Of providential straws and Camels..

Good morning God,
I'm not really sure about providence, it's always been something that has troubled me. Trying to find the balance between your providential care for me, and my free will(?) is a theological conundrum that I periodically return to and nurse, like a decaying tooth that is wobbly but not quite ready to fall out.
The peculiar pain of an unresolved theological dilemma has always begged teasing and testing.. but never more so than now.

Tell me God, was it providential that my father died of an aortic aneurysm when I was just 18? Was it your way of preparing me so that I would know just how much to fear when my husband was found yesterday to have the same thing? Or is that just a coincidence?
Was it providential that someone kindly gave me swine flu to share with my husband, which led to him having the blood test that made them suspect cancer and so do the tests that accidentally discovered this massive aneurysm? Or was that just another string of coincidences..?
And is it providential that all this occurs now, as I begin a new cycle of chemotherapy and on the same day that my aunt dies?

Or is it all a coincidence, the working out of our free will, the result of our chosen life-styles?

How 'active' are you in the details of our everyday and endtimes?
Do you really know the when, the where and the how of each of our lives and deaths, and do you manipulate us, intervene in the cosmos to make sure it all happens according to plan..?

It just doesn't sound like you to me!
You, after all, built the law of cause and effect into the universe, gave us the laws of motion, and the corresponding spiritual laws of grace. There's no real evidence that you reorder the universe to make things 'nice' for your 'favourites'- although we often rewrite our history to show your hand in it. The fact seems to be that it is your constant presence and the love and grace that it communicates which is the primary 'force' you provide to guide our steps and help us to 'determine' our futures. You inspire US to work for what is later deemed providential...
You never promised anyone 'nice' or 'ordinary' or even 'good' lives, just unique lives, each with the potential to make a difference in the world. You ask us if we are prepared to channel the power that drives the changes you seek, to build the society you desire, to foster the community of grace that allows each human being to evolve to live life to the fullest. But you never said you would make sure that meanwhile we would be protected from the sickness, pain and suffering that we are working to cure and prevent. You never promised us immunity from what needs to be addressed.

So along the way, to borrow a well worn phrase..

Shit happens..

But God, if I'm honest, I do wish you would/could intervene right now.
My husband and I really could do with a break from the overly dramatic life threatening stuff that's been hitting us both lately.  A bit of 'normality' would go down just fine at the moment.

Please..
Something about straws and camels and all that springs to mind...
Dare I ask,
please...
Can you just nudge the world enough to end some of this madness if only for a moment..
we desperately need a little ordinariness in our lives..

Or would that be too providential...?

I have a Dream

In memory of Martin Luther King Jnr - who dared to protest and name injustice.
A rewrite of his most famous speech - to address the Church.

Two thousand years ago, Christ, in whose symbolic shadow the Church stands, triumphed over bigotry, hatred and fear to rise from the dead. This momentous act of God came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of women and children and slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But two thousand years later, we must face the tragic fact that women and children, the poor and the oppressed are still not free.

Two Thousand years later, the lives of women and homosexuals are still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. Two thousand years later, women are still languishing in the corners of Church ministry and find themselves exiled and outcast in their own faith.

So we have written this today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have written to our Churches to cash a check. When the authors  of our faith wrote down the magnificent words of the New Testament and the creeds they were signing a promissory note to which every man woman and child  was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all people would be guaranteed the gifts of God's grace, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of discipleship. It is obvious today that the Church has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her women and homosexuals are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, the Church has given these children of God a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice or grace is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity for ministry and discipleship of this Church.

So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of God's freedom to serve and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind the Church of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of gender justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our church from the quicksands of gender injustice to the solid rock of equality for all before God.

It would be fatal for the Church to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of women. This desolate winter of women’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating spring of freedom and equality. 2011 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that women simply need to blow off steam and will then be content will have a rude awakening if the Church continues with ‘business as usual’. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in the Church until women are granted their full rights as children of God.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new confidence which has engulfed many women in the Church must not lead to a distrust of all men, for many of our brothers, as evidenced by their presence in the Church today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of doctrine and clerical rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of childbirth, are not free from the dictates of childless men. We can never be satisfied as long as women in the Church are barred from the office to which God calls them. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you reading this have undergone great trials and tribulations. Some of you have left narrow minded churches. Some of you have come from denominations where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of dogmatic bigotry. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go to your churches, go to your Bible Studies, your cell groups and fellowships, go to the darkest and most bigotted of our cathedrals wherever they may be, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in God’s dream.

I have a dream that one day the Church will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal." I have a dream that one day in the palaces of Rome and Canterbury, the daughters of former women ministers and the sons of former Bishops will be able to sit down together and share equally at the table of Christ. I have a dream that one day even the Church of Rome, shrouded with the darkness of injustice and oppression of women, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that all children may one day be part of a Church where they will not be judged by their sexuality or their genitals but by the content of their character and the depth of their faith. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the Methodist Church, will be transformed into a situation where ordained men and women will be able to join hands with lay men and women and walk together boldly as sisters and brothers in one equal ministry. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith in which I minister. With this faith we will be able to hew our of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our Church into a beautiful symphony of praise and glory to God. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free to serve God fully, to be respected and valued one day.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, male and female, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, women are free at last!"

Prayer for Christian Unity - Don't make me laugh!

Good morning God,
On the very eve of the octave of prayer for Christian Unity three former Anglican Bishops, unhappy with the ordination of women are to be re-ordained(!) as Roman Catholic Priests at Westminster Cathedral. My, how these Christian's love one another
or - more accurately - My how our leaders mock us.
This is the Unity which our Church Leaders would have us emulate?

From the feast of St Peter's Confession to the feast of St Paul's Conversion, hundreds upon thousands of 'ordinary' Christian's worldwide will find ways to worship together, dialogue and fellowship together, but especially pray together in the name of Christian Unity. This movement, supported jointly by the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for the promotion of Christian Unity, is part of the search for 'the full unity' which it is claimed is Christ's will.
No doubt, these three newly ordained priests will participate in prayers for Christian Unity - just a few scant days after taking their leave of the Anglican Church (obviously not a denomination they feel a sense of unity with!)
And once again the hypocrisy of the established Churches make a mockery of the Gospel and the devilry of mysogyny once again rules what remains of Christendom.

What to do?
What on earth is a Christian to do when they realize how corrupt and life-denying the body that claims to represent them actually is?
I have to ask myself, do I really want to pray for Christian unity - and by so doing, appear to condone all that I find so damning and offensive in institutional Christianity?
How in conscience can I pray for unity with those who hate women so much that they would rather see them die than allow them the right to protect themselves from HIV infection?
Is it possible for me to pray with integrity for unity with those who hate women so much that they blame the entire sin of the world on one imaginary woman?
Please God, can you tell me how can I pray for unity with those who beleive that as an Ordained woman I should be excommunicated rather than tolerated or prayed for?

And ecuumenically God, tell me, how do I pray for unity with any organisation that actively seeks unity with such corruption?

It is all too easy to say -  but the 'ordinary' Christian isn't concerned with any of this..
or what has Church politics to do with Church practice really?
EVERYTHING
The hypocrysy that now pedals itself as ecumenisity beggars belief.

There seem to be only two options open to me God
1) Dennounce my Christianity - and hence any potential for personal unity with the outdated barbarism of the Church

2) Bury my head in the sand and hope it all goes to hell..

Meanwhile the least I can do is decry the hypocrysy of the Church Leaders who urge us to pray whilst they play power politics with gender in your name.

I'm back!

Good morning God,
OK, I confess, I'm excited!
I'm back to work after a three month Sabbatical and I'm raring to go..

And I'm so grateful that I start back on a bank holiday as this gives me the whole day to enjoy the knowledge of being back in harness, without having to act on it!

To be honest, I have greatly missed the people I would normally have been ministering to. They have been present in my prayers and as an ache in my arms where the hugs would have been. I have missed the worship we would have shared - especially the grace that flows in communion and the joy of celebration. I am really looking forward to seeing everyone again. But I have benefited so much from this gift of time.

Time to heal and rest, yes.. there is no doubt that I am fitter than I was before the Sabbatical started when I could barely breathe: but more importantly I have had time to simply be.

I have been able to enjoy the luxury of 'me time' with you God instead of feeling constantly harassed by the Church's calendar and its mad liturgical race through the seasons. This is the first time in 12 years that my Christmas has not been interrupted by planning meetings for Easter worship.. when I have not been either writing liturgical notes or Bible Notes for Easter or Lent whilst trying to live in Advent!


Of course.. I have all that to come.. but that's next weeks work, and sufficient to the day...
 
So here I am ready and willing to live in the here and now - and enjoy the fact that it is a bank holiday today!


Tomorrow's another thing entirely - its a Sunday - a day of rest!

Penis Envy

Good morning God,
I have never wanted equality with a man - why settle for less than you already have has been my motto. But now I find I have a peculiar case of Penis Envy It's a little late in developing I know, but previously I have never had a real problem with being a woman in a man's world. Whether in Information Technology or Lecturing, it was always easy to deal with sexism simply by being better at my job than the other 'guy'.

It took the Church to make a sort of feminist of me!
I confess that I have tended to play down feminist theology as a 'red herring' theology - one of those side-avenues that 'real theology' can dally around in whilst it muses over the real questions of who YOU really are and why You have any interest in us, and who on earth Christ was, and what in heaven's name has happened to the trinity as a result.. you know the sort of things I mean.
Feminism always seemed so stamp-the-foot angry, and, if I am honest - too one-sided for me. What's the point in making women into men? What's the point in being so aggressive that we lose who we are? I can't be a man hater - I love too many of them! From my experience training and working with male ministers, I just can't believe women are any more caring or creative, loving or flowingly liturgical(?) than any male minister fulfilling their calling to love Christ's flock.

Moreover, feminism has always seemed keen to categorise and define women as a group of people I didn't belong too. I am highly creative, but wouldn't know how to wear a scarf around my neck properly or apply a modern mascara. I enjoy a soak in the bath, but can't be bothered with make-overs or make-up (the very expression says it all for me!) I prefer mixed company where possible - but to be honest I don't care what the gender or sexuality of the person is - as long as they can laugh and converse,  preferably about theology, but I'll settle for anything cultural, political or scientific as a substitute!

I hate the very notion of Network or as it is now renamed 'Women in British Methodism' and the assumption built into it that just because I wear knickers I belong to a special group which the Church must pander to by allocating a place at Conference to a women who dares to claim she speaks in my name (as though I lack the ability to speak for myself!!!)

I am a woman not a wimp - I can speak for myself thank you - and I hate the very notion that such women's groups are based on -  that women are so waspish and wimpish that in order to succeed they have to have special consideration of their needs.

So that's my prejudices nailed to the mast - but what then of my anger and righteous indignation of the state of the Church? Of the disgusting male exclusivity built into every element - from the liturgy with its conditional offering, to the priesthood!

I could of course, take the attitude suggested by the David Hallam in a comment on my last post and simply thank God that I am a Methodist and a product of the Reformation..
Except, of course, as most women in Methodism know - the problem of exclusivity is as much a Methodist problem as a Catholic one.
Do the figures..
what percentage of an average congregation is male, what percentage is female.
Now.. what percentage of our Connxional Team is Male? What percentage of our District Chairs is Male? what percentage of our Circuit Superintendents is Male? And of our ministers.. our district officers, or our new  Pioneer Leaders?

The only place where the ratio of male to female  even begin to match the Congregation is in terms of local preachers... but even here I still hear complaints from women about women local preachers with their high pitched screachy voices!
I am incensed at how delighted everyone is that we have a female president and vice president - why so delighted? this should be NORMAL - we don't experience the same joy when we have the usual twosome - or when (increasingly more common) we have a male president and a female Vice president
Our very delight in the elections of Alison and Eunice show how much this is OUR problem as well as the catholic Church's problem.

What - did we think having women ministers was enough?
we have prided ourselves on the idea that no office in our Church is barred to women - but we have our own glass ceilings, they may not be in CPD - but the figures make it clear that they do exist in the hearts and heads of those who appoint and select our ministers, officers and pioneer leaders (albeit, I grant, perhaps subconsciously).

BUT Gender justice is a gospel issue - not just a Church structure issue.
Our structures are but a reflection of our underlying theology and liturgy (we are what we pray as a Church) 
So for me this cannot aford to be about helping the little woman out - I demand gender justice, and although, yes, I am little(!) I am not wanting special privileges or special consideration.  I dont want a different job, I don't even want women to want access to the sort of jobs men in Methodism currently hold - I want a more radical change. I want the underlying theology exposed so that we see how we got into this mess and are more able to use the gospel light to find a way out of it.

I want for myself and for other women in our Church what you God, have given to all - full and unconditional access to your grace, to your love and to your power to change what is wrong, to transform the world and assist in the building of a kingdom of justice and peace. I want everyone to have what my male colleagues have, the theological and biblical freedom and confidence to be who they are, and to grow fully in grace and holiness in a Church which follows Christ's example and celebrates both genders.  I want for everyone to have the same access to authority, the same rights within our Church, the same respect and the same consideration as every man is granted naturally - and I want it without anyone having to stamp a foot to get it.

I want an end to theological Penis envy..

Ironically God, the Vatican is full of male statues, each with the penis chopped off... there's got to be a feminist sermon in there somewhere!

Ecce Homo

Good morning God,
I'm trying to unpack some of what I witnessed and experienced at St. Peter's Basilica recently.. I need your help on this because at the moment I am deeply disturbed by my initial reactions.
I went to St Peter's to see - to witness - to experience the beauty and grandeur of the place. I went to pray, for healing and for hope for myself and for others.. but most of all - I went in search of answers, little realizing that what I was questioning would be so brutally laid bare. 


There was an annual thanksgiving and commemoration service for the Italian Air Force taking place in the heart of the Basilica on the day that I visited.The air was heavy with incense and gold glittered from every surface, sparkling in the lights illuminating the raised altar above St Peter's tomb. Inscribed in marble above our heads were the words and the language of those long since departed, reminding us of the solemnity and majesty of your actions and dealings with humanity - and everywhere Myrrh was present - scenting the statues of the dead, oiling the bodies of the embalmed and soaking into the bones of past Popes - all celebrating the powerful, centuries old message of the cult of death.

This was liturgy as I had never experienced it before: Here was the Church in all its pomp and power - dozens of priests and acolytes, cardinals in their brocaded costumes - all playing their part in the re-enactment of a murder , ready to offer, to those deemed worthy,  the opportunity to share in its spoils in order to preserve their own skins.

We were not allowed to join with those who were worshiping, we were excluded, cut off from the priests, denied access to the light - kept behind the barricades, only allowed to peer at the privileged as they engaged in their rituals.  And so we watched as tourists at another Vatican spectacle.

Whilst a big part of me died.

Here, laid bare, were all the lies I would rather not own up to about the Church...

• The deep-rooted masculinity of the faith. I stood and witnessed the exclusive act of the Church at worship: a male collective worshiping a man re-imaged according to their own desires, overlooked by larger than life statues of men, and magnificent artwork celebrating and commemorating the glorious deeds of men - primarily the acts of either killing or dying

• The cult of death, pain and suffering - the celebration and veneration of pain and anguish - whether of Christ - or of his saints. Not a single work of art, word or gesture that I saw at the Basilica was designed to celebrate life, sound joyous or evoke laughter and wonderment.
• The blatant exclusivity of the Church. 
• The power of the priests and their all too obvious disdain for the people. 
• The obscene wealth on display compared to the great poverty of the majority of Church members..

Unexpectedly, at the end of the service, I was served the consecrated host without words, from a Gold cup, held by a Priest escorted by a guard who led him along in front of the barriers. I, and those with me at the front of the barricade were served as beggars might be served by a Lord with too many scraps from a table to dispose of by any other means. There was no grace in the giving, and I struggled to find grace in the receiving.

Ecce Homo

Behold the MAN...

But I couldn't find you there Lord - not in the host, nor later in prayer.
Your real presence  eluded me.
In spite of so many portraits, so many statues - I couldn't find you amongst the things that were created for your glory. Too much of it seemed simply an artistic orgy in celebration of death and dying. The greater your pain, the more accurate the portrayal of your agony - the more people liked it. It was as though the resurrection never happened, was not something to celebrate, as though there was no Good News - only the cry to repent or be damned.


I can, of course, rationalise my initial reaction much of the above. I can say that what I saw was not 'normal', that what I experienced was not 'typical', that the Church really is so much more inclusive, open and joyous - but that obviously the Vatican has to take things more seriously, has to have guards in order to take care of the treasures it has been given, has to be more careful, exclusive, authoritative - MALE?

All this I could say, but none of that helps me dispel the question - what am I doing associating myself with any part of this?

Past Present and Future Advent expectations

Good morning God - oh, and happy new year to you.
Today is the first day of the Christian year and we begin it by focusing on your absence.
Here we are again waiting, longing, aching.. for your presence, for your incarnation..for our salvation. As though you are somehow magically missing from our lives - as though we don't know what our 'salvation' requires (do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God)

Of course, this is only the liturgical year, its not a 'real' year - its just something that we have made up in order to try and tell your story and our stories as the seasons pass and the festivals cycle round. We use time as a narrative medium.. and rehearse the events of long long ago in the hope that they will help us make sense of the world today.
And on the whole, it works.
We like order in our lives - and the Christian story has a very definite time-line. We hold on to that because it tells us something of the reality, believability of the story. This isn't  a myth, we say, Jesus really did exist in time and space.. he was born on a particular date (although it was unlikely to have been December 25th) and he died thirty something years later.. He is a historical figure, other people from that time wrote about him, historians wrote about him! - this is no son of Zeus, this is a real person we are talking about...

Time and dates matter to us in grounding our beliefs.. the 'When' of things is profoundly theological.
In the fullness of time God sent his son - says scripture.
'In days to come' -says Isaiah
'You know what time it is' says Paul
The Son of man will come at an unexpected hour' says the author of Matthew's gospel.

So where and when in the narrative we start our New Year matters - theologically. It is a part of how we understand the narrative..
So why start with the time when it was once believed Christ was absent?
Is that really where the Christian story begins?
In spite of the way it contorts trinitarian theology, some would insist that it is - because that means that we start with the sin of humanity and the need for salvation rather than with the grace of God and the gift of redemption.

So liturgically, we begin each new year by wishing it away in longing for a future which is based on a condemnation of the present.
The reformation didn't go far enough - it needed to reform the liturgical cycle as well!

Now I agree that there is much that is wrong with the world, the injustice, inhumanity and violence that we show to one another shatters me, makes it difficult to hope that we will ever evolve.. but there is also much that is beautiful, loving and inspiring which is evidence of your presence, your love and your grace in creation. And I want to be motivated to keep up the hard work, not be encouraged to damn it all and wait for the coming of Christ to fix it! I want to look forward to the second coming of Christ as a celebration of what we have been able to become by your love and your grace. I am tired of denying you, and of being asked to play make believe about your presence in my life.  You are not absent to me, you are very present!


So I wonder, isn't it time to stop inducing this longing for a second salvific coming, and start living with the reality of the current eschatalogical incarnational presence of Christ? Is there no way that we can start our story with your presence and grace? Is it possible to  acknowledge what you have done, and are continuing to do in our lives without dwelling on some mythical tale of an absent God?

I want to start each new year in the same way that the Bible starts its narrative - no - not with some mythical fall - but with the statement that You have made all things GOOD. That you are in the world and engaged with your creation, that in the fullness of time you expressed that belonging and being incarnationally to share with us the how and the wherefores of what we were created to be.

I want to dance with delight at another year in which Christ is present as promised.  I want to be so full of joy at God's presence that by the time Christmas comes, the retelling of the nativity narrative will inspire me to grow in grace as well as fill me with the wonder of love.

Today is the New Year - today we celebrate the presence of Christ in the world, the love of God in us all and the power of the Holy Spirit to lead us into understanding the truth that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again - in each and every one of us as promised.
And great will be our rejoicing on the day that we share with Christ all that we have been working with You, God, to achieve.