It is odd how the human mind works. We often do precisely what we are told not to do. If no one had said anything to us we should not have thought of it. The story is told of a tourist attraction in the United States which consisted of a huge cave full of stalactites and stalagmites, those wonderful natural sculptures produced by the action of water on limestone, dissolving it in one place and depositing it elsewhere. The odd visitor would damage the structures by taking souvenirs. So the curators put up a notice saying that the cave’s contents were irreplaceable and asking people to be respectful of them. Immediately the rate of vandalism and theft rocketed.

A SINGING DAY WITH BOB CHILCOTT

SATURDAY 29TH SEPTEMBER 2007

St Neots Parish Church

Registration 9.30-10.00am

Four singing sessions ending approx. 4.30pm

£15 per person – bring your own lunch or eat in town.

Since our cedar tree came down, many people have spoken to me lamenting its passing and querying the need to have it taken down. An old man told me that he used to climb it when he was a small child. Its death leaves a great hole in our churchyard and in people’s memories. It’s very pleasing therefore to be able to say that in the next few days a new one, a modest 23ft. high of the same species will replace it.

Mother’s Day makes us sentimental. It also makes florists and restaurateurs happy. A bit of sentimentality does no one any harm (and happiness is good too.) The only trouble with being sentimental is that it allows us to forget the plight of many mothers. Perhaps the task of stopping children from being influenced by the smash-and- grab culture of the television is too much for them. Perhaps too many of them have absentee husbands or no husbands, or their partners are unreliable. Perhaps the mothers themselves are, too many of them, giving up on the desperately hard job of talking and listening to their children, of eating with them without the television on, or they find going out in the evening preferable to reading to their children. Thank God indeed for those mothers who devote the countless hours required to bring up polite, socialised, keen and compassionate children who enjoy life and who know what it is about.

A million years ago I was a lawyer. Sometimes people who hear this ask me for legal advice. I readily give it: go and see a solicitor (or the CAB etc.) I have forgotten most of what I knew…but not all.

A week last Wedneday, in church our foreheads were smeared with ash in the form of a cross. The ashes were made from last year’s palm crosses which we had burned. Ash is what we shall doubtless come to. We were made out of dust and to dust we shall return. The reason why we do this, and why the day is called Ash Wednesday, is that human beings get above themselves. They think they are great. In religious language they are guilty of pride, the mother and father of all wrongdoing. If I am important, others are less so: I can treat them how I want. And we do. How often do we pay attention to other people’s wants? When they are part of our family; when we want something from them; when we need them. Some of us are more compassionate than others, but no one is flawless.

The strong winds have left us for the moment. Our cedar tree in the churchyard is no more. In the early morning, that sunny spot is white with frost; the grass around it assumes a pastel grey-green. Pied wagtails flit across the grass and the urgent sound of a robin calls, as if to invoke the spirit of spring. Around the garden of remembrance the green spears of coming daffodils show themselves clear six inches above the earth. But way ahead of them are the snowdrops, now well in flower, ready for the half term holidays. Meanwhile the ducks swim through the fragile ice particles on the surface of the brook.

Religion has many critics and some implacable enemies. It should always listen to its critics; they may draw to our attention our failures of faithfulness. If we condone cruelty, or encourage it; if we allow bigotry or arrogance to become part of our way of living; if we encourage ignorance; if we neglect some vital aspect of the life of God’s creation or the welbeing of his children, our critics may serve to bring us back to our true course. Sometimes God uses the ungodly to say or do things which we should have done or said to ourselves, but have not - to our soul’s peril.

On Saturday we rededicated our organ following its two-year rebuilding with a superb concert by Anne Page.

A specially-erected screen allowed us to see Anne’s hands and feet in action!

The Bible, it has been observed is a strange book, it is certainly not modern. In our attempts, therefore, to understand it we have to explain, even, we think, explain away some of its contents. An obvious example are the miracles. Now I don’t understand how the miracles were achieved. If I did, I suppose that they would not be miracles. They would be the prestidigitation, the sleight of hand, of a magician. The magician knows how the trick is done but the audience does not. Or, if you like the explanation is naturalistic: Jesus had been standing on higher land and had seen the shoal of fish which the fishermen had not. But this does not explain why Peter, who is anything but gullible, attempts to send Jesus away because he is, as he says, a sinful man.