‘It is such a deceptively simple phrase – God with us, Emmanuel, yet it makes theologies, philosophies and political theories reel.’ Jane...

‘God is in a vulnerable new born baby in a feeding trough. We need to see the mystery of incarnation in one ordinary, concrete moment,...

I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to...

…So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear. And he did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low. Then it started...

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining, It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining,...

Before the ice is in the pools— Before the skaters go, Or any check at nightfall Is tarnished by the snow— Before the fields have...

…This world is wild as an old wives' tale, And strange the plain things are, The earth is enough and the air is enough For our wonder and...

Music I love -­ but never strain Could kindle raptures so divine, So grief assuage, so conquer pain, And rouse this pensive heart of mine...

Our Christmas decorations may never quite have the power and dynamism of God’s but we can make them part of our conscious decision to...

Coming to save the world, God doesn’t look at it with despair that it would seem to deserve, scrumple it up and decide to start again,...

Thursday 17th December - Icon of the Day I’ve always loved [the] image of prayer as birdwatching. You sit very still because something is...

And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in...

The Christian, in the Advent season above all, must learn something of God’s own simultaneous ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to all religious aspiration...

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take...

He will come like last leaf's fall. One night when the November wind has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth wakes choking on the...

Paul gives us an astonishing understanding of waiting in the New Testament book of Romans, as rendered by Eugene Peterson, 'Waiting does...

Salvation to all that will is nigh; That All, which always is all everywhere, Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear, Which cannot...

One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of...

Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent; one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other - things that are of no real...

Politicians compete for the highest offices. Business tycoons scramble for a bigger and bigger piece of the pie. Armies march and...