Paul Chambers

(Rest: canon 30d)

I penned these words a couple of months ago…

I spoke to my mum last night – it’s been way too long.  We had the usual lamenting about the weather and how my father’s back was playing him up, but then out of the blue she said, “I have some bad news for you… T’Anne died’

Now, my aunty Anne was not my aunty, it’s one of those Northern things where anyone living next door or near-by becomes an adopted aunt or uncle, it’s quite endearing really. She was known as T’Anne because I couldn’t say the word aunty when I was very small – it kind of stuck. She was a lovely lady who lived next door to us for the first 16 years of my life. I spent as much time in her house when I was a kid than I did in my own – she was like another mum. She treated me and my kid brother like her own – she used to say to my mum, “I pretend they are mine”. It was with good reason, her boy was killed in a motorcycle accident when he was just 16, she never got over it; how could she…

She was one of the most inspiring, beautiful, generous and lovely people that ever walked this earth. I never heard a bad word come from her mouth about anyone. I regret now not taking my children to see her earlier this year. And so I mourn; my heart is heavy and full of a pain that won’t go away. 

Last night I spoke to her again and she told me Uncle Charlie had died last week… seems he didn’t do too well without her. I had planned to take my kids to see him in the summer – not anymore – that will have to wait until some better place. I loved my Uncle Charlie, but I also liked him a hell of a lot, a proud man, ex-army, tough as old boots – a plain speaking Yorkshire man, who liked his half of stout and packet of peanuts. When they moved when I was 16 I used to go visit them every Thursday for a couple of hours, there we’d sit and he’d tell me stories about the army and a life at the steel mill and we’d have a few halves of stout and get through a packet or three of nuts… funny how the simple things can bring back the happiest of memories.

Save some stout for me please Uncle Charlie…

(St. Peter Port Daisies: Canon 30D)

Stay close, my heart, to the one who knows your ways;
Come into the shade of the tree that allays has fresh flowers.
Don’t stroll idly through the bazaar of the perfume-markers:
Stay in the shop of the sugar-seller.
If you don’t find true balance, anyone can deceive you;
Anyone can trick out of a thing of straw,
And make you take it for gold
Don’t squat with a bowl before every boiling pot;
In each pot on the fire you find very different things.
Not all sugarcanes have sugar, not all abysses a peak;
Not all eyes possess vision, not every sea is full of pearls.
O nightingale, with your voice of dark honey! Go on lamenting!
Only your drunken ecstasy can pierce the rock’s hard heart!
Surrender yourself, and if you cannot be welcomes by the Friend,
Know that you are rebelling inwardly like a thread
That doesn’t want to go through the needle’s eye!
The awakened heart is a lamp; protect it by the him of your robe!
Hurry and get out of this wind, for the weather is bad.
And when you’ve left this storm, you will come to a fountain;
You’ll find a Friend there who will always nourish your soul.
And with your soul always green, you’ll grow into a tall tree
Flowering always with sweet light-fruit, whose growth is interior.

(Rumi)

(signs at liverpool street station: canon 20d)

Community is a strange concept. It’s something we all crave for but few of us experience in its purest form. Many of us talk a good theology of it, but in practice? That’s another story all together. Part of the problem with the lack of complete community is that we, as individuals, usually gravitate toward people who are like us, and shy away from those who are different. There is a good reason for this. As humans we have inherited an innate fear of difference.

Belonging is an essential component to living “life in all its fullness”, but so often this is marginalised and corrupted by our incessant (though quite natural) desire to belong to groups who are like-minded.

To prarphrase the wonderful Adrain Plass, there are days when I worry and am confused about the Church (about community)
- maybe even a little frightened at times, but as we sit in the darkness (particularly every August bank holiday), i know in my heart of hearts that the church will be alright in the end. 

Because there will be people like you (out there in cyber-land) who when the tongues have stopped, and the prophesies have ended, and the kangaroo-hopping has come to a stand still, and the religious posing and posturing fools no-one anymore, will still be ready to share the burdens of the little people who are close to them.

We are one but not the same…….

(HIdden from view, Bethlehem: canon 20d)

my dear friends gill and garth hewitt are returning to Palestine tomorrow – I wish I was returning with them… I was on the radio this morning and read this reflection by garth:

Wounded God – why do people dislike some people so much

That we build walls around them and hide them from view?

Is it fear that drives this strange paranoia?

People should not be hidden from view –

Our giving should be and even our praying –

But not people – they are treasure.

We are building more walls now –

Especially to hide Arabs in Palestine and Iraq.

The remarkable theologian Bishop Kenneth Cragg says,

‘Only wounded hands can reshape the world.’

And he points out that following God’s example

There is no place now

For the law of revenge in God’s community

This vulnerable God does not resort to any strategy

Where the other is denied or coerced

Or hidden from view.

(Garth Hewitt: holy dreams to fill the soul, SPCK, 2007)

(gems on the causeway at Lihou: canon 30d)

How is love supposed to read the footnote of history?

What’s your Kryptonite?

I guess there is always another mountain… and i guess it’s all about the climb

No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their splendour. Rather they remain as hard as gems.

(Anne Rice)   

(memories: canon 30d)

A legend tells how, at the beginning of time, God resolved to hide himself within his own creation. As God was wondering how best to do this, the angels gathered round him.

‘I want to hide myself in my creation,’ he told them. ‘I need to find a place that is not too easily discovered, for it is in their search for me that my creatures will grow in spirit and in understanding.’

‘Why don’t you hide yourself deep in the earth?’ the first angel suggested. God pondered for a while, then replied, ‘No. it will not be long before they learn how to mine the earth and discover all the treasures that it contains. They will discover me too quickly, and they will not have had enough time to do their growing.’

‘Why don’t you hide yourself on their moon?’ a second angel suggested. God thought about this idea for a while, and then replied, ‘No. It will take a little longer, but before too long they will learn how to fly through space. They will arrive on the moon and explore its secrets, and they will discover me too soon, before they have had time to do their growing.

The angels were at a loss to know what hiding places to suggest. There was a long silence.

‘I know,’ piped up one angel, finally. ‘Why don’t you hide yourself within their own hearts? They will never think of looking for you there!’

‘That’s it!’ said God, delighted to have found the perfect hiding place. And so it is that God hides secretly deep within the heart of every creature, until that creature is wiling to risk the journey into the secret core of its own being. And there, the creature discovers its creator….

For those fragile souls caught in the hand of fate….