Living

It has been announced this morning that Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the 106th Bishop of Rochester, will step down as Bishop of Rochester from 1st September 2009. The precise area of work he is moving into has not yet been announced.

We've been having a most enjoyable, instructive and edifying Lent Course here in Kemsing. John Goulding, a retired Anglican clergyman, has been taking the sessions, leading us through some of the Psalms. The feel of the evenings has been pleasantly relaxed, and as we've wandered together through the Psalter we've noticed all manner of things that has brought those Psalms to life in new ways. Many, many thanks to John for taking this course so well for us all.

Since I posted on Henry Scott Holland's poem “Death is Nothing at all”, that blog post has overtaken my sermon on 1 Corinthians 13 as the most visited page on this site. Curiously, both the Scott Holland text and 1 Corinthians 13 are popular passages at funerals.

I've never read the whole piece before, so I was delighted to discover Dorothy L Sayers' 1947 essay The Lost Tools of Learning online. The web address for the copy I found is http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html, but I'm sure it's in lots of other places as well.

There's no day like New Year's Eve to release a new version of software that will draw up a Bible Reading Plan.

The changes from the previous version aren't massive (it's a minor release), but I think it makes it more usable.

I keep finding things written by Christopher Idle at the moment. It's purely co-incidence: Looking for something unrelated and stumble upon it. First some comments on the poem Death is Nothing at all, and now this.

Idle wrote a short article in New Directions magazine. I'm not particularly wanting to endorse or plug the publication – I've never seen a copy – I stumbled upon his article online.

What is an Evangelical? is a short article (so, reader, click through and read!) whose title partly defines what he's writing about. He's actually not seeking to define us evangelicals historically, doctrinally or in any other sense of what we should be. Rather he offers “a snapshot of what today's evangelical looks like. Or rather, a brief slice of fuzzy film where we have been caught on CCTV for a few minutes one Sunday.” And, yes, Idle and I are both evangelicals. This is a slightly satirical depiction from within.

Back in May, we had some great moments on our CME weekend on preaching, led by Pete Wilcox, Canon Chancellor at Lichfield Cathedral. I have been meaning to blog these thoughts on lectionaries for some time, but somehow never got around to it. Anyway, finally, …

I love discovering new hymns.

Like this one by Josiah Conder, entitled My Lord, I did not choose you.

I have huge respect for Christopher Idle. I love the hymns he writes. And he's a godly man with a wise, pastoral heart. I was searching for some of his hymns, when I found something rather different.

Doubtless, many readers of this will be familiar with Henry Scott Holland's poem Death is Nothing at all. For those who don't know it:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life
Death is Nothing at all