Author Archives: malcolmsmusingscom

Last night I had a weird dream. I was on holiday in a foreign city. My friends all left me. I was given a van, but the roads out of the city were blocked; then someone drove my van away. I couldn’t speak the language, I had no money, I was lost and alone. IContinue reading “Moving On”

Yesterday Suella Braverman, sacked as home secretary by Rishi Sunak, sent him a scathing letter, challenging his competence and integrity with words like ‘weak, betrayal, failed, incapable’. One paragraph reads: You have manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver on every single one of these key policies. Either your distinctive style of government means you areContinue reading “It Ain’t Over…”

In our loft I discovered a box of books, untouched for thirty years, including ‘Martin Luther’ by Theodore Kleinhans. This German theologian, priest, monk, and professor, challenged the Roman Catholic Church. In 1521 he was called to recant his beliefs; if he refused, he could be burned at the stake as a heretic. In hisContinue reading “Here I Stand. I Can Do No Other.”

It’s been a weekend of remembrance. There have been visual reminders – pictures of conflicts past and present, televised national acts of remembrance, poppies on the memorial outside Pakefield Parish Church, Lyn’s beautiful display in our church. Familiar words have been read: They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Age shallContinue reading “Remembrance, Relevance, Resilience,”

Take the shackles off my feet so I can danceI just wanna praise YouI just wanna praise YouYou broke the chains, now I can lift my handsAnd I’m gonna praise YouI’m gonna praise You Today is Remembrance Sunday. We remember those bound by shackles of bereavement, disability and mental trauma. It’s a picture of theContinue reading “Shackles (Praise You)”

Peace: Today is Remembrance Day. We remember that on the ‘eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month’, in 1918, the armistice was signed to bring peace after war. Around war memorials, in churches, today and tomorrow, there will be a minute’s silence and we shall remember. In school each year we cameContinue reading “Peace, Pups, Power and People”

Yesterday… …I was chatting to Janet. Her husband John, a lovely man, has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. One of the symptoms has been John’s unpredictable mood swings. Janet has found it really difficult to cope with them. Recently, for the first time, John became physically aggressive, so that the police had to be called.Continue reading “Anticipation – But What Sort?”

As a child I loved listening to stories at Sunday School; my dad was a great story teller. I read stories, especially Enid Blyton – Noddy, The Faraway Tree, Mr Pink-Whistle… I became a story-teller myself in church, at school. Leading school assemblies invariably involved telling a story. I taught children to write stories –Continue reading “The Art of Story Telling”

This morning I read ‘In humility consider others better than yourselves.’ With ‘humility’ I’m unpretentious, modest, submissive. ‘Humility’s derived from the Latin. ‘Humilitas’ means ‘lowness’. ‘Humus’ meaning ‘earth’. With humility alone I become a doormat that others walk over. I need ‘Humility Plus…’ …Plus Passion: I need humility as a Norwich City supporter. We’ve lostContinue reading “Humility Plus”

On Sunday’s ‘Songs of Praise’ we were told the story of Mina Smallman. In 2020 her two daughters, Bibaa and Nicole, were murdered by a stranger at Fryent country park in Wembley, north London. Mina’s initial grief and anger are still present, but she has been able to use her personal tragedy to highlight issuesContinue reading “Moving On…”