St George and St Gabriel, Stockport

I caught up recently with a friend for our annual meet-up. We worked at the same school for part of our careers, some 30 years ago. We ate, we walked, we talked. We caught up with family news and reminisced. In the course of our conversation, she asked me, “ What was the highlight of your career?” and I couldn’t give an answer.

Strangely, I had been reflecting on this topic after hearing, not for the first time, that the owner of X (formerly Twitter!) is the richest man in the world. I suppose that most of us would describe that as “an achievement”. And into my head had come the question, “What is your greatest achievement?” Again, I didn’t have an answer.

On further reflection, I realised that the word “achievement” was taking me down the path of “doing”, rather than “being”. Then it clicked, the highlights of my career and of my life are many – even daily – in there amongst the challenges and the downturns. And they are all about “being”. All about relationship. How I am with myself and how I am with other people.

Theologian Paul Tillich famously described God as “the ground of being”. Jesus taught us that it was through a loving relationship with ourselves and with our neighbour that we connect with that ground of our being.

Chris Dawson

Unlock Democracy reports that recent polling in the UK reveals that 20% of adults aged between 18 and 44, would prefer a government led by a strong leader, who doesn’t have to “bother” with elections. They would prefer that to a democracy.

Where we see such leaders, they suggest they have all the answers. They often denigrate those who have other views. They also want to hang on to power, and often do so, at any price and often by any means, regardless of the rights of others.

So, what do we want from our leaders?

In the Church Times of 3 January, a full page is given over to ex-President Jimmy Carter, who died recently aged 100. It’s not his presidency that takes precedence in these appreciations, but his humanity and his lifelong commitment to human rights, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

And where did that commitment to humanity come from? When he took the oath of office to become the 39th US President, he did so on a family Bible open at Michah 6:8 : “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

The outgoing US Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said, “Jimmy Carter served as our commander-in-chief for four years, but he served as the beloved, unassuming Sunday school teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, for 40. And his humble devotion leaves us little doubt which of those two important roles he prized the most.”

Chris Dawson

On Sunday we heard about John baptising people in the Jordan and calling people to repentance and a new life. According to Matthew, John turns some people away – the Pharisees and Sadducees. Groups who were very much part of the establishment. He tells them to “bear fruit that befits repentance.”

As we left the morning service, men, women and children, dressed in their finest, with babes in arms, were being welcomed into church – a baptism party. Not regulars at St. George’s, but members of the community who had asked for a ceremony to be performed .

Symbols and symbolic acts are important. Rituals too. Like stories they connect us to other people, to the groups and communities we belong to and to society at large. Parents of newly born babies often used to talk of having him or her “done”, meaning baptised or christened. They wanted something formal to make things complete.

Even though, in John’s terms, baptism means consciously letting go the old way of being and embracing the new, does it matter that for many, it’s more of a naming ceremony? More akin to a school prom, or an 18th birthday. Or, through the ritual, has the baby been blessed in some way, formally welcomed into the world and the Christian community?

Chris Dawson

We couldn’t find the remote to get my son’s television working. I went on line and found one at Argos. Even though it was late afternoon, it would be delivered the next day. I chose the morning slot and, at 7.0 am the next morning, there it was outside our flat door.

Modern life is lived at speed. We are encouraged to “want it now”. I couldn’t say to Argos, “Take your time. The next couple of days will be fine.” And it’s not just in the delivery of goods that we are encouraged to hurry. Many people will have made New Year resolutions and will want to see tangible outcomes as soon as possible.

You can deliver goods quickly, but most of life is a “process”, a journey. Sometimes it flows, sometimes it stalls. Our spiritual journey is particularly like that. It’s a lifetime of travel. Encouraged by the speed of life around us, we can become impatient for enlightenment.

We have just celebrated the coming of the Kings to Bethlehem to visit the Christ Child. On Christmas cards they are depicted in all their finery crossing the desert. An idealised picture. In The Journey of the Magi, T.S.Eliot, depicts it more as a long, slow slog with plenty of challenges on the way:

“'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'”

He goes on to describe just how hard the journey was, till they dropped down into a temperate valley and found the baby. But the journey, the spiritual journey, is not finished. It continues even when they return home, deeply altered by their experience:

“We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.”

Chris Dawson

Our lives are told in stories. The stories we tell ourselves, the stories told to us by others, by newspapers, television, the internet and social media. We are bombarded with stories. Some we listen to, some we ignore, some are soon forgotten. But others make an impression on us. We reflect on them, discuss them, share them with others.

Recently I have been reflecting on how I receive other people’s stories, their tales, reminiscences and memories. Stories are about connection and connection is about listening. I know the theory! But too often I am not really listening. I am preparing to comment, explain, rationalise, speculate, or to top their experience with one of my own.

This time of year is a time when we tell stories. We recall, we reminisce and we remember times past. We make resolutions and tell ourselves how we are going to do things differently in the year to come. Such a time can be a time of connection and fellowship. It can also be a time of disconnection and rivalry.

The Christmas story has it all. We move through the joy of Jesus’ birth, shared and celebrated by the shepherds and honoured by the Magi, to the insecurity of Herod, the flight into Egypt and the murder of the Innocents.

Chris Dawson

After 54 years the Assad regime in Syria has crumbled. Bashar al Assad has fled. Hundreds of political prisoners have been released from the notorious Sednaya gaol. Locked in underground cells, men, women, children and even a toddler, are now free.

Such regimes are often described as “evil”. But what is evil?

On Sunday afternoon I sat in the Savoy cinema watching a film of the André Rieu Christmas concert. Before the concert, smiling couples and groups from all over the world said that it had been a dream of theirs to come to Holland to enjoy this Christmas extravaganza.

And it is an extravaganza, a full-on entertainment. An orchestra, choir, soloists, instrumentalists, dancers and skaters. A huge empty space turned into a theatre for an audience of thousands and, thanks to computer technology, an ever changing winter wonderland.

At first I was irritated when the film flicked backwards and forwards between the performers and members of the audience. Then I relaxed and embraced the shared smiles, laughter, tears, hugs and kisses. People delighted, surprised and joyful. Human beings connected and happy.

The André Rieu experience suggested an answer to the question. Evil, whatever form it takes, always involves a disconnect – from ourselves and from other people. A disconnect from empathy, compassion and love. A connection that can be restored, because “Love came down at Christmas.”

Chris Dawson

Last Friday I spent the day at Bernard Gilpin Primary School in Houghton-le-Spring – now part of Sunderland. Bernard Gilpin, known as the “Apostle of the North”, was a notably caring and hospitable rector of Houghton-le-Spring from 1557 to his death in 1583. He connected with everyone, rich and poor alike, attending generously to their needs.

The primary school that bears his name, though not a church school, walks in his footsteps. It serves a largely poor, working class estate, attending to the needs of its children and their parents with generosity and kindness.

I was there with my friend and colleague Jonathan, on one of our regular visits supporting their focus on well-being and mental health for everyone – staff and children. I spent the day doing Tai Chi with each class and their teacher, from Reception to Year 6. Adults and children together. Tai Chi is really a form of meditation. It involves body and mind in focused attention.

Back at St. George’s, on my way to choir practice for the Advent Carol Service, I looked at the Christmas trees. Close to the organ was one which drew attention to the support available in Stockport for supporting well-being and mental health. I picked up one of the leaflets. It suggested five ways to maintain well-being:connect with people, get active, learn something new, carry out acts of kindness, appreciate the moment.

In the vestry were thirty two people aged from 6 to 90, older helping younger and younger helping older. Soon they would be concentrating as they sang. There in the present moment. Like the staff and children at Bernard Gilpin, I think they were fulfilling those five aspects of good mental health and well-being – without consciously realising it.

Chris Dawson

I drew up behind a car at some traffic lights yesterday and in my headlight I saw it was called an Avensis. I don’t remember the brand of car, but the name stuck with me. I remember reading an article once that said that car makers pay out tens of thousands of pounds to specialist companies to come up with names for their new vehicles.

I suppose they are trying to find a name that sums up the particular characteristics of that car, or link it into a family of cars. Some of these names are very familiar. They have been around for years and really do sum up the appearance and style of a particular vehicle – none better than the Volkswagen Beetle. Though officially it was the Volkswagen Type 1.

Comedians used to use catchphrases too – do they still? Something that you would instantly associate with them. I’m going back a bit, but a few come back to me from my younger days. Arthur Askey used always to begin with, “Hello Playmates” and end with “I thank yew”. Northern Irish comedian Jimmy Cricket, would always follow a joke up with a grin and “And there’s more”.

I’m not suggesting that the vicar begins every sermon with a catchphrase. Though it might grab attention and bring a smile to people’s faces. But what is our catchphrase as Christians? Something that makes the Christian message instantly memorable, that grabs people and draws them in.

Chris Dawson

Matthew is keen to stress Jesus’ inherited legitimacy. He lists generation after generation of Jesus’ forefathers to confirm his identity. It comes to an end with:

“…Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.”(Matthew 1:15-16)

It’s one way of telling the story.

Baroness Lola Young, an actor, an academic, and an activist for social justice, had no inherited legitimacy. She grew up in care. At the recent Booker Prize presentation, she told of how she was saved by the power of words. She told of how she read, anything and everything, under the bedclothes with a torch, so as not to disturb the four other children and their foster mother Daisy in their basement bedroom. Daisy died when Lola was fourteen. Lola had come to terms with her parents abandoning her at eight weeks old and returning to Nigeria. But Daisy’s death and being sent to a children’s home in Hertfordshire was, in her words “unthinkable”.

It was books that saved her, helped her to cope. To cope with being defined by her colour, by people in authority who hardly knew her, by a precarious domestic situation. It was the power of words that helped her to relate, to survive and to imagine a society where people were free to be who they were.

To underline Jesus’ legitimacy, John too turns to the power of the word – the ultimate word:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

Chris Dawson

Café Hope is a virtual coffee shop on Radio 4.  Rachel Burden invites a guest to join her for a brew and a fifteen minute chat.  Her guests are ordinary people who have done something which has made the world a better place.  Often way beyond what they expected. 

Nigel and his wife were looking forward to their retirement together, but it was not to be.  His wife was diagnosed with cancer and, after a short illness, she died.  At the funeral wake, Ted and two of his friends arranged to meet for breakfast the following week.  Calling themselves The Mostly Grumpy Old Men, they continued to meet weekly.  Others began to join them.  Now over 100 people attend the weekly breakfasts and the idea has spread worldwide.

Dutch supermarket Jumbo have introduced a Kletskassa – a chat checkout.  It’s a separate queue that allows customers and cashiers to have a leisurely chat.  They are positioned next to “chat corners” where people can sit and have a drink.  Supermarkets in France and Canada are trying the same idea.  Interestingly, there is no shortage of staff volunteering to work on these tills.

That coffee and chat after the Sunday morning service, may be doing more than we think.

Chris Dawson