Bob Warwicker's blog

The nice weather is pushing on into mid-September, and here is a path off the old railway.

As for next Sunday’s Lectionary, gospel reading, what is fair pay anyway? It seems there are different criteria one could choose;-

• Equal pay for everyone.
• Decide pay based on the worker’s needs.
• Decide based on the amount of effort that has been put in.
• Decide based on the economic value of someone’s work.
• etc.

There are variations on some of these, too. A note on type 3 – based on effort – many of the loudest advocates of this are quite happy with a situation in which well paid people have enough time to spend their lunchtimes in the pub, or afternoons on the golf course, and low paid cleaners for instance are run ragged, for ever rushing to different parts of town to do their itsy bitsy jobs. And a note on type 4 – the economic value of work also seems to include a factor for the worker’s power to cause damage by messing up – sometimes it’s almost like blackmail.

Our answers to the question of fair pay will reveal what we think is important. And so it proves when Jesus tells the parable – try looking at things from someone else’s point of view for a change.

Nothing quite like a healthy walk on the Transpennine Trail over the Pennines, with the wind gusting around, and the sights and smells and sounds of the moorland.

Meanwhile, Romans 14… I still remember how good it felt when a fellow member of a congregation called me ‘brother’. What do we need to do to take this sister-brother thing seriously?

You cannot quiz a non-existent panda about the state of its bowels. There are three reasons;-
(1) It doesn’t exist
(2) Pandas don’t share any common language with humans
(3) Pandas are notoriously reticent about their digestions.

Janet made it to the seaside! 215 miles, spaced out over a few years, and she’s walked the transpennine trail. Well done her! And lunchman (I) have had some fun too.

The new testament readings from Sundays lectionary are both about living in community. Call me ambitious, but I’d like to think we could model ‘living in community’ for everybody. But boy is there a long way to go…. (1) because ‘there is no such thing as society’ and (2) community life among Christians remains as deeply dysfunctional as it was in the first century.

Harvesting today by the railway path near Hull. Hard work for those doing it, but no doubt glad it’s been possible at all this year. There can be a time when, for all our plans, nature has the final say.

Living God, we pray for people
whose livelihoods are precarious,

for farmers depending on the weather,
for workers on zero hours contracts.
God give security, hope and fair treatment.

Walking into Hull today, with some disruptions – to Janet because of network rail’s flood response, and to both of us because of flood defence works near the retail park. Plenty to see, old and new. Alarming to see so many pieces of damage to the fence on the A63 and this by the path…

Then later we went on a supplementary drive in the direction of Spurn Point. No wonder my then twenty year old mother thought that this place and the others she was sent to with anti-aircraft teams were the ends of the earth.

Back to the flat lands for some more walking on the east end of transpennine trail. Varied walk in in many ways, mostly with a muted palette, except for this…

Saw Babette’s Feast yesterday thanks to streaming. Really liked the film. Not that I’m yet convinced about quails. Also note that food, not necessarily expensive, plays a big part in the gospels.

A momentary surge of joy this morning when I saw that certain papers were missing from the newsagents. Then I realised that what Extinction Rebellion had done was an attack on democracy. You have to play fair, even with those who don’t.

The water coming off the hills yesterday was brown and peaty (it usually is, to some degree). When I was young I used to drink water out of the hillside streams from time to time. AFAIK it did me no great harm. If it did, it was probably safer and certainly less antisocial than traditional young men’s pursuits like driving too fast or drinking oneself into unconsciousness. But you never know exactly what’s upstream – a dead sheep, or an impromptu sock laundry maybe.

Decent morning for a walk today.

As the water, in its taste or colour,
bears the mark of where it has been,
so we too bear the ‘baggage’ or our past.
Loving God, forgive our wrongs,
heal our wounds,
help us come to terms with deep trauma,
and bring us, just as we are,
with our histories, our hopes and our fears,
into the fullness of what we could be.