Paul Chambers

(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)