Rev Jim Rea: This period of Lent is about reflecting on my personal relationship with God

Often known as Roly, he was one of those remarkably interesting people I met during my ministerial time working in Portadown.

He was a member of a small Methodist church in the townland of Ballynacor, and also a regular attender at the Salvation Army.

Always cheerful, he was a popular member of the renowned Portadown Male Voice Choir. One day, on passing our manse, he willingly offered to come occasionally and put some plants in our garden. Soon we became friends, and I became intrigued by Roly’s great love of literature and music alongside the wonders of creation.

One day, as summer was approaching, he asked my wife Carol where we were going for our holidays. She told him that it was Majorca. “What do you do there?” he asked. She informed him that we would buy coffees at a street café and sit in the sunshine and that I would read a newspaper.

Roly looked amused and said: “Sure, Missus, you could do that up the street.” He was being more optimistic about the Portadown weather than we were. For Roly a holiday was for discovering new things, and he would travel to remote places to look for the wildlife, birds and flowers of the landscape.

Now in lockdown I am beginning to appreciate Roly’s remarks. With no coffee or reading newspapers in cafés or anywhere close to a riviera, it is down the street to Orangefield Park in east Belfast for our holiday destination.

One day in the park little egrets were pointed out to me, and more recently I have been watching the antics of two herons and several ducks. I’ve been admiring all sorts of dogs, mongrels, full breeds, half breeds and designer dogs that must have cost a fortune, but each one uniquely created. Buds are beginning to appear on trees, and shoots of daffodils are emerging through the grass.

For me, this period of Lent is a time for personal reflection on the closeness of my relationship with God. As I watch the wonder of creation coming to life the word ‘resurrection’ comes to mind. My Lenten reflections point me not just to my imperfections, but above all to the wonderful grace and forgiveness of God, to be experienced through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, with promise of the ultimate new creation when Christ returns.

Roland Gilpin died in 2018. He loved the hymns of Charles Wesley, and none better than the words I witnessed him sing with gusto in the choir:

Changed from glory into glory,

Till in Heaven we take our place,

Till we cast our crowns before Thee,

Lost in wonder, love and praise.