Ten days ago marked a new milestone for me, as it was the first post on the DailyDust blog since August 2021. For those of you who know me well, it’s been an “interesting” time over these past two years. Waiting for life to reach a place of peace and calm has proved pointless, and daily squalls […]
It’s been a while since I last published here, and that’s been a time of prayer and quiet. Now it seems God is calling me to turn that prayer outwards again in writing, and I really look forward to continuing this journey with all who read this blog. May these posts bless you and help […]
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches. —Matthew […]
As the dark draws in, the loneliness of this new lockdown can seem oppressive. Many people are taking comfort from the twinkling fairy lights of Christmas, bringing decoration to their homes early this year. Others cannot afford this joy. Early dusk and dark nights for some will mean curling up by the fire to escape […]
Early yesterday morning, I looked out through the dawn mist. The church next to the Rectory was barely visible through the foggy air. A faint image, easily missed, unless you know it’s there, and what to look for. Sometimes God can seem distant – as can the Church. Obscured by the mist, or darkness. Far […]
This is the text of my sermon at St Margaret of Antioch in Hinton Waldrist on Sunday 25th October 2020 Love the Lord your God with all of your being, and love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus’ summary of what it takes to live God’s way is deceptively simple. And we’ve spent two millennia arguing […]
This Sunday, once more in Matthew’s gospel, we find ourselves in one of Jesus’ parables – or stories – this time, the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Mt. 20.1-6). Jesus used stories for a lot of reasons, but perhaps most of all because they allow for imagination. We can imagine ourselves in the […]
This morning at morning prayer, as we waited to begin, there was a hush in the church. And in that hush, the quiet and muted thump thump sound of the clock’s mechanism up in the tower, counting out the seconds. In that peaceful space, it almost sounds like the heartbeat of the church, perhaps helped […]