Telstar

Its launch managed to capture the imagination of the American music group - the Tornadoes. The band composed a special piece of music which they called ‘Telstar’. One person went on record, saying that the music was “a fantastic instrumental”. It made number one in the UK and USA charts in the same week. Another person spoke highly of it and said, “As instrumentals go they don't get much better than this!” Readers in my age group may well remember the music.

Telstar was all about communication, so what has this got to do with a newspaper column headed “A Christian View of the World?”

The connection is that they are both to do with communication. An important aspect of being a Christian is communication with God. As we all know, it’s called prayer.

Talking to God is not always easy. The disciples of Jesus found this to be the case. So on one occasion, when Jesus had been praying, one of his disciples said to Jesus, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John the Baptist taught his disciples."

So praying is something we need to learn to do. We don’t necessarily need to go to a holy place to pray, although some people may well find that helpful. It’s good to develop a habit of prayer - praying in a particular place at a particular time each day. For me, every morning after breakfast, I pray in our bedroom.

Some years ago I decided that, instead of praying silently ‘in my head’, I would pray out loud. Down the years I have found it very helpful because I rarely get troubled with wandering thoughts, which can easily happen when we pray silently.

Today we live in world where communication is a huge part of life. Think of the myriad of emails, What’s Apps, and text messages that are sent every day.

So if, today, you were able to send God an email, a Whats App, or a text message, what would you say to him?

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