From Rev'd Louise

Monthly reflection

May 2024 Thy Kingdom Come

In May this year, from Ascension to Pentecost (9th - 19th May) Christians around the world will pray particularly for the love of Jesus to be better known, around the world, around our communities and families, and within ourselves.

Christians pray regularly ‘Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,’ but maybe we reflect less often on what that means. Since it began in 2016, the annual Thy Kingdom Come prayer initiative has grown into a prayer movement uniting over a million Christians in prayer around the world, in nearly 90% of countries worldwide, and across 85 different denominations and traditions. Each person, each church, is encouraged to pray in their own way, but united in the prayer ‘that those who have not yet heard the Good News of Jesus Christ and his love for the world, will hear it for themselves and respond and follow him.’*

But what is prayer? When I was a Street Pastor, one of the questions we were asked regularly was, ‘How can I pray? Tell me how to pray.’ We often used to respond that wanting to pray is itself prayer, that there are probably as many different ways to pray as there are people praying, and that if you don’t know how to pray, simply tell God that you want to pray but don’t know how to, and let him guide you.

Many of us may have heard prayer described as ‘talking to God,’ and certainly our prayer will include telling God – out loud or in silence - about the people and situations that are important to us, though God already knows everything we can tell him. But I prefer to think of prayer as a conversation with God, in the way that we may share time with a friend who knows us well. There will be times when we talk to them, time when we listen to them, and times when we are simply silent together, enjoying one another’s company. But what we certainly do need, I believe, are those times when our focus is on our friend rather than on something else. I have known people who tell me that they find it easiest to pray when they are alone and silent, those who prefer to pray in a group of others praying too. Those who tell me they pray when they are washing up, or walking the dog, or dancing, or singing, or playing music, or looking at art, or making something. The list is endless, and as varied as we are.

One thing that I have learned from my own prayer life is that prayer does not usually ‘just happen.’ I have to set aside those times and places, where I intend to pray, and I have keep the discipline of doing so, even when prayer feels difficult, as it is at times for every Christian I have ever known. So my prayer for us all is that this year we will find something from the Thy Kingdom Come initiative that ‘works’ for us, that encourages us in our prayer or, if we feel we have never prayed before, encourages us to ‘give it a go.’
*quote from the Thy Kingdom Come website https://www.thykingdomcome.global/

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April 2024 Earth Hour

As I write this, there are still two weeks of Lent to go. Although every year I try to keep Lent in a meaningful way, I usually end up feeling that I have not kept Lent as well as I want to. However, I really do appreciate the annual reminder to assess my faith and my life, and look at ways in which I can change how I live, so that my life reflects a little more closely the fact that I believe in a God who is love.

This year, I have been continuing to co-lead the Joy in Enough: Plenty! course online and in Hathersage, looking at the individual and cultural roots of our planetary crises, and what we can do about them. The news around us constantly reminds us that humanity’s greed and lack of love is imperilling virtually all life on earth, including our own, in ways that may soon be irreversible and possibly unsurvivable. So this Lent I have been reflecting, in many ways and in many settings, on the Christian calling to lament, and repentance, and hope. And reflecting too on how I see these Christian characteristics being lived out around our world by people of all faiths and none.

One of the ways in which I have been seeking to change my lifestyle habits that harm others, is by taking part in the Climate Stewards Carbon Fast for Lent, which has a ‘Carbon Fast’ challenge every week; from unawareness, from silence, from meat and dairy, from food waste, from driving, from excessive energy use, and from social media, with three different levels of challenge each week. I believe one of the ways we can live the Christian hope and trust in God’s vision for a world where all may flourish, is by our individual steps towards making that vision a reality.

This Lent, on Saturday March 23rd, I will also be taking part in Earth Hour, when tens of millions of people worldwide switch off their lights for one hour from 8.30 pm. We have taken part every year since Earth Hour began, as a movement of 2.2 million in Sydney trying to convince a climate-sceptic government that people really do care about the well-being of our common home. Since 2012 Earth Hour has also been a time to do something to protect the Earth. Last year the Earth Hour movement launched an ‘Hour Bank’ where people could pledge to give an hour, and find ideas of planet-friendly ways to have fun during Earth Hour.

By the time you read this, Earth Hour will be over for this year. But our calling to show God’s love for all that God has created, for all that God loves, will not be over. My prayer is that we can all take steps to ‘live simply so that others can simply live.’*

*quote from Mahatma Gandhi

March 2024 Moving mountains

As Lent began, the Church of England Environment Bulletin brought news that the General Synod of the Church of England at the end of February was to discuss the biodiversity agenda, with a proposal to give biodiversity equal weight with net zero, recognising the need to respond urgently to the ecological crisis. By the time you read this, we may know the outcome, but at present I don’t.

The motion to come before General Synod addresses land and property owned by the Church, at parish, diocese and national level, encouraging dioceses to develop a land action plan. Bishop Graham Usher, the Church of England’s lead bishop on the environment, said, ‘we have the opportunity to demonstrate the Church’s responsibility to safeguard God’s creation …. There are around 17,500 acres of churchyards in England – that’s around twice the size of a city like Oxford. I want them to be places for the living as well as the dead.’

I confess part of me wants to despair, as I watch the Church of England again playing ‘catch-up,’ and gradually realising a responsibility to act on a major cause of global suffering and poverty, an issue that Christian charities and environmental groups have been well aware of for decades. Yet part of me also rejoices that the Church of England is at least making progress in loving our neighbour, however late and however slowly.

Sometimes it is hard not to feel overwhelmed by the pain and injustice, as we look at the desperate crisis our world is facing, an existential threat to much of life on earth; a crisis that is already causing suffering or death for millions each year and which is worsening rapidly. ‘What difference can I possibly make?’ can be either a heartfelt cry for guidance, or an excuse to do nothing. Two things encourage me. Firstly, I can pray, knowing that God has promised always to hear us when we pray in faith. Secondly, I know that I already make a difference to the world simply by being alive in it; by eating food, wearing clothes, using energy, interacting with my environment. I can try to increase the positive difference I make, and decrease my negative impact; often by things as simple as looking carefully at what I eat and how I shop.

In Matthew 17, Jesus told his disciples that if they had faith ’as small as a mustard seed’, they would be able to move mountains. Of course, that sounds impossible, but is it? I often wonder if perhaps the faith that Jesus meant is the faith to pick up a spade and start digging, and to doggedly continue to dig one spadeful at a time, even when it seems that the mountain is not getting any smaller. And to encourage us, Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15: 58 that the work we do for the Lord is never in vain.And so, my prayer for us all, is that we would never lose sight of the ‘bigger picture,’ of the world as it is, and we would all have the courage and commitment to want to make a positive difference.