“It has been a sacrifice but Armonizar is my family and with their help and my faith in God, I have the courage and strength to believe that everything is possible”

These words were spoken by Rosa, a woman I met in Peru in early March.

Meeting her and her son Francis in early March, has been the dominant image for me, this Lent.

Rosa lives in desperate poverty in Lima, and her son Francis – pictured, was born not only with a cleft lip and palate but also a malformed face, due to a syndrome. She has been helped by Armonizar, an organisation which receives support from Transforming Faces Worldwide, a charity with which I am involved.

She is a single mother of two, without a supportive family, who has struggled ceaselessly to find treatment for Francis. She has used great ingenuity and determination against overwhelming odds, confronting an almost complete lack of provision or concern in the system. It took years for his palate to even be identified, let alone repaired but there are not even the facilities in the country to operate on some aspects of his condition. It will be difficult but it can happen.

Sometimes I feel, perhaps we all feel, that life can be overwhelming, a struggle to meet its challenges which keep coming, and don’t go away.

Rosa shows me what courage and faith in God can mean. Her words inspire and challenge me. Her faith calls out to mine and to others.

Lucas, one of the leaders of Armonizar told me, “when you give a little finger to God, he takes your whole arm”.

Jesus emerged from the desert, not just having had a time of reflection, but with a new purpose and direction.

Lent is over for the year – what new directions are waiting for you?

did jesus,
being god,
know that it would come out right?
as he stood,
his rigidity involuntary
did he know he had
a window in his diary
between friday and sunday,
brief and delimited,
for death?
did he know
that god was in his heaven,
in charge
in control
and that these present sufferings
counted as nothing?

or did jesus,
being human,
doubt?

as he hung there,
his life draining away,
did he face the abyss
and see himself
a speck,
beyond the attention of god?
did he reach the limit
of his self-
and his Self-belief?
did the idea
that he would save the world
appear the supreme egotism?
did the
fear
panic
abandonment
overwhelm him?
did he wish he’d settled down,
had a kid,
joined the family business
(the other family business)?
my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?

the unassumed is the unhealed
said gregory of nazianzus
(clever bloke).

i find the answer to these questions
when i look into myself
and see
poverty of faith
frailty of conviction
bare flickering of hope
and selfishness of ambition.
how could anyone save me
without taking these human experiences
and annealing them in the fire of god?

where, o death, is your sting?
close now.

I finished work for the Easter break this evening and Easter Day is beginning to hover on the horizon. Lent is supposed to be a time of preparation - but am I ready. I still have a few days left - but as ever the temptation of empty days has been to fill them with people to see and things to do.

But on Sunday I will gather with a few others to celebrate the Resurrection and to share a meal. And whether I am ready or not God will be ready - and Easter will be here.

It feels that the community in which I work is becoming increasingly, desperately, fanatically obsessed by making Christmas bigger, brighter and badder each year.
Easter, on the other hand, is generally ignored.
At times I enjoy the space this provides, at other times it just seems the wrong way around.

It's good when a little boy makes something that makes sense of it all to him and feeds many conversations.

This Easter...

Deep peace of the running wave to you;
deep peace of the flowing air to you;
deep peace of the quiet earth to you;
deep peace of the shining stars to you;
deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.

celtic blessing

I’m writing in a cold-induced stupor, with a heavy, wobbly, clogged-up head. Sparing any more gory detail, suffice it to say that the past few days of a cold have not put me in the reflective, spiritual, contemplative mood I wanted to cultivate during Holy Week.

I considered skipping my blog post, because I wasn’t up to it. I felt like I couldn’t come up with anything thoughtful enough, because all I want to do these days is curl up under a blanket and sleep or watch mindless television. And that doesn’t seem deep enough for Lent.

Suddenly I realised that that was the point. I didn’t feel good enough, able to perform well enough. I am not up to the task in front of me. That is the exact point of Lent. Our Lenten disciplines only serve to illustrate (especially for those of us who’ve failed in them) that Lent is not about being “good enough for God” once in the year.

All of our disciplines, self-examination, reflection, confession and penance are not points scored with God. Whether we succeed or fail in our Lenten disciplines, the point of them is not to prove to God that we are good enough. The love of God is not something we earn by being good enough. It has been given to us freely, when we have not earned or deserved it. God’s love for us is forever proven on the cross, in the events which we remember this week.

So, I write to remind myself not that I’m good enough, but that His love is constant. For tonight at least, I shall go to bed letting the comfort of God’s love push through my clogged head. What else would be different in my life if I stopped caring about being good enough?