An audacious hope?

Very often when we think about hope, we link it consciously or not to faith and love - thinking of Paul's letter first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13: Faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. We might think of bracelets bearing a cross, anchor and heart. So perhaps we find Watts' painting haunting because he considers hope alone. 

 G. F. Watts: Hope (1886)

This painting is perhaps one of his most popular and certainly the most famous. I spent some time at Watts Gallery on Saturday gazing at this blindfolded young woman whose eyes couldn't meet mine. She is wearing a pale blue robe; sitting precariously on what seemed to me at first a rock, but perhaps it's a globe.  She is stooping awkwardly, even uncomfortably; bent almost double, folded in on herself.  She cannot see, but she can touch and hear.  She seems to be paying absolute attention to the lyre she's holding.  She is clinging on to it, straining to hear the faint sound it makes (the note she can make) on the last remaining string. A very melancholy, tuneless reverberation made by finger plucking a sting in the air.

Is Watts bravely, controversially, conceiving of hope without either faith or love? Is it perhaps a visual representation of Arnold's 'Dover Beach' ? His words reverberate: The Sea of Faith / Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore / Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. / But now I only hear / Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar, / Retreating, to the breath / Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear / And naked shingles of the world. I would say not: there is a residual light and peace in Watts’ image.  There may not be certitude – but amidst what Arnold calls the darkling plain there is a longing for help in pain, a light which breaks in.

Although the figure of the woman occupies much of the canvas, there is an expanse of space which seems to exaggerate her alone-ness. She is a solitary figure - abandoned, exiled, escaping or seeking safety.  Even so, that its perhaps not wholly hopeless.  As we have seen, in the scriptural tradition hope is not absent in adversity. Even when the exiled people of Israel hung up their harps, God's love remained faithful. They were called to sing, as Bishop Andrew put it at his induction, a beautiful song.

Is there a sense of hope within this young woman? Perhaps it isn't a hope that is rooted in her own emotional resilience or inner strength; perhaps there is a hope beyond the constraints of her circumstances.  There is a single star in the sky; a single still point.  She cannot see it. As Paul writes to the Romans: In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see we wait for it with patience (8: 24-25). 

Hope is somehow staking a claim in a reality beyond our senses; places our trust in God's love even when we wait for the fulfillment of God's purposes. He goes on to describe the way in which the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that the very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words (8:26-27). God searches the heart; knows the Spirit. God is faithful.  We know, says Paul, that all things work together for good.

Watts’ painting wasn't unanimously well received. K . Chesterton found it to be so bleak that it might just as well been called ‘Despair’.  Some found the allegory obscure and the paint clumsy (N. Tromans, Hope: The Life and Times of a Victorian Icon, p. 20). Others like the poet Emily Pfeffer offer a Christian response: she speaks of scattered tones which may surprise / Thee with a vision to inform the sense; / And gift thee out of wreck and wrong withal / To see the city of God to music rise. Its melancholic, dreamlike or tragic qualities leave it open to interpretation.

The physical absence of a depiction of love and faith, as feminine forms bringing harmony and balance is more honest. Paul cries out in the midst of hardship and distress, persecution and nakedness: who can separate us from the love of Christ?  Nothing is his answer. Perhaps this image is in effect an interpretation of that Pauline assurance: it evokes the depth of human despair and abandonment, and yet conveys our capacity to endure, to retain a vision of a better world. We do this because God remains faithful; because his love in Christ reaches out to us in our fear and desolation; because his Spirit cries out within us. 

I was reminded this week of the global impact of this painting: one young Barack Obama heard Jeremiah Wright preach a sermon in 1990 called 'Audacity to Hope', inspired by a lecture on Watts' painting. He said with her clothes in rags... her harp all but destroyed... she had the audacity to make music and praise God... To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope.  Obama adopts this theme for his book 'Audacity of Hope'. In his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he speaks of faith in simple dreams and small miracles; the legacy of forebears and the promise of future generations. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-arnon/how-the-obama-hope-poster_b_133874.html

There are hints that this isn't just the resuscitation of an American Dream for he says: I'm not talking about blind optimism here, the almost willful ignorance that thinks [the]... heath care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore... I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs...Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope: in the end, that is God's greatest gift to us... a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead [Washington Post online].

Barack Obama found a renewed political vision in this audacious hope: but we know the outworking of this in domestic policy and on the national stage is fraught, complex and disappointing.  Expectations were set so high; the rhetoric so compelling: do we jettison hope or recast it? How do we hope for the right things – living with the contingencies of our life – personal, national and international?

© 2015 Julie Gittoes

Placing hope in steadfast love

During Lent, we have been challenging to think about what it means to be courageous, the indifference of the natural world and the storms and clouds that assail us - those internal and external pressures and situations that overwhelm us.  In all this we have been encouraged to think, by Dianna Gwilliams, Derek Holbird, Steve Summers and Andrew Bishop to think about how we respond and endure. Do we rely on inner strength or find unexpected moments of grace? Do moments of hesitation enable us to glimpse love? Where to find an anchor point or harbour in a storm, or do we ride it out? Do we rise above the clouds and find glory and presence of God? 

Catherine Clancy: The storm took my soul away (2014)

What do we hope for?

If it isn't optimism, how do we cultivate it?

If it is a spiritual virtue, what practical difference does it make to our lives as disciples of Christ?

The biblical vision of hope often emerges in the face of adversity. Naomi says to Ruth and Orpha Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you wait until they were grown? [Ruth 1:12-3]. In the face of losing her sons, she seeks to liberate her daughters-in-law to continue their lives: even if she could bear children, how could these adult women wait, putting their lives on hold. The lack of hope in relation to the human condition forces them to make choices about where they place their trust in the future.

The books of Job, the Psalms and Proverbs are full of hope and despair: Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none (Job 3:9). There is disappointment and loss; yet there is also confidence because of hope. There is hope for the tree that is cut down and which sprouts again; Job is assured of protection and rest because there is hope, whereas the only hope of the wicked is to breath their last.

The psalmist contrasts the vain hope of the war horse by its great might it cannot save (Ps. 33:17), whereas those who trust God place their hope in his steadfast love (Ps. 33: 18). Hope is placed in God - in his word, in the fulfilment of his commandments; it becomes a source of blessing and gladness. Hope is associated with wisdom and a vision for the future (Proverbs 24:14). The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah contrast the misplaced hope in other gods or rulers with the call to wait patiently on the Lord I will wait for the Lord... I will hope in him (Isaiah 8:17).

There’s a contrast between placing our hope in the fleeting, contrary and disappointing things of this world and the steadfastness of God. There is a reciprocity undergirding these hopes: patient waiting and obedience to commandments are expressions of hope. They are generative because they are placed in God - the one who is faithful and steadfast. This echoes in the Gospels - Jesus Christ is the one in whom the Gentiles will hope (Matthew 12: 21); in contrast Jesus speaks of the superficiality of human relationships based on exchange and hope return (Luke 6:24).

Acts and the epistles are full of hope: in the light of the resurrection, hope seems to overflow: Hope is in the promise of God, which Paul affirms as he faces his trial (Acts 24: 15; 26:6). Hope is set on Christ, that we might life for the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:12); it is the source of our calling - being one body, in one Spirit; rooted in fellowship and faith in the Lord (Ephesians 4:4).  

 Paul hopes to meet his brothers and sisters, for them to meet Timothy and others; but such fellowship is in Christ (Philippians 2:23; 1 Timothy 3:14).  Hope has a heavenly focus - a longing for the new creation. Yet, hope isn't just about eternal life (Titus 3:7). There is a very real impact in the present: living hope leads to holy living (1 Peter 1:3, 13). 

In struggles, hope is in the living God; the Saviour of all people. It is a hope that is a steadfast anchor; hope in Jesus Christ; an invitation, perhaps, to fix our eyes on him when storm, clouds, fear and disaster assail us.


© 2015 Julie Gittoes

Hope - something more?

Our Lent Lectures at Guildford Cathedral have responded to the phrase 'Do not be afraid': hearing it perhaps as a challenge, an invitation, an imperative or word of assurance. We've been thinking about Catherine Clancy's exhibition on that theme (on display at the Cathedral this Lent). We have been considering which images draw us in, either because they resonate with us or intrigue us; and which paintings we find difficult because, perhaps because they're too bright or because we struggle to find a point of connection.

This Lenten journey has taken us from courage to a hesitant and generous love; from the presence of God in clouds to the peace of Christ in storms. We have thought about fear, grace and suffering; renewed vision, resilience and creativity. And now on the cusp of Holy Week, as we turn our hearts and minds to Jerusalem, I will contemplate the nature of hope.  Hope is shaped by scripture, poetry and art; drawing together our traditions, experiences and imaginations. It's an opportunity to think about where God meets us in the complexity of our lives - and how his Spirit draws us onwards in the face of death to new life.

If we type the word hope into Google, a whole range of images are thrown up: we might find a rather energetic figure looking to the future: outstretched arms embracing new horizons as day breaks.  It looks full of optimism, if a little romantic.   Perhaps we stumble across an image that depicts new life in inauspicious circumstances; flourishing or growth against the odds.

Some images have a recognizably religious feel: candles burning - we don't know why they're lit; the light is flickering in the darkness.  Flames as a sign of our prayers offered amidst confusion, curiosity, hope and love; tentative or assured expressions of faith made by human beings on a journey.


There are resonances of Jesus Christ, light of the world; perhaps in lighting a candle we are placing our trust in God; reaching out towards or acknowledging his presence near us. We staking a claim; naming a hope when we can least articulate it.

Finally, there's an image of sensing the dawn as it breaks; we feel the light pouring in as well as seeing it; even in the darkness, even in brokenness something of the beyond is breaking in.

Hope is a University and a Hospice: places of learning and living life in the face of death.  Hope is a radio station; a Swedish clothing company; a creative design agency. It's associated with inspiring or encouraging listening; an alternative lifestyle brand; developing corporate identities. Turn to Wikipedia - the source beloved of student and scorned by tutors - we find hope described as an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. 

Psychologists, leaders, literary critics and cultural commentators all have something to say about 'hope'. But surely there is more to it than that? Hope isn't a brand, a naive wish fulfillment or transference theory.  However, it is important to acknowledge this dilution of hope; it might help us to make connections whilst witnessing to the good news of Christ.

We glimpse part of that 'more than' when we kept the feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary: it's a day that in a sense takes us to the heart of hope.  When this joyful celebration falls in Passion-tide, as it does this year, there are deeper resonances. We can't simply romanticize this moment of encounter - between a young woman and an angel.  It is an occasion of thanks and praise; yet Mary needs to ponder the mystery and cost of the message. Following a greeting full of honour and grace, the words that fall from Gabriel's lips are 'do not be afraid'.  His assurance enables Mary to hear this promise with faith.

 The Annunciation- Fra Angelico (1387-1455)

By the power of the Spirit she conceives. Yet, as the words of the Preface express it: From the warmth of her womb / to the stillness of the grave / he shared our life in human form. To sing, 'all my hope on God is founded' is to fix our eyes on Christ: our prayer continues in him a new light has dawned upon the world / and you have become one with us / that we might become one with you.

We know the incarnation of God's Son by the message of angel; we pray that by his cross and passion we be brought to the glory of his resurrection.  That is the foundation of our hope: a God whose generous love is made known to us not just in the mystery and awe of the created order, but in abiding with us. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. It is not just that 'with-us-ness' that gives us hope; but it is the assurance of forgiveness and the renewal of vision.  Whatever we face and endure now, is not the ultimate reality.

We need to discuss values and vision

Enough of the dry politics of numbers. We need to discuss values and vision.

So runs the headline of Will Hutton's comment piece in today's Observer.

The byline continues: Political conversation has been drained of all vitality, fixated on a narrow set of targets. To breathe new life into it, our politicians should stop talking like accountants and rediscover moral purpose.

Hutton goes on discuss the way in which politicians of his parents' generation traded their competing visions and debated how they would achieve the common good. Our own generation is preoccupied with the all-consuming metric of national debt. He calls for an ecosystem of innovation and investment; for a state driven by values which has to organise itself so that it has the wherewithal to sustain improvements to education, health, infrastructure, housing and defence. He asks, 'where is the political vision?'

Illustration: briancains.com

The Observer: Sunday, 22nd October 2015

The question of vision is vitally important for us as members of the church, the body of Christ.  Sometimes the narrative told about our worship and common life is one of decline or of maintaining buildings; sometimes our own internal dialogue is dominated by deficits and numbers; our viability rather than vitality.

We could so easily rewrite The Observer's headline: Enough of the dry ecclesiology of numbers.
We need to discuss values and vision. Is not our Christian discourse, our understanding of faith and the mission of the church drained of all vitality if it is fixated on a narrow set of targets?  To breathe life into the church we too should stop talking like accountants and rediscover moral purpose.

As a priest, a theologian, a member of the body of Christ, I would suggest that the church is in a far more hopeful place than we sometimes think.  We have an Archbishop who has set out three clear priorities - priorities which remind us that the church is not just another human interest group or a branch of social service. We are the body of Christ: that is our identity within which we discover our calling. Therefore, our first priority is to pray; to place worship at the heart of our life, individually and corporately. We are to make time for it and to invest in it - because in prayer we draw near to God and God reaches out to us.

In a sermon today, Archbishop Justin spoke about prayer as the most risky, the most dangerous thing you can do. It changes us. It roots us in God. His second priority flows from the first: as a church we are to be agents of reconciliation.  God is the source of this forgiving and recreating activity. It demands trust; it demands that we speak of our core values; it means that we have to lay aside petty jealousies and personal agendas. It is undoubtedly a hard and costly path - as Bishop Andrew (Guildford) reminded us, we are called to take up our cross and walk to Jerusalem, in the hope of resurrection.

Our Archbishop's third priority is the call to witness.  It is the calling of the whole people of God to share the good news of Jesus Christ.  Witness is rooted in worship: our deep attention to God - in the beauty of holiness; in word and music; in sacrament and silence. Worship forms us as a holy people - our witness is bound up with the reflection of God's love in our life together as we learn to be patient and generous, forgiving and joyful.  That is a compelling vision of our life together; but it needs nurturing.  There will be times when we have to challenge one another about where we place our attention or how we engage with one another.

As a community of shaped by worship, there is a deep moral purpose to our witness. In the power of the Spirit we are called to witness to the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ.  Acts of service are a tangible expression of that; they are signs of God's Kingdom - God's values - breaking into the present. However, those acts of service only make sense if we also share the overarching story of God's creative, redemptive and sustaining love.

That is what Paul does in Romans - with tremendous rhetorical flourish!  He is piling up imagery and poetic language to name both the fragility of our human condition and the extraordinary abundance of God's love.  We are called to do the same.  At Guildford Cathedral, we are on the cusp of embarking on a two year HLF project which will restore this building, and improve its facilities. However,   The People's Cathedral project only makes sense within the retelling of God's story.

As we capture human memories through the oral history project, as we improve the interpretation material on offer to visitors, as we deepen our engagement with families, schools and neighbouring institutions we we will be witnessing to God's love for the world.  The story of brick givers only makes sense in relation to why a new place of worship was built; our contribution to learning and dialogue only makes sense if we have a vision for the work of the Spirit as we seek wisdom.  All this is an expression of the gift of God's grace in world longing for hope.

Our first lesson speaks of the way in which the exercise of  human power can dehumanise and appear immune to the grace of God.  Pharaoh demands that Aaron performs a sign or wonder.  Yet in his court, this is to compete on the same terms of magicians, sorcerers and those immersed in secret arts. Even when Aaron's staff swallowed up theirs, Pharaoh's heart remained unmoved.  We know, from our retelling of this story in Exodus, as it is remembered in the Psalms, as it is reenacted on stage and screen, that plagues come and go.  Yet Pharaoh will not let God's people go free. It is only when confronted not just with the reality of mortality, but God's power over death, that Pharaoh let's them go.

Paul picks up on this theme of liberation and promise.  His retelling is of grace and life on a cosmic scale; but he begins with confronting the reality of our human nature. It began with Adam: it begins with human kind - and our misuse of freedom; our propensity for our desires to be misdirected.  God creates with perfect love and freedom; and the risk of that is that we do not always chose to obey his will and loving purpose for us.

Our sin is our separation from God and the way in which our in fragmented lives injure others. Paul writes of the way in which the law embodies the vision of God's command - to love and worship God; to love and serve each other.  It is the reality of that law which reveals the weakness of our nature and the way in which we cross or transgress those lines.  We get caught up in the little things: disappointments, grudges, failures & loss.

Our hope, says Paul, is in Christ.  In him we see a bigger picture, within which our lives take on new purpose.  Adam represents our frailty; Christ delivers us and gives us a new destiny in hope.  We move from the trespass of death to the gift of grace; from disobedience to righteousness; from condemnation to forgiveness; from death to life.  The impact of these layers of contrasts is cumulative: the impact of Christ's life and death and resurrection is cosmic. It is also radically particular to each on of us: loved, forgiven, transformed; living out of grace not human strength for we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves.

That is good news.  The grace of God overflowed to the many; all have a share in that abundance of that love.

Enough of the dry preoccupation with numbers. We need to discuss values and vision

In prayer we are caught up in God's love for us.
As members of the body of Christ we are to reflect that reconciling love.
In the power of the Spirit, we are to witness to that abundance.

We do all this for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  As Brian Cairns' illustration alongside Will Hutton's comment suggests - our political vision, our church and the Kingdom is to be a flourishing plant, not a withered stem.

© 2015 Julie Gittoes

Desire and love that reaches out to us when we fall

Laura?
Yes, dear.
Whatever your dream was, it wasn't a very happy one, was it?
No.

So begin the closing moments of Brief Encounter. It evokes an era which feels remote to us now. The defined gender roles, social conventions, style of dress and clipped RP accents become the stuff of parody. Yet it's a film which evokes the intensity of human feeling: the longing of Laura and Alec, from their serendipitous meeting until their disrupted parting moment, is captivating.  The Rachmaninov stirs us as we are swept up in their smouldering passion; the romance of steam trains and the desolation of lashing rain; the ordinariness of routine and the ease with with which we do the very thing that we hate and regret.

I ran until I couldn't run any longer. I leaned against a lamp post to try to get my breath... I know it was stupid to run but I couldn't help myself. I felt so utterly humiliated and defeated and so dreadfully dreadfully ashamed.

Having fled the apartment, Laura's voiceover reflects on her response to the interrupted rendezvous with Alec. She rings her husband, compounding her guilt and shame, saying: it's awfully easy to lie when you know you're trusted implicitly. She finds herself at the foot of the War Memorial and sits down.  The disruption of her personal and family life and her inner turmoil are evident.  A policeman approaches - her guilt is magnified as he eyes her suspiciously. Confronted by this tangible representation of law enforcement, she feels like a criminal. She is no longer law-abiding.

The dramatic narrative of Brief Encounter draws us into exactly the dilemma that Paul finds himself wrestling with in Romans.  A few verses earlier he acknowledges that the commandments are good and holy; the law itself is of spiritual value. Yet, like the archetypal bobbie, who asks Laura if she's feeling alright, the law reveals our human frailty. It reveals our propensity to make a mess of things. We know what is right - and we long to do it. Yet we don't do it.  Our own actions are a mystery to us.

Laura reflects on her relationship with Alec, describing what they have done as being cheap and low. Alec himself says: the feeling of guilt is and doing wrong is too strong isn't it. The prospect of separation also brings a violent wretchedness, even to the point of Laura wanting to die. Trembling on the platform edge, she faces the overwhelming desire not to feel anything ever again.

The noise of the train roaring and screeching through the station; the flickering lights in the carriages; the clattering wheels: there is no other sound track to this moment of despair.  I am of the flesh sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. I do the very thing that I hate... I do not do the good I want.

Such moments of crisis are not unknown to us - personally, pastorally, collectively.  Perhaps they are less dramatic: the inability to delight in others, but rather to undermine them; the moments we lose patience with the person who frustrates us; our persistence in pursuing desires which end up possessing us; our institutional anxiety that makes us desperate, undermining our capacity to tell the compelling good news of salvation.

Paradoxically, this expression of our embodiment - our very fleshly nature - is a consequence of the overflow of love and freedom in creation.  Our creatureliness is good; yet we get caught up in 'stuff' that redirects our desires.  The priest and theologian Dan Hardy has a word for this: he calls it extensity. The risk of the gift of creaturely freedom is that as we are sent forth, we are drawn outward; this 'spread-out-ness' means we are in danger of losing the sense of God's presence with us.

We are overwhelmed with choice and our desires are ignited by new and exotic things.  Our increasingly dispersed lives, no longer fully centred on God, leaves us feeling at the mercy of the law of our minds. Lest we think that consumerism, promiscuity, fragmentation and injustice are twenty-first century concerns, we only have to revisit our first lesson.  Jeremiah challenges God's people over their abandonment of God's law, their stubbornness and refusal to listen. Rather than worshipping the Lord their God, they worship other gods, indeed any gods.

The consequences of this 'spread-out-ness' are dire: Jeremiah gives voice to a very physical disruption of life in terms of the loss of land and heritage. This expresses a spiritual dislocation. The people called to be holy and beloved, the people called to bring light to the nation, are cast adrift. How can they retain their identity and purpose apart from the God who is holy?

The response of a faithful God, a God of covenant and promise, is to seek out his people. He will bring them back - like a fisherman or a hunter.  God reaches out to us.  Our iniquities are not concealed, nor can we hid from God's love. Dan Hardy has a word for this too. He calls it intensity.  By that he means God's self-movement of love towards the world - in creation and redemption, in the ongoing perfection of human life in the world.  Such love is attractive and compelling; we are drawn to the light.  We are gradually turned away from self-absorption back towards attentiveness to God, and to right relationship with others.

Jeremiah's exhortation affirms that nature of God offering strength and refuge in the midst of trouble. Alongside the hope of restoration of God's people, we glimpse a vision of universal scope:   to  you, O Lord, shall the nations come.  The consequences of sin are corrosive on human hearts and within communities. But this extensity is met by intensity.  Wretched man, writes Paul, who will rescue me from this body of death?   Then wretchedness turns to praise: thanks be to God, through Jesus Chr ist our Lord.  In him there is no more condemnation.

In Christ, God dwells with us.  In his life, death and resurrection, the power of God breaks in.  In face to face encounters men and women find healing, purpose and dignity.  In teaching and proclamation, in acts of justice, compassion and reconciliation,  the proximity of God's Kingdom is made known. Our human brokenness is named; our failure to fulfil the demands of the law is evident.  Yet, that failure is not the final word.

Rather in the midst of the complexity of our lives - our loves, joys, sorrows and burdens - we are assured of forgiveness. We are called to respond to this in a spirit of repentance: returning and resting in God's love. On the cross God's Son defeats the power of sin and death; in the resurrection the promise of new life and abundant life is revealed.

As T. S. Eliot expresses it:  we become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern./Sin is Behovely, but/ All shall be well, and / all manner of thing shall be well... All manner of thing shall be well / By the purification of the motive / In the ground of our beseeching.

As God's people that hope of being redeemed from fire by fire is expressed in our worship: as we share in praise and prayer, bread and wine our humanity is transformed because we are confronted with the holiness of God - in power, might, strength and love. Our appetites and longings become desire for God and for the well being of the other. We are caught up in God's involvement in the world - not in our own strength, but in the power of the Spirit. Paul goes on to dwell on this new life in subsequent chapters - knowing that all creation groans with longing for the fulfilment of this promise; knowing that whatever assails us, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That love is the source of our values - the virtues we learn incrementally.  Sometimes we speak about them in terms of the fruit of the Spirit - love and joy, patience and self-control.  On other occasions we explore the particular charisms of an institution - perhaps a corporate commitment to the formation of a diverse community, which handles disagreement by means of honest, generous and transformative conversation.   Day by day, we are called to pay a deep attention to God in prayer and worship, and we are also called to deep engagement with the world.

Our work, hobbies, relationships and passions will draw us into a range of networks and responsibilities. Wherever we find ourselves, we are to speak and act with integrity and creativity; improvising on the love of God within which we abide.  We are to be a sign of God's love in a world in which disrupted desires are not as romantic as Laura's passion, but the heart break as great.  In the face of human fears we bring the promise of peace.  With joyful hearts proclaim afresh in this generation the good news of salvation.

© 2015 Julie Gittoes

Mothering: pierced hearts

The reality of family life is complex: it’s a complexity reflected in Malcolm Guite’s sonnet written with Mothering Sunday in mind. We do, in his words, give thanks for those who loved and laboured for so long, who brought us, through that labour, to fruition to the place where we belong. He is also mindful of those single mothers forced onto the edge whose work the world has overlooked, neglected, invisible to wealth and privilege, but in whose lives the kingdom is reflected.

He also goes on to challenge us, as member of the body of Christ, to work for that Kingdom as we embrace young and old regardless of marital or parental status:  Now into Christ our mother church we bring them, who shares with them the birth-pangs of His Kingdom.

Luke's Gospel narrative also presents us with a poignant and moving moment which addresses our human conidtion.  It is one which reveals Mary the suffering mother who is forever alongside her son.  His death is implicitly yet cryptically foretold from the start by Simeon.

We are perhaps familiar with the words of the Nunc Dimittis.   Simeon faces his old age and death knowing that God's promise has been fufilled; he can now depart in peace.  As he holds in his arms the infant who brings light, glory and revelation to his people, Israel, and to all nations.   He recognises the universal scope of this redemptive love.

Yet he also foresaw  the cost of this love for mother and son: This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed - and a sword will pierce your own soul too.

These ominous lines evoke the image of the pieta – the grieving mother cradling her adult child.  The infant who'd been nursed at her breast and who'd settled sleepily in her lap, now lies lifeless. His adult body is bruised and pierced; in grief beyond words her she stays with him.  Not only does that resonate painfully with our experience of loving and letting go, but it also reflects the depth of God’s love for us.

Pieta (Diptych)

Chris Gollon 2013

It is sobering reading for Mothering Sunday.  It foreshadows Jesus' suffering and death; it expresses the cost of love which liberates us from our pride, selfishness and human tendency to get things wrong. Jesus bears the cost and restores our dignity that we may share his risen life.

We pray for God’s love and grace to be poured out on those with whom we share our lives, that  in the power of the Spirit we may be formed into a new community.  As human beings our parents and siblings shape us  – family traits, particular gifts, a given set of relationships; there is also a letting go to explore and become who they are. Sometimes that will bring surprise and disappointment.

We have the capacity to grow through our failures; we are also challenged as we pursue our passions and embrace God’s purposes for us.

We hope for life in all its fullness; we pray for the fruits of the Spirit – in love, joy, patience, gentleness, generosity and self-control. Whatever we personally long for, give thanks for, or mourn the loss of, today is saying something profound to each one of us.  In order to  flourish we need the loving attention and encouragement of those with whom we live and worship and work.

We are to be mindful therefore of how we relate to one another – what we say, how we say it; what we are prepared to stand up for – or pass by. Together we learn, love and let go.  Together we are freed from guilt and pain of our “if onlys”; together we delight in human flourishing and tenderness; together we bear heartache and joy.  Together we face our isolation.   To speak of  “Mother Church” is a mothering Church. “Mother Church” means each one of us living as disciples with and for one another.

Jesus was God with us: in birth, in life and in death. His mother too will bear the suffering and pain in an intensely intimate way.  Yet it is in his death on the cross, that love is most fully shown in self-lessness and self-giving.  Only that generosity can bring forgiveness and healing and renewed hope. Indeed, there springs up for us new life.

The whole people of God, the Body of Christ, share this vocation to nurture fatih. We are, in our differences, members of one community – a place of mutual accountability; where our human capacity to forgive, to exercise patience, to show compassion are stretched by God’s grace.   Jesus was able to show love without limits; his mother witnessed the cost of that. We are to demonstrate to the world the breadth and depth of that love: helping others to reach their potential; facing disappointment; showing compassion; offering encouragement; sharing wisdom.

The Church is a  community defined by and shaped by God's love : sharing with one another the burdens of care and nurture, the joys and pressures of life. That is the essence of “mothering”.
Whatever our experience of mothers, whatever our disappointments and hopes for motherhood, we are embraced moment by moment  by the generous and transforming  love of God.    Through us, that same love pours out into the world.  We share the burdens, heart breaks, joys and hopes for transformation in all that we do and are. As individuals, and as a community, we all share the birth pangs of God’s Kingdom.

© 2015 Julie Gittoes

Mothering: deepest longings

For weeks now card shops have been swathed in wall to wall pinkness: of cards for mum, and mummy and mother.  We have as individuals, and as a society, a complex relationship to mothers and motherhood.  Our own experience of motherhood and mothers means that today we bring thanks, sadness, worries, guilt, confusion and grief.  In the media mothers are categorised as working, single, older: each facing criticism and encouragement by turn.  We stereotype the yummy mummy as the latte drinking epitome of ambitious parenting; and so equate motherhood with womanhood that the childless feel pilloried too.

How can we speak about Mothering Sunday in such a way that it transforms the commercial and social pressures around “Mother’s Day”?  Can we express and embrace a richer, more dynamic and corporate vision around “mothering”? In order to do this, we don't refer to an abstract notion of “Mother Church”; but by using our gifts in nurturing one another.

The criticisms leveled at modern parenting and the romaticisation of motherhood are relativised by our personal reflections: today some of us are mourning the loss of a mother whist others will be facing childbirth; a couple will learn that they'll be childless; a single parent might be wrestling with an estranged child.

Day by day women, and men, will utter the agonising silent prayer of desperate longing for children - embodied in Hannah's story.  Chris Gollon's painting captures her heart break and her fervant hope. The fullness of her womanhood is revealed as she carries within herself the instinct to nurture life; as her love overflows seeking acceptance and peace with whatever will be.

Hannah 

Chris Gollon 2013

The tears she sheds and the words forming on her lips are not alien to us.  In the face of ageing, fertility treatment, singleness, adoption, illness, relationship break down and our own mortality - the mortality of our children - we struggle to articulate our deepest longings.  Even as our hearts breaks we name all too starkly our deepest fears; we grasp for hope in the midst of desolation.  We learn that we have to let go; we are unable to rely on our own resources.  Our cries don't  reverberate in a void; they batter the heart of a loving God.  Our wordless petitioning somehow - unexpectedly or incrementally, or even dramatically - changes us. Is 'mothering' in part the creation of a capacity to love and give, to be resilent and altruistic in the face of adversity?

The biblical narrative paints an honest and complex picture – not just of being a mum, but of the joy and cost of love, and of the purpose and potential of our own lives.  It reflects the gift of new life and the challenge of letting go.  It’s all a very long way from the overwhelming pinkness of the card industry; it presents a challenge to how we live together in community, in fellowship. By drawing on biblical texts, we are lead into thinking about love that is committed and passionate. It's a ove that calls us into unexpected relationships, that is resilient and altruistic, that faces risk and uncertainty, that is consistent in bearing joys and pain.

The opening chapters of Exodus present a tableaux of realistic and resourceful females.  The bonds between mother and child, child and sister, lead to bold and imaginative action. Pharaoh had decreed that Hebrew boys were to be killed: a ruler's fear threatened human flourishing.  So when Moses was born, his mother faced a dreadful moment of letting go in order to preserve his life.  Human sympathy is evoked by a helpless baby.

So when the Pharaoh’s daughter discovers the child, she deliberately overlooks the facts both that he is ‘foreign’ and that helping the child would involve disobeying her father’s decree.  Moses' sister has watched and waiting; she negotiates a continuation of maternal nurturing in a palace removed from the child’s home. There is risk on both sides; there is longing that this child should grow and flourish. God works through the emotions and determined and resourceful actions of women.  Moses is let go – and found and raised in a context far removed from his own roots; yet he becomes the leader and liberator of his people.  For all his temperamental flaws, God is able to work through him; just as God works through us, in our vulnerabilities, gifts and relationships.

God's Spirit moves through our wordless cries and inarticulate longings, weaving the threads of our life together and bearing our sorrows. God's love is made manifest to us in the risky and compassionate action of others as they reach out to us.  We all share in this generative activity of 'mothering': praying and consoling in heart break; delighting in and nurturing others; bringing passion and resourcefulness, imagination and commitment to our relationships. Such mothering transcends bonds of kinship and extends the tapestry of God's Kingdom.

© 2015 Julie Gittoes