the waiting country

If pastoral work is removed from its ground it loses...the strength to grapple with the complexities inherent in the work. Separation, by ig...

It is important...to recognise that "wisdom"...finds its home above all else in the poetical books - among metaphors, wordplay a...

Writing about the poets and others who have influenced her, and of the 'inherited responsibility' of being formed by exposure to the...

In your hands - all my times, all my hopes, all my fears; holding my days, cupping my tears. All my times are in your hands. In your ha...

Wendell Berry says he wrote this to remind himself. It strikes me that it could easily be re-titled How to be a Preacher... How to be a Po...

In a recent interview ( here ), Keeley Hawes said she didn't think her time in the limelight would last. “These are only very brief mome...

Their leader will be one of their own; their ruler will arise from among them.  (Jer 30:21) "...He came to that which was his own, bu...

Sometimes it can be hard to get your head around what needs to be said, to be prayed for and encouraged in the life of the church, gathered ...

Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of ...

An unploughed field, with clear blue skies overhead. And then you start digging and there are stones buried just below the surface; there ar...

Two men along the shore; one broken; one whole, having been broken, to pieces, set in stone, then breaking into day. Two men talki...

We sit here as at our eastern window to watch the first rays of coming day; to see star after star fading from the heavens as the dawn appr...

So I was thinking some days ago about songs of lament and hope and thought I'd try my hand at writing one. A friend has kindly agreed to...

Commenting on Peter and John being together on Easter day, HCG Moule writes, Many a 'saint' of later day would, I fear, have thru...

by surprise at life returning before I'd even noticed that it was ever close; and life has returned before, and I, then, scarc...

I’ve long been impressed by Maria Popova’s ability to read and digest huge amounts of literature and to then write about it in such a seemi...

...there is no question (could there ever be) that Christians are obligated to serve God. Nor is there (for Paul) any question that believer...

Illustrations - all good sermons need them (apparently). All good preachers acquire them, store them, retrieve and deploy them. Stories, ana...

35 years ago today, a guy called Steve asked if he could sit down and talk to me about Jesus. And Jesus? He said, Come to me, all you who ar...

In his book, Simpy Brilliant , William C Taylor engages the work of Gregory Treverton on how national security services tackle their work. D...