Month: August 2021

More low clouds early this morning. The heather on the tops no longer impressive in this light.

Also, went on a bus (three buses actually) for the first time in 18 months. As a health measure, some windows cannot be closed. I like this.

The clouds were playing around the hilles this morning…

…also, later in the morning, the heather on the other side of the valley was a stunning pink in the sun (no picture).

The cloud in the house of God plays a part in the story of Solomon in Sunday’s Lectionary. However wise you are, there will be something about God that is mysterious and unknown. Maybe wisdom includes knowing that you don’t know. Maybe at different times we can be in all four quarters of the Rumsfeld Diagram, including the one he never mentioned – the unknown knowns … the things you know, but don’t know you know, like skills learned long ago which you forgot you had, then discover that you can use them.

And in John’s gospel, Simon Peter answers Jesus, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” There’s sometimes a kind of desperation about coming to Jesus – there is nowhere else to go.

Just back after a few brilliant days away. But lovely to be back too. Here is some yarn bombing in Stanton Hill…

And we’ve been close to times past…

What is the end (purpose) of the railway line? For instance HS2. More capacity is certainly needed, but can this be achieved in other ways? Shame that in my memory, perfectly good major routes from the south to the north and across the north were closed down. Some parts have been built over. Maybe some creative demolition is in order. Or smaller headways through in-cab signalling, so more capacity. Other ways you could think of. As to competing with aeroplanes, how about a carbon tax? Time spent on a train journey is not wasted: you can still work on board. As far as I am concerned, the jury is still out on HS2. Worst of all would be a half-bottomed version of HS2 which ended in Birmingham (not even New Street with its conncections) and left the rest of Britain high and dry.

Railways are also fun, except when they’re in cuttings or behind sound fences, or the train is going to fast for passengers to take in the scenery.

Please pray for Haiti and Afghanistan, and for our suffering, wheezing atmosphere.

1 Kings 8:11 in Sunday’s Lectionary – about the glory of the Lord filling the House of the Lord. Is any place (e.g. church) the house of God in any sense that a workplace, or our kitchen, or the planet isn’t?

Technology has given us a lot of glory – from television programmes to the sight of an aeroplane taking off. How do we rediscover and redistribute God’s glory in such a way that we can say, yes, there is something better than a society which is poisoning the world?

First, this heather on the Trail…

Later, Janet pointed out to me some wild carrots. We wondered whether they might have had some carroty roots underneath.

You hear some people moan about women who are ‘men haters’… not an issue IMHO. However, men who seem to hate women are an issue, and appear often in the news, from Plymouth to Afghanistan.

Went to a lovely service today, at the Dandelion in Wythenshawe. Everyone played a part.

Apologies for non-arrival of extra reflection yesterday. I think it may stay on the shelf.

Please pray for the people of Afghanistan, and for bereaved service families.

For the time being, a photo. Some reflections later, maybe.

In Sunday’s Lectionary, I’ll go back to that nugget in Ephesians about not getting drunk (not not drinking). It seems to me that there’s something sexy in the imagination about getting drunk – you can become famous, the star of all those stories; “He was so bladdered threw up in a traffic cone” (there’s far better ones I’m sure you can think of). Or at least it seems sexy in prospect when you’ve already had a few. And being sober is perhaps a little unsexy (though perhaps not quite as much as trying to kiss someone who has residual diced carrots in his beard – I suppose).

From time to time I read picture books about the railway which goes past the house where I was brought up. Among all the photos of exciting locos, there are few, if any, pictures of the Fairburn 2-6-4 tank, the engine I used to see most often in my young childhood. Much too unglamorous – and yet vital to the life of the railway.

I think it’s time to celebrate what, and who, is unglamorous, unsexy and yet vital in the life of the world, from the Black Five, to the elder who just gets on with the job.

God of love,
we praise and thank you
for ordinary people,
ordinary buses,
ordinary food,
unspectacular love.

A lovely walk in the sunshine today, and I came upon this…

Closer examination reveals this…

I spent a some happy days there (it had joined the URC) in the Brooks Bar area when I was a lay preacher. I don’t know whether it’s still open*. But this will be part of a lasting legacy.

So much for the past: what is the future? What we can be sure of is that it won’t be the same.

(*As far as I can tell from the Synod website it is not there now).