Jude Smith

I started writing this post on Saturday, and left it as I thought it was too early to comment on the Newtown shootings. However, a week on and I feel that I still think the same so wonder if its worth sharing. Its been a week in which I have spent every day with some six and seven year olds. Its been a week in which I have watched head teachers express their pain at the loss of children and staff thousands of miles away. Not one of them mentioned the need to arm more people for protection. I was hanging out with these young people for Christmas services; ones where I talked about light coming into the world- light that gets lighter and lighter.. If you like a coming Kingdom. In that Kingdom, yes there is suffering, yes it is hard, but there will come a day when Jesus returns and sorts it out. In the meantime the church lives in such a way that we point to this way of living. WE look for signs of good and usher more into being. We seek the positive, weep over the negative, but

Forgive the various access points to this post- there are just a number of threads to what I want to say. This morning I dropped a friend off at the station, bought the mice pies for tomorrow's carol service and then set myself to head out for a run. I was aiming for a long one, so headed out towards the canal. As I reached the prison, my phone began to ring. I wouldn't always respond but I decided to take the call. And there began a lovely, half heard (it was windy and a big road) conversation with a very old friend (not that we are very old but we have known each other since we were 19. It was just wonderful to reconnect, both of us with apologies for having not been in touch for too long. When I got off the phone, and resumed the running bit it just occurred to me how important reconnection is. Some of you will know that this picture has meant quite a lot to me over the years. It, and Nouwen's reflection thereon, have given me much to think about. It depict

When I started typing the title of this post it was going to be all about Starbucks, Amazon etc etc.. But it might turn out to be about a letter to a group of Christians written about 2000 years ago. But while you decide if you want to read on here is a pretty starbucks picture! So Starbucks haven't paid corporation tax. I can talk more about them than the others because its in the news a little more. But neither have they broken any laws. In fact they have done exactly what this government seems to enjoy. They have been a savvy company. They have employed people who are good at their job to help them make the most money. And now we express outrage. There is something quintessentially British about it- please don't be good at anything. But that is almost not the point. The point is that the law is broken. The law has holes in it that mean that if you play the game you can get away without contributing to the wider society. (though Starbucks give free coffee to