Prayers from the Manse

08/04/2021

"We need to hear what is so often the question that’s really being asked when people say, ‘How do you know?’ And perhaps the only response that is fully adequate, fully in tune with the biblical witness to the resurrection is to say simply, ‘Are you hungry? Here is food.’" (Rowan Williams) I continue to encounter the risen Christ in the lives and communities of faith around me. He's Risen Indeed!

25/03/2021

37 years ago an old wise minister was chairing a meeting I was in. A controversy arose and he commented "I have lead churches now for 40 years, I don't know many things but, I certainly know how to run a church." Now that I have led churches for 40 years I continue to discover that there are so many things I don't know. If this year has taught me anything it is that circumstances and culture are constantly in flux and the church must always be relying on the Holy Spirit and community of faith to learn and change. Thanksfully God's love does not change!

20/03/2021

"We are called back to discover the grace of God amid the moral and material complexities of being human in today’s world. Like Jesus looking out from his cross, we look reality in the eye and don’t claim any exemption from the cost of grace and love. We certainly don’t look out in order to claim ownership of the territory from the one on that cross who is there precisely for having given up claims in the interests of love." Bishop Nick Bain
May be this so with the vaccine.

13/03/2021

As you become the Gospel you will have opportunities to speak the Gospel

09/03/2021

Two weeks ago I received a letter with the following facts:
A few days ago, Taxwatch released a report that should have got far more coverage than it did. Their report, Equality before the law?, drew on data supplied by the government to explore the way in which we pursue and prosecute benefit fraud in comparison to tax fraud. Their findings were truly remarkable:
• If you commit benefit fraud, you are 23x more likely to be prosecuted than if you commit tax fraud
• The government employs 3.5x more staff to tackle benefit fraud than tax fraud
• You are 8.5x more likely to receive a custodial sentence for benefit crime than for tax crime
• Yet, tax fraud costs us 9x as much as benefit fraud each year
This call to mind
This calls to mind Leviticus 19:15 “Be fair, no matter who is on trial – don’t favour either the poor or the rich.”
For more information check out facebook.com/churchactionfortaxjustice/

05/03/2021

This week in morning prayers I've been reading Psalm 95-98. Each open with praise and or a call to 'sing to the Lord a new song.' In this time of an absence of corporate singing it has made me think of how we allow our whole lives to be a song of praise. Each of us writing our own unique new stanza to add to the ‘new song to the Lord.’ I pray that God may, in our great diversity, tune our hearts to sing His praise in the wonderful harmony of loving God, our neighbour and all of creation.

02/03/2021

In January I was moved to tears when Amanda Gorman, 22, recited her poem "The Hill We Climb" for President Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021. In her poem she reference Miciah 4:4, saying:
"Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time
then victory won’t lie in the blade
but in all the bridges we’ve made,
that is the promise to glade"

The vision and promise of scripture combined with the hope of youth inspired the dream of God's peace in the world. Here is the link to the poem:

Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old poet, read an original work at President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.After Biden was sworn in as the nation’s 46th presi...

26/02/2021

Who is the Holy Spirit was the topic last night in Alpha. Two people shared different metaphors / images they us to help them to think about the Holy Spirit. 1. I look up to pray to God the Father, God the Son walks beside me through life, and God the Holy Spirit is working within me. 2. God is one as I am one. I am grandmother, mother, and daughter but still one. May we all know the peace, the love, the power, the truth of God within us!

25/02/2021

Lockdown Longings. I long for people. To talk, pray with, worship with, sing with, weep with, laugh with, play with, and even argue with people. I long for people who are now unable to work to find jobs, I long for children and young people to be in school.
I long to long for God even more than all these things. For the deep yearning of growing deeper in God's love and love for neighbour.