More than Writers

  Over and over in the Bible, we come across distressing stories of barrenness among Jewish women.   This is strange, given that, during their period of slavery, we read that, “The Hebrew women (were) not like Egyptian women. They (were) vigorous and gave birth before the midwives arrived,” (Exodus 1:19). At that time, the Children of Israel were reproducing so fast that the Egyptians became fearful! (1.13). Shiprah and Puah (Ex.1:15-21) TROUBLE CONCEIVING Prior to the Exodus, Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel all had trouble conceiving, but God intervened, rendering their offspring especially precious. ·        Sarah, who was so old, that she laughed to hear she would bear a child. Her son, Isaac (“He will laugh”), would succeed his father, Abraham, as founder of the nation of Israel. ·        Isaac’s wife, Rebecca, could not conceive, so Isaac prayed and she bore Esau and Jacob. ·      ...

Young Virgin Mary by Francisco de Zurbaran   In the season of Epiphany, our heads may be filled with images of magi travelling miles across dangerous lands, guided by a star while carrying expensive, if not rather peculiar presents but I would like you to cast your minds back to Mary, Jesus’ mum.  This is what I asked my year fives to do in the last RE lesson just before we broke up. We spent some time looking at the events leading up to and including the birth of Jesus from Mary’s point of view. We had some interesting conversations about what being a virgin means and the practicalities of being chosen to be the Messiah’s mother. Following this, each child was asked to write a monologue as Mary. The results were beautiful and I know they won’t mind if I shared a few with you. Some made me simply nod with satisfaction that they’d understood and achieved the objective but some (like those below) made me giggle with delight and even cry with laughter (at on...

In recent months I've become very aware of a certain truth, which I may express this way: “loving someone equals suffering.” I have seen in recent times, and see right now, several people I know or am close to suffering in different ways for someone they love; a mother suffers for her son; a wife for her husband; a friend for her father-in-law; a mother for her husband, and for her two sons; a mother for her daughter. As you'll see, in many cases the loved ones are family members. My purpose in this blog post is not to cause sadness or depression by this observation but to point to a deeper truth woven throughout life, which Jesus referred to when he said, “in this world you will have trouble. But fear not; I have overcome the world.” The recent re-occurrence of Mother’s Day has led me – along with, no doubt, many others - to reflect upon how mothering and motherhood means different things to different people. A friend recently quoted this to me:  “The great...