大象传媒

惭耻蝉颈肠:听Spiegel im Spiegel - Arvo Part
Tasmin Little & Martin Roscoe
CD: The Very Best of Arvo Part (Warner Classics)

Poem: Be gentle with your muddles - Laura Darrall
When your brain feels like it鈥檚 puddling into
perpendicular pointing parrallelogramic
perspectives
When the eclectic collective of kaleidoscopic correspondence
flutters and flitters
and your synapses sparkle slightly too brightly
Be gentle
Surround them with softness
With cloths of kindness and care
And rest. Just rest.听

Introduction: Laura Darrall
Six years ago, I said a prayer that would change my life forever. I was in recovery from听an illness, sat on the end of my bed and looking at my calendar towards mental health awareness week. Closing my eyes, I made a simple request: 鈥淕od, please turn what happened to me into something good.鈥� And an idea fell into my head that I knew wasn鈥檛 from me.听

In 2016, I asked people all over the world to take a听picture of themselves听with a post-it note on their heads, saying simply #itaffectsme, to show the universality of mental health, and they did. Over 3.5 million people joined the campaign, emblazoning social media with the bravery and courage of all those who named their collective听struggles.听And it began to shine brightly as a movement of hope.

Poem: I see you听- Laura Darrall
With darkened rims around your eyes
And lips that smile too brightly
I know you鈥檙e tired
That you鈥檝e been wired throughout the night
And pacing races with your thoughts contorting conversations into shapes that feel like onslaughts
I hear you
I hear the crackle in your voice as panic rattles out white noise and shatters any grip on choice or decision
I鈥檓 with you
When 鈥榣onely鈥� is the only word that stutters from your mouth, and harbours all your pain and doubts in six letters
I鈥檒l hold you
Embolden you with nothing but the arms I have to give
To shelter you from all the lives you鈥檇 like to live but can鈥檛 right now
It鈥檚 too hard
I see you
I see you as you are
I hear you
I hear you as you are
I鈥檓 with you
I鈥檓 with you as you are
And I鈥檒l hold you
Exactly as you are.听

Reading:听Psalm 88.1-7

惭耻蝉颈肠:听Hear my prayer 鈥� Henry Purcell
The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers
CD: Classic FM - Allegri Miserere (Decca)听

搁别蹿濒别肠迟颈辞苍:听Isabelle Hamley
The Psalmists are no strangers to the desolation of mental health challenges. Throughout the Psalms, we see etched in bold the impact of trauma, the questions of depression, the weight of anxiety. Well over a third of the Psalter is devoted to lament 鈥� to human anguish expressed before God. The whole gamut of painful emotions and painful interactions is there. Pain radiates out and overwhelms everything, so that human relationships are tarnished, and relationship with God becomes a problem, not a solution.

It is always tempting to see faith as a crutch, an answer, an unending source of hope. And of course it can be. But the Psalms bear witness to another reality, too. They bear witness to the times when the heavens fall silent, God seems to be absent at best, and oppressive at worst.

Here in Psalm 88, God is part of the problem. It is precisely because the Psalmist believes in a good God, a loving God, a God who has promised to be with God鈥檚 people, that when things go wrong, when life spirals out of control, and we cannot see the way forward, faith becomes a problem. If God is really good, if God really cares, why do I feel the way I do? Why听 do anything? Why is there no answer, no comfort when I pray?

惭耻蝉颈肠:听Out of the deep (from 鈥楻equiem鈥�) 鈥� John Rutter
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
CD: John Rutter - Requiem (Naxos)

Reflection: Isabelle Hamley
Touching the depths of despair brings us face-to-face with the complexity of the life of faith. God does not always answer. We cannot always understand or make sense of life 鈥� even retrospectively. Sometimes, God鈥檚 purposes are hidden and incomprehensible. In those time 鈥� faith really is faith: it is not cruising on the certainties and comforts of a good life. It is instead dogged and ragged. It means saying the words of a prayer that is half petition, half recrimination, like Psalm 88, with little hope of an answer. But that is faith, maybe at its deepest.

Psalm 88 is one of two Psalms of lament that does not end with any kind of reassurance or affirmation of faith in a God that will bring an end to suffering. Instead, it ends with, 鈥榊ou have caused friend and neighbour to shun me; my companions are in darkness鈥�.

And yet鈥� this is still a prayer. And it is in Scripture: it is truth-telling and liberating, because it proclaims that even in our most difficult times, even when there seems to be no hope, somehow, this is part of life before God. Psalm 88 tells us that there is no experience, no feeling, that is not held within the canvas of God鈥檚 relationship with the world. But it gives no answer 鈥� and calls us, simply, to witness, and weep with those who weep.

Music (continued):听Out of the deep (from 鈥楻equiem鈥�) 鈥� John Rutter
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
CD: John Rutter - Requiem (Naxos)

Prayer
O Lord, God of our salvation,
we stand in prayer today
with all those who, at night,
cry out in your presence.
Let their prayer come before you;
We stand, too, with those too tired to pray,
and those who cannot even utter words of prayer,
or any words at all,
Let our prayer for them come before you,
For you hold our lives in your hand,
and we trust that where we see only night,
you will bring about a day we cannot imagine or foresee.
In Jesus鈥� name,
Amen

惭耻蝉颈肠:听Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 in E minor 鈥� Vaughan Williams
The New Queen's Hall Orchestra
CD: Vaughan Williams Orchestral Works (Decca)

Poem: Marbles - Laura Darrall
We swam in the glitter
As life鈥檚 litter left our lungs
She fitted us with new ones
Expansive brighter blue ones
That breathed more deeply than before
Cracked open our core
As rawness bubbled over and
Poured itself
into her depths
She collected the mess
and made marbles
Rolling them in her palms
She sang psalms
To the paths we鈥檇 left behind
And painted us anew听

Reading:听John 10.7-10

Reflection: Isabelle Hamley
鈥業 came that they may have life, and have it abundantly鈥�.

What does abundant life look like? It is easy to imagine abundant life being an easy life, a life of joy and ease, a life without struggles. Or maybe we imagine abundant life to be a life of close, rewarding relationships 鈥� with other people, with God. A life of faith where we do the things we thing we should, and we hear from God, and engage in faith in ways that are meaningful and rewarding.

And there is nothing wrong with any of these things. But it is a small vision. It is a vision that unwittingly excludes those for whom life is a daily struggle, where surviving takes up all your energy, and when faith is both a blessing and a challenge.

What does abundant life look like for those of us who struggle with ongoing, long-term mental health challenges? What does it look like for those who cannot work and accomplish the things that we often tot up as markers of success 鈥� material or spiritual?

The Psalms open up a space for truth-telling that says, life with God can be full even if life with God is full of struggle; life can be abundant and meaningful even if is hidden with God in the midst of incomprehensible trauma; abundant life can be a spark in the darkness; and if we read Psalm 139, the darkness itself can be the bearer and herald of God.

惭耻蝉颈肠:听Within our darkest night 鈥� Taize
St Martin鈥檚 Voices
大象传媒 recording

Reflection: Isabelle Hamley
The challenge is to make space for truth-telling 鈥� because truth telling is scary; it makes life, and God, les predictable, less manageable or controllable. It invites us into a journey of faith that does not see faith, and God, as self-help instruments, but God as a free partner as we walk a difficult path. Truth-telling makes space for all to share what they have learnt about God and the life of faith 鈥� even when it does not fit neatly into the usual categories.

Truth-telling is the first step towards a different reality. It may not bring change, or healing, or instant relief. But it can open up the space for a different community, one where we can genuinely welcome the whole of human experience and learn to walk together more compassionately, more honestly, towards the God who us calls into new, uncharted, risky abundant life.

惭耻蝉颈肠:听The Lord is my shepherd (from 鈥楻equiem鈥�) 鈥� John Rutter
Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter
CD: The Very Best of John Rutter (Decca)

Prayer
Jesus, our Good Shepherd,
who seeks to lead us into green pastures,
we pray that we would follow you
and care for one another
with openness,
with compassion,
learning from those who weep,
sharing their burden and their insights,
so that we may come know you better,
and enter into the life of the kingdom.
In Jesus鈥� name,
Amen.

Reflection: Laura Darrall
During the campaign, I met many people who shared their stories, but one woman stuck听out in particular. During her experience she spoke of feeling far from God, feeling forsaken and distant. But as she was speaking to me, she reflected on moments in her journey through depression and grief where she had experienced flickers of light. Tiny moments of connection that she didn鈥檛 recognise as God at the time but looking back she could see that they were stepping-stones that she could grasp onto. Signs of God鈥檚 presence with her as refuge and shelter with every step听she听took.听

What made me smile was that the place she began to recognise them was on the top deck of a bus, when sat anonymously amongst a group of people. She saw Christ in those around her. Something in that communal 鈥榖eing鈥� awoke in her a sense of togetherness: togetherness in pain, togetherness in wilderness, togetherness in God and togetherness in hope. Simply by sitting next to a stranger.听Remember her next time you are sat on the number 700 travelling along the coast.

惭耻蝉颈肠:听Sospiri 鈥� Elgar
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
CD: 111 Adagio! Classics for Relaxation (Deutsche Grammophon)

Poem: The Driver - Laura Darrall
When Maya Angelou said,
鈥楩or those of you who鈥檝e given up on love, trust life a little鈥�,
the spittle from those words encased with heart departed her voice into mine.
The time for lying flat along the creases of my carpet while the overtures of heartbreak laid in cuticles bit down, was over. It was done.
The sun that shunned the very fringes of my mind
now tried to fight its way into the edges of my day- a ragged beam of something that eclipsed what blocked the way.
鈥楩or those of you who鈥檝e given up on love, trust life a little.鈥�
Life. That little breath of something that brought newness out of old,
Emboldened by the starkness of audacity it held- I breathed
and remembered how to breathe.
Reprieved momentarily of the weight across my chest,
I blessed the silence of the something that had brought me out of depths - the deafness that had muffled my existence on that bed.
I lay there and listened to the buses down ahead,
the off and on of lives and tries and routes and plans and heads that turned to greet me as I peeled the covers back,
And opened wide, their palms upturned as I stepped into their track.
The thwack of life that hit me as my eyes began to crack and spill and pour and weep in answer to their smiles,
As they caught my hand and span me in their vibrancy,
Beguiling me to try and see that Life was there in front of me.
I settled down beside them on the top deck of the bus,
the angels of normality that freed me from despondency
and pushed my nose into the glass to see the cloud of breath that rose the closer that I came to know the something that supposed that we were worth it.
That life was worth it.
I leant into my neighbour, who really didn鈥檛 mind,
as the driver turned the key and pulled away.听

Reflection: Laura Darrall
The campaign was听fuelled听by the voices of strangers, joining together with a resounding cry to be heard,听seen听and known. No longer the subject of taboo but a visible need in society, which has never felt more pressing than over these past听few听years.听

So wherever you are, and no matter how you are feeling, please know that you are never alone. That there are flickers of light, stepping-stones to hold onto and that in it all, you and we are held by God who hears our cries, sees our听pain听and knows our hearts. As Psalm 139 says, 鈥渆ven the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day.鈥�

Music: O God you search me and you know me 鈥� Bernadette Farrell
CD: Christ be our Light (OCP)

Prayers
God of abundant life,
Draw near to your people
Comfort those who weep
Strengthen those whose strength is spent
and sit with the lonely.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

Music: Nada te turbe 鈥� Taize
CD: Taize Instrumental 2 (Ateliers et Presses de Taize)

Prayers (continued)
God of abundant life,
Help us notice those around us
Come alongside
and journey a while;
Help us share and learn
to see you more fully
beyond our prejudices and preconceptions.
Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

God of abundant life,
Help our communities,
our churches, our neighbourhoods,
to be places of connections,
places of acceptance,
places where stigma is erased
and we learn anew
what it is to live life to the full
in this broken and hurting world.
Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

Lord's Prayer听

Music: The Ground from 'Sunrise Mass' - Ola Gjeilo
Tenebrae
CD: Ola Gjeilo (Decca)

Poem: Free me - Laura Darrall
Look at the birds of the air and
Point me to the places where freedom lives
Where the tiny terrors that terrorise the terrains of my heart can鈥檛 hide from the
Light
Point me to the place where breathing feels easy
And ease me into its soothing waters
Cleanse me from the cloying clasping clashing in my ribs and
Hide me beneath the shadow of your wings
Swaddle my heart
Tightly
and sweep the debris of my fear
into the sky.听

Blessing