And so, to Mass

If you'd rather not read all this, but are interested in praying/being prayed for, please skip to the bottom! 

If you'd told me, a month ago, that I would become a part of the Catholic community at university, I would have laughed at you. Maybe, I would have said, but that's not my thing. I mean, it's nice to go once a year, for old times sake, but I'm a Protestant. A member of the URC church. I'm going to find a URC church somewhere in Norwich, first Sunday, and I'm going to enjoy being a dissenter for a bit. Also, I'm going to join the Socialists. (Yeah...that didn't happen. I've never met people who so strongly resembled zombies before...)

The problem with that plan was that it seems God has his own plan for my life. Sometimes I doubt that God is doing things in my life, because it's easy to doubt when you think you have everything sorted, and you're in control. Yet this week has shown me, more than ever, that God is helping me out and guiding me. If this new path hadn't been so surprising, I might not have noticed it. How many times has God done this for me, I wonder? Corny as it might be, I've spent the last few days thinking back to that 'Footsteps in the Sand' poem, and wondering if right now, God is carrying me. I'm trying to manage so many different things, learning to run my own life for the first time, and I have a thousand things to organise and worry about, yet I feel strangely content, even peaceful.It's illogical; I am always worried and stressed. It only makes sense in the knowledge that God is helping me out massively at the moment, carrying me and all the baggage that comes with being a new university student so that I can cope. Tonight's homily (sermon/talk) in Mass was on thankfulness, and tonight, I feel like I understand how much I have to be thankful for. I'm just not sure I have the words to express it.

But I've kept you waiting to hear about this surprise, the sudden new direction God seems to be sending you on. 

I may be going back to Catholicism. 

I say may because, as I'm finding is usual for plans the Big Man's had a hand in, it is almost impossible to predict what is going to happen next. This might just be a temporary thing to help me get through the first few weeks of university. It might be forever. All I can do is trust and hope.

But why should this be so surprising? I've already told you that I'm a member or the URC - the United Reformed Church - but my relationship with denominations has been a complicated one. As an adult Christian, I've found my place in liberal, free church Protestantism, but when I was brought up ecumenically. I was baptised jointly in the Catholic Church, and the Church of England, in a shared service, and brought up as an equal member of both churches. Incidentally, I understand mine was the first baptism of this kind, ever. They're not common; my parents and the Association of Interchurch Families (AIF) worked really hard to bring it about and make it feasible. People still disbelieve me when I explain it, but it's true. To add to the complication, when I was fourteen I was confirmed through our Local Ecumenical Partnership, becoming a full member of the Church of England (or, the Anglian communion), the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, and the United Reformed Church, a move which effectively annulled my baptismal membership of the Catholic Church. Then a year ago, I moved to my local United Reformed Church and became a local member there, and in that Church community I believe I have found where I belong. When I moved there I was spiritually tired. I needed to receive rather than give for a while, and I know God guided me there for a reason. They've encouraged me and supported me in my faith and my personal life, and helped me slowly become an active part of the church again, helping out with an early morning toddler service. 

To cut through the religious jargon: Some churches get on and some don't. They believe in most of the same things, but belonging to more than one is often considered paradoxical, because of their minute differences. Some of us ignore these differences and do it anyway. One of my friends called me 'a mongrel of religion'...I think that sums it up accurately.

So why, after effectively removing myself from the Catholic Church years ago in my early teens am I once again wrestling with it? My relationship with the Catholic church has not been easy. As a child, I thought that Mass was boring, because it had no Sunday school, and this led to my desire to quit Mass as soon as I could, only attending when I was forced to go. I was still a regular church goer, attending protestant services on Sunday morning, so until now I never thought of it as 'leaving church'. I never understood why young people drop out of church till now, thinking retrospectively. I don't blame myself; Mass is not designed for children! 

As a young teenager, I became conscious of the divisions between the Catholic church and the protestant churches. Issues like the ordination of women became important to me, and I realised that the little theology I'd worked out for myself fitted on the Protestant side of things. Within a year or two, I became and angry teenage ex-Catholic. I was angry. How could they be so stupid, and so obviously wrong? I wanted to correct everyone who had made the mistake of being Catholic. I was rude, and it stills hurts me to think of the nasty things I said to good Catholics at the time, at school and in my family. The teenage brain is not programmed for empathy, according to the BBC news, and I was in that respect typical.

But alongside all this burgeoning teenage angst, I was trying to find an adult faith of my own, working things out. A few months after my confirmation, at 14 years old, I had an experience that changed how I think and understand God forever.

I won't go into details here. Let's simply say that I had a private experience of the numinous. I told people at the time and I was ridiculed, which I perfectly understand, so I'm saving that event for my own prayers, and encouragement when I'm struggling. Strangely enough, it happened in a little URC chapel, downstairs from the conference house I'd been staying in (On a Methodist course...). I think this is important. Maybe it's a coincidence, but I'm wondering now if God is saying to me, you can find me in the United Reformed Church. By which I don't mean that the URC has a monopoly on God, but that I specifically am meant to be a URC member. 

At the same time, I was at a Catholic school, and enjoying being the one person who refuses to say the Hail Mary in class. Small rebellions are the source of endless pleasure as a teenager! 

Yet the last few years, things have begun to change. Having identified everything I dislike about the Catholic Church, and more importantly, found a place where I can be comfortable and develop on my own faith, I've begun to find my attitude to the Catholic Church changing. It started with a supportive priest, the realisation that going to Mass with my school and taking communion with them was important to me, and a grudging respect for Catholic moral authority. I'm not sure I agree with everything the Vatican says, or the contents of the Catholic Church Catechism, but more and more I find myself respecting the moral teachings of the church, with its sound, loving ground, and turning to it for guidance. After all, it is the bedrock of a third of the world's population, and the morality of the western legal system. You have to respect something that has commanded that degree of authority. 

But it's more than respect, more than acceptance of our differences. At Mass, I find a reverence for God, a sheer state of adoration, that is rare in any other denomination. (Although I think my home church do it pretty well!). There are times when I want to be quiet, to reach out to God in my heart, and to think on how wonderful and awesome he is, and this is so apparent in the majesty of the Mass service. Catholicism, at heart, is simply beautiful. You can criticise it's teachings or policies however much you like, but the beauty is always there, shining through. 

And Mass on campus is something special. For the first time, I'm going to Mass with a group of energised young Catholics who care about their faith, and we have an excellent priest who preaches the most brilliant sermons. I've been twice and loved it, coming back feeling more in touch with God from each one. I've also made it to an ecumenical church once, and tried but failed to make it to a URC church this morning, so it's not just laziness that draws me back to the on campus service. Even when I find a protestant church of my own, I'm going to stay a Mass goer, which I suppose will make me a two-service a day girl... Don't bash me with your bibles or anything, right? 

From one angle, it sounds like the Prodigal Son story, but the truth is that whilst I am returning to the security of my childhood church, the church which has come to mean safety and reassurance to me, I'm not renouncing anything I've done since, or going backwards. On the contrary, to grow in my adult faith I need to belong to a church which is nearer to my particular beliefs, and in which I can participate fully - hopefully a United Reformed Church, although I'm open to any of the denominations I belong to! But I'm glad to have made my peace with the Catholic Church, and I think there's more to come from our brief encounter. God is doing something, sending me to Mass at the very time when I'm attempting to make a new start in my life. I look forward to finding out what it is, and trust that God knows, as always, what he's doing.

Your prayers for me at this time would be greatly appreciated, and I'd love to respond in kind. I remember to pray far less often that I should, so having names would be a wonderful thing. If you'd like me to pray for you/exchange prayers, leave your name as a comment, or tweet/DM me @corybantically, or if you have me on facebook, private message me!

Thanks for putting up with my ramblings about the interior working about the Christian church. Leave any questions in the comments and I'll try and explain more clearly :) 

God bless!

J.R. x 

A Simple Faith

My shower is evidently a very inspiring place to be. I seem to think up most of my blog posts in it.

(Yes, you needed that contextual information.)

As usual, this morning, I was thinking about my frustration at A-Level R.E. It's a great subject, but it doesn't relate to my faith at all, and so I struggle with the dull critical essays which bandy around words like 'soteriology' 'replacement theology' 'eschatology' e.t.c. without ever getting to the heart of the matter. I sincerely doubt that heaven will only be open to those who can describe using key words and quotations the development of the covenant relationship between God and Man. I don't mean that we should be ignorant and never question faith, not at all; I just doubt that many people will discover their faith on page 235587395158a of Religion for Dummies. 

So I've decided to tell the story of faith in my own words here, as I'd tell it to a child or a bible scholar. I can't guarantee its theological accuracy or even state that it fits in with any particular denomination. Since I took my faith on for myself around thirteen, I've been working on this, asking God questions and trying to make sense of it all, something I'm going to be doing all my life. So this story isn't perfect, isn't complete. Please be patient. 

(When I write 'God thought' e.t.c. this is artistic liberty. I'm not trying to put words into God's mouth.)

This story has no beginning. Recently, I heard a quote from a famous writer on short stories, suggesting that when the story is finished, the start and end should be cut off. I, however, do not know how this story starts or finishes. I am not the author. I am a minor character on page 98, but I'm quite content with my little part. 

For all intents in purposes, it starts with God. No-one except God knows how he got there, or why. Some people argue that this is an unsatisfactory start and that God ought to justify being there if we're meant to believe in him, but as yet God has not answered this question. As I said, the story is far from finished. 

After demanding angrily from God what business he has in existing in the first place, and making things so awfully complicated by doing so, the next question is 'What is God anyway?' Generally, humans like to greet each other by demanding 'Who are you?' but no-one seems to have thought of asking God this yet. They've been trying tests and writing papers on the question for years, but just asking the question never satisfies human curiosity. Humans like to poke and prod and ask questions. Again, this is not a bad thing. 

The one thing that one particular group of people have become certain of about God is that he is Love. Love, like God, is notoriously difficult to define and at some point in their lives every human attempts to do so. My own favourite definition was for some years 'God's favourite drug', a sentence that I felt embodied a suitable amount of sarcasm, naivety and fashionable faith lingo. For now, I've given up pretending to know anything about love. We all know enough, anyhow. You don't need me to tell you about it. 

The scene is thus set for the opening of the story. God is love, or at least he is very good at loving, or something like that, is existing. Nothing else does. There is silence. Peace. 

But all creatures who love need others to love them back. Contrary to human preoccupation, this whole faith-thing didn't start because we needed God. It started because God needed us. 

So God made all of Creation, and it was beautiful. Everything was good, and everything that was good came from God, and was of God. The animals loved him blindly and were part of him in their love. 

The problem was that love does not come from obedient, unswerving devotion. Real love is a choice, and God knew this, as he chose to love his creation, but they did not choose to love him. It was the love of master and servant. It was beautiful, but it was not enough. 

So God started again. He had a brilliant, radical idea. He would make people, built on his own image, with the same capacity to choose to love. He knew, with a heavy heart, that they might reject him and do terrible things to each other in their capacity for hatred, but he did it anyway. Love was worth paying the price for. 

So humanity came about, and they were beautiful. God loved them immensely, and was desperate for them to love him back. Yet as he had feared, they began to turn against him. Temptation lead them into ignorance, and even evil. Some did love him, but a good many simply forgot about him in their rush to discover the new world, and so the relationship with God was lost to humans. 

God stayed with them. He watched them develop and evolve, guiding them, walking amongst them unseen. Some glimpsed him and as the people split over continents and seas, different understandings of God appeared. Some saw his left side, some saw his right, but no-one ever saw him in his fullness. God hid himself in the good things of the world to shield their eyes, and hoped that one day, they would find him.

Time passed.

Then God has an idea. He would tell someone about him and they and their descendants would be his helpers. They would tell others about him, be teachers of the human race. Eventually, he settled for a man named Abram and his wife Sarai. At this point, God could have appeared in glory, surrounded by angels and trumpets and loudly demonstrating his power, although the poor elderly couple probably would have had heart attacks. Instead, he decided to do the most marvellous thing for them, the thing they had been longing for all their lives. Sarai had never been able to have children, and she was too old. But nothing is impossible for God, and he gave her and Abram a son, Isaac. He also chose to rename them Abraham and Sarah. If I was writing an essay I'd call this a 'symbol of their new life', but I'm not, and I'd rather just call it one of the unfathomable quirks of God. 

Abraham and Sarah became the ancestors of the Israelites, God's chosen people - chosen to tell everyone about him and his tremendous love. But not even the Israelites could believe. So God sent them prophet after prophet. He rescued them from slavery, sent them brave leaders to keep them safe, and guided them to a place where they could live in peace. However, the Israelites were just humans like us, so they disobeyed God, and frequently failed to understand him. They fought with their neighbours and kept the truth about God to themselves, so no-one else really came to faith. Who can blame them? The Christian Church has often done the same thing. It's a very human crime. 

God watched all of this and he was sad. He saw them go further away from him and make each other suffer, and it hurt him. He'd tried everything. 


Then, God had a brilliant idea. 


This is the complicated part, because now we get to the idea of 'Trinity', or, three in one. Frankly, no-one, not St Thomas Aquinas or Simon Peter or the Archbishop of Canterbury really understands how this works. God is just too big for human minds. To be limited is to be free to make mistakes, to be ourselves, to make choices and be amazed by the wonders of creation, but it does make God hard to understand. So God needed to meet humanity in a way we would understand, and to do this, he sent part of himself to earth. To demonstrate his love, he set this up as a Father/Son relationship, but in reality they're the same, two different ways of seeing God. To cap it all, God then threw in the Holy Spirit, because he knew we'd find it tough, believing in him, and he wanted to show us a way to reach him, without expecting celestial telephones to drop down whenever we want a chat. The best way I can describe it is like an iceberg. They say that only 20% of an iceberg is visible above the surface - that's the 'Son' part - and 80% is underneath, and that's the 'Father' part. Then I guess all the frozen water nearby is the Holy Spirit... perhaps I'll let that analogy drop. 


Anyway, God sends his son to earth. As humans have proved we're not very good at recognising God, God made his son a human, born in a provincial backwater of the Roman Empire amongst the Israelites and named a rather common Hebrew name, Jesus. 


Here I could write books and books. (Although I don't need to: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have done it for me). Telling this story 2000 years later, about a man I never met in the flesh, I am almost overwhelmed by my feelings for him. Creation was brilliant, but Jesus was a master-stroke. Many humans came to respect him, even those who disbelieved his teaching, for his morality, his kindness, his love. In the three years he spent teaching, he gathered around him a small group of followers who would go on to spread his message throughout the world. But Jesus wasn't just around to spread the word. He had something else in mind, harder and more complicated to explain than anything God had ever done before. 


When asked why Jesus had to die, many Christians have come up against a massive wall. 
"We're sinners," They reply, "We have to be saved." 
"Are we sinners?" responds the atheist. "Why? And why do I owe this God anything? Personally, I think I'm quite a good person. This Jesus didn't have to die for me." 


I cannot even pretend to have a decent or full answer to this. Like I said, I'm writing a unfinished story. 


I suppose the nearest thing I have to an answer to this is that choosing God, choosing to love him means giving up everything that is not of God, all the evil thoughts, temptations, un-Godly ways of living. Humans never manages this. Through the grace of God, some of us can get pretty near - think Mother Teresa - but in the end we just can't give up our evil enough to get close to God. Life comes from God and is of God; without God, we die, far apart from him. It's the worst punishment ever. Humans have tried to imagine Hell as a representation of our worst fears, all flames and whips and chains, but the truth is Hell is worse than this. If all that is good is of God, than to reject God, or turn away from him because of our dependence on sin, means that in the next life when we should be with him and all that is good we must go where God is not, and all that is of God is absent. This is an evil of our own making, and it makes God so very, very sad. 


So God decided to break the rules.


Okay, he thought, they can't break away from sin and all that, so they're stuck with the consequences. But what if I took the consequences away? Jesus could do that. 


Although, they won't be grateful .


But I love them. I'll do it anyway. I miss them so much, and I want them home. 


So God gave Jesus a task. He, God himself, had to die, and descend into the place of unbelief, breaking its power. Then all the people would have to do is follow him out, and forget all the consequences. Jesus was a man and he was scared, but he was also a God who loved humanity, so he obeyed. And God the Father did give him the choice. Jesus chose to love, and chose to die one of the most terrible deaths ever invented. Crucifixion was an excruciatingly painful, drawn-out, public way to die, offensive to the religious beliefs of the Israelites and designed to humiliate the victim. Uncomplaining, he went to his death.


But God wasn't finished yet. 


On the third day, something happened. In the tomb where Jesus' body lay, God stirred. The son came back to life. Time was ripped open; those who had died, those who were dying, those who hadn't even gotten around to being born yet - everyone was saved, and could choose to live again with God, should they accept it. All they had to do was trust God and accept his love, and they could be forgiven anything, could escape the consequences of their prior actions, could be renewed. It was brilliant. 


Of course, nothing is so simple as just accepting love. 


"Why did you make us suffer? Was it you? You weren't there. What about the cancer? The floods? The wars? Did you do that? Why didn't you help us?"


So the questions started, and the people began to vivisect God. It got complicated, very quickly, and even the best storytellers had no proper answers.


Yet God was always there, in the confusion. He walked through hospitals, holding hands, guiding the surgeons, opening the eyes of the children, weeping with the bereaved. He sat with the soldiers, in the pubs, in the back-rows of the lecture theatres, crying for our losses and celebrating our joys. Some people said that it was a test, others that the only way to see God is also to see evil. Some spoke of a devil, the embodiment of evil, or a battle between good and evil in the world. Evil existed, they were sure, but often they forgot about all the good that existed too.


God did not give his reasons. He was proved and did-proved, loved and hated, lost and found. He waited. All the time, he still loved. 






Writing this I'm so conscious of how much I owe God, more than I could ever repay. The beauty is, I don't need to repay him. Just accept his love. My love for him is imperfect, small, flawed, but I know I am loved and one day I hope that I will be able to love him perfectly back.


God Bless & peace out x 
J x 

Return of the Blog

I have decided to keep up my blog! ( hums death star theme tune!).

So...
Since I last posted, my life has rather vaguely revolved around school, grades, subjects and french revision. I still believe education has the power to be terrifically exciting, I've just realised it makes every other aspect of your life boring. Being a bit of a geek (ehem...yes.), after a day of school all I can think of to talk about is...school. Conclusion: It's time to change the subject.

The sun has come back! I'm feeling happier already. I'm one of those awkward people who hates whatever season I'm in, but now isn't too bad, if a little windy. I have a feeling this summer will be beautiful. Already the skys of my mind are a vivid blue, the thin clouds embossed far below the level of my thoughts. At last, after my long struggle last year, I'm properly happy again. I've been fine for a month and a half, maybe two, and I feel more like myself than I have in two years.

Last night I washed and plaited my hair (with some help, hairdressing is not my forte!) and now I have rather wonderful wavy hair. The sixthform at my school (drat, I'm doing it again!) had to dress on the theme 'Movies' today, so I came as a rather feeble impression of Hermione Granger, complete with wand. Not overly imaginative, but my wardrobe and purse are rather sparse for exciting constume making. The wand, a remnant of a childhood Harry Potter obsession, has a light up tip and sound effects, which transformed my sober and mature sixthform friends into overexcited wizard-wannabes. Brilliant! Any time you think your friends are getting too serious, a short trip back to their childhood will solve the problem. I grew up with Harry Potter and his friends, from early primary school, and it was noticable how everyone I talked to today took the wand into their stride. It's part of our culture as children of the 90's - we're the Harry Potter generation.

Sadly this beautiful day hasn't been so perfect for everyone. I was woken by my radio-alarm telling me about the earthquake and subsequent Tsunami hitting Japan and spreading out across the pacific. We flow from one horror story to another, war and revolution to natural disaster and on. Has it always been like this? The world precariously balanced, as if any moment we could collapse into terror, the news flashes baying their sadistic sincerity. I wonder if we're living through a moment of particular disaster and - if the earth lasts that long! - one day, we'll tell our children about watching Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, New Zealand, Australia, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, the economies, the EU, all crumble under blood and fire and water. Perhaps one day people will be so used to democracies dividing and people dying in their multitudes, nameless, we'll become numb to it all. Do disasters raise our humanity, or grind it away?
Jesus. In disaster he fell on the cross, under the thumb of a great empire tearing away the liberties of his people. He had nothing and was humbled, dying under the mocking calls of  soldiers whilst his followers hid and denied his name. Is there anything more terrible than the agony of an innocent who dies to save the guilty? Is there anything braver, than to walk to one of the most painful and humiliating forms of death knowing you could escape - Jesus is God, he could have - but choosing to? Our God chose to walk to death that day. But then. Then.
Imagine the might of the flood. The hurricane. The storm and tornado and tsumani and earthquake and avalanche and the radiant poison of the pollutants and fires, their toxic gases spreading over earth. All these things can take away your homes, your familes, your live. They are killers. But that is the end of there power: their dominion ends at death. Look. There is the pause, where we wait, listening. What happens next?

God. Death took an innocent man in Jesus, like thousands today, the people dying as I write this in the tsunami, the people slipping away at the end of their lives, the others, the many. Yet because Jesus died, God himself in human form, something miraculous is happening.

After the boundary of death there is God's kingdom. God rules, death is defeated, the tsunami and the poisons and the aching seeping wound of evil on the earth is nothing. I believe in this Kingdom, the dead are living. Jesus opened the gates of life and he is holding out his hand, reaching out for the sufferers to show them the way.

Basically... Death is an Epic Fail!

Even in the darkest night we have hope, whether your darkness is a bad patch at school or languishing in prison or waiting for the waters to recede so you can search for your loved ones and destroyed homes. If you are out there in one of those traumatised countries, or just suffering in your own lives, I hope things will change for you soon. Thousands of people out there are praying for you & God is with you. It's a little hard to express without sounding insincere, but I really do hope and believe that there is always hope, and God can change lives. And to the people of Japan, the world is with you in your suffering.


...I think I just invented a split personality blog. I really need to improve my writing!...
Peace out & God Bless!
J.