· stillpoint ·

  "The soul of man is a candle unto God".  These are the words which are over the door into the memorial for children who died in the Holocaust, part of Yad Vashem near Jerusalem.   As you enter the darkened space their names are heard being read out while you walk along a narrow corridor.  You turn a corner and enter a large space, cave like in its echoing shadows and your breath is taken from you.   In the centre is a column of candles around which are a number of mirrors which reflect the candlelight in all directions.  It’s like stumbling into a galaxy of flickering, living flames.  Indeed the soul of man is a candle unto God.    The emotional impact of the Yad Vashem Children's Memorial is one way of helping us register in a visceral way the appalling reality of what lies behind the numbers and statistics which our minds can only handle in a very muted and almost abstract way.  This week not only have we marked Holocaust Memorial Day but also in the UK we have pass

  "The world is becoming a village" was the phrase a friend used just a couple of days ago in a book she had contributed to.   She was referring to the impact of Covid 19 and how our lives (and deaths) are linked in a way they weren't previously.  The book came out in June and had not taken account of the way that vaccine roll out around the world is very uneven- some bits of the "village" are definitely better off than others!  The phrase still rings true for me though and particularly in some of the lines from Amanda Gorman's poem for President Biden's inauguration. Let me adapt some of them a little and replace the word nation with world.  For example: Somehow we've weathered and witnessed a world that isn't broken, but simply unfinished . To compose a world committed to all cultures, colours, characters and conditions of man.  And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us.  We close the divide because we kno

   Life seems to always keep me just off balance.   there is always another side to every argument  there are always loose ends in life and in faith  circumstances are continually changing  I as a person am changing  any point of view is only ever a partial one  Jesus is not too interested in my comfort zone.  the big questions of life force us to embrace paradox  the truth often isn't in the middle but at both ends  the bible has awkward yet compelling verses    God is full of surprises   And so on and so on.... I feel the power of different compelling truths, I am knocked off balance again by someone I meet, a conversation I have, something that happens to me, or more often than not something I read.   It keeps me from the kind of self confidence that can so easily morph into hubris, from being too set in my ways and from presuming to know more than I really do.  Also to be open to the unexpected, to follow the truth wherever it leads and of course find signs of God in the most u

  We have just celebrated Epiphany when we remember the coming of the wise men to the infant Jesus (probably a toddler by that time).    For the church this represents the unveiling (Epiphany or ‘a ha’ moment) of the light of the love of God for the whole world and not just the Jewish people.   The images usually seen in cards and nativity scenes are of the wise men kneeling or bowing and offering their gifts to this baby born into a very humble and poor family.   This was the One who came to bring ‘peace on earth’. It is tragic therefore that on the evening of Epiphany here, but midway through the day in the US, we had the crowd storm the Capitol building after inflammatory speeches by President Trump and others.    There are deep grievances among elements of US society, like any nation, of feeling left behind by global social and economic changes and they are afraid of what a Democrat Administration may mean for them and their values and livelihood.   They feel threatened, and ar