Dear friends

In these days between Ascension Day and Pentecost, we are invited by the Archbishops to pray "Thy Kingdom Come" for our nation, and the nations of the world.

I wonder what you think the kingdom of heaven is like? You might imagine a grand set of pearly gates, with St Peter waiting with a checklist for those that are "in" and those that are not.

You might imagine a huge staircase, or a moving escalator like in the old David Niven film "A matter of life and death", where he has to negotiate before a celestial jury whether he goes to the "other world" or returns to earth.

We've just had Ascension Day, where we remember Jesus going "up" to heaven, so it's tempting to imagine there is a realm "up there" and a lived reality "down here".With the horror in the news of war, the desperate seeking of refuge for those fleeing their homes, and the tragedy of children being shot in their school, it can feel as though "down here" is something to be tolerated, or survived, before we go to a better place. At the very least, we might pray that there is something "other" than what we witness.

But Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is found in our ordinary and everyday lives - like a treasure found in a field, like a prized pearl discovered by surprise, like a net that suddenly gathers reams of fish, like a seed planted by a sower, or like the smallest of seeds, the mustard seed, even like yeast mixed into a large amount of flour. These feel like things we might glimpse, that we might get a sense of something more, something fuller, something more powerful, that engages with the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. So the "other" is within our lives, not apart from them. We can't hold at arms length and lament over what is happening else where, to someone else, and equally hold at a distance the promise of something or somewhere "other" where we will spend eternity. Both holding at arms length the pain of the world, and holding at a distance the promise of God, puts us in something of a vacuum.

What if we were to draw both nearer? Recognising that we are living in the pain of the world, and we live as if we believe the kingdom is near?That is surely the life that we are invited to, when John promises that Jesus came to bring us a full life - a life of holding lament and hope, pain and joy, despair and prayer ... fully living it, fully experiencing it, not turning our face away because it's too painful, but turning towards, in compassion.

I wonder if when we pray "Thy Kingdom Come" it means that every encounter, every challenge, every decision, every conversation, every disappointment, begins with love?Love, that turns something ordinary into something extraordinary. Love, that we catch glimpses of when we know there is something more, something fuller, something more powerful. Love, that enables the opening of homes to strangers from another country, or allows generosity to those who are hungry, that recognises those with broader shoulders should carry a heavier load, that walks towards those who are different, or who we might find it harder to love.

What if our prayer to God was:Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy nameMay your love come, may your will be done here in the everyday and ordinary, as well as forever.Give us everything that we need, although this might not be everything that we want, because we know that to create a fair and just world, we all have to bend towards others in love.Forgive us when we get things wrong, we're doing our best, and we will do our best to forgive other people when they get things wrong. It doesn't mean it didn't matter, and it doesn't mean it didn't hurt, but because we don't want to be held captive by hatred for other people, and we don't want to bear grudges: we want to do our best to love.Help us not look for love in the wrong places, give us eyes to see the glimpses of where your love is already, and give us courage to join in.And all of this is because we know you love us, and we want to enable others to see and know that love as well. Because yours is a love more powerful than any hatred, yours is a light more powerful than any darkness, and we want to keep praying this for ever and everAmen

With love in ChristBecky