Advent: a speed awareness season

Quite a few years ago I attended a speed awareness course. I was late. Leaving too little time for the journey, I pre-empted the theme of the day – speeding has serious consequences for lives. The police had kindly given me the option of a fine and a further three point addition to my license or a more attractive option of attending a speed awareness course which would nullify the points. I had decided to take the medicine and made the arrangements to attend the course. Continue reading “Advent: a speed awareness season”

Ecce homo

This is the season when we are very much concerned with time.  We are constantly reminded of our limited time thanks to the early fall of darkness each day.  But at this time in the churches year we are also reminded of time in terms of our human mortality.  So we are taken up with remembering during the festivals of this season which include All Saints’, All Souls’, and Remembrance Sunday when we commemorate the dead.  This is the Kingdom Season – and time is a key component of it, and especially that mysterious space between our time and God’s time, the space between earth and heaven. Continue reading “Ecce homo”

A pale blue dot

In this season of remembering many of us are looking at our lives and the world with a greater degree of perspective. This is the time of year when we literally re-member by gathering up the scattered associations of lives past and present. Through the celebrations and commemorations of All Saints’, All Souls’, Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, we are challenged to focus on the human and divine aspects of God’s creation in terms of our family, our society and our nationhood. Continue reading “A pale blue dot”