Ray's Blog: December 2007
The Sixth Day Of Christmas - Directions For The Coming Year ? Mentors, Monarchy And Meaning For Our
.December 31 is New Year?s Eve in western and other lands, a long day in which to seek God?s direction for the coming year and usher it in; a day to ring out the old, the false, and ring in the new, unfolding plan of God. Tonight we shall gather...
The Fifth Day Of Christmas - A Family For Everyone
On 30 December churches focus on ?the holy family? and on the value of family life.
Who is Jesus? family? It begins, certainly, with Mary, Joseph and Jesus in that stable. The Gospels later tell of other brothers and sisters ? or cousins. The New Testament...
The Fourth Day Of Christmas - Visitors
We go back now to the first week of Jesus? life in that cave. What kind of people would visit a family in such a situation? The Bible only tells us who were the first visitors ( shepherds from up the hill) and the last (magi from the east)....
The Third Day Of Christmas ? Assassination
December 28: Mrs Bhutto is assassinated in Pakistan. The threat of a clash of civilisations draws closer. Confusion, anger, fear, violence rage. . What can anyone do?
On this day the Christian church recalls how a ruler assassinated infants in Bethlehem, for fear that one of them might...
With The Second Day Of Christmas Comes The Gift Of Intimacy With God
Most people in the world know there is a Supreme God. John, Jesus? soul friend, goes further: ?We have heard ? seen ? touched ?? he writes in his First Letter chapter one, which is read in churches today.
In the Celtic tradition John, because he is...
The First Day Of Christmas
December 26 ? thoughts inspired by Canon Kate Tristram?s words at the 8.0 am Holy Island:One day after celebrating Christ?s Nativity much of the Church commemorates its first martyr, Stephen. Why? This seems a major, unsuitable switch of gear and does not sit lightly with the glut of booze...
Christmas And New Year Greetings
Greetings to you all, and many thanks for your wishes, gifts or prayers. This Christmas morn I walked towards Cuthbert?s sun-lit beach and recalled these lines of Kathleen Raine:
Aidan and Cuthbert saw God?s feet walking each day towards all who on world?s shores await his coming.
That we too, hand in hand,...
