Holiday Pics 5: Beautiful Redundancy

Spread along the coast of West Wales are the remains of seaside mills.  The corn was brought from the nearby farms and the many tiny harbours, in the manner of Cornwall, provided an efficient sea route out for the milled grain.

Today they provide great photo opportunities.  I doubt that they will ever be called into action again, but they tell a story of times gone by.

This particular mill was on the bay near the village we stayed in.  In the village itself were two other buildings that were no longer in use - a Baptist Chapel and a Methodist Chapel.  There were no places of worship, as there were no mills, that were still in use.

So do redundant chapels also reflect changing times and times gone by?

Well, no.  Whereas the products of farms nearby have new and better methods of refinement, transportation and therefore business, the redundant chapels tell another story.  The village has just as many souls in as ever it had, God is still the God who the villagers once worshipped, Jesus story of salvation is still the same, the 21st century souls in the village are all, like their forebears, going to pass into judgment and eternity.

There is nothing improving or efficient about redundant chapels.  They are just a community's death-mark.

Holiday pics 4: Ish

We saw this brilliant sign on holiday.

I imagine the lack of such a sign in our local shopping streets in London.  Everything is very exact.  I can be sure that if a shutter is being pulled down it will be close to an exact time.

To me this sign is a sign of freedom.  The clock matters less than we think.

Holiday Pics 3: Nelson's Request

The sea figures large in the story of Ireland, for the plain reason that it has not been possible to get there or to leave there without using it until the arrival of flying.  

At first this thought seems incompatible with the observation that Ireland is not thought of as an old seafaring nation in the manner of England, Portugal or the Netherlands.  This is explained by the history in which the peak years of seafaring fame were ones in which Ireland was in union with England and Wales.

And so, in an Irish country house by the sea we came across this; a letter from Admiral Nelson in the era when Irish bays were suitable resting places for English fighting ships.

What struck me about the letter - quite exciting to see a real letter from such a person in such a place - was what it is about.  A great battle won perhaps?  A secret disclosure for the King's attention?  A theological observation (he was, after all, the son of a clergyman)?

It is, mundanely, a request for a new sail for his ship.

No matter how great a man or a woman is, they are nothing unless they can catch the winds that blow.  And this is the more true of any Christian, for we all need to be able to be moved for God the Holy Spirit, the wind of heaven.

Holiday Pics 2: Poundland

British readers will probably feel a tinge of familiarity in this picture.  'Those are colours that look familiar', we think.  Even in our local High Street there is a store looking almost exactly like this - only with another name.

Yes, Muswell Hill - and many other British shopping streets  - has this colour scheme in the form of Poundland.  This is not a name that translates very easily into a country like Ireland that doesn't use the pound.

There are those who believe that this works for God too.  Jesus here, but something else in another context.

Not so, it turns out. 

8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11Jesus is

“ ‘the stone you builders rejected,

which has become the cornerstone.’ ^a

12Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”