Grandad Dick

Sunrise and Sunset

2009-02-08T10:36:00.000-08:00

This week I have been considering two things Sunrise and Sunset.
Sunrise is a residential home in Southbourne that continually plagues
me to retire into a place where everything is done for you and where
nothing is left to chance. This awful winter as I pass to and fro in my
car I am terribly temped to drive in and abandon the fight! Fear not,
I have also been invited to experience Sunset in the West Country in
a dormer bungalow complete with a fronded palm in the front garden
and two garages (though what I should do with the other one I don't
quite know!) Falmouth has always had a particular attraction to me and
again I am tempted to "up sticks" and enjoy the company of people of
similar mind and disposition. Choices, choices of places in which to be
cared for and inspired. Decisions, decisions on where to spend the run-up to eternity.Older people are not excused these. Rather the options
become even more attractive with the passing of the years. I will
let you know how things work out!

Returned to Duty

2009-01-11T00:41:00.000-08:00

Those of you that have been kind enough to be concerned for me
over the past few days will be pleased to know that I have been
"returned to duty". In other words, I have been "unstitched" and
given the all-clear to drive. You can't imagine what a relief
that has been to me.
Now I shall be able to return to a more normal life-style and
begin to act below my age!
Thankfully, the cold weather that has haunted us this past week
or two is beginning to ease.
So, all you fellow bloggers, this is just to say that I have
returned to duty and am preparing for action.
Thank you.

What's it like to be "on probation"

2009-01-09T04:21:00.000-08:00

Reading Dave's latest blog I thought it might be helpful if I just wrote a
word or two about the things that happened to me as a preamble to fully
fledged ministry (whilst I was on probation).
Methodism tests it's
candidates physically and intellectually. It's people too have a place
in that judgement and rightly so. For two years you are subject to
critical examination and given all manner of tasks. Finally you are
recommended for ordination (always provided that you have not made
too many slip ups!

Talking of slip ups - at my first funeral I almost fell into the grave and joined B.G. on his appointment with destiny!!
Then there was the occasion when conducting a wedding at the Circuit
church when the bride failed to turn up and we all trooped off to the
reception without her (it being a shame to waste all that go0d food)!
Then there was a request to bury a lady from a Catholic family (with
the approval of the R.C. Father - who was a personal friend of mine)!
I suppose the most earth moving thing that happened to me was turning
up at the hospital to collect a dear friend recently deceased to find that
he had been cremated in error the day before!
Another distressing event was finding a mourning party trapped between two floors in a lift and having to disrobe, climb into the roof. and wind
them up. How did I ever make this appear a regular event!
Of all the weddings I remember the Gypsy Wedding was among the most
spectacular!
I could go on and on but must for fear of boring you....
Oh well, just one more. I remember a little boy coming up to me at a wee-
end retreat by the seaside and asking "Pastor could you please stop all
these girls chasing after me? "I'm spoken for". He was six years of age
at the time - I wonder what happened to him!
Needless to say he became the subject of many a children's address on
the theme "are you spoken for"!!

This brings me to what I am really trying to say this morning, Dave,
"life, like love, is a many splendoured thing". It's full of triumphs
and sometimes dotted with tragedies. They all work out once you
are settled on the way to go and persue it with true diligence.

Does that help? Remember that in any event I am always here
to bounce your ideas off as one who has been around and been given
the tea shirt - ultimately been ordained.

"Let us exerecise our minds"

2009-01-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

This was the favourite saying of the man that first mentored me in
ministry.
A man of such dry wit that many could not see through his comical
asides.
A Victorian that some thought went to bed wearing his clerical
collar.
A deeply spiritual man and yet at the same time -
A man of incredible administrative ability.
When "reporting for duty" at the Manse he would always insist that
we "break off" from what we were doing to listen together to the
Morning Service on what was the equivalent then to Radio 4 (a
helpful practice I still religously follow all the years later).
Let us exercise our minds...
At the time I was doing this with a vengeance - having pastoral charge
of twelve country chapels, sharing in the ministry of eight others and
studying at Cambridge.
As you can imagine I became something of an athlete in things physical
and spiritual. It stood me on good stead for what was awaiting me just
over the horizon.
Many a time I had good reasdon to remember the dear friend who never
opened a meeting without a word of scripture and solemn prayer.
Bless him - who just now, in his nineties, is wrestling with the problems
that attend old age.
Can I pass on to you, at the beginning of this New Year, that pearl of
wisdom that he out of the goodness of his heart passed on to me his
probationer..
Let us exercise our minds - in the word of God and with solemn prayer.

Saturday Night in the Sick Bay

2009-01-03T13:53:00.001-08:00

Just thought I'd let all you good folks know that the new pacemaker has

decided to settle into it's new home and that I am generally well pleased with it - not that I am recommending that everyone should be fitted

with one - let alone the two that I have!! They last eight years - but I'll

write again before then! Raj fitted the first and Ram the second. I wonder

what the name of the next surgeon will be! Rasputin, perhaps. There's no

doubt a spell in the sick bay of cardiac ward hightens one's awareness of

what it is to live beyond three scores years and twenty two - and to want a

little more! (Selfish thing aren't I - a word to those of you waiting to inherit!) A young person once said to me "it's not the preogative of the

old to die" Seems she was right.. Thank you Pauline...