rejesus blog

The past few weeks have been quite difficult for me, partly because of the intensity of the workload (final exams are approaching fast) and partly because of my worries about the future. I’m going to live with a close friend who has been ill for a long time and who needs a carer. At the moment I don’t have much idea about the type of job that I will be doing or whether I will take a postgraduate course. I don’t have much idea about anything any more. And being autistic, I find change and uncertainty extremely hard to cope with.

Today my friend told me the name of the place where we’re going to live. It’s called the Lamb’s Arms Building.

It may be named after the local watering-hole, but the pub was not the first thing to leap to mind when I heard that name. The Lamb of God is one of Jesus’ titles, as the sacrificial lamb is a symbol of peace and forgiveness throughout the Bible. The old symbolism was fulfilled in Jesus when he sacrificed himself to give that peace to us. Jesus makes so much use of this imagery in his own teachings that one of my non-Christian friends, after coming to a few church services with me and reading one of the Gospels, asked in confusion, “Why does God have such an obsession with sheep?”

“He must be sheepish!” I exclaimed gleefully. (It’s at times like this that the friends who have been trying to persuade me to join a church that allows female pastors ought to realise how very wrong they are. My puns and I are bad enough as it is - we’d be intolerable in a pulpit.)

My sophisticated taste in jokes aside, the focus of this blog entry is not the Lord’s fondness for bovine creatures, but his compassion for us. His gentle embrace.

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spirituality, the story | No Comments »

Next week is Christian Aid Week. You may well have seen the adverts on the television and got an envelope through your front door or you might be a Christian Aid collector or activist. If you click on the link above you will see the many fund raising events that are happening next week.
This year’s Christian Aid Week advert highlights the work we do in helping people prepare for the worst. You can’t stop a hurricane, but you can help save lives by funding stronger buildings and installing early warning alarms. It’s just one of the ways Christian Aid makes a real difference to the lives of millions of vulnerable people across the world. Help us continue our work by supporting us this Christian Aid Week: please donate what you can.

encounters, community | 1 Comment »

There’s no shortage of movies that look to tell the story of Jesus. Some, like the recent BBC production The Passion, tell it directly. Others, such as The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe, take a another approach and import the key parts of the plot into an entirely different story about a Christlike figure. But despite several religious images in the film, such as the one above which gives the leading character a crown of thorns, Jesus’ Son, starring Billy Crudup and Samantha Morton, fits into neither category. Read the rest of this entry »

rejesus blog, encounters, spirituality, expressions | 1 Comment »

This story has hit the headlines around Europe  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7373689.stm

Joseph Fritzl locked up his daughter, Elizabeth, in a cellar for nearly 25 years and fathered 7 children on her. Some of her children have never seen daylight. She is white haired and traumatised according to tonight’s news.

There really is nothing that can be said about such evil, and it is evil to use another human being in this way. I work in social services and see casual and intentional neglect within families, but on cruelty on this scale is beyond words. At times like this I end up hoping that there is a hell so that this man can rot in it.

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encounters | 1 Comment »

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

I have two dissertations to complete within a week, one of them on the significance of enclosed space in medieval Persian poetry and one on images and iconography in literature of the Holocaust. Unfortunately they both seem to require a decade each to write.

I know that I’m not the only one who is in this predicament. I’m joined by students all over the country, single parents, parents in general, people who are too sick to work but who really need to, cleaners, cooks, lollipop men, bus drivers, teachers, nurses, office personnel…and maybe you as well.

Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
Deep peace of the gentle night to you,
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you,
Deep peace of Christ, the light of the world to you,
Deep peace of Christ to you.

This is one of the prayers from the Celtic tradition that I love to pray when I’m worried or stressed. It brings me back to what is really important. It reminds me that I live in peace. It teaches me that God may use me to pour His peace out on others, no matter how tired or ground down I might feel. And it draws my attention to the beauty of the earth, something that tends to get lost when the pace of life is fast.

Deep peace of Christ to you.

spirituality | 4 Comments »

If you only knew the gift of God… (John 4:10, Holy Bible)

This prayer moved me deeply when I heard it at church a few weeks ago. We often pray that ‘we’ might be generous to ’the poor’ and ‘the homeless’, which makes me wonder how any homeless or impoverished people in the congregation must feel when they hear somebody asking this of God. The underlying assumption is that Christians are comfortably off, ready to provide something for the poor - an abstract mass of people who are not included in that ‘we’.

By placing people in need at the heart of the community, the woman offering the prayer helped me to see the distinction between sparing some extra change now and then and giving from my treasure. If somebody is a close-knit part of your family, you want nothing for them but the very best. So you give your all. Everything you have.

If you only knew the gift of God…

If you distance yourself from a person by putting them in a category different from your own (’the homeless’ or ‘the elderly’) it’s gets easier to excuse yourself from this effort. You’ve placed them outside the sphere of your experience. They may as well come from a different world. And in the resulting unease, a forced conversation with that strange old woman who always accosts you in the public library (is she quite right in the head?) or fifty pence given to the beggar outside the train station start to pass for generosity.

Recently I signed up to the 99% Challenge, an initiative run by a Christian charity that urges people to think about what 1% of their income could do for people living in extreme poverty. The purpose is clearly to shock, to show us just how much can be achieved with such a small sum.

But for me the real shock is Jesus, a carpenter from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t have much money. He didn’t have a house. He didn’t carry a suitcase of possessions around with Him. In fact, He had nothing to give apart from Himself.

The gift of God. If only we knew Him. Then, perhaps, it would be easier to give to others. We wouldn’t be able to help it.

spirituality, community | 3 Comments »

I believe in God. Though to be honest I don’t know where to go from there. I was brought up with a religion I never knew much about. I never knew that much about other religions either. Recently I’ve been feeling a great big hole in life…I went to Church Parade as a Guide and saw how happy everyone was there. They had a lot to believe in. And I felt happy. It filled the void. But I don’t know what to do now. I don’t feel like a member of ANY religion. Yet I don’t want to leave the little I have. I wondered if maybe you could tell me about Christianity and what a religion ought to be.

I received this e-mail just over two years ago. The writer was a fourteen-year-old girl, now a close friend of mine. It was the beginning of a startling journey for the pair of us (with a lot of twists and detours). At first it reminded me of an extended game of ‘What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?’ For every tentative step that P took towards Jesus, there was a mile-long sprint in the opposite direction. Three months after she had started her exploration, she wrote to me to say that she could go no further.

I wished her all the best. We did not touch the subject of faith from then on.

Until eight months later, just before Christmas, another e-mail appeared in my inbox. ”I don’t know why I sent this, but never mind. Once again, my Guiding responsibilities threw me into a church. Another round of mouthing hymns and goodness’ knows what else. I have already chosen my path but tonight I just feel so confused. I know things aren’t so complicated, that everyone is worshipping God, but there is always something at the back of my head that wonders why I go to these services.”

She ended with a question. “Can we try again?”

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encounters, expressions | 1 Comment »

I was in London on Wednesday. As always, I headed off to Marble Arch to sit for a few moments in a nearby chapel. The chapel is attached to Tyburn Monastery, which stands near the old site of the infamous Tyburn Tree - a gallows where hundreds of people were executed in Elizabethan times. Now a busy intersection and a complicated warren of subways disguise the spot. Hordes of shoppers pour down the road towards Oxford Circus, the sound of their chatter and scuffling shoes mingling with the traffic noise and floating into the chapel itself.

In that chapel, a nun is always in constant prayer.

The sisters take it in turns to spend an hour praying there in silence. This goes on day and night. As I slipped out of that little room that lies quite still in the centre of a throbbing London artery, I felt comforted by the knowledge that there was someone praying for me just on the other side of the door. Praying for all the people who pass by.

Who can know? Perhaps you have walked past such a place without realising what it was. Perhaps you have been prayed for by someone you don’t know and may never even meet.

How many encounters like this happen every day?

reJesus invites you to pray for other people and to post your own prayers here.

encounters, spirituality, community | 1 Comment »

Jesus has got his name in lights.

It happened just after the critics reviewed his last ever show. They called him a one-hit wonder. (Crucifixion’s quite passe these days. He didn’t do it with glittery mirrors like Madonna or music like Lloyd Webber. He didn’t pull it off.) Only it turns out that it isn’t time for curtain calls - J.C. is still treading the boards after staging one of the best comebacks the industry’s ever seen.

We could make a major sequel, a cinema blockbuster. We could call it Christus Rex. (Latin sells.) Or how about Jesus Reloaded?

We want to do a feature article on him. I flew back into Jerusalem as soon as I got wind of the story. (I didn’t cover the crucifixion - I was doing a piece on the ethics of prison reform, complete with an interview with Barabbas, brigand turned golden boy.) A double-page spread, complete with full-colour photos. Jesus, where did you get the inspiration for this stunt? Did you have a celebrity role model in mind? Where do you hope to go with your career now?

The advertising department has even got in touch. The people at Coca-Cola have changed their minds and want Christ to be in on their new promo.

Only we’ve hit a snag. We’ve been into all the clubs in Jerusalem, all the bars, all the theatres, everywhere connected with showbiz. Can’t find him anywhere. Perhaps you want some R&R with friends and family, Jesus, after that draining performance? Not a problem. There are a half a dozen tour operators and hotels queuing up to give you a week in Barbados, a fortnight’s cruising in the Pacific. Just get in touch and we’ll sort it out. The champagne’s on us.

Some local woman came up to me before, saying that she knows him. Mary Magdalene. I was going to interview her, get the scoop fresh from one of JC’s insiders, but it turned out to be some celeb wannabe. Not the real deal. She said that the last she saw of Jesus, he was sitting on a sun-baked rock by the sea, cooking fried fish for breakfast with his friends.

That can’t be right.

We laughed and said, “Yeah, and Elvis is alive and well in a bagel shop in Jerusalem.”

That can’t be right at all.

the story | 2 Comments »

What are you up to this weekend?

Are you going to the pub? Watching a film? Spending time with the kids? Cleaning the car? Going shopping? Having a lie in bed? You might even be planning to go to church?

Whatever you have planned, whatever your life issues may be you might want a break, time out to think about HOPE. If so then do visit the Hope Icons.

These six interactive animations take you through six different snippets of the the bible on the topic of hope and how it relates to Jesus. The sounds and imagery for each are there to evoke deeper responses in you and to bring out a fuller interpretation of each of the scriptures.

Click here for more information about Hope08

expressions, community | 1 Comment »

This is one of the seven sayings of the cross. The things Jesus said as he was dying. I met a man today who told me about his daughter who is very ill. She is anorexic and has been admitted to hospital twice and who may be admitted again this evening. He had come to give me a quotation for moving my family to our new home in June. A chance encounter with a stranger led to a conversation about hope and fear. During the time he spent in our house he asked me a number of questions about faith - he hadn’t been to church for a few years and felt he had lost touch with the community he had received so much support from in the past. But, since his daughter became ill he had felt unable to attend church anymore, he felt things were out of control, that he couldn’t face God. He told me he didn’t feel abandoned by God so much as he didn’t feel worthy of God.

He asked me how my faith supports me and how he might reconnect with his faith. I didn’t know what to say except that he might take his fears to God and place them into his hands. I was reminded that this saying of Jesus from the cross was not a passive gentle prayer but a cry of grief and despair. The injustice of the illness, the robbing of a childhood, the breakdown of a family, the loss of innocence. These things are things to shout at God about. After all if you can’t take these things to God who can you take them to? God isn’t there just for the good times, for when we are together: when we have our family, our finances, our lives are in order. Just as Jesus shouted to God from the cross so we can cry helplessly from our pain and despair.

Re:Jesus has some insights into the sayings from the cross - Jesus hung on the cross for six hours before he died. In that time, he spoke to his friends, to the criminal crucified next to him, and to God. They are the last words he spoke before he died. These pages present Jesus’ seven last sayings in seven short movies, with spoken commentary.

encounters, spirituality, expressions | 2 Comments »

The UK Mental Health Foundation has just published a study about the damage that anger can do to a person’s life. They have also created a fun and informative website, Boiling Point, that is designed to measure ‘the heat of the nation’ - which is reaching uncomfortable levels, according to the figures gathered by the study. A sort of emotional global warming, perhaps?

The Bible gives some stark, pithy advice on anger. “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. Do not give the devil his opportunity.” (Ephesians 4:26.) Even though my parents aren’t particularly religious, this is one tenet of Christianity that formed a big part of my upbringing. If there was a disagreement within the family, none of us went to bed until we had had a cuddle and were at peace again.

When I got to boarding school, I found that not everyone had been brought up with this principle. Once some friends and I had a silly argument over a hair dryer, which resulted in a furious outburst from one of them and a stormy silence as we were getting ready for bed. Feeling shy, I went over to each girl in turn with my arms outstretched for a hug. They refused indignantly. I retreated to my bed feeling mortified and cut to the heart, even though the argument had been so trivial. That night I discovered that the Bible is spot on. There is nothing worse than trying to get to sleep when you’re angry yourself or suffering from somebody else’s anger.

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spirituality, community | 1 Comment »

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life - and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. - John 1:1-4, Holy Bible. 

Last night I attended an Easter Vigil, the night-time service that heralds the morning of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. The church was in darkness, apart from one large candle that flickered and shone near the altar. Known as the paschal candle, it was there as a symbol of the light and hope that Jesus has brought into the world. It was in this atmosphere that we sat down to listen to the story of the world being told from the very beginning, when God created it out of nothing, dividing light from darkness and water from land. The reading went on for quite a while, finishing with an account of what happened on the morning of the resurrection. (You can read the full thing here.)

According to one old custom, this celebration should take place outside, with the people sitting round a blazing fire. This isn’t possible for city churches or churches without land, like mine. The charcoal brazier that stood by the porch, bathing the arriving worshippers in its light, was a poor substitute.

There is something almost primal about the image of people clustering around a fire to listen to well-loved stories being told. It’s happened for thousands of years. Desert nomads at the campfire. Victorian families clustering round the Christmas hearth. Stories have always been part of our heritage. As a confirmed bookworm, there is nothing I like more than to tell and to listen.

The story of Jesus is unique - it is still going on. We are all invited to participate in it. Whenever you make a new friend, your life is suddenly filled with possibilities. The whole course of your life - your story - is altered when certain people walk into it. My friend Sobia is so special to me that I can even remember the date on which we met: 9th March 1996. I was a few days short of my ninth birthday. It’s hard to imagine what my personal story would be like if she wasn’t here to write her chapters.

Jesus changes lives through the marvellous gift of hope that distinguishes Easter. He wrote the beginning of my story. When I became a Christian, I trusted him to devise a good plotline for the middle - and to write a formidable ending.

For more creative expressions of Easter hope, browse through this selection of short poems - some of which were written especially for Easter.

expressions, community, the story | 3 Comments »

One year ago, on Holy Saturday, I wrote about the terrible things that had just happened to my friend Mary. Her partner was taken into custody for sexually molesting their toddler, the little girl was placed in foster care, and Mary herself ended up in hospital. She has suffered from mental health problems for years and couldn’t cope alone. She has no other family.

Mary’s daughter has been in foster care ever since. Mary sees her twice a week. At the moment a family court is in the process of determining, with the help of a psychologist, whether Mary is well enough to take care of the little girl. If the report is unfavourable her child will go up for adoption. A decision has to be made by June.

“It’s probably all for the best.”

“These things happen.”

“It’s a shame, but you can’t really do anything about it.”

Mary’s daughter Lauren told Mary that she loved her the last time they met. Lauren has delayed speech and language. This is the second time she’s ever said that spontaneously.

These things happen.

I don’t see Mary as a woman with an illness. I see her as one of my best friends, who is in danger of losing her only family member and the person she loves most in the world. I am praying that her child will be returned to her. But if that cannot happen, I will do my best to remember and live by the story of Jesus’ passion and death.

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the story | 1 Comment »

I’ve always loved the Christian calendar, with its many fasts and festivals enriching the year and giving each new day a special meaning. In the Bible it says that ’for everything there is a season, and a time for every activity under heaven…a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…’ (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.) The calendar brings these verses to life.

Jesus celebrated the Jewish festival of Passover with his disciples a few hours before he was betrayed and handed over to be killed. The thirteen of them shared the joyful Passover supper, the seder, which commemorates the liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt, where they were once held as slaves. Jesus was getting ready to liberate the whole world, but before he did that, he knelt and washed his disciples’ feet.