friarmike

A network of saints

I recently discovered the website of the World Reformed Fellowship.   They set out as their objective, 

• The WRF exists to provide networking links among evangelical Reformed Christians world-wide.  Our goal is that, through this networking, "the strengths of some will become the strengths of all in the service of Jesus Christ."

 Now this is my sort of Christian network. What is more it is open to all those who accept any of the historic confessions of the reformed church. As a supporter of the Belgic Confession, this is most suitable for me.

I also very much like their objectives, which are described as,

• A network for communication and sharing of ministry resources among such Christians
• A forum for dialogue among such Christians on current issues
• The opportunity for such Christians from one region of the world to share their unique spiritual and theological perspectives with such Christians from other regions of the world, all within the framework of the evangelical Reformed faith
• Regular occasions, some for such Christians in specific regions of the world and some for such Christians world-wide, to come together for worship and dialogue and resource-sharing 

Increasingly it is important that globally we are encouraged and enabled to take responsibility to forge effective partnerships. These enable us to learn collectively from each other and resource one another for constructive collaborative efforts. Whilst the internet and the communications industry shrink the apparent size of our world, the missional task remains proportionate to the earth's 'real time' size. We use the opportunity of much improved communications to work constructively in mission together.

From April 12-15 next year is the third General Assembly of the WRF in Edinburgh. I shall certainly go take a look and meet up with some folk from around the world. It should prove a very interesting time. 

Ambushed by Anxiety

I am not one who has taken long to consider anxiety. Generally aware of its existence and knowing friends who have experienced being stalked by its relentless pressures. However, as for myself I can never say that I have never fallen under its spell. That is until the last few weeks.

Well I assume it is anxiety. Waking in the early hours - say 3:00 am - and finding my mind crowded with details of tasks to be completed, people to communicate with, worries about my ability to achieve everything I am feeling.   Then there is the frustration of lying wide awake wondering if I should just get up and start my day early or just hope to drift back to sleep. This gives rise to the need to manage the frustration of not sleeping. And if I do start my day early, that's what I did yesterday and I am tired - so tired that I am nearly drifting off to sleep when driving in the afternoon.

I have to say that I have no real answers to this. It is not as though I am especially busy. What is the stress that is assaulting me? Again it is one of those experiences that we are unprepared for and have few natural tools to address it. But I am learning as I have on other issues to do with self. In finding a way of managing myself in the anxiety I know I shall grow stronger.

Whether it is delayed anxiety from the loss of Katey or generated by the process of 'reinventing' myself for the next phase of my working life, I cannot tell. What I do know is that it is quite terrifying lying wide awake staring at the ceiling from 3:00 to 6:00 am, and also very exhausting.

I have no answers as to why I find myself here, or indeed what I should do. Trust in the faithfulness of God is all I cling to, and this has served me well in times past. Strangely the fact that the trust is a familiar pathway doesn't mean it comes any easier this time around. 

This new experience is one I was not anticipating - I have been completely ambushed - but shall seek to build rapport with my captor and seek to negotiate my release. 

Elusive Ethics

The ancients recognised something that in many ways we may have lost sight of. Namely the importance of what they termed ‘virtue’. Simply put this is a life seen to be well lived. Or as one definition has it, ‘We study ethics in order to improve our lives, and therefore its principal concern is the nature of human well-being’.

I recently engaged in some correspondence with the EAUK following the ruling on assisted suicide campaigned for by MS sufferer Debbie Purdy. This high profile campaign generated much discussion on the challenging issue of what nineteenth century sociologists Enrico Morselli and Emile Durkheim named suicide. They were attempting to rehabilitate the practice so that greater understanding could be extended across humanity.

In short EAUK asked me to seek to formulate a brief statement that captured a sensitised approach to this troubling ethical dilemma. Sadly I responded that I could not - because it was a very complex issue.

Both government and church are compromised on this issue. One side of the argument is the commitment to legally protect the integrity of someone’s physical life - the element Ms Purdy challenges. Everyone would want to secure a high view of life. However, life is more than physical survival. On the other hand we have the recent reports that patients with dementia deteriorate  in hospital with their basic needs for food and liquids failing to be met. If this was elsewhere it would be raised by western politicians as a human rights abuse - oh if there was time between submitting spurious expense claims!

The extent we have extended our ability to sustain physical life has far outpaced our understanding and appreciation of other descriptives of life such as emotional, intellectual, working, spiritual - the list runs on! We then reduce the ethical issue to something to do with the physical functionality of the human body - however, this is not what I think Jesus had in mind when he talked of life in all its fullness. 

It is exploring around the nature of fullness that the conversation needs to take its time - and of course media has no patience with such subtleties. Yet it is in these very subtleties that most of life is experienced; the anguish of heartbreak, the despondency of disappointment, the frustration of failure, the loneliness of loss etc.

Maybe we should allow individuals to argue for what they see best in their circumstances rather than assume we know better. Journeying with Katey through her/our long pilgrimage with sickness it was painful to have the Lord show me that my sincere, platformed proclamations over the years were vacuous because I had failed to cross the road to care for the wounded samaritan, just as we experienced the evangelical/charismatic church that gave us our Christian birth, abandon us to our fate in dealing with wild animals and robbers who sought to steal our very lives from us as we lay wounded by the roadside.

We should engage the wounded into the conversation at the same table as everyone else and then maybe the church will have a voice that engages real people living what are in many cases pretty shit lives. In fact you don't realise just how shit until you emerge and find that everyone else lives life to a different tune because their daily routine is not constructed by 'the other', well outside their control. Not a complaint at any level, nor blaming anyone, just observing that we have to capture the breadth of realities and not just the 'victory' reports.

Then we discover this week that one of the BBC's main leads is the neglect that people with dementia experience in hospital. I well remember Katey's first stay in hospital once her short term memory had begun to fail and the relatives of others on her ward informing me I needed to visit each meal time to feed her. When I asked why they simply said because they watched as food was delivered to her bed, she was disabled and unable to feed herself, and later the food, untouched, was removed. No-one, meal service or nurse, ever enquired why that was. And of course she was given no liquids. She was in fact just abandoned in the heart of a national symbol of care.

Again governments and courts who reserve to themselves the right to determine that all life is worthy of being lived show a different face when it comes to supplying the necessary budgetary resources to ensure that every life, dementing, with learning disability or whatever, is treated with dignity and respect until its natural end. There is often more dignity for all the family in a planned death than that offered by the random lottery of hospital and elderly care that this country affords its citizens. And the church is complicit in its silence. I briefly draw attention to the fact that here is a wonderful opportunity for the church to speak and organise itself to provide the volunteers to provide such a voluntary service to their local hospital. If we truly value life and quality of life we would surely make this a number one missional objective - but of course we won't. 

Now this is an agenda that the church could take up with conviction!

Just another demonstration of how there are so many anomalies in both state and church on this ethical issue. Death by indifference can never be presented as more ethical than death by deliberate decision.  

(Download Death by indifference, Mencap Report) 

Guest Reflection

Recently the delightful Jonny and Desirea Rodgers stayed with us at the Friary. It is my pleasure to present their guest contribution to this blog.

 "When we first arrived through the front gate of the friary, we were greeted by a little garden, a sizable wooden bench beckoning us for peaceful moments of reflection over tea, or perhaps something stronger.  Micha and Jayne had just finished installing footpath lights that were ready to be turned on for the first time that evening.  Micha welcomed us into the house, a grand, semi-detached Victorian, seemingly full of secrets from the time when Southsea was first blossoming into a 19th century resort town.

     In the front kitchen, the cozy hub of the friary, we had some of that afore-mentioned tea and then followed Micha through the downstairs, enjoying with him the prospect of renovation plans, set to begin later this month.  The friary is in flux at present; the odd radiator has fallen off the wall; the topmost bathroom has decided to share its gift of water with the bedroom below; you know, the odd tic.  But after a difficult year in 2008 with the passing of Micha's wife Katie, Micha and Jayne have decided to invest new time and finances into the friary.  To imbue the walls and windows with new strength for this new season.  You can almost feel a sigh of gratefulness from the house itself, it having had many owners and tenants in the past, some of whom had not given her victorian bones their due respect.

     We soon found our travel-weary selves in the top room of the friary, a quiet oasis in the vibrant city of Southsea, overlooking the rooftops of slate and orange tile; soft light through the wide windows; the  occasional bird or visiting crow on the chimneys outside.  It is a perfect pausing place from a life of hustle and bustle.  Desirea and I have taken three months out of our regular lives this fall to travel, rest, write, reflect and pray - a true sabbatical.  It seemed appropriate that our first full week of rest should be spent here, soaking up the rhythm of the friary.

    Since Micha and Jayne have differing schedules during the days, the house can remain quiet and still for long stretches of the day.  Desirea and I would usually have a simple, quiet breakfast most days, and then enjoy a walk out to the shops and bookstores on Albert Street.  Or if the sun was out, a walk along the long coast of Southsea was always inviting.  In October, the weather can easily get windy and chilly, so we'd usually return, shed hats and scarves, and settle into a nice warm tea in the afternoon.  Reading, writing, resting.

     Fellowship in the friary seemed to really take shape, informally, around the dinner meal.  Micha, trained in French cuisine, cooks special, savory meals, even out of the simplest ingredients.  Lively conversation with Jayne and Micha along with the sounds of chopping, stirring and sauteing leads naturally into a leisurely dinner, and then spills over into an evening coffee; perhaps with a little taste of chocolate.  We shared communion on Wednesday night during the week, something we've since adopted.  It's been nice for us to have this time of space and reflection, and especially to have the opportunity to bounce ideas off of micha and Jayne, or even the listening walls of the friary.  Desirea and I spent the nights there reading, tearing through good books some of which we found at the 50p bookshop up the street.  I've especially been enjoying the autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr, which I found on the bookshelf in our room.  Riveting!  It's kept me up until the wee hours of the morning!

     Moving forward now through the rest of our journey, some parts planned and others still a surprise, we will be glad to carry with us some of the peace from our week at the friary; the inspiration from Jane Austen's house which we enjoyed one morning; the rhythm of communion and prayer on Wednesday nights; the stones of remembrance from walks by the sea, or late evenings of prayer or conversation; or just plain fun, for nobody has quite the sense of humor that Micha has! 

 

The Fragility of a Prayer

It was reflecting during my morning office that I paused to consider just how fragile a prayer is. As an admirer and follower of Jesus I embrace his invitation to pray for the needs of others. However, so often this can simply become a jumble of words scrambling out of my mouth in a vain attempt to cover every possibility I can imagine and 'dumping' it all on the unseen yet ever present triune God.

Certainly my prayers per se will make no difference. Even as they are uttered, and yes they are spoken for fear that they simply resonate within my head space, the wind carries each one away to who knows where? The intensity or emotional attachment I may have felt vanishes s the word flows from my lips into the space before me and each word has hardly time to float before it is rudely pushed aside by the next, and the next, and the next...

Yet prayer is not simply the form of words I choose to craft. Every psalm, canticle, confession, and scripture is in itself a prayer. One that has been spoken countless millions of times in all languages in every land known to humankind down through the centuries. And of course spoken again and again each day as the sun rises and women and men pause to contemplate their God and engage in the morning office. Here is a picture of rhythm, of regularity, of discipline, of continuance. Here is the story and pleas of the church for God to continue to invest in this turbulent ever changing world of challenges.

It is only because of an equally fragile faith commitment that anyone of us can have confidence that our prayers matter. Matter to God yes because scripture tells us so. Matter to the countless unseen strangers with whom I share nothing more than a desire to live well and peacefully, share in family and community life, and make it through the day to lay my head to rest once more. Strangers I may be to the millions for whom my prayers are uttered, but no stranger to the shared humanity and the hope such humanity reaches for. 

And so it is with confidence I utter the simple fragile statements before God and into the infinite space that surrounds me,

'Guide the leaders of the nations

into the ways of peace and justice.

Help and comfort the lonely, the bereaved,

and the oppressed.

Heal the sick in body and mind,

and provide for the homeless, the hungry and the destitute.

Lord have mercy'.

How ridiculous and yet how precious - the anonymous remembered, a yearning expressed. And yet not quite so ridiculous given that with all the resources at our fingertips, humanity has only successfully sustained and grown poverty, violence, oppression etc. to shocking new levels. Knowledge in itself is no guarantor of social transformation. Maybe faith and prayer are not as ridiculous as at first appears - but oh so fragile.

Visitors

Well a good week at the friary. Two friends from the USA have been sharing our space over the last seven days - Jonny and Desirea Rodgers. Jonny is an innovative musician and Desirea a photographer and founder of the anti-trafficking organization, Love146. 

It has been a good opportunity to explore the way the house will be used into the future. It will not be as an extended household/friary community. The last thirty years living in this way has proved very rewarding and personally enriching. However, others are now taking up that mantle. We shall explore the life of what a friend of mine in New Haven calls an Urban Monastery. One aspect of the life of this will be to have people come and share in our rhythm of life as Jonny and Desirea have. 

So what is this rhythm? No more than ebbing and flowing with the tide of life in reality. Times of conversation around the meal table, enjoying movies all together, and taking time in prayer and breaking bread in celebration of our Christian faith. For some this will be a simple pause for reflection, for others a time of coming to terms with challenging incidents in their lives. For each of us an opportunity for greater self understanding and personal growth. Life is about good self management and making a quality contribution through our lives. The Urban Monastery has a role to play in this.

This is the main reason for refurbishing the house so that we can offer an excellence in our warm welcome, one of the cardinal values of Renaissance, the order of which I am a part. The garden is beautiful and offers a place of contemplation and sanctuary the moment someone steps off the street. I trust the majority of house alterations will be completed by Christmas - which then just leaves decoration and creating the ambiance within.

We have learned again the joy of sitting and eating fine home cooked food together, whilst conversing on the incidental through to the intimately important over this last week. A week that was challenging for me to negotiate but healthy to do so in a measure of community. The house offers space to be apart and together in many different constructs, and works well for visitors. So I think we have discovered the role of the house for this next season and I shall write further on this and let folk know when we are open for business as they say - offering hospitality and hope to pilgrims on the way.

Katey - One Year On

Well how quickly and yet softly a year passes. Many days seemed so much longer than a day ought to be, but now I can reflect on sitting beside a hospital bed 365 days ago supporting the lovely Katey as she battled and eventually lost her fight for life. However, this was only her mortal life - she now celebrates in eternity briefly screened from sight by a thin veil. I happily await my reunion. 

The Garden of Tranquility is completed, lights and all, and in spite of some drizzle I shall sit and reflect within it. Reflect on the many occasions we sat together on what was then a decked porch, either me reading to Katey, helping her down a coffee and any 'unauthorised' sweet things she could successfully swallow. And me always anxious she would choke to death on a danish and I would be to blame!

However, coffee or tea moments were a critical part of Katey's world - so in spite of a disabling disease, she had no intention of changing the joy of a life time!

I am pleased with the complete change to the garden - now with a broken circle where one can sit and reflect on the uninvited and unanticipated challenges life throws at each of us. As I sit upon the bench and meditate on welcoming the unwelcome, I am increasingly aware with the passing of time that nothing can diminish the good one does. Katey's goodness was immense, and now, as the heaviness of an intense care routine fades from view, if not entirely from memory, I can enjoy once more the image of Katey's enthusiastic smiling face etched within my memory. She was pure laughter, pure joy, pure goodness.

A year has also revealed just how big an impact she exercised over others and continues to do so as Kim's bike ride illustrates.

And so I sit and reflect. I have discovered a deep place of meditation. I have grown richer as a person. I am ready to continue my pilgrimage through life, treading somewhat softer than before and sensitised to the tremendous levels of pain experienced by so many. Conscious of the profound nature of faith and faithfulness. Offering whatever counsel and support I can to those knocked off track by sudden and unanticipated challenges in rediscovering a path from which to negotiate the future whilst successfully moving away from that past. History reminds all of us that though some details may disappear from the record, characters remain larger than life forever - so will Katey. 

I have left a small tribute to Katey in visuals and music at http://public.me.com/michajazz. 

What's in a Name?

It is official! I am no longer Mr. Michael Morris but now I am Dr. Micha Jazz. The official deedpoll has arrived together with enough legal copies to set about advising all official bodies that Mike Morris has ceased to be. Today I start with submitting my new name for a new passport.

A number of people have expressed an interest in why I have done this. The short answer is that it significantly marks the transition that was forced upon me a year ago. I had known dear Katey for over 40 years, and been married for 30. As a couple we had always been known as Mike and Katey Morris. Even though Katey was a school teacher and I was a a minister, we were always talked of in the same breath - Mike and Katey. 

On all occasions Katey faithfully stood by my side and invested her many talents into supporting me in what I was doing, from initiating Spring Harvest to facilitating youth gatherings. Everything was about Mike and Katey. We wrote popular books together, spoke together, and counselled together. We were always together.

I can remember whilst at university we took a holiday to the Scottish isle of Iona, many years before it became popular with modern day, new monastic pilgrims. Single and not yet engaged, the people on retreat with us dubbed us the ‘young marrieds’. My suspicion was that it was because we wore very similar Arran jumpers that they assumed we were together legally as well as spiritually.

However, last October Katey went to be with the Lord, her long battle with MS concluding peacefully and constructively. I was no longer Mike and Katey - the best of me had just departed. In coming to terms with this I felt strongly I must change my name. A season was over. There was no disappointment or shame to that season, rather the opposite. I was proud to have walked with Katey as my friend and bride, and celebrated the natural association in peoples’ minds as the dynamic duo, Mike & katey! Indeed one very dear friend of many years standing pointed out over a pint that probably there was no other couple who were always spoken of in the plural in the way Mike and Katey Morris were. He was correct.

So what of the new name? Micha is an unusual variant of Michael and keeps the meaning - ‘one who resembles god’. No I am not big headed but do believe in living out of my highest values rather than accommodating to the overwhelming pressure of whatever values that surround me. Micah was also a prophet in the OT who was committed to ethical issues and detested official corruption. I would aspire to similar commitments.

Jazz for me captures who I have discovered that I am and the role I have come to play through my working life. As one source states, ‘Jazz is not found in websites or books or even written down in sheet music. It is in the act of creating the form itself, that we truly find Jazz’. I love creating and I love new forms. I am forever exploring forwards - reaching beyond what I can see to that which I sense. Jazz also relies on a group of individuals, each highly talented in their chosen instrument, listening to and collaborating with each other to make music - to deliver Jazz! Collaboration is my signature tune.

As Wynton Marsalis wrote, ‘The real power of Jazz ...is that a group of people can come together and create...improvised art and negotiate their agendas...and that negotiation is the art’.

This is what I love. Neither conformity nor constructed forms. Rather the creativity that is released when creatives deliberately commit to work in harmony with each other. Lasting and meaningful change can only be realised in this way. And this is the change I want to contribute to and be a part of. I leave you with one final quote,

‘Jazz is not the result of choosing a tune, but an ideal first created in the mind, inspired in one’s passion and willed next into reality. It is in the act of creating the form itself that we truly find Jazz’

Monastic Vows

The reflections on 'Simplify' have directed my thoughts towards the early 'simplifiers' - the missional monks - Celts, Benedictines, Cistercians etc. I guess that the early monastics learnt a lot through tough experiences. Now don't get me wrong. I am not assuming there were no sublime moments, but you don't build a worshipping, missional community without facing, embracing and successfully navigating big challenges!

Many contemporary groups and aspiring movements attempt to idealise their journey with a series of 'idealised' values. However, the pilgrimage of faith we walk is best negotiated with a healthy dose of pragmatism!! Let's distance ourselves from Platonic influence and recognise that there is only so much a 'sinner', even a rescued one, can do!

Hence the early monastics limited themselves to three vows; poverty, chastity and obedience. Today poverty is perhaps least understood. However, it did not mean monks were to become beggars. There was recognition of the dignity work affords. They developed a rhythm of life that created space for regular prayer whilst also working the land to provide their food. There is evidence that wandering and begging monks were excluded from the community meal since they did not take responsibilty for their own lives. Harsh hospitality perhaps, but a lesson to ponder in our age of proliferating personal wealth and the essentials (things my parents saw as luxuries) we all seem to require.

So what would our contemporary vow be in place of poverty? I would suggest either simplicity or responsibility, with my personal preference ‘responsibility’. The early monastics were certainly recognised and trusted because they were not held ransom by the lure of personal material acquisition or enrichment. They knew who they were called to be, the nature and substance of their mission, and were at peace with it - and with themselves. They offered support, prayer and counsel to both rich and poor without fear or favour.

So today is there not a place for such a value? Not a universal value, nor an idealised one, but one embraced by those choosing to accept a call to live in this very specific way. Comfortable with a rhythm marked by a simplicity of life creating greater intentional space to pray, counsel and facilitate spiritual growth individually and across neighbourhoods?

The second vow was chastity. Cause for mirth or horror, often both in equal measure. I assume that sexuality and libido are little different today than in the early Christian centuries. So I also assume there were plenty of confessions of well intentioned Christian failure in this area. Remember there are no 'ideal' ages in church history. Same raw material - humanity - same propensity to mess up. However, maybe the mutual accountability structures carried a greater grace gift to manage this issue than the contemporary Christian community. It was not accepted but it was recognised as one very obvious reality of human frailty and it's impact upon well intentioned commitments to chastity.

One thing that lay behind the commitment to chastity was the flexibility for mission it created. An ability to travel anywhere at a moment's notice. Today we are unlikely to get far promoting active chastity! However, perhaps the contemporary value would be 'authenticity'. This would provoke constructive conversations during courtship and marriage around the nature of personal and joint callings. This would perhaps generate some authenticity as to the ‘futurescape’ both bride and groom have in their minds for their future together. This again might be helpful in creating a higher level of honesty when discussing the consequences such decisions have on our lives - earning capacity, pension provision, housing stock and location, schooling opportunities etc. Some authenticity too around issues of human sexuality rather than the high moralising to which the church has become addicted.

As for the third monastic vow, obedience, that probably stays the same! Obedience to God and the biblical revelation. Also obedience to the mutual agreements made with community members and to my own commitments. This is fraught with challenges since it requires honesty, truth telling, openness and a good measure of apology - I don't get this right straight off. Still it does encourage good self awareness and the development of enhanced interpersonal and communication skills.

So for me these represent the three critical foundational pillars in establishing a rhythm of life based on the monastic model. No two rhythms will look exactly the same but will be planted grow from the soil of the same three values.

Simply Live

I am intrigued at something that has popped up on the Evangelical Alliance site. It is an invitation to ‘Simplify’. The introductory message states, 

“Simplify is a call to discipleship; to examine the spiritual hold money has on our lives by taking a month to consciously spend less and give more.

For one month, we will live on the amount of money we would receive if we were on benefits. We'll learn how to Simplify - to make the most of our time, relationships and money - from people who already live on less, and we'll give the money we save away to support those who have no other option”.

Now the movement to ‘simplify’ is well established globally and there are myriad internet sites where a lively and often creative debate is being pursued. However, one month on an equivalent to benefits payments I am not sure really does justice to the concept. I think the words of Jesus quoted on the site were more to do with a lifestyle resembling God’s kingdom than perhaps the change 31 days of effort might achieve. 

The ‘Simplify’ website then encourages us to, ‘examine the spiritual hold money has on our lives’. I think for me, and many, money has a purely material and security hold on my life. My battle is that when I consider its spiritual hold I discover very little spirituality in my interaction with money. However, when I consider simplifying my life I am captivated by the spirituality of both life and time. My life and my time can be too easily engaged with the pursuit of wealth to pay debts, mortgages, leisure pursuits etc. etc. Nothing wrong in these per se, but perhaps there is a challenge about how the pursuit itself shapes and dictates my response to the type of lifestyle and timestyle I can adopt.

The month ‘Simplify’ have adopted is October. I am not sure if the pension contributions and other financial benefits, e.g. share dividends and October’s stock increases, are also being relinquished in the attempt to live off benefits. I am not sure what the benefits level is either. Money saved, the ‘simplify’ site states, should be directed to some charity or other - hopefully one where all the staff are also participating in this month of financial sacrifice.

Whilst I do not want to simply pour cold water on the idea, perhaps a series of regional conversations on the why and how to simplify, the gathering and publication of some very real stories of people who have both chosen and been forced to simplify their lives, a critique of capitalism as an effective global economic engine, as well as an honest and transparent review of the compensation packages charities set for their staff, could lift this challenge beyond the disconnected exploration by various individuals or socially networked groups such as church congregations.

Simple living is of no particular moral or ethical good in and of itself. However, if there is some creative and constructive social benefit that is embraced by the individual or group then the consequences can be enriching for the individual and for society at large. However, I think this would be something more than a months ‘project’. Please can the church take a step beyond and provide leadership ahead of gimmicks - for all our sakes!