Grits and Grains

Today marks the anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero’s martyrdom. He was shot dead on March 24th 1980 when celebrating Mass in the cancer hospital where he lived. This is from one of his sermons:

Those who have listened to me here in church on Sundays
with sincerity,
without prejudices,
without hatred,
without ill will,
without intending to defend indefensible interests,
those who have listened to me here cannot say
I am giving political or subversive sermons.
All that is simply slander.
You are listening to me at this moment,
and I am saying what I have always said.
What I want to say here in the cathedral pulpit
is what the church is,
and in the name of the church
I want to support what is good,
applaud it,
encourage it,
console the victims of atrocities, of injustices,
and also with courage
disclose the atrocities,
the tortures,
the disappearance of prisoners,
the social injustice.
This is not engaging in politics;
this is building up the church
and carrying out the church’s duty
as imposed by the church’s identity
My conscience is undisturbed,
and I call on all of you:
Let us build up the true church!

Sermon preached on September 10th 1978, from Oscar Romero: the Violence of Love

Love and knowledge embrace one another

March 14, 2014 David Herbert5 Comments

Sam Wells suggests that it is very hard to believe “that if someone truly knows you, they will truly understand and love you.”

That is because of the sense of shame that we feel.

Sam Wells is reflecting on Psalm 139 which begins with the words “You have searched me and known me.” He points out that we make knowing and loving enemies of one another. God, on the other hand unites them.

The separation of knowing and loving is an everyday experience for us. Lovers of Coronation Street are seeing that played out through the interplay between Phelan, Gary and Owen. Phelan “knows” Gary was prepared to leave him for dead, and uses that knowledge vindictively for his profit.

Jesus also knew that people were prepared to leave him for dead, but his knowledge is full of love, just as his love is full of knowledge. That love showed itself in Jesus’ absolute passion to forgive those responsible for his suffering.

With us, knowing and loving are separate, and there’s always the fear that if someone really knew us, they’d have a power over us that they could use to hurt us, or that they’d see through us and cease to love us. But God’s knowing is different. God’s knowing and loving are indistinguishable. There’s never a moment when God knows but doesn’t love, or loves but doesn’t know. That is the gospel we can hardly begin to imagine. God wholly knows because God wholly loves; and God wholly loves even though God wholly knows.

from Learning to Dream Again p24

The List – a poem for World Book Day

March 6, 2014March 1, 2018 David Herbert3 Comments

The List
By Naomi Shihab Nye

A man told me he had calculated
the exact number of books
he would be able to read before he died
by figuring the average number
of books he read per month
and his probable earth span,
(averaging how long
his dad and grandpa had lived,
adding on a few years since he
exercised more than they did).
Then he made a list of necessary books,
nonfiction mostly, history, philosophy,
fiction, and poetry from different time periods
so there wouldn’t be large gaps in his mind.
He had given up frivolous reading entirely.
There are only so many days.

Oh, I felt sad to hear such an organized plan.
What about the books that aren’t written yet,
the books his friends might recommend
that aren’t on the list,
the yummy magazine that might fall
into his hand at a silly moment after all?
What about the mystery search
through the delectable library shelves?
I felt the heartbeat of forgotten precious books
calling for his hand.

Love on the rocks

February 13, 2014February 14, 2014 David Herbert2 Comments

Heartwarming: Nice beach — Heartwarming on Nice beach

I couldn’t resist taking this photo when on Nice beach for St Valentine’s Day ’12. I don’t know the woman. She never noticed me taking the photo and my lovely wife was sunbathing further along the beach.

St Valentine’s Day was perhaps popularised by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 14th century, though, according to this blog post, the Valentine’s Day may refer to May 3rd, the feast day of the wrong Valentine, Valentine of Genoa. Legend has it that Valentine, Bishop of Rome, was imprisoned and executed for performing weddings for soldiers (they were forbidden) and for ministering to Christians (they were persecuted). While in prison he is supposed to have healed the jailer’s daughter, and gave a letter to her on the day he was executed signed with “Your Valentine”. He is said to have given heart shapes cut from parchment to the soldiers to remind them of their loves and vows.

The heart is used as a measure for our dealings with one another. The measure isn’t beats per minute, but a blood-red thermometer with hard-heartedness being the coldest, and the soft-hearted being at the top of the human scale.

Many live with the dire consequences of hard-heartedness. There is an ancient promise for the sake of the loveless victims of hard-heartedness in which God promises a heart transplant. The people will have a change of heart when their heart of stone will be replaced by a “heart of flesh”. “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)

Hearts of stone can never be broken. They have to be removed. The transplants don’t come with any guarantees. They are soft. They are made to be responsive to the feelings of others. They are made to be sensitive. They are made for moving. They are made for love. They are made to be broken. (There is a beautiful Blessing for the Broken-hearted by Jan Richardson)

Too many of us have been hurt, and too many of us have heeded the advice “don’t be soft”. We can become hard to know and we can be hard on others. Our responsiveness, flexibility and ability to change can be non-existent. We stop listening and we stop learning. Our cause isn’t lost in that condition. Many hearts have been changed though history by tender hearted care and by brave hearts such as Nelson Mandela. The sexualisation of Valentine’s Day may prevent us remembering all those people and moments that might have heartened us. But the extent to which we have been touched and softened by them will affect our loveliness and our eagerness to be a true lover.

A friend who was a high school teacher was a real advocate of the “unlovely” young people. She said that they had been hardened into it, and that “they’d be lovely if they were loved”.

Secrets hidden in plain sight: accounts to treasure in the heart

January 26, 2014January 30, 2014 David HerbertLeave a comment

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing. Marc Chagall, who created the stained glass window at the Chagall Museum in Nice.

There’s counting and there is counting. There’s bean counting, and there is what counts as “ourstory”.

In an interview with UC Observer, on his book Healing the Heart of Democracy, Parker Palmer has this to say:

I once worked with a group of Episcopal churches in Texas. They were mostly small, rural churches, and collectively they felt like they were dying. Their budgets and membership had fallen off. I listened for a while, and then I said, “You know, it’s interesting to me that the only books you’re keeping have to do with dollars and numbers and members. Can you imagine another kind of book that has to do with the resourcefulness of the people in your congregations, the gifts they have to offer, the needs of the communities they serve in, and how those gifts and those needs might intersect?” I said, “You could actually do an inventory of that.”

There are accounts of measurable items, and there are accounts of wonder. The former are required reading for our “managers” and are lodged in safe places. Jobs, futures and political gain are staked by these measures which are often massaged into a healthy glow. Where is that other kind of book kept, as spoken of by Parker Palmer?

They are kept in the hearts of people. Luke rounds the story of the Annunciation with the beautiful expression, “and Mary treasured these things in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Things treasured in hearts are full of wonder, love and heart-felt story. Such stores are never emptying and never exhausted. They sustain communities and help them to thrive.

The accounts we are asked to keep of pounds, numbers and members are heartless and don’t change a thing. That is book-keeping for managers and survival. There is a different book-keeping and accountancy which takes account of gifts and needs, memories and longings. These are the accounts that are worth having. These are the accounts which give fresh heart to communities and churches. Our leaders need to treasure them in their hearts. They are “secrets hidden in plain sight”.

You smell – and I’m not being rude

January 14, 2014January 14, 2014 David Herbert3 Comments

My wife (her name is Jeanette, not Kate, and she has a rather fine nose) has suddenly got her sense of taste and smell back after a senseless four or five years. She tried many things over the years, including many returns to the House on the Top of Great Orme for their lemon meringue pie (that worked once). Her senses have been restored just when she had given up trying. She is now going round sniffing things (Comfort fabric conditioner is a favourite) and is enjoying the tastes of food. It’s like coming to life again. I am delighted for her.

Our senses of taste and smell are often overlooked. There are no words that I am aware of which describe the taste-less and smell-less state. Blindness and deafness describe severe visual and hearing impairment, but there is no equivalent words to describe the impairment of the other senses. Maybe that is because blindness and deafness affect lives in a far more critical way, whereas the senses of taste and smell are pleasures. The pleasure is usually taken for granted, and our senses are often dulled because we don’t really appreciate the senses we have been given.

The Smell Report suggests that western civilisation has devalued the sense of smell in a tendency to compare and rank the senses. The sense of smell won the wooden spoon in the Sense Games, while the gold medal went to the gift of sight. Long noses and nosiness are not welcome here. “You smell” is a common playground insult, whereas “you see” isn’t.

The Smell Report points our noses at other cultures. For example, in some Arab countries breathing on people as you speak to them is a sign of friendship and goodwill – and denying someone your breath and smell is a shameful sign that you don’e want to get involved with them.

The Onge people of the Andaman Islands tell the time by smell. They have a calendar based on the odours of the flowers that bloom at different times of the year. Their greeting is not “How are you?”, but “Konyune onorange-tanka?” which means “How is your nose?”. Sometimes people respond by saying “I am heavy with odour”, at which the greeter, to be polite, must inhale deeply to remove some of the surplus. At other times the greeter may need to blow heavily on the person she is greeting if that person is a bit short of odour energy.

Ivan Illich discovered that smell is not something to be sneezed at when he was in Peru. It was pointed out to him that there was a connection between nose and heart, smell and affection that he had not made. In his address The Cultivation of Conspiracy, Illich recalls:

“I was in Peru in the mid-1950s, on my way to meet Carlos, who welcomed me to his modest hut for the third time. But to get to the shack, I had to cross the Rimac, the open cloaca of Lima. The thought of sleeping for a week in this miasma almost made me retch. That evening, with a shock, I suddenly realised what Carlos had been telling me all along, “Ivan, don’t kid yourself; don’t imagine you can be friends with people you can’t smell.” That one jolt unplugged my nose; it enabled me to dip into the aura of Carlos’s house, and allowed me to merge the atmosphere I brought along into the ambience of his home.”

Illich refers to the old German adage “Ich kann Dich gut riechen” (“I can smell you well”) which goes with another German saying “Ich kann Dich leiden” (” I can suffer you well”).

We mustn’t look down our noses at the sense of smell, or taste. And if you think that’s cheesy you might be interested in Giles Milton’s book, Edward Trencom’s Nose: a novel of history, dark intrigue and cheese. Milton has a nose for history. Trencom, and his predecessors, has a remarkable nose, just for cheese.

PS Big Nose Kate didn’t have a big nose. She was just nosy. She was Doc Holiday’s girlfriend. The photo is by TLfromAZ

A resolution: notes for a sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Christmas

January 5, 2014 David HerbertLeave a comment

Notes for a sermon for January 5th 2014 at St Alban’s, Offerton – John 1:1-18

Note: this is the first time some of the congregation will have seen each other this new year.
Ask about resolutions made? (And broken) Find some out.
And ask for people to pray for each other that they might keep their resolve.

Mine is to “notice more” and to “welcome each day”.

It’s never too late to make a resolution.
We don’t reserve resolutions for New Year’s Eve do we?
Making resolutions is an everyday activity. Each year has its critical moments during which we make resolutions. (And we should be helping each other to keep those resolutions for as long as they need to be kept).

I have been wondering what a congregational resolution might look like.

Many of our resolutions are money oriented aren’t they, like “making ends meet”. I am sure that many of you make such resolutions, and I am sure that many of your PCC resolutions are along those lines. You might also have resolutions in place regarding your GAP goals. And you need to help each other to keep those resolutions.

I am wondering whether we would like to make a fresh resolution in the light of this morning’s gospel. The resolution is “let’s see”. Can I explain?

John’s gospel begins in a way that none of the others do.

John doesn’t introduce the themes of his gospel with reference to the nativity of Jesus. Instead, John sets the scene (no pun) by referring to darkness and light.
His point is that the world and our times are overwhelmed in darkness and that Jesus is the light that shines in that darkness.
The light helps us to see even when we are living through dark times.
That’s how John sets the scene for his gospel.
The darkness is so dark that some can’t even see the darkness.
God causes his light to shine in that darkness. That’s the good news.

Having introduced that theme John then goes on to provide examples of specific instances when the light did shine in the darkness, when people saw and realised, when the penny dropped.

That’s why I suggest that a good resolution for you as a congregation is “LET’S SEE” – and I hope that you will pray for one another that you may keep that resolution and that you may help one another to see.

John’s gospel is littered with invitations to come and see.

He said to two of John the Baptist’s disciples, “Come and see”.
You can almost hear them talking to one another, “shall we?”, “shalln’t we?” finally resolving “yes, let’s see.” (1:39)

Philip found Nathanael and urged him to “come and see”.
“Come and see what we have found”. He had found him about whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth”. (1:46)

And then there was the woman Jesus met at the well at Samaria. She went to the city and called out “come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” And they left the city with the resolution to go and see. (4:29)

The disciples that Jesus loves (the beloved disciples), according to John, are the ones who accept the invitation – the ones who come to see him as the light, the resurrection and the life.

Our gospel for this morning mentions “seeing”, or, “not seeing” – because of the darkness.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have beheld/seen his glory. (1:14)

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known. (1:18)

No one had seen God. But Jesus has made him known. We can see God in and through Jesus because he is the very image of God – he is the spit of his father. In Jesus we have the opportunity to see God.

Do you fancy making a resolution this morning to go alongside those others you have made in your lives?
Do you want to see?
In dark times in your relationships, in dark times in your work, in dark times in your families, in dark times in your faith, in dark times as a congregation, in dark times in your health, do you want to see?
At times when you feel trapped, do you want to see a way forward?

We try to cover our darkness don’t we?
We make up a face that hides the cracks.
We give the impression that we know where we’re going.
We smile and present a brave face to the world.
We hide our dark thoughts.
We pretend we are all sunshine and light.

But this does not help us to SEE. We hide our darkness by using artificial light.

If we hide our darkness, if we pretend everything is hunky-dory we are not going to see the true light which God causes to shine among us, through Jesus, through his saints and through one another.
(If we think everything is hunky-dory, we see nothing. We are blind fools).
We have to be honest about our dark times and our dark thoughts.

A lady I know, Jan Richardson, has recently lost her husband.
He died after what should have been fairly routine surgery at the beginning of December.
She is an artist who keeps a blog called the Painted Prayerbook.
Most weeks she produces an image to accompany the Sunday readings and writes a blessing which she posts on her blog.

I’m going to read her latest blessing, written for Epiphany, written in the light (or, rather, the darkness) of her husband’s death, and written in the light of herself being blessed through those who shared their darkness “by entering into days of waiting and nights of long vigil.” It begins with the words that reflect that darkness. “This blessing hardly knows what to say …” It is called:

This Brightness That You Bear
A Blessing for My Family

This blessing
hardly knows what to say,
speechless as it is
not simply
from grief
but from the gratitude
that has come with it—

the thankfulness that sits
among the sorrow
and can barely begin
to tell you
what it means
not to be alone.

This blessing
knows the distances
you crossed
in person
in prayer
to enter into
days of waiting,
nights of long vigil.

It knows the paths
you traveled
to be here
in the dark.

Even in the shadows
this blessing
sees more than it can say
and has simply
come to show you
the light
that you have given

not to return it
to you
not to reflect it
back to you
but only to ask you
to open your eyes
and see
the grace of it,
the gift that shinesin this brightness
that you bear.

Let’s see.

Is that a resolution you want to make in the light of John’s gospel and in the light of Jesus?
Is that something you want to help others do?
Is that something you want to resolve to do as a church and congregation?
Is this a blessing you want to bear in your lives for those who share the darkness with us?

Shall we help one another to see? Is that a resolution worth keeping?

When the song of the angels is stilled

January 5, 2014 David Herbert2 Comments

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.

Grits and Grains

“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.”

Howard Thurman

View original post

My name is ….. A reflection for the New Year

December 31, 2013December 31, 2013 David Herbert2 Comments

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

A word in edgeways

December 30, 2013December 30, 2013 David HerbertLeave a comment

I was blogging, then I wasn’t. Then Euan Semple reminded me of the importance of sharing thoughts and opinions in his book Organisations don’t tweet, people do. He asks: “how does the world ever change except by people sharing their opinions?”

I was preoccupied with business, forgetting that my business is sharing ideas. My responsibility is to support the (professional) development of ministers, and my mind had flitted from one frame of mind to another – from the frame of mind in which there is organic development through community sharing to the less productive frame of mind governed by the metaphor of the machine. It’s working our way out of one skin into another.

I belong to an organisation that, rightly, takes itself seriously. It cares about risk and dangers – among them the risks involved in social media. Organisations don’t tweet, people do is a powerful argument for overcoming the fear of engagement with social media. One of those reasons is to make the virtual space of the web inhabitable for our children. “If we leave it to the gunslingers and the pornographers it will stay uninhabitable” writes Euan Semple. He continues, “If we want to make it habitable we have to make it so by being in there behaving in productive and positive ways and showing that it can be a tool for good.”

And so it is. I wasn’t blogging, but now I am.

The strapline to the Prologue to John’s Gospel could be “a Word in Edgeways” as John describes Jesus as God’s word “that became flesh and dwelt among us”. It’s important that we get our word in edgeways in as many ways and spaces as possible. None of this is new. Getting our word in edgeways has been a responsibility since we began to use language. Responsible citizens have been using it ever since to name names, to make sense, to work things out, to share opinions and to make peace (and their opposites). There is now a new space for exploration which is the virtual space of the worldwide web. How can we live well there?

The image is from John Sutton’s photostream
Euan Semple’s blog