Traditionally people talk about what they ‘give up for Lent’; at work I hear it said by colleagues who may know little more than that about Lent, or what the season is about. If Lent induces a sense of self-discipline, then who are we to criticise. Committed Christians may not find it adequate to ‘go…

We have woken up to the reality of the damage the human population is doing to the environment. Carrying capacity is the limit to the size of population that the planet can sustain; the more the population demands from the environment the smaller the population the environment can support but the population grows anyway. All…

This coming Sunday, 20th February is ‘United Nations World Day of Social Justice’ which has social justice in the digital economy as its focus for this year. The entire digital world has grown in importance for us all since COVID related restrictions have prevented face to face meetings and limited gatherings. The use of the…

I was only about thirteen when I first came across a bigoted, racist attitude. No doubt I had met such a person before but in my youthful shyness I had not noticed but then this lad at school came over my horizon. Looking back I realise that he was being fed lines by his father…

(Part of the fresco cycle inside the church at Nohant-Vic (France) represents the sixth chapter of Isaiah) The first time I encountered Isaiah 6:1-8 I was captivated by the contrast between the small man and the great big God. Previously my youthful picture of Isaiah was of a great prophet some of whose words I…

We all deal differently with major life changing events, especially bereavement; some of us cope by keeping busy while others withdraw from busy life. Some of us like to talk about our loss and others cannot bear to hear the name of a loved one who has died. There are no rules and no right…

Today we are in the midst of the week of prayer for Christian Unity. This coming Sunday is World Leprosy Day. There is a sense in which both are about recognising and including those whom we may often exclude. We are comfortable in our disjointed church; we worship with those with similar tastes in music,…

Some people radiate the presence of God when we are with them but a few can do it, even from a picture on a newspaper page. I was struck by this when looking at photographs of the late, The Right Reverend Desmond Tutu. Although an Archbishop and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Desmond Tutu faced…

Just after sunrise on the shortest day I went out for a walk, wondering what to ‘think’ and to share on 6th January. This day is known as Epiphany and on this coming Sunday we reflect on The Baptism of The Lord. And then it was there – a setting moon in a clear blue…

One of Dame Vera Lynn’s wartime songs was ‘when the lights go on again all over the world’. The lyrics go on to talk about the permanence of love and marriage and ships sailing again after the dark years of the semi-stultified existence of war, or so I read it. Sunset can be a very…