Doing life in community

So lately I've been thinking a lot about friendship, and community, and doing life with others. I have the best friends in the whole universe (no, I actually do - I don't care how good you think yours are, mine are better).

4 weeks ago I made vows of dedicated singleness at my beLOVED ceremony (you might not know that - I haven't mentioned it much ;-) ) On that day I was surrounded by my closest friends and greatest supporters. In fact it was really hard because numbers were limited in the venue and there were lots of people I wanted to invite but couldn't. During the ceremony I made vows to the Lord as to how I intend to live my life. And my friends made a vow to support me in doing that. What an amazing, incredible gift that is - the Bishop asked them "Will you support Kate as your friend and sister in Christ in the commitment she is making? Will you pray for her, encourage her and sustain her with your love as she makes this journey of faith?" And they replied "We will!" And they really meant it - they said it really loudly!

So these wonderful people publicly pledged to walk with me through all that lies ahead, both good and bad. I was given lots of beautiful cards on that day. I had asked people not to bring presents (although some still did - naughty! - and thanks!). The cards were an absolute gift and a joy. Words of affirmation are my love language (I've blogged about that before too!), and I love receiving cards with lovely things written in them. The cards have been on display ever since, but this week I took them down so that I could put up my Christmas cards. As I did so, I reread them all. Wow. What an overwhelming display of love and affection and support. I'm an only child and my entire family could fit inside a phone box. And yet here were my brothers and sisters, who had chosen to be there, vowing to stand alongside me through whatever lies ahead. Incredible.

Friendship is such an extraordinary gift. It's a gift because it isn't automatic. There's a choice. No one ever *has* to be your friend, at least not once you're over 5 years old. It's chosen, because of a spark, a shared interest, a shared experience, a sense that here is someone who 'gets' you. With all of my really close friends I can remember the moment I first met them, that feeling of "this is a good person, a fun person, this person could be my friend." Even past the age of 5, there's an excitement in that feeling, as you wonder where it will take you. And there's that fun as you get to know each other better and spend more time together; as you choose to share your secrets, to confide and confess and challenge and console.

My friends are massively important to me. I try really hard to make and maintain friendships. I really need them in my life. I'm an off the scale extrovert (if you know me even 1% of a tiny bit that won't surprise you) and I need to externally process all over the show. This very evening I've been having a long Twitter DM conversation with 2 wonderful friends who have helped me to process some of the stuff in my head.

This is, obviously, even more important to me as a single person. It's not that friendship isn't important when you're married - of course it is, and in fact, many of my closest friends are married. But as a single person I need to build community in a more intentional way. I need to make the effort to maintain friendships with people I don't live near to, and be prepared to travel to see them. I need to make the effort to host people for meals and parties and not simply bemoan that I don't get invited anywhere. (On that - I'm cooking Christmas dinner this year, for the first time ever - think of my poor friends...!)

Today I hosted a Christmas party that I've done ever since 2005 when I first moved to Liverpool (with one year off last year when I was on sabbatical). I invite my local friends and cook up an absolute storm. There's normally enough food for approx. 3.5 times as many people as are present. I love it - it's one of the highlights of my whole year. Today, in my home, old friends and new ones, adults and kids, gathered together to eat and drink and laugh, and I am grateful.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but I think it takes a community to live a life as well. My life is the richer for my friends, who are family, community to me.

Here's a photo of the wonderful beLOVED cards I received, which started this whole reflection...

Beauty and graffiti

A few months ago we decided to establish a little 'community garden' across the road from church, on a patch of wasteland. It was mainly the idea of Rach, a fab member of our church, who heads up our work with young people. She approached the council, who own the land, and they agreed to let us use it, and even helped us out with resources, funding and workers. We worked with them, one of the local RSLs, and a nearby youth centre. A fabulous artist came and did sessions with the kids and young people producing 3 huge murals featuring all their favourite Liverpool landmarks. They were bolted to the wall, and a big flowerbed was sunk into the ground. The nursery class from our church school came over to do the planting. We had a launch event with local community groups and it was lots of fun. Seeing the garden every day makes me smile. It looks lovely, a ray of sunshine in the middle of a patch of derelict and deserted ground.

Or at least, it did look lovely - for a while. Because after only a few months, I went past one day to discover graffiti sprayed all over the murals. There were huge letters drawn in thick black paint. I couldn't see how it could be repaired, but Nicola, the amazing artist, came and worked her magic and it looked as good as new. Phew!

Until last week - when I drove past and suddenly realised I couldn't see the boards. When investigated I found that all 3 of them had been ripped off the wall. 2 were damaged 'just' from being ripped off - they had holes where the bolts had been (the bolts were still attached to the wall). The third was more badly damaged - it had 2 big tears across it, and large pieces knocked off at the corners. I gathered up all the small pieces although I doubt they'll be able to be repaired. The boards were too heavy to move, even when I gathered a couple of helpers, so we left them there and hoped for the best. We're currently waiting for someone to come and put them back up.

I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few days. I was absolutely devastated when I first saw what had happened. The boards looked such a mess, and as if that wasn't bad enough, they had also trampled all over the plants in the flowerbed. I can't understand why anyone would want to cause such damage and destruction in such a wanton way. I'm not naive, I know vandalism happens - a lot! - and I've experienced it many times when my car, house and church have all been damaged in various ways. For some reason, though, this seemed even more wantonly destructive than normal. Maybe it was the fact that all we'd been trying to do was make the local area look a bit nicer. Maybe it was the fact that it had been local kids who had done the painting themselves. It just made me so sad.

I started to wonder, if we found out who it was who had done the damage, and if we asked them why, and if we were able to genuinely have a conversation about it - about what was in their minds as they did it, and what they hoped to achieve - what would we discover? Would it be that they were "just bored"? Understandable in one way, I guess, in an area with few resources - and something we're trying to remedy by creating activities they can engage with. Or would we, I wondered, find out something more, something deeper, if it was even possible for it to be articulated?

You see, I wonder whether there's something about us not being able to cope with beauty, somehow. I wonder if in some way that's what sin is - turning away from God, and from his goodness, and from his right, perfect, beautiful way to live, because we simply can't handle it. There's something about us longing for beauty and truth and goodness, and yet suddenly turning around and randomly destroying a beautiful thing for no apparent reason. I feel like that's sometimes how I live and behave. I destroy beautiful things. I damage what is good. I vandalise what is holy.

God's way, and God's will, is about good not evil; about light not dark; about hope not fear; about beauty not ugliness. Paul puts it this way in his letter to the church in Philippi - "you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse."

I want to be someone who seeks out beauty in God's world, and who speaks and acts in a way which creates beauty, rather than destroying and damaging it. 

When I started out writing this post it was going to be about how it's hard to keep on going when obstacles come along, but it's turned into something completely different! Maybe I'll write that post another day...

This is how our lovely garden looked when it was first created. Recently the flowers looked gorgeous!