Category Archives: Uncategorized

People bring broken items to The Repair Shop – a seat-less chair, a one-legged teddy, a silent harmonium, a motionless clock… Each a treasured family possession for many years, but no longer looking or functioning as it should. Objects are left with the team of experts. They get to work, demonstrating their skills, working together,Continue reading “The Repair Shop”

Recent news can be depressing. Our Communities – hospitals, schools, shops and work-places each face a mountain of challenges. Also doctor’s surgeries, dental practices, care-homes, churches, sport, theatres, cinemas, restaurants… Social problems are highlighted: increased mental ill-health, domestic abuse, unemployment, the need for debt-counselling, foodbanks…. Our Response? We continue to learn to value our communities.Continue reading “Cenobites, Anchorites, Sarabites, and Gyrovagues”

Daily Bread Yesterday an ‘older’ friend said: ‘I wake up each morning and realise I’m alive. God has given me another day…’ Jesus taught his disciples to pray: ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ It’s the picture of the Children of Israel gathering their bread – their manna – every morning. Enough for today.Continue reading “One Day More”

Wet & Windy On Monday I was walking by the sea. It was wet and very windy. ‘Good morning’, I said to a man taking his dog for a walk. ‘This weather is bl**** sh**. It’s f****** ….’ He continued. Initially I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. My cheeriness didn’t help. I met anContinue reading “This is the day”

Just Two? Two options are presented: truth or lies, life or death, good or evil, black or white. Traditional Christian teaching reflects this choice: heaven or hell, accept or reject, wise or foolish, lost or found… Many questions do only have two possible answers. It is ‘either-or’. ‘Do you take this woman to be yourContinue reading “Either-or, Neither-nor, Both-and”

Musing on…. The Pharisees ask Jesus, ‘Is it right to pay tax to Caesar?’ Jesus answers, ‘Give Caesar what is Caesar’s, give God what is God’s.’  Story-summary, Sermon-outline Trap – The Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus. A question involving religion, politics and money is good bait! Truth – Jesus claims to be truth –Continue reading “The Third Option”

I danced in the morning when the world was begun,And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth,At Bethlehem I had my birth. As a teenager and as a teacher I didn’t like this song… Life’s a journey, a race, aContinue reading “Lord of the Dance”

Chris, my older brother, lives in France. Musing on a letter from him yesterday… On March 20th I had the last of 9 sessions of chemotherapy. This was the second series of chemo that I have had… Stuff happens. This week’s worries, anxieties, prayers… teenage children with physical and psychological concerns, a wife with mentalContinue reading “Letter from Chris”

A hand above the water,An angel reaching for the sky,Is it raining in heaven?Do you want us to cry? And everywhere the broken-heartedOn every lonely avenue,No one could reach them,No one but you. One by oneOnly the good die young.They’re only flyin’ too close to the sunAnd life goes on,Without you. The grandchildren came forContinue reading “No-one But You (Only the Good Die Young)”

Martin Luther King wrote: This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together– black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu– a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, becauseContinue reading “More Multi-faith Musings”