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Dear Friends
Happy Easter! I hope you are all well? Thank you for
all of your emails - I feel very much loved - thank you! Here's the next
instalment of my thoughts in Zambia...
Heaven and hell. So far apart; and yet so strangely and
unsurprisingly near…
As we walked slowly towards the communion table and
stood shoulder to shoulder around it forming a circle, I began to realise
this was going to be really special. It was one of our 'alternative
services', and we had decided that when it came to the Eucharistic prayer,
instead of staring at the floor or at the insides of our eyelids or
counting the tiny flowers on the blouse of the person in front of us, we
would form a circle around the table and participate in the Eucharistic
prayer we had written together. Standing there, singing 'Lord have mercy'
in Bemba, it felt as if the world had stood still; time was no longer
ticking and we were back in the upper room breaking bread with Christ. My
chest felt as if it would explode with something, either with joy or tears
or immense awe and love. And then we passed the bread around, broke off a
piece and gave it to our neighbour. I think I forgot to breathe. It was
just so beautiful, so intimate, so unlike anything I have ever
experienced. After a while, I heard a stifled laugh and the shudder of the
shoulders next to mine. I looked up and saw the cause of suppressed
laughter: unfortunately, I had ever so slightly miscalculated how much
bread we needed by about, erm, two large slices, and so when the bread was
beginning to reach its final destination, people were breaking off huge
chunks (as in half slices of bread) for their neighbour!!! I watched the
Dean cram nearly a whole slice in his widely-smiling mouth, felt a rise of
laughter coming from within, and thought, 'I bet God's laughing too…!'
As we returned to our seats, a little girl's cry was
shouting inside me, 'No, no, I want to stay there, I don't want to go yet
- just one more moment – please?' Heaven on earth. For what must have been
ten minutes, all seventeen of us shared in an intimacy so powerful, in a
remembrance so tearful, in a celebration so joyful. For ten minutes, it
was as if the world stood still: all wars ceased, all hunger stopped, all
punches hung suspended in mid-air, all shouts were silenced, all tears
dried, all bills were suspended, all pain flew away, all loneliness fled,
all guilt lifted, all children's cries stopped, all bomb blasts died, all
gun fire ceased, all anguish melted away… For a moment, we glimpsed
heaven. The significance of sharing bread and wine dawned on me like the
rising sun peeping up above the bed sheets. I realised that it is only in
the sharing of bread and wine do we have this hope of a world without pain
and suffering and violence and innocents destroyed and condemned; a world
where hell is only too often knocking at the door. Only in the breaking of
bread and wine and feeding it to each other, do we have hope of life and
love and peace and true joy. And oh, what true joy! What heaven!
But hell, as I said, is always lurking around the
corner. It's in the townships, it's on the streets where kids sleep in
shop doorways, it's, well, nearly everywhere you look. It seems that when
you've had a glimpse of heaven, seeing hell is all the easier. Recently,
you may have heard about Zimbabwe in the News. Being in Zambia, being
'next door' to it, you can't help but know about the crisis. It doesn't
matter whether you know someone there or not. They're our neighbours and
we're involved. Tales of people starving because the land isn't producing
food; people being paid not in money because money is worthless now, but
in maize; people having no freedom of speech, no voice, no power to do
anything… except of course, they have one more 'power' left to use – that
of life and of love. People are starting to protest on the streets, and
they have said that they will risk their lives in order to overthrow the
government and have justice reign. It has reached the point where, at the
end of the day, freedom and justice and hope for the majority are more
important than bullets in the flesh of a few. Love is about taking risks.
The Roman Catholic Church in Zimbabwe, thank God, has recognised this and
has publicly spoken out and is taking action.
I'm realising that heaven and hell are not in fact
miles apart, nor are they some kind of ethereal places waiting for people
in the future. They are here and now – in part. And I'm realising that
wherever hell is on earth, this is where the Church should be. Because
wherever hell is, there is a child dying, a mother crying, a father
fading. Innocents slaughtered, shackles at the ready, voices silenced.
Because the church has the power to do something about
it. That power does not lie in authority or hierarchy or money or
corruption; that power lies in a voice that speaks of love. That power
lies in bread and wine. Wherever hell is for someone or for a whole people
group, the church should be in the midst of it standing up for God's
kingdom values of justice and love and mercy, taking risks of love,
recklessly pouring out everything like the women who anointed Jesus, for
the love of men and women and children and God. Wherever hell is,
Christians should be giving a glimpse of heaven, so that eventually hell
is overtaken and in its place is more than a glimpse, but a full vision, a
beautiful hope, a wonderful taste, of heaven on earth.
So, wherever we see hell, wherever we see injustice or
corruption or pain or needless suffering or innocents silenced; be it in
the office, the staff room, the manager's office, the corner of the pub,
the dark corner of the dimly-lit street, the crowded waiting room at A&E,
the house next door, the subway, the church coffee-morning, the classroom,
the old peoples' home – we have to stand in the midst and shout out and
shatter even just a fraction of that hell, with the powerful, wild, voice
of love. Of course, it can come with a price. Everyday I am reminded of
this price, when I see the rector of our seminary. Bishop John (born in
New Zealand but he has lived in Africa for most of his life), was an
active voice supporting the rights of his black friends and neighbours at
a time when skin colour mattered. He paid the price of his powerful voice
of love when he saw the grenade being hurled into the pulpit; he was never
to see his right hand again. He paid the price when he had five minutes
warning to flee Botswana because a death squad was after him; and he
became a refugee in Zambia. Making way for heaven to be on earth is costly
in one sense; but what it gains is beyond price and value and beauty and
breath and the wildest of dreams and the most daring of hopes.
Whoever said Christianity is boring or dull or
irrelevant???!!!
*Prayer points*
Give thanks for a great time at our retreat, and for
the Franciscan friars who run the centre; they are all ancient wonders but
are as young as the day they first became Christians!
Give thanks for the wonderful relationship I am blessed
to share with the students (largely enhanced by the flapjacks I baked for
them!!!). We laugh and learn and pray and praise together – it's truly
life-giving stuff.
Pray for the students as they begin their exams next
week. Many of them are really struggling with the level of work due to
lack of previous education. Pray that God would help them to understand
what they need to understand, and pray that the seminary might be more
flexible in accommodating for their needs.
Pray for the use of resources – or lack of them. In one
diocese, the priests have not been paid for the last two months as there
is no money with which to pay them. Many other dioceses are facing a
similar situation, and as a result many bishops are not sending people to
the seminary to train to be priests. I daren't imagine what the situation
will be like in a few years time.
Pray for Zimbabwe and the church there; I think you
know for what to pray.
Just before I sign
off, am I right in thinking that Sunderland FC is at the top of the
Championship??? Can you believe I heard the team mentioned on the BBC
World service! Nearly choked on my bran flakes (although I had run out of
milk and so was using orange squash instead, so that might be the reason
for my sudden inability to swallow…). I shouldn't be surprised though, I
told you those football moves Louisa and myself had worked out with the
chickens were incredible. The Black Cats were very appreciative of my
suggestions, and I see that the pigeons are working just as well.
Christianity belongs on the streets. Not behind locked
doors. May God give us courage and conviction to unlock the door and step
out and love like we have never loved before. Heaven depends on it.
Much love and warmth, Emma xxx |
