Do you remember the story in Genesis 19 of the family of the righteous man Lot who lives in the wicked city of Sodom? Angels visit, as the evening draws down, coming to Lot in the gate of the city and finding hospitality in his home. In the night the…
Last week I posted some thoughts on grief. It wasn’t meant to be a systematic or comprehensive treatment of the topic, just some travelling meditations. I ended with a series of questions that were really a set of variations upon the primary psalmic question: How long O Lord? (Psalm…
The woman conceived and gave birth to a son at the same time the following year, as Elisha had promised her. The child grew and one day went out to his father and the harvesters. Suddenly he complained to his father, “My head! My head!” His father told his servant,…
[For my mum, because I was thinking of her on Mother’s Day] I don’t know how many times my mother read the Pilgrim’s Progress to me when I was young. It was certainly enough that the story has become part of how I process my experience of…
Consider my enemies; they are numerous, and they hate me violently. Psalm 25:19 But my enemies are vigorous and powerful; many hate me for no reason. Psalm 38:19 One of the most strange and estranging experiences of life in our age is the absence of enemies. At least,…