More off the top sir?

I recently heard the President of the United States say that black men had a special relationship with their barber. My immediate reaction was to think if a white president had said the same he would have been pilloried. However, it set me thinking. In my area if I want my hair cut I can spend five pounds and have it done speedily but in silence by a Bengali boy who speaks little English and speaks little anyway. I can for ten pounds spend twenty minutes talking football, politics and religion with another barber. We are the same denomination, similar age and both love football. 

There is something special about a hair cut and a good natter with someone on the same wave length. Women know this already. I began to think of another situation of confidentiality. 

Before I joined a mainstream denomination I had a problem with confession. Now it is part of my regular churchgoing. The sacrament of confession is so often portrayed in comedy sketches that its true blessing is rarely communicated. It can however be not just a chance to get things off one’s chest but it can be a time of real ministry with a priest who has the right gifts. The last time I took confession the priest having heard my sins then gave me strategies to deal with them, words of comfort and then told me that he himself was just a humble human being. He left me feeling exultant. He did something that priests do less and less these days; he ministered to me. RS Thomas, the poet and Anglican priest, said that too often these days priests are managers and not priests.

It was a special time and it didn’t cost me ten quid either!! 

Sacrificial Love

I came across a wall full of plaques like this. It is in Postman’s Park near to St Paul’s in the City of London. All the plaques are about people who gave their lives trying to save others.

Several years ago I was by the river in Greenwich near the Cutty Sark. It was mid evening and I noticed a young black guy on the parapet overlooking the river swaying precariously. He was drinking from a bottle. I should have grabbed him and pulled him back from the parapet even if it meant a bit of a fracas.

The inevitable happened and he went over into the river. I looked down and it was quite a way down into the Thames and the water was running fast. I am not a good swimmer and have never done any lifesaving. I knew that if I jumped in I would not be of any use and would probably drown as well. That is my justification anyway.

Fortunately, a young man saw what happened and took off his jeans and shoes and went in and saved the man.

There was once a man who knew that He could save the whole human race from its rebellious nature or at least those who were willing to accept His sacrifice. He did not draw back like I did from giving his life. The real reason being that He loved in way that I do not and was totally free of selfishness.

Restless Hearts Two A Penny

Almighty God,

you have made us for yourself,

and our hearts are restless

till they find their rest in you;

These lines from St Augustine have perhaps become cliche´d. The third and fourth lines are so often quoted now that I fear they have lost their wonderful truth. Also, it often comes detached from the second line which is the key to not having a restless heart in the first place. We inhabit a world, increasingly true in the West, where we do not acknowledge that Man was made for God. Man increasingly believes he was made autonomous and his heart will be restless until it has all it desires ie material goods, fame, status and sexual satisfaction.

Coming over Waterloo Bridge I was confronted by this sign. It was attached to a building in the South Bank which is probably the most important cultural centre in the UK. There was no other slogan to suggest how we fight nothingness. Perhaps it is meant to apply particularly to the arts. If you have seen Sartre’s play In Camera you will know how depressing and nihilistic art without God can become. My thoughts went immediately to St Augustine’s lines as a defence mechanism. Sad then if they are devalued by overuse.

The other lines that are in danger of being over quoted are ‘Footprints In The Sand’ which I now see as a poster, framed to go on your wall and the other day I heard someone say they were going to read a poem and then read Footprints. It has been made into a song.

Expect Footprints the Movie. I was rather pleased then to hear Tim Vine ( a Christian comedian so he is family and is allowed ) gently satirising it.

‘My beloved child, when you look back and see one set of footprints, it is then I should tell you that at that point I thought we should both hop.’

Lost Generation

And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them, who did not know the Lord or the work which he had done for Israel. 2 Judges 10.

This verse follows the death of Joshua, a courageous and completely obedient servant of God. The photo is the church where I went as a child, my mother is buried, one of my sisters was married and I was probably christened. I went to Sunday School there and was in the choir.

My parents like the generation after Joshua stopped going to church. Perhaps it was a reaction to the Second World Way. I followed suit caught up in my own rebelliousness. I remember though the church being the centre of much of our lives. The rector visited on his bike and we went on church socials. We sang hymns in assembly even though it was a state school. The church helped us ‘match, hatch and be dispatched.’

I see a generation of young folk who shop and go to internet cafes on Sunday am and instead of praying and communicating with others have their ears permanently filled by headphones imbibing a constant diet of their handpicked music. They know little of the Christian religion and have little instruction in it.

I see a generation trying to find fulfilment in careers, consumerism, artistic expression, fame and non demanding ‘spirituality.’

Gertrude Stein called the generation who had lost their youth in the First World War a ‘lost generation. ‘ I think it is my generation and this one who are the lost ones.

He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life. 1 John 5.12

What do you believe about God?

I saw this chalked on a pavement ( U.S. sidewalk ) near me. It made me think. What do I really believe of God? In my tradition we are taught to remember the mysterious nature of God but in other traditions there is an emphasis on His accessibility.

Maybe spend some time thinking how God has directly intervened in your life and call to mind what you learned about Him from this experience.

Avoid Christian ‘slogans’ however worthy they may be. Be very personal and totally candid.

I will give you something from my life. When I was at my lowest ebb God used the most unlikely people to help restore me. Ironically the first person was gay and sadly later wandered away from God. The second person was not a believer and was...wait for it..a woman. Yes, an old reconstructed bachelor like me assisted by a woman!!

This has helped me see that God does not see people as we do; nor does He interfere with our free will even if it means allowing people to from Him. It has taught me also that even when I despair and can see no way out God can intervene miraculously.

What have you learned about Him?

Home is where the heart is

The other day I was walking along the River Wey between Guildford and Godalming. It was a beautiful Autumn afternoon. I came across this house right by the river; absolutely charming, in beautiful countryside, though you could be at your desk in the City of London in not much over an hour. When I was young I lived in grand houses. Now I live in a humble studio flat. I know however how much work goes into maintaining a house and also the misery that can come from the wrangling over who will inherit them. I remember these word of St John Chrysostom.

Some people see the houses in which they live as their kingdom; and although in their minds death will one day force them to leave, in their hearts they feel they will stay forever. they take pride in the size of their fine houses and the fine materials of which they are built. They take pleasure in decorating their houses with bright colours, and in obtaining the best and most solid furniture to fill the rooms. They imagine they can find peace and security by owning a house whose walls and roof will last for many generations. We by contrast know we are only temporary guests on earth. We recognise that the houses in which we live serve only as hostels on the road to eternal life. We do not seek peace or security from the material walls around us or the roof above our heads. Rather we want to surround ourselves with a wall of divine grace; and we look upwards to heaven as our roof. And the furniture of our lives should be good works, performed in a spirit of love.

Carrot and stick

Last week I went to a ploughing match where tractors and, more interestingly for me, shire horses showed their skills in ploughing. I saw what I had not seen before- donkeys ploughing. Shire horses keep on a pretty straight course and only really need steering and ‘woa Dobbin’ to turn at the end of a furrow. Donkeys I noticed were not so co- operative and had to be guided the whole way along the furrow which is probably why they are not used much in ploughing.

I thought that for Christians it is lucky that God does not have to direct us in the same way.

We do not usually have to be prodded or hit with a whip. We can be directed by God in all sorts of ways, mostly gentle, and some quite mysterious and unexpected.

I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not keep with you. Psalm 32 8/9

In 1491 a young Basque knight, Ignatius Loyola, lying injured in bed after a wound in battle and unable to move from his bed, began to discover and codify the way in which God communicates to us through our emotions and feelings. His writings became the Spiritual Exercises and became the foundation of what is known as spiritual direction.

Some believe that God only speaks to us through Scripture but Scripture itself talks of God talking through dreams, strange circumstances and the quiet voice as He did to Elijah. On one occasion He even communicated through a donkey ( Numbers 22.28 ) I suppose the trick is to be listening for His voice and be obedient then He won’t need to raise His voice.