Just back from a good evening across at Manvers Lake, Wath-on-Dearne watching Ruth Mason swim a sponsored mile for Micah68 and especially the Jerusalem Princess Basma Centre, a Micah Project based on the Mount of Olives (http://www.micah6-8.org.uk/princessbasma.html). Cheered on by friends from school and church she swam brilliantly, and we were all proud of her, and I gave a little speech after consuming a bacon butty and a strong cup of tea. She has raised over £750.00 towards the project target of £1,000, which was amazing. Thanks to anyone who sponsored her from Sheffield, Mexborough, Kendal, Tebay, Northallerton, Richmond, Epsom etc……and not forgetting Sweden of course…….

Lunchtime in sunny Derbyshire, and I plunge into a book I discovered on a bookshelf in Aberdeen last year (thanks David Anderson) – ‘Other’ by Kester Brewin (Hodder, 2010 for those who like the full details). Has a good subtitle – ‘Loving Self, God and Neighbour in a World of Fractures’. (Check out http://www.kesterbrewin.com/) Beginning with an illustration from both the streets of Bethelehem, Palestine – and also the streets of home, Kester asks a question about the ‘Other’, and how we address the ‘other’ and ‘others’ in our lives. So here’s a few quotes from early on that have struck me, starting with The Bible:

Didn’t the same God who made me, make them? Job 31: 15 The Message

It is easy to love what is lovely, but we are called to love what is other. It is easy to love what is familiar, but we are called to love what is strange. It is easy to love what is comforting, but we are called to love what is disturbing to us.

Who then is this ‘other’? It is the other within myself, the parts of me that I hide in the dark, the half-fictional parts I parade and boast. What would it mean to truly love this self of mine? It is the other within God, the divinity I cannot fully know or understand who does not answer my prayers and does not provide comfort; the incarnate and yet ever-hidden who infects my dreams and won’t let me go. What would it mean to love this God with all of my self? And it is the other within the world I inhabit, the neighbours who are nosiy, the street people who are smelly, the immigrants who are strange.

Love is complicated, interconnected, emergent and evolving. It is also a love that must be lived.

‘Lord lead me’, as Paul Tillich prayed, ‘from a life divided, to a life united’.

Already on page 51, I think I am going to like this book……

Now back home, bag unpacked, and jars of Middle East sunshine now released into Sheffield……..so come on summer! Welcomed back by friends in the UK (after a 5 hour delay at the airport….thanks Jet2!), my thoughts and prayers are still with friends over in the Middle East and so feeling a bit torn between ‘homes’. One of the last things I did in Ibillin before heading for the airport was to stand with my oldest friend Sohil, with one of his sons, at the grave of Sohil’s wife Hannah and offer prayers for the family. A poignant moment remembering a special lady who welcomed me into her home 15 years ago.

Preparing to meet my own church family tomorrow, and lead some sung worship on my plonking guitar, I reflect that 2 weeks ago I worshipped at the Anglican Cathedral, Jerusalem, last week I worshipped in the Baslica of the Annunciation, Nazareth (where the angel spoke to Mary), and here I am back in sunny Sheffield ready to worship at Greenhill Methodist Church. Jerusalem and Nazareth sound exotic places, especially to those who treasure the Jesus story – but actually wherever we are is the most important place for Christian worship and witness, and so I am glad to be here, but with friends overseas in my heart.