Sharing some thoughts

A little girl was taking an evening walk with her father. As she walked she looked up at the stars and said so innocently; "Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right side be like !" Today in our gospel (Matt.13:31-33,44-52) we have thought about the kingdom of heaven. To be honest I think it’s wonderful to think of heaven as a place that’s transformed from so much of what we know here and now. There is surely nobody here who can not be affected in some way by watching some of the news recently of hatred in the world whether it be in Gaza or Ukraine or Iraq or any number of other places we hear such tragic news about all too often. The kingdom of heaven must surely be a very different place from this. And I have no doubt that it will be, and yet the kingdom of heaven is not something that is restricted to the future, the kingdom of heaven is here and now – the kingdom is here in a world ready to be transformed, and already seeing that transf...

From Helen  It is good to be here this morning in what is particularly lovely weather. The setting is pretty much perfect, we have company, we have sunshine,  we  have a sea view when we walk out of Church. It is all in the words of a Mr  Kiplings  cake advert ‘exceedingly good’.  Perhaps almost  heavenly ? There is a story about a Sunday school teacher who was trying to prove a point to her class about faith and following God.  She asked,  ‘ If  I sold everything that I have and gave the money to the Church, would that get me into heaven ?’ the Sunday school class responded, ‘NO’. she asked another question, ‘Ok,  If  I so ld everything that I have and ga ve the money to the poor, would that get me into heaven ?’ the response was, ‘NO’ so she tried another tack, ‘If I gave you all my money, would that get me into heaven ?’ ‘NO’. ‘ well , what will get me into heaven?’ One little boy piped up, ‘You have to be dead first....

From Helen I want to step back in time a little this morning, as I want you to try and remember what it was like to be a child…. I remember some of the games I used to play as a child, games such as skipping, kiss chase …. I  will leave  that one to your imagination, weddings (which incidentally I often conducted) and the sound of  music. The last game got a bit boring to be honest. At first I loved the game I would pretend to be the  mothe r superior and my friend Anne  would pretend to be Maria Von Trap. It was a really good game  which involved breaking into song every so often. It was fun the first twice, then I realised that being  the mother superior wasn’t always the best role  and so I suggested we change. A nne thought about  this and decided that she should stay as Maria and I should still be the mother superior. After a  number more goes of the game A nne relented… I could be anyone I wanted but NOT Maria....