This is not about queuing for the sales at popular shopping venues. It’s about the Lake, the Sea, that wet and watery place in Galilee that was such a focal part of Jesus’ ministry. We are getting to it a bit early, as most are today, still back in Bethlehem sorting through an odd selection of gifts. We, however, have got to the lakeside early…..
That vast expanse of water, it was bound to generate a lot of stories. We who had lived round it all of our lives, and for generations before that, knew only too well that stories abounded on these shores. So when it was all over, and some of us came back here whilst others went on elsewhere it is not surprising that so many stories came back to the surface.
Fishermen tell stories everywhere, and their families do too. Not all are about huge catches and many are about the struggles and challenges encountered in this environment for individuals and communities. Each of us knew of men who had lost a finger or more, had a twisted limb, a limp a scar, from some sort of accident, the story of which might be told aloud or in secret depending on the company. Everyone knew widows or siblings who had lost sailors in storms and wrecking. Just as the lake was full of bounty so it was full or terror.
To tell a story of a storm on the lake then is no big deal. Weather is just one facet of the natural world that kept us in awe and wonder and ensured some level of obedience, in most if not all of us. To be in a boat on the lake in a storm could be terrifying, there’s no doubt about it. Most of us had been through a few by the time we got to adulthood as we’d started young. Some of us had lost fathers and brothers that way.
You couldn’t always tell about the lake, what sort of day it would or wouldn’t turn out to be, what sort of night would follow. But you had to fish and fish you did.
From first meeting him it was clear Jesus loved the lake. He loved to walk the shoreline, to stand on a headland or hill, to let the water at the lakes edge run through his fingers or cover his toes. It was a place of deep communion for him and he returned often, even though his own family were not fishing people. So we spent quite a bit of time with him there, us getting on with fishing, showing him what we did, talking, telling stories and listening, one with the other. It became a bit of a model for what we did later and of course it’s one reason why many of us came back. Equally it’s why many went on, over wider seas to new places.
But for now let’s remember the lake for what it was, a place of community around which stories were told and families grew up. If I remember a story about a storm on this lake then I’m probably adding several of them together, from child to adult, so frequent were they, so terrifying in nature. To have him on board your boat, well that was a joy. He’d be excited, interested, watching, listening. Later, as we came home, he might sleep, less used to the work of the long night than us. If a storm came in then we’d pull all the harder to get back safely, home lights beckoning, a hold full of fish to sell.
We’d all be pulling together, and maybe he’d wake up and see something of what we were grappling with. A storm like a great water monster chasing us down, determined to swallow us all. Each of us soaked and tired, nearly disparing, yet he’d stand up and mock the wind, berate it and send it away, calling down the Father’s love on us and the protection of his arms.
We’d pull into harbour exhausted, but alive. We’d look at each other and store up the memory of having escaped another storm which would certainly never be the last. Life would go on around the lake: work to be done, families to feed. Until the next storm.
Category Archives: remembered bible
Go home by another way
Today I’m going home but by another way. It’s not the route I took to get here. I’ve been a sort of pilgrim in Canterbury for the last few days with my gentle exploring of the city and visits to the Cathedral. I’ve tried several places to eat, walk, write and pray. Now it’s time to go back, as term begins again in a few days.
On the way I will go via some London suburbs which 30 years ago I knew better. In those days I was an evangelist for speech therapy and my pilgrim places were child development centres in the south east. Trains were my usual form of transport as I criss crossed from one to another. It was a job I loved and when I first went to Oxford for ministry training, I missed the whole of it enormously. It was speech therapy that had informed and fed my theology and call at that time.
I have many good friends to remember in those days. One such is Brian Neville, who died in December, and for whom we gather in thanksgiving today at Petts Wood Methodist Church, on my way home, so to speak.
I first met Brian Neville in a lift in Guys hospital in 1983. He said l understand you’re interested in language and the brain. If I was astonished that he’d heard if me, very much a junior speech therapist, my reply tried not to show it. Oh I’m interested in much more than that, I said. And I was and still am. But that first subject, language and the brain, launched several years of clinical and research work with children who had acquired aphasias , and their families, some of whom I continue to keep in touch with.
That range of enquiry survived my time in Oxford, where in addition to my ministry training, I wrote two speech therapy books, to resurface again at the Institute for Child Health, where Brian was working with a team doing clinical and research work with children who had epilepsy and their families. I joined in again. Although I later went to Sheffield as a minister, and there did my PhD in of course speech therapy, Brian and I stayed in touch.
However, at the time if his death I’d not seen him for a couple of years. But his approach to detailed enquiry of anything at all continued to inform mine. I’d learnt to look deep and wide at any subject, to frame questions, to examine evidence. I still do all of these things.
We shared a love of organ music. He was a very good organist and I was a rather feeble one. But playing the organ is a kind of church based fun that few adults bother to enjoy for themselves. I was introduced to it during my childhood by Ruth, the organist at the church where I grew up. It was awesome. At Mansfield College, one of The Good Bits, and I need to remember those, was that Carolyn Brock, the college organist, taught me properly for a few years, and I played weekly, and probably weakly, for Matins on Thursday mornings. The instrument was a small chamber organ which has recently been moved elsewhere for restoration. Sometimes I’d play the big one. It was a great way to de-stress. Later my own daughter took up the organ and so that form of church based fun has been passed on to another generation.
All this then is about going home by a long and complex route.
Arriving early at Petts Wood I began with fish and chips. Meals were always a hearty part of working with Brian. Meeting over lunch and talking about current research anywhere in the world was always a good aid to digestion.
The local cafe soon became a meeting point for those going to the service and many hugs and kisses were exchanged often with folks not seen for several years.
Petts Wood Methodist Church is not large and we were soon filling it up. Edward, the steward, kindly took my overnight bag but of course I was by no means the furthest travelled. Richard had come from Edinburgh, Rob from Vermont, and Charles from Nairobi to name a few. The service was all we could have hoped for and a super tribute to one much loved. Memories of family and friends mingled together into a seamless celebration.
Music was a significant part of Brian’s life and faith. The hymns, many of which feature amongst my favourites, we’re good to sing together.
Now thank we all our God
Awake awake to love and work
To be a pilgrim
Be though my vision
Andrew also played the ‘cello to help us all to reflect. There were words but there was much more. Psalm 139 might now be viewed as the paediatric neurologist’s psalm. Here’s a remembered version with commentary :
I have know you all your life, since you were formed in your mother’s womb
This is more than the cradle to grave service of the NHS many of us work/ed in, but what we later become begins here
I know your sitting down and your standing up.
This reminded me of the clinical encounters we shared where sitting, standing and much more would observed as functional skills. The patella hammer would be deployed. That bit often made me laugh.
Where can I go to get away from you. Not to the east, or the north, west or south. Wherever I am you are there.
So not just a local service either. Truly universal in extent, equal in accessibility, just, merciful and humble.
The darkness and the light are both the same to you
This is the amazing high point in this psalm for me: whether good news or bad God would keep the vigil with us until we rose again. Before each encounter I would pray. I still do.
The service ended with the voluntary Brian played at my wedding to Bob 25 years ago.
And so to greetings and eating, stories shared and more hugs. More than 30 years since we first met but it has passed all too quickly. It was good to catch up with others and discover where they were still travelling to.
Some of us then travelled on together for a while, talking and thinking. I parted from the final colleague, Maria, at Charing Cross. Here I am travelling home by another way, that went by Petts Wood Methodist Church. It is the feast of the Epiphany and a notice outside the church is old fashioned in its language. I’ll refashion it for 2017: wise ones looked for Jesus, wiser ones still do.
Brian was such a one, wise indeed.
Catching up with Ruth
We caught up with Ruth at Evensong tonight. Having missed the early episodes, the journeying and the gleaning, we were reunited on the threshing floor.
Naomi advises Ruth to go to the threshing floor, clean and in her best clothes, after dark, and there to uncover the feet of Boaz.
It’s somewhat odd to have this read at Evensong, when it belongs better to an episode of Eastenders. Naomi is telling Ruth how to catch Boaz. But it’s a risk. He may not take the bait, or having tasted may reject her or come up with another excuse.
He certainly appears to. He wants her gone before anyone recognises her. She leaves whilst it us still dark enough to leave her anonymous, and he gives her six measures of barley to take with her. Is that it? After all he has said there is another with a closer claim. If so, why did Naomi not send Ruth to him? Did she know about him?
If that was all of the story you knew so far then the music played and the next episode was delayed, then you’d not already know the outcome. Not know about the sandal and that moment at the gate when Ruth is up for grabs, like so many still are today.
Before I get to the gate this evening , the stone Westgate of Canterbury, in a biting January wind, I duck into the Turkish Restaurant, so far the only customer, to sit and consider Ruth’s story over red wine and hummus.
How many women’s stories will I tell this year? Who will listen?
In our life and our believing
The love of God
Meanwhile at the inn: from Barmaid to Scholar
So Bethlehem was full. Didn’t I just know it. Every last lousy room full of travellers from heaven knows where, and me on my fleabitten back in several of them. There were endless pots to wash and food and drink to serve, not all of it that wholesome. Here at The Key of David they’d got hold of an old ewe from a rustler and were trying to pass it off as lamb. Well I know how that felt.
I hadn’t had much time to consider what was euphemistically called strange goings on. I had enough trouble of my own, trying to keep wandering hands at bay, avoiding the master’s eye and the back of the mistresses hand. More folks kept arriving and every last space was filled. I heard they’d put a young pregnant lass in part of the stable. Well in some ways there was less vermin there than inside the house.
I spent several mornings heaving up in the gutter outside. What I’d thought was a bad brew of ale was looking increasingly less gastric and more drastic. I didn’t really have time to think or listen to vague stories from drunk locals about angels and peace on earth. There was always more work to do and no one else to do it.
Things began to thin out a bit once people started to get registered. Once done they left for their own homes again. The master agreed the young mother (she had given birth out there after all) could move into one if the inside rooms and I was kept busy enough running food and water and whatnot up and down the stairs. She was quiet most of the time, thoughful maybe, tired of course and trying to get the hang of managing an infant.
One day an odd bunch of foreigners turned up, a sort of camel train. Said they were looking for one born a king.’ Look all you want’ the master laughed at them. ‘Only baby here was born in a stable and is now upstairs’. They went to look anyway, and decided to stay over. That pleased the master most because it meant more money. I cleaned out some rooms as best I could and found something for them to eat. They were serious reserved gents but they told an odd story of ancient wisdom, stars and a long journey with many twists and turns. They’d even been to Herod’s court which made most of us shudder. But they were polite and didn’t take advantage, even though the mistress kept hinting at how there were extras available if they were interested.
They weren’t but went to bed early. Next day we were all woken by noise and chaos. News had it troops had been sighted. The little family and the camel riders all wanted to move on suddenly. Something about bad dreams; well I know how that felt. I’d not been sleeping for quite a few nights now wondering what to do about my own situation. I was bright enough to know that my news would not go down well in this household.
‘We have to go at once’ they all seemed to speak at once but in different ways. The camels were loaded up and a couple of donkeys too. Seemed the family and the foreigners had decided to travel together. It wasn’t the right way back for any of them but it was a way out for now.
Turned out it was also a way out for me. The mother could not travel alone with all those men. Who would help her with the baby? I would. I rolled my few possessions into a bundle, and seizing the bridle of the pack donkey I set off without looking back.
We were on odd bunch, the little family, the three gents and me, now an ex-barmaid but something bound us together.
As we left chaos erupted in Bethlehem. Troops went from house to house searching violently, killing male infants and even toddlers, maiming family members who got in the way. Mothers wailed: there was a crescendo of pain that could be heard beyond the walls as we set our sights on Egypt. Somehow in the confusion we made it, though those were anxious days.
We left the family on the border and we turned to cross the desert again. What, you are surprised I stayed with the three gents and not the family of three? Well it was a difficult decision but I’d learnt a lot on that journey. To go to a new place and start again, a new life with a new story and identity; that attracted me. From barmaid to scholar might have sounded unplanned, unlikely and not without hidden dangers but I’d come to enjoy their company, their storytelling and wisdom and amongst them I’d found myself valued. My own voice had begun to emerge as my belly grew with the child I carried. No one can say what the future holds but I began to understand what stories I would tell and get a glimpse of the wisdom I would grow from this.
Janet Lees/ 01.01.2017
Who am I?
(this crucifix is in the church in Messines in northern France)
The pace of the journey had always been hard. The circumstances in which we traveled were never comfortable. There were constant demands on him from both outside and inside the group. He pushed on. That’s when we found we had climbed to the top of another mountain. These places meant much to him; isolated, quite, an awesome view. It was in places like this that he often chose to be alone. On other occasions it would be a major expedition, getting us all up there and back.
We were all still getting our breath when he started: ‘Who am I?’ he asked. Some thought it was a trick question and stated the obvious: ‘You’re Jesus, from Nazareth’, said one, laughing. He went on, going round the group, getting more insistent; ‘Who do other people say I am?’ He came to me: ‘Why do you ask us?’ I said. He licked his cracked, dried lips, and said in a barely audible voice; ‘I don’t know who I am anymore’.
The members of the group looked at each other and no one knew how to break the silence. Eventually, one said; ‘I heard someone say you’re John the Baptist’. That triggered them all off. ‘Well that’s rubbish – he’s already dead’. ‘Herod got him, so what do they mean?’ Another said; ‘Well I’ve heard Elijah’, and another said ‘Yeh, and Jeremiah’. They were all talking at once, trying to help I know, but not really in tune with his state of mind or what he needed right then.
The babble eventually trailed off into silence again. He looked up at Peter and asked him ‘Who do you say I am?’ I wondered what Peter would say, as did we all. What would we have said if he’d have asked us? But Peter, not always good with words, chose a few and tried them. ‘That’s easy’, he said, looking him straight in the face. ‘You’re the one we’ve been waiting for, the Life Giver. God is in you and because of you we have seen God’.
This time no one broke the silence which followed until he did so himself. He weighed up what Peter had said and then he said; ‘Thanks, Peter, you’re a rock to me. I will build on what you’ve said. It is the key to God’s plan and you will be the key keeper. But let’s keep it to ourselves for now, shall we?’ And we did as he asked.
Copyright: Janet Lees
I wrote this in 2010 and I republish it here after a Twitter conversation concerning images of Jesus living with impairments; in this example a challenge to his mental health. You can use this free in your church, school or community groups as long as it is not for profit and you acknowledge my copyright.
Not there
Did you go to church today?
Me neither.
Of course I’ve been in Chapel all week, but that doesn’t always count in the church-based world view. Not there for the one hour Sunday club means ‘lost’.
Only you and I know it doesn’t. It might mean frustrated, angry, feeling excluded, busy, neglected, bored, being creative elsewhere, outside, praying alone, or thousands of other things.
Unfortunately the inside of the church is not very interested in what those on the outside are doing, particularly not for the all important one hour a week.
On my list of creative worshipful options available today I have: go for a walk, pick plums, cook, write, read, listen, think, explore.
I remembered an encounter between Jesus and some would-be disciples. ‘They ask him ‘Where do you live?’ He replies ‘Come and see’. I’m a come and see person. There’s so much to come and see everywhere.
So today, I’m not there. I’m outside: come and see.
God of the open door, turn us inside out:
May everyday count as much as one day.
This is the day, and we are ready to serve God today.
Longdendale Valley Walk
Living here for over a decade, I have long thought that Psalm 23 is the psalm for this Valley. The valley stretches from the village of Hadfield up towards Woodhead Pass and is occupied by a chain of reservoirs built over 150 years ago to provide a water supply to Manchester. If you have ever taken the A628 you will have travelled along it but there are quieter parts and calmer places in the valley. I often walk and pray here and psalm 23 is often in my mind when I do.
The Lord is my Shepherd
The valley is a sheep place. They are all around in the fields and escapees are sometimes on the road as well. As I sit listening I can hear a Shepherd working the nearby flock with his dog: ‘come by’ he calls.
I shall not want. He makes me walk in green pastures and leads me by still waters and restores my soul, guiding my steps on the right paths
The walk today is along part of the Longdendale Trail, a disused railway line, and back along the otherside of the reservoirs: Rhodeswood, Valehouse and Bottoms. There are green pastures and still waters a plenty. Walking is one of my preferred activities and I do find it restorative providing a rhythm to help me stop ruminating on things running round my head.
Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall not be afraid for you are with me
After a short detour from my usual path I come across the entrance to an old tunnel under the line of the old railway. It is lined with stone marked by grafitti, and the entrance is mossy and surrounded by brambles. I have not been here before. As I enter the tunnel, which of course is dark, I notice it slopes downwards. I can see the light at the end and more brambles framing the other entrance.
Your rod and staff they comfort me
I step into the tunnel and use my stick to help me to negotiate the dark and slightly slippery route to the other end. The sound of it tapping on the stones echoes back to me in a reassuring way.
You have prepared a table in the presence of my enemies and filled my cup to the brim
Just before the tunnel I stopped at a tea shop. I’ve not been to it before although it has been open a while. It is an old farmhouse and there is a terrace of inviting tables. I choose a toasted tea cake oozing with melted butter and feel very welcome. A glass of cold tap water, made up of those minuscule molecules on which all life depends, completes my banquet.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I shall live in God’s house forever.
A few late speckled wood Butterflies dance along the path. Faded with fraying wings, they signal that summer really is ending. The heather has finished blooming and whilst the foliage is mostly still green, here and there rusty spikes of dock and browned bracken frame the path heralding the next season. I will enjoy walking this way again with the vault of the sky above me and the well trodden path beneath my feet, remembering this Psalm, amongst others.
In our coming and our going
The Peace of God
New timetable, same Hours
It’s week two of term and we’re gradually getting the hang of the new timetable. It means slight changes in timing of some beginnings and endings during the school day. It also means some changes about who comes to chapel and when.
Before school we still have our short chapel service for senior school year groups. This service lasts about ten minutes and is the way we start the day. Sometimes there’s a short lunchtime chapel usually for younger age groups. New this year is an afternoon chapel for Juniors in the middle of the week.
From my first day at school seven years ago, I introduced the idea the Remembered Bible (RB) which is an oral strategy of biblical retelling. This results in conversations about the Bible at various times and in different places not confined to chapel.
The other foundation of our chapel activity comes from patterns shared in communities old and newer. To have worship together in the morning is something common to many communities, as are the lunchtime offices. Now we have added an end of afternoon gathering which is another common time for worship together. To stand at the door in the morning, at lunchtime or the end of the afternoon and smile or speak to the young people as the leave chapel is a moment that makes my spirit soar. There may be a new timetable to get the hang of but we share these Hours with many other communities and that is a good feeling.
On our school and on our working
The help of God
At the chapel door
This is the first week of the academic year and we meet together in chapel in different age groups during the week. Our theme is ‘Welcome to the Adventure’. There’s opportunity to review the Ardeche Adventure I took part in at the beginning of July when we were doing all kinds of activities . In this afternoon’s welcome service for about a hundred children aged about 6 to 10, I explained how my story of getting stuck in a hole in a cave reminded the Headmaster of the story of Winnie the Pooh getting stuck in a hole. It’s central to our way of remembering and retelling the Bible with each other that one person’s story will connect with something remembered by someone else.
I asked if anyone could think of a story in which Jesus seemed to be involved in an adventure? Straight away a child offered a response: when Jesus met some people who had been fishing but had not caught anything. So I asked why that story seemed like an adventure?
Another child’s hand went up: ‘Well actually Jesus didn’t know those fishermen and so when he spoke to them and told them how to catch fish they didn’t know what would happen and that’s an adventure because you don’t know what’s going to happen on an adventure.’
We agreed that we didn’t know what would happen during this school year. We will travel on together like those who went with Jesus, and see what happens.
At the end if the service I always try to stand by the door and speak to the children as they leave. One gave me a hug and told me I did remind him of Winnie the Pooh, but he thought that was a nice thing to be.
Then another child told me: ‘I thought of another story of Jesus having an adventure. It’s when Jesus goes into the desert for 40 days and the devil tries to make him do things he doesn’t want to do’. I can already see we will have plenty of connecting stories to tell each other.
Standing at the chapel door I can see in towards the open Bible on the table and out to follow the direction taken by the children as they leave and get on with the day. It’s the ideal place to keep a vigil and pray.
In our life and our believing
The love of God
Even the dogs
‘Even the dogs have a better life’ said a 17 year old Syrian refugee currently living in The Jungle camp in Calais in a news interview today.
Even the dogs get the crumbs:
A warm hearth, food and love.
Even the dogs are valued more,
Receive care, get exercise.
Even the dogs are treated better
Than some human beings:
From baskets and biscuits
To tuxedos, treats and toys,
fancy dress costumes and games:
Some dogs have all the luck.
We who walk dogs need to walk a day in your shoes.
We who sit at the table need to consider what life is like under the table.
Table-wise God,
Change us to people
Who warmly give refuge rather than reject the refuge seekers.