Left Behind

Today in the UK...some will be sad, others will be celebrating, and others still will be sublimely indifferent to it all...
To what?
To the announcement today by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that he is resigning from the leadership of the Labour Party and will cease to be Prime Minister on 27th June.
It's the worst kept secret since the Spanish Armada, and the longest goodbye since Frank Sinatra's.
As to my reaction? I am not going to tell you into which of the above categories above I fall, but all the talk on the news bulletins today has been about Tony Blair's "legacy" - what he will be leaving behind when he leaves office, and how his premiership will be remembered.
Who knows?
Time alone will tell. Although it is never likely to tell all.
One thing is certain, every one of us leaves some sort of legacy, in the sense that we all make some sort of mark on the world and on the lives of others, for good or bad (most likely both.)
It is the first principle of forensic science that 'every contact leaves a trace.' And it is certainly true of every human life, however insignificant we may seem.
Jesus asked, or rather told, his disciples to be like salt and light.
Both were, and are, essentially positive, although salt rubbed into a wound can sting and too bright a light can be very uncomfortable, especially when we have become used to the dark.
So, maybe sometimes the followers of Jesus are called upon to make some people feel uncomfortable some of the time, but for the most part our responsibility is to bring flavour and health, illumination and hope to the world in which we are placed and in which we move.
...not easy though.

Name dropping

OK, so I like to place-name drop. :-)

I can't really name drop because I don't really know anyone who is famous.

But, actually, one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place was to share some of my favourite photographs of places I have visited over the years and share some of my thoughts about these places. That's because I think life itself is pretty much a journey and I like to pause now and again to reflect on various places of interest I have arrived at on my life-journey.
Of course, the problem is that this can end up being pretty boring for other people.
I remember once falling asleep while someone was showing us slides of their trip to a foreign country. It's more than a little bit embarrassing when you waken up again, not knowing how much you've missed, or whether you were snoring! But you, dear reader, can fall asleep if you wish, and I won't notice, and I won't hear you snoring, wherever you might be.
This picture you can see here is of the Nubble Lighthouse at Cape Neddick, Maine, USA.
We visited it in 2003.
If I have a thing about bridges, I also like lighthouses a lot. I used to wonder what kind of people had the guts to live the life of a lighthouse keeper. All that isolation and potential danger - like being winched across angry seas, as the lighthouse keeper once would have been here at the Nubble. A bit sad, therefore, that most lighthouses are now fully automated. All the romance and drama have been taken out of the business.
The spiritual metaphors are fairly obvious too - the lighthouse warning of the dangers, guiding ships through hazardous seas to safety, Jesus as Light of the World etc. (One reason that part of our church's youth programme is called the Lighthouse Club.)
But the reason I like this particular photograph is because the light you see doesn't come from the lighthouse itself. The only light here is the reflection of the setting sun in the windows. I had to wait quite a while until this moment came for me to capture.
It's a reminder to me that I have no light of my own: only that which is given to me and which I may then reflect back to others.
Which brings me to the second picture - a banner hanging up in the Guest Hostel of PCEA Kikuyu Hospital in Kenya.

Keeps you humble.

Energy matters

I can't remember if I have posted this photograph before but I thought I'd like to return to the theme of 'light on the water.'
It's where I started with this blog, and it's often where I start with photographs.
This particular photograph was taken in 2003 when we visited the USA. We managed to see a number of places in our three week tour, which took in a number of states, including Massachusetts, Maine, Florida, New York and Connecticut. This is Perkins Cove in Maine.
It reminded me of Cabot Cove in the old TV series 'Murder She Wrote.' Thankfully no one was murdered while we were there as far as I know, and Jessica Fletcher never turned up.

I think one of the reasons why I like the combination of light and water is that you get unexpected and interesting distortions of the sky, or whatever is on or beside the water. But, even more importantly, both light and water are such elemental things- the very stuff of life itself. Energy and Matter.
The fact that these two things are interchangeable (and that a very small amount of matter equates to a huge amount of energy) is something that always causes me to marvel. I pity those who see life only in terms of the material: they miss so much.