Berwick-upon-Tweed

All posts tagged Berwick-upon-Tweed

As winter approaches…

Posted by David Ward on 31/10/2011
Posted in: Books/Articles, Personal thoughts, Theology. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Suddenly it’s November, and the last time I posted was July. It has been an exceptionally warm October,snowy woods heightened by a week visiting family in the south-east of England (where the temperature has, on average, been six degrees warmer than here in South east Scotland) which has masked the approach of winter and the anticipation of snow, decreasing income and a new year.

This year has been a strange mix of negatives and positives…I’m not sure why I even wrote that, because ‘life’s like that’…but somehow this year even the negatives seem to have led to unexpected positives, which has been a bit of a surprise.

Once again, we face the prospect of needing to move house (our current rental is going up for sale…houses are, however, still selling poorly and slowly up here, so who knows). This raises all kinds of questions about where we should live…moving back across the Border to Berwick-upon-Tweed would make school for Susie (who we’ve decided to keep in the English system when she leaves First School in July 2012) much more straightforward, moving away to seek work elsewhere and be closer to extended family (among other things Wendy and I became grandparents for the first time this summer, but Joel, Kirsty and baby Malachi live in Torquay, currently an eight-hour drive away, with our other children liberally spread around England!) would also need to be a possibility at a time when both our incomes are falling.

Advent, the time of watching and waiting will soon be upon us. I always try to find something new to study and meditate on, and this year I’ve chosen Paula Gooder’s book “The Meaning is in the Waiting”. I remember Paula as a teenager from the time I attended Brunswick Parish church in Manchester in the 1980s…now she’s a respected theologian and writer and I’m a ‘not-so-respected ex-this-and-that’ (and reasonably happy to be that way!!)…how times change.

I chose this particular book having read Paula’s book “Heaven” as part of a lot of reading I’m doing about the Last Things, Christian hope, death, heaven, resurrection (this has nothing to do with the approach of my sixtieth birthday)…Tom Wright’s book “Surprised by Hope” has been seminal in helping to clarify and articulate much of what I think about this subject, based as ever on the teaching of the broad, sweeping themes of scripture rather than minute and speculative analysis of out-of-whole-context passages.

Over the years I’ve grown to mistrust much of the recent, politically driven and sensationalist writing on this subject that is coming out of America, so it’s refreshing to find such clear thinking coming from UK theologians.

As Tom Wright ‘wrightly’ points out, if we get our theology of the last things askew it affects the way we preach and demonstrate the gospel, our stewardship of planet Earth and a host of other things, and in my opinion, the thinking of the average church member/Christian is wooly and confused to say the least.

I’m not saying I’ve got it right, but at least I’m making the effort to go back to the scriptures and see what they really say…

A mobile sort of stability…

Posted by David Ward on 10/03/2010
Posted in: Personal thoughts, Pilgrimage, Relationships. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’ve been walking around the town ramparts of Berwick-upon-Tweed today. Spring is definitely in the air, and the sun is warm on my skin when the cold wind drops for a moment. I’m glad to be here in ‘Borderland’ today, with all the opportunities that this new year may bring.

So, it’s strange when my thoughts turn to another place and to a group of friends from what seems like ages ago…

I was born in a small town on the north coast of Kent (Whitstable, if you’re interested), and I stayed there for the first 33 years of my life. Since then I’ve lived in Manchester, North Wales, Cheshire and Northumberland, before coming to rest (who knows for how long!) in the Scottish Borders. I worked out that this also equates to living in 11 different houses, 10 of which were in the last 14 years. Loads of mobility but not, you’d think, much stability there.

But…to return to where I started….

I became a Christian at the age of 9, and joined a little church which was probably the best church gathering I’ve ever belonged to (although my current church is shaping up to equal it, I think, but haven’t been there for long yet).

I also had a small circle of close friends of around my own age who came from a selection of the local churches…David, Brett, Brian, Alan, Stephen, Anne, Denise, John, Mandy, Robin, Jeanette, Kevin, Christine, Trevor and Richard…apologies if you think you should be part of the list and I’ve forgotten you!

As together we grew in age and faith in the heady days of the 60s and 70s we spent a fair bit of our time putting the world and, particularly, the church to rights. We could have done so much better at promoting the Kingdom of God in our town than our predecessors…if only we had the chance. I remember having this dream/fantasy in which all of us went our separate ways, but then, one day, in answer to a dramatic call from God we all returned to the town and revival broke out in Kent.

Nearly thirty years have passed. Old dreams have died or been realised, or have maybe been replaced by new ones. Some of my friends have done much better on The Journey than me, while others have decided they’d prefer a different journey altogether. I’ve lost touch with most – I know that Brett is in Northamptonshire, Brian, Alan and Mandy are still in Kent, Stephen is in France and Trevor in the USA; the rest…who knows?

Probably, like me, we’ve all reached the conclusion that we are unable to sort ourselves out, let alone the church (and fortunately, it’s not entirely our job anyway). Of course, I also know that revival couldn’t possibly break out in Kent, as it’s going to begin in Scotland ;0)

But, joking apart, where did this ramble get me?

St Benedict, the 6th century monk who wrote the Rule of Life that bears his name put it like this:

“Grow where you’re planted.”
Well, he didn’t put it quite like that, as he was a monk, not a gardener, but that’s the gist of it.
After 30 years of moving around, changing counties, countries, homes, churches etc. I’ve come to the conclusion that growing where you happen to be planted right now is the only sensible way to live, learning life’s lessons in the place and with the people God has given for as long as this lesson lasts, and accepting that none of us really knows how to do this thing we call life, so we’d best see what we can learn from each other undfer God’s direction. Continually moving on in search of things that are novel is no more the answer to growing and maturing as a person or as a Christian than is staying put rather than facing new challenges, demands, adventure and relationships.
So, here’s to friends old and new, dreams lost and fulfilled and to a life of mobility and stability (provided we know which one is appropriate at a particular time…).

Different kinds of quiet…

Posted by David Ward on 24/12/2009
Posted in: Books/Articles, Personal thoughts. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I went to the supermarket yesterday; not normally a thing of note, but two days before Christmas…total insanity.  This is not something I would normally subject myself to, but a combination of busy work weeks, cash flow, making a priority of visiting and enjoying other people’s company and, I hear you say, our normal lack of organisation, had left us unprepared to feast (modestly!) at this wonderful celebration of the Incarnation.

The car park was filled to overflowing, with the normal display of Christmas spirit (Not!) in the driving and space grabbing of the frustrated, waiting shoppers.

We eventually found a space and, trolley collected, plunged into the surging crowd of shoppers (just to regain some perspective, this is Berwick-upon-Tweed, but the normally relatively sleepy state of this supermarket only heightens the strangeness of this mad melee!)

There are people and trolleys everywhere…waiting, pushing, grabbing, huffing. The air is noisy with loud chatter, irritated couples, excited children.

I just wanted to get my shopping done and get out of there!

Pushing the trolley, dodging yet another attempt to ram me simultaneously from the front and rear by unaware shoppers, I rounded the corner of a aisle and laughed out loud with joy.

In the midst of the noise, the pushing, the shouts, the frantic shelf-stocking stood a father, a tiny baby fast asleep and totally secure in his arms. There could not have been a more amazing contrast.

I suppose the season makes even me a bit soft, and maybe sentimental, but it refocussed me for a short while on another baby, who came so that stressed and harrased people like me and a million others could know the peace and security of the Father’s arms in the midst of everything life can throw at us.

A couple of weeks ago I had the humbling experience of leading the sharpest, strongest and fittest 82 year old man I have ever met on retreat. I didn’t think there was much help I could be to one who’d been a Christian for so long (although actually,as I found out, he came to faith later in life, so I’d actually been a follower of Jesus for a little longer than him…not that that matters!) In the event, we helped each other…

Obviously I can’t go into the details, but he introduced me to a book I hadn’t read that had been of enormous help to him as, at 82, he faced the problem of God’s silence in unanswered prayer in a way he’d never had to before.

I’ve read (and probably said) some trite stuff about why God doesn’t answer prayer…you know, “Sometimes God says: ‘No’, sometimes ‘Slow’, sometimes ‘Grow’ and sometimes ‘Go’.” Pete Grieg’s book, “God on Mute”is an extremely thoughtful look at God and prayer, based around personal tragedy and God’s apparent silence. I’m still reading it, and finding it sensitively helpful to some of my own hang-ups regarding God’s silence.

Maybe a good buy for yourself or a friend who’s struggling at the moment…but wait until after Christmas before you try to buy it!