Monk in the Marketplace

Bowthorpe Church

Ray Simpson, and the Community of St Aidan and St Hilda, of which he was one of the founders, have become one of the obvious places to look these days when considering what we can learn from and experience with Celtic spirituality. Ray has written widely and his recently published autobiography, Monk in the Marketplace, is a fascinating account of his life and ministry, but with many insights from Celtic spirituality. Though by no means the only places he has worked, a lot of the book focusses on his ministry in Bowthorpe, Norwich, and the founding of a ground-breaking ecumenical partnership there, and his subsequent ministry in and from Holy Island (Lindsifarne).

I was particularly interested in the Bowthorpe reflections, as that was part of my ‘patch’ as Moderator of the Eastern Synod of the URC, and I have preached there a few times. We also once had a great holiday on Holy Island, so reading something of the spiritual perspective of Ray and his colleagues was fascinating.

He reflects perceptively on what we need to do to be church today in a relevant way. “In a twenty-four-hour society, people relate better to seven days a week churches. In a multi-choice society people look to churches that offer facilities for a range of temperaments, cultures and ages. In the cafe society churches are eating places as well as praying places. In a visual, sound-byte age people resort to churches that use different media – poetry as well as pulpits, storytelling as well as sermons. In an age of mass travel, when people look for B&Bs and hostels that they can relate to, churches provide accommodation – in their grounds, or on their websites. They once again link up with hostel and guest house movements. In a multi-ethnic society people expect to find within the wider church services that are culturally Muslim or Sikh in style. In an orphaned society, when mentors, life coaches and growth buddies are in demand in the worlds of business, fitness and AIDS care, people seek out spiritual homes where they can find soul friends and mentors. In a packaged, pressured society, suffering from data overload and stressful bureaucracy, people make a bee line for churches where they can chill out, be themselves, have space. In a world where equality of regard is written into statutes few people under forty any longer wish to be defined by a protest movement of 450 years ago called the Reformation, but are drawn to churches that are transcending the Protestant or Catholic label.”

He is clear that we need to find space for God, and so we do. “If we never get off the treadmill of life we may become prisoners of the treadmill. Generally, I have felt drawn to pilgrim places where nobodies became somebodies because they lived for God and loved people.”

One final point of note for me was his connection with Ash Barker and Winson Green. I was minister of Winson Green URC for four years in the nineties and am fascinated by the interesting work that Ash is doing, including the church in a yurt to which Ray refers – “I also maintained contacts with Ash Barker and friends who, following years living in Bangkok slums, developed in his revolutionary new ministry at Newbigin House, Birmingham, near the prison. He leads a Fresh Expression of Church in a yurt in the garden. His wife Anji heads up the multiple activities of Newbigin Community Trust, and they oversee the School for Urban Leadership. He invited me back to give a Celtic blessing on the yurt. This was it: May each person who enters this yurt Receive from You a big spurt To fight for right and overcome wrong To laugh and dance and sing your song.”

Lesslie Newbigin, left, me, centre, and others signing an agreement between the Church of England and the United Reformed Church at Winson Green

Walk Tall, Walk Well, Walk Safe, Walk Free

A recently enjoyed read is Graham Usher’s The Way Under Our Feet: A Spirituality of Walking. Graham is now Bishop of Norwich, and so was an ecumenical colleague during the latter part of my time as Moderator of Eastern Synod. Graham clearly has a great love of walking and frequently enjoys it as a spiritual experience. He writes: “Walking refreshes me and slows me down. The gentle movement relaxes my body, while the rhythm gives me time to think, so that those complex thoughts and worries that spin around my mind are sieved and sifted, memories are filed and my head becomes somewhat clearer,” adding, “Walking helps me to pray and leads me to encounter God: it’s as if I have a companion at my side, or up in front leading me on, or whispering from behind, encouraging me to take the step I dare not, but need to take.”

Usher recognises the value of walking in all sorts of ways, not least as he sees the model that Jesus offers and the challenge that he brings. “Jesus entrusted a small community that he had shaped to go out and walk his message. Those disciples’ walk would change the world as that message ‘gained legs’. Within a few years of his death, the words of Jesus would be walked to the ends of the known world, and as people were baptised, so the wet footprints of the totally immersed could be seen going in every direction! Acknowledging this, St Paul echoed a phrase of the prophet Isaiah ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ (Rom. 10.15). He could see the power of walking in telling the story of what God has done for the whole world in the birth and life, passion and death, resurrection and ascension of his son, Jesus Christ.”

Walking can certainly play a helpful role. “We may be heartened by this prayer from South Africa: Walk tall, walk well, walk safe, walk free and may harm never come to thee. Walk wise, walk good, walk proud, walk true and may the sun always smile on you. Walk prayer, walk hope, walk faith, walk light, and may peace always guide you right. Walk joy, walk brave, walk love, walk strong and may life always give you song.”

Climate Sunday

 

Beside the 'Mungo Mural' on the way to Glasgow Cathedral

I was delighted to be part (in a very small way) of today’s Climate Sunday service at Glasgow Cathedral. In about eight weeks Glasgow will be hosting the important COP 26 conference – and this was an opportunity to pray for that and to reflect on it and the issues it will be considering. Climate change is undoubtedly the single biggest issue facing the planet, and it needs critical attention if we are to avoid climate catastrophe. The preacher, Christian Aid CEO Amanda Khozi Mukwashi, gave a powerful message reminding us of the importance of getting our relationship with God right and, having established that basis, also our relationship with the planet and with other human beings.

A number of church leaders, and others, particularly young people, contributed a range of insightful prayers and comments, some in person and others on pre-recorded video. We were reminded that we were in the city of St. Mungo and of his love of nature. I was especially struck by the commitment to these issues expressed by the Lord Provost of Glasgow. His description of Glasgow’s aim to be at the cutting edge of city responses to environmental issues was both encouraging and challenging. This was certainly an important occasion of which to be part.

Borders and Belonging - Lessons from Ruth

“Borders and Belonging: The Book of Ruth: A Story For Our Times” by Pάdraig Ó Tuama and Glenn Jordan offers a fascinating look at Ruth and many interesting links to contemporary times.

In particular, they emphasise lessons of kindness, so often missing from our experience – “the contrast between this biblical narrative of kindness and compassion couldn’t be starker when compared to the bear pit of politics and civic discourse in recent years on the issue of the EU. But maybe that is exactly why Ruth is important for us today when kindness and compassion seem to be in such short supply. This apparently simple book situates itself at the very places where the tectonic plates of conflicted communities threaten to crack and split apart whole nations and societies. Perhaps it offers us a way towards the healing of our fractures and the building of new and healthy relationships in the aftermath of trauma.”

There are a number of references to Brexit, very current when the book was written, but in a way that runs deep and fits numerous politically turbulent times. There is a strong push to remember the vulnerable and the marginalised. “The book of Ruth reminds us to look to the margins and to ask about who is being affected by these global eruptions. The bright and shiny baubles of Brexit, for instance, are overwhelmingly powerful, but they can also distract us from what is going on behind the loud exterior. Ruth reminds us that there will always be those driven back by the noise, pinned down by the tumult, who will be seeking mediating voices to speak to them words of comfort and inclusion and assure them they have not been forgotten.”

Another key point they raise is around the risks and damaging elements of stereotyping. “The book of Ruth is also a radical theological act. It recognizes that the national stereotype of Moabites is overcome by a new story; indeed, it is an acknowledgement that new stories are always possible. And these new stories are not told on the level of nation states or whole people groups but through personal and human encounter. In this way the book demonstrates the enduring and transforming power of incarnation.” We should always be looking for the contribution that different folk can make, and so the different stories that they are telling.

And, of course, there is a reference to migration, its challenges and contributions, and the blinkered approach that we often take. “The story of the world is a story of migrating peoples. For millennia, people have moved across seas and over mountain ranges. Empires seized lands and created borders. With borders and empires came the idea of policing the permission to move, and the era of Christianist empires introduced the imagination that you only have to be in a country a few hundred years before you become the ones with the right to be there, policing other people who are seeking to arrive as your recent forebears did, only a generation – or three or four – before. This book of Ruth is an intervention into the story.”