Tales from Auschwitz: survivor stories
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The estate we’re in: how working class people became the ‘problem’
The estate we’re in: how working class people became the ‘problem’
Watching migrants drown: ‘there are lines which, if crossed, make us immoral’
Great post and collection of responses to a shocking decision.
Martin Rowson in today’s Guardian
A few days ago I posted a piece about the photo of desperate migrants perched on top of the border fence that surrounds the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the north African coast. Now we learn that the British government has supported, and the EU justice and home affairs council has adopted a policy of leaving migrants to drown.
For the past year the Italian navy, with EU financial and logistical support, has operated a search-and-rescue operation called Mare Nostrum for migrants in danger of drowning in the Mediterranean which has saved the lives of an estimated 150,000 refugees. It is to be replaced with a much more limited EU ‘border protection’ operation codenamed Triton which will not conduct search-and-rescue missions. The justification given by both the UK government and the EU for this inhumane decision is that Mare Nostrum exercised a ‘pulling factor’, encouraging economic migrants to set sail for Europe.
Amnesty International’s UK director, Kate…
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A curse on him …
A curse on him who begins in gentleness. He shall finish in insipidity and cowardice, and shall never set foot in the great liberating current of Christianity.
Through Jesus Christ – various openings: a sermon for Easter 4A
A sermon for Easter 4A at St Alban’s Church, Offerton.
We were lucky enough to be able to go to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Barnsley last weekend.
This is one of the photos I took. It does reflect the beauty of the landscape, at bluebell time. I thought it would help us to think about today’s gospel which is about openings and doorways.
There were a lot of sheep and lambs around at the Sculpture Park – in the pasture outside this walled and sheltered area. There is a gateway here for the sheep to find shelter if they need it – and I can think of many cold Yorkshire days when they would need the shelter of that stone wall.
Jesus talks about this gateway in our gospel reading (John 10:1-10). He talks about the sheep being sheltered, and the sheep finding pasture – the gateway is for their comings and goings, for their to-ing and fro-ing.
But it’s not quite an open gateway. An open gateway would be dangerous. There is a gate. Jesus says “I am the gate”, “I am the door”. Perhaps you can picture Jesus in that gateway in the photo. For me, I see him sat on the ground, sideways on, with his back to the gatepost, one leg bent up and one leg stretched along the ground, looking out for danger and looking in with care.
Today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. This image of Jesus which John has given us in his gospel is what we celebrate and love as the Good Shepherd.
It is an image that captures our imagination. For example, there is a Hospice in Chester called The Hospice of the Good Shepherd – a name which may have appealed to its founders because of their faith that Jesus guards the door in and out of life, and the promise that if we go through Jesus Christ, our Lord we enter into life that is fulfilling, complete and in which we want for nothing.
And that is how we say our prayers isn’t it? Our prayer to God is “through Jesus Christ, our Lord” …..
Jesus is the door, the gate. He is the way, the truth and the life…….. If we let him.
This next image is of the famous painting by Holman Hunt called the Light of the World. The painting is in the Manchester Art Gallery.
This is a painting about another door – the door is the door to our lives, the door to our soul. It is a long time since that door has been opened. Look at all the weeds that have grown round the door.
The painting is a reminder of what Jesus said. “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you.”
He knocks and waits. The door has no handle on the outside. There is no way in for the light of the world until the door is opened from the inside.
Are we going to open up?
We have been talked into a fearful way of life in which we lock our homes away from others.
It is a long time since we dared to leave our back door open. We’ve put some extra bolts on as well – and alarms. And there’s a code for getting in, and a code for getting out. We triple lock things.
But do we lock ourselves away as well?
Are we too busy to respond to our neighbours when they are in trouble? Sometimes we’d rather not know. We don’t want strangers knocking on the door. We don’t want people selling us things. We don’t want political canvassers – and we don’t want religious callers. No thank you. That door is going to stay closed, and if we hear anyone knocking we are going to pretend that we’re not in.
Jesus stands at the door and knocks.
Where there was once openings there is now just brick walls, dead ends, no go areas.
But that has always been the case, back to the day when Adam hid himself in the garden, back to the day of resurrection when the disciples locked themselves in because they were afraid of who might come looking for them. Jesus stood at those doors and knocked, though that time couldn’t wait for them to open up for him.
Where there was once openings there is now just brick walls, dead ends, no go areas. And that has always been the case.
But where there was just dead ends, brick walls and no chance, there is every chance, possibility and new openings. And that has always been the case as well.
Fists that are clenched are being opened. Minds that are closed are being opened. Hearts that have hardened are being softened. And it is happening all the time. We are amazed when we see it happening, aren’t we?
Yesterday, I was just pulling out from a parking space in Ellesmere Port when someone cut in to the space in front of me. I thought he’d come in tight – and then drove off. Then I saw the driver of the car run to the corner where I was turning, signalling me to pull over. He told me that he had damaged my car. He needn’t have gone to that trouble. He used that moment well. I told him that I appreciated what he had done.
These are the moments to write home about. These are the openings that we have in our lives. These are moments of grace and opportunity.
I was amazed.
Similar amazement is written all over our first reading (Acts 2:42-47) because of the devotion and fellowship of those who followed the apostles teaching. All that they managed to do, the way they shared everything, their generosity of heart amazed everyone. They had the goodwill of all the people.
There may well have been a lot of comings and goings in our lives, and it is understandable that many people become less trusting, even bitter ……. as a result.
But, it doesn’t have to be like that. There is a way out. That way out is offered by Jesus as the door, as the Good Shepherd.
Jan Richardson offers a way of blessing for this day. She says:
Press your hand to your heart.
Rest it over that place in your chest that has grown closed and tight, where the rust, with its talent for making decay look artful, has bitten into what you once held dear.
Breathe deep. Press on the knot and feel how it begins to give way, turning upon the hinge of your heart.
Notice how it opens wide and wider still as you exhale, spilling you out into a realm where you never dreamed to go, but cannot now imagine living this life without.
Why be our own doorkeepers and safekeepers when Jesus Christ offers himself as our gateway? As the Psalmist says, “The Lord will watch over your going out and your coming in, from this time on and for evermore.” (Psalm 121:8)
Through Jesus Christ we have amazing grace. Through Jesus Christ we have new openings, all the time and any time.
The Fault in our Stars by John Green
The Fault in our Stars is the first book I have read by John Green. It is a book that gets in the skin of teenage cancer survivors who under varying degrees of duress attend a support group “at the heart of Jesus”. They are a community set apart by their cancer. The book is about Hazel and her friends Augustus and Isaac. Their relationships are intense, beautifully romantic and tragically short-lived. Their conversation is full of witty repartee and honesty. Each of them is a “grenade”. They are well supported by their parents whose own pre-mortem and post-mortem plights are understood through Hazel’s sensitive understanding and fear of them. The book is a delight.
Spoiler alert: Gus’s funeral doesn’t go as well as the pre-funeral in which Isaac and Hazel had been able to speak their hearts out in front of Gus. The funeral is constrained by inter generational expectations and the priest is seen to totally miss the mark with his pious platitudes. What could he have done differently? (That is the same question as what could I have done differently so many times in similar situations?) He took the easy road to consolation, which of course is a road that goes nowhere. He could have taken his directions from Hazel and Isaac. He could have listened to them. He could have read the book that had inspired first Hazel and then Gus, and he could have had his eyes opened by their discovery that some infinities are bigger than other infinities.
Hazel, in her pre-funeral eulogy didn’t know what to say. “I can’t talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this: there are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and of, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.”
The book has been turned into a film which is due to be released in June. I can’t believe that the film is going to be able to match the book, but here’s a trailer anyway.
When the song of the angels is stilled
This poem has a lot to say as we get back to work after Christmas, and as we put the decorations away at 12th Night.
“When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.”
My name is ….. A reflection for the New Year
Just when I’ve tidied my desk (my concession to the New Year) I’m shown Paul Smith’s desk in an exhibition at the Design Museum in London called My name is Paul Smith. I’m happy that my desk is now tidier than Paul’s.
Paul Smith makes the point that his desk represents his mind. (And my empty desk?). Paul is surrounded by colour, fabrics, toys and many things. They are resources that stir his imagination. They are his findings from his searches and research. This resourcefulness has been immensely productive, as demonstrated in the exhibition.
Paul pays tribute to his wife, Pauline, for the way that she taught him to notice things. Noticing things doesn’t come naturally. It needs practice. So, a New year resolution: notice more. I may have a clear desk, but I do have a mind in which I can store a host of findings. I’ll have to do a lot more research (aka asking questions) to increase that store. And then there’s the question of what I do with those findings. They may not be as colourful or iconic as …..
Posted with Blogsy“People are gen…
“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.”
The Art of Communication
Nature’s brush, with frosty bristles
Daubs a crust to coat the thistles,
Elevates from plain to glory,
Tells a tale, redemption’s story.
Grits and Grains 