The Cry

The wind funnelled through Roman Square between Sainsbury’s car park and the High Street creating little swirls of litter and dry leaves ahead of me.  A thin girl of about sixteen, with bare arms, sat on a low wall.  Her face looked older than her frame, and there were dark shadows round her eyes.  She was arguing with someone on her mobile phone.  A child, too big to be strapped so tightly into his push chair, was crying with boredom and frustration.  ‘Shut up!’ she suddenly yelled at him; ‘Shut up!  Go asleep!’  She threw a blanket over his face and carried on with her argument.

They were still there when I returned half an hour later – still absorbed in her phone call, the child kicking her with rage, and struggling to get out.  He gave an empty, aching cry as I passed by.  I felt his cry in my womb – in that place deep within, from which the maternal instinct leaps to protect its’ young.  It was a cry of starvation.  His eyes hungered for his mother’s face, but she didn’t even glance towards him and I had the feeling that the phone was her ‘Tardis’ – a means of instant transportation away from reality – away from him.
His cry reverberates in the world around us – ‘LISTEN to me!  See me!  Engage with me!’ We have the technology at our fingertips to communicate with people on the other side of the world, or even in outer space, but are losing the ability to communicate at an intimate level, often with those we love the most.  I believe that God has placed within us an imprint of His face, and is constantly calling us back into relationship with himself.  He is our primary source of love, enabling us to live in harmony with the world around us.

The psalmist expressed it well when he said ‘My heart says of you “Seek His face”.  Your face, Lord, I will seek.  Do not hide your face from me….Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Saviour.’  (Psalm 27 v 8)  God’s response to our need is reflected in the following verses. ‘Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink.  Even if you have no money!  Come, take your choice of wine or milk – it’s all free!  Why spend on food that doesn’t satisfy?… Listen and I will tell you where to get food that is good for the soul!…Listen, for the life of your soul is at stake!…Seek the Lord while you can find him...’  (Isaiah 55 v 1 – 3)

LORD, help me get things in the right order, you first, people next, things last; Show me how to look into your face, and feel your heartbeat for the world.

The London riots

Inner London is a part of my life, living in Clapham as a student and then three years in Hoxton as a curate. So I feel about it as perhaps only a Londoner can.
The riots are going to be a field day for the media, and I could write some of the reactions myself, particularly at what we might call the “guardian” and “telegraph” ends of the spectrum.
So I am thankful to come across a really intelligent, sensitive response from a woman who knows life at the street level. She is a remarkable woman,  whose family were obliged to leave Iran following the Iranian revolution. But she has given herself to a very different life.
see : http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/camila-batmanghelidjh-caring-costs-ndash-but-so-do-riots-2333991.html
We’re used, travelling around London on the Underground, to the Tannoy telling us  to “mind the gap”; now it is coming home to us, that the gap between those young people who feel excluded from wealth and opportunity, and the rest of society, is more immense than we can imagine; and it does not help that those involved at the top posts of government and opposition come from a privileged background. How can they begin to imagine what life is like for someone on a run-down estate ?
Another brilliant article shows how dangerous it is to think of London troubles as a problem belonging to the black community:
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/08/tottenham-riots-not-unexpected
At the moment I cannot find the right words to pray about it all. The moment of “the still small voice”  has not yet arrived; the earthquake, wind and fire is all around. And other cities are being drawn in to the disturbances as well; we are seeing the downside of “twitter” and “facebook” and instant communication which is sometimes like pouring petrol on flames.
Still, small voice, we need you !   ( Perhaps that is a prayer after all. )

Canon Alan Amos

6@6

If you are interested in issues that connect faith and all the new technology around us, come along to our 6@6 service on Sunday 23 October at St Mary’s, Upchurch, where Technology will be the theme of the service.