Thank you

It has been quite a year! Punctuated in the middle with my fall in July with its surprisingly long-lasting effects, and more dramatically with Jane's fall a couple of weeks ago, and yet, as the album of our year which Apple kindly assembled for me bears witness, also with a great deal of merriment and sadness, and above all love.

I've found that Jane's accident (from which she is marvellously recovering) has knocked me out of my accustomed pattern of Bible reading and prayer. Not that I've stopped praying. Indeed I'm often thinking prayerful thoughts as I sit here - and remember people's situations. But - and maybe it's also the effect of the festive season - I've lost that pattern and habit that was part of each day. And so today's Three Minute Retreat has focused things again for me.

It's based on Psalm 96.3.

"There are days when we feel God's presence and want to sing God's praise. And there are days when our hearts feel dark and we wonder if God is really near. We can get busy and miss the blessings God offers us. One way to recognize these everyday blessings is through personal reflection. By making a habit of noticing God's action in our lives, we can let God's light shine into any darkness we experience. Then we, like the psalmist, can proclaim God's glory." 

One of the questions which follows is "How can I make a little time in my life for daily personal reflection?" I'm thinking about my answers and praying for grace to act on them in 2012.

God, help me to slow down

and notice the many ways you bless each day

so that I may grow in the practice of gratitude.

Amen

The Queen's Speech

With Jane out of action, the A team did a sterling job on Christmas lunch yesterday. We lingered over the turkey and trimmings with Château Capville  2009, and the sherry trifle and mince pies. One result was that we watched the Queen's Christmas address after 3 o'clock. However in my opinion it was worth waiting for. You can watch it here. I gather it's all her own work, without political advisers interfering. Perhaps it was an illusion fostered by the fact that Prince Philip was in Papworth Heart Hospital while the broadcast went out (obviously it had been filmed some time ago), and perhaps because Jane and I have been extra aware of the fragility of life, but to me there was a sense of the Queen wanting to record her most urgent message while she could.

It was nicely constructed, reminiscing over the royals' past year in which they'd seen extreme hardship in Australia and New Zealand and South Wales, and the response of courage. It reflected on the strength of friendship and family, mentioning her two grandchildren's weddings. Its conclusion, somewhat flinched at by the press, was uncompromising and uncoded, simple and profound:

"For many, this Christmas will not be easy. With our armed forces deployed around the world, thousands of service families face Christmas without their loved ones at home.

"The bereaved and the lonely will find it especially hard. And, as we all know, the world is going through difficult times. All this will affect our celebration of this great Christian festival.

"Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: 'Fear not', they urged, 'we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 

"'For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.'

"Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves - from our recklessness or our greed.

"God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

"Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God's love.

"In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, there's a prayer:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem,

Descend to us we pray.

Cast out our sin

And enter in.

Be born in us today.

"It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord."

"Neither a philosopher nor a general... but a Saviour with the power to forgive" - that is strong stuff. It's not PC, but yet it's true. "Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith" and it is able to heal families, friendships and communities, and, as her Majesty's prayer implies, it is not something endemic to humanity, but something given through Jesus Christ. Well said, Ma'am! 


And thank you, family, for a wonderfully lovely Christmas.

Bathing in kindness and grace

Didn't Cleopatra have baths of asses' milk? Well, I've found something better. It's the milk of human kindness and the grace of God - both of which we've experienced in buckets these past few days. It began on Tuesday...

I was dozing in my chair before our annual mulled wine and mince pies party, when all our end of the close get together. Jane was busy preparing canapés, sausage rolls, mince pies, drinks and glasses - and things for the kids to do. Suddenly, I was roused by a tumbling crashing followed by a heavy thump - and silence! On the other side of the door. Unable to move, I shouted. It wasn't long before Jane said, "I'm all right." Somehow, I didn't believe her. She didn't sound all right. Amazingly, she staggered in to the sitting room and sat on the sofa next to me. Her face was a pale shade of putty. She'd been on the loft ladder bringing down some games, and had fallen halfway down the stairs. Her first self-diagnosis was severe bruising; then something worse... like a dislocated collar-bone. It didn't take a genius to tell it was serious. There was nothing I could do, confined to my chair, except gibberingly ring Rachel who drove seven miles in not many more minutes (the road was unusually clear), and then a bit later our next door neighbour who also came round pronto.

Rachel is fantastically clear-thinking in an emergency. She contacted a first responder friend of ours, who told us we had to have an ambulance as it was a left-shoulder injury. So she did that, rang round those who needed to know, took instructions for the party, while our neighbour did a round of the houses to postpone the gathering till the ambulance had taken Jane away. Well, it would have been a shame to have wasted all her creative hard work.

The ambulance was here in no time, and the paramedics were excellent. Jane had gone by the time the neighbours poured in. And we didn't remember everything - like the canapés - but people didn't mind. They helped Rachel with mulling the wine and washing up (thanks - Astrid and Naomi) and at the end, when the news came in that it was a serious fracture and that she would stay in hospital until an operation, possibly on the Thursday, everyone offered any help we could use. Rachel rang her brothers who began to change their schedules to come and help. By Wednesday afternoon Stephen (on holiday) and Bryan (his boss having said, "Go!") were here. On Facebook next morning I wrote that Jane had fallen and we were in for an interesting Christmas, and was flooded by offers of help and prayer. My overwhelming feeling was how full of kindness people are, which shows when they have an opportunity. I love that.

Later that evening I emailed a few of our close praying friends, briefly. As I wrote to one of them today: "We visited Jane yesterday afternoon, and she's counting her blessings. The way things happened after she'd fallen was amazing, like the ambulance was already in the area and was diverted here as a priority, her friend from Stanford got here just in time to go with her, leaving Rachel with me; the driver was INCREDIBLY gentle going from here to Oxford; because it was a suspected dislocation she went to the front of the queue which became five hours long behind her; the xray revealed this severely fractured collar-bone, which needed to be seen by a consultant, who just happened to be walking past at that moment. There was a possibility of an operation before the weekend, otherwise she'd have been sent home with a 3-4 week wait. There was a bed in the Trauma unit - in her own room - available. 
   "The fall was steep and twisty and long enough, and she could easily have broken her neck, or concussed herself - neither happened. In fact she was able to get to where I was sitting and could see we needed help. We've been in touch this morning. The main man (who used to patch people up in Afghanistan) hopes to operate and put a plate in this afternoon, and to get her home for Christmas. We're praying for no emergencies before then...

   "Rachel, Stephen and Bryan have moved in and the three of them are looking after me and getting ready for Christmas - it will carry on as normal, we trust, with Jane's parents coming on Saturday and our friend Margaret for Christmas lunch. :) They're a super-competent team.

   "Meanwhile I'm going to have to arrange some care cover for when they're all back at work." I reckon that's all God's grace.

So now I'm writing this as Jane's in theatre or the recovery room and the sounds and smells of cooking emerge from the kitchen, and I'm reflecting that if even stubborn donkeys like me can be in receipt of God's grace and the kindness of friends and family, it's good news for everyone. Maybe the traditional presence of the ass in the Christmas stable means a bit more than it happened to have carried Mary there. I think it means that rather than squeezing our juice out until our pips squeak God wants us to enjoy his love which, if we look out for it, appears in the most unlikely of places and improbable of circumstances:

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
A breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Sad but not hopeless

I was out at the doctor's for a routine visit yesterday, and so John left a message. It was the saddest news. His lovely wife who had MND for a very short time has died. Their home is at the other side of Grove. She had deteriorated so rapidly. As John later commented, their overwhelming sense was gratitude that Jean hadn't suffered longer. It is a wretched disease - and a wretched time to lose someone.

This is my prayer for Jean:
Support us, O Lord,
all the day long of this troublous life,
until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over,
and our work is done.
Then, Lord, in thy mercy, grant us a safe lodging,
and a holy rest, and peace at the last;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. (attributed to John Henry Newman) I'm reminded of St Paul's, "If for this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable." But we do have hope, which lasts beyond this life.  For Jean that hope is reality.

Preparing for Christmas

A Facebook friend posted today this message: "Christmas without 'Christ' is just 'M&S'." I thought it was quite apt. (For readers abroad, M&S is the archetypal British High Street retailer, Marks and Spencer - which, like other retailers, relies on Christmas shopping for its profits.)

I've just come across a whole lot of Advent podcasts from 24/7 Prayer Spaces. I wish I'd found them three Sundays ago, because they are so good. And really you want to use one a day rather than catch up with them all at one go. Anyway the first one is by Pete Greig for Advent Sunday, and then, if you want to, you can work through the sequence up to date. (By the way, they're good models for sermons - short and to the point.)

Of the other ones I particularly enjoyed Mary's Song, about the Magnificat, about how focusing on the good God who loves us, whatever our circumstances, and Simeon's Song, which asks where we find Jesus today.

I'm sure we do find him on the High Street and in many unexpected places - even in the darkness. But we need to be looking - and listening - for Him. Otherwise we'll miss Him. But the greatest truth of Christmas is not that we find Him, but that He has come and found us.

There's a rather good blog today, by the way, on the iBenedictines' blog about the corrosive effect of grumbling. "... most grumbling is not justifiable and is corrosive of community. Advent isn’t usually seen as a time for giving up things, but I certainly intend to try harder to give up grumbling. Being nice to be near isn’t just a question of which soap one uses."

Somewhere to go

A week ago we went to David Thomas' funeral in Cholsey. The church was full, and we heard more about his distinguished career. It was a celebration, as he'd have liked. We has Dixie music at the beginning and very end. It was also a sad occasion, naturally, because his family will miss him hugely. I was glad the vicar used this prayer:
"God of all consolation,
your Son Jesus Christ was moved to tears
at the grave of Lazarus his friend.
Look with compassion on your children in their loss;
give to troubled hearts the light of hope,
and strengthen in us the gift of faith,
in Jesus Christ our Lord", which I very much like.

I love the recognition that Jesus is not immune from our pain. He knew what it was like to have a loved one die. He cried with the bereaved Mary and Martha. He knows the pain - but he also gives them, and us, hope. "Didn't I say if you trusted (me) you'd see God do something amazing (God's glory)?" They had to wait to see what they scarcely could imagine. We may have to wait longer to see it. The common factor is Him.

The service finished with the great hymn "How great Thou art", which ends with the verse:
"When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art!" The best word there for me is home. It's no ordinary home, wonderful though those are - where the heart is! When we reach this home, we'll say, "Aah! So this is where I really belong." And our hearts will find the rest and peace and joy they've always longed for without knowing what it was. We'll rest in divine love.

Tea with tears

David Thomas (centre)

Yesterday a group of us with MND and our families were invited for tea at the Kingswell near Harwell. It was a good time. Four of us were in wheelchairs, and there was Lorraine's new grandson, Max, just a few days old. The one person whom we all missed was our friend, David Thomas. I refer to him in the Diary of a Donkeybody blog as "the herb gardener" because he used to joke about having left his cannabis farm for the afternoon! He died last Thursday at his home. Everyone would comment on his spark and his wit and sense of fun. He was also very brave. The disease affected him severely and rapidly. My picture shows him at a meeting in May last year.

He went to Sandhurst and served in the Royal Artillery. He was a crack shot and had been chairman of the British Pistol Club. Last year despite his illness he completed an MA in First World War Studies at Birmingham, writing a unique dissertation:

He took great pleasure in seeing the weddings of both his daughter last year and his son this year. We all felt his absence as we shared our tea. Because he was above all a lovely man and he and wife Penny an inspiring couple. A mutual friend wrote this morning: "I will never forget his wit and cheeky sparkle. MND is such a cruel disease :( " I have to say her mother, who has it too, is a pretty sparkly lady also. Which is quite something as we're all aware, to one degree or another, of the limit to the Christmases we'll live to enjoy with our families.

Perhaps that's the reason too why none of us was in a hurry to leave that friendly room, where we were able to share, either with laboured speech or via speaking device, with others who just understood and people who cared.

It was dusk as we left and the Friday traffic from Reading was already streaming past. Then it was time for supper and relaxing by the tv. I'd recorded Rev. from the night before, to which I have ambivalent feelings. This episode I thought was well done. There's a brilliant new teacher at the church school of which the Rev is chair of governors. However he's an articulate lapsed Catholic atheist. The head loves him; the vicar loathes him. On the day of the religious inspection Mr Feld is late. In fact he's been knocked off his bike and is dead. The Rev has to give the assembly. He begins, "It's very difficult to know what to say at times like this. We won't be seeing Mr Feld again here, because Matthew's gone somewhere else now. Matthew didn't believe in Heaven, but I do. I don't know what it is, but I do know a story that gives me an idea. It's a story about a lot of little bugs that lived at the bottom of a river. And every now and then one of the little bugs would crawl up a stem through the water, up into the light - and would never be seen again...."

Waterbugs and Dragonflies 

It's not an original story. In fact I used to keep a copy to explain death to bereaved children. The point of the story is that the "bug" turns into a beautiful dragonfly able to fly, but can't reassure the bugs he's left behind because he can't ever get back there. This upset him "until he remembered that all his friends one day would climb up the stems and join him in the sun."

It's clearly not a story for adults. It's a very simple version of the truth, which of course the children (and we) can take or leave. I would say that the metamorphosis is not automatic, but it's certainly God's offer and desire that we should exchange our bodies for a superior model, which won't have the weakness, disease and frustration we now experience and which won't ever wear out. I'd say the picture of nymph and dragonfly is not a bad analogy, except eternity's longer than a month! There's a verse somewhere which talks about the good things that pass our understanding which God has prepared for those who love him.

Hard question

I spent a large part of yesterday being interviewed by a trio of 2nd-year students from Gloucestershire University's Film Production course. They were doing a balanced documentary on assisted suicide. They'd interviewed two proponents of it, and wanted me as an opposing voice. They had four pages of questions for me.

One of the most interesting questions I was asked and didn't answer that well was: "Would you recommend faith to someone who's in terminal suffering as a way of easing what they're going through?"

My answer was something like, "I wouldn't recommend it for that reason. I'd recommend it because it's true and it works. I don't think that having faith lessens the frustration, or the pain, or the fear of what dying may bring. It doesn't make it easier being cared for, being changed and being 100% dependent." I wish I'd added a "however". However, it's true that God's presence, even when we walk through the darkest valley, does make a crucial difference. It helps that Jesus endured extreme suffering and death. And it helps to know that he rose from the dead - assuring us that there is something extraordinary to look forward to after death. But having faith, of course, raises difficulties for a disabled or terminally ill believer. For example, why does a loving God allow this sort of thing? Why doesn't he heal me? As I wrote in My Donkeybody:

"Don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion. Not that my faith leaves me cold or without resource. Far from it, but it raises more painful questions than it provides answers. I would not advocate it as a panacea for pain. There may be some evidence that it aids the healing process, but it doesn’t reduce the hurting a jot. Instead the person with faith in a divine Creator is forced to ask a lot of ‘why’ questions, which need never bother an atheist. Why is suffering such a widespread phenomenon in the work of a good God? Why has it affected me (or a member of my family) particularly acutely? Is there intention behind pain, or is it mere accident? How do I square this with what I used to believe about a God who loves me? If God is all-powerful and if he’s all-loving, why does he not do something? Why do children, the innocent, suffer? These are hard questions which humans have been asking, I suspect, from the time they first began reflecting. So, ironically, there’s potential for a double downward spiral, of both physical weakness and undermined faith, in a chronic disease, which in normal circumstances you would be able to steer around. However, now, you cannot avoid wondering, and of course you have the time to dwell on your thoughts, as you sit in your chair waiting to be helped to eat or as you find yourself increasingly embarrassing."

As one of my perceptive Facebook friends commented, I was shattered at the end of their five hours here. Probably the documentary will be put on to YouTube in January next year.

Love is patient

I apologise if you're finding me unoriginal or devoid of new ideas. However originality is rather overrated, in my view. Besides as the wise man said, a long time ago, there's nothing new under the sun. I think my favourite Shakespeare play is Twelfth Night, and one of my favourite speeches is by the disguised Viola speaking to Count Orsino, with whom she's in love and who has asked her about her supposed sister's love (It's complicated, as they say!). Viola is talking about herself:

Parminder Singh as Viola

"... She never told her love...
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?"
I understood this connection between love and patience better when I read one of the blogs I like best.

The post was called simply "Patience". This appeared today in the iBenedictine blog.

Patience is often described as the Benedictine’s fourth vow. It is a theme that occurs again and again in the Rule, where we are reminded that we ‘share by patience in the sufferings of Christ’. (RB Prol. 50) The newcomer to monastic life is to be ‘tested in all patience’.  (RB 58.11) Indeed, patiently bearing with delays and contradictions is one of the signs looked for as the mark of a genuine vocation. It all sounds rather wonderful until one has to practise it. For the plain truth is that patience is hard work. It means embracing suffering, not just stoically putting up with it, and doing so with a quiet heart. (RB 7. 35) Patience requires a great deal of trust and humility as well as self-control.

Patience, trust, humility: these are not qualities that our society cultivates or values very much. We prefer to be self-assertive, thrusting not trusting, testing everything by our own standards and rather despising those who are patient and humble, as thought they were milksops. In fact, it takes real strength of character to be patient, to accept adversity quietly, without anger or upset. Similarly, trust and humility are not for wimps but for those who are brave enough to look themselves in the face and know themselves for what they are.

Today each one of us will be given the opportunity to exercise a little patience, to show a little trust and be a little humble. Are we big enough to meet the challenge?


I thought that there are some really radical thoughts here, which challenge our normal values. "... it takes real strength of character to be patient, to accept adversity quietly, without anger or upset." I like too the perspective that humility is a sign of strength, not a wimpish quality. I was struck by that because I'd just read a message from a friend in New Zealand who says he's neither a Catholic, nor Christian nor a Muslim. He told me about a student of his, whom he encouraged into the priesthood: "This man was simply good. Everything about him in class or in my office radiated goodness. His whole method was submission to discipline. When his MA coursework was completed, he appeared in my office and said, ‘All I want is to have you train me, and I will write my thesis on whatever you tell me to do.’ There is a wonderful story that follows, but suffice it to say, he covered himself with scholarly honour. ... Now he teaches Chinese Catholic students in ..., where we met. His humility is his badge. I admire him without reservation."

Life and feeling

I've just finished reading a remarkable book which was sent to me by my former colleague, Elspeth Waidson. It's The Wooden Suitcase by Emmy Goldacker (which was translated by Elspeth's parents) and published last year. Emmy Goldacker's father was a German Jew who emigrated to Palestine; her two brothers died fighting in the war; she herself worked for the German government as a translator and then began teacher-training. In 1945 she was arrested in Berlin and condemned to 10 years hard labour in Siberia. This is her story, which is stranger than fiction. It reminds me in some ways of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Much of it is harrowing, revealing a woman's incredible fortitude and faith in life. It's a real insight into the Gulag Archipelago of Stalin's Soviet Union. Near the end of her sentence, after years of unimaginable hardship in concentration camps, she describes going on a work-party to harvest hay on the tundra. They have to cross the River Usa by ferry. They're north of the Arctic Circle:
"I stood at the rear of the ferry. The engine started and the jolt caused me to sway this way and that; however I regained my balance and looked around at the wide expanse of the landscape around us. I no longer heard the women's chatter, so entranced was I by the beauty of this mighty river whose slight ripples reflected the light of the midnight sun. This yellow-golden light, covering the violet-brown swamps to the right, this light that spread over the giant black pines on the left like a yellow-golden veil. What infinite peace!
   "I felt and comprehended the infinite quality of the northern landscape. I saw the beauty of the sky and the water, and was happy and thankful, in spite of the years that lay behind me, that I could still be receptive to this beauty. I was alive and still had feeling! I could have been dead or completely apathetic. I made another attempt at the 'Our Father' and I could say the prayer almost to the end. I realised it was a grace. How small and insignificant I seemed to myself. Who indeed was I? Today I was here, tomorrow someone else would be at this spot. How unimportant! All that was important was to see this beauty and to accept the grace with gratitude."


What a profound and simple piece of writing - after seemingly unending years of deprivation and suffering, Emmy is moved that she is alive and still has feeling! She realises it is a gift - a "grace" simply to be accepted with gratitude. Life and feeling are inalienable gifts.

PS Do read the whole book. emmy+goldacker/h-+morgan+waidson/jean+h-+waidson/the+wooden+suitcase/

You're not junk!

This is a post that appeared in today's iBenedictine Nuns' blog. I think it's so good I'm just going to paste it here. I love the sentence, "that, by and large, I stick with being me, trusting that God doesn't make junk and sees something wonderful in each one of us, even me." Amen, sister! 


That's such an important truth in a society which still rejects people with disabilities (even to the extent of aborting them before they see the light of day. I was moved to read Peter Saunders' piece about a mum's bitter regrets at being persuaded to have her Down's baby aborted). God doesn't make junk. We may feel over-the-hill and useless - and yet, think about it, if I were merely a car, I'd be a valuable veteran, getting on for vintage, by now. And visitors would be brought to the garage where I was kept and would say, admiringly, "I must say he looks well, considering." The fact I could only be taken out on a trailer wouldn't matter. Of how much more value are even the most decrepit human crocks! Surely our Heavenly Father cares for us!

On Being Oneself

by Digitalnun on November 12, 2011

A few weeks ago, when I posted some thoughts about online engagement, my friend Tim Hutchings very sensibly asked whether some of my suggestions didn’t cancel themselves out, making us less ‘ourselves’ online than we are offline. I think the specific question he raised was addressed in the comments, but there is a bigger question that concerns all of us, whether we go online or not. How can we be ourselves in a world that, by and large, is always pressuring us to be something other than we are? The world of advertising wants us to be thinner, richer, more ‘stylish’ than most of us could ever dream of being (i.e to buy what it is selling). The world of Church wants us to be . . . what exactly?

I often ask myself what the homilist thinks he is doing (in the Catholic Church, the sermon is always preached by a priest or deacon, who must be male). Do the admonitions to be more prayerful, more generous, more this or that really affect us? When I’m exhorted to act in a certain way ‘because you are a nun’, does it ever change me? I have to say that, by and large, I stick with being me, trusting that God doesn’t make junk and sees something incomparably wonderful in each one of us, even me. That isn’t a pretext for not trying to be more prayerful, generous, etc (see above), I think it is to recognize a fundamental truth: we go to heaven, if we go at all, as ourselves — smudged with sin, only half-understanding, full of contradictions, the person God created and redeemed. Being oneself is ultimately the only way in which to give God glory.

What's the point?

I've been kindly provided with a door intercom, which includes smart new phones. In theory, it means that if someone comes to the door I can talk to them and decide whether to invite them in or not! It's of course a great help.

It reminded me of the book I've just finished reading, by Basil Hume, called Basil in Blunderland. As long as you're not an intellectual snob, I recommend it as a book about the spiritual life. Anyway it's set in the context of a game of hide-and-seek, which  gives rise a series of meditations. The great thing about them is that they are thoroughly realistic and practical.

"I began to think of an aunt of mine - I call her Auntie B - who was very old and extremely deaf. She could not hear what I was saying. She disliked telephones anyway. She had very little to say. Why, then, did I telephone her? Simply because it was good to know that she was there, and to realise that she was pleased that I had taken the trouble to call her.
   "Many of us have this kind of experience when we pray. It is like telephoning someone who is deaf and apparently has nothing to say to us. But then God does not have ears like us. Nor does He have a voice like ours. So what is the point of phoning Him, that is praying to Him? Sometimes I say to myself that God is like Auntie B, bad on the telephone. Nonetheless when I begin to speak to Him in prayer I sense that He is pleased that I am doing so. He is pleased that I am paying attention to Him. When I pray I know that He is there listening to what I have to say. But does He answer when I make my requests? Has He heard me? I realised long ago that I have to have faith and patience that, in fact, God answers our prayers in His way and not in ours. Now He knows what is good for us and what is harmful. In fact, He has only one desire for us. It is that we should get closer to Him and eventually be given the gift of everlasting life with Him. Whatever helps that, we shall receive, whatever does not lead to that, we shall not. Nonetheless every prayer we say draws us closer to Him."

I think that experience of feeling God is deaf is a common one. It's certainly one that appears in the old psalms. But what I like is the fact that actually God is attentive and pleased when we try and pray. Basil Hume makes no claims at being "good" at praying - which is why he is so helpful. Here's one more bit about how hard it is to concentrate our flibberty-gibberty minds when we're praying.

"Distractions are part of the experience of praying.... 'So, Lord, I go on trying to fix my thoughts on You. I find that I cannot get out of my head an anxiety that has been bothering me these last few days. Lord, may I share it with You?' I just sit quietly, and the persons I am worried about appear one by one in my mind. As I see each one, I offer them to God to give them His care - and, I ask him to resolve my anxiety. And, I would like to be freed from distractions just for a little time - well, till the next one comes along.

Gauguin, Christ in the olive trees

    "There are times when we are in the grip of a great pain. We have lost one we loved much. There has been a disaster in the family or one that threatens. We have been cruelly treated by others, accused unjustly, ridiculed. Thoughts about God do not come. Words do not help. On these occasions just kneel or sit, and pray 'Not my will be done, Lord, but Yours'. Just remain agonising, knowing that the Gethsemane experience can lead - perhaps a long way ahead - to a Mount Tabor one. It was on Mount Tabor that Christ was transfigured. Peter said on that occasion: 'It is good, Lord, for us to be here.' It is always a privilege to join Christ in His agony in the Garden. But it does hurt."

Hanging on

© Paul Mitchell

On Songs of Praise on Sunday, the tenor, Alfie Boe, was featured. He was the youngest of nine children of a Catholic family and, yes, he said, faith had remained very important to him. The two great moments of his adult life were holding his dying father in his arms and being present at the birth of his daughter, Gracie. Nice chap and nice voice, I thought. 


He sang the first verse of "Guide me, O thou great Redeemer"and then a song I didn't know. Usually I get cross when a pop song (or in this case a Country and Western song) is inserted into Songs of Praise. It's hardly great poetry. However, as it was apparently Alfie's choice, I gave it the time of day - and, when I heard it, thought of the friend I mentioned last time. And so, M, this is dedicated to you and your lovely daughter - and to all families holding on even when they've had enough:


"In my daughter's eyes I am a hero
I am strong and wise and I know no fear.
But the truth is plain to see,
She was sent to rescue me.
I see who I wanna be
In my daughter's eyes.

In my daughter's eyes everyone is equal,
Darkness turns to light and the
world is at peace.
This miracle God gave to me gives me
strength when I am weak;
I find reason to believe
In my daughter's eyes.

And when she wraps her hand
around my finger,
Oh it puts a smile in my heart,
Everything becomes a little clearer,
I realize what life is all about:

It's hangin' on when your heart
has had enough,
It's giving more when you feel like giving up.
I've seen the light;
It's in my daughter's eyes.

In my daughter's eyes I can see the future,
A reflection of who I am and what will be
Though she'll grow and someday leave,
Maybe raise a family.
When I'm gone, I hope you see how happy
she made me,
For I'll be there
In my daughter's eyes." (James T Sinclair)


You can hear it sung by Martina McBride, the American artist who made it famous, here, or about 18 minutes into the iPlayer recording of Sunday's programme Songs of Praise, here. The heart of the song, of course, is the human expression of God's sort of love:
"I realize what life is all about:
It's hangin' on when your heart
has had enough,
It's giving more when you feel like giving up." It works both ways, and it happens because of love - which is what life is all about.

Really Woolly

On Thursday we had our friend, Tony, from Stockport with us. He's a great hill walker. He's bagged all the Munroes and knows the Lakes like the back of his hand. Well, we don't have many hills in Grove, and anyhow my speciality is low-level walking. So he had to make do with one of mine, that is the meander through the estate to Cornerstone, my favourite coffee shop, and back. It was, as they say in the north-west, a manky day. But with coffee and cake in prospect we made it through the murk. While he browse through the books, I looked for a card for a friend who's having a really tough time, and I came across this "Really Woolly" card.

It's from America, and so rather more expressive than we'd tend to be in the UK. You might say it was sentimental, imagining the words of God; but I think sentiment is underrated. After all it basically means "feeling" - which is an important part of human experience. The whole script is based on a psalm:
Dear one of Mine,
I see you need encouragement today.
I actually see you every day, all day.
I'm the One who watches over you
and even planned your birth
a long time before I made the earth or Milky Way.
I couldn't wait to see you born and to see your life unfold.
I love you so much and have since before anything existed.
I've poured out My love on you from heaven above and earth below.
I've poured out my love from a manger and down from a cross.
Both today's enjoyments and today's difficulties are real,
but they are temporary.
Your forever rejoicing will come soon -
when I do.
Until then, know that you are loved,
and let that love fill you with peace this very day.
(Based on Psalm 139.1-18, by Rose Mary Harris © DaySpring Cards Inc)


On the back of the envelope is "The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need." Psalm 23:1. I'm hoping my friend will appreciate it. "Difficulties" is hardly an adequate word to describe what she's going through. They are real and no doubt seem interminable, but it's true, they are only temporary, and there is an eternity of being loved - which has already started in the manger and on the cross.

What's the point of pretending?

I enjoyed this exchange (below) on Facebook this morning, which I came across through my friend, the internet curate, Sally Hitchiner. I appreciated J's response, acknowledging that total honesty is the best, in fact the only, policy in prayer, and I liked the Nuns' prayer. Our children make fun of the way we used to tell them, "You're tired," when they were grumpy and out-of-sorts, but it's true that our physical state does affect our spirit and emotions, and vice versa.

The nuns live in Oxford, and I must say they look a jolly bunch. They describe themselves: "We are a community of contemplative Benedictine nuns with a special interest in using the internet for spiritual outreach. We run Veilaudio, a free audio book creation and loan service for the blind and visually impaired, a dedicated email prayerline, and offer online retreats."  Their mission is to live "a life of prayer and praise, to the glory of God and in the service of others". 

It's not unusual to hear people write nuns and monks off as being out of touch. Nothing seems further from the truth. I've just finished reading Anthony Howard's biography of Basil Hume - the Monk Cardinal. An impressive unpretentious godly man who had a pastor's heart and grappled with the thorny issues of his day. I'll be very interested to see tonight's BBC1 programme, "Young Nuns". "Filmed over 6 months, the documentary gives a unique insight into a rarely seen world, challenging stereotypes and exploring what convent life can still offer young women today." It follows two women in their twenties following their sense of calling. I trust it will be inspiring.

Benedictine Nuns, Holy Trinity Monastery

Today we pray for everyone who is feeling tired, grumpy, cantankerous or out-of-sorts: may the Lord have mercy on us and all we meet.

• •  J I do know that we can pray to God exactly as we are , for what's the point of pretending? It's good to have a reminder though and I smiled ruefully at "May God have mercy on ...all we meet." I never realised, when I started using Facebook to keep in touch with young relatives that I'd be using it as part of my daily prayers too.

    2 hours ago
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    Benedictine Nuns, Holy Trinity Monastery J, life is full of surprises, isn't it? We don't have to let social media be 'trivial' — though I'm far from sure that our offerings don't often come into that category! Jawbones of asses spring to mind . . .

Being a clay jar

I don't know whether I have any Syrians among my ancestors; I certainly have some Isaacs. Whether this comes from one of them I very much doubt, but it made me think: "Blessed is the man who knows his own weakness, for this knowledge becomes for him the foundation, the root, and the beginning of all goodness.... When a man knows he is in need of divine help, he offers up many prayers" (Isaac the Syrian). You don't need to be strong or self-sufficient, because the point of life, as I said to one of my friends frustrated by MND last week, is not to achieve, but to be loved and to love. To be more precise, it's to be loved by God and to love him.

What are you praying for?

I read this story this morning:
"There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people. A widow in that city kept after him: 'My rights are being violated. Protect me!'

  "He never gave her the time of day. But after this went on and on he said to himself, 'I care nothing what God thinks, even less what people think. But because this widow won't quit badgering me, I'd better do something and see that she gets justice—otherwise I'm going to end up beaten black-and-blue by her pounding.'"

Of course this was the story that Jesus told to illustrate persistence in praying. And then he said: "Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think God won't step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won't he stick up for them? I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?" If the corrupt judge will in the end grant the widow's request, is it conceivable that God, who is pure love, would be harder to persuade to answer prayers?


Then I fell to thinking, what is it that I'm really praying for when I'm longing for diseases to be healed, or injustice to be sorted, and famines and floods and wars to end? In fact I'm praying for God's Kingdom to come quickly - when there'll be no reason to cry. Sorrow and sighing will be a thing of the past. And that, of course, is exactly what Jesus told us to pray for: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your Name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...."


Prayer isn't just a matter of pious longing. It's more than that, just as worship is more than singing along with "Songs of Praise". Somehow, prayer is active engagement with the need.... maybe just telling the person they're in your thoughts and prayers, or visiting them; or if it's a cause lobbying your MP! But it always includes, and starts with engagement with our loving Heavenly Father, "who loves to give to his children good things." And he will.

The question Why?

"It often seems that God will answer a simple need before a great one. We can pray for car parks, and we do, but we still unload our wheelchairs from our cars. Why is that?" Roderick Mallen commented a couple of days ago on this blog. Strangely enough, I'd been thinking about that sort of thing after Jane and I had been reading about Jesus healing the ten lepers. Because I have to say there are times when I wish he'd just do the same for my friends with MND and that sort of thing (and, yes, for me). It's really not a picnic, you know. At the moment, mine's not bad, but in the advanced stages.... 


I know I wrote about the question in I Choose Everything, and I should really be sorted. And on the whole I'm content to live with the mystery of it all. I don't believe there are easy answers or easy solutions. I really like the folksy song There is a reason, not least because I think Alison Krauss has a lovely voice, and because, in its simple-faith way, it represents someone struggling with the question "Why?" "There must be a reason for it all." I don't believe that hurtin' is designed in order to bring us to God, though it may have that effect. However in the middle of the song is the nugget where the answer lies hidden: "The love that shed His blood for all the world to see -
This must be the reason for it all". It doesn't explain it. It simply points to the cross as the proof that Love not only underpins everything, but also allows Himself to be impaled with us in pain.

I also like the song because, despite that glimpse of the mystery of love, just as it starts with a question, so it also ends with an admission of doubt. "I do believe but help my unbelief... I've been told
There is a reason for it all." Someone said, "Faith without doubt isn't faith." 


That really doesn't answer your question, Roderick, why God doesn't answer the really big ones. I guess you and I would willingly trade the parking spaces for our wheelchairs. But then I think of Bruce Almighty and the mess he made of answering prayers, and have to admit it's way beyond my competence. I have a feeling St Paul was right: "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." I like the translation: "Now we see puzzling reflections in a mirror." I suppose that God is working out THE REALLY BIG ONE. Then we'll know, and be amazed. Till then it's a matter of hanging on in there - like He did.


I've seen hard times and I've been told
There isn't any wonder that I fall
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years
There must be a reason for it all

I've trusted in You, Jesus, to save me from my sin
Heaven is the place I call my home
But I keep on getting caught up in this world I'm living in
And Your voice it sometimes fades before I know

Hurtin' brings my heart to You, crying with my need
Depending on Your love to carry me
The love that shed His blood for all the world to see
This must be the reason for it all

Hurtin' brings my heart to You, a fortress in the storm
When what I wrap my heart around is gone
I give my heart so easily to the ruler of this world
When the one who loves me most will give me all

In all the things that cause me pain You give me eyes to see
I do believe but help my unbelief
I've seen hard times and I've been told
There is a reason for it all

Persistence

"The reason why God calls for perseverance is not... that he wishes to test our faith... But he may wish to deepen it. The thing that will most deepen it is to persist with faith through disappointment" (William Temple).

What's the point?

Sometimes I get an email which really makes me examine what I believe and why. Recently someone wrote. He'd read my article in the Guardian about Stephen Hawking's view that believing in heaven was a fairy story for people "afraid of the dark" ("I'd stake my life that Stephen Hawking is wrong about heaven"). He thought I might have something wise to say in the face of the apparent meaninglessness and randomness of life - and asked me how I regarded the prospect of death. Sometimes you get the sense that a person is raising awkward questions just to trip you up - but not in this case.

So during these wonderfully sunny warm autumnal days, I thought about my answer and this was a large part of it:

"To be honest most of the time I feel very small and vulnerable in a vast and perplexing universe. I think you have expressed the ultimate questions well and succinctly. To shuffle off this mortal coil, as Shakespeare put it, for another transcendental existence or else to be snuffed out for good seems a kind of waste and a denial of the rich sense of meaning that we have in our present existence. I can understand why some people choose to believe in reincarnation, so that there's at least some continuity of biological life. 

"You probably know the 17th century Englishman's famous description of life as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". You aren't alone in struggling! I have no idea where you're coming from philosophically or personally, so I hope you will excuse me if I tread on any of your cherished notions. I don't mean to. As I've indicated, I don't feel I have all the answers. I feel more like I'm on a journey of exploration - which some people find an uncomfortable experience, but just happens to be the case with me. 

I identify with the poet who wrote: 

'We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.'

 That means that I'm on a journey of exploration in my disease - and of course it started before then! - which will lead to my death, I know. However, as I indicated in my Guardian article, I don't believe it will end there, which relates to where it started. As I wrote then, it was at university that I examined the evidence for the resurrection, in particular of Jesus Christ, and couldn't find any convincing reason that it didn't happen. The case for the defence was overwhelming. The documents were historically sound, the tomb was empty, no body was ever produced, independent witnesses saw him, hundreds of them, the disciples changed, and the Christian church 'happened'. The case was well argued by the leading lawyer, Professor Norman Anderson. If it was true, then the idea that life ends with death falls apart.  

"believing in nothing is just as
problematic!"

"However there's more to a journey than having one radical idea! Intellectually I didn't find it hard to believe in God. Certainly He can't be proved, but believing in nothing is just as problematic. I suppose you could say that my faith was largely cerebral for some years. It made sense. Its morality wasn't easy but was compelling. I reckoned it provided the most compelling worldview on offer. It was that in the end that took me into the priesthood. I won't bore you with a step-by-step account of the journey, but just point out a couple of milestones on the way. One was being diagnosed with ALS/MND nine years ago. That took me into a world of profound and disturbing questions, about meaning and suffering - I suppose to do with what you describe as randomness. But the other happened about seven years earlier. That was what I can only describe as an unexpected encounter with the Spirit of God when I was overwhelmed with the love of Jesus Christ. The effect it had on me was to transform my largely intellectual faith into a life conviction. It also meant that when my diagnosis came I had a different perspective on the questions concerning suffering and so on. I suppose I'd had long enough to prove that not only did faith make sense but it also worked in practice. And I'd also found that I was not alone in life.

"So although I've not had answers to all the perplexing questions, I've been given a sense that life is not pointless or random. I know that the process of dying will not be simple or pleasant for me, but so far the hard things of my life have had unexpectedly positive outcomes. I think if you stop learning and stop striving to learn then you've an impoverished approach to life. As for the nature of life after death - well, the two compass points I go by are the accounts of the nature of the risen Jesus, whose body had a continuity with his body before death; it was tangible and recognisable, yet transformed, unlimited and superior. That seems to indicate that there's a continuity between us as we are and us as we shall be. The second compass point is that Jesus seemed to indicate that there will be 'a new, or renewed, creation'; in other words there will be some sort of continuity between existence as we know it now and existence as it's going to be. Somehow everything won't go to waste or be lost to oblivion.  

"Recently I've read something a truly wise man wrote about spiritual life. He compares life to a race; it has a start and an end. Its 'rules' are quite confusing. But God wants everyone to "win": 'So don't just listen to people talking or writing about religion. Some do it well, others do not. When they are concerned only with the externals of religion, they make it all sound so boring. Listen again...: "the best way to explain it is to do it". So get involved, even if your attempt to do so seems a blundering one.'

"I'd say something similar, like I feel I've been invited on this journey into the unknown, and all I know is that I've been invited by supreme Love. I'm relying on Him. I left a line out of that poem earlier:

'With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.' That's what makes the difference.

"I don't know whether that's of any help."