With some 16 Oscar nominations, I decided to watch Ryan Coogler’s much-touted horror film, Sinners.  My conclusion in a word:  don’t bother.  Okay: two words.   Mind you, the production values are excellent: brilliant acting, especially from Michael B Jordon, who plays twin gangsters, both of them , who  return to their hometown in the Mississippi delta to open a blues club.      There’s some great music, such when the chief vampire with two back-up vampires beautifully sing:

It’s a simple question, but one that has only recently struck me: when we pray “Our Father” , who is the us ?   I recently blogged about my daily routine, which usually begins by praying the Lord’s Prayer, often with Jacqui. As Jesus himself taught, there is a particular dynamic when we pray with others. “And when two or three of you are together because of me,” he promised, “you can be sure that I’ll be there.” (Matthew 18:20)   Christian faith, at its heart, is communal. Of

Nothing.     I came across a fascinating line this week in a Times article about supermassive black holes. One observatory had been searching a distant galaxy for traces of carbon monoxide—and found none. One of the researchers, Dr Jan Scholtz, commented: “What surprised us was how much you can learn by not seeing.”   The absence itself turned out to be significant. Nothing, it seems, can matter.   This immediately reminded me of a line from Sherlock Holmes. In Silver Blaze

“Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is to dance to it today.” So rejoices Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves. And the good news is that even now we may anticipate a wonderful future — so much so that, in the words of the apostle Paul, the whole of creation is on tiptoe.   There is one word from the New Testament that encapsulates this hope — so much so that it is a strong candidate for the longest word in the entire corpus. Here it is in transliteration:  anakephal

A question for the new year:  what happens when we don’t pray properly? It’s a question I’ve found myself pondering this past week.   Each morning I aim to pray the Lord’s Prayer, usually with Jacqui. It has been part of our daily routine for several years now — something I do almost instinctively, like brushing my teeth or making my porridge.   But one morning this week I suddenly realised that we had reached the Amen with my mind elsewhere. I had said the words, faithfull