‘Find me where the wild things are’, sings Alessia Cara, rejecting a culture of image-obsession and social pressure. She is perhaps referencing the 60’s book in which a child goes off on a gleeful adventure ‘Where the Wild Things Are‘. In any case, this idea of wildness is infectious, borrowing from the natural world a sense of freedom…
Category: Reflections
Small Things: White
If yellow is the colour of optimism and warmth, white is the shade of eternity and light. White denotes goodness, peace and strength. The white lights of the moon and stars bring magic to our nights. All of the best heroes and heroines – they of great power against evil – are clad in white….
Light & Small Things
I’m not sure if it’s depression I’ve got, or just disappointment or grief. Whatever it is, it makes getting up even harder work than it usually is. It is also the reason I only swam half the lengths I usually do on Monday, and the cause of my sudden inadequacy at making conversation. The days can be…
What Jesus Prayed for Us
Our pastor used a quote on Sunday, something about knowing a person by their prayers. And that is true, isn’t it? Our deepest longings and the things we are able to bring before God in the private space of our hearts – these show who we are, reveal our passions and motivations, perhaps our fears…
On Rest
Rest is what I need at the moment, or so I’m told. But what is rest? For so many of us, rest can be elusive or even a little frightening. And often the things we think are restful leave us more drained, more weary. Somewhat counter-intuitively, times of grief and illness can be the seasons…
Tied Up with a Bow
Increasingly, I like my blog posts and articles to be as perfectly, poetically structured as I can make them, rounded off with a nice, profound encouragement. I’m not the only one who likes a happy ending. As Ruth Soukup points out in this article for Ann Voskamp’s website, we often want our stories of struggle to…
On Daydreaming
Forget colouring books and yoga. What happened to the practice of good old-fashioned daydreaming? We all remember times at school when the teacher’s voice became no more than background noise to our own imaginings and wonderings, when we doodled idly or gazed out of windows and thought of anything and nothing. Lately, I’ve been re-finding…
Easter
If you’ve read much of my blog, you’ll know that I’m a Christian. But I hope that my posts – even the ones explicitly about my faith – are accessible to everyone, whatever backgrounds and beliefs they have. There are so many things that are universal to us as humans, which cross cultural and religious…
On Post
Don’t you love getting post? Not the kind that pings onto a screen, the real kind, that surprises you as it drops through the letterbox, the kind that you can hold in your hand. I recently had surgery, and suddenly was blessed with a flurry of post: cards, flowers, clothes, books and of course, plenty…
Praise for (Small Things)
Praise for the crescent moon that hung low in the blanket-dark sky. Praise for the first warmth of Spring and a chair on a beach, Praise for the families that clambered across sand and rocks, jumpers and blankets piled up, dogs and children never still, like the breeze. Praise for the abandoned sandcastle, shell on…
My Prayer for this Year
At the beginning of the year, I wrote about my hopes and prayers for it, about what I wanted to learn and how I wanted to live in 2016. You can read the full post here. I wrote: … I’ve been thinking about how there’s always something new going on, inside us and around us. I’ve…
Coffee
The other day I found a great blog on the website of Christian charity, Compassion UK. The blog shows people and communities in some of the countries they work in and some of the issues they face in a very positive, uplifting way. I loved the video (here) of the Ethiopian coffee ritual, and it…
Life Lived 