Valentine

 

“If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? ”Luke 6:32

 

Today is St. Valentine's Day, now seen as a day for celebrating romantic love. The origins of this day are rather obscure. Several men named “Valentine” (Valentinus) were recognised as saints by the church. One of these was buried near Rome on February 14. Medieval tradition held that this particular Valentine, a priest, was marrying Christian couples at a time when the Roman emperor prohibited this. For this crime, he was arrested and killed by the Roman government.

This connection between St. Valentine and romance was popularised by Geoffrey Chaucer and later, writers on the saints embellished Chaucer’s story, leaving us with the Christian saint who is associated with love. And so this day became associated with cards with loving messages and gifts showing our love.

 

I heard about one  school, where on Valentine’s Day the practice was to express love beyond those loving them. Valentines were given not only to friends or those they hoped might like them, no, the primary school children were expected to give valentines to every person in the class, including those whom they didn’t care for or like, “enemies” in the playground.  A true reflection of the kind of love Jesus commends in Luke 6!

 

It’s good to be reminded to express love to those who are most special to us. If Valentine’s Day encourages us to say “I love you” to each other and friends to commemorate their friendship, that’s great. The world would be a better place if people expressed their love more often. But Jesus encourages us to love, not just those who love us back, but also those who do not reciprocate. All of us have such people in our lives.  Our calling, as followers of Jesus, is to love them and do good to them, not in order that they might respond, but so that we might live each day as beloved children of our heavenly Father.

 

Dear Lord, on this day when we celebrate romantic love, I thank you for this gift. It enriches our lives. Yet you call us to so much more than what romantic love entails. You call us to love, not just our friends, but also our enemies. You challenge us to love those who do not return our love.

Help me, Lord, to express my love for those who are closest to me, but, even more, I ask that you help me to love as you loved, to spread your love even and especially to those who cannot or will not reciprocate. Teach me to love even those I don’t like, the people I’d rather avoid. May I love as you love, Lord. Amen.

Autofocus

 

My new mobile phone has an enhanced camera. Along with the chance to find out almost every fact in the world and the universe, which can be helpful sometimes, I can take photos at a moment’s notice. They are in very good quality, and – wonder of wonders – it autocorrects camera shake. So if I have just taken it out and something appeals, I can take aim and take the shot rapidly. It tells me that although I haven’t held it still, it is correcting the picture. Like the pictures of the icy pond and snowy trees which I took excitedly but almost carelessly today. It’s brilliant, it has yet to fail.

If only all our mistakes or hurried errors could just be corrected. Unfortunately we can often get only a blurred, unclear picture of what is going on in the world around us or even in our own lives. We can’t quite make out what is really going on, although we are used to making assumptions and sticking to our own highly-developed point of view. Unfortunately if can mean that our lives become out of focus, and the pictures of our lives now and our idea of the times ahead become unclear so that we lose our sense of purpose.

Jesus brings us the focus we need, for he tells us that this world is God’s kingdom, the arena in which God’s ways are sought and followed. With many competing philosophies and lifestyles surrounding us, we have the focus of the gospel of Jesus which speaks of Divine compassion and Loving sacrifice – and of loving God and our neighbours as ourselves. This is the lens through which we are invited to see our lives, and the clearer pictures of God’s way which we have can be shared with other people that they too may have their own focussed vision of the Kingdom.

Bugging in (or out)?

 

Having researched “hunkering down”, as in yesterday’s blog, I noticed that it is sometimes accompanied by another phrase: “Bug In”! Another Americanism, and I like the idea of all our cousins across the Atlantic bugging in. They need to. The phrase means “to survive a natural disaster”. Just how natural some of the disasters which befall them or us is open to question.

We might be talking about hurricanes and tornadoes, or the raging wildfires. They are natural phenomena, but we know that they are becoming more prevalent due to global warming. We might be talking about the virus, which looks like a natural phenomenon spread by our global travel options – which only fuel the global warming.

Natural disasters could also be about people, for we are part of nature. But do we exercise our responsibility? Our lack of concern, our choices which can be so flawed, can leave us needing to bug in when faced with human folly in oppression, exploitation and aggression. Our faith tells us that humans have been flawed from the beginning, the picture of the Garden of Eden – that most natural of places - shows Adam and Eve making self-centred, self-aggrandising decisions which ruin their lives, and so it has ever been.

Our failures, our sins, are in one sense a natural disaster, the results and then the consequences of our human state of fallenness. Jesus is the New Adam who challenges human sin and calls us to love. He is the one who offers us the chance to Bug In, to survive this disaster. Our nature cannot bring us eternal life, but through Christ’s loving sacrifice we all have the opportunity to survive the disaster of becoming separated from God.

 

Heavenly Father, we sometimes feel so frail in body and spirit. Life has become so complex and unnatural in so many ways, and nature seems to be trammelled down by our activities, threatening our very existence. And so many decisions and achievements are either flawed or stem from selfishness.

Hold and guide us that we may, together, survive and flourish. Give us a vision of a world based on justice and responsibility, and as we live day by day help us to serve your purposes and rejoice that in the face of the world’s failures you have sent your Saviour, Jesus the Lord. Amen

Time to Hunker Down?

 

As the snow began to fall, I said “It looks like time to hunker down”, to which Doug responded by asking what the phrase actually means. I had meant that we weren’t going to be able to go out for a while, so we had better make ourselves as comfortable as possible and continue to work from home. It turns out it is an Americanism!

Hunkering down can mean crouching, as in “she hunkered over the heater” – good idea! – so I was right. It can also mean to apply oneself seriously to a task – so I was right again! It can also mean being prepared to stay in a specific place or situation for whatever time is necessary either for protection or to achieve something. Spot on! I am getting into this hunkering down.

We do need to hunker down. We need to do all we can to keep warm and to stay safe, and we need to be ready to act. In spiritual terms, to spend prayerful and contemplative time with God, for the good of our souls and to direct our lives. Yet the implication of action also fits, for our faith implies that, like Jesus – sometimes described as The Man For Others – we need to be faithful people seeking to pray for those in need, and to give care and support in whatever way is possible.

Sometimes, when we are not in lockdown (soon, please) the church seems to remain hunkered down.  It is right to hunker down in prayer and worship, but then we are called to hunker down in achieving God’s purposes in living and sharing the gospel. We need to recover our confidence that now and in the future we can do that hunkering in a way that those we meet will encounter something of God’s presence in our lives, in our midst. For Jesus hunkered down with us, and we live for him.

Presence

                                                        Pictures by Ann Marie Parker  

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

Let us be present to the now. It’s all we have and it’s where God will always speak to us. The now holds everything, rejects nothing and, therefore, can receive God too.

Help us, God, to be present to the place we most fear, because it always feels empty, it always feels boring, it always feels like it’s not enough. Help us find some space within that we don’t try to fill with ideas or opinions. Help us find space so you, loving God, can show yourself in that place where we are hungry and empty. Keep us out of the way, so there is always room enough for you.

 

Good God, we believe that you are here and your presence gives us hope. We thank you for each day of our lives. We thank you for so many further chances to understand, to forgive again, to trust again, and to love. We thank you that we live now, that our problems are soul-sized. We ask that you teach us and lead us, that you put the thoughts into our mind that you want us to think, the feelings in our hearts that you want us to feel. Reconstruct us. Put us together because we don’t know how to do it ourselves. We trust that you are hearing this prayer, and that you care for the answer more than we do. We pray therefore not alone, but with the whole body of Christ in Jesus’s name. Amen.

— from The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder by Richard Rohr

Annmarie writes that today’s photos taken from Ruskin View close to the parish church in Kirby Lonsdale. The river below is the Lune and the county in the distance is North Yorkshire. Probably my last visit as I had gone up annually to stay with a close friend who died a few weeks ago, an artist who was larger than life,  whom I was glad came into my life. This was a lovely place to visit and Ruskin’s favourite haunt. 

I or we?

 

Moving back from I to We

Research into our use of the English language has shown that we have gradually used the pronoun I far more than the pronoun We. We have become the selfie generation with the encouragement of self help books and smart phones. Even in 2000 a Harvard Professor, in his book Bowling Alone noted that although more people went ten-pin bowling fewer than ever were joining team games and this title became a metaphor for the decline in membership of clubs, teams, community and voluntary organisations. In so many areas of life what used to be done together is now done alone. The ‘we’  society of ‘we’re all in this together’ has become the ‘I’ society of ‘I’m free to please myself’.

Sadly, this can lead to great isolation and during this pandemic it has become clearer than ever that many people have felt very alone indeed. However, many people have also realised how important and valuable community is, for everyone relies on others, with phone and online support, shopping for neighbours, clapping to encourage and thank keyworkers. Even whilst out walking/exercising it is noticeable that so many more people will greet one another with ‘Good Morning’.

 

Throughout the Bible, God is shown to work through his Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit - and through people, people like us. Creation and salvation are through the Word and the Spirit, apostles and all believers preached his word, and now we are called to be his hands and his feet working together to share his love.

How about setting ourselves a challenge of using ‘I’ less times and seeing how much more we can use ‘we’?

God build your community,

From brokenness and indifference,

Build love and caring,

For you, for each other, for your creation.

God build your community,

From mistrust and misunderstanding,

Build unity and togetherness,

For other peoples, religions and nations.

God build your community,

May we build together your living community,

Bound together by love and joy,

Interrelated to all God’s people, to the earth and all creation.

Images

 

Doug writes                                        photos  by Ann Stephens Jones 

Jesus: “He is the image of the unseen God” (Colossians 1.15)

Images bombard us – we can’t avoid them; our eyes are drawn to them and they impact into our minds. We need images to help us understand our world for they can warn us of danger, give us joyful experiences and memories and even anticipate a positive future as we create pictures of where we are going. Alas, we can also form negative images where we misunderstand and misinterpret, where our thoughts become fearful or hostile to people and situations.

Today’s epistle is placed alongside the great prologue of John’s Gospel, which begins “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. It is the summation of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, the wonderful truth to which Christians understand all the Scriptures to be leading. It is saying that God is not far off but intrinsically involved in the world through Jesus, the Son. Amid all our problems and concerns, we have a faith which assures us that God is with us through the incarnation of Jesus.

The image of Jesus brings home to us that there is no gulf between us and God. The spiritual is expressed in the physical world, the eternal in specific years of this earth’s limited time. The images of Jesus express God’s love and righteousness. His birth, his preaching and teaching, his calling of followers, his healing miracles, his forgiveness, his ability to still the storms of life, his parables which speak of the kingdom among us: his bringing of light, his shepherding of his people, his opening of the Way to God. They are all glorious images of Jesus’ being, sent from God.

Yet Jesus also engages with the painful side of life in accepting the consequences of people forming negative images of him: blasphemer, enemy, disrespecter of traditions, prophet of future woes. He approaches the end faithfully, willing to endure the pain and lay his life down, and ultimately God’s affirmation of who Jesus is is shown in the resurrection. But first he had to accept the horror of the Crucifixion, and sometimes our images of the cross are overly sanitised as if it wasn’t really too bad after all. But it is clear that it was, but he died to bring us back to God, his pains have brought our salvation and the hope of eternity.

                                              

The epistle ends with the hard-won victory of the Crucified Jesus: “Peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 15.20). That is the message, and amid all we suffer, all our fears about our mortality, we have a hope borne to us by the image of the God who takes on our humanity and raises it heavenward. It is an image to celebrate and rejoice in at all times.