Thought for the week – A difficult subject 1^st November

Well the clocks have gone back, the days are shorter, the weather is colder and the brightness of a warming summer fades away. Normally I don’t mind these seasonal changes because I counter them with comforting thoughts such as log fires, warming stews, bonfire night, mulled wine and of course Christmas itself, all of which I find real mood enhancers to get me through the darkness of winter months. However, this year is of course very different because it will be a winter like no other, one that I and many others will have never experienced before. Social interaction has been very different for the last six months and seems set to remain restricted well into next year, thus having a huge impact on our ability to see and spend time with family, friends and neighbours.

This deprivation of human contact has for me never been an issue before, whenever I have needed it I had access to the warmth and comfort of a hug, the sharing of laughter coupled with the joy of being in the company of someone I care for, sadly it is only now that I have come to realise just how much I have taken it for granted in the past. I feel a little ashamed that I only list the material things in life that help me to lift my mood as the days grow dark, instead of the people who I actually need. This reflection of mine set about a deep sympathy for others who may have truly experienced an enforced isolation, even before social restrictions, others who for whatever reason found themselves cut off, alone and feeling low. I cannot say I have an empathy for the lonely because I have never been really alone and for which I truly count my blessings, the point is I do not feel qualified to speak on behalf of those who know a real mental anguish, one that is found in the darkness of true loneliness, and like so many others, I can only take the time to stop for a moment and try to imagine.

What I do hope and pray for is that the world around me has also found in their own moments of pandemic reflection, what they had and probably still have, albeit constrained, in order to recognise the value of human contact over the inanimate objects of desire, the ones that we so often surround ourselves with and instead appreciate that this contact has a restorative importance to the well-being of all, in particular those who are truly alone throughout the year. Such thoughts should cause us to now earnestly consider the needs of our neighbour more than we may have ever done before and respond in whatever way we can to help.

This week I was having a conversation with a friend on how we can perhaps find some comfort during these difficult times and we both fell into a discussion on the benefit of having a faith to call upon in times of need and also how we both use prayer. The person I was talking to said that she found praying difficult at times, that she couldn’t seem to find the right words when it most mattered, something I am certain she is not alone in. She recounted a time when she found herself in hospital with a life threatening illness, awaiting surgery and with a very uncertain prognosis. She was put in a side ward on her own because she had MRSA and even though it was a busy hospital, she told me that this was her own experience of extreme loneliness, where fear of the imminent operation and its unknown fate was slowly smothering her usual optimism and vigour to prevail. She took the opportunity to have someone from the hospital pastoral team come and visit, whereupon the difficulty of finding prayer was duly raised in conversation. Her visitor pointed out that prayer was only one way of communing with God and suggested she try something a little different. You take a passage from the bible, perhaps a favourite one or one that is relevant to your immediate needs, you then need to close your eyes and immerse yourself in the narrative, place yourself in the moment and feel the curative power of God’s word bringing light and hope from within. The passage that was used in this instance was the reading I have given you today (Luke Ch8 v43-48) and you will see why I was told how it was able to bring immense spiritual sustenance to someone who looked to her faith as a means of finding inspiration, comfort and healing in the most desperate of times. You can also begin to appreciate the significance of the chosen reading when you consider the parallels of its narrative with that of my friend.

The woman that Luke tells us of has been bleeding for many years and any hope of a remedy has been extinguished by the physicians of the time, who tell her they can do no more. The cultural implications of her illness would have been huge because a woman who bled constantly in those days, would have been shunned as an unclean person. This insight allows us a much deeper degree of compassion for her situation, a person who is unwell, without hope and suffering the loneliness of exclusion, the similarities with my friend are now becoming apparent.

Now scripture never gives the complete story and we are so often left filling in the missing parts, something which I feel allows us some latitude in making it relevant to our own way of thinking and more personal in its effect. This woman who was at her lowest and with no hope available, must somehow have heard of the teachings of Jesus and the incredible things He had done by way of miracles, in order to form such a resounding belief that someone she had never met, would have the power to make her well again. In fact, so powerful that all it would take is the briefest of touches of his cloak as He walked by, a belief in something that at any other time would be regarded as being both incomprehensible and fanciful and yet she possessed this belief so deeply, that it reveals to us the nature of what true faith really looks like and what it can achieve when you have it.

My friend told me that within her own immersion of the the reading, it was this very moment that she felt uplifted, as she, in her empathy, became the woman who reached out and touched the cloak of Christ and felt a connection with the power of His healing love that prayer had never quite done before. She went through an awful battle with the illness before making a good recovery but she is resolute in the notion that this piece of scripture, the immersion mechanism and subsequent gifts of hope, strength and love that it gave, is what actually got her there and in her own words was her own little miracle, and who can deny her the right to think so.

Jesus said “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

I really felt quite humbled to have been allowed access to such an intimate disclosure of personal faith and when I poured over the reading again, I saw and felt something different within it, something intensely insightful and profound, more than I had ever before and found I became really quite emotional myself. That is the beauty and enigma of God’s word, no matter how many times you read it, the message it contains will have countless meanings depending upon your need. Whatever way we do it, talking with God is such an important spiritual balm for our mental and physical health and is for those with a faith, access to an infinite measure of God’s grace, more beneficial than mere possessions will ever be.

Love your God, love your neighbour and make time to love yourself too. Amen.

Danny.

A Prayer for All

Lord Jesus we pray for all the lonely, burdened, bereaved and afflicted of our world

We ask that you bring them hope, peace, comfort and strength to deal with all the trials that life’s journey can bring

Heavenly Father we thank you for the countless blessings that so many of us have,

found in the smile, touch and sound of those we love and who love us back

and so we ask for those less fortunate that they too may find your loving light through the kind hearts of caring friends and neighbours.

May your Holy Spirit stir us to be more aware of the loneliness of others and to respond earnestly to their individual needs.

Lord Jesus you are our saviour, our redeemer and our friend

and because of you we are never truly alone

even if we struggle with prayer you see and know our thoughts, feelings and needs

you are always there as we reach out to you

unconditional in your love for those who seek it.

We thank you always Lord

Amen

A Prayer for those who Feel Alone

Dear Gracious and Loving God,

help me to feel your presence.

My heart aches and I feel so alone. I miss a human touch, someone to take my hand or give me a hug.

I long for someone to tell me everything will be alright. Please send your Comforter to me and take this loneliness away.

Help me instead of feeling empty, to feel full of the love you have for me.

Help me to know in my heart and remember that according to your Word; I am never alone because you are with me.

Your love and peace is with me, right now, in this moment. I feel it and I am no longer alone.

Amen.

    Thought for the week – 25^th October

Over the last few months, perhaps even more so in the last few days, the UK has been bombarded with information surrounding this latest Pandemic, with different regions receiving different advice and different rules. Whatever your beliefs are regarding that information (and the opinions are many and varied) most people now seem to agree that it’s confusing, the anomalies difficult to justify and at worst, in some cases, dubious. We’re also bombarded with how the situation is affecting the country’s economy businesses and whether you can go to the pub or not, In some places I understand there’s a question mark over whether you should buy socks or not! Some of these things are, of course important. However others of equal or greater importance seem, too often, to drop off the radar (or maybe I’m looking at the wrong radar). One of these things is the voice and plight of a silent but significant percentage of the population, living alone and feeling vulnerable and helpless. That voice gets snuffed out by the noise and clutter of the things I’ve mentioned above – including some very selfish aspects.

Let’s hear the story of one individual and how her life has been affected.

My name is Elizabeth (name changed). For many years I’ve been a reader at a local church, I’ve also served as a member of the work place chaplaincy in the town, where I live. I would make weekly visits to the Royal Mail sorting office and the local bus station. As I went around talking with people and listening to their stories I began to feel part of their communities, which I loved.

I am now 86 years old and until recently was still active on the local preaching circuit, but now, due to Covid-19 I am shielding, like many others. I am a widow and live on my own and now understand what it is to feel isolated. How many people feel like me?

I have great need of Jesus Christ. I am a Christian, yet sometimes I feel afraid, unused, and forgotten. I still need to do something more in my life. God has heard my prayer and I welcome the opportunity to write these thoughts for you, these may be read by others and help them too. Thank you lord, help me to continue this work and help me to help others.

 I have three children but all of them live miles apart in different parts of the country. I have one son, a Christian, and two daughters. One daughter could be described as a seeker of the truth, the other is not a believer in God. She is not married and is the one who (when the rules allow) travels to visit me every so often and stay for a few days. God has blessed me with her, I am so grateful for her visits. Thank you Lord.

 Dear Lord bless all my family and the families of all those separated at this time.

Thought! You never know where help comes from, do you feel this?

Reading that account prompted a number of feelings in me all at once, sadness, guilt, frustration, and yet at the same time hope.

In Elizabeth’s case, she has her faith to sustain her and a family who cares. What about those who have no one?

There are so many elderly people in our world who feel washed up and of no value – exaggerated in these difficult times – and that for me is a terrible consequence of much (thankfully not all) of our modern society. Many, like the lady we’ve called Elizabeth, have given years of selfless service to others. Within their lifetimes they have created legacies that are priceless in the lives of people they have touched and so, by definition, far from being of no value, they are invaluable. But that’s only part of the story, their experiences and knowledge can still be drawn on if only we were to give them the opportunity to share, as Elizabeth points out, she still feels the need to do more in her life.

Widening the subject a little, we should also consider that in the current climate people of all generations are beginning to suffer different anxieties, and the mental welfare of many is a cause for great concern. Although it’s being discussed, I strongly suspect it’s not being given the high profile it really requires. And we haven’t even started on the homeless and hungry. So what do we do?

I mentioned that Elizabeth’s experience also gave me hope, that was, of course, in her faith, showing how faith and prayer can sustain and enrich. She talks at the end about knowing where help comes from. That put me in mind of one of my favourite Psalms.

Psalm 121

¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—     where does my help come from? ² My help comes from the Lord,     the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—     he who watches over you will not slumber; ⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel     will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord watches over you—     the Lord is your shade at your right hand; ⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,     nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all harm—     he will watch over your life; ⁸ the Lord will watch over your coming and going     both now and forevermore.

We must recognise however that there’ll be those who don’t feel the assurance of those words. So we must also never forget that very often God requires those who do know Him to be His eyes, His ears, His voice of compassion, His hands of help and friendship, and we can do these things in many ways. Even if we can’t be on the front line, we can support those who are, I was speaking with a friend the other day who was saying, because he’s not out and about so much, he’s not spending as much and his current account has more money than normal. He also admitted that he was very fortunate and didn’t really need that accumulated extra cash and was thinking how it could best be used to support people and organisations helping those in need – just one example. So let’s finish with a prayer for those in need of help and comfort and for the strength and wisdom to help them in their plight.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father

Help us never to lose sight of your love for us,

When we feel afraid and alone

Enfold us in your love and give us

The sense of peace which comes from knowing you.

Almighty God

Help us never to lose sight of your love for others,

Help us to serve you, to become your eyes,

Your ears, your voice of encouragement

Your hand of comfort and friendship.

Give us wisdom, strength and courage

To speak out and work for those in need.

We ask these things in the precious name of your son

Jesus Christ who came to show us how. Amen.

Thought for the week – A difficult subject – 18^th October 2020         

I hope that those who know me as someone who speaks about God in our world, have also come to know me as someone who is not afraid to find Him in the most difficult and sometimes darkest of topical challenges that we may face in our everyday life. This thought for the week is no exception and is I believe the toughest and most demanding subject I have ever written on, one of deep personal discomfort and heart crushing sadness. I refer of course to the report published by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) investigating the systemic failure of the Church of England to protect the victims of sexual abuse and being complicit in the hiding of abusers to protect the good name of the church. It is shocking, disturbing and deeply uncomfortable for anyone to read, especially for those of the Christian faith. I use the broader ‘faith’ term because you can forget about using any sort of denomination filter for the abstention of responsibility, this is to the wider world the fault of religion, faith and most critical of all ‘the collective Christian Church’ and though it hurts to say it, I believe they have a just reason for doing so. Every time somebody does something in the name of church, any church, there is an assumed inference that it is done with a vicarious acceptance by all of its universal members, especially by those who are non-believers and this report has created just such an image, simply by using the truth of what has occurred.

When the news broke of the report my immediate litmus test of its impact was to use social media, as that is where society has the opportunity to bare all its uncensored opinions. The overwhelming disgust, revulsion and loathing for all things Christian depressed me more and more with each and every entry that I read, the repeated malevolence towards my faith, towards God himself and of course the church, deeply saddened me at first before becoming an intense hurt, born out of a sense of shame for being part of an institution that allowed this to happen. So it begged the question, If I felt this way then how many others would too? Good people, now labelled by institutionalised failures that they were not directly responsible for, a label that sadly, I can promise you, will never truly fade, no matter how hard you may try. I know this because as a former police officer serving in the Met after the McPherson Report, following the Stephen Lawrence Enquiry, we were all given the label ‘Institutionalised Racists’ and if that didn’t hurt enough, what followed drove it so deep into my psyche that I struggle to talk about it even today.

I believed I was a good person trying to make the world a better place, I was never part of the Lawrence investigation, I was never racist, I went to work to protect those who could not do it for themselves and from those who would seek to do them harm, but no matter what I did or who I really was, every time I put on that uniform someone would remind me of my McPherson label, right up until the day I last hung it up, 16 years later.

I fear that the IICSA report will now do the same for Christians everywhere as the world now seeks to label us as institutionalised sex offenders, a repeated social media reference not mine. It is a reality that all Christians will now have to come to terms with and take ownership of because It is far too easy for someone to find absolution by simply saying that they had nothing to do with these failures to protect the vulnerable or to be dismissive of potential sexual abuse permeating into their own community, simply because it always happens somewhere else and never here, after all nobody that they know could do such a thing, right? To take this approach, in my opinion, is sure to perpetuate the problem and displays scant remorse for its happening or the required empathy toward its victims, both past and sadly future, because there will be future victims if we choose to hide under the covers of denial and hope it will all go away soon.

It takes incredible courage for a victim to lay bare all their pain and suffering of a violated childhood and they are owed so much more than just an apology for doing so. It calls for a reciprocal courage to do what is right, to be proactive in its prevention and be restorative of the ideal that church is a place of safety, immersed in the love of Christ for anyone who seeks it. This means taking responsibility for knowing what Safeguarding actually means and how it works in your church. It means asking yourself that soul searching question “what would it take for me to report something that I felt wasn’t right?” Perhaps give it the context of a suspicion about a friend, neighbour, family member, church member, church leader or is that simply not possible in your immediate world, just as I’m sure many others have thought so too and to which the victims sadly can bear witness.

If it wasn’t already hard enough being relevant Christians in this often dystopian world, it’s likely to get a whole lot tougher and we often use the expression ‘suffering in Christ’, well here is an example of where that just got real, delivered with every irreligious sneer and slight of our faith.

Sexual abuse is of course a global human affliction, however at this moment in time it is the church that is in the spotlight of recrimination and we have to acknowledge that the secular world is sitting in judgement of us and watching our every response towards a desired redemption as indeed are the victims and we must not be found wanting. Given that this a global issue it is also one the whole of society would also do well to reflect on.

We must of course remain steadfast to our Christian mandate of loving God and our neighbour as commanded, but when doing so, when you are wearing your Christian uniform of love, righteousness and humility, be prepared for what others outside of the church may choose to see, it might be you but then again it might be your new label, one will feel good and the other……..

As mentioned, this is global and human affliction and one that the whole of society would also do well to reflect on.

The readings I chose today are ones I have used to give me the courage and focus I needed after the above event. The first ‘Jesus Blesses The Little Children’ is one of my favourites and is found in three of the Gospels such is its importance in understanding the nature of the what the Kingdom of God is about.

I also like the imagery of the gentle affection Jesus shows toward such innocence and the status that He gives children in the world, a reminder of how they should be treated, nurtured and protected for they are the role models that will give access to the Kingdom itself.

The second (1 Peter Ch.4 v12-v19) seeks to remind me that living the life of Christ in order to be relevant is never going to be smooth sailing and in God we must trust because He keeps His promises for those who do.

Danny.