Too much Truth, to be Honest

Well, that was a mistake at this afternoon's prayer meeting. I'm afraid Charlii's keen, and forgot one of my golden rules - don't let people be too open in an uncontrolled environment.

"Just share your deepest hopes and dreams - the things that are on your mind right now," she suggested.

"I pray that no-one says anything too stupid," was my deepest hope and prayer at that moment.

"I pray that lager be made less expensive," responded Marston.

"Oh Lord, I want to be an Atlantic 4-4-2  loco," expressed Burton, out-doing all his previous nerdiness in one simple petition.

"It's Friday evening, I want to get down the pub, and I pray that this prayer meeting won't be as long as last Friday's," suggested Young Keith - clearly taking the whole honesty thing very seriously.

"We pray for the people of our local community, who we never meet because they think we're weird," came from Newton Bromswold.

Unfortunately, at that point Milton Ernest decided to list the things that were most on his mind. Which appeared mostly to relate to the desire - which he had kept remarkably quiet about - that he feels for Charlii. It was quite some prayer, and the most honest I've ever heard. Suffice it to say, however, that I can't see God granting Milton's petitions because Charlii clearly won't. She hit him over the head with a Beaker and called the prayer meeting to an end.

So at least Young Keith's prayer was heard.  Judging by the cloud of dust heading down School Lane towards the White Horse, we may be about to hear another sonic boom.

Failure in Intercessory Prayer

Can all Beaker Folk who work in Milton Keynes, London, Oxford, Bedford or Luton notice that, despite a rather lovely covering to the landscape, covered as it is by a shawl of beauty sufficient for the purity of the Blessed Virgin herself, the roads are all open and the railways running OK. so you can get out and go to work.

So those of you who insisted on holding an all-night "snow service" to pray for a snow day, are going to be very tired, aren't you. As I told you, it only works if it's in line with the will of the Creator.And s/he obviously wants everyone in at work today. I can't pretend to understand why - even the firstborn cherub struggles to plumb the depths of love divine - but maybe somebody else was praying to be able to get somewhere, and you balanced out so God decided on a compromise?

On praying for football results

It's one of those eternal considerations among believing sports-people - which side will God favour if both teams are prayed for by their supporters?

And among thinking atheists, of course, the answer will always be "neither, as God doesn't exist". To which I will refer you to the fact that Brazil, a country with a large Catholic majority (and a rapidly-growing Pentecostal church movement) has won the World Cup 5 times. While North Korea, China, the old USSR and Vietnam, countries which were or are either officially atheist or have had restrictions on the practice of religion, have won exactly no World Cups between them. There you go, Karl Marx - the proletariat perform much better when they can believe what they like and have good coffee.

But if all the Beaker Folk are praying for Barcelona to win tonight, and Phil Ritchie is praying for Manchester United, how can we say which way the Almighty will go? Obviously, he will in normal circumstances back the underdog and natural-born loser - for that is his way - but Charlton Athletic aren't involved. The sophisticated types will say that God has other things to worry about than football, that he loves all footballers equally, that he won't be swayed by either side if both pray equally  - and that therefore he will ineffably let one team or the other win, without getting much involved. We would recommend that Canon Ritchie and his Man Utd fellow-travellers adopt the sophisticated approach. Which means that they need not pray at all, or should pray only for an entertaining  game. God doesn't need all that bothering about football.

Meanwhile we'll pray for Liverpool's superior European record to continue to be just as superior as it currently is, for one more season at least. God must love Liverpool fans. As if he didn't he probably wouldn't make us suffer so much.

The Perils of "Open Prayer"

It's always a problem, isn't it? I mean, when you have a period of "open prayer" where people can take it in turns to pray. It's not like chairing a meeting - if someone goes off-piste on the subject being prayed for, or goes on a bit, you can't just hit them with a cricket bat. It seems irreverent somehow.

And so last night, when Ozcar prayed for everybody on the Bedford electoral role - in alphabetical order - it just seemed wrong to stop him. It was sincere, it was well-intentioned. It just went on a bit.

Still, I'm glad to say he's just finished. So those who have day jobs will be at work nice and early. And the rest of us can go back to bed.

Targeted Prayer

There's a rumour been spreading among the Beaker People that "Targeted Prayer" is a good idea. By this they mean that general, non-specific intercession isn't much use. Because how would you know if it was answered? Or, at least, without careful gathering of data and double-blind analysis. So they would want, for example, to pray that Rumwald's knee be healed - but at 3.20 on Saturday. Or that the people down a particular road have a good day - on March 2nd - and that they have 6.5 hours of sunshine.

But Gilburt took it to extremes today. Praying for all the inhabitants of a road in Bletchley was fairly detailed, albeit took quite a long time as he named them individually. But the detail he went into on their medical conditions was very worrying. Borderline obsessive, clearly. But also revealing a serious breach of the Data Protection act.

So please can we keep it nice and general in future? Something along the lines of "let people in general just kind of feel a real sense of warmth and peace". Unmeasurable, insusceptible to statistical analysis, and not so easy to confuse with stalking.

First Century Gospel Church

Read this article about the Christian parents who shunned medical treatment for their child who died. Read this church website, explaining the Biblical basis of this action.

And then perhaps you'd like to join me in this little incantation:

"Medicine is good.
Medicine is good.
Medicine is good."

Or, if you prefer, join in this little prayer:

"Thank you, God, for giving men and women the skills and commitment to do medical research and create new medicines. Let me never disdain the gifts that you give to act like some kind of prayer warrior to bolster my fragile ego."

And left us reflect. If you could use prayer to heal all illnesses, why would your church need to give you directions for how to drive there? Surely you could just pray for Elijah to drop by and give you a lift on his fiery chariot.

Then finally, if it's what you do, pray for the soul of the child.  God bless him.

How to pray in disasters

I am appreciative to Steve for putting me onto this list of  how to pray when disaster strikes. For humorous effect, I'm sure, Steve ignores that the people of Action Safe aren't suggesting this is how to pray when disaster strikes you. Personally when the house catches fire, as happens occasionally round here, I leave swiftly rather than kneeling and asking for a miraculous escape. But I have a couple of comments:
Number 8 is to pray for a heart of compassion. Seems good enough to me. Some can genuinely make a difference by going to places affected by disaster. But generally most would just be Aid tourists, and the money option would be better. But then, as they rightly say, giving when there's not a disaster on would be a good idea. And regular giving is the best of all. Charities can count on it.

But to summarise. If you are caught in a disaster situation, and you have time to get away, then "how to pray" is probably "while making a rapid exit" or "while heading into the shelter". And if, when confronted by a lightning storm, your first reaction is to fall down and pray - then try and make sure your bottom is pointing in the air. It's the roundest bit, and least likely to attract Thor's attention.

Eileen Reminisces - Post 999

We just have the one post to go to reach 1,000 blog posts of life in this little enclave of spirituality within the Beds - Milton Keynes borders. And it's at times like this you look back and remember the good times.
So I've done that. Took a moment or two. But I think back to a time before the first of these blog posts - and indeed before the other posts that took place before even then.

It was the conflation of three events that really gave the Beaker Folk their impetus. These events were a talk on Celtic Christianity at which it became quite clear the entire thing was composed of wishful thinking and fake history; a service in which instant ambience was created by the liberal application of pebbles and tea lights to an otherwise innocent altar; and an evensong in the style of an Eastern church on the occasion of the feast day of, I seem to remember, St Ephraim the Syrian. I remember the way that the first and second  received widespread acceptance and approval in the little group with whom I was associated; while the other, for all its authenticity and earnest fidelity to a tradition, was regarded by some as beyond the pale of acceptable worship.

Well, naturally I realised the lesson to be drawn here. If I were to attract the well-meaning, bumbling and generally lucrative to my little community, I would rigorously have to eschew all genuine meaning, authentic expressions of historical traditions and moral insight. These would only cause division and trouble. Instead, I would look for instant experiences, fuzzy feelings and satisfying the need to be wanted and loved.

Indeed, I would regard these as the three legs of the Beaker Stool. On the whole, it is fair to say, it is a stool that mostly has to stand on two legs.  We have succeeded with the first and second, and failed dismally with the third. Well, it's not easy. After all, when you go around offering instant experience and fuzzy feelings you appeal to such a needy constituency. You try loving them.

Well, I've enjoyed this little ramble down memory lane. And I'm really excited about post 1,000. I've some incredible prophecies I can share with you - guaranteed to make politicians shudder, bring dynasties to their knees, and hopefully make all us Beaker Folk a lot of money.

He giveth, and taketh away

An interesting co-incidence, if you'l excuse the word, of the events in Chile in the last week and today's New International Revised Alternative Lectionary reading.

And around the county, even in as parts as far away and odd as Pepperstock and Farndish - places where the light of civilisation has barely dawned - people will be preaching on the power of prayer - on the way in which it was God's work that brought the miners up from the depths, and that in similar circumstances - should the "Doily shed 17" get locked in again, for example - our best hope of divine intervention is to pray likewise.

And I'll go with the prayer bit - for surely if you're trapped half a mile underground you're going to pray for anything that gets you out.  Ideally a divine act will have you out in a jiffy, but failing that a series of small divine interventions over the period of a few months will do, albeit it might be less comfortable.

For if God is the kind of fairy godfather that pulls us up out of the pits - surely he could prevent us being in the pits at the wrong time in the first instance? Even if for good reasons of physical geography and seismology, with a dash of gravitational physics, the mine is going to collapse - surely he could arrange for the miners to be out on strike at the time? But apparently on this one, that's not how it's going to work. For there are no copper and gold mines in France, where it would be easier to ensure that the miners were all out on the picket lines when the earth moved.

Or if it was the work of the Dark One to dump the miners down there, and God's work was to defeat him and bring the miners out - then why didn't he get in there three months earlier to stop it happening?

There is a phrase that says, "In him we live, and move, and have our being". Which would imply that both the mine's collapse and the rescue were part of the Divine plan. No need for the suspension of physics here, as physics exist within his plan, and not as some kind of unfortunate barrier like a fence of barbed wire, where God has to stretch the wires apart occasionally to let people get out of fields where herds of bullocks are threatening to tread on their toes - as happened to Marston and Burton when they went for their "Oneness with nature" walk last week.

So we give thanks for the miners' resurrection, and we shudder at the awesome power of this terrifying universe. Aslan was not a tame lion, and this is not a safe universe, and the story of the Fall has more truth in it than we imagine. The fields produce nettles and thistles, and while we probe the bowels of the earth there is always the chance that the roof will fall in - and the miners in China were not so blessed.  This time we will not  have all the men returned - but we still pray for those that are left, and for the ones that mourn. It won't make sense, but sometimes it's all we have.

Double booking

I'm afraid that this evening's half-night of prayer for the Holiday Club was a wash out. It turns out that the Property committee had double-booked us in the Church Hall with Frisby Amateur Dramatic Society's performance of "When we are married".

What's really embarrassing is that it took us twenty minutes to realise our mistake. I thought the spontaneous prayers were a little off the topic, but then not much more than usual.

The Power of Prayer

I'm afraid we had a terrible conclusion to our prayer-themed service this morning.

I see it as, in large part, my own fault. It was I who suggested that, instead of the usual time of open prayer - which always runs the risk of somebody "praying" a thirty-minute sermon - we break everyone into small groups to share their own prayers.

I should have spent more time in prayer over this idea myself - maybe I would have been granted the word of wisdom I needed, that this was a bad idea. I should have listened intently.

In the event, Barry prayed for a resolution of the West Bank settlements issue. But in my sermon on the subject, I had advocated being specific in our prayers. Barry was so specific in how he wanted resolution that Gerry disagreed on theological and geopolitical grounds. Gerry therefore prayed for the opposite. Barry prayed his point of view more strongly, and added in some comments about Moshe Dayan that may well have been slanderous had Mr Dayan still been alive. Gerry prayed something rather stronger and said some things about Yasser Arafat that were not strictly compatible with Christian charity. And the next thing we knew there were punches and chairs being thrown. 

Given the state that Barry and Gerry were in after receiving a couple of blows each, and the collateral damage to a number of other members of the congregation, we moved swiftly into a time of prayer for healing.

Truly the Lord moves in mysterious ways. We have seen friction and aggression within Salem, our place of peace. But on the bright side, I have two more people to visit in hospital.

Among those who go down to the pit

A gruelling afternoon, visiting those who have suffered in Lower Lane after the slurry incident.
Poor Jehu Thomson. Busily shovelling the muck out of his house and into the skip.
And Roger O'Boyle. All his bean plants buried under four feet of agricultural effluent.
Or old Mrs Grey. Eighty-three, and moving all her belongings and furniture upstairs to avoid the rotting effects of the fluid filling her downstairs rooms

Of course, I took instant action to help them out.

Falling to my knees (I made sure I was on a clean patch of grass, of course) I called upon the One that can help to give them all strength in their endeavours.

Well, I couldn't just stand there and do nothing.

Prayer control

You know, I love to encourage freedom of expression.  In particular the freedom to discuss and argue points is very important. People have to have their say - and often we can learn from other people.  Even if we disagree with them.  And even when they're wrong - as a diamond cuts diamond, or a stone sharpens a knife.  It helps us to cut to the truth. But sometimes people will get carried away in an argument and start sounding like they may be right.  When it seems that someone has God and logic on their side, it's time to adopt other tactics.  Violence is more quickly effective, but can leave people bruised.  Or in some circumstances they may even hit back, and I hate it when things escalate.  But not as much as they do....
But there is a gentler, more effective method of dealing with this situation.  Turn to prayer.
When I say "turn to prayer", of course, I don't mean break out the BCP, or even invite ex-tempore contributions from the floor.  No, you just make sure you're the one doing the praying.  Obviously, it helps if you're the archdruid - but in practice almost anyone can achieve this if they are convincing and glib enough.
So what you do is: you start with some opening, general prayer - ideally giving thanks for the creative dialogue you've been engaging in.  Then move the subject of the prayers to ensuring that God is in line with your views.  Once you've managed this, who can possibly argue?  As long as you leave no gaps then no-one can nip in with their own prayerful views - and who ever interrupts a prayer, anyway?  But to be on the safe side, make sure you breathe halfway through clauses so no-one could ever butt in.
Having ensured that Divine and earthly are both on your side, say "Amen" and clear off pronto - safe in the knowledge that you may not have won the battle, but you've won the prayer war.