Seeker

You may have seen recent reports of hospital workers overwhelmed by relentless work, physical and emotional exhaustion.  Maybe you are one of them, or know someone receiving their care. Running on empty is such a hard situation to find yourself in. Human resources do run out. And the joy can go out of life for all sorts of reasons, especially when burnt out, ill, or bereaved, or simply because we are weary of staying at home in lockdown.  One of the things keeping me going is the odd moment of joy in ordinary life: a blackbird singing; the snowdrops in our garden about to flower; in heavy rain, several woodpigeons using our flat garage roof as a spa facility. Even this morning, when it was snowing while we were out on a walk, the fallen snow made the ordinary and family seem more beautiful. When we notice such things, they can become what the poet George Herbert described as “heaven in ordinarie”. Herbert was talking about prayer, which is one of the ways God’s heaven breaks t...

Should Christians obey Mary, mother of Jesus?  I ask that today because it is the festival of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Some Christians may raise hands in horror at the idea of obeying Mary. Many years ago I was stopped in my tracks by something I read about Mary. I think it was in a book by John Gunstone, an Anglo-Catholic priest in the Church of England. When asked about his attitude to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he replied, "I obey her" . I found this shocking, until I understood what he meant. This was a reference to the only instruction Mary gave that is recorded in the gospels. She was at a wedding in Cana with her son Jesus when the wine ran out - a social disaster (See John 2: 1 - 11) . Mary instructed the servants, "Do whatever he (Jesus) tells you." And they did. Water became wine as the first John's gospel's signs revealing Jesus' glory. What Jesus told the servants to do at that wedding was simple - fill up water jars, draw som...