Our Freedom Of Spirit

One of the great strengths of our society is the broad range of freedoms that are guaranteed and the freedom of spirit that goes along with them. But, as always in this life, there's a possible downside to all that freedom. It can take the form of an excessive individualism, which looks solely to one's own interests and thinks little or not at all about the needs and concerns of others. It's an isolating view of the world and of life, and it sets the stage, not only for much unnecessary suffering within the community at large, but also for the painful sense of alienation that afflicts so many people, even the most affluent.

The apostle Paul spoke rather pointedly: 'None of us lives as his own master and none of us dies as his own master... Both in life and in death we are the Lord's.' None of us possesses either our life or our gifts as absolute possessions, but as loans from a generous God who gave us both life and gifts for a specific purpose, namely, to be shared with His family. To decline to share our life and to carry our gifts to those who need them is not only bad stewardship, it is stealing from those for whom the gifts were intended in the first place.

So where does each of us stand on the gift continuum? Are we sitting on our gifts and hoarding them for some unnamed rainy day, or are we learning the God-like joy of giving gifts and talents away? Where we stand on this most basic question is probably the key to how and where we'll be spending eternity, so it will be wise to consider our answer well.

The Squirrel In Us

My children and I were rummaging through our attic this evening. I was amazed at the items we had amassed and had stashed away, only to have forgotten about over time. My daughter suggested that we were just like squirrels.

There is something of the squirrel in all of us, gathering up things and ‘squirreling’ them away in assorted hiding places. There's something of the bird in us as well, scooping up all sorts of things at random to weave into its nest. Many objects end up in nests simply because they're brightly coloured or shiny. How like our nests, full of useless stuff we just can't say goodbye to!

We have a hard time letting go, not just of things, but of ideas, habits, places, relationships, grievances, angers, griefs, and oh so much more. Letting go is hard, but the very fact of our mortality and of the limited time that is available to any one of us is an unmistakable cue that we need to learn to let go, not just of bad things but of many wonderful things as well. Just like the man on the flying trapeze, we have to let go of one thing that is very secure in order to get to where we need to go next.

God has important work for us at each stage in our lives. The challenge is to know when one task is done and when and where the next is to begin. We'll never find out if we don't listen to the Spirit. We'll never find out, if we don't let go and go with the Spirit. I fought that battle myself in letting go of what I thought was a comfort zone in order to face the unknown in Moldova. Now, I’d never turn back!

Let go and your life will blossom too. Let go and you'll discover what Jesus meant when He said: ‘The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.’ You’ll never regret it. I promise…and so does He!

Have I Thanked You?

St Paul gives us a glimpse at one of the qualities that made him such a good man and such a powerful bearer of God's Good News. It was his ability to see the goodness in every person he met. Not only could he see the goodness in every person, but he knew how to tell them about it, so they could rejoice in it and draw courage from it as well.

That’s something we don’t do nearly enough, either for others or for ourselves. It’s a shame, because goodness, heroism, and all sorts of accomplishments against long odds are present in abundance in so many of us. And they could be such a source of encouragement and confidence as we face the next challenges in our lives. Moreover, we know that our achievements aren’t ours alone. They’re the result of God working with and in us. Yet, when was the last time we thanked God for them, really thanked him? Strange, isn’t it, how our prayers tend to focus on our needs and our faults and failures.

So here are some questions to ponder. Have I named my successes out loud and thanked God for them? Have I helped my friends and family do the same? Have I drawn courage and confidence from what God and I have done together so far?

If any of my answers are ‘no,’ I’ve been missing some of life’s special joys. Isn’t now the right time to change that? Indeed it is.

Simple Pleasures

Whenever I am in London I head towards the park to have my sandwich that I've prepared at home and carried up on the train with me. It allows me to rediscover one of life's simple pleasures: feeding the ducks. You can escape the worries of the world and the pressure of the day as you watch the geese heave into the air and honk with delight, while swans glide and ducks bob as if they didn't have a care in the world.

Well, it is a world away from the daily stress of everyday life. Yet, if I'm to believe what I read in the papers, see on TV or hear on the radio, then I fear the days of my reprieves from the hustle of London may be numbered. Bird flu is on the wing and we don't, it seems, have a prayer of stopping it.

It's a powerful cocktail when the prediction of widespread calamity mixes with our own, individual anxiety. 'How will this affect me, personally?' we ask. 'Will I get a vaccination?' ‘Should I stop buying chicken at the supermarket?’

And each day, it seems, there's something else to worry about: al Qaeda; the rise and rise of violent crime; record immigration to this country, if such a thing vexes you. Both the media and politicians can feed our fears to suit their ends, while we end up with the weight of the world on our shoulders: a burden which makes us afraid to go the park, to travel on the underground or even to step outside our front door.

The words of Jesus may, in the face of our genuine fear of pandemics and disasters, seem rather glib. 'Do not worry,' He said. 'Look at the birds - they don't sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?'

'Easy for You to say,' we might reply. 'You're the Son of God, after all.' But this is no conditioned religious answer with a pat on the head to match. Instead, Jesus then issues a call to action. Don't sit here paralysed by fear, but: 'Go and seek God's kingdom and His righteousness.' In other words, get out more - feed the hungry, defend the poor, look after God's creation, challenge injustice and care about the people and things that God cares about the most.

Of course, we're ever grateful for the expertise of the scientists who are monitoring the bird-flu virus, for the forward planning of governments and the provision of health care. These things matter. But the threat of anything, from catching the flu to catching the tube, must not, in the meantime, prevent us from living the life God gave us to the full, and always in pursuit of the perfect love which, so the Bible promises, will drive out fear, for good.

Dearest Lord, do not let our foot stumble; guard over us by day and by night, protect us from harm, watch over us as we come and go, now and for evermore. Amen.

Use Your Talents!

Not being able to read a map can bring some surprising results. To experts, the task of a map-reader is simply to relate the terrain to the map in the car. But to others, a map is not about what lies ahead, but about what doesn't lie ahead. Every turn bursts with possibilities, or is an adventure waiting to be experienced. Such people are often lost, and frequently late, as they gamble on their intuition, follow their hunches, and allow their wonder to lead them.

In an age of spending reviews and risk assessments, this sense of wonder seems out of place. Resources are scarce, time is money, and there is no room for dreams.

Yet Jesus is at pains to remind us how important it is to wonder, to do something different, to risk. Talents are given to us, not to be buried in the ground, but to be invested, to be tested, and to grow. Of course, there is a chance we might stumble, or fail or - worst of all - be made to look foolish. We can avoid that by never taking a risk, never trying anything new, never putting ourselves in the hazard.

Such people never gamble with what is theirs, are afraid to use what they have been given, and (as it were) sit on the sofa of life and watch the world go by.

These careful people need never fear disaster or disappointment. Take no risk and you will never be hurt, never have your heart broken. But you will never discover the potential within you, never become what you can be. You will never really, in the truest sense, love. For love is the greatest risk of all. And so, the Lord says, have a go. Succeed, fail, but at least do something, for the worst thing is to do nothing at all.

Chasing Demons Away

For those of us who think ourselves ever-so-modern as we stand here six years into a new millennium, it’s easy to scoff at stories about demons and to conjure up images of little red men with horns and pointed tails. But to do that is foolhardy, for the reality of evil in the world is not to be sniffed at, and our struggle with it is undeniable and lifelong.

Each of us has our own ‘demons,’ our own disabling soul-wounds and compulsions that seek to rob us of our freedom and to drive us in directions that do not lead to life. To fail to recognise them and to acknowledge the full extent of their power over us is to make ourselves their willing victims and their helpless pawns.

But that need not happen. Our alternative is to ask God who dwells within us to help us see those inner 'demons' clearly and to see where they are leading us, indeed, driving us. And that is away from life, love, and communion. The next step is to give ourselves into His hands.

That kind of prayer God always answers. And step-by-step He will lead us out of slavery’s darkness and into freedom's light. When we give it free rein, God's power always prevails.

Good Help Is Hard To Find

Good help is hard to find. It has always been so, and we need only listen to our own conversations to verify it. In the course of any week, a lot of us will have rendered judgment on the inadequacies of gardeners, politicians, grocery store clerks, teachers, preachers, and host of other available targets. And almost certainly those very people are equally busy casting aspersions on the performances of their own list of targets, which may well include us.

One really does have to ask, if all the critics have such clean hands, how can there be so many who are deserving of criticism! The answer, of course, is that there are no perfectly clean hands! None of us is entirely living up to the life's work God has assigned to us via the unique shape of our gifts. As Jesus said, ‘The harvest is great, but the labourers are few.’

By virtue of both our giftedness and our baptism, every one of us is called in a unique way to help those around us to thrive and to come to life ever more fully. It's the ultimate criterion of our success or failure as human beings.

And that brings us to today's question: How are you doing?

How Well Can You See?

There are very few of us who cannot see well enough to drive or read or watch TV. We may have to wear glasses or even use magnifying glasses for close tasks, but almost all of us can see what we need to see in order to function from day to day.

That's on the physical level. But the anomaly is that on another deeper level the majority of us don't know how to see what we need to see just to get along where it really counts.

We don't see the impact that even the tiniest of our actions and choices have upon our neighbours. We don't see most of the consequences of the things we do. We don't see the simple things that our neighbours need us to be and do for them. We don't see the big picture the Lord sees.

Jesus says: ‘if your eyes are good, your body will be filled with light.’ We'll be blind until we give our eyes to Him. He will fill us with light, and we'll know with confidence where to take our next step.

Just Say No!

This evening a television programme will suggest that we would be better off without religion because religion closes minds and allows otherwise good people to do bad things.

We can be persuaded to overcome moral scruples if we believe God approves of something, however bad. If only it were that simple. People have allowed morality to be over-ridden by all sorts of ideologies and beliefs, religious and non-religious. In Europe during the last century it was political ideologies hostile to Christianity such as Nazism and Communism that led otherwise good people to do terrible deeds, while some of the most stirring acts of selflessness and charity were religiously inspired.

In a world where the values of freedom and tolerance are under daily attack, humanists, whether religious or secular, ought not to undermine one another but rather ought to unite in overcoming the real anti-humanism of our time. This is that arrogant dogmatism that sets its face against anything that does not fit its own certainties and refuses to live with provisionality. That can take a secular as well as a religious form. What we see through the microscope and telescope may be all there is to know. Or it may not.

Religion is supposed to invite us to keep our minds open. Perhaps the author of the programme attended a church where the worshipers only faced the same repetitive dogma of centuries past. Perhaps the author was denied the opportunity to challenge, absorb, discover and grow, both individually and as a spiritual community, because the minister was unable to help 'lead.'

Perhaps the individual has become so dragged down by society and the all-to-often failure of the 'church' to help people grow through encouragement, inspiration, education, discovery, and celebration in a spiritual community.

If this is the case, then this programme will probably appeal to a very large audience.

Now...what are WE going to do about it?

Bombing For Jesus

I’m sorting through a large stack of old magazines I’ve saved. I’ve obviously picked out an article in each one that is supposed to end up in the cobwebs of my mind, to be used as a reference point some time later in life. God bless my children who may be faced with the task of cleaning out my library. But here it is…staring at me like a thorn in my heal. It has come back to haunt my enraged senses.

Some of my fellow clergy would seek me out and hang me out to dry if I were to utter such nonsense, and no doubt so would parishioners, friends, and acquaintances too. So, George Bush believes that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. 'Amen!' cry the flag-wavers. 'Heaven help us!' sigh the secularists. 'Hell's Bells' mutter many of the Christians around the world who don't have access to the Whitehouse hotline to Heaven.

Whatever we think of President Bush's words, uttered in private to Palestinian leaders last June and reported in papers and magazines around the world, we dismiss them carelessly at our peril. For they're not just the deluded rantings of a religious nutter, or even the insincere burblings of a silver-tongued con-man.

The Commander in Chief calmly and (in one sense) rationally believes what he says to be true, what he hears to be right, and what he does to be justified. In fact, there are millions of people across the world who claim that God speaks to them - whether they're scientists, artists, politicians, or priests.

But the problem comes, perhaps, when we appropriate God for our own cause. It's easier, on one level, to hear God say 'Treat yourself to a new car' than 'Sell your second car and give the cash to the poor.' That's why anything we feel we hear from above, or inside, or wherever it comes from, should be treated humbly and measured carefully against the broad and sound sweep of the Bible's teaching.

In the case of George Bush, alarm bells ring when he takes the words of Jesus - 'If you are not for me, you are against me' - and applies them to himself and his 'war' on terror. A little theology is a dangerous thing. He's turned the battle between good and evil into one between 'US and them.' Yet, to paraphrase Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 'The Gospel teaches that the line separating good and evil runs not between nations, but inside every human heart.' Including the heart of the president. There is no more 'us and them.' Jew or Gentile. Britain, American, or Iraqi. We all stand equally before God in strength and in weakness.

I, just as with anyone else, have no right to challenge what President Bush did or did not hear, nor from whom it came. But it's difficult not to feel most suspicious of the person who claims to hear God speaking most loudly and clearly, when it comes to matters that involve political dogma, or acts that will kill countless numbers of innocent children, women, and people who haven't even any understanding of world politics. What would happen months down the road if he were to have heard crackle through a moment of silence 'sorry, those were just the onions you ate last night'?

Yes, absolutely, God talks to me too. I hear Him speak through the suffering I see throughout Moldova and Romania, which enrages my heart to work harder, I see Him through the charity of others, through the morning sunrise and sunset, through the life and death of Christ, and through countless seconds of wonderment that embrace and inspire me throughout the day.

I've even heard Him, most clearly, through the message I saw printed on a T-shirt:

'Who would Jesus bomb?'

Loving Father, we pray for our government leaders. Embrace those who are not yet Your own. Give those in authority wisdom in every decision, and help them to think clearly. Grant them discernment and common sense so they'll be strong and effective leaders. (Titus 3:5; James 1:5; Proverbs 3:21)

Help them to lead and govern with integrity, and may their integrity guide them and keep them on a steady keel. (1 Kings 9:4; Proverbs 11:3a; Psalm 78:72; 1 Timothy 2:1–4)

Be merciful to give us leaders who are Spirit-filled and follow Your principles. Direct their steps according to Your Word— for their decisions have a great impact on our lives! (Ephesians 5:18b; Psalm 119:105, 133a)

Be their defender and protector, keeping them always on guard. Help those who are Christians to be strong and courageous, standing firm in their faith and influencing others for Your kingdom. Encourage and strengthen them, giving them the wisdom they require. Help them to have courage and faith in You, no matter what they're facing day-to-day. (Proverbs 23:11; Psalm 41:2a; 1 Corinthians 16:13; Deuteronomy 1:38; 3:28; 2 Chronicles 1:10a; Acts 27:22, 25)

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Perhaps We Just Need a Little Faith in DOG!

My Tenner

As I was reading my missal, I found myself looking at one of my bookmarks. Among the beautiful ribbons, I've placed a £10 note. It has marks, seals, and pictures to show its significance. Also when you hold it up to the light you can see more markings and a silver strip of metal running through it.

Her Majesty's government has made it as difficult as possible to copy. The Bible is like my £10 note. It has marks (on Christ's hands and feet), seals (as He was put in a tomb), and images (the book of Revelation on what is to come), to show its significance. What it talks about is impossible to copy, though we know of one who tries! The Bible is valuable, it can buy you something more precious than gold. It can make your life flow with abundance, and can help alleviate suffering.

One day there will be no more money printed when we move to a cashless society, and one day we will no longer need the Bible when it's author returns.

Lost Sheep

In the Gospel, the Lord describes us as sheep without a shepherd. However, there can be a danger of spiritual smugness should we be so arrogant as to brand others as lost sheep, but refuse to accept the possibility for ourselves. We are, after all, disciples of Christ. But if we are truly members of His flock, we must recognise that we remain as sheep with wanderlust.

There are three kinds of sheep-categories that can easily overlap in practice. The first are those who are lost and know they are lost. They are hungry for the truth. They secretly desire the generosity of a good shepherd to reveal the truth to them. A good deal of young people can thus be described.

Lost in the culture of pleasure and self-absorption, some learn at a young age the vanity of worldly pleasure. But they cannot bring themselves to give up their compulsions. They know that they need good shepherds - loving but firm parents, selfless priests and honest authorities - to show them the way. With a patient and diligent imparting of the truth, good shepherds would help them find the peace of the flock of Christ and true peace of soul.

The second type of sheep includes those who are lost, but do not know they are lost because they are following false or gravely flawed shepherds. Who are they? They are the young people who adopt their favourite superstars and media personalities as role models with little or no regard for Christian virtue. All who establish money, sex, power, personality - even their own intelligence – as their guiding lights are lost sheep. On a certain level they may be happy for a while. But it's a happiness that ultimately cannot endure or interpret the inevitable crosses of life. In many cases, as with an alcoholic who must hit bottom to come to his senses, God permits suffering to help these lost sheep recognise the futility of their false gods.

Finally, there are those lost sheep, who in their arrogance, think they themselves are shepherds without accountability. So many clergy can become lost in this way by forgetting that they are not shepherds on their own authority.

They are shepherds with Christ as the chief Shepherd. This is why priests and bishops are subject to laws of the Church. If they are to be good shepherds, their rule ought to be based on justice and charity, not on caprice or privilege.

Anyone vested with the authority of a shepherd can be lost by dismissing the source of his authority. Recently, an Anglican rural dean created distress for several families by claiming that the funerals a priest from another church had conducted were 'invalid' and did not protect the deceased because that priest wasn't a member of the dean’s denomination. Shepherds who presume to rule on their own authority succumb to the temptation of the fallen angels. They yearn to be as gods rather than guides. Such an evil most probably cannot be cast without prayer and fasting and possibly even some psychotherapy!

Awareness of our absolute dependence on God's grace is only developed in prayer or awakened by suffering. Without God's grace, a vague perception of our dependence upon the Good Shepherd sharpens, and we begin to see clearly the joy of returning to and remaining in the sheepfold of Christ. But in prayer, we should be able to recognise when we are lost, how we were lost and how easy it is to be lost. We strayed in the past. By presuming God's grace, that can happen again. In humility, we must remain vigilant.

Sheep or shepherd, denomination ‘A’ or denomination ‘B’ we’re all part of His flock!

Keeping Fit

In this post Christmas season many of us have a heightened awareness of our need to get physically fit. The papers abound with adverts for courses that will teach people to become personal trainers, and it all sounds very attractive on one level: Apparently it could take me as little as twelve weeks to train, the learning could be done at home and I’d gain the benefit of developing a more muscular and toned body whilst acquiring the skills to help others to become fitter too. That is except for the fact I have several decades worth of Pepsi’s, mashed potatoes, and banana cream pies to sort through first.

But there are always downsides to such dreams: The tuition isn’t cheap, there’s no certainty that the qualifications will lead to paid work and there often doesn’t seem to be much of a selection process.

It seems a little strange to me that while we often pay lots of attention to our physical appearance we sometimes completely ignore our emotional and spiritual well-being. Perhaps what we need most is a strong network of relationships with others who affirm and challenge us in a variety of ways.

Friendships can give such support and another source is the constant prompting and guidance that God gives to us throughout the day. We can tune-in to listen to that help when we make space for reflection and silence amongst the other activities of our lives. Words from the Bible remind us that even better than a personal trainer, God always accompanies us, ‘Be filled with the Spirit... Be Guided by the Spirit... Walk by the Spirit.’

The comforting thing about God’s help is that it is always there, all we have to do is to recognise it.

Can You Hear Me?

There are few things more agonising and frustrating than not being heard. The boss seems ever deaf to our suggestions. The children put their hands over their ears when we are trying to tell them something crucial. The tutor disinterestedly looks out the window as we try to make our point in the seminar.

Do we and our contributions not matter at all? Not being heard is painful. It gives the sense that we hardly exist.

So, by contrast, those who give us their time and attention are always good news. They affirm us, even when we ramble on and are not at our best.They listen and we are thankful.

No wonder the psalmist gives praise to the God who has heard his voice and listened to the cry for mercy. An inattentive, deaf, unresponsive God could hardly be said to be caring and creative. Psalm 116 is one of those psalms that reflect our experience of being nearly overcome by some problem or another only to find an answer in our desperate cry. In God's listening and answering is our life.

No wonder that the psalmist pledges allegiance to God. He will renew his vows to the Lord. He is grateful beyond measure for God being the kind of God He is. Every moment is a good moment to renew again our baptismal vows and to live them out publicly among all God's people.

History of Choice

An explosive new film about the death of President John F Kennedy is about to be released. It offers compelling evidence that Fidel Castro was the key component in the ordering of President Kennedy’s assassination. The producer has provided documentary proof that Lee Oswald went to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City where he was paid money to carry out the assassination.

The film claims that only a few days after Kennedy's death President Lyndon Johnson quashed the FBI investigation of this theory, even to the point of recalling the FBI agent who had been dispatched to Mexico City to investigate why Oswald went to the Embassy in Mexico just weeks before Kennedy’s death.

Forty-three years on, this documentary evidence suggests that President Johnson’s reason for blocking the investigation was that proof of a Cuban link would have placed him under insurmountable pressure to invade Cuba, only a year after the Cuban missile crisis, which brought the USA, Soviet Union, and the world to the brink of nuclear war. The relations between the Communist world and the Western world were still so raw that the results could have been cataclysmic.

This theory is fascinating because it gives us a glimpse of what might have happened, but didn’t. I still recall the ludicrous useless emergency preparations we made in the sixties. My school had us squat along the wall beneath the windows, covering our heads, in order to protect us from the impact of a thermo-nuclear blast.

Whatever the truth, we are free to wonder what the consequences may have been. Just imagine; the killing of Hitler without trial might have set a precedent, which would have become accepted. The death of Gandhi in custody could have changed the course that led to Indian independence. The death of Saddam Hussein, whilst still monarch of his country, could have actually saved hundreds of thousands of lives. And today, Ariel Sharon lies in hospital. It’s indisputable that choices he made during his life had a profound impact on not only the Middle East, but also the world. I shudder to think of some choices he could have made. We’ll never know.

There’s a children’s book that is making the rounds since Christmas. It’s a fast moving interactive adventure story in which every paragraph requires a choice and every choice leads you to another page, another dilemma. Yet, mysteriously, whatever your choices and adventures along the way every reader ends up at the same end of the story.Fortunately, human history, however, is not like this. Cabinet papers reveal what happens when highly able people are tested by circumstances. They show how we react by trying to guess the future, trying to write the script of history in advance. The United States has something called a ‘game room’ where learned individuals test certain scenarios to help model where the world, as well as the United States, may stand should certain events occur. It is suggested that some of those scenarios may then be but into motion to help encourage a desired outcome.

Whatever the practices and decisions exercised by our governments, I am grateful for so many routes history did not take. And as we begin our new year many people will be praying for the wisdom of our leaders and the choices they make.

We always hope that circumstances do not ask of our leaders more than they can manage. When the disciples of Jesus asked Him how to pray, He gave them the Our Father, the Lord's Prayer which has near its end, the mysterious request, ‘Do not lead us into temptation.’ One translation of that clause is ‘do not put us to the test.’ Do not ask any of us to decide what is beyond us; may history always have surprises that save us from ourselves.

The End Is Nigh!

Have you seen the predictions for the New Year? My goodness! Doom and gloom abounds! Even allowing for the innate pessimism of a revivalist preacher, it has been a year of nearly unprecedented human tragedy and natural disasters.

We started last year with the tsunami tragedy and this seemed to be a preview of things to come: Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wars, and floods of Biblical proportions have kept the doomsayers busy.

But Perhaps more tragic than what nature did to humanity is what humanity did to humans. In the Darfur region of Sudan, an estimated 180,000 souls with the 'wrong' ethnic background were slaughtered. And in Africa and even throughout developed nations such as America, 85 million humans were going hungry. Russian, Ukrainian and Belarus children who’ve been victims of trafficking often end up either escaping or being dumped in Moldova or Romania, traumatised and damaged beyond imagination. Their short lives have been so horrific they are unable to even assimilate where they came from.

This year a number of Biblical scholars have aligned with scientists to present some rather disconcerting predictions. Apparently, there's a lump of something, which has been labelled as planet 'X', which some scientists claim to have briefly seen, that may be on a possible collision course with our friendly planet. And according to a number of learned Biblical scholars, scientifically balanced software such as 'Torah4 U' and 'Bible Codes 2000' have found cryptic evidence of accurate ancient caveats that proclaim the most appalling catastrophic events will begin this year and increase over the next 5 years. When you look at some of the evidence, it can leave you scratching your head with amazement. A group called Exodus 2006 has even created intricate diagrams to prove of their predictions.

Civil liberty has had a rough patch as well. We've heard about the discovery of illegal wiretapping of Americans, and probably lots of other folks who aren't, and there has been tacit government acknowledgement that one of the most powerful nations on earth is not above kidnapping people off the streets of another country and carting them off to less savoury nations where they may be subjected to music from the Spice Girls, or even worse.

We learned about secret prisons and the mistreatment of prisoners. And we have had an extremely distasteful lesson on how to obfuscate the truth with semantics when caught in the act of nefarious government-sanctioned activities. The Merriam Webster dictionary describes semantics as 'the language used in political propaganda to achieve a desired effect on an audience, especially through the use of words with novel or dual meanings.' Too right!

Most of the predictions are banal or intelligible only to those who interpret them. One website, and I'm loathe to even share its name out of concern that someone will read its predictions and begin packing their bags, predicts that August 3 will be a 'blood drenched day.' But it goes on to suggest that this is merely a glimpse of the disaster that will befall humanity in 2010. One psychic asserts that a massive asteroid will hit our planet this year. If she's correct, well, she has every right to stand up and shout 'I told you so.' Unfortunately, there won't be anyone around to hear her. Oh yes, and a number of sites suggest with mathematical certainty that the draft will be reinstated in America. Really?

According to a turbo-charged global-atmospheric computer at Colorado University, 2006 will be no picnic. It predicts 17 tropical storms, 9 hurricanes - five of them major with winds exceeding 185km per hour. And who was it that refused to sign a pact to limit global warming?

Since the beginning of time there has been an ample chorus of voices proclaiming the imminent arrival of the end of the world. And people have watched with fascination for signs and wonders and portents.

It has always been so, hence Jesus took special pains to remind us in the Gospels that we already have what we're looking for so anxiously: 'The reign of God is already in your midst,' He says. Look no further.

The Holy Spirit already dwells within every one of us, only waiting for us to open our hearts and our lives to the Spirit's healing and guidance. Life could take on a very different shape now, if we could bring ourselves to doing that with confidence and trust. That is the challenge that confronts us repeatedly across the whole span of our lives: To trust in the Holy Spirit's presence, to open our hearts, and to keep them open. That task will never be complete in this life, but for some it has not yet begun.

May we not ever find ourselves in such sorry company.