by James Webb
I’m going to take a blog break for a couple of weeks over the summer, starting after this post. This is the first break I’ve taken since I started in 2015, so I don’t feel guilty at all. I’m going to leave you with a thought, something you can mull over while I’m off-line, and then we’ll pick up with business as usual in a couple of weeks. OK? Good.
The thought is this: you are contagious.
Don’t worry. So am I. Read more
The workshop smelt of oil and sweat,
Of stone and wood and clay.
The tools of many disciplines,
Around, about they lay.
The handyman, he raised his head:
“How may I help today?” Read more
“I haven’t seen you at the shelter recently.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I don’t see much point these days.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think I believe it any more. To be honest, I don’t really see how you can believe it.”
“What do you mean? You’ve given up your faith?” Read more
Reid has already left for school with his mum, while Calvin sleeps on in his GCSE-free zone. Xanthe is somewhere in the house, killing time by listening to music at a volume level chosen for the purpose of agitating her younger brother. I ask Parker about his homework. He declares in a loud voice that he needs some alone time and marches out into the garden. Imogen, sitting at the table munching on her cereal, doesn’t even look up from her book. Read more
I preached a sermon this week; the main thrust of which was the message that God does not demand perfection of us. Afterwards, I sat down, feeling flat and disappointed because I felt like the sermon hadn’t gone perfectly.
I must be growing, because it only took me a few moments to realise the irony of the situation. Read more
For years I had been labouring under the illusion that I should write short stories, because they were less work than writing novels. I can tell you now that it doesn’t matter how long your story is, a short attention span is a bad thing regardless. Something changed for me last summer, when motivation aligned with idea and I spent the last months of 2018 hammering away at my keyboard, trying to churn out at least one thousand words a day for my magnum opus, the book that they would plant at my grave instead of a headstone. By the end of November I had finished my first draft, just over 120,000 words that were all arranged in an order that told a story. Then I did what any writer worth his or her salt will tell you to do – I walked away from it for a while. Read more
Remember being at school, when popularity was such a big part of life? That was the top of the food chain back then – being popular; being one of the ‘cool kids’. Then we left school and marched off into adult life, but it seems that the playground followed us. Read more
The twelfth chapter of Hebrews starts with a vaguely threatening verse: ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.’ Read more
(I warned you that I’d be writing more poetry. Good poetry doesn’t need an explanation, so you can be sure that what follows is not a good poem. It came out of a thought I’m sure many of you have had; Easter is now so normalised that it can be easy – even for followers of Jesus – to take for granted things that shouldn’t. Anyway, it’s not a great poem, and comes across a bit more cynical than I’d like. I don’t want you to think that I’m some kind of Easter Scrooge – I actually quite like chocolate eggs and holidays, but I also quite like the last two lines. If I had the time I’d try and fix what I think is wrong with it, but there’s an Easter blog due, so…) Read more
I’m making a conscious effort in 2019 to develop my skill at writing poetry. I’m trying to learn and understand the rules, with marginal success, though you may notice an increase in the amount of poetry that appears on the blog as I experiment. You are nothing more than guinea pigs to me. Read more
