Thought for the Day
10th August 2020
I wonder if you happened to see the remarkable footage on The One Show last week which showed young fledglings about to leave their nest in the hollow of a tree.
They sat on the edge of the hole of the tree, I could sense them plucking up courage to try out their wings and fly off into the world beyond, which they eventually did.
It reminded me of one of our favourite meditations which we read each month on the 29th day from the liturgy of the Northumbria Community:
‘Come to the edge,’ He said. They said, ‘We are afraid.’
‘Come to the edge,’ He said. They came.
He pushed them and… they flew.
There are times on our Christian pathway when we know we are being urged by the Holy Spirit to take a step which we feel uncomfortable and a little afraid of doing. That is when we are on the edge, should we venture forth into new opportunities, or will we fail? This could be something very simple such as talking to a stranger, or more difficult, managing to say sorry to someone we have hurt or upset and harder still, to speak of Christ’s love to another. The challenge for all of us is to be a blessing to those who we encounter during our daily lives in whatever way is appropriate.
As we walk this precipitous pathway between risk and freedom which we travel in these changed times, the words from Isaiah 40 can give us the courage we need:
Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Elizabeth Webb
7th August 2020
Do you know the village of Rodney Stoke on the main road from Axbridge to Cheddar? At the entrance to the village the sign says ‘RODNEY STOKE a Thankful Village’. Not a ‘Fair Trade’ village or ‘Winner of Britain in Bloom’, but what is a ‘Thankful Village’? It is one which lost no men in […]
5th August 2020
There has been a gap in my life for the last few years – I am no longer on any committees! At one time I lost count of them all. I had been a parish councillor, a school governor and on various “secular” committees, but mostly they were to do with church life. When I […]
3rd August 2020
There was a time when the wearing of masks was the habit of those up to no good, trying to hide their identity. Then there was that cheap and rightly censured remark of the prime minister comparing Moslem women wearing the burka to pillar boxes. Whilst today some resist the widespread requirement that we wear […]
31st July 2020
Face masks – when Tyndale re-opens in September one of the stipulations will be that everyone wears a face mask – in line with what’s happening everywhere. Gradually we’re getting used to seeing folk wearing face masks. It’s not something we take to easily in this country – folk from other countries have been wearing […]
29th July 2020
We were helpfully reminded last week of the need to smile. Some comedians recently agreed that, although the loss and grief of the coronavirus crisis should not be ignored, nevertheless there was a funny side… A few weeks ago, when the government’s advice first began to change, there was a TV sketch, “stay at home… […]
27th July 2020
We are making plans, hopefully to re-open Tyndale on Sunday 6th September. It will (though predictions are best avoided) be a very different experience. Details are being finalised, but it will, of course, involve much of the Covid-19 paraphernalia with which we are becoming, sadly, all too familiar. Through all this, though, we still want […]
24th July 2020
Having a daughter working for CircoMedia, the circus school in St. Paul’s, my wife and I have been to many performances by her students and we have learned to appreciate their skills as they train to become trapeze artists, acrobats, jugglers and clowns. I particularly like clowns with their painted faces, false noses and baggy […]
22nd July 2020
The day before my 10th birthday, I came home for lunch – school was only round the corner – and I sat listening to the one o’clock news on the radio, mesmerised by a faint ‘beep… beep… beep’ coming all the way from Sputnik 1, the first satellite, orbiting the earth! By the time I […]
20th July 2020
At the end of your day, have you ever looked back to see where God had been at work? This is one of those spiritual exercises which have their origins in the early history of Christianity and are rediscovered down the years. This particular exercise is the first step of the “examen” – a daily […]