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Remember making these as children?

I’ve since discovered that paper cups are just as effective and a much easier medium to make a string telephone. Of course, kids these days don’t quite understand the idea of having a phone that is tied to one spot, but anyway…

I’ve discovered these “telephones” are rather effective. It’s even possible to shove a microphone up the receiver and hear what is being said through the speakers in the church. This is the sort of thing that can let you hear through a noisy room, even if the length of string doesn’t make it too practical!

Two of today’s Bible readings are about people being called to ministry. In the Bible stories it seems like God comes down and taps them on the shoulder and they have a chat about it. This whole idea of having been called seems like it must have been much simpler in those days.

I think the descriptions in the Bible are lovely metaphor, but not meant to be taken literally. However, it does ask an important question: how do we know that we are called by God? If we don’t experience this sort of face-to-face chat, what is it that lets us know we are called in a particular direction?

Do you know the meaning of any of the following?

Cooked

Salty

Banger

Tweaking

Chat

If you knew they meant “in trouble,” “rude,” “awesome,” “going mad,” and “mate” you’re probably a teenage girl (or working with teenage girls.

Language changes… a lot. I was reading an article on the ABC news the other day about linguistics. Basically, if you want to know the future of the English language, look at what teenage girls say, because that will become the norm in another half a generation, give or take.

This tells us something very important about how we communicate God’s love to the people around us. We cannot stick with the language we have always known, because that changes. If we want to communicate love effectively, we need to keep learning to understand the language of the day so we can make it easy to understand. There is no point using our words if those words have a very different meaning.

Maybe I’m showing my age a bit, but do you remember the 1980s sitcom “Yes Minister”? I’ve been rewatching it with a friend and … let’s just say it’s rather relevant to current politics.

Just last week we were watching the episode titled “The Whisky Priest” (s3e6) which deals with the sale of British arms to Italian terrorists. The Minister, James Hacker, finds himself being given somewhat embarrassing information and Sir Humphrey thinks it is a bad idea to look into the problem.

However, like all good sitcoms, it makes us stop and think. How do we deal with a moral dilemma and its fallout that can be unpredictable? In all the humour, what does this tell you about responding to the question of good and evil?

Yes, Minister S3E6 – if you want a shortened version, watch from 1.26 to 2.40.

It’s been a little while since I last added to the blog… more than a little while. In the meantime, there has been Easter, mission planning, asset mapping, catching up on the time that I didn’t have off over Easter, designing banners, and catching up with other women in congregational/parish ministry. It has been all go and somewhere in there I have needed to have a breather.

Of course, this is much of what seems to be normal life these days. Life gets to be like a whirlwind, dashing from one thing to the next and trying to fit it all in. Our culture tells us to keep going and going until we are at risk of burn out.

In this week’s Gospel reading there are some stories of Jesus ignoring the Sabbath rest requirement to help some of the people he encounters; he reminds the authorities that people were made for the Sabbath and not the other way around.

While the Sabbath rest does not need to have strict rules and regulations around it, it is also important to ensure we regularly have a Sabbath rest. The ancient wisdom comes from a time when slaves could be worked for years without a break and was a radical call to look after people. However, this ancient wisdom is just as relevant today when people are once again over worked.

How can you set aside the time you need to take a Sabbath rest?

I rather enjoy looking at optical illusions. They are so clever and the longer I look at them the more I see. The optical illusions used in this blog were all found by a quick google search.

Sometimes, like with this first illusion the picture changes depending on where you stand in relation to the image. Look at it close by and what do you see? Stand further back – what is the main image now?

That is so like life – where you stand determines what you see and sometimes we need to change our location so we can see a different perspective.

Another type of illusion are also based on perspective, but it’s the perspective inside the drawing. Notice the subtle changes from the waterfall to the dancing women. The image changes according to which part of the picture you are viewing.

Often in life we need to change how we see things – and that can be a challenging, even frightening, thing to do. Do we have the bravery to consider new perspectives and look for the truth in them? As we come towards the end of our lenten journey, what is it that you are seeing? What would a change in perspective look like for you?

Sorry it’s been a little while since I last posted a reflection. It was not Christmas and holidays that got in the way, but rather a dog with an appetite. Just after Christmas Jack became the poster-boy for why to make sure your dog can’t get your Christmas pudding… either that or he became the poster-boy for his new arthritis medication that worked so well, I am sure he reached a part of the kitchen counter that he had not been able to access for years.

Jack will be 14 in a few weeks and he came to me as a 3-month old puppy rescued by the ranger after being abandoned with his brother. He was so small that even if he had only been on the streets for a day, he would have been a very hungry little boy… and he has never forgotten that feeling of hunger. It has shaped his behaviour for his whole life.

Before I go onto reflecting about Jack and our spirituality, I have a very important point to make. None of this applies if you are in an abusive situation. Abuse – and not only physical abuse – is highly damaging to you and you are too valuable to be subjected to that. Find the supports to get out. You can still be compassionate and forgiving, and leave an abusive situation. You also need to be compassionate for yourself, which means protecting yourself in those damaging situations.

Jack quite simply is a good and loving dog, who sometimes does the wrong thing. I can understand how his background has made him into the dog he is, including his constant looking for food and his phobias (of dogs and bicycles). I can have compassion and help set him up for success which has slowly, slowly made a difference in his behaviour. When his anxiety gets a bit much, such as when a bike has gone past too close and too fast, I give him a cuddle to calm him down so he has a chance of doing the right thing next time.

Isn’t that so like what we all need. We don’t change our behaviour because of rules and regulations, but because we know that we are truly and deeply loved. And when we know we are loved, then we have the capacity to share that love with other people.

In the Gospels, Jesus only ever gives one rule (or one rule with two parts, depending on what Gospel we read). He simply says to love.

Older readers may remember as a child reading the book series Pollyanna – one of the many rags to riches stories of its day, but with a twist.

Pollyanna is an orphan who gets brought up by an aunt who most decidedly does not want children around. However, before he died, her father – a church minister – taught her a game to find something positive in whatever situation she found herself. He said there were over 800 “rejoicing texts” in the Bible, so it must be important.

Well, this is only a story and there aren’t 800 rejoicing texts (one blog I read counted 138), but rejoicing or gratitude is important. Positive psychology provides empirical research about the impact of gratitude on people’s well being.

That said, there is a very important difference between gratitude (or joy) and pretending everything is fine when it isn’t. It is important to name the problems, and it is just as important to recognise those problems are not the whole story.

We can cultivate gratitude by the simple act of naming what has been good. It might be in a diary, or in prayer/meditation. You may share it with a friend each day. At the end of each day find a simple way to remember at least one thing for which you can give thanks.

In February 2022, as the Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine, my orchestra was rehearsing Karl Jenkins’ Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. This work takes a 15th Century French army tune and weaves it through a traditional Mass (with a few additions, like the Mullah’s call) to tell the story of the war in Kosovo that raged through 1998 and 1999. He wrote it at the start of the new millennium as a message of hope – hope that finally there will be no more warfare and people can live in peace.

Jenkins also wrote his Mass for Peace in memory of the victims in Kosovo. It tells both the story of the slow descent into war and of the survivor guilt that many experience after such life changing events. Two of the evocative movements (also lesser heard) are Charge, which depicts the guns firing by seemingly random timpani notes, and Now the guns have stopped. In the latter the singer laments he has survived when his friends have not and the words speak of the loneliness of that emotional place.

As my orchestra rehearsed this work in that February, I inevitably felt tears streaming down my face (thank goodness I’m not a wind player!). The music made me think of Ukraine and wonder even more deeply what I would do in that situation. These were people like me, with similar hopes and dreams, watching their country being invaded and having to choose how to respond. The music brought it home.

But this Mass for Peace is just that – a cry for peace against the violence in our world. It is a call to wage peace with the same intensity that others would wage war. And so, I invite you to take the time to sit in quiet and listen to the Benedictus – the blessing. As you listen, make this your prayer for peace, for the peace makers, and for those who do not have peace in their lives.

When I thought about sewing my purple stoles, I thought of all the usual things people include. There were designs with various crosses, candles, the mother and child, and of course the scene at Bethlehem. None of these quite spoke to me and my sense of calling to ministry.

You see, one of the most significant ideas about both Advent and Lent, is that both are about God entering into the messiness of human life. So, I used the randomness of the “crazy quilt” design to reflect on this messiness.

And life is certainly messy! We might have all our plans laid out, but in the end stuff happens and it is not always what we planned. We travel through the good times and bad. There are often times that I call “an interesting learning experience,” though usually it was not a learning experience that I wanted in my life.

But why I sewed my stole in this way is that in the midst of all this messiness, God is present. There is nothing that we can encounter that is outside of God’s presence.

And so we have hope.

Purple stole sewn using the "crazy quilt" design.

It’s been a busy week for me. You know, one of those weeks where I was out almost every night (apologies to my dog who had extra time on his own), days where the best laid plans did not happen, and even writing this blog post is suddenly five days too late. My refrain this week has been “I’ll take back the time when things calm down in January.”

It seems in our culture that busyness is almost a source of pride. We expect people to be busy all the time. In more recent times, even our hobbies get turned into a source of income. So many people having one or more “side hustles,” especially with our cost of living crisis that makes any extra income a necessity. Leisure activities for the sake of enjoying them are no longer the right thing to do. Having a time of rest, a Sabbath rest, seems no longer permissible.

Some 2,000 years ago Jesus reminded those around him that Sabbath rest is a gift for people, not the other way around. In his culture a whole range of rules had emerged around observing the Sabbath, and the most important one was forgotten – it was there to ensure that no one was over worked. The Sabbath is a day to take the time out from all the requirements of our daily lives and to enjoy a time of leisure.

In our busy world, especially as we face the lead up to Christmas, where will you find your Sabbath rest?