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Shifting slates into the future

A friend started it years ago- asking me if I wanted to come on one of his wilderness retreats. The idea was simple: a group of people travel to an uninhabited island – a different one each year- off the West Coast of Scotland. I said yes, reluctantly: I’ve never been a fan of camping,Continue reading “Shifting slates into the future”

Age is just a number

Today, apart from the death of a few thousand cells, I am the same as yesterday when I was 59. Yet it feels different: if I live that long, I’ll get a state pension this decade and I will retire. Mortality feels closer and although fairly active, what I want to do and what myContinue reading “Age is just a number”

Be still…

I was searching for a poem to begin a staff meeting: I think it is something that would deepen most business meetings and get all of us that can’t step back and become too intense and focussed to think in a different way, but I digress. I was looking for something that was Christian inContinue reading “Be still…”

Flags

I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject: I doubt that anyone is, although the sound and the fury makes it seem that an awful lot claim to be. This is a slightly augmented version of something I posted on Threads a couple of weeks ago and it seemed to strike a chordContinue reading “Flags”

Back from an island…

I got back from a wilderness retreat a week or so ago. I’ve taken part in these for some time now; the experience grows in my mind and imagination even more when I’ve left. We pick an island and sail: this year it was going to be Insh, but the tides didn’t work out, soContinue reading “Back from an island…”

Islands and bad poetry

“My secret is that I need God—that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyondContinue reading “Islands and bad poetry”

Easter Sunday

I’ve written before of my struggles with images like this that are used when we wish people ‘Happy Easter’. Sometimes, we who believe post them on social media- accompanied by fonts so sickly sweet that Hallmark would baulk at putting them out- to tell others of our faith, often tongue tied in what to sayContinue reading “Easter Sunday”

Good Friday

(Extract from above poem- Gerard Kelly ‘I see a new city: poems of place and possibilities’ Chamine Press, 2000) The priest who gave the thought at our Village Good Friday ‘stations of the cross’ read this poem today. ——————————————— ‘Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani’ (‘My God, my God: why have you forsaken me?’)

Lent?

In an instant news age, we tend to judge more and do so more quickly. Access to information is constant and eventually the algorithm will get you with delicately curated gobbets designed to ramp up your outrage. I confess I have succumbed. I confess that I still succumb. There’s a temptation for those of usContinue reading “Lent?”

59

I remember once reading that your late 50s and early 60s are a time when you can get the most conservative and resistant to change: the siren call of nostalgia- ‘things were better then’ , an awareness that everything that is touted as ‘the next big thing’ you’ve seen in at least three different iterationsContinue reading “59”