Restless Wonderer

One of the unusual things about preaching in various different churches is that I find myself having to preach under a title and on a passage I didn’t choose. Sometimes when I begin my preparation, I get a wobble of thinking there won’t be anything helpful for me to draw out of this obscure story or lesser-known psalm. I really must stop that, though, as invariably when I get started in earnest I find more in there than I can fit into a single sermon. That’s certainly the case with Psalm 111, which is my assigned passage for this coming Sunday in Belfast Chinese Christian Church. I still have the challenge of working out how to preach by translation into Mandarin (morning) and Cantonese (afternoon) but I’m not short of material and I’m feeling challenged by the passage myself, which is always the best place to preach from. Psalm 111 is an acrostic poem, meaning that each line begins with a sequential letter of the Hebrew alphabet (already a challenge to explain in a non-alphabetic la...

  Pondering what to write for an article in this week's bulletin of the congregation I'm a member of, I stumbled upon something I never knew.  Today is a special date.  It is … [drumroll] … National Handwriting Day [fanfare].  Who knew that 23 rd January is the day to celebrate the diversity and beauty of hand-written script? In my original profession, there wasn’t much to celebrate (apologies to fellow medics!) and things have not improved since I left it behind. Barring occasional signatures, I write with a keyboard, not a pen. The resulting letters are legible (even if not always rightly ordered!) and uniform (how boring!) There’s something sad about this loss of individuality. I’m sure you’ll agree that hand-written letters connect with the heart in a special way. A person’s personality and passions are conveyed in their handwriting. The apostle Paul knew this. He made a habit of adding a handwritten greeting to his letters, the bulk of which were written do...