Remembrance Sunday

 

History can inspire or trap.
Walls can protect or divide.
Words can encourage or inflame.
Power can free or destroy.
Touch can comfort or violate.
Peace can be shared or withheld.
All loving God, on this day,
when we remember past and present conflicts,
we pray for the divided peoples of the world,
that leaders, governments and each one of us
may use our resources,
our opportunities and our lives
in the service of reconciliation,
for the sake of future generations
and to the glory of your name.
Amen.

Seeing only Shadows

 

 

Prayer in a time of hopelessness

We entrust to you, eternal God,
those times when we can see only shadows
and lose sight of the hope to come;
the times when suffering seems so senseless,
life so fragile, war so unstoppable and death so permanent.
Bless us with the assurance that you are in all things,
the tragic and the beautiful,
the nightmare and the dream,
the light and the darkness.
This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ
the peace of the world, today, tomorrow and forever.
Amen.

 

Silence

 

Listen to the Silence 

If I chose to hide you away, it is for a reason.
I have brought you to this place.
Drink in the silence. Seek solitude.

Listen to the silence.

It will teach you. It will build strength
Let others share it with you.
It is little to be found elsewhere.

Silence will speak more to you in a day than the world of voices can teach you in a lifetime.
Find silence. Find solitude – and having discovered her riches, bind her to your heart.                                                                               Frances J. Roberts

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,

wherever He may send you.

May He guide you through the wilderness,

protect you through the storm.

May He bring you home rejoicing

at the wonders He has shown you.

May He bring you home rejoicing

once again into our doors. Northumbrian Prayers 

21st Century Life

 

Doug writes: I notice that St Andrews, in our Team Ministry, blogged each day last week about John Lennon, remembering what would have been his 80^th birthday. It’s a good idea, and I recommend the newly remixed compilation of Lennon songs entitled “Gimme Some Truth”. The title track is incisive, a classic among Lennon’s most radical songs – not for the faint-hearted, but how relevant to the next few days in the U.S. if he had been able to live peacefully in New York’s Dakota Apartments. It’s not about imagining a better world so much as direct confrontation.

 

As the new millennium dawned I would have rather liked to have played, early on 1 January, a different classic from the same era (for Jo’s sake I didn’t!). The track would have been the King Crimson track “21^st Century Schizoid Man”. It is the lead-in track from their first (best?) album “In the Court of the Crimson King”, just reissued. The album is largely about war, a Crimson King being one stained with blood. The first track begins deceptively quietly, tempting you to turn up the volume, then crashes in with an incredibly heavy riff. The distorted vocals refer to so many of the things which we experience today – medical staff without sufficient supplies, greed, hunger, innocent people bombed. No wonder one can end up feeling like the striking face on the cover.

 

The album proceeds with a quieter track about how we can find our words and feelings ignored, speaking of disillusion with the way things are. It segues into “Epitaph”, which makes a similar point to John Lennon’s observations about peace and politicians – though a couple of years before that. It asserts that ultimately the writer’s epitaph will be “confusion”. I imagine we can all identify with that as we look at the world around us. Maybe it is enough to make us all schizoid.

 

We have just filmed a minimalist Remembrance Day ceremony at the Hertfordshire Regimental memorial in All Saints, with a wreath laying by Keith Cockman. We looked afresh at the vast number of names of those who died in the first World War. It is hard to make sense of such violence wreaked across our globe, and equally hard to understand why we have not learned ways of avoiding such terrible conflicts. Confusion continues.

 

At the memorial we vowed to remember the fallen, and added the Kohima Epitaph: When you go home, Tell them of us and say, “For your tomorrow, We gave our today”. We need to remember the many people who died, and the pain and death that can follow from aggression, confrontation and poor international cooperation. May our own lives reflect a love of peace and hope, of caring for others, for in this 21^st century the ways of Jesus have surely never been more relevant.

PC Gary Bentley reflects

 

A I’ve been a police officer a lot longer than I’ve been a Christian- I got confirmed in rank in 2002. I got confirmed as a Christian in 2016. I had a Christian upbringing and I led what I felt was a decent life, but I hadn’t opened the door to Jesus and I only called upon him in prayer if I was worried about something. As an adult I never prayed to say thank you, I didn’t go to church and I never read a bible.

Then in 2014 I went to Kenya for my 40^th birthday and took an anti-malaria tablet which went on to give me side effects of depression and anxiety which I lived with for the best part of two years. In all the years of policing I had never been as frightened as I was when I became depressed. It was the unknown, a battle I didn’t know how to win. Having dealt with many suicides in my career I began to fear if that was a path I might travel down. When I learned the truth, that God loved me, that He had put me here and He had a purpose for me, life became bearable, then I stopped just existing and started living again. My days became filled with joy not despair. I can’t thank God enough for what he has done for me. I now listen to God’s Truth and not the enemy’s lies!

So now I am not just a police officer but also a Christian. How does that work? Police officers, whether Christian or not, join up because God has put into their hearts a desire to help others, to make a difference, to put something back into their communities. So you are already looking to follow a lot of Jesus commandments, whether you realise that fact or not! We swear an oath when we join and many of the things we are swearing to do are about showing integrity, according equal respect to all people, preventing offences against people and property.

My favourite link between the bible and policing however is the story of the Good Samaritan. (Luke 10:25-37) The man who had been robbed and left to die was a Jew, the man who stopped to help was a Samaritan. It means nothing if you purposefully ignore a hurting soul. Love your neighbour. Police officers mirror this man’s actions. We don’t pick and choose who we help. We signed up to protect, to treat people with equal respect and so even if the person in front of us has been physically or verbally abusing us only moments before, we will help them. We put ourselves in danger, like the Samaritan.

As a Christian in the police we can’t easily share the Gospel. Politics and religion are two areas we aren’t allowed to share opinions on. However other officers often ask me about my faith and I can then share my journey story and how God has saved me. I have a tattoo on my right forearm of Ephesians 2:8 and I wear my CPA lanyard. Both are conversation starters. We are planting the seed of the kingdom by sharing our own experiences, by living righteous lives which these people will take notice of, and God will do the rest. 

From a reflection given By PC Gary Bentley at All Saints 25th October 2020

Essentials

 

A man without a mask went into a Welsh supermarket and tore away the plastic sheeting which was preventing customers from accessing “non-essential” items. People should not be going into stores without a mask, so I immediately felt a strong disapproval. And if you don’t agree with the rules, here or there, this form of direct action is not the way to deal with the situation.

Nevertheless, I was struck by his assertion that children’s clothes are not “non-essential items”. It’s hard to disagree with that. Especially with the weather becoming cooler and damper. I would imagine that most families can cope for a few weeks, but clothes can become spoilt, lost or stolen and children grow out of them. I think I get that point, at least.

It’s even more true that children need food, and it is shocking that in modern Britain we have families who cannot feed their children properly, and that it is left to a footballer to challenge the situation with child food poverty. I gather that the Welsh lockdown situation on essential items is to be clarified. I wish that caring for children’s welfare in poorer families would also be clarified and remedied.

I wonder just what we honestly think of as “essential”. We need food, but do we really need the vast choice presented at the average supermarket? Do we need it pre-chopped, processed, microwaveable, ready to serve every whim? Do we need the sheer variety of fruit flown in from around the world? Do we really need every possible variety of our (daily) bread? Our current crisis demonstrates how we expect so much that is not truly essential.

What is essential? Knowing our true needs is a spiritual issue. Jesus warns us not to become too concerned or worried about what we eat or wear, and he lived in considerable poverty among those who were ignored or rejected by society. He could see that we can become overtaken with acquiring more and more, with our own status, focused on our needs and desires. His message was that the essential approach was to trust in God and follow the way of the kingdom.

In days like these, we become aware of the limitations of our world’s options, and hopefully more conscious of the needs of others who are in greater need than we are. It is truly a wretched situation but it has valuable lessons for us if we will but notice. The true essentials are to love God and our neighbours as ourselves and this dual command is the essential filter for all we think and do.

 

Cleanliness?

 

Doug writes:

 With the virus re-surging, I wonder what new protocols we need in our streets and pathways? We need to maintain social distance, so how do we do that? Every time I go to town or take a walk it becomes an issue. People just aren’t good at it; there are well-publicised cases of well-known people breaking the rules, but it can happen everywhere and anywhere.

Walking from the All Saints side of the town to the shops is a challenge in itself. The passages under Gascoyne Way are scarcely two metres wide. Pathways are not very wide either, so a lot of walking in the road is needed, which can, of course, be dangerous. In many shops there is little room, even with restricted numbers, and whether there or in a larger supermarket people generally try until they see something they want urgently which happens to be very near you or I.

I have begun to feel rather like the Priest and Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan (yes, I know they are not good role models!) as I avoid people assiduously. Nothing personal, but we can’t be sure where the virus may be.

It goes against the grain to clearly and deliberately make a wide berth of anyone who approaches, but “Space” is the word from on high. In this new situation, I want to use the classic English “sorry” all the time as I make my little detours. It’s for your sake too!

Sometimes other people may be coming towards me and they beat me to it, avoiding me like the plague. I feel deeply insulted before realizing that it is indeed for the common good. So I seek to say thank you to them, hoping that calling out the words will not project droplets in their direction. Perhaps a little liturgical bow would be better, but they probably aren’t Anglicans. Unfortunately.

I do think that we can ensure that we use the sanitiser provided in so many places, a bit sticky for a while but very good for protection. And we need to keep using them, time and again, even if it means a heavy build-up. We should be thanking all who provide these facilities, it can’t be great for them. We don’t exactly love it in church, it’s an awkward distraction in our worship, but it’s essential for the time being. Thank you everyone who helps to keep us free from the transmission of the virus, and thank you to everyone who keeps the need for space and cleanliness at the forefront of their minds. Didn’t they used to say that “Cleanliness is next to godliness”?