While the authenticity of large-scale performances is known to be doubtful, I believe that genuine spiritual connection can be found in any setting that moves us. This conviction guided my experience at the Good Friday performance of Messiah in The Royal Albert Hall—first when I was 19, and again this year as I witnessed the…
The other morning the kettle would not work. Our water is very hard, so we are used to kettles having a limited life. The immediate assumption was that this was the day for buying a new kettle. Then it transpired that several other things in the kitchen were not working either because the trip had…
(Familydestinationsguide.com Images) Many of you will have experienced the frustration of trying to close an overfull suitcase, fit everything into the car for a family holiday with little children and all the equipment associated with babies, or pack a few items too many into an overfull cupboard. All my adult life I have been quite…
The source of the River Thames in Gloucestershire is a muddy hole in wet times, marked by an almost indecipherable stone tablet but adorned by three wooden signs. The Thames Path will lead a walker to Woolwich and then to the sea. Throughout Lent, I have been reflecting on the temptations of Jesus in the…
Matthew 4:11b: ‘…and suddenly angels came and waited on him.’ Last week we reflected on the lull after the storm; the peace that descends when the raging is over. For Jesus, the temptations were over, the devil had gone and he was left but then, we read, ‘suddenly angels came and waited on him’. Jesus…
Matthew 4:11 ‘Then the devil left him.’ The storm raged, the sea crashed, and all night long the gale blew. In the morning, the sun came out and the wind abated. The sea was still rough, but all that remained of the force of the night’s activity was seaweed on the road and some spray…
Matthew 4:8–9:Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” In the third of the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness, the Devil does not use…
The second of the temptations Jesus faced (Matthew 4:5–7) was the challenge to throw himself off a high building and trust God to keep him safe. The taunt, ‘if you are the Son of God’, underpins the Devil’s goading. Every time I read these verses, I have a couple of thoughts. First, years ago I…
I find it almost unbelievable that our grandson, not yet two years old, loves home made bread and butter. In my experience, most children turn their noses up at anything but white bread – I certainly did when I was at school. In the first of the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness, he had…
Usually when someone says that something is a ‘blot on the landscape’ they refer to an unsightly human construction in the midst of nature. Or they note an out of place development amidst other more pleasing architecture. Looking across the fields recently in the February sunshine there was one ploughed field, recently relieved of its…