I'm sure I'm not the only person that has done a Google search on their name! It's a bit of a vain thing to do, really, and there was a time when all that the results threw up were the escapades of my namesakes! (I even remember once reading the obituary of someone called Dean Atkins somewhere in the States!) It can be quite a sobering experience when all you find is nothing or your name on a database or some passing reference! But really it's just a little exercise in an idle moment to see where you turn up and in what way! It's not Google specific, of course. You can choose whatever search engine takes your fancy be it Yahoo or Ask or Lycos or...you get the idea! Yes, it's vain. Very vain, indeed. But perhaps it's a natural gesture in a world where we try to be significant or stand out or stand up to be counted. And so when I type my name into that white bar on the screen I try to convince myself that this is just research or a little entertainment or a bit of self deprecating humour when all that is on the TV is Light Entertainment and Talent Shows that titillate. But really it's all rather vain. Yes, very vain. What little people we are!
Talking of little people brings me to the Gospel Reading for tomorrow (as I mull on my sermon) - that Sunday School Epic of Zacchaeus, the small man, being called down from the tree to take Jesus home for tea! The story has been the material for many a drama or children's song or simple lined drawings to colour with felt tip pens that didn't work and crayons that cracked, kept in a rusty tin in a cupboard that smelled of damp and biscuits (or is that just me?!) Yes, Zacchaeus was a small man, a short man, a man who couldn't see a thing when it mattered and who got swallowed up by the crowd and so climbed high to see what all the fuss was about. And in return he gets the honour of entertaining the one who has entertained the crowd. Suddenly this small man becomes significant.
I'm a bit worried about this trying to be significant but it doesn't stop us from trying. When we look at family photographs or party pics our attention diverts to our own face (or am I the only one?) We may be dissatisfied (or claim to be) with the way we look but really we are dazzled by ourselves, by our own significance or lack of it, whether it's catching our reflection in the shop window or being caught on camera. We are torn between loving and loathing ourselves when all that we need is something in between. Zacchaeus was just a member of the audience, trying to see what everyone else saw, trying to glimpse what everyone else had already grasped, an anonymous admirer or a curious member of the crowd. I love the phrase in the gospel when we read, 'But Zacchaeus stood his ground.' He didn't really care what people said about him or thought about him or (perhaps more pertinent in this day and age) wrote about him. It was his response to Jesus that mattered. We are little people, aren't we? Most of us are not and will never be well known or, well, famous (thank God!) but our significance lies in those words of the book of Wisdom: 'In your sight, Lord, the whole world is like a grain of dust that tips the scales.' (11:22). And if the whole world is just a grain of dust what does that make us? But in his sight and in his way we carry such weight and worth that we tip the scales but only when we are caught in wonder, when all we wish to see is Jesus passing by! And then, the scales will tip, as Jesus gazes up at us (yes, up at us! Isn't that amazing?!) and calls us down to where he is so that he may truly lift us up or, rather, be glorified in us and us in him.
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Sunday, 28 October 2007
On your own Doorstep!
Over the last few weeks Sunday afternoons have become a time to do something different! Years ago they were, for me at least, a time for sleeping as I slipped into that soporific Sunday sensation - but recently two of my friends and I have slipped into the challenge of visiting places that at least one of us haven't been before! This afternoon was a late start and we found ourselves down the road at the Cardiff Barrage, watching the water rising, the gates opening and the bridges lifted open for yachts and boats to squeeze back into the Bay. Last week we were at Caerleon clambering around the Roman Ruins. The week before that we were at the museum at St Fagan's. You get the picture that all of these places are really quite local. Sometimes when things are so close we make less effort to experience them - after all, we can do it any time! Nearness sometimes means never!
There is so much on our doorstep - on every doorstep - and we overlook them so easily, so that visitors to the place where we live can often see more of our own neighbourhood than we have ever seen ourselves. Perhaps that's the difference between a tourist and a resident. Residents take it all for granted and tourists seek things out and ooh! and ahh! at the sights and sounds.
Perhaps it's much the same with our own lives. We can take it all for granted: our gifts and glad rags, the landmarks and beauty spots of our lives, the things to see and share. The Gospel Reading at Mass this morning was the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector with a lesson in humility. Humility, of course, has nothing to do with low self esteem or a lack of self worth. It actually means acknowledging all that is good and worthwhile in our lives and attributing it to God, whilst realistically realising that the failures and fallings are very often a result of own weakness. Mmm, now I wonder where we'll end up next weekend? Who knows! We could go as far afield as two streets away or into town or back down the bay. No matter how far we go, life really is quite interesting on your own doorstep!
There is so much on our doorstep - on every doorstep - and we overlook them so easily, so that visitors to the place where we live can often see more of our own neighbourhood than we have ever seen ourselves. Perhaps that's the difference between a tourist and a resident. Residents take it all for granted and tourists seek things out and ooh! and ahh! at the sights and sounds.
Perhaps it's much the same with our own lives. We can take it all for granted: our gifts and glad rags, the landmarks and beauty spots of our lives, the things to see and share. The Gospel Reading at Mass this morning was the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector with a lesson in humility. Humility, of course, has nothing to do with low self esteem or a lack of self worth. It actually means acknowledging all that is good and worthwhile in our lives and attributing it to God, whilst realistically realising that the failures and fallings are very often a result of own weakness. Mmm, now I wonder where we'll end up next weekend? Who knows! We could go as far afield as two streets away or into town or back down the bay. No matter how far we go, life really is quite interesting on your own doorstep!
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
From the Other Side
Quite a different day today. Thanks to a colleague who was unavailable I was asked to take part in a debate on Halloween for the BBC Radio Wales programme All things Considered with Roy Jenkins (to be broadcast on Sunday). I'm always fascinated by the workings of Radio and TV, getting behind the scenes of something we only see from the other side. Not many people get the opportunity, so I was glad to say yes. I joined three others in the debate: a retired Roman Catholic priest called Fr Ambrose, Elin, a Christian historian (on the phone line) and Ray, an evangelical minister. I suppose I was not surprised by much of what the latter said: I knew I would often be a hundred miles away from much of his belief system. After the debate the conversation continued, until we were politely kicked out of the studio! Apparently, so he told us and so the statistics go, there are more Christians on earth at the moment than there are in heaven. Which was was a discreet way of saying that among the millions and billions of people who have followed Jesus in the past only those who followed his belief system have been 'saved' and get in through those symbolic pearly gates. I asked him if I was saved? The answer was rather vague!
Sometimes vague answers are good, especially when talking about the life of heaven. We can get caught up so much with the whats and hows and 'what's it like' and 'how do you get there 'and 'what do you mean by that' and 'why do you say what you say!' But it was fairly frustrating (though peculiarly predictable) that the answer to my question to his specific statistics on my own salvation was vague, to say the least! It was, perhaps, an avoidance of saying what he really wanted to say to me. But who knows?! I don't see things from his side of things!
The 'born again' experience necessary to the salvation of which he spoke was an event in time, a specific moment of accepting Christ as Saviour. All well and good but it said nothing about the ongoing conversion that one experiences when following Jesus, that continuous dying to self. It omitted the gentle moulding and remoulding, the mistakes and meanderings, the seeking and searching, the being found and the gentle acceptance of the person we are - as well as the person God wants us to be. It missed out the mending of broken hearts that come from a lifetime of pain and sometimes too much pleasure. And so I find myself, right now, left with a rather vague and unsatisfactory spiel on salvation, trying to get behind the scenes of something we only see from our side and, even worse, trying to plough through it in three paragraphs! So am I saved? I suspect God has a little more patience and understanding than we often give him credit. And considering my own little life that's just as well.
Sometimes vague answers are good, especially when talking about the life of heaven. We can get caught up so much with the whats and hows and 'what's it like' and 'how do you get there 'and 'what do you mean by that' and 'why do you say what you say!' But it was fairly frustrating (though peculiarly predictable) that the answer to my question to his specific statistics on my own salvation was vague, to say the least! It was, perhaps, an avoidance of saying what he really wanted to say to me. But who knows?! I don't see things from his side of things!
The 'born again' experience necessary to the salvation of which he spoke was an event in time, a specific moment of accepting Christ as Saviour. All well and good but it said nothing about the ongoing conversion that one experiences when following Jesus, that continuous dying to self. It omitted the gentle moulding and remoulding, the mistakes and meanderings, the seeking and searching, the being found and the gentle acceptance of the person we are - as well as the person God wants us to be. It missed out the mending of broken hearts that come from a lifetime of pain and sometimes too much pleasure. And so I find myself, right now, left with a rather vague and unsatisfactory spiel on salvation, trying to get behind the scenes of something we only see from our side and, even worse, trying to plough through it in three paragraphs! So am I saved? I suspect God has a little more patience and understanding than we often give him credit. And considering my own little life that's just as well.
Tuesday, 23 October 2007
Flicking through Prayer
I had a little treat today. I had £50 of book tokens to spend. I tried to spend them the other day but after half an hour of wandering aimlessly around Waterstones I left empty handed (apart from my two £25 tokens!) I guess I just wasn't in the mood for picking or choosing. Today, though, I was more amiable in my amblings and, clutching my bag, I wound my way from Waterstones to pick my way through the first of the books (finding myself, as I did, in O' Neil's for a quick Guinness and the first chapter). Reading, for me, is quite a sporadic occupation. I can read book after book after book, even at times finding myself having more than one book on the go, and other times I can go for weeks or months without turning a page. I have learned to be content with this: it's just the way I am!
It strikes me, too, that the way I read is often the way I pray. There can be times when prayer is like a page turner, an eager flick through the leaves that lie waiting to be devoured, craving the moments sneaked through the day when I can delve into those dark, deep, lovely moments of being alone with God. And other times it is laboured and languid, accompanied by little enthusiasm or devotion and sometimes missed altogether. I have learned to be content with this: it's just the way I am! Prayer is something that's so often spoken about and written about (I'm doing it now!) and read with eager longing, like looking through a cookery book, your juices flowing and craving the delights that lie within and which could so easily be brought to life with a little work and a few ingredients. The French priest Michel Quoist once wrote a prayer that contained the words 'so that all of life becomes prayer.' Yes, we do need those times aside, I know, those ordered, organised, ordinary times of flicking through the pages or delving into something deeper but it's only in order that the whole of life becomes prayer. Prayer is an attitude of life, a spiritual awareness and an openness to God that pervades and embraces the whole of our being. Not that the ideal of the latter should become an excuse for not going aside and getting down to the 'act of prayer,' of course. But there are many ways of prayer and many ways of praying, and the reason many of us find it so difficult is because we haven't recognised or acknowledged that what we are already doing is prayer in some kind of way.
So, back to me in the pub with a Guinness in my hand, flicking through the pages of my new book. It was a delicately human book and the words were beautifully spun, carefully chosen and fragile like a spider's web: the true story of a woman's heart breaking and finding her way through frustration and pain. They were only a few brief moments spent, snapped up from the busyness of the day, but there, for me at least, all of life had become prayer. And so, if I find myself intensely seeking out moments of prayer, pouring my way through words and silence, all well and good. And if I don't, then I have learned to be content with it: it's just the way I am!
It strikes me, too, that the way I read is often the way I pray. There can be times when prayer is like a page turner, an eager flick through the leaves that lie waiting to be devoured, craving the moments sneaked through the day when I can delve into those dark, deep, lovely moments of being alone with God. And other times it is laboured and languid, accompanied by little enthusiasm or devotion and sometimes missed altogether. I have learned to be content with this: it's just the way I am! Prayer is something that's so often spoken about and written about (I'm doing it now!) and read with eager longing, like looking through a cookery book, your juices flowing and craving the delights that lie within and which could so easily be brought to life with a little work and a few ingredients. The French priest Michel Quoist once wrote a prayer that contained the words 'so that all of life becomes prayer.' Yes, we do need those times aside, I know, those ordered, organised, ordinary times of flicking through the pages or delving into something deeper but it's only in order that the whole of life becomes prayer. Prayer is an attitude of life, a spiritual awareness and an openness to God that pervades and embraces the whole of our being. Not that the ideal of the latter should become an excuse for not going aside and getting down to the 'act of prayer,' of course. But there are many ways of prayer and many ways of praying, and the reason many of us find it so difficult is because we haven't recognised or acknowledged that what we are already doing is prayer in some kind of way.
So, back to me in the pub with a Guinness in my hand, flicking through the pages of my new book. It was a delicately human book and the words were beautifully spun, carefully chosen and fragile like a spider's web: the true story of a woman's heart breaking and finding her way through frustration and pain. They were only a few brief moments spent, snapped up from the busyness of the day, but there, for me at least, all of life had become prayer. And so, if I find myself intensely seeking out moments of prayer, pouring my way through words and silence, all well and good. And if I don't, then I have learned to be content with it: it's just the way I am!
Monday, 22 October 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
'In the Tender Compassion of our God...'
It's not my place, or the place of this blog, to spill too much out into cyberspace. I suppose with any kind of writing there has to be restraint and responsibility and that is certainly the case today. I try to write from things I've seen or heard or done - although, more often than not, I will have chosen a rather mundane matter in order to extricate something more, perhaps. Yesterday, of course, was the sentencing of Geraint Evans who killed Fr Paul Bennett (a friend of mine since I was young) and I wish to exercise restraint because so much is said and quoted and I would not wish to say anything without Fr Paul's family giving me any kind of permission.
As I sat in the court yesterday I was, of course, filled with many emotions and thoughts but this is not the place to share them. I had never been in a Crown Court before and so this was new territory, a new experience, tinged with the saddest of circumstances. I suppose I had expected it to be cold in atmosphere, a strange, distant place that exercised justice in a highly charged atmosphere. Perhaps I thought it would be clinical, a conveyor belt of cases to be carried on and carried out. But one of the things that struck me in the midst of the raw and disabling emotion around me was the way that justice could be delivered with such compassion, sensitivity and gentleness to the people involved in the case.
When people think about what we mean by 'God's Judgement' they think quite often of wrath and anger, a vengeful vacillation with bulging veins. And it's a mistaken one. Of course, there is anger in the hearts of people affected by acts of injustice and they do not disappear in a day, if at all. And yes, there is pain, that always leaves its mark, and people are left broken hearted - and the heart is not easily healed. But yesterday, amongst so many other things, I was struck by the Judge who was so sensitive to the feelings of the family and those he knew to be within the court. He was considerate and compassionate and I never once thought that this was a man going through the motions. Yes, there was the directness of his sentencing at the end which he delivered, of course, with deep seriousness, his words loaded with an emotion that expressed the seriousness of the crime. But I learned yesterday that the way of dealing with acts of injustice, and the way of judgement, can and should be done with tenderness. And I thank God for that.
'In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who live in darkness, under the shadow of death.' Luke 1:78-79
As I sat in the court yesterday I was, of course, filled with many emotions and thoughts but this is not the place to share them. I had never been in a Crown Court before and so this was new territory, a new experience, tinged with the saddest of circumstances. I suppose I had expected it to be cold in atmosphere, a strange, distant place that exercised justice in a highly charged atmosphere. Perhaps I thought it would be clinical, a conveyor belt of cases to be carried on and carried out. But one of the things that struck me in the midst of the raw and disabling emotion around me was the way that justice could be delivered with such compassion, sensitivity and gentleness to the people involved in the case.
When people think about what we mean by 'God's Judgement' they think quite often of wrath and anger, a vengeful vacillation with bulging veins. And it's a mistaken one. Of course, there is anger in the hearts of people affected by acts of injustice and they do not disappear in a day, if at all. And yes, there is pain, that always leaves its mark, and people are left broken hearted - and the heart is not easily healed. But yesterday, amongst so many other things, I was struck by the Judge who was so sensitive to the feelings of the family and those he knew to be within the court. He was considerate and compassionate and I never once thought that this was a man going through the motions. Yes, there was the directness of his sentencing at the end which he delivered, of course, with deep seriousness, his words loaded with an emotion that expressed the seriousness of the crime. But I learned yesterday that the way of dealing with acts of injustice, and the way of judgement, can and should be done with tenderness. And I thank God for that.
'In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who live in darkness, under the shadow of death.' Luke 1:78-79
Monday, 15 October 2007
It's Raining Again!
I'm often tempted when starting to write my blog at this time of night to say 'It's been a long day...!' It's never because it's been a particularly long or even eventful day but just because I'm tired, I guess! Mind you, I'm always tired. I could, to coin a phrase, 'Sleep on the edge of a wet Echo!' which is a strange way of saying that I could sleep anywhere! I am often jealous of people who need little sleep or those people who are up bright and early, bright and sprightly to, as they are so intent on saying, 'Catch the best part of the day!'
The best part of the day, I think, is mid morning. It's still got the bright freshness of the morning without the languid feel of the afternoon when bodies and minds stumble into a tired, tiresome lull. I think that the Spanish have it right with their siesta. You can't beat a sleep in the afternoon! Mind you, we don't have the high sun as an excuse. Damn the weather! Which is what Michael Fish must have said several times through the last twenty years as we remember the anniversary of the great storm of 1987. He made a welcome guest appearance tonight as he returned to the BBC's Six O' Clock news to give the weather report. What am I doing?! It must have been a long day! I must have very little to talk about or report - I've ended up talking about the weather!
In fact there has been quite a lot that's happened today. The problem is that most of the stuff that we do becomes so routined or run of the mill that we can fail to see the miracle in the midst of the mundane. I have a friend who loves the weather. He is easily humoured by hurricanes and fascinated by fine rain! He would make a good meteorologist and knows far more about the weather than I would care to learn! But even something like getting on the inside of the weather reveals so many natural phenomena that usually pass us by and is then taken for granted. In fact it becomes, for us, something to complain about, an object of dissatisfaction. It's too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet! We're never pleased. What miserable people we are! I think we need a change! Oh, look. It's raining outside. Fine drizzle. The worse kind. So wet and damp and dark. How lovely!
The best part of the day, I think, is mid morning. It's still got the bright freshness of the morning without the languid feel of the afternoon when bodies and minds stumble into a tired, tiresome lull. I think that the Spanish have it right with their siesta. You can't beat a sleep in the afternoon! Mind you, we don't have the high sun as an excuse. Damn the weather! Which is what Michael Fish must have said several times through the last twenty years as we remember the anniversary of the great storm of 1987. He made a welcome guest appearance tonight as he returned to the BBC's Six O' Clock news to give the weather report. What am I doing?! It must have been a long day! I must have very little to talk about or report - I've ended up talking about the weather!
In fact there has been quite a lot that's happened today. The problem is that most of the stuff that we do becomes so routined or run of the mill that we can fail to see the miracle in the midst of the mundane. I have a friend who loves the weather. He is easily humoured by hurricanes and fascinated by fine rain! He would make a good meteorologist and knows far more about the weather than I would care to learn! But even something like getting on the inside of the weather reveals so many natural phenomena that usually pass us by and is then taken for granted. In fact it becomes, for us, something to complain about, an object of dissatisfaction. It's too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet! We're never pleased. What miserable people we are! I think we need a change! Oh, look. It's raining outside. Fine drizzle. The worse kind. So wet and damp and dark. How lovely!
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