Category: Personal
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149 Our Vocation
One of my favourite films is entitled ‘Mail for Pastor Jacob’, which is set in the 1970s. It’s about a blind elderly Finnish Lutheran minister, who amongst other things has a ministry in what we might call ‘spiritual direction’ although that phrase is never used in the film. Every morning the mailman cycles up the path,…
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144 The Artist’s Room
I was recently in Sheffield with my daughter Lizzie, and we visited the Graves Gallery hoping to see a favourite painting of mine by Gwen John, ‘A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris’. It was out on loan, so I bought a postcard instead. It is a remarkable image. It captures what R S…
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141 Early Morning Walk
I woke early one morning last week, and being wide awake, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to doze off again, I got up and performed my usual morning tasks before getting dressed and going out for my morning walk. It was quieter than usual, and I saw nobody. I decided on a whim, that…
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139. A Spiritual Odyssey
When I was a young man beginning to study The Bible, the story of The Annunciation [Luke 1:26-38] always left me cold and mystified. I was very doubtful about the existence of angels, and the idea that one might ‘appear’ to Mary to announce her forthcoming pregnancy sounded ridiculous. The story made no sense. But…
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119. My father’s blessing
November 2022 My father was a pacifist and registered as a conscientious objector in the Second World War. He’d been brought up as an Anglican, but not finding the Church of England a comfortable place to be as a pacifist, he joined the Quakers. My mother was brought up an Anglican, and I grew up…
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113. A Feral Spirituality
September 2022 Spirituality..is our search for depth and meaning in our lives, beyond what we know is superficial, and living out of what is discovered. Spiritual direction encourages & supports someone in that search. Feral spirituality is searching beyond an institutional religious framework. Becoming ‘feral’ 1 On holiday in Falmouth a few years ago,I was drawn…
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109. Here am I
July 2022 This past Lent I sensed that my life was at a turning point, so I set myself the task of wondering what straws in the wind might give me a sense of the way forward that God was pointing me to. There were a number of ideas that had energy in them, some…
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92. Anniversary Questions
January 2021 Last summer I was reminded that the autumn would mark the 50th Anniversary of my ordination, and that prodded me to think about whether I should mark it and if so how. A personal review seemed like an obvious thing to do, but I reckoned that might benefit from some outside questioning. So I wrote…
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91. Journey into Priesthood 2
After 50 years, I’ve been wondering about what God has revealed to me on this journey into priesthood, what I’ve learnt? When I wrote it down, I found to my surprise that there was more there than I’d expected to see. I was also intrigued to notice the means by which revelation had taken place, not…
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90. Journey into Priesthood 1
January 2021 When I first sensed a call to ordination, I naively thought it would mean that ‘I shall have paid time to walk in the woods to wonder about the big questions of the existence of God and the meaning of life, and that I will find myself in conversation with others about these…
