Coffee Theology

Been thinking some more about enemies following Bishop Nikolai's prayer from yesterday.  Who is my enemy? Someone I find it hard to get on with?  We all know that just because someone is 'not my kind of person' that doesn't mean they're a bad person. Someone who criticises me?  My more task-focused friends tell me that criticism can be a good thing as it helps us to know how we can improve.  I accept this rationally, while emotionally I find it hard to embrace criticism as a good thing! Someone who opposes me?  But we have a political system based on opposing parties who hold each other to account.  Opponents help each other to think their views through with rigour.  Occasionally, an MP crosses the floor, convinced that it is actually their opponent who has got it right.  Opponents can disagree while respecting each other. Someone who hates me?  Some of us care a lot what others think of us.  I wish I cared less.  Can it ever be a g...

Great contemplative service this evening focusing on the theme 'love your enemy'.  Steve shared with us this prayer, written by Serbian Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, who was arrested for speaking out against Nazism and imprisoned in Dachau.  I'm not sure I could pray this prayer, but it's given me a lot to think about: Bless my enemies, O Lord.  Even I bless them and do not curse them.   Enemies have driven me into your embrace more than friends have.  Friends have bound me to earth; enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.  Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world. Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath Your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul. Bless my enemies, O Lord.  Even I bless and do not curse them...

Having had a lovely few days' holiday, I got sick and I've spent much of the last two days in bed (apologies for the lack of new posts).  Being ill in bed presents a great opportunity for rereading Harry Potter, however, and I realised that I've so far left out one of the best bits. 'Expecto patronum' is a spell Harry learns early on to defend himself against the dementors.  Dementors are nasty creatures which feed off human misery and fear.  If you get too near a dementor, first you feel cold and clammy, and then you feel more and more anxious and depressed as you start to dwell on all your worst memories and deepest fears.  But Harry learns how to summon a patronus, a sort of guardian made of positive energy, which usually takes the form of an animal.  A patronus can shield you from any number of dementors, provided you can summon it, and you do this by focusing on a single happy memory.  Although the patronus is a fictional creature which guards against ...

Out of curiosity, I picked up some catholic leaflets in a church we visited today.  I was hoping to come up with some great inter-denominational insight for this blog, but instead I came across a catholic baptismal rule I'd never heard before.  Apparently a baby who is to be baptised a Catholic can't have a name which is 'unchristian'.  Hmm.  In the past, apparently, you had to have a saint's name (at least as a middle name), but now you're OK as long as the name is not 'foreign to Christian sentiment'.  So what kind of name would that be?   I came across a website which gave the example 'Lucifer' as a name which is unchristian and which strongly suggests the child will not be brought up Catholic.  Well that makes sense.  It also suggested the names Hitler and Stalin as other 'unchristian' names.  Interesting.  While I would in no way want to defend either Hilter or Stalin, are these names 'unchristian'?  There could be thousands ...

I'm in Paris with my retired French teacher mother, who is a big fan of Jean-Paul Sartre.  Sartre famously wrote 'hell is other people'.  I certainly got an insight into this yesterday when hubby and I queued for 75 minutes to get into the Musee D'Orsay in the rain, a wait which was exacerbated by some sort of strike.  You visit France often enough and you get to know the word for 'strike'.  Once inside the museum, which is fabulous and actually is worth a 75 minute wait, we made a beeline for the coffee bar, along with the 700 other people who had been queuing for over an hour in the rain.  Then I visited the facilities - for another predictable queue outside the ladies' toilets.  So many of us, all clamouring for our needs to be met.  L'enfer, c'est les autres! Mum insists, however, that this is a misunderstanding of Sartre's original meaning.  Apparently what he was trying to say was not that being around other people was hellish in itself, bu...

Another visit to a magnificent church today, this time the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.  Once again, we walked around the inside while mass was being celebrated with a faithful few in a side chapel.  I wanted to take a photo of the votive candles, but photography was not allowed, so I was a good girl and followed the rules.  For 10 euros you can light a candle so large it would probably burn all day. There is something beautifully symbolic about the lighting of a candle, especially in a dark church.  Light in darkness; smoke rising to heaven; the fragility of the small flame representing one human being's hopes, desires, memories, griefs.   Ten euros does seem a bit steep though...

I'm having a few days' holiday in Paris, which is tres bien indeed.  This afternoon we went into Notre Dame, and realised once we got inside that there was a service going on.  Hundreds of tourists walked the one-way route around the inside of the magnificent cathedral while a priest gave a sermon to a large crowd of congregants.  It felt quite bizarre, observing a service of worship from the sidelines.  We were surprised they let the tourists in during vespers.  An evangelistic impulse, I wonder, or merely pragmatism? This banner was hanging to the left of the altar.  The title reads: 'Come, he is calling you!', and at the bottom there is a quotation from someone whose name I couldn't really read, which goes something like this: 'Listen for the Lord speaking in your life; be attentive to the needs of those around you.'  Inspiring stuff.

Sorry folks, forgot to blog yesterday!  Thankfully, I know that if I ask forgiveness, it will be granted.  I have been told that Sundays in Lent are "feast days", when you are allowed to eat normally, so it would have made more sense to have forgotten today.  I love the fact that the sabbath principle - resting on the 7th day - applies to Lent too. I'm going on holiday for a few days (writing this in Ebbsfleet Station) and I'm not sure how much access to wifi I will have, so it may be an extended "feast".   In the meantime, folks, what are you giving up/taking up for Lent?  How is it going?  Or are you refusing to give up anything on principle?

At college I spent a whole term studying the Old Testament with a brilliant tutor who had a very impressive beard (surely a must for any teacher of the Old Testament).  During that term I became very interested in what I learned about the ancient Israelites and I decided to have a bash at learning Hebrew.  I didn't get very far with it, but I can sing the Hebrew alphabet to the tune of 'Happy Birthday'... It is common knowledge that Jewish people don't say the name of God.  The name, which is translated 'I am' or 'I am what I am' or 'I will be what I will be' (no one knows exactly) in English, is not uttered aloud by Jews.  Instead they say Adonai, meaning 'Lord', or just 'ha Shem' - the name.  The funny thing is, reading about this, while studying the Old Testament, I started to feel uncomfortable about saying the name myself.  There is a song by Phil Wickham which I now sing my own words to in church: 'Lord of all the earth,...

Tonight as I was mopping the floor in the coffee shop, I remembered a school assembly I sat in when I was about 13.  (I have already admitted my age in an earlier post, so you know that was quite a long time ago.)  One of my teachers was taking the assembly and was talking about a summer when he had a job in a petrol station.  He found it quite dull, but decided that the important thing was to do his dull job really well.  He quoted a couple of verses from a hymn we used to sing in school.  I guess it was the sweeping and mopping which made me think of it: Teach me, my God and King, in all things thee to see, and what I do in anything to do it as for thee. A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine: who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and the action fine. Any form of Christian ministry, whether ordained or not, involves a bizarre array of different kinds of tasks, some of which are pretty menial.  I used to run the A...

In the first Harry Potter book, Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised.  When he looks in this mirror he sees, not his reflection, but his heart's deepest desire.  Harry sees himself surrounded by his family, a family he has never known. At the end of the story Harry comes face to face with the mirror again.  The evil wizard Quirrell knows that the philosopher's stone is hidden in the mirror, but he cannot get at it.  When he looks in the mirror he sees himself giving the stone to Voldemort, but he cannot see where it is.  When Harry looks in the mirror he sees the location of the stone - in his own pocket - and prevents Voldemort from getting hold of it.  Harry is able to locate the stone because his deepest desire is to find it; not to use it.  The philosopher's stone turns base metal into gold and can be used to give the bearer everlasting life.  Most wizards in Harry's position would see themselves fabulously rich.  But Harry is different. ...

Today my friend B came to see me in the coffee shop.  B used to attend a group I ran which met for friendship, Bible study and discussion.  At that time he was a spiritual seeker with some history of church attendance and a lot of doubts and questions.  I hadn't seen B for a couple of months.  He turned up today with a box of halal Turkish delight (one of my favourite sweets - how did he know?), and explained that he had become a Muslim.  B is happy for me to share his story. In Islam B had found the truth he had been looking for.  He had always struggled with Christian beliefs about the divinity of Christ, for example, which Muslims reject.  He had also found brotherhood with the men he met at the mosque which he was now getting up at 4.30am every morning to attend.  Now that's commitment.  How is a Christian supposed to react when a friend with Christian leanings chooses another path?  As an evangelist I long fo...

The first Harry Potter book begins with the temporary defeat of Voldemort, and the seventh and final book ends with his death.  In both cases, Voldemort is defeated because he fails to understand the power of love.    Immensely powerful though Voldemort is, he does not understand that love contains a magic deeper than his own.  When he tries to kill one-year-old Harry, Harry's mother stands in the way and, although Lily Potter dies trying to protect her child, her sacrifice in death gives Harry protection from Voldemort's spells.   Voldemort's final defeat at the end of the seventh book is a little more convoluted.  Doubtless the precise plot twists would only be of interest to Potter geeks like me (but if you ask me, I'd be happy to bore you on the subject).  Suffice it to say that it all comes down to the loyalties of Professor Snape.  Snape is a double agent, a former Death Eater turned informant, who feeds information about the Death Eaters ba...

In the sixth Harry Potter book, we finally find out the reason why the evil wizard Voldemort is so hard to kill.  Although he is, technically, mortal - he is a human - he has created horcruxes which enable him to survive even when his body is killed.  A horcrux is a physical object in which a witch or wizard can conceal part of their soul, an extremely dark piece of magic, because the soul can only be divided in the act of murder.  (Although the Harry Potter series starts like children's literature, it  really does get dark towards the end.) A horcrux, Hermione explains (she has read about them in books), is the exact opposite of a human being.  When a horcrux is destroyed, the piece of soul concealed within it is destroyed also.  As she explains to Ron, were she to run him through with a sword, his soul would remain intact, even though his body would die.  Ron is not comforted by this thought. The interesting thing is that the belief that the soul out...

I came across the folk ballad 'Bread and Fishes' a few years ago.  It is inspired by the (bizarre) legend that Mary and Joseph travelled to England with Jesus when he was a child: http://youtu.be/HL5nuCWUrWs My favourite verse goes something like this: We're travellin ' to Glaston through England's green lanes To hear of men's troubles , to hear of men's pains We travel the wide world o'er land and the sea To tell all the people how they can be free . Although the story has no basis in historical fact, I still love it.  There's something special about the idea of Jesus in an English country lane.  Perhaps a culturally relevant image of Jesus for Brits; a story which makes him seem more familiar, closer to us.  It reminds us that Jesus isn't just for first century Palestinians, but for us too.

Another character in the Harry Potter series who demonstrates the truth of the beatitudes (blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek) is Dobby the house-elf.  House-elves are subservient little creatures who like nothing better than to wait on their masters and mistresses hand and foot.  They are bound by strong magic, normally unable to disobey the families they serve, or even leave the house without permission - although Dobby does manage to disobey the cruel Malfoy family because of his strong desire to protect Harry, whom he hero-worships.  Most wizards think of house-elves as being beneath them, if they think of them at all (Hermione is terribly morally indignant about this). The powerful wizard Voldemort certainly never condescends to think of house-elves as anything like a threat to his power, but here he makes a mistake.  House elves may be humble, dutiful and enslaved to their families, but they have magic which he does not understand and which in...

Yesterday, Harry Potter (more on him later); today, a fantasy series written by confirmed atheist Philip Pullman.  If you haven't read the Northern Lights trilogy, you've missed out - get yourself down to a bookshop or the Kindle store ASAP.  Actually, I should probably give a spoiler alert, because I'm going to give away part of the ending.  Just a small part though. The main character in the Northern Lights trilogy, the first book of which was made into the film 'The Golden Compass' (seriously, don't bother with the film), is 12 year old Lyra.  Early in the first book Lyra acquires an aletheiometer, or truth-teller, a sort of golden compass which can tell you the true answer to any question you ask it.  Lyra finds herself easily able to turn the dials and interpret the read outs and finds this an enormous help on the difficult quest she sets out upon.  Lyra is extremely unusual, however; it takes most scholars a lifetime to learn how to interpret the diff...

For years I have wanted to write a book about Harry Potter.  The series is so warm and life-affirming, full of interesting connections and wonderful characters.  My knowledge of the world of Potter is encyclopaedic; I often forget that other people find better things to do with their time than endlessly reread J.K. Rowling's books.  One of these days I will persuade someone to let me preach a sermon series on them. One of the characters I find most interesting is Neville Longbottom.  Neville is clumsy and, while not stupid, is far from being a straight-O student.  His teachers find him exasperating and Professor Snape treats him with utter contempt.  Neville lacks confidence and suffers from bullying.  The only subject he is really good at is Herbology (care of magical plants).  Neville has been brought up by his grandmother because his parents are incapable of caring for him, having been tortured into insanity by Voldemort's followers many ye...

This morning I delivered a couple of all day breakfasts to a couple of blokes who, when I arrived suddenly carrying plates, apologised for their language.  I suspect it was the collar which embarrassed them.  I  always find it really amusing when people apologise for swearing in front of me because they know I'm a Christian.   I used to use pretty colourful language myself - I wasn't exactly Gordon Ramsay but I had quite a range.  That's what watching South Park does to a girl.  Then when I started exploring Christianity I decided to give up swearing for Lent (somewhat missing the point of Lent, but I think God understood the spirit of the gesture).  This was incredibly hard for me to do - my swearing seemed to be literally out of my control.  After a few days, however, I realised that I had stopped, and I believed then - and still do - that God gave me a helping hand.  Now any naughty words that do slip out are entirely my own fault and unde...

One consequence of my decision to wear a clerical collar while on duty in the coffee shop is far more frequent comments on my supposed youthfulness.  Apparently a woman of 34 is supposed to be flattered when she is taken for an 18-year-old, and part of me does find it quite funny.  But one of the advantages of being a 34-year-old woman is supposed to be that you are taken seriously!  It has become apparent to me that many of our older customers assume I am a student earning some extra cash by waitressing... that is, until they see me in a dog collar, which confuses them utterly. One of my work colleagues asked me, I think as a joke, "why do you want to be taken seriously?".  I found it a very interesting question.  I recently attended a conference where one of the keynote speakers was a middle aged man with real gravitas.  He had a voice like a veteran newsreader or the narrator of a Dickens classic complete with smoking jacket and leather armchair.  H...

I've spent an emotional afternoon at Central Baptist Church, Chelmsford marking Paul Beasley-Murray's retirement after 43 years in ministry.  For the past 21 years Paul has been senior minister at CBC, and I attended the church for ten of those years, having arrived as a very new Christian.  I was nurtured in the Christian faith at CBC; baptised by Paul; became an intern to test my calling to Christian ministry; served on the staff team as an evangelist; was commended for ministerial training by the church, and supported through three years at theological college; was married by Paul, to a very nice man I had met in the young adults group at CBC; and finally I was ordained by Paul and sent out to begin my own ministry at Leigh Road. It is quite something to have the opportunity to look back and see where you have come from.  To see so many faces who have meant so much over the years, not least Paul, who has been present at all the significant milestones of the last ten ye...

Over the last 25 years I have been on a journey of understanding what being a woman means for my life.  Born in a country where women enjoy a high degree of political and economic equality; brought up by a mum and dad who both worked full time; educated from 11-18 at girls' schools which taught me that I could do anything I wanted to in life; it wasn't until I was in my mid-20s that I started to reflect on my fairly aggressive brand of feminism and to wonder whether I had got it right. This was partly because I had become a Christian and had very good friends who believed that God had ordained that men should lead and women should follow.  You can imagine how I reacted to these views.  I firmly believe that, as I began to sense God's call to Christian ministry, he deliberately put very significant people in my life who had much more traditional views than I was used to hearing - people who, had they not been such good friends, I would have avoided in disgust at their outd...

I should have known better.  I was given a whole chapter of Matthew from which to choose a text, so like a fool, I chose one of my favourite stories in the New Testament.  It's also possibly the most terrifying of Jesus' many teachings.  I joyfully picked up my extremely heavy three volume commentary on Matthew (buying a three-volume commentary on one book seemed like a good idea at the time)... and discovered, to my dismay, that the story may not mean what I always thought it did. It's the last judgement, and the Son of Man separates the sheep from the goats.  To the sheep he says, "when I was hungry, you fed me; when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink..." And the sheep say, "when did we ever see you hungry, Lord, and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?"  And the Lord says "whenever you did it for the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me."  Then he turns to the goats and says "I was hungry, and y...

'God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.' (From 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman).   Apparently Albert Einstein uttered the famous line 'God does not play dice with the universe' in response to quantum mechanics (and before you get too impressed, I should say that I read this on the BBC Learning Zone website, which I think is for kids).  I have tried to read 'A Brief History Of Time' three times and each time lost the will to live when I got to the chapter on quantum mechanics, which is totally impossible to understand.  As far as I can make out, one of the tenets of quantum mechanics is that there are limits to our knowl...

Last year on Ash Wednesday I attended an ashing service at St Paul's Cathedral.  The service focused on confessing our sins and asking God's forgiveness.  During the service a berobed priest made the sign of the cross in ash on my forehead.  I thought this was pretty cool and refused my husband's request that I rub it off for the train journey home.  Then we ran into an old work colleague of mine and I felt rather stupid. Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is all about sin and repentance - 'sackcloth and ashes' and all that.  But I wonder how many people in the UK today identify with the idea that they are sinners in need of forgiveness?  My final year dissertation at theological college focused on the dilemma of how to call to repentance people who do not think they have anything of which to repent.  I certainly didn't think of myself as a sinner when I first started exploring Christianity.  I knew I wasn't perfect, but hey, who is? I have hea...

Thanks to my friend S who sent me a talk given by Revd Dr Sam Wells.  He has this to say: 'what the collar is saying is, I am someone who, however deep you wish to go, will never be out of my depth'. I  like this.  Perhaps the collar gives people permission - opens up the possibility of a conversation. I remember a few years ago having a housewarming party in my flat, and deciding to invite my new neighbours.  I had tried knocking on doors but, because of the (extremely loud) entry phone system, no one ever listened out for a knock on the door, and most of my neighbours didn't open up when I knocked.  So I put invitations to my party in their postboxes. When the party was in full swing, two men in their forties turned up - one of my neighbours and his friend - clutching cans of beer.  I invited them in and started chatting.  The friend was a bit obnoxious, especially when he found out that I was renting the flat from my dad - clearly I was a middle cla...

One of the things I have been experimenting with in the coffee shop is wearing a clerical collar.  As a Baptist minister this makes me feel quite uncomfortable, for a number of reasons, some of which are better than others. For those who are not familiar with things Baptist, I should explain that most Baptist ministers in the UK don't wear the clerical collar.  Some will wear the collar when visiting people in hospital (easier to get in outside visiting times) or for funerals (it's smart and helps identify the minister), but it would be fairly unusual to see a Baptist minister wearing the collar while leading a Sunday service.  I imagine - without having researched the topic - that this is largely because of the Baptist emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, i.e. all Christians are priests with direct access to God.  One of the reasons I feel uncomfortable wearing the collar is because it makes me feel as if I am setting myself up above others.  I feel tha...