Personal Blogs

On Tenderness

Someone said to me recently, “You know, the people in my town speak so harshly to one another.” He waited for my response, but what could I say? His words hung in the air like a question too heavy to answer. Harshness has become the common language of our age. Forwardness and loudness are rewarded; gentleness is dismissed as weakness. Soap operas and films thrive on aggressiveness, and even writing courses teach conflict and confrontation as the lifeblood of story. And yet, some of the finest works of literature — Gilead, The Remains of the Day, and others like them — draw their power not from shouting, but from stillness. They remind us that tenderness has its own quiet strength, that the human heart still recognizes virtue in action when it hears it.

But tenderness, it seems, has become a foreign tongue. The word itself rarely passes our lips anymore. It belongs to an older vocabulary, one spoken by shepherds and prophets, by those who knew that strength and gentleness are not enemies but kin. In Scripture, tenderness is not a fragile feeling; it is the steady pulse of divine love.

C.S. Lewis once said, “To love at all is to be vulnerable.” Tenderness is that vulnerability made holy; love that risks itself for the sake of another. Jesus embodied it. He entered our world not in armour but in swaddling cloth, not as a warrior but as a child. His hands, which could command storms, chose instead to touch the sick. His words, which could summon angels, chose instead to bless. “A bruised reed He will not break” (Matthew 12:20).

In the ancient world, a reed was a fragile plant, easily bent or crushed. Once bruised, it was usually thrown away; it had little value. The verse says Jesus, the Messiah, does not break the bruised reed, meaning He doesn’t discard those who are hurt, weak, or failing. Instead, He gently restores. 

Paul wrote, “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). In a world where harshness is fashionable, such clothing seems out of season. Yet it is the very fabric of Christ. To be tender is not to be naïve; it is to be brave enough to care in a calloused age. Henri Nouwen once said that the people who touch our lives most deeply are not those who fix our pain, but those who share it. That is tenderness, love that lingers beside suffering instead of solving it.

Our world sharpens its edges. It trains its tongue to cut, its stories to shout, its heroes to dominate. But tenderness is the rebellion of another kingdom, a quiet revolution of grace. It whispers where the world shouts, forgives where it is fashionable to condemn, and keeps reaching where others withdraw. It is the soft strength of God’s heart, burning steady beneath the noise.

Perhaps this is what we must recover; the courage to speak gently again. To answer harshness not with scorn, but with mercy. To remember that the Saviour who could have thundered chose instead to whisper: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened… for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:28–29).

But when tenderness fades, something greater is lost. The erosion of gentleness, compassion, and humility is not merely a symptom of modern life; it is a moral choice. Evil, in all its forms, does not erupt unbidden; it is chosen, often in small refusals to love. Each harsh word, each act of indifference, each moment we turn away from tenderness is a decision, a quiet yielding to the lesser good. The struggle between good and evil is not fought only in grand gestures, but in these hidden moments when the heart decides whether to wound or to heal.

Tenderness may be forgotten, but it is not lost. It lives wherever love still chooses to be kind. And perhaps, when the noise fades and the world grow tired of shouting, it will be tenderness that remains — steady as light, strong as grace, and forever the language of God.

The Man Who Walked Through Time

History, to me, feels like a vast river; deep, restless, always moving forward. Most people are carried along by its current and vanish beneath the surface without much trace. In a century from now, if God does not bring an end to this corrupt system, who will remember you and I?  We are like the ancients who embedded their handprints on cave walls just to say, we were here.  

But now and then, someone steps into the water and changes its course entirely. Jesus of Nazareth was one of those people. And yet, when I listened to a podcast this week, I was struck to hear that in a recent poll, many people said they didn’t believe Jesus ever existed at all.

It didn’t surprise me since the West seems to be diving into a bubble where people believe in nothing and anything in a paradoxical juxtaposition. Not stopping to ask, “Why am I here?”

So, I went looking into it myself. Speaking for the UK, the most instructive survey I found was the Barna Group UK one. It’s about a decade old now, and I’ve heard that things may have improved since then, but the numbers still speak loudly.

• 61% said they believe Jesus was real.
• Among young adults (18–34), only 57% believed He was real.
  That means around 43% of young people either don’t believe He existed or aren’t sure.
  Even among those 35 and over, the number only rises to 63%.

https://www.barna.com/research/perceptions-of-jesus-christians-evangelism-in-the-uk/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

It’s sobering to think that nearly half of young people in this country doubt the very existence of the most influential person in history.

When people question whether Jesus ever lived, they’re often surprised to learn how strong the historical evidence actually is — even outside of religious belief. Many professional historians — whether Christian, Jewish, agnostic, or atheist — accept that Jesus lived in first-century Palestine. The real debate isn’t if He existed, but who He truly was.

Evidence for Jesus doesn’t come from one place or one type of source. It’s a web of overlapping voices — some sympathetic, some hostile — all pointing toward the same figure.

• The Roman historian Tacitus, writing around AD 116, mentioned Christus, who suffered under Pontius Pilate during Tiberius’ reign.
• The Jewish historian Josephus wrote about “Jesus, who was called Christ,” and the execution of His brother James.
• Pliny the Younger, a Roman governor, described Christians singing hymns to Christ “as to a god.”

These men had no reason to invent Him — they weren’t believers. And yet, their words confirm what the Gospels tell us: a man named Jesus, executed under Rome, whose followers quickly spread across the empire.

Then there are the Christian sources themselves. Paul’s letters, written within twenty years of Jesus’ death, refer to His crucifixion and even to personal encounters with His family. The Gospels — though written with faith in mind — are full of details about geography, rulers, and Jewish customs that fit first-century Palestine with remarkable accuracy. They don’t read like legends dreamt up in ignorance, but like memories anchored in real soil.

Of all the Gospel writers, I’ve always been drawn to Luke. He wasn’t content to repeat stories — he investigated. He wrote, “I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning.” He anchors his story in time and space: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar…” (Luke 3:1). Time and again, archaeology has confirmed his understanding of places, titles, and political realities. He was a historian in the truest sense, wanting to show that what he wrote was not a myth, but an event that happened in the world we still inhabit.

When you take all this together — the outside witnesses, the early letters, the historical details — the case for Jesus’ existence becomes remarkably solid. It would be extraordinary for so many independent sources, friendly and hostile alike, to converge on someone who never lived.

And yet, there’s a deeper kind of evidence that matters just as much — even more. The evidence of experience.

Why, after 2,000 years, does His message still breathe hope into broken people? Why are Christians, in general, still marked by a quiet kind of joy even in suffering? Why does His name continue to stir hearts across every generation and language?

If you strip away all the arguments, the question remains deeply personal: What if the reason this story won’t fade is because it’s true?

Think of it this way: historians don’t doubt the existence of Socrates, even though we only know him through his students. They don’t doubt Alexander the Great, though the first biographies came four hundred years after his death. They don’t doubt Julius Caesar, even though only a few old manuscripts preserve his own words. Compared to them, Jesus’ life is better documented, closer in time, and more consistently remembered — and yet, He is the one people most fiercely doubt.

Maybe that’s because believing in Him asks something more of us. Not just to acknowledge a man who lived, but to respond to a voice that still calls.

So, yes — there’s historical evidence. But there’s also that inner knowing, the whisper that stirs when you read His words or kneel to pray. It’s not a relic of childhood faith. It’s something existential, something that reaches into the core of being human. Scripture puts it beautifully:

“…that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.”
(Acts 17:27, ESV)

That’s the invitation. The evidence can take you to the edge of the river, but faith is the step into the water — the step where history becomes encounter, and the story of Jesus becomes your own.

“I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.”

Johann Sebastian Bach

Strings of Thought

As I work on a fingerstyle arrangement of Way Maker by Sinach, it is a beautiful piece. And I’m struck by the quiet genius of the human brain as it forms something from this carefully crafted piece of wood with twelve frets and six strings.  And from this humble framework unfolds a universe of sound. Each note, each subtle shift of the hand, is a symphony of timing, touch, and tone — a choreography of neurons and muscle memory converging to create something transcendent.

With practice, these motions sink deep into the mind, until they flow not from thought, but from something older, quieter; a knowing beyond words. I can scarcely fathom the intricate neural pathways that make this possible. And in moments like this, I’m filled with awe. Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Why Does My Conscience Torment Me?

He had just woken up and stepped outside to breathe the afternoon air. Then, in a moment that would change everything, he saw her, a woman, naked and unaware. He knew enough to turn away. But he didn’t. And that choice, simple yet devastating, unravelled his life.

His error led to darker sins. And in the aftermath, he suffered as few ever have. Alone, he whispered, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…” Psalm 51:4.

Who was he speaking to, if no one was there to hear? It was God. The man was King David—the same shepherd boy who felled Goliath with a sling, the poet who wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd.” But now, he was broken. Not by physical pain, but by the torment of a conscience he could not silence.

There’s a chilling verse in Obadiah 4: “Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down.” There is no escaping God’s judgment. And conscience is one of the ways He speaks—quietly, privately, away from the crowd.

You might find it hard to believe, but that inner voice is an act of love. When you no longer hear it, consider yourself lost.

But why does it hurt so much?

Imagine a world where no one felt guilt. No sting of shame. No uneasy tug when lying, stealing, or hurting someone. Imagine that the whisper— “This is wrong”—simply went silent.

At first, it might feel like freedom. No more sleepless nights over harsh words. No weight of regret. No need to say, “I’m sorry.” But soon, that world would turn dark.

Without conscience, the heart would grow cold. It’s conscience that slows the hand before it strikes, softens the word before it wounds. It’s the quiet reminder that others feel as deeply as we do. Without it, people would chase advantage and pleasure, and no voice would call them back.

Families would crumble first. Promises would mean nothing. Marriage vows would break the moment desire shifted. Parents might neglect their children without a flicker of guilt. Children might abandon their parents with the same cold ease.

Then the sickness would spread. Friendship would become a game of use and convenience. Business would be ruled by greed. Governments, unchecked by moral restraint, would become machines of control. Law would lose its meaning—because conscience gives law its moral weight. Without it, fear—not justice—would be the only thing keeping people in line.

Art would change too. Think of classics like Dickens novels where justice reigns, but with no restraint on conscience, there is no justice.  No one would write about forgiveness, redemption, or sacrifice—because no one would feel the ache of wrongdoing or the beauty of mercy. Music and poetry might still entertain, but they would no longer move.

And the human face—our eyes, our expressions—would slowly empty. When the inner life dies, the outer one fades with it.

We might tell ourselves this world would be efficient: quick to punish, quick to advance, free of hesitation. But it would be unspeakably lonely. Conscience may trouble us, but it also connects us. It’s the bridge that lets one human heart understand another’s pain.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.” If that voice were gone—if God, no longer spoke in the secret places of the mind—we wouldn’t just lose morality. We would lose the very sense of being human.

So yes, conscience can hurt. But it is also mercy. It keeps the soul alive. It reminds us that right and wrong are not inventions of society, but echoes of something higher—something holy—calling us to live as we were meant to.

A world without conscience might be quiet on the outside. But inside, it would be a silence too terrible to bear.

David's Sin: 2 Samuel 11

Image by Copilot

Winter Haiku Season

I was leafing through a beautifully illustrated book I borrowed from the shelf — Haiku Illustrated: Japanese Short Poems. It’s a lovely volume, and if my wife happens to read this, she might just tuck it away as an idea for our anniversary in 2026.

Now that winter is settling in here at 55°30′ N, I shivered my way into town today while the “Braveheart brigade” were still wandering about in shorts and T-shirts. This isn’t normal, I thought.

The haiku that caught my attention early in the book was by Matsuo Bashō:

On a withered branch
A crow has alighted—
Nightfall in autumn.

There’s something deeply human in the way Bashō juxtaposes nightfall with the coming of winter — the stillness before the dark. It leaves me feeling a quiet melancholy, the kind that stirs reflection rather than despair. How does it make you feel? There are no wrong answers.

Why not join in? Write your own haiku inspired by the season around you — a falling leaf, a first frost, a single bird. It is a perfect mental exercise to create new neural pathways.

Here are the simple rules of haiku:

1. Three lines only.
2. Traditionally 5 – 7 – 5 syllables.
3. A reference to nature or the seasons (known as kigo).
4. A pause or contrast — two images that meet and spark reflection.

Go on — share your haiku or a piece of writing that moved you. These small exchanges have a way of outlasting the moment.

Note: The haiku is not exactly the one in the book; the one quoted here is the public domain haiku

The Architecture of Wonder

When my children were young, I would read the story of Chicken Little to them; the little bird who, when struck by a falling acorn, panicked and ran shouting, “The sky is falling!” Soon the entire barnyard was in chaos, everyone believing the end had come. None of them paused to look up. None thought to ask whether what they’d heard was true. It’s a story that reflects the irrationality of humans at times as the join they stampede of opinion at times.

We are told the sky is falling, that life is a random chemical flicker, that morality is an illusion, which meaning is a trick of the brain. And like the frightened hens, many run with the story without looking at the evidence.

Yet when one does stop, when one lifts their eyes to the heavens, something altogether different is revealed. Not chaos. Not collapse. But a universe so delicately balanced, so incomprehensibly ordered, that the idea of accident begins to look absurd.

Physicists call it fine-tuning: the discovery that the very laws which make life possible are calibrated with astonishing precision. Gravity, the speed of light, the ratio of proton to electron mass; all must be exactly what they are, or nothing would exist. Sir Fred Hoyle, though not a believer, admitted that “a superintellect has monkeyed with physics.” He could not escape the sense of design hidden within the numbers.

Consider just one example. If gravity were stronger by even one part in ten thousand billion billion, the stars would burn too hot and fast, collapsing in a brief fury. We would have no long-lived suns, no stable worlds, no time for life to begin. If gravity were weaker by the same measure, the cosmos would drift apart. There would be no galaxies, no warmth, no light. A universe either frozen or aflame. In both cases, silent. Lifeless. Empty.

The universe, then, is like a vast instrument; a harp tuned so finely that one loosened string would undo the entire composition. And yet here we are, part of that music, conscious and questioning, capable of awe.

The physicist John Polkinghorne once said, “Science does not explain the world; it describes a world already intelligible.” To him, this intelligibility was no accident, it was a sign of Mind, a whisper of the Divine rationality that holds creation in place. Einstein himself spoke of “the incomprehensible comprehensibility of the universe” as a miracle.

But even beyond reason lies a deeper response: wonder. Søren Kierkegaard described faith as “a passion for the possible.” It is that movement of the heart that steps past abstraction into communion — that looks through the telescope not only to see stars, but to glimpse intention. The fine-tuned order of the cosmos does not so much prove God as it unveils the poetry of His thought.

The silence between the stars is not empty but resonant, palpable, purposeful. The same hand that set the constants of nature also formed the constants of conscience, the moral law that stirs within us when we know joy, or guilt, or love.

Perhaps the universe and the human heart are written in the same handwriting, one in the language of matter, the other in the language of spirit. Together, they tell us we are not the children of accident, but of intention.

So, when the world shouts that the sky is falling, I choose instead to look up — to the heavens finely poised, to the stars that still sing the music of their Maker.

Further reading: A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology - The Gifford Lectures

Image by Copilot

“God could not be everywhere, so He made mothers”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Compassion in the Chicken Coop

My wife and I had a strange discussion on Sunday evening whilst travelling home from being with friends.

She was raised on a farm in the Philippines, where compassion found its way even into the chicken coop. When they collected the hens’ eggs each morning, they always left one behind. It was a small act of empathy, a quiet gesture of respect toward the bird’s maternal instinct, as though to say, we understand what these eggs mean to you.

A hen’s response when her eggs are taken can vary depending on her breed, her instincts, and how often it happens. Most commercial laying hens today have had their brooding instincts bred out of them. They lay, move on, and lay again, their cycle reduced to production rather than nurture. But the old, broody breeds; the ones still allowed to follow the rhythm of nature show something deeper. They cluck anxiously when the nest is empty, search the straw for their missing clutch, or even puff up and peck when someone reaches too close.

In such cases, it’s fair to say the hen feels a form of loss. Not quite grief as we know it, but an interruption of purpose. In nature, she would gather her clutch, settle down, and wait patiently for life to stir beneath her. To take the eggs away is to sever that maternal rhythm, to break a small circle of creation.

There’s something quietly sad about that, isn’t there? The thwarted instinct, the empty nest, the silence that follows. Yet there’s also something enduring in the way she carries on — scratching at the ground, foraging, laying again. Life persists, even when the pattern is disturbed.

Perhaps that’s what my wife’s family understood: that kindness isn’t only for people. Sometimes it’s found in the smallest gestures in leaving one egg behind as a token of empathy for a creature that feels more than we often imagine.

Image by Copilot

They Tell Me This is the Age of Enlightenment. 

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil”

 They tell me this is the age of enlightenment. We are wise now, liberated, informed. Yet every morning as I walk to my local  graveyard for some solitude  in the stillness of early morning, I see a giant skeleton waving from a garden. At my dentist’s surgery, bats hang from the ceiling. In the supermarket, entire aisles are devoted to gruesome masks, witches’ faces, sinister pumpkins, and plastic wands. Children’s books are filled with demons and darkness, and before long, local children—dressed as everything evil—will come knocking at my door, expecting a few coins for their imitation of hell.

We congratulate ourselves on our sophistication, our modernity, our progress. But there’s something more sinister happening, something spiritual, that most are unaware of. Politicians, civil servants, and pressure groups are steadily eroding Christianity from public life. The rights of believers—to speak, to teach, even to pray—are being diluted or dismissed. Christians are mocked, beaten, and silenced for preaching a gospel that once shaped the very laws we now use to prosecute them.

This UK and Europe in the age of  enlightenment.

I recall a scene from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Judge Claude Frollo, that self-righteous villain, stands in the cathedral, gazing into the fire as he sings of sin and desire. The animation is stunning, the music haunting—but what lingers is its surrender to darkness. It is not that it lacked truth, but that it mistook torment for depth. Evil is presented as complexity, while goodness is dismissed as naivety.

Why, I wonder, do we glorify the grotesque? What strange thrill do we find in the demonic, the deranged, the depraved? As a teenager, I saw a film about the occult before I became a Christian. When I left the cinema, I felt something unclean, as though the images had left a residue on the soul. Half a century later, they remain vivid. That’s the power of darkness—it imprints, it infects.

Even travel documentaries do it. A village is introduced not through its music or laughter or harvest, but through its masks and rituals of fear. The macabre becomes the measure of authenticity, while goodness is treated as shallow or sentimental. Who decided that the grotesque was more “real” than the gentle, the spiritual, the good?

Perhaps evil shocks us, and shock, in a numb culture, feels like truth. Or maybe we’ve lost our belief in goodness altogether. We treat it like a fairy tale for children, while evil is seen as sophisticated, intellectual, and brave.

But there is nothing enlightened about darkness.

C.S. Lewis observed that evil is always parasitic. It has no life of its own. It feeds on what is good, twisting and deforming it. That’s why evil is so theatrical; it must draw attention to itself because it has no substance apart from what it corrupts. The Devil is in the details, indeed.

Evil is not just cruelty. hatred or violence; it is the rejection of love. Sometimes it is loud and brutal. Sometimes it is quiet and respectable—the slow erosion of compassion, the polite muting of conscience. Something eroding from within.

And yet, in every age, there are those who quietly defy this darkness—not with slogans, but with service. Christians who visit prisons, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and walk through city streets at night to find the forgotten. Those who build medical missions, pay their taxes honestly, keep their vows, and raise their families in truth. Those who forgive. Who show mercy. Who do not make a spectacle of their virtue but live it faithfully, like candlelight in a world of neon.

These are the truly enlightened.

They are mocked by those who claim to be progressive, dismissed by intellectuals who call faith superstition. But tell me—what is rational about tearing down the very foundations that once held society upright? What wisdom is there in teaching children to laugh at evil and scoff at holiness?

A culture that cannot tell the difference between light and darkness is not enlightened; it is blind.

As a writer, I try to write about what is good and has human value. Not because I am naïve or blind to suffering—on the contrary, I see it too clearly. But goodness needs a louder voice. Evil already has a press team with global reach. The grotesque has a marketing department; goodness must rely on word of mouth.

Why write about what is good? Because the world is starving for it. Beauty restores the soul. Kindness is radical. Joy is courageous. When I write about forgiveness, or a gentle act, or grace breaking through despair, I am not ignoring the shadows—I am defying them.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
— Isaiah 5:20

Living Evidence There is a Creator

Freeman Dyson once wrote, “The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense knew we were coming.”

It’s a powerful thought as I watch an Asian child play the piano in a hall. She presses a key and hears a pure note ring out — an A minor.
She presses another, and another, until she discovers that every key, no matter how far apart, follows a perfect pattern.
Soon she manages to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

She has discovered something: How come these notes should sound so beautifully together?

Years pass, and the child becomes a composer. The more she understands harmony and rhythm, the more she realises that music wasn’t something she had invented; it had been waiting for her to discover it. The laws of sound were not made by her; she had only learned their language. Like objective morality, it was there all the time.

As she grows, her curiosity widens, from the scales on the piano to the elements in nature. She gazes at the periodic table and sees another kind of music: the ordered dance of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Each element, like a note, has its place in a grand composition.

Just as music depends on harmony, so creation depends on mathematical order — the rhythm of planets, the symmetry of petals, the ratio that shapes a shell or a galaxy.

Mathematics works because it describes a universe already composed with intention.

We are like the child at the piano: discovering, not designing — playing, not creating — the music that was there long before us.

“His eternal power and divinity, have been plainly discernible through things which he has made and which are commonly seen and known…  They knew all the time that there is a God, yet they refused to acknowledge him as such, or to thank him for what he is or does. “

Romans 1:20 J.B. Phillips Translation

Image by Copilot

Finding Providence Amid Life’s Storm

It is 3:30am on Saturday October 4 and I cannot sleep. Scotland is being battered by gales and heavy rain. Storm Amy has taken a tantrum. A few hours ago, a tree fell into my garden; a sudden, violent reminder of nature’s force. Now, taller and mightier trees sway ominously above my roof, their branches thrashing in the wind, threatening to come down and wreck my home.

In the midst of the storm, I reach for my Bible, seeking calm in the chaos. It randomly  opens at Psalm 121 and my eyes fall upon these words:

“The Eternal will keep you safe
from all of life’s evils,
from your first breath to the last breath you breathe,
from this day and forever.”

What are the chances? God whispers through a line of Scripture, finding us in the dark, reminding us that He is near. Sometimes His communication is so personal, so precise, that it feels as though the words were written for this that night—for that very hour.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.

Image by Copilot

"Didn’t all ten receive the same healing this fellow did? 

Where are the other nine? "

Where Are the Other Nine?

It’s not much to report, I suppose. But this morning, as I drove out of my street, I paused and flashed my lights to let a father and his little girl cross before I went further. They stepped out hand in hand, and when they reached the other side, the girl turned and waved, a small, bright flutter of her hand encouraged by her father’s smile.

It was such a simple thing, yet it stayed with me as I drove on. That wave was more than a polite thank you. It felt like a shared recognition that we need each other, that life is not just about getting where we’re going but noticing those around us. Gratitude has that power. It lifts the moment and lightens the heart. And yet, I can’t help but notice how rare it seems to be these days with a world with spiraling ingrates.

The smallest act of gratitude costs nothing. It is an acknowledgment that we are not self-sufficient, that we depend on the kindness and patience of others. But we live in a time that celebrates independence and self-made lives. To say “thank you” is to admit we have received something, and many people now seem uncomfortable with that. We rush through our days distracted, often too busy to notice what has been done for us, let alone to express appreciation.

It reminds me of one of Jesus’ most striking questions: “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” Ten men with leprosy cried out to Him for mercy. All ten were healed. Yet only one, a Samaritan, turned back, threw himself at Jesus’ feet, and thanked Him. The others rushed ahead with their new lives and never looked back.

That story still speaks loudly today. We know people like that. Gratitude is not just a social grace. It is a spiritual posture. It recognises that life itself is a gift, that every breath and every kindness received is not owed but given. Without gratitude, we grow entitled and indifferent. We stop seeing the good around us. We even stop seeing God’s hand in our lives. Like the nine lepers, we hurry on, healed but unchanged.

And there are consequences when gratitude fades. Communities weaken when kindness goes unacknowledged. Relationships become colder when generosity is expected rather than appreciated. Even our care for the natural world diminishes when we no longer feel thankful for its beauty and abundance. Gratitude nurtures reverence. Without it, the heart hardens, and the world grows smaller.

The little girl’s wave was a small thing, but it reminded me that gratitude is not gone. It still exists in these fleeting, everyday moments. And perhaps that is where its renewal must begin — not in grand gestures or speeches, but in a child’s wave, a sincere thank you, a quiet prayer of thanks.

Jesus noticed the one who returned. He still does. And maybe His question still lingers over our own hurried, distracted age: Where are the other nine?

And remember dear reader, I am deeply grateful for reading these thoughts as it is encouraging to know that others are on the same page in the metaphorical sense.

Luke 17:11-19 "Where are the nine?

Image by Copilot

The Day I Almost closed my Eyes

I must have been twelve years old, I’m sure I was. It was that age when everything begins to shift—when the world starts to look a little brighter, and far more confusing. My friends had just packed up their two-week holiday on the island, leaving me with an odd sense of emptiness. For the first time, I realized I wasn’t just missing the boys; I was missing the girls too—particularly a girl whose name I can’t recall. There was no real romance, of course; who’s ever heard of a twelve-year-old romantic? She was only a pal. Just like the boys.

That Saturday, with the holiday cabin feeling unusually quiet, I wandered through the fields and down to Ascog beach. Nature has always drawn me when I’m confused or lonely. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular—just a way to occupy the strange loneliness I couldn’t quite name. The beach was rocky and wild, the waves crashing in their endless rhythm. I ventured out, picking my way across the jagged rocks with the overconfidence only a boy on the cusp of adolescence can have.

Then I slipped.

The fall was sudden and brutal. The sharp edge of a rock grazed my arm as the waves seized me, pulling me into their chaotic embrace. For a terrifying moment, I couldn’t tell which way was up. My arms flailed, desperate to find purchase, until finally, I managed to grab the top of a rock and pull myself free.

I sat there on the sharp, wet stone, shivering and catching my breath. My heart pounded like a bodhrán in my chest. All the “what ifs" began to flood my mind. What if I hadn’t caught that rock? What if the waves had dragged me further out? What if I had drowned right there, on that ordinary Saturday, with no one around to see or save me?

For the first time, I felt the weight of my own fragility, the startling realization that life could be taken from me as easily as a wave dragging a pebble back to sea. I had always assumed I was invincible; children often do. But sitting there, dripping wet and utterly shaken, I began to wonder about things far bigger than myself.

Selma Lagerlöf, I think it was, who wrote something about imploring God to let her reach her full potential before her life was gleaned from this earth.

And when I reflect on that day, Lagerlöf’s words come back to me.

I began to wrestle with questions far beyond my years. How would God judge a life so young? I had many sins to confess.

What happens to a child who closes their eyes on life before they've had the chance to really open them? Would there be understanding, or only silence?

That day marked the first time I truly felt the weight of my own mortality—not as a distant, abstract concept, but as something immediate and deeply personal. It didn’t stop me from climbing rocks again. Life went on, as it does. But the memory of that day stayed with me, a quiet reminder of how thin the line is between being and not being, and how quickly everything can change.

Even now, decades later, I visit that boy sitting on the rocks, trembling and thoughtful, his childhood beginning to slip away with the tide. I wonder if, in those moments of quiet panic and reflection, I began to grow up just a little. Without realizing it, I was starting to understand the preciousness of life—not in a grand or dramatic way, but in the simple, shivering recognition that it is fragile and fleeting.

And that’s enough. After all, we are never truly ready; there are always ifs.

Image by Copilot

Some Thoughts About Themes and Worldview

I was at the movies last night and an ad for the upcoming Bruce Springsteen movie was featured. The theme, Deliver Me from Nowhere. Now I wonder if we watched that movie without knowing the theme if we would conclude that was the theme. It’s not as easy as you may think. Worldview comes into play. Let’s illustrate.

Take a moment to read Luke 15:11–32 for yourself. You can find it here on BibleGateway. It's one of the most familiar stories in Scripture. A younger son demands his inheritance, leaves home, wastes it all on reckless living, and completely screws up his life. He ends up in misery. He finally returns to a father who is working in the field and sees his son afar off and runs to welcome him home.

We usually call it the parable of the prodigal son. But what if the real theme is bigger than we think?

In the 1980s, New Testament scholar Mark Allan Powell asked students from three different countries, the States, Russia, and Tanzania, to read the parable, set the Bible aside, and then retell the story from memory. What they remembered, and what they forgot, revealed something powerful.

Most of the American students completely left out a key detail. They forgot the line that says, “There was a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need.” This wasn’t intentional. Many didn’t even realize they had skipped it. For them, the young man’s downfall was entirely due to his own bad choices. He blew his money. He ended up in the mud. It was a story of personal failure. That perspective reflects a culture that strongly values individual responsibility and self-reliance.

The Russian students almost always remembered the famine. In fact, many of them pointed to it as the turning point in the story. Coming from a country with painful memories of hunger under Soviet rule, they knew what famine meant. The son's suffering wasn’t just about reckless living. He was also caught in something bigger than himself — a disaster no one could control. In their telling, the story became a reminder that hardship is not always self-inflicted.

The Tanzanian students noticed something else. What stood out to them was the sentence, “No one gave him anything.” In their cultural context, where community support and mutual responsibility are deeply rooted, this was a shocking failure. The son was starving, and the people around him chose to do nothing. For them, the heart of the story was not just personal or political — it was social. The problem wasn’t just sin or famine. It was neglect. No one helped.

Three cultures. Three different emphases. One story.

Powell’s experiment reveals something important. The way we read a story often depends on where we come from. Our culture shapes what we see, what we remember, and what we believe matters most. That’s not always wrong, but it’s not the whole picture either.

The Americans emphasized personal responsibility. The Russians saw the weight of history and external crisis. The Tanzanians focused on the breakdown of community. Each view offers a truth, but none of them capture the full story by themselves.

So, what is the theme? Is it about a son who wasted his life? A famine that made everything worse? A society that failed to show compassion?

Yes. It is about all of that. The parable only makes sense when all the pieces are in place. The son made foolish choices. The famine struck. The people around him did nothing. His life unravelled through a mix of personal mistakes, unfortunate events, and social indifference. And at the end of all that mess, grace met him in the form of a father who ran toward him because this lossed son realised he had amends to make with God and his father. "I have sinned against heaven and against you, Father."

That’s the deeper message here. We often want a single, clean answer. But human stories, like this one, are more tangled than that. And God’s grace meets us in the middle of the tangle, not after we figure everything out.

This parable also reminds us to stay humble in how we read Scripture. We often assume we’re reading it “as it is,” when in fact we’re reading it through our own lens or the lens of the religion we were raised in. When I left my religion of thirty-three years, I read the scriptures afresh and was surprised how wrong my concept was. We highlight the parts that match our experience and quietly skip past what doesn’t. Like the students who forgot the famine, we may not even realize what we’ve left behind.

That’s why we need each other. We need to read with people who see things differently. Not just to broaden our understanding, but to correct it. When others point out what we missed, they’re not challenging the truth. They’re helping us see more of it.

So, what’s the theme? Maybe it’s that no single theme is enough. The power of this story is that it holds space for human failure, historical hardship, communal breakdown, and still ends with grace. The story is about ypu and I who need reconcilliation with God and those we have hurt.

And that’s exactly the kind of story we need.