A Humble House September has been a month of astonishing fruit harvest, as plum, pear, apple, greengage trees astounded us with their abundance. In the lanes and the woods the oaks, sloes, chestnuts and horse-chestnuts rain down their bounty. There has been a joyful outpouring of neighbourly sharing, and swapping, as freezers bulge and jam pans brim. We all stand humbled under…
You may find some parts of this distressing Dear friends, I remember being horrified as a young theological college student. My extra curricular interest in Roman archaeology had led me into a dusty corner of the college library, where the periodical Biblical Archaeology Review gave colourful updates on the latest digs, mostly in Israel/Palestine, but sometimes elsewhere in the Romanized world of…
A slow death Dear friends It is the time of the year when the leaf canopy is lush and verdant, and the woodland floor at its darkest. Except that it isn’t. There are parts of the forest floor which are lighter than they should be, as the canopy overhead is thinning. A good place to notice this is at the bottom of…
Celebrating Motherhood Dear friends, When I was a young curate, in Yorkshire, there was only one person in the church that Ian, my training vicar, was afraid of. This was Olive, the chairwoman of the Otley branch of the Mother’s Union. Ian’s nervousness was rather puzzling to me, for Olive was the sweetest, kindest lady you ever might wish to meet, a…
Built to last Dear friends, The ancient city at Caesarea – on the mediterranean coastline in Israel – is not only a scenic place to visit, with its Roman aqueduct, Crusader walls, and long sandy beach. It is famous for several historical reasons. One of these being that it was one of the first archaeological sites to confirm that Pontius Pilate was…