Message #3893

[ecuworrier]

ooh loads of catching up to do!

start with here amidst a swirl of distraction ... yesterday what comes to mind..... out of my eye i catch a glimpse of a young woman and what i assume is a push chair my view is not good ... as i pass the church i notice her sitting on a bench outside .. and while i am completely caught up in the sustained expression on her face of this feels all too much .. i suddenly notice that it is not a pushchair but a wheel chair the young woman (maybe late twenties) is with a much older woman.... it is Holy Day the church is having an afternoon service they don't go in but sit on the bench outside the young woman in strain.... this is what Holy Day is for catching up with... relatives perhaps.... there too poor for what? they don't appear poverty stricken but there is something poor about their actions their demeanour ....to spend some time in the cold communicating with eachother difficult communications ... there is something startling about the expression of strain on the younger woman.... this is not what she woudl choose? and yet it is what she does... it is easier to speculate than to go up to them and say Jesus Loves You and leave Jesus to do the rest....

earlier that afternoon i had listened to some radio... it was good to hear a former bishop? talk of experience of grief so graphically of course the part that he moulds into is that of ..... where Jesus on the Cross says oh GOD oh GOD why have you forsaken me..... that moulding of the pathos of real life.. where the loss of a loved one renders one incapable of being one personally or socially.. even to the extent that the bank doesn't recognise one's signature... unable to want to be with people when they are there unable to cope with being alone when one is alone he talked of the loss of his wife....  how tough it is to be a 'cheerleader' when others are going through stuff how glib but how physically consuming grief is.... i don't understand why the psalm 22 gets so little attention here... before that programme... i sat through

R.S. Thomas verse play 'the minister' adding to my collection of  programmes about religious communities ... i did enjoy the language and the images of struggle of the everyday of the man appointed by GOD role of pastor in a community ... i loved the conclusions of the writer of the confusion religion has with foundations of GOD exhibited in Creation... i keep thinking about this passage in the Bible about Solomon who's first activity on receiving that promise of Wisdom from GOD is to learn all about animals and plants... nobody else is described in that way ...though perhaps Jesus spending time alone in the desert and his refering to plants and animals uin the way that He does... no the urban man Paul doesn't so neither shall we!.... but i have already seen the film Ordet see below... still it is a theme about complexity of what happens everytime we get some folks being experts .... RS Thomas's pastor is supposed to talk the stuff that GOD talks again and again till folks is ready to hear the truth....   so it is interesting to see the unfurling of man bedded in man's attentions and eroded in man's efforts and the insistent expression of rough nature knocking on doors bursting through windows relentless presence on the hills and valleys of Wales that that too may be saying something fundamental that it is here before us and carries on without us or regardless of us... something like that... it makes me think of ffald-y-brennan and a poem i once hear from the eisteddfford full of the rasping sounds of the welsh language gorgeous compelling all about a salmon in a stream and i suspect much more ... it reminds me of that moment of lostness in the wind and horizontal rain there standing with no visibility surrounded by frightened sheep and 3endless hussocks of tough grass and endless spread of water with uncertain footing ... something of the Holy Spirit took me to and back again that journey of figment of learning to trust to be guided... it is only recently in a conversation we were exploring something i hadn't trhought of like that though i could have... it was about trust .... trusting the 'group' trusting others..... trustin self... how i had to acknowledge that i trusted neither.... trusting GOD well it is where you make contact is it not? and stay connected... the place you no longer set up your flag pole and say this is an island this is my nation... does this sound risky? to take down the flag? well in real life well.... but to let in GOD ... my feeling is that in letting GOD in automatically this lowers the boundaries, loci of contact with others... and GOD is everywhere.... we are not always ready for that and i am not gonna make the excuses i hear others say that annoy me.... this is an adventure and one that everytime i go into .. yes i freak out but it is an adventure... so being lost on what was a marsh and relying on GOD was marvellous! the moment i trusted in the 'what had gone before' by man and beast i was sent flying! GOD is there in the exit GOD is there in the safe place... the safe place is not safe because it is what we recognise as such by our own recognition... it is where GOD is

gonna take a break again

GOD BLESS!

Peace and Love,