Sharing some thoughts

I love the sea – in fact of all the beautiful places for me that I’ve ever been I think most would involve some water somewhere. I also enjoy going out on boats – of whatever size – the cross channel ferry to the small speed boat – I’m not so keen on rowing boats to be honest, because they’re a bit too much hard work. Going out to sea on a beautiful still day is a wonderful experience - the peace I think surpasses anything we can find on dry land. Of course there can also be the rather bad days where the water is not quite so calm. I remember one particular trip where I had gone to Dublin to watch Wales play one year. Wales had won the game and there was a good degree of celebration – for some bizarre reason which I don’t recall though, we had booked the 9am ferry back to Holyhead the following morning, and it was raining and it was very windy. When we got there we found many other supporters had booked the same ferry – it was packed and it was a very rough crossing and it had been, f...

The question ‘why?’ is a very big one. It can be loaded with all kinds of different meanings. When I looked at the readings for tonight I was a little mystified. The year is moving on quickly but Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday really aren’t that far behind us. Indeed it is months yet until we reach Christmas, but somehow the reading chosen for tonight from the New Testament is the account of the birth of Jesus. Why ? I am not going to try and answer that question. Someone somewhere decided no doubt that it was a good idea, so who am I to argue ? I will just leave the question of why kind of hanging in the air. But deciding to keep my Christmas sermons for Christmas, I looked at the Old Testament reading. There we have a section from the book of Job (chapter 2) and the question why is one that he asked many times. In fact moving away from Job the question of why is one that is often asked by people of faith and no faith whenever bad things happen to good people, w...

I like the incredible story about Mother Theresa who went one day to her superiors and said, "I have three pennies and a dream from God to build an orphanage." "Mother Teresa," her superiors replied gently but understandably, "you cannot build an orphanage with three pennies...with three pennies you can't do anything." "I know," she said, smiling, "but with God and three pennies I can do anything." There’s another story about a man who bought a house with an overgrown garden. The weeds had long since taken over the garden and it was a mess. But slowly the man began to clear the weeds and work on the garden and plant seeds. Finally, he had made it into a showcase garden. One day the minister came to visit, and when he saw the beautiful flowers and plants, he observed, "Well, friend, you and God have done a marvelous job on this garden." To which the homeowner replied, "You should have seen it when God had it by himself...

How many of you like ants ? At this time of year, people spend a lot of time out in the garden and one of the dangers involved is that you can from time to time get ants crawling on you – I really don’t like that and even after you’ve brushed them off – you still feel all itchy and need to go in and have a shower or a bath ! I want to tell you a story about a girl named Jane that I heard. She was outside with her dad in the garden watching him put down poison on the path where lots of ants were coming up. She decided to help by stomping on some ants, but they were fast so one would run up on her shoe while she was stomping with the other foot. Then she would jump up and down to get the ants off her feet. Finally her dad picked her up with one arm and brushed off the ants with his free hand. He put her down in the grass away from the ants and finished his work. Jane waited patiently far away from the ants. On the way back into the house, she asked her dad, "Why are there so ma...

There’s a children’s story called, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" written by Eric Carle. The story begins with a tiny egg on a leaf in the light of the moon. On a Sunday morning, the warm sun came up and out of the egg came a very small and very hungry caterpillar. He began to eat, and eat, and eat, but he was still hungry. Finally, he had eaten so much that he had a stomach ache! The next day was Sunday again for some reason. The caterpillar ate through a nice green leaf, and his stomach felt much better. He built a cocoon around himself and stayed in there for more than two weeks. Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon and pushed his way out. And of course, he wasn't a caterpillar anymore, he was now a beautiful butterfly. This story, simple and childish though it may be, helps to explain a wonderful truth contained in our gospel reading today about God giving new life. It is the story of Nicodemus (John 3:1-17). He was a very religious man and was a leader of the Pharisee...

If you are a driver, I wonder if you remember learning to drive? Do you remember the first momentous time that the car moved beneath you and you realised that you were in charge of what happened next? When I learned I went first of all to Llandough Hospital car park late in the evening when it wasn’t busy. I tried Barry Island Car Park as well, before going out onto the road, and enjoying various disagreements with my brother who was teaching me to drive, as I ignored his years of experience and told him how it should be done ! There are various challenges in learning to drive, and one of the trickiest is learning to reverse. Reversing round a corner is not something that many learner drivers find comes naturally. Steering forward is one thing, but backwards is something else. Or what about the 3 point turn? They are not the easiest things to learn, but they are important. Without them you wouldn’t be so safe to let loose on the road, because there are always places where you will need...