This autumn seems to be beset by despondency, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. It is not just the posturing and point-scoring that we get during the political conference season. In part it may be the feeling that national agendas are being driven by political and cultural extremes, which gain currency by being deaf to all questions…

This is a strange time, when the news is full of personal and national tragedy, the sporting calendar continues apace and the national mood is either elated of sunk in depression, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Not being particularly sporting myself, most of its content passes me by and those sports that do interest me are…

I can’t help finding feeling profoundly confused, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. On one hand, all sense of personal responsibility, never mind regulation, seems to be wholly rejected and each of us is to be the arbiter of our own lifestyles, priorities, morality and of course, spiritual life. The theme here is that I should be…

I keep finding that there is something slightly discordant in the life of faith, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. We attend church and worship God. We greet one another and we contribute to the church collection. We take part in the life of the church and in assisting its activities. Much of this take place in…

At one time matters of faith and science were presented as being wholly opposed to one another, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Faith was a conversation with God whose existence was unprovable, and so unreasonable. Science was a conversation with the observable world and universe and so was wholly reasonable, free of any taint of superstition….

One of the most misunderstood words around today must be ‘Apocalyptic’, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. It has been fashionable for some years now. The film about the war in Vietnam, ‘Apocalypse Now’ dealt with a dysfunctional mission to deal with a rogue officer. There is a full genre of fiction dealing with a ‘post-apocalyptic’ world…

We will all have noted the European Championship success of the English women’s football team and I would heartily congratulate them, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Not being a particular enthusiast for athletics and ball-based sports, I am inclined to leave it at that. But there is one aspect that makes me think a little more…

Writing these notes near the end of Eastertide, I am now looking towards the Ascension of Jesus and the Day of Pentecost, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. They are linked in that first of all the church was celebrating the ascension of Jesus to His place in heaven where He would be accessible to all believers…

I suppose that the astonishment we feel at the Russian invasion of Ukraine is matched most closely by the progressive collapse of the Iron Curtain during the autumn of 1989, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Every month another East European country shrugged off the communist straightjacket and emerged blinking into a new era of choice and…

We have all felt the sense of uncertainty in these days, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Apart from the threat of war in Ukraine – and the question of just how far it would be restricted to that country, there is the rising cost of living in this country and of course the effects of Brexit…

In writing this we are looking forward to Advent and Christmas, writes Rev Sydney Maitland, when we celebrate God’s action in entering the human race, first of all as a baby, but later to be seen as the Messiah, the Anointed One, Prince of Peace, saviour of the world. But the present time is very…

It was once a common response to any kind of annoyance or disturbance that ‘There should be a law against it’, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. The strange thing is that these days, there probably is. Any perceived insult, any critical comment, any expression of dissent outside the norms of progressive opinion, and there is a…

Waiting can be extremely tedious, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Waiting for a bus, an appointment, a letter or just for the rain to stop. It is a pastime immersed in incredible boredom, unless relieved by having something to read or to think about. But then there is another kind of waiting, such as in a…

The plea goes up for justice – and that ‘our claim is just’, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. The cynic might say that nobody openly makes a claim that they know to be unjust and even WW2 began with Hitler’s demand for the restoration of the Danzig corridor to German control as if it had been…

We have just resumed our worship in church after a lockdown of some three months, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. For some of us it has been tedious as we are denied the company of friends and the pursuit of out of home activities. But in coming together again there is that sense of regathering, renewal,…

It is really strange seeing the signs of springtime appearing while the life of the church and much of the city has been stilled, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Conditions in almost all aspects of life are still highly unpredictable, in terms of the weather, progress of the Covid pandemic, the restarting of our national life,…

The swell approaches the rocky shore at an angle, about 45 degrees, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. Instead of being absorbed by the shore, it bounces off, also at an angle of around 45 degrees. The boat making its way along the shore has to maintain its course while managing two swells, and this can be…

“I want, I want, I don’t know what I want.” I believe that these words come from a play, ‘The Insect’ by the Capeks. They somehow reflect a lot of what people feel today, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. We resent the salaries and bonuses paid to bankers but we still want our savings to be…

November is normally a busy month, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. It starts with our celebration of All Saints as our patronal festival, soon followed and observed more reflectively by All Souls. In the middle there is our Remembrance-tide commemoration and we climax with Christ the King before Advent is upon us. This year our time…

I think that we all grew up surrounded by music, much of it in the folk and pop traditions, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. The themes were often about love – romantic yearnings, fulfilments, frustrations and derelictions. Love rarely went beyond this and so it became more and more about self-finding, self-fulfilment, self-realisation in a relationship…

There is a strong sense of confusion abroad, writes Rev Sydney Maitland. It is there in politics, the economy, social life and in culture. Much of what has not been locked down is defensive, insecure, and reduced to confusion. What was once taken as read is now questioned, as the sins of previous generations are…

As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus we are also confronting what must be the most persistent and intractable of fears: death. Today it is the great taboo, writes Rev Sydney Maitland, to be laughed off like a trifle if anyone were so indelicate as to mention it out of place. Yes, we meet it…