So, there we are. Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent and it was during Lent last year that the full enormity of the COVID-19 crisis became recognisable. Countries went into lock-down; people reacted in their own ways to restrictions. Initially there was panic buying in the UK as folk stocked up on the most…

The very well-known hymn ‘Abide with me’ says change and decay in all around I see, O thou who changest not, abide with me. There is a pattern associated with change which is summarised by the ‘Kubler-Ross change curve’. Several stages are involved from (initial) shock and denial through anger or frustration, bargaining and depression…

In Matthew 23:5 we read ‘‘Everything they do is done for people to see: they make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long”. Jesus was warning about the long noisy prayers of some Pharisees whose heartfelt faith he was questioning. Several years ago, when our children were quite young, Harry Chicken gave…

As a preacher, the temptation to use phrases like ‘we all know the story’, or ‘of course it is widely accepted that…’ has to be resisted. Not everyone knows, or has heard, or is on the same wavelength as I happen to be at the moment. Straplines in advertising or colloquial catch phrases take on…

It is easy to take sides in a dispute without understanding the facts. Human nature is supportive of friends or family. I have reflected before on the dangers of polarisation of opinion, of being ‘black and white’ when in real life there is grey and even colour. Several years ago I knew of two brothers,…

I recently made contact with a nearby village Church (not a Methodist one) to double check on their plans for worship; I was notionally due to lead there in a week or two’s time. Like many Churches and Chapels the good people of the congregation in question have decided not to open for the time…

The need to try to alter the words of traditional hymns so they are less divisive sometimes works well and sometimes leads to nonsense. One of my Christmas favourites, which is certainly good for singing right through to Epiphany, is Edmunds Sears’ It came upon the midnight clear. The original refers to ‘man at war…

Recently, clutching my letter telling ‘to whom it may concern’ that I work in the food industry and therefore should, in the words on my passport, be permitted to ‘pass freely without let or hindrance’, I was let out on an excursion to Scotland. The purpose of the trip was not exciting; an insurance property…

If you are familiar with the writings of Beatrix Potter you may recognise this from The Tale of Peter Rabbit: ‘But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor’s garden, and squeezed under the gate!First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes;And then, feeling rather…

A hundred years ago my grandparents, and many like them, were having their first family Christmas. They had been married for just over a year and had a new baby (though I am not sure I like to think of the revered aunt Mary like that). Christmas 1918 was close to the end of the…