Christmas Eve – Present Day Daylight was fading on a grey and drizzly Christmas Eve day. Traffic on the road slushed and swished along the wet surface, reflecting the red and white lights of cars carefully making their way to destinations near and far. “”Driving home for Christmas” was the song being played on many … More A Christmas story

For many Christians this seems to be the pinnacle (pun intended) of life, the place where God is met and we are changed. We then have to descend back into the valley, where our humdrum lives and struggles cause us to desire, longingly, that mountain top experience once again. I’d like to offer a different … More Mountain Top Experience

I am a writer and my stock in trade is words. I am a writer and words are my stock in trade. I’ve agonised over those two variations for three hours now! Three hours! That’s four cups of tea, half a chocolate egg, one packet of crisps, a handful of peanuts, two Ibuprofen, several procrastinating … More Words

I’ve had a fair number of people in my life say to me something along the lines “I’m not religious like you”. Sometimes it has been an ascription of favour, other times as one of oddness, and yet again for some as a position of bigotry. No doubt also many other shades of nuance in … More Was Jesus Religious?

I like numbers. Numbers lead you into all sorts of wonders. Numbers are wonders. 36,200; 29,026; 93,000,000; 245,000 Ah. Sometimes numbers need modifying with words before they can become wonders. 36,200 feet The depth of the Challenger Deep the deepest part of the deepest ocean trench, the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. What’s down … More 53:53 North

As dreams go it was pretty ordinary. A darkened room, a multitude of faces and voices and the hubbub of pre-show chatter. When I say room I mean a big room – a theatre or auditorium. The stage was darkened and it was then I heard the voice, a voice I knew and recognised but … More A people of Listening

Some time ago I was watching a YouTube video in which a retired Methodist minister was being interviewed by his daughter. He was talking for the first time about his experience as a young minister during a particularly distressing disaster and in which he had been heavily involved with at the time, which had taken … More A people of Shaking

As Hurricane Florence bears down on the mid Atlantic coast of the USA, I’m reminded of a time when I was caught in a hurricane. August 1992 and I was living in Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville is host to 2 naval complexes, Naval Station Mayport and Naval Air Station Jacksonville. At the time there were two … More Deep Water

It’s good to talk! But sometimes it is just as good to listen. I was doing some spring cleaning the other day when I came across some old tapes of sermons I was asked to deliver in 2008/9. So I transferred them to the computer and here they are for your delectation. I apologise for … More Four Sermons

  I’m writing this on January 1st 2017. As so many of us do, I’ve been looking back over the past year, with its triumphs and tears, hopes and disappointments, tragedies and delights. A year in which much has changed but also in which much has remained the same. Along with many I’m looking out … More Well, Well, Well!

I’ve been asked recently how I became a Christian. Here is the reply I gave the questioner, and I thought it might be nice to share with others. Ok, I left school at 15 with no qualifications, my family needed me to be at work as soon as I could as we were quite poor, … More How it began for me.

Further thoughts about a people of journey. Journeys can be short..as in this case! I began work as a 15 year old boy in 1970 at a company called Doubleglazit. This was a window manufacturer and I was a general dogsbody, sweeping floors, making tea, cleaning glass, making frames etc. It was from this unpromising … More A journey to remember

“Return all signals to danger. Discharge traction current. Cancel all departures. Revoke movement authorities.” All of us in the signal box immediately complied with the senior controllers instructions. Outside, in the busy approaches to the station, train after train shuddered to a halt. The huge diagram in front of me looked like a constellation of … More A people of Journeying.

We are called to be a people of acceptance. The first questions that springs to mind is to ask from which perspective are we to look at this. Do we look at God’s perspective on the matter, or from our perspective as human beings, called into a relationship with God. Well, it seems to me … More A People of Acceptance

I have always been fascinated by the passage in 1 Peter 2: 10 “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” I’ve read it so many times and pondered on it. At face value it is describing … More A people of…

The Prime Minister, The Rt. Hon. Mr. Herod is today – Sunday – said to be ‘Livid’ and “Beside himself with anger” at reports of a body having mysteriously disappeared from a tomb. It all came to a head last week when the leader of a little known sect, Yeshua Christos, often known as Jesus, … More Empty Promises… I mean really empty…

I may be missing something here. Celebrity chefs. Celebrities trying to be chefs. Commoners trying to be chefs. Cooking competitions. What’s the point? My understanding is that smell and taste are important in the partaking of food. Neither of which seem to work on my TV. And I’m never convinced by people slurping, sipping and … More Tasteless Television.

A very big welcome to my corner of the blogosphere. I’m very new to this, so hopefully it will all work well. So come along for the fun, the rants and the comments.