Days without hate Dear friends, We live in febrile times. The sheer number of people who turned up for Saturday’s march in London is a wake up call to those in mainstream politics; that there are many who are disenfranchised, and who feel ignored, taken for granted and generally left out. America’s more extreme version of the culture wars took a violent…
Missing the joke Dear friends, As a young curate in the Bradford Diocese back in the early 90’s, there would be the occasional Diocesan Conference, when all the clergy would be required to attend some large venue, and be engaged with speakers, workshops and such as deemed to be beneficial, and sometimes restorative, by the movers and shakers of the day. One…
Facial Recognition Dear friends, In recent weeks, police at events in both Cardiff and London were actively scanning the crowds attending. Cameras were monitoring proceedings, and the physical parameters of every face were being compared by computer with watchlists of known, or wanted individuals. Some civil libertarians complained about the intrusive nature of this action, some members of the crowd felt concerned,…
Truth Telling Dear friends, Going through some old university memorabilia a couple of weeks ago I found a “Michaelmas Term 1983” edition of the college student magazine. One of the contributors to this light hearted and sharply scurrilous organ was Chris Lambe, who was in the year below me. She is still writing, almost forty years on, having become one of the…
Something ridiculous Dear friends, The late theologian Hans Kung, in his vast work “Does God Exist?” sagely wrote that “any talk of God which does not begin, or end, in silence, knows nothing.” Those of us whose daily work revolves around words – their use, their arrangement, their creation, know that periods of inactivity, and revival are crucial to the engines of…
Stitching Time Dear friends, In coincidental synchronicity, the church clocks at Checkendon and Stoke Row are both under repair at the moment. At Stoke Row it is obvious that something is afoot, thanks to the scaffolding framework creeping up the tower. Here, the rods connecting the clock mechanism to the hands on the dial outside have become stuck, and need attention. If…
Tortoise Tales Dear friends, “Like a mighty tortoise, moves the Church of God.” Sometimes said in exasperation, sometimes in resigned affection. But the thing about the humble tortoise is that, although slow by some measures, it is tough, strong, determined, and long-lived. They are incredible objects of fascination, relics of wonder in the natural world. They are both animal, and reptile. We…
The end of the experiment. Dear friends, Do you remember where you were on 7/7 ? Twenty years ago yesterday the whole of Checkendon Primary School were on a grand day out. A number of governors and parents were in the party, myself included. The late Mr John Robinson, of Checkendon Court, had very generously arranged for a heritage train ride on…
The White Spider No, really, there is such a creature. Although if you’d asked me before Sunday I would have doubted it. No more. Picking dessert gooseberries in the weekend early morning, to beat the heat, there it was, peeping out at me from under a bright green gooseberry leaf. I had to stop and stare. It was big – about a…
The destruction layer. Dear friends, I must confess, it’s been a difficult week. My planned trip to the Isle of Man to visit a dying friend was cancelled, as he passed away before I could reach him – the travel has now morphed into a visit for his funeral at St German’s Cathedral next week. Let us do good while we may,…