Jacob Wrestles 2: The One Who Struggles

Uncle Laban seems a decent enough guy, and even gives his nephew a job as a herdsman.  Jacob settles in to watch the flocks... and also to watch Rachel, Laban's younger daughter.  Older sister Leah might not be much of a looker but Jacob thinks that Rachel is the cat's pajamas and offers Laban seven years of labour to pay the dowry he doesn't have and make Rachel his wife.

Seven years is a long time.

TLDR: Jacob Wrestles

Night has fallen in the wilderness.  Beneath dim moonlight there's not much to be seen, and only the soft rushing babble of water somewhere down the bank.  A man sits by the river, his mind like the landscape, full of darkness and the inexorable coming of tomorrow.

Now he stands; a figure is approaching.  He's hard to make out, a shadow among shadows.  Is he a tall man?  Does he come as a friend?  Are there more following him?  
Perhaps these questions are asked, but they go unanswered as the two men fall, somehow, to grappling with each other.  Hooking limbs with feet and clinching necks with stubborn arms.  They wrestle to throw, to try and take the other to the ground and overpower him.  The river's rush is forgotten amidst grunts and panting and the sounds of grasping hands and flesh on hair.

Hours pass   This was not what the waiting man had intended, to spent the entire night contesting with a stranger (Is he a stranger?  He's no longer sure.  Can you be so close to someone for so long without beginning to know them?) when he has so much occupying his mind.  

He does not want to DO this now.  He could surrender.  He could stop the fight, and try to deal or negotiate.  But something in him knows it's pointless.  They aren't even speaking.  There are no tricks left that he can play, nowhere left to run.  He plants his feet, pushes back, and despite the ache in his bones, and the hollows under his eyes, he stays.  He endures.  He does what is before him.  He wrestles.

Stories from Summer

It's been a long summer this year, or at least it's felt long to me.  Lots has happened, good, bad, and somewhere in between, in a lot of different areas of life.  A strange season, and a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but that's life for you.  Things can't be peaceful all the time or we'd be bored and never grow at all.
In some ways it's been a struggle, but as always there's been time to regroup too.  To take time out, to spend time with the people I care about, and to be contemplative, which is something I'm finding more and more essential...

... and to watch seals.

Seals!!!

TLDR: ‘Sodom & Gomorrah’, or ‘How the Heck did That Get In My Bible?’

Ah, Sodom and Gomorrah.  The tale that launched a thousand picket lines, almost all of them in the southern states of the USA.  Yes this is THAT Sodom and Gomorrah – the one from which we get the word ‘sodomy’.   As in "What he was doing to that poor sheep was a bit Sodom-y, don't you think?"

I can feel you all bracing yourselves already.  Don’t worry, it’s gonna be fine.

(Also, for the 'Mean Girls' fans out there, you have no idea how much I wanted to entitle this "Sodom and Gomorrah: too gay to function?")

Schrodinger's Churchgoer (or 'Why You Haven't Seen Me Around Lately')

I'm not going to church at the moment.  Except I am.  But I'm also not.

What I mean is, I'm not going to the main gatherings on Sunday.  Skating is an hour away, I train for three hours every Sunday between 12.30 and 3.30pm, and although I could just rock up to Late Church in my sweaty skate gear for 4.30 I suspect nobody wants that.  I don't want that!  This is not me quitting church, this is not me becoming an apostate or drifting in my faith, and this is not me breaking up with my community.  They are still my People.

I had to make a decision, service or skating, and if I'm honest in the end it wasn't that hard to make, for the reasons below.  What I'm doing now is a bit of an experiment, it's not a permanent arrangement, and I'm certainly not recommending it for everyone, but this whole thing has made me think a lot about what Sunday gatherings provide us with, and what we think church actually is.  There are things I miss and want to keep, and things I don't mind letting go.

TL:DR - Barnett vs Fry

I have a lot of time for Stephen Fry.  I find him clever, witty, kind-hearted and often very funny.  And it just so happens that this week something he said has gone viral on the internet.  Everyone's already talking about it so I'll just let you watch it...

It's a good question, voiced angrily and with passion by a man in the public eye known for his intellect and quiet polite demeanour, all of which give it extra impact.  This is the kind of thing that any faith has to be robust enough to weather, or else be discarded.  People have already been responding, and the responses have fallen into two categories.  There's Giles Fraser's 'I Don't Believe In The God Fry Doesn't Believe In Either', which hears Fry saying he can't believe in a God who is such evil maniac to allow the suffering he does and replies "Well it's a good job he isn't like that. God is actually very loving." but for me that is too vague and doesn't really answer the question.  If Fry is mistaken in his idea of God as a "capricious...evil...maniac" and Fraser's loving, good God is the reality then why, as Fry puts it, do there exist small parasitic insects that burrow into your eyes and eat them from the inside out?  We're back to square one.  (Incidentally I also don't think God is capricious because if I was a capricious God and someone told me I was unacceptable and evil, they wouldn't have long left to say anything else!  And I wouldn't use a burrowing eye-worm to do it either.  True psychopaths don't murder by proxy.)

The other response doing the rounds is Pete Greig's 'Amen to Fry's Atheism', which actually attempts a little theology and some helpful anecdotes, but for me is still too vague.  It talks about God actually sharing our suffering with us, but this can come across as very disingenuous, like when you tell a friend about something awful happening to you and they sympathetically reply "Oh yeah, I feel your pain."  They don't.  They mean well but they just don't.

Before going any further, I would recommend Krish Kandiah's response, which to me best addresses the question that's actually being asked.  And in a lot fewer words than I'm about to use...

Wintersong

I try to keep it light on this blog, but this time, no.

It has been a dark advent.

This may be a tl:dr for anyone reading this, so don't worry about it. This is just for me:

Sunset over the fields near Barrow

Why the Bible is awesome

I've had more speed-doodling challenges (so much fun to do but with technically abysmal results so I don't know why I'm sharing them with you! ;D ) which is where someone reads a story aloud and I have about 5 seconds to draw it as it happens, standing sideways, on an A-frame.  It's not easy, but it has proven one thing: the Bible is awesome fun!  Just one chapter, in this case Acts ch12, covers all your major TV soap genres...

Murder...

June Update: Arts, Parks and High Hills

As usual I've been bombing it round like a mad thing, mainly trying to get my drawing deadlines done before I move house this Friday.  I like to be occupied which is good as this June there are boxes to be packed and cleaning to be done, and life going on in the meantime.  Things to do, people to see, opportunities not to be missed.  I just want to take a post to stop and get my ducks in a row.

End of Year Show

So, another academic year is over, and I may be a two-year graduate but in a town like Loughborough and with so many student friends thanks to church it's hard not to notice.  I almost feel sorry for next year's students - they've missed out on some great people.

The main milestone here is of course for the students, but one of the ways the town gets involved is through the annual Art and Design show, where each graduating class must orchestrate a display of their best work.  They're great for the upcoming students, the leavers and their friends and family, and potential employers and stakeholders in the university to get an overview of the kind of work the course produces.  My particular interest is for Visual Communication (Illustration, my old course, and Graphic Design), Printed and Woven Textiles, and Fine Art so my friend and I did the rounds.  All art students are encouraged to leave business cards so if I see something I particularly like and there are some lying around I'll scoop one up.

Zoe Marshall - www.zoemarshall.co.uk    Emily Creative - www.emilycreative.tumblr.com    Anya Raczka - www.anyaraczka.com    Sarah Lynn - www.sarahelizabethlynn.tumblr.com    Josephine Munsey    Sophie Hargrave - www.hargrave.blogspot.com    Heather Lee Durrant    Tamara Webster - www.tamarawebster.co.uk    Anniestration - www.annabrown.moonfruit.com    Abigail M. Cooper    Jessica Griffith - http://www.jessicagriffith.co.uk/

Little April Shower

So half of England has officially been declared in drought, and as if the sky somehow heard we've had rain every day for the past week.  It won't be enough to fix everything all in one go, but it's a good start.  

I actually really enjoy rain (moreso when I'm heading home or when I've planned for it than not) and watching it out the window is always a joy.  For some reason this last week it's made me want to draw, and I've certainly had the inspiration!

Michelle kind-of-doesn't-exactly-do-Lent. Again.

This was my dinner today (fork included for scale), and has been my dinner for the past 7 days.

What was I doing?
In a nutshell, the Tearfund Rice and Beans Challenge.  I was Fasting, but rather than cut food out altogether as I have done before, instead I limited my diet to the kind of menu that nearly a billion people in some of the world's poorest countries have to get on with - rice and beans, and not a lot of either.  The  money I didn't spend on food that week is being donated to the Quicken Trust.  My menu for the week was as follows:
Breakfast - 25g porridge oats
Lunch and Dinner - 35g rice and 30g beans, and a tablespoon of veg for the day (I used onion or tomato to flavour my meals.  It works out at about an eighth of either per meal)
Drink - Tap water

Why was I doing it?
Although it is still Lent, this isn't exactly Lent-related (I don't like arbitrarily giving something up just because you're supposed to.  I'd rather use the time to respond to an issue that's on my heart at the time.  See Last Years Lent where I decided to experiment with Fairtrade shopping, buying things instead of abstaining from them!).  In less than a week I'll be heading out to spend 9 days in Kabubbu, a village in Uganda, as a volunteer with the Quicken Trust.  This charity has been working with the villagers to help make Kabubbu self-sufficient and self-perpetuating, so that the people there can provide for themselves in every stage of life.  As you can imagine I'm both excited and nervous about this trip, what I might encounter there, the people I'll meet, and what it will mean for the way I live my life when I get home.  I think as a Christian it will be especially challenging because issues like God, suffering and man's place on earth are all thrown into the mix.  Also, living away from home, I'd been a bit left out of the loop in terms of organising the trip, so I was feeling unprepared about that too.  I felt the need to present all these issues to God somehow, to get his perspective on it all, let him start preparing my heart for this trip, and to start grappling with these issues now, as well as just packing my bags.  Rather than pray in words I decided the best response would be to do something practical as a prayer, so I used the Rice and Beans Challenge as a guide and extended it to the whole week.


What were the results?
This month has been a real grower for me.  I've been taking lessons on the economy, reading about gender issues and sustainable living in my own time, and through this fast I've been empathising with people across the world and learning about corporate and global injustice, so all these things are combining and interlocking in my brain at the moment, but I can identify a few general ideas that stuck out from them all.

• I fasted once before (a total fast, no food, only drink), God used that to teach me how he is the most essential component to life, even more so than food, and how we need him continuously, not just once.  This time round I sort of levelled up and learned how God also designed us to have lives that are full and display how good he is.  A big part of this is variety and how it displays God's creativity and goodness - turns out variety actually is the spice of life!  There's a difference between existing and living.
• Became very aware of how of just much we consume as a nation, how we expect food, money and other resources to just be there for us if we want them, even when we don't need them.  Our culture has told us that we should be able to have anything and everything we want; but in reality this is not possible, or sometimes it brings terrible consequences when we do.  We hurt other people, both directly and indirectly, in order to benefit ourselves.
• I think there needs to be a point somewhere between the two where we get to experience life's diversity but do it in a way which doesn't damage other people, or the world as a whole.  Where we are grateful for what we have but don't get greedy for more.  This is going to take a massive shift in culture and attitude.
• Accidentally (!) lost a few pounds in weight, which sounds great until you realise that the people who have to live on this diet permanently will continue to lose weight indefinitely until they begin to starve.  I've only been doing this for a week but some people have been living this way their entire lives.  Food (or... lack of food) for thought.

I kept a diary of each day, included below the read more if you want a bit more of an insight as to what the experience was like and just what was going through my head.  As is usual with my diary-write ups I've improved some sentences, but not left anything out.

Existential Crisis

Last Saturday I went up to Bradgate Park with my friend Katie.  I was having a very busy day, dashing about trying to get through as much of my to-do list as possible, and was even late picking her up.  It was just one of those weeks where there's too much to get done, not enough time to do it, and when your goal is something that takes a little time (in my case, trousers that fit) the result is usually frustration and stress at your own ineptitude.  Despite this Katie and I hadn't seen each other for a while and I'd forgotten just how well we get on.  Within minutes we were cackling away at pretty much everything, including our inability to actually find the park!  We got there in the end though, sneaking in through the back gate

Suddenly I felt completely calm.

Croeso i Cymru!

A new adventure this weekend - I've been to Wales!  I have proof...

Once a year my church, Open Heaven, has a Weekend Away at the Quinta centre in Shropshire, right on the Welsh border.  It's a chance for us to get away, spend time together to grow as a community, and put aside a bit more space for God in what can be very busy lives.

I really needed this weekend actually.  I've been a bit out of sorts, particularly over the past week as I try to reconcile my work-life balance.  It's a Catch 22 that at the moment my job holds very little interest for me, but takes up the time I need to practise in order to get to a professional level at what I'd rather be doing.  I have to do the one because I won't yet succeed at the other, but doing the one prevents me from succeeding.  It's all very frustrating, and I've been feeling like I'm having to fight for even the smallest amount of time, exhausting myself by dashing around outside of work trying to keep my life interesting.  Vacating the rest of my life was exactly what I needed.  It forced me to stop, to take the time to think it all over, get God's opinion on a couple of things, and be encouraged that I will have to fight for the things I want but it's worth doing because essentially I'm fighting for the things that make me Me.

Vision: Ely Cathedral

I want to tell you a story.

It begins with a woman named Ethelthryth (Etheldreda), who lived nearly fifteen hundred years ago in East Anglia.  As the daughter of the region's king (England was still four separate kingdoms back then) she was given unwillingly to a lesser king of the Fen region around Cambridge, and her husband gave her the land around what is now the town of Ely as a wedding gift.

When he died she was married again to secure an alliance with the young King of Northumbria.  Despite her status as a wife she was determined to retain her celibacy, and when her husband tried to pressure her into changing her mind she ran away to her lands at Ely.  The dangerous marshes and waterways of the Fens surrounded the land there all the way around, turning it into an island and defending it from attack far more effectively than walls or ramparts ever could.  Armies had been lost in the Fens, and her husband did not care to have her back so much that he was wiling to overcome such obstacles.  Ethelthryth settled in the small town of 600 people and began to build her dream, a monastery of which she became the abbess.  She lived there until the end of her days, on June 23rd in the year 679 AD.

Ethelthryth's vision continued to thrive for 200 years, becoming one of the most prosperous monasteries in the country.  Then the Saxons (Vikings) began to invade the British Isles from the eastern countries of what is now Norway and Denmark, in search of lands more fertile than their own and new wealth and homes for their people.  Due to the protection of the Fens Ely was late to fall but in 870 AD they penetrated the waterways and the town and monastery was destroyed.  It is generally believed that only one church survived, hanging on at the edge of a broken settlement, barely remembered.  In 970 the land in Ely was rebuilt as a new monastery, constructed over the foundations of Ethelthryth's original vision.  Someone must have remembered her, and what she had done, as  a shrine was built to her on the site of her great endeavour.

Another 200 years passed before Britain was invaded again, this time from the south.  The Normans (French) came across the Channel in their ships in the year 1066 AD and gained control of Ely, destroying the church again.  But they had a new idea.  Shortly after arriving, in 1109 AD they began to build, not a church but a cathedral.

The semi-circular arches built by the Normans

This was a task that was to take over 100 years, spanning at least three generations of builders and countless craftsmen, the passing of two architectural styles and one nearly disastrous collapse as the weight of the freshly built West Tower began to sink into the waterlogged land of the Fens.  This tower, at 215ft in height, would have been the tallest structure most of Ely's inhabitants had ever seen, dwarfing even the tallest of trees and earning the cathedral the title of 'Ship of the Fens' for that way that it's soaring height rose out over the flat expanses of the Fen marshes and was visible from miles away, guiding pilgrims to worship like a beacon across the sea.

In 1236 AD the main structure of the cathedral was finally completed, although new visionaries continued to add to and alter it over the years, including the addition of the Octagon 'Lantern Tower' an hundred years later. 

The nave from the west

Finally the cathedral was finished, although life continued around it.  The Tudor king Edward VI had it stripped of all its riches, its gold, sculptures, items of ceremony, and demanded that the head be knocked off every statue, the stained glass windows be smashed, and the gaudily painted plaster stripped from every wall, leaving only the cream-coloured sandstone behind.  Only faint remnants of these decorations remain today.

Each of these niches once held the statue of a saint

The cathedral at Ely continued to stand, little-used and in disrepair, through the Reformation, the English Civil War and various attempts to modernise it, all of which failed to bring it back into general popularity.  Then, in the early 1800s the Victorians took an interest in Ely cathedral and the first of three major renovations took place, replacing the glass, painting the Lantern and returning the building to something closer to its original splendour.  

The Victorian Angels painted on the inside of the lantern

The view down from the Lantern

And across.  Some of the angel panels can be drawn back,
allowing you to see across to the other side of the Lantern

Since then Ely cathedral has once again been a functioning place of worship, as well an astonishing historical resource if you're a nerd like me! It's is very much a part of modern life in the region as well as a link to the past, and it is the past that interests me the most.

I'd been wanting to visit it for ages so I made the most of my trip, climbing both the Octagon Tower and the West Tower, where I saw how the Romanesque semi-circular arches of the Saxon building style gave way to the pointed Gothic arches of later building.  I witnessed the shored-up spaces that support the weight of the West Tower from sinking once more into the marshes.  I found the pale stripped stone of the pillars painted with light from the coloured window panes.  I saw the etched markings of the stonemasons by which they kept their accounts of the stone riven into the hidden turns of the winding stairs, and read the more recent scrawls of schoolboys who are now long dead on the sides of the Lantern.  I walked the leaden roof and saw the distant glint of Cambridge, about 15 miles away across the Fens, marvelling at the bravery of the men who were willing to climb to a height that only birds and angels inhabited in order to complete this monument to the glory of God and the wealth of a king.  On the highest spires are the most beautiful carvings that would never be seen by anyone on the ground, only by the proud craftsmen and God in his heaven.  I found it astounding.

West Tower from the roof of the Octagon Tower

And the Octagon from the roof of the West

View from the West Tower, to the edges of Ely, and beyond

I found graffiti signed as early as 1906 on the outside of the Lantern.
The Kings School is the boys school next door to the cathedral that Henry VIII established.
It still exists today.

What struck me most is that throughout the Cathedral's history is this continuing story of vision.  It took vision for one fifth-century woman to imagine her monastery, a home for her and dozens like her.  Vision for her to run for her freedom and vision to build and lead a community on the Isle of Ely.
When her monastery was destroyed the memories of it sparked a new vision, of a continuation of the church that survived two invasions and then one hundred years of building through years of harvest and famine, and of war.
There was vision in the eyes of the architect as he drew up his plans, and in the hearts and minds of those who contributed their money and resources to the half-formed dream of what could stand on that island.
That vision had to be passed on from father to son, master to apprentice, each man putting his faith in the knowledge of something that had not yet come to pass, but that he saw growing on the distant horizon with every dawn.  Each man throwing himself into the task and pulling his weight, and then passing it to his successor to run the next leg of the race, instilling the same dreams in him.
It took vision for the Victorians too, to see what the dilapidated building had once been, and what it could become again.  To invigorate it with their own dreams of a glorious monument for the past and the future.  And we now do the same, not always with cathedrals, but with our love and our faith and our lives.

They built for a hundred years.  I can't imagine spending more than a few months on anything.  But I guess that's what a hope really is.  We imbue our beings with a vision of how things might one day be, and bend our work towards those far off dreams that may only come to pass when the world has turned, and we are long dead, and our sons and daughters finally see our visions bear fruit.

On the way home I was treated to an amazing sunset, like those that have been seen over the Fens for hundreds of years, and will be seen for hundreds of years after me.  Suddenly I felt very small, but strangely content with it all.

In love with your sound

I believe what C.S. Lewis said in 'Mere Christianity' is true when he talked about emotions. He was describing how our feelings rise and fall, and how it's impossible, even ridiculous, for us to feel one thing all the time. We can't be constantly ecstatic, or constantly sad, but instead we go through phases and seasons. Equally, we can't be completely in love all the time: most long-term couples I know have attested to this. Sometimes you're madly in love... and sometimes you aren't. We're just humans, we wax and wane like the spring to the autumn, and it takes more perseverance than we'd really like to trudge on through the winter months.
This is what it is for me anyway. Although I don't think I could ever go back to a place of denying God's place in the universe, sometimes I'm not as in love with him as I think I ought to be. Some days I think about the wonder of God's creation and all the joy I take in it... and some days I don't. Some days I wake up and I can't wait to talk to Him, just nattering away all day long, and sometimes I don't. Or I spend the day thinking about Him and spending time where He is. And other days I just don't fancy it. I can't explain it other than admitting that I'm not the faithful person I wish I was – I don't always stick out the rough patches or the dry spells in order to be with Him. Sometimes I feel like I need a break from the relationship.

It worries me whenever this happens, because I know I'm ignoring Him, and I never want to do it but sometimes a break feels better. There's no moral standard, no voice of conscience or distracting conversation, no need to make time for someone else, I can just get all my own stuff done... I'm stubborn too, and I know better than to try and force even myself to do something when I feel like resisting it. It's that sense of 'I don't need you. Look, I can do it all myself.' I can't of course. I find I like who I am a lot less when I cut God out of my life. My patience shortens, I'm uncharitable and mean towards others, if only in my head and not out loud, I lose the sense of underlying joy that sustains me from day to day. And why? Because I'm intent on keeping him away, I don't want to be dependant, I don't want to surrender, at least until it really comes down to the wire.

At the art show of two friends of mine today I had been feeling that way for a few weeks, not abandoning my God but certainly not giving Him the attention He deserves. I couldn't see the point in it, why not just take care of my own business? It was an excellent show, I bid on a painting (more on that later), ate some delicious food, met some great people and all seemed well. But in the quieter half of the evening when night had come on and the band had played, I found my feet moving without permission as one guy played a guitar and sang at the front of the hall. For some of the songs, not all but some, I found myself wanting to dance, to be graceful (which I'm not) and to express something. As I listened more closely I realised the songs that were having this effect were all worship songs, all sung heartfelt to God. I went, and sat, and listened, letting my mind run, and felt that strange sense of longing you have when you remember the house you used to live in, or the friends you used to know. I wanted what I'd had before. I'd been unfaithful, cold and distant, but God's great love and wanting for me had never changed, never faded. He loved me as much as before, was as wonderful as He had ever been. Where had I been? What had possessed me? I looked forward to the next time I could see Him and begin to rebuild the parts of our relationship I had let slip.

I think I may be ready to fall in love all over again.
 

In love with your sound - Spoken Groove

The Problem of Pain

Street Pastors again.  Tonight made more sense to me, I got to go out with some of the guys I trained with, which was fun, and despite some spitty rain the night had a really good vibe to it.  We met a lot of people; Sylvia the Big Issue Lady was out as usual, selling roses, some groups of lads who thanked us for being there, and some girls who were stunned by the fact we were giving away flipflops for free.  Oh, and check out our new stash.  It's a bit swish and very warm due to the big fat fleecey layer on the inside.

And one lady, who is now engraved in my brain.  We bumped into her when the lads we were talking to started involving her in the conversation and told her who we were.  She muttered something about Christians being fake to her friend, then looked at us, straight-mouthed, and said "Okay, I'm going to ask this to all of you and see if you all answer the same.  I've had eight miscarriages."  My demeanor changed instantly, blocking out the lads round us.  It was time to be serious.  "I've got six kids, but I've had eight miscarriages.  So tell me, what kind of a God does that?"
"Yeah," one of the boys chipped in, "how come pedophiles and murderers can have families, but good people always die."

What do you say when faced with a question like that?  This is the kind of problem that has been a major sticking point about the idea of God with a lot of people since it first came up; why do bad things happen?  C.S. Lewis wrote a book about it, The Problem of Pain, after the death of his wife.
I know many women who have suffered miscarriages, my mother is one of them, and even the idea of it is awful to contemplate.  In my life so far there has been and is an answer to pain, and God is it, but it's not something you can explain to someone.  Rather it's something a person has to experience themselves, a journey they take on their own, and the reason for this is that it's so intensely personal.  No one, however much they might want to, can feel another person's pain, can understand it fully, or can heal it for them.  It's a long conversation, often a fight, between man and God to try and make sense of the world again.

So here I am, faced with this woman who is clearly hurting very badly, and I know that nothing I can say is going to fix this for her.  In fact all I can think of are things I very badly want not to say:
1)  I don't want to try to tell her that it will get better eventually, or about these women I know who have come through miscarriages (one couple, six of them) closer to God than ever.
2)  I don't want to patronise her with meaningless platitudes about how good God is when right now she probably hates his guts.  That would most likely just make things worse.
3)  It's probably not the right time to point out that miscarriages aren't just a smiting, there are often numerous and complex reasons for them including genetics, biology and her own life choices.  How much more insensitive could you get?

Worst of all, with all these lads around us yelling and cutting in, even if I had the time this isn't the place, not for something this delicate.  What can I do?
"It must be so hard," I said seriously, trying to keep eye contact with this boys jumping around everywhere.  "I'm so sorry."
She asks me essentially the same thing again, and I reply the same, adding that it's not really something I can explain for her.  The lad from before chips in again.
"Is it maybe to inspire the rest of us to try and be better, or to make us appreciate life?"
I said "Maybe."

I'm getting a bit of this at the moment from various places.  People have troubles in their lives from day-to-day, I have troubles (somewhat smaller just now, thankfully) in my own, the Pope is visiting which is making a lot of people cross and they want to tell me so (although I didn't invite him!  I'm not entirely keen on it either), I recently saw a televised debate on the Catholic church and whether or not it's a Force for Good.  (Anne Widdecombe says it is -she is always fun to watch and I like her hard-headedness in debate- and Stephen Fry says it isn't -he made an excellent arguement and I have a lot of time for his opinions- I found Hitchens a bit arrogant and Onaiyekan a bit simple, bar his closing statement, and the outcome should give everyone a lot to think about) 
Additionally my housemate is reading the God Delusion (which I do not think is watertight from the section I've read) and I want to borrow it from her when she's done and go through it properly myself, but I am not a fan of Dawkins; not because of his atheism but because I find him to be antagonistic and a whinger (sorry, Richard, but I do). 
All in all, a lot of people seem to be telling me how rubbish Christianity/Christians are lately, and how rubbish various churches are, and not many of them are being polite about it.  And I'm not sure they're all wrong either.

I'm one of those people who tries to see the good in things, even if there's not much there to start with.  It's not blind faith, I made sure of that, but I started considering that side of things because I want to live with a certain attitude to the world around me.  It's what gives me my underlying joy about life, but it doesn't mean I'm blind to problems.  There are a lot of them.  Everywhere.  Yes, in the church, in this town, in me.  Maybe because I make so many mistakes myself I can appreciate how easy it is to let fear of reprisals and people's opinions stop even large organisations from doing the right thing, but that doesn't change their actions.On the news I see nothing but problems, many that I cannot fix except to be indignant and angry on behalf of people I've never even met, which does them little help. 

My instinct is to defend the good and try and bring it out, but sometimes there is nothing to defend.  Because when someone is angry about molested children and the institutionalised denial of it, there is nothing you can say.  And when a religion loses it's heart to putting human beings in a hierarchy and the practise of mere tradition, there is nothing you can say.  And when a hurting woman mourns her unborn children there is nothing you can say.  When they shout at you and insult the God you love because they feel wronged by his people there is nothing you can say.  You represent the institution of the international Church in their eyes, and God, and every other Christian on the planet.  For just a few seconds you are all of these people, and you must answer for all of them.
Sometimes you shouldn't say anything.  You shouldn't defend and you shouldn't fight for it.  Because it is bad, and you can't make it better with words.
Sometimes you should just acknowledge the problem, let them hate you, and shut up.

The woman berates us a bit more. I nod and don't smile, and I tell her "It must be awful. I'm so sorry."  When she left she seemed less angry, but I don't really know.

Another day in paradise

Street pastors was a challenge this week.  Sometimes you turn up really excited to see God do stuff, some days you're a bit more nervous ("What can I possibly bring to the table?") and then sometimes, like this week, you suffer from a little streak of arrogance.  ("Yes!  I will go out this evening and do some good!  My presence is clearly important to the success of tonight!"  Or something like that.)  But God, in all his great wisdom immediately says "Oh no you don't, you cut that out right now.  Deflate that big head of yours; don't you forget who's really running this outfit."

So I went out, maybe feeling a little more puffed-up than I really should have, and met the following people:

1)  Two homeless guys that work as a double act, sitting in a shop entrance with a board propped up as a wind-breaker and blankets round them.  Hedley bought them a cheesburger and chatted with them for a while -me and Steve were on the other side of the street at the time.  Now we're heading into autumn there's a definite chill at night and it's only going to get worse.  These two hang out together for company and one of them writes poetry.  He recited a couple of verses to them about his life which were apparently pretty good.  It's easy to forget that just because someone's time is taken up surviving, they still have an urge to express themselves, to create things.  They just don't have the outlet.

2)  A 50-something year old Romanian woman.  I see her a lot selling the Big Issue on the street and we never do more than the usual "How much is that?"  "Thank you" exchange, but this night was really quiet so we stopped to chat with her.  Turns out she, her husband, and her five kids (4 girls, 1 boy) came over here from Romania 3 years ago looking for work because they couldn't find any at home.  Her kids are all grown up now and they and the husband work washing cars in Tesco's car park.  She and the daughter sell the Big Issue during the day but at night, when they're all sleeping at home, she comes out and wanders round the town centre, selling roses to couples on a night out.  They all share a house, up past Tesco's, but no one who sells Big Issue is especially wealthy or can get a different job.  And yet when she said she went to a church and we said so did we, she immediately started telling us how good God was to her.  That she prayed all the time, that he made her happy.

3)  A guy sitting outside MacDonalds, watching people walk past very quietly.   We asked him if he was okay, and he asked if we were Christians.  When we nodded he immediately started talking about his life without any prompting at all. 
His name was Darren and he was a soldier, recently in Iraq.  He was back in England on sick leave after being shot- he pulled up his shirt and showed us the six-inch scar left across his stomach.  We asked him what he was doing sitting out there and he said he was just watching life, trying to get his head around it.  Since coming back he was finding it very difficult to integrate back into the life he'd had before.  Watching everyone walk past on a night out, drinking and getting in fights, he said everyone just seemed so selfish.  All they thought about was themselves when there were men out there dying, and how could they do that?  They would squabble over the tiniest things and get in fights over nothing, when he had seen people shot on their behalf and they didn't even care, weren't even aware of it.  Ever since he came back he'd been given a really hard time by people who said he shouldn't have gone out, he'd had counselling but it hadn't done any good since the counsellor really had no idea what he'd been through.  His partner had left him and he didn't see his two kids much any more, and he'd taken to drinking.  Although Darren had hope that in the future when he had healed he would be able to turn his life around, what he had seen and done on his tour of duty had fundamentally changed him, as it does a lot of soldiers, and speaking to him in person was a very strange experience.
These men are simply following the orders they have been given.  That is their job, and a job that most of us would never consider doing -could never even attempt.  They risk their lives, away from home and family, in conditions none of us would put up with, and many of them return home both physically, emotionally and psychologically damaged.  We take our freedom so much for granted in this country.  Whether or not we agree with the leaders that sent them out there, surely the least we owe people in that kind of situation is sympathy and compassion, because a lot of them have dealt with things that we never will.

4)  At the end of the night there was a ruckass when a guy was apparently seen hitting his girlfriend on the street.  She was pretty hysterical but also a bit drunk so there is no way of knowing whether he really did or she intigated it, but there was running and yelling and threats.  Steve told the police TV crew what was going on, and eventually they reported back that the two had got in a taxi together, having sorted out the worst of it.  Of course, as Street Pastors we are not the police, and if things had got nastier I don't know what we would have done.  Of course we have a duty to the rest of our team to try and keep ourselves out of harm's way, we certainly aren't bouncers, but it's very difficult (for me anyway) to stand there and hear a big fight like that, and not be able to do anything to help.

All in all it was a very humbling night, and a confusing one.  Mainly because I was faced with so many situations that really I could do nothing to help.  I can't home those two guys, I can't improve that woman's financial situation, I can't solve domestics and I definitely can't do much for men like Darren.  It was like I'd had the carpet pulled out from under me, and I went home asking God "So what am I doing this for?  What is the point of me going out there at all when there are so many different kinds of people struggling and suffering in so many different ways, and I can't change any of them.  Is this all just a pipe dream?  I don't understand."

I had to wait until Sunday for an answer, when we were singing some worship.  It's funny how half an hour focussing on God's goodness shrinks all the other problems you thought you had, but I still had all this at the back of my mind.  Then the chorus to a song came round:
Our God saves.  Our God saves
There is hope in your name
Mourning turns to songs of praise
Our God saves, our God saves
and it hit me.  God saves.  There is hope in him.  The Romanian woman had spoken about it, even Darren had mentioned it; that the knowledge of God brings hope, and hope is the source of life and joy in difficult circumstances.  Where God is, wherever God is, and despite people's struggles, they still have this sense of something better beyond themselves.  And he does save.  He is the one that brings that woman joy, and he is the one that cam heal men of their scars.
It very much put me in my place, and reminded me of how much I still have to learn about the world, but I went out that afternoon praising God for his goodness to us, which is exactly as it should be.

Mailable art

Did a little design for a card, to be sent out by my church, Open Heaven, to the students who have gone home for the summer, just letting them know we're still thinking of them and also to update them on what's going on when they return.

As my tutor Jemma said "Don't try to draw things that are invisible!"

Well if you've got to pick anything like that to draw, anything to do with God is probably the worst.  The classic fallbacks are all in Christian symbolism - crosses, doves, rays of light, and while all these things are good and communicate their purpose, I think it's better to not jump to use them automatically. 

So here's me trying to think of something a little different : )

I don't mind the font; it's good, but not great.  I know typography is one of those things I need to keep working on -maybe I should try drawing my own.  If nothing else it'll teach me patience!

Finance-shminance

I was going to write about something else today, but events have changed my mind and I think this needs recording before anything else I'd like to talk about.  Those things can wait, but this is feels more important right now.

I'm in a position of being totally in charge of my own upkeep for the first time.  My parents, who are amazing and very genorous, supported me through uni, and are keen to see me stay out of debt.  For this I am so grateful, because I know that it's more than what some people have.  But they have three other kids and a wedding to plan, so I need to be earning my own money now, being independant, taking care of myself.
Or so I believe sometimes.

I spoke to God about this a while back, telling him that I wanted to stay in Loughborough, and if he was on board with that then he would need to supply me with a house to live in, and a job to pay for my upkeep.  I left it at that and shortly afterwards my current housemate came across the place we are now living.  It's a great house, the rent is pretty low (it doesn't include bills but it's still a good deal), and I have an awesome room.
I love my room.  After living on the ground floor for two years in my last place I now have the largest bedroom in the house, it's upstairs, it has bookshelves and lots of storage, a window I can leave open at night without fear of people climbing in through it, I get the sun in the afternoons, and the street outside is a quiet one.  The sofas in the living room and big and comfy, and although we don't have a dining table we do have a coffee table which allows us to eat in the same room rather than taking food back to our desks, the bathroom is clean and feels larger than it is, and there is no lawn to mow!  And above all I've been getting on really well with the second housemate, who I hadn't known before we moved in.  I think we're going to be great friends, which is fantastic.  All in all, this house is a real blessing and I'm really happy to be living here.

So, one down.

Jobs.  I don't have one yet.  I'm on Jobseekers Allowance while I'm looking, which will just about cover the rent but not food.  I wouldn't mind taking part time work except it only makes sense to do so if there are enough hours to make it worth my while.  Obviously any income is good, but if a job pays only slightly more per week than JSA, it makes more sense for me to use my time doing things that will benefit me in the long run.  Two friends of mine are currently doing part time and temp work, so I know that's an option but again the hours have to be there or it makes no sense.  I'm currently working out a budget so I can see exactly where my money goes, how much I can get by on and how much I have to play with, and of course I still want to pursue illustration as a long term goal, so I need to leave time for that.  Life is also in the mix of course, throwing in friends, birthdays, trips, coffee meets, things that break without warning, not having a bath mat, and so on.  I want to be generous with the money I have, but also I know I have to be careful with it and use the gift I've been given responsibly.

But there's one source of income I hadn't counted on to be reliable -God.
You hear all the time about God coming through when money is tight, but it's one of those things where it's easy to believe in theory that God can and will provide, but maybe not in practise, or maybe for other people but not for you.  So it's important for me to remember what happened about a week ago.
I was feeling the pinch.  I'd just checked my bank account to see what I had left, and was working out how long it would last me, and it looked like it would take me up until the end of August, maybe mid-September if I was stringent.  Suddenly it felt like a very short amount of time, and although I knew better than to worry it was still hovering in the back of my mind and causing me a niggling of stress.  I prayed about it and left it at that, but it still preyed on my thoughts a bit.
A day or two later I got a call from a girl on my course, saying that after I'd noticed my email address spelt wrong on the Elements website that had been made to show off all our final degree work, they had found it was printed incorrectly in the catalogue too.  Of course this meant it didn't match our business cards and could make things a bit awkward for people trying to contact us, so the course was going to compensate us.  Now I had only spent £5 on my business cards, getting them printed locally and cutting them out myself, but some people had ordered really expensive ones on line, spending around £100 on them, so the course had picked a middle figure.
"We'll give you £40 compensation," I was told.
"But that's more than I spent," I protested.  "My cards only cost a fiver."
"It doesn't matter," she replied.  "The figure's fixed, because everyone spent different amounts they've set this as an average.  Don't argue about it, just take the money."
So I did.  Rent for the week, paid.
A few days later I found out that the degree show team had actually underspent on their expected budget, so we would all be getting another £20-25 back. 
Food for the week, paid.

The last one surprised me the most.  I was out with the Street Pastors that Saturday, and it was a pretty quiet night.  Before we went out we prayed for each other, and I brought up how I was feeling nervous about the money situation so the others prayed about that, and we went out arounf 11.  Most of the students had gone home for the summer, so there wasn't a lost of trouble about and we were just walking and talking.  I stopped to throw some bottles and cans into a bin and a man sitting next to the bin with his friend asked me what I was doing.  I told him and we got into a bit conversation about it, because he simply could not believe that I was out here on the streets, a 22 year old female, engaging with drunks and clubbers voluntarily.  I explained the reason I was did it, that God showing his caring in my life inspires me to want to look out for other people, and he just looked more surprised.  Suddenly he pulled out his wallet.
"Look," he said, "me and my friend have been to the races, we put money aside to make a day of it but we've still got a lot left from the beer fund."  He displayed a fan of ten and twenty pound notes, then pulled out one of the tenners and offered it to me.  "Here, I want you to take this."
"I can't possibly take that from you," I told him, "We're not paid, we just do this because we love it."  But he kept insisting.  Mike, the leader for the night, suggested that we could put it into the Street Pastor funds, but the man was insistant.
"No!  No, I want you to have this.  Go and get yourself something nice with it.  If you don't I'll be offended."  At that Mike nodded at me from behind the man's shoulder, so I took the note and thanked him. 
When we got back to the HQ I told everyone else what had happened and asked what I should do with it, thinking that since it was mine I could put it in with the funds, but the others insisted that since we'd agreed I would spend it on myself we had to keep our word.
So I took home £10 from Street Pastors.
Bills for the week, paid.
And that's everything.

The strange this is that after all my worries and efforts, after feeling that I needed to do it all myself, I didn't do a single thing in any of these instances.  I was just there, carrying on with life, and money just fell out of the sky on top of my head.
If one of these things had happened alone I might have passed it off as nice but meaningless, but to have all three come up in the same week, the week that I had brought that problem to God, and to cover my expenses exactly...  Some things you can't explain in terms of math and chance, and you know no one else will believe you if they're unwilling to, but this just felt like it all clicked in.  I wonder if this is not just God providing for me, since I did still have money at this point, but also him giving me hints.  Look, see?  I can do this.  You can trust me with this.  I know what you need, PRECISELY what you need.  You just have to tell me, and then be brave and give me a chance to look after you.
Not to say that I don't have to work for it, of course I do, but I need to realise that I CAN expect more from God, that I CAN ask him about very specific things, and that he IS capable of work that fine and precise.  It would be insulting for me to expect anything less of him.