Early one morning..

BBC - Religion & Ethics - Prayer For The Day

... just as the sun wasn't rising. More like the cloud emptying and the wind blowing this morning, but nevertheless I enjoyed my comforting start to the day with the Radio4 UK theme, which includes this old English folk tune. I really must learn the words properly, so that I can properly discover the fate of the "maiden singing in the valley below", and perhaps find out why she is so grieved at the departure of her loved one. I'm sure I'll find the lyrics on the web somewhere, and will perhaps add a link when I do.

However, for the moment the link in this blog will take you to the far more important and often helpful "Prayer for the Day" on the bbc.co.uk website. What you see if you follow it will probably depend on the date you are reading this,as I think it always points to the current date's prayer and no others are archived, unfortunately. Usually worth a read anyway, though can occasionally be a bit too obscure and intellectual for 05.43 British time! But then, that's good old Radio 4 for you.

This morning's pray-er though was delivered by Rev Dr Leslie Griffiths, a fine old Methodist preacher in the Donald Soper tradition. With his lovely Welsh accent and warm, down to earth thoughts, he's always one of my favourites, rather like Dr Colin Morris, a fellow Methodist, who has much influenced me in my own style I think- indeed both of them have. Should I end up moving to Reading, or getting back into the Staines and Feltham circuit, maybe at long last I can train properly as a lay preacher. But maybe I need to learn this virtue, like Leslie....

Tuesday 14 September 2004
Revd Dr Leslie Griffiths


Patience isn't my longest suit. I have the same sorts of virtues and vices as most people - compassion fights its daily battle with selfishness, courage vies with cowardice, and good struggles against evil for possession of my soul. When all's said and one, I'm a pretty average specimen. I tend to be as virtuous (and as vicious) as those around me. But when it comes to patience, I have a hunch that I'm a sad case. My attention thresholds are too low, my fuses are too short, I'm far too eager for things to happen now, right now. I'm lousy at waiting for anything or anyone.

So it's odd, to say the least, that one of my favourite biblical passages is the verse with which one of the songs in the world's oldest hymn book, the book of Psalms, begins. "I waited patiently for the Lord," it announces, a statement that should be an immediate turnoff for someone like me. But I've come to understand these words in an entirely new way. Waiting patiently doesn't mean being passive or empty of initiative; rather, in the way the Bible uses it, it suggests expectancy, hope, anticipation of something about to take place or be experienced. We wait with eager expectation and, the verse goes on, this leads to the recognition of a God who inclines towards us and hears our cry. Our very waiting is filled with the possibility of fulfilment. That makes waiting an active state and eminently worth practicing even by someone like me.

Dear Lord,

Help us to expect to see signs of your presence in the lives we live and the people we meet. Keep joy in our hearts, we pray, and fill our whole being with your love.

Through Christ who is the Light of the World. Amen.

Thank you, Leslie, or rather thank you Lord, for reminding me that I'm no different to any other human being with those faults and failings I sometimes loath so much in myself. I need patience right now for the right job, which may or may not be with BBC Monitoring, to become mine-but I wait expectantly and very eagerly for your will to be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

And so, after another quick e-mail, it's time for bed, said Zebedee. Now, I wonder how they are coming along with the big screen Magic Roundabout. Robbie Williams as Dougal or Dylan, I believe? The mind boggles!