The Need for Ice

It’s 11am, or thereabouts
The kettle switch flicked and
The red-light beams,
Noises build from the kettle
Creating the time to assemble
The familiar cup, unwashed
Rinsed, maybe
Then a heaped spoonful
Instant coffee, plus a sugar lump
The spoon circling and clinking
The cube to oblivion

Then the tipping
Boiling water…
…mind drifting now…
I jump back, legs burning
Hollers suspended
In lingering curses

A longed-for cause
Occupying the moment
Where my mind ended
Anchored in a movie
A scent
A memory of light
Falling from the overflow
Of her hair

Disturbed, once more
By the very thing
Designed to bring me peace
Trapped again
By a fire sent to burn
Away all that I don’t need

I shake myself
Free of meandering
And return to hard-core life:
Of the need
For ice

A Tabernacles Trilogy 3. Yom Kippur/Manchester/Hostages

I am well aware that I am writing this blog post just a day short of when Jews around the world celebrate Tabernacles, or Sukkot.

This year, as the world holds its breath over Hamas’s response to the Peace Plan on the negotiating table, and as Jewish eyes are blurred with tears not only with hope but grief, Sukkot 2025 could mark real change in Gaza, Israel, and the whole of the Middle East.

Hope, because no one wants war, conflict, destruction, grief, and hopelessness to set up more than a temporary home in the human heart. And hope, for Israeli’s, that the remaining hostages, alive or dead, will be returned during Sukkot. And hope for some Gazans at least that they can wake up very soon from the nightmare that has been Hamas’s regime.

Grief? Of course. The murderous attack on Yom Kippur in Manchester has chilled the bones of not only Jews but also horrified Britons who have had to clear Jewish blood and the blood of the attacker from their streets; blood spilt days before a credible peace plan might bring the horror of the Israel-Hamas war to a close.

Tabernacles, one of the three main Jewish feasts that Jews were commanded to attend each year, and, therefore, which Jesus would have attended many times, is the final feast in the calendar.

It is no surprise then that many bible commentators link Tabernacles prophetically, despite its evident purpose as a reminder of the temporary tents (tabernacles) that the Jews had to erect in the desert en route from Egypt to the Promised Land, to the end of the world and the final judgement (Rev 21v3).

My comment here is not that this is incorrect, but it falls short of the relevance of Tabernacles in this age and its prophetic significance to the church.

Just as William Seymour and others rediscovered the fulfilment of Pentecost to the church in preaching and receiving the baptism of the Spirit…hence the Pentecostal churches and the Charismatic movement in the 20th Century…so we are on the brink of a rediscovery, this time of Tabernacles.

1. Jesus as a mobile tabernacle
2. Christians as mobile tabernacles
3. Church as mobile tabernacles

Jesus
‘The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory’ John 1v14
‘Jesus said “destroy this temple and I will raise it up after three days”…but He was speaking of the temple of His body’ John 2v19-22
‘the Father in Me does the works’ John 14v11

Christians - individually
‘If anyone loves Me…My father will love him and we will come and make our home with him…the Spirit…will be in you’ John 14v17, 23
‘Do you not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?’ 1 Cor 6v19
‘You are the temple of the living God’ 2Cor6v16

Church
‘You are…a building being fitted together and growing into a holy temple…a dwelling place of God in the Spirit’ Eph 2v21,22
‘We know that if our earthly house, this tabernacle, is destroyed, we have a building from God, not built with hands, eternal in the heavens’ 2 Cor 5v1

The question facing us is: What are the implications for our church experience of the Feast of Tabernacles?

The clue comes from the simple ceremony conducted by Jews from tomorrow onwards for a week. They will meet in specially erected booths, the roofs loosely covered with palm branches and the like, and they meet under these roofs with holes to eat and drink, say prayers, and sing hymns. The holes in the roof mean that it is open to heaven.

It is a picture of the church gathering, the ekklesia (those called by Christ, not a human organisation) bathed in God’s presence (the light through the holes). It is not for one week in the year, but a picture of the potential reality of any church, at any time, anywhere.

Those believers who know the church is the temple of the living God will come with expectation and faith, not simply in a future fulfilment à la Revelation 21v3 ‘Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people…’ but an expectation and living faith in God’s presence now.

If Tabernacles 2025 is to be remembered as the time when the hostages were returned and the dreadful war in Gaza is brought to a close, the world will breathe a great collective sigh of relief

New Testament churches are places where the kingdom of God has already broken in, where the presence of God is normal, and where each believer is functioning as a priest and a king in training…learning, for example, to only do what they see the Father doing. It is a holy place. It is a place where, metaphorically, man removes his shoes, God is there, and the church moves as He moves. It is an awesome place. We become like Moses before the burning bush, where all our doubts, all our fears, all our past sin has been dealt with to such an extent that referring to our ‘old man’ or our ‘old creation’ is irrelevant…we grow in our understanding that God is fellowshipping with churches full of new creations in Christ. Moses lost his arguments with God at the burning bush, ‘I can’t speak’, or ‘I’m afraid’. It’s a place where we lose all our arguments with God. A holy place.

It is now 7pm on Sunday, 5th October 2025.

Jews around the world will be celebrating Tabernacles from sunset tomorrow, 24 hours from now.

If Tabernacles 2025 is to be remembered as the time when the hostages were returned and the dreadful war in Gaza is brought to a close, the world will breathe a great collective sigh of relief. The rebuilding of broken lives, broken homes, broken politics, broken hopes, and broken dreams can begin.

Universal Haiku

Dark, old universe,
It cannot contain itself,
A laugh bursts all bounds

A Tabernacles Trilogy 2. Sports Junkies and Ugly Scenes at the Ryder Cup ?

Oh dear, I confess, my normal early morning devotions have been severely disrupted by a trinity of compelling sports events; a Ryder Cup sandwich, in fact.

Friday: Ryder Cup
Saturday: Ryder Cup + Women’s Rugby Union World Cup Final + Match of the Day
Sunday: Ryder Cup + Match of the Day

Early morning devotions are not exclusively ‘spiritual’ as if the spiritual can be neatly separated from other aspects of life. But my routine, after a few seconds sat on the edge of the bed with as many thoughts as there are gold balls in a bunker…not known for brisk movement, and often plugged, is to perform some limbering up exercises. Exercises over in about 5 – 10 minutes, I can move in a less zombie-like manner. Then follows either walking boots or running gear and an exit for 30 minutes or so of madness, listening to a podcast, if the earbuds are charged.

Back, shower, cereal & toast & tea, I flip the pages of the bible open; these days in the book of Revelation, followed by prayer.

But, if, like me, you’re a sports junkie, this routine can suffer a series of setbacks, particularly in the summer months.

Here’s the thing, before we approach an indirect link to Tabernacles. The unpleasant, rude, coarse, uncalled-for and provocative comments, jeers, and boos from the American crowd at the Ryder Cup are a form of trespass that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Nothing wrong with being partisan and a passionate supporter of your team, but ugly comments come from somewhere. Jesus said, ‘The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.’

So, what has gone wrong? Why has the normal restraint characteristic of the thousands that watch that curious of all sports – golf – a sport in which all its participants accept such an old-fashioned concept as ‘Etiquette’: behaviour expected that has little or nothing to do with the rules of the game.

Here’s my thesis. Those who abandon self-restraint and cross the line in terms of foul behaviour and Etiquette have misunderstood ‘sport’ altogether.

The unpleasant, rude, coarse, uncalled-for, and provocative comments, jeers, and boos from the American crowd at the Ryder Cup are a form of trespass that leaves a bad taste in the mouth

For sport to exist, there has to be cooperation; surprisingly, perhaps, it is an exercise in respect and humility. Sport cannot exist unless one is willing to lose. If you, as an individual or a team, are unwilling to lose, you spend your life on the practice ground, all alone. For sport to exist, two teams must contact each other, agree on a date to do battle, play within the rules, and defer to the referees on hand to settle disputes, whoever wins.

True supporters understand the tension between partisanship (I have been a passionate supporter of Portsmouth Football Club for 60 years) and respect, admiration, and even applauding one’s opponents, especially if they conduct themselves in the spirit of the competition…including playing to win and within the rules.

To pour scorn on your side’s opponents or make personal remarks about family members not only means you have misunderstood the nature of sport but have impoverished yourself; in demeaning others, you have demeaned yourself, become mean, narrow, and embittered, and, if your support is defined by the level of abuse you can hurl, you are blind and cannot see.

Finally, we arrive at Tabernacles, a picture of not two teams but twelve going at it. The twelve tribes of Israel. Or the twelve apostles of Christ. Or the umpteen apostles of our age.

First, a reminder of the biblical Feast of Tabernacles. Jews from the twelve tribes of Israel would make their way to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the week-long feast. In part, it was a reminder of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land, from camp to camp, living in tents (tabernacles) in the wilderness, but it also serves as a prophetic sign, like Passover and Pentecost.

So, if Passover represents salvation and Pentecost the baptism in the Spirit, what about Tabernacles?

Evangelical churches have preached salvation as a free gift, or ‘grace’, through faith in Christ – a Passover faith – since the Reformation. And Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have added Pentecost, preaching the baptism of the Spirit and the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the church in terms of supernatural and miraculous gifts and fruit.

But what about Tabernacles? The third major feast of the Jewish calendar, what is its prophetic fulfilment in and through Christ?

So, if Passover represents salvation and Pentecost the baptism in the Spirit, what about Tabernacles?

Jews celebrate Tabernacles today under a roof strewn with palm branches; they eat and drink, say prayers, and sing psalms. The roof has holes open to heaven. It’s a prophetic picture. The whole body of Christ, all believers of all persuasions, under one roof – and, like sport – one referee, God. There is no one leader.

We get two glimpses in John’s gospel that I will end with.

‘The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us’ John 1 v 14

And in John 7 on the last day of the feast of Tabernacles, in the temple, Jesus cried out

‘If anyone is thirsty. Let him come to Me and drink…rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being’ This He said about the Spirit who had not yet been given’ John 7 v 37-39

The twelve apostles were not naturally on the same team. One was a zealot (terrorist or freedom fighter), one worked for the Romans collecting taxes, a few were northern fishermen, and so on. But the Spirit was poured out on all of them – and the 120 – and they became replicas of Christ, or ‘mini-Christs’ as CS Lewis wrote, temples or tabernacles of God the Holy Spirit.

There was no leader, apart from the Spirit. Each led by the Spirit and the Spirit trusted to choreograph the whole body. Until they were dispersed, the apostles formed a joint eldership in Jerusalem and reproduced this elders-led congregational model elsewhere.

Just like sport. Real sport. Once the final whistle is blown, both sides meet at the bar for a drink. Rivals but only rivals for the sake of doing what all wanted…to put a small white golf ball in a small hole under the Stars and Stripes and the European flags, each player bringing his unique swing, strengths, eye for the shot, club selection…I could go on…but I acknowledge the parable of the best and the worst from the Ryder Cup serves as a poor parable.

The question is – have we got eyes to see what a Passover+Pentecost+Tabernacles church looks like? What songs will be written? What happens when they gather? I don’t know about you, but, at best, I can only see a small cloud on the horizon.

That’s where we’ll start – small clouds – in the third and final part of this Tabernacles Trilogy in a few days time.

MA Creative Writing, Exeter University Creating a Poem…live…part one

This is an invitation to join me in a 4-stage writing process to give birth to a poem.

Nine of us were assembled in a small seminar room waiting for kick-off to get the Writing Poetry module underway.

Anticipation, a little conversation, but we don’t know each other, so it’s muted.

In walked a poet…and a teacher. I won’t name him; description is more important. Maybe early 50s, torn jeans, old jacket, various rings on a variety of fingers, earrings, an impressive head of hair, and peering eyes. Every inch a poet. And with a rich vocal delivery.

And the content of lecture 1 was formational, rather than a download of information; an introduction to his way of detecting the ‘sweet spot’ in a poem as a combination of imagery, musicality, and shape (form, direction, and energy).

So, this blog post is to invite you into the process of writing a poem.

Stage 1. Read and reflect on
Stage 2. Write a similar poem. A list. On an object close to hand. I chose the fountain pen I was holding to take notes as a starting point
Stage 3. Pinch one line from the poem and build from there
Stage 4. Submit the poem to the group and lecturer for critical appraisal….next week. Yikes.

Stage 1 George Szirtes poem, Some Sayings about a Snake

Loved this poem. It enters by the ear and exits through the navel. Come on! Whatever he had in mind that rocks my boat.

Stage 2. My ‘List poem’ on a fountain pen…written during the lecture, no time for edits

Some Sayings About A Fountain Pen

I don’t know, it’s a handful high
Spending time twitching to and fro
Weighing less with each hint of movement
A clock of sorts in indigo
Disturbing, that so much darkness
Lies at the core
A column of unformed words
It draughts Constitutions
Annoys restless Monarchs
The slender curve of the nib
Calms the writer
Fools the writer
Disappoints the writer if
It scratches or flows like glue
A pen should not be hard work
It lasts until it fades
The outer outlasting the inner
Unlike the writer

So…not quite a strict list. I found it impossible to constrict an image to a sentence. Maybe with time, I could have pared it down to essentials? But the task was to extract a line or a phrase, a key idea from the poem and re-work it. The last two lines, for me, were the message in the bottle.

Stage 3. Reworked poem (you may recognise this as Friday’s Irregular Poetry Corner Post)

Unlike the writer

Don’t be duped
Nothing escapes
The onward march to
I don’t know where

Swan Spring quills
Sleek-black biros
Grass-green rollerballs
SmartScreen scribblers, but

Who designed us
To chance upon
A charcoal brew of dyes
To daub, to draw, to draft?

Attached one end, and
Conceived in mystery
Words, hidden in ink,
Flood onto the page

And to mediate?
A handheld instrument,
Twitching to and fro
Emptying its gifts

Until the ink fades,
Nib-scratching the paper,
It’s outer outlasting the inner
Unlike the writer

Stage 4. Next week. Seatbelt on. I can see the editors’ sharp knives, glinting in the eyes of my fellow students and my every inch the poet, lecturer, AB.

A Tabernacles Trilogy 1. Our green and pleasant land.

There’s something quite magical and evocative about a warm September afternoon. The air may retain its early morning autumnal chill, the grass, which had turned brown until a week or so ago, is green once more, and leaves are beginning to fall to cover the acorns scattered on the ground.

To top it all, the fields have been invaded by hay bales, which sit peacefully, possessing a proportional beauty somehow pleasing to the eye, awaiting transport to who knows where?

Rarely do we see how they’ve formed; it’s an agricultural conjuring trick. You wake up one morning, go for a walk, and the field that not a week or so ago was knee-high in grass or wheat has been harvested and transformed into bales.

There is a certain peace in a field strewn with bales. It’s difficult to put your finger on it, but there is that ‘Ahh, all is well with the world’ feeling, even if it is not. Forget expensive therapies, find a field with haybales and breathe. The quiet, the peace, the lovely aromas, and the light tan colours have only come about after the mowing, cutting, and baling of a combine harvester. There are no screams, of course, but it’s noisy work separating the grain from the straw and the chaff.

That tearing apart of the useful from the useless or the waste is a picture of the sudden polarisation of our society.

With society at large witnessing the formation of Farage’s Reform Party situated to the right of the Conservative Party, Corbyn’s, Your Party, sitting to the left of the Labour Party, and the radical Islamists, everyday Muslims, and Palestinian supporters shouting ‘Free Palestine From the River to the Sea’, it feels as if Britain’s seams are being stretched and tested as never before.

Add to that Scottish nationalism and the ructions over leaving the EU, and we can view the past few years either as a demonstration of the robustness of our democracy or a threat to its integrity.

So, is it escapism or good sense to find a field and simply enjoy the sight of a good harvest and luxuriate in the warmth of a sunny September afternoon?

the choice between escapism and good sense is a false dichotomy

In Old Testament days, the men of Israel were commanded to travel to Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate three feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. That’s at least three weeks ‘off work’ per annum, away from work and wars, in addition to the weekly Sabbath.

There’s some wisdom in that, isn’t there?

Tabernacles, or Sukkot, as it’s also called, is right around the corner, sunset on Monday, October 6th and ends at sunset on Monday, October 13th, coinciding with harvest, the end of the agricultural year. Special ‘booths’ are constructed; it might be a plastic corrugated roof covered with palm branches and pampas grass on top to remind Jews of the temporary tents (tabernacles) they constructed on their journey through the desert to the Promised Land. Jews today meet in replica booths under the roof, to eat and drink, recite prayers, and swap news. It’s provides an occasion to remember the past but also a look into the future, as we all do when we take a break.

It is also a call to unity. Jews of all political persuasions meet under the branches, under the roof, in the booth.

I hope you can see what I’m saying?

In church, amongst Christian believers, there has been much talk and many sermons preached about Passover and Pentecost. But we have a deep spiritual need, whether we are Christians or not, to hear the message of Tabernacles, or Sukkot and to meet together under a roof with holes, somewhat open to the heavens, so that we experience a fellowship that transcends political differences and is open to God in heaven, like the light streaming through the roof; not an atheistic socialist utopia of unachievable equality and unity, or a capitalistic freedom that turns a blind eye to the losers, but a deeper note, a reverberation, the call of the Spirit of God. You know it when you hear it.

It's a call to the satisfaction of harvest, a call to completion, a call home, to feet up, to rest, for barriers to collapse, and friendship with neighbours and God to soak into work and world-weary souls.

So, the choice between escapism and good sense is a false dichotomy. To escape, to take time out, to celebrate, to worship, is time well spent; and it is good sense. There are plenty of days to attend to the affairs of the world of work and life.

Go for a drive, maybe. Find a field with hay or straw bales. Go in. See if you don’t go ‘Ahhh’ and relax to your core.

Unlike the writer

Don’t be duped
Nothing escapes
The onward march to
I don’t know where

Swan Spring quills
Sleek-black biros
Grass-green rollerballs
SmartScreen scribblers, but

Who designed us
To chance upon
A charcoal brew of dyes
To daub, to draw, to draft?

Attached one end, and
Conceived in mystery
Words, hidden in ink,
Flood onto the page

And to mediate?
A handheld instrument,
Twitching to and fro
Emptying its gifts

Until the ink fades
Nib-scratching the paper,
It’s outer outlasting the inner
Unlike the writer

Book Review: Lila, Marilynne Robinson, Virago

‘The life she’s decided she would never have was there the whole time trapped and furious, and in that minute she knew that if a man she ought to hate said one kind word to her, there was no telling what she might do.’

Marilynne Robinson has a gift of opening up a character’s innermost thoughts and taking you, as the reader, there, swimming around inside another person’s way of thinking about the world.

The world that Lila is set in is a post-war small town called Gilead, in Iowa, following on from her other novels, Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Orange Prize-winning Home.

Lila, tells the story of Gilead from Lila’s perspective, how she was a homeless wanderer whose only possession was a knife. The knife keeps reappearing in the novel and is Lila’s physical connection with her past, which is very much in contrast to her present. In the present she is married, happily, to John Ames, an elderly church pastor.

Much of the book is a detailed monologue of thoughts drifting from the past to the present and back again. There are no chapters. It’s almost a stream of consciousness but is saved, if that’s the right word, by a tight timeline; the journey could be described as from one baby in the past to another one in the present.

Although there are many bible references dispersed throughout the book and, of course, the perspective on the world through John Ames’s eyes as a church pastor, I found the references to the Christian faith incomplete and frustratingly incapable of conveying an answer to a fundamental question ‘What is a Christian?’ and its corollary, ‘How does someone become Christian?’

‘His body still had the habits of largeness and strength’

Whether purposefully or not, the sacramental perspective ie someone becomes a Christian when they are baptised (not what I understand from the New Testament), is introduced in the conversation between John Ames and his life-long friend Robert Boughton, the minister of another church in Gilead.

But Lila is not written as a Christian tract!

It is beautifully crafted. Some passages are as poetic as they are descriptive, and if you enjoy close detail and honesty about the human condition, this will enthral you. Speaking of John Ames, Lila (or is it the author, it’s not always easy or necessary to choose) is caught thinking, ‘His body still had the habits of largeness and strength’.

If you’re after action, adventure in the sense of fast talking, fast movement, this is not the book for you. There is plenty of action and adventure, but at a much slower pace, that’s all.

MA Creative Writing, Exeter UniversityDay 1

First lecture at Exeter University for 48 years, having arrived here with dark hair in 1977, feeling rather lost, excited, and ready to smell the Chemistry labs for the first time.

Now, the hair colour has changed, it’s always a surprise if a dark hair hits the barber’s floor, but a similar mix of trepidation and excitement at switching disciplines and attempting to absorb what I can from my lecturers and fellow students.

Day 1 was so nearly a disaster.

Firstly, the sleep parking app decided it would not communicate with my banking app. After muttering – that didn’t help – and repeating the failure two or three times, I resorted to the card option. But that required confirmation from the bank, which it gave! Now with less time to reach the platform before the train was to arrive, I had to walk back to my car, put the old-time slip on the dashboard, and trog back to the station.

Upon arrival at the platform, the electronic scoreboard announced that my train had been cancelled.

 Arghhh! With the lecture starting in 2 hours' time, I was forced to drive to Exeter (with an engine warning light on all the way and all the way back later), praying for a parking space.

There was one…one…left. I parked and walked into my lecture as if there had been zero hassles from bed to Writing Prose Workshop 1.

 15, I think in the class. 4 blokes, 11 ladies. Varying ages. Probably every decade from 20s to 70s represented. Ice breaker wasn’t too difficult, a brief bio. Then, after a sausage roll and flat white break, a wide-ranging discussion about Truth using The Salt Path as a leaping off point.

 C, opposite, a bloke, had looked at the background reading for the lecture – swine! – and was well away, having thought through the nature of truth in fiction and non-fiction. I feel as if I’m already languishing. There’s an award-winning literary student from Texas to my right who gets lost in her monologue…but respect to all who spoke up. Quite a few did. I did in fact. Nice open ethos in the room. I warmed to the lecturer.

I parked and walked into my lecture as if there had been zero hassles from bed to Writing Prose Workshop 1

 After, I walked to the timetabling room and changed my Tuesday lecture to a Wednesday.

 At the time, it made sense to put both lectures on one day instead of travelling twice a week. Upon reflection overnight, this was not the right decision as the train times leave no time on campus for trips to the library, timetabling, personal tutor, IT and so on.

So…some hassles, but so good to get underway.

A sunny and warm September day. Exeter is well known for its campus arboretum, squirrels and the like. It was, of course, swarming with energetic undergraduates, and the various coffee shops were doing a roaring trade. Although many were looking at mobiles or screens, there were a great deal of conversations going on. A good sign, I feel.

If I’m allowed to switch back to the original group, I’ll be very chuffed as I felt the lecturer was a good enabler; only saying the minimum to get everyone else thinking and participating.

The reading list: 6 books, 3 fictions, 1 creative non-fiction, and 1 memoir.

Writing Poetry today. 9am train. Hopefully no cancellations.

Sunrise amongst acorns

Lumpy and thick white
A surprising layer of ice
Clung to the windscreen
The clouds long since
Had slithered away
Accidentally like a
Duvet discarded
During the night

Ferreting, I find my
Woolly hat and gloves
Hidden away
While the acorns grew
And the horse chestnut
Spiky capsules
Fallen now, the summer sun
Has dried out the twigs

It is this blue-sky snap
That chills the bone and
Hunches the shoulders
A hope drilled in
Splitting the sheath
Rending the cage
Death running backwards
Life following on

Above the car park
Rises a hill and a trig point,
A freezing vantage point
Where water is arrested
And the wind howls
There are no trees here to witness
The broiling globe
Cast its first light

And fail to retrieve
The summer cauldron
And yet, zero degrees and less
Does its work, cracking
Open the seeds
The hidden hopes
And dared-for dreams…
…maybe this autumn?

The Cows of Winscombe IV 16th September: A Car, A Cow, and a Conversation

But first, a Trades Description announcement; if you are expecting a photo of several cows due to the title The Cows of Winscombe, this post will disappoint. It’s singular, not plural. One cow.

If cows can be demure, this one was!

By Midday

Guttering and drainage fixed. Hopefully, the damp walls can dry out.

As well as dealing with rain pouring down the front of the house rather than the traditional route, down a gutter, much of this week has been working my way through the e-jungle of registration at Exeter University. By midday yesterday, I had succeeded, and my laptop, via some Exeter App, informed me that I had passed Induction and could see my timetable.

With some apprehension, I opened up the timetable to find that I’d missed my first lecture. For those who have followed my attempts to breach the wall of e-communications at Exeter to start a Master's, 48 years after beginning my Chemistry degree in 1977, you’ll understand my comment to a friend: ‘nothing new then, straight back to 1977.’ Let’s just say early morning lectures and I didn’t see eye to eye.

This time around, I’m hoping to be better behaved.

4pm

A thud outside my front door and a cheerful delivery driver climbing back into his van as I opened the door to find another parcel, whilst muttering to myself, ‘What have I ordered now?’

But excitement was to follow. It was the Proof Copy of The Bait Digger, my debut novel, written at an age I should have known better.

By 4.15, cup of tea and a slab of dark chocolate in hand, I sat in the back garden, green pen raised to spot any mistakes. And found some. A French accent aigu had gone acute, and an apostrophe was missing, so it’s vital work.

5.30pm

Text my neighbour. ‘Fancy coming with me to drop my car off at the garage and walk back in the dark, the wind, and the rain?’ The reply, ‘Aww, sorry, am booked into a steam and a sauna. Thanks for asking.’ I sensed a wry smile.

But her sauna was cancelled, and for some strange reason, the idea of fighting the elements appealed, and off we went. It should have been about a 45-minute round trip. The wind was really kicking up. Great stuff, and even before sunset, it was getting dark. However conversation drifted to receiving my Proof Copy, and neighbour said unto me, ‘We should celebrate’. After a detour along some farm tracks, and passing the singular cow, we sat down with two glasses of wine at one of the best pubs in the universe - The Crown - and nattered on whilst the rain pounded down on the plastic corrugated sheet above our heads.

Her mobile phone torch is probably the reason we’re not still wandering around the footpaths of North Somerset as I sit here composing this post.

So, that’s it. A Car, A Cow, and a Conversation.

It’s funny how our days unfold.

I struggle with this verse:

‘And in Your book were written all the days ordained for me before one of them came to be’ Psalm 139v16

It smacks of an unavoidable preordained existence, when my experience is of randomness, occasionally very poor planning, laziness, dilemmas, highs and lows and so on.

‘Teach us to number our days so we may gain a heart of wisdom’ Ps 90v12

That sounds about right. Work to be done, then.

The Cows of Winscombe 13th September: Cows three days running? Really?

Another unexpectedly sunny morning.

Boots on and with various disturbances in my innermost being (otherwise known as ‘things on my mind’), I set off intending to retrace a walk past the surgery and across fields to Shipham Lane. I’d even spent time searching for my glasses so I could see enough detail on an OS map to know where to find a particular footpath.

In the event my feet took me to a longer route, through Sidcot and up to the radio mast before descending to King’s Wood and on to the Strawberry Line to return home, 90 minutes later.

I did not expect to see cows.

I’ve walked this route a few times and only walked past sheep and lambs in the Spring. So it made me smile when I found some cows happily munching grass far enough away not to notice me gazing at them. The thought went through my head ‘that means I won’t be able to resist a third Cows in Winscombe blogpost’ and here we are.

Two of the uppermost ‘things on my mind’ I could name in specific terms. Better, though, to reflect on the bass notes. Most music is recognisable by its melody, the top notes, and the right hand on the piano. The left hand, which plays the bass notes, plays a background role. Without them, something’s missing, but it’s difficult to recognise the piece or the track simply from the bass alone. Two bands that buck that trend are The Police and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

I digress.

So, it is tempting to comment on Charlie Kirk’s assassination, which was on my mind, probably like yours? And Exeter University. Also bothering me. But I won’t.

On Charlie Kirk, I will leave the floor to Barack Obama, who tweeted (if that’s still a verb?) on X:

We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.

On Exeter University, all I need to say in detail is that I’m looking forward, even though daunted, sitting at the feet of expert lecturers. It (an MA in Creative Writing) starts next week…and I still have some hoops to jump through.

What I will attempt to comment on re: Exeter is the difference between modes of communication and actual communication; the harmful drift from simplicity to false sophistication.

And, continuing a heavy theme, to articulate my concerns about suppression via polarisation as the background to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Well? How many of you have taken yourself off for a long walk because you’re carrying some bothersome thoughts that need some time to settle, or to emerge from the brain fog?

Hopefully, I won’t forget the cows and the countryside by the time I finish this. It was a beautiful walk. Another title I considered for this piece was ‘Beauty’. I hope I can link the above to beauty.

In recent years, the term ‘polarisation’ has become a popular term expressing deep concerns about the glue that holds societies together. In the UK, our recent flirtations with polarisation have been, I would argue, over whether to Remain or Leave the EU, and in the last two years over Israel/Gaza. In the States, the antagonism between MAGA and Antifa supporters (rarely reported in the UK) and similar left-right extremist groups and the two main political parties continues to be extremely unsettling.

Why deep concerns? Here’s my interim answer: polarisation leads to suppression.

In the UK, depending on whose company you were keeping, it was wise to keep schtum about your Brexit or Remain views, or your support for Brexit champion Boris or Remainer Cameron, or you’d be shouted down, shunned, ostracised, and vilified. (Even in churches, Christians were nervous about showing support for either side, depending on the political profile of their church, for fear of an unseemly row).

Fear of speaking out was palpable. Wisdom triumphed over Courage. The result: Suppression.

In the campaign to join the EU in 1972, arguments were put forcefully by both sides, but without rancour spilling over into societal unrest or an erosion in civil dialogue.

The glue that holds a democratic society together is free speech, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to a fair trial.

In conclusion, as much as I defend Charlie Kirk’s exercise of freedom of speech, I look to America to ensure that the man arrested for his assassination is given a fair trial.

Really, what is on trial is whether we want to live in a democracy or whether we will slip into fascism, either to the right or to the left. Since Mussolini, who coined the word ‘fascism’, and Hitler, we have associated ‘fascism’ with the far right, but it can be equally associated with the far left. The characteristics of fascism include dictatorial leadership, forcible suppression of opposition, and subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race.

Why deep concerns? Here’s my interim answer: polarisation leads to suppression

Tragically, we have witnessed democracies tumble into the fascism of Hitler’s far-right National Socialism, and then the far-left version in Communist East Germany in post-war Europe. Dictatorships that ruthlessly silenced all opposition and free speech.

Beauty? The freedoms we have taken for granted in the UK – and the West in general - are as beautiful as the air we breathe, the blue sky above, and the sweet smell of autumn. The bible says we should think on these things. It’s good advice.

Let’s just say that my experience of joining Exeter University with its sophisticated e-management of umpteen Apps, email log-ons, an avalanche of communication, and, with less than a week to go before I sit in a lecture theatre here, are the things I don’t know:

1. My timetable

2. Who my lecturers are

3. Where to go

4. The number of days per week I need to be on campus

5. Access to a personal tutor

Here’s my point.

The avalanche of communication with well-designed webpages, links to opportunities, and so on, has relegated the essential information, as above, to a lower league. I have the impression of busyness; an overworked admin staff desperately trying to keep this complex show of e-communication on the road so that, heaven forbid, it never falls beneath the presentational standards of competing institutions.

Meanwhile, I need to know the above. Really, that’s all I need to know.

This disease is not Exeter University-specific. It’s widespread. Sophistication has replaced Simplicity, with the result that priorities are obscured and lost.

Sometimes progress is an inversion of the meaning of the word.

In 1975, if I wanted a doctor’s appointment, I would travel to the surgery, take a board with a number from a hook, and wait until my number came up. Simple. No forms to fill in, no website to log on, no admin staff needed, no telephone calls. During the night, a doctor was on call. Every day. Local. Reached by a landline telephone call.

It wasn’t perfect, of course, and had to expand as Whitstable’s population grew, but simplicity has been replaced by false sophistication.

The beauty of simplicity is that it is democratic; everyone, young and old, understands how to access the information they need. False sophistication leads to a divided and unequal society where those who can navigate the sophistication become a mobile e-elite and those who struggle are discriminated against and, all too easily, fall through the cracks.

St Paul wrote the following words:

‘Finally, brothers, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.’

The walk in the beautiful countryside near Winscombe this morning allowed me to meditate on the type of society I hope we can maintain. Personally, I hope the walk has helped me from getting too drawn into commenting on the awful assassination of Charlie Kirk, or the specific frustrations surrounding starting a Master’s at Exeter. I hope I have been able to reflect on how good and wholesome a society can be if it upholds the above-mentioned freedoms; freedoms I have more or less taken for granted, and that I want my grandchildren to enjoy without fear.

He Took Me There

At my age, I’ll shed this skin
By Christmas
Honestly, when you look at me
Over the bread sauce
I’ll not be the man I used to be
A strange twist of newness
The replacement looking
Older by the day

Some parts are famously temporary
Wobbly teeth hanging by death threads
Nails, already not really us
Our breath, a sojourner at best
But the real you and me,
Living amalgams of all that has passed
Organic unions with our brokenness,
Our crimes, our guilt, our shame
Jealousies, pride, lust
Ambition, our hurt lockers
Can these death notes
Be peeled away like the teeth
To leave us new again?

Sunday by Sunday
The priests intone
O Lamb of God
Who takest away the sin of the world
Have mercy on us
Did the Lamb of God excise
Our sufferings and put them in
A divine supermarket trolley?
Removing our grief and sorrows
Far away, leaving us innocent?

Hauntingly we sing
Were you there
When they crucified my Lord?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble
No more so than now
When I can offer the only answer
Looking out at His mother
At Magdalene, at the soldiers
At those gathered, and beyond
Through His eyes
Yes, I was there
He took me there

Not just my sufferings
Separated from me, no,
The Suffering One,
He took me there

It is finished, I am finished
Now, at Christmas
When I look at you
I’ll be peering from inside
The resurrection and the life
Ah, don’t you worry about my aging skin
It’s the oldest trick in the book
Just you wait

The Cows of Winscombe 12th September: Running in the Light

I hadn’t written yesterday’s Cows of Winscombe post with any intention to turn it into a series, but that may be what’s transpiring.

The day so far.

At approximately 7 a.m. I donned my ear buds and headed to The Strawberry Line, a disused railway line, for an early morning run. In fact, 7 a.m. for me is quite a late start, but I woke up later than usual.

The forecast was for rain, so I was mentally prepared for a soaking. Not a drop of rain fell. Clouds were moving slowly across the sky from the SW, but the sun shone.

Normally, I listen to a podcast to accompany my sweaty efforts; this morning, I listened to Pete Grieg addressing NC25, a Christian Conference, speaking about the Quiet Revival that has hit the headlines in recent months. It was excellent, funny (naked in a glass-sided shopping centre lift made me laugh out loud), informative, and an appropriate ‘wake-up’ message for an early morning run.

But that’s not what I want to write about.

I moved here approximately 6 months ago, and I realised I was surprised to find myself running in the same soft morning light as in March/April. Not as funny as Pete Grieg’s mishap in the lift, but it made me chuckle. ‘Of course! Doh!’ was how I reacted.

The Earth looked at ease with itself. All was well. It was like an unexpected gift

April 1st Sunrise: 6.36

October 1st Sunrise: 7.01

It doesn’t match perfectly, due to the alignment of the planet with respect to the Sun and the equator, but it’s near enough. And gorgeous.

And, as you can see, I ran past more cows. Today’s cows were illuminated in those soft sunrise rays. I felt calm. They looked calm. The Earth looked at ease with itself. All was well. It was like an unexpected gift, remember, I was expecting to be soaked through, this was like darkness into light, defeat into victory, turmoil into peace…poetically speaking.

If that’s a tad melodramatic, so be it, but I enjoyed the run, stopping every so often to pick a succulent blackberry or take a photo of the light falling on cows, a bridge, and a disused, rusting farm trailer.

For those reading this of a spiritual disposition, you will understand why this morning’s run in the light reminded me of David’s Psalm 30v5

Weeping may last for the night,
But a shout of joy comes in the morning

The Cows of Winscombe 11th September: between a bull and a field of cows

One of my normal early morning running and walking routes across fields and footpaths has an in-built risk of encountering the cows of Winscombe.

Last week, my route was blocked by four or five large Friesians standing guard by the fence, so I couldn’t clamber over…nor did I particularly want to. Or, taking a shortcut, I found myself in a field I thought was cow-empty, only to find a small group of about fifteen Guernsey cows (I think), three of whom were headbutting each other.

With about fifty yards to the exit, they started to take more of an interest in me than each other or the grass and started running in my direction, making a din, mooing and bellows. A friendly morning greeting?

This morning, upon reaching a concrete block over a stream and a standard aluminium gate, I was faced with a field with another fifteen or so cows with heavily laden udders munching their way in my direction. They seemed to be quite peaceful – no headbutting – but to get to the gate on the other side of the field would mean walking through the middle of the small herd.

I was about to turn back when I heard a very loud snort and bellow. A large bull had entered the field in which I was standing.

So, one bull behind and fifteen cows ahead. What to do?

I’d been standing at the gate watching the cows for a few minutes. One had wandered over to me to say hello and moved off peacefully, so off I went walking slowly. The fact that I’m writing this suggests, correctly, that these cows were more interested in snaffling the dewy grass and nettles from the field than bothering with me, and I made it to the gate without any trouble.

Cows are rather strange and lovely animals. There’s a mournful, ‘I’m too heavy’, look about them, a resigned acceptance of their lot, and a peculiar combination of bony outcrops and massive flesh. Joy seems to be on hold. They engage a sense of sympathy in me; I hope they get milked soon. It all looks a tad uncomfortable lolloping around with udders fit to burst, cloven hooves standing in wet, muddy fields, loaded with excessive heaviness.

I didn’t study the bull for too long.

In contrast, each cell in the bull’s body seems to be a world saturated with a longing to do something dreadful or drastic, even if it is servicing every cow within sight and over the horizon, or reminding me of my puny humanity.

The matador in me seems to have flown the country.

Why am I concerned about the BBC?

1. The BBC failed to describe the October 7th 2023 attack against unarmed civilians by Hamas as a terrorist attack, even though Hamas planned, targeted, and murdered 1,195 unarmed civilians at the Nova Music Festival and in the Be’eri kibbutz, and took 251 hostages to Gaza. When reporting the July 7/7 bombings in England, the BBC called the attackers terrorists: ‘On 7 July 2005, four terrorists bombed London's transport network, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds more’. [London 7/7 bombings: Returning to the capital 20 years on - BBC News]. And reporting 9/11; ‘On 11 September 2001, four passenger planes were hijacked by radical Islamist terrorists’ [The people who think 9/11 may have been an 'inside job' - BBC News]. This double standard has undermined the credibility of the BBC’s editorial judgement. I am concerned.

2. The BBC seeks to uphold standards of journalistic excellence. One of the foundational requisites of professional journalism is to report using reliable sources; however, the BBC has consistently reported information about the suffering in Gaza using Hamas-run Health Ministry statistics. It is inconceivable that the BBC would have entertained reporting statistics from an equivalent Nazi source in the Second World War. I am concerned that the daily diet of information passed on to the public in this manner, directly from Hamas, is influencing our ability to form a sound judgment concerning matters such as food-aid supplies, and death and injury statistics. By continuing to report Hamas’s statistics, the BBC has weakened its journalistic credibility, and I am concerned.

3. The BBC has an enviable reputation for reporting impartially and objectively – a reputation hard-won over many years. The combined effect of the above two points with respect to the terrible war between Israel and Hamas is, however, to undermine this reputation and to contribute to the public shift away from support for Israel and towards Hamas. The BBC’s double standards and use of Hamas as a reliable source are surely cause for grave concern about its editorial integrity, and it is a matter that should be investigated fully.

It just doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t feel like the BBC of old. Something serious has gone wrong at the editorial level. And it needs to be brought into the light and put right.

Adam 2025

4099

Phone numbers from a different land

The feel of a finger pressing into the circle

Of metal, a dial shone

By decades of callers

And turned clockwise

‘Til the gently curved barrier

Puts a stop to all that

3752

It’s 7pm, maybe 8

My heart is pounding

I’ve glanced at the phone box

Red, passive aggressive,

Silent and terribly still

Daring me to risk all

I pull the heavy door

Inhaling a familiar odour

The dialling tone ceases

And I listen to her father’s inquisition

I’m out of depth

01392

Gone are the telephonists

The plug and socket exchanges

People replaced by machines

SDT the Acronym Age has begun

Metal holes replaced by plastic

Plastic holes by buttons

Romance and risk by automation

Reverse charges

A good trick if your pocket

Is devoid of a 10p

Occasional victories from a phone box

And one hollers and fist pumps

As if the Crown Jewels are yours

How sweet it is to outflank the system

Truth is, no one fist-pumped until

The new millennium

Mobliles, Cell Phones, Smart watches, Implants, Ear buds

Flat black screens

Sensitive to the touch of a finger

Have we arrived at where we began?

Eve. What did you feel, when you

Held the fruit, so appealing to the eyes?

Eyes, yes, of course

But how did it feel?

Soft, hard, hairy, smooth

Did it smell of a telephone box?

Or petrol, or the earth?

Text me

My number is…

07…

A distinctive odour…like old rain and decaying leather

Time was

Time ain’t so linear, Sir
See the east wind?
Outrunning the sun’s shadow
Time hopping to what was
Plunging us before time
Into what was tomorrow

Cram time into a box
I tell you
Doors and windows will pop open
Put a mind in that room
And watch it pull things up
Barnacled shipwrecks from the seabed
Or talk of things that are not
As if they are

No, Sir, time ain’t so linear
It doesn’t sit neatly on a ruler
Or a clockface
Between the tick and the tock
A sweet dream will carry you
Into a world full of soliloquies
And shadows selling a different hour

Know what I think, Sir?
No, not really
I am.
Ain’t so far out
That’s what I think

I’ll wear your crown

You don’t know me as I know me
I’ve lusted and lied
Died and risen, risen and died
Jon-ah, what’s the difference?
Been swallowed by a fish
I’ve learnt how to hide

Driven roundabouts
Right to left, not left to right
Got away with it
So I thought
But in here
In here, I’m parched, bereft
Thirsting for…mercy
To bask in the light
To swim in righteousness
Eye salve to my hindsight

I’ve lusted and lied
Died and risen; risen and died
Jon-ah, what’s the difference?
Been swallowed by a fish
I learnt how to hide

But through it all,
You waited for me to come
To cry out
‘Enough of dark mirrors’
Scared, with fears laid down
Under a morning shower
Cascading light
Too strong for shadows
No strength to fight

I yield, I’ll wear your crown

The Punchy Epistle – James (iii) Dessert: Elijah

This is not a scholarly look at the Epistle of James. It’s not an investigation into authorship, manuscripts, historicity, debates over canonicity, or a re-hash of Luther’s famous dislike of its contents.

What I have in mind is a four-course meal, or more accurately, a three-course meal, with two starters.

If the Starters were Abraham and Rahab, and Mains were Job, Pud is Elijah

‘The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain…and he prayed again, and it rained, and the earth produced its fruit’

The context of this section is supernatural miraculous healing of the sick by God through the laying on of hands of the elders ‘and the prayer of faith will raise him up’. I was an elder in a local church for a few years. On one occasion, I was asked to visit a home with a mother and her son, the son was suffering from an inoperable growth on his neck as removing it surgically would have severed many facial nerves.

Two of us, as elders, went to the house. As I walked in, James’s instructions for confession of sins before prayer for healing came to mind. The boy and his mother confessed their sins to each other, including anger; they’d argued earlier that day. It was a sweet moment. We prayed and left. News circulated a week or so later that the growth had disappeared.

The reason I mention that is to make sure we’re dealing with the living God and not an intellectual approach to scripture – vitally important, though, that we do.

James’s first and very important point is that Elijah had a nature just like ours. This great hero of faith, the prophet who called down fire from heaven and who stopped and started the rain, who raised a widow’s dead son, and so on…had a nature just like ours, yours. He was just a man. He had so special powers. It was God working through Elijah. Therefore, God through us can do…well…anything He wants to do!

James’s second point is dynamite to many prayer meetings, huddled around various layers of man-made pretence of faith, or the language of politeness, or religious gobbledygook and jargon. James uses three words to punch a hole in our dreadful, woeful substitution for real biblical prayer: Effective. Fervent. Earnestly.

James’s third point is to use the example of Elijah seemingly controlling the weather with a word. It is SO important to realise that Elijah was a man just like you or me. Nothing special.

The clue to Elijah’s rain miracles is tucked away in the Old Testament, in 1 Kings chapters 17 - 19, the longer version of events that James summarises in his letter.

‘Elijah said to (King) Ahab ‘…there shall not be dew or rain for years except at my word’ 17v1.

A drought followed. Sometime later, Elijah prayed seven times before seeing a ‘cloud the size of man’s fist’ and told the King, Ahab, ‘Get your chariot ready and leave before the rain stops you’ 18v44.

‘…the sky became black with clouds and wind, and there was heavy rain’ v 45

How was Elijah able to do this? Is prayer a form of twisting God’s arm? Making Him bend to our will and desires? The clue is hidden midway through one verse, 1 Kings 18v15.

‘Then Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely present myself to Ahab today’’’

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, an ordinary man, but he spent time ‘standing before the Lord’. It was in communion with the Lord of hosts that he heard the Lord and presented his prayers.

In verse 2 of chapter 17, just after Elijah had told King Ahab about how the drought would start and end ‘at my word’ we read ‘Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah’.

Jesus said, ‘My sheep know My voice’.

So, this is the punch. Effectual fervent earnest prayer is not a pretence of faith; it is, initially, standing before the Lord, often with nothing except a desire to pray. There is no revelation, no ‘word’ from God. We should pray earnestly until we receive revelation or a word from God, then we can pray, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven’.

On the occasion above, I heard the Lord remind me about these verses in James, and the boy’s healing followed on. I have also prayed for someone who is sick, without any sense of the word of God, and healing has not occurred. Once, I was a small group leader, and out of a sense of duty, I asked the group to pray for a woman with cysts on her ovary that were preventing her from conceiving. Weeks and months passed, and she was no better.

The Lord convicted me that I should go back and apologise to the group for giving the impression that I had faith for her healing, and asked the group to pray again. I confessed my lack of faith, but we prayed. One member of the group heard the word of the Lord and said very simply to the woman ‘you will be healed by Christmas’ which was a few months away. There was a sense of peace in the room. And that is what happened, no cysts by Christmas, and she went on to have children.

Finally, let’s put James’s first point in reverse. We have a nature just like Elijah. We are men and women with no supernatural power of our own. But we can ‘stand before the Lord’ and pray effectually, fervently (and, yes, you might do odd un-British things in your fervency, like shout, or, like Elijah, bend down and put your head between your knees, or lie prostrate, or kneel), and earnestly. Whilst we are there, in communion with God, through Christ, and in the Spirit, we may hear Him speak. Everything follows on from that.

ps I have been writing this since reading these verses yesterday and the day before, and I am also feeling the ‘punch’ of ‘before Whom I stand’. That is the word of the Lord to me. A renewed call to do just that. Probably, to start with anyway, to take it literally, and stand up, though I acknowledge it’s not physical standing that Elijah is alluding to, but going into the presence of the Lord as you would before a king or a queen. But I will be standing.