northumbrianreflections

Maybe I’m missing something but I just don’t get it. I watched incredulously the scenes from Leicester as thousands of people lined the streets and waited for the passing of a coffin with the bones of a dead king who died over 500 years ago.

I do appreciate history and wished that I’d taken it for my O-levels, (younger readers ask your parents or grandparents!) whilst at school but was badly advised by the careers master who said I should keep my options open and do a broad range of subjects. Consequently I did miserably in physics and GED (Geometrical and Engineering Drawing) when I would have loved to have done art and history. I did however do drama and should have known a little bit more about the king as I played the part of Brackenbury, standing on stage as the school theatre curtains opened to Act 1, Scene 1 of Richard III.                 I remember Gloucester’s opening lines of the play, more than those of my part, Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York or as a clever advertising slogan had it back in Middleborough outside a camping shop “Now is the winter of our discount tents made glorious summer by this sun in York”.

      I vaguely remember that other famous line from the play, My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse. Therein lies my knowledge of this king for whom thousands are paying homage, lining the streets of Leicester, queuing for hours just to look at the wooden box with his remains in it. He has been bestowed with honour by our present Queen, had a military fly past and the Archbishop of Canterbury has led the prayers at his second burial service.

I don’t think I’d queue for hours, as many have done to catch sight of the coffin. I’d hardly manage to queue for more than four hours to get tickets to watch Middlesbrough in the cup final!

The thing that I just don’t get is why such homage is paid to a dead king. Maybe he is a fine example, an inspirational figure? You don’t hear much in the news about Leicester, apart form the fact that they may be relegated from the football Premiership soon, so maybe the media attention that has been focused for the last two years since the discovery of the king’s remains, can help the city project itself positively and boost its economic prospects.          Well a little digging (excuse the pun) has me even more puzzled; Richard was a king of very dubious character, a murderer, a scheming villain who, (and now this bit is coming back to me from my appearance in medieval costume which included teal covered tights and what resembled a tamo-shanter on my head!) King Richard ordered Brackenbury, who was in charge of the Tower of London, to kill his nephews and thus have no rivals to his throne.

Richard the III was a Machiavellian character who rose to power by bloody means and exercised his short reign with brutality and violence. So why on earth are we celebrating and making such a big thing of his life? He has been afforded the privilege of a burial in a cathedral, lying in state and all this to be buried a second time.

I confess to a mixture of amusement and puzzlement as several in the crowds bowed their heads and spoke to one another in hushed tones of reverence. Everyone should be afforded a decent burial but its hard to justify two!

And what an odd person to celebrate. I can’t think of anything other than horror at recalling his life but then again, consumer society will sensationalise anything and no doubt there’ll be a string of “exclusives”.                                 And as for Leicester, surely there are better icons, other figures in the cities history to be celebrated and to draw inspiration from?

Among the contenders would surely have to be George Fox, an English dissenter and founder of the Society of Friends, the Quakers. Fox was a 17^th Century Leicester Weaver and lived in a time of social upheaval and war. Civil strife between royalist and parliamentary forces was rife. Through Fox, God raised up a movement of the Holy Spirit that embraced and demonstrated strong elements of holiness, religious freedom, inclusive and participatory worship, integrity in business, social justice in wider society and peace and reconciliation. Fox and other pioneers of the movement often suffered persecution from the church and state who disapproved of their beliefs and practices. However, their influence and growth as a movement paved the way for religious tolerance and the freedom of worship. Surely in the 21^st Century multi-ethnic society with many expressions of different faiths, Fox would be a more fitting person to commemorate.

How Britain now could do with heroes who are standard bearers of morality and ethical behaviour in private life and in the public domain. In an age of hypocrisy, spin, manipulation, violence, in a world that is witnessing a renaissance of tribalism and conflict within and between nations, a movement that promotes peace and reconciliation, tolerance and good neighbourliness is surely worth considering.

Other contenders who might deserve more honour than a vicious child-killing king, would be William Carey, founder of the Baptist Missionary Society, the father of modern missions whose work blessed hundreds of thousands of people through education, social reforms and in Bible translation.

Or what about Hugh Latimer who was one of the three Oxford martyrs. An influential preacher, an earnest student of the Bible, he encouraged the scriptures to be known in English by all citizens. His sermons emphasised that we should serve God with a true heart and inward affection and not just an outward show of religiosity. He was renowned for caring work among prisoners. He refused to believe than any one man, Pope or any other, carried authority for the church and he refuted the mass as a means of salvation and as a consequence was burned at the stake in Oxford for his beliefs.

Thomas Cook, another Leicester citizen, was arguably the most famous person from the city, who effectively invented tourism. A legacy of travel agents, glossy brochures, websites and package tours, Cook instigated a peaceful movement of people travelling the world not for war but in peace, surely a better person than that of a child killer?

Una Stubbs would be among my choices as someone to commemorate and celebrate. She’s currently one of the television presenters on The Big Painting Challenge. She comes across as a really lovely lady; empathetic, encouraging, bright and cheerful, surely far better than a scheming, plotting, insecure, vengeful king.

Or what about Leicester Tigers? As my good friend, a Leicester man has just pointed out, they are the most successful English Rugby Union Club of all time, supplier of many many great International players, the greatest number of supporters of any club in England (other clubs best home gates of the season are usually when the Tigers are in town). Who could not mention Dean Richards, The Underwood brothers,  as well as the current crop of England players. But really Chris, could Dean Richards be the new iconic figure for such a great city?

There is also a piece within me that feels that as one commentator puts it “Royals still trump commoners”. There’s an insatiable appetite and blinkedness behind our royalty obsessed culture. And I’m not saying this as a particularly anti-royalist but we must not be blind to the plight of ordinary citizens, and particularly the needs of the poor. Such attitudes that bestow honour on the rich and famous, wealthy and influential, economically, politically and militarily strong is dangerous and negates the cry of ordinary people, notably the poor. We still in the main bestow honour on the rich and famous, with token gestures of Honours being awarded to ordinary citizens whilst the celebrities and the powerful gather fame and reputation and the adulation of the crowds.

As I look at the scenes from Leicester and all the paraphernalia concerning a dubious past monarch and all that it conveys about British society my mind in contrast recalls that breathtakingly brilliant creative, inclusive and representative opening at London Olympics opening could not be more stark.

That was a truer and more appropriate commemoration of British history, where among the undoubted role kings and other monarchs have played, the contribution of ordinary citizens was remembered and celebrated.

And as a final thought for Easter; why all the fuss about a dead king, whose bones will now reside and rot away in an ossuary when there is a King who died but who rose again, whose resurrection should really be making the headlines. Now that is cause for celebration!

 Have a blessed Easter remembering a King who lived, died and rose again and who brings hope, peace, meaning and purpose to the world.

Christ is risen: He’s risen indeed!

I didn’t read too many books during my teenage years. I was not particularly happy at school and therefore skimmed over just sufficient reading to pass my exams. I found that books got in the way of my sports and social life. But there was one book, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, which did leave an impression upon me.

It triggered something within me that was later fanned into flame when I became a Christian. Something that is so abundantly clearly from the Bible, that racism is a sin in the eyes of God and an evil on the face of the earth.

A number of years ago when I studied at Newcastle University I was proud to be awarded my Masters in the same hall that back in 1967, Martin Luther King was awarded an honorary doctorate. It was an incredibly audacious thing for the university to do back in the 1960s and as such it received a lot of criticism. Thank God that it did and thank God that the amazing film, Selma (that is showing throughout cinema networks now) tells the incredible story of Martin Luther King and in particular the campaign to secure equal voting rights through the epic march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama which contributed to black people the right to vote.                                                                                                                                        I not only commend the film but urge you and everyone else you know to go and see it.

Years before the Selma experience, there was an incident where Rosa Parks, a black woman,  refused to surrender her seat on a bus to a white man. Her act of civil disobedience triggered the 13 month Montgomery bus boycott which fuelled the Civil Rights Movement in America and brought about a revolution and change in the law throughout the United States.

A young Black Baptist pastor, found himself as the spokesman for the movement. Unprepared for such role, on the night before the first public meeting of the civil rights activists, he prayed, turned to Scripture and saw clearly from the prophet Isaiah how he was to stand-up against exploitation, racism and fight injustice in Christ’s name.

That was back in 1955. Eight years later Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. If you have not read scene that speech, follow the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

We need people who are willing to swim countercurrent to the popular mood when it is not compatible with the values of the Kingdom of God. This calls us out as nonconformists or as the saying goes that I first came across in Holland, only dead fish go with the flow…

We need those who can with creative imaginative thought and courage in their hearts project beyond the immediate and envision a world that brings about change and a future and a hope to the world. To dream as Martin Luther King dreamt of a  greater realisation of God’s Kingdom here on earth.                                                                                                  Now, we are not as public or as high a profile as Martin Luther King but we are all called to make a difference, and in one sense, to be nonconformists.

One immediate area that we can pray and pay time and attention to is that of the forthcoming General Election. I will write more about this in the coming weeks but suffice to say at this point that I believe that it is Christians responsibility to engage in the political process. To think about what kind of society we want to be a part of and to exercise the great freedom and responsibility that we have in a democracy to vote. Men and women have died for the right that we take so much for granted. I understand the disillusionment that people feel with our present politicians but would strongly reject Russell Brand’s line encouraging people not to vote. Apathy, indifference and the failure to engage is a retrograde step for any society.

Bishops and other church leaders have come under fire recently from politicians and the media for “meddling” in politics. However, we cannot as followers of Christ, stay silent on issues that affect people. As Christians we must be a voice for the voiceless, speak out for justice and righteousness, not as some whingeing, protesting movement, concerned only with our own welfare but for the poor of the world, the vulnerable, for the hungry and destitute, for the refugee and asylum seeker. People who are who are not statistics but real people, many of whom are in dire circumstances.                                                           Discussions on immigration so often carry the undertone of racism and bigotry. Debates on Europe are rarely reasoned and resemble more a rancid diatribe of ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, misunderstanding, fear and insecurity.

We cannot remain silent in a society where economic measures and government policies favour the rich on the backs of the poor, where there is such inequality of resources and opportunities in Britain and the world today. Pope Francis continues to speak out on issues of global poverty, challenging world leaders and disturbing a wealthy church in the West. He reminds us that, Among our tasks as witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor.                                                                                                  I am more than ever convinced that the levels of poverty in the world are heightened by a global economic policy that serves profit and enterprise but fails to see the incumbent need and responsibility towards the poor. Given all that is going on in the world today I am surprised that there is not more debate on the relationship between poverty, injustice and the rise of terrorism.

Martin Luther King used to say that as Christians we were good at helping the Samaritan, tending his wounds, feeding and sheltering him but what we are not so good at is going back to the Jericho Road and challenging the conditions that cause the suffering.

It’s good, being motivated by the love of Christ, that we in our churches care for the people but the charge can at times be made against us that we are so busy treating the victims of a sick system that we forget the prophetic, nonconformist calling to change the system.

Remembering the words of Scripture that, the righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. (Proverbs 29:7). We have to find a way, a different way of politics and economics. A new way, which as the Bishop of Leicester pointed out recently, where neither the state or the free market have almost unfettered power which divides people and defeats hope. Or as Pope Francis has said: A way has to be found to enable everyone to benefit from the fruits of the earth, and not simply to close the gap between the affluent and those who must be satisfied with the crumbs falling from the table, but above all to satisfy the demands of justice, fairness and respect for every human being.

It is with these things in mind that I am very encouraged to see the Catholic Bishops in England and Wales issuing a letter today ahead of this year’s general election which is encouraging people to engage with the forthcoming general election. It is a helpful piece that encourages us think about the issues. See the link: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/02/24/full-text-england-and-welsh-bishops-general-election-advice/

Another very useful link to encourage us to think about such matters has been produced by the Show Up campaign which aims to encourage positive Christian engagement in the run-up to and beyond May’s General Election.

http://www.christiansinpolitics.org.uk/showup/

It was Charles de Gaulle who when entering politics said, I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. So let me encourage you not to grow weary or cynical, despite the soundbites, political posturing and daily rounds of politicians verbiage. Rise above that and pray much, think carefully, engage appropriately and cast your vote wisely, not for selfish gain but for the common good.

Contrary to expectations, the beginning of this year has seen me travelling extensively, engaging in lots of different contexts, meeting many people; community folks, church leaders, students and those working in the charity and public sector.

I feel at times like these that I have the opportunity to ‘feel the pulse’ of what is happening in wider society and the task of a contemplative is to pray, reflect and try to glean what is happening beneath the surface of people’s lives and society and to think about what this might mean for the future.

It was Jesus who challenged the religious leaders of his day who were able to tell what was happening with the weather by observing what’s happening in the sky but who failed to recognise what was happening in the world and what God was doing. The challenge remains for us today, to pray and listen to the heartbeat of God for his world, to cultivate that deeper awareness, to see beyond the soundbites, the instant messaging and superficiality of so much contemporary life.

One very clear impression that I have been left with, not just recently but over a number of years, is the levels of pressure and stress that so many people carry. Tensions, stress and pressure are inevitable components in any life and organisation but where there is no abating of such things, it damages people, contributes to dysfunctional behaviours and poor working practices.

I know good people who are overwhelmed with stress behaving in uncharacteristic ways, damaging themselves and others. The pressure under which some people have to work, might drive them to attempt to meet the latest unattainable target but it certainly doesn’t bring out the best in them, nor does it produce much quality work or any meaningful contribution to things.

It’s a very sad state of affairs, when many of the people I meet would get out of or change what they were doing if they could. Operating in ‘survival mode’ does not bode well for life and society generally.

I have recently been involved in a consultation that I hosted looking at the future of ministry in the North over the next 10 years, which came on the back of some heavy discussions on similar issues facing a denomination in transition and leading a workshop for public sector managers, troubled and in crisis, stressed out and overwhelmed in their attempts to run an essential public care service with ever increasing cutbacks and decreasing resources. I have had conversations with friends and those who have come to our home or at Nether Springs and most of them have confirmed my impression that we continue to live in an incredibly ‘driven’ society, a consumer culture that devours, damages and distorts our relationship with God, ourselves, others and the world in which we live.

I don’t think anybody who knows me could accuse me of being workshy. Quite the contrary, although I recognise that I am very fortunate to be in a place where I am more easily able to live out the values that shape my life and the vocation that I have embraced as a Companion of the Northumbria Community. Rabbi Lionel Blue, who some of us had the privilege of meeting when he visited Nether Springs a couple of years ago said, You can have security or freedom but you can’t have both. You choose.

For most of the time I would always choose freedom but that does present certain challenges and heightens an awareness of our Rule of Life, Availability and Vulnerability!

However, by seeking to embrace such a rule of life, that is not driven by dogma, a project, programme or some key performance indicator, I find myself living at times so counter to the culture, embracing something of an alternative way of life. And it’s not in protest or despair of others with whom I happily and readily engage with but I do hope that in some small measure my own life and that of others within the Northumbria Community, makes a contribution for good, brings life and hope, or as Jesus desired for his disciples, to be light bearers and as salt that not only preserves but brings out the best in people and situations. By living out a rule of life we can become little signposts, waymarks to a different way of living, a way of life that seeks to live and reflect the heart and values of the God whom we seek, love and serve. Inevitably that will call us at times to be counter to the culture. For example, by embracing the heretical imperative, part of our commitment to intentional vulnerability, there has to be a questioning and challenging of the status quo which inevitably leads to some elements of nonconformity.

A number of years ago, whilst staying at De Spil, the retreat centre in the Netherlands run at that time by our good friends Victor and Tony, I came across the Dutch proverb: Only dead fish go with the flow.

It continues to serve as reminder to not simply or blindly follow what is deemed the acceptable norm. This is one the reasons why I have an innate aversion to advertising. I find it a real intrusion of privacy when watching the television to be bombarded every 15 minutes or so with adverts that are trying to persuade, manipulate, pressurise and entice me. I know that consumerism depends on people purchasing but I find so much advertising akin to cyber bullying and the products offered do not in reality add very much to life except debt and the fuelling of the appetite to want more.

An aspect of contemporary life that does cause me concern relates to some of those people that I’ve met in recent weeks. Many of them are exhausted, weary and worn down by pressures and stress, tired from working longer and longer hours, overwhelmed by all those things that were supposed to be time-saving; emails, text messaging, Twitter and Facebook etc. Also, not since the 1980s on Teesside, have I met so many people who are living with the shadow of redundancy and the fear of financial uncertainty hanging over them.

Whilst discussions are held on the impact of flu viruses on the health service and the workplace, a far greater and arguably more serious sickness is that of the phenomenal increase in people suffering from mental health issues. It’s as though we have an outbreak of national depression. Antidepressants rose from 12 million in the early 90s to over 20 million in 2001 and now top 30 million! It’s also not surprising to see coffee shops booming as we need the high caffeine drinks to keep exhausted bodies and tired minds awake and obstensibly alert. It’s shocking but it should come as no surprise to us that many of the people working with extreme levels of stress and pressure, those gambling, sorry trading on the financial markets, as well as medics and those in business work what feels like 24/7 have to resort to illegal substances to keep them going or assuage their disordered and disturbed psyches.

Surely these ways are not the pathways to life? A free market driven, consumer society might provide us with choice, considered a great virtue, but it is not all it’s cracked out to be.

My frustration and disappointment with some churches is that, we who are called to be bearers of light, should reflect something of the values of God’s kingdom and point, like a sign, to a culture that is different. A way of living and working that reflects the nature of God and his ways but sadly so often we simply mirror society or worse, endorse it. Church leaders are often as stressed out as their secular counterparts. Christians tend to be as frenetically busy is anyone else. Many of the leaders I know are workaholics, conforming to the ridiculous interpretation of the Protestant work ethic that decrees that if you’re not busy then something is wrong. I was speaking at a conference other week, a good conference in many ways. An energising and uplifting start for many people to a new year but it was all go. The carefully crafted prayer space zones for quiet contemplation, for reflection, listening, waiting were bypassed and barely used. They were not there to replace the programme but to provide punctuation in the midst of all the busy activity but no, the default position for us in western consumer culture is to feel that if were not doing something, if we are not busy then there must be something wrong. The spirituality of so many of my evangelical and charismatic friends could be summed up in the funny but poignant cartoon:

The apostle Paul, writing to Christians in Rome, believers who were trying to live out the new life that they had received in Christ, urges them, Do not be conformed to the standards of this world, or as other translations have put it; Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will, which is good and pleasing and perfect. JB Phillips in his wonderful translation of this text from Romans 12:2 wrote, Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mould.

Surely it’s time for us to live differently, to rediscover the spirit of nonconformity that reflects the ways of God.

I often think it’s one of the reasons why God raised up the Northumbria Community. To be a new monastic community; carrying our raison d’être to seek God, cultivating contemplative awareness, appreciating the gift of companionship and community in a fragmented world, rekindling prophetic insight and apostolic imagination. Living out the good news of the Christian faith, that carries wisdom and hope to the world.

God created the world as a context in which human beings could flourish. The air we breathe, the food we eat, our ability to grow and develop are all bequeathed to us. The environment was meant for human flourishing. Yet I am left wondering whether the way in which we are living our lives is really contributing significantly to human flourishing?

Surely it’s time for a change, but then that’s one of the problems, we fight for time to do anything. One of the reasons why we continue to do what we do, individually and collectively as a society is that we are not afforded time to think, observe, critique how we live and what we might need to do to change to enable life to become more flourishing for everyone.

It appears to me that some systems that we operate and some of the values that undergird society are actually consuming, devouring us. They are killing relationships, breaking marriages, alienating children, creating tensions, sucking the joy and fulfilment out of even the good jobs.

It seems to me that in a work crazed, financially driven, accumulative, anxious, stressed out culture that a positive antidote would be expressed by believers and communities who know how to rest and be refreshed, by a community that has time for relationships, by a movement of people that saw that the purpose of living, whilst influenced by economics, is founded on other things such as godly and ethical values. A way of life that speaks of contentment and simplicity more than accumulation and consumerism.

I was asked recently what would be the good news message for contemporary culture. I think what I shared then remains with me that the messages of hope and peace, justice and community, wisdom and the rediscovery of the gift of sabbath would all be good news. On the subject of the sabbath, not an oppressive legalistic obligation but a principle that when practised is life-giving. My friend Ian Stackhouse, (a devout follower of Jesus and Burnley football club!) wrote an excellent book a few years ago now which I commend everywhere I go, ‘The Day Is Yours ~ Slow Spirituality In A Fast-Moving World’. As it says on the book’s cover it is; a protest against the culture of speed both in the culture at large, but also, more ominously, in the church itself. Rooted in the monastic liturgy of the hours, the Day is Yours argues that in order for Christians to act as a truly prophetic witness, in a time of cultural decadence, they must recover more biblical rhythm in which work, rest, relationships, worship and prayer are held together in creative tension……. Living one day at a time with gratitude and contentedness is vital, lest the church capitulates to the destructiveness of modern life.

As we move into that season of Lent I have just picked up two books from the Community’s Resources, Simplify the Soul ~Lenten Practices to Renew your Spirit by Paula Huston. and Timeless Simplicity  by John Lane.

Paula Huston invites us to de-clutter our lives and draws on daily Lenten practices woven from the Gospels, the Desert Fathers and Mothers and the author’s own wealth of experience. I commend it to you and hope that whatever we find ourselves doing that we might not be driven but are people who are led by the Spirit of God, as Jesus intended for us and demonstrated in his own life. John Lane’s book  addresses the advantages of living a less cluttered, stressful life than that which many of us are now living in the overcrowded and manic-paced consuming nations. He also raises concerns about the future of our home, the Earth and goes on to say that sooner or later a simpler lifestyle will not only be desirable – it will become an imperative.

Is it not time for a little non-conformity in a world of subtle yet powerful in conformity?

I’m not sure if absence necessarily makes the heart grow fonder but one thing I do know is that an apple a day keeps the writing at bay!

Let me explain the reason for my absence in blogging over the last couple of months.          A period when I had hoped to do considerably more writing, not just my blog but other material, including the completion of my book on spiritual formation and leadership. However, just as in the Genesis narratives, the breakdown in relationship with God and humanity was caused by an apple, so the breakdown of my communications is connected with my Apple. Yes, contrary to the vast majority of Mac users, I have been plagued for the last two years with intermittent problems on my MacBook and throughout the autumn the condition became terminal. Now just as the Christmas story reminds us of God’s intervention and redemption, making it possible for all things to become new, I am today beginning anew, courtesy of the Metrocentre Apple Store manager who has redeemed the reputation of their company and given me a new MacBook. Hallelujah!

I’m writing this during the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. From now on the daylight hours will be longer. It’s a lovely image that echoes the advent narratives that speak of light dispelling the darkness; of hope and peace coming and love transforming the world in the coming of Christ.

The prophet Isaiah declares to the exiles:

With the darker days and cold weather aside, Advent is one of my favourite seasons, certainly in the church calendar. It is the perfect spiritual discipline and preparation for Christmas. An antidote to the rabid consumerism and incipient secularism that blinds us to the realities of the greatest story ever told, the coming of Christ into the world. The life and world changing story that speaks of love, joy, peace and hope to all people, everywhere.

I’ve been reading Richard Rohr’s excellent daily meditations for Advent, Preparing for Christmas. Yesterday’s meditation reminded me that contemplation is about experiencing a transformed consciousness, a new way of being and thinking that is rooted in a relationship with God. Indeed, that is what Christian faith is, union with God. The word religio means “to retie” – to rebind reality together. To live in that place of contemplation is to experience and enjoy that communion with God that is transformative. To have one’s heart and mind changed and transformed from previous life scripts and patterns of behaviour and to enter into the new story that God has for our lives and the world. A story as Rohr goes on to say, no longer based on competition, rivalry, cultures or warfare, but on people who are being transformed.

Crossing Places, the missional initiative that I’m involved with here in Glendale has organised a series of Advent calendar posters that have been opened each day in different shops on the high street here in Wooler. Each window reveals a picture, a line from Scripture, a thought to reflect on and a puzzle to ponder as well as a QR code that points people to the Crossing Places website where the story can be explored further. Walking past the pharmacy today and seeing an image of Mary got me thinking about her part in God’s plot to redeem and change the world. Vulnerable yet trusting, uncertain yet daring to believe, taking the risk to trust and obey she becomes the womb by which Jesus enters the world. She puts herself in that place of acceptance to the will of God and through her obedience brings transformation to the world. Through her a new world order is realised.

Mary’s great Magnificat declares a new way of living;

My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,

for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

he has brought down the mighty from their thrones

and exalted those of humble estate;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

Those things that prevent people from entering into the life God intends, those attachments to power, success and accumulation are dismantled and a new way for living is made possible.

It struck me with a greater intensity this year, how relevant, challenging an inspirational the Christmas story is for our contemporary world.

This was significantly illustrated last night when Shirley and I went down to Newcastle.       I had been asked to represent the Northumbria Community and lead the prayers at a Christmas Truce Service. The service had been put together by Heaton Baptist Church with the Northumberland Hussars and involved various organisations such as the Martin Luther Kings Centre for Peace at Newcastle University, Stop the War Coalition, the Newcastle Conflict Resolution Network, the German speaking Martin Luther Kirche, and the local Justice and Peace group. Nick Megoran, a lecturer in political geography at the University, (who has written an excellent book, The War on Terror ~ How should Christians respond?) led the moving and very poignant service, interweaving the story of that first Christmas with the stories of the Christmas truces that occurred all the way along the Western front in 1914. Letters, photos, poetry and diary extracts from soldiers who recorded the reality of what it was really like in the trenches, what they thought of the war, how they hated their Generals, who from the comfort of their châteaux, safely distant from the battlefields, dispatched millions of young men to the horrors of war and an early grave.

For one brief and fleeting period of almost 24 hours, a truce broke out with the cessation of gunfire, gas and shelling. Soldiers on both sides broke ranks, disobeyed orders and took the risk, walking out into no-man’s land and reaching out to their enemy and discovering friendship and a common humanity. Food and gifts, together with addresses were exchanged, there was music and dancing, football, drinking and smoking. Conversations flowed as boundaries of class and culture, race and religion were crossed.

I have this year been to Germany and France and seen the visible scars and memories of both the First and Second World wars; at the Somme, in and around Nuremberg together with a visit to Coventry Cathedral and carry an awareness of all the names on the war memorials in every village and town throughout Britain. The tragedy of war is immense.

I found it very moving last night when we were singing Silent night, Holy Night / Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht, in English and German. The Northumberland Hussars had been fighting a German regiment from Bavaria. Having good friends and visiting that beautiful of Germany for the past five years, it is so incomprehensible and painful to imagine that 100 years ago I would have been coerced to sign up to fight for King and Country and be consigned to kill my fellow human beings on the battlefields of the Western Front.

War is the consequence of sin. It is evil. The breakdown of relationship with God, leads to entity between people, conflict, violence and untold suffering.

As the former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter said in his Nobel lecture in 2002: War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But the matter how necessary, it is always an evil; never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace like killing each other’s children…. In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all religions. Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God’s mercy and grace, their lives lose all value. We deny personal responsibility when we plant landmines and, days or years later, a stranger to us — often a child – is crippled or killed. From a great distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity, and never want to know the number or identity of the victims.

Carter, a former President of the United States, whom I had the privilege of meeting briefly when I was President of the Baptist Union some years ago exudes humility, grace and compassion. Regarded by many as a weak president, he would be seen in the light of Scripture, as a man of peace. He is someone who is motivated and inspired by Christ and who in Office achieved far more for the cause of peace and justice than most of his predecessors and certainly his successors. His remarkable achievement in hosting the Camp David talks where Egyptian President Sadat and the Israeli Prime Minister Begine worked with Carter in secret talks resulted in a framework for the conclusion of a peace treaty for the Middle East.

When talks were breaking down and it looked as if no resolution was possible, the three men concluded their conversations with an evening meal. Carter pulled out of his jacket pocket photographs of his family. The three men then talked about their families over dinner and as they shared experiences of their children and grandchildren that hearts were touched, diplomats were called back into the room and in the early hours of the morning the peace treaty was signed. Of course, later events, including the hostage crisis and peoples abhorrence of Carter’s emerging foreign affairs policies saw him lose to George Bush, who together with his son George W Bush, with the tacit support of Tony Blair have, in my opinion created untold damage and fuelled the fires of terrorism and global conflict.

When we see the images of war and conflict, terrorism, millions fleeing their homes, starving children, widows and orphans, insurgency and the unabated bloodshed in places like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan we should hang our heads in shame at the decision our governments made to invade Iraq on spurious claims and deceitful spinning propaganda, the consequences of which, the whole world is reeling from.

The Generals who sent millions to their death in the First World war, The Great War, the war that was suppose to end all wars have been succeeded by contemporary war-mongering presidents and prime ministers.

Nearly half of the nations in the world today suffer from civil unrest or war with their neighbouring countries. Billions of pounds are spent on armaments, weapons of mass destruction, killing machines.

How we need the transforming values and virtues of the kingdom of God. The values that inspired Jimmy Carter, following his presidency, to use his influence, wealth and resources to found The Carter Centre ~ Waging Peace. Fighting Disease and Building Hope. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.

As I led the prayers at last night’s Christmas Truce Service in Newcastle I prayed:

…. Lord, we ask that we may reach out beyond the barricades and boundaries wherever they exist, to make friends of our enemies, to bring peace where there is conflict, a cessation of violence where there is fighting…. We pray for ourselves and all who lead and influence that by your life-giving spirit you will fire us with imagination to envisage the possibilities of change and the courage in our hearts, conviction and are words and compassion in our actions to make a difference to the peace in our communities and the wider world….. We pray in the name of the Prince of Peace that your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven and that the ways of your kingdom will see swords turned into ploughshares, ammunition is become nutrition and bombs become bread to feed the hungry that the news that first Christmas, announced by the angels would be realised in our day, ‘Peace on earth… Peace on earth… Peace on earth…’ Lord we join the vigil of all who cry out throughout the world for justice and peace. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Can I encourage you to take a few moments over the next few days, perhaps on Christmas Day itself, to light a candle and to pray for peace, Peach on Earth.

May your Christmas be peaceful and may the coming year see us aligning our lives more to the ways of Christ and his purposes of peace in the world.

May Christ, the Prince of Peace watch over you and guide you in the ways of His peace.

Bless you.

Roy

I don’t think that I have witnessed or been so aware, so close to home, of an event of such historic significance in my lifetime.  This is a momentous day in Scottish and British history.

As a Community we have been inviting people to join us for 40 days of prayer in the run up to today’s Scottish Referendum. Most people have only come on board with the magnitude of this day of decision in recent weeks but it has gripped so many in Scotland over the last couple of years and whatever the outcome of today’s Referendum I believe it will have huge implications not only for Scotland, for its near neighbours England, the rest of the UK but the wider world, and certainly Europe. If as has been suggested the turn-out is as high as 90% it is one of the most remarkable electoral successes in modern democracy. There is no disengagement with politics in Scotland today. The debate has captured the imagination, triggered conversation and rigorous discussion and arguments, ignited passions and carries with it both the potential for good as well as bad. I don’t get a vote but I feel quite passionately about the issue. I am English but my mother’s side of the family came from Scotland so I feel some sense of connectivity. When I am asked to sign in a Visitors Book my nationality I always put ‘Northumbrian’! a spirituality and geographical area that transcends boundaries. I am also engaged with the Referendum because I believe it has thrown up issues that have wider consequences for Britain today.

There is something within me that is very saddened by the prospect of Scotland becoming independent but I have not been convinced by the arguments used by the ‘No’ campaign which in recent days seems to be throwing promises, possibly empty promises, too late to try and avert what some consider would be a very retrograde step for the United Kingdom, if not disastrous.     It might be my naivety but it also my abhorrence that everything seems to be based on economics and finances. There are more important values that shape a society for the common good!
Engraved on the Scottish Parliament mace there are four words: wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion.

As a Community we have been focusing our prayers around these four words and the Community team that has been involved in prayer initiatives like last year’s Flodden 500 Peace and Reconciliation Pilgrimage and Solemn Commemoration, have been to places like Bannockburn, Linlithgow and yesterday praying in the Scottish Parliament building itself and today they will be in Linlithgow, a strategic and significant place, historically and spiritually in the history of Scotland.
The prayer team and some other intercessors have felt drawn to using the Community’s Ninian liturgy which is A Call to Bless and for many of us we’ve been praying that the ‘spirit’ that Ninian brought to Scotland might be realised again in these changing and turbulent times. Certainly praying for God’s blessing upon Scotland is praying that in its governing there would be wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion. Things that need to be recaptured in the heart of Westminster among politicians of all parties, many of whom I believe have neglected these foundational imperatives that reflect a society that purports to embrace Christian virtues. Political leaders and financial institutions who have forgotten their responsibilities to the poor and marginalised of society, who have allowed the money markets to dictate, who have introduced policies including savage cuts that affect the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. Economic policies that are morally repugnant and certainly do not reflect either wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion. The lack of morality in the marketplace, the inability of the ruling political classes to understand what is happening in the heartlands of many of our communities have, I believe, contributed greatly to the feeling of anger and disillusionment with government in and by Westminster. Successive Governments who have bought into and peddled the false and deceitful lie of “trickle down economics”, the idea that if you help a certain percentage of the population to get rich that the money will trickle down to the poorest. Take morality and responsibility to be our “brothers keeper” out of the equation, ally it with greed and selfishness and you create a society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. A government that is prepared to spend billions of pounds on improving a rail link between London and the Midlands whilst allowing other parts of Britain to struggle is a government that cares little for those outside of London, the South East and those precious and all important marginal constituencies. When government ministers talk about improving connections with the North will somebody give them a map and point out that where the North is! It does not stop, in fact it just begins in Manchester and Leeds. Come the Revolution I shall publish a Road Atlas that begins in the North and gets smaller scale as it moves south beyond Watford Gap! A government that presides over economic development grants that favour the areas that are affluent over beleaguered, struggling communities across vast urban, suburban and rural areas beyond London and the South East. I believe that our government and previous governments have much to say sorry to Scotland, the North of England and no doubt Wales and other areas about.
Those who fear the break-up of the UK if Scotland goes independent may need to see that a lack of wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion have sown the seeds of mistrust and reaped the consequences of Scotland becoming an independent nation. I have a number of Scottish friends whom I have had lots of conversations with whilst curling last winter and playing golf this summer in the Borders, conversations which have been dominated by the Referendum. Everyone of them remembers being inflicted with the Poll Tax back in the 1980’s, the legacy of which virtually obliterated the Conservative party from Scotland and has played into the hands of those who have no trust in the present government.
I really don’t know what will come of today’s Referendum or the real implications of both a “Yes” or a “No” vote. I am deeply concerned and prayerfully committed to pray for peace and reconciliation both within Scotland in the aftermath of the Referendum and also in its relations with other countries, including England. The present political furnace has fuelled much passion and triggered some ugly scenes of hatred and schism. This is surely not what any party, pro or anti independence wants for a country so historically seeped in the Christian tradition.

There are lessons to for the official opposition, the Labour Party, aligning themselves with a coalition government that has paid scant attention to the regions beyond London and the South East. I write as a member, albeit a disillusioned one, who sees the pale shadow in today’s Labour Party of that which was founded by the Scot Kier Hardie and others in 1900. Professor Bob Holman, a Christain, following the example of the Incarnate Christ, has lived and worked with the poor in the disadvantaged area of Easterhouse in Glasgow has written a brilliant book on Hardie in which he points out that the founder belived that the Labour Party should serve the masses; working-class people and speak out for those who had no voice, fight injustice and alleviate poverty. He also argued that the majority of MP’s should come from the working-classes. He visited Oxford and Cambridge universities, where access then was largely restricted to those from public schools. At Oxford he observed that graduates had easy access to the Commons, and wrote: “They will go out into the world as unfitted for the task … Most of them will know as little of the real life and feelings of the common people as if they did not exist.” How his words resonate with today’s MP’s and particularly those in the cabinet governing the country.
Today the number of MPs from public schools and Oxbridge is far in excess of their proportion in the population. The imbalance is also witnessed in the Labour Party, with those from ordinary, working-class backgrounds very small. It is I believe one of the reasons why many MPs have little understanding of the people and communities they are called to serve and represent.
Hardie’s political manifestos advocated more public control. He wanted the nation to run the services essential to health and social wellbeing. His manifestos included the nationalisation of railways, mines, land, banks and pensions, votes for women, rights for workers and free education for all.
Holman says; “ Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in 1914 was opposed by Hardie. As war hysteria mounted, he was savagely attacked by politicians and the press. By September, he and his family were being abused in the streets. But he continued to condemn the leaders who wanted war and the armament firms that profited from it. He died in September, 1915, heartbroken by a war that wantonly brought about the slaughter of millions of people across Europe. At his funeral in Glasgow, nobody represented the House of Commons. But multitudes of working-class men and women lined the streets. He died believing that most of the objectives he had campaigned for were lost.”
I think he would turn in his grave if he knew that the party he founded was years later to be led by a leader who deceived Parliament, led us into an illegal war and undermined the whole credibility of the United Nations. A war that most Scottish MP’s, certainly all SNP and Liberal Democrats, opposed in the House of Commons. A war that no Scottish Assembly would have sanctioned. A war that has led to the loss of hundreds and thousands, if not millions, of people. Violence and bloodshed breeds further violent, bloodshed, conflict and war. The fact that a Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair is a Peace envoy in the Middle East is sick. He should instead be standing with George Bush in the dock of the International War Crimes Court in the Hague. What we and America unleashed by entering into the Iraq War, thinking arrogantly that we could bully and alleviate terrorism by bombing thousands of people, imposing our Western ways and causing untold misery, suffering and exacerbating the problem, is lamentable. If a fraction of the money, the billions of pounds that have been spent on war could have been used to alleviate poverty, address injustice, provide education, food and water, better health care and homes for the homeless, worked for peace, bringing enemies to reconciliation rather than supplying them with weapons of destruction, many of which are now used against our Allied forces, we might not be in the horrendous mess that we have, in my mind, majorly contributed to.
We have poured fuel on the simmering fires of unrest in the Middle East and created a cauldron that has unleashed such barbarity and evil. In the process, we have created enemies instead of friends, conflict instead of collaboration, war instead of peace. Pope Francis last week spoke about outbreak of a “piecemeal” World War III with the current wave of violence, massacres, brutality, violence and conflict, which has spread to over sixty nations throughout the world. Certainly the world, in many places, is at war. The age in which we live is an increasingly violent one.                                                                                              Lord have mercy upon us, forgive us our sins and deliver us from evil.

I genuinely don’t know what I would vote for if I were living in Scotland today but what I can pledge is an unswerving commitment to pray for God’s blessing upon Scotland, its land and people and that, trusting in the tender mercies and constant and compassionate love of God, whose ways are seeped in wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion; that his will be done here on earth as in heaven.

I’m also encouraged and privileged to be part of a Community that reaches out across cultural, social and ecclesiastical divides and am delighted to be part of the prayer initiative that sees folk from England and Scotland praying and sharing together. People with differing views on the Referendum, some for and others against the idea, representing that whatever the outcome, we will stand alone yet very much together in Community. In so doing, we pray that the same Holy Spirit that inspired Ninian to bless Scotland will be at work blessing the nation and overshadowing and guiding its people this day.

I have reluctantly accepted the arrival of autumn. The shorts and t shirts have found their way back into the drawer and are unlikely to make another appearance until next year. For the first time in several months I am wearing a jumper. My Macbook is still causing me problems despite giving it a rest and respite from blogging over the summer.                    (NB. I appreciated the mails I received from a few of my readers for leaving them with a image of Dolly Parton from the last blog to reflect and mediate on over the holiday season and another of you who thanked me for not quoting her bra size ~ how would I have known that anyway!).

There is something quite melancholic about autumn as the leaves on the trees turn from green to brown and begin to fall to the ground. A reminder of our own mortality that one day we too will be decay and decompose. Speaking to our eldest grandson celebrating his 8th birthday recently, life is ahead of him. The sports that he is is enjoying can no longer be partaken of by his grandad for at 57 years old, gone are the days of contact sport. Tennis has taken the place of football and golf and curling have emerged as good but nevertheless substitutes for canoeing, volleyball and athletics. I have enjoyed the summer and am thankful for good health and feel fit and well but sometimes you look in the mirror and think who’s that old bloke?! It’s easy to assume that you are no longer in the prime of your life but I want to question that assumption.
Next month Shirley, my wife and I, will go down to the Cotswolds to see and hear one of our favourite musicians, Johnny Coopin perform an ‘Edge of the Day’ centenary concert as a tribute to Laurie Lee, the writer. Lee wrote the beautiful novel ‘Cider with Rosie’ recalling his childhood in rural Gloucestershire after the First World War. It chronicles the traditional village life that all but disappeared with the advent of new developments, such as the coming of the motor car, and relates the experiences of childhood seen from many years later. In the book he quotes John Keats poem, ‘To Autumn’ which opens with the line Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. The poem reminds us that autumn is a season of great fruitfulness and harvest. Keats saw autumn as a;
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;
conspiring with him how to load and bless
with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run:
to bend with apples the moss-d cottage trees,
and fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
to swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells
with a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
and still more, later flowers for the bees,
until they think warm days will never cease.
So though we may fear the passing of our prime, we can  pose the question, ‘When is our prime?’ Fruit matures, it takes time to grow and ripens in season. And autumn can be a time of a rich harvest of a life rooted deeply and its fruitfulness can nourish others and scatters seeds of hope and new life to many more. May it be so of our lives.
Keats goes on in the poem to ask; Where are the songs of spring?
Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.
So autumn has its song, which may be tinged with melancholy, but as I tuck into one of its fruits, an apple, its polished beauty is beyond compare!
Enjoy this gift of autumn and may it bear good fruit in your life.

To read ‘To Autumn’ by John Keats, see: http://www.potw.org/archive/potw279.html

Despite the rain, the mud and the ‘multitudes’ of people, there is something within me that says I would really like to go to Glastonbury. I loved watching the festival on the television with its breadth of musical tastes, soloists, bands, an increasingly eclectic mix of music. There is all the other stuff; the dance, art, clowning, puppetry and the general buzz of the event that isn’t easily captured or covered by the media.

Highlights of this year’s festival – Dolly Parton. I can’t quite believe that I am extolling the virtues of a country and western singer but she was fantastic, a great performer who wowed the crowd of all ages. When I was listening to the radio last week I heard her interviewed. She came over so naturally and broke into an unrehearsed, unaccompanied rendition of Jolene, to the obvious delight of her interviewer and the thousands who were listening to the programme. She was pitch-perfect and her interview was really warm, down to earth, intelligent and a pleasant change from the self-promoting, celebrity-seeking, sycophantic, shallow personalities that dominate so much of the media these days. She was asked if she was a feminist, to which she replied that she had been one of the first women to burn her bra but that it took the fire brigade four days to put the fire out! A fun loving yet deep woman and a woman of faith, which was both intriguing and very interesting.

I have been privileged and blessed throughout my life by knowing some great women (and not just those as well endowed as Dolly) but women whose lives have enriched my own immeasurably, (well at least beyond 38GG!).

From childhood to adolescence (which included a very brief encounter with the gorgeous Diana Rigg) through to adulthood and the ensuing years, women have played a really significant part in my life both within the family and amongst my closest friends. I was very close to my mother and the strong, healthy ‘attachment theory’ that she bequeathed me, has set me up incredibly well for the rest of my life. I have an amazing, wonderful, loving and supportive wife, two great daughters and two lovely daughters-in-law and two, (happy to have more!) fabulous and very funny granddaughters.

Last week I attended a summer school of theology, a two day event here in the North East. It was excellent as we looked at issues dominating and challenging Christians and the church in contemporary society; human sexuality, women in leadership and children in the church. I had looked forward to going to an event for which I was not responsible, nor was I one of the speakers. However, I was asked to sit on the panel for a plenary discussion following the session on women in leadership. It seemed churlish to turn down the invitation and it provided me an opportunity to renew my friendship with Kate Coleman who had been the key note speaker. It was lovely to see her and Cham again. Our paths crossed regularly a few years ago and in the ensuing period when Kate followed me as President of the Baptist Union. A remarkably gifted woman, theologian, Bible teacher, mentor – a great leader. A woman who brings depth, insight and passion to her leadership. Together with Cham, she has founded a leadership network which is making a significant contribution to the recognition, encouragement and resourcing of women and men in leadership. Kate is a visionary, an inspiration to many within this country and globally and Cham is the first and only Asian woman minister within the Baptist Union. The Union is very blessed in being led by Lynn Green, who was appointed General Secretary last year. I was asked the other day to commend another friend, Lina and there was hardly enough space on the form to extol her leadership gifts. Two weeks ago I was privileged to take part in the ordination of Linda, another great woman who I am thrilled to know, will be appointed in the autumn as one of the pastors at my first church, Portrack on Teesside. It’s been my privilege to meet and share, serve and be the beneficiary of some great women leaders within the church and I will continue to do everything that I can to encourage the recognition of women who are called as leaders in both the church and wider society.

During the panel discussion I was able to not only endorse my own affirmation of women’s leadership, both within the church and wider society, but also to challenge the bigotry, ignorance and prejudice that is sadly found in several quarters of the church. I remember asking some Sunday school teachers a few years ago what they were sharing with the children under their care. They replied that they were doing a series on leaders in the Bible, a thirteen week series, all the characters being men! Talk about selective handling of scripture.

The Bible is full of women in leadership, both in the Old and the New Testament. From Miriam, Huldah, Deborah, Ester, Sarah, Hannah to Priscilla, Junia, Tryphena, Phoebe, Lydia, to name but a few. It’s not the Equal Rights Commission or the Feminist Lobby that should govern our thinking or response to the issue of women in leadership. The Bible should inform and inspire our attitudes and actions in such matters. And what I find really nauseating is when people take two passages of scripture, like 1 Timothy 2: 12 and 1 Corinthians14:34 out of context and use those two verses to govern their understanding of the whole of the rest of scripture. They were particular cultural contexts in which Paul wrote those words to the church at Ephesus and to believers in Corinth. In no way was he saying that women should not be leaders. Likewise, we need to appreciate the amazing, radical, revolutionary way that Jesus relates and responds to women.

For a helpful Biblical exposé of these texts see: http://botherer.org/2012/11/21/why-the-argument-against-women-in-church-leadership-is-theological-rubbish

Any serious examination of the Gospels reveals how Jesus honoured, respected, related and shared with women, which was revolutionary. He subverted and violated the social mores of his day, breaking cultural, religious intellectual barriers and clearly called women to follow him, to lead and be instrumental in serving his purposes in the world.

The issue of hermeneutics – the science of interpretation, always comes into question when we discuss such matters and failing to recognise that we all view scripture through lenses of our own experience, culture, prejudices and inherited traditions only perpetuates misunderstanding and poor exegesis.

I find it fascinating to see how some translations of the Bible treat some of the Biblical texts not least the two allegedly controversial passages like those already quoted. That is, translations by men, whose own interests and the traditions they serve that would be highly undermined by a more accurate translation of the text.

Enough said. One of the things that I’ve appreciated about the Celtic Christian tradition is it’s honouring of women. There’s also that very pertinent influence of the desert monastic tradition which saw the inherent dangers in power and control. When you take such things out of the equation in conversations about leadership and talk more about servanthood and authority, then the issue isn’t about who has the power and who has control but who is called and gifted to lead. Women were recognised as partners, equals and in the Celtic period, many of them were recognised as great leaders both within the church, monastic communities and wider society.

We need more good women leaders, as well as some good man who can lead both the church and society. I believe that we have a real crisis of leadership in society and we desperately need to see a remodelling of leadership, founded on the inspiration of Christ and expressing the values of his kingdom.

Lest I fail to extol the virtues of a few good men who have been inspirational in my own life and work I want to play to name briefly to a few of them.

Firstly my father, gentle, peaceable, a man of love and compassion, with a willingness to serve and help anyone and everyone whom he could. To the teacher from my grammar school education who was fair, considerate and took an interest in my well-being and not just my academic achievements or failures! To our Bible college principal, who was like a ‘father in Christ’ to Shirley and I in the early years of our faith journey. His godly example, humility, compassion and heart for those outside of the faith, together with his example as a devoted husband and loving father was inspirational. I was in Wales the other week, speaking, preaching, meeting and discovering parts of that great country that I’ve never been to before and which on a subsequent blog I will write about. I found it a very special place, a place that resonated with the Celtic spirit within me and I experienced a warmth and welcome among the people who assembled in Carmarthen for the conference that I was speaking out at, to be among the most friendly and receptive delegates that I’ve shared with throughout my many years of ministry. Whilst there I recalled the friendship, mentoring and support I received whilst at Cardiff University and on a student placement, under the supervision of the Baptist College in Wales, prior to my ordination. a remarkable minister, TJ Russell-Jones, had a profound impact upon my thinking and attitudes as I prepared for my first pastorate, essentially church planting on council housing estate in urban Teeside. It was during my first church ministry that I worked with some great guys, one of whom eventually succeeded me as one of the pastors and whose retirement is next weekend. Someone whose life and ministry has been dedicated to the poor and the marginalised, whose heart for refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers reflects the compassion of Jesus to those who are often brutalised, victimised and misunderstood. It was at Portrack that I made friends with some great people, including a Jeff, who was later to become one of the Community’s leaders and now serves as the Chairman of our trustees.                                                                                                                                   I’ve known and appreciated the prophetic inspiration of people like John, one of the key founders of our Community, the creative genius of Andy, another founder and the immeasurable and deeply pleasurable and life-giving companionship that I have received from Trevor, who as ‘abbot’ has been a bedrock and guarding wisdom upon which my apostolic, leadership calling has been allowed and encouraged to flourish and grow. Without his presence and friendship I would not have developed as I believe I have become, as a wandering, creative monastic and missional leader and reflective theologian. People expressed concern or at least entertained questions about how we would be able to bring others into the leadership of the Community, given the deep and close bond that Trevor and I have enjoyed for many years but any fears have been dispelled with the emergence of another great leader in Pete, whose presence alongside us in the oversight of the Community is not only welcomed and enjoyed but has developed our own leadership. Together with innumerable gifts, complementing and yes, compensating, some of our weaknesses, he is hugely respected and valued. Along with his fantastic wife Catherine and other great women leaders within the leadership network of our Community, we are very blessed and I look forward in the coming days to a greater transition in the realms of leadership from my generation to succeeding generations, good men and women, who can lead the Community into the future of God’s choosing.

So what began as I watched Dolly Parton at Glastonbury has evolved into an appreciation of men and women, whose lives have touched and influenced my own for good and whose ministries are a means of great blessing to many, within and beyond the Community and the church. It’s been my privilege to have met and worked with several great men and women, people who through their friendship have considerably impacted upon my own life and work. I have just exchanged correspondence with Richard Foster; we don’t see each other now as regularly as we once did but his book, Celebration of Discipline that I came across as a young believer in 1978 and later through our meeting and emerging friendship, has inspired me to make spiritual formation accessible to ordinary people and to extol the issue as imperative, the foundation, the main building block upon which leaders build, inform and shape their ministries. Two amazing women, outside of my immediate family, who’ve had a major impact on my life are Gayle-Anne, a very close friend, psychotherapist and counsellor and Janet Elizabeth, my spiritual director. Both of them, read me like a book, very scary but their friendship, insights, prayers and support are deeply illuminating and transformative.

There are many others, men and women, who are gifted leaders; who have affected change for good, brought transformation, inspired and through being who they are, not just what they do, have evoked responses and people following them. For example, my great friend Rob, who I share a very closely with, who operates in the very different arena to that which I’m working in, but who like me, is called to imagine and implement relational ways of leadership that promote transformation, innovation, creativity and the space for others to grow and develop.

Good leaders are rare but essential for the well-being of any society. I give thanks to God for those whom it is been my privilege to have met, to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude and those whom God is raising up among the younger generation, that they may be given wisdom and grace, courage and inspiration to lead, think outside the box, discover new paradigms and lead us into the future.

PS       Thank you Dolly for triggering this reflection!

In an era of bland, predictable, shallow political rhetoric how inspirational and refreshing to hear the words of a remarkable man.  Martin Luther King’s speech at Newcastle University, on the occasion when he was awarded an honorary doctorate, back in 1967, is as timely and relevant today.

I am proud to be a Geordie and former graduate of the university, grateful for its invitation and courage back in the 1960s to confer the honour upon Martin Luther King. This was a time when racist politicians like Enoch Powell, played on fear, ignorance and prejudice to fuel suspicion, hostility and hatred of immigrants in Britain. Sadly, the rhetoric and soundbite culture of modern politics and the media are seeing a return to expressed racism within our culture.

Asked at short notice if he would say a few words following the conferral of his honorary doctorate, Dr King spoke with no notes, from the heart and delivered a speech that brought tears to our eyes as we watched it last night. The great issues that this humble, man of faith and humanity, a Baptist pastor and civil rights campaigner, contended with back in the 1960s, remain as true for us today in the 21st-century. The evils of racism, poverty and war are a scar on the face of humanity and utterly alien to the ways of God’s kingdom.

Every believer, who claims to follow Christ, should be praying, working and eradicating these evils.

Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven.

You can see Martin Luther King’s short, inspirational speech, by using the following link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwXfITDyIuY

or read the transcript below:

I am feeling really low today.  Despite the fact it’s a Bank holiday, the sun is shining, my shoulder injury is healing and I’ve been in my shorts and t-shirt, relaxing over lunch in our lovely garden.

Dismayed, Annoyed and Angry

So why am I down? Well, I woke up this morning, listened to the news and felt so depressed, downcast and demoralized.  I haven’t felt like this since the day we flouted the United Nations and waged an illegal war in Iraq and later Afghanistan.  For the first time in my life I feel quite ashamed to be British.  To be a citizen of a country that gives the majority vote to UKIP and returns more UKIP MEP’s than any other party, makes me hang my head in shame.  I am annoyed with the other three mainline parties that their inept, out of touch, arrogant and complacent attitude has paved the way for opportunism and a very shrewd political operator, Nigel Farage, to turn his “dream into reality”, which in my opinion unchecked will deliver a hellish nightmare for Britain and the rest of Europe in the coming years.  He talks about creating, “an earthquake”. Well earthquakes are not generally good news for people or places. My Armenian daughter-in-law was pulled from the rubble of an earthquake that hit her country, killing over 60,000 people and destroying over half a million buildings in 1988. Losing their home and livelihood she,  with her family had to migrate to Ukraine where they made a new life. The political earthquake that has taken place in the last week here in Britain will wreak havoc and damage people and communities.

I am becoming more disillusioned with the democratic political system here.  This together with a poverty of good leadership across the political spectrum that has contributed to people feeling alienated from politics, discarded by the political elite, the ‘Westminster bubble’ of career minded politicians whose naivety, ineptitude and foolishness has led to an emerging crisis affecting how and who we are governed by in this country.  It has left us with an electorate that sees no point engaging in politics, who feel so removed from decisions taken on their behalf, who fail to vote and whose opinions are informed by tabloid, gutter press headlines. Folks who, mistakenly assume that what is said or written by the media to be true.  In reality, facts are replaced with fiction, ignorance, fear, selfishness and prejudice which fuels xenophobic racism.  Please don’t tell me that the attitudes underlying UKIP are not racist, sexist, nationalist, sectarian and utterly in contrast to the values of the kingdom of God. I think Jesus would look over election results and weep, or moved with compassion demonstrate his righteous anger.

I am angry and I mean really angry at the media that have given inordinate amounts of time and space to what was just a little while ago, a minority voice.  The media above all else has been the greatest party agent for UKIP in these local and European elections.  UKIP representatives, (that is Mr. Farage and three or four others including the very dubious Neil Hamilton ~ have we forgotten his past political record?!) and it is only these select few who have any sense of coherence to their argument, who are given so much air time, appearing on nearly every Question Time, Any Answers or news coverage.  News editors, programme producers and heads of policy, together with newspaper editors and their owners, have acted, in my mind, abysmally, seizing opportunities to grab headlines, entertain the viewers and have failed to do anything other than promote the rise of nationalism and anti-European attitudes.

We we live to regret this day

I think we will look back on these days and the consequences which they will trigger for Britain and for Europe as a Continent with regret and dismay.  Any society that points too easily to its problems being caused by others fuels popularist but uninformed nationalism which leads in turn to racism and the alienation and hatred towards the stranger in their midst.  I look with despair at the political map of Britain which sees nearly everywhere in England except London and the North East, bathed in UKIP colours.  As someone born and brought up and now living back in the North East, I want to take my hat off and congratulate London for not succumbing to the lies that UKIP has beguiled the rest of Britain with.  UKIP’s core message is that Britain has too many immigrants and can’t cope with too much diversity. Unlike Mr Farage’s experience on the commuter train, I actually enjoy the experience of being surrounded by people of different ethnic backgrounds, many of whom are legitimate British citizens. It gives me a foretaste of heaven which is where people of every tribe and nation will gather in unity.  Thank you London, the most diverse place in Britain. Thank you, people of London for rejecting UKIP and rebuking such a claim that we can’t live with ethnic diversity.  Londoners have proved themselves less susceptible to the conspiracy of disinformation that has beguiled those who voted UKIP elsewhere.

Disinformation and Disintegration

Back in early 2003, we were beguiled with what proved to be disinformation, i.e. lies, which took us into an illegal war and had profound consequences for the world ever since.  Not only have we seen an escalation of violence, conflict and terrorism but the deployment of billions of pounds on armaments.  Just think how such resources could have been used instead to feed the hungry, support economic sustainability in developing nations, contribute to health care, education and welfare across the globe.

I fear that we will live to see and regret what we’ve done in Britain in succumbing to the lies of UKIP and the propaganda of a right wing anti-European press.  The European Parliament will now be dominated by people intent on disintegration and dismantling its powers.  We are going to be represented, by nationalists, underpinned by racist, sectarian attitudes, the majority of whom are anti-European, whose policies, I would argue are anti-Christian.  A protesting bunch of anti-European protagonists whose intent is to dismantle what has been established to combat such nationalist, racist tendencies.

I’m not oblivious to the problems that exist within the European Union or that immigration is one, (although by no means the major one), facing Britain at this time . However I fear that what we have done here in Britain has giving legitimacy to UKIP, even as a protest vote against the inept, stale and uninspiring other parties, but in so doing we have paved the way for something far more threatening than the influx of immigrants, the vast majority of whom contribute positively to our economy (fact, not fiction!) Immigration has “beneficial” economic effects and cutting the number of foreign workers in the UK will make it harder for the Government to clear its deficit, the Treasury’s own economic forecasters have said. The Office for Budget Responsibility told MPs that immigration has a positive impact on the public finances. Robert Chote, head of the OBR, said that immigration “does tend to produce a more beneficial picture” for the Government’s finances: “Because they’re more likely to be working age, they’re more likely to be paying taxes and less likely to have relatively large sums of money spent on them for education, for long-term care, for healthcare, for pension expenditure,” Mr Chote was expanding on the OBR’s long-standing assessment that Britain needs a steady flow of migrant labour to fund public services in the coming decades. Fact, not fiction from an official source.

Good Christian Foundations

The founding of the European Union was formed in large measure in the hearts and minds of Christians, whose vision was to see peace founded on the reconciliation of nations following the Second World War.  Konrad Adenaeur in a speech in 1946 in Cologne said, Europe will only be possible if a community of European people is restored, in which every population will provide its own irreplaceable, unique contribution to the economy and to European culture, thought, poetry and Western creativity.  The idea that the unity of Europe was a pre-requisite of long lasting peace was key to the founding documents of European integration in 1950.  As one of its other founders, Jean Monnet, said, As long as Europe remains divided it will be weak and a constant source of conflict.  Nationalism and protectionism were seen as one of the main contributory factors responsible for economic rivalries and a major contributing factor that had led to the Second World War.  In one of the founding documents of the European Union, it states, We have learned that nations, far from being able to provide for themselves, stand by one another; and that the best way to serve one’s country is to guarantee the co-operation of others thanks to reciprocal work together and by the pooling of resources.  

Unity, not Uniformity: Peace not War

The founding fathers of the European Union were united by a commitment to democracy.  Their Christian democracy was an invitation to rise above everything nationalist, with the desire to eliminate the conflicts which are caused by such divisions.  They were not looking for uniformity but unity.  These founding fathers were the pioneers and developers of European unity.  Each of them under the leadership of the Christian, Robert Schuman, all shared the same experience of war, the negative and the adverse effects of protectionism and nationalism.

As I’ve said previously, one of the greatest blessings of the European Union for which it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 “for over six decades contribution to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”, something that you will never hear acknowledged by UKIP, the party that we Britons, have overwhelmingly just voted for.  God have mercy upon us!

Related Other News

Whilst the European elections and more especially UKIP’s “earthquake” dominated almost all of the BBC’s news coverage this morning, it’s important to remember other happenings in the world.  Nationalism, the dominance of the strong over the weak, together with corruption, injustice, threatening behaviours and bullying have all contributed to the troubles in the Ukraine and the emergence of civil war which is now leading to an increasing loss of life.  Another example of how nationalist, separatist attitudes and policies lead to internal conflict and war with neighbouring countries.  Yesterday’s election of Ukraine’s new President, Petro Poroshenko will hopefully lead to meaningful dialogue with Russian leaders.

Human Rights

One of the things that continues to get bashed by anti-European sympathisers is the European Court of Human Rights.  It’s seen as an infringement on an individual nation’s sovereignty and the right to self governance.  Well I for one am thankful for any court of law that defends human rights and can only wish that such a court existed in other parts of the world.  I recoiled in horror at the news that came to me through other Community Companions and Amnesty about the plight of Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, a young mother who was condemned to death by hanging at a Sudanese court after she refused to recant her Christian faith.  She is eight months pregnant with her second child and has also been sentenced to a flogging of 100 lashes for “adultery”, that is, for being married to a Christian man.  Currently in jail with her two year old son, these sentences will be carried out after her baby is born.

Refusing to lie down and allow racism and bigotry to destroy what is good about British society, which will be seriously undermined by the likes of UKIP, I thank God that these things wouldn’t happen now in Britain.  (Of course our history reveals that such abhorrent acts of violence and brutality have featured in our bloody history).  I’m not sure what, other than prayer and a letter to our local MP and the Foreign Office might do, but Amnesty is also encouraging us to join their urgent call upon the Sudanese authorities to release her immediately and unconditionally.  You can do so by texting “SAVE2” to 70505 with your first and last name to sign Amnesty’s global petition.  Please, I urge you to do so.

Dawn Chorus

As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, For every thing there is a season and living as I do in the British countryside I am very aware of the physical seasons.  A mild winter gave way to a pleasant spring and now we are experiencing the advent of summer with longer, warmer days.

I have to confess that the idea of going on a Dawn Chorus Walk had its drawbacks, i.e. getting up at 3.30 am, mindful that once completed it was still only 6.00 am and a full day of meetings, writing and an evening commitment beckoned.  However, accompanying my wife, we made our way up to Wooler Common, a mile from our house and joined the party of eight to listen to the dawn chorus, observing the birds of the air summon a new day’s dawning.  It was in truth worth every minute.  Shirley is quite knowledgeable on ornithology (and lots of other things!) but I, appreciative of birdsong am less acquainted with the names and sounds of birds.  After waking to the news of UKIP’s success in the local government elections, I was feeling pretty gloomy but a walk, even in what felt like the middle of the night, listening to birdsong was a real pick-me-up.  In the space of two hours, we saw or heard the following:

                                                                                             Dunnock, black-cap, wren, blackbird, wood pigeon, chiffchaff, song thrush, dove, cold tit, guinea fowl, yellow hammer, chaffinch, cuckoo, pheasant, robin, curlew, willow warbler, goldcrest, buzzard, partridge, mallard, peregrine falcon, siskin, blue tit, pied wagtale, white throat, jackdaw, linnet, lark.

The Lark Ascending

I think my favourite sound that morning, in equal first place was the cuckoo and the willow warbler.  My favourite sight, a toss up between the falcon for its sheer speed through the air and the lark hovering above our heads.  When I first met Shirley she introduced me to Ralph Vaughan William’s, The Lark Ascending.  It is in my Desert Island Discs as one of my favourite pieces of music and is one of the nation’s favourite pieces of classical music.  To hear a lark sing is to rejoice in the coming of spring.  I learned recently something that has fascinated me that the lark never sings the same thing twice.  They can amazingly sing any one of two hundred separate notes or consonants per second.  It is always composing unique variations.  When the psalmist declares “New every morning”, it resonates and resembles the sheer beauty and amazing creativity of the lark.

The story of The Lark Ascending’s composition is perhaps less well known.  Many assume that it is written by Vaughan Williams to signal the coming of spring, evoking nostalgia for an English countryside, pastoral scene which draws inspiration from George Meredith’s poem, The Lark Ascending.  The context, however, for his writing the music is a very different scene. He began to compose this amazing piece of music standing on the cliffs above Margate on the Kent coast, watching naval exercises prior to the outbreak of World War One.  The music carries a sense of loss and foreboding, anticipating a difficult time ahead.

And I am back to where I started; despairing yet not without hope, the birds have lifted my spirit.  The political landscape is gloomy, the clouds of nationalism are gathering but up there too is the song of the lark and as Shelley put it in his poem To A Skylark:

“……. Better than all measures of delightful sound,

better than all treasures that in books are found, 

thy skill to poet were, 

thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness that thy brain must know,

such harmonious madness from my lips would flow.

The world should listen then, 

as I am listening now.”

It is 10.00 pm and the sun is setting over the Cheviots here in Northumberland. The day has ended better than it began. The political landscape remains. The fragility of the world remains. The lives of millions remains vulnerable, not by choice but by circumstance. But I have every confidence that tomorrow the day will dawn with a chorus and in the words of the Psalmist: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. 

Till the morning, The peace of all peace, be yours and mine this night.

40 years ago today my life changed. A mountaintop experience.

I had linked up with a group that I knew from my Harrogate school days in the Cairngorms of Scotland. I was training to be an Outward Bound instructor, they were, unbeknown to me before that week, a group of Christians. Over the course of a few days, their lives, their love and friendship toward me, together with their explorations into the “I am” statements of Jesus in John’s gospel, orientated my life in a different direction. I hadn’t been averse to Christianity but I had never paid any more than lip service and certainly had no allegiance or attendance at any church.

Easter is a reminder to me of the day my life changed forever.

It was the day when God became real and faith became life transforming.

Today as Easter is celebrated again, we remember that in Christ’s resurrection,  what emerged out of the tomb that Easter morning was life. It was life that burst out of the tomb. Not religion, not church but life!                                                                                     As John V. Taylor said: “it has long been my conviction that God is not usually concerned as to whether we are religious or not. What matters to God, and matter supremely, is whether we are alive or not.” I know that from that experience many years ago of my encounter with Christ has led to life, little knowing that the decision to follow him and seek to embrace his radical way for living as revealed in the Gospels, would change the whole direction of my life.

Coming down off the summit of Mount Suie, with a fresh spring in my step, we made our way to the little church on the side of the loch at Kincraig where I encountered some welcoming people, unfamiliar, unknown liturgies, reasonable singing and some average hymns. Two things that impressed me however and which have remained with me to this day: Firstly the priest proclaiming from the front at the outset of the service, “Christ is risen” to which the congregation responded with enthusiasm, “He is risen indeed. Alleluia!” Then later as the service moved towards its conclusion, we went forward to receive communion, the bread and wine, simple elements but symbolically, they spoke so powerfully to my heart then, as they do now.

I always look forward to celebrating Easter because it takes me back to that turning point in my life and also because it is the greatest and most incredible day in the history of the world.

It’s more than just a holiday, more than a time to celebrate the beauty of spring with its green pastures, blooming flowers, blossoming trees, news born lambs and the sounds of birds singing in the hedgerows.

Easter is the most revolutionary day the world has ever known. It’s the day that as Christians we celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead, shattering the tomb of death and ushering in the dawning of a new world.

It is the feast of the unexpected, when Christ conquered death, disturbing every attempt to make God predictable and Christianity safe.

You can try to reduce this extraordinary, world changing event into a commercial, consumerist opportunity to sell chocolate but to ignore the implications of Christ’s resurrection is to miss the point of life itself.

Lord Darling, former Lord Chief Justice, said of the resurrection; “In its favour as a living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in the verdict that the resurrection story is true”

The implications of Christ’s resurrection are profound. If it’s true, as millions of people have testified to throughout the history of the world, its truth goes beyond any Easter bonnet or egg hunt. It’s because he rose from the dead that we have confidence in believing that what he said and did was also true and if that is so then it really does hold the potential to be utterly life and world transforming. If it’s true that he rose from the dead then all the hatred, violence and evil that was meted out upon him on the cross, has been disarmed. Evil does not have the last word! Christ’s resurrection from the dead has conquered that last enemy, death itself. The fear of death and the process of dying and any forbidding thoughts of judgement are dispelled. Jesus resurrection is God’s abolition of death.                                                                                                         Easter is the day death died and Christ’s resurrection gives life meaning and purpose. The futility, hopelessness and helplessness of a secular or atheist worldview removes so much meaning from life. Bertrand Russell the philosopher believed that when he died there would just be “triviality for a moment and then nothing“. In contrast, Christ’s resurrection gives comfort and coherence to what is past, conviction and a sense of purpose for the present and an assured confidence concerning the future.

His resurrection affirms the story of God’s love and his redemptive purposes for the world, putting things to right, bringing justice and peace, salvation, healing and holiness, life and hope. As Tom Wright, puts it, “Jesus resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project, not to snatch people away from earth to heaven, but to colonise earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s prayer is about.”

And as I look back on that day in 1974, I now see that the call to follow this risen Christ, was a vocation that drew me into a movement of his that not only changes the human heart and its affection to God but also carries with it the transformational power to make a difference for lasting good in the world. To align oneself, with the millions of those who have followed Christ, in every continent, in every age, throughout the history of the world, who have prayed, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven“.

Yesterday I was at my local constituency party hustings, during which we voted for and appointed our prospective parliamentary candidate for the next General Election. It was an engaging and enjoyable experience and both members of the party contesting the appointment gave good speeches and handled questions well. They encouraged me to think that there are still people on the Left of politics who could not only critique right wing Conservative free-market, consumer policies but who could also offer a credible alternative socialist worldview and some sound political policies. As I held up one of the many placards, urging people to Vote Labour, for the inevitable photo opportunity, my support of the party was rekindled, having suffered and agonised for years over whether I would remain a member, after the wicked decision to flout and undermine the United Nations, and go into an illegal and disastrous war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the consequences of which are being played out to the detriment of the world every day since.

Encouraged as I was by the political rhetoric of the party as it prepares for what will be a very uneasy election campaign, it was nothing in comparison with the confidence and belief that I felt this morning as we celebrated Easter and Christ’s resurrection. Proclaiming “He is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!“, taking communion on Holy Island and joining other Companions and Friends of the Community to renew our vows on the beach facing Cuthbert’s island. Looking out across the glistening blue sea, I had no doubt that the greatest power to affect transformation to the world for good, lies not in politicians but in Christ. Not in governments but His Governance. Not in legislation but in his redeeming grace. Not in the love of power but the power of his love.

Just over a year ago I was in the Czech Republic and I met some people who had lived as believers under the oppression and suffering of Russian communist rule. When Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in 1968 and put down the Prague uprising they turned the cathedrals and churches of the city into museums. Priests and ministers who lost their posts had to take menial tasks. Several became cleaners in the former cathedrals and churches and there, cleaning, dusting, polishing they would silently pray. One university lecturer lost her teaching post as a result of Russian rule and becoming one of the cleaners in a cathedral she prayed as she polished the same prayer for over 20 years; “Don’t be afraid. Sing out for joy. Christ is risen. Alleluia.” She lived to witness the Velvet Revolution, returned to work at Charles University, saw the cathedrals and churches reopen and join the Easter congregation in 1990 to proclaim, “Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!”

The first Easter greeting I received today was from a friend, Андрей who is living in Donetsk in Ukraine. The situation there is grim, intimidation, propaganda, threats and reprisals, fears and uncertainty but his greeting and attached image, (see below) was emphatic:

That’s why it is so much more than a holiday, or a day out in the countryside or the beach. It’s so much more than an occasion to gather with family and friends. It’s a day that changes the world and is Tolkien called it, a day that summons the breaking in of a new world and, “a joy beyond the walls of the world“.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, and the bombs that began to rain down upon London, the collection of paintings at the National Gallery were removed and sent to Wales and onto Canada for safety. Two years into the war the public started to complain. Understanding the reasoning behind the paintings being removed they nevertheless longed to see some, to lift their spirits. A letter appeared in the Times in January 1942 to the trustees of the National Gallery, asking if they would take the risk and exhibit one picture each week. The trustees responded and decided upon one month and wishing to cooperate with public opinion they conducted a survey. There were astonished to find that it was not a preference for paintings of the strength of the human spirit or its resilience to combat adversity. Overwhelmingly the most desired painting that the public wanted to see was Titian’s Noli me tanger, his picture of the Resurrection.

It was the same spirit that was witnessed in Johannesburg under apartheid. A political rally, opposing apartheid had been cancelled on the orders of the government. Bishop Desmond Tutu offered as an alternative, a service inside the cathedral. The congregation gathered making their way through large numbers of riot police and armed soldiers who waited outside. Inside the cathedral, more police lined the walls recording everything that was said. Tutu declared confidently that the evil system of apartheid could not stand, but it’s day had come to pass, that its injustice would be no more. Pointing his finger at the police around the walls and mindful that his words would be carried to the governing authorities beyond, he declared “You may be powerful, indeed very powerful, but you are not God! And the God whom we serve cannot be mocked. You have already lost!” Then this little man, coming out of the pulpit and walking alongside the police officers, with his disarming, characteristic big smile said, “so since you have already lost, we are inviting you to come and join the winning side!” The whole cathedral congregation erupted in delight, in whoops of joy and jubilant cheers, they sang and danced, worshipping God, the God of resurrection power. Nothing could defeat the resurrection faith.

Easter, world shaking, shattering, unforgettable. Life transforming.

Celebrate with joy today and live in the light of the Christ’s resurrection throughout the coming years…..