We took my mother to church at St George’s in the centre of Belfast on Sunday morning. I sang in the choir here for a while – 40 years ago. My father was a pillar of choir and Vestry for many years and they were remembering his anniversary with faithfulness. So far as I know, it is the only Anglican church of catholic tradition in Northern Ireland. So I sat and pondered mission issues. It’s a church which has had hard times – much damaged by successive bombings in the city centre. The congregation grew few and frail – so much so that my father described them as waving to one another rather than undertaking the trek across the church to share the Peace. But times are much better now. The Choir is excellent and people come because it offers a distinctive style of worship and congregational life and does it well. And then Rector Brian used my name at the Communion Rail – as I used to do for my parishioners – and that suddenly seemed quite an emotional thing. What a strange business worship is!
Month: October 2007
Best
Just happened to notice that Ireland has been rated best place in the world to live. It’s the combination of all the new stuff with traditional values, etc., which does the trick. And I am sure Scotland shares much of the same. Taxi driver on the way to Belfast Airport this afternoon said, as they always do, ‘Sure this is a great wee country.’ To which everyone always replies, ‘If they could just put a roof over it.’