Author: Anne Coomes

This Easter the media will rightly remind us of the carnage in Ukraine and the Middle East. For as we celebrate this great Festival, commemorating Christ’s victory over evil, we are confronted with death, barbarity and terror in the world.  Unless we choose to live in fantasyland, we have to relate the two. First, Jesus Christ […]

The nine fruits of the Spirit are Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. We don’t strive for the fruits of the Spirit, rather we plant ourselves in good soil, allow ourselves to be fed by the Holy Spirit, keep taking in nourishment, turn to face the light of Christ and these […]

‘Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.’ (1 John 3:18). The writer Gary Chapman describes how love can be expressed in 5 different ‘languages’: words of encouragement, quality time, gifts, acts of service and touch. Do you have a preferred language of love? As we think about […]

11th January – and we remember a most remarkable woman. For courage, vision and leadership are found in the most unlikely of places. Mary Slessor was born in Aberdeen in December 1848, into a wretchedly poor family. Her father was an alcoholic who lost his job as a shoemaker. Mary was the second of seven children, and […]

6th January brings Epiphany – remembering the Wise Men who visited Jesus in Bethlehem. Magi from the East – it isn’t a lot to go on. The Magi had originally been a religious caste among the Persians. Their devotion to astrology, divination and the interpretation of dreams led to an extension in the meaning of the […]