First Word - August 2017

An old friend of mine recently asked my wife and I to be godparents for her and her husband’s child. “Nothing particularly notable there for a Christian couple in their late 20s, hardly worth the anecdote, Jamie,” I hear you say. Well, not quite. You see one of the other godparents was a woman called Laura, who, as it happens, is an ex-girlfriend of mine. Now, for full disclosure, it wasn’t the longest of relationships, it happened quite a few years ago and while it had been a few years since we’d seen each other, we are both very much ‘over it’; nevertheless it still added a certain frisson to proceedings. The question was how to approach things: avoid each other? Smile and nod? Engage in only the most superficial of banter? I took a different approach, saying at the first possible opportunity (in front of my wife for good measure): “Well, we finally have a (god) child of our own; I dreamt this moment would come.” I think I just about got away with it. She laughed. My wife laughed. I sighed with relief and we could all move on with the day.