It isn't very often I preach the Sunday after Christmas - usually only when it coincides with Boxing Day - but this year I will be.  My valiant, if not always successful, endeavours only to work sensible numbers of hours (so we'll gloss over a couple of 14 hour days recently) mean that I have worked yesterday and today (and will take my Bank Holiday lieu days next week) but at least I now have a sermon.

And I am delighted by it.  Not necessarily with it.  But by it.

Because I found a new way to read an old text, and a new bit of 'good news' to savour.  It may be old news to anyone else, and it may be dodgy hermeneutics, but it has made me happy!

What is it...?  AH, you'll have to wait and see.  Now it's just the small matter of the craft activity to sort.

In the light of this post, this made me smile...

Today has dawned with clear skies after the rain, hail and blusteryness of the past few days.  Fitting, perhaps, as a nation rests after the festive busyness.

A great day, yesterday. 

Forty or so folk ventured out for morning worship, cafe style, round the lunch tables, with drinks and festive goodies on arrival.

Fifty or so for lunch (the people kept a comin' and the train done gone) which was a fantastic atmosphere, delicious food and wonderful organisers and servers.

A swift visit to a couple of folk spending Christmas in hospital (I'm pretty sure than that makes at least 8 out of the last 10 years that's been the case)

Some feel good TV (Last Tango in Halifax on i-player was great; not sure about Dr Who (and some very unimpressed comments by whovians on social media!))

Today I have to stir my stumps, get up to church to retrieve various bits 'n' bobs left there over the last couple of days, and work out something for Sunday's service that it is a bit more appealing than leftover turkey sandwiches!!

Whatever yoyur day brings, gentle reader, I do hope that it includes rest, refreshment and moments to savour.

Wishing All Readers a Blessed Christmas and a Hope-filled 2014

Feel good or factual?  This has been my dilemma over the past week or so as I've prepared for this morning's worship.  In the end I think, hope, pray, I have found a middle way that will carry honest hope into a weary world.

For so many this will be a difficult Christmas - floods and power cuts; sickness, bereavement and tragedy; poverty and debt... the list grows and grows, both in the braodcast news and in our private spheres.

So, I sit safe and warm in my third floor flat, power supply secure, breakfasted, parcels unwrapped and count my blessings...

Then, soon, I will head churchwards to celebrate the birth of Christ, the baby who bore hope into the world and, as a man, would bear despair out of it.  We will sip coffee and nibble treats round the table beautifully set in readiness for our annual Community Lunch, to which people of all types and conditions will be drawn (and, if true to form, some surprise and surprising guests).  And after the festive feast, I will slip on my clerical collar and head to the nearest hospital to see a couple of folk spending the holiday season there.  It all meets and muddles or melds - that's the reality I strive to express.

Whatever you day brings, whatever the circumstances in which you spend it, may you be blessed with moments of unbridalled joy and renewed hope for whatever the future holds.