I wanted to ring you

I wanted to ring you last night

I wanted to tell of the journey to the valleys

The twists, the turns, the suddenly closed roads

No map reader like me in the car

To tell of meeting with Jo and Sian

The meal with the family - the jokes - the kindness  -  the laughter

Owain was with us, when was the last time we saw him?

The confusion of how to find the layby up at  carn-y-bugail,

The arrangements we made

Then the breakfast when Jane and Andy arrived

 The drive across the valleys, again a closed road -

All to meet at the new high school in Bargoed

The ride up over the mountain gate, all the ponies,

Many more than I remembered that there used to be.  

The lambs and their mams gently wandering over the road,

Then the red kites, two over the mountain - how good is that

We found the layby; the wind was cold and strong.

I got your ashes from the car - in 4 neat bottles,

Keith, Paul, Jane and Samuel took one – Paul locked his tight and wal undid it

We said a prayer and they carried the ashes over the road and

They scattered  in the sharp wind that came from behind us.

The ponies came to watch

The skylarks sang in the high cold air

And the sun came through the clouds

We had a picture taken, we said a parting prayer

We hugged and promised to meet again

And then the cars scattered in different ways

We went north, up past the Taff reservoirs to Brecon

Paul overtook us on the road to Builth

And we drove up the march till at last we came home

into our valley,  so like and yet so different from yours

Then I wanted to ring you and tell you of our weekend

A Few Pictures - including the door into summer !

Time to get going on this again

A write up of my sermon  from Sunday 

The readings set for this sunday reminds us of how we as christians should always be there to open our arms and welcome all peoples who walk the way of love and faith and to show those who dont the joy of doing so.

(the readings were Peter’s Vision a Joppa and  the new commandment)

That’s the conclusion to my sermon,  you can go to sleep now as long  you remember that J

But why have I come to that conclusion, how did I get there?

Lets start with Peter at Joppa and this strange dream,  a  great sheet  full of animals,  as a natural historian I would have like a bit more details than four footed animal, reptile and birds of the air but it is clear that they were animals not considered “clean”  and Peter rejects the instruction to kill and eat  ( three time  -  Peter seems to do things in threes – perhaps that we why ae taught to say the same thing three times as preachers  J  )

Did Peter remember Jesus saying  - it is not what enters a person but what comes out,   not the food we eat but the  words and actions  of our hearts.

Then when Peter went to Caesarea and saw the spirit move in the gentiles he knew that God and his good news  was not restricted to just the jewish people.  God could act and move in anyone and anywhere

So that means that we as Christians and  the inheritors of Jesus  are meant to be open and willing to see God work  in our village, town and land.

We cannot be exclusive or judgmental,  a friend was telling me yesterday that she is terrified of becoming a Pharisee, born and brought up in the church the temptation to become judgmental and to turn into a Pharisee is strong,  but  the vision at Joppa  re-iterates  the  challenge to us  al  to  be open minded and welcoming to all especially those of other faiths  who walk the  route of  love and peace and fellowship.   Do you remember how after the floods of boxing day 2015 Muslim groups brought food to those affected and those working to help,  surely that was an act of Love  -  god is love and all those who live in love  live in God  John writes in his letter so we must all who work the path of the neighbour.

Not all see that that though, not all believe we  are people of love  and that brings us to the gospel  -  Love one another as I have loved you, by this shall know are my disciples, Jesus told the disciples and tells us today.   That is what will draw people in - and give hope to our world that we love one another and extend that love to all who walk in the way of love.

No this does not mean I do not think that Christianity is not the best way to find God, Jesus is I believe the most complete image of God it will be possible to be,  but I also know  that if I am to avoid the Pharisee I have to realise that God is bigger, better and more exciting that anything I can imagine.

So many people today love to blame religion for everything for wars and the like but if we take Jesus seriously then if we show love to all people of faith who live in love and peace and thus expressing the love  of God  we  show it is not faith that is the problem – it is a faith that is too small,  a faith that’s needs Pharisees to protect it, a faith not in God but in things.   

 When the bombers attacked the churches in Sri Lanka on Easter day, I had  a  text of commiseration from a Muslim friend, and muslin communities in Sri Lanka opened their doors to give Christians  a place to worship as the churches were is ruins.

When we realise we are to love as Christ loved us without distinctions, without conditions, without limit then we will make such a light and a joy in our world that all will seek to know and love God.

Remembrance

This is a time of memories; on 21^st Oct we remembered 50 years since the Aberfan disaster, where 144 people 116 of them junior school children died when the coal tip collapsed.  No doubt when my family get together to watch Wales play South Africa at the end of November, we will talk of it - I remember as a child climbing the tips overlooking Groesfan - my grandad’s pit in the next valley.    100 years ago my other grandad was guarding the Suez Canal a year after being evacuated from Gallipoli.    So many memories and emotions are stirred up at this time of the year, not just the big anniversaries but with all souls at the start of the month we remember all whom we have loved who have died.  

As a mining family it will be difficult for the emotions that Aberfan will bring up in us to be separated from the memory of the events, as it is difficult for me to think of Gallipolli without  thinking of my grandad suffering in that hell hole.  On the TV program “Who do you think you are”, when the celebrity discovers a long dead great-great relative that they never knew about had a hard and difficult life - often they are overcome with emotion because they are no connected to that moment in history and it becomes real to them.  Sometimes it clouds their judgement of the times.

It is hard not to let emotion overwhelm us when we remember the great events and tragedies that affected us personally and nationally, and it is right we feel moved, that ability for compassion and identification with other people is part of the image of God that we all carry, without it we might be happy for the horrors of the pasts to be renewed, sadly in Syria and Iraq it seems that is just what is happening.

As we will gather to remember this November all these things, some personal, some as families and on the 11^th as a nation, let our God given ability to love and care reach out to all those who suffer as a results of the wars, all those who carry the scars of the past in their hearts, souls and bodies.  Let our remembering be an image of Christ in us, that reaches out and holds the broken hearted in His  care and love.  Remembrance is a time for love, a time to cherish, a time to pray for healing.

Reflection

There are still in our country, towns where churches and town halls are the tallest and grandest buildings, towns where people are connected through friendship and family.

 One such town is Todmorden. 

Yesterday the town stopped in memory of one of its own, a butcher. Wayne was part of a Tod family, working, since leaving the towns grammar school, in his dad's butcher shop on the main road. He was born and bred in the town, a cheerful, jokey bloke, a good mate, a good and loving husband and father. The sort of bloke everyone expects a yorkshire lad to be.

His death was sudden, a result of stupidly dangerous driving, his life ended on on a Sunday night after a dominoes game crossing the road outside the butchers shop he and his brother now ran.

Yesterday the town's parish church was full, and more, every seat taken, none even for the vicar and the other ministers, the churchyard was full, listening on the speakers, the road outside the church lined with mourners.

 Wayne was remembered by his wife, his friends, the vicar, and we had time to light candles, hug each other. Every movement of the coffin was greeted by applause. As it arrived in church, as it left. After the service as the hearse moved off to the crematorium in Burnley, the road was lined by the mourners who surged across the road blocking all the traffic applauding as the undertaker walked in front of the cortège.

 My neighbour asked "When will we see the like again". In my 30 years in Tod I have seen or heard tell of one like this funeral. I hope there is not another, this was a Tod bloke, tragically cut down in the middle of life, needlessly, the long time between his death and funeral due to the legal process. We don't want that again. It was all this that fed into the communal grief that was expressed yesterday.

 Todmorden is not a special town, it is just a town, with ordinary folk, mixed between locals and 'offcomdem'. It is a town where there is community, I am an offcomdem, married a local girl, I knew many at the service and knew many at the hustings last week which had more ofcomdems than the funeral, we are a community where all the churches are part of churches together (where else??) a place where people plant herbs and vegetables in help yourself planters, where a Muslim mayor was celebrated as a Tod lad, where there is a secular harvest festival but also where the churches are bound into the dna of the town, where children in mosque caps run around in the street coming back from the madrasah.

 Hmmm Maybe we are special after all. It is not perfect, there are the disaffected, the druggies, there are those who bitch about the Food bank (a joint enterprise between the church and other locals and ofcomdems), some who hold themselves to themselves but they are the minority.

 I hope that when in the fullness of time, I go to meet my maker, an old man that a few folk will come to say goodbye but that they will say that was a lovely service and he was a decent bloke, and Tod will carry on!

Good Friday 2015

I have returned to this abandoned blog after 3 years, and have decided on a different approach, more words - yes exciting I know!
Good Friday 2015 in our Town. The churches in our town have for many years met together at the catholic church and walked down the road, past the market and to the Peace garden by the Town hall behind the cross. This was different in that it was raining – not hard, but slowly, damply, wettingly. It was my task to ensure the mobile PA was ready at the peace garden.
We started at St Joe's , the statue of Christ in their Apse had changed – no longer Christ in glory but now a crucifix, it was appropriate for the day really, a model, an image but one which with imagination took you back there.
We processed out in the last hymn and out onto the main road – the police now advise us to walk on the pavement, I slipped away and walked quickly to the garden to set up the PA, greeting friends in the Community Brass Band who play every year accompanying the hymns.
The first reading was John's account, it always strikes me how simply the gospels, state the fact. “They crucified him” , so spare , so unemotional the words to describe the horror of that barbaric act. They talk about everything else that happens around that perhaps they could bear to dwell on what happened.
The rain continued to fall, our hymn sheets became softer, but we sang well and the band played strongly, the prayer this year were more High Anglican than before, but that is part of the celebration of our Christian life together.
On this occasion, all the churches in our town meet together and worship, all the churches catholic, baptist, C of E, Methodist, the Fellowship all. That is part of what makes this town a good place to be.
On Sunday we will be all in own separate buildings but we will together and in our many differently similar ways celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. After when it all said and done, that is the hope for our world.

Summer time Pictures

A few pictures from August this year 

A peacock butterfly on Teasel at Blacktoft Sands

Castell Biwmares

Creyr Bach at Aberffraw,  my favourite picture white on silver, in the stream by the holiday cottage.

Malltreath Sands

Lagoons at Malltrath

 The view from the Cottage

The Carneddau 

Yr Wyddfa  

Port Trecastell

Castell Caernarfon from Mon - almost a fairy place

Skipton castle -  The view from the ruined chapel

Moon over Mon

A close up 

 Another week on Ynys Mon (Angelsey) , late August 2012