Delays: A spirituality for flying…
I’m writing this blog at the airport. It’s my fourth flight in two weeks and each has been delayed. Apparently I will now be boarding in 6 hours time. None of the delays has been weather related, so my temptation is to go on a rant against everyone’s favourite airline – but I won’t do that. Instead I thought: “Let me put what I so often say to the test. Instead of raging against what I can’t control, let me see if my advice to spot God in the unexpected means anything when my plans don’t go as I’d hoped.” So what am I saying to...
Read MoreBecause You are Called…
Through some slightly unusual circumstances I’ve been asked to preach on the same topic (at different churches) for a few weeks in a row. The topic? “Called”. Or “Because you are called”. Perhaps you could say I’ve been called to preach on being called – but perhaps that’s trying to be too smart. I love the idea behind “called”. It presupposes two really important things. One – that there is a caller, and two, that this caller notices us – notices us enough to call us. Both make a radical difference to the way we are...
Read MoreCloud or ground thinking…
I’m a big picture person. Perhaps it goes back to my days in the chess team at school, but as any chess player will tell you, you’ve got to play the game forward. You are always asking, “If I do this and they do that, then what. But what if they don’t, and do that instead…” and so it goes on. Before every move you brainstorm in dozens of different directions before you commit and move your queen three spaces to the right. You are constantly looking for new possibilities – both opportunities and threats. And there is nothing worse than the sinking...
Read MoreThinking about posture: Punchers, Blockers, Embracers and Pioneers
We all know how shrill public discourse has been these last few years. I’m old enough to remember a time when if you disagreed with someone you thought: “That’s so interesting. It will be good to chat this through with them to see what we both can learn.” That doesn’t happen much today. There is very little nuance in the public space, and suggesting it is required is often seen as a sign of weakness or lack of conviction. The model is adversarial, and we often exaggerate and catastrophize to score cheap but dishonest points off opponents. It is sad when we see...
Read MoreBecause courage is a necessary virtue…
American poet and social activist Maya Angelou famously noted, “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” If you think about it, she is probably right. After all, what good is it to be passionate about justice if you don’t have the courage to stand up and do something about it. It doesn’t help to feel awful about what is happening to someone else while knowing that you don’t have the courage to say something in their defence for fear of what might happen to you. To make a...
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