip is often seen as a bad thing, and is also gendered, if we talk of “a gossip” I wonder if you, like me, imagine a woman. and now with GDPR we often feel nervous to share news that isn’t our own to share. And of course consent over information is important. Gossip as a word comes from the Old English phrase God Sib, which translates as God Parent, it was a companion so close that you would name them the god parent of your child. Those people you share life and good news with. In medieval Europe the word became a noun specifically referring to the female companions of a women during childbirth – which was apparently at that time a social affair. The bonding of the women in that space and that time, while one of them gave birth was special, and that is what a gossip was. Evidently it has changed over time. But there is something special and feminine about that closeness of sharing a story, sharing life with other people. So when we talk of gossiping the gospel this is much more what I mean. 

Jesus when he meets the women, and it is his choice to meet them, as they already have the news from the Angel. But when Jesus meets the Marys, he sends them off, and in the very opposite of what he’d been saying for much of the stories of his ministry where he asks the followers not to share of who he is, this time he sends them off to go and tell the disciples the good news, the gospel, that he is alive and where they are to go next to meet him. 

Here we have the story of the women who stayed, who went early in the morning to the tomb, creeping in the darkness, not knowing how they might move the stone and get to the body to anoint him with herbs and spices as was their tradition. And instead it was them, who heard the good news first, and who met with the risen saviour. 

When we read this passage we take it for granted that the women were treated as equal to the men, we know their names, albeit most of them Mary, but like Peter, James and John we sometimes just think of them as Jesus’ friends and yet at this point these women would have suspicious, untrustworthy, well they aren’t upstanding men of the community. 

When we think about it, it doesn’t make sense, why did Jesus reveal himself to the women, their testimony wouldn’t have stood up in court, no one believes women. There are times still today when women, trans folk, immigrants, refugees, people of colour, anyone who is marginalised is taken as suspect. This is still a challenge for us, to hear the stories of pain and oppression, to truly listen and believe what we hear, and to journey with those stories as Jesus would -  seeking liberation. For here we see Jesus who trusted women, and believed in women, and who let women share his story with the world. 

Because If Jesus wanted the testimony to stand up in court, then it would have been better to win over the guards, the people with power for they would have been believed. Much better than a group of woman who followed him round, provided for him. Maybe today it would have been the migrants fleeing war and terror and death arriving in small dangerous boats, who would be the ones Jesus would trust to reveal the majesty, the mystery, the magnificence of his return. 

For Jesus. Yes Jesus, is alive and reigns as King of Heaven and Earth and he tells that to us, to the women, to the outsiders, to ones who need a King to bring about liberation and grace and peace and love. Those who need new life. For it is for the poor and the persecuted that God has a preferential heart. And God uses ordinary, everyday people, the powerless and the lowly to share that news. So Jesus appears to the women so that they will gossip the gospel to all of creation. For it is for every single one of us that Jesus has risen and it is for every single one of us to share that news and to believe the women, to hear the voices of the oppressed and to ride with Jesus into new life, liberated in spirit and in truth. Amen. 

Good Friday 2023 - Apophatically finding God

Sermon shared on Good Friday 2023 at St Andrew's Methodist Church.

The service was working through the 7 phrases Jesus shared from the cross.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.
 
I wonder which of the words that Jesus uttered on the cross have resonated with you so far, there are more to come of course and they might speak more. For me this is one of the most powerful ones.
Here we see the humanity of Jesus.
They are words from Psalm 22, words Jesus would have known, and yet in this moment this is what he felt. Abandoned and alone, forsaken. Its similar to the image of Jesus in the garden before he was arrested, praying that God would take away the cup. In these moments Jesus’ humanity is obvious. For we need a human saviour as well as a divine one.
Here, Jesus, for possibly the first time ever, feels disconnected from the Father, in the suffering and pain of death and sin.
I’m not one for big theological words usually, but there are two that I think help and if you forget the words but remember the meaning then that’s ok, I often have to look them up to get them the right way around. These are cataphatic, and apophatic.
One – cataphatic is declaring things as they are. We do this a lot, in a prayer of adoration we say who God is. Or from the psalms God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, always good to all, compassionate to all of creation. And that is all well and good, when God feels close.
But there are times when we need to seek God in apophatic ways. The things that God is not. In this moment Jesus knew what it was like to feel like God was not there, and yet he still cried out to God. There is hope in Jesus’ proclamation even when the words sound hopeless. Into what feels like a void of being forsaken Jesus shouts to the God who he still hopes can hear.
There are times in our lives when we need to cry out to God and hold onto the things that we know God is not, when we can’t declare who God is.
It’s like when ordering food, I know I rule out the things I don’t like before I work out from a shortlist what is left.
Apophatically, We rule out things that God is not and in those gaps we know that God is.
Here in this moment a truly human Jesus, knew what it was like to feel distant from God, to suffer and be separated by sin. The divinity of God and the brokenness of the world meet in Jesus and at this very moment it is tearing him apart, bringing him to death. So that the divine and the human may once again be reunited.
I don’t know what you carry with you, what are the things that cause you to doubt, or to cry out to God, why have you forsaken me, and there isn’t an easy answer, but we do know that God knows what it is like to feel totally alone, to be abandoned and yet to cry out to our maker for God is not absent, even when it can feel like that. There is hope, for us as there is hope for Jesus.
God did not leave us, God did not abandon us and God did not forsake us.

Further reading on this I highly recommend The Dark Womb by Karen O'Donnell. 

Permission to be ourselves

 When did you realise it was ok to ask for what you need? 

I totally get there are times when it's important to accept what is put before you, but your happiness, needs and boundaries are important too.

About 18 months ago, when I was about half way through my full time training, I was sent on placement. One day I was having a walking lunch with the one of the clergy at the church. They made some comment like "I assume you are ok walking and eating, cos you'd have told me if you weren't, you don't get to this stage without being able to do that." 

No one before had ever given me that explicit permission to say what I need. Or at least expect that I knew that.  

I wonder how many times I've played nice to not rock the boat, and so much with food! We teach children the take it or leave it are the options at meal times, but also that a clean plate is a sign of being polite. (And also "earns" you pudding)

I even went as far as eating BBQ pizza when everyone knows you don't mess with the classic tomato base. And that was with a very close friend who totally wouldn't have minded, and didn't when I stopped eating it and explained, cos I realized if I couldn't tell them then who could I? 

So often we play nice when really those around us would much prefer to give us what we desire.

It's not just about food. There is so much in life where I know I've played nice, not rocked the boat and made myself uncomfortable in the process. But I have permission, and not given to me by anyone else but just because I'm a human with as much right as every other one to take up space and be authentically myself. 

I have lots of thoughts about when driving the motorway in my small car that I have as much right as the big cars to overtake and get where I want to and need to be. Just cos I'm (insert reason one might feel unimportant here)... small, young, new, female doesn't mean I don't matter. 

We just have to learn to give ourselves permission to take up space, and be our wonderful selves! 

If this were a sermon or a theological reflection there would be something here about us ALL having the image of God dwelling within our very being. And having that divine image within us grants us, as all of creation, the right to space and love and respect and to be known for who we truly are - beautiful creations of the almighty creator. Here ends the sermon.

So just incase no one has ever told you, know that you have permission to draw your own boundaries, to say what you need and don't want. And speak out, cos playing nice is all well and good but the world is a better place when you can be authentically you: a happier, healthier, more confident you. 

The importance of names

I do a tricky job, I'm on show most of the time, need to watch what I say and do, and who I am is a big part of that. 

I've asked at work to be called Rach. I've been doing this consistently now for 6 years and longer at 1 off events 

When I worked in the student world most of the time this really wasn't a problem but out in the adult world its apparently too informal, improper and people just won't. 

Now this isn't about the people who do it accidentally, they apologize, it's fine, we all slip into bad habits. 

But so many (mostly elderly) people tell me, "but Rachel is such a lovely / biblical name." Or "I can't call you Rach, I'm going to call you Rachel." Or best "I'll be the only one who calls you Rachel" oh I wish!

Then I check their name and it's short for something, or it's their middle name. But it's not the full name their parents gave them. 

And I smile and say that's ok, and make a joke about how formal we'll both be by using the full names, but generally call them what they asked to be called cos names are important and I don't want to be petty, I just want to be Rach.

I know it's not the end of the world, but respecting people enough to use the name they ask to be called by is important and respectful and it's never up to us to decide what we want to call someone when they have asked for something else. I know there have been times I've shortened people's names when they prefer the full version and for that I'm sorry. Cos it's not until I was regularly and purposely ignored that I really noticed how much I care about what I'm called. 

Let Love be Real

I'm in the last stages of preparation to be a probationary minister. In early September I'll be welcomed to my new circuit and I've been invited to choose a hymn for that service.

I wondered about come with me come wander (which fits September 4th lectionary well so I'm keeping that for then) or Come all you Vagabonds which has some powerful words of inclusion but have settled on Let love be real by Michael Forster (615 in StF). It's simple and profound and goes to Danny boy. Here are my top 6 reasons for requesting it.

1. "Let love be real" If the ministry I live out is about love then I've done good.
2. "Give me your hand" I had it at my wedding so feels like a good one for a place where Husband is to be welcomed too

3. "Give me your strength when all my words are weakness." It's full of powerful words, like this phrase which have been quoted by my best friend when I've been struggling with essays. I've sung them beside multiple people I love and are my commitment to my churches that together we find God's strength in one another.
4. "As God loves us." It's never about us, but first that we are loved by God. I'm so glad that my call to ministry is not about me, but about who God calls me to be - "make us brave to be what we might be"

5. "so let us love each other" There was a significant moment in April I was driving to the pastoral committee at my link church, at that meeting knowing I was leaving there were many moments I wanted to help but couldn't, yet on the drive over the travel news mentioned an accident in the town I'm moving to and my heart just went "that's my place to love." It's amazing after being matched with somewhere I hardly know I'd already committed to loving it.

6. "Just open hands and space to grow." I'm new, to ministry and have a lot to learn so hope this is a place where I can make mistakes and learn and grow, and the same should be true of the churches.Maybe also the line - "give me your trust when all my failings show" the Methodist Church is putting a lot of faith in me!

I look forward to what September has in store and singing that song with all its many meanings in my new circuit as together we learn to love in God.