Just over a year ago, Stella and I drove out of Hull for the very last time as residents, and struck out west to traverse the entire length of the M62 to journey’s end in Liverpool. It was the culmination of months of discerning, thinking, praying, discussing, agonising, interviews, phone calls, packing, sorting, throwing away, and cleaning. Not to mention the many emotional goodbyes. We were driving away from a very familiar place to, literally, another place. My emotions were a jumble as we drove along: a degree of wistfulness as I recalled so many happy memories of the previous two decades in the Hull area, regrets at the ‘banana-skins’ where I’d slipped up or let others down, excitement at what the new life in Liverpool would hold, and some apprehension as to how it would all pan out. Looking back, I can honestly say that it has been a wonderful and exhilarating year, Covid-19 notwithstanding. The welcome from everyone at the ‘Red Rose’ end of the M62 has been so warm and embracing, for which you have my sincere thanks. This once ‘other place’ has become the place that truthfully I am pleased to call home. The process of transitioning from a familiar place to another place is something that we all go through in one way or another on multiple occasions in our lives. Moving house is an obvious trigger, but it can happen in many other ways too. When someone close to us dies, life is never the same again, and suddenly we wake up and find ourselves in unfamiliar territory. Many of the daily and weekly patterns of life that involved that person have disappeared and often there is a yawning chasm. Memories of the once-familiar are both comforting and distressing; comforting because they remind us of good times and happy moments in the past, but distressing because we know that we can never re-live them in the present and future. A recent return to Crosby Beach, after months without visiting it during lockdown, stirred all this stuff in my mind. Perhaps that is what the artist Antony Gormley intended with his ‘Another Place’ art installation? Although I doubt that he could have foreseen someone (it wasn’t me honest) bedecking one of his ‘Iron Men’ with a face mask! Perhaps he would have approved, however, as evidence that people are interacting with the art-work to pass some comment about the current situation. The irony, I thought, is that the Iron Men are well and truly socially distanced! What struck me though, is that our slow and laborious journey out from lockdown into a post-Covid world is a bit like travelling to ‘another place’. Some of the same emotions that I felt on driving along the M62 a year ago will be played out in each of our lives. There will be joy at recalling happy memories of the past pre-Covid days, perhaps mingled with regrets. There will be excitement as we re-connect with family, friends and special places, mingled with apprehension that the spectre of contagion will cast a shadow over our joie de vivre for a long time to come. Mountains of literature have been written about transitioning, its different stages and the impacts that they have on each one of us. I am no scholar, I should add, but one of the most famous theories is that there are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Whilst we are all different, the suggestion is that we all experience these in some form. So it is well to be alert to that as we all transition into the ‘new normal’ over the next few months and years and as we seek ways to handle that and grow through it. If it results in someone putting a disposable mask on an Iron Man, then perhaps that’s quite a therapeutic thing to do! Judging by the numbers of footprints in the sand, it has drawn the attention of many people. Looking back on this time last year, I was so grateful that I was not alone in that place of transition. Stella was sat beside me in the car. To have companionship through any process of transition is indeed a great gift. Yet I realise that there are many of you who feel very isolated just at the very time when you are journeying to another place. My prayer is that you find in us at Liverpool Cathedral fellow travellers in whose company you can feel accepted and comfortable. One of our vision statements is for Liverpool Cathedral to offer a safe and generous place, in joy and sorrow. The process of journeying from a familiar place to another place inevitably throws up all kinds of joys and sorrows. So please seek us out, on-line or by phone at present, or in a visit for private prayer to the Lady Chapel. That way, we can travel alongside each other. Don’t be like the Iron Men, standing in isolation, each apparently contemplating their own past, present and future. Rather, let’s be pilgrims together to another place – whatever that other place may be. Canon Neal While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.
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Tuesday was Global Forgiveness day. It is a day set aside to think about making amends with people and to set things right. Forgiveness is not an easy concept or an easy thing to do. Forgiveness cannot be imposed or demanded, neither does it have a time scale. People who have been through awful experiences will grieve in their own time and in their own way. I have often admired those people that can say they forgive a person when they have murdered or harmed a family member. For me the act of forgiving takes time. I know from my own life experiences that when I have been hurt by someone it takes me a lot of time and in some cases it can take me years to forgive. You cannot just turn forgiveness on and off. Jesus talks to us on a number of occasions about forgiveness. In the Gospel of Matthew Peter comes to Jesus and asks how many times he should forgive his neighbour and Jesus replies seventy time seven. Every day we pray the Lord’s Prayer and in that prayer we prayer ‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’ Forgiveness is not one way. As C. S. Lewis once said ‘forgiveness needs to be accepted as well as offered, if it is to be complete.’ We need then to think about how we forgive others who hurt us and also how we accept forgiveness from others. It is so easy to say sorry, but to be really sorry and to be really forgiven is a journey that is entered into by two three or four parties and can take a life-time. Every day, every week we have the opportunity to seek forgiveness for the things we have done wrong. We have the opportunity in the liturgy of the church to lay before God what we have done wrong and to seek forgiveness. As Martin Luther King once said: ‘forgiveness is not an occasional act it is a permeant attitude.’ Dean Sue While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. Oh but at times surely one can grumble! Since the easing of the restrictions on our living conditions I have to admit that with the best will in the world there are a number of matters about which I get a little cross.
Canon Bob While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. When I was a parish priest, I recall a cheeky young server who once made a remark about me which if it was a bit unkind, it certainly wasn’t untrue. After church one morning, a member of the congregation said in his hearing that it could be difficult to contact me. My young friend said to her, ‘Just go and wait outside the food department at Marks and Spencer’s and he’s sure to come along soon!’ If I listed my leisure activities, shopping would be fairly high on the agenda, and I find it hard to believe that four months has gone by since I last darkened the doors of that excellent emporium. I have found out that they deliver on line, a life-enhancing discovery, but still not quite the same. This weekend, I have put this right and made my first trip into the city centre. I went as early as possible to avoid any crowds. I was apprehensive, but now that the official advice is moving towards us taking personal responsibility, this seemed a proportionate step to take. I didn’t linger, and as I am not yet ready to make use of my bus pass, I didn’t want to be like Delaney’s donkey on the homeward trip up the blessed hill to the Cathedral, which seems to get steeper with every passing year! Later this month it will be possible for us to worship together once more in the great space of our Cathedral. Some of us will feel able to be there in person while others will feel that this joyful moment must still lie in the future. Each of us should make that decision responsibly for ourselves. It may help to know that from Monday 20th July, the daily celebration of Holy Communion from Monday to Saturday will resume at 12.05pm and it will be held in the main space, so social distance will be easy to maintain. This may be a stepping stone for some who might be apprehensive about Sunday just for now. Those who still need to remain at home will be glad to know that the recorded services will continue to be available in the coming weeks. Arrangements for booking your attendance are on the Cathedral website, and whenever you come to join us, you know we will be really glad to welcome you! Canon Myles While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. My dearest mother had always been ill – from my earliest memories of her to her final day. And even that wasn’t the full story – for her health difficulties were there from aged seven, until she died, just shy of eighty-five. As a young boy, I remember accompanying her to some of her many clinic appointments; long trips on the bus and then walking into the centre of Manchester from where we lived on the outskirts. The sweet treats I would get from the doctors and nurses there, whilst my mum saw the many healthcare professionals. Mum saw so many throughout her life, that there was a standing joke – if she needed treatment in a different hospital, her notes were probably taken in the back of a van, there were so many volumes of them! I guess in today’s digital currency, she would have a whole cloud to herself! I guess that was the main trigger for me; to respond to a vocation within healthcare – a desire to find a cure for mum. Even though I didn’t end up in that area of medicine, when the calling came to a scientific life of helping cancer patients, it still resonated with a longing to help and care for people. For my entire professional life, that calling has been either within or associated with the NHS…for nearly 50 per cent of its actual existence. For even when I was studying and training for the church in theological college, I was still active within my scientific societies and part of a national committee on radiotherapy and oncology – the one I chair now for the British Institute of Radiology; the oldest institute of its kind in the world. So, the NHS has been and still is a major part of my life – now primarily in teaching, training and developing those working in radiotherapy, mainly in our NHS. And it is round about this time that our graduates would be in the Philharmonic Hall, receiving their well-earned degrees and most then going off to start work in the NHS. However, because of the effects of the pandemic and the huge draw on NHS resources over the last few months – an effort we should all be immensely grateful for – some have actually already started work; employed under special conditions to get on the treatment front line early. So, our congratulations go to them already in numerous ways – as we have all saluted the unstinting hard work which has happened and actually, within cancer services, is about to increase dramatically….as the backlog in referrals and treatments is addressed. But the work they do isn’t just a clinical job – it is more than that. In many news stories we have seen front-line workers being clinical AND spiritual support; holding the hands of dying patients, just when it was needed most – becoming surrogate ‘family’ because true family members sadly could not be there. The love and care which they bring to their patients, whoever they are, is paramount; it is spiritual; it is loving in all its various forms. And for the most part it stems from themselves, who they are – distinctive, compassionate, individual….in much the same way that we know from our faith that Jesus was. His ministry was always there with love first, with compassion, with tears, with care. As part of the graduation ceremony for the healthcare professions, they all declare an oath; similar to the original Hippocratic oath, but with newer touches specific for the universal, inclusive society that we are, that we should be….that our faith calls us to be. It’s called the Declaration of Geneva, and I leave it with you – to reflect upon….but also to compare with our own faith, and perhaps ourselves to learn from the world around us – for the world around us is God’s world; all of it. Consider the words, and feel the deep, spiritual sense underlying it, especially in the language used….recognising it is for those of all faiths, and none; for all professionals. At the time of being admitted as a member of the medical profession:
With my love and prayers for you all, as always…. Canon Mike While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. Theology really does matter. As its name suggests, theology is about God (the Greek word Theos means God). But theology is not just about God, it is about the science of what it means to be human. In Christian theology human beings are created in the image of God. We can learn about God by taking humanity seriously. We can learn what it means to be human by taking God seriously. As our world discusses what the new normal could be like, as it tries to recover from the pandemic, it is worth ensuring that theologians are there around the table. As theologians we have something to say that is important. The real point is that all of us who take God seriously are theologians. All of us who meet together (online as much as offline), where the Word of God is explored in the Liturgy of the Word, and where the Bread of Life is shared in the Liturgy of the Sacrament, are called to be theologians. As theologians all of us have something to say that is important. So what can we learn by taking humanity seriously? We can see how the image of God bestowed in creation has been dulled and damaged by human disobedience. We can see how the saving grace of Christ holds out the offer for that image to be restored, as our souls feast on the Word of God and on the Bread of Life. All of us who take God seriously have something to say as theologians about what the new normal could be like. In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus once again reveals his deep insight into the malaise of the human race. Look at children playing in the market place, he says, learn from the games they play. Some of those games are naïve and innocent, but others can be brutal and damaging. Children can be fickle. Adults can be fickle too. Jesus experienced this for himself when the crowds who shouted ‘Hosanna’ on Palm Sunday changed their tune to ‘Crucify’ on Good Friday. It is worth taking this into account when discussing what the new normal could be like. As theologians we have something to say that is important. To prepare for this Sunday’s service, I invited those of you who want to do some thinking beforehand to focus on the image of children’s games, just as Aled and Siân are doing in today’s picture. Aled and Siân have chosen the simple by profound game of ‘I spy’ and that game leads them to discover one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. This picture is from the book, Exploring Why: Bread, which you can read in its entirety here: http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/Exploring%20Why%20Series/Bread/Bread%20Short%202016%20WEB.pdf. Next week the reading from Matthew’s Gospel moves on to Matthew’s collection of parables, and some of those parables are grounded in the experience of agriculture. The image to help us to explore and to reflect on these parables is farmer. You can find out more about that theme here: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. We would really appreciate you letting us know how you are using these materials. Please send us your ideas and photos of the things you may create; email them to [email protected]. We warmly invite you to join us in worship here: Aled and Siân wish everyone a relaxing and game-filled Sunday. Canon Leslie I have blogged in the past about Tsedaqah House and the work young people who join the community are engaged with. The primary focus of the work that community members are engaged with is social justice with a particular emphasis on reflecting and acting on injustice associated with the slave trade and global inequality. As a community member each of us commits to engage in social action and participate in community life. During lock down the way we have engaged in social action and sough social justice has inevitably changed significantly. I have been taking an active role in supporting the Voluntary Community Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector by being part of the emergency resilience cell groups. These groups were set up at the beginning of the covid-19 lockdown to work remotely to support the combined efforts of the lead officers in ensuring that medical supplies, food and other emergency provision was delivered to those shielding and the vulnerable. We have worked together to co-ordinate this work – meeting remotely 4-8 times a week. I have been impressed by the compassion and dedication of those involved in these cell groups. The responsibility of the work has been huge but they have borne this burden diligently and with good spirit. As we slowly emerge from lockdown we are seeing a shift in the emphasis from emergency provision to a sustainable ‘resilience ready’ response. This means that the VCFSE sector will need to pick up much of the support currently provided by government via boroughs. The VCFSE sector will need all of our support and prayers as we together find new ways to support the vulnerable and those in particular need. Nelson (seen in the photo above holding a scone baked by my baker husband Mark!) has been supporting Micah Liverpool with packing bags for the foodbank, writing articles and blog posts (see his recent post here) and he is also responsible for curating this website. Jen Williams is working remotely to support the work of Together Liverpool and writing articles about the social action of churches for the Diocese of Liverpool bulletin and website. So, please do pray for our Tsedaqah community – particularly for Nelson and Jen as they discern their future and work for social justice in community life. Also please do pray for the common good that we might all seek it together and see God’s generous love surround all who seek social justice for God’s world. The Together for the Common Good prayer https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/what-you-can-do/pray Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. + Come Holy Spirit. We welcome you here in our midst. Govern our hearts and minds, govern every aspect of our time together. Be in every thought and word; in every intention and motive. Lord, we thank you for those who have been an inspiration to us. Thank you, for calling us through the Gospel to work together, and for each other. We pray for others working for the Common Good and for those who resist it. Bind us together across our traditions and move our heart's desire closer to the heart of your desire for us. Lord, give us the grace do your will, and make our mission a joy. In the love of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Canon Ellen While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. On July 4th, 1776, a group of British subjects got together in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to sign a document they’d spent many hours debating we know as “The Declaration of Independence.” They were doing something quite radical: employing rational thought to justify their taking up arms against the British crown and declaring themselves independent from its rule. The document they signed reads, “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” The signers had high hopes for the country they were envisioning: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” But perhaps now more than ever, this vision of the United States is aspirational at best. Full equality has yet to be realized, yet to be won in the United States, for all who are created equal. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has brought to public attention the inequalities and abuses afforded Black Americans by white supremacy knit into the fabric of the United States. Americans have been systematically and intentionally denied the rights, endowed by their Creator, that are theirs unalienably. There were slaveholders among the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, who drafted much of the Declaration, was a famous slaveholder who fathered many children with female slaves. Even George Washington didn’t release his slaves until the death of his wife. (While Washington wasn’t present at the signing, he was General of the Continental Army that was the fighting force behind the Declaration.) The signers of a document that professed the equality of all humanity owned other human beings. And as United States, we’re still coming to terms with the fact that we were built largely by slavery. A great place to start learning about the legacy of slavery in the United States is to participate in the Virtual Pilgrimage for Racial Justice that the Church of the Heavenly Rest, an Episcopal Church in the US, led last week. The first video of the pilgrimage is here: https://www.facebook.com/heavenlyrest/videos/564156074490988/?eid=ARAq495gww0mVCSSrdFutXFOHQ7EnaYlNT8S8_205s295WVvPrPoFevvxA1JfMGo1jFB5Pi8TJ4tpGyR. There’s tons of literature concerning the history of racism in the US, but an accessible introduction is Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, by Karen E. and Barbara J. Fields (It may take some hunting to find this book, but a good place to start is here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/1645-racecraft. Or, try Amazon in the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Racecraft-Soul-Inequality-American-Life-ebook/dp/B00G2DO7OO/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr or Amazon in the US: https://www.amazon.com/Racecraft-Soul-Inequality-American-Life/dp/1781683131. The Diocese of Liverpool has been paving the way in acknowledging the slavery-ridden past of the city and the church. To learn more, visit the Triangle of Hope website: https://thetriangleofhope.com/, the Tsedaqah Community website: https://thetriangleofhope.com/tsedaqah, and order the book, Two Triangles, by Ken Pye and Canon Malcolm Rogers that traces slavery in Liverpool to the present day and begins to look to a future marked by reparation and reconciliation. The link to the book is here: https://www.cathedralshop.com/products/two-triangles-by-ken-pye once the Cathedral shop is open again, or try here: https://www.discover-liverpool.com/publications/books/two-triangles-liverpool-slavery-and-the-church/. I don’t celebrate July Fourth proud of everything the country of which I am a citizen has done in its past. But I will celebrate the holiday in the hope that we will actually inch closer to the dream of equality in the United States within my lifetime and beyond. Nelson Residential Tsedaqah Community Member While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. Two things have struck me in the news this week. The first was the woman from Leicester who on being interviewed felt that Leicester was being picked on because they were going back into lock-down after a second spike with Covid 19. The second piece of news came from Rugby (which of course is not far from Leicester) and the report about what this city council is doing because of the overwhelming amount of rubbish being left in parks and public spaces. These two pieces of news contrasted with a banner I saw at the Albert Dock which said ‘…looking out for each other is what Liverpool does’. This contrast made me reflect on the nature of human beings. We are naturally egotistical and we look after ourselves. We have seen this in action at the start of the pandemic when people were stockpiling pasta and toilet paper. We continue to see it as people rush to beaches in the hot weather and as they leave their rubbish in parks, on the beaches and in our streets. But Liverpool in its statement ‘looking out for each other is what Liverpool does’ is asking us to stop, to think, and to act differently. Just like Jesus asked us to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’ we are being asked to consider others. As I continue to reflect on ‘looking out for each other’ I am reminded of a village called, Eyam in the Derbyshire Peak District, which self-isolated itself during the Plague of 1665 to avoid spreading the disease to neighbouring villages. They sacrificed themselves for 14 months and lost most of the villagers. They are an example of looking out for each other. We in Liverpool have our own examples of people looking out for each other. Kitty Wilkinson known, as the Saint of the Slums, during the 1832 Liverpool cholera epidemic offered her boiler to others so that could wash their infected clothes. There are many more examples of people ‘looking out for each other’ during the past few months so let us not give in to our natural instinct of looking out for ourselves. Let us take our rubbish home and, if we are asked to go into a second lock-down, let us do it graciously knowing that we are saving others by doing so. Jesus said: ‘Love Your Neighbour as Yourself.’ Dean Sue While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. I need to begin with a confession that I have waited over 40 years to get off my chest. In 1977 I was in a small smokey bar in Oxford when Liverpool were playing in the final of the European Cup. The match was being shown live on a small black and white television around which a large number of us were gathered. As far as anyone in the bar knew I was Bob from Liverpool and therefore everyone was very happy for me as Liverpool were winning. Near the end Tommy Smith ( a particular villain amongst Evertonians) crashed in a spectacular header and the pub erupted. I was slapped on the back and drinks appeared from nowhere. In my defence I never actually claimed to support Liverpool but shamefully I accepted the drinks without mentioning that my heart was in fact blue! When I was nine my best friend’s dad had season tickets for Anfield. An illness in the family meant that for a number of months there was a ticket going spare. In those days and at that age going to a match was a really big deal and so I was thrilled to be asked to go along. However after the second game my friend’s father said to me on the way home that unless I started supporting Liverpool he would not take me again. I have often wondered how life would have been if I had taken him up on the ultimatum. Of course even for a nine year old it was completely out of the question and he was as good as his word never asking me again. It’s not that I haven’t tasted the thrill of my team’s success. I went to every home game in the 1969 - 70 season when we won the Championship and gloried in the similar successes in 1984 – 85 (when the European Cup Winners Cup was also won) and 1986 – 87. There have been FA Cup wins and compared to most supporters I should be content with my lot. However there has always been Liverpool in the background waiting to outdo and surpass any success that my team might achieve. More Championships (and now Premiership); more FA Cup victories; much more European success; more sensational comebacks; more triumphant bus journeys through town. For what it is worth I offer congratulations once again for this latest achievement. Being an Evertonian may not be easy but I hope it is good for the soul and you never know we are not too far away from next season…………… Canon Bob While you're here: Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html. |
supporting you during these uncertain times AuthorLiverpool Cathedral is a place of encounter. Built by the people, for the people, to the Glory of God Archives
September 2022
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Prayer for Liverpool
brought to you from Liverpool Cathedral St James Mount Liverpool L1 7AZ |
Liverpool Cathedral is a place of encounter.
Built by the people, for the people, to the Glory of God www.liverpoolcathedral.org.uk |