Yesterday, I finished reading a book: “Tortured for Christ”, which I had previously read and was moved by when a young Christian, mindful of how Christians suffered under Communism. The book had earlier been given to my wife by a Romanian Lady who attends our church.  Today, another friend posted the following text, titled FORGIVENESS, LOVE AND DEATH, on his Facebook page …  

And now for a lighter touch 🙂

Oops – missed this by a day …  the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ is on 1 January in the liturgical calendar of some churches, including Anglican ones, that celebrate special days.

My thoughts recently turned to Hanukkah. Wikipedia (see here) tells us: “Hanukkah is a Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE …”

It often happens, especially at Christmas / New Year time, when folk meet up, either in person or remotely, e.g. via the Internet, that questions are asked on the lines: what have you been up to (in the past year) and what are your plans (for the year to come). I want to pre-empt such questioning (but with a light touch because it is in the public domain) with this letter that is kept brief for easy reading.

In recent years, I discovered, and ever since have regularly resorted to, a resource called “Got Questions”, which I often defer to when researching some biblically related subject. While not telling me everything I want to know, nor do I agree with everything set out, I invariably find it tells me some of the things that I need to know.  

It was only just over two weeks ago that I posted my “The 2024 World Chess Championship – some thoughts” (see here) blog making the point that I am a chess enthusiast and have been since I was a boy, yet admitting my own abilities are modest and I only play occasionally these days but that I am fascinated by what happens when chess is played at the highest level. Not only do I enjoy seeing excellent play but I love observing the human and psychological aspects, taking comfort even top players blunder.

One of the things I have done regularly since becoming a blogger over ten years ago is to write what could be termed as an obituary concerning someone whose life had impacted my own, some I knew and some I didn’t, who had died a little prior to my writing.