{"id":692,"date":"2020-03-26T13:43:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T13:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/chaplaincy\/?p=692"},"modified":"2020-03-26T13:43:59","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T13:43:59","slug":"dont-be-afraid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/2020\/03\/26\/dont-be-afraid\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t be afraid…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here’s the reflection from Thursday’s online Communion service<\/em>. Do join us tomorrow at 4.30pm for Breathe – a quiet way to end the week – here<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m finding it a bit hard to remember what day it is at the\nmoment, but I was reminded yesterday that it was a special day – the day we\nremember a particular story. You can work out what event by thinking about the\ndate – 25th<\/sup> March – and counting forward exactly nine months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the story…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God sent the angel Gabriel to a town in Galilee named\nNazareth. He had a message for a young woman promised in marriage to a man\nnamed Joseph, who was a descendant of King David. Her name was Mary. The angel\ncame to her and said, \u201cPeace be with you! The Lord is with you and has greatly\nblessed you!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary was deeply troubled by the angel’s message, and she\nwondered what his words meant. The angel said to her, \u201cDon’t be afraid, Mary;\nGod has been gracious to you. You will become pregnant and give birth to a son,\nand you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the\nMost High God. The Lord God will make him a king, as his ancestor David was,\nand he will be the king of the descendants of Jacob forever; his kingdom will\nnever end!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary said to the angel, \u201cI am a virgin. How, then, can this\nbe?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The angel answered, \u201cThe Holy Spirit will come on you, and\nGod’s power will rest upon you. For this reason the holy child will be called\nthe Son of God. Remember your relative Elizabeth. It is said that she cannot\nhave children, but she herself is now six months pregnant, even though she is\nvery old. For there is nothing that God cannot do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am the Lord’s servant,\u201d said Mary; \u201cmay it happen to me as\nyou have said.\u201d And the angel left her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was a very different world – but maybe there were some\nsimilarities. Mary\u2019s country had also been overrun by an invader. In her case it\nwas the Roman empire, not a new virus – but some of the effects were the same –\nsome loss of life, huge economic costs. People lived under a severe regime\nwhich restricted their liberty – although not quite as much as us at the\nmoment. And there must have been a great deal of fear and uncertainty about the\nfuture all around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the midst of all this we have a very personal story. Mary\nis visited by a mysterious stranger, who knows her name and says something very\nstrange. Mary is disturbed and frightened. \u2018Don\u2019t be afraid\u2019 the stranger says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s easier said than done. I expect that all of us have\nbeen living with some high levels of fear and anxiety over the last weeks – for\nourselves, for those we love, for our wider community, and for our world. Out cycling\nfor my daily exercise yesterday I could almost feel the fear in the streets I passed,\nand felt I needed to pray for those who lived there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t be afraid… It\u2019s even harder when we\u2019re stuck at home\nwith less distractions than usual. I read this the other day, from a book\ncalled Sabbath by Nicola Slee: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeling fear, rather like feeling deep pain, is a deeply\nuncomfortable experience and one that most of us find ways of keeping at bay –\nthrough work, routine busyness, care of others and so on.  Large unbounded periods of solitude, silence\nand spaciousness without fixed agenda can allow the habitual safeguards to be\nloosened, and then we experience our fears in their full force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we may be discovering how true that is. But Nicola\nSlee goes on: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet if we can stay with the reality of whatever feelings may\nbe around; if we can feel<\/em> them, welcome them even, allow ourselves to\nbecome intimate with the painful, fearful realities of our internal world, then\nthey may reveal ourselves to ourselves, they may gift us with new insight. Recognising\nour own fragility and our fear of fear, we can discover the courage to face the\nfear and to await the unfolding of its gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing our fears is hard. It may help to name them. You can\nname them before God in prayer. Something else I\u2019ve just said that fear can be\nlike a fog pressing down on us – but if we take time to face those fears, and\nname them before God in prayer, it can be as if the contents of the fog is\ncontained somehow, into a number of buckets that we can then look at one by\none, and hold before God – knowing that he is holding us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is one way. I watched a wonderful talk by an American priest called Nadia Bolz Webber the other day – she\u2019s great – covered in tattoos – speaks straight – you can find it here<\/a>. She was saying that the way to overcome fear is not necessarily through courage – a better way is through love. Fear closes us up – that\u2019s how we\u2019re often feeling – tensed up all the time. Love opens us again. We can breathe. we can live more freely. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so wonderful to see so many people volunteering to help the NHS or help their neighbours at the moment. When we look outward, and give, then we become more open to receive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what Mary did. Faced with this terrifying news from\nGod, instead of closing down in fear, she allowed herself to open up – to open\nup in love to the God she knew – to open up in love to this new life within us\n– to open up to all that this would mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so through her God was able to come in a new way into our\nworld – with all its pain and darkness – and joy and life. To be here with us\nin the middle of this incredibly difficult time. To be helping the NHS workers\nand all those caring for others and volunteering. To be alongside those who are\nin self-isolation and lonely. And to be with us here, as we open ourselves to\nhis love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my cycle ride I saw something which really lifted my\nspirits. In many windows there were pictures of rainbows, drawn by children. A\npicture of hope – a promise that we will not always be in this time, and that\nthere will be a new beginning. Things will not be the same as they were – and\nthere will be new challenges – it was the same for Mary – but we have the\nopportunity to open up to love in a new way – and maybe that could be the\nunexpected gift that unfolds from this time…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we remember that God holds us in love as we pray…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pray for those who are facing fear – <\/p>\n\n\n\n

may they be held in God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pray for those who are facing loneliness – <\/p>\n\n\n\n

may they be held in God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pray for those who are being called to care for others – <\/p>\n\n\n\n

may they be held in God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pray for those we love, and for ourselves… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

may we all be held in God\u2019s love. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the reflection from Thursday’s online Communion service. Do join us tomorrow at 4.30pm for Breathe – a quiet way to end the week – here. I\u2019m finding it a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}