The feast of Candlemas falls exactly forty days after Christmas, so always on 2nd February. Three things come together today. First, for Mary, forty days was the period during which, as a new mother, she must stay away from the temple. The Old Testament Law tells us that after the birth of a Son, the…

I have previously referred to the sound of a woodpecker busying itself in a tree across the road from my study window. Noisy but rarely visible these pretty little birds are strangely alluring (to me). Over the last few weeks one of these friends has become braver and now feeds on the bird feeder that…

Today’s reading from 1 John 4:19-21 says, in verse 18, ‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.’ Many years ago I was in a conversation with a friend which, at the time, seemed…

The days immediately after Christmas are a watershed; for some people, they present the opportunity to rest and relax after days of frenetic preparations and activity. There are others for whom the short lived season of generosity of spirit is past and it is time to revert to the grind of poverty, worry and fear…

All around us, people are at work following their break for Christmas and New Year. The younger amongst us are back in school; when you read this, I will be working away from Suffolk for the first time this year. These are ordinary days. In our Christmas nativity scenes, shepherds, kings (or wise men) and…

Much has been written about religious affiliation since the publication of the UK 2021 census results. There are many ways to interpret the numbers. For what it is worth, I think the numbers support what we know to be true, with an interesting overlay. Is it not the case that this time, at last, more…

A little while ago Helen wrote a piece here that reflected on the shelf of old bibles in her home. She wrote touchingly about people who are history for her but memories for me. One of the people featured was my dear Aunt Edith. When I started preaching over forty years ago, and in the…

I have reflected before on our strange attitude to taxation. For what seems like an age, politics appears to have been obsessed by tax rates. The potential for tax cuts offset by the need to increase taxation is the balance. Why are we surprised and indignant, if we are surprised and indignant, that after the…

The idea of being part of something vast is encouraging; the writer to the Hebrews talks about the cloud of witnesses all around giving encouragement to believers to throw off the weight of sin and its entanglements to run the race to Christ. Being entirely unathletic I have never found the ‘race’ an appealing image…

It may be almost forty years since my mother died but I can still hear her ranting on about the iniquities of frozen vegetables. If frozen was suspicious, canned was sinister and dried bordering on the demonic. She was wrong of course, but against the background of growing up with some appalling apologies for fruit…