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My week in Taizé!

Posted on August 15th, 2012

It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog, sorry everyone!  I’ve been doing so many different things it’s been hard to find the right frame of mind for writing.

I’ve just got back from a week at Taizé, which was amazing.  It’s the first time I’ve been to Taizé since 2004, so it was quite a significant experience.  As those of you who know my music will remember, the chants sung at Taizé are my inspiration and my experience of Taizé when I was 17 was the beginning of my path with God.

On the Friday evening the community has a prayer around the cross.  When the evening prayer is finished, the monks place the icon of the cross on the floor and then move aside.  The congregation queues up and then take their place around the cross, putting their forehand or hands on the icon of Jesus crucified.

During the week this was the first time I felt really moved beyond a general happiness to be there and interest in the discussions we were having.  It was the first time I felt a presence of God, and I spent quite a while writing.  I will write up what I wrote on that evening as an introduction to some Taizé-inspired blogs.

The church is filled with the chant ‘Jesus Remember Me’.  5,000 voices calling out to God.  5,000 people whose hearts are crying out to be welcomed into the arms of the Father.  And Jesus hears every single voice and knows every one of their names.  Human and deity are united by a mutual longing for each other.  ‘Man is never more fully man than when he gives himself totally to God; and God is never more fully God than when he gives himself totally to man.’  We try to meet God in a way we can understand – we place ourselves at the foot of his cross, but God’s work is so much more deep.  As we welcome Him one again into our lives he once more opens our hearts to a love that is beyond description, even beyond comprehension. 

All differences forgotten, all divisions ignored, we come to Him each as fragile and broken as each other.  And as a loving mother and father, God welcomes us.  For this short time, all voices are one, calling out to the love and grace of our Lord.  And God comes to us, no matter what we have done and no matter what we’ve thought.  He welcomes us and welcomes us, healing our bruised hearts with his outpouring of divine, never-ending, unconditional love.

God loves us.  God loves us.  God loves us.

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Love, love, love!

Posted on June 24th, 2012

Today I went to ‘Love Bath’ – a free festival organised by the churches of Bath for the community.  It was a great chance to get to know people and to meet up with some people who I’d spoken to over the internet (mostly Facebook!).  Hats off to Emma Gypps, everyone at Springboard Bath and the whole organisation team!  I think everyone especially enjoyed the free hot dogs, bottles of water, hot drinks and ice cream!

It was interesting seeing so many Christians together just having fun and enjoying themselves.  I was on bouncy castle duty for the afternoon, which was fun…I definitely got more assertive as time when on!

I just thought the name for the festival – Love Bath – was so great.  Especially when the reading from the Old Testament this morning was altered so that instead of Zion or Jerusalem we had Bath and Aque Sulis!  It was really powerful and got everyone involved.

After the festival today I came home and saw the latest video by Jefferson Bethke, whose video ‘Why I hate religion but love Jesus’ I’ve blogged about before.  I didn’t watch all of it because it didn’t really grab me at the time, but there was a theme that came through for me from both what I saw of the video and also from the festival today.  That theme is, of course, love.

How can we put love into practice?  I was thinking about how much I’d like to move into Bath city and had a look at house prices.  Sob!  But why can’t I be satisfied where I am?  I could give you lots of reasons but really…I have a roof over my head.  What more do I need?  Jesus says we don’t even need two shirts – share what you have with others.  And yet most of the Christians I meet (and I include myself in this) have comfortable lives with plenty of material possessions.  It doesn’t mean they’re all obsessed by their possessions (how could I ever make that judgement?!) but they have them.  I have them.  So how does this sit with the teachings of Jesus?

I’ve heard many people criticise the Vatican for the amount of wealth contained within it and I completely understand where they’re coming from.  But are we any better?  Where do we draw the line between what is needed and what is excessive?  Who gets to make that decision?  If we gave away everything we owned today we wouldn’t be able to function very well in the modern world of Great Britain.  We couldn’t do our jobs properly if we didn’t have technology to communicate or complete work, for example.  So what should we give up?

Perhaps our time, like Street Pastors.  I’m very precious over time as I’m always busy and desperately try to create some downtime to just relax and read a book or watch TV.  Perhaps we should give people the time and support that they need like organisations such as The Samaritans.  I try to make myself available to talk to people about what’s happening in their lives as much as possible and think that this is something I’m not too bad at doing.  Perhaps our money, as we’re encouraged to do by charities.  I try to give away what I can but often worry about money.

If we are trying to show love to others, does it come down to these things – time, support and money?  Is there more to it?  How do we find that balance?  And do we need to make sure that we show love to ourselves, too?

So many questions!  I don’t know the answer but I would love to be better at showing love and living a life of love as we have been asked to do.  Perhaps by opening ourselves up to receive our love we let that love flow through us and by surrendering and opening to the love of God, we become instruments for his love.

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The crazy life…

Posted on May 25th, 2012

Well, this has been one of the craziest weeks of my life!!!  Just to give you an overview before I start:

Sunday – church in the morning, eye test, marking Year 8 books and writing reports (3-9)

Monday – up at 6, got ready for work, drove to work, arrived at 8, students in school until 3.30 then I worked until 6, drove home and had dinner then worked again 8-10.

Tuesday – up at 5.30, work, home at 6, people round for Taizé practice, work 9-10.

Wednesday – up at 6, work, finally finished marking  and reports (hurray!) and preparing cards etc. for my tutor group who left this week then drove to Cheltenham to stay with a friend in preparation for…

Thursday – drove from Cheltenham to Solihull for a standardisation meeting (for GCSE exam marking), then drove to Sherborne to stay at a friend’s (arrived back at 8). Had a lovely curry!

Friday – at school by 7.50, very emotional day with saying goodbye to some really special people and then back home by 5 to collapse!!!!

It doesn’t sound so mad like that but it feels very mad!!

So here’s the perfect example of a time when it’s a good opportunity to practice focusing on God no matter what. I can’t say I’ve done that very well this week.  There are so many ways to focus on God in the midst of work, and I think that the best way that I can do it is by trying to act with love towards people. ” Round we go again to the last blog entry,” I hear you all say!!  Well, yes – I suppose it’s the theme for my life at the moment!!  But the encouraging thing is that it must work at least some of the time, judging by the amount of jewellery I was given by my tutor group today and the cheer that went up when I was given a bottle of wine in their final assembly!!

So although I’m exhausted, emotionally drained, very sad to have said goodbye to so many lovely people and in need of some serious time out -life is still good.  I’ve had the encouragement I needed to keep on going and to know that I’m exactly where God wants me to be, doing what I should be doing.

You can’t ask for much more than that!!!

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Why doesn’t God jump in?

Posted on March 20th, 2012

‘…things in life can be good or evil, depending on what, with free will, we do with them.  Speech can bless or curse.  Money can save or destroy.  Science can heal or kill.  Even nature can work for you or against you: fire can warm or burn, water can sustain life or flood it away.’ – Mitch Albom

I love Mitch Albom.  I’ve only read two of his books (Tuesdays with Morrie and Have a Little Faith), but both have been life-changing reading experiences for me.  Perhaps the basis of each book (conversations with men who have inspired Albom and who are dying as the story unfolds) strikes a chord, but for whatever reason they are breathtaking.

I read this quote again this evening when I was thinking of something to write.  A few weeks ago I agreed with a friend that we would send each other a text message with one exciting thing that we did or saw or experienced every day.  It was a great experiment and really helped me to be the most positive I could be.  Perhaps this blog will do the same – help me to focus on God every single day.  That would be great!!

So my musing for this evening.  It isn’t about free will, which is what Mitch is discussing with the Reb in this extract from Have a Little Faith.  It’s about the choices that we make in life.  Something which I’ve been thinking about for a long time is our nature: should we try to change the people that we are to become better or more ‘God-like’, or should we embrace who we are because that’s the way we were made?  I haven’t yet come to a conclusion on this one, even after several years of thinking about it!  I can’t help but think that perhaps it would be nice if God would just jump in and give me the answer!

Many of the guidelines in the Bible and in the lives of saints which people may follow can, I think, be condensed into one word: love.  It’s an instruction, a state of being, a way of life, a philosophy, a description of God.  Love.  I want with all my heart to love my neighbour, as Jesus taught.  Being human makes that a bit difficult, and probably the thing I struggle with the most.  I frequently ask myself: if I can’t love such-and-such, how can I call myself a Christian?  And perhaps the answer lies in the saying – you don’t go to God because you’re perfect; you go because you know you’re not perfect.

I am a work in progress, as we all are.  But on this path it’s very difficult not to give yourself a hard time when you don’t live up to the standards you set for yourself.  Try this one on for size – 

Maybe it’s not that hard to become the people that God made us to be after all?

When I first started walking along this path of faith, people would often recommend books to me.  I found it really hard to motivate myself to read any of them, always believing that if I was meant to learn something it would happen in my life, and I would learn it first hand.  I’m glad to say that I have read and benefited from many books since then, but I do think there is some truth in it.  Perhaps it’s all interwoven – to live in love, through love and by love is to connect with God and to fulfil our purpose, and in doing so we can quiet the struggles in our souls.

And so the journey continues…

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