Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! May we on this day give thanks with joy and with celebration for the risen Lord and that out of death and darkness God can bring new life and light to all.  May we give thanks for the times of resurrection in our own lives, and that God can make all things new.

I thank God for the times that He has brought me through the darkness into light, that through his suffering and death on the cross we know that Jesus knows our sufferings and our trials, and pray that we may feel comfort from this and know that God is with us through it all.

I give thanks that through the cross we are assured of forgiveness; that we  know that we are loved unconditionally.  Help us to forgive others and love unconditionally as God loves us.

I give thanks for the fellowship that God gives to us through His love and the love of others, through times of trial and suffering, and through times of joy and celebration.

I thank God for the gift of His son Jesus, for his life, his death and resurrection and for the hope that this gives us now and forever.

Amen.

Messy Church

Last month, a Messy Church was held at Lanchester church for the first time. The vicar and a team of volunteers planned the first session (with the help of our lovely new Diocesan children’s ministry adviser), and on the Sunday afternoon itself, about 35 children came along accompanied by adult family members; we were delighted with the numbers that we had, and the whole afternoon in general. There was a lovely atmosphere, and it was wonderful to see so many people coming together in this way, many of whom had not been to the church before, but for whom this style of church, including the time of day, suited them and appealed to the needs of their family. It was an exciting and inspiring afternoon.

On Tuesday evening this week, some of our team went to a Messy Church training event led by the founder of Messy Church, Lucy Moore, who began this initiative in her home church in Portsmouth some nine years ago. Since then, Messy Church has grown a great deal across the UK and beyond, and there are now a large number of churches taking part in this fresh expression of being church.

The training event on Tuesday was an opportunity for teams across the Diocese to come together and share experiences with each other and Lucy, and to reflect upon what was discussed.  It was an inspiring evening, and Lucy could not have been more enthusiastic about the ways in which Messy Church can reach the community in which it is based. Lucy spoke of the values of Messy Church, and how these are integral to its mission; that, first and foremost, they are to be Christ-centred sessions which enable people to grow to know and love Jesus through various ways, one of these being through the shared creativity that Messy Church has to offer. And this emphasis on creativity and the importance of this, not only to the Messy Church session but also to our lives and relationship to God, gave me pause for thought. I know from personal experience that I feel enriched and enlivened when I am being creative. Whether it is writing a piece of music, writing a blog post or even baking, I feel that I am not simply writing notes down on a page, words on a screen or mixing ingredients together, but doing things that celebrate the bringing together of something new and unique; something of me is born, and this is rejuvenating and fulfilling. Through this exploration of ourselves, our unique creations can celebrate what God has given to us through His own creation, and our own creative potential that He sees in us: people who can grow and flourish as individuals and with others through their creativity, and be more fully themselves.

As adults, however, it is very easy to lose sight of our scope for creativity; the busy-ness of life can take over and can leave us little time for activities which seem a luxury when we have so much else to fit in. Not only this, but we can be plagued by a sense that what we are doing has to be of a certain standard; that if our piece of music, artwork, writing or baking isn’t what we perceive to be perfect,  it is somehow not good enough. I feel this sometimes when writing blog posts; I hesitate before pressing ‘publish’, worrying that I might not have expressed myself clearly enough, or that I have somehow lost the point of what I was trying to say. Most of my writing in the past has been of an academic nature, where the quality of the structure, clarity and presentation of ideas is a measure of its success and whether or not it is good enough. One of the reasons why writing a blog appealed to me was the lack of that kind of pressure and the opportunity to simply enjoy writing for its own sake,  but sometimes the relative freedom of creativity for its own sake can seem daunting and hamper the very thing that we are hoping to experience. It is by releasing ourselves from the pressure of aiming for a certain standard that creativity can begin and flourish. Part of doing this is to thrive in the process of creativity itself rather than constantly focussing on the outcome, and children can teach us a great deal about this: observing children being creative reminds us of this through their joy of experiencing the moment, and being with them and joining in with them encourages us and beckons us to do the same.

I have certainly experienced this whilst baking or painting or doing other creative activities with my own children; their delight in the process of creating something together and not worrying about the mess or how it turns out is a joy to behold, and brings me into their view of what being creative means by enjoying it for its own sake. And it is in this being together in the creativity of the moment and celebrating our unique selves that Messy Church really comes into its own. Lucy spoke of Messy Church being for everyone who comes along, adults and children alike, and that it is very specifically a family occasion, and I can see in so many ways why this is another one of its values.

Messy Church asks for and encourages the adults to come along and join in the creativity, and to teach and learn about Jesus through the activities which they are doing with their children. The children and adults, in fact all of us there, are teachers and learners all at once, and we are as one church, all of us children of God. The opportunity for us all to be childlike and to celebrate in this and give thanks to God for this is there through the creativity and the time that we share together. Through this way of being church, we can see the wonderful sight of the kingdom of God growing before our very eyes.

 

 

 

Glimpses of Glory

I was very close to my maternal grandmother. From ever since I can remember, I had great fun with her and loved spending time with her. In the winter months, we would sit in front of the fire and talk for hours, and in the summer we would sit outside on the veranda looking out onto her lovely garden and the fields beyond drinking tea and putting the world to rights. Sometimes we would go shopping (an absolute favourite pastime of hers, especially if it involved the purchase of a new hat!) and other times we would walk down to the church and she would have a tune on the organ (and so would I, though not very well!). It was very difficult when, towards the end of her life, she became ill with dementia and gradually became less and less herself. The last week when she was in hospital was particularly difficult, seeing her suffer and not knowing how much she was aware of. She was 87 when she died and, although I was so thankful for her long life and relieved that she would no longer suffer, I was devastated by her loss.

 

Her funeral was held on the following Wednesday. The April day dawned calm and clear and we got ready to go. I put on the largest and most flamboyant hat I had, knowing that Grandma would have loved that I was wearing it. When we got to the church, the coffin was already there, having been in the church overnight. I took my place in the pew, and waited for the start of the service. My mother, who was playing the organ, struck up with the notes of the first hymn after which the priest gave the welcome. I had gone with plenty of tissues in my bag and was expecting to use them quite copiously. What happened, then, came as a surprise. Not long into the service, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace, of joy, even. At that moment, and for the rest of the service, I felt no sadness, rather a deep sense of joy for Grandma’s life and the way in which she had touched so many others’ lives, including my own. To feel such joy at this time was an unexpected and extraordinary experience, and one that I shall never forget. It was extraordinary in the way that I seemed to be lifted out of the experience I was currently in, that of grief, into something quite the opposite.

 

It was recently when I was reading Paula Gooder’s book “Everyday God” that a passage in her book, in the chapter entitled “Glimpsing Glory”, made me think about the experience I had had on the day of my Grandmother’s funeral. Paula defines glimpses of glory as “those moments when, even for a moment, the veil is pulled aside and we gain a vision, however small, of who God really is and how he views the world.” She goes on to say:

The point of all these experiences is that they are, to a greater and lesser extent, glimpses…After them, we are sent onwards…and back to our everyday lives…We are to be ready to recognise the glimpse for what it is and when we see it, to drink it in with all that we have, to savour it and then to go on living our normal lives; lives that now will be both the same as ever and transformed utterly by what we have seen and experienced.

 These words spoke to me very much about what had happened on the day of my Grandmother’s funeral; after this experience, I went on with the grieving process and one might say my normal life, but I have never forgotten what I experienced in the church that day.

 

We may have an experience which is extraordinary and takes us by surprise, or we may have an experience that at first seems ordinary but can nonetheless provide us with a glimpse of glory, and Paula urges us “to be alert to the possibility that this event or that encounter might just provide us with a glimpse of glory.”

 

Not long after reading Paula’s book, I had what I felt was another glimpse of glory in quite a different context, and this time from my children. My younger two sons and I were waiting in the car to pick up my eldest son from Cubs. As we waited we played I-spy. Several rounds had gone by, and it was my turn to be ‘on’, and I chose something beginning with ‘L’. After a couple of attempts to guess this, my youngest child said “Is it Love?” His answer moved me, and I thought how wonderful it was that he should offer this as a response, and somewhere in there was a glimpse of glory; for us to experience love around us is to lift the veil and gain a glimpse of the vision of God and how he views the world, whether this is in the relationships we have with those who are known to us personally, or in the love and compassion shown between people who are unknown to each other but who are connected through their shared humanity and desire to love one another as God loves us.

 

Paula starts and ends her book by reflecting on R.S. Thomas’s beautiful poem “The Bright Field”, and in particular on the idea of ‘turning aside’ in order to notice glimpses of glory in our everyday lives: that in doing so we can become people who can find the pearl of great price or treasure in the field and, as Paula writes in her closing sentence, “encounter the eternity that awaits us.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growth through waiting

I have recently planted potatoes in my garden. Now that I have a gardener to help with the mowing and weeding on a regular basis and can actually see the soil on the borders, I have been able to plant the seed potatoes given to me by a friend a few weeks ago. Yesterday I noticed to my excitement that green shoots have sprouted: something is definitely going on underneath the soil! They are, however, not going to be ready for a little while, and I am going to have to wait to unearth them and enjoy (hopefully!) the product of the planting, cultivating and waiting, however much I would like them to be ready to eat now. They need time, and I need patience!

Waiting for the potatoes to be ready to eat; waiting in a queue at the shops; waiting for the holidays when you can finally have a bit of a break; waiting for a change in circumstances or situation. How good are you at waiting? It could be said that waiting in the queue at the supermarket is a great deal easier than waiting for, say, a change that would seemingly have a much larger impact on our lives or the lives of others.

Waiting may not be that difficult, or it may be very challenging, or somewhere in-between. Whatever one is waiting for, the waiting itself can either be a positive, exciting, challenging or frustrating experience, or a mixture of some or all of these. The extent to which one might feel these different effects may depend upon many factors, such as how long one might have to wait, the extent to which one can influence the waiting, and the difference that not waiting anymore will make to life.

And perhaps, most importantly, the attitude with which we approach the waiting will affect our experience of it the most.

Waiting for something that we would like to happen, particularly if we have little idea of when it might, can be very difficult, and it is easy to focus on the frustrations and challenges of this. However, some waiting can involve an important time of transition and preparation, and a time of opportunity for growth, even if this is difficult to see at the time.

At the moment, I am waiting for something; I am waiting to go back to interviews for selection to ordained ministry. When I was first told that I would need to wait for at least two years to do this after my last series of interviews, I felt disappointed and frustrated. As time has gone on, however, I can see how much this time of waiting has presented an opportunity for time for me to grow and develop.

I have recently subscribed to “Reflections”, a series of daily reflections on a Bible reading written by various individuals. Earlier this year, Martyn Percy wrote some thought-provoking passages about how we might understand the process of waiting. He writes, "wait for God’s good time. Try and see history and destiny through God’s eyes, not ours….We have to wait for God’s goodness and completeness to gestate; for he surely feeds us even when we struggle to see the manna in his hand."

We can learn much about ourselves during times of waiting, and it can be a time to be fed and nurtured so that we can grow in the best way possible. And when the waiting appears to be over, we continue to be fed and nurtured by God so that we are constantly growing to become the people that He wants us to be.

Creating space

My three sons aren't particularly into football. They enjoy kicking a ball around in the courtyard outside our house, but just as happily play with their skateboards and scooters. They quite often play football at school, they tell me, although this is apparently as much to do with the fact that so few boys are not into football that there would hardly be anyone to play with if they did not join in with them, as it is to do with wanting to play the game itself.


In some ways, I have found this surprising; as they have got older, I have been half expecting to have requests to go and see football matches and to watch it on TV (and have braced myself for such a possibility :-)). There is often an assumption that boys will be into certain things, and football is one of those things.

Assumptions about what children will find interesting are commonplace, and these are often gender-specific. There is some truth in such assumptions; child development research shows that from a young age boys and girls show general differences in the way that they play, and the type of toys that they prefer to play with if given the choice.


What is important, though, is that such assumptions, gender or otherwise, do not restrict children (and thankfully my sons' school offers a variety of actvities for children to partake in during school time on certain days of the week). Children should be given the opportunities to grow and develop and to be nurtured as individuals; to be given the chance to explore and discover who they are without limitations placed upon them caused by assumptions. This can be applied not just to what and how they play in the playground, but to how they experience worship, too.

For the last few years, I have been helping with the Sunday School at church and have recently taken a more active role in the planning of sessions. Many of the activities that I planned during the sessions involved the chance for the children to do crafts and to be physically active; to do lots of singing and to be engaged in a very action-orientated way. I know from my teaching experience that actively engaging children is a very effective way for them to learn and to have fun, rather than them experiencing a mainly didactic approach involving the teacher at the front and them as passive recipients. I also know that children like to make a noise and like to make a mess, and there was plenty of that, too.

And then my assumptions were challenged, in a very gentle and quiet way. I went along to a Prayer Spaces day which was organised to show the different ways in which spaces can be created to give children the chance to reflect upon things that matter to them and to pray.  Although the initiative was founded to create spaces for children in schools, there is no reason why the ideas cannot be used in other settings, including Sunday School. The ideas were creative, but there was an inherent stillness as part of them, allowing children the room to think and reflect, to still their minds and be open to thought and prayer. I felt humbled as I read about the children's thoughts about the prayer spaces and what it meant to them to experience this, and wanted to give the small group of children to whom I minister the opportunity to have this type of space as part of what we do.

During my next session leading Sunday School, I asked the children how they liked to pray. One child put up his hand and said "I like to wave my arms around and sing!" and another child put up his hand and said "I like to close my eyes and put my hands together and be really quiet." Here in their answers was an illustration of how differently children like to talk to God and from then on in, I was going to help each child to have the chance to be with and talk to God in their way, by creating space for them to do this, not only through the louder, more messy activities that we had been used to, but also through quiet reflection and stillness.

We don't have a great deal of time at each Sunday School session, but there is time within it to create space for the children to learn about and explore God in their way and to help them to grow closer to Him, whether this is in the banging of the cymbals or in the stillness of quiet.

Through changing my assumptions, I hope that I am helping them, each and every child, to do that.

Using our gifts with confidence

I have seen quite a bit of Tom Jones recently (not in person, unfortunately). The television was on last Friday evening, and Tom was on Graham Norton's sofa alongside Will Smith and Gary Barlow. It was an entertaining line-up, and something I particularly enjoyed was the audience participation of the theme tune from "The Prince of Bel Air", most notably because my son Harry has become a fan of this recently and I knew he would find it very amusing (which he did when he watched it on iPlayer the next day!).

Tom also appeared the following evening on the judging panel for the BBC series "The Voice" which seeks to give individuals the chance to showcase their talents and provide a step-up in their musical futures. On Saturday evening, one of the contestants had finished singing and was receiving feedback from the four judges. The nerves that she had felt during the week were discussed, and how it had been a challenge for her to try and overcome these. As part of his feedback, Jones asserted that it is not nerves which are the problem, but fear. Nerves can indeed be helpful in some measure; the research which a colleague at the School of Education undertook into performance anxiety of music college students indicated that some anxiety can in fact enhance performance, but too much anxiety can be debilitating. At what point, then, does a potentially helpful dose of nerves become fear, and negatively affect either a musical performance, or for that matter anything which we might be attempting to do? The aforementioned research suggests that the development of self-confidence plays a crucial part in optimising the effects of anxiety so that its "desirable effects...(are) maintained and optimised while its catastrophic consequences are eliminated as far as possible in performance situations." This quote follows the point that teachers can do much to assist in their students' development of self-confidence, but that this must be "with the application of strategies to enhance independence and self-sufficiency" (my italics).

Another way of putting this is that self-confidence can be nurtured and increased by the part that others play, but, ultimately, in order for a person to be truly confident in themselves they need to internalise this confidence and believe it independently of others' opinions: being told that one is good at something or has attributes of any kind is not enough on its own, much as it can give us a boost. We may hear the words of affirmation offered by others, but find it difficult to believe them ourselves. Indeed, we may know that we are good at something, but doubt our abilities sometimes.

Take last night. I had been asked to help lead the prayers at the beginning and end of the Deanery Synod meeting; a few of us had got together a couple of months before the meeting and discussed ways in which we could help make the meetings more prayerful, rather than just working through the agenda. We were each asked what we felt we could contribute towards the next few meetings and I suggested that I could contribute something music-related; that perhaps we could include a Taize chant at the beginning and the end of the meeting. This was agreed and I sought out a few chants; I am unfamiliar with leading Taize, but as a musician the learning of the chants was straightforward enough.

When last night came round, however, I was feeling nervous. Although I teach music in schools - much of it singing- and have sung in church choirs since I was very young, I was feeling nervous about leading the group. What if I pitched the music too high (being a soprano) and we were all screeching the chants?! I don't have a tuning fork, else that would have been a bit of reassurance on this front (and will be something I will be buying for future unaccompanied leading!). I didn't feel just nerves, though, but a lack of confidence in my ability.

Despite the fact that I told myself that this lack of confidence in my ability was misplaced given my experience in singing and leading singing, it was there. And then I thought, as I stood in the kitchen not long before I set off, why on earth am I worrying about this? What, ultimately, I am doing this for? I am using my gifts to lead people into prayer - to help them to praise and worship God, and that is what I need to focus on. I didn't feel anxious anymore.

Yes, it is important to do the very best we can, and sometimes nerves can help us to achieve this. But a lack of self-confidence or fear will not help us to do this. We need to acknowledge our God-given gifts and recognise that each and every one of us has something to offer. We should then use our gifts with confidence and joy, knowing that those gifts with which we have been blessed, whatever they may be, can enhance people's lives in many ways.

Others can affirm our gifts and help us to grow in confidence, but we need to have the self-confidence to believe in what we can do in order to use our gifts to their fullest and thus serve and glorify God in doing so.

Known and unknown

In a recent post, I wrote about the slightly frantic nature of school mornings in our house. I have since found a clip of Outnumbered on YouTube which had me laughing out loud in recognition!

Another time of the day that tends to be busy every day is bedtime, and the time leading up to this. After a bath/shower and a story, it's time for the boys to settle down to bed. It's really important to me that each of them has time when we chat one-to-one before I sing to them (even Harry, my ten-year-old, still likes me to sing to him, although not if he has a friend sleeping over :-)), say prayers and say goodnight. I have found that it is one of the times that they really like to talk about things that are on their minds, as it is quieter with fewer distractions.

Once the children are in bed, I then have the rest of the evening to myself. Most evenings I potter around doing bits and pieces in the house, perhaps getting things ready for the next day, doing some work, catching up with people on the phone or computer or reading (or writing the blog!). Sometimes I am really tired and don't have the energy to do much other than have a bath and go straight to bed! One evening last week, I felt like I was coming down with a cold and felt a bit below par. The phone went just after I had got into the bath and by the time I had got out, it was late. It had been my mum on the phone just phoning to say hello and have a chat. Although I didn't speak to her that evening, her phone call, and just hearing her voice on the answerphone, really lifted me. And the thing is, mum didn't know then that her call had meant as much that evening in particular; we often speak on the phone and this night was no different to any of the others in many ways, except for the fact that her phoning made an especial difference to how I felt that night.

Sometimes our thoughts and words of kindness or encouragement mean a lot more to people than we realise at the time, and sometimes we may not realise the extent of the impact of them at all. Sometimes people say something in passing that can really speak to us and stay with us for a long time. Sometimes we can read something that encourages us and lifts us which we can refer to again and again.

Support and encouragement may come to us, but it may be necessary at times for us to reach out for support from others when we need it, although this can be hard to do; it is certainly something that I have found difficult to do at times. I was reading a book recently which wrote specifically about how fellow mums can support and encourage each other, and that this has to start with honesty; the old saying 'a problem shared is a problem halved' rings very true -  but the problem needs to be acknowledged and shared in the first place if it is going to be halved. I am very thankful that I have people to whom I can turn and say 'I am finding this difficult', and they help to give me the love and support that I need - this includes a listening ear and, often, a good dose of perspective (and humour!) that is much-needed and helps a great deal.

The encouragement that we get matters, as does the encouragement we give, and we may not be aware of how far-reaching what we say and do might be. Let us look for opportunities to encourage and support others where we can and let them know that they are thought of. Related to parenting and giving support to others on a wider scale, I think particularly of the group I have mentioned before in this blog, Mums in Durham, that has offered so much support to other mums in the Durham area and is celebrating its first anniversary this week. I also think of two friends of mine who have recently published a book and set up a website which will help new dads and support families experiencing parenthood for the first time.

Their efforts will continue to impact upon many, many people, known and unknown, as our efforts can also make a big difference to others, known and unknown.