In a darkened sky, one very bright star caught my attention this week — something very close to a modern-day Star of Bethlehem. It appeared not in the heavens, but on the BBC news website.   For many people, the sky really is dark. Christmas, far from being a season of joy, is something to be endured. According to a YouGov survey commissioned by the Salvation Army, an estimated 1.8 million adults in the UK spent Christmas Day reluctantly alone.   Even more starkly, almost one

Christmas is late this year; it always is.   Not that we know the date of Jesus’ birth. In fact, in his culture and era people did not celebrate birthdays at all — that belongs to a far more individualistic age. Instead, life was shaped by shared, communal festivals: Passover, Weeks ( Shavuot) , and Tabernacles ( Sukkot ), which gave rhythm and meaning to faith and everyday life.   Luke, in his Gospel, offers us something more intriguing than a calendar entry. He weaves the b

We were faced with a sudden decision last Sunday as we sang that great Advent hymn Hills of the North, Rejoice . Was this a simple misprint that had evaded the spell-checker, or a bold and radical reinterpretation of creation theology?   Reading the words from the screen, we reached the climactic final verse: Shout, as you journey home, songs be in every moth.   Every  moth .   I should confess at once: I hate moths — common clothes moths, that is,  tineola bisselliella .   T

Journalists love it; particle physicists hate it: the Higgs boson named as the God particle.   Currently I’m reading an excellent book on the hunt for the Higgs boson:  The Particle at the End of the Universe  by American scientist Sean Carroll. It’s basically the story of the largest machine ever built, the Large Hadron Collider, a ring of 27 kilometres buried 100 metres underground on the French–Swiss border.   A huge enterprise, both in hard cash and personnel, such is the