New Kid on the Blog

Today, the Wednesday of Holy Week is, in my schedule, a bit of an odd day.  It is the 'calm before the storm' of the Triduum and the explosion of joy that is Easter.  We have a simple Eucharist at 7.45am every Wednesday with a thought suitable to the day, and although we have a Holy Wednesday service in the evening, we have kept to our usual Wednesday pattern. So here is my thinking for this Morning's service. For those of us of a professional religious bent, we like to have answers.  They might not be the best answer, they might not be the right answer (if I’m honest) but we like to have an answer.  Sometimes they seem a little bit too much like stock answers, the autopilot of ministry – and if we don’t really have any answer to give we end up with the wonderful ‘well, it’s a mystery’.  Not really an answer at all.  Which is why I take Holy Week so very seriously.  It’s a week that doesn’t allow us to give answers – not really, not if we rea...

I preached this at our Healing Eucharist last night. A bigger perspective on healing than 'get better'. Tuesday in Holy Week 2014 - Eucharist with prayers for healing The kingdom of healing What would you say is the key message of Jesus? Some might say it is about loving neighbour, loving God and loving ourselves.   That’s a good foundation. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?   OK, helpful life advice. God so loved the world.   Yep. I l ike that too, and the verse that follows! Well, if we were to go by the number of times a word or phrase is mentioned then.... [more]

The longer one leaves something the harder it seems to be to get back to it - that certainly is the way things feel with this blog! I often think to myself 'oh, I should blog about that' but then think to myself - how would I introduce that? How do I make up for all those weeks with nothing said? Do I have to try and fill in all the gaps and explain exactly why it is that things have been so gappy? So I decided I would open with a statement about it being difficult to get back into blogging, and then just carry on and see whether or not any/some/all of the thoughts that have bobbed up and waved a bit turn up in blog posts over the next days or weeks. But without any more ado Alleluia - Christ is risen! It's that statement that makes us what we are - as Christians, I mean... So our celebrations of Easter and the lead up to it over Lent have been at the forefront of all I have done over the past six or so weeks. In fact our Lent course (which I wrote using material from ...

I could be here for hours talking about the events of this last week, but I will just give a quick overview of things and say HAPPY EASTER! I know that Easter Day was yesterday, but we are just starting the Easter Season, so I have another 49 days to wish people a happy Easter! I hope your celebration of the resurrection was a joyful one, and if you didn't celebrate it, I hope you find a reason to! This past week was one of journey, spirituality, thought, prayer, meditation and reflection. I made a very conscious decision to make something of Holy Week this year, by weaving my experience of Holy Weeks since I started as a Curate way back in 1996 with the usual pattern of observance in these local parishes. So I decided that we should have some kind of service each day of the week, with special effort made on Good Friday to have something in each of the five Parishes in the Five Alive Mission Community, along with an Easter Eve event as well. So Palm Sunday saw me leading an earl...