Glory to God in the highest,and on earth peace to people of good will.We praise you,we bless you,we adore you,we glorify you,we give you thanks for your great glory,Lord God, heavenly King,O God almighty Father. This is the first verse of a Christian hymn “Gloria in excelsis Deo” (Latin for “Glory to God in the highest”) known…

Around the time of Jesus ‘birth, the shepherds on the hills around Bethlehem would have had the essential job of caring for the sheep probably destined for slaughter in the Temple. A necessary job but one with little respect – maybe comparable to the toilet cleaners at a pop festival – someone has to do…

A pious teenage girl reports that she has been visited by an angel. Then it becomes apparent that she is pregnant. Can you imagine the headlines? I’m so glad the birth of Jesus happened when it happened. If it happened today – would there be calls for her to have an abortion? Was Mary technically…

November is a month of remembering – from All Saints Day to Diwali, Guy Fawkes to Armistice Day, Children in Need to Thanksgiving. Remembering saints and sinners, old and young, light and dark. To Re- member is to put things back together to become one again. Remembering is a positive thing to do – not…

Around about this time last year I was walking into town and noticed something in the gutter. It was a green plastic soldier – rather scratched and distorted, having been crushed by parked cars and half hidden by fallen leaves. It made me think of the tomb of the unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey. Originally…

Rightly or wrongly, hundreds of prisoners have been released from jail early having completed just part of their sentence. Jesus identified with the Messianic prophecy that he had come to ‘preach the good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, release the oppressed and proclaim the year…

I was the party pooping parent who never took their children trick or treat-ing. I was the teacher who didn’t do orange and black displays of pumpkins and cats or read witchy stories at this time of the year. I’ve always hated Halloween. Even now I think it is the worst week of ‘Strictly’ with…

This was Christine’s second thought for the day, published first in April 2022 My Mum always says I am the most stubborn of her four children. I can remember one dinnertime, when I was very little, my Dad saying that I couldn’t get down from the table until I had a clean plate. I don’t…

We’ve just returned from spending a few days in Cornwall. While we were there, we visited the Merry Maidens Stone Circle which dates from 2500-1500 BC. It consists of 19 stones equally spaced except for a gap that was probably the entrance. The stones vary in height from 0.9m to 1.4m, graded so that the…

For the last couple of seasons, I have attempted to grow tomatoes. I’ve been bought three plants from the Spring Church plant sale – carefully chosen by people who know what to look for in a healthy plant. We’ve bought the correct peat-free grow bag, selected an appropriately sunny location, cut the pack and planted…