We learn patience through experience as we become adults. We learn that the seeds will push through the soil, the special day will come, and we will ‘be there’ - eventually.
Gratitude is one way to enhance our resilience and endurance in these difficult days. Psychologists tell us that our brains our wired for the negative—a survival instinct so that we are always prepared for the worst. But our brains also need to be re-trained so that they don’t fall into a pit of despair and hopelessness.
The story in which Ishmael and Hagar are driven out into the wilderness by Sarah, with Abraham’s complicity, has often been read as setting up the animosity which has persisted between different nations and faith across history.
Over the weeks of lockdown through the coronavirus, we celebrated major festivals of the church’s year: in particular, the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, along with his sending of the Spirit.
Almost three months ago – when shops had just closed, borders had been shut, and we were beginning to hunker down into an indefinite period of home isolation – my wife, Sonia, chalked a single word on the wall of our house, just outside the front door.
What’s 'normal'? We hear a lot about the 'new normal' which has emerged in this lockdown period and which will gradually emerge as we transition not only out of lockdown