Everything in its time

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Some people say they don't understand why Ecclesiastes is in the Bible - it seems so depressing. But I have also read that apparently it is the book in the Bible which speaks most to today's young people. I love the book, and find it strangely comforting.

Year of the RAT...

I woke this morning at 5am to hear something rustling in my room. I grew up with two cats, so late-night (or, in this case, early-morning) rustling, not to mention large furry thing jumping on bed, was not a rare occurrence. However, remembering that both my childhood pets had been gathered to their ancestors, and that I was living in a pet-free household, the horrible realisation quickly dawned that SOMETHING FURRY AND UNINVITED was exploring my bedroom. Then - oh horror of horrors - it started squeaking. My mind leapt to the Dick Whittington story tape my brother and I used to listen to when we were little. When Dick gets his first room in London, he has to try and sleep at night while rats scurry over his bedclothes...

I used my mobile to try and throw light on the corner from which the suspicious rustling and squeaking seemed to be emanating...nothing. I calculated how many strides it would take me to reach my bedroom door, and the likelihood of my sudden movement causing aforementioned scurrying over my naked feet. And if I took my duvet with me, with a view to trying to kip elsewhere, I would be impeded by its weight, which could cost me valuable seconds when fleeing the room. In the end, I ran for it.

Unfortunately, in the middle of the night when one is sleep-deprived, one's brain starts throwing out irrational panicky thoughts. Obviously I was a bigger slob than I realised - I knew other people left dirty plates in their rooms from time to time, but I'd never heard of other people attracting RATS! How long would it take Rentokil to get here? Maybe they wouldn't have any available slots today? Would the Rentokil man nod knowingly when entering my room and say "I thought so - we got a classic slob scenario here." Would I ever feel comfortable sleeping in my lovingly decorated room again?

Fortunately, as for Dick Whittington, morning brought calm and sanity. My supervisor, Kerry, tells me that this is a side effect of living in London, and that all the houses round here get MICE once a year. Not huge, smelly, fearsome rats, but tiny, cute little mousies. In the cold light of day I discovered what had attracted them - an unopened bag of sushi rice, now sporting a little mouse-tooth-sized hole in the bottom. Apparently the best way to deal with them is to lay down traps. The question is, can a vegetarian countenance bringing such violent deaths to these small furry pieces of creation?

You betcha, I need my sleep.

The journey continues

Today was the first session of Journeys, a Christian course for people exploring spirituality, which I am being trusted to run on my own. The whole process of advertising and promoting the course has been an interesting learning experience for me. I finally understand Rebecca Manley Pippert's comment that evangelism felt like something you wouldn't do to a dog, let alone someone you liked(!). I know and like a lot of people here who wouldn't describe themselves as Christians, and I would love to discuss spiritual things with them in an open, relaxed and non-threatening way. The Journeys course is excellent in that it is designed to be informal, low-key and accessible for people with a whole range of beliefs. However, I really hate the thought that my friends here will think I am only nice to them because I secretly want to 'evangelize' them. Yesterday, with 24 hours to go, I had to force myself to start inviting people directly (and I call myself an evangelist!). This morning I prayed "Lord, if one person comes, great. If five people come, great. If no one comes, great - I'll just have to think of something else."

In the end, five people came - which was more than I was expecting - and we had a great time chatting and a fantastic discussion after the DVD. We covered other religions, the trinity, the cross, the Holy Spirit, life after death... Actually no one talked about the DVD at all, but this is something I have found in the past when running The Alpha Course. The presentation, whether a talk or a DVD, works as a stimulus for discussion but people rarely stay on the topic. I went into Alpha mode today, only giving my own opinion when I was asked for it, and in fact the conversation flowed easily with very little input from me. I told everyone it was over at 3.30, so that they could go if they needed to, but people stayed for ages afterwards, until I had to throw the remaining two out of the building when it closed at 5pm.

Thankfully we have a God who works in spite of us!

On the street

Street outreach continues to be the most rewarding aspect of my work here. I don't know exactly why. Certainly I like the fact that we are trying to offer friendship and support to very vulnerable women - but then I could do this in a community centre. For some reason, however, I enjoy being up at odd times, walking around dark streets in the cold. I think maybe it's because I like the idea of "going out" to find people who wouldn't necessarily walk into a community centre (let alone a church). If you'll excuse me sounding a bit holy, I think it's the kind of thing Jesus would do. There's a whole community of people 'on the street' - not necessarily homeless, but working on the street - it's like a parallel world which exists right there in the same place where young trendy people come to drink in wine bars and buy vintage clothes. A friend of mine was surprised to learn that there was a lot of prostitution going on in the area we cover; I explained that you wouldn't necessarily see it if you weren't looking. And yet the women, like the homeless beggars, are right there.

The Kingdom of God

A uncharacteristically churchy title for this blog post, but this is the phrase that has been in my head today. This morning I had my second meeting with my new mentee, a Bangladeshi woman who has recently come to England. We walked around the market practising English conversation. She bought me a cup of tea (I tried to pay!). There was a nice moment when the shop lady said how much it was, and my lady didn't understand, so I repeated it, and then she got out her £2 coin and looked at me as if to say, "Is that right?", and I gave her the thumbs up. It's extremely rare to see white eastenders and Bangladeshi immigrants mixing socially, but how amazing would it be if every newcomer had a local to help them in the first few months? How much easier would integration become?

Away in a manger

The Christmas season has involved several surreal new experiences, none of them unpleasant (!). Collecting money with the Salvation Army band in Oxford Street was great fun, although after an hour and a half of standing on a cold street holding a bucket my muscles had pretty much seized up. It was fun watching all the shoppers, though, being asked for directions (I don't know where ANYTHING is), occasionally having a brief chat with passersby, shoving my bucket through a cab window to receive a contribution from the driver! The most surreal moment was when a bright yellow bus emblazoned with the Corona beer logo pulled up directly beside the Salvation Army band (there was a set of traffic lights there), complete with man in Corona beer bottle costume dancing on the upper deck of the bus.

On Saturday we had 'Christmas on the Farm', an outdoor nativity held at the city farm in Stepney. All the characters (shepherd, wise men, innkeeper etc.) were played by adults except for Mary and Joseph, played by two children, and baby Jesus, played by a doll. I was the angel. We arrived several hours early to set up, only to discover that there were three very large, aggressive-looking pigs in the pig shed which was supposed to be our 'stable'. I volunteered to jump over a fence with a bucket of pig feed to lure the porkers out while two of the menfolk swiftly placed a bit of metal fencing over the entrance. Unfortunately, during our lunch break the pigs broke back in, so we repeated the operation and put Joan on pig watch. It rained all day, which put a bit of a dampener on things, but it was still a good laugh and the people that came seemed to enjoy it. Many people see Christmas on the Farm as their bit of 'church' for the year.

In the bleak mid-winter...

Man, it's cold! I really don't cope well with cold. Or heat. Basically, it's hard to get the temperature right for me. Maybe I have bad circulation... Anyway, Christmas is fast approaching and I have been preparing some advent worship for our small group of Sunday morning worshippers (we had an amazing 14 for worship last Sunday - we were quite overwhelmed!). Every year I tell myself I will buy a Christmas CD and every year I forget until it's far too late to bother. But this year I have discovered the delights of fast and cheap mp3 download, with the excuse of Sunday worship to prepare for.

The really weird thing is that even though I have heard the same carols and the same Christmas story every year for as long as I can remember, and have believed it for the last five years, this year I am finding myself very moved by the whole thing. I was watching a film version of the nativity story on my laptop in the Idea Store (library to you and me - I did have the headphones on, by the way) and found myself blubbing in public - most alarming. This morning I have been trying to plan a simple act of worship for advent based on Christmas carols and have found myself in tears once again. The following carol starts me off crying every time - it's my favourite:

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign;
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for him, whom Cherubim
Worship night and day
A breast full of milk
And a manger full of hay.
Enough for him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only his mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can, I give Him —
Give my heart.