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Taking God in

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Theosis and Theotokos

Theosis – Participation in the nature of God .. ( 2 Peter 1:4)  In Eastern Orthodoxy, this is considered the supreme goal of the spiritual life.  I heard it described this morning as

“being drawn into God’s being, and having His Being drawn into us”

The speaker  Bishop Simon Barrington Ward, was talking to us about the use of that most simple, profound and ancient of prayers known as ‘The Jesus Prayer’

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to me ( us), a sinner

He spoke of praying it until the prayer “prayed itself within you”  and almost became part of your subconscious- finding it on your lips at moments when you respond to situations, and as you wake.

I mused further on being drawn into God’s being, and having His Being drawn into us – through presence, our presence in His Presence.

Blurring the lines between God and us, so that we no longer know                                   where One begins and one ends.

If it were simply up to us, this could never happen, but fortunately it is up to Him.               It is His gift of grace to us, His desire to make us one with Him, as He is one with the Father. The simplest of gifts can sometimes be the hardest to receive. We can hardly believe that He means it. That He means it for us.

I linked it in my head with Theotokos – God Bearer.

The name for Mary, Jesus’ mother.

It seemed to me that as we are drawn into God’s being,                                                     so we are also made to be ‘God bearers’ .                                                                           We are given His life growing within us to take to the waiting world.                                   Like Mary, this is not without cost. It demands our ‘Yes’ and that yes is our all.

Aftermath of Angels

Who are you and who am I

that you should choose me?

Who am I now

that I have chosen

to say yes?

How can I bear the weight

of this light,

carry the child of your heart;

hold He who is Love

within the limits of my own?

Face down, I lay my head

upon the earth

hide me under the shadow

of your wing.

As you form Him in me,

shape me within your hands.

Knit my soul

to the fabric of your being,

Cradle us both

In your enfolding

and bring us to birth

encircled by grace

Creator God, you are there

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In the deepest, darkness of night, and in the faintest glimmers of dawn, where Hope starts to shine, Creator God you are there.

I sang this lovely song, along with the college choir, at our Community Eucharist the other evening. We used it as an anthem, picking up the creation/re-creation theme in this weeks lectionary readings. (Genesis 1:1-2:3, Psalm 136, Romans 8: 18-25, Matthew 6:25-end.)

The words have  stayed with me. In both the beauty, and the pain- Creator God you are there, in the midst of us. In a week which has seen so much pain and heartache across the world, in New Zealand and Libya, particularly, they seemed to speak ( to me anyway) .

 

 

In the darkness of the still night

in the dawning of the daylight,

in the mystery of creation,

Creator God, you are there.

in the breath of every being,

in the birthing and the growing,

in the earth and all its fullness,

Creator God, you are there.

 

In the homeless and the hungry,

in the broken and the lonely,

in the grieving of your people,

Creator God, you are there.

in the tears and in the heartache,

in the Love through which we serve you,

in the anguish of the dying,

Creator God, you are there.

 

In our hearts and in our thinking,

in the longing and the dreaming,

in the yearning of our heartbeat,

Creator God, you are there.

In the love for one another,

in the sharing of our being

in receiving and forgiving,

Creator God, you are there.

 

In our joys, our hopes, our healing,

in awakening to revealing,

in your call and our responding,

Creator God, you are there.

In our prayer and in our service,

in our praise and in our worship,

in your love that is eternal,

Creator God, you are there.

 

The author of words and music, is Margaret Rizza, and you can listen to the song, by clicking on the link below:

 

 

 

 

Where is your home?

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Where do you come from?

It is a question I have never known the answer to –  does it mean where I was born?  (Africa)  My national identity ? Where I live now?  I am the child of Scottish and Welsh parents, and thought I was British. Turns out I wasn’t. I travelled on a British passport til I was 18, and then discovered that apparently I had never been entitled to it.   (complications of being born in Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was then. It subsequently became a non recognised state, and my status was further complicated by my father having been born in India) I had to apply to be a British Subject with an application in the newspaper;  (do you know of any reason this person cannot be thus honoured?) only gaining my full citizenship when I married a few years later.

Where do you live? Well although my latter life has been more static, I have moved house 22 times, and lived in 4 countries and 3 continents. I have been a refugee from  national turbulence and war, on at least 3 or 4 occasions, leaving at short notice.  This somewhat nomadic childhood could have been unsettling, but wasn’t. It gave me a world view, and enhanced my flexibility in pretty well everything. It made me multilingual, not in the conventional sense, ( I was in the back of the queue when the usual skills for that were handed out – French. German, Latin. I tried. (And failed.) ) but perhaps in just as useful a way.  It gave me a wanderlust, and I have been a globe trotter ever since, hungry to see more of this beautiful planet.

‘ Home is where you hang your heart’ was the message I received, and made my own. In other words, where ever you are. Bloom where you are planted, whatever the soil or the terrain.  I don’t know ‘where I am from’  or really where my earthly ‘home’ is, but it doesn’t bother me unduly. It has dawned on me that I have always been a pilgrim/nomad. I live without borders, or rather I move easily between borders of many kinds, with little or no sense of needing to stay within them. Sometimes I don’t even notice they are there.  This can be tricky if there are ‘border guards’ who aren’t happy with you leaving / or coming in, for that matter. If you have a passport stamp from one ‘country’  it can make  getting into another which doesn’t see eye to eye with their neighbours, less than comfortable. It can be painful too- being at home in each, and yet they at war with each other.  I by-pass both the borders, and the stamps, where I can, and try not to get caught in cross fire.

Now I find myself at theological college.  ( After a gargantuan struggle with God over this calling to priesthood business. That was largely about boxes. “Don’t put me in a box God! Especially an Anglican Vicar shaped one!” …mmm.. beginning to see deeper layers still, in that struggle )  A college that prides itself on defying labels and celebrating diversity.  Learning within the richness of a Federation, that spans even wider theological territories.  Having worshipped and ministered in a whole variety of contexts and churchmanships , I  can’t really say I have a spiritual home either. I move very naturally up and down  ‘the candle’, and have good  friends whose homes are at both ends, and all places in between.  Being in a college that lets me wander, and doesn’t try to tie me down, is a gift to a person like me. The  diversity of the many ‘homes’ I visit, enriches and enlarges me.

“Don’t fence me in” I don’t think I am a rootless cowboy, as the song goes, but I am slowly realising just how strong a theme this has been in my life. Living without borders, and moving easily between all sorts of strata, and perimeters, is very much part of who I am. We are all pilgrims in one sense or other….( mixing up my metaphors)  but we are not all called to be nomads. It seems I am, and I can run with that.

My real home, I guess is a Heavenly one, and my citizenship that matters most to me, is also there.  ‘Til then I am happy to continue being a nomad.  Pitching my tent wherever God takes me.

Are we nearly there yet?

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The long road

The only journey is the journey within

The opening sentence of a sermon I listened to this am, it struck a deep chord. Often the journey is tough going, and we wonder quite whether we will ever get there. It was a question I pondered with some feeling as I worked my less- than- willing body on the cross trainer. Watching the dial inch towards the set time of the exercise. Perseverance.   It is a good word. The dictionary defines it this way:

Continuing in a course of action without regard to discouragement, opposition or previous failure

Someone else described it as  “having the courage to ignore the obvious advice to turn back” , which made me smile.

I was in a pensive frame of mind this morning, and the name Cross Trainer also got me thinking.  The cross trainer I worked with today, is hard work.  It certainly takes perseverance to keep at it. It is doing me good, although it doesn’t often feel that way! Hopefully it is doing a bit of re- shaping too.

There is another kind of Cross Trainer I have been working with for some years now.   The Carpenter I follow, knew crosses from a whole different perspective, and He asks me, in following Him, to take up mine.  To persevere in this strange old journey of following Him, even when I don’t know where He is going- or perhaps especially when I do!

Perseverance has been a very key word of this more recent bit of the journey towards ordination.  Hopefully this Cross Trainer has been re- shaping me too.

The writer of the book of Romans, talked about perseverance producing character and character hope. Hope that does not disappoint.

I like the passage translated this way:

” There is more to come: we continue to shout our praise even when we are hemmed in by troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn, forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we are never left feeling short-changed. Quite the contrary- we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God so generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! “ Romans 5:3-5 Message

mmm… “passionate patience” … seems we can never have enough of that.

Born to fly

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White torn frame

I was born to fly.  I don’t have my wings yet, but I can’t wait.

I have been fortunate enough to float above the earth in a balloon, seeing the world’s wonders from a ‘bird’s eye view’. I have run off the side of a high mountain – held only by the wind in the canopy above my head.

DSCF0265

In my dreams since childhood, I can lift effortlessly off the ground,

defying all restraints of gravity.

Running into the air from that mountain peak, was as natural as breathing.

“ Those who wait for the Lord,

( who expect, look for and hope in Him)

shall change and renew their strength and power;

They shall lift their wings and mount up

( close to God)

as eagles mount up to the sun.”   Isaiah 40:31 Amp.

Soaring-Eagle-1

Lift up their wings and soar, upon the breath of God.

This image of flying  and abandonment – resting on the Bigness of God,

has been a deep and resonant theme in my life.

It calls to my heart to let go.

To trust.

To let Him blow me where He will,

in big things, and the minutae of

the everyday.

Some days I am earth bound.

I see only my feet.

I trudge with weighted soul, carrying stuff others have thrown,

or I have hung on to, with anxious, tightly gripped palms.

I fail to look up and see the sun.

Fail to feel the caress of His breeze on my face.

His whisper of invitation to fly with Him.

See the world from His perspective.

Let Him take the weight

and bear me up.

When I am carried on His breath,

then I am where I was born to be.

Bringing out the God colours

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“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”  Matthew 5  14-16  The Message

I had to preach on these verses this week to a jury of my peers. A very lovely jury, I have to say, but none the less nerve racking! Scary stuff! I won’t give you what I gave them, but these were the words that grabbed me.  Bringing out the God colours in the world .

That is what God calls me to do. Allow  His sunshine to  flood my being, and try not to get in the way of letting it flow out of me too. Sunshine that lights up the grey and lifeless places, and the dark and lonely places.  In me and in the world around me. In those He brings me alongside, and mingles my life with.   Bringing out the God colours

Be a foil to reflect the Light,  and bring others out in their best colours – the colours that God the Master Artist  painted them in with Love.  I dabble in water colour and scribble in pastels ( when I get time that is) and playing with light and shade and tone is a real joy.

The God I know and love also likes to play. Loves to create- and recreate. Oft times when you are painting, something goes wrong.  It doesn’t turn out the way you planned.  A great artist   (of which I am not!)  can take the mistakes and work them into the picture – an integral part of the whole.  He doesn’t lose patience and get frustrated. He adds more light and sometimes more contrast, and brings up the colours and forms in a whole new perspective.

I am not a Master Artist, but I can be a paintbrush in His hands. I have no radiance in me that is self generated, but I can borrow His sparkle to light up other’s lives.

I don’t know about you, but I like that idea.

Called to Fish, Shaped to Serve

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A year ago today, it was DAY 2 of my BAP ( ordination selection panel).  It was bitterly cold and there was snow on the ground in Ely. In the talk you have to give, I spoke on the subject of vocation and call, and used the following poem.

What a journey to that day a year ago …. and what a journey since.  I titled the talk

Called to Fish – Shaped to Serve

Follow me

 

“Follow me !”

and with those words

He turned my world

downside up and

upside down.

My heart caught fast

within His net

He hauled me in

and I could only kneel.

His words would call me on

As I stepped out of

all I knew

and tried to put my

footsteps in the sea.

Sometimes I

followed at his side,

And laughed and loved

And learned;

But there were times

He strode ahead

and I could not

see his face of flint.

Then they led

my Lord away

and I could only

follow from afar.

Once again he called

me from the shore,

bidding me

cast my nets

afresh, where I

had toiled, and

failed to find;

filling my heart

as well, and

straining both

to  breaking point.

His call was

then to feed his flock,

carry his lambs,

and give my hands

to those who

would lead me

towards my death.

“Follow me!”

though path be hard,

and way unknown;

taking His word

and flame to

peoples yet

outside the fold.

What could I

do but go?

He calls me still..

 

 

 

In one of their last recorded conversations, Jesus calls Peter to feed his sheep and carry his lambs, and the rest, as they say is history..

However to transform a fisherman into a ‘fisher of men’ , a  shepherd/pastor and a foundation stone of the church Christ was building – he had to shape him for purpose.

That shaping started with his initial call to Peter to leave his nets ( and the biggest catch of his career) and follow him into the unknown.  Many further calls would follow, that would challenge, shape and equip Peter for the role he was being asked to take on.

In musing on the subject of vocation, it seemed logical to start with one of the first to be called to build the Kingdom. Peter is someone I very much identify with-not least for his endearing quality of always having his foot in his mouth, but also for the way God turned his life upside down, and shaped him for the purposes for which he called him. We are not all like Peter, and I believe God honours our very different and unique personalities, by calling us in equally unique ways.  In His continuing calls in my journey, and in those I work alongside in parish life – I see God’s shaping hand.  It has not always been easy for me to hear Jesus call to follow him,  some times I may have wished for selective deafness!  It is my passion nevertheless, to  be a part of assisting others to both hear and heed God’s calls on their lives – to be a shaping tool in other’s journeys, even as I am myself encouraged, challenged and shaped by them.

 

 

 





light in the darkness

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It is Holocaust Memorial Day today, and I have not long returned from a service of Remembrance of Untold Stories.  There are barely any words that can hold how I respond to such evil and such pain. Only tears and prayer. Tears for God’s pain – who didn’t see only two dimensional pictures, but who held each life in love.  The only words are the closing prayer of the service, expressing forgiveness. Forgiveness is the only way out of this incomprehensible darkness. The candle of light, the darkness cannot overcome.

This prayer was found scrawled on a piece of wrapping paper in the Ravensbruck Concentration camp, near the dead body of a child.

Lord,

Remember not only the men and women of good will

but all those of ill will.

Do not only remember all the sufferings they have subjected us to.

Remember the fruits we brought forth thanks to this suffering-

– our comradeship

-our loyalty

-our humility

our courage and generosity

-the greatness of heart that all of this inspired.

And when they come to judgement

let all those fruits we have borne

be their reward

and their forgiveness.

AMEN.

 

 O Lamb of God
that takest away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God
that takest away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
O Lamb of God
that takest away the sins of the world,
grant us thy peace.


Blood spattered priests

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Robes of office. Clerical robes can arouse all sorts of emotions both within, and without the church. Instantly identifiable , the collar sets a priest apart, and may signal all sorts of things, depending on the perspective of the person catching sight of it. It was very strange to try one on for the first time today, and realise that it will become a regular part of my life in the fairly near future.  Trying on cassocks etc,  reminded me of  some thoughts I had last year  out of my regular cycle of readings , post BAP ( selection conference for ordination training) .

My readings at the moment have been all through Exodus and Leviticus and all about the tabernacle and anointing and consecration of priests etc.. God has said quite a bit surprisingly perhaps, through these rather detailed chapters..

One thing particularly struck me and will stay with me. Long detailed descriptions of beautiful linen and decorations for the priestly garments.. the best of the best – given and made by those offering their handcrafts to God …then

Exodus 29 21.. Moses was to take some of the blood spilled as a both a sin offering ( the bull) and the burnt offering ( the ram) which had been put all around the altar and some of the anointing oil and “sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and on their garments”

Beautiful fine linen – blood and oil spattered.

Very dramatic and very symbolic.

Huge visual statement – that the priests were stained with the blood of sin and sacrifice and also with the aromatic oils with which they had been anointed… their clothes will have been doubly fragrant ! The unpleasant metallic smell of blood, and the beautiful smell of anointing  oil also used in worship, signifying the presence of God.

One thing to be anointed and do the sacrifices – but to be ritually spattered too.. set apart, but stained and indelibly marked too. Beauty and blood side by side.

A friend of mine who is a priest, shared with me that as he breaks the bread ( or wafer) at communion..it is a reminder that the priest brings his/her own brokenness to God and offers all of that as they concelebrate with the people.. that too has stayed with me and somehow links into the thoughts these passages have stirred .

The cycle of readings has swung around again to the same passages, and here am I, trying on beautiful priestly garments, crafted by skilled hands.

Putting steel in your soul

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In the soft, flickering candlelight of evensong at Kings College, the words jumped off the ancient pages. How many generations had heard the words of Psalm 105 sung exquisitely by highly trained voices, in this house of God? Verse 18 drew my eye and heart with particular force.

“They have afflicted with fetters his feet, Iron hath entered his soul” Writing of Joseph,  the psalmist speaks of his unjust accusation and imprisonment at the hands of his master Potiphar’s wife. The psalm continues:

“Until the time came that his cause was known: the word of the Lord tried him. The king sent and delivered him” I had often heard the phrase used in my title in common parlance, but had never realised where it came from.  Joseph was imprisoned, his life interrupted, by an accusation that had no truth in it, yet the painful experience put “iron in his soul”. It strengthened and trained him for the weight of responsibility that lay ahead for him as overseer of Egypt.

He was to say to his brothers later, when they were fearfully repentant of selling him into slavery  “Don’t be afraid.  Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good..” (Genesis 50:20 The Message) I know the  deep truth of those words from my own experience, where God has taken the dark shards of someone else’s brokenness, that had been aimed at me, into His own nail pierced palms, and fashioned them into something else entirely. Something good. Something that strengthened and trained me. For that, like Joseph and the psalmist, I am profoundly thankful.

A fellow ordinand made a  telling comment in a story- telling intensive course, I attended this week. Speaking of the firebird in the ancient, Russian folk tale, she described seeing in her mind’s eye, the imprisoned bird, dulling from it’s former glory and radiance, to resemble the rusty bars that restrained it.  A different translation of the verse from Psalm 105 as “They afflicted his feet with fetters; his soul came into irons” A subtle difference of interpretation, but an entirely different meaning. My learned friends can probably tell me what the Hebrew actually says – but I know which meaning I prefer.  When ‘imprisoned’ unjustly by whatever circumstances, we have the choice. To let the darkness rob us of our God given radiance, and cause us to resemble our prison bars, or allow the grace of God to turn mess into His glory and put iron or steel into our souls.