NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

"A candle is burning, a flame warm and bright, A candle of HOPE in November's dark night While angels sing blessings from heaven's starry sky, Our hearts we prepare now for Jesus is nigh” ~ words by Sandra Dean Or as Desmond Tutu said, "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness."    What hopes, I wonder, do we as a society look for? As the days in the northern hemisphere grow darker with the shortest day of the year occurring on December 21 this year, we are reminded that the light will come again. Not only will the light come again but that it is a coming we cannot control!   Indeed we believe in that hope so fervently that we are assured not only that the light will come again, but that it will be accompanied by the warmth and the harvests. Profits are hoped for, particularly by the retail sector, as we approach the biggest shopping season of the year. In fact some retail businesses rely on the profits of...

Nothing can raise my ire faster than some of the church signs out there - especially if they represent a congregation that I have some connection to .  While I sometimes have to cogitate a bit as to why some of them annoy me, that didn’t happen with this one! ‘All our seats come with a first class service.’ First of all, it was false advertising. How often do we see that in  society? Something is always being touted as the best, world class, ground-breaking, when in fact it is only mediocre compared to others in the same field. I am familiar with this church and while the service is fine, it is not first class. The music is not first class, the physical plant is not first class, the preaching is not first class. This is not denigrating these things. While the congregation finds them acceptable or even better then acceptable, they can’t begin to compare to what can be found elsewhere in larger, more affluent churches. That designation of a ‘first class service...

“Jesus said, ‘No procrastination. No backward looks. You can’t put God's kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.’” (Luke 9:62 MSG) As part of a meditation, focusing on prioritization, we were to ask ourselves "What would you do if this were your very last day?"  The idea was that we could then remove those things from our ToDo list  that weren’t really necessary, that were busy work.  The idea being that a lot of the things that we fill our day with, other than the necessities of life, are things we have control over, and mixed in with those things we want and need to do, are those things that are only busy work or fillers. So just what exactly would I do today, if I knew it was my last day? More importantly perhaps what if I knew it was my last week, my last month, my last year to live? Everybody’s list will be different, because we are all different people, living different lives in different circumstances and with different core values.   But in one ...

    ‘Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.’  - Robert F. Kennedy At the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month, for the 98th  time, in 2017, people will gather to observe Remembrance Day which originally was to remember those who died in World War 1, " the war to end all wars ". So as the Middle East, as well as many other places on this globe, reverberate with the sounds of of gunfire and of bombs detonating, we gather: the young, the old, the school children and those not working. There will be talk of the sacrifice made by many men & women, not just in World War 1 but in the many wars and conflicts since that time: all those   who gave their lives in service to their country, whatever country that might be.   But do we remember the 'whys'? The reasons th...

Telephone phobia  ( telephonophobia ,  telephobia ,  phone phobia ) is reluctance or fear of making or taking  phone calls , literally, "fear of  telephones ". I have said for many years [especially since the advent of email into our lives]   that I don’t particularly like using the telephone - and every time I say it, I feel like no one will understand. Now I find that there is even a word to describe that feeling and that I apparently have company. I have come to realize that I don’t really ‘hate’ talking on the telephone, as I was wont to say, but rather that I don’t like making telephone calls, especially those of a non-business nature. While part of this comes from a fear of being a nuisance, or calling at a inopportune time, I have become surer over the years, that most of this reluctance is caused by my being an introvert. I simply do not want to put myself into a position of having to initiate interaction with another person. If ...