Long live the storytellers and prophets

Last night i was at a gig by Martyn Joseph - a Welsh singer songwiter, who has been plying his trade for a couple of decades. He’s no chart topper, but then he’s still around unlike a lot of today’s manufactured pop. How old do I sound? Over the course of 3 hours (with a [...]

Read Full Post »

biofuels and the real credit crisis

The ‘global credit crunch’ is dominating our news stories, economy, spending and even making it into church sermons. People are worried about the drop in value of the property market - which well certainly in parts of East Belfast was artificially inflated by greedy property investors. Economic growth is slowing, the exchange rate with the [...]

Read Full Post »

the nativity - scouse style

I eschewed church tonight for a night with my feet up hoping to enjoy some Top Gear, and was intrigued to see ‘Liverpool Nativity‘ on BBC3 - described as ‘the Christmas story live in Liverpool as you’ve never seen it before’. It was a powerful performance - imagining the nativity - so sanitised and well [...]

Read Full Post »

Beginning Advent - a World AIDS Day Challenge

As we begin advent - waiting to celebrate the coming of Jesus - the one who came to bring life and hope, we begin on a sombre note. Today is World AIDS Day. We begin reminding ourselves of a disease that is ravaging entire communities, that is leaving a generation of orphans in Africa, among [...]

Read Full Post »

365 - pausing to notice

We live in an instant society, life is incredibly busy, we rush from meeting to meeting, from home to work to gym to meet people to catch favourite TV show to bed. We rarely stop. Stop simply to notice, to be aware of the moments of beauty and grace. Stop and pause not to moan [...]

Read Full Post »

A Return to the Dark Days?

The high profile deaths of Alexander Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya, the state censorship of the media, the crackdown on true government opposition are ominous signs coming from Russia. With the death of Yeltsin we look back at the glory days of freedom in Russia as a result of the work of Gorbachev. How things have [...]

Read Full Post »

stopping the traffik

As you’ll be well aware this is the 200th anniversary of the ending of the transatlantic slave trade. Amazing Grace has hit the cinema screens, Peter Hain has even been apologising on behalf of Ireland (check out the slugger thread here) for its part (once again not ingratiating himself by not having been too up [...]

Read Full Post »