Faith Suppers

By now they had arrived at the house of the town official, and pushed their way through the gossips looking for a story and the neighbours bringing in casseroles. Jesus was abrupt: “Clear out! This girl isn’t dead. She’s sleeping.” They told him he didn’t know what he was talking about. But when Jesus had gotten rid of the crowd, he went in, took the girl’s hand, and pulled her to her feet—alive. The news was soon out, and traveled throughout the region.
Matthew 9 23-26

So this is the Message account of  Jesus raising the Official's Daughter from the dead. And I love it! Not for the super spiritual obvious reason that you might think but because I have seen the way Christians react around tragedy and this is spot on. The way we gather and don't know what to say - because what is there to say? We just want to be there to support and to give something. But what is there to give in a situation like this? Well people need to eat I suppose - so let's cook...a casserole! Everyone loves a casserole. (Practical too because you can freeze it and warm it up) Now I suppose I could be a bit negative and say that instead of people turning to Jesus they messed around with ineffectual things like casseroles and there is some truth in that. But, while we are getting round to coming to our senses and coming to God for help, there's a lot to be said for reaching out to people in a loving practical way. "By their casseroles, ye shall know them" - as the King James Version almost certainly never says.

Sustain

Even to your old age and grey hairs
    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
    I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Isaiah 46 4 

My personal belief, for which I have no evidence other than that of my own eyes, is that God seems to like to give himself elbow room to work with people. Although nano second miracles are possible, he seems to lead people slowly and purposefully to the place they need to be. Answers to prayer can seem to be painfully slow and tortuous. Sometimes you look at where you have arrived and although you are not sure how you got there, you see that God has sustained and rescued - in that order.

We may not be able to get what we want immediately, we may need to actually go though that thing we have asked not to go through. But through those times, God has promised to sustain. I think maybe we need to be careful that we take the temporary sustenance that God gives us and not reject it because it isn't the big deal we were looking for. Once, in a period of financial tightness, (dead skint as we say up north) God sent us money to pay for some stuff that we needed. My attitude was one of panic, hold on to the dosh, don't spend it, who knows what is in the future. HOH said - "You are in danger of not using the manna that God has sent for this." He was annoyingly right.

The sustaining and the carrying come first followed by the rescue. Lots of sustaining, lots of rescues. In the small things, in the big things. All our lives. Until we are old and grey.

More Hall

So apparently this is leaking viewers like an old leaky thing in a leaky shop. It is up against Midsomer Murders (and I am a bit partial to that sort of thing myself to be honest) but we are still with it - big time. 

Someone at work said it is too slow but I think that's why I like it, being quite a slow person myself. I like the richness and the three-dimensiony (not a word I know) way that it has, It is quite scary too, knowing as we do that it not exactly a Disney-like. Happy endings are hard to come by here. Henry has turned on Anne Boleyn and it is all very tense. Rylance now looks more and more like the Holbein portrait all the time. I am getting a very tight posterior just sitting here.

A Bit Lost

Sorry all. I am not sure quite what happened with the T'Internet. I thought I had put a blog up and then it wasn't there and then some comments flew the nest as well. I am wrestling manfully with a new laptop and losing most of the time so it's probably my fault. Never mind - all seems to be ok now. 

Anyway, just calling in to let you know I am really enjoying The Silkworm from JK Rowling which has just gone into paperback. (Daughter's gap year job at Waterstones bookshop paying off at last - bought this for me half price)  She is a really talented writer of stories I think. All those years writing Harry Potter and it was almost as if it wasn't that difficult because it was a children's story (this is quite obviously rubbish) and here she is proving that she is dead clever by creating a really good detective series for adults as well. Genius. (I never liked her) 

There is nothing on at the pictures except for half term kids films and Fifty Shades of Grey and though I bow to no one in my admiration for Paddington I have seen it already. The less said about 50 Shades the better. Leaving behind all the very deep debates about submissive relationships , it just seems me like whoever is marketing this is having the time of their lives just counting the money. 

We are still talking at Towards Belief every Monday night in Costa Coffee. The idea is to talk about things that have stopped people believing such as religious violence, miracles, abuse in the church etc. Really big deals and it is all very interesting. The more we talk though, the more I get to believe that what is needed most is a work of the Spirit. We can talk till we are blue in the face but I think that it is God that warms the heart. (This is not an advert for Calvinism - it is just me thinking that without God, talking doesn't cut it) Still, am enjoying the company of the people there and I get a free cup of tea as well so Hurrah for evangelism, that's what I say!

Selma

To the pictures to see Selma. Cannot recommend enough. Really cannot. David Oyelowo is outstanding as Martin Luther King. But then everyone is outstanding - Tom Wilkinson as President Johnson, Tim Roth as George Wallace. (Brits playing the 3 pivotal roles funnily enough) There is a lot of guff talked about "important films" but this is very important. It's not always an easy watch, containing as it does the violent attacks on the marches from Selma to Montgomery to demand the vote, but it is a fantastic film. 

There has been some controversy about the lack of Oscar nominations for this movie. I really cannot understand why the Academy has ignored it. On top of it having an outstanding central performance, in a way it was also one of America's finest hours. I don't mean the violence and intimidation against black people but the fact that, in the end, most Americans were so horrfied by the violence that they saw on screen, that the legislation was passed and all blocks removed to black people voting. They didn't ignore what was happening. 
Of course it was complicated and messy and good things came out of polital expediency almost accidentally and no-one got to wear the knight in shinning amour suit but things did change. The references to Ferguson at the end of the film are a reminder of how far everyone still has to go but this is a great film about a great cause. In my humble opinion, you need to go and see it.