Peter Blog a few random thoughts

Dear people of Arundel & Brighton, A family in one of our parishes in Surrey had two girls from Africa staying with them recently, and the mother was telling me about some of the questions that arose as they had to begin to get used to another culture. One evening she prepared a meal and sat the two girls down with her own two daughters. After a while they noticed that the two African girls weren’t eating, and asked them why. The girls were very polite and probably shy and didn’t say much, but still didn’t eat. It took a little while to realise that the problem was that they simply didn’t know how to use a knife and fork. We take it for granted that people all over the world use a knife and fork, until we go to a Chinese restaurant, that is. But it’s a chance to reflect on just how much we learn in the family and in the home, if we are lucky enough to have those two things. Babies are born with a few basic instincts; they can breathe, swallow, suck and grip. ...

Christmas 2012   One of the things that always marked out Christmas for me growing up was Mum going out to buy the bumper edition of the Radio times. It was the only time of the year that we would get it. My brother and I would drawl over it and look at what was going to be on that Christmas on TV. We would wait in anticipation for the explosive Easterners or Only fools and Horses special. We would also have that special Christmas movies some like Star Wars and the Great escape came as regularly as a reminisce from your granddad about what Christmas was like in “His day.”  With the smell of Roast potatoes and the eating of Brussels sprouts this is what we mainly remember and makes Christmas. And yet for a vast majority of people this is the memory of Christmas. It is all that happens just on that one day every year. On Boxing Day the question is asked “Did you have a good Christmas?” We know that Christmas goes on for a while longer yet. In fact the last day the Christ...

Over the last few weeks I have based my Homily and told you a Story. This is the original story. Enjoy. The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once it was a great order but now there were only five monks left, the abbot and four others, all over seventy years of age. All its branch houses were lost. Clearly, it was a dying order. In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation, the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in the hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again," they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if, by some possible chance, he could offer any advice that might save the monastery. The rabbi welcomed the abbot ...

I wonder what gives us the most joy in life. Is it a phone call from a friend: A letter through the post:  Winning something on the Lottery even if it’s Ten pounds. Most things that give us joy or happiness happen very quickly and are flitting . And yet this weekend we wait in expectant hope and joy for the coming of the Lord: The Liturgy and the mood changes slightly this weekend. Notice that I am wearing Rose vestments which are only worn twice a year. The readings speak of the Joy of being a Christian and what that means. We have been baptized into the joy of God’s love and live in the joy of that love through our lives. St Paul tells us that he wants us to be happy in the Lord. So our joy is complete in the Lord for he is the one that we love and trust. So what is Christian joy? How do we live it? How is it different from the Joy we spoke about earlier? I have to say that if you looked around at Church sometimes you would not realise that the Joy of the Lord had...

As Promised here are my notes on the talk that I gave this week and they are just notes: The Birth of Jesus where does it all come from During Advent we are engaged with the prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament. The prophets of the Old Testament do two things they look to the future but also speak about the present “I will make a virtuous branch grow from David” (Jeremiah) the people of the Old Testament knew that the Messiah was coming. They had an expectation that this messiah would save them and be a great warrior: Someone who would remind them of David who was the greatest of the Kings of Israel.  Actually the reality of the prophets is very different:  “nations will not lift up sword against nation, there will be no more training for war.” For Isaiah it was a time of peace and justice. It would be a time when “God is with us” Emmanuel. Where the “wolf will lay down with the lamb” (Isaiah). And of course the last of the great prophets that would link the O...

One of the things that I most rejoice in the Church of the 21 st Century is that the Church has become a little more human. There seems to be a greater understanding of where the complications of the world lie especially in everyday human lives. This has come about largely thank God with a more human approach to the Gospel message and a better balanced life in the clergy it is a shame that sometimes this humanness does not get translated further up the Churches authority especially when it means welcoming home those who have lapsed. To make our paths straight as a Church means that we have to prepare to look more deeply at ourselves for the only person I can change is myself. We are invited in this advent season to have a spiritual spring clean to look at ourselves and see where we need to straighten those paths this can both challenge ourselves and also the Church. So let’s look at each in turn. Making our paths straight means looking more deeply at whom we are and ...

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone message from my Brother. He said Christmas has come early West Ham has beaten Chelsea. I don't have a problem with the first part of the statement in fact  I was quite pleased. I do have a problem with the statement " Christmas has come early"  While I was out in Australia this year my Cousin and I went up to Mount Victoria which is in the midst of the Blue Mountains. We had decided that we would go for Lunch so we found this place called the Victoria and Albert Hotel. As we walked in on a July afternoon I was surprised to see a rather  anemic  Christmas tree and Christmas decorations. The owner told me that people liked to come to Christmas in July when it is cold so that they can enjoy Christmas. So we tucked into our Turkey Sandwich and a Glass of lemonade. For me my experience of this in Australia is not uncommon for I wonder when the first time this year that you saw a Christmas tree was or heard the first Christmas ...