March 2018 – The middle …

From Death to Life …

As I consider the call to new life as reflected through nature, I cannot help but be drawn to Jesus and the Cross. I recently watched Mary Magdalene and with Easter all around us, I am reminded that Jesus is the ultimate invitation to new life.

His surrender to death on the cross was an act of total trust in God the Father. Jesus trusted God with His life and God turned around the pain of his death on the cross to bring great hope and healing to all people. Ultimately, as an invitation to a new life with God via Jesus.

So if we strip back all the Christianese surrounding the Cross (not to mention all those chocolate eggs and bunnies), what happened went something like this.

Way back when, Adam and Eve lived in perfect connection with God, in the garden of Eden. They had access to everything they could have wanted. But, like us in the present day, they fell in to the trap of believing that it was not enough and subsequently they bought the serpent’s lie that they should have MORE.

This led them to eat from the one tree that God had asked them not to. By disobeying God, they broke the perfect connection between them. In came the culture of blame. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent.

The innocence, trust, unity and peace they had enjoyed with each other and with God, got broken. In its place, shame, fear, selfishness, strife and division entered humanity. Things got proper messed up.

After this fall out between Adam, Eve and God, the shame they felt about what they had done, caused them to hide from God in fear. But God did not punish them in whatever way they thought they deserved or had expected, for God loved them so much that he wanted to help them find their way back to him. He didn’t want them to be separated by fear of punishment. But, their disobedience was not without consequence for they were banished from the garden of Eden.

Ever since then, our relationships with each other and with God, have been problematic. Without a perfect connection with God, us humans make mistakes, do things we shouldn’t and fail to do what we could, usually out of fear, greed, pride or selfishness. It is now in our nature. There is no such thing as a perfect human. These don’t exist. Not since the fall out. Not now. Aside perhaps from in the minds of the more deluded. But these traits entered during the big fall out in Eden and they don’t fully disappear until we are reunited with God in Heaven.

None of this means that us humans don’t also do some pretty amazing, selfless, pioneering, wonderful things too though. Because we do.

But we all get hurt and we all do wrong and we all have wrong done to us. And all too often we turn away from the very God who wants to help us because we’ve learned to either blame Him for our own actions or those of others, or for the hardships that come our way, or we simply dismiss Him as fantasy.

Anyway, these wrong doings that started with Adam and Eve were rectified by the sacrifice of animal life and in doing so, temporarily reconnected the people to God. But as we’re constantly messing up if only in small ways, this was a continual process of making animal sacrifices, meaning the connection between God and the people was constantly dropping out. A bit like a poor internet service.

This wasn’t good enough.

God wanted a better connection with his people. Although He is often painted as being a God who awaits the chance to punish us, He doesn’t treat us as we may at times deserve. He is too loving a God for that and instead He seeks ways to connect with us by revealing his love for us in spite of ourselves. But as we have seen, our poor choices are not without consequence.

So, because God was unsatisfied with the poor connection between us, He devised a cunning plan. He sent Jesus to show us what God looks like in human form and in action. Jesus was able to showcase the heart of God by demonstrating his love and power through healing humans during his life and ministry. Jesus even raised a few people from the dead. Miraculous.

But God also sent Jesus to re-establish the connection between us and God once and for all by paying the price for our wrongdoings (past, present and future) so that we would no longer be dependent upon an unreliable, unchanging, dropping out regularly type of connection. Instead we could each become and remain connected to God anytime we want. This means that because of Jesus, we can each tap in to God’s love and power to bring healing to our own and others hearts.

Wow!

No more continual sacrificing of animals to pay for our mess ups. Jesus became THE sacrifice, through his death, that gives us ongoing connection to God, His love, His power to heal and the new life that He has for us. Awesome or what?

But how did this come about?

Jesus trusted God.

(NB that Jesus is also God because God is made up of three parts; Jesus is the human part, God is Father, creator and so much more and the third part is the Holy Spirit which was given to us after Jesus left, to speak God’s divine wisdom in to our hearts. See the film The Shack for some creative ideas on this.)

Anyway, God asked Jesus to submit to the authority on earth, despite the fact this authority led Jesus to the cross. Jesus, being God too, could have said ‘no thanks, I’m not really up for that’. Let’s face it, who amongst us could blame him. But he didn’t. Even though, like us, Jesus had the free will to choose, he chose to obey God because he trusted him.

Let us not pretend that this was easy for him. The bible tells us that Jesus sweat blood and tears during the night before the cross. He knew how easy it would be to turn away in fear and that the only way that he could face what He had been called to do, was by calling upon the help of God in prayer.

In surrendering to God’s will to submit to the authority, Jesus freely chose to be led to the most unimaginable pain of the cross. At which point Jesus fulfilled his purpose here on Earth. In life, he showed us the Father’s love in action through healing. In death, he reconnected us to the Father forever more.

Jesus basically rather generously paid through his death for us to have the new life that connection with the Father brings. He has paid the price for everything any of us have, do or will do wrong, so that nothing can ever disconnect us from God again. Jesus is the middle man of all middle men.

We all still have the freedom to ignore the invite to connect with God through Jesus. And let’s face it, Society certainly encourages us to overlook the meaning of Easter by wrapping it in a mass of Chocolate, coloured eggs and cute bunnies.

And if we didn’t come to God freely, it wouldn’t be love but fear and that’s not what He’s looking for. Whilst many have unfortunately bought in to the lie that God is a petty, punitive God looking for chances to punish us with trouble, the truth is that although pain and trials undoubtedly come (Jesus knows all about that), it is God Himself that empowers us to overcome them. So, if we’ve fallen for the lie that God is to blame, we will miss out on the help he offers to bring us through and heal us along the way. (As to why God allows bad stuff to happen, that’s another whole matter – ask your pastor about that one).

Basically it all comes down to trust. Because when we trust God, like Jesus did, no matter how awful things look or are in life, we know that God will turn around the worst situation to bring something of great goodness from it. But that requires us to persevere. Sometimes for a very, very long time before that good thing happens and if we don’t really trust we’ll probably give up before we get there.

So, this Easter, take a moment to consider the meaning of Jesus willingly going to the cross for us. Irrespective of what we’ve come through, how we may have messed up in life, how others may have mistreated us, how broken we are, how desperate for real love or whether we’re simply seeking greater purpose and meaning in life, Jesus knows. He gets us and he gets suffering but he offers to connect us to the God who can help us to find our way out of our old lives and in to the new life that He is calling us to. The God that helps us to fulfil our respective purposes here on Earth, in spite of the rubbish life hurls our way.

What an offer.

Jesus died on Good Friday, which really didn’t look too good at that point.

Rather, it looked like the new life that Jesus taught and promised had died with him.

But no, God raised Him up again on Easter Monday to bring him in to new life.

In doing so God extended the invitation in to new life, through Jesus, to every single one of us.

And God is still extending His personal invitation to us all …

All we have to do this Easter to enter in to this new life, is believe and receive what Jesus has done for us.

And yes, it really is that easy and that’s why it’s called Good News!

New Life …

Wherever I look right now whether out running or in the car, I see nature declaring NEW LIFE is here.

I see rows of bright yellow daffodils standing to attention along the side of the roads or around folks properties. The crocuses are out en masse within the parks and beautiful pink and white blossom are adorning the trees. Even one of my tulips has tentatively if temporarily treated me to a peak within its petals.

I love this time of year.

Well, not the rain. Or the snow. But I do love to see the green buds of new life poking their way out of winter and in to the spring. It evokes such hope. New growth, new beginnings, new seasons. All is not lost. New life is starting over.

This excites me.

Although looking around at all the dead winter leftovers requiring my removal, excited me a lot less. But after Monday’s display of sunshine, I cleaned the outside table and breakfasted on the patio. The first of the year! And it was glorious!

Afterwhich I felt suitably galvanised to tackle the garden. Out with the old, make way for the new. Just like life really, although the transitions between seasons are seldom smooth or without some work.

I’ve been taught by those way more knowledgeable than myself that if we don’t remove the dead parts from plants, they continue to take nutrients from the soil, thus depriving the new, growing parts. Hence the importance of dead heading and dead part removals. No point feeding something that can no longer produce.

Nature has much to teach us and we would be wise to apply its lessons to our own lives.

What are we feeding our energy in to that could actually be out of season?

Which buds of new life are appearing and requiring our attention instead?

I have observed that it is nearly always necessary to let go of the old life to make the space for the new one. We cannot receive a new thing if we have not made the space to do so for we can only hold so much in one pair of hands. Even if they’re really huge hands. We all have limitations. We all have seasons. And in my experience, when it’s time to let go of something, there is nearly always an upgrade on the way.

I’ve noticed recently a few people who either felt a little pushed out of current situations; houses or jobs, only to go on to discover themselves within better houses or jobs. Wowsers huh?

Yet sometimes, we hold on to the old things so tightly even when they cause us pain, that not only do we become stuck with something that is out of season and unable to flourish, but we also block and delay the arrival of the new thing. What stubborn untrusting creatures us humans can be!

Sometimes it can be a type of thinking that blocks the pathway of that which attempts to birth new life within us. Usually fear based. Letting go of the old, can evoke great fear about the unknown. And this may keep us stuck where we are rather than entering in to where we could be. And that’s another whole story.

But new life calls to us all, if only we’ll attune our ears and open our eyes.

The question is, will we choose to accept it?

Anais Nin — ‘And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.’

The Mosaic of Mothering …

Mother and child exist not in isolation but within a greater community.

As I make my way through all the consumeristic displays that precede Mothering Sunday, I feel compelled to write.

Wherever I look, I’m confronted with cards and displays dressed with captions about the most wonderful mothers.

What about all those for whom this is not the reality, for whatever reason?

Now before I go any further, let me attempt to clarify my position. I believe that mothers and indeed fathers, have THE most important, challenging, testing, demanding, self-sacrificing, potentially heart breaking but equally rewarding job, that any human being can ever have. I really do.

And I regularly see the impact of where things go wrong, within my work.

I have been fortunate enough to have been mothered by various women at different times, in different ways. I am grateful to each. But as I have no children of my own I cannot profess to know what it is to be a mother, because put simply, I don’t. But I have talked with and more importantly listened to, many who are mothers. Whilst these conversations in no way qualify me to know what it is to be a mother, I have often been astounded, impressed, humbled and amazed by many women’s capacity to give to their children. Many offer the gift that just keeps giving.

I’ve noticed that the production of a child (miraculous enough in itself) usually results in the appearance of a mind blowing and seemingly endless supply of resourcefulness that allows a mother to rise to the relentless and varied demands of mothering a child. I’ve been repeatedly struck by the ability of a mother to pretty much turn her hand to anything including the creation of something from virtually nothing, when attempting to meet her child’s needs. This creativity alone is to be applauded. I am in awe!

As such I have the utmost respect for many such mothers in their quest to love, protect and provide for their children.

How women manage to work in addition to the nonstop business of mothering, particularly in the absence of a partner, is quite beyond me. I don’t just throw my hat off to these women, I throw it sky high and beyond. Total respect.

I’ve also noticed that most mothers worry about what they’ve done right, what they could have done differently and any subsequent impact upon their children. I respect their humility, whilst only being able to imagine at the discomfort of considering the inevitability of what doesn’t go so well and how this is managed.

I have the incredible privilege of working with many individuals who are willing and able, with some assistance, to invest their time and energy examining their own unresolved pain from childhood and in doing so, reducing the knock-on effect upon their own children. My respect for these individuals knows no limits.

The truth is that there is no such thing as a perfect mother or parent.

At least not in human form.

We’re all flawed, parent or not.

But as my training has taught me, we all need a good enough mother, especially but not exclusively during our formative years. Of course, what this looks like could be cause for discussion.

What is clear is that mothers deserve acknowledgement and support in recognition of the enormity and importance of their job. I think most of us would agree with the quote about it taking a community to raise a child. I wonder if we would also agree that it equally takes a community, not just a mother, to fail a child.

Therefore, as we enter Mothering Sunday, I consider it right and proper to stop to recognise and celebrate the amazing breed of women who grow, birth, raise and love their children. Absolutely. I don’t imagine any of us non-mothers, female or male, will ever truly appreciate the extent of the sacrifice.

But, is it really necessary when celebrating the monumental gift of mothering, to ignore those aspects of the mosaic of mothering that exist beyond the most wonderful?

Is it even really possible to truly value or appreciate the depth of the gift of mothering whilst only acknowledging part of the picture? Is it not the presence of all parts of a picture that give it meaning and context?

If we can celebrate the gift of mothering, can we not also acknowledge the enormity of the loss when it is absent or has failed?

In reality, Mother’s Day is indeed a joyous occasion for many, but not for all.

Not for those mother’s subject to a parent’s worst nightmare; the death of a child.

Or for those who have been coerced in to giving up their baby at birth and who go on to spend a lifetime longing for a reunion.

Or for those for whom their mother died in childbirth or prematurely from a tragic accident or illness.

And what of the mother who abandons, neglects or abuses her children or allows others to do so. Not to mention the adults those children become. Or for the mother who murders her child. All of which indicate a much bigger society sized issue which require a society shaped response.

The bottom line is that there are many people who just haven’t received adequate mothering, for a whole myriad of reasons, some of which I’ve stated above. This leaves a pain and loss, whose effects can be far reaching to the point of life destroying in the extreme, if left unaddressed. Not least in how we subsequently and often unconsciously, mother ourselves. And whilst we refuse to acknowledge this reality, we fail not only the struggling mother but also their children. The ripple effect of which impacts us all.

Part of the problem is that it is often considered socially unacceptable to even mention the fuller mosaic of mothering. At least openly or publicly. Culture forbids it.

Hence we see Mother’s day becoming seemingly more sugar coated with each passing year. As if somehow, by doing so, we can obscure if not obliterate the wider if more unsavoury reality. In doing this, we further isolate and separate those who not only see but experience the bigger picture, often to their detriment. We also dilute the meaning of truly outstanding mothers. All whilst failing to adequately address the underlying issues that cause severe failures, thus guaranteeing their perpetuation.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Not if we can update the status of ‘struggling mothers’ from taboo, to ‘utmost importance’.

Before I end, there is another type of mother I consider worthy of a mention and that is those precious women who may not have given birth to us, but who have generously assisted us with the process of giving birth to our truest selves. Not that this process ever really ends.

I know many women who’ve had difficult relationships with their own mothers for all manner of reasons but who have also connected deeply with other women with whom they have formed special, maternal bonds. An especially precious union which benefits both.

Within my own life, I feel fortunate to have been mothered by a few over the years. But I shall remain especially grateful to the one who showed me over the best part of the last decade, what it is to be on the receiving end of the type of unconditional love that protected, encouraged, enjoyed, believed in and loved me, in spite of myself. For she remains a gift that only God Himself could have given. And as God Himself also took her away again earlier this year, I will grieve her recent death and her ongoing absence this Mother’s Day. But I will equally remember and treasure the gift of her love which lives on within me.

Equally, I shall mourn the impact of the unresolved generational issues surrounding mothering within my own family.

Both are real and true.

They do not cancel one another out.

They coexist.

And both have taught me much.

In summary, Mother’s Day can never offer one meaning for all when there is so much that makes up the mosaic of mothering.

Let us not reduce this Mother’s Day to a one-dimensional affair that excludes many whilst reducing the depth, context and meaning of any of it.

Let us each take the time this Mother’s Day to identify, recognise, appreciate and acknowledge the mothering we have each received, wherever it may have come from.

For it is truly a gift and not a given.

But let us equally acknowledge the pain for many of its absence.

The Seasons are Shifting …

It’s snowing!

As I look out of my kitchen window, I feel like I’m looking in to a real live snow globe! And I wonder how long it will be before it settles down.

As I do so I reflect upon the shifting of the seasons. It feels very much as if the winds of change are blowing (from the East apparently!). There may be snow on the ground but there are also buds of new life in evidence. Although I’m not sure how they will fare following this snow!

We’re in between seasons, no longer fully in Winter yet undeniably not yet in Spring. Signs of both seasons are present. We’re in transition. And this happens every single year. Maybe at slightly different times and in differing ways but the seasons come and the seasons go. We know and accept this. Even with all the weather associated grumblings that make us English!

Yet how much more as humans can we resist the changing seasons of the soul. We can fall in to the ‘comfort’ of just wanting life to stay the same. At least if things are going well. And even when they’re not, we can still opt for the familiar over the unknown.

Yet nature reminds us that nothing stays the same. Ever. Everything changes. Constantly. Either that or it dies.

We too are invited to be open to change. Not just to find a nice comfortable way to live and stay there forever more. But to be open to the ongoing changing seasons along with all the endings and loss that precipitate growth and new life.

As I observe the shifting of the seasons of nature, I know that I cannot make the winter stay simply to avoid the change that Spring will bring. I equally know that I cannot fast track in to spring to avoid the dead and the cold of winter. I accept this and I trust it.

The external changes I see within nature reflect something of the internal changing of the seasons of my soul. I can’t see them in the same way and I don’t know what the new season will look like. I know only that it will not be the same as the previous or existing one.

My season of the soul is effectively under review.

It is no longer what it was, neither is it yet what it will be.

It is in transition.

I am in transition.

Strange but exciting.

When I look back to the season of last year, I see new life in the areas of work, play and ministry. It was full of colourful and varied expressions of creativity from the kitchen to the garden, to my work and ministry.

I felt full of life and new ventures. It was exciting, enlivening, over full in honesty and at times terrifying. But I loved it. Mostly. I felt very alive.

Then the death of a loved one came and I was stopped in my tracks. I tried to resume life as I’d known it before but I couldn’t. I needed to pull back, slow down, stop, rest, heal and reconsider all.

As I continue to do this, I notice a natural stripping back occurring. As a self-employed individual, the financial controller part of myself has started to ask some uncomfortable questions. Fortunately, these days the spiritual part of me has walked with God for long enough to know that when things suddenly start shifting, I need to pay attention for God is on the move and in control. And way more dependable than any finance.

I have learned and I am continuing to learn way beyond the honeymoon period of knowing, through many periods of doubt and despair, that no matter what is happening in my life or how I feel about it, God remains trustworthy in all matters. Not for life to be how I want or to be exempt from the trials but that He is always there ready to help me to overcome whatever comes at me that I may continue becoming all that I have been made to be. As well as continuing to pursue the paths, the plans and the purposes that He has for me. No matter what. For His plans always supersede anything I could ever come up with.

And so, as I realise that it is God who is stripping me back right now, I am beginning to loosen my grip upon all things known in my life that the winds of change may take away that which I need to let go of to make room for that which I am being prepared for.

This is a live process. It’s moving constantly and hard to capture in words right now. I don’t really know what is happening within me. I don’t really know what the outcome of this seasonal shifting will be. I don’t know what I will have to relinquish from my life nor what I will find in its place. I don’t really know what will happen, when or how. I know only that it is happening. And that I can fight this process out of fear or I can surrender and embrace what is to come out of expectation and anticipation. Ultimately out of trust for the one who does know for I believe that it is He who is engineering this seasonal shifting.

Trust is such a key element of being a human. Trust in ourselves, in our God, in others and in life. Trust that just as nature reminds us that the seasons do what they need to facilitate the next season, so too do we when we trust and surrender.

We can’t stay in any one season forever more. It isn’t possible. Everything that lives continues to move, to change and to grow. Including us. But we each must choose whether to go with this or to fight it.

Imagine attempting to stop summer from ever ending. With no stripping back, no season of rest, everything would eventually die off. New life would cease to continue. Ditto with us humans.

New life wants to spring forth within us all. But this cannot happen without the season of pruning, stripping back and rest that facilitate the emergence of new life. Without which something within us begins to die.

We trust in the seasons of nature, that no matter how long it takes, the snow will eventually go and spring will burst forth bringing a colourful array of new life with it. And maybe even some warm sunshine!

Can we trust too in the seasons of the soul?

Can we allow the changes to come?

Not fight to keep things the same?

Not hold so tightly to the old and familiar that we block the arrival of the new and unknown?

Can we simply surrender through trust to the shifting of the seasons?

When I look back fifteen years, my life today bears no resemblance to what it did back then. And I praise God daily for that. When I look back five years ago, my life was entirely different. When I look back a year ago, some things were the same, many were not. Life doesn’t stop ebbing and flowing, birthing new things, seeing others end.

It’s a living thing this life and all living things must go through seasons in order to stay alive. And this includes us.

When I look around at the moment, I see much change occurring in the lives of my friends. Seasonal shifts. A letting go of the old. For some, relinquishing positions they had held for twenty odd years. A willingness to make space for something new. Even when the new thing is not yet seen. A willingness to trust and surrender to the process of life and living and changing and growing.

The winds of change are clearly blowing.

The seasons are indeed shifting.

I don’t know what this means for me or my life right now but I do know that I want to shift with them. I don’t want to get left behind. I’m not sure what will happen as a result but I trust that in the right time, that which is currently unclear will become clear.