Lockdown Day 15: Maundy Thursday

It is Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, and we come to the day when the disciples’ first question was Jesus, where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?

Jesus has it all planned –a man in Jerusalem will host all of them to share Passover together. So the day is spent in preparation and when the evening comes, there are Jesus and the twelve disciples all reclining at the table, eating the Passover meal. And in the middle of eating, Jesus says –One of you will betray me...  not your typical mealtime conversation. And so they all start to ask Jesus who he was talking about. Judas feels the accusation –surely not me?

And out of this uncomfortable conversation, Jesus then took bread, gave thanks, broke it and offered it to the disciples, saying, take, eat, this is my body. And also with the cup, saying, drink this –all of you, this is the blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. This is the last wine I will drink until I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. And then they all sang a hymn together around the table, before heading out to the Mt of Olives. There Jesus warns the disciples –they will all fail... Peter jumps in –I won’t fail you Jesus... and so Jesus tells him that yes, he too will fail. Not once, but three times.

The group then walk on to Gethsemane –a lovely garden, where Jesus wants them to pray. But it is getting really late and it has been a long day. They are exhausted. Although Jesus asks them to stay awake with him to pray, they sleep. Jesus is overwhelmed by what is about to happen, and is enormously let down by his sleeping friends. He must pray alone –if it is possible, don’t make me drink this cup.  But let your will be done. Eventually he wakes them in his frustration and they are wakened not by Jesus but by a large crowd appearing with clubs and swords. Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss and he is arrested. There is some resistance but Jesus tells his disciples to stop. This is not the time for resistance. And all the disciples flee.  Jesus is left arrested and deserted by his friends. Completely isolated.

There follows a weird search for false witnesses to prove the improvable. Finally all they can accuse is that he had said he could destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Jesus remains silent at the accusations, only answering with “you say that I am” when asked if he is the Messiah. The high priest tears his clothes in despair and accuses Jesus of blasphemy –the ultimate irony. The people call for his death. They spit on him, punch him and mock him.

But still the dark night is not over. Peter then denies him three times just as predicted, before the rooster crows. He weeps bitterly at his failure.

It is a night of many failures.

But amidst the failures, we see Jesus’ commitment to remain at the table with those who fail. When we live closely with one another in a bubble, failures may become more apparent. Are we willing to remain at the table and continue to love through failure, through betrayl, through desertion?

And so as we work our way through another day of Holy Week, .I light a candle beside my fifth square –the one with a patterned piece (check out the close up photo below) -a mix of good and bad intwined together… one which becomes the table I choose to remain at.

Lockdown Day 14: Holy Wednesday

Today is Wednesday of Holy Week and we remember Jesus is in Bethany. Here we read he is with Simon the Leper –a man whom scholars seem to endlessly try and identify with someone else, with little success. It seems to me this man is simply another character in the story –one we could spend endless time imagining a life story around. We can assume he is still identified by what he once was, a leper. His role as host affirms he is no longer a leper, so we can guess that he is one of those healed by Jesus. Here he is living out his response –offering hospitality. We can guess that this hospitality is still new, as he learns how to live back in community having been isolated for so long. It makes me ponder on what things I will need to relearn when I leave my isolation.

However, today I want to focus on what happens as these men recline around the dining table. Remembering this is a world of gender division –when visitors came, men were in one room, and women in another. Women isolated from men. In walks a woman with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume. She pours it on Jesus’ head. The disciples are indignant –on so many levels. The one they voice is indignance at the waste –money that could have been spent for the poor. Jesus tells them the poor will always be there to give to, I won’t –and this is a beautiful thing that has been done for me.

I wonder if the disciples’ indignance went deeper than their voiced concern for the poor. Perhaps that was the easiest part to voice. This woman had entered their male world, and done something they had not done –something that obviously Jesus so appreciated. And she had performed the priestly act of anointing –another act isolated from women. Maybe that was all wrapped up in their response too. They are challenged by boundaries being crossed, barriers being broken down. They are challenged by what they had failed to give. Jesus is not saying that the poor are not important –he is simply recognising the gift in this moment –no excuses. That is worth remembering. And in other versions we read of the fragrance filling the house. We see this act of worship in all its beauty then starkly contrasted with Judas’ betrayal. Judas leaves the table. He seeks out the chief priests and asks what he will get for his betrayal -30 pieces of silver.

The woman comes to the table. Judas leaves the table.

Amidst all the rules of isolation, Jesus remains at the table inviting us to join. We have a choice, to draw near in costly worship, to moan when others don’t follow our rules or to leave the table in betrayal.

And so as we work our way through another day of Holy Week, .I light a candle beside my fourth square –the place where I choose to worship…

Lockdown Day 13: Holy Tuesday

On Monday night of holy week Jesus went to Bethany and we assume he and the disciples stayed with Mary, Martha and Lazarus... Then early on Tuesday morning they head back into Jerusalem. Jesus goes back to the Temple courts to teach there. After all the frustrations of yesterday, Jesus is willing to return. Willing to go back to the place where he had struggled. And he told a story about one son who said he would do something and didn’t, and another son who initially refused but then did it. And then a story of the owner of a vineyard who sent workers to collect the harvest, but were murdered… so he sent his son instead, in the belief that he would be respected… but he too was killed. So the owner would get rid of those tenants and put in new tenants who would give him his share of the crop at harvest time. The Pharisees heard him and knew Jesus was referring to them as the first tenants, so they were even more determined to get rid of Jesus. Only the fear of the crowd stopped them. Jesus continued teaching, leading to his powerful answer to the Pharisees’ question about the greatest commandment. Jesus tells them it is to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ And the second, he says, is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets, Jesus says, hang on these two commandments.” Jesus goes on to ask the Pharisees what they think about the Messiah, and warns them against hypocrisy. It is as if Jesus is making this last attempt to open the eyes of the Pharisees. He is still not willing to give up on them. He never is. I am challenged by this deep commitment to those who chose not to understand.

Then Jesus heads to the Mt of Olives –and as they leave the Temple, the disciples comment on the beauty of the Temple, and Jesus tells them it will all disappear. When they get to the Mount of Olives, away from the busy city streets, Jesus sits with the disciples in the cool of the end of the day, and teaches them. He teaches them about what was to come, taking time to answer their many questions. I’m not sure they understand any more than the Pharisees did, but they want to learn.

Tuesday of Holy Week is a day of teaching... of Jesus teaching those who wanted to learn and those who didn’t. We too have a choice this Holy Tuesday: how will we respond to the teaching of Jesus? Our response will not change Jesus’ willingness to teach, but it will change us.

And so as we work our way through another day of Holy Week, .I light a candle beside my third square -moving from the triumphal entry, through the place of struggle, to the place of teaching… 

Lockdown Day 12 Holy Monday

Holy week has begun…. Jesus has entered Jerusalem and the first place he heads to is the Temple. And what he finds there makes him really angry. In Matthew 21 we read -

12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’

Imagine this chaotic scene. Imagine Jesus, entering this sacred space and starting to wreck things -money flying, tables collapsing, birds flying from their cages… Imagine the horror of those busy with tasks of worship.

Why do you think this scene was so deeply upsetting for Jesus? As I pondered this, two things stood out.

There amidst the stalls selling doves for peoples’ offering, we see significant injustice… folk would arrive from huge distances to make their offerings to God. Arriving at the Temple, they would need to buy the appropriate offering. This would first often mean having to exchange their currency to the local coinage. All of which had become a system for profit making. The place of worship had become a market place, where people would rip off anyone they could. Injustice had grown.

But secondly, we also get a glimpse of the way Jesus enters the Temple, and sees this place that was meant to exemplify God’s intent for life and hope and joy among the people. And Jesus sees the ways God’s intentions had not taken hold, and instead had become a place governed by costly rules. How he must have grieved over that reality. So perhaps these actions of Jesus that we interpret as anger, are deeply rooted in a sense of injustice or a sense of grief at what had been lost.

And that makes me wonder about our anger. What we know about anger is that it is a secondary emotion. Underneath anger, you will find primary emotions, like fear (which includes anxiety and worry) or sadness (which includes loss, disappointment or discouragement). WIth Jesus I think we see deep sadness.

In these days of lockdown when we might be feeling some very different and quite uncomfortable emotions, including both anxiety and loss, it will therefore be understandable to also feel anger. It will make us feel vulnerable and sometimes out of control. We might need to knock over -or at least address- some of the things that are causing those primary emotions. To use our energy to face the money changers -or whatever they might symbolise for you, to take back a sense of control. Seeing beyond the anger might be a useful step for today. To face into the things that diminsh our ability to find the sacred and meet with God.

And so as we work our way through a day of Holy Week, .I light a candle beside my second square -moving from the triumphal entry, to the Temple…

Lockdown Day 11: Palm Sunday

Today we enjoyed opening our Young Church kit -reading the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, making donkeys and palm branches, and sharing things we were grateful for… I am grateful for an early morning coffee on the deck with Richard, serenaded by our tui watching the wax eyes flitting around and delighting in the sunshine. The sun makes it easier to find reasons for praise, but there remains beneath it all a sombre reality -a shadow -not so different from the original Palm Sunday. This road we are on is not an easy road, but it is the road we are called to travel for this time. May we delight in the good things that come our way, even if it is the very stones that need to cry out in praise. Hosanna!

Lockdown Day 10

Today has been a day of technological disaster… well that might be an exaggeration, but in lockdown mode it feels like it! It began when we lost our internet, and discovered “they” had decided we hadn’t paid our bill -so they sent us a new bill that told us we were up to date with payments… hmmm… so Richard then spent a couple of hours trying to get through to a person -who told us it would take 4-5 days to get reconnected… Add to that a bundle of issues when we tried to upload the Palm Sunday service for tomorrow… and the frustration grew.

On the flip side though , it has been a beautiful day and when not trying to get tech-sorted, we have enjoyed brunch on the deck, gardening and a lovely picnic on the front lawn. The last rose was picked and put in a vase to enjoy inside. It is good to step outside of the frustrations and remember that there is beauty.

I guess we will all have times of frustration during the lockdown -some will be way more significant than ours were today. But it is always important to take time to remove ourselves from those difficult spaces, at least for a time. To go outside or phone a friend. To smell a rose or drink a cup of tea. Some way that grounds us beyond the current issues weighing us down. May you find your rose too.

Lockdown Day 9

Today I am reflecting on bubbles -and how beautiful and yet how fragile bubbles are. I love the way bubbles can create such delight -typically in children, which I have often witnessed in mainly music sessions when I have brought out bubble blower from the special box. But when at the Pop-up Globe’s Romeo and Juliet recently -in pre-Lockdown days, I also saw the delight in adults, as thousands of bubbles descending around us. I wonder what memories of bubbles you have -blowing them in a bath to entertain a child, perhaps.

Bubbles do come in lots of different sizes, but whatever the size, they are complete in themselves, and beautiful. As I ponder, I am reminded of our need to be satisfied with the bubble we are in -whatever that might look like, and find the beauty there. Often the beauty is easier to see from the outside, but I invite you to discover something beautiful about your bubble today.

Young Church children at KPC are being given a daily challenge and recently they were challenged to draw their bubble… below is the one Reuben drew -which somehow makes my task of finding beauty in our bubble that much easier today :) Apparently I am waving, not posing!

Lockdown Day 8

We have now been in lockdown for a week and my prayer is that people are starting to find new rhythms that are working for them. When we stayed at Nether Springs two years ago we loved joining in the monastic rhythm of daily life there. They teach the 5 pillars of the monastic rhythm and I think this is a time when we could all use these pillars, no matter what our age or stage. I offer them to you as a way to reflect on the daily rhythm you are establishing in this new normal. Each one is ideally included each day and they are as follows -

1. worship -time to pray and praise and connect with God

2. work -the manual kind -doing a physical task whether it is making your bed or the dinner

3. study -take a book from your shelf you have been meaning to read or try audio books or just spend some time looking deeply at something

4. solitude -make time to specifically be alone, to face your own thoughts and feelings

5. community -ensure you remain connected -whether by phone or email or zoom or a smile as you walk…

Lockdown Day 7

Today is my Mum’s birthday so the challenge was how to celebrate at a distance. The wider family chat group are sharing favourite memories and her phone I suspect, will be extra busy today. She delighted in a momentous trip out in her car -to get her flu jab! She felt like it was a birthday gift being out with actual people -especially when she discovered the woman at the doctor’s recpetion desk was a fellow parishioner :)

But most of all she loved seeing her family from a distance, each in our bubbles, as we sang happy birthday before retreating back to our own bubbles, leaving balloons on her letterbox. I am starting to see with new eyes the importance of small things done with love. A teddy bear in the window; chalk messages on the pavement, phone calls and zoom connections…. whatever way you choose, may your day include a small thing done with love.

Lockdown Day 6

Today we managed to get our website back up -phew! So I have posted my past days’ blogs which I had been writing but not able to post. Tonight we will be having our first Parish Council meeting via Zoom -and I am looking forward to updating the team and looking at exciting ways forward in this new normal. Zoom is a significant part of my new normal and I am so grateful we have these amazing technologies through which we can connect. However, when walking along the waterfront, I delighted in seeing a couple of wonderful parishioners waving down at me from many floors up. Real face to face connection, even though from a distance, has a whole new delight in these days. Let us enjoy the contacts we get, whether through a screen or along a telephone line or the smile of someone walking on the opposite side of the street. My reading this morning was from Psalm 133, with these words -

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! …For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life for evermore.

Our unity may be experienced in different forms, but it is unity that brings blessings indeed.

Lockdown Day 5

Today I began a new rhythm using the Les Mills exercise class in the morning.  Not the typical exercise I would choose but it was good to do something other than a walk. Tomorrow we will try a different one. Rhythms take time to develop and this will take time to work out what seems to work for me and for us.  Time outside is important too. -Time in the glasshouse or garden where things can feel a bit more normal. Time for family and time by myself.  Time for prayer. Time for connection. Time to think and process... I have started to think about small groups –perhaps this is the time for Zoom Groups –to encourage connections as part of our communal rhythm. Watch this space. (NB No photo for this one :))

Lockdown Day 4

Today was our first Sunday in a bubble. We had hoped we were sorted for the parish to watch our service on the website but the server failed L -fortunately we managed to email out the YouTube link...  so I hope you were able to find it if that was what you wanted.

At our place we also enjoyed the Young Church kit based on the Ezekiel story of the valley of dry bones. We shared what our favourite bone was and raced to put our skeletons together.  And we talked about the hopes we have for new life that can come out of dry bones. 

For me though, as I placed myself in the story Reuben was reading to us, I realised that in Ezekiel’s shoes, I am not so sure I would have had such faith. When God asks me –can these bones live –and all I see is dry bones –I am challenged to move from saying “not a show, Lord” to Ezekiel’s next layer response –“only You know, God”.  To not leap to the assumption that what you see is all you get. To comprehend that God is able to do the miraculous in our midst. I want Ezekiel’s willingness; his openness to God at work, even in the most unlikely places.  My hope is that this space will build my hope in what God can do in our midst.

Lockdown Day 3

Today we managed to film our first service of worship at home -a real family affair with all hands on deck. It means that tomorrow we can all worship together as a church community simply by going to this website and clicking church online. If you had a Worship Kit delivered before the Lockdown, you can use the resources in it -candle; picture on an easel and world ball.

My prayer is that this will help you to create new rhythms in your life. Worship @ Home will be a new way of doing Sabbath, just as we are discovering new ways of doing so many of our daily activities. Establishing new rhythms is important for our own well being. We will each discover different ways that work for us -and others that don’t.

As we walked this afternoon round the block (and found teddies in the windows of 38 houses) I loved seeing the sea -ever changing and yet ever the same. I was reminded that the sea has its own rhythm -the ebb and flow of the tide. This is the rhythm we need to esptablish for ourselves. There will be ebbs and flows as we do this new normal. Things that take us inward and things that draw us outward. I encourage you to find your own rhythm of prayer, conversation, space, work, food, exercise, entertainment and anything else that you need to be fully alive -both inwardly and outwardly.

Lockdown Day 2

Today when we took Scamper for a walk around our block we delighted in seeing the many teddy bears -and all sorts of other creatures - in peoples’ windows. The will to offer joy is such a profound part of our shared humanity. It reminded me of the verse in Proverbs 17 that says a cheerful heart is good medicine. We offer one another good medicine when we share joy in these simple ways -whether a teddy in your window or a smile through a phone line. I loved to read of a friend today who secretly made her window bear wave at a child going past, bringing extra delight! Sometimes though we have to be a bit creative in the ways we share joy -now more than ever. For us, with a large front yard, our windows are too far from the footpath for a bear to be visible, so we had to think outside the box a little. The photo below shows our answer. The reality is though, that we can all share some joy in some way. So spread the medicine of joy over these next days and weeks -you never know who might just be needing it.

Lockdown Day 1

I have decided to write a daily blog through this period of lock down –a chance to put my thoughts down and to share with the community of KPC. Please return to this website whenever you want to catch up.  

Today being the first day of Lockdown, we as a family have spent time getting organised and making ways to create a rhythm in our days. It has been a very busy week as we prepared and delivered worship kits for the parish, including Sunday services, Young Church, Messy Church and gifts for all mainly music families. We have also been extending our church website so people can participate in regular Sunday worship and even join in a mainly music session.

At the manse, we have also started getting our heads around the school component of Reuben’s day –especially the fun daily challenges for the family that his lovely Hub teachers are providing. Today we all followed instructions to draw an owl –which of course got quite competitive... as you can see in the picture below. But as each of our owls were connected to the one tree I reflected on how privileged we are to have a home nest we feel safe in. A favourite story as a child for me was “The Best Nest” which concludes with these words –I love my house, I love my nest; in all the world, this nest is best”

These owls however, also got me thinking about my favourite psalm, in which sparrows find a home and swallows find a nest. Not surprising I suppose, that under stress we return to those texts that are held most closely. Psalm 84 begins -

How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
    and the swallow a nest for herself,
    where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
    Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
    they are ever praising you.

This passage reminds me of the interconnectedness between home and church. Between the place we make our nest and the place we find God’s altar. Perhaps the altar is closer to home than we realise. Perhaps in our bubble we will discover afresh that it can be a place of worship too; a dwelling place of the Lord Almighty.  May you discover in these weeks ahead that your nest bubble is also the place where God dwells.

The Slow Way

Spending a week on a canal boat is a choice to go slow. Not that it is easy –the locks are hard work –especially when there are twenty three in a row. But travelling this way, you can’t expect to get to where you are going with great speed. I suspect this is more the way of the church than we would like –hard work at times, and slow moving. Unexpected friends are made and people enter to help for a season. And as we keep moving, a rhythm develops and a beauty is discovered, that is so often missed in the fast lane. Each evening we have enjoyed sharing the discipline of Compline –a monastic form of evening prayer. Taking time to sit with beauty is a blessing, but it is also a discipline. It teaches us gratitude and space to listen and to be. The challenge of course is to find this way of being beyond the canal –in the midst of ordinary everyday life. 

The Low Door

Last Sunday morning we attended worship at Holy Trinity, Stratford upon Avon –the place where William Shakespeare was buried along with other members of his family. It is a beautiful and very old space with small chapels to the sides as it is built in the shape of the cross. On arrival we discovered that this was a special service led by the bishop  to celebrate 100 years of the Coventry diocese and the relationship they have with the Willows church school which is part of the community of the Cross of Nails –based in the original cross of nails made from roof nails found in the bombed Coventry cathedral in 1940 and seen as their call for seeking reconciliation. School children paraded a replica cross into the service and people shared how it was being carried around the various church schools of Coventry.  

My favourite bit however was actually entering the church –for the large doors were closed and the entry was through a door within a door –a door with a very low lintel. So to enter church you had to bend down and lower your head. Here was this physical invitation to come humbly to worship.

At the conclusion of the service, I had planned to take a photo of the door as we left –however –to my surprise- the larger doors were swung open wide. No need to bend down now –forgiven and restored, we can leave with our heads held high –out into the community. 

Postscript: When I told Reuben what I was writing, he quickly said “I didn’t have to bend down” And I realised yet again, the warm invitation of Jesus to children that requires nothing –and perhaps even calls us all to come as children...

Cuthbert

Our second retreat at Nether Springs was on Celtic Spirituality –the life of Cuthbert in particular. We discovered some of the stories of his life and death –and after his death... and we had a day trip to the holy island of Lindisfarne where he spent much of his life. Although I struggled with identifying him as my saint... I did discover a richness in the way his life pointed to the life of Jesus. Various stories stood out for me and near the end of our time together we were given time to reflect –the result of which for me was the following poem –it is photographed as the drawing of the experience was as much part of the reflection as the words. Perhaps on my return you can ask me to explain it further in terms of the stories of Cuthbert’s life.

Hospitality: The Pearl of Great Price

Our first retreat at Nether Springs was called Hospitality, heart and home.  In the centre of our gathering, sat a small pottery figure of a person sitting holding a pearl. It reminded me of one of Reuben’s favourite parables... the pearl of great price. And as I had time to reflect on hospitality, it became for me, more and more, like a pearl of great value.  Pearls are becoming a bit of a feature for me this year –some say thirty years of marriage is a pearl anniversary... and that is us this year. As I reflect on what is of most value in my life I realise more and more it is about relationships and about love. Hospitality is at the heart of both –it is the way we open ourselves and what we have to others and to God. I give and receive that hospitality –that opening of self to the other - in our marriage, and I also give and receive it within many other relationships –with people and with God.  Hospitality says we have time and energy available for you. If we get too busy, we can run out of the space we need for true hospitality.  Jesus understood the importance of both giving and receiving hospitality –he is our generous host –most apparent at the communion table, and yet we also invite him into our lives as an act of our hospitality toward God. I look forward to further unpacking these concepts of hospitality on my return.

The overgrown labyrinth

Out near the vegetable garden on the seaward side of Nether Springs is an overgrown labyrinth –made up of mainly buttercups with a motley range of other weeds thrown in. It was once a beautifully kept labyrinth, but by the time we came upon it, it was rather ragged.

However, Reuben was very keen to do it, especially in the evening when the bees no longer buzzed... so off we headed. As we made our way slowly through the growth, I was reminded of the way labyrinths tend to trick you –just when you think you are coming close to the centre –almost touching the heart of God, you find yourself back at the outer rim.

Our lives with God can be like that –just when we think we have it sorted we find ourselves from the heart of God. At Nether Springs a common quote is “When you lie on the breast of Jesus, you feel the heartbeat of God.” So when we find ourselves out on the edge, perhaps it is time to rest on the breast of Jesus.