Article in Stretton Focus, March 2016 From the 19th century in France, the word to express the desired freedom of all public institutions, especially primary schools, from influence of the Catholic Church is laïcité. This was captured in a French Law of 1905 expressing French secularism as separation of the church from state. Today, the […]
Letting Go
Article in Stretton Focus, April 2016 We are all subject to aging, illness and various forms of loss. Our human reaction to the inevitable pain of life is to suffer. We tend to dwell on the bad things that have happened to us: we can’t seem to let go, and this is not good for […]
Fellowship Future
Article in Stretton Focus, May 2016 A church is a fellowship but how often do we stop to consider what this means? As we approach the 150th birthday of the opening of our church, it struck me that we should take some time to reflect. Scattered around our buildings are small plaques remembering those who […]
Carrots, Eggs and Coffee
Article in Stretton Focus, June 2016 A young woman went to her mother and told her that she didn’t know how to cope with her life. It seemed to be one huge struggle after another bringing up her family. Her mother took her into the kitchen and filled three pots with water. In the […]
Never mind the quality, feel the width
Article in Stretton Focus, July 2016 Some of you reading this will recognise my title as the name of a TV programme very popular between 1967 and 1971. It was a comedy sitcom where two tailors, one a Jew and one a Roman Catholic, were working at their trade, and trying to understand each other’s […]
On the day after 23rd June
Article in Stretton Focus, August 2016 I found myself writing this piece on 24th June because of holiday dates clashing with the Stretton Focus August copy date, and the words below came to mind. For me, these words resonate with that dramatic morning after, and the strange place we are moving in since the EU […]
Cloistered or Questioning
Article in Stretton Focus, September 2016 On holiday in Portugal earlier this summer we visited two monasteries which are UNESCO listed heritage sites – Batalha and Alcobaca. Monastic life ceased in Portugal in the mid 19th century so although there has been a loss of furnishings and decoration the buildings, faithfully restored, are essentially as […]
‘To be or not to be’
Article in Stretton Focus, October 2016 The verb ‘to be’ is the most important word in the English language. The present tense, ‘I am’, raises the question ‘Who am I?’ and invokes the challenge to be the best person we are capable of being. We have always referred to God as the ‘Eternal being’, but […]
It’s OK to Doubt
Article in Stretton Focus, November 2016 This is the age of unbelief. It is fashionable to be sceptical. We don’t believe in politicians, or trust the banks. We don’t believe weather forecasts. We don’t believe our doctors – we check up on them via Google. We don’t believe what the churches tell us. The only […]
Polarisation and Reconciliation
Article in Stretton Focus, December 2016 Watching the news and reading the papers it seems to me that the world is becoming more and more polarised on a number of issues. Take politics for example. The Trump/Clinton confrontation was highly polarised. Obviously, there were differences between the two candidates but they were scathing about each […]