The vulnerable mind

Last Friday, the Evangelical Alliance published an article of mine in their Friday night theology series. The aim is to write about 500 words on something topical. I've written for them a number of times, but I think in the end I have been most pleased with this article. You can read it here: Friday Night Theology: The Vulnerable Mind.

It's very tempting for Christians to pretend life is a bed of roses for them. I think that has a number of causes. One is the habit that preachers used to have of saying something like, "Come to Jesus and all your problems will be sorted." As Anne said at Stanford's Festival Songs of Praise last Sunday, that certainly wasn't the message that Saul, later St Paul, was given at his conversion, as God tells the reluctant evangelist, Ananias, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” Not a great sales pitch! 


Another is the culture of "strength" fostered among the clergy. It's not done to admit weakness, either mistakes or mental fragility. I was very fortunate when I was an apprentice pastor to have an understanding boss - as within my first year I was plagued by panic attacks. Early intervention and counselling restored my equilibrium. Later on, I actually believe that my MND, which is such an obvious weakness, helped some in our church to feel free to admit to their vulnerabilities. It made us all more real with each other and with God. 


Depression is of course not at all obvious. It may creep up insidiously as MND does, but it's easier to conceal and has a public stigma which encourages concealment. However, to my mind, it's worse than any physical ailment, as is true for all mental unwellness. The truth is that people of faith have never been insulated from mental struggles. Look through the Old Testament and try to find heroes of faith who sailed untroubled through life.... Of course the example who is most often cited is Elijah, whose treatment begins with food and rest, but you can uncover questionings, doubts and tears all over the place. The psalms contain their fair share of complaints and honest misery. If you've suffered depression, you'll recognise the feeling of Psalm 55: 

“Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
    I would fly away and be at rest;
⁷ yes, I would wander far away;
    I would lodge in the wilderness;
⁸ I would hurry to find a shelter
    from the raging wind and tempest."

Jesus himself was not immune from doubts (in the temptations) or from the sense of God having abandoned him. When he said, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" I can't believe he was pretending, or merely reciting poetry. I believe he was using the closest words he could find to describe his experience. "This is what I'm going through - and it hurts even more than the nails." The sheer cliffs of the mind are dreadful places to hang.

My article was inspired, oddly enough, by the transparent honesty of four MPs in a recent debate. When, I wondered, did I last hear a prominent church leader talking about his struggle with mental health? Would someone who admitted the vulnerability even be considered for ministry in the church? And if not, what sort of message does that send to other Christians? The wrong sort. The Church is not the domain of the strong and satisfied; it's the haven for the hurting and the hungry. It's not the resort of the successful, but of the lost and limping. It has good news not for the righteous, but for washed-up sinners. It's meant to be a ragbag of mixed-up, messed-up men and women, not there in the first place because they need mending, but there because they need loving - and they are loved. And because Christ loves every member of his motley Church and gave himself for them, so they in turn are meant to accept and love each other in the same way, without conditions and without reservations.

Blessings

I owe a lot to my friends Miles and Sarah, who now live in posh London. They used to live in Stanford in the Vale where I was vicar. Sarah has a lovely voice and used to lead worship for us. Every now and then she makes a comment on Facebook about a singer whom she's discovered. When I've found them on YouTube, she invariably proves a great talent spotter. One was Alison Krauss. Yesterday she posted, "Just discovered the amazingly beautiful voice and lyrics of Laura Story - loving Blessings." So I followed it up, and of course she's right! Blessings on YouTube

On her website, I found this account by Laura Story, which I reckoned was very helpful and rather good theology.

"The album that I did three to four years ago happened right after my husband went through surgery for a brain tumor. So a lot of the ideas that I was writing about then were just very fresh, about how do we worship in the midst of trials. So fast forwarding a few years later, a lot of things have changed. A lot of things have gotten better with his health, and a lot of things have not. We pray for God to bless us, but what does it look like when I spend four or so years praying for healing for my husband that never comes? I feel like we’ve kind of gotten to a place of having to make a choice. Are we going to judge God based on our circumstances that we don’t understand, or are we going to choose to judge our circumstances based on what we know to be true about God? Not that I choose the right thing every day, but I’m learning that every morning when I wake up to choose to trust God.

"And that’s what 'Blessings' is about. It’s just considering that maybe the blessing is actually found in the absence of the thing that I’m praying for. No one wants a brain tumor, and no one wants a severed marriage and these things that we pray that God will reconcile. But even though this situation is definitely nothing that we ever would have asked for or prayed for, there has been a depth of intimacy with the Lord that I’m not sure I would have known apart from such a hard road that we’ve walked. And in the end, if I’ve learned to cling to that old rugged cross all the more, I truly can say that I’m a blessed person."

http://laurastorymusic.com/2011/09/story-behind-the-song-“blessings”/

Isn't that a paradoxical insight: "maybe the blessing is actually found in the absence of the thing that I’m praying for"? I wonder what Laura means by learning "to cling to that old rugged cross". (It was a favourite funeral hymn among Stanford villagers, which always fascinated me...!) I suspect it's to do with learning to trust the love of the crucified God in the teeth of everything. 

Don't miss out

I enjoyed Saturday. It was dry, which helped. We'd arranged to meet my college pal, let's call him Murgatroyd, and his partner, I'll call her Annie, in Oxford. It's a long time since I've spent time with him and we'd never met her. We arranged to meet at the Ashmolean Museum. They're architects and he had not seen it since its £ multi-million rebuild. It is a most impressive, if confusing, building. They spotted, before following us to Brown's for a meal, the Vermeer painting on loan there.

Jane and I went to see it after lunch. It's the only painting by the Dutch master in private ownership, Young Woman seated at a virginal, and it's quite small (10 x 8 inches); but it stands out from all the others on the wall. It's very simple, but beautiful. It's in Oxford only until September, when it returns presumably to the wall of a very wealthy and lucky person in New York. You might easily miss it.

Opportunities to renew old friendships and make new ones are precious, and it's easy to miss them. That meal in Brown's was a quite simple sharing of good food and talk. Which is what "companionship" meant originally. But it was more. It was the seizing of a moment. It's all too easy to dwell in the past and so to miss what God may have in store. We've all made mistakes we regret, leaving behind hurts. And yet, it seems to me, that Jesus didn't hold such things against people. He invited himself to their homes for a meal. We've all had experiences which have scarred us. And yet he didn't allow such things to keep a stranglehold on people. He restored them to live life again in the future.

I'm sad to see yet another programme is scheduled on Channel 4 about Tony Nicklinson, trapped by a stroke in an unresponding body. Its title tells us that it will be an emotional tract advocating euthanasia: "Let our dad die". I'm sad because I believe he is actually missing out on what fellow-sufferer, Bram Harrison, said, "I enjoy my rather limited life"- see Bram Harrison's locked-in life. I quote Bram because his life is more like Tony's than mine is, for the moment. However I agree with Bram. It's surprising how much can be made of how little, given the opportunity and a positive attitude.

Times and seasons

I see it's a very long time since I last posted here. Business isn't the reason. I suppose it's because I've not had much to say. However I was struck in the interim by what Jesus said before ascending: "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed...".


At the end of May, Jane had to make the difficult decision to uproot our wallflowers and pansies which were still in full bloom. The result was that the flower bed and the pots were left bare and brown. Of course that wasn't the end. The next stage was putting in the young plants we bought from the local garden centre. Even so the view from my seat is a tad dull and not a patch on what it was before.  

Why did she grub up flowers in their prime? Vandalism? Perversity? Of course not. We know the reason. The season is the reason. In order for new flowers to blossom in the summer, the winter/spring flowers need to be grubbed up. As I look at the incomplete garden, it occurs to me that it might be how God works with us. Why does he take away? Why does he cut us down in our prime? Why does life hurt so often? Maybe it's a matter of times and seasons. Maybe it's because, as St Paul says, we are his workmanship. Maybe he has something good in mind.

Is he really with me?

Last Thursday was Ascension Day, the day when Christians recall the end of "all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day that he was taken up", as St Luke says in Acts. On Thought for the Day the speaker told us, as far as I understood her, that the message of the day is that Jesus left his disciples, and us, on our own to get on with it. She finished with the gnomic statement: "It is possible to make our peace with God when we live with the reality that we live together, alone."

I was sorry Lucy Winkett ended there, because, of course, the story doesn't end there. It was just the end of what "Jesus began to do and teach". St Luke proceeds to tell us what Jesus went on to do in The Acts of the Apostles, and he certainly doesn't mean that the apostles did his work for him together, "alone", i.e. without him. Arguably they are "on their own together" for ten days. But on Pentecost they receive "the promise of the Father". On the night of  his arrest, Jesus had told them: "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." Putting it a different way, he'd said,  ^"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you." And, pow! on Pentecost, don't they know it! I have a feeling that that's the significance of the physical signs they experience - they're to be in no doubt that Jesus has kept his promise: "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."


It remains true. The Holy Spirit of Jesus dwells in those who follow him. On 24th May 1738 (anniversary - Thursday), the Rev John Wesley wrote in his journal, "In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." He was never the same man again. It was the same transforming experience which radicalised the first disciples at Pentecost. He had no doubt that Jesus had answered his longing and kept his promise.


On 30th September 1994 another Anglican cleric wrote, "God answered immediately and dramatically, as it seemed to me. The conversation between my spirit and the Holy Spirit was humbling, yet full of his fiery love. I knew and physically felt that, in spite of everything, God loved me. It was the most liberating and wonderful experience.... It was not surprising that next morning I was different." He would tell you that, although his life has not been easy, he still has no doubt of the presence of Jesus.


Last Friday we read the story of Jesus asleep in the storm. "On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased, andthere was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?'" The accompanying note suggested we imagine the Father's arms around us. I have to admit that didn't really help me. I actually found the picture of Jesus there sleeping in the storm-threatened boat more like my experience. It's clear that he's there, and therefore it's ok, but nevertheless it can be pretty scary - but it's all right. You can't sink Jesus, and he's not suddenly about to take to the lifeboat. This is the lifeboat!

Psalms of complaint

We've just had Pete and Jane round, and, as always, had a lovely evening. They became good friends from soon after we moved here to Grove. We enjoy eating together. Jane (of Pete and J) makes rather good cakes; so Jane (of Michael and J) makes the first course. Pete and I do our bit by showing appreciation. We usually end up reading the Bible together, discussing and praying for our shared concerns.

Today we were talking about psalms of complaint (or disorientation, as Walter Brueggemann called  them), like 74, 79 and 137, and thinking how little real honest pain we express together in our worship services. We're always so polite and afraid of offending God's sensibilities - as if he doesn't already know exactly what we're feeling! I mentioned the song by Graham Kendrick which we'd had in church last Sunday, "For the joys and for the sorrows" sung here in Coventry Cathedral on Pentecost 2007. Here are the words:

For the joys and for the sorrows
The best and worst of times
For this moment, for tomorrow
For all that lies behind
Fears that crowd around me
For the failure of my plans
For the dreams of all I hope to be
The truth of what I am

For this I have Jesus
For this I have Jesus
For this I have Jesus, I have Jesus
(Repeat)

For the tears that flow in secret
In the broken times
For the moments of elation
Or the troubled mind
For all the disappointments
Or the sting of old regrets
All my prayers and longings
That seem unanswered yet

For the weakness of my body
The burdens of each day
For the nights of doubt and worry
When sleep has fled away
Needing reassurance
And the will to start again
A steely-eyed endurance
The strength to fight and win

Graham Kendrick
Copyright © 1994 Make Way Music,
www.grahamkendrick.co.uk 

I have to confess this is a song which brings tears to my eyes when it's sung in church, where in fact so many are experiencing some or all of the song. But the refrain, "For this I have Jesus", is true in a profound way, because he also experienced the whole gamut of the song and more, and he knows and feels with us.

Keeping hope in the storm

I've not been aware of this picture by Rembrandt "Christ
in the Storm" before today when a friend from University
who has cancer pointed it out. He likes especially the
cruciform mast and the use of light and dark contrasts. 

Two years ago, at the New Wine festival, from where this blog originated, some folk from Exmouth prayed with me. Since then they have become good friends. Sadly we didn't see one couple again as they set off on an expedition of faith. They are visionaries and pioneers. Nicky and Mike Temple began a blog for their friends, called "P is for pilgrim". Nicky has just posted one entitled Stormy Weather, illustrated, I assume, by some of Mike's great photographs (Mike Temple Photography). These are extracts:
"I have been pondering the storm and its effects over the past few weeks, pondering how we, as followers of Jesus, navigate the storms of life, how are we to ride the 'perfect' storm? How do we remain in victory through the storm? What does it look like to come through the storm without losing hope and remaining steadfast?" 

She writes about Brendan (the Celtic saint) and Reepicheep (!) in their coracles launching into uncharted waters, having to ride the storms and trust in God's navigation for them. I don't know what storms Nicky is talking about in her case, but they're clearly real; she loves to call God "Papa" (the English equivalent of Jesus's Aramaic name for him, "Abba"). And she also talks about the childhood experience of having a rotten day at school.
"Our storms often feel like 'one of those days' in which we're just getting it all wrong and bumbling our way through the wind and rain. It is so easy for shame and heaviness to set in but Papa is there, right there, closer than air, taking our head in his gentle hands and saying "I'm so proud of you". He loves us through the storm, pure, simple, powerful love that keeps no record of wrongs. Religion might measure how well we navigate the storm, keeping score of good days and bad - ticks and crosses. That is not the heart of Papa God. He knows storms are a messy business! He loves us through the raging seas and is not concerned with our response. He is concerned with loving us more fiercely than raging circumstances and telling us how well we're doing, how amazing we are! He never once abandons us. 

"He has a plan, a great plan that He is forging through the storm. All storms end and as we keep hope, as we cling, as we yield through them we are transformed and transported to new places in Him. I'm not sure when  my stormy weather will finally break, but I know it will. I believe that Jesus is good always, faithful always and kind always. He knows my heart, He understands me fully and loves me beyond imagining. So I can wait, I can ask for rescue and I can trust knowing that the sun will come out."

As I remember, Reepicheep, the valiant mouse, in the Narnia Chronicle The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, sailed in his coracle on a huge wave straight into Aslan's country. Scary but infinitely worth it.
I recommend Nicky's post.  Thank you, Nicky.