Saying goodbye to the wonderful John and Mandy Taylor.

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Kath

I don’t know how these latest people to be given a blog post have got away without one so far. They are two of the most excellent people I know. They are about to embark on a new adventure away from the lands of Brighton and whilst I want to stamp and rage about the frustration of brilliant people always seeming to move away from us, I shall resist the urge and instead lean into my appreciation of them and try not to cry too much at the thought of them being less in our lives. 

John and Mandy came to Brighton about 13 years ago from the leafy village of Lindfield. They rocked up to Brighton in a deeply intentional way, sussing out the church we were eventually part of together before coming down, seeking the right place to live and working through what ‘retirement’ would look like for John and what this new space would look like for Mandy in feeding the artist in her. I love how they talk about this move, the care they took over it and the way they wanted to seek the good in the mess and wonder of Brighton. 

I love how much they have loved Brighton, through a whole host of ways, as they’ve been involved in doing vast amounts of good in the city. I love the art collectives Mandy has been part of, the many ways her creativity has seeped into peoples lives and transformed spaces. I love John’s commitment to the St Lukes advice service helping people facing financial struggles, bankruptcy and more. I love John finding his poetic voice. I love their commitment together to be wise helpful landlords, to provide services for the homeless that will bring change with their Umbrella charity. I love the love they have had for our city. I love the amount of people they’ve befriended through their involvement in choirs, co-operatives, Morris dancing, English teaching and general hanging out in local cafes. I cannot think of two people more invested in being good helpful friends to so many. 

I first heard about them via my friend Lou who talked of this couple who had joined her church. All I heard was wonderful, these were people who opened their home, who poured out love and grace. I met them later when I joined the church and was drawn into their intentional living. They rocked up at our community house every week at 7 in the morning to pray with us, they cared about us, they fed us, they were a vital part of supporting us as we tried to live in community together. 

They read the opening verses at our wedding, they welcomed us into their small group when we moved around the corner from them. I have deeply happy memories of our early years of marriage spent around their kitchen table eating amazing bread John had made and talking all things God and reality. 

Their house was a safe point of refuge in the week following the death of Husbandface’s Mum. They helped us weather the hardest part of our marriage. We stayed at their house and they watched all the Lord of the Rings films with us each night that week to help us get put back together. They are the walking definition of a place of refuge. 

When I had our eldest Mandy came round every Monday afternoon to play with him in the crazy witching hour. She also brought a lot of chocolate each week. Eventually we decided we’d have to only have one packet of chocolate, and then maybe chocolate every other week. Her love and support were an essential part of me staying sane in those early parenting years. 

When the church community we were part of ended 4 years ago they didn’t let go of us. We’ve met each month since then to chat and pray and eat. They’ve brought round many a takeout and have again been a vital part of us staying sane and well in the years Husbandface has been ill. I love that they knew him before me.  I love their love and care for him and I love that they always have cared and prayed and not worried if he was a shaky wreck who had to disappear after dinner or if he was well enough to pray and pour out his deep well of love on them. Somehow I trust that we will find others to share this deeply with along the way but I imagine the gap will be large for a while. 

Next week they move to some village near Bath, they are, as usual, moving for excellent reasons, to be nearer family, to be able to be more supportive and hands on in a sustainable way, to find rest in the times they aren’t looking after grandchildren. I love their reasons for moving and I pray that they will settle into church, community life and find deep joy and amazing friends in this next stage of life. I’m glad they’ve found a place with a drive for the van to park on and I am glad we will still be friends, albeit from a distance. I think just about every room in our house has a piece of Mandy’s art on the wall so I know we will always be reminded of them and their love. I’m grateful we’ve had transition time before they left, we aren’t in the same church anymore and so feel less in their lives in Brighton than we did. But we will achingly miss the safety and loveliness of them in our house each month. 

I’m sad, the kind of sad that comes from friendship so rich that it would be odd if I wasn’t sad when it changed. I am utterly grateful for all they have taught me about life, about living intentionally, about friendship and welcoming all to the table. I will miss Mandy’s adventurous baking, turnip cupcakes were a particular highlight, I will miss John’s bread. I will miss their questions and care. I will miss them. I will miss them knowing all of us, as individuals before we even thought of ever liking each other and as companions along the way in our marriage and journey into parenting. I will miss the ease of shared history and look forward to when we can meet up again. 

Raise your glasses, here’s to John and Mandy, goodbye for now and hello to learning how to be friends from a distance. 

EDIT. Just realised I haven’t even mentioned the beach hut joy, the gracious way they shared it with people to have a communal space on the beach to share in friends and of course run a night of the Beach Hut Advent Calendar from…

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On nurturing hope.

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Kath

I sat in the shed. Turned the laptop on and clicked the zoom link. 

I wondered at what kind of strange world we live in where we conduct services through a screen. Thankful for the chance to connect despite the distance.

Through smiley introductions we made our way. Turned off screens, muted ourselves and sat to remember who we are, who we walk with. Together, separately, we tried to glean some food for our souls to take into the week. 

We listened to music to soothe the soul. We listened to ourselves, found out how we were:

“But if you’re drifting away. If it’s falling apart.
Let yourself, be quietly drawn by the stronger call of what you really love.
Let your soul, The one that you brought with you safe to this moment in time,
Whisper to your fears, And wrestle with the noise of this night, for you”

Martyn Joseph always seems to know how to get in under my defences. 

We sat in silence, read passages from the old old story of a God who calls us on. 

“Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of your peace,
the beauty of your peace.” 

We heard gentle calls of Jesus to weary souls. 

I read some of Isaiah 40, marvelled again at the stunning picture of God storming over the hills in power to then gently lead as a shepherd, tenderly caring for those who have young, whispering reality into my depths. 

“You who bring good news to Zion,
    go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem
    lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
    say to the towns of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”

See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
    and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense accompanies him.

He tends his flock like a shepherd:
    He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
    he gently leads those that have young.”

We remembered we are in this together. We go on together. As Martyn Joseph sings “It’s taken all this time, to turn around and see, the sum of all these parts is we.” We are not alone in this weary exhausted landscape. 

The internet broke and I got frustrated but, despite that, peace had entered my mind again. I stepped out of the shed into the dark with a grin on my face and warmth within. Glad of a chance to nurture hope. 

If you want about 45 minutes of peace and the chance to nurture some hope, the slides and music are in the google slide document below, click away and enjoy some rest with your Maker. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Pi-W3-OZXZpNqlQ1yxYFJmgv0_V0XJijNaU7533ocwg/edit?usp=sharing

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On Yew trees. Or raising my Ebenezer…

Posted on November 12, 2020 by Kath

Over lockdown I started getting slowly obsessed with yew trees. I spent lots of time reading about Celtic Spirituality for an assignment on my Spiritual Direction course. I was drawn to the wonder of these ancient trees, these places around which sacred gatherings were held and around which churches were built, recognising these ancient meeting places and their significance in peoples stories. 

Yew trees can last a long time, during lockdown I visited a 1,600 year old one just down the road from us in Wilmington. Despite the boys disappointment in not being able to climb it I was enthralled with this marker of time.

Each morning I usually go for a walk in our local area, I walk for an hour, some days in profound thought, some in quiet contemplation and, let’s be honest here, some in boredom as I put one foot in front of the other. 

One day I stumbled across a part of the area I live in which contained pine trees. We live right on the border of the South Downs National Park, not an area known for its pine trees. A quick google search (I love that I could google ‘why are there pine trees in Patcham?’ and find the answer) told me that the person who had built the estate had planted them. Hidden away in the undergrowth I came across an empty patch of ground encircled by a yew tree. I stood in it and looked to the sky. I walked around it, grinned a bit and realised I’d found something new in this finding God in our natural world journey I’ve been on all my life. 

I love the Celtic way of praying circling prayers, of asking the three members of the Trinity to surround and protect us. Yew trees have now become to me symbols of that presence of the divine. God with us in this world.

When God speaks to the prophet Hosea God says ‘I am like a green pine tree’. I love the symbolism of that statement, the eternal evergreen nature of God, the bearing fruit year after year freshness of a tree that stands tall throughout the centuries. I’m glad God links themselves to these eternal images, reminding me that I am very small part of a very large picture. 

A month or so ago we planted a yew tree in our front garden, every time I look at it I am reminded of this eternal God who spans the ages, who has held us this far, and will carry us on. We planted our Ebenezer (the reminder of God’s help symbol, not the guy called eeezer who is a main geezer) to remind us of God’s help through this last year. As we journey on into the strangeness of the months ahead of us, we walk with knowledge that we are not on our own in this journey. 

I still try and walk out each morning to notice where I am at the start of each day, to say hello to God and ask for awareness of what God is up to as we walk into the day together. I love walking past familiar yew trees in the woods near us, I love holding out my hands to their branches, reminding myself of the nearness of my Maker. I love discovering new ones, one Saturday I laughed out loud as I found a path full of yew trees up in some local woods, I gasped in awe at the abundance and tasted the abundant love of our Creator wooing me again. 

What are your ebenezers in these times? What marker points might there to place along the journey? What speaks to you most of the presence of God with us? 

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Thoughts from a week off…

Posted on November 10, 2020 by Kath

I’ve had the last week off work, leaning into the space afforded by the 5 hours a day the boys are at school, enjoying the extra time to walk around the beautiful places near us, to read more books, to sleep on a chair and then jerk awake, wondering how it’s suddenly half an hour until pick up and couldn’t I have done more with these precious hours? 

I’ve been in search of the right experience, the moments to make this week special, the high of rest and the feeling of being topped up again ready to go go go. I know, I’m not sure 5 hours off a day for a week can make up for the tiredness which seeps in my bones from the last 8 years of parenting with a year of global pandemic thrown in for good measure. 

And so I walk on. 

I think this is the longest time off I’ve had with space just for me in a long long time. Leaving aside my slight playing for sympathy or my unrealistic expectations for what on earth I thought would happen in this time it has been good. Not amazingly wow, not complete filling of the tank, but a slow and steady, gentle, putting in of things that are good for my soul and might just last me until the next opportunity for time off. 

I’ve walked each day, enjoying the wonder of many sunrises, the beautiful world all around, the leaves I’ve watched grow from buds now changing colour and falling to the ground. The sky now visible in the woods. The space between the trees grows wider each day and I am captivated by the way the sun lights everything up in such different ways each morning. 

And so I walk on.

I’ve stepped back from the world of social media, seeking connection in more direct ways, and seeking greater connection with the source of all this. I’ve slowly pulled back from mindless scrolling on my phone and have the attention span again to read books without tapping my phone every few minutes. This is a longer process and whilst I love the connections social media brings, I also want it to feed the flesh and blood relationships I have. Harder to do in the world of lockdown part 2 but a necessary aim for deeper richer living. I’m toying with a sabbath rest from social media each week, and putting it into intentional times in my day. I’m wondering how to fill the gaps in the day with good things, with soul refreshing wonder rather than mere numbing. 

And so I walk on. 

The realities of lockdown 2 have yet to sink in. Being off work means nothing much has changed in our world on a large scale. The details are making me sad though, the lack of being able to welcome people into our home, have a cuppa with a friend, have the boys friends over for fun and have dinner with friends. Our social world feels small again and as time goes on I fear that our brains will learn this small too well, that pushing out to relearn physical connection will be hard. And maybe it will and maybe pushing through that will be a wonderful retraining of our brains.  I feel the ache of lost time with people coupled with the thought that maybe we weren’t made for so many people in our head at one time. The questions are loud and the answers are few. 

And so I walk on. 

The boys are still at school and I’ve enjoyed this week of space. I think the full weight of the restrictions may hit when I go back to work tomorrow and have to go back to the online world, making the most of whenever it is dry to walk with people instead of meeting in our lovely church cafe. I’m holding into the hope that this may only be a month. I hold onto hope and try not to see the numbers on my calendar rushing towards December. Tomorrow I will engage with the C word, tomorrow I will allow my brain time to think and ponder advent, to think about how to mark what will be a very different experience this year. Tomorrow I will engage again. For now I shall write, read and drink some more tea.

And so I walk on. 

Grateful for the rest and hoping to walk on in more intentional ways. Hoping to remember the author of these sunrises, the painter of the sky, the maker of all, the One who calls me to love and be loved.

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Watching the black dog slowly slinking out of the door

Posted on October 24, 2020 by Kath

And sometimes it’s the Saturday mornings, the pushing through to get out on the hills to watch the sunrise, the making a playlist about sunrises, the listening to interesting profound people in my ears as I wander around the golf course.

Sometimes it’s the realisation that I’ve seen these leaves from their birth as buds to their fall to the ground as I’ve walked these paths.

Sometimes it’s the returning to my family, chaos all over the floor, detritus of games and fun, a husband in the kitchen making monkey bread for our adventures, putting together our Saturday morning indulgence of brioche and bacon.

Sometimes it’s the music of Martyn Joseph perfectly soothing my soul, there is still a lot of love out there, still a lot of love, still a lot of love.

Sometimes it’s singing loudly whilst the small ones cry at me, sometimes it’s gazing long and deep at the hills out of our kitchen window with a big grin on my face because there is still a lot of love out there, still a lot of love.


Sometimes it’s all these things and more.


And the black dog slowly slinks out the door.

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