Easter Week In

I had Easter week off work, which was nice. It's always nice to have a bit of a rest. So, what did I do?

Well, I also had Good Friday off (which is actually Holy Week, I know), and that was an interesting day with two main things that happened. The first was a meditative service, in which I had the opportunity to display a poem I wrote about Easter. I actually submitted two, but the other wasn't about Easter, so it was turned down - but if you want to read both, they can be found here. Anyway, the service itself was interesting, though different than it has been in the past few years. At least it felt different; it felt more like a 'normal' Sunday service, though that may just be my impression of it.
It was based around the seven last words from the cross, with various prayer stations around the church with different actions that could be done, and you could could go to as many or as few as you wished. I went to two: one which was about forgiveness, and one which was about giving God painful circumstances - the two were connected. Then we all came back together for a dance piece, and a short talk (yes, short) based around the last two words. What I got from it was that Jesus' surrender led to God's victory; so, if we surrender to Him, we can share in that victory. After that, they asked people to come up to the front if they wanted more of God's grace, so I went. Someone came and prayed with me, and I gave him the bare bones of the situation; at the end, he said it was important to remember that I am one of the good guys.

And then Saturday was pretty much a normal day, in that the shop was open as normal. And an abnormal day, in that we were really busy. We have been particularly quiet recently, so I can only put it down to the fact that we were closed on the Friday. Anyway, the day was pretty good, and I got a proper break. Which was nice. And then afterwards, I had to go look for Easter eggs; which was more difficult than you'd think because I was looking for fairly traded ones. Normally I would have done it before, but I was particularly busy this week, with the little matter of a wedding. And then I went to my mum's. I got there just in time to meet them on the way to church, and rescue Phoebe, who didn't really want to go to that service (well, she had been to every other one that week). And a nice evening was had by us playing games on our phones and tablet. Honestly, it was a nice evening.
And the next day was Easter!! To celebrate I went to church in the morning with them. Well, not with them exactly, as they got there early and I got there late; but I was there. It was a really nice service, and it had a happy feel; which was definitely appropriate. And I saw quite a few people who recognised me who hadn't seen me for a few years. We had a bit of a rushed lunch, as Phoebe had to go, and then I had a quick nap - apparently a genius idea. I got dropped back home shortly before church, and put up a post containing the poems I had offered, and then went to church for the second time that day. And again I arrived late.

And then began my week off - and mainly in. To start off with, on Monday I got ill, and was feeling pretty rough. I did go out that evening, as it was a friend's birthday, and I hadn't seen her for a while. I almost didn't make it out, as I didn't think I could do it; but God forced me, and it was definitely worth it. However, the next day and a half weren't at all good. I didn't sleep Monday night until about 6ish, so most of Tuesday was basically written off too.
Which meant I got up pretty late Wednesday, as well. So I didn't do that much, just a lot of reading. Until the evening, when I went out to a friend's to help her move house. And then we all went to a pub to join the rest of cluster in a social time. Which was nice.
Thursday was the first day I really spent a fair amount of time out of the house. I went to the library - what with all the reading, there was a fair few books to go back - and then to Starbucks, which I haven't been to for ages. Last year sometime, I think. I saw another friend I hadn't seen for ages there, so that was good. And then in the evening, I went to Hungry. I prayed for peace, as I definitely needed it. And I saw the friend whose birthday it was, and we had a good chat afterwards. Which was nice.
I didn't really do much Friday, but on asking if anyone was free at the weekend, I discovered a vegan fair at Gloucester Guildhall that a friend was going to be at. I hadn't seen her for pretty much a year, so that was a good chance to meet up with her - and meet her daughter. I figured that even a short time seeing her would be worth it, and in the end, we spent a good few hours chatting and just generally relaxing. Which was very nice.

So, all in all, the week off started off pretty badly, but there were some definite highlights in it. And I was feeling a lot more positive about things in general, even though I do have to go back to work in a couple of days.

Blood And Chocolate

    

                                                      Blood And Chocolate

Arrested at night, illegally

Surrounded by soldiers,

Blood, sweat and tears matting his hair and beard;

Violence erupts, swords slice-

'Enough' he says, and it is enough.

Grabbed, pushed, he is beaten:

Who hit you? Sneers and scorn.

Spat on, bruised and bloody;

Then he is punished;

For being the King of the Jews, the punishment is harsh,

What the Jews have always been given:

Betrayal, abandonment,

Torture, humiliation, death;

Death on a cross.

Flayed alive, nearly to death,

Crown of thorns, blood blinding him,

Staggering up the hill, the Place of Skulls;

And then, the crux of the matter,

Nine inch nails through his wrists,

Shoulders dislocated, hanging there,

He is crucified.

Looking out with love, he forgives us all,

And so he dies.

He dies, for us,

And, about two thousand years later,

We celebrate with chocolate.

                                                               Bloodshod Gospel

Bloodshod, the men struggled on

In the war to end all wars;

Tired of fear of death at any moment, no sustenance in sight,

They continued because they had no choice

If they were to defeat the evil oppressor.

Yet we are in a far greater war,

That's been going on almost since time began;

And we don't fight as hard.

We have no choice either, given the alternative,

Yet we give up all too easily.

They fought (and died) for years

In hellish conditions,

Can we not do likewise?

They fought for their countries, for freedom,

That many they would never know could live in hope;

They gave their lives, should we not do so too?

No-one warned them what war would be like,

And how many of the flowers of youth would meet their end;

The four horsemen sowed and reaped their harvest there.

Nothing we could go through could be as bad,

Though it may go on longer;

And we have a constant companion,

The Helper, to save us when things overwhelm.

Lord, bring us to life, bring us to love:

May we have hard feet instead of hard hearts,

And may those feet be bloodshod.

 

I got the title for the first one from an Elvis Costello album; apart from that it is pretty self explanatory, but the second may need a bit of explanation. The title comes from two places, a line in the poem 'Dulce Et Decorum Est', "...Many had lost their boots/But limped on, bloodshod"; and the phrase 'Roughshod Gospel' talking about preachers moving from town to town. The wars referred to are WWI, and the fact that we are actually in a spiritual war. One that we can't win on our own; but we're not on our own. And the end comes from something that Jackie Pullinger once said, along the lines of 'the gospel needs people with hard feet and soft hearts; the problem is too many have soft feet and hard hearts'.

Resurrection To New Life

So this week I had a week off, and was so busy I needed to go back to work for a rest-certainly a rest from spending money.
Sunday was obviously Easter, or as some of my friends prefer, Resurrection Day. That was quite busy as I started off serving at church, then went home to probably relax. I phoned a friend to see if he was around, and he said maybe, so I started to relax, when the doorbell rang to reveal my sister and niece-with chocolate. I wasn't expecting that, surprising as that might seem, but I just happened to have some thorntons chocs that I gave them, and then we played Scrabble at my niece's insistence. She's not too bad at spelling, so that went alright. And then my friend came round, so that was cosy. Not long after that I went off to church to have fun in the evening. And that was loud, a real celebration. And fun was had in the pub afterwards as well.
The next day, Monday, I went off up to the top of Cleeve Hill with a few friends. I figured that most people might be free on the bank holiday, as I was (it's nice being in a job where that's always the case), so I asked if anyone would be up for it. We had a good walk, and then went and had lunch at The Rising Sun. A great pub with great food and great company! So that was nice. And I may well try to arrange another for the next bank holiday in May-if anyone else is up for it. Let me know.
And then Tuesday, a friend of mine came down. Which I really wasn't expecting when I first booked this week off. We spent the day in town, and then tried to figure out what we would do for the rest of the week. And in the evening, my landlord came round to pick up his last rent cheque from me, along with my written notice-now I just have to actually sort myself well enough to actually do everything that needs doing before I move. And after that, another friend came round and we all prayed together. Which turned out to be mostly praying for Neil-standing in the gap for him, as it were.
Wednesday, he went off to see his folks, as it was his dad's birthday, and my mum came round to help me clean-another task that needs to be done. Thankfully, she has been helping with this from January, so there's not actually that much left to do. But it was quite an exhausting day, at least for me.
Thursday was quite interesting, as I did all sorts of things. I had an 'interview' with a friend as I'm kind of mentoring him. First time I've ever done anything like that. Then I went to Pittville Park to meet up with some other friends, who wanted to let their children run around for, well, as long as possible, really. It was nice to see them, but upon them deciding it was too cold, we went back to theirs-with chips. Which was nice. And then 3 of us went to see the Passion cycle of the mystery plays at Gloucester, which several of my friends were in. It was interesting, as they had been adapted from original scripts from the 14th century, I think. Anyway, we all enjoyed it-although they had some problems with taking the final scene seriously. Honestly. I thought it was mostly pretty good, though I was having problems with some of it, until I got it in my head it was originally written for a 14th century audience. Once I remembered that, I enjoyed it a lot.
And then Friday was also pretty busy, as we went to Stroud to see some friends we don't see very often. Being in Brimscombe, I don't see them much more often than Neil does, and he lives in Leeds. It was great to see them (and meet their lodger), and we had a nice long chat and listened to music. Sarah recommended City Harmonic to us, and I mentioned Building 429 and Collective Soul-all definitely worth listening to. And we heard their daughter's song that she had made and recorded with friends. She is going to Bethel school of worship, so all I'll say at the moment is that Bekah Jones is a name you may hear in the next few years. You heard it here first. Oh, and we had a very fine plum cake as well. And in the evening we went to AlliandDarren's again to relax without the boys, although they did come downstairs to say hello to us. Anyway, more chatting happened, and eating, and a lot of laughter.
Saturday, Neil went back to his parents for the day, so apart from popping over to Newent to buy a baptism card, I just relaxed all day. Which was nice. And then I relaxed in the evening. Which was also nice. About all I did was to write the card for the baptism the next day, as I wouldn't really be awake enough to do it in the morning. I also wrote a poem to go with it.
So, on Sunday, I had the choice of arriving 30 mins early or late, so I went for early-which meant I had to catch a 9 a.m. bus to get there in time. So then I get there, only to discover that my friend isn't getting baptised that day. I didn't get it wrong; up until the evening before she was, but because her mum was ill and couldn't make it, she'd decided to put it off. Which made me think that God has a sense of humour-last year, He told me to start visiting other churches, while not leaving mine, and this was one that I'd always intended to go to; but before that point, I just hadn't put the effort in. So I do so for a celebration which didn't happen-sort of. By which I mean there was a baptism going on, just of someone I didn't know. And then a couple of my friends turned up, who like me, had never been to that church before. Like I said, God has a sense of humour. Well, it was a great service and we all really enjoyed it-and will all definitely be back at some point. After the service was a shared lunch, so that was also good, and then they gave me a lift back. Which meant I got a bit of time to relax before going to church in the evening.
So that was a very good end to the day, as always. Enjoyable, encouraging, and helpful. And afterward, I had some with friends. Both in Trinity House and in the pub. And an encouraging chat before going to bed with Neil pledging to put some money towards me going to Afghanistan-if that happens.
And after all that, I was looking forward to getting back to work for a bit of a rest!