Thought for the Month May 2025

In these days of financial and political turmoil, you might well be considering an evening of relaxation at the theatre. In which case, I imagine that Shakespeare may not necessarily be your first choice of escapist entertainment, and even if he is, then his greatest tragedy, “King Lear”, is unlikely to have you singing its hit song and dancing in the aisles. But perhaps you should reconsider. Shakespeare is dealing in his startlingly modern way with the same problems that America -like us – is facing today.

The roots of the problems of his time could be reduced to three elements: the Black Death, printing and Machiavelli. An epidemic changed society for ever; technology equipped it with an explosion of thought, learning and communication; and one man turned accepted norms upside down. Ring any bells?

What Machiavelli’s book “The Prince” did was to recommend to those in power to behave without principle or morality – to be ruthless in the pursuit of power, ruthless in hanging on to it. You can lie because you can control the truth. You do not need love – you can buy it or compel it. You do not even need to bother about the trappings of wealth – power in its purest form is even more intoxicating. And you should use this power in random and cruel ways simply because you can.

How do you deal with this kind of deception? Shakespeare loads the dice. His Machiavellian characters are attractive – people want to be their besties. They are funny – they laugh at their dupes and encourage others to share the joke. They are skilful in attracting sympathy, convincing in conveying their sense of entitlement. By contrast, the goodies are worthy but dull, easily deceived, even misguided – who wouldn’t vote to see the back of a dodderingly incompetent ruler?

So there they were, here we are.

The first answer Shakespeare gives us is that such politicians and their oligarchies carry within them the seeds of their own destruction. Not only will, eventually, a rival Machiavel use their own methods against them but, more to the point, people will turn against them because what they offer to the people they rule is not what as human beings we most desire and need – contentment, peace, stability, justice.

Secondly, while the qualities of those opposed to the Machiavels can initially seem impotent, the rise of a tyrant brings focus to opposition, because what joins us together as a society and unites us as human beings is greater than any megalomaniac ego can comprehend or destroy. Insofar as their actions force us to choose, those choices may run counter to reason, counter even to our own interests. So, in the play, one character chooses love for his king despite his arrogance and folly; one character chooses to love both his sons equally, though only one is part of his legitimate family and only one loves him back; one character chooses love for her father despite his rejection and banishment of her. For each, finally, they could do no other.

For love does not work in a Machiavellian way. We don’t love our children because we want them to look after us in our old age; we don’t love parents because we want our share of the inheritance; we don’t love our spouse because of their culinary or DIY skills – sometimes it’s in spite of these… We don’t love God because we want to book a place in Heaven, and he certainly doesn’t love us because we put a note in the collection plate.

Love is more than unselfish; it does not simply demand sacrifices – it is, by its nature sacrificial. It finds its apogee in the Easter story of Christ’s sacrifice of the life that God gave him and our response has to be – in the words of the prophet – to break the chains of injustice, to remove the burdens of those who suffer, to free those who are oppressed.

If all this sounds too heavy and you would prefer an Easter smile, then head instead to YouTube and seek out the Monty Python Merchant Banker sketch. It makes the same points as the above: just pray that Western civilisation doesn’t go the same way as the charity collector there!

David

Thought for the Month April 2025

Here we are, two thirds of the way through Lent, just two weeks to go before the glorious celebrations of Easter Sunday. But will we be celebrating? We’ll come back to that.

Last Month Danny reminded us of the three pillars of Lenten observance offered by the church, abstinence, prayer and alms giving. I wonder how we’ve all been getting on. Among other things, for me personally, he made two very important points I needed to remember, that the purpose of Lenten observance is for us to focus on our relationship with God, and that honest reflection in that process provides meaningful spiritual value.

Those who have heard me speaking recently will know, that at the forefront of my thinking in recent months has been how our actions need to reflect a response to Jesus’ teachings, His examples and above all His death and resurrection. It’s something James speaks about in his letter – one I’ve quoted and spoken about many times!

James 2:14-17

Faith and Deeds

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

We all know, I’m sure, that our actions have consequences, be they good or bad, large or small; consequences for the here and now and for the future, even if we don’t always see them they will be there, for better or for worse. It’s why it is so important we try, at all times, to make our actions reflect our faith in Christ, His teachings, and perhaps most importantly, what he did for us on the cross. Honest reflection during this Lenten period has led me to see something else more clearly. Our actions that are bad today not only have consequences now and in the future, but also have consequences in the past. No, I haven’t fallen into the world of ‘Dr Who’, I’m talking about a very specific time in the past, just over 2000 years ago. As we head towards Easter and as I’ve reflected on my relationship with God, the journey His Son took to the cross, the humiliation and agony, the unimaginable death He suffered, I’ve also seen the part I played in it and sometimes still do! An uncomfortable thought, but a reality for all of us.

But then I see the love and forgiveness that poured from the cross, the tearing down of the metaphorical temple curtain that separated us from God, and I feel humbled and grateful.

Surely this deserves a response from us.

At the start of this thought I questioned whether we would be celebrating. I did this because, as we all know, we’re living in a world of dramatic change where people, communities, even countries are seen by some as things to be controlled, dominated, owned, who knows with what ulterior motives; people are suffering in more ways than a Thought for the Month can begin to explore, through wars, earthquakes, famine…

So, in this final run up to Easter let’s not wait until Easter Sunday to begin our response to the cross, and let’s not make it a once a year event, but a daily one where we shine a light on God’s grace and forgiveness in a world that desperately needs to see it. A world that needs to hear the voice of compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, healing and Hope.

We can’t do it all by ourselves, but if, as followers of Christ, we don’t do our part, with God’s guidance and as Jesus instructed, we can’t blame God for the mess!

Let’s finish with the famous words of Reinhold Niebuhr (emphasis mine)

God grant me the serenity to

Accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference.

A little early, but I wish you all a Very Happy and Peaceful Easter. And may God bless each one of us, today and into the future. Amen

Thought for the Month March 2025

Feel like giving up?

In a few days we will be into our seasonal observance of Lent, hopefully each making our own commemorative journey towards that most precious moment in time, when a sacrifice, borne out of love, was given to save the world, a life freely given in suffering to save each of us, a pivotal moment in time from which we now choose to call ourselves Christians.

So, with that in mind what have you decided to do for Lent in recognition of such a significant moment?

The Church offers us the three pillars of Lenten observance which are, abstinence, prayer, and alms giving, each designed for the purpose of giving focus on our relationship with God and on His presence in the world around us. In my own experience of Lenten tradition, the most commonly observed of the pillars appears to be that of abstinence, where people talk of giving something up, usually depriving themselves of personal treats or indulgent cravings, entering into a kind of pious Dry January event. To go without such superficial joys for six weeks is, I’m sure, both challenging and a great mark of personal endurance for the individual, but at the end of doing so, surely the question must always be, has it brought you any sense of being closer to God, to that special moment in time already mentioned, or is it really just a demonstration of one’s own fortitude and resolve in facing down your guilty desires? I suppose the answer is to be found in the honest reflection of your achievement that comes with Easter Sunday, because reflection is a very important part of the observance process, as it provides meaningful spiritual value as to what it is that you have actually achieved, not just for the preceding six weeks but also something to keep you going for all the weeks that follow and beyond, otherwise why do it?

If you fancy a change from abstinence then of course there is always the giving of alms or prayer, but of course it can also be anything else that achieves the same spiritual outcome of nurturing your faith, of reinforcing  your identify as a Christian, of having that inner sense of knowing that you are loved and of how to love another, and there are no rules on how you must do this in Lent, only tradition, which makes it seem like there are.

During Advent, which was not that long ago, I chose to be part of our church initiative to bring people of faith together in small groups, meeting in their own homes to simply be together in fellowship, also to pray, and most importantly, to talk about God in their life.  The first thing to point out is that every effort was made not to call this meeting a ‘course’ or to structure it like one, because the moment you do that you run the risk of imposing formality on how things should happen, it restricts spontaneity within the group and can inhibit a freedom of expression due to its content design, in essence it should just simply be about people with faith, being themselves in the moment, and that is exactly what it was. Sitting in a group of four, listening to others offer up their honest thoughts and feelings about God, about the meaning of faith and spirituality, revealing all their doubts and their certainties, was truly a wonderful personal experience for me, and none of it needed a prescribed agenda for it to happen. It was the first time I have ever had an open and honest conversation about faith, where nothing was out of bounds, everything said was accepted by those listening, it wasn’t put out there for anyone to challenge, but to just listen to, and so often they were the same thoughts and feelings of others sitting right there. It soon became clear that none of us wanted to be the owner of a ‘blind faith’ but instead wanted one that was as honest and relevant as it could be, even if that might leave us with questions that could not be completely answered and also to be reassured that it was normal to feel this way. Talking and thinking in this way about faith, somehow made sense of the words we often hear in church “a faith beyond all understanding”, a statement that requires us Christians to maintain a level of belief or trust in something that surpasses human comprehension, and yet I hardly ever hear anyone openly say that this is a difficult thing to do?

Anyway, the upshot of this experience is that we are being encouraged to do this initiative again for Lent and I for one can endorse this as an adventurous alternative to more traditional methods. Yes, you can of course travel through Lent by yourself and in whatever manner of your liking, and if it achieves what you want then that is a journey well-travelled, I only offer up that perhaps on this occasion you share that journey with a small group of others, it really does enrich the experience, it reveals God through the thoughts and feelings of others in a way you may not have yet witnessed and of course your own spiritual encounters have the ability to show a different way to faith for others too. Throw in friendship, fellowship and a nice cup of tea and I for one could not wait for the next session, something to consider if simplicity is your thing.

Well, as we approach the start of this year’s Lenten journey, I truly hope that however you have decided to participate and in whatever observance method you have chosen, that you will find it both worthwhile and fulfilling in its purpose. If you are not getting involved or are abstaining due to Lenten fatigue, then there is still time to consider a different approach, especially if traditional methods are leaving you feeling uninspired, there are others out there who feel the same I’m sure, so go find a way that motivates you and one that brings you to an Easter reflection with some benefit, no matter how small, designed to bring you a little closer to Christ and the purpose of His Passion, a sacrifice borne of eternal love for us all, a special moment in time.  Amen

Loving God,
During the sacred season of Lent, bring me closer to you.
Prepare a place in my home and heart for silence and solitude,
so that I may discover the joy of prayer and contemplation.
Help me to fast from those things that threaten the well-being of
body and soul and remind me of the joy of simplicity.
Enlarge my heart so that I give to those in need and in so doing so
discover the joy of caring, love and generosity.
May this Lenten season be filled with opportunity to strengthen
both my love and faith in you.

Amen

Thought for the Month February 2025

Sun, sea, and Santa

Like most church organists, from time to time I crave a break from the rigours of Christmas services and umpteen performances of the same old carols. Previously this has been impossible to find – Israel and sundry Muslim countries all seem to cater for tourists who might be missing their first Nowell; I haven’t tried the Far East in December, but could quite imagine President Xi rocking around the Christmas tree with his Politburo, and Kim Jong- Un encouraging his generals to pull Christmas crackers (with real dynamite) together.  But last year, I think I found a better answer: New Zealand. The shops there certainly had plenty of the usual tat, but I didn’t see many of the usual Christian symbols and hardly any religious cards. The music played in stores derived largely from the Blessed Bing and the Angel Noddy – not a note of St. John Rutter did I hear. I discovered while I was there that any religious observance in schools has become “opt-in” rather than opt-out, so I imagine Nativity plays are now reduced to one Wise Man doubling as The Shepherd. The expected excitement of Christmas was certainly there in the country – the thrilling Advent of Coldplay followed by the Slaughter of the England cricket team in the final Test. But reference to events of bleak midwinter seemed more than ever either absent or irrelevant. And I found myself asking if this really mattered. To try to answer this question, here are three verbal “snapshots” of places I went.

Firstly, the Cathedral at Napier. Napier is a delightful city and its cathedral is beautifully light and airy, with wonderful polished pews, a great acoustic and a fine organ. Plus easy parking! At the back, pinned to the notice board, was a letter from the Bishop informing worshippers that the cathedral was to be redeveloped as offices, with a small space being left for communal worship, as the congregation numbers could no longer justify the size nor maintain the costs of the building. Napier is a city of 67,000 souls: could not at least a fraction of them support their central church?

Secondly, walking beside the river through Kaiapoi, a pleasant town close to Christchurch, I was taken aback to see a notice banning anyone sporting gang insignia from entering a particular pub.  It was like spotting a sign banning Hell’s Angels in Cooksmill Green. Gangs are a major problem in New Zealand; quite obviously, this is not confined to inner-city areas, might involve drugs but is not caused by them, and cannot be blamed on an influx of foreign immigrants. So what are the causes behind this wave of violent crime? Is it a weakening of social cohesion with so many marriages ending in divorce and children brought up in broken families? Is it that young men feel they have to look beyond consumer capitalism, beyond a culture they reject because they feel it rejects them, for somewhere where they feel they can be someone, have identity and value? Do motorbikes and knives speak louder than words, than the Word?

Finally, Nelson Cemetery. This is a huge, lovely site, covering many acres, so you need transport and guidance to search out any particular grave. Isolated from the bustle of the city, in rolling grass and woodland, it was so tranquil – it was possible to believe that all these people really were resting in peace. Yet equally, it was impossible, looking at graves in all directions as far as the eye could see, not to reflect on the fragility and transience of life, the futility of worldly ambition, the universality of death, and to ask, what is it all for?

So I returned from walking in a summer wonderland to a miserable UK, to face the dauntingly imminent prospect of ten carol services, with those questions. To which I offer my own answers, for what they’re worth.

• We are the Church – not the Archbishop that has just gone, nor the one to come, nor their bureaucratic back-up teams, but us. No church has a guarantee of survival. We can worship alone, but it is natural and right to want to come together to do so – the Lord’s Prayer, of course, talks about ”us”, not “me”. If we want to continue to commune with fellow-believers, we have to ensure that it happens.
• The Church is a voice for values that matter – for kindness and generosity; for bringing up children in a stable loving relationship; for living together as neighbours in supportive communities; for guiding the young and upholding values of justice and right. Something irretrievable is lost if this voice is attenuated or silenced.
• In worldly terms, the best most of us can hope for is to be remembered with affection and regret and gratitude, until those doing the remembering are themselves forgotten. But only through the life of the spirit and through faith in a reality beyond this world, as was tantalisingly glimpsed in the Christmas story, can that true meaning and significance for our lives that we all yearn for be found. I believe.

David. 

Much Gesture, from the Pulpit –

Strong Hallelujahs roll – 

Narcotics cannot still the Tooth

That nibbles at the soul –

Emily Dickinson (from “This World is not Conclusion”)

Thought for the Month January 2025

Here we are again at the start of a New Year, 2025, New Year’s resolutions abound, people are full of hope, anticipation and good intentions… well at least some will be. Others at the other end of the spectrum will be gripped by anxiety, full of fear, their anticipation more a resignation that nothing will change and a feelings of hopelessness.

It some ways it seems strange how a simple change in the date can evoke such feelings, whether they be of hope or resignation. When it comes to hope and positive desires to change things in our lives, New Year is not the only time that can produce this effect. For Christians, Christmas Day and Easter weekend will often create the same feelings, and no doubt various festival dates in other faiths will do the same. I’m not against New Year resolutions as such, sometimes we need a trigger point to get us moving. But I often find myself questioning their usefulness, given how many get broken! The result being that I, like many people, come to a point where we say ‘I’m not going to make any resolutions because I’ll only break them in the end.’  The danger here is that we never change, we just carry on with our ‘same old ways,’ some of which could do with being changed! It seems to me that one of the problems with New Year is that society places such a high importance, such a significance on it (something commercial enterprises are happy to exploit) that people are somehow coerced into thinking they must make equally grand resolutions, changes and gestures, most of which will be doomed to failure. So how should we view New Year resolutions, how should make them and how do we keep them?

The first thing perhaps is not to restrict them to one day a year, every day, every moment is an opportunity for change. It’s worth considering our motives, whether they are selfish or altruistic, remembering that any changes we make in our lives will impact those around us and maybe even those further afield – including the people I mentioned at the start, resigned to feelings of anxiety and hopelessness (See below). Ideally, making any resolution to change should start prayerfully. What we’re talking about here is not simply an intellectual exercise, it requires something else. Meaningful change requires a change of mind-set, a change of heart, a change of direction. John the Baptist called on people to repent and follow the one who would come after him, Jesus, whose teachings about love, compassion, forgiveness, service and sacrifice are the things that can bring about the sort of change so many cry out for, especially in the troubled times in which we live.

If you are going to make a resolution today because you want or need to, I pray God will guide you and that He will bless you and give you His peace, today and every day.

Happy New Year!

If you are one of those people struggling, as hard as it may seem, every day is an opportunity for you too, but you don’t have to do it alone, please ask for help. Below are some suggestions of organisations that may be able to help, or guide you to those that can. And I pray too that God will guide, strengthen and bless you, and give you His peace now and always.

General help and advice : Citizens Advice Bureau – 0800 144 8848

Mental Wellbeing : MIND – 01206 764 600

Homelessness : SANCTUS – 01245 257 985

Desperation : SAMARITANS – 0330 094 5717

Hunger : Trussell Trust – 01245 200 579

Thought for The Month – Advent – December 2024

Happy New Church Year! Yes, it’s that time again as we leave one worship year for another, and as always, it must mean we have entered the season of Advent, which just like its Lenten cousin, calls upon us to make an effort to physically bring ourselves to a halt, to somehow put everything that life demands of us on hold, and create both space and time for some meaningful spiritual contemplation, based on the past, present and future presence of Christ, both in our lives and in the world around us.   

 The difficulty that the Advent observance has, much like the Lenten one, is that it’s competing with so many other seasonal secular preparations, which are of course time-consuming distractions, and that can mean that sometimes we really do struggle to simply come to a stop, let alone find time to reflect or prepare for the Advent Christ in our lives.

Advent is not Christmas, obviously, but secular Christmas is already so very much underway and feels to me like it’s devouring the spiritual purpose of Advent for us as Christians, and so the meaning of preparation in Advent, has become significantly marginalised by the preparation found in that question you are bound to be asked, “are you ready for Christmas?”. Maybe when it is asked of you, that word ‘ready’ will resonate within you on a far deeper and more spiritual level, before you answer for the secular.

So therein lies your first thought for today, which is to ask yourself, when and how will you set some time aside, to stop and think of what Advent means to you?

Scripture as always will give us the inspiration for reflection and preparation, our selected Advent readings will as always build a sense of expectation about the arrival of a saviour, the long-awaited Messiah that will bring justice and salvation into a world that feels broken and with its people lost. We find ourselves listening to a narrative of anticipation for a God that will bring about a better world, one of safety from persecution, free from poverty, devoid of conflict, a fair and just world for all peoples of all nations. It is a narrative of redeeming expectation set in the distant past, but one that we still desperately yearn for in the here and now, its relevance sadly never wanes, a narrative that gives purpose to both our persistent waiting and sense of hope for a future arrival, one that will set the world to rights. Advent is all about expectation, of a promise to return, and being ready when it does.

Expectations though should always be tempered with caution, because everything feels rosy if they eventually fulfil the purpose for having them, but think about how you feel when they don’t actually materialise in the way you had hoped?   It would only be natural to have felt emotions such as disappointment, anger or doubt, which in turn might cause you to feel very disillusioned by the experience?  A perfect example of this is found in one of the central figures of the Advent story, that of John the Baptist. Now here is someone who resolutely knew that the Messiah, the Savour of all, had arrived in a world that desperately needed Him, and not only that, but he also knew exactly who it was, having no doubts at all when declaring Jesus to be that very person. Unfortunately, John, like those around him, had a very fixed expectation of what the Messiah would be, a leader who would vanquish the oppressors of his people, forcefully set all the wrongs to right and would impose His heavenly will in order to get His way, everything that Jesus was never going to be. Skip a little further into his story and you will find John languishing in a prison cell, waiting for the spectacular release that never came, and when all the doubt and disappointment came bursting forth from the greatest of prophets, it led John to ask Jesus “are you the one or is there another”? The doubt and disappointment caused by his fixed expectations, was so powerful as to actually overwhelm his most stoic of faith. If it can happen to him, then what of us and our own expectations of Christ?

Well in this season of preparation for an arrival, being called to be watchful and ready, within an atmosphere of building anticipation, we might indeed, as individuals, ask what our own expectations of God are in the here and now, and like John, what might they be for the future? When Christ comes again as promised, what is it that you would be expecting? Would you, like John the Baptist, be able to recognise Him, would He meet your own expectations, would you also be looking for the spectacular and would you come to doubt Him if it were not so? I suppose like John it depends on what you imagine Him to be. As you take time to reflect, consider just how fixed are your expectations of God, and are they in fact actually limiting your experience of Him in the world right now? Jesus sent a message back to John to tell him to not look for the expected spectacular, but to open his eyes and look at what was actually happening around him, the world may appear broken, but because of the compassionate love being spread through the ministry of Jesus, people are being healed, loved, comforted and given hope. He wanted John to see that there is already an existing power within us all to make change, which is rooted in love and can be equally spectacular in its results.

Well, there you have a few thoughts for you to start off your Advent journey, hopefully a little challenging, hopefully a little reassuring too, comforting in that God is always with us, sometimes in the most simplest of form, so let’s not constrain His presence through fixed expectations of the spectacular, but look for Him, as we should always look for Him, amongst the good things that still happen around us, in the faces and actions of those who show us love and friendship, those who make unselfish sacrifices for others, for the blessings that we do have and not the ones we cry out for.  Stop, reflect and prepare.

To all whom these words reach, I truly wish you an enlightening Advent, a peaceful Christmas and a very hopeful 2025. Whatever your circumstances may be, know that the love of God is always present, even if sometimes it’s hard to see.  Amen. 

Danny