A Curse or a Blessing?

In the Outlander series, Claire Randall is a time traveller. She is able to go back to the battle of Culloden to find her true love Jamie Fraser but also their nemesis Jack Randall. She is of course accused of being a witch and because Jack is such a nasty, twisted person she decides to exploit her reputation and curse him, but in an unusual way.

Not with frogs coming out of his ears or warts on his nose. No, something far worse. She knows and tells him the date of his death which is of course a dreadful fact and one that would make you very twitchy.

But here’s the thing. What if an attractive bonny lass burst into your life and told you what we know is an inevitable concrete fact, but which none of us really knows for certain?

Would that be a blessing or a curse?

On the one hand, it would be downright terrifying, but it would also give you an opportunity to get your stuff together and ‘tidy up’.

And I wonder if you were cursed/blessed with this bewildering date say… in 3 months' time… would it change the way you live today? Who would you contact, what would you say, who would you tell?

And as the day drew closer…? What then is on your checklist, your bucket list and what matters most? Do you see how this exercise sharpens the mind and fine-tunes our priorities?

Or maybe you would just let the clock run down and go on doing what you have always done. Perhaps you are already sweet, dandy, tidy and all squared away.

The date of your death may well be unknown, but it is out there, somewhere, and it will find you.

The gift of Emmaus a reflection for Easter 3

Today’s gospel is about seeing God as he truly is.

It is what we all long for – “To see God as he is”. Here on this earth we never reach full maturity, but we can certainly give it a 'good innings!'

The story of the disciples’ journey to Emmaus reveals something of Christ who is with us. When we are willing to welcome Christ to walk alongside us on our journey of life, when we are willing to listen and learn – even from a stranger, especially a stranger, then through word and sacrament the risen Christ can reveal himself. Christ’s presence brings both strangeness and familiarity to our hearts. Seeking Christ is at the heart of our life.

St Benedict at the beginning of his writing, would bid us to simply … listen. At the end of the rule Benedict makes clear it is listening that helps us to see; to see God, which is the end of all our exploring. Between listening and seeing, the spiritual life is one of love.

A response to love is first given by God, then a lifelong balance of being loved and of loving others, even with all their quirks and weaknesses. Together we journey with and to Christ.

Sometimes we will find ourselves like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. We are bereaved, experiencing the pain of the death of one we have loved. We feel the emptiness of loss and the uncertainties of a different future. Like those disciples, we can take comfort that our Lord is in fact walking with us. We are called to walk like the two disciples on the road, through a long and

faithful life. Our two disciples with their still unknown but friendly stranger, “came near to where they were going”. The stranger, we are told, “walked ahead as if he were going on”. Christ always has so much more to lead us onto in this life and the next. We are to always give the impression of reaching out to Christ whom we love, and know to be just ahead, but also alongside. Our exuberance must be balanced by our contemplative side. The Eucharist and prayer should be paramount in our life.

As the disciples’ day draws in, they invite the stranger to stay with them. Being with this man on the dusty road to Emmas gave them joy and it also brought out the best in them. So they take the next logical step and invite Our Lord in for some hospitality.

And it is when they sit down together to table and break bread, that they realise who it is that has been with them all this time.

At one level then we are the disciples. The stranger has much to teach us for they see things from the ‘outside’ looking in. We are used to seeing our church and our ministry from the inside and looking out. The stranger can perceive things and teach us things just because of where they stand. They walk alongside us, listen to us, and teach us. They are both one step ahead and alongside us. That makes them valuable resources and good friends. Strangers are important to us, they are good to us and they are good for us.

But did you see what happens when the disciples invite the stranger in to share bread, drink wine and engage in hospitality?

The scales fall from their eyes and they discover that the stranger who has been walking with them is actually the friend they thought they had lost. Has actually been with them all this time...

And there is a vital lesson here when we care for the stranger in our midst. It is one thing to walk with them sharing stories but the next dimension opens up when we ask them to eat and drink with us when we want to offer them hospitality and let them know in no uncertain terms that we would love to have them at our table. They must stay with us!

But there is one more way to open up this story. What if you are not just the disciples but you are in fact The Master himself? You and I know the gospel story of death and resurrection and most of us have lived in it in some way, shape or format. All of us at some point have felt denied, betrayed, ignored and forgotten. And all of us have known something of the joy of the resurrection and new life, delightful, unexpected surprises. It may not look like it and often it may not feel like it, but you do have oodles of wisdom and experience to offer those who are walking with you and to those who you meet in the marketplace of your everyday life.

The golden trophy of a church bursting with young people is only one part of what God desires. Everyone, young and old, is important to God and all have a role to play in the building up of his kingdom. Worldly experience is just as important as youthful energy.

When we walk the road to Emmaus with open ears and open hearts, with the imperative to welcome absolutely everyone, friend and stranger, the squawking baby and the ageing frail soul, then we will see God as He truly is. Then we will see ourselves as we truly are. This is the gift of Emmaus.

It’s only a flesh wound… or is it?

I want to begin with a phenomenon that I have noticed with some hospital patients. Occasionally they will show you their scars and they are quite persistent and passionate about it. I suspect they want to do so for two reasons.

First, to prove unequivocally to the visitor and to themselves,  that the operation really did happen.

The other reason is to prove that it really did happen to them. They seem quite unabashed by any squeamishness on my part and I always think that it is an enormous privilege to be shown something so personal.

As I thought about this I realised that there is a sense in which their scar tissue becomes a badge of their identity.

And this is what is happening in today's gospel.

At the start, the disciple's hearts are locked with fear just as surely as the doors are locked for fear of the religious leaders. It seems that the only way out is to confront Good Friday and even show it off a little. This is the key to banishing fear and unlocking the doors. They are also locked in by their disbelief.

But then ‘He’ appears and the disciples know who it is because of the scars. All doubt rushes out of the door.

And we learn afresh that it’s a physical, bodily resurrection

Thomas is invited to physically touch the scar tissue.

Dear Thomas,… when you read the story as a whole what conclusion do you come to? Surely it was not by chance that Thomas was missing in the first place? Or that on his return he heard, and in hearing he doubted, and in his doubting, he touched, and in that touching, he believed? I reckon that it was God’s cunning plan all along that things tumbled out the way that they did. When St. Thomas touched his Master's wounded flesh he cured the wound of his own disbelief and our disbelief.

So like the patient in the hospital bed, it’s imperative that Jesus puts his wounds on display. This is the proof that it is really him.. and the proof that the crucifixion really did happen.

And that is why, here today in our own upper room, on the first day of the week, we gather with all our fears and hopes and disappointments and the things that we have chosen to lock away. Somehow we know that it is the brokenness of the Eucharist,  the busted bread and the wine poured out that make it truly Him. We know it is truly Him that we take into our very selves because we know that He was broken just as we are broken.

This is my body … This is my blood. Our brokenness is blessed and consecrated through His brokenness.

And when we go out from here, we will find that it is our wounds that make us most authentic. It is our piercings that make us who we truly are.

The acoustics of the theological college I attended meant that you got to know others not just in conversations but in the noises that echoed around the bricks of the building.

So one student walked with a profound limp and you always could hear him coming up the hall and you knew who it was.  You learnt that whats-his-name was going to miss Morning Prayer … again … because you could hear them snoring 5 minutes before 7 as you went past their door and there were several other things that can never be mentioned, but you get a general idea.

For your reflection, you might want to think about what are the scars that make you who you are. What marks us forever are our deepest and most inward scars. They can be living badges of love and triumphant proof of a glorious resurrection to eternal life.

And our scars might be those hurts that are carried, of grudges that are nursed and held selfishly to ourselves and perhaps that is why we have this very important bit about forgiveness in today's gospel

Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

And perhaps that is why the Master is so very persistent with His Easter greeting of  ‘Peace Be With You’. Not to take away our wounds and pretend that the scarring experience never happened. But to use these hard knocks as agents of peace and reconciliation. That even when ghastly stuff happens to us, our lacerations can become the means of grace and the hope of glory.

Yes, this really did happen to me. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t pleasant, but now I am going to use my gashes to authentically be alongside someone else and I will be far more compassionate, far more loving and far more understanding because this very same experience happened to me.

The doors held fast by fear will be forced open by divine love, a conversation will begin and the gentle but persistent wind of the Holy Spirit will breathe new life into a mutilated corpse and a broken heart. Then we can say with our lips ‘Christ is Risen’ and finally one day, with every fibre of who we have become, we will be able to live His resurrection for our very own selves.

The three essentials for Life.

So they came, and even before they arrived at their first destination they were bug-eyed from a long flight that had been thwarted twice by foul weather.

Frazzled nerves and fear of the future coursed through their souls. And when all proof of the next leg of their journey had disappeared, the remaining minuscule fragment of hope they had been clinging to, also vanished. Now, three basic needs rose to the top of their delirium and screamed loudly for attention.

First: edible, nutritious food. Not the feeble imitation that a vending machine coughed reluctantly at an exorbitant price.

Second: Sleep. A comfortable lie down and a good hearty uninterrupted snore. Maybe even with a pillow. Why is it that when you are so tired that a restful deep slumber cannot be sourced, but will wink at you and then infuriatingly run away?

Finally: A shower. You know the sort of thing. The gadgety doodah sends streams of warm water to wash away the grime and grunge that insists on clinging affectionately in a lingering way.

In the 21st century, in an age when we can send words and pictures to the other side of the planet in a wink and when we can put human beings on the moon, it should not be too difficult to offer intrepid travellers these three basic necessities and yet .. and yet… there they were. In a shiny airport with hundreds of other beleaguered pilgrims that all felt exactly the same way, clinging desperately to the last remaining shreds of patience, humanity and sanity.

Interesting isn’t it…what we return to, our deepest needs, and our keenest longings. Our courageous crusaders learnt that when the technology fails, when the computer crashes, when the system lets you down, then you are ready to relearn what is genuinely essential.

Nothing is ever really lost

One of the things that continue to dazzle and enthral me is the interconnectivity of life. I went and knocked on a door recently (nothing new there) only to discover that folk behind this door were present at a wedding I had conducted a long time ago. More than a decade as it turns out. Now, what are the odds huh? They were amiable and I hope that we might catch up again.

I well remember the location of the wedding, the fact that it was bright sunshine and there was no snow. I remember the setting. I remembered there was some bubbly stuff in a glass. I assume that there was a bride, a groom, a photographer and me.

As I drove home from the wedding I genuinely believed that that would be the last time that I ever saw any of them again. I thought no more about them until I surreptitiously knocked on this anonymous door.

I learnt again that there is connectivity with people, places and important events in our lives. Church and parish world are mutually interdependent.  But more importantly, I relearnt that no conversation, no smile, and no silence are ever wasted. We might have forgotten all about these ‘moments’ but in the thoughts and hearts of others, everything is well remembered and frequently for the better. We must always choose our words very carefully and allow silence to work her magic in our conversations.

While we might be tempted to believe that the past is lost and consumed in the oblivion of our forgetfulness… in God’s eyes and in God’s heart, nothing is ever lost. Ever. Everything is remembered and everything is cherished!

9th of April

Question 1. Woman, why are you weeping?

Both the angels and Jesus ask this of Mary Magdalene, but we are not privy to the way it was spoken. The way this question was put to Mary makes all the difference to our understanding.

For example, was it spoken quickly and harshly?

Woman! Why are you weeping?

Almost as if to say ‘Snap out of it girl. Can’t you see that it’s all OK? It’s me you silly sausage.’

If the question was posed like this, then Mary’s grief is a hindrance to her seeing Jesus and she fails to understand what has really happened. Sometimes our grief is a cement wall around us to which no one gains access and we are imprisoned.

I don’t subscribe to the theory that the Master was giving Mary Magdalen a polite verbal slap on the wrist and that her grief was inappropriate, a stumbling block to faith.

When I read this question from the Master, I hear him speaking it gently.

‘Mary,… why are you weeping?’

I hear Jesus inviting Mary to a conversation. ‘Tell me what it is that is hurting you so much. Why is it hurting you? Together let us explore this most personal and poignant and terrifying and painful experience that you are living right now.

For me then the Master is not saying ‘Don’t cry, it doesn’t matter.’ He is not saying ‘There, there it will be Ok.. just get over yourself.’

Woman why are you weeping…is a tender way of saying I want to get alongside you and walk with you in your grief.

Mary Magdalene, bless her, is honest and authentic in her answer.

She genuinely believes that the body has been snatched.

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”

And you can feel the great wrench and hurt deep within her. The Lord who she loved is taken away and she doesn’t know where to find him; and if you scratch just below the surface it’s not only Jesus’ body that is lost, it is her. It is her own self. She is lost.

And Jesus' response is to simply stay. He does scurry away from her. In fact, in this little excerpt, he says embarrassingly few words. My hope would be that if you have ever been like Mary Magdalene at a grave, then would have found someone just like the Master. Someone who did not shirk with embarrassment, someone who said very little and offered you instead big dollops of silence. Maybe a tissue and a high-quality glass of something.

My hope for you is that you have found someone who has walked this rocky road before you, who helped you avoid the potholes, someone who reached out a wounded hand to lift you up, even when all you wanted to do was just lie there and wallow and say its all too hard.

“The one I love has been taken away from me. And I don’t know where he is.”

At least that is how it appears to her and when we have wept and grieved, that is how it appears to us.

Question 2. ‘Who are you looking for?’

Tell me about this person who you have loved so much. What was he like? How did you meet, what was it that endeared him to you? What are your favourite memories of him?

Which should turn and point Mary Magdalene and us towards the rocky, but ever so slightly smoother road of thanksgiving.

My sister, how blessed you were to have known and enjoyed this man who you loved so much. How fortunate you were. How marvellous to have loved so deeply and dearly that you now find yourself in the only viable expression of love, which are your salty and abundant tears.

These lovely questions ‘Why are you weeping?’ and ‘Who are you looking for?’ also apply to us today on Easter Day 2023.

Every time He is not as close as we would like him to be. When he seems separated and distant from us. When the coals of faith have grown cool and grey.

When we simply don’t know where He is?

This is when He comes to us afresh and if we are authentic and credible… if we tell it how it  really is, then he gives us that same invitation to engage with him

Why are you weeping, who are you looking for? And when we have told him everything in no uncertain terms when our grief is spent and our angst is vented when there is nothing left within us and even our tears have run dry. Then he speaks just one word, the same single word he gave to that distraught woman in the early morning gloom all those years ago.

Intimately, tenderly with great affection, He says just one word. He speaks our name. He speaks Your name. Then we will know that we have found him or rather, that He has found us again or maybe he was just there all the time.

When we hear him speak our name...

Then we will truly know: He Is Risen! Alleluia!

Of cranes and apples

I was plucking apples this morning. Years ago someone had the thoughtfulness to plant some apple trees on our nature strip and every year I go and reap the fruit of their ingenuity and foresight.

I’m not sure exactly when the trees were planted but they are fully grown now so probably it was some decades ago. I shall always be grateful for their hard work and vision. There was also an element of selflessness. They would have realised that they may never get to enjoy the fruit themselves. That it would be future generations in the 2020s that got to go ‘Munch Munch, Yum Yum.’

Coincidentally there is a seriously big crane in the churchyard at the moment and work is continuing apace to repair and solidify our massive steeple. We are deeply appreciative to all those who have made this work possible but again, it is future generations that will be able to look back on our minute books and photos and say ‘Boy! They really gave it a red hot go didn’t they?'

All this ‘hidden work’ for future generations got me thinking. What kind of legacy am I leaving behind? As a priest, husband, father and member of our community.

Will future generations congratulate me or curse me? It’s worth doing a bit of a stock take with this. The legacy we leave behind is important. It’s why the conservation and enhancement of our precious island planet are essential. Scientists may wax lyrical about setting up colonies on other planets but would I really want to live there?

So three cheers for our forefathers who built our magnificent church and planted apple trees on the nature strip.  Can you see the ‘cranes and apples’ around you?

He carried the sins of the world.

Glimpses of Gold

This article does not try to pretend that COVID was anything less than abhorrent. People got sick and died. There are those whose health (physical and mental) can never be the same again. People are still being diagnosed and finishing up in ICU to say nothing of the scars of our healthcare workers and those who support them after a long shift or double shift.

But, as is often the case, we learnt lessons of gold in all the manure. We understood again the interdependence of each other and harshly … that you don’t get family back. These are imperative lessons.

And for this little priest guy? My writing skills were stretched and continue to be stretched. I was and am challenged to put the word out there. For a while, the words on a screen or in ink were all I had to offer you.

I need to be honest and say that a goodly proportion of my efforts are duds. Those who can produce sparkling and flawless scribblings week after tedious week are very few. But every so often there will be an unexpected comment from the most unlikely. A gentle word of encouragement. The cheeky question on Facebook or even that standard thumbs-up symbol of ‘like’. The consistent manufacture of words is one of the challenges that COVID smacked me with and it has had a flow-on effect on those who read my words.

If you have persisted here then well done …and Thank you! You may like to reflect on the person you are now, compared to the person you were pre-pandemic. What has changed for you? For the better… for the worse? Are you stronger… more vulnerable… or maybe both? What are your glimpses of gold?

Bishop Stephen writes

This is how he had come to see it –. That God had spent everything to try and create community with his beloved; with us; – through covenants, through prophets – everything except himself. And now, when all was exhausted except for the love from which this world was made there was only one way left: to communicate love in the only language that human beings really understand, the language of human life. And it was in his life and in his death that this new covenant would be spoken.

And now it was no longer about what he said. Nor could it simply be the signs and wonder he performed. Now it was just about what he did:

God was, at last, making good his promise to Abraham. A lamb for the slaughter was being provided. All he had to do now was be that slaughtered lamb whose shed blood saves. And as his forebears had painted the blood of the Passover lamb on the lintels of their doors to ward off approaching death, so his blood poured out on the lintel of this wood –this door between life and death – would save.

This last sacrifice would really be the end of all of that. But now, carrying himself into the inner sanctum, he saw it clearly: it would no longer be necessary for priests to go into the temple year by year to plead to God on humanity’s behalf. There would be no more barriers protecting God’s presence and keeping us out. No more systems deciding who has favour with God and who does not. This blood will be shed for all. It will be the end of it.

He carries to the cross every person and every person’s death. For now, every person’s death will be the only entrance qualification required. There won’t be any other rules. There will be only him: nailed down and lifted up and shining a light through the darkness of death to a banquet where the least and the lost are ushered to the finest seats. And with this, he carried all the wild and lovely hopes of God. He carried the possibility of a new temple, a new covenant and a new relationship. And beyond death, and beyond the rest that is beyond death, he saw a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth. It was as if he were carrying a great table into the banqueting room itself. And now placing chairs around the table. Chair after chair, place after place. A vast multitude of places and everyone knew. There was no anonymity here. Each was separate – a set place for everyone – and each was connected; round and round the table they would sit, each honoured, each reaching out to serve. Can you conceive it? Every person carried, and every person’s death? His heart would break from it. Our minds will reel from it. Our common sense will deny it, but while there is a scrap of possibility that I might find a bit more love in my own feeble heart then surely his heart, fashioned by the heart of God, still beating, can accommodate.

And he carried a new commandment, a new commandment that could be seen in that reciprocity of love that grew around the table – we should love one another with the same love that we see in him. We should expand the dimensions of our hearts. We should let them be filled.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…

For he had also planted a table on earth: one that will abide until through the portal of death we take our place at that other table in the new creation. A table where feet are washed and where hearts are fed. A place of receiving; a place to learn from. Yes, Peter had been there. And so had Judas. They had received the bread. Their feet had been washed. Their hearts would be expanded.

Love one another as I have loved you…

Love your enemies as yourself…

Pray for those who persecute you…

If they are thirsty give them something to drink…

If someone asks for your coat give your cloak as well…

If they force you to walk one mile, walk a second mile as well…

This was what he was walking now: the second mile of love. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

Like a lamb led to the slaughter…

Like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, he did not open his mouth …

He carried the determination that this new commandment should be lived out, demonstrated, here in his dying, no matter how difficult. This was the moment of disclosure, where the risky enterprise of tenacious love would stand or fall. All God’s hopes and all God’s purposes were poured into these hours of passion. This was the place where hate would spend itself. There was no fallback position; no Plan B. So, he forgave those whose dismal duty it was to bang home the nails; and he looked with mercy upon those who spat and scoffed and struck out. Not because it was a duty laid upon him, but because he carried in his heart the ways of love. There was no other way.

He carried his followers’ disappointments.

They thought he was going to be a different sort of king.

Heaven knows, he had tried. He had tried to etch eternity into the stubborn humanity of those who followed him, but now nearly all of them have abandoned him. Through eyes smarting with grief and narrowed by pain, he looks out to see who will listen to the truth that is revealed in his death and there is hardly anyone there: just John, faithful, beloved John. He is still standing. He can also see his mother. She is bent over in grief, her body shaking with tears. Now and then her eyes reach upwards, searching out his gaze. He looks at her. But for once he cannot tell what she is thinking.

Several other women are also there. They seem better equipped to deal with pain than the men. They comfort each other. They hold him in their gaze and he is comforted. His gaze holds them in return. They stand under the cross and they find understanding. Perhaps this is the only way.

His disciples have gone. The shepherd has been struck and the sheep have scattered. Even Peter: pig-headed, big-hearted, bird-brained Peter. He had seen who Jesus was, but he had still got it wrong.

And, no, at that time, he didn’t know when, and, yes, he was still struggling to know why, but he also carried the knowledge that he was somehow to be the fulfilment of all God had longed to do through Israel.

That he was a second Adam revealing a new humanity.

That he was a second Moses revealing a new covenant.

And he shuddered with the memory of all the struggle, the torment and the raging against God that had led to this most scandalous and blasphemous conclusion being the truth: that God was in him, and that his purpose was the purpose of God. And how, when you can’t fully understand it yourself, are you supposed to tell it to others? Stories and riddles and signs seemed to be the only way. You couldn’t persuade people to believe it. You had to wait till the penny dropped. And it was achingly slow.

They were only prepared to go so far. They followed him when he was rebuking the religious leaders for their hypocrisy and cant. They followed him when he fed the multitudes. They followed him when it seemed to them he was a conquering leader. They followed him because they believed he was the Messiah. But they stopped following when they found out what a Messiah really is.

Then they fled. Like a sudden change in the weather, when the promise of a bright day is overtaken by thunderclouds and rain, they were gone. And Peter himself, who had promised that if everyone else deserted he would stand firm, had crumbled, like a house built on sand. He even denied he had ever known him.

And Jesus carried with him the knowledge of that moment: looking into Peter’s eyes and seeing the betrayal. And sharing bread with Judas and knowing what he was about to do. And now, almost alone, almost accomplished, wondering: will they ever get it?

He had broken bread with them the night before and given them a way of seeing what the bloody horror of this dying meant, but they are not here to see it; not here to make the connections.

They wanted a different sort of Messiah. He had confounded them, and now they were embarrassed by him and so they had left him. They were somewhere in the shadows. They were nursing their disappointment. Carrying it like a trophy. Complaining about how deceived they had been. Soon they would forget. Or else start saying it was better this way. In years to come, when they were fat and fifty, they would lean back in their chairs and smile at the foolishness of youth.

And this was a terrible thing to carry. The thought of it made him wince and retch. He carried the terrible possibility that it was all in vain. That he could walk at their side forever and never be recognized, never be known; that endless bread would be broken and wine poured out, but incomprehensively as if it were just food. They would go back to how things were. They would forget. They would airbrush out these crazy years, and, clinging to their portentous hopes of empire and power, look out for the next Messiah to deliver them a kingdom of their own.

And then a more terrible thought – something to be carried that drops like a dead weight in the heart – perhaps he had got it wrong? Perhaps he was not just carrying their vanity, but his own? Perhaps that is all he is carrying – just vanity, foolishness and the unerring certainty of his impending death.

But there is one more indignity to carry. The crowd hear the ‘Eli’ of his cry to God and thinks he is saying, Elijah... And they say to one another, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah. Let us see whether Elijah will come and get him down.’

He carries with him the knowledge that even in this moment of utter desolation he is misunderstood. We just don’t get it.

 Of lawns and edges.

I’ve just been out to admire my handiwork. The lawns are all neatly mown and the edges crisply trimmed. It’s a great look and a smug feeling. I feel virtuous and maybe even a little proud, for to do both of these jobs properly takes me about 2 hours.

Of course, there is a line of logic that asks “Why do I bother?” The lawns are only going to grow again and the edges will invariably become unruly and disobedient.

It’s the same logic that folk throw at those who come to worship and use the sacrament of reconciliation. ‘You know you're only going to muck up again, so why are you even bothering? It’s hypocritical to say one thing and then go out and do the opposite.’

Part of the whole Sunday gig is owning up to the past and resolving to try to do better. I know of no one who warms the pews on Sunday who claims to be perfect. Yet all have fronted up to acknowledge their ick and refreshed their verve to raise the bar. Not to turn up, face up and admit the junk would be worse.

And just for a little while, maybe only for a very quick time, we are shiny once again. We are manicured and trimmed according to how the Master wants us to be.  Not the way we would like to be. Often there's a big difference. We do this right thing because it's the right thing.

So I will continue to trim and mow, not just for the good sense of self-satisfaction, but because it is the right thing. And just for a while my little patch is enhanced by my energy and not disfigured by my sloth.