TOWIE for Burkina Faso

Over the summer, we've heard so many amazing tales connected to the Olympics and Paralympics, but this one is local to us in Upminster and really captures the spirit of London 2012 for me. It also proves that so many people are essentially good and kind, and this is the legacy that I really hope Britain can sustain:

"When Paralympic teams arrived at Heathrow in the lead up to these Games they were normally met with flowers, smiles and helpers. But when 24-year-old Liam Conlon went to greet the five members of the Burkina Faso team, the picture was quite different. He found a forlorn group: wearing brightly-coloured national dress, they were sat on their bags surrounded by police, while tourists looked on taking photos.

The team had nowhere to go, and nowhere to train – and very little money to salvage the situation."
 Funding is often very spare in many countries for the Paralympics, and even for GB, where this years' Games aside, many athletes struggle to fund their training and competition.

 "Liam Conlon took the only solution available to him – he took them home to his mum and dad in Abridge, Essex, and over the following weeks found them somewhere to train, new equipment and a lot of new friends. When the team's two competitors – Lassane Gasbeogo and Kadidia Nikiema – get on their bikes to compete in the time trial at Brands Hatch it will be thanks to the huge generosity of the people they have met since stepping on to these shores on 6 August."
 The kindness that Liam and his family showed to these athletes was without limit:

"It has been an eye-opening, and occasionally perilous, experience for him and his family. "The very first day one of the team nearly burnt the house down," he said. "He put the electric kettle on the hob and turned it on to boil water – and there really has been something along those lines every day.""
The Brentwood School let them use their facilities to train, and even held a non-uniform day to raise funds for them. They'll continue this after the athletes return to Burkina Faso to help them continue to train. They even had to get a new bike which was provided at just cost price from France.
The article concludes: 

"Chef de Mission Florentine Ouedraogo said the team had been overwhelmed by the help and support they had received from so many different people. "It has been a fabulous experience, that we didn't expect at all," she said. "Without this help we just wouldn't be here. If any of these people come to Burkina Faso they will be welcomed as though they were our family.""

Read the article in full here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/sep/04/paralympics-2012-burkina-faso-essex

So is this legacy of kindness, love and compassion one that Britain will be able to sustain? This is surely a model of behaviour that Jesus would have admired. Why is it so hard to be like this all the time? Do we need an excuse, a motivation? If London 2012 gave us that for just one summer, it'll be disappointing as it shows what kind of people we can be and should aspire to be.

Love or Economic Growth?

Victoria Coren writes in the Guardian that the government have told us that they are going to focus on "the things that really matter" and forget about issues such as 'gay marraige' for the time being.

She quotes defence secretary Philip Hammond who said: "Clearly [gay marriage] is not the number one priority. If you stop people in the street and ask them what their concerns are, they'll talk to you about jobs and economic growth… The government has got to show that it is focused on the things that really matter."

She then highlights the fact George Osborne said something very similar; that gay marriage is "not a priority of the government" because the government is "focused on the really important issues that matter to people".

Coren suggests that the gay marriage debate is conveniently being sidelined by Tory ministers not in favour of it. It is easier to say that economics needs to be a priority than saying you don't agree with same-sex marriages.

She avoids the debate on whether gay marriage is right or wrong, but highlights the real question here, is love more or less important that the economy?

Coren says:

"The economy in this country – the basic, central core of what an economy is – is extremely healthy. We have an abundant climate, hardy British labour for building and farming and crafting, and brilliant inventive minds at work. If those gambling international speculators, who create nothing and build nothing, with their massive fantasy "derivatives market" and their mind-blowing "trillions of debt", all disappeared tomorrow, we'd still have an economy. We might not have flat-screen TVs with 200 channels – and City traders might not have private jets – but we'd still have food and coal and tables and new ideas."

Very true.

She then goes on to make clear that:

"We'd also still have love. Stripped of our credit cards, our electronic goods, our super-fast broadband, our international travel – and even of our welfare system based on cash and paperwork rather than simple sharing – we'd still have men and women, and men and men, and women and women, who felt joy and safety and hope, making promises and planning futures, because of this free and powerful human instinct alone."

Coren makes it very clear that people may well want to oppose gay marriage and have some valid reasons for it, but that to trivialise the feelings of love and desire for marriage is totally wrong.

She concludes:

I have a new daydream, of a parallel world, where our democratic leaders say: "We'll do our best for economic growth, but our priority is to concentrate on the things that really matter to people."

Should Cameron and Osbourne be sidelining issues such as gay marriage? Is it economic growth really more important than love? What is it that really does make us get up each morning? A safe job and a decent income, or having a loving partner?

Read full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/20/victoria-coren-love-beats-business

CS Lewis on Love

Best know for writing the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis is also well known as a Christian writier. His wisdom and reflection on the Christian messages are often inspirational, paticually those on love.

"In a world of smart phones, text messages, Facebook, and e-dating, many are creating virtual relationships which mask a person’s true identity in an attempt to protect themselves from the reality of real relationship.

They want to avoid the possible heartache and pain that can occur when love is not reciprocated. Others fill their lives with work, recreation or entertainment in an attempt to avoid deep relationships. And yet, as we attempt to protect ourselves, we become less human, and wander farther from the Creator’s purpose for our lives which is to love both God and neighbor as ourselves."

In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness. It is like hiding the talent in a napkin and for much the same reason ‘I knew thee that thou wert a hard man.’ Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."As we look at the relationships in our own lives we might ask the following questions. Am I holding back my love toward God and others out of the fear of being wounded in the fray? If so, am I willing to begin to trust God with my life and open up the gateways to my heart so that I can both give and receive love as God intended me to do?"

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.

Article orginally found here: http://good-report.com/5479/c-s-lewis-institute-reflections-from-the-four-loves

Do you agree with CS Lewis' view on love? Does allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and open to hurt make us closer to God?

1 John 4:18-19

Selfless Love of Essex Priest on Titanic

A stained glass window in a small Essex church, commemorates a heroic young priest who refused to leave passengers on the Titanic. Fr Thomas Byles, rector of St Helen's Church in Chipping Ongar, was travelling to New York to officiate at his brother's wedding. His parish had organised a special collection to fund the trip.

Eyewitness reports say Father Byles had said Mass for second-class passengers on the morning of the disaster. When the ship hit the iceberg and begun to sink, Fr Byles was offered a lifeboat place several times but he refused, staying on to help others, hear confessions and pray with those still on board. In the ship's final moments Father Byles prayed with the 100 plus passengers trapped at the stern. Protestants, Catholics and Jews knelt in the rising waters as he gave absolution to all. His body was never recovered.

Later Fr Byles family had an audience with Pope Pius X, who described him as a 'martyr'.

Father Byles, was originally from Staffordshire. The son of an Anglican vicar, he converted to Catholicism. He was ordained as a priest in 1902 and came to the Essex parish in 1905.

A plaque at his old school in Lancashire reads: 'Pray for Rev Thomas Byles for eight years rector of this mission. In hisheroic death in the disaster SS Titanic April 15 1912 he earnestly devoted his last moments to the religious consolation of his fellow passengers'.
Original article here: http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=20199

Having been described as a 'matryr' do you think he really did give up his life? Did he just allow God to choose his fate? Do you think he was right to refuse lifeboat places?

It has similarities to Fr Kolbe (www.fatherkolbe.com) who gave up his life for a stranger in Auschwitz. The selfless love shown by their priests can be seen as a model for all Christians, as Jesus says: ‘If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget self, carry his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever wants to lose his life for me and for the Gospel will save it. Does a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life? Of course not.’ (Mark 8:34–36)