March 2025

Clearing away the rubbish

Returning recently to my former parish in Crystal Palace, South London, I was reminded of the glorious glass edifice that once stood atop Sydenham Hill, overlooking the city. It was a quite extraordinary building, one of the wonders of the Victorian age and entirely destroyed by fire one night in 1936. All that remains of the Crystal Palace are some grand steps and stone sphynxes leading to a deserted platform: a bleak and thought-provoking spot to this day.

It is thought to have been a single cigarette end that ignited the blaze, although what truly caused it was the build-up of decades of combustible gubbins lying beneath the floor. The boards of the palace had been constructed with gaps between through which dust could be swept by cleaners, which meant that, over the years a metres-deep tinder box was being prepared.

The story has lessons for our soul, not only health and safety, I think – especially at the start of Lent. Sweeping things under the carpet rarely works and, whether in our relationships, work, or worship, ‘taking out the rubbish’ by honest self-examination, discipline and penitent prayer is both healthy and helpful for us - and can prevent all kinds of disasters.

‘Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me’ cries the sorrowful King David in Psalm 51. A good prayer for us all, together and alone, as the church makes its way through this holy season, following our Lord to the cross and the celestial city beyond.

+Andrew


February 2025

At the west end of your cathedral, on the south wall nearest the main entrance, is a large slate stone which records all the names of the Bishops of Salisbury. Mine is the most recent to have been inscribed. I am number 79. Someone else will follow. It serves to make one feel small rather than important.

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January 2025

At the end of 1992 we all remember the late Queen describing the year as an Annus Horribilis.  Well, in a way 2024 has been an Annus Horribilis for the Church of England. 

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December 2024

December is not the best month for a birthday, believe me, I know. Having a birthday in December has always been a bit of an anti-climax for me, especially when one is a member of the clergy and there’s another carol service to do.

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November 2024

The Somme battlefield takes you by surprise. Visitors pull into a car park in a quiet lane and wander into what looks like a leafy National Trust property. A few yards in, though, and you see the trenches. Gently undulating now, softened by time, but unmistakably the dreadful, snaking pits of our imagination. The Somme, of course, is a river: but, for the last century, a name inseparable from the battle that claimed 60,000 young British lives on its first day.

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October 2024

We have just under four hundred active retired clergy in the Salisbury diocese.

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September 2024

Welcome to this most wistful month of the year, when we sense the shift of summer into autumn, notice the mellowing light and take stock before starting again. I do hope there has been plenty of sunshine for you between the showers!

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July 2024

From my bedroom window I have a great view of both Preston Hill and Hambledon Hill. The Wessex Ridgeway Path passes across them, which spurred me, during my period of study leave earlier in the year, to walk that entire path from Marlborough to Lyme Regis. It took me across many new horizons, across the Wiltshire Downs, around Salisbury Plain and down through the Marshwood Vale to the coast. It was a great walk albeit very boggy in places given the February rain.

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June 2024

This month marks two years since my service of inauguration in the Cathedral and so its two years since I first ordained people deacon and priest – a powerful and humbling experience.

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May 2024

May is exam month for my youngest daughter, who is undergoing her ‘A’ Levels this summer – the last of our three to pass through that ordeal. I still recall (as I’m sure many of you do too) the sense of elation – almost disbelief – when these were over and a new chapter of life could begin. Somewhere in my loft, I still have the ring file I flung into the air when it was all over!

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April 2024

At this time of year, we are beckoned outside after a long, cold and often wet winter. Spring has sprung and all creation calls us to go outside, to tend to our gardens and to admire the new life around us.

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