Skip to main content

Barcelona

Barcelona
On reflection this trip has not really been about the city. Like a good Woody Allen film the city is another character in the story but the city should never be more than the story. For me the story on this trip has been about the privilege of relationship. It seems my companion would have been happy to have gone to Rhyl but he unlike me has never been to Ryhl. I have not tortured him too much with trips to art galleries and we have only been to one church and we did not go inside. He was happy too I was not. The trip has been seasoned by conversation and questions. The week has been punctuated by food and ice cream and in that light you can see why Jesus spent so much time eating with people. The wonderful wide avenues here have reminded me how cramped a space we live in at home. Some of the roads are that wide crossing them could be a sponsored event. I am also baffled how we got on before rucksacks how did Moses get round the desert without a rucksack and a plastic bottle of water. Being here shows me how difficult it must be to live in a city where 50% of people walk round it with a tourist map in one hand and their euro’s in the other. Iam not sure my companion will wan not come back again but I will return with my wife i am sure my companion will not want to go to Rhyl after this.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Response To Bishop North

A while back Bishop Phillip North spoke to New Wine and caused a bit of a reaction one of it was a Tweet to my millions of followers. In response I had a phone call from The Church Times asking for a quote because I serve in a poor parish, I declined and said I would put a more considered response on my blog, so here it is with a link to The Bishops full talk. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/4-august/news/uk/there-s-a-future-for-the-church-if-evangelicals-put-the-poor-first-bishop-north-tells-new-wine 1.      One of the issues the church does not recognise is the exportation of people , talents and money from parishes like mine to middle class parishes which is draining and demanding on leadership. For 10 years I thought I was building a community, then it dawned on me I was building people up to go to other places. 2.      Bishop Phillip talks of abandonment of the poor: I think it’s more complicated than that. When ...

Tokens of Trust

Tokens of Trust by Rowan Williams I have been deeply jolted to the importance of the role of trust in my life and the cost when trust has been missing. Many years ago I spent a long time at the top of a cliff roped and secured being encouraged to abseil over the edge to the bottom a number of feet below. No matter how much my highly competent friend encouraged me to trust him and the equipment, I could not. During the same period of my life it was my job to service the fire service turntable ladders, which meant climbing 100 feet to the top of them. This I did many times never without a sense of anticipation, trusting the mechanics and workmanship that had been carried out. But it is with people where trust is cashed out or held back, reaping rewards or crippling relationships. I think the book has jolted me to understand my role as a professional truster  As a stipended priest I am called to model to, and with, my community my profession of trust. As I reflect upo...

Why did we come?

Why did we come? You know the old story for people of certain age you, get to the top of the stairs and could not remember why you went up the stairs. Well here is another observation i was walking through Heathrow Terminal 5 the other day passing the oh so many shops the only one being in my price range was WH Smith . it struck me do people really get the cheapest seats on a plan and then think oh I need a bag its only £500 or that shirt will be handy its only £200? I digress, as we made our way past the many shops Ruth observes that it does not seem obvious that we are waiting for a plane. Terminal 5 happens to be a shopping centre (precinct as we used to call them) were you just happen, if you remember, to leave in a plan. In visiting 5 churches before I left for the USA I came away from almost all of them thinking and feeling, why did I go? It was like being at the top of the stairs. I write this not as accusation but observation of the church’s I visit but as an observation of my...