Exile: As Event and as Emotion
My home church is working through a preaching series on the big themes of Scripture, and one of the slightly less common themes chosen is that of “Exile” – which I get to preach on. It’s a fascinating topic. I’m planning to talk on two kinds of exile in the Bible. The first is the historic exile from around 586-536BCE after the collapse of the Southern Kingdom of Judah and the captivity in Babylon. The second is harder to pin down, but no less real. It is a sense of being in exile, that nagging feeling that you are being excluded or that you don’t really...
Read MoreThey also serve: Appreciating the extraordinary ordinary…
A slightly different post this week, and why not? Most of my writing flows from what I’ve been thinking about, and this week it has been around the work that goes into making anything happen, and the number of people whose fingerprints turn up on any successful event. Most commonly I work with professionals – well educated people who are expert in their area and are used to being acknowledged and appreciated for the work they do. But more recently I’ve spent more time with those whose skills are sometimes taken for granted, and who have to get by on a lower wage –...
Read MoreWhat I’d tell my younger self…
I’m preaching at Ellenbrook Baptist on Sunday and have been asked to speak on “What I’d tell my younger self.” The problem is not what to say, but what to leave out. Realistically, would my younger self have listened to what my older self wishes to say? Probably not. You learn along the way, and while forewarned is forearmed, some things simply take time and experience, and it is as well not to beat yourself up too much for not having anticipated them in advance. And there you go – my older self is already pontificating back to my younger version. So what am I...
Read MoreBecause in the end we are all just walking each other home…
It’s often a throw away line that catches my attention – be it from a podcast, movie, lecture or whatever. Sometimes it doesn’t have that much to do with the overall theme or focus, but I quickly haul my phone out, jot down the key words and return to reflect on them later. They often find their way into this blog. This is one of those times, and truth to tell, I can’t remember the context or broader frame in which these words were spoken – but I thought they were striking, so here they are for us to reflect on today: “because in the end we are all just...
Read MoreIf Easter hadn’t happened…
Don’t know if you enjoy the sliding door motif in stories. You run for the bus, and catch it, and on it you meet a mysterious stranger – and oh the adventures for good and ill that flow from that. Or you miss the bus by a whisker, are furious and frustrated, but actually spared the trauma you would have endured if you caught it. It can be fun to speculate like that. What would have happened if I said yes, instead of no, if I made that decision instead of the one I did – and so we can go on. But what about this one? What if Easter hadn’t happened. Or more precisely,...
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