Soul searching

We watched Disney Pixar’s Soul last night. This might well be a minority report, but I didn’t love it. There was too much “Look, we've worked out how to animate crowd scenes where every individual is unique!” and not enough story. And the jazz is excruciating, in a way that I suspect it would not be if we were listening to it being played live, but we are not.

Joe is a middle-aged man who experiences a crisis that (eventually, and only after a great deal of unsuccessfully trying to fix the problem) disrupts his self-absorption long enough to reveal the irony that his obsession with not living an insignificant life is the very thing preventing him from seeing the significance of life, shared and constructed with others. So far, so It's A Wonderful Life, or The Muppets Christmas Carol. The very slight twist is that this discovery comes less from omniscient spirits and more from helping (unwittingly) another soul who is literally too afraid to live—a character called 22, cue laboured improv and visual gags around catch-22. Nonetheless, other films explore this basic plot with greater deftness, including (not only the two classics mentioned above, but also) Pixar’s own Coco.

That said, there is a reason why this is a basic plot, one of those stories we revisit and find new ways to tell on a regular basis. Life is not about getting it right, or seeing our dreams come true just as we imagine them. Rather, its beauty comes from the ways in which we riff off one another, as we see the world through one another’s eyes. There is plenty to be awakened to here concerning discipleship, and vocation. But in this regard, the stories that surround and touch upon Joe’s story—his mother’s, his barber’s—are paths I’d rather explore…

 

Update: 03.01.2021

I wrote the other day that I had watched Disney Pixar’s Soul and didn’t love it, concluding that I would have been more interested in the story of Joe’s mother or barber. This engaging post helps me see why more clearly. And to be clear, yes, transformation from human form sometimes happens to White characters, too—think Queen Elinor (and the three young princes) in Brave—but representation, and how it is handled, matters.

 

Pieces

 

Elijah has decided that 3 missing pieces out of a brand new 1,000-piece jigsaw is mathematically acceptable. I’m torn—proud of his graciousness, but also thinking there are certain jobs (customer service, civil engineering) I hope he doesn’t take up. But, mostly, I am humbled, and learning from my son. Life is rarely about possessing all of the pieces; and resilience, maturity, and wholeness is constructed not through ‘perfection’ but through a sense of ‘enough’ to make sense, to see what you behold with understanding and an awareness of its imperfect beauty.

 

Advent day 26 (2020)

 

 

People of God: prepare!

God, above all, maker of all,

is one with us in Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God, the mighty God,

bends down in love to earth.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God with us, God beside us,

comes soon to the world he has made.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

We are God’s children,

we seek the coming Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

 

…we seek the coming Christ.

I wonder what it is that you hope for this Christmas? Perhaps you have had to revise your plans—and your expectations in line with them, refashioning them into something smaller in the hope of not being disappointed. Perhaps you hope for moments of joy, or peace, in the bitter-sweet bustle or boredom.

The Christ is a person, of course, but his coming is an event, and perhaps, even if you won’t be opening your door to far-flung relatives this year you might hope to welcome him. But our prayer goes beyond hoping, to an active searching-out: we seek the coming Christ. And if we might recognise him at some future arrival, we might do well to rehearse our part in his many unheralded arrivals, in rooms behind closed doors. How might you seek the coming Christ, hidden in plain sight, this Christmas? In whose eyes, or voice, might he be found?

 

Advent day 25 (2020)

 

 

People of God: prepare!

God, above all, maker of all,

is one with us in Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God, the mighty God,

bends down in love to earth.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God with us, God beside us,

comes soon to the world he has made.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

We are God’s children,

we seek the coming Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

 

God beside us, comes soon…

I had dropped into a local block of sheltered flats to deliver some small gifts, and the manager asked whether there was any possibility that I might organise some spatially distanced carol singing in the carpark, to cheer the residents. We put this morning in the diary. It has dawned the wettest day in days—Carols in the Carpark hastily rechristened Carols with Rain, Dear. Not a good morning to discover that I have left my umbrella behind somewhere, almost certainly at the other church I serve.

Whatever day God comes to us, we are never fully ready. There is never enough time—from our perspective, even as we long for the waiting to end. But that is okay. God doesn’t wait until all is perfect; God comes to make all things right. God beside us, in the mess of our lives, bringing chaos into harmony, making all things well.

 

Update: the rain held off!

 

Advent day 24 (2020)

 

 

People of God: prepare!

God, above all, maker of all,

is one with us in Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God, the mighty God,

bends down in love to earth.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God with us, God beside us,

comes soon to the world he has made.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

We are God’s children,

we seek the coming Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

 

God, the mighty God, bends down in love to earth…

To those doctors and nurses bracing themselves for another wave, come, Lord Jesus!

To those teachers and head teachers besides themselves with exhaustion, come, Lord Jesus!

To those families devastated beyond bearing by the loss of a precious one, come, Lord Jesus!

To those living alone and longing for human touch, come, Lord Jesus!

To those who have built a dream into a livelihood only to have to close its doors for good, and those who have served only to be laid off, come, Lord Jesus!

To those who fear what tomorrow brings, come, Lord Jesus!

To those on their knees, bend down, embrace, weep with them, come, Lord Jesus!

 

Advent day 23 (2020)

 

 

People of God: prepare!

God, above all, maker of all,

is one with us in Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God, the mighty God,

bends down in love to earth.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God with us, God beside us,

comes soon to the world he has made.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

We are God’s children,

we seek the coming Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

 

God…is one with us in Christ.

On my study wall hangs a large print of the painting Fußwaschung (The Washing of Feet) by Sieger Köder. Depicting Jesus washing Simon Peter’s feet, just hours before his arrest, mockery of a trial, and execution, it doesn’t feel especially Christmassy. And yet I am drawn to the hands—to Peter leaning on Jesus’ shoulder; and the anticipation of Jesus touching Peter’s feet, an anticipation heightened by the fact that we only see Jesus’ face reflected in the water—and to the reality for so many people this year that they have not experienced human touch for many long months. In Christ, the cradled baby, the child, the adult, God is one with us, in touch with us. This year, perhaps more than ever before, we join the Advent longing ‘Maranatha!’ Come, Lord Jesus!

 

Advent day 22 (2020)

 

 

People of God: prepare!

God, above all, maker of all,

is one with us in Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God, the mighty God,

bends down in love to earth.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

God with us, God beside us,

comes soon to the world he has made.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

We are God’s children,

we seek the coming Christ.

Maranatha!

Come, Lord Jesus!

 

Across the UK, people’s preparations to celebrate Christmas together have been thrown into chaos this weekend. Having been told to prepare for one thing, preparations made, that thing is now prohibited. A sorry tale of vacillation, not vaccination.

In fact, while Advent is a time of preparing to celebrate Christmas, it is primarily a time to prepare ourselves for Christ’s return. A light at the end of a long tunnel. But how on earth do you prepare for something you have no idea when it will arrive? Christ comes for each of us in the hour of our death, to reclaim the divine breath that has animated our clay. To prepare for Christ’s return is, whatever else, to prepare ourselves to meet him then. To die well, not afraid but as a welcome culmination of our whole life. Such preparation is not morbid, but filled with longing.

May you celebrate this Christmas as if it were your last. Not wishing you were somewhere else, but in love’s embrace.

 

Advent day 21 (2020)

 

 

People of God: return!

You are called to be God’s own.

From the mountains announce the good news.

God comes in justice and peace,

to all who follow his ways.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the peace of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

Lord, make us one in the peace of Christ today and for ever.

‘Today,’ I think, we understand. But ‘for ever’ is a very long time, extending far beyond what we can possibly imagine. How on earth dare we hope to live in peace for ever? My wife and I have been together for a quarter of a century. Of course, it would be a nonsense to claim that every moment has been harmonious; and yet, our relationship testifies to the reality that we have chosen to live in peace, not enmity. The peace of Christ—the flourishing that Jesus has made possible by overcoming all that opposes such flourishing—is not simply a given (though it is that) but something we must choose to return to, again and again, today, every day, for ever. Moreover, the peace of Christ includes the very possibility of such a return at all: ‘Repent and believe, for the kingdom of God has come near!’

 

Advent day 20 (2020)

 

 

People of God: return!

You are called to be God’s own.

From the mountains announce the good news.

God comes in justice and peace,

to all who follow his ways.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the peace of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

…to all who follow his ways…

With a week to go to Christmas, a small army of volunteers has completed the goal of delivering a Comfort and Joy bauble to households and businesses across the whole parish. Some have gone alone; others accompanied by a dog, a friend, a spouse, children, or grandchildren. All on foot, walking the neighbourhood.

Those who would follow God’s ways must travel at God’s pace: and that pace is three miles an hour, at most; walking in step with the slowest member of the party, often the youngest or oldest; stopping frequently for conversations with those who cross our path; yet with a considered determination to keep going until the vision is accomplished.

Keep going. We’re getting there, slowly.

 

Lionesses of Judah

Lectionary readings for Holy Communion today: Genesis 49:2, 8-10 and Matthew 1:1-17.

The Old Testament reading is an extract from the patriarch Jacob blessing his sons, or reflecting on their character, so as to train them. He compares Judah to a lion and like a lioness. If you’ve ever watched a natural history documentary, you’ll know that big cat mothers are determined, fierce, and resourceful when it comes to the survival of their young.

Matthew begins his Gospel with a family tree, to show that what God has done in and through Jesus is the culmination of a plan that has been in patient motion since the call of Abraham; but also, that, as God has given real freedom to humans and lions and all creation, this determined plan has often genuinely hung in the balance. And in his list of fathers and sons, Matthew includes a pride of lionesses, each facing an obstacle.

The first obstacle is the failure, and indeed refusal, of Judah’s own sons to carry on the family line. It was the custom for brothers-in-law to take responsibility for widows, but Tamar is left hanging until she takes the matter in hand—not only for her own future, but that of the family line, and the plan it carries—posing as a prostitute the now-himself-widowed Judah goes to for comfort, and so securing an heir.

The second obstacle is an army outpost, the Jericho garrison, blocking the way of the descendants of Jacob into the land of Canaan. And here we meet our second lioness, Rahab, the civilian barkeeper who welcomes spies, hides them from the guards who come looking for them, and chooses God’s people over her own, to the extent that she not only secures the survival of her own household but a place in our family line.

The third obstacle is an environmental crisis, a time (not for the first time) of extended harvest failure. Our family finds themselves economic migrants, refugees in a neighbouring land. And there, disaster on disaster, the men die. When things improve back home and widowed Naomi sets out to return, her foreign daughter-in-law Ruth goes with her. She will carry the family line on through Boaz, having put herself in that position by her resourcefulness and cunning: when the harvest is gathered in, and Boaz, having celebrated hard, falls into a drunken sleep in the field, she uncovers him so that when the cold awakens him, he finds himself naked in a field, lying there with a beautiful woman, and wondering about his options. A comedy worthy of Shakespeare.

The fourth obstacle is the unfaithfulness of the king in Judah, David. At a time of war, he does not lead his armies out, but stays at home, where he decides to force himself on his best friend’s wife. Bathsheba isn’t named, other than as ‘the wife of Uriah,’ emphasising that her husband was not the father of her son. When she falls pregnant, David attempts to cover his tracks, first summoning Uriah home from battle for one night, then sending him back to be murdered on the front line. Everyone will assume he is the father of his wife’s child. But when that child also dies, Bathsheba refuses to allow David to wash his hands of her. She will not be discarded, but claims her place as a royal wife. They have another son, and the line carries on.

And so we come to a fifth obstacle in this our family tree, and here the Lectionary brings the account to an end one verse too soon. For once again God’s plan hangs in the balance, as Joseph is about to find out that his wife is pregnant and he is not the father. What will Mary do, lioness to protect her son? And how will Joseph respond?

Tune in next time...

 

Advent day 19 (2020)

 

 

People of God: return!

You are called to be God’s own.

From the mountains announce the good news.

God comes in justice and peace,

to all who follow his ways.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the peace of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

…one in the peace of Christ…

We are building up our crib scene at St Nicholas,’ piece by piece. Today I was given charge of the plaster Jesus, to hide away until he makes his appearance. Some of our Christmas carols depict the Christ-child as contentedly embracing his surroundings, and I am sure that there would have been such moments, but—a flesh-and-blood, a lungs-and-vocal-chords baby; not a plaster one—that is only part of the story. The peace of Christ is not dependent on everything being right with the world: rather, it is that peace that makes the world right—that is making the world right, as we choose to follow. Even when he seems hidden.

 

Advent day 18 (2020)

 

 

People of God: return!

You are called to be God’s own.

From the mountains announce the good news.

God comes in justice and peace,

to all who follow his ways.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the peace of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

Love, actually is the perfect Christmas film because it is so recognisable. For so many of us, this season is a fraught one, pressure ramped-up by office parties, school concerts, having to choose the perfect gift, the expectation of spending time with relatives you don’t, actually, want to be with. And for many more, a season that, unwelcome, magnifies our day-to-day isolation. Still, the season works it magic on us, bewitching us into believing that a better life is just about to begin—though we know that these will probably look bleak in the stark cold light of January. Yet, despite all this, and avoiding cynicism, we are reminded that sometimes it is when all the trappings that have accrued around Christmas are stripped away, that we discover again what truly matters—and that it might, actually, be all around us.

This year the coronavirus might make for a stripped-back Christmas—though it may well come with its own fraught-ness, and we might need to learn not to hate our neighbours who bring on a third spike by their actions. It might just be our own Love, actually moment. People of God: return!

 

Advent day 17 (2020)

 

 

People of God: return!

You are called to be God’s own.

From the mountains announce the good news.

God comes in justice and peace,

to all who follow his ways.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the peace of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

return…follow his ways

Much as I love the green fuzz of the first new leaves of the year, or the glory of their autumn colours, it is in these bare winter months that the trees that line our street are at their most arresting. We tend to think of them as dead, awaiting new life; but they are not. Not dead, but sleeping. The rest of the righteous. God calls, and they follow his ways, returning to rest, returning to awakening, to unfurling and stretching out a canopy, to blossom and to clusters of ripe berries, to letting go. There is neither justice, nor peace, in forcing a plant to produce a harvest all year round.

Might the call to return to God, to follow his ways today, be an invitation to enter into rest—deep, bone marrow satisfying rest?

 

Advent day 16 (2020)

 

 

People of God: return!

You are called to be God’s own.

From the mountains announce the good news.

God comes in justice and peace,

to all who follow his ways.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the peace of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

People of God: return!

2020 has truly been a heavy-going year. All three of my teenaged children are struggling with living through a pandemic, and as a parent, I feel utterly helpless—and not a little frustrated. And in response to 2020, many people are looking forward to the time when things will return to normal. Except that they won’t return to how they were; and, in any case, ‘how things were’ was hard enough, for many. The call to return to God is not a longing to return to past times, or places, to how things were; but, rather, a yearning to follow his ways: to find ourselves caught-up in a community of sisters and brothers who are seeking to follow the God who is always on the move (though rarely in a hurry), always birthing a new thing.

 

Power and shame

While I believe that God created the world, that’s not what I understand the ‘creation stories’ of Genesis 1-3 to be about. Instead, I see in these stories, a Jewish community in exile in Babylon, seeking to make sense of their experience, of disorientation and hope, by reinterpreting ancient stories passed down through the ages. In Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, rulers of the world, prohibited from consuming the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I see the rulers of the greatest empire of the time, in their walled city of hanging gardens—one of the wonders of the ancient world—a city rich in resources, between the Tigris and the Euphrates…in whose very midst a wise people has been planted by God, his own exiled people. In the Bible, trees always represent people.

When the Mother and Father of All Peoples Everywhere, seeking to be even more like gods on earth, lay hands on the forbidden fruit, on the strange people found among them, their eyes are opened to their nakedness, to the conceit of the emperor’s new clothes as a modern writer put it. They experience shame; and this shame finds expression in three ways: they weave together a covering, a cover-story; they hide, in hope of not being found out; and, when exposed, they seek someone else to blame—not for what has gone wrong, but for the shame they feel.

God’s response is multi-layered. In grace, God covers their nakedness. In grace, too, God places constraints upon them, limits on their ambition, but also on their struggle: while life will be hard, it will be fruitful. And God sets in motion a story of redemption, through one man and one woman, sent out of Eden, of Babylon, exiled from exile. Here, Adam and Eve shift form—all good stories work at several levels; but this is crucial to the ‘salvation story’—morphing into Abraham and Sarah, called out of Ur of the Chaldeans to the Promised Land of Canaan. (This explains the strange gloss on why a man leaves his parents and cleaves to his wife, an observation that has nothing to do with marriage practice—the Patriarchs all did exactly the opposite, brides leaving their parents to join their husband's parental home—and everything to do with the origin of a family descending from Abraham.)

This same story of rulers responding to shame, we see in political rulers today. The President of the USA seeking to steal the election he lost resoundingly, by claiming that the victory he is due was stolen from him by his enemies, the enemies of the people. The British Prime Minister shamefully accusing the German Chancellor of initiating another Kristallnacht, this time against the maligned British people. Dissemble, deflect, decry.

And God? God is true to godself. Placing limits on political ambition; truth-telling in regard to the cost of productivity; and calling out from the nations a family who will make sense of the world we live in by locating our lives, our story, within God’s great story. A people of God’s own possession, planted in the very midst of the sometime dystopian utopias of the nations.

Some stories endure, stand the test of time, finding new meaning in contexts that are ever changing and simultaneously always the same. Some stories sustain us, orientate and reorientate us in the world. Some stories are worth a second look. Some stories are worth coming back to again and again.

 

Advent day 15 (2020)

 

 

People of God: return!

You are called to be God’s own.

From the mountains announce the good news.

God comes in justice and peace,

to all who follow his ways.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the peace of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as Guadate Sunday. Its theme is joy; its tone, pink: a lighter, brighter, clearer shade of Advent’s purple. There may be no mountains where I live to announce the good news, but the sky responded to the call, with joy.

In biblical imagery, mountains stand as signs to us, reminders of times when we have met with God, in ways that stretch our ability to describe, yes, but nonetheless are undeniable. In the eyes of our new-born grandchild, perhaps; or the sun rising over the sea. Such memories, and the hope of future memories, are meant to fill us with joy—albeit mixed with reverence, and sometimes even trepidation—joy that strengthens our lungs and our bones, when we are compelled to return, after absence.

 

The women

On the night that he is born, Jesus is surrounded by women. The men have shut themselves away in the upper room, anxious, agitated, at a loose end. Though, just perhaps, the youngest of them is brave enough—is permitted—to stay with the women in the communal room they have made their own in this moment.

Mary is supported by the other women. By female relatives of her husband, and the women who served the community as midwives. When her son quite literally descends from her, they take him up and wash his body clean—of blood, and wax, and shit—and lay him on her breast; and all the while at least one holds her hand, feels her rough nails gouge into their wrist. May be one on either side, at each wracked arm.

At some point, they lift her son from her overwhelmed frame; bind him tightly in strips of linen, and lay him in a shallow groove scraped into a stone shelf. And there he will be found, by the menfolk, called by the women from their hiding place, not quite able to believe their eyes. And by shepherds summoned from the fields where they have been raising sacrificial lambs to gaze upon the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And, having seen, shepherds are transformed into angels themselves, messengers running through David’s town, proclaiming news that an heir has been born to his line: that the days of their wait are numbered now.

On the night that he is born, Jesus is surrounded by women, getting on with what needs to be done, going about the most earthy, holy of tasks. Preparing the way for the men to follow. They will always be there throughout his life, whether in the foreground or the background, named in the story and not. But on the night he is born, the women point us to the day on which he dies. For life and death, and new life, and laying down your life for others, are inseparable. Or so they say—so they embody—passing wisdom from generation to generation.

 

Advent day 14 (2020)

 

 

People of God: be glad!

Your God delights in you,

giving you joy for sadness

and turning the dark to light.

Be strong in hope therefore;

for your God comes to save.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the love of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

Make us one in the love of Christ.

This is the time of year when it is most likely that a jigsaw puzzle will be taken out in our house. Indeed, my wife remakes one particular one each year, an icon of the nativity, for which she holds back several pieces for the Advent calendar boxes on the mantlepiece. And the jigsaw is a beautiful illustration of how God is at work to make us one:

not in uniformity, but in each piece, with its unique shape and colours, finding its fit alongside others, all coming together, patiently, to reveal a harmonious whole, a world of wonder.

‘Make us one in the love of Christ’ is, perhaps, the Advent prayer for every day of our lives, for the reason Jesus came into the world, and will return again, is to reconcile all things. Some days, it looks like a jumbled pile of puzzle pieces, but there is a template, and a goal in view.

 

Babs

A dame of stage and screen dies, having lived with dementia, releasing an outpouring of memories about her. And memories matter, whether or not we live with dementia, because they carry our identity. And memory exists beyond and between us.

Each of us experiences what can be described as three Selfs. Self 1 is our conscious awareness that we exist in the present moment. This has developed before our first birthday, and we don’t ever lose it, even if we don’t know where we are or who we are, even if Self 1 is afraid and disoriented.

Self 2 is what we think and feel about ourselves. This is, of course, constructed: woven from things that happened, and the meaning we confer upon those events, among other things. Self 2 is impacted upon by trauma. You don’t have to have ‘memory loss’ to know that we are unreliable curators of our memory, our selective recollections, discardings, erasures, and reconstructions.

Self 3 is our social self, or selves, and exists only in relation to other people. You can be a great actress, but you can’t be a much-loved actress without an audience. You can’t be a teacher without students who experience your insight. You can’t be a friend without friends. I am not self-made, but one contributor among many, each with their own part to play, as my parents, wife, children, long-lost friends.

It is important to hold someone who lives with dementia—and their closest loved and loving ones, who also live with their dementia—in the supportive web of memory. But, in fact, it is important for each and every one of us. And this has only been highlighted in this strange year of social isolation, where we are not making new memories, at least not in the old, familiar ways.

Eventually a time will come when, however loved or reviled I may be, there will be no one in this universe who can remember me, recall even my name, except God. And because of God, I shall endure; and endure in the hope of the resurrection. But, for now, I am known, I am created and sustained as a child of that God among God's children. For now, we have each other.

Let’s not wait until we die to cherish one another.

 

Advent day 13 (2020)

 

 

People of God: be glad!

Your God delights in you,

giving you joy for sadness

and turning the dark to light.

Be strong in hope therefore;

for your God comes to save.

You are God’s children.

Lord, make us one in the love of Christ

today and for ever.

Amen.

 

God delights in you, a child of God.

Up and down our stairs, you will find photographs of our three children. Individual shots at comparable ages, as babies, pre-schoolers, first day at school. Group images, tracking primary schools, recording a skiing holiday. If you ask, and even if you don’t, I will happily tell you stories of the things they’ve said and done, that have made me laugh, that have made me proud, that have driven me to distraction.

I imagine God doing something similar, cherishing his memories of you, exchanging stories about you with the angels. I wonder whether you can, too?