Revd Caroline's Retirement Thoughts

  8 th  February Stoke Talmage   In a society where few could read storytelling was a vital skill and oral traditions have been handed down virtually unchanged through many generations; perhaps you have stories in your family about grandparents or great grandparents that have come down through the generations.     A good storyteller invites you to use your imagination to enter a world you didn’t know existed.  One thing we can know with absolute certainty is that Jesus was a great storyteller, when teaching he spends far more time telling stories (parables) than hammering home his message.  Parables are little stories and that is why they are such a powerful form of communication.  I sometimes find that it helps to look at them a little like cartoons or satire, there is a moment when things just change our perception and allow us to do the work and perhaps see things differently.  Here the Sower just throws precious s...

  8th February 2026 Horspath   I often see this quote or something like it.   “If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of the world.   If you have money in the bank, your wallet, and some spare change you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.   If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week.   If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of imprisonment or torture, or the horrible pangs of starvation you are luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering.   If you can read this message, you are more fortunate than 3 billion people in the world who cannot read it at all.”   I fall into every single category on that list, yet do I live a carefree existence no? do I feel found out by this morning’s gospel absolutely?  Last year there was an influ...