St George and St Gabriel, Stockport

It’s understandable that we human beings like to define things and we do so largely in words.  To speak, to record things, to communicate is a major part of being human.  It helps us to understand our world and each other and gives us a degree of control.  It also has its limitations.

We have all our house deeds and documents from the time before the house was constructed in 1889.  I was reading them recently and noticed not only the legal language but the lack of punctuation.  This, I’m told, is to avoid misinterpretation – and you have to be a lawyer to be able to interpret it.

In the church we expect our clergy to be our interpreters, to help us to interpret scripture and Christian teaching.  Fair enough. But is it any wonder that they joke about drawing the short straw if they have to give the sermon on Trinity Sunday.  How do you attempt to explain the dimensions and depths of God’s being – a mystery beyond words?

Nevertheless, some of us love getting our heads round things.  So even in the afterlife it seems we won’t be disappointed.  The story goes that when we get to heaven we will be faced by a choice of two doors, each with a sign on.  One says “Heaven”.  The other says “Lecture on Heaven”.

Chris Dawson

A member of the Amazonian tribe the Kuhama Kushameria, was paddling some white visitors down the river.  He gently brought the boat to a stop.  “The fish are singing”, he said.  “Can you hear them?”  No they couldn’t. They gave each other a look as if to say, “Is this guy alright?”

David Gulpilil was a well-known Australian actor and dancer.  Of Aboriginal descent, he was brought up learning all the skills and traditions of his people.  He starred in the film, The Rabbit Fence.  It tells the true story of three children taken from their family to a children’s home hundreds of miles away.  They decide to escape and walk the hundreds of miles back home, following the Rabbit Fence.

David plays the part of the tracker following the children to recapture them.  At one point in the shooting of the film the director tells him that he now loses the children.  David’s response is that that would not happen.  He would never lose them.  He would be able to track them wherever they went in Australia.  Like the tracker in the real life story, he says he has lost them and allows the children to escape.

Science has discovered that fish do “sing”, sending messages to each other at a frequency human beings can’t immediately hear.  Most of us are unlikely to develop our listening so that we can hear them, or the closeness to the earth needed to develop the skills of a tracker.  Nevertheless, through looking and listening more closely, we could become more sympathetic stewards of God’s creation.

Chris Dawson

How open am I to possibilities or, as Elaine put it in her sermon last Sunday, to expecting the unexpected?  And, having experienced it, to travelling in a different direction?

Courtney Gore became a member of her local school board in Granbury, Texas.  She was elected because she supported “conservative Christian values.”  Those who put her forward for election, like her, were convinced that the curriculum in their local school was indoctrinating the children with inappropriate messages, particularly about sexuality and race.

Immediately after her election, Courtney spent a day and a night going through hundreds of pages of lesson plans looking for what she expected to find.  She was shocked. Shocked by what she didn’t find.  The indoctrination simply didn’t exist.  She found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.”

Courtney shared her good news with those who had put her forward for election, expecting them to be as surprised and relieved as she was.  They weren’t.  Her former allies shunned her and stuck to their story.

The Pentecost story is a pretty amazing one – rushing wind, tongues of fire and people speaking in multiple languages and yet understanding one another.  Imagine the outcome if everyone had accepted the initial explanation – that they were drunk, “filled with the new wine.” But for Peter stepping in, it might all have been different.

Chris Dawson

When you have won a gold medal what do you do next?  Go for the next one.  Set a goal.  Make a resolution.  Keep going, even in retirement.  Like a retired teacher friend of mine, who, having just finished a cruise, immediately plans and books the next.  Society encourages us to strive, to keep going, to achieve.  To keep moving.

Yes, movement is intrinsic to life.  The Spring growth around us reminds us of that.  But what kind of movement?  The frenetic striving for success, the chasing after things, which can be so exhausting and ultimately unsatisfying?  Or something different?

Keith Kozloff, a photo journalist and essayist, was hiking in the Canadian Rockies.   The mountains were majestic.  Yet, what he found himself attracted to were the clouds, their ever changing shape and movement.  He began to see life like that.  Shifting and impermanent.

Poet Richard Skinner goes a step further:

“Do not think of a static God:

there is no static God;

only action and reaction,

activity and response,

movement and relationship,

the ceaseless flow

between you and me,

the interplay in which

all cohere….

…Do not think of God beyond

or God within

but God between;

for in the going between

is the movement of relationship,

and in that movement

there is God.”

(from Colliding With God – Wild Goose publications)

Chris Dawson

What unites us and what divides us?  Questions that have come to me from several directions over the past week.  Last Thursday’s elections started things off, followed by a visit to the North East, a couple of Radio programmes and a monthly Herefordshire community newsletter.

One of the radio discussions was about what makes the English distinctly English.  Not an easy one to answer.  We could say a shared language.  Though with variations and distinct accents.  A shared culture, perhaps, or the British Values that schools are required to teach.

While human beings and their needs stay the same, circumstances evolve.  In 1087, when the Commissioners gathering information for the Domesday Book visited the English county of Herefordshire, they had to use interpreters because the local people spoke Welsh.  

The Church of England too has its variations, shifts and changes.  For example, the Abbeydore Deanery is deeply rural, lying west of Hereford and running up to the Welsh border.  It has 33 parishes, each with a church in use, 6 clergy and a population of 12,000 people.  In contrast, the Stockport Deanery has 9 churches and is distinctly urban and post industrial.  But, in essence, both Deaneries are the same.

Both are a part of something bigger.  Something that unites.  Not just a Diocese and an Archdiocese and a worldwide church, but a community of love that believes, as Paul put it to the Galations: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Chris Dawson

One of my recent pleasures has been listening to a radio dramatisation of Arnold Bennett’s novels.  Born in Hanley in 1865, the background to his novels are the five towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent.  He weaves beautifully together the lives of those making money, the poverty and the grim conditions of the pottery industry. 

The local industrialists – always men, of course – are also the local politicians and some are elders in the Methodist church.  They run the town and, from their viewpoint everyone has their station. 

You can sense movement and change are not only possible but coming.  Bennett introduces us to some strong, independent and capable women.  One of them appears  when the Primitive Methodists ‘hit town’.  Not only a threat to the Wesleyans, but to the fabric of society. 

What really upsets people, especially the men, is that their main spokesperson is a woman – and she preaches.  Out loud in the open air, for everyone to hear.  Drawing people to their cause.  She is saying that Jesus’ teaching is about justice, fairness and equality.  It’s about looking after each person as if they matter.  Mysteriously their wooden chapel gets burnt down.

Chris Dawson

Canonisation isn’t something that happens to ordinary folk like you and me.  To become an official saint you have to go through lots of steps.  Firstly you have to be dead and other steps include having a miracle attributed to you.  So, how about becoming an unofficial saint?

Well, not so “unofficial”, it seems.  Many times in his letters Paul refers to the members of the Christian churches as “saints”.  Romans is an example: “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints,” he says in the opening lines.  Towards the end he says he’s going to Spain, but first, “I am going to Jerusalem with aid for the saints.”

As Christians it seems we are called to be saints.  Someone “holy”, perhaps – another word that we might not be too keen to apply to ourselves.  Perhaps because we have a vision of  a “holy Joe”, on the street, Bible in hand, shouting salvation to all the passers by.

In English the word “holy” is related to three other words: wholeness, health and healing.  So you could say that becoming a saint and growing in holiness is a healing journey.  A journey we can undertake every day.

Chris Dawson

I listened to a programme about the singer song-writer Joni Mitchell.  Joni was a folk singer, who came from Canada to America to find success.  The folk scene was very much alive in America, as it was here, during the 50s, 60s and early 70s. 

As I listened, I found myself humming, “Where have all the flowers gone?  Long time passing,”  lines I knew were from a folk song of that era – but which one? And then the lines, “When will you ever learn?  When will you ever learn?”  Not one of Joni Mitchell’s, as it turned out,  but an anti-war song by Pete Seeger.  Ironically, inspired by a Ukrainian folk song.

Anti war songs are no longer top of the charts – as far as I know.  Yet there is plenty of war about.  Either side justifying their actions.  Or, as the poet Seamus Heaney put it:

All throwing shapes, every one of them

Convinced he’s in the right, all of them glad

To repeat themselves and their every last mistake,

No matter what.

(Philoctetes – The Cure of Troy)

Jesus wept over Jerusalem, because they couldn’t see what was happening:  “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19: 41-42).  No doubt he is weeping over Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, Ukraine…..

Chris Dawson

Don’t mix religion and politics.  Don’t talk politics or religion at the dinner table.  It will only cause a row. 

A little while back, MPs from the governing party objected to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s stance on the Rwanda Bill.  Though he is a member of the Upper House of Parliament, they saw his criticism as meddling in an area outside of his territory.

The Church of England has a part to play in the workings of the state.  It’s the Established Church.  Bishops sit in the House of Lords.  But does that mean it mustn’t rock the boat?

I sometimes wonder what those who object to bishops and priests speaking out, know about the heart of Christianity.  It’s easy to separate the Church, in all its guises – the wonderful architecture, the beautiful singing, the pomp and ceremony – from Jesus, the Jewish, radical rabbi.  From Jesus the revolutionary.  From Jesus’ teaching and example. 

Not to mention his clashes with the religious and political establishments.

Politics is about power and influence and relationships.  A perspective that says, “Everyone is of equal value” and “Love your neighbour as yourself,” might just be a force for good.

Chris Dawson

To begin, a very Zen story:

“Give me the best flower that you have,” said the man to the florist.

“Every flower here is the best,” replied the florist.

At these words, the man became enlightened.

It’s a delight and a surprise to turn the corner and see the daffodils, primroses and anemones beneath the trees in Bell’s Paddock.  Before them there were snowdrops and crocuses. All signs of Spring.  But which of them do you like best?

What about Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Day?   Like the Spring flowers, they return each year in the liturgical round.  Each year a reminder of life and death.  But which is better?  Which do you prefer?

What would it be like to have “no preference”, just to be open to and to appreciate what each offers?  I think that is the path to enlightenment.  Enlightenment may surprise us  more than once and at any time – a new insight, a greater understanding, a deeper recognition.  It is a process, and, as T. S. Eliot says in Little Gidding:

“… the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Chris Dawson