building bridges

London is fascinating.

I know that must sound strange from one who finds it hard to cope with the features of London life.

But it is. Fascinating. In all sorts of different ways.

And one of the things I found so very striking about being there were the bridges across the Thames.

It's a city which straddles a river. And these lines of communication are absolutely integral to all its life. The network of constant connections which make for the city's life.

That's been the picture I've had in my mind at point after point through today. The networks we form, the bridges we build, the healthy connections we make.

I was in at the school again today. On Thursdays it's just a fleeting call, at coffee time. And I never know what to expect. But it's basically 'network' stuff.

And I got the chance to speak to a couple of folk about the day we're hoping to hold in June to think through some environmental issues in our lives.

I met and chatted briefly with the teacher who's in charge of the school's "eco-committee", giving the briefest sort of outline of the sort of thing we planned.

I ran some ideas past Dave, the Head, and he seemed happy with these.

I asked for the chance to speak to the pupils about it all, since we want to involve them too. Run a competition for them all, get them doing some thinking on this theme. Again, he was happy to give me the chance. And this coming Wednesday morning looks to be ideal, since he's already arranged for some guy with an environmental slant to come and speak to the children.

It felt like a fruitful fifteen minute stint. Bridges into the life of the whole community again.

There was time today as well to do the rather different 'building bridges' which is what my 'preparation' tends to be about. Bridges across the flowing waters of time and place and culture to connect the world of the Bible with the world we live in today.

A 'network' of a rather different sort. Connecting a people with God. I felt I made progress with that as well.

And then there was the family who'd been bereaved. The ones who'd asked if I would lead the service of thanksgiving for their loved one who had died.

I went to see them as arranged. But there was no one at the house!

They'd forgotten they'd agreed to meet me then and there! Mobile phones have their uses, for sure. I was able to find them and meet with them both (the son and his daughter) and talk through the sorrow they've known.

A lot of the time it's simply a case of my listening in as they speak. Making connections. Getting a feel for where they're all at and why they feel as they do.

I learned from them why they don't want the other minister. Their side of the story, anyway. Which underlined once again how fragile relationships are. How easily bridges get burned.

And it struck me again how important it is, if you live in a city like London, to guard and protect all those bridges there are. How important it is in community life to be careful to safeguard our ties.

But that, I guess, is history, so far as they're concerned. This family's moving on. And the bridges that I'm seeking to be building in their lives are bridges which will re-inforce connections with the Lord.

I prayed with them both at the end of the time. I usually do. That sort of 'formally' opens the bridge and helps them travel across. I think they found it helpful and encouraging to share in such a prayer.

Death is often likened to a river that we have to cross.

I was thinkng of that as well today. Not just in the light of my seeing these folk this afternoon. But at night as well.

I'd called at the home of a lady here, knowing her mother was ill. The lady was out at the hospital, her mother herself more than merely ill, but very much on her death-bed now. her daughter at her side.

It was straight on up to the hospital the other side of town. The elderly mother had literally moments before passed on when I got there. I'd have wished to have made it in time. But at least I was there at that moment of rawest grief.

And, again, it's a case, at moments like that, of building connections with God. The lady who'd died was a lovely believer in Christ. Now very much, and really very evidently too, at peace. Her family, too, will know a peace as they 'network' now with the Lord. Across those fragile bridges of relationship with God.

But there is that river to cross. Death.

People sometimes put off giving any thought to that. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, is the line that they often take.

But what if they find when they reach that point that there isn't a bridge in place. Not there, where their whole way of living has brought them to.

You need to know where the bridges are. And here, at the point of our certain death, here there's only one. One man whose life and death have built for all a bridge.

And I found it really striking that the new 'Millennium' Bridge (the 'wobbly bridge' as they call the thing, I think) - that bridge leads right on up to the soaring, grand cathedral of St Paul's.

You walk across this bridge and it takes you through the clamours of a city's busy life, it takes you into the overwhelming grandeur of the presence of almighty God.

A lesson on life? I made the connection.