Dear Friends,
“Do whatever he tells you,” his mother said to the servants
John 2: 5
If we did as we were told the world would be a different place, but we believe rules are for breaking and what a mess we are making!
Our hope, we are told, is in doing what we are told, but it only needs a few to break the rules to make hope seem so far away.
Dear Friends,
Why blame God
when it’s our fault?
For my last letter of the year I say: “Don’t blame God when things go wrong, but take responsibility for your own actions and the suffering they can cause.” That’s my resolution for the New Year and one I suggest can make a big difference if we all follow it!
Dear Friends,
Patients were encouraged by a woman who walked around a hospital ward in her dressing gown singing, “Don’t be afraid. My love is stronger, my love is stronger than your fear. Don’t be afraid. My love is stronger and I have promised, promised to be always near.”
Dear Friends,
Strictly come dancing
with the Lord of the Dance!
YOU can do anything with the right people around you is a lesson that was reinforced for me as I watched the final of Strictly Come Dancing. YOU can also be one of the right people that encourage someone to do something they never thought they could two. It takes two to tango!
Dear Friends,
In the bleak mid-winter,
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow,
snow on snow,
in the bleak mid-winter,
long ago…
It’s not the weather that is making this winter so bleak; or the wind that is moaning. It’s our mood that is bleak and our words that are moaning. Understandably so in this bleak mind-winter.
Dear Friends,
Ready, steady go – another marathon begins!
I never did like running — which is why I was a goalkeeper — but I am now told that I have got to run another marathon. Yes, another one!
Being in Bournemouth reminds me how much I hated running because I was at Boarding school near Southbourne and when the teachers wanted a break we would be sent off on a run. One route was to the top of Hengisbury Head and back or the alternative was a long return plod along the promenade to Bournemouth Pier.
Dear Friends,
I was told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was waiting for a telephone call from me so I gave him a call and he had a message for me. He’s got a message for you to and I’ve been told I can pass on his number, so here it is. If you are speaking to someone else who wants to hear a voice of hope you can give them the number as well.
Dear Friends,
What do these trees have in common?
Some officers from Wychavon Planning Department apparently visited Church yesterday and decided “we don’t need planning permission for Christmas Trees!” They probably went away either angry that we had wasted their time or having a good laugh at our expense or that of their boss for sending them.
Dear Friends,
You are the light on the Road…
The world will often complain that there are “too many chiefs and not enough Indians” or “too many cooks spoiling the broth,” but in the Church we can have some variations on those sayings: Too many “planters and not enough workers to gather in the harvest” is one that comes to mind. (Luke 10: 2)
Dear Friends,
The Spirit will fill the Prophets
with the Word of Hope!
Acts 2: 17-21
The postman delivered a message this week for me to pass on as a gift of encouragement. It said “welcome to your 2021 calendar of Hope!”
Traditionally, the first candle for Advent is for HOPE so as we light it this week we have something positive to look forward to: There is HOPE.