Beauty for ashes

You might like to read my Diary of a Dancing Donkey blog, where I described what Julian of Norwich  called a "revelation of divine love". We spent last week at the New Wine Festival, a big gathering of Christians in Somerset, which led to my starting this blog a year ago.

Gorgeous Grace - Click for link

In the end it was an encouraging time for me. On the way I noted things which people said. Unfortunately I was just using my iPod on which I'm very slow, and so they may be approximate quotes. Anyway here's the first of them, from Karen Jones - who's recently published her first novel with the unlikely title of The Babe's Bible - Gorgeous Grace, which I am reliably informed is gripping. As I was saying, here's the quote:

"Our sufferings cost us too much to waste them."

It's true, isn't it? We can either nurse our pains and almost cherish them, clinging to them rather like Gollum and his "my precious" ring. Or we can release them and use them more like St Paul who used his afflictions "to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." 

I think Karen was thinking not only of that, but also of our suffering being a seedbed for the growth of our own maturity and our relationship with God. We can regard suffering as entirely negative and destructive, or we can allow it to be turned to good. I say "allow" as I don't think it's merely a matter of the will. Paul talks about "the God of all comfort" who enables us to pass on the comfort we've received. That has to be the work of the Holy Spirit. And equally it's Him who turns our ashes into a crown of beauty and gives us a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair (Isaiah 61). It's certainly true that when we're going through suffering like depression or bereavement it doesn't lie in our power to drag ourselves into the light, not really. We may put on a brave face, but it always conceals a weeping heart. But God... "is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine". YIPPEE! 

"Weeping may last through the night,    
but joy comes with the morning."   
So I wait for you....

Through the window

Among his many talents, Martin is a freelance photographer: http://martinart-photography.com/. He has a knack of seeing and capturing the unusual.  He brought some of his work to the MNDA Bake History coffee morning we had here on Saturday. I don't know how much he sold, but I liked this one called Window - so I ordered one of the limited edition. He brought it round today.

The sea and the sky really were that blue. Besides the interesting ruined walls (How many faces are hidden in the stones?), I love the fact that even through the small hole as well as through the roughcast "window" you can see the variety of life in the cliff-top flora and the sea breaking against the promontory. (By the way, any ideas of where the photo is?)

It's a sort of picture of the potential which still lies within human wreckage. You can still find beauty, and life and hope, even when all you yourself feel is a ruin. It's a matter of perspective. You can focus on the ruin or you can focus on the sun beyond.

Sometimes, however, even that view gets obscured by mist or rain. I've just heard today of an inexplicable grief. I have to confess that I have wept for those involved - and I don't understand it. Why does God allow hopes to be so sadly dashed? I don't get it. 

And yet, as I've written in My Donkeybody, I still believe that the sun shines behind the closed shutters. I just can't comprehend the total nature of that Love.

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.

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.