I guess the title sounds overly dramatic, but – trust me – in the context of the last year it does reflect my feelings when I walked through the forest of Glen Tanar. The walk, about 4-hour long, at various stages resembled many walks I’d done in Moray. There was a stretch along the edge of a meadow, a forest…
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Over the last few years, we’ve seen the arrival of various religious communities in our diocese. The most recent are the Apostolic Sisters of St John who now live as a small community in Aberdeen. Such arrivals thrill many across the diocese; the enthusiasm and great expectations are unnaturally high. Perhaps we are so enthusiastic about these newcomers because their…
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A wee boy was sitting in the pew and looked with confusion at a priest in front of him. The priest was holding something white in his hand, both his hands raised above his head; clearly, the priest was showing something. The boy’s confusion sprang from the obvious disparity between what was being shown and the words uttered by the…
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Have you made your New Year’s resolution? Mine’s is to help all my friends gain twenty pounds, so I’ll look slimmer. And I decided to read more this year, so I put the subtitles on my TV. New Year’s Day is the accepted time to make our regular annual good resolutions; now, a week later we can begin paving hell…
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I really didn’t feel like going to church this morning. I tried to negotiate with God and decided to flip a coin. For tails, I’d go back to bed; for heads, I’d watch the telly; I’d go to church if the coin landed on its edge. I tossed the coin up in the air and it landed into a small…