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82 pages

English

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Bible readings, reflections and prayers for the days of Holy Week, and a large section of resources. Contributors include Alastair McIntosh, Alison Swinfen, Ian M Fraser, Elaine Gisbourne, David Rhodes, Peter Millar, Stephen Wright, Bonnie Thurston, Nicola Slee, Brian Quail and other members, associates and friends of the Iona Community.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Wild Goose Publications
Date de parution	22 mai 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781849525299
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Bible readings, reflections and prayers for the days of Holy Week, and a large section of resources, including ‘Prayers on the seven words of the Cross’, ‘A service of lamentation to liberate us for action’, poems, meditations, and reflections …
The sun slowly rises on city streets where saints trail and spread God’s light. The sun slowly rises in Glasgow classrooms where folk teach English as a second language to refugees and asylum seekers. The sun slowly rises at islands for world peace and over Iona Abbey. It rises on farms in Palestine where folk plant olive trees and work to grow peace from the ground up. It rises where street pastors hand out bandages and love. It rises in houses of hospitality, in the work of organisations like Church Action on Poverty, in Spirit-filled churches everywhere from Taipei to Orkney, at demos in solidarity with those suffering unjust taxation and benefit cuts. The sun slowly rises at climate marches around the globe. The sun slowly rises at Faslane submarine base where protesters sing and waltz the dance of life and blockade death and pray for the day when all nuclear weapons will be abolished …
The sun slowly rises …
Feel it on your face and hands and in your heart Spring is coming
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never put it out
In the early dawn they went to the tomb …
The sun slowly rises …
Contributors include Alastair McIntosh, Alison Swinfen, Ian M Fraser, Elaine Gisbourne, David Rhodes, Peter Millar, Stephen Wright, Bonnie Thurston, Nicola Slee, Brian Quail and other members, associates and friends of the Iona Community.
www.ionabooks.com
The sun slowly rises
Readings, reflections and prayers for Holy Week from the Iona Community
Neil Paynter

www.ionabooks.com
Contributions copyright © the individual contributors Compilation copyright © Neil Paynter
Published 2017 by Wild Goose Publications 21 Carlton Court, Glasgow G5 9JP, UK, the publishing division of the Iona Community. Scottish Charity No. SC003794. Limited Company Reg. No. SC096243.
PDF: ISBN 978-1-84952-528-2 ePub: ISBN 978-1-84952-529-9 Mobipocket: ISBN 978-1-84952-530-5
Cover photo © David Coleman
The publishers gratefully acknowledge the support of the Drummond Trust, 3 Pitt Terrace, Stirling FK8 2EY in producing this book.
All rights reserved. Apart from reasonable personal use on the purchaser’s own system and related devices, no part of this document or file(s) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Non-commercial use: The material in this book may be used non-commercially for worship and group work without written permission from the publisher. Please make full acknowledgement of the source and where appropriate report usage to the CLA or other copyright organisation.
Commercial use: For any commercial use of this material, permission in writing must be obtained in advance from Wild Goose Publications at the above address.
Neil Paynter has asserted his right in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Contents
Readings, reflections and prayers for Holy Week
Introduction, Neil Paynter
Palm Sunday: Surges of hope, Katharine M Preston
Monday of Holy Week: The courage to be the only voice, Lyn Ma
Tuesday of Holy Week: ‘Peace will grow from the ground up’, Mike Mineter
Wednesday of Holy Week: An extravagant gift of love, Bonnie Thurston
Maundy Thursday: In the shadows, Elaine Gisbourne
Good Friday: The veil of the temple, Stephen Wright
Holy Saturday: In our ‘not there yet’ world, Marie Pattison
Easter Sunday: God rolls away the stones, John McCall
Resources for Holy Week
Prayers for the journey to Easter (from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday), Elaine Gisbourne
Crucifixion 2017-style, Paul Nicolson
My love is like a red, red rose, Brian Quail
‘This is my child’, Anna Briggs
‘May peace prevail’: An interview with Lyn Ma, Lyn Ma and Neil Squires
You – yes – you: A meditation on Simon of Cyrene, Alison Swinfen
Prayers on crucifixion, David Rhodes
Take us back: Good Friday worship on the words from the Cross, David McNeish
Your life in us: Prayers on the seven words from the Cross, Peter Millar
Holy Week poems, Bonnie Thurston
We Will Tread the Earth Lightly: A service of lamentation to liberate us for action, Chris Polhill
The disturbing and good news (Holy Saturday on Iona), Thom M Shuman
Easter Sunday sermon from Iona Abbey, Nicola Slee
Love that breaks open stone: Poems for Easter Sunday, Alison Swinfen
Night sight, Elaine Gisbourne
Invisible guests, John McCall
The ten Beatitudes, Alastair McIntosh
The incredible love of God in Christ, Ian M Fraser
Sources and acknowledgements
About the authors
Introduction
A story of resurrection (from before digital cameras) …
‘People ask me how I can always be so happy,’ says Gary, and tells me his story. About how some junkies broke into his basement room and stole his TV and music system. Stabbed him in the head and ribs sixteen times.
‘I thought I was falling asleep, but I was really dying.’
‘During it I had this feeling,’ he says. ‘Like someone suddenly reached out and touched me. My guardian angel, my mum said. And I knew I was safe and held in love.’
Sunlight falls on Gary’s face and he closes his eyes; he says the stabbing helped to clear away the fog. ‘People ask me how I can always be so happy – I’m back from death.’
He looks like he’s on permanent vacation – standing in flowery knee-length shorts, leather sandals, and a T-shirt proclaiming LIFE’S A BEACH; a great smile across his broad tanned face.
We’re standing in the middle of the city sidewalk. People run to important meetings; wait with clouded looks. Gary’s bopping and dancing away …
I remind him about the last time I saw him. Down at the drop-in – pale and shivering in a corner, hugging himself.
‘Ya, I wasn’t a pretty picture, eh?’
Gary tells me he’s moved and hardly ever goes there now. He likes to go on long walks – round the park, the market, the botanical gardens … He’s got energy to burn – energy he never knew he had.
‘Here, look,’ he says, and shows me the camera his father sent him for his birthday, turns it over in his knuckly hands like treasure. He laughs: ‘I used to hate people taking my picture. I used to think I was ugly. Ugly from the inside out, you know? Now I wear my shorts, take my shirt off. Why not?’ he says, and opens the zoom lens, ‘there’s nothin’ to be ashamed of.’
Gary doesn’t care if people see his scars, or think he’s crazy or stupid.
‘God thinks I’m beautiful. Jesus calls me his beloved son,’ he says, like he has stood in front of God’s gaze and grown bright with it. Like something brilliant has happened, and he’ll never feel ashamed again.
I ask him what he likes to take photos of, and he says people he loves, things he loves: ‘Sunsets and sunrises. Squares and fountains. Faces and flowers … I used to sit and watch TV. Now I wanna take pictures.’
Gary says he loves the way the light changes – and is everywhere. ‘There’s so much I never even noticed before. You know? … So, that’s why I listen to jazz,’ he says, and excitedly shows me his Walkman now. ‘I used to listen to basement music – Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden. Now I listen to jazz. Walk around everyplace and take pictures and listen to jazz … I used to hate it. I didn’t understand. The joy. The joy, but sadness too. Jazz people went through a lot, suffered. But it’s the joy that comes through stronger in the end – Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald. I listen to the words. I never did before. They sink in. I used to hate it. I used to hate everything … Life was a bitch. I didn’t understand.’
Gary shrugs. ‘Sometimes you gotta die to be born,’ he says, and starts showing me the stack of photos he keeps in his backpack, with a bottle of water; drops one the wind catches and carries off. ‘Oh well, someone’ll find it,’ he laughs, as it Spirits away.
Gary says he was dead. Dead when they climbed in his casket and stole his buried treasure. Now his treasure is the light that glitters. Each new day. ‘I just thank God … See, listen ,’ he says, and reaches up and lays his hands on me: gives me his headphones.
‘Can you hear? …… See – light and dark. Sorrow and joy … Can you hear?’ he trumpets. People passing glance round, wondering if he’s talking to them. I listen. And can hear: the bluesy key, the brassy joy.
While I’m listening to the music of life, Gary stands out on the street corner handing out his photographs: waxy, shiny leaves of grass breaking up through concrete; blazing heads of flowers in a litter-strewn wasteland; the sun slowly rising up over office towers and apartment blocks … Gives one to a woman who stops, taken aback … then smiles as something slowly sinks in. Hands one to a man who lights up and laughs. He seems to know who to give them to: people stopped or slowed with care or worry; folk in a hurry who only have time for a bite. He seems to know: who needs energy, who needs some hope. I close my eyes – and can see pictures in the music …
I hand him back his halo.
Gary says when he walks through the mean street valley now he feels protected; he smiles, the lines and wrinkles around his eyes all crinkly and radiating out.
He looks lit up from within – his face beaming, his Hawaiian shorts like stained glass glowing.
The sun’s out and the world is full of light. It seems to me that Gary is making it that way – and he is. We shake hands and he strolls off, listening to the sea of life.
I watch him disappear down the street, taking pictures of everything in the world he nearly lost.
Heading uptown everything is lit up from within. The crucified, leafy trees; the lined faces of souls … Like a saint has passed this way trailing and spreading light. Like the fog has cleared.
There’s a smell of tar; dazzle and glitter of sand dunes on a bu