It’s That Time of Year Again

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This article was published in The Scottish Catholic Observer on 20th Dec 2019.

I suppose you have noticed that Christmas is coming. You can hardly miss it; the shops are full of clues like Christmas lights, decorations, images of Santa and reindeer. I was looking at a range of charity Christmas cards in a popular store the other day and even found one card that had the word, ‘Christmas’. The shelves are stuffed with toys for all the girls and boys and I suppose that’s what we think about at this time. Christmas is an exciting time for children.

Children are preparing for Christmas, playing parts in the Nativity Play; could be Joseph or Mary or probably one of the angel chorus. Children are encouraged to work on their behaviour. Santa’s helpers will be keeping an eye on everyone and Santa is making up his list. Everyone is being good so they get moved up Santa’s list. Parents are getting the Christmas menu sorted out for the big Christmas Day dinner. Writing the Christmas cards and wrapping the gifts takes hours. Christmas Day sees us at mass and gathering round the crib to see the baby Jesus.

The children gaze at the holy child, the picture of innocence we are all encouraged to emulate. Even the animals push in close to be near Jesus. This is the Holy Family that all our families should be like. Christmas is a great time for families.

Of course it’s not like that for everyone. Occasionally we get one or maybe two people at Midnight Mass who have had a wee bit too much to drink. Sometimes they just sit there but some can be a bit noisy. Often you find that they haven’t been to Mass for a long time. They fell away years ago because they couldn’t deal with it. They were put off by the guilt that many feel and then they feel they don’t belong. For some reason they feel called back and the alcohol dims the guilt feeling.

Christmas is seen as a happy time for the good, the innocent and the holy but not for the sinners and the excluded. It’s about the good people welcoming the Baby Jesus and singing Christmas Carols, isn’t it? Well, now that I think about it, I suppose that’s wrong. Christmas is the birthday of Jesus but that’s not the beginning. Jesus is the Son of God and He was around for a long time before the first Christmas. He was around before there was time actually. Christmas was the coming of the Son on a mission.

It’s the mission the Holy Child was sent on that gives Christmas its significance. This child was sent to change the world. Jesus was to grow into a man who broke the rules. The Son of God did not associate with princes and kings. He lived among the ordinary people and the poor. There were people in that society that decent people did not associate with. Jesus kept company with tax collectors and fallen women. He wasn’t very nice to some of the important people.

Jesus had come to save the sinners, the excluded and the lost. When challenged about his choice of associates he replied that it is the sick who need the doctor, not the healthy. In a sense Christmas is really all about sinners. If there were no sinners there would be no need for Jesus to come to save them. However there never seems to be a shortage of sinners. We were all innocent children once but living in the world, we find it difficult to avoid sin.

It is useful to remember that we are all sinners but we must not let feelings of guilt cause us to despair. Jesus brought the message that we are all saved and He saved us by His death and resurrection. Of course Jesus didn’t leave it at that. He formed his Church with Peter as its rock. It is our mission to continue His work of saving sinners.

How do we go about that? Well, I suppose we should take our lead from Jesus. He did not point the finger of accusation at the sinner. He, who was sinless, beckoned to the sinner to come to Him. Do we do the same? Are we ready to welcome the sinner, the outcast or the inebriated man at the back of the church?

I think we are very good at recognising and helping the poor and the sick. We contribute to charities like SCIAF and MISSIO to bring aid to the poor all over the world. We contribute to the Saint Vincent DePaul collections to help those who have fallen on hard times nearer home. Schools put together Christmas parcels and distribute them to old folk living on limited means. How good are we at reaching out to the others?

Our prisons are overflowing with convicted prisoners. Some of them get visitors while others may be far from home and have nobody to reach out to them. How good are we at accepting those prisoners when they are released from prison? Do we welcome them warmly or do we view them with suspicion, seeing them as guilty men? (I know they are not all men.)

How would Christ see them? Would He reject them and turn away? I don’t think so. I think Jesus would not condemn them but offer them forgiveness and salvation. Remember, Jesus came to change the world. As a Christian I’m compelled to continue that task of changing the world. That sounds impossible but I’m not on my own. There are millions of us all over the world with that same task.

How do I start this change? Well I first of all need to bring about change in myself. I need to start by changing how I see other people. Do I look down on the inebriated man at the back of the church or do I recognise someone who has been moved to come to Christ even if he doesn’t realise it? Do I condemn or do I welcome?

This Christmas I’ll try to see the crib a bit differently; not just the Baby Jesus for children to wonder at but the Son of God calling out to all the sinners (me included) to come back to Him. I need to remember that no matter what we have done, what sins we have committed, what hurts we may have caused, the Baby Jesus doesn’t see our guilt but our need of forgiveness.

This Christmas is a time for rejoicing. It’s a time for sinners to rejoice because Jesus does not condemn us but wants to welcome us. Nobody is excluded, no matter what their story is. If Jesus can reach out to everyone who am I to look down on anyone?

I’m looking forward to Christmas and I will get caught up in all the usual preparations but this year I’ll try to get busy changing myself into the kind of person Jesus calls us all to be. I hope your preparations don’t get too hectic. Have a joyful Christmas this year. If you are a sinner like me just remember Christmas is all about us sinners.

Christmas – What’s Under the Tree for Sinners?

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As we prepare to plunge into Christmas again let’s take a closer look at what’s on offer. There’s plenty of excitement for the good girls and boys on Santa’s list. There’s the music and colour of midnight Mass for the faithful. But what about the sinners? What can Christmas mean for them?

Read my thoughts in this week’s bumper edition of The Scottish Catholic Observer. It’s in your parish this weekend.

Glasgow Central Station Tour

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Have you been on the Central Station tour? If not you should make a point of going when you are in Glasgow. We went along the other day (you need to book in advance) and were fitted out with hard hats and fluorescent vests. We looked like a small but determined group on a demo.

We were taken down into the bowels of the station and were amazed at the size of the spaces there. The guide explained how these spaces were used in the early days of the station. He also showed us the outline of the village that was cleared to make way for the station.

The group were led through the caverns

Going down further we entered the place where the bodies of soldiers killed in the First World War were laid awaiting the families to identify them. The guide’s account of the social history of this station is particularly shocking at this point. Going down further we entered a disused platform on what was an early underground track. This space is under development and they plan to reconstruct a Victorian platform here in the future.

The very bottom of the station

The workers here have found lots of evidence of life in a Victorian station, cigarette packets, newspapers etc. They have even found traces of early tunnels from the time of the original village here. I’m sure this will develop into an even more interesting attraction for anyone who is interested in the history of Glasgow and of railways.

Christianity and Cultural Influences

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This article was published in the Scottish Catholic Observer on Friday 8th November 2019.

I well remember my first visit to Sub-Saharan Africa. When I reached the door of the aircraft at the airport in Accra, Ghana I was hit by two things. First was the heat; it was like a wall of heat I’d walked into. The second thing was the smell. I can’t describe the exotic smells of Africa. It was plain I’d come to a place that was very different from home. Glasgow had never smelt as exciting as this.

I was working with MISSIO Scotland at the time and I was there to discover how we were helping the growing Church in Ghana. We were met by Mgr. Roger who took us to his home area of Bolgatanga in the far north of the country. While we were there we visited the home of the local chief and his extended family. His home was a small compound of mud huts. At the entrance to the compound I noticed two strange structures. I asked what these could be and was told that they were where animals were sacrificed to the various gods.

Sacrificial tables in Ghana

But surely these people were Christian, Catholics indeed? The answer to this was very instructive. When a family converted to Christianity one member would not convert but remain with their old religion. That person would continue to offer sacrifice for the family to the old gods; just in case.

That made me think about being a Catholic in Scotland. Have we thrown off all the old pagan beliefs entirely? What about all those superstitions we still cling on to and whose origins have been forgotten? If a black cat crosses your path do you still get a shiver down your spine? If you spill the salt do you still toss a pinch of salt over your shoulder?

Think about the pagan gods that still exist in our calendar; January is named after the god Janus, March is named after Mars, the god of war. Thursday is named after Thor, the Norse god, not the Marvel Comics hero.

By now some of you may be suspecting that I’ve lost the place. “Why is he going on about all this old stuff?” you may ask. Well, I think this is pertinent to some of the debate going on in the Church today. Pope Francis is using the Amazon Synod to examine how we, as a church, can respond to the needs of those in South America whose remoteness makes it difficult for the Church to reach out to them. They are looking at the possibility of married men being priests.

This has provoked many to respond in defence of the traditional position of the Church that priests should be celibate and to cast doubts on the validity of the faith of those in these remote areas. There is a suspicion that these strange people are still really pagans at heart; not like us. So how do we tell if someone is really Catholic?

Well, first of all they have to be Christian; they have to be a follower of Jesus Christ. That entails trying to live according to His teaching. By that measure British society would not qualify as Christian as our laws do not respect the gift of human life. To be Christian we need to try to follow Jesus’ command to love God and love our neighbour. You could say that Jesus was not a Christian as He was not a follower of Himself. Jesus was a Jew and his religious practice was Jewish.

In the tribal areas up the Amazon the culture is not that of Scotland. It is expected of men to be married. An unmarried man would not be regarded as a figure of authority. But even in the UK we have recognised married priests. When Anglican priests felt compelled to leave the Anglican Church as a result of the decision to have women priests they were welcomed into the Catholic Church along with many of their parishioners. They could be accepted into the Church as they accepted the authority of the Pope. That’s how we know we are Catholics.

It’s comforting to think that we get baptised as a child and we are in the Church for life. While the Church may not reject the baptised many of those baptised as children grow up to drift away from the Church. Are they still Catholics if they are not practicing? The reality is that many people drift in and out of the Church. Many still carry the outward signs of being a Catholic in their adherence to a ‘catholic’ subculture. How does the Church respond to those of a different culture?

This is a problem the Church faced in its earliest days. When Paul went to Antioch to spread the Good News he did not restrict his preaching to the Jews. He made converts among the pagans who were moved by the Holy Spirit. This caused a great controversy. The early Christians were Jews who still followed their Jewish religious practice. They identified their faith in Jesus with their Jewish culture and could not accept that one could be a follower without adopting all the trappings of Judaism.

The apostles had to rule on this dispute. They recognised that conversion was the work of the Holy Spirit and that these new converts were therefore chosen by God. They ruled that the pagan converts could be members of the Church and only had to follow simple rules against idolatry, fornication and abstaining from the meat of strangled animals. It seems to be then that Christianity was recognised as something from the Jewish tradition but not something of that tradition, it was a new Church.

It seems to me, then, that the Church must be open to people of many different cultures and has a duty to make it possible for the Amazonian people to play a full part in the Church. The apostles’ decision also points us to the role of the Holy Spirit. Africans I met told me that the missionaries did not bring God to Africa. God was working among the people before the missionaries came. The missionaries brought the Gospel. The Church has to remember that evangelisation is the work of the Holy Spirit and we must follow His lead. We are not the driving force in spreading the Word. We merely follow where the Holy Spirit leads us.

Why Are You So Angry?

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This article was published in the Scottish Catholic Observer on Friday 11th October 2019.

Have you noticed how angry people are these days? Television news programmes repeatedly show us scenes of angry confrontations. Debates seem to have changed from people putting reasoned arguments into angry shouting matches. Angry crowds have been on the streets venting their feelings at politicians and anyone who is willing to disagree with them. The focus of all this anger seems to be on Brexit. There are angry voices complaining that the referendum was not proper and there are opposing angry voices which claim they were promised that we would leave and we are still here.

Anger is a natural human emotion. It can be seen as the body’s way of dealing with a threat. Anger can cause an increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure and increased levels of adrenaline. These are just what the body needs to fight against an aggressor or to run away. Anger, in other words, can save your life. Unfortunately it can also do the opposite and have severe effects on your well-being.

I recall a weekend trade union training course in negotiation (it was called a ‘combat school’ but that’s another story) in Manchester where we were taught to use anger to some effect. This was not about shouting and bawling at the management it was a technique to use when negotiations met a road block. Suddenly showing anger, not violently, could cause a change in perception that made the discussion move on. I used this once, many years later, in defending an employee who was being disciplined for coming to work smelling of drink. It shifted the discussion to the employer’s duty of care to the employee and resulted in a positive course of action that benefited both.

The power of anger to shift the focus has been well recognised by some politicians. Much of the anger we see in the political arena today has been deliberately incited by those who wish to whip up support from people who had not been supporters before. By threatening to pick up a rifle and fight for their cause a politician can elevate their argument to the level of a crisis. It gives out the message that this is a critical threat that must be opposed. Anger breeds anger.

It’s not just in the field of politics that we see anger being displayed. Anger is the response of choice in cases of sexual abuse of women by powerful men as we see in the ‘Me Too’ movement. Clerical sexual abuse has brought an angry response across the world. Anger among those who have been abused is understandable. The prominent feeling seems to be one of disappointment rather than anger among the faithful who feel betrayed. Displays of anger can be useful. Anger can get things done. Anger has its downside too.

Road rage is one symptom of anger that has gone out of control. A road rage incident can be triggered by someone making a simple mistake in driving, someone behaving selfishly on the road or someone just getting frustrated by delays. We have even seen disputes over parking spaces resulting in fights and even deaths. Anger has taken over, adrenaline is pumping into the bloodstream and violence is the result. Lives can be changed forever or even ended.

During the Presidential Elections in the USA we saw Donald Trump whip up the crowd against his opponent Hilary Clinton with the chant ‘Lock her up!’ Mrs. Clinton was not guilty of any crime but the crowd angrily shouted, “Lock her up.” Anger can cause us to bypass rational thought. Angry chants in a crowd can take on a life of their own. Once you get people angry you can get them to do all sorts of things, even elect you as President of the USA.

Jesus could be angry too. We know that He angrily threw the money changers out of the temple. This was not a normal response of his. He chose to display anger to make a point. That’s an example of controlled anger. The money changers must have been shocked because Jesus was normally a preacher of love. Anger is the opposite of love. They would have been used to their Roman overlords being angry and just accepted it as how things were. A normally peaceful man suddenly being violently angry would have had a much greater effect.

So, is there any place for anger in the Church? If we look at what’s happening in the Church today we find anger where we least expect it. If the message of the Church is ‘love God and love your neighbour’ would we expect to find anger here? Perhaps in the confessional where we admit to our worst sins we might get an angry response. I’ve never experienced anger there. What I have found is sympathy and forgiveness.

If not in the confessional, where could we find anger? Strangely, it seems we can expect anger from bishops, cardinals or theologians. Their anger seems to be directed at the Holy Father. Pope Francis has spread the message of love and reconciliation since his election. Why would this provoke an angry response?

I’ve been reading some of the things that Pope Francis is being accused of and I’ve been looking to see where these accusations are coming from. It seems to me that there is a very right wing element in the Church in the USA. There seems to be a lot of anger coming from that quarter, aimed straight at the Pope. Some even question the validity of his election. Some even question the validity of the Church after Vatican II. I’ve read some comments from America that suggest that the Mass in the vernacular is not a valid Mass. It’s all angry stuff.

It’s not just the content of the criticism that bothers me, it’s the angry tone. That’s what makes me feel uneasy about all this. Christ’s message is all about love. The Church’s message is about love because we are the followers of Christ. All love comes from God. Anger, real anger not just irritation, is the opposite of love. So where does that come from and why?  The clue lies in the writings of Saint Peter.

Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat. Stand up to him, strong in faith and in the knowledge that your brothers all over the world are suffering the same things.

1 Peter 5: 8,9

That is a warning aimed at all of us; laity priests and religious. It is easy to forget that the devil stalks the Earth. If we forget he is there we become easy prey. Just as Jesus continues His work on Earth through us, so does the devil. We don’t see evil events committed by a cloven hoofed demon. The evil we see is committed by human beings influenced by the devil. If I was the devil (I’m not applying for the job) I would attack the bulwarks of the Church; the priesthood, the religious and the family. To those who say that Pope Francis is not following a traditional line and is associating with sinners I would reply that I’ve seen that before somewhere. That is exactly what Jesus did. If Pope Francis is copying Jesus then I’ll go along with that. I’m a traditional enough catholic to believe that Papal elections are the work of the Holy Spirit and Francis was chosen by God for good reasons. Let’s all avoid anger and spread the love.

Loneliness – My Column full text

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This article was published in the Scottish Catholic Observer on 12th July 2019.

I was recently in the Braes of Glenlivet attending the annual Scalan Mass. Luckily the weather was kind and we enjoyed sunshine although the wind was rather cold. It’s a long time since I had visited the area and driving from place to place I remarked on the distance between neighbours. This is a feature of rural life we tend to forget. There is no chance of nipping round the corner to the shop if you run out of milk here.

Loneliness in the farming community has been highlighted recently. Farms are no longer places where the work is done by manual labour. Farms don’t have crowds of farmhands pitching in to get the work done. Mechanisation has taken over much of the hard labour but also makes farming a more isolated occupation. The psychological effects of isolation take their toll on health and lifespan.

I wondered if I could adapt to living in relative isolation like country folk. When the children were young we enjoyed holidays here. Getting away from the bustle and noise was refreshing but that was only for a short time. We were soon home enjoying a less lonely existence.

Of course I’m thinking of ourselves living near family and friends with neighbours close by. That is not the reality that many people experience living in our towns and cities. Recent surveys have found that more and more homes are occupied by one person. There are many reasons for this. Among older people the death of a spouse leaves the widow alone in their home. Younger people leave home, often moving away to work, and find themselves alone in a flat in an unfamiliar city.

Marriage breakup results in one household becoming two single occupier households. Young people who have to leave care find themselves living alone without the support they have been used to. Strangely, in a modern society where technology has given us the means to communicate across the world instantly, loneliness is becoming a major problem. The human need to contact others is often not being met.

Now you might think this is a social problem and I’m going off topic in a Catholic paper. I would suggest that if we take a closer look we might find that this is at the root of our religion. Admittedly there is nothing in the Ten Commandments about loneliness and I can’t remember anything in the Catechism about it. However if we go back to the very start, the book of Genesis, where we see how God created the world we get a picture of what God intended for us.

In Chapter two we get a description of the Garden of Eden and all the resources God puts there to meet man’s needs, water and plants. God fashions man out of the earth and breathes life into him. Then, when had settled man in the garden He looked at what he had done and decided something was missing.

“Yahweh God said ‘It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate.’”

Genesis 2: 18

Now we often take this passage and find in it the message that it is natural for man and woman to be a couple. I’m just looking at the first part where God plainly tells us that it is not good for man to be alone. It’s clearly not God’s intention that we should be alone and Genesis is giving the Church a clear message about loneliness.

So what can the Church do to combat loneliness? The first thing I notice is that the Church instructs us to attend Mass on a Sunday. This clearly brings us into contact with other people on a regular basis. There we meet people who we have something in common with and provides the opportunity to arrange other contacts. Sunday Mass is not the controlling burden some might imagine, it is a positive step in preventing loneliness. When I was younger there were all sorts of Church organisations that sprung from this. There were societies for women, for men and for the young, all of them bringing us into contact with others.

Times have changed and much of this activity has died away. The nature of parish life has changed with many people attending Mass in other parishes and not getting involved in their own parish. I must confess to being part of that problem. We moved house a couple of years ago, just along the road. That put us just over the parish boundary. Because we have various roles in the parish we continue to attend our original church. We need to rethink how our parishes respond to the growing problem of loneliness.

A good example of what can be done is in our parish in Coatbridge. We have a tearoom in the hall behind the church. The tearoom is open every day after the ten o’clock mass and stays open ‘till late in the afternoon. Because the church is on the main street the tearoom is a convenient meeting place for all sorts of people. It is staffed by volunteers and provides a lunch at minimal cost. People can meet friends there and sit all day with a cup of tea and nobody asks them to move. It is a warm place where people of all religions or none can find a friendly welcome.

Our parish priest has an eye for lost souls. Many people have gone in to the tearoom, knowing nobody and before long they have a job to do. Soon they can be part of the volunteer staff keeping the tearoom going for the benefit of others. This is the real answer to loneliness, including people. At Mass we are invited to include the person beside us at the Sign of Peace. It’s a simple act, a handshake and a smile. I was surprised recently to see someone on Twitter complaining that he was expected to do this. He claimed he would refuse take part. How many of us are unhappy about the Sign of Peace? Do we just give a quick handshake or do we make eye contact? Do we smile? Is there any warmth behind the gesture we make? Now I’ve said this before and it is true. We will never know how our words and actions have an effect on other people. We don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s head and the right word or gesture at the right moment can make a big difference to someone who is struggling. God decided it was not right for Adam to be lonely. Perhaps it’s time we all came to the same conclusion and opened up to others.

Journey

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I’ve been planning three journeys this year. I’m going up to the Scalan mass in June then in July I’m going to Benbecula for an ordination. I’m no sooner home from that than I’m off to Canada to visit my son and his family. I used to enjoy journeys but I don’t find them so interesting now. Maybe I’m getting old. (You don’t need to agree with that too quickly)

I don’t enjoy driving on long journeys on busy roads. The traffic is heavy and you really need to keep a good lookout for people doing foolish things. You don’t get a chance to see what’s around you. Flying is no better. Our flight to Canada will entail going to Manchester, the only way we can get a direct flight to Vancouver. Glasgow to Vancouver was always popular but that’s gone. Long waits at airports are a real pain.

We go on journeys to find something. I’m going to the Scalan to find and celebrate a little bit of our history. The other journeys are to catch up with family and find out how they are living. Most of all I suppose I’m going on journeys to find something about myself. It used to be fashionable to go on a journey to find yourself. The Beatles went to India to spend time with the Maharishi and find themselves. That puzzled me at the time. I thought that was strange to look for yourself in a place you had never visited before..

I’ve since realised that they were probably right. When you move out of your normal environment and encounter different people in different cultures it shows up aspects of your own life you took for granted. Travelling in Africa I’ve encountered people who would give you their last cup of water or bowl of rice. That made me question my own commitment to others. I might give some spare money to a charity but these people literally gave away all they had.

Young people are often encouraged to take a ‘gap year’ to find themselves before getting into work. The emphasis is all about ‘me’. We are encouraged to empower ‘me’. To achieve our potential we must concentrate on ‘me’. We are in a modern cult of ‘me’. We have become the focus and centre of our own lives. I think this is a mistake

Life is a journey. Not just cradle to grave but a journey from being a baby knowing nothing growing to discover the world and our place in it. Some have a long journey and some have a short one. Do we get tired of the problems we encounter and miss the interesting things on the way? Life throws up problems that can threaten to overwhelm us and we worry so much we risk missing the important stuff. It can be easy to miss finding out who we really are. Sometimes we are defined by where we live or the job we do. Sometimes it’s about what we own. All of these miss the real ‘me’.

Now I never remember the words of songs but one phrase that has stuck in my memory from the sixties is “You’re so vain I bet you think this song is about you.” I think that sums up the cult of ‘me’. If I focus completely on me then I’m missing out on everything else and because I don’t exist in isolation I’m missing out on part of myself.

I exist as part of something much greater. In John’s gospel we find Jesus explaining just that.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.”

John 15: 5

So the real you is not just the person I see on the train in the morning, making your way to work, coming home and putting your feet up. You are really part of Christ’s being, part of His work in bringing His kingdom to reality on Earth. Our journey through life is part of that great work. Whether we live in a one bedroom flat or a fifty room mansion is irrelevant. Whether we owe money to the bank or own the bank makes no difference to the real importance of our lives.

Losing sight of that is one of the great tragedies of our times. Our society measures the worth of a person by their wealth, position or celebrity. The poor can be ignored but the rich must be listened to. The media seek out the opinions of celebrities more often that finding people of intellect when reporting events and the great questions of our time.

When we deny the presence of Christ in our lives we reduce human life to that of a commodity we can seek or dispose of as we please. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children reported that in Scotland 13,286 unborn children were aborted in 2018. The National Records of Scotland tell us that the most common cause of death in Scotland in 2017 was Ischaemic heart disease: 6,727deaths.

As we can see abortion is almost twice as lethal as heart disease yet those unborn children are not counted in the statistics. Is that because we might be victims of heart disease ourselves? Do I focus on what might affect me because my life is important and the unborn are not? As a society we certainly seem to have cut ourselves off from God. Cut off from God do we achieve nothing?

We live in an age of great technological advances and of great wealth. Has that helped us to solve the problems of our time? We certainly see advances in medicine, combating diseases that swept the earth in the past. Are we happier now? Some of us live longer, happier lives but we live in a world that seems to be facing growing problems that we might actually be causing.

We see mass movements of migrant trying to escape danger and find a better life. The world’s oceans are predicted to rise and flood coastal cities. The air we breathe is polluted by the vehicles we drive around in. (I confess to driving one of those vehicles.) Scientists warn us that we are changing the planet so that it will not sustain life.

We don’t seem to have achieved much. We don’t seem to have achieved happiness as measured by our society’s values. We are not rich enough, beautiful enough, popular enough or whatever. Only by Gods measure can we see the real value we have.

So when you are trying to find the real you please bear this in mind. It’s not all about ‘me’ it’s about ‘us’. You are important because you are a branch on that vine. You are so important that God sent His only Son to die for you. If God values you so highly why would you even consider the popular values of today?