Gerald Meirion Richards (1925 - 2010)

I missed him again today, walking down Queen Street, refusing to even acknowledge the people all around me. Thinking of money was the trigger again, as it so often is, trying to figure out what to do if I found I didn't have enough for a train ticket tomorrow.

Not that I only miss the financial support. Not that I even mostly miss the financial support. But it was never just money. It was friendship, partisanship, unstinting support that included an occasional meal - home-cooked or the local Italian place. It was also the chats - a long Sunday afternoon talking about life and loves, a quick chat on a weekday morning, a walk to the bus stop with a concern aired and answered. I never realised how much I relied on him, in his flat at the top of the hill, how much I was sure he would always be there if I needed advice, a chat, a few extra quid to get me through the week.

It's nearly eight weeks now since that Friday night, the 26th of February, when I got the phone call, a call from a man who was once my minister. He broke the news gently, but it struck home with a cruel suddenness. It was so immediate. Walking down the street, my friend dropped dead, and in that moment my world seemed shattered. Someone so stable, so certain, so safe was gone. Without warning, without build-up, without foreshadowing of any kind. He was never going. He was simply gone.

How could it be - one so full of life to suddenly die? He had a sharper mind, in spite of his age, than many university students I have met - was more of a joker than the average class clown - held a simple faith that profoundly effected the world around him - had a vision of the future just as clear and compelling as his memories of the past. His body aged, his vision faded, but his life only shone out more clearly, touching and changing old and young, male and female, within church and without with a few words, a joke, a quiet gift - just between us. Don't tell anyone it isn't their business. He never accepted thanks - he was only doing what was right, what needed to be done.

In the weeks that have passed since his sudden disappearance, my life has changed, almost beyond recognition. It almost seemed that his death set off a series of events that had been waiting in the wings for the catalyst, waiting to catapult me into the next stage. When he died, my last strong tie to Cardiff dissolved, yet I still miss him. Nearly two months on, and I still think of him almost daily. My friend, in spite of our difference in age, gender, nationality, experience, the first of my dear friends ever to die.

The Lost Kingdoms of Africa

Lying on the couch on a Sunday evening, battling illness, watching whatever happened to be on, I found myself, for the 7-8 hour with the choice between the Antiques Roadshow on BBC1 and an episode of the "Lost Kingdoms of Africa" on BBC2. I opted for the second programme. It was a fresh concept and a subject about which I knew nothing, so I thought I'd stick to it. After all -there was the thought in the back of my mind - I've been taught so much about ancient Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and European kingdoms. Even the great societies in Central and South America - the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans - have figured in my education, but somehow no one ever mentioned there were ancient ruined cities in Africa.

I watched as the BBC presenter traced out an ancient trade route across eastern and southern Africa, showing a series of impressive ruins of ancient cities. One had been built entirely of coral cut from the living reefs around the island on which it stood. Another was dominated by soaring stone walls held together by the excellence of their construction - no mortar or other glue to keep the stones together. At each site there were local people who still honoured the memory of their ancestors and served as guides and informers to the history and legend surrounding the area.

As I watched, I reflected on my own knowledge of Africa and its ancient history. In fact, there seemed to be no such knowledge in my head. Before the days of Dr. Livingston, I knew nothing about the "Dark Continent." Surely it was merely a land mass full of tribal, hunter-gatherer type civilizations until the Europeans came and formed colonies and empires . . .

At that point, somewhere through the fog of my illness, I saw the flaw, the arrogance, the ignorant assumption that, because I had never heard of it, there had not been any great civilization and history on the African continent, merely because I had never heard of it. What could more clearly show me the Western/European centrality and emphasis of my education and thinking. I dismissed a whole continent with barely a thought, merely because it played almost no part in 'my' history.

After spending years in an academic context, I know well how widespread is the acknowledgement now that no one approaches any situation from a pure and unbiased standpoint. Like the scientist whose observation effects the experiment, so each human effects and changes history when he or she encounters it. We see the world through a lens of our own knowledge and experience. We operate on a series of assumptions and received knowledge which, inevitably, fails to grasp, or perhaps even glance at, the bigger picture. This, whether good or bad, is the nature of the world in which we live.

But my encounter with "the Lost Kingdoms of Africa" taught me something important about the seeds of judgement and dismissiveness in my own approach to those parts of the world of which I am ignorant. Ignorance of other areas of the world is no excuse for dismissing them. If we truly believe in the importance of history - surely we have to include the whole history of humanity, not just of the "Christian West" or the "developed world." Such an ignorant and dismissive attitude smacks of racism - perhaps culturism?

It is, of course, impossible that I should ever know all there is to know about the cultures of the world, but given that, I must not forget it. Awareness of my own ignorance will, hopefully, cultivate humility and a desire to learn, not just for the sake of equality, but for personal growth and enrichment.

choices

I'm not really one for snap decisions. I tend to analyse, agonise and evaluate possible choices with somewhat excessive enthusiasm. Part of this is learned or inherited behaviour. Part of it is an almost unconscious desire to put off making the decision - the more time I take thinking about it, the longer it will be before I must face the change brought on by whatever choice I make.

Over the last ten months or so, I have been faced with a bewildering sequence of choices. I have repeatedly thought, prayed, sought council and searched my own heart in an attempt to find the 'right' path. Some might call this seeking God's will. Perhaps, in some ways, it was, but I prefer to think of it as seeking those places in my life where God is at work. I have taken many challenging and difficult decisions. At times I questioned my own sanity, but when I looked back and sought the hand of God, I could see how each situation and choice led to the next. I could detect no place where I had stepped out of that stream so I continued in the way I had chosen.

It does seem ironic, though, that just as it seemed the final and most challenging choices had been made, another came out of a blue sky to set me back into uncertainty. For most of the month of January I have been considering. I couldn't really say when I made the choice, but it is made now. In reflecting on this latest process of choice-making, I have seen an interesting value that has cropped up in process of evaluating decisions. I have developed a tendency to choice the option that I feel leads to life.

Perhaps this is a reflection of the journey I have been on in the last year. As I have repeatedly been challenged on long-held and dearly cherished beliefs, my perspectives on life, faith and purpose have been transformed in the pressure. Although I am not yet prepared to abandon the concept of 'absolute truth,' I find I have already strayed far from the opinion that I (or any human) can know what it is. And although I would still want to oppose, discourage and avoid the practice of evil in my life and the wider world, I find that the categories of 'right' and 'wrong' no longer have clear, thick lines dividing them.

In the context of this new mental landscape, it seems impossible to make a choice based solely on doing 'the right thing'. What is the right thing? Nor is there any absolute and concrete authority to which I can turn, merely many advisory voices. So instead of taking the right/wrong question as my starting point and eliminating the 'wrong' option, I am starting with the question of life. Where do I find life in these options? Where do I sense the vitality of God? To which choice am I drawn with excitement for the future?

As a side effect of this change in my processes of choice, the opinions of others have lost much of their power over me. Reflecting on the change, I begin to see that my categories of 'right' and 'wrong' have principally revolved around what I thought 'people' would say. Would those closest to me be disappointed? Would those in my church approve? Would those who love me find cause to worry? Would the radio personalities to whom I listened as a child condemn this choice or action? Writing it now, I see a glaring omission in the list: did I ask what God thought right or wrong? No, God's opinion was always mediated through these other sources of authority.

Was I seeking to please people or God?

I remember the first time I was accused of being a 'people-pleaser'. I was hurt. I have always prided myself on my independence and disinterest in public opinion, but that was public, that was 'the world', it turned out that I cared very much about pleasing those in 'the church' or at least Christian society as I knew it.

The danger, of course, is to go to the other extreme, and to ask no advice, seek no opinions and care for no values when making decisions. So far I have not been tempted to go to such extremes. I care too much for the opinions of those close to me, and I am very aware that my choices effect their lives as well as mine. No one is an island, but there is profound difference between making a choice to please my perceptions of the desires of those around me and making a choice in conversation with my community as we seek the wisdom and the mind of God in my life and the lives of those whom I touch daily.

I like that. I am pleased to see such changes taking place in me. I didn't do it on purpose, but I did seek God and chose life. Where will it lead me next?

synthesis God

For many years the ideas surrounding the words balance, irony, paradox and even dialectic have been a big part of the grand landscape of my thoughts. Perhaps it was after I first went to the Leland Center almost 5 years ago that these ideas began to have a place in my conscious brain.

But I also remember, during my last year at Capital Bible Seminary, thinking that the most fundamental principle of theology was balance. So many of the questions I was being challenged to consider seemed to have both possible answers - no and yes - it was always dependant on what was meant be the question, how you defined the words, and how far you took the implications of the answer. Perhaps this is when I first began to ponder whether, in some sense at least, truth actually is relative.

This question of balance, the irony of truth, has followed me through the last few years of my life, casting an alternative light on my experience that has caused me to ask questions utterly foreign to my childhood and come to conclusions which sometimes seem like a betrayal of basic faith, but that is my journey. I have come to find truth not in absolutes, but in the indefinable synthesis between absolutes - the dialectical meeting between two extremes.

As this has become my mental landscape, perhaps it is fitting that it has now also become my emotional and relational life. Over the Christmas holiday I received regular updates on the grave health of my grandmother. These updates brought home to me just how close to the end of life all my grandparents are. She seems better, for now, but she is not what she once was, and will never be that again. Yet while so many in my family were dealing with the legal, medical and emotional issues surrounding my grandmother's illness, I was spending my first Christmas with the man who became my fiancé on Christmas day. As my parents and grandparents faced the possibility of death, my life was full of newness and joy.

This contrast was highlighted again two weeks ago, when I received the shocking news that my best friend's 5-year-old son had died. Lucas may never have been well and strong, but neither was it expected that he would suddenly be snuffed out. Suddenly he was gone, and my heart ached for my friend, even as I was considering a wedding dress and thinking about planning dates. The stark contrast between new life and plans for the future, and a sudden and irreversible ending again obtruded itself onto my notice.

In some ways it causes me to ask: "why me?" Not in the traditional woe-is-me fashion, but why am I so blessed while those I love suffer pain and loss? Why do I look with joy to the future, while others weep, trying to find a way forward? How can I be so full of joy for myself and pain for my loved ones at one and the same time? The scriptural injunction to 'rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn' never felt more appropriate, for both are indeed one and the same. Another irony, another paradox, another dialectical truth. It isn't one or the other, it's both.

It reminds me of a conversation we had about Haiti. As he talked about the pain of sympathy with those people, I realised that I simply turn it off. Why should I think about it? Why should I suffer the pangs of sympathy? There's nothing I can do, bar praying. I have no money. I have no time to offer. I'm sorry this has happened, but why should I grieve? Because we are all part of the human race, was his answer. I left it to hang in the silence.

So perhaps I have found that the paradox of truth is also the paradox of living, the paradox of loving, the paradox of feeling - joy and tears - anticipation and grief - love and loss - gratitude and regret. These do not just follow one another, often they exist simultaneously, challenging the limits of our self-understanding and testing the boundaries of our love.

Yet all this time, outside our boundaries, God still is - greater than all boundaries, more loving than the most famous lover, more joyful than the happiest mother, more grieved that the one who has lost all. Somehow God encompasses all, and still manages to be the same - yesterday, today, forever. Perhaps that is where I can find the bravery to experience the dialectics of life in a new way, because I know the one who is the synthesis.

Lucas Eugene Missel, Oct '04 - Jan '10

A little boy that barely grew,
that never had a chance.
A little boy whose life, from birth,
has burdened as it blessed.
He never spoke a single word.
He never took a step,
but he knew when others spoke his name,
and listened to their love.

A little boy, a tiny life,
as brief as it was vivid.
A witness through the toil and strife
that was his simple living.
His clothes now clothe another boy.
His gauze to help the poorest.
His shoes are on his brother now.
His eyes another's lighten.

Little Lucas, Light of God,
in living, now in dying,
you have left behind the life
in which your soul was hiding,
but in your absence now we see
how far your light was shining,
and in the silence now we hear,
the difference in your dying.

You were here, a light of love,
of patience, strength and waiting.
Now you're gone, but we remain,
to carry on your story.
Five short years have passed us by,
your birth, your life, your passing,
but we remain forever changed,
your impact everlasting.

We give to God eternal thanks
and praise for your brief presence,
and as we forward raise our eyes,
we'll carry your life with us.
God has blessed us through your life,
may we now bless others.
May your light, God's light, still shine,
through all of our lives' weathers.

sermon for the preacher

I was down to preach on Sunday night. Taking a service is a much less regular occurrence for me this year than it was last. In fact, Sunday was only the second preach I've had since August, and the other one was a shared service.
In keeping with my general practice, I checked out the lectionary reading and spent some time thinking out sermon possibilities in the week or too leading up to the important Sunday night. But something went wrong. Life happened. Socialising over the holiday period. Seeing my sister off on New Year's Eve. Celebrating the new year. Battling a virus through it all. I got to Saturday morning and realised that I would be fortunate to be able to get through a service on Sunday night - from the sheer practicality of having a voice.
In any case, the sermon had not been written, in spite of several efforts in that direction. So I decided instead to revisit some ground trodden in the past and adapt something to use in Sunday night's service. As I slipped into sleep Saturday night, I had decided on a text from Ephesians and done some modifications to the sermon I had previously composed on that text, but when I awoke on Sunday morning, a completely different thought was in my mind.
Starting over for the third time, I revisited a sermon from more than a year ago on a text from Matthew. Suddenly I knew I had the right sermon. I arrived in the evening with the worship and prayers prepared and the sermon rewritten, ready to go. All went along bravely until I was nearly at the end of the sermon.
It was then that two things happened. About three quarters of the way into the sermon, I felt my voice begin to go. Then I read aloud something I had gone over at least twice that day, and suddenly felt, for the first time, that I was preaching to myself.
But the moment of self-revelation didn't last long, as I concentrated on keeping my voice and finishing the sermon. I was forced to take some time out for coughing, but eventually finished, leaving the congregation to sing the final hymn as I gathered enough voice for the benediction.
Over the day and a half that has passed since Sunday night, that sudden reminder or insight or conviction from my own sermon has been sinking deeper into my psyche and calling out an increasing number of ideas, challenges and insights for the coming months.
Who would have thought that a last-minute choice of sermon and order of service could turn out to be so appropriate, not just for the congregation, but for the preacher as well.