'Keeping God's Image Safe' - Weekly Reflection 1st December 2024

 Last week I invited you to reflect on how you would answer this question below that was set as part of a Safeguarding Course.  Below is how I answered this question.

1. Identity: What has influenced your values and beliefs with regards to safeguarding?  Please identify one thing that reflects what has influenced your individual connection with safeguarding and underpins your values and beliefs. This might be an abstract conceptualisation linked to song lyrics, nature, or literature, or may be informed by your own theology, religious scripture, or teachings. I would ask that you come to this session prepared to share what’s influenced you and explore how this has informed your responses, values, and beliefs regarding safeguarding. 

It is the custom at St Oswald’s when preaching to also cover a short Children’s Spot before they go out to their groups. On one occasion I asked the children what they thought some of the most precious things in the world were. I then showed them a nice small wooden box and told them inside the box they would see something that God considers to be very precious. I then allowed them one at a time to look in the box. Inside the box – a mirror.

The Imago Dei – Genesis 1.27 ‘So God created humans in his image. In the image of God, he created them. He created them male and female.’

Link this in with Psalm 139...

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Add in a famous quote attributed to Irenaeus is “the glory of God is man fully alive.” 

Plus, from the Rule of St Benedict.

All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me” (Matt.25:35). Proper honour must be shown “to all, especially to those who share our faith” (Gal. 6:10) and to pilgrims.

And finally reflect on this meditation from Pope Benedict XV1.

And only where God is seen does life truly begin.

Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.

Each of us is the result of a thought of God.

Each of us is willed.

Each of us is necessary.

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel,

    by the encounter with Christ.

There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him

    and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.

 On the best of my days, the best of me holds all this as I encounter people.

Holding all of this in mind informs me that I must do all I can to ensure the wellbeing, the safety and the flourishing of everyone, including myself.   However, not to the point of naivety, where I am unable to recognise that beautiful and precious as we all may be in the sight of God, yet we are damaged, broken and despoiled.  I love the TV programme ‘The Repair Shop.’  Precious items are brought to ‘The Repair Shop’ to be lovingly restored back to their former glory.  

A safeguarding task is to seek to ensure that ‘unnecessary damage’ is not caused to God’s precious children (of all ages!).   And it gives me hope, that although all the kings’ horses and men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again, there is King, and he has men and women who can put people back together again. And I might add, seek to ensure that the wall is a safe as we can possibly make it with regular inspections.