Advent word - light

Light is a remarkable thing. A rainbow, for example (such as the one displayed over Flixton at about 3pm today), is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky (thanks Wikipedia). In the right circumstances light is transformed into one of the most striking natural phenomenon.
It's often down to circumstances what we are- our beliefs and understandings, what we like, what we do, where we are in the world and we should celebrate our differences and marvel that we're not all the same.
But we should also remember that people's circumstances can mean they're in bad situations they're not responsible for, and good fortune is often just good "luck". Light doesn't become a rainbow through it's own efforts.

We will be a more luminous epiphany of the love of Christ not only when we love, but when we recognize Christ present in the loving hearts of others, whatever their beliefs or understanding of God.

-Br. Mark Brown

Slow Down

I'm often told to slow down, I'm doing too much, I've taken on too much and it's true that with working, family and training there is little opportunity to slow down. The last 3 weeks have been particularly challenging but after submitting my assignment on Wednesday I feel like I have a little respite.
I certainly moved at a slower pace yesterday - I actually ate breakfast at home rather than in the car, I spent my chaplaincy time reflecting and taking stock of where I was up to in my placement, and last evening after college I chose sleep over blogging.
Moving so quickly it's easy to miss the things God wants us to notice. Taking time to reflect I've made some connections about the last few weeks and my ideas for creative spiritual staff support at work might actually be forming into something workable.
If we slow down, even for a moment, we might more easily see where God is pointing us towards next.

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.