life
moving waters

moving waters

Bible questions still pop up regularly in quiz shows and they often cost otherwise sharp players much needed points.
I’m ready for a question asking for the two names for the last book of the Bible. The book often known as Apocalypse is perhaps more often referred to as the Book of Revelation.
It’s common (thanks to movies) to think of an apocalypse as a devastating and unwelcome time of destruction.

bones alive

bones alive

I am now going to open your graves; I mean to raise you from your graves, my people … and you will live.

choosing life

choosing life

Our greatest human desire is not to be free of suffering and pain, but to live whatever reality is present in the great company…

death & life

death & life

I have often quoted the High School principal who when asked to name the specific reason for the existence of her school responded: “We exist to prepare our students for death.”

art & beauty & life

art & beauty & life

One news report says that she lives in “isolation” but she would never say that of herself. As these brief clips below show the heart of her life was relationship with God and therefore she was never alone

being real

being real

Somewhere we picked up the false idea that highs mean happy and lows mean sad.

real food

real food

There are many different kinds of food and I don't just mean the stuff we put into our mouths. A few years ago a number of chicken soup books were published offering...

choose life

choose life

I remember turning up the driveway of Holy Cross College Mosgiel on the day I entered the seminary and seeing a marble statue of Jesus carrying his cross heading out...

choosing life

choosing life

This week the End of Life Choice bill has been debated in the New Zealand parliament resulting in the decision to send the bill to Select Committee and consult citizens...

thinking next year

thinking next year

A few months ago I was speaking to a young person who said he hoped to know his plans for next year by the middle of this year. Since then a number of other people have...

Latest Posts

the teenagers

the teenagers

A few years ago I discovered the wonderful way that God uses my imagination in my prayer.
Such openness to imagination when seeking God does not take us away from reality into fantasy but instead brings me into what is most real and inescapably personal and intimate.

Annunciation

Annunciation

A couple of thousand years ago, a young Jewish woman was going about her normal morning routines, perhaps with a mixture of house and garden work, chatting with parents and neighbours, aware of the local drought, the sickness of a neighbour and annoyed by the neighbourhood’s lack of sleep caused by the Romans’ noisy party the night before, when God broke into her routine and entered her life in a new and powerful way.

the real centre

the real centre

Over the last month I have had the opportunity to work with many people across Aotearoa and further afield. In every retreat and seminar I have been with committed and faith-filled people who often feel as though they are on the periphery of the Church

the adventure

the adventure

It’s easy to make the mistake of seeing life as a treadmill, day after day ups and downs, a movement through time from youth to old age, then death and beyond.
Too often if feels as if we are helplessly captive carried along by the momentum of all that is expected of us and demanded from us, and we risk falling into an existence mode, a daily rhythm of survival, enduring, coping and so the treadmill rolls on.

the bigger picture

the bigger picture

Over the years, and even in recent months, weeks and days, I’ve prayed many prayers which have not been answered as I had hoped.
You’ve probably had the same experience: praying and wondering if and when or how your prayer will be answered.