Resolution

The last day of 2011. Last night I drove my daughter down to Luton airport through the driving rain and clouding spray - something of an epic journey, but completed safely and to time! As I returned on my own, with the roads quieter than before, I had some time to reflect on what resolutions I might take with me into 2012. I have always made resolutions, and generally they have remained private, whether kept or broken. These ones I'll share: you, dear reader, if you're there, are now my witness . . .

1 To be constant and persistent in prayer, taking seriously my calling as a Franciscan and - though presently the exercise of this calling is impaired - as a priest.

2 To write every day, and to begin again the daily journal that the events of last year brought to a close.

3 To increase my involvement in voluntary and charity work in the community, and to maintain a disciplined but generous approach to my use of time and talents.

4 To sing as much and as often as I can (and to smile as I do it)!

5 To keep physically fit by taking regular exercise and care with my diet: getting back into running and taking a decent solo walk each week, eating a little less at each meal and avoiding snacks.

6 To take time to visit and to share quality time with friends and family, recognising that, though I need time on my own, time with those closest to me is equally vital, for my needs and for theirs.

7 To go, with Ann, to at least one concert or play or similar event each month.

8 To enjoy life and the world around me, and to find in every day something to delight in and to be thankful for.

9 To read with more purpose, including a planned and disciplined reading of the Bible.

10 To review all of this on a regular basis, making it part of the rule of life I bring to my spiritual director; and, where I fail, not allowing that to become a reason or excuse for giving up on the project!

Reflection on the Year End

In just a few words, on a grey and rainy next-to-last day of the year . . . It's been a busy year so far as world events are concerned, a year of immense upheaval in my own life too. I am no longer able to be what I felt, and feel, called and set apart to be, and the experience is hard and painful. Perhaps next year I may use this space to tell the story more fully, but for now suffice to say that I shall be glad to be rid of 2011, and (artificial though the break may be between one year and the next, after all in medieval times the year began on March 25th) the New year allows me opportunity to hope and to plan for new beginnings.

And yet 2011, for all its pain, has been a journey worth making, with, along the way, some good times and occasions of blessing. If there has been a great deal of bad stuff as well, much of that has been self inflicted. As I worked through the pain I can think of people who could have treated me with more consideration and understanding than perhaps they did, but also of many more for whose care and love and practical support I am so very grateful (and for their prayers too, where they have been praying people).

I cannot look back in anger - what reason would I have for doing so? Even regret is in the end pointless and, at its worst, disabling. What has happened has happened, and my task is to use my experience of failure and falling for good and godly ends. I am assured of God's forgiveness for my faults and failings; but to receive it I must learn to forgive myself, and this, I think, will take time and effort.

As I prayed for help and support one day not long before Christmas, I was given the answer, "All you need to do is to fall into my arms." I feel sure that 2012 can be for me a year of blessing and renewal - a process that begins as I set myself to trust in the Lord, whose promise is: "beneath you are the everlasting arms."

The Next Ten

Having listed a top ten favourite songs, restricting myself to one per artist, I realise there are a few more not far behind, just 'bubbling under', so to speak . . . so here goes:

11 Leonard Cohen - Tower of Song . . . This stark song, so rich in imagery, just grabs me more than any of the rest of his work. I seem to be drawn to songs that are, in some form, about alienation - but maybe that's true anyway of much of the best lyrical work.

12 Korgis - Something About The Beatles . . . I may be cheating here a little, as this song was I think originally released by Stackridge (on 'Something For The Weekend' 1999). It was recorded and released as a single by the Korgis in 2006, and, not surprisingly given the presence of Andy Davis and James Warren in both bands, the two versions sound very similar. The Korgis were strongly influenced by the Beatles and particularly by John Lennon, so perhaps this version is the more appropriate for my list, even had I not already included Stackridge.

13 Who - Won't Get Fooled Again . . . There was bound to be a Who song in my list, and for me this one is their finest hour. Originally on "Who's Next", this is a protest song that exposes the futility of revolution, and tells of how the hopes and dreams we take with us are never realised. Pete Townsend commented that he wanted to make clear that the centre of his life was not for sale to the highest bidder. The last two lines, "Meet the new boss / same as the old boss" just sum it all up.

14 Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues . . . Hard to choose which Dylan song, but this says so much so tellingly, and with a wry smile, about human interaction and city life that it has to get my vote over, say, "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Tangled Up in Blue".

15 Eric Clapton - Autumn Leaves . . . Off his 2010 album, this version of the Johnny Mercer song is, I think, beautifully expressed. Clapton as a singer has often been underrated, not least I guess by himself, and there is, needless to say, some beautiful and poignant guitar work.

16 Cream - Badge . . . This Clapton/Harrison song from 'Goodbye' is just special for me, and maybe I find more in the lyrics than its composers put there! But it reads like a song about discontinuity and separation, where one person in a relationship is drifting away. The image I have is of Alzheimer's . . . I picture one partner visiting the other in some nursing home, and telling stories about the world outside that are no longer really heard or understood.

17 Wonderstuff - The Size of a Cow . . . This may well come under the heading of 'Guilty Pleasures', but for me this is just the perfect pop song (from 1991 I think).

18 REM - Daysleeper . . . Again, one of several candidates, and alienation is once more in the frame. Michael Stipe speaks about seeing the label 'Daysleeper' on the door of an apartment in New York. The night shift worker invisible through the day, emerging to inhabit an alternative world of isolation and fluorescent lighting . . .

19 Deacon Blue - Loaded . . . Their second single, and not a chart hit, but a strong song with lyrics that expose the shallowness, I think, of a life defined by material wealth and possessions - think rich men and eyes of needles . . .

20 Tom Waits - Tom Traubert's Blues (Waltzing Matilda) . . . I bought Rod Stewart's version of this song in 1992, and he performs it well, but it can't compare with Waits' original, and his distinctive wrecked-by-bourbon vocal style. Written after a visit to skid row, and in memoriam, it's said, of a friend who died in prison, it is such a powerful song: 'waltzing Matilda' in Australian slang means to go walkabout, but Waits also comments that most of those on skid row are there because of a woman: "There's a battered old suitcase / in a hotel someplace / and a wound that can never heal".

Thought For The Week

Rules are made for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.
Douglas Bader

All Over Bar The Washing Up

. . . and time for a walk before that, on what might just be the mildest Christmas Day on record. I've attended some lovely Christmas services, and enjoyed more than perhaps I should not having to lead and prepare them. Having said that, the little choir I helped organise at Chirbury sang wonderfully (more their credit than mine) at a very well attended lessons and carols on Friday.

Christmas Day is always my day in the kitchen: turkey, nut roast, a cranberry and port sauce, new and roast potatoes, honey glazed roast parsnips, butternut squash, sweet potato, peas, Brussels sprouts (sorry, sprout haters, my favourite vegetable, despite the after effects!), then pud and custard (couldn't be bothered with brandy sauce). All rather good, though I say so myself - and an agreeable glass or two of red helped. So now to walk a bit of it off!

And to reflect on the message of the day, with John Betjeman's familiar words in mind: ". . . that God was man in Palestine / and lives today in bread and wine."

Christmas Song

(It is set to music; only the lyrics here, though, I'm afraid . . .)

There are brown tyre treads in the virgin snow
and your skin turns blue in the cold wind's blow,
ah but you ain't got nowhere else to go,
and you're on your own on these streets, lady,
you're on your own down here.

There's no shepherds in these parts, my dear,
there’s no herald angels singing clear,
and the wise men stay home for a warm and a beer,
and you're on your own on these streets, lady,
you're on your own down here.

The sky is black and there ain't no stars,
and the only lights are the cruising cars
and the neon signs of those downbeat bars,
and you're on your own on these streets, lady,
you're on your own down here.

Yet I remember a night in a time of old
when the sky exploded in burning gold,
and the songs were sung and the stories told,
and the earth and the heaven were a single fold,
and they called these streets salvation, lady,
this place was Bethlehem.

Top Ten

For no particular reason other than it seemed like a good idea when I was lying awake the other night with a bad back (I fell on the ice), I've decided to share my all-time (ish) top ten favourite songs with that part of the world that glances occasionally at these pages. So here goes:

1 Pink Floyd - High Hopes . . . a great song, the last track I think on 'Division Bell', itself their final original album, and Dave Gilmour at his best. The lyrics strike to the heart, as does the closing guitar solo.

2 Bruce Springsteen - I Wish I Were Blind . . . apologies to those who prefer his work with the E Street Band, but this song from 'Human Touch' is to my mind this is one of his very finest. Well crafted lyrics to tug at the heartstrings, and some understated but excellent guitar work.

3 Beatles - Fool On The Hill . . . it's always difficult to choose a favourite Beatles song, but I go for story songs, and lyrics that don't always follow expected paths, and I like the slightly off-key penny whistle.

4 Beach Boys - Heroes And Villains . . . a close call for me between this one and 'God Only Knows', but the superb use of harmony shades it for this track, part of the 'Smiley Smile' project.

5 Stackridge - The Last Plimsoll . . . a track from the George Martin produced 'Man in the Bowler Hat' LP. There's so much of their stuff I like, but Mutter Slater's manic flute and the cleverness of the lyrics puts this one firmly in the frame.

6 Fairport Convention - Who Knows Where The Time Goes . . . this is just a wonderful and hopeful song, and the catch in Sandy Denny's voice as she sings the final chorus gets me every time.

7 Ray Davies - Working Man's Cafe . . . I wondered about 'Waterloo Sunset' or 'Autumn Almanac', but I love the wistfulness of these lyrics. The way things change, and that sense of having lost forever something important, something of the soul, is a constant in Ray Davies' lyrics. The version I have of this song is the recording with the Crouch End Festival Chorus, and is very beautifully scored.

8 Martyn Joseph - Kindness . . . from the album 'Vegas', a song that manages to convey something of the desolation of street life (in Toronto), the ache of separation from loved ones and that deep-hearted humanitarian longing one can have that somehow a wand could be waved to make everything all right.

9 Eagles - Desperado . . . a very strong Frey/Henley song from the album of the same name, with lyrics full of meaning, and a theme of the separation a man might choose for himself without really meaning or wanting to - it's just that, somehow, that's where we find ourselves, that's what we've come to.

10 Paul Simon - Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War . . . again, there are many songs I could have chosen, but there's something about the wistfulness of this song, inspired I think by an old photograph, that gets to me. That sense of lostness, is it, when a boundary has been crossed, when bridges are burned, when you can no longer go back?

Rain

I love rain. Typing these thoughts now of an evening, at my desk in the conservatory, I find the gentle pattering of rain on the roof very comforting. Scripture tells us that "the rain falls on the just and on the unjust," and it's easy for us to interpret this as being about the distribution of life's problems and reverses (or so I suppose, as I see how few people around me seem to share my love of rain!). And it can be a sort of comfort to know that bad people have sad times too, in a similar way to the times when you're told to "look around, you'll always see someone worse off than yourself".

Working years ago for a missionary organisation, I heard the story of a head office staff member waiting to meet a mission partner arriving from West Africa, I think from Senegal. It was a grey and rainy day, and when they met, my colleague felt moved to apologise for the British weather. "Goodness, don't apologise," replied his African visitor, "this is wonderful!"

Though I live high on the hillside, I'm aware of course that the rain can bring some problems - we can see when the river far below us breaks out of its usual course, and how heavy the traffic gets on the one road into town from that direction that doesn't get closed by the floods. My farming friends are unhappy too when the rain disrupts their working plans for the week, or makes the grazing fields too soft and muddy for the cattle. But they've been less happy still through most of this year, because there has been so little rain, and the land has been much too dry.

Farmers seem rarely to be happy with the prevailing weather at the best of times, I know - but too dry is worse than too wet I think, and rain in the Bible is always a sign of blessing, not reproach. That the rain falls on the just and on the unjust expresses a wonderful truth that we too often overlook in our readiness to moan and complain: that God blesses liberally both those who seek his blessing and those who turn from him or fail to see him. We are surrounded by signs of his love and care. Be aware of them!

Thought for the Week

To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world.

Flying

A good day today; a good and gentle day. Some days are just like that - there's nothing special about them, no particular treats or pleasures, but a sense of things working out, going well, making sense that permeates through. A feelgood day, in other words.

As we approach the shortest day and not long after it the ending of another year, I find myself reminded all too forcibly of some very low points, some very frightening times, some times of searing and debilitating pain. But there've also been some celebration times, some amazing moments with the world around me all in fiesta mode. These are the times that, looking back, I shall remember in detail, for good or bad.

But the days that carry me through, that keep me going, are the days like today, the days that happen and get forgotten, whose contents don't become fixed in the memory because of ecstatic highs or crushing lows; days though when the world feels right to me, and I have been able to feel right within it.

With that thought in mind, I find myself pondering over the ministry we can have to one another. Someone once said - I don't remember who - that the mark of a really great teacher or leader is that those he or she has mentored will be able to say of their work, "I did this on my own!" Our best offering to the world is to do things that - though they won't be remembered for themselves, or cause our own names to be blazed in lights - just carry others forward, give them hope, allow them to feel good about themselves.

One thing, then, for me to take from today and maybe even to take into my New Year resolutions (if and when I make any) is this: it's not about me. It's not about me in the spotlight, me being noticed, approved, applauded. It is about what I can give; after all, so much has been given for me. "What can I give Him, poor as I am . . ."

Retreat House Sparrows

As I sit listening to the chirping of our local sparrows, a delight in these gardens, I'm minded to post a poem I wrote some years ago, on a quiet day in south Shropshire.

The silence of this holy place
is being pleasantly disturbed, sparrows,
by your constant conversation.
I sit in the sun below your eaves
chasing words down the pages
of my book. Your distracting voices
had been the familiar background
to all my growing years, but now
I hardly hear you in the streets and squares
that were once your certain home.
You were ordinary then, you chirping sparrows -
but now my heart aches just to hear you.
Back then I thought your plumage dull and grey:
today I understand the true beauty
of your dress. So much we lose when we fail to see
God's loveliness in the everyday,
God's grace in our neighbours and familiars.
Common sparrows, you were always special-blessed,
had I just seen it;
and I thank my God that on this gentle day
you chirp and chirrup as his angels
bearing his message for my soul's good.

Lovely

A beautiful morning so far, cold but clear, with bright sunshine making the wet rooftops glisten and illuminating the wisps of smoke moving across the valley below. Starlings are chattering to one another somewhere out of my sight, and blue tits are prospecting through the tangled ivy on the trellis outside our conservatory. Yellow-edged clouds are moving briskly across the Long Mountain, and I don't suppose we shall escape without rain. There's plenty to do today: the last Christmas cards to deliver, a lunch with friends, a session singing carols at a local residential home, and some accounts that have to be tied up and sent off this week (or else) . . . but for the moment, I'm happy just to sit and watch the morning unfold.

These are the best moments, I think; the times of blessing, in which our souls are fed and watered. The times when, whether alone or with friends, we are able just to be still, to watch and listen, to feel the rhythms of the world around us. Times when we see the intrinsic beauties and joys that are always present in the stuff we normally just overlook or take for granted. The times when we simply have the time. Thank God for them, they are what he gives us; all we have to do is to accept, and use . . .

Goodness, no "Thought for the Week" yet!

You know you are living in modern times when you have a list of twenty phone numbers to reach your four children . . .

The Christmas Rose

A rose there springs from tender root,
Christ-bearer, hailed in songs of old,
the flower of God's eternal love,
a new flame lit in winter's cold.
When half-spent was the silent night,
the rose foretold by prophets' tongue
give birth to one named Prince of Peace,
whose alleluias gladly sung
by angels in the frosty skies
brought shepherds to the manger-bed
to worship him; as so do we.
The Christmas rose in white and red,
bright in the darkness of these times
is sign for us of Mary's Grace -
Light of the World, of her new-born,
reflects in her so gentle face.

Spider

As I clean out a corner of the shed
I am surprised to see one piece of dust and fluff
scuttling away from my brush.
It is a spider making her dash for freedom,
horrified - I suppose - at what
I have done to her world.
And I find that I am sorry;
I did not mean to tidy your home
out of existence, girl,
I think, as I let her go.

I watch as she squeezes her way
back into the dark crack in the corner slats
in which, I assume, she has made her home.
Meanwhile, a little fluff, dislodged in the process,
remains
and I leave it there.
I do like things to be neat and clean,
but this is her space too
and there is surely room to share.

Just enough light

This is a dark time of the year, and today has been a wild, windy and rainy day (though nowhere near as bad as it has been in some other parts of the UK). It always seems to me as I find myself in the dark days of December, that to do even the basic things I need to in order to get through the day requires special concentration and effort. It would be good to have a little more space, a little more light. It would be good not to have a tension headache and the beginnings of a seasonal cold!

But the fact is that, on our life journey, there will always be those wintry times when all we can hope to do is to struggle on, and to make our best fist of just keeping on the road. When I hit that sort of patch, the most I can hope and pray for is to be given enough light to take the next few steps. I'm just back from carol practice, and in joyous words and music we have been singing the praises of the one called Light of the World. As we read Luke's account of his coming, we find that the skies were filled with light and with songs of glory, as shepherds watched dumbfounded in the place where they had penned their sheep. But that was only shepherds, and they never counted for much. The rest of the world, even the quiet and unimportant city of Bethlehem, slept on unregarding. The manner of our Lord's arrival identifies him with those in our world who are pushed to the edge, those who struggle in dark places, the humble and the meek.

When I pray to God for light, for even just enough light for now, I know that I am praying to one who understands the darkness, who understands the edge places, who is there with the outcast, the strugglers, the downhearted, the dispirited and the browbeaten of our world. God knows what it's like to be me. That sentence could just be a cry of despair, a way of saying that nobody cares, nobody can help. But for me as Christmas approaches it is the opposite, as I think of and pray to the Babe of Bethlehem: God does know what it's like to be me, and we will hear me when I call. And I may not have much light to walk by, but I will have enough, if I am searching out his way; enough for myself, and I trust, a little bit to share with those around me whose way is also dark.

Starling

I have selected the starling (see my earlier post, below) as the theme for this month's nature notes:

Tidying up a friend’s garden the other day, I was distracted by the noise of starlings on the nearby housetops. These are familiar urban birds, and still one of our commonest species - though, as we shall see later, numbers have been falling. You are more likely to see numbers of starlings in winter, as their population is greatly increased by winter migrants from continental Europe.

Starlings are great mimics, and the variety of sounds coming from the group near where I was gardening was quite entertaining. They are lively, quick-witted birds, exploiting a variety of food sources, though they are mostly insect-eaters. They are the tough guys of the bird-table world, argumentative and loud, and when a squad arrives, everyone else gets pushed out.

Winter starlings are quite spotty, especially on the breast - more than in summer - because the new feathers acquired in the autumn moult are tipped with white. The somewhat scraggy throat feathers which stick out when starlings are calling give it a rather raffish ‘lad-about-town’ image. A long narrow bill, black in winter but yellow in summer, allows the starling to dig very efficiently for grubs, worms and subterranean insects, and flocks are found with redwings and fieldfares in winter fields.

The starling is a bird of Europe and Asia, but it has been introduced to, for example, North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Its lively and rather combative style makes it a somewhat unwelcome addition to the fauna of these places, as it competes successfully against native species for nesting sites and food sources, as well as being a problem for farmers and fruit-growers.

In the UK, especially in England, starling numbers have fallen a lot in recent years - perhaps to the order of an 80% decline. It is hard to be sure why this has happened, and there is probably no single factor to blame. While our garden bird feeders tend to exclude starlings in favour of ‘nicer’ birds like blue tits and robins, and there have been serious attempts to drive starlings out of the city centres where they often roosted in some numbers on building ledges, one important reason for decline is likely to be the fall in the number of small mixed farms and the amount of permanent pasture, an important winter food source for starlings.

Nonetheless, in the right place - marshlands and estuaries, for example - it is still possible to see huge winter flocks, known as murmurations, reaching their height at about sunset, as starlings gather to roost in numbers, twisting and turning across each other in flight like smoke against the sky. In Scandinavia this effect is called the ‘black sun’. Such large flocks inevitably attract the attention of predators like sparrow hawks and peregrines, though at the same time to gather in such numbers provides a safer environment for each individual bird.

There's Always One

Sitting at my computer and gazing out of the window to the rooftops of the next row down the hill from our street, I noticed a little group of six starlings clinging to the topmost branches of an ash tree. The group word for starlings is 'murmuration', but, given the way that word is used of the vast wheeling flocks that can be seen at this time of the year, for example, along the lower reaches of the Severn by Gloucester, this little band hardly qualified, I felt.

As I watched, one starling took off and flew rapidly away, and the next four along immediately followed on. One last starling, however, stayed where he, or she, was - looking a little restless, shifting from twig to twig, but not leaving the tree. Why, I wondered . . . these are birds with a strong natural inclination to flock together, after all.

But there's always one, I suppose, in the starling world as in our human society; and thank God for them. I mean the odd ones out who don't necessarily do just as everyone else does, don't find the same need to conform or to seek approval, see further than others do and notice different things, and are alive and alert to issues, problems and dangers that the rest of us overlook. Society may sometimes make fun of such people, and at other times may persecute them; but we ignore the odd ones out at our peril, for it is from within these oddball types that our prophetic voices arise.

My solo starling took its time, but eventually took flight in the same direction as the others. Perhaps he or she had been spying out the land more carefully, or maybe this bird had wanted to think through the pros and cons of moving trees for herself, rather than just copying the others. It occurs to me that while those who do not go along with the human crowd may present a challenge or corrective to what the crowd decide or do, it is equally the case that they may provide confirmation that a decision made was right and good - and that either way, they provide a useful service to us all.

Thought for the Week

Ever wondered why no-one seems to make mouse-flavoured cat food?

Figures

I'm busy trawling through some pages of figures just now. I quite enjoy working with figures, sorting out accounts; adding down, adding across, checking things match, that totals agree. It's frustrating when they don't, on the many occasions when something's been missed or mis-recorded, but then again, it's immensely satisfying when you find the mistake and correct it, and when things balance again.

Often, I've found a mistake and corrected it only to discover that the correction takes me in the wrong direction, and that the discrepancy after making it is greater than before. At first sight, that can be quite disconcerting, but in fact it's a necessary part of a larger process, in which it's good to have managed to remove one mistake that was in fact hiding another - or even more than one other.

As we assess the world around us, we're all too often looking for a single source of problem, a single person or organisation to take the blame for whatever it is offends or displeases us. "It's all the fault of . . ." we say (fill in the gap - the European Union, the government, the bankers, the bosses, the trade unions - we've all taken aim at one of those sometime or another, I should think). Reality is much more complex; the obvious targets are not the only people to have messed up, mistakes are made by many people, on many sides, and it's generally true that cock-up is a bigger factor in the way things work than conspiracy. And anyway, is it only 'they', whoever 'they' may be, who need to take responsibility?

Jesus famously (John 8) came across people all too ready to throw stones, and to lay the blame. It's the one place in scripture where he is described as having written something, though we're not told what it was he wrote (in the dust, at his feet). What he said was this: "Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone." And the crowd dispersed. I'm certainly in no position to cast stones. Are you?

Flatpack

Putting it all together
you need to be sure that you have read through
and understand every page.
Count things up, and make completely sure
you really have all the things you are supposed to have.
Please note that you will need a variety of tools,
and they are not provided.
For your safety and peace of mind
wear suitable clothing and protection.

Putting it all together
you need to have got into the head of the designer
and artificer.
You will find you need to be thinking as they think.
You will find that the instructions on their own
are not enough.

Putting it all together
you will need to put everything else aside.
You will need a clear head,
an open mind,
a sure hand.
You will need not to lose your nerve.

Putting it all together:
it’s a vision thing, really.
If you can see it, you may have got it,
and if you can’t, you never will.

Painting By Numbers

Oh dear
it seems to me that you’ve been
all these years just
painting by numbers:
filling in all the right colours and
making sure no spaces were left;
never going over the lines.

And from a distance
it all looked OK.
Get closer though
and there was no sparkle,
no lightness, brightness of touch,
no spirit.

So why not for once in your life
ignore what the numbers in the boxes
tell you to do?
Draw a moustache on the lady’s face,
paint the sky pink if you like.
Let the sun shine in, and
make your bit of the world
a little crazy.
Dare to be just happy.

And even though
they won’t like it,
just do it,
just do it, for what do
“they”
know anyway?

. . . when all “they” are is
numbers.

Thought for the Week

The cows of the North earn twice as much as the peasants of the South. The subsidy received by each cow in Europe and the United States is double the average salary earned by peasants in the poor countries for a whole year of work.

A Nice Cup of Tea

It's not the solution to every problem, but a nice cup of tea (or coffee, I'm not that choosy) can often provide the break and the breathing space we need, so that things settle into place and problems find themselves met by solutions, or maybe just no longer seem so desperately important.

And, if the solo cuppa can achieve quite a lot, the shared pot of tea or coffee is so often a life-saver, or near enough to it. A problem shared is not always a problem solved, perhaps, but in my experience it's happened often enough to be worth a try! So thanks for today (you know who you are, if you're reading this), and thanks as well to all those who're prepared to make time for others, to listen, to share and to converse, as the tea or coffee is poured (or indeed, when appropriate, a pint of Hobson's or the Reverend James). The world would be a whole lot poorer without this ministry, in which we can all share.

Memo to self: carrot cake seems to help a lot too, but only one slice, or you won't want your supper!

Winter thoughts

Enjoyed watching the last 'Autumnwatch' of the series on BBC last night, even though sometimes the presenters get tempted into doing a bit too much presenting and not enough just letting us see . . .

But I suppose it must now be winter. Meteorologists count winter as beginning on 1st December, although the calendar start is the solstice, 21st December or so (not sure exactly what date this year). This year's mild weather has allowed us to remain autumnal right through to the end of the month (I'm presuming here on the last few days), but this is a transition time of the year when one can never really be sure what to expect. Last year winter was well and truly under way by now, and the world around us here was thoroughly frozen!

For me the defining factor is daylength. I don't handle these dark evenings well, and hate having to drive at the evening peak at this time of the year. I'm sure my body is telling me it wants to hibernate - and yet, at the same time, I'm finding it hard to sleep. Nature around us has its rhythms; trees shut up shop, frogs and toads hibernate, squirrels aim to have laid in enough food to take things easy, summer birds leave us and winter birds arrive from the north. We, on the other hand, try to follow the same routine, same time out to work or school or college, same time back at night, whether it's summer or winter. It's no surprise that our bodies protest!

Fragile

A busy day yesterday, which included going out for my first run in ages - only a short jog, but as always I felt so good afterwards. But then a crash overnight, and a poorly tummy, and next to no sleep, and not too surprisingly I'm feeling totally wrecked today!

Well, it's a timely reminder of how fragile I am, of how fragile we are. We get those times when we reckon we could take on the world and win; but it ain't really like that, for any of us. For all of us, whoever we are, whatever little victories and achievements may come our way in life, time wins the game in the end. "Remember, O man, that thou art dust . . ."

Let's hope for a better day tomorrow; but it is good (in retrospect, if not at the time) to be reminded every so often just how weak and vulnerable we really are!

African Sunrise

A sliver of blood stains the eastern horizon:
somewhere beyond those hills
the Indian Ocean is giving birth to the new day.

Soon enough the time of burning heat,
with its confusion of dust and wheels and songs and smiles,
hard sales and shouting voices;

for now, though, all is quiet,
the world is still nestled in dark velvet,
still balanced and cool,
still waiting for that first cock to crow.

Thought for the Week

You can't stop people shooting at you, but you don't have to give them ammunition.

Cleaning the car

I really need to find time to clean the inside of the car today! It's amazing how stuff builds up - old leaves and bits of grit that you bring in on your shoes, especially at this time of the year; fuel receipts and sweet papers, papers I've needed for a meeting and not needed afterwards, notes with directions to places I shan't need to find again, lollipop sticks (I never eat lollies, so I've no idea how these get into the car, but they do) . . . and loads of dust.

Physically, I find that it's a much more demanding task to clean the OUTSIDE of the car, but I need a lot more psyching up before I get to clean the INSIDE. I spent a little time wondering why, but of course the answer's obvious. Everyone gets to see the outside, and only I and those closest to me get to see the inside. As with so much in our lives, we're prepared to take much more time and trouble getting the bits everyone sees looking good, than we do on the bits that are mostly hidden from view.

Well, I've been spending a good deal of time over the past months getting to grips with the inside stuff - as should we all. Advent approaches, the start of a new Church year, one of the many chances the calendar gives us to clean up and start afresh. And if we think we don't need that, whoever and wherever we are, we're just fooling ourselves! Now, where did I put that car vacuum?

Peace

Dig no more graves
in this sweet earth.
Let your bloodied streets lie still,
and may mothers grieve no more.

Listen - your children are singing songs of hope:
let them be your prophets;
do not burden their young hearts with the iron weight of revenge.
Why should their chosen paths be changed
simply because old men refuse to forget?

Let the past be past and gone, and
leave uncrushed the gentle blossoms
that flower in these fragile places.

So set down your drums;
let the bugles sound no more for war, and
fold away the standards that went before your armies.
Let the dreams you dream be peace.

Come, dare to embrace, and smile.
Leave go of the winter frost that so hardens your hearts;
you do not need it, it has been your soul's death.
Let this good earth be warmed by a new-born spring,
and, neighbours once more, taste the coming of summer
under those old drowsy olive trees
as the white doves take wing.

The answer is chocolate . . .

. . . now, what was the question?

Busy

A busy day today . . . one or two visits to make first thing, then some gardening work for a friend, then collecting Poppy boxes, then out for an evening meal with Ann and Evelyn (Ann's Mum), then with Ann to choir practice with Guilsfield Singers. It's been a lovely day, and I really enjoyed my three-and-a-bit hours tackling Estelle's dandelions and bindweed, and some strange roots which I finally identified as great willow-herb (or codlins and cream, to use one of its old country names). It's rather a fine plant, in its place, but I made an executive decision that Estelle's garden was not that place, and hoiked them all out. I'll have a go at getting a small gardening business going I think - though realistically it's not going to bring in much work until the spring!

Anyway, my main observation is just that it's amazing how much more tired one feels after a day of doing not very much, than after a busy day like this one. Maybe it's just my programming from childhood (or even from birth) - but it's been great to have spent a day doing good and useful things, and I'm feeling fine!

Remembering

A few of us from Halfway House Male Voice Choir (not the best male voice choir in the world, but probably the most fun to sing with) were singing at the funeral service of one of the Choir's founder members today. The church was very full, and as ever there were all sorts of stories and recollections being shared as people chatted outside the church and at the reception. At a time like this (as one old boy told me) things that happened half a century ago and more seem as fresh in the mind as yesterday.

I found myself reflecting on how music is one of the things that, for me, make sense of it all. I always wake up with a song in my head, and I'd find it hard to imagine a world without music. Certainly, for me, many memories are borne on musical wings . . . there are snatches of songs that, when I hear them, instantly transport me back to this or that special time in my past.

We sang Gwahoddiad and Morte Christe, and Lily of the Valley, and I think we sang them well. I hope we did: I know our aim was to do our very best. And in the service we were instructed to 'lift up our eyes to the hills', as Psalm 121 was read, and I'm sure we all did just that, as we journeyed home, in my case around the lee of Middletown Hill. The beauty and grandeur of the world about us here speaks as eloquently as any choir of angels of the glory and the creativity of our God. But isn't it wonderful to reflect that this God also loves each one of us with a tenderness that is as though I, and you, were the only person he loves. We can't do that; but God does. Praise him, the Lord of life and light and peace.

Thought for the Week

How come I've never seen a headline saying: "Psychic wins Euromillions"?

Fell From The Sky

He fell from the sky, or so it would seem, his naked body
causing a degree of consternation
where he lay in the street.
He fell from the sky, or so it would seem; and
the traces of wax on several feathers
found drifting not too far away
might suggest
his wings had not been equal to the task.
But on such a sunny day
it was not too hard a landing,
and no bones, they say, were broken;
only a last light had gone out.
No bones were broken;
only the hopes that yet remained
had been torn from his grasp.

This week's thought . . .

Save the earth! It is, so far as we know, the only place in the universe with chocolate . . .

Yesterday

Notes written for a couple of local publications, yesterday . . .

Fairly early on a sharp and frosty Sunday morning not far into November, I was out walking along the lines near Leighton. The sheep stood solemnly watching me from a small field at the village edge, part-shrouded in mist. The field oaks and the hedgerow hawthorn were still well clothed with leaves, the lower leaves of the hawthorn yellowing, as pigments already in the leaf showed through to replace the green of chlorophyll. All along the tops of the hedges, spiders’ webs glistened with dew.

I had parked by the church, where redwings, winter thrushes from the Arctic, were attacking the berries. Rabbits ran out out from a hedge ahead of me, to pause and watch me unafraid from the stations they took up within the field. A proud cock pheasant and several brown females were prospecting the ground under a spreading oak, while a mixed party of small birds, mostly great and blue tits, moved busily through the branches above.

From the fields above me I could hear the distant shouts of workers moving and feeding the sheep. Then, as the farm truck made its way down to a gate further along the lane, I spotted a brown hare making a splendid dash across one of the upper fields, to disappear along the edge of the wood. Behind me there came the sound of jackdaws: three birds flew across the lane in front of me, while the rest of the flock continued to fuss and quarrel somewhere out of sight. Further away was the cough of a raven.

The church bells began to ring, clear as crystal on the still air, with an echo that almost fooled me into thinking there was a second tower ringing a distance away. Mixing with the echo was the distant cawing of rooks.

Turning to walk back towards the bells, I was able to catch the distinctive undulating flight of a great spotted woodpecker. I imagine it had been working its way up a substantial dead tree that stood in one of the fields; I watched it fly into a small stand of trees not far away, but could not see where it had landed without my field glasses.

Arriving back at the church, I noticed the redwings had moved on, perhaps disturbed by the cars arriving for morning worship. A movement at the edge of the car park attracted my eye: a wren, busily searching through leaf litter. Highland cattle stood solidly in the adjacent field, steam rising from their nostrils. The bright sun was turning the wooded hillside opposite into gold. What a wonderful place this is, how rich our valleys and hills!

(The picture of a rook was taken last week in Krakow - they seem really tame there!)

Autumn leaves

Arrived back today from Poland, a short visit to Krakow, where I took this autumn leaves picture. A letter waiting for me when I got home was at first sight disappointing - I had, I think, been building up my hopes, and at first sight the letter failed to match up to even the smallest and weakest of them.

Then I read the letter again, to find it wasn't as negative as I had first thought. The wishes expressed were all positive, but it was clear that I would need to prove myself if my hopes are to be fulfilled. I thought awhile about how in life we take a great deal on trust, we take immense risks, really, with whether people can and will deal with us fairly and honestly, fulfil our trust in them, match up to what we need them to be, have the skill we need them to have. Think of the past twenty four hours: I've had to trust kitchen staff not to poison me, security staff to deal with me honestly, the pilot of my place to know how to fly and ground control to give him the right instructions (and much more besides). Now I, for my part, know I can do and achieve and carry out honestly and obediently all that might be required of me (and that I will, given the chance).

But the simple fact I now have to live with is that last time I messed up, which meant I hurt people and let people down. So now I can't expect to be trusted in the way I might have been before, the way most of us are, most of the time. Now I have to prove myself, and that will take time, patience, and a measure of work. I understand that, and it's no good being upset by it. Insofar as the welfare of others might depend on things I do and decisions I make, those who might wish to entrust a measure of responsibility to me have to be sure I can handle it - that it won't break me and I won't hurt others.

Forgiveness, for the Christian disciple, is about the God who goes on trusting us, even though last time we messed up. It's about the father still accepting the prodigal as his son, even though by taking his inheritance in advance he was, effectively, declaring that to him, his father was dead. There's a human sort of forgiveness that says "I let you off, you're forgiven" while in fact never forgetting, and never quite trusting again. And that's prudent, and sensible, and managerially sound. But God loves like a fool, forgives like a fool. He has forgiven me, and he forgives you too; that's what he does, that's how he is.

So why the autumn leaves? Well, mainly just because it's a picture I'm pleased with. But autumn leaves are a sign of dying, of things passing away, of a change (I suppose, unless you really love winter, and I don't) for the worse. November can be a depressing time of the year, but we don't have to be in hock to the November blues. I could be depressed at the letter, but I find to my slight surprise that I'm not. The journey continues, autumn or not, and it's a faith journey on which I am accompanied by grace. For in God's calendar, every season, even the times when we think we've thoroughly messed up, contain the eternal hope of spring. By grace we are reborn as resurrection people, forgiven, healed - and forgiving.

Tuesday November 1st

All Saints' Day, and a day of mixed emotions, not least because of a family funeral - a time for memories of times past as well as all the catching up one does with relatives and friends not seen for a while.

Many 'trick or treaters' called last night, all, I'm pleased to say, sensible and supervised by parents. So no sweets left in the house now! I don't have a problem with the keeping of Hallowe'en, and I remember it being well kept in my home church, with traditional activities like apple bobbing. But I have mixed feelings about the way it's kept now, and cringe a little when I hear people say (as I did the other day) "It's my favourite festival of the year!"

Our Hallowe'en keeping in the past was by tradition a time to get scarily close to the 'things of the dark' (and we do seem to enjoy that kind of scary), but at the same time to expose their lack of substance and ability to harm those who choose to live in the light. In other words, whatever pagan festival of magic there may have been in that slot, the church was keeping it very much as the Eve of All Saints. We discovered, were reminded, where the real source of power lies, and that love always wins out over hate, light is triumphant over dark.

Today we simply seem to be celebrating the grim and ghoulish without any critical engagement. I suppose that, seen as something that's just done for a laugh, that this is harmless enough, and indeed, for most people in most situations, no harm is done. But the way is open to some credulous and easily led minds into something that is, when taken seriously, a dark and harmful antithesis to faith, to do with the possession of magic which is about acquiring and using power, rather than the offering of prayer which is about seeking and serving and responding.

Having said that, I don't think the Church should oppose Hallowe'en in the way that some have sought to do. If anything, that only serves to increase the allure. But it should use it, in the creative way that - as I recall - it used to (with scary parties and fun things to do together, but with a theme of light and good, rather than dark and evil). And if that were to result in the fading out of the American import of trick or treat, well, for me anyway, no bad thing!

Sunday October 30th

Attended a lovely confirmation service, at which the four grand-daughters of a singing friend, and several other people I knew, were confirmed by the Bishop of St Asaph. It was one of the best confirmation services I've attended, and I've been to a fair few. A good sermon, a service well planned to work within the church (Holy Trinity, Penrhos) in which it was held, and a real and welcome sense of a church family in good heart, with a real desire to serve and to witness. We can be seduced into believing all is gloom and doom within a fading and failing Anglican church, but that was not at all how it felt today.

Of course, the commitment to active discipleship of those attending will have varied enormously. I'm sure there were a few folk in that congregation for whom this was their first church visit for a while. But I'm also sure that all of them will have felt something of what I felt, a sense of hope and purpose and of the saving love of God for us, expressed in baptism and in holy communion, expressed in those things that bring us to the foot of the cross, there to discover that (in words used by the bishop at the point of confirmation) God claims us as his own.

(The sketch of Penrhos Church was made by an old friend of mine, Simon Harrison)

Thursday October 27th

A rainy morning here in Montgomeryshire, and we certainly need the rain - as all my farming friends are telling me . . . but I'm sure they, like me, will hope that all this year's shortfall won't be made up in one go! I like rain, and I am really quite immune to such lyrics as "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down" (for the record, I've nothing much against Mondays either!). Without rain, we'd be living in a desert; because we have plenty of it here (usually), the land around us in Wales is for the most part green and pleasant.

I remember a former colleague telling of meeting a visitor from West Africa at Heathrow. It was a grey and dismal London morning, full of rain, and my friend felt obliged to apologise for the English weather. "What do you mean? This is wonderful!" his guest replied. And my friend was reminded that, in Scripture, words like "the rain falls both on the just and on the unjust" are speaking of the distribution not of woes but of blessings, in a land where water is precious and rains are eagerly awaited.

I shall hope always to find blessings even on the grey days of my life . . .

Friday October 26th

A character in a novel I've just finished reading says of modern (Italian) society that "our problem is that we've ceased to believe in the things we used to believe in, but we have failed to find anything new in which to believe." Those words will stay with me for a while, and I find in them an essential critique of modernism, or post-modernism I suppose, that we ignore at our peril.

The new atheism propounded by Dawkins et al with what one can only describe as evangelical zeal can be very persuasive, but ultimately in this new unbelieving world there is a silence at its heart that ought to be more terrifying than we allow it to be. This silence is not so much the absence of God as the absence of Good - or, indeed, of any moral absolute that might encourage us as human beings to feel we have anything more in common than a genetic identity that is the result of chance mutation.

But this has less to do with the annoying buzzing of the new Darwinians as with the fracture of society into virtual communities, a dubious privilege granted us via our ready access to swift transport, good communication facilities, and the various manifestations of the electronic media, along with, of course, the freedom and prosperity to use these as we choose. Virtual communities may seem superficially similar to real communities, but of course they are not, not least because we can edit out those we find difficult or irksome in a way that we can't so easily in the traditional geographical community, and, I suppose, because we can hide and pretend more easily. We're much more able than we used to be to choose and live out our own version of truth without being even in serious contact with other interpretations of reality.

"And who is my neighbour?" Jesus was asked. Not an easy question even then, and clearly a harder one today, but the answer is still the same. My neighbour isn't the person I like, or the person who thinks like me, or the person who belongs to the same clubs as me: he or she is the person who is in my power, because I can help them, support them, comfort them, befriend them - give them things they need, enhance their own freedom to choose. Or I can choose not to.

On the Jericho road, two people went past on the other side, one man - the least expected - stopped and helped. There are still plenty of Good Samaritans around today, I'm pleased to note, and I should I'm sure take comfort and hope in the fact that something intrinsic within us seems still to motivate good and kind and often sacrificially courageous action on the part of my fellow human beings. Even so, though, am I right to worry that to act in such a way is to swim against a stream, a tidal flow, that - while making us feel more powerful and in control - in fact restricts our vision and takes away the incentive to recognize our neighbours and to care for them as we should?

Edge

The dark storm-clouded skies of these parts
are really quite thin. And sometimes
as I stand upon these rocks
I can hear angels singing in the tidal flow. For here
is the old bardic gateway to heaven;
and in former times, when poets were giants,
here is where they stood
and talked with God.

Monday October 24th

I've spent this morning getting poppy collecting tins and boxes out to local pubs, cafes and shops (using a borrowed supermarket trolley - thanks, Iceland!). The usual small band of helpers, and we are I suppose a dwindling and aging band. But this is a time to think hard about what freedom really is, and what it has cost in human life over past years. The work of the Royal British Legion continues to be vital and necessary, and I hope that it will be as well supported as ever this year. Certainly we were warmly welcomed (nearly) everywhere we went, as we pushed our trolley through the local streets!

I am by inclination a pacifist, and I've from time to time faced some criticism for my active support of the Royal British Legion. My response to this is to make a careful distinction between peacekeeping and peacemaking. They are not the same thing. Peacekeeping may silence the guns, but we may still be left with the reality of an armed stand-off, which is still an unquiet and dangerous place. Peacemaking requires more of us - a real and active concern for the welfare of others, for a just and compassionate response to every situation of hurt and need, the beating of swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning-hooks. And this means that there will be times when those whose desire is to make peace must nonetheless take up arms against tyranny and oppression.

Those who have gone to war, ordinary men and women called up or offering themselves to serve, have mostly done so with dreams of peace in their hearts. I have the same heartfelt desire as I remember them at this time, and as I support the Legion in its support of those who have served and who serve still, in the defence of our realm and of human freedom. And if my hands are dirty, they need to be, in this real and broken and fallen world, in which our highest call is simply to do with best we can with what we have - but as we do so to continue to dream dreams of angels and to believe in that peace which is God's alone.

Saturday October 22nd

What a glorious sunny day! At this time of the year, every day like this is a bonus. The news of the capture and subsequent death of Colonel Ghaddafi is everywhere in the news just now. I have to admit that it leaves me with some very mixed feelings. I certainly wish the Libyan people well, and hope that as a nation they can make a new start that will enable a real sharing of resources and a real opportunity for freedom of expression, action and political choice. I am also very aware that the Colonel's long period of power was often a time of brutality and cruelty, and that there are many with good reason to hate him and to seek vengeance against him.

All the same, I am sad that he was not kept safe in captivity, once secured, and that he will not be standing trial and facing his accusers from the dock. This is in part because I do believe that every death, even the death of someone who has himself killed, diminishes us; in part also because I believe that those who have acted unjustly should be treated in a way that makes clear that 'our' standards (whoever 'we' may be) are not the same as theirs.

Speaking very personally, I should like to see even dictators dealt with with mercy and a degree of compassion, for this is to re-assert humanity over what is dark and satanic in our world - but I recognize, of course, how difficult it would be to argue that case in today's Libya. Even so, for the new regime to produce the sort of open, tolerant and egalitarian society that we might wish, at some point there will need to be the application of mercy within a process of rehabilitation - the purposeful beating of swords into ploughshares. This will always be a difficult and perhaps a dangerous task, insofar as such a process will run counter to some of the deepest desires of those who have been grievously hurt.

But it is for this reason, surely, that scripture warns us away from vengeance. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord; I will repay": human justice requires that those who have committed crimes be confronted and punished, but good justice is founded in a determined decision that we live together in tolerance and peace, and must be carefully distinguished and separated from our natural, but ultimately destructive, desire for vengeance.

Even where scripture supports the notion of vengeance ("An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth") it is careful to place boundaries and restrictions on what can be claimed - so that proper restitution is not undermined by a descent into some kind of 'arms race', and estrangement is tackled and dealt with, rather than allowed to drift into feud.

There will be an investigation into the circumstances of the Colonel's death, sand at least one British MP has already described such an investigation as unnecessary, because he deserved all that was coming to him. That may be, but his death in the way it happened is still for me a matter of regret, and I would hope would be a matter of regret for the new leaders of Libya; and it does need to be investigated.

Thursday October 20th

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God" (Gerard Manley Hopkins). So I would want to assert that there is only one place in which to find God, and that is everywhere; for surely if the God we acknowledge and worship is located only in some places and not in others, only in some parts of our lives, our itineraries and lifestyle choices, and not in others, then we have a distance still to travel - we don't yet really know him. I am entranced and inspired by the example here of Francis of Assisi, who in his wonderful Canticle of the Sun, written when he was bed-ridden and almost blind, spoke of the praise of God as being found and given in and through all created things.

And so it is our sacred task, I believe, never to be content with a superficial awareness of the world, which, though we may delight in what is beautiful, or enjoyable, or useful to us, fails to comprehend more than that this or that pleases us. All that is made by God and given by God shines with the glory of God; and if this may not always be immediately apparent, it is a holy task to work at such a Godly awareness: as we do this we shall draw close to the creative power of our Maker, and shall find ourselves newly vulnerable to his love.

Wednesday October 19th

A Wednesday blessed with bright sunshine and heavy showers; after a very pleasant evening out last night with friends (and I did after all meet my friend for an afternoon walk together), today feels good and hopeful. I found myself this morning reflecting on the stature of waiting, and on stillness, awareness and vision. A Syrian mystic wrote (7th Century), "The entire way of the life of stillness is interwoven with the following three virtues: with faith that comes from listening, and with hope and with love, out of which real faith is made known."

There is a worldly way of waiting that is demanding and impatient, that unsettles and discomfits those around us, and that aims to jostle for attention (and, sadly, we all do it). Faithful waiting on God needs to be very different: we are called to wait in stillness, called to an expectant waiting that recognizes and understands that our needs are already known, that the place for us is prepared, that there is already healing and forgiveness for our hurts and pains and sins.

Well, I have spent long enough waiting impatiently, waiting like the child who, told to wait while this or that task is completed by mum or dad, does so sulkily, moaning and fidgeting, and cross at not being the centre of attention. I remember, incidentally, a previous Bishop of Lichfield telling us (perhaps in his farewell sermon) that the children he had known in Africa would, if told to wait, simply do so - silently, uncomplainingly and with a serene stillness. I can't help but wonder whether that would still be the case today: everywhere, even in Africa, our attention span is getting shorter, everywhere, we are becoming less able to accept things as they are rather than wanting it all on a plate straight away, everywhere we get bored so quickly.

So if we have to wait, let's learn to wait well. Of course, there may be tasks for us to do while we are waiting; there are often ways in which we can be useful, ways in which we can care, things we can offer one another. I'm sure that's true for me now, and I know I need to make the most of the opportunities I have. But that expectant stillness of heart is something to be aimed for, worked on, prayed into, so God is able to do in and through me (as through you, as through all of us together) those new things that are his will and desire.

Asters

The saltmarsh asters lead my eyes to where

a single bird stands in September air:

a kestrel holds the wind beneath her wings,

and scans the salty wastes for creeping things.

Late summer: days grow shorter, time moves on -

I watch: the kestrel flicks her wings, is gone.

Too soon the gold of evening fills my eyes,

turns purple flowers to grey as this day dies.

Nature Notes

I write a monthly nature notes column for a couple of community magazines. Here's the one I've just prepared.

We quite often look in at the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust reserve at Llyn Coed y Dinas as, despite the annoyingly large numbers of Canada geese, there are often some interesting water birds to be seen there. We’ve enjoyed watching two young great crested grebes growing up and learning about life and fishing, through the latter part of the summer. Several species of grebes can be found in the UK, but the large and showy great crested grebe is, I should think, the most often seen. Some of the other species are quite scarce, but one that is also widespread is the small, quite unshowy little grebe or dabchick.

I was able to observe a juvenile Little Grebe at Llyn Coed y Dinas late in September. I watched as it climbed out of the water onto a shingle bank quite close to the hide, where it sat for quite a while preening itself, surrounded by lapwings. Some of the ubiquitous Canada geese noisily approached, and the grebe nervously rushed back into the water, but it was quick to return to its spot in the shingle once the ‘danger’ had passed! I could tell it was a young bird because of the cryptic markings on the head, but its general air of nervousness might have been a giveaway too.

Once back in place on the bank, the grebe managed to resemble a stone so convincingly that I think I would have missed it if I hadn’t seen it arrive. And to be honest, for a supposedly highly aquatic bird, this little chap didn’t seem to like the water much. Once forced back into the water by a returning crowd of Canada geese, it rather grudgingly (I thought) headed off into deeper water, ducking under the water a few times before eventually diving.

Grebes are, in fact, consummate diving birds, and the dabchick is no exception. It dives frequently, and when it bobs back up the surface, this can be quite a distance from where it went down! It dives, sometimes with a bit of a splash, to catch the small fish and other water creatures on which it feeds. This bird can be found on all kinds of ponds, pools and lakes, though on larger stretches of water it prefers the more sheltered bays and inlets.

Grebes are reckoned to be fairly primitive birds. They are short-winged, and the legs are set quite far back, making them rather ungainly on land - though my little grebe proved itself able to dance along in an upright posture at quite a pace when threatened by the geese! They nest out in shallow water, building up a pile of water plants to make a sort of small artificial island. Between two and six eggs are laid, and the baby birds quickly leave the nest after hatching, often to be carried, as with many other water birds, on the back of one of the parents.

This is the least showy of our grebes, but the adult is still quite handsome, seen closely, with a dark crown and a brownish-red lower head and neck. Any seen now though will be in winter plumage, dull brown with buff underparts.

Tuesday October 18th

A day, it would seem, of sunshine and showers, cool and blustery and entirely seasonal. Just the sort of day to be out and about the place, provided one is properly equipped to face the elements; the air is clear, the colours are great, and although for me the changes of autumn have always about them a taste of sadness and loss (unlike the bright hopefulness of spring), they do engage my senses in, often, a vibrant and exciting way.

I had hoped to be out walking today with a friend (and his dogs), but as I write it looks as though our plans may be subject to last-minute revision. Reflecting on that, I'm struck by how often the things we plan and prepare don't turn out as expected, indeed may not happen at all. And yet, disappointment though that may be, I've often found that changes to plans and itineraries have led me to unsought and unexpected delights and pleasures. So let's see if today can be like that!

It's important we don't allow the times when we don't get what we planned, prepared or paid for to crush us with disappointment. Our God is always 'The God of Surprise', and faith in him helps me deal with disappointment and what seems and feels like failure and defeat. It occurs to me that much of our planning and preparation involves a doomed attempt to place God in a box, so we can know he's exactly where we want him. But be assured, he won't stay there: what we have inside such a box, however gilded and lovely that box may be, is not God! We shall find the true God as we dare to engage with the changes and chances of our world, and to set sail on uncertain winds, with faith and hope as our steersmen. Or he will find us.

Planting Pansies

To plant a tree is to express hope in the future, and is a gift to the world, or so it is said. I'm all for planting trees, though frankly here we just don't have the space, and generations to come would not be impressed to have our tiny front garden entirely occupied by an oak! But even to plant a few tubs of winter pansies, as I've been doing this afternoon, is some kind of expression of hope - having had so little to hope for for so long.

And it's certainly an expression of a more settled feeling; a sense of feeling at peace with the world and at ease with myself. Are my pansies a gift to the world? Not much of one, but perhaps a bright front garden as winter arrives will be a small but welcome gift to those who pass by this bit of the world!

Monday October 17th

Over the past few months, having left active Ministry in what was a traumatic, hurtful and confusing way, I have been so glad of the help and support I've received from family and friends, along with the counselling offered, which has been generously funded by the diocese. I don't know that I would have chosen to seek counselling, but I'm glad I was directed to do so. It has proved extremely helpful in all kinds of ways, and I feel it's helped open the way to my gaining a deeper understanding of how I relate to others, what motivates my emotional response to situations, and how I make decisions. If this helps me to be more disciplined and controlled as I continue on my life's journey, that's good . . .

But at the same time I've also been conscious that through this time I've been turned in on myself in ways that could be damaging, and the counselling could, if I don't use well what it's given me, encourage a somewhat narcissistic self-centredness - not so good. As I look back, I can see how often so much of my thinking time has been centred on my own needs, hurts, fears, sadnesses. Of course, that's not a complete surprise; indeed, to a degree that was bound to happen and needed to happen - after all, I had some deep seated personal issues to address before I could ever think of moving forward. But at some point (now, in fact) all the "me" stuff has to be placed firmly on one side, or I'll get stuck in a bad place. Authentic living is living with others in mind and heart.

The communion service I attended with my mother yesterday - in a church I'd never been to before, but where we found a warm welcome - ended with the words "Our worship is over; now our service begins. Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord" (and we responded, "Thanks be to God"). The response is in the set liturgy, of course, but I hadn't come across the first sentence before. I liked it; even worship, even meeting with our Lord at his Table, can become a sterile and harmful thing when we do it for its own sake, or just to show that we belong; for the worship God seeks to call out of us is something purposeful, from which he sends us out to serve.

I suppose all I really want to say here is that I hope the experience of my own past few months will also develop into something purposeful, and for that I need to find the discipline and vision to re-contextualise, to discern God's will and ways, to start to look outwards again after having been looking inwards for so long. It's time to re-engage with ministry (small 'm', to begin with), and to get on with real life in the real world.

Thursday October 13th

I like pictures of gates and bridges, and often seem to take them when I'm out and about. To me they represent connection and the possibility of something special on the other side - but, I suppose, alongside this there is the hint of a selection process too: perhaps not everyone can cross the bridge, maybe not everyone will be admitted through the gate.

There are many ways of selection. Do you have the right ticket? Enough for the fare? The proper qualifications? Have you made the right friends, greased, perhaps, the right palms? In all sorts of areas of life, we have to sit tests, and all of us at some time have the experience of being stuck on the wrong side of the bridge, or shut out by the gate.

The Church can be as quick to exclude, and to create elites and hierarchies as any other human group, sadly; the spirit of the Pharisees with whom Jesus contended can be found among those who claim themselves as his followers. That's not surprising - it happens everywhere, it's human nature - but it is something to to be very wary of. For us, gates and bridges should be signs and places of welcome, invitation and safe passage.

Discovery

I tend to think
for some reason that
you’re more sensible than me
bound to be really
and so it always comes
as a bit of a surprise
not to say a shock
when I discover that
after all you’re really
not.

Monday October 10th

The headline in a daily paper I bought the other day for my mother-in-law promised that another winter of polar coldness was on its way, and told how local authorities had already laid in big stocks of rock salt to treat our roads. This is, of course, what local authorities always do at this time of the year, and this year they're bound to be using the experience of last year's icy blast as a guide - but we cannot with any confidence predict the weather more than four or five days ahead, only give rather vague guidance as to what just might possibly happen. But, for all that, we would like to know, and it's this basic desire that particular newspaper plays to . . . it seems to have a thing about extreme weather, and I recall a spring headline promising 100 plus temperatures all summer, something I seem to have missed.

We can't know the future, as regards the weather or anything else. Think-tanks, stock market analysts, opinion pollsters, crystal-ball gazers for that matter, they all have a go, but without much success. I have yet to see the headline "Astrologer wins top euro-lottery prize". As it happens, in a staged competition a year or two back between different kinds of future-predicters, the weather forecasters proved to be the most accurate, which doesn't say a very great deal for the others, I think.

I find myself longing to know what's next for me. I find myself longing to force the issue in some way, to get a result, a clear forecast, even if (as with predicted icy blasts) I don't much like what it says. It least it will be something. At present I'm in something of a no-man's land, waiting on the decisions of others, and wondering how strong and capable I really am by now in myself.

But perhaps I'm better advised to look back, rather than forward. We cannot know the future, we can only live the present. Nor can we dwell in the past, for yesterday is gone for ever - but it can be a good and healthy thing to look back along the road we've travelled in order to reflect and review and learn. And, for me anyway looking back, I can see how through some dark and difficult times there has been a real sense of God's presence and provision - of being held and protected and guided, and not abandoned. And so, knowing I am loved, I can dare to love, whatever happens next, and wherever life's road may take me.

Sunday October 9th

Just a thought, arising out of things spoken and heard today: never belittle or write off the people who do small things (or the churches, for that matter). There is no mighty river whose journey did not begin as a series of small streams and trickles; and a long journey is best begun with small steps. I think that within the Church (and this I'm sure this is true for many other spheres of human activity too) we can be all too easily seduced by the lure of the Big Project. Better I think to create a safe and trustful place in which there is space and incentive for small initiatives than to invest huge amounts of time and energy on the sort of organisational framework, brokering of agreements, setting aside of funds, that a Big Project needs.

I remember reading that while Small Science often produces better and more exciting results than Big Science - that is, people following their instincts in small ways, rather than organised into big projects and dancing to a tune called by others - when budgets are cut and savings made, it's generally Big Science that gets ring-fenced while Small Science gets chopped. Is that really true, I wonder? If it is, that could well be a measure of the sexiness and headline status of Big Science, together with its bureaucratic framework and backroom support staff (and of course it'll be bureaucrats rather than frontline scientists who analyse cost benefits and advise on budget cuts). And then again, whoever we are . . . we all feel so busy and important when we're holding or attending all those meetings, don't we?

But good management, good hierarchies - the real test of this is surely that people are challenged, encouraged and given space to do the small things well at the local level at which any organism or organisation properly flourishes. In other words, a good and effective organisation should be serving you, rather than you serving it. You're why it exists, it isn't the reason why you do. Don't belittle the small stuff - value it, learn from it, share the insights: here is where we're most real.

Saturday October 8th

Wales win in the Rugby World Cup, to make the semi-finals; England lose and queue for the plane home. Both those results have gone down very well this side of the border this morning. I attended a coffee morning where almost everyone seemed to be following the England-France match, and most of them were hoping for the defeat that saw England off.

I can be as passionate as the next person at following 'my' team, but it has never included any temptation to crow over the defeats of others. I suppose that, in a vague and unformed and rather Anglican way, I'd really quite like everyone to win. In theological terms, that makes me a universalist, I suppose . . . at any rate, it sets me at odds with those of my fellows who seem quietly to rejoice that not everyone is as saved as they are.

I confidently expect that when I go through the pearly gates (or however it is we get into heaven) that I shall meet people there whom I don't think ought to be there! But God isn't bound by the rules - just as well, really. Most of us don't take seriously enough the last few verses of the parable of the prodigal son . . . we do win, we get the prize, but we find it hard to approve when others who haven't maybe tried as hard as we have, or given enough up, or been able to tick off all the rules as securely kept, get to win as well.

But that's grace, and I'm glad of it. Hard luck, England (though I suspect Wales will do better against the French)!

Elegy

A scattering of petals beneath the rosebush
and the rain pattering against the spread leaves
of sycamores, dark-shading; it has come to this,
our sunshine days all done, departing footsteps
along the gravelled terrace. We had held a magic morning
close between the palms of our two right hands,
held it there together, delighting in birdsong
and in the dancing flight of butterflies,
the new-born sun that sparkled through a myriad spider webs.
But we had held it too long, and too close,
and had required too much of it. And so
the golden flame guttered, and silken wings
fluttered brown-edged to the ground,
spent petals, to be crushed against the stones
by falling rain. And with them, our near-grasped dreams lay
stranded, lost and broken, beaten into the dirt
by our fears and vain ambition.