I never cease to be thankful for your responses to this column. I love working at it and benefit hugely from your interaction. Only last week for example I spent some time chatting about it in a local supermarket, and then found myself having to respond to an email from Maryland. Yes, that’s that right - from Maryland! So please keep it up.

People often ask me how and why I choose my topics. I suppose it’s a combination of what I read or hear over the week, filtered through a silent prayer that I will say something relevant and challenging, not least for those who never feel the need for church yet want to see things from a different perspective.

And if the truth be known, I often start off thinking I will write about one particular subject, but by the time I put my thoughts on virtual paper, I find myself heading in a completely different direction altogether.

All of which brings me to this week. I had intended talking about the way some over-zealous car park attendants seem to take great delight in giving people I was reminded of this in a conversation Sunday morning when someone told me that she had noticed an ‘eager beaver’ taking photographs in the car park on Station Road, Pembroke, at 9.05 am. The charge period starts at 9 am. Now that’s nothing if not keen, although ‘keen’ wasn’t the first word that sprang to mind. No room for mistakes there then! And what a contrast with God, who prefers grace to a ‘pound of flesh’ and forgiveness to condemnation.

But as such pleasant thoughts floated through my brain, I discovered that a former CIA operative has admitted to ‘shopping’ Nelson Mandela. Donald Rickard, it seems, passed on the information that led to the arrest of the man who has become an international icon, or as the Sunday Times says ‘one of the world’s most revered statesmen.’

I was intrigued because it reminded me just how frequently ‘yesterday’s subversive’ can become today’s hero. Mandela was, after all, South Africa’s most wanted man, and had embraced the way of armed resistance following the terrible massacre of 69 people at Sharpeville in 1960. But I now pass his statue every time I visit the South Bank in London,

In the same way, we are hoping to erect a statue of Henry Tudor alongside Pembroke C soon. I wonder what Richard III would have made of that of. Need I continue? History, as someone once said, is written by the victors. A rather superficial observation you might think but it does contain more than a grain of truth.

It’s worth remembering that, just as it is worth reminding ourselves that rather than promote the way of violence Jesus challenged His followers to live a life of love. He rejected the way of violent extremism so popular in the Galilee of His day, and taught His followers to turn the other cheek and to pray for those who persecuted them.

Now that is a very difficult, very demanding, and some would say very futile option. But before you reach that conclusion it’s worth noting that His Kingdom continues to expand, and often in the most difficult places. For example, some 30 years ago there were less than 500 known Christians in Iran, Today, according to Operation World, this number exceeds 115,000 making it one of the fastest growing churches in the world. Now there’s something to take your mind off parking tickets.

Rob James is a Baptist Pastor broadcaster and writer who currently operates as a church and media consultant for the Evangelical Alliance Wales. He is available for preaching and teaching throughout Wales and can be contacted at [email protected]