Today I attended the annual Diocesan New Year service. THis is a service when Diocesan staff and cathedral staff get together, worship and hear from the Bishop. It’s quite a cool occasion and a chance to meet new people and catch up with friends.

This morning Bishop Brian preached. He told us he was going to preach about something that was important. Something that was universal. Something that lots of people admitting to doing in surveys, whether they were Christian or not. He was talking of prayer.

Bishop Brian spoke well and provoked discussion as we walked away from the church this morning. One description of prayer that particularly grabbed my attention was his description that prayer was ‘touching the tent.’

To put this in context he spoke a little about camping. He asked the question, ‘when it rains, what must you never do in a tent?’ The answer, of course, is that you must never touch the tent. If you do you make a connection that allows the water to come through and soon you have a very wet tent.

I like that gift of an image of prayer. Prayer is touching the tent to allow God to flow into an otherwise dry situation. Touching the tent makes a difference, a connection is made … what follows may be a drip, a trickle or a flood … but there is no doubt … the tent will have been touched!