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Good morning.

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The annual Leonid meteor shower will peak tonight and tomorrow night. The waxing crescent moon means that the sky will be dark enough to view the shower after midnight. In theory you could view about 20 meteors an hour at the peak. As a child meteorites fascinated me. I remember reading an old library book on great mysteries of the world and being terrified by a photograph of a woman showing bruises to her abdomen caused by being struck by a meteor that had crashed through the roof of her home. As a boy I had nightmares of some rogue meteorite from Mars crashing through my bedroom ceiling almost as often as my nightmares of an imminent Dalek invasion of Belfast. I’m still fascinated by ancient intergalactic rock. I’ve even purchased a small fragment of meteorite. Okay, I bought it on eBay and my wife insists it’s a piece of coal and I’m a fool, but as far as I’m concerned it's the oldest and most exciting of all my possessions. However in spite my fascination with all things meteoric, I have yet to see the Leonids.

On the rare occasions when their latest visit coincided with a cloudless Northern Irish sky I’ve stayed up late but given up after a brief scan of the sky. My attempts to view the Leonid meteors are filed in my ‘Things I would like to do’ category. I’m only moderately committed to making them happen. Ìý

But what if in years to come I regret not getting round to my ‘things I would like to do’ list? Forget about meteors, what if it’s too late to reconnect with someone or too late to say sorry orÌý thank you?

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Lord God, in the busyness of this day help me to choose the important over the urgent and to prioritise what is of lasting value over what is transient.

Amen.