My Two Homes

I travelled home from Luton to Lancaster today. It's funny, calling places home. I think of both Luton and Lancaster as my home. In Lancaster i love living a life independent of my family, having 'my own' home. I love the communities that that i belong to: the art department (and specifically the second year sculpture group!), my church, the community in my house, my cell group. The city is aesthetically lovely and it has a great atmosphere too. I like local famers' markets and eating excellent locally-caught fish in restaurants.

And i love Luton too. It's not that i feel low in Lancaster - not at all! - but when i enter Luton by car or bus my heart always seems to lift. There's just something about that place that makes me ache, in a good way.

I has the most fantastic first day back in Luton these Easter hols. It was Good Friday and i went to the worship service at St Mary's in town. The atmosphere was buzzing for me - I imagined that people from all over Luton had come and there was again the breaking down of barriers between denominations and geographies. It was about peace and unity and gathering together before God. A few years ago God gave me a picture of Luton as a beautiful precious stone or jewel, which had become so encrusted with grime and dirt that it looked like just any old horrible stone, but which God wants to make shine again. He plans to chip away at that outer layer, washing and cleaning it until its beauty shows through and it can sit gloriously in the crown of God. Of course it's easy to just associate this kind of idea with the physical grime of Luton - the trash on the streets, the boarded up buildings and everything. And it is partly about that; I believe God is looking for the physical regeneration of Luton. But it is also - perhaps primarily - about the regeneratin of the people, their hearts and lives. So I found it really significant that many of the 'stations' at the worship service on Good Friday were about cleansing - repentence, removal of guilt, purification, forgiveness (my hands and feet got washed so many times that day!) The washing of this city - i use the term prophetically ;) - will begin with the washing of the people.

It fills me with so much joy to see people praying for Luton too, which was another of the stations. If anyone's reading this and has a penchant for prayer, i urge you to pray for Luton, even if you don't know it and can only give it a moment of your time right now, and especially if you live there or care about it in any way.