There was never a storm like it – not in all the 87 years of its existence. Never has there been the cancellation of a day’s events. Despite the fact that the Annual Ploughing Championships is held annually around the Autumn equinox such a storm as Ali was unique.
There have been years when the rain was challenging! The challenge was met with powerful water pumps which removed surface water from the 600-acre site. It is the largest outdoor event in Europe drawing Farmers and Farm Suppliers from every corner of the continent. The expected attendance of 300,000 over the 3 days was curtailed by Ali.
The gusting winds’ destruction was so severe that the middle day, Wednesday, had to be cancelled and, to partially compensate, the event continued on Friday. Total attendance was better than expected at 240,000 but the damaged tents and exhibits will have proved costly for the organisers and exhibitors alike.
This is an occasion where city and rural populations meet. You know it is so when you see politicians shaking hands with everyone they come across! They were added to by the candidates for the Presidential election – due in a month’s time. The President, who officially opened the event, and his wife were there. His opening speech managed to incorporate the inaugural speech of his campaign as he is looking for another 7- year term in the office!
The one part of the programme which was not affected by the weather was the ploughing competitions which give their name to the event. They take place in neighbouring fields and involves both horses and tractors to do the work. When it started in 1931 it set out to stimulate an interest in tillage farming. It certainly did that and Ireland has a record of winning the World Championship in the various ploughing competitions. In every case the furrow being opened has to be straight. It is necessary to have a marker on the far side of the field and to keep your eye on it. Looking back would cause the plough to veer from the straight line and ruin the furrow.
In outlining the cost of discipleship Jesus used the illustration of the ploughman who having started to plough must not look back. The decision to follow Jesus in the three cases instanced by Jesus in St Luke Chapter 9 verses 57 to 62 had a ‘but’ added qualifying the decision. They had started to plough but were not putting Jesus first. A better illustration is Matthew who left his business and followed Jesus (St Luke Chapter 5 verse 28).
St Paul writes (Romans Chapter 8 verses 28/30 & 38/39) with the confidence of a man who, once converted, never looked back: –
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?… For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
When the call comes don’t look back!

Those in the workforce have become familiar with CPD – Continuous Personal Development – which formalised into training the abilities required to cope with the developing jobscene. With the introduction of the gig economy CPD itself has been left behind and we now require to become familiar with Skillnet to stay in the race.

This concept harnesses technology which itself is continually upgrading. It becomes the agent for change as more targeted ways of working are devised. No-one is immune from this revolution. It applies equally to the farmer and the surgeon.
Skillnetireland.ie will give a flavour of what’s on offer.

Work in future, we are told, will resemble more of the free-lance journalist who earns his bread from writing article after article. There is no safety net. If the inspiration dries up so does the job. The land of permanent pensionable is a distant memory. So the Millennials coming out of secondary or tertiary education can look forward to a life of assignments, tasks and projects offering short-term contracts but little promise of permanent work outside of the Civil Service.

Along with this ‘independence’ comes the ability to set your own hours and your own location i.e. home working may be one option. On the plus side you can achieve a better ‘work-life balance’. In some cases, this may enable a couple to raise a family while continuing to contribute to the workscene often, for them, an economic necessity.

Courses are available, such as at IMI, or more direct tuition by hiring an expert to instruct staff on their particular field. In the Christian realm Irish Bible Institute offers tuition locally whereas both Cork and Belfast have colleges. St Paul’s advice to Timothy holds good today “Study to present yourself to God, as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Timothy Chapter 2 verse 15).

The old joke of the Preacher sitting by his fireside finishing the last chapter of the Bible and exclaiming “Thank goodness that’s finished” is about as far from the truth as you can get! The Psalmist’s assertion “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Chapter 119 verse 105) was never more necessary than today.

Our problem of congenital blindness when it comes to understanding the Bible is addressed by Jesus immediately before the ascension “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (St Luke Chapter 24 verses 45/47). We are his witnesses today.

The decline of the Post Office in Ireland continues with the planned closure of 169 of them. This week’s announcement brought a flurry of letters to the correspondence columns of the national press the vast majority of them sent, no doubt, by email!

It is not possible to be on any street in central Dublin without bumping into someone immersed in their smart phone. People pass you on the pavement apparently talking to themselves. You look closer and notice a white flex joining their ears and disappearing under their chin. An even closer look reveals a miniscule microphone built into the flex transmitting messages with replies entering the ears.

Back at the Men’s Shed one of our number produced a new mobile phone which the supermarket was virtually giving away with the groceries. It seemed a simple enough gadget till it came to add ‘contacts’. The instructions, translated no doubt from Korean defeated us and could only be mastered by someone in junior infants!

Who are these modern Behemoths? They bear familiar names; Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp and hidden behind some of them are Amazon, Apple and Google to name but three. Their ability to collect information about their users is aided by users having to comply with their demands in order to use the computer or smart phone. This data, which accumulates at a formidable speed, needs to be stored on a piece of land where the climate is cool (to reduce the air conditioning costs) and Ireland appears to tick all the right boxes. So we can expect a large Data Centre to locate here soon.

These behemoths are wealthy. Apple announced a cash reserve of $267.2 billion (a billion is a thousand million) for the second quarter this year. With their product being produced in different countries and sold globally they have been able to avoid paying tax other than at a tiny level which we, in this country, are increasingly dependent upon.

Controlling the means of communication and accumulating personal data places enormous power in the hands of non-elected and non-answerable leaders. At least non-answerable other than to shareholders whose primary interest is profit. The worth of their Data has now been revealed.

Cyber-crime involving the capture of British Airways passenger data of 380,000 people came to light this week. The investigation is on-going but it appears some of the data was sub-contracted and the sub-contractor’s security was less robust to withstand an attack than the Airline’s. Interestingly nothing has been stolen yet but a lot of people have to cancel their credit cards to prevent their account being hacked.

It is good to remember that Behemoth in the Bible is made by God (Job Chapter 40 verse 15). Also we are living in the day of His grace; this is Gospel country. Hebrews Chapter 4 verse 13 puts it – Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
And that is really big data!

This week, in conversation, one of us remarked that the Christian year actually begins now. Our new year should not commence on 1st January but 1st September! All the church activities that took a break during the summer resume. The Christian community arouses from its slumber and what better time to remind ourselves of the Gospel.
As the Apostle Paul said, “Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” (1 Corinthians Chapter 1 verses 1-4).
We need to be reminded because it is so contrary to our natural instincts. We want to do something, help someone, be nice. What a slap in the face to find it has all been done by the grace of Jesus and our task is to simply believe. In fact, it is worse – if it were not for the work of the Holy Spirit we would not believe at all. Our very faith comes from God as a gift out of his grace (Ephesians Chapter 2 verses 8 -10).

We need to be reminded that we are saved by grace through Christ and not by works; that we are accepted by God so we obey, not we obey so I’m accepted.
It is God’s grace (the word means giving us what we do not deserve – in fact we deserve the opposite) in sending Jesus, his grace in placing our sin on Jesus on the cross so that we can say “in my place condemned he stood”. It is by God’s grace that Jesus conquered death and sent the Holy Spirit to incline our stubborn hearts to believe that we are now forgiven and by a grace given faith can now work out the implications of our salvation as God works in us (Philippians Chapter 2 verses 12 -13).

Many things flow out of the Gospel of grace. There is freedom from the doubt as to whether or not I have done enough, been good enough etc.(to gain God’s acceptance), that plagues those caught up in religion. No more the treadmill of trying to be a good person by doing good things. That is all in the past, accomplished by grace for every believer in Jesus. His grace in salvation blessing reaches the depth of every repentant heart (Acts Chapter 3 verses 19 – 20). Past sins are blotted out and future sins covered by the blood of Christ’s sacrifice (1 John Chapter 1 verse 7).

Entering into this freedom enables us to live in obedience to God’s Word just as Jesus did. His obedience to the Word is paramount. Here are two examples in extreme situations (1) answering Satan from scripture and (2) believing he would be resurrected he handed his life over to his Father’s will (St Matthew Chapter 4 verses 4 – 10 and St Mark Chapter 14 verse 36).
“If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed” (St John Chapter 8 verse 36).

What kind of a man can command an anticipated audience of 500,000 in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, on a wet and windy Sunday afternoon? What gems of wisdom can he produce in order to garner the grain, remove the dross, comfort the broken and shore up the edifice of an ailing church?
With expectations running high a lot is expected of this man. He has been portrayed as ‘Mr Good Guy’ over against the faceless others. He is expected to reach both the devoted and the disillusioned. A task which the Irish clergy have failed. Even our local Archbishop is pinning his hopes on the pope saying something to Irish society as to where it should be going. Who is equal to this task? It looks like he is being set up for a fall!
The World Meeting of Families which has taken place in Dublin this week and is the reason for the pope’s visit, produced some clarity. According to Marie Collins, herself a survivor of clerical abuse, the church’s reluctance to look into the matter is caused by fear of what it may find. There is the possibility of the ‘domino effect’ where there is a trail of abuse, some of which is allegedly documented in the Vatican and which, if followed, may open an even bigger can of worms.
The alternative is the continuing drip feed of abuse scandals not dissimilar to the drip feeding of the Trump scandals in the secular world. The only remedy is the unpalatable one of the person in charge of the facts making all material details and documents available for inspection by the appropriate secular authorities. Of course this is unlikely to happen as it involves pride and loss of esteem even perhaps to the loss of vocation or presidency!
The usual tactic of ignoring it and hope that it will go away, is no answer. A priest cannot forgive his own sins. He must go to confessional. But he cannot confess what he has not grieved over, and he cannot grieve over what he does not see, and he cannot repent over what he has not confessed. It needs the operation of God’s grace to open his eyes to see the destroyed lives his addiction has created.
When by God’s grace your eyes see and your heart is made willing to confess you know something of that glorious forgiving, rescuing and transforming grace that has become yours. But it is not natural. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the Serpent.
Both of them hid and neither stepped forward and confessed instead they passed the buck.
We have inherited from our first parents a sturdy form of self-righteousness. It comes naturally to us to think we are more righteous than we are. We all need the eye salve of the church in Laodicea (Revelation Chapter 3 verse 18) so we can stand unafraid before the revealing mirror of the Bible and see what we are really like. Then by faith in the cleansing power of the death of Christ we know that the blood of Christ covers all that has been exposed to Him. The greater fear for the pope, you and me is the delusions of self-righteousness that replace Christ’s righteousness in us (Romans Chapter 4 verses 1 to 6).

The somewhat detached response of the Vatican to the hole that the church finds itself in Pennsylvania shows that the adage to stop digging is being ignored. Perhaps they are leaving it to the Pope to sort out when he comes to Ireland to the World Meeting of Families next week.
This week the Pennsylvania grand jury found that over 1,000 children in six dioceses there had been molested by 300 Catholic priests over the past 70 years while senior church officials took steps to cover it up. The grand jury said it believed the “real number” of abused children might be “in the thousands”.
In farming when we have losses among livestock we sometimes console ourselves with the fact that the same thing is occurring in other farmyards. It’s a truism to be expected. It stands to reason that the same thing is going on elsewhere. It is hard to believe that similar reasoning did not take place in the Vatican and a global enquiry set in motion to root out the scourge of abuse.
There has been plenty of evidence of cover-up of abuse by the hierarchy but few heads have rolled to date although that may change. Seldom has there been any public expression of sympathy for the victims. Admittedly there is the fear of being sued but churches should lead the way in offering compensation and rehabilitation where necessary.
There exists the parallel legal system of Canon Law. It may be that its requirements have been met and errand priests disciplined. However, one of the basic tenets of any justice system is that it must be open. How else can people be confident that justice has been done or mercy, where appropriate, been granted? This lies in the jurisdiction of the Vatican. Perhaps the Pope can use one of the keys of St Peter to open it otherwise its back to platitudes and handwringing?

There is a sense that all churches are tainted when one in disarray. We are all sinners and need the Saviour. Catholics look to the Mass for cleansing. This is dispensed by someone in apostolic succession. The reformed view of apostolic succession would be the passing on of the gospel of grace from the first apostles, to their converts in a steady stream down through the avenue of time to the present day in answer to Jesus’s prayer recorded in St John 17 verse 20.
But the heart of the Mass is where the ministerial Priesthood who alone can “make present” (in what the Council of Trent calls an “unbloody manner”) the bread to represent the body of Christ (St Matthew Chapter 26 verse 26 – 28).

The reformed view would be that the one who officiates directs the worshippers to the once crucified now risen Christ and invites the believers present to eat and drink in memory of Jesus their sin-bearer and Sovereign Lord until he comes again.
There is a blessed simplicity in the Lord’s Table which easily gets lost in protocols. We need to remind ourselves of Isaiah “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols (chapter 42 verse 8).

In one of these simple quiz questions the Question Master asked the competitors to work out what the initials RDS stood for and to phone in the answer to him. He had, of course, been talking about the famous Horse Show which takes place in the Royal Dublin Society’s property in Dublin, annually, on this week.

The building of a course with jumps and the penalty of 4 faults if you knocked one down was a summer feature in our garden and challenged our children and their friends to emulate show jumping horses. I am not sure if we had water hazards but there were plenty of hurdles made of wooden bars to test the young legs!
Every August Reg and Rosalie Lowe (both sadly are no longer with us) made the trek from their house in Wapping Street, cross the Liffey to Ballsbridge to take their place in the RDS Arena. It was a fixture on their calendar! Reg had lived during that time when the horse was indispensable for work in Dublin Docklands and his love for the animal never left him.
The spectacle provided this week by the Stewards in the RDS was one of sheer brilliance. The flags of the 10 competing Nations (4 horses each nation) mingled with the floral decorations and bunting. The weather was perfect and the grass, which had been badly burnt by the heatwave, was now thick and green – ideal for jumping. The course was designed on a Celtic/Historic theme with one jump featuring phone kiosks of yesteryear!

They arrived as complete underdogs to take on many of the best nations in the world, but Team Mexico turned the sport on its head on Friday winning the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ of Ireland. This is the premier event which competes for the Aga Khan Trophy and prize money of €250K. It was Mexico’s first time in the competition and the joy with which they received the victory was heart-warming – that is to probably everyone except Trump who seems to have difficulties in loving his neighbour!
Horses get a bad press in the Bible. We read of them in connection with war. The ass and the ox were kept for more peaceful labours. The latter finding its way onto the badge of a Scottish Bible College with the caption around the picture of an ox, which the students were encouraged to copy – ‘either for labour or sacrifice’. This reminder that we are not our own, we were bought with a price, does not sit well with modern people.
In the same passage St Paul likens the believer’s body to the Temple (because it has the Holy spirit living within) and makes the case to flee from sexual sins which, unlike other sins, pollute it in a debilitating way because they take place inside your body (1 Corinthians Chapter 6 verses 16 -20). Taking the image from the slave-market St Paul reminds us that the price that was paid for each believer was the blood of Christ.
So glorify God with your body.

The recent announcement of the resignation of the American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from the College of Cardinals (the first Cardinal to do so since 1927) following allegations of sexual abuse has highlighted the all-embracing nature of the problem.
Co-incidentally RTE broadcast the 2015 film “Spotlight”. This was largely based on the investigative work of the Boston Globe newspaper which published its results in January 2002. Initial work showed that victims were young and from poor backgrounds. Many came from broken homes and in some cases there was no
adult figure for the youth to turn to. In fact, the Priest may have been the first meaningful relationship the youngster had experienced. There was also a certain glamour in running errands for a Priest. It gave some purpose and meaning to an otherwise miserable life.
The Priests, there were around 260 of them out of a diocese of 1,500, were sent to different parishes or to rehabilitation. Their plight was the unenviable one of living a lie. One when interviewed maintained “I never took pleasure in it” which in his view made it OK.
It was the cover up by the hierarchy that compounded the crimes which the journalists decided to expose. There existed within the dioceses a type of court which dispensed its own justice. This had the effect of taking abuse cases involving Priests out of the civil courts and making the legal papers inaccessible. The absence of documents seemed an insuperable hurdle until a journalist learned that there were publicly available documents that confirmed Cardinal Law was made aware of the problem and ignored it. These documents were consulted and the matter brought out into the open with its publication. The Boston Globe’s offices were inundated by phone calls from victims of clerical sexual abuse who never thought they would see the day when their stories would be believed.
Cardinal Law resigned in December 2002 and was eventually promoted to the prestigious Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. In the press today Marie Collins, the Irish survivor of abuse who was on the Pope’s enquiry panel, tweeted, it would have meant so much more if Cardinal McCarrick had been removed rather than allowed to resign.
We live in a broken world with those in power fulfilling the axiom ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Those with no power have different temptations (St Matthew Chapter 5 verse 28). None are sinless not even one (Psalm 14 verses 2/3). The temptation to see yourself as an exception must be resisted otherwise the remedy will seem irrelevant to you. Do you hear the word “All we like sheep have gone astray, each turning to his own way” (Isaiah 53 verse 6). We are born wanderers! We want our own way. We don’t want the Shepherd!
“The Lord has laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all” The remedy is not to try to be better. It’s not the system. It’s faith in a sin-bearing Saviour. Trust Him not self.

After an extended period of no rain we went to bed last night to the sound of water filling the near empty rain barrel. We have come through an official drought (no rain for 40 days) which was declared by the Meteorological Office some time ago.
The hosepipe ban and a real endeavour to conserve water brought it home to most of us just how dependant we are on rain.
For the farmer whose land had changed from green to light brown with zero grass growth and cattle, instead of grazing were now simply going for a walk, there was no need emphasise the need for rain.
The Psalmist knew all about this when he desired “rain that falls on a mown field, like showers watering the earth (Chapter 72 verse 6). Over the last few weeks all our grassland has taken on the appearance of a ‘mown field’ with livestock having to be fed with feed normally reserved for use in winter.
Before the land recovers and growth resumes the rain must penetrate the earth’s crust. This has been baked hard and will take many nights’ rain to get to the grass roots.

The Bible shows a close relationship between the land being productive and the peoples’ allegiance. One place where it is evident is in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple; “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and give praise to your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain on the land you gave your people for an inheritance” (1 Kings Chapter 8 verses 35/6).

The Bible uses rain to illustrate Gods indiscriminate love. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (St Matthew Chapter 5 verses 43 – 48).

The Bible likens the dynamic growth properties in nature to the converting power of God’s word: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah Chapter 55 verses 10 – 11).

We have heard a lot about Artificial Intelligence this week as practical uses of appear on the market. The popular idea that a robot will do the housework etc. however, may be some way off!
It is interesting how these robots have been personalised by their designer giving them names. We are invited to learn some new computer program by listening to Cortana. The idea being that we will engage better with a humanised robot than one with a heartless metallic voice.
It’s when they start to beat you at your favourite game that it becomes a little hard to take! Fortunately, their inventor has thought of this and given you a scale of difficulty so you can set it a bit lower to ensure a win!
Then there is the smart home created by Amazon or Google. It may be operated by voice control when you are in the house or remotely by cell phone when you are away. The problems that it solves today are simple like switching on the heating but tomorrow who knows …perhaps it will do the housework!
Outside the home there is the driverless car. It is reckoned to be safer that having a human in control. But if no-one is behind the wheel who pays in the event of an accident? The manufacturer? The owner?
What about Skype’s simultaneous speech translation? Of course someone has to program the thing but given the tools one day perhaps the robot may do a real-time voice translation by itself. Babel reversed and the foreign missionary’s dream, of mastering the language, fulfilled!
Clothing outlets complain that customers try on the garments in their shop then go home and buy the same garment cheaper on-line. Soon they will not need to go to the shop if the Japanese firm Zozo has anything to do with it. The firm has created a body scanning suit called the Zozosuit. By photographing themselves wearing the skin-tight polka-dot Zozosuit, users can upload their body measurements to ensure a perfect fit for the clothes they order.
Amazon.com, which has been making an aggressive push into online apparel, last year bought Body Labs, a 3-D body-scanning start-up that lets people create a digital avatar of themselves to try on virtual clothes. One future problem could be with shops becoming redundant and the workplace inhabited by robots there may be no demand for clothes as there would be nowhere to wear them!
On the less frivolous side artificial intelligence is being used to create autonomous weapons. Future wars could be fought by robots, programmed to think for themselves and set loose on the enemy. The resultant chaos would make science fiction films a reality.
Jesus takes us back to basics. He tells us through St John that the world is in the control of the evil one (1 John chapter 5 verse 19) and that in it we will have trouble but everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (verses 4/5).