Roadworks

Ettington Road has been resurfaced. It took only two days to do so at a little inconvenience to the residents who had to put their cars somewhere else.

The actual work on the road  was preceded by a letter from the Project Director informing us, ahead of time, of what would happen and what would be expected of us. This is the correct and normal procedure, which should be no reason for surprise.

What was surprising, however, was that the letter of the Project Director was the third letter we had received about the resurfacing of Ettington Road. The first letter was quite some time ago. It announced the roadworks, but they did not happen, at least not on our road. Neighbouring streets were worked on instead. The second announcement made me frown my eyebrows. It did not come from the Project Director, but from one of the councillors of the Aston Ward. My thought was: what the heck does he have to do with the maintenance of our road? Is it not a decision of the whole City Council to award maintenance contracts to applicants? Can it be that this councillor is trying to gain electoral advantage out of a project that is not his own?

If this was the intention of the councillor, it backfired, because nothing happened on the days he had announced. Work only started when the Project Director sent out his notices.

The resurfacing had another twist. A few months ago the worst part of Ettington Road, that at the corner  with Federick and Witton Road, was repaired. It was not just filling in the potholes but it involved taking out the whole corner section and paving it anew. It took a day’s work.  When last week the whole Ettington Road was resurfaced that newly laid portion was taken out again and replaced with fresh asphalt.

Even in times austerity money is still being wasted and government departments do not seem to get their coordination right.

Ton   

Our Living Room

Visitors entering our house have been surprised to see two pictures with Muslim calligraphy on the right wall of our living room. The surprise has not been the same for Christians and Muslims. Muslim visitors are startled to see an attribute associated with Islam on display in our house and Christians wonder what we, a Christian community of Roman Catholic priests, have to do with a devotional object of the Muslim faith.

The two pictures in question are beautifully painted representations of two of the names of Allah. In Islam tradition Allah has 99 names or one hundred if one includes the name Allah itself. Recitation of the names is a devotional practice in Muslim piety using 99 or 33 prayer beads.

 

The two names we selected for our living room are Ar-Rahman, the All-compassionate, and Al-Wadud, the Loving One. We explain to our visitors that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, the Creator of all that exists and the Giver of all life. We may have our differences – and they are substantial indeed – but this does not take away that we have much in common as well. An acknowledgement of our similarities can bring us together. After all, we need each other, for all believers of whatever faith community live in a secular society in which faith itself is suspect, is considered irrational and even dangerous to human well-being.

The two names have been selected for a reason which we also explain to our visitors. They are closest to our own spirituality as Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. We try to live a spirituality of the heart, following Jesus Christ, who opened his heart to all kinds of people, especially those ignored by others. He was indeed a very compassionate and loving person, representing the Heart of God in this world.

We did not know it at the time, but by appropriating the two names we showed our ignorance as well. In Muslim tradition Ar Rahman is always taken together with Al Rahim. Both words are related to the quality of rahma, meaning mercy and compassion, and occur right in the opening verse of the Qur’an. Mistakenly we separated what Muslims keep together. Fortunately, no Muslim visitor ever pointed this out to us.

Ton