January - only the beginning...

Dear all Happy New Year! As I write this just before Christmas I find myself as usual panicking about last minute Christmas presents, cards and food, as well as anticipating the joy and anticipation of the season to come. I mean how many pairs of socks does someone really need?! It’s the same every year – however organised I try to be I cannot seem to escape the pressure of this combination of joyful celebration and frenetic preparation!! I share this not in any way to complain but simply to acknowledge the beauty, joy and the complexity of the season. One of the things that is helping me navigate my way through the richness and complexity of these days before Christmas at the moment is the photograph we have on our mantelpiece of a little three year Ethiopian girl that our family is sponsoring through Compassion UK but more of that later on…. Recently in church we began the gospel of Mark with his opening words which simply state ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’. And that is what Christmas and for that matter New Year is all about – it is the… Read More

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