A Pet Hate

There are many things that I like and love about communal church worship but there is one thing that drives me mad - it's the amount of rubbish words that are spoken.  I'm not talking about the preaching but about the singing and congregational responses.  As St Paul said "So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and enquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?"

It seems to be a particular problem with modern worship songs where the lack of punctuation often results in people putting the breaks wherever they want and so making no sense of the words.

However my main gripe is with the way the Lord's Prayer is said:

Our Father who art in heaven.

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done.

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

and forgive us our sins.

as we forgive those who sin against us.

and lead us not into temptation.

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

For some reason everyone speeds up at the end and makes sense of it but what on earth do we mean by "on earth as it is in heaven." or, even worse, "as we forgive those who sin against us."

Please, the church has some wonderful hymns, songs and liturgies so let's try to at least use the words properly so that they make sense to a stranger ... and us.

On Moving Forward - Slowly

Yesterday I threw out most of my running gear.  This was not a deliberate attempt to take up a sedentary lifestyle but a recognition that A) most of it was no longer usable and B) that I was very unlikely to be able to use it again.

For a few years during my 30s I was a keen runner, getting up early each weekday to run before breakfast and running 10 miles home from work one day and 10 miles back the next.  Then it all changed.  In 1995 I was training for my fourth marathon when I went in a month from doing 16 mile runs to hardly being able to walk up a flight of stairs.  Slowly the reasons became apparent, my asthma was out of control and I had acid reflux (later shown to be caused by stomach ulcers) but I didn't get better.  I was plague by chest infections and every time I tried to get back to running I would fall ill with yet another infection.  Eventually, after about 12 years, I was diagnosed with bronchiectasis (dead areas of lung) and put on medication to keep it under control and although this has improved my health it hasn't been enough for me to go back to running.

The first few years after I stopped running were the worst as I thought I'd soon be able to start running again and each time I went for a run and then fell ill was like a hammer blow.  At this time I couldn't bring myself to clear out my running gear as it seemed like an admission of defeat.  So I said I'd leave it for 10 years, then 12 and then 15 but each time I couldn't bring myself to touch it as it felt too painful.  Now, 17 years on, it felt right and I don't have any regrets about what I've done.

Now is the right time because I have finally accepted that my running days are over as my lungs just won't take the stress.  Of course I could have got rid of it ages ago but I would always have wondered about whether I could have got running again.

When life serves up disappointment it is easy to tell yourself to get over it and to move on but that isn't always the right thing to do.  Sometimes you have to let the pain and disappointment run their course until one day you realise it no longer matters and you can get on with the rest of your life.

Living With Depression 2

After my last post someone pointed out that the Mersey Ferry analogy made it sound easy to manage depression.  If that was the case I'm sorry because that was never my intention; I was just trying to share something that I have found helpful but far from a cure.  As I said at the time I have been only partly successful in using this advice as while I notice if my mood is artificially high I don't notice when it starts to slide downwards.  My motivation for writing the post was that I realised that I had been on a downward path for some months but hadn't noticed it until it started to become a problem.  As I battled with how I had let things slip so easily I wrote this:

The Fall

The way ahead look clear

The sun was bright

The path was firm

No need to change direction

Then the clouds rolled in

But still the path was firm

No need to change direction

Then the rain rolled in

But still the path was firm if slippery

No need to change direction

Then the mist rolled in

But still the path was firm if slippery

No need to change direction

Night came

The way ahead was hidden

But the path was firm under my feet

I was sure I’d find the way

Stumbling forward

I didn’t notice

I’d wandered off the path

I didn’t notice the gentle slope

Beneath my feet

I didn’t notice the slope get steeper

Until it was too late

And I fell

And as I looked up

I thought

“How did I get here?”

Living With Depression

As far as I can tell I have been living with depression for around 40 years but it is only in the last couple that I have been receiving help and treatment; it took a complete breakdown to get me to that point.

One of the misunderstandings about depression is that it is all about feeling down and miserable but you can be like that without depression.  Depression is where you don't control your emotions but they control you so you swing between highs and lows without being in control.

The most useful advice I have received is this:

For those of you who don't know this is the Mersey ferry which crosses the river Mersey between Liverpool and the Wirral.  What is important about the ferry is that the river is tidal which makes it harder to steer the ship directly from one side to the other.

Now what, I hear you say, has this got to do with depression.  The answer is in the ebb and flow of the tide over which the ferry has no control.  If the tide is flowing in the ferry has to be steered downstream to arrive at the right place and if the tide is flowing out the ferry has to steer upstream.  It is the same with depression if  it is pushing your mood high you have to steer it back down and if it is pushing you down you have to steer it back up.

Now I'm not saying I've mastered this because so far all I am able to spot when I'm getting too 'high' and have been able to bring myself back to an even keel. (Too high is dangerous because it leads to a crash.)  So far I'm not very good at noticing the much slower signs that lead to a 'down' but I'm learning.

GOD THE FATHER

Do you ever cringe at a word or phrase in church? I know I do; I cringe at the start of the Lord’s Prayer when we say “Our Father.”

I seriously wish Jesus had said something like “our eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent Godhead” because that removes God from a messy family relationship.  Not all Christians have an easy relationship with their earthly fathers and within the church universal there are Christians who have been abused by their fathers, abandoned by their fathers or rejected by their fathers.  How do those, my brothers and sisters in Christ, feel about saying “Our Father.”? What picture does it bring up for them?

If we want to understand what Jesus meant we must understand what being a father meant in first centaury Palestine; in particular what they thought the biological relationship between a father and child.  While they would have expected a father to provide and care for his children (although, as I pointed out above, this doesn’t always happen) they would also have regarded the children as a continuation of the father.  They believed the father placed the seed in his wife and the child grew from that with no biological input from the mother!  Now this seems crazy to us today with our understanding of biology and genetics but it is part of the picture of fatherhood that would have been in the minds of Jesus’ listeners (and probably Jesus himself.)

When we look at it this way we find “Our Father” not only confirming a God who cares and provides for us but also a God who loves us so much He made us in His image!  Made us to be creative as He is creative and to be loving as He is Love.

So next time you say the Lord’s Prayer take a quick moment to reflect on the God who loves you so much He made you in His image.

Suffering 2

For a while I have been completely without an idea to write a poem (prayer/mediation may be more accurate) so when an idea popped into my head at the weekend I was pleased until I realised that I had already written that poem and even blogged it! (http://brainatthedoor.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/suffering.html)

However after a while I realised I had moved on and although the initial idea was the same there was more to say.  In this I have started with my complaint to God but moved on to the things I have learnt over the last year - I'm not saying God "spoke these words" to me but this is what I now understand; next year it could be different again.

PAIN 2

Why does it still hurt?

Over a year has past,

Life has gone on,

Things have got better.

So why does it still hurt?

Time has taken the edge,

Dulled the blow

That Breaks the heart.

So why does it still hurt?

Why, below the ebb and flow of life

Does pain still lurk?

Waiting to catch you off guard?

A photo

A person

A memory

That opens the depths

And lets the pain flood out.

With the Psalmist I cry

“How Long.”

How long must I carry this pain?

How often must I fight my anger?

How long will I wait to find peace?

“My child, You will carry this pain

Until the world finds peace.

Not an absence of war

But a peace between all people.

My Peace

That passes understanding.

Until that great and glorious day

You will carry that pain.

And it will give you wisdom.

Wisdom not to hurt others.

Wisdom to protect others from pain.

Wisdom to stand with the hurt and downtrodden.

Do not despair

For you are not on your own.

I have already carried your pain

And hung it on a cross

So that I can be with you

Each painful step of the way.”

FALLEN HEROES

I have been very lucky as the one time I have met and talked to one of my sporting heroes I found a charming modest man; Gareth Edwards.  The Welsh and British Lions scrum-half was probably the greatest rugby player of all time but he told me he was lucky to get in the Welsh team as he was only called up for Wales when his predecessor was injured.

Today some fairly damming evidence has been made public that Lance Armstrong, the 7 times Tour de France winner, was using illegal drugs to enhance not only his performance but also that of his team mates.  He is likely to be stripped of his titles and the inspiring story of the man who came back from cancer to be the greatest ever Tour de France cyclist becomes one of a common cheat.   However life isn’t that simple because this is the same Lance Armstrong who founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation which has raised more than $470 million to support, inspire and empower people affected by cancer.  On the one hand he is a man so driven to win that he will risk his and others’ health to achieve his goals and on the other we have a man who is responsible for raising hundreds of millions of dollars to help other cancer suffers.

As I write this the story all over the media here in the UK is about the late Sir Jimmy Savile being a serial sex predator; an article on the BBC News site ends: “It said the alleged victims were mainly girls who were aged between 13 and 16 at the time, and the allegations spanned four decades.”  What the truth of this may never fully be known as he isn’t alive to defend himself (unlike Lance Armstrong who has decided to not defend himself) and so only one side of the story is being told.  However, this is the same Jimmy Savile who was knighted "for charitable services" – the small matter of raising some £40 million for charity and giving his time to work as a volunteer hospital porter.

Should this surprise us that men and women who are capable of so much good are also capable of falling for temptation in such a big way?  It doesn’t surprise me because, as a Christian, I believe we are all this jumble of good and bad.  On the one hand we are made in the image of God and capable of much good but on the other we are fallen people living in a fallen world who can easily fall into temptation.  It is said the higher you climb, the harder you fall so perhaps those who push themselves to the top face greater temptation than those of us who don’t.

For me the Christian response is to say “there but for the grace of God go I” and to not join in the public demonisation of those who don’t live up to our expectations.  That in no way means I am condoning the alleged actions of Lance Armstrong and Jimmy Savile but I would like to balance that with the great works which they have done.