Minister’s Message – Good Friday, April 15, 2022

The people who run the TV networks don’t want us to be adversely affected or upset by their programmes. So they quite often give us warnings to make sure that this doesn’t happen – in fact they may be required to do so by the television regulator. The warning we hear most often comes on the news, and is of course designed to protect people with epilepsy: “This report contains flashing images”. But there are many others: a murder mystery may be preceded by the warning that “it contains scenes of violence from the start”, a drama may come with the comment that it “contains strong language”, we can be told that characters in a historical documentary display “historic attitudes which some viewers may find offensive”. My favourite advisory though is the one that’s given before Channel 5 programmes about a hospital Accident and Emergency Department: “contains scenes of trauma and surgery”. To be honest, I’d feel a bit short-changed if it didn’t!

Minister’s Message – April 10, 2022

You probably all know the story of Jones the Welsh spy. At the height of the Cold War a Russian secret agent is sent (I can’t think why) to a village in the Rhondda with instructions to make contact with a fellow-traveller called Mr Jones. The Russian has never met Mr Jones, he hasn’t been told his first name, and has no idea what he looks like. All he has is a coded message: “The tulips are blooming well today”.

Minister’s Message – April 3, 2022

Shumukh is the world’s most expensive perfume. It’s made from “a stunning combination of ingredients” including Indian agarwood, sandalwood, musk, Turkish rose and others that haven’t been made public. The packaging features a leather display case nearly 2 metres high, while the bottle itself – all three litres of it! – is decorated with symbols of the United Arab Emirates, who commissioned it. So it has three gold Arab horses and three silver clamshells on its base, each (naturally) containing a real pearl. Elsewhere there are three roses in pink gold and diamond dust, and a mini globe with gold continents; while three marble pillars support a golden dome topped with a diamond-studded gold falcon. Altogether the bottle is studded with 3,571 jewels: diamonds, gold, silver, pearls and topazes. I have to say that you can’t buy Shumukh at your local Boots or even on London’s Bond Street: there’s only one bottle in existence and it’s valued at well over a million pounds – which I think is pretty good value for what you get. I wonder if they throw in free gift-wrapping and delivery?

Minister’s Message – March 20, 2022

“Early one autumn evening the cheap-jack arrived with his cartload of crockery and tinware, and set out his stock on the grass by the roadside before a back-cloth painted with icebergs and penguins and polar bears. Soon he had his naphtha lamps flaring and was clashing his basins together like bells and calling: “Come buy! Come buy!”

Minister’s Message – March 13, 2022

Chronic fear is bad for our health. It weakens our immune system and can cause damage to our heart, problems with our digestion, decreased fertility, accelerated ageing and even premature death. It can damage parts of our brains, impair the formation of long-term memories, play havoc with our emotion, impact our thinking and decision-making and leave us feeling so anxious that we don’t even want to leave our house. This kind of fear is like a cloud hovering over our lives; either one lying so low overhead that it threatens to plunge us into darkness, or one that is lurking on the horizon, convincing us that today’s sunshine will soon be replaced by dreary drizzle or rain.

Minister’s Message – March 6, 2022

“Exile” (Lamentations 1:1-7).

Oh Sutherland is a bonnie land,
Beyond the Moray Firth.
And Ross-shire smiles at the Western Isles,
The land of Gaeldom’s birth.
From Scrabster Bay to Mingulay,
The mighty mountains weep;
For each sad glen has been cleared of men
To make way for the great white sheep …
From every glen the silent men
Have a prayer upon their lips;
As they crouch by the sea in poverty
And wait for the white-sailed ships.
The Atlantic roar on the rocky shore
Will lull the bairns to sleep.
No more they’ll stand on their father’s land –
It has gone for the great white sheep.

Minister’s Message – February 27, 2022

We’ve all been horrified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I didn’t think it would actually happen – but I was wrong. I thought that Russia would gather its forces at the border, carry out its military exercises, and generally show Ukraine that it would be very foolish for them to look towards the West, the European Union and Nato. Would that have been a show of strength, and bully-boy tactics? Yes. But a full-scale invasion on the scale we’ve seen this week? Probably not. But it’s happened, and the whole world has been plunged into nervous uncertainty. There is a real fear that we and many other countries will be dragged into a conflict which would inevitably cause misery and destruction, a war which would have no real winners, only losers.

Minister’s Message – February 6,2022

Waitrose is known as a purveyor of ‘posh nosh’, the supermarket for the middle classes. And it’s interesting to notice where it has its stores: in Pontprennau (just!), Cowbridge, Monmouth and Abergavenny but not in Ely, Grangetown or Trowbridge (so why not Llandaff or Pontcanna? Perhaps they couldn’t find a suitable site).

Minister’s Message – January 23, 2022

I can’t imagine that St Paul had much of a sense of humour. Jesus clearly did, as he gave us the slapstick comedy of one blind man leading another into a ditch; and the man who could see the speck of dust in his friend’s eye but failed to see the plank sticking out of his own. Then there’s the tiny mustard-seed which could make huge mountains leap into the sea; the wordplay of calling indecisive Peter a “rock”; the preposterous thought of a laden camel – complete with its hump – trying to squeeze through a needle’s eye; and the person who thought it was a sensible idea put a basket over their lamp. We may not find these sayings or stories very funny: but Jesus’ listeners did.

Minister’s Message – January 16, 2022

“One Spirit, many gifts, glorious service”.

I’ve never enjoyed playing football – or team sports in general. I have no ball sense and when I was at school the captains choosing the two teams used to fight for the privilege of not having me on their team! When play actually started I could only see what was going on through a haze of short-sightedness; and if the ball dared to come anywhere near me I saw it as my duty to kick away this brown and muddy object as rapidly as possible – in whatever direction I could.