Praying beautifully. Krish Kandiah

Voting ethically

All of us are at different places on the political spectrum. Votewise Now will not tell you how to vote, just help you vote according to your conscience. Careful thought and deliberation are needed to make informed decisions. From Jubilee Campaign

The General Election Quiz: Are YOU ready to vote?

The power of compassion

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, many people have been asking the inevitable question, "Where is God?"

C.S. Lewis asks this question in his book A Grief Observed. "Meanwhile, where is God?... When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence."

There was a time when, in the presence of those who suffer, I would blurt out pre-rehearsed lines or sophisticated apologetic solutions that hung in the air like lead balloons and had little or no impact on the recipients.

Then it was my turn to be on the receiving end. Lying desperately ill in hospital, many visitors came and went. Bible verses galore piled up at my hospital bedside. Don’t get me wrong - the fellowship was a blessing. It’s just that I couldn’t make sense of my suffering. Then a distinguished senior clergyman whom I worked with came to my bedside, said nothing, but held my hand and wept. Something broke inside me, and I wept to. It seemed to me that somehow God was validating my suffering. His tears joined with mine.

Compassion is a powerful thing. How come we are so poor at demonstrating it?

So much of the world’s suffering is self-inflicted. But God save us from indifference! As the white spot fades on the TV, and images of Haiti, and the slaughter of innocents in Iraq, disappear from our screens, the truth is that the suffering of this fractured world doesn’t disappear. It goes on and on.

You and I must never give in to compassion fatigue, or become de-sensitised to the pain of God’s world. God give us back our tears, and grant us the naivety that compels us to compassionate acts of mercy over and over again. Maybe our own brand of suffering can be salvaged and turned into something more powerful than we could ever hope for.

Where is God in our suffering? I don’t know all the answers, but I do know that a God of love has put me here for such a time as this.

Eddie Lyle, Open Doors, from his blog
http://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/eddies_blog.php#050210

BBC - UK fair trade's Gateshead origins

BBC - UK fair trade's Gateshead origins

Tim Hughes on prayer, justice and mercy

From Tearfund website

What feeds us

"Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the Holy Community as food nurtures the human body. Christians do not simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father"
Eugene Peterson. Eat this book 1999

God gazer

I was sent this brilliant heartfelt cry expressed in a poem by Malcolm Duncan which really spoke to me

I want to be a God-gazer,
captured by the brilliance
that springs from the radiance
of You.
I want to be a God-gazer!
Not a cheap food grazer
or an easy option lazer.
I want to be a trail-blazer
for the ordinary, everyday life.
I want to be a God-gazer -
not just copying the halcyon ways
that shimmer brighter in the haze
of by-gone rays and the good old days.
I want to be a God-gazer!
Looking beyond the trappings of success,
cutting through the stucco of respectability
like a laser piercing darkness.
I want to be a God-gazer!
Reaching for the stars and
seeing beauty in the moment by
becoming fluent in the language
of the God Who is here, Who is now.
I want to be a God-gazer
until my imagination is saturated;
until my thirst is sated;
until my passion is stirred;
until my intellect is stretched
as far as it can be;
until my yearning yearns
for others to be free.
I want to be a God-gazer -
not a meetings manager
or a people pleaser
or a 'tea and sympathy' vicar -
not a leadership trainer,
not just a speaker
but a seeker.
I want to be a God-gazer...
and for a moment I want God
to gaze through me.
I want others to see
His eyes
Heart
Mind
and Love
above everything else in me.
I want to be a God-gazer
captured by the brilliance
that springs from the radiance
of You.

Life-giver!
I want to be a Life-giver
not a life-sucker.
I want my life to be releasing
not appeasing or placating.
I want to be a Life-giver,
A drainpipe without blockages,
A circuit without stoppages,
A connector without breakages.
I want to be a Life-giver!
A 'you can do it' releaser,
A 'have a go' preacher,
A 'you were born to do this' pastor.
I want to be a Life-giver -
Seeing rivers flow, not die,
Seeing others rise and fly,
Helping friends reach for the stars
even if they sometimes miss.
At least they can say they tried.
I want to be a Life-giver,
Generous in spirit and in heart,
Letting the forgotten make a start
at being Life-givers, too.
I want to be a Life-giver
because I am a God-gazer
not because it's about me
but because it's about Him
because life can't spring
from any other 'thing'.
I want to be a Life-giver
connected to the Source
and pointing to the Son -
standing in the shadow of the Light
celebrating Him.

World-changer.
I want to be a World-changer
not just a furniture re-arranger
or an 'it could be better' winger
or a 'have the left overs' stinger.
I want to be a World-changer!
A doer, not just a talker.
I want to spread the clothes of heaven,
No more or less than a poor man's dreams,
beneath the feet of Jesus.
I want to be a World-changer -
'Cos on a morning many winters ago
the tomb was open
and the curse was broken.
Death had to let go
and re-creation burst out
of an old wineskin
like water from a geyser,
Like the cry of a child
pushed into the world
and nothing
would shut Him up.
I want to be a World-changer
because it's started...
because the vanguards on the move...
and love is pushing out hate
and light is shining out
and darkness can't understand it
beat it
change it
hide it
kill it
stop it
win.
I want to be a World-changer
because there's safety in this danger.
There's meaning in this purpose.
There's joy in this mission
and too many others are missing
the power of life in all its fullness.
World-changer? Life-giver? God-gazer.
God, break in - then break out
Fill - then make me leak.
Plug me in and push me out.
In me, through me, around me.
Make me a Patrick.
Make me a Brendan.
God-gazing, life-giving, world-changing.
Captured by the brilliance
that springs from the radiance
of You.

Malcolm Duncan
January 2010
(c) Malcolm Duncan
For more info, please contact malcolm@churchandcommunity.org