British Food

My American friends  tell me, with some frequency, how poor British food is.  I usually just smile and say nothing.  To correct them would seem like protest or defensiveness.  British food can stand on it's own.  Indeed if the food is simple, it must be of high quality, unadorned by masking sauces.  In addition, the food of Europe, and indeed the once British Empire, comes to Britain, and is now usually grown here.  Here is my Christmas Day food, for your reading pleasure:

Breakfast: Cereal Muesli grown in Dorset with skimmed milk from Surrey and a Banana from Jamaica.

Mid morning nibbles: roasted potato segments from Norfolk brushed in oil infused with thyme and a think spread of melted Kent cheddar cheese.  Melted sticks of Somerset camembert cheese coated in breadcrumbs.

Christmas dinner:  Roasted leg of British lamb with rosemary from my Mum's garden, roasted russet potatoes from Lancashire in extra virgin olive oil, roasted parsnips from Devon coated in Cornish parmesan cheese and roasted in goose fat from Cheshire, Brussels sprouts and sweet garden peas grown locally this summer and frozen,  Bisto gravy with a dash of British sherry and rosemary for flavour.

A small glass of ginger wine made in Wales was enjoyed by family members, al accompanied by carols song by the world's best choir (Kings College Cambridge),a d topped off by Cornish clotted-cream ice-cream and the Queen's annual Christmas speech on the world's best television - the BBC.

After a suitable period of recovery, a bowl of Christmas Pudding (from Marks and Spencers of course) topped with brandy cream and/or rich custard from Wiltshire.

Tea time:  'Mince' pies with cornish clotted cream (one can never have enough), Ecclefechan tarts and slice of stollen cake, Indian black tea with skimmed milk.

Us poor deprived British.  We just don't know any better.

In fairness, most Brits think we Americans schnarf down McDonalds burgers and put cheese on everything...which is completely false, except for the cheese.

Wendy Cope's 'A Christmas Song'

A Christmas Song, by Wendy Cope - posted without her permission, but I hope she would forgive me, since this is a great poem for those whose Christmas carries a thread of grief, as well as joy.  How often those two go together!  Christmas blessings to you.  here's the poem: 

Why is the baby crying,  On this, his special day,  When we have brought him lovely gifts,  And laid them on the hay?

He’s crying for the people,  Who greet this day with dread,  Because somebody dear to them,  Is far away or dead,

For all the men and women,  Whose love affairs went wrong,  Who try their best at merriment,  When Christmas comes along

For separated parents,  Whose turn it is to grieve,  While children hang their stockings up,  Elsewhere on Christmas Eve,

For everyone whose burden,  Carried throughout the year,  Is heavier at Christmastime,  The season of good cheer.

That’s why the baby’s crying,  There in the cattle stall:  He’s crying for those people.  He’s crying for them all.

Reframing for Thanksgiving

"...I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:11b-13 ESV

Contentment is a decision, not a condition.  It's not something a person is, so much as something that a person decides to be.  We need to decide in every ungrateful moment of discontent, to become content.  Maybe after a long habit of doing so, we can start to become grateful and content as our default condition.  I'm not there yet.  So I'm grateful to our forbears for this one day a year we call Thanksgiving - a uniquely American frame of mind.  Europe or the Islamic world would never have come up with such a public holiday.  neither one of them has a worldview that can acknowledge God as the giver of all good gifts.  Neither do I.  Which is why I need Thanksgiving Day.

I used to be happier.  I used to have more friends, deeper friends, I used to have clearer purpose, more confidence, a sunnier disposition, more peace, less heavy, less grumpy, less sorry for myself and easier to be with, closer to my family and generally less of a jerk.  That's life.  But I am closer to Jesus, love music more; I am older and quite a bit wiser.  I still have people who put up with me.  There are a handful of people who still call me 'pastor' and for that I could not be more grateful.  I have my health.  My family are still around me and doing OK. So I'll decide today to get over myself and practice contentment with this generally ungrateful and dark egocentric heart.  God knows. 

Randy Stonehill recording "Billy Frank"

Here is a treat for you.  A great song about a great man from a great guitarist, singer songwriter:

http://www.youtube.com/v/MDvREqeRqXQ?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=1d3KCCHECQbEWsn39YoVNw&autohide=1&showinfo=1&feature=share&autoplay=1

Beautiful insignificance

"I need regular reminders of my call to faithfulness, not to success. How easily I forget what's important. I still have some major unlearning to do about identity, results, and ministry. I am not defined by what I do, but by who I am. Or, more importantly, to whom I belong."

This little quote from J.R. Briggs tidily expresses where I am in my ministry these days.  It encompasses a kind of identity shift away from the metrics of corporate success and into something that roots down towards the person and work of Christ in my own heart, and thereby into ministry.  I came across the quote in Paul Pastor's beautifully written article here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2013/october-online-only/among-successful-failures.html

I love fine art - painting - and try to visit the great galleries whenever I travel. So often it is not the really famous paintings that move me. (The Mona Lisa comes to mind.)  It's the little corner of a painting that suddenly captures a moment, a truth, a beauty. I am encouraged to set aside the allure of significance and profile that I see some of my pastor-friends reaching for.  I'm happy to do some little thing really really well.  Something that very few people would ever notice, but that God will enjoy.  It'll probably be regarded as a misguided ministry failure or more realistically not be noticed at all. But it'll be worship, and what is better than that?

Loss and simplification.

People are so complex.  Situations involving people in relationship are an order more complicated again.  Perspectives and feelings are so personal.  It's all fraught with danger and often doesn't end well.  That is the context of this Christian Way, our personal discipleship, ministry and the Together Life that Jesus calls His followers to embrace, called 'church'.
I have been reflecting on the last two years of my journey.  This weekend two years ago I preached a sermon and then started a 13 week period of absence from my beloved church in order to study full time at seminary...while still working my day job three days a week and trying to see my family in whatever time was left over.  I was depleted mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally and to some extent, physically.  Yet even in that condition I set myself to the 'north face' of a study mountain that would push me to within a semester of completing my Master's degree in ministry at seminary. I pulled it off, by the grace of God, and returned to my church just in time for Advent and Christmas! From the frying pan into the fire!

I had no idea it was to be the beginning of the end.  I was completely blindsided by the discovery that key individuals in my church had perceived my euphemistically named "study 'break'" as a sabbatical.  I had failed to build deep enough relationships with my leaders.  I had also made the foolish mistake of remaining on a peppercorn salary that caused many to value me as much as they paid me.  The money was irrelevant.  It was lack of regard for my calling that was the toxin.  And so after a few episodes of less than heavenly interaction it became very clear that the best thing to nurture The Kingdom, and indeed for the remaining threads of my self-care, was to finish well and move out, making room, I prayed, for a fresh pastor to take that very wonderful church forward into God's preferred future for them.  I grieved long and I grieved hard.  I grieved for my loss, and more particularly for the loss of what could so nearly have been.  It takes vision and hope to dream.  It takes humility and abandonment-to-God to bury a dead dream and pat the grave soil down with a shovel, and walk away.

Since then I have experienced the death of dreams in every area of my life: my family, my work for money, my relationship with my denomination, with friends, and in my understanding of what I used to refer to as 'my vocation'.  Consequently, I am a much simplified person.  I am more acutely aware of the blessings I have: my health, my wife, my faith in Christ, a few good friends and family and the daily rhythm of life.  That's enough for me.  The Lord gives and The Lord reminds us that every moment is a gift.

Two years after the beginning of the end, I am learning to care less about beginnings and ends.  I care less about mean people and their agendas than I once did.  The sun shines on us all alike, even me.

I've been thinking about getting a tattoo, in small but clear lettering over my heart. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of The Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.".  Like I said, this is personal, and may not end well.

PS - I wrote this blog entry in August 2013, but delayed publishing it until now.  There is a wonderful young and very smart pastor leading the church i left - and God will surely bless them together - a happy ending of that aspect for sure.

Every Meal a Eucharist

Approximately 40 hours before Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross, He gathered His inner circle of disciples around a table in an upstairs room to celebrate a Passover Meal with them.  I believe that at that meal, Jesus started His 'passion' - His suffering, and in a real sense, His death.  Ahead of Him was utter loneliness, horror, despair, unthinkable pain, naked humiliation and a slow agonizing death.  Really, it was all a process of death.  Jesus marked the end of His time with His disciples with a highly symbolic meal of bread and wine and told them to always remember Him with this meal.

Christians differ in understanding the timing of what He meant.  Did He mean only every Passover meal (in which case we have Eucharist once a year), or every meal, or every meal where Christians gather for the purpose of worship - or some other periodicity?

As for me, I like to celebrate Eucharist every Sunday - because every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ - and His Lordship over all things.

I heard it said recently that for ever meal, something dies - an animal, a plant.  Something has to die to feed us - to give us life.  How appropriate that Christ chose a meal to mark His death which gives us real life.

Give us this day, our daily bread.