Thought for the Day
11th June 2021
“The Madness of Grief. A Memoir of Love and Loss” was a most welcome birthday gift. This book by Richard Coles, popstar turned priest, was for me a page turner and uplifting rather than something to drag you down.
In the context of the current obsession with portraying Instagram-perfect lives, the honesty expressed around the joys and frustrations of sharing your life with those you love was refreshing. Perhaps we hope that insights into how others engage with life’s highs and lows might help us understand ourselves better and that in life’s most challenging situations, we might find resonances between our own experiences and those of whom we read.
Coles says “Christians, like everyone else, need to grieve when they lose the ones they love. I have never been of the school that thinks our priesthood obliges us to… bury our mothers and our husbands and our children dry-eyed and level-voiced in the sure and certain hope… I have no doubt in the mercy and generosity of God, nor in the promise of more to come…”. I’m with Coles: expression of emotion in such settings strikes me as helping affirm others who find themselves responding similarly.
Another strand running through the book values friendship. Coles says “…you realise we are not so much authors of our lives but a library of other people”. The constraints of the pandemic have perhaps stripped away some of the ‘clutter’ and brought into sharper focus the relationships that really matter to us? I guess our friendships do help shape our lives as well as giving others clues about who we are.
Ruth Allen
9th June 2021
Cherishing Friendships Having lived in six different places over the past 55 years, we are in touch with people whose lives have touched ours in meaningful ways, so we have friends around the country. We keep in touch through Christmas greetings and occasional emails. This year not having been able to see any of them […]
7th June 2021
There was an electric moment in last week’s Question Time (3.6.2021) when the panel’s discussion of the rights and wrongs of the eviction ban in England coming to an end was interrupted by a question from the audience. A mother who had previously been made homeless together with her daughter wondered aloud how many members of […]
4th June 2021
Our present car serves us very well – it’s comfortable, reliable and an excellent load carrier. In truth, we don’t need to change it, but that doesn’t stop me from occasionally thinking about what I’d like next. They’re expensive, there’s still not a lot of model choice and we certainly need more rapid charging points […]
2nd June 2021
What is a prophet? That is a question that chapter 6 of Isaiah asks of us. In a vision, Isaiah heard God call for someone to speak to Israel on his behalf. “Here I am; send me!” responded Isaiah. But what was a prophet to do? The first thing one might imagine a prophet would […]
31st May 2021
The divisive debate about ‘cancel culture’ continues, not least over whether statues of people who were involved in murky dealings like slavery and the slave trade should be allowed to remain. In Bristol, by now, we know all about Edward Colston. But the debate will continue, and will not only be about statues. Hymnwriter John […]
28th May 2021
Often we have no idea of the outcome of a small kindness we have done for someone but, a bit like the mustard seed in the parable, the growth can be great. Do you remember the rescue of the boys from the caves in Thailand in 2018? One of the two British cavers who found […]
26th May 2021
What’s on the Agenda? I’ve heard (and asked) that question more times than I care to think, having served on so many committees, both Baptist, Ecumenical and ‘secular’. But the word ‘agenda’ has a meaning we sometimes overlook. Traditionally, the church year has two halves – the ‘Credenda’ and the ‘Agenda’. The Credenda begins with […]
24th May 2021
Despite (or perhaps because of) the stream of good and bad news from here and around the world, despite the glorious mystery of Pentecost, my thoughts these past days have kept returning to the octopus. It started a couple of weeks ago when I was in the car and happened to turn on Radio 4’s […]
21st May 2021
For the first time in my life I have found myself on the wrong side of the law. The reason: breaking the speed limit. I hope no one will think too harshly of me. I was caught doing twenty eight miles an hour in a twenty zone. The official letter gave me a choice, either […]