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Many may question the wisdom of Prince Harry’s very public baring of his soul in recent weeks. But no one can deny the emotional agony he’s been through. In his latest interview he confessed to drinking a week’s worth of alcohol in one night in order to stop feeling the feelings that had become so overwhelming. This is a well-worn path down which many have travelled. I’ve travelled it myself. The...

Michelangelo’s final sculpture remains unfinished. It depicts the moment when Jesus’s body is taken down from the cross and falls into the arms of his mother. At some point, however, Michelangelo had a change of heart about how to depict Christ. An original strong right arm remains visible, but he has cut deeper into the marble and begun carving a weaker more broken figure. For some the unfinished...

As Gary Lineker knows only too well sometimes its best just to wait and see. In 2015 his beloved Leicester City Football Club began their season with no one expecting them to win. But when they reached the top of the table, an excited Lineker vowed that if they won, he would present Match of the Day in his underwear. They did win and he did indeed present the show in his boxers. Perhaps not surpri...

Forty days after His resurrection the Gospels record that Jesus ‘ascended into heaven’.  But where exactly did he go? In the early 1960’s it was widely, but inaccurately, reported that the first Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, had said ‘I flew into space but didn’t see God.’   It seemed to make sense from the standpoint of atheistic materialism – if there is a God then, where...

When Halima Cissé fell pregnant she and her husband Kader were delighted at the prospect of another child as a brother or sister for their existing daughter. So, imagine their surprise when they discovered that she was not expecting just one baby, and not even two or three, but nine. Commenting on his wife’s spectacular fertility Kader said, ‘God gave us these children. He is the one to decide wha...

There are some things in life which seem terribly unimportant… until they aren’t. Like the bolts I found at the back of a cupboard when we were moving house and threw away… only to discover that they were the transit bolts for the washing machine. Or the Christian doctrine of the Trinity – one God revealed as three persons, Father, Son and Spirit – which also seemed terribly unimportant… &nbs...

Where would we be without people like Superintendent Ted Hastings and his single-minded devotion to the law? Over six compelling seasons of the BBC drama, Line of Duty, we’ve become familiar with his mantra, ‘I’m interested in one thing, and one thing only, and that’s bent coppers’. Of course, it’s a work of fiction but the real world is similarly blessed with those with a dogged determination to...

For most of us parking at the supermarket is a means to an end. We need to get our food shop home and putting it in the car is the easiest way to do it. But for one man, Gareth Wild, the parking became almost an end it itself. To liven up his shopping trips he decided to try parking in a different spot every time. This was no mean feat as his local supermarket had 211 available spots. But after si...

Graffiti artist JonOne was upset to discover that his work of art had been vandalised. Painted before a live audience in Seoul in 2016 the piece covers a large wall with a vibrant and striking pattern of colours. Integral to the artwork were the paints and brushes JonOne had used which were left lying on the floor. Sadly for him a couple visiting the gallery assumed this was an open invitation to...

It has often been observed that football is like a religion. Fans follow clubs with adoration verging on worship and make great sacrifices of time and money to do so. So, no surprise then that the shock announcement of a new European Super League produced such a frenzied and furious response. People who interfere with things regarded as sacred do so at their peril! Bill Shankly, the former manager...

With head bowed and heart broken the Queen cut a lonely figure at the funeral of her beloved husband, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. On a similar occasion the Bible tells us that Jesus was ‘deeply moved in spirit and troubled’ at the grief of a woman mourning the loss of her brother. As he shared her sorrow it is simply recorded ‘Jesus wept’. But Jesus’s compassion for his friend was not because death...

In his latest documentary David Attenborough gives a sobering assessment of our impact on the natural world. Human beings, he says, are ‘intruders’ and that the natural world would do much better if we weren’t here at all. Sadly, it’s not a new observation. In 2003 Bill Bryson wrote in his book ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’: ‘if you were designing an organism to look after life… you would...

Following the death of His Royal Highness, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the UK and the nations of the Commonwealth are in a period of mourning. The focus for this sense of grief is of course the Queen herself who has lost the love of her life after 73 years of marriage. It is certain that at 3pm on Saturday 17 th  April she and her family will attend Philip’s funeral and say their goodbyes. It...

Sitting in the comfort of my home while I fill out the 2011 census, I’m feeling very grateful not to have lived two thousand years ago and conscious that the record of my details will have a less dramatic effect on world history than another entry made then. Luke’s Gospel tells us that when Mary was pregnant with the baby Jesus, Caesar Augustus decided to take a census of the ‘entire Roman world’....

The UK has recently passed the grim milestone of 125,000 deaths from Covid19. Every life lost was sacred and precious and each passing has been mourned. But during the same period approximately twice that number of babies have been lost through abortion. Every one of those lives was sacred and precious and known to God. The Bible reminds us that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without God k...

On 13 th  October 2020 Dr Fabio Grandas was flying from St Marta to Guaymaral airport in Colombia. On board the light aircraft were his wife Mayerly, their baby Martin and his nanny. Tragically the aircraft plunged out of the sky and into the ground. Rescue workers were quickly on the scene and to their dismay found that the adults had perished in the crash. But remarkably baby Martin was ali...

This week nineteen-year-old ‘Angel’ was shot dead on the streets of Mandalay. She had been protesting against the military coup that has once again plunged the nation of Myanmar into crisis. The T-shirt she had chosen to wear that day boldly declared ‘Everything will be OK’. Tragically for her everything was not OK. But her T-shirt was an expression of a wider hope for the future of her country an...

First there was Mr Potato Head. Then Mrs Potato Head. And now gender-neutral Potato Head! It’s a sure sign that we no longer think of our identity as something that we are born with. Rather we see ourselves as a blank canvas upon which we can create whoever we feel ourselves to be. But perhaps in this rush to self-identify we’ve missed something.  When Jesus was baptised God spoke to him from...

The story is told of a father who gave his daughter an old car as a graduation present. Before handing over the keys for good he instructed her to have it valued at a used car dealership, a pawn shop and a classic car club. The used car dealership offered her £1,000 because it looked very tired. The pawn shop offered just £100 because of its age. But the classic car club offered her £100,000 becau...

In an iconic scene from the film, Crocodile Dundee is walking through New York city with his girlfriend. Suddenly a mugger steps out with a knife demanding his wallet. Dundee looks at the knife and says, ‘that’s not a knife.’ Then he pulls out an enormous Bowie knife and says, ‘that’s a knife!’ The mugger realises how puny his knife is in comparison with Dundee’s and runs off. It just goes to show...

Here’s a thought for those of you who celebrated Valentine’s Day with a loved one – do the cards and gifts you received prove that you are loved? The short answer is no they don’t, because love is impossible to prove. All the cards, flowers and chocolates in the world can only ever provide you with evidence. So, do you have enough evidence to convince you beyond reasonable doubt that you are loved...

A survey of 18 – 24-year olds revealed that a quarter thought marriage should be a temporary arrangement much like a mobile phone contract. It shows that like so many ‘traditional values’ the idea of lifelong commitment is increasingly seen as unrealistic. Our consumer culture which encourages us to regularly upgrade to the latest model has finally affected the way we view relationships. Perhaps w...

Captivated by the personality of a lady he knew only from the comments she had written in the margin of a book, John Blanchard tracked her down and asked to meet. But before they could do so he was sent off to war. For twelve months they wrote to each other, but she refused to send a photo. Finally, they arranged to meet at Grand Central Station in New York. He would recognise her because she woul...

In the 1940s a professor of theology took his students on a tour of English sites of theological significance. Included on the tour was the home of John Wesley the founder of Methodism and a pivotal figure in the 18 th century revival that swept through England and North America. At the end of the tour the professor realised that one of his students was not on the bus. Returning to the house he fo...

For decades the border between the Republic of Ireland and the North was the focus for a bitterly divided community. All that came to end with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Checkpoints came down and the bitter divisions started to heal. Preventing a return to a hard border, therefore, was a key issue during Brexit. So no wonder fury erupted when the EU attempted to impose border checks...