I have a photograph in one of my albums, one of those little ones that measured about four inches by three and was black and white. The little album had a creamy brown cover and held about a dozen or so of these glossy images and apparently that is the way they came back from the developer so that the contents of a single film were all enclosed in one neat package. Mum had a whole array of such albums, which she then proceeded to stick in a larger album, about four or six to a page, so that when you turned over a leaf, it took ages to then inspect each individual set of prints, but it was great fun reminiscing. And of course, in the case of this particular photograph, nostalgia was what it was all about. There were four people in the photograph, three women and one man though the man beside mum was not her husband and I'm not so sure that he even knew the picture was being taken, even though his wife was in the centre of the shot. Anyway, several things struck me about the picture apart form its monochrome setting. Clearly it was a day of much happiness even accounting for the obvious windy conditions and the ladies in question were determined to enjoy their day out to Newcastle as they posed on the wall that once ran along the edge of the front, a wall that many of us ran along from one end to the other every time we went there on the Sunday School excursion. But the other thing that struck me more than anything was that everyone in the photo was most likely younger then than I am now and I considered them all to be old at the time. Of course I was only about seven or eight then but it does come as a shock just how quickly time passes. The day out to Newcastle was a real event. For many, it was the event of the summer, in a time when holidays, never mind foreign ones, were much more rare and money was less plentiful or should I say, obtainable than it is now. It was an early start, usually about half past eight in the morning and always involved a train of cars and a packed bus of children heading along the winding road towards the Mourne mountains. And you always knew that you were nearly there when you rounded that bend and saw the green, white and orange flag painted on the side of a rocky outcrop, high up on a hill. After arriving, there was little time to get adjusted to the spectacular views of sea and sand before filing into a local church hall that had been taken over for the morning by the leaders and then served with tea, sandwiches and buns before being let loose around the town. Usually somebody organised games down on the beach in the afternoon, but otherwise it was a quick scan along the shop fronts, into the toyshop, sweet shop and amusements before stopping at the open window of an ice cream parlour and leaving with a mountainous ninety nine. And for some reason I always seemed to get my hands on a 'lucky bag' in the toy shop and the great thing was that the element of initial surprise more than made up for the contents of the bag. By seven o'clock, full of sweets, ice cream and chips, we were all heading for the cars and bus and the whole thing was over by nine, with a quick bath, Sunday School lessons for the next morning and off to bed.
I have another photograph like the one above and there are four or five men sitting, rugless, on the same wall just a few feet away. They from the same group and just as young and fresh as the women but, you know what, out of the two photographs, only one is still alive. Isn't life brief. And isn't tomorrow so uncertain. James writes 'Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.' As I look out these cold April mornings and see the remains of an early morning mist dissolve before my eyes, I understand exactly what he is saying and yet so often we plan our lives and our careers as if they were never going to end. As I enter another day into unknown territory, I thank God that He has helped me to recognise my priorities in life and given me an assurance that when the worries and troubles of this world are over for me, that my life is still only just beginning. John records the words of Jesus who says' I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.' What a wonderful place that will be in the land, as the hymn writer says, 'where we'll never grow old.'
