Category: Spiritual Life
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73. Serendipity and Synchronicity
August 2019 I recently met up with some friends. It was a good meeting and I’m very glad that I went. But as I reflected on it afterwards I realised that the most significant thing about it for me was a chance remark that led to a brief conversation about something only loosely connected with…
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71. Do the dead pray for us?
July 2019 I was praying for the dead one Sunday morning, and in particular I was holding my Dad in love before God. I don’t know why I was praying for him rather than anyone else, but I’d felt led to do so, and then I sensed him suggesting that I visit the local Quaker…
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70. The Lords Prayer
July 2019 The Gospels have two versions of the Lords Prayer, one in Luke and the other in Matthew. It is interesting to see them together, when it becomes clear that Luke’s version is shorter than Matthew’s. Luke 11:2-4 Father Hallowed be your name Your kingdom come Give us each day our daily bread And…
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69. Following Jesus
June 2019 I’ve been thinking about the Beatitudes recently. Luke’s version sounds simpler and thus more original. ‘Blessed are the poor, the hungry and those who weep’. After his baptism we are told that Jesus was led into the wilderness for a time. He must have been poor: there’s no indication in the Gospels that he ever…
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66. Recognising the Risen Christ today
June 2019 I’m attempting here to join the dots and link a number of things I’ve written about. When we talk about Jesus we need to know which ‘face’ of Jesus we are talking about. Is it Jesus the man from Nazareth? Is it the Risen Lord? Or is it the Cosmic Christ? In a sense they are…
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65 Lost and Found
June 2019 Sylvia, my wife, is assiduous in putting food out for the birds in our back garden. In the winter, when its cold and food is scarce, its like Heathrow outside our back door as our feathered friends fly in from all directions, to take on nourishment from a reliable source. Sitting in the…
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62. The Scapegoat
November 2018 Some Conservative MPs want to assassinate the Prime Minister. Not literally of course, they don’t wish her dead. But they do wish her gone. ‘If only we can get rid of her, then our problems will be resolved. It is all her fault.’ That is their view. No matter that most people point out…
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57. Everyday Miracles
May 2018 When I get up in the morning I like to make myself a cup of tea, and a cup of hot water with a slice of lemon for my wife, and then spend time in prayer. Usually that means walking down to my shed in the garden, but earlier this year the weather didn’t…
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54. Memories of Home
October 2017 Some years ago Roy Gregory and I edited a book entitled ‘The God you already know’. The thrust of the book was that most people with whom we came into contact, in a spiritual direction setting, deep down knew already what they needed to know about God. They mostly didn’t need new information.…
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47. Beauty
September 2017 Some years ago, in 2011, I read an article in the summer edition of the National Trust Magazine, by the philosopher A. C. Grayling, on Beauty. He was writing primarily about natural beauty, but went on to say that: “There is beauty in ideas, in the effects of sound (think of music, laughter, falling…
A CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY 