Friends – Page 2 – Journeys of Heart and Mind

Blast from the past… 5

Do things when you can. Don’t wait, don’t hesitate, who knows what tomorrow might bring…

Notes from bygone years – A load of Aprils

A year ago

I didn’t post an article in April 2022, but Donna and I visited Weston-super-Mare and I spotted this fruit and vegetable shop in one of the back streets. There were strawberries here, but they’re not in season; there were pineapples but those don’t grow in the UK; there were pears that should be ready to pick in September or October. Almost nothing in this shop was grown locally. Why?

It’s lovely to have choices like this, but they come at a cost to the environment that we usually overlook. The solution lies in my pocket and yours; we should try to buy locally produced fruit and vegetables that are within a few weeks of being in season.

Two years ago

No blog posts in April 2021 either, but on 4th April the weather was warm and bright and we enjoyed eating outside for the first time in 2021.

But oh my word, look at the same table just three days later. Snow! The moral of this little story is plain, do things while you can. Don’t wait, don’t hesitate, who knows what tomorrow might bring…

Five years ago

In April 2018 I had a bit of a rant about rescuing Britain from the dreadful mess it seemed to be in. I grumbled about the effects of Brexit, about poverty, the underfunded health service, an underfunded education system, the need for food-banks, the excessive cost of homes.

Read the article. Let me know if you think things have improved in the last five years.

Ten years ago

In April 2013 I wrote about ‘Men, women and children‘. The topic really was leadership, and I stand by all I wrote at that time.

Can men lead in church? How about women, are they allowed to lead? And what about children? Perhaps it depends who you ask, there are different opinions and different traditions.

Read my post from ten years ago and let me know what your views are.

Fifteen years ago

There was no article in April 2008. However, we had a holiday in Catalonia and visited Barcelona where we took a look at the famous Sagrada Familia with its amazing ‘biological’ shapes. What an astonishing place it it!

To learn more about this wonderful feat of design and engineering by the architect Antoni Gaudi, read the Wikipedia article.

Twenty years ago

In April 2003, I wrote about a meeting at home. Father spoke to us about leadership, coincidentally I drew on what I’d learned in this meeting when I wrote the article mentioned in the ‘Ten years ago’ section above!

We are weak, like freshly poured concrete; but Jesus is patient and knows we will become strong enough for the task he’s given us.

Twenty-five years ago

In April 1998, Donna and I were on our way home from our honeymoon in Florida, and I began a new job at Unilever’s Colworth Laboratory north of Bedford.

Thirty years ago

In April 1995 my first wife, Judy, was recovering from failed chemotherapy for bowel cancer metastases. Clearly this was not a great situation, but she was fitter than she had been since before her operation to remove the primary tumour. We began meeting again at home with friends in Yatton, near Bristol, where we lived. These were by far the best meetings with friends in Jesus’ presence that any of us had ever experienced. Awesome and hard to describe adequately.

Erm… I can’t count! That was not thirty years ago, it was twenty-eight years ago! Ah well, I’ll let it stand.

Thirty years ago

I’ll try again! In April 1993 Judy and I were living in Yatton with our daughters, and my Mum and Dad visited us on 15th. We drove into Bristol and looked around the covered market and The Galleries shopping centre.

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Season’s Greetings 2022

I hope 2023 will be a year to look forward to. As this year closes and the new one arrives, my hope, wish, and prayer for you is that grace and blessing will fill your life.

Wow, it’s that time of year again, somehow it feels like a few months since I last chose a photo to share for this occasion. This year’s image shows winter catkins covered by crystals of hoar frost. What can this photo say to us?

Crystals of hoar frost on catkins – (Download the original photo)

More and more, the UK is a rich mix of people from many cultural backgrounds. That’s why the title is not ‘Christmas Greetings’. Please accept the greetings and replace the word ‘Season’ with whatever you like. If you’re Hindu you could choose ‘Divali’ as a reminder of your celebrations in October, or Jewish friends might go with ‘Hannukah’ in December. If you’re Muslim there’s no particular celebration for winter 2022; perhaps you could take my greetings as a blessing for the whole of next year – spring, summer, autumn and winter again. Buddhists have two festivals in January. And there are more groups of people I haven’t mentioned specifically. An exhaustive list would be – exhausting!

But whoever you are and whatever you celebrate, I want to bless you with a few words and with the picture of hoar frost. What can that picture say to us?

It should remind us that life is full of seasons, and wintertime in the UK can be cold, especially January and February. This year will be especially hard for some because of rising prices, rarely matched by rising incomes. Heating this winter will be costly and there will be too many who simply won’t be able to keep their home cosy. And then there are those with no home at all.

And what about Ukraine and other war-torn places? In Ukraine the winters can be harsh with the coldest days often reaching -5°C, and sometimes -10°C or -20°C. Now imagine (if you can) living at those temperatures in an unheated house with broken windows, no electrical power, no internet, and no water supply. Although national and local government and company teams reconnect all these services as quickly and widely as possible, repairs are often taken down again by the next Russian air strike.

So my message this winter is that we should all help those around us. Talk with lonely people, provide some dried or canned food to your local food bank, donate warm clothes you no longer need, perhaps to a charity shop. If you can afford a gift of money, choose a charity that will use your donation wisely and effectively.

The picture also reminds us that even cold weather can be beautiful. Those frost crystals look like jewellery! And as the days start to lengthen again, the temperature will rise, plants will start to bud and flower, birds will build their nests, and the promise of summer weather will be just around the corner. Of course, for those of you in the southern hemisphere all this will be back-to-front. For you, spring is already turning into summer and you can look forward to autumn colours in March and April. For all of us, now will become yesterday, a week ago, a month ago; and tomorrow will become today.

So whoever you are, whatever faith you have (or none), I hope 2023 will be a year to look forward to. As this year closes and the new one arrives, my hope, wish, and prayer for you is that grace and blessing will fill your life in ways hoped for and ways unexpected.

Let’s all be grateful for what we have, and display compassion and love towards those who don’t. In that way, blessing will have a chance to touch you, and through you, touch others as well.

Other years

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

A new Christmas song

This is a family song, it’s about gathering round and spending time with the people we love most. Enjoy it!

While we’re on the Christmas theme I thought I’d post another song from Sarah Reynolds. It’s quite delightful and, in a lovely way, rather old fashioned. Scroll down, have a listen, and see what you think.

This song is quite different from Sarah’s other material, I suspect it was far more spontaneous. It’s a thoughtful song. She doesn’t accompany the words with one of her usual, excellent, multi-track compositions but with a pretty melody on the piano, and there’s a gentle, relaxed rhythm throughout. The video doesn’t provide the lyrics, but Sarah’s voice is clear enough and written words are not neccesary. The graphic is suggestive of a Christmas card from past decades, well-matched to the music and the choice of piano. The whole thing breathes close family enjoying the season together, burning logs in the grate, home made mince pies, warmth indoors with cold weather outside the house.

This is a family song, it’s about gathering round and spending time with the people we love most. Enjoy it, give it a like on YouTube, Spotify, and Facebook. Go on… you know you want to!

And wherever you may be, gather with your family and friends if you can, and enjoy Christmas and New Year together.

Christmas and New Year 2021

It’s good to be out and about to see it all and just as good to get back to a warm house.

Season’s greetings to all my readers! Cirencester is showing off its tasteful street decorations once again, the days are short, the nights are long, and it’s good to be out and about to see it all and just as good to get back to a warm house afterwards.

My thoughts are especially with those who have no warm house to come back to this year, there are so many – the homeless sleeping alone in shop doorways, refugees desperately crossing the sea and hoping for asylum, and people who do have a roof over their heads but lack money for presents for the children or depend on food banks for their next meal.

Life can be wonderful, fun, exciting. It can also be tough, exhausting, and depressing. Whoever you are, whatever your circumstances, my prayer and hope is that people will be kind to you, there will be new opportunities in your life, and that there’ll be reasons to hope and overcome the difficulties.

And if your life is comfortable and you have more than enough, my prayer and hope is that you will be kind to others, search out new opportunities for them, and provide reasons for hope and ways to overcome difficulties.

None of us can solve all of the problems; but all of us can solve some of the problems.

Some ideas:

Give dried or canned food to your local food bank
Buy a hot drink and some food for someone sleeping rough
Spend time chatting with a lonely person
Listen to someone who is grieving or unhappy

And don’t forget to enjoy Christmas with your friends and family. Grace and peace to you all.

PS – As a reward for reading to the end, here’s a bonus – A Christmas Song!

Other years

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

Time flies!

I plan to gird up my literary loins and begin to put things right

It’s been a long, long time since my last post. I sent a hasty ‘Happy Christmas’ post on 23rd December 2020 and since then – nothing. I really have been rather busy, but also have somehow lacked the energy to make the effort. I don’t know why – perhaps I just needed a break.

In the next few days I plan to gird up my literary loins and begin to put things right. There are a lot of unanswered comments that I need to deal with first, I want to say something about a song I especially like, and I’ve been asked to write a little about my personal history. So watch this space.

Meanwhile, just for fun, here’s my friend Kevin and his daughters at the Cotswold Wildlife Park in August. (It’s well worth a visit, by the way.)

Kevin is taking a photo of a waterlily. Don’t drop your phone, Kevin! Don’t fall in, Kevin! He didn’t – but it looked risky for a moment there.