Monthly Archives: December 2018

Found while tidying up

I‘m supposed to be tidying up but I found this poem from a previous Christmas. It seemed to chime in with something I saw yesterday when shopping: ‘Special offer, £10 off stables!’

You can never have too many stables,
Marys, innkeeper’s, Kings,
Townsfolk, shepherds and angels
Each one with tinsel and wings.
You can never have too many teatowels,
Curtains, mangers and stuff,
Straw, donkeys and camels:
Of this we just can’t get enough.
Every year about now we remember,
A story as old as the hills,
That were covered with sheep and with shepherds
A story packed that’s full of thrills.
There was Romans all roamin’ about,
Making life for the people quite hard:
Remember that next time
You choose a cute Christmas card.
There was a tough journey by donkey,
A road that seemed endlessly long,
At the end not much to sing of:
A shed full of sheep and a pong
A long night of labour was followed
By a bloke who came in with some gold
And two who had myrrh and frank-insense:
What good was all that in the cold?
But each year we stop to remember
This story of stables and such,
Of people with not much to give
Who end up giving so much.
A mum, a dad and a baby
Who will grow up into a man,
Who’s story we’ve promised to follow
As we try to live to God’s plan

In our life and our believing

The love of God

What’s in a word?

Last week there was a notice on my seat at the Nativity service. It said ‘reserved’. Not a very good description of me.
Yesterday I was ‘retiring’. Also not a good description, but I did it anyway and now it’s done.
It was amazing and also the right decision. I was surprised by how calm I felt. It was mostly the children who disarmed me when I stood on the path saying goodbye to them as they walked to the school gate.
After that there were photos and speeches from my friends and colleagues on the staff. I didn’t remember half the stories that were told. What I did realise, seeing the whole thing through other people’s eyes, was just how bonkers it all was! The dressing up, the whirlwind makes, the badly spelt messages, the songs, poems and stories, the bouncing and bowling down corridors and into classrooms, the words and the silences. And just how important to the children and young people.
It’s been amazing, both in sorrow and in joy.
I’m glad I was Chaplain of Silcoates. It truly was an honour and a privilege.
In the story of the Not Last Supper at Emmaus, it says ‘Jesus went to go on’. I’m following him: Road Walker, bread sharer, life giver.
In our life and our believing
The love of God


From the chapel door (above) and a gift from the school (below)

 

Abiding

Here are a few thoughts about ‘Abiding’ from our Carol service yesterday.

In those days a Chaplain was abiding at Silcoates keeping watch over a flock by day and sometimes by night….
I’ve often been charged with making the Bible up.
That’s because remembering the bible (RB) is different to using a printed Bible and it is interpreted differently.
We look inside ourselves, and around us, in family, community and the world for help in the task of interpreting.
This is the most basic of contextual theologies.
How does this story apply to me?
A 4 year old boy told me the story of the man who couldn’t walk whose friends helped him to see Jesus. Maybe you remember it too. They made a hole in the roof and lowered him down to see Jesus face to face. In his version the man shared a slice of watermelon with Jesus. Why not? Jesus gave the man back his dignity. The man gave Jesus some of his watermelon.
One of our problems with printed Scripture is we think the version on the page contains all the details of an actual event.
The boy made it the encounter into a real relationship through the sharing of the watermelon.

We are all children to some extent. We tell stories differently and we tell different stories.
When I first came to be the Chaplain I heard many adults say: ‘I stopped going to church when I was….’ It was often during teenage years. My finding is that didn’t mean ‘I left faith behind’ but rather faith changed, as indeed it should. It changed in meaning, importance or practice for example.
At school that’s what we expect. We all continue to change and grown but we also all continue to abide with each other in this space by God’s grace.
What stories do you tell?
Where are you abiding?

In our life and our believing

The love of God

God of surprises

This was the prayer we used at our Junior Carol service this week

God of surprises,
As we wait for Christmas to come,
We ask that you continue to surprise us all.
Surprise us with kindness from strangers,
And with generosity from the poor,
So that we too may surprise others;
By helping the homeless to find a home,
The lonely to find Friends
And hungry people to be fed.
May we always act in the way of Jesus,
As we try to follow him.
And when Christmas comes
We look forward to sharing the good news of his birth with everyone we can.

For Silcoates Juniors
05.12.2018

What to do instead

I’m sitting in the Leeds art library looking at books about quilting. Outside it is drizzling and getting darker. I can hear the sounds of the Leeds Christmas market. In here I am thinking about quilting.
When I was about 10 years old I helped my mum use my grandmother’s old hand sewing machine to sew up the side of an old quilt to make my first sleeping bag. It was our first shared sewing project. It’s a skill I later passed onto my own daughter. Sew if you can.
It’s a slow business and beautiful. Fabric is fascinating and full of possibilities.
Quilts are a mirror of memory. The fabric itself, the colours, the techniques, the time spent, each evokes a memory or more. To look, to handle, to hold is to bring those memories back to life and make more.
A quilt should be used, either flat or hung, on a bed, a sofa or a wall, a table or chair, a tent or anywhere. Don’t fold up a quilt and hide it away.
Most of all make more quilts. Take small or large scraps and bits of memory and layer them together. Behold, it will make a new thing. Enjoy the feelings. Just sew.
The Silcoates WW1 quilt will be auctioned at the service in Silcoates Chapel on 9th December in aid of St George’s crypt, Leeds. As someone said to me about it on Friday: ‘There’s so much in it’.
In our life and our believing
The love of God