Curate Conundrums

  What I’d like you to do is, if you’re able take a moment to look at your hands. Observe them. If you’re not able to see your hands perhaps touch one to another and feel them. What do they feel like? Our hands are the way we interact with the world. Through them we feel what’s going on, and our sense of touch is often the first to appear and the last to leave us as we die. They say should hold the hand of a dying person because they will know you are there. Hands are meant for touching, for grasping for caring. If you’ve ever put your finger in the palm of a newborn baby they will cling on to it, as if they are clinging on to you for dear life. It’s called the Palmar Grasp Reflex. Like many of the involuntary movements babies are born with, the grasp reflex probably developed to help her in some way — for example, to grab a nearby object or prepare to feed herself.  The palmar reflex is similar to another type of movement called the plantar reflex (or Babinski reflex), ...

  Families are funny things aren’t they? There are some families that are very close, and others that are not. There are some people who we would call chosen family aren’t there. Friends who aren’t blood relations but we would consider like family. My Uncle Jim and Auntie Jane are my Godparents, but they’re not related to me. But, I called them Auntie and Uncle growing up. I’ve got friends who I’m much closer to than my own family, mostly because of geography. Lots of my family live very far away, and to be honest I haven’t seen that much of them. I think families are good, but I wonder what automatically comes into our minds when we think about family? What’s fundamental to a good family relationship? I think it’s nurture. Nurturing one another, our partners, our cousins, our brothers and sisters, even sometimes our own parents. Encouragement is the foundation of family life. Sometimes though, I struggle with the word ‘family.’ As a Gay man and as a single person I often wat...

  Have you ever heard of the concept of flow? Flow is a state of being when you’re so engrossed in something you loose track of time. I know, that’s how you all feel when listening to my sermons… It’s sometimes described as ‘in the zone’, a state of relaxed concentration of focus. A strange paradox between something that feels like time is standing still, and also it’s over in a minute. Effortless but also a sense of extreme challenge, effortless but intense. Flow is something that I feel sometimes when I’m playing the piano at home, especially when it’s going well. I sometimes, on a good day, feel it when I’m sermon writing or presiding at a service. Focussed, concentrating and in the moment. And other times I’m thinking about lunch… Some people when they get into a state of flow forget to drink, eat, and focus for very long periods of time without stopping. Ever been in that situation where you start work on something, it’s about two in the afternoon, then suddenly it’s dar...

  How are your preparations for Christmas going? Perhaps some of you are inwardly or outwardly rolling your eyes at the mention of it, but are you prepared? Have you got the Christmas tree? Have you ordered the figgy pudding? If you’re getting presents have you got them yet? In life we prepare for things all the time, meetings, seeing people, travelling places, what we’re going to eat, when are we going to do the laundry, or the gardening if we have one. We’re very fortunate to have Rob here at St Augustine’s who does so much planning for us, he gets the fruit, makes the coffee and even mows our lawns. We’re very fortunate to have our musicians, who think about what we’re going to sing, practice and enhance our worship. We’re very fortunate to have Carrie and Judy, who help in the setting up of this service, and we’re very fortunate to have all the rest of you here, who most likely planned to be here and are all wonderful! But here’s another question, are you prepared for the...

  What does water mean to you? Water, we use it all the time don’t we. To bathe, to cook, to clean our clothes, to look after the plants in our garden, to flush away our nasties, to put cucumber and ice in and have a refreshing drink on the patio after a particularly stressful Sunday. Just water by the way. We are so reliant on water aren’t we? It’s not something that we often think about in this country, as usually there’s a lot of it about. Although this year has been very different. We just expect it to come out of the tap don’t we? That is until a drought comes along. I’ve been thinking a lot about water. I often walk by the River Wensum here in Norwich, and was shocked at how low it was the other day. Now you all know that I’m an anxious person. I didn’t hear any gasps of surprise there. Bit insulted actually… Anyway. My anxiety manifests itself in lots of ways. Every year during the summer I get fixated on running out of water. I develop something I call ‘water guilt’...

Feed my Lambs I sometimes look at the pages of the Bible and think that God uses the most unlikely people doesn’t He? From Moses, the Murderer to Ruth the Moabite, David the womaniser, to Paul, also a murderer.  As far as I know I’ve not murdered anyone, well, not lately anyway, there’s nothing under my patio by the way, what patio, who’s even talking about a patio, not me! Unlikely people, that are used for God’s purposes. For me that’s one of the most wonderful things about the Bible, it’s got every little bit of humanity poured into its pages. Whoever said ‘we shouldn’t use our experience to shape our thinking about God, only the bible!’ Is clearly a bit flawed in my view. Because the whole of the Bible is lived human experience. Story, History, Poetry, Gospel all combine into a beautiful mess of complicated questions, thoughts and meaning.  Our faith isn’t a neat little box, but like that box of wires at the back of the drawer, you all know the one I mean. The one with...

Having moved to Sprowston very recently, thanks for hiring me by the way… I’d never been to big Tesco. I’d hear stories of Big Tesco, fables, tales about it. Hev' yeh bin up big Tescoo yet? Someone asked me. You’ll be pleased to hear that I have had the quintessentially Sprowston Experience of Big Tesco. That and getting the 11 bus into town. But I find Big Tesco overwhelming, I hate going in there. It’s just too big. There are too many choices. I can’t prioritise what I want, that’s why I’m a Lidl man. I don’t mean short, I mean there’s fewer choices and I actually prefer it. It’s less overwhelming, the bakery’s good as well, I’ve been known to polish off a goats cheese foccachia every now and then. Anyway my point is this. Priorities, choice we’re surrounded by them. What are our priorities? I ask this question not in a judgemental way but in a spirit of genuineness, what are our priorities? What choices do we face? We’re surrounded by priorities, choices, lives, mess. ...

  I’ve nearly died twice. One time I can remember, the other time I can’t. Our reading today from Hebrews is all about death and what God does with it. And today we celebrate the presentation of Christ in the temple or Candlemas. It’s an important day, and I’ll explain a bit more later, but our readings are linked. Candlemas, That’s about death too, but also about light, life, unexpected joy and promises. When I say I’ve almost died twice, I don’t mean dying as in ‘I had a hangover and I felt like I was going to die’, or ‘I was so embarrassed I felt like I wanted to die.’ Because if that was the case, I would have hundreds of ‘near death’ experiences. No, I mean literal, near death experiences. The one I can’t remember was when I was about five or six years old. Some tree surgeons were cutting down a tree at the house opposite our house, so naturally, I wandered across the road to go and have a look at what they were doing. We lived on a quiet suburban road. And I was an an...