Meditation for Lent...

As last year, I am producing a series of images that can be used as your desktop. This year they will be based on Psalm 102 and will be published daily Monday to Friday.
Here is the first one, for Ash Wednesday.

If you would like a daily email with the day's image please leave your email address in a comment (which will not be made public or used for another purpose). Only conditions for getting the images (which I have taken) are 1) that you can use them for free and as you want as long as you do not charge for them or make money from using them, and 2) that I retain copyright to them. If you use them publicly then an acknowledgement of their source would be nice.

I expect that the odd meditation will find its way on to the blog when I have nothing much to post…

Psalm text from Common Worship Daily Prayer
© The Archbishops’ Council 2005

A good read...

http://inclusivechurch.blogspot.com/
Scott Gunn has been running this blog while an observer/press at the Primates’ Conference in Tanzania. With so little official information apparently around – and I have been having a good look for it, I assure you – his blog has been compelling reading. Thanks, Scott, for providing a picture of what has been going on. It has been fascinating to see through your eyes…

Photo is Scott’s of +John Sentamu at the Memorial to Slavery in Zanzibar on Sunday

Primus intra pares...

Generally I avoid the more sensitive subjects on this blog but I just have to write something about the Primates’ Conference, meeting at the moment, especially after discovering yesterday that Bishop Mouneer – a resident on this staircase last term – is there, having just been elected the Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East. If there ever was a group of people in need of his example of humility, good humour, graciousness and gentleness they are in Dar es Salaam today. This morning in chapel we prayed in groups of four for the Conference – for Archbishop Rowan, for Mouneer, for all the Primates and for the worldwide Anglican Communion. For the blessing of God’s wisdom, discernment, grace and presence on them all – brothers and sister together in Christ. As we all are.
I don’t know how much of what seems to be going on is about politics, power and position. Some of it seems to be less about God and more about being the one who is best or right. But who is the One who is the best or right? The homily in chapel this morning – if it’s Thursday it must be Homilyday – was about Mark 8.27-37. And mainly about v34 – ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’
If the Primates cannot be the body of Christ, united in one Church, and act towards that end, the rest of us will have to show them how…

For better, for worse...

Isn’t it strange where ideas come from?! A chance conversation with Janice as she was cleaning the bathrooms this morning has led me to a sermon. My ordination stole arrived from Juliet Hemingray last week. Being a purple/mauve sort of person – ‘winter colours’ I am told – I eventually decided on a white stole with some purple and mauve on it. And with symbolism that I was happy with – the issue of what theological messages are given by what clerical stuff you wear is a whole blog, or even book, in itself. But when the stole arrived it looked rather different from the illustration. For ‘mauve’ read ‘pink’ – and quite a girly pink at that. I might be a sort of crushed raspberry acid pink person but girly pink…! After a few days I was able to put to one side what it ought to look like and see it for what it is. And it is rather beautiful…
So when in time I will be wearing that white stole at a marriage service I will be wearing a good sermon illustration. When you get married you think that your stole will be purple and mauve. Then you discover that actually it’s pink and not what it is supposed to be or what you expected. In time you stop thinking that it should be mauve and discover that pink is pretty good. In fact, it’s better than mauve. And the stole becomes not only beautiful but unique to you too (or two).
Add in the fact that an ordination service is a sort of wedding service and …

Now, if only I can store that away somewhere and remember where I put it when that wedding comes along…

Photo and design © Juliet Hemingray Church Textiles. www.church-textiles.co.uk

Lost...

You know how things are supposed to drop off and not work so well as you get older - or perhaps you haven't got there yet. In which case you will find out... I was watching the news on the TV last night and there was this item about a concert with the BBC Concert Orchestra, featuring the World Whistling Champion. My Dad taught me to whistle when I was a child. I thought I could whistle quite well but this guy is a virtuoso. Pursing my lips up to whistle along with him I discovered that I have lost my whistle. It seems that now I can't whistle. What has happened? No one told me that this might happen as I got older. Has anyone seen my whistle or perhaps someone has a spare one?