Hijacked by a verse 1)

Currently I am studying Colossians and a verse jumped out at me which receives only passing commentary because it seems straight forward.  For though I am absent from you in body I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.(Col 2:5).  The apostle, who is under house arrest, writes this at other times too when he is separated from his readers.

What struck me in our continuing isolation was this contrast between absent in body/present in spirit. I looked up how The Message expresses it in contemporary language: I'm a long way off, true, and you may never lay eyes on me but believe me, I am on your side, right beside you. I am delighted to hear of the careful and orderly ways you conduct our affairs and impressed with the solid substance of your faith in Christ'. It sharpens the contrast between being a long way off and believe me, I am on your side, right beside you. 

I think you can say these words in two ways.  First as a good friend.  When you care for somebody who you cannot be with yet want to encourage them this is a good way to show empathy and demonstrate imaginative engagement. It's the kind of thing we say when we want friends to know that we have heard good things about them and are rooting for them in their situation. I'm right beside you.

But these are words we choose to say to those who are good friends.  We can't imagine saying them to people outside our circle of friendship.  That flies in the face of human nature.  We choose our friends and give encouragement when they are absent.  Does this fill out the meaning of 'being present in the spirit'.  No! Because the apostle Paul is experiencing something deeper.......

Playing the guitar

Yesterday a couple of friends invited us to their garden for tea. He is also a retired Baptist minister. It was their first time during the lock-out that anyone had spent time with them. It so happened that in that morning while I was moving stuff around in my shed/study I came across a slim yellow volume by a Baptist minister called Bryan Gilbert. (I know - it's a lot of Baptists!)  It is titled: Bryan Gilbert introduces you to Playing the Guitar for the Lord's Work (1970).

I remember these friends had mentioned Bryan Gilbert in conversation many months ago.  So I took this book to show them and he lit up immediately as he took it into his hands.  He told me how he had learned to play the guitar with this very book.  As he saw the basic (many dated) songs in the book with suggested finger style etc. he reminisced about much this book had set him on his way.  Further, they said that Bryan had been a member of their church in Whetstone and were still in touch with him every Christmas.

I had to confess that I had similarly tried to learn to play the guitar with this book but had failed lamentably.  I blamed my stubby fingers!  But the tenor of the conversation remained strongly positive as we marvelled at the thousands of people he did teach and the impact he had through his series on playing the guitar.  Bryan's influence was much wider than this but what a reminder of that time in recent church history when playing the guitar became part of the scene in so many of our churches. 

1000th post

To my astonishment this is my 1000th post since a tentative beginning in Nov 2007.  My son, Rob, pushed me to start this venture at a time when setting up blogs was in fashion long before Twitter etc. At that point I was teaching as well as being interim preacher in the US which gave me a considerable amount of material.  In particular I discovered the value of cooperating with others in the preparation of sermons by inviting their exegesis and life experiences into my posting process. This became so important that I wrote it up in my book Preaching as Worship. I was thrilled by members of the congregation excitedly talking about these preaching blogs.  That's all part of my astonishment about how these posts have worked.

Since returning to England and nudging into retirement there is much less interaction like this.  You may have noticed that increasingly they have had a devotional and journalling style.  It's not that I do not have strong views on issues like 'Black Lives Matter' which hit me hard when engaging with my African American students in Chicago. Before that I came of age as a young minister in Blackburn when I wrote a pamphlet for the Council of Churches which was published to go through neighbourhood letter boxes in order to confront the growing tide of racism in the city....and very quickly I discovered how some in my congregation regarded me as naive and out of touch.  Yes, there are big important social and political issues that deserve comment and bravery.

By and large I have written on an odd mix of personal subjects, sometimes very personal (as with my illnesses).  I continue to wonder about their worthiness to share. I really do!  But I know from the stats that some of you seem to find something of interest. So, I shall push on for a little longer.  The important thing to say is:  Thank You for troubling to click on through the years.

Honesty about faith

Early I admitted my failure to ask my father quite basic questions about his life.  But I do remember him telling me about the day he went forward to profess his Christian faith at West Ham Central Mission.  It was an evening service, packed with hundreds of people.  The preacher was a visiting woman who spoke about the seriousness of following Jesus and the boldness needed to make public confession.  At the end she invited anyone who wanted to make public their commitment to Jesus to walk to the front and stand in front of her.  I guess a hymn was sung as she prayed and waited for a response.

No one in the large crowd went forward.  At this point my father suddenly felt that this was the moment for him to make his declaration.  His faith commitment had been growing especially through the Christian Endeavour Society where he first learned to express his faith.  He had solid trust but he had never shown it. So, he walked to the front.

I asked him whether part of him had felt sorry for the woman preacher because nobody was going forward and he admitted that he had!  The fact that she had spoke so clearly and was suffering the embarrassment of no response at all was in the mix of factors that spurred him to the front.  How honest this analysis of motive was! And how true of a man whose spirituality throughout all the time I knew him always seemed to resist any spiritual hyping up!  He never fitted easily into any Christian labeling. He knew the Holy Spirit works in different ways with different personalities.

Much later when the evangelist David Watson was leading a city-wide campaign in Cambridge I remember his wonder that when the evangelist making his challenge to respond publicly he would often appear to dampen down emotion by interjecting a piece from the Riding Lights drama group.  By the time he gave the public appeal it almost seemed an anticlimax.  Yet people would surge forward. 'It's like Elijah pouring water on the altar,' he said, 'and it shows the Holy Spirit truly at work.'

Reflecting on parents

One of the most interesting aspects of A Weird Life was trying to unpack the contrasts and commonalities in my parent's lives.  My father was born into an East End aspiring working class family, leaving school at 14 to work as a lowly clerk in the East Ham Council office.  But every spare moment he seemed to want to break out of his limited background.  He cycled to Europe on holidays and gobbled up languages beginning with French and German. He discovered classical music and art and much else in a kind of self-education programme.  Utterly unconventional, all this made him something of an outlier - his own man-  whose views would often surprise. And maybe make for some insecurity too.

In contrast my mother was born into a comfortable middle-class home with a successful business man father (a dominating character too).  Nothing would seem more conventional - her education followed smoothly through school where her academic skills flourished and she was among the first women to enter Bristol University to study psychology and economics.  Attractive with considerable confidence, she was well prepared for a successful life ahead.

It still strikes me as highly unlikely that these two people ever connected.  He an East Ender, seven years older and she from such a comfortable background.  But what they had in common was that they both had come to faith in lively Baptist churches. My father was immensely influenced by West Ham Central Mission which was internationally known for its ministry throughout the East End of London. Here his faith was stretched which led to his baptism and eventually to his call to Baptist ministry.  My mother moved home a couple of times and it was in Tyndale Baptist Church, Bristol, also a significant community, that she too made Christian faith commitment in baptism.  They were both open to God doing fresh things in their lives and that included finding a life partner. 

I think they were both taking risks but I am convinced that nurture in their local churches had paved the way for everything that was important in their future lives together.   I can't help giving thanks for lively local churches and the life preparation they can give us - including preparing unlikely couples for each other!

A Weird Life

I mentioned that title in my last post - 'A Weird Life'.  I do not believe that I have some special anointing of weirdness.  Brought up in a Baptist minister's family has some immediate strangeness but many others have endured that!  What qualifies as weird, however, is the sheer amount of God in my story partly because of my background but mainly within the rest of the story so far.  The percentage of Godness is extraordinarily high. I know this high percentage may put off even some of my own grandchildren from reading it. But I will invite them to make the effort because my life cannot be understood without this living God dimension.

Many lives have twists and turns which from a secular standpoint can be explained without recourse to God.  I think some of my twists and turns can only be explained by recourse to God. God-incidences can often be explained away but when they keep happening and they lead to a full life it can add up to a weirdly wonderful life.

My father once said to me: 'Even if Christianity was proved to be false,it is still the best way to live.'  Of course he had no doubt about the truth of Jesus Christ's mission for the world but his point was that many things happen along the Christian way because to take Jesus seriously really is the best way to live.

I think I might summarize one or two issues emerging in this story in future posts.

Too late, but...

Just before lock down my daughter-in-law asked me what my mother was like. What a searching question I thought.  My mother died in 1979 aged 57 in a tragic accident long before either of my daughters-in-law could have met her.  And it was searching because I realized with a shock that I have never properly reflected on her nor my father.  I mean properly reflected on their stories and contrasting life experiences.  I owe so much to these two people and yet I have devoted so little time to thinking about who they were.

Two things struck me.  First, how little I knew about them for sure.  Yes I have birth and death certificates and a few photographs and bits of memorabilia along with my own experiences of them growing up.  But so many critical issues about their lives are blanks.  Second, I realized how little I had troubled to ask them about themselves while I could.  It would have been so easy on the walks we had together or relaxing at home to have asked key questions about the different stages of their lives, the decisions they took, and what perspectives they had on their own upbringing.

Sadly, it's too late to ask but I have resolved during these past weeks to make space for reflection with what material I have!  Indeed, beginning with their stories I have also attempted to reflect on my own early years - and Carol's.  It's been an adventure in recovering and assessing memories.  Gradually, with a target of a page each day, the story has been building through the weeks.  I call it 'A Weird Life' for reasons that I might share in a future post.  The only people likely to read it are my own family - it's personal with little serious research and inevitable flaws.  But when people ask what I have been doing the last ten weeks, this is one of the answers.  For me its been an exercise in appreciation.