Blog on hope and life

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all […]

I am so so so so so blessed by the prayers of family and friends who pray for me I have realised in this journey from capacity to total dependency that I treasure the prayers more than anything in this life Nicky and Imogen pray for me at bedtime and I know that Mum has […]

This was my last sermon at St Marks. The gospel reading was Matthew 14:22-33. We are never out of Jesus sight or reach even when it feels like we are. At the at beginning of this passage Jesus is totally involved in the disciples’ situation even when he seems far off, out of sight, and […]

The answer to that title is: everywherePsalm 139 is one of my favourite psalms and I remember it being read so profoundly and beautifully by Nicky’s godfather Roger at Nicky and Ed’s wedding. In it we are reassured that there is absolutely nowhere that we could be where God is not.“Where can I go from […]

Advent Sunday sermon 2010Hope is a great Advent theme – a hope that Paul says in our reading today “does not disappoint us” (Romans 5:5).I remember when I was about 10 I was really into Lego. Me and my friend Jez used to play Lego every single day. About that time Dad was out of […]

When I was about four years old, I made my dad a paperweight for his office. It was basically a big pebble that I painted, I’m sure very artistically for a four year old! (Sadly my art skills plateaued at pre-school!) I remember Dad taking me to his office one day, a few years later. And […]

One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you”. He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see however was flame, smoke and […]

Do you remember that 90’s song ‘what if God was one of us’ by Joan Osborne?

The verse I spoke on more than any other in my short time as a vicar was this one. “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5). I wrote this talk about hope […]

I’ve spent a lot of the week thinking about the Cross. Reading Matthew’s gospel account and pondering it. I’ve watched on DVD that film The Passion of Christ. And in all my reflections I’ve been lost for words. Firstly, lost in the sheer awful reality of it. (I don’t mean lost in the sense of […]

I find this song very moving:Whether now or thenDeath is not my endI know Heaven waits for meThough the road seems longI’ll never walk aloneAnd I got all I need to singI know You love meI know You found meI know You saved meAnd Your grace will never fail meAnd while I’m waitingI’m not waitingI […]

Bono said this in a recent interview:“It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma… You see, at the centre of all religions is the idea of […]

CS Lewis said “Joy is the serious business of heaven”. Jesus said this about joy… “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven […]

My favourite film is Good Will Hunting. I watched it as I flew to Australia over the Himalayas on a cloudless starry night seeing lights from villages surrounded by a vast expanse of snow covered mountains. It was extraordinarily moving and it made the impact of this profoundly moving film all the more poignant to […]

Thank you for having me, it is great to be amongst you again.I’ve been a Christian since I was young, and I’ve known these famous words just read to us (called the Beatitudes) as long as I can remember. But when Father Robert said that it was the reading for today, I nearly declined his […]