So, sorry I haven’t really had time to mine the thinking too clearly yet, but perhaps we can do it together… Beginning with snow… sins becoming white as… falling when “the Almighty scattered kings there”… and Ps 68 being the resurrection declaration to tie in with the year we are in. We are so in a new time! The Lord has so broken the old inevitable shaping of thought and action! “The women who proclaim the tidings” are the sign of new sight at the open tomb, “The Lord is among them … in holiness” (cf the Kingdom is not here nor there, but among you…) as the now presence of the Holy spirit to activate and release the kingdom, and then that fabulous interaction of v.18 with Ephesians 4:10… ascension on high, leading captivity captive and then receiving AND/OR  giving gifts among people?!  Does he receive those who are hungry, willing and persevering  to be caught up with him in his newness (new body/humanity/focus) and then give them as gifts to the world? I don’t know how else to read the shift from receiving to giving… So I think – how totally FABULOUS of the creation to do the snow to celebrate and speak the time with us, the time of us being given as gifts to the world, IF we are caught up/received into his new/nowness, because of the presence of the kingdom among us!!  (If you’re reading this outside the UK, please forgive what could seem like parochialism, but we are aware of the role of these islands as a forerunner sign to the continent and the language the Brits speak is weather! I also do think that Eurostar marking the beginning of the closedown relates the signs to Europe particularly…)

So much more in this psalm – please add what the Lord shows you from what I think is a narrative psalm for this year….

But my further thought is about the communication channels which are being so radically blocked and cut at the moment.  I do not see this as a negative but another sign about the routes in our own heads and minds, which our thoughts track down so regularly and unconsciously.  If 2008 was about death and 2009 about Sabbath, then this year is so very much about being ready to see the unseeable and believe the unimaginable! I think the women at the tomb and the couple on the Emmaus road are our models for this year, as strength and confidence did hinder the disciples believing the women’s fresh sight of the future which was activated by love (John also saw and believed). Such confidence and ability to regroup will rally again in Europe temporarily this year but 2011 will mirror Peter’s realisation of the brokenness of human confidence (watch for the first seemingly temporary shift in Europe to a ‘benign autocracy’). I am so aware personally that with the changing shape of being the people of God, the motivation of the love dynamic or of the abandonment to seek the beloved at whatever cost needs stimulating.  Because it is only the love dynamic which opens the new sight. If the kingdom to be released among us consists in love, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit, giving ourselves to be received into that place has to be reprioritised. New hope of an ‘unprecendented harvest’ can so easily and unconsciously run down those well worn communication paths of memory and happy expectation, while Christ walks with us and asks “What are these words that you are exchanging with one another?” May we all find ourselves forging new understanding of what this servant kingdom looks like as “our hearts burn within us while he speaks to us on the road.”

It doesn’t !! I am however now deeply provoked by the hegemony of the media and the commodification of prophetic sound. I notice today that Martin blog-mentioned the new series of ‘novels’ byTim LaHaye. It’s all part of the same hegemony that makes the real disturbance that should  alert us to significant change and action, an interesting, titillating, ‘entertaining’ event! And thereby we might miss the true sound. So here’s my rant for the week… Do NOT bother to see the completely rubbish film ’2012′ (which is actually quite horrendous in its cartoonery of mass death and destruction) where a few ‘good folk’ persuade the rich and greedy to allow a handful of plebs to join them on 6 arks, to sail into a new day. Incidentally, all religious symbols from the Vatican to  the Tibetan monastery were somewhat gleefully exposed to the same destruction (a happy thought?) prayers went painfully unanswered (much less happy!) and only the wealth of the private sector, the ingenuity of the Chinese with the leadership of America saved the day. (Surprise!) 6 arks – did they deliberately pick up the symbol for humanity? Human cleverness surviving without God despite the motif of Biblical salvation.

A few weeks ago I also watched the film ‘Knowing’ which is perhaps more worrying. A mixture of Von Daniken (aliens mascarading as angels but in my view, far too close a representation not to confuse) with the Late Great Planet Earth scenario of the end times coming on the back of newly discovered ‘prophecies’. Can they be altered? Can the world be saved? No, because you didn’t believe when you were given the chance. Now you must be destroyed by fire, though two innocent children can be transported to the new heaven and new earth…. Here there is a god to blame! A truly vicious one! And what a controlling view of prophecy! I might rant forever…

So the move is either to ride on the spiritual disturbance in these great days of change and potential to release even more anxiety and fear into the corporate mindset, or to make it so ‘entertaining’ that we experience an early catharsis and stop taking the urges to see, imagine, meditate and pray seriously. At the same time it potentially trivialises prophetic insight, or sets a view of it that makes us despise or become cynical.

I am more convinced than ever that the four year cycles of this century are developing  a mature and repositioned people who are prepared  to show and be God’s wisdom in the shakings and potentially cataclysmic events of these years. The re-positioning of 2004-2007 was extreme.  These years of 08-11 are those when the Lord said he would tweak his Holy Spirit intervention into the people of God of 1994 and onwards into his intervention through them into the wider society.  I was in the South West this weekend, hearing such marvellous stories about healings and miracles yes, in meetings, but also on the streets. I was drinking coffee with a most visionary farmer who is developing community space where information about organic/good food can be disseminated as well as community initiatives be encouraged in an otherwise dying town centre. I hope to be in Leeds this coming Saturday for the Leeds ‘Summat’,  ‘a gathering for inspiration, disruption and action for the big issues of our time’ (Google it and be inspired!) And all this provoking (?)/preparing for (?)/in reaction to (?)/ working alongside such societal shifts, already building up and clear to see but which will probably leave us breathless and shocked, if we are not fully prepared and prayerful leading up to the end of this cycle.

So you can give the films a miss, but keep listening to the gentle prompting of the Spirit to watch and pray, pull on the signs and substance of his Kingdom, open his presence and life everywhere and to everyone (particularly discipling the unseen structures … more on this to come?) and be ready for an acceleration of change which we will have to surf, with joy and faith!

Those of you who know us will understand that Roger is the disciplined one (not to say a little OCD?) who is now blogging most days and developing pages and themes, categories and power points and I think some of you are hopping over onto this site after being there.  Welcome to another planet! I am the more random one who has many thoughts of what I might post, or responses that I think could be interesting which mainly stay at the potential phase.  So like I said, thanks for the encouragement to go further.  I hope it will be of help and certainly expect to learn, grow and change through the interaction with your input too. 

I doubt I will write anything more often than weekly and am already intimidated by Rog’s immediate comments on everything I began to m u l l over and imagine (colour of cloud thinking…) g e s t a t i v e l y I could  (perhaps?) mention, but then remembered the 4 gospel writers all gave different takes on the same events. Now this thought in itself seemed shocking – as if to put our events or experiences into the same sentence as the incarnation was pretentious at best, sacrilegious at worst.  So I thought I would begin by owning up to wondering whether this consitutes a) delusions of grandeur; b) stream of consciousness irrelevant comparisons; or c) intensely religious segregated thinking?

My real question is this: isn’t our daily purpose to be living and looking for an incarnation of the kingdom in the little (and big?) events of our own lives? It’s a question to make us wonder.

More to follow