One Decade Down...

At the turn of the millennium there was much optimism around. A 21st Century beckoned free from the dead hand of the cold war or the likely prospect of military super-power conflict. Economic prosperity for many, and a growing awareness of the injustice that was denying it to more, and the extraordinary advance and capability of technology, promised, if not a bright new world, then, at least, some cause for hope.


At the end of the first decade things seem decidedly less bright. I’m usually very reluctant to join in the, always to be found, chorus of how terrible the world is, and how we’re all going to hell in a hand-cart, I was however struck by these two reflections. The first, a reworking of a familiar model from Mark Greene, the second a quote from Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks …

Blessed are the brazen for they will be applauded.
Blessed are the beautiful of body for they will be adored.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for fame for theirs is the kingdom of Cowell.
Blessed are the selfish and the individualists for their ends will justify their means. Blessed are those who don't strictly believe in anything for they can dance to any tune.
Blessed are the drug-dealers, dream-weavers, make-over mavens and jingle-writers who help us forget our fractured hearts and our clipped wings and the echoing chasms of our souls.

“The richer Britain became the more cynical it grew. It put its faith in a financial house of cards. It looked at house prices and thought itself rich. It created the religion of shopping, whose original sin was not having this years model or must-have, and whose salvation lay in spending money you didn’t have, to buy things you didn’t need, for the sake of a happiness that doesn’t last. Rarely was a faith more seductive…”

Tale of Two Communities...

Some days just throw up the weirdest of combinations. You can hardly imagine you’re the same person, living the same life when, in such a short time, your experiences can be so varied.
Within 24 hours last week I visited 2 different communities. 90 minutes apart, same time zone, different worlds.

First we went to Shada, the largest slum in Cap Haitian. A rabbit warren of tiny, winding alleyways dotted with bits of metal, wood and half constructed blocks that served as homes. Teeming with people, children would come from everywhere, to look, laugh, beg, or simply shake your hand. The tiny alleys served as playground, sewer and tip and, when darkness fell, you would need to be an expert to navigate yourself around. This is one of the poorest communities in the world. People here eat clay cookies, patties of dirt from the ground, baked to give just the vaguest impression of food. Families here don’t name their children until they are 5, so likely is it that they will not live that long. We were visiting a community clinic with a Doctor we help to fund, and a project that was concerned with establishing, relatively, hygienic toilets in communities like these. Little beacons of hope in a dark place.

The next day, travelling home, we had a few hours to kill in Florida between flights. We decided to do the tourist thing and go on the boat tour of Fort Lauderdale harbour, complete with commentary of the riverside mansions of the rich and famous. The contrast was, of course, surreal, stark and jarring, from one of the very poorest to one of the richest communities in the world.

The mansion in the picture was that of Wayne Huizenga, out of his $6bn fortune he has bought half a dozen other similar properties along the river, as well as a $90m yacht, he likes the place. Wayne owns Blockbuster Video, as well as the Miami Dolphins football team, and the States baseball and basketball teams for good measure. To be fair though, my home is more like Wayne’s than a typical Shada dwelling; it has a front door, rather than a tatty piece of cloth or corrugated metal, it has lights, and a tap inside, more than one room, and a toilet. The toilet’s the thing, the key to health, wealth and happiness, at its most basic, the reason why those community eco-loos in Shada are so vital. And the irony? Wayne Huizenga’s fortune, long before the videos and the sports teams, was built on one thing…Waste Management. There’s money in most things, but the way it’s shared around, well it just feels a bit crap sometimes.

Heaven's Burger Party...

Many encounters in Haiti left me humbled, but a particular episode, on our final day, could have been a definition of humility itself.

Julbert works at the children’s home, he has a paralyzed arm but, being a teenager, was ineligible to join the programme itself. Nevertheless, he comes each day before 7.30 and leaves after 5.00, making himself useful answering the gate, doing odd jobs. He’s not employed as such, and has never asked for money, but he is paid when it’s possible to do so.
On our final morning a meeting was taking place and it was conveyed to me that Julbert was not a Christian and that I should pray. I was uncomfortable, was this some sort of disciplinary issue, had a piece of information come to light which jeopardised Julbert’s ongoing work? I knew that wasn’t the policy, or the heart, of the home, but it seemed so formal. I was told though that on arriving that morning Julbert had announced that he wanted to make this new commitment for himself. With that, without a word, he stood up and knelt in front of me. Uncomfortable again, I knelt beside him and prayed.

Afterwards, we shared with Julbert the fact that all of heaven rejoices with every new believer and invited him to come with us that evening, as we were going out to eat, to mark our final night in Haiti. We went to one of the very few half decent restaurants in town, recognisable by the armed guards outside. Julbert, wide eyed and speechless, had clearly never been here before. The menu was full of such delicacies as cheeseburger and chips, a luxury at $2.50. This was Julbert’s option but he struggled with it. Whether overwhelmed by the occasion or just unused to such rich fare he picked at his chips and left the burger untouched. We called for a box so that he could take it home, it would serve as a good few days food in his house we were sure. As we left Julbert detached himself from the rest of the group. As we looked over our shoulders, eager to return to the safety of the vehicles, we saw him, speaking with a street-boy who was begging at the side of the road outside of the restaurant, quietly we spotted him handing over the burger box.

The generosity of grace is one of the first lessons of discipleship. Some of us start a long way behind.

More than the name of a girl ...

In many ways this picture is the defining image of our trip. Yes it’s a Haitian child, her frail body belying her 5 months of life. Her weakness is eloquent testimony of this country’s poverty and need. She’s severely malnourished, she’s been abandoned by her family, she suffers from hydrocephalous, a condition which would, more than likely, have been identified and treated with little lasting damage here in the UK. But she’s Haitian and so she wasn’t treated and it is now severely life limiting for her. She’s a sign of injustice.


But she is more than a symbol, she is an individual who became a part of our team. She was abandoned half-way through our trip, the hospital rang and asked if our children’s home could accommodate her. She was collected, named by one of us, and brought home. Arms and legs the width of a single finger she was loved, nurtured and cared for. Fed, by syringe, first every hour, then every two, her body began, slowly, to fill out, just a little. Occasionally she would cry, just quietly.

She would be carried round with us, a constant talisman reminding us: that the building we were working on was being designed precisely to prevent such conditions being so devastating in the future. That the love she was receiving from Reninca and Carwyn, who run the home, and the other staff, was precisely what they did, and would continue to do, to all who they came across. On our final day she was dedicated to God, and we who have responsibility for her (that’s all of us by the way) made our promises too.

So she stood for much more than she knew, she was known and loved, eternally and today, she is more than an image of desperate poverty far, far away. She is a girl, she has a name, her name is ….Grace.

Home again, but not as we know it...

It’s now 5 days since my return from Haiti and there is some sign of things quietening down. I’ve slept in 7 different beds in the last 8 days but its now only 48 hours till I’m back in my own.

I’m back in Northumbria, with a view to reflect on my experiences over the last few months generally, and few weeks in particular. Quietness, space and solitude are helpful aids to reflection it’s true – but busyness, pressure and chaos has its place as well. Can you understand the bedlam of a Haitian slum better from a rural retreat or a crowded tube? None of us have the luxury of sitting entirely outside our world, so as to coolly observe it, that’s the challenge – we are all involved, responsible.

I guess that’s my overriding thought as I begin to look back. God is everywhere, his voice is always there to be heard, often it’s more of a cry demanding attention. If we take the time to look and listen, it’s not so difficult to hear him speak … much more tricky to respond.

Returning to ‘ordinary life’ after a visit to a place like Haiti brings inevitable tensions. Even after just a few weeks the culture clash is significant, what counts as important or significant is turned on its head. It’s not that the poverty is a surprise, and the much commented on ‘anger’ at the triviality of so many of our daily concerns will inevitably fade. But what can, or ought to, remain?

I’ve described my feelings to some as being like that of grief, when your world has been so affected yet all around you seems to carry on obliviously, and you want to shout at it to stop and take notice. As with grief, the task, over time, is not to get back to how things were before, but to find a new way to live which takes into account all that’s happened. It's the old question of discipleship, ‘How then shall we live?’

A visit makes the question all the more urgent. An email or a blog, newspaper report or any second hand account, cannot convey with anything like the same intensity, the challenge of standing in front of, looking into the eyes of, a hungry child as she asks for ‘one dollar?’ You may or may not hand over the cash there and then, but the question follows you home, and is likely to end up being a lot more costly.

I will be talking much more about Haiti, in a series of blogs, linked to specific people or events, over the next couple of weeks. But, for now, the big question, that’s dominated the whole of my 3 month break, remains. If Jesus is Lord, of everything, what does it look like to live an ordinary life?

News from the Caribbean...

Little time to wax lyrical I'm afraid but our first 4 days in Haiti have been hot, busy, chotic and challenging.  As well as preaching at 1st Baptist Church, Cap Haitian (membership 6,000) I've had chance to attend a local funeral (and get stuck in a river en route home), participate in an HIV/AIDS conference and  pray with a small group of street boys, held in a local prison (40 men in a 10m x 10m cell). Our group have also been able to get on with much practical work around the clinic/hospital/children's home ... more to come no doubt.
This country is beautiful and desperate, dark and light, a builder of faith and a challenger of courage.

Haiti.....

Am off to Haiti tomorrow for the best part of 3 weeks, so things will be quiet here.   If you don't know about Haiti - you ought to!
Check it all out here...

Without Children...

Last weekend I found myself, on a couple of separate occasions, in the odd position of being without a child, when circumstances demanded otherwise. I hadn’t been careless or negligent, just things had conspired against me. On Saturday I was travelling down to Bristol on the train, having purchased my usual 2 tickets with our family railcard. I was however on my own, Joe, my son, having decided, at the last minute, to travel down earlier in the week. I spent a restless few minutes deciding how much of this story it would be appropriate to tell the ticket inspector, it all seemed an unnecessarily complicated but I wondered if I could get away with suggesting he was away at the buffet car. As it turned out no inspector appeared, so my dilemma was never tested.


The previous day, I was at Bluewater shopping centre, at 10am with a few hours to kill, before I was required to provide lifts home. A film seemed the only reasonable option, but there was only one screen open. So I found myself queuing, trying not to look conspicuous, amidst dozens of impatient children, for the first showing of the morning of ‘Up’.

As the film began though I found myself wondering what the children were making of it. This was an old man’s story. More than that, in the opening 20 minutes, as the life of Carl Frederickson unfolded before our eyes, we had brief animated scenes in a special baby unit and a crematorium as he lost first his child then his wife. Hardly the traditional stuff of Disney/Pixar.

Beyond that though a beautiful story was told of hopes and dreams, how it’s never too late to realise them, but all to easy to miss them as they are fulfilled around us. My friends at Damaris have done a good job at reflecting upon it. I’m glad I got to go, and I didn’t even have to share my popcorn!

Halloween Story…

Evil is surprisingly commonplace. A family friend of James Rennie, convicted this week of running one of Scotland’s largest paedophile rings, said she had no qualms about using him as a baby-sitter because, ‘he seemed just like a regular guy’. Similarly, singer Kathryn Jenkins recounted in an interview her experience of being attacked as a student. The most memorable, and chilling, thing, she said, was that she was able to look straight at her attacker and her overriding thought was that ‘he looked just like anyone else’.

John Eldredge, in his little booklet ‘Epic’, speaks about how surprising it is that so many people live the story of their lives as if we have no enemies, while all the evidence around us suggests the world is a difficult and dangerous place:
“I am staggered by the level of naïveté that most people live with regarding evil. They don’t take it seriously. They don’t live as though the Story has a Villain. Not the devil prancing around in red tights, carrying a pitchfork, but the incarnation of the very worst of every enemy you’ve ever met in every other story. Dear God – the Holocaust, child prostitution, terrorist bombings, genocidal governments. What is it going to take for us to take evil seriously? Life is very confusing if you do not take into account that there is a Villain…”

He says this not to make us paranoid or anxious, but to enable us to resist the temptation to think that evil is invariably ‘other’, special and distinct, easily and obviously recognisable from the norm. It’s not, it’s everywhere, even in the heart of each one of us. It just rarely wears silly hats.

When Giving your All is Not Enough...

Hull City's manager Phil Brown is a lucky guy. Most of us can't imagine having such support at work. His players are with him, dedicated to his cause to a quite extraordinary degree. So committed are they, he claims, that they are behind him 1,000,000%.

It is great to have such clear-cut backing. Far better than the confusion created by Tennis star Rafael Nadal on the even of last years Wimbledon. Then he openly admitted to only giving 200% to get himself 100% fit for the tournament. It was probably just as well he wasn't going all out, that level of fitness would, almost certainly, not be enough in the modern game.

Even that level of determination though throws a shameful light on the sportsmen and women, and business leaders, of just a few years ago, who laboured under the lazy assumption that they could expect success by only giving 110%!

When will we learn what total committment really is?

Life...

Yesterday saw the 3rd episode of the latest extraordinary offering from those clever bod’s at the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol. ‘Life’ has a broad remit, uncovering how every animal and plant group live, breed and survive, sometimes seemingly against all the odds.

This week it was our turn, well mammals at least. We humans weren’t referred to explicitly, but clearly lessons for our own survival, and success, were strongly inferred. As ever beautiful filming, and wry observations from Sir Richard, told a series of remarkable stories of how the particular features of mammalian life meant we are on to a winner in the survival stakes.

Clearly the ability to generate warmth with within our bodies and feed our own young was useful, especially if you were a seal in an Antarctic blizzard. Having your legs directly under your body certainly gives you an advantage if your trying to outrun a lizard, not something I’d ever had cause to be thankful for previously. The ability to learn from, and across, generations is certainly more widely appreciated, and not only by baby elephants pulled out of mud-holes by their grand-mothers.

Most of all though this was a story about the power of community. Whether it was a hyena, struggling to confront a pride of lions on his own, but far better equipped when joined by his clan, or the complex division of labour in a meerkat colony. A reindeer, keeping safe and mobile among the herd, but still prepared to leave it for days on end to search for one missing calf, or a polar bear willing to risk its life to forage for a rare meal for it’s cub. A key ingredient of our collective success was our sense of family, our inbuilt capacity for relationship.

A week ago I had an invitation to a book launch. A small book with a large claim, ‘The Best Idea in The World’. The strap-line, ‘How putting relationships first transforms everything’. It’s funny how the same ideas keep coming up, perhaps because they’re important, and right.

Not So Secret Motivation ...

Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire is always an uplifting watch, even if the same plot is repeated each week. A successful person is placed ‘under-cover’ in a deprived area for a period of time. They work as volunteers as they discover locally based cash-strapped charities and organisations that are trying to help. In the final scene, with much emotion, they reveal their true identities and hand over large cheques, of their own money, to various deserving causes.
This week’s episode was a ‘special’, where Gary, a millionaire scrap-metal dealer, returned to the projects that he had supported during his stay in Blackpool a few months previously. A veteran’s charity, a respite holiday home for children with terminal illness, a homeless project and an individual with drug dependency were all significantly supported.

2 things stuck out for me, in this episode specifically and the series in general. Firstly the huge impact the opportunity of giving had on the ‘millionaires’ themselves. This was a recurring theme, and a feature of ‘Gary’s’ story. He spoke of his values being turned upside down, his life changed, his relationships improved and his sense of self greatly enhanced. Although we struggle to believe it, and even more to live it out, it is really better to give than to receive.

Secondly, it was striking how many of the projects that were supported, though the programme itself did nothing to highlight it, were faith-based. I personally recognised 2 initiatives, one an Urban Saints project and the other a church based youth group that used to be run by a friend of mine. It really is true that in some of the toughest places the church remains a real, in some cases the only, source of hope. This was powerfully brought home to me in this week’s programme. Gary took his 15 year old son back to Blackpool with him, to show him the work he had been involved in. He struggled to cope as he spoke with a terminally ill child of around the same age, then, in an eloquent piece to camera, spoke about how he couldn’t believe in the presence of God in the face of such suffering. As the story continued we moved to the homeless project, the camera focussed in on the name-plate at the entrance, it was called ‘Vincent House’ – the ‘t’ of Vincent was in the shape of a cross. Nothing was said but this viewer, at least, was left with the sure and certain knowledge that God was present all along.

Welcome ... to an Ordinary Life...

I’ve always been more attracted to the ordinary than the spectacular. Maybe that’s just my personality. I’m a little suspicious of the extravagant; wondering if it is genuine or sustainable. The everyday though, that seems to me to be where it’s at; the reality of things, as they are, without adornment.

I remember well a session when I was at theological college. We were being invited to consider our vocation, our life-calling if you will. The task was to create a personal coat-of-arms, to depict our sense of our own mission. My artistic skills were typically non-existent and I can’t remember what I drew, but I knew straight away what I wanted to express: A life that would seek to understand, to express and to share, an awareness and appreciation of God in the everyday. In no way dismissing or demeaning the super-natural, but hauling it into the realm of the ordinary.

I’ve always felt this is important, not only for the sake of my own taste, but for the task of mission too. If our talking about and living for God only appeals to those of religious sensibility, whether Catholic or charismatic, most people will be missed. Jesus, it seems to me, was concerned not to miss anyone, and so he pitched his tent right in the middle of us and walked our streets.

Now, over the years, this passion has worked itself out in a variety of ways and now I thought I’d begin to write about it. Who knows what I will say or where it will lead. No doubt I will reflect a lot on ‘Christian’ things, but I’m not particularly interested in narrowly religious questions, nor about church affairs. There will, no doubt, be much football and film. An ordinary life indeed, but one looking for ‘rumours of glory’, perhaps I will approach each entry with the question; ‘Where have I seen God today and what was he saying?’ I’d love to invite you to ask the same …

Amazing what confidence can do ....

3 goals in 6 minutes! A bit of belief goes a long way ...

The Soloist...

‘Something’s missing!’ We know that experience. The frustrating final piece of a jigsaw, the absent taste from a meal. Frequently though the anxiety comes from not quite being able to place that thing, without which the whole seems incomplete. Everything seems to be present, yet we are still conscious of a, sometimes gaping, hole.

In the recent film ‘The Soloist’ that question is explored. An adaptation of a true story, originally recorded in LA journalist’s Steve Lopez’s award winning book, the film records the relationship between Lopez himself and Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless man he comes across after hearing him playing Beethoven on a beaten up, 2-stringed violin in a city subway. Nathaniel clearly has plenty of holes in his life, a childhood musical prodigy, schizophrenia has robbed him of his promising career, and almost everything else besides. Lopez on the other hand, celebrated and successful, seems to be much more ‘complete’.

Near the beginning of their relationship Lopez asks Nathaniel, what is his greatest desire? “To find my other 2 strings” is his answer, and that search sets up the remainder of the film. What might they be, those things that would enable him to play, once again, to his full potential, and where on earth might he find them?

Christian imagery abounds. Large illuminated crosses adorn the homeless charity’s premises. As Nathaniel struggles with the chaos of city life he recites the Lord’s prayer. A professional musician, tries, unsuccessfully, to exert his evangelical influence yet, in a flashback, Nathaniel’s mother affirms that when she listens to him play she hears the voice of God. All of this serves as a backdrop to an evolving friendship which is seen as being transformative in itself. At one point Lopez tries to explain to his ex-wife, the influence that Nathaniel and his music is having on him. "It’s Grace”, she whispers in his ear.

At the conclusion of the film, Nathaniel is off the streets, but any recovery is acknowledged as very fragile, Lopez though is profoundly changed, he seems to have found what he didn’t know was missing.

What were those strings? That which was missing yet proved to be so profoundly life enhancing. Not so much the obvious things, the provision of an apartment, simple recourse to medication, or the trite slogans of religion, but friendship and faith, community and beauty … something like grace.

On Iona...

An island, very much on the edge of things, becoming central. Nestling in grandeur underneath a massive sky
Island landmarks include:

The famous stone crosses: erected 700 years before the Abbey, maybe the cross ought always to be pre-eminent to the church?
The Nunnery: central to the village, the significant role of women, offering hospitality and engaging with all around.









Martyr’s Bay: the small cove where a group of monks were massacred, even as they offered welcome and hospitality, even simple discipleship can be costly.
The local Cross-Roads: the only place of intersection on the island. A point of encounter, a gathering area and a decision spot.

St. Columba’s Bay: The first missionary, running away from Ireland, and his past, to find a new place. Vocation as leaving behind and taking up. Love as letting go.
The island’s high point: A place to use as a marker, a guide, an opportunity to see where you’ve come from and where you’re going.
The Hermit’s Cell: A place of quiet solitude, withdrawal & focus.
St. Onan’s cemetery chapel: Final resting place, bleak yet hopeful, ordinary yet glorious – innocuous yet 48 Scottish Kings buried outside.

Reflections on Northumbria...

The very landscape on my recent visit to Northumberland spoke of a place at once open and challenging. The community I stayed with there offered a generous and easy invitation and you were bound to feel accepted and supported by such a simple, contemplative environment, yet one also always willing to go out of its way to help.
A number of words recurred:
Journey: The travelling and not the arriving, always moving yet refusing to obsess over any destination as an ‘answer’ or reward.
Ordinariness: An awareness of everyday presence, a simplicity and down-to-earthedness in prayer and action.
Rhythm: More musical than boring, a regular consistency, a faithful dependency, a habitual momentum.
Blessing: Unashamed and explicit words, and prayers, of encouragement. Simple, generous and brave.

Bamburgh;

A castle over-looking a Holy Island. What does it take to live well in such proximity to power? Close enough to influence yet far enough away to be distinctive.

Holy Island:

One of the cradle’s of English Christianity. It’s a place full of stories, of cutting edge mission and inspirational spirituality. An evocative place, not least because of its nature as a tidal island, cut off at high tide yet connected via a causeway to the mainland the rest of the time. The Celtic saints of old saw that as a metaphor for their task of faithful discipleship. Profoundly connected, never aloof nor distant, but engaged, relationally, with the whole world around them. But also taking some time to withdrawal, reflect, pray, seek God without distraction, that they might be better fitted for the task.
Sculptures:



‘The Journey’, Aidan and Cuthbert - rough, powerful and strong, tender and honest. Real people in a real place creating a legacy.