For some reason

For some reason, after breakfast today, this old hymn popped into my brain. It is old, written by Synesius of Cyrene in about AD 430. The tune is Elizabethan, composed by William Daman (from The Psalmes of David in English metre). I love the tune. This version is an abbreviation of the whole poem, but it works well, I think.

Lord Jesus, think on me

Lord Jesus, think on me
And purge away my sin;
From earthborn passions set me free
And make me pure within.

Lord Jesus, think on me,
With many a care oppressed;
Let me Thy loving servant be
And taste Thy promised rest.

Lord Jesus, think on me
Amid the battle’s strife;
In all my pain and misery
Be Thou my Health and Life.

Lord Jesus, think on me
Nor let me go astray;
Through darkness and perplexity
Point Thou the heavenly way.

Lord Jesus, think on me
When floods the tempest high;
When on doth rush the enemy,
O Saviour, be Thou nigh!

Lord Jesus, think on me
That, when the flood is past,
I may th’eternal brightness see
And share Thy joy at last.

Lord Jesus, think on me
That I may sing above
To Father, Spirit, and to Thee
The strains of praise and love.
                 (translated from Greek by Allen W Chatfield in 1876)

We don't often sing worship songs which acknowledge the harshness and perplexity of human life. Perhaps we should sing more of them - with hope at the end. I hope you find it helpful.

Hope at Christmas

When I was growing up in Bristol, one of the old buildings which always appealed to me was the Chapel of the Three Kings of Cologne, part of the Foster's Almshouses, at the top of Christmas Steps (full of exciting Dickensian shops!). It was built in 1504, by John Foster, a Bristol merchant, who, it's thought, had seen the Chapel of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral, named after the magi who came to visit the baby Jesus after the nativity - whose bones were transferred there in the 12th century. 

On my other blog, I wrote about being interviewed about the end of life by Channel 5, and received this comment from "Leafyschroder", which I liked and thought I'd repeat here.

"Coming towards the celebration of the coming into the world of Life itself, I find your article, and indeed all that is being said about this subject profoundly moving.
"It's difficult to comprehend just how difficult life must be for some and one wishes that they could be enveloped by Love and deeply feel how valuable their life is. I have been listening to this beautiful song about hope: Cologne Cathedral and the Jewish song, 'Inscription of Hope'". 

Suzette, from whose blog this comes, wrote this about the song:

"The basement (of the cathedral) also became the hiding place for Jewish families hiding out from Hitler. At the end of the war, fragments of a poem, believed to have been written by a Jewish child, were scrawled on the wall. Those words from the poem were taken and put to music, the melody coming from an old Russian folk tune, and was turned into the choral arrangement, 'Inscription of Hope.' The music and choral arrangement were done by composer Z. Randall Stroope. Below are the lyrics of the first stanza of the song, taken from the words inscribed on the wall of the Cologne Cathedral:
Inscription of Hope
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
and I believe in love
even when there's no one there,
and I believe in God
even when he's silent.
I believe through any trial
there is always a way."

There's a poignancy reading this again at the time when we recall another Jewish child being hunted down by an oppressive régime. Whatever your circumstances this Christmas, I wish you a hope-filled season and the knowledge within you that Love came down at Christmas. Emmanuel - God is with us

How do I look?

I love this prayer by Bo Stern. To appreciate it fully, it's worth reading the context. So here's the post she wrote yesterday.
"A Prayer for Seeing

Posted: 10 Oct 2013 06:20 AM PDT

A couple of weeks ago, I was grabbing some groceries at Safeway when I noticed a man in a wheelchair who was in very bad shape.  His pale face shook from tremors and from working to keep his head steady.  At first I thought maybe it was ALS, but his healthy weight made me think otherwise.  Steve had just gotten his wheelchair, and I noticed that this man’s chair was red instead of blue and I wondered what brand he had chosen and why and just as I looked up, I caught the eye of the woman behind him.  I don’t know if she was his wife or not, but it was clear from her angry expression that I had been looking too long.  She rolled her eyes at me in disdain, clearly sick of feeling gawked at by countless passersby and protective of the man she loved.

My stomach sank.  I wanted to talk to her — to apologize and explain that I wasn’t staring out of curiosity or even sympathy, but empathy.  I’ve been in her shoes.  In fact, her shoes are my regular footwear.  I know how it feels to want to scream that the man you love is so much more than his condition or his wheel chair.  And I hate that I made her feel like an oddity instead of what she was:  a fellow-soldier, living on the battlefield of sickness and disability and trying to function in a world that doesn’t always understand.

Later, I thought about how easy it is to look at someone and imagine we know their motives.  I have done it a million times.  I’ve settled for a surface-level understanding which is often more dangerous than no understanding at all.  I need to remember that behind every face is a backstory, a history, a struggle.  And those stories make some more beautiful and some more broken (and maybe, for some, a little of each.)  And so I wrote this prayer and I’m committing to pray it often so I can learn to see people more clearly:

Father of all who are breaking beneath the weight of war,

Straighten and strengthen my vision

to see past skin and shell,

 beneath bravado and bluster,

and into the long-buried story.

Focus my heartsight on what eyes can’t see

 to love without reason,

hope without limits,

and truly believe

that everything possible with You

is dwelling in me.

Christ,

the Hope of Glory,

let me see."

I rather enjoyed this cartoon recently! I'd rewrite the second line to say, "How God sees you means everything". 

As Psalm 139.14 puts it, "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

    my soul knows it very well." 

Even being disabled and maimed doesn't stop the flow of God's love to us.

Stephanie's Hope

I've mentioned Bo Stern, whose husband has ALS/MND like me, before. I hope she won't mind my copying her latest blog post here. I know you'll appreciate it.

"Oh, I love this guest post by my sweet friend, Stephanie Nelson. Never let go of hope.

'Hope.

It was her middle name. 

All we knew was that she was on her way; we didn’t know her gender or her diagnosis yet.  One Sunday morning, our pastor preached about hope, defining it as “confident expectation.”  I leaned over and whispered to my husband that I liked it for a name if we have a girl.  He playfully rolled his eyes at me, standing firmly in his resolution not to discuss baby names until we find out the gender. 

But I tucked it deeply into my heart. 

It was tucked into her heart too.

Photo credit:
http://www.etsy.com/transaction/39221728

Evelyn Hope was born with so many congenital heart defects that at 12 days old, in the NICU of a prestigious research hospital, the doctors told us there was no hope for her and that we should let her go.

I knew where she was going and I knew I’d go there too someday.  I had days that were full of faith, but also days that were full of tears.  Sometimes the line between the two is very blurry, especially when your eyes are puffy, and brimming with a constant and thin veil of salty water that runs down your cheeks at all the moments you wish it wouldn’t.

The truth is I that I had never before really longed for Heaven.  It was a default option because I didn’t want to go to Hell.  I realize this isn’t very spiritual of me, but it’s true.  So much of grieving is learning when to hold on and when to let go.  Having – and losing – Evelyn was God’s gift to me so that I could place my hope in His promise of Heaven. 

Letting go of what I thought my life should be.

Holding this view of Heaven before me every day.

Heaven is where I will embrace her again, and spend endless days by her side worshipping Jesus together.  Knowing this gives me courage that I can greet every morning with faith, and rest in knowing that I am in His hands.  My trials and triumphs are hand-crafted by Him in order to bring me into a deeper relationship with Him.  Even when I want to call it quits in the midst of the dark days and even when I feel that sadness might rend my heart, I hold on to hope.  Knowing Christ more fully is worth the pain it might take to get there.  And spending eternity with Evelyn, compared to the breath that is this life, is just the icing on the cake. 

I did let Evelyn go.

But I will never let go of hope.' 

Stephanie Nelson is the author of “See You in a Breath,” and wife to Chris and mother to Clara and Jonathan. Her passions, in order are: Knowing Christ, loving her family and church, writing, reading, politics, and talking her friend’s ears off."

There's a lot I identify with in that, including her old default position on Heaven and hell! "Having - and losing - Evelyn was God's gift to me..." - that is some statement.

Beautiful Battlefields

I always think it must be harder for the carer than for the sufferer in a case like mine. There is so little you can do, except be there. I have a good friend in Australia who's called Liz. She lost her husband to MND a few years back. Today she sent me Easter blessings and told me about a new book by a lady named Bo Stern, Beautiful Battlefields. Her husband was diagnosed with ALS/MND in 2011. I'd love to meet her. She's a young (well, she looks young to me!) pastor in Oregon. She has a blog called The Difference of Day, and she writes well. I hope she won't mind my quoting her Good Friday post, which is a lovely counter-balance to my rather dour one.
The Best Friday

It’s interesting to me that we call the worst day in all of history “Good Friday.”  Maybe we intuitively understand that the best thing in our lives came out of the darkest moment in His.

I think Paul got it exactly right with this bold statement:   “I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering…”

I don’t like suffering, but I keep running into evidence that it’s important.  Suffering sets the stage for victory, making all things possible.

Unless a seed falls and dies, it cannot bear fruit.

When our seeds of hope are buried in the soil of suffering, everything falls away from them except real, true life.   And it feels like all is lost and all is winter.

Then bursting forth in glorious day…

I love this Beautiful Friday.

Happy Easter.
Bo.

I shall be getting hold of Beautiful Battlefields.

This is the song from which she quotes: In Christ alone. Brilliant! I find it hard singing the last verse; I believe it so much. Easter has never ended!

"Death, be not proud"

Andrew, a friend from university days, put the great sonnet by John Donne as his facebook status recently. As he said, he could find no better words to say it. A couple of days ago, we were phoned with the news that the disabled daughter of James and Lynn - whose tender care for her was for me a revelation of God's love at New Wine three years ago - had unexpectedly died.  So it's really with her and them in mind that I include these two quotations.

"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die." – John Donne

"Death is not the extinguishing of the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come." ~ Rabindranath Tagore.

Recently I read St Paul, writing to the Christians in Thessalonica, urging them "not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep". 

Stanley Spencer, Resurrection in Cookham Churchyard

"There is always hope"

A good friend of mine with a different sort of MND lives in the village of Longhope in Gloucestershire. I must say, although I've never been there, it looks an idyllic place. There are lots of hill walks in around the village, which now of course my friend isn't able to enjoy. What I particularly like about the village is its name. Apparently it means "long enclosed valley" - which in a way is apt as that's what chronic illness can feel like, but I prefer to think of it as "long-held hope" (expectation). Whether that's the hope of a cure being discovered by some God-inspired researchers or of green pastures where one day we'll dwell in his presence for ever, holding on to hope is a blessing worth having.

It's not the only thing that keeps us going. Another is receiving the gift of a new day every day. Our garden's not spectacular by any means, but I still gaze out of the window each breakfast time and admire the vitality and variety of creation. When it's raining the earth is dark and grateful; when it's stopped raindrops catch the light in unlooked for places; when the sun comes out, the hazel leaves take on a fresh lime-green vibrancy. And of course the greatest blessing is being loved.

I gather, from yesterday's Independent, that "Banksy's image of kissing policemen, originally daubed on a Brighton pub wall, has been surprisingly named the single work of art that best expresses British identity in a poll of 1,000 artists." I'm not sure what that says about contemporary British artists! It so happens we were talking with Pete and Jane a week ago, not about that graffito, but about "There is always hope", which I think first appeared on the South Bank. We were provoked by the question I'd read asking how we would relate it to the Christian good news (the writer saw the escaped balloon as symbolising forlorn hope and related it to the "better hope" that we have in Jesus). I myself imagined Jesus leaning down over the parapet and catching the balloon and giving it back to the girl, as many times as she let go of it, for, as the hymn puts it, "the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind". I think that's what the Incarnation (Jesus' birth) and the Atonement (his death) are about, his coming down with forgiveness and love for all and always.

Farewell

If you have a memory for such things, you may remember that in June last year our friends, Jean and John, put on a successful coffee morning in aid of the MNDA just down the road in Grove. It was a lovely sunny morning and a thoroughly cheerful time. I commented here, "As well as friends and neighbours, there were four of us there who had MND at various points of progression, Jean herself, David the herb farmer, Maria the shopper, and me. Three of us were out in the garden, and, yes, we did talk about our frustrations and the lessons we'd learned, but it wasn't a moany sort of conversation. It was companionable, and at times jokey."

David and Jean both died before Christmas. Last Wednesday night, Maria too died. Maria too was a delightful person - a devout Catholic with a sense of fun and hope. It's sad to realise I shan't be seeing her again, this side of the grave. The deaths of these three local friends and Jozanne thousands of miles away bring home to me the speed and harsh reality of the usual MND. I was talking about this recently with my physio and saying how I feel almost guilty to be among the "lucky" few with a very slow form. She gently pointed out the irrationality of the feeling! She also commented on the amazing qualities such as strength that the illness brings out in the family carers. That was certainly true of Eric, Maria's husband, and Camilla, her daughter. One of my other conclusions is that I would now put a "health warning" at the start of My Donkeybody, saying it's an account of PLS, a very gradual form of MND and far from typical, so that readers don't have unrealistic expectations raised for themselves or their relatives. (At the moment it's in the appendix.) So it's vale, Maria - farewell, till we meet again.

[from http://mydonkeybody.blogspot.com/]

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.

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.