NEVER MUCH TAKEN WITH ACTION MAN I preferred playing “house” (with a small thoughtful girl) on the playground wall. From there I’d watch a noisier, busier world, trying to make sense of it all. A lover of silence, I’ve shied away from heated words, opposing teams, and perennial certainties. Prayer and contemplation meet a lifelong need to sort out the wood from the trees. Sense for me involves acres of quiet, time to look at “who, what and where, and when, and why and how?” Always on the lookout for “both sides now”.

But action’s necessary too. Colonel Gadaffi has spoken of “rats and cockroaches” amongst western Libyans. And Egyptians yearned for years for something new. What are they to do? Fight like hell in the midst of their fear, or put heart and mind and soul into gear? Action or contemplation? Well, both, I think, apparently in company with long suffering Egyptians, and western Libyans, for whom the answer’s been not “either / or”, but measured patience, and the subversive dreaming of civilised peoples who’ve never lost their memories, or their imaginations.

Time out, like this island holiday, or just pause for thought in any ordinary busy day, affords recollection that to be engaged in successful action one will have learned to live in – and out of – silence, to use imagination, to cogitate and contemplate, to meditate, to pray. I’m gently winding up to returning to the action-filled life of a parish priest, in an action-packed parish, in an action-encouraged diocese. And from where I’m sitting my playground wall still has distinct attractions. I’m still convinced that contemplation before action wins the day.

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Fuerteventura, Spain