Some years ago, sailing into Plymouth harbour, the boom vang on my yacht snapped. Boom Vangs are small things, but of crucial importance if you want the boat to move in the way you wish it to, because it connects the wheel to the sail, via a device known, amusingly, as a ‘tabernacle’. The snap came about fifty metres from the harbour wall, beyond which all was still and calm and the onboard motor would have been quite sufficient, with the sails down, to pootle into the marina

Some time ago, there was a meeting looking at regularising the rites of deliverance in the Church of England. As most of you will guess, I was at the meeting. I was reasonably quiet, because I had successfully argued for ‘other occasional texts as may be needed’ to be inserted into the Canon, and indeed, ‘Other Occasional Texts’ pretty much sums up the entire liturgy by which I live and minister. At one point, the insurance company were saying that we would be unable to pract

When I set out to write a sermon, I tend to go through the same few moves. First I check, for sure, what the readings of the day will be....

As you know, I am not concerned with keeping things ‘on the proper day’. Not because of any kind of flippancy about the events we...

It would be the usual thing to begin by saying that Crosses are personal things, and that the burden we bear is an intensely personal...

Reading of eating and drinking in today’s Gospel, my mind wandered back to childhood family gatherings, Christmas, anniversaries,...

Sometimes people like to say that the Assumption of Mary is ‘not in the Bible’ and we have to accept that scriptural references are...

We hear a lot about faith today, and we become faithful by faithfulness, not by faithlessness, and there is the stumbling block for so...

Lord, teach us to pray, as Jesus taught his disciples…… Prayer – what is it? Sure, we all do it. We’re doing it today at church and I’ll...

It can be hard to balance public and private life, and sometimes things tip over the balance one way or the other, which can be difficult...