Temple Cloud

Shop signs declare: ‘All your festive favourites here!’   Adverts claim: ‘Christmas – [supermarket sponsoring this advert] makes it.’   To me, this seems unlikely, unless the shop contains not only a midnight Communion service, but also sufficient faith in God to keep me sure that Christmas is good news.   Or, if they can’t do anything about my spiritual state, will they at least host a Carnival Band carol concert with Maddy Prior singing ‘Dancing Day’?   (Nope – she’s touring with Steeleye Span this winter.) Apart from religious celebrations and giving to good causes, most of us have things that make us feel festive at Christmas, and these usually have less to do with buying lots of new stuff than listening to (or performing) our favourite Christmas music, re-watching favourite films, and re-reading favourite books.   Some of my well-loved books are: Christmas Poems by U. A. Fanthorpe This collection of the short poems which Fanthorpe wrote for her home-made Christmas ca

Winter Expedition Now the road’s a frozen river And I’ve neither skates nor ski. But I’ve presents to deliver And a friend I long to see. Proudly I set off, and, falling, Lie upon a road like glass; Struggle to my feet, and, crawling, Head towards the frozen grass. Rich and poor and feet and motors Share the middle of the road, All intrepid winter-coaters Where no timid souls have strode. Slipping, sliding, skating, gliding, Laughing, waving, falling down, Thank you, winter, for providing Thrills in walking into town! The Poet And The Thrush Poet of depressing views Switches off the morning news, Tries to raise a jolly smile: Festive season, Dickens-style.   Through the piles of snow and slush Hops a festive starving thrush, Wet, bedraggled, and forlorn, Pecking at the frozen lawn. ‘That’s my Christmas buggered, then!’ Poet growls, and grabs his pen, Writes how joy is mixed with woe, Plenty with starvati

A lot of my posts on here have been rants.   This isn’t because I am permanently in ranting mood.   It’s just that, when I’m feeling cheerful, I mostly write stories instead, whereas, when something has wound me up, I feel the need to work it out in this blog. But right now, I just want to tell you about spring, and about feeling happy. A week and a half ago, I left Somerset in winter, and I came back ten days later to find it in spring.   Admittedly, when I say winter, I don’t mean in the thick snow we’d had at the beginning of February. No, by halfway through this month, I could see that the snowdrops of January had been joined by crocuses and even celandines. The woods were green and mossy and beautiful to walk in. But even so, when I came down to Southampton, I had to re-set my mental calendar to get used to the fact that Southampton, being both a city and on the south coast, was in full, daffodil-filled, blossoming-cherry-tree spring mode. In truth, I ha

When I first encountered Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo’s book Red Letter Christianity , I seized it in the hope that it might answer my questions.  Over the previous few years, I had been finding it impossible to reconcile being a Christian (i.e. someone who believes Jesus is our saviour) with focusing on the ‘red letters’ (i.e. what the Bible records of the teachings of Jesus himself, which are printed in red letters in some editions of the Bible). Campolo and Claiborne had adopted the term ‘Red Letter Christianity’ to describe those who take the teachings of Jesus seriously and try to live up to them (for example, in loving their enemies, freeing the oppressed, sharing all their possessions, etc).  They explained that they had done this because the term ‘Evangelical Christian’ had come, particularly in America, to imply Far Right, pro-gun-ownership, anti-environment, etc, none of which they were. To me, ‘evangelical’ had the much simpler meaning of ‘someone who beli

From time to time, I run across a magazine article pushing technology as a solution to loneliness.   Not, as you might expect, because the internet gives isolated, socially inept or odd-looking people a chance to exchange information and ideas with people all over the world and chat with people who won’t treat you as an idiot because of your childlike appearance , autism , or lack of control over your body .   In general, I’m in favour of these, considering my personal debt to an online dating site.   On the other hand, as one of my friends in the past year has been scammed by a boyfriend she met on line, I’m aware that you can meet dangerous people on the internet, just as you can in any other context.   The media are constantly full of reports of teenagers being driven to suicide by online bullying . It’s tempting to assume that lonely people are safer if they only interact with machines, rather than with each other via machines, but then the question is: what is companions