Well it is the holiday season again. Hopefully, this year we will see more clement weather than we have seen previously. For, there is no doubt about it, holidays are far better with holiday sunshine!

 

Yet there must be more to days away from our daily toil, than just enjoying warmth and fresh air. Since real breaks also involve thinking just what is important in our journeying.

 

Now as a frequent visitor to National Trust and other stately homes on holiday, I often get ‘on the chat’ with the various room attendants who must guard the many treasures on display. And what an interesting ‘crew’ they tend to be! Take for example, the lady who had installed the latest green power generation system in her Yorkshire house or the one who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of weekend house parties in the 20’s. However, none can rival the guide who informed me, when I had planked myself down in a window seat at Sandringham, that ‘The Queen also likes to sit there’!

 

Indeed, every holiday encounter is a reminder that when we are relaxed and at leisure there is no better time to share companionship in the way that Christ would want us too. Because that is the time-honoured way of the pilgrim; or as a prayer in Ely Cathedral goes:

 

God of pilgrimage, be with me on

My journey through life;

Guard and defend me,

Shelter and feed me,

Challenge and inspire me,

Teach me and lead me,

And when my journey has ended

Welcome me home at last -

To rest in your love forever.

 

May these words go with you wherever you may roam this summer.

 

Dear friends,

Well, our new ‘term’ at St Luke’s has started off with a bang! Already we have enjoyed our Art & Craft Exhibition, reconsidered how we use our gifts from God in our Stewardship Campaign and held another most enjoyable film night and camping weekend. Of course, our Guild will soon start up with a superb programme of talks and fellowship. Nevertheless, we must never forget that which makes our companionship unique and that is its spiritual dimension. To that end, I have preached a sermon series on ‘called to be’ and am preparing to talk about the Reformation over a number of Sundays.  Similarly, I have got around, at long last, to launching the Emmaus Christian Course; this is a series of studies primarily aimed at those wanting develop their faith as well as new Christians and those inquiring into what we believe and stand for. And, needless to say, our Sunday School and Youth group are also off to a cracking start.

However, this autumn we must not lose sight of our own personal walk with God; an aspect of ourselves that we can easily forget through tiredness, busyness and distractions. I know that when life is hectic, it is often my inner meeting up with Christ that gets scored out of the diary. And this was the very point made by our Elder who preached at the Elders’ Service in August (sermon included in this edition of ‘The Notes’). For Elaine most appositely reminded us of the need to be quiet and know again our friend, Saviour and Creator. In fact, it is this very need to close down to the world and open up to God’s Spirit that prompted me to getting back to listening to the audio meditations from www.pray-as-you-go.org.

However, if you are less ‘techie’, don’t worry! There is plenty of material around to help focus the mind on the true essentials of life. Perhaps a few minutes pondering a verse from the Bible are all you need to drink deep from the fountain of spiritual refreshment. Because there is no doubt that scripture, thoughtful, prayerfully and intelligently used, is as Ezekiel describes “But the river itself, on both banks, will grow fruit trees of all kinds. Their leaves won’t wither, the fruit won’t fail. Every month they’ll bear fresh fruit because the river from the Sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”

Let me then leave you with a morning prayer, to help you towards having a spiritually rewarding day:

O light of light, O Dayspring bright,

Co-equal in thy Father’s light:

Assist us, as with prayer and psalm

Thy servants break the nightly calm.

All darkness from our minds dispel,

And turn to flight the hosts of hell:

Bid sleepfulness our eyelids fly,

Lest overwhelmed in sloth we lie.

Jesu, thy pardon, kind and free,

Bestow on us who trust in thee:

And as thy praises we declare,

O with acceptance hear our prayer.

O Father, that we ask be done,

Through Jesus Christ, thine only Son,

Who, with the Holy Ghost and thee,

Doth live and reign eternally.

With every blessing

Graham

	Emmaus Christian Course Tuesdays @ 2 p.m. Choir Room Come along and ask for yourself

This weekend I enjoyed being part of millionaires’ country house party. Not a real one – you understand. But a rather clever way of dressing up a tour of the National Trust’s Upton House near Banbury. As each visitor arrived, we were greeted as your Grace, your Worship etc by a lady in flapper-esque attire and assured that our servants would be already unloading your luggage, placing jewellery in the strong room and when we needed to dress for dinner. Complete with interjections from an accompanying ‘Lady Londonderry’, we then went round the house hearing not just what the weekend activities would consist of (cricket on the lawn, hunting in the season, dinner at 8.30….) but learning something of the house’s owner the founder of the Shell Oil Company. Occasionally, you had to reassure the ‘hostess’ that your valet had told the butler what wines you drank and that you had seen the latest decor in the Savoy. Even the cocktails were described with the ‘earthquake’ apparently being a la mode. This concoction of every alcohol under the sun was said to leave you in a such a state that an earthquake could occur and you wouldn’t care!

Roll holiday on to today when I was watching a video in the very poorly advertised Museum of Oxford. In it, Tony Robinson’s voice acclaims a 17th Century painting of river traffic on the Cherwell. He then remarks that it was a bit like someone painting a junction on the M40 today. A point I mulled over as I meandered back through Cornmarket Street where a beautiful lath and timber house – now a fast food outlet is cheek and jowl with a 60’s Stalinist box in the ‘Woolworths’ style.  For the questions that must be asked are– what should we be preserving of our culture for future generations? How should we be keeping buildings and customs and even the trivialities of 21st Century safe? Indeed, what will bring our world alive to those who visit it from the future ?

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to learn the computer language that lies behind websites. And what better place to learn it than on a computer? Because, there are some great online tutorials. However, I hadn’t expected to find on one of them sage advice as well. However, half way through a course with W3schools.com, I came across this gem of wisdom:

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’

Now there is real language that can span the globe!

(You can find w3schools.com by clicking here)

Well, its that time of year when I need to pick what to take on holiday in the way of books. In fact, I put it that way – ‘take’ rather than ‘take to read’ on the grounds that most of the tomes will return unopened.  Sometimes, they don’t interest me. Others I just don’t get round too. But there is an interesting class of literature that gets packed in the caravan firmly with the intention of never seeing the light of day until we return. And what are these unwanted travelling companions? Usually books that I feel I should read. That means either high literature – dusty Victorian volumes that forced humanity to invent television – or some worthy works from work. The later consist of either textbooks from student days or the tatty efforts picked up in charity stalls for a song which unfortunately never gets sung. In the end, I tend to over estimate the time I will spend reading and my rate of eye scanning. Moreover, I certainly over estimate my ‘stickability’ to soldier through page upon page, classic or not, fully aware that my only motivation is feel good at reaching the last one.

Bearing in mind life and memory is finite and that my mental stamina for the great works left me in my teens – what will I take on holiday? More’s the point what will I actually read on holiday? Whilst, I think about that – let me know your summer reading list …..

Luke 10.1-9

Acts 3.1-10

Not so long ago Black & Decker were preparing for a large promotional campaign. And to get the angle just right for their advertising, they sent out market researchers to find what ‘Joe Soap’ actually wanted. They returned with the discouraging news that people didn’t want drills they wanted holes. In other words, they weren’t interested in power tools only what they can do for them.

Now that was not a surprising discovery really. Few of us get on a bus to have a ride in a Van Hool special – we get on to go somewhere. And here is an important point for the church. Because it is often said that those in church don’t want to evangelise others they just what full and vibrant services. On the other hand, those outside Christianity don’t want uninvited missionaries selling them religion on their door-steps. Where then is the answer?….

To read the full sermon, please click here.

A long time ago I heard a comment that froze me to the marrow. It came from a neighbour after the deaths of family members in a car accident. She said – we have had so many good times together that now we must pay for them. The implication was that there was some celestial bank book of happiness and misery. Have too much of one and you were bound to have a dollop of the other in some mystical accounts balancing act.

Well, whether you think that way is up to you. However, there may be a grain of truth in this pessimism. And it is this. If life is to enjoyable and fun and fulfilling then we need to love someone. When the time of parting comes – a fact made inevitable by our biology – then the result is loss and bereavement. From that stark viewpoint there is an natural reckoning. Yet, surely, there must be more? For if we are more than molecules and human life more than a pre-programmed struggle to survive then there is a higher plane; a place where personality and creativity and love have a very real existence, a place where these humanities lie beyond the mortality of the material world and a place we might call by a very ancient name – Heaven.

Having a look at my Flickr photo sharing statistics recently had a few surprises for me. Because the pictures that have a great audience early on often fade into obscurity. Instead, its the slow seller with a few looks a week that seems to build and build into an evergreen product. And when you analyse their appeal, usually the are an ordinary photo of an object that interests people or that they have a reason for looking at; an old glider (sailplane to our American cousins), a quiet village street or even a vintage cider farm’s cart for example. In the end, they all sell!

This is also true of ideas – religious ones as well as secular thoughts. If an idea has appeal and is needed by someone to get through a problem then they will be used. Maybe not by many but they will sell in the end.

Now there is a thought for those who say thinking is dead. After all, in this age of austerity why not treat yourself today to a new idea. Actually they don’t sell well because they are free!

Have you noticed how quickly time is passing these days. It seems that our Christmas presents were only being unwrapped yesterday. Even the interminable days of winter seems a thing of the past. And so, the weeks rotate at an almost breath-taking pace.

Well they say its a sign of old age. But there may be more true in this cliché than most. For, we judge the length of our journeys in life by the number and quality of landmarks we pass. In youth, everything is new and fresh and exciting. Can’t you recall the first date … the first important exam result.. the first… And so the weeks passed through a landscape of highs and lows which remember for all the right and wrong reasons. But when we get older, few events are new or challenging or refreshing. In fact,  as the years pass, we become like a ship at sea. For when we look back we see only a rapidly fading wake and a bland horizon.

What’s to be done? Time for finding a new challenge, a new venture and new discovery. Time to really look at the landscape around and then start to landscape the future. For then, life’s journey returns from sea voyage to alpine walk even of it is a bit of a hike!

John 14.1-7

Colossians 1.15 – 20

It is a strange story – it is a moving story – it is a story that hits you between the eyes and stops you in your tracks. It is a story that has so much to ask us today.

Because, just recently I was told of a middle aged German who visited Auschwitz a couple of years back. He was looking at the various photographs when became very agitated. When they eventually got him calmed down, he managed to explain that he was looking at a picture of the unloading ramp at the concentration camp. It was there that a SS officer decided who was to live and who was to die. Behind him in the photo was a SS guard taking down the decisions. That man was his father. Now, the visitor went on to explain, that his father would never say what he had done in the war and taken his secret to the grave. They then asked him – what had his father done after the war……….

To read the full sermon please click on:

Broughtystlukes