Letter from the Vicar
PARISH
OF LLANDUDNO, NORTH WALES
August 2007
One of the things which causes me most embarrassment is when I dial a
wrong number. Even though I can’t be seen by the person who
answers my call at the other end, I’m sure I still blush as I stammer
out my apologies for having disturbed someone unnecessarily.
Equally, I’m often left wondering what I can do to help when someone
has misdialled a number and got through to my answerphone rather than
the person they are trying to contact and left often quite important
messages without a return phone number. Making proper connections
is very important; getting your message through to the right person can
be vital, life-saving even.
So is the Almighty connecting with the right people in entrusting to us
the message his Son came to give the world? We’ve all been left a
quite specific message to love one another and, as Christians, we can’t
pretend we haven’t heard it loud and clear. I think perhaps the
problem lies in the fact that it’s quite an expensive business to
respond to that message and then pass it on, expensive in terms of time
and effort, expensive in terms of self-giving. And I think too
that it’s the local calls, if I may put it that way, that sometimes
seem harder to make than the long-distance ones. Loving one’s
neighbour out in Africa seems a lot less demanding sometimes than
putting up with the contrariness or demands of someone who is right on
our doorstep, a neighbour, or even a member of our own or our church
family! And although I may hear that small voice which tells me
that the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, gentleness, peace,
kindness, forgiveness and so on, there are many, many occasions when,
figuratively speaking, I pretend to be out and choose not to listen to
that small voice which the world calls conscience but which Christians
know comes from God.
It was a real joy when I visited Ysgol Gogarth recently to take a
junior assembly there, to have been able to do something with the
schoolchildren which left me feeling I’d really connected with
them. They listened attentively and their response was eager and
quick. It reminded me – as being with our own Sunday School
children often does – how wise Jesus was to tell us that we must be
like the little ones – receptive, open-minded and open-hearted.
So often, I know, I’ve disconnected with someone virtually before
they’ve spoken, made up my mind that I don’t really want to
listen. So I don’t give a Christian response, don’t give the time
and attention to their call on me which I should.
Sometimes too it seems that when, as Christians, we do try to pass on
the message about Jesus and his love for us, our society today is not
even slightly interested, treats the message as a nuisance call, but we
mustn’t give up because of that. The Cross on which Jesus hung
seemed to say to the people around that the man dying on it was a
failure, that no-one had paid much heed to his message. Yet the
empty tomb and what followed meant that his message went out to all the
world, across continents and oceans and islands, spread at first just
by that tiny band of men and women who spoke out on his behalf, as his
witnesses.
We are that band today, as part of our church family at Holy Trinity or
at St Tudno’s, or as we go about our daily lives, trying to be Christ’s
servants and to serve one another in his name. He takes the time
to call us individually because each one of us is precious to
him. The question is, are we always ready to answer him?
Jane