The Importance of Story…

Illustration by Michael Foreman for the book ‘Poppy Field’ by Michael Morpurgo, a story set in Flanders which tells the story of Martens family and the meaning of the poppy. It is a story which is both personal and national. If you purchase, 50% of profits go to the Royal British Legion.

I grew up in the First World War.

As we celebrate the setting up of the Royal British Legion 100 years ago today, that may seem a very strange statement to make!

I was actually born at the end of the 2^nd World War and so my childhood was tinged with memories of what it was like to live in a time of austerity – reminders of which have emerged in this time of the Covid Pandemic and the suffering that we see around the world. There were, in the aftermath of war, similar inequalities to those we see today. No one wins at War: we are all defeated because war itself is the defeat of the human ability to live in peace and justice, freedom and love. War is a failure to seek peace and pursue it; it is the despairing response to negotiation which seeks to resolve disputes by other means and actions.

The British Broadcasting Corporation’s motto is: Nation shall speak peace unto Nation, and it’s a motto which strikes a deep chord within me, expressing, as it does, a hope which is also an aspiration. It is inspired by words from the Books of the Prophets Micah and Isaiah and it underlines the desire of God that His people should live in peace. This is a repeated theme in Holy Scripture, demonstrated totally in God acting through His Son, Jesus.

Whilst there is a longing for Peace amongst His children which should be expressed through love and justice, equality and kindness, we know only too well that we constantly fail to achieve that harmony which, combined with integrity, enriches our human life on earth. This harmony is never complete unless we embrace a stewardship of all creation. We do not exist on this planet for our own desires and wants to be fulfilled: we have an earth to save too – with God’s help.

As I write this, there are all sorts of battles going on between humans and humans (Israel / Palestine to name but one) and between humans and our borrowed environment with our destruction of the natural world of plants, animals, birds and creatures of the sea. (It is perhaps salutary that the latter live in the biggest area of the planet and so ought to be charging us rent!)

The world is not a great place to be at present, at least not in human terms so it is hardly surprising that you find me harking back to the First World War. Well, not to the war as such, which was such a chillingly horrific conflict, but I need to know about it because we continue to be afflicted by it.

So, I go to my grandfather’s bedside: he is dying but, despite being wounded in the First World War (one of the few survivors of the Dardanelles/Gallipoli battle) he has lived a fairly long life. And by his bedside, he tells me something of the horrors and heroics of War. He tells me too why he spent the rest of his life in Hospital service because of his war experience. Maybe it was the Irish in him but he was a good raconteur and as a boy just about to enter my teens, it was adventure and excitement as well as pain and horror. As the stories, including judgemental comments about certain politicians, filled my mind, I felt a nearness to that violent and significant crisis in the human story. For what happened in those 4 years was to shape and influence the entire 20^th century.

Not least, because the botched peace at the end of World War I led to World War II. This was another conflict in which I was personally involved. I was, for example, part of the victory celebration but also, once again, I was shaped by the stories of parents, relatives, parents of friends and the extended family that formed our neighbourhood. Later, in the early 1960s Britain was at war in Aden, my cousin was involved as a member of the RAF. On at least two occasions he was almost killed. All this was part of my ‘story’ which shaped my life and who I am.

This is true of millions and like so many I have lived, too, through other conflicts such as Bosnia and Afghanistan. I have personally known some that these conflicts affected and go on affecting.

We are all shaped by the stories of others. As a Christian, of course, I have been, and go on being, shaped by the story of God in Jesus Christ and the words and deeds, the silences and the prayers of billions. With my fellow Christians today, I go on adding to that story.

And today we are celebrating the telling of the human story as it is preserved and added to by the Royal British Legion. On this day in 1921 the Legion was formed to take care of those who suffer the directness of war in battle and conflict; those whose lives have been broken by wounding or loss of loved ones; those who have fought a different battle in the aftermath of war – a battle which is physical, mental, social, practical and spiritual.

The Royal British Legion has been a Godsend in helping people to cope and I do mean Godsend because, whether the Legion sees it that way or not, it is godly work that they do.

All that is very important and we truly celebrate it. But alongside that is the importance of ‘Story’. At the heart of my faith is the story of God’s love. It is a painful love because as TS Eliot puts it, It costs ‘not less than everything’ to God’. Our Story is therefore always bound up in God’s story. It is one which needs to be re-told and lived out carefully but joyfully, if my Granddad’s story and your relatives’ stories are to help us shape the peace and justice of our world. A shaping which, as the work of the Royal British Legion shows us, should be rooted in compassion, kindness and service, engfolded by the tender and infinite Love of God.

[Mr. G.]

A prayer for the Royal British Legion

As we reflect on past sacrifices in the cause of freedom,
we pray for the work of the Royal British Legion.

We give thanks for the Legion’s work in caring
for the needs of those who have served in the armed forces;
for their families and those whose lives have met with adversity
because of war and conflict.

We give thanks that those who serve the causes of the Legion,
and put that service of others before self.

We pray that in helping us to remember past and present sacrifices,
hope and inspiration may be given to present and future generations
to work for a better, more peaceful and more just future under God.

We pray this in the name of the Prince of Peace,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

[prayer Mr G edited by PGCN]

Dawn Chorus

My friend, Joyce Smith, has sent a Tweet about Nature’s heralding of Spring. Last Sunday was International Dawn Chorus Day (there’s always something for everyone!) and this Robin obliged by turning up in Joyce’s garden and giving a deeply spirited performance.

It got me thinking and so here’s a poem –

At the Break of Day

The Orchestra of Light tunes up;
Trying out riffs and practising scales
Cock clears his throat, ‘Ahem … a-doodle-doo!’
Songthrush bustles importantly
into the auditorium –‘They rely on me to begin, you know.’
‘Not so’, cuts in Robin, with Blackbird on the wing,
‘We are well-known early risers
our song is eagerly awaited!’
Little Wren, never one to push,
slips onto the stage,
apologizing profusely for her small stature.
‘Small, but beautifully formed’ says Mr Owl
on his way to bed,
‘sing me to sleep little one.’
The chiffchaff flies into the melée
of slowly gathering sound
as Chaffinch and Sparrow take a bow.
Mr Cock raises his beak,
‘Ladies and gentlemen, shall we begin?
Please open your music
at the ‘Dawn Chorus’,
written, I believe, by God.’

Mr. G.

12^th May 2021

Rogation – a big vision

Langdale Pikes – snow in May | Gill Henwood

Rogation (meaning ’to ask’) has traditionally been a time when we ask for God’s blessing on the land and the crops growing in the fields. This was combined with a tradition known as ‘beating the bounds’. A Church procession would walk the boundary of the parish, pausing to pray for God’s bountiful goodness for the farming community as well as ensuring the parish boundary was observed and marked. I know of an ancient custom in the Northern town of Oldham of erecting seven crosses around the boundary of the parish thus claiming – or re-claiming – the land for God (and, less spiritually, ensuring that tithes were paid to the Church!)

When I lived deep in the countryside, we fought shy of actually beating the bounds because a part of the boundary was up a fell which peaked at 1059 ft. Whilst it would have been easy for a fit person like myself, (I may be telling an untruth here) we had to consider more delicate flowers in the congregation. So we contented ourselves with a gentle ramble through bluebell woods and an open air service at the local Scout camp. I think Gill Henwood, who took this photo of Langdale Pikes draped with snow last week, may well remember the bluebell wood walk.

The priest/poet George Herbert, writing in 1630 commended the custom for 4 reasons:

As a blessing of God on the fruits of the field.
As justice in the preservation of the boundaries.
As an act of charity in loving, walking and neighbourly accompanying one another, reconciling differences and forgiving wrongs.
As an act of mercy: as the blessing of God was invoked, the people were to be mindful of the needs of the poor and give them what was needed for their well-being.

This blessing of God’s earth was sometimes given a wide interpretation! Once, when I told a clergy friend about our bluebell walk, he responded rather sniffily that he had done something much more spectacular – he had blessed the Atlantic Ocean. So there!

As he was Vicar of a landlocked parish up on the North Lancashire moors I expressed my disbelief. So he told me:

“We had a service at one of our local farms and running through it was a little stream. I blessed that. The stream flows into a local river which then joins the River Ribble. The Ribble flows into Morecambe Bay and from there to the Irish Sea which eventually becomes the Atlantic Ocean. So I blessed the Atlantic Ocean.“

I had to give it to him – he either had a fanciful imagination or a big, big vision!

God has a big vision for his world and for all he has created. We tarnish that vision with our selfishness and our failure to bless, care for and feed a world in great need. Our desire for the well-being of others and a healing for our earth are needs that we have to respond to as well. It is no accident that Christian Aid Week, when money is raised to help countries and peoples less fortunate than ourselves, is linked to Rogationtide. At a time of blessing, we should become people of blessing to others. I write this just days after we have been told that Her Majesty’s Government has considerably reduced aid given to developing countries. This is, in my view, a lack of vision and also a failure to see that Global means Global (to recoin a phrase!). As the Psalmist reminds us:

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it. (Psalm 24. 1)

Never more than today is that vision needed for India, Brazil and so many other places on our planet. It isn’t enough to look after ourselves – the vaccines God has given us the knowledge to find are not our property but for sharing.

As St. Ambrose says:

“It is not from your own possessions that you are bestowing alms on the poor, you are but restoring to them what is theirs by right. For what was given to everyone for the use of all, you have taken for your exclusive use. The earth belongs not to the rich, but to everyone. Thus, far from giving lavishly, you are but paying part of your debt.”

It is hard to argue with St Ambrose, but why should you want to?

In Britain, Christian Aid Week this year is 10th—16th May. Because of Covid, door to door collections are risky for collectors.

If you wish to help the poor, the hungry, the sick and needy, please visit Christian Aid’s Website or support through the Roman Catholic CAFOD website.

Heaven in Ordinary

*A new tweet from my friend Joyce Smith. She makes this important observation.*

This little bird reminds me that in looking for the exotic and colourful, I often overlook the wonder in the ‘ordinary

God can be found in our ordinary lives.

TERESA of Avila was sometimes referred to as ‘God’s Gadbout‘ because she spent a lot of her energy in founding convents of nuns throughout Spain in the 16th century. She was forever on the move and yet she is remembered best for her teaching about Prayer and particularly about Contemplative prayer which requires stillness. No matter how busy she was – and she was very busy – she made sure her heart was constantly fixed on God, whom she referred to as Your Majesty, though not always politely! God for her was very near. Indeed she coined a famous phrase – ‘God walks among the pots and pans’. We find God in the ordinariness of life, and if we train ourselves to recognize that, we shall meet Him in the everyday events of our lives and in the people we meet. This is about finding Heaven in Ordinary.

Teresa believed that God was within us as well as beside us, and here she took up our Lord’s own teaching that the Kingdom of God is within us. We encounter Him in the silent depths of our hearts.

You know that God is everywhere, she says, which is a great truth; wherever God dwells there is heaven, and you may feel sure that all which is glorious is near His Majesty.

Then she refers to St Augustine who sought God in many places and at last found the Almighty within himself. We don’t need to go to heaven to find God, she says, We are not forced to take wings to find Him, but have only to seek solitude and to look within ourselves.

She calls this seeking God in solitude within ourselves the prayer of Recollection – or Contemplation. In her work Interior Castle she develops this using the imagery of a King in his Palace.

Let us realize that we have within us a most splendid palace built entirely of gold and precious stones – in short, one that is fit for such a Lord – and that we are partly responsible for the condition of this building, because there is no structure so beautiful as the soul full of pure virtues, and the more perfect these virtues are, the more brilliantly do the jewels shine

What we find in this Palace is the mighty King who, she says, has deigned to become your Father and Who is seated on a throne of precious value, by which I mean your heart.
Realizing this took her quite a while.:

Had I understood always, as I do now, that so great a King resided in my soul I should not have left Him alone so often, but should have stayed with Him sometimes and not kept His dwelling place in such disorder.

For Teresa, then, it is when we enter into silence and spend a little time with God in our hearts that the soul makes progress in the prayer. God becomes the centre of our being, always to be found when we still the voices of the world that claim so much of our attention.

Teresa says that it is only through silence that we can encounter the love of God and receive it into our hearts.
God is very near. We should seek him within. He is much closer to us than we might imagine.
We are not ordinary to Him who loves us to be near to His heart.
Of course, it is when we recognize this that we are actually quite extraordinary!

The Sparrow knows the answer!

Even if it fell to the ground our heavenly Father will notice! See Matthew 10:32. and Psalm 84:3 where the sparrow and her mate, the swallow, find a dwelling place in God’s house where they may quietly and safely lay their young.

That’s why the sparrow is a long way from ordinary. Just like us!

[Joyce & Mr G]