Christianity
The sin of empathy
09/04/25 08:54
In a world of constant bad news, it takes a lot to shock me. But I was shocked yesterday. Read this Guardian article and you will understand why. Read More…
Trans and religious
05/04/25 18:28
Two of the biggest influences on my life have been my developing sense of trans identity and my religious faith. So this is by way of a combined autobiography… Read More…
Pride of St James's
19/03/25 16:56
Yesterday I returned to St Pancras Euston Road for the regular Tuesday evening Sanctuary Eucharist offered by St James’s Piccadilly. Once again, the service was moving and restorative. The evening was a step forward for Ariane – not only because of the service, but also through what happened afterwards. Read More…
Two churches, one journey
05/03/25 18:33
After months of standing still, Ariane is on the move again. My focus now is on church life. I want Ariane to integrate herself fully in the churches that mean something to her. Yesterday I made progress in two of these. Read More…
Chichester Cathedral
23/02/25 18:58
I visited Chichester Cathedral earlier this month, at the end of a day's walking in the South Downs. Like other cathedrals, it is not only a place of worship but also a tourist attraction. It contains some artistic treasures which illuminate its Christian essence. So this is my takeaway from the visit. Read More…
All Hallows Leeds
27/10/24 14:47
All Hallows church in Leeds is one of the most inclusive churches I have ever attended. The congregation is gender-diverse and absolutely anyone is welcome. I went as Ariane and felt completely at home. Read More…
At the still point
15/10/24 16:41
I have reached a crossroads. I have accepted Ariane into my life and integrated her with my faith. So I have become a whole person for the first time. The wounds of the past are healing. Now I want to define myself in Christian terms looking forward. What really matters to me and how can I be most effective? Read More…
The Four Loves
08/10/24 14:52
CS Lewis is best known as the author of the Narnia series of books, but he also wrote many works of Christian apologetics which are classics in their own right. The Four Loves, published in 1960, is one of these. He analyses three natural loves and one divine love – Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity. His overall theme is that the first three are good in themselves but are liable to go wrong unless sanctified by the fourth. I want to summarise his main points and offer some thoughts of my own. Read More…
Hidden in plain sight
25/08/24 20:02
Today the two of us attended divine worship at St Paul’s, Kinlochleven, in the heart of the Western Highlands. This parish is in the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles, in the Scottish Episcopal Church. I think this was our episcopalian debut in Scotland. On previous family holidays, years ago, we attended services at the Church of Scotland. I’m not sure we had a theological reason for doing so (we are not Reformed or Presbyterian). It was just that the local church tended to be a Church of Scotland church in the places where we used to go on holiday. Read More…
Love and hate
10/08/24 10:47
If you live in a democratic society, and the governing body makes a decision that you don’t like, what can you do? There are various options:
(1) You can accept it, while seeking protection for your own views.
(2) You can protest the decision and seek it to change it through argument and persuasion.
(3) You can reject it and throw your toys out of the pram.
(4) You can leave the jurisdiction and move to some other place where the decisions are more to your liking.
Which course do you think has recently been taken by a prominent Anglican church and its associates? Read More…
(1) You can accept it, while seeking protection for your own views.
(2) You can protest the decision and seek it to change it through argument and persuasion.
(3) You can reject it and throw your toys out of the pram.
(4) You can leave the jurisdiction and move to some other place where the decisions are more to your liking.
Which course do you think has recently been taken by a prominent Anglican church and its associates? Read More…
That they may be one
07/08/24 16:38
‘I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me’ – John 17.22–23.
The Bible could not make it clearer. Christians are meant to be united. We should live in harmony with each other. This shows the world the saving love of God which is bestowed on the people of God. And yet – look at what we have done to each other… Read More…
The Bible could not make it clearer. Christians are meant to be united. We should live in harmony with each other. This shows the world the saving love of God which is bestowed on the people of God. And yet – look at what we have done to each other… Read More…
Contemplation 10 – The endgame
28/07/24 23:10
In a game of chess, the endgame is the final stage. Most of the pieces have been exchanged. In the simplicity and clarity of endgame positions, we reach the essence: we see the game as it really is. And so it is in the world of contemplation. In a previous post I wrote of the transition from doing contemplative prayer to becoming contemplative people. In this final post I am looking at some features of the developed stage of the contemplative life. It doesn’t mean this is where I am, only that I have read enough and experienced enough to know what this stage looks like. Read More…
Contemplation 9 – Darkness
21/07/24 22:47
In spiritual terms, light and darkness correspond to the seeming presence and absence of God. There are two kinds of spiritual darkness: man-made and God-given. This post covers both, but mainly the latter. Read More…
Contemplation 8 – Other organisations
08/07/24 07:47
The Julian Meetings is not the only organisation that supports group contemplative prayer. Others include Contemplative Outreach, the Fellowship of Contemplative Prayer, and the World Community for Christian Meditation. I do not have personal experience of these but thought it worth explaining what I have learned about them, and what distinguishes them from each other and from the Julian Meetings. At the end I comment on the nearest thing to a doctrinal difference that you find in the world of contemplative prayer. Read More…
Contemplation 7 – The Julian Meetings
02/07/24 11:16
The Julian Meetings is a national, UK-based organisation which fosters the teaching and practice of contemplative prayer. It works primarily through a network of local groups but its resources are available to individuals also. This is the only contemplative prayer organisation of which I have direct first-hand knowledge. JM, as it’s known for short, has been part of my life, in and out, for almost 30 years. So this post is all about the Julian Meetings then and now, and my interaction with it, and why it continues to be relevant in a changing world. Read More…
Contemplation 6 – From singular to plural
22/06/24 10:44
When I first started to pray contemplatively, in the 1990s, I did so on my own. It was my discovery and my response. It did not take long for me to realise that other people were praying in the same way. Not only that, they were praying in the same way as each other, at the same time, and in the same place. So this post is all about the group experience of contemplative prayer. How does it work, what are its benefits, what does it say about our life in community? Read More…
Contemplation 5 – The ethical life
22/06/24 06:39
In an earlier post I drew attention to the close connection between prayer and life. Prayer changes us: we live differently. What does this mean in practice? What sort of people do we become when we pray? Is contemplation unique? Read More…
Only connect
17/06/24 23:30
‘Only connect’ is the epigraph at the start of EM Forster’s novel Howard’s End. In the novel its primary meaning is that we need to connect the head and the heart – ‘the prose and the passion’ – in order to become unified human beings. A secondary meaning is that we should put our greatest energy into personal relationships. Our deep connections with other people are what make our lives significant. But I want to focus on a third meaning which has nothing to do with the novel. This is the capacity of the human mind to see connections and patterns between things which appear very different. So in this post: what connects the contemplative life, the Christian writer CS Lewis, and the attitude of the Church of England to matters of gender and sexuality? Read More…
Informal invisible
16/06/24 15:36
And now for something completely different. This lunchtime I went to a disused church building hidden inside a wood. I joined a small and diverse congregation who had come together by word of mouth for the sole purpose of praising and worshipping God. It brought back vague memories of similar experiences in other places but felt altogether fresh and new. It was as unAnglican as you could possibly imagine. Read More…
Contemplation 4 – Always and everywhere
14/06/24 20:55
If we are faithful in the practice of contemplation – if it becomes part of our life on a daily basis – then a number of changes will take place inside us. These are the fruits of prayer. They are not the direct result of anything we do. Instead this is the work of God, responding to us opening ourselves to him. So: what happens when we pray like this? Read More…
Contemplation 3 – Distractions
12/06/24 21:05
One of the main themes of contemplation is stillness – moving from stillness of body to stillness of mind and eventually stillness of heart. But in practice, many people experience something quite different. As soon as they try to be quiet before God, distracting thoughts and emotions fill their mind and take away their focus. Why does this happen? What does it say about our prayer? And what can we do about it? Read More…
Contemplation 2 – Basics
10/06/24 05:47
Those who are new to this kind of prayer might ask some basic questions. What do I do? For how long? When and where? What actually happens? There are no right and wrong answers. I can only speak from my experience and from what I have read. Read More…
Christian walking
09/06/24 21:29
A walk in the countryside is full of surprises. There is always something new to see – or discover. And so it proved today, on this 8-mile rolling route linking Gomshall with Abinger Common and Sutton Abinger. Read More…
Contemplation 1 – Introduction
07/06/24 01:05
Contemplative prayer is sometimes known as Christian meditation, or waiting on God in the silence. It is a form of prayer in which we open ourselves to God and seek to remain in his presence without words. We do not have to do anything. Instead it is God who does all the work, within us, in ways too deep to comprehend. Read More…
Home is where the heart is
05/06/24 10:56
For such a long time I have wanted to unite my faith and my sense of who I am. Now I have found the gold at the end of the rainbow. Read More…
The Anglican Church in Berlin
26/05/24 22:32
As this is Sunday, my first priority was to attend divine worship, ideally at an English-language church. Enter the Anglican Church in Berlin, one of around a dozen Anglican churches in Germany. Read More…
Tourism with a spiritual dimension
25/05/24 18:26
The best way to explore a city on foot. So that's what we did today, though not all in one group. I walked 10 miles on a circuit from west to east and back again, taking in a number of sights I wanted to see and experiencing others I did not expect. Amid all this, the spiritual ran like a thread. This post is about the spiritual side of the tourist day. Read More…
Sunday morning
22/05/24 04:06
What do you do on a Sunday morning? If you’re the Velvet Underground, really not very much. Their song tells of a quiet day with lots of time to think, looking back, a sense of regret for the past:
Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you
Who will call
It's nothing at all…
Alternatively, you could go to church, and open yourself to whatever the day might bring. Read More…
Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you
Who will call
It's nothing at all…
Alternatively, you could go to church, and open yourself to whatever the day might bring. Read More…