Sacred narratives and the way we hear them

Many years ago I learned about the different ways in which we absorb and learn information and how we remember specific events. I remember the lecturer at the time saying to all of us, try and recall one of your very first cuddly toys. It did not have to be your very first but one that you remember first and then tell everyone something about that toy. I told everyone about my knitted toy clown and how I remember my mother telling me about how my grandmother (Gogo) had made it for me and how the toy was bigger than I was when I was born. I still have that clown and it is now sitting in my daughter's cot as it did in my son's, who is now 17. Other people in the class described what their toy looked like, the size, shape and colours, and yet others, although not as many, described how their toy had made them feel. ie. sad when they lost it, or how they loved playing with it endlessly. The whole point of the exercise was to see how we all recall and learn things differently. So those who had described how the toy made them feel were experiential learners, they needed to do something, feel something or touch it in order to learn best. Those who spoke about the looks of their toy were likely visual learners, they needed to see things written down, or pictures in order to best absorb information and I was in the auditory learners bracket, those who recalled best by what they heard. I have dyslexia so it was no surprise that I had developed my auditory recall so vividly to help me compensate for not being able to write things down so easily.

I am thinking about that time now, I remember so clearly all that was said, but I am a kinaesthetic learner too, I remember easily how I felt about things and need to feel something in order for it to be real to me. So it makes sense to me that as I grew up learning about the Bible that I chose, instead of reading the Bible, to learn about it by listening to others and by relying on how each story I heard made me feel. The thing is though that I accepted as absolutely accurate and true all that was told to me. I felt at home and comfortable in the church I was in and so as I grew up I felt no reason to question what I was told or even to suspect that what I was told was not absolute truth. The problems began to arise, like it does with many young people who grow up in certain church environments, when I went to university and had to study for myself things that the Bible actually said. Suddenly I found that the Bible had become a complicated mass of contradictions that had previously been unquestionable truths*. I could clearly see that things within its pages did not add up but I felt that I had been brought up within an environment of unmovable 'truths'. So instead of looking closely at the Bible, engaging with the God within its pages, I had blindly accepted the translations of Scripture that were told to me.

The first thing I noticed when I first started looking at the Bible more closely was that many of the stories that I knew were put together with a mixture of accounts from various bits of the Bible, and often the accounts that had been mixed together contradicted themselves in places. We also looked at how the original translations of words had been mistranslated and interpreted to suit a specific agenda of the translator.  I remember one lesson in particular when our lecturer put us all into small groups and set us the challenge to back up a particular argument by using individual verses of the Bible, He (the lecturer) would set the subject. Our little group was given the subject of the Holocaust, not exactly an insignificant event, other groups were given a range of subjects from positive to negative and each group set about finding verses that backed up that specific idea. Our group was convinced that we could not justify the holocaust using Scripture, but to our horror we discovered that by taking certain verses, without thought to the historical context, original translations or the surrounding verses we were easily able to justify each and every subject given. We could supposedly justify the murder of millions of people simply using a handful of verses out of context. At the end of the lecture, our teacher reminded us that forming an argument this way is not only weak, but easily refuted and said that we could not simply go through our lives making statements that we could only back up without thought or reason.

For that time, the Bible was only one of many books I used for research, study, learning and growing. I realised that like many things, in isolation, it isn't much good. The Bible, for me, only makes sense in relation to my life, my understanding of God, other people, my community. The stories within it's pages make little sense and have very little relevance to me now in the 21st century but it is far from irrelevant. Like many things, I knew the Bible was not something I could simply set aside, it had played an important role in my life and upbringing. But it is also something that, kept in isolation and revered above all else, becomes irrelevant. There is, I believe, within it's pages, the God story of a living, interacting, extraordinary God who was, long before the stories were told and is now still writing a Sacred narrative. I feel absolutely overwhelmed to be another story in that Sacred tapestry and to have my 'God narrative' woven alongside the narratives of others. I am so glad that I grew up and didn't simply believe unquestioningly those things I had heard as a child, I felt there was more to be found. At first I thought that the 'more to be found' was inside the pages of the Bible, but the more I have learned and grown I understand that the Bible is part of a Sacred narrative far greater than anything I am able to imagine. It is a text that helps me to tie in part of a larger story that is still being written today and will continue to be written a very long time after I am gone. May your Sacred narrative be as precious to you as the narratives in the holy writings of your faith and may you see the Sacred tapestry of others as you learn, in your own unique way.

Stay blessed
Rev R xx

*truth, in my opinion, is not the same as fact, something for me can contain truth without being exactly the same for the next person nor historically accurate. 

Water, water everywhere...creation at its best

"Don't they know who I am? I've hydrated Einstein, washed Cleopatra and some of my best friends were turned into wine by Jesus himself!! Now I'm stuck here playing with children"

This blog post comes under several headings, random thoughts, amazing facts, I'm not an artist and what has this got to do with God? 

My family and I have been to Disney in Florida twice now and each time we went on a ride at Epcot Disney, presented by Ellen Degeneres, about energy. During the very slow ride (the only sort I do) you learn about various ways of producing energy, about how our world's energy resources are running out and what our options are, in terms of renewable energy, to start preparing for the time, in the near future, when those resources run out. One of the facts that we were told during the ride really stuck with me. There is no 'new' water on earth than there was when the earth first existed, the water you use in your coffee, bath, toilet, at some point, likely went through the bladder of a dinosaur! Mind blowing! Hence the other day I found myself thinking about the water that my daughter and I were playing with in the garden, and I thought I wonder what the water drops that are coming out of our hosepipe have done in their existence? (see, random thoughts) Had those particular drops of water quenched the thirst of a dinosaur? Had they been in the bathtub with Socrates? Or perhaps were part of a glacier that is now melting?

Now I'm not one to tell people what to think, I only try and tell people what I'm thinking and perhaps what I think, no matter how random, might make sense to you too. 

So this got me thinking about the creation story of Genesis, although there are other similar creation stories from around the world and in different cultures. One of the most common and the one that we find in Genesis is creation ex nihilo, creation from nothing. Similar ideas of creation our of nothing can be found in articles from ancient Egypt, the Quran, the Rig Veda (ancient Indian Sacred text), and in many African, Asian cultures just to name a few. The ultimate reason that any creation stories exist is that for almost as long as people have existed they have all had the same questions. Why do we exist? How did we come to exist? Why something rather than nothing? 

Like many of these things I grew up with the stories of Genesis and for much of my life I believed them to be literally true, that God literally created the earth and all in it in 6 sections of 24 hours and then rested for the 7th section of a week. In that time God created, among other things, water. 

Now that I am older and I have learned so much more about the world, the Sacred texts, the stories of other cultures I have come to understand God stories tell me as much about the people who wrote them as they tell me about God and therefore they endow a Sacred quality that I thought had been lost when I decided they were not literally true. I thought that the easiest thing to do was simply to discount them,  because if they are not true then they cannot hold truth. Well off course I now know that this isn't right and I have learned that there is truth and Sacred understanding to be found in most everything if I choose to find it there. For me, thinking about those drops of water, I realised how difficult it is to comprehend millions and millions of years and how much easier it is to understand 7 days. Yet I found that I 'got' God more in that Ellen ride than in the creation story. In that ride I could see the enormity of the earth, the universe, the passage of millions of years, the responsibility we have if the earth is to support life for millions of years to come. In that, I understood how God fits into the constant process of creation and re-creation within our world.

Is there a point to all this? Probably several and feel free to continue thinking about it for yourself after the end of this post and find something completely different for you. Perhaps a simple message about looking after our world and it's finite resources. Or perhaps a challenge to look again at Sacred stories you know well alongside those you have not heard of and see how something Sacred has permeated other cultures and lives too. Maybe just a new piece of information about water, or a cartoon, not very well drawn, from a slightly random mind. Whatever it is you get from this isn't as important as what you do with it. Stay blessed whatever you day brings.  

you are worth hearing

You, yes you!! 

Jonathan born 16th July 1998

The one who let that comment from someone stop you from saying what you really felt. 

The one who took to heart the negativity that people who do not really matter threw at you. 

The one who was told they could not do something and so you let it stop you from trying. 

The one who tried shouting but felt that the words got lost in the echo of an empty hall.

When you were in the womb your lungs began to develop, when you entered the world they were 

filled with fluid and flat, if all went well then within seconds of entering the world the sudden change of temperature caused you to breathe in for the first time, those lungs filled with air and out came your voice in the only way it could - you cried. Since the first babies were born, that has been one of the sounds of life, long before we could listen into the womb and hear the heartbeat, long before we could take pictures of an unborn child. Inside you moved and wriggled and kicked but from the moment you came into the world you used your voice, you took breath and you cried, "I'm here and I'm alive". Your voice is a sound of reassurance to parents who waited many weeks to meet their child that all is well and you are alive, it is a sound that brings joy, relief, and happiness to almost every parent.
I remember when my son was born 8 weeks early, nearly 17 years ago, he was born not able to breathe without help and for several moments after he arrived the doctors worked to help him take his first breath. minutes seemed to take forever as we all strained our ears for that first cry to tell us he was here and all right, and eventually it came. The feeling of joy and relief that it brought was immeasurable. Next week he turns 17 years old and is 6ft2 and his voice has blessed me time and again. Do not let something so important, so vital be silenced by the words and actions of others. When you choose to use your voice, use it to create, build up, care and love and in my case (as with many others) to sing.

Please keep shouting, please keep speaking, please keep singing and please keep reaching out. Because your voice is worth hearing, it does not need to be heard by everyone, just the right people at the right moment.

I have had the privilege of hearing many people's stories about their families, parents, siblings and friends and too often the stories are not filled with love and care, but rejection and hatred and abuse. I am lucky, I come from a strong and loving family, I was wanted (although a surprise addition) and deeply loved by my parents and sisters. I grew up in a close knit wonderful church family who taught me a lot about God and community and I think time and time again how lucky I am to have had that.

So this is to tell all those who have ever, from the moment of birth until this moment now, been led to believe otherwise - your voice is precious and wonderful, it speaks of life, it is capable of some most pow
erful things, good things, miraculous things, little kindness type things. Use it well, use it as loudly or as quietly as need be. But please, use it, because it is a gift that not everyone has and you are worth hearing.