Hope Cup Cakes and Candles

Good morning God,

It's always tempting to try to write about something that you are interested in or a part of. The temptation to compare your facts with other people's fiction overcomes the natural (and usually very necessary) fear of looking like an idiot (so what's new!) and when its about hospitables - it seems it's almost irresistible.

It is possible to separate the dross from the gloss when writing about the Royal Marsden without exaggeration or manipulation in any way shape or form, put simply - no dross - just pure gloss. Bright, sun-shining colours are present as pens, watch straps, hair bands - wherever possible and enable people to remember that in spite of the inevitable maintenance works at the front, back, sides and lifts - there is a Monet or Renoir beauty also hiding back there somewhere, well thumbed magazines are left nonchalantly lying around along with a loyalty card for the coffee bar (as just one more hint of the optimism that permeates the whole place)



Yes - I DO know what I am am talking about - this is my fourth week (I think) not counting the two or three days home for good behaviour towards the start of the month - and no - I am in no delusions about my disease or how vile, disfiguring and unpleasant it really can be. But I would want to echo everything good that was said about the Marsden in the guardian this week - and add some!


You see, they mentioned the patients, the brilliant but peculiar form of altruism practised by them, they pointed out how special and unique it is to have this facility on site - but they failed to mention some of the most incredible people I have ever met.

As a Methodist Minister, I get used to meeting saints (no really!!) But the staff of the Royal Marsden just astound me. They see ME - not the disease. They took the trouble to learn how to make me smile, how I like my tea and just how much ice makes a build-up milk shake actually taste like a milk shake.

This last fortnight I celebrated both my birthday and my 25th Wedding anniversary in the Oak Ward at the hospital trying out new treatments - so far no go..

For my birthday -there was cake, a candle and a song - for my Anniversary, one of the staff found a way of obtaining an anniversary card for me to be able to surprise my husband with, a doctor found a way of giving new signs of hope and two nurses were a step ahead of me in figuring out how we could enable me to sleep in spite of all the gadgetry sewn into my back.


I find myself wanting to ask those who put the TV commercial together to ask not just for £2.00 a month but for £2.00 + 2 smiles, or 2 acts of random human kindness as I am convinced beyond measure that the cure for Cancer lies as much in the attitude of the people who work here and the care that they show as it does in the chemicals they research and administer. These chemicals are incredibly expensive and although progress is fairly rapid, it does take time to solve the mutations that warp our cells. We have however known what warps our hearts and lives for a long time already.

Me? I'm going to try and take a leaf out of thier book - from the way I am greeted at the door, to the way I am wished goodnight, I will try and be worth the investment of the staff in me.

Advent and the NHS

Good afternoon God,
The BBC has just reported that:
The NHS in England must get better at diagnosing cancers at an earlier stage if it is to continue to improve survival rates, the cancer tsar says.

This report has deeply disturbed my Advent preparations with the fear that it has the potential to evoke for in two days time I will have a biopsy which should enable the doctors to finally diagnose what sort of cancer I have. So far they have guessed at four different sorts, but the truth is - they just don't know - yet. Everything they have done so far has been inconclusive - leading to the last statement that I am 'mysterious and interesting but nonetheless stable!' (Not a bad description of me some would say!)

Meanwhile, I feel fine, I am enjoying excellent health, I have energy, enthusiasm and hope...
So do I want to know the results of the biopsy? And do I want to know the results before Christmas or after?

There is nothing like the threat of the knowledge of death to focus us on the meaning and value of life..

Which is why, I realise now, Advent is so important to me - it is a time when life and death are woven together, when hope and salvation are offered in the face of defeat and despair - comfort, comfort my people...

Unfortunately, Advent is all too often presented as a warning to the Church to get better at early sin diagnosis and improve the chances of survival for your people. When seen this way, the Advent message has the same potential to generate fear as the report on cancer does.

It is believed that this approach to Advent offers the Church a time to focus on the need for repentance and on your wrath and judgement.. the 'Or Else' of Advent - Repent or Die! After all, our survival (or if you prefer, salvation), is,we have been taught, ultimately dependent on our finding and curing the root cause of sin.. and, God, all too many remain totally unaware or just unconcerned about their state of grace before you..

Should we tell them before Christmas - or after?
Will it ruin their Christmas to know?

But this is NOT what advent is for and God forbid that I should ever play into the fear and trembling that denies your gift of grace!

So help me, this Advent, God, to tell people before it's too late, before they walk away from the truth they are too afraid to risk hearing that the coming of Christ is a message of hope not fear, of new life, not death. Help me to sing out with the heavenly host to all those worried about their sin, or the state of their souls - 'Have No fear' for Advent is your promise of love and a sign of your commitment to our health and wholeness, now and always..

Incarnational Pastoral Care

Good morning God,

How are we to bear one another's burdens if the person with the burden doesn't want to share - or more peculiarly, doesn't believe they have a burden to share?

How are we to build one another up in love, if the person we want to build up, doesn't seem to think they have fallen down?

My blog on Ordination is for Life has posed many questions for Christians who take seriously their call to pray for the sick and those in any form of distress, and to offer what support they can. It has hurt some who genuinely believe that they are doing their best to care for me, to respond to 'my situation' in love and with grace. There is puzzlement and pain at the extent of my anger and distress at what was offered in pastoral care for my benefit.

And in helping me to see that God, you have graciously given me the pivot I needed for my anger so that it could be realigned to combat the negative theology and belief systems that cause such problems in the first place.

I'm pretty sure that that at the root of the problem is a tendency to offer projective pastoral care instead of incarnational pastoral care.

There is a tendency for all of us to project our fears, dread, pity, and sorrow onto the person we think is in some need based on what we know of the need, and on how we think we would react if it were us. This is often compounded by presumptions we make based on our experience of how those we have known in the past dealt with a similar situation (or didn't!).

This leads to us thinking that we know what is best for the person, by which we really mean - what would be best, what we would want - if it were us. So we 'well' people - do what we can for the 'sick' people. We draw boundaries around ourselves, and the first step in caring for 'others' is making them realise that they are 'other' than us.

The reason that YOU are such good news however, is that you didn't and dont do that. You modeled a very different way of caring and building one another up. In Christ you shattered the boundaries we like to build between clean/unclean, well/sick, whole/broken, pure/impure. Christ made a point of touching and including into your kingdom those who were outcast and untouchable in the opinion of others. In Christ You taught us the true meaning of 'com-passion'. We are all called to stand with those who suffer, not apart from them.

Christ's earthly ministry showed us what equality means - for all fall short of the glory of God - we are ALL less than we should/could be - BUT - in Christ we can have LIFE.

Incarnational ministry frightens us because it pokes and prompts us out of the ancient heresy of docetism - you didn't just appear to be human, in Christ you really were human. You chose to be with us as one of us. That equality was a step too far for some..

But it makes all the difference in the world, because it means you didn't do our salvation TO us, you invite us, as Wesley said - to work out our own salvation WITH you.

You never impose your care, even though you alone have the ability to truly see what is needed in each and every situation. You simply offer your presence, your life-giving, life-affirming, truth that we are who we are with YOU.

Incarnational pastoral care is different because it does not do things for the other person, but with them. It is different because it makes no judgements based on the knowledge of how others have been, but sees each person as your unique child. It is radically different because it is an invitation to be compassionate rather than an imposition of presumed suffering. It is a statement of equality which transcends false boundaries and restores the dignity and value of common humanity.

It is not care which is imposed by the 'well' on the 'sick'..

it is the interdependence of equals who build one another - not just the other - up - in love and which makes no attempt to carry some people's burdens as though they have none of their own.

So where does all this leave me God, and those who want to care for me?

It leaves me where I was before - a whole person.

My diagnosis has not changed who I am before you. I refuse to be defined by an illness. Cancer is a part of my life because it is buried in my flesh, but it is not all that I am.

So I deny the idea that my cancer is a burden to be borne - or a trial to be endured - my life was and is a gift from you God - all of it. I also abhor the very idea that some seem to have that You have given me as a 'burden' for anyone else to carry - or that you have somehow laid my needs on the hearts of some individuals.. you least of all, see me as a burden, and the idea that you would be so particular and specific about my needs when there are thousands upon thousands of nameless, faceless children, men and women suffering in the world is so offensive I lack the words to articulate it-

BUT you have invited some amazing people to stand alongside me, to be with me, to share life with - and for that, for the knowledge that I do not stand alone, that I am not made an outcast - I give you my thanks and praise.

Ordination is for life not death

Good morning God,

I really need you to help me deal with this anger I feel at those who seem to believe that ordination is until cancer is diagnosed.

I am so angry and so hurt, God, at the way in which ministry and life are being denied. This anger is more dangerous than the cancer because it eats away at the ability to be compassionate and gracious to those who are so obviously in need of your gospel. In my case, it destroys my desire to be patient and loving, forgiving and Christ-like. But the truth is I deeply resent the hushed voices, the conspiratorial well meaning meetings which plan ministry and hence my life without me, and most of all, I hate the constant pitying sorrowful reminders of how sick other people think I am which masquerades as Christian fellowship in the oft repeated refrain - "I am praying for you."

Thankfully, God, as you know, there are many - here and throughout the World wide fellowship of Christ who have been and who are are praying for me, upholding me and loving me. They all know that they can trust you and the love that binds us together in your name. They have no need to tell me they are praying for me in every conversation or in every email!!!

What do those who do insist on telling me at every available opportunity (often in hushed, breathy voices) hope to gain? brownie points with you or me? Can they really be so ignorant of the fact that what they are doing is repeatedly insisting that I be reminded of the fact that in their opinion I am not well, that in their opinion I NEED their prayer?

We are ALL in need of prayer, whether we have cancer or not.

I accept that it is not the same for everyone but I want to tell such people point blank - I would rather you didn't pray for me if you are going to insist on telling me every time you do, because this makes your prayers life-denying rather than life-enhancing. Throughout his ministry, Jesus took himself off to pray, he found a quiet spot, and in solitude, he offered up his prayers for us, for the sick, for the lost. He likewise taught us to make our prayers in secret - for the truth is that only then are our prayers a blessing to the sick instead of another burden for them to carry.

Christian's shouldn't need to be told that they are being prayed for, they should be able to expect that they are being prayed for because this is what being a part of a Christian community means. We build each other up in love.. don't we? Do we really only believe that love is as love says? Are we so insecure in your love that we have forgotten that love is as love does?

Dear God, we really do seem to have turned your gift of life upside down and inside out haven't we?

The focus all seems to be on the sickness, on the shadow of death, on what a person can't do, on how they are not able, on how much in need they are, on what might befall them...

If this is what passes for pastoral care in the Church then I seriously think its time I left.

I realise that I am a problem for your church - I wont die nicely. I have no intention of passively sitting on the sidelines whilst what remains of my life is 'managed' by people who genuinely believe that what is best for me (and especially for the Church) is for them to focus on, plan and pray for the worst case scenario (ie my incapacity through either sickness or death) rather than to find ways to release the real potential that my life and ministry offers.

God, please, please help me to turn my anger into compassion, so that I might in love and by your grace teach them WHY what they are doing is so life-denying and gospel-defying.

In love and grace I can accept that their way of thinking is the only way they know. Thankfully you have taught me through your Word and its powerful message that it is a denial of who we are as your Children to give primacy to death and disease rather than life and potential. It grieves me that as your people we have almost completely forgotten how to pray for and celebrate the life, love, hope, potential, and gifts of grace you pour out on us. Sadly God, the knowledge that YOU hold my life in the palm of your hand brings some people no joy; all they can see is the threat of sickness and the finality of a coffin and the problems that will cause...

If you can't cure this passion God, then please tell me whether there is somewhere, anywhere I can go where your people would be willing to let me live as much and as fully as YOU decide I am able. Is there somewhere where people wont make decisions in secret about me and about what I can't do in the future, (for the sake of the whole Church you understand!). Is there somewhere where people will pray with me and make decisions with me based on what I CAN do now and be willing to trust to you for the future?

Jesus had a ministry which lasted only three years - yet he managed in that time to communicate your GOOD NEWS that life is what we are given, life in all its fullness. When Peter tried to curtail his ministry, for fear of Christ's death he was told - Get thee behind me Satan - Death is nothing to be afraid of. It is not something that we can plan for, and it should never be the focus of our life or our ministry or our relationships.

Death does not have the victory - unless, of course, we give our lives over to it.

I do not know how long you have called me to minister to your people for, but I do know that ordination is for life. You called me to minister your gospel of life throughout my life. You have not stopped calling me to preach your Word, it burns within me as it always has.

Now more than ever I want to proclaim that YOU are the way, the truth and the LIFE - and that no one comes to YOU unless YOU call them (no matter what the doctors say!)

Now more than ever I want to proclaim, to make you real and present, to make the truth of your love KNOWN to people, by unashamedly being who I am, as you made me, broken in body perhaps, but whole in spirit, alive to you in Christ, and dead to sin.

Ordination is for life - all of life. Christ continued his ministry until his last breath on the cross .. even whilst dying he preached, he forgave, he loved..

Am I called to do less?

Is there anywhere God that I can go, where your people would be more concerned to hear the gospel you have given to me to preach for as long as you have given me to preach it, than they are for how the Church might cope if or when I fall sick and die?

Is there anywhere I can go where I will be allowed to be who I am, an ordained presbyter, and be helped to preach and celebrate your gospel of LIFE for as long as I have it, instead of being expected to quietly submit to the prayers of others and languish away as a foretaste of death?

Ordination is for life - for as long as life lasts.

Please God, find a way for me to live my life to the full by ministering your grace.

Have no Fear

Good morning God,

I’m puzzled. When Christians talk of liberation theology, they are usually referring to the way in which they try to read and engage the Bible and the Church in a search for the liberation of all your people from poverty and/or oppressive unjust or corrupt political systems. From its contemporary roots in the slums of Latin America, this sort of  theology has grown to embrace the many diverse freedoms being sought and demanded in an enlightened age: Black theology. Feminist theology, ecotheology and disability theology all take as their basic premise the freedom that you give for us to read, understand and interpret Scripture as a direct commentary, your critique of whatever ‘imprisons’ or inhibits the equality, grace and Spirit of humanity as created and blessed by you.

 

What is so surprising, so depressing and ultimately so soul destroying for me therefore,  as one of your ministers, is how little Christian theology actually engages with the primary source of enslavement and disempowerment, and how endemic this source is in Western Christianity. As Aung San Suu Kyi has noted – “the only real prison is fear and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.”

 

To be fair, God, most people are totally unaware of how scared they really are, or how their fear betrays their lack of faith. It was, after all, only when the storm hit the ship on which Wesley was sailing to the States that he discovered just how weak his faith, and that of his fellow Englishmen was, in comparison with that of the Moravian women and children who were not afraid to die. Similarly it is only on being told that I have cancer that so many of my staunch Christian friends discover how painfully weak their faith and their confidence in you is, and how deeply enslaved they are to their fear of sickness and death.

 

It grieves me to see how prayer can be reduced to a sticking plaster and how quickly faith is invoked as a means of barricading the door of life against the fury of the coming storm. To be told by friends that ‘everything will be alright’, that you will ‘look after me’, because ‘they can do wonderful things these days’ makes me weep with sorrow at a wasted life. If after preaching the gospel all this time, I still haven’t managed to communicate your message that life is eternal, that we need have no fear – and that life in all its fullness doesn’t mean a life without pain or sorrow, then I despair that I will ever succeed in helping to set people free.

 

I am puzzled that people don’t see the contradiction in their offers of prayers for my healing – this is a slow growing cancer which probably began over twenty years ago – do they think that You were not with me then? Do they think that you didn’t hear the prayers of those who love me and who have been continually upholding me, or that you only choose to act now – when people are afraid?

 

Of course not.

 

You have never left me, this cancer is not some evil sent by you to punish me, neither is it some test or trial of my faith or, worse yet, something that you have inflicted on me in order to teach me the miracle of prayer and healing!. Prayers for strength make sense to me, but  prayers for healing of  body mind and spirit have only ever made sense when there is a complete absence of any fear of death. Life is, after all, a death sentence, we just don’t choose to live it as though it is. In Christ you died to end the fear of death, so that there is nothing that can separate us from your love – even our deepest darkest fears.

 

No God, I know of no reason why I shouldn’t eventually die of cancer, or of food poisoning, or in a road accident, or even of old age, just as I can think of no reason why I should. But I am thankful that by the time that I die I will have known joy and pain, laughter and tears, faith and doubt. I will also have known fear, and the freedom from fear which saves – the truth that sets me free.