It has been a very sad week for all those parents who have lost children. Death by illness, car accident or suicide leaves parents and friends feeling devastated and helpless.  This is particularly so when death is by suicide.  Those left behind wondering what they...

As I write this on Friday morning I am again reminded that today is Hiroshima Day.  The first atomic bomb was dropped on that city on 6th August 1945.  The destruction was immense.  I talked about it last Sunday in the Reflection. On Monday morning Gillian Feist sent...

In 1905 the philosopher/poet/novelist George Santayana wrote: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  How right he was – and is!  A decade later the world was to be embroiled in a war that created enormous devastation and loss of life.  World...

The Service at St Andrew’s this Sunday will be an extra musical one. Several people will talk about a hymn or spiritual song that has a significant meaning for them. We will learn to sing an old gospel song and our Sunday musician will weave some choices of favourite...

During the week I was talking (on the phone) to my cousin in Edinburgh.  She is in her mid eighties and lives alone on the top floor of a tenement.  She was talking about how difficult the last 18 months have been with all the lock-downs because of covid-19.  It has...

Well, we have crossed the halfway mark in the year – and it is cold!  Many cultures have ways of dealing with these cold times in the middle of winter.  In Europe they had various festivals to mark “the turn of the year”.  The harvests were all in and there was plenty...