March 2014 – For the fainthearted . . .

Cancelling meetings

In days as a curate, there was a rule regarding the monthly meeting of our select vestry (the quaint name for the committee that looked after parish buildings and finances); the meeting began at 7.30 pm and could only run beyond 10.30 pm with the consent of the majority of those present. In retrospect, one wonders how a meeting might last three hours, let alone need a vote to be extended. It is hard to now imagine church members sitting for three hours on hard chairs in a hall while …

Boys’ own adventures

It was one of those adventure books that caught the imagination of an eleven or twelve year old boy, the heroes, teenage boys themselves, sought safety and refuge deep in the heart of an English forest. The story never suggested where the forest might be, but the boys are assisted by a charcoal maker who lives a self-sufficient life, his home a shack in a clearing.

The title is long gone from the memory and searching for the book on the Internet with such scant details has proved a futile …

The traditional and the conservative lead us

Last Sunday afternoon there was one of those occasions that might have come from the pages of a Maeve Binchy novel – a happy moment in the life of a community where, judging by the need for overflow accommodation and the number standing at the back, the whole community must have been present: the re-dedication of a local Catholic Church after a year long closure for refurbishment. The building had been transformed, including new stained glass windows and a copper roof on the spire, and a parish was celebrating.

Go …

Don’t answer the phone

A telephone was a serious matter: waiting lists for installation might extend for months, even years; the cost of a connection was beyond the pocket of many ordinary people; and the cost of calls was greater than it is now. Typical telephone design conveyed a sense of gravitas, sober, black, serious. Telephones were treated with respect, accorded a place of prominence in a house. A typical telephone might sit on a hallstand in a draughty corridor, or hung on a kitchen wall. There would usually be no chair for sitting, …

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, 30th March 2014

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” John 9:2

Most of us will probably remember things we were told time and time again when we were young; things remain in our head a long time after we heard them. One of the things I remember being told frequently was, ‘God looks after those who look after themselves’. I’m not sure why God even came into the conversation, we weren’t religious people; but the message was clear, work hard, behave yourself and someone will make …

Non-existent karma

Forty-five years ago, this week, John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent a week in bed, calling for peace. The bed-in arose from their belief that there could be justice in the world; the following year, he wrote “Instant Karma,” an idea that people would bear the consequences of their own actions, not in some distant future, but in the here and now.

The notion of karma, that what goes around comes around, that people will receive their just desserts rests on a belief in fairness in the cosmos; a belief …