Farewell to Ashling As I sit to write this blog I find my mind is about 160 miles away as a beautiful young woman was laid to rest in Mountbolus cemetery outside Tullamore in the Irish midlands. Ashling Murphy was a young primary school teacher and, last Wednesday afternoon as she went for a run […]
Rules and Regulations It’s surprising sometimes to think about how much our lives are governed by rules and regulations. Every time we take a journey in the car, for example, we are bound to observe the rules of the road. When we approach a junction and the lights are red, we need to stop the […]
A Pause for Self Examination Happy New Year to everyone. It’s a time of year when people often make plans for the year to come. Maybe there are projects we hope to complete or holidays we would like to go on or courses we would like to attend in order to pick up some new […]
Some Festive Favourites It’s the time of year when various weekend supplements and radio shows invite people on to give lists of their favourite festive books or films or music. I’m always curious to see if there is anything I haven’t come across before. This week before Christmas is often a busy one for people […]
Spotlight on Dementia Have you ever heard a conversation that stops you in your tracks? I had that experience last weekend as I drove to share Holy Communion with a housebound couple from the church. I was listening on the journey to a podcast called ‘The Mid.Point’ with Gabby Logan. She describes ‘midpointers’ as people between […]
Resting in the Father’s Arms Sometimes the season of Advent and Christmas can be a very challenging and painful season. We see all the programmes on TV about Christmas cookery and carol services and families getting together and perhaps our reality is a very different one. We feel acutely the losses we have experienced in […]
Old Friends Photos have a way of transporting us in our mind to a different time or place. I spoke with a family recently as we prepared for a funeral service and they had boxes of hundreds of photographs which they had taken over many years. These days with mobile phones we are much more trigger […]
The Power of Sharing Stories Over the past 20 months or so, we have run 5 consecutive Online Alpha courses. These courses are a great way for people to explore the claims of the Christian faith together using videos and discussion groups. It has been a great way to meet new people and talk about […]
Staying in Touch I recently watched an intriguing documentary I had recorded about a year and a half ago. It was about the life and career of the Irish broadcaster, Gay Byrne, who died in November 2019. It was called, ‘Dear Gay’ and it featured archived letters that had been sent to RTE, the Irish […]
Small, but Important Steps Around this time of year 11 years ago, I found myself standing in a field with a beautiful family just outside a city called Poipet, in Cambodia. The trip was organised by an organisation called Tearfund, one of the partners of the Church of Ireland Bishop’s Appeal. I was invited to go […]