Zimbabwe Bishop's plea for justice

A good friend and former colleague, Chad Gandiya, is Anglican Bishop of Harare. Follow the link below to read his cri de coeur, and pray for him and those in his pastoral care.

Some years ago a former Bishop fell from grace, and was removed from office when he tried to take the Diocese out of the Anglican Communion, and to ally his and other churches in Zimbabwe more closely with the Mugabe regime. In doing so he seized, and continues to hold, the assets and properties of the Diocese - now preventing Anglican Christians from worshipping in their own churches. As the article shows, collusion from the police, in defiance of court orders, has allowed the government to interpret as a "church squabble", what is actually a major injustice, and a further example of the regime's disregard even for its own laws. As ever, it is ordinary people who suffer.

In the midst of all this, Bishop Chad is seeking to give a firm but gentle lead in seeking justice for the church so that it can continue to serve its many local - and very needy - communities.

The link may take a few moments to download.

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-2321-Save_my_church_Anglican_Bishop/news.aspx

An afternoon Haiku

Working for justice
Is no easy option: it
Comes with a price tag!

Night Watch

NIGHT WATCH

The breeze falls still and
Flapping, the foresail
Calls time, the wake
Dies back and oh so
Gently
In the undulating swell
With lengthening shadow
She rounds the headland
And eases into safety,
Into port

And the rock dove hangs
On the evening air
In open-wingèd welcome
Of the dying embers
Of the sun:
As tired men on bar-stools
Lift their glasses
In open-throated welcome
Of the golden tinted nectar
Of their gods.

Amidst the gathering gloom
Now homebound
Gulls track the fading
Ever-deepening blue, yet
Far, horizon:
And I am left at peace
To ponder my mortality:
A crystalline fleck
Upon a soft crustacean
Floor.


An evening reflection
Portocolom,
Mallorca
August 2009

Missing you

MISSING YOU

Pebbles crunching under foot.
Sullen grey and still the sea
Lapping in unusual February calm.
Muffle-wrapped against the cold
I walk alone, as laughing couples gaze
Into each other’s eyes and toss
Their bags of soggy Brighton chips aside.

The Palace Pier is open as it was
When all those fifty years ago and
More (or less) I ran and played or fished
In innocent abandon. Now in measured step
I pass across its ageing planks and listen to
Its one-armed bandits softly peddling
Lies of dreams to be fulfilled.

I reach the pier’s end and pause a while
In conversation with a noble gull
Who gives me just a moment of her time,
Then falls away, and glides across the
Waves in search of food: and I in search
Of you, am captivated by a pool of distant
Sunlight on this laden sea, and feel your warmth.


After Brighton beach
Valentine’s Eve, 2010

Easter in retrospect

Passion Week this year for me was a torrid time. I spent the week first in Brazil, then in Barbados: lucky for some you might think! But I was the bearer of bad financial news for church partners with whom my organisation works. The meetings were bruising, and there was a deep sense of unease amongst us all about the nature of the partnerships we share.

But the Barbadian sun, and the natural warmth and hospitality of her people could not keep me glum for long. Palm Sunday saw a wonderful morning of processions, preaching, liturgy and song, using fresh cut palms and home-made crosses. I really wouldn’t have minded if the BA flight had not turned up... they were on strike after all.

But it came, and I was back in Surrey by early Monday morning. Then the rhythm of Holy Week was lost. I slept on Monday night; rose at 0400 to fly to Edinburgh on Tuesday, returning from a meeting at 2200 that night. Wednesday and Thursday at the office then off to Sweden Thursday night for an Easter break with the family. So I never got to a single Holy Week service at our local church.

That’s not usually too much of a problem for me – never was a great liturgist! – but this year I did feel the gap. Partly because there had been a lot of Good Friday about work issues of recent weeks, with not much hint of Easter. I guess I had hoped for a way of working that through, laying it to rest, putting it into some kind of a tomb.

But it all changed on Easter morning. Not, I might say, because of any wonderful Easter worship: Swedish churches are not renowned for getting excited!

Holy Saturday had been my grandson’s third birthday. He had a ball! His prize gift was a wonderful red fire engine with all the trimmings – flashing lights, ladders, hose pipe, the lot. What he didn’t discover ( and we didn’t tell him!) was that there was a also a water tank you could fill, and a pump for the hose to cause total mayhem around the house, until.....

At around 0630 on Easter morning, there was a little tapping on our bedroom door, and a small voice calling “Grandad – come and see! Grandad, come and see!”

Rude awakening or not, I found myself transported in a child’s world of total wonder: his face radiant, his grin impish, his design on soaking Grandad quickly and efficiently, faultless. So this was our Easter! Here was new life, here was abundant possibility, here was baptism (!) and here was a whole new community, viewing the world as all possibility, and full-on engagement.

Going to church was a positive anti-climax after that.

No wonder “come and see!” has such a place in the theology of John’s Gospel.

Beyond Grief

BEYOND GRIEF


Wails of sorrow echo around
the gathering night,
Air thick with choking dust and flies
Settling on coagulated blood while
Oozing through the aftershock
Of silence:
Life itself runs dry
Or drains away.

For this is Haiti on a Tuesday afternoon
When the deep earth fell
And broke her back:
Paralysis of all that makes the
World go round – and loss
Of life, and loveliness and hope.
“And where is God?”
The people plead in vain.

Yet stoned, and crushed and even
Crucified on broken beams, these people rise
Again defying pain and cracking thirst;
Sockets dry, hearts bereft.
How sadly simple can it get
When Simon says
A rock feels no pain, and
An island never cries?



In prayer for Haiti
January 2010

EYJAFJALLAJOKULL to you too!

EYJAFJALLAJOKULL to you too!

As if in orchestrated, measured
And yet quiet revenge,
A pall of ash is hurled
Into the stratosphere
And tumbles gently
Down from Iceland, closing
All the airports in the land.

As if a bunch of bankrupt
Bankers hatched a plot of
Purposed retribution, displacing
Fiscal meltdown by an underhand
(and one might say underground)
Agreement to engage in gaseous
(but quantitative) easing.

As if the arrogance of modern
Western humankind is
Finally brought down to earth;
As if on beaches, overcrowded
Bars and dim-lit lobbies of hotels
A people glimpse again their
Own fragility when nature farts;

As if God, too, goes on an Easter break,
Upsets the ordered turning of the earth
Cries “not at home today!” and
Chuckling, lays a film of
Heavenly household dust
Across the globe to say
In no uncertain terms “It is enough!”

After the prolonged shutdown of European
Airspace in April 2010