Sunday 26 January 2014

Morning prayers

Lord we seek parenting.

Not just a father but a mother too.
We need all the qualities of 'family'.
Brothers,sisters,aunts ,uncles:
to feel part of,not apart from
the flock.

And you have given us instructions
to find the lost and alone sheep.

From the often
scrambled, chaotic collage of
clues and snippets of advice
we/I ask for what to pray?

How to focus?


Thankyou Lord that
we all woke up this morning
Thank you that as I did
you answered my plea
with Liverpool's football anthem

Lord we are walking through storms
seeking to keep our heads held high

to look up not down

and not to be afraid of the
dark flooded valley

We seek courage
from the seeds of faith
you have planted
in each one of us

Not to just sing but believe
 and to act upon
these words

'IF YOU SAY GO
WE WILL GO

IF YOU SAY STAY
WE WILL STAY

IF YOU SAY STEP OUT ON THE WATER
though they say it can't be done
WE WILL FIX OUR EYES ON YOU>>>>>>>and WE WILL COME!

Your ways are higher than our ways and when the curtain ripped
Jesus had broken through the sea had parted
the dove had returned
the rainbow of hope had appeared
Your son's shining had brought us back home to you
'MOTHER /FATHER' GOD Author of ALL LIFE.

The slave mother Jochobed
entrusted baby Moses to a basket
and placed it in the reeds and water of the NILE
Miriam Jochobed's sister bravely asked the Pharoah's daughter if
Jochobed could   effectively wet nurse her own son.

Lord may we entrust ourselves and our children
to your motherhood?
In parallel to Herod's defense of his authoring
the words on the cross
he wrote 'what I have written I have written'
and so Lord help us to identify
and author such testimony in our lives

Esther authored the words 'If I perish I perish'
instructing..go and gather  all the Jews in Susa
and fast for me,I will go see the King,
which is not according to the law.'

Lord help us to be more like Esther,Jochobed,
and the midwives of Exodus  1.17
who let the male children live

Help us always to fear you more than
the legalism of our own interpretations
BRING US TOGETHER AS FAMILY

May the storms of nature's devastation  and war's cruelty
from Syria to Somerset be fought by the presence of mothers
 and fathers and the children  all in concert
saying 'NO!Whenever others are excluded from your Love and rescue.

My Spotify account just suggested that if I like Leonard Cohen
perhaps I might also like Jennifer Warnes
My facebook accounts invite me to like and to share
and you remind me that

'what I do not do
for the least of one of these
I do not do for you'

And that anyone can like their likeable friends
but I am to be more like the outsider Samaritan
and Love those who do not seem likeable-my enemies(?)

And 'turn the other cheek'

I pray for Dawn French
whose simple plea on the front of
a glossy magazine looking sad and lonely
is 'don't bully me for being fat'.

Lord help us identify the bully in each of us and repent
we learn some of it from the judgemental culture of out newspapers
The big  game of fame and fortune hunting
and the famous and fortunate being hunted
Temptations
help us to live on enough is enough
to say no to such narrowness of heart
Let us know that our enough is Jesus
our mother father sister and brother. Amen










Monday 13 January 2014

Mind palaces

Poirot speaks of little grey cells
the recent Sherlock speaks of mind palaces.
I think of misogyny and a friends's interpretation of the bible
'a woman must not have authority over a man'.
Then I think of the streams that feed his mind.
Agatha Christie and the Daily Mail.
Mmmmmmmmmm!
Well 'she' and 'he' then.
The she who writes for the Miss Marple
of seemingly background figure who is able
to be an incidental figure in the village
subordinate to male society
like the Bronte sisters writing as men.
Created by a woman and expressing a
woman's wisdom ,but 'knowing her place'(that right then?).
Reminds me of Good will hunting ,when the psychiatrist
speaks to Will of 'not much dignity in that' viz acting as a
janitor in the most prestigious maths university
and when no one is looking completing formula
that only one or two brains on the planet can achieve.
So instead then has to act as a foreigner ,giving her the chance to play
with her own identity.On the one hand everyone thinks
that he is French(a man) when he is real;y Belgian(a woman?)
Yet my friend seems to fail to notice he has been ministered to
by a woman.Following her (secular?) parables for years.
An avid fan!

But that wasn't the mind place that I woke to at ten to four.

No it was the ying and yang of male/female parables in the form of
two important film parables. Both using watery metaphors.
In Amelie she dissolves before our eyes onto the floor of the cafe
into so many little drops of water.In Shipping news Kevin Spacey
drowns as water fills the rooms each time his identity is disintegrated by
a none love situation.Strangely the mind palace here is also added to.
For God has also segue-d  Kevin into the character in Paying it forward.
In which the ministrations of the boy's mother completes him.

Both proverbial female characters are illustrated in the Paying it forward
parable.His first wife is the wrong type of girl.Whilst the kindly mum
is the right type.She is the one who has nurtured a compassionate boy
who at Kevin the teacher's invitation comes up with the human as angel
who does three good things ...and the pay it forward actions (Biblical behaviour).

In both Shipping News and in Paying it forward Kevin Spacey's character
is informed /transformed from damaged/abused/confused/hurting to a functioning loving
 (forgiven) new man through the compassionate acts of kindly women.

The ying to the yang of this is Amelie.Her parents are studies in shallow none meaningful
lives illustrated by the nit picking love of their contents.Exemplified by knowing in
 detail their boring bags and uncreative environments for their child.

She is so full of life that she rights wrongs like a Quixotic genius.
The best bit is when she crosses the road describing the world around
 her to the blind person who has a postively euphoric Damascus road experience
with her mind's eye open to all the wonder beauty and joy of the encounter.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah born again at its best.


To these films one must add Good Will Hunting where it is the focus
on the love of a woman that liberates both client and patient as they
realize the point of life is fulfillment of choosing life,
utilizing the gifts one has been given and of pursuing relationship.

Lost and found a little Pixar film is also a fantastic parable
 for we do not always notice what God had given us.
Perhaps a lovely metaphor for God is the octopus
who balletic-ally and unnoticed (following a storm)
rights the boat,places the two disparate characters
back in the boat and then gives the boat a gentle shove
 before disappearing as they way up.

Man and woman need the same reuniting.
Three things have to go chauvinism/reactionary feminism and misogyny .
.But the main one is the idea that man has any authority.
For only the 'author' has the 'author'ity.
And just as in Agatha  Christie and  Annie Prouix
God is an author beyond gender-who writes women
and male parts evenly and without preferential treatment
that is something mna and woman kind have added in false contest
when it was is and always will of necessity be a concert of mutual symbiotic necessity.




Monday 6 January 2014

in memory of a friend's loss and my own



may the peace of God that passes all
understanding keep our hearts and minds
 in the knowledge and the love of God
 and the fellowship of the holy spirit  
be among us evermore amen




when i first started keeping a blog
i thought because of my untidy flat
it was a good place to keep notes
when people gave me points of reference
i no longer do this as notebooks
 are both more convenient
and cause no concern

sometimes things don't work out
as we all hope
i pray 
change will bless
us all as we learn new ways
and retain older methods
pen n paper best 
mmmm
amen