Almost time for Christmas and two stories of our own moment are dominating my thoughts today - the tragic deaths of people out shopping in Glasgow caught up in an accident that in moments destroys the happiness of families and friends. Glaswegians are known for their sense of belonging and their mutuality of support helped those who suffered loss ( Read more... )

The church has traditionally included in the twelve days of Christmas the commemoration of the slaughter of the innocents.Unfortunately more years than not, it is only too easy to identify a nation, group or family whose tragedy brings the story to mind.The contemporary innocents who suffer because of the complete self regard and obsession with ( Read more... )

This is a tad late but still trying to get in ahead of mylodons Day 17 ( Read more... )

I started from mylodons description of making up the boxes for gifts for children in war zones and in poverty etc and came by that to another increasingly familiar Advent (and year round) activity = putting donations into the baskets left by charities like the Trussell Trust and other organisers of food banks. All the local supermarkets have then here ( Read more... )

It is my turn to apologise for the omission of Advent 10 - and my only (not very adequate) excuse is that some friends called unexpectedly and the day was rapidly reshuffled.
I am pleased that mylodon mentioned UA Fanthorpe, who has featured before on the Saturday poem and elsewhere ( Read more... )

Thoughts are running off in a different direction this 2nd Sunday in Advent - but as mylodon commented earlier just 'going with the flow'.It is, as some other LT friends have been commenting lately certainly unseasonable weather here in parts of Britain and certainly in the west of England and I find the view from the window quite beautiful but ( Read more... )

As I indicated in posting on mylodons day 5 entry,I have been pondering the sensing God's pleasure or saying "Well done". There are two related experiences in there - the one which is about affirming the goodness of creation in the eyes of God the creator so that as in Eric Liddell's case the fact that he could run swiftly and strongly was understandable ( Read more... )

In many ways my experience is like mylodons as she described yesterday in the sense of being led/called/pushed/inveigled - and it can be any or all of those or even two at once ( Read more... )

It is 23.49 so it is still just about Advent and I would like to end this years Advent thoughts with a little more of - to use mylodons phrase - beautiful disquiet ( Read more... )

Wistfulness, wonder, joy, peace and some element of beautiful disquiet...

was mylodons closing phrase in yesterday's post and has coincided with a conversation on the solstice i had at a carol service this weekend about the 'miracle of the world's turning yet again'.The speaker of that sentence is an atheist physiscist who was makig the point of just ( Read more... )