I strive to believe in a God who creates us

I strive to believe in a God who creates us
until I see sunsets and hear blackbirds sing;
But the red on a robin is too lovely for doubting
-- it grows in my soul from its slight mustard seed. 

I strive to believe in a God of strong loving
until I see arms bared and feeding the poor;
they sacrifice and give in selfless joy-giving
in places forgotten by justice or peace.

Winter is the miracle

Winter is the miracle,
turning liquid to hard flint.
Views through jack-frosted glass
      transmute base to pure gold,
dew to glinting hoarfrost,
and drab brick to rare majesty.

Did you know: "he was born in a stable"

Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

Jesus’ stepfather Joseph was ‘of the house and lineage of David’ (Luke 2:4). He would had been something of a celebrity if he could prove this genealogy, for true descendants of David were quite rare. It’s therefore likely that he would have sent notice of his intention of travelling to Bethlehem before setting out, for his pedigree made it imperative that he was received well; it would have caused dishonour if any true descendent of David was not received with honour.

Reading the account of Jesus’ birth in Luke’s Gospel through this cultural lens suggests we need to read the narrative differently.

Luke 2 says that all the inns of Bethlehem were full when Mary and Joseph arrived (Luke 2:7), which implies their arrival did not occur according to schedule, which seems quite likely given Mary’s pregnancy reaching full term and the high tension surrounding the census. Their pre-booked accommodation was otherwise rented out. Luke suggests that an innkeeper found them emergency accommodation, but that bed could not have been the stable of popular imagination because of Joseph’s high status.

Most people in the Middle East kept animals for transport, milk, and food. It represented economic necessity. Some animals—especially those regarded as ritually ‘clean’—were kept indoors, particularly during the colder times of year, in a sectioned-off part of the house. They would have been safer that way, and the larger animals’ body heat would also have helped warm the room. Read this way, the holy family were not lodged in a draughty stable but were safe inside the innkeeper’s own rooms, and Jesus was probably born on the Innkeeper’s own bed.

Being honest with God

Being human can seem very complicated. Many of us will do almost anything to appear pleasant, willing, and competent; it’s simply human nature. But at heart we can also feel overwhelmed or shy, or maybe just not very confident in our own abilities. Then again, social factors tell us not to admit having some feelings and drives because we think that our friends and families would not like them … and hence they would not like us. They might judge us or even turn us away. For all these reasons, all of us have both a ‘public face’ and a ‘private life’, which are likely to differ, perhaps very greatly indeed.

Most of us suffer considerable stress when these two aspects differ beyond a certain extent, so most of us merely pretend—sometimes to ourselves and certainly to other people—not to acknowledge the way they differ. It’s always the inner thoughts and drives that get suppressed. That suppression is rarely conscious, so it’s unhelpful to think in terms of ‘hypocrisy’ or ‘being two faced’ because all of us live two opposing lives in this way.

God is infinite and knows everything. He therefore knows our real self as well as the self we try to project to other people. He knows the whole truth, and yet He always loves us with His trademark infinity and nothing can ever stop Him from loving us. He knows our inner, shadow life better than we do.

All of us pray but which of these two selves (the outer and the inner) does the prayer originate from? If it’s the self that looks outwards, then we may be praying for things that we think are respectable, nice, helpful such as peace and requests for healing—for our friends and family, but maybe for us as well. But if we are not really in touch with our inner thoughts, then our prayers are incomplete.

If we pretend to God that we are always nice, always Christian, then we are hiding parts of our lives from Him and are, in effect, refusing to let God deal with the inner hurts and unhealthy drives. We therefore limit the scope in which we can serve Him and be healed by Him.As we grow in faith, there will always come a point when it feels as though God is not listening to our prayers, or that He hears them but ignores them, or is completely absent. That’s entirely normal. At such times it’s almost certainly we ourselves who are limiting what God can do in and through us, because we are telling God not to look closely or be aware of our inner lives. We’re ashamed of them and don’t want anyone, let alone a ‘nice’ God, to see them. But in this way we prevent a huge amount of their power from helping our prayers.

But we still need to talk to God, although one temptation is to think that God is so holy that He won’t want someone like us to bother Him. This instinct is not wise because, as Jesus said to his first disciples, ‘It’s not those who are well but those who are poorly who need a
doctor’ (Luke 5:31–32).

We may feel shame or worse if we think this is happening to us as we approach God. It’s probably best to be very matter of fact and simply confess as each part of our private inner life comes to light. God wants us to speak honestly, saying something like, ‘Please help me to cope with being the person that I really am’ or ’Please heal the bits of my life I don’t like, can’t face, won’t acknowledge’. This growth into honesty as we pray will energise our prayer and make it more authentic.

As Christmas approaches, it can be useful to remember that Jesus came to earth precisely for people like us, to bring us closer to God. As John 3:16 says, ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever truly believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life’. And, as he said, ‘The truth will set us free’ (John 8:21).

Exercise Tell God that you love Him and want Him. In silence, confess those things you feel safe acknowledging. In each case, say sorry but don’t dwell too long: rather, ask for forgiveness then gently move on. Ask God to give you enough courage to confront whatever He wants us to consider next. Keep reminding yourself that God loves you deeply.

Richard Rolle of Hampole

Richard Rolle (c. 1300–1349) was an English devotional writer, who was born around 1300 into a small farming family at Thornton-le-Dale in North Yorkshire, where, it is claimed, he showed such academic promise as a youth that the Archdeacon of Durham sponsored him to study at Oxford. Unfortunately, the subjects on offer at Oxford did not suit the nineteen-year-old Richard, who was more interested in biblical studies than secular studies such as philosophy, and so he dropped out before graduating. Not wishing to join a religious community, he spent the next few years living as a recluse, initially in the woods near Thornton and then, fearing his family might have him arrested, wandering around the countryside until he was spotted by an acquaintance from university, the squire John de Dalton, who invited him to live as a hermit on his estate at Pickering. Legend has it that it was during this time that Richard’s sister gave him a couple of her dresses to turn into a hermit’s robes.

This was also the period when Richard made great strides in the contemplative life and is thought to have had his first mystical experience. About it he said, ‘I did not think anything like it or anything so holy could be received in this life.’ Sadly for Richard, the secular life in the form of politics intervened and his old friend’s lands were confiscated in 1322, which forced Richard onto the road again. After several years wandering from place to place—reportedly pitching up in Paris, where records from the Sorbonne suggest that he studied theology—he finally arrived back in Yorkshire, at the village of Hampole, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. It was here at the Cistercian nunnery that he died in 1349, having become something of a spiritual adviser to the nuns resident there. For this reason, Richard is sometimes referred to as ‘Richard Rolle de Hampole’. He also wrote spiritual guides for the nuns and religiously inclined women generally. His main devotee was Dame Margaret Kirkby, a religious recluse (an anchoress) who he is claimed to have cured of an ailment that rendered her speechless merely by visiting her. It was for her benefit that he wrote a commentary on the Psalms and, in particular, The Form of Perfect Living, a guide to the reclusive life, when she was still a young woman embarking on her spiritual journey—both of which were written in (Middle) English. It was Margaret who, after Richard’s death, was instrumental in establishing his reputation. She even moved into the priory at Hampole where he died, to spend the last ten years of her own life there.

Richard Rolle was one of the first pre-Reformation writers to write in the vernacular, the native tongue of the readers. His works were even more widely read than those of Chaucer in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and his influence endured right up until the Reformation itself in the sixteenth century. His works include letters, poems, scriptural commentaries, and treatises on spiritual perfection. The famous poem The Pricke of Conscience was for a long time attributed to him. Perhaps his best known work is The Fire of Love (written in Latin with the title Incendium Amoris), in which Rolle provides an account of his mystical experiences, which he describes as being of three kinds: a physical warmth in his body, a sense of wonderful sweetness, and a heavenly music that accompanied him as he chanted the Psalms. It is because of such rapturous accounts of spiritual development that Rolle is regarded as one of the great English mystics.

  John Booth