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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Take Eat This Is My Body

Last week my son asked me to make bread rolls. It reminded me of my childhood, when I’d watch the wife of a man who looked after my horse, make bread.

I would take the train up to their small town, telling my mother that I was going to check on my horse. I'm not really sure why I bothered telling her as she really wouldn't have noticed I was gone anyway. But the truth was that I really missed Mrs Fowler’s cooking and I enjoyed being around her grown children who were all involved in equine activities.

Mrs Fowler was a simple woman, resolutely Baptist, full of life and full of Christ. I was always fascinated by her dedication to her Bible. It seemed as if virtually every passage in it had been underscored and before I went to sleep at night I would peek at her in their sitting room, napping in her chair beside the fire, with the open Bible serving as a blanket over her chest and her glasses hanging half-way off her face.

From her small kitchen in their simple country house Mrs Fowler could make the most marvellous breads in what appeared to be taskless seconds. And all the while she’d be singing sweet songs about her relationship with Jesus. I'd rise at five in the morning just to watch her in action, preparing what in my eyes was a feast for her family, but to her simply a labour of love.

It was quite a different world for this young Anglican mind to experience, as she'd drag me off to one of her Autumn night church services. And if the word 'confession' is appropriate in this context, it was the end of the service I actually looked forward to, when the local farm women would unwrap their fresh baked goods for the faithful to share. In my small eyes I saw this to be the communion which didn't quite seem to figure into a Pentecostal country Baptist service.

Several months before Mrs Fowler passed away I went to visit her. It had been nearly 25 years since I last saw her. I wanted to tell her that I believed she was the one who had planted the seed in me to start my own spiritual journey. And she was the only person who had given me the confidence to at least 'try' making bread.

But no matter how hard I tried, as a young person, I could never recreate those magnificent rolls she made. It was her art and it was her gift. A gift she openly shared; her communion for those she cared about and loved.

That was long ago. Today whenever I make my bread, my mind is flooded with warm memories of Mrs Fowler. Typical guy; I’m probably much better at incinerating things on a grille than I am at baking, but I still enjoy the exercise.

It’s soothing on the soul and allows me time to make mental doodle marks in the air about things I want to write about. And kneading the bread - that tactile movement, can be quite comforting. Once done, I can set it aside and allow the yeast to do its stuff.

The function of yeast is fascinating. You mix it into a cup of warm water and stir a little: within minutes it begins to breathe, to swell, to soften, and come to life. Little plant spores - that's what yeast is: cocooned in their package until you come along with warmth and water and remind it that it's alive. Mixed with the flour, it begins to feed on it as well, growing and swelling. And in time it has evolved. It has risen to great heights, cresting over the top of the bowl.

Again you work with it, kneading it in your hands, forming it, moulding it, helping it to become what you want it to be. But before it can become bread something important must happen: The yeast must die.

In each place where the yeast spore has been, there will be a pocket of air-an acknowledgement of its death. And into the hot oven it will go. The yeast spores have given their life for the bread.

But their memory remains everywhere in the loaf. They shaped it. Their bodies gave it the power to rise. You even taste and smell them still, though they are gone: that flavour, unique to other breads, is what makes yeast bread so different.

Isn't that just like our relationship with Christ? "This is my body, which I have given for You." It cannot be at all unless I give my life for it. You are the body. You and I - and the bread; we are body together.

And I am in You and You in me. Amen

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Father in Heaven, I submit myself to You. Guide me, be with me, lead me in all I do and all whom I serve in Your name, and always Lord God, help me to grow and walk within Your light. I pray this in The Risen Christ's name. Amen



Krisztus feltámadt! Írásos Bill atya gyűjteményéből. Imádkozunk az egészsége. LR

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Are you suffering from spots or wrinkles?

When Traditions Become Weights

When We Need a Little Help

Killing For Jesus

More than anyone else, Jesus understood the human heart. And as He looked into the future, He could see the troubles that His followers would have to face, sometimes because of their own blindness and sometimes because of the self-deceptions and rationalisations of others.
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‘A time will come,’ He said, ‘when anyone who puts you to death will claim to be serving God!’ What an extraordinary statement and what an accurate prediction of what has happened again and again across the centuries. In our own times we’ve heard more than once that cynical injunction to ‘kill a commie for Jesus.’ And more frighteningly, today, people are adapting the phrase for almost anything- homosexual, Muslim, Jew, black- the list is endless.

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What could be further from Jesus’ vision? He urges us unceasingly to enlarge the circle of our love and concern until there’s room for everyone inside and no one is left outside - not even those with whom we differ on the most fundamental and crucial of issues.

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Whenever you feel an attack of self-righteous indignation coming on, just remember how often in the past you have been thoroughly wrong in your judgements and entirely mistaken in your strongly held opinions. And then leave the judging and the punishing to God, who sees things ever so much more clearly.

As you begin to see yourself more clearly with the passing of time, you’ll be glad you stayed your hand.

Gracious Lord, teach me to be compassionate in all my ways; helping me to pray for others with empathy,  knowing that You care for all Your children.

What Is A Fundamentalist?

With Me and Within Me

Big World Small Boat

Moldova Prisons

I doubt if anyone would ever forget their first visit to a Moldovan prison: the forbidding gates, the echoing corridors, the stench of human body odour, rotting rodents, faeces, urine, and the constant moans of the suffering. Spend even a few hours inside and most of us are gasping for the fresh air of freedom. If that's how it feels to the visitor, how must it feel to those who know that the place is to be home, if not ‘sweet home,’ for the next six months or six years?

Yet to meet even briefly the people who inhabit it, whether staff or prisoners, is to find the human face of prison. Within its walls there’s a cross-section of humanity: sensitive and insensitive, kind and cruel, noble and villains - and that’s just the staff!

Within the prisoner community one can find university graduates, accountants, politicians, musicians and actors, innocent children and mothers - alongside the usual mix of drink and drug victims, addicts and psychiatric misfits. Every one of them, the believer would want to say, made in the image of God and for that reason infinitely valuable and precious.

They are there because they are either alleged or guilty of having offended against society, and their penalty is the temporary deprivation of liberty. And at least in Moldova they are also there in the hope, albeit sometimes a faint one, that the experience will lead to a reformation of life.

Shockingly, there are many there who are victims of the former government and old communist laws or practices, where the prisoner is guilty of nothing more than speaking against the government. Indeed, the long needed changes in this practice are happening. But it's more challenging to change behaviours and practices than it is to change a written law in a book. So suffering abounds, both for prisoner and keeper!

Strangely enough, history and religious faith are full of prisoner heroes: Daniel, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, St Peter and St Paul, or John Bunyan, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Those names may help us to realise that time spent doing ‘porridge’ is not always wasted.

These prisoner heroes were also of course, people of faith and there's no doubt that many prisoners are attracted to religion during their time inside. America has some faith-based prisons and in Britain we have prison chaplains, working within the prison service, but very much concerned with the spiritual well being of all the inmates and staff. None of this exists in a Moldovan prison. Often in Britain this is the first time the prisoner is asked to account for his conviction and what journey he will take towards change.

But for many of those prisoner heroes the first step on their journey of faith was simply to recognise that they were in prison as a fair punishment for what they had done. It was too for another criminal, to whom Jesus made His last and solemn promise as he hung beside him on a cross. Unlike his taunting colleague, he confessed that he had been condemned justly, ‘for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds.’ he then pleaded, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.’ ‘Truly I say to you,’ came the reply, ‘today - not at some future day of kingship - today you will be with me in paradise.’

Footnote:

This year in particular I am in desperate need of help for the women and children imprisoned in Moldova. We waited an entire year for a comprehensive support and aid project to take place, only to learn that in fact, not one of the projects had ever been started by the American church who had assured the undertaking. It has caused some tragic consequences. We are not trying to raise money - only tangible help. If you are interested in learning about the needs of the people of Moldova, please see our blog entitled:

http://www.pnlmoldovaprisons.blogspot.com/

or refer to our website,

http://www.projectnewlife.org/

Lord God, protector of our freedoms, Grant us the grace to work against evil and to promote justice and freedom for all. Protect the oppressed and downtrodden, uplift them with the knowledge that they are not forgotten and there are those who work diligently to bring them freedom. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen

When we Think God isn't Listening

Children In Crisis Exploited Children Death Of A Child

The Children's Story Visit Our Children Moldova Prisons

Freedom For All...Almost

Not That Old Chestnut Again!

In a recent edition of the diocesan magazine, Crux, the Bishop of Hulme, The Rt Rev. Stephen Lowe laments that the clergy are working too hard and are risking ‘burn-out’ or severe strains on their marriage.

Our cemeteries are filled with clergy who would love to have shared the same news with us. Unfortunately, a few of them probably dropped whilst running between countless PCC meetings, advisory groups, church fetes, tombolas, school assemblies, stewardship programmes, outward giving planning, evangelism initiatives, choir meetings, funerals for people whom they’ve never met, weddings, pastoral appointments for depressed individuals, failing marriages, infidelities, feed the homeless events, refugee conferences, and somehow in the midst of all this, following their daily ‘office!’

Bishop Lowe went on to say that some clergy never take holidays and he personally knows some clergy families who feel that they always come second. Well, bless his socks! I couldn’t agree more.

But here is where we seem to reach a fork in the road. The venerable Bishop suggests that clergy’s terms of employment could change radically over the next few years, ‘coming much closer to those enjoyed by the rest of the workforce.’ He even stated that the Church might consider imposing European regulations limiting the working week to a maximum of 48 hours.

This week’s news has shown some of the appalling conditions under which our military personnel work - often 24 hours a day, or in some cases until they drop, be it by a bullet or exhaustion. But did these soldiers not understand what the conditions would be before they enlisted in the military?

Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with Bishop Lowe regarding the potential for burn-out. It is an indisputable fact this happens. But I also recognise that when humans feel they need to see their doctor they will not settle for a brief chat with the chemist at Boots. Trying to move clergy to a working schedule of hours could be compared with suggesting humanity try ‘DIY’ religion, which is already part of society’s greater problem.

So what’s the answer? I don’t feel there is a straightforward answer. And since I’ve spouted off with my own opinion, you would be quite within your rights to ask me what do I do?

It’s simple. I do every thing I can to serve everyone I can for as long as I can, until I recognise I’m about to drop. And then I try to take a day’s break…sometimes two, to regenerate, recharge, renew, and refresh, and then I get on with it again.

Why? Because what I do is a vocation - a calling to serve. It’s a joy to be part of people’s lives, to help when there is a need, to celebrate their joys and to mourn their sorrows. And sometimes, together, we find a moment, or an answer, that helps us have a little more understanding of God’s wonderful world around us.

Christ Jesus, teach me to be generous
Teach me to love and serve You as You deserve,
To give and not to count the cost,
To fight and not to heed the wounds,
To toil and not to seek for rest
To labour and to look for no reward,
Except that of knowing that I do Your Holy Will. Amen

When We Need A Little Help

When U Turns Are OK

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?

Remembering 9/11
.Religious Leaders Anglican Prayers

Anglicans

If It's Good Enough For Paul

A friend of mine, Robert, has a church in a northern city. It’s based in an area that suffers from poverty, crime, and what he describes as ‘a spiral of depression.’ There are no jobs, businesses are closed, prostitution is rife, and there are more single-family units than anywhere in the country.

Two years ago his church was empty. There were a few elderly people who faithfully attended, but there were no young people. His son told him that young people don’t want to come to church because the way most ministers speak is boring. (I’m certain he wasn’t suggesting that his father is boring!). And, as Robert already knew, his son reminded him that many young people don’t even believe in God.

So Robert set out on a project. He first obtained permission from his son (a very wise thing to do!) to go with him to see where young people most ‘hang out.’ He went to a few pubs, a ‘rave’ (and I can easily see Robert at a ‘rave,’) and he ‘hung out’ at a shopping centre one weekend with his son. (poor lad!).

Robert took those experiences and listened to what enticed young people and what caught their attention. One of the things Robert noticed was that once an event, such as a ‘rave’ had them fired up, there were occasions when a sponsor of the event or DJ would make some brief speech or comment, such as about AIDS, or suicide rates, or bullying, etc. And he was amazed that the young people would respectfully listen and collectively respond when the speaker was finished. It was clear that the message had been heard and presumably had an impact. And his son told him, at school the following week, he’d hear kids repeat what they heard at the rave.

So Robert decided to make some dramatic changes to the way he celebrated Mass and to the way he offered the homily. No longer would he move to the pulpit; instead, he moved down the steps and spoke closer to the people. The elderly communicants liked this. They thought it was ‘friendlier.’

But what they didn’t like, so much so that they complained to Robert’s bishop, was the way he had installed several spot lights that shone on the altar and the large cross behind. During the Eucharist, as he moved around the altar with the thurible, the organist would increase the volume of the offertory hymn and in sync with the music and order of service, one of the servers would turn a rheostat, causing a finely pointed blue-white light to focus on the large cross.

Robert worked hard to get several young people to come to church. In fact, he admits that he actually paid three of them. For a month, he gave each of them a fiver for coming on Sunday. His reasoning was that these particular three, who were more or less the Alpha males in their peer groups, would go back to the group to say what they thought of the services.

The first Sunday, as Robert waited for the small congregation to leave, he told me how saddened he was that several of the elderly refused to even look at him, much less shake his hand. He knew this change was going to be difficult for them, and he knew that he would be visiting them at home during the weeks ahead, trying, again, to explain what his goals were. I certainly understand how people feel they need familiarity in their lives, especially in their ‘religious’ lives. The order of service at a local church, where people instinctively ‘know’ what will be said by the minister, and how they will respond can become sacrosanct. And woe be unto anyone who might consider introducing even the most minimal variation!

Two years on, Robert has a thriving church. During the ten o’clock service the age mean is decidedly different now. And yes, he still uses a lighting system and his offertory hymn reaches a crescendo in sync with part of the Eucharistic service. At eight o’clock, there is a service that follows the familiar and comforting liturgy that so many people grew up with. Some actually attend both. The organist plays softly and the lighting is not used.

But the church is nearly full. There is now a Sunday school and nursery, and several youth programmes are running from within the church. Two years on, from a church that was about to be marked as ‘excess’ and amalgamated with another church, supported by a ‘team’ ministry, it stands on its own as a beacon to the community. All it took was for Robert to be adaptive and meet people on their level, in order to be a guide to help in moving them forward.

Some Christians have the notion that anything taken from paganism or secular culture and used in the service of the Gospel is inherently corrupting and sinful. Priests often hear how the Church has allegedly sullied the purity of the Gospel of Christ with pagan ideas and practices.

St. Paul would find this charge funny, as he himself made use of pagan poets in his preaching. So would St. John, who borrowed the term ‘Logos’ from Greco-Roman philosophy to describe Jesus Christ (John 1:1). They knew the same truth that Augustine pointed out four centuries later: when Israel left Egypt, they took the gold of the Egyptians with them, with God's blessing (Exodus 12:35-36).

All truth is God's truth, even if pagan or secular culture is teaching it. Today, more than ever, we need to find a way to engage our culture with the truth of God in ways people can understand.

And if it's good enough for Paul, it's good enough for me.

‘For in Him we live and move and have our being;’ as even some of your poets have said, ‘for we are indeed His offspring.’ Acts 17:28

Welcome Home Emily

Today I celebrated the passing of a life. Emily Hanwell, age 95, died, alone, in her home. She had lived through two world wars, the sinking of the Titanic, the advent of television, and four monarchs. She was survived by two sons - both no longer living in the area. Emily died in her bed. The coroner listed her cause of death, as ‘suspected natural causes.’ It was the best the coroner could offer. Emily had been dead for several weeks before her body was discovered. Nature had followed God’s mandate and there was little of her mortal remains left.

I spoke with one of her sons. He had already been made aware of her death. He told me that he was too busy to attend her funeral, but he was sure that his other brother would ‘try to do something.’ He said his mother had become difficult to deal with and it was a ‘blessing’ that it was all over. I asked him when it was that he had last spoken with her. He said he had spoken to her on Christmas Day ‘when she had called him.’

When I arrived at the funeral directors, I discovered there were no flowers. There had been no calls about Emily. Her coffin was of the ‘particulate variety,’ a euphemism for cheap board, with colourless plastic handles, which was all the government would pay for.

And so we headed to the chapel at the crematory. In Britain the pallbearers are the professional staff of the funeral director. There was no one there to receive Emily. And it was impossible not to have tears well in my own eyes to see this pitiful coffin lifted up and placed upon the catafalque, with no one there to mourn her loss or celebrate her passing. And I had to wonder what the last days of her life were like.

One of the greatest fears that a human being can experience is the fear of being abandoned by family and friends and being left to live one’s life all alone. Prison guards know this when they place recalcitrant inmates in solitary confinement and torturers know it too when they need their victims to confess to fictitious crimes.

To be cut off from human contact is immensely painful, but it pales when compared to being cut off from God. And yet that is the daily experience of too many of God’s children, wandering about this earth with no sense of any larger purpose or destiny and no vision beyond the blank wall of death. What a tragedy, and how unnecessary it is!

Jesus long ago spoke for us all when He said, ‘I can never be alone; the Father is with Me.’ He is with us, within us, always — healing, comforting, strengthening, enlightening, encouraging, and guiding. He is with us always, and we’ll never be alone — not in the deepest cell or on the darkest night.

Emily, I know that today, as God opened His arms to receive you, the angels danced.Our Heavenly Father, we know that every life is precious. Help us to see the value in everyone we meet. We pray for Your guidance and we pray for Your Blessings to lead us to those who are alone, or frightened, or lonely, so that we may share the message of Your love. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen

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Finding Words Of Comfort

I'm Only Dying!

Death Of A Child

Falling In Love At Clapham Junction

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!