Evening prayers for justice and peace

I wandered around the house in a rather desultory attempt to think about things I might need in Paris and ended up putting a mainly rather pretentious choice of books into my case - and also managed to leave behind the detective fiction book which might at least have had a chance of actually getting read!
Almost at the last minute I took this small book down from the shelves in my office in Ferney and this evening I have prayed in my hotel room according to the Monday evening order of prayer.
Each Day and Each Night by J. Philip Newell offers simple orders of prayer for the morning and evening of each day of the week. Each day has a theme and Monday's is justice and peace - you can get a taster here. It also has a lectionary of Bible readings for each day. Each day's morning and evening prayer begins with verses from the wonderful Psalm 139.
I know that in moving to Paris the one thing I shall miss most from my previous job is praying with others in the chapel on an almost daily basis. So I know that I need to find simple ways of encouraging myself in the discipline of prayer. I'm glad at the intuition that simply made me slip this into my bag, it spoke to me in all sorts of ways tonight to be praying for justice and peace, two of the key areas of work underpinning much of what the WCC does. It helped me look back to the Peace convocation this year and forwards to the WCC's assembly "God of life, lead us to justice and peace". It has been such a blessing to be able to pray with others so often in a very beautiful place, now I shall have to try and find different ways to frame my days with prayer. Much of what I feel at the moment has to do with a sense of very deep loss but also of profound thankfulness. The reflective Celtic but also quite Ignatian path through a simple office of prayer that Philip Newell sets out certainly helped me tonight to name that and stay with it a while. I'm sure the morning and evenign prayers will help me through these first few weeks of a very new existence.
It is going to be fun but it is also going to be chaotic and hard work at times. I will need discipline to make up in part for being less involved in preparing and leading public worship.

The opening prayer begins:
...O Christ of the lost
and betrayed
come close to me this night
that I maycome close to you

The closing prayer ends:
Who keeps watch
over us this night?
Who but the Christ of love.

Beauty, surprises and the generous liturgy of friendship and prayer ...

It had not been easy to find a date to go out for a drink together, and I was quite surprised that I was expected at the ecumenical centre reception for 17.00, I even got an sms reminder. Wow we must be having some serious fun ahead of us starting this early. In honour of a night on the town I even put on some mascara - with hindsight this was perhaps not a good idea!
I met with Maike and she took me not out to the bar but into the chapel - that place of course for the real gluttons and wine bibbers! In the side chapel were quite a number of my colleagues gathered very quietly and Maike explained that they simply wanted to say thank you by organising Holden Evening Prayer in such a way that all I had to do was to be there.
I was very moved - hence the problems with the recently applied mascara and the depserate search for a hankie in my bag (I've learnt from facebook they had even discussed this eventuality before my arriving - this of course is what friends are for).
A group of my friends had been preparing for a long time, rehearsing the piano and flute and solo parts since August, tonight was the first time they sang and played together. It was a very beautiful moment, and the liturgy should be beautiful but not perfect. I thought back to Stephen and Sara Padre, Itonde Kakoma, Luke Smetters, Colin Williams, Annie Osbourne, Michael Wallace and many others who have introduced and sung Holden with us since 2004. It is so good to know that the singing will go on, especially as more musicians know the parts. It reminded me of all of those times when I have come to the end of very busy days in the office and felt that perhaps the most important thing I had done was pray with others.
Tonight was truly "leitourgia" - the work and praise of the people, many were involved in reading the wonderful selection of Bible verses chosen by Ruthann, in the music, in the preparation. I know how much coordination that takes so I felt very blessed.
The liturgy is the space that frames our grief, joy, distress and doubt. This was the space where I could finally allow some tears to fall in public as I grieve at leaving a job I love, recognising my failures, seeing too some achievements and simply accepting that moving on is painful at this time. Tonight my tears were for the first time about leaving these wonderful people and this wonderful space, rather than tears about that which is broken in the present and the past. No more struggling is needed. Singing and praying to God held all of us in that moment together in love.
This was the second time this year I have received a sign of pure grace. It is quite hard to receive such creative, simple generosity. But I realised that grace has that capacity to transform and heal. The thirty minutes of tonight's service was a special gift to me, nourishing me with joy despite the tears.
Thank you all very, very much.
And so to Paris where I hope to occasionally say the Beatitudes with others at midday according to the tradition of les veilleurs.
But for now simply gratitude.

It is pointless yet it is essential - it is all we can do - we prayed

At lunchtime today we did it.
There was some chatter as we gathered in the chapel and then the gong began to sound and our conversation dimmed.
We came together to pray and it became quiet.
We read and prayed terrible words from the book of Lamentations and from Jonah and Psalm 46 and Mark's gospel.
And yet there was still numbness, the images and scale of the devastation haunt us, too much to comprehend, too much to bear ... are we supposed to make sense of this?
And so we offer words and silence, we sing and light small candles ... and we know it is not enough, how could it ever be.
As the candles had been lit and many were leaving as the gong finished sounding at the end, a colleague remained standing and began singing his prayer aloud in Greek. I only really understood the word "tsunami" in what he sang and yet his prayer was deeply meaningful and profoundly moving to me. Often when I pray in my own language I will understand less than than even one word.
So we left the chapel, the uncomfortable lamentations and sense of powerlessness, and we moved back to our conversations, concerns and work
Of course it is pointless to pray. Of course it is essential to pray.
Together we offer our powerlessness in words and silence and trust that God in all his vulnerability may hear such prayers as ours.

Prayers for the Peoples

Wednesday 16 March 2011,

Remembering Japan, Libya, Bahrain and the world

The gong sounds

From Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

Lord, hear my voice: Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

Silence

How lonely sits the city

that once was full of people!

How like a widow she has become,

she that was great among the nations!

She that was a princess among the provinces

has become a vassal. (Lamentations 1:1)

Song: 156 “O Lord, hear my prayer”

Blessed is our God now and for ever and unto the ages of ages.

Amen

A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children;

she refuses to be comforted for her children,

because they are no more. (Jer 31:15)

Silence

For these things I weep;

my eyes flow with tears;

for a comforter is far from me,

one to revive my courage;

my children are desolate,

for the enemy has prevailed. (Lamentations 1:16)

Song: 156 “Gott, hör mein Gebet”

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God, saying,

I called to the Lord out of my distress and he answered me;

out of the belly of destruction I cried, and you heard my voice.

You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me;

all your waves and your billows passed over me.

Then I said, I am driven away from your sight!

The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me;

weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains.

I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever;

yet you brought me up from the Pit, O Lord my God.

As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord,

and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.

Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty.

But I will bring my prayers before you in thanksgiving:

Deliverance belongs to the Lord.

(From Jonah 2)

Silence

My eyes are spent with weeping;

my stomach churns;

my bile is poured out on the ground

because of the destruction of my people,

because infants and babes faint

in the streets of the city. (Lamentations 2:11)

Song: 156 “Entends ma prière”

Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately,

“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign?”

“Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;

There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.

This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

"But about that day and hour, no one knows,

neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

"Beware. Keep alert. For you do not know when the time will come."

(From Mark 13: 3-4,6,8,32-33)

Remember this, O Lord,

Remember this, O Lord,

Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame.

Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame.

Rise up, O God.

Rise up, O God.

Silence

They cry to their mothers,

“Where is bread and wine?”

as they faint like the wounded

in the streets of the city,

as their life is poured out

on their mothers’ bosom.

(Lamentations 2:12)

Sing: 156 “O Lord, hear my prayer”

Prayers for people affected by the Japanese tragedy

Lord God of mercy and compassion:

Hear our prayer of incomprehension and confession.

The crust of your fragile world needs to split and shift if it is to last from generation to generation.

We confess we find disaster hard to understand and accept.

Immense waves sweep towns to dust and rubble.

We confess that the human tragedy is hard for us to bear.

Nuclear pollution threatens.

We confess our thoughtless use of energy.

Silence

Lord God of mercy and compassion:

Hear our prayer of incomprehension and confession.

Hear us, O Lord, as we join in prayer for all those caught up in the past week’s events in Japan.

Grant them the time and energy to mourn...

Grant them healing...

Grant them hope...

Grant them the courage to rebuild their lives...

Grant them, and us, the determination to reach out to one another in love.

Prayers for the people of Libya, Bahrain and all regions of the earth

Lord God of mercy and compassion:

Hear our prayer of incomprehension and confession.

Millions of people search and toil for the barest minimum to survive.

We confess that it is easier to think that we are not part of the solution.

Violence is chosen when people demand change and democracy.

We confess that our desire for peace is not matched by our peacemaking.

Silence

We pray for all those caught up in the turmoil of North Africa and the Middle East.

May your will be done on earth, O Lord, and your kingdom come in righteousness...

May justice and peace be revealed in the daily lives of nations and peoples...

And may the voice of the Prince of Peace be heard in every land.

Prayers for the enemy (from the Eastern Orthodox tradition)

O Christ, Our God, who prayed for those who crucified You,

and asked us, your servants, to pray for our enemies;

forgive those who hate and oppress us and, through Your Grace and love for humanity,

change their lives from doing wrong and wickedness

to love for their neighbours and life filled with goodness:

that none of them may perish because of us but rather they and we together

be saved through penitence; we pray You, Lord, hear us and have mercy.

Silence

We are longing for the day when the prophecy of Micah will come true, when "they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."

The Lord’s Prayer (in our various languages)

Affirmation

The cross is the way of the lost.

The cross is the staff of the lame.

The cross is the guide of the blind.

The cross is the strength of the weak.

The cross is the hope of the hopeless.

The cross is the freedom of the slaves.

The cross is the water of the seeds.

The cross is the consolation of the bonded labourers.

The cross is the source of those who seek water.

The cross is the cloth of the naked.

The cross is the healing of the broken.

The cross is the peace of the church.

(St. Yared, Ethiopia)

The gong sounds

You are invited to leave the chapel in silence…

Photos by Nikos Kosmidis

And this is the prayer that was sung in Greek

My singing was a part of the Trisagion Prayers for the Departed we offer in the Orthodox Tradition in such occasions. I just felt the need to say some words of prayer for their souls. Here is the English translation of what you heard:
“Among the spirits of the righteous made perfect, give rest, O Savior, to the soul of Your servants. Preserve them in a life of blessedness which is from You, O Lover of mankind.
Within Your peace, O Lord, where all Your saints repose, give rest also to the souls of Your servants, for You alone are immortal.
Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You are our God who descended into Hades and loosened the bonds of those who were in chains. Grant rest also, O Savior, to the souls of Your servants.”

Bitter sweet with Seven Weeks for Water

This week's Seven Weeks for Water has just been posted and includes a trailer from the documentary film "Sweet Crude" by Sandy Cioffi. The focus is water and oil, specifically in relation to the Niger Delta.

Rev. Canon Dr. Ezekiel Olusegun Babatunde, from Immanuel College of Theology and director of the Institute of Church and Society of the Christian Council of Nigeria, has written this week's biblical reflection on Transforming the bitter water waters of Marah. Remembering the Exodus story of Moses making the bitter water sweet, Babatunde looks at the desperate need for transformation in the Niger Delta where oil spills are common place and water is turned bitter with pollution. Here's a taster:

Today, in the Niger Delta area people are also thirsty, searching for clean water in order to survive, similar to the Israelites in Exodus. Their situation is “bitter” – despite an abundance of water around them, they have no water to drink. Searching for clean and drinkable water is a herculean task particularly for women and children who often walk more than three kilometers to get water for their families. Like many other blessed nations situated in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria has abundant natural resources, particularly oil, which has made it attractive to multinationals scrambling for its resources. Three decades of oil exploitation have caused ecological devastation in the region. Water provided by various rivers in the area has been polluted, making it undrinkable. ... The Niger delta seems to be indeed a place of bitterness. Yet its inhabitants have not lost their hope and faith. ... The Nigerian people need such leaders, leaders who can liberate them, who can bring justice to the innocent men, women and children who have been mistreated, and to those to whom access to good drinkable water and a good life have been denied. Leaders who will, like Moses, not only purify water but heal the people and restore their trust.

You can find further background to the situation in the Niger Delta here and an article on the dilemma of restorative justice in that situation.
Meanwhile to be part of transforming bitterness to sweetness you can join the oil fast, or sign Operation Noah’s oil resolution asking for the world’s biggest oil producers Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum to be removed from the Stoxx Europe Christian Index. You can also pray for "Just Water" and use the EWN-WSCF prayer resource “Just Water” for the Universal Day of Prayer for Students (21 March) and World Water Day (22 March) to pray for justice and peace for all people.It's just one week away.

Photo: Daniel Zimmel

A celtic blessing ...

God be with you in every pass
Jesus be with you on every hill
Spirit be with you on every stream
Headland and ridge and lawn;
Each sea and land, each moor and meadow,
Each lying down, each rising up,
On the trough of the waves, on the crest of the billows -
Each step of the journey you go

Another passing fragmentary thought ...

Today we sang Holden Evening Prayer and it was like coming home. I chose some poems on silence by Thomas Merton and R.S. Thomas to accompany the service. There was simple pleasure at gathering and singing, keeping quiet and listening together.

At morning and at evening prayer today I read from Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy a good friend gave me yesterday. I had never come across his writing before and reading his 50 psalms has really been blowing me away to say the least. Very powerful.

But now looking back on my day and given all my recent pondering on fragments, I wonder whether my praying and practice of spirituality are not in some ways mere fragments of longing, for God and for myself. Does that make sense?

Anyway here is one of Leonard Cohen's Psalms (rendered into slightly more inclusive language):

Blessed are you who has given each person a shield of loneliness so that they cannot forget you. You are teh truth of loneliness, and only your name addresses it. Strengthen my loneliness that I may be healed in your name, which is beyond all consolations that are uttered on this earth. Only in your name can I stand in the rush of time, only when this loneliness is yours can I lift my sins toward your mercy.

World YWCA and YMCA week of prayer - women creating a safer world

This week is the World YWCA and YMCA's week of prayer. People from the two organisaitons will lead prayers this Monday in the Ecumenical Centre.

Each day of the week there are meditations on the theme of women creating a safe world and there's a good liturgy for groups to participate in. The booklet with the thematic material also contains daily Bible readings for the whole of the year ahead to be shared with the wide constituency of the YW and YM. Two organisations doing tremendous work across the world.

You can find the material online here and I should of course declare an interest as I wrote the daily meditaions and had good fun doing so. I shall be reposting some of the material here as the week progresses. Meanwhile I look forward to praying with all working for change so as to create a safer world for women and girls, a safer world for all.

Paint, pray, sleep ...

So I admit I am reading "Eat Pray Love" at the moment - and surprising myself by finding it very satisfying - (oh I do sound horribly sniffy) - it's a good read and full of insight.

Meanwhile here are some traces of my time in Dublin at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. I can't really photo the great conversations I had there but I'm pleased I took my paintbox out for an hour or so. Good for the soul.

Rowan Williams on perceiving and living unity

One of the reasons I buy books is that then I am allowed to scribble in them and go back to my scribblings.
At the end of Rowan Williams Silence and Honey Cakes there is a section of questiosn and answers that he took from the original audience for the lectures, The World Community for Christian Meditation. What follows below is part of his response to a question on "Can the institutional church teach the contemplative path?" Reading it I was reminded of some of the reflections by both Cardinal Walter Kasper and Bishop Kalistos Ware on spiritual ecumenism and an ecumenism of spirituality which we were privileged to listen to when they came to the ecumenical centre a few years ago.
Anyway the insights Williams offers here are a challenge for anyone working for the church as institution but then they come from someone who very much also works for the church as institution. Some more from the same question and answer session about the challenges of that role as Williams sees them in a later post.

"Nearly all Christians have inherited a functional idea of what the local Christian community is for: it gathers us for sacramental worship (with the sacraments seen rather as routine duties). But i think we need to break free a bit, recognizing that, in addition to the sacraments we meet for other kinds of togetherness, in study and prayer - which means challenging any model based on Sunday patterns alone.
Another thing harder to express, is that those of us who have the function to do so need to go on asking where the unity of the church lies and in what that unity consists. I believe it is a unity which exists fundamentally in a shared gazing towards Christ and through Christ looking into the mystery of the Father (which is what the sacraments celebrate and make possible). If we believe our unity comes from that looking together into a mystery, occasionally nudging each other to say, "look at that!", we can perhaps recognise that the unity we enjoy is not first and foremost an institutional matter; it is the common direction in which we strive to look. Of course we must be willing to nudge each other, as I put it, and tell each other what we're seeing. I think if we began with something a bit more like that, we'd see more space in the church for the contemplative dimension. If there aren't enough people looking into the mystery, unity comes to be seen in functional terms - meeting for events, discharging our obligations - and we miss the vital and living element of unity." p.110

The greatest dignity is that of belonging to the community of the beloved disciples of Jesus Christ - a reading at morning prayer

Morning prayer this week is being led by Theodore Gill. On Tuesday he read this for us as we reflected on 1 John 1. You can find the order of service for the prayers here. These were powerful words to hear early in the morning ...

Conclusion of Raymond E. Brown’s
The Community of the Beloved Disciple
(Paulist Press, New York, 1979, p.163-4):

…At various times I have referred to the theology of the Fourth Gospel as challengingly different, volatile, dangerous, and as the most adventuresome in the New Testament… Over the centuries John’s Gospel has provided the seedbed for many exotic forms of individualistic pietism and quietism (as well as the inspiration for some of the most profound mysticism). Johannine christology has nurtured a widespread unconscious monophysitism, popular even today, in which Jesus is not really like us in everything except sin, but omniscient, unable to suffer or to be tempted, foreseeing the whole future. (At the same time, Johannine christology has been the mainstay of the great orthodox faith of Nicaea.)

The ultimate check upon what Kysar calls the “maverick Gospel” has been the church’s hermeneutical decision to place it in the same canon as Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Gospels which implicitly advocate the side opposite to many Johannine positions. This means that the Great Church, “the church catholic” of Ignatian language, whether consciously or unconsciously, has chosen to live with tension. It has chosen not a Jesus who is either God or man but both; it has chosen not a Jesus who is either virginally conceived as God’s Son or pre-existent as God’s Son but both; not either a Spirit who is given to an authoritative teaching magisterium or the Paraclete-teacher who is given to each Christian but both; not a Peter or a Beloved Disciple but both. Tension is not easily accepted in ordinary life, and we usually try to resolve it. So too in church history – but because of the church decision about the canon, attempts at simple resolutions of these theological tensions into a static position on one side or the other are unfaithful to the whole New Testament.

This means that a church such as my own, the Roman Catholic, with its great stress on authority and structure, has in the Johannine writings an inbuilt conscience against the abuses of authoritarianism. (So also the “free” churches have in the Pastorals an inbuilt warning against the abuses of the Spirit and in 1 John a warning against the divisions to which a lack of structural authority leads.) Like one branch of the Johannine community, we Roman Catholics have come to appreciate that Peter’s pastoral role is truly intended by the risen Lord, but the presence in our Scriptures of a disciple whom Jesus loved more than he loved Peter is an eloquent commentary on the relative value of the church office. The authoritative voice is necessary because a task is to be done and unity is to be preserved, but the scale of power in various offices is not necessarily the scale of Jesus’ esteem and love. In this day when Catholics quarrel about how much respective authority pope, bishop, priest, and lay person should have, and when Christians quarrel about whether a woman should be an ordained minister of the eucharist, John’s voice cries out its warning. The greatest dignity to be striven for is neither papal, episcopal, nor priestly; the greatest dignity is that of belonging to the community of the beloved disciples of Jesus Christ.

Whatever ... Ah well ... and any other definitions of prayer

Yesterday morning I really enjoyed prayer for the day by Martyn Percy.
He began by talking about Anne Lamott's description of morning prayer: "whatever" and evening prayer "ah well".
Towards the end he said something along the lines of prayer doesn't change things but it changes the way we face things.
Perhaps that's why I keep on trying it.
Anyway, well worth a listen if you've got two minutes to spare. Here.

65 gong rings for peace ...

Our service for Hiroshima day began and ended with 65 soundings of the gong for the 65th anniversary of the first atom bomb being used. The reverberating sound was impressive. You can find the liturgy and other material we used here. It was good to have people from within and outside the Ecumenical Centre.

Passing thoughts on God making it pretty difficult to understand what's going on

to others I speak in parables, so that “looking they may not perceive,
and listening they may not understand.” (Luke 8:10)

In chapel this morning we read part of Luke chapter 8 and I spent quite some time in our moment of silence thinking about Mary Magdelene and the women who followed Jesus and the disciples and "who provided for them out of their resources". So much for our ideas about ancient societiesand women's role in them, the women following Jesus obviously had access to money and know how and knew how to make provision for the whole group. Interesting.

But the verse I read several times is the one at the top of this post - Jesus has been asked by the disciples for the meaning of the parable of the sower, he tells them that they have been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven and then he offers this pretty gnomic utterance. John Muddiman suggests that this means that Jesus used the parables to create discernment in some but to harden the heart of others.

I suppose in some ways it just throws me back to ambiguity, God wanting to be ambiguous, to not be fully understood even? Perhaps it could almost be about Jesus not pinning down or reducing interpretation to one single way of seeing things ... or perhaps that's just me pushing my own line!
Anyway it gave me more than pause for thought this morning and I'm glad I've revisited the verse at the end of the day.

The Parable of the Sower Explained

Nothing can separate us from the love of God - solidarity in depression

A good friend phoned me on my mobile, she's never phoned me before, I didn't recognise the number but as soon as I heard her voice I knew she was getting in touch to offer consolation. I have been crying in recent days, feeling sad and as if the future has drifted out of my grasp. I'm normally rather noisy and upbeat, I suppose people get worried when this British woman can't control her tears.
My friend is a wiser woman than I am, she listened to my as usual incoherent pain and then warned me she was going to be unfair, "this is mean what I'm going to say you know, but really Jane, nobody has died and you know even if they had we believe that death will not conquer or have the last word."
My friend did not offer this tritely, I know her story and the death and loss she continues to bear. But she offered it out of deep compassion, her way of calling me back to life. It reminded me of the words I have read next to countless graves:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-38

Meanwhile as I return to blogging and reading I also came across this prayer on Steve Taylor's blog and found it quietly inspiring and reassuring.

Father God,
it is hard to hope each morning,
to look forward to new treasures and mercies,
discovered when we are alive to your presence in all that we encounter.

Open our minds to the endless possibilities of life and power and thought.
Help us to meet you in our everyday life, in our anxieties and difficulties,
for you are there with us in our pain and sorrow.

Lift us from despair to new hope. Restore and renew us each returning day,
so that we may find joy in our journey with you.

Amen

A prayer from the Mozarabic Sacramentary (10th century) (Hat tip)

It was just a tweet ... but it made me think

So far I've written over 600 tweets for this Uniting General Council but one from near the beginning still sticks with me - as I don't know how to search the tweets so I can't actually find the tweet any longer - but it went something like this:
"Zimbabwe: theology faculty meeting 15 minutes spent on theology; the rest of the time is spent on survival issues."

Then I heard later in the week about a student from Zimbabwe whose visa to the USA was refused for the Global Institute of theology, supposedly because he didn't have enough money in his bank account.

I realised how privileged I am. It is so easy as an (albeit humble) church bureaucrat to get blasé about international meetings, to not always realize what a fabulous and unique opportunity each one of them represents, to get worn out by work, to sometimes even get cynical. Then typing 140 keystrokes for a twitter update brings me back down to earth with a bump and that bumpy feeling has remained much of the week as we look in the plenary hall at the "remember the 73" poster at the front.

Earlier in the week I put on my personal blog a sentence from John O'Donohue
"The duty of privilege is absolute intregity"

I know that I bear the duty of privilege yet I am very aware that I am a long way away from that absolute integrity ...
All that remains is to pray and ask for God's grace, it's not the answer to everything but it might be the beginning.

It was just a tweet ... but it made me think is a cross post from World Communion of Reformed Churches blog where I've been writing some bits and pieces over the past week.
Photo by Erick Coll from Cuba - more to be found here.

Laying down stones which are younger than God

One of the things about the worship at Edinburgh 20110 I've particularly appreciated so far has been the blending of bagpipes and drums to call people to worship and to welcome people from around the world to the conference. It's been a great use of the external spaces and a wonderful way of blending cultures.
I've also appreciated the way that there has been sensitivity to language on the part of those leading worship and the way in which sermons have been allowed and talking and walking with the biblical themes has been encouraged. It's a blend of styles that may not work for everyone but which I've appreciated so far.
So yesterday morning stones which folk had brought from around the world were handed out to us and we held them and lay them down on the Celtic cross made out of cloth on the floor of the inside worship space. Blending the outside and inside spaces for teh worship has also worked well - mainly because the Scottish weather has been treating us with sunshine and mild weather.

Here's part of the opening liturgy, following bagpipes and the singing of Praise tot eh Lord the Almighty in four languages.

What I hold in my hand
is older than me ...
and older

What I hold in my hand is older than my name, my language, my culture ...
and older

It is as old a s the soil
as old as the sea ...
and older

It is as old as the earth
but younger than God

An iconographer's prayer - God as the artist of my life

As a Reformed Christian I come of course from an iconoclastic tradition so it has been interesting to reflect on the meaning of icons and art, to find myself challenged by and "chosen by" the artwork on display in the chapel. The artists have put up prayers with the icons they are displaying and the one I've translated here is the iconographer's prayer - it spoke to the iconoclast that I am. I particularly like the idea of God being the artist of my life.

Lord,
Your Spirit breathes where beauty is created
Come to my aid
In my prayer let me become an icon which reflects your being
Guide my spirit
Inspire my movements
Enlighten my looking
Put your word onto my lips
For you my life will then become a work of art, a sacred work.
May those who look at me be able to recognize you.
Blessed are you Lord for having made me as your brush;
You who are the artist of my life.

(Translated from the French)

Food for thought and food for life on International Women's Day

Our liturgy for international women's day this morning focused on daily bread and included recipes from the LWF's splendid Food for Life cookbook.
It was fun to have recipes as part of the liturgy, I wouldn't quite say that it had our mouths watering but it certainly gave our praying a more sensual quality, the prosaic words conjured up smells and flavours as well as the healing qualities of some food.
Fulata Mbano Moyo gave a very personal reflection entitled: Desperation created by systems of inequality as enemy to women’s dignity.
She spoke of her own experience losing and mourning her husband over a decade ago to look at how sytems of economic injustice and privation mean that when tragedy strikes it can often be the double tragedy for women of the loss of a loved-one and the loss of their livelihood. speaking of her own desperation she looked at the stories of two deperate women in the Bible. In 2Kings 4 the desperate widow in advised by Elisha to fill her own and her neighbours empty vessels with oil thus preventing the sale of her children into slavery. In Matthew 15 the Canaanite woman is desperate for her daughter, willing to humiliate herself like a puppy and be content even with mere crumbs from the master's table.

If you love somebody and that somebody is in ill-health, you are more prone to being desperate for the restoration of their health. The woman we meet in Matthew 15: 21-28, loved her daughter deeply and desperately sought her restoration to health –“rescue from the torment of the demon”. She would try anything that would bring that restoration. The question of dignity and respect was not a priority at this point. Observance of the rules for example keeping away from other ethnic groups as a “Canaanite” (a derogatory term) was not an option for her. If being compared to a dog ( an insult) would bring healing to her daughter –“even dogs eat crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Despite her own desperation, she still strategically challenged Jesus' own human bias and insensitivity – and he said “woman great is your faith”.

As we prayed for women and men throughout the world, as we sang John Bell's amazing hymn "there is a line of women, extending back to Eve" in celebration of biblical women, as we shared the blessing by holding out one hand upwards and the other downwards, we "went out with songs of resurrection" ... with much food for thought. And in the main lobby the men were serving coffee and juice and croissants, real food, real breakfast greeted us. Food for life.

There is a line of women, extending back to Eve
Whose role in shaping history God only could conceive
And though, through endless ages, their witness was repressed
God valued and encouraged then through whom the world was blessed.

Angels and demons - a brief meditation for Ash Wednesday by Manoj Kurian

At morning prayer for Ash Wedenesday we listened to the reading of Christ's baptism and temptation from Mark's gospel. Afterwards Theodore Gill read a large part of the reflection from the Guardian's comment is free on Orthodox Lent by Aaron Taylor which I mentioned over the weekend- noting in particular the contrast between the idea of Clean Monday in the Eastern tradition and Ash Wednesday in the Western tradition. We also reflected on the contrast in the text between water and wilderness, angels and demons, bright sadness and much more besides.
Morning prayer outline can be found here.

Later in the day we received a wonderful email from Manoj Kurian with this great prayer-poem which we then read aloud at Holden Evening Prayer. It's great when the morning liturgy becomes part of the evening leitourgia and things feed into and out of each other.

Angels, Demons...

The Devil, the Holy Spirit...

Clean Monday, Ash Wednesday...

Contradictions of the world...

Conflicts we carry...

Always room for improvement..

Always room for repentance..

Always room for forgiveness...

Always room for redemption.

Manoj Kurian copyright (c) WCC

Loving enemies

On Friday Hielke Wolters led morning prayer with a reflection on loving our enemies to close the week of reflections on love preceding Valentine's day which colleagues from the Benelux countries had prepared. It was a powerful moment of listening and silence. How do we love our neighbours if we live within a closed group? Even more, how do we love our enemies?
Hielke used prayers inspired by Francis Brienen who worked with CWM for a number of years and is currently working at the URC.
You can find the order here.
I particularly liked this:

Help us to be faithful to your calling.
Give us wisdom and insight to discern your voice.
Give us patience and humility to work with others.
Give us courage and strength when we feel overwhelmed
by the tasks before us.