As I've often said I love Simply Simon blog, always wisdom and solace and far better writing than I could ever hope to achieve! He posted this tonight...
just an angel
It’s the day before the day before Christmas, and it’s all ho-hum. To be honest, I feel less prepared for this celebration of Christ’s birth than I have for a long time. The anticipation that’s meant to mark the Advent season has drifted by, unnoticed. Busyness, weariness, lack of intention … despite my pastor’s best efforts to prepare me for the wonder of Incarnation, I’ve been a lousy congregant. Sorry Carolyn.
But then, as I walked home from work this afternoon, I noticed something. In the window of one of the old terrace homes that line my street is a Christmas tree. Nothing unusual about that; such things are a standard feature in house after house--elaborately decorated, colour coordinated, with fairy lights perfectly balanced top to bottom, left to right.
This one is different though. Awkward looking, slanted, no lights and empty apart from one porcelain angel dangling off centre, in solitude. I stared for a moment. It was odd, yet beautiful: no tinsel, no baubles, no flashing lights, just one off-centred angel, alone.
One of the most important books of the late 90s for me was Dale Allison’s The Silence of Angels. It was significant because it helped me to articulate what I had long intuited: that rapid advancements in technology and science have sometimes dulled our ability to discern transcendence and experience wonder in the everyday. Amidst the clutter and rationality of our demystified and explained lives, we’ve silenced the angels.
According to Allison, technological development has (i) eradicated silence, (ii) defeated any concept of darkness, and (iii) proliferated visual stimuli in every corner of our lives. Consequently, we’re losing the ability to hear, to see or to experience transcendence in the ordinariness of our days.
As I sit here at the window, the night before the night before Christmas, I can see a sparrow sifting through the mulch on my garden. From there it flies up into the shrub that fronts our house, with the twilight sky behind it. One bird, one angel, one child: the ho-hum is perhaps more sacred than I thought.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Week 35
Auntie Flower pointed out to me that this year I am living my own advent ... we are in our 36th week of pregnancy which amongst other things may developmentally mean
"he/she now weighs about 5.25 pounds/ 2.4 kilograms and measures approximately 18 inches/ 45 centimetres from head to toe. His/her elbow, foot or head may protrude from your stomach when he stretches and squirms about. (Sure does!) Soon, as the wall of your uterus and your abdomen stretch thinner and let in more light, your baby will begin to develop daily activity cycles.
This week, your little one is now sporting fingernails and has a fully developed pair of kidneys. His liver can also process some waste products.
There's much less amniotic fluid and much more baby in your uterus, which has expanded to a thousand times its original size".
What a miracle happening inside of me and yet has this mystery placed a different spin on the advent story for me? Truth is I don't know an advent when I've had a more church-less, God-less experience. Actually between work, visiting and hosting friends, preaching elsewhere and just being exhausted by life that's pretty much been my year. I certainly haven't set foot inside All Saints since October and the thought of this afternoons Christingle is really exciting (not least because it's a service I love).
At the beginning of advent our vicar sent out this challenge...
"Advent is a time of preparation, of recognising the signs of our failures and setting our lives back on course as we prepare to celebrate the birthday of our brother Jesus.
Bill Hybels famously said: ‘The local church is the hope of the world.’ Our Anglican churches attract only 1% of the population on an average Sunday (maybe 3% if all the Christian churches are lumped together).
Advent is also about waking up to the signs of the times. Jesus went on at length about this. The signs seem to be that people see our ‘churches’ as hopeless rather than a source of hope.
So perhaps the times have arrived for us to set our churches back on course. (church = you and me, the church communities and how we express our faith when we are together and when we are ‘in the world’). The big question is ‘how?’
Do we know what are goals are? Are we just trying to survive? That doesn’t seem to me to be what Jesus meant when he commissioned us to go and make disciples of all nations.
Imagine this: If we as Christians were arriving in our villages for the first time this December 2008 what would we do and how would we be ‘church?"
I haven't really given much time to this brilliant question but tonight I think Jesus would be less interested in what we did and more in how we did it. How we love each other.
My home group leaders have given me calls to let me know their schedule this term even though they knew I couldn't make it, which is great but no one has called to see how or where I am which makes me a little sad. Not being in church regularly is one of my failures this year, (going back to Derek's opening statement) back in January I committed to being there at least once a month to enable me to someway be connected to the life of what happens there and to the wonderful people walking this journey together. That is my advent challenge, a day and a half is left and I want to think about what our church looks like and where I am in the picture, what I can give (and I don't just mean by doing more but by being more creative with what I do maybe). I certainly don't want to be just a consumer. How could I have handled my absence better, would it have been possible to keep in touch more? If I couldn't be there in body what about in spirit - have I been praying for all that happens there?
I wonder in answer to that challenge if we get better at looking after the church we have maybe that will be the best way to have a useful church for the future.
I pray in the services that I go to over the next two days that the lessons I need to learn will be really clear, in the carols, readings and community. At this point in time the final verse of In the Bleak Mid Winter (my favourite carol) seem really appropriate... and a great way to get back on course.
What can I give Him poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man I would do my part.
Yet what can I give him?
Give my heart.
"he/she now weighs about 5.25 pounds/ 2.4 kilograms and measures approximately 18 inches/ 45 centimetres from head to toe. His/her elbow, foot or head may protrude from your stomach when he stretches and squirms about. (Sure does!) Soon, as the wall of your uterus and your abdomen stretch thinner and let in more light, your baby will begin to develop daily activity cycles.
This week, your little one is now sporting fingernails and has a fully developed pair of kidneys. His liver can also process some waste products.
There's much less amniotic fluid and much more baby in your uterus, which has expanded to a thousand times its original size".
What a miracle happening inside of me and yet has this mystery placed a different spin on the advent story for me? Truth is I don't know an advent when I've had a more church-less, God-less experience. Actually between work, visiting and hosting friends, preaching elsewhere and just being exhausted by life that's pretty much been my year. I certainly haven't set foot inside All Saints since October and the thought of this afternoons Christingle is really exciting (not least because it's a service I love).
At the beginning of advent our vicar sent out this challenge...
"Advent is a time of preparation, of recognising the signs of our failures and setting our lives back on course as we prepare to celebrate the birthday of our brother Jesus.
Bill Hybels famously said: ‘The local church is the hope of the world.’ Our Anglican churches attract only 1% of the population on an average Sunday (maybe 3% if all the Christian churches are lumped together).
Advent is also about waking up to the signs of the times. Jesus went on at length about this. The signs seem to be that people see our ‘churches’ as hopeless rather than a source of hope.
So perhaps the times have arrived for us to set our churches back on course. (church = you and me, the church communities and how we express our faith when we are together and when we are ‘in the world’). The big question is ‘how?’
Do we know what are goals are? Are we just trying to survive? That doesn’t seem to me to be what Jesus meant when he commissioned us to go and make disciples of all nations.
Imagine this: If we as Christians were arriving in our villages for the first time this December 2008 what would we do and how would we be ‘church?"
I haven't really given much time to this brilliant question but tonight I think Jesus would be less interested in what we did and more in how we did it. How we love each other.
My home group leaders have given me calls to let me know their schedule this term even though they knew I couldn't make it, which is great but no one has called to see how or where I am which makes me a little sad. Not being in church regularly is one of my failures this year, (going back to Derek's opening statement) back in January I committed to being there at least once a month to enable me to someway be connected to the life of what happens there and to the wonderful people walking this journey together. That is my advent challenge, a day and a half is left and I want to think about what our church looks like and where I am in the picture, what I can give (and I don't just mean by doing more but by being more creative with what I do maybe). I certainly don't want to be just a consumer. How could I have handled my absence better, would it have been possible to keep in touch more? If I couldn't be there in body what about in spirit - have I been praying for all that happens there?
I wonder in answer to that challenge if we get better at looking after the church we have maybe that will be the best way to have a useful church for the future.
I pray in the services that I go to over the next two days that the lessons I need to learn will be really clear, in the carols, readings and community. At this point in time the final verse of In the Bleak Mid Winter (my favourite carol) seem really appropriate... and a great way to get back on course.
What can I give Him poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man I would do my part.
Yet what can I give him?
Give my heart.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
See Me
Last week saw the opening of LCET's latest art exhibition and if the chaos on the day before was anything to go by it's just as well they only happen every couple of years!!
The finished gallery - a former estate agents on the high street - was awesome though and it got some really good press coverage and more importantly about 300 (or more) visitors through the door.
The work - photos, instalations and audio - was all the work of around 9 kids we work with, not to mention the amazing Carter and Turner. Hearing the experiences of young people is always powerful, it was a great way to honour their request to be seen and as there was such great feed back from Social services hopefully this will improve their experience of the whole system.
Nice work LCET!
The finished gallery - a former estate agents on the high street - was awesome though and it got some really good press coverage and more importantly about 300 (or more) visitors through the door.
The work - photos, instalations and audio - was all the work of around 9 kids we work with, not to mention the amazing Carter and Turner. Hearing the experiences of young people is always powerful, it was a great way to honour their request to be seen and as there was such great feed back from Social services hopefully this will improve their experience of the whole system.
Nice work LCET!
Maternity leave
Well I've been off work for two whole weeks and so far am pretty unable to stay away! Not least because I wanted to help out with the amazing See Me exhibition about children in care and then I foolishly offered to copy 300 cds of The God Man, the song our kids wrote at summer camp. We're sending it out as a Christmas card to our supporters.
It's amazing to see what non-Christian, un-churched kids made of God's story - we gave them the first verse they wrote the rest of the lyrics...pretty cool. It was recorded in our basement, no expense spent, Holy Joely's done a great job though, especially with the tuning!!
The God Man - Joel and the summer camp kids
It's amazing to see what non-Christian, un-churched kids made of God's story - we gave them the first verse they wrote the rest of the lyrics...pretty cool. It was recorded in our basement, no expense spent, Holy Joely's done a great job though, especially with the tuning!!
The God Man - Joel and the summer camp kids
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
