Approaching our next walk on Friday 13th June, we were aware we had, at our back, unfinished business. However, we must hold this business for later as we move on. Starting this day’s report with Brueggeman (my favourite author at the moment) seems apposite:
“It is the wind of God which creates a new future. That wind is beyond any resistance from the empire or anyone else. Passionate ministry is to be able to stand in the ‘null point’ and to speak a new world and a new city against the despair of the exile.”
On 13th June therefore, Gerry, Linda and I meandered from Pitsea Station to Benfleet in bright sunshine along easy paths through fields full of horses and buttercups – a gloriously quiet day in the Essex countryside. I was reminded of how the land reflects its creator. God shared his
presence – we had lost the path at one point and no sooner had I uttered the words asking the Lord for angelic help than a little lady popped out of her house in her fluffy pink slippers asking if we were walking? We’d missed the path, she said, where it slipped behind the edge of the houses and we needed to turn back and turn in. What a blessing to recover our confidence after the last outing! Tracking back for a second to those darker moments, my perspective remains similar to that on the day. That’s encouraging as it confirms our discernment about what occurred. Now we wait for the marching in the tops of the balsam trees (2 Sam 5.24) to break up the ground and get at the roots.
Back to Brueggeman…'what God does is never controlled by the status quo.' In the midst of the Roman empire, God sent John the Baptist to a people in captivity. John prepared the way for the Bridegroom. He understood he was to die, as Paul understood he was to die, as Jesus knew he was to die, and as the prophetic church must understand it is to die that we live. God’s ways are not our ways. We walk therefore to die? Perhaps. We also walk to see life come. If we were just doing it for enjoyment it would be enough but to call for life in God to come – brilliant use of time!
That morning, at Benfleet Station, four of us broke bread and prayed for Avril who has stood in the gap before the Lord and wept for Canvey Island for years. Kathy had received an encouraging word from the Lord that morning for the watch-people and intercessors, which she delivered to Avril as we prayed.
Slogging through long grass on the Canvey Island northern sea wall was, for me a joy, despite the slow-moving adder who crossed our path as we trudged towards Shell Haven. Gerry had gone off in the car to do a recce and Avril, Kathy and I plodded on despite the fence and a multiplicity of young heifers and bullocks! (Is that the collective noun for them?) Our objective was the Lobster Smack pub, one of the oldest surviving buildings on the island and very cheap! Gerry was to meet us there.
Gerry was a woman on a mission – she had found a picture on the internet of a sculpture depicting Canvey Island held in a hand and she was determined to find it. She did. It was at the centre of a garden of remembrance for those who died in the 1952/3 flood. The hand itself was rising from
the sea as you can see here.
“It is the wind of God which creates a new future. That wind is beyond any resistance from the empire or anyone else. Passionate ministry is to be able to stand in the ‘null point’ and to speak a new world and a new city against the despair of the exile.”
On 13th June therefore, Gerry, Linda and I meandered from Pitsea Station to Benfleet in bright sunshine along easy paths through fields full of horses and buttercups – a gloriously quiet day in the Essex countryside. I was reminded of how the land reflects its creator. God shared his
presence – we had lost the path at one point and no sooner had I uttered the words asking the Lord for angelic help than a little lady popped out of her house in her fluffy pink slippers asking if we were walking? We’d missed the path, she said, where it slipped behind the edge of the houses and we needed to turn back and turn in. What a blessing to recover our confidence after the last outing! Tracking back for a second to those darker moments, my perspective remains similar to that on the day. That’s encouraging as it confirms our discernment about what occurred. Now we wait for the marching in the tops of the balsam trees (2 Sam 5.24) to break up the ground and get at the roots.Back to Brueggeman…'what God does is never controlled by the status quo.' In the midst of the Roman empire, God sent John the Baptist to a people in captivity. John prepared the way for the Bridegroom. He understood he was to die, as Paul understood he was to die, as Jesus knew he was to die, and as the prophetic church must understand it is to die that we live. God’s ways are not our ways. We walk therefore to die? Perhaps. We also walk to see life come. If we were just doing it for enjoyment it would be enough but to call for life in God to come – brilliant use of time!
That morning, at Benfleet Station, four of us broke bread and prayed for Avril who has stood in the gap before the Lord and wept for Canvey Island for years. Kathy had received an encouraging word from the Lord that morning for the watch-people and intercessors, which she delivered to Avril as we prayed.
Slogging through long grass on the Canvey Island northern sea wall was, for me a joy, despite the slow-moving adder who crossed our path as we trudged towards Shell Haven. Gerry had gone off in the car to do a recce and Avril, Kathy and I plodded on despite the fence and a multiplicity of young heifers and bullocks! (Is that the collective noun for them?) Our objective was the Lobster Smack pub, one of the oldest surviving buildings on the island and very cheap! Gerry was to meet us there.Gerry was a woman on a mission – she had found a picture on the internet of a sculpture depicting Canvey Island held in a hand and she was determined to find it. She did. It was at the centre of a garden of remembrance for those who died in the 1952/3 flood. The hand itself was rising from
the sea as you can see here. We broke bread and pleaded the blood of Jesus over the death and destruction from 1952 as Avril wept for the people. We poured the rest of the wine into the iron water from which the hand arose declaring that the island was held in the hands of Jesus and no other.
The sea wall helps to create a deception that all is well on the island – but floods could easily come again. Houses are cheaper because of the danger but the danger is denied because houses are cheap. A Spring surge tide, the North Sea and storms are a dangerous combination for Canvey Island. The island suffers under real death too – five of Avril’s former colleagues, church leaders and friends had suffered early death and many others had given up and left. One such, Jane G, had recently been hospitalised with a serious illness - possibly pneumonia but possibly not – it was something of a mystery. We had all been praying for her healing and walked inland to her church and prayed for her there – a powerful time as we broke bread and stood in unity together with her and her people. (She is now recovering well.)
Two days together are unusual for us and I was hugely enjoying myself. Gerry could not be with us the following day, but Linda H and a young friend, Morris P from Bangalore joined us. Our walk started this day at the garden of remembrance where again, we stood in unity over bread and wine. Walking on we touched the headland and found wooden Roman ruins (from the days when salt had been harvested for the soldiers’ pay in Colchester). Long abandoned now, we
stood watching the tide lapping in on the marshland. Striding on through another country park and leisure area, we found our way to the sea wall again, arriving at last at Avril’s former work territory of Castle View (under the view of Hadleigh Castle across the creek - see right.)
Castle View School had been created as an environmentally-friendly experiment that went wrong – small windows let in little light, no one could wear contact lenses because of the air conditioning and children became aggressive. It will soon be knocked down and the school relocated in the centre of town. Prayer for the young people to be free brought forth more tears and we poured wine and oil on the land for its cleansing and healing. Our day ended at Hadleigh Castle Tea Room where we were joined by Avril’s husband, Andrew.
“The poet is to be feared by the empire as he writes the subversive melody of the people of God”. Poetry is provocative as walking is ambulatory. To walk the land is like a poem – it subverts the static, bringing mobility and movement. If our walk around the Essex boundaries is to do anything, it is to call for things to shift. When something shifts, it causes quakes to occur. When tectonic plates shift, the whole world is about movement. Movement is a word that is sprinkled liberally today but we, who hold the creative in our spirits, must be careful what we ask the Lord to shift. God will move and it will change things.
So, the walk is becoming like a poem. Walking with the Lord is analogous to poetry – imagine the flow as Jesus walked! I think of rhetoric and metaphor, repetition and alliteration – the rhymes in his parables. The Hebrews, a people of puns and wordplay, would have so loved his humour and rhymes. The walk has been like that – moments of high drama and quiet solitude; of times when deep connections have been made that will not easily be broken. Events of humour and fun encased with serious pain felt and expressed.
It might be possible one day to write a poem about it – what would God say? How else will I remember what happened? Brueggeman suggests that “memories throw light on the new things God is doing.” So, tapping into memories are crucial as we walk. It is not enough to step along the ancient path. As people walking it anew, we remember so that we can see the new and recognise it. Poetry can help with this as it compresses words into a different language flow. A few lines connected to our walk exist:
The sea wall helps to create a deception that all is well on the island – but floods could easily come again. Houses are cheaper because of the danger but the danger is denied because houses are cheap. A Spring surge tide, the North Sea and storms are a dangerous combination for Canvey Island. The island suffers under real death too – five of Avril’s former colleagues, church leaders and friends had suffered early death and many others had given up and left. One such, Jane G, had recently been hospitalised with a serious illness - possibly pneumonia but possibly not – it was something of a mystery. We had all been praying for her healing and walked inland to her church and prayed for her there – a powerful time as we broke bread and stood in unity together with her and her people. (She is now recovering well.)
Two days together are unusual for us and I was hugely enjoying myself. Gerry could not be with us the following day, but Linda H and a young friend, Morris P from Bangalore joined us. Our walk started this day at the garden of remembrance where again, we stood in unity over bread and wine. Walking on we touched the headland and found wooden Roman ruins (from the days when salt had been harvested for the soldiers’ pay in Colchester). Long abandoned now, we
stood watching the tide lapping in on the marshland. Striding on through another country park and leisure area, we found our way to the sea wall again, arriving at last at Avril’s former work territory of Castle View (under the view of Hadleigh Castle across the creek - see right.)Castle View School had been created as an environmentally-friendly experiment that went wrong – small windows let in little light, no one could wear contact lenses because of the air conditioning and children became aggressive. It will soon be knocked down and the school relocated in the centre of town. Prayer for the young people to be free brought forth more tears and we poured wine and oil on the land for its cleansing and healing. Our day ended at Hadleigh Castle Tea Room where we were joined by Avril’s husband, Andrew.
“The poet is to be feared by the empire as he writes the subversive melody of the people of God”. Poetry is provocative as walking is ambulatory. To walk the land is like a poem – it subverts the static, bringing mobility and movement. If our walk around the Essex boundaries is to do anything, it is to call for things to shift. When something shifts, it causes quakes to occur. When tectonic plates shift, the whole world is about movement. Movement is a word that is sprinkled liberally today but we, who hold the creative in our spirits, must be careful what we ask the Lord to shift. God will move and it will change things.
So, the walk is becoming like a poem. Walking with the Lord is analogous to poetry – imagine the flow as Jesus walked! I think of rhetoric and metaphor, repetition and alliteration – the rhymes in his parables. The Hebrews, a people of puns and wordplay, would have so loved his humour and rhymes. The walk has been like that – moments of high drama and quiet solitude; of times when deep connections have been made that will not easily be broken. Events of humour and fun encased with serious pain felt and expressed.
It might be possible one day to write a poem about it – what would God say? How else will I remember what happened? Brueggeman suggests that “memories throw light on the new things God is doing.” So, tapping into memories are crucial as we walk. It is not enough to step along the ancient path. As people walking it anew, we remember so that we can see the new and recognise it. Poetry can help with this as it compresses words into a different language flow. A few lines connected to our walk exist:
Where you go, I'll go
What you say I'll say, Lord
Brian & Jenn Johnson
Not written for us, but apropos all the same. Prayerwalking is also an act of praise – against the status quo, the ‘what is’ – we walk to express prophetically what is possible. For those in hopelessness, this is hopeful. For those who don’t know they are part of the ‘imperial’ scenario, we sing a walking doxology of the ability in God to move, shift and change things. We hope to be, and are, subversive, against the empire – we speak that doxology of praise as we walk, breaking fetters and chains. Being truly subversive is often unpopular but subversion is necessary where the empire attempts to define reality. The dominant voices in our culture are defining reality and the result is despair. As we walk, we call for the new thing – the poetry of Second Isaiah hums and vibrates in our hearts.
Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child
Burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labour
Because more are the children of the desolate woman
Than of her who has a husband.
Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,
Do not hold back!
Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.
For you will spread out to the right and left,
Your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.
Is the Lord calling for and creating something new in South Essex? Will the people of God embrace it, work with it and allow it to be released and soak in? All the work we do in the heavenlies needs expression on the earth:
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven?
All that Jesus did was earthed and he died on the earth – he went under the earth and rose through the earth to sit at the right hand of the Father “taking captives in his train” (Eph 4.8). Who and what are our captives as we walk? We long to see salvations, healings and miracles on this land – we remember how it was in Acts and it spurs us on.
We, the poor in Spirit, the unrecognised, are the ones with the future and Second Isaiah’s words echo down the generations…
Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child
Burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labour
Because more are the children of the desolate woman
Than of her who has a husband.
Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,
Do not hold back!
Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.
For you will spread out to the right and left,
Your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.
Is the Lord calling for and creating something new in South Essex? Will the people of God embrace it, work with it and allow it to be released and soak in? All the work we do in the heavenlies needs expression on the earth:
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven?
All that Jesus did was earthed and he died on the earth – he went under the earth and rose through the earth to sit at the right hand of the Father “taking captives in his train” (Eph 4.8). Who and what are our captives as we walk? We long to see salvations, healings and miracles on this land – we remember how it was in Acts and it spurs us on.
We, the poor in Spirit, the unrecognised, are the ones with the future and Second Isaiah’s words echo down the generations…
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