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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Bishop John Inge

Good morning.

Hogmanay is upon us, the archetypal party season. Attitudes to partying are fascinating. I wonder if you enjoy them or not. You might well respond that it depends up on the party!

Sometimes heaven is pictured as an eternal party, the greatest whoopee-do of all. That’s not good news for non-partying animals. The point, though, I think, is to picture heaven as somewhere where there will be joy and gladness. The Book of Revelation gives a vision of the end times in which God will be with humanity and will wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

That is surely a picture that would commend itself to everyone. There’s so much suffering in the world, some of it needless, and whether or not we have to endure it ourselves I imagine we would all want it to be eliminated. And we can play a part in that. In this coming year, perhaps we could commit to ‘doing our bit’ to make the world a happier place. There’s much we cannot do but we all have the capacity to wipe away the tears of others, to spread care and concern in our families, among our friends and in the communities of which we are a part. We won’t manage to create heaven on earth this coming year but we can make sure it is as little like hell as possible for those around us.

A prayer of Carter Heywood:

Tender God, touch us
Be touched by us;
Make us lovers of humanity,
Compassionate friends of all creation.
Gracious God, hear us into speech,
Speak us into acting;
And through us, recreate the world.

Amen