Things that move

from Iceland Review

I believe I slept on a volcano last night. Well, that's what I like to think. Jane had hung the washing out in the day and it ended up with shiny black specks on it, especially the fleece I rest my heels on to prevent them chafing in bed. Of course, I'm no expert, but I like to think they were from the Grimsvötn volcano in Iceland rather than Didcot power station down the road. Apparently Grimsvötn produced more ash on its first day than the unpronounceable Eyjafjallajökull let out in 40 days last year. A vivid eye-witness account described it as a black wall of ash. Possibly I've been to sleep on some of it!

The Radio 4 programme The Choice, in which Michael Buerk interviews individuals who have had to make momentous personal decisions, has returned this week. They are often gritty stories. On Tuesday he was talking to 'Mikey Walsh' who's from a Romany family which has a tradition of bare-knuckle fighting. When he was born, his father hung a gold chain with an ornament of boxing gloves round his neck. As he grew up, despite his family's best efforts, it was clear that he was just not the fighting type. He was soft. Eventually in his teens he realised he was gay and made the decision to run away from his family, cutting himself off from the whole Gypsy world. The cost to him and the hurt to his father were immense. Eventually he moved into acting and wrote his story in Gypsy Boy. That stirred up a buzz of anger among his some of his former community, whom his father personally set about pacifying, by admitting that the details were true. What struck me was the end of the programme, when Mikey told how one day he rang his mother, who passed the mobile straight to his father. He said, "I've got something to tell you: you're more of a fighting man than any of 'em, and I'm proud of you." I found Mikey's honesty and his father's humility very impressive, and the at least partial reconciliation very moving.

Peace on Sunday

Had a good service at church this morning. Visiting speakers, David and Greta Peters, are based in Auckland, New Zealand. They both lost their spouses a few years ago, and then remarkably met each other through the shared significance of the Redman song, Blessed be your name, for them.

It's a favourite of mine too, for similar reasons. 

... blessed be Your name

when I'm found in the desert place

though I walk through the wilderness

blessed be Your name

Every blesssing You pour out I'll turn back to praise

and when the darkness closes in Lord still I will say:

blessed be the name of the Lord!

Matt & Beth Redman © Kingsway Thankyou Music etc.  

They talked about the valleys of life and how God brings us through them. It rang with a lot of truth, as far as I'm concerned.

Sadly Williams did not prosper in Shanghai - no points at all. Hopefully they'll do better in Barcelona. They at least seem to have a talent for spotting promising young drivers, like Nico Rosberg. Perhaps their next young driver, Nico Hulkenberg, will come good for them. Still that didn't spoil my sunny afternoon. We sat out in the garden having our coffee, listening to the collar-doves and goldfinches - and the occasional passing car.  A red kite circled overhead. No sign of the volcanic ash which has been giving such angst and such peace in seemingly equal measure. We don't really notice the difference here, except foe absence of the high altitude vapour trails because our major aerial noise comes from the helicopters at RAF Benson. They don't seem to have been affected. Why, by the way, couldn't they fly beneath the ash cloud? Having lived under Manchester's flight path I can imagine the delight the residents of SW London had in uninterrupted hours of peace. When's the panic buying of bananas and mangoes going to begin? That's the question! And more seriously, when will our friends stranded in South Korea and Venice be able to get a flight home?