 This May Day weekend is another reminder of how our lives are currently lived under political rules and regulations. It seems that every single day there is new news, new numbers, new statistics to work from. New data for our political and community governance to analyse and make decisions on which affect how we carry on our daily lives. One thing that doesn’t seem to have changed though, except maybe in its escalation, is our propensity to have and promote our opinions of our political leaders and their advisors.
Yet today, as we read such a familiar passage as Psalm 23, and look for God’s assurance of security and comfort, I wonder if we are able for a moment to imagine ourselves as real sheep in a paddock, grazing contentedly and safely together under the watchful gaze of our loving Shepherd? ....
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 Gungor's song 'Beautiful Things' is a wonderful modern anthem for Ash Wednesday. For it is possible to regard this key date in the Christian calendar as a gloomy day, overly obsessed with sin. death, and other aspects of human finitude. It is certainly a time for facing up to ourselves and our world, our limitations, failings and lack of ultimate control. Yet this should only be in order to be re-charged with faith, hope and love, through the grace of God. For Ash Wednesday is about renewing our participation in God's love in solidarity with others. In the midst of our personal and wider struggles, it is a message not to despair but to take fresh heart. As Gungor put it: All this pain I wonder if I'll ever find my way I wonder if my life could really change, at all All this earth Could all that is lost ever be found? Could a garden come out from this ground, at all? You make beautiful things You make beautiful things out of the dust You make beautiful things You make beautiful things out of us All around, Hope is springing up from this old ground Out of chaos life is being found, in you... |
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Jo Inkpin, Penny Jones, Jeni Nix, Peter Jeffery, Ann Edwards, Elizabeth McConnell Archives
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