shotleyfieldsforever

  One of the dilemmas facing, employers, Government, and individuals during this pandemic is money. Employers face the tragic choice between losing their business or letting go, to use the euphemism, employees that have, in one tragic case on the TV News, been with them for a quarter of a century. The Governments furlough scheme was well received. Its latest initiative less so, ultimately seeking to identify key jobs and support them allows many more individuals to be left relying on the pretty much discredited universal benefit with its echoes of Daniel Blake? But for individuals the pandemic has been equally divisive. For some, much of what they spent in the normal course of a week, fuel costs, eating out, entertainment it has not been possible to spend and so bank balances have crept up. For others however bank balances, reserves, savings have vanished if not overnight then too quickly. “Either the key to a man's wallet is in his heart, or the key to a man's heart is in his ...

 This Covid thing, I mean, thing! Last Sunday I set off for a long day off, two nights at Keilder.  I grabbed my Ordnance Survey Map but when I arrived at Keilder I opened my map to the realisation that it had been published before the North Tyne had been dammed, so the Reservoir was not on my map. I’m sure that there is a sermon in there somewhere? As if the world is being challenged to find a way through this not just with an out of date map but without a map at all. It all has an increasingly apocalyptic feel to it.  What John Crace in the Guardian termed the 'pound shop' Churchillian rhetoric employed by the Prime Minister served simply to depress further spirits that had already sunk without trace. Nothing has even come close in reach or association not even the splinter in my bottom when I was 8 to prepare me for this situation in which I now find myself alongside friends, neighbours, parishioners and folk I read about in the news. Here we have an assault on our way...

Last week was spent by the Solway. Walking on the sands at low tide was prayerfully reflective. There was poetry and pictures, there were memories, old memories of course but also new memories, the most vivid of which was the Otter that came running across the sands towards me. It was young and sounded lost and I wondered whether it might have been a rescue that had been returned to the wild, still hungry for human contact. After meeting the Otter I wrote: Damp paw prints in sand / An otter keeping pace with my stride / Animal human I spy, I claimed an Otter / the Otter claimed me. One facebook post even merited a comment: thanks for your prayer-poems Geoff, they keep us going. For which I was very grateful. These have been challenging times for all of us and they have affected not only family life, they have strained relationships, affected young people's results, threatened jobs, created social dislocation and now 'the rule of six', the various exceptions to which rule si...

Matthew has kept the focus on St Peter for the last few weeks and Peter is rightly the proper subject for such focus. He is the disciple who is a model of faithfulness. Clearly Peter is the leader of the twelve, the first to follow Jesus when called and never afraid to ask questions on behalf of the other disciples. Peter promises to stick with Jesus no matter what, prepared even to accept death if that is the price of discipleship. But Peter lets Jesus down as he lets himself down. He denies Jesus after the arrest when challenged by a serving girl and then, reminded by the cock crowing, he leaves heartbroken and is nowhere to be found during the Crucifixion leaving Jesus to be supported by Simon of Cyrene, a stranger from out of town. But in these failures Peter is just like we are. And so in the gospel there is an irony that it is Peter who suggests that a seven fold forgiveness is sufficient. Peter’s ignorance of the forgiveness he will need in the tryi...

Matthew 18:15-20 15 "If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.  Churches are not excluded from the normal tensions of relationships and getting along with each other. Too often we find people talking about each other rather than to each other. When two or three are gathered together there will often be disagreement but here in Matthews Gospel Jesus is outlining a three step process to ensure that disagreement can be resolved. The first step is clear, if someone has offended you, then go and point out the fault wh...