WAR CRY 20 August 202250p Duty calls Composer on the ‘powerful thing called music’ ‘Photography allows me to express my faith’ Adrian Dunbar set to star in new ITV police drama
From the editor’s desk
ONE of the pleasures of summer can be the opportunity it gives to sit on a beach or by a pool reading a good book. For those not going on holiday, the warm and light evenings can encourage them to go outside with a book in their hands after a busy day. However, one of the challenges of summer can be finding that good book to read. Help is at hand in this week’s War Cry, though, as our summer book club suggests six novels, all of which have a Christian theme. That could be by a creative retelling of some of the biblical accounts of Jesus’ life on Earth, or by featuring Christian characters within the story.
The great thing about these books is that they have plotlines you can lose yourself in, while their authors are also using their skills as writers to convey the message of the Christian faith. This week we discover that it is not only authors who imbue their work with their faith as we speak to photographer Sierra Pruitt. ‘A lot of my personal projects are based on Jesus, or they show a different way of seeing the gospel’, she tells us, before adding: ‘Photography is a powerful medium for me to express my faith. I want to show people Jesus in a way that they haven’t seen before, and in a way they can Sometimes,understand.’theChristian faith can come across as confusing or unattractive. But the truth is that it is neither of these things. The message that Jesus brought to his followers is that God loves everybody – regardless of who they are or what they have done – and that people are at their best when they are loving God and loving other people.Whether that message is received through something we read or see, if we accept it and live by it, we can begin a new chapter in our story.
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ITPASSONf Front-page picture: ITV 1586Your local Salvation Army centre FEATURES 3 Not so shy and retiring Detective called back to work in ITV drama 4 Along the write lines War Cry’s summer book club 6 Snapping up the concept Photographer focuses on faith 8 ‘I wanted to write my own music’ Proms composer Sir James MacMillan on his creative process REGULARS 12 Team Talk 13 Now, There’s a Thought! 14 Puzzles 15 War Cry Kitchen CONTENTS
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INFOINFO 2 • WAR CRY • 20 August 2022
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ITV It’s a redemptionaboutshow
IN a dark forest, shots are fired. The next morning, a body is found – with shotgun wounds to the upper torso. In ITV’s latest crime drama, Ridley, which airs later this month, the Copperton police are called to the scene. It’s Detective Inspector Carol Farman’s (Bronagh Waugh) first day on the job after being promoted, and she’s got her work cut out. As well as rallying her team to find out who killed the sheep farmer, Carol calls on her predecessor, retired Detective Inspector Alex Ridley (Adrian Dunbar). Ridley, who mentored Carol for five years, isn’t in the best frame of mind. Not only is he experiencing the loss of his position in the police force, but he is grieving the death of his wife and daughter too. Hiding away in the home he shared with his family, he is struggling with the reality that he won’t get them back. He is also grappling with guilt. It appears he may have had something to do with the house fire that killed his loved ones. But, convinced to re-join the force as a temporary consultant on the case, he finds a sense of purpose again. And he spots a A retired detective is convinced to consult on a murder case TV preview by Sarah Olowofoyeku
20 August 2022 • WAR CRY • 3 detail that could lead the team to answers, not just about the recently committed crime, but also about a missing child case from years earlier. Ridley hadn’t been able to shake that incident. He knew something was not right with how the case had been resolved, and was still thinking about it 14 years on. Jean Dixon (Elizabeth Berrington), a former colleague, had warned him to move on, saying: ‘From one ex-copper to another, you can’t solve them all, Ridley. It doesn’t pay to dwell in the past.’ But as the narrative unfolds, the question emerges, is she really trying to protect Ridley or is she covering up her own mistakes? She isn’t the only one with something to hide. The dark pasts of other characters soon come to light. Ridley creator and writer Paul Matthew Thompson says: ‘It is a show about redemption, about making amends, about guilt.’ Such themes are relevant beyond the small screen. Whoever we are, we have all said or done things that we feel guilty about, things we must make amends for, but also things from which we can find redemption.It’sanidea that’s at the heart of another narrative. The Bible tells the story of God who created a people that he loved, but who then turned their backs on him. It led to all types of pain and suffering. But then, God came up with a way for them to be redeemed.Humankind could never make amends for the mistakes and hurt it had caused God. So he sent his Son, Jesus, to do it for them. Jesus took on the eternal consequence for people’s wrongdoing –death and separation from God, but then he came back to life, rendering those mistakes and, ultimately, death powerless. For us, this means that no matter how bad our offence, if we believe what Jesus did, we can experience redemption. We must deal with the earthly consequences of our mistakes and make things right where we can. But if we are truly sorry, we can be freed from our guilt and forgiven by God. Convinced?
WITHRIDLEY’DGUILT
The Pilgrim Joy ApostlePublisher:MargettsInstant SET in the 13th century, The Pilgrim follows the fictional journey of Henry de Brampton, who is destined from a young age for a career in the church. Yet before taking his vows, he sees no harm in embracing worldly pleasures. That is, until he falls susceptible to lusting after his mentor’s wife, which leads to costly consequences. Guilt-ridden, Henry leaves his hometown in England and attempts to start afresh as Brother Hywel among the Cistercian monks of Abbey Cwmhir in Wales. But not long after, he makes another lamentable mistake. With few options left, he embarks on a pilgrimage to a faraway Welsh holy island, in search of redemption. The Pilgrim is a story of how God’s forgiveness is always on offer to us, even when we might struggle to forgive ourselves. It is a timely reminder that, no matter what we’ve done in the past, there is hope.
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Summer can be a great time to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine with a good book to read. But picking a book is not always easy to do, so here are six suggestions of novels that have a Christian theme
Sarah Olowofoyeku
Something Good Vanessa Publisher:MillerThomas Nelson WHEN Alexis Marshall tries to respond to a text while driving, she causes an accident, paralysing a young man who had hopes of becoming a professional American football player. After her son’s dreams have been shattered, Trish Robinson is picking up the pieces of a broken life. Elsewhere in town, young woman Marquita Lewis is trying to take care of her new baby, but is on the brink of eviction. Things are looking bleak for everybody. But in Something Good, the lives of these three women are about to intertwine in an unexpected way. An earnest prayer from Trish is the trigger for a series of shocking revelations that end up injecting hope into each woman’s life. An inspiring and moving read, the story proves that something good can come from the worst situations.
Linda McTurk
Summer Book Club WAR CRY
The Chosen Jerry B Publisher:JenkinsBroadstreet
Although the events revolve around Jesus’ ministry, much of the story focuses on the characters Jesus came into contact with. The imagined situations and dialogue mean that even readers who are familiar with the Bible can imagine some of its stories about Jesus in a new light through the eyes of those characters.
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The Diary of Isabella M Smugge and The Trials of Isabella M Smugge
Andrew Stone
THIS NOVEL, originally published in 1921 and rereleased in 2021, is set in 1917. It centres on Benjamin Digby, a curate in the Church of England, who, as a minister of religion, is exempt from conscription. When his brother, a soldier on the Western Front, sends him a blank cheque for The Salvation Army, he begins to investigate the church and charity for himself. While an interesting read for the exploration of the work of The Salvation Army during the First World War years, the poignancy of this book is found in the soulsearching of Benjamin. He feels stymied by his job – unable to go to war and unable to serve. But is he? Perhaps he is called to be a soldier of a different sort. In A Curate’s Promise we get a historical view of The Salvation Army, but also we get to see how the question ‘What should I be doing with my life?’ is universal.
Rebecca Goldsmith
Linda McTurk
Margaret Harkness New foreword by Flore BooksPublisher:JanssenShield
Ruth Publisher:LeighInstant Apostle INSTAGRAM influencer and consummate show-off Isabella M Smugge, the character at the centre of Ruth Leigh’s series, cares a lot about the way that others perceive her life, which is a flurry of trending hashtags and attractive moments captured on social media. But when she and her husband and their three children decide to ditch the glamorous London life and move to a country village, Isabella’s pictureperfect life gradually unravels into a challenging set of proposals. Soon, she is left with an unexpected baby on the way, her marriage in a shambles and her reputation going down the drain because of a gossip columnist. Hit by the trials of life, Isabella must rethink her priorities and relationships and decide whether her aspirations to lead an Instagram-worthy life will bring her true happiness. With plenty of humour and heaps of drama, Ruth’s series is a page-turner.
While The Chosen is not a substitute for reading Scripture, it does bring to life the Earthly experiences of Jesus in a new way.
A Curate’s Promise
WHEN the TV series The Chosen was released in 2017, millions of people around the world were hooked on the eight-part drama about the life of Jesus. This novel is based on that popular series, but develops and expands some of the characters and their storylines.
Yesterday Friday (19 August) was World Photography Day, an occasion to celebrate the art of taking a picture. SIERRA PRUITT, who honours the artform all year round, explains how she got her start on Instagram and what being behind the lens means to her Interview by Sarah Olowofoyeku BEFORE Instagram became the home of influencers and a gallery of very carefully curated feeds, it attracted amateurs –including people who wanted to explore photography. Sierra Pruitt was one of them. In 2012, a couple of years after the photo-sharing app had launched, Sierra was using her iPhone to take pictures in her home city of Portland, Oregon, and upload them on to Instagram for fun. But it wasn’t long before she realised that she had a talent.
Sierra started working as a freelance photographer, documenting weddings and taking portraits. But a visit to London broadened her view once again.
is amazing” made me want to take photography more seriously,’ Sierra says. ‘I loved doing it too. In 2013, I bought a cheap camera, and started taking pictures of my friends and doing mini fashion shoots. I was actually studying theatre at the time, and I quit college to start doing photography full-time.’
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WRIGHTFRANCES
EXPOSING
‘The encouragement of people on Instagram who would say, “this
‘I was obsessed with the fashion in London,’ she says. ‘And I knew I needed to live there. In Portland, Oregon, where I’m from, you don’t really hear about fashion much. But somebody said I should look into fashion photography, and I loved it. I had been doing a lot of lifestyle photography but I wanted to start doing fashion, so I practised on my friends, getting wacky avant-garde clothes and trying to do editorial shoots. ‘Then I decided to apply for a place at the London College of Fashion to study fashion photography, and I got in. That’s when I knew this was my career. It’s more creative and expressive and I’m able to be more weird, whereas with lifestyle photography, I wasn’t able to do that.’Three years after graduating and moving back to the States, Sierra is working as a creative manager for a PR Sierra Pruitt
‘Silence and Solitude’ – a project Sierra shot to convey her journey with anxiety
‘Slowness’ – with this photo, Sierra wanted to show a cultivating of rest ‘Home’ – Sierra created this magazine editorial based on a poem she wrote about finding home in God
20 August 2022 • WAR CRY • 7 agency, doing product photography and graphic design for the social media pages of major beauty brands. She is also a freelance fashion photographer, and carries out her own personal projects. When she decided to study, she says, part of her motivation was to learn how to put more meaning into her work. One of the most important themes she wanted to portray through her photography is her faith, and it’s something she still does. ‘A lot of my personal projects are based on Jesus, or they show a different way of seeing the gospel. Photography is a powerful medium for me to express my faith, without having to come up with words.’ Her faith even influenced her first university project, which was inspired by her own experience of anxiety. ‘I wanted to depict what it felt like to be in silence and solitude, and how I’m anxious at first but then peaceful by the end. So, I did a shoot that started with a guy in white with crazy, plastic clothes on, showing chaos. Then, towards the end, it showed him being peaceful with water over him, depicting renewal and baptism. That was a fashion shoot, based on Jesus. It showed the transition of what it’s like to live in anxiety and then what it’s like to live in peace with God.’
Sierra is also certain as to the characteristics of Jesus that she wants to portray through her work. ‘He is peace, he is kind, and he’s there in the really hard stuff,’ she says. ‘I want to show people that he is there in the mess. He loves broken people. He is stability and unconditional love.’ Every year, World Photography Day is held on 19 August to celebrate the day in 1839 that the French government officially announced the invention of the daguerreotype. Being able to portray a personal viewpoint is why, Sierra says, photography is always worth ‘Photographerscelebrating.areshowing you what they see, and that’s really important.’
More recently, a project that she called The Ninth Hour made reference to the hour at which Jesus cried out when he was hanging on his cross. ‘It was about deconstruction, and how we can be entrapped by our idea of trying to be perfect when that is not the perfection of Jesus,’ she explains. Through her photography, Sierra wants to break down misconceptions about Christianity. ‘I don’t want to stick within a Christian bubble of making art that is surface-level,’ she says. ‘My work is very beautiful, but I want to show that you can express yourself and be weird and avant-garde. I want to show people Jesus in a way that they haven’t seen before, and in a way they can understand.’
expressisPhotographyamediumtomyfaith
PRUITTSIERRA
A MESSAGE
Composer and conductor Sir James MacMillan is remembering the run-up to the opening of last year’s BBC Proms. A year further back, amid 2020’s national and local lockdowns and restrictions on gatherings, the annual festival of music had been broken down to BBC broadcasts of concerts from the archives and – for the final fortnight – of new performances that took place in the Royal Albert Hall but behind closed doors. Proms director David Pickard described them as the Proms ‘not as we know them, but the Proms as we need them’. Then, last year, the Proms began to sound a bit more normal. The season was shorter than usual, but the fact that there was live music being played to audiences again was celebrated in the opening concert, first by a performance of Vaughan Williams’s ‘Serenade to Music’ and then by a new work, specially commissioned by the BBC and the charity Help Musicians.‘Ihadto write it very quickly,’ says James of ‘When Soft Voices Die’, a choral work, based on two poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which reflects on the themes of memory, loss and the importance of virtue, love and music. Concert life seemed to have been abandoned Every year crowds pack out the Royal Albert Hall for Proms concerts – but not in 2020
Write on cue
CHRISTODOULOUBBC/CHRIS
Interview by Philip Halcrow ‘EVEN just weeks before, the BBC didn’t know what they would be allowed to do. No one knew how many people would be allowed on stage, what size the orchestra could be. It was very late on in the day before they came to me with a suggestion of a work that would mark the First Night of the Proms – the post-Covid Proms – in a celebration of music returning.’
When audiences returned to the Proms last year, one of the first works they heard was a specially commissioned piece by Sir JAMES MacMILLAN, celebrating the return of live music. Ahead of a concert featuring two of his choral works at this year’s Proms, the composer talks about ‘this beautiful, powerful thing called music’
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‘I have this abiding and quite strange memory of being struck by the music – it would have been something by Palestrina or plainsong. I remember looking up as a little child, straining to see over the heads of the adults in front of me and seeing these robed figures in the distance.
The mention of prayer is not accidental. Composer Sir James MacMillan
‘I look back on those moments – even before I started my musical training – as seminal.’James’s training in music-making ‘It was May or June when they got in touch, and the First Night of the Proms was in July. It wasn’t a big piece, but I worked with great energy on it. ‘It was a great moment to mark –people coming together after being closed down. Even the churches had been closed. Certainly, concert life seemed to have been abandoned and there was a great sense of desolation among many of us who loved the arts, and music in particular. We wondered whether we’d ever get our musical lives back‘Everyoneagain. had their own way of coping with lockdowns. My wife, my eldest daughter, who is living with us, and I relied on each other as a little unit, but not to have human contact with the rest of the family or friends or the general public was a catastrophic loss for everyone. ‘I was even more turned in on myself than usual, but in a sense it was not that unusual, because I require solitude to do what I do. In some ways, that’s what music is about – confrontation of the silence. Maybe it was as a composing person or a praying person, but I was given resilience to cope.’
Faith and music have always been intertwined, even in James’s musical memories from when he was growing up in Ayrshire.‘Weused to go to visit relatives in Edinburgh, and I have very early memories of being taken to St Mary’s Metropolitan Cathedral by my parents when I was about five years old.
MARNIEMARC
Although I didn’t really understand it, I realised that the music and the ritual were connected in some way, that the music was facilitating and accompanying the rituals that were taking place.
20 August 2022 • WAR CRY • 9 Turn to page 10 f
James asserts that, even though the connection between the Church and music has changed, ‘in the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, there is still the search for the sacred’. He says: ‘It may not be directly connected with institutionalised religion I realised it wasn’t just dead men and women who wrote music
James acknowledges the applause at last year’s First Night of the Proms for his specially commissioned work ‘When Soft Voices Die’, marking the return of live music 2022 began when he was ‘given a little plastic recorder at school – the kind of experience that many British schoolchildren had at that age in the ’60s and ’70s’. He says: ‘It was like a light going on. I moved quickly to trumpet and cornet and piano.’ Immediately he wanted to do more than play. ‘I wanted to make my own music,’ he says. ‘Aged nine, I didn’t know what that meant. I had no knowledge of who composers were, but when I started writing down the names of notes and finding my way round the piano, my mother, who had studied the piano when she was younger, started telling me things about music. I also absorbed information from my grandfather, who was a coal miner who had played in colliery bands and sung in church choirs when he was younger. ‘I had little Ladybird books about Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and so on, and I was fascinated. Then I realised that it wasn’t just dead men and women who wrote music. There were still composers around, and one in particular, Benjamin Britten, lived just a couple of hundred miles down the road in England.’ By the time he was 18, James was studying at Edinburgh University with Kenneth Leighton – ‘a great teacher as well as a great composer, whose music is used a lot in churches today’. From James’s own introduction to music onwards, religion has been a recurring theme. He says: ‘I’m a Catholic, and I was brought up in a strong community where everything was connected with religion – family, school and music-making. As I From page 9 developed my musical skills, I became useful for my classmates and for the teachers, who pressed me into service to accompany hymns and liturgies at school Masses.‘Later, I began to recognise that the whole growth of music through the ages was very closely connected with Judaeo-Christian history and Christian culture. Throughout the 14th to the 19th centuries, composers and musicians served the Church as employees. They were commissioned to write Masses and oratorios. The greatest works of musical art, such as Bach’s Passion settings, were written for liturgy.’
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CHRISTODOULOUCHRIS
FIREDOG©
The Sixteen, who will be performing works by James at the Proms
‘Everything that I write, and everything I think about music, comes from that spiritual place.’
‘It’s a great penitential text – “Have mercy on me, O God!” Setting the text took me into the heart of penitence and soul-searching,’ he says. It sounds as if ‘searching’ is a key word for‘I’mJames.quite forthright in saying that the purpose of music, my purpose, is to search for the sacred. I’m doing it in my own work as a composer. People can either accept what I say or discard it, but that search is what makes me get up in the morning and go to my desk, and it’s the aspiration that has been with me since I was a little boy. It’s the feeling that this beautiful, powerful thing called music is in some way a window on to the Divine or at least a gateway on to the mind of God.
20 August 2022 • WAR CRY • 11 in the same way, but some of the most important composers of the 20th and 21st centuries were, and are, deeply religious. Stravinsky, who set the Mass and the Psalms to music, was a believer. Schoenberg, that other great figure of early modernism, reconverted to a practising Judaism after he left Germany, and his music is infused with Jewish theology. Messiaen was profoundly Christian in everything he wrote. ‘And in our own countries, Benjamin Britten wrote music for liturgy all his life. He was quite careful about what he said about religion – as most British composers tend to be – yet he suffused the culture with great church music.’Fascinated by the subject, James has presented two series of Faith in Music on Radio 4, exploring what composers wrote and said about religion. He says he wanted to challenge the ‘accepted spin’ about composers who are ‘not necessarily associated with the Church or religion and often claimed by modern secularism’, such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Richard Wagner and Leonard Bernstein. ‘They are seen as post-religious, but the actual story is much more complicated – and interesting – than that.’
Faith plays a part not only in the content of James’s compositions, which are often settings of texts used in church, but also in his act of writing. ‘I begin every day with prayer,’ he says. ‘It sets me up each day. It plugs me into a way of thinking about what I’m doing. When you write music, there’s some sense of confronting the silence of your own heart. A composer needs that silence and space for contemplation, and that contemplation is closely linked to what we do when we pray – how we try to clear our minds and souls and give space for an engagement with the Divine.’ After his ‘Viola Concerto’ was performed earlier in the season, two of James’s compositions will be performed by chamber choir the Sixteen at the Proms on Wednesday (24 August). Both of them, he says, are ‘settings of religious texts, which were commissioned for secular use’. His ‘Vidi Aquam’ was commissioned by the Ora Singers to mark the 450th anniversary in 2020 of Thomas Tallis’s ‘Spem in Alium’, a motet that has earned its place in music history partly by having been written for 40 rather than the more common 4 parts – an ambitious feat that James chose to echo in his composition. But before that, the Sixteen will sing James’s ‘Miserere’, a setting of Psalm 51 in the Bible.
The purpose of music is to search for the sacred
‘I know a lot of people resist that – and they tell me so – but it’s how I account for it, and I make no apology about saying that that is what motivates me to make this music. The music may be a Mass setting, it may be an engagement with the Passion story or it can simply be something apparently more secular – a piece of orchestral music. For me, it has the same function, and I have the same approach in writing it.
Elvis thanked God every day Address forLookinghelp?
" ‘ Claire Brine gives her take on a story catching the attention of War Cry reporters T E A M TALK Always on his mind
There is no set formula to becoming a Christian, but many people have found saying this prayer to be a helpful first step to a relationship with God aBecomingChristianj
Team talk ’
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ACCORDING to his stepbrother, Elvis Presley ‘relied on God for everything’. His faith was ‘where he got his strength’, Billy Stanley told the Observer. ‘Elvis was so appreciative of what the Lord had given him. He thanked God every day and constantly sought God’s guidance through prayer and reading theAheadBible.’of the publication of his book, The Faith of Elvis, due for release in October, Billy told the paper that his superstar sibling turned to God ‘whenever he needed help’. He revealed that Elvis prayed before concerts, asking God to settle his nerves; that he sang gospel songs around the house and that he read the Bible and prayed alongside his younger brothers. I’ve got to admit, I’m no Elvis superfan, but hearing that the king of rock ‘n’ roll had a faith in Jesus was news to me. Perhaps it’s because most articles I’ve read about him have focused solely on his music, his iconic look (complete with lip curl), and his performance style. Dig a bit deeper and it’s easy to find stories focusing on the less savoury aspects of his character, such as his drug addiction. Rarely does God feature in the conversation when people talk about Elvis. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that God wasn’t a significant part of his life. Despite any mistakes that Elvis may have made during his years on Earth, my own Christian faith tells me that God still loved him – always. God would have heard every one of those prayers that Elvis spoke. I believe he would have rejoiced with Elvis on good days and shared his sorrow on bad ones. God would have forgiven Elvis every time he made a mistake and said a heartfelt sorry for Understandingit. the faith of another person and how it appears to influence their life is a tricky business. It’s hard enough for me to understand my own faith and behaviour sometimes. But reading about Elvis has reminded me of God’s steadiness in humanity’s inconsistencies. When we ebb and flow in our faith, God’s love for us never changes. We’re always on his mind, that’s why Elvis, and countless others over history, have relied on him for everything.
Prayerlink Lord Jesus Christ, I am truly sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life. Please forgive me. I now turn from everything that I know is Thankwrong.you that you died on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free. Thank you that you offer me forgiveness and the gift of your Holy Spirit. Please come into my life by your Holy Spirit to be with me for ever. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen THE War Cry invites readers to send in requests for prayer, including the first names of individuals and details of their circumstances, for publication. Send your Prayerlink requests to warcry@salvationarmy.org.
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Extract from Why Jesus? by Nicky Gumbel published by Alpha International, 2011. Used by kind permission of Alpha International
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Questions mark genuine interest
ANSWERS 1.TaylorSwift.2.Springandsummer. 3.Percussion.4.Estonia.5.TheOlympicGames. 6.RomeshRanganathan. Which country singer had a hit in 2009 and 2021 with her song ‘Love HouseStory’?martins stay in the UK predominantly during which seasons of the year? What type of instruments are the glockenspiel and the Whichxylophone?country’s flag comprises three horizontal bands of blue, black and Thewhite?first known staging of which sporting event took place in Greece in 776 BC? Which British comedian wrote the autobiography Straight Outta Crawley? by Cliff Kent
QUICKQUIZ123456 20 August 2022 • WAR CRY • 13
THE everyday question ‘how are you?’ can elicit a range of responses. Some people will always say they are fine, regardless of how they are actually feeling. Others will go into a lot of detail, perhaps sharing deeper problems than might have been expected. Then there are certain people who ask how you are, but very quickly turn the conversation back to themselves – often going on at some length. Or they start talking about the problems of a relative or friend who may be unknown to you. In such situations, that questioner never really wants to know how you are. Some people never stop talking and seem totally wrapped up in themselves. Speaking continuously, they hardly pause for breath. My wife Pat once said: ‘The person who is really interested in you will ask a second question.’ Better still is when a person asks even more questions. One Bible writer advised: ‘Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak’ (James 1:19 New Revised Standard Version). There are, indeed, some people who are good listeners. They focus on you and ask questions without interrupting or turning the topic back on themselves. Nor are they distracted by what’s happening around them. Obviously some of us need to talk. We may have burdens to bear and could be hurting, broken and disorientated, and we need to be given time to unburden ourselves. Others of us restrain grief and hide our real feelings, keeping a stiff upper lip, which can have disastrous consequences later on. We find it difficult to be frank about our emotions and we bottle them up. But it is far better when they are released and expressed in a safeSomeway.years ago, BT ran adverts with the slogan: ‘It’s good to talk.’ And it is. But I wonder if they ought to have been used alongside others that read: ‘But it also helps to listen.’ It’s good advice to ensure that, no matter how people are, they feel heard. Some of us need to talk
NOW, THERE’S A THOUGHT!
Look up, down, forwards, backwards and diagonally on the grid to find these bestselling books A LIFE LOST A PROMISED LAND KLARAHAMNETGROWNBEYONDBECOMINGORDERUPSANDTHE SUN LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY MY GARDEN WORLD ONE OF THE FAMILY SHUGGIE THETHETHETAPSPARRINGBAINPARTNERSTOTIDYBIBLEMANWHODIEDTWICESALTPATH PUZZLES Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9 6 9 5 1 7 4 3 8 2 1 8 2 5 6 3 9 4 7 3 7 4 9 8 2 5 1 6 9 6 7 4 3 5 1 2 8 5 3 8 7 2 1 4 6 9 4 2 1 8 9 6 7 3 5 2 5 3 6 1 7 8 9 4 7 1 9 2 4 8 6 5 3 8 4 6 3 5 9 2 7 1 5 2 1 3 9 4 9 8 2 1 6 9 6 7 7 1 7 3 5 2 5 6 1 7 1 9 2 3 8 2 SUDOKU WORDSEARCH A Q O Q E H R Q P F Z G X Y M D P D D T Y S Z N A D G A I S F R H Q M J Y T S H R B O M Z X U K Q Z M W Z M R I E O B E Y O N D O R D E R B L J T W B I L E N S Q E E G Q X P Z T E S Q I R T E C T U A T A O A W B A Z I Z R N Q H F O R Z M L U M F X P Y M R Q D K H E I M A S D Y T I Q T P E W Q H N X J B L I P T J Q R P O N H E R K Z A H D I A N G W Z R V T A C Q E X H F L G A B K G N A Q Z I P N T B V F O K D L I L E C I W T D E I D O H W N A M E H T E Z L R V Y J S Z R P S W O L M S Q O U D L R O W N E D R A G Y M F Z I U F G V P A V O M Q S B D G J B L K M L M G T B P S Z K T P B G P R A U L O X Y Z N U S E H T D N A A R A L K U R S Z P G E H J H M P Q N G R O W N U P S B Q L B J W C Y I S H U G G I E B A I N Y 1.ACROSSDesire (4) 3. Work (3) 5. Furnace (4) 7. State (9) 9. Buffoon (4) 10. Brandish (4) 11. Intended (5) 14. Small rodent (5) 15. Truism (5) 17. defamationPublished (5) 18. Cattle round-up (5) 19. Minutest (5) 20. Poor (5) 23. Tart (4) 25. Stoop (4) 27. Remarked (9) 28. Dam (4) 29. Pinch (3) 30. Neat (4) 1.DOWNLoiter (4) 2. Implement (4) 3. Arbiter (5) 4. Wand (5) 5. Comprehend (4) 6. Title (4) 7. Riddle (9) Quick CROSSWORD HONEYCOMB Each solution starts on the coloured cell and reads clockwise round the number 1. Damage 2. Push forward 3. Stick used in the game of hurling 4. Reddish brown colour 5. Afternoon nap 6. Mallet ANSWERS 14 • WAR CRY • 20 August 2022 QUICKCROSSWORD ACROSS:1.Lust.3.Job.5.Kiln.7.Condition. 9.Fool.10.Wave.11.Meant.14.Mouse.15.Axiom. 17.Libel.18.Rodeo.19.Least.20.Needy.23.Sour. 25.Bend.27.Mentioned.28.Weir.29.Nip.30.Tidy. DOWN:1.Loaf.2.Tool.3.Judge.4.Baton.5.Know. 6.Name.7.Conundrum.8.Navigated.11.Melon. 12.Amble.13.Tally.14.Mar.16.Mat.21.Eaten. 22.Droop.23.Show.24.Rear.25.Beat.26.Duty. HONEYCOMB 1.Impair.2.Propel.3.Hurley. 4.Russet.5.Siesta.6.Hammer. 283471596 749365281 615289473 821534769 964127835 537698124 498716352 356842917 172953648 3291 28 8. Piloted (9) 11. Large fruit (5) 12. Saunter (5) 13. Match (5) 14. Impair (3) 16. Floor covering (3) 21. Consumed (5) 22. Sag (5) 23. Display (4) 24. Behind (4) 25. Batter (4) 26. Obligation (4)
Cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Once ready, remove the fish from the oven and, keeping them on the vine, arrange the tomatoes in and around the fish fillets. Bake for a further 5-10 minutes without the foil cover, until the fish is cooked and breaks away in large flakes but remains moist, and the cherry tomatoes are soft. Sprinkle with a pinch of smoked paprika and garnish with the parsley. Serve immediately with the juices.
Ingredients 410g can butter beans, rinsed and 2drainedgarlic cloves, finely diced 4 cod (approxfillets170g each) Ground black 2tbsppepperolive oil 150ml fish stock 2 lemons, cut into thick slices 16 on the vine cherry chopped,Parsley,Smokedtomatoespaprikafinelytogarnish
SERVESSERVES64
Recipes reprinted, with permission, from the Vegetarian Society website vegsoc.org
Baked cod with butter beans and vine tomatoes Recipes provided by Seafish. For more information visit seafish.org
Thai green curry with cod
Ingredients 400g jasmine rice 1tbsp vegetable oil 2 banana shallots, finely diced 2 red chillies, 1 finely chopped and 1 sliced 4tbsp Thai green curry paste 2 x 400g tailedpeas,300g4cmfillets,and600gfinelyleaves30g2tbspcoconutreduced-fatcansmilkfishsaucefreshcoriander,andstalks,choppedbonelessskinlesscodcutintochunkssugarsnaptoppedand
Method Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6. Spoon the butter beans into an ovenproof dish and add the garlic, mixing well. Wash, wipe and pat the cod fillets dry, then place them on top of the butter beans. Season well with black pepper and drizzle over the olive oil. Pour over the fish stock and arrange the lemon slices on top of the cod.
20 August 2022 • WAR CRY • 15
Method
Cook the rice according to the packet instructions. Drain, set aside and keep warm for later. Heat the oil in a large non-stick pan on a medium to high heat then cook the shallots and chopped red chilli for a few minutes. Stir in the curry paste for a minute before adding the coconut milk, fish sauce and coriander stalks and most of the leaves, reserving a few for garnishing. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat immediately to a gentle simmer. Gradually add the chunks of fish and sugar snap peas and continue cooking for 5-8 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through and flakes Garnisheasily. the curry with the sliced red chilli and reserved coriander leaves.
Henri Nouwen God is present in the midst of all the chaos that surrounds us WAR CRY
