This is not so much an Update as a response to something of what has gone before. One of my friends to whom I send my updates has told me that whenever he’s reading one and hits the word ‘God’ or ‘prayer’ he skims, skips?, that paragraph and moves on to the next. I wonder if it’s just an excuse for not reading because lately he must’ve left out an awful lot of paragraphs. But really it’s because he’s not a believer – well not a religious believer. He certainly has some very strongly held political views. And he himself has told me he doesn’t think avoiding the God paragraphs is particularly commendable on his part. 

But he has a point, and it did remind me of when I was at Westcott House, the Theological College in Cambridge where I studied in the 60s, saying, in exasperation, to one of my fellow students, ‘Well, do you believe in God or not?’ To which he replied, ‘Simon, it depends what you mean by belief, it depends what you mean by God.’  It was a very 60s response but it was the 60s and actually he was absolutely right, and it doesn’t only apply to God it certainly applies to prayer. We sometimes need to define our terms. What do I mean by God? What do I mean by prayer? What on earth do I think I’m doing when I’m praying? 

So all in all, without getting too boring about it, it’s clearly helpful to some to try to explain what I mean – sometimes. I am very much a child of the 60s or not so much a child as a person of the 60s – I first came to London I’m 1962 and went to Westcott in 1965. The terms for God like ‘The Other’ or ‘The More’ or Paul Tillich’s the, ‘Ground of Being’, appeal to me as they take me beyond the material into there being something, someone more. And then of course, for me, in the person of Jesus Christ I am given a definition, I am given a reality that I can actually cope with and an encounter that means something both personal and general. Insomuch as I can cope with anyone or anything, really. And I grew up in a Christian household. The name Jesus, the assumption that there is a God was simply there, familiar and accepted. 

So what about prayer. The Vicar, Fr Paul Ensor, in his ‘Quote of the Day’ on Wednesday 6th May, on the website of St Agnes Kennington, the church I go to, wrote:

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Today I walked with a purpose. I turned on the television at 5 to 11 in order to watch the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall at the War Memorial at Balmoral.  He laid a wreath, she, some flowers. There was a two minute silence. A piper played.  I found the whole thing very moving.  Then I set off on my VE Day walk. Being Friday I was remembering the dead anyway.  This time I did read the readings said  the General Thanksgiving and set out –  it seemed obvious in a way – to .the Imperial War Museum.

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I set off at 20 minutes to midday and I must admit I had not said the General Thanksgiving or read the readings of the day. I had an agenda. And not a particularly commendable one at that. Would the bell of St Anselm’s ring? I reached Cleaver Square and had time so I began my circuits. In the middle of the Square sitting on a rug, in the sun was a woman reading a story to two boys, two year old twins. I know because I called out and asked. They made a Wonderfully peaceful picture.

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