Rob Bell

Rob Bell!  There I’ve said it.  It seems everyone is blogging about him, tweeting about him, being interviewed about him and  talking about him – well since his new book ‘Love Wins’ was announced anyway.  Here’s my take on the whole ‘Is Rob Bell a Universalist?’ debate. 

I don’t care.

I read a few web articles out of curiosity and some made some interesting points both pro and anti Bell’s book but I’m not going to link to them here or promote one over another because what does it matter what he believes?  Nor am I going to buy or read his book or engage in the debate any more.  As my, very wise, wife pointed out to me this morning it’s not like he’s altered the Bible!  Is God diminished because Rob Bell believes something I believe to be heretical?  No.  Is God enhanced because Rob Bell has a wonderful truth to impart to me?  No.  Am I a part of Rob Bells congregation?  No.  Are you?  Unlikely, if you’re reading this blog!  So what does it matter to you what he says, believes, writes or teaches?  If Rob Bell's ‘stuff’ brings life to you and helps you in your walk with Jesus then enjoy it, if it doesn’t float your boat then don’t engage with it. Listen to someone else’s teaching or ‘horror-of-horrors’ actually read your Bible for yourself more and ask the Holy Spirit to give you some fresh revelation!

As my friend Godfrey has noted in the past the ‘spiritual police’ are often around in our meetings – checking stuff out to see if it’s right or if it’s wrong.  Sadly those ‘spiritual police’ are sometimes not the modern day Pharisees and legalists, they’re us!  We have this crazy urge to judge everything and decide if it lines up with what we believe and then get all huffy if it doesn’t.  We get especially wound up if the person is successful, influential and, dare I say it, American!  We British often like to feel smugly superior with our, often, cynical world view and think things like ‘I would never have fallen for all that style-over-substance nonsense’ or ‘those naïve Americans will believe anything if it’s slick and flashy!’.  We justify our criticism by feeling like we’re part of some low-rent Christian team of ‘X-Men’, saving the church from the heretics and deceivers.  “I must quickly nip into this phone box and change into ‘Heresy Man’ – I fight untruth and dodgy-doctrine wherever it may be found”!  Nonsense, our responsibility is to love one another in the same way as the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, not to nit-pick over the beliefs and teachings of someone 4,000 miles away leading a congregation we’re not even a member of!

Again as Godfrey has said “Let’s hand in our home-made ‘spiritual police’ badges - we made them, God didn’t give us them.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if in our attitudes to other parts of the church, part of the bride of Christ, it was actually true that ‘Love Wins’?

The guilt trip

Fear, guilt and shame, the three great manipulators. I’ve been wondering about these three in the last couple of days and especially why guilt seems to be so prevalent in the church, so here are some of my thoughts.

As a Christian we are told not to fear, to be courageous, to be very courageous. If we are to fear anything or anybody it is God and even there our understanding is limited as to what that actually means. We are very familiar with fear and can experience it in relation to the future, the past and even the present. We have endless things to fear and worry about but we also know without a shadow of a doubt that fear is something to be conquered. It is something bad and not part of God’s plan for us and so we work on trying to deal with our fears. We pray to be released from them, we look for root causes and try to dig them out with various techniques and we ask for help facing our fears. It is all part of being victorious and living in more freedom. As a manipulation tool of control it is excellent. It can keep us locked down, make wrong choices and cause us to be suspicious of others, ensuring that we huddle together for safety.

So is fear always bad? Not necessarily, I think it is an emotion given partly to protect us from harm, to heighten our awareness of a real danger not a possible danger. It certainly is not there to control our decisions and it must always be subject to the spirit of God that is within us. We have not been given a spirit of fear but of sonship. If fear is being used to manipulate us we should always deal with it by using truth. My own view is that fear can only be dealt with by truth; it is not a process or a technique or about digging out something. It is slam-dunked through belief in what God says about us. He tells us to be courageous because he is with us. Can it be as simple as that? Can we deal with all our fears through simply believing the truth that God is with us? I think so, simply believe.

Shame we also recognise as something not to be tolerated. We know it is linked to the fall, at their creation Adam and Eve do not feel shame; they eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and become the first to feel this emotion. They don’t appear to be ashamed of their behaviour in disobeying God; they feel shame because of their nakedness. They rapidly sew fig leaves together to cover it. We know that God does not want us to feel shame in any form. He has rescued us from the fall and any experience in our life that causes us to feel shame needs to be looked at, prayed through, forgiveness needs to be forthcoming – either accepting it or working through forgiving others. If someone can make you feel shame about your actions or your person they can manipulate you. I think there is a key to overcoming shame shown to us in the garden. Shame needs to be covered but it is not by our own efforts, it needs to be covered, not with fig leaves but with the blood of Jesus. Allowing him to cover our shame with his blood is I believe, the only way for it to be gone forever, for it to be dead and buried and not to haunt us and used against us. Even from the beginning the shame needed to be covered by a sacrifice!! Again it is for us to believe the truth over and above our experiences.

We know that fear and shame can be used, to restrict our freedom and therefore we know and are taught to control these feelings/emotions and to keep them from causing us harm. My thoughts have wandered to whether the same applies to guilt. As Christians are we taught with the same gusto to deal with guilt? Could it be that guilt is such a good manipulator we want to keep it in the church or do we believe guilt comes hand in hand with being a Christian, as it helps us to identify our sin? Making congregations feel guilty, as a control tool, is not unheard of and I think is pretty rampant. It is can be used in most churches to make people turn up, tithe, follow the vision, contribute and behave as a good member of the church as long as we follow the set rules. As we are so familiar with the feeling of guilt, and possibly even believe that feeling guilty is ok, we can be manipulated really easily and therefore controlled really easily. If we can put somebody on a guilt trip they can be manipulated into believing they are doing a service even if it is detrimental to them and possibly their calling. How many Christians have been manipulated into doing things that they really don’t want to do, feel guilty for not wanting to do it and then out of a sense of duty will do what they have been asked or is expected of them?

If we believe that we have been given guilt as an emotion to help us identify sin we will not deal with it in the same way as we do fear and shame. We will not want to annihilate it from our lives and in fact will be suspicious of people who say they don’t feel guilt. Whilst Romans 8:1 tells us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, we still think that only applies once we have confessed our sins and only for a very short period of time until we sin again. I’m satisfied that condemnation and sin go together but I’m not convinced that we should be in a constant battle with sin and condemnation/guilt. Paul is drawing out in Romans the difference between life under the law and life in the spirit and in Romans 8 it is clearly stated that there is no condemnation for those who live in the spirit. For those believing in the gospel of grace and not under the law, that did condemn, a life without condemnation is a possibility. The gospel sets us free from the law, into a life of the new covenant where all our sins are forgiven already, where now we choose to sin rather than being controlled by a sinful nature and we can choose not to sin. We can remove guilt from our choices and whilst some of those choices may make people unhappy, we are not responsible for others reactions and this certainly cannot be considered sin and therefore warrant guilt. I don’t believe in being sin conscious which leads to guilt conscious which makes us susceptible to manipulation through guilt. I do believe in God consciousness which leads to freedom from manipulation.

From the moment that we are dead to sin we are dead to guilt. To simply believe that this is true may make us a less easy target for manipulation in any setting. I think the answer to manipulation in any form is to simply believe the truth.

What if...

Rob Bell, John Crowder and Rick Joyner walk into a pub.....definately a good joke in there somewhere......

Rob buys everyone in the bar a drink, he’s very inclusive

John asks for an empty glass, he’s already drunk.

Rick doesn’t need to order as he met the bar tender in a dream and told him what he’d want.

The Calvinist walks into the bar and thanks God he’s got that out of the way.

The Puritans walk into the bar – don’t be silly!

Brother Lawrence walks into the bar and heads for the kitchen.

The Pope walks into the bar orders a large glass of red wine, drinks the lot and wipes the glass with his hankie.

Some Sadducees walk into the bar, have a good drink and start singing Imagine.

Some Pharisees walk into the bar and check if everybody’s hands are clean before they order a drink.

St Paul walks into the bar with a friend, they check everyone has a drink and then orders a carry out.

Jesus walks into the bar, changes all the water into wine, starts a sing a long and calls for a lock in.

Rob Bell, good communicator but not sure what he is actually saying, John Crowder, preaches Christ crucified whilst 'toking the ghost', Rick Joyner the pursuit of the supernatural and a knight of Malta, Martin Luther the great reformer - unless you're a roman catholic, Paul the great evangelist but not too good with relationships - the list of ‘spiritual’ leaders who have got some things we might consider right and some things that we think we should stone them for goes on and on. We love to debate other people’s theology, prodding it here and there to see if it lines up with scripture and even there does it line up with the NIV or the KJV.

If we lived 2000 years ago would we be any different listening to Jesus? Or if Jesus lived today and we heard a few things he said via the media, maybe looked him up on YouTube or Google, see what end times prophetic were saying about him. Is he popping up on the Elijah list? Does he have a podcast we could listen to? Would we be getting on a plane to go and see him personally? Would we even know about him even if he lived today, he seemed to avoid wanting publicity. He possibly wouldn’t be a PR guy’s favourite customer.

I like some ‘teachers’, I don’t like others. The one’s I don’t like, I try and avoid. I put it down to style mostly, sometimes the content or lack of it, will make me pull a face, get a bit wound up, but hopefully not reach for my bag of pebbles. If we are going to believe that love is the centre piece of our lives then I suppose that must include those teachers that get on our spiritual nerves. I doubt those we are trying to introduce to Jesus care about our disagreements other than to note that we don’t really love each other so how can we say we love them.....

Just a thought.

Does the church set the standard for the world or does the world set the standard for the church. Who is influencing who?

Is it a coincidence that the church is fighting to come out of empire, remove the control, let the underdog speak, let the big man on the stage give way to the person on the fringe whilst in the East the populace is calling for an end to tyranny, an end to the big guy with the control, to allow freedom to speak, to have an opinion or a belief...an interesting thought.

So where we have feared that the world is influencing the church and hidden away from it perhaps the world has only imitated where the church has gone astray in the past....maybe.

Being Perfect?

I’ve been thinking a lot about perfection and being a new creation recently.  I heard John Crowder teach at the recent GloryFest event in Newport, Wales and have also read his book ‘Mystical Union’ which I can heartily recommend.  He is preaching a gospel of the finished work of the cross that, frankly, blew my socks off.  I’ve heard plenty of teaching over the last three or four years about us dying with Christ on the cross (two hands, one nail), the fact that our old self was buried in baptism and that it’s no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and I’ve been very blessed, encouraged and strengthened in my faith by it.  But last year, at the last SloshFest in Barry, while John was speaking he told a story, in passing really, about his little girl arguing with the Sunday School teacher at a church they had gone to about how she’s perfect and the teacher saying she wasn’t.  It was a funny story and I liked it but when I tried to think of myself as perfect I found offence bubbling up within me.  How arrogant would I have to be to think I could be called perfect? I liked almost all of what John said but that had crossed a line, how could he or anyone claim to be ‘perfect’? It offended a religious mind-set, one I wasn’t even aware I had, I knew one day I would be perfect but to claim that I was already was absurd, possibly even blasphemous, wasn’t it?  This year at GloryFest John spoke several times and was his usual charismatic, energetic, entertaining and outrageous self but he spoke in much more detail about the finished work of the cross and he also talked about perfection and he goes into even more detail in his book.  I’m not going to try and summarise it all here, that would be futile, get the book or listen to the teaching or read Paul’s epistles over and over; but I do want to talk briefly about why I now believe I am made perfect and why I used such a pejorative term as ‘religious mind-set’.

I am perfect

Galatians 2:20 says “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Rom 6:1-3 says “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

2 Corinthians 5:17 (AMP) says “Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!”

John 19:30 says “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ ”

Is there any sense from any of these passages that God has simply begun something in us at our salvation?  Is there any sense of a process that we now embark upon to rid ourselves of sin and make ourselves anew?  If keeping the law was enough, remaining sinless by our own effort, then Christ died for nothing.

If it’s true there are two possibilities and they are that (a) we are sinners and under Satan’s dominion or (b) we are saved and in Christ’s kingdom then how can we be partially saved?  How does a third, partially saved, version fit in with scripture? Paul is stating quite categorically that the old nature, our sinful fallen nature, is dead and gone and we now have a new nature, Christ living in us by His Holy Spirit!  If I am a temple of the Holy Spirit (holy meaning separate, set apart, pure, amongst other things) how can someone who is intrinsically separate from sin by His very nature dwell within someone who is still sinful?  In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came upon people from time to time to empower them in some gifting or authority but it was always temporary.  Now we are to ‘be continually filled’ with the Holy Spirit as he resides within us! We are in union, ingrafted, joined inextricably with Christ who is the very embodiment of the Father.  Would he, could he even, be joined with anything less than sinless perfection?  I don’t think so.

Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was an event outside of the realm of time, it has to be or it doesn’t work!  If Jesus’ death was contained within time’s restrictions then his sacrifice could only have been for those alive at the time he died and for those who had died earlier.  How could he die for those as yet unborn?  They didn’t yet exist so their sins hadn’t happened yet, let alone them hearing about Jesus and choosing to believe in Him!  So the sins He took upon himself and paid for were all the sins of all the people in the world.  Every sin I have ever committed and every sin I ever will commit!  In fact, according to the scriptures above, he not only paid the penalty for my sin he took the cause of it onto the cross and killed it there.  When we believe in Him, when the gift of Faith causes us to be able to believe in Jesus, the floodgates of God’s outrageous grace are opened and we enter in to the glorious freedom of the sons of God.

Here comes the obvious objection: “If all that’s true then how come I still sin then?” Have I sinned since I started to believe in the perfection of the finished work of the cross? Sadly, yes I have.

Now bear with me, this is where it gets tricky, and I’m not 100% certain I’ve got all this nailed down in my own head yet!  Maybe what we’re doing is we are muddling up nature and actions here.

Before I knew Jesus and believed in Him and his wonderful sacrifice I was a sinner.  I had a sinful nature and that nature expressed itself in my actions and thoughts and attitudes and desires.  I couldn’t help it.  I was a sinner – it’s who I was not what I did.  The sins did not make me a sinner; I was a sinner so therefore naturally I sinned. I had no choice in the matter! See Romans 7:15-24 for Paul’s take on this issue.  However now I have received this new creation life, my very nature is new.  The old sinful nature isn’t tied up and gagged but still struggling to be free with me having to keep re-tying the knots and re-fitting the gag, no it’s dead, properly dead, buried under the water of baptism and I am now living only because Christ lives in me!  I now have a new nature – that is who I am!  I choose not to sin because of my new nature…but should I sin this does not change my nature any more than stopping sinning, by following the law, could have changed my nature from a sinner to a saint!  What we do does NOT determine who we are – it’s the other way around.  The times I choose to sin are despite my new nature not because that new creation reality isn’t true.  That decision to sin, and let’s face it sinning by mistake is pretty rare if not impossible, was also dealt with 2,000 years ago on the cross.  And that’s why Paul says what he says in Rom 6:1-2.  This isn’t a licence to sin all we like; it’s a call to live in the fullness of the perfection we have already been given as a free gift.

Religious Mind-Set

The reason I used the rather pejorative term is because religion is all about our own efforts trying to close the gap between us and God.  If I don’t accept the gift of a sinless perfect new nature I am going to try, by my own effort, to close a gap between me and God. Once we understand that the gap that no longer exists, our mind-set should change to a grace mind-set rather than a religious one.  That’s why I called this way of thinking a ‘religious mind-set’, and surely we’re not treating the finished work of cross as insufficient are we?

Conclusion

You can agree with me or disagree with me, in the words of Catherine Tate’s ‘Lauren’ character “I ain’t bovvered!” I still love you and I hope you will still love me!

Pressed

I’ve just spent the weekend at Gloryfest with some of our truly fantastic friends. I had time to sit and listen to some of our favourite preachers and teachers; John Crowder, Ben Dunn, Kathy Garda, Karen Lowe and Jo Gravell. I danced at the party whilst Godfrey hammered out the Truth and I made silly noises along to Ben Dunn, such fun. I heard the sound of freedom. We spent time with good friends eating and drinking and sharing our stories. I made some new friends and saw some Big Brother 11 housemates turn up to support Dave.
We stayed with a family who had opened their house up to ten people and created an atmosphere where we all felt like we had come home. We didn’t feel like guests, we felt like a family. We shared meal times around a large table, with kids, dogs and nationalities blending together to make the sound of fellowship. We have found the hospitality and generosity of the Welsh humbling, abundant and overwhelming.
I thought I might share some of the gems I brought home from the weekend.
On arriving on Wednesday night I was chatting with my friend about health issues, particularly linked to digestion and we encouraged each other with the verse from 1 Timothy 5:23 ‘Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.’ So we headed for the bar where I had a lovely glass of Merlot. This glass of wine was my first in five years, an interesting number as it represents Grace and represented the end of my alcohol fast. Now with hindsight I think breaking that fast was the pre-cursor to the weekend, the end of law and embracing the fullness and complete work of Grace.
In the summer of 2005, having read a very good book called ‘Fear of the Lord’ by John Bevere, I asked God how I could move my relationship with Him into something more intense, more passionate, and more obsessive. I was prompted to fast alcohol from September until Christmas and following a rather lovely glass or two over Christmas, I decided to continue with the fast for however long it felt right. From that time I became more obsessive, more passionate and more frustrated. I did not want to waste time going through the motions, I couldn’t bear doing anything I perceived to be religious. I would try and express my desire for more - more worship, more passion, more focus, more holiness, more truth, more prayer, more experience, but I was not very successful as the frustration was heard more often than the desire. As the years have passed I have learned that frustration with myself, with others or with structures does not achieve anything and probably has a detrimental effect on relationships which can’t be a good thing. So I try to keep my focus where it belongs, on him.
The reasons for my decision to continue with the fast as they developed over the five years - to help me get closer to God, to help me to hear him clearer, to help break some ancestors alcoholism curse that has blighted my family,(not too sure of this one but it sounded good in the right circles), God helping me to avoid becoming an alcoholic because I have a weakness towards alcohol caused by my sinful nature,(a hidden fear), to help me focus, to set me apart like a Nazarite. So whilst last Wednesday night was no different to other nights it was the beginning of a weekend where those reasons were well and truly shattered through the teaching on the cross and what actually happened there. Teaching I had listened to before but perhaps like the seed sown in the field some had drifted away for different reasons. My friend told me once that a God anointed teacher does not teach you anything you don’t already know, they just remind you of the truth. I think that is something to note when the church is full of good communicators and in need of some anointed teachers.
The reasons for the fast were well reasoned, I do think a lot, I do ponder a lot, however I am moving away from fasting as a way to achieve any of the desired goals for the fast and in fact any action on my part to achieve them as I believe I already been given them, as a gift. I also need to remember that a good reason for doing something does not always mean it is a life bringer after all we were not meant to know the difference between good and bad we were to leave that distinction to God. So now I will try and decide whether something will bring life or death rather than whether it is a good or bad decision. Here’s what happened to my good reasons for fasting alcohol:-
To get closer to God - I can get no closer to God than I am today as according to the bible he has moved in – I am a temple of the Holy Spirit, part of his body, all the fullness of the deity living in bodily form in Jesus and I have been given fullness in Christ. So how can I get closer, there is no distance between us, I have been fully reconciled to God. My knowledge/revelation of God may increase as he reveals more of himself to me by his Spirit whilst I rest in his presence but we are not getting closer. My love for him may deepen over time which leads to feeling like I am closer to him than before but the reality is I am in Christ whether I feel like it or not and my actions certainly do not bring him or me closer together.
To hear him clearer - If I believe that Christ lives in me, that he is my head, (not to be confused with in my head), that we are close all the time and that he speaks into my spirit then fasting should make absolutely no difference whatsoever. If I believe that he is God of the Universe and he wants to be heard he will find a way, which may include donkeys and writing on the wall, flowers and sunsets.
Ancestors – What do they have to do with me? I am a new creation, I have been born from above, my Dad is God and my brother is Jesus.
Sinful nature – Mine has been crucified with Christ, no longer attached, no longer in control, it has been taken from me. I am a Romans 6 true believer. I have nothing to struggle with, nothing to drag me down, nothing to cause me to sin, and nothing to separate me from God. I can live a sin free life because he calls me perfect and holy. Whilst I have sinned and fallen short I have now been rescued and am free to live in the Spirit. Galatians 5:24 “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires”. The cross effected a complete work, it did not do half a job, leaving me with a struggle on my hands, to be wrestling with myself every day, to have a split personality, an inward fight of good and bad. The cross totally crucified my sinful nature and if I believe that how can I live in its control any longer, it would be like dragging a skeleton around with me all day discussing my plans with it. I would rather believe the truth and carry the Holy Spirit around with me so he can tell me his plans.
To help me focus – My attention, my gaze, can be turned at any moment. It is my choice where to look.
To be set apart as a Nazarite for God – My belief in Jesus, who he was and is, what he did and accomplished on the cross sets me apart. I am fundamentally different from the world; I am a child of God, a citizen of heaven. I have been delivered and chosen, purchased at a price, ransom paid in full and therefore set apart. This has all been done for me, whilst I was still in my sin he died for me, I cannot assist in my salvation.
If it has all been done for me then why should I press in or pray more or with more intensity, more seeking, more chasing, pursuing, going deeper? I think once I believe the truth of the cross, the fullness of grace, the true Gospel of reconciliation and am fully satisfied with all that he has done for me, these words only now apply when talking about me and God in our unity. Wanting to sink deeper into the revelation of who he is, discover more secrets that he has hidden for me to find, to press in to be suffocated in his embrace, to pray more intensely as in to practise his presence continually. As for contending - only for the gospel not for myself I have been contended for.

So here’s to drinking the mixed wine as spoken of in Proverbs 9:1-6.

Daisy’s Afternoon Tea with the over 60’s.

Yesterday I spent two hours with a group of over 60’s drinking tea and eating cake and hearing them share part of their stories. They had been asked to bring something from home that would tell us something about them and the stories that flowed were a joy and a privilege to hear.

One lady now in her early seventies talked about her 20 years as captain of a darts team and brought her darts to show. She talked of teaching her team in the early days about the dart board and how it didn’t go round numerically and the different kinds of darts. I see the glimmer in the eye and her smile as she tells us something of her history, a part of her life that has been hidden in her memories until shared with us.

Another lady produces two photographs. One a school class photo from 1945 taken when she was 12 and the other, a recent photo with five of the women from the class photo, they are still friends after 65 years. She keeps repeating how different they all look after 65 years. The photos are passed around and everyone takes delight in trying to spot her. She points herself out as the one in the pullover on the front row as she had a cold that day and her mum wouldn’t let her wear her pinafore. She can remember the names of all her classmates. Precious photos and memories.

The conversation moves to first jobs and they tell of mums and dads taking daughters to get a job. One lady’s mum walked her into the shoe shop and asked them to give her a job, not too impressed she walked her to the factory and spoke to the foreman, she was only 14 at the time. She didn’t finish school and started a week later in the ‘Sunlight’ factory. She told us how they would employ you for 11 months then get rid of you so they didn’t have to pay sick pay and she would go down to the jobcentre and get another job for a while and then go back. She had worked in various factories including cracking nuts which made us all laugh and jokes were made about being crackers and nutty.

Another lady had wanted to work in an office but her dad knew a chemist who was looking for an assistant so she went there instead as – “you did what your parents wanted in those days”. She worked there till she got married which seemed to be how it was for a lot of young women in the 40’s and 50’s. Get a job as soon as you leave school until you get married then you will be staying home with the children was the expectation. She went back 20 years later and was so happy to tell us that she was told that ‘she hadn’t lost it in all these years’ once she returned to work. It is fascinating listening to them talk and hearing what snippets of their past they remember. This lady is well into her 80’s now and remembers the nice feeling of being affirmed by her employer which must have been 30 or 40 years previously.

They all agree that their pay, in shillings, was handed to their mum when they got it. One lady didn’t open her pay packet until after she was married as it was handed unopened to her mum. One lady in the army said half of her pay went directly to her mum from the employer, so her mum wasn’t best pleased when she left the army and hit “civvy street”.

We sit around laughing at the different stories there is some teasing about parents expectations and what they would wear when going out at the weekend. They didn’t have many clothes so would wear the same thing the weekend after, just turn it inside out or back to front. Absolutely hilarious, “in by 9 wearing a back to front cardigan.”

One lady is new to the afternoon tea group and as she walks in I note her tidy appearance, good sensible black shoes, dark green tights, just below the knee skirt just showing under her raincoat, hat and one of those spotted plastic rain hats that she folds up and tucks in her pocket. It isn’t actually raining outside. She is quite tall which is a rarity amongst the women, most are less than 5 foot, and one lady is so short she walks under my arm when I open the door for her. This lady is slim and has a very straight back, she sits on the sofa quite near the edge so as not to slouch.

She was asked to share what she did for her first job. She smiles and tells how one summer in her late teens she and a friend had helped out on a farm picking potatoes and despite the backbreaking work had enjoyed it so much they joined the Land Army. They were living in Liverpool at the time and the two girls signed up, committing to go together. Unfortunately they were sent to separate parts of the country. This lady was sent to Somerset to work on a cattle farm, she had never been anywhere near a cow before. She spent one month on a training farm and then she was sent away to different farm. She talked of getting up at 5 in the dark, fetching the cows in for milking in knee high mud, pulling her wellingtons up at every step so the mud didn’t go in over the top. She learnt to milk the cows by hand whilst being whipped by tails and then being put on a farm with mechanical milking machines which made the job much faster. Fresh milk being put in huge pan on the Arga and 24 hours later cream being skimmed off the top. She is asked whether she was lonely and she states quite openly that it was very lonely. Whilst the family who owned the farm were kind they were very busy. It seems she can remember the isolation. She sent half her pay home and as there was only one bus a day and half a day off a week she didn’t get much time to make any friends. When the Land Army was stopped she returned to Liverpool and got a job in an office till she got married. She smiles and carries on drinking her tea. An absolutely fabulous story.

Most of these women come every other week to our afternoon tea. Some come on the bus using their free bus pass, some still drive – one lady after a serious stroke, and some walk down the road. They struggle with aches and pains, bad hips, shaking and slurred speech, scary coughs, deafness and vision problems (one lady has a huge magnifying glass which is brought out to view anything close up, I think she doesn’t bother too much with what she can’t see at a distance). One lady is from Chile and is difficult to understand as she speaks quickly with a heavy accent, she sits in an armchair that envelops her as she is so dainty. One lady had a house fire that led to months of upheaval, in the midst of which her son died tragically. She came for a cup of tea after the funeral as she knew we would be there. They like their tea and coffee in a cup and saucer and exactly how they like it. They like millionaires shortcake and to sit and set the world to rights.

I love to sit and listen to them talk.

I love to see them.