As the nation psyches itself up for the New Normal, I feel like I’m back on a familiar path: trying to work out what normal looks like when everything has changed. I wrote this blog post last year at the Hookses, looking out over the sea at the start of the Pandemic. Now, as we…
Today all wisdom appears contested and fallible. Today the ever-changing rules make me seasick and discombobulated, and the shifting goal posts dispel the dreams of victory. Today even the tiniest of decisions weigh heavily on me. Come Wonderful Counsellor. Today I feel small and weak. Today all of this is out of our control. Today…
The things you doodle while listening to a sermon series on Hosea in the context of lockdown when you really miss hugging people.
“Why do you think you need to go?” my counsellor challenged me. Grenfell was still burning and I was heading straight there after my appointment with him. Perhaps a bit too much of me wanted to be useful and to try to fix it, a notion of which I was soon disabused by the significant…
Refugee Support Network (RSN), the education-focused organisation where I’m part of the team, has the opportunity to buy a building which will enable us to grow the breadth and depth of our work with young refugees in the years to come. I wanted to tell you about it and to invite you to join us…
Enjoy these photos of one of my most favourite places in the world. (Please note, photos are copyrighted to me but can be used elsewhere with permission and attribution: to use, just get in touch).
Here are a couple of pieces I was invited to write for Premier’s YCW (Youth and Children’s Work) magazine and website. The first is a comment piece in response to Justin Welby’s remark that Jesus wouldn’t have got a visa to the UK and the second reflects on how we can both stand in solidarity…
I wasn’t expecting Rico’s sermon in December to start with a story about clearing out his parents’ house after they’d died. At best, I was expecting a rugby-themed anecdote with which I’d have no emotional connection whatsoever; at worst, I anticipated some kind of Christmas story with which I’d cope by distancing myself emotionally and…
When I need to connect with and express something that is too painful to write, I draw. I’ve drawn a lot recently. Here are some of my classic biro sad face doodles, in a slightly new form. I’ve been struck by how the perception of the drawing changes when you capture it from a different…
It’s been a while since I’ve written. This is an obituary for my dear Frances which I wrote for the Church of England Newspaper. It was written for that specific context but still, I hope, captures in some way my relationship with her and the fact that I miss her. “In everything that touched John…
“How’s your mum?” Caught somewhat off guard, I realised it was the first time I’d been asked that question since. A whole year had passed yet it was the first conversation I’d had with someone who had known, but didn’t know. Someone who had last seen Mum the best part of twenty years ago but…
This time last year (in ecclesiastical terms, because Easter was later last year), I spent the day with mum in hospital, as had become my routine. We had a sense that she wasn’t going to get better, though little did we know that the oncologist, just a couple of days later, would be telling her…
It’s Good Friday. I’m back from a precious few days of holiday in sunny southern Spain (where they do Holy Week in style) and I’m preparing for Easter. Good Friday and Easter: life and death, mortality and eternity, separation and hope. Memories of Easter Day in hospital with Mum last year. Communion at her hospital…
“I thought that sprout time and choirs would be the hardest”, said John, my brother. Yes, he’s right. This is the time I miss Mum the most. Christmas Eve, 3pm. The time I always made every effort to be with Mum. Dad would’ve dutifully found Radio 4 and we’d have checked and double-checked that the…
It reminded me of the time that I got knocked over by a wave. With rising panic, I found the surface and came up gasping for air, only to breathe in nothingness. My wet hair, plastered across my face, stopped the air from filling my lungs and the next wave forced me back under water…
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