Continuing Adventures in Community

As the condensation on the windows suggests that autumn is approaching and thoughts of the summer holidays are fast-fading into the recesses of memory, our adventure in community here in Birmingham continues apace and it feels like it is probably high-time for an update on life.

While I have studiously tried to avoid this blog becoming a mere recount of experiences which are fun to be lived but probably rather dull to read about, perhaps there are times when it is right to share and celebrate some of the realities as well as the reflections they inspire.

So the Carrs Lane Lived Community is now one year old, and after a much-needed summer break the routine is firmly re-established once more, with days shaped around morning and evening prayer and a shared evening meal. The twitter and facebook feeds are (so far ... it's still only September) being kept up to date, and the website has lots of new pages including some photos of year 1.

The most significant recent development in the life of the community is that, well, its really a community these days! The flat is now home to four resident members (shown in the photo, along with Giuliano, who joined us for a couple of weeks), and we have plenty of plans to welcome others for shorter periods of time.

From the beginning, we made a conscious choice not to actively advertise for members but rather to wait and allow the community to grow organically. We knew this was the right choice, but I have to admit to times last year when I began to wonder how long we could continue to sustain "community" as only two. As is often the way, it was into that space of uncertainty that signs of growth began to appear.

While we didn't know how the community would grow, our prediction that it would happen in ways we didn't expect certainly proved true when our third community member turned out to be a ninety-year old nun. Whatever else we thought might happen, that one was certainly not on our radar and appeared as an unexpected gift. With 70 years experience of community life, Sr Mary-Joseph certainly adds a different dynamic to our community. I find her presence hugely inspiring and hope that when I am ninety I will both still be seeking to live a life of community shaped around a routine of prayer ... and also still open enough to find it in very new and different ways that I couldn't possibly have imagined when I started out on this adventure.

The end of August saw the arrival of member number 4, a friend from university days taking up our year in community invitation and coming to live, pray and volunteer alongside us for the next year. While this, in some ways, follows a less unexpected path, it will nonetheless be a source of newness as we find ways to grow and deepen a friendship which will look very different lived out together than kept up by facebook and occasional visits.

Community continues to stretch wider than just those living in the flat, with both occasional and regular faces sharing with us in the prayers as well as several people signed up to come and spend a couple of weeks or longer living the routine with us. It is sometimes good (and probably important) to remind ourselves from where we have come. If at times things have seemed to move slowly; looking back over the last year; from the nothing we started with to what we have now is a reminder of life, and growth and hope.

And so begins the second year of this latest adventure. I am sure it will look and feel very different from the first. There will be challenges, of that I have no doubt. There will be struggles and there will be sacrifice. But I reckon it will all be worth it. Because I am fairly sure there will be life, abundantly!

The Magic Box

As is probably fairly obvious for readers of this blog, I quite like poetry. Creating it, more than reading it, actually. I have no idea whether any of the poetry I write is "good" by objective literary standards; but at least sometimes I find there are ideas, reflections and emotions which can be explored in poetry in ways that are impossible in prose. 

Almost all the poetry on my blog so far has been of my own composition, but today is a departure from that. During the St Chad's Summer School this year I had the privilege of sharing my love of playing with words and allowing them to delve deep into our human experience with two small groups of refugees and asylum seekers. Their English levels ranged from virtually none to virtually fluent .. and their life-experiences ranged far beyond anything I can possibly imagine.

I forgot to keep a copy of the results of the first session, but below is the collective effort of one Turkmen-Russian, two Syrians, one Sudanese, and an Eritrean one Friday morning in July ... with a little bit of help from a certain Kit Wright (google it if you want to see the original)

The Magic Box

(Inspired by Kit Wright’s Magic Box)

By Murad, Hamid, Nasradin, Adel and Fadi

I will put in the box

The fresh sea air blowing across the beach

The joyful sounds of splashing and laughter

The taste of salty sea water on the tip of my tongue

I will put in the box

My first innocent idea when I wake up in the morning sunlight

The glorious adventure of a wonderful childhood

The happy memory of the days of my past where there were no cloudy skies

I will put in the box

The journey to discover a world I have never seen before

The sound of new languages when I travel the world

A carnival atmosphere where everyone understands the language of dancing and music

I will put in the box

My first kiss, my first sadness, my first forgiveness, my first goodbye

A rainbow of emotions over which I fly with bird-like wings

A celebration of the memory of the first day of a new life

My box is fashioned from dreams becoming a new reality,

with smiles on the lid and laughter in the corners.

Its hinges are the innocent kisses of children.

I shall surf in my box

On the great high-rolling breakers of the wild Atlantic

Then wash ashore on a yellow beach

The colour of the sun.

The challenge of campaigning

Looking back over the year's photos in order to update our community website, it looks like going on protests has been a major part of my year. In reality, it is partly, maybe even mostly, because those are the moments when we have taken photographs whilst many more significant parts of my life have taken place out of camera-shot.

  

But there have been protests. Most recently in Shenstone, just outside Birmingham, to show my support for the activists who shut down an Israeli-owned factory making engines for drones by camping out on the roof. I was not on the roof. In fact, due to a perhaps slightly over-zealous local police force, I was not even close enough to see those who were.

 

Nevertheless, I wanted to be there. I wanted to be in that sleepy small town, outside an inoffensive looking industrial unit, to stand in solidarity with the suffering people of Gaza; and, more concretely to say that yes, I wanted this Israeli drones factory closed down. To say, in fact, I want all drones factories closed down.

This protest, like the march through Birmingham in solidarity with the people of Gaza a couple of weeks earlier brought into sharp focus one of the challenges of joining with others to campaign against injustice, to speak for peace. It is a challenge it is important to be aware of and acknowledge, because by doing so, we free ourselves to be true to what we think and believe.

I wanted to be there, to be counted among those calling for an end to the bombing of Gaza, calling for an end to the building of drones, calling for an end to the export of arms made here to commit atrocities around the world. I wanted to stand with others who cared, deeply, passionately about these issues too. But some of what was said and chanted, some of what was thought and felt and expressed, these were not things I wanted to add my name to.

The building of drones engines by UAV systems in Shenstone is not ok. But to my mind, some of the views expressed by those supposedly on the same side were also not ok.

It has, of course, a wider relevance. A choice to associate oneself to a campaign can always subtly, or not so subtly, be twisted into suggesting associations with other issues; or be accidentally or deliberately misunderstood as meaning something slightly, or even completely, different.

But perhaps because the Palestine question provokes particularly  heightened emotions, and because it is a cause whose complexity attracts people who approach it from very different perspectives, it was more immediately evident that whilst there was certainly some common ground among those who felt the suffering of the people of Gaza was unacceptable, there were also a range of views being expressed which didn't all have either the same starting point, or the same final aims.

And thus it served as a reminder of the challenge of every campaign: the challenge of finding common ground and solidarity with others to build a mass movement which can effect real change, balanced against the need to be true to the essence of my own vision and faith.

Because for me the theory, at least, is very simple (even if putting it in to practice is infinitely complicated): To campaign for peace is to say no to the violence that pervades every level of our society and our world. To say no to the aggression, hostility and fear which feed our economy and our education, our relationships with those close to us and those far away. To campaign for peace is about much more than just an end to warfare and weaponry (although that would be nice), it is about changing our words, our actions, our mindsets. To campaign for peace cannot mean calling out in vitriolic language imbued with the same violence that the drones manufacturers espouse.

To campaign for peace and justice is to also seek those virtues within ourselves, and, little by little, to allow them to fill our hearts and imbue our words with a different vision.

This is what I wanted to speak for in Shenstone. If I do so with those around me, so much the better, but even if I do so alone, I hope I have the strength to acknowledge my differences from those by my side as well as our shared understanding and to be true to that message, the message of peace.

A faith in the possible

It seems this blog has been somewhat neglected recently, with three blissful, internet-less weeks in Taize only providing a partial excuse. It certainly isn't because life has not provided plenty of potential material either, so it is high time I put pen to paper (metaphorically speaking, but cursor to screen doesn't have quite the same ring) and return to the blogosphere.

Although it is already nearly a month since we returned, and ignoring the potential danger of sounding like a stuck record, I can't help but write once more about Taize. But I'll try and keep it brief(ish). I do not want to write about what we did or who we met, about the conversations or the themes of the bible introductions, about the hail stones the size of ice cubes (yes, really) nor even about the joy of being carried by a routine of prayer for which someone else was responsible.

I want to try and express something of the life-giving dynamic of being in a place where somehow more seems possible. A place which dares to believe that more is possible and which, in that faith, is able to make it happen. A place where the first answer is yes, and the how can be figured out later. I realised, perhaps more than ever this year, that one of the (many) things I love about Taize is that it is a place of possibility and hope.

It is a refreshing change from the all too common response to, well, almost anything really: that of a sharp intake of breath followed by a "well it would be nice but ...". Ideas which never get off the ground, projects which never make it past committee stage, plans which remain on the drawing board, all because we prefer to imagine so many things are just not possible, always assuming we even get to the imagining stage at all. All too often, it seems we are tempted to expect problems before they arise rather than dream possibilities before they exist. Taize served as a timely reminder that things can work the other way round. Can, and more often than not, when we dare to step out of what we know into the unknown possibilities beyond, do. And life is richer, fuller and more beautiful as a result. It is a lesson I hope I did not leave behind in the Burgundy countryside.

Coming back out of the bubble I hit the earth with quite a bump, and the first day was, to be honest, tough. It seemed I was instantly surrounded by too many barriers, too many limitations, too many "well it would be nice but ..."s: from both without, and probably, from within.

Fortunately life is rich enough, and exciting enough that I didn't need to stay in the rut: I picked myself up, dusted myself down and remembered that here too can be a place of possibility. Here too a place of exciting adventures and new journeys into the unknown. Here too a place of saying yes and diving in feet first to all that is to come.

To be a pilgrim

As the end of the Easter season fast approaches, Holy Week already feels quite a long time ago and writing about it perhaps a little out of place. But Student Cross was and is a sufficiently significant part of my year that I feel it merits some reflection.

Setting off on this year's pilgrimage I already felt utterly exhausted. I am aware this was probably not the best start to a week of long walks interspersed with considerable sleep deprivation: that's how you are supposed to feel at the end, right, not before even beginning? For brief moments, I even questioned the wisdom of adding yet another layer of tiredness to that which had already accumulated over the preceding weeks and months.

But only for fleeting moments. Because most of the time I knew that walking 120 miles across England, carrying a wooden cross, talking sense, talking nonsense, listening, singing, staying up too late, sleeping on hard church floors, eating, drinking, praying, belonging ... this was exactly what I wanted to be doing during Holy Week.

When it comes to encouraging others to join, Student Cross is a hard sell. We walk most of the day, carrying heavy wooden crosses. In between we stay up late and sleep on hard church floors. Showers are rare; blisters frequent. And yet it successfully encapsulates something of the community I crave and, I suspect, holds important lessons for the wider church.

We have chosen a challenge which no individual can complete alone, forcing us to become a mutually-interdependent community, united by what we do together, not by what we say, think or believe. We find strength in the willingness to push ourselves because we care enough for the rest of the group to do so, and in the knowledge that when we think we can’t continue, others are carrying us who affirm that we can. There is also a paradoxical importance in walking towards a shared destination while knowing that we are here for the pilgrimage, not the arrival.

The sun shone. There were warm and friendly welcomes waiting for us all along the way. There was a lot of laughter and a lot of fun. Anyone who shared the week with me, though, will know there were also some tough, emotional moments. There were a few tears (actually, quite a lot of tears). But that was OK. In fact, more than that, it served as a reminder of what I think this is all about.

This was the fourth time I had walked Northern Leg since first walking in 2004. At least some of those I walked with this year weren't present on any or all of the previous occasions. On one level, then, these are people I hardly know. And yet these are people I know well enough to cry with as well as laugh with. To share hopes and dreams and fears and frustrations with. To be silent with as well as to talk with. To be real with. To be me.

On Student Cross a combination of physical exertion and sleep deprivation quickly leaves everyone exhausted to the point where we do not have the energy to put on the masks we so carefully construct to protect our vulnerable true identities. We become a community that is too tired to pretend its emotions aren’t real, its faults can be hidden, its uglier sides concealed. We become a community that sees each other in our moments of weakness and vulnerability: and quickly discovers that we are able to love and be loved anyway.

This is, I believe, what we, as church, are called to. To walk towards a shared vision, not of belief but of action for which we are all equally responsible. To be mutually supportive communities where we depend on each other and dare to be vulnerable to one another. To be spaces where we can be who we really are and be loved regardless. This is where we discover glimpses of the Christ-like love we are called to offer to one another, in order to be able to offer it to the world around us.

But perhaps the church has become too easy, too comfortable, too safe. Because too often, in my experience, churches, like society, are places where we neither need to, nor dare to take off the masks behind which we hide. They are places where we continue to conceal our precious true identities from one another. Places where we present to God the ‘me’ we would like to be.

Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is, I acknowledge, a scary prospect. Society has taught us to hide our true selves from the fear of ridicule and rejection, to shy away from admissions of weakness or guilt. And I am not going to deny that vulnerability almost inevitably invites pain. I felt some of that during Holy Week. 

But I suspect that if we dared to be who we really are a little bit more, to acknowledge our vulnerability to one another; then yes, we will find pain, but that in its midst the love we would discover just might empower us to create something truly beautiful as the co-creators with God we are called to be. I felt some of that during Holy Week too.

This, perhaps, is the cross that allows the new life of resurrection. 

This, for me, is Easter.

A story of rising, a story of descending

Generally, I try to avoid posting two blog posts in as many days, but today is ascension day, so if I don't post this today I'll have to wait a whole year by which time I might have mislaid it / forgotten about it / decided it wasn't worth posting anyway ... all of which may be a good thing, I guess, but anyway, here it is!

Stations of Light

During Lent I published some pictures and words to accompany the Stations of the Cross. It seems the 'Stations of Light', or 'Stations of the Resurrection' are much less well known. It strikes me that often, as church, despite our words affirming we are people of the resurrection, we are much more comfortable with struggles and sadness than joy and celebration. We fast during Lent with much greater diligence than we feast during Easter. We often seem more at ease with the horrors of crucifixion, than the mystery of Easter morning. We find it easier to believe in incomprehensible suffering and hatred, than incomprehensible life and love.

Of course, it would be equally wrong to celebrate the explosion of Easter joy without acknowledging the place of challenge and suffering in our world and in our faith; but I can't help feeling that generally, we might not have got the balance quite right yet.

In the name of balance, then, I offer these "Stations of the Resurrection", for your reflection:

The First Station: Jesus is Raised from the Dead

A man

Who walked this dust of ours

Now raised from death

Earthquakes and stillness

Force the question

Where now is Holy Ground?

The Second Station: Finding the Empty Tomb

An empty place

Where hope once lay

And fear now seeps

Darkness and confusion

As we seek

Our longed for Holy Ground

The Third Station: Mary Magdalene meets the Risen Jesus

A soft-spoken name

The call to our deepest self

Which speaks

Identity and Love

And sends us out

across familiar Holy Ground

The Fourth Station: Meeting the disciples on the Road to Emmaus

A journey

To walk away

From what might have been

Wondering and lost

Was this audacious hope

Such fragile Holy Ground?

The Fifth Station: Jesus is made known in the breaking of Bread

A simple meal

An invitation to the other

To share this bread

Feasting and companionship

Offers a gift of recognition

In this now Holy Ground

The Sixth Station: Jesus appears to the Disciples in Jerusalem

An upper room

A once so familiar face

An unexpected guest

Uncertainty and excitement

This place, a reminder

Of another Holy Ground

The Seventh Station: Jesus gives his peace

A blessing

With hands outstretched

In inclusive love

Forgiveness and peace

Trusted to create for others

A way into Holy Ground

The Eighth Station: Jesus strengthens the faith of Thomas

A scarred hand

Holding memories of pain

Offered freely but not cheaply

My Lord and My God

Passed through agony

That this might be Holy Ground

The Ninth Station: Jesus appears by the sea of Tiberius

A boat by the shore

Comfort in the familiar

Knowing everything is new

What was and what will be

Sent out into the normality

Of our everyday Holy Ground

The Tenth Station: Jesus forgives Peter and commands him to feed his sheep

A friendship restored

An intimate moment shared

Forgiveness offered freely

Repentance and restoration

Still welcome

To tread this Holy Ground

The Eleventh Station: Jesus commissions the disciples on the mountainside

A mountainside

The place of meeting

Of shared visions of what might be

Promise and challenge

Sent out

To create this Holy Ground

The Twelfth Station: Jesus Ascends into Heaven

A cloud of glory

The promised time has come

To find a new way of being

Ending and beginning

Leave the mountainside

To find your own Holy Ground

The Thirteenth Station: The disciples wait in prayer

A silent waiting

In prayerful contemplation

With God and with each other

Expectancy and hope

Knowing

This is already Holy Ground

The Fourteenth Station: The day of Pentecost

A new beginning

A precious gift

The confidence of trusting

Wind and fire

Confirming

No limits to our Holy Ground

In the silence

We stand on holy ground

Be still and watch

But not for long

It is time

To step out

And walk on.

Holidaying close to home

One of the realities of the life we have currently chosen is a lot more of our time is geographically tied to this location. A commitment to morning and evening prayer five days a week means committing to being very much resent in the city centre most of the time. It was something we were very much aware of buying into when we moved here: knowing it would bring both real positives and genuine challenges. Another reality which I was perhaps less conscious of when we begun but has proved itself over the recent months is that the  home / work boundaries are much more blurred than they have been at other points in our lives. Both spaces and activities are harder to place in the "this is leisure" and "this is work" boxes. Again, this brings great positives, as we strive to live a life where every part we do is integrated into a whole, but it also has its challenges.


Setting aside time to step out of that completeness is perhaps proving to be an important part of being able to fully buy into it. Which is why, when looking at our hectic diaries a few months back we set aside one of our completely free weekends and promised ourselves we would just do something different. A generous gift offered with the strict instruction to "spend it on something for yourselves" provided an added impetus.

We conscientiously kept it free of other commitments, but, life being busy, the said weekend approached without us having given too much thought to it. By which point we had missed all the cheap train tickets, usually a deciding factor in any trip away, and we wondered if we should just give it a miss.

But then we had this crazy idea. Really, to have the kind of break we wanted, we weren't going to have to go very far at all. Our chief priorities were just to be somewhere different, away from the distractions of jobs lists and laptops; and ideally go somewhere with a bit of the greenery which the city centre doesn't really offer. It turned out our bus passes could take us to the edge of the West Midlands conurbation, where we could find both of those things with no travel costs at all.

And so it was that we went on holiday on the number 9 bus route. Which may not mean much to anyone else, but just to add a little bit of context: I have taken that bus more times than I can count. It is the route that takes us to my in-laws and, back in 2005, it was the bus I took to and from work every day. And yet, last Saturday morning, when I walked towards the bus stop to catch it, it genuinely felt different. It felt like we were going on holiday. I wonder whether we are the first people who have ever "gone on holiday" by getting a bus from Birmingham to Stourbridge?

Admittedly, the best weather of the year so far definitely helped. Add in a long walk along a very beautiful stretch of canal, another along a disused railway, a cheap hotel, a soak in the bath, a balti restaurant, a good book, a lie-in, a full cooked breakfast, a country house and park, an ice-cream ... and I can think of little more that I would have wanted from this "mini-break". I guess holidays are perhaps less about where we go, and more about managing to change our mindset into a different gear. A change of location definitely helps that process, but maybe the distances don't always need to be as far as we sometimes imagine.

Who'd have thought it? A "holiday" in the Black Country turned out to be exactly what I needed and I arrived home on Sunday afternoon feeling thoroughly refreshed and ready to throw myself back into my hectic life.

Buying happiness

One notable difference about living in the city centre compared to other places we have lived is that, instead of being surrounded by other people's homes, we are surrounded predominantly by retail units. Our nearest neighbours are mostly the temples to Britain's favourite religion, consumerism.

It is an interesting place to find myself because, as some of you may know, I don't really like shopping. I do it because I have to, but it is not something I would ever choose to do for pleasure. The footfall through Birmingham City Centre on a Saturday afternoon suggests that in this, I am somewhat unusual.

Supposedly, everyone else thinks shopping is just brilliant and exactly what they want to be doing with their day off. On the other hand, looking at the faces of those passing by, maybe I'm not so unusual after all, because for a past-time which seems to attract millions, it's surprisingly rare to see people with beaming smiles spread across their faces. Frustration, yes; anger, sometimes; dissatisfaction, predominantly. But joy? No. Not really. That is not what I see on a busy Saturday in Birmingham.

So what is it all about? Why do millions of people spend a lot of time and all their money doing something which brings at best fleeting moments of relief or even euphoria, but which leaves behind a deep-seated dissatisfaction with ourselves and the world around us? A deep dissatisfaction which, not knowing how to shift, we think might just go with the next trip to guess where? Yes, the same old shopping centre to buy that one more thing which will, this time perhaps, solve it.

We all know the cliché that you can't buy happiness, and probably the vast majority of people would nod their heads sagely and agree with its truth. So I don't really want this to be a blog post that just repeats that age old message.

But I do want it to reflect on how the advertisers message that this one more thing which will make you more beautiful, more successful, more loveable, more satisfied, more happy manages to pervade beneath our common sense and deepest values which tell us this is all a load of nonsense. I want it to reflect on how our society has built itself on a system which is dependent on the misery of the majority.

Because sadly, it seems that it is very much in the interest of the revolving door of consumer capitalism to keep us unhappy. Our economic model relies on our dissatisfaction, and on a few people profiting from everyone else being miserable. Our whole economic system of buying power and growth would crumble if we were suddenly all satisfied, or heaven forbid actually happy. Those profiting from the current system are not going to allow it to be shaken easily, and those in power are terrified of the void that would leave behind.

And so almost from the cradle we are surrounded by messages which tell us we should strive to be something better, or stronger, or more beautiful, or more busy, or more intelligent, or more ... than we already are. And because we can never be more of all those things, because we can never satisfy our own ideals, well, then we just have to keep buying more stuff to try and fill the gaps instead.

So it seems it shouldn't be so very difficult. All we have to do is be happy. To find joy in being exactly who we are right now, at this time, in this place. To be satisfied with the messiness of our own complicated life which is never going to be exactly like the next person's. To find spaces where we can love our own humanity.

The freedom we claim to cling to so dearly in our society is to be found in this. Freedom is not to be found in the buying power or the false choices of a privatised economy. The true freedom we are called to is a freedom to be who we truly are. The freedom to know we can't buy happiness. The freedom to find ways to be happy enough to realise the full truth of this.

On a Saturday afternoon in Birmingham, it is pretty obvious there is much work to be done before we live in a society which is really happy and truly free.

Resurrection Days

And this is Love

That great white light

Who dares

Exhale

A fragile breath

Which reaches out

Through time and space

And in this touch

A tiny spark

Of heartfelt joy

Disturbs 

The darkness

In darkest night

A dot of light

That’s scarcely seen

But hearts perceive

This moment comes

And flickering hope

Is born anew

In these

The resurrection days.

Gratitude

A friend of mine is currently trying (and maybe I should add, almost four months in, succeeding) to blog about something she is grateful for every single day for a year.

Realistically, I am not going to even attempt to do that. If I did, it would probably last for about three days. I know my limits.

There is definitely something in it though. Blogging every day: no chance. But being grateful every day, yes, maybe that is something I could do. Something I should do. Something I need to do.

It is very easy to be dragged down by the ills of the world: to look at all that is wrong and painful, and difficult, and dark, and unjust, and wonder what on earth it is all about. It is easy to imagine, surrounded as we are by so much hurt, that there is something very naive and just a little bit stupid about living in a spirit of joyfulness and gratitude.

And I'm certainly not saying I'm going to start being grateful for the bad stuff. Nor am I about to shut my eyes to it and pretend we all live in a rosy world where everything goes exactly as we would wish it, because do you know what, we don't.

But sometimes a shift in perspective reminds us that in spite of all that causes pain, our own and that of others, we still have a lot for which we can be grateful; and to celebrate those things is neither naive nor crass. The celebration of, and gratitude for, the riches of life need in no way detract from our concern for suffering and injustice. Perhaps, on the contrary, our ability to be grateful for what is good is what gives us the strength to not just be mired in all that is difficult, weighed down by the weight of all that is wrong, but to act as a force for change and for good.

It was one of the things that struck me most forcefully and most persistently when we were in the Philippines: the ability of people with, by our Western perspectives, so little, to be so grateful for all that they have and are. And if they can do it, then guess what, so can I.

Thank you.

The value of the collective

Just under a week ago, I fasted as part of the National Fast Day for End Hunger Fast campaign. It was not my only day of fasting this lent and today, once again, I am going hungry in solidarity with the thousands in Britain who aren't sure where their next nutritious meal might come from. As part of a commitment by the church here to establish a relay of people fasting throughout the season of lent I have been fasting every Thursday.

But last Friday was noticeably different. Although I went to bed feeling just as hungry, fasting last Friday was definitely easier than it has been on other days.

I am certain the reason for this was to be found in the collective nature of last Friday's National Fast Day. I knew that, up and down the country, thousands of others were sharing the same fast as I was, for the same reasons. I felt connected to something beyond my own personal act of commitment. I was not physically present with any of them. Most I will never meet. But in some way I do not claim to fully understand, it made a real difference.

It was a reminder of the importance of our collective experiences. A reminder of our deep human need to share our struggles, our joys, our desires, our doubts, our beliefs, our lives. A reminder of the need to seek out the real community which is able to both support us and challenge us, affirm us where we are and guide us to where we might be.

It was a reminder that our highly individualised, 'just worry about your own personal gain' 'individual freedom is the ultimate god' society is in a very unhealthy place leaving millions isolated, vulnerable, confused, and susceptible to mental illness. A reminder that alone, we risk not even knowing what we are seeking; let alone knowing where to find it.

It was a reminder that we can only be the "I" we really want to be in the midst of the "we" that surrounds us. A reminder, therefore, that if we spend less time worrying about the "I" and more energy building the "we"; we might just find that, in the process, the "I" becomes something beyond what we imagined to be possible.

Hungry

Today I am hungry. I am hungry by choice.

Around me, thousands have not made that choice. But they are hungry too. And probably not just today.

The statistics are, in one of the richest countries in the world, quite frankly, shameful. Half a million people visited foodbanks last year and all the indicators suggest the figures are continuing to rise. Over 5000 people were admitted to hospital last year suffering from malnutrition and 17% of British children live in poverty.

Since the beginning of Lent, and a bit before, I have been involved in the End Hunger Fast campaign. At its heart is a call to take seriously the faithful spiritual discipline of fasting; and to link it to a political campaign for change. To fast as a prayer, yes, but also to fast as an act of non-violent direct action against a system which has abandoned some of the poorest, weakest and most vulnerable in society.

One of the things I have become acutely aware of through my involvement in this campaign, even more so than I was before, is just how insidious is the temptation to blame those at the bottom of the heap. In a society that has become obsessed with personal, individual gain: we are taught to assume that our personal gain is being hampered by whoever is standing on the next rung down of the ladder. The rhetoric from both our media and our government is designed to keep us believing that it is the poor, the sick, the foreigners who are keeping us trapped in poverty and debt.

Huge resources are poured into recouping the estimated £2 billion lost through benefit fraud (which includes the inadverted fraud of dealing with a complicated system). And of course making sure we know all about the small number of cases of deliberate abuse. Far more than the resources directed towards clawing back the estimated £32 billion lost through tax avoidance and evasion (the government's own figures - many campaigners would put the figure far higher)

It is very easy to demonise the poor: they are the least likely to have the resources or skills or opportunities to express a different version of their story. "It is all their own fault", "they could just work harder", "they're all playing the system anyway", "well they don't exactly look like they're hungry", "I managed to pull myself up by my bootstraps so they should too", "if you help it will just make them dependent"...

And why is this myth not robustly and routinely dispelled? Because while we are busy looking down at how much it costs to support those below us, we are not turning round and looking up. And because we are looking the wrong way we some how carry on believing, even though it doesn't make any sense, that we are oppressed by those from below. Oppression never works like that. We are never oppressed by the poor, the weak, the vulnerable.

Yet while it is easy to find those ready to quickly repeat half-truths to condemn those beneath them, the End Hunger Fast campaign has proved how challenging it is to build a mass movement of people willing to start turning their gaze and looking upwards instead. I fear for a society so downtrodden, that it cannot raise its eyes to see that poverty, injustice and inequality in one of the world's richest nations are not caused by those at the bottom, but by those clinging determinedly to their place at the top of the pile.

It is time to start looking up. Looking up at a system, not to idolise it, but to recognise its flaws and the oppression inherent within it. Looking up at those with power and influence and wealth, not with a desire to emulate what they are and have, but in order to challenge an injustice which doesn't not have to endure.

We need to end the scandal of hunger. But probably even more, we need to speak as prophets of justice to end the stranglehold which keeps our eyes turned to the dust, as messengers of hope to encourage those around us to start looking up, inspired and believing that we can change our world for the better. I hope this campaign is doing a little bit of both.

www.endhungerfast.co.uk

Walking the Way of the Cross

I guess it could be said that this blog post has been more than two years in the making. Certainly, the paintings of the Stations of the Cross date back to our time in Cebu. By the time they were finished it was well after Easter and didn't feel appropriate to publish them. The crosses too, come from the Philippines, being made from dried palms leaves from the courtyard outside our bedroom. Some of the words were also scribbled down at that point, somewhat incoherently; and I have returned to them periodically and scribbled some more, before finally turning them into the form in which they appear here as the basis for our Lenten Friday evening prayers this year.

The idea of walking or pilgrimage, and the image of holy ground are powerful ones for me, to which I have found myself returning at intervals. I offer them to others in the hope that they might mean something to you too.  

Inside the institution

I would suggest that one of our deepest human desires, or perhaps even needs, is to belong. We yearn to be part of something bigger than our own individual identity. Something deep inside calls us out towards one another. It is a response to this desire we are trying to live out in our current project of creating community here.

Of course, while our desire to belong can be beautiful and creative it can also be horribly destructive when we unite around what we are not, around being in because we're not one of the other who is out. Uniting around the common enemy is an ever-present danger which I am sure I could write about at length.

But today I want to reflect on other complexities and on one of the dilemmas that I think the need to belong throws up for me. I wonder whether it has resonance in the lives of others too.

I want to belong. I believe deeply that we are made for community and for relationship with one another. That is why we create groups, and organisations and institutions: I believe all of these are created out of a human need to create orders and systems through which we can be together. On the other hand, I defy any institution to correspond entirely with my thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviours.

What then do we do when we desperately desire to belong and to conform, but when the institutions to which we wish to belong seem to contradict our most deeply held values? How do we balance being true to the unity of our communities and maintaining the integrity of our decisions and expressed opinions? When is it right to remain silent for the sake of those we care about and when is it our duty to use our love as a platform for challenge? These are not questions to which I have easy answers. They remain live questions for me, and I share them as such.

The church, in its broadest sense, is a classic example: I believe deeply that as Christians we are called into relationship with one another: it is impossible to be a follower of Christ in isolation. I cannot be the Christian I want to be without the church; and yet how often do I despair at things said or done in the name of my faith which I disagree with to the depths of my very being?

As you may have guessed there are particular recent examples (well, they were recent when I started writing this anyway ...) which have inspired these reflections. Some are on a large scale, some much more intimate.... but my relationships with the institutions and communities concerned makes me question whether I should name them here, in what is, at least in theory, a very public forum. Yet if I don't, does this just sound like theoretical nonsense with no basis in a practical reality? On balance though, I think I'll risk sounding like I'm talking nonsense.

For the love of Taize

In a couple of weeks we welcome one of the brothers of the Taizé community to join us in an evening of prayer at the church here. In an attempt to explain to others here just why this small corner of Burgundy is so important to me, I wrote the following for the church magazine. I share it here too, just in case anyone reading this hasn't heard me wax lyrical about this subject often enough ...

Many of you already know that the Taizé community is dear to my heart and a place that has played a hugely significant role in my journey so far. I don’t know where I would be without it, but it’s fair to say, probably not here. 

I want to begin by clarifying that although Taizé is often primarily associated with a particular style of music, it is about a whole lot more than that. Taizé had been getting things right for quite a while before they invented the Taizé chant. It is not, either, just about a particular way of praying. Although I do think it boils down to the centrality of that prayer. There are no compromises on the importance of prayer. Even on busy summer Sundays when up to 4000 people might be leaving and the same number arriving, the information point closes during prayer. Even the vending machines switch off during prayers.

And while it is not just about a style of prayer; it is about an understanding of prayer that much of the church would do well to heed. Prayer is not about lots of words telling God what we think he should be doing. It’s about stopping, listening and allowing Him to take us places we’re not sure we want to go. It is about allowing the whisper of unconditional love to shout louder than all the surrounding noise. Taizé’s rediscovery of the importance of silence, and their ability to make it accessible to all is an important gift to the wider church, should they choose to accept it.

I don’t just go to Taizé for the prayer. I go too for the sense of community, the shared meals with people from all over the world, the perceptive insights in bible introductions, the belief in the possibility of a meaningful ecumenism, the possibility of deep sharing with people you have only just met, the sharing in the work that makes the community run smoothly, the simplicity of life where it doesn’t matter that  I can’t check my emails.

But it still all comes back to prayer. Everything else works because it flows out of that absolute commitment to being open to listening to God. It enables the trust which hands over much of the running of the place to those who arrived a couple of days earlier under the supervision of young people who arrived only a couple of weeks before. It enables the trust which encourages each individual to take the implications of the gospel seriously without trying to make it more palatable to our western sensitivities. It enables the trust that hands over a gospel that says you are loved regardless, knowing that implicit is the challenge to go and live a life radically altered by that experience.

Taize is a place where I have been allowed to experience the consolation of the gospel so palpably that I have perhaps dared to face the challenge of the gospel just a little bit more than I might have done otherwise. And I am very grateful.

A rollercoaster ride

Like all  good new year's resolutions, my intention to keep my blog more up to date this year lasted until precisely half way through January. It is certainly not for want of things to write about it. Life feels rich and full and exciting at the moment. Whether any of it is interesting to read about or not is probably for others to judge. Perhaps it is no bad thing that I don't put pen to paper, or type to screen, too often.

Perhaps it is no bad thing either that I am too busy living life to have time to write about it: although I am not so sure about that one. Being caught up in the act of living is of course important, but I hope that living life to the full and reflecting on life don't have to be mutually exclusive. Perhaps that is one reason why the ten minute silence built in to our prayers twice a day is so important, it is a safety valve in an increasingly hectic schedule.

I am aware, of course, that living life to the full doesn't just mean being incredibly busy all the time. I am sure the two aren't always compatible and that being incredibly busy can often be a barrier to fullness of life. I am a great believer in taking time to be, not to do. To experience not to rush past. And yet at the moment, I feel life is both full in the very-busy-all-the-time-sense, and in the full-as-in-fulfilled sense of John 10:10: "I have come that you may have life in all it's fullness"

It was reflecting on a particular 24 hours of what has been a regular roller-coaster of emotional tensions that inspired this blogpost, and confirmed my reflection that yes, life at the moment is full, not because of the busy-ness of a whole host of things to do and not enough time to do them in, but because of the capacity to really feel and really live each one of them, even when I don't really have the time.

Within the space of a few days this week, I have felt frustrated to the point of wanting to give up and try something new, as well as inspired to the point of knowing this is the right place to carry on. I have felt nervous, energised, angry, excited, disappointed, enthused ... and exhausted, yes, quite a lot of exhausted. But most of all I have felt alive. The life I have chosen feels like one of heightened emotions: one where the lows hit hard but every high makes it all seem worth it.

It doesn't always make life easy. But fullness of life never promised to be easy. So if you see me in tears do not feel sorry for me, and if you hear me laughing hysterically, do not assume I have totally lost it. No, this is exactly how I want to live my life.