Never Alone

May my words be in the name of the living God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen

Here in the UK there was a lot of fuss recently about baby Prince George’s birth then baptism. He is 3^rd in line to the throne and will maybe be King one day.

I was having a chat to a mate this weekend as she had recently been at an event that the Queen was present at. They were told to curtsey or bow as she went past. Because my friend hadn’t practiced this, she ended up not doing it as the moment went quickly. 

When I had to be in a line to meet the Queen we were told the same thing. Being the Rebel Rev that I am I did nothing because she is just another human being and I have trouble “subjecting” myself to anyone.

Then I get the short straw and have to preach for Christ the King again as Wendy likes to be away at this time of year. How will I bring something new to my thinking about all this when I don’t like all that triumphalist stuff?

Christ the King was an invention of Pope Pius XI who got a bit worried about all the secularism in the 1920’s and wanted to celebrate the reign of Christ. It’s not been around that long then in the churches terms. We have an even more secular society now so maybe the Pope put out the wrong image.

Of course as well as being Christ the King it’s stir up Sunday when you lot that love the kitchen rather than see it as a route to the garden, traditionally would stir up your Christmas puddings.

Well I’m good at stirring but in a different sense so let’s see what I can stir in today’s readings.

Jeremiah gives us this image of God

⁴I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them,

and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed,

nor shall any be missing, says the LORD.

That’s a very different view and not too Kingly. Then this lovely bit of Colossians:

Brothers and sisters:

¹¹May you be made strong

with all the strength that comes from his glorious power,

and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience,

¹²while joyfully giving thanks to the Father,

who has enabled you to share

in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

¹³He has rescued us from the power of darkness

I did stop before we have talk of the Kingdom in that reading because I want us to hear that we all have a share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. You know I love imagery about light and dark and sometimes we have to get comfortable in being in the gentle light of the moon because we can’t always be in the bright light of the sun but as long as we never let the darkness totally overwhelm us. We can be made strong so that like Janet Morley’s beautiful prayer we can say that in the darkness we were not lost.

Then we have the gospel which gives us the broken Jesus still reaching out from the cross to the thieves around him. I can really identify with this conversation with the one geezer saying to the other “leave him alone. We’ve done wrong, he ain’t” When I was a kid I was always being punished and being the intelligent child I was I decided that if I was going to get into trouble anyway, I might as well do something to deserve it. I think that is fantastic logic for a child. So I used to come in late or whatever bit of defiance I could think of on that day and as I got the wallop I would smile inside because it didn’t hurt as much as getting whacked for doing nothing.

So getting back to our readings we have this situation where Jesus says to the thief “I will see you in paradise soon” I wonder if the other thief had a change of heart seeing this meaningful exchange?

This exchange made me think about this business of who we might meet in heaven. It seems like there will be thieves, and all the other misfits that Jesus hung out with and that made me think that if we don’t like the people on earth we aint gonna like heaven much because the people that give us the ‘ump will be there too.

So we are going to have to do something about this business of loving one another and getting alongside each other here on earth and working on this love stuff. 

Well how does all that link with today’s reading. One of the past Vicars at St Mark’s loved the following hymn and always made us sing it every Easter. It was an awful tune but I think the words are powerful:

Therefore he who shows us God

Helpless hangs upon the tree;

And the nail and crown of thorns

Tell of what God’s love must be.

Here is God: no monarch he,

Throned in easy state to reign;

Here is God, whose arms of love

Aching, spent, the world sustain.   

It’s that last bit that gets me every time

Here is God: no monarch he,

Throned in easy state to reign;

Here is God, whose arms of love

Aching, spent, the world sustain.   

That’s the king I can identify with, the one who was prepared to enter every human struggle and who deeply understands our sufferings and what does he do he stretched out those arms of love. He doesn’t sit austere on a throne and make people tremble before him but lovingly reaches out to us in the darkness and is aching for us to say “here I am” and to reach the rest of the way into those arms.

How many times have you longed to be in some ones arms but kept the stiff upper lip and didn’t let go? I am a professional collector of tears. It is one of my gifts and is a real privilege that people invite me into their fears and anxieties and hurts and shattered dreams. I will open my arms to hug and embrace anyone and I never want that to change.

I’m not always very good at letting my tears flow and I am very fortunate that when I do I can receive a hug and let people come close. In that way my friends are bringing some light in the darkness and some of God’s love to wrap around me. If I can do it as someone who was once a little toughy and a street urchin, then so can you. Please open your hearts, minds and arms to one another. Get to know and love the people around you so that when you get to heaven you can enjoy the company.

I recently did a memorial service at the school. I finished with this song by Lady Antebellum, I will put the words on the screen and I’d like you to just sit and be still and listen and as your thoughts drift remember those aching arms of the king of love outstretched to you and as the song says remember you are never alone.

May the angels protect you
Trouble neglect you
And heaven accept you when it's time to go home
May you always have plenty
Your glass never empty
Know in your belly
You're never alone

May your tears come from laughing
You find friends worth having
With every year passing
They mean more than gold
May you win but stay humble
Smile more than grumble
And know when you stumble
You're never alone

Never alone
Never alone
I'll be in every beat of your heart
When you face the unknown
Wherever you fly
This isn't goodbye
My love will follow you stay with you
Baby you're never alone

Well, I have to be honest
As much as I want it
I'm not gonna promise the cold winds won't blow
So when hard times have found you
And your fear surround you
Wrap my love around you
You're never alone

Never alone
Never alone
I'll be in every beat of your heart
When you face the unknown
Wherever you fly
This isn't goodbye
My love will follow you stay with you
Baby you're never alone

May the angels protect you
Trouble neglect you
And heaven accept you when it's time to go home
And when hard times have found you
And your fear surround you
Wrap my love around you
You're never alone

Never alone
Never alone
I'll be in every beat of your heart
When you face the unknown
Wherever you fly
This isn't goodbye
My love will follow you stay with you
Baby you're never alone
My love will follow you stay with you
Baby you're never alone

Love doesnt die people do

My time at the Tust was coming to an end. I was aware that I was going through a grieving process myself as I began the long round of goodbyes with all the staff.

One of my favourite places in the hospital had always been ICU. The staff were great and really welcomed me and there was always something to pick up on.

It was on one of these regular wanderings through ICU that the staff stopped me and told me about a patient who had just arrived. He was 85 and his wife had died. Her funeral was the day before and after the funeral the man had gotten into his car and deliberately driven it into a wall. He had broken both legs but would survive physically but they were worried about him emotionally and spiritually.

Unfortunately in this instance none of the chaplaincy have really been able to make a connection with him.  He was apparently well before his wife died and was not confused. Now it is very difficult to have any meaningful conversation with him. He rambles about nothing in particular. He has obviously made his choice to switch off and die and be with his wife. He has no family in this country. 

In the limited time I have left before I leave the Trust I will continue to try and make a connection but I must say I don’t hold out much hope this time, just the ultimate hope that he will find peace once again when he dies and joins the eternal continuum of human existence and is reunited with his wife.

The challenges and tragedies of mental health issues

One day as autumn was fast approaching I was bleeped to an A&E resus bay. A 21 year old woman had been brought in who’d been found hanging at home. I watched the team work on her but the resus attempt was unsuccessful and the young woman died. 

I waited for the family to arrive and spent some time with them. The mum was obviously distraught. She was alternatively blaming herself and the mental health services at the hospital for not picking up on how ill her daughter was. Her daughter was known to the psychiatric services as she was a self harmer. She had recently split up with her boyfriend and this had tipped her over the edge. What can you say at a time like that? Words are just so inadequate. All I could do was keep the supply of tissues coming and try and stand firm as all that raw emotion washed over me.

Eventually the family calmed down and started to ask me questions. I explained that a post mortem would be necessary and I went through that process with them and what would happen next. When they were ready I walked them to their car and offered continued support if they needed it.

As I walked back into the A&E department I was aware that my shoulders were really stiff. I must’ve absorbed more emotion than I realised. Now the family were gone my attention was turned to the staff. Some needed to talk, some just wanted to be busy. Everyone has their own coping style. I stood talking to the nurse who was preparing the body for the mortuary, when a psychiatric liaison nurse came in. She had just heard and was shaken because she had spoken to the young woman a couple of days ago. She was really upset. I spent some time talking to her and followed this up with some phone support. 

The psychiatric services turned the situation into a Serious Untoward Incident. SUI’s have to be investigated. I sometimes wonder if we couldn’t do a bit better as institutions. SUI’s make people nervous and mean that people often end up responding from a defensive position. Am I being utopian to want a system where people can learn from any mistakes and changes are made so that those situations are unlikely to occur again? This would be possible if it was done in a more supportive way instead of the legalistic framework that currently exists.

Blessed are the peacemakers - Something different for Remembrance Sunday

Todays blog is a departure from the norm and a sermon for the season.

May my words be in the name of the living God, creating, redeeming and sustaining. Amen.

Thank you for inviting me to take your service here today. I bring greetings from all at St Augustine Academy and we are proud to be a secondary school serving your community. I know you have at least one of our students here and I thank you for bringing Matthew to confirmation.

When I agreed to take today’s service I didn’t notice the date, just the gap in my diary. For me Remembrance Sunday is always challenging. I hope you will also share my sense of challenge.

For my text this morning I’d like us to concentrate on that last verse of our gospel reading “Now he is a God not of the dead, but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.”

Those of us who are living have an awesome responsibility. When I was at school we learned about many wars and lots of people who had died. I remember being really moved by the poetry of Wilfred Owen, who wrote his poems from the trenches. We were often clear about who were the “good” people as history is nearly always written by the winners of war. Where has all that education lead me too? How have I made sense of all of that in the context of living out my theology and my understanding of the gospel message? Well, I have come to the conclusion that war is a

messy, bloody and destructive affair. War doesn’t decide who is right, just who is left! Neither side is justified in its actions. There are atrocities committed by all armies of the world.

Several years ago I went to Berlin and I visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It had a profound effect on me. On the train on the way back into the city after the trip I was chatting with the tour guide. He was an ex-military man He had been quite senior but now was anti-war and working to promote peace. We had a spirited discussion. One of the things that he said that really stuck in my mind was “What if wars were fought by the politicians and leaders who started the war rather than the soldiers who really could see no difference between them and the other side?” He told me that military strategists learn from war but politicians do not.

Today very little contact is needed to wage war. The “Cold War” which frightened a whole generation was based on the fear of pressing a “button” and that there were satellites at the fingertips of the leaders. If we are honest many of us still carry that fear today.

The 1st world war was meant to be the war that ended all wars. Then the 2nd world war would hopefully do that. I recently found out that the only year a British soldier hasn’t been killed since the end of the war is 1967. I find that astounding and disturbing. It’s like we are almost guaranteed war and conflict. Why is that?

Today we feel so distant from war. We sit in the comfort of our front rooms and watch the sky light up in war torn areas on our TV’s, giving little or no thought to the people who lives are snuffed out by that flash of light over the shoulder of the newscaster.

So what can we do?  How do we work towards peace? How can this world find an alternative to bearing arms in the name of peace and still fight for something so dear? We may be many miles from the nearest war but it is a part of our everyday life. We hear of war every day on the news. Some of you may also have family in the army which brings the threat very close to home.

I think there is a biblical basis for non-violent Peace building? We can use the New Testament as our basis. “Love your enemy” is one I always remember. Another is “Love each other as I have loved you” There are loads. I’m sure you could all think of your own texts.

Peace is often thought about as the absence of war. But it’s more than that. It requires an active participation from us. Like the peace and justice work carried out in South Africa by the truth and reconciliation commission set up by Archbishop Tutu. Or those that work for restorative justice services bringing together prisoners and their victims in this country. The anti-violence workers who go into schools and teach young people about equal and loving relationships. The list is actually endless. Are you on it?

Here are a few examples of modern day peace builders:

In Hebron after Israeli forces demolished the Al-Attrash home for the third time, the family, their friends and supporters peacefully resisted the uncalled for use of force and told the soldiers, “Don’t worry, we’ll build another one.”

The doctor who lost 5 members of his family to an attack on his home who works in a hospital bringing hope and healing to all who come through the door of whatever side and has written a book called “Thou shall not hate”.

The activists and the women who camped out at Greenham Common and the Iona community members currently demonstrating against Trident to say nuclear weapons are wrong.

The children in my school who walk away from conflict.

While war is definitely the opposite of peace and is never desirable, peace has a broader meaning. Peace is the mutual emotion of good will between two or more parties. This is true whether it be on the level of a relationship between couples or the relationship between countries. It is interesting to compare these two different sorts of relationships.

How long would a marriage last if the only reason the couple was not fighting and arguing was because the one of them had a large bat and was prepared to use it on the other’s head if they stepped out of line? Of course, we say, the relationship couldn’t last with all of that tension. So why do we think that international relations are any different? Are people really that different as a group than they are individually? Do the emotions of fear, anxiety and anger change because an individual is threatened by the military machine instead of a cricket bat? I don’t believe there is a difference.

The use of force is like putting a plaster on a severed artery. That kind of so called “peace” can last only as long as the dominant party remains strong and has the will to use its power. This has become overwhelmingly clear in the power struggle between Iraq, Afghanistan and America and Britain over the course of this last decade.

The result of security being based on the use of force is that the violence trickles down (or up) into our everyday society. Just look at the headlines of every day’s paper and we quickly see many violent stories. I truly believe that violence just creates more violence.

So how can we begin building peace within ourselves? We need to look at Jesus’ example and like him preach love to a warring world.  We as peace building Christians have a responsibility to spread our peace into this violence and into a hurt and scarred world.

A Chaplain colleague will tell his school this next week.

Shortly we will remember the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918. And so ended a war they called “great”. Estimates of between 9 million and 16 million soldiers and civilians from both sides died of war related causes in a space of four years. This was “the war to end all wars”. But history shows that we don’t learn from history.

We keep on remembering but then we keep on forgetting. Names of countries cry out war. Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, The Falkland Islands, The Former Yugoslavia, Burma, Vietnam, Korea the list goes on. Men, Woman and children taking last steps on this earth before a bomb or bullet or booby trap or blow, snuffs out the life of another brother or mother or father or daughter or son.

So it is correct that we remember this week those that have passed on as a result of war. The selfless sacrifice and the senseless slaughter. The faces of the known and unknown. The dead, the dying and the ones that carry the scars both physical and emotional. The conscientious objectors shot for cowardice. The millions of unnamed women and children who are deemed collateral damage. It is right that we remember them all.

In our red poppies we remember those lost in wars past and present but in our white poppies we hold on to the hope of peace. A peace that passes all understanding. You won’t find that kind of peace in the latest game of Call of Duty or in the clenched fist before a fight. You have to find it within and then speak it out.

“Blessed are the peacemakers” Jesus once said “for they shall inherit the earth”. The military and politicians are fighting over the earth. Will the peacemakers win? Maybe it’s up to us to bring out the peace and kill off the war.

I started with that text from the gospel and I want to end with it because we must remember and learn from all who have gone before us and have died, especially the peacemakers. “Now he is a God not of the dead, but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.”

Amen.

An unusual story with a happy ending

A young woman that I first met a couple of years ago came back to the hospital. I met her when her baby died after her womb ruptured. This unusual situation nearly ended the life of the young woman too. Against the odds this woman and her husband had not given up hope of having a child and were now pregnant. She was having to be in hospital for the remainder of her pregnancy. She would get really bored because she felt well but needed to be in or around the hospital in case her womb ruptured again.

I popped up to see her regularly. At one point I visited nearly daily as she started to talk about difficult issues she had faced as she was growing up. I think these issues were coming up because she had so much time to think. Also as you prepare to be a parent, it also makes you think about the parenting that you have received.

 

The baby that died was a girl. I had taken her funeral and had got to know the family a bit through that experience. In between that baby and the boy baby that was now being carried there were other miscarriages and another womb rupture. This pregnancy was indeed a miracle. It felt like the whole hospital community was holding its breath.

 

A healthy baby boy was born to ecstatic parents a few weeks early as there was a fear that the womb wouldn’t hold out. It’s so nice to have a happy ending sometime.

We all have our limitations

One day my bleep went off and I was asked to go to a ward where a 53 year old woman was dying. I arrived at the ward and found out that the woman was in a side room. I was just about to enter the room when a nurse warned me that the patient had head and body lice. I had no time to digest this information as I literally had my hand on the door. I walked in and there was a small woman in the bed, completely covered and with a couple of towels around her head. In the room was her husband and her son and daughter from a previous relationship. I spent sometime talking to them. They seemed to be uncomfortable talking to me. I assumed, rightly or wrongly, that this was because of my clerical collar. It does put some people off. I then feel it’s my job to get over that barrier.

I got them to tell me what had been going on and all I was told was that the woman had had a stroke. I asked them if they wanted me to say some prayers. They said they did so I said my prayers and blessed and anointed the woman as well as inviting them to anoint their loved one. I placed my hand on her head and made the sign of the cross on her forehead. I was acutely aware that this woman would not be touched by many, who would fear catching the head and body lice from her. I just think what if that was someone I loved. I’d want them touched or even what if it was me because, there but for the grace of God.

This woman took about a week to die. During that time I also got to meet her 15 year old son. The family started to talk to me in a more relaxed way.

 

After she died I had a phone call from the undertakers asking me to do the funeral. I’d had no indication from the family that this was what they wanted so I was surprised. I rang the family to make the arrangements for the funeral and was relieved when they said they’d prefer to come and see me at the office rather than me go to their house.

 

I try to be loving and open to everyone I meet but I would have found it difficult to concentrate in an unclean home. Actually it's not so much the cleanliness but bad smells that challenge me. We all have our limitations and I’m aware that that is one of mine.

The husband and youngest son came to see me at work. I got all the info I needed as we chatted over a cuppa. Compared to how they were when we first me they were now quite chatty.

After they left I had to open all the windows. I really felt for the son. He must get bullied at school because of his dishevelled appearance as well as the strong smell of cats. How far does my role extend in these circumstances? Should I point out that they smell? Is it appropriate before the funeral? I decided I needed to get through the funeral and see what happened after that.

The funeral went well but I have never seen the family since then. Did I wimp out but not tackling some of the presenting issues? Probably, but I guess we all have things we could do better.