Rev elations

They came bearing gifts, Gifts of numinous tone, Less than £30 a week And there they came With gold crosses and chains, Calendars, clothes and keepsakes. They spread them out around the room Across the tables and chairs They hung them on the walls As they prepared food and drink Blew balloons and laid out flowers. A feast prepared A celebration To remember Their frequent steps Across thresholds Into life

This summer, I took part in the week of guided prayer, which we organised here at St Andrew’s. 2 priests from another diocese came to be with us for a week and each participant committed to praying for half an hour a day as well as meeting their guides for half an hour each day. We were encouraged to pray with scripture, to choose our own passages, or to be given one from our guide. I prayed with the story of the woman at the well. Almost immediately at the beginning of that week I was presented with an image, in prayer, of a plant in the desert that had completely dried up. In my imagination the roots of this plant desired to grow towards the oasis to be fed – they were desperate for water. For me this powerful image perfectly summed up how I felt inside, the state of my spiritual life. I felt that my spirit was drained, that it was literally dying of thirst – I urgently needed my spirit to be renewed with the life-giving water which comes from God: God was there and ready to give me...

God is rejected, forgotten, ignored, blamed and abused; the same can be said, oftentimes, for his followers. Our job as Christians is to call people to worship the living God and therefore to honour and glorify the one to whom all honour and glory is due. At Christmas we have a particular opportunity to divert people’s attention away from what is of fleeting value, to what is of eternal value. Contrary to popular thought, people are hungry to be fed and eager to pray and those of us who have seen the living God must share in the joy of pointing the way to others. We do not control or contain the glory of God; we do not know where he is or isn’t at work; but we do know what we comprehend together as faithful Christians and to that we must be true. Being a Christian has never been simple – there is no golden age of Christianity when everyone believed and everyone went to church. Faith is a narrow road and only a few walk it – but nonetheless, at the same time, there are always those who...