SIXTH DAY OF LENT: MONDAY MARCH 6th 2017
STEP BY STEP
Today's tally is 12,321 steps, or a little over six miles on foot around the parish. Quite pleased with that.
Around 6,000 of those steps was spent in company of two others on a prayer walk around the north part of the parish - a route that took us down Hurst a few yards, then into Pheasant, across Norman and Thimblemill Brook, up Valentine, then right along Edmonds, a little way up Salop, left onto Eva and right into Beeches, left up Bristnall Hall, then up George and Sandfields, along Hill Top and finally down Pottery to Abbey and St Hilda's.
There were a couple of diversions. One was up some steep steps to look at the underground reservoir just above Bristnall Hall Road, where you could hear the sound of rushing water underneath giant manhole covers.
The second was a far more fruitful discovery. We were encouraged through a reading of Psalm 98 to look for signs of salvation as we walked... but especially to ask God to help us to see things we could not yet see. And so it was, behind a Tesco Extra store on the corner of Beeches and Bristnall Hall roads we saw a low slung municipal building we'd never before noticed.
It is the home of the borough-wide service offered by the Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Carers Team. In short, the eight staff offer support to 600 families who care for people aged 18 to 65 with mental health issues. We turned up out of the blue, the three of us from St Hilda's, and were given a warm welcome by one of the support workers who then went on to give us a guided tour of the site and explained some of the amazing work they do to help sustain and empower people carrying the burden of loving and caring for a relative.
We were 'seeing salvation'.
It was moving to hear of the passion of the staff and their commitment to educate, befriend and make a difference to the hard-pressed lives of hundreds of people.
And it was also so utterly depressing to hear that this vital service may yet face cutbacks.
Later on we prayed a version of the Lord's Prayer inspired by the Polynesian and Maori Christians who make up the Anglican church in New Zealand.
It talks of God as earth-maker, pain-bearer and life-giver.
As we walked the earth of Warley Woods, we met people who are both pain-bearers and life-givers: people who bring life to others while helping to bear their pain. This is the image of God seen in people following their vocation.
Here is the Lord's Prayer.
May it help you see salvation in your prayers.
Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe;
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world;
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings;
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world;
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings;
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trial too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trial too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen.
"Seeing Salvation" was the name of an art exhibition at the National Gallery back in 2000, and I remember watching the accompanying BBC programme about it. The exhibition traced the image of Christ as it has evolved in Western art from the late Classical period to the present day.
ReplyDeleteBut what did Jesus actually look like? What would looking at salvation in the face be like?
I remember seeing a picture of what Jesus might have looked like (not the white, blue-eyed man of western art) so googled it and found this:
"In 2001 forensic anthropologist Richard Neave created a model of a Galilean man for a BBC documentary, Son of God, working on the basis of an actual skull found in the region. He did not claim it was Jesus's face. It was simply meant to prompt people to consider Jesus as being a man of his time and place, since we are never told he looked distinctive."
Have a look at this picture. Is this what seeing salvation looks like to you?
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/461A/production/_87264971_jesus_bbc.jpg
St Paul says in Phil 3: 10,11
ReplyDelete" All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, that I too may be raised from death to life."
Salvation comes with different faces. For those helped by the Salvation Army it is, " soap, soup and salvation".
For the lonely, it is the one those stops to smile and speak to them, for the struggling single parent, it is the knowledge that their efforts are not in vain. May we ,each day, strive to bring salvation into each other's lives.