Summer or winter, the water’s edge is a cathedral in the open spaces, a place that restores perspective, where the mental cobwebs are blown away.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.
Without a clear voice on what the problem is or where the fault lies, an institution arrives at a point of paralysis, which it seems powerless to resolve.
And deaconesses became ‘a curiously effective combination of nurse, social worker and amateur policemen’.
‘Love one another,’ said Jesus - not agree with one another, or compromise and be nice, but love one another, even if you are on the point of a temporary falling apart.
The discipline of patient waiting is vital to faith and to ministry. Sometimes we choose to wait because it is wise to do so, and sometimes waiting is forced on us.
Waiting on God is not passive, but active and attentive, preparing for whatever comes next with acute and careful listening.
Waiting on God is one thing, but waiting interminably for a promise that, repeatedly broken, morphs into a destructive, pointless deferral, is not so much waiting, as wasting away.
There are a number of places where waiting for something to happen reverses the dynamic: instead of the world waiting for God to intervene, act, protect, support or defend, as if initiative always comes from God, we see that God also waits for a human response.
God is not in a hurry, and waits for human response, even to the extent that the outcome of events depends as much on human response as on divine will or guidance.
Not only do we wait for God; God waits for us - to have an opinion, to provide an answer, to take action, to do justice and love kindness.
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