One day a man went to visit a church.  He got there early, parked his car and got out. Another car pulled up and the driver got out and said, ‘I always park there!  You took my place!’ The visitor went inside for the service, found an empty seat and sat down. A young lady…

One of my Christmas presents was the new Abba CD called “Voyage.” I think the music on it is really beautiful and the words to some of the songs are very inspiring. The title of the 8th track is “Bumblebee” and at our Fellowship Meeting we used this as the theme for our chat. We…

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…

We have learned to live with voice mail as a necessary part of our modern life.  But have you ever wondered: ‘What if God decided to install voicemail?’  Imagine praying and hearing this: ‘Thank you for calling My Father’s House. If you have a touch phone, please press the star button now.  Thank you. Now…

Over the last couple of days I’ve been trying to lighten my laptop’s load by binning old emails from years ago. It’s really interesting what I’ve found and what I had completely forgotten about. There wasn’t a lot of binning done as I just had to read everything again and remember why I had kept…

I recently finished reading a book by Arnaldur Indridson. At the beginning of the book the author explains how the Icelandic people address each other. Their surname is patronymic, meaning it is made up of the person’s father’s name and ends with -son for a male and -dottir for a girl. Hence Indridson, means son…

“A society grows great when old men plant tress whose shade they know they shall never sit in” Greek proverb” Over the years, I have become a bit of a collector of profound sayings.  The other day I read this saying from Greek philosophy and it struck a chord with me, particulalry in the light…

There is a story of a cliff-hanger, determined to reach the summit of a high mountain. After years of preparation, he began his adventure.  Only he journeyed alone, because he wanted all the glory. He began his descent and as daylight faded he decided to continue climbing. Night fell.  The night fell heavy as he…

When the leaves have fallen, the last of the roses have died eventually on the odd bush, the potted geraniums have gone to slime because we forgot to remove them before the frost, and the bulbs are still nestled snuggly under the compost, all may seem dead and there is not much joy to be…

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,…