From Rev'd Louise

Monthly reflection

January 2025 Now is the time

Apparently approximately two thirds of UK adults make New Year resolutions. I wonder if you are one of them? Although exact percentages vary, all the surveys I looked at suggested that younger people are more likely to make New Year resolutions than older people.

The names of our months came originally from an ancient Roman calendar, with several of our months named after Roman gods. January is named after the Roman god, Janus, the god of beginnings and endings, and transitions. Janus is depicted with two faces; one looking forwards and one looking backwards. New Year has traditionally been a time to look back over the last year, and forward to the coming year, with New Year resolutions intended to help us move from where we are to where we would like to be. Of course other occasions, particularly births or deaths or a big change in circumstances, can also prompt us to reflect on what is most important to us.

Looking back thoughtfully, and looking forward, planning and hoping, are both important. But Christianity also identifies now as an important time. Bible verses such as ‘Be still and know that I am God,’ from Psalm 46, and the writings of Christian mystics through the ages, teach us that focusing on now is important. Being still, physically or mentally, being ‘present in the moment,’ attentive to ourselves and the world around us – and people of faith would also add attentive to God – enables us to know ourselves better, to be more in touch with our deepest wishes and values, and more in touch with God, and his values for his world.

I believe that wonder is a precious part of being present in the now; wonder at the beauty of a sunset or a flower, wonder at the joy of love, or at our own existence. In the Bible, Jesus told his disciples that to enter the kingdom of heaven they needed to become like little children, and I am sure that part of what Jesus valued so highly in children was their capacity for wonder, their ability to be totally absorbed in the present moment.

If you make only one resolution this year, I invite you to resolve to find more time to wonder, more time to be still and do nothing, and my prayer for us all is that we may all, as Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, said in the title of one of his books, ‘Do nothing to change your life.’

If you would like to sign up to receive a weekly reflection, or to receive the regular newsletters from churches and Christian groups across Hope Valley, please go to https://mailchi.mp/2c07821b33f6/sign-up-for-ponder-and-pray or https://mailchi.mp/cbb9a512a36e/hope-valley-christians-newsletter or email me on [email protected] and I can sign you up.

December 2024 A time of preparation

I wonder when your preparation for Christmas begins? And what it involves? As a small child, I remember our practical preparations for Christmas consisted of one Christmas shopping trip each year with our parents just before Christmas, to buy Christmas presents for relatives, and one afternoon with our grandmother while our parents went shopping without us. And a session deciding which toys we would give away, since we would probably receive new toys at Christmas. Then on Christmas Eve, my Mum juggled baking for Christmas Day and helping us wrap presents, while our Dad worked until mid-day. In the afternoon, Mum did all the things she had not been able to do in the morning with two small children under her feet, while my brother and I helped Dad put up the Christmas tree.

But our excitement, our anticipation, our emotional and spiritual preparation, for Christmas began weeks earlier, with the opening of the first window on the Advent calendar. Long before chocolate Advent calendars were common, I remember looking forward each day to the next bit of the Nativity story that I knew so well. And even as a small child, I remember wondering every year at that tiny baby, exactly the same as every other baby ever born – and yet so utterly different.

Years later, as a young teenager, I began to wonder seriously why God would want to send his Son to us, in the midst of the mess and the danger that was the world I saw around me in my teenage years. How, I wondered, could God love us that much? How could God be willing to take that much risk for us? What I did not know then was that I had discovered something of the Church’s traditional preparation for Christmas, part of the Church’s traditional observance of Advent.

Traditionally, the Church’s season of Advent has been a time of spiritual preparation for receiving afresh the awareness of God’s incredible and infinite love for us, demonstrated in his gift of his Son, born at Christmas. And that preparation includes taking a careful, thoughtful look at our own lives, and at the world around us, and recognising afresh just how much we are in need of God’s justice and peace and love. So, for me, my Advent preparations always include time to reflect. Time to wonder afresh at God’s love, for us, for me, for all. Time to assess my regular charitable giving, against the world’s need and God’s generosity. Time to focus on the world’s injustice, and ask myself, and God, what steps I can take against injustice and suffering. Time to give thanks, that in the midst of all that we are, and all that we do, God still loves us more than we can possibly imagine.

So my prayer for us all this Advent? That we would all find time amidst the practical preparations for Christmas, to prepare ourselves. Time to reflect on what the message of ‘peace and goodwill’ that we sing of in our Christmas carols, might actually look like in our world, and how we might play our part in living and sharing that message.

November 2024 Saints and sinners

As I begin to write this article, news programs and countless emails from various charities are reminding me that it is exactly one year since the events that triggered the current atrocities in the Middle East. Yet, as we probably all know, those events did not come out of a vacuum; they were the consequence of a decades-old situation.

At times, probably all people of faith and all people of goodwill have wrestled with ideas about how to bring about a lasting solution, how to bring about lasting peace, in the troubled nations of the Middle East. Almost universally, Christians claim to be those who believe in peace, in justice, in reconciliation. But I suspect also almost universally, this belief becomes challenging when we try to work out what it might look like in practice. The Bible, and especially the Old Testament, teaches that true peace is not possible whilst there is injustice. In the current areas of conflict – and in countless other conflicts that do not make the news headlines - there can surely hardly be a life that has not been profoundly affected by actual or perceived injustices. And those seeking for a political solution are inevitably faced with those who see armed conflict as the only way forward.

Throughout history, Christianity has always had both those who believe that conflict is always wrong in all circumstances, and those who believe in the concept of a ‘just war,’ those who believe that in some circumstances ‘the end can justify the means.’ Both views are attempts to work out what Jesus’ commands to ‘love our enemies,’ and to care for the needy and the vulnerable, might look like in a complex and imperfect world.

I have no answers. But as I wrestle with such ‘big’ problems two thoughts have been helpful for me. The first is that when I regard someone whose actions I believe to be evil, I remember that I cannot believe that God, who is good, has ever created a new born baby evil. So each such person is a product of both their life experiences and their choices, and so needs both our compassion and our prayers for their healing and transformation. The second thought is the Christian idea that there is both ‘saint’ and ‘sinner’ in each one of us. We are all capable of both great good and great harm. I may not be able to change the world, but I can look in my own heart for the seeds of greed and selfishness and fears, that lead me to seek my own way at the expense of others. And with God’s help, I can change.

My prayer for us all this month is that we will not turn away from global news that we find distressing, but will join in the prayer of all those longing for a better world, all those who ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness.’