lurchersontheedge

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 37 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Dw i’n hoffi Nadolig. Ond mae’n well gen i Adfent

Mae Adfent yn aros amser

Mae’n rhan o stori Nadolig

Dan ni’n yn paratoi ar gyfer llawer o bethau yn ystod yr Adfent.

Dan ni’n ymweld a theulu

Dan ni’n prynu anrhegion

Dan ni’n prynu bywd hefyd – lotto bwyd

Dan ni’n canu carolau am Mair, Joseff, angylion, breninhoedd a’r bugeiliad.

Dan i’n cofio canu i’r baban Iesu hefyd

Mae’r teulu sanctaidd  yn paratoi hefyd

– at fynd i Bethlehem
– i roi genedigaeth

Dan ni yn cofio hyn

Mae’r Nadolig cyntaf yn ddiddorol

Angylion

Breninhoedd

Bugeiliad

Mae’r teulu santaidd  yn  dianc i Egypt

Heddiw, dan ni’n cofio am y teulion dianc hefyd

(This was my thought for Christmas, first one ever on Radio – and in Welsh with Rhys Mwyn, 7. 12. 2015. I am feeling very pleased)

I had a wonderful day. I have not been on a political rally since opposing the first Gulf War. I am sure there are photos of me with a SWP placard somewhere.

There were a mixture of people. Politicos (Labour/Llafur, Plaid, Greens, a Lib Dem), Anti Fascists, People against Racism, Welsh speakers, English speakers, Church, Chapel, Humanists, Trade Unionists, Young, Old, Middle Aged, Rich, Poor, as well as canines too. There was a party atmosphere. One of the speakers, Kenny Kahn, provided refreshments.

We were there with a coherent message: croeso cynnes i bawb!

And somewhere deep within, I am beginning to ask…. why isn’t the Church more like this? I wonder if I am afraid that I already know the answer

It was a pleasure to share a platform with Albert Owen, my MP and Leanne Wood, the Leader of Plaid Cymru as we spoke against racism in Llangefni earlier today.

This in the speech I did not quite give. I gave a version of it, but the rain made the paper too sodden and my hands were beginning to turn blue.

Diolch am wahodd ficer Saesneg egsentrig i siarad.

Trwy fy mywyd dw i wedi byw mewn trefi. Mae byw gyda phobl o wahanol ddiwylliannau yn naturiol i mi.

Mi wnes i symud i Fae Trearddur, Ynys Mon o Birmingham, Lloegr yn mis Chwefror 2014, a Dw i’n  dysgu Cymraeg ers 18 mis. Mi fydda i’n siarad yn saesneg rwan.

I have spent most of my life in cities, latterly in Birmingham. People of different cultures coming together is normal for me. Sometimes there have been tensions, but usually scratching the surface, such has been caused by poverty and indeed personal personality clashes rather than by differences in race or religion. One of my son’s closest friends in Birmingham is a Muslim. I got to know Mr Hassan, the father of my son’s friend quite well. We disagreed about religion (I think the reasons for that should be obvious). Most of the time though we were more worried about how to parent children in today’s society, and about the decreasing opportunities for ordinary people. It was surprising how much we agreed on until we learnt to laugh with each other.

I can understand why people are fearful in this time of relative economic difficulty. There is something about human beings that sometimes want to resist change. My parents’ generation struggled with immigration, except they did not really. They embraced the Irish couple living next door and the Polish family on the side of their semi-detatched. What they were afraid of was difference. The Infidels and their friends want to prey on that fear. They do not want to give people the chance to meet and discover our common humanity. To realise that people sing about the same things, share common stories, embrace similar hopes and long for a chance to flourish. To deny another human being the opportunity to do this is both immoral and diminishes our own chances at flourishing too.

I can understand people being worried about the current displacement of people’s and the number of refugees coming into Europe. When people are fearful, the world becomes smaller and the shadow of the unknown hides many things. The current refugee crisis did not cause the events in Paris last week, and evil as those events were – and we should be unafraid of labelling the leaders of Daesh as evil; we cannot offer the people of terror the gift of refusing the hand of friendship to those in genuine need. Daesh wish to wreak havoc and implement darkness. People of goodwill the world over need to allow the light to shine in that darkness. I am going ask us to pause and keep a moments stillness as we remember the victims of Paris, Mali, Syria and beyond.

Tarnishing all Muslims with the same brush as Daesh is simply unintelligent. It is akin to assuming that as a Church in Wales priest am akin to a member of the Klu Klux Klan. I am not, I hasten to add.

The nations of the United Kingdom have by tradition always been welcoming. Not always, we should admit that. Welcome is not easy. It is costly. At a personal level it is demanding. But it is a price usually well worth paying. Not to welcome is to seal up our borders, putting up the sign ‘no room at the inn’, which comes from a story that I know well. This is not saying that we should not take appropriate measures to defend ourselves and our children; simply that to turn all away is to dehumanise ourselves. Those who do not want to support diversity recreate history in their own image, imagining a time when Britain stood alone and isolated; in my church in Holyhead there is a plaque to the Dutch Navy who defended these shores. Many of those soldiers settled in my town. Their contribution was vital to the freedom that was gained, and all the more welcome given that the Netherlands had been overrun by the Nazi State.

My late Uncle was one of the few, serving proudly alongside personnel from all corners of the Commonwealth. Never have such a diverse group been understood by so many as so few. We need to learn our history once again. Extending the hand of welcome is not unpatriotic, it is human and resonates with all that has made the different nations of the British Isles beacons of hope.

In Birmingham, I got to know someone called Steve (not his real name). He was from Zimbabwe. He was an officer in the Royal Zimbabwean Air Force, until he disobeyed the orders of Robert Mugabe. Steve knew more about standing up to facism and its costs than most of today. I am proud that he was made welcome in the UK.

For people to integrate fully, they need to be welcomed unconditionally. It takes time, even I know that as an Englishman living in the different nation of Wales.

As a Christian leader, I am also aware that the message I believe in, demands justice, integrity, grace, truth and worships a God who in Jesus was a refugee fleeing with Mary and Joseph for his life.

It was inconvenient to make room for that Middle Eastern family such a long time ago.

Our inconvenience today is nothing when compared to the journeys refugees continue to make to flee oppression. We welcome them. We are shaped by them, and we shape them; and the world is brighter because of it.

My poppy was multi-coloured.

Actually it was not, I wore a red one, which somehow doubled in size upon my arrival at Church.

I am happy to wear a red poppy because for me I acknowledge the sacrifice of the men and women of the armed forces. I also acknowledge the no lesser sacrifice of civilians. I am saddened if the poppy only means the former, and horrified if it does not include the fallen of our allies and indeed our enemies.

I would have been happy to wear a white poppy too. But the reasons for me choosing not to are also complex. I was too nervous. I also respect enormously the naval history of my new home, and red poppy is at home here.

Wearers of red and white poppies have been like two different sets of football supporters this week. The whites have claimed that the reds do not want to work for peace. This neglects the fact that the wearing of a particular colour may not be any sort of statement. Mavis (not her real name) wears one to remember Len (not his real name), Kevin (…) to remember Stuart (…). It also disregards the fact those wearing them are deeply committed to peace. Christians who wear them anyway owe their allegiance to a different kingdom 🙂

The Reds claim the whites disrespect history and courage. That neglects the fact of the countless number of conscientious objectors who went or were sent to the front serving in ambulance crews and alongside chaplains. These people also exhibited extraordinary bravery.

Had I known about the purple poppy I may have been happy to wear one too.

The key thing of course is not the poppy but the remembering…. and in the remembering to commit oneself to working for peace.

Arglwydd Dduw Ein Tad,
tynghedwn ein hunain
i’th wasanaethu di a’r holl ddynol-ryw,
yn achos heddwch,
er diddymu angen a dioddefaint,
ac er moliant i’th enw.
Arwain ni trwy dy Ysbryd;
dyro i ni ddoethineb,
dyro i ni ddewrder,
dyro i ni obaith;
a chadw ni yn ffyddlon
yn awr a byth. Amen

Walking with different partners now. Samwise and Ted are the new team. Pippin and Frodo were great. I miss them. They understood me more than I knew, and there was a sense that we had journeyed together. I enjoy walking with Samwise and Ted. It is though sometimes a chore, I think that is inevitable Samwise is 3 and Ted just 1, whereas the other two were older.

I am having to learn about the moods of my new companions and they have to learn about mine.

Then when I think a little more, Frodo and Pippin were new once. We had to learn about each other, and surprised each other until the end. Frodo went first of course, and Pippin later.

As with dogs, so too with people: learning about rhythm and pace, the smell and tastes of seasons enables you to walk together.

It enables silence and stillness.

That will come. For now it is doing together what we think we might enjoy and learning to linger together over different smells and not forcing the past to encroach too much on the present.

She saw a cat that was not there. I agreed that it was beautiful and asked her its name.

Mum, like many others, slips in and out of lucidity. Sometimes memories are fuzzy. She can remember my Gran vividly at the point where she was herself a child, and seemingly not quite figure out who I am. Then again it must be difficult to see a middle aged man and connect it with the child you carried and nursed.

As I drove around my home town on Tuesday, I think I realised I saw things differently too. I see Sheffield through the lens of my childhood eyes. The buses had changed colour (I remember going to town for 1p as a child. Good old Sheffield. I remember Blunkett and Billings: dream team, probably spent too much on the WSG… I had left by then and probably so had they)

The school had changed name too. As had the chippy, where we snuck out each lunchtime for a cob and chips. They were there the teenagers gathered around the shop, and for a moment it was Hancock, Gillott, Garlick and Walshaw (I even manage to fuse different names from different parts of my growing-up hood)

The Pub has closed… and the rickety-rackety shop (Joe Gould’s) has gone: where can you get a penny bag of wine-gums now?

The neighbours had gone too: how did I get this old?

I remember a different estate to the one that is there now: although there are commonalities: friendship, solidarity, community and stories.

Then again, maybe a remember an estate that was never there, as I just about stop at the red traffic light and feel the stares of those looking at me.

Yesterday, I posed the question should we always baptise? I began by saying as a loyal priest within the Church in Wales I never turned people away.

One of the comments made was by someone is becoming a very good friend of mine. She writes from her own perspective.

That almost made me cry. It’s a sad thing that Baptisms are just seen as ‘the done thing’. I will not Baptise my children for I am an atheist, it’s just an excuse for the family to have a knees up and I respect the Christian faith much more than that. My children will be educated and exposed to faiths of all kinds and I will leave the decision in their hands. Those who Baptise their children should do so because they wish their children to follow their faith, to be recognised by God as one of his, to follow in Jesus’ teachings and for the Godparents to guide them through Christianity. There are other naming ceremonies that are better suited to having a knees up with the family and placing extra responsibilities on favoured friends and relatives that do not take Christianity in vain. I think you should be allowed to say to people that they are not committed enough to Christianity to be eligible for Baptism. Perhaps then it can get back to being the sacred ceremony it should be and not just a fashion statement!

I write hesitantly, as I find myself in complete agreement with my friend’s comments. I realise now that I baptise to engage in mission. Baptism used to be as a result of mission occurring.

I am perhaps a little further away this evening from good baptismal praxis.