Sharing some thoughts

From Helen Lent is here. In Advent the Church colour was purple and in lent it is the same. The reason is so that we can get ourselves ready to remember the death of Jesus and then to celebrate His resurrection. Lent is a sombre time as we remember Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. I really enjoy Easter and I am never sure whether it is because I have always been used to waiting or maybe even suffering because of what I have given up or taken up for Lent, or whether it is because Easter is the greatest day of celebration in the Church calendar. Easter is amazing because we celebrate the fact that God is greater than death, by His death on the cross we were made right with God. Last week I spoke about a posh word  which was transfiguration and this week there is another one which is justification. This means that we have been put right with God. By His death and His Resurrection we know that we can turn to God, confess our sins, be forgiven and so we are made right with ...

Today in many parts of Wales St David’s Day will be celebrated and for us in the church it is not a celebration to be ignored, however the actual church celebration of the day has officially been moved to tomorrow as today we mark the First Sunday in Lent.  However, it isn’t actually too difficult to combine the two things I don’t think. David was notoriously austere and that’s something we often associate with Lent. He spent his life seeking to grow ever closer to God and sharing the gospel message through words and through service to others and again those things are important Lent messages.  David, from the little we really know about him, seemed to have given up a fairly wealthy background to focus on serving God and through his life he lived on very little dedicating that life to service, to founding monasteries and becoming Archbishop of Wales. Sometimes he would apparently stand in freezing water up to his waist reciting scripture as some sort of special penanc...

from Helen I was thinking the other day about the games that I used to play as a child. This was because after reading the gospel reading for today (Matthew 17:1-11) I was reminded of the Sound of Music. Now there is a good reason for this. Me and my friend were obsessed with the Sound of Music. We had performed the musical in our Church Hall. It was really fun, I was one of the littlest and so I played Gretel the baby of the Von Trapp family. I got to sit on the stage next to my best friends Mum who was playing Maria she was also a Sunday school teacher and cwtch up.  My friend and I knew the film so well, we knew the songs and we would play the different roles. For some reason I was usually the Mother Superior and had to sing Climb every Mountain. It was a fun game, but then along came Bros (a band) and suddenly we just wanted to dance to their music instead. Anyway, I have never had a great affinity with mountains and walking up them. It is one of those things that I...

From Helen Today we have had a very long reading from the Old Testament (Genesis 1:1-2:3). This was the incredible story of creation. I was looking at the readings for today sat in front of a window on which there were a number of rain drops. I am not going to get all soppy and flowery now, but it got me to thinking about how I saw creation and the weather as a little girl. I believed that thunder wasn’t scary because it was just the clouds bumping into each other. The snow came because it even got cold in heaven. The wind was God letting out a big breath and the rain … well, I was convinced that even God needed to go to the toilet sometimes.  I am pleased to say that I don’t hold these views now. I do still believe that God is behind everything. By that I mean I still believe that God created the earth. I love to think of Him looking at the world and thinking – not bad, I did that. I love the idea of Him being like an artist looking for perfection. I really like the thought...

There’s story about a class in school who were being taught about the incredible rate at which light travels – the teacher explained, ‘Isn’t it wonderful ? To think of light coming to us from the sun at the speed of all those miles per second ?’ to which one boy replied, ‘Not really Sir, it is downhill all the way !’ If only we could shine as lights in our lives as easily as that ! Our readings this morning though do ask us to take a look at ourselves, and to see how well we are shining as lights - perhaps they’re a deliberate preparation for Lent which isn’t too far away ! Perhaps they’re the sort of nudge that we all constantly need… In the Old Testament reading from Isaiah (58:1-9a) we have a great contrast. Last Friday (Feb 7 th ) it was the anniversary of Charles Dickens birth back in 1812. He began one of his famous novels, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ with the words, ‘“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishnes...