"That sounds like a you problem"

I am at present a mother of teens. I am also a lover of language - and the kind of person who picks up words, phrases and accents like a magpie picks up shiney things. (Fortunately the accent thing usually wears off with the end of the phone call to the call centre in South Wales or Newcastle). Being a middle aged woman using teen slang can only be out-cringed by being a middle aged vicar doing it.  But a couple of key and oft repeated phrases in our household are buzzing in my head at the moment and I wanted to take time to relfect on them. These thoughts will undoubtedly in some format be appearing in a sermon near you in the near future.  My parish pubishes the text of all our sermons at www.huddersfieldparishchurch.org and you can find the spoken versions by fast forwarding through our services which are livestreamed on YouTube. Just search for Huddersfield Parish Church, like and subscibe, as the kids say.

Family Language - it's not just bro - it's cuz aand cuzzy too. After the billionth time of saying "I'm not your XXX I'm your mother" - I thought of the brother and sisterhood of humanity - and how good it is to say often, and even perhaps to take for granted, the family-ness of everyone we encounter.

"That sounds like a you thing".  In a world where it feels sometimes like everyone wants to blame eveything and anything that goes wrong on someone else (one of the side effects of communal trauma as it may be) the need to leave things where they belong is important.  We need to not allow others to project problems onto us that are not ours, we need not to project onto others that which is our own to deal with. I find this really helpful in parish life where as clergy we are at the centre of community - often the only paid person working for the church amongst volunteers - and juggling our freedom to manage our own time as office holders with a job that has changed immesurably in my lifetime. We have a tendency to take onto our own shoulders problems that are not ours, and to ignore at great personal cost the things that are ours. Asking myself if something is a 'me' thing or a 'you' thing can only be a healthy question. The flip side of course is that we might be encouraged to think that the only things that matter are the things that directly impact us - our bubble - and that way lies catastrophe. That's definitley a good conversation for another day. 

"Word".  I have never been a person who could say "Word" without sounding daft. Apart from in John 1 obvs.  But when I say something that is true, and good and right, and my teen agrees with me, responding "Word" I feel amazing. Because Jesus Christ is the Word who became flesh - embodied like you and me and all that is true and good and right. It's often simple things that I've said - and when they say "word" they do sound cool (must be their dad's genes). The truth who is God is affirmed in the everyday, as presence, as ground of beging, as foundation. It reminds me that simple and profound are powerful companions in the lives of those who follow Christ's Way.