Issue 23-12-2011
Featured story
Christmas stories
The gospel readings report wonderful, fantastic events. A virgin, visited by an angel, is told she will be impregnated by the Holy Spirit and give birth to a son. Believe it or not – she agrees to this. When the boy is born a choir of heavenly angels sing joyful melodies...
Top stories
Born of a virgin?
A physical impossibility! How could anyone possibly believe that? Why would anyone even want to believe that? Well, yes, it is what Friends used to call ‘the season the world calls Christmas’ but, surely, in the twenty-first century we don’t have to look at rubbish like this – why is...
Lost dreams, fertile ground
On the seafront at Eastbourne, coaches continue to bring tourists to smart hotels. Nearby, the town centre is humming. The smart chain stores alternately swallow and disgorge their customers in a pre-Christmas frenzy that appears to be untouched by recession.
Helping the homeless
It is forty years since the first Open Christmas. In a way, it is a personal anniversary for me. I got to know the woman who would be my wife there. Heather came to be the behind-the-scenes kitchen organiser. But the story is bigger than that. Together with other Friends,...
Words for the journey
On the face of it, if you want a verse for a corporate Christmas card, I’d be the last person to ask. The phrase ‘greetings card verse’ could sum up most things a serious working poet would want not to be. More than that, I’m a Quaker, and...
The story of carols
The carols we love to sing, like Christmas itself, owe much to pre-Christmas midwinter rejoicings at having reached the shortest day – with the prospect of new growth and abundance to come. The many references, for example, in ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ to evergreens refer to the need to celebrate...
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A blessing
There they are on the Christmas cards – three men on camels striding across a desert – sometimes in silhouette, sometimes seen with crowns, gorgeous robes and treasure chests. They have come to us through pictures and carols as part of a ‘Christmas story’. They have changed character from astronomers to kings....
Meanings
There he was, standing among them, and they were startled and frightened and thought they were seeing a ghost (Luke 24:36-7). The risen Christ was not a disembodied spirit, in Luke’s view: he had the flesh and bone of a physical man; he could be touched, he could eat...
Meeting for Worship
I lug this great laundry basket to Meeting Filled with damp twisted bundles of problems, tasks and commitments, And I shake them out one by one and peg them on the invisible line.
The missing chapter
‘If anyone was in any doubt what the Nazis were about, and what they represented, then ‘Kristallnacht’ should have opened their eyes. Not one country in the world showed the slightest interest.’ There is anger, and a trace of despair, in Peter Kurer’s voice. On Kristallnacht, the ‘Night...
Journey home
Jennifer, where did you find your inspiration for the game? Well, the initial inspiration, of course, came from my book, The O of Home. However, the real idea came as what you might call a ‘middle of the night’ inspiration – I woke up and suddenly thought: ‘It could be...
Magical stories
The Tear Thief, The Greatest Gift and The Barefoot Book of Mother and Daughter Tales are three recent releases by Barefoot Books.
Climb up to the moor
Judith Bromley paints as a way to discover, explore and express the relationship between her inner being and everything around her. She says: ‘For me, the process of drawing and painting is a meditative experience.’ Through this book, Judith’s painting and writing has also become a powerful ministry, creating...
Letters - 23 & 30 December 2011
Quaker business method Jill Segger (9 December) writes that the Quaker business method ensures that ‘the confident cannot gain advantage over the diffident and the unforeseen stands on an equal footing with the expected’. I am far from sure that this is so.