Not the post I was trying to write

I have spent over an hour writing, deleting, and re-writing a beginning to this post. Somehow it is refusing to get written. But after all this I'm determined to get down something which expresses a little of what I'm thinking, even if a full explanation has to wait. So I give you this, from Matthew Henry's commentary on Hebrews 2:

Let those who dread death, and strive to get the better of their terrors, no longer attempt to outbrave or to stifle them, no longer grow careless or wicked through despair. Let them not expect help from the world, or human devices; but let them seek pardon, peace, grace, and a lively hope of heaven, by faith in Him who died and rose again, that thus they may rise above the fear of death. (Source)

And this from me: Life is precious and precarious. Do the best you can with it. But if you have any faith in Jesus and his resurrection, death is not the worst thing that can happen. Please don't pray as if it is.

(I should probably add: No, this is not a reaction to anything happening to me or my family. Don't start worrying that there is some awful news you haven't heard yet.)

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A Place at the Table: Spiritual Formation Book 12

"God has ordained in his great wisdom and goodness that eating, and especially eating in company, should be one of the most profound and pleasurable aspects of being human." Miranda Harris had been intending to write a book for years. She'd got as far as a folder full of notes when she died suddenly in a car accident in 2019. When her daughter, Jo Swinney, found the notes, she decided to bring her mum's dream to fruition. A Place at the Table was the result. I thought this was going to be a nice friendly book about having people over for dinner. In one sense it is, but it's pretty hard-hitting as well. Miranda and her husband Peter co-founded the environmental charity A Rocha, so the book doesn't shy away from considering the environmental aspects of what we eat and how we live. They also travelled widely and encountered hunger at close quarters; the tension between seeing such poverty and believing in a generous God comes out clearly in A Place at the Table.

Flexitarianism

Hey folks! I learnt a new word today! I can now proudly proclaim myself to be a flexitarian . Yes, I wish that meant I'm in training to be a trapeze artist. Or that I'm a leading world expert on the chemical properties of stretchy materials. All it actually means is that I don't eat meat that much. Well, big deal. That lumps me in with a majority of the world's population, many of whom have no choice about the matter. So why the need for a fancy new word? Because, it seems, that we in the prosperous West have come to regard having bacon for breakfast, chicken sandwiches for lunch and a steak for dinner as entirely normal. But also because we in the prosperous West are starting to realise that might not be an entirely good idea. You know about factory farming, of course. The images of chickens crammed into tiny cages and pigs which never see the sunlight, which we push out of our minds when we reach for our plastic-wrapped package of sausages in t

Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk: Lees to Derby

These final two Bonnie Prince Charlie walks were quite a contrast: the first across empty fields and along quiet roads; the second crossing from country into city as I walked into Derby. I started both walks at the Great Northern Greenway car park, just off Station Road in Mickleover. Walk 1 In order to keep walking the Bonnie Prince Charlie way in the right direction, I first found my way back to Lees by an alternative route. The first section, along the cycle path, was well paved. After that it quickly got very muddy. At least it's a popular walk from Mickleover to Radbourne, so it was easy to find the path. St Andrew's, Radbourne, is rather dominated by memorials. It looks as if the preacher would be hemmed in by tombs! I liked this bench outside, with the text, "The thoughtful soul to solitude retires". Writing this, I only just realised it was a quote. Turns out it's from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam . The rest of the walk certainly provided solitude,

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

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