God in the life of Hedley Feast

TRAGEDY MAKES US BITTER OR BETTER says the presenter of BBC Radio Oxford’s Sunday Breakfast Programme whose own life has not been without its share of tragedy. Hedley’s love of people whether he’s chatting to them over the airwaves, or in the football stand or sitting quietly listening at the bedside of a patient awaiting a serious operation, has convinced him of God’s limitless love.

There were two things I wanted to be when I was a teenager, a professional footballer and a Baptist minister. I became a Baptist minister but I have been fortunate in that I have also been able to follow football closely and report for it on BBC Radio Oxford. I can be with people at a football match on a Saturday and with other people in church on Sunday or in the hospital on Monday.

I was born into a good ordinary Christian family in Oxford. My father worked at Morris Motors and there were a wider family of aunts, uncles and grandparents. I was only 13 when my mother died which was a tragedy and it meant that the family in many ways split up but I think I have been able to use that and similar losses in my ministry.

A believer’s baptism is always significant and my baptism at the age of 16 was very moving for me. We had a strong youth group at John Bunyan Baptist Church in Cowley and I still have that friendship with many of those of my age group from that time which has been a tremendous blessing.

The Minister at the time when I lost my mother, Sydney Crowe, is well known to many in Oxford. He was very much a father figure to me. He encouraged me in my in life at a difficult time and he also encouraged me to train for the Baptist Ministry. When my wife Joan died in 1991, even though I felt a tremendous sense of loss, I was once again strengthened by the love and prayers and friendship of family and friends and from the Church. When we lose a loved one that situation can either make us bitter or it can make us better.

Ministering to people through chaplaincy work and radio have really been my life. We have a wonderful, strong, ecumenical team of chaplains based at the John Radcliffe Hospital. Our ministry is mainly to be along side each patient as well as members of staff and friends, relatives, in fact everyone who steps foot in the hospitals in Oxford. It is simply to be there to listening which is so important these days.

Apart from my own experiences I have always been interested in the problem of suffering. When I had a sabbatical leave I studied suffering, and books like The Letter of Consolation by Henri Nouwen have meant a great deal to me especially since losing Joan. I firmly believe that it’s never God’s will that any one should suffer because God is a God of love. Suffering is just part of the human situation.
In my short time as a hospital chaplain I have seen some dreadfully sad situations. Only recently a young girl from the University died and a few weeks ago a young soldier from Abingdon. Words cannot adequately describe those situations but the work of the hospital chaplain is to be alongside the partners, the family, the parents, the friends. I firmly believe that God is very present with the dying person and with the friends and the family at that time. Miracles are constantly taking place. Healing is not necessarily recovering from an illness. It may be healing in relationships or drawing closer to God.
My hospital and radio work complement each other. When Radio Oxford began nearly 30 years ago I thought this is a wonderful way we can communicate with one another, not just about religious matters but about football scores or travel news or local politics. I was invited to join the Local Radio Advisory Group. The station manager noted my interest in sport and I was a member of the sports team long before I joined the religious programmes team.
Radio has been a great blessing to me. The station is like a family. and Jerome Sale, the sports editor, and I not only share our love of football but have a close friendship and I’m the godfather to his young son. The excitement I have now in presenting a radio programme is the same a it was 20 odd years ago. On Sunday Breakfast I rejoice when a young person is going off to Brazil or when a church is engaging with the community because it’s contributing to the Kingdom of God. I always try to imagine that I’m talking to one person sitting there and I am just sharing good news with them because the the Christian gospel is good news.

For some people Sunday Breakfast is their service of worship, especially at Christmas and if they are not able to get out. On Christmas Day I present a programme from six to eight in the morning with the Bishop of Oxford and the Bishop of Reading giving their Christmas messages. I love starting Christmas Day chatting with so many people. It’s as if we are all opening our presents together.
If I don’t believe in a God of love then I have just been wasting my time. But looking at some of the wonderful people who are around us today or who have believed in the past and are now with God or looking at the way God works through so many individuals, I cannot fail to believe that God is present. Leslie Weatherhead made a big impression on me especially a phrase in his book The Transforming Friendship that we are ‘the arms of God for one another’. One of the great wonders of this life is the way we see God constantly reaching out through people.

We live in times of great uncertainty and this troubles people possibly more than they are prepared to admit. Year after year we come back to the Incarnation and the story of God’s coming to earth in such a humble way that speaks to everyone especially at this time when innocent people are suffering so much. It is the story of our faith -– Christ’s birth and crucifixion and resurrection and that for me, in ways that I can never quite understand, speaks of God’s limitless love for the world. As Mother Theresa said: ‘To God everything is simple. God’s love is greater than all the conflicts which will pass.’

Hedley Feast is a Baptist Minister. He trained at the Northern Baptist College, Manchester University. After pastorates at Kings Sutton Baptist Church and at Holmer Green, he returned to Oxford after the death of his wife. For a short spell he was City Centre Chaplain and Minister at the Botley Baptist Church. He is now the Free Church Chaplain to the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust and for eight years has been Religious Affairs Producer for BBC Radio Oxford and BBC Radio Berkshire. A football and cricket fanatic, he has been a sports reporter for Radio Oxford for nearly 30 years.

Interview Christine Zwart. Photograph Frank Blackwell