Where next?

If I am honest I put too much hope in the election result, in a change of government, in a change of culture and approach.  The exit poll and subsequent results have knocked me flat: I am honestly not sure how I am going to cope with another five years of Conservative government.  Another five years of being described as a "scrounger" and a "shirker", another five years of the poorest in society suffering the most, another five years of fear and blame and divide and rule.

It is not that I hate the Conservatives per se, or that I hate Conservative voters.  I do hate the campaign they ran, filled with fear, fear of the Scots, fear of the economy, fear that if you do not grasp all you have you may lose it.  I hate the idea that all that matters is you, you and your hard working family, nothing else matters.  I hate the idea that the poor deserve poverty, that it is a matter of personal responsibility, if only people tried harder they would not be poor.  This is blatantly untrue: it ignores all the structures that keep people poor.

I am filled with dread of what £12 billion of welfare cuts are going to mean to my community, to the disabled, none of whom chose their circumstances, what is going to happen?  How are we to live?  What is it going to mean for the increasing numbers of children growing up in poverty?

There is so much that concerns me, scares me, angers me, I feel so passionately about what is happening.  But, but, I am ill, I am exhausted, the anger and anxiety make me more exhausted and sore and ill.  How can I make a change?  How can I get involved and fight and campaign?  To be sure, if I were well, I would be out there, doing everything I could to make a difference.  Instead I feel like my arms are tied behind my back, my feet tied together and my mouth gagged: I feel silenced and made invisible by my illness.

So where next?  I am at a loss.  I am trying to keep an eternal perspective, trying to pray, trying to find hope in God, but the present feels so overwhelming.

I may head back to the Psalms, it feels like a time for lament.

God of Contradictions

Something I wrote a week or two ago and have just polished up, mostly by getting the verses into order.  I suppose it is a Psalm?  Nothing on David's level though.

God of Contradictions

The God who made the earth the skies and sea
And allows us to trash them

The God who made man and woman in His own image
And allowed us to sin and break His heart

The God of beauty and perfection
Who allows ugliness and imperfection to reign

The God of justice, friend of the poor,
Who allows injustice and poverty to flourish

The God who is the prince of peace
And yet allows wars and rumours of wars

The God who sent His son
to save us in human form
And allowed us to beat and kill Him

The God who heals,
who makes the lame walk and the blind to see
And allows children to get sick and die

The God who is holy and perfect
And allows sinners to join Him at His table

The God of all joy
Who allows unimaginable sorrow

The God who collects our tears in a jar
And allows us to go on and on filling the jar

The God who hears our prayers
And so often allows silence to answer them

The God who rose again
And allows us to share in His hope

The God of contradictions
whom we so little understand
One day will you allow us to see as you see?
Will you seem so contradictory then?

The God who will soon return
And allows soon to feel like forever

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”  1 Corinthians 13.12

Speaking out

For a while now I have been praying that as a church we would be more vocal and speak up for the poor and the dispossessed and those without anyone to speak up for them and now we seem to have a church leader who is doing just that.  The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, seems determined not to keep quiet and to say when something is wrong, to call something exactly what it is, even if it causes him subsequent embarrassment. As a consequence both the media and ordinary people seem to have taken some notice of the church and what it is doing and its purpose for the first time in ages and in the main it is a positive response.

Generally on this blog I do try not to be political because this is not a political blog and because I find politics so extremely stressful and hard to cope with, however, I thought this was worth a mention.  We may be living through difficult and nasty times for many, but perhaps it is also an opportunity for the church to get up and speak out for people and to show care and concern for people in need and by doing so to demonstrate Jesus's love.

Archbishop Justin (calling him that does sound most familiar, I'm sure they would have had none of it in good old Barchester), spoke recently at one of those Christian Glastonbury's, New Wine and his talk is on his website and I cannot recommend it enough.  It is an excellent use for a half hour and it left me feeling inspired and encouraged and challenged all at once.


(picture from Lambeth Palace's flickr account)

I shall continue to pray for the church and for our new Archbishop, that we could be real and relevant and bring love and hope to this country and to the world.  Let us set out, one prayer at a time.

He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?  Micah 6.8 

P.S. If you want to hear some more of what the Archbishop has to say this video interview is also very interesting, though quite why anyone thought they needed dry ice behind them is beyond me!