Two blokes in a pub…

 

I spent last night in the pub with my mate gently sipping my JD and coke, served as it should be with lots of ice. The setting; a recently refurbished gastro bar furnished with fine modern fittings and finished with the occasional piece of contemporary chic – nice.

We were both in melancholic mood. I don’t know why – perhaps it had been one of those weeks. Perhaps I’d fed him the wrong line. Perhaps we’re at our best when we drop the trivia and discuss life and theology. Whatever, like a couple of sages we’d have been better suited to a log fire, a pint of Guinness and a fine cigar than a trendy bar with its local diners sampling the finest organic fare. Except of course neither of us smokes and I can’t stand the taste of Guinness.

After an hour or so James Blunt’s single Beautiful played over the sound system. ‘You only need one hit song like that and you’ve made it,’ I suggest, breaking into our mildly theological discussion about how freewill can work out in heaven. ‘If I had to make it on the back of a single like that, I’d prefer not to’, he replied. His response is lost on me – I’d always quite liked the song: but then me and music…

‘Integrity – it comes at a high price, eh’, I say half in jest.

‘He is no fool, he who looses that which he cannot keep, in order to keep that which he cannot loose’, he concludes.

I concede! If we were sages in a contest for wise sayings, I’d just comprehensively lost.

Oh, well, until next time, keep the JD on ice for me, mate.

The Parable of an Air Conditioner

Last week I sat in a friend’s office chatting away with a few colleagues. It was a glorious afternoon as the sun beamed though the window. We were all hot and so we switched on the air conditioning to cool the room. It really helped and our conversations continued. A little later a further person arrived. We chatted some more with our voices slightly strained as we spoke over the noise of the air con. ‘Can we switch that thing off’, someone remarked, and so we did. The silence was golden.

‘You don’t realise how noisy that air con is until you switch it off’, my friend remarked. And therein lies a parable. Sometimes we forget how noisy life can be until we finally turn something off. Now granted, there have been a few times when I could have happily turned a few people off – or at least turned them down. But that’s not what I’m saying here. I’m talking about those times in life when you drop a few balls, step back from a few tasks and instead go out for a walk, or sit down in the garden and just listen to the silence. There are sometimes when you just can’t beat it.

The beauty of silence is its power to reposition. When life moves from one task or project to the next you simply don’t have time to evaluate. You miss the opportunity to catch up with yourself, to listen to your body and soul – and more importantly, to the Spirit of God within. I understand there is a danger with silence in that you might not like what you hear, but the advantages certainly outweigh the risks. If we keep our lives busy and cluttered there is a good chance we will miss the whispers of our own heart and carry on regardless. In such a situation it is even possible to carry on until something forces us to stop because it’s broken or damaged.

In a world of noise, silence is a rare gift. It’s an opportunity to escape without resorting to escapism, a chance to listen rather than speak. If you’ve not done that in some time, then let me encourage you. Take up your diary and cancel an engagement. Walk across the room and switch off the television. Dust off the garden chair and sit for a while under a tree. Go on, go away and listen to the silence – let it speak to you and calm your worries and sooth your fears. God is to be found there – in the silence. Trust me, I heard him as I quietly walked this morning.

Diana: In Memoriam

It was ten years last week since the Princess of Wales was tragically killed in a car crash in Paris. I remember the day well. We were due to meet with other churches in Nottingham for an afternoon of fun and activities. That day I received an early morning call to ask if I had heard the news. ‘No’, I replied. ‘Princess Diana is dead, killed in a car crash’. I was stunned.

There are some people you don’t expect to die. You don’t expect them to be so suddenly taken from this world and in my mind, Diana was such a person. How wrong we can be. And last Friday, ten years after that fateful morning her boys, now turned men, stood in front of a church of 500 invited guests to express before God and men their thanks and thoughts of a wonderful mother.

Afterwards, the Rt Reverend Richard Chartes, Bishop of London, stood and addressed the congregation. In an able attempt to capture something of the spirit of the woman remembered he said, ‘The mystery is this – the more you go beyond yourself, the more you will become your true self; the more you lose yourself in loving and serving others, the more you will find yourself; the more you keep company with those who suffer, the more you will be healed. This is the knowledge which surpasses understanding. This is certain and has been proved experientially in the life of all the saints’.

It’s a hard lesson to learn – if ever it is learned: that in losing we gain; in giving we receive and in laying down our lives, we take up something much more remarkable than what otherwise we fight to keep hold of.

The apostle to whom both the prince and the prophet referred in the service said of himself: ‘I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.’

Prince Harry said of his mother: ‘We both think of her every day. We speak about her and laugh together at all the memories. Put simply, she made us, and so many other people happy. May this be the way that she is remembered.’

We will all be remembered in one way or another. Let’s use the life we have been given to help shape the memories that will be recalled, during these precious moments with which we are graced with breath upon this mortal coil.