News (Page 101)

Weather

A colleague from a different country across the ocean told me recently that he could not understand the British obsession with the weather until he started working here regularly. The grey summers and the need to switch from T-shirt to overcoat are confusing to someone used to consistently hot temperatures without variation. Similarly, here we…

Power

Today’s thought for the day is brought to us Charlotte Haines Lyon. www.christianaid.org.uk Something to read First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness…

FEAR OR FAITH

One Saturday, several years ago, my wife and I were confronted with what, at the time, we considered devastating news. The following day, we attended the usual church services “putting on a brave face” The evening service was a special occasion that was preceded by a prayer meeting for the few who attended. My thoughts…

Faithfulness

In our Bible Study group recently we were discussing how the Psalms help us to experience God “as close as touch, yet simultaneously so far away as one might wonder if he existed at all.” Steve Chalke, who is a prominent Christian commentator, and is often speaking on the radio, spoke about Mother Theresa’s experience…

Lectionary Reflections – Sunday 28th July 2024

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time                   Year B                                     28th July 2024 Lectionary Readings: 2 kings 4 v42-44; Psalm 145 v10-18; Ephesians 3 v14-21; John 6 v1-21. Caring and sharing. ‘One boy brought loaves and fishes no other food was there,but Jesus fed the thousands and still had bread to spare.The miracle of plenty soon spread…

Moving with the times

I took my daughter to our local health centre recently, I noticed that when we arrived, she had to get out of the car before I reversed fully into the parking space, chiefly because the space would allow sufficient room for the car, so long as we didn’t want to get out of it! I…

Deep water

The other day I watched a short clip of a car driving into a flooded area on a relatively major road. The water came well above the bottom of the car doors but it kept going and succeeded in reaching the other side. Great, you may think, but then the car conked out. The driver…

The Plumb Line

Having read the passage in Amos 7 where God shows Amos a plumb line alongside a wall, I was interested to find out more about being ‘true to plumb’. First of all, plumb isn’t a misspelling of plum. It’s not a fruit that’s dangling on the end of the line! Apparently, it’s a derivation of…

Saint Alban’s mark

Late last month we visited Saint Alban’s cathedral at Saint Albans. Did you know that the spelling of the name of the place came about because of an error in the application to become a city in 1877 when a Parliamentary Draughtsman accidentally omitted the apostrophe. Whether that error would matter to the saint after…