Thought for the Day

Good morning. There was a time in the early 2000’s when you could not open a paper without seeing a photo of Tracey Emin at a party, glass in hand, staring at the camera. A moving interview with her in The Guardian in connection with her major new show at Tate Modern which starts next week reveals a very different Tracey Emin.[1] She talks about the terrible cancer she has suffered, with many of her body parts being removed, so that life now is lived with great difficulty. At the time she thought she was going to die and then  ‘Whoever they are’, she said to Charlotte Higgins the interviewer, glancing heavenwards, ‘they said “I don’t think she is all bad. Let’s give her another go, see what she can do”’ So she gave up alcohol and her 50 cigarettes a day and has since then thrown herself into her art - not only her own art but helping young artists and others in her home town of Margate. As she said ‘I have spent a lot of my life being sad, nihilistic and punishing myself mentally-and drinking and smoking. And then I realised: I could have my time back again.’ No wonder her new exhibition is called ‘Tracey Emin: A Second Life.’

Lent, which began on Wednesday, is a reminder that we do not have to wait until death stares us in the face to have a second life. Notwithstanding regrets and failures every day is a new gift, a new beginning, a time  to focus on what really matters to us. Tracey Emin says about those earlier years in the 2000’s ‘God, was that the shallowest level of myself that I could ever be?’ There is a shallow side and a deeper side to all of us. That deeper side brings into focus what we really want to do with our life, what kind of person we really want to be.

If you visit Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, the largest religious building in the country, built between 1904 and 1978, it is difficult not to be overwhelmed by its immense space and monumentality. But as you enter, just above the West End Doors, there is a total contrast-a permanent pink neon installation with the words ‘I felt you and I knew you loved me’ written in Tracey Emin’s own hand.

Tracey Emin burst on the scene in 1988 with a work of art consisting of her unmade bed surrounded by condoms, blood and general detritus and people still associate her with this. But I like to think of her devoting herself to making new art  and helping others in Margate, and that simple, pink  neon installation  in Liverpool Cathedral with its words ‘I felt you and I knew you loved me.’

[1] The Guardian, 14^th February 2026

Thought for the Day

16^th January 2026

Good morning. There is deep sadness in Tehran and other Iranian cities today as more that 2,500 dead are mourned and it appears that the regime is in control of the streets again. It looks as though the brave attempt of the protestors to bring about change has ended in nothing but more cruel repression. It must be easy to lose heart, not just here but in so many places of the world, and to think that things will always go on in much the same way. So it is good to remind ourselves that things can change. I did not think Apartheid would end without civil war but in 1994 a democratic government was elected in South Africa. I did not think the cold war would end in my lifetime but in 1989 the Berlin wall came tumbling down, whilst in 1979 in Iran the Shah was toppled suddenly and surprisingly. But for those suffering it always seems so long. In the last book of the Bible, written when Christians were being killed for their faith, the author pictures them sheltering under the altar, crying out ‘How long O Lord?’ – how long before justice is established. A cry that goes up every day.[1]

In response to this cry Jesus told one of his surprising stories.[2] A woman who had a legal case against someone kept pestering a hard hearted judge. The judge had no sympathy for the woman and kept sending her away. Eventually he could stand it no longer and granted what she wanted. Jesus told the story to urge us not to give up. However hopeless things appear we are not to cease to pray and work for a world which is just. We are not simply to resign ourselves to things always being as they are now. I love the words of the American playwright Tennessee Williams. He said:

 I've met many people that seemed well-adjusted, but …I'm not sure I would want to be well-adjusted to things as they are. I would prefer to be racked by desire for things better than what they are, even for things which are unattainable, than to be satisfied with things as they are.[3]

Those words always bring to my mind one of the Beatitudes of Jesus ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst that right might prevail’. [4]Hunger and thirst are strong words but they reflect the longing of those not only in Iran but in so many places of the world where people are suffering  -  and the longing of those who stand in solidarity with them.

[1] Revelation 6.9-10

[2] Luke 18.1-8

[3] Tennessee Williams in an interview with Studs Kerkel in 1961

[4] Matthew 5.6 REB translation

Thought for the Day

19^th December 2025

Good morning. Like many people I keep an address list on my computer and at this time of year bring it up on screen with a view to sending Christmas cards. Then my eye focuses on the name of a dear friend who has died in the year and my finger hovers over the delete button. To press it seems like another death. At Christmas many people are conscious of those who are not with them, which is why it can be a such a poignant and isolating time for some. On Christmas Eve Radio 4 will be broadcasting the Festival of nine lessons and carols from King’s College, Cambridge. In the introduction to that service the congregation are reminded that they worship together with those who rejoice with them on another shore and a greater light. It’s a lovely phrase and a wonderful belief, which I share, but I know how difficult it is for so many, even church people, to believe. In relation to that difficulty  I also love some words of the 19^th century American poet, Emily Dickinson, who said about the next life:

I believe we shall be in some manner cherished by our Maker-that the one who gave us this remarkable earth has the power still further to surprise that which he caused. Beyond that all is silence.”

The power still further to surprise us.

When presents are opened on Christmas day its always fun if there are a few nice surprises. A child who is expecting a fairly small present suddenly discovers they have been given a new bicycle, a mother is given her favourite perfume which earlier  she had decided she  could not afford to buy for herself.

For Christians, God is a God of surprises. First in the very fact that we exist at all, what Emily Dickinson called ‘this remarkable earth’ so that  when we wake up in the morning we wake to the gift of a new day. Then, of course, at Christmas time, the extraordinary  disclosure of Divine life in a human story, beginning with the vulnerability of a babe in homeless family. All through the Hebrew Scriptures there is a longing that God’s kingdom might come on earth, that the devout poor who lose out in the world as it is, might be vindicated,  and it is natural to picture this in terms of power and glory. But what was revealed at Christmas was simply a human life in a loving family. God searching us out to the extent of becoming one with our humanity. Changing the world from within it. A total surprise that transformed the way those first followers of Jesus understood the world and one which still astounds believers today.  

Thought for the Day

7^th November  2025

Good morning. I don’t normally take the slightest notice of fashion but my eye was caught earlier in the week by an article in which several women were all shown wearing striped  rugby shirts. Apparently this is the new fashion. Then I saw another piece on fashion: how Michele Obama, like many women, got unfairly picked on for her clothes, particularly her bare arms. Finally there was David Beckham’s new suit, designed by his wife, which apparently the King admired.

 Fashion gives a lot of people enjoyment and no doubt it all adds to the gaiety of the nations. But beyond clothes there is something much more fundamental-the fashion of our times, the intellectual, spiritual and moral outlook which shapes our age - what Germans call the Zeitgeist. This too, like all fashions, changes and the question is what is of lasting value and what will simply pass away as mistaken or trivial. How can we discriminate?

It is just as easy simply to be swept along by currents of thought as it is by changing fashions in suits, shoes or handbags. And as someone well put it ‘Whoever marries the spirit of this generation will find himself a widower in the next’.

T. S. Eliot, regarded as the quintessential modern poet for expressing the sense of meaninglessness and dislocation felt by so many in the 1920’s believed that we can only truly understand our own age if we are rooted in a tradition. Otherwise you simply get carried along unaware that you are being carried. If you stand within a tradition however you can see your age for what it is, what is truly new about it and what might be valuable. What Eliot said applies much more widely  than to  poetry. It is true of our whole stance on life. A religious, moral and cultural tradition gives you a standpoint from which you can judge your own times, a base from which to discriminate what is of lasting worth and what will simply disappear. There is a fine phrase in the Hebrew scriptures ‘Look to the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were hewn.’ On that rock we can stand and build our lives. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus uses a similar powerful  image. He says that if we build our house on sand the storms will sweep it away. But if we hear his words and act on them then as he put it is like someone building his house on a solid foundation. The storms will come, the river will burst against it, but it will stand. The house of our life will hold firm.

Thought for the Day

Friday 31^st October 2025

Good morning. Hanging on the wall of our house for decades now has been a copy of Vermeer’s painting ‘The Girl with a pearl earring.’ It shows a young girl in an oriental style turban half turned towards the viewer with the shape of her large liquid eyes matched by a pearl dropping down from her ear. I am hardly alone in loving this painting for it is one of the most iconic pictures of our time, and has been the basis of both a novel and a film. This painting and its artist Vermeer is now in the news for a new book by the art critic Andrew Graham Dixon, based on a decade of careful research, seeks to revolutionize the way we understand these paintings. He shows that they were not just pretty scenes designed to be sold on the art market but were commissioned to hang on the walls of a single house by a women who belonged to a devout Christian sect. In this house surrounded by these paintings  the group met to pray and make music. Vermeer himself participated in these gatherings.

Andrew Graham Dixon argues  that each of these paintings has a particular symbolic significance. The girl with a pearl earing  for example is dressed as Mary Magdalene, whom the community revered.  The painting entitled  ‘Woman holding a balance’ indicates a weighing of the woman’s conscience before God whilst ‘The milkmaid’ in which a woman pours milk out of a jug indicates food being prepared for the poor. No doubt critics will continue to argue for years over the exact details of this symbolism but what interests me is perhaps something even more fundamental. What is it about these paintings that make Vermeer one of the most popular of artists in our time? Why do they make such an intense spiritual impact?  I think it is because  Vermeer in his depictions of  people captures something of the shock of their being, the fact that they actually exist, their sheer isness. At the same time he conveys something of their mystery. Those woman -   reading a letter or playing a musical instrument - have a life of their own, different from ours and unique. In all this he is able to convey the miracle of the ordinary, the marvel of the everyday. Women in his paintings go about their ordinary business, sweeping  or sewing in some hidden corner, with a stillness that is almost palpable.  In retrospect it does not seem surprising that these paintings should have come out of a religious sect that was at once intensely devout and tolerant. And apart from the pleasure they give us, they show that nothing is ordinary. The daily routine is a miracle.

Thought for the Day

Friday 17^th October 2025

Good morning. Ian McEwan has published a new novel in which he imagines Britain flooded by a tsunami, and existing only as a series of  small islands. Interviewed in connection with the book he said that deeper than any fears about climate change or war he believed  something even more fundamental  has happened in our time. He defined this as the  ‘collapse of a belief in the future or..the fading of a belief in progress’[1] He regards this loss of hope in a better future as catastrophic. The first question to ask is whether he is right that a belief in progress has now faded? After all, young people can often still  seem full of hope for their lives. But for those of us who are older, something has indeed changed. During the 1960’s people really thought the world could be changed for the better. During the 1980’s and 90’s people believed  the world was becoming  more and more prosperous. Apartheid ended, the Berlin wall came down, The Good Friday agreement was signed, democracy seemed ascendent, and  a rules based international order was widely accepted. Now, alas, it all feels so different. So yes, I think Ian McEwan is right, something fundamental has changed in our time. We do not think progress is inevitable-that the future will necessarily be better than the past.

My second question is: what difference should  this make to how we actually live our lives? My short answer is that  this should not divert us from what really matters- because the Chrisian church has never believed in the  inevitability of progress. Taking a realistic view of human nature it has always known that things can get worse as well as better, and that communities set up on the most idealistic ideas can get wrecked  on the rock of human egos-this of course applies as much to religious communities as to secular societies.

The Victorians had a powerful belief in progress fuelled by the newly discovered theory of evolution. But this was quickly shattered by the first world war and the horrors of Soviet Communism. Of course there has been and will continue to be wonderful scientific and medical advances, but the challenge of human beings to live together in harmony so that the well being of everyone is fostered is the same now as it ever was and will continue to be so. It is not a belief in progress that matters but the moral duty to alleviate suffering and promote the  good of all however the future looks-and if the future looks sombre as it does to many now, that moral duty becomes even more pressing.   

[1] Prospect, November 2025 p.7

 Thought for the Day

4^th July 2025

Good morning. Arguably the most significant painter of our time is the German artist Anselm Kiefer. Born in 1945 and brought up in the ruins of bombed German cities, his paintings portray a world devastated by war. What is intriguing about an exhibition of his work which has just opened at the Royal Academy however is that it shows his response to the some of the most famous paintings of Van Gogh, a painter who lifts our hearts at the sheer beauty of life.

Kiefer’s paintings are vast, filling a whole wall, and using straw, ash, clay and lead powerfully convey a world laid desolate. With the continuing bombardment of Gaza, and the wars in Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere they well express a mood we can all feel. The paintings also seem to convey landscapes  now experiencing the effect of climate change.   On the other hand, on a nice July morning our personal world can feel very different and quite cheerful. Kiefer and Van Gogh seem to reflect the two different moods we all oscillate between, and in the end two very different stances on life.  Of course Van Gogh’s paintings are not all just sunny optimism. In his famous painting of a corn field there are some black crows flying above. It has long been suggested that this signifies  his mental instability, the fact that he cut his ear off and later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But Kiefer in his response to that painting makes the crows even larger and more sinister, dominating the whole scene.

When I got home and told my wife, who does not fully share my enthusiasm for Anselm Kiefer, about the exhibition, she responded ‘Was there any redemption?’ Good question. In fact amongst all the greys and blacks of Kiefer’s paintings there are flecks and streaks of gold. In Icons and painting of the early Renaissance such as those of Duccio, there are great sheets of gold, gold representing the glory that is behind, beyond and within the universe. Perhaps Kiefer is saying that despite the desolation there is still some glory to be seen.

Few poets have expressed better than Robert Browning the way we can oscillate between a tragic and a hopeful view of life. In his poem Bishop Blougram’s apology he records how one moment we may be deeply pessimistic about life and then as he put it

There’s a sunset touch,

A fancy from a flower bell, someone’s death,

A chorus ending from Euripides

And once again there is what he called ‘The grand perhaps’.

Flecks and streaks of gold as signs of a glory beyond and within. Perhaps.   

 Thought for the Day

27^th June 2025

Good morning. I was introduced to a new word this week. Peter Kellner, the political analyst, in his Substack post wrote about   paltering, meaning to tell a narrow truth in order to mask a big lie. He gives various political examples but a light hearted one would be if someone asked me how my tennis game went and I replied that it was a great second set which I just won without mentioning the fact that I had actually lost the match, that would be paltering. Something true would have been said in a way deliberately to hide the real truth, which Peter Kellner regards as one of the great enemies of politics today.

In a world beset with conspiracy theories, fake news and allegations of fake news, and AI generated stories and images, it is more important than ever to try to get a grip on what is true. For truth is fundamental to what it is to be a human being. Unless we can assume that most people most of the time mean more or less what they say, human communication would be impossible and therefore human life as we know it simply could not exist. I would go so far as to say that if I define myself as a human being I commit myself logically and morally to be a truth seeking, truth telling being.

Of course it is not as easy as that. As a young teenager I was in a play called ‘Nothing but the truth’. The plot was quite simple. Someone had accepted the challenge to go for 24 hours without telling a lie. It is not difficult to imagine all the difficulties and dilemmas which emerge. You are faced with someone who is very vulnerable for example. What they need is encouragement, something positive, not cruel candour.

Then of course every news source has its own point of view, its particular selection and weighing of the facts. The good thing about our society of course is that there are different sources of news, to balance one against the other, as well as the BBC which is committed to carefully scrutinising all  the evidence and reflecting different stances on controversial issues. But this leaves us the hearers, readers and watchers in a very responsible position. We too have to scrutinise and judge.  The ten commandments don’t actually mention the words truth or lie, but the ninth commandment conveys what these terms mean very powerfully when it says ‘Do not bear false witness against your neighbour’. Deliberate lying, and indeed paltering, is false witness, an offence against others and ourselves. It goes against the essence of who we are as truth seeking, truth telling beings.

Thought for the Day

20^th June 2025

Good morning. Some 30 years   ago my wife and I had a wonderful holiday in Iran visiting the main sites. Persepolis, of course, the centre of a huge Persian empire in the 6^th Century before Christ where we were reminded that one Ruler, Cyrus, was a great friend of the biblical people. As a result of his decree in 539 BC the Jewish people in captivity in Babylon were allowed to go free and return to Jerusalem. One of those decisions which changed the whole course of human history.

Then there is Isfahan with its amazing mosques dating from the Safavid empire in the 16^th century covered in their stunning Persian blue tiles, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

When we landed at Shiraz airport and got off the plane we were greeted by a group of young teenage girls who wanted to speak to the passengers to practice their English. One girl came up to me and to get the conversation going asked me what I did. I replied that I was a kind of Christian Imam-to which she immediately responded with the words ‘I don’t think God is a woman’. Where on earth had she got the idea that I thought this to be the case? I can only imagine she had picked up something from the English media about a debate in the Church of England on feminine terms for God. Anyway I explained to her that God is beyond gender and all that we mean by masculine and feminine are contained in their fulness in the Godhead. She then preached me the most beautiful little sermonette on the theme that God is love. Perhaps this was not totally surprising for Shiraz is the city  of Rumi and Hafez, the 13^th and 14^th centuries, mystical poets of love revered not just in Iran but round the world. So there I was in an Iranian airport, an Anglican cleric, listening attentively to a 14 year old girl as she told me, in what was for her a foreign language,  about the love of God.

I wonder what that girl, now grown up, is doing with her life? Whether she has put up with the regime or resisted it? According to a major survey conducted earlier this year by the Netherlands based Gamaan Institute 80% of Iranians contacted said they preferred a democratic form of government to the Islamic republic. Many of them will no doubt hope and pray that the time will come one day when they will be free from rulers they have experienced as oppressive and aggressive - at least 901 people were executed last year for example. And I pray that  those of us  outside the country will once again be able to enjoy the richness and beauty of Iranian culture and its people.   

  Thought for the Day

Friday 14^th March

Good morning. We long for the killing to stop. We long for a ceasefire in Ukraine and so many other parts of the world; for the guns and drones to fall silent. At least a pause so that the soldiers can take a break and mothers breathe a temporary sigh of relief. But that is not of course true peace. We want something beyond that, something  more substantial and long lasting.

In the Hebrew scriptures the prophets first of all  warned people against a false peace, one based on illusion,  oppression and injustice. Or as an enemy of the Roman Empire once  put it, as quoted by Tacitus ‘They make a desert and call it peace’. That is why Shalom, the great Hebrew word for peace means much more than the absence of violence. Martin Luther King got the meaning just right when he wrote to some white pastors who had criticised him for stirring up trouble. ‘Peace is not the absence of tension but the presence of justice’. That is the biblical idea of peace.

But there is also another kind of peace which we hanker after-peace within ourselves. Both Swedish and Welsh, just to mention two languages, have different words for the two different kinds of peace,  one to denote the absence of violence, the other an inner peace. It was this second form of peace to which Christ was referring when shortly before his death he told his followers ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid’ (John 14.27)

My question though is how this inner peace relates to the kind of peace we want for the world. If you are deeply involved in a conflict say as a mother who has a child in the front line, how can you have that kind of peace? Because you love them you inevitably  worry about their safety. Indeed anyone who cares will worry about the loss of young life. The alternative is to make oneself as stone, impervious to all feeling. So this peace of Christ does not mean we stop having emotions. What it does  mean is that our lives are rooted more deeply in something beyond ourselves, for Christians, rooted in God, the   ground of our being. Perhaps this peace is like a great stake planted in the ground that holds us firm even as our feelings are blown about by events. And with this stake in the ground we are better able to hold steady as peace makers whether at home, in the community or in world affairs.