Journal: Dying matters Awareness week

What an amazingly immense day spent outside engaging with people as they shopped as part of 'Dying Matters' awareness week. I have had so many conversations with people and taken the opportunity to just 'be' with the people of Tamworth and it was marvellous.

From 10:00 to 16:00 I walked, talked, listened and prayed. I handed out leaflets for a bereavement support group based in St. Martin's (Stonydelph) and conversed with people from St Gile's Hospice   Funeral Directors, and many other people besides.

Back on the Streets on Friday - hoping it stays dry and that I experience more of the same.

There is a real temptation for me to just give up on all the admin and stuff and just soak myself in being out there on the streets - so many needs - and so much joy to be celebrated and made real.

As a society it seems that we don't do death as well as we did. We don't think about it in a healthy way, in fact we rarely think about it unless our mortality (or that of someone we live or know) is threatened. One of the most important roles a cleric has is that of helping people to die well - not a morbid thing, but something of joy and completeness I reckon.

We don't always grieve well either and the spectrum ranges from 'always look on the bright side of life' through to turning the home into a shrine and engaging in a toxic grief that ends normal life for others too. Death is a painful thing, but it is supposed to be and because grief is so often malformed rather than bring healing and a way forward it causes people to revisit the pain with no obvious exit for the roundabout!

So on with the week and the encounters and conversations and the pain of loss and the optimism that a new day brings.

Have I mentioned how much I love this ministry stuff.

Lord, for everything that's been today and all that's before me tomorrow: I thank You.

A day of many parts

The day started with the usual routine of daily Office, usually occurs anywhere in the morning from 03:30 onwards (usually finding itself at 04:30 it seems as the first thing I do when I wake). This is the opportunity to read the Bible and pray, setting up the day that follows as the spiritual equivalent of porridge for it sustained me throughout the day, in the stillness before the dawn aririves.

I blog the readings each morning (there is a growing group of people who use the condensed form I post as part of their introduction to doing the Office) as part of growing discipline in myself and others.  So, Office done, there's some post-production work on a recording to be sorted and then it's into the church building to set up for the Thursday Communion and the drop-in that follows it. Chairs out, orders of service and Bibles on the seats, lay up for the Communion, fill the urn (and turn it on - always important). Then it's the tables and chairs, biscuits and stuff for the two hours that follow after the Eucharist is done.

I rejoice at the Psalm in Communion today (118) it's like a sweet jar full of old favourite sentences and they bounce around my head all day: The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone - Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord - Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Words that sustain.

How sad that we have lost the Psalms as part of our public worship in so many places - sadder still the contraction to just two readings! Jesus, the Christ, is the capstone which holds it all together - Hallelujah! We share the word and celebrate the resurrection and recommit ourselves to shime in the dark places of our town - for we are salt and light.
What does that look like?
How will you use me to make You known today?
Where will my feet take me and what do I need other than You?
So many questions and challenges buzzing, then and now as bed is made my hiding place with you.

The drop-in was amazing, so many people with so many issues, yet laughed and encounter and the joy of being family for those who known the Christ and those perhaps a little far off - just as it shou,d be for first they stop, then the sit and then they recline - aren't people amazing and isn't God great?

Onto a meeting and finding joy in the shape of a nearby church and the steps to be taken there - little steps bring a great distance in the passage of time - the key is to take them! Back to the START course where it transpired that when looking at who our hero is Jesus want mine! Shock or what?
We talk and look at the heroes society has in its sportsmen and women: overpaid, indulged, living wrong lives and et emulated and applauded, is that what a hero is? Move on to great leaders, commanders, businessmen and women: is victory or success the key to making a hero? Nah, when we look past their achievements and their fine words we find feet of clay,

As we talk about why I live the life I do, flawed fallible, excited and generally weird I mention that I am, and do, because Jesus is MY LOVE, and that's the word - it is LOVE, not HERO, that we need to be thinking of and looking to emulate, to please and to follow. How absolutely amazingly wonderfully brilliant is that? His love endures for ever.

Buzzing I prepare and head of to ke a bunch of ten ann eleven year olds around a church building and share some of the wonderful treasures, explaining symbolism and imagery, and making the love of God as seen in Jesus, God made man, known. Making time running around the church and pointing out stuff that is usually missed - making connections - explaining liturgicalbits and giving little hooks  and sowing seeds. How I love this life which so many others seem to think is a job. I'm working, and for, with the person I love - can it get any more wonderful?

And it does - for I find myself in the ditch it's the woman I love, half a pint and a pork pie and some time to chat and meet new people and enjoy the woman whose lives surrounds and sustains me also.

Lord, I am just so very blessed!

All before me was joy today: The engagements, the conversations, the opportunities seen and taken. The written word and the living Word filling and sustaining and guiding me.

Thanks for a great day - same again tomorrow please?