Radio Recommendations

I listen to the radio a lot, a great deal more than I watch television and it is great to listen to while knitting.  My two staple radio choices are BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4 Extra.  I was practically raised on Radio 4 and I have listened to Radio 4 Extra, or BBC 7 as it then was, since its first night of broadcasting.  Even now I can remember sitting on a chair in the dining room sitting right by my dad's then very new digital radio, listening intently and rediscovering Hancock's Half Hour.  Therefore I thought it might be good to recommend a couple of the things I've enjoyed lately on the radio, as you can listen to the BBC radio player anywhere in the world, for free, what luxury!

Having said all that about Radios 4 and 4 Extra, I shall now make my first recommendation from Radio 3 (the BBC's classical music station): The John Wilson Orchestra Prom, Kiss Me Kate.  This orchestra specialises in mid 20th century musicals and associated music and their annual prom has become my favourite.  Although it may not be "high brow" music, it is full of joy, fun and done to an extraordinary standard, Kiss Me Kate swept me through a Sunday afternoon while I knitted the foot of a sock.  You have another three weeks or so to listen, then the filmed version will be on television at Christmas - I went and checked!

Next we definitely are going high brow, with T S Eliot's poem The Wasteland.  I recently bought a copy of his poems as part of an effort to get to know more poetry and I cannot say I understood it, indeed I still would not say I fully understood it, but listening to it has helped a bit.  In particular having two voices, Jeremy Irons and Dame Eileen Atkins, reading the poem helped to underline that it is not supposed to have a meaning as a whole.  By which I mean, it does not begin at point A and end at point B having been on a descriptive or narrative journey along the way, but that it creates its whole out of a series of impressions.  I found the best way to think of the poem was as a series of thoughts wandering through the poet's mind as he tried to make sense of the world after the First World War.  The reading is a delight in itself and I am pleased to see that it is still there for another three weeks so that I can have another crack at it, though I live in hope of a CD or download becoming available of this and Jeremy Irons' reading of Eliot's Four Quartets.

Staying with the First World War, the last recommendation for now is Home Front, an epic project Radio 4 have started this week, a drama with an episode set on this day one hundred years before.  The first two episodes have been very well produced, although they possibly need to watch their idiom, one or two expressions did not sit quite with the period and I already feel that I have learnt something more of the home front experience.

What are your favourites?

Easter hope

I have not had that much to say lately, I have been going through a bit of a bad patch and been really down at times.  Together with horrible panic attacks at night and the lack of sleep that follows from that, life has not felt like much fun.  I have struggled with my faith too, it is not that I do not believe, not that at all, I still believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Bible, that it is all true.  But more I have been struggling with me in relation to God, struggling to see past the bad in me, struggling to cope with myself and my inadequacy and why God would ever want anything to do with me.  Struggling with grace I suppose, again.

So Easter has been a precious reminder of what Jesus has done for us, that He has taken our sin and takes it afresh every day, so that we can go to the Father.  Today I feel a renewal of hope because Jesus has died for us and has risen and stone is rolled away and the tomb is empty and so everything is possible.  I will still make mistakes today and tomorrow and the day after, I am not perfect in myself and never can be, but through Christ, in God's eyes I am and I am loved and accepted.  How to take in this truth, to understand it and live out that truth?

A couple of songs have been helping me along this path, one is from an album reviewed on a university friend's blog, by a band called Page CXVI and is called Roll Away the Stone, I love the chorus:

Roll away roll away the stone!
Where he lay, where he lays no more
Risen and victorious radiant and glorious
He rose amen He broke the chains of sin

And Boldly I Approach by Rend Collective, a meditation on Hebrews 4.16: "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."



I hope they help you enjoy God's grace anew this Easter.  Life has been hard, it will be hard again, but we all need a reminder of the truth to show us that this is not all, that there is a hope to come.  It is a relief to be able to remember God's grace despite not having been able to go to church as I would love to do and amid all the other frustrations of my life.  I do not know what is next or where I should be going but for now I will try to rest with God and remember that the Easter message, "That there is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ."

Sunset on Good Friday

The Art of Celebration

Last Monday my favourite band, Rend Collective, released their latest album, titled The Art of Celebration and I have been listening to it all week.  The songs have an energy and life to them and contain many truths and promises.  The premise of the album is that God is always worth celebrating, no matter what the circumstances of our lives and sets the tone by opening:

We’re choosing celebration
Breaking into Freedom
You’re the song...
Of our hearts

This song, Joy, is one of my favourites on the album, the lines "The pain will not define us/Joy will reignite us" have been resonating with me, so often I feel like my identity is being subsumed by illness.  There is an interesting dance remix of this song at the end of the album, while dance music isn't usually my scene, it can work for worship music and it mixes well with rhythms of Irish origin often used by Rend Collective.

The band have talked about not liking being pigeon-holed as a "folk" band and have tried to diversify for this album, but I would say to them not to worry about it, their original philosophy of making music that anyone could get involved in is great, stick with that philosophy.  It is much closer to historical church music than the "traditional" organ and choir music, which originated in the nineteenth century when village music groups were banished from churches in favour of organs.  Let's put worship back into the hands of the people and have inclusive music that has its roots in the past but has freshness for today.

I am terrible at celebrating, terrible at seeing and remembering the good in life and in God; it sometimes feels like my brain is fixated on the bad, the evil, my sin, endless darkness.  But the Bible is packed with people celebrating God, Paul and Silas singing their hymns in prison in Acts 16 particularly come to mind and I hope this album can help me to learn more about always celebrating Jesus and what He has done and is going to do.  Despite the name the songs do acknowledge the hard side of life, it is not mindless "everything is wonderful" stuff, but about the conscious choice to celebrate.  Darkness, deserts, pain, doubts, questions, sorrows, shadows are all allowed in and acknowledged, but placed in their proper perspective of God's grace and goodness and mercy and light.

There's so much I love about this album, I will admit to not being the most moderate or measured reviewer (though honestly I am not in their pay and I bought my copy!), it has brightened up a dull week and has a message I badly need.  Have a listen - in their generosity the band have put the lyric videos on youtube - see what you think, buy a copy, celebrate.

By your power I can change, I can change
‘Cos you’re not finished with me yet 

This is the art of celebration
Knowing were free from condemnation
Oh praise the One, praise the One 

2013 - some best bits

A challenge to myself and to my usually gloomy outlook: to find and write about some best bits or favourite things from the past year.

Knitting
I think the project of the year has to be Dad's Fair Isle jumper, I'm just coming to the end of the first sleeve, so it will not be finished this year, but it is the knitting I am most proud of.  The Jamieson Spindrift I am knitting the jumper in is undoubtedly my favourite yarn find of the year, I never thought I would be saying how soft Shetland yarn is but it has really grown on me.



Additionally I am pleased I managed to get my Pomme de Pin cardigan finished, it was another epic knit, but one I wear a lot, very snug and soft and warm despite its light lacy fabric.



Cooking
The recipe of the year has to be the apple and fruit cake I made for Dad's birthday, it was so, so moist and so simple and clever.  Again it was a recipe from Aunt Daisy dating back to the late 1940s; her books contain a rich seam of recipes to continue trying.  As a recipe it suited my energy levels and needing to pace myself because I could make the apple purée one day and the cake the next, a good while ahead of the party itself so that the cake could mature.  No need like a sponge to cook it that day or at most the day before.

Here is the recipe as it appears in the book, I baked it in a 23cm round tin, the cups are English although it would probably work in American cups and just be a slightly larger cake.  A moderate oven is around 180C though I may have used a slightly lower temperature as our oven can be a bit fierce.  It came out perfectly flat on top without so much as a dip.  When you first bake the cake it does look a bit dry and uninspiring, hold your nerve, wrap it up and pop it into a tin for at least two weeks and your patience will be rewarded.

Apple fruit cake – delicious
Do not cut this cake for a fortnight. Have ready 1 ½ cups stewed apple, sweetened with ½ cup sugar and with 1 tablespoon butter melted into it. Mix together 1 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cocoa; 1 dessertspoon spice; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 2 large cups flour; lemon peel and dried fruit to taste (about 1 ½ to 2 cups). Add the apple mixture and a little milk if necessary. Line tin with greased paper. Bake in a moderate oven for about 1 ½ hours.

Music

After much thought I think my album of the year has to be Seven Stars by Chris Haines.  It is a quiet, peaceful album soaked in the Bible and the past of the church.  Of all the songs the one that I love the most is "Strangers", about our true home, it is a peaceful, hopeful song that helps to put all the worries of today into perspective, speaking of the "colours undiscovered", the "sweet aromas" of heaven and how we will be home soon.  Throughout the year this song has helped me in times of despair or panic to find my bearings again and remember that this life is not forever, that a better life is forever.  You can listen to the album here on bandcamp and read the lyrics here.

Rend Collective Experiment's album Campfire has probably been my other album of the year, full of life and energy.  I am so looking forward to their new album.

My garden find of the year: Southover Grange in Lewes

Books

Elizabeth Jane Howard was my book find of the year.  Radio 4's dramatisation of her Cazalet novels caught my attention and I started by reading her autobiography, Slipstream, in January; a tremendous work, lively and honest, one of the best autobiographies I have ever read.  After this I moved onto the Cazalet novels themselves and devoured them, I was so completely in their world and found myself, in the intervals of reading the world insists in inserting, wondering what was going to happen, utterly caught up in the lives of the characters.  They are more than the usual "family saga" novels, all the characters are real and engaging, no mean feat in a novel sequence about such a large family and there is a strong sense of place.

My reading has also branched out, inspired by Katherine Swift's Morville Hours, a book about the creation of a garden and so much more besides, don't just take my word for it, go and read it, now, go on!  So I have read more garden and countryside books, ideal if you cannot get out that much, to go to other places in books.  I have read my way through most of the Penguin English Journeys books, particular favourites were the volumes by Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville West on gardening and I plan to read more of both their books in the new year.  Some of Gertrude Jekyll's books are out of copyright and so available on line for free which is particularly handy.  The extracts from James Lees-Milne's diaries were amusing too and he has been added to the ever increasing list of books to read, along with more of Elizabeth Taylor's novels.

Tomorrow I shall do some thinking on goals for the coming year as is traditional.

A Christmas Robin

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you have had a joyful day however you have spent it.  Our robin has been on good form today, whether he knows it is Christmas or just liked the meal worms my dad put out for him, he was around a lot and stayed in the garden while we were out there, on the feeders and on the ground, watching us and happy for us to be around.  As I have mentioned before, I love that process of building up trust and getting to know a bird like that.  My sister got a lovely couple of shots of him and I have her permission to repost them here.

When she was looking through her photos my sister did comment that the robin likes posing and I think she is right to an extent, some of it is territorial behaviour though.

Last but not least, my favourite band, Rend Collective Experiment have released a Christmas video today, a version of Hark the Herald Angels Sing that is full of energy and joy, hope you like it.

Remembrance

Today is Remembrance Sunday, a day I approach with mixed feelings, as I had more ancestors in the German and Austrian armies than the British in the first world war, my maternal grandparents being of German, Austrian and Czech extraction.  My paternal grandfather's brother fought in and survived the first war and his sisters nursed, but it is still a day that makes me feel my mixed heritage more keenly than normal.  Although it is a day to remember the dead of all nations and of all wars, the first and second world wars do tend to dominate in this country, partly, the cynical historian in me thinks, because we won both wars, but also because Remembrance Sunday was founded in response to the widespread grief following the first war.

However, my ambivalent feelings are increased because Remembrance Sunday seems to be focussed on the soldiers who fell in the wars and of course should be remembered and mourned. But meanwhile the civilians, who also died in great numbers, seem forgotten.  I feel this personally as somewhere in the region of three-quarters of my paternal grandfather's family died or disappeared as civilians, whole families vanishing in their entirety, in the Holocaust during the second world war.


From a synagogue destroyed in Berlin on Kristallnacht Flickr Commons

This year Remembrance Day falls on the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht when the Nazis attacked Jewish people, homes, businesses and synagogues in Germany and Austria in reprisal for the killing of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish youth.  Ninety one people died and 30,000 were sent to concentration camps, but it marked the beginning of the Nazi "final solution".  My grandfather and his mother were lucky, they got out, my grandfather on the last train he could legally have got; his father and most of the rest of his family were less lucky.


My grandfather in his 1935 Czech passport

These events and the sense of loss they created have cast a long shadow across my family.  We need to remember all who have died or suffered loss on all sides, and never to allow remembrance to become glorification of war.  Although on the last point I think this ex-serviceman, writing in the Guardian puts things better than I can.  When I hear the jingoistic writing from the beginning of the first war repeated again and again by politicians, the media, social media, as part of remembrance day I shudder inwardly.  One might as well repeat the last line of Wilfred Owen's Dulce et decorum est and omit the all important context, of "the old lie".

And for the future?  We need to keep talking, keep telling the stories, try to stop ourselves repeating the same mistakes again and again.  We need to make sure our remembrance does not become justification for current or future war and work and pray for peace and reconciliation and healing.

Father forgive us our follies, grant us peace, comfort those who mourn, help us to love mercy and seek justice and walk humbly before you.

I leave you with Michael Tippett's Oratorio A Child of Our Time, which was written in 1939 in response to Kristallnacht.

Musical Interlude

Following various recent conversations with friends I have realised that by listening almost exclusively to Christian music, as it helps my mental health, I have gained knowledge about bands that others have not heard of, so I thought I would write a few blog posts about some of my favourite bands or musicians.

And so we start with the band who came to mind immediately when thinking about this and the band to whom I have recently introduced various people from my church: Rend Collective Experiment.

They are a band from Northern Ireland whose music is largely folk inspired, but who use a wide range of instruments and styles for their songs.  They have a refreshing originality and energy and get away from the "cheesy" reputation that so often haunts Christian music.  In their music there is a real mixture of tempos and volumes, traditional hymns and original songs, around the theme of discipleship and church.  As they themselves acknowledge, folk music is accessible, anyone can join in by tapping their foot or singing along or clapping their hands and that makes it brilliant music for the church, and an echo of the church being an inclusive place that anyone can join.  But they put it better themselves:



I discovered them on Spotify and have loved their music ever since the first few chords of the first song of their first album, Come on my Soul, it is a simple song, calling us to worship, reminding us to look up from ourselves to Jesus and God our Father.  I love the video they made for this song too, the gathering of the church around the light.



Meanwhile the song that has become their anthem is Build Your Kingdom Here.  It is the most phenomenal prayer and a bold vision and I pray it regularly as I walk through my local town centre.  The chorus speaks for itself:

Build your kingdom here
Let the darkness fear
Show your mighty hand
Heal our streets and land
Set your church on fire
Win this nation back
Change the atmosphere
Build your kingdom here
We pray

They have so many other awesome songs, including a fantastic, intimate version of Love Divine All Loves Excelling and Second Chance, a song which gives me so much hope when I fail.  I admit that their albums are generally on my ipod on repeat and I never tire of them.  Go have a listen and may God use this music to bless you.

Time to look up

When you cannot sleep for at least two hours after going to bed
And then wake up over an hour early,
After bad sleep, so tense you are almost rigid
And then a concrete cutter starts up in the street outside

When you feel worse than usual
And life seems bleak, painful and pointless
Problems overwhelming
The past haunting and shifting

When you want to cry but you cannot

Then it's time to look up; I am so glad of music, of the reminder to turn again to God, who does not shift or change, in whom there are no shadows, who understands and cares, who listens and grants peace, who is all powerful, strong and loving.

Then for a while I can focus on the truth and on how loved I am and how one day all things will be new, no tears, no pain, then everything falls back into its proper perspective.

Then I am so glad that I put the worship CD in the kitchen yesterday, so it was there when I needed it most, when the music broke the blow as the newspaper headlines hit.

Thank you Father, help me not to lose your perspective and your love.

This is a simple song, but it never fails to remind me of what matters.

Come on my soul... let down the walls... it's time to look up.

Advent Angels

Advent has dominated my thoughts for quite a while now - I find it very exciting.  It is the season of remembering that Jesus came and joined us here on earth and that He is going to come again.  Of remembering Emmanuel - God with us, forever.

Of course it is also a very busy time of year, although I've been trying to mitigate that by being organised and also trying not to wear myself out, which has led to having to turn down some invitations.  I've not fully recovered from November's spectacular crash unfortunately.  However, I think that keeping it quiet can be a good way to go.  I was even thinking the other day that spending Advent in retreat, focussing on Jesus and meditating on His coming would not be a bad way of preparing for Christmas.



I've been finding this song hugely exciting, the bell like chorus of "Christ is born" is wonderful.  The song and its sheet music, is available as a free download, along with four others, on Kingsway's website, although you do need to create a log in.



The angel above is made using a pattern from ravelry, Nordic Angels, I think they're rather charming and look even nicer when hung up, I'll try to get a picture when we put our Christmas tree up.  The glitter comes from knitting in a strand of Drops glitter, as with the snowman.

A blogger's miscellany

1. I'm aware it's been a while since I last posted, unfortunately I haven't been too well, I overdid things somewhat and then muddled up the date of my flu jab and turned up 24 hours too early.  This lead to me missing sleep to get up early two days running which is what finished me.  It seems that despite more than 12 years' practice I still haven't quite got the pacing thing quite right.

In order to combat my disorganisation I have purchased a diary for the coming year, it's simple, small but stylish and a great cheerful colour.


2. I have been enjoying this song a lot lately, it is simple but full of hope


3. I have done a lot of knitting lately but most of it is secret Christmas knitting, which I can't show on here just in case.  In between I have been doing some small ornaments though such as the small jumper below.  I'm also having a go at the adorable mini snowman from Mochimochiland's miniatures' collection.


4. I'm very excited about Kate Davies' forthcoming book The Colours of Shetland and am looking forward to knitting the shawl shown at the top of her blog and in the meantime am planning to knit her pattern which came out today - Snawheid hat, .  You can see her adorable dog Bruce helping with the photographs of the hat here.

I'll try not to let it be quite so long before the next post.

What I pray my church will be

Recently while praying for my church I scribbled down a list of attributes I pray my church and the church more widely will have and will further develop, suitably enough on the back of an envelope.  Then I lost the envelope for a few weeks'.

As I have now found it again I thought I would post the list here, in the order in which I wrote it down, in the hopes that it would prove helpful to you as you pray for your church and our church.  Of course the list is not comprehensive, but I hope and pray it can be a place to start from.  I dearly love the church, it is a wonderful concept, the body of Christ, a series of loving relationships changing the world, working through the world like yeast through flour, to make all things new.

Let us pray.


What I pray my church will be:

Founded in Christ – our sure foundation

welcoming, open

a window on another world

learning from the past but not bound by it

preaching the Gospel
boasting in Christ crucified

loving

discipling one another

one as He is one

of pure heart

full of joy in Him

a lamp on a lampstand, a city on a hill, shining for all to see

full of peace

fellowship

different

genuine

a place of healing

a place of prayer for all the nations

Amen.

I will leave you with this song I discovered yesterday, which is a tremendous encouragement to pray.

Homemade and Handmade

I was extremely excited this morning to receive a disproportionately huge jiffy bag containing my pre-order of Rend Collective Experiment's new album Homemade Worship by Handmade People. I have been looking forward to this album's release for weeks and had listened to the first single released over and again.

As well as excellent, inventive and interesting music and lyrics, which take them well outside the usual Christian worship music, I love Rend Collective's ethos and ideas. They are trying to do things differently, they recorded all the music on the album in their homes and they are trying to live in community and embrace the family aspects of being the church and the body of Christ here on earth. Some of these ideas link into the general craft sub-culture that interests me and the move away from the mass produced towards things made with love and skill. The album's reference to "handmade people" then reminds us that each of us was handmade by God:

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139

The songs reflect this, exploring themes around surrender, the cross, redemption, forgiveness, God's kingdom coming here on earth and bringing change to us and to the world. Messages we so sorely need in this world, hope and the idea that things can be different. I love the language of God re-crafting us into redeemed people, as the first single, Second Chance, puts it:

"Countless second chances

We've been given at the cross

"Fragments of brokenness

Salvaged by the art of grace

You craft

Life from my mistakes"

The Bible says that we are made in God's image and so just as God is creative, so we are creative. So that just as our earthly love is just a shadow of God's all encompassing love, our craft, our up-cycling and reusing and creating is a shadow of God's ongoing work of recreation through Jesus and a reflection of Him in us and us in Him.

On the whole the music is "louder" and less intimate than some of the songs on their first album, the Organic Family Hymnal. Walking to knitting group today the music was making me tap my toe while waiting at the pedestrian crossings, however, I did manage not to sing along out loud in public! Anyhow I am going to go back to listening to my new CD and get on with my creating (my Peaks Island Hood at present), while I sing along and pray for God's kingdom here on earth.

Mustard Seeds

"Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17.20

This week I have mainly been listening to a new album called Mustard Seeds, which is extremely awesome. Click on that link, get listening then read on!

At this point I should probably declare that I know the musician behind the album from university, I liked his music then and I like it now. The songs are both musically and lyrically strong and musically more interesting than a lot of the Christian music on the market, which can all sound rather homogeneous. Musically the songs are at times resonant of Nick Drake, at other times calling to mind church music of a more traditional and even ancient kind - harmonies hinting at cathedrals filled with Gregorian chant. The sound and scale of the album is quiet and intimate, allowing you to draw near to God and spend precious time in His presence, yet would also work in a more corporate setting. In the lyrics are some great promises and some great prayers, for example,

May your grace reform this church from a crowd of sinners to a holy loving force with your pow'r within us. May we yearn to serve and may we love with fervent hearts by grace restored.

Such a fabulous picture of what the church is and is becoming (from Designer, Refiner).

Rather than attempt to review the whole album I will just focus on the last song, To the God of the Broken Ones which has resonated with me and my life hugely.

To the God of the broken ones,
To the God where all hope comes from,
We sing come heal us, come heal us

To the God who is always there,
To the God who heals ev'ry prayer,
We sing come heal us, come heal us

Ever loving, ever Lord.
Ever faithful, ever more.
Ever gentle, ever sure.
I'm ever thankful, ever yours

To the God of unending hope,
To the God who calls us his own,
We sing come heal us, come heal us

To the God who will never change,
To the God who knows ev'ry pain,
We sing come heal us, come heal us

Ever loving, ever Lord.
Ever faithful, ever more.
Ever gentle, ever sure.
I'm ever thankful, ever yours

I love the rich promises and truths about who our God is that are contained within this song: truths that I can't hear too often, especially as it is such truths that help combat the lies of depression. My favourite of these promises and truths is "the God of unending hope" (which is really both a truth and a promise). In the midst of the storms of life it is so easy to forget that ultimately our hope lies in God himself and that He never changes, never leaves us, always loves us. This is a song that I sing as a prayer for my own life, as well as more generally for the church and the world. Moreover it is song that you can sing from wherever you happen to be, whether things are going well or whether nothing is going well, "yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my saviour" (Habbakuk 3). As someone who frequently feels like nothing is going right I truly value such songs that help me to worship despite my circumstances, because the truth is God is always good and I need more of the truth.

I have found this album cheering, uplifting, calming, comforting and inspiring; I pray you do too.

Shelter

Another song today, about church and what church is and can be.

Shelter - Jars of Clay

To all who are looking down
Holding onto hearts still wounding
For those who've yet to find it
The places near where love is moving
Cast off the robes you're wearing
Set aside the names you've been given

May this place of rest in the fold of your journey
Bind you to hope, you will never walk alone.

In the shelter of each other, we will live, we will live
In the shelter of each other, we will live, we will live
Your arms are all around us

If our hearts have turned to stone
There is hope, we know the rocks will cry out
And the tears aren't ours alone
Let them fall into the hands that hold us
Come away from where you're hiding
Set aside the lies you've been living

May this place of rest in the fold of your journey
Bind you to hope that we will never walk alone

If there is any peace, if there is any hope
We must all believe, our lives are not our own

We all belong
God has given us each other
And we will never walk alone

I particularly love the lines,
"May this place of rest in the fold of your journey
Bind you to hope that we will never walk alone"
And the way it expresses the idea of "the body of Christ" in a new way.

While it is true that we each have Jesus with us every single hour of every single day of our lives, sometimes we need to be His hands and feet, His tangible body here on earth, for one another and accepting that help from one another as each has need. It's why the writer of Hebrews exhorts us, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10.25 NIV), because we need to support one another while we are here. Likewise it is why in his book Where is God When Life Hurts? Philip Yancey concludes that the question we should really ask is "Where is the church when life hurts?". The body of Christ is such a fabulous idea, a refuge from an often hostile world, a place where everyone counts and belongs, where Jesus is the life and the Spirit and the pumping heart and creator and the centre, where restoration, love, hope, forgiveness and grace can flourish and flood out into the world. I pray that my membership doesn't impede the work of Jesus in His body and that despite being so broken myself I can be shelter for others, as they shelter me.

"The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" Deuteronomy 33.27

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13.34-5

A moment of worship

You Reign by Simon Brading

Though I walk upon ground
That is rugged and uneven
Your faithful hand won't lead me astray
Through the rain and the clouds,
Where the sun is barely shining
Your grace surrounds my life everyday
Everyday

You reign
Yesterday today for evermore, for evermore
You reign in every circumstance
You are good, You are good

And You hold in Your hands
Every star, the sun and moon
Yet those hands are marred
And wounded from nails.
Precious blood at the cross
Was poured out for the nations
And this love that drove salvation never fails
Your love never fails

You rule the world
You rule the world, You reign
You are the name above all names
The King above all kings, You reign

I'm listening to this song again and again right now, it's just so true, that God reigns everyday, in every circumstance. It's here on youtube if you want to listen (and sing along). Though I'm going to stop listening to catch The Archers now!