The cost of War

MAY 1915

Let us remember, Spring will come again,

To the scorched, blackened woods, where the wounded trees

Wait,with their old wise patience for the heavenly rain,

Sure of the sky: sure of the sea to send its healing breeze,

Sure of the sun. And even as to these

Surely the Spring, when God shall please,

Will come again like a divine surprise

To those who sit today with their great Dead, hands in their hands

eyes in their eyes,

At one with love, at one with Grief: blind to the scattered things

and changing skies.
Charlotte Mew 1869-1928

It has been a very long time since we as a country have experienced the violence of war on our doorsteps. The utter devastation surrounding you, as you live constantly in fear for your life and the lives of your loved ones. So long in fact that a fair few us could not claim to imagine, let alone know how it would feel. What feelings of dread and desolation must have surfaced to open your door, knowing you were safe but many more were dead. Buildings collapsed, bombs dropping, seeking shelter often in vain. What must it have felt like. I have seen the photos from the past and the bombardment of media images of wars present in my time. My heart goes out to those back then and those now. But I can not, no matter how hard I, try understand the true feelings that they must  have experienced everyday as they open their eyes. As they gingerly wake up in the sunlight perhaps momentarily forgetting the destruction being enforced around them, only to come plummeting down to the reality that today might be their last.

I have always had a reticence about whether war is ever justified, it seems to me that it is just an inevitability of human nature. One of our great flaws. Sometimes we wade in with the greatest of intentions, sometimes their is no rhyme nor reason other than to destroy others in the search for overwhelming power. The consequences are never as we planned and always far higher then ever we had intended. 

Every memorial day we stand and remember those that have given their lives,a poignant reminder of the costs people have paid. So many names, to many to list and some will never be known. A great silence and void of death. How can we stare into this void, acknowledge its' existence and still sleep walk so blindly into the devastation that surrounds us. We will destroy lives for our supply of oil, yet ignore the genocide that takes place as a consequence of our actions. We stare down a nation that is slowly edging its' way to challenging us to war. We watch and do nothing as Gaza and Israel, seek to eradicate each other in an unbalanced power struggle. What lesson did we learn precisely from the flattened cities and lives lost in this country in wars gone past. What precisely do we mean, when we say "Never, never again" I have heard those words so many times and yet I have watched genocides occur in other countries and wars raged in our name, then the consequences left to fight for themselves.  From the minute we have learnt how to kill each other, it seems we have not been able to stop.

To me, who will cry over the names of soldiers who died long before I lived. Who has images of violence and death imprinted on her mind by the media, and cries for those she can not help. Such pointless violence, seems just that pointless. But I have never lived in fear of my life of losing all I have to someone who just wants to take it all away. I am however an idealist, I would love to believe that world peace is possible. Certainly as a young child I honestly believed all I would have to do was collect every gun in the world and it would all stop. Of course this is a fantasy, born of a child's desire for peace. Life is more complicated than that. Politics and power, will always find a way to kill because for some not having their own way is worth destroying everything it is that they want. The lessons from history will not be and are not ever learnt, because at the end of the day some people, do not feel compassion or are driven to such levels of despair they feel that they have no choice. Does not make it right, does not make it easy and we should try and stop it. All I can do is hope, pray and help where I can.  

Amidst the flattened Churches and buildings walks Christ, his crown of thorns pressing on his head blood running down his face, his hands and feet shed blood too. He feels their pain and suffering, more than we ever could.   He holds the hands of the dying and guides them towards his Father. He does not abandon them and neither must we. Pain and suffering will exist in our world until the kingdom of heaven comes down to earth. Our job in the meantime is to meet Christ in his suffering and ease it as much as we can.

Accepting who we are.

"You have heard that you shall conceive and bear a son; you have hears that you shall conceive , not of man, but of the Holy Spirit. The angel is waiting for your answer:it is time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady, for the word of pity, even we who are overwhelmed in wretchedness by the sentence of damnation"

St Bernard of Clairvaux

The whole world for one brief moment was still waiting on the answer of one young woman. As much as God might have predestined her for this role, he required her submission. She was free to refuse. She could have chosen a comfortable life, but she did not she chose to submit to God. She became a living tabernacle carrying "the word" inside her. Once the Son of Man was born, it was her job to nurture, support and guide this young human male to become our redeemer. 

 We all have a free choice as to whether we listen to what God says to us, and grow  into that knowledge and bring others to Christ. Or, we can chose to ignore what God is asking and seek to serve ourselves.  

Feminism, is self serving. It started out as something quite reasonable, an effort to level the playing field some what. It has taken on a whole new life though. It is in danger of and in some cases already is doing to men, what women have objected to having happen to them. Justified purely and simply with "We deserve to have this now".  The trouble is we do not deserve to trample on others, even if they trample on us. We should not be seeking "tit for tat".

In reality we are not actually all that down trodden. Men are not out to destroy us, undermine us and exploit us. In fact they are actually quite nice. Most men I have met are there to affirm us and want to see us grow. However, we ourselves have to accept that we are different. We are not men and we never can be. Qualifications and ability, are not the only things that make us ideal candidates for a job. We can not always be the right candidate and there are some things we are fundamentally not meant to be. We are not just physically different, we are emotionally and mentally different too. Not deficient, not not as good, just different. Often Mothers expect it all, a good job and a happy family. It is a pipe dream, somewhere along the lines we compromise, either our jobs or our families. Then we turn round and blame men for standing in our way. We stand in our own way, because we are not designed to have it all. God created Man and Woman, together they are in his image.  We are designed to compliment each other and not to be each other. If we learnt to be more confident in who we are, accept who we are and be proud of who we are. We might find that this constant struggle internally might cease.  What we can not keep doing is trying to undermine men, squash them and trample on them in order to prove we are just as good. We have always been equal in the eyes of God. We do not need to prove it, we need to accept it.

We all have a choice, we can listen to God and follow him or we can follow ourselves. Ask yourself in everything you do, "Am I doing this for me, to make me look good, to affirm myself and get noticed or am I doing this out of genuine love and concern for others? Is this God's will?" It is a far harder path to accept that we can not always have what we want and we are certainly not entitled to all that we do want.  

So much more than just words.

When I say think of what it means to pray, for many of us that image of  an innocent child kneeling at their bedside comes to mind. In reality very few of us are young sweet and innocent anymore, nor do we kneel beside our beds in order to pray. Prayer can mean many different things to all of us. I went from being at school where offices were available, to making my way to Church for the Divine Office to having three children! Those of you who have children will know, making time, let alone the practicalities of going to church at least once a day becomes impossible. For many years (in a very guilty manner) prayers became grasped moments of thoughts to God, thankful ones, pleading ones and on occasion fairly desperate ones. But for a considerable time the discipline of the offices was consumed by my children. I believe that God looked no less on my prayers then, than now. Having returned to my daily discipline.  Even still despite this I catch myself in a fleeting thought of a prayer during the day. Old habits die hard I guess.

But reflecting on a lot of what has happened, has made me realise prayer is more than just words or thoughts. Prayer like God infiltrates our lives and our very beings. How we go about our lives can be a prayer. If we offer our lives and work ,  happily and joyfully with others put before ourselves. It becomes a prayful offering. Time spent thinking on and reflecting on our lives becomes prayful discernment.  Time spent admiring and being grateful for our lives becomes a prayer of thanks. Time spent in concern for others becomes a prayful request for God's help.

Prayer can be given in every thought, word and deed that we do. It can even be through the way we dress. Our choice to not wear make up can be a thankful offering of God's beautiful creation. Wearing a crucifix  a prayful reminder of sacrifices made for our salvation. Now for a priest the very act of dressing for Mass is a prayer. Each item has it's own prayer that removes the identity if "me" and replaces it with "Priest".  It is about praying that when  they stand in that altar they are no longer an individual but "in persona Christi" .  A glorious and humbling prayer.  A remberance that the Mass  is not about us as individuals but about giving thanks to God for his almighty gift of sacrifice and redeeming grace. The Priest in his actions during the consecration again emphasises , that this is an act directed at God not us. By facing a wall, as I have heard it said, he is turning with us to face God .  The offering of The gifts is not being made to us, it is made to God that  it might receive his Holy miracle transforming  this bread  and wine into the body and blood of his dear Son.  Then at the end of this  the Priest turns to us knelt in humble gratitude and respect and says "Behold the Lamb of God." Then we approach in a prayful way to receive this wonderful gift.

Each and every action in our lives can be a prayful gift to God.  Without  hesitation we should be willing to offer our lives as such.  Prayer is so much more than  just using words.  The divine office  and Mass  are good starting points to find and listen to God, but should be used as a spring board that catapults  our entire existence as an offering  of  prayer  to our Father.

The peace of God

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. "  John 14:27

From the very beginning of a Christian, to the very end of a Christian's life, we have God's peace. It touches our lives without us even realising it. This week, my niece was touched and blessed with God's peace. May she hold it close to her every day of her life. It is easy on days like an infants Baptism, watching a small vulnerable infant anointed with God's grace, to feel this peace inside our hearts. Surrounded by friends and family, for this short while the abundance of God's grace and peace is flowing around us. Much like the wine at Cana, the gifts of the Holy Spirit shine. At the end of the day, we all part, the warm glow begins to dissipate and so does the shining radiance of God's grace. This has not really gone, it is still flowing with the same abundance as earlier, we have just stopped focussing on it.

So then we go out into our lives and face it's challenges. Some days, when God's creation shines in all it's almighty beauty, we focus on God's gifts of peace. It almost warms our hearts and we can sit back and bask in this wonderful gift. Other days, the weather is bleak our lives fall apart and we go looking desperately for something we can not find. We all have days of dark doubts, when we question where is God's peace among all this pain. All seems lost. For me those days were most abundant when I was a teenager. I wrangled with deep pain and questions. Many of which took many years to answer. I never lost my faith, in fact I did the opposite, I grabbed onto it with both hands hoping it would save me. It did.  Though I questioned at many times point of it all. 

When things are going well, it is easy to bend that ear to listening to God. The quiet tune of peace is obviously dancing in front of us and hope in the future comes easily. When it is dark, claustrophobic and daunting, listening to God is the last thing we want to do. We turn in on ourselves, listening to our own desires. Through the fog of despair, it is hard to see the light of hope. I am lucky that I saw the value of my faith, without it and the guiding patient hand of my husband to be, I am not sure I would have found that peace again. Regularly attending Church even when I did not want to, regularly praying when I felt no hope, is what eventually led me to find the overflowing gifts of God. 

We face challenging questions at the moment, questions of life and truths. Questions about the end of peoples lives, questions about when life starts and when we afford it such recognition, are just a couple of those. It is easy when we look at these, to revel in the depths of despair. How bleak our future will be.  They are hard questions. I very much hope that my niece will grow up in a world that values her uniqueness. Where life is valued and preserved and peace reigns across all the earth. But then I hoped that when my own children were born, I could lose hope.

But I have not. I have learned that even when things seem beyond hope, they are not. I have learnt not only to grab onto my faith with blind faith. My eyes are open, my ears are pricked and I will listen to what God has to say. It may not be easy and it may not always be what I want, but it is the gracious gift of peace. With it, all inner turmoil is stilled from the very moment I choose to listen. 

A valued place

Not for the first time in the last few months, yesterday I was informed through people speaking on the behalf of the CofE, that although this is not perfect it is the right thing to do for us all. I knew it would happen, in some ways it should happen, we got ourselves onto a path that had to be completed the minute we accepted women into Holy orders. Being prepared does not ultimately stop the shock, disbelief and pain. It does not stop the tears.

I am encouraged and indeed have been encouraging myself to have trust in my Church and hope. Every time I have said it, it has felt more like I am trying to convince myself rather than you. Where a year ago, fresh out of college I was totally able to trust the Church. Over the last year, I have seen that even with laws in place, trust is eroded and people bullied. Christ demanded of us sacrifice, pain and suffering that we might be born again. I have a very small amount of very fragile trust and for the last time I will leap into the darkness, in the hope of new life in the Church. One of respect for all.

All I have in my mind,however, is the crowds scattered in front of Pontius Pilot being whipped up to speak against Christ clamouring for his death. From one issue to the next the press clamoured for change last night. Not change based on theology but on modern non- Christian values. All I keep hearing is "Forgive them Father,they know not what they do"

I do not write to you with big long academic words, that has never been my style. I write with honesty as to how I see the Church and our place inside it. I am sad that today I have to look at my daughter and say the majority of our Church no longer value the wonderful unique creation God made in her. It no longer respects the calling of women to be as God designed and desired. That in order to be something great she must emulate man and seek to have glory, recognition and live in the limelight.  That is not what she has been brought up to value, yet to anyone who knows her, you will know she is not shy and has not had her wings clipped by a paternalistic community. On the contrary she is confident in her identity and who she is and she is content. Likewise I have not had my wings clipped and my identity eroded by the friends I have. They are the very people who have taught me not to be ashamed.

So I tentatively look to the future and in the hope Christ brings but it no longer feels as easy as it did.

Dying to get to the end.

Not that many years ago I had a discussion with my husband in which I asked him if he would help me die if I was mentally alert inside a paralyzed body. I was very much a different person then and although suicide was to me a mortal sin, the fear of being trapped out trumped it. I still am terrified of this eventuality and it does indeed scare me more  than the dying bit itself. But my concept and understanding of my faith has developed. Part of the steep learning curve of the last few years has been learning to trust in God. That whatever suffering or pain I might have in my life has a purpose and that in turn he gives me the grace and friendships to get through.

Ending my life would be an easy option, it would end my suffering and that of those around me. However, this is not the Christian way. The road to discovering who we are comes from the birthing pangs of pain and suffering through which the revelation of our salvation is born. We support each other with compassion, but this does not mean ending the suffering. It means that like Mary and Veronica encountering Christ on the roadway to his Crucifixion, we share in the burden of suffering in order to make the end bareable.

Though we might be dying to get to the end, to get passed the suffering and fear to meet our maker. Much like a good book it spoils the ending if you get there to quickly and you miss out on a lot of experiences on the way that will ultimately shape who you are.  It may seem an insurmountable mountain from where we are now, but God and the Church has something to say about assisted suicide for a reason. We must first experience life with all it's feelings first, just like Christ himself. For through his cross and his suffering comes our salvation. Through our suffering and death will come the revelation of our salvation.

Apples and snakes

Amidst God's stunning creation stood a truly awesome tree. It stood taller and more beautiful than all the others in the garden. The fruits on it large, sweet looking and tempting. Along came a snake.......

The rest of the story I am sure you know. For poor Adam and Eve the future was bleak, a revelation of God's knowledge was not the wonderful utopia they had been led to believe.

We are promised so much by the world today. We can live longer if we eat certain things. We can have money and expensive lifestyles, if we put our minds to it. We can work all hours and still give our families everything they need. These are false promises, they can not be kept. Much like the temptation of those beautiful and sweet apples, all is not what we are led to believe.

We are going to die, when? Who knows. We can work all hours, but we are unlikely to achieve an expensive lifestyle. Even if we do have a comfortable lifestyle, if you scratch beneath the surface you realise it has come at a consequence to someone else. We can give all our time to work and pay others to give our children all they need, but they are missing out on something far more crucial. Our love!

Rather like eating the apple, we find a life which embraces temptation an empty one. We can never find fulfilment in satisfying only our immediate desires. It comes from something far deeper. We need love and we hunger for God. It is tempting to believe the promise that eternal happiness and long life will come from superficial self gratification, however true lasting happiness and eternal life comes from finding and keeping God in our lives. 

We can project the 'I wants' and 'I needs' and manipulate the rules according to what makes our lives easier. However it will nibble away at your spirit. Your conscience will start to feel naked and you will seek to cover up all your wrong doings. In a downwards spiral you will become more and more embroiled in a never ending cycle of desire, want and guilt. That will never stop. Unless you put God back in the centre of your lives. It might be a harder road to walk, but it is a far happier one.

It is hard to seek forgiveness of others and of God. But forgiveness is essential, to building a new life built on trust. As general synod meets this week, I hope we can all look past our own desires and meet together in forgiveness of all that is past, that we may build a future in a new found trust. This will not be easy, trust has been broken for both sides and there is much pain and suffering. But there was pain and suffering on the cross too. I pray that we move forward as one body in Christ.

I believe or maybe not..........

For all the fear, questions and doubt our Holy Mother must have had when that angel appeared, she opened her heart and mind and said "Be it unto me according to thy word" A lesson to us all. We all have our doubts and questions about the Church and it's teachings. Maybe some of us question it's past and seek to change it's future, and for others (including myself) we look a the direction the Church is going and question it's wisdom. As Anglican's, questioning and enquiring minds are almost required but certainly desired. To discern and question our teachings and ecclesiology is fine, it is good to look again and again as to how we apply our faith in our current culture. However questioning is one thing, blatantly raging against them and disobeying them is another.

We have our doctrines , they are there in black and white. We as a Church have a stance, we as members of the Church have a duty to follow, obey and uphold these teachings. In the space of a few weeks some of the very people who should be seeking to lead us in these lessons, have sought to publicly bring them down. Whatever your views on Gay marriage within the clergy or beyond, the Church has a stance and it's Bishop's have spoken. If you disagree with the Church's teaching, patience, humility and obedience is required, until your questions change the teaching from the inside. You do not blatantly and overtly flout the rules and expect to go unpunished, you have chosen your life and your Church and you should live within it's rules.

Secondly, we have a teaching and a most valuable one on the sanctity of life. Once we decide it is acceptable to allow people to take their own lives with the blessing of the law of the land and the Church it will be a sorry state of affairs. It will become a consumable and the barrier will fall ever backwards and taking lives will become easier and easier. This has been a trend that has been apparent since we allowed abortions. They have become more routine and easier to acquire, and more lives are ended as a consequence. For a Bishop and a Canon of the Church to stand up and directly intervene in favour of  this course of action is deeply disturbing. What is more disturbing is for them then to turn round and call someone who up holds the Church's teaching "A troll".

It is saddening to see these issues played out in public, further reinforcing that we are a Church lost in it's own pathway. We can not agree upon or  uphold it's teachings. We are focussed on in fighting and disobedience of our hierarchy instead of knuckling down and doing what we should do best loving one another and loving and helping the world.

Our Blessed Mother, must have many doubts and concerns as to her future. She may have felt that what was happening to her was gravely wrong and she would be judged. But she turned to that angel and said "Be it unto me according to thy word". Humility that she was God's servant. Obedience to God's word and teaching. Faith that God's will would be encountered in the end. Trust that God knew what he was doing and the journey would be a joyous one. Seek to question, maybe even seek to change the Church. But do so with humility that you may be wrong. Acceptance that not all feel the same as you, and they have that right. But above all, do so with obedience to the rules. If the Holy spirit moves with you, all will change with time. Do not make the Church about your personal agenda and desires, listen to God and his will and make it about him.

The greatest and most humbling gift.

This morning I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock, my children were safe in their beds and the sun shone through the windows and life could not have been better. Yet yesterday some one stood in our Church and told us of life in their country. They came from the Sudan, a country torn by fighting, poverty and lack of education. Can I stop and imagine how it would feel to wake up to the sound of fighting, a day filled with fear and the uncertainty that mine or my families lives may be there at the end of the day.For me they are horrors beyond my imagination. But, today, I am encouraged to and have received cake, presents and cards. Yet when asked "What can we do to help?" the Bishop from the Sudan replied "Prayer, pray for peace and education".

So simple an answer, prayer. In our lives surrounded by cosy comfort and pleasure, our solutions are often much more material. I have been thinking for weeks about what I could do and have for my birthday.  What would make my life easier and happier. I was stopped in my tracks by what the Bishop said. I know that nothing I buy is actually going to make my life better, happier or easier, but I will still do it. We all do, we are encouraged to, our lives are full of colour, peace, food and comfort. We are complacent about what really matters, what will really make us happy and what can really change our lives. We are complacent because discomfort and fear is hidden behind our satisfied and easy lives. We do not live in fear, we do not hunger and therefore we do not see the need to seek comfort in prayer and answers in God. We  think we already have it all.

My eldest son often complains that I recite prayers slowly, as he puts it "like an audio book". I can understand that my slow and careful pronunciation of prayers I know by heart could be annoying. However, I am determined that though I might be able to rattle those words of ten to the dozen. I do not ever want them to become habit, something I do not mean or think about when I say them. They should be as important the last time we say them, as the first time we struggle to get our mind around them. We would not rush a conversation with a friend, why should we rush one with God? It is a small gesture and I can not pretend I find prayer easy either. It is like much else in my life, something I set about to do with all the right intentions but very rarely succeed in doing properly. I have lists of people and things to pray for then, I sit down to pray and my mind goes blank. Some times I am to tired or just decide there is something better to do. Sometimes like the disciples, I just fall asleep.  

I wear my crucifix day and night. It is a reminder to me that God is there and I need to make time for him. It reminds me that there is suffering in the world and I should pray for them. It reminds me I am a Christian and I should behave a certain way. When I take it off, for special occasions it often feels like I am consciously deciding to put God in a drawer in preference of something pretty. Sometimes I feel I do this in my life too. I put God and my beliefs in the drawer in favour of something easier and more pleasant.  Then afterwards, when I have had my guilty moments, I value the power of prayer and forgiveness even more.

Prayer is a powerful thing, we should never underestimate it's value. It is worth far more than anything we can own in our lifetimes. Faith in God may have it's responsibilities and they may be easy to forget or overlook in the have it all your own way culture we have here. Living responsibly is never easy, it is a challenge and we will fail, we are human. However God listens and answers our prayers, for forgiveness, healing, peace and help. Because of this they are the greatest gift we can give and the most humbling gift to receive.

The end of a busy week....

A week in which I have seen my husband Ordained into the Sacred Priesthood, offer Mass for the 1st,2nd and 3rd time, concelebrate at Mass and lay hands at the birth of another Priest, has left me slightly overawed. I feel a bit like a child in a sweetshop, completely overwhelmed.  I remember being like this when I was confirmed, when we got married and at the births of our children. These amazing gifts, such amazing offerings that you hardly dare to hope they are real. The hesitation to accept  it is all real is partly born from the sheer length of time, worry and anxieties that have got us to those places. Can they really be meant for us? Therefore I keep looking at the multitude of photos just to check that it has really happened (if you are daft enough to be my facebook friend, I apologize for the constantly changing pictures).

 It is quite a sobering thought that I have been left with after the whirlwind of this week. The dawning realisation that I have given him to the Church. Yes, he is still my husband and my children's father but he is also now the Church's, the whole Church's. He is their gift from God, from my children, from me and his parents. We must stand back and as was stated in a sermon earlier this week, let the Church unwrap him. So they can find the Priestly gifts he has and that he in getting to know them to may learn how best to use them. 

This will take time and it can not be rushed. But you can not rush the works of God, after all it has taken us a couple of thousand of years to get here. It will take all his life time, he will always be formed and changed by what goes on around him. It is truly humbling to think about the enormity of it all, he is a small drop in the ocean of Christianity. Yet he stands at the altar "in persona Christi", he stands before us in Christ's place and literally brings Christ to us in the body and blood of Christ. He can administer all the sacraments and has the cure of peoples souls in his hand. That takes quite some thinking to get my head around and may be I never will. But I am enormously proud (if that is permitted) and completely awestruck and humbled.

 I have been fortunate enough to be a part of the beginnings of several new Priests ministries in the last two weeks. Each and every one of them will be great gifts and I only hope their Churches and communities have fun unwrapping them. We have a duty as a community to help and support them in their Ministry. We should hold them in our prayers, as they will only get through the years of holding us in their care with God's grace, love and wisdom. We should pray for the intercession of Our Blessed Lady, to pray for them to her son and that she may take a Motherly interest in their ministry. But most of all we should give thanks to God, that these Priests are willing to give themselves to God and his Church. 

Who is welcome?

I started forming this blog post in my mind with the analogy of the Anglican Church being one bread and therefore one body. But (I have to confess) with regret I realised that in order to include the whole Anglican Church, some of whom may never attend a Mass/Eucharist, I would have to scrap it. So instead we are working with ribbons, in the hope that I may include us all. So we take for the Conservative Evangelicals a length of white ribbon and lay it on the table. For the Traditional Anglo Catholics we will take a red one and place it at the other end of the table. Here you have two lines with a gap in the middle, this is not the whole Church. So here I will bring in a pink ribbon and super glue it, overlapping one end with the white, and the other end on the red. Here we have a continuum, from one end of the Anglican Church to the other. We are indelibly joined together, we are one. But we are also different, as the colours suggest. One end has a very particular set of thoughts on theology, doctrine and ecclesiology and the other end has not quite polar opposite but certainly very different ones. The pinks in the middle and overlapping the whites and reds, represent everything in between. But when you join us together under the title Anglican Church we are one, it is no mean feat to to hold that all together and I rather suspect if we were to tug rather too hard, the ribbons may split, despite the glue holding them together.

You may think that this is all rather obvious and it should be and on the face of it, it is. We are one broad Church, who loves one another. Scratch beneath a veneer and you have a reality, lots and lots of layers not really integrating.

The last few months have for me, involved a great deal of compromise so as that these layers might just stay together. I have let go of many hopes and prayers, that I might not offend. So that all may be welcome. Only to find that in return those I agree with no longer felt welcome, not because of anything I had said or done. Merely because of the situation we found our selves to be in. It genuinely breaks my heart that we are in a situation that splits the Church so sorely that we all no longer all feel comfortable gathering at Christ's table.

There are so many differences between us all. They can and never will be reconciled to an agreement. But we should at least all feel welcome enough to gather at Christ's table. We may not chose to accept what is going on, but we should at least feel welcomed enough that we can sit in the same building. Where is the warmth of Christian welcome and love. Jesus did not just surround himself with those he loved, but sought out those whom he thought were sinners in order to teach them his love. I have sought to offer my hand in friendship, to find my friends turned away. This has in recent weeks torn me apart. I believe whole heartedly in Church unity, but my experiences recently have pitched me against this. I was for a long time angry and resentful. It is not something I am happy to see in myself or admit, but it is none the less true. We should seek to love one another in our differences, to show what it means to us by showing Christ's love and not anger and hatred.

Who is welcome? We all should be. Who would Christ love? Us all. We all have our faith and our faults, Our beliefs and our non beliefs. None of us know for definite if we are right or wrong, we will find out on the day of judgement. We have to live with integrity according to what we believe, on that I believe there is no compromise and I never would do so. However we will also be judged on how we treated others who do the same, even if we believe them to be heretical. God's love is for all and we are not to sit in judgement of others, this is not our job. Our job is to show others through a loving example what we believe God's truth is and how to abide by it. If we do not show love and compassion, we will only find it harder to show people these truths, for they will rebel against intolerance.

I am not sure how much longer we will sustain the one Church model, we have set ourselves on a path to conflict. There is no overriding theology one way or another and therefore as a Church we can only now proceed protecting both integrities. We must do this, however, in an equal balanced view, because neither overrides the other. One  integrity may not offer you popularity, but Christianity is not a popularity or political exercise, it is much more than that. It is about our salvation, our salvation was won by Christ losing the popularity contest and being crucified. Sometimes I think as a Church we lose sight of this.  So as difficult as it maybe for us all, I believe we are better together but we must be together as equals. If we are not we leave the festering wounds for hatred to take a hold, that will eat away at our hearts and our Church.