Covid-19 and 2020: Opportunities and blessings (count yours)

How odd life can be - somehow this seems to have been one of the best years ever experienced for so many reasons. Stop to count your blessings; how many are there?

Here's my quick and messy starter with ten blessings:

1.   Stopped care homes but cared in homes.

2.   Took the Word of God (living and written) into peoples homes using technology
      (am I the only one to go, "Oooh, technology!" (in a Homer Simpson voice)?

3.   Got to stream funerals and be creative with way people are encouraged and supported to mourn.

4.   Did virtual military remembrance services (one two at the same time).

5.   Recorded and streamed some services (that said, we've done the majority live)
      This means that at last I can proved I can be in two places at the same time!

6.   Got to shop for people (which we're still doing), started supplying drugs (prescription only, honest
      Occifer).

7.   Had the challenge of three funerals in four locations in one day
      (one church, one burial, two different crematoria)

8.   Was part of pastorally-engaged and effective Church which put aside fees and catered for feelings
      of bereaved and brokenness of our communities.

9.   Managed to continually stream morning and evening prayer, compline, BCP evensong
      (Communion coming) and CW Communion and returned congregations back to buildings.

10. Entered into the world of 'virtual' care home visits where the cleric is passed from one resident to
      the next as they get to spend time with ,e.

The world has become so very different over the past few months - and I thing it is an invitation to blessing and service to me and others around me.

I'm sad at the loss,
                the fear,
                the lack of consideration for others as people fail to protect those around them

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.

Journal: living under this world's yellow sun

The day now past has been one of challenge, blessing and a little personal pain today; not bad for a day billed as "off'. It started with breakfast and the company of a friend. One of the people who will listen to me and make, not always comfortable, comments and observations and provide part of what in combination with others is an effective spiritual direction process.

It's good to reflect and make oneself vulnerable to people - something we clergy do too little of - for it makes us human and exposes our feet of clay. The problem I find that hits me most is that unlike Superman,  living under the yellow sun of earth  doesn't seem to give me super powers at all! In fact there are times when I struggle to leap small obstacles with a single bound and am not only slower than a crawling bullet, but am wounded by words too! Yes indeed you - I'm frail, fallible and human.

Part two of today came in the shape of a service which unexpectedly arrived at my doorstep. But it was soon sorted, done, and gave me a sense of blessing too. When everyone is human then only the few - in this case the one - is truly revealed to be super. And so God was brought into the presence of others and I was blessed to be able to bless. That's what days off are for: Blessings!

So by the time the afternoon was with me we (the two made one through marriage) decided to take in a 'wrinkly film' (£3 each with a tea or coffee handed to you - a real bargain indeed). The film:Collateral Beauty - billed by some an a little over emotional, self-indulgent, offering.

But I got much from it even though it was so very obvious, over-egged and had too many words at time; yet was still effective and, for me at least, at times little painful. It's not often people will find me mention Timmy, a son who was loved much and who, attracting a litany of health issues, graced this world for just shy of ten years.

Howard the Will Smith character) is, Scrooge like, visited by love, time and death as he struggles over the loss of a child. Now it wasn't so much the film that touched me and entered into places I thought were dealt with and boarded up but the opportunity to let words and images resonate with the crystal glass memories and pains that lie hidden deep within the boarded up places.

The problem we have with loss is that we either bury the feelings of pain and grief with our loved ones or we nod at them and pass them by on the other side of the road, hoping no to have to stop and engage with them (a bit like some of the people life conspires to bless us with :-) ).

So yesterday I grieved over the loss of a son and touched the heart of God, another Father who shares the loss of a child, and was equally touched and blessed by the whole painful encounter. Tomorrow I will stand with people and in the resonance of today will bring them to a place of grief, loss, celebration and continuance of life. This yellow sun and the vulnerability it brings to my every day is indeed a blessing for it illuminates the hand which holds me and makes me safe.

Film done, it was time to write funeral services and edit sound tracks so that they fit the bill for my trip to the Crem'. It is so easy to 'do' funerals as if they were a row of identical objects on a conveyor belt. But the time taken to craft words that speak of the life, the joys, the pain, which shape and mound us is essential. The simplicity of finding words for a treasure is overtaken by the opportunity to be an apologist for a life lived in painful experience and broken relationships. This is the joy and the challenge we encounter when in the company of another person's dead.

The day ended with wedding stuff - and boy do I struggle with weddings! Unlike funerals where people need a neighbour, someone who will come alongside and help make sense of things, weddings often turn out to be a long line of service providers with the cleric and a required, yet not always required part, of the whole thing. But for this one I am involved with people I am involved with and so it's part of the family rather than part of the package. And that's a joy I will enjoy this coming Saturday.

So another 'day off' ends and I have had fun and pain and revelation and more besides.

Lord, for all the facets of the day I give You thanks and praise.
For my dead, and the dead of others - I give you thanks and commend them to Your grace, love, care and mercy. Bring Your healing into the presence of those whose loved one I will do services for this week.
For those I have been a blessing to today: I thank You.
For those who have blessed me and shown me kindness - thank You for them.
Lord, bring me sleep and refreshment - may tomorrow be filled with encounter and opportunity to make Your love and life real in the people before me.
Lord, I love You,

The examen revisited

One of the most amazing experiences and one of the most useful aids to ministry came from a course of study in Ignatian spirituality and the 'examen'. I'm revisiting this because I've been asked to by a couple of the people who also engage with the daily Office I plonk on this blog.

The examen is usually a five-part exercise:

i.    Retreat into a space where you and God can get real and lose yourself in His love,

ii.   Pray and reflect on the ways God is to be found in your life,

iii.  Refelect on the day- high, lows and in between and the emotions you experienced,

iv.   Reflect on the things done, said and in the things of the day - did they enhance or diminish the sense of God' presence and blessing for you (and others)?
The coming year.
v.    Focus on the day ahead and ways you and God might be one - in relationship and in making the missio dei real - concluding with the Lord's Prayer.

I do my examen in bed when the house is quiet and I can focus on God and today it has shown me so many areas to be thankful for and highlighted my own fears and insecurities and areas where I need the courage to go forward and the grace to live with others.

The sadness of a funeral followed by our Christmas holiday club set the extremities of today and within them there were chances taken, chances passed by and missed opportunities.

I realise that I am mentally tired and look for the Boxing Day opportunity for some respite.

I recognise the need to do some more study and reflection and to withdraw from the daily round more often and to make more of me more open to the move of God's Holy Spirit.

I pray for those who are wounded by their own folly and by the folly of others, for those who are in need of support and the provision of God's 'Yes' in their lives and for those for whom this will be a tough Christmas through loss and bereavement.

And pray for the new family coming to minister in the Meade Valley - may they be blessed and be a blessing.

Lord, the time is almost here and the stable is waiting - prepare my heart also.

Neonatal Death: Call the Midwife

Tonight's episode of 'Call the Midwife' dealt with the issue of neonatal death; an issue that once it has visited a family never really goes away.

I was doing so well today and then this blinking programme turned up and as the story unfolded I found myself with tears running down my face and myself taken back to the very first time I fund myself in a room with a Mum, easing her to a place where we could pray and ease the child towards the waiting female member of the undertaker's staff.

I have to be honest and say that there are timers when the blessed resonances that all pastoral encounters leave behind not only ground you but also give you exquisitely painful insights into God's love for His child and the pain that separation, for our sake, brought Him.

There will be many for whom the pain is revisited as the wounds of loss are re-examined and made real once again. For those who find tonight's episode may they find healing, wholeness and restoration.

For those who have gone:  May God grant them eternal rest (dona eis requiem).