A Prayer of Brendan

“I thank you for this, my God,
I am a traveller and stranger
in the world,
like so many of Your people
before me.

There is a sense of adventure,
of openness to possibilities,
abandonment to God
and expectation
of fulfilling his will.

I accept the responsibility,
I’ll hear and obey,
and trust it is Your voice I hear,
the call of the Spirit,
the cry of the Bird of Heaven.

It is a Yes to risky living…

The sea takes me;
where I do not know,
but I gladly go.
And I can only trust
every word You say,
and obey.”

- Celtic Daily Prayer
Northumbria Community

Under Pressure Intercessions

This is a set of intercessions based upon the Queen and Bowie song Under Pressure.

Rioting on Sunday Morning

It seems only two minutes since I found myself standing before the congregation as a “community leader” to talk about the headline news from Norway.  And yet, here I find myself once more.  It is a strange place to be as people look to me to try and make sense of the world around them.  The church can sometimes just stick its head in the sand on a Sunday morning and carry on regardless.  “Riots you say?  What riots”?  I find myself unable to do that.  Perhaps it is a failing of mine and I should add it to the ever-growing list.  No matter where I turn I can’t escape the incarnational God who gets his hands dirty.  I can’t skirt around the God who told us to pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as in Heaven”. 

You may have noticed that I have been strangely silent on the blog this week.  Mostly this has been because I have felt a bit numb.  Living in the UK and watching it descend into chaos is all too reminiscent of The Dark Night.  Fortunately we live in a part of the city that hasn’t seen any unrest.  West Yorkshire police dealt with any flickers of trouble around Leeds and Huddersfield brilliantly and we did not see the same level of unrest as others.  However, the whole country seems to be gripped by fear.  I spoke to my brother earlier in the week about the football match we are going to this afternoon.  He was wanting to call it off.  The mood in our community is troubled. 

Some how tomorrow I will stand up and try to help our community make sense of all of this.  I will try to encourage them to be part of the future.  To start to bring that kingdom to our communities. 

I have put together some simple prayers that we will use.  Then we will pray the prayer from the CofE website in solidarity with our nation wide community.

Father in heaven,

In our homes.

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our families

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our communities

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our cities

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

On our streets

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our parks

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our schools

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our police forces

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our town hall

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our government

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

Gracious God,
We pray for peace in our communities this day.
We commit to you all who work for peace and an end to tensions,
And those who work to uphold law and justice.
We pray for an end to fear,
For comfort and support to those who suffer.
For calm in our streets and cities,
That people may go about their lives in safety and peace.
In your mercy, hear our prayers,
now and always.

Amen

Accessibility, The Church and Apple

As soon as I clicked ‘publish’ with my last blog post the cogs started turning in my mind.  I have an iPhone (sorry @duttyo, it’s relevant to what I’m saying).  One of the first things my wife said about the whole Apple experience is “where are the instructions”?  There are two postage stamp pieces of paper that come with an iPhone telling you to “put the sim card in” and “plug it in to iTunes”.  That’s your lot.

There is nothing to tell you how to make a call.  There are no little booklets explaining how to setup the device.  I was amazed when I discovered caps lock by ‘accident’ one day.  I was mystified the day I mistakenly took a screen grab by pressing two buttons simultaneously.  There are little huddles of iPhone users gathered throughout the land passing on the secrets of eternal app usage: 

“Have you seen the pulse reader?  It’s awesome”. 

“No but I’ve got RedLaser!”

The religious fervor that Apple commands is bolstered by an almost Gnostic sense of hidden secrets.  “Perhaps if I continue to worship at the Apple temple for a little longer I will gain access to the next level of geekery”.

Compare this if you will to the church.  In some churches there is no explanation whatsoever of what is going on.  Entering through the door for the uninitiated can be as baffling as an alien life form encountering humanity for the first time through Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  Banana.  In other churches there is a level of explanation that describes the minutia of each and every impending  act. 

“We’re now going to pray a prayer that will offer up to God the things that we have done wrong in our lives.  The weeks…. years…. eons…. passage of time…. deep sorrow…. so that….. if we…. can you….. not because…. but if we…. zzzzzzzz…. so let’s bow our heads….. or not…. comfortable…. prayer is…. so now we say together…. ‘God we’re sorry, Amen‘”. 

So what can we learn from Apple?  Apple have managed to create a mystique and yet maintain their accessibility.  They have hit upon a formula where there is just the right level of instruction to make things work but not so much that the sense of mystery is lost.  I wonder if we can appoint Steve Jobs as the next Archbishop.

[Cue an Apple hater in the comments]

Lenten Reflection

For lent I’ve been looking for ways to reinvigorate my prayer life and my bible study.  I have been doing the Big Bible project with my wife and it has been a real springboard to our discussions.  A friend began posting these 24-7 prayer video clips.  From Ash Wednesday I have been posting them to our church Facebook page.  They’re all available via their YouTube channel and I’ve found it a really easy way of encouraging people through lent.

Say One For Me

Last year you may remember the “say one for me” campaign.  People were encouraged to put a poster in a local venue and collect prayers from the people in our towns and cities.  These would then form part of the intercessions in our churches during lent.  Well it’s back and this time there is a website and a facebook group.

I guess I’d better put a poster in the coffee shop

Worship Idea – Dad, it’s me…

As our saviour taught us, so we pray…

Sorry that I didn’t post this when I spotted it on TV last year.  I’ve used this a few times in different worship contexts.  I showed it to some priests this afternoon at chapter and realised I’d not blogged it before.  Mea culpa.

Worship Idea – Video: Prayer

Joe Miller has come up with another brilliant video from his essence series.  Joe Miller we salute you!

Chris Evans Doffs His Hat

Yesterday I blogged about how top advertising execs had said that “If I had to make Jesus relevant, I would apply his teachings to modern life”.  As if by magic the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu has been on Chris Evan’s Breakfast show to hammer the point home.  Here’s what Chris Evans posted on Facebook later during the day.

You know, I thought I was in quite a good place in my life at the moment after my wilderness years and all that and I am, I’m doing ok, family life is very very good for me.

However, when one has the good fortune to meet someone like John Sentamu, you just realise how much further you can go when it comes to being a better person. Just being around him makes you want to improve yourself, and almost exclusively with regard to what you can do for others.

“What prayers do you say every morning John ?”

“I say very sad prayers to remind me of all the people who need my help much more than I need my help. They teach me not to be self centred and selfish.”

What a fantastically simple mantra and the road to true freedom as a human being.

If I had a hat on, I’d take it off right now. Here’s to J.S. Arch Bish Bash of York.

CLP

2010

X.

If you want to hear the BBC Radio 2 interview it is here on iPlayer starting at roughly 2:42 minutes in.  What a good way to end the week.

Maybe True Stories

So I’m hoping hard if it’s the thought that counts
That you don’t ever have to know what I think about
And that every soul can always fit thought Heaven’s door
With the weight of things it never told anyone before.

A great song by Lauren O’Connell

Full Lyrics:

I’ve been trying to quantify
All of the wrong that one can pack into a lie
And I’ve been trying to put on a scale
Just how bad all of that wrong should make me feel

‘Cos they told me once when I was young
That liars are as liars do
And if you do, it’s off to Hell with you
No smiling, kid, I speak the truth
But I’ve a sneaking feeling they were liars too
So logically, then, we’re all hypocrites
But does it make it better or make it worse to be aware of it?

I’m convincing myself that it’s all relative
And if there’s a God, when He forgives, I think He must consider it
I’ve been noticing confusion in the laws he made
The nature of the truth and where it bends and where it breaks

And where I twisted it to my benefit
When this man said he was in love with me
And I thought that he was dumb to be
So I pretended that I was asleep
Called it free will what he willed to believe
And it ended, so I guess it’s just as well
But that’s why sometimes I think I might go to Hell

And I worry too, how I never mentioned to you
How I drove your car while you were gone
A mile with the parking brake still on
‘Cos it seems to me, you wait too long
You may as well have not meant well all along
So I’m hoping hard if it’s the thought that counts
That you don’t ever have to know what I think about

And that every soul can always fit thought Heaven’s door
With the weight of things it never told anyone before.