Time for a Break

Today is my birthday. It seems like no time at all since the last one!
Gill and I are coming to the end of a week down in Suffolk. It has been a nice relaxing time: I have even ploughed my way through three novels, which would normally take me months. I brought one book with me but bought another two at Second Hand Book Shop in Felixstowe.
I also managed to get Elaine out to her boat, something which she has not been able to do this year. It really needs to be brought ashore next spring and some work done on it. However, I'm not sure if Elaine can really keep it if she has nobody to help her. If she does decide to keep it I really need to get my Skipper's Certificate - something to think about.
I'm now looking forward to the week after next when I am away on a retreat/course in North Wales and then it is back to work on Chrurch matters, including sorting out next year's training sessions.

A Tale of Two Worlds

On returning to work yesterday I could not help but notice the contrast between what seemed like two different worlds. The luxury of the hotel in its beautiful surroundings was exchanged for a rundown youth building in an area of boarded up houses. The rich and successful people were replaced by those for whom society holds out little hope – the ever growing underclass.

I do not want to get into arguments about what makes people rich and poor or the rights and wrongs of the situation. I would like to offer the two things that came to my mind.

Those I met at the weekend had, first and foremost a confidence in themselves. Secondly, they had a willingness to work hard. Both of these attributes would not go amiss with those I teach. Few have any confidence in themselves and their abilities: certainly none of them want to work hard to improve their chances in life. It would possible to argue for days as to why these kids are that way. Some of them have been let down by an educational system that has not catered for their needs – a system that is obsessed by exam results rather than turning out well rounded people. Some have been let down by social services failing to act decisively and in time. All have been let down by a society that for a long time has got its priorities wrong.

There are no quick fixes, but one thing we can do is see them as people and not just troublesome youths and ‘hoodies.’ We can all work to build up their confidence in their own abilities, giving praise where praise is due. These are people for whom Christ died. If they are valuable to Him then they should be just as valued to us. I doubt if any of them feel valued.

Small Actions Make Big Changes

St Mawgan-in-Pydar

On Saturday, as I sat in the Thirteenth Century Church of St. Mawgan awaiting the start of Sarah and Jon's Wedding I began to think on all the hundreds of other weddings that must have taken place there in the past seven hundred and fifty so years. There would have been many rich patrons and vastly more poor couples who had stood and recited their vows before God. Ceremonies would have changed over time and,as the site is even more ancient that the church, some may not have even been Christian.

However much time and customs may have changed, all those couples, from whatever age, would have held similar hopes for the future. Prosperity, children and a myriad other things would have been on their minds. Some would have married for love, some for local political expediency, others because a child was on the way. Each ceremony would have represented the coming together of two lives that were, without them knowing it, going to change the future.

As today, many of those couples would have no idea that the simple act of their union would bring about change. We may think that real change is made by those in power but the more I study history the more I realize the part we all have to play. John Donne said that 'no man is an island'. Each life and each action of life changes the actions of others, and so the effect of the original action is multiplied.

It is a sobering thought to realise the things I do today may well have repercussions not only today but well into the future

Simple Joys

This weekend we are at the wedding of my cousin's daughter, Sarah. She is getting married in Cornwall so it is a long way for us to travel. We are breaking our journey at Taunton, making the rest of the trip on Saturday morning.

I was thinking how much weddings figure in the Scriptures. Of course, the first recorded miracle of Jesus was at a wedding: Jesus himself is referred to as a bridegroom and the Church as the 'Bride of Christ', and apocalyptic writings talk to us of 'the wedding feast of the Lamb. Whenever, weddings are mentioned in Scripture they are nearly always associated with fun and rejoicing. I wonder how much of that fun is lost in the recent phenomenon of having bigger and better weddings. Some of the popular venues here in Liverpool cost between five and ten thousand pounds - and that is just the venue. Add to this the dress, the catering, cars, flowers and all the other paraphernalia that goes with a modern wedding and I can see why some people say that a good wedding costs over twenty thousand pounds It is as if to have fun we have to spend more and more money. It seems to me that twenty thousand would make a good deposit on a house.

I don't believe I'm an old killjoy - of course a wedding will cost money- even Jesus had to step in when the organisers of a wedding underestimated the amount of wine required. What I am saying is that fun and rejoicing does not have to cost a lot of money. When we look back on life, often the times we remember enjoying ourselves the most are those times when we did not spend an absolute fortune. I believe we all need to become more childlike and get back to some of the simple pleasure we enjoyed in those early years of discovery.

The topic that seems to be on everyone's lips at the moment is the financial turmoil which has moved from being a crisis on Wall Street to a crisis in peoples' pockets. Here in the UK many individuals and Councils have seen their assets frozen by the apparent collapse of the Icelandic banking system. Governments around the world are, as I write, pouring millions of tax-payers money into the banks to try and keep the economy afloat.

Watching the news last night it seems whether it is New York or Newcastle UK people resent their money being used to prop up what they see as the failings and greed of 'Fat Cat Bankers.' However, how many of us are guilty of similar greed. Millions of ordinary people in the UK have been only too happy to avail themselves of the cheap credit that has been on offer. The UK Government may be pouring billions into the banks, but the truth is it is only a fraction of what the UK population owe on their mortgages, loans and credit cards.

I can't speak for others, but I find all this as an opportunity - and opportunity for me as an individual and a Franciscan to look again at my priorities in the light of my vow to simplicity - but also an opportunity to overhaul the financial system. It has been sad that all Capitalists are B-Polar - they swing between greed and blind panic! Well, we have seen plenty of that lately: a long period of greed followed by the blind panic of the last few months.

Is it possible that we can change? Certainly not without a change of heart. We Tertiary Franciscans believe that true chastity is not using others for your own ends. Is it possible that at least some of those in big business could take this on board? Nothing is impossible to God, if he turned the heart of the people of Nineveh, he can certainly do the same for the City.

As Franciscans, we have to pray that God's Spirit will move on peoples heart, but we also have to preach repentance, which is part and parcel of our calling. Finally, we to must examine our own attitudes and motive towards money and repent if needs be.