Curate Conundrums

  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...

At the end of our Gospel reading Jesus talks to his family. Now as we all know families can be… Complicated. He speaks about doing the will of God. You know my Mum came up to me the other day and said ‘Graham, can you help with the washing up?’ ‘Alas mother’ I replied ‘I cannot, for you see, I have prayed upon this very subject, and it is not the will of God that I should help you with the washing up. These hands were made for lifting chalices, not dishes.’ Of course, that never happened, I would never talk to my mother in that way. But it’s an important point. What’s the will of God? What does Jesus mean? The scribes are getting it all wrong. They know the law, they’ve read lots of books, but their hearts are in the wrong place. The reason why there’s such a big crowd around Jesus is because he’s been going around healing people, doing good stuff, helping the poor and the outcast. You know all the usual stuff that would get you called ‘woke’ nowadays. It’s funny that the people who of...