February 2023

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’ 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat...

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built their house on rock (Matthew 7:24)

If I was to ask you “do you speak first or do you listen first” what you would say? Are you someone who must always be heard or do you listen first in order to respond appropriately? Recently I listened to radio 3 when they referred to a programme entitled “Deep Listening”. Tom Service was to explore deep listening, a practice created by composer Pauline Oliveros to train performers to listen better and respond...

Epiphany VI 2023 Year A

A rather hard Gospel to hear this morning as Jesus seems to be telling his disciples and followers that if they follow him they have to be very strict with themselves and each other. That they have to go beyond the injunctions of the 10 commandments. It all sounds very difficult to conform to. Yet, what I think Jesus is doing is encouraging his followers to lead lives of integrity and honesty. Not to say one thing and do another  but to try and live lives that respect other people and to treat others with...

Many years ago, when I was training to be a teacher, we were told by our Educational Psychology lecturer that if we wished to give effective feedback to children, we should never follow up a positive comment by using the word “but” because if we did, then the pupil would forget the positive comment and focus entirely on what came after the word “but”.

I remembered that piece of advice when I read the first verse of today’s Gospel. Jesus tells his disciples:

"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its...