The Parish of St George, Stockport, with St Gabriel, Adswood

I just heard about a very rich man who collects art.  He has built himself an underground bunker to house all the paintings in.  They are on display in this underground gallery, but you can only see them by private invitation.

However we define success, it will inevitably reflect our values.  As the Dalai Lama remarked:”Although humans can manage without religion, they cannot manage without inner values” – values that will reflect our hopes and fears, our judgements and expectations and our relationship with ourselves and with other people.

British rapper, A J Tracy, may not be someone you have heard of – especially if you are over a certain age.  He reached No 2 in the charts when he appeared with Stormzy – you must have heard of him! – on the single “Ain’t it Different.”  He’s just pledged £40,000 a year for three years to attract and support students from ethnic minorities at St. Peter’s College, Oxford.  Modest if you are a billionaire, but a significant gesture.

A man left seventeen camels to his three sons.  He left half the camels to his first son, a third to his second and a ninth to the third.  Not able to negotiate a solution – because seventeen could not be divided by two or three or nine – the sons consulted a wise old man.  After pondering on the the question, he said,  “I don’t know if I can help you, but at least take my camel.”

The sons now had eighteen camels.  The first son took his half – that made nine.  The second took his third – six – and the third took his ninth – two.  Nine and six and two made seventeen.  They now had one camel left over, which they returned to the old man.

A Harvest Reflection

Yes, tins and packets for Wellspring to save lives.  But no smell of harvest to uplift the soul.  No bright apples and squashes to gladden the eye.  No sheaves of corn to remind us of our daily bread .  To keep us in touch with the earth.

Surrounded by bricks, concrete and tarmac, our lives dominated by traffic and planes overhead.  Creatures of the earth, coming from the earth and returning to it.  Dependent on the soil, yet distancing ourselves from it. 

Plastic bagged apples and potatoes.  Cucumbers tightly wrapped.  Tomatoes in a tub.    Hygienic and convenient.  Clean and perfect.  Not an ugly fruit, or off centre vegetable among them.

“Pick up the windfalls, they are the sweetest apples.  Just cut out the grub and the bit where the bird has pecked it.”  Two children in stocking feet emerge from the potato field. Their wellies full of potatoes.  “Look what we’ve found.”  Discovery in the dirt.

Fields, gardens, allotments.  The smell of damp earth. Digging, sowing, gathering from garden, tree and hedge.  Coal miners tending primulas in smoky back yards.  An instinct to connect.

Daily thanks for our daily bread.  For the fruits of the earth.  The fruits of labour across the globe. 

Chris Dawson

Last Friday we went to see the film Fisherman’s Friends: One and All.  It’s the second film made about the Fisherman’s Friends musical group from Port Isaac on the North Cornwall coast.  Though it’s a fictional story, it’s based on real people and real events. 

The Friends started singing traditional folk songs and sea shanties down at Port Isaac harbour back in 1995 just for the fun of it and to entertain anyone who cared to stop and listen.  They all have their day-jobs and they say that their friendship comes first and the music second.

The music is handed down and traditional.  It comes from living close to the sea and the land.  Port Isaac, with its narrow winding streets and alleyways is the epitome of closeness and community.  The scenery is gently spectacular, with the cosy harbour, seascape and rolling hills.

This Cornish idyll, though temporarily disturbed by a falling out between the friends through the pain of a bereavement, chimes with something deep inside us.  A desire for  community.  To belong and to connect. 

Though we live in an age when we can live and work anywhere in the world, we are still social animals.  We want to be connected.  Hence  social media and the constant presence of our mobile phones.  Yes, they can connect us.

But real community is about living, working, sharing, suffering, supporting and rejoicing together.  It is allied to the African concept of Ubuntu championed by Desmond Tutu: “I am because you are.”

Chris Dawson

A man went into a pet shop.  He asked the man behind the counter, “Do you sell wasps?” “No.”  “Well, you’ve got one in the window!”

Did you smile at this joke, or did you groan?  We all have our own sense of humour.  Our mood matters too.  When life is hard, it can be very difficult for all of us to see the funny side of things.  Yet laughter, or even a smile can lift  our spirits.

Just pretending to smile can change our mood.  Try it.  Look in the mirror and pretend to smile.  See what happens.  Often statues of the Buddha show him with a smile on his lips.  This is not accidental.  They learned two and a half thousand years ago that changing our physiology changes our mental state.

Laughter is also a release.  Physically it enables us to expand, to breathe more fully. It can also  expand our way of seeing things, put things in perspective and help us to take life less seriously.   It opens us up to possibilities

Laughing together also connects us.  As the pianist and comedian Victor Borge put it,  “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people”.

Possibilities, change, connection.  Isn’t that what much of Jesus’ teaching is about?  We don’t hear much about Jesus laughing – though Canadian artist Willis Wheatley has depicted him doing so.  Nor do we hear of him telling jokes – but he might smile at this one:

Communicating with God

A poster in a French church advises: 

When you enter this church it is possible that you may hear the call of God.  However, it is unlikely that He will call you on your mobile, so please turn off your phone.

If you want to talk to God, come in, choose a quiet place and talk to him.

If you want to see Him, try sending a text when you are driving.

[With thanks to The Pump, a community magazine covering four villages in Herefordshire]

Chris Dawson

We were driving up the hill just outside Whitchurch on the A49 when I had the thought, “everything runs out of steam”.  Not, at first glance, a particularly profound thought.  But as I reflected, it did seem that it did apply to “everything”.

Not just cars, but human beings, organisations, cultures, countries, the universe, they all need an input of energy to keep going and eventually they collapse and die.  I remembered that there was a word for it.  We struggled to remember what it was.  On the other side of Whitchurch we remembered.  The word is “entropy”.

As my engineer brother-in-law reminded us when we arrived at our destination, entropy is one of the laws of thermodynamics – put simply, not enough thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work.  Yes, “running out of steam”!  It seems to me that when we are uncertain we run out of steam – uncertainty undermines our energy and our capacity for action.

How do we live with uncertainty and impermanence? For that is what it is.  The very nature of life is “impermanence”.   We tend to see it negatively.  The day after her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral a newspaper headline declared: The End of the Elizabethan Age.  Will tomorrow’s paper’s headline say: The Start of the Age of Charles III? 

Impermanence enables possibilities, possibilities for change, growth and renewal.  Otherwise all would be fixed.  As St Benedict urged his monastics, “Keep death daily before your eyes”, but get on with life.  Or in the words of St Teresa of Avila:  “Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, Everything is changing, God alone is changeless.”  Changeless but, I think open to possibilities.

Chris Dawson

“Everything is changing round here.”  I was walking about half a mile from our house to collect a Stockport County Supporters’ calendar for the new season.  I went past large Victorian villas and rows of semis and terraces.  Houses for the middle classes and for the workers in the mills and Carrington’s hat works.

In that short time I passed four houses that had been corner shops, a working men’s club that is now a Life Centre church, a row of houses that was once the Southlands Hotel and the facade of the historic Adswood Hotel behind which a housing complex is being built.

It was not so much the thought that hit me as the feeling that went with it.  Into my head came the line, “Change and decay in all around I see,” which is, of course from Henry Francis Lyte’s hymn, Abide with Me.  I’ve always thought of it as a morbid and negative view of the world.  And here I was singing it to myself.

Living with change is life, but we have a tipping point.  I think I had, even if only temporarily, reached that point and was looking for a bit of certainty and stability. We’d emerged from the Covid pandemic a bit battered and bruised.  Now there was a war in Ukraine, the on-going climate crisis, a long drawn-out process to choose a new Prime Minister, and worries about how people would pay their escalating energy bills.

As if these challenges were not enough, that symbol of continuity and stability, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died last week.  It seems to me, that, as we mourn her passing, we are also mourning all the other losses, sadnesses and griefs that we are and have been experiencing.

“Oh thou who changest not, abide with me.”

Chris Dawson

Last Sunday it was my turn to lead the prayers at the 10.15 service.   We have the readings in advance so that we can reflect on these passages of scripture.  They, in turn, can inform our prayers.  It’s good to have a jumping off point.

I tend to favour fairly short prayers and not to set the scene and list the people and places we are praying for.  I always fear that I will leave someone or something out.  But probably that doesn’t matter as God probably already knows people and places and difficulties and dilemmas before we even ask.

So is prayer about asking and telling?  Is God a bit like a dispensing machine and we put in a request and out comes the answer?  I started to reflect on these questions as I prepared my prayers.  Perhaps because two of the scripture readings I found a bit tricky to shape my prayers around.

I remembered my years in Catholic Ireland and how they would tell me to pray to St. Anthony when I lost my keys, or some other saint if I wanted success in another sphere.  So I could pray to a saint, or to the Virgin Mary, or to Jesus, as well as to God – perhaps depending upon what I wanted.

But was this how I saw prayer?  I decided that prayer for me is something to do with ‘connection’, connection with myself, connection with other people, connection with God.  And that would require ‘attention’, and attention is the greatest gift I can give – to myself, to others and to God.

Chris Dawson

So how was your Summer?  Did you get that break?  Was it a time of refreshment, renewal and inspiration?  Or a downer and a disappointment?

In the third week in August A level results were, as usual, being trailed in the media.  There would be less A grades than in the previous two years – to prevent ‘grade inflation’, not because the students were any less able, or had less potential.  The same would be true for the GCSE results the following week.  And so it proved.

We can become caught up in notions of ‘success’ and ‘failure’, of ‘good luck’ and ‘bad luck’, of ‘things going well’  and ‘things going badly’.

A number of years ago something went wrong with the A level Maths results and many students didn’t get the grade they expected.  Not only were they disappointed, many were unable to go to the university of their choice.  I often wonder what happened to them.  Was it so bad?  For how many of them was it the best thing that happened in their lives?

A Chinese peasant farmer had one horse to help him with his work.  One day it escaped and ran away.  His neighbours commiserated with him.  “You’ll have such hard work without a horse to pull and carry things for you.”  That’s such bad luck.  “Maybe.  We’ll see”, said the farmer.  Sometime later the horse re-appeared and with him a small herd of horses.  “All those horses. You’re so lucky,” said the neighbours.  “Maybe” said the farmer.  His son was breaking-in one of the horses, fell off and broke his leg.  “Oh dear, you’ll struggle without his help.  That’s such bad luck,” they commented.  “We’ll see,” said the farmer.  A war broke out and all the young men were called up for military service.  “ Your son won’t be able to go and fight.  How lucky you are.”   “Maybe.  We’ll see,” said the farmer………

……Jesus of Nazareth – success or failure, inspiration or disappointment?

Chris Dawson

Presland’s Fair came every year for the first Saturday in July, for the Flower and Produce Show in Carter’s Meadow.  The fair, the plants, the flower arrangements, the biggest beans, the certificates and the rosettes were all part of the day out.  A good chat too with friends and neighbours and people you only saw once a year.  A cup of tea or a pint round the corner might end the day, unless you wanted to ride the chairoplanes into the night.

Not so long ago that’s what a holiday was.  A day when the community celebrated.  Most people didn’t get away.  Indeed there were some who only ever travelled to town and back occasionally on the bus and a few who never left the village in their whole life.  Going away on holiday would never have crossed their mind – or suited their purses.

Holidays started, of course, as religious celebrations.  Holy Days celebrating not only the church’s major festivals, but also the patron saint of your church.  They began with a vigil – ‘keeping awake’ – and the fun and games came afterwards. The fairs and dancing, pancake races and cheese rolling, these gradually became the main activities.

A change, a break in our daily rhythm can help to renew and restore us, to help us feel whole again, more complete, more connected – Holy, if you like. Rose Queen crownings and celebrations. Sunday School outings to the seaside. Wakes Week trips to Blackpool to breathe in the sea air and have fun. 

So, gradually, days out with people from our community, became a week’s stay.  Blackpool became Benidorm, Tenby became Thailand and a row on the boating lake has become a cruise. 

So whatever your holiday has become, I wish you well. Whether at home or abroad, sunbathing or snoozing, with family, friends or strangers, may your holiday be holy and restore you to yourself.

Chris Dawson

Did you know that there is a United Nations International Day of Friendship?  I didn’t.  It’s coming up on July 30.  I came across it by accident and it set me thinking.  The Day was declared in 2011 by the UN General Assembly with the idea that friendship between peoples, countries, cultures and individuals can inspire peace efforts and build bridges between communities.

The Day places emphasis on involving young people in community activities that include different cultures and promote international understanding and respect for diversity.  A great aim, but I found myself nearer home and wondering what the nature of friendship is.  In answer to the question I found myself with a string of words and phrases:

Support, sharing, joys and sorrows, listen to, be listened to, relate to, someone I like, a mate, someone I can turn to, ring up or message, can be myself, lots of laughter, encouragement, rejoicing in each others’ successes , tolerance and space to disagree, respect for each other.

You can probably think of more, but this list shows how active and dynamic friendship is if it is to be kept alive.  It’s an on-going relationship that has to be nurtured and watered.   Is it not an element in any life partnerships we commit to?  You might say that friendship can ‘oil the wheels’ of those commitments.

As reported in John’s Gospel (15:12), Jesus is pretty challenging about friendship.  He urges his disciples to love one another as he has loved them and says:”Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  It would seem that friendship is an act of service.   As Richard Gillard’s hymn goes, “Brother, sister, let me serve you….”

Chris Dawson