Having Faith

It was dress-down day today so I slipped on my jeans with a white shirt and pullover and it was off up the M3 to Dorking after a brief stop at Andover to fill up with fuel and pick up my Daily Mail and "freebie" war movie. Today it was Angels one five. The traffic on the M3 was appalling again and very unusual for a Friday morning. Apparently there had been an accident on the M25 close to the M3 junction which caused queues back to Farnborough. I therefore chose to drive cross country to Farnham and Guildford. Every cloud has a silver lining and the slower journey meant I was able to listen to Desert Island Discs in full with David Suchet (Hercule Poirot) as the guest. His story was fascinating with some excellent choices of music including the very emotional slow movement from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto which was played as Sara and I signed the marriage register at our wedding. I was also interested to learn that his Christian faith was most important to him and that he became a Christian at the age of 26 after reading a letter - Paul's letter to the Romans - which he described as setting out for him what he considered a proper blueprint for life. Apparently he regularly goes away on a week's retreat and cannot imagine that there could be nothing after life. As he put it, the gift of life is so wonderful but this world so awful. Life couldn't exist just in this world and there has to be something afterwards. He couldn't imagine his own life either, without his faith. He came across as a kind, modest yet confident individual. Work was very hectic on arrival at Dorking. Having been in London for most of yesterday I had a stack of work emails to deal with and the Manx problem seems to be consuming most of my time. It is absolutely essential that I go over there again next week which is a pity as it is half-term. We had our third Alpha Course meeting tonight in Livery Road (my second as I missed the second one due to being in Liverpool) where we had an excellent supper of lasagne, cauliflower cheese and leek, potato and bacon "hotpot". The theme this evening was "Having Faith" with an excellent DVD talk by Nicky Gumbel who does grow on you and who is an excellent and inspiring speaker with excellent anecdotes and uses good clear examples to make his points. It was well attended with a good cross-section of individuals. Back home, Sara informed me that she had chosen the DJ for her 50th Party and she went through some of the 80's songs she wants especially any with the name Sara(h) as titles. I finished the day by writing this blog and watching Groundhog Day. I finished the day by writing this blog and watching Groundhog Day. I finished the day by writing ...