Category: Thought for the Week

R.S. Thomas was priest who spent much of his ministry in a seaside village on the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales. He was also one of the great religious poets of the 20th century. Last week I featured a poem about why he prayed. Continuing the theme, this week is another of his poems. He imagines a sleepless night in his house, listening to the sounds of the night and the waves and this leads him to think of how  the God receives the constant hum of prayer, since the start of humanity. The God who neither slumbers nor sleeps.

The Other.

There are nights that are so still
that I can hear the small owl calling
far off and a fox barking
miles away. It is then that I lie
in the lean hours awake listening
to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic
rising and falling, rising and falling
wave on wave on the long shore
by the village that is without light
and companionless. And the thought comes
of that other being who is awake, too,
letting our prayers break on him,
not like this for a few hours,
but for days, years, for eternity

Rev David Poyner

Some people find prayer easy; I am not one of those. Sometimes there are situations or people I can focus on, but without these, I struggle. At least, I struggle with prayer as a shopping list, but there are other ways and reasons to pray. One of my inspirations is the poet and priest R.S. Thomas, who words have often inspired me. This poem tells of how he found prayer a way of simply being with God, moving us from “the snake-haunted garden”, the Garden of Eden, our current world, to the “tall city of glass”, the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation, the place where God dwells.

Not as in the old days I pray,
God. My life is not what it was…
Once I would have asked healing.
 I go now to be doctored…
to lend my flesh as manuscript of the great poem
Of the scalpel. I would have knelt
long, wrestling with you, wearing
you down. Hear my prayer Lord, hear my prayer. 
As though you were deaf, myriads  of mortals have kept up their shrill
cry, explaining your silence by their unfitness.

It begins to appear
this is not what prayer is about.
It is the annihilation of difference,
the consciousness of myself in you,
of you in me…I begin to recognize
you anew, God of form and number.
There are questions we are the solution 
to, others whose echoes we must expand
to contain. Circular as our way
is, it leads not back to the snake-haunted
garden, but onward to the tall city
of glass that is the laboratory of the spirit.

Rev. David Poyner

In many different spheres, leaders have recently been in the news. Let’s start with the most important; Gareth Southgate has stood down from being manager of England; after 8 years at the helm, he wants a change. Then we have the changing of the guard in Government; I have been struck by the gracious exchanges between Keir Starmer and Rikki Sunak as they adjust to their new roles. Then of course there is how they do things in the USA; the hatred that led someone to try and kill Donald Trump (and, let us not forget the person who was killed and the people injured) but perhaps signs Mr Trump may be adjusting his style and the warm words to him from President Bidden in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

There are many different ways of being a leader. Traditionally Jesus is said to personify “servant leadership”, humble and leading by example at cost to himself. This is certainly true, but Jesus had a number of leadership styles, depending on the circumstances. Any effective leader needs to use a number of styles, as the occasion demands. But equally, the leader will have a preferred style; for Jesus, this was servant leadership leading to the cross.

I was talking to a colleague in the week about the recent coronation, when  our symbolic leader was confirmed in office. He spoke of how one of the most moving part of the ceremony was after Charles and Camilla were crowned, after all the pomp and ceremony, their first act was to kneel at a communion rail to receive bread and wine. The crowned monarch, our liege lord and his consort, paid their homage to the servant king, their strength as leader. 

Rev David Poyner

I don’t think I ever watched Dr Michael Mosley on the TV. I did note the circumstances of his death, which seem to have been due to a tragic miscalculation on his part whilst walking. As a hill walker now in his 60s, that had an uncomfortable resonance with me. What I did not expect was the real sense of sorrow and loss that many people seem to have experienced at the death of someone who I had always thought of as just another TV presenter.

Reflecting on this, I think there are several lessons I can learn from this. Firstly, it is not to underestimate the influence of small acts on peoples lives. Dr Mosley’s signature TV series was “Just one thing”; the idea that a simple change can really make a difference to our life. I’m not going to start taking ice-cold showers, but I may try brushing my teeth standing on one leg. Behind this is a bigger idea; that single, simple changes can make a real difference.

We do not need to heroic acts to improve either our own lives or the lives of those around us. Look for fair-trade goods when shopping; supermarkets now stock these because enough people decided they would buy them.

I was also struck by an interview with Dr Mosley’s widow; how he was a shy man who would have been surprised at the reaction to his death. In all probability, he never really knew the impact his series of small acts was having on people; the TV presenter has no personal contact with the viewers who watch her/his programme. But that impact is real. We also will never really know the impact doing just one thing may have on others. It is enough that we do it. And for me, to leave the rest to God.

Rev. David Poyner

I had not heard of Simon Boas until a few days ago. He is an aid worker, living (as I write) with terminal cancer; he has written a book “A beginners guide to dying”, which will be published in October, although by then he expects to be dead. He was interviewed on the radio very recently. He was in good spirits, even though he was about to move into a hospice for the final phase of his life. As far as I know, he would not describe himself as religious, but his words chimed with me . He read a quote from “Middlemarch”, by George Eliot, a description of one of the characters in the book;

“The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

It speaks of how we influence people without being aware of it; the fleeting acts of kindness which we quickly forget but have meaning for the recipient. You do not need to have any religious belief to see this (Eliot herself had a complex attitude to Christianity), but with my Christian spectacles on, this is also about working with the Holy Spirit, the divine presence that is everywhere around us, seeking opportunities for us to let her/him work in our world. We are agents of that spirit, whether we realise it or not.

Rev. David Poyner

Despite being a vicar, I still feel a little stab of panic if I am asked to stand up on the spur of the moment and pray. I am not a good conversationalist and I struggle for words. A monk once joked, “never ask a monk to pray; we can’t do that without a book” and I know what he meant. But I do value silence and in this I am not alone. A friend recently told me a story of Mother Theresa, who was asked how she prayed. “I say nothing, I just listen to God”. “So what does God say to your?” the interviewer asked. “Nothing, he just listens to me” replied Mother Theresa. Sometimes, we just need to shut up, rest in the silence and be glad.

Rev David Poyner

Recently, I was talking with a group of friends. We all were university teachers, but also of a certain age, with retirement fast approaching. So, as people of a certain age are prone to do, we looked back. We discussed what advice we might give to our younger selves; if we were forty years younger, would we contemplate careers working in universities? I was probably the most positive, but even I am very glad I am not just starting out in the university sector. Universities now seem to have a much harder edge than when I started. We have key performance indicators, we have to set SMART objectives which can be measured and evaluated every year. We have targets for income raised, papers published. In short, universities have whole-heartedly bought into the world of commercial business, where profitability and accountability are key. Now some of this is a good thing; 30 or 40 years ago, some in universities had very comfortable lives, drawing a good salary for very little in return. Universities do need to change and to meet the needs of society. However, we all agreed that whilst we needed to learn from the outside world, we simply could not copy what successful commercial companies did, because the core business of a university is not to make a profit but to educate students and undertake research. Somehow, this seems to have been lost, hence our collective lament.

Now on one level this story is simply about four elderly university professors and their lament. But I think there are wider lessons here. So many organisations, including the church, seem to have uncritically embraced the ways of working that are successful for big commercial concerns, forgetting that they exist for other purposes. I suspect a business case based on following an itinerant preacher with a handful of followers, ending in his execution, would get very far on “Dragons Den”. But in that there is a lesson.

Rev. David Poyner

We are now at the mid-point of the general election campaign. All candidates have now been declared; leaflets are starting to appear through doors, the manifestos have been published. The Church of England has responded by publishing a short booklet, “Pray your part”, with reflections and prayers for each of the last 21 days of the campaign. Doubtless some will scour this for evidence of political bias. It is certainly not the role of the church to tell people which party they should vote for in the election but equally faith cannot be a purely private matter. It is something Christians need to take to the polling station and that means we need to decide are the non-negotiable principles which any candidate or party must respect. The Christian belief is that all of us are made in the image of God, no matter how marred that may seem in some. From that it follows that all must be treated with respect and fairness. In the Old Testament there is a constant call to care for aliens, the poor, widows and orphans; the weakest in society. In the New Testament, Jesus reduced all this teaching to a simple command; to love our neighbours as ourselves. He then went on to show that our neighbours may include some surprising people. His teaching has been called a manifesto.

This does not answer how we should achieve a fair and loving society; by tax and spend, or tax cuts and economic growth. That really is for politicians to decide. But Jesus’s manifesto is one we can use to judge the spirit underlying the manifestos that they offer to us.

Rev David Poyner

I write this just after coming back from Billingsley Church, where 13 of us from all parishes in the benefice gathered for a short service to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day. It would have been the right thing to do if I had said prayers alone to an empty church, but it was good to be joined by others. Many more will have watched the commemorations on the television, including the prayers offered by chaplains and religious leaders.

For the first time, there is now a British Memorial to the whole of the Normandy campaign. Unlike previous memorials, this has no religious symbols or references; a very 21st century attitude to how we think we should remember. However, I suspect most people will react to the memorial and to the commemorations of this anniversary in a way that is spiritual if not explicitly religious and will have been moved by the prayers. D Day, like many anniversaries of armed conflicts, confronts us with big issues, of good and evil, suffering and death. Whatever peoples views of God, the rites of religion give us the tools to process these. And for those directly involved, this is even more important. A senior army officer recently told the chaplain attached to his unit; “I will go deploy my men in conflict without a medic; I will not deploy them without a chaplain”. There are times when religion matters.

Rev David Poyner

Another 5 weeks of party political broadcasts, leaflets through the door plus goodness what via “social media” which, mercifully, passes me by unaware. And at the end, as one vicar commented a century ago, we will have one bunch of sinners replaced by another bunch of sinners. Or the same sinners if they are re-elected.

It is easy to be cynical about politics and politicians, but it and they do matter. We need to order our society, to find fair and just ways of living as a community and that is ultimately what politics is about. There is the lure of power and I suspect all those who stand for parliament do enjoy this, to a greater or lesser degree. But enjoying taking decisions is, by itself, morally neutral; if I am honest, I enjoy the very limited power I have as a vicar as I tell/delude myself I use it for the greater good. It is good that there are individuals who are prepared to offer themselves as MPs. It is our duty to think carefully about the merits of each of them and to use our vote wisely. To do this, we ourselves need to reflect on what are our core values, to measure the candidates against these. And, if we are people of religious faith, we should pray for those who are standing, that they campaign in a way that is acceptable and Godly.

Rev David Poyner