As we were eating in window seats of the First Floor Restaurant in Oxford yesterday, we saw a very colourful Sikh procession pass. Irene was beside herself as she saw all the things she had learnt about in her unit on Sikhism. Men holding dashing … [Continue reading]
A Great Intelligence Runs Through Nature
Each gardening session leaves me amazed at nature's checks and balances. For instance, innocuous dead nettles look so much like the real thing, even with unpleasant prickles on their stems. And so are avoided by our pet bunnies. Yet they are … [Continue reading]
In which Insults Turn to Praise
I was watching Diarmaid Maccullough's Christian History documentary, in which he said that early Methodists had a very methodical way of going about their salvation--prayer, Bible reading, fasting, spiritual reading, and reading Scripture in the … [Continue reading]
Family Life–The Mathiases Play Balderdash
We played a family game of Balderdash yesterday. A bit like pictionary, pick a word, everyone gives a feigned definition while the picker gives a real one. 3 points for a correct guess, 1 if someone else guesses yours. After a slow start, Irene, … [Continue reading]
Depression and exercise
I remember a nice phrase in Andrew Solomon's book on depression, "The Noon Day Demon," which I first read in the New Yorker. That "exercise exorcised the depression from his body". That's exactly how it is with me. In a typical depressive … [Continue reading]
Writing by Relying on the Lord
"Moses, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him … [Continue reading]
This world’s economic system, and the protection of being in Christ
I woke up thinking of a friend who was discouraged working hard to sell a hard-to-sell hugely over-priced product. A way out is moving from sales to management, but that might mean pressuring others to meet targets to sell the same product. Hard, … [Continue reading]
The staggering rewards promised in the Gospels (C. S. Lewis)
If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with … [Continue reading]
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