It's Out Of My Hands!

The weekend is over and so is Access all Areas - an all day youth event at Rhondda Fach Sports Centre that we held on Saturday. Well, it's not quite over! I've still got the unloading of the van, the return of hired equipment and the unpacking and repacking of boxes before they become a mountainous obstacle in my hallway! In fact, over the last month, any visitors to my home have had to wind their way through an obstacle course of trunks and boxes and various other items - and at times it has been a job to even open the front door fully! I'm not the neatest or tidiest of people but being surrounded by such things does grate on you after a while and makes life that bit more difficult! The diocese has finally agreed to pay for some storage (an ongoing request for several years!) although I'm still waiting for the post to arrive in the hope that the documents I need to make this possible will be in my hands by this afternoon, and that by this afternoon the equipment will be well and truly off my hands! And that's a good thing!

Access all Areas was a good day, with lots going on - and the Sports Centre hall was a busy hive of activity. Most people seemed to enjoy themselves. It's really difficult to evaulate an event or initative that you have created and planned. Your expectations are so different from those attending. There is an image in your mind of how you want or think things should go and there is a danger of evaluating things in a despondent manner because it felt different or went different! Latterly, I have learned to be content with offering something and letting it have a life of it's own. I'm still a slight control freak but I am content, when the event is over, to be open to the possibility that the small seeds of something may grow out and elsewhere. Yes, it is important to evaluate and see where things could be improved but many things that grow and happen are just out of our hands! And that's a good thing.

It strikes me that this is the case for all of us but particulalry for priests. So much of what is done goes unnoticed and we never know the effects and fruits that grow from an encounter or something said or done. Our life can become cluttered with wondering what was the point of something or was there any worth in what we did or what we do. All good, from one point of view (including financially!) but from another, more personal and profound point of view, it's not really any of our business. So, today, I shall be content with unloading the Luton Van, returning the hired equipment, gathering up the fragments of a day's busy events, and let God do what he wants to do with whatever we have given him. And that's a good thing!