Trump, LGBT, Weeping and Eternal Damnation

2 years ago when I watched Forest Whitaker at the conclusion of the film ‘The Butler’ as he looked back at his life I wept uncontrollably. I knew of the struggle for equal rights and the heinous impact of slavery, the abuse of a people and a culture that lasted centuries all down to a difference in pigmentation and location of birth – yet something hit home harder. There was something utterly evil when you treat people worse because of a difference that they cannot choose and have no say in and for a moment I felt that pain, that dis-ease that claustrophobia of being able to do nothing to effect change.

The release of the film was timed well, Obama was in the Whitehouse and there was a new hope, not just for people of colour but, for all people. Now Trump is in the Whitehouse.

Watching that film, just about, heralded the start of 18 months of tears for me as my marriage came to an end, I left the house I lived in and the job I loved and lost lots of friends along the way. Yet this was my choosing and despite the difficulty I had a say in the direction of travel.

What I found most surprising was that people assumed I lost my faith, that I had stopped believing in God. The reality is that if God is love and mercy and kindness and grace and forgiveness then my need of those increased in this time and my reliance on the God I believe in grew. But part of what I believed in also died, it had to for me to survive and stay rational. I will explain.

Last week I was moved to tears again as I read the report from the Church of England on same sex marriage and relationships. They are going to keep the status quo, they are going to continue to marginalise and judge and exclude those who were born a certain way and have no choice in their orientation. Let’s be clear here the Bible says nothing on loving same sex relationships. The Old Testament , along with its condemnation of same sex sexual acts also says not to eat shellfish of wear  clothes of two different fibres, Jesus says nothing at all about it and Paul, in the New Testament, also says that women shouldn’t speak in church (oh do we need fewer men speaking in church). How we love to mix our hermeneutics to suit ourselves. This is appalling and desperately sad.

So for those absolute literal Bible believing conservative Christians who aren’t eating shellfish and won’t let women speak in church at least you are staying true to your ignorance. At least you aren’t hypocritical as well as ignorant. Here is a fact.

81% of white, born again, evangelical Christians voted for Trump.

Last week the church had a chance to right the wrongs that have adversely affected the lives of those from the LGBT community and it didn’t.

The ‘church’ has so much capacity for good yet it chooses this and when it chooses to pedal hatred and a misrepresentation of the gospel then we get people like Trump elected. Without the church backing him he would NOT have been elected.

When I became a minister I foolishly and arrogantly believed that I could make a difference. Now when I go to church I am overwhelmed not just at my loss but at the disconnect between the wonder, grace, mercy and love of a God who is depicted, by those who have the power, as a creator who loathes part of ‘his’ creation to the extent that ‘he’ will eternally burn 99. % of it because they won’t do what the church says ‘he’ wants them to do . No wonder I continue to weep, what other choice is there?

So part of my understanding of God has died, thank goodness for that. I now refuse to believe in an entity that excludes, condemns, threatens, cajoles, persuades and marginalises because of race, or sexuality.  And if God is as capricious, as the far right say he is, then I am in for a whole heap of trouble and will face an eternity of damnation. Actually that isn’t a God I will worship.

So let eternity see to itself and let God be God, I believe that we have the ‘God given’ capacity to choose and choose well, we have intellects – individual and corporate to aid those decisions, we have experience and personal understanding to choose to make a difference. When the people of God were exiled that sat down by Babylon’s rivers and wept; maybe change starts with weeping. But it must not end there.

21 or bust

Like many of you I am sure you have seen a variety of friends undertake 22 push ups a day and video their efforts, seems easy? Try and and you will see it takes some effort. The reason is to raise awareness that on average 22 veterans take their own lives each day - shocking isn't it.

Last week I took the funeral of two people  who likely took their own lives, I did one the previous week and have one this coming week. I say 'likely' because coroners often go for 'death by misadventure' unless they are absolutely certain.

I used to play Pontoon as a child, get as close to '21' as you can without going over. 22 or more and game over, you have lost and are out. The weird thing is that at the start of the game everyone starts exactly the same - they start at zero and the first two, mandatory, cards can never push them over the edge - it is as additional cards are chosen and played that the game gets riskier. If you continue to twist 22+ is just going to happen.

People ask me if it depressing taking funerals of those who have died by 'misadventure' and actually it isn't, it is always a privilege to stand alongside families in their time of greatest need and create a 'service' which meets their needs. So not depressing but they are often incredibly sad. The problem with suicide is that people (invariably men) feel that they have come to the end of any possible chance of hope and see no further purpose in their lives. I say 'the problem' because at each and every such funeral people talk of how much impact the person had on their lives, how glad they were to have them in their lives, how much they were loved and how much they will be missed. Every family and friend articulate just how they wish their loved one had reached out for help or talked about their situation, before it became too much and too late.

We don't know what pushes someone over the edge and it certainly isn't my place to judge and actually, after the event, it makes little difference. What '22 press ups' is about is prevention and talking about feelings, reaching out to those struggling and listening is just about the best prevention there is. Talking about suicide and the feelings that might cause it is not depressing and it may just be life saving.

So part of my reason for writing this, as well as a bit of self catharsis, is to say it and name it, "too many people, not just veterans are taking their own lives because they feel alone, worthless and without hope". It is my hope that in doing my bit to raise awareness and talking about it that it might just make a difference to someone somewhere and that someone somewhere might just be closer to us than we think.

P.S. by the way I can now actually touch bridges when I run over them!

Excrement, vomit and jumping off bridges

'If you were in a pit, with no means of escape, up to your neck in excrement and someone threw a bucket of vomit at you, would you duck?'

Eek, now that is an unpleasant image.

Now I am not for one minute suggesting belonging to the EU is like being up to your neck in excrement, nor am likening a bucket of sick to leaving. I am amazed however and left feeling slightly incredulous that much of the media, social or otherwise is having a swipe at those who voted, with best intentions to leave. It is interesting that from the demographic make-up (and I am aware that this is generalising and there are many exceptions) those who voted 'in' were generally those who are home owners, middle class, better paid, university educated, with savings/pensions etc. Those whose current position was okay, stable. Essentially those who voted in wanted the status quo because the status quo was okay for THEM. Nothing wrong with that, but that seems to be a fairly reasonable generalisation.

What about those for whom things aren't so good? What about those who don't own their own property and can never see a way of doing so? Those whose rents are skyrocketing because 'buy to lets' can charge what they want and they do? What about those on zero contract hours or feel that they have unfair competition from those willing to work for less? What about those whose benefits are being cut to the point where surviving seems impossible and they still get the blame for 'bleeding our country dry'? What about those who have become jaded by cynical politics and corrupt politicians? Those who are disenfranchised, who feel when they are asked if they would like a change feel that they have little or nothing to lose? They vote 'leave'. Years of the rich getting richer and austerity that hits the pockets of the poor to 'save the country', that all starts to add up. For those who have little, or perceive they have relatively little, change is a good thing. I really get it.

Today I ran over a bridge that crosses the M5. For the last 6 weeks I have crossed that bridge and it has been okay. For the last 6 weeks I crossed that bridge and didn't think about throwing myself off, this is different because for the 18 months before that crossing bridges had become difficult for me. Now I don't think for one moment that I would have actually done it but I kept thinking about it, the idea just kept coming into my head. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, nor worry about me or judge me - it was a thought, a thought I had no control of. Was it depression, mental illness or sadness? I don't know and I also know of the many reasons why it would have been a terrible idea, not least the poor person who would have had to scrape me off the motorway.

Jumping, ducking, leaving might seem like a good option when what we feel we might leave behind is worth less that what we actually already have.

With the pit of excrement there is no good choice, though my sister - a nurse would say she would duck every time. With the bridge there is a terrible choice, a choice I will never make and I am so glad that that is no longer present in my mind. With Brexit, I still don't know but I will not blame those who voted 'out' because they were hopeful for a brighter day and a better future, I just hope for all our sakes we can build one.

Negative splits

Today I ran, as I sometimes do. Today, as I ran, my head was full of questions and worries and concerns, like many of us I am sure. I was trying to run a negative split. Now I am not a good runner but I can always try to be better. A negative split is when the first half of your race/run is slower that the second half – you finish faster. Now in order to do this you can start artificially slowly and ‘save yourself for the finish or you start out at a pace and as you become more and more tired you just try harder. Today, when I ran, I tried to do the second and two things happened. I had to stop after 5.5 miles (I wanted to do 6) and I was absolutely wrecked and shattered by the end of it. What started with good intentions, enthusiasm and energy became increasing harder as the task before me became increasingly more and more difficult.

I voted in. I can tell you why, kind of. I am not stupid, I read the news, I can work things out but my vote was far more instinctive than it was logical. I was brought up in a very working class household on a council estate, 5 years in St Pauls, the rest in Fishponds - all Bristol. It was all wonderfully, multicultural and I am the better for all of that. My dad (yeah not father he is my 'dad') probably would have joined the communist party if there was one, he is a hardworking, honest man who was made redundant time after time at the hands of Thatcher and when Tebbit said 'get on your bike' he already had, literally cycling wherever work could be had. All of that makes it hard for me to be Conservative. But, all that said, I am not a socialist with a big 'S' and when I voted conservatively with a small 'c', it was a hunch that things are better as they are, that Europe with all its bureaucracy and red tape has, at its heart, socialist ideals that people were more important than politics. Naïve eh?

I remember as a child playing with Plasticine; that wonderful, malleable substance that was limited only by the imagination of my 4 year old mind. In my day you could only get it in grubby, greeny brown. Well actually the reality was that my Plasticine was so loved, so played with that in time the variety of colours have melted into one indistinguishable lump, a homogenised mass. The wonderful blues and dashing reds had melded with the luminous yellow and vibrant green and in their ‘gathering’, in my hands had literally become indistinguishable from each other, the colours were there but had bonded to serve what was literally a larger purpose.

Now I love colour and variety and difference and eight (or 27) little balls of colour, separated have so much potential. A house needs its yellow thatched roof to sit upon its red bricked walls, bedecked with white sashed windows on top its verdant green garden. A pink faced clown (pink = red + white forever mixed) needs a mop of yellow hair, white smile, red nose. And every time I created something bigger from the smaller balls, however hard I tried I would always leave a bit behind – green in the yellow, blue in the red - until after all my creativity – browny, greeny, homogenous unity.

There is a saying that ‘you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy’. My hunch to vote ‘in’ was that despite any protestations and determination to leave Europe for right or wrong reasons, we are European. We have become increasingly so over the past 40+ years and whatever we do to deny that ‘European-ess’ I suspect any way to delineate or redraw any of the boundaries: social, political, financial, can only be artificial.

So as I ran I wondered and pondered and worried not so much whether Brexit is a negative or positive split but whether it is in any way viable. Can we actually unroll all those little balls and when we do so what kind of Great Britain, what kind of England, what kind of Europe will we be left with.

Beheld beauty

It is said that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, this questions whether lack of observation means there is any intrinsic beauty at all. It is also said that ‘it has to be seen to be believed’ – in each of these the perception makes a difference.

Quite recently I was in the car park in Sainsbury’s Pinhoe;  it was a grey, wet and cold day (in July!) and there seemed to be very little appealing in the rows of parked cars and unkempt hedgerows. In the midst though I saw the most beautiful, crimson flower, it was almost as if it was struggling to be spotted amidst all the grey. Yet I spotted it! It only took a moment to stop and look, to enjoy. Instead of hurrying into the shop to but more stuff I spent a few seconds to enjoy, to notice something beautiful.

My mind was taken back to the film ‘American beauty’ and the scene where the plastic bag is blown around in the wind, the protagonist says this:

“That's the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it”.

Sometimes in the midst of unkempt hedgerows and difficult times instead of looking for the ordinary and focussing on what is wrong we need to consider what is good – look for the beauty. In it and in the process of looking,  we may be surprised to find the beauty that we discover, not least in ourselves. If we take the time to stop and look and notice. 

I wrote this little ditty to help me reflect and remember what I had encountered.

In the dead rows of hedgerows, today I spotted this.
Midst Audis and Fiats and 4x4 monstrosities.
In the tumble of weeds and exhaust-breathed brambles it lives.
Striving for recognition, pushing away toofast lives, in toofast lanes - shopping or motorways.
Weighed down with pulchritude I stopped and saw and noticed and felt, lighter for one moment.
In the dead rows and hedgerows, today I spotted this.

Broken and poured out

My two days with Rob Bell ended with a run around London and a train journey on Thursday morning – Maundy Thursday.

My two days were a mixture of the everyday profane – tiredness, impatience, frustration yet with a glimpse of the divine – wonder, awe, inspiration. There was something profound and mundane, something transcendent and something ordinary.

Maundy Thursday is the day we remember ordinary bread broken with extraordinary friends, the washing of feet in the most astonishing of circumstances, of bleak tears poured out in the depth of human sadness and abusive kisses.

Rob Bell spoke for more than 12 hours with stories of science and faith and cosmology and love and purpose and meaning and said so much of worth but there is a message that, at least for me, is writ large. I am invited to be a Eucharistic person - to be broken and poured out in service and in love. Now that sounds a bit bleak doesn’t it?

At the end of the two days he said ‘which of my stories did you enjoy and remember the most?’ I immediately remembered the ones where he had told us of his mistakes, when things went wrong and for Rob it seemed that in the midst of the pain of being broken and being poured out that he found meaning and purpose and a reason and an energy to get up and try again.

It was on Maundy Thursday that Judas betrayed Jesus, it was on Maundy Thursday that Jesus crumpled in the garden despairing, that he broke bread and poured out wine as a forward recognition of what was to be. And soon all would be broken and all would be poured out: life, hope, friendship,  everything of  import, everything of matter.

Yet this would not be the end but instead a start.

Maybe being broken is an opportunity; the first step to being remade, maybe being poured out leaves room to be filled.

May we know that in our 'brokenness and poured-outness'  that there is meaning.

Broken
       Poured out

Intentionally,
         with purpose

In service
         In love

Knowing

        and waiting
           to be filled and renewed.

Just the way it was always meant

Today is the first day of lent, the days 'lengthen' and Easter approaches, it is often the time when people decide to stop doing something.

As I write ‘Cornerstone Runners’ (the first group formed in Cranbrook) has just celebrated its second birthday; it was two years ago that a few of us set out in the darkness for a 4 mile run towards Exeter and back. We are now backed and insured by ‘Run England’ and have 8 trained leaders – in any given week on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays between 20-40 runners go out for a bit of exercising and socialising. We have had couch – 5k, half marathon training, staggered starts, hill runs, crocodiling and the infamous ‘run to a pub’. Unsurprisingly the latter seems the most popular.

So why do we run? For some it is about fitness, others losing or maintaining weight, some might have personal goals to train for, many enjoy the social side and some just love running.

For me bits of all of the above are true, apart from the last part – I have said this before I don’t love running. Running is hard: my legs ache, it is tiring, I get hot and cold and wet and I can find many excuses NOT to go. So why do it? For me I guess it started as a challenge, I said I could never do it, I said it was impossible for me so I didn’t do it – a bit of self-fulfilling prophesy. This impasse was enough to make me try, to see if I had the mental stamina and discipline to go beyond my self-imposed limitations and although I will never win any races and am one of the slower members of the group, I can do it.

As church minister for Cranbrook people sometimes ask me what my job is, what my purpose is. Might I say simply this, I believe that inside each one of us are possibilities we negate because of self-imposed limitations, primarily - ‘I can’t. I believe that we often undervalue who we are and what is possible. I believe that we are made for much more and sometimes we just need to have a little bit of faith, often faith in ourselves.

So stop whatever you want this lent but alongside all that 'stopping' might I add, a cessation of the often wrong belief that you just can't. Might I also suggest that in all that stopping there should also be a starting - maybe start believing that you just might be able. In my experience a bit of practice, perseverance and self-belief goes a long way. For me lent, and the journey to the cross, is about a journey through the dark waters of the improbable and even the seemingly impossible to a place new place of belief, self worth and life in all its fullness, just the way it was always meant.