Start:Stop - Blessings found in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties

Bible reading

‘… a thorn was given me in the flesh … Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.’ (2 Corinthians 12. 7 - 10)

Reflection

‘In the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, writer and academic John Hull lost his sight. To help him make sense of the ensuing upheaval in his life, he began to keep an audio diary. Across three years, he created over 16 hours of material; these recordings would form a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness.’

‘Based on these original recordings and his published diaries ‘Touching the Rock’, [the film] Notes on Blindness recreates Hull’s fascinating and deeply moving experiences through an immersive hybrid of documentary, dramatic reconstruction and highly sensory cinematic techniques and sound design. Sensitive, poetic and thought-provoking, the film charts Hull’s journey through emotional turmoil and spiritual crisis to a renewed perception of the world and the discovery of ‘a world beyond sight’.’ ‘In a John Newton moment of amazing grace, an overwhelmed Hull stands among towering pillars to full organ accompaniment. He tells Marilyn of an intense feeling that God was approaching him. “It’s a gift. Not a gift I want but it is a gift. Not why I got it but what am I going to do with it?”’

‘We travel with Hull farther and farther into the world, or non-world, of blindness, until finally he comes to a point where he can no longer summon up memories of faces, of places, even memories of the light. This is the bend in the tunnel: beyond this is “deep blindness.” And yet at this deepest, darkest, most despairing point, there comes a mysterious change—no longer an agonized sense of loss, of bereftness, of hopelessness, of mourning, but a new sense of life and creativity and identity. “One must recreate one’s life or be destroyed,” Hull writes, and it is precisely re-creation, the creation of an entirely new organization and identity, which is described in the closing pages of his astonishing book. At this point, then, Hull wonders if blindness is not “a dark, paradoxical gift” and an entry—unsought … but to be received—into a new and deep form of being.’

In reflecting on the nature of that gift, John Hull said that, ‘After living with it and meditating on it for some time, I realized that blindness is not just a loss but it is one of the great human states which have characteristics of its own.’

‘My works, are, in a way, a yearning to overcome the abyss which divides blind people from sighted people. In seeking to overcome that abyss I've emphasized the uniqueness of the blind condition—blindness is a world. I've also sought to show that it's one of a number of human worlds. That sight is also a world. And that to gain our full humanity, blind people and sighted people need each other.’

St Paul and John Hull challenge us to search for the gifts and blessings to be found in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Prayer

God of grace, you know our weaknesses and failings, and that without your help we can accomplish nothing for the good of souls, our own and others. Grant us, therefore, the help of your grace. Grant it according to our particular needs this day. Enable us to see the tasks you will set before us in the daily routine of our lives, and help us work hard at our appointed tasks. Teach us to bear patiently all the trials of suffering or failure that may come to us today. May we know your grace is sufficient for us, for power is made perfect in weakness.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Eternal God, Light of the nations, in Christ you make all things new: guide our nation in the coming General Election through the inspiration of your Spirit, that understanding may put an end to discord and all bitterness. Give us grace to rebuild bonds of trust that together we may work for the dignity and flourishing of all. Grant Your gifts of wisdom and compassion to those who are standing as candidates, giving them a commitment to seek the good of all people and a desire to protect people who are weak and vulnerable. Free us from all bitterness and recrimination and in all things grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can and wisdom to know the difference.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Almighty God, through your Holy Spirit you created unity in the midst of diversity; we acknowledge that human diversity is an expression of your manifold love for your creation; we confess that in our brokenness as human beings we turn diversity into a source of alienation, injustice, oppression, and wounding. Empower us to recognize and celebrate differences as your great gift to the human family. Enable us to be the architects of understanding, of respect and love.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Blessing

May Christ, who out of defeat brings new hope and a new future, fill you with his new life; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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The Call - What's Happened To You.

Notes on Blindness: A more inclusive future for VOD

The acclaimed film Notes On Blindness (which was screened last week at St Martin-in-the-Fields as part of our 'Prophets & Seers' weekend), is now available on DVD and also to stream on Curzon Home Cinema, Virgin Media and the BFI Player. Not only is the film available with subtitles, but it also comes with a range of different audio tracks specially designed for blind and partially sighted audiences. Charlie Lyne suggests in The Guardian that the film's exemplary package points towards a more inclusive future for Video On Demand.

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Leonard Cohen - Treaty.

Reality reshaped by disability

Day two of Prophets & Seers, a weekend of events exploring disability and church at St Martin-in-the-Fields began with a Eucharist and healing service for St Luke’s Day reflecting on the themes of the weekend and using liturgy written by St Martin’s Disability Advisory Group and Healing Team. The service included the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, accompanied by prayers for healing for individuals, someone else or the wider world. A screening of the acclaimed documentary film Notes on Blindness also took place in St Martin’s Hall. The film is based on John Hull’s audio diaries, as he reflected on his journey into blindness. Joining us for the screening were the filmmakers and Marilyn Hull.

Here is my sermon from the St Luke's Day Eucharist:

 

Our symbol for this year's weekend of events exploring disability and church is that of ripples on a lake. This weekend we are celebrating five years of conferences on disability and church organised by St Martin's and Inclusive Church, whilst also celebrating the profound influence of the theologian John Hull, who spoke in past years at the conference, and who died last year. The image of ripples was chosen to represent the rippling out of influences from the conference, John Hull and our own Disability Advisory Group.

I want to use that same image in a different way this morning. In the novel ‘The Book of Questions’ by Edmond Jabès, a rabbi speaks of ripples on a lake as representing a face with marks, wrinkles or wounds which reflects the face of God. If we understand the image of ripples in that way then we can make a connection between the image and the story of Jacob, from today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 32. 22 - 32). Jacob’s story is of a journey from a selfish and ambitious focus on himself to a place of valuing relationships and the founding of a nation, where the moment of transition involves a disabling experience after wrestling with God. He carried the marks of that experience with him as he limped into a period of his life that had significance for the many, rather than the few. His disability reflected the work of God in his life.

This morning I want to explore how our reality can be reshaped by disability by comparing and contrasting the story of Jacob with that of two writers who both wrestled with God in relation to their experience of disability. The first of these, Jack Clemo, was one of the most extraordinary poets of the twentieth century. Although not as widely recognised as he should be, the 100th anniversary of his birth, in the heart of Cornwall’s China Clay Country, has been rightly celebrated this year.

Jack became deaf at the age of nineteen and blind in his thirties. These experiences of disability which combined with his rural location and his strong Evangelical faith, which was at odds with an increasingly secularized Britain, all served to make him an isolated outsider calling out ‘from the margins.’ His is a poetry which has power as he finds words to articulate his condition and convictions in his experience of marginalisation.

He used the landscape of the clayworks where he lived for much of his life - a landscape that had been violently shaped by industrial working - as a metaphor for the invading Gospel of Christ. His focus was on ‘the innate sinful condition of ‘nature,’ sin having warped nature just as much as humankind, with only God’s intervention able to restore the intended state of grace. As a result, he ‘believed his own suffering’ (for that was how he viewed his disabilities) ‘was necessary, but only as evidence for the crucial purification of original sin.’ So he declared that suffering (meaning his experience of disability) ‘in itself had taught me nothing; it had merely created the conditions in which joy could teach me, and so it could never be the last word or even the vitalizing word in my Christian adventure.’

Jack believed that God would invade his isolation by giving him the threefold happiness of healing, marriage and success as an Evangelical poet. As a result, he made few attempts to live with his disabilities, refusing to learn braille for example, and wrote some poetry which seems critical of those who chose to live with the experience of disability rather than seeking cure through God's invasive power. He achieved a measure of success as a poet and also married in his 50’s, but, despite much prayer for healing over many years and many moments when he thought healing had come, never experienced the physical healing which he fervently sought. His biographer, Luke Thompson, writes that ‘However we interpret Jack’s beliefs about the role of God in his life, they seem wrong. Over and over again, his statements and expectations were disproved; the signs and patterns perceived were incorrect; God’s promises were broken. It would be possible to construct a picture of a divinity working through Jack’s life, but it would require a complete renegotiation of the terms.’ That is, in part, because Jack only valued his disabilities as an arena in which God could demonstrate his healing powers to an unbelieving world.

By contrast we can consider the experience of the John Hull who, in the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, lost his sight. ‘To help him make sense of the ensuing upheaval in his life, he began to keep an audio diary. Across three years, he created a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness.’ ‘Based on these original recordings and his published diaries ‘Touching the Rock’, [the film] Notes on Blindness recreates his ‘journey through emotional turmoil and spiritual crisis to a renewed perception of the world and the discovery of ‘a world beyond sight’.’

In the book and film we travel with John Hull ‘farther and farther into the world … of blindness, until finally he comes to a point where he can no longer summon up memories of faces, of places, even memories of the light. This is the bend in the tunnel: beyond this is “deep blindness.” And yet at this … darkest … point, there comes a mysterious change—no longer an agonized sense of loss … but a new sense of life and creativity and identity. “One must recreate one’s life or be destroyed,” Hull writes, and it is precisely re-creation, the creation of an entirely new organization and identity, which [he] described ... At this point … [he] wonders if blindness is not “a dark, paradoxical gift” and an entry—unsought … but to be received—into a new and deep form of being.’ In reflecting on the nature of that gift, John said that, ‘After living with it and meditating on it for some time, I realized that blindness is not just a loss but it is one of the great human states which have characteristics of its own.’

‘My works,’ he wrote, ‘are … a yearning to overcome the abyss which divides blind people from sighted people. In seeking to overcome that abyss I've emphasized the uniqueness of the blind condition—blindness is a world. I've also sought to show that it's one of a number of human worlds. That sight is also a world. And that to gain our full humanity, blind people and sighted people need each other’. As a result, before his untimely death last year, John called on disabled people to challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry based on their own lived experience.

Both Jack Clemo and John Hull wrestled with God as a result of their experiences of disability. Jack increasingly wrestled with the reality that he had not been healed. His struggle was with God’s failure to grant to him the supernatural transformation that he desired and this desire and struggle left him isolated and lacking in solidarity with other disabled people. Because he viewed his disabilities as an arena in which God would demonstrate his power to cure, he did not explore the dimensions of the worlds of blindness and deafness that he inhabited or their potential for relationship preferring to remain waiting independently for rescue from those worlds. As a result, he was personally dependent on those around him and his poetry became strident and simplistic when he reasserted his belief in a cure that he was not receiving.

John, by contrast, recognised that he had been given the gift of experiencing the world of blindness realising that it is a world to inhabit, not to seek to leave, and his wrestling with God was the wrestle to reshape his reality, to receive a new and right spirit to trust that in the midst of the world of blindness, truth will be experienced and shared. He realised that, as a result of his twin experiences, he was able to speak into the worlds of blind and sighted people and emphasise their need of one another.

How do these stories relate to Jacob’s experience of wrestling with God? Jacob divided his family on the basis of his own ambition buying his elder brother Esau’s birthright and tricking his dying Father into giving a blessing that also belonged by right to his brother. While primarily selfish in a way that was not the case for Jack Clemo, his independent isolation does have similarities with Jack’s isolation and independent vocation. Jacob then wanted to be reconciled to Esau but was worried that Esau’s reaction toward him would be aggressive, so he set up a series of gifts for Esau and spent an anxious night wrestling with God. His experience of wrestling with God was a liminal moment in his life, a rite of transition from an essentially self-centred individualistic existence to become forefather to a people who, like the sand on the seashore, could not be numbered. This change involved crossing a boundary (the river Yabbok), struggling (with God) and naming (as Jacob became known as the Patriarch to Israel, the people who struggle with God). He limped away from this experience but went with God’s blessing, so his experience of change and transition was both disabling and a blessing. His reality was reshaped, enabling him to receive the generous act of reconciliation which his brother afforded him the next day.

Like John Hull, Jacob found his disabling experience to be one through which he gained a greater understanding of himself, his role, his destiny, his people, his world and his God. The result, as for John, was renewed relationships. Unlike Jack, who thought cure would demonstrate God’s reality and who, therefore, separated himself from other disabled people, Jacob and John experienced disability as the threshold to re-creation, renewal and relationship. That is a deeper, fuller experience of healing and a greater demonstration of God’s reality and presence. To return to the image with which we began, the marks of their experiences reflected the face of God.

John Hull taught that blind people and sighted people, disabled people and non-disabled people need each other. That realisation begins as disabled people challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry based on their own lived experience. The Greek poet Tasos Leivaditis has described just such a moment of realisation and so I end with his prose-poem ‘The Blind Man and the Lamp’:

‘IT WAS NIGHT and I had made the greatest decision of
the century — I would save humanity — but how? — as
thousands of thoughts were tormenting me I heard footsteps,
opened the door and beheld the blind man from the opposite
room walking down the hallway and holding a lamp — he
was about to go down the stairs — ‘What is he doing with
the lamp?’, I asked myself and suddenly an idea flashed
through my mind — I found the answer — ‘My dear brother,’
I said to him, ‘God has sent you,’
and with zeal we both got down to work . . .’

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Mahalia Jackson - There Is A Balm In Gilead.

Prophets & Seers

Prophets and Seers: 5th Annual Conference on Disability and Church in partnership with Inclusive Church, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 4JJ. Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 October 2016.

This annual conference is not merely about disabled people but is organised by and for disabled people, supporters and people with an interest in issues around disability. Over the two-day event participants can listen to speakers, join in small group discussions and take part in events including a screening of the film Notes on Blindness. Organised by St Martin-in the Fields and Inclusive Church, the 2016 conference takes its inspiration from Professor John Hull, a long term supporter of this event, who called disabled people to challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry.

Saturday 15 October 10.30am-4.30pm in St Martin’s Hall
Prophets and Seers: Calling from the Edge

Day 1 includes speakers and small group discussions to explore the issues arising from their talks and consider how we can resource each other and the church. Speakers include:

· Ann Memmott, who is autistic, author of the guidelines for autism for the Church of England and an autism adviser to churches and organisations throughout the country

· Emily Jane Richardson, a tweeter and blogger

· Fr Alex Gowing-Cumber, a self-supporting Anglican priest, artist, life coach and soul companion, chaplain and creative therapist for adults with learning disabilities or dementia.

The day also features a silent space, a marketplace, panel discussion and liturgy, with a range of contributors including Rev Tim Goode, Southwark Diocesan Disability Advisor, Rev Dr June Boyce Tillman MBE, Professor of Applied Music, University of Winchester, composer, hymn writer and priest; Miriam Hodson expert by experience, mental health consultant and play therapist; Fiona MacMillan, chair of the Disability Advisory Group at St Martin-in-the Fields and a trustee of Inclusive Church; Revd Jonathan Evens, Associate Vicar for Partnerships at St Martin-in-the-Fields and Priest-in-charge at St Stephen Walbrook, and Bob Callaghan, National Coordinator, Inclusive Church

Tickets are £20 | £10 concessions and are available from http://inclusive-church.org/disability-conference.

Sunday 16 October Prophets and Seers: Calling to the Heart
10.00am-11.30am in church

On Day 2 all are welcome in church at 10.00am for a Eucharist and healing service for St Luke’s Day reflecting on the themes of the weekend and using liturgy written by St Martin’s Disability Advisory Group and Healing Team. The service includes the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, accompanied by prayers for healing for yourself, someone else or the wider world.

No tickets are required for the service.

Notes on Blindness
2.00pm-4.30pm in St Martin’s Hall

A screening of the acclaimed documentary film Notes on Blindness will take place in St Martin’s Hall. The film is based on John Hull’s audio diaries, as he reflected on his journey into blindness. Joining us for the screening are the filmmakers and Marilyn Hull. To book your free film ticket, please go to prophetsandseers.eventbrite.co.uk.

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The Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus - The Parable (of the Singing Ringing Tree).

Prophets & Seers: 5th Annual Conference on Disability and Church

Prophets & Seers: 5th Annual Conference on Disability and Church, in partnership with Inclusive Church. Saturday 15 October and Sunday 16 October. St Martin’s Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The conference is organised by and for disabled people, supporters and people with an interest in these issues. On Saturday join us in St Martin’s Hall from 10.30am-4.30pm for speakers, small group discussions, a marketplace and silent space. Tickets are £20, £10 concessions and are available from http://inclusive-church.org/disability-conference.

All are welcome on Sunday in church at 10.00am for a Eucharist and healing service for St Luke’s Day. The service reflects on the themes of the weekend and includes the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, accompanied by prayers for healing. No tickets are required for the service.

Later on Sunday in St Martin’s Hall from 2.00pm – 4.30pm there is a screening of the acclaimed documentary film Notes on Blindness. The film is based on John Hull’s audio diaries, as he reflected on his journey into blindness. Joining us for the screening are the filmmakers and Marilyn Hull.

To book your free film ticket, please go to prophetsandseers.eventbrite.co.uk.

Download the full conference flyer here.

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River City People - Say Something Good.

Start:Stop - Gifts found in difficulties

Bible reading

‘… a thorn was given me in the flesh … Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.’ (2 Corinthians 12. 7 - 10)

Reflection

‘In the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, writer and academic John Hull lost his sight. To help him make sense of the ensuing upheaval in his life, he began to keep an audio diary. Across three years, he created over 16 hours of material; these recordings would form a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness.’

‘Based on these original recordings and his published diaries ‘Touching the Rock’, [the film] Notes on Blindness recreates Hull’s fascinating and deeply moving experiences through an immersive hybrid of documentary, dramatic reconstruction and highly sensory cinematic techniques and sound design. Sensitive, poetic and thought-provoking, the film charts Hull’s journey through emotional turmoil and spiritual crisis to a renewed perception of the world and the discovery of ‘a world beyond sight’.’ ‘In a John Newton moment of amazing grace, an overwhelmed Hull stands among towering pillars to full organ accompaniment. He tells Marilyn of an intense feeling that God was approaching him. “It’s a gift. Not a gift I want but it is a gift. Not why I got it but what am I going to do with it?”’

‘We travel with Hull farther and farther into the world, or non-world, of blindness, until finally he comes to a point where he can no longer summon up memories of faces, of places, even memories of the light. This is the bend in the tunnel: beyond this is “deep blindness.” And yet at this deepest, darkest, most despairing point, there comes a mysterious change—no longer an agonized sense of loss, of bereftness, of hopelessness, of mourning, but a new sense of life and creativity and identity. “One must recreate one’s life or be destroyed,” Hull writes, and it is precisely re-creation, the creation of an entirely new organization and identity, which is described in the closing pages of his astonishing book. At this point, then, Hull wonders if blindness is not “a dark, paradoxical gift” and an entry—unsought … but to be received—into a new and deep form of being.’

In reflecting on the nature of that gift, John Hull said that, ‘After living with it and meditating on it for some time, I realized that blindness is not just a loss but it is one of the great human states which have characteristics of its own.’

‘My works, are, in a way, a yearning to overcome the abyss which divides blind people from sighted people. In seeking to overcome that abyss I've emphasized the uniqueness of the blind condition—blindness is a world. I've also sought to show that it's one of a number of human worlds. That sight is also a world. And that to gain our full humanity, blind people and sighted people need each other.’

St Paul and John Hull challenge us to search for the gifts and blessings to be found in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Prayer

God of grace, you know our weaknesses and failings, and that without your help we can accomplish nothing for the good of souls, our own and others. Grant us, therefore, the help of your grace. Grant it according to our particular needs this day. Enable us to see the tasks you will set before us in the daily routine of our lives, and help us work hard at our appointed tasks. Teach us to bear patiently all the trials of suffering or failure that may come to us today. May we know your grace is sufficient for us, for power is made perfect in weakness.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Eternal God, Light of the nations, in Christ you make all things new: guide our nation in the coming days through the inspiration of your Spirit, that understanding may put an end to discord and all bitterness. Give us grace to rebuild bonds of trust that together we may work for the dignity and flourishing of all. Grant Your gifts of wisdom and compassion to those who will be involved in the coming negotiations, together with a commitment to seek the good of all people and a desire to protect people who are weak and vulnerable. Free us from all bitterness and recrimination and in all things grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can and wisdom to know the difference.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Almighty God, through your Holy Spirit you created unity in the midst of diversity; we acknowledge that human diversity is an expression of your manifold love for your creation; we confess that in our brokenness as human beings we turn diversity into a source of alienation, injustice, oppression, and wounding. Empower us to recognize and celebrate differences as your great gift to the human family. Enable us to be the architects of understanding, of respect and love.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Blessing

May Christ, who out of defeat brings new hope and a new future, fill you with his new life; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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Nickel Creek - Out Of The Woods.