The First Weekend of the New Year
 The first weekend of the New Year coincided with Epiphany, an opportunity to reflect both on the amazing grace of God that reaches beyond the confines of one people to embrace the whole world, but also consider the response that grace encourages: the costly grace that Bonhoeffer called for in The Cost of Discipleship as opposed to cheap grace. Epiphany calls us to a response to God that is wholehearted, generous, joyful and committed.
The first weekend of the year also brought the first funerals of the year, both highlighting the fragility of life: Shaun Groome, who’d spent all his working life in the shipbuilding industry, latterly with ASRY. The service had a strongly nautical flavour with Eternal Father strong to save, Psalm 107 and The Seafarer’s 23rd Psalm The Lord is my Pilot. The second was a twenty week old stillborn baby – how many there seem to be in Bahrain – which gives rise to concerns for the pre-natal maternal health of the Asian expatriate community. |