Blogs

Countering extremism – living with difference (previously on Facebook)

When you relate so closely to another that you feel their pain, and that pain can only be assuaged when your pain has gone, this is true compassion. That is why Jesus touched the leper, why the Samaritan crossed over. To be human, to love, we do not need to believe in God or to assent to a moral code. We ‘simply’ need to recognise and embody our common humanity with all others. This is the essence of love manifested in the idea of incarnation and can never be imposed on others and is not a condition for us to be loved.

A hymn for a time of decision – Two ways or more – Written for Comberbach Methodist Church

Two ways or more to risk or rupture faith, 
this pearl, this gift, entrusted to our care, 
Which way to take, the smooth way or the rough
a challenge and a question hover there.

We wonder and we wander through our thoughts 
as all seems foreign, different from our hope. 
The ground is shaken, all seems insecure, 
where can we sow a seed that fosters hope?

Help us, good God, to see the way ahead, 
to take the risk that leads us from the night.
To plant while not yet knowing what might grow, 
surprising, thrusting, blindly into light.

Andrew Pratt 12/3/2024 For Comberbach Methodist Church at a time of decision.

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Metre10.10.10.10
Tune: MORECAMBE