麻豆约拍

From Canon Ann Easter, Chaplain to the Queen:

I was watching television on Friday evening, marvelling at the generosity and fortitude of all those people who had, by dancing, cycling, driving buses and all sorts of other means, raised an enormous amount of money for Children in Need, when the news of the massacres in Paris burst onto the screen. Ordinary people who had been out on a November evening watching football, enjoying music and eating together in one of the world鈥檚 most elegant capital cities had been murdered and injured. I felt sick to see such vivid juxtaposition of good and evil.

Paris is very near and I couldn鈥檛 help but wonder 鈥� where next? What should we do in the face of such blatant violence and hatred?

Our primitive human instincts of fight and flight prompt us both to call for immediate violent retaliation while at the same time checking our own loved ones and wondering whether we really need to go out today. But neither of those will do.

On Saturday, I went to our library where a local family originally from Yemen sold loads of luscious home-made cakes to raise money for children in Syria; then it was time for my youngest granddaughter鈥檚 birthday party. As is the norm in east London, her friends of many different cultures and faiths passed the parcel and bounced on the castle together, whooping and laughing. Straight from there to take part in a Diwali festival with our Hindu neighbours and then to call for a fundraising barn dance to raise money to send some British young people to Mozambique to help build a school. Multiculturalism is not always easy or straightforward but I believe it鈥檚 the way we鈥檙e strongest. I鈥檇 rather see our diversities as a blessing to be celebrated than a division to fight about.

In church yesterday, we said the prayer set for the day -聽 鈥極h God, You long for the world鈥檚 salvation, stir us from apathy, restrain us from excess and revive in us new hope that all creation will one day be healed.鈥�

It鈥檚 almost as if the angels knew that鈥檚 what we鈥檇 need to say.