Letters

CARRY ON CAROLLING!

HAVING played in the Army Band for 50 years I was thinking back to my first experience I had while carolling. We would go out from Monday to Friday in the early evening around the streets where we had to stop at lampposts so that we could see the music, while the collectors knocked on the doors. On Saturday we were allowed to play and collect by shops. On Sunday, after the morning meeting and before the evening meeting, we would be out again playing carols.

Today we are allowed to play and collect in supermarkets, which is much better and a lot warmer. Penarth Band were out on 4 December in the town centre where it was blowing a gale. Trying to keep the music on the stands proved to be a problem, but we carried on. Not being able to carol the previous year because of Covid-19, we appreciated being out spreading the Christmas message with the music we played. So Army bands, big and small, keep on carolling! We never know what impact we have on the people listening.

Chris Parr Penarth

HERALDING A PRIVILEGE

HOW lovely it was to read about Gerald Newton and his ministry as a herald in Tunstall (Salvationist 20 November 2021). My husband and I have been heralds in our town since 2003 and, over the past three and a half years, my husband has had long spells in hospital.

I wondered at first whether I would be able to continue the ministry on my own, but I am so glad that I have. My regulars have been an amazing support with words of encouragement, prayers, visits to my husband, cards, gifts, etc. I have always seen the folk as ‘our flock’ but more so now, as we are able to be mutually supportive, understanding each other’s needs and building each other up.

It is a privilege to be on the street each week. I will show one of my regulars the picture of Gerald when I see her next.

Ann Armstrong Milton Keynes

WHO ARE WE?

IN the 20 November 2021 issue of Salvationist the title of the editor’s comment asked: ‘Who are we?’ This took my mind back to when one of us got a bit stroppy as youngsters. We would be asked: ‘Who do you think you are, Joe Louis?’ The connotation was that, if you thought you were better than the rest of them (in terms of a scrap), you might have thought to yourself, ‘Yes, I am Joe Louis!’

Who are we? My response would be that The Salvation Army is what I am as an individual soldier and the follow-on to that reflected throughout the organisation is logically ‘who we are’. We can judge who we are as The Salvation Army by taking a general view of our origin, doctrine, standards and dedication as well as honouring individual commitment. If we are found to have fallen far short of these disciplines then those on the outside could rightly ask: ‘Exactly what does The Salvation Army stand for?’

Gordon Archer Lurgan

LET THERE BE LIGHT (AND TREES)

IN many people’s eyes, the sooner coal can completely vanish, the better. The main snag is there is rather a lot to be replaced by renewable energy. Fortunately, the Bible and a lot of 21st-century technology might have an answer. A song in The Sound of Music advises us to ‘start at the very beginning’, so go to Genesis 1:3 and God said ‘let there be light’ – and there was light, and God saw that it was good.

Photovoltaic panels turn light into electricity and their supporters have made much of the claim that the cost of making them has dropped dramatically in recent times, and their output has improved. Let us assume 200 watts per square metre. Many countries have deserts, some of them huge, with lots of sunlight, so could we cover these with solar panels?

Here is the arithmetic: 5 sq km of solar panels would produce 1 GW (gigawatt). Drax power station in Yorkshire has a capacity of 4 GW – 20 sq km of solar panels could theoretically replace a big power station, so could sunlight replace much of the world’s coal as an energy source?

Then there are trees. These absorb the CO2 we cannot help but produce when we exhale. There is about 1 million sq km of land in Africa south of the Sahara that is vulnerable to desertification. Millions of trees need to be planted there to keep the desert at bay, providing work for people – planting, tending, harvesting and guarding the trees against firewood scavengers.