Fiona Bruce from BBC ‘Antique Roadshow’ with Fr Jamie MacLeod, who got some surprise when he got an old painting checked out. More in our Thought For Today below

Thought on Tuesday – January – 14/01/2014

‘We buy junk and sell antiques!’ ~Sign outside a country shop

Where would we be without a sense of humour! Antiques are a thriving business.
A recent BBC programme ‘Antiques Roadshow’, featured a priest called Fr Jamie MacLeod. Ten years ago he bought a painting for ¬£400. On the programme an expert spotted it as more than just an old painting. It turns out that it was an original portrait by Van Dyck and even more significantly is now worth ¬£400,000. The priest now plans to spend the money to buy new church bells. The priest also said: “I bought it ten years ago because it was a case of buying a portrait or buying a bookcase and I decided that I wanted both but that would be greedy. And so the portrait caught my eye.”

What we might see as junk is a beautiful and priceless antique to someone else. Every one of us has junk we could throw out or even recycle! Getting rid of what’s old and stale has always been an important part of any spiritual journey. Such junk could be described as hurts, grudges, anger, hatred, jealousy, cynicism, mistakes made, to mention only a few. All of this junk can never become an antique. They are corrosive over time and are simply no use to anyone. God is always gently encouraging us to get rid of such junk. In its place we welcome God’s invitation to new beginnings and possibilities no matter how small.