Eternal Echoes

Come Holy Spirit

I have spent the weekend at St Gabriel's Conference Centre in Ditchingham studying with ERMC. We discussed many things in the MA sessions, including theories of atonement, and spirituality; today we focused on Child Protection issues, all in all a thought provoking and stretching weekend ( in more ways than one if you count the celebrations and disco on the Saturday night!).

Today's worship times were unsurprisingly centred upon the celebration of Pentecost, both worship sessions I attended were not so much focused on the gifts of the spirit than on the fact of God being present now within and amongst us....

How easy it is to forget in an experience based age of the gentle strength of the God who comes close and if we are willing to allow her, will equip and inspire us to live differently. How easy it is to forget Jesus words "apart from Me you can do nothing," God the Holy Spirit comes amongst and within us to help us to live in God's ways, to be enable us to imitate the life of Christ....

Yes this is nothing new, but then just sometimes we need to be reminded....today I was reminded! We were asked today to ask the Spirit to reveal our need of one particular spiritual fruit, and then to actively ask God the Holy Spirit fruit to grow that fruit in our lives.... we were reminded that this is a relational process, the Holy Spirit is not in the business of quick fix solutions, but rather she comes gently bringing transformation, sometimes sudden, but  often bit by bit....

                                           

                                     

Painting- Pentecost by Alexander Sadoyan

A cry for Pentecost healing

Come Holy Spirit

Come,

Enter my heart

And fill my soul

Afresh today.

Cleanse me

From false guilt,

And raised expectations.

Heal me

From my own critical gaze, and

Recriminations.

Fill me with love,

Holy and pure,

That I might learn

To love myself,

And

Receiving

Your love

Love others

In return.

Come Holy Spirit

Come

Pentecost Friday 5

FOR PENTECOST THIS WEEKEND:

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FROM ACTS CHAPTER 2: 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:17 " 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'

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Presbyterian Gal @ Revgals says: Anyway, it's Pentecost and my very first Friday Five! Thinking about all the gifts of the spirit and what Peter said of the "last days"......

Have you or anyone you know

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1. ...ever experienced a prophesy (vision or dream) that came true?

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After loosing baby Sarah to stillbirth I had a dream of 2 babies and a rainbow, a friend interpreted it for me, and sure enough the next March I gave birth to twins Jo and Jon, they are now 19, both away studying at University.

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We also received a prophecy concerning Chris; from John 11 we were give "this sickness will not end in death but be to the glory of God"; Chris has come close to death on many occasions, he suffers a major heart condition, right now he is studying theology at Cliff College and hopes to be a Hospital Chaplin.

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2. ...dreamed of a stranger, then actually met them later?

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Yes- I often experience deja-vu type moments- very matrix like!!! Can't truly explain it....strange!

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3. ...seen a wonder in heaven? (including UFO's)

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Shooting stars while camping in the Peak District....

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4. ...seen a "sign" on the earth?

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I believe we see them every day, it is just that sometimes we are too dull to notice!

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5. ...experienced knowledge of another language without ever having studied it?

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Well I do have the gift of tongues, which I believe is a prayer language, and sometimes that comes close to sounding intelligible without me being able to understand it on one level...but as for an actual language- no not really.

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Bonus Question: What would a modern day news coverage of the first Pentecost have sounded like?

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Breaking news:

Men, women and children burst out of an upstairs apartment here in Jerusalem this morning in a state of Ecstasy, they were laughing and crying and praising God, even more strange were the number of different languages they were speaking. An eyewitness, a visitor from Egypt was amazed to find that she understood every word, someone was speaking in her language.

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The revellers claim that God had come amongst them in a new and powerful way, the leader a man named Peter gave an impassioned speech; explaining how a criminal Jesus of Nazareth, crucified over a month ago had come to life, and was in fact God in the flesh. He called people to believe, to repent and to start life anew following this crucified prophet, claiming that this man Jesus was alive once more....

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A spokesman for the Sanhedrin claims that this is nonsense, and that the Jesus cult were trying to emotionally hoodwink the crowds. Peter however claims that more than 3,000 people responded to his message. This reporter believes that this story will not die away easily, we will bring you more from Jerusalem as events unfold....

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Pentecost questions

What did you feel

When he told you

To return to Jerusalem,

To wait,

And to pray?

And how did you pray?

Were there words to express

Your longings,

Your confusions,

Did you hurl questions at heaven

Demanding answers?

Were there times of gathered

Silence,

Times of anger,

Was there a place for tears?

Did you stay in that

One place,

Or did you

Come and go?

Were you expectant,

Were you afraid,

Not knowing what to expect,

Or when to expect it?

Do you understand

Why I ask,

And why I am longing

To hear?

Atonement

Why did you die?

The more I ask myself

The question

The more answers I give,

And the more

Confused I become….

I used to say

You died for me,

Making you my own

Personal Saviour,

But you are so much more

Than that…

You are the word spoken

That brought all life into being,

And yet you came

At one time

In one place

Wrapping yourself

In frail humanity,

Surrendering yourself

To death…

And somehow

In that act of utter abandonment

You healed the wounds of

Your broken world;

And one event,

Constrained by time

Bursts free of time

Again

And again

And again….

Bringing life,

Bringing hope,

Bringing freedom

Open invitation

Reaching the tree

He looked up,

And seeing

An open hearted

Man,

He called

To him

To come down.

The one in the tree

Was surprised

To be called,

And more surprised

To find himself

Hosting a banquet,

To which the guest had issued

The invitation

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But this was no ordinary guest

And today, if we are openhearted

And if we listen carefully,

We will hear as

He calls to us;

Inviting us to serve him

With a banquet of our own.

(Thoughts on the calling of Zacheuss)

silence and otherness...

I have been quiet over the last few days, one or two folk have e-mailed to see if I am OK, the answer is yes I am. I have spent the last few days polishing a Research Project for my MA. I looked into Mothering Sunday, bringing a hermeneutic of suspicion to what has become a curious tradition, and looking at what might be helpfully done to turn this exclusive celebration into an inclusive one. Don't get me wrong, as a mother of 5 I really don't object to being made a fuss of...I like cards and flowers and messages of appreciation, but I am also acutely aware that for some women ( and men) Mothering Sunday is painful, and often avoided.

More than anything I was trying to get away from the one size fits all model of the perfect Christian family where:

“Underlying patriarchal hierarchialism is exclusivism. There is one superior race: white Europeans. There is one exclusively true religion- Christianity- and one right kind of Christian: a born again evangelical Protestant. There is one right family model: a heterosexual monogamous marriage with a male breadwinner and a female housewife.” (Radford Reuter 2001. p. 206 SCM Press..)

I find that exclusivism is a constant barrier to people who are seeking, and that many within traditional congregations find it hard sometimes to embrace folk who are "different" from the expected norm , and when they do there is often an expectation that soon they will become as we are! Most of these good folk would be horrified if their reactions were mirrored back to them, and are acting out of sincere belief....

...but we must allow God out of our theological boxes and allow Her to challenge us in new ways... Janet Morley writes about her own experience of beginning to write liturgies naming God "She" or "Mother", initially uncomfortable she found that she soon delighted in being tipped out of her comfort zone, but there was another step:

“…it will not do for me to call God “she” only when I mean what is tender and unproblematic; this is a new kind of dualism. If I do this I am identifying God’s difficult otherness with the otherness I experience in relation to masculinity. This identification, of course is what traditionally male language has always allowed women to do, but it is a false parallel. It is the wrong kind of otherness.” (Morley. J . P. 162 in book by; Loades. A. ed. 1990 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge)

Bank Holiday, walk, and sunset

PICT0025
Originally uploaded by Sallys journey.

I spent the morning working on my MA assignment, just need to polish up the referencing now. This afternoon we went to the beach, Tim sailed, and I walked (5 miles). Then we enjoyed the sunset sitting on the sailing club balcony chatting with friends.