The Syrophoenician Woman

A Sunday talk based on the Gospel set for tomorrow :-

One of the Powys County Councillors was in the news the other week because, in the course of making a very passionate point about health care provision and the sense people from this side of the border can have, Welsh speakers in particular among them, of being treated as second class citizens, a word was used that on reflection shouldn’t have been. It may be that more was made of the issue than needed to be, or maybe not, but the Councillor felt it necessary to resign from the cabinet following something of a storm of criticism.

The reason why I mention that case this morning is that it returned unbidden to my mind when I read the Gospel reading provided for today in the Common Lectionary, which includes the story of the woman of foreign extraction who came to Jesus to seek help for her daughter. For we find that even Jesus, on occasion, was prepared to use language that was grossly insulting. This could even be rather more serious than the case in our local papers. There a member of the council used an insulting word while making a debating point. Jesus on the other hand used a bad word directly to the person he was addressing. “It’s not right to take the children’s food,” he said, “and throw it to the dogs.”

Make no mistake, it’s a serious and calculated insult to describe someone as a dog. It certainly would have been then, and I’m sure it would still be now. To be fair, it’s a word many a Jewish teacher or rabbi might have used back then, to describe someone who wasn’t of their race, and didn’t therefore share the divine blessing and recognition that was theirs as a birthright. But it was still a bad word.

There’s a question for Biblical scholars to answer, then, when reading this passage, that has some serious theological implications. Just what was Jesus doing when he said that word?  Did he genuinely believe that his ministry and mission was only for and to the Jewish people, so that people like this woman were beyond the pale, and didn’t count? If that was the case, then was this a moment of epiphany for our Lord himself? Did the woman’s humble and faithful response to his insult open his eyes to a new truth, so that he realised right then that the mission he was engaged on had wider implications than he’d realised until that point.

In which case, of course, Jesus was indeed deliberately insulting the woman in exactly the sort of way that any other strict and particular Jewish teacher might have chosen to do. But Jesus isn’t just any other Jewish teacher. Last week I preached on the Gospel reading in which showed Jesus stilled the storm, revealing himself as a man in whom resided all the creative power of God. Is it possible that someone like that look at any woman in need and dismiss her so rudely?

But there are other ways of understanding this passage. Could this be one of the several places in the Gospels where an actual event becomes also an acted-out parable, in which the unexpected outcome challenges us to revise our idea of what’s right and what’s wrong, and what God wants from us and for us. If that’s the case, then maybe Jesus, though he says what any other Jewish rabbi might have been expected to say, is very deliberately doing what he does in order to provoke a response of faith from the woman, so you get a set-piece situation designed to open the minds of his disciples to the truth.

Looking at the story as a whole, it seems to me that Jesus quite deliberately put himself and his disciples into a situation in which something like this was bound to happen. He’d withdrawn to the area of Tyre and Sidon, part of what was then known as Phoenicia, today Lebanon; most of the people of this area were not Jews. So the woman came chasing after him, wanting help for her daughter, and Jesus ignored her, making out that she was none of his concern. She kept on following him, she kept on pressing her case. Perhaps the disciples could have urged Jesus to do something to help her, if only in the hope that then she’d leave them all alone, but they didn’t. Instead they urged him to send her away – and he seemed to concur with that, telling them his mission was entirely to “the lost sheep of Israel”.

Still, though, he didn’t actually send her away, and so she came to where he was, did homage before him, and asked again for his help. And we arrive at the point at which he used that insulting word. Question – did he know already, could he read it in her heart, that her desperate desire for her daughter to be healed would render her immune to insult and rejection? Probably he did, I would say – so often in the Gospels we find Jesus able to see beneath the surface, and through into the hearts of those who came to him.

Notice that when Jesus called her and her kind dogs, the woman didn’t rail at him for using such insulting language. She didn’t in fact even reject the name of dog; instead, what she did do was to turn the word back and use it in defence of her case, reminding Jesus that even the dogs were still part of household, able to eat the crumbs that fell from their master’s table.

It’s St Paul of course who develops the concept that the true children of Abraham are those who respond faithfully to the call of God, that it isn’t a matter of birthright but of faith. But here’s one of the places in which that thought process begins, and while the disciples may not yet have been persuaded that their faith should be shared with the Gentiles or Greeks, perhaps they’re beginning to recognise the simple truth that a trusting faith isn’t only found among their own people, it can turn up in other places too.

I find it such a sad thing that organised religion is so often a cause of division, that it raises barriers and creates second-class citizens. Just now in the news we’re once again reminded how divisive a force militant Islam can be; in our prayers in this service we’ll be thinking of the plight of Christian and also of Yazidis and other minority groups, in Iraq and Syria. But I think all religion can become divisive, both beyond and within itself. With that in mind it’s worth noting that the fundamentalist Sunni Muslims who seek to set up a caliphate across central Iraq may look on Christians and others as second-class, but that’s as nothing compared with their hatred for their fellow Muslims of the Shia persuasion.

But it’s not that many generations ago that Christians in this country were being fined, imprisoned, or stripped of civil rights, because they attended the wrong church on a Sunday, and not so many generations further back that Christians were burning other Christians at the stake. The encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman should stand as a corrective to anyone, including ourselves, who might be tempted to draw too tightly the boundary lines between who’s in, and who’s out, of God’s favour.

Years ago, when I still lived in a vicarage, I recall being visited one day by the Jehovah’s witnesses. We had quite a pleasant chat, in the course of which I mentioned some of my own personal heroes of the faith, by which I mean people I’ve been impressed by and persuaded by, and whose teaching and example have challenged me and encouraged me and helped me to draw closer to Jesus. Mother Julian of Norwich, Francis of Assisi, Charles Wesley, Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, among others. You’ll agree that these people have really tried to live by faith, I asked my visitors. “Yes, sure,” they felt bound to agree. You’ll agree that they’ve really committed themselves to serve God, I continued. “Yes, of course,” they agreed again. But you tell me that because they’ve not called God ‘Jehovah’ they can’t be part of the new world that God is planning for us? “That’s right,” they said; that’s the rule, and there can be no exceptions.

I can’t help but admire the faith and courage and persistence of JW’s, and I’m told that the quality of the fellowship at a Kingdom Hall is second to none. But I had to tell my visitors that day that the God they were trying to tell me about was much too small and too narrow to be the real one. For the real God is like Jesus Christ, like the man who recognises and affirms and responds to faith wherever he may find it.

God is always greater than our best and highest image of him. Those of us who speak for him, those who proclaim his word need constantly to be reminded of that simple truth. Imagine how far you think God can see – well, God can always see further; imagine how much you think God can love – well, God will always love more.

We’re not told what the woman who came to Jesus that day believed about God. She may very well have believed all the wrong things, so far as creeds and doctrines are concerned. Had she any intention of changing her faith or her religious practice? The story doesn’t say, nor does it say that Jesus ever asked her to.

She simply came to Jesus with a faith born of desperation, and she loved her daughter too much to let anything stand in the way of the healing her daughter so urgently needed. She saw in Jesus something that many of the most religious of his own people seemed incapable of seeing, and she saw also that her own status as an outsider need not disqualify her from receiving the help she craved.

I think that it’s because Jesus could see that in her, that he dared to use to the woman the word he did. I feel a little sorry for the Councillor I mentioned at start of this discourse, whose argument the day the word was used may well have been a valid and timely one. The fact is though that today the word itself is rightly ruled as unsayable, for its intent has for so long been to degrade and dehumanise. So was the word Jesus used; except that in this instance he used it (I think, anyway) to jolt and shame his disciples – and therefore us – out of ever using such narrow words, and thinking such narrow things. The big thing that stops us – or should do – from allowing our God to get too small and narrow is simply this: that we know that God is like Jesus. John’s words – “No-one has ever seen God, but Jesus has made him known to us.” Paul’s words – “but we have the mind of Christ.”

I imagine it’s always going to feel safer to make boundaries, raise them up into barriers, and hide behind them;  because then we can say to the people who bother us, “Go away, you don’t belong here.” Like the disciples who asked Jesus to send the woman away, we can pray to be left in peace. But that isn’t the way of Jesus: he takes all the risks of active and courageous and inclusive love. And maybe, depending on how we read this story, we may find he’s also big enough, and humble enough, and open enough in his mind, to be able to change his mind and see the bigger picture. Be that as it may, we too need to take the open-hearted, risky loving way, if we’re truly to be his people.  “Increase in us, O Lord, true religion; nourish in us all goodness. Give us courage and compassion, open our eyes and our ears, and flood our hearts with love, in Jesus’ name.”  Amen.

All Change

My monthly 'Nature Notes' column for the month ahead :-

Come September, and the nights have noticeably started to draw in, even though the weather may remain fine and summery. In our countryside and gardens, this is a period of “all change”. In fact, autumn begins in August for many birds; I don’t think I saw any swifts over our garden after the first few days of last month – swifts are the briefest of our summer visitors, but they’ve left us early this year, which is a sign of a good summer, because fine weather and plenty of insect food have enabled the swifts to raise a new generation quickly and efficiently. Once that’s been done they don’t hang around.

Other summer visitors will have spent August stocking up so as to be ready for the long and demanding flight south, and most will leave this month, though a few will linger on into October. Some birds make a dash for the south, while others travel in small bursts, perhaps staying put for a few days before moving on. More unusual migrants like ospreys or migrant terns and waders may turn up at your local pool and stay for a day or two before moving on. Some passage migrants are species that don’t summer here, but come through on their way from somewhere else, like the black terns I once had the pleasure of watching at a pool in the south of England.

We may get to see the odd real rarity, energising twitchers who will travel many hundreds of miles in a season just to get an unusual “tick”. I’m not one of them, being happier watching the sparrows in my garden than queuing up to take a hurried snapshot of a dowitcher or a citril finch. But sometimes I’ve happened to be in the right place to see something unusual, like the red-breasted flycatcher Ann and I saw perched on a rock in Llanfairfechan. This attractive little bird is a rare but regular autumn passage migrant, more likely to be seen along the east coast. Strong winds and stormy weather will increase the number of unusual species that come our way.

Not only birds migrate, of course – so do butterflies, moths and other insects, whales, turtles and other oceanic creatures, along with events like the mass migration of caribou in North America, or wildebeest in Africa. But bird migration is a huge phenomenon, and pinch points where numerous migrants assemble, like the crossing from Gibraltar to Morocco, can be exciting places for the bird enthusiast to be. And then there is the mystery of it all: how exactly do these birds find their way? How do young cuckoos even know to fly at all, let alone where to fly to? – the parent birds leave by the end of July, and the young cuckoos never know them.

Many birds will be migrating to these shores as well, of course – ducks, geese and swans, winter thrushes and finches, and extras of some of our familiar year-round birds like blackbirds and starlings. More on these, though, next month.

Down by the Pool

I don't go as often as I should to our local nature reserve, Llyn Coed y Dinas, particularly since it's only a short way along the road from here. Anyway, I was down that way this morning, so I thought I'd look in. The lake was formed as a consequence of the building some years ago of the Welshpool Bypass, and has been landscaped and adapted to make a very attractive space for nature. It's much quieter now than earlier in the season, because the many pairs of black-headed gulls which breed there have by now moved on; but there is still plenty to see.

On the island just in front of the hide there were a dozen or so lapwing. A female teal was dabbling nearby. There were great crested grebe on the lake, two or perhaps three adults, and two young birds, one of which was eagerly begging for food from one of the adult birds. Coots, moorhens, mallard and the inevitable Canada geese were there in good numbers, as always, and the resident population of tufted ducks were quite skittish, flying about here and there and much less sedentary than usual. Sand and house martins were flying over the water, and a sandpiper was calling from somewhere, though I couldn't see it. Cormorants were about as always, and a pied wagtail was prospecting the shoreline.

Many of the birds visible were, I suppose, this year's young, hence some of the skittish behaviour I saw. The young grebes were very much in juvenile costume, with their distinctive stripey heads, but clearly already expert divers and swimmers. A gang of jackdaws appeared, and I think these will have been young birds; they set on a passing lapwing, and pursued in avidly all over the lake, with the lapwing ducking and diving in an attempt to escape - or, perhaps, just entering in the fun of the thing. For it seemed no malice was intended. At last the lapwing came down on a nearby islet, and the jackdaws flew off. Later, another lapwing, or maybe even the same one, decided to  dive-bomb one of the tufted ducks, and the wagtail also got chased a bit. Birds use play to acquire and hone the flight skills they will need.

While I was watching all this, the one still and unconcerned presence was a grey heron, perched on a rock not far away and clearly just mooching, shoulders hunched and totally ignoring everything around him. That is, until another heron drifted down from the large oak on the big island, with the intention of doing a bit of fishing on the far side of the lake. This was clearly an infringement of sovereign territory; the mooching heron took to the air, was over there like a shot, to drive the interloper all round the lake. Another heron had been skulking in the reeds at the very furthest end of the lake from me, and that bird took off as well, so that for a short time there were three birds in the air all at once, with an array of harsh cries. The third bird soon settled again, out of my sight, but the intruder was pursued for nearly a complete circuit of the lake before lifting over the trees and, presumably, into a nearby field, whereupon the incumbent bird landed back near to "his" rock, hopped onto it, hunched his shoulders and became once again semi-comatose.

All of this in no more than twenty minutes or so break between one shopping tour and the next. As I began by saying, I really ought to get there more often.

Storm

A Sunday talk given at Arddleen and Geuffordd last Sunday :-

I was shopping the other day at a certain well known supermarket, and, as I often do, I chose to use the self service checkout option. I checked everything through, no problem; clicked the window for no bags needed, since for once I’d remembered and brought my own. Swiped my club card, paid my dues - with actual money for once.  All done.  The voice then instructed me to “please take your items,” so I proceeded to do so, placing my shopping bag on the loading bay and beginning to load my purchases into it: one carton of milk, one bunch of bananas . . .

. . . at which point the voice says (you may be ahead of me here), “Unexpected item in bagging area.” This where it starts to get embarrassing, and it’s probably the reason why I do most of my supermarket shopping at quiet times of the day (or even the middle of the night). Because I can’t resist arguing with that disembodied voice. “Of course there’s an item in the bagging area, you idiot. It’s called a bag. How can a bag in a bagging area be unexpected? Isn’t that what we’re all here for?” People are beginning to stare at me, and a man in a security guard’s uniform has started talking into his mobile phone, though to be fair he’s probably just ordering a pizza for when he comes off shift.

Yes, I know it’s only a recording, but if there’s a voice speaking to me why shouldn’t I answer back? It may not do any good, but if I let off a bit of steam I feel a bit better, so it hasn’t all gone for nothing, has it? One of the places we feel most helpless these days is when we’re having to deal with machines that fail to do what machines are supposed to do - meet our needs and make our lives more comfortable. Instead it feels as though they’re out to get us. In a recent survey, the announcement “Unexpected item in bagging area” was voted as one of the most annoying things you ever hear.

And then there’s the weather. We’re just as helpless there. We can’t control or change the weather for all our 21st century sophistication. We have to put up with it whatever, and today we’re blessed with the remnants of Hurricane Bertha. Only the left-over bits, thankfully, so while we’re getting a bit of wind or rain, it’s just a blip in our summer picture, and not too many roofs will get blown away. I hope. But though we may not like, we do have to lump it.

Sudden squalls are still a feature today of the Sea of Galilee, though perhaps today they’re not quite as frightening as they would have been to even experienced fishermen at the time of Jesus. These days the boats are larger, and they’ve got engines; not so back then. The Gospel reading set for today in the revised common lectionary is Matthew’s version of the story of the Stilling of the Storm. You can find this story in Matthew chapter 14, verses 22 to 33.

Matthew’s version of this story differs a bit from Mark’s, but then there’s also the ‘stilling of the storm’ story as St Luke tells it, in which Jesus is asleep in the boat. Were there two different storms, or are these different accounts of the same storm? Be that as it may, a distinctive factor in Matthew’s version is to do with Peter. Jesus walks on water, but do does Peter.

Let’s reflect on that for a moment or two. It’s a strange story, but it feels true to the picture the Gospels give us of faithful, foolhardy, brave, impetuous Peter. This is a man who’s been out on the lake often enough, and who knows as well as anyone there just how deep it is, and how dangerous. But he’s also a man who knows Jesus, and somewhere in his heart he already knows just who Jesus is. So, when Jesus calls him he gets out of the boat and begins to walk across the lake.

But it’s the middle of the night, and the wind’s blowing a gale, and at some point Peter comes to his senses and realises just what a pickle he’s in. His natural trust in Jesus has been replaced by a distinct failure of trust in himself, certainly in his power to cope with a storm. It feels almost like a sleepwalker waking up to find himself in a strange and dangerous place. Peter panics, but in his panic he still knows where to look for help. “Save me, Lord,” he cries, and Jesus reaches out to him and he is safe.

So Jesus helps Peter back to the boat, and they get in, with everyone terrified at the intensity of the storm. But they’ve no sooner got into the boat, than the storm dies down, to the amazement and awe of them all. This again is one of Matthew’s touches, and I need to refer you to the story in Luke in order to connect into the story with which I began.

For in the version of the stilling of the storm we read in Luke, Jesus does just the same sort of thing that I do in the supermarket. He wastes his time talking to something that by definition we can’t control. I talk to disembodied voices in supermarket machinery; Jesus talks to the weather.

We’ve all done that, or maybe we’ve been a bit poetic: “Rain, rain go away, come again another day!” Nothing worse that getting caught by a rain shower when you were expecting it to stay fine. I have been known to curse mildly at the clouds. It doesn’t do any good though. It’s a fool’s errand.

But it’s not a fool’s errand when Jesus does it. He tells the storm to hush down, and it does. And the lake’s surging waves die away to a flat calm. And the disciples say, “Who is this, that the wind and the waves obey him?” Who indeed? They begin to realise what Peter already I think knew somewhere deep down - this isn’t just a great teacher, this is a man deeply and fundamentally in touch with the creative power of God.

And that’s a terrifying but also a wonderful thing to discover, for us as well as for those first disciples out there on the lake. Put at its simplest, the message of this story is that we may from time to time be out of our depth, but Jesus our friend and saviour never is.

We know that, but we often forget it. Like Peter, we hear the call and get out of the boat - to take on whatever care or responsibility, whatever project or task, whatever journey of discovery our faith or our faith community invites us into. We may think of this in terms of vocation, and people may seek to train and prepare us for the task, and maybe even commission or ordain us into it.

But then the times come when we suddenly wake up to realise just where we are: the water’s too high and the shore too far away; the task seems too great and our own strength too small, there are waters rising up to overwhelm us. Suddenly, we’re out of our depth, and we know we can’t save ourselves; suddenly, we’re sinking.

“How little faith you have,” says Jesus to Peter in the story we heard this morning. As St Luke tells the story, Jesus says much the same to all his companions. Elsewhere he tells them that if they had faith just the size of a mustard seed they could command a tree to be plucked up and thrown into the sea. I’d like a bit more faith, in God and in myself; and the bit of faith I do have is constantly under threat. The world is tough and bad things happen in it, and it can be hard to remain constant in witness and praise. I admit my prayer is often just that I might see a little bit more of the road ahead, to be able to walk it a bit more boldly. But usually we can’t tell what’s round the next corner, or what dangers might crouch in the next shadow; what we do have, however, is this promise - that there’s a hand that reaches out for us, and we’ve a saviour who knows our needs and listens for our cry.

So if what we’re about is God’s work, and if we are God’s people, seeking his word and his presence constantly, God will provide . . . not necessarily what we want, but what we need; not necessarily the means to fulfil our own planned agenda, but the means to persevere, and to bear a true and persuasive witness to the God we’ve met with and walked with in the man Jesus Christ, the God who we therefore know loves us.
If I look back over the often chaotic chapters of my life thus far, and all the wrong turnings, and all the times I’ve stepped happily into quicksand or mud, and all the times I’ve been absolutely out of my depth, I can easily identify with Peter. For I know I’ve been held and supported, and led to safety. And I hope too that from time to time I’ve been able to do a little of that reaching out and saving work myself, for people God has needed me to reach out to.

At a funeral last week that I attended, the minister asked the difficult and daring question, “Where is Jesus in this story?” For the family in bereavement, she suggested, Jesus was present in the very real support they’d received from friends and neighbours around them, and in the sense they were able to have even in this time of agony and desolation and loss, that they were surrounded by love. They were at risk of sinking beneath the waves, but there were hands reaching out to buoy them up.

I’m sure that in the same way an important part of our call as members of the Body of Christ is that we should aim to be Christ (or maybe I should say to be Christ-like) to one another, helping, guiding, supporting, rescuing. Those in positions of leadership or authority in the Church certainly have a prime role to be as Christ-like as they can be, but responsibility isn’t just theirs, it’s the job of every member to be as like our Head as we can be; and that starts with our ministry to one another.

What that may mean in practical terms is a matter for each individual Christian, and each Christian fellowship, to decide. All have different challenges, opportunities, skills and resources. And among us there are those whom God may well be calling specially, in just the way that Jesus called Peter - to step out of the boat and into something quite new and probably rather scary. But make no mistake, he calls all of us to something.

To something we can do - maybe not in our own strength, but his help is available. I can’t talk to supermarket check-out machines (or at least, I can, but it profiteth me nothing); I haven’t up till now had much success with the weather either. But I can talk to God; Jesus has given me permission, and shown me how. The words begin “Our Father” - and that in itself is proof that he will listen and respond, for what father wouldn’t, for a child who is dearly loved.

And a last thought - “Our Father”; not just mine, but yours too, this is the family prayer - so when I pray ‘Our Father’ I am straightaway praying myself into a position of responsibility for and solidarity with anyone who’s also a child of God. And I might also add that who is and who isn’t a child of God is, I believe, God’s affair and not mine. So as I look to God for help when I’m in deep waters, so also I know he calls me to offer myself to him, because there will be times when I in my turn need to be the help he is offering to others.

Concerning Me

"That doesn't concern you!" I was told rather brusquely the other day, when I asked what I had thought was a perfectly valid question. To a degree it was true, as the conversation was about a matter that I had no direct involvement in. Perhaps, then, I was out of order to say anything, but I'd felt I might have a useful contribution to make to an issue that needed to move on a bit, and that would maybe benefit from a fresh perspective. And I still think that, as it happens; This wasn't any sort of bid for power on my part, I had no desire to wade in and take over, it was just that I hoped I might be of some help. So it hurt to be pushed back in the way I was; but at the same time I can understand that when there's a bit of a log-jam people involved can feel vulnerable, so that any intrusion, however well-meant, may come across as a threat.

So what does concern me, and what should concern me, I find myself asking; and how much of myself and my concerns am I prepared to reveal and open up to others. In all probability, there are times when I'm as closed to and resentful of others as others were towards me on this occasion. I can think of times, being honest with myself, when I've been the one to push people away and shut people up, especially when the things they might have said (if I'd allowed them to) would have challenged my own position. In other words, there have been times when my mantra has been "If it can't be done my way, then perhaps it shouldn't be done at all." This is a perspective which, in the end, can be highly damaging: the best good for the greatest number emerges not when it is done "my way", but when it is done the best way. And for that to happen, egos have to be set aside. Whoever we are and whatever status we may have, there needs to be a readiness to open up and listen, and a measure of humility, among all those concerned.

Watching the Road

I've witnessed so many examples of bad driving over the past few days. I'm not that great a driver myself, but I hope most of the time I'm attentive and safety conscious. Most of the bad driving practice I've seen has been I think due to three particular recurring problems :-

Firstly - not being in proper control of the car. I really think this is more and more an issue. Cars are themselves safer, but sometimes I feel the car does so much that the driver becomes more prepared than he or she ever should to hand over responsibility - to what? - a computer, an advanced braking system, and a satnav. That last is quite significant - our one way system, too new to be on many satnavs, is just one area in which foolish drivers make wrong turns and dangerous manoeuvres because that's what their satnav has directed them to do, and clearly have become so dependant on that piece of kit that they no longer bother looking at road signs.

Secondly - not having proper thought for other road users. Excessive speed is of course one persistent failing, and that mad desire to get past the person in front, just because. I slowed down the other morning to make space for someone who had overtaken me foolishly and needed to get in so as to avoid a head-on collision, only to be overtaken by someone else as I did so. Which leads me to my third point, which is

- inattentiveness: not watching the road properly. Too many drivers do not drive analytically. You need to be constantly interpreting what is ahead of you and around you, and, frankly, if there is something ahead you can't interpret or understand, then the chances are you're approaching it too fast. It's always worth checking your speed (in both senses of the word).

He Ain't Heavy . . .

A talk given yesterday at Welsh Frankton :-

The road is long, with many a winding turn;                             

that leads us to who knows where,                 

who knows where . . .

Congratulations if you managed to recognize those words, since I  decided not to sing them. These are the opening lyrics to the song “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”, which was a huge hit for the Hollies in 1969, and a hit again for Neil Diamond in the following year. It’s been a hit over and over, most recently as a charity single in 2012, raising funds for causes connected with the Hillsborough disaster.

This is a song with a story to it, and indeed with a story behind it. The title “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” was the motto of Boys Town, a community formed in 1917 by a Catholic priest named Father Edward Flanagan, in Omaha, Nebraska. Boys Town was a place where troubled or homeless boys could come for help, and its good work continues to this day, as probably one of the most significant children’s charities in the USA - girls have also been accepted since the late 1970’s. The work of Boys Town has been celebrated in two Hollywood films, the second of which, “Men of Boys Town”, included the Hollies’ version of the song when it was remade in the 1980’s. The phrase “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” had been used for the first time in the first version of “Men of Boys Town”, released in 1941, and it was in that year Father Flanagan decided to adopt the phrase as the motto for his work, as he felt it summed up so well what his work aimed to achieve.

And that was because Father Flanagan had been impressed by the story behind the phrase, a story not from America but from Scotland. It can be found in “The Parables of Jesus,” a book published in 1884, written by the then Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, the Reverend James Wells.

James Wells told the story of a young girl who was seen carrying a baby boy along the street. She was only small, and the baby was big and bonny, and a minister, passing by, said kindly to her, “My, but that’s a fair burden you have there, lassie; you must be tired.” And her reply became the title of the song: “No, sir: he isna heavy, he’s my brother!”

But I’d like for a moment to move from that story to the traditional story of St Christopher, remembered as the patron saint of travellers. Christopher was a big strong fellow who decided to devote his great strength to the service of the greatest king. So he entered the king’s service, but one day he saw the king cross himself at the mention of the devil. If the king was afraid of the devil, reasoned Christopher, the devil must be a greater king, so off he went to serve him. He came across a mob of bandits, one of whom claimed he was the devil, so Christopher joined them. But one day he saw his new master shrink away from a wayside cross - the devil was afraid of Jesus Christ. So Christopher decided to serve Jesus. 

He met a hermit who instructed him in the Christian faith. “How can I serve Jesus?” asked Christopher. The hermit told him he served Jesus by fasting and prayer, but there was no way a big lad like Christopher could serve his Lord in such a way. So the hermit suggested that he might use his size and strength to serve by carrying people across a nearby river. There was no bridge, the water was deep, and some had died, swept away by the water. This, said the hermit, would be a service pleasing to Jesus.

So Christopher made it his task to carry people across the river. Then one day a little child asked him to take him across. As they crossed the waters rose, and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so much so that Christopher could scarcely carry him and found himself in great difficulty; but he prayed for strength and managed to press on to the other side.

“Child,” he said to the boy, once they had made it across, “Of all the people I’ve carried across this river, you’ve been that hardest to bear. I began to fear I wouldn’t make it across; surely if the whole world had been on my shoulders it could not have been as heavy as you.” The child replied: “You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work.”

And so Reprobus, which had actually been the man’s name until that time, received his new name of Christopher, which means “The one who has carried Christ.”

I was reminded of both these stories when I read through the passage of scripture set for today in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Two places particularly in that letter - firstly, when in chapter 8 verse 26 Paul speaks about the Spirit coming to the aid of our weakness; and then in verse 29 when Paul describes Jesus as choosing to be the eldest in a large family of brothers (and sisters, of course - elsewhere Paul makes it clear that in Christ both male and female find equal acceptance and worth).

At first listen, the song “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” just tells the story of that little girl helping her brother, and that in itself is an inspiration, as we think of how important our families are and of how we belong to each other; but in the middle eight of the song the lyrics lift us onto a higher plain, and remind us that the whole world should live as family: “If I’m laden at all, I’m laden with sadness, that everyone’s heart isn’t filled with the gladness of love for one another.” It’s this relationship that Christ calls us into; how sad that so often religion divides when it should unite, and narrows our vision when it should be widening and enhancing it. How sad when the Church itself is not immune from these failings.

I’ve always been rather impatient with dogmas and doctrines. Of course, they’re important; they’re part of the process of being Church together, and understanding what we believe and how we are called to act and behave. But in the end it isn’t the way we describe or define God that’s important, but the relationship we have with him: what he does with our hearts. We are people of Christ, and therefore people of the Holy Spirit, and, to quote again from Romans 8 verse 26, the Spirit is the one who comes to the aid of our weakness.

As I listen to the song “He ain’t heavy” I’m inspired by the refusal of the little girl in the story to admit that her brother could ever be a burden to her. He’s her brother, and therefore it isn’t only her duty to carry him, but also her delight. It’s an act of love. And it’s the love she has that makes her strong enough to carry him.

But the story of Christopher the Christ-bearer reminds us also that the service of our Lord is also the place in which we recognise and confront our weakness. Being aware of our weakness is a vital turning point. Christopher knew how strong he was, and he was eager to use that strength in the service of his King. But on that fateful day when he carried the child across the flood, he also realised how weak he could be. Sheer strength was not enough. On the verge of losing his footing and being swept away with his precious charge, he prayed for help, and that help was given him - not help to take away the pain and challenge and sheer back-breaking slog of his task, but help enough to go beyond the limit of his own powers and still to reach the other side.

Serving our Lord is a co-operative venture. That’s the promise Jesus made when he told his disciples they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Give all you can give; it won’t be enough, but you’ll not be left like that. For when you pledge yourself to give, you will also receive.

Many of the stories Jesus told have within them a sense of a secret that can be hard to find and discover, but which when found is of infinite value and preciousness. So in the story we’ve heard this morning a merchant finds a pearl of such great price that he sells everything he has in order to buy it. Or we hear about the farmer who finds treasure buried in a field, so he sells all his other land to buy that field.

Just think a moment about those two stories. In simple human terms they don’t make sense. What farmer gets rid of all his land in order to buy a single field that he’s not going to be able to do anything with, for fear of disturbing what’s buried there? A merchant gets rid of all his stock in order to buy a jewel he’s never going to sell; what sort of a merchant could ever do something like that? You’d say of both of them that they’ve gone a little mad, that their heads have been turned.

Jesus I think liked to shock and puzzle people like that, but the nonsense element in those parables (nonsense in everyday human terms, anyway) was exactly his point. Once you’ve grasped the secret, it becomes so important that nothing else matters. And the secret is that we are known and loved and treasured; that we for all our unworthiness are saved; that we are weak and unable to save ourselves, but the Spirit is ours to help us in our weakness, to open our eyes and our hearts, and to give us prayers to pray. That God who could destroy us our ignore us chooses in Jesus Christ to be our big brother.

Solomon, when he became king in place of his father David, took possession of the nation that had become powerful and prosperous. But his first act is to go prayerfully to the shrine at Gibeon, and to acknowledge that the people of this nation are not his, but God’s. Out of all the things he might have asked for, he asks for wisdom and for a discerning ear and heart, so that he might not only govern but serve the people placed in his care. 

Whoever we are, high or low in human terms, our call and our mission under God is to serve. Because we know Jesus, we know also that we’ll find in him the best model of service. He’s our great example, he’s the Servant-King. Paul expresses it like this: “We have the mind of Christ.”

So it would be good like Solomon to pray for the gift of discernment and the ability to listen deeply; and like Christopher to be ready to offer all we have in the service of our King; and like the little girl in the story, may we too have perseverance and love so we can bear the load gladly. And may we have as our own the precious jewel that lies at the heart of it all: that though we’re too weak and too short sighted and too lacking in faith and though we can’t manage to do in our own strength anything like enough to qualify for heaven, none of that matters, because we’re already there we’re already citizens of that place. For our God knows us and loves us and saves us and strengthens us, and in Jesus he chooses to call us sisters and brothers, family.

So we have the holy task of doing loving and lovely things not our of fear or duty but as a thank you and an act of love, because we know we are loved, and because we see the face of our big brother Jesus in all kinds of people who need and merit our help and our care. And so these words become not only inspiring words but holy words too: “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

Fete

It's good to be able to report tonight that the great British summer fete is still alive and very much kicking. Of course, the weather has helped today, but a good crowd of folk gathered in the churchyard of the little (and very beautiful) parish church of Trelystan, high on the Long Mountain between Shropshire and Montgomeryshire, for no better reason than to have fun together and raise some money for a special building and its work.

In these days when everything has to have a screen and go 'beep', it was both good and, I have to say, somewhat reassuring, to see old and young alike doing all the traditional things: buying second hand books, spare garden plants and home made cakes, indulging in ice cream, cups of strong tea and the products of the barbecue, shying for coconuts and trying their hand at hoopla, and running obstacle and sack races. And loving every minute of it.

Of course, the incidentals are just as important - meeting up with old friends, keeping up with the news, greeting strangers, visitors for whom this was a great opportunity to get inside one of the most interesting churches in this part of Wales, and just enjoying the wonderful weather. That weather made sure some of the farmers were absent, making the most of the opportunity the day brought to bring in the hay or start cutting and combining the wheat - but there was a big crowd, for all that.

I don't know how much was made on the day - raffles, tombola, bottle stall, it all adds up - but I doubt anyone present begrudged a cent of it. This is always a good day, and the regulars have it inked in in the diary months beforehand; but I guess this year's will be better than most - "This is one we're going to look back on," as one local told me.

Plastic

We live in a throwaway age, and are surrounded by plastic and, more to the point, plastic packaging. Of course, now we are required to recycle rather than simply throw away without thought, and here we have a red bin for plastics and metals, a blue one for paper, and a green one for glass. Plus we have some instructions as to what should or should not go into each bin.

It's the plastic one that is the most problematic. Plastic wrapping is fine, as long as it doesn't make a crinkling sound when crumpled. The problem is defining the sound . . . though we are helped by the assurance from on high that plastic used to wrap papers and magazines that arrive through the mail is OK for recycling. As to the pots and cartons, whether it can be recycled or not is determined (here, anyway) not by whether it bears the recycling mark but on what number it bears inside that mark. Some are OK, some are not. Yoghurt pots, I find, all look much the same but can in fact be made out of a number of different kinds of plastic, some recyclable, some not; much the same, I think, for margarine tubs.

My instinct is to put them all into the recycling bin, and let the council, or whoever they contract to do the work, organise the sorting out of things. But no doubt there is a hefty fine or some other punishment in store for those who contravene the rules. One obvious question in my mind is - if some yoghurt pots are easily recyclable, why aren't all yoghurts supplied in these pots? And what is being done to require, or at least encourage, manufacturers and retailers to do this?

The other obvious question has to do with why we need quite so much packaging in the first place. Packaging rage is becoming a feature of modern society, I learn, particularly among the more senior age-groups. Having struggled ineffectively to penetrate the various layers of plastic, some of which produces sharp jagged edges when split, and causes injury, the item bought gets either accidentally broken in the course of breaking through the packaging, or else deliberately smashed against the wall in a fit of sheer rage. Yes, all right, I admit it, I've been there, done that.

Well, that's enough rant for now on this subject, but it's sure to be one that returns . . . gets recycled, even.

Music

Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.” This is a thought that strikes home, so far as I'm concerned. As a fridge magnet I have reminds me, "Where words begin to fail us, music takes over." Words can never be enough to address the mystery that is God; indeed, far from opening up that mystery and making it accessible, words become things in themselves to believe in, raising barriers and forming sects. Music is much better at breaking barriers, and it connects immediately with emotions.

Of course, music can be misused, and songs can be sung in hatred and anger, as part of what identifies this group as opposed to that one. Even then, however, there is I think a subversive risk about music; somehow, it is always conspiring against the sectarians and wanting to side with freedom and justice. I remember, many years ago, singing some of the great revolutionary anthems of Latin America (along with John Lennon's "Imagine") as one of many thousand voices in a football stadium in Porto Allegre, Brazil. There was a power and energy present in that singing that I've hardly experienced anywhere else. The music almost seemed to have a life of its own.

As a Christian, I am impatient with doctrine. I have no desire to know how many angels may dance on the head of a pin - though I'd love to know what songs they're dancing to. I find I am able to sing with people despite the divergences between what I believe and what they do - and, having sung together, I find we can share and work and witness together. And laugh together: as someone has said, and I have no idea who, "The best songs are those that write a smile on the heart." And I am sure that something like that is God's high desire for his people, that we should have smiles on our hearts.

Pigeons

The woods behind our house play host to many pairs of wood pigeons, whose call I find quite restful, though it has to be admitted that other members of the household do not share that perception. They have a point, I suppose; the pigeons do tend to go on a bit! We also have regular visits from collared doves, which, little more than fifty years on from their first arrival in the UK, having spread across Europe from Asia Minor, are now (along with the wood pigeon) firmly established in the top ten most seen garden birds.

But we also get town pigeons, the feral descendants of domesticated rock doves. I don't mind; they are pleasant enough visitors, and help to clean up under the feeders. But we are beginning to get more and more of them, and I don't want to get the reputation of being a soft touch among Welshpool's population of feral pigeons. Clearly, our garden has acquired the pigeon equivalent of the tramp's secret chalkmark on the gate: "Kind-hearted and gullible," it probably says - something like that.

But no more. Tonight I decided it was time to just unsettle "our" pigeons a bit, and - while I wouldn't want to drive them away altogether - make sure they don't feel too welcome. Our heavy-duty water-shooter, all in bright plastic so as to appeal to junior followers of Arnold Schwarzenegger, has seen sterling duty against our local squirrels; now it's been turned on the pigeons. To be honest, it hasn't yet been as effective as I'd hoped; with pigeons, one is dealing with a unique combination of doggedness and stupidity.

The scenario plays out like this: pigeon lands on lawn, only to be hit by a decent spray of water shot from our gun, my eye being well in, whereupon pigeon flies off in alarm. However, said pigeon flies only as far as the further corner of the roof, whence he waddles along to the corner nearest me, looks me up and down for a moment, then flies back down onto the lawn, only to be met with another burst from the gun. Back to the roof he flies, and the whole story is played out again . . . and again.

I think this could quite easily have gone on all night, had the pigeon not been unsettled by a noisy bevy of passing crows that bounced him into deciding to move on elsewhere. He'll be back tomorrow, I'm sure. This is a trial of patience and persistence, and I'm not at all sure which of us is going to win.

Letter and Response

An email today from a friend, and my response . . .

Dear Bill,

There is an old joke about being so broad minded that your brains fall out. It seems to me that the Anglican Church suffers from a similar problem. Because it plays host to everybody from wannabe Baptists to Anglo Catholics who want to be more Catholic than the Pope, it can't say, "This is what we believe," without upsetting one group or another.  Consequently it ends up with no theology in particular. Even belief in God can be an optional extra, and that's amongst the clergy - not just the laity. The Thirty Nine Articles are shut away in the broom cupboard, like a slightly senile maiden aunt everybody is a bit embarrassed of.

In the political sphere, it would be like a political party which included everybody fom left wing Marxists to right wing Tories, and, come election time, they find it impossible to write a manifesto without one faction or another threatening to break away.

Probably the Anglican Church is the ideal church for somebody new to Christianity, and who is him/herself none too sure of what they believe.

L

Hello L

Good to hear from you . . . well, this is pretty much a common feature of all "national" churches, and certainly a similar point could be made from within, say the Lutheran churches of the Nordic nations - or even the German Lutherans, since those attending the big eucharist we went to at the 1999 Kirchentag and those demonstrating outside against the Godless liberalism of us inside were, as I understand it, technically members of the same church. But it all seems rather silly to me. Faith is about engaging with mystery, and as we try to do that we shall have different experiences and different personal pictures of what that mystery might be. Of course there have to be limits and some consonance of belief (hence the need for corporate worship and prayer, and some kind of structure . . . and, maybe, to get the 39 articles out of the broom cupboard, dust them off, and use them carefully and - more to the point - caringly), but within those limits we need to be free to see things in a different way from our co-religionists without falling out. Sad that we often can't manage this; once we start erecting huge great doctrinal walls, from which we shower our rivals with flaming arrows, we are in fact believing something that is too small to be the truth. My image of God isn't God, God is always more than anything I can manage to fix my poor brain on. The nearest I can get to the truth is to say, with Paul, that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself". And maybe therefore to then say to the rest of the CofE, whether they be swinging thuribles or waving their copies of Mission Praise, that the Jesus of the Gospels is where we begin, and all else is to be read and understood in the light that he gives us, and with forbearance and love. Funny, though, that for all my own doubts about Anglicanism, so that sometimes other denominations look much more tempting and at others I wonder whether really I am a "post-Church believer", the Anglican Church still feels like the best boat from which to fish - for me, anyway.

Back out into the sunshine now . . .

Bill

Yellowhammer

A few days ago I was walking along a narrow country lane near Montford Bridge when I was pleased to see a yellowhammer alight on the road a little way ahead. Its bright plumage positively glowed in the bright sunshine of that day; this is the one British bird that could, I suppose, be mistaken by the uninitiated for a canary. Well, canaries are finches and yellowhammers are buntings, related but not all that closely - and the yellowhammer has its own distinctive if not quite so mellifluous song, often Anglicised as "A little bit of bread and no cheese."  I watched the yellowhammer for a while, until it decided to fly up onto a perch a little further along the hedgerow, allowing me to continue my walk.

I was pleased to see it because, frankly, it's been a while since I last saw a yellowhammer. They were very familiar birds throughout my youth. I don't walk along country lanes as often as I did in my schooldays, so I suppose I wouldn't see so many yellowhammers, but the sad truth is also that there aren't as many to see. Like many other formerly common birds of the mixed farmland that was formerly widespread, these attractive buntings have seen quite a fall in numbers over recent years, as have relatives like the corn bunting and the cirl bunting.

But they are still about, and the decline of farmland birds is being addressed. These are not species you can protect and encourage via the development of nature reserves, by and large - and in any case that would have the effect of preserving small isolated populations, which may well lack vigour and viability. You need to tackle the thorny issue of farming practices and hedgerow conservation; however, while farmers need to be able to turn in a profit and keep the business viable, most also value the natural world and are keen to play their part in making sure there is still a place for yellowhammers and the like. It's just a matter of education and awareness, and finding ways of keeping up-to-date farming practices wildlife-friendly. Of course, we are fortunate in this part of the world; there are still lots of hedges, and farming is still in many parts locally a mixed and family business. Hence the yellowhammer I saw the other day (and the butterflies, burnet moths and coursing sparrow hawk that were also features of that walk).

Spotted Flycatcher

It was a joy to see a "spottie" today busily hawking for insects in a rather untidy farmyard not too far from here. This has always been one of my favourite birds, and for years (while I was Vicar of Minsterley) we had one nesting in Virginia creeper just outside my study window. It is a late arrival, one of the last of our summer visitors, and, as a somewhat dull brown and grey bird of sparrow size, you might think unremarkable in appearance.

What makes it distinctive is its behaviour. It is a very lively little creature, often perching on a vantage point (today, a piece of farm machinery) from which it can survey the area around and fly in pursuit of a passing insect. Often it will return straight away to the same perch. The bill of this bird is worthy of note, I always think, although in many ways this is a bird of nondescript appearance: it's dark in colour, as slim as a stiletto and just as deadly (if you're insect sized, at any rate).

I saw lots of stylish and often brightly coloured flycatchers in South America, but the "spottie" is one of only two species of flycatcher likely to be seen in the UK - the other, the pied flycatcher, arrives before the "spotties" and is a woodland specialist not uncommon these days on the western side of the country - though I did hear of one visiting a garden feeding station in Snailbeach, not far from here, and popped up to have a look (the bird duly arrived, and used the station as a perch from which to conduct operations). Being a male, it was clothed in very stylish black and white. There is also the rarer red-breasted flycatcher which is seen as a passage migrant - generally along the east coast, but they can turn up elsewhere, and Ann and I found one sitting on a rock at the top of the beach just outside Llanfairfechan. I'm not a twitcher with a tick list and an urgent need to bag rarities, but even so I was quite unreasonably pleased to have spotted this little chap.

Siskins

Quite a few young siskins at our feeders today - small and very streaky birds, about the same size as the blue tits that are visiting us in great numbers just now. I was very pleased to see the siskins, as this means siskins have nested in the vicinity this summer, something I'd expected as we've seen adult birds from time to time throughout the season, but which I'm glad to have proved. In previous years, it has always been my impression that siskins have moved up country by the end of March or so, not to be seen down our way until the end of the summer.

The young birds were very tame, and stayed at the feeders (with me watching from a nearby shed) while other birds arrived and dispersed. Even the arrival of noisy and untidy pigeons, along with one of the local squirrels, failed to move them. There was no sign of the parent birds.

Jackdaws

This morning once again our garden is full of jackdaws - a family consisting of two parents and four children. I realise that only adds up to six birds, but they still manage to fill our garden. The parents are feeding at our garden feeding station, which involves a great deal of flapping of wings and clumsy manoeuvring, while the youngsters, who I think would still like just to be fed by mum and dad, have to look on and learn, and peck at the stuff their parents drop.

The jackdaws can't get into the squirrel-proof sunflower feeders, so have to stick to the fat-ball dispenser. As they peck chunks of fat away, they are rather messy eaters, so in fact the youngsters (and a couple of pigeons who have also looked in) are doing quite well out of the scraps. Other birds don't get a look-in. At present, we are being visited by large numbers of young blue tits and great tits, and I can see them in the nearby trees and bushes, waiting for the coast to be clear. The jackdaws aren't going to harm them, but all this mad flapping of dusky wings is too much for the small birds.

The parent jackdaws have the distinctive light grey napes, while the children are more of a plain black - or perhaps charcoal - all over. But they are big birds, and they look far too large to be what they are: children, with lots still to learn, including how to feed themselves.

Mandarin

My most recent 'Nature Notes' for one or two local publications :-

The wild fauna and flora of the UK is constantly changing, and new species are arriving all the time, sometimes enriching our natural scene and sometimes endangering it in some way or other. Some species arrive by their own efforts, for example in recent years the Collared Dove, the Little Egret and Cetti’s Warbler; some are deliberately introduced, or perhaps reintroduced after becoming extinct: examples might be games birds like the Pheasant and the Red-Legged Partridge, or raptors like the Red Kite (in England and Scotland) and the White-Tailed Eagle. Yet others have either been deliberately released or are accidental escapees from collections, most notably perhaps the Canada Goose and, common now in London and other parts of South-east England, the Ring-Necked Parakeet.

Quite a few water birds have joined our fauna as escapes from collections, and for the most part they cause little concern. Canada Geese have become something of a scourge mainly because they are present in such large numbers, and can cause damage to water-edge habitats, while the Ruddy Duck, an American “stifftail” duck, has been culled because of the risk of interbreeding with the only European stifftail, the White-Headed Duck, a rare resident of Spanish wetlands.

But the bird I was delighted to see not long ago on the River Sow at Stafford is not only a reasonably problem-free addition to our bird fauna, but in fact is present in such numbers as to be internationally important - the Mandarin Duck. Mandarin males are among the most amazingly plumaged birds you are likely to see in the UK, and can be found on lakes and slow-moving waters, mostly to the south and east of the English midlands but in a number of places in Wales too. There are perhaps 7000 birds in the UK, a significant number given that probably less than 1000 pairs remain in its homeland of China, and the population there is declining. It is an Asian species, found also in Korea and in parts of Russia, and in Japan which holds perhaps half the world population. Mandarins have found a home in other parts of western Europe, and there are some in the USA, but the British population is potentially important.

The exotic plumage of the male is beyond my capacity to describe in just a few words. Suffice to say it includes a white head with red bill, dark russet cap and yellow cheeks, remarkable long orange feathers hanging down from the cheeks each side, orange ‘sails’ standing erect on each side, a purple chest and chestnut sides. The female, by contrast, is a plain brown-grey bird with a white eye stripe. The diet is mostly plants and seeds, but Mandarins will also take insects, small fish, snails and so forth. Like Mallards, they feed by dabbling, and will also graze. I have heard they have a fondness for acorns in season. The preferred habitat is a wooded area around a lake or pond, and they make their nest in a hole in a tree, where a single clutch of as many as twelve eggs is incubated by the female. The ducklings have to drop to the ground to leave the nest, after which they will follow the female to water.  Grass Snakes, Otters and Mink are significant predators.

The Weight of Things

Weight changes depending on where and how you measure it. Mass remains the same, even when a body is weightless, as, for example, with an astronaut in space. There is a crucial difference between the two. When, last autumn, I was standing on the viewing platform of the Rockefeller Building in New York, had there been a set of scales handy I might have delighted in weighing less than I did down at ground level back in my hotel. The measure of my waistline hadn't changed (alas), but the force of gravity would have been slightly, but measurably, less at that height.

Gravity is a fundamental of our existence. It's what holds us in place; and by giving us weight, it also becomes a component of our human identity. It is why we are constructed and shaped the way we are. We spend our lives fighting gravity, and those who are particularly good at doing that, like great athletes, are deservedly praised. There is a sense in which the struggle against gravity becomes one of the measures of life, as witnessed in growth and movement - and, in the human story, invention.

Gravity and, alongside it, time are our lifelong prisoners; we can never entirely escape them, and in the end we succumb to them both. It is ironic, given that, that science has never fully explained either of these forces, and some scientists at least would claim that neither gravity not time really exist, it is just that from within our experience of things they seem to. But I certainly do not understand enough science to enter that argument!

But here are my thoughts, for what it's worth, as a person of faith. Is everything about me in fact fatally enslaved by gravity and time, or is there somehow more to me than just the stuff of organic life? Is the sense I claim I have of the spiritual self merely a fearful attempt to escape from the inevitable victory of gravity and time, or might there be a deeper truth about me that neither gravity nor time can master? Am I merely body, or am I both body and soul? In the end I choose to be on the side of the angels (so to speak), but I understand those of my friends who cannot join me there. Simple common-sense tells me that this world is all there is, that gravity can't be beaten, that time will in the end win, and that dust must always return to dust. But somehow it doesn't feel that that is enough, and somehow things like music and wonder and ecstasy and love remain unaccounted for in this calculation. I may well just be a victim of wishful thinking. But I am content and happy to be so.

Bullfinches

The bullfinches that visit our garden fascinate me because of the obvious closeness of the pair bond. It is in fact very unusual indeed for only one bird of the pair to appear, even in the height of the nesting season. The bright and colourful male is a bolder bird than his partner, although both can be fairly timid and wary as they come to the feeders. Earlier in the year I noted that the female only used to fat-ball feeder, which the male never visited. The pair I'm now seeing regularly may of course not be the same pair as then, but assuming they are the same birds, the female now generally takes sunflower kernels, as does the male. The other day I noted that the male had obviously finished feeding, but took a prominent perch on the top of the feeding station, later moving onto a slightly higher branch nearby, keeping watch until his mate had finished. Once she had indicated she was ready to leave, they flew promptly away together.

Bird Table Update

The birds are very busy at our feeders just now, with many young birds to be seen. At present we are just feeding sunflower kernels, and there are families of blue and great tits there most of the time, plus one or two coal tits, all of these also seen prospecting through the adjacent bushes and trees for insect life. Yesterday a pair of bullfinches were taking cherries from a tree very close to where I was sitting having my breakfast out on our patio - not eating whole berries (though these berries are really quite small), but pecking at them to remove the softer and juicier flesh; today I've seen juveniles at the feeders. Young blackbirds are frequently there, pursuing their parents and demanding to be fed. From time to time the parents relent and feed the youngsters. A family of greenfinches, parents and five or six young birds, were feeding on elm seeds.

Our feeders in the front garden are empty at the moment, and will need a thorough cleaning before being refilled. This has meant that house sparrows, generally only found in our front garden, are making their way to the feeding station at the back, to mingle there with chaffinches and goldfinches. I am still seeing occasional siskins, too, and there are always nuthatches around.  From time to time single long-tailed tits visit, so I presume they are nesting somewhere within reach. The two feeders presently in use at the back are supposedly both squirrel-proof, but the squirrels generally seem to be able to find a way, usually by tipping the feeder over so that seed is spilled out. I don't mind feeding them, really, but I do mind the fact that while they are there the smaller birds do not come close. The wood pigeons and feral pigeons that come to the feeders have little fear of squirrels, and will from time to time drive them away. Yesterday morning there was obviously a major argument within the local squirrel population, with lots of yapping and snarling, though all taking place behind a thick curtain of bushes, so, apart from the occasional glimpse of a twitching tail, nothing to see.

Birds singing include song thrush, garden warbler (I think) and of course the chiffchaff. Swifts and a few house martins can be seen overhead, and families of jackdaws and carrion crows have been noisily present close by. The fine weather is set to continue for a couple more days, then the onward forecast looks rather more wet.

Sunday Talk

. . . based on the previous post

The cuckoo is a pretty bird, she sings as she flies,
she bringeth good tidings, she telleth no lies,
she sucketh white flowers for to keep her voice clear,
and when I hear the cuckoo I know the summer draweth near.

It had been a few years since I last heard the cuckoo call, and then a few weeks ago I was standing on platform 1 of Whitlock’s End station, on the Warwickshire / Worcestershire border on a fine sunny evening, waiting for a train into Birmingham to attend a performance of the Verdi Requiem, when I clearly heard the cuckoo calling. It’s such an evocative sound, the music of which meant almost as much as the quite wonderful singing I was to hear later on in the Symphony Hall.

The other day I heard the cuckoo calling again.  A different bird, though it’s interesting that habitually we do generally speak of the cuckoo, as though there were only one of them. This cuckoo was calling from somewhere on the flood plain of the River Vyrnwy, between Four Crosses and Llanymynech, and he’d been calling for the greater part of four hours by the time I left, by which time I could almost have cheerfully throttled the bird, thus demonstrating that even the most beautiful music can become tiring if repeated for too long. I later learned that this bird in fact went on calling till nearly ten in the evening, which was quite a feat of endurance, I think.

I happened to mention the Whitlock’s End cuckoo on my Facebook page, and got quite a few “likes” from friends for whom the cuckoo’s song is as special as it is to me. But on the other hand, a friend who I think would describe himself as an atheist commented that for him the cuckoo was a conclusive proof of the non-existence of God.

Clearly I couldn’t let that go unchallenged, so I asked him why. “It’s the lifestyle of the cuckoo,” he replied. “It’s revolting!  Every cuckoo you hear calling is only there because it destroyed a nestful of baby dunnocks or reed warblers or meadow pipits, and now its offspring are going to do the very same thing. How could a God who created the world and looked upon it and saw that it was good have created something so horrible?”

Well, creation isn’t just fluffy things and sweet songs, and I suppose one of the issues in life for the believer is how we cope with the seamy side of things, the nasty stuff, of which cuckoos are just one example and, frankly, by no means the worst. Genesis very simply argues that everything was fine until the Fall, but once Adam and Eve had disobeyed God the whole of creation was thrown out of kilter and that’s how the bad stuff got in. I might not want to see it in quite those terms, and in any case what about the serpent who starts that whole story off, and who was one of God’s creatures?

Or perhaps I can just close my eyes to the seamy stuff and pretend that all of creation is all lovely, like the lions and zebras and giraffes in my little grand-daughter’s picture book, who all seem to get on together just fine. In reality lions eat zebras, given half a chance; when scenes of that happening turn up in David Attenborough’s films, my mother switches off. “I’d rather not watch that sort of thing,” she says.

But it happens. That’s how it works. And of course, of itself it’s all morally neutral. Lions don’t have a choice between being carnivores and perhaps (like me) going vegetarian. They are what they are. Nor are baby cuckoos being evil when they throw the eggs or the young chicks of the host bird out of the nest, so as to usurp their place. They don’t have any choice, but to act on instinct.

I tried to explain this to my friend, who came back with the example of the fox that killed all his sister’s chickens, when surely it only needed one, so the rest it presumably killed just for fun. But no, that too is all to do with instinct. Normally the fox would kill what it needed to kill, say one out of a flock, and by that time the rest would have scattered and found safe places to be, and the “kill” instinct would have gone. But chickens trapped in a coop that the fox has somehow entered can’t get away, and they’re flying about in terror, and the “kill” instinct doesn’t get switched off, but constantly restarted.

Even so, those who would want to argue the existence of a loving creator God from a perspective of “isn’t nature wonderful” can find themselves coming a bit unstuck when brought face to face with the “red in tooth and claw” side of things. The Christian writer Bill Vanstone many years ago tackled this dilemma in one of his books, and he compared the action of God in creation to the work of an artist painting a picture. At the outset, the artist will already have an image in his mind, or what it is he wants to express, of what the picture will be. And yet the finished picture is dependant not only on that image in the mind of its creator, but on the materials he chooses to use: water colours, oils, acrylic; paper, canvas or board. Creation is a co-operative venture - the mind of God engaging with the materials he has chosen to use.

It’s not an exact image, but it helps me to understand. In fact, the beauty of nature is no proof of God, and the perceived cruelties of nature are no disproof. And God wouldn’t have it any other way. He has made a world in which we are free - uniquely among his creatures we are free to choose, to make moral and ethical decisions, and to consider what we do or do not believe.

He has not made a world in which his signature is so obvious that we can’t help but believe, for such a world would have no room for love. Love demands freedom, and cannot exist without it. I could make, or at least I could imagine someone making an automaton, a robot, that could serve my every need, and say “I love you” whenever I needed it to. But it wouldn’t actually love me, for love is something you choose to do.

My friend and I never really concluded our conversation about the cuckoo. Maybe next time we meet we shall. His thesis is that I foolishly let my head get turned by the song, while ignoring the reality of the cuckoo’s life cycle and (I suppose) life style, which should lead me in quite an opposite direction. Against that, I’d want to argue that both the song of the cuckoo and the lifestyle of the cuckoo actually nudge me in the direction of belief; and they do so not because of what they are in themselves, but because of how I perceive them and respond to them.

I find myself encouraged to believe in God not because bird song is beautiful and flowers are pretty, but because of my ability to perceive them in that way. Bird song does a job: a cuckoo calls to warn off other males and to attract females, not to brighten my day or encourage me to think of summer. Flowers do a job: their colours and scents are there to attract pollinators and so produce the fruit and seed that will perpetuate the species. And yet we are able to delight in both of them, and great composers have been inspired by bird song, and great artists have been inspired by flowers. It is the fact that I can perceive beauty that encourages me to believe in God.

The call of the cuckoo lifts my heart despite my fears for the dunnocks and other small birds whose nests it may predate. I like the cuckoo’s call despite the seamier aspects of its lifestyle - but I am by no means blind to them.

And as I’ve already said, what a cuckoo does it does by instinct. It doesn’t choose to be nasty to other small birds.  It hasn’t made a moral decision right or wrong because it has no notion of right or wrong. Nor has it any way of choosing. That, incidentally, is why the endless round of animal sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem could never atone for the sins of the people. The sheep and goats and pigeons slaughtered there were without sin, but only because they could not sin, there was no possibility of sin in their lives. Jesus is the one true, pure and sufficient sacrifice because he could have sinned but chose not to sin (and of course he is the one true and perfect High Priest for exactly the same reason). Only in him are our sins forgiven, and what he does he does once, and he does for all.

But to return to the lifestyle of the cuckoo, and the instinct that leads the cuckoo to do as he or she does. I am not encouraged to disbelieve in God by the bad behaviour of the cuckoo, but quite the reverse: I am encourage to believe in God by the fact that I can perceive what the cuckoo does as cruel and unfair and unjust. For I discover in myself an awareness of right and wrong, of good and bad, and an ability to sympathise with those who get dealt a bad hand in life.

So I have an awareness of beauty that encourages in me the desire to create; and I have an awareness of good and bad that encourages in me the desire to reach out and to care. Isn’t this, don’t you think, what is meant when we are told we are “made in the image of God”? I am delighted by beauty; I am angered by injustice and by needless pain; and as I reflect on these two remarkable things I find myself moved into faith. And as I stumble along that road I find my poor and feeble attempts at love to be met by a persistent sense of the way in which I am loved, and by the inclusiveness of that love, the love shown to the world, revealed among us, in Jesus.

Cuckoo

A cuckoo was calling insistently throughout this afternoon at Domgay, Llanymynech, where I was gardening and getting attacked by some rather nasty buzzy flies that wanted to eat me.  Hated the flies, loved the cuckoo - to begin with, anyway.  There did come a point at which I began to long for him to shut up!

It is some years since I last heard a cuckoo call in this area, though I've heard them elsewhere of course - most recently on platform 1 of Whitlock's End station, Shirley, while waiting for a train into Birmingham. So of course it was a delight to hear one today, and reassuring - there are still cuckoos around in this part of the world, despite the sharp fall in overall numbers of this iconic summer visitor.

We delight in the cuckoo's call, and he features in many a folk song, but of course cuckoos have a rather nasty life style. Laying eggs in other birds' nests allows the cuckoo to raise a much larger 'brood', potentially at least, than it might if it had to build a nest of its own; and it also allows the parent birds to leave for Africa much earlier than other summer migrants: "June, she'll change her tune / July, she will fly", as the song puts it. The cuckoo call may be a lovely sound to us, but it isn't to reed warblers, dunnocks and meadow pipits, three species commonly parasitised.

A friend told me the cuckoo is for him a powerful argument against God. How could a benign creator make something so horrible and so destructive of others? Leaving aside the simple fact that there are plenty of examples in nature that might seem to us worse and more evil than the cuckoo, I would still want to argue that in the cuckoo I find displayed some of the reason why I do believe in God, maybe at times rather against the odds.

First, I believe in God because I marvel at our human ability to perceive beauty in the cuckoo's call. Birdsong and bright flowers are not intrinsically beautiful - or at any rate they are not placed on earth in order to be beautiful to us; they are there to do a job. But we find them beautiful, and are inspired by them to compose great music, or to paint great pictures. I am amazed, not at beauty itself but at my ability, and yours, to perceive it.

Second, I believe in God because I recognise the unfairness and cruelty of the cuckoo's behaviour. The cuckoo doesn't - it just gets on with doing what cuckoos instinctively do. How does the cuckoo chick know it must eject the other eggs and chicks from the nest and take sole charge? And how does it know to fly south to warmer climes, long after its parents, whom it has never known, have left? I'm at a loss to understand instinct and how it works. But I know that for me to steal and cheat and supplant as the cuckoo does would be wrong, and, even though I recognise the cuckoo bears no guilt because it does not do what it does out of choice, I still find its behaviour revolting. I am amazed that I know what is right, and what is wrong.

None of this is a proof for God. And, for that matter, I do accept that not everyone has the same ability to perceive beauty, and history (not to mention my newspaper this morning) is littered with examples of human cruelty and brutality whose perpetrators seek to justify and even applaud. None the less, the cuckoo's call leads me not away from faith, but toward it.

Song Thrush

I can hear him, though I do not see him:

the song thrush is invisible, even on his high perch,

now the trees are so well clothed,

but his repeated notes stir the air and make it tremble

on this still and drowsy June afternoon, not far

from where I am kneeling, fork in hand, ready

to attack the weeds.  And his sweet and plaintive music

touches a long-forgotten chord in me, so the memories remain half-hidden

of some other garden, and some other day.

But what I do recall is how I delighted

in the shards of snail shell I discovered

on the pebble path around my childhood patch of ground.

We children each had our own little garden -

I planted feverfew and raspberries in mine, and some peas

(which hardly grew, as I recall), and a houseleek

culled from the flat roof of Granny’s outhouse;

it was a delight and wonder, this growing of things,

but far more, that a song thrush should choose these stones I planted

as an anvil on which to break his snails.

The particular and special stone he used, a little larger than the others,

I brought back from Llanfairfechan, I think.  How good

that he thought it special too.

We always had song thrushes in those days; today,

like the starlings and sparrows that used to compete for our scraps,

the speckled thrushes have mostly disappeared,

or so it seems.

So I am glad to hear this one still singing,

and that he should sing my childhood’s song.

Jay

My 'Nature Notes' column for the coming month :-

I opened my bedroom curtains the other day to find myself almost eye-to-eye with a jay that was perched on the roof of one of my garden sheds. To my surprise, it didn’t take flight immediately but stared back at me for a while before moving on. Jays are very handsome birds, with a mainly pinkish-buff body, a distinctive blue wing patch, and flashes of white on the wings and tail that are clearly seen when the bird takes flight. It has a bit of a crest, too, which is streaked black and buff, and something of a black moustache marking either side of its beak.

The woodland to the back of us is ideal territory for a jay, particularly as it contains a number of oak trees. Jays are omnivorous feeders and therefore share some of the unpopularity of the magpie; they are not above stealing the eggs and nestlings of other birds, and they will also take earthworms, insects and small mammals, but their main food is the product of trees, with acorns top of their list. This bird is in fact sometimes called the ‘acorn jay’, and jays habitually bury acorns as food for winter. ‘How do they remember where they put them?’ you might ask, and the short answer is that they don’t, or not always, anyway - so their burying of acorns is very helpful to the tree, helping to ensure new seedlings can grow some distance away from the parent tree.

The jay’s Latin name of Garrulus glandarius reminds us that this is a bird more often heard than seen (though see my note below). It is indeed garrulous, and will greet intruders onto its patch with a harsh and raucous call that is quite distinctive. If seen in flight, the white markings on tail and wings are distinctive, but so too is the flight itself, undertaken in a slow and somewhat cumbersome style, with rather laboured beats of its rounded wings.

Like that of the magpie, though to a lesser extent, the jay population has been increasing, and, though generally regarded as a wary bird, in my experience this is far less the case than it used to be. Visiting my daughter recently on the Warwickshire / Worcestershire border I had close encounters with two or three jays as I walked along the country lane near her home, and they didn’t seem particularly shy at all. Certainly you can get much closer to jays these days than in the past. (That visit was also notable for a very close encounter with a grass snake, which slithered by, on a pleasant sunny morning, just a couple of feet away from where I was standing looking over a gate. More on grass snakes another time, perhaps.)

Jays build untidy nests of twigs, lined with hair, in trees, and lay between five and seven eggs. The young birds spend about three weeks in the nest before fledging. Jays are residents of the UK and do not generally move very far from home. They can be found through most of the country, but are absent from the far north. Some continental birds, often lighter in colour, may arrive in winter.

The National Botanic Garden

Last weekend Ann and I visited the National Botanic Garden of Wales for the first time, but not, I hope, the last.  This is a wonderful resource, and if here and there it looked a bit shabby around the edges, it was a most enjoyable visit and there was lots to do and see.  The photo above was taken in a corner of the walled garden, and manages (despite a rather cloudy sky) to look quite exotic.  This is still a very new set of gardens, and in its short life I believe it's come close to collapse twice already.  I hope it continues to get the support it deserves, from both the funding authorities and the paying public.  I'd hate to see it go ever!

Gate

It has been my experience so far

that however high and hard the wall

there is always a gate. There may perhaps

be no obvious path, and it could be the handle is rusted

and hard to turn; but in the end there is always a gate,

a way to somewhere better, to a setting right of things

when all shall be well, and all manner of things

shall be well.  If you have not yet found the gate

then it is not yet the end.  Wait, and search,

hope and pray.

Remember

A short verse written for a funeral I'm presiding at :-

As you stand on the shore, 
and you gaze out to sea,
though you see me no more,
remember me.
Love be your guiding light,
as you take the road on;
though no more in your sight,
I have not gone.
As the stories are told,
and the memories stay,
far more precious than gold
is love’s bright way.