Our church and our future, thoughts on what really matters?

My simple hope for the future of our Church is that we embrace our humanity more fully, before we embark on any more striving. I know, first -hand, how hard this is, how painful, what self-revelation can do to us. But we reveal each other to each other, we don't stand in front of a mirror saying 'who are you'? we make complete berks of ourselves and get love in return.
I arrived as a stranger and was warmly welcomed to make myself at home,, even as the quivering wreck I was. I have been so affected by one person's decision to embrace me as a friend he had not yet made, that I have been moved to do the same to all the strangers I have welcomed at the door. His decsion was to accept me as I was. The man in question is our Rector, a flawed human being by his own admission, and all the better for it. I trust his wisdom. He made a wise decision when he accepted me as I was, though it has often, I am sure felt like an idiot's choice.
If all we do as we ponder our future is to prevent each other from trying too hard I will be happy. There is nothing worse than an over-anxious host. We must feel comfortable saying 'you know where the kettle is', help yourself to milk. This is certainly a much harder thing for me than making the perfect cup of Darjeeling and offering it to someone on a tray with a linen cloth. But I have learned that I am not here to impress. None of us are. The more impressive we are, the more alienating we become. I recently discovered a Church with an 'objective' to have 'spirit-filled children'. This saddened me, because we are all Spirit-filled children by definition. This is my greatest discovery and this is all that we need to understand as we consider our mission for the future. Our neighbours, strangers and friends are God's spirit-filled children, and so we don't need to be perfect we need to be embraced through an open door as we are.

I'm not so far removed from my old self to be unaffected by lack of consideration or mean-spiritedness or poor quality. I am keen to stress I don't think of 'not trying too hard' as the same thing as 'not trying', or 'not bothering'. What I point towards is the art of simplicity and authenticity. If we write or paint or sing or play self-consciously, and by that I mean deliberately and with deep regard for how we are being percieved we lack integrity. We become performing seals rather than human beings expressing the beauty of our humanity. My prayer for our Church is that our instincts are good, our responses charitable and warm because we are comfortable in our own skin. We must be in touch with our frailty. We are not, as I had always assumed, another corporate institution. We are corporate only in as much as we consider ourselves one body and responsible for one another. We are not corporate in the 21st century capitalist sense, so overly structured and monitored and protected as to become sterile, performance-based, strategy-led, soulless institutions. We are so entirely not called to this distrustful premise. We do not have to prove anything other than that we are what we say we are, we are what we are, we do practice what we preach. That God is love and that we love because he told us to and because he loved us first. We must understand that not trying too hard is an art in itself. A lavish set for a play is rarely as effective as a pared down set devoid of distraction from its message. Ask any chef they will tell you that simplicity is the key, and quality, ask any designer, any artist, any teacher. The same message will reach you again and again: keep it simple and keep the quality. If it were that easy to do so we would all be doing it and no one would need to tell us. The fact is it is hard and we don't do it. We distract from our own simple message when we strive. Striving in its contemporary sense as concerned with performance is not compatible with our Gospel. St Paul has been interpreted, I have always thought, as someone commanding us to strive. This is fine if we know what we are striving for. Performance-related statistics? I don't think so, I really don't. Striving for simple, authentic, genuine commitment to live a life of love sounds much more likely. I think he would be gutted if he thought we had started striving to have spirit-filled children. He thought it was obvious that striving was for a purpose concerned with our Good News, that we are all spirit-filled children. Striving in itself is not ever good news. I know this, for I have lived it.
So as we consider our Church I pray that we can hold on to the simple truth that God is at work in our lives in ways that we can hardly percieve. The simple truth that we are human and God is God. The simple truth that God is love and that everything we do and say flows from this conviction. It is loving to offer quality of welcome of preaching of training and so on, it is loving to do things well in the service of God and others. It is not loving to try so hard to achieve and alter ourselves and our community so that we forget who we are: Spirit-filled children of a loving God

I should be telling you what happened next, but I can't yet so you'll have to wait...I bet the suspense is more than you can bear

Sparkhill Dreamboat. Next installment

and then I must tell you what happened next...

Creative Process

This post will be delayed due to this navel-gazing woman having important domestic duties to perform.

And so: the boat

The boat motif has returned endlessly. I have visions of me in a boat. I had a very long conversation with God about this. If I write it here you may think me a bit unhinged, but if I've given you this blog address it is doubtless because I know that you know and love my unhinged-ness and embrace it.
Instead of 'vision' I'm going to use the term 'minds eye' because I think 'in my minds eye, I am in the boat with Jesus', sounds marginally less bizarre than 'I had a vision and I was in the boat with Jesus'. Either way I had a moment on the bus where for all of ten minutes, I wasn't on the bus at all, I was in a boat, with Jesus. Coursing through the streets of Sparkhill on the number 1E at 7.23am precisely is not really the time for it. I wasn't overly impressed with his timing, but I rarely am. The 'mind's eye' is one of my Mum's terms which she used particularly for describing deluded individuals. She probably used it about her daughter. 'In his mind's eye' she would say, 'he really sees himself as Royalty dear', and then she would giggle like a child. In this context her deluded daugher uses it to describe her peculiar conversations with God.
In my 'mind's eye', whilst in the boat coursing through the streets of Moseley and Sparkhill I was struck by how lonely I was feeling in the boat, and Jesus, rather predictably said 'I am in the boat'. It might not strike you as momentous even at 7.23am on the number 1E, it just seems quite obvious I think. But for me it was a revelation. Please forgive the religious language, but you know it is 85% of my vocabulary these days.
It does seem like a totally different boat with Jesus in it. Not normally one for conversations at that time in the morning, ask anyone, let alone on the bus, on this occasion I couldn't resist answering back. "So why can't you row me to the shore?" Which isn't unreasonable. He is Jesus, we are in the boat, he rows, we reach the shore. "I am sick to death of this boat and not seeing the shore". I should point out here that I was referring to my vocation to Christian Ministry and not to my life per se. Given my relentless year of journeying to Sparkhill to do a job which left most of my gifts in a wrapped box on a filing cabinet, those of you who know me have shared these frustrations. So the argument with Jesus at 7.23am on the no 1E referred to my endless pestering to find out what this ministry might be and if anyone offical is ever going to do anything about it four years after its unwelcome appearance. To be quite honest, I was beginning to wonder if God was going to do anything about it after his unwelcome appearance. But Jesus was more than welcome in that little boat on this particular and memorable morning. It was a turning point for us. I ranted for as long as the relatively short journey would allow "why can't I even see the shore?", "what on earth is the point in being stuck here in the middle of the sea with no wind for the sails and no directions and no skyline?" "Why, am I here when I should be there?" Given the opportunity God usually takes it. "This" he said bluntly, and it has to be said self-evidently "is where the fish are"

Navel gazing

I have been procrastinating again. Writing is such a luxury and sometimes I deny myself the pleasure. Writing is essentially a self-centred process but unlike other self-absorbing things it is more like art in that the self-absorbed, self-reflective inwardness of it can reach out and touch and transform in turn. Hopefully the process also in turn makes a writer less self-obsessed and not more because of the reflective nature of it. I try to convince myself that this is the case, that being a writer isn't just a clear example of a pathologically self-obsessed individual. I am not sure that it is true.
However, I was not brought up believing that it was alright to be selfish and so maybe this is the key to why I don't write. It is too pleasurable, too much about me, too much fulfilment and fun. I had always thought that it was because I found the thought of it a trial, I have spent much of the time when I could have been writing dithering about why I didn't write. This has been a great excuse to beat myself up and lose motivation.
Today I am starting to think it was quite the opposite, that writing is associated with luxury and leisure and the sign of a woman with too much time on her hands when she could be doing something useful instead. Navel gazing was never encouraged in our family. When you are a navel gazer by nature this is a terrible shame.