I wrote a poem to encapsulate some of it:
At Sidmouth on the Devon coast,
With Alan Rothwell as our host,
We met to live distinctively
With guidance from a DVD;
It raised some matters of concern,
What is God like? And where to turn
In war and peace, and life and health,
Environmental matters, wealth.
And so the DVD began
Led by a clever ethics man,
In English of the estuary,
The glottal stop his specialty.
And ‘volunteers’, Gill, Liz and Pru
Led us in prayers to help us through,
For when we start to tire and flag,
And arms of prayer begin to sag,
It’s then that fellowship kicks in
Lets mutual support begin.
So session two, fighting and war,
A topic now much to the fore;
That took us off to Liverpool,
The Commodore up there was cool,
His ship, the Albion, deploys
Some choppers and our soldier boys.
A Christian man, the Commodore,
Who fights, he says, a needed war,
Accepts the forces discipline
To help the weak and combat sin.
And we discussed, as Christians must,
The issues raised, can war be just?
Do Jesus and OT make sense?
And can we make a difference?
Then after all that talk of strife
Mildmay helped us think of life.
The DVD took us to see
How Mildmay deals with HIV,
Compassion for the suffering,
The human dignity they bring
By valuing the stigmatised
Who otherwise are ostracised.
And Alan said that we should fancy
A book on grace by Philip Yancey.
Then freedom; off to Sidmouth town
To see its features of renown.
Pete said, ‘at Fields, let’s take a peep’,
No grass was there, no cows, no sheep!
Instead, and that was quite enough,
Shoes, skirts and jackets, all that stuff!
Also, to lubricate our brains
The intermittent autumn rains.
Back next for tea and session four,
But first the Oxford football score,
Then Bob, his name is quite a clue,
For he is worth a bob or two,
In fact a multi millionaire
Who gives away an ample share,
And that provoked a lot of thought;
Should foreign aid be brought to nought?
Another feast was followed by
The social evening, DIY,
With poems, stories, jokes and song,
And sketches and all helped along
By Alan who compรจred the show.
Indeed, he made the programme flow;
His questions helped us to discuss
Great issues, what they mean to us.
Then Sunday morning finally
We thought environmentally;
This world, a gift to us from God,
Not to be trampled on roughshod.
And living life responsibly
Improves the future certainly;
To make our mark is our desire
Modelled on one we all admire
And so we closed with bread and wine
The signs of Jesus, man, divine;
With him this world we’ll infiltrate
More Christlike actions we’ll create.
