Love is ...

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford yesterday:

When I preach at weddings I often tell the story of the Love is … cartoons. ‘Love Is...’ began as shy love notes from the artist Kim Casali to her future husband, Roberto. Each of these notes involved a little drawing and a personal sentiment that perfectly captured Kim's thoughts and feelings for the man she loved. She began these drawings when they were dating, and she would leave the cartoons where Roberto would be sure to find them. After they were married, he showed her that he'd kept them all the drawing she had made for him. The cartoons were picked up by the press, were first published in The Los Angeles Times in January 1970, and then their popularity grew globally and they were published daily in 50 countries around the world and translated into 25 languages.

I use this as a way of introducing the original ‘Love is …’ from 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

The ‘Love is …’ cartoons and 1 Corinthians 13 both agree with another well-known ‘love is’ statement; ‘Love is a many-splendoured thing.’ Love cannot be captured or summed up in one cartoon or phrase or even in a series of cartoons or phrases. Love constantly bursts the bounds of our descriptions or definitions and this is why there is no end to songs, poems, novels, films, dances and plays about love. When I was ministering in the City of London, I would visit the Guildhall Art Gallery where we can see that the subject of romantic love preoccupied Victorian artists who addressed themes of unrequited love, social incompatibility, family disapproval, and separation at war.

Nearer our own time, C.S. Lewis is well known for looking at some of the different loves described in Greek thought - familial or affectionate love (storge); friendship (philia); romantic love (eros); and spiritual love (agape) - in the light of Christian commentary on ordinate loves. Despite his writings on The Four Loves he was himself surprised by love as his own relationship with Joy Davidman developed. The experience of love confounded his earlier more academic perceptions of it.

It is possible that the definitive Biblical statement on love is that which is found in 1 John 4. 16 where we read that, ‘God is love’. This is also where Ernesto Cardenal takes us. Our experiences of friendship, familial and romantic love all enable us to know God as love. Therefore, he writes, ‘My former loves have taught me what love is. I know how you love me because I too have loved, and I know what passionate and obsessed love is and what it is to be madly in love with someone. And God is mad about me.’

The strength of God’s love for us was revealed among us through his sending of his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ‘In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.’ Christ searches for us like the Good Shepherd searching for the lost sheep. His journey of salvation shows how much we are loved by him as he gives up all he has in order to seek us out and rescue us.

The extremity of God’s expression of love in giving all in self-sacrifice reveals the limitless nature of love which constantly escapes the limits of our experiences, descriptions or definitions. If God is love then, just as God is infinite and cannot ever be fully grasped by our finite minds, so love also must be inexhaustible. As St Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 13, ‘Love never ends’. Love, like God, is an infinite ocean into which we dive and can always swim deeper and further.

In The Last Battle, the final volume of his Narnia stories, C.S. Lewis sums up the reality of God, heaven and love in the phrase, ‘further up and further in.’ The children in his stories discover heaven as the real Narnia which is bigger and better than the shadow Narnia in which they had lived out their finite lives. When they reach the centre of this real Narnia, they find that their journey begins again as there is always a deeper layer to this real Narnia, meaning that there is no end to their exploration of the reality of Narnia. If God is love and love is God then, as T.S. Eliot wrote in Little Gidding, ‘We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.’

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Victoria Williams - Love.

Assistant Diocesan Director of Ordinands (part time) and Team Vicar of Wickford & Runwell (half time)

Are you passionate about enabling people to explore God’s call to ordained ministry?

And are you an inspirational and collaborative Leader who can contribute to Christ’s mission in a thriving Essex community?

The Diocese of Chelmsford has an exciting opportunity for an Assistant Diocesan Director of Ordinands (part-time) and benefice of Wickford and Runwell are seeking a half time Team Vicar to join a ministry team in an expanding town that is grasping significant opportunities to grow ministry among young people, creatives and seniors. We are connecting churches, connecting with individuals, with our community, and with God.

The total package for both the ADDO role and Team Vicar role will be equivalent to £34,950 per annum

We are looking for an exceptional candidate to be appointed to this dual role.

For further details and to apply, please see click here.

For an informal conversation about the Team Vicar role, please contact: The Venerable Dr Sue Lucas on 01245 982642.

For an informal conversation about how the appointments will be structured, please contact: Revd Canon Rob Merchant at rmerchant@chelmsford.anglican.org

Closing Date: 20 September 2026
Interview Date: 21 October 2026

Job description:
Download

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Delerious? - Find Me In The River.

A typical bit of Jesus' teasing

Here's the reflection I shared at St Peter’s Nevendon this afternoon and St Mary's Runwell this evening:

In his book, Surprised by Hope, N. T. Wright says, "Forgiveness is a way of life, God's way of life, God's way to life; and if you close your heart to forgiveness, why, then, do you close your heart to forgiveness. . . If you lock up the piano because you don't want to play to somebody else, how can God play to you?

"That is why we pray, 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.' That isn't a bargain we make with God. It's a fact of human life. Not to forgive is to shut down a faculty in the innermost person, which happens to be the same faculty that can receive God's forgiveness."

Wright notes that Jesus has already taught his followers to pray for it (6.12), and has specified clearly that if you want forgiveness you've got to be prepared to give it (6.14-15). Now he returns to the theme. Peter's question and Jesus' answer say it all (verses 21-22). If you're still counting how many times you've forgiven someone, you're not really forgiving them at all, but simply postponing revenge. 'Seventy times seven' is a typical bit of Jesus' teasing. What he means, of course, is 'don't even think about counting, just do it' (Matthew 18.21-35).

Forgiveness takes practice, honesty, open-mindedness and a willingness (even if it is a weary willingness) to try. It isn't easy. Perhaps you have already tried to forgive someone and just couldn't do it. Perhaps you have forgiven and the person did not show remorse or change his or her behaviour or own up to his or her offences – and you find yourself unforgiving all over again. It is perfectly normal to want to hurt back when you have been hurt. But hurting back rarely satisfies. We think it will, but it doesn't. If I slap you after you slap me, it does not lessen the sting I feel on my own face, nor does it diminish my sadness over the fact that you have struck me. Retaliation gives, at best, only momentary respite from our pain. The only way to experience healing and peace is to forgive. Until we can forgive, we remain locked in our pain and locked out of the possibility of experiencing healing and freedom, locked out of the possibility of being at peace.

To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger.

However, when I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person too.

The simple truth is, we all make mistakes, and we all need forgiveness. There is no magic wand we can wave to go back in time and change what has happened or undo the harm that has been done, but we can do everything in our power to set right what has been made wrong. We can endeavour to make sure the harm never happens again.

There are times when all of us have been thoughtless, selfish or cruel. But no act is unforgivable; no person is beyond redemption. Yet, it is not easy to admit one's wrongdoing and ask for forgiveness. "I am sorry" are perhaps the three hardest words to say. We can come up with all manner of justifications to excuse what we have done. When we are willing to let down our defences and look honestly at our actions, we find there is a great freedom in asking for forgiveness and great strength in admitting the wrong. It is how we free ourselves from our past errors. It is how we are able to move forward into our future, unfettered by the mistakes we have made.

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Sweetmouth - Forgiveness.

Stewardship 2: Time & talents - Coming alive

Here's the sermon that I used for the second Sunday of Stewardship month at St Mary's Runwell and St Catherine's Wickford:  

I wonder howmany of you have seen the TV game show, All-Star Family Fortunes. This is a game show that features two teams of five contestants. Each team consists of a celebrity and their family, who are trying to win money for charity. The two teams are asked to guess the most likely answers given in surveys where 100 people were asked a series of questions.

I have a list of the top five most common New Year’s resolutions in the UK (taken from a YouGov poll for 2018) and would like you to guess what they are.

1. Eat better.
2. Exercise more.
3. Spend less money.
4. Get more sleep.
5. Read more books.

The rest of the top ten was:

    6. Learn a new skill.
    7. Get a new job.
    8. Make new friends.
    9. Get a new hobby.
    10. Focus more on appearance.

Has anyone has ever made a New Year’s resolution? Has anyone has managed to keep it? At New Year, people often think about making some significant changes to their lives. However, it seems that these good intentions do not last long. According to a story in U.S. News in 2015, 80 per cent of people fail in their resolutions by February. In fact, the second Friday of January has been coined ‘Quitters’ Day’ because that’s when people are most likely to give up!

So, why do people persist with making New Year’s resolutions when most people will break them within three weeks? Perhaps it’s because our culture often sells us the dream of a ‘new you’: becoming a version of ourselves that is fitter, stronger, wealthier, brainier, more physically attractive, more popular and so on. We believe that when we find this ‘new us’, we will feel better, happier and more fulfilled.

Clearly, there’s nothing wrong with deciding to eat more healthily or having a go at a hobby that we’ve always fancied trying. However, what if we are looking for the best version of ourselves in the wrong place? What if the person we really want to be is not out there somewhere, waiting to get in? What if that person is already inside us, waiting to get out?

Jesus told the story of a rich businessman who goes away and leaves his fortune with three of his employees (Matthew 25: 14-30). He gives five bags of money to one of them, two bags to another and one bag to the third. He instructs his employees to use the money wisely so that when he returns, there’s a profit. Sure enough, two out of the three end up making a big return for their boss, which leaves him delighted. However, the third one doesn’t. He buries his bag of money in the ground, which makes the businessman very angry.

We can often end up focusing on all the things about ourselves that we feel dissatisfied with and wish we could change. However, this ancient Bible story provides a different perspective on the person we are. In the story, the businessman is God and the radical message is this: God has invested his treasure in us.

The word used in the Bible for the bag of money is ‘talent’, which is where the English word ‘talent’ comes from. In other words, every single one of us has been given unique gifts, abilities, passions and interests – a wealth of things that make us uniquely ‘us’ – that can have an extraordinary impact when they are put to good use.

Think about how it feels to do something that you really enjoy. How does it feel to discover that you are good at a particular thing or to talk with somebody about something you are passionate about? When we discover and begin to use our God-given gifts, it makes us feel great! It gives us a sense that this is who we really are and what we’re made to do. It makes us come alive.

When we feel this way, it is not just us who feel the benefit. In the parable, the businessman wants to see a return for his generous investment. It’s often the case that the world is changed for the better by people who use their God-given talents well, such as:

• the eager engineer who pushes the boundaries of what technology can do
• the songwriter who creates music that brings joy or comfort to others
• the gifted peacemaker who builds welcoming communities for others
• the talented teacher who inspires and brings out the best in others.

It is possible that making a few lifestyle changes will make us happier for a time. However, perhaps true fulfilment is only found when we discover what makes us come alive – whether that’s creating, running, gardening, inventing, being hospitable or standing up for the needs of others – and we do it to the best of our ability.

So, here’s a simple challenge for us: forget the new you; find the true you instead! Reflect on this quotation from Howard Thurman, a twentieth-century American theologian. ‘Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.’

Think about the things that make you ‘come alive’. Think about your talents and gifts: the things that you are naturally good at or enjoy doing. Think about your passions and interests: the things that excite you, or stir you up. Consider how you can develop these talents this year and how you can use these to help and benefit other people. 

Our Parish needs a whole series of contributions at present as we need new volunteers across the whole range of our ministry. We are looking for a new PCC Treasurer, for churchwardens at St Mary’s and St Andrew’s, for members of our District Church Councils (the DCCs) and Parochial Church Council (our PCC). We would value musicians and singers, people who could work with children when they come to our services, and people who can volunteer at the foodbank. We always value help with administration, pastoral visiting, prayer ministry and with our publicity (website, social media etc). The packs that you have been given include more information about Stewardship and response forms to help you think more about the ways you give currently and what might be possible in the future. The packs include a form you can fill in to offer your help but we don’t want you simply to do a job because it needs doing. Ideally, we want to match the skills and passions and interests you have with the needs we have for volunteers. Filling in and returning the response form on Stewardship Sunday will help us to do that.

Prayer: Dear God, thank you that you made and love each one of us. Thank you that you have given us interests, passions and talents that bring us happiness and fulfilment. Thank you for the many talents that you have given us. Please help us to use these wisely and to share them so that others might benefit from what we have been given. Help us to use them to their full potential and in so doing to bless other people too. Amen.

(Adapted from ‘Come Alive! Forget the new you; find the true you instead!’ by Rachel Noyce - https://www.assemblies.org.uk/sec/3447/come-alive)

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Robert Plant - Shine It All Around.

Windows on the world (586)

London, 2026

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Buddy Miller - Lay Down The Burden Of Your Heart.

 

International Times - Documenting the Journey

Here's my latest review for International Times, which is on Flowers from the Graveyard by Michael McDermott:

"Hope is found, as he sings in ‘But For The Little Moments’, in the ‘little moments’ that he looks out for and pays attention to (like the flowers from the graveyard that he smelt whilst out riding his bike). These can be both acts of kindness – ‘A smile, a kind word’ – and acts of liberation – ‘the things that give ourselves some wings / And free us from our own psychosis’. This song essentially encapsulates the conclusion at which he arrived in his biography Scars from another life: ‘Stop looking in the same spots for what is not there. Stop seeking the things you think you need. You must create new narratives in order to break through the wall that you have encased yourself in.’"

My earlier pieces for IT are: an interview with curator Jacquiline Creswell; an interview with the artist Alexander de Cadenet; an interview with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece, an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of:

• an IMMERSE performance by Wilderthorn at Bradwell Chapel
• albums by Switchfoot, Jon Foreman and NEEDTOBREATHE:
• 'Walls and Windows' at The Minories in Colchester
• 'The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the birth of America's Culture Wars' by Isaac Butler
• 'Moving Pictures' and 'Closeups' by Steve Scott, 'Never Mind the Ballads Here's Nick Battle' by Nick Battle, and 'Blank Arcades' by Andrew Rumsey
• Michael Takeo Magruder -Reconstructed Landscape{s}
• The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex and Controversy in the 1980s
• In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk
• Hulda Guzman: Please awake - asked Nature kindly' at Turner Contemporary;
• 'Devotions' by Lucy Caldwell and 'Catholic Modernism and the Irish ‘Avant-Garde’: The Achievement of Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, and Thomas MacGreevy' by James Matthew Wilson;
• the 'Stations' project from Dunlin Press;
• 'William Blake: The Age of Romantic Fantasy';
• Joseph Arthur in concert;
• installations by Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen at Hayward Gsllery,
• U2's 'Days of Ash', Mumford and Sons' 'Prizefighter' and Moby's 'Future Quiet';
• 'Collected Poems' by Kevin Crossley-Holland;
• 'Lux' by Rosalía;
• 'Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere';
• 'Great Art Explained' by James Payne;
• 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend;
• 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins;
• 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson;
• 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art,
• albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey,
• also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku;
• 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley;
• Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel;
• T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone;
• Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition,
• 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller;
• 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt,
• the first Pissabed Prophet album; and
• 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, including 'Spencer Reece at Bemerton' which is based on the visit that I made to Bemerton in 2026 with Spencer Reece, 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

• 'Barking';
• 'Bradwell';
• 'Broomfield';
• 'Pleshey'; and
• 'Runwell'.

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

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Michael McDermott - The Future.

Inspire: Family Craft Day

Join us for a fun day of arts and crafts for all the family with a soundtrack of live music.

Join us for a fun day of arts and crafts for all the family in St Andrew's Church, with a background of live music throughout the day. Drop-in throughout the day, please reserve your spot by clicking here.

About the project

This workshop forms part of a larger arts project, organised by St Andrews Church and coordinated by Sugar Storm Studio. The aims of this proejct are to:

• Support Local Artists and Musicians
• Inspire Participation and Creative Expression
• Create Lasting Impact

This project has been made possible with funding from Wickford Town Council

Click here for my post on the earlier workshops in this project.

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Genevieve Johnson - Shape Of You.