Mandela - Long Walk to Freedom

Another full day today starting off with Sara taking Thom to The Wallops to catch his bus to Winchester.  Mary missed her bus this morning and Sara took her into school.  I had a staff meeting at St. Francis's this morning where we met in the Youth Lounge at the back of the Church Hall.  The meeting was a mixture of business, self reflection using Bill Hybel's Axiom and prayer - quite different from what I am used to at Clarendon.  I also found that one of my Masonic friends is also a churchwarden at St. Lawrence's and emailed me to say how much he was looking forward to hearing me preach there on the 23rd March.  Sara picked me up from St. Francis's at 10.30 a.m. and we drove into Salisbury city centre to go to the Odeon Cinema (Pensioners' Matinee) to see the film Mandela - Long Walk to Freedom which I found enthralling and well made - such a pity it didn't win any Oscars - it certainly should have.  The pace of the film is swift at the beginning - telescoping but recording the chief terrible events of South Africa's turbulent 20th Century history but slows down, appropriately, as Mandela ages.  A good film to watch again and a great epitaph for one of the world's greatest and most charismatic leaders.  I recall in my younger days thinking of Mandela as nothing but a Black south African terrorist who deserved to be in jail but as I learned more and more about the oppressiveness of Apartheid, so I came to respect and understand the man.  The grace and love which he shows to those who persecuted him and his people is remarkable and something which we would all do well to study and reflect upon.  I am sure this will become one of the films which we will show and discuss at House Group in the years to come.  I spent the rest of the day writing emails and my Night Sky article for the Parish Magazine. I have completed it this evening (apart from inserting the map) and will finish it completely tomorrow morning.   Tonight Richard and I spent the evening in the Lord Nelson catching up.  The pub was full with a group of ladies having an evening out to celebrate Sara Penny's return to the UK from Australia for a couple of weeks.