This week I will be travelling to Cambridge, to conduct the funeral of Ian, my former head of department; a man who I first met 40 years ago when he taught me as an undergraduate. I am doing the service because Ian has been tremendously influential; he was one of the people who showed me how to behave as a scientist. 

Role models are very important to all of us, in the way they influence us, hopefully for the good. However, it is not just those we have known for a lifetime that can be influential; apparently trivial acts can also be important. This morning, I was delivering leaflets advertising services at Billingsley and Glazeley for the coming month. I stopped at one house, exchange a brief greeting with the owner and then got back into my car to drive on. However, he came running after me and stopped me. In his hand was a £20 note, which I had dropped after my last visit a month ago; I hadn’t noticed until he reminded me. I spent the rest of the day pondering this small act of kindness. Just as Ian has influenced me over 40 years, this also has reminded me of how I should behave in my dealings with others. Small acts can make a difference.

Vicars tend to see a lot of death; it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that we bury people for a living. And if you ply us with enough alcohol, we will usually admit we have only a limited number of funeral sermons; we (hopefully) personalise them, but the theme is usually drawn from the same small pool. However, a couple of weeks ago I read an obituary of the former Bishop of Birmingham, Mark Santer. He requested a quotation from St Augustine on death that I had not previously come across. I will now be adding it to my themes for funeral sermons.

“There we shall rest and we shall see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise. That is what shall be in the end without end. For what is our end but to arrive at the kingdom which has no end?”

This weekend sees the Ride and Stride, the main fund-raising event for the Shropshire Historic Churches Trust, that provides grants for the repair of the old churches and chapels within the county; we get no money for this from the state or the diocese. Some see our old churches as a barrier to mission; we spend energy preserving stone and mortar that would be better spent proclaiming the Gospel. I disagree; we underestimate the power of God to work through a sacred space to our peril, to our folly. This is an extract from the poem “Little Gidding” by T.S. Elliot, as he reacts to the ancient church and shrine at Little Gidding in Cambridgeshire, a place hallowed by devotion.

If you came this way,

Taking any route, starting from anywhere,

At any time or at any season,

It would always be the same: you would have to put off

Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,

Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity

Or carry report. You are here to kneel

Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more

Than an order of words, the conscious occupation

Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

And what the dead had no speech for, when living,

They can tell you, being dead: the communication

Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

Here, the intersection of the timeless moment

Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

Some may know of the magazine, “The Big Issue”. It was launched over 25 years ago as a way of helping the homeless. The people who sell the magazine are usually homeless, or at least living in hostels. They buy the magazine for £2 and sell it for £4, so this gives them a small income. They effectively have their own income. I pass through Snow Hill Station on my way to work, where there is often a vendor. If I have time, I will usually buy a magazine and over the years I’ve come to know some of the vendors. Earlier this week, I had a few minutes to chat to the current vendor. He was telling me of his experiences. His best customers were often the ones who seemed to have the lowest paid jobs; the more affluent tended just to walk past him. He said this had also been his experience when living rough; the street-dwellers usually looked after each other and some were very generous with what little money they had. 

I have no idea if the vendor has any religious faith, but his story struck a cord with me. Two thousand years ago, Jesus, visiting the temple, observed people donating money for its upkeep. The rich apparently gave large amounts, but in reality it was just small change for them. A poor widow gave a single coin, but that was all she had. Jesus’s words still seem to apply: “I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood”.

I do not like having to admit be ignorant about a topic; so much better to have knowledge! However, in a new series on Radio 4, the former politician Rory Stewart extols the virtue of ignorance, or at least the awareness that we are ignorant about a topic (BBC Sounds – Rory Stewart: The Long History of… – Available Episodes). I haven’t actually heard any of this series, apart from a brief trailer, but that itself made me think about the topic. As humans, we are all curious to know more; another way of looking at this is that our search for knowledge and understanding only begins when we first realise our ignorance about a topic. An admission of ignorance does not necessarily mean that we wish to research a topic for ourselves, but at best it can lead to humility and a willingness to listen to others who do know about it.  Recognition of our ignorance is important for shaping many aspects of our lives. A wise politician will know when they need to take advice because they are dealing with an issue they do not understand. As a scientist, my daily work is driven by curiosity; I see something I about which I am ignorant and want to find out more. My spirituality is also shaped by my recognition of my own ignorance about that what I call God. St Anslem in the Middle Ages famously spoke of “faith seeking understanding”, a phrase that speaks to me about who I am. I am ignorant; Lord, direct my ignorance

Yes, I know that is a misquote; Simon and Garfunkel actually sang that it was silence like a cancer grows. But sometimes misquotes can be inspired and I modestly claim this as an example.

There seems to be a lot of anger around. Sometimes we see it burst into the public arena; I suspect a lot of the rioting of a few weeks ago was down to anger of people who thought they were not being given the attention they deserved. I also see anger in individuals; an emotion that is eating and embittering them. Anger can be a positive emotion, if it is justified by a moral wrong; it can energise individuals and communities to work for a better world. But where it is rooted in self-indulgence and self-centredness it is destructive, ultimately of the person in whom it originates.

There are perhaps two antidotes to destructive anger. Firstly, a greater self-awareness by individuals, a recognition that they are part of a bigger picture and others matter. Also, we all need hope that the present is not the final word and that we can achieve something better, no matter how hard that might be. That might just turn the cancer of destructive anger into something that is constructive.

Tony Morris has just been featured on the “Today” programme on Radio 4. He is a 72 year old Glaswegian, who graduated with a 1^st in psychology in 1976 and, by his own admission, has spent the years since then trying to work out to do with life. A few years ago he went to a class to learn how to play the bongo drums and quickly discovered that was another thing he wasn’t cut out to do. But his teacher introduced him to electronic dance music, recorded at home and then released on social media. After a serious illness, Mr Morris could only perform for around a minute before needing a rest, but that was perfect for short electronic clips, which can be joined together for anything longer. His recordings have sent the dance music scene in Glasgow and Edinburgh alight and he is now about to release his first single.

Heart-warming though this story may be, what really caught my attention was the title of the new single. It is “Going to Church”, one of Mr Morris’s great pleasures. In it, he tells of how a church can uplift him.  In a recent interview (How Tony Morris became Scotland’s most unlikely pop sensation | The Herald (heraldscotland.com)) he explains why he recently described himself as “ancient and justified”.

” I am an extremely religious person and the Biblical term to be ‘justified’ before God has a special nuance. And since I believe that God wants us all to find our niche in life and so use our talents well, I am happy to use the word justified in that sense too. Also, Wittgenstein [a philosopher] was a strong believer in human beings realising their humanity by finding a niche where their talents can be unleashed, and he is a hero of mine.”

The dance scene in Scotland may soon find itself dancing unawares with both Wittgenstein the philosopher and the Holy Spirit.

Some of the more striking images this week have been of rioters, now alone in the dock of a court, being sentenced to imprisonment.  The contrasts are striking. Previously, emboldened by the mob, they were full of bravado when confronted by police officers but now they are isolated and full of regret at being led astray by their emotions.

It can be a good experience to be part of a crowd. At football matches I have shared the emotional highs and lows and be glad to be carried along with others. But there are dangers; when a crowd gets excited, the quiet voices of reasons are often not heard, with results that have been obvious over the last week.  Emotion, magnified by a group, has always been part of religious experience. The Bible has many accounts of groups and crowds sharing in powerful experiences. But there are also warnings. In the Old Testament, prophets confront the mob and its ring leaders and challenge their actions. New Testament writers also warn of false prophets, of listening to rumours and not testing the spirits behind any message. Today, when every time I switch on my computer I am confronted with so-called “warnings” and social media is full of lies, the wisdom of these writers is needed more than ever.

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.