Why?

I have just begun a phased return to work after several months off.

While health is not yet 100% and situations that helped to precipitate our crisis are not yet fully resolved, it is very good to be re-engaging with ministry, and especially good that my return to work has begun with a conference along with my colleagues in the Interim and Transition Ministry team.

But now that I am beginning to look ahead to re-engaging, I am also looking back over these last few months.

A question that has been in my mind for much of this last period of time remains and persists.

Why?

Of course, we all ask that question at times in our lives, and not least when we face an unexpected, untimely or particularly tragic bereavement, or an unwelcome diagnosis or many other life events of that nature.

Why?

In general, I tend to consider that suffering simply remains a mystery.

The Cross of Jesus does not explain suffering, but it does remind us that suffering cannot be avoided, that even the very best person who ever lived suffered in a cruel, painful, untimely and unjust way. But the Cross also reminds us that in our suffering we are not alone, and that – in the end – the reality of suffering cannot be divorced from the even greater reality of God’s love.

That does not explain the mystery... but perhaps it can change our perspective and our experience of unjust suffering.

At times, my questions have taken a more specific turn.

Why?

Is what we have experienced to do with what some would regard as ‘spiritual warfare’ (however, that is understood)?

Or, instead could this be the means by which God is calling us to review our direction, callings, ministries?

Or, there again, might it be a call to repent for some (as yet unidentified) sin or wrong turn?

I cannot reflect on these questions for too long before being reminded of the story of Job in the Old Testament. Afflicted by the most dreadful suffering, Job finds his friends attempting to explain his afflictions, to debate reasons and solutions and to offer him advice and counsel.

Job ultimately condemns all their counsel, beliefs, and critiques of him as false.

When God eventually appears and speaks, he still offers no explanation.

So perhaps there are no easy answers, and maybe even the questions are not appropriate.

Perhaps it is just that ‘stuff’ (you may insert a more familiar and fruity word of your choosing!) happens. And when it does, perhaps we should simply keep on keeping on, obedient and faithful, trusting that the God of the Cross is present, even when he feels absent and appears indifferent and remains silent.

But it isn’t easy... I don’t suppose anyone said it would be.

Hymns, Homelessness and Hope

Over these last few months, while Jane and I have not had our normal Sunday responsibilities we have worshipped in a wide variety of places and settings and – with only three exceptions – have not gone to the same place twice.

As you might expect, our experience has been varied. But we have never come away without having been glad to have joined with others in worship.

Last Saturday evening, as Jane has been abroad for a week, I was trying to make up my mind where I would go on my own the next day. I had made my mind up, but in the event my night’s sleep was interrupted and disturbed by one of our dogs who has developed an upper respiratory tract infection. When I did get back to sleep I ended up sleeping in! No time to get to my chosen church.

So I did something I have never done before... I watched a livecast on facebook from the congregation of a colleague and friend. I was surprised at how engaged I was with the worship, and how meaningful and moving I found it.

During the service one person spoke to promote a local charity. Some years ago, she had found herself unexpectedly homeless having had a good job and what she thought was a stable domestic situation. Then her husband suddenly left her and she found herself with nothing. As she spoke it was clear that she was also someone with a strong faith, and while she had undoubtedly faced great trauma and suffering and uncertainty, she had lost neither faith nor hope. Now, years on, she could see what she had been unable to see at the time; something of the presence of God and indeed God’s guiding and protecting hand in the midst of the dark times.

I found her story deeply moving, but also both comforting and challenging.

And if watching a live service on my phone was an unusual experience, the afternoon brought another! I watched Songs of Praise on the telly! That is something I have not done in years and years! And – unexpectedly – it came from Edinburgh and again focussed on homelessness, with footage of the Sleep in the Park event in Princes Street Gardens. There were plenty of images of the outside of my former church, interviews with folks I knew, hymns from Stockbridge Church in whose congregation I spotted many familiar faces, and – once again – a testimony from someone who had been homeless but for whom faith and hope had brought meaning and a change of circumstance.

And again – for me – comfort and challenge.