Eternal Home: September Flight

When my mother was pregnant with me and overdue, my grandfather (a doctor) told her I would arrive the day the swallows left his garage to make their arduous journey south. He was no man of faith but, for sure, what he said came true. I was born on the first day of autumn. Maybe that’s why I always get excited at the sight of the returning swallows every spring. Certainly, contemplating the awesome, dangerous journey these tiny creatures (weighing around 20g) make to South Africa across the Pyrenees and Sahara fills me with wonder.

Even the psalmist gives a special mention to the swallows. Expressing their own love to be in God's presence in His Temple, they clearly felt at one with these tiny, fragile birds - commenting that even the swallow had found a nest for herself to lay her eggs within the sacred temple precinct (psalm 84:3).

A little while ago, I wrote this poem about the swallows:

Swallow .. where will you fly to
Now that summer's gone?
The leaves have turned,
The autumn chill
Sweeps though your summer down.
Your chicks have flown,
Prepare, prepare
To make an uncertain journey
To that far-off place - of warmth and light
A welcome land - your home.

My soul ... where will you fly to?
When winter 'last shall come
The time to shed this tired old shell
And lay it in the dust.
Your spirit soars
Upon its rapid course
No uncertainty now
Your time has come
And like the swallow
You find your welcome home.

Biryani and the Bard: A Kurdish Picnic Besides The Avon

It was their idea: a trip to Stratford. And so it was ... the other Thursday we took ten learners from Coventry Jesus Centre to Stratford – from Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, Latvia and France. The Kurdish ladies were attired in their best clothes; indeed, I felt positively under-dressed. The best costumes in the theatre exhibition we were later to see were barely an equal match to theirs!

None of them had ever been to Stratford before. Everything was exciting! Everything was interesting. How good to see the obvious pleasure in their eyes at observing, for so many of us, quite ordinary things! It’s strange how you look at the old familiar sights with fresh eyes when you are with people who are seeing those things for the first time. The old heron sitting in the tree, the gracious swans and narrow, summer barges, the ancient, timber-framed buildings; even the word ‘royal’ takes on an exciting new meaning as RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) has to be explained.

Threatened with a thunderstorm which never happened, we jumped off our transport and wended our way through the crowded streets up to Shakespeare’s birthplace, taking countless photos, and then onto New Place and back onto the riverside park.

Lunch was the best; it’s got to be the finest picnic I ever had; I’d bought some honey sandwiches but I certainly didn’t need them! Our Kurdish mama had bought a picnic for fifteen and more!  This was Siti from a previous blog The silver tray was bought out and we all were given abundant portions of biryani and a highly colourful dolma dish. It was a feast and the likes of such a splendid picnic can rarely have been seen before on that park besides the Avon. Passersby's heads turned - intrigued at the unusual sight.

After that, we walked along besides the river to the parish church to see the bard’s burial place, then back across the ferry - pretty exhausted actually.

For all our faults, the UK has a brilliant heritage; when you get to know these Iranians and Iraqi Kurds and what they have suffered, you realise just how fortunate we are on this little isle of ours. We have known civil wars about the very things they have – who is going to rule – but we’ve come out on the other side.

 But for all our rich heritage, we have so much to learn from our friends ... their appreciation, their pleasure at the simple things of life and above all their hospitality and open-hearted friendship. Teachers only have students for a short while.  For us, to know them for this brief spell in time is a privilege.

Sanctions, Sanctions and the Vulnerable Poor

food bank

Life at Coventry Jesus Centre

It’s Friday afternoon and, letter in hand, they walk into the training room; heads are bowed, spirits low. They speak little English and don’t understand: they’ve had a letter from Jobcentre Plus to say they will receive no JSA (Job Seekers' Allowance) until October; that’s several weeks and they can’t make ends meet ....

 I ring up Spire House (home of Coventry city council offices); are my friends eligible for a Community Support Grant? No, not if they are on sanctions. Are they on sanctions? The trouble is, they don’t seem to know. I ring up Jobcentre Plus on their behalf and after a wait, yes, I find out, they are on sanctions - definitely. What’s more, they’ll be on sanctions for three years if they don’t do what is required. The trouble is, my friends don’t seem to have a clue as to what is required or even why they’re on sanctions.

Sanctions aren’t necessarily bad. It’s no good for anyone’s self-respect to live off benefits if they’re fit for work. And, believe me, I come across very few people who don’t want to work. They’re desperate to work.

But who’s worked this one out?  There’s a very vulnerable group of people who find the new benefits system and this new system of sanctions a bewildering maze, simply because they don’t understand: their English is not sufficient. And they end up destitute.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard this story.  A few weeks ago a young African walked into the centre; he was on sanctions too, simply because he had not understood what was expected of him.

There’s only one thing I could do: write to Jobcentre Plus on my friends' behalf: a Polish interpreter is needed - please. I just wish someone had thought of it before. And yes, a form please for a Hardship Payment.

They’ll be in the food bank queue, next week, most likely.

But, who will stick up for these voiceless people? They're being overlooked, misunderstood just because ... English is not their mother tongue and they have not understood.

Waiting, The Gethsemane Experience and Excited Anticipation

"Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples followed him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."  Luke 22: 39-44

That’s how Doctor Luke describes the depth of agony Jesus experienced as He waited in Gethsemane for arrest, torture and crucifixion.

It appears that Jesus’ emotional stress was so great that He excreted bloodied sweat, a condition known as hematidrosis or hemohidrosis. In extreme stress tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can rupture, causing sweat and blood to mingle  – a condition Doctor Luke was very likely aware of. 
about hematidrosis

Waiting can be agony and often waiting for the thing is even harder than the thing itself.

Last Saturday my friend texted me to say her husband was having unexpected and major brain surgery on Monday. Eleven hours of surgery awaited him and on Monday she was waiting, waiting for him to go in, waiting for him to come out, a Gethsemane  experience. Agony.

I’ve had the experience myself, waiting, waiting in an ante-room as my father was given treatment for a heart attack, the outcome being so unsure.

Waiting can be a 'Gethsemane' experience.

Yet, not all waiting is bad. We’re waiting for a New Earth, for the mortal to be swallowed up by immortality, for the untold splendours of eternity.  Now, that’s a different kind of waiting. The sting of dread is not present; waiting is marked by excited anticipation.

I remember this latter kind of waiting when I was at boarding school. Not having seen my parent for several weeks, the excitement of seeing them again built up so the heart itself raced and time seemed to move slower; it was a waiting game. Then the sound of the old familiar school buzzer that dictated our movements for weeks on end broke the air and we could go; the term was finished.

Sometimes I think about that moment of excitement. It speaks of eternity.  The term has finished, we are released, and the holiday has come.


Does lingering on future excitements and living filled with hope cause us to be wasted idealists? Not according to  CS Lewis who wrote: "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next."

Excited anticipation of eternity puts a different light on present suffering and all our  Gethsemane’s, whether small or great. And yes, my friend’s operation went well. Thank God ...

Twin Sisters: Love Obedient and Love Unoticed

I was hoping for a relatively quiet morning in the Bridge (Coventry Jesus Centre’s drop-in for homeless and vulnerable people) this morning but, as it goes, the team is down one member and you know what that means?  Me, in the kitchen, on the baked bean trail again: 35 breakfasts AND the washing up is piling up and up and UP.
Read previous blog: destitute, homeless, the baked bean trail
 
As it happens *** (she won’t like me mentioning her name) was in the bathroom early this morning and she felt one of those inward nudges to come down to the Jesus Centre. No, she’s not on the rota today, she’s got a morning off, but a nudge is a nudge (I call it the Holy Spirit’s whispering) and she has come. 

Yes, she came, unasked for. And there was I, struggling. And there she was, hands deep in the washing up – and there was a lot of it. O no, here we go again: another call at the hatch from the guys, “We’ve run out of knives ...”,  and another, “We’ve run out of forks ...  more cups please...” Yes, yes; can’t you see? I’m, I’m drowning in demands.  But she was there.

Now, if dear Holy Spirit, You had given me one of Your nudges today, I think I may have said, “No, it’s my day off, I’m not on the rota the today.” But she heard You and she came. 

One hour later, we’re in our Sunday morning meeting and we sing those priceless truths from the book of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22,23).

Yes, I thought, God is very faithful but often He shows that faithful character of His through others. And God’s faithfulness is often displayed in a very practical way – in this case, help with the ever-increasing pile of washing up. 

You can have all the great preachers you can think of and the gifted and the great in your church but, if I had my way as to who I could build the church with, hands down, I’d choose a group of people ready to choose a path of love obedient and love unnoticed. 

When Jesus said, ‘If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me (Matthew 16: 24),’ I’m sure He was talking about the possibilities of martyrdom.  But He was talking about Sunday early morning risings too, going to places when you aren’t asked or even expected because you love Him ...

One of our church mottos is, ‘Love, power and sacrifice.” I’m not sure if I like it. Why? Because we don’t always own it.  But this morning it was apparent alright; I saw love and sacrifice and within it the faithfulness of God. And whenever love and sacrifice are present, the power of God is wedged between the two, abundant, bursting out, filled with unexpected anointing.

And those nudges ... they don’t have to have great ‘spiritual’ contents. I’ve learned for sure, God is interested in the practical things of life - even washing up. 

Loan Sharks, Credit Unions and Justin Welby

“Walking up the shadowy, half-lit path towards the flat where we sat, he knocked on the door and entered.  He did not look round at the little group of people sitting in the room.  Instead his gaze went straight toward the older lady in the wheelchair by the door. She felt for her purse and handed him some money. Then he was gone. “A while ago he lent me some money,” she explained. "Now I have to repay at 30-40% interest.”

‘Loan shark!’ I thought.  ‘What a beastly thing to do!  Preying upon the poor who find themselves in debt and then charging them exorbitant interest.'

In ancient Bible times God commanded His people never to charge interest on loans to their neighbours. Why? Because God is on the side of the disadvantaged, the poor and the destitute and is against all who oppress them. He does not want anyone to be short of food and the everyday things that are needful.  God says that when the poor cry to Him, He will hear for He is full of compassion towards them (Exodus 22:25-27).


The above is an extract from my diary when I lived on the St Ann’s estate in Nottingham.  (I lived there for seven years: 2004-2011.) The woman mentioned did live in poverty and, no, she did no smoke, take drugs or for that matter drink alcohol to eat away her benefits.

 Middle-class people take some things for granted; an annual holiday (at least one), new furniture when the old gets scruffy, enough credit to pay the electricity bill, a car. Indeed, one middle-class colleague at the college where I worked made this comment to me when a fourteen year old girl, Danielle Beccan, got shot and later died whilst walking home one late evening from the Goose Fair: “Why didn’t her parents pick her up from the fair?" I looked at her, incredulity in my eyes. Most people I knew in St Ann’s did not have a car. In the close where I lived, only one person out of twenty-two, as I far as I knew, owned a car.

In the same year as I wrote this extract (2008), Nottingham City Homes, which manages council owned properties in Nottingham, published this statement: "Up to 10,000 households in the East Midlands are exploited by loan sharks each year. Loan sharks charge extremely high rates of interest and often use violence and intimidation and blackmail people who fall behind with payments.”
 
 I really welcome Justin Welby’s intervention in recent days, his support for credit unions* with their low interest rates, his offer of church property to house them and his encouragement to church members to offer their expertise in running the unions and so help the poor out of debt.  He’s siding with the poor. He’s standing in a great tradition.
“If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.  If you take your neighbour’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, because that cloak is the only covering your neighbour has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.” Exodus 22: 25-27 NIV

*Credit unions are organisations offering financial services and are owned and run by their members for their members. Interest rates offered by credit unions are much lower than most loan companies.

Mrs Prim: Memoirs of a Shop Assistant

It’s Wednesday night, 9.30pm at Promise House (the community house in Coventry where I live). Actually, it’s been a really hot day and we’re all winding down; the guys have been out evangelising on the Foleshill Road and have come back rather excited because of their encounters and the praying they’ve done on the streets. Then the conversation turns: one of them in about to clock in on his nightshift and he’s dreading it as a guy he’s working with has got that sort of attitude that would wind any of us up; he wants to be the boss when, well, he just isn’t. We all know that type - superior tone, condescending remarks – and he’s only a workmate!

 “I just don’t know what to do. What shall I do?” the conversation runs.

So I tell him my story. I used to be a shop assistant in a busy health food shop in Leicester. We had all sorts come in, old, young, wealthy and not so wealthy - anyone seeking a healthier alternative.
 
Mrs Prim (not her real name) used to come in to buy her expensive,

not-so-healthy cheeses.  I couldn’t like her and her approach gave me that sinking glad-when-you’ve-gone sort of feeling which leads to a show of forced politeness.  She was a sophisticated lady, a member of that class bracket when you are used to telling people what to do. I could happily spend the time of day with many of our customers, chatting over the counter about the ordinary things of life – but not her. Her presence made me feel uncomfortable. Perhaps she reminded me of an old schoolteacher. And I can never forget those startlingly-red high-heels ...

This afternoon was no exception. Mrs Prim was approaching the cheese counter where I stood. Then, it happened, one of those moments, flashes of revelation that comes in a moment and shatter all hitherto preconceptions. With my inner eye, I saw Mrs Prim, the child of a different era, a young girl, well-dressed, well bought-up and well-to-do but conspicuously surrounded by – the absence of friends, alone, isolated, lonely because of her aloof attitude. That’s how she had always been. My heart gasped inwardly and the thaw was instantaneous. I rose in myself to greet and serve her. I looked at her with different eyes. I wanted to serve her. I wanted to somehow reach out and touch the unloved bit, the un-befriended part.

I saw her a few more times. Each time I had the same response. In a flash, an instance, something had happened. She had not changed; I had. I had been given a gift; I think it is called compassion. 

My night-shift friend, I hope my story helps. Insight, revelation that comes, to the inner heart and eye, can’t be forced but sometimes it just arrives – a little miracle.

Mrs Prim, you were the means of turning my water into wine, the very best vintage, on that otherwise mundane and long-forgotten afternoon. I wanted, yes yearned, to serve you!