Tomorrow is “Stir - up Sunday “

Whenever I begin preparing food for Christmas I tend to think of “stir - up’ Sunday, because when I was a child we always looked forward to making the Christmas cake

on that day... as it got colder during November, we were told to look out for the prayer on the Sunday when the priest prayed “Stir up, O Lord, we beseech thee, the hearts of thy faithful people...” So you can just imagine 3 small children excitedly clamouring for our mother’s attention after the service...”Mum, mum, did you hear it, mum ?  Its stir up Sunday today...Can we make the cake when we get home ?.... :)  

This Banksy mural of the girl with her balloons ... the wish that Palestinians could fly over the walls that are destroying their lives... somehow reminds me of Stir up Sunday... the wish that things could be stirred up and be changed...& yet the sad reality of the young woman walking along beside the wall...

Many years later I painted this depiction below...a large canvas...as a prayer- painting... a visual prayer for many situations around the world where people are suffering pain and injustice... that these might be changed...  I Wonder... what would you have included in this visual prayer ? ... is it possible for you to use these 2 visuals as your prayer as we prepare for Christmas... ?    “Stir up, O Lord, the hearts of your faithful people...”

Easter Monday

in an email from CMS... “....When we produced our Lament for Lent resource for 2020, we already felt we were living in difficult, uncertain times.  We had no idea. I’m also struck by the timely prayer that is on the back cover of the current edition of our prayer guide, Prayerlines (also produced months ago): “Christ who appeared to your disciples when the doors were shut;  appear unto all of those in the world today who live their lives behind closed doors.”

Advent: Visiting Bethlehem

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

Travelling with a group of fellow students, it must be just over fifty years ago now since I visited Bethlehem. 

Entering the church of the Nativity by the low little door felt very odd, and I suppose rather humbling as we each bent down and stumbled under the lintel...By contrast, the sense of space inside seemed quite amazing. 
But soon a guide began his practiced babble at us...no wonder only a handful chose to follow towards the steps leading down to “ye traditional cave, discovered centuries ago as the true birthplace of Jesus...yes, yes...ye ancient tradition...go slowly, slowly ...steps worn down by pilgrims back to time of Jesus... yes, yes... blessed be he...” 
...so two or three of us began slowly down into semi darkness, the only light from intermittent flickering oil lamps, and our hands guided by the cold rough rock-face...
... until we heard the slight echoing slap of sandals coming up from below & paused to allow an Orthodox monk to pass...
he stopped and smiled in greeting...and his whole face seemed to be shining with joy...something I vividly remember, even half a century later!

As small group slowly gathered in the traditional cave of Jesus birth, now hung with tapestries, and lit by oil lamps flickering before icons... and somehow, amidst the never-ending babble of strange fables from our guide, there was an underlying silence...
...a profound sense of going back in time...
...it no longer mattered whether Jesus was born in a cave deep below ground, in a stable, the back room of an inn, or a distant relative’s animal byre...maybe this marble slab did mark the spot, who knows? But a sense of peace and deep inner thankfulness that we were part of hundreds and thousands of people from all over the world who through the centuries had come to pray in this cave...this became for me one of those profound points in life where prayer has been valid.

This was before the constricting walls were built...and now I pray for another miracle of reconciliation...