Sharing some thoughts

from Helen This week we will see the beginning of  Lent…  the time when we draw closer to God, the time when we spend moments thinking of things that we can change in our lives, and the ways that we want to see the World change and to pray for the World. It is  a  very serious time  but before lent begins I want to  tell you a story about a rabbit.  There is a reason and that is that the story relates to our readings this morn ing and it is a very good story plus the story talks about spring which cannot come too  soon !   The rabbit in the story is called  Mr  Hopewell.  Hope  –  well, hop- well ? Mr  Hopewell had been born into a particularly cold environment with a lot of snow.  He was always cold but he heard the other rabbits talking about spring.   Mr  Hopewell thought that spring sounded good and he assumed that Spring was a person, a  ‘ Mr.Spring ’ . So he asked the other rabbits about when  Mr.Spring  would arrive and they all laughed at him. He did not ask any more qu

One of the things that the church is pretty good at is arguing – discussions at the General Synod of the Church of England, however gracious they were, highlighted this problem and of course, the Church in Wales has certainly not been exempt from it either… Today in the Church in Wales is designated as Creation Sunday – and whilst many people will hold different views about creation and about how it all happened, today we are called to celebrate the wonder of creation and our place within it….  T he long creation reading (Gen.1:1-2:3) reminds us of the wonderful gifts that God has prepared for us all in his creation. a world of beauty, a world of challenges certainly ,  but a world crammed full of resources and gifts to be used by all his people. It i s a world where men and women a re created equally in God’s own image –  where  every man and every woman has a right to enjoy the resources we are given.  In a world where more and more opinions are being expressed about looking a

The question of conscience is one that we face time and time again in our lives – what about the person who finds £100 lying on the road – do you pick it up and take it home, or do you take it to the police and hand it  in ?  What about the little bit of gossip that you hear – do you keep it quiet or do you share  it ?  What abou t the wrong that you know someone has done – do you confront them o r tell someone or do you decide  it’s best to mind your own  business ? I once read a small boy’s definition of conscience – that is ‘something that makes you tell your mum you’ve done somethin g wrong before your sister  does  ! ’   Conscience is about choice – do we follow what’s good and right or do we follow the easy  path ?  Do we follow what we know to be just ,  however hard it may be or do we turn a blind eye to an  injustice ? This last couple of weeks much of the news has been  about President Trump and whether people agree with him or not and to what degree people should speak

Recently I heard a quote from  the author  George Macdonald .  He wrote simply, ‘I stand, I look, I listen, I draw near…’ And when I was thinking about the gospel reading today (Luke 2:22-40) I thought of what a wonderful description this was of Simeon.  On this day we  remember Jesus being brought to the Temple 40 days after his birth as was the custom under Jewish law, and it was the day when Simeon, the devoted elderly Jew, encountered his Saviour in the Temple. He had been promised that before he died he would see the Messiah – that  day the promise was fulfilled . He had waited faithfully, patiently – he had stood, looked on, listened and now he would draw near…  After taking the child in his arms he spoke the words we now know as the Nunc Dimittis, words used at every service of evening prayer – ‘Lord now  lettest  thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples. To

from Helen I love chocolate, I don’t mean a  little,  I  mean lots. I used to say that if I had Jesus, chocolate and  winnie  the pooh , everything would be alright. Now, this is not always the best way forward, after all  winnie  the pooh might disappear, chocolate may run out but  Jesus is always there. Everythi n g He said will never, as we heard in the gospel reading this morning (Luke 5:13-20) disappear. Back to chocolate.  I have three occasions involving chocolate which remind me of what it m eans to be a follower of Jesus , that I want to tell you about today. They all relate to two of our readings this morning.  The first is about a tea pot made of chocolate and is about how hard it can be to be follower of Jesus. When I was a teenager a book came out called, “the chocolate tea pot”. It was a great book as it said that a chocolate tea pot would be great to look at but once it was near heat it would melt and be of no use at all. The book said that this is what we