Preparing for Pentecost...

Ascension day just behind us, Pentecost just before us reminds me of something helpful I read in Ronald Rolheiser's Seeking Spirituality: Guidelines for a Christian Spirituality for the 21st Century. We should try and not to forget the journey from Good Friday to Pentecost - the Paschal Cycle. Rolheiser puts it like this:-

Good Friday: 'the loss of life - real death'

Easter Sunday: 'the reception of new life'

The Forty days: 'a time for readjustment to the new and for grieving the old'

Ascension: 'letting go of the old and letting it bless you, the refusal to cling'

Pentecost: 'the reception of new spirit for the new life that one is already living'

Or in other words...

'Name your deaths'

'Claim your births'

'Grieve what you have lost and adjust to the new reality'

'Do not cling to the old, let it ascend and give you its blessing'

'Accept the spirit of the life that you are in fact living'

This cycle is something we can engage in daily in reflection. Rolheiser suggests different areas that represents a death, whether that be our youth, wholeness, our dreams, our honeymoons even certain ideas of God and the Church.

Today is Ascension Day - Rolheiser would have us reflect on what we are clinging onto that we need to let go of as we prepare for Pentecost.

The misery of April 1: Barry and his loan...

I felt complicit, if not a little dirty. I was witnessing something brutal.

Barry a recent but frequent visitor to TSA either through need of the foodbank, our computers or simply in need of a chat, was completing his application for a loan. So this guy who needs help to get through his chaotic life misses his benefits appointment and is sanctioned. No money for two weeks. First solution a bit of reduced label swapping in ASDA's failed, so a loan with an eye watering 4124% APR it is.

I stood watched, and was powerless. What I have slept walked into?

Horsley & Siberman point out that within Jesus' life he suggested that God was establishing his kingdom by creating an alternative society pp54. He was speaking...
...into a society under the pressure of debt and taxation,
...into a system that had efficiently transformed close knit villages into badly fragmented communities of alienated frightened individuals pp55.
...into a people who may previously have felt a responsibility to help their neighbours in times of shortage but now themselves were debtors' pp 55

The problem Horsley & Siberman identify is that Roman legal standards not the Torah had begun to take precedence pp55. No longer were they shaped by God's dream for kindness, justice and righteousness (Jeremiah 9:24). Into this Jesus spoke shalom and jubilee.

The benefit cuts, bedroom tax, cuts to legal aid, increased community charge, universal payment, on-line applications for computer illiterate and poor, benefit sanctions, esa reassessment, increased demand at foodbanks, increased homeless, increased displaced families is a perfect storm of poverty that we will need to be prepared for. Ready to incarnate the life of Christ as we reject injustice and offer practical resistance to the darkness of rejection, isolation and loneliness that will come for the most marginal, vulnerable and unwanted. Those demonised by the papers that have allowed us to sleep walk into an intolerable society. Those that Brengle called 'lost sheep that have no shepherd'

"Our musicians will play meticulously and will revel in the artistry of song that tickles the ear but will leave the heart cold and hard. Officers will be accepted by Mayors and officials and be greeted by outsiders but God will not be among us. We shall still recruit our ranks and supply the Training College with cadets from our own young people, but we shall cease to be saviours of the lost sheep that have no shepherd."

Barry was lost and I'm afraid I didn't feel much of a shepherd! What kind of shepherd stands and watches when the cliff edge is far too close?

Horsley, R. A., & Siberman, N. A. (1997). The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformation. Putnam Pub Group,

Psalm of Love

Just been asked to pen a psalm of praise at the launch of our prayer room at Sutton. I want to share something I wrote with days of having arrived at ICO, and it came back to me this evening.


I don't want to just feel your love I want to be your love.
A love that reaches out, punching holes of light into the darkness of rejection, isolation and loneliness.
A love that seeks relationship beyond what I get out of it.
A love that brings life shared, a playful inter-relationship of wholeness.
A love beyond me, that is more than my wants, needs and demands.
A love that is you in me and me in you.
A love complete!

Listening as Spiritual Hospitality

"To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.

Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you."

Henrinouwen.org

Freedom from Judging, Freedom for mercy...

This was a little challenging from henrinouwen.org today....

We spend an enormous amount of energy making up our minds about other people. Not a day goes by without somebody doing or saying something that evokes in us the need to form an opinion about him or her. We hear a lot, see a lot, and know a lot. The feeling that we have to sort it all out in our minds and make judgments about it can be quite oppressive.

The desert fathers said that judging others is a heavy burden, while being judged by others is a light one. Once we can let go of our need to judge others, we will experience an immense inner freedom. Once we are free from judging, we will be also free for mercy. Let's remember Jesus' words: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged" (Matthew 7:1).

Looking for 10:10

A new word for me - commensality.

Aspect of hospitality around a meal table, concept of not competing while residing in or occupying the same area as another individual or group having independent or different values or customs.

Looking for 10:9

This popped up on a slide this week. I see it as quite a challenge rather than any pat on the back!

"If the world despises a notorious sinner, the church will love her.
If the world cuts off aid to the poor and the suffering, the church will offer food and healing.
If the world oppresses, the church will raise up the oppressed.
If the world shames a social outcast, the church will proclaim God’s reconciling love.
If the world seeks profit and self-fulfillment, the church seeks sacrifice and service.
If the world demands retribution, the church dispenses grace.
If the world splinters into factions, the church joins together in unity.
If the world destroys its enemies, the church loves them."

Philip Yancey - So what's so amazing about grace