Category: Reflection

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How to survive Easter Saturday

A splash of colour on a not-so-recent walk.

I recently gave a reflection at a weekend retreat, the theme of which was Jeremiah 29:11: ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’. The passage for the day was Mark 15:42-47, the women watching as Joseph of Arimathea takes Jesus’ dead body and places it in a tomb. With thanks to Ched Myers for his interpretation of the text.

On this second day of your retreat, you will journey with the disciples through Easter Saturday. This is not an easy day to manage well, as somehow we must hold together the horror of Good Friday with the joyful hope to come on Easter Sunday. For us, this is a time for expectant waiting, but for the women in the reading we just heard, there was no sense of waiting or hoping at all; for them it was just grief, confusion and disappointment.

They had just witnessed one of the most barbaric methods of torture ever devised. Their dear friend Jesus had been subject to mockery, brutality, humiliation and death. They had hoped he was going to set their people free from their Roman oppressors – but Rome, in collaboration with the Jewish ruling elite, seemed to have had the last word.

There was, at least, one mercy: Jesus died rapidly. Crucifixions could last for several days, but as the centurion confirmed, Jesus died after just six hours. But now the clock was ticking – there were only three hours until the beginning of sabbath, three short hours until no more work could be done. Three hours to pay Jesus’ body the proper respect and to give it a decent burial.

We don’t know what the women were planning to do or hoping would happen, but I’m sure that at least one of them must have given some thought to how to care for the body. And then Joseph of Arimathea steps in. He was a member of the council, one of those who were complicit in Jesus’s death. The gospel writer Mark fills in some detail about him being respected and waiting for the kingdom, but as far as the women were concerned, he was probably an enemy.

Whatever tentative plans they may have made were dashed to pieces when Joseph took control of Jesus’ body. He was in a position of sufficient power to make the request of Pilate, while the women could only look on.

However, despite their lack of power, the women weren’t mere bystanders, they took the initiative and did what they could. They watched what Joseph was doing, and they had the courage and stamina to follow behind him and discover the final resting place of Jesus’ body.

Rather than properly preparing Jesus’s body for burial, Joseph hastily bundled him up in linen cloth and deposited him in a tomb. We know the process was inadequate, because the women came back on the third day to attend to the body properly.

Perhaps the burial was rushed because time was running out before the sabbath. Or perhaps this council member wasn’t interested in giving Jesus the proper last rites – he just wanted the body safely out of the way. Mark leaves this ambiguous.

Whatever the reason, he then rolled a stone over the entrance, dusk fell and that was it. There was no hope, no triumph. Jesus, their leader, teacher and friend was dead and buried. The women must have been both devastated and confused; despite Jesus’s warnings, this was unexpected. It must have felt like the end of their world.

I wonder what they would have said at this point about our theme for the weekend ‘”For I know the plans that I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope”’? In that moment these words would probably have felt empty.

And I wonder about us? How do we respond to this promise when we go through dark times. When our hope seems gone, life is too hard and God feels absent. Because, as we all know, baptism doesn’t grant us immunity from the struggles of life.

We know this was not the end of the story, but the women had no idea that there would be another chapter. Yet in that dark moment, they were not entirely defenceless, they had at least three things that helped them.

First of all, they took the initiative and did what they could. They located Jesus’s body and prepared to tend to it properly on the third day. There was no grand plan, they just kept going, putting one foot in front of another. In times when we risk becoming completely overwhelmed by a situation, sometimes we too must content ourselves with just taking the next step, one thing at a time.

Secondly, they had each other. This tragedy did not tear them apart, instead the women and the other disciples met together in the dark hours that followed the crucifixion to support each other. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews (10:25) encourages us to keep on meeting together when times get hard, because this is an important part of our faith; wider culture is driving us to ever greater individuality and isolation, but the truth is that we need each other. When we are feeling strong, Christ calls us to encourage others, and in turn He calls others to encourage us when we need it.

And finally, the women had their trust in God. They knew that Jesus had a special relationship with God the father, and that surely helped them to trust in God, despite the facts of their circumstances. The future God had in store for the early church was both amazing and difficult, and we too, can expect our futures to be a mixed bag of experiences.

Like the women, may we trust God for who he is, rather than for what he might do for us.

Even in the darkest, almost unbearable moments, there is hope for a future with God.

Keep going, support each other, and trust in God.

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The Day of the Lord

This used to be a Hügelkultur bed, but that didn’t really work, so I’ve taken it apart and turned it inside out. I imagine this is what a Hobbit’s vegetable patch might look like.

This is a reflection on the readings for the penultimate Sunday before Advent: Hebrews 10:11-25, Mark 13:1-8 and Daniel 12:1-3.

I confess to having something of a morbid fascination with post-apocalyptic fiction. I think it has to do with growing up in the shadow of the cold war fearful of nuclear annihilation, and then there was the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain and now climate change. Perhaps a subconscious part of me needs to face the worst possible outcomes in a safe, contained way in order for me to feel able to cope with an uncertain future.

Our three readings for today fit nicely into the apocalyptic genre. The prophet Daniel describes a time of great anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. Then in the Gospel, Jesus talks of the destruction of the temple, of wars and rumours of wars, of famines and earthquakes. The passage from Hebrews ends with a cryptic comment about the Day (with a capital D) which is approaching. It is this concept of the Day, the Day of the Lord, that can help us find meaning in these passages and seek a constructive way forward.

In the Jewish imagination, in Biblical times, the Day of the Lord was the moment when God would break into history and take charge, bringing justice and restoring God’s chosen people to their proper place in the world. But before that Day, there would be a time of terror and trouble when the world would be shaken to its foundations and judgment would come.

The Old Testament prophets warned about this great suffering, we’ve already heard from Daniel, so let’s hear from Isaiah, who is no less terrifying:

See, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it.

This so-called apocalyptic literature, is a blend of terror and ultimate hope, driven along by God’s purposes.

Probably the most famous apocalyptic writing in the Bible is the book of Revelation, found at the very end of the New Testament. As with the rest of the genre, its imagery is not meant to be taken literally, it is symbolic language that gives hope that suffering isn’t entirely pointless, that somehow, something good will come out of it.

Our gospel reading today is part of what has been called the mini apocalypse, which takes up most of the rest of Mark 13. It makes for disturbing and perplexing reading. Jesus uses the familiar apocalyptic style to warn his disciples against being led astray by false teachers, he tells them not to be alarmed but to be patient until the end.

He warns that there will be wars and rumours of wars, that nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; that there will be earthquakes in various places and famines. And not only that, but this is just the beginning of the birth pangs. The disciples would have understood this as the build up to the glorious Day of the Lord and the defeat of their enemies. But Jesus subverts this idea by talking about birth pangs – this is an image not of vengeance and victory, but of the hope of new birth!

I wonder how you feel when you hear these words about liars rising to prominence and leading many astray? About wars and rumours of wars, conflict, earthquakes and famines? Does this seem pertinent to you? It certainly does to me, and why not add droughts, floods, hurricanes and forest fires to the mix. I find it interesting that Jesus promised us such terrible things and then counselled us not to be alarmed about them.

Let’s rewind a minute and look back at what prompted Jesus to speak these words. The disciples had been admiring the temple and trying to get Jesus to share in their wonder. The temple was a vast structure, with some of the stones being as big as 40 by 12 by 18 feet, no wonder the disciples were impressed by them. This incredibly imposing structure was not only the focus of religious ritual, but held the Holy Scriptures, the highest court of Jewish law and the presence of God himself.

But rather than join in their admiration of the temple, Jesus prophesies its destruction, and, in less than 50 years, this astonishing prophecy came tragically true. The temple was destroyed during the siege of Jerusalem in which over a million people perished by famine and the sword, and between 60 and 100 thousand people were enslaved, taken to Rome and forced to build the Colosseum – that theater of terror where as many as 400,000 people died in bloody spectacles.

The catastrophic collapse of the city and its temple must have felt like the end of the world. And yet, somehow, life went on. It was an end, but not the end, it was but the beginning of the birth pangs that Jesus talked about.

Zooming outwards, we can see that other ends of the world have happened throughout history, for example, the fall of the Roman empire which plunged Western Europe into turmoil, the industrial revolution, which despite its many advantages has wrought untold ecological damage, and the discovery of the ‘New World’, which was a total catastrophe for the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

These experiences of political, social and ecological collapse are so painful and difficult, it’s as if the body of history has been wracked with waves of intense pain over and over again. These are the birth pangs.

Since the end of 2nd world war, those of us in the global north have had something of a reprieve, and we can be incredibly grateful for the peace, prosperity and security and that we have known in our time, but we cannot imagine that it will last forever. Our status quo is declining and falling. Another birth pang.

Like all good midwives, Jesus tells us not to be alarmed when the birth pangs come – don’t panic, just breathe. Like a labouring mother who is driven along by forces within her body that she cannot control – we are living within systems and structures that we cannot control. Like an expectant mother, perhaps the best thing we can do is decide to keep breathing, to not be alarmed, but to be islands of peace in a world reeling from the pain.

When alarming news comes in from all over the globe and when the things we thought were as stable and certain as the Jerusalem temple start to unravel, how are we to respond?

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews has some clear advice.

His readers were living through persecution and trials, and he encourages them not to give up – he tells them (and us) to hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. He doesn’t tell us to keep going because everything will be OK in the end, but encourages us to keep faith in God because of who God is. He talks of a true heart in full assurance of faith, this speaks to our attitude – that we don’t let ourselves be destroyed by the awfulness of what is going on around us, that we don’t become cynical and depressed, but rather we choose to keep believing in the goodness of God.

He challenges us to consider how we might provoke each another to love and good deeds, it makes me think back to our auction the other week, where we drove up the prices by bidding against each other. I wonder who has inspired you to grow in your faith, to live better or simply to keep going when things are difficult?

The author recognises that in the face of the pressures of life, some had given up and stopped meeting together, but he stresses how important it is for us to keep meeting up to encourage each other, and all the more as we see the Day approaching. We are part of each other, and we cannot afford to give up on our community. The worse things get on a social, economic and ecological level, the more important it will be to draw together, not drift apart.

Birth pangs start off gently, a minor irritation, but soon build in strength and frequency until the body is overwhelmed by waves of increasingly unbearable pain. And yet, the pain is just about bearable because you know it won’t last and that there will new life at the end of it.

But what will the labour of our suffering world bring to birth?

There’s no easy answer to this, we might just have to refer back to the Hebrews passage that encourages us to trust that God is faithful. Or we might look to Romans 8, which talks about creation groaning in the pain of labour, and points towards a time of future redemption.

But we can’t afford to let that make us complacent. Christ calls us to love our neighbour, to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked and visit those in prison.

In the face of calamity, we are to respond with neither paralysing despair nor a false hope that relieves us of the responsibility to act, but with a virtuous cycle of meeting together to encourage and provoke each other to love and good deeds. By following the way of Christ, we will impact our collective well-being as well as the well-being of those around us, bringing positive change in a myriad of small and not so small ways. And for those things beyond the scope of our influence, we will just have to learn to leave them in the hands of our faithful God.

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Green tomatoes and mutual encouragement

Compare these to the tomatoes of a few weeks ago back, click here

The slugs in my garden have had a spectacularly good year, so good that even the tomatoes, which usually get away unscathed, have suffered their assault, and so I eventually decided to salvage the remaining green ones and bring them inside. I am not a fan of fried green tomatoes and had a bad experience with an over-heated green tomato curry last year, so I was determined to get them to ripen indoors this time around.

Tomato ripening is triggered by the gas ethene, which causes the conversion of starches into sugar and the generation of the red pigment lycopene. This happens naturally on the vine, and as the green tomatoes begin to ripen, they too give off ethene, encouraging their neighbours to ripen in a virtuous cycle of increasing deliciousness.

To mimic this process in the safety of my slug-free kitchen, I popped some ripe tomatoes on a tray along with my green ones and, sure enough, a few weeks later, my green tomato harvest was almost entirely red. As I contemplated these mutually ripening tomatoes, I was reminded of the words at the end of our passage for this Sunday:

And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10: 24-25)

As the green tomatoes are encouraged to ripen by their slightly redder neighbours, we can encourage each other to greater ‘love and good deeds’ – but for that to happen, just like the tomatoes, we need to be in close proximity, ‘not neglecting to meet each other’. See you on Sunday?!

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But what happened to the slave-girl of Acts 16?

Autumn in all her glory!

I found myself quite angry this morning as I read the story of Paul’s encounter with a demonised, fortune-telling slave-girl in Philippi (Acts 16:16-40). It’s the start of a longer narrative that focusses on the consequences of this action for the protagonists.

This girl was doubly possessed – both by a spirit of divination and by her slave master. As Paul was going about his work, she was being a nuisance, following him around and shouting disruptively. Paul ignored her for several days, but his patience finally ran out and, in a burst of temper, he commanded the spirit to leave her.

Yes, the girl was freed from the spirit, but this was not a compassionate deliverance from evil, it was more like swatting an irritating fly. At least with a lucrative talent she was guaranteed some degree of security – what would happen to her now? I don’t get the slightest impression that the slave girl was seen for the precious human being she was – only for the force that controlled her.

Her slave-owners certainly didn’t value her humanity either, for them she was a way to make money, and once her special talent was gone, she was practically worthless.

I feel that Paul bears some responsibility for what happened to her next. My hope is that she was welcomed into the Christian community, perhaps by Lydia the dealer in purple cloth we read about in the verses before, but from the few words about her in the text, my fear is that she was collateral damage of Paul’s adventures in Philippi. Paul paid for the incident with beatings and imprisonment, but his prison stay was short, and his story moved on.

For what it’s worth, slave-girl of Philippi, I see you!

But that’s an easy thing to say from the comfort of my own home, with two thousand years between us. I hope I can see you when I next meet you in one of your 21st century sisters.

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Value and identity

A perfect spinach seedling.

The other morning, I was reading the beautiful passage Philippians 2:1-11 about how Christ:

did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

However, I got a bit stuck on the words ‘in humility regard others as better than yourselves’. As someone who tends towards low self-esteem, it’s not very helpful to hear this. My default position is to feel inferior to other people, but this has nothing to do with humility and everything to do with an unhealthy place in my being. How can I regard other people as ‘better’ than myself in a way that isn’t damaging?

The writer of Philippians also says ‘let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus’. Christ knew who he was, and whose he was, he knew his value and his identity. From this secure place, he was able to give everything up and serve others, even to the point of death.

Having good self-worth isn’t about dragging other people down in my mind or pushing myself up above them; it has nothing to do with comparison. It’s about my, and everyone else’s, intrinsic value as earth-creatures loved by God.

I need to keep connecting with that part of me that knows my value and identity, so that I can act from a sense of inner security and confidence, rather than stumbling down the well-trodden path to self-effacement. From that safe place, I can make a genuinely humble choice to take the last place without feeling devalued or that I’d have no right to the first place, were I to decide to take it.

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Detachment and the rich young ruler

Amethyst deceivers + puff balls, autumn chanterelles + hedgehog mushrooms, and inkcaps, collected in a nearby forest.

This is a reflection I wrote in May this year on Mark 10:17-22

I wonder how you feel about this passage? I know that this is one of those difficult encounters with Jesus that we cannot ignore, but that can leave us feeling rather uncomfortable. In this story, Jesus seems very demanding – he asks the rich man to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, is he asking the same of us? Since only a few actually take that path, does this mean that the rest of us are failing in our Christian vocation?

How we read these words depends on our image of God, what we really believe God is like. If he is punitive, demanding and a killjoy, then the message we hear is that we must try and earn God’s love by doing difficult things and denying ourselves. However, in this passage, we read that Jesus looked at the rich man and loved him. The Bible is peppered with verses that tell us how much God loves us and wants what’s best for us, and so this reading can’t be about doing hard things to earn God’s love – that love is already given. If we can believe that God is love and has our best interests at heart, then this passage has another message for us.

Let’s take a moment to consider what was going on in the rich man’s life. He was deeply religious and conscientiously followed the religious laws. He worked hard at doing the right thing and was committed to seeking eternal life, what we might call ‘salvation’. He sensed that there was something more to the spiritual life, but seemed to have come to the end of this resources. He had heard that the Rabbi Jesus had come to town – perhaps he could show him the way? Since he was a wealthy man, he could be fairly confident that he was on the right track, because wealth was understood as a reward from God for good behaviour. So he was hopeful, looking forward to a positive interaction with this teacher who would surely recognise his virtue. He believed himself willing to do whatever was required of him in the search for God. So, in his enthusiasm, he ran to Jesus and knelt down before him, asking the question, ‘What can I do to be saved?’ Now, there are two problematic words in this question, I and do. He believed he needed to work at getting God to accept him, and believed that he effectively could save himself this way. The focus was squarely on him and what he could do.

Jesus initially appears to go along with this assumption, listing various laws that must be kept – as if that was all that was needed – perhaps this was his way to find out how serious the rich man was. Only when pressed by this earnest young man, does Jesus give his unthinkable instruction to sell what he owns, and give the money to the poor.

his wealth was a blessing from God, it made no sense to give it all up – that would be like ungratefully returning a gift to the one who gave it, and so the rich man reacted with shock and grief. He was, perhaps, looking for a new way of praying or another religious practise, but Jesus didn’t tell him to take something new on, but to let go of what he already had. Jesus made it sound easy, but it wasn’t, and wasn’t just about the money, Jesus was also asking him to give up his status, security and even his family, as there’s no way that his relatives would have remained in contact with him if he had embraced a life of poverty.

It makes me think of Jesus’ words in John 12, where he says:

24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Jesus says what he does because he knows what the rich man really needs, he knows what will set him free and bring him abundant life. Giving up his wealth wouldn’t have earnt the rich man his salvation, as that is the gift of God, but it would have set him free to follow Jesus. The rich man’s life is under control, safe, he lives within comfortable limits. Jesus invites him beyond these limits, he challenges the rich man to let go of the control of his life and trust that God will catch him, but the rich man isn’t ready for that leap of faith. I also wonder whether Jesus asked the man to do the almost impossible partly to show him that he could not save himself?

Jesus’ challenge is followed by a promise and an invitation:

you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me

This invitation to ‘come follow me’ is the same as the invitation he extended to the first disciples. He called Andrew, Peter, James and John to leave their life as fishermen, but perhaps since they had less to lose it was easier for them to give up the little they had? But then Matthew left his job as a tax collector, which was a lucrative profession; in his case perhaps the fact that most people would have hated him for colluding with the occupying Romans, would have made him more willing to give it up that life? The man in our story is both rich and respectable, he has everything to lose and is too attached to his lifestyle and possessions to let go and follow Jesus. He doesn’t realise that his wealth has him trapped and is afraid of what would happen if he lost it. He isn’t free to pursue the deeper spiritual life that he desires.

Now, I just said that the rich man was too ‘attached’ to his wealth, and that was a deliberate choice of word. I want to say a just few words about the opposite: detachment. Unlike the rich man, the 12 disciples were sufficiently detached from their previous occupations to be able to leave them behind and follow Jesus. Ignatian spirituality understands detachment as a healthy impartiality, a distancing, an indifference. If we can be detached from things and habits, we are freer to choose those things and attitudes that lead to God. That isn’t to say that things are necessarily bad, quite the contrary, they can be a great blessing, but if they become too important to us, they entrap us and so hinder our growth towards God.

For the rich man, there was a call to be free from his possessions and a call to be free of the lie that there was something he could do to save himself. The rich man’s unhealthy attachments were brought to light by an encounter with Jesus; we can discover our unhealthy attachments by an encounter with the Holy Spirit.

These attachments can come in many guises, they might be material possessions or money, as in this passage, they might also be feelings and thoughts that bind us, cravings and addictions, or unhelpful thought patterns. For example, I struggle with an attachment to perfectionism. My tendency is to believe that if something I’ve done is not perfect, then it’s practically worthless. This puts the focus on me and my achievements, rather than on trusting God to use my, inevitably imperfect, efforts.

One way to test whether we are unhealthily attached to something, is to ask ourselves how we would feel if God asked us to let go of it. Our response will give us an indication of how attached we are, because, when we are free, letting go doesn’t feel difficult. Depending on what the attachment is, God may or may not ask us to let go of it, but we are invited to hold lightly even the good gifts in our lives.

The encounter in this story feels rather final. The rich man is presented with an ultimatum and declines Jesus’s invitation, albeit regretfully, as we read that he grieved as he walked away. I wonder whether the rich man might have changed his mind later on? Having had his unhealthy attachments revealed to him, perhaps, in time, he came to the point of being able to let go of them? After all, detaching from the things that keep us from a closer walk with God is a lifelong process.

To follow Jesus, the rich man needed to let go of his possessions. What are the things that limit our freedom to follow Christ? How might God be calling us into a more abundant life? Perhaps we can ask God to set us free to take risks with our time, talent and treasures for the purposes of God’s kingdom. I invite us to place all we are and have before God, giving thanks for all our blessings, and may God help us loosen our grip on whatever hinders us from serving him, confident that He won’t loosen his grip of love on us.

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Luke 12:11-12

Mushrooms on moss – how gorgeous!

When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say. Luke 12:11-12

I used to believe this passage meant that when I was in a situation of great stress and difficulty, God would give me the perfect thing to say in a moment of divine inspiration. This, however, has not been my experience. When I feel under pressure, my mind goes entirely blank and I have absolutely nothing to say.

My evolving understanding of how God and I coexist gives me another way to understand this passage. I find I am most receptive to God when I am still and quiet, seeking that place of inner peace where the Holy Spirit dwells, or when I am on a walk in the forest or cycling somewhere (if I can stop ruminating over my never-ending to-do list and let my mind wander). At such times I am more able to tap into my God-given creativity; if I want the Holy Spirit to teach me what I ought to say, then I need to find a way to return to that place of inner connection, even when I am out and about in stressful situations.

I had a small example of that the other week. I took what was, for me, the bold step of agreeing to facilitate a peer-support group; this was the first time I had ever done anything quite like this and there were a lot of unknowns. At various points during the meeting, I felt myself becoming tense in my body and stressed in my mind about how best to respond – but I managed to catch myself doing it, so relaxed my body, took a few deep breaths and waited. The Holy Spirit did teach me what I ought to say, and it turned out that was very little, as the group pretty much ran itself 🤣.

Breathe.

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Does your bramble have thorns?

These are the first fruits of the apple and pear trees I planted five years ago – patience is a virtue!

I recently pruned my blackberry bushes. Dealing with the relatively young thornless cultivated plants was easy – I identified the canes that gave fruit this year and cut them down. Then I moved onto the blackberries that pre-dated my time in the area, in particular, a magnificent specimen beside the parking space that is particularly well-adapted to its chosen home.

Every year it puts out thick, long canes covered with vicious hooks that attack anyone who tries to get into the passenger side of the car, but, since it also produces an abundance of blackberries, it’s the passengers who have to make accommodations. This bramble is a tight tangle of canes, old and new, embracing each other in a self-preserving heap. Locating the right canes for removal is not trivial, and this year it involved me climbing right into the heart of the bush. By the end of my work, my arms and legs were ripped to shreds (I know I should have worn better clothing, but I was in too much of a rush…)

This got me to thinking. ‘Real’ blackberries, the way nature made them, are covered in thorns – this is normal. However, we don’t like the thorns, since they cause us discomfort and make collecting berries potentially painful, so we have bred varieties without them. I wonder about a parallel with modernity…

In the last hundred years or so, technological advances and cheap fuel have meant that we (in the global north) have been able to reduce our physical discomfort and pain to levels unprecedented in history. From advances in medicine and dentistry, to the invention of washing machines and cars, life in many ways has become much easier; and when we do start to feel discomfort, we have a plethora of ways to distract ourselves or numb the pain.

This is not a normal state of affairs; in most of the rest of the world, and throughout most of history, life is much harder, and it is certainly going to become increasingly difficult for everyone in the years and decades to come. In the face of threats of social, economic and ecological collapse, our expectations of life must drastically change.

Despite being abundantly blessed in so many ways, I am not a particularly grateful person. As a product of modernity, I expect life to be ‘thornless’ like my cultivated blackberry and tend to complain when things are difficult. Perhaps it would make more sense for me to expect life to be difficult to handle, like my wild bramble, full of thorns that rip and tear, and then to be grateful when life feels good and the berries are plentiful?

Do not fear what you are about to suffer Revelation 2:10a

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My turn to get it wrong

This is one of the eight salamanders I saw in the forest earlier this week!

My last post was about how traffic exemplifies our interconnectedness as human beings, and encouraged compassion on those parts of the traffic (and ourselves) that cause us difficulties. This afternoon it was my turn to be one of those difficult parts.

I accidentally drove the wrong way down an aisle of a shopping centre car-park and was confronted by the incandescent rage of a motorist coming in the opposite (correct) direction. In my defense, I had someone with reduced mobility in the car with me and was focused on finding a spot near the entrance – so when I spotted one, I turned in, not realising it meant I was breaking the rules. I was shocked by the violence of the other driver’s reaction, firstly because my misdemeanour didn’t impact upon them directly and secondly because their anger was so out of proportion to the gravity of my crime. I didn’t immediately react to the screaming, scowling and fist-shaking, because in the moment I was mostly curious about what this person was really angry about. However, I was shaken up enough to subsequently drive over a bollard when reversing into a less convenient parking spot.

It just goes to show how much damage can result from choosing to believe the worst about another person and acting on it. As for me, I am going to get myself a cup of tea and try to calm down. Let’s hope the insurance company will deal with the rest of the damage.

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Psychotherapy and inconsiderate drivers

I love spiders. This one seemed to be suspended in mid-air. If your eyesight is good, you might be able to see her web.

I’ve just returned from a five-day road trip all the way up through France and into the North of England. Thankfully there wasn’t much traffic, but there were those inevitable stretches of roadworks where everything slows down as three lanes go into two… and those infuriating drivers who, rather than considerately changing lane as soon as reasonably possible, speed along the disappearing lane and force themselves in at the very last opportunity.

As we were driving along the Paris ring road (a half-hour detour, due to over-reliance on Google maps), I pondered the fact that although traffic is comprised of many different vehicles, it behaves like an entire organism. Each individual car is impacted by the rest – someone brakes suddenly in heavy traffic, and the ripple effect causes cars further back to come to a complete standstill.

This made me think of the Internal Family Systems Model approach to psychotherapy. This sees the mind as being comprised of multiple parts, each with a distinct subpersonality. Let me introduce you to some of mine: Judge Judy, Busy Beryl, and Anxious Audrey. Each of these subpersonalities means well, but they aren’t always helpful and can sometimes be downright counterproductive. The aim is to get to a point where, rather than resenting or struggling with parts of yourself, you can see them for what they are and bring the mind back into balance.

Back to the Paris ring road. When a car committed the aforementioned sin of racing ahead and pushing in, for a brief moment I could see it as a broken, wounded part of the whole traffic, with which I also identified, and rather than get angry with it, I felt compassion. Yes, the driver was behaving badly, but there could be all manner of reasons for why they had developed this behaviour as a coping strategy for life.

This sense of being part of a larger whole also made me think of Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 about the concept of the body of Christ. Despite the culture we swim in emphasizing our individuality and personal agency, in many ways we are profoundly connected to each other. What a difference it would make to our world if we could all recognise this!