Sharing some thoughts

You will probably all have heard some of the wonderful  children’s letters to God – I’m a bit sad perhaps but I never tire of hearing things like, ‘Dear God, Did you mean to make giraffes look like that, or was it an  accident ? ’ or ‘Dear God, I keep waiting for a nice summer day, but it hasn’t come – did you forget ?’ or just one more, ‘Dear God, Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms – it works for me and my brother.’ Asking children questions can be a very dangerous thing because they will generally say exactly what they think, when adults will often skirt ar ound the truth if it is painful ! Few of us will risk asking what people think of us in case the reply is not what we’d hope for, but J esus of course had no worries about  such things.  In th e gospel reading (Matt. 16:13-20 ), he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I  am ? ’  And the disciples told him that some people were saying he wa...

I’m not sure who said it first but a phrase that has been used quite a lot in recent times  says, ‘When you have more than you need build a bigger table, not a higher fence.’ Reaching out generously to others in need has happened in many cases whether it be putting money into a charity box or making a church donation or supporting things like the Foodbank .  Sadly  however, the idea of building a bigger table is not one that has been universally accepted. Without wanting to make this too political it is clear that there are politicians in the world with wide support who seem intent on building fences to keep out those who seem different, rather than inviting them to sit at the same table with them.  And our gospel reading today (Matthew 15:21-28) has a lot to say about this. I should start by saying it isn’t at all easy to understand – at first sight Jesus seems to be unkind and rather grumpy, it isn’t what we  expect ! Lots of people have spent t i...

from Helen Have you ever h ad one of those times when you think, ‘ why did I bother’  ?  I certainly have,  it all started on a Monday morning when I was in University.  I woke up early,  as I had to leave the house at 7:00am for an early lecture. I needed to get a train and so rushed to the train  station  only  to find that the train was late-why did I bother  rushing ?  Anyway b y the time the train arrived it was jam packed with people and so I h ad to stand up for the journey I was really wondering by now why I had bothered.  When my train finally reached Cardiff I realised I was going to be very late for my lecture, now I had two options. The first meant missing my lecture- but then getting up  early would have been pointless and I really would know that I shouldn’t have bothered.  The second meant paying money for a taxi to my lecture.  Well I went for option 2, and arrived in the nick of time for my lectu...

When I was quite young I was playing football in the garden – it was quite a nice garden with lots of nice flowers – even now I’m not too good at names of flowers so I don’t know what they were but they were colourful anyway ! But whilst I was playing football and kicking it against a wall of the house it went astray a little and beautifully took off the heads of lots of the flowers. I was young but I was old enough to know that my mother would not be pleased ! And so I had a marvellous idea – I would sellotape the heads back on and make the flowers look nice and colourful again – and so I did, and this worked really well right up until the following day when my mum noticed something strange about the flowers and decided to ask me about it ! I’m sure she admired my initiative but she didn’t tell me and I was not too popular. Very often when we do wrong in our lives we can’t just sellotape things back together again – we can’t just put it right as simply as that, because ultimate...

From Helen Some time ago I was with some friends and we were walking through some fields. All was going well until… a sty le  came up and I had to clamber over whilst battling with the feeling of ‘Help, I am going to fall’. I am a very clumsy person and although I didn’t fall on this occasion it would not have been that big a surprise if I had. In fact when I was a child my Mum used to say that I could fall over  air !  Bizarrely, I have never broken a bone .  I have however been covered in bruises from bumping into things and it is such a way of life for me that I  often can’t even remember what I’ve walked into .  Our readings this morning have reminded me of that ‘Help, I am going to fall’ moment. In the reading from 1 Kings we heard of Elijah being scared as he was being hunted down. His faith remained strong but He needed reassurance from God that all would be well. For the disciples they must have thought that they were going to fall into the wate...

There are certain phrases that seem to be the opposite of what they say.  For example, “don’t worry this will not hurt one bit,” usually means that someone is about to thrust a needle in your arm, and it will hurt ! Or there’s also, “it’s good for you, and it tastes nice,” usually means “it is healthy, but it tastes disgusting” Or there’s another phrase which really gets confusing at times and this is, “expect the unexpected.” How on earth are you meant to expect something when you don’t know what to expect !! But with Jesus this phrase is not far from the truth… T oday in our gospel reading we have Luke’s account  (9:28-36)  of the Transfiguration of Jesus –  In it,  Jesus takes 3 of his closest disciples, Peter, James and John ,  up to the mountain top and gives them just a glimpse of the glory of God – there the 3 disciples witness Jesus’ appearance changing, and then Moses and Elijah appear – it is a glimpse of heaven !  And it serves as a rem...