You Are Loved

Churches can be so frustrating sometimes!

It's a month since the EU Referendum result, when a truly horrible campaign from leaders of both sides led to a situation characterised by anger, despair and terrible division. Churches in this part of the world have talked internally about prayer and reconciliation over this period, but bog-all is visible externally.

Some of that, of course, is down to uncertainty about what can be done on a corporate level. Individually, being nice to foreigners and buying The Big Issue seem to be the order of the day, and the need for reconciliation has turned up in a sermon or two (most fervently in one case where the preacher had witnessed a racist attack in the middle of Reading the previous day). But that seems to be about the lot, in spite of the Bishop of Reading putting out a call for churches to get involved.

I'm not good at grand ideas, even less good at organising people, but surely we could start by doing something as simple and visible as telling people they are loved (even that idea I nicked from the Big Issue).

This is a core belief within Christianity: "God is love", "For God so loved the world", and so on. And the churches in CTM Parish were already being challenged by the PMC team to do something more positive with our noticeboards. It's not brain surgery.

I thought we had agreement to do some sort of poster a couple or three weeks back. So when I drove past St John's a few days ago I deliberately looked at the noticeboard to see what it said. "Thieves beware!" was all I could read from the road. :(

I need to check I am not treading on anyone's toes, that there is nothing already underway, but it looks as though I'll just have to put something up myself. This is my default approach, if I'm honest, and I've deliberately spent the past month trying to do things a better way: to get others involved; to cooperate, coordinate and consult; to seek better ideas and better ways of implementing them. Hmm.

I started this post intending to come from a completely different angle, actually, prompted by this post from HTB which makes the disappointing assumption that all parents feel instant and overwhelming love for their children and, more seriously, that all children are loved by their parents. It seems to me that maybe amongst those who most need to know that they are loved are precisely those who have least prior knowledge of their parents' love.

One role for the church is to show what love looks and feels like in practice, so people can have a starting point for recognising the love of God, whatever their background may be.

The referendum exposed deep divisions and insecurities in our communities. But these were already there, really. People need to know that they are loved, then that love can overflow to their neighbours. As I said before, it's not brain surgery - but it does seem remarkably difficult to do anything about in practice.

Fortunately I do believe in a God of miracles (as well as love)!

Edit 15/08/16:

It turns out that the poster was actually underway. A week or so back it turned up on our noticeboard, which now looks like this:

The person who did the posters is a gifted graphic artist, so I can only assume the brief he was given was somewhat ... unassuming.

Has The World Gone Mad Or Is It Me?

Kudos if you recognise the quote in the title. Extra kudos if you recognised it as a line from the Hawkwind classic, rather than the equally depressing, but also excellent, song from Ben Howard.

Yesterday it was reported that a woman in Moscow was parading around the street brandishing a child's head which she had apparently cut off. Reports say she was the child's nanny.

In the US Donald Trump is a serious contender for the presidency, largely because he specialises in outrageous and impractical statements, appealing to people's racism and fear of change.

Here in the UK we have a health secretary, in charge of the NHS, who once co-authored a policy document which recommended closing down the NHS, and who has lobbied on behalf of homeopathy providers. We have a government of (mostly inherited) millionaires imposing austerity on those who didn't have their head-start in life, not to mention various failed entrepreneurs, politics wonks, and PR specialists lecturing the country on hard work and building businesses.

That's even before you  reach the insanity of ISIS/Da'esh trolls - committing atrocities apparently for the attention it draws; South Sudan destroying itself in a bitter civil war over who controls any battered remains of their country that might be left; Western governments who say we must have peace in Syria, because ISIS/Da'esh must be defeated ... but only peace on their terms. And so on.

It feels like every day, every month, every year the world reaches a new low.

I recently read some wisdom from Michael Card on this topic (in an email and, sadly, I can't find his original piece online).

He makes two important points: firstly that if you look at history the world has always been prone to behaving in irrational, self-centred and destructive ways. To be fair it has also always been prone to behaving in heroic, self-denying and constructive ways too, even now. That is the great wonder and frustration of the world we live in: so much darkness and so much light. So much love and so much hate. Inhabited by those made in God's image but terribly fallen, distorted and hard to recognise.

Secondly, that God cares and has the power to make things right. The day will come when the world is recreated in justice and peace. Why does He take so long? Because he wants to carry us along with him, he wants us to be a part of that justice and peace. For that we need to be willing to change, which is a problem.

As the saying goes: "Miracles take a little longer."