St George and St Gabriel, Stockport

We are well into the season of Lent. A time traditionally of deprivation, of giving up something we enjoy. An act of penance, in recognition of Jesus’ time in the wilderness.

It would have been a frugal time of year in medieval societies. The food stored from the previous year would be getting low. The new season was still ahead. Penance and deprivation fitted in well with the events marked in the church’s year.

We have just had some beautiful sunny Spring Days. We’ve moved from snowdrops to crocuses, primroses and daffodils. New life is springing up around us. Days are lengthening. Very soon the clocks go forward.

Traditionally we have treated Lent as the season of less and yet its name actually refers to something more – the lengthening of the days and of more light. So could we see it as a time when we do something more? A time of greater spiritual awareness and reflection? A time when we listen more to others? When we read more? When we get outside and be part of this amazing re-flowering creation?

Chris Dawson

On Saturday we had our first Lent Prayer Breakfast. We were considering why, in this world, there is suffering. As always, there were plenty of interesting contributions from the floor. One in particular struck me and got me reflecting on the nature of prayer.

Ivy – not her name – told of how, when she was very ill, a friend had visited her. Seeing that she was not at all well, the friend commented that Ivy had obviously not prayed hard enough. “Is prayer a workout?”, I thought.

How do we see prayer? As a transaction in which we present God with an agenda of items and he deals with them? After all, Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive.” Perhaps we do receive, but maybe we don’t receive what we expect, in the form we expect it.

Jesus’ guidance on prayer is interesting. He dismisses showy forms of prayer. He tells us to go into our inner room, close the door and pray in the presence of the Father, that ever-present “ground of our being”. He’s telling us to ‘go inside’, to connect with ourselves and to connect with God. Prayer is connection. And when we connect we listen and we become open to possibilities.

In the film Evan Almighty, the character who plays God says: “Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prays for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prays for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”

Chris Dawson

Do you remember writing those thank you letters to grandparents, aunts and uncles, Christmas and birthdays? Long hand on notepaper. Doing it properly. Your address and the date top right and beginning, Dear… All very formal.

Receiving a ‘thank you’ from our grandchildren is not only less formal, but often more casual. We might get a text or a call – or a verbal message relayed via their parents. Are they less grateful than I was, or just less forthcoming in saying so?

Growing up I enjoyed the Just William books. Of their time and very middle class. But William was a rebel and, forced to write thank you letters, he always added a message. To a Christmas thank you, he would add: ” Please note that my birthday is on 3rd March.”

Most of us wouldn’t go as far as William, but gratitude can be somewhat transactional – if you do this, I’ll thank you, or if I do this for you, I expect you to be grateful.

But could gratitude be something deeper, a well from which we draw? An approach to life, a way of being? A way of relating to each other, to the world and, for believers, to God? Could it become a spiritual practice?

Paul thinks so. He writes to the Colossians (2:6-7) saying how pleased he is with their firmness of faith and encouraging them to continue in that faith, rooted and established and “abounding in thanksgiving.”

Chris Dawson

Life is always a balancing act with its mixture of daily routines and daily challenges, much of it based on our unconscious beliefs and on what we’ve always done.

Having celebrated Jesus’ birth and the coming of the Magi, we are entering Lent. Although each liturgical season offers us opportunities for prayer and reflection, Lent is particularly associated with these aspects of our spiritual life. Looking at ourselves in the light of Jesus’ experiences and his teachings.

Jesus didn’t found a church. Although he was not keen on the behaviours of those leading the Jewish faith, he was fully conversant with the pattern of Jewish beliefs and liturgy. He remained a Jew, albeit outside the mainstream. He didn’t create an organisation with a set pattern of beliefs.

So what has that got to do with us and Lent? Once churches came into being, understandably they had to have structure to survive and coherence in their beliefs and behaviours – Paul’s letters often reflect that. And those beliefs got added to amended and passed on down the years and the centuries. But how do we feel about some of them now? That’s the subject of our Lent Prayer Breakfasts.

I have a postcard that says, “Ditch the dogma and live the life.” It may be a bit radical, but I’d like to think that we will thoughtfully and sensitively examine and explore what we believe and what living the life of a Christian means for each of us.

Chris Dawson

I’ve always loved the romantic notion of the Silk Road stretching from China through Asia, the Middle East and into Europe. A road travelled by countless travellers from the 2nd century BCE through to the mid 15th century. Merchants, travellers and pilgrims carrying commodities and currencies, spreading culture, ideas and religion.

I recently heard a report from one of those golden cities on the Silk Road, Bukhara in modern day Uzbekistan. A city of ancient libraries and mosques and beautiful Islamic art and architecture. A city too of Jewish culture – and later too a Christian church. Cultures and religions living side by side.

Not long ago, one late Autumn afternoon I was in Durham Cathedral. Evensong had finished. No-one was about. I was there with two friends for a few moments of quiet. Another magnificent building and, with its links to Lindisfarne, a place of pilgrimage and culture across the centuries. A symbol of the enduring history of the Christian Church.

So what links the two?

In Durham Cathedral a thin black line is set into the marble floor near the back of the building, far from the altar. It marks the boundary beyond which women were prohibited to venture. A physical and symbolic sign of control. And Bukhara? Control there went a stage further. Its economy rested on its being, for centuries, a major centre for the slave trade.

Chris Dawson

Do you remember him? Leader of the opposition in Russia. An anti-corruption activist and a political prisoner. Poisoned with Novichok nerve agent in August 2020, he recovered in Germany and returned to Russia after a month. In his memoir he says, this is the question everyone asks, or wants to ask him, “Why did you go back?”

His response was that if you really believe in something, you don’t give up because your life is threatened: “It’s not that I’m trying not to think about it, closing my eyes and pretending the danger doesn’t exist. But one day I simply made the decision not to be afraid. I weighed everything up, understood where I stand – and let it go.”

Imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, he worked on this process of acceptance. Of being with the situation as it was and was likely to be. He found that in imagining what might well happen, it was important not to, “torment yourself with anger, hatred, fantasises of revenge, but to move instantly to acceptance. That can be hard.”

His other support? Being a Christian: “You lie on your bunk looking up at the one above and ask yourself whether you are a Christian in your heart of hearts…are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others…? Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff? If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left for you to worry about?”

An inspiring man.

Chris Dawson

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I guess that you were asked that question as a child. Perhaps multiple times. It’s the question I asked the children in fifteen Primary school classes last Friday. Actually it was the question the Mole asked the Boy in the story I was telling them.

We had plenty of policemen, nurses, footballers and gymnasts, firefighters, teachers, doctors and vets. A binman and a gardener too. And then I told them the Boy’s answer: “I want to be kind.”

“Do you want to be kind?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s the first person to be kind to?”
Me mam, me friends, the teacher?
“How about yourself? If you can be kind to yourself, perhaps that will help you to be kind to others. When you get things wrong, what kind things could you say to yourself?”

And so we journeyed on. The Boy and the Mole meet a fox caught in a snare and though he’s not very friendly, the Mole bites through the snare and releases him. Standing on a stone beside the river, the Mole slips in and the Fox, having learned kindness, rescues him.

Together they meet the Horse, large but gentle. They continue their journey to find ‘home’, on his back. When the Boy falls off, the horse rescues him.
“I realise why we are here,” whispered the Boy.
“For cake?” asked the Mole – the Mole loves cake!. “To love.” said the Boy. “And to be loved.” said the Horse.

Not very different from Jesus’ commandment to us.

Chris Dawson

(The story is: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy – Penguin Books)

I caught up recently with a friend for our annual meet-up. We worked at the same school for part of our careers, some 30 years ago. We ate, we walked, we talked. We caught up with family news and reminisced. In the course of our conversation, she asked me, “ What was the highlight of your career?” and I couldn’t give an answer.

Strangely, I had been reflecting on this topic after hearing, not for the first time, that the owner of X (formerly Twitter!) is the richest man in the world. I suppose that most of us would describe that as “an achievement”. And into my head had come the question, “What is your greatest achievement?” Again, I didn’t have an answer.

On further reflection, I realised that the word “achievement” was taking me down the path of “doing”, rather than “being”. Then it clicked, the highlights of my career and of my life are many – even daily – in there amongst the challenges and the downturns. And they are all about “being”. All about relationship. How I am with myself and how I am with other people.

Theologian Paul Tillich famously described God as “the ground of being”. Jesus taught us that it was through a loving relationship with ourselves and with our neighbour that we connect with that ground of our being.

Chris Dawson

Unlock Democracy reports that recent polling in the UK reveals that 20% of adults aged between 18 and 44, would prefer a government led by a strong leader, who doesn’t have to “bother” with elections. They would prefer that to a democracy.

Where we see such leaders, they suggest they have all the answers. They often denigrate those who have other views. They also want to hang on to power, and often do so, at any price and often by any means, regardless of the rights of others.

So, what do we want from our leaders?

In the Church Times of 3 January, a full page is given over to ex-President Jimmy Carter, who died recently aged 100. It’s not his presidency that takes precedence in these appreciations, but his humanity and his lifelong commitment to human rights, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

And where did that commitment to humanity come from? When he took the oath of office to become the 39th US President, he did so on a family Bible open at Michah 6:8 : “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

The outgoing US Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said, “Jimmy Carter served as our commander-in-chief for four years, but he served as the beloved, unassuming Sunday school teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, for 40. And his humble devotion leaves us little doubt which of those two important roles he prized the most.”

Chris Dawson

On Sunday we heard about John baptising people in the Jordan and calling people to repentance and a new life. According to Matthew, John turns some people away – the Pharisees and Sadducees. Groups who were very much part of the establishment. He tells them to “bear fruit that befits repentance.”

As we left the morning service, men, women and children, dressed in their finest, with babes in arms, were being welcomed into church – a baptism party. Not regulars at St. George’s, but members of the community who had asked for a ceremony to be performed .

Symbols and symbolic acts are important. Rituals too. Like stories they connect us to other people, to the groups and communities we belong to and to society at large. Parents of newly born babies often used to talk of having him or her “done”, meaning baptised or christened. They wanted something formal to make things complete.

Even though, in John’s terms, baptism means consciously letting go the old way of being and embracing the new, does it matter that for many, it’s more of a naming ceremony? More akin to a school prom, or an 18th birthday. Or, through the ritual, has the baby been blessed in some way, formally welcomed into the world and the Christian community?

Chris Dawson