Miss Phoebe has just experienced her first thunderstorm. She didn’t like it. Her fur stood up, and she stuck to me like glue yesterday afternoon. Cat calming spray (as advised after last visit to vet) worked a treat (I think for me too) and she snuggled up close on the worktable as I painted. We spent a companionable few hours yesterday afternoon being slightly afraid together. It seems right now that we are all being slightly afraid together. There are rumbles of thunder from all quarters, Corvid-19 lockdown, a rise in social tensions, fear of difference and fear of change. On conversations over the past few weeks with friends via FaceTime, phone calls, emails and socially distanced walks one of the main themes that has arisen is that it as thought this has been an opportunity to stop. Really stop and change. Not just on how it affects ourselves, but how we react as a society and how we interact globally again. There is no clear answer to any of this as there is no rule book and we are making it up as we go along. Hmmmm, “…we are making it up as we go along?” I wonder if that’s correct? It seems that we have been given yet another chance to shift our way of thinking. Now where have we seen something like this before? Scripture is full of us being given second, third, what was it 70 x 7 chances, chances to forgive….Matthew 18:21-35 and in particular verses 21-22.
”… Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times…”
Change in our way of thinking is part of the process of forgiveness and of healing. Our world right now is needing a lot of healing. We have been arrested in our tracks and detained from carrying on with our lives how we want to. From our viewpoint here in rather damp Oundle we can argue we have a choice. Many haven’t and this is where we are observing with growing horror how injustice is active in our society. This pandemic has stopped us, again it has arrested our activities and we have become incapacitated, sometimes by fear and also by lack of knowledge. If we are really fortunate we will not have been treated unjustly. I suspect the reality is that each of us will at some point have been at the sharp end of some kind of unjust comment or act. A comment that has been thoughtlessly thrown our way. Harm though has been done and we are wounded. If we have not received a hurt in this way, I also suspect a lot of us have encountered acts of unjust treatment and we have seen first hand how much it hurts, damages and can eat away into our very being to cause a legacy of pain. Equally we cannot, even begin to understand the simmering, and not even under the surface, unjustifiable prejudice directed to those of colour or of difference in culture and of being by so many of our brothers and sisters. Our viewpoint is of one that doesn’t always understand and that is a difficult place to be. In a very small way I and many others at Greenbelt a couple of years ago knew for a very brief window what it might have felt like to have been on the receiving end of prejudice and be arrested in our tracks.
Communion was to be Carnival. Caribbean Carnival, and Greenbelt being Greenbelt, we went for it. Communion was shared alongside the sound world of whistles, drum beats, loud rich voice and gospel and absolutely joyous singing. Feathers, ruffles, a kaleidoscope of vibrancy seemed to fill the air. However under the surface was a simmering need to share a story and a palpable ‘now it’s your turn to feel uncomfortable’. First hand accounts of racial abuse were heard, commentary from the Windrush narrative, segregation…we felt a collective awkwardness and knew that it shouldn’t be like that. That was the body blow. It was if we were being blown away by a rush of wind. As in the sermon Windrush took on a whole new meaning. We were now hurting amongst the hurt who were carrying a huge amount of pain and Jesus was amongst us that day. Everybody there was at Communion because we were all equal in God’s eyes, and that is so very evident in the gospels and Jesus’ teachings. We are equal, but society sometimes begs to think differently. We felt guilty and we didn’t know why we felt guilty. A collective guilt perhaps that we had ‘walked on the other-side’ historically and in our present day and had not stood next to those receiving injustice and been there to ‘love one another as ourselves’? A reality sank in. To say it changed me is quite a statement. I had felt for the first time that being seen as different meant that there was an expectation that I might think and behave in a certain way. It was a horrible realisation, I came away from Greenbelt with a different viewpoint and a lot of ruffled internal feathers. But it is how you move forward that is the game changer. We walked away from Greenbelt in 2018 with a different step and began to climb over the barriers that had been put in place by our own thinking, change was coming.
https://youtu.be/JJGxA9S0U6k Greenbelt Communion 2018
Forgiveness
“…yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your
sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us…” 2 Corinthians 7:9
But how do we walk towards forgiveness? The forgiver and a place of the forgiven?
Desmond Tutu put it so well in his book written alongside with his daughter:
“…Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy.”― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World
Forgiveness is a whole new thorny area for us to contend with right now. We are blaming left right and centre those who did this, those who thought that, those who are different. We blame ourselves I should have, I could have, I crossed over…Jesus is with us as we seek and is walking beside us as we wrestle with internal struggles, we are not alone in this.
Remember that book I was telling you about last week “The Way under our feet” by Graham B Usher, Bishop of Norwich? On page 123 in the chapter marked Praying I was reminded of the Jesus Prayer.
Lord, Jesus Christ. Son of God. Have mercy on me, a sinner.
It struck a chord. I've been walking with this for the past couple of days, it's a good prayer.
It’s actually stopped raining, the sun has come out and the thunder has stopped, for now. But as we listen to the thunder of unrest and those who have and are being treated unjustly, let us ask for help in recognising if we have had a part to play in injustice ourselves. I don’t think we are being honest with ourselves if we have not challenged a change to our way of thinking, however we step out of lockdown and into this brave new world of ours.
It is a debate I have not wanted to engage in. But then God so often leads us to enter areas with which we don't want to engage...to ignore that 'God nudge' is not something I want to risk. I ask in earnest of my Father to forgive me when my understanding is clouded by ignorance, and well, just to forgive me for ignoring, to open my eyes to what is going on in the community around me, to know how I might be open to the Spirit to work within to encounter change and challenge injustice. I also recognise this is a difficult subject to discuss and again I ask forgiveness when I get it wrong yet again. After all...
Lord, Jesus Christ. Son of God. Have mercy on me, a sinner.
I have attached the link to Celtic Morning Prayers from the Northumbrian Community and have received their blessing to be able to share this with you via my blog.
Earnestly I say, peace be with you friends. Caroline
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