coronavirus Archives - Invitations to Ascend

October 13, 2020October 14, 2020

Lessons from birds: the invitation to live free from anxiety

If I had to describe the dominant emotion of this year, I’d call it anxious. This year has been marked by bouts of intense collective uncertainty and rapid change as we’ve faced the initial, and then further, outbreaks of Covid-19. Between those bouts, the persistent hum of heightened tension about the pandemic locally and globally has become our soundtrack.

Here in New Zealand we have been in the enviable position of being Covid-free for long stretches. Though we’re currently in a state close to normal (albeit a normality awash with sanitiser, tracer apps and daily Ministry of Health updates), we are undeniably still living under a cloud. We know our world could change at any time.

May 5, 2020September 17, 2020

Lent 2020 v2.0: How coronavirus has rebooted and upgraded my Lent practice this year

Just the other day I stood before my kitchen calendar to count the number of days since the coronavirus lockdown began. When that number turned out to be 40, something (God I hope) caught my attention.

April 21, 2020September 17, 2020

Lament: an invitation

In these times of the coronavirus crisis, I’m finding myself drawn to the practice of lament.

A lament is a passionate expression of grief, often in a creative form, like a poem or song. It is an honest, unfiltered, intense offering of hard, painful thought and emotion to God. It is clearly something that a reader of the Bible like myself should be no stranger to. After all, the whole book of Lamentations is a series of laments about the destruction of Jerusalem. It is estimated that two thirds of the Psalms are laments.

April 12, 2020September 16, 2020

A prayer for these times

Last year I stumbled across the term “crafted prayer” in a refreshingly short and invaluable book by Graham Cooke, entitled the same. In it, Graham discusses the riches found in praying prayers that are not just found in the spur of the moment but rather prayers that are deliberately and carefully crafted before the throne of God. These are prayers that we can pray over and over again. And thus bringing a depth to our prayers that may, perhaps, be lacking otherwise.