by Guy Elsmore
The words which we just heard read are close enough to the version which I remember from my school days to do the same for me: as soon as I hear those familiar words then I’m right back in my parish church in Sutton Coldfield, sitting in the choir stalls at the school carol service. Christmas is such a time for evocative memories and of familiarity and that is part of the wonder of the season, but as with all repeated rituals the familiarity also carries some danger too.
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Let me die at sunrise. In the cool, thin dawn of the day
when the pull of the moon and the ocean share a moment
of stillness and nothing moves, nothing breathes - until
the first ray of light breaks the horizon and birds begin
to sing, cockerels crow and children stir from their dreams
- let me slip out of this body, a whisper of spirit, leaving
the heaviness of being behind.
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Community facilitator Kieran Bohan responds to last month's Roman Catholic Extraordinary Synod on the Family
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OPEN TABLE, the monthly service for Liverpool’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* (LGBT) community at St Bride’s, held its first Retreat Day last weekend.
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LAST YEAR, on the St Bride’s pilgrimage to Bardsey Island, I led night prayer each evening based on the spiritual practice known as the Examen, created by Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. From this came the request to offer this practice regularly at St Bride’s, in the form of a guided meditation to reflect on the week.
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A talk at St Bride's by Jon Jelfs
One of the central ideas of anthropology is that the culture or social world in which we live is not an absolute given but has come about through a whole series of intellectual and spiritual choices over many generations, over 100’s, if not thousands of years. The way things are is not necessarily the way they have to be. Cultures are on a journey, always shifting, always changing.
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Worship changes all that. It shifts attention from self-interest to something and someone who embraces the interest of all. This shift of focus to God open us up to God as Love, love for the whole where all are equal and where violence, greed and coveting wealth that rightly belongs to all people dissolves in the face of that love.
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It is well known that neither Confucius nor Buddha nor Jesus intended to set up a new religion. If you read John’s gospel you will think he has a lot of harsh words for ‘the Jews’, but the word he uses means the people of the province called Judaea. An up to date translation might be the Israelis.
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Blog Post by Kieran Bohan
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Talk at St Bride's given on 11th May 2014 by Jonathan Clatworthy
According to all the surveys, religion is losing popularity. Most people are happy to call themselves spiritual, but not religious. So what is it about religion that puts people off?’
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At last, a true celebration of women’s ministry.
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Blog by The Rev Ruth Stock
Its hard to believe that its twenty years since those first ordinations. One the one hand twenty years seems like a long time ago, on the other hand why did it take so long? Perhaps for women now exploring vocation the arguments seem irrelevant. With the discussions about Women Bishops some of the old polemic has reappeared, but the heart isn’t in it any more – women priests are a reality and the sky has not fallen in.
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The graph above shows some of the latest stats from Hope+ Foodbank, a project partnership between the two Cathedrals and the St Luke in the City Team including St Bride's, where food for up to 200 people is distributed every week.
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Blog post by Philip Goff
I have recently found religion.
Let me very quickly follow this up with a ‘negative creed’ of the things I don’t believe in the literal truth of:
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7 Tips for Mindful Eating by Petra Elsmore
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A talk at St Bride’s given by Dr. Jon Jelfs 23rd March 2014
Today we are thinking about fasting as a spiritual practice. Fasting is the voluntary intentional abstaining from food and sometimes fluids for a limited period of time for spiritual purposes. Fasting has been practiced for thousands of years in the context of the world’s religions. It has been practiced by North American Indians, Chinese Daoists and Confucians, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Bahai’s. The fact that it exists in these diverse religious cultures may suggest that there is something significant in it?
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A Talk at St Bride's given on 16th March 2014 by Steven Shakespeare
I want to begin by acknowledging the passing of Tony Benn this week. He was a socialist deeply formed by his nonconformist Christian heritage. He was also a controversial figure – but then, if he had only said things everyone agreed with, he wouldn’t have been worth listening to, or seen as such a threat.
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