Tag: love life live lent

Love Life Live Lent – day five – Plant some seeds

Love Life Live Lent, random thoughts

Oddly, I’m going to be doing this action on Easter Sunday.  Why? Because as part of our Family Communion service in Offord, we’re going to plant some autumn-flowering crocuses in the old font that has been sitting, unloved, in the churchyard for as long as anyone can remember.

At the moment the old font is full of stones and scrubby dirt, but by Easter Day it will be refilled with fresh, dark, fertile soil, and we shall all plant a bulb in it – come Autumn, our Easter planting will remind us that although the days are drawing in, the light of Christ never goes out.

We’re planting the bulbs in the old font partly because it’s there – we wanted to brighten up that part of the churchyard (it’s beside the path from the carpark to the church, so lots of people walk past it). But it’s also because at Easter we renew our baptism promises, reaffirming our belief that life is stronger than death, that love is stronger than hatred, and that light is stronger than darkness.

We’ll be renewing our actual baptism promises inside, around the new font, but it feels right that we also visit and bring new life to the old font, too – and to enable it to be a witness to the light and life and love of God not just to those inside church, but to everyone who passes by.

Love life live Lent – day four: Watch the news and pray…

Love Life Live Lent, random thoughts

Sometimes when we look at the news it feels like all we can do is pray. The situation is too dire, the problem too big, for anything we can do to have any effect. Sometimes it may even feel as if our prayers are too small.

But today, people will be praying for what’s on the news like never before, because today, the Love Life Live Lent action is to watch the news and pray about it.  There will have been prayers arising with the breakfast news, there will be more with the lunchtime news, and still more with the evening bulletins.  And thanks to 24 news services, news websites and twitter, I imagine that today’s prayer vigil for all that’s going on in the world is pretty much non-stop.

But even today, it’s not the size or the quality of our prayers that makes the difference, it’s the fact that God is always more ready to listen than we are to pray. And that he knows the deepest truth and hurt of every situation better than we ever can.  Even if it seems that nothing is happening, God is already at work, answering our prayers – and responding to all the things we should have prayed about but didn’t – in ways that we can’t even imagine.  And he’s at work in us, ensuring that our praying changes not only those things that are external to us, but also that which is inside us, so that we ourselves can become ways for God to answer our own prayers and those of others.

Prayer is a mysterious process.  It’s something we do in faith and in hope and in love as well as out of duty and habit. And sometimes it’s the only thing we can do.  But if you’re struggling with today’s action, to pray for what’s on the news, then why not try some of these ideas to help your prayers feel more real:

1. When you near about a news story, write down a list of all the people affected by it (our you could even draw them) – include not only those who appear to be the victims, but also those who seem to be causing the hurt. Pray for them all.

2. As you sit down to watch the news, set out a row of small candles. For each news story, think about were the darkness is, and how it comes to be. Who is bringing the darkness into that situation? Are you part of what makes that place dark, or sad, or scary?  Ask God to be with those people for whom the world is a dark place. Then light one of the candles, and think about all the people who are able to bring light into that situation, and thank God for them. Ask yourself if you are one of those people.

3. If you read the news online, pick a story that has moved you, or challenged you, and share it on facebook or twitter, inviting those you’re in contact with online to spare a moment to pray, with you, for the people involved.

4. If you’re reading the news in a newspaper, cut out the articles that you’ve chosen to pray about, and put the clippings in a safe place, where you can revisit them each day.  If a news story develops, keep subsequent articles too, so that you can update your prayers, and even start to give thanks if things look as if they are getting better. You could even start a prayer scrapbook.

There are lots of other ways to make prayers for what’s on the news feel real. Why not share your ideas on twitter using the #livelent hashtag, or leave a comment here?

Love Life Live Lent – day three: be more giving

Love Life Live Lent, random thoughts

Today’s action is to start a small change jar – in aid of any suitable charity – and add to it all through Lent.  A very excellent thing to do – even copper coins and 5p pieces add up over time to make a decent pot of money to hand over to somewhere where it can make far more difference that it would have done in our purses.

As it happens, I already have a rule that all 1p, 2p and 5p coins go in our Children’s Society box, but reading today’s task reminded me that for some reason I couldn’t find the box the other day, and I still can’t. This is worrying – not because it means the Children’s Society won’t get their money (they already have – I’ve done a £20 donation in lieu of the box of small change, just in case) but because the box is usually in the front hall, next to the phone, where I see it every time I pass, and therefore remember to check my purse.  If the box has been put somewhere else, or if it’s fallen down behind something, or got buried in a pile of junk mail, then this is a Very Bad Sign.  It’s a bad sign because it means that just possibly being generous has stopped being a daily (or many times a day) activity.

Someone once told me when I was a member of a church youth club that I should keep my bible out, and not on a shelf, but that I should also pay attention to what gets put on top of it.  The idea of this is that the stuff that ends up on top of the Bible, obscuring it from sight (and therefore risking putting it out of mind) is also the stuff that may be getting in the way of my faith, my Christian life.  I’m not sure that this is a foolproof way of discerning one’s main barriers to a growing relationship with God, but there must be something in it for it to have stayed with me.

Which brings me back to the Children’s Society Box.  I still don’t know where it is.  But every day that it’s not in plain sight, right in front of my face, there are 5p, 2p and 1p coins accumulating in my purse (or worse still, being spent by me) and therefore missing their true vocation.  They are like the ‘gleanings’ (the spare crops at the edges of the field) that rightfully belong to those who need them more than I do.  If the Children’s Society box doesn’t turn up when I tidy up tomorrow morning, then I’m going to start my jam jar. And I’m going to set it going with some nice fat 10p coins. And I’m going to paint it pink, or yellow, or something else that’s so bright and colourful that it will stick out like a sore thumb and make generosity prominent again on our hallway table.

(Oh yes, and it’s well worth checking down behind the sofa cushions – it’s amazing how much money is sometimes lurking there!)

Ash Wednesday – a Love-Life-Live-Lent-flavoured sermon

church resources, Love Life Live Lent, sermons

It’s not mess…

There was an advert a few years ago for Persil automatic.  It was on TV and on billboards everywhere, so most of you will probably have seen it.  It features a film of children happily painting a wall in splashes of multicoloured paint.  Inevitably, more of the paint gets on their clothes, their hands and faces, and on each other, than on the wall.  The captions read “It’s not mess, it’s creativity, it’s not mess it’s learning,” and so on.

An Ash Wednesday service is a messy one: it involves marking our foreheads with the sign of the cross in a very messy mixture of ash and oil.  This service is messy because we are: sin is a messy business, and the ash reminds us of all the mess that we make of our own lives, of other people’s lives and of this world.  If a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, then the ash cross is the reverse: an outwards and visible sign of an inward and invisible lack of grace. We sign ourselves with this messy mix of ash and oil because all of us are in a mess.  It helps us be honest about the disparity between what we appear to be and what we feel we are.  Many of us may sometimes feel uncomfortable with the respect that people give us – that we don’t quite match up to the person people think we are – the person we want to be.  When people praise us we may feel, ‘if only they knew…’   So the cross of ash helps us reconcile the person we feel we are with the person that others see.  It helps us remember that God sees us as we are – the good stuff and the not so good stuff – and he still loves us, even having seen the truth. Lent is a time for us to learn to see ourselves just as God does: as beloved sinners.

But the washing powder  advert puts an altogether more positive slant on mess, which is worth exploring.

One of the captions reads, ‘it’s not mess, it’s creativity’.

When we receive the ash cross on our forehead, we hear the words, ‘remember that you are dust’.  And so with the ash perhaps we can recall that wonderful picture of God’s creativity in Genesis 2, lovingly molding the earth into human beings, and breathing life into what was dry and lifeless.  And so as we receive the ash on our foreheads we can give thanks that God can still breathe new life into us even in the dirt and dust and deathliness of our sin.

One of the key themes of Love Life Live Lent is being creative and imaginative – whether that’s making cakes and sharing them or trying something you’ve never done before: when we do so, we reflect something of our creator God, and we give a little bit of life to the world as well as becoming a little more alive ourselves.

Another of the captions reads, ‘it’s not mess, it’s pride’. Pride is perhaps not quite the right word.  But the sign of the cross that we carry is certainly not something that we are ashamed of.  At our baptism, Christ claimed us as his own, and so we are glad to be marked with his sign of the cross.  Because Jesus took the shame of death on a cross and transformed it into hope and victory, he can also transform the shame of our sinfulness into the triumph over it.

Many of the Love Live Live Lent actions are also about our own identity as human beings and as beloved children of God; learning to be ourselves, making the most of who we are, and giving thanks for the way that we have been blessed – even if it’s just for the food we eat.

The TV advert ends with one of the children accidentally on purpose painting another’s nose – at first she looks cross, but then starts to smile.  The caption reads, ‘it’s not mess, it’s forgiveness’.  When we have the sign of the cross on our foreheads, we are a walking testimony to the fact that everyone can be forgiven.

Again, within Love Life Live Lent there are actions that bring real peace and reconciliation – between us and other people, and between humanity and the earth.  Ash Wednesday’s action is to say sorry for something we have done wrong: it may be enough simply to say sorry to God, or it may be that there are others who need to hear it too, and we may also need to acknowledge and repent of the harm we’ve done to ourselves, for sin has a habit of harming the sinner, too.

We are messy people.  The messes we make in our lives are real messes.  They are dark and dirty, and if left unchecked they will be the death of us.  And God does not condone our mess.  It is not that God does not mind about sin – on the contrary, it grieves him that we hurt and abuse ourselves and others, that we deface and corrupt the very air, water and land of this world he has given us. We take heart, and take courage, because we believe in a God who already knows the secrets of our hearts.

Guilt is a prison with sin as the bars, trapping us inside our past mistakes, but true repentance allows us to receive the forgiveness that God always offers, and it may even start to rebuild relationships that we had given up on.  Forgiveness is just as real as sin – and indeed is stronger. Life is stronger than death, light is stronger than darkness, and love is stronger than hate.

The actions in LLLL are all about the triumph of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred.  Just as sin harms the sinner, so random acts of kindness, creativity and love can help repair the wounds on the soul.  This Lent, let us ask God to breathe life into our dust, that we may live lives of love, for our own sake, for each other’s sake, and for the sake of God’s world.

Love life live lent: have a pancake party!

church resources, Love Life Live Lent, random thoughts

No doubt there will be pancakes at tonight’s fundraising meeting, but just in case, my daughter and I had some for breakfast.  In fact, I was woken up especially early “because it’s pancake day!” to give me time to make them.

As I groggily mixed the flour and egg and milk and set the frying pan to heat up, it occurred to me that everyone probably has their own favoured pancake recipe.  When I first made pancakes I used the Delia recipe, but these days I don’t weigh or measure anything, I just chuck stuff in a bowl and stir it until it looks right. It generally works, and it suits my personality much better than getting out the kitchen scales and doing things ‘properly’.

Everyone has their own favourite toppings, too. My daughter and I love golden syrup and lemon juice, while one of her friends will only eat pancakes if they are coated in tomato ketchup.  One of the tutors at my theological college used to make the most wonderful orange pancake sauce which I’ve never been able to replicate.  Our taste in food is as unique as we are, clearly, and some of the best pancake parties I’ve been to have been those with a ‘bring and share topping’ rule – enabling each person to try everyone’s favourites, perhaps enjoying something new, perhaps confirming their own preferences.

Whether it’s syrup, lemon juice, orange, or ketchup, there seems little point in trying to be frugal about pancakes.  Their whole function on Shrove Tuesday is to use up some of the luxuries that will be denied during Lent. So making the most of this last ‘feast’ is absolutely related to the way we approach the fast of Lent, whether or not we’re actually going to be giving up a particular food.  ‘Deny yourself’ we are often told at the start of Lent.  But this isn’t about denying who we are – we are still unique people, with unique tastes, preferences and desires. But Lent is a good time for each of us to reflect on how the person we are impacts on those around us and on the wider world.

So much in Love Life Live Lent is not about denying ourselves, but rather about revisiting who we are; doing things a bit differently in the belief that what we do can profoundly affect who we are, as well as affecting others.

As you eat your pancakes (whatever topping you put on them), think about how the person you are, in all your individuality, makes a difference to the world around you, and how, during Lent, you are going to make that impact even more into something which really does change things for the better.