Here are two trailers for Superman Returns which is due out at the end of next month. I saw the latter trailer on Saturday (while watching X-Men III: The Last Stand which sadly didn't impress me, given the standards of it's predecessors), and it completely blew my socks off.
I am now salivating with anticipation, my heart raced while I watched this. Tingles went down my spine when I heard one line of dialogue from the film:
"You wrote that the world doesn't need a saviour, but every day I hear people crying for one."
All I can say to that is "Amen!"
That is my battle cry!
Just to leave you with one small kernel of insight:
In many ways, Superman can best be understood as an allegory for the pinnacle of goodness in society, he is a kind of paragon of what is best about humanity.
Now... there is a real person who fulfills that role.
Who else do we know who is an only begotten Son who came from the heavens by the will of his Father to shine as a light to show humanity the Way?
Think on it...
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
Arriving
Sometimes other Christians who know me find it extremely hard to understand where I am coming from.
It's not their fault.
If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus... then Nick Payne is definitely not a local boy - heck I'm probably from Krypton.
Now as Christians we were all lost, but none of us were found by Jesus in quite the same place... for this reason what is appropriate for one Believer isn't always appropriate for another (the reverse is sometimes also true). Yet despite this, isn't it so easy to judge other believers actions on the basis of what we know is right and wrong for us personally? Why do we expect other Christians to conform to the pattern that is specific to our own calling?
I know the place from where I was called:
I was like Gideon in his winepress. You remember Gideon don't you? Called by God to defeat the Midianites - addressed as "mighty warrior by" the angel of the Lord... yet a man flawed by reluctance and fear. Where do we find this mighty warrior at the start of his journey? In a winepress threshing wheat! So scared was he of reprisals, that he farmed his crops in hiding... where no-one could see him to steal from him. You can read it in Judges 6.
I'm not any more special than any other Christian I am no "mighty warrior", but I am different from practically all the Christians around me, if only because of the distant place I come from in my walk.
In my youth, my contact with secular culture was minimal. I was also a solitary Christian. Let no one in, let no one out... in these matters I was pretty insular... I don't want to dwell on this now, but if you want to read up on it, I've blogged about it in the following entry:
Scar Tissue
I mentioned before that I have a new found belief that God is allowing me to rediscover the extrovert so long trapped within me by circumstance. I believe he has waited till now, for me to reach a point where I am grounded enough in both faith and past experience to be able to navigate through the pitfalls I will inevitably encounter... for in order for me to be effective as an olive branch to the lost... I need to establish a rapport - I can't talk about Jesus to them if I can't talk to them full stop.
So God calls me out of my winepress... he taps me on the shoulder and tells me to stop burying my talent in the ground. He begins to teach me that you have to speculate in order to accumulate. Go to the people, learn a natural affection for them... not just one of duty and a righteous desire for their repentance and salvation... but true compassion for them as people. They are not lepers. They need us to embrace them, not stand off them and watch them fall.
Yes they are sinners , yes there are wounded people out there, who if we are not careful will bring us down... but when did that stop Jesus? He criticised the pharisees for sticking to their church communities and preaching from a distance.
Jesus Christ had a righteousness that surpassed that of the pharisees - who were controlled by fear. You see their righteousness was founded on their need to be seen as outwardly clean... and they loathed to touch anything that made them unclean. Jesus however, knew his personal righteousness was not in question... and he just got stuck right in. He was criticised for eating and drinking with sinners and yet it wasn't their sin that touched Him and made Him dirty - it was His unassailable goodness that touched their lives and set their hearts on fire. It gave them hope and challenged them to connect with God on a deeper level.
Perfect love drives out fear.
THAT is where we need to be as Christians. We have to be confident in our God... not arrogant or self righteous... but confident that His grace is sufficient for us... that His saving power cleans, shields and protects us from and against anything the world can chuck at us.
I was afraid they could hurt me, I believed I could be deceived and dragged into the mire... but that is fear speaking and not love. As a Christian my righteousness does not come from my own strength - it comes from that of Christ. He sends you and I out into the world to give people the opportunity to know the Father.
God is a God of risks when it comes to reaching the lost.
In His mercy He sent Jonah to preach conviction to the sworn enemies of His people.
In His mercy He sent Peter to preach the Gospel in the house of Cornelius, who as a Gentile, under the Law would have made him "unclean".
In His mercy He struck down Saul of Tarsus - scourge of the Early Church and convicted him of his persecution of Christians... in the process bringing him to salvation and turning him into the "Apostle to the Gentiles".
God has a way of reaching out to His enemies in very special and unexpected ways (ultimately through the death and resurrection of His Son).
God is teaching me to take risks and while many of my contemporaries think me foolish, they misjudge me because they fail to understand or take into account where I came from in the first place. Issues like this are not new... they came up when the Gentiles first started to come to Christ. Peter, John, James and Paul all banged heads together in prayer and had to discern between them what God was saying with regard to this new breed of believer and they set the Gentile believers free from conforming to the more strict regulations that applied to Jewish believers.... regulations that were largely foreign to them as outsiders.
With regard to myself, I know that my confidence does not come from within... it comes from the God who changes me and sustains me through life. I already know that many things in society don't have a hold on me and yet I have rarely used this strength which God has given me to further his work.
Were I to rely on my own power I would wither and perish... but God, my God has brought me this far and my God will lead me home..
When confronted by the pharisees over his apparent closeness to sinners Jesus himself responded by quoting the prophet Hosea:
"While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Look up the word mercy in your dictionary... go on. Do you notice that in the Oxford English Dictionary, one way of looking at the word mercy is to describe it as quality of compassion.
The Lord desires the quality of your compassion, not your mere sacrifices of praise.
We need to grow into a place where we are confident in our own salvation... where we know that darkness cannot overcome that which is within. "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean." We need to grow into Christians who radiate Christ... so that the sick can see their Doctor again.
Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Are we that petrified of being snatched away that we would rather seek the comfort of our stone halls then risk touching those in need?
The future seems to be holding lots of changes for me... Nick Payne - the Krypton Boy, has finally entered the Solar System. God has put me in these new places for a purpose... now all I need to be wary of is spiritual Kryptonite!
God bless
N
It's not their fault.
If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus... then Nick Payne is definitely not a local boy - heck I'm probably from Krypton.
Now as Christians we were all lost, but none of us were found by Jesus in quite the same place... for this reason what is appropriate for one Believer isn't always appropriate for another (the reverse is sometimes also true). Yet despite this, isn't it so easy to judge other believers actions on the basis of what we know is right and wrong for us personally? Why do we expect other Christians to conform to the pattern that is specific to our own calling?
I know the place from where I was called:
I was like Gideon in his winepress. You remember Gideon don't you? Called by God to defeat the Midianites - addressed as "mighty warrior by" the angel of the Lord... yet a man flawed by reluctance and fear. Where do we find this mighty warrior at the start of his journey? In a winepress threshing wheat! So scared was he of reprisals, that he farmed his crops in hiding... where no-one could see him to steal from him. You can read it in Judges 6.
I'm not any more special than any other Christian I am no "mighty warrior", but I am different from practically all the Christians around me, if only because of the distant place I come from in my walk.
In my youth, my contact with secular culture was minimal. I was also a solitary Christian. Let no one in, let no one out... in these matters I was pretty insular... I don't want to dwell on this now, but if you want to read up on it, I've blogged about it in the following entry:
Scar Tissue
I mentioned before that I have a new found belief that God is allowing me to rediscover the extrovert so long trapped within me by circumstance. I believe he has waited till now, for me to reach a point where I am grounded enough in both faith and past experience to be able to navigate through the pitfalls I will inevitably encounter... for in order for me to be effective as an olive branch to the lost... I need to establish a rapport - I can't talk about Jesus to them if I can't talk to them full stop.
So God calls me out of my winepress... he taps me on the shoulder and tells me to stop burying my talent in the ground. He begins to teach me that you have to speculate in order to accumulate. Go to the people, learn a natural affection for them... not just one of duty and a righteous desire for their repentance and salvation... but true compassion for them as people. They are not lepers. They need us to embrace them, not stand off them and watch them fall.
Yes they are sinners , yes there are wounded people out there, who if we are not careful will bring us down... but when did that stop Jesus? He criticised the pharisees for sticking to their church communities and preaching from a distance.
Jesus Christ had a righteousness that surpassed that of the pharisees - who were controlled by fear. You see their righteousness was founded on their need to be seen as outwardly clean... and they loathed to touch anything that made them unclean. Jesus however, knew his personal righteousness was not in question... and he just got stuck right in. He was criticised for eating and drinking with sinners and yet it wasn't their sin that touched Him and made Him dirty - it was His unassailable goodness that touched their lives and set their hearts on fire. It gave them hope and challenged them to connect with God on a deeper level.
Perfect love drives out fear.
THAT is where we need to be as Christians. We have to be confident in our God... not arrogant or self righteous... but confident that His grace is sufficient for us... that His saving power cleans, shields and protects us from and against anything the world can chuck at us.
I was afraid they could hurt me, I believed I could be deceived and dragged into the mire... but that is fear speaking and not love. As a Christian my righteousness does not come from my own strength - it comes from that of Christ. He sends you and I out into the world to give people the opportunity to know the Father.
God is a God of risks when it comes to reaching the lost.
In His mercy He sent Jonah to preach conviction to the sworn enemies of His people.
In His mercy He sent Peter to preach the Gospel in the house of Cornelius, who as a Gentile, under the Law would have made him "unclean".
In His mercy He struck down Saul of Tarsus - scourge of the Early Church and convicted him of his persecution of Christians... in the process bringing him to salvation and turning him into the "Apostle to the Gentiles".
God has a way of reaching out to His enemies in very special and unexpected ways (ultimately through the death and resurrection of His Son).
God is teaching me to take risks and while many of my contemporaries think me foolish, they misjudge me because they fail to understand or take into account where I came from in the first place. Issues like this are not new... they came up when the Gentiles first started to come to Christ. Peter, John, James and Paul all banged heads together in prayer and had to discern between them what God was saying with regard to this new breed of believer and they set the Gentile believers free from conforming to the more strict regulations that applied to Jewish believers.... regulations that were largely foreign to them as outsiders.
With regard to myself, I know that my confidence does not come from within... it comes from the God who changes me and sustains me through life. I already know that many things in society don't have a hold on me and yet I have rarely used this strength which God has given me to further his work.
Were I to rely on my own power I would wither and perish... but God, my God has brought me this far and my God will lead me home..
When confronted by the pharisees over his apparent closeness to sinners Jesus himself responded by quoting the prophet Hosea:
"While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Look up the word mercy in your dictionary... go on. Do you notice that in the Oxford English Dictionary, one way of looking at the word mercy is to describe it as quality of compassion.
The Lord desires the quality of your compassion, not your mere sacrifices of praise.
We need to grow into a place where we are confident in our own salvation... where we know that darkness cannot overcome that which is within. "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean." We need to grow into Christians who radiate Christ... so that the sick can see their Doctor again.
Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Are we that petrified of being snatched away that we would rather seek the comfort of our stone halls then risk touching those in need?
The future seems to be holding lots of changes for me... Nick Payne - the Krypton Boy, has finally entered the Solar System. God has put me in these new places for a purpose... now all I need to be wary of is spiritual Kryptonite!
God bless
N
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Get Out of My Country!
Sounds racist doesn't it?
Depends on who you address it to though... doesn't it?
I myself to choose to yell this in the face of institutions such as the British National Party and the White Wolves. Those who would drive people into the seas on the basis of skin colour. I warn them here and now that the measure they use... will be used on them.
Would that I could silence them permanently. They use clever soundbites to capitalise on the political disaffection felt by the electorate... who feel let down over immigration issues by the major parties. They stir up dissension and hatred and to a greater extent then the major parties - play off the stupidity and ignorance of sycophantic or apathetic voters.
I'm writing all this because some moronic idiot has posted a racist slur on a newspaper delivered to one of the local shops. Oh I'm sure they are just some badly educated fool trying to have a laugh... and they don't believe what they have written (the grammar and spelling were awful), but I'm using the opportunity to spell out just how intolerant I feel towards the very existence of racist institutions.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.... I'm a pacifist... but if these sons of Satan ever got in power I'd strongly consider taking up arms against them. You can't just stand by and watch entire communities be fenced in or annihilated on the basis of their skin colour or creed.
The only people who deserve to be driven into the sea are the hatemongers who desire to do it to others.
This isn't their country - no country really belongs to any nation state, tribe or individual. In truth, there are no borders. We are merely stewards of the lands we occupy, when we die, it's someone elses turn. The only true owner of this land is Almighty God, whose signature is found in every crack in every stone... in the DNA of every living being and in the splendour and majesty of the heavenly bodies.
We are tenants and we have an obligation to God to be kind to our fellow man and tender to the planet he created... broken as it is through our own disobedience.
The way see it there are three ways of looking at the resources at our disposal:
Mine:
A selfish perspective whereby we consume everything for our own desires and pleasures, not mindful of the needs of others... making gain for gain's sake... like the rich fool who tore down his barns to make larger ones.
Ours:
A better attitude whereby we share our profits with those around us, recognising that people around us are valuable and worth looking after. It's still flawed though... who do you define as ours? Is it everyone... or is it just people around us who we care about? Even the BNP can lay claim to wanting to look after "our own". so clearly even this way of looking at things has it's drawbacks.
His:
The ultimate attitude of selflessness. By declaring everything as belonging to God, you set yourself free from the burden of your own perceptions. Who you care for is no longer determined by social class, colour, creed or mutual affection... it is determined by God's wisdom instead. The great thing is that God is gracious, he already promises and gives us more than we could hope for... and he longs to bless us. When we achieve the true state of selflessness as exemplified in Jesus, we live under the provision of the Lord of all. I ain't fully there yet... but I long to be.
Finally
"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Depends on who you address it to though... doesn't it?
I myself to choose to yell this in the face of institutions such as the British National Party and the White Wolves. Those who would drive people into the seas on the basis of skin colour. I warn them here and now that the measure they use... will be used on them.
Would that I could silence them permanently. They use clever soundbites to capitalise on the political disaffection felt by the electorate... who feel let down over immigration issues by the major parties. They stir up dissension and hatred and to a greater extent then the major parties - play off the stupidity and ignorance of sycophantic or apathetic voters.
I'm writing all this because some moronic idiot has posted a racist slur on a newspaper delivered to one of the local shops. Oh I'm sure they are just some badly educated fool trying to have a laugh... and they don't believe what they have written (the grammar and spelling were awful), but I'm using the opportunity to spell out just how intolerant I feel towards the very existence of racist institutions.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.... I'm a pacifist... but if these sons of Satan ever got in power I'd strongly consider taking up arms against them. You can't just stand by and watch entire communities be fenced in or annihilated on the basis of their skin colour or creed.
The only people who deserve to be driven into the sea are the hatemongers who desire to do it to others.
This isn't their country - no country really belongs to any nation state, tribe or individual. In truth, there are no borders. We are merely stewards of the lands we occupy, when we die, it's someone elses turn. The only true owner of this land is Almighty God, whose signature is found in every crack in every stone... in the DNA of every living being and in the splendour and majesty of the heavenly bodies.
We are tenants and we have an obligation to God to be kind to our fellow man and tender to the planet he created... broken as it is through our own disobedience.
The way see it there are three ways of looking at the resources at our disposal:
Mine:
A selfish perspective whereby we consume everything for our own desires and pleasures, not mindful of the needs of others... making gain for gain's sake... like the rich fool who tore down his barns to make larger ones.
Ours:
A better attitude whereby we share our profits with those around us, recognising that people around us are valuable and worth looking after. It's still flawed though... who do you define as ours? Is it everyone... or is it just people around us who we care about? Even the BNP can lay claim to wanting to look after "our own". so clearly even this way of looking at things has it's drawbacks.
His:
The ultimate attitude of selflessness. By declaring everything as belonging to God, you set yourself free from the burden of your own perceptions. Who you care for is no longer determined by social class, colour, creed or mutual affection... it is determined by God's wisdom instead. The great thing is that God is gracious, he already promises and gives us more than we could hope for... and he longs to bless us. When we achieve the true state of selflessness as exemplified in Jesus, we live under the provision of the Lord of all. I ain't fully there yet... but I long to be.
Finally
"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
What's it to be then?
Blessings
N
What's it to be then?
Blessings
N
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Conformity
Yesterday's Doctor Who was highly enjoyable. Not only did we have the return of the drone like Cybermen (with a new twist to their name as well), but at last we have a plausible explanation as to why the Doctor is limited to travelling only along our own timeline and not that of parallel dimensions. It had been niggling me... the idea that the idea that the Timelords were all but extinct, when surely there must be Timelords in alternate universes that have not been destroyed. now we know why the Doctor feels so alone - he can't get to the other universes to visit their versions of Gallifrey.
Anyway there were a couple of interesting points in yesterday's episode that could easily be used as allegory for Christian theology.
Firstly you have the "Preachers" led by Ricky (the parallel universe's Mickey), so called because they believe in the Gospel Truth (they don't believe in receiving information and data from bluetooth headsets invented by Cybus Industries, and with good reason for the owner of the company John Lumic is using the technology to further his own agenda of upgrading humanity with his technology and turning them into emotionless automatons trapped in steel bodies - the Cybermen.
Then you have the whole attitude of the Cyberman "race" to the rest of the populous. You must conform or be deleted. This is obviously setting them up with a showdown with the preachers who are the very antithesis of this. True to form the Preachers show up and try to gun down the Cybers with normal ammo - which fails to have any effect (long term Doctor Who aficionados will know that you need gold plated weaponry or ammunition as it messes up the run of the mill cyberman's respiratory equipment).
However the cliffhanger leaves the Doctor, Rose, Mickey and the Preachers surrounded by cybermen who are ready to "delete" them for not being compatable.
Anyway there were a couple of interesting points in yesterday's episode that could easily be used as allegory for Christian theology.
Firstly you have the "Preachers" led by Ricky (the parallel universe's Mickey), so called because they believe in the Gospel Truth (they don't believe in receiving information and data from bluetooth headsets invented by Cybus Industries, and with good reason for the owner of the company John Lumic is using the technology to further his own agenda of upgrading humanity with his technology and turning them into emotionless automatons trapped in steel bodies - the Cybermen.
Then you have the whole attitude of the Cyberman "race" to the rest of the populous. You must conform or be deleted. This is obviously setting them up with a showdown with the preachers who are the very antithesis of this. True to form the Preachers show up and try to gun down the Cybers with normal ammo - which fails to have any effect (long term Doctor Who aficionados will know that you need gold plated weaponry or ammunition as it messes up the run of the mill cyberman's respiratory equipment).
However the cliffhanger leaves the Doctor, Rose, Mickey and the Preachers surrounded by cybermen who are ready to "delete" them for not being compatable.
That is the world's attitude to Christianity. If you don't conform, you are incompatible and risk deletion. If you do conform, you lose your identity in Christ and become just another face in the crowd. OK, so you might not be trapped in a steel body deprived of all emotion, but you become something less than what you were designed to be, cut off from all the promises and potential that god had set aside just for you.
I'm going to leave you with a few scriptures to ponder and a challenge:
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2
"For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." Romans 8:13-17
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:11-13
and:
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26
So what are you going to be? A Cyberman or a Preacher. are you going to be a conforming tin man or a spiritually liberated child of God.
The decision is yours...
N
Saturday, May 13, 2006
A Chance Encounter with Sadness
It was an ordinary if hectic day yesterday; exhausted from working extremely hard I arrived at my car where Rob was waiting... I started the car and set off at the helm expecting nothing more than the usual Friday routine of friendly discussion regarding theology and events within our circle of friends. At that point in time the only thing bothering me was the fact that I hadn't had opportunity to say hello again to that girl from the estate agents I'm quite fond of (it's the girl I'm fond of... not the estate agents).
Unbeknown to us, things were about to take a darker turn.
Driving back along the country road, I turned off taking note of the signs warning us about a horse ride taking place that day... a minute or so later, on approach to a narrow S bend by a weir, I saw a different sign - "POLICE SLOW". On approach I assumed there had been an accident in the road ahead.
Rob and I cruised gently through the narrow gap between the roadside and two police cars and wondered what it could be that was so wrong? It couldn't be a car accident because there was no debris or wreckage. Whatever it was was significant because there were two television crews on the scene as well. I hypothesised that it was either a cache of drugs or in the worst case, a body that had been discovered.
I didn't know how close I was to the truth, and I wish now that I hadn't been. Rob doesn't normally watch the news and he had wanted me to text him to let him know what it was, but in the end.... I didn't have the heart to do it, the news was too grievous for me to pass on like that.
I asked Mum and Dad to turn on the news and it was then that I learned the awful news that a newborn baby girl, sealed in a Mothercare bag was the source of the investigation. She had been found in the river by a family of walkers... how terrible they must have felt.
Autopsy results on the child reveal that she was delivered fulll term... but whether or not she was stillborn or died of other causes is as yet unknown.
Police are making enquiries after the mother... they are naturally concerned as to her physical, emotional and mental wellbeing at the moment. Despite the fact that the babe was found near Great Alne, just a stone's throw away from where I go to church, the police are stating the discovery as being in Aston Cantlow... they must be assuming a certain amount of drift from the nearest large settlement.
I hope and pray the mother turns herself in and that she can get the help she needs. I pray things don't have to turn any darker with this story then they already have. I just hope it is a case of the mother not being able to get to medical help and suffering from a state of confusion and post-natal depression after finding her newborn child had not survived. It sounds strange to hope for the least worse possibility, but I'd rather not entertain the thought that this was an act of wilfiull neglect or cruelty.
One mistake I believe the police made when issuing the press statement, was getting a man to deliver it. they should have asked a female officer to make the appeal... preferably a mother herself. If this lady is to turn herself in, I feel it will be to empathic arms and not authoratitive ones.
Pray for the mother, whatever she has done.... pray for her.
N
Unbeknown to us, things were about to take a darker turn.
Driving back along the country road, I turned off taking note of the signs warning us about a horse ride taking place that day... a minute or so later, on approach to a narrow S bend by a weir, I saw a different sign - "POLICE SLOW". On approach I assumed there had been an accident in the road ahead.
Rob and I cruised gently through the narrow gap between the roadside and two police cars and wondered what it could be that was so wrong? It couldn't be a car accident because there was no debris or wreckage. Whatever it was was significant because there were two television crews on the scene as well. I hypothesised that it was either a cache of drugs or in the worst case, a body that had been discovered.
I didn't know how close I was to the truth, and I wish now that I hadn't been. Rob doesn't normally watch the news and he had wanted me to text him to let him know what it was, but in the end.... I didn't have the heart to do it, the news was too grievous for me to pass on like that.
I asked Mum and Dad to turn on the news and it was then that I learned the awful news that a newborn baby girl, sealed in a Mothercare bag was the source of the investigation. She had been found in the river by a family of walkers... how terrible they must have felt.
Autopsy results on the child reveal that she was delivered fulll term... but whether or not she was stillborn or died of other causes is as yet unknown.
Police are making enquiries after the mother... they are naturally concerned as to her physical, emotional and mental wellbeing at the moment. Despite the fact that the babe was found near Great Alne, just a stone's throw away from where I go to church, the police are stating the discovery as being in Aston Cantlow... they must be assuming a certain amount of drift from the nearest large settlement.
I hope and pray the mother turns herself in and that she can get the help she needs. I pray things don't have to turn any darker with this story then they already have. I just hope it is a case of the mother not being able to get to medical help and suffering from a state of confusion and post-natal depression after finding her newborn child had not survived. It sounds strange to hope for the least worse possibility, but I'd rather not entertain the thought that this was an act of wilfiull neglect or cruelty.
One mistake I believe the police made when issuing the press statement, was getting a man to deliver it. they should have asked a female officer to make the appeal... preferably a mother herself. If this lady is to turn herself in, I feel it will be to empathic arms and not authoratitive ones.
Pray for the mother, whatever she has done.... pray for her.
N
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