The meaning is in the waiting

At the moment I'm trying to finalise my plans for Advent.

This is probably my favourite season in the Church's year, and not because it ends at Christmas, although that is like the icing on the cake. It's the anticipation, the waiting, the longing, the sense of not-yet-but that makes Advent special for me.

To help me this year I've picked up a couple of useful books. One is going to be the basis of an Advent series the church here will follow on the four Sundays. It's entitled, "The meaning is in the waiting", and it's written by Paula Gooder.

You can get it here - http://www.eden.co.uk/shop/meaning-is-in-the-waiting-1209463.html.

The book looks at the biblical characters traditionally associated with the candles on the Advent wreath - Abraham and Sarah, the prophets, John the Baptist and Mary - and explores what waiting meant for them. In my humble opininon the introduction, A Reflection on Waiting, is worth the price of the book by itself.

Here's a brief excerpt. In Advent, she writes, we must learn to focus on the now, the place we are, rather than what lies ahead.

"Such deep attention to the present cannot help but transform us as we learn -or relearn as the case may be - how to live truly and deeply in the present moment so that we are content to linger in our lives as they are now and not be forever looking forwards, striving onwards to the next goal." [p6]

It made me smile as I read it, planning ahead, striving onwards to a season that hasn't yet begun. My hope is that when Advent comes I will not only be able to help others to dwell with God in the present moments of their lives but that I'll be doing that too.

As I've often heard others say, and occasionally said myself, faith is not about the destination as much as the journey we take with God and with each other to get there.

Who will we remember?

Next Wednesday is Remembrance Day and in our service this Sunday we will stop for 2 minutes to remember those who died in war. But who will we be remembering?

While wanting to remember those servicemen and women who've died in conflicts, past and present, I still feel a little uncomfortable about the occasion. And again part of the reason is related to the question, who will we be remembering?

The emphasis at Remembrance always seems to be on those soldiers, sailors and airmen who died, and particularly on our British personnel and their 'allies'. But war is messy. Civilians often get caught up in the crossfire. Who remembers them? What about those who fought against our 'boys', many of them conscripted or forced to fight, and whose death was also a tragedy for a mother or a husband or a child? Who remembers them? And what about the families of those left behind? Who remembers them?

An excellent article by Symon Hill in this week's Baptist Times points to a report by thinktank Ekklesia called Reimagining Remembrance. The report calls for a more truthful remebrance, one that recognises the messiness of war, and which remembers civilians, conscientious objectors, those who've fought against British troops, the injured and paralysed, the bereaved and left behind, and (significantly) all those who are working for peace.

You can find it on the Ekklesia website by clicking here http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10505.

Believing that all people are made in God's image, that all are the intended recipients of his grace, that in Christ there are to be no divisions, and that the role of the Church is to facilitate the great reconciliation of humanity, when I stand in silence this Sunday I know who I will be remembering and praying for. It will be all those who died, irrespective of how or why, and all those who still suffer because of conflicts past or present, and it will be all those working and called to work for peace.

What about you? Who will you be remembering?

Dancing with the devil

Last Saturday evening my younger son went out 'trick or treating'. It's not something we've let any of our children do before. But he was staying with a friend, whose parents were taking their 3 children out, and they asked whether we minded our son going too.

Unsurprisingly, our son was delighted when we said yes. Like our eldest he is fascinated by the fantastic world of writers like J K Rowling and C S Lewis. Ghosts, ghouls, witches and wizards, all fire his imagination in ways that more everyday characters just don't seem to. And to him Halloween is magical in the way that Christmas is.

We told him he could go on one condition, that he didn't tell anyone in church the next morning. It's not that we felt guilty, but we didn't want to enter into a debate about the rights or wrongs of our decision, especially not on our first visit back to the church I've just left as minister.

In the past I was clear on this issue. Halloween is not for Christians. We celebrate light not darkness. We proclaim liberty in Christ and part of doing that means steering people away from those things which might enslave them.

As with many things, these days I'm not so clear.

Many Christians still think that Halloween is dangerous because it opens a door into the occult. But does it? Or is that just a scare story? Something that's said to justify why we shouldn't get involved but with no real basis for saying it.

For our son, Halloween didn't turn out to be dangerous at all. More of a great big sweet swap facilitated by the parents of the children in the neighbourhood.

Maybe others have different stories. But I wonder if Halloween is less a case of dancing with the devil, for those who take part, than another example of hellish misdirection, causing Christians to focus on a minor issue while ignoring the real needs of the world around them.

What do you think? Trick or treat?

Some opening comments

I've been tempted to set up a blog for a while. Resisting temptation has never been easy for me, but up til now I've worried that blogging might just be another way of procrastinating, of avoiding the necessary, difficult or mundane tasks of pastoral ministry.

The main reason I've finally succumbed is how much I appreciate the blogs that I read myself. If the authors of these had been concerned, as I am, that publishing their thoughts was pretentious of them, then I'm glad that they didn't let that dissuade them. I have been inspired, challenged, encouraged and warmed by their words. My hope is that some of what I write might do the same for others.

The title of this blog and the web address are both taken from titles of songs by Martyn Joseph. The song Strange Way is (in my opinion) a thought-provoking reflection on the cross. It was indeed a strange way for God to rescue a lost world.

It is also, I think, a phrase that captures the way of Christ for those he calls and who choose to follow him. My concern is that we miss this, that we try to normalise, to frame in ways compatible with the world around, the Christian life, with the result that we call Jesus Lord but live in ways quite unlike his. Perhaps because we don't recognise what He Never Said...

Anyone who stops by is welcome to leave a comment on any of the posts. It would be nice to know what you think.