Anaconda Root

A thick black root shed light on the ruler
Curled up, snoozing in my mind
That crimson inability
Not to weigh her eyes
Or quantify the fear
Of a twitching spider
Sizing up a continent of flesh

Nothing to do with inches
More a relativism of effort:
Beyond the tearing of soil
Lies the serrated edge of a father’s saw
The sound of which, the last rasps,
Propels his absent aftershave over me
And the careful placing of a new blade

But this anaconda of a root
Proud of girth and curves
Has lain in wait for such a battle
Its victories over the soil and stone
An endless stream, until the son of
Defeated by sweat and weakness
Ran a different cabled river…

…its excised trunk
Hurled on the discard pile
Destined for an evening’s warmth
Spoke such discomfort to me
With ancient wood-eyes
The same look that shrivelled
A dismantled apostle

An unexpected tonnage
The onus of desecration
Filtered away with each
Plunge of spade and fork
Until the disturbed soil
Raked to a tilth
Exhaled its scent and lay still

The Two Moors Walking Challenge Post 8, 22nd April 2026

34 days to go

Route: Winscombe to Weston-Super-Mare, 16.3km 10.3 miles

Sights: Leaving at 6.30 with sunrise directly behind me creeping over the horizon bathed the world in that warming reddish tinge. After just over 1km, I walked into one of the cider orchards. Two fields juxtaposed: one with zero blossom; the other not only full of blossom but in the sunrise was…I dunno…glorious. As if they were all singing in harmony long, intersecting chords. No, I wasn’t five pints of cider closer to heaven – you would have had to have been there. It was like being caught up in a painting. From there, past Christon and the seemingly unending slog uphill past bluebell woods. Yesterday, three deer stood maybe 50 yards from me, motionless, as I passed. Yesterday, also, views from the ridge over the Somerset Levels and over to Hinkley Point were crystal clear and bathed in morning sunshine. Yesterday was high tide, today, further out, and a stiff walk into a strong breeze whipped up the sand. A shout out to Coffee#1 which has become my oasis at the end of the walk and a place where a flat white and cheesecake can be enjoyed, with left boot off.

Consecutive Days: The Two Moors’ Challenge starts with three consecutive days of walking, starting at Wembury beach, followed by a day off, then four consecutive days finishing in Lynton. This week’s challenge was to experience two consecutive days from Winscombe to Weston, yesterday and today, along the same 10.3 mile route

The 125 and 126 bus:

Yesterday made the 125 well in time from Weston to more or less my drive. Today, I missed the 125 by seconds, but caught the 126 ten minutes later, back by 11.30 after a 6.30 start. If yesterday’s journey was irritating due to someone opening a window and freezing us all to death, plus an Eastern European passenger who thought we’d be entertained by her tinny mobile broadcasting a conversation in her language.

Today the windows were closed, and therefore pleasantly warm; no uninvited incursions on the passengers’ hearing; a mild irritation for the first 5-10 minutes by passenger X, who insisted on eating the foulest-smelling crisps in the Universe. But all was well.

The Toe Report: Since inserting gel soles, I’ve been able to walk further without pain. Also, the pre-blister sore tops of my big toes after yesterday’s had recovered overnight and only caused minor irritation towards the end of this morning’s walk.

Spiritual: Was pondering the place for tradition, firstly as a healthy cultural unifier and secondly, as a trap, a stifling inertia when change is overdue.

The Dog I Never Knew

We’re all palm readers
If we switch off our eyes
And sit at the smelly feet of
Our six-year-old selves
Sneaking an early feel
Of Xmas treasures, lumpy
Beyond the wrapping

Or, hands held out,
Eyes still shut,
We catch the heat
Of a suffering Guy
And learn about
Defeating despots,
Gloves on cold nights

And that living creatures are
Slow-motion fires
With sparkler eyes
And tail-wagging joy
I gaze at my palm and
Grasp the ruff of the
Dog I never knew

The dog I never knew, he’s
The evidence of things not seen:
If I’m Radio 4, his ears prick up
If I’m a helium balloon
He, too, leaps up to heaven
And, if I’m immobilised
His chin and paw find me

He takes me for walks
And reminds me
Of the wide planet to enjoy
Until the days of weakness
And, like seeds, we’re sown,
Our horizons made secure
Incarnate love, off the lead

The Two Moors Walking Challenge – an after Post #7b, 11th April 2026

45 days to go

Route: Wells to Cheddar to Winscombe – approx. 16.5 miles (26.5 km)I paused Strava without realising for a few miles hence 24.62 on Strava

The plan: Saturday, 11th April

1. Catch the 7.20 126 from across the road to Wells - that worked

2. Find the West Mendip Way - following an excellent website’s directions, nearly missed it, but all OK

3. Try to stay en route ‘til Cheddar, then I know the way back to Winscombe - lost touch with the route the other side of Wookey Hole, road walking instead of footpaths up to Priddy

Pace
It took 7 hours and 5 minutes with a few refuelling, loo, left boot off, and conversation stops. Walking time 4 hours 39 minutes, average pace 11.20 mins per km, or 17.27 min per km overall.

Weather
Classic April. Cool wind. Sunshine with sharp, fast-moving showers, and horizontal hail. Glad I remembered a waterproof jacket and trousers.

Stunning Views
Wells itself is beautiful. Mental note to visit soon, just to mooch about. Wide, wide views from the Mendip ridge overlooking Glastonbury and the Somerset Levels and over to Crook Peak, the Bristol Channel to Wales. Perhaps the most picturesque were the views towards Cheddar, with the blue reservoir just beyond Cheddar.

No Pain, no Gain
I’m well aware that my feet were sore by the time I reached home, and the Two Moors walk requires lengthy walks on consecutive days. More prep required. The stop at Priddy incurred pain of a different sort. My left foot was in pain, so I sat at a pub bench. It was probably about 9.30, the pub opened at 12. The publican came over and said, ‘This is Private land’. I had passed about two or three people in an hour’s walking; there was no one around. Did he need to be so territorial? He was within his rights, I suppose, so I moved on without objecting, but it felt a bit mean. Next stop, a pouring tea from a thermos & peanut and jam sandwich stop, was by a wall out of the wind, on the high ground after Priddy. I’d pulled waterproofs on just in time about 30minutes before, as a vast black cloud emptied its hail on me…personally. So the stop enabled me to hang up the jacket and rousers on the wall to dry in the now sun and wind. After that, the wonderful Coffee at the Hub café in Cheddar, before heading home via the public loos at Axbridge and one more left boot stop on the Strawberry Line.

Spiritual
Perhaps I do have something to say. My spiritual adventures started quite young. Probably about aged 6, at least consciously. My heroes were Jesus and the Pied Piper!! Somehow, I got hold of the notion that if you pray, God answers, so I knelt by my bed one night, put my hands together as I had seen others do, and asked for a Cadillac. In the morning, no Cadillac. That was discouraging.

I mean, what goes through one’s head aged 6? I’ve since bought all the Calvin and Hobbes comics to keep in touch with my 6-year-old self.

Now, at 68, I have about five prayers that are standard, daily prayers. By Priddy, I’d worked my way through those prayers. There is a dull-routine-feel much of the time, akin to brushing one’s teeth: a good thing, but not one that often stirs the blood. Routines like this are like warm-ups, or the hors-d’oeuvre, small talk before a real connection.

Today, after the standard list had been prayed, I thought back to being 6, 7, 8…growing up as a quiet rebel. That silent rebellion had a stubborn, unhelpful streak, but I was beginning to think that this world is not a random, predetermined molecular machine wherein consciousness is pointless, morals are a figment of our imagination, and progress is a foolish delusion. Unexplained customs, traditions, etiquette, and manners, however, drove me insane with the unanswered question, ‘Why’, a characteristic of home and school life. ‘It just is’ never satisfied me…and in the person of Jesus, I felt I saw the same fierce anger, railing against blind obedience towards outward observances as enforced by the Pharisees whilst abandoning the spiritual reasons for the traditions; the heart of the matter overruled by outward conformity as true markers of acceptable behaviour.

‘Course he isn't safe, but he is good. He is not a tame lion’

I’ve been a Christian believer, now for just over 50 years. I’ve seen enough miraculous answers to prayer to overcome my 6-year-old disappointment, and have, bit by bit, discovered the truth behind various customs and traditions – the Why e.g. standing up when an older person comes into the room, or being grateful, or marriage vows and the traditional marriage ceremony…and so, outwardly, I have become quite conformist…but…subject to the call of God.

God is not bound by our traditions and customs. As CS Lewis wrote about Aslan (Jesus, if you hadn’t realised), ‘Course he isn't safe, but he is good. He is not a tame lion’ and so, on this walk, with Aslan, today, I was taken back to those early urges to follow Christ – not the Pied Piper - and learn what it is to become good but not tame. 50 years on, and I am still feeling the love of Christ pulling me closer, Cadillac or no Cadillac.

Last thermos tea & peanut jam sandwich stop

Ain’t

Forbidden fruits aren’t
Limited to one far-off tree
Eden is such a risk-laden garden
Nervous parents slap a ban
On children venturing there

It’s the Comp, bog-standard,
That hollows out the
Bowels of gymkhana parents
Silver cutlery polishers
The risk of infection, too great

It’s mustard on lamb
Or wearing a tie on a Saturday
Or dragging a tongue, cat-like
Over a saucer of milk
Or speaking backwards

Those things that appeal
For no rhyme or reason
All coming to a focus of joy
In using the word Ain’t
Expressly Verboten

And juicier for it
The sharp A filling the void
The living cave of a sound-filled mouth
And the nasal red-raw Ain finish
Like a rich, long-lasting Burgundy

The T is optional
Depending only on mood
On temper, on the need
For percussion, for impact
A vocal jab in the ribs

Say it with me…
Let it build, louder and louder
Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t
Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t Ain’t
Ah! The joy of Ain’t

The Two Moors Walking Challenge A before-and-after Post #7a, 8th April 2026

Cheddar Gorge with Cheddar Reservoir in the distance

48 days to go

Route: Wells to Cheddar to Winscombe – approx. 16.5 miles (26.5 km)

The plan: Saturday, 11th April

1. Catch the 7.20 126 from across the road to Wells
2. Find the West Mendip Way
3. Try to stay en route ‘til Cheddar, then I know the way back to Winscombe

That’s the bare bones. An up-and-down gully and gorge route, and the potential for taking wrong turns is considerable.

Reflections:

• The limiting factor does seem to be foot pain, specifically the nerve running under the fourth toe of my left foot. So far, taking a rest every 4K, removing the boot, and waiting seems to work.

• Karrimat isn’t essential but does give a soft surface to sit on if none is available

• Flask of tea – close to essential

• Jan’s Irish fruit cake – Man o Man! This fills the slog with periodic joy!

• Not forgetting my waterproof jacket lowers the stress levels

• Earbuds & podcasts if one wishes to tune out from the gorgeous countryside

Longest Walk:

This will be the longest route so far. If I conk out in Cheddar, there are worse places to grind to a halt.

Weather forecast:

Max temp – 10oC
Max % rain – 32%
SE breeze av. 10mph

1492; Semicolon Love

One dot and one not
Mesmerise my longings
For origins
To know which mind
First conceived
The secondary clause to
Paint the primary
In colours unknown

Along the street from Titian
The grinding of a black ink printer,
Manutius, performs
A Venetian copulation:
The black hole ovum
And its spermatozoan lover
Swimming forever closer
Never to fuse, but

There is an elegance about you.
You will not conform
To those calling for symmetry,
A false perfection.
You belong in the real world:
The two sides of everyone’s nose
Not two distinct persons
But isonomy, rich in uneven smiles

From you has issued
More than a literary mark
A duel, disdain, devotion
But, for those who are too close
To a premature full stop,
A life-preserving pause.
“When an author could've chosen to end their sentence but chose not to.
The author is you, and the sentence is your life”

Who would’a thought?

Project Semicolon was born from a social media movement in 2013. Project Semicolon exists to encourage, love, and inspire those in mental distress. But why a semicolon? "A semicolon is used when an author could've chosen to end their sentence but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life."

So, here I am, sitting at my desk
Wondering if you can see
The next phase of your life?
Exploring the other side
Of your nose.
Similar, but distinct.
There’s more to you than you know
Walk on, into colours unknown.

Book Review: Cosmic Chemistry, John C. Lennox Lion – 2021

‘Her research (Barbara McClintock) was revolutionary in that it totally contradicted the established wisdom of Darwinism’

This book is a baptism! 

If you read it, you’ll be plunged into the raging waters of the debate between highly intelligent proponents of Intelligent Design and of atheistic Determinism…and it’s well worth the ride.

John C. Lennox is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist, and Christian apologist who serves as Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. 

In other words, take note, whilst not an academic tome, Cosmic Chemistry doesn’t shy away from the intellectual battle between atheist scientists - who believe there is no Creator and that the world, and consciousness, is a chaotic and meaningless construct of random chemical determinism - and theists - who believe that the empirical evidence that we can elucidate, points to a Creator.

Cosmic Chemistry is divided into five chapters. The first two introduce the relationship between God and Science; the final three concentrate their fire on Genetics and Evolution.

Personally, I enjoyed the final three chapters more than the opening two…maybe this is more a product of my impatience than the interest another reader might derive from Chapter 1: Surveying the Landscape, and Chapter 2: Science and Explanation.

As a Science teacher, I wanted to get to the heart of Lennox’s perspective on the Creation v Evolution / Creator v no Creator debate…in its up-to-date genetic form. I was not disappointed!

A typical GCSE Biology syllabus proposes that life has evolved in its complexity through a combination of random mutations of DNA via errors or outside interference (e.g. from radiation or mutagenic chemicals) and Darwin’s survival of the fittest, i.e., the organisms whose beneficial mutations lead to observable phenotype alterations, such as variations of beak sizes on Darwin’s Galapagos Island finches. 

Cosmic Chemistry has taught me that biologists – even ardent Darwinian evolutionist biologists - have long since abandoned this view, since Barbara McClintock discovered ‘jumping genes’ in 1943. She is quoted ‘The conclusion seems inescapable that cells are able to...make wise decisions and act upon them’ ie act as agents and modify their own genome.

Watch out – that would hit the headlines ‘Biology turns its back on Darwin’

This discovery was made whilst studying maize chromosomes in but was not acknowledged until forty years later, winning the Nobel Prize in 1983 for Physiology or Medicine. A tragic loss…but as Lennox argues, she was swimming against a strong Darwinian tide.

One wonders when GCSE (and A-Level) genetics will include this discovery?

Watch out – that would hit the headlines ‘Biology turns its back on Darwin’. 

One can imagine the furore and media maelstrom that would follow BUT if Science has any credibility, it is sure, as Lennox argues, it is because it abandons anything other than empirical evidence: ‘the essence of true science – a willingness to follow empirical evidence, wherever it leads.’

Cosmic Chemistry is an intellectually challenging and scientifically literate book in which Lennox attacks lazy thinking and the weaknesses in his opponents’ arguments. It is a bold, robust and comprehensive work that proposes that empirical evidence points towards a Creator of unbelievable complexity rather than Dawkin’s famous Blind Watchmaker.

Take a deep breath and dive in. 

The Two Moors Walking Challenge Post #6, 31st March, 2026

Route: Winscombe to Weston Super Mare, 13.6miles (22km)

The route was a mixture of minor roads and footpaths, starting with the local fields and orchards over to Max Mill Lane, then turning right on minor roads to Christon. A stop at the old CofE church included a tremendous view across the valley to Crook Peak.

Just along the road from Christon church was a reclaimed water pump, and this painted stone was laid at its base.

Such unexpected poetic wisdom coincided with listening to R4 podcast In Out Time discussion on Keats (Ode to a Nightingale), who died aged 26 before his popularity and fame became established. An interesting coincidence.

A wrong turn above Christon wasted about 40mins, but extra miles aren’t a bad thing.

Then the long, mostly downhill stretch along an old Roman Road to Upton – a much-needed loo stop and coffee break at Weston General (!) to rest the left foot.

A sea mist rolling in partially obscured Brean Down and created a lovely, hazy picture of the curve of the bay, round to the large hotels at the far end.

The positive atmosphere among beach dog walkers and people wandering along the prom was not matched in the town centre. No one looked relaxed; I didn’t see a single smile. A general air of tension and depression. I could write about particular individuals’ strange behaviour, but would rather end on a more uplifting note.

That note belongs to the 125 bus that delivered me to my drive-in. A nice tradition to say ‘Thank you’ to bus drivers was kept.

The Two Moors Walking Challenge Post #5, 27th March, 2026

From my previous post, it was clear that I had my doubts that the ‘ol legs, fourth toe on left foot, and general weariness would prevent me walking the whole route…and place the whole preparation for the 9-day trek later in May into a box labelled ‘Dunno!’

But Strava lieth not:

• Left Down Thomas (Wembury) at 7.03 arrived in Ivybridge at 3.15pm
• 26.89km in 8 hours 8 mins (5 hours 35 mins moving) averaging 12.29 mins per km.

The disparity between moving and actual ‘elapsed’ time is explained by the 7 breaks taken at fairly regular intervals.

1st: 4km – lovely view over green fields towards Spriddlestone House. Dartmoor on the horizon
2nd: 8km – Brixton. Cuppa tea at Brixton St Mary’s church, followed by loo stop at what had been a café in the guidebook, now a new materials shop.
Toe very painful. OK after rest.
3rd. 12km - Toe again just outside Yealmpton. Longer stop at Rose and Crown. 10.30 slightly ahead of schedule.
4th 16km - Butland Wood. Was 50m away from obscured signpost. Wasted 20 mins traipsing back and forth looking at map and shapes of woods etc.
5th 21.5km Ermington – stopped by River Erme having past llamas on my left and pygmy goats on my right. Liked Ermington.
6th 25.75km Ivybridge Tennis club. Final boots off stop.
7th 26.89km The Bridge café and Watermark

Taxi back to Wembury no need for extra comment. It was a joy.

Spiritual?

You’d think one’s mind would slow down, enter some sort of blissful meditative state, the world and all its troubles retreating? Not the case. Maybe it would be after a few days, but navigating, physical discomfort at times, taking breaks, mind flitting from one thing to another…I can’t report a monk-like retreat. What I can say is that my musings on Luke chapter 15 grew stronger; wondering whether I have enough material, chapter headings, to put together a book, still struggling with the weakness of the Father as a less well travelled route into the parable.

Prayers and ponderings for certain situations and individuals came and went as usual.

And maybe a contentedness with what I’m now calling Phase 3.

Phase 1: settling into Winscombe and Exeter term 1. Phase 2: mostly a long list of practical work on the house and grounds + book launch. Phase 3: TJPII re-write, Dissertation poetry exploration, further practical work including erecting a shed in the back garden & planting veg in the freshly dug plot.

With Dartmoor on the horizon like a gathering grey-brown featureless tsunami

A beautiful route?

Yes! Sustained by thermos tea and fruitcake the route followed the generally well-signposted Erme-Plym trail through lovely open countryside away from all but a few roads and the sound of traffic. With Dartmoor on the horizon like a gathering grey-brown featureless tsunami.

Only one field with curious cows who all followed me for a few minutes before preferring the grass at their feet.

For me, the gentle northerly breeze, kept me cool, with temperatures hovering around 10oC I think. I deal. In May/June I will suffer and sweat more freely…but trousers rather than shorts may be wise against ticks.

Tomorrow might not work

The weather forecast
Has its sun yellow spikes
Diminishing in number, and
Temperatures on the slide

Nevertheless the rucksack,
Boots, socks, map, thermos
And karrimat: all strapped in
With a lack of good sense

Limiting factors include:
Fourth toe on left foot,
Bladder, or worse, and
The thought of home

It doesn’t say that Jesus
Set his face like flint
Just: ‘set his face
To go to Jerusalem’

But His praying soul
Percolates into mine
Maybe it will carry me
To Ivybridge for tea?

For I look for comfort
Not a cross, or nails
Or nakedness
Or false witness

A kudos on Strava, perhaps
To ease the pain
A cognac, make it a double
If tomorrow works

Tomorrow might not work
For any of us
My prayer is for all those
Whose tomorrow doesn’t work

The Lord bless you, and keep you
The Lord make His face
To shine upon you
And give you peace

The Two Moors Walking Challenge Post #4, 25th March, 2026

Today/Tomorrow: a practice walk for the first section from Wembury beach to Yealmpton (7.5 miles), then Yealmpton to Ivybridge (9 miles) and somehow back…by bus and taxi I suspect.

Today: a practice of inactivity, including writing this blog. Gusty outside. Rooks on kamikaze missions blown off course by sudden gusts. Perhaps they’re enjoying unpredictable flight? It’s high tide at 10am…I might excuse myself from a ‘writing day’ to go and watch the waves pound in on 40mph winds

Tomorrow: I think a normalish start to the day, having packed this evening. Normalish means up around 6 and a quick breakfast. If I can leave by 7, I’ll be pleased. Certainly by 8. Sixteen and a half miles is daunting. I haven’t walked more than ten for…errr…hmm…dunno.

Yealmpton: the temptation to call a halt here will be strong, I suspect. And maybe wise. Or necessary. The guide says 4 hours. So, I should arrive by late morning. Then 4.5 hours to Ivybridge. If I can get there by 5pm, I’ll be chuffed.

Days to go: 62

Spiritual: I’m in Wembury for two principal purposes. Firstly, to write. In fact, to get back to editing and re-writing The Bait Digger II. Secondly, to take a breather from the build-up to the book launch last Saturday, which was great fun.

In this ‘sigh’, this breather, I am aware of a few things on my mind: a sermon to preach later in April, Israel and Iran: as related to the parable of the prodigal son. Palestinian/Israeli poets: a potential direction for next year’s dissertation.

Lastly, I will have been in Winscombe for a year on Sunday. So it’s time to take stock.

Whether any of this occurs to me whilst walking tomorrow, who knows! I might stick the earbuds in, plod along to various podcasts, and leave my meditations for another day.

The Fragrance of a Tomb

The New Testament accounts of the death and burial of Lazarus and Jesus, if nothing else, take us into the burial customs of first-century Palestine.

The Burial of Jesus

This morning, I read the very familiar passage describing how Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus secured the body of Jesus and took 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes to soak into the wrappings for Jesus’ burial in the garden tomb.

It’s extraordinary to think I’ve known this passage since childhood, but until this morning had never smelt it. The body of Jesus and the tomb would have smelt myrrh and aloes

Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.

And 75 pounds in weight (100 Roman pounds or the equivalent of 75lbs (just over 5 stone) is a significant weight to carry through the streets of Jerusalem. Burial, due to the warm climate, was usually carried out immediately to offset any odour from rapid decomposition.

I can only imagine that 75lbs was excessive, only affordable by the very rich, and a reflection of the love and honour Joseph and Nicodemus wished to pour out to Christ in his burial. An extraordinary act of bravery since the highest powers were involved in his crucifixion only hours earlier: Pilate, the High Priest, the Sanhedrin, and the crowd who had called on Pilate to order Christ’s crucifixion. Scripture also states that the Romans had placed a guard on the tomb. The burial was an entirely male act, though Luke records that the women, who were to return with more spices and fragrant oils after sunrise two days later, witnessed the burial, the washing, and the anointing work of Joseph and Nicodemus.

‘And the women followed (Joseph and Nicodemus), and they observed the tomb and how his body was laid’

When Joseph and Nicodemus had finished washing the body, wrapping it in cloths impregnated with the myrrh and aloes, they left the wrapped body of the Messiah on a stone slab in the tomb, and rolled the stone across the entrance; later sealed by the soldiers. (Mt27v62-66)

If I may be permitted to speculate, by the third day, had it not been for the anointing work of the burial party i.e. Joseph and Nicodemus, the tomb should have smelt putrid due to the decomposition of the body.

There were two reasons why it didn’t:

1. The body wasn’t there. Jesus had risen from the dead. It didn’t decompose
2. The linen clothes, and therefore the tomb, would have smelt very fragrant due to the anointing spices and oils

When Peter preached the first sermon on the Day of Pentecost, he quoted Psalm 16:

‘You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow your Holy One to see decay’ v27

The Burial of Lazarus

When Jesus arrived at the house of Martha and Mary, Lazarus, having died and been wrapped and buried, He commanded that the stone that lay against the tomb be taken away.

‘The Jesus, groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha…said, ‘Lord by this time there is a stench; he’s been dead four days’…Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’…he came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Loose him, and let him go!

There are some significant differences from Jesus’s burial. No circular stone and no sealing. The entrance to the cave is closed with a stone, which is taken away, not rolled away. Evidently, the burial clothes of Lazarus had not been impregnated with expensive spices because Martha said ‘he stinks’; present tense. Lazarus had died, been buried, and had started decaying in the heat; the cave stank, which makes the raising of Lazarus even more remarkable. The decay was reversed and, once freed from the grave clothes, he walked freely.

Evidently, the burial clothes of Lazarus had not been impregnated with expensive spices because Martha said ‘he stinks’; present tense

In the following chapter, chapter 12 in John’s gospel, six days before Passover and Christ’s crucifixion, Lazarus is sitting at the table with Martha and Mary, his sisters, Jesus and the disciples, and Mary appears with ‘a pound of very costly spikenard and anointed the feet of Jesus’.

It is important to note that any suggestion that Mary could have used this to anoint her brother’s body and grave clothes is an argument from silence; we don’t know how or when Mary obtained the spikenard. But having it in her possession, she uses it to anoint the feet of Jesus.

Jesus’ view of this extraordinary act was to say, ‘Leave her alone, she has kept this for the day of my burial’.

And, just like the garden tomb would smell days later, ‘(Mary’s) house was filled with the fragrance of the oil’.

To conclude. Sometimes we need to use all five of our senses – including the sense of smell - to fully imagine a story; to imagine being in its location and breathing it in. Paul writes:

‘Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place, for we are to Him the fragrance of Christ amongst those who are being saved and those who are perishing’  2Cor2v13,14

International Women’s Day 8th March 2026

It’s 7am, and I’m on a walk. A cold mist is soaking through my t-shirt. Despite this, my attention is taken up by the Sermon of the Week from Bethel Church, Redding.

The title is Love Looks Like Action, and the speaker is Gabe Valenzuela.

At this point, I have no idea it is International Women’s Day. I don’t find out until after I’m back home, showered, and listening to R4 getting my standard cuppa and cereal breakfast organised.

I’m drawn into the talk. Gabe is combining serious points with disarming humour. Sometimes I’m laughing, hoping no one’s too close to wonder why this man walking along the Strawberry Line path is laughing to himself, early in the morning.

His text is the familiar parable about the Good Samaritan. After about 30 minutes happily agreeing with his conclusions, I find myself taken off in an unexpected direction, unrelated to any sermons or commentaries on this parable, in which the punchline is ‘Go and do likewise’.

A new punchline? Not one that is written down, but one that came from the heart. Of course, Jesus can be thought of as the Samaritan, come to bind up our wounds and pay for our recovery. A beautiful picture of God’s love and grace. This is wonderful and true, but I saw something quite different.

Jesus could tell this parable because He also experienced being the man left by the wayside, battered, bruised, wounded and robbed. Yes, on the cross, but also in life.

As Gabe Valnzuela pointed out, we have all been the person beaten up at times.

Also true of Jesus. The question is, who was he thinking of who had shown him kindness and poured healing oil on Him?

First, though: the wounds.

1. Early childhood fleeing to Egypt as a child refugee, an outsider. Think of the hostility in our society, spoken or unspoken, towards refugees…in the school playground.
2. Biting, continual criticism and accusations from the Pharisees
3. Direct opposition and temptation from Satan and evil spirits
4. His own family accuses him of madness
5. Peter disowning him, Judas betraying him, the other apostles abandoning him

Throughout his public ministry and before he was ministered to, received kindness from, gentleness from, love from…women.

Martha and Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary his mother, Joanna, Susannah, and Salome. In very different ways, they all ministered to him. Maybe you know how. But I want to mention one woman in particular, the Samaritan woman at the well. Maybe she was the inspiration for the parable? The story is related in John chapter 4.

Why this woman? In part because she is unnamed, and a Samaritan, considered to be unworthy. Not only that, but had lived such a tragic life, living with a man but not married, having previously had four husbands. And yet, when Jesus was weary, tired, incapable of taking another step, ground to a halt in the shade by a well…it was this woman who gave the Saviour a cold, refreshing drink of water, when he had no means of getting the water up from the well.

If you’re a man and reading this, perhaps you are thinking back over your life and how particular women have shown you kindness, gentleness, and love just when you needed it and, perhaps, when you least deserved it.

Even in anticipation of Jesus’s ultimate suffering, the indignity of betrayal, arrest, illegal trial, and undeserved execution on trumped-up charges leading to crucifixion, death and burial, it was women who knew what to do…and did it.

First, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anoints Jesus's feet with very expensive perfume, filling the house with the scent. Jesus knows why. He says, ‘Leave her alone, she has kept this for the day of my burial’. An act of devotion and love, knowing that he would soon suffer and die.

And lastly, the women who went to the tomb with spices to roll the stone away and enter to anoint his dead body: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and Salome are named.

Why this woman? In part because she is unnamed, and a Samaritan, considered to be unworthy

What do you think Jesus felt knowing these women had done all that even for him in death?

After all this came from nowhere and tumbled into my thoughts and made tears fall, I walked along the road back to my house, showered, and flipped on Radio 4.

The Morning Service. A programme I usually switch off, as it often feels too stiff and formal. But not this morning. It’s a service from Zion Temple Celebration Centre, in Rwanda, and the stories of, I think, five women in rich Rwandan accents are celebrating International Women’s Day and their faith and love for Christ and telling how He has transformed their lives and is at work today in His risen power, are being told.

That stopped me in my tracks. It’s one thing to be ambushed whilst listening to someone else’s sermon, quite another to be arrested by Radio 4.

So, yes... it’s not only worthwhile to celebrate International Women’s Day, but also important to remember and honour the women who ministered to the wounds Jesus received during His life and in His death…and to give thank God for this reality in our own lives. And not just to ‘give’ thanks, but to pour it out — just like Mary poured her ointment on Jesus’s feet.

The Servant Girl & the Prodigal

In case you didn’t know
My name is Miriam
My apron is filled
With dry thistle heads,
Slivers of bark, and
Desiccated dung

And my flints

Today, I am honoured
Brought to the Master’s house
To fire up the cedar wood
Piled under an oval bath
A hot soak for the prodigal

Everything for him

Steam and sweet smells
Unlike the submerged one,
Him with the matted hair
Dirt-packed fingernails
Cracked, parched lips
And blackened feet

I washed his head
With lye and scented oils
Until his skin
Taut with worry and weather
Yielded its hidden colours
And forgotten warmth

I saw his lips curl, the
Crease of an early smile
And tears drop silently
Onto the water.
His soul retrieving
Its long-lost peace

On a peg, a fine silk robe
Flowed down to meet
New leather sandals

With my eyes closed
I saw all his history
Slip away and sink,
Claimed by the water.

His fragrance followed me
To the music and the feast

I watched the other son
Loiter in the shadows
My smile, my scent
Only hardened his final gaze
As he stood alone
Before joining the night

Beloved Tehran

Slack-jaws slung low
Stomach knots
Tightening their grip

My passport lost
I’m losing connection
With citizenship

All my antennae
Their anxiety exposed
No false alarm

Tension is rising
On the city streets
Of my beloved Tehran

A Persian beauty
Unwilling to be defined
Hatred of Israel declined

Seeking a partner
In pursuit of peace
Began to sing

A song that carried
One heart then many
Into the courts of heaven

But not before
Bullets made of lead
Had painted in blood

And laid low
The courageous choir
Of the silent dead

And so…I hold my breath
My prayers?
Inaudible groans

As lives, once more, are
Reduced to the rubble
Of temporary loans

The Two Moors Walking Challenge – post #3, 25th February 2026

Was this a ‘training walk’ or simply an early morning walk that won’t hurt the prep for the Big One in late May/early June?

I’m not sure it matters. What would matter is not walking.

4th Toe, Left Foot Report

Yesterday’s walk was from home to The Crown and back, trudging through heavy mud at times in glorious sunshine. You should know that the psychosomatic effect of approx. 40 days of rain and 2 days of sun is profound. Physical health has suffered in many, and the dull days have had a hibernating effect on the inner being. Psychobabble? Maybe, but consider how you feel when the sun is up after its long exile, and you are outside…tell me your mood and sense of well-being isn’t turned up a notch?

I digress. Yesterday, after 5 minutes, I was afraid that I’d have to tell my walking partner that I’d have to stop, but the pain faded - thankfully. And today? No problem. No pain. How random.

Shute Tunnel, Shute Hill, Sidcot

This is a beautiful walk, and I was up early enough to avoid all but a few humans and well-trained dogs. It was nature and I. It was blackbirds, robins, crows and jackdaws, unidentified small singing birds balancing on the upper blackened branches, and sheep emerging from the still mist, and, unexpectedly, a few lambs already. Two black ones, and a few very muddy cream versions and their mud-infested mums. And a dead black lamb, left lifeless, lying on the muddy soil; ignored by the others.

It’s beautiful, but Shute Hill is not one that I could run up. Small steps only. Slow. Deep breaths. But the reward, not today in the mist, is a panoramic view across to Crook Peak and over to the run up The Severn towards Portishead, and a lovely view over Winscombe.

Stats

8.92km; 1hr45min; 205m gain; Av heart rate 91; Max 131; 11,302 steps

Spiritual

No comment at the mo. But we’ll go there soon, I’m sure. The pneuma (spirit) as opposed to the psyche (soul) and the soma (body)

Book Review: The Wizard of the Kremlin Guiliano Da Empoli Pushkin Press – 2023

And soon to be released as a film under the directorship of Olivier Assayas

‘Politics has just one goal: to address man’s terrors’

Guiliano Da Empoli has created a masterful fiction that reads like a documentary, deftly squeezing in his own characters between well-known contemporary Russian leaders, mainly Putin, government ministers, and oligarchs.

The setting, which I found faded into the background as the story took hold, is an interview conducted by a French intellectual with Vadim Baranov, a retired advisor to ‘the tsar’ (ie Putin).

Baranov, therefore, becomes the main narrator. Through his revelations, we are taken into the heart and mind of the Russian psyche. How Putin emerged as the strong man ‘to address Russia’s terrors’ – the disaster of the free market unleashed in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR and the encroachment of NATO as its former territories, such as Ukraine, flex their newly acquired independence muscles to buddy up to Europe rather than ‘mother Russia’.

As you might expect, there are unexplained deaths of would-be opponents to Putin’s regime, wonderful Russian names, a beautiful love interest, Ksenia ‘a woman who would burn down a whole city to spare herself a moment of tedium’ , Gary Kasparov, and a brooding sense of the depth of the Russian soul and yet a lingering sense of oppression, or suppression, through enforcing a strict communist-based ideal of frugality and equality, ‘you only have to flip a single switch for the entire room to be bathed in the same brutal and uniform light’.

Baranov is portrayed as a hardened and cynical spin doctor and yet Da Empoli invests a critical chink of light in this machine-like personality in the form of his tender feelings for his daughter Anya, ‘each moment that he lived in her company, represented a small miracle…in those moments gratitude flooded through him like a hit of vodka’.

Whether the film version, in which the narrator is an American, I suppose to elicit a further taught string to the underlying menace of Moscow, is a match for the novel remains to be seen…but I will certainly join the queue at the cinema to find out.

A disturbing and yet compelling read. Thoroughly recommended.

Friday’s Irregular Poetry Corner – a day late

Guest poet: Kimberley Johnson
Featured Poem: Golf
Collection: Uncommon Prayer, Persea Books, 2014

Golf

Glory be to God for bungled things, for the early frost, for the miscarriage the land mine sunk forgotten in the wheatfield, the liger. For all things marred and misbegotten, praise Him – hamfisted, hamstrung, and never else so like us. So comforting a kinship that we hymn it constantly: “OGod!” at the carpenter’s hammered thumb, “O God!”, at the failed marriage, “God damn!”, on the fourteenth green. The chorus amens; cue the responsory:

Versicle: Why in lightning should you hold up a one iron?

Antiphon: Because not even God can hit a one iron

Two Moors Challenge post #1 (b)

Walk 1: Winscombe – Axbridge – Cheddar – Axbridge – Winscombe

19th February 2026

A full Cheddar Reservoir

Later, yesterday, perhaps as a result of writing blog 1, and a favourable weather forecast the boots went on and I set off to walk to Cheddar, intending to hop on the 126 for a (free) bus ride home.

In the end, I overshot Cheddar slightly, walked back in from the east, plonked down in a café (needed the loo and to rest my left foot), before retracing my steps through Axbridge to the Strawberry Line tunnel and home.

What was planned to be a 5-mile walk turned into a 10 miler.

The left foot fourth toe was complaining. Had to stop every 30 mins to take boot off, let blood back into toe/nerve and set off again.

Nevertheless, the training is underway.

With the longest walk at 20 miles and walking each day, I’ll need to get the boots on regularly.

Noticed:

• Cheddar reservoir was full and looking good in the sunshine, hence photos. 

• Early signs of spring, some tiny flowers alongside early daffs and snow drops, some fresh leaves poking out.

• Blue plaques in Axbridge…a future photographic collection. Plus a public loo…Hallelujah!