BeachcomberFX

Category: Sunday@thePub

  • Luke 1:26-38 LISTENING – Unexpected Item in the Bagging Area

    Hi folks, we hope that you have a great Christmas… We aren’t meeting this Sunday night with it being Christmas Eve and people will want to do their own thing.
    Our next gathering will be on the 7th January… We hope you have a blessed time, and be sure to look after those you love and care for and keep them close. These are difficult days.

    I want to thank you for journeying with us in 2023. It is appreciated.
    Our closing blog for this year is again based on an advent theme, and i’m grateful to Norren who has written it.

    This week’s Bible passage tells of the momentous and life-changing event when an angel—with the name of Gabriel we’re told—visits a very young (16 year old?) girl called Mary. Mary’s path has been set. She is promised in marriage to a man called Joseph, who is a carpenter. So, two very ordinary people, but for whom the extra-ordinary is about to happen. The angel tells a ‘troubled’ (something of an understatement!) Mary that even though she was a virgin, she will have a sort of spiritual conception not involving a human and give birth to a son who will become a great man. He will be called the ‘Son of the Highest.’ The angel also tells Mary that her child will be the ‘Son of God.’

    I can’t begin to imagine what Mary must have felt at this news, let alone that it was delivered by an angel! Mary lived in a very traditional, very patriarchal society where arranged marriages between families were the norm. Women deemed to be adulterers could be stoned to death. Certainly Mary would be ostracised if she didn’t marry Joseph. There would definitely be scandal if the news got out, and the marriage between Mary and Joseph likely cancelled.

    And what do we make of the ‘Virgin birth?’ The gospel writer, generally accepted to be Luke, was a doctor who was also a companion of Paul, and travelled with him. Luke was also accredited with writing Acts which describes the beginnings of the early church. Importantly, Luke was writing about the events in his gospel not long after they happened, interviewing people who were actually there at the time. It is said that in order to write about the conception of Jesus in such detail, Luke must have interviewed Mary herself. Did Luke write about it because, as a doctor, he knew about human biology, though obviously in those times knowledge of that subject area was unsophisticated? Or did he write about it because he was privy to information given to him by those who were there, and he wanted;’ an exclusive.’ As a non-Jew and outsider he might also have been interested in conveying the story, as an independent witness.

    The ‘Virgin Birth’ is barely mentioned in other parts of the bible, though. According to the gospel writer John, the important issue was that the ‘Word became flesh.’ So, the Incarnation—Jesus taking human form and living on Earth rather than the Virgin Birth—is what is often debated by biblical scholars. The prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 that a young woman should conceive and bear a son called Immanuel (God With Us) chimes well with what is written in Luke, but also in John.
    So, I must admit to feeling rather daunted by all the ideas and theories contained in the bible passage from Luke. Was the Virgin Birth a miracle?’ Was it important? Or was the important thing that Jesus was both human and Godly?

    At times in my life some unexpected things have happened and I’ve wondered whether maybe God was at work in particular situations. Some years ago I remember feeling stressed at work (Ofsted inspection!) and wondering how I would cope. I took myself off for a bike ride and experienced what I can only describe as a sense of calm, that everything would be all right. And it was. Not great but all right. I’m rubbish at praying. You probably guessed, but maybe prayers don’t have to be articulated for them to be answered in some way. Most recently I experienced unexpected healing for a family situation after my dad died. It’s an ongoing situation, as most things in life are, But I feel that God is in there somewhere, and I need to listen.

    But what of unexpected events that are not benign? The current situation in Gaza is literally heartbreaking on both sides, and the Palestinian people seem to be taking part in some sort of real life Squid Game, trying to find somewhere safe to stay. As Christians, should we be speaking out? Do we have a right to?

    Shortly after an IRA bomb exploded in Inniskillen in 1987, killing his daughter Marie, Gordon Wilson spoke to the BBC. I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge’ he said. She’s in heaven and we shall meet again. I will pray for these men tonight and every night.’ This event was unexpected, but what followed was also unexpected in an amazing way. Through Gordon Wilson and others, the leaders of the various Northern Ireland factions began to listen and reassess, and tentative peace negotiations took place.

    When Bibaa Henry and her sister Nicole Smallman were murdered in a London park as they celebrated a birthday, their mother Mina (a Deacon in the Church of England) said, ‘There are priests who have lost children and walked away from faith. It’s not a testament to how strong your faith is, it’s about being able to hear beyond the evil of this world, about being able to dig deep when the bad times come’ Clearly she didn’t feel abandoned by God but I feel she had found the strength through Him to forgive.
    So, do unexpected, sometimes unwelcome events floor you or restore you (though perhaps not at the time)?

    Questions

    1.How do you feel about the Virgin Birth, miracle, mystery or something that troubles you?
    2.Has there been a time when you’ve felt God working in your life?
    3.How do you feel when you watch conflict situations on the news, or have you stopped watching the news?
    4.As we begin to celebrate this Advent season, how are you feeling?

    Photo by Larry George II on Unsplash

  • Thank you!!

    Thank you!!

    Hi folks, i hope you are doing ok! I just want to say a huge thank you for being with us over the last year. I realise as i write this, that some of you we don’t see often, but be assured that you are in our thoughts and prayers. For those who live further away, again we value you enormously.

    I want to thank particularly those who help in leading BFX, for those of you who journey with me exploring what we do each week and suggest ideas as a way to keep our community moving.
    For those of you who support by writing blogs and come along to mull over and grapple with the topics, we can’t do what we do without you.
    We have explored a number of topics and themes over the years and when i look back at the breadth of the topics, it is truly amazing!
    We are always looking for other themes/ideas as to how we explore issues, so if you have ideas, then please do shout and let me know.
    Something we are aware of is that we want to increase the opportunities we have to meet each other, so as well as doing our semi regular curry night, we are also going to dedicate one Sunday each month for just hanging out, without a theme, this again is to help us build relationships.
    Please remember the team that lead it with me are always up for a chat if you want to talk through anything or talk about how you interact with BFX. In case you don’t know who those folks are, its David, John Cooper, Karen, Naomi, Pauline, and Sue.

    Much love to you all and thanks for journeying with us.

    Photo from last nights amazing Beer and Carols.

  • Advent week 3: Pointing to the light (John 1:6-8, 19-28)

    Advent week 3: Pointing to the light (John 1:6-8, 19-28)

    Hi folks… I hope you are doing ok… This week we have Beer and Carols… It would be great to see you at Platform 2 on Tynemouth station if you are able to join us!

    We are though carrying on our advent themes, and this week, Caleb has written the blog although we wont be discussing it, you would be welcome to answers the questions on the Sunday@thepub discord channel or by commenting on the website.

    This week’s passage is about someone known to us as John the Baptist, described in this gospel as a “voice … in the wilderness”, “a man sent from God” to testify about Jesus. The gospels describe John as prophesying about a messiah to come, calling people to repent because God’s reign was coming, and baptizing (literally “dipping”) people in the Jordan river.

    One thing that immediately stood out to me in this passage was the location on the banks of the Jordan. The town where it happened is still called Al-Maghtas (“Baptism/Immersion”) or Bethany Beyond the Jordan, in the country of Jordan on the east bank of the river of the same name.

    There’s been a lot of attention recently to the illegal military occupation experienced on the other side of the Jordan, in the West Bank (part of Palestine). This whole area (both sides of the Jordan) has been subject to occupations by many empires throughout history, including the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Crusaders, Ottomans, and British. In the time of John the Baptist the area was under occupation from the Romans.

    In this context of occupation and colonisation, there were plenty of people around at that time claiming to be messiahs, preaching religious-political messages of divine revelation and national revolution against the Roman occupiers (this is one of many things the movie Life of Brian gets right historically).
    John would seem to fit naturally into this tradition of attempted messiahs. However, John in this passage makes the point that he’s not the messiah (or even a very a naughty boy). He’s not Elijah or a major prophet. He’s not “the light”—he’s there to testify to Jesus who’s the light.

    There were people who followed John as their spiritual-political-ethical leader, and actually to this day there’s still a religion, Mandaeism, that follows John as the last and greatest prophet. I probably shouldn’t speak about a religion of which I am profoundly ignorant, but at least from our Christian point of view, based on what John is quoted saying in these gospels, we’d say that they’ve missed the point in following John himself rather than the “light” to whom John pointed: Jesus and the Reign of God that we believe broke into history with Jesus.

    It is an interesting mission to not really do a thing yourself, but point to someone else who’ll do the thing. A lot of us (at least those who were raised by boomers) were taught that we could do anything we set our mind to, that we could be the best and the greatest and the big deal, the rockstar or sports star or political hero, the person to cure cancer or walk on Mars. Even in more everyday walks of life we still buy things like cups saying “world’s best Mum.”

    I always thought all that was pretty stupid, as not everyone can be the best. But it must have rubbed off on me anyway. I’ve tried a lot of things in my time from music to writing to activism to comedy to academia, but I’ve often had an annoying feeling of futility if I didn’t think I could become the world’s best at something… even though I know it’s stupid, I still feel it affect my motivation.

    Recently, though, I have started to make peace with the idea that maybe if I could just make a small positive difference to someone else who could make a small difference to someone else, etc. etc…. maybe that’s enough! As a parent, maybe the best thing I can do for the world is not to try to do something “great” but do the greatest job I can for my son (and any future siblings he might have). Maybe I should focus on things like: healing from the issues I’ve inherited, to try to avoid passing those issues on to Ishmael. Teach him the values and skills to help him be happy and be good in this world, and just generally give him the best start I can to help him best who he’s meant to be.
    In other areas of my life, my role is also more about setting things up for others… e.g. I teach people training for Christian ministry in theological ethics. I love the idea that my teaching can help them be better at their jobs. But then also from their perspective as ministers, they are really setting things up for others too… ministers serve a community, help meet their spiritual needs and then send them out into the world to love and serve.

    There are also broader ways that we prepare the way for others. We all leave a natural environment for future generations, and we leave them social, political, cultural environments too. Sometimes we only think about what we can get out of our lives for ourselves, and not about what mess we’re leaving behind. (This doesn’t necessarily even mean we’re selfish… sometimes we only have capacity to think about our own survival.) But when we’re at our best and healthiest, we also think about leaving the world just a little bit better than we’ve found it.

    Another way we set things up for others is the values and the politics that we live by. Some people focus a lot on whether their politics are ‘realistic’ and ‘achievable’ or criticise others for having more radical goals. For example, white US Christians often told the Civil Rights movement that they agreed with their aims but that they were unrealistic and shouldn’t expect radical change so quickly (this is one thing Martin Luther King responded to in his famous letter from jail in 1963). But the more we support radical values or ideas that aren’t going to ‘win’ any time soon, the easier it is for future generations to live those values when they don’t seem so radical anymore. Whenever political reform happens, it owes a lot to the radicals of previous years who were rejected and laughed at in their own time. So I think we should be encouraged when we support radical values like abolishing prisons or ending war or transforming to more sustainable economic systems. Maybe we will never see any major party in our lifetimes implementing those policies, but we’re pointing to the way that others may follow sooner or later.

    None of these things… radical politics, environmental impact, raising a family, or doing our jobs (depending on the job I suppose) is exactly the same as John’s role preparing for Jesus. But when we think about how we can “point to the light” in all these situations, maybe we can still learn a bit from John.

    Firstly, we can learn from John’s humility. It would have been easy for him to start a movement following him, in fact he already had disciples. But he didn’t make it about him. He didn’t lose his head (well, he did in one way… sorry). He pointed to Jesus as the one truly worthy of being followed and worshipped.

    Secondly, we can be encouraged that the meaning of our lives isn’t just in the immediate results. John never even lived to see most of Jesus’ ministry or his death and resurection or the spread of the Jesus movement, but John supported all of that.

    Thirdly, we can learn that life can still be exciting and you can still be a pretty wild individual even if your mission is not really about yourself but about something else. John “pointing to the light” didn’t stop him being an extreme dude living in the wilderness wearing camelskin and eating wild honey and locusts.
    Having said all of this, I want to end with one comment in a slightly different direction: We should also be careful of leaning too hard on the idea of serving some other bigger vision or some other person to the point that we neglect ourselves. Unfortunately there are countless people, especially women, in abusive relationships, who don’t feel that they can get safety and freedom for themselves because they have to stay and support their abusive partner or provide a “stable” home for their family. Unfortunately this is particularly a problem for Christians, partly because of misinterpretations of teachings about humility and putting others first. So: we might feel that our call is more to prepare the way for others, and that is a very good call to have, but our lives and our wellbeing matter too.

    Questions

    
I now realise that we are not doing the discussion this week as we’re doing beer and carols. But I’d already written the questions and Hilary said they were the best part of the blog. So I thought I’d leave them in, just in case anyone is interested.

    What are some really good supporting performances in movies/TV shows you have seen? Or some great backing vocals in music?

    How do you think John felt about his life mission? How do you think he felt when Jesus came for baptism?

    What messages have you received about being the ‘star’ or supporting others?

    What can be healthy or unhealthy about wanting to do something special?

    What can be healthy or unhealthy about the idea of supporting others to do the special things?

    How can we live to set things up the best we can for others while also flourishing in ourselves?

  • PREPARING FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY: CHANGING YOUR MIND

    PREPARING FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY: CHANGING YOUR MIND

    Hi folks, i hope you are doing ok! This week i want to remind you about two things… See the images for more details – I’m looking for you festive 30 songs of the year… and also next week we have Beer and Carols at Platform Two, i hope that you can join us!

    This week we will meet at The Quarry, meeting at 7.30. This weeks blog for advent week is entitled PREPARING FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY: CHANGING YOUR MIND. And it’s written by Pauline. See you on Sunday.

    We are here again, in this month of waiting and preparing and moving along towards this mega annual birthday celebration.
    Some people love all of it, some like the journey and the extraordinary story that is being retold. Some can’t be doing with the glitter and tinsel and mega bucks that are spent and made in the three months leading up to the event.
    May be some like me feel, ok, I would love to do it differently this year, to be in a different place, to do away with some of the stuff and to do something different, to see and hear something new, or something old but in a new way, something that God might be saying to me, and to other followers of Jesus, and to the whole world.
    The Christmases I have most appreciated and loved (as an adult) have been those spent in other countries where Christianity was the minority religion, perhaps because the main thing was the main thing! And we did it differently.
    On this second week in advent we have some verses in Isaiah 40: 1-11 and Mark1:1-8 to consider….

    Isaiah 40: 1-11

    Mark1:1-8

    The prophet brought a message from God to the exiled community of Israel, who were oppressed and captive in Babylon… a message that things were going to change. This was about 600 years(ish) before Jesus appeared. Isaiah’s message was one of hope to a people who after 60 or so years in captivity had maybe just accepted their situation as hopeless and freedom just a dream. Isaiah spoke gently but was also confrontational and challenging and he used images they would understand. Apparently great processional highways for the gods and rulers to triumphantly enter the city were a special feature of the city of Babylon… and as you may remember the Hebrew people had forty years experience of wandering in the wilderness and desert, their stories handed down through generations, so these were equally familiar images. Isaiah was telling them God is more powerful than any imperial power, and that there is a way out… something new is about to happen, something extraordinary, and it did.

    So… the story related by Mark in his book borrows this imagery to introduce Jesus and begins like this:

    “This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ,”

    something extraordinary is happening. The prophet Isaiah wrote about it ages ago saying,

    “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight, raise up the valleys, make the mountains low, the rough ground smooth, the rugged places plain’

    Change things! And John the Baptist appears in the wilderness saying, this is the time to step out of the ordinary, to turn around, to go in a new direction. You need to get rid of all the rubbish in your lives, get ready, keep your eyes and your heart open, its about a new start and the one who can make it happen for you isn’t me, he’s coming, in fact he’s here.

    John the Baptist was speaking to a people again living under the yoke of oppression, different time different place, different empire, but same oppression and he was reminding them of what had gone before. He was calling them to get ready for something new, to repent or if literally translated to turn around, turn from the old way, to expect change and transformation, to have hope. Get ready for Jesus, who is more powerful than John and more powerful than the Roman empire.
    So….. here we are…. reading about straightening highways and turning things upside down in deserts! Every day we are faced with our reality. People are oppressed, nations are at war, cities lie in ruins, the whole environment is at risk, it’s chaotic and a mess! Many people for a variety of reasons are leaving the faith they once had, whatever faith that might be and are in a sort of exile.

    We are celebrating the coming of Jesus who taught about a new way of being, a new kingdom of love, his life showed it in action, and his death and resurrection we believe make possible a turning from old stuff to this new way…. not just for individuals but for communities, nations, the environment and the world. It’s extraordinary stuff!

    Questions:

    What’s the nearest place you have been to a wilderness?

    Jesus challenged people to change their minds. Do you find change difficult or easy?

    Have you had any new encounters and experiences that have caused you to rethink? (Apparently our brains literally re wire themselves when we learn new things)

    What new opportunities to change, rethink and grow do you see in your life and situation?

    What for you is the ‘extraordinary’ that is worth a rethink?

    Do you think the images of a highway for God, and of transformation of the wilderness places helpful today or not?

    Do you have high hopes / firm beliefs that this new kingdom is here and still coming and will come, or do you feel a bit defeated or sceptical or something else?

    Peace.

  • Untitled post 1968

    Advent Week One – Letting Stuff Go – Mark 13:24-37

    Hi folks, as we enter advent I have asked some folks to write a blog for each week, based on a passage, and a theme that the Methodist Church have put together called ‘Out of the Ordinary’. This weeks blog is written for us by Ben, to see the reading that its based around click on the link.

    We will meet at 7.30 at the Enigma Tap on Sunday, i hope to see you there.

    —————

    So, I must admit when Rob asked me to write this blog I couldn’t for the life of me relate the passage with the title. One website I looked at for inspiration had the same verses written in 70 different versions of the bible. (No, I did not read all 70. Ones like the Orthodox Jewish Bible had a lot of Hebrew in it and funnily enough its not a language that I am fluent in!) As I read this passage in all the versions I could find, I struggled to relate letting go with what essentially to me is a passage about preparing and being ready. Verse 35-37 is literally saying to watch and be ready for when the master will eventually come home! Verse 37 says it literally: And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch! How do you relate letting something go when it’s to be telling you to be ready for the signs of the Coming of the Son of Man?!
    Those who know me know I love a tangent but bare with me there is a link!
    I am a serious over thinker, as a child it was described as an ‘active imagination’, as an adult its usually referred to a therapist. What if? Is my brains most used question and usually is not a good thing as it creates a rabbit hole that isn’t easy to get out of. This is also run into the religious aspect of my life as well. I started so well as I grew up, I gave my life to God and life was peachy as a Son in the church. But as I grew up life got in the way distractions and events made me even question the validity of religion.

    How does this link in with the blogs subject I hear you ask, and I have been asking myself the same question for the last few days as I tried to plan to write this.
    It finally clicked as I was having a shower just before I came to write out the blog. Inspiration can come from anywhere and for me the hit single from a popular Disney film about Ice cropped up in my head during my shower. (Might have been to do with the fact a tap was being run downstairs making the water feel Frozen!!) I had to look up the actual lyrics after the shower and if you haven’t done so I would recommend doing so and really dissect the. ‘Let It Go’ is sung by the character describing how she has always had to hide but eventually she has held it in for too long and now she is ready to let all the stuff that has been held on to go.
    The link, how ever tenuous it may seem, really helped me connect both the passage and the title as well as the time of year the passage is usually focused on. As a church we focus a lot on the symbolism of letting go of the old us and being reborn into the new us as a child of Christ and the biggest act we have of that is baptism. (Hence the realisation in the shower, water washing away. I have never claimed my brain was normal in its thinking!) For me it reminded me of first coming to Beachcomber FX. Having spent a few years not really fitting in or finding there was to much ‘Stuff’ in the way of me reconnecting with GOD, Beachcomber FX showed me that I can let go of a lot of the ‘stuff’ I had grown up on and assumed I needed to be a Christian.

    Advent is usually a time for us to let go of the stuff that has happened throughout the year and look towards the birth of Christ and into the new year. This doesn’t mean forget the stuff that’s happened, letting things go I don’t think should be about forgetting about it. Each thing we go through builds who we are, letting stuff go is letting go of the hold it has on letting you move forward.

    An analogy for this would be the humble tree. The easiest analogy for this is the rings in a tree trunk. The rings tell a lot about the tree’s life, and you can see the good and bad, but for each extra ring in that trunk it shows the tree has let that go of the stuff that happened in the last year and moved on to the next. Trees are a constant use for analogies and symbolism throughout the bible. This passage is known for the parable of the Fig Tree, but there are two other trees that I felt had more relatability to me for this passage. One for its symbolism and one for its physical growth.

    The Palm tree is known more for its role at Easter. For me it’s how it grows that gives a good analogy, as the palm tree grows it loses its lower leaves with the new ones growing out of the top and for each leaf lost it becomes part of the trunk. You can see the stuff it’s had before but its always looking forward to growing higher. It uses the ‘stuff’ it has let go to grow higher and stronger on its path.

    The second tree is more about its supposed symbolism in the bible. This is the Sycamore Tree. I have never realised that the sycamore tree is mentioned multiple times in the Bible as the main story I remember it from is to do with Zacchaeus. The commentary that accompanies this story sometimes is how Zacchaeus abandons his pride and climbs the tree to see Jesus as he walks past. The commentaries draw the symbolism of us needing to be in a place in our lives where we have a clear picture of God and his teachings. The ‘stuff’ being pride in Zacchaeus’s case. For us it could be anything that distracts us from looking forwards to the Coming of Christ.

    I will round up this blog with some final thoughts, but I hope that it has made some sense and hasn’t been a whirlwind stop tour of my brain making no sense whatsoever.
    It’s never easy shedding the stuff that makes up our lives and the trials, tribulations and wins that we go through in life, I know that all too well having been through enough therapy sessions and trying to find ways to numb or forget the hold my past has on me. T0o many things tell us we must forget the past stuff, that the past is the past and it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t think this passage is telling us to forget the stuff but more shed the hold it has on us. By letting it keep a hold on us it distracts us from our job of watching and waiting for Christ. The verse 36 states, ‘Lest he come suddenly and finds you sleeping’. Even not looking at it from a Christian POV all the stuff we each carry around can distract us from life and living it to our fullest.

    I don’t have any answers to letting stuff go, it would be very hypercritical of me to suggest anything as I am the worse at following said advice. But in the run up to Christmas I hope that each and everyone of you will find some way of letting stuff go and breathe easier.
    Like the palm tree what stuff can we shed that can be used to make us stronger and look higher and further.

    God Bless.

    Questions:

    What line from a song has stuck in your head this week?

    What is your favourite type of tree?

    When was the last time you ‘didn’t fit in’, what was it like?

    What other ‘biblical’ trees come to mind?

    What films does this bible passage/or the blog remind you of?

    What methods allows you to forget about the world around you? Music/physical activity/other?

    What other stories in the bible talk about letting go?

    Why do you think letting go is so hard?

    Image by Zorro4 from Pixabay

  • Jacob

    Jacob

    Hi folks, I hope you have had a good week, we have ditched what we were going to do this week, it’s been a long and tough week! We will be meeting at the Shiremoor House Farm on Sunday night at 7.30 if you are around. 
    

    This week I dived into the Lectio 365 app for the first time in a while and would you believe it, it was exploring one of my fav characters in the Old Testament, Jacob. You can find his story from Genesis 25 onwards. I’m sure you could do a great modern movie about his life! He was a twin, and the second born, so that meant he was behind his brother Esau, and so Jacob seemed to make it his life mission to get in front of his brother. Jacob was desperate for his fathers blessing to be passed to him and to become the most important. Sibling rivalry at another level!
    

    We see Jacob having a few encounters with God – Jacob’s ladder, and a surprise encounter, where God says he will bless him, but he is afraid, maybe because of all the stuff he has done in the past to get to the front of the queue before his brother, God though doesn’t look at that though, he is blessed anyway… go figure! 
    

    Then Jacob wrestles with a mysterious figure, supposedly God. His life is marked with struggle even though God promised to bless him, he has trust issues! And Jacob eventually ends up having a conversation with ‘God’ as he refuses to let go. God then gives Jacob a new name and changes the trajectory of his life. 
    

    If you are going to be with us on Sunday night, we will use some images to answer the questions below… If you aren’t able to be with us, why not scroll through some google images and have a go at picking out some  images that relate to the questions below.
    

    

    Questions.

    Which of these images aligns with your favourite bible character?
    


    Pick an image that best describes your week, and tell us about it. 
    


    Of all the images, which best reflects your view of being top of the class? 
    


    Which image talks about your past (good and bad) the best?
    


    Which of these images talks to you most about struggling?
    


    Grab an image that reflects how you feel about trust? 
    


    If you were to think about the best aspects of who you are, or what you hope to be, which image best reflects that? 
    


    Peace, Rob 

    Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

  • Everybody Hurts… sometimes

    Everybody Hurts… sometimes

    Hi folks, hope you are doing ok? This week we will be meeting at Platform 2 in Tynemouth, I hope that you can make it. 

    This week’s blog comes from my experiences of this last week and my reading around it. I came across a quote from Ordinary Human Failings by novelist Megan Nolan, before we get to the quote, it opens up issues around suffering and the way we deal with it, or not! Basically a woman walks past her sisters room and witness uncontrollable crying:

    She… ‘was appalled to feel a surge of visceral, repulsed alarm at the sight … She suspected that [her sister] was in far worse pain than had ever been known, suffering in the recesses of a privacy so total it was almost evil. She had never fully lost this terror of the private suffering of other people, nor the shame of wanting not to see it’.

    That last sentence creeps up on you and I read it again and again as it permeated my being. I mentioned last week that Karen’s dad has been struggling, well, as I wrote this he has spent the last few days in hospital, things look like they are going in the right direction for him, and we hope he will be home soon. 

    On top of this, I have spent a bit of time with people who are going through some tough mental health and physical health issues,  bereavement and a number of other things. It’s been a hard week! When I first came to the North East my role was predominantly pastoral care, I spent lots of my time meeting with people who were finding life hard work. Even before coming to the North East I spent a few years as a care assistant… Again witnessing people coming towards the end of their lives and watching their families try to deal with it was an immense privilege, but it was also really hard work! 

    I know there have been times for me when I wanted to look away from the suffering of others, particularly those I love! There is a sense of hopelessness particularly like Nolan suggests when you are exposed to the surprising rawness of it when you weren’t expecting it. I wonder if in that moment it exposes our own fragility as humans.

    I know that for me one of the key things that I had to face in the days I was doing pastoral work is that i became overloaded by the pain and watching others suffer, some of us are worried in that way, and for others of us it just washes over us, or I suspect most folks are somewhere in the middle. I think I can cope with stuff better these days but I’m not dealing with it all the time. 

    I wonder where you sit in relation to your ability to be present in the sufferings of others. Or are you happy to leave the weightlifting of suffering to others? Maybe that’s because you see the toll it can take on those that do get involved and think I can’t ask the questions that the civil rights activist Ruby Sales argues drives to the heart of the matter: where does it hurt?

    That question is a deep one, because it realises that hurt is being experienced by someone and then it allows the recipient the opportunity to make it known to another if they want to. In that moment you are sitting alongside another. 

    In our faith tradition we are asked to love one another… I wonder what that means for you, for us? 

    

    Some questions.
    

    The heading of this blog is ‘Everybody Hurts’… what’s your favourite song, artwork that explores this theme?

    

    What movies, books, TV programs explore elements of today’s blog? 

    

    What bible stories does this remind you of?

    

    How does empathy in the sufferings of others relate to the divine/God? 

    

    In what ways could you/we be more empathetic to the sufferings of others? 

    Peace, Rob

    Image by Gisela Merkuur from Pixabay

  • What are we holding on to? What are we fighting for?

    What are we holding on to? What are we fighting for?

    Hi folks, I trust you are doing ok and that you have had a good week whatever you have been doing. This week we are meeting at the Quarry Pub at 7.30. I hope that you can join us. 

    It has been a strange old week, adjusting to darker nights has really affected me. I think generally the grimmer the weather the worse I seem to feel! The complexity of balancing my two jobs has been difficult this week, mainly because of the competing demands of my roles. I’m sure there are many of us who are facing these and other issues around life and work. Another huge part of this week has been seeing Karen’s dad (and mum) struggle massively with the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease as he gears up for an operation that will hopefully help him. It’s really tough to watch! 

    The other reason it’s been a strange week is that I have been trying to process an event I attended on Monday night, it was an event I was involved with, but wasn’t leading. The focus of the event was around healing and helping folks to move on to new and creative things. It was an absolute JOY to be part of the evening!

    Alongside this, I have had a few beautiful conversations with a range of folks from across my roles, there was a mix of joy, pain, laughter and tears… all really wholesome! And to top it off Karen and I went to a gig that was just sublime! The support act of accordion, drums, keyboard and synthesiser was just brilliant and the headliner split her set into two halves with the first part singing songs that we sing at Mariners and Marras, but with an electro folk twist. The second part she played her EP and one of the songs called out some of the complexity and yes, abuse that some traditional folk songs sometimes seem to celebrate. It was a top evening! 

    Also this week, we dusted off our DVD player which we haven’t used in I don’t know how long! We watched the first two Lord of the Rings movies. My favourite is the second movie, The Two Towers. There is a scene towards the end that spoke to me and I want to share some of that with you, and then some thoughts based on some of the events and things I have been thinking and reflecting on.

    I want to quote some words that Sam and Frodo say to each other towards the end of the movie:

    Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy?

    Sam: How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out clearer.

    Sam: Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. 

    Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam? 

    Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for. 

    So where am I going with all this? Well, I want to talk about what we are holding on to, and what are we fighting for? 

    First of all, what are we holding on to? I wonder what you (we) are holding on to? For me, as a follower of Jesus, as a believer in something ‘out there’, God if you like or the Divine, whatever name you are comfortable with, that is what I hold on to. Because of that I hold on to hope and love that I see littered around the bible and through the acts of individuals and groups both followers of Jesus and folks who say they don’t believe in anything at all, I sometimes want to ask folks who have no faith what they hold on to?

    In faith circles I witnessed it on visible display on Monday night, as people recognised their own brokenness, but also as they reached out to the Divine for help, to let love and forgiveness meet them in their pain. Yes, of course there is still work to be done, but healing has begun. I was in some ways out of my comfort zone in that spiritual cauldron, and yet it felt right, good, wholesome, authentic and it moved me to wonder at my ability to reach within myself to find the divine within me, and realise that I need to find other ways to connect myself with that inner work of the divine. 

    Another aspect I hold onto is through the community of BFX. When we meet together, those are moments of connection, moments of joy that resource me and I hope you t oo? Our community tries to ask big questions? We try to see how we can make connections between all that is around us and within us with something of the life and love of Jesus and the Divine. 

    Secondly I want to ponder on Sam’s reply to Frodo’s question… That good in the world is worth fighting for! Now I to want to hold on to the hopeful reality that there is an awful lot of good in the world, we see it in many and varied ways if we look hard enough, even in the midst of the storms we see across the world right now, people are going the extra mile for people and situations, small simple acts of love and kindness happen! And they happen all the time, to quote our liturgy.  

    Another part of my response to my faith is to hold on to Jesus’s words about loving God, and loving our neighbour as we would love ourselves… I also hold on to words from Micah… What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

    I believe our BFX community is one way in which we can make a difference to the world, helping those who struggle with faith and church to connect and find a sense of belonging and maybe help each other explore new ways to understand faith and to help us be better in the world. 

    We write these blogs each week, to help us understand situations and issues in the world in the hope that we can make a difference by talking about these things differently with people we meet with day to day. It may also be that something strikes a chord within us and we decide to get involved supporting a charity, organisation, or giving our time to something to make a difference. I’m thankful for the many ways each of us tries to do that and maybe we need to talk about those things more. 

    I hope we can talk about how we love each other, even if we find each other to be annoying at times, because that’s community! We can only grow together and understand what each of us is going through if we talk and share some of our story, and sometime we get to do that as we discuss the blogs each week, but we can also do that in other ways as well, we try to provide other ways for us to connect and our hope is that you can support some of that when we do these things. 

    Some of those things I mentioned at the start connect into this in small ways, I want to deepen my connection with the divine, and I would love to know what you hold on too, what resources you? I want to share some of the struggles of life with you, and I would love for you to do that with me, or with others. The gig Karen and I attended called out things that are sometimes obvious and yet get missed, what are the issues that concern us? What can we do as individuals and as a community to call some of these things out.

    This blog is already long, so I will stop there! 
    

    Some questions
    

    What kind of week have you had?

    What was your highlight?

    Where did you struggle? 
    


    Where do you get your resources from? 

    How does BFX help or not with that?
    


    What issues are you fighting for? 

    Peace, Rob

  • Call not for peace in the Holy Land, call for justice so that peace may root itself deeply and flourish.

    Call not for peace in the Holy Land, call for justice so that peace may root itself deeply and flourish.

    Hi All, This week we will be meeting in the Enigma Tap at 7:30pm – looking forward to seeing those of you who can join us there.  This weeks blog is a guest blog from David Hardman. The following is a little introduction to who he is and what he does.

    The Methodist Liaison Office & Revd David Hardman

    The Methodist Liaison Office in Jerusalem is a partnership of the World Methodist Council, the Methodist Church in Great Britain and the United Methodist Church. Its purpose is to increase international awareness and involvement of the Methodist community in the issues affecting Israel and Palestine.

    The office is located in St. George’s College, East Jerusalem. Its role is to be a presence on behalf of World Methodism in the Holy Land. This involves working ecumenically with churches, community organizations, and individuals across the West Bank and partnering with any individuals or organisations who work for Human Rights in the Region. Welcoming Methodist pilgrimage groups from around the world and encouraging them to engage, not only with the historical stones of religious sites, but with the living stones of Christian and other faith communities. Supporting and enabling visitors to volunteer at local projects as part of encounter and mission opportunities and facilitating advocacy especially by amplifying voices about everyday life under occupation in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

    I am a British Methodist Minister ordained in 1994. I have served churches and circuits in the city centre, inner-city and suburbs of Manchester and London. I have also worked for Christian Aid as Senior Regional Coordinator in the North West of England and most recently as Methodist Team Leader of the Joint Public Issues Team. Justice and Peace have been at the heart of my ministry, I am an accredited mediator with Place for Hope and a committed activist.

    Call not for peace in the Holy Land, call for justice so that peace may root itself deeply and flourish.

    An old family friend emailed me last week and finished her email with the words ‘is it shalom you have tattooed on your arm? May you know that peace’. The truth is that I have מִשְׁפָּט֙ עֲשׂ֤וֹת tattooed on my left arm, Hebrew for ‘to do justice’. The prophet Micah is very clear that what God requires of us is (מִשְׁפָּט֙ עֲשׂ֤וֹת ) to do justice (Micah 6:8).

    The heinous Hamas attack on Oct 7th shocked Israel as it shocked the world, but I maintain only because for far too long we have turned a blind eye to the oppressive policy of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza. Violence has been increasing in the West Bank over the last couple of years including a big increase in settler violence1. Israel has its most hard-line government in power who have placed settlement expansion in the West Bank as a top priority2&3.

    It is a simple fact that oppression will foster resistance, and for a great number of Palestinians their resistance is non-violent4. However, brutality can all too easily breed brutal resistance, as we saw on Oct 7th. As a result of that attack we have also seen a disproportionate response from Israel which has killed thousands of civilians and destroyed a large percentage of property in Gaza5. So, call and pray for a ceasefire but don’t be fooled that this will bring peace. It will bring an end to immediate hostilities and a chance for proper humanitarian aid to reach millions of people in Gaza but peace is not simply the absence of war. What peace do people experience under occupation and what peace do people know living in constant fear of attack?

    Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but physically blockaded the area with a security barrier, a very limited number of permits issued to allow Palestinians to leave and even restrictions on how far out to sea Palestinian boats can sail. A friend of mine who lives in Beit Sahour has family in Gaza, family she has not seen since 2005 because Israel has not approved permits either for her to visit or for her family to visit her6. Even before this last escalation of violence, 95% of Gazans did not have access to clean water, access to electricity was regularly only between 4 and 8 hours a day and about half the adult population were unemployed. 

    For Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank there is much better access to fuel and water but there are still restrictions on travel imposed by a network of checkpoints, and the need for permits for many Palestinians to travel. The Wall snakes across the West Bank cutting off Palestinians from each other and their land. Bypass roads built by Israel for Israeli’s further bisect the land. Illegal Settlements are continuing to be built effectively forcing Palestinians into small pockets of towns and cities. The United Nations, Amnesty International and B’Tsalem7 among others, including a former head of Mossad (Israel’s Intelligence Agency)8, have called the situation in the West Bank Apartheid. 

    In the summer I had a holiday which included a couple of days in Budapest. Wandering around the city I happened upon the Ghetto Memorial Wall9. Included in the memorial is a map that has small round openings, reminiscent of bullet holes across its surface, looking through these will allow viewers to see historical scenes from the neighbourhood, scenes of Jewish life.  At the end of the memorial you are asked to spend a moment before you move on to remember the victims of the ghettos and the holocaust. As I stood in silence and remembered the evil done to Jewish people, I could not help thinking that one day there will be memorials, not dissimilar to this, across the Holy Land. Memorials for Palestinians driven from their land and forced into the ghettos of Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, Jericho, Nabulus, Ramallah… As I remembered the past and reflected on the present I asked myself when will the world learn (מִשְׁפָּט֙ עֲשׂ֤וֹת ) to do justice?

    Yet, even in the depth of grief, the call for justice can be heard. In a eulogy for her brother Hayim, an anti-occupation activist who was murdered in Kibbutz Holit on Oct 7th, Noi Katsman called on her country “not to use our deaths and our pain to cause the death and pain of other people or other families. I demand that we stop the circle of pain, and understand that the only way [forward] is freedom and equal rights. Peace, brotherhood, and security for all human beings.”10

    This is why I say call not for peace in the Holy Land, call for justice so that peace may root itself deeply and flourish. Until there is justice for Palestinians there can be no lasting peace for them, just as there can be no lasting peace for Israeli’s when there is a constant threat of violence.

    On my right arm I have tattooed الله محبة which is Arabic for God is love. Shortly after returning from the West Bank I was in a restaurant in Manchester and the guy at the next table noticed my tattoo and asked what it said – he starting talking about the situation in Gaza and then he noticed my left arm and asked what the Hebrew said. He then asked for a hug – to be embraced by justice and love, by Palestinian and Israeli – to be embraced in hope… 

    More information on the key moments of the Israel Palestine conflict can be found here.

    Questions

    1. Do you have a tattoo? if so what and where? – If you don’t have one, would you? where would you have it and what would it be? (This isn’t Davids question but we thought we would throw and extra one in to warm you up).
    2. Is justice more important than peace?
    3. There are Palestinians Christians (less than 2% of the Palestinian population) and our sisters and brothers in organisations like Kairos Palestine (Home (kairospalestine.ps)) describe the Israeli occupation of the West Bank a sin and call on us to boycott and divest from Israeli firms. Is the occupation a sin? Should we as British Christians be involved in political boycotts?
    4. When Jesus said that ‘the Spirit of the Lord was upon him to… set the oppressed free’ (Luke 4:18), how might those oppressed by today’s occupation take hope from his words? 

    Notes:

    1. Palestinians under attack as Israeli settler violence surges in the West Bank – BBC News
    2. Israel PM-elect Netanyahu’s deal plans to bolster settlements – BBC News 
    3. Since 1967 the West Bank has been occupied and is divided into – Areas A, B and C 
    • Today, Area A constitutes 18 percent of the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority (PA) controls most affairs in this area, including internal security.
    • In Area B, which comprises about 21 percent of the West Bank, the PA controls education, health and the economy.
    • In both areas, Israeli authorities have full external security control.
    • This means that the Israeli military retains the right to enter these areas at any time, typically to raid homes or detain individuals under the pretext of security.
    • About 2.8 million Palestinians live crowded into Areas A and B whose major Palestinian cities and towns are Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Nablus.
    • Area C is the largest section of the West Bank, comprising about 60 percent of the Palestinian territory.
    • It is also the site of the vast majority of the more than 200 illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where more than 400,000 settlers live.
    • Although control of part of this area was meant to be transferred to the PA in 1999 as per the Oslo Accords, the handover did not materialise, leaving security, planning and construction matters in the hands of Israel.
    1. About Sabeel-Kairos | Sabeel-Kairos 
    2. Updates | United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – occupied Palestinian territory (ochaopt.org) 
    3. Four members of her family were killed as they sought sanctuary at St. Porphyrios Church in Gaza on Thursday 19th October. Israel said that they targeted a Hamas building, the church was next to the strike and it caused walls of the church compound to collapse. St. Porphyrios Church was their church, they were living there because their homes had been destroyed by previous Israeli Airstrikes, they worked for Christian organisations working with young people in Gaza. I stood in St. Porphyrios Church a year ago when I visited Gaza.
    4. B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (btselem.org) 
    5. A former Mossad chief says Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank – ABC News (go.com)
    6. Ghetto Wall Memorial – Budapest, Hungary – Atlas Obscura
    7. RGB Media – Responsive Email Template (972mag.com)

    Photo by Polina Kovaleva:

  • A question of death… (kind of)!

    A question of death… (kind of)!

    Hi folks I trust you are all doing ok, well i’m finally surfacing after a wonderful and weird few weeks! Back from an incredible holiday in Rhodes, we were very refreshed and ready to celebrate 25 years of married life, we had two fantastic parties with people we love and care for massively. We then both came down with Covid, alongside a few others from our party, including my mum, which we were worried about, but she is made of strong stuff that one! It feels like a long time ago since I spent time writing a blog. So here we go. 

    This week we will be meeting at Platform 2 in Tynemouth and it would be great to see you if you are able to come along. 

    Before we get into this, just to say that today’s blog comes with a trigger warning. 

    Just before we went away on holiday we found out about the news that my former minister, friend and colleague, Rev Leo Osborn, and also one of our former members of BFX, Jamie had died. Both deaths were a shock and unexpected. And as I write, we have just heard that one of the folks that came along to Mariners and Marras has died, Des was a great shanti singer and involved in many projects up in Blyth with the tall ship up there. 

    So this week I want to think about death, well kind of! 

    A few weeks back an article on Facebook caught my eye, it started out with this phrase…

    Have you ever thought about this? In 100 years like in 2123 we will all be buried with our relatives and friends.

    The basic premise of the article was that all the things we hold on to now, our houses, possessions will either be in landfill or owned by some else.

    We may have a distant relative in the future that will build a family tree and we will find a photo of ourselves stuck in a book or uploaded to a computer somewhere. Or may find ourselves on a wall or a mantel piece of a relative that actually knows nothing of the lives we lead. 

    As I write, I’m wondering about the house we live in, built in the late 20’s early 30’s and I’m wondering about the lives of those who walked around it, I wonder what they were called? And the kind of lives they led. 

    In some ways it sounds all depressing, but it’s also fascinating! 

    I think back to some of the significant people in my life, who are no longer with us, I think about one of Karen’s best friends, Natasha, who was a bridesmaid for us, I think about Colin, the life and soul of any party! I think about Mike at the fisherman Mission, a man of strong faithfulness to God. And I think about my dad. Some of these are now part of my online calendar so I don’t forget when they died, so at least once a year I get a reminder that they were loved and were part of my life, I find it comforting as I remember them, and of course there is sadness, but that’s ok.  

    And now I have Leo, Jamie and Des to add to this list… Who is on your list? 

    But my main point is to ponder and to get us wondering about the investment we make in ‘things’, when so much, if not all, has no longevity to it. 

    In thinking about all this I came across these short verses from Ecclesiastes. 

    Ecclesiastes 12:6-7 The Message

    Life, lovely while it lasts, is soon over.
Life as we know it, precious and beautiful, ends.
The body is put back in the same ground it came from.
The spirit returns to God, who first breathed it.

    

    

    Some questions
    

    If this isn’t too hard, can you tell us about someone who has died who meant a lot to you? 
    How do you feel about death? 

    

    What would happen if we paused for a moment and pondered on the reality that much of our story will be forgotten? 

    

    How could this change the way we live now?

    In what ways could it affect what we hold on to and what we perceive as being important? 

    

    How can we help each other to treat every moment as precious and special? 

    

    How does your spirituality help you to deal with death? 

    Peace, Rob

    Image by Ken Haines from Pixabay