Clapham Common

 

The weekend’s events hit home with me. I used to live in Halls of Residence on the edge of Clapham Common when I was studying at London University. It felt like a pleasant place to live, a green space in a huge conurbation. But was it really so safe? And are we truly safe anywhere?

The kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard are shocking. We know enough of the case to horrify, although there are still unanswered questions. Was this entirely random? Is the suspect guilty? Assuming so, how did the Metropolitan Police come to employ him?

I feel a real connection to the concern about Violence against Women, an ongoing issue on which this murder has shone a troubling spotlight. Women are often seen as vulnerable, and there are appalling misogynistic attitudes which seem deeply entrenched in some people’s minds, from psychological bullying to the threat of violence all the way up to fatal injury.

Clapham Common became the focus of concern and the expression of grief on Saturday. I understand why many women wanted to show their care and solidarity. With Covid restrictions we obviously should not be gathering in large numbers at present. However, it is beyond me to understand how or why the Metropolitan Police intervened, pushing women to the ground and handcuffing them. This is the very same force from which the murder suspect came. And the protest was against violence to women.

I normally support the police. They have a very difficult and dangerous job, and I value the fact that officers brave danger regularly to keep us as safe as possible. However, I can’t support this, and I hope that lessons will be learnt. Ultimately, however, the issue is about attitudes to women and feeling safe in the streets. A lot needs to change.

The propensity for violence seems to be a recurring factor in human life. We can see it happening across the world today, we can see it through history. We see it too in the Gospel story where Jesus is arrested and beaten up, where logic fails and compassion runs out, where the wish to victimise a person leads to their death. How we need to learn that we should strive to overcome our sinful nature which leads to physical and spiritual death and know that God’s way is the way of resurrection, of new life in the Spirit, of divine compassion and spiritual peace.

See Jesus?

 

Today used to be called Passion Sunday. Well, the latest lectionary – which tells us all the recommended readings for any given day – only calls it the 5^th Sunday of Lent. Then it adds the words “Passiontide begins”. Well then, let’s call it Passion Sunday.

The Gospel for today (John 12.20-33) tells how some Greek people came to the one of the disciples, Philip, presumably having heard about him and his teaching about God or his miracles, asking “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”. My sermon this morning, at 10.00 on zoom and remaining available, looks at what image they might have had or wanted. We can all use Passiontide to look at what image of Jesus we have acquired and whether it truly embraces his love and his passionate sacrifice so that we see a clearer picture of Jesus to inspire our lives.

However, it’s not entirely clear whether the Greeks ever met Jesus – if they did they certainly got more than they might ever have expected. For this is the time when Jesus exclaims, with passion, that “The hour has come”. The hour, Lord? Jesus speaks of how a grain of wheat needs to die in the earth in order to bear fruit. Is this a parable Lord? What does it mean for us? Jesus goes deeper – if you love your life you will lose it, but hate your worldly life and you will gain true eternal life. Hard words, yet it is about gaining a different perspective on life, that holding onto the ways of this world is no way of gaining the richness of eternal fellowship with God. Hard talk indeed.

Jesus’ passion to bring people into God’s Kingdom, to offer true newness of life, is going to be costly. The grain must indeed die. His feelings are clear in his words “Now my soul is troubled”. The pain of the situation causes God’s own Son to feel anguish and uncertainty. And yet, Jesus points to the necessity of the cross, knowing how painful and challenging it is likely to be. And yet he accepts the cross, for us. “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself”. What a glorious vision; what a sacrifice. Will we allow ourselves to be drawn closer to Jesus, to God, this Passiontide? For we too can ask of the Lord “I wish to see Jesus”.

 

Life

                                             All Saints' today 

Mother Teresa’s Hymn of Life 

God gave us a beautiful life but also free will….

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.

Life is beauty, admire it.

Life is bliss, taste it.

Life is a dream, realise it.

Life is a challenge, meet it.

Life is a duty, complete it.

Life is a game, play it.

Life is costly, care for it.

Life is wealth, keep it.

Life is love, enjoy it.

Life is mystery, know it.

Life is a promise, fulfil it.

Life is sorrow, overcome it.

Life is a song, sing it.

Life is a struggle, accept it.

Life is tragedy, confront it.

Life is an adventure, dare it.

Life is luck, make it.

Life is too precious, do not destroy it.

Life is life, fight for it.

Fern Hill

 

Fern Hill  by Dylan Thomas 

This was requested at a service that I took recently. It’s an amazing poem that takes us back to our childhood memories, reflects on God’s Creation and explores our journey as we experience more of life and our freedom and security within God’s world.    

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
     The night above the dingle starry,
          Time let me hail and climb
     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
          Trail with daisies and barley
     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
     In the sun that is young once only,
          Time let me play and be
     Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
          And the sabbath rang slowly
     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
     And playing, lovely and watery
          And fire green as grass.
     And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
     Flying with the ricks, and the horses
          Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
          The sky gathered again
     And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
     Out of the whinnying green stable
          On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
     In the sun born over and over,
          I ran my heedless ways,
     My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
     Before the children green and golden
          Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
     In the moon that is always rising,
          Nor that riding to sleep
     I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

 

Attentive

 

Photo by Lisa Meakin

Meditations from the Northumbrian Daily Prayer

You need to be generous to yourself in order to receive the love that surrounds you.

You can suffer from a desperate hunger to be loved.
You can search long years in lonely places, far outside yourself.
Yet the whole time, this love is but a few inches away from you.
It is at the edge of your soul, but you have been blind to its presence.

We must remain attentive in order to be able to receive.

John O’Donohue

When a great moment knocks on the door of your life,
it is often no louder than the beating of your heart,
and it is very easy to miss it.

Boris Pasternak

 

Relationships and Words

How many of us simply speak to others as we have been spoken to for most of our lives? Oh, that’s most of us! If we were brought up by parents who were loving and careful in effective communication—to others, to us—we are likely to pick up their positive interpersonal habits. For the rest of us, well, unless we learned it somehow or other along the way, we often need to learn, possibly the hard way.

Canadian writer Louise Penny’s main character, Armand Gamache, is a good teacher, instructing his police trainees as follows: “Civility,” he says, “How can we expect it if we don’t give it?” Before speaking, he recommends that we consider what we’re about to say by asking ourselves: “Is it true? Is it kind? Does it have to be said?”

Is it true? It matters that what we say about someone is true as: What do we get out of telling a person that they are X or Y when our assessment isn’t based on fact? How else do we expect them to respond to something not true except defensively? Accusing someone of being or doing something that is not factual gets us nowhere and doesn’t put us in a very good light. In fact, it says rather more about our issues than the person we’re accusing. Often it’s reactive and involves projection.

Is it kind? No matter what we say, it is vital to put it in the kindest way possible. As someone hears our message and because hurting them is not really what we want to do. If we want to get our message across, its not great to be blocked by someone trying to protect themselves from being hurt. Kindness costs nothing. It may take a bit of time to consider and frame what we wish to say in a thoughtful manner, but it’s worth the effort. Kind doesn’t make you vulnerable. Being kind shows self-confidence and self-control.

Does it have to be said? We are all guilty of repeating the obvious. It can make others feel very aware of something wrong and it may not be that constructive. Does every thought we have need to be voiced? The same way that we filter our incoming thoughts we can filter our outgoing ones.

St Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians 5:11

‘Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing’ 

 

A prayer based on the word of Joel Osteen

Father, help me to always bring out the best in others.

Help me to bless people with caring and kind words,

to give the gift of encouragement,

and to always speak words of life.

Help me to fill my heart with affirmation

so that I can encourage those around me today and everyday.

Disturb us O Lord!

 

Two prayers associated with Desmond Tutu. The first is adapted from an original prayer by Sir Francis Drake.

Disturb us, O Lord

when we are too well-pleased with ourselves

when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,

because we sailed too close to the shore.

 

Disturb us, O Lord

when with the abundance of things we possess,

we have lost our thirst for the water of life

when, having fallen in love with time,

we have ceased to dream of eternity

and in our efforts to build a new earth,

we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

 

Stir us, O Lord

to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas

where storms show Thy mastery,

where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes

and invited the brave to follow.

Amen

 

The second prayer is from Desmond Tutu’s An African Prayer Book.

Victory is Ours

Goodness is stronger than evil;

Love is stronger than hate;

Light is stronger than darkness;

Life is stronger than death;

Victory is ours through Him who loves us.