It is as if life has slowed right down this week. It’s not as though I don’t have a long list of things to do but with the school summer holidays starting and the weather turning warm, if I had a hammock, I’d be tempted to lie on it all day and watch the clouds.

With our older son away at camp, I’ve been spending most of my time with our 7 year old. This, too, has had a slowing, focusing effect and has helped me notice things that I might have otherwise missed.

We’ve spent some time with a few baby friends over the last few days. It feels a blessing even to spend a few minutes with a baby, such a sign of grace. You don’t have to do anything but just receive their smile or bask in their tininess. After meeting a newborn, our son said, ‘He isn’t just cute. You might call him lovely. But really he is wonderful.’

A Frisbee game in the park with some fantastic young people spoke of family in the way they equally included a 7 year old and a 45 year old. We could just enjoy being alive together without any pretence (and with lots of fun).

We don’t have any pets of our own but we are looking after a guinea pig and two gerbils this week. They might not be exotic but I’ve been struck by how sociable and beautiful they are. There is a simple joy in watching and caring for them that I never really knew before.

We discovered what must be the friendliest street in our town this week when we went to a friend’s barbecue. Most of the other guests were their neighbours and clearly knew and cared for one another well. I noticed that because they were so at ease with each other, they were brilliant at making us feel welcome. It was a joy to be in their company.

Jesus described God’s kingdom using lots of different pictures like: yeast spreading through dough, finding a precious pearl, a tiny seed growing into a tree, an extravagant catch of fish. This week these pictures are also in my mind: a newborn baby, a game of Frisbee, a friendly street and some pets.

I like to be right. I don’t know if I like it more than most people do; but I really, really like it. (I try not to say ‘I told you so’ but I confess that I sometimes think it.)

This photo shows an example of me not being right. Yesterday, motivated by the allure of a closing-down sale, I went out to buy my son a school blazer for secondary school next year. I knew his current school uniform size and took an ‘educated’ guess. (Cue buzzer noise here.) Wrong. Way, way off.  

We’ve had a good laugh about it, though. And it’s made me glad that he’s not quite that big yet. Sometimes it can be a gift to be wrong.

I’ve been thinking about the story that Jesus told about a father and his two sons. One son asks for his inheritance early and goes crazy with it and ends up completely destitute. The older son, the responsible one, stays at home, does his job, doesn’t cause a fuss but is eaten up inside, we sense, from judging his brother and the sense that he is right.

Where does ‘being right’ get him? Maybe he knew all along how things were going to turn out, maybe he could have predicted the hurt and potential embarrassment that were going to be caused. But did it make him any happier?

To the father in this story, being in the right or in the wrong doesn’t seem to matter. Perhaps he too had a sense all along that it wasn’t going to end well for the younger son, but giving him freedom is more important. The dad doesn’t care that he looks like a fool, when his son eventually comes back home, running to meet him, lavishly celebrating the child that has brought shame on the family; love more important than the rules.

The saving grace of the younger son is that he finally, finally was able to admit his mistakes and accept his dad’s forgiveness. If the older brother had been motivated to be a ‘good boy’ out of love instead of duty, he would have understood the overflowing, forgiving love of his father. But he doesn’t get it. He’ll cut off his nose to spite his face just so he can be right.

I like being right but maybe I need to celebrate being wrong more often, especially if it can open the door for forgiveness.

You can find the original story here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+15:10-32&version=MSG

Not everything my children say is deep and meaningful. I’m sure you already know that, but I just wanted to get it into the open.

Yesterday, for example, when we were praying, one wanted to pray for pigs – that they would provide us with even more bacon, sausages and pork pies. The other prayed that Jose Mourinho wouldn’t leave Chelsea FC. (You didn’t need to know that. I’m just putting our life in its normal context.)

Sometimes what they say, however, catches me off guard. This morning, our youngest approached me with a plastic Easter egg in his hand filled with some fluff that he’d found somewhere. (I know – it doesn’t look good that there are still plastic eggs around the house nearly a month after Easter, not to mention the presence of mysterious fluff.)

‘Mum, we could keep this egg and use it next year to remind ourselves about the Lamb of God’, he said, tenderly touching the fluff. It clearly meant something to him.

I’ve spent the rest of the day wondering about what that meant to him and what he understands by the phrase ‘lamb of God’.

I’ve only recently realised how many different ways the sheep/shepherd imagery is used in the Bible. The sheepfold is used as an image of safety but is also a place the sheep need to leave in order to find nice grass. Jesus is compared to the gate of the sheep pen but also to a devoted shepherd. The sheep pen might be in a village and shared between different sheep owners to protect the sheep from thieves or it might be on a hillside where the biggest threat is wolves. When you put it all together, it doesn’t really work as a neat metaphor- but more of a multi-faceted attempt to use language to describe the relationship between God and us.

The single image that most caught my imagination was that of a shepherd calling out sheep by name. (This is from a shared pen of different flocks.) Imagine knowing your sheep well enough to give them names. Imagine the sheep knowing their names and coming when you call them. The shepherd knows the sheep, the sheep know the voice of their shepherd.

That ‘knowing’ reminded me of something I heard recently about prayer. Beginning to pray, the person said, is like the communication between a baby and a parent. No actual words are required, but it is two-way. There is a deep, mysterious connection, rooted in love.

God was made vulnerable as a baby, as a lamb. But God also longs to look into our eyes and coo with affirmation, like a parent. This is a relationship full of mystery.

My 11 year old son got stung by a wasp last week. Twice. The timing wasn’t great because he was having a fantastic week enjoying more freedom than usual while we were away at a Christian festival and he was happily going off to groups on his own and making new friends. He’d set off from our chalet that day, ready to meet up with his new friends for some football practice, acting very grown up, but only a few minutes later was back at our door with tears pouring down his face.

If I could, I would make it so my children would never get stung by wasps. But wasps happen.

Understandably, he’s been a bit twitchy about insects of all kinds since then. I was trying to find a way to explain, rationally, why there really isn’t much he could do to avoid ever getting stung by a wasp ever again. Even if he avoided every BBQ, never had another fizzy drink and stayed inside all summer, it wouldn’t guarantee that he’d never get another sting. Wasps happen. How can I help him embrace life despite the wasps?

I’ve been reading Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. (She has some TED talks on YouTube if you’re put off by a book with such an ominously long title.) The book is giving me lots of food for thought, not least, what she has to say about resilience and courage.

Resilience; the capacity to recover quickly and bounce back into shape; is key to feeling happy despite what life throws at us, but where does it come from? (I’m afraid you’ll need to read Brown’s book if you want a scientific and professional answer.)

We watched the BBC film, The Passion, over the Easter Weekend. What struck me most this time around was how sorry I felt for the friends of Jesus after his crucifixion. There they are all huddled away, confused and mourning, with a real fear that they might be the next victims of the political and religious systems. Why wouldn’t they just go back to their hometowns and hide and try to forget the 3 years that they’d spent believing that the way of Jesus could change the world? Really, it’s pretty unbelievable that they didn’t run away.

Instead, they hung around, believing that it wasn’t the end of the story – and it turned out not to be. After encountering a very alive Jesus over the next weeks, they had the courage to go on proclaiming his message, despite the very real danger, even knowing where it led to for Jesus. How could they do that?

It could only be the power of love.

Parenting/loving/living is a vulnerable business. In a world where we share the sunshine with wasps, we choose to love and have the courage to live, however scary it might be.

The other day, I looked at some information about a private school that described Christian faith as a ‘life-enhancing activity’ – alongside sport and other hobbies.

Something about that bothered me. I might sometimes feel that faith enhances my own life but it can also be persistently challenging.  It is nowhere near as containable as an extra-curricular activity.

I have in my mind those adverts for paint where people’s lives are transformed when they paint their rooms bright colours, like this one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPpMWaSPt-s

Coming to faith can feel like that: the joy, the fresh start, the beauty.   It is truly life- enhancing. But what happens when Jesus moves in to the neighbourhood?

Does he hand us a paintbrush and ask us to start painting too?  To move beyond our now brightly tinged lives and join the movement?  We might end up with aching arms and tired feet. It might feel dreary at times or even hopeless – but it’s worth it because we are caught up in something far more than life-enhancing:  but life itself, the source of living water, love defined.

A friend shared a video made by some Egyptian Christians that has been haunting me ever since.  Their church building was attacked and burnt down in 2013 and they made this powerful video of church members singing in its ruins. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTD6TZN7qj4

In some ways their faith is the opposite of the paint advert. It doesn’t skirt around the suffering, their wounds, their hardships.  But in the midst of the physical rubble of their church and while still living in considerable unrest, they are able to say that they are trusting that God ‘prepares goodness’ for them and that they ‘come with a message of love/ peace and forgiveness to the whole world’.

Life-enhancing faith?  Much more powerful than that. 

Spontaneous football is the best.  Turning up at the park with a ball and forming teams with whoever happens to be around.  (You can tell I’ve figured out the formula:  the more people you have playing, the less you have to run around the pitch.)  We’ve had some memorable matches this way with friends and with people who were strangers. 

 Feeling a bit weary of the daily requirement to kick a football with our boys when we were in Devon last week, we had a go at asking a group of nearby children and another family if they wanted to play.  Result!  Seven extra players.

 We knew nothing about them but we were soon cheering one another on and having a great time.  We assumed that we were the ones who weren’t local – but it turned out that only one of the children was from the village.  We were all strangers, really. (The father of the other family, we discovered afterwards, was a PE Master from Eton College.  That might explain why he was so good at football.  And polite.) 

 Lately, whenever I take time to think about what I really long for in life, I come up with the word ‘community’.  This might be partly due to the fact that we are living far away from our extended families or it might be because I had some really good experiences of sharing life with people in the past, but it seems a slightly strange thing for an introvert to long for.

 What is community?  For me, it’s a place where everyone is allowed to shine and all feel free to contribute the best that they are and have.  It’s holding yourself back so that others can have a go.  It’s allowing ownership by everyone, not just following the vision of a few.  More than anything it’s being vulnerable enough to admit that you need and value other people especially if you’re actually trying to build the kind of kingdom Jesus talked about.

 When you live in a family, it’s easy to think that community stops there.  (And there is a lot to learn about creating a community-like family.) But our kids don’t just want to play football with their parents- believe me!  I want to be the kind of person that is willing to ask strangers, ‘Would you like to join us?’  And I want to believe that if they say ‘yes’, it will be good for them and also for me.

 Another thing we did in Devon was to go to an indoor climbing centre.  Both of the boys climbed about halfway up the enormous wall a few times before coming down again.  This was fine with me – the heights were making me feel a bit queasy even at a distance.  When our youngest was having his turn – I went up to the viewing balcony, just to take his picture and I found myself at eye level with him as he clung to the handholds.  All I did was smile and say ‘you’re doing really well’ and that was enough to make him determinedly climb all the way to the top.  Honestly, I had no intention of spurring him on but that simple praise was seemingly all that was needed to push him to the top.

That’s what I think we can do in community for each other.  You’re doing really well.  Do you want to join in?

Once upon a time there was a really good Irish film called ‘Once’ that was made into an even better musical called ‘Once’ that we went to see just over a week ago (sadly, just once). 

 I loved it for lots of reasons:  the beautiful music, the quixotic heroine, the energy, the humour, the opposite-of-Hollywood-ending.  (If you don’t believe me about the music, you can hear a sample here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW8h7vKtxqw  )

 The story is simple and subtle and is built up slowly and almost imperceptibly through the music and the interplay between a small cast of characters.  It’s about an Irish busker and ‘hoover-fixer’ who is feeling stuck.  He meets a young Czech mother who is also struggling and through friendship and a shared love of music, they both enable each other to have the courage and hope to move forward.

 It’s about love, but not in the way that it is normally portrayed.  The two main characters (called simply, ‘guy’ and ‘girl’) are clearly drawn to each other and have a deep connection but ‘getting together’ in the usual Hollywood sense is not the most loving choice they can make.  They love each other enough to recognise and draw out the best in each other for the sake of the music they create.  They realise that their responsibilities mean that they will have to take a harder road, but their friendship empowers them to have the strength to do it.

 Life is full of these choices, usually on a smaller scale.  Which is the most loving choice, even if it is harder?  What will bring out the best in the other person?   Love isn’t as straightforward as we sometimes pretend that is.  ‘Love’s all very well, but in the hands of people it turns into soup,’ as one character says.

 Which kind of love do we want to believe in? The makes-me-happy in the moment kind of love or powerful force that can turn lives around and change the world? (They’re not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they can be.)

 ‘…Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice…’

It was the kind of situation that sit-coms and nightmares are made of.   It was 8am on a Saturday and I was calmly eating my breakfast with the excited assurance that the ‘retreat day’ that I’d help to organise for children and adults was going to happen.  Art supplies?  Check.  Catering?  Check.  Well-known speaker?  Check.  Venue?  Check.  Amazing team?  Ready to go.

Then the text came.  The speaker had a tummy bug.  She would email me all her notes.  Sometimes prayers have no words.  You can imagine mine.

I never ever would have put myself forward to lead a day that was attempting to be good for all ages, and not only good, but helping everyone to connect with God.  Who would?  As I sat for a moment, taking it all in, I realized that I had no choice.  53 people were coming with the desire to be with each other and to be with God, I wasn’t going to stand in their way.

The whole day felt a lot like swimming to me.  I just jumped in and went for it.  I really liked what the speaker had planned for the day so it was a joy to pass on.  People often say that faith is a bit like realizing that you can float – in that you won’t know that you won’t sink until you put your toes in the water, step out a bit and let the water carry you.

Although the structure and most of the content of the day was there in the emailed notes I received that morning, there were places where the speaker had written, ‘please use your own examples here’.  The topic was connecting with God and specifically the ways that we ‘catch’ messages from God.  Fortunately, I’d brought my journal along and during the lunch break I was desperately searching for ways that I felt God had been in touch.

It wasn’t that hard to find songs that had spoken to me, friends that had said the right thing at the right time, words from the Bible that seemed to pop out of nowhere, images that seemed to recur and dreams.  It was one dream that I’d written down over a year ago that really jumped out at me.  I’d dreamt of a beautiful tent made out of lots of bits and pieces.

I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but sitting there in that lunch break, surrounded by people of all ages, each contributing their bit to the retreat, it felt like an apt picture.  God used all of our bits and pieces, our weaknesses and our uniqueness to make a very beautiful thing that day.

A few weeks ago I went to visit The Sanctuary in Ilkley.   It is simply a place to pray for the world set up by two women who felt called to leave their jobs, move hundreds of miles and set it up.  It isn’t fancy or complicated – but it glows with integrity and faithfulness.   A cup of tea is always available for anyone who wants to come in a join them in expressing love for the world.  I won’t attempt to tell their story here  (but if you’re interested you can find it on their website : http://www.thesanctuarycentre.org )

What impressed me almost more than anything about The Sanctuary was its smallness.  Liz and Jill are extremely gifted and creative people.  They really should be famous- but instead they are faithfully drawing others to join them in expressing love for the world in a small space in a small town, resisting the urge to think that something bigger would be better.  I like that.

I also like ninja angels.  This was an idea sparked in a discussion of a group of young people several years ago who wanted to find ways to do random acts of kindness.  It could have been just a great idea but they put it into practice.  And it usually wasn’t random.  It was showing love and encouragement to people in situations of real need without looking for any thanks or acknowledgment.  It was selfless love, God’s love.  (You can find them on twitter @Ninja_Angels)

Inspired by them, I still try to pass the ninja angel spirit on, when I remember to make time for it, whether it’s a note or chocolate or something else.  The other week, I sent a ninja angel to my hairdresser in the post after she told me about some heartache.  (Is it just me, or do hairdressers tell you things like that, too?)

This is actually a lot of fun but it won’t change the world.  Or will it?  Small acts of love, the decision to look beyond our own concerns, joining with God in filling the world with messages of hope…  Could something as small as that change the world?

Sometimes it’s good to be a child.  I don’t mean in terms of tantrum-throwing or finger painting (though those might be good too).  I  mean in terms of letting other people care for us.

It’s quite easy in this stage of life to get used to being the person who does the caring and that’s usually a good and rewarding place to be.  Sometimes, though, I think we forget to be children, too.

I love this picture of my husband’s youth leaders who came to visit us a week ago.  They have been brilliant at keeping in touch and it was a real treat to share a meal with them.  What struck me about our conversation was the way they still understood him and were attentive to him and how great it was to experience that care. 

In his book, Love Does, Bob Goff talks about the need for us to be ‘palms up’ rather than having clenched fists.  As a lawyer, he advises his clients to literally keep their hands under the table with their palms up when they are being questioned.  In this position, he says, it’s impossible to get defensive.

Having palms open means that we still don’t have everything sorted, or know all the answers and that sometimes we need someone to care for us, too.  It’s a good way to live and a good way to pray.