For the fainthearted . . .

A visit by Jesus and a dragon slain

Planning a visit to Somerset by a friend, I thought I would put Priddy on the list.

It is a few years since I have been there and we went to visit the parish church because in the back of my mind there was a faint recall of the church having some significance, of there being some famous association.

Driving up the narrow road that led to the church, there was a definite feeling that there had been something interesting that had happened here, or that someone important had been …

A Sermon for Sunday, 3rd July 2022

‘Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals’. Luke 10:4

Jesus doesn’t make it easy, does he?

He warns his disciples that they are going out like lambs in the midst of wolves and then he says ‘no’ to three things that might have made it easier for them to go go on their journeys.

‘Carry no purse‘, says Jesus.

Having no money would have been a challenge, even in Jesus’ time. If one remained in one’s home area, it would have been easier; there would be family members, friends, …

An alarming password

My late father’s desktop computer still works well, or well enough for me, anyway. Email and a search engine are all I require. He used to pass his afternoons watching black and white war films and Westerns on YouTube. Perhaps it is regress rather than progress, but I prefer to pass time reading books.

His keyboard password is always troubling, ‘sea vixen.’ He worked any many planes over the years, why did he choose the Sea Vixen for his password? Did the aircraft linger much longer in his memory than …

No longer reverend

Attending a two day seminar in Liverpool, I picked up the programme with its list of participants. Mostly clergy, there were a few of us who had lay titles, ‘Mr Ian Poulton’ among them.

I am not even sure if I am still entitled to use the title ‘Reverend’, even if I am, I would not be inclined to do so.

Ordained deacon the year before, it was thirty-five years ago yesterday that I was ordained as a priest, thirty five years ago today that I celebrated Holy Communion for …

The Tenth Anniversary of the Death of Minitel

It is ten years this week since the Minitel system in France was switched off. It had been revolutionary in the 1980s when it had begun. Visitors to France probably only encountered France’s forerunner of the Internet at hotel receptions, or in the pictures of busty women pasted on roadside hoardings inviting interested persons to encounter them via a 3615 Minitel number.

It is odd now to think that Minitel was an icon of technology. The speed of change seems to increase.

A friend who died in 2004 would have …

The Bleak Fifties

The Letters of John McGahern was received as a gift at Christmas. The days of January were dark enough without my reading adding to the gloom, I left the book until the long summer holidays.

In the past, I would have doubted John McGahern.

The doubt would not have been a questioning of the veracity of the accounts in his novels of 1950s Ireland; they are too detailed, too consistent, too alive with emotion, to be anything other than accurate reflections of the realities which he encountered. Doubts would have …