39 Steps: an update

I posted just a couple of weeks ago about 39 steps before I am 40. And I have to say that its going alright thus far- and without wanting to sound too cheesy there is a real sense that God is at work in some of these things: some examples follow.

I sat with a potential piano teacher who has pointed me to some really beautiful worship music. Lessons start in a couple of weeks where I will learn to play by ear (over time and with practice).

I'm booked in to teach at a university.

I have a friend who is going to teach me to mix curry spices in a couple of weeks.

I've done something that scares me (which may or may not have been the same as going on a date).

Other things are harder to get going: I am struggling to be social media free. I have drafted a letter and not sent it. And it keeps snowing so I am a bit behind on my travel!

But I'm enjoying it.. and do send suggestions for other things my way!

Lent resolve

Over the last few weeks I have been pondering what I should give up and take up for Lent. It has finally crystallized today. There is a lots going on for me just now- but I can't use that as an excuse. I can be desperately inattentive- I can be thinking about what is next or has just been, and can be texting, tweeting or anything while I am actually present with real people.

So- my Lent resolve is to be where I am. I am giving up multitasking. So when I am with you I will be with you, not on something else. It will mean giving up some habits, it will mean my phone battery lasts longer- But I hope it means I will be where I am.. I look forward to seeing you there.

Learning to Fight

At the end of my last post I prayed, show me Lord how to fight.

I meant it. As I tapped away at my keyboard last night, with every comma and alliterative device I was aware that I was putting my head above an enormous and intimidating parapet. For much as I talk of fighting, I have little energy, fewer ideas and not much will. I feel hypocritical and exposed.

However, as some of you will know, during my curacy I have lost almost six stone in weight. At the start of that journey too I had little idea of what I was doing and very little will power. But going public with my intention helped.

Keeping a record of what I was doing also helped.

And so in that spirit, here is a record of how I have learned to fight today.

It ran like this- for the first time in nine months I didn't have a communion at lunchtime to head off to after morning prayers. It freed up a two hour window where I had a choice. And for once I chose to get out from behind my desk and go and see people.

The fight was through a semi blizzard to visit someone involved in a very difficult lifestyle who wants to come back to church. As she hugged me in the corridor, looked beyond my eyes and told me Jesus loves me I think I somehow realised that this might be more of a dance than a fight.

On the way to her flat I had bumped into a pained but somehow resolute lady off to visit her very ill husband in hospital.

It was then sitting with someone who is down to their last 34p as they wait for the benefits they are promised to come through. I sat with them as they talked of an abusive partner, and listened as they talked of going to church because it helps.

Later I was on duty at our after schools homework club. One of our young people was concentrating incredibly hard on learning a new skill. It was a far cry from one of the first conversations I ever had with them- one where they wanted to check that there was nothing 'dirty' about watching porn. That was when they were nine. Their journey has been incredible.


For me the fight is close at hand. If I get out from my apple geek world of sending missives on email and walk out of the door I can engage in this dance instantly.

And then I tell. Because the fight can be distant.

I'm not telling to appear to be 'good'. I didn't do anything heroic today. I have received more than I have given. I am telling so that we can share together that this fight is real, and we can rejoice together that there are small victories for the Kingdom being won on a daily basis. I talked yesterday of fighting using simple acts of love- I think I want to edit that. Today I fought by simply getting out of the door.

On fighting

(Wrote this late last night- and I still think it this morning so I share with you).

Today I changed a little bit of postcard artwork in my house. It now has an amusing vicar card on it with a greeting from a friend. I have a card on that particular door because underneath it bears the fist mark of my frustration. A mere six hours before I reached resolution on a really tough moment in my curacy, I lost it. At the door.

When I move I will offer recompense for the damage- or perhaps suggest that they keep it in that state as a warning to future curates.

Why am I telling you this? Well fighting inanimate things is somewhat of an occupational hazard in the church. I listened today to an interview with Justin Welby where he again and again was trying to say that there are issues more important than the ones we tie ourselves in knots about.

I listened to that interview on the way home from the gym- pulling up on the drive to find the used needle van parked up. As I came into the porch, the door caught on the glass recycling box, including a mostly empty methadone scrip I had picked up from a ginnel yesterday.

As I had driven to the gym this morning I turned the radio off from a discussion about unequal abortion laws in the UK. When I got back, I read an article that some friends had tweeted about the horrible effects of porn on our children; leading many girls to think it was a usual thing to send intimate pictures of yourself as a chat up line. I read that just after lending support to a campaign to get the church active in supporting adoptive families (because there are over 70,000 children in this country awaiting adoption).

It is too easy to get caught into sweating the small stuff in this job. I can do it with the best of them (I wonder if I am the only pioneer facing a church split over buying a new organ!)

But I am challenged today about what I should really fight about. Because I live in a community and in a country where children don’t have enough to eat, and where that is spun as the fault of reckless parents. Its a country where children are exposed to horrific images of what sexual union should be. They act on that information for acceptance and approval. They are exploited and exposed. And they think it is normal.

I live in a country where a town full of children don’t have a family home, while we mainly expect fertility treatment as a right. I live in a country where party politics is pandering to the right and the old, because they are the ones who go out and vote. I live in a country where the richest have no clue what it is like to have nothing, leaving space for the peddlers of fear to dominate the debate.

And so these are the things for which I will fight. (forgive the Boothian overtones to what follows) I will fight so that this country is known to be a place that looks after and honours its most vulnerable- all of them, not just the ones that vote. I will fight so that this country is prepared to mute its adults lusts in order that a generation is not exploited any more. And I will fight to see a sense of restoration and freedom and hope for those for whom it may feel like it is too late. I will fight so that children have enough to eat, so they can grow up trusting in the goodness of the world and of the God who made it.

I will fight, in this crazy country where we unearth Kings in carparks, to see us unearth once again a kingdom which is about justice and rightness and about mercy. I will fight to see those who struggle and mourn become those who champion the rights of the poor, who bring new life to our ailing cities.

And I will fight to not sweat the small stuff. I will fight in love, for most of God’s restoration comes through simple expressive acts of love. And I will fight first in prayer- trusting that this fight is God’s fight.

Show me Lord how to fight.