Turn the Page

Some years ago a famous Christian speaker was invited to preach at a Baptist Church in northern China. For seventy years the church had endured unrelenting discrimination and persecution. They had been forbidden to have regular jobs, their schools and universities taught militant atheism, and they were constantly attacked for their faith. But despite all this the church had not only survived but g...

This week a lost sheep walked down the lane past my house. I knew it was lost because it was on its own and I knew that wasn’t right – sheep are generally supposed to be with others in a field eating grass. Also, not long after the sheep went past someone came running after it! This incident reminded me of why in the Bible we are referred to as sheep and God as a shepherd. Sheep are pretty stupid....

Right about now James Howells must be wishing he could buy Newport Council’s landfill site. In 2009 he bought some bitcoins and stored them on his laptop’s hard drive. The coins quickly forgotten and in time he threw the hard drive away. But then the value of bitcoins surged and by 2017 he realised the hard drive was worth £125m. Sadly it was also buried deep in the landfill site under tonnes of o...

As Covid infections in the UK start to show a slight fall, government scientists have warned that deaths will continue to rise as they are already ‘baked in’. The coming weeks will see us pay the price for our social-mixing over Christmas, as infection turns to disease. The deaths are ‘baked in’ and there’s nothing we can do about it. Hearing the phrase has got me thinking about things that might...

Like many others I’m enjoying David Attenborough’s new series ‘Perfect Planet’. Once again, I’m in wonder at the natural world and how finely balanced are the conditions that allow life on earth to exist at all. How these conditions came to be, of course, is a question of debate – was it by chance or was it by design? I’m reminded of a friend of mine who was travelling by train and fell into...

According to the ancient Greek myth, a curious Pandora opened a box letting out turmoil, strife, hatred and other evils. Too late she realises that there’s no way to put them back in, but then discovers hope lying at the bottom of the box. In 2016 Donald Trump opened a Pandora’s box in order to win popular support and the race to the White House. Along the way he stirred up turmoil, strife, and ha...

Together with pandemic, lockdown and unprecedented, ‘you’re on mute’ is one of many words and phrases with which we’re now all too familiar. A year ago most of us had never heard of Zoom. Now we regularly stare at a screen trying to lip-read, hoping that whoever’s speaking will realise we can’t hear them before they have said too much.  But it’s not just each other’s voices we can’t hear. Whe...

In 2014 George Clooney wanted to give a gift to 14 of his closest friends who had supported him over the years. So he decided to invite them to dinner and surprise them each with a suitcase stuffed with $1 million in $20 bills. But where on earth could he find that amount of cash and get it safely back to his house? Amazingly he found a warehouse in LA storing cash and bought an old van that said...

Unlike his predecessors Donald Trump is finding it rather difficult to concede defeat. On election night itself he declared himself the victor when that was still far from certain and in the days following has insisted the election has been stolen. It just goes to show how hard it can be giving up positions of power and handing over to someone else. While we wait and hope for a gracious concession...

In the spring of 1994 Teresa Salvato took her violin to the music store to have it tuned. The violin had been given to her by her husband whose aunt had given it to him when he was a child. She’d found it lying in the street in 1967 and not being a violin player, passed it on to her nephew. None of them had any idea where it had come from or what it might be worth. That was all about to change. Th...

As the number of first-hand witnesses grows smaller with each passing year, we do well to remember the words of the poet Steve Turner: History repeats itself. Has to. No one listens. When the guns fell silent on the Western Front in 1918 it was thought to be the ‘war to end all wars.’ It wasn’t. Within a generation the world was once again plunged into conflict. And while we’ve since voided anothe...

In a move that will come as a huge relief to many the UK government has relented on its decision to ban the sale of take-away alcohol during lockdown. A relieved chairman of the Campaign for Real Ale said that he was ‘delighted’ at the change of heart that would avoid pubs having to pour away thousands of gallons of beer. No doubt it will prove a lifeline to many businesses that are fighting to st...

Once again France is reeling from terrorist attacks and the tragic loss of yet more lives. And once again President Macron has asserted that the values of the Republic, including the right to free speech will never be surrendered. He’s a fierce proponent of the idea that religions should be allowed to co-exist under the protective umbrella of a secular state. But hang on a minute, where did the se...

It’s easy to think that being a follower of Jesus is a serious business. I well remember as a child my mum warning me that the new vicar might ask for my name when I went up for a blessing during communion. From her Strict Baptist upbringing this was clearly outrageous informality and she advised me not to play ball. Sure enough as I knelt at the rail the question came, and being an obedient child...

Researching your family history can be a fascinating, if sometimes unsettling, experience. We love to discover where we’ve come from, hence the success of the TV series ‘Who do you think you are?’. In a recent episode Jodie Whitaker was rather embarrassed to discover that her Yorkshire forebears had been mine owners who kept their pits open during the general strikes of 1921 and 1926, making a tid...

Running a marathon is gruelling enough at the best of times. So, spare a thought for Sally Orange who ran one 1000 feet below ground in a North Yorkshire mine. She ran in order to raise awareness of World Mental Health Day, and the run was called ‘Beneath the Surface’ because with mental health you can’t see what’s going on in someone else’s mind. Anyone who has suffered with depression will be ab...

As a second wave of Covid19 sweeps across the UK despair and frustration for many is growing. It can feel as if the very foundations on which we’ve built our security and identity are being stripped away. Sometimes in our desperation we reach out to things that we think might help, only to find that they sink with us. So, what are we to do? Well one of the great figures from the Old Testament, Kin...

I am praying for Donald Trump. Politics aside he is a precious human being made in the image of God. He has family and friends who love him dearly and who would be grief-stricken if his life were to come to an end. But his somewhat cavalier attitude toward Covid19 serves as a reminder that like it or not deadly diseases are just that. They are no respecter of persons and we ignore them at our peri...

With the US Presidential election nearly upon us, Donald Trump’s tax returns have finally seen the light of day. On the surface it would appear that he hasn’t paid quite as much tax as would have been expected from one so wealthy. But I’m no accountant so I hesitate to pass judgement. It does, however, raise a question for all of us over whether we can put our hands on our hearts and say that we h...

Being a university student in 2020 isn’t turning out to be much fun. With thousands already in lockdown and the spectre of not being able to return home for Christmas, many must be wishing they had stayed at home. This isn’t the exciting start to a new life of freedom that they envisaged when they filled in their application forms. It’s all turning out to be rather more costly than they might have...

According to St Paul Jesus once said that ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’. Without doubt they are words taken to heart by philanthropist Chuck Feeney. This may be because he heard them during his school days at St Mary of the Assumption High School in New Jersey where he grew up. Joint founder of the Duty Free Shoppers Group Feeney became fabulously wealthy, earning millions of dollar...

In the last week my two youngest kids have moved away from home. So, I’m feeling again the pain and loss that comes with being separated from those we love. Thousands of parents across the country are experiencing similar feelings as children leave home for the first time to go to university. But imagine how much more painful it is when a child turns their back on their family and walks away. How...

Driving home from dropping my son in Manchester I was expecting an easy journey home. But then I drove past a sign that read ‘M25 closed at Junction 15’. Since this was the way I was going this was clearly a problem, and there was no obvious alternative. But I kept going trusting that at some point a solution would present itself. Sure enough when I got nearer a diversion appeared that took me rou...

Lots of people assume that the God of the Bible is always angry and vengeful. No wonder they don’t believe in him. The problem is that we think he gets angry like us. Like the time I had 15 minutes before the start of the service and was desperately trying to get three small children dressed and out the door. When a last-minute request for them to go to the loo was met with a flat refusal, I explo...

I recently sent a gift to a friend. I was able to track the delivery as the van made it way around the town where my friend lives. But while I could see where the van was, I couldn’t control what the driver did. For all I knew they might decide to chuck a load of the parcels in a hedge and go home early! But then I suppose they would have got into trouble. In a similar way the Bible says that God...