↓
 

For the fainthearted . . .

  • Home
  • Comments Policy
  • Ian Poulton
  • This blog . . .

Monthly Archives: August 2013

Post navigation

← Older posts

Sermon for Sunday, 1st September 2013

For the fainthearted . . .

“Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” Hebrews 13:3

The Letter to the Hebrews asks that we remember those who are martyrs in our own time, but what does the word ‘martyr’ mean to us? Usually we think of it as meaning someone who suffers. Sometimes it is used in a casual way, we might hear someone say, ‘don’t make a martyr of yourself’. When used in a more serious way, …

Thank God for Seamus Heaney

For the fainthearted . . .

Seamus Heaney helped me through many difficult moments. I never met him, never spoke to him, the nearest I ever came to him was sitting in a Dublin restaurant, but there were times when his writing gave voice to thoughts that otherwise could find no words.

On a cold day five years ago I went to join friends on the first anniversary of their stillborn child. Heaney provided words for the moment and that evening I wrote about the experience.

“Is that it, then? God has nothing else to say

…

A convincing performance

For the fainthearted . . .

Despite spending three years in college when he was principal, even in those years so many people would attempt impressions of him that it is hard now to remember what he really said. Did he really speak of “that wicked east wind”? Did he really threaten that his terrier would sniff out whiskey bottles in people’s rooms? Did he constantly crease his brow and earnestly utter the words, “I know”?

Laid to rest beneath Co Wicklow turf in 1996, he can hardly tell us which of the accounts of him …

Worried about your privacy?

For the fainthearted . . .

When did our ideas of privacy develop? Was it with the emergence of an urban society where the sheer size of the population made anonymity possible? Was it with the growth of affluence, affording people the opportunity to close the front door of their own home and in so doing enter a private and personal world? Was it with the decline of traditional heavy industry where generations of people from the same streets had gone to the same workplaces, to be replaced by disparate individuals going to disparate employers? Was …

Christian morons

For the fainthearted . . .

“They say that Edmund would have been about 30 – which is far too soon to die. Morons stripped him, tied him to a tree, and made him into a target. This mindless taking of life and rattling of weapons . . . ”

Ronald Blythe writes of the martyrdom of Saint Edmund, he of Bury Saint Edmunds. Tradition says that Edmund was king of East Anglia and was shot with arrows by the Vikings before being beheaded because he refused to renounce his faith.

Blythe’s reference to Edmund’s killers …

Summer Sermon Series 2013: An A-Z of the Church – Sin

For the fainthearted . . .

““all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23 

A story is told in the North of a man going to church for a Sunday evening service. A man of few words, he comes home afterwards and his wife asks him, “What did the minister preach about this evening?”

“Sin”, said the man.

“Well, what did he say?” asked the wife.

“He was agin’ it”, said the man. The man’s recall of the sermon was probably better than that of most people on a Sunday.

Like …

Post navigation

← Older posts

Recent Comments

  • Anthony Crouch on Wallander’s half-finished heaven
  • Musana Ronald on Sermon for Saint Peter’s Day 2014
  • Beth Siders on An A-Z of Hymnwriters: Thomas Kelly
  • Harvey Davies on Heathercombe Brake School Photographs
  • Paul Pope on Young people have become boring
  • Susan Wilson on An A-Z of Hymnwriters: Katharina von Schlegel
  • TERENCE TURNER on An A-Z of Hymnwriters: Katharina von Schlegel
  • Paul Pope on Heathercombe Brake School Photographs
  • Vince on Not cancelling
  • Robert Andrew on Heathercombe Brake School Photographs

Blogroll

  • A Rambling Rector (Retired) The blog of Dr Stanley Monkhouse
  • A Somerset Lad – my other blog: part memoir, part diary, part whimsy
  • Head Rambles Ireland’s most cantankerous auld fella
  • Joakim's God Talk
  • Mixed Messages
  • Póló

Categories

Archives

©2025 - For the fainthearted . . . - Weaver Xtreme Theme
↑