Hapless Hiatus

I kid you not

Apologies to anyone who actually reads my blog. No, this wasn't a phase- I am going to continue with it but sometimes life gets in the way. For someone who is as boring as natural hessian walls I have had a ton of stuff to do in the past month. Number one priority has been my uni coursework. With no exams I have four hand-in points during the year so you can guess how intense that it. One of my modules is about women's writing in the seventeenth century which, as you can guess, has a lot of texts with a religious basis. While different topics were available for my coursework I chose to write on the biblical references of baptist visionary Anna Trapnel. This was very appropriate for the time of year as she bases her account of her persecution on the Easter story. I feel researching this for my coursework has really given me a deeper understanding of what Easter means within the church and how we can learn from it every day. On the subject of researching, may I refer you to the picture above. After I wrote one of my other blog posts and mentioned a tiny doubt about my vocation I put the laptop aside to do my coursework. Opening a random book on a random page I saw my name slap-bang in the middle of the page. This provoked an audible 'I'm sorry, okay, you're right' from my lips, so now I'm not allowed to have the wobblies anymore. 

Hiatus cause number two is boring so please feel free to skip to three. I hold a position in my students' union and for the past month I've been having to go to more meetings, the senate, getting people to vote for things, getting people to fill out surveys, write a report etc... it never ends. Kids, don't take up positions of responsibility. Cause three is a bit more exciting. I've always known the Lord has blessed me with a good set of pipes but now it's official. I have won my university's music scholarship (not young musician of the year, which I thought it was, very awkward). Little known fact is I'm a classically trained singer. While the majority of my set was made of arias (who doesn't love Puccini, am I right?) the final piece I performed was an arrangement of 'He's got the whole world in His hands'. Please listen to the end- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TL5GT9sWlU  (this isn't me, this is a professional). It felt good to do something from my faith. While you have to act and 'feel it' when performing an aria I was already behind the words I was singing in this one, which I something that came through in my evaluation. So yay, I get to share my talents with people for the first time in ages as my prize is a concert. For this I want to balance my set 50/50 between opera and spiritual music so time to pull out the classics like Ave Maria. Yes, I am available for hatch, match, and dispatch services... Hiatus number four is equally interesting. I have arranged to go to Romania for a month in the summer to each English. I believe most churches there are orthodox so not sure what I'll be able to do on Sunday, better take my bible. (Hiatus #5 is that I forgot to take my Bible and Pilgrim book home with me so I had none of my notes or passages..... probably the most important one)

But enough about me, ish.

I'm not emotional at all. Titanic doesn't do it for me, Marley & Me doesn't either so it came as a bit of a shock to me to be holding back tears on Sunday. Just casually in church, as you do, piano starts up and it's #70 'Beauty for Brokeness'. Reading the words on the page really brought home to me how awful it is that people can be nodding to a sermon on love one day, and then respond in a totally different way the next day. I don't like using the term 'migrant crisis' as it dehumanizes the people who are caught up in it, but this is what I am referring to. I know humans aren't great at the whole 'understanding and tolerance' thing and that's we need to be praying for together. Looking at that hymn I saw the words, I registered them, and I felt them. It's all too easy to sit in a service and go with the flow, 'oh now we're standing up, peace, peace, shake hands, hymn, right, sing', which I have done in the past. Hymns aren't just for a jolly, their words mean things, and are just as powerful as a prayer. Take a look at verse two (copyright Graham Kendrick)  http://www.grahamkendrick.co.uk/songs/item/32-god-of-the-poor-beauty-for-brokenness

Shelter for fragile lives

Cures for their ills

Work for the craftsman

Trade for their skills

Land for the dispossessed

Rights for the weak

Voices to plead the cause

Of those who can't speak

I want to paste in the whole hymn but I'm a bit wary of copyright. While three, four, and five are equally appropriate, this verse is where it hit me. Now the ever conservative C of E goer in me was telling me not be ostentatious but I wan't welling up for me. My eyes were filling with tears because this is the message that we need to proverbially slap people round the face with. We watch the nativity and tut at the innkeepers but that is exactly what the 'we're full' message is. Not an original observation, I know, but it is still important. This week I have been praying for compassion and empathy, not only in me but for others too. It's an attribute that could solve many problems in this world but one that is often hard to maintain at all hours in all situations. Look to Jesus, he had it sorted.