Blog on the Learig

  24 December 2025 Christmas is not a happy time for everyone. I was visiting in the hospital and an older woman said to me, ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ It’s a question which has a very straightforward answer, ‘You have done nothing to deserve this.’ Random things happen to us and, to be fair, very few people escape the dark night of the soul. Jesus makes this clear. His friends asked him, ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ They thought that his impediment must have been the result of something he or his parents had done. Jesus makes an interesting reply. ‘Neither this man nor his parents   sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.’   This was a prelude to a healing miracle. Jesus made mud with his saliva and the earth, spread it on the blind man’s eyes and healed him. But not everyone is healed. My friend’s lament, ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ was possibly the result of an inner realisation ...

  23 December 2025 This autumn, far-right protests and rallies, focused on immigration and the housing of migrants in local hotels, have been   weaponising Christianity. ‘Christ is King!’ is chanted. National flags are brandished. Crosses waved in the air. This political group is attempting to associate Christianity with nationalism. In other words, to belong to the nation is to acknowledge your Christian heritage and to value it over against other religions and people. There’s no acknowledgement that a percentage of migrants who make such a scary   journey to get to Britain are themselves Christians and some of them are fleeing from their own homes because as Christians they are being persecuted! There are two dangers. Firstly, the demonisation of migrants is an attempt to divide the nation and to create a ‘them and us’ scenario. Parallels with Nazi Germany are not hard to discern. Our nation is not so impoverished to resort to these unscrupulous strategies. Se...

  22 December 2025 For centuries, the Latin Vulgate was the official   version of the Bible used by the Church in the West. St. Jerome, who was commissioned to translate the Bible into Latin by the Pope in the late fourth century, translated the Greek, ‘Rejoice, highly favoured one’ as ‘Ave gratia plena’, ‘Hail, full of grace’. As a consequence, Mary was considered to be full of grace and having such a plenitude of grace was able to share it through the prayers of the faithful. But notice what has happened here. Instead of being the focus of God’s choice, the one who is highly favoured by God, she becomes the focus of other people and through her misappropriated plenitude of grace is considered worthy of their worship. Mary’s sanctity is not in being filled with grace. It is to be found in her obedience to the Word of God. Despite her perplexity, her fear and the uncertainty of   what lies before her, she says simply, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be...

  21 December 2025 We were in Perth on Thursday evening to hear the Dunedin Consort perform Handel’s ‘Messiah’. Under the direction of John Butt, leading from the harpsichord, they work with minimal resources. The chorus, which contained the four soloists, numbered a dozen. The soprano, Nardus Williams, and the bass, Dingle Yandell, sang effortlessly. Their posture was restrained. Clearly, they saw themselves as instruments, allowing the music to be heard without becoming a distraction to the audience. By contrast, the alto, Lotte Betts-Dean and the tenor, Joshua Elliott, were much more animated, using not only their voices but their bodies to bring out the drama of what was a religious opera staged without costume and set. This was a story full of intense dramatic action and insight revealing events of cosmic significance. The oratorio reaches a climax when the trumpets and the timpani join the consort in the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. This is sustained throughout the third and ...

  20 December 2025 I have a book called, ‘Refuge’, a place of safety. It features Mary and Joseph and the Christchild. They are making their escape from the wicked King Herod. The book has been written from the point of view of the donkey for 3-7 year olds. I bought it in 2015. Underneath the title, there is a sticker. On it, there is the logo for ‘War Child’. Round the sticker   it says, ‘£5 from the sale of this book will go direct to War Child’. This book has just been reissued to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Although the book is   more expensive and the logo is just the same, it says that ‘£1 from the sale of this book will go direct to War Child’. Today,   there is even greater need. ‘War Child’ is   ensuring a safe future for every child affected by war. Over 3.7 million children in Ukraine are internally displaced. Over 6.3 million children live in other countries as refugees. In Gaza, over 42,000 children are injured, 21,000 have been left ...

  19 December 2025 On Wednesday night, the kirk at Pittenweem was invited to worship with the local Episcopal Church. They had organised an evening service of lessons and carols based on the famous Kings College,   Cambridge nine lessons but with a welcome reduction to six. The service was well-attended with some young people in scout uniform in attendance too and everyone carrying candles. We were sitting near the front and noticed the nativity neatly located at the foot of the Communion Table. There was something odd about it. The figure of Mary was quite different. She looked as if she had wandered off from an olive wood nativity for the other characters were colourfully ceramic. The priest revealed the secret. Last year, the congregation lost its Mary and had borrowed the kirk’s Mary for the night! A fitting ecumenical initiative. I remember the beautiful olive wood nativity which I found in a cupboard in Stenton Church. The figures were all wrapt up in newspaper a...