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...

What is hope? If you are looking for a dictionary definition of hope, you won't find it here. What you will find are ideas about hope that have helped me recently. I chose  this image from October 2016 of a Syrian refugee child in Istanbul, Turkey, to illustrate hope. I love the hopeful expression on her face. I wonder what this child hopes for? A child is for me a sign of hope, of new life-enhancing possibilities, even in the middle of desparate situations. 'Hope' is an important word and theme of the Advent season . This year hope feels especially needed when so much has happened in 2016 to increase a sense of despair in many people. On the 1st Sunday of Advent this year I wrote about Entering Advent with Hope and about the truth that enables hope. Here are some further thoughts about hope. What is hope? Hope is the antidote to despair. Hope is not a denial of reality. Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope transforms darkness to light In her book 'S...

Have you always lived in a property with running water, that is safe to drink? I have. As I reflected in an earlier post,  Water , I mostly take it for granted. Today I am counting it among my many blessings. It is only on camping holidays that I have experienced anything different. Then it was fun to collect water, because doing so was a novelty. One memorable holiday in Scotland in my childhood involved climbing down a steep path to a freshwater spring and then scrambling back up the hill to the field where we were camping. Apart from the midges, it was fun. One week of that in fine weather was OK. We were camping in a crofter's field. The crofter was an elderly widow who lived alone, managing the croft without help, except at hay-making. She collected her water like that every day of the year, summer and winter. The water was said to be safe to drink but my mother insisted on boiling it before we consumed any.  According to Christian Aid's 'Count Your Blessings...

How much time do you spend on the internet, for work or leisure? Some, obviously, or you wouldn't be reading this. 82% of the British population are now internet users, compared with only 0.2% of the population in Mali. But then, of its 12 million population only 22.9% are literate. Mali is a large land-locked West African country and one of the poorest in the world. Today Christian Aid's 'Count Your Blessings' calendar starts a week about transformation, a "week for change". Christian Aid's work in Mali is about change and adapting to a changing environment, described on their website like this: As Mali’s climate becomes increasingly dry, we’re supporting small-scale farmers adapt to the changing environment. These new methods not only build communities’ resilience to climate change, but protect the fragile environment. We’re also leading the way in developing green energy, creating new ways for people living far from the capital, Bamako, and the ...

 Act of arguing I've never understood why the right to bear arms, including hand guns designed for shooting people, is considered relevant in a democratic society like the USA. But what do I know? I'm a UK citizen, where not even police routinely carry guns. And that's a freedom I want to preserve. Since last Saturday I've thought about the tragic shooting in Arizona of Gabrielle Gifford and others. One was a 9 year old girl whose face features in a book about children born on 11 September 2001 called 'Faces of Hope' . She died. Her family must be wondering, 'what hope?' Commander Kelly, brother-in-law of Ms Gifford (the congresswoman shot in the head) made this comment from his viewpoint in the International Space Station, "As I look out of the window, I see a very beautiful planet that seems very inviting and peaceful. Unfortunately it is not." It's too soon to know what led the perpetrator of this hideous crime to do ...