161 Midwife God this Christmas
Above is a Christmas card given to me many years ago by Janet Driver, I recently re-discovered it and made a connection with image below, which might be of a Quaker meeting, but could equally of be wherever two or three are gathered together.
148 Holy Week and Easter
One way of looking at the Bible is to see it as a description of the many ways that God spoke to a people over a long period of time. To do that is to quickly realise that God is able and willing to speak to us through any and every thing. The challenge then…
146 A Christmas Tale
As Christmas draws near I am reminded of a story a friend told me last spring about the events that occurred the previous Christmas in the village where he lives on the other side of Bredon Hill. We met again this autumn and he repeated it. This is the story that he shared. There was…
145 Who was present at the birth of Jesus?
I’ve often been fascinated by the characters artists have shown to be present at Jesus’ birth, who they’ve omitted, and the implications of their choices. Clearly Mary and the baby Jesus are there as the primary characters, and Joseph too, albeit in a less significant role if they took the ‘Virgin Birth’ literally, or in…
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…
137 The Last Supper
Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting “The Last Supper” is for many Christians the clearest image they have of The Last Supper. He painted it on one wall of a monastic refectory where the brothers would have sat along the other three walls for their meals. For them Christ and His disciples would have been present…
135 Two Dimensional Lent
The season of Lent is an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God. Last week I was sat in my shed listening to some Bach and floating prayerfully on it, when looking out of the window into our garden, I saw Sylvia tending a plant. To my eye the plant looked healthy enough if a…
132 The Flight into Egypt
The Flight into Egypt by Henry Ossawa Tanner [1859-1937] The journey of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to the land of Egypt takes place under the cover of darkness. The fact that it happens ‘by night’ (Matthew 2:14) underscores the urgent note of danger and the threat of death. As the angel announces to Joseph, Herod is…
131 Happy Christmas
I sense gloom and despondency in the air. Partly it’s directed at our government which seems burnt out & out of control, busy making the mess it’s created worse. Partly it’s despair at the situation in Gaza and Israel, where two sides each with a legitimate cause, their ownership of their land, seem intent in…
128. Just Knowing
A picture of geese flying in formation. I met recently with a friend who is having to rest and recover through the summer & into the autumn, after a spell in hospital suffering from a debilitating illness. The strange thing was, he said, that he’d planned some months before to clear his diary for those…
124 In Defence of Angels
June 2023 The Church has a tendency to make simple things difficult, like prayer & faith, both of which are simple in principle but challenging in practice. Society has a tendency to trivialise important things like miracles and angels. I’ve written about ’Everyday Miracles’, so now I’m going to write “In defence of Angels”. School…
117. Lent & Holy Week
March 2023 One of the blessings for me of going feral is that it releases me from the obligation of joining in the church’s activities around the major Christian festivals. There is a downside to that of course, but there’s an upside too. Advent for example has come alive for me because I have both…
102. Wise men, wise women
January 2022 As one year comes to an end and a new one begins there is much to feel depressed and ashamed about, and little to lift our spirits, both in the world at large and in the behaviour of our own Government. “Where has God been in all this?”, we might ask, “Where is…
101. Christmas is Coming
December 2021 The culmination of Advent with the coming of Christmas calls us once again to celebrate the birth of Jesus. John’s Gospel talks of Jesus existing with God from the beginning, before being incarnated as a human being, and of then returning to be with God after His death & resurrection. This is the…
100. An Advent Story
November 2021 A small village nestled high up in the mountains had developed over the centuries a series of traditions by which they marked Advent every year. All the men in the village used to dress up as shepherds and bring symbols of their trades to the little village church, as gifts for the Christ-child.…
76. Advent Thoughts
December 2019 Recent events have left me feeling helpless and in a dark place. Our decision, based mainly on lies, to leave the EU, leaves me with a sense of shame at being English. We are letting both ourselves and our European friends down badly. We have a government which is already underfunding the NHS, our…
56. Roy’s Christmas reflection
January 2018 I first met Roy Gregory many years ago as a fellow member of the ‘Soul Space’ team offering spiritual direction at Greenbelt. We got on well from the off, despite supporting rival football teams, and our friendship has blossomed over the intervening years. It was Roy who one day at Greenbelt was kind enough…
55. In praise of Christmas cards
January 2018 We shall soon be taking down out Christmas cards. I send a lot of Christmas cards, and we receive a lot too. We noticed this year that most of the cards we received and just about all the cards we sent had an explicitly Biblical reference. Visiting other homes during the season and seeing other peoples’…
40 Words for the turning of the year: God and the Church
January 2017 The Church of England is facing, and has been for some considerable time now, what it sees as a crisis. The numbers of people attending church on a Sunday has been in decline for many years, and the money is running out to the point where some Dioceses are talking about facing bankruptcy.…
39. Words for the turning of the year: Christian Bobin
December 2016 My friend Keith recently introduced me to a french writer, Christian Bobin, and I have been stimulated by reading an anthology of his writings, translated into English, and entitled ‘The Eighth Day of Creation.’ Somewhere in it he writes: “ I should like to know how to pray. I should like to know how…
38. Words for the turning of the year: Jenny Gaffin
December 2016 One of the significant pluses of a ministry in spiritual direction is that I frequently find myself having fascinating conversations with wise and interesting people, who inevitably, sometimes, in the course of our talking, mention words, music etc that have spoken deeply to them and which in turn I find speaking deeply to…
37. Words for the turning of the year: Mary Oliver
December 2016 Around this time of the year the newspapers offer the reader suggestions as to the best films, plays, books, music etc of the past twelve months: they will also soon be offering wisdom and advice for the new year. In that spirit I’d like to share two pieces of writing that in my…
A CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY 