Month: June 2010

Galatians 5, Luke 9: Family misfortunes - the difficulties of desire: my offering for today.

 

From the room directly above my study, via the world wide web, this came to me: a flyer from Gary my stepson outlining his plans to start missionary work in Japan from September. He writes:

I love Japan. The history, language and culture fascinates me greatly. Not only is it home to some of the most advanced technology, it is also a beautiful country full of God’s creation. The Japanese people themselves love nature and take great pride in their mountains, flowers, trees and rice fields. The people are so kind and polite and you will always hear many “sorry”s and “thank-you”s during everyday conversation. I have had this interest and love for Japan for many years. 

Over those years Gary has developed a real heart to share his faith with people there. He spent time on a mission trip in north-east Japan last year and has just been accepted by the Youth With a Mission (YWAM) Tokyo team to join them for a minimum of four years, working with students and helping to build the church there – a great challenge in a majority Shinto / Buddhist country. As Gary puts it, in Japan ‘less than 1% of over 127 million people know Jesus!’

The bottom line for Gary is that his strong sense of calling to this work needs financial backing. He’s doing mission in a country with one of the world’s highest costs of living and YWAM recommend that he raises pledges of around £700 per month to cover all his expenses. On top of that he needs air fares too. So he’s asking for support from anyone who knows him – or who could begin to get to know him by reading the flyer and finding out more. Would you?

Romans 12: Your gift – it's good for the body! - my contribution to Fathers' Day at Christ Church Norris Green.

Following yesterday's blog, this came in: Mis-Guides Phil Smith and Simon Persigetti are inviting people on 'A tour of Sardine Street', in Exter, next month. They write:

Since late 2007 we have been regularly walking, researching, exploring and performing on one street: Queen Street in Exeter. Now, after a number of ‘test runs’ with other walkers, we have prepared a ‘mis-guided tour’ of the street and would like to invite you to join us for one of these.
 
The tours all begin at the Dinosaur Café at the northern end of Queen Street (at its junction with the New North Road), next to the Miles Clock Tower.
 
These tours will last between 90 minutes to 2 hours, but walkers are requested to be free for 3 hours (occasionally we have been spontaneously invited to visit certain closed areas of the street, for example the cellars of the Rougemont Hotel, and we would like to be free to respond to any similar invitations).
 
The tours will be as follows:
 
9th  July  (Friday)  10am – 1pm
9th  July  (Friday)  2pm – 5pm
10th  July  (Saturday) 10am – 1pm
10th  July  (Saturday) 2pm – 5pm
15th   July  (Thursday)  10am – 1pm
15th   July  (Thursday)  2pm – 5pm
16th July (Friday) 10am – 1pm
16th July (Friday) 2pm – 5pm
 
Numbers are very limited (a maximum of seven people for each walk) so you will need to book your place (by responding to this email –perform.smith[at]ukgateway.net - or ringing Phil on 01392 410575).

Having spent a good time around Stuart's kitchen table eating Welsh Cakes freshly baked on the Aga last week, we left him with a copy of The Mis-Guide to Anywhere, in the hope of helping him on the path to walking his patch with his parishioners. 

And then there was the Canning walk (see below), only an hour long (not enough) but a stimulating little stroll ending with something I've always wanted to do: read The Prophet's Speech (which I call Liverpool Hope) at a high point in the city, looking down towards the river with the Liver Buildings in view… made it all the more moving.

And now comes a commission from the good offices of Wild Goose Publications. To come up with a 'walking liturgy'… your ideas on that welcome, reader. It's a challenge to do anything remotely as good as Simon Bailey's wonderful Stations – Places for Pilgrims to Pray, but I shall try to do it, my way. I suspect that whatever I end up with there will be some mis-guidance involved.

Notes from a walk I led in Liverpool's so-called Georgian Quarter last night: here

 

Notes from a walk in Liverpool’s Canning area, Sunday 13 June 2010….

(for The Well, St Bride’s monthly ‘celtic’ service)

 

Cinderella and poverty

from Just Church (Lent Programme Activity 4)

 

Most people remember the story of Cinderella – but not everyone realises how it applies to real life. In the fairytale, the spoiled elder sisters had everything they wished, while poor Cinderella was forced to live in rags and work like a slave. Behind all this was the shadowy presence of the evil stepmother (not that stepmothers are naturally evil).

 

By an odd coincidence the Cinderella story bears a remarkable resemblance to life in Britain today. As a nation we are, in a sense, all part of the same family. But, as in the Cinderella story, while many people live in relative luxury, not having to worry how much the supermarket bill comes to, others live in degrading poverty.

 

What Cinderella’s real parents would have thought of the situation their much loved child had to endure, we can only imagine. But, from reading the scriptures, we have a very clear idea what God thinks of the poverty and injustice that flourishes among his children in the real world.

 

Christians believe that God loves us so much that he gave his own Son to suffer and to die for us. But if God is love and if we are called to love God and our neighbour in return, then some awkward questions arise.

 

Just what do we mean by love? Is it simply a warm feeling of kindness and affection towards someone? Or is it to do with actively seeking the wellbeing and fulfilment of the other person? About respecting and valuing them?

 

And, if love is about seeking the wellbeing and fulfilment of the other, how can we say we love that person if we cause them to suffer the injustice of oppression and poverty?

 

Or walk by on the other side when they suffer in that way? Isn’t justice very close in meaning to love?

 

Maybe that’s what Jesus was thinking when he had that great argument with the religious leaders in Luke chapter 11. He told them: “You tithe mint and rue and every herb but you neglect justice and the love of God.”

 

Why does Jesus choose those words? Is he saying love and justice are at the heart of the nature of God? Maybe he was thinking of the Old Testament prophets and the Psalmist. Micah says we are called to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. (Note that justice comes first.) And Psalm 97 proclaims that: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne.”

 

So is a concern for justice for the poor and oppressed just some optional “social add-on” to the gospel? Or is it at the heart of our relationship with God? An essential expression of God’s nature? Could we even say that working for justice is sacramental: an outward and visible sign of the life-giving love of God?

We could go some way towards answering such questions on a walk…

 

Micah 6:8 “God has shown you what is good. And what does the Lord require? To do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.” 

 

Walking opens our eyes to the everyday realities on the ground: including the realities of injustice;

 

Walking brings encounter with the people who can tell us how things really are;

 

Walking makes us vulnerable to – and therefore open to – challenge and change in ourselves.

 

The Lord, the giver of life

 

Have we not seen? Have we not heard?

The Lord, the giver of life

    is speaking to us.

He is showing us his people

    and their grief.

He is telling us their stories

    and their distress.

He is calling us to discipleship,

    to involvement

    to vulnerability

    to risk-taking

    to commitment.

He is asking us for our hands, our hearts, our souls

    and our bodies.

He is asking us to go out into the unknown.

He is asking us for not less than everything

    until the task is done.

 

Barbara D’Arcy, from The Trampled Vineyard (CHAS/Housing Justice)

from Just Church 

Just walking has many antecedents: from the journey of Yaweh’s exiled people towards and eventually into their promised land to walks of justice in our lifetime – the marches of the civil rights movements in America in the early 1960s, Gandhi famous walk to the sea to challenge Britain’s monopoly on salt production, the CND marches of the 1950s and 1980s, and so on.

 

The sort of just walking I am advocating is far lower in profile – our own walking around our own places, with ears and eyes and heart open to what God might be saying to us through the enviromnet we see and the people we encounter on the way, what challenges these journeys might provoke for us in our own life of justice. 

 

The Just Church prayer

 

Jesus invites us to a way of celebration,

meeting and feasting with the humble and poor.

Let us walk his way with joy.

 

Jesus beckons us to a way of risk,

letting go of our security.

Let us walk his way with joy.

 

Jesus challenges us to listen

to the voices of those who have nothing to lose.

Let us walk his way with joy.

 

Jesus points us to a way of self-giving,

where power and status are overturned.

Let us walk his way with joy.

 

Jesus calls us to follow the way of the cross,

where despair is transformed by the promise of new life.

Let us walk his way with joy.

 

Jan Berry, taken from Bread of Tomorrow (edited by Janet Morley, SPCK)

from Just Church 

 

Do the Canning walk, stopping to particularly reflect on:

 

Huskisson Street – Canning’s highs and lows reeflected in its housing;

    – William Huskisson: free trade / political power associated with land ownership and the position of the landless;

 

Upper Parliament Street – (site of riots 1981) policing / racial justice issues then and now;

 

Falconer Square Gardens – issues of private and public space;

    – where do the shipowners / port bosses now live?

 

The Women’s Hospital(s) – justice issues in health especially pertaining to women.

 

 

Agnes Jones / Blackburne House / Saint Bride – women championing in social justice… 

 

 

….good Christian men too… 

 

… St Philip Neri – ‘like Socrates he travelled throughout the city, seeking opportunities of entering into conversation with people.’ [Wikipedia] 

Catholic Social teaching: justice as an ecumenical work…

end at top of Myrtle Street with view down to the river  / Liver Buildings, reading Liverpool Hope…

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIVERPOOL HOPE   

 

I saw a vision:

it was last Thursday at eleven o’clock in the morning.

I was standing at the top of Brownlow Hill, looking down over the city

and the cold, blue autumn sky broke open over my head

and the Spirit of God breathed on my eyes and my eyes were opened:

I saw Liverpool, the holy city, coming down out of heaven

shining like a rare jewel, sparkling like clear water in the eye of the sun

and all the sickness was gone from the city

and there were no more suburbs and schemes

no difference between Croxteth and Crosby

I saw the Mersey running with the water of life,

as bright as crystal,

as clear as glass

the children of Liverpool swimming in it

 

And the Spirit showed me the tree of life

growing in Sefton Park

 

I looked out and there were no more homeless people

there were no women working the streets

there were no more junkies up the closes

HIV and AIDS were things of the past

there were no more racist attacks

no more attacks on gay people

no more rapists

no more stabbings

no more Protestants and Catholics

no more IRA graffiti, no more Orange marches

because there was no more hate

and I saw women walking safe at nights 

and the men were full of passion and gentleness

and none of the children were ever abused

because the people’s sex was full of justice and joy.

 

I saw an old woman throw back her head

and laugh like a young girl

and when the sky closed back her laughter rang in my head

for days and days

and would not go away.

This is what I saw, looking across to the Liver Buildings,

looking up from the city of death

and I knew then that there would be a day of resurrection

and I believe that there will be a day of resurrection.

First used at Body and Soul, Liverpool Cathedral October 1993

Adapted from Doug Gay, ‘The Prophet’s Speech’, in ‘Words From The Late Late Service‘, Glasgow 1993

Luke 7 – The passion of a woman forgiven first - today's talk.

 

My small share of Jim's books, as mentioned below, now on my bookshelf. There could have been many more, but for the need to reduce my library having just moved to a smaller study. This is a rucksack full, and there were some large photo-books on the Miner's Strike and Salgado's The Children, and some old housing / town planning documentation too. I have given myself two Jim-related jobs to do, both massive tasks: one, read these books, and two: get cracking on getting some of his own writings into publishable form. A labour of love which will take a while – watch this space.

On the fringes, where town and country meet, the scrublands, populated by semi-industrial works or forgotten agricultural sheds, unexpected beauty often emerges. In his 1973 book The Unofficial Countryside, soon to be republished, Richard Mabey 'explains how 13,000 tons of canary grass seed, fodder for caged birds, comes into Britain every year, and is recycled into landfill sites, to leach into the water table, to drift down embankments and sewage-outfall tracks; bringing life and colour to the uniform greys of spurned and disregarded places.'

I am quoting Iain Sinclair, reviewing Mabey's masterpiece in The Guardian last week. Sinclair has written the foreword for the new edition and wonders – like me – how he ever 'miss[ed], first time around, [a] book that linked, at a single stroke, burgeoning bureaucracy and the threatened pastoral of whatever lay beyond the city's horizon? Richard Mabey identified so neatly the transitional quality of unwritten places where slightly bemused survivors of the 60s, pocketing their battered copies of Food for Free, found themselves labouring at the dawn of a harsher era.' Sinclair observes that

The Unofficial Countryside is a proper reckoning, the Doomsday Book of a topography too fascinating to be left alone. Gravel beds, abandoned by film studios, were blissfully repossessed by passerine birds and opportunist plants. Mabey logs the tough fecundity of the margin, where wild nature spurns the advertised reservation and obliterates the laminated notice-boards of sanctioned history. Human tragedies of our paranoid cultures, raids and terrorist outrages, as Mabey points out, are nature's opportunity. "The first summer after the blitz there were rosebays flowering on over three-quarters of the bombed sites in London, defiant sparks of life amongst the desolation."

I'm honoured by a mention in Sinclair's article: 'A Liverpool clergyman, John Davies, took a sabbatical to hike down the acoustic footprints of the M62, from Hull to Crosby beach.' Honoured by this association with John Clare, WG Sebald, Ronald Blythe, Roger Deakin, Will Self, Nick Papadimitriou. Each connected by a 'trajectory, soul-sickness, walking in nature, swimming, planting, observing …  Sickness was not always the launching point, unless it was the sickness in nature, in our broken treaty with living things.'