Jade Goody

When I watched Jade Goody on Big Brother, and then saw her shock the nation with her comments to the indian actress Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother, I never thought I would say I would be in awe and admiration of Jade Goody.

However I am in awe and admiration of Jade Goody. Someone once said you see what people are made of when trouble hits. Well Jade Goody has inspired me these past weeks since it was made clear that the cancer she was battling with was terminal. The agressive cancer had started in her cervix and then spread to her liver, groin and bowel. Without question she has inspired a new generation of young women to take cancer seriously and to get screened. As Cancer Research put it "she has done a great public service by raising the importance of screening".

Like the late Pope, John Paul II, Jade Goody has lived and indeed lived out her death live before the world. In doing so, she has shown courage, fortitude, guts and sheer peace. As she stared death in the face, the world watched as she got her affairs in order, and put the financial arrangements in place for her little boys. I watched her wedding on tv, and found myself deeply moved by her sheer gutsy determination. She was a remarkable person, and I have prayed for her these past weeks. I was struck by her desire to be married, and to have both herself and her little boys baptised.

Today, on Mothers Day, Jade has passed away. My thoughts and prayers are with Jack her husband, and her boys Bobby (5) and Freddie (4). I am sure they had their mothers cards ready for her. I hope today those little boys know how proud their mum was of them... and they should be very very proud of her.

Roots

I am back home in Northern Ireland for a weekend, for some speaking engagements and have had the chance to spend 2 days with my family. I have been doing some thinking on roots, and place. I have long believed in a theology of place, that God speaks to us in certain ways because we are in certain places. The celts believed in "thin places" which were places where the space between heaven and earth appeared smaller. As I sat and looked around the little village I grew up in, my mind took me back to my childhood. Things that happened, moments of joy and pain, and moments when I knew I walked with God. I drove past the little Methodist Church where I went to Sunday School and where I preached my first sermon.

As a teenage boy, preaching a sermon in church, I remember the nerves, my heart was in my stomach, and the sermon I preached was disjointed and clumsy. However I suspect God had an easier job working with me then than he does now, when I am a cocky self confident speaker.

Being home has reminded me of 2 things. Firstly that my walk with God has been all my life and I am grateful for that. He has been a constant in a time of huge change in my life. And secondly, I feel totally at home here. Of course I feel at home in London, but this is where I am from, this is the rock from which I am hewn, and its nice to be back.

As a wise man once told me, never trust me a man who doesn't have roots. He won't know who he is.

we cannot go back

I am so sorry I have not posted on here for a bit, I have been so busy with work and life, and was skiing for a week in France with some wonderful people. I did however want to share a little of my reflections after all the events in Northern Ireland last week.

I was in France skiing and totally oblivious to the three senseless murders back home. I am horrified by these murders, and shocked by the glimpse of our past. However in the middle of this horror, death and evil, I was struck by the miracle of political progress. I sat dumbfounded at my laptop as Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness stood together to condemn these murders. I couldn't believe my ears as Martin McGuinness, the Deputy First Minister of Northern ireland, and a senior leader of Sinn Fein, went on to call the murderers traitors to the republican movement. I want to salute Mr McGuinness for his leadership, his courage and his comments. I was also gobsmacked by the words of his Sinn Fein colleague, John O'Dowd, the assembly member for the Upper Bann area where the policeman was murdered. He said and I quote

"It is murder, and not because you want me to say it, but because it is. We have called on the people to come forward and give information to the police service. This society has moved on. We want to move on along with society. I think that in the darkness of what we have seen in the last 48 hours, the light that has been shone from the united stand that has been made by the leaders of Irish Republicanism and the leaders of Unionism is a beacon of hope for us all. "

Mr O'Dowd said that the dissident republican groups had "no support" in the community. When parties representing their position stood in the 2007 Assembly elections in the Upper Bann, they were "annihilated", receiving 300 votes against Sinn Fein's 11,000 and the SDLP's 4,000, he said. "Nationalism and Republicanism have given them their answer," he said. "We don't want you. Please go away. There is a new agenda, there is a new society here and we are moving on."

The events of last week were horrendous. Three families are in mourning, but the people of my homeland are standing together. Protestants, Catholics, Unionists, Republicans, to say we are not going to go back.

As President Obama put it. He said the real question was how the people of Northern Ireland would respond following the killings.

"Now we know the answer - they responded heroically. They and their leaders on both sides have condemned this violence and refrained from the old partisan impulses. They've shown they judge progress by what you build and not what you tear down. And they know that the future is too important to cede to those who are mired in the past."

There is a beacon of light, in the midst of this darkness. I believe Northern Ireland people stared into an abyss last week, and together said, no, we cannot go back. Thank God.

Happy St Patricks Day!