What about when God seems absent?

I don’t want to write this blog. I don’t want it to be where I’m at or how I’m feeling…but it is. And I feel challenged to not just write about all the highs, right? Sometimes life is a low. This past 24 hours has been a low.

When I was almost at the end of my quarantine in NSW, I had to apply for permission to enter Perth. It was a tense time, but my application came back with the glorious word ‘APPROVED’ stamped right across it. There was some confusion because the travel permit seemed to suggest I would both need to quarantine AND not be required to do so, based upon the decision of the border officials on my arrival into WA.

Throughout my time in Sydney, I had countless people contact me to say they were praying that I wouldn’t need to go through a second quarantine, particularly because, needing to do so would mean our wedding plans would have to be cancelled and rearranged, for the third time, and that felt like just too much to imagine. Plus, with 4 negative covid tests and a double vaccination certificate, I’m probably the safest person in the whole of Australia right now! Logically, a second quarantine didn’t make sense, and, on top of that, hadn’t God promised me it would be sorted??

On my first few nights in Sydney, I woke up each night in a panic, worrying I would never reach Craig and would have to repeat the quarantine experience. It felt beyond what I could manage, and my heart was heavy. Over and over, I felt this reassuring voice of God, saying to me, ‘I’ve done it before, and I will do it again’.

Flying into Perth was surreal. There were 5 of us on the whole plane and 300+ empty seats. We took off early and landed early. Check in at Sydney went like a dream and the whole trip was just perfect. I managed to balance the ideal cycle of sleep, read, watch TV, drink fizz, repeat and I arrived in WA so excited by what lay ahead. My faith in getting through border force and heading off into the sunset with Craig was so strong. I just knew it would be OK. ‘I’ve done it before and I will do it again’, God had kept saying. Let’s see your miraculous works, Lord. Let’s do it!

So, when the border official told me I had to quarantine for an additional 14 days, I broke down right there and simply wept. I showed them the travel permit that clearly stated that if I arrived in Perth within 12 hours of leaving Sydney I would not need to quarantine. I told them my wedding was scheduled for one week’s time. They looked at one another, scratched their heads and came back with the same information: Go directly to quarantine, do not pass go, do not collect £200…

My precious Craig found me sobbing and disorientated in the baggage claim area and folded me up in his arms, stroking my hair and reassuring me it would be ok. He drove me to my quarantine address and sat outside the closed door all evening, calling to me as we shared our first meal in 20 months (and 9 days, to be precise), and we contacted hotels and wedding venues and hairdressers and make-up artists, and caterers and cancelled our wedding for the third time. And I was sad, heartbroken, miserable…and then I realised I was fuming. I was livid!

Yes, I was mad at this crazy system that meant this 4-times-negative-double-jabbed arriver had to be locked away, despite already doing that time, but I also realised I was mad at God. So mad. Didn’t you promise me Lord, ‘I’ve done it before, and I will do it again’?? Did I hear wrong? Did you mean something else? Was it just wishful thinking? And what are you saying now Lord because you’ve gone very quiet over there… Silent. Silence.

This morning the police called at my door to check I am where I said I would be. They asked me question after question, and I could see they were getting increasingly confused. Then they said to me ‘I can’t understand why you’re in quarantine! Call this number and ask them to overturn this decision. It doesn’t make sense’.

Ah! Was this it?! God was going to swoop in at the 11^th hour and save the day. The wedding would go ahead, and it would be all the sweeter because it had been snatched away, only to be miraculously reinstated. Was this the holy celestial plan??

I called the number. Nobody could believe my story, but they also were not able to change my situation, but they gave me an email address and coached me in specifically what to write, even down to the subject line. My heart revived as my hands shook while I typed and then I waited…

God was going to pull it out of the bag, I knew it.

An email pinged back: ‘thank you for your email… as you are now aware if you arrive at Perth Airport within 12 hours of completing Supervised Quarantine in NSW, you are subject to a further 14 days self-quarantine… We empathise with your situation however are unable to further assist’.

It was a no. it felt like a bigger no than the one at border control yesterday. And I was reminded of that Proverb, in the bible, that says, ‘hope deferred makes the heart sick’ (Proverbs 13:12). And my heart is sick. It’s really freaking sick. And I don’t know where God is, or what God is saying, except I must accept that God is the only other being in this quarantine with me – even if I am mad at him.

And I don’t understand this situation. I don’t know how it will be redeemed, or how it will, like all things, work together for good. I don’t even know if God did say ‘I’ve done it before, and I will do it again’ and I don’t know whether God has gone on holiday or is busy sorting someone else out or didn’t get my forwarding address or what. But I’m in Perth and the more I hear and the more I read the more I see that is a miracle.

I know God is good and hasn’t forgotten me. I know God has good things for me. I know God was there on that deserted flight. I know God was with me as I wailed at border control. I know God was with the shocked police officer who didn’t know how to deal with the weeping vicar in front of him.

I know all that. I just don’t feel it. 🙁

The Door is Open…

Do you remember that day, back in March 2020, when the whole of the UK gathered around their TV sets to listen to Prime Minister Boris Johnson say those fateful words, ‘go home and stay home’? AND WE ALL DID…

That still chills me to the bone, to be honest. People said there would be revolts and nobody would do it, yet we did. I remember walking my Maggie, right up the central white line of the main road, just because there were literally zero cars on it.

And the same is happening here in Hotel Quarantine. When we each arrived, we were told ‘stand on that red spot’, ‘leave your luggage there’, ‘do this’, ‘do that’ and then we were each delivered to our room and told to stay there for 14 days – only opening the door to receive a meal or a visit from the nurse. AND WE ARE ALL DOING IT.

Today is day 13, the day I got my release papers so I can leave here in the morning. I was handed my letter from NSW Police and from a medical professional, to prove I have ‘fulfilled the requirements’ of the stay. I got a band secured around my wrist with huge letters on it, saying WEDNESDAY and then the official asked me what time I want to leave (incidentally, that’s the first and only choice I’ve been able to make in a fortnight. It felt good). I opted for 7am and he said this remarkable thing: ‘just open the door and leave at 7am and walk out of the building’.

Just walk out. The door is open? I just get to leave?!

Basically, I could have walked out at any point. I could have; nothing was physically restraining me or preventing me from doing so but I didn’t, of course. I didn’t because I was here to get quarantine done and because, the rules of quarantine state that you stay put and you do not leave, for anything (not even a fire alarm. That’s what the ‘welcome’ letter said. Awful welcome that…!). And tomorrow I get to see that the door was open all the time – I can just pull it and let it shut behind me and walk out, all my personal agency restored to me (well, kind of), and go.

And while I’ve been reflecting in here, and thinking about our beloved friends at the Kitchen, I’ve been considering how this ‘open door’ thing is true in so many other ways. How often have I not ‘pushed the door’ due to fear, or anxiety, or worrying what people will think? How often have I thought I was trapped in a place or situation because I didn’t know that the door was open all along? How often do we succumb to addictions or ways of living because we don’t dare to see if the door is open? And, heartbreakingly, how often have we just stayed put, in some miry murky place, simply because nobody told us we could just open the door and go? How often?

Tomorrow morning, bang on 7am, I will open this hotel room door and walk right out of here. And as I go, I will make a conscious effort to pray for those who are still stuck in whatever their room is, that they may see that the door is open all along. Didn’t Jesus say something about being the gate? And being the Way? Maybe the door isn’t just open, maybe it is the Christ…

Thank you for keeping me company here in quarantine. You’ve been my own personal therapists, each one of you. I will continue to journal my Holy Adventures right here, but I can’t promise it will be every day – now it’s time to get up to some of this Holy Chaos so I have something more to right about.

But first, let’s get these doors open!

Lots of love 💚

Trust the Untrustworthy?

I’ve been thinking a lot about trust today. Do I trust God for a miracle to get me into Perth without having to quarantine again 🤔… I guess the answer is, ‘sometimes’? Do I trust that God will go before me and prepare the way and keep me safe? Almost always… Do I trust that God loves me and has unique things for me to do during my time here on earth? Absolutely…

And that got me reflecting on life at the Kitchen again and about my constant challenge to love the unlovable, touch the untouchable (I must tell you the story of the rotting foot I washed one Maundy Thursday… 🤢) and trust the untrustworthy.

When we opened the Kitchen in August 2017 (on St Aidan’s Day; a total divine appointment there) none of us really had a clue what we were doing. I wasn’t sure anyone would actually come but I was proved wrong; 15 on the first week, then 30, then 50 and, by the end of the first month we were regularly seeing 80 people. Our busiest week was one Thursday in the Easter holidays where we had 224 people in church, in search of food and groceries and company. It was a steep steep learning curve and, wow, we made some cracking mistakes.

Addictions are expensive, and they turn people into very clever and crafty liars. These things are fundamental truths that I wasn’t fully aware of. Almost every addict I’ve ever met has sworn to me that they’re not on anything (my favourite is when someone, who is very clearly high as a kite, acts *totally* outraged at the suggestion that they might be a drug user!). And addicts are creative in their ways of making money. Shoplifting, selling stuff, stealing, tricking naïve clergy… 🙄

Often people would ask me for money. Clergy know, early on, not to give out money, but even so I sometimes fell for it because I had this mantra that I would treat people as good humans, always. That I would always be kind and honouring. And sometimes that meant being shafted, to put it bluntly. Like the day one of our volunteers (who began as a guest) told me she needed £43 – often very specific amounts were asked for – to clear the debt on her gas and electric account and heat the house for some friends coming over. I trusted her and gave her the money. She said she would pay it back, obviously she didn’t. The same woman also told me her abusive partner had sold all her clothes for crack and she had nothing. I raided my wardrobe and gave her half of what I had. And I swear, I NEVER saw her in a single item of my clothes. Not ever. She almost certainly weighed them in for cash for her own drug habit (which she vehemently denied existed, right until the day I was sat beside her bed in hospital after an accidental overdose).

Every week I would be asked for amounts around the £5 mark, ‘for a bus back to the ‘Boro’. Never exactly £5, but always that or thereabouts. My most loved addict, guest and friend eventually couldn’t bear to see the Vicar get tricked one more time and told me that a bag of Heroin is £5 in Hartlepool. Why aren’t they asking for a fiver then? I asked. Apparently because they didn’t want to be that obvious! 🤷🏼‍♀️

I had this fund – the vicar’s discretion fund – which I could use to give money in emergency circumstances. A few times I used it to put a street sleeper into a B&B for the night, that sort of thing. I genuinely dread to think how often my kindness was taken for weakness, and the church ended up inadvertently ‘buying’ drugs…

And yet, I do think it’s true that we are to honour the image of God in one another – yes, be wise, but always, always err on the side of kindness, even when we get it wrong. Be lavishly kind, but not abundantly stupid – so often I was the latter rather than the former, and I gradually learned. Sometimes I clung too closely to my fear of being taken for a ride or being thought of as stupid and made decisions that were actually mean. Striking the right balance is hard!

But what I find myself thinking is this: in each moment, God trusts me to fulfil God’s purposes on earth, and I am utterly untrustworthy for that job…but God trusts me anyways. We are each entrusted with much, so much, regardless of our track record and trustworthiness. So shouldn’t we do the same? And I don’t fully know what to do with this thought process, except continue trying to show up and make God proud, to keep choosing kindness (even when it lands up being stupidity) and keep rocking the status quo that teaches us to be suspicious, cautious, even mean. Those traits are not my God’s traits.

May God give each of us the grace to be wise yet kind, strong yet gentle, fierce yet soft, generous beyond the norm, and a little bit more like Christ, day-by-day-by-day, amen.

The Kitchen and the Mass

When we first talked about opening St Aidan’s Kitchen, I was really determined that the session would end with a mass. For me, it made no sense to just feed the hungry unless we were making those holy connections and sharing the truths that we, as a church, were feeding others because we had been fed in the holy meal of the eucharist. I wanted to clearly demonstrate that the food served at the altar in each mass was served for a purpose; we were fed to give us energy to go and feed others. And, just as everyone was welcome to come to St Aidan’s Kitchen, so everyone was welcome at God’s Table. Ending with a mass was a non-negotiable for me so, right from the first week, we finished up with a simple mass and everyone was invited to stay.

We did that for the first two years of The Kitchen. We saw amazing things there – people asked to be baptised, we had a confirmation service during one of the masses and seven people were confirmed, and often we had 20 or more people attend. Over time the numbers dwindled, until we were down to 6 or 7 people, all of whom were church members who had received their mass already that day, or the evening before, but hung around to support me. We made the decision to stop celebrating mass at the end of the session and, once a service is stopped, it’s really hard to start it back up again. Stopping that mass is still a decision I really regret, deeply. What might God have done with it if I had continued to keep showing up (inexplicably nervous, every time) – I am really sorry that I didn’t get to find out…

When I look back, all my most precious memories of our time at the Kitchen (and some of the worst ones!) are about encounters with individuals; not huge fundraising successes or front-page news stuff (although those came too), but just a simple interaction, one-to-one, like with Samantha who I wrote about yesterday. Those encounters shaped me just as much as I hope they shaped our guests and friends. They taught me something new, every time – big lessons, little lessons, just a reminder, profound truths, and everything in between. And one of the most amazing teachers was a young man who I think only came once and who taught me about grace, beyond anything I had ever experienced before.

To my shame, I can’t remember his name, but I will call him Chris.

Chris came to us one Thursday, about a year in. It was at a time (one of the many) when there was a bad batch of tablets going around and people were getting really poorly off them. Chris came in and was in a bad way. I can still picture where he slumped in church. He had somehow got himself a bowl of chilli and was now keeled over, leaning into his chilli, eyes closed or rolling back, half asleep, half comatose, threatening every few minutes to pour chilli over the pews.

As always, I spent the morning wandering around, talking to folk, and every time I walked past Chris I would ask if he was ok, try to shake him awake a bit, check his chilli and the state of the pew, and see if he was stirring at all. He wasn’t. The only change in him was unseen – between checks a bit more chilli had found its way into his beard or down his front. It was a sad sight, and he was not with us at all.

The thing about ending with the mass served another useful purpose too – when we announced it was about to begin, many of the guests would get up and leave. I’m sure they would’ve stayed there all day and all night if there hadn’t been a cut-off point. That day was no different. As people left, still Chris didn’t stir, not a bit. I went over and woke him up and said I was about to say mass, and did he want to stay and move closer to the front. He looked at me, mumbled, and was gone again. I left him where he was.

I lit the thurible, so incense was burning; it was a great mix of aromas of food, poverty and worship filling the air – I’ll never forget that smell. I put my robes on, to show something different, altogether important, was happening and I began to say mass. I never dumbed the service down – it was a simple mass, with a couple of sung refrains, leaving nothing out, and everyone was invited to come and receive.

I ducked down behind the altar, just before the invitation to take communion, and prayed my own private prayer and then I stood up to begin to extend God’s welcome; ‘come to this table, not because you must but because you may…’ I would say each time. ‘Come not because you are strong but because you are weak’, I would continue. But as I stood so I saw Chris, and he was walking down the main aisle, right towards me. Stumbling a bit, but very determined.

He reached the altar rail, and he didn’t stop. He kept right on going, up the chancel steps, right up to the altar, until he was leaning across and looking me right in the eyes. And he stood there, kind of awkwardly, but almost defiant. And he stretched out his hands and I said to him ‘do you want the body of Christ?’ and he said ‘yes’. He said, ‘I want to come back to God and I don’t know how’. And I gave him the very body of Jesus and told him he could come here and that he was welcome. Because he was, because he is, and God is so amazingly gracious that sometimes we get to see that in new and exciting and outrageous ways.

And, just as I had wanted to connect those dots between feeding at The Kitchen and feeding at the altar, so, in that moment, our gracious God connected a few more for me…

We have received abundantly and freely, and so abundantly and freely we must give. We are loved by God, in order that we might share that love with others. We have received a welcome at God’s table, unconditionally, in order that we might always unconditionally welcome others. Over and over again. None of this is ours. Not to keep anyway. The church is not a vessel of God’s gifts, She is a channel. Everything that is poured into us and into our worshipping communities, is ours to have, hold, use, and then give out again. Over and over and over again. Never to keep, always to pass on.

And somehow, that day, Chris saw that in ways I hadn’t. He encountered something of God’s feeding, and welcome and forgiveness and love. And he knew he could come. He knew he could approach the Lord’s table, boldly. Step right up and hold out his hands, because he wanted to come back and he didn’t know how, but he knew this was a good place to start.

Chris taught me about the smashing of barriers, the indescribable pull of the mass, the beauty of broken bread offered, the irresistible draw of Christ, and the essential nature of coming just as we are – chilli in our beards, grime on our anoraks, stink in our hair, drugs in our system – and knowing God meets us there in outrageous joy.

I never saw Chris again, maybe I didn’t need to, but I remember him often. Today, I pray his holy lessons might teach you too – so come to the altar, not because you must but because you may. Come because you love the Lord a little and would like to love him more. Come because God loves you and gives Godself for you. Come and meet the Risen Christ because together (you, me, Chris, all the others we meet on the way), together we are Christ’s body. Amen.

Loving Fiercely… 🧡

When I thought about writing a blog in quarantine, my plan was to document the work of St Aidan’s Kitchen, the (more than) Soup Kitchen that was set up in August 2017 in my church in Hartlepool. I had been meaning to write some of the stories for a long time but hadn’t got around to it. I had ideas to write a book, ‘Tales from St Aidan’s Kitchen’, and thought a blog might be a good start but each day, when I’ve sat down to write, the things that have come to me have rarely been about that place or time and those stories just didn’t come. Until today.

Back in 2013 I was working in India with women and girls who had been trafficked and enslaved in the sex industry. I had no idea what I was doing but I couldn’t think of anything more important in the world than trying to end slavery, so off I went. While I was there, I met the most amazing and beautiful, strong, and broken women and girls. Everywhere I went I kept hearing this echo from God, ‘when you tell these people’s stories, make sure their names are safe in your mouth’. Over and over God said it, and I didn’t know what it meant, but I am reminded of that now, as I begin to share the stories of some of my friends from St Aidan’s Kitchen. And I entrust their stories to you and ask that their names* would be safe in your mouth too if you share them.

So, I can only ever begin with Samantha.

Samantha first came to The Kitchen in October 2017. She was cold and dirty, shivering in the pew, and had been sleeping on a car park for the last few nights. She had walked to Hartlepool from Middlesbrough and worn her shoes through. She was escaping a violent relationship and was sporting a real shiner of a black eye; a group of men she didn’t know had attacked her the night before with a vodka bottle and told her that her boyfriend knew where she was and was coming to find her. She was terrified and kept one eye on the door the whole time.

Samantha was wearing every item of clothing she had, and she carried her whole life in one carrier bag, including every single certificate she had ever been awarded. We gave her a bag of food, a bowl of warm soapy water, a clean towel and a hug and she shook as she cried. She told me she had been using the public toilets at the train station to wash her face and had been washing her feet in the marina. In the Northeast of England, in October. She taught me that giving homeless people baked beans was a rubbish idea – not because she couldn’t heat them (she didn’t care about that), but because she didn’t next know when she would find a clean toilet and didn’t want to be caught short… She taught me things every time I saw her.

By the end of that morning, we’d found her a place in a hostel and within a fortnight she had a home that we furnished for her. Sam was kind and generous and beaming with gratitude. She was encountering grace and unconditional acceptance, and for a couple of months she really flourished. In the December, I baptised her and the next day she was confirmed by the bishop. She knew the love and acceptance of God, and the welcome of the church. Together, we loved Sam well, and she grew as a result – not physically, of course; she remained just a tiny dot, a little over 5 foot and probably 7 stone, wet through.

My interactions with her made me, I hope, a better priest and a more loving person. She took our time and our attention. She would call late at night, anxious and upset, and would stay on the phone until her battery died. She was at everything that happened at church. She joined in with all the liturgy and hymn singing (whether she knew it or not!) – loudly – not always at the right times, and she found her way into the hearts of many of us. It was easy to love Samantha. Actually, not easy. It wasn’t easy, it was bloody hard work, but it was simple, and it was costly – in time and money and many other ways.

Samantha wasn’t a drug addict, although many would’ve thought she was. She was a drinker, and her alcohol addiction had cost her her children, previous homes and relationships, jobs, friends. It had cost her everything, several times over, but she was doing well with us. She wasn’t drinking, she had new friends and a support network, and she was truly flourishing, in body, mind and spirit.

And then, the day before Christmas Eve, Samantha disappeared. She simply vanished, and 6 weeks later she was dead. The police told me she had died of a heroin overdose, which I just couldn’t believe. Had I been so dumb as to take her at her word when she told me how much she hated drugs and would never touch them (God knows I had no idea when others at the Kitchen were lying to me, not for a long time!!)?? Was I that stupid? That bloody naïve?

When we went into her house, everything we had given to her had been sold or stolen. It was a ransacked mess. And it was hard to not feel like she’d taken our love and our kindness and traded it in for addiction. It was hard to not feel like the love she had experienced in our church family had been thrown away; that she’d swapped all that love for chaos and drugs.

Over the next few painful months, the truth began to unfold. Samantha’s violent boyfriend had indeed found her, just as he had promised. He had somehow won her back, moved into her house, and she had begun drinking again. He was (maybe still is) a drug user and regularly injected smack. This man had encouraged Samantha to try heroin. In court he told the judge that she wasn’t keen but eventually gave in, and he injected Sam with his own dose – the dose of a seasoned drug user who is 6ft+ and 16 stone – and Samantha died straight away, on the very first time**.

Her body was wrecked, and the funeral was delayed and delayed while autopsies and police investigations and court procedures happened. Eventually, three months later, I got to lay Sam to rest, while her mum (who had loved her forever but not seen her in years) and son (who she said had been murdered) looked on – one screaming the most guttural cries I’ve ever heard, and the other pale faced and wide-eyed, white with shock.

I went and anointed Sam just before her funeral and I was angry. I was angry with her and angry with God; I was angry with her boyfriend and at the system and at myself for not having saved her. But I was also so thankful to Sam. She taught me about the vulnerability of relationships, and what it means to truly love fiercely, without boundaries and restrictions. That love, my love, and the love of all those who encountered Sam, had been taken, enjoyed; it had really nourished her and done all kinds of healing, but it had ended up sold and discarded. And that is a risk we take. Every. Single. Time.

Loving fiercely is costly. It is uncomfortable, challenging, dangerous even, but it is holy. And isn’t that our quest? Don’t we aim for holiness?

If extravagant love could have saved Sam, I expect she would be changing the world right now. She lit up at the mention of Jesus and children and whenever she was cleaning! And she made some truly horrendous choices in her life that cost her it all in the end. But I feel privileged to have known her, even for such a short time. I feel changed and moulded and reshaped by every single one of my encounters with Samantha and I will never, not ever, regret what we did for her and what we gave her, and I would do it all over again, and again, and again (indeed, I have). Because that is the love of Christ, and that is what we are called to.

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ ^{Matt 25:40}

* Many of the names will be changed, some will be theirs.

** incidentally, he was found guilty of Samantha’s death and was sentenced to only 20 months in prison. Twenty months…

Be Careful What You Wish For…

The other day I posted a blog about not being obsessed with being busy and the importance of slowing down (you can read it here if you missed it https://holyadventures.blog/2021/09/07/busy-days-in-quarantine/ ). My lovely mum commented on the post, ‘oh no! I just asked God to give me more work to do, what do I do now?!’ – my paraphrase. Now anyone who knows my mum also knows it is physically NOT possible for her to do MORE work. Like, if God were to answer this prayer in her ‘favour’, it would only be by creating another day in the week (not a bad idea if you’re listening Lord, but please can you wait until after quarantine is over?!). It turns out she had asked God for a stronger work ethic, so she could get more done (again, insane, but 🤷🏼‍♀️). Well, would you look at that; lo and behold she suddenly gets more work to do…just so she can practice, I guess… 🥴

Be careful what you wish for!

Today is Blursday, the millionth day of quarantine, and only a few hundred thousand days to go… Every day is amazingly similar, stunningly predictable, Groundhog Day-like (which, incidentally, I hated as a film, but dislike even more as real life!)…and, whilst thinking about my mama and her request for a stronger work ethic, I find myself wondering when I asked God for the gift of patience, and whether I can take that request back! Practicing being patient is really not fun, friends!

I warned you in blog post #1 that God is often a tricksy customer, One to be watched and not to be messed with, and this is a classic example of that!

Ask for more patience, and the only way that can be grown in you is to be in situations that are frustrating, I guess, and that require additional patience.

Ask for the gift of being able to forgive, and it follows that we will face opportunities where we are called on the flex those forgiveness muscles until they grow stronger.

Ask for an increase in any of the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control) and God will give us those gifts, but they take time and experience and practice and energy and sometimes some flippin’ hard work to grow in us.

And, yes, whenever I sit and moan in here, in this posh hotel, with food brought to me 3 times a day (or twice, when they forget me), with the most amazing bed and stunning views and hot showers and with all the time on my hands and nothing required of me…whenever I sit and moan in here, then I really am redefining First World Problems – I get that – but nonetheless, boredom is boredom, and learning to be patient is not fun.

But, and here is the Good News, it will be good. I know that to be true, because we worship a God who only gives good gifts. Learning patience is not a punishment for anything at all. It is preparation for the Holy Adventure God is calling me on to next. In fact, anything we learn, on any given day, is preparation for that which is next.

AND, because God is good and tricksy, in equal measure, we do need to be careful what we wish for (pray, obviously, but there isn’t a song called ‘be careful what you pray for…’ so bear with me in this case of poetic license!), because, as the song goes, we might just get it.

And that reminds me… a couple of years ago a memory flashed up on my newsfeed, a screenshot of something I’d written a decade or so before, long before I was ever ordained, and it said words to this effect… ‘God, if I ever have to lead a church, can it be used to feed the hungry and keep them warm?’ To that request, God clearly said YES, a resounding one, and even in the highs and lows of that ministry, I’ve never regretted that prayer and I continue to pray it for where I will go next and for every flavour of my ministry in the years to come. Please God, may I always feed the hungry and warm those who are cold? Yes?

And maybe, in order to answer these broader brushstroke prayers, God needs to also work on our character? Maybe I never actually said ‘God, please could you make me more patient?’ but maybe God sees that it’s a thing that needs growing in me, and that 27 years in quarantine will be useful for that (14 days, Gemma, 14 days, stop catastrophising!).

So, my advice today is to be careful what you wish for, but wish for it anyways, because maybe that’s what the psalmist meant when they wrote ‘delight yourself in the Lord and you will be given the desires of your heart’ (Psalm 37:4 – inclusive language, mine).

Perhaps the original manuscript continued ‘…it might suck for a while, but it’ll be worth it in the end’. Shame that bit never made the final cut! 😉

Food and Faith

Yesterday I got a message from my mum that said, ‘About your blogs. In some of the early ones there are some cliff hangers…….. Do you need to reread and pick ‘em out and address them?’. Well, I didn’t know I was writing cliff hangers! 🤣 and I’m sorry if you’ve lost sleep wondering if/when I’ll get around to addressing them*, but I did as my mama told me (I’m good like that 😉) and I thought I would write something about my love of food and faith, particularly the combination of the two…

Food in quarantine began well (if you like rice, which I do), but it seems to be on a sharp downwards trajectory. The last two nights I’ve had to call reception and chase my evening meal because they’ve forgotten me. One night I had a vegetable that was cold and hard and soaked in oil (and looked far from vegan, in a kind of rude way!) and I have no idea what it was. Lunch today was some kind of vegan sushi roll but, even after I removed the cellophane wrapper, I’m not sure the wrap was entirely edible. And I, like many members of society, have a real Hanger problem.

Needless to say, food has been on my mind quite a lot!

And I’ve also been reading this great book, Signs of Life, by Rick Fabian (founding co-Rector of St Gregory’s of Nyssa Church, San Francisco). In the first chapter he talks about an ‘open welcoming table’, meaning everyone is welcome to come and receive their mass, regardless of the point they are at in their faith journey (not dependent on baptism, confirmation, or even any kind of professions of faith). He describes the altar at SGN, and the two inscriptions on it. As you enter the church you can see the first inscription, which reads ‘This guy welcomes sinners and eats with them’…a version of Luke 15; a dismissive statement by the Pharisees and teachers of the law, intended as an insult or slur, but beautifully transformed here into an amazing message of welcome. And then, on the other side, facing the font, it reads, ‘Did not the Lord share the table of tax collectors and harlots? So then – do not distinguish between the worthy and unworthy. All must be equal in your eyes to love and to serve’, a quote from Isaac of Ninevah. Here, all are welcome, and you are also welcome to baptism, at whatever point in your journey that is fitting for you. A wonderful, inclusive, follower-led, God-breathed, holy welcome.

This ‘open welcoming table’ hasn’t always been part of my experience, my worship style, or even my theology. I can quote all the scriptures that say people should wait to receive the body and blood of our Lord. And yet, none of them make sense to me anymore. We can’t wait until we understand fully, or are worthy, or we will die waiting. And, for me, how it is at the altar is how it should also be at the dinner table, and vice versa.

Something happens in the mass that unites those who are present. Something happens at a dinner table that does the same. I’m sure that’s why Jesus spent so much time eating together with people. And what Jesus does, so we should too. A quick google search reliably informs me that food is mentioned 90 times in the gospels alone and eating is mentioned 109. It’s big business!

Eating together provides a shared experience, breaks down boundaries, disarms conflict, allows people to cook and serve and share and chat. Eating is also a basic human right and should be equally available to all people, all the time. And it’s also SO MUCH FUN!

Jesus could have commanded his disciples to do anything in remembrance of him. Every time you watch a sunrise; every time you get dressed; every time you walk on the street; but he didn’t. What did he say? Every time you eat this and drink this, remember me.

These musings about the connection between the altar and the dinner table, the mass and our meals, this open table welcome and those who are hungry each day; this lot has shaped me as a person, as a follower of Jesus, as a priest and as an advocate for those who are poorest. It has led me to transform a grade-II listed building into, not just a church, but also a Kitchen and a café that is free. It has made food more important in my life, not less and each of these musings have led to action, actions that have brought me face to face with poverty and injustice and the beauty of humanity and the harshness of addiction and some awful smells and some wonderful humans.

My musings about food and faith have given me sleepless nights, early mornings, so much joy, huge amounts of laughter, floods of tears, a more authentic expression of faith (I hope) and a church with coffee stains on the pews and marks on the floor. They have taken me on the radio and TV and to San Francisco and Hartlepool, and the more I think and the more I learn, the more I am convinced that something *extra* happens when Jesus-folk gather around any kind of table and invite others to join them too, so I will keep doing it, always. Partly because it’s one of the few things I am absolutely convinced about with my faith, partly because it accidentally turns out to be a pretty good model for evangelism, partly because it is loads of fun, and mostly because Jesus seemed to think it was a good idea in 1^st century Palestine and doesn’t seem to have changed his mind since.

So, as one of my all-time favourite writers said, (rest in power, precious Rachel Held-Evans):

“This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more”.

Alleluia! All you have to do is come hungry…or hangry even! Let’s eat! 😋

*if you’ve been left with any other ‘cliff hangers’ drop me a line and I’ll do my best to address them! 💛

HALFWAY THROUGH!!!

I’ve made it to the midway point. Until now there has always been more days to go than the ones I’ve done but from today that balance shifts, and I couldn’t be more excited! In honour of this momentous day, I thought I would take a break from the usual style of blogging and share with you twenty things about #quarantinelife

Location of quarantine? The Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel, room 2422
Length of stay? 14 days (1^st – 15^th September 2021)
Best thing(s) about the room? The view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge 😍 and the enormous bed which has marshmallow-like qualities
Worst thing(s) about the room? No bath, no opening window, no fresh air, no visiting humans!
Best meal so far? The vegetable fried rice, with crispy tofu, one lunchtime
Worst meal so far? ALL of them on day 5, culminating in the worst dinner ever – like I didn’t even know what the ‘vegetable’ was, but it smelled super bad and was impossible to cut into…
Best day? Yesterday was a great day – fresh bed linen, new clean towels, a supermarket delivery, a move around of the room to get a better view of the Bridge, and 13,000 steps!
Worst day? Day 5 – I don’t know why (I mean, the food didn’t help, but it was already bad before then). I was just watching some rubbish on Netflix and tears started squirting out of my eyes, followed by some real ugly crying. I felt far away from the whole world, apart from the people who are the size of ants, wandering around 24 floors beneath me… 😭
What am I reading? Well, as my dear friend Jenni would say, I have a bit of a book tapas thing going on right now. A veritable smorgasbord of books on the go; Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo (brilliant, really brilliant); The Book of Two Ways, by Jodi Picoult (she’s my favourite author but all the Egyptology is making it a bit of a chew to get into); Signs of Life by Rick Fabien (a gorgeous Jesus-book, about worship and justice and love and welcome, and all the other things I love about The Church) and I read The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman on day zero – all in one day – and absolutely LOVED it. Highly recommended.
What am I watching? I’ve done a good dose of true crime docuseries viewing, with one called Sophie (a murder of a young French woman in Southern Ireland – deeply sad, strange, pretty disturbing) and another called The Case of Keli Lane (incredible, unbelievable, this one will live long in my memory, like The Staircase and Making a Murderer). I’m enjoying exposing my eyeballs to the utterly brilliant trash that is My Unorthodox Life while I eat meals – all of these are on Netflix. I also watched two Storyville documentaries that I had downloaded on the iPlayer (my brother will particularly enjoy my use of the phrase ‘on the iPlayer’!) – one about Hillsongs Church and one about a dreadful disease that leaves people locked in. Terrifying, both of them, in very different ways.
Who am I working out with? I do two workouts each day (easier now I’ve cleared a bigger floor space…although, go figure, it was today when I bumped into the bed the hardest and thought I had broken a toe!). I’ve discovered the PopSugar range – which is good because there is a clock counting down in the corner, so you know how close you are to being done. But my old favourites remain the same – Les Mills (not songs from Les Mis as my sister first thought!! I mean, how much of a sweat can you build up to ‘On My Own’ or ‘One Day More’??) – Les Mills Body Combat is the best there is, although today I discovered Body Jam and found I smiled and laughed my way through an amazing hip-hop dance routine… (I’m super grateful that I found the window blind on day 2 so that the workmen across the way can no longer watch me working out!)
Highest point so far? When an unexpected delivery of vegan cheese and crisps and crackers was delivered to my room, from a Perth Clergyperson, just to say, ‘welcome to Australia, I’m really glad you’re here’ (I love you already, Caro) 💚. I’m also very much enjoying saying a very simple mass each day. It’s totally life-giving. The arrival of Dettol wipes also featured pretty high! 😉 🤣
Lowest point? It was actually day zero (I mean, knowing you’re on day ZERO is pretty soul destroying in itself!), when I found myself lying face down on the carpet, hideously jet-lagged, staring at the pattern on the floor. It was probably only for a minute or two, but that required some serious self-talk to get myself into line!
What have I given up in quarantine? Apart from fresh air, outdoor activity, and other people (!), the big one was alcohol (way easier than I thought it would be), of course all my family and friends and job and home etc (a stranger feeling than I expected it to be). I’m also trying to give up multi-tasking, and just concentrating on one thing at a time. Incidentally, and accidentally, I’ve also given up waking up early, which is an amazing thing about the Giant Marshmallow bed.
What have I taken up? Lots more workouts (these replace my daily dog walks…man, I miss Maggie 🐾), a slower pace of life, more gazing at beautiful views, more ‘wasting time’ with God, LOTS more drinks of water – so many – like, I actually might drown here!
What am I most looking forward to? Obvs, seeing Craig, holding his hand, kissing his face! But I’m also super excited to stand in a wide-open space, breathe fresh air very deeply, stretch, put my feet in the sea, BE OUTSIDE…and I expect my first glass of cold fizz will be very delicious too.
Anything I’m not looking forward to? Hmm…Not really. I think opening that bedroom door and walking out and hearing it close behind me (they don’t give you a key when you get here because you can’t come and go), will be a very strange thing. Negotiating Border Force at WA might be tricky too (Please God, could you sort that?)
Things I’m glad nobody got to see? My stretching routine that strangely turned into liturgical dance this morning. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty. Also, my ‘unique’ method of doing the laundry, whilst in the shower!
Things I wish someone had been here to see? My amazing hip hop dance workout this afternoon – I *swear* I looked like one of the professionals!! 🥴
The one thing I am most grateful for? I would like to say something profound and Godly, particularly as it’s the last question, but the bottom line is that I am super grateful for Wi-Fi – it means I can facetime friends and family, speak to Craig all the time, wile away time on Netflix, workout, connect with the online congregation for mass, receive contact as well as make it, basically connect with what is beyond these four walls. Sometimes it can feel like there’s nothing, or that everything happens there without me, but actually neither of those are true. And, of course, I am enormously grateful that God is holed up in quarantine with me. Phew.

Let’s hear it for the midway point; home straight, here I come!! 🥳

Busy Days in Quarantine

Today has been a busy day in Room 2422 at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel! It turns out day six is when all the things happen…

First, you get a clean supply of bedding and towels, left at your door, so you can change your bed (you’d think this would happen at the midway point, on day 7, but that’s a COVID testing day and they probably want to spread the excitement about for the residents 😉)

Secondly, it’s about this point where you begin to fear you are more in danger of contracting scurvy, than COVID, so you branch out and order fresh fruit and veg* to be delivered from the local supermarket.

Thirdly, you realise that the view from the window is way better than the current view from your ‘armchair’ (it’s not an armchair but let’s not get too technical) and you change your whole room around!

Like I said, it’s a busy day.

And in this busiest of days, I’ve been thinking about two things…

The first thing I realised is that I found myself thinking, ‘gosh, there’s so much to do today I don’t know if I’ll have time to do it AND write my blog…’

The second is how different life feels when we change our view and alter our perspective.

But first the busy-ness thing. So, changing the bed and towels took me about 20 minutes. Twenty minutes out of a day where I have nowhere else to be and nothing pressing to do (I mean, I could do my tax return, but let’s save that for a far less busy day!!). And yet, that automatic feeling of ‘I’ve got soooo much to do’, felt so real. And I guess that’s because it is a familiar one.

When clergy greet one another (maybe other professions do the same), the first response to ‘how are you?’ is always ‘oh, y’know, BUSY’, (shortly before talking about funerals, always funerals). It’s like we make some altar out of over-activity and sacrifice ourselves on it, day after day. Like, would we have any self-worth if we weren’t always running around, doing all the things? And even if we aren’t, would there be anything worse than people knowing?! Even if we’re not busy, surely people need to think we are, because the only alternative to that is being lazy, right? Nothing in between.

Busy = good

Lazy = bad 🤦🏼‍♀️

In my first couple of days here, I realised I was always, like always, doing more than one thing at a time. I couldn’t seem to help it. Like, I was watching a documentary as well as playing candy crush (yes, some people do still play that!). Or I was showering whilst thinking about what today’s blog might be. Or, yep, scrolling through emails or social media, or images of wedding flowers, during morning prayer. Always at least 2 things, sometimes more. Busy. The enemy of peace I reckon! Sound familiar? What might happen if we paid all our attention to the one thing we were doing, at a time? What if multi-tasking were outlawed?! I’m trying it – repeatedly having to stop myself and re-concentrate on the one task (it’s so hard!), but I’m trying it. Wanna join me in that?

And then there was the second thing…how different life can feel if we change our view and our perspective.

When I ‘moved in’ (feels a more positive framing than ‘when I was first incarcerated’…!) my room was laid out in a certain way. The furniture was evenly spaced around the room. It looked tidy and smart, very practical. I think it was about day 2, whilst trying to figure out which piece of hotel furniture could double most easily as a makeshift altar for mass, that I moved the desk, so it faced the window rather than a wall. Turning the desk meant I got a great view of the Harbour Bridge – if I looked to the right (or a building site if I looked straight ahead). Doing that changed my prayers too, because now I was facing a huge sprawling city, and I’m on the 24^th floor, so I could genuinely reach out and pray God’s blessings right over the top of them all. The room became slightly more cluttered and looked less pristine, but the benefits far outweighed that.

Then, today, whilst moving my bed to change it, I realised that with a bit of manoeuvring I could position my chair in another corner and have ACTUAL sunlight on my face, a great view of the Bridge, and see the clear blue skies. Why had I not noticed this before? Why had I been content to sit on my chair, opposite a wall without even a picture on (and facing the bin?!)?? so now the area around the window is cluttered with furniture, BUT I have a big clear area where I can work out (rather than clattering into the footstool like I have been doing – it’s a wonder I’ve not done myself an injury!), and I have sunshine and the most amazing skyline Sydney has to offer.

These two thoughts seemed unrelated but, as I write, I can see they are super related. If we took less time to be busy, like if we stopped building our self-worth on the size of our To Do list and the number of bits of paper falling out of our diaries… if we did that, and focussed on one task at a time, might we be quicker to notice where we are settling for staring – proverbially – at blank walls and stinking bins, rather than enjoying the beauty that the Creator lays on for us each day?

And maybe it’s OK for me to say this, from the ‘luxury’ of quarantine, but maybe it’s something you just want to think about and weigh, because I could’ve let every last sunset and every last blue sky (and every last workman in his scary lift thing going up past my window), I could’ve let all that pass me by because I was too busy, or because I was looking the wrong way.

I hope this is a lesson I keep with me when life genuinely is busy again but, for now, I’m just going to stop writing and watch this beautiful shimmer of gold evening light disappear off this hi-rise building as it sets. 💛

*for those of you who know me, you’ll be pleased to know that Australia also sells Dettol wipes, so my bathroom will be gleaming again, very shortly! 🤣

Doing New Things!

This morning I was listening to Morning Prayer on the Lectio365 app. If you haven’t heard it, or given it a go, I hugely commend it to you (you can find it here… https://www.24-7prayer.com/dailydevotional)

This morning’s bible reading came from probably my all-time favourite book, Isaiah, and was this well-known passage:

‘See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert…’ (Isaiah 43:19)

And how much that resonates right now! See, says God, I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it? Well, durr. Yes, yes, I perceive it. That view out of my window is definitely not Hartlepool, of course I perceive it.

Or do I?

Because, it turns out, God is so often doing a new thing – almost 1,300 times in the pages of scripture God calls God’s people to notice. And how often do we perceive it?

For my latest new ‘thing’ (this move, new job, new marital status, new membership of Team Baseley), I am fortunate enough to hardly fail to perceive it. But how often does one thing gradually turn into the next and the next and the next, without us seeing what journey God is taking us on, without us realising this is a NEW thing?

And that got me thinking about something else.

That got me realising that (I think it’s true to say) everything we do seems to be preparation for the next NEW thing that God will do. Like, nothing that happens to us – good or bad – is ever wasted. Every single thing, in the hands of the Loving Creator, is taken and used and remoulded and redeemed, until it becomes a building block for the next new thing, or the one after that…

So, the Gemma who, at 21, took a casual job in a marketing department of a theatre now knows how to write press releases, and speak on the radio, when something newsworthy happens in her church.

Teenage Gemma was interested in the needs of the many street sleepers in her hometown and would always chat with them; she went on to set up a soup kitchen to feed and provide for hundreds of hungry people in Hartlepool.

The Gemma who did a dance and drama degree because it was fun (and she fancied herself as something of a performer) now knows how to project her voice to a crowd and walk confidently in processions (I swear I use my dance and drama degree at least 3 times as often as my theology one!)

And the Gemma who was punished for missing church on a Sunday will always encourage parishioners to see family and friends – or whatever it is – and will never lay the blame on thick…

And youth-worker Gemma longs to see young people in her church, and community, and has been trained in how to reach out and talk to kids

And even the divorced Gemma might be able to share a few ideas of how she might try to do marriage differently this time. 🤷🏼‍♀️

So, back to this new thing God is doing. In many ways, I think I do perceive it, in part. But in so many other ways, I watch and wait to see which of my life experiences, thus far, will be taken and broken and reshaped and reused in this next chapter. I wonder which things from my past will come back, and how often I will find myself say, ‘so that is what that was all about!’. Do you recognise that in you?

Often, we don’t know what new thing God will do, or how our past experiences, or especially our past mistakes, will ever be useful materials in the hands of God, AND YET, time and time again, God proves Godself to be an incredible recycler of all the bits that have gone before.

The great Christian author, CS Lewis, wrote ‘There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind’ (a quote I wrongly attributed to the pages of scripture for many more years than I care to disclose!). If we truly believe that we worship a Redeemer who takes our past and uses it to shape our future, then how can this fail to be true?

And, going back to that wonderful passage from Isaiah 43, do you know how it continues? It goes on to say that this new thing God is up to is so that God’s people might proclaim God’s praise (43:21). All of God’s new things, are in order that we might give glory to God and proclaim God’s praise.

So, in this hotel quarantine, on my flight to Perth, on my (hopefully soon) reunion with Craig and in all that lies ahead, I commit afresh to proclaim the praise of the God who is always up to new things. I will proclaim the praise of the One who recycles the old to bring about streams in deserts and rivers in waste places. Alleluia!

What about you? What new thing is God up to, in and around you? Do you perceive it? And will you use it as a way of proclaiming God’s praise?

Give us your grace, that it may it be so Lord, for Your Glory, Amen x