The Dean

Dear Friends,
Contemplating a holiday staying with friends or relatives can be an exciting prospect. Perhaps some time has elapsed since we last met, so we look forward to refreshing our relationships and friendships, catching up on our personal news and views. It can also be a stressful experience for everyone as we immerse ourselves in someone else’s life style, even though we think we know them well. The routines of the household and the personal habits of our host need to be respected and there can be a time of awkward adjustment. If children are involved then they often act as the ice breaker. They have fewer scruples and sensibilities than adults.

We can apply this as an analogy for the church, particularly the kind of church we encounter here at St Christopher’s in Bahrain. For most of the week (Monday to Thursday) only a relatively small number of people attend Anglican worship in the cathedral, but it does go on day by day. This is an essential characteristic of any self respecting cathedral – a regular life of disciplined prayer and worship into which anyone can come and dip and hopefully encounter God in their daily life. There is, I know, some reticence on the part of many to come and join in, feeling that they might be intruding upon something which in ‘not for them,’ only for the clergy or those who have a special calling. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes we do ‘do’ things in a particular way, but like going to stay with relatives or friends we hope that anyone attending our daily prayer is made to feel at home and helped to follow our regular routines of prayer and meditation. Sometimes when I hear the Muslim call to prayer, I am reminded that it is time to pray too. Let’s not forget that regular times of prayer as a daily discipline predates Islam by centuries; first by the Jews and then by Christians. In the Old Testament Temple in Jerusalem pious Jews were exhorted to follow a daily discipline of prayer- Psalm 119:164 “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws.”

In the New Testament there are references to regular times of prayer in the Temple. This tradition continues right through Christian history, not least in our religious communities. But we can’t all be monks and nuns. There’s not a lot of hope for the future of the human race in that, but we can and should adopt our own personal discipline of prayer and worship. One of the undiscovered joys of contemporary Christianity is, I believe, that it is possible to have a discipline of prayer in a relaxed but intimate way with God in our daily lives whoever we are and whatever the structure of our lives.

One of the great joys I have come to appreciate and hold dear about St Christopher’s Cathedral and Awali is the immense variety of worship I am privileged to prepare and lead each weekend (Friday – Sunday), with the variety of styles, atmosphere, music and liturgy we experience. Along with the daily round of prayer which undergirds this life of worship I feel confident that in our rather disparate way we are nevertheless a family where visitors can feel immediately at home and experience a sense of the presence of God which draws them into a deeper and meaningful relationship with him, and maybe even want to stay with us and be part of our pilgrimage walk of life with God.

Every blessing to you all

Alan Hayday