Celtic Lent Day 39

To say Your name before I sleep does not guarantee that in the morning I shall wake in that world which held my bed. Still it matters not, for every world in Yours as I am.
Calvin Miller

Death is like the past. We can't change either of them. We have to make friends with them both.
William Brodrick

I feel like Good Friday is a day which gives us permission to think about death and sadness, anyone who's seen the wonderful Pixar film Inside Out knows sadness is as important as joy. Sadness can help us to grow and change, put our lives in context and help us re-evaluate what's important.
On Good Friday we sit with that, although we know the Easter feast is just about tangible. When we're in the middle of grief or difficult times we don't know when there'll be an end to it. We hope the intensity will become less, which eventually it does.
This day, like Ash Wednesday, also gives us a chance to consider our own mortality. We're here just for a season and because of that need to consider carefully what and who we give our one life to. Good Friday is about love. Choose to give your life to love.

Scripture
I say to God, my rock,
   ‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
   because the enemy oppresses me?’ 
As with a deadly wound in my body,
   my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’ 
Psalm 42.9-10

Celtic Lent Day 38

The best of the best mystics and saints have always come to this conclusion: that however the pain or the cause of the pain is to be viewed, God can be found in its depths. The confession is that God uses our suffering for good. This does not mean that the suffering was a good thing, not at all, but that God has taken it, ground it up, and used it as soil in which to grow a new seedling.
Joel Mason

The line in the portion of John's gospel from the main Maundy Thursday service which always sticks with me is "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." (John 13.7)
When I went forward for ministry selection I had to answer a question on which events out of my entire life had shaped the person I'd become. It was the toughest question of the lot.
What became apparent as I tried to answer is that it's the most challenging and even difficult things we encounter that truly shape us, the times when in the midst of things we had no sense of God or what he was doing in our lives. It's when we look back that we can trace patterns, consequences or a thread through things of how the divine was at work in and around us.

Scripture
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

"Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, `Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Celtic Lent Day 35

Lord, come I this day to You!
I am not a great gift to offer You.
It is my coming that is my gift.
For who among us holds within themselves any worthy offering
to the God who owns the universe?
To come to You while the entire world moves away from
You, is our only gift of worth.
And so I come this day: ignore me or use me,
Save me or spend me. Use me or set me aside,
I am Yours. Amen.
Calvin Miller

Today Holy Week began the way it always does in Manchester, with Chrism mass at the cathedral. At this service ministers, particularly priests, renew their vows and the oils for baptism, the oils for anointing the sick dying and the oils for anointing at ordinations and confirmations are blessed. Most dioceses have this service on Maundy Thursday, but Manchester, as Tony Wilson once said, does things differently.
Looking around the building I had a really good view of most of us who have come to offer ourselves to God, many of whom I know and many I don't. Clergy, like any other walk of like, can be critical of each other, none of us are or could ever be perfect, and I'd like to think I have an awareness of my own faults and flaws. 

And yet, flawed as we are, we have come. Most days we might not know what we can possibly offer, so we just offer ourselves and hope we can do some good.

Scripture
What shall I return to the Lord
   for all his bounty to me? 
I will lift up the cup of salvation
   and call on the name of the Lord
Psalm 116.12-13

Easter Day

God of little buds just now wearing green sleeves,
God of lilac limbs all full with signs of flowering,
God of fields plowed and black with turned-over earth,
God of screeching baby bird mouths widely awaiting food,

God of openness, of life and of resurrection,
Come into this Easter season and bless me.
Look around the tight, dead spaces of my heart
That still refuse to give you an entrance.

Bring your gentle but firm love.
Begin to lift the layers of resistance
That hang on tightly deep inside of me.

Open, one by one, those places in my life
Where I refuse to be overcome by surprise.
Open, one by one, those parts of my heart
Where I fight the entrance of real growth.
Open, one by one, those aspects of my spirit
Where my security struggles with the truth.

Keep me open to the different and the strange;
Help me to accept the unusual and also the ordinary;
Never allow me to tread on others' dreams
By shutting them out, closing them up,
By turning them off or pushing them away.

God of the Resurrection, God of the living,
Untomb and uncover all that needs to live in me.
Take me to people, events, and situations
And stretch me into much greater openness.

Open me.  Open me.  Open me.
For it is only then that i will grow and change.
For it is only then that I will be transformed.
For it is only then that i will know how it is
To be in the moment of rising from the dead.

(taken from may i have this dance; An Invitation to Faithful Prayer Throughout the Year by Joyce Rupp)

A suggestion for your prayer and meditation:

REJOICE, for Christ is RISEN!!!

Pastor Patty Fox 40 Days with 40 Christian Mystics

I hope that something within me has grown and changed and been transformed during these 40 days. My hope was to work on my spirituality and develop my prayer life. It's certainly given me a desire to delve deeper into mysticism, which I find resonates deeply with me.
I hope those of you who have read my posts have found some value in them and I thank Pastor Patty for originally taking this journey and blogging it so I could retread her path. 
As the prayers and meditations of the Northumbria Community have also been incredibly important over the last 6 weeks I leave you with their Morning Prayer blessing:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you through the storm.
May He bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.

Day 40

One of my favourite meditations from the Northumbria Community came around again today:

Be open to the night…

Pray with open hand, not with clenched fist…

Shapes loom out of the darkness, uncertain and unclear: but the hooded stranger on horseback emerging from the mist need not be assumed to be the bearer of ill…

The night is large and full of wonders…

(Lord Dunsany)

Holy Saturday may be a day of darkness, of unknowing, but there are wonders - treasures - to be found in darkness. Pray with an open hand, not with a clenched fist. We're nearly there.

Day 39

Lent Day 39:

...Christian faith speaks about the paschal mystery, about Jesus Christ's death and resurrection as the first fruit of an inclusive harvest, about new unimaginable like breaking out through death itself and as a corrective to death.

Although for a time there was no glimmer of hope, God was near at hand, nevertheless, and Jesus was not ultimately abandoned.  The victory arrives through the living communion of love, overcoming evil from within.

To say this is not to rationalize suffering or to find a solution to the problem of evil or to offer cheap consolation.  The cross and resurrection scandalize and cannot be reconciled theoretically.

Rather, this event deepens the mystery of how God's solidarity with the suffering world brings about a future even for the most godforsaken.  It points to the real mystery of the trinitarian God as an ally against suffering and moves the community to the practice of love that corresponds to this mystery.

(from She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth A. Johnson)

A suggestion for your prayer and meditation:

May all beings be free of suffering,
May all beings be at peace,
May all beings experience life breaking out,
May all beings be one with God.
Amen.
Pastor Patty Fox 40 Days with 40 Christian Mystics

Good Friday is a day dedicated to embracing the sadness, to dwelling with it, exploring it, accepting it. This is pretty counter-cultural as our society is perhaps more inclined to turn from sadness where possible; yet here we acknowledge our pain, name it and take ownership of it.

Day 38

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying,“Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.  Matthew 26:26-30

Eucharist is recognition. It is the full realization that the one who takes, blesses, breaks, and gives is the One who, from the beginning of time, has desired to enter into communion with us. Communion is what God wants and what we want. It is the deepest cry of God's and our heart, because we are made with a heart that can be satisfied only by the one who made it.

God creates in our heart a yearning for communion that no one but God can, and wants, to fulfill. God knows this. We seldom do.

We keep looking somewhere else for that experience of belonging.
We look at the splendor of nature, the excitement of history, and the attractiveness of people, but that simple breaking of the bread, so ordinary and unspectacular, seems such an unlikely place to find the communion for which we yearn.

Still, if we have mourned our losses, listened to him on the road, and invited him into our innermost being, we will know that the communion we have been waiting to receive is the same communion he has been waiting to give.

from With Burning Hearts by Henri J.M. Nouwen

A suggestion for your prayer and meditation:
When do you yearn for communion/belonging? 

How do you attempt to satisfy that yearning?

What does it mean to you that no one but God can, and wants, to fulfill your yearning?

Meditate on these words of St. Augustine:  "My soul is restless until it rests in you, O God."
Pastor Patty Fox 40 Days with 40 Christian Mystics

How can I possibly add anything to Henri Nouwen? All I will say is that for me Eucharist is about community and equality. It's about meeting Jesus by sharing with each other, recognising our oneness and being filled up to be sent out. Eucharist is about what we do with our faith, our lives outside of those church  walls.

Day 37

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and the daughters of Life's
longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And thought they are with you
yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Maronite Christianity, an ancient sect, emerged in the fifth century when the early Christians of Syria pledged their allegiance to a hermit, Marun, whose gifts and virtues brought him many disciples. Using a ritual alive with the Aramaic tongue of Jesus and a liturgy that is among the oldest and most moving in the Christian Church, the Maronites were able to protect their traditions due to the physical remoteness of the mountain region [of Lebanon]. The spiritual nature of Gibran's mother and the impressions that the child received from the mystical ceremonies of the Maronites remained with him all his life (The New York Times).

A suggestion for your prayer and meditation:

Use this poem by Kahlil Gibran as a prayer throughout the day.  It is often easier to remember a long text like this if it is set to music.  An African-American a capella group called Sweet Honey in the Rock has recorded this poem under the title "On Children".  It's a great way to meditate. 
Pastor Patty Fox 40 Days with 40 Christian Mystics

Oddly enough I had a conversation with my daughter earlier about something Rob Bell had said in his latest podcast. The comment was (paraphrasing) that our children are not empty buckets for us to fill up with our unrealized dreams and anxieties.
Our children are not ours, they are their own and we should let them become themselves, not try to recreaye or make better versions of ourselves.
I've always encouraged by children's uniqueness, whilst trying to foster a spirit of our community life within them. I must admit I've never had much interest in trying to get them to confirm or fit in.
My daughter is 13 now  and has a really well-developed sense of self. She's unique and quirky- and happy to be so, and yet she understands that her place in the world is part of something much bigger than her own unique self.
My son is a little younger at 10. We get complimented a lot of what a lovely boy he is, and we're both amazed that he's so cute and sweet. We often joke that we don't know how he turned out so well, but I guess letting him be himself is a big part if it.
We've never felt the need to confirm to gender stereotypes or push either into any sort if mould. It's by chance that she's artistic and he likes nerf and gaming (actually so does she).
They belong not to us, but God I'm so lucky to be walking alongside them.

Day 36

Chag Sameach!  Joyous Festival!  Happy Passover!

My father was a wandering Aramean,
and he went down into Egypt,
and he lived there as a small people,
and he became a great, powerful and numerous nation.
And the Egyptians treated us badly 
and afflicted us
and subjected us to hard labor.
And we cried out to the Lord,
God of our ancestors,
and the Lord heard our voice
and saw our affliction
and our toil
and our oppression.
And the Lord brought us out of Egypt
with a strong hand
and with an outstretched arm
and with great terror
and with signs
and with wonders (Deut. 26:5-8)

A suggestion for your prayer and meditation:

Tradition dictates that this passage serve as the focus of midrash - an extended discussion about the meaning of the story and its relevance to our lives.  Recite the passage and consider how you understand the story of the Exodus and where you might find yourself in this story.

(taken from Gould Farm Passover Hagada)
Pastor Patty Fox 40 Days with 40 Christian Mystics

For me this is part of a story, part of a heritage, part of the ongoing relationship between a people and their God. The ongoing retelling of the narrative at each Passover celebration reminds of our own Anglican retelling of the Last Supper in each Eucharistic prayer. There's something about the importance of remembrance and repetition as a collective and communal act.

"This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance" (Exodus 12:14)

"Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19)

Day 35

Pastor Patty gets a rest again this evening as she combines days 34 & 35. Below is a Monday of Holy Week Meditation, based upon John 12:1-11, taken from Mary and Martha; Jesus’ family of choice, a chapter in Alice Connor’s Fierce. Alice Connor is an Episcopal priest and college chaplain in Cincinnati. The aim of her book is to reclaim and retell the stories of biblical woman in a way which helps us to identify our own lives in theirs, seeing them as more than players in the men’s stories.

I used the chapter this evening (the wording in one or two places is altered very slightly to fit our context) at an intimate service where prayers were offered for wholeness and healing, and each of us was anointed with the newly blessed oil from this morning's Chrism service at Manchester cathedral. This service is held each Holy week. Oils are blessed for anointing the sick, baptism and confirmation, and ministers renew their vows. 

Mary and Martha were, in my mind, Jesus’ chosen family. When he wanted rest, he went to their hometown, Bethany. When their brother died, Jesus wept- one of only two places in scripture that happens. Jesus had his own family of course- his folks, Mary and Joseph, and his brothers and sisters (it’s true)- but he also had the family he’s chosen. Marginalised people know this concept well: the people you choose to give your heart to, not just the ones you were born with. Some people even say it was Lazarus who was Jesus’ Beloved Disciple.

There are three stories about this little family and their experience of Jesus. It’s hard to synthesise a single theme from them; each says something different. The stories are about gradual spiritual awakening, maybe. They’re definitely about family life.

Tonight, we heard the third story; a story about preparation. It’s the one everyone thinks is about Mary Magdalene (it’s not) and a harlot coming to the faith (again, it’s not). All four gospels have a version of the story, and all of them are about preparation for Jesus’ death. See, Jesus had come back to Bethany one last time to prepare for his looming death and was eating dinner at the family table. Mary and Martha and Lazarus were all there, eating and drinking and enjoying each other’s presence.

Mary, who had a more contemplative air than the other two, got up from the table and returned with a fancy jar of perfumed oil- nard, actually, from the spikenard plant, very expensive. And it looked to be an entire pound of the stuff. It would have cost a fortune. She opened the jar, and immediately the spicy scent filled the whole house. It was intoxicating to breathe it in, like the fumes of a good bourbon or fresh coffee beans, only more so. She poured handfuls of the slippery oil on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. This is where some folks have said she was clearly a harlot because only a sexually sinful woman would have her hair down and perform such an intimate act with it. Only that’s not the point the Gospel of John is making. Mary was foreshadowing Jesus’ washing his disciples’ feet at his last supper. Mary was preparing Jesus for his burial. She saw, somehow, that his end was near, so she showed him her extravagant love while he was still alive. Beautiful and heart-breaking.

This is Jesus’ family of choice. These people refill him when he has poured himself out for the crowds, the people who demand he see their loss and their grief, the people who walk with him as he walks to his own death- these are the people Jesus chose to be his family.

Two women and their brother provided a space of rest for him, a space of refilling, like when he’d go off by himself to pray but with home-cooked meals. This family in Bethany you wouldn’t have expected in first-century Israel- women running a household, making extravagant choices- he gave them a deeper, more divine relationship with God simply by being present with them, and a kind of consecration of their daily lives. Mary and Martha and Lazarus gave him- reminded him of, maybe- an awareness of God’s presence. Yes, I know he’s God, but also he’s human, and I imagine all the preaching and healing and pushing back against authority gave him one hell of a headache.

Jesus feels our own headaches now from dealing with the world. He understands how LGBTQ folks form new families around themselves because their families of origin cannot find the grace to love them. He understands how kids who survived the foster system create new families so they won’t be alone. Jesus understands choosing family outside of the ones who birthed us. My family is both. I choose the people who made me because they’re amazing and I’m constantly aware of what a gift that is. I choose the people who choose me- my church, my friends, my colleagues. And Mary and Martha chose Jesus to be in their family.

The feeling of rightness, of belonging, of family, is Jesus showing up in our lives.

Depiction of John 12:1-11 is stained glass at St Michael's Flixton

Act 33 - Hats Off

If there's one thing 40 acts has highlighted, when it comes down to it, it's nice to be nice. It benefits you and more importantly other people. If we were all just a littke bit nicer the world might look an awful lot different. This is all summed up in the gospel reading that goes with today's act:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’

  Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’ 

(Matthew 22:34–40 NIV)

As I believe that is the central message of our faith it seems like an appropriate place to bow out of 40 Acts. I'm off to Easter School this morning - 5 days of education followed by 3 days of retreat. I'm back on Easter Day, but will be stepping back from social media until then.
I hope you have a blessed and peaceful holy week, feeling God's presence alongside you as you walk through the days until next Sunday.

Share the Easter Story

Why share the Easter story? Why is it still relevant? There's all sorts of clever people out there that could give all manner of clever and thoughtful answers to this question but for me the answer is simply hope.
I spend most of my time with people struggling to simply get through each day and cope with whatever life has to throw at them. How wonderful then to know that no matter who we are, what we may have done, where we were born and what we do or do not have we have true equality in Jesus.
Thank you for reading my blogs again this Lent, as always I intend to keep blogging but we'll see how that goes! I wish you all a joyous Easter- alleluia!!

Think About The Good Friday Story

I was immersed in the Good Friday story at two very different services; firstly walking through Holy Week at our family service, and secondly the Good Friday liturgy at the hospital chapel.
The shared elements of these services, besides the story itself, was setting time aside to contemplate the things which have hurt us. Good Friday is the perfect time to do this, knowing we can place it all at the foot of the cross.
Culturally we're not very good at embracing sorrow. It's something to be swept away, to be made good again, and in particular we don't often let children face their sadness. Good Friday is the perfect time and space for facing our sadness, nailing it to the cross, and waiting for it to be reborn as joy on Easter Day.

Love One Another

As Christian says to Satine in Moulin. Rouge "Love is a many splendored thing,
Love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love". Not exactly an up to date reference but that song keeps playing on the communal work ipod, so is very much in my head.
We hear so much about love, mostly in terms of romantic love or familial love, that we often forget how multi-faceted it is. Another quote, from one my favourite bands - James - is "love can mean anything". We're so used in our culture to the word meaning gushy feelings of warmth and loveliness that we forget that love is more of an action than a feeling.
You only truly experience love in loving actions. You may not be feeling particularly warm or lovely towards your fellow man, church family or colleagues but if you act lovingly you are carrying out Jesus' new commandment to love one another. Hopefully warm feelings will follow.

Be More Imaginative

Imagination
is birthless and deathless
It's power
Is inexhaustible

-Sri Chinmoy

I've always had an overactive imagination, which I see as only a good thing and I try to encourage it in my children.
As each Eucharistic prayer is an act of remembrance it can also be an act of the imagination as we try to put ourselves amongst the events. This, after all, is what we do throughout Holy Week. This is never more apparent than at the Good Friday children's service. The imagination that children have to put themselves into this story is wonderful and a skill that we perhaps lose as adults.

Be More Encouraging

The Monday of Holy Week is usually set aside at St Michael's for a service of wholeness and healing. As we begin to immerse ourselves in the events of Holy Week this encourages us to embrace our brokenness.
Sometimes, for us to be truly whole, and embrace the abundant life and perfect wholeness we can find on Easter Sunday, we must be broken apart.
Encouraging people to embrace their brokenness can be an incredibly painful experience, it's very much part of the discernment process before C of E ministry selection and a thread which runs through the training. Gaining that self awareness helps us to draw closer to God but also helps us to be better servants. Embracing what is broken in us helps us to be more aware of others struggling and hopefully walk alongside them.

Share the Easter story

So LLLL has come to an end for another year, and that means one very important thing- Christ is risen! Alleluia!!
It also means I should think about how the experience has changed me spiritually. If change hasn't occurred and I just go back to life as usual there was little point in undertaking it.
So- have I "been the change I want to see"? Yes and no. Thinking about others more brings me out of my little bubble. It makes me more aware of my friends, my community and my world. LLLL helps me to confront things I wouldn't usually but also gives me ways of trying to improve my relationship with God- time for stillness and reflection. Yet there's always more I could have done, tasks that remain unfulfilled and things I could have done better. Rather than dwell on that I hope to try and keep thinking of others- to be a servant rather than a consumer.
The most important aspect of LLLL this year has been community- I wasn't on my own. With the group of us from St Michael's church, plus some of the school children choosing tasks to complete, how have we as a whole affected our little community? I don't know, but any change for the better- even if it's just one person- is a change for good and a change for God.
So I finish LLLL by sharing the Easter story with my family, praying that raising my children in faith will be something that moulds their lives and means they will grow to become people who don't live to take and consume but to give and to serve.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!!!

Think about the Good Friday story

We didn't make an Easter garden today as the task suggested, but we did immerse ourselves in the Good Friday story.
Each Good Friday at St Michael's we have a children's service which in some way tells the Easter story, followed by a mountain of hot cross buns. For many years this was a simple passion play, using the children to act out the story. Then for a couple of years we had a service where the cross was central- we would pin our 'hurts' to a large cross and later in the service all the hurts would be covered up with a flower to symbolise Jesus healing us.
The last two years we've done 'Experience Easter' with stations all around the church representing different parts of Holy Week.
This year we decided it was time for a change and decided to go for a simple telling of the story. I wanted to find a way of getting the children to use their imaginations and put themselves in the story.
Through the Barnabas in Churches website I came across the Footsteps to The Feast material by Martyn Payne. This walks the children through each day of Holy Week, uses a chant to link between each day and has an action using our hands for each day. We built the service around this, but added a few of our own touches- the main one being getting everyone to think about something that made them sad, write it down and place it on the altar to hand their sadness over to God.
What I wasn't prepared for was the strong emotions the service stirred up. When I looked out and saw people in tears I at first thought I'd made a terrible error in judgement- yet there should be sadness on Good Friday. Without Good Friday there can be no resurrection, no celebration, no Easter and no 'Promised day' as Footsteps to the Feast calls it. Then I began to get feedback. The service had touched people, the strong emotions they had experienced were cathartic and healing. We had achieved our aim of immersing people in the story.
I think we spend a lot of our lives trying to avoid confronting sadness, death and mortality but us Christians have an entire belief system built around one man's death, but more importantly it's also built upon his resurrection. Death conquered holds no fear.

Love One Another

Today's task has resulted in my husband and mum getting daffodils. They hold special significance for my husband as his mum loved them so much.
Twice today I preached my Maundy Thursday sermon which ended with the notion that we should begin to understand Jesus by loving one another. I'll post the full text of my sermon in the morning (it's on the laptop and I'm tucked up in bed!)
As with the last few days before Christmas I'm not always very receptive to the needs of my family during the end of Holy Week, and there's been so much to do this year that I think I've been pretty grumpy. My husband told me I was fruity earlier- then added that sadly the fruit was a crab apple. He has a point.

Be imaginative

People were simply not forthcoming in telling me what they'd given up for Lent!! Very frustrating, so I decided to be more imaginative about it. One of my friends told me what she had tried to take up for Lent, so I have a plan related to that.
Another friend said she was buying herself what she'd given up, not being able to find out what others were up to. Love this- but I already have plans to (prayerfully) enjoy some things I've been without (ok, I plan to dip pretzels in peanut butter & Nutella whilst watching the Chinese grand prix before church...and drink lots of wine at my cousin's house in the evening).
It's been a reasonably lazy week so far- picnics, parks, friends and a bit of housework and gardening. Enjoying time off work with my kids, but Holy Week really kicks in today for me. Preaching at both Maundy Thursday eucharist services and attending a service at the hospital chapel in between. The house work needs to step up a gear too!!