Contemplating this afternoon led me to the phrase ‘rejoice in the Lord always’, then to youtube, and this amazing music!
Right now irresponsible multinational companies are lobbying hard against effective new laws that would lift the lid on the trillions of dollars they pay to governments across Africa for their natural resources.
These secret payments allow unscrupulous leaders to pocket some of the profits instead of investing in vital services like schools, roads and health clinics that would benefit all citizens.
Don’t let them win.
Join me in calling on European leaders to stand up to corporate lobbyists and end these secret deals:
http://www.one.org/c/international/actnow/3835/
With your help we can lift the veil of secrecy and help millions get themselves out of extreme poverty.
For A (with thanks), who inspired this post.
We moved to a country village last year. It is beautiful.
It is quiet.
Before then, we lived in the same busy, industrial town as my ex-husband. I’ve mentioned it before, but for clarity of this post I will say it again – he was released from prison and sent back to live in the same town as us, despite my having been told this would not happen. It meant we had to be wary wherever we were. We couldn’t walk anywhere. We did not go into town. I was always always looking over my shoulder. I’ve read enough stories of women attacked by their ex-spouses that it was not something I could just ‘get on with’. I’m a mother. Mothers have to protect their family, no matter what.
Eventually we moved here. This morning, the sun is shining. Fluffy, perfect clouds fill a blue on blue sky. I walked into the garden earlier and there was a bird whose song sounded so much like a jazz riff that I laughed. I sensed God, in that moment, saying, “Yes! Enjoy! The cares of the world are not on your shoulders. I already took all of them on my shoulders when I gave my life on the cross. Relax. Just enjoy being alive.”
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
And I was reminded of my conversation at Scargill with a very special lady who prayed that I might live up to my name. My name is Zoё (you might have guessed).
When the Hellenistic Jews (circa 400BC) translated Genesis from Hebrew to Ancient Greek, they used Zoё as the translation for Eve (Classical Hebrew: חַוָּה, Ḥawwāh – thank you wikipedia). I’ve known this for many years. What I did not know, and only learned at Scargill, is that it is also the word used when ‘life’ is rendered in the New Testament, e.g. ‘I have come that you might have life’, ‘life in all its fullness’, etc. I’m sure God knows my sense of humour, because the idea that Jesus said, ‘I have come that you might have Zoё’ made me giggle.
Life, light, love. We sing the words ‘He’s alive!’ but we forget to sing ‘I am alive!’ and give thanks.
As the sun shines through my window I am reminded of the words of the prophet Isaiah:
‘The people who walked in darkness
Have seen a great light;
Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,
Upon them a light has shined.’
Isaiah 9:2 (NKJV)
‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.’ John 1:5 (GNT)
Nothing can put out the light of life. Love bade me welcome. Life bids me welcome.
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here”:
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”
“Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?’
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert 1593-1633
May you know the peace and the joy of life today, not some put-off inevitable ending and then eternal life which we have little idea of, but living, alive being. Today. Now.
Thank you, God.
Is going up in the world about gaining more stuff, more status, etc., or is going up what happens when we lose ourselves and replace the old self with the new? Shaun Groves set me thinking with his blog post http://shaungroves.com/2012/05/downward-mobility/ http://shaungroves.com/2012/05/downward-mobility/trackback/
Mama Maggie certainly chose the (seemingly) downwardly mobile. But her journey towards God is clearly on the up! I shan’t be able to get to her UK talk tomorrow evening, but this blog post has been in the pipeline for a little while.
There are 12 million Christians in Egypt, of whom at least six million are living in poverty. Mama Maggie, as she is affectionately known, left a privileged background as a professor in an elite Egyptian university to spend her life taking care of the most vulnerable. She and her team at Stephen’s Children (named after the first Christian martyr) have developed a whole-person approach, meeting the needs of the individual. This happens in many different ways. The work of Stephen’s Children includes home visits, community education, literacy classes, social gatherings for mums, sports camps and healthcare. In his article for Sword magazine, May/June 2010 issue, Wilfred Wong, director of Stephen’s Children in the UK, writes:
‘Mama Maggie and her team of workers radically live out the Gospel on a daily basis. Some months ago I was standing in one of Cairo’s garbage dumps watching a Stephen’s Children worker lovingly washing the blackened, dirt covered feet, arms and faces of a group of little Christian children. In the garbage areas hygiene is neglected and it’s common to see the children who live there covered not only in dirt but also with numerous cuts caused by their contact with the rubbish. Water is also scarce, making washing a rare event.
I was immediately reminded of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet. Just in front of me was the literal living out of Jesus’ teachings on servanthood. Mama Maggie herself tenderly washes the children’s feet whenever she can.’
In her address to the Global Leadership Summit in 2011, Mama Maggie (whom I mentioned previously, here: https://justzoejustlife.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/so-what-are-you-worth-part-three-2/) said,
“… we don’t choose where to be born, but we do choose either to be sinners or saints; to be nobody, or heroes.
If you want to be a hero, do what God wants you to do…”
What is it that God wants us to do? In Jesus’ own words:
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father… For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Matthew 25:34-36 & 40 (GNT)
Are you as challenged as I am by these words? What is it that God is asking you to do? I have to do something this week that will take as much courage as anything I have ever done. I will do it with Mama Maggie’s words echoing in my head. I choose to be a hero, with God’s grace.
I used to be angry with God. I used to be angry with men, too. All men. They were all as bad – creepy, manipulative, deceitful, aggressive, narcissistic, self-serving, you name it. All of them (with the exception of my father, whom I thought was an anomaly). I frankly didn’t rate women much higher, but they had the advantage that they weren’t men…
The first time I went to Celebrate Recovery I sat there imagining an intricate Roman ballista firing cannonballs at the male speaker. A bit like this:
Roman ballista reconstruction (cool huh?)
from thinkup.org
Now while the irony of my having a rather bloke-like brain and finding mathematics and ancient engineering all rather fascinating is funny, the emotions behind it were not.
God showed me that my anger towards all men was wrong. It was simply that the tsunami of pain created by just two men was unfathomable. But when I realised it was wrong, it disappeared. This was the beginning of my journey in grace (if only all the steps were as straightforward). Of course I was left with a whole lot of other stuff to deal with, but it was another layer of the onion (I hate the analogy, because onions never run out of layers, but it demonstrates the healing process).
I gradually overcame my anger towards God, too, as I realised the raw truth: God didn’t do those things to me, people did. Today I watched a video, echoing almost exactly the same words.
http://www.4thought.tv/themes/what-would-make-you-lose-your-faith/zigi-shipper
So if God didn’t create the hurt, what the heck was it that he intended for me, for all of us? My instinct told me there had to be a reason for it all, otherwise what is the point? It’s utterly meaningless, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says. Julian of Norwich once asked God what the purpose of his revelations (and, I suspect, of life) was, and this is what she wrote:
‘I desired in many ways to know what was our Lord’s meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same. But you will never know different, without end.’ – Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, circa 1400AD
I don’t write this blog as a diary, though it has been somewhat of a catharsis. I know I have been through so much in order that I might share what I have learned. God has shown me things along the way that are only learned through trials and suffering. Some of them are only learned when you become utterly broken. But now I write in order to share, because I hope this will help those who are also going through unutterable pain, especially if you are going through things so taboo you just can’t talk about them to anyone – and it is the type of thing that is never mentioned in church (or if it is, it is referred to as ‘something that happens to other people’).
I also write to encourage those who have not been through trials such as these to be more aware of the needs of those in your community who may have. For example, do you pray in church for the sick within your congregation, but not the wounded? Do you know who the wounded are? Do they have the opportunity to be wounded, and to be part of the congregation, or is the aura of ‘perfect’ Christians living a happy, joyful life so pervasive that these little ones (the vulnerable) feel they don’t belong?
Just Zoë, Just Life 