Until quite recently I had a jacket that I loved.  It was of soft blue wool and beautifully relaxed tailoring; one of those pieces of clothing that makes you feel smarter, cooler and more attractive.  I wore it a lot.  One evening, I hung it on the back of a chair in front of the hamster’s cage and in the night the hamster bit it, pulled the sleeve between the bars and, gnawing diligently, severed it neatly just below the elbow before chewing it up for warm, cosy bedding.

I was very cross. It was worth a great deal – but now, nothing.

On the other hand, in my pocket right now is a pebble.  It is a smooth, brown oval, pitted with tiny marks, like the pores in your skin. I picked it up on the beach at Southwold in Suffolk on Good Friday 1995 and I’ve carried it with me ever since.  That was the first day we took my eldest daughter to the seaside and every time I put my hand in my pocket I think of her.  It is worth nothing, but everything.

Jesus was very clear about the value of possessions. ‘Don’t store up treasures on earth,’ he said, ‘where rust and moths (and hamsters, for that matter) destroy them…Instead, store up treasure in heaven…for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’. Sometimes though, things are able to tell us exactly where our heart is.  Our possessions can be very powerful, not because of what they are or how much they’re worth, but because of what they connect us to. Our ancestors knew this when they collected relics, bits and pieces of cloth and wood that had been touched or used by their favourite saints.  And my pebble is a kind of relic – of no value in and of itself, but a precious reminder of what I really do value the most.

The pebble is one of a few things I keep with me all the time. Among the others are a scrap of beach glass, a George IV ha’penny, a penknife, a quarter dollar from Iowa (“Foundation in Education”) and an MCC golf ball marker.

I do not play golf.