Duttyo's Weblog

Thinking about Advent

duttyo — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:21:50 +0000

This year I’m part of a team who are putting together an Advent calendar that is designed to challenge us about issues of wealth, poverty and inequality. Each Morning a new video will be posted onto our facebook page and everyone is then invited to share their comments on the themes it explores. Why not join us?

https://www.facebook.com/AdventCalendarConspiracy

All Hallows Eve

duttyo — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:07:34 +0000

There is a light….. It shines in the Darkness

Playing the beautiful game

duttyo — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 06:32:42 +0000

I’m afraid I have a confession to make. For many of you reading this I have joined the enemy.

On Saturday 24th of September I will take to the field as part of St Bedes III’s first 11 against Shadwell reserves.

Not only that but I’m adamant that my first home performance in goal for my Bradford based team will end in a clean sheet.

I actually played my first competitive match in four years last weekend, a hard fought 2-2 draw away to Ealandians III’s.

During the match I was stood on that exposed pitch the other side of Halifax, freezing cold and soaking wet and I thought

‘wow I’ve missed this’ a feeling that only intensified when I was later voted Man of the Match (although I suspect that

as the team had previously had no goalkeeper, that vote was as much about making sure I turned up next week as anything else).

It wasn’t just the match that I had missed though. I realised that I had missed being part of a team. The feeling of comradeship,

of being part of something bigger, of having a place to belong is both comforting and terrifying. comforting because you know

that you have others around you who feel the same as you and are looking to help you grow and develop and terrifying because

you know that such such bond will demand from you a serious commitment. Not, perhaps, unlike our sense of discipleship.

When God calls us and places us among his church he provides for us a community within which we may seek to deepen our faith

and understanding and to do so surrounded by people drawn together by the common bond of the love and grace of Christ. However,

our commitment to Christ cannot be half hearted. A God who gives much also demands much. The cost of discipleship is the

sacrifice of our lives, each day, into the service of our Lord and King. In reward we receive a life of fulfilment and an

opportunity to live out ‘Life in all it’s fullness’.

One of the discoveries i have made after 4 years out of the game is that football is certainly something that becomes easier the

more you do. After my first match I was aching considerably. After a couple of runs and some weight training this week I feel

in much better shape and hopefully the recovery after this Saturday should be shorter and considerably less painful. I’m

sure the more I train and prepare, the better I will preform and the better I will feel.

We are called to keep in shape spiritually too. the longer we spend in prayer and study the closer we will feel to God and

our spirituality will feel enriched.

By the time this article is printed the match against Shadwell will have long finished so Hopefully we’ll be 3 points better off!

whatever happens I’ll continue my training, hoping that I’ll keep improving. My spiritual training will, I hope, also keep

improving and i hope yours does too.

One Wedding and No Funeral

duttyo — Tue, 17 May 2011 14:42:40 +0000

The Royal wedding happened then. As if it was possible to miss it! Now I’m no royalist, as the sarcasm in that opening comment probably gave away, but I do think it was wonderful to see so many people celebrating together. On that occasion at least.

Of course every wedding should be a wonderful celebration. I certainly hope that the ones I’m involved in leading feel like they are. In each and everyone of them I would hope that we are able to celebrate the amazing gift of human love. To delight in seeing a couple who long for their worlds to become inter-twined in a new and exciting way and to do so knowing that the love they are proclaiming mirrors the love of God in all our lives. I believe that no matter what happens in the months and years that follow, God celebrates with us at a wedding.

I am even more sure that the same can not be said of the bigger event that happened the following day. I can never believe that God would delight and celebrate in the death of a human being. There is no space within my understanding of a God who loves us to allow that conclusion.

I am still struggling with my own feelings regarding the killing of Osama Bin Laden. It seems to have left so many questions that in all probability I will never know the answers to. Yet I know that when I saw others celebrating the death of another human being I felt sickened. That’s not to say that I didn’t understand that there was a strong possibility that Osama needed to be killed in order to save others. Or even that I could not understand the feelings of those who thought that for the atrocities he had committed he deserved death. Indeed my Favourite theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled with those same themes when turning aside from his staunch pacifist stance to become part of 1944 bomb plot to assassinate Hitler reasoning that if he remained silent he would find that he, too, would feel implicated in Hitler’s atrocities.

Rather I felt sickened because I cannot believe that God would delight in anyone’s death. Will the world be a safer place now? I don’t know. Will those who have suffered in New York and London feel that justice has been served? Again I don’t know.

I do know however, that I will continue to celebrate love and mourn death wherever and however I encounter them. I think that’s what God would want of me

Circuit service for the beginning of Lent

duttyo — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 11:34:10 +0000

Last night I attended our circuit service which marked the beginning of the season of lent. Jane and Andrew had prepared a time of quiet reflection which drew us as a congregation into times of corporate and personal reflection asking pertinent questions as we begin our time of meditation on the nature of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness.

The times of personal reflection spoke very strongly to me, in part, due to their stark simplicity. We were invited to spend an extended time in silence either reading a meditation about being in the wilderness followed by some quotes from various influential leaders (which I glanced at but didn’t really read) or to simply sit and watch a series of different images (which I did and found very powerful). In the middle of the silence a piece of gentle and ‘moody’ sax music was played before the silence was allowed to return. There was something intensely powerful about that time to make a deep and personal examination of conscience.

Another thing that struck me was the response we were asked to make towards the end of the service. We’d all been given a piece of hessian sacking which we were invited to use in response to how God had spoken to us. There were a whole range of options about how that response could happen but for me the one that felt right was to place that piece of sack, representing something that I wished to lay down, at the foot of the Lenten cross. Kneeling at the the cross is not something new, I’ve done it many times before, physically and mentally but it always has a profound effect.

Was anyone else who’s reading this at the service? What effect did it have on you? How might it change your journey through lent this year?

The Cycle of Creation

duttyo — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:36:21 +0000

This week I noticed the first sprouts of new life in our front garden. Tucked away in a sheltered corner by the laurel hedge in a spot that catches the sun, a few bulbs are starting to show their bright green shoots. It was refreshing to see after a cold hard winter (that it seems, as I write, isn’t quite over yet) that the earth has been carefully storing and protecting that new life. Our seasons always do a good job of reminding me that we live within a faith that understands the centrality of life and death, the importance of sacrifice and resurrection.

Recently our Methodist Churches have had their annual Covenant services where we think again about God’s promises to his people and his relationship with them. A relationship that begins at the dawn of creation and is constantly re-created. We believe that God did not simply create a world for us to live in and then abandon us to our own devices but rather that he is ever present influencing our world and being an intimate part of our lives. It is through this close relationship that we are able to find truth in the words of Christ who says, ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’ (John 10:10b). It’s a truth which gives much to us but also asks from us.

We cannot exist within that relationship without understanding the sacrifice that God has made for us. That, in turn, leads us to live out God’s mission in our own lives. So as we seek to live within God’s plan we also seek out the things that help us to be recreated in him. Our recreation in Christ is an important part of our discipleship. Do you allow God to be as much a part of your hobbies as your study?

God Bless your work and your play

Finally…

duttyo — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:18:36 +0000

After much deliberation a name has been decided.

From this day forth we shall be know as…..

Metanoia

and this might well be our sign….

What do you think?

Welcome home

duttyo — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 13:33:16 +0000

I’ve been using this video in lots of my services recently. For me it highlights just how important and moving a good, unexpected welcome can be.

It’s made me think a lot about the way that God chooses to welcome us. We don’t deserve the welcome that we receive from him but it’s all sweeter for being born out of that grace.

The welcome shown to a prodigal who might at last understand the blessing of their fathers love

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him”

Songs of love

duttyo — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 09:00:48 +0000

Love

duttyo — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 09:00:37 +0000