Just a few reflections from today:

On the bus into and out of Blackpool town centre on Thursday and Friday there was a buzz, people were excited, excited to be voting for a new future….

Today on that same bus people were subdued…. there was no talk of victory …

On Thursday and Friday the town was its usual buzzy self….

Today I watched a small crowd gather outside one of the shops who were broadcasting the radio news about the falling pound and financial losses, in the four years of being here this is the first time I have seen anything like this….

Today I have heard of friends and others who have faced racist attacks, and that rips my heart and disturbs my soul as I weep and fear for them…

Today I have heard rumours from other countries who might also seek to withdraw from the EU…

I don’t have any answers as I ponder the news of political parties imploding and internal struggles emerging, resignations and confusions continue…

My hope therefore lies elsewhere, it lies in the God who can bring order out of chaos, and that demands that I look to myself and my responses…

Am I first of all being loving, and if I am struggling am I seeking God’s depths until I find that love?

Am I considering the needs of my neighbours, of the nation, of the foreigner and stanger before my own selfishness?

As my friend David Wynd says:

The one thing Thursday’s vote didn’t change was what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. We are still called to live in the same way as before. To love our neighbour, to care for the foreigner living amongst us, to bring healing to those we meet and to tell of the good news.

As a Christian I must look to Christ, I must choose the challenging way of the cross, I must not fear the immigrant or the stock market, for unless I believe that God is greater than these and well able to hold them then I am lost. Perfect love casts out fear and only through clinging to and living from the certainty of that love can I live, and speak into the turmoil and chaos that surrounds me…

As a Christian I must find a way of holding out hope, well informed and grounded hope, not daft and shallow platitudes, but hope nonetheless. It would be so easy to drown in despair or to react in anger, but through my own shock, saddness and grief I am reaching out for hope, a hope born of a faith that can never be anything but grounded in love…

Surely this must be the source of my response, the source of my passion and the power from which I draw to make my way forward. In this love takes on a fuller meaning and a substance that seeks truth and enables justice to flourish…

O Lord hear my prayer as I seek to:

Steep my life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Not worrying about missing out. That I might find that  all of my everyday human concerns will be met. (Mtthw 6: 33- personalised)

This is not a simplistic reaction or a hiding from the hard facts, but a grounding of my heart and soul that I might weigh and measure my words, my critiques and my reading of the issues that face this community and this country.

Loving God help me to find myself in you first, always in you…..

O Lord hear my prayer…. help me to join my prayer with all who pray for peace.