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Showing posts from October, 2014

It has nothing to do with me...

At present I'm preaching a series on the Apostles' Creed, and today we looked at the clause referring to Jesus suffering under Pontius Pilate. One of the earliest and most effective Bible-based monologues I ever saw was one on Pilate by Riding Lights... But below is one that I wrote myself a good few years back, which I hauled out of retirement for this morning's service. It has nothing to do with me... It is a Jewish matter... Nothing to do with Rome. If I had my way I would have left them to it. Another spat between religious fanatics. So what if he claims to be the son of this Jewish god? What difference does that make? Sons of god are two a penny in the lunatic asylum... We’ve even had one or two on the throne of Rome... Sons of god, that is, not lunatics... Though some might say... No!! Don’t quote me on that. I’m in trouble enough as it is. I can’t afford another letter of complaint going to Caesar. That’s why I finally decided to try this man... The priests s

The Eighth Day

And finally, when you thought it was never going to end, here's my little personal postscript to our Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, partly inspired by those practical deists who will die in a ditch over a literal belief in a 6 day creation but don't give a thought to the ongoing stewardship of this wonderful but wounded world... (There is also a line that owes more than a little to the late great Humphrey Lyttleton on "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", which speaks volumes to my lack of real poetic pretensions!) On the eighth day he arose… And the work goes on… With us as his apprentices Implanted with his seed The soul-seed of creation and salvation Creativity and re-creation. And so it continues day and night The living word bringing order out of chaos   Day in day out, Week in and week out, Resting from work and working from rest Until the last minute of the last day… When the hands of time tip over into eternity

After Word...

We are coming near the end of this series of posts drawn from our Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, and here I post another poem by someone else, in this case Ann Lewin, from her anthology "Candles and Kingfishers" ( ISBN-10:   0951298232). I post this after watching the denouement of "The Great British Bakeoff" and am convinced that not only music, but good TV, cakemaking and all other creative endeavours, with a good leaven of fun, are God's gift to "enlighten duty and enliven praise" - and that is very important to me at the moment... Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.  This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. Genesis 2:1

The Mirror - Again

I've posted this twice before, but used it as part of our Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, so here it is again for the sake of completeness... Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."         Genesis 1: 26 Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror of a morning And wondered What does anyone see in me? God looked at himself in a mirror one morning A mirror which he had made… A mirror fashioned out of clay Transformed into flesh and bone… And in the mirror of man’s eye God saw himself… But it was not good. He was alone And God was never alone. He was always “us.” So God made another To make the picture complete… And that morning he saw himself in the mirror of mankind Male and female Loved and loving Created to create Together. Sel

There was I...

Continuing the series on Creation and Creativity, but once again, what follows is not my own work, it is a dramatisation of Stewart Henderson's "When there was nothing" from "Homeland" (ISBN-10: 0340591188) And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning--the fifth day. And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. And God

The Variety of Creation

When I restarted posting last weekend my plan was that I would post today's piece on Thursday, which was National Poetry day here in the UK... But as another poet said "the  the best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,  Gang aft agley..." And so today, in this continuing series based on our Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, I post one of my favourite poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins... Enjoy both it and the wonderful world it describes... And praise the one who made them both possible...  Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the third day. Genesis 1: 11-13 Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls;

When I stare into the heavens above...

So here is part 3 of my series of posts based on last Sunday's Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, inspired by Genesis 1. The main part of this blog, a dramatised paraphrase of Psalm 8, I have posted a number of times before in different forms... and I was going to skip it, until on Tuesday a colleague used Psalm 8 and the Casting Crowns below as part of the devotions at a training day I was at. On Sunday we also used a version of the same song, but sung by the wonderful Melanie Johnston. Great minds think alike... or something like that... And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day. Genesis 1: 6-8 Dramatised Reading : Psalm 8 BOTH:          O LORD , our God, your name is honoured in all that y

The Dawning of the Day (again)

I re-post this as the second in a series of pieces from Sunday evening’s Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, prompted by the 7 days of Genesis 1, but I am also prompted to post it in the light of a 2 day chaplaincy workshop on suicide and mental health, during which one of our facilitators, Conor McCafferty, spoke of identifying “the treasure in the dark” that sustains life in the most difficult circumstances. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day. Genesis 1: 3-5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5 (RSV ) I’m grown up now… but I’m still afraid of the dark… I pretend that I’m not… But then adults are good at pretending… Children play “let’s pretend” but they’r