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…
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