Dear Reader All this ‘play’ and ‘no work’ is making Jim a dull boy. Well, working from home has its limitations and I think we’d all like to get back to our normality as soon as its safe to do so. I am enjoying writing my daily ‘column’ and as I do so I can imagine you all at home reading my ‘thoughts’. It has been very interesting to hear from some of you from your own particular situations and hearing how you are coping with the necessary restrictions. I enjoy your......

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Dear Reader There are many annoying things in life, and we are all well acquainted with them, particularly when they’re within our own households. One of these things is called housework. Not the housework itself really, but the need to get it done while others don’t share the same enthusiasm for doing it. ‘Shift, lift you feet, have you not got something better to do.? Do you think you could put that back where it belongs……. ‘. There are other mutterings to be heard. You know the scene. I know of a......

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Dear Reader Thank you for your continuing messages and phone calls etc. It is good to hear from you. It’s just coming up for 6.00am and I have you and your loved ones in mind as I write my ‘thought for the day’. I am enjoying the challenge of choosing and sharing with you a different bible passage each day and it is heartening that we can all learn something together. Later this morning I will be taking a funeral and be with a family I have never met. All the arrangements......

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Dear Reader I don’t where it originated but clapping has become, and is, a universal means of showing our appreciation and enjoyment following a performance of one kind or another. It’s a very happy sound. This evening we will again clap in appreciation for all who work hard in caring for others in the NHS. We applaud too other workers in other occupations who serve our communities throughout our entire country. Perhaps, and I hope so, one deserved outcome from all the disruption and tragedy from the Coronavirus pandemic will be an......

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Dear Reader Most of us at some time or other will have said or thought, ‘I don’t like the look of him/her’, or on some other occasion said the opposite, ‘I like him/her, they are so nice, I think I can trust them….’, and how wrong we have been, sometimes anyway. You and I know from raw experience that our so called ‘better judgements’ are flawed or skewed by all manner of things. For example, we have been known to ask an opinion from those who will say what we want to......

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Dear Reader, This current crisis has made us all think on the importance of keeping in touch. Prolonged isolation is no fun. I have been heartened in my isolation, in receiving your messages. I look forward to the little exchanges in my daily routine and your comments are truly valued. Many thanks! Over twenty years ago now I remember my drama group in St. Paul’s, Johnstone, where I was minister for ten years, performing the most excellent musical ‘Fiddler on the Roof’. The one and only time I have seen the musical.......

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Dear Reader It was a case of mistaken identity that first Easter morning. Mary Magdalene thought Jesus was the gardener. After a short discourse, the ‘penny dropped’. It wasn’t the gardener at all but the risen Jesus. It was in the mention of her name, ‘Mary’, that she became aware of who Jesus was. That familiar sound. It is a fact that when we feel alone and out of sorts, perhaps in strange and unfamiliar surroundings, first day at high school in a new class, starting a new job or alone in......

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Dear Reader As we continue with the necessary restrictions which have, and still, continue to affect just about every aspect of our lives we ‘join’ in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. For me, today feels just like every other day in these unfamiliar times. It doesn’t feel like Sunday, it doesn’t feel like Easter it doesn’t feel like any day. That said, it is Sunday and it is Easter. When you consider many of the great events in the bible, for example, Jesus’ birth, his death and resurrection, before there is any......

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Dear Reader This is the point in Holy week where Jesus along with his disciples and their hopes, expectations and claims finally hit the buffers. Jesus now dead and locked in (entombed) and the disciples isolated and dejected, the story ends. To make sure this troublesome upstart, Jesus, doesn’t cause more bother after his death, the authorities guard the tomb. How bleak, dark and hopeless everything must have seemed. Frightened for the future, perhaps regretting the past, what now for those who joined in following the man who gave them hope and......

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Dear Reader, Today this phrase ‘ Social distancing’ will forever be etched in our minds and will now be part of our recorded world history. For those who can remember, possibly one or two of you maybe, during the war there were wardens policing the streets at night making sure no lights were visible which could attract threatening bombers. Life and limb depended on everyone doing there bit. We don’t have wardens policing the streets now, but we do have our regular cops and we can all help by making their jobs......

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