Love People And Feed Them

Sometime in the mid-eighties (I think ...) I trained as an evangelist for what may have been the last of the great 'crusades' in the UK, led by Luis Palau. I remember hundreds of people spilling out onto the pitch at Queen's Park Rangers football club in response to the call to give themselves to Jesus. It was pretty impressive, and I have nothing but admiration for the organisation and the good intentions and I hope, sincerely, that those who were saved stayed that way.

 

So I am peeling potatoes this morning at the Salvation Army and I am in fine form. We, pensioners all, (that is, over-sixty) are laughing out loud at the report in the press of a Cabinet meeting of the last government where Owen Patterson, keen to limit immigration and yet keep cheap labour for fruit farmers, suggested that we, the pensioners, be put out in the fields to pick the fruit instead. Oh! Because we shouldn't Idly collect state benefits and be a burden, and furthermore, we should be exempt from minimum wage legislation.

 

Apparently, one official present forgot protocol, and laughed out loud. Be that as it may, this crazy idea hasn't taken off - yet.

 

Turns out we ALL worked in the fields in our youth. Hoeing peas, planting potatoes, picking blackcurrants ... We speculated on ways that the various jobs we did could be adapted to our current afflictions: orchards adapted for mobility scooters being favourite.

 

Seems a long way from Queen's Park Rangers, this mission. Laughter, companionship and service brought together to prepare a meal for people like us who have fallen on hard times. In my thirties I thought it was necessary to fervently entreat others to go to Jesus for salvation. In my sixties I have finally grasped that 'Jesus' is already there. There is no 'them' and 'us' we are all life itself coming into incarnation.

 

To be an God-bearer is to love people and feed them. That's about it.

Meryl and Lee:

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A Year On

I went to an AGM on Thursday night. It was a real sacrifice let me tell you, as I am trying to give meetings up as a reward to myself for leading a good life.

 

It was the annual reckoning to its supporters of Gloucester City Mission and it was the usual mix of reports and chocolate biscuits. There are now 20 rough sleepers in Gloucester, and many many, more people living in poverty helped by GCM , which means, a little, helped by people like me. 'Grannies for God' I call us, because most of us are: not because we're especially holy, but because we're free during the day to go out on the streets.

 

On the same point, and by way of conclusion, I found a piece I wrote two years ago for a friend describing a visit to The Day Centre for the homeless before it closed last January:

 

Mission work was rewarding yesterday. I walked to the Vaughn Centre with Dennis, Ethlyn and Maureen. We had a lot of goodies, so were very popular.

I talked to Abs, an Indian guy in his twenties, a drinker, sent by his parents to India for six years, where he was abused. And more and more... But what impressed me about him was his gentleness, his politeness, and the way he was seeking a way out. Maureen, who is a baptist and a bit more overt than me, took over, and Abs seemed to be earnestly engaged. Funny, I just realised that he has the the name I use for Abigail...

Then there was Dave - indeterminate age, be-stubbled (undesigner), missing teeth, happy, well under the influence... He's just out of prison, has got back with his partner, hence the happy.

'Do you want to see my tattoo?'

Well, what girl could refuse?

He'd seen the text on the wall of the prison chapel, it was, 'God alone is my judge' and it was tattooed down his left calf. ('Now THAT'S irony, Dave,' I didn't say.)

I tried to think of what I would have tattooed, and where, and drew a blank on both counts.

I tell you I came away with a great deal of admiration for prison workers. 'Janice' had really looked after him I could tell, keeping him company, getting him a radio, encouraging him and - not judging him.

Dave wants to be baptised. So, I called over Dennis, who is great with men under the influence, having been one himself once, and he talked about the implications...

There's a great little church in the Docks nearby, the old 'Mariner's' church that had served the sailors and bargees when the docks was more than a Mall on water. The vicar is enthusiastic, and the church is alive to the needs of men like Dave.

Which ALL churches will need to become when the Night Shelter closes and the Vaughn Centre loses its funding next year. We have to get good at doing the real stuff. As I often say to people of faith, the Christ won't judge us on doctrine, theology, or the magnificence of our buildings (not in a GOOD way anyway) but on what we did for the widows, orphans and drunks.

What a witness it would be if the church, in all it's manifestations, spent as much time and energy on the latter as the former! By any criteria, I would say we have failed miserably in what should have been our prime purpose. It's no wonder thinking people don't want to know.

There! It's out! I am bordering on disillusionment. And yet, and yet, I'm not ready to jack it all in. I really don't know why!

The AGM was a reminder that whilst some things get worse, others get better. The street friends mentioned above have moved on, as many do, hopefully to better things, and GCM is now in a position to rent a permanent home. We will share premises with the Homeless Healthcare Team. Christians Against Poverty, and the Food Bank. A Poverty 'One-Stop Shop' which I wish to God we didn't need. At least there will be food and shelter for people who need it this Christmas.

 

 

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Dan Brown And The Kingdom of Heaven

I thoroughly enjoyed The Da Vinci Code - book and film, not least because of it's capacity to force people who should, think again about their faith.

I am prompted to the Da Vinci Code comment because I am reading, "The Wisdom Jesus" by Cynthia Beaugealt, who draws on The Gospel of Mary Magdelene to make her point that Jesus was quite Zennish in his approach. CB prompted me to ask some pretty fundamental questions about the teachings of Jesus that had never occurred to me before. Why SHOULD he teach in parables, for example? Why not just come out and say stuff? Parables are inherently unsatisfying - especially the ones about people hiding treasures in fields, that sort of thing. They play on the mind. Well, there you have it! What the brain can't fully grasp, it never lets go of. I have noticed this - 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like a crossword clue that you can't get, but might ... " the old grey matter chews it over and over until a light goes on and "Eureka!" Is heard throughout the land. 

I love going to church, to hold in my hand and in my mouth the essence of God herself and KNOW beyond thinking, that We are becoming One. It's a deeply mystical encounter that takes me out of myself and into everybody else. Is this what the church teaches? Well, sort of. 

Frankly, you can keep much of the rest. Sorry, fellow believers, I can't be doing with male supremacy, dodgy saints, self-serving prayers and lives lived filled with guilt and emptied of compassion.

Uh-oh, the Bhuddist that sits on a cushion in the back of my head is whispering, "Judging mind!" And I have to sigh and respond with, "Too bloody right!" And Enlightenment eludes my grasp once again. 

I cling as precariously to my Catholic faith as ever I did, often wondering why. Then Pope Francis comes along and sticks his head out of a window in Rome and advises the church to get its hands dirty, 

I am quite looking forward to see how this translates into action. I hear he's getting a lot of stick. "The Red Pope!" Is being bandied about like it was an insult. 

Go for it Your Holiness. If Church doesn't serve the poor, it isn't serving its Founder. 

As for the Da Vinci Code, well: a great story. Mary of Magdala has been pretty much written out of official church history despite her impressive discipleship (SHE didn't leg it when things turned nasty ... ). She obviously loved her teacher with a tender passion that I really hope brought him joy. 

"

 PS: Enquiries into the catholic order "Opus Dei" went through the roof following the publication of The Book. I know this because I checked it out myself, and saw the hits. A tad too rigorous for my haphazard approach to sanctity, but this could be a good thing ... 

Awakening

My friend Alex finally has it taped. Full, as usual of his exuberant excitement, he announced, "These people don't receive bacause they don't give. There's this church in San Franscisco that has people following the 2,4,7,10 routine. Church twice a week, ( forget), (forget), and give10%! They get £144. (I'm pretty sure he forgot this is £144 every two weeks. Surely?) That's enough to live on, they just waste it ... " Mike stopped him, and brought the reflection time back on track. I had just spent a harrowing thirty minutes with a homeless alcoholic who'd arrived at this place after being forced to watch her son be tortured and raped. Sometimes, this work is just too hard. I had no words for her, I just held her, and let her sob. I wasn't paying much attention to Alex.

That was yesterday. Today I am warm and comfortable, and having done all I can to let Michelle's nughtmare pass, I am returning to Alex's formula for getting street people into church.

I see several rather obvious flaws in his argument. If it had been a matter of arithmetic, wouldn't Jesus have thought about it first?

"You are Peter, and upon this abacus I will build my church!" No. The whole point of the gospel is to wake people up to the wholeness and fullness of life that is the discovery of the Kingdom of God (heightened awareness, full consciousness) that is within us all. You don't get there by acquiring a set of religious brownie points. You open yourself up to your suffering and to the suffering of others and let it teach you what is true. This is the foolishness of the cross. This is the heart of Christian teaching.

I do try playing the numbers game, and I always lose. Pray every day, go to confession once a month, and, and - all the other musts and shoulds that afflict religious people. Such nonsense just brings failure with attendant guilt and feelings of unworthiness and hopelessnes. Which might be preferable, come to think of it, to the pride and superiority that would ensue from succeeding ... Jesus was tender towards we failures, but awful towards the proud. I have to think of some way of letting Alex know I think he's talking out of his arse. I will, perhaps, tell him a story:

"About a year ago I met a funny looking young man who bore an uncanny likeness to Matt Smith. 'He's gone to park the Tardis' I remember saying when someone commented on his disappearance one day. He was burning with this vision for street people. He carried a notebook with him everywhere, he was determined to discover what our people needed. He wrote down what they said. He was listening.

Then he discovered a church in San Fransico who found a magic formula. He wrote it in his notebook, and now he he is telling people what they need. He has stopped listening."

 

 

 

Action And Contemplation

It's difficult to say which of the two is harder sometimes. The double strand of the rope of faith, or in the words of the song my mother used to sing, in respect of marriage ( And what an outdated old-fashioned notion THIS is.... .) "You can't have one without the other!"

Love and marriage 

Love and marriage

They go together like a horse and carriage

And you can't have one

No you can't have one 

Without 

The other

Frank Sinatra or Perry Como: so very long ago, and just a snatch. Have I ever told you how incredibly happy my childhood was? Mum, singing all sorts of schmaltzy  songs. Dad playing 'In a Persian Market' or 'Panis Angelicus' on his newly-acquired record player. Or the  Inkspots, now I come to think of it. Funny thing about reminiscence, one fragment of memory trawls up another ... 

Digression. A useful ploy when you don't want to get to where you're going because you think if you don't write it, it may not have happened, and this is nonsense. 

I wonder, often, if I do what I do on the streets of Gloucester, for no other reason than to feel good about myself, and the best thing to do with that thought is to agree with it, and get on with the doing of it, because it gets me out of the house and puts me in the way of some stories that may become a poem or a blog, or, one day, the Great Work, that right here and now, and for sure, I know I'll never get round to writing. 

Eliza's in a bad way. Years of injecting herself with heroin, with fewer and fewer places left to pump in the stuff , have landed her twice in hospital, with embolisms, and have left her with an infection in her  pelvis that is resistant to antibiotics, and this is bad news. She's forty-two, and at the end of the line. I hold on to Eliza in something that I would once have called prayer, but right now I'm going through a disillisioned patch, so don't.  

Billy Jones. The old tramp who sat for a year after it closed,  despairing , outside what used to be the Night Shelter, in noisy and drunken protest. I would feed him sympathy and pie and chocolate and he would bellow out his disgust at the 'powers that be' that had stopped funding the place that was as much of a home as Billy, 'I'm the last real tramp in Gloucester!' wanted.  He used to make me laugh.

He no longer tramped, as far as I know, he just sat in the sun and drank himself into oblivion. A few weeks ago, he amused me, and  everyone to whom I've told the story,  by eyeing me up and down and saying,"You're not bad-looking for your age!" 

I'm writing as if  he's dead, aren't I? He's not. He's out on the streets somewhere on police bail  having thrown a punch in a drunken brawl that left a man dead. Suddenly Billy's story, always a dark farce, has turned to tragedy.

Terry and Sheila are being evicted because they are up to their eyeballs in debt, and which, for some reason Terry's not to sure about, Sheila won't pay back. Terry takes no responsibility for this, but I know him: he's not very intelligent and can't. He's anxious and sad and I remember how bright and smiley he can be, and I'm sad too. 

Maxine's  broke because she told The Council she had two homeless people staying with her in her flat, and The Council said they were a fire risk and had to get out, and, 'Oh, by the way you owe us £300 in rent for the period they stayed with you.'   "Never do anyone a good turn, " Maxine says. "What we need is a Revolution," I say, and just at that moment, I probably meant it. "In the meantime, don't tell The Council when you have someone staying with you. Let them find out - the outcome is the same." 

Maxine's friend, Jesus, (Yes, really, 'Jesus-Mary' in fact.) leers in her direction. You can tell I've taken a dislike to him, can't you? He's a trim little man with piercing blue eyes, eager to impart his particular take on parenting:

"I have seventy-five children in thirty-five countries." He smiles, proudly, having given more thought and energy to the "Go forth and multiply" bit of the book of Genesis than I think wise. My face  freezes in a rictus of disbelief. I'm not here to condemn the world, but to save it, and anyway, I'm speechless. 

Eddy, whom I like enormously, and is here becaus he's too sick to work, had a hypo. A chocolate bar magically restores him, and I am reminded of my father, who was also a diabetic, and whose eighty-fifth birthday it would have been yesterday. My father was bright and kind just like Eddy, who's  being robbed blind by his stepsons, and doesn't care, and whose life revolves around his wife, who's living with Huntingdon's disease in a specialist care home in Ledbury. Eddy's easy to like, and suddenly I realise how grateful I am to him for this. 

Well, today, I don't feel so good about myself. I am sad and disillusioned and wondering if it wouldn't be better to just stick to gardening. 

Thing is, I know it will pass. Next Monday I'll put on the Salvation Army tabard and set to peeling spuds and serving tea, not because I make any difference to the lives of the men and women I meet there, but because, somewhere deep, where I can still pray, I know they make a difference to me. 

Jesus And Johnny

I am not a fan of Country and Western Music. Never will be. So I am very, very surprised to find myself moved to take up the tablet inspired by Johnny Cash. 

Yesterday would have been his eighty-second birthday. I would not have known this had it not featured on the WONDERFUL Canadian Public Radio show, 'As It Happens'. It turns out that a store keeper, somewhere In Canada, is serving baloney sandwiches and cake iced with black icing to raise money for the local Food Bank. My writer's seventh sense kicked in and I followed the conversation closely. It turns out that Johnny Cash always wore black in recognition of the suffering of humanity, and his belief in Jesus. 

I then reigned-in my critical faculties and listened to the 'Man In Black' song. I was deeply, deeply moved. Not by the Country and Western dum-de-dum, but by the powerful spirituality and gentle, authentic activism in evidence in Johnny's lyrics.

I have a Christian faith, of sorts, but am very wary of speaking about Jesus, because I can't bear to associate myself with groups who use the Name to propagate hate crimes. I do not wish to be counted with these people, so I have left the floor. 

Case in point: I am horrified by the growing anti-Gay persecution in Africa, encouraged and sponsored, I have learned, by ultra-conservative Western  'Christian' groups who have the sick, sick, idea that the Prince of Peace would be served by this. This is getting close to my heart. Time to take a step back.

Just in case you are under any illusion that I am in any way better than the believers who are out to kill gay people, I will confess that I am guilty of a being a gossip. There are other things I'm guilty of, but gossiping is more likely to be a mortal sin that you relate to than some of my more colourful backslides.

The thing is, gossiping appears in St Paul's list of things you'd better not do, right alongside fornication. Of any kind. So why, I wonder do we not have  African states, spurred on by evangelical whackos, legislating prison and execution for gossips? 

Stupid question. 

The Christ, whom Johnny Cash had more than a passing knowledge of, knew how easily we, the people, will fasten on to what we perceive to be other people's failings, rather than deal with our own. As if executing someone else, will make it easier to deal with the unsettling state of our own consciences. His solution, "Love one another. As I have loved you." WE are the ones to bare  our backs to whips for the sake of the dignity of others, and then be hung out to dry. WE have no mandate to do THIS to anyone else. How could such an obvious intent be so horribly twisted?

Time to draw this to a close. I doubt that I shall take to wearing black, but I have gained a deep respect for the man who did.