poise

 

Yesterday we saw a rise in temperature, and walking the path between the vicarage and the church early in the morning, I noticed that the path was covered with large droplets of water that were holding their shape. Retracing my route forty minutes later, I noticed that the water had held the shape of my footprints, the tread of my Dr Marten boot soles. Indeed, the water held the shape of my footprints all day and is still holding their shape the following day.

I don’t understand the physics, but I know that this has to do with viscosity, ‘a measure of a fluid’s rate-dependent resistance to a change in shape or to movement of its neighbouring portions relative to one another’ (Encyclopaedia Brittanica) and informally known as thickness. At the current temperature range, the water has a high enough viscosity to hold its shape. The SI units of viscosity are newton-seconds per square metre or pascal-seconds, sometimes expressed as poise (1 pascal-second = 10 poise). The poise of water between 5°C-10°C is 0.015-0.013 P.

Poise, as a unit of measurement, is named after the French physicist Jean Léonard Marie Poiseuille. But in English ‘poise’ means a graceful and elegant bearing in a person. And there is something elegant about holding oneself together under pressure. There is something graceful about making the world a more beautiful place by your presence. There can be something graceful and elegant about embracing a gradual change in the face of external forces or circumstances we cannot control. There is something graceful and elegant about bearing witness to the presence of another, passing through your presence in the world, to saying not only ‘I am here’ but also ‘They were here, too.’

There is poise to the viscosity of water, and as I walked the path between vicarage and church, or across the patio outside my back door, yesterday, I trod with reverence for the water, for my recently past self (careful not to break the edges of my earlier footprints) and for the forensic testimony of the interdependence of life. Poise is not a word often associated with a dyspraxic person, but the poise of the water invited me to pay attention to my own poise in the world.

stone and water

 

The Gospel set for the Second Sunday of Epiphany is John 2.1-11, the account of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.

It is a favourite passage of mine, and paired with my favourite Collect (or Prayer for the Day, the day in question being the Second Sunday of Epiphany).

I want to pay attention to the details. There are six stone jars, for holding water for ritual purification, that is, a physical and bodily action that invites us to pause and to experience our body as holy, something that is both inherently good and chosen by God for his good purposes for his world, truths we lose sight of in the business of daily life. Such rituals are a gift, bringing us back to our body as gift, and are especially relevant to those of us who have been shaped by the Enlightenment and the Cartesian view that ‘I think, therefore I am’ without reference to my body or the bodies of my parents and indeed my ancestors from whom my body was given me.

There are Jewish water-purification rites relating to the menstrual cycle, not because women are a contaminating presence but because they have a body that experiences cycles to be attended to, not only on a practical level; cycles that connect them deeply to all creation. There are Jewish water-purification rites relating to eating bread, inviting us to pause and wonder at our hand, and the intimate connection between labour and food. There are rites of cleansing when laying out the dead, to remind us of the gift of a living, breathing body, for we bring nothing into the world and will take nothing with us when we leave it; and rites of cleansing before a priest declares a blessing, to remind us that a blessing is not merely words but a physical thing, a hand stretched out, air passing through a voice-box, matter connecting with matter in ways that matter.

The water used for water-purification must be living water, that is flowing, directly from a spring. But some took the view that living water could be stored and carried – though not directly touched – in stone jars. Unlike the more common (cheaper, readily available, disposable) clay jars, stone does not become ritually unclean when it comes into contact with something ritually unclean – such as blood, or a corpse. The family hosting the wedding in Cana used stone jars, which suggests that ritual purity was essential to them. This in turn suggests that they were a priestly family. We know that priests lived in Cana, and, along with other priests scattered in Levitical towns across the land, took their rostered turn serving at the temple in Jerusalem. If so, they would also have a spring-fed mikveh (a bath used solely for ritual submersion) in their home, and it would be from this water that the servants filled the jars at Jesus’ direction. (We once owned a house that had a stream flowing through the basement and occasionally flooded and had to be pumped out.) That there are six jars is a matter of biographical detail – the reason there were six jars was because there were six jars – not some theological symbolism – six days of creation, for example. The significant detail is that they were stone.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jesus himself are invited guests, and the kind of close-circle guests expected to stay for the duration. Mary herself is thought to have been from a priestly family, and these may be her relatives. As she is not the host but nonetheless keeps a close and interested eye on proceedings, it is possible that this is the wedding of one of Jesus’ siblings. It is possible – though this is entirely speculative – that it is the wedding of one of Jesus’ sisters to Nathanael, after Nathanael has discovered that good things can come out of Nazareth after all, and Jesus has vetted Nathanael and declared him to be ‘a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’

Everything about this account – the jars, the water, the wine – is gift. It is not the case that the wine is better than the water (though it is better than the wine that had already been consumed). Jesus is not superseding anything here. We are not doing away with Judaism. Everything is gift and everything matters. The servants must manoeuvre heavy stone jars, fill them from the mikveh, carry them back, dip a ladle into the water, which is now wine. The master of ceremonies must lift the wine to his lips and drink, and declare it very good, though he does not know from where it came or why it is only now being brought out. The servants know where the wine came from, but not how it came to be wine. It is gift, and mystery. It is participation.

The Collect for the Second Sunday of Epiphany declares:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory ...

The phrase ‘the poverty of our nature’ is a recognition that we do not make ourselves – do not summon ourselves into being by our own power and authority – but receive our life as a contingent gift, wondrous, deeply connected to others. We do not need to make ourselves acceptable to God; nor does Jesus need to make us acceptable to God (though he may need to open our eyes to see). Yet, as if this were not wondrous enough, what is already gift is transformed into another – a different – gift ‘by the riches of [God’s] grace’ – that is, through the act of another gift-giving. This is grace upon grace.

You are a gift, and that gift is embodied. That body will age, and experience limitations, and is intended to become thoroughly inter-dependent with others, who are themselves also gifts who enjoy the gift of life. The gift you are is a gift that will undergo transformation, many times over, as your personal story is woven into the big story God is co-authoring with humanity. Like the servants and the steward, we will both know and not know what it is that has happened, for it is a mystery, not to be explained but to be entered. Like the disciples, we will be given a glimpse of Jesus’ glory and are encouraged to respond by affirming our belief in him. The occasion of our transformation may be a running out of some resource, as the wine ran out; or the abundance of a resource, as the water filled the jars to the brim. The ebb and flow of our lives is full of endings and beginnings. In all things, may Jesus be glorified.

 

Christ, the Lord

 

We get milk delivered to our doorstep, but sometimes, as happened yesterday, I have to pop out for extra. As I approached the till, the cashier said, ‘Christ, it’s cold.’ and then, in panic at what is or isn’t appropriate language in front of a vicar, ‘But the forecast is that it is about to get warmer. Thank the Lord.’

Am I a bad vicar for finding their response hilarious? Perhaps. But Jesus, whom Christians call the Christ or Anointed One, lived on the eastern end of the Mediterranean. I think he would respond to ‘Christ, it’s cold.’ with, ‘It certainly is!’ And while I am not especially keen on his name being used as an exclamatory, I am far more offended by those who co-opt his name to their political attempts to exercise control over the lives, bodies and relationships of other people. The only control that is the fruit of the Spirit – the only control God exercises – is self-control.

 

on burn out and overwhelm

 

‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.’

Isaiah 43

Two years ago, I was burnt out. I had been covering two vacancies, in two neighbouring churches, for too long, and the fact that someone was providing cover meant that the processes for addressing the situation were not moving in the way that they ought to move. And I had reached the point where I was exhausted, emotionally, and had run out of hope that anything was going to change.

When I share this story, people share with me their experiences of burn-out, in the face of intractable challenges in their working lives or family circumstances. And when we are burnt out, we need someone to show us one small step that we can take.

I met with my archdeacon, and told him that, even though I had not lost my sense of vocation, I was seriously contemplating walking away from this, from holding these vacancies. He listened, and said, ‘You need a sabbatical.’ (three month’s paid leave). I replied, ‘I’ve been asking for a sabbatical for over two years now, and I just get pushed from pillar to post.’ He responded, ‘We’ll make it happen.’ One small step.

On my wife’s recommendation, I got in ouch with friends who live in Spain and arranged to go and spend a week with them. They live in a Roman walled city. Each day, I walked around the city wall, then found a café and drank coffee and read. Small steps.

The next small step was deciding that I would not go back to holding two vacancies but would leave the place where I had been based and concentrate on the place where some of my time had been loaned. Small step after small step. And at times what looked like a path forward vanished into thin air, inviting me to stop and wait and look around and find a next small step.

In this way, step by step, including not heading too far off the path, we rebuild hope.

Burn out is not uncommon. But being overwhelmed is very common. Overwhelm is the experience that life is unfolding too fast, faster than our bodies and minds can manage, faster than we are willing or able to keep up.

One of the common experiences of overwhelm is found in the wake of bereavement. The world rushes on, oblivious, as if it did not know that it had come to an end, as if people did not care that you had lost your very life when someone dear to you died. You might even have had it said to you, ‘Have you not moved on? It’s been six months.’ as if six months was anything at all.

We experience overwhelm when the demands placed upon us are too relentless.

And the experts tell us that the cure to overwhelm is play.

When children play, they are fully absorbed. Their parent might say, ‘Come on, it’s time to go.’ and it is as if the child has not heard them, because they have not heard, not because they are disobedient but because they are absorbed.

Through play, children learn cooperation and problem solving, but also and more fundamentally experience joy. As adults we assume that we have learnt the lessons of play (the skills of cooperation and problem solving) and so we leave play behind. And over time we forget how to play. We lose touch with joy.

Burn out is a long-term challenge. It takes more than a three-month sabbatical to return. But overwhelm, despite being a big emotion, can be smaller in scale, and a more frequent experience. The late modern world comes at us thick and fast. At times we might take out ten minutes just to play and that be enough; at times, a whole day.

And God does not say to his people, you will not walk through fire and the waves will not rise over your head. God says, when these things happen, because they will happen, when you are burnt out or overwhelmed, there you might discover me with you. In the revelation of a small step, or in the midst of play.

 

reading

 

The biographer Luke records an occasion when Jesus read aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth. We encounter Jesus in a synagogue several times in the Gospels, but here (chapter 4) Luke gives a particular insight into communal reading.

Contrary to popular belief, people in antiquity knew how to read silently (the difference between seeing a text and listening to a text) but the predominant form of reading was out loud.

Between the ages of five and twelve, Jesus would have learnt to read by reading extracts of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) aloud, and, eventually, committing them to memory. This was the core of what we would call primary or elementary education. Then, as a teenager, he would have done the same with the Prophets.

Over the centuries our reading has shifted. Reading aloud and reading silently are both open to us but reading silently has become the norm. Reading has been moved from a communal act to a private act. For many, the primary purpose of reading is, in fact, to escape from others, from the demands of the community around us. Reading opens up horizons that do not actually exist in our lives, though they might, one day.

And reading silently has certain positives, not least as an act of rebellion against unjust demands on our time and our bodies by other people. But it also has a cost.

Reading aloud has several benefits, benefits that we have largely lost. Reading aloud can improve our memory; can improve our comprehension of complex texts; and can strengthen the emotional bonds between people (which is why we still read out sentences that strike us, and memes that make us smile, even if for the most part we sit scrolling our individual screens). Reading aloud could build resilience against dementia and offer early signs of its onset.

If you have bothered to read this, this far, you have almost certainly read it silently. When we read silently, we do the minimum work necessary for comprehension. We do not pay close attention to the difference between, say, prophecy (noun: prophetic content, which may be written down, such as the book of Isaiah) and prophesy (verb: the act of delivering a prophecy, out loud, such as Jesus reading the words of Isaiah and then declaring that they were fulfilled in his presence in his community). You may have found the repetition of read, in the first sentence of this paragraph, once pronounced reed and once red, jarring.

Reading aloud, whether alone or in the presence of others, is good for you. And reading aloud in the presence of others is good for them. For us. We hold back, feeling embarrassed, lacking confidence and perceiving ourselves to lack competence, perhaps because you read aloud at primary school and someone laughed at you for getting it wrong (you did not get it wrong, you were practicing, which is the only way to grow in confidence and competence; you were stretching yourself beyond what you already knew) and you fear (sadly, perhaps with good reason) that you will be judged harshly if you read aloud in public now (who do you think you are, to stand up there like that?) (ha! they said that wrong). But confidence and competence are grown by practice.

I would love to see the local church community of which I am a part rediscover itself as a place where stories are read aloud, by a diverse range of people, for their good and for the communal good. Where riches are uncovered, where newfound freedom is experienced, where things lost are restored.

 

formation and transformation

 

I am reflecting on these verses from the prophet Isaiah 43:1,2

‘But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.’

I am reflecting on these verses in part because they (along with the following five verses) are set for this coming Sunday, and in part because they are entirely resonant for the first Monday of January, which, here where I am, is bleak.

These verses are spoken into an historical context I cannot relate to, nor could Isaiah imagine our twenty first century context, and yet ‘overwhelm’ and ‘burned’ are soul experiences we know all too well. Perhaps less familiar is the sense of being ‘created,’ ‘formed,’ and ‘redeemed.’

We experience overwhelm when we sense that life is unfolding too fast, faster than our body – our nervous system, certainly our conscious mind – can manage. We experience burn out when we lose hope – when, in contrast to life unfolding too fast, it feels stuck; when we can see no path from where we are to where we want to be.

These opposite and sometimes co-habiting emotional responses are familiar alarm bells in the complex society we have constructed that allows the few to dominate the lives of the many.

Psychologists tell us that the cure for overwhelm is play, or mindful play, which is a way of describing being absorbed, for a time, in being over doing. An activity that has no directed productive purpose (but, ironically, is essential to our longer-term direction, productivity, and sense of purpose).

Conversely, the return from burn out involves learning hope, through setting realistic goals, identifying flexible and alternative pathways, and embracing agency: our ability to change our circumstances, over time, one small step at a time.

We see both overwhelm and burning out addressed in Isaiah 43:1-7, with an understanding that we might be equipped to face such possibilities (indeed, likely scenarios) even if we cannot reliably predict and avoid the circumstances that are beyond our control – the waters rising, through which we must pass; the fires we walk through.

And what Isaiah imagines God might do with a people, we, who are called to participate in the divine nature in embodied ways, might well attend to doing in our own flesh.

The cure to overwhelm is play, and in these verses Isaiah imagines God, who has not only created a people but who has formed them as a potter gives form to clay. This is a creative process, one in which the potter brings their skill, yes, but the clay brings its unique properties, which are discovered through a playful interaction between the two, wet fingers exploring, imagining, nothing set (by fire) as yet, clay yielding, folding in on itself, taking one form and then another. There is both absent-mindedness and focus here, not in a self-contradictory way, but in being present to this moment alone, to creaturely embodiment, to the inchoate desire from which form will take shape. Daydreaming is part of the creative process, as is getting caught up in flow. And this can be scary, at first, especially if we like to be in control, if we want to master a skill – or our own self-expression, identity – without being willing to surrender to being a novice, an amateur, at being ourselves. Yet in such deep waters, God may be found with us.

The way back from burn out is hope, hope that tomorrow might be different from today. That we might know a little more freedom than yesterday and grasp it and put it to good use. That we might see a way forward – even if the path disappears into bright fog, for there is, at least, a path out from here; and if there is a path from here, and that path is blocked, there may yet be another path from there. And to those who have been burned, and those who might yet pass through fire (and who does not?) Isaiah imagines God calling on the compass points to surrender their captives, the sons and daughters who have been carried off into some distant exile, far from home, far from their own lives. That is powerful imagery. God has a plan, a redemption plan, that does not settle for what is but can imagine powerful societies overthrown that a new generation might be raised up. Not one path but four, from east and west, north and south. That the experience of exile is transformed from hopelessness – this will never change – into something to push against and grow strong.

What playfulness might you set apart time for this week?

What small step might you make on a path to a goal?

Where might you rediscover God with you in your life, however it looks at present?

 

cracker

 

Monday 6th January will be for many the day they go back to school or work after the Christmas break. Even if you are retired, and have nothing in particular to go back to, it may still feel like a gearshift. The Christmas decorations are back in the loft, and we turn our faces into the cold wind of a calendar month that seems to last a full three-hundred-and sixty-five days. But the 6th of January is also the Feast of the Epiphany. How might we keep the feast, wherever we find ourselves?

An epiphany is a revelation, and like a Christmas cracker, a revelation has two ends: at one end, the one who is revealing something, and at the other end, the one who therefore sees or hears something they did not know until now. At the Feast of the Epiphany, God is holding one end of the cracker, and we are holding the other. Here are three ways God might hold out an epiphany for us to grasp, taken from Matthew 2.1-12.

Firstly, God might speak to us through the wonder of the world around us, including the night sky, and the stunning dawns we often get at this time of year. Perhaps you might choose to get up early and get outside and look up. To take a deep breath and feel the cold air wake your lungs to life. Perhaps there will be a hard frost, that, during the night, spread fractals of ice across the windscreen of your car. The beauty of creation, as vast as stars and as tiny as ice crystals, can take our breath away. And open our eyes to the truth that we are not the centre of the universe, we are very small, and yet we are held by the love that holds everything there is together, which is a very secure place to be. And when we respond in overflowing gratitude for the sheer gift of life, we take hold of our end of the cracker and pull.

Secondly, God might speak to us through the wisdom and – crucially – the hope of others. The beauty of the Christian tradition and the resources of our scriptures, history and practices, is that they spring from many different generations and cultures. None of us has the full picture. God can speak to the young among us through the elderly and speak to those who are older through the children. In particular, I think that the older we get the more we need children to speak life to the hope within us. My observation is that many of us lose our sense of hope as we get older, and I think that is because the Baby Boomers became the most affluent generation the world had seen, and affluence is a hope-killer. My advice to those who are older is, stop consuming news, because human love and faithfulness is not newsworthy, and the news will bombard you with exceptional sorrow and despair. You do not need to be abreast of situations you can do nothing about to pray that the world might know peace. My advice to those who are younger is, restrict your consumption of social media, for it too holds out a distorted reflection of the world that makes everything appear closer than it is, such that we can think we are sitting in the same room as other people when in fact we are miles away. But when we are present to one another – to whoever is right in front of us – we take hold of our end of the cracker and pull.

Thirdly, God might speak to us through our dreams. We take in a lot of information, more than we need, so much that it becomes overwhelming. It is as if your wardrobe is full of clothes on hangers, but you have many more clothes, piled on a chair and strewn all over the floor. And you can’t find the thing you need. You are sure you saw it somewhere, but where? And when we sleep, our subconscious acts like a responsible adult, picking the clothes up, sniffing them, neatly folding those that might be worn another day and dropping the ones that are a bit whiffy in the laundry basket. Seeking to draw harmony out of chaos, which is how we most deeply participate in the divine nature. At times, our subconscious is so hand-in-hand with God, it is hard – and perhaps unnecessary – to tell them apart. But when we quieten our souls enough to sleep deeply enough to dream, we take hold of our end of the cracker and pull.

So here are three ways God might hold out an epiphany for us to grasp: through the wonder of the world around us; through the wisdom and – crucially – the hope of others; and through our dreams. But any Christmas cracker worth its salt contains a paper crown, a gift, and a riddle.

The paper crown reminds us that we, like the three kings, are drawn into God’s epiphany.

The gift is that when we gaze upon the face of Jesus, we see God – whom we could not see – made visible. Jesus is the revelation of God, of what God is like. What we see in Jesus, we can say of God – and what we do not see in Jesus is not of God. There is no violence in Jesus – no harm or oppression – and so any violence attributed to God (by admirers and critics alike) is misattribution. Jesus walks away from a fight, literally – evading those who sought to kill him – and metaphorically – keeping silent under hostile questioning. Jesus attends to the person directly in front of him, with compassion – even when he himself is crucified. He absorbs suffering and returns love. He is the emptying of power to be an infant dependent on others to show him the way he should go, and the adult who hangs from the gallows. He is foolishness in the eyes of the world. He sleeps soundly in the madness of a storm at sea. He thirsts. He is love.

The riddle is that we become God’s epiphany to the world: the bearers of the greatest gift, from which every other gift flows and to whom every gift returns: Jesus. This bleak midwinter Monday, may you be a star in the darkness, a treasure-chest on the journey, a child who sparks joy. May you be whatever God might choose to make his Son known in the world. Amen.

 

to grow in wisdom

The Great Feast of Christmas (24 December to 5 January) is followed by the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January) when the Church remembers the visit of the magi recorded by the biographer Matthew (Matthew 2.1-12).

I will assume that Matthew is as reliable a record as any other ancient text, which is not to claim that the text is without bias or agenda, but to accept it as a primary source for historical claims.

Matthew records that a caravan of strangers arrived in Judea.

They are there because they have observed something in the night sky that, according to a significant body of learning with which they are well-versed, they have interpreted to announce the birth of a great leader of the Jews.

They present themselves at the court of Herod the Great in Jerusalem, where their arrival is taken seriously as potentially giving rise to a messianic uprising that could threaten Herodian dynastic ambition.

Consulting their own library of knowledge, the royal courtiers identify Bethlehem as the potential epicentre of any such possible revolt, and the strangers are sent there to establish the lie of the land and report back.

On finding the family of Joseph, they present gifts summarised as gold, frankincense and myrrh, gifts that are reminiscent of the idealised wedding procession of King Solomon the Son of David through the wilderness towards Jerusalem in the erotic poetry of The Song of Solomon, and also of a prophecy attributed to Isaiah of the wealth of the surrounding nations flowing to the royal court in Jerusalem.

One or more of the strangers has a dream which they interpret as being a divine warning not to return to Herod, and so they disappear into their own country by another road, or another way of being.

How might we reflect on this account?

Firstly, we note that the travellers at the heart of this account are strangers. They are the other, and the other is always a source of fear for humans. God is the ultimate other, and as such the other is often an envoy of God. We do not know the size of the caravan, but, extrapolating from three named gifts, tradition has given us three kings, and this is reminiscent of the three divine visitors received by Abraham. We do not know where these strangers come from or return to. But in seeking to deceive the stranger, we seek to deceive God, and in welcoming the stranger, we welcome God.

Secondly, we note that humans are meaning-making animals, even when the world cannot beat the weight of the meaning we construct (for example, the arbitrary value we have given gold, or land). The ancients sought to navigate world events according to the map of the night sky. We, too, endlessly, find patterns, and attribute significance. The age of scientific enquiry is no different from those ages that came before.

Thirdly, and entirely related to the above, we note that the ancient world was highly connected, through the exchange of ideas and philosophies as well as trade. We strive not only to make sense of the world but to do so, at least in part, by overcoming the fear of the other. Only together will we overcome our fear of the unknown. The stranger and the familiar each have a piece of the code we are trying to interpret.

Fourthly, we note that our present is understood in the light of the past, and the actions of the other, in as much as they have a bearing on us, are understood through the lens of our own history. We do not so much judge a book by its cover, as judge the cover of the other by the content of our book. This is less than fair, but there we are. Those of us whose shared history has trod heavily on others should tread with extreme caution.

Fifthly, we note that dreams are a way in which our subconscious attempts to bring order to the chaos of information our conscious mind observes in the world. This is another level of meaning-making. At some level, something about Herod registers as false, and yet it is in the time of sleep that God is able to bring clarity, to bring us from a place of harm to a place of harmony.

Sixthly, we note that the way ahead is a way that leads us to disappear from the view of the watching world, and that it can never be the same way by which we have appeared in the world. Our lives begin with the struggle to come together, to construct not only meaning but also allies, partnerships, purpose. There comes a point when the mission changes, when the goal is to give our lives away. When maturity is marked by giving away our lives to others. The gifts given by the magi are, within the frame of reference of the account Matthew gives us, the first gift offered, the first unburdening of the self. This is followed by the gift of not trying to retrace their earlier steps but embracing a new and unknown way forward. An event not told by lights in the night sky, but conducted entirely in the dark, so to speak. There comes a further point where the mission changes again, and we are called to give our death away to others, to model dying well, which in fact begins long before we die. The magi disappear entirely from the story, but not from our imaginations.

In 2025, how might we welcome the stranger, lighten the load of the meaning we construct, embrace the limitations of our understanding, redeem the past through gratitude for what was and is in all its imperfection, meet chaos with empathy as the birthing of harmony, and give more of ourselves away to others becoming less than they may become more?

Where's Jesus?

 

Back when I was at theological college, Susie and Noah were in primary school and Elijah was a baby. Once, when Jo was away, I put Elijah in the pushchair and went to collect the other two from school, along with two of their friends, whose dad was also at the college. By the time we got home, it had started to rain. The house we rented had a covered car port that sheltered the side door, so we went in that way. I sorted out drinks for the kids. They disappeared upstairs to play. Some time later, I realised that I didn’t know where Elijah was. I searched the house, every room, without finding him. I went through the house again, even looking in places that, logically, I knew it was impossible that he would be. I asked the others if they knew where Elijah was, and they said “No.” Frustrated, I said, sarcastically, “Well, thanks a lot for helping me look for him.” It was later reported back to the other college family that Susie’s dad had thanked them all for helping look, but that they didn’t think I really meant it. After I had searched the house from top to bottom three times over, I heard a sound from outside the door to the car port. And there I found Elijah, still strapped in the pushchair, exactly where I had left him.

The biographer Luke records a story of Jesus accompanying his parents, Mary and Joseph, on pilgrimage from Nazareth to Jerusalem to take part in the festival of the Passover at the temple, when he was twelve years old. It is a journey that might take three days, possibly more, followed by the seven days of the festival itself. Then everyone sets off for home. At the end of the first day walking home, Mary and Joseph can’t find Jesus. They ask among their relatives, who have made the pilgrimage with them, but no one has seen him: “No, sorry, I thought he was with you.” They ask among the wider group of pilgrims. No one has seen him. No one can recall seeing him all day. By now, mum and dad are more than a little anxious.

There is probably nothing they can do until morning – which doesn’t help – but then they head back to Jerusalem. And then, for three more days they search the city, high and low. They do not find Jesus anywhere. By now, they are besides themselves with worry.

They say the thing you are looking for is always in the last place you look. At one level, that is obvious: once you have found the thing, you stop looking. But there is a sense in which the thing is found in the one place you are most anxious about looking, the place you do not want to go. This is especially true for a missing person.

Eventually, Mary and Joseph find Jesus. He is in the temple. He has been there all along. And Luke tells us:

‘When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them.’

But here is the thing. The Greek text does not say “in my Father’s house.” The word ‘house’ is not there. The Greek says, ‘in the of the Father of me.’ Duplicating the ‘the’ is how they highlight something – we might use bold or italics or underline – and the thing being highlighted is determined by the context. The translators have decided that the context is where Jesus is – the temple – and have given us “my Father’s house.” Because “my Father’s house” is what Jesus calls the temple.

Except that this is a very odd choice. The phrase “my father’s house” is found many times in what we call the Old Testament, and a couple of times in the Apocrypha, and it always means ‘my immediate family or relatives’ and/or what we would call ‘my family tree.’ That is what the phrase means. It would be very strange for Jesus to use it in an entirely different way. In John’s account of the life of Jesus, Jesus is recorded using the phrase on two occasions. Once, he says, “in my Father’s house there are many mansions.” Now, whatever he is speaking of – whether the life to come, or the family of God – he certainly isn’t speaking about the temple here. The other occasion is when he says, “Stop making my Father’s house [or family] a house [or family] of commerce.” This could possibly be the one place where “my Father’s house” could refer to the temple; but even here Jesus could be referring to his family tree, the people of God, and how they were supposed to relate to one another and the surrounding nations.

In any case, ‘house’ is an odd choice to supply as context. There is another word that makes more sense, in context. Mary has just told Jesus, “your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” That is the context. Surely Jesus’ response should be read, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s anxiety?” In the anxiety of my father. Or, in other words, didn’t you realise that I would be found in the place where my father was most anxious about finding me?

I don’t know why the temple was the place where Joseph was most anxious about finding Jesus. Perhaps he was worried that he would lose his son, that the apprentice builder of Nazareth would follow a different calling. Perhaps he was worried about where that might lead, where it might end up. Perhaps he was right to worry. Perhaps he couldn’t help it – after all, isn’t that what parents do, even after their children have grown up?

What I do know is that Jesus is to be found in the place where we are most anxious. Wherever that place might be. Whatever those circumstances may be. That is where Jesus is, already, waiting for us to face the fear. For in that place, he is a non-anxious presence. In that place he is listening attentively and asking pertinent questions, desiring to know peace and to draw others into that peace.

So, what are you most anxious about today, right now, in this threshold between 2024 and 2025? Be honest with yourself, as honest as you dare. For that is where Jesus is to be found. In the last place you are prepared to look.

 

Advent 2024 : 24

 

At just the right moment, after centuries of silent, still watching, God responds to his fears of rejection in fawning, embracing ultimate vulnerability before us, coming as an utterly dependent newborn. He will face the wrath of a paranoid king, forcing his family to flee to Alexandria, ironically just as that king himself had done years before. But he will also be met with love, with connection, a mother, father, and community of descendants of David, all hoping for restoration of the covenant friendship their ancestor had enjoyed with God.

And now we find ourselves in the dying days of 2024, and with much to fear as we journey on into 2025. As we meet each situation that (rightly, for our survival) causes us to fear, we must learn again the fear of the Lord, how to fear what God fears and respond to each fear as God does: flight or fight or freeze or fawn. The wrong choice could cost us everything.

The same body that enables us to fear with God enables us to recover, when the fearful moment has passed over us. As we journey into 2025, may we discover healthy patterns of becoming grounded again in our body – our home – when we no longer need to be hyper-vigilant, for the time being. May we learn to inhabit, as David’s son Solomon reminds us, a time to scatter and a time to gather; a time for war and a time for peace; a time to keep silent and a time to speak; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.

May our lives grow simpler, and – in an increasingly virtual reality – more embodied, as we walk humbly with our God.

Happy Christmas.

 

Advent 2024 : 23

 

Today the weather broke, and I had reason to be out in it. Water, done now with dancing in the sky, lofty adventures, heeding the call of the ocean: come home! And though my coat kept me dry, I knew (not felt) the cool, dark water on my arms, a sea parting before me as I, too, strode home.

The biographer Luke records a registration to pay tax. The first – that is, the foremost, the most notorious – was when Quirinius was governor of Syria. But that was in 6 CE, when Jesus would have been around twelve years old, paying his first visit to the temple in Jerusalem since he was forty days old. The Roman empire taxed its provinces. It did not tax those territories nominally ruled by client kings; they raised their own taxes, and from them paid tribute to the emperor. In 4 BCE, Herod the Great died, leaving his territory partitioned between three sons in his will. This was contested – it was not his gift to give, but the emperor’s – but Augustus decided largely to uphold Herod’s wishes. But by 6 CE, Augustus had had enough of Herod Archelaus, deposed him, and made Judea and Samaria a Roman province, governed from Syria. This is the point when Quirinius enforces a census for tax purposes, and in so doing he sparks an uprising led by a Galilean. But any census at the time of Jesus’ birth would have been Herodian, perhaps seeking to win back Augustus’ favour, on which his rule depended.

Joseph, who had gone to Nazareth to negotiate marriage to Mary, returned home to Bethlehem. If Herod was following Roman models of taxation, he would tax his people an income tax based on property, and a poll tax based on dependents. So, Joseph returns to his own home (property) to register and takes his wife-to-be (family) with him.

At some point while they are there, she gives birth to a son, her firstborn, who is named Jesus.   The biographer John describes this event as his – Jesus, the Word made flesh – coming to his own. Again, like Joseph and the registration, this is a home coming. To place and to people. To a relationship with a place and a relationship with a people – however those relationships may be stretched by travel and marriage and the decisions of rulers far removed from the lives of ordinary folk.

There is a call that sounds deep within all creation – humans, water (humans are 70% water) and everything else – that calls us home. To God. To ourselves. Let the rain run to the sea. We, too, are homeward bound.

 

Advent 2024 : 22

 

Here in the northern hemisphere, yesterday was the shortest day, last night the longest night. The start of astronomical winter. A third of the way through meteorological winter. The mid-winter point of solar winter. However you choose to define or measure it, we are in winter now. And in acknowledgement, it has turned cold. There is a chill in the air.

These are days to

see with the rods of your eyes and let the cones rest (visual sensation)

savour the exquisite pain of dark chocolate melting on your tongue and teeth (gustatory sensation)

let your ears inhale and exhale the roar of the wind (auditory sensation)

feel the air particles scour your cheeks (tactile sensation)

be led by your nose through a mind palace made of oranges and cloves (olfactory sensation)

and to

hold your loved ones close (proprioception)

be drawn into the deep subconscious rhythms of hibernation (interoception)

reach out into the dark and grasp that you are one with all creation (vestibular sensation)

These are days to come home to your body and dwell a while.

 

Advent 2024 : 21

 

We experience fear – and, when this is acute or prolonged enough, trauma – both in and through our bodies. And we experience recovery from fear – and healing from trauma – both in and through our bodies. That is to say, it is embodied activity, as opposed to thought alone, that brings us to a place of emotional regulation.

Our birth, even if it is free of complications, is the original crisis, the original traumatic experience. When Mary delivered her firstborn son, she wrapped him in swaddling bands, confined him in strips of cloth against his skin, so that he is contained, so that he feels the pressure on his skin and registers safety.

Those of us who are neurodivergent often regulate our emotions through stimming, through repeated movements or micromovement, jiggling a leg or flapping a hand or rubbing a small object between our fingers. For others, whether neurodivergent or neurotypical, it might be knitting. Some forms of attempting emotional regulation are less healthy than others. In my society, alcohol is perhaps the most common form of self-medication, more a numbing than a regulating of emotion. Others, especially if you are middle aged and middle class, run. And/or do yoga or Pilates or go to the gym. Ironically, these things, too, can become an addiction.

I am a runner, an activity that helps to ground me in my body and resists the dominance of my highly active mind. But the winter months are hard for me, for various reasons, and my running fell off a cliff in mid-October. Having run only twice in November, and not much more this month, I went for a run last night. I attempted another, shorter run, this morning (back-to-back runs on a Friday night, Saturday morning, are not unusual for me) but had to bail almost immediately due to a pain in my knee I could not risk ignoring. Now home, I can feel the support holding my knee. And I have pulled on a jumper, slightly tight and with a fleecy lining. It feels like being held. It feels safe.

 

Advent 2024 : 20

 

‘What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.’

Ecclesiastes 3.9-13

‘Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body you have prepared for me;
in burnt-offerings and sin-offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, “See, God, I have come to do your will, O God”
(in the scroll of the book it is written of me).’

‘When he said above, ‘You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt-offerings and sin-offerings’ (these are offered according to the law), then he added, ‘See, I have come to do your will.’ He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’

Hebrews 10.5-10

Your body matters to the God who made it and gave it to you. And it is the will of God that we should experience bodily pleasure, in simple things.

On Tuesday, my son Noah went to the walk-in medical centre. They sent him on to A&E, who eventually told him that he needed to present himself at Day Of Surgery Admissions at 7.30 a.m. the following day, for an operation under general anaesthetic. (He is okay now; this story ends well.)

So on Wednesday I sat with him in Admissions until he was called, but then I had to go back to the church, where a full day of secondary school carol concerts awaited me. And to be honest, my mind was not on the job. I was hyper-alert to events unfolding elsewhere, events I could do nothing about. Keeping an eye on every development. By the time I was finally done with rehearsals, two concerts, and a drinks reception for staff, Noah was safely back home.

By Thursday afternoon, the events of the previous forty-eight hours had caught up with me. My body needed a break from its toil. And Noah’s body needed some gentle movement. He invited me to join him in a walk around our local fishing lakes, and I gladly accepted. Leaving ongoing business behind, we walked, slowly, pausing frequently to watch the swans, the mallards and pintails, the coots and cormorant, a herring gull in its first winter, the moorhens and jackdaws. To feel the cold on our faces.

And it was good.

 

Advent 2024 : 19

 

For five months, Elizabeth keeps her pregnancy secret. This is not confinement – when everybody knows, and social conventions come into play to make room for the expectant mother to prepare and then, for some time after giving birth, bond with her baby. This is concealment – no one can find out, for fear of envy (Mary was not the only woman with fertility issues) or miscarriage. And this meant hiding in plain sight – Elizabeth cannot afford any out of the ordinary action that might betray her condition to her neighbours. She goes about her business, as silent on the matter of her pregnancy as her situationally mute husband.

Five months of carrying a secret, five months of hiding in plain sight (the freeze response to fear) requires a hyper-vigilance that takes its toll on the body. After five months, it is a relief and a release to move, in such a way that your camouflage no longer blends perfectly with the background. To be out in the open, where, in fact, you were all along. Now Mary can come, quickly and purposefully, to her relative. Now Elizabeth can step into a safe space where she can relax. Where she can give to her body the love that it deserves, and her attention fully to the miracle unfolding within.

And what of you? Looking back over the last five months – say to late July 2024 – what secret fear have you carried in your flesh and bones, leaping across synapses and putting muscle fibres under strain? Now may be the time to let go. To pass up on the additional burden of social expectations – of presents to buy and parties to attend and relatives to visit – and to enter into a holy confinement. To return to your own body, as the snow melts into the ground.

To come home.

 

Advent 2024 : 18

 

In the days of Elizabeth, pregnancy and childbirth were conceived as bearing fruit. The fruit of a woman was her children. And Elizabeth is barren. Her life is fruitless. Regardless of the love she shares with Zechariah, regardless of the life they have made together and all the good that has flowed between them and through them to the world around them, she carries within herself the shame of infertility. Shame tells us that we are not worthy of love, not worthy of connection with others. In the dark it grows bigger within us, as does a foetus, ironically. And it keeps our body on edge, alert to the fact that at any moment someone else might discover just how unworthy of love we understand ourselves to be.

When Elizabeth conceives John, she declares that the Lord has taken away the shame she has endured.

The antidote to shame is empathetic connection. Mary sets out, is determined to go to Elizabeth in her confinement. The Lord might have taken away her shame, but in the isolation of confinement – intended as a precious gift of space for the expectant mother – shame might easily return. There are times when solitude is essential, life-giving to the driven soul; but for someone in recovery from shame, isolation can be a killer.

When Mary comes to Elizabeth, there is an immediate connection, between them, between the children in their wombs. Even so, Elizabeth can’t quite see herself as worthy: who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Mary sings a song of revolution, of a changing of the world. A song of those who are nobody in their own eyes being shown honour by God. A song of such people finding solidarity, finding connection, with others like them. These are the conditions in which the body might be cleansed of its shame. And Mary sings this song over Elizabeth before anyone else gets to hear it. And then she stays with her for three months, just to underline the point.

These days approaching Christmas and into the new year, when many step back from their place of work to spend time with loved ones, can be difficult (not only but not least) for those who carry shame (which is pretty much everybody you will ever meet, by the way). How might we be present to one another, in ways that affirm, ‘You are worthy of love and connection’?