Keeping Fit

Here we are, a month into the New Year. By this time many of us probably have a heightened awareness of our need to get physically fit as we struggle to shed those holiday kilos we put on. The papers abound with adverts for courses that will teach people to become personal trainers, and it all sounds very attractive on one level:

Apparently it could take me as little as twelve weeks to train, the learning could be done at home and I’d gain the benefit of developing a more muscular and toned body whilst acquiring the skills to help others to become fitter too. That is except for the fact I have several decades worth of Pepsi’s, butter-infused mashed potatoes, and banana cream pies to sort through first.

But there are always downsides to such dreams: The tuition isn’t cheap, there’s no certainty that the qualifications will lead to paid work and there often doesn’t seem to be much of a selection process.

It seems a little strange to me that while we often pay lots of attention to our physical appearance we sometimes completely ignore our emotional and spiritual well-being. Perhaps what we need most is a strong network of relationships with others who affirm and challenge us in a variety of ways.

Friendships can give such support and another source is the constant prompting and guidance that God gives to us throughout the day. We can tune-in to listen to that help when we make space for reflection and silence amongst the other activities of our lives. Words from the Bible remind us that even better than a personal trainer, God always accompanies us, ‘Be filled with the Spirit... Be Guided by the Spirit... Walk by the Spirit.’

The comforting thing about God’s help is that it is always there, all we have to do is to recognise it.

Gracious Lord, help us to first see within ourselves before we criticise or judge others. Guide us, help us to grow within ourselves and within You! May You always dwell within us! Amen

Fruitcakes and Other Nutty Concoctions

Perhaps You Need a Little DOG in your life!

Family

Family. Not only is it a lovely word, it has a resonance that can lift you even in the darkest of moments.

The Worldwide Anglican Communion is a blessing and an immeasurable gift. Within the bonds of our family, it allows us to reach across oceans, cultural differences, and language barriers, to the family member who needs help. We are as thirsty for these chances to show forth the love of God, as those who need our help are to receive it. The spring of life from which we all drink, pours its goodness on giver and recipient alike.

This past week, children of the village of Budesti Moldova drank from that spring, thanks to the caring, giving efforts of a stranger. Alison Casserly joyfully responded to a plea I made on the BBC several months ago for a knitting instructor to come to this small village to teach children how to use a knitting machine.

For the children, it was amazing! They were awe-struck that a virtual stranger would leave her home, her family, and travel thousands of miles to their small village to spend time with them. They were learning an important lesson about our Christian family. We have no boundaries. As a family, we are one.

For Alison, it was a special journey as well. It allowed her the opportunity to leave behind all we take for granted in our busy Western world. And it took her back to a time and place where values are centred around the importance of family and community, working with your hands, and giving thanks for all the goodness God provides from the earth. No microwaves, no plumbing, just wholesome living by taking communion from our gardens.

By Alison’s own words, it brought her closer to her husband and children and it reminded her of what our real values are in life.

Alison bravely stepped into a hurting world and actively participated in its healing. And for this, people will see her kindness – not just us who witnessed it, not just those within the church.

Everyone will see. For it will show in the faces of those children – now and for the years to come.

To the thirsty, I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Revelation 21:6

Just A Stones Throw

Put It Off Until Another Day!

Saturday's the day when I promise myself I'll catch up on all those things I've been putting off during the week. But come on - it's the weekend, roll over and put it off for another day.

And I'm further resigned, as another stream of junk mail pours through the letterbox to be added to the heap destined for the dustbin. We do open the important things. The others get left to be dealt with on some other Saturday.

I am consoled with the fact that, probably very irresponsibly - a friend and colleague once said, if you leave things long enough they mostly go away.

At least I have a choice with post through the letterbox. I can choose to open it or not; unlike the junk text message, or the junk phone call.

The snapshot of our times through junk mail is a curious one: holidays in the sun, timeshare apartments, loans, leather sofas, more credit cards, charity appeals and one rather snippy anonymous note, (I know it came from my effervescently cranky neighbour...the 'Old Goat'), that informed me: ‘Your lawn needs cutting! (Thank you, it has been raining for the past six days if you haven't noticed.) - Oh well, a whole world through the letterbox.

In the light of all that, today's prayer to God might sound like a plea for mercy: ‘Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven;’’ not just a kingdom where there will be no junk mail, a kingdom where galloping consumption and self-destructive luxury is no more. Except ‘here on earth as it is in Heaven’ seems to suggest we might experience something of the economy of Heaven here and now and before that day when we won't have the choice.

Perhaps there is a prayer to be said for working on transforming the world now, with God's help, into one where justice, joy, respect and passion for life begins to emerge on earth as it is in Heaven.

And we just might have the lawn cut on Monday, provided that it doesn't rain!


Lord Jesus Christ, You are alive and at large in the world, help us to change the things that contradict God's love, by the power of the Cross, and the freedom of Your Spirit. Amen

We Just Won the Lottery!

With Me and Within Me

I always feel Christ near to me. I feel His presence many times a day. I talk to Him frequently and I read His words every morning.

I'm expecting to be with Him eternally when I'm finished here, and I think that eternal life with Him has already begun for me, only I'm too dim to experience it fully now, distracted as I am by everything being alive in the world involves.

Jesus and I have a relationship and I don't have a relationship more important than the one I have with Him. It’s not the jump up and down, roll on the floor and make a spectacle of myself for the sake of showing others that I’m ‘filled with His love’ type of relationship.

Instead, it’s that warm comfort that you feel when you’re embraced with love, when you feel safe and protected and know, with every fibre of your being that it’s forever. And it's the type of relationship when you know, with such a conviction, that when you share His love and His words, that others have no doubt, whatsoever, that what you say is true.

But I readily admit I don't always know what He thinks. He has surprised me too many times for me to assume anything. I always try to follow Him, but His way is sometimes a mystery, and I stumble frequently, I make mistakes and I’m sure I get it all wrong at times. But it never stops me from picking myself up, dusting myself off and getting on with it.

I read and wonder and sometimes puzzle over His words. I look to see what others have thought about them over the centuries. I absorb arguments about whether all the words we think are His really are, and what it would mean if some of them were not. I accept that through history we have evolved and I believe that Christ would have wanted us to do so.

I harbour no guilt about any of these explorations: we're supposed to explore and wonder about things, including the things of God. We have a relationship with Jesus, and we can trust Him to correct the errors we will certainly make and help us to grow into Him.

And I confess that sometimes our priorities and obsessions get in our way. Occasionally, our mistakes get us into some kind of trouble, and some of it can be pretty serious. We raise plenty of hell right here on earth, without anybody needing to toss us anywhere fiery.

But I know, without any hesitancy or reservation whatsoever, that He is always there with me, beside me, inside me, waiting for me.

And I know that when it's time for me to start the next journey, that I shall not be afraid.
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Lord Jesus, thank You for being in our lives. Throughout this day, let us celebrate the breath You place within us. Amen

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The Road to Redemption

How the Other Half Lives

Can You Change a Child's Life?

.Tut Tut Looks Like Rain

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Keep Your Eyes Open

When Jesus says, ‘Keep your eyes open, for you know not the day or the hour,’ He’s not talking mainly about dying. He’s talking about God, the groom in the parable, who keeps showing up when you least expect him. God is always with us, but He shows himself more clearly at certain unforeseen times and He speaks important words to us at odd moments. There’s no telling when that will happen, so Jesus says we just have to be watchful.

Sometimes God speaks to us through nature, its immensity and grandeur, its delicate and subtle beauties, the softness of an invisible breeze, the sweet smell of a hidden flower or the majesty of the seas. God is there, reminding us who He is and what a blessing life is.

Sometimes God shows His face reflected in the faces of His good people. Some of those faces are very tiny, some are old and wrinkled, some have big smiles and others big tears. But shining through all those different good faces is God’s face, showing us His goodness and reminding us we’re not alone.

Sometimes God cries out to us through human voices racked by pain or despair, voices weeping and voices laughing. God speaks to us through their voices and tells us where we’re needed, where our light needs to shine.

Whether in light or in darkness God shows Himself and speaks to us continually every day, comforting, blessing, encouraging, challenging, and always wrapping us with His love. So keep your eyes open. This is something you really don’t want to miss! Be quiet with Him. Listen and watch. You’ll be amazed!

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God our protector, You hear us in our whispers and in our cries. Help us to see You in each and every thing You’ve created for us. Amen

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The Wrong Words of Comfort for Someone Dying

Who Are We Forgetting?

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?

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How Good A Neighbour Are You?

Most adults and, indeed, most of their children know the story of the Good Samaritan. And most of us would have a ready answer to the question, ‘According to Jesus, who is my neighbour?’ Our answer would be simple and clear: ‘Everybody,’ and our answer would be right. But that doesn't close the matter. There’s a further question: Is our right answer surface knowledge or dynamic knowledge? Is it strictly correct information, or does it actually affect and determine the way we live?

That’s the crucial question for us all, and it can be phrased in another way: How Christian are we, in fact? Does Jesus’ teaching determine our priorities, our lifestyle, the way we do business, the way we treat one another, our willingness to forgive, and our readiness to help? It’s a chilling thought to remember that Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were all baptised Christians who knew their prayers by heart.

So how Christian are you really? Check the patterns of your daily choices, and you’ll know right away. The patterns never lie.

It's Life Jim, But Not As We Know It

When Traditions Become Weights

Members Only Please

One Sunday last year I took an empty envelope, sealed it, then placed my signature across the back of it. I then handed it to our churchwarden just at the beginning of the service and asked him to tape it at the steps leading to the pulpit. I did it at a time when most everyone had been seated to ensure there were many people watching. I told no one, including the churchwarden, that the envelope was empty. In fact, I told the churchwarden nothing about why I was asking him to tape an envelope on the steps.

During our service, I noticed from time to time that people would glance at the envelope. My guess was that they assumed I would be using it during the homily. But that wasn’t my intention. After the service, as I greeted people leaving, several asked me what was in the envelope. All I said was that it was ‘something personal to me.’ As we were about to depart the churchwarden asked me what was in the envelope. My response was the same – ‘something personal to me.’

At coffee afterwards I heard several people whispering to one another, asking what was in the envelope. During the week I saw numerous parishioners in town. I wasn’t surprised to hear one lady say that she had asked the churchwarden what was in the envelope and he told her that he ‘wasn’t at liberty to say.’

The following Sunday I collected the envelope during the service. I held it up and commented that I had hoped no one had given away what was in the envelope. I’m sure it was my own perception, but several people looked as if they were deer caught in the headlights of a car. I tore the envelope open to reveal that it was empty.

Humans have an almost insatiable urge to possess knowledge which is not available to others. It may involve joining esoteric secret societies or in its simplest form a preoccupation with gossip. Knowing something that other people don't can give a sense of power or security.

But secrecy does not sit well with the Christian faith. And yet in the Gospels we find that Jesus seems to suggest He uses parables so that his listeners won't understand. When He was asked to explain parables He quoted from Isaiah that His audiences will, ‘listen but never understand ... see but never perceive.’ And then He went on to say the disciples had been blessed with the ability to grasp what He was talking about.

It was this sense of secret knowledge that led to a Christian heresy called Gnosticism, which taught the theory that you required a ‘special knowledge’ to find salvation. It was attractive because it offered a sense of security for those on the inside - who had the knowledge. Mainstream teaching held that God's truth was available to all who would listen.

It would be wrong to suggest that Jesus spoke in a way that was purposely obscure. The truth is that He was a creative conversationalist whose flowing oratory could invoke graphic images of a spiritual life. He spoke in a way that His words could reach people on many levels. Sadly, it’s a gift that some ministers don’t understand.

Our world is splintering into more and more groups of exclusivity, whether it’s in religions, communities, or social lives. Bear in mind that the root of ‘exclusivity’ is to ‘exclude.’

If we were to invest as much in learning about others as we do in promoting ourselves, perhaps we could begin to shore up the foundations of our severely fractured world.


God of truth, help us to listen more patiently and to speak more honestly so that we can grow in trust and understanding with all we meet today. Amen

The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you speak to the people in parables?’ He replied, ‘The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of Heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’ Matthew 13:10-17

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Go Ahead Take Your Best Shot

The Power of Words

When U Turns Are OK

The Childrens Story Visit Our Children

Anglicans

Bombing For Jesus

I’m sorting through a large stack of old magazines I’ve saved. I’ve obviously picked out an article in each one that is supposed to end up in the cobwebs of my mind, to be used as a reference point some time later in life. God bless my children who may be faced with the task of cleaning out my library. But here it is…staring at me like a thorn in my heal. It has come back to haunt my enraged senses.

Some of my fellow clergy would seek me out and hang me out to dry if I were to utter such nonsense, and no doubt so would parishioners, friends, and acquaintances too. So, George Bush believes that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. 'Amen!' cry the flag-wavers. 'Heaven help us!' sigh the secularists. 'Hell's Bells' mutter many of the Christians around the world who don't have access to the Whitehouse hotline to Heaven.

Whatever we think of President Bush's words, uttered in private to Palestinian leaders last June and reported in papers and magazines around the world, we dismiss them carelessly at our peril. For they're not just the deluded rantings of a religious nutter, or even the insincere burblings of a silver-tongued con-man.

The Commander in Chief calmly and (in one sense) rationally believes what he says to be true, what he hears to be right, and what he does to be justified. In fact, there are millions of people across the world who claim that God speaks to them - whether they're scientists, artists, politicians, or priests.

But the problem comes, perhaps, when we appropriate God for our own cause. It's easier, on one level, to hear God say 'Treat yourself to a new car' than 'Sell your second car and give the cash to the poor.' That's why anything we feel we hear from above, or inside, or wherever it comes from, should be treated humbly and measured carefully against the broad and sound sweep of the Bible's teaching.

In the case of George Bush, alarm bells ring when he takes the words of Jesus - 'If you are not for me, you are against me' - and applies them to himself and his 'war' on terror. A little theology is a dangerous thing. He's turned the battle between good and evil into one between 'US and them.' Yet, to paraphrase Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 'The Gospel teaches that the line separating good and evil runs not between nations, but inside every human heart.' Including the heart of the president. There is no more 'us and them.' Jew or Gentile. Britain, American, or Iraqi. We all stand equally before God in strength and in weakness.

I, just as with anyone else, have no right to challenge what President Bush did or did not hear, nor from whom it came. But it's difficult not to feel most suspicious of the person who claims to hear God speaking most loudly and clearly, when it comes to matters that involve political dogma, or acts that will kill countless numbers of innocent children, women, and people who haven't even any understanding of world politics. What would happen months down the road if he were to have heard crackle through a moment of silence 'sorry, those were just the onions you ate last night'?

Yes, absolutely, God talks to me too. I hear Him speak through the suffering I see throughout Moldova and Romania, which enrages my heart to work harder, I see Him through the charity of others, through the morning sunrise and sunset, through the life and death of Christ, and through countless seconds of wonderment that embrace and inspire me throughout the day.

I've even heard Him, most clearly, through the message I saw printed on a T-shirt:

'Who would Jesus bomb?'

Loving Father, we pray for our government leaders. Embrace those who are not yet Your own. Give those in authority wisdom in every decision, and help them to think clearly. Grant them discernment and common sense so they'll be strong and effective leaders. (Titus 3:5; James 1:5; Proverbs 3:21)

Help them to lead and govern with integrity, and may their integrity guide them and keep them on a steady keel. (1 Kings 9:4; Proverbs 11:3a; Psalm 78:72; 1 Timothy 2:1–4)

Be merciful to give us leaders who are Spirit-filled and follow Your principles. Direct their steps according to Your Word— for their decisions have a great impact on our lives! (Ephesians 5:18b; Psalm 119:105, 133a)

Be their defender and protector, keeping them always on guard. Help those who are Christians to be strong and courageous, standing firm in their faith and influencing others for Your kingdom. Encourage and strengthen them, giving them the wisdom they require. Help them to have courage and faith in You, no matter what they're facing day-to-day. (Proverbs 23:11; Psalm 41:2a; 1 Corinthians 16:13; Deuteronomy 1:38; 3:28; 2 Chronicles 1:10a; Acts 27:22, 25)

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Perhaps We Just Need a Little Faith in DOG!