Beyond 400 starts on Tuesday with the first of 40 baptists offering their prophetic hunches to help us imagine life beyond the 400th year of baptists in Britain

You can get involved by commenting on posts.  If you want to write a longer reflection on your own blog you can link to it in a shorter comment on here.

If you want to contribute a longer reflection you can e-mail it to us and we may be able to post it on another section of the site along with others.

If you have ideas about how this conversation or website can develop please get in touch with us, we would love to hear your ideas…and would love any help to make it happen!

If you would like to be considered as a future voice to contribute after May please let us know and once it becomes clear what the next phase will be we may be able to get you involved.

http://www.beyond400.net/

But it made me think of all the times I ignore that nagging voice in my head.  How often I have lived to regret not acting on that voice and have let people down by not being attentive enough to God and missing their need. Thankfully, I do act sometimes and have seen someone just before they died, or stopped and helped the person who can’t articulate their need.

My new year resolution is to try and be more attentive to that divine prompt, to not delay acting on it wherever possible

(oh and to find some great software to save all that worry again – I have enough grey hairs thanks!)

One morning, God was staring at the wall. Not a blank wall, but not patterned either. It was a wall of chaos: bright colours, dark colours, swirling patterns, eternally dark and infinitely bright both at the same time. God wondered what could be made of the wall, so he reached out a hand and swirled the colours around. Soon order and pattern began to emerge: luscious pastoral greens coalesced, deep aqua blues combined, and this new creation seemed very pleasing to God.

After contemplating the wall for a while longer, God began to wonder what to do next, so he spoke gently to the wall, and a lustrous sheen began to appear. The wall became shiny, as if a layer of glass had been laid over the top of it. As God continued to stare at the wall, he could now see his own reflection within it. He saw himself inside his creation. When he moved his hand, the image of God waved back. When God smiled, his image smiled back. When God blew at the wall, the image blew a kiss back. God loved the image in the wall, and was happy with all that he had made.

But then something unexpected happened. The image of God reached out and punched the wall from the inside, and the shiny surface of the wall now had a flaw in it, like a stone-chip on a car windscreen. Suddenly the image of God didn’t look quite so much like God anymore: the flaw in the surface had damaged the reflection. The order that God had brought to the wall was distorted, and God was very sad. But still he stood there, staring at the wall and not turning away. Then the image hit the wall again, this time harder and angrier, as if trying to get out, trying to get at God. God flinched, but still he stared at the wall. The surface was by now crazed with cracks, and the image continued to fragment into lots of tiny, sharp fragments. God contemplated walking away from the wall, but knew that if he did so his image would vanish from the wall forever. Distorted as it was, it was still his image; it was still the image he had loved, waved at, and blown kisses to.

God wondered what to do next. And then had an idea. He took a few steps back, and threw himself violently at the wall. The force of the impact stunned him and shook the wall, and the millions of tiny sharp fragments ripped at his skin. Powered forward by the momentum of his run-up, God seemed for a moment to merge into the wall. His blood streaked the surface, and the mark of the impact was clear to see. But God himself had vanished.

After a while it was just possible to make out the faint image of God through the crazed, blood-stained, fragmented surface. God had gone into the wall. Gradually the image of God grew stronger and larger, as God walked up to the wall from the inside. He reached out his hand and carefully joined two broken shards together, and then two more, and then two more. Gradually, slowly, God began to repair the wall from within. As God repaired the wall, he looked at it very carefully, and started to see his own image reflected back.

The end.

(c) Simon Woodman, 2011

I then popped into the local town knowing that parking was going to be a challenge! I entered the car park behind a another car who drove very slowly understandably trying to see a space. This car park has a central drive in to goes up to a T junction with spaces on either side. The car stopped and the driver looked again for several minutes..eventually a car comes from the left and drives across us towards the other side…no spaces on the left then…but still she waits…….

Finally she moves and drives to the right and I follow her…first section has no spaces so move on into the next one where she stops again…I can see the first car heading towards a parking place at the far end and no other spaces on our bit…..but still she sits blocking the entrance to this section,,,and she sits…and she sits…… I assume she has seen someone getting into a car and so is waiting to take the place…and still she sits….

Eventually my patience gives and I honk her..please move forward or across so I can get round and out and seek a space elsewhere. She chooses ot move across and let me pass…and I drive round the loop expecting to leave the car park but lo and behold as I turn into the next row there is a space and I gratefully park.  As I ready to exit the car and other car drives round the corner and I get several mouthfuls of abuse which thankfully I can’t hear but I get the drift!  I smiled sweetly back…after all if she had just kept going on both occasions she would have got to one of the two empty spaces but because she stopped because she couldn’t see the way forward she missed her chances!

As I walked a round the shops I reflected on the experience and realized that we often do that…we stop because we can”t see the way forward but if we just kept going we might find the what we are looking for…God goes before us and just asks us to follow – if we did that who knows what we might discover!

I once went to the House of Lords for a funtion and discovered a playgroup leader to start a playgroup in Leicester!

And, of course, a few wise men followed a star and found Jesus

On it some friends and their friends are talking about Christmas – nothing unusual about that except many of them are from other faiths. Julian Bond posted this letter he received from a Jewish friend and I am sharing it because it shows one few the reasons I am passionate about Interfaith – this is a real gift:

This year I was wished Merry Christmas by more Muslim friends than ever, even though some were saying it was haram, I also received this lovely Christmas message from a Jewish friend who sent it to many Christian friends:

As we approach Christmas, I write to thank you for your friendship and support over the last year. It has been a pleasure to witness the growing strength of our work in interfaith relations and social action in spite of the challenges posed by the financial climate. I put that down to your talent and commitment, and am truly grateful for what you have all put in to maintain and enhance progress in these fields. Through good times and testing times, your wise counsel, activism, understanding and patience have been assets more valuable than those that money can buy. Over the coming year, I hope that we can further our work to build a better Britain, and a better World. As Christians and many more of the human family celebrate the birth of Jesus in December and January, I hope that we all continue to be inspired, fortified and empowered by the contribution of the Christian faith and faithful to our common human progress. For me, the following words give us a snapshot of the Christian values that help to drive so much good:

‘“Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” ‘And the king will answer them, “Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”’ (NRSV, Matthew 25:34-40)

I wish you, your families and your communities a very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.

An indication that division is not at the heart of our different traditions and that we can appreciate each other’s scriptures!

WOW!

One gentleman  responded thus:

Thanky ou .As a muslim I am returning my seasonal greetings in my Inbox, in accordance with Surah An-Nisa’, Chapter 4, verse 86, Allah says that, “When a (courteous) greeting is offered you, meet it with a greeting still more courteous, or (at least) of equal courtesy. Allah takes careful account of all things.”

BUGB Futures Group

Andy had given a good guide to the blogs that have been discussing this so if you are interested go read herel  This is currently a small group of people but worth listening to, as is David Kerrigan’s post here which offers two pieces of Good news that just may be signposts to new ways of ‘relating and resourcing’ one another!

This debate will continue and as others join in I pray that our creative God will lead us forward into new ways and I pray we all have the courage to follow!

Go read the book – available on e-readers – and read the blogs and the comments – though those of a nervous disposition may want to avoid one of the comments which sends you to another person’s blog review….and thus preserve the brick walls around you!