How do you deal with situations that are so painful that they are beyond words? This is one of the toughest parts of my ministry – watching people I care about suffer. It might be illness, grief or decisions that others have made that impact directly on their lives. Offering hugs and prayers can seem futile when someone is going through such an immense and personal experience. There are no easy answers or quick fixes. There is nothing that we can do to help, even though we are desperate to do something, to be practical, to offer solutions, to remove the pain. Sometimes there is nothing that can be said that is of any comfort whatsoever. It is all beyond words.

In my own experience, religious platitudes and well worn phrases are not very comforting in these situations. Just saying “I don’t know what to say” may be a more honest approach. Our willingness to be present and sit with someone else’s pain, knowing that we can’t do anything, is a brave thing and a gift in itself. A long time ago, someone in the congregation had a sudden and tragic bereavement. Many people are uncomfortable in these circumstances and might not know what to say. I was so impressed to observe different people going up to this individual at coffee time after Sunday service and taking time just to be with them. Those trying to be supportive might have felt awkward or tongue-tied, but they made the effort to ensure this person knew that they were not alone.

When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, he needed his friends to stay awake with him, as he struggled with the pain of what he was about to go through, in the chains of events that would to unfold in the following few hours. He wasn’t asking his friends to change what was going to happen; he just needed them to be present with him in his pain. We talk about Jesus being fully human and this is him at his most vulnerable, pleading with God to take the pain away and needing those he loved and trusted to support him.

For me, there is no tidy theological answer to suffering. I don’t believe in a God who sends things to test us, or uses disease as a way of improving character. Nor do I believe that bad things are all part of God’s plan for us. Life is beautiful and messy, full of pleasure and deep, deep pain. What I do believe is that we can be part of the healing process for one another, and the Holy Spirit can work through us in our loving presence with those who suffer.

God bless

Cecilia

Lent is upon us. How is it going for you? In the past, I have given up things for Lent, but I never really got the connection between depriving myself and how this deepened my spiritual life. I know that this works very powerfully for some people, so it is certainly worth a try. Instead of giving up something, you might be trying to do something pro-active instead – reading a bit of the Bible every day, trying to smile at strangers, counting your blessings etc. The truth is I’m not much good at this sort of thing either. I start off with good intentions, then I forget, or my routine gets disrupted, and whatever I intended to do just goes by the board. When it is hard for me to do something on my own, this is when I am thankful to be part of a faith community. We have a fantastically creative Worship Team who comes up with innovative and refreshing ways to help us engage with the ancient rhythms of the Christian year. This Lent, we are exploring different ways of prayer to help us go deeper, both in worship and in our midweek groups. I am attending the “Come to the Well and Drink” sessions as my Lenten discipline.

“Discipline” is a word that we don’t use much at MCC Newcastle. Many of us are still trying to shed years of teaching that told us we were somehow not quite good enough for God and needed to try harder in order to be loved. However spiritual discipline is not about punishment or trying to earn God’s approval. It is about feeding our spiritual selves, so that we are able to cope better with life’s ups and downs. If we set regular time aside to be with God, however we do that best, we develop our “spiritual muscles”. Listening to music that is uplifting, taking time to notice the beauty of creation as we go for a walk, doodling our prayers, or praying for the people on the bus as we travel to work each day, are just some of the many ways we can “clear the decks” and let God into our lives. It won’t be the same for everyone, and over time, we might change the way that we create this space in our lives. The discipline comes in paying attention to what we need and making time to do it. There have been times in my life when I could not find the stillness that I need to feel connected with God. Life was too difficult or painful. However, I did not feel bad or guilty. God knew why I couldn’t be still and was there anyway. I also knew I had a reserve of spiritual strength to draw on because of years of attending to my spiritual self. All the lessons that I had learned about God’s grace and presence carried me through until I was able to rest in stillness again. May you be blessed on your Lenten journey.

God bless

Cecilia

Last night I attended the first of our Lent prayer series “Come to the Well and Drink”. Charlotte and Hannelie gently led us through some interesting discussions on what prayer means to us individually and invited us to consider what the name is that we have for God. At the end of the evening, we tied our names for God onto a “prayer tree” and, as always it was fascinating to hear the diverse ways that we experience the Divine.

One of the first questions we were asked to discuss was our earliest memories of prayer. Although I was brought up in Christian family, I don’t remember us saying grace. What I do remember is that my parents’ parting words on tucking me up in bed were “Goodnight, God bless”. One of my sisters still says “God Bless” to me on the phone, when she is saying goodbye. As the more observant of you will have noticed, “God bless” is my sign-off on most things, including every week at the end of Pastor’s Posting. I had completely forgotten where that came from until last night. I am grateful that my parents taught me so many things. My mother taught me to read before I went to school. She taught me using a children’s poetry book, which I still have, and can recite some of the poems even now. She loved language and poetry, and perhaps would have studied English Literature had her life opportunities been different. She would take me for walks and teach me the names of the trees and flowers. My father took me swimming and taught me to ride my bike. I still remember some of the silly jokes he told me.

 Some of what my parents taught me I have discarded, or times have changed and so the wisdom they offered is now not relevant. It pleases me to think that their loving night-time blessing is now part of my adult life, decades after they died. We never know if what we say or do will stick with other people. Some of us have the experience of trying to unlearn painful, cruel or untrue things that people have said to us. Some of us have had that rather lovely experience of someone coming up to us and saying “You said this, and because of that…..” telling us a really positive thing. When this happens to me, I often can’t remember what I said that the person quotes back at me. They heard something in what I said, and it inspired them to make a positive change in their lives. I can’t take the credit for that change, so maybe the Holy Spirit was at play, opening the heart to hear what was needed and giving the person courage to change. I hope you hear what you need this week.

God Bless

Cecilia

At church on Sunday, our new image was shown for the first time. This is the result of several months of listening to God and each other, talking, sharing and listening again. We have used the stories of dreams and visions in scripture to inspire us. We have used art and music, silence and song to express what we think is an image that sums up what MCC Newcastle offers and is called to be and do in the time ahead. You can see the first draft of the image drawn by Naomi and the comments we have had so far on it in this edition of Rainbow News.

The image that has been created is based on the idea of the Northern Lights. This is one of the ideas that were shared on the boards at the back of church during our Dreams and Visions month in November. When the vision drafting group looked through all these ideas, this is the one that caught their attention and imagination. Light guides us and gives hope in the darkness. The Northern Lights flicker and dance as they change colour. They draw us out of ourselves in a moment of awe. We might be standing in darkness, but they offer us a new perspective, an experience of something greater than ourselves.

Is this what we are called to be and to do at MCC Newcastle? Are we called to give light and hope to the world? Some of us would say that this has already been our experience of becoming part of MCC Newcastle. We came, hoping that we would find a place where we could be ourselves, where we could belong and renew our relationship with God. In some way, we were in a place of darkness, hoping for light. The warm welcome we received, the inspiring worship we experienced, that irrepressible sense of fun we soon learned to expect are all part of what makes MCC Newcastle such an amazing faith community and it gave us light and hope. As we have become part of this church family, we are the ones who become the Northern Lights giving hope to others.

Over the next month, we will continue to get feedback from the congregation, from our followers on Facebook, Twitter and the wider community on the image. If you are already part of MCC Newcastle, then you may have already been blessed with hope and light. Our new image is to reach those who still are sitting in the darkness.

God bless

Cecilia