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A reflection and prayer to start the day with the Revd Dr Craig Gardiner

Good morning or ‘bore da’. This morning in Tregaron, West Wales, the dawn rises on the tents of the National Eisteddfod. This huge celebration of Welsh language, art and culture happens every year in the first week of August. But, while the date remains a constant, the location varies year on year. Annually it re-invents itself around the centre of hospitality in the field known as the Maes.

Here, over the next week, thousands of visitors will rush from musical concerts and poetry readings to dances and venues for food. But almost everyone’s itinerary gets interrupted, as they chance upon old friends, who decide that spending time with one another is more important that whatever else was on their list. And maybe that’s just as it should be, for the name ‘Eisteddfod’, literally means, sitting together.

Long before the winner of one of this year’s poetry competitions is seated on the Bard’s chair, there will be countless other opportunities for ordinary people to sit on benches, stools, or cross-legged on the grass, and simply be with one another.

As more of life returns to pre-covid busyness, we might practice sitting attentively with others. Like long ago when two sisters welcomed Jesus to their home. Martha was soon busy, rattling pots and preparing a meal. But Mary sat together with Jesus who says she made the better choice. Of course, Jesus wasn’t advocating indolence, but he does remind us, that everyone should have a time for simply sitting. And of course, in choosing as she did, Mary sat with God, which is really what any of us do, when we decide to pray.

God who pulls up a chair,
and invites us to linger,
bless those with whom we tarry today.
May every moment we preserve from busyness
become a place of knowing you
Amen